Straight No Chaser Read online

  Did that theory account for Trevor’s other problem with Big Bam? The four kilograms of coke he still owed Bam? Not quite, but there must be a way of tying all the damned strands together. And still nail Bam for the killing. And put Dave Goddard in the clear.

  Twenty-four hours.

  That was how long I had to make sense out of things. Seemed a ridiculously short time. I had to get the cops on to Big Bam, on to Trevor too, and protect my own hide. Keep from taking the kind of licking Bam’s swingers laid on the tall guy at the Pits.

  Speaking of whom, why’d the Big Bam empire come down on the tall guy? Why him? “He altered the script,” Truong said when I asked. That rang a little bell. Script? That was the word the guy in the Armani jacket used. It’s what he called the piece of paper with the address and the number of grams on it. Must be a piece of lingo in the Bam circle of sellers and buyers. So if the tall guy altered the script, what’d he do? He changed it. Rewrote something on it. Not the address. That made no sense. The amount!

  Well, yeah, of course. Say he paid for five grams of coke, he might have changed the amount on the slip of paper, on the script, to read six. Something along those lines. Maybe it was a one and he made it a ten. Nah, that was too blatant. Whichever number was involved, he upped it. And got caught. And got the stuffing knocked out of him.

  Nice analysis, Crang. Heck, guy, take a bow. Better, take another drink.

  I didn’t feel like another drink. After the day I’d put in, my body said it was tired, but my mind said it was still in overdrive.

  I wasn’t close to sleep. But I went into the bedroom, took off my clothes, and got under the covers with the Lees book. I’d been saving up for the chapter on Dick Haymes. The best ballad-singer of them all. A romantic. An innocent. My kind of guy.

  26

  I THOUGHT it was a Vietnamese hit man.

  I marked the place in the Dick Haymes chapter and switched off the lamp on the bedside table.

  Somebody had opened the door down below into the apartment. Now the somebody was on the stairs. Quarter of the way up, I calculated. I crept out of the bed on the side away from the door and tiptoed across the floor. Did the footsteps on the stairs sound stealthy? Not really. They were soft but deliberate. Maybe Vietnamese hit men considered small details like stealth unnecessary.

  I opened the closet door. The hell with that. I’d exhausted my in-closet hiding time. But there was a tennis racquet in there. I picked it up by the grip and tiptoed back to the bedroom door. I raised the racquet in the air. It wasn’t in the conventional overhead-smash stance. It was in a position to sock the invader. The footsteps paused in the dark outside the bedroom door. I started to bring the racquet down with maximum force.

  “Crang?”

  The voice was whispering and female.

  I stopped the racquet about three inches from Annie’s dark and lovely head.

  “What are you doing?” she said.

  I reached past her and switched on the bedroom light.

  “I thought it was somebody else,” I said.

  Annie’s eyes were on the tennis racquet.

  “You had a neat welcome for them, whoever it was,” she said.

  I walked over and sat on the edge of the bed.

  “Putting it mildly,” I said, “you surprised me.”

  “What else have I got your key for? Surprises, right?”

  “This one was a lulu.”

  Annie sat on the bed beside me.

  “Hey, is that what you wear at night when I’m not here?” she said.

  I had on a Boston Celtics number 33 T-shirt. That’s all I had on.

  “Really sexy, your outfit,” Annie said. “I love Magic Johnson.”

  “Larry Bird,” I said. “Magic’s number 32 and he’s the other guys, the Lakers.”

  “Oh yeah, Los Angeles.”

  “Glad you think it’s sexy.”

  Annie put her arm around my shoulder. I hadn’t let go of the tennis racquet, and my hand was trembling. Annie didn’t seem to notice.

  “The reason I’m here,” she said, “apart from all this male flesh, I’ve got fantastic news.”

  “Don’t tell me, Ted Koppel’s in town.”

  Annie took her arm off my shoulder.

  “Crang, you’re spoiling it.”

  “I’m a little jumpy is all it is. You want coffee or something, a drink?”

  “If there’s white wine open.”

  My jeans were on the chair. Annie goosed me when I stood up to get them. I laughed. It was a trifle forced. I put on the jeans, and we went into the kitchen. I poured Annie a glass from the bottle of Soave and made myself yet another vodka on the rocks.

  “The other five movies?” I said. “Is this what it’s about? You talked to people who’re connected to them, Trevor’s five besides the Fenk movie?”

  “The point I’ll get to in a minute is I didn’t talk to anybody from them,” Annie said. “But, anyway, on the scale of hot bulletins I bring from the front lines, the info about the five movies is in at least second place.”

  “I think you want me to ask what’s in first place.”

  All sorts of whiffs were coming off Annie. Perfume. Cigarette smoke from whatever gathering she’d been at. Excitement. The perfume was Vivara by Pucci, impressed on my memory from past shopping expeditions.

  “Fenk’s movie?” Annie said. “Hell’s Barrio? It was, get this, it was stolen.”

  “Ho boy, wasn’t Fenk the light-fingered guy. Swiped everything that wasn’t nailed down, Dave’s saxophone case, a whole Hollywood movie. Who’d he steal it from?”

  Annie was shaking her head.

  “You’re not following. Or I’m not saying it right. Fenk didn’t take the movie from someone and say it was his. That’s not the kind of theft I’m talking about. Somebody stole it from the festival. It was scheduled to run tonight. But there was a substitute instead, this really sincere thing from Sri Lanka. So afterwards I go asking about Hell’s Barrio, and I’m persistent and charming as the dickens and the rest of it, and I find out the entire movie, the physical movie, has gone missing. Somebody walked off with the actual cans of film.”

  Annie was in one of the kitchen chairs, the heels of both shoes hooked on a rung under her. I was leaning against the counter. When Annie got to the end of her spiel, I bounced my bum gently on the edge of the counter. Otherwise, I gave no indication I was a man putting a big two and two together.

  “They sort of chunky metal things, these film cans?” I said. “In a hexagon shape around the outer edges?”

  “Yeah, silver-coloured usually,” Annie said. “So it must be significant, you agree? The cans that had Hell’s Barrio in them are gone. Disappeared. Vanished in a puff of smoke.”

  “They got big handles on them, these cans, for lifting?”

  “Yeah, yeah.”

  “I think I know where the cans are.”

  “Aw, come off it, Crang. What’re you? The man who’s always one step ahead?”

  “The cans I saw, I couldn’t tell they had the film in them for Hell’s Barrio. But the tipoff is they weren’t in a place where film cans should be. There were seven or eight of them, my guess, and the one on top of the pile had a yellow sticker and a line of black type. A title probably. I should’ve done something about a closer look.”

  Annie had her hand on her chin, and she was wearing her concentrating look, the eyes a little wider, a small frown line between them.

  “Seven or eight cans is too many for one movie,” she said. “Except maybe Gone with the Wind, which Hell’s Barrio isn’t in length or probably in anything else. It’d take up only three cans of film, maximum. The rest you saw must be other movies.”

  “Cans of film,” I said. “Got that. Keep going, honeybun. You’re doing great.”

  Annie took her first sip of wine, enough to wet her lips.

  “Okay,” she said. “Late-breaking piece of news number two. The other five movies Trevor Dalgleish booked? There’s nobody up
from California for any of them. No actors, no producers, no persons whatsoever. But I asked a very nice young woman from the festival, one of those long-stemmed beauties you admired at the press lunch, and she told me, no problem—they all say no problem a lot, the tall girls— any inquiries on those films go to one man, same rep up from California for all five, da-dah, da-dah, da-dah. Guess who she said?”

  “Raymond Fenk.”

  “Dammit, Crang, you get a kick out of ruining my revelations?”

  “Fenk was here for Hell’s Barrio and the other five California movies?”

  “The long-stemmed one didn’t seem to know he was dead.”

  “And you didn’t enlighten her?”

  “’Course not. But now we’re cooking, you think so? Trevor Dalgleish is responsible for six movies at the festival, and the deceased, Raymond Fenk, is the California contact on the whole six.”

  “Great sleuthing,” I said. “Where’d you get your touch? Read the complete Nancy Drew when you were a kid?”

  “I’m not finished yet.”

  “Maybe I better re-fortify myself.”

  I got more ice cubes from the freezer. The Wyborowa was on the table. I put a small splash over the ice.

  “All of this is happening up at the Eglinton,” Annie said. “Those receptions in the lobby after the last film of the night are apparently a regular feature. Cam Charles’s there playing the host. A few press people, the ones who aren’t down at the Festival of Festivals. Patrons, guests, a couple of people from the Sri Lanka movie. Very sweet they were, but I couldn’t get two useful sentences out of them for my San Francisco articles. So I’m poking around, getting the scoop on the stolen movie cans and everything, and I can’t help noticing that Trevor Dalgleish has a new companion. New to me anyway.”

  “This is terrific, kiddo, the scene-setting,” I said.

  “But you’re wondering where’s the action?”

  I didn’t answer.

  “All right,” Annie said. “The guy hanging in at Trevor’s side, he has four out-front, can’t-miss features. Some of this I got from personal observation, the obvious parts. The others I just walked up to Trevor and the guy and put myself in their conversation.”

  “Bold as brass.”

  “They didn’t exactly make me welcome.”

  Annie raised her left hand with the four fingers pointing up and the thumb tucked in.

  “One,” she said, “the guy, name of Darnell Gant, about your age, fortyish, he’s black.”

  Annie brought down her forefinger.

  “Two, Darnell is big, even bigger than I remember Fenk being.”

  The middle finger came down.

  “He just flew in, some time in the last couple of days, from his home base, which is none other than Los Angeles.”

  Only the little finger remained up.

  “That’s number three, about Los Angeles. Number four, Darnell Gant, the large black man from Los Angeles, was grumpy.”

  No fingers.

  “He was grumpy with Trevor?” I asked. “Or grumpy in general?”

  Annie paused for reflection.

  “Both,” she said. “He was really mad about something, and he was laying it on Trevor because Trevor was maybe part of the cause. It was more than Trevor just happened to be handy.”

  “And you think,” I said, “this new arrival, Mr. Gant, might be Fenk’s confederate, the man described to me as large and black and he left the new saxophone case for Dave Goddard?”

  “At the place near Los Angeles with bistro in the name.”

  “Alley Cat Bistro in Culver City.”

  “That’s who I decided it must be when I was thinking about it in the cab over here.”

  “The other deduction,” I said, “you think the reason the guy’s angry is he’s just heard his buddy Fenk is murdered.”

  “Isn’t it wonderful when we’re on the same wavelength?”

  “Well, your theory’s not bad at all.”

  “Come on, way better than not bad.”

  I went around to Annie’s side of the table and lifted her up in a hug. She let herself go loose in my arms.

  “I’m just starting to come down, you know?” she said after a minute. “So much’s been happening. That awful man strangled. Your client’s involved. You’re in it even deeper. All the stuff I picked up tonight. I mean, holy cow.”

  Annie was talking into my chest. She leaned away and looked up at me.

  She said, her voice less speedy than it had been from the time she arrived, “You think it’s useful, about Darnell Gant from L.A. and the rest? In the cab, I kept going back and forth in my mind. First it was far-fetched, then it was crystal clear. Crystal clear was my final decision, but now . . . what the hell?”

  “Sweetie,” I said, “you were the one, I seem to recall, wanted me to ring the police. All of a sudden, you’re out there digging up leads. I love it. It is helpful. More than helpful. But, you involved this way, I’m grateful and stunned.”

  “You started it, buster.” Annie slid out of my arms. “Asking me to check out the people from the other five California movies. Don’t forget that. The rest, well, it’s kind of fascinating, and I know you’re not going to let go till everything’s straightened out anyway.”

  “So you declared yourself in for the long haul.”

  “Not quite. I still think you should get on to the police with all these developments, facts, suspicions, you name it.”

  Annie picked up her wine glass in one hand. I took the other hand and led her into the living room.

  “Let’s let it ride for now,” I said. “We keep talking about theories, suspects, whether to call the cops, we’ll never get any sleep tonight. This kind of thing—you notice—has a tendency to race the blood.”

  “I noticed.”

  Annie sat at the end of the sofa and curled her legs under her dress. It was wheat-coloured and clung smashingly to her body. I went over to the record player and looked through the albums in the section where I kept vocalists.

  I said, “I have a man here, he’ll take away the tension.”

  I put a record on the player, and Dick Haymes began to sing “Mam’selle.”

  I sat beside Annie on the sofa, and she said, “With a voice like that, the guy has to be incredibly gorgeous.”

  “He was.”

  Annie went to sleep on my shoulder after Haymes sang “What’s Good About Goodbye?” I waited until the album finished. The last song was “When Lights Are Low.” I carried Annie into the bedroom and undressed her on the bed. She made small noises but didn’t wake up. I crawled in beside her. First I took off the Larry Bird T-shirt.

  27

  BEFORE ANNIE GOT UP, before the sun got up, I was on the phone in the kitchen.

  No, the operator at the Silverdore Hotel told me, nobody named Darnell Gant registered there.

  Too much to expect I’d get lucky first time out.

  I opened the telephone book’s Yellow Pages. Entries under “Hotels”. Nineteen pages of them. Intimidating, but Darnell would probably book into a midtown establishment. Or downtown. Some place handy to Trevor Dalgleish’s home or office. That cut down the possibilities.

  I got a pen and made check marks opposite the likely hotels. Plaza II. Hampton Court. Carlton Inn. Further downtown, the Holiday Inn behind City Hall, the Royal York. When I finished, I had thirty-six check marks and started dialling.

  I snagged Darnell on the nineteenth try.

  “I’m putting you through to Mr. Gant’s room, sir,” the operator said.

  “No, no.” I was almost screaming into the receiver. “Don’t ring him, operator. I just wanted to know if Mr. Gant was at the hotel.”

  “Yea-hus,” the operator said and clicked off.

  Darnell had put himself up at the King Edward.

  “Making a big racket in here,” Annie said from the doorway. “For a heck of an early hour.”

  It was just coming up to six-fifty.

  “I’m hot, kid,” I
said. “Getting together a little scheme here that ought to wrap up my troubles. Our troubles. Dave Goddard’s troubles.”

  Annie yawned. It was her turn to wear the Larry Bird T-shirt. I had on the maroon dressing gown.

  Annie said, “Think you can climb off that high you’re on long enough to make coffee?”

  Before I answered, Annie wandered toward the living room. Her walk was of a person who wouldn’t object to another ten hours of sleep. I put the kettle on the stove and measured four cups’ worth of Folger’s into the Mr. Coffee. Before the kettle boiled, Annie was back in the doorway.

  She said, “I don’t suppose, since this time yesterday, you bought a typewriter?”

  “I’m hanging on for Christmas.”

  “’Fraid of that.”

  Annie went back to the living room.

  Ten minutes later, when I took her a tray of orange juice, toasted bran bread, and coffee, she was sitting on the sofa, alert, and scribbling in the ever-present notebook.

  “Not yet,” she said. “Don’t tell me about the scheme yet.”

  I turned for the kitchen.

  “And, hey, thanks,” Annie shouted after me. “This smells scrumptious.”

  I had a shower. Annie finished her piece for Metro Morning. I drank coffee in the kitchen. Annie had a shower. I looked out the living-room window into the park. Annie put on the wheat-coloured dress and called a cab.

  “Thumbnail sketch,” she said to me. “And slide over any parts where you might get your head bonged again.”

  “Simple,” I said. “I’m getting all the suspects together in one room and let the guilty party reveal himself.”

  “Just like Hercule Poirot.”

  “Maybe not that cut-and-dried,” I said. “But the clues are falling into place.”

  “I hope you’re not banking on the guff about the voices in the other room at the hotel.”

  “Hum, now you mention it, these Vietnamese guys I was having a drink with yesterday, they talk in a range that might get them tryouts with the Vienna Boys’ Choir.”

  Annie put her hands on her hips and gave me a ray of a look that might have withered lesser men.