VIOLENT WARD

BY

LEN DEIGHTON

Also by Len Deighton

NONFICTION
Fighter: The True Story of the Battle of Britain*
Airshipwreck
Blitzkrieg: From the Rise of Hitler to the Fall of
Dunkirk*

FICTION
The Iperess File*
Horse Under Water
Funeral in Berlin
Billion-Dollar Brain
Dam Expensive Place to Die
Only When I Larf
Bomber
Declarations of War
Close-Up*
Spy Story*
Yesterday's Spy
Catch a Falling Spy*
SS-GB
XPD
Goodbye, Mickey Mouse
Berlin Game
Mexico Set
London Match
Winter
Spy Hook
Spy Line
Spy Sinker*
MAMista*
City of Gold*

          *Available from HarperPaperbacks

HarperPaperbacks
      A Division of Harper Collins Publishing
    If you purchased this book without a cover, you should be aware
    that this book is stolen property. It was reported as "unsold and
    destroyed" to the publisher and neither the author nor the
    publisher has received any payment for this "stripped book."

    This is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogues
    are products of the author's imagination and are not to be
    construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons,
    living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

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Copyright 0 1993 by Pluriform Publishing Company B.V. All rights
reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner
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A hardcover edition of this book was published in 1993 by Harper Collins
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    Cover illustration by Peter Thorpe

    First HarperPaperbacks edition: September 1994

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     10987654321
If America is a lunatic asylum then California is the
Violent Ward.
                                      CHAPTER 1
 There's a woman sitting on my window ledge," I said quietly and calmly into
 the phone.
  "I can't see you, Mr. Murphy!" said Miss Magda Huth, my secretary. Her
  German accent was more pronounced when she was agitated, like now, and her
  voice was strangled whenever she stood on tiptoe to see into my office
  over the frosted glass partition.
  "There's a woman sitting on my window ledge. You can't see me because I'm
  behind my desk."
  "You must be on the floor."
  "Yes, well, I'm trying not to frighten her," I said. "Will you please just
  do something about it?"
  Miss Huth has no sense of urgency except when she is leaving work. "Your
  coffee is losing its
 2  LENDEIGHTON

 froth out here," she said. "Perhaps if I brought it in to you-"
  Jesus! "Are you listening to me?" I said. "She didn't come by for a cup
  of coffee and a Danish. She's going to throw herself into the street.
  Any minute."
  "There is no need to become belligerent." Magda Huth wasn't young. She'd
  been some kind of schoolteacher in Dresden until reunification gave her
  a chance to leave, and at times she treats me like a backward pupil in
  a totalitarian kindergarten. That's the way she was treating me now. "I
  will see if I can reach the Fire Department," she said primly.
  "Yes, you do that," I said.
  Miss Huth had not been with my law partnership very long. Previously,
  for five years I'd had Denise, a really sensible woman and an efficient
  secretary. Then she went off on a package-deal skiing weekend in Big
  Bear-I must have been soft in the head to give her so much time off-and
  within eight weeks she was married to a Mexican orthodontist she met in
  a singles bar there. For a long time I kept hoping she'd tire of living
  in Ensenada and ask for her job back. But then last Christmas I had this
  long chatty boilerplate letter, plus a blurred snapshot of her and her
  husband and twin bambinos, and now I was trying to get used to Miss Huth
  all over again. It wasn't easy.
  "That's right," I said. "Get the Fire Department, and tell them to make
  it snappy or they'll be hosing her off the sidewalk."
                   VIOLENT WARD   3

  "You should not talk that way," Miss Huth said, with a sniff, and cut
  me off before I could reply. I hung up so gently it didn't make a sound.
  I looked through the kneehole of the desk so that I could see the
  window. The woman was still there, fidgeting around, trying to look down
  into the street below her. This would happen today of all days. My new
  boss, the mighty Zachary Petrovitch-el supremo, ichi-ban, tycoon
  extraordinaire-was spending a few days at his Los Angeles mansion so he
  could be guest of honor at the "surprise party" his minions had been
  planning for weeks. Petrovitch wanted his own little law firm here in
  the city, and he was bringing to this partnership something it had never
  had beforemoney. By putting one of his tame in-house lawyers behind
  Korea Charlie's empty desk he'd found a legal way of getting control of
  a law practice. It had been decreed that I should be at his party
  tonight, tugging my forelock and bowing low and telling everyone how
  grateful I was to become a toiler ant in the Petrovitch zoo.
  The phone buzzed and I snatched it up. It was Miss Huth again. "The
  people from Graham's builders' discount store have come out into the
  street; they are all staring up here, Mr. Murphy."
  iiso?"

  "I thought you would wish to know."
  "What did the Fire Department say?"
  "They've put me on hold," she said.
  "On hold?"
 4 LEN DEIGHTON

  "I've got them on the other line. They asked was it a fire, and I said no,
  it was not a fire."
  "Well, that's dandy. I'll throw a lighted cigar butt into the shredder
  basket, and then maybe they'll discuss the possibility of dropping by
  sometime."
  "They are on the line now!" she said urgently and cut me off again. I had
  to crouch real low to see properly. The woman outside my window was still
  shifting her ass about. Maybe the rubbernecks in the street thought she
  was getting ready to throw herself off the ledge, but I had my reasons for
  guessing that she was getting a cramp in the gluteus maximus and moving
  around to be more comfortable.
  There was a tapping noise-imperious and persistent--on the frosted glass
  panel. It was Miss Huth, making a menacing shadow against the whitened
  glass with just her fringed hair and beady eyes peeping over it. She
  signaled to tell me that I'd put the phone down without putting it
  properly on the hook. I picked it up and she said, "They are coming. The
  firemen. They are coming-right away."
  "I should hope so." There was the sound of a siren, but it grew fainter
  and went north up Western Avenue toward Hollywood. "Maybe I could use that
  cup of coffee," I told her. "If you put it on the mat inside the door,
  I'll crawl over and pull it toward me."
  "I don't see what good you think you're doing sitting there on the floor,
  Mr. Murphy." She was
                    VIOLENT WARD  5

 peering over the frosted glass again; I could hear it in her voice.
   "I'm trying not to alarm her."
  "The firemen will arrive and the woman will see them, won't she? Why
  don't you get up and go over and talk with her?"
  "And if she jumps, I take the blame? You come in and talk to her. Maybe
  you've got an insight into the motivation of women who jump off ledges."
  She let that one go and busied herself with placing two tall polystyrene
  cups on the mat, together with a Bear Claw on a paper napkin. I'd or-
  dered one coffee and an almond croissant; the Bear Claws were too big
  and had brightly colored strawberry jelly inside, and I didn't like
  them. The little old Vietnamese guy who had taken over Tony's Deli
  employed his relatives, and some of them couldn't understand a word of
  English. When Big Tony and his brother ran that place, Toni-chinos-large
  cappuccinos to go--had froth you could cut with a knife. Now it withered
  and died within five minutes; I guess the Vietnamese didn't understand
  the froth machine. Even so, Tony's Deli still made the best cappuccinos
  in this part of town. Thank God those guys had passed on the recipe to
  their successor, because I was hooked on them.
  Gently I pulled the mat over and grabbed the coffees. They were still
  warm; I savored them. Sitting there on the Persian carpet, the final
  sixteen payments for which had now been underwritten by our new owner,
  gave me a chance to reflect on the
 6 LEN DEIGHTON

 arrangements for the party that night. It had to go well. I needed the
 money, really needed it.
  , Before I'd finished the second cup of coffee I heard a siren coming
  along Olympic. I looked under the desk to see the window. The woman
  outside must have heard it too, for she was slowly and painfully getting
  up. First she brought one foot up onto the ledge, then she was kneeling
  there. Finally, moving like someone terrified of heights, she stood up
  and leaned back against the window, with both arms pressed flat against
  the glass. She was wearing an expensive lightweight tweed pants suit and
  a gold and blue Herm6s scarf around her head, the kind of outfit a choosy
  woman would need to throw herself out of a Los Angeles window in
  springtime. I watched her cautious movements with great interest.
  Considering the way she'd been acting out there on the ledge, enjoying
  all the motions of a would-be suicide, she was certainly taking great
  pains now to make sure she didn't lose her balance.
  I went across the room. She had her back to me now. I slid the window
  up and said, "For God's sake come on in."
  She swung her head around and stared at me with hate in her eyes. "Did
  you send for the Fire Department?" She coughed to clear her throat. Her
  cheeks had reddened; I could see she was cold. Maybe that was why she'd
  decided to come in.
  "Nhy me?" I said. "Any one of those people down there might have sent
  for them. The whole neighborhood's been watching you." This was one of
                   VIOLENT WARD  7

 the few tall buildings in a street of one-story shacks; everyone could see
 her. "Come in!"
  "You're a shit," she said, and moved suddenly, swinging her feet into
  the room with commendable dexterity. Spotting the polystyrene cups on
  the mat, she went across to get a hot drink. Finding that both cups were
  empty, she tossed them across the room with a violence that made me
  shudder. She didn't seem to fancy the Bear Claw; I suppose it was the
  strawberry jelly. She made for the door.
  "The Fire Chief is going to be asking you some questions," I called
  after her.
  "You answer them, you goddamned lawyer," she yelled. "You've always got
  an answer for everything!" She slammed out through the door that leads
  to the back stairs, just as the sirens were dying outside in the street.
  She knew the way to the back entrance; it was the way she got in.
  The next moment the whole room was filled with burly men in shiny
  oilskin coats, rubber boots, and yellow helmets. They were mad at me.
  "How is it my fault?" I yelled back at them. "You let her get away.y)
  "Where'd she come from?" said a burly fire fighter, picking up the Bear
  Claw and chewing a piece out of it.
  "How should I know where she came from? Maybe she escaped from the zoo."
  "You called in and said this was an emergency," said a rat-faced little
  guy who seemed to be the chief. He smelled of metal polish and mint di-
  gestive tablets.
 8 LEN DEIGHTON

