Laguna Heat Page 14

  Joe Datilla’s face darkened, but his blue eyes stayed cool, controlled. “Third-rate theories from fourth-rate newspapers, Tom. You’ve got to know how that works, after all the press you got last summer.” His voice had heated. “Those bastards will print anything that takes up space. I resent what they implied when Burton died, and I’ll never forgive our wonderful free press for that. It taught me a lot, though. Like keep your mouth shut. The week after Nixon resigned there were rumors in the papers that he was staying here on my boat, Priceless. Not true. But I wouldn’t let the press in here to see for themselves, and they took me for part of a cover-up. Personal grudge, sorry.”

  Shephard nodded. Then: “Burton was cheating on his wife.”

  Datilla met Shephard’s gaze with a deadpan expression, his eyes steady and calm. “Burt Creeley was a man of endless energy and enthusiasm,” he said. “And some of those energies found regrettable outlets. Tom, I always thought he was foolish to risk what he had with Hope, but another man’s business is just that. The woman he was seeing was sick. A slut. Nymph.”

  Datilla explained how Miss Helene Lang’s application for membership had slipped by him. He usually screened the applicants, especially those applying to live at the Surfside, personally. Somehow, the beautiful and rapacious Helene had slipped in under the door. It was only after a time that she began to show her “true colors.” Datilla said that after seeing what they were, he’d tried his best to stay away from Helene Lang.

  “A man who can’t control himself is a fool and a danger to himself,” Datilla said. “I’ve seen a few get swallowed up by their own accidents. No one’s perfect, Tom, but I could never see Burton and her … besides the fact she was built nice and knew how to show it off. Hope was lovely, too. There’s a line you have to draw when what you risk is worth more than what you’re getting. A sense of proportion. You don’t bet a hundred to win fifty. Burton didn’t make little mistakes like most of us. Too sharp. He must have saved them all up for a big one. Helene Lang was it.”

  “And did it cost him?”

  “It must have. It cost his wife more, which was sad. And she handled it like the class act she was. Tremendous woman.” Joe sighed again and twisted the racquet in his hands.

  “She thought highly of you, too. Called you several times before she died, didn’t she?”

  Datilla glanced up, his face in a look of stiff amusement. “Oh? Well, of course, but how …”

  Shephard explained the diary, while Datilla’s face softened.

  “Yes, naturally. Must be very interesting to read.”

  “Where did Helene go, when it was all over?”

  “She was hospitalized for a nervous breakdown. Then she went back home. New England, I think it was.” Datilla gazed pensively at the strings of his racquet, as if Helene Lang might materialize from the empty squares.

  The silence became awkward, and Shephard let it stand. But again he felt his line of questioning double back on itself, forming a circle, a zero. Datilla was as cooperative as he could want. Why wouldn’t something give? He watched a woman walk onto the balcony of a third-story penthouse, shake a beach towel, then disappear back through a sliding glass door.

  “It’s out of proportion, Joe,” Shephard said listlessly, more to himself than to Datilla. “Like you say.”

  “What’s that, the club?” Datilla followed Shephard’s gaze to the penthouse.

  “No, the killing. There’s no sense of balance. It isn’t formed correctly. It’s like that bet in poker you talked about. Too much for too little. Unless we’re talking about stakes that aren’t on the table yet.”

  “It looks that way, doesn’t it?”

  “What do you get for the penthouse, Joe, ocean view?”

  “Two thousand a month, plus membership and dues. That’s the basic. You can write your own ticket from there but it only goes one way.”

  “A sweet few acres here, Joe.”

  “Seventy-five in all. Where else in Newport Beach can you find a parking lot with room in it?”

  “A smart buy, the club.”

  “Tommy, I’ll tell you something about this club. But while I do it, I want you to see something that I think you’re going to appreciate. Come with me, let’s take a little walk.”

  Datilla led them past the other courts, which were alive with players, shouts, the hollow pop of racquets hitting balls. He waved and nodded, and Shephard noticed that many of the players watched them walk by, their expressions locked into those reverential near smiles reserved for the rich.

  “You say the club was a smart buy,” Datilla began. “But what it really was was a lucky buy. I was just a shade over twenty when I came back from France and the war. I had two loves—tennis and cars—and my dream was to make enough money to give me both. A year later, I had a club and it was called the Surfside.” Datilla paused to smile at a lovely brunette in a tennis skirt. She smiled back at him, then at Shephard. Maybe it is who you know, he thought abstractedly.

  “Real estate was cheap then, so cheap you’d laugh if I told you what my first ten acres here cost. I didn’t have a leg to stand on financially, but some friends arranged a loan through the bank. Collateral was my tennis racquet, I guess. Started with a clubhouse and a few courts, and when the membership began to pick up, I sunk what money I could into more land.”

  Datilla pointed ahead as they walked. Shephard followed his hand to the sprawl of apartments that loomed in the near distance. “All that was just bayfront sand,” he said proudly. “And finally I bought it all up. By 1948 I had so many people joining this club I was turning them away, and still building as fast as I could to accommodate them. So I got my tennis, Tommy. Smart buy? Maybe. But I think that luck was a big part. Keeping this place going is harder than getting it built. When you accumulate things, you accumulate worry. I’ve lived by one philosophy since the club was built. I don’t take chances. I cover my bets and play conservative. It’s more important to protect what you have than to reach out for more, don’t you think?”

  “Right on, Joe,” Shephard answered, wondering if there were enough common ground in their two ways of life to merit any understanding of Joe Datilla’s philosophies. He thought of his ransacked apartment, comparing it to Datilla’s Surfside.

  The tennis area ended at a tall wing of apartments on the left and a large open patio to the right. Centered in the patio was an Olympic-sized swimming pool, in which a solitary swimmer—an older woman by the looks of her—churned methodically down the middle lane. They followed a walkway past the pool and its bright yellow deckside furniture, a tennis pro shop, an open-air lounge. The bar was already littered with afternoon drinkers, dressed in tennis clothes and chatting energetically. Shephard thought it looked like a commercial for something—beer, or the good life, maybe.

  Then came the men’s and women’s spas, a low building surrounded by the unmistakable odor of sweat, steam, disinfectant. They turned hard right at the end of the men’s locker rooms and descended a short flight of stairs that ended in a pair of blue doors. Datilla fumbled for his keys with one hand, but the other found the door open. He held it for Shephard and stepped inside.

  The first thing that appeared out of the darkness was a tiny, poorly lit stand at the far end. Sitting under the single hanging lamp was a blue-uniformed guard, apparently reading. The door thudded shut behind him, then the entire underground cavern flashed alive with light. He felt Datilla’s hand on his arm, guiding them toward glittering automobiles.

  “My other love,” Datilla’s voice continued behind him. “My true loves, my wives, my concubines, my children. These are my babies, Tom. Thirty-eight of them, counting the Sportster I use around town.”

  “Ah. The collection. I’ve heard about this.”

  They stopped. Shephard felt in need of a tour guide. Most of the cars were foreign, strange machines that he had rarely seen on the road, all polished to a frenzy of color and chrome. He recognized a Ferrari Boxer, a vintage Mustang convertible much like his o
wn, an Alfa Romeo Veloce, but that was all. The rest evaded description.

  “I could tell you about the Mondial over there in the far corner,” Datilla said. “Or the Maserati here on the left, or the Silver Shadow in the middle there. But I’m not into cars for what they’re worth, I love them for what they are. I’ve got a ’seventy Honda mini-car buried out there somewhere, a beautiful little machine that gets about sixty miles on a gallon of gas and corners like a go-kart. I’ve got a homely old Rambler here because at times I feel like a homely old man. There’s a new RX-7 on the far side; it’s a car that a million people own and a classic since it first came out of Japan. A car for every mood, Tom. They’re here to impress nobody but me. I love them all the same, too.”

  Shephard gazed out over the cars.

  “I’ve got a full-time guard to watch them, but not full-time enough,” Datilla said. “Believe it or not, I lost one Monday morning. Somebody came right in and took it. Broke my heart. A red Coupe de Ville convertible, pristine and fun as hell to hit the town in on a summer night. Gone. Hope they find it soon.”

  “What year?” Shephard asked, warming to a possibility.

  “Nineteen sixty-four.”

  “Monday morning you said? Late or early?”

  “Must have been late. I tracked down the guard a day later and chewed his ass good. He said he left for an hour because he needed to go to the bank. Should have fired old Mink, I suppose. Didn’t even lock up. Shit, can you imagine?”

  “Do you remember the plates, Joe?”

  “Gave it to the Newport cops Wednesday. Hold on.”

  “I’ll keep a special eye out.”

  Shephard watched as Datilla disappeared into the sea of cars, working his way to the tiny guard hut in the far corner. The timing was right, he thought. The car stolen Monday morning late, in time for a stop by Forest Avenue Books. But why hadn’t it shown on the Stolen printout from Sacramento? Datilla came back with a grubby slip of paper, which he handed to Shephard, and the answer was clear: IAEA 896. Different plates, different car. Just another finger pointing to the Surfside. Were they all coincidence? He pocketed the slip anyway, out of habit. Datilla thanked him profusely for the personal attention. Shephard showed the Identikit. Datilla looked for a long moment, shaking his head.

  “Sorry, Tom. Kind of looks like anybody, you know? Anyway, I’ve bored you with my enthusiasms. Let’s get up where the sun still shines.” Datilla locked the doors behind them, and checked them twice.

  The sunlight was dazzling.

  “How about a tour of the club, Tom? Plenty you haven’t seen.”

  Shephard offered his hand. “Joe, buddy, you’ve been a tremendous help. If you don’t mind, I’ll wander around a bit, then head back.”

  Datilla looked slightly disappointed, but rallied. “Fine, young man. Tell your father hello for me. And watch yourself around here, plenty of young ladies to get you in trouble. If any mention a taste for a distinguished gentleman of the older persuasion, give my number quick.” Datilla pumped his hand, then turned and headed back toward the courts.

  Shephard waited a moment, then backtracked to the walkway that led past the pool. The woman was still swimming; she stopped at the end of a lap and smiled at him, then pushed off.

  The walkway ended at A Dock, where tinny Hawaiian music issued from the lounge. He stepped onto the wooden docking, feeling the gentle sway of the structure, watching the huge yachts dipping and rising slowly overhead. The sunlight blared off their white hulls. He squinted and read the names: Priceless, Datilla’s vessel; Interceptor, Marybeth, Comeback. Above him, he watched a crewman dangle a broom over the hull of Priceless and scrub an invisible blemish. Keeping a ship like that clean isn’t a job, he thought, it’s a career.

  Then, as surely as he was studying the yachts, Shephard knew that someone was studying him. The feeling came, passed, came again. When he turned to look over his shoulder, the woman from the swimming pool, dripping wet and balancing a highball in her hand, was looking at him from the A Dock lounge.

  He turned back and meandered down to the lesser vessels of B Dock.

  Footsteps on the wood, the clapping of sandals not in a hurry. Then a gruff woman’s voice behind him. “Looking to buy?” it asked.

  Shephard turned to face a pair of washed-out gray eyes, a deeply creased face, a head of dripping black and gray hair, two large bosoms. The highball tinkled in her hand and the scar on her wrist was obvious. “Not exactly,” he said.

  “I’m Dorothy Edmond. I used to own a Ditmar Donaldson ninety. John Wayne told me it was the only ship on the water he liked better than the Goose.”

  “That’s very nice.”

  “Don’t bore me, young man. Phonies always bore me.”

  She cracked a shrewd but not unfriendly smile. “I’ve seen more of the world than you dream of and I’d go back for seconds if I had the time.” He noticed that the eyes were red-rimmed and that her breath carried more alcohol than was missing from one highball. “Now, let me guess. You’re a captain looking for a ship?”

  “No.”

  “A mate looking for a captain?”

  “No again.”

  “A tennis hustler looking for a match?”

  “No.”

  “How about a dick named Tom Shephard wondering why two old-timers from the Surfside got burned up?”

  He studied Dorothy Edmond’s red-rimmed gray eyes, which said nothing back.

  “Oh damn,” she said suddenly, looking behind her down the dock. Joe Datilla was hustling toward them, tennis racquet in hand, cursing the crew of the Priceless as he went by. “Forget what I just said for a half hour. Then call me.”

  Datilla was dripping sweat. Must have been some bucket of balls, Shephard thought. He smiled quickly at Shephard, then turned his aggravated face to Dorothy. “Dot, trouble with Bank of Newport. Barnes and Kaufman are on their way here for bad news on the Carlsbad escrow. Meet them when they get here, keep them out of my hair for an hour while I run some figures. They’re due at three. Hustle up, please, honey. I told you about this yesterday, dear.”

  “Oh, Joe, tell them to go home.” She beamed, twirling the drink.

  “That’s ten minutes,” he said quickly. “Go to, Dorothy. I need your persuasive skills.”

  She upped the glass and got only ice. “Just when I thought I had a young buck interested in my old bones. I’ll get you for this, Joe Datilla.”

  Datilla grinned as Dorothy broke away and climbed the ramp back to the lounge. “Sorry, Tommy, these things come up. Anything I can show you?”

  “Sorry to be in the way, Joe. I’ve got to head back. Just wanted a look at the fabled A Dock.”

  Datilla walked him toward the guard gate, most of the way in silence.

  “I hope Dorothy didn’t shake you up too bad. She’s a great gal, but the liquor reaches the danger limit by about noon. Apt to say some pretty irresponsible things sometimes. Been social director here from way back.”

  “No problem, really.” They shook hands again before Datilla veered hurriedly off toward the A Dock lounge.

  Shephard was met by a red-vested valet at the guard house. He described his car and handed over the keys. Mink, he noticed, was still on duty, sitting alone on a stool. Shephard approached and offered a cigarette, which Mink accepted.

  “Find a place?” the guard asked.

  “Had a long talk with Joe. No openings, but I’ll wait.” Shephard lit a cigarette of his own, and decided to go fishing. “By the way, he asked me to tell you that Barnes and Kaufman canceled.”

  Mink responded wonderfully, reaching immediately for the clipboard. “Who?”

  “Barnes and Kaufman, Bank of Newport. They were set for three.”

  “Not through this gate they weren’t.”

  So Joe Datilla didn’t like Tom Shephard and Dorothy Edmond together, Shephard thought. And why hadn’t he fired Mink, anyway?

  “Never mind, I must have gotten the message wrong.… Joe told me he got a Cadillac stol
en Monday. Bad news when the thieves find their way into a club like this.”

  The guard shook his head and slammed down the clipboard. “Easy stealin’ a car with no guard to watch it,” he said flatly.

  “Heard the guard had some banking,” Shephard said optimistically, careful to attach no blame.

  “Banking nothing,” said Mink. “Joe told me to take the day off. It was my shift in the garage. Miss a day and lose a car. What luck. But the boss says jump, I ask how high. I needed a day off anyway. Who doesn’t? Hell, he signs the paychecks.”

  The valet arrived with Shephard’s car, screeching to a stop in the outbound lane beside the guard house.

  Shephard tipped the boy heavily, lost in speculation. He turned south on Coast Highway, back toward Laguna, and stopped at the first pay phone he could find. At the end of half an hour, Dorothy Edmond time, he dialed her number. He was surprised to find her listed. The whiskey voice at the other end was unmistakable.

  “Yes?”

  “Dorothy Edmond, Tom Shephard.”

  “Who?”

  “Tom Shephard. Just talked to you there at the club.”

  “I’m sorry but you didn’t. I’ve been sitting in this apartment all day. Are you a crank?”

  Shephard wanted a minute to consider the possibilities, but he didn’t want to lose her.

  “No, honey,” he answered quickly. “Are you?”

  She hung up.

  He listened for a moment for any signal of intrusion on the line, but heard none.

  When he called back, the line was busy, and when the operator broke in for him, she got only static. Off the hook, she said. Try later?

  FOURTEEN

  Chief Hannover was pissed. His voice over the office line was shrill, and when Shephard found him at his desk he was sitting upright, wide-eyed, and had managed to gnaw the end of a yellow pencil down to wood. He kicked out a chair to Shephard and slid backward in his own. Hannover was dressed as usual in an expensive suit that looked cheap on him, a three-piece gray silk outfit that seemed to shine, troutlike, at the wrong places. He leaned back to reveal dark crescents of sweat seeping onto the armholes of the vest. His hair, slightly too long, was held in place with spray. When Shephard sat, Hannover pounced on his desk intercom and ordered Cadette Annette to hold all calls for “one quarter of an hour.” This done, he slid again on his chair, eyeing Shephard.