  "Is that so? Did I interrupt a poker game or something? What am I supposed
  to do when someone comes into my office and wants to leap out of the
  window, get an entertainment license?"
  The burly one tossed the remains of the Bear Claw into the wastebasket,
  where it landed with a loud clang. No wonder they give me indigestion:
  toss away an almond croissant and it makes only a soft swoosh.
  Maybe if I'd been a little more diplomatic, Ratface wouldn't have turned
  nasty and sent two of his men to search out violations of the Fire
  Department Code. "You should have been doing that before your own block
  burned down," I said. But these guys were young kids; they hadn't been
  with the department long enough to remember that scandal. Finally Ratface
  came up with a clipboard reading aloud what he said were twenty-two
  infringements. "The fire escape is rusty," he said, jabbing at the
  clipboard with his finger.
  "We just ran out of Brillo," I said. I looked over his shoulder and read
  the sheet. Most of the faults were minor ones, but it looked like someone
  was going to have to renew the sprinkler system, put up new smoke
  detectors, and install some kind of fire doors. If I knew anything about
  the small print in the lease, it wasn't going to be my rapacious landlord,
  but no matter. It wasn't my pigeon. Two months earlier, the bottom line on
  that kind of work might have been enough to bankrupt me, but now it was
  just something to pass on to the new owner: the mighty Petrovitch. "These
  old firetraps should be
                   VIOLENT WARD 9

 torn down," said the guy who didn't like Bear Claws to his buddy. "The whole
 block should be flattened. It's just a shanty-town."
  "We can't all live in Bel Air, buddy."
  After they all trooped out, I examined the carpet and the dirty marks that
  their boots had left. The carpet needed cleaning anyway, but the extra
  stains were not going to help me when Zachary Petrovitch came to see what
  kind of premises he was getting for his money.
  When at last I was free to sit down behind my desk and leaf through all the
  work outstanding, I found there was plenty to do. A new client, hooray. A
  onetime soap star, drunk and resisting arrest. It took me a minute to
  recognize her name; there is no limbo more bleak than the oblivion to which
  the soapers go. Then there were two movie scripts, one dog-eared and the
  other pristine. This client was a writer-a nice intelligent guy until
  now-who had worked himself up into a roaring frenzy about a movie that was
  being made by a producer he used to work with. He wanted me to read the two
  scripts and sue the production company for plagiarism. Plagiarism! He must
  be living on another planet. Start seeking injunctions for that kind of
  larceny and Hollywood would slither to a complete standstill. Did he think
  those guys with the Armani suits could write connecting the letters just
  because they had Montblanc fountain pens? Original ideas?
  None of it was more urgent than the red box file marked Sir Jeremy
  Westbridge. A lawyer gets used to the idea that most of his clients are on
  a
 10 LEN DEIGHTON

 course of self-destruction, but this Brit was something else. Every mail
 delivery brought word of some new and more terrible misdeed. I could see
 no way of keeping him out of prison, it was just a matter of whether he
 got ten or twenty years. The only consolation was thathe had me on
 retainer and paid up like a sweetheart. How did I ever get into this
 crock? When I left high school I had everything set for a career as a car
 thief.
  Dumping the whole stack of work back into the tray, I found myself
  looking at that damned window ledge, so finally I decided to go see
  Danny. I picked up the phone and told Miss Huth, "I have to see my son."
  "No. You have an appointment at eleventhirty."
  "Cancel it."
  "It's far too late to do that, Mr. Murphy. It is already
  eleven-twenty-two."
  "Who is it?"
  "Mr. Byron." She purred: she recognized his name. Women always knew his
  name. Budd Byron was now old enough for his early shows to be on daytime
  runs.
  "Oh," I said. I guess his old shows were on TV in Germany too.
  "I think he's here," she said, and I heard the outer door buzz. "Shall
  I show him in?" I could hear the emotion in her voice. No woman could
  catch sight of Budd Byron without losing her emotional equilibrium.
  "Yes, do that, Miss Huth.... Budd! It's good to
                   VIOLENT WARD   11

 see you." Budd was slim and tanned. He came into my office with the kind of
 cool, calm confidence of General MacArthur wading ashore in the Philippines,
 Newton demonstrating the force of gravity, or Al Capone denying that he owed
 income tax.
  Budd had been a college tlassmate; you maybe would not have guessed that
  from the hellos. Budd has a certain sort of Hollywood formality. He fixed
  me with a sincere look and gripped my hand tight while giving my upper arm
  a slap: a California salutation.
  "You're looking great," I said. "Great." He was wearing Oxford brogues,
  custom-made gray-flannel slacks, and a jacket of Harris tweed, the heavy
  sort of garment worn in the winter months by Southern California's native
  male population. His shirt was tapered and his collar gold-pinned to secure
  the tight knot of a blue-and-red-striped Brooks Brothers silk tie. The
  effect was of a prosperous young banker. It was the look many Hollywood
  actors were adopting now that so many of the bankers were going around in
  bleached denim and cowboy boots.
  "Coffee? A drink?"
  "Perrier water," said Budd. To complete the costume, he was wearing a
  beautiful gray fedora, which he took off and carefully placed on a shelf.
  I went to the refrigerator hidden in the bookcase and brought him a club
  soda. "Cigarette?" I picked up the silver box on my desk and waved it at
  him.
  He shook his head. I can't remember the last
 12 LEN DEIGHTON

 time someone said yes. One day someone was going to puff at one of those
 ancient sticks and spew their guts out all over my white carpet.
  "I read the other day the UCIA School of Medicine calculated that one
  joint has the carbon monoxide content of five regular cigarettes and the
  tar of three," Budd said.
  "These are not joints," I said, shaking the silver box some more.
  Budd laughed. "I know. I just wanted to impress you with my learning."
   "You did."
  Budd didn't have to work hard at being a charmer: it just came natural
  to him. We'd stayed in touch since he abandoned Social Sciences in favor
  of Actors'Equity. He'd made a modest rep and his face was known to those
  who spent a lot of time in the dark, but he expended every last cent he
  earned keeping up a standard of living way beyond his means because he
  had to pretend to himself and everyone else that he was a big big star,
  I suppose only someone permanently out of touch with reality tried for
  the movie big time in Hollywood. The soup kitchens and retirement homes
  echo with the chatter of people still talking about the big chance
  that's coming any day. But Budd was not permanently out of touch with
  reality, just now and again. As the smart-ass student editor of our
  college yearbook wrote of him, his head was in the clouds but his feet
  were planted firmly on the ground. He really enjoyed what he did for a
  living, whether it was first class acting or not. Back in the forties,
  when movie
                  VIOLENT WARD  13

 stars were youthful and wholesome and gentlemanly, Budd might have made it
 big-or even in that brief period in the sixties when the collegiate look was
 in style-but nowadays it was stubblechinned mumbling degenerates who got
 their names above the title. Budd was out of style.
  "You are coming to my little champagne-andburger birthday bash?" said
  Budd.
  "You couldn't keep me away," I said. I'd received an elaborate printed
  invitation to a luncheon party at Manderley, his old house perched up in
  the Hollywood Hills, near the Laurel Canyon intersection. Budd was one of
  those people who keeps in touch. He always knew what all his old
  classmates were doing, and when reunion time came round he was there
  addressing the envelopes.
  "Lunch, a week from Sunday. We'll keep going until the champagne runs
  out."
  "Sounds like a challenge."
  He shifted in his chair, ran a fingernail down his cheek, and spoke in a
  different sort of voice. "Mickey, I need advice. You're my attorney,
  right?"
  "You don't need an attorney," I told him. "You're too smart. If all my
  clients kept their noses clean the way you do, I'd be out of business." It
  was true. I sent hurry-up letters and sorted out the occasional
  misunderstanding, but most of what I did for Budd could have been done by
  a part-time secretary. Maybe I didn't charge him enough.
  He nodded and smiled some more and looked out of the window. 'This is a
  lousy neighborhood, Mickey.-
   14             LEN DEIGHTON

  "I know, all my visitors tell me. But we got cops on every corner and
  great ethnic food. What can I do for you, Budd?"
  A pause, a tightening of the jaw. "Would you get me a gun?"
  "A gun? What do you want a gun for?" I said, keeping my voice very steady
  and matter-offact.
  "No special reason," he said, in that nervous way people say such things
  when they do have a special reason. Then came the prepared answer: "The
  way I see it, the law will be putting all kinds of new restrictions on gun
  sales before long. I want to get a gun while it's still legal to purchase
  them over the counter."
  "I guess you saw that TV documentary on the Discovery channel. But you
  don't need a gun, Budd."
  "I do. My place is very vulnerable up there. There have been two stickups
  in the doughnut shop since Christmas. My neighbors have all had breakins."
  ,'And having a gun will keep you from being burglarized? Listen, the
  chances of someone breaking in while you're there are nearly zero. When
  you're not there, a gun won't be any good to you, right?"
  "It would make me feel better."
  "Okay. So you made up your mind. Don't listen to me; buy a gun."
  "I'd like you to purchase it."
  "Come on, Budd. What's the problem?"
  "I'll be recognized. My face is known. Maybe it
                   VIOLENT WARD   15

 will get into the papers. That's not the kind of publicity I want."
  "Buying a gun? If that was the secret of getting newspaper publicity,
  there'd be lines forming outside the gun shops and all the way to the
  Mexican border."
  "The paperwork and license and all that stuff. You know about that,
  Mickey. You do it for me, will you?"
  "You mean within the implied confidentiality of the client-attorney
  relationship?"
   He nodded.
  I sat back in my swivel chair and looked at him. Just as I thought I'd
  heard everything, along comes a client who wants me to buy a, heater
  without his name on it. Next he's going to be asking me to file off the
  identity marks and make dum-dum. cuts in the bullets. "I'm not sure I can
  do that, Budd," I said, very slowly. "I'm not sure it's within the law."
  He caught at the equivocation. "Will you find out? It's the way I'd like
  it done. Couldn't you say it was for a well-known movie actor who wanted
  to avoid the fuss?"
  "Sure. And I'll promise them signed photos and tickets for your next
  preview." As he started to protest, I held up a hand to deflect it. "I'll
  ask around, Budd."
  "A Saturday-night special or a small handgun would do. I just want it as
  a frightener."
  "Sure, I understand: no hand grenades or heavy mortars. Can you use a gun?
  You were never in the military, were you?"
 16 LEN  DEIGHTON

  "I was in ROTC," said Budd, the hurt feelings clearly audible in his voice.
  "You know I was, Mickey."
  "Sure, I forgot."
  "I can shoot. I've had a lot of movie parts using guns. I like to get these
  things exactly right for my roles. I do an hour in the gym every day. I jog
  in the hills, and sometimes I go to the Beverly Hills Gun Club." He slapped
  his gut. "I keep myself in shape."
  "Right," I said. Well, wind in the target; he sure scored a bull's-eye with
  that one. The only thing I could sincerely say I devoted at least one hour
  every day to was eating.
  "Am I keeping you too lone." he said, consulting the Rolex with solid gold
  band that came with every Actors' Equity card.
  "No rush. I'm going to see Danny: my son, Danny."
  "Sure, Danny. You brought him and his girlfriend along to watch me on the
  set of that Western I did for Disney last year."
  "That's right."
  "Give Danny my very best wishes. Tell him if he wants to visit a studio
  again I can always fix it up for him."
  "Thanks, Budd. That's really nice of you. I'll tell him."
  Budd didn't get up and leave. He reached out for his glass and took a sip,
  taking his time doing it, as I had seen so many witnesses on the stand do,
  buying time to think. "I haven't told you the whole
                   VIOLENT WARD   17

 truth. There's something else. And I want to keep it just between the two
 of us, okay?"
  "The client-attorney privileged relationship," I said.
  He got to his feet and nodded. All my clients like hearing about the
  confidential relationship the attorney offers; I always remind them
  about it just before I give them my bill. Prayer, sermon, confession,
  and atonement: in that order. I figure the whole process of consulting
  an attorney should be a secular version of the mass.
  "How could I get a gun without anyone knowingT)
  "Without even me knowing?. Buy it mail order under an assumed name, I
  guess."
  "Could I have it sent to you?" he said.
  "But then I would know," I said, keeping my tone real negative. I didn't
  want him mailing guns to my office.
  "It's like this," Budd said, making a futile gesture with his hand. "I
  have a friend who is being threatened. She needs a gun."
  "Well, you tell her to order one through the mail and have it sent to
  a post office box," I said. I guessed we were into some kind of show-biz
  fantasy, and I wasn't in the mood for that kind of crap. I looked at my
  watch. "I'm going to have to kick you out of here. I've got a heavy
  schedule."
  "Sure, Mickey, sure."
  He reached for his hat and went to the mirror to be sure it was on
  exactly right. Then he turned to shake hands firmly and say a soft
  goodbye. There
 18 LEN DEIGHTON

 was something he still hadn't said, and I plowed my brain to guess what it
 might be. What new bullshit was he going to hang on me now?
  His dark, lustrous eyes focused and he said, "If an intruder was shot on
  my premises ... what could happen?"
  "Stay out of it, Budd," I advised sincerely. "Buy your friend a
  subscription to Shooter's Monthly and call it a day."
  "Okay," he said, in a way that made it clear it wasn't advice he was
  likely to heed. Then, hands raised Al Jolson style, he struck a pose.
  "What do you think of the snazzy outfit?"
  "You got a portrait painting somewhere in your attic, Dorian old buddy?"
  "Just termites," said Budd. He was in an entirely different mood now. Lots
  of actors are like that; they go up and down with disconcerting sud-
  denness.
  When Budd had departed I went and looked out the window. That was enough
  to make anyone want to buy a gun. It was indeed a lousy block. My
  neighbors were mostly immigrants who quickly became either
  entrepreneurial, destitute, or criminal. I shared this ancient office
  building with a debt collection agency, an insurance agent, a single moth-
  ers advisory center, and an architect. These law offices were the best in
  the building. Miss Huth's reception area gave onto three rooms. Mine was
  the only one with a white carpet, but the others had two windows each.
  Equipped like that they could handle two suicides at a time.
                   VIOLENT WARD  19

  I'd moved in right after my divorce, to share expenses with two Korean
  immigration lawyers who had a sideline in fifty-dollar flat-fee divorces.
  People all said we'd never get along together, they said Koreans were
  combative people, but I found Billy Kim and Korea Charlie to be congenial
  partners. We would share our business, each passing our most troublesome
  clients to the other. Then we'd compare notes and have some great laughs
  together. Korea Charlie was the founding member of the partnership. He was
  a fat old guy who knew everyone in the neighborhood and built up a colos-
  sal reputation getting green cards for local illegals. Then, just as
  everyone was saying that Korea Charlie was the richest, happiest lawyer in
  town, one of his grateful clients accidentally shot him dead during a
  drunken celebration in a bar in Crenshaw.
  Now, apart from the token lawyer whom Petrovitch would assign to us to
  make the takeover legal, I had only one partner, Billy Kim, a thirty-
  year-old go-getter who was attending his brother's wedding in Phoenix.
  He'd been due back this morning, but there was no sign of him so far and
  no message either. Either his brother had chickened out or it was one hell
  of a party.
  On all sides of this block were single-story buildings that in any other
  city would have been temporary accommodation. From ground level 1A may be
  a paradise, but from this height it's hell. The paved backyards of these
  cheap boxlike buildings were littered with dented cars and pickups,
 20 LEN DEIGHTON

 and their rooftops were a writhing snakepit of airconditioning pipes.
 Directly across the street was a parking lot surrounded with a chain-link
 fence; parked up tight against the entrance, a converted panel truck was
 selling soft drinks, tacos, and chili dogs. Now that we were to become a
 part of the Petrovitch organization I was going to press them to finance
 for us a proper office with Muzak, up-todate magazines in the waiting
 room, distressed-oak paneling, and yards of antiqued leather books behind
 glass doors on stained wood shelving.
  I tidied my desk and reminded Miss Huth that I was going to see my son.
  I didn't give too much thought to the task of getting a gun for Budd.
  I figured by next week the desire for a gun would have worn off. Budd
  was like that.
  I went down to the garage. That was the best facility of this ancient
  building: it had a lock-up garage so I could come back to my car and
  find it complete with radio antenna and hubcaps. Since I drive a
  beautiful 1959 Cadillac, that means a lot to me. It was one of the
  reasons I came here. I wouldn't move to another building unless it had
  an equally dry, airy garage with someone guarding it. This one was not
  really subterranean, it was a semi-basement with ventilation slots that
  let air and daylight in., Ventilation is important for a car:
  condensation can do more damage than the weather, especially in
  California. The story was that the landlord had wanted to make this
  lowest floor into accommodations but the city ordinances forbade it.
  When I got down there I saw Ratface talking to
                   VIOLENT WARD   21

 the janitor. They both stopped talking as I went past them. I had a strong
 suspicion that they were comparing my shortcomings. They watched me
 without speaking.
  "You're still dripping oil, Mr. Murphy," the janitor called as I was
  getting into my car. I pretended I hadn't heard him, but as I pulled
  away I glanced in the mirror and could see the dark patch shining on the
  garage floor. Okay, so it's an old car.

  My son, Daniel, is studying philosophy at USC-the University of Spoiled
  Children-and living with a girl named Robyna Johnson. They share an
  apartment in a rooming house off Melrose near Paramount Studios. Melrose
  is a circus, but the kids think it's smart to be near where the movies
  are cranked. When you reach the studios, the first thing you see is that
  vast rectangular slab of blue sky that is the backdrop for the Paramount
  water tank. And if you know where to look inside the back lot you can
  spot the old Paramount Gate, the most evocative landmark still left of
  real Hollywood. That gate is the same way it was in the old days. I
  never see it without remembering when Gloria Swanson's Rolls-Royce
  purred through it in Sunset Boulevard.
  My son doesn't live on the posh side of Melrose. Where he lives is as
  bad as where I work. They have steel gratings on the liquor stores and
  fierce guard dogs in the hallways. When I was a kid it was an Irish area
  and there was a great neighborhood at-
   22 LEN DEIGHTON

 mosphere, but when Grace Kelly married into Monaco, the Irish here got big
 ideas and bank mortgages and bought homes with pools in the Valley, and the
 area filled up with weeds, rust, and sprayed graffiti. I waved to Danny's
 landlady, Mrs. Gonzales, as she dragged the curtain aside to see who it was.
 She was a whiskery old crone: she scowled and ducked out of sight.
  Danny shared a two-room apartment on the second floor. The buzzer didn't
  work, so I rapped on the door with my knuckles. They were watching a game
  show on TV, The Price Is Right; I could hear it through the door. The Price
  Is Right! After all that griping these kids are always giving me about
  materialism.
  "It's your father," said Robyna, after she'd undone the mortise lock,
  slipped the bolts, and opened the door as far as the chain would allow. She
  stared at me for a long time before unhooking the chain to let me in. She
  never says, How nice to see you, or anything. I always get the same
  treatment: she snaps her head around, so her long, straight blond hair
  swings in my face, and calls over her shoulder, "It's your father," in a
  voice marine color sergeants use to announce the arrival of incoming
  artillery fire.
  "Hello, Robyna," I said affably. "Do you mind if I talk to Danny in
  private?" She shook out her skirt-a long cotton one with Mrican tie-dye de-
  signs-slipped her feet into jewel-encrusted sandals, picked up her makeup
  box, tossed her head to make her hair shake, and strode past without
  look-
                     VIOLENT WARD   23

 ing at me. She didn't even say goodbye. "Come back, Jane Fonda, you forgot
 your muesli!" I called.
  "Drop dead!" she snapped over her shoulder as she flounced out and slammed
  the door.
  "Is your girlfriend always so charming?" I asked Danny.
  "I don't know," said Danny. "I don't tell her to get lost the way you do
  every time you arrive. She pays half the rent, you know."
  The TV was still going, and Danny was searching to find the remote control
  to turn it off. Eventually he grabbed a pair ofjeans from somewhere and
  draped them over the screen. He just couldn't bear to switch the damned
  thing off. he'd always been like that about TV; he just had to have it
  going all the time.
  "Robyna must have the remote in her pocket," he said apologetically.
  There was a smell of burning incense in the room. It had a sweet flowery
  smell. I sniffed here and there. Although I looked all around, I couldn't
  see where the smoke was coming from. "She's not on drugs, is she?"
  "You always ask me if she's doing drugs," said Danny wearily. "We're
  vegetarians."
  "So maybe she passes on red meaty drugs."
  "She won't even drink tea or coffee because of the caffeine. No, she's not
  on drugs." His search for the remote finally forced him to get up on his
  feet. Under some schoolbooks he discovered two paper plates containing a
  half-eaten burrito and a squashed package of tofu. He gave up trying to
  find
 24 LEN DEIGHTON

 the TV control and sank back, dropping his weight into the sofa with
 spring-shattering force. He'd wrecked all the best chairs at home doing
 that, but I tried not to remark on it this time. I hate to fight with him.
   "Is your mother here?"
  "Betty?" He always called her Betty. He never said Mom or Mother even when
  he was small. I blamed Betty for that. She never disciplined him. That's
  why he was slouching here with a stubbly face, long unwashed hair, and a
  dirty T-shirt printed with the slogan Go away, I'm trying to think. "You
  can see Betty's not here; I don't know where she is."
  "How would it grab you if I told you she just now forced her way into my
  office and climbed out onto the window ledge?"
  Danny took the news very calmly. I mean, this was his mother. He nodded.
  "She did that with Uncle Sean in Seattle. He called the Fire Department."
  "So did I. I called the Fire Department, but she made herself scarce
  before they arrived. So of course they prowled through the office trying
  to find ways to give me a bad time."
  "Why?" He was always unnaturally calm with me. Calm in a studied and
  exaggerated way so I sometimes wondered if it was an effect I had on him.
  With other people he always seemed more animated. Did I make him ill at
  ease or something9
  "Why did I call the Fire Department?" I said to clarify the question.
                   VIOLENT WARD  25

  "Why did they want to give you a bad time?"
  "It's a long story. The sprinklers never did work." The more I thought
  about it the more angry I became. "Soon after we first moved in, Denise-
  remember Denise, my old secretary, who used to send you those religious
  cards with St. Daniel and lions on your birthday?-when Denise felt like
  celebrating, she used to buy those throw-away barbecue packs and grill
  some steaks for our lunch. It's a wonder she never set the office
  ablaze. A couple of times she threw out the charcoal while it was still
  hot and set fire to the trash. Now I come to think of it, I remember
  those sprinklers never did work; the whole building is like that. Why
  pick on me? Those firemen were out to make trouble, and that Huth woman
  was no help; she said no one had ever told her where the fire exits
  were. I'll have to get rid of her. Thank goodness she didn't discover
  that Betty was my ex."
  Danny looked at me solemnly. He doesn't like me referring to Betty as
  my ex. "What did she want?"
  "Are you kidding?" Betty only came to see me when she wanted money for
  something.
  He pulled a face and ran his hands under the cushions as if he was still
  trying to find the remote.
  I said, "Have you been encouraging her?" Yes, yes, yes, of course. I
  should have guessed it was Danny who kept sending her around to dun me
  for money. They both thought I had some kind of bottomless pit
  replenished daily with bullion.
  "She had to have two root canals done, and she
 26 LEN DEIGHTON

 needs clothes and stuff. She doesn't earn any money working for that aroma
 therapy workshop."
  "Look at me. Look at me. If you're going to go to bat for her, look at
  me."
  He looked up.
  I said, "Are you doing her accounts or something? Why doesn't she get
  a paying job?"
  "The aroma therapy workshop is a charity. It's for poor people. No one
  pays. She wants to help people.
  "She wants to help people? She works for nothing and I give her money.
  How does that make her the one who helps people?"
  "She's really a wonderful person, Dad. I wish you'd make a little more
  effort to try and understand her."
  "It's always my fault. Why doesn't she make an effort to try and
  understand me?"
  "She said you're getting millions from the takeover."
  "You two live in a dream world. There are no millions and there is no
  takeover. You can't buy a law partnership unless you are a member of the
  California bar. Petrovitch picked up the pieces, that's all that
  happened. He simply retained our services, put in a partner, and
  absorbed nearly a quarter of a million dollars of debt. I told you all
  that."
  "She clipped a piece about Zach Petrovitch from the Los Angeles Times
  Business Section. It said in there that he'd paid a hundred million-2'
  "But not for my partnership. I've heard all that
                  VIOLENT WARD   27

 talk. He picked up a Chapter Eleven recording company with a few big names
 on the labels and sold it to the Japanese. That all happened nearly three
 years ago. There's been a goddamned recession since then."
  "Petrovitch only buys companies he has plans for."
  "Is this something they tell you in Philosophy One-oh-one, or did you
  switch to being a business major?"
  "You can't keep that kind of payoff secret, Dad," he said. "Everyone
  knows."
  "Don't give me that shit, Danny. I'm your father, and I'm telling you all
  we got is a retainer with a small advance so I can pay off a few pressing
  debts. Who are you going to believe?"
  "You want a beer?" He got up and went into the kitchen.
  "You haven't answered the question," I called. "No. I don't want a beer,
  and you're too young to drink beer."
  "I thought it was a rhetorical question," he called mournfully from the
  kitchen. I heard him rattling through the cans; I don't think he'd ever
  thought of storing food in that icebox, just drink. "I've got Pepsi and
  Diet Pepsi; I've got Sprite, Dr Pepper, and all kinds of fi-uit juices."
  "I don't want anything to drink. Come back here and listen to me. I'm not
  a philosophy major; I haven't got time to sit around talking for hours. I
  have to work for a living."
  I found a cane-seat chair and inspected it for
 28 LEN DEIGHTON

 food remains and parked chewing gum before sitting down. This was just the
 kind of chaos he'd lived in at home, like someone had thrown a concussion
 grenade into a Mexican fast-food encounter. On the walls there were colored
 posters about saving the rain forest and protecting the whales. The only
 valuable item to be seen in the apartment was the zillion-watt amplifier
 that had made sure his guitar was shaking wax out of ears in Long Beach
 while he strummed it in Woodland Hills. Near the window there was a small
 table he used as a desk. There was a pile of philosophy books, an ancient
 laptop computer with labels stuck all over it, and a paper plate from which
 bright red sauce had been scraped. There was a brown bag too, the kind of
 insulated bag take-away counters use for hot food. I looked into it,
 expecting to find a tamale or a hot dog, but found myself looking at a
 stainless steel sandwich.
  "What's this?" I said.
  Danny came out of the kitchen with his can of drink and a package of
  non-cholesterol chili-flavored potato chips. "It's only a gun," he said.
  "Oh, it's only a gun," I said sarcastically, bringing it out to take a
  closer look at it.
  It was a shiny new Browning Model 35 9-mm automatic. I pulled back the
  action to make sure there were no rounds in the chamber. The action
  remained open, and from the pristine orange-colored top of the spring I
  could see it was brand new.
  "And what the hell are you doing with this?" I
                   VIOLENT WARD   29

 took aim at Robyna's save the whale poster and pulled the trigger a couple
 of times.
  "Relax, Dad. I loaned a Jordanian guy in my religion class two hundred
  bucks. He was strapped, and instead of paying me back he gave me the
  shooter and a stereo."
  "You were ripped off," I said.
  "You're always so suspicious," he said mildly. "A gun like that costs
  about five hundred bucks. I can pawn it for three hundred."
  "How do you know it's not been used in a stickup or a murder?"
  "His father had just bought it for him; it was still in the wrappings.
  So was the stereo."
  "His father bought it? What kind of dope is his father?"
  "Don't keep doing that, Dad. It's not good for the mechanism."
  "What do you know about guns?" I said and pulled out the magazine and
  snapped it back into place a couple more times just to show him I wasn't
  taking orders from him. "You're talking to a marine, remember. Have you
  ever fired this gun?"
  "No, I haven't."
  'Sudd Byron was in the office today asking me how he could buy a gun.
  This whole town is gun crazy these days."
  "What does he want a gun for?"
  "Budd? I don't know." I looked at the gun. It was factory-new. "In the
  original wrappings, you say* In the box? Then this is part of a stolen
  consignment."
 30 LEN DEIGHTON

  "It's not stolen. I just told you I got it from a guy I know at college.
  He does Comparative Religion with me. Next week he'll probably want to
  buy it all back. He's like that. He's an Arab; he's a distant relative
  of Kashoggi the billionaire."
  "Do you know something? I'm still looking for some Arab in this town who
  is not a relative of Kashoggi. My mailman mentioned that he is Ka-
  shoggi's cousin. The guy in the cleaners confided that he is Kashoggi's
  nephew. They're all just one big happy family."
  The TV was still muttering away: the ads are always louder than the
  programs. "You're in a crumby mood today, Dad. Did something bad happen
  to you?"
  "Something bad? Have you suddenly gone deaf or something9 Your mother
  dropped by to throw herself out of my office window."
  "That was just a cry for help. You know that." He ate some chips,
  crunching them loudly in his teeth; then, leaning his head far back, he
  closed his eyes and held a cold can of low-cal cranberry juice cocktail
  to his forehead.
  He wouldn't hear a word against Betty. Sometimes I wondered if he
  understood that she walked out on me-walked out on us, rather. Yet how
  could I remind him of that? I said, 'Vill you find out where your mother
  is crashing these days? If she keeps pulling these jumping-off-the-ledge
  routines, she'll get herself committed."
  He came awake, snapped the top off his cranberry juice, and took a deep
  gulp. He wiped his lips
                   VIOLENT WARD   31

 on the back of his hand and said, "Yah, okay, Dad. I'll do what I can."
  "Tell her I'll maybe look at her dentist bills. I'll pay something toward
  them."
  "Hey, that's great, Dad."
  "I don't want you getting together with her and rewriting the accounts,
  trying to bill me for a Chanel suit or something."
  "What do you mean?" Danny said.
  "You know what I mean. Do you think I've forgotten you using the graphics
  program on my office IBM to do that CIA letterhead that scared the bejesus
  out of old Mr. Southgate?"
  "He deserved it. I should have gotten an A in his English class. Everyone
  said so."
  'Vell, I had to calm him down and stop him from writing to his senator. You
  promised you'd be sensible in future, so leave it between Betty and her
  dentist, will you?"
  "She wouldn't gyp you, Dad." He gently eased the gun out of my hand and put
  it back in the bag and put the bag in a drawer.
  'Vell, I've known her longer than you have, and I say she might." I got up.
  "Leave her address and phone number on my answering machine. Maybe this
  afternoon?" He knew where to get hold of her, I was certain of that.
  He nodded and came with me to the door. "Is our Sunday brunch still on?"
  he asked.
  "Sure," I said. "The Beverly Hilton at noon. I'll get a reservatiom" I gave
  him a hug; he was a good kid. "You can always come and use your room
 32 LEN DEIGHTON

 again," I told him. "I wouldn't want rent or anything. I rattle around all
 alone in that house."
  "We tried it twice, Dad." He bent down to open the door: three deadbolt
  locks they now had! What kind of neighborhood is that? "Could you let me
  have fifty until the weekend?"
  I peeled off a fifty for him. "Don't change to being a business major," I
  said. 'Tou're doing just great in philosophy."

  Before I drove away from Danny's place I opened the trunk of my Caddie.
  Hell! There should have been a case of booze there. One of the commissars
  in Petrovitchgrad had left a message asking me to get some wacky brand of
  tequila. It was for the welcome party. She was organizing the refresh-
  ments, and this poison was apparently Petrovitch's favorite drink. Miss
  Huth had worked her way through the yellow pages and found out a Mexican
  liquor store on Broadway was the only place that stocked it. They were
  supposed to have sent it around for the janitor to put into my trunk. I
  should never have trusted her with my Visa card number. Maybe it was a
  rip-off by the liquor store, or maybe it was the janitor. He was an
  unreliable bastard. Why hadn't she double-checked it?
  I looked at the empty trunk like the booze would suddenly appear there but
  it didn't. The trunk of my lovely old gas-guzzling Caddie convertible
  remained empty, so there was no alternative to driving back to the office
  to pick it up. When I got
                   VIOLENT WARD   33

 there I swung into the entrance and down the ramp into the basement. Can you
 imagine it? Ratface was still there, talking with the janitor. M%at did they
 find to talk about all that time? I saw a vacant parking place nearer to the
 elevator than the lousy place they'd assigned to me. Ratface had parked his
 little car alongside it. It was a Honda Accord: a bumper sticker on it said
 MY OTHER CAR IS A FIRE
 ENGINE.
  As I pressed the call button for the elevator, the janitor said, "If
  you're going up for the tequila, I've got it right here for you, Mr.
  Murphy. They delivered it this afternoon." He kicked the carton at his
  feet.
  "I figured you would have loaded it into my trunk," I said. The residents
  all paid the guy an extra ten a month in the hope that he would be
  helpful. Some of them gave him more than that. He made a fortune from us.
  "Ah, my back is playing up again, Mr. Murphy," he said. "My doctor says I
  should be real careful about lifting and that kind of work." He said this
  slowly and carefully while both of them watched me struggling under the
  weight of a dozen bottles of tequila. That Mexican hooch was heavy; what
  do they put into that poison?
  I cleared space for it in the trunk and then stood up and got my breath.
  "Maybe you should get a job with the Fire Department," I said. "You could
  take it easy there." Ratface glared at me. I lifted the crate, put it into
  my trunk, pulled the lid down, and watched it close automatically. I loved
  that old Cad-
   34 LEN DEIGHTON

 die; it was a part of me. The trouble was, the old lady really was
 dripping oil and leaving a pool of it everywhere I stopped, and the way
 things were at present I didn't have time enough to take her to the
 service station.
  "And that's a parking place for the disabled," called Ratface.
  I pretended not to hear him.
 CHAPTER 2
 That was some bash, that party for Petrovitch. The little girl who
 organized it for Petrovitch Enterprises International was a professional
 party fixer. I didn't know there were such jobs, even in Los Angeles.
 She'd rented the Snake Pit for the whole evening, and that takes money.
 Alternating with the Portable PCs, who had an album at number three that
 week, there was a band playing all that corny Hawaiian music. The
 waitresses were dressed in grass skirts, leis, and flesh-colored bras, and
 one wall was almost covered with orchids flown in from Hawaii. There were
 dozens of miniature palm trees standing in huge decorative faience pots.
 The ceiling was obscured by hundreds of colored balloons; from each one
 dangled a silver or gold cord, the end
 36 LEN DEIGHTON

 supporting an orchid bloom, to make a shimmering ceiling of orchids just
 above head height.
  The place was packed. I had trouble parking my Caddie. I can't get the
  old battle wagon into the spaces they paint for lousy little imported
  compacts. So I left it in a slot marked RESERVED FOR SEcuRiTy and wrote
  Mr. Petrovitch on a slip of paper that I propped behind the windshield.
  I didn't want my new boss screaming for his fix of special-brand tequila
  and me blamed for his deprivation. I heaved it out of the car, put the
  crate on my shoulder, and staggered across the underground parking
  garage to where the entrance was located. It was so crowded there were
  guests talking and drinking and dancing right out there on the concrete.
  They were waltzing around on the red carpet and through the crushed
  flowers that had been strewn around, and I had to push my way past them
  to get inside the place. I gave the crate of tequila to the bar man, got
  a Powers whisky with soda and ice, and started to circulate. The last
  thing they needed was more booze. Most of them seemed tanked up to the
  gills. I was frightened to strike a match in case the air exploded.
  "Mickey Murphy! I saw you were on the guest list."
  The deep, lazy voice came booming from a corpulent individual named
  Goldie Arnez. He'd been watching two video monitors from cameras trained
  on the lobby to show the guests as they arrived.
  "What are we tuned to, Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous?"
                   VIOLENT WARD  37

  "That's about it," he said, taking his eyes from the screen to scrutinize
  me carefully.
  When I first met Goldie he was slim-a movie stuntman, can you imagine? We
  used to work out together at Gold's Gym, when there was only one Gold's Gym
  and it was on Second Street in Santa Monica. That was where Goldie had
  acquired his nickname. The stuntwork dwindled as he wrestled with the
  scales, and the last time I met him he was a 250-pound bail bondsman with
  a reputation for playing rough with the fugitives he brought in. Now he
  looked like he'd gone to seed: where he used to have muscles, he had flab,
  and there were dark rings under his eyes. Maybe I wouldn't have recognized
  him, except for that full head of brown wavy hair. He still had his hair-or
  was it a rug? In this light I couldn't decide. "What are you doing nowa-
  days, Goldie?"
  "You don't know?"
  "No, I don't know. Would I be asking you if I knew already?"
  "That's my Mickey," he said. "You say good morning to the guy, and you get
  maimed in a riot."
  "Cut it out, Goldie."
  "I'm muscle for Mr. Petrovitch."
  "You're what?"
  "Don't be that way. You might need a buddy who can put in a good word with
  the man at the
  91
 top.
  "Muscle?" I could see it wasn't all flab; the bulge under his armpit had
  square edges.
  "I run a team of twenty."
 38 LEN DEIGHTON

  "Does Petrovitch need twenty bodyguards?"
  "I'm not a bodyguard. I have guys to do the dayto-day work. I'm head of
  security for Petrovitch Enterprises International. I'm responsible for
  the vice presidents and everything in the continental U.S. It's a big
  job." He gave me one of his business cards.
  I looked at it and put in my pocket. "Is that why you're drinking
  Pepsi?"
  "Mr. Petrovitch cracks down on drinking by staff on duty. He'll tell you
  that."
  "I might find that a little difficult to adjust to," I said.
  "Not after Mr. Petrovitch has talked to you, you won't." Goldie took a
  sip of his cola and looked me over. "It's the cost. VVhen he takes over
  a company he strips all the surplus fat from it and makes it into a lean
  and trim earnings machine." Goldie looked at me as he said it with
  relish. It sounded like something he'd read in a prospectus, and I
  didn't like it. And what kind of lean and trim earnings machine was
  Goldie?
  "You want to lend me your phone, Goldie?" I said, eyeing the cellular
  clipped to his belt. "I need to get hold of my partner in Phoenix. I'll
  call collect."
  "Haven't you got a phone in your car?" said Goldie.
  "Are you crazy? I drive a beautiful fifty-nine Caddie with the original
  interior and paintwork. I don't want some guy drilling holes in her and
  bolting phones and batteries into the bodywork."
                   VIOLENT WARD   39

  "There's a phone upstairs," said Goldie. "Come with me, or you won't get
  past my security guys."
  Goldie led the way to a messy little office with a fax machine and word
  processors and a bulletin board displaying half a dozen bounced checks, a
  buy-one-get-one-free coupon from Pizza Hut, and a signed photo of Arnold
  Schwarzenegger. He lingered out in the hallway for a moment. I thought he
  was being discreet and allowing me a little privacy, but I should have
  known better. He came right in.
  "Make your call and let's get out of here." He seemed to disapprove of my
  looking around the place, but that was just my natural curiosity.
  I sat down behind the desk, picked up the phone, and was about to start
  hitting the buttons when I noticed there was an extra wire coming from the
  phone and going into a hole freshly drilled in the desktop, a hole marked
  by a trace of sawdust. "Goldie," I said, "you got a scrambler on this phone
  or something? What's this wiring deal? Are you bugging someone's calls?"
  "Don't hit that button!" he barked, showing an alarm in sharp contrast to
  his previous doleful demeanor. "Stay where you are. Put the phone down on
  the desk and let me come round there." He grabbed me by the shoulder as I
  got to my feet. Then he grabbed the scissors from the desk and cut all
  wires leading to the phone.
  "What is it?"
  "Jesus!" said Goldie, talking to himself as if he'd not heard me. "The
  bastards!"
  "Is it a bomb?"
 40 LEN DEIGHTON

  "You bet it is," said Goldie. He followed the wires that went through the
  desk and kneeled down on the floor under it. I crouched down to see it too.
  He tapped a brown paper package that had been fixed to the underside of the
  desk. "See that? There's enough plastic there to blow us both into
  hamburger," said Goldie. Carefully he stripped the sticky tape from the
  woodwork and revealed the detonators. It looked as if he had done such
  things before. "Maybe it was set to make a circuit when triggered by the
  buttons, or maybe it was one of those tricky ones that detonate with an
  incoming call."
  "What's it all about, Goldie?"
  "Say an extra prayer when you go to mass tomorrow morning," said Goldie.
  He was still under the desk fiddling with the bomb. "Go back downstairs and
  circulate. I can deal with this."
  "Are you sure you don't want the bomb squad?"
  His glowering face appeared above the desktop. "Not a word about this to
  anyone, Mickey. If a story like this got into the papers, the shares would
  take a beating and I'd pay for it with my job."
  "Whatever you say." I decided to leave my call to Phoenix for some other
  time and went back to the party for another drink. I could see why Goldie
  was so jumpy about publicity. The media crowd was well in evidence. Some
  of them I recognized, including two local TV announcers: the guy with the
  neat mustachio who does the morning show and the little girl with the
  elaborate hairdo who stands in for the weatherman on the local segment of
  the net-
                      VIOLENT WARD 41

 work news. They were standing near their cameras, paper napkins tucked into
 their collars like ruffs and their faces caked with makeup.
  The one I was looking around- for was Mrs. Petrovitch. When I knew her we
  were both at Alhambra High, struggling with high school mathematics and
  preparing for college. High school hiends are special, right? More special
  than any other kind of ffiends. In those days she was Ingrid Ibsen. I was
  in love with her. Half the other kids were in love with her too, but I
  dated her on account of the way she lived near me and I could always walk
  her home, and her dad knew my dad and did his accounts.
  She lived only a block from me on Grenada. We used to walk down Main Street
  together, get a Coke and fries, and I'd think of something I had to buy in
  the five-and-dime just to make it last longer.
  In my last year Ingrid was the lead in the senior play and I had a tap
  dance solo in the all-school production of The Music Man. I remember that
  final night: I danced real well. It was my last day of high school. It was
  a clear night with lots of stars and a big moon so you could see the San
  Gabriel Mountains. Dad let me have the new Buick. We were parked outside
  her house. I'd got my scholarship and a place at USC. I told her that as
  soon as I graduated I was going to come back and marry her. She laughed and
  said "Don't promise" and put her finger on my lips. I always remembered the
  way she said that: "Don't promise."
  Ingrid spent only one semester at college. She was smarter than I was at
  most subjects, and she
 42 LEN DEIGHTON

 could have got a B.A. easily, but her folks packed up and went to live in
 Chicago and she went with them. I never did get the full story, but the
 night she told me she was going, we walked around the neighborhood and I
 didn't go home to bed until it was getting light. Then I had a fight with
 my folks, and the following day I stormed off and joined the Marine Corps.
 Kidlike, I figured I'd have to go to 'Nam eventually and it was better to
 get it over with. Now I've learned to put the bad ones at the bottom of
 the pile and hope they never show up. It was a crazy move because I was
 looking forward to going to college and almost never had arguments with
 my folks. And anyway, what does joining the service do to solve anything?.
 It just gives you a million new and terrible problems to add to your old
 ones.
  The next I heard of Ingrid was when her photo was in the paper. Budd
  Byron, who'd known us both at Alhambra, sent me an article that had been
  clipped from some small-town paper. It was a photo of Ingrid getting
  married. That was her first husband, some jerk from the sticks, long
  before she got hitched to Zachary Petrovitch. It said they'd met at a
  country dancing class. I ask you! I kept the clipping in my billfold for
  months. They were going to Cape Cod for their honeymoon, it said. Can
  you imagine anything more corny* Every time I looked at that picture it
  made me feel sorry for myself.
  Soon after I met Betty, I ceremonially burned that clipping. As the
  ashes curled over and shimmered in the flames I felt liberated. The next
  day I
                   VIOLENT WARD   43

 went down to Saturn and Sun, the alternative medicine pharmacy where Betty
 worked, and asked her to marry me. As a futile exercise in self-punishment
 it sure beat joining the Marine Corps.
  Then in the eighties I heard about Ingrid again when she upped and married
  Petrovitch. I knew the Petrovitch family by name; I'd even met Zach
  Petrovitch a few times. His father had made money from Honda dealerships
  in the Northwest, getting into them when they were giving them away, a time
  when everyone was saying the Japanese can maybe make cheap transistor
  radios, and motor bikes even, but cars?
  The first time I met Petrovitch junior he was with his father, who was
  guest of honor at an Irish orphanage's charity dinner in New York. I guess
  that was before he knew Ingrid. At the end of the evening a few of us,
  including Zach, cut away to a bar in the Village. The music was great, and
  we all sank a lot of Irish whisky. Petrovitch passed out in the toilet and
  we had a lot of trouble getting him back to the Stanhope, where he was
  staying. Cabs are leery of stopping for a group of men carrying a "corpse,"
  and the ones that do stop, argue. I got into a fist fight with a cabbie
  from County Cork; it wasn't serious, just an amiable bout with an over-
  weight driver who wanted to stretch his legs. When I told him we were
  coming from the Irish orphanage benefit, he took us to the hotel and
  wouldn't accept the fare money. The crazy thing was that when Petrovitch
  recovered someone told him I'd strongarmed the cabbie to take him that
  night. I suppose
 44 LEN DEIGHTON

 Petrovitch felt he owed me something. I never did explain it to him.
  I moved over to the bar to sneak a look at Ingrid. She was standing with
  her husband at the end of the red carpet, welcoming guests as they
  arrived. I studied her through the palm tree fronds, making sure she
  didn't see me. She looked as beautiful as ever. Her hair was still very
  blond, almost white, but cut shorter now. She had on a long black moir6
  dress with black embroidery on the bodice and around the hem. With it
  she wore a gold necklace and a fancy little wristwatch. I watched her
  laughing with an eager group of sharp-suited yuppies who were shaking
  paws with her husband. Seeing her laugh reawakened every terrible pang
  of losing her. It brought back that night sitting in the Buick when the
  idea of being married was something I didn't have to promise. To hear
  that laugh every day; I would have sold my soul for that. So you can see
  why I didn't go across to say hello to them. I didn't want to be
  shoulder to shoulder with those jerks when talking with her. It was
  better to see her from a distance and shuffle through my memories.
  "Hello, Mickey. I thought you might be here," chirruped the kind of
  British accent that sounds like running your fingernails across a
  blackboard. I turned to see a little British lawyer named Victor
  Crichton. He was about forty, with the cultivated look that comes with
  having a company that picks up the tab for everything. His suit was
  perfect, his face was tanned, and his hair wavy and long enough to hide
  the tops of his ears.
                   VIOLENT WARD  45

  "Oh, it's You," I said, in my usual suave and sophisticated way. Vic
  Crichton's boss was Sir Jeremy Westbridge, the client who was giving me
  ulcers. His affairs were in such desperate disarray that I could hardly
  bear to open my mail in the morning.
  "Did I make you jump, old chap? Awfully sorry." He'd caught me off
  guard; I suppose I looked startled. He gave a big smile and then reached
  out for the arm of the woman at his side. "This is Dorothy, the light
  of my life, the woman who holds the keys to my confidential files." He
  hiccuped softly. "Figuratively speaking."
  I said, "That's okay, Victor. Hi there, Dorothy. I was just thinking."
  "Wow! Don't let me interrupt anything like that!" He winked at the woman
  he was with and said, "Mickey is Sir Jeremy's attorney on the West
  Coast."
  "Pleased to meet you," she said. His wife was British too.
  "It sounds good the way you say it, Vic. But we've got to talk." I was
  hoping to make him realize the danger he was in. It wasn't just a matter
  of business acumen, they were going to be facing charges of fraud and
  God knows what else.
  "He's really an Irish stand-up comic," Vic explained to the woman, "but
  you have to set a comic to catch a comic in this part of the world.
  Right, Mickey7-
  "I've got to talk to you, Vic," I said quietly. "Is
 46 LEN DEIGHTON

 Sir Jeremy here? We've got to do something urgently."
  He made no response to this warning. "Always together. Dean Martin and
  Jerry Lewis, Lennon and McCartney, Vic Crichton and Sir Jeremy. Part-
  ners."
  "They all broke up," I said.
  "I wondered if you'd spot that," said Vic. "Split up or dead. But not
  us; not yet, anyway. Look for yourself."
  He waved a hand in the direction of the bar, where I spotted the lean
  and hungry-looking Sir Jeremy. He was a noticeable figure: very tall,
  well over six feet, with white hair and a pinched face. He was engaged
  in earnest conversation with a famous local character called the
  Reverend Dr. Rainbow Stojil, a high-profile do-gooder for vagrants who
  liked to be seen on TV and at parties like this. I guessed that Stojil
  was trying to get a donation from him. Stojil was famous for his
  money-raising activities.
  "Don't interrupt them," advised Vic.
  "Why not?" I said. "We've got to have a meeting." Vic didn't reply. He
  was drunk. I wasn't really expecting a sensible answer.
  Vic and his master were well matched. They were as crooked as you can
  get without ski masks and sawed-off shotguns. They called themselves
  property developers. Their cemeteries became golf courses; their golf
  courses became leisure centers, and leisure centers became shopping
  malls and offices. They had moved slowly and legally at first but
                   VIOLENT WARD   47

 success seemed to affect their brains, because lately they just didn't
 care what laws they broke as long as the cash came rolling in.
  "Look," I said. "The game's up with all this shit. I know for a fact
  that an investigation has begun. It's just a matter of time before Sir
  Jeremy is arrested. I can't hold them off forever."
   "How long can you hold them off, old boy?"
  He wasn't taking me seriously. "I don't know, not long. One, two, three
  weeks ... it's difficult to say.IP
  He prodded me in the chest. "Make it three weeks, old buddy." He
  laughed.
  "Look, Vic, either we sit down and talk and make a plan that I can offer
  to them-"
   "Or what?" he said threateningly.
  I took a deep breath. "Or you can get yourselves a new lawyer."
   He blinked. "Now, now, Mickey. Calm down."
  "I mean it. You find yourself a new boy. Some guy who likes fighting the
  feds and the whole slew of people you've crossed. A trial lawyer."
  "If that's the way you feel, old boy," he said and touched me on the
  shoulder in that confident way that trainers pat a rottweiler.
  Maybe he thought I was going to retract, but he was wrong. With that
  decision made, I already felt a lot better. "I'll get all the papers and
  everything together. You tell me who to pass it to. How long are you
  staying in town?"
  "Not long." He held up his champagne and inspected it as if for the Food
  and Drug Administra-
   48 LEN DEIGHTON

 tion. "We've come to hold hands with Petrovitch about a joint company we're
 forming in Peru. Then I'm off for a dodgy little argument with some bankers
 in Nassau and back to London for Friday. Around the world in eight hotel
 beds: it's all go, isn't it, Dot?"
  "What about Sir Jeremy?"
  "Good question, old man. Let's just say he has a date with Destiny. He's
  modeling extra-large shrouds for Old Nick." He held out a hand to the wall
  to steady himself Any minute now he was going to fall over.
  "What do you mean?" I said, watching his attempt to regain equilibrium.
  "Don't overdo it, old sport." He put his arm around my shoulder and leaned
  his head close to whisper. "You don't have to play the innocent with me.
  I'm the next one to go."
  "Go where?"
  "You are the one arranging it, aren't you?" His amiable mood was changing
  to irritation, as is the way with drunks when they become incoherent. "You
  buggers are being paid to fix it." He closed his eyes as if concentrating
  his thoughts. His lips moved but the promised words never came.
  "I think we're boring your wife, Victor," I said, in response to the
  flamboyant way she was patting her open mouth with her little white hand.
  "Victor always gets drunk," she said philosophically. She didn't look so
  sober herself. She'd drained her champagne and experimentally
                   VIOLENT WARD  49

 pushed the empty glass into a palm tree and left it balanced miraculously
 between the fronds.
  Victor didn't deny his condition. "Banjaxed, bombed, bug-eyed, and
  bingoed," he said without slurring his words. "Wonderful town, lavish
  hospitality, and vintage champagne. Very rare nowa-
  days                           He drawled to a stop like a clockwork toy
 that needed rewinding.
  "Better if you don't drive," I advised him. At least he didn't call it
  Tinseltown, the way some of them did.
  "Dot will drive," said Vic. "She's wonderful in the driving seat, aren't
  you, Dotty? Unless we can find a motel, that is." He slapped her rear
  gently, and she bared her teeth in an angry smile. He finished his
  champagne. "I think I need another drink, a real drink this time."
  "You've had enough, Vic. We've got to go," she said.
  She took him by the arm, and he allowed himself to be guided away. "When
  you've got to go, you've got to go. Right, Mickey, my old lovely?"
  "Sure," I said. "See you around, Victor. 'Bye, Dot." He turned and, with
  one hand on her buttocks, shepherded her toward the bar. I wondered if he
  knew that Petrovitch had put a partner into my law business. If not, this
  didn't seem to be the right time to discuss it. Victor waved a
  splay-fingered hand in the air. He didn't look back. He seemed to know I'd
  be watching him go and calculating how much I was going to lose in fees
  next year. Oh, well, I hate crooks. I should never have become a lawyer.
 50 LEN DEIGHTON

  The reception line was still going, but people were no longer coming
  through the door. This was a celebration for employees and associates, and
  these guests didn't come late to a Petrovitch bash if they knew what was
  good for them. I decided to get a closer look at Peter the Great, whom
  someone seemed so keen to murder, and inched my way across the room to
  where the bright lights and TV cameras had been arranged just in case
  Petrovitch deigned to step over and tell the hushed American public the
  secret of making untold millions of dollars while still looking young and
  beautiful enough to run for President. He was dressed in a dark blue silk
  tuxedo with a frilly blue shirt, floppy bow tie, and patent shoes with gold
  buckles. He had a loose gold bracelet and lots of gold rings and a thin
  gold watch on a thin gold bracelet: more jewelry than his wife, in fact.
  He was tall and well-built and didn't look as if he'd need the help of
  Goldie or any of his muscle men to look after himself. His face was bronzed
  and clear, almost like the skin of a young woman, and his eyes were blue
  and active, moving as if he was expecting physical attack. Maybe Goldie had
  told him about the bomb in the phone.
  As I got near the people thronging around him, the thin elderly man at his
  side said, "And this is Mr. Murphy of the law partnership downtown."
  "Mickey!" said Petrovitch. "It's a longtime." He extended his hand and gave
  me a firm pumping shake while grabbing my elbow in his other hand. It was
  another of those Hollywood handshakes, and with it he gave me a Hollywood
  smile and that very
                   VIOLENT WARD   51

 very sincere Hollywood stare too. I wonder if he did it the same way in
 New York. "How are tricks, buddy?"
   "What a memory you've got," I said.
  "You fighting the taxi driver, to make him take me to the hotel? How
  could I forget?" Another big smile. "You drank me under the table. It
  doesn't happen often." The thin elderly sidekick smiled too, both men
  operated by the same machinery.
  "Just hold it like that!" It was a photographer crouching down low to
  sight up one of those shots that make tycoons look statuesque.
  "It's okay," Petrovitch told me, indicating the photographer. "He's one
  of our people." With that comforting reassurance, he grabbed my hand
  again and held it still so it didn't blur, while turning his head away
  from me to give the camera a big smile. A flash captured this contrived
  moment for history.
  "Murphy," I heard the elderly man tell the photographer. "Mickey:
  business associate and old Marine Corps friend." The photographer wrote
  it down.
  The thin elderly man smiled, and a gentle pressure upon the small of my
  back propelled me out of the shot as another business associate and old
  friend of Mr. Petrovitch was given the handshake and smile treatment.
  With the benediction still ringing in my ears, I shuffled off through
  the crush. I saw Goldie standing guard just a few paces away. He met my
  eyes and grinned. That guy really earned his salary, judging by the
  matter-of-fact way he defused
 52 LEN DEIGHTON

 bombs. Wondering how often such things happened to them, I went to the bar
 and got another whisky. "Old Marine Corps friend." What was that guy talk-
 ing about? I looked around. This wasn't really a party, it was a press
 call with drinks and music. Petrovitch had the clean-cut film-star image
 and the rags-to-riches story that America loves. Tonight he was showing
 once again that he knew exactly how to turn a few thousand dollars' worth
 of tax-deductible entertaining into a message to his stockholders that
 sent his prices soaring when the rest of the market was struggling to keep
 afloat.
  "Did you get your press kit?" A pretty girl in a striped leotard tried
  to hand me a bulky packet while her companion offered me a pink-colored
  flute of champagne.
  I declined both. "I'm drinking," I said, holding my whisky aloft.
  "Everyone has to have champagne," said the girl, pushing the glass into
  my free hand. "It's to toast Mr. Petrovitch's health and prosperity."
  "Oh, in that case..." I said. I took it, held it up, and poured it into
  a pot where miniature palms were growing.
  The girl gulped, smiled, and moved on. Dealing with folks who don't want
  to drink to the health and prosperity of Mr. Petrovitch had not been
  part of the training schedule.
  "I saw you do that, Mickey."
  I looked up; it was Ingrid Petrovitch, nde Ibsen, standing on the
  rostrum behind me. She looked ravishingly beautiful, just the way she'd
  been in my
                   VIOLENT WARD   53

 fevered high school dreams. She gave me a jokey scowl and waved a finger,
 the way she'd done back in those long-ago days when I'd pulled up at night
 in my father's car and suggested we climb into the back seat.
  "Hello, Ingrid," I said. It sounded dumb and I felt stupid, the way some
  people do feel when confronted by someone they love too much. I'd always
  been a klutz like that when I was with her: I never did figure out why.
  "Hello, Mickey," she said, very softly. "It's lovely to think that some
  things never change." She turned away and kept moving to where a line had
  formed to get a smile from her husband.
  "Ingrid ...
  She stopped. "Yes, Mickey?"
  "It's good to see you again."
  She smiled sweetly and moved on. I guess she was telling me I'd had my
  chance with her and blew it. And that was long ago. It was nice of her not
  to say it.
 CHAPTER 3
 I drove back from the Petrovitch bash with a lot of worries on my mind.
 The Ventura Freeway, U.S. 101, runs west to Woodland Hills but it doesn't
 run far enough or fast enough, because when you get there you might as
 well never have left the city.
  When we first went to live in Woodland Hills it was a village. Betty
  loved it. It was country-style living, she said, a great place to bring
  up children. A village, did I say? Now it's got all your user-unfriendly
  banks, plastic fast food, international highrise hotels with atriums and
  shopping malls with floors made from Italian marble, indoor palm trees,
  and fountains with colored lights, not to mention vagrants sleeping
  outdoors in cardboard boxes.
  They say this is a early-go-to-bed town, so who
                   VIOLENT WARD  55

 are all these guys doing the Freeway 101 assignment in the small hours?
 Newly waxed Porsches, dented Mazdas, Chevy pickups, stretch Caddies with
 dark glass and TV antennas-who are these guys? Tell me. That journey home
 took me the best part of an hour, crawling along in a pox of red lights. I
 tuned in to the news on the car radio. It was a litany of violence: a
 decomposing corpse found in a closet in Newport Beach, a liquor store
 stickup in Koreatown, a drive-by killing in Ramparts, and if that wasn't
 enough you could join the crowds in Westwood flocking to see a movie about
 a cannibalistic serial killer. That's show business?
  As I got near my house I saw blue-colored flashes illuminating the trees.
  Uh-huh? There were two black-and-whites parked on my frontage. One of them
  still had the beacon revolving and its doors open.
  I drove up and parked on my ramp. As I stopped and lowered the window, a
  young nervous cop came at me out of the darkness waving a handgun. "Are you
  the resident here?" He was a thin kid-straight out of the Police Academy,
  unless I'm very much mistaken-growing a straggly mustache to make himself
  look old enough to buy a beer without flashing ID.
  "You got it, kid. You want to point that thing away from me?"
  "Mr. MurphyT He looked up as the second car started up and pulled away.
  "That's right." As I said it, another cop arrived panting from somewhere
  behind my house. He was
 56 LEN DEIGHTON

 a plump old fellow with his pistol in his hand. He was oriental looking.
 You don't get many oriental cops, do you? Hispanics, yes; black guys,
 even; but how many Asian cops do you see?
  "What's going on?" I asked. I went to the door and got out my keys.
  "There was a prowler," said the-plump one. "A neighbor called it in. Saw
  someone in your yard. Do you want to go inside and see if he got entry?"
  "Confucius say, Cop with gun go first," I told him.
  Before anyone could go anywhere there was the sound of a nearby door
  catch, and the prowler light illuminated the doorstep of my next-door
  neighbor, Henry Klopstock. He'd come out to watch. He was some kind of
  English teacher at UCLA. His wife liked to call him Professor IGopstock.
  "Is everything okay, Mr. Murphy?" He was leaning across the orange
  trees, the flashing lights illuminating his lined face and five-o'clock
  shadow and his slicked-down hair. When my son was dating the IUopstock
  daughter he was all smiles and Hello Mickey. Then they split up-you know
  the way kids are-and suddenly he's giving me the "Mr. Murphy" syntax.
  "Sure it is. Didn't you hear the sirens? I always have a police escort
  now I'm running for mayor."
  "Okay, okay. Sorry I asked," he said. I saw him exchange rolling eye
  glances with the Asian cop. So why ask dumb questions, right?
  I went up the path and unlocked my front door and waited while the fat
  one stepped past me into
                  VIOLENT WARD   57

 the entry. Rex, my terrier, suddenly awoke and came scampering from the
 kitchen to growl at both of us.
  "It's me, Rex," I said.
  Rex crouched very low, crawled around, and watched resentfully. The cop
  looked at me, looked at Rex, and then stepped over him to jab the
  kitchen door with his nightstick. It moved just a little, but his second
  jab made the door open all the way. "Mind my paintwork, buddy," I said.
  "Try a little tenderness, like the song says."
  There was no one there, just the little safety lights that switch on
  automatically when it gets dark. He went from room to room, all through
  the house. I followed him. It wasn't really a search and he didn't do
  it like in the movies; he wasn't agile enough. He knew there was no one
  there, and he was determined to make me feel bad about making him do it.
  He just plodded around, puffing, sighing, and tapping the furniture with
  his baton. He wound up inspecting the stuff I've got decorating all the
  walls. Broadway posters and signed eight-byten glossies of the stars.
  My dad left me his collection, and I added to it. It goes back to Show
  Boat. Forgive me, Dad; it goes back to Rose Marie. It's the greatest.
  My dad got signed photos of everyone from Cole Porter to Ethel Merman.
  The cop inspected these pictures and posters without enthusiasm. "Seems
  like your intruder didn't get in." He said it like he was consoling me.
  "Is that your professional opinion?" I said.
  Having studied the titles of my books, the level
 58             LEN DEIGHTON

 of my whisky, the corn flakes supply, and the big colored photo of Danny
 that's on the breakfast counter, he turned to me, gave a grin, and hitched
 both thumbs into his gun belt. "That's right. You can rest your head on your
 pillow tonight and enjoy untroubled sleep."
  "You must be the poet who writes for the fortune cookies," I said.
  He smiled. "Just tickets."
  "For the police charity concert?" I said. "Who are you having this year-"
  "Yah, Miss Demeanor Washington and Felonious Monk," he interrupted me.
  "That's getting to be a tired old joke, Mr. Murphy."
  I knew he was just trying to make me feel bad about having him go inside
  first. But what is a cop paid to do anyway? Don't get me wrong; I like cops
  but not at the fold of a tough day, right? And not when they are doing a
  Lennie Bernstein with their nightstick.
  "Just you living in the house, Mr. Murphy?"
  "You got it."
  "Big place for just one person."
  "No, it's just the right size. Listen, wise guy, I've put this mansion on
  the market four times in a row with three different real estate dummies in
  different-colored blazers. Three times it went into escrow, and three times
  the deal fell apart. What else would you like to know?"
  "Nothing," said the cop. "You explicated it just fine." I followed him
  outside. Explicated: what kind of a word is that?
                   VIOLENT WARD   59

  We were standing out front smelling the orange trees, and I was
  remembering that if I roust these guys too much they might Breathalyze me,
  so I was taken suddenly good-natured: smiling and saying good night and
  thank you, and without any kind of warning there comes a noise and a
  scuffle as some dumb jerk of a burglar jumps out of my best bougainvillea
  and runs down the side alley.
  It was damned dark. The plump cop didn't hesitate for a second. He was off
  after him and moving with amazing speed for his age and weight and leg
  length. I couldn't see a thing in the darkness but I followed on as best
  I could, clearly hearing the clattering sounds of their feet and then the
  loud and fierce creak of my back fence as first the perpetrator and then
  the cop vaulted over it into my neighbor's yard. Behind me, I heard the
  scratchy sounds of voices on the police radio: the second cop was calling
  for backup. Then he changed his mind and said they were okay. What did he
  know? He was in the car with the heater on.
  The fugitive was scrambling across the backyards to the street on the
  other side of the block. I knew the scam. Some other perp would be
  arriving there in a car to pick him up. The newspapers kept saying it had
  become a popular modus operandi for these suburban break-in artists. The
  papers said the cops should be countering it with random patrols and
  better intelligence work. Those newspaper guys know everything, right?
  Sometimes I wonder why these guys and gals writing in the
 60 LEN DEIGHTON

 newspaper don't take over the whole world and make it faultless like them.
  Bam! Now I heard the noise of someone blundering into my neighbor's
  elaborate barbecue setup. Crash, crunch, and clatter; there go the
  grills and irons, the gas bottle thumps to the ground, and finally the
  tin trays are making a noise like a collapsing xylophone.
   "Owwwww ... errrrrr!"
  I stood there hoping it marked the perpetrator's downfall, but the cry
  had the tenor trill of the plump cop. "Watch out!" I shouted as loud as
  I could shout, but I was too late. Even before I reached the fence there
  was an almighty splash and another cry of anguish with a lot of shouting
  and gurgling.
  The other cop, the young thin one, came rushing over to me with his gun
  drawn. He looked at the fence. "What happened?"
  "Sounds like your partner went into my neighbor's pool."
  "Holy cow," he said quietly and glared at me. "You son of a bitch, you
  let him do that?"
  "Don't look at me," I said. "It's a pool, not a booby trap. We didn't
  dig it out in secret and cover it with leaves and twigs."
  "Are you all right, Steve?" he called into the darkness. I could hear
  his partner wading through the water.
  There was the sound of a man climbing onto dry land. "The bastard got
  away." The halfdrowned voice was low and breathless as he came back
  along the alley and opened my neighbor's side
                   VIOLENT WARD   61

 gate. Shoes slapped water; he was wringing it from his shirt. More water
 flooded off him as he squeezed his pants and continued cursing. He came very
 close to me, as if he was going to get violent: he smelled strongly of the
 pool chemicals that cut the algae back.
  "You'd better come in and dry off," I said. My neighbor was nowhere to be
  seen and all his lights were out. Professor lGopstock certainly knew when
  to make himself scarce.
  "Why don't you drop dead?" he replied. You'd think they would have been
  mad at my neighbor, but the wet one was acting like I'd switched off the
  pool lights and lured him on.
  "We'll get back to the precinct house," the dry one said. "We're off duty
  in thirty minutes."
  "Suit yourself," I said. Now that we were standing in the dim antiprowler
  light from my porch, I saw how wet he was. Up to his waist he was soaked,
  but his shoulders were only partly wet. He must have gone in at the
  shallow end, where all the toys and the inflated yellow alligator are
  floating, and recovered his balance before going under.
  "I should book you, smart-ass," said the wet one.
  Book me? "What for?"
  "Disorderly conduct," he said.
  "Next time you take a midnight dip," I said, "don't count on me for the
  kiss of life."
  "And next time you get burglarized, drop a dime to your interior
  decorator," he said. I guess he was mad that I'd told him not to chip my
  paintwork.
 62             LEN DEIGHTON

  They both got into the black-and-white, with the wet one moving carefully,
  and drove away. Once they'd sailed off into the night I went inside, poured
  myself a drink, sank down on the sofa, and kicked off my shoes. With a
  picture window in this town, who needs television? I looked around me; I
  should make more serious efforts to sell the house. Maybe if we swung a new
  office from Petrovitch I could rent a small service apartment somewhere
  nearby. If I could find a place real close, I could leave my car parked at
  the office. Why hadn't I sold years ago? I knew the answer. This is the
  house where I'd been happy. Betty had brought Danny back here from the
  hospital, and everything in the house reminded me of those days. Under the
  dining room table were two cardboard boxes containing ornaments and
  chinaware. When Betty first left me I decided to move out right away and
  started packing up the breakable stuff. But it was a dispiriting task and
  I soon gave up. Now the half-filled boxes were just collecting dust under
  a dining table I never used. I had to do something about my life; it was
  a mess.
  What a tacky day I'd had. And then, just to make it complete, the phone
  gets up on its hind legs and warbles at me. "Is that you, Mickey?" said a
  voice I recognized.
  "No, it's his valet. I'll put you through to the solarium."
  "This is Goldie," he said. "Goldie Arnez."
  "Yeah, I knew which one it was," I told him. "I
                   VIOLENT WARD  63

 haven't got a confusingly large number of acquaintances named Goldie."
  "You slipped away without my seeing you go."
  "Did I? I do that sometimes, when the hands are creeping toward the
  witching hour and I've swallowed too many of those sharp little sticks
  they spear the cocktail wieners on."
  "Mr. Petrovitch wants to talk with you."
  "Put him on."
  A polite little chuckle. "Tomorrow. Nine A.M. sharp. At Camarillo
  airport. Bring all the papers concerning Vic Crichton's deal with the
  British lord. The British companies and all."
  "Camarillo?"
  "It's a short drive down the freeway, Mickey. And at that time of day
  you should have the westbound side all to yourself"
  "I would have thought a rich guy like that would have a hangar in John
  Wayne or Santa Monica, some place with a fancy restaurant."
  "I got news for you. Rich guys like that have a chef right on the plane,
  cooking them all the fancy food they can eat."
  "In the main building? Where will I find him?"
  "There's no main building. You'll spot his limo: white with tinted
  glass. Just make sure you bring the papers, like I said."
  "I'm not sure I can do that. Those papers concern a client. There is a
  matter of confidentiality involved."
  "Just bring the files."
 64             LEN DEIGHTON

  "Like I'm telling you, Goldie. This is a matter of confidentiality,
  client-attorney confidentiality."
  "Are you getting senile amnesia or something? One of the Petrovitch
  holding companies now owns your whole bailiwick. Remember, old buddy?"
  "That makes no difference in law. You can't buy a law practice. All
  that's happened is that we've taken on a new partner of Mr. Petrovitch's
  choosing. And I haven't even met him yet."
  "You play it any way you choose, Mickey. You were always a maverick. But
  if I were in your shoes I'd be at Camarillo airport with my notebook
  under my arm and my pencil sharpened."
  "I'll have to think about it." I was already thinking about it, and my
  thoughts were negative. That stuff went a long way back. Take the note-
  books: Denise had filled them with that impenetrable shorthand of hers.
  Who knows what any of us might have said in some of those brainstorming
  sessions?
  "Yes, you think about it," said Goldie. "But don't talk to Crichton or
  Lord Westbridge or any of their people. Got it?"
  "Did Petrovitch tell you to insert that clause into this tacky ultimatum
  of yours?"
  "It's not an ultimatum." Then he amended it. "But, yes. As a matter of
  fact, Mickey, yes, he did."
  "Tell him to get lost," I said.
  "I won't relay that message. You be there in the morning, and if you
  still feel the same way you'll be able to tell him in person."
  "Okay. ~1
                   VIOLENT WARD   65

  He was reluctant to hang up; he wasn't sure he'd threatened me enough.
  "Better still, what say we meet in Tommy's on Ventura? Do you still go
  there for breakfast?"
  "Sometimes."
  "Seven-thirty?"
  "Okay," I said. I guess Goldie wanted time enough to send the hounds
  after me if I didn't show UP.
  "Sleep on it, Mickey. If you want to talk to me anytime at all, day or
  night, the eight hundred number on the card I gave you is my cellular
  phone."
  "Thanks." Goldie was the only man I knew with his own personal eight
  hundred number.
  "You'll see reason," said Goldie.
  When I'd sipped a little more of my whisky I had a sudden inspiration.
  I went to my dressing room-it's a walk-in closet, really-and to the
  place where my personal safe is hidden behind a locked panel. My
  heavy-duty fireproof-steel money box was alive and well and locked up
  tight. There was nothing in it that could be of much value to a thief
  There were my insurance papers, the deeds of the house, and a dozen or
  so three-and-a-half-inch floppies that I copied from my computer each
  week and brought back for safekeeping. But now that I looked again at
  it, a closer inspection revealed faint gray streaks along the edge of
  the wooden outer panel. I couldn't think of any way those marks could
  have got there-I don't let the cleaning lady come into the dressing
  room-so maybe the intruder had got
 66 LEN DEIGHTON

 inside. Maybe he'd just started on the combination lock when my neighbor's
 911 call had interrupted him. The sort of intruder who goes housebreaking
 equipped with watchmaker's tools would have brought with him a police
 scanner to monitor the call and would have got out before the black-andwhite
 arrived. Maybe he'd stayed outside, stayed real still, hoping everyone would
 go away before his pal came to collect him. Wow! So who's been eating my
 grandmother?
  I twirled the combination lock, opened the door of the safe, and looked
  inside. My stomach turned over. Flopped on top of a bundle of papers was
  an ugly brown withered hand, a severed hand. I jumped back like it was
  going to bite me. I looked again. There it was, like a huge tarantula
  poised to strike. It made me want to vomit. A hand! In a foolish and
  useless gesture I pushed the safe door closed while I went and got a
  flashlight from the garage.
  With the light I could see right into the safe. Now that the light was
  shining on it I could see it was a glove, a heavy-duty protective glove
  used in factories and warehouses. I pulled the papers forward, holding
  papers and glove under the ceiling light to see it better. It was a leather
  glove, bent, battered, and whitened in use, the kind that might have been
  rescued from some industrial garbage bin. Even now it took me a moment or
  two before I could touch it. It seemed to be pulsating with life, but then
  I realized my hand was trembling. There was no message with it, but it was
  just the kind of
                   VIOLENT WARD  67

 prank that Goldie would pull on a guy who might not at first see reason.
  This was getting a little too rich for my diet. I flipped open my
  notebook and called the Century Plaza, where Vic Crichton was staying.
  They put the call through to his suite and it was answered immediately.
  I said, "Can I speak to Vic?"
  "He's not here. This is Mrs. Crichton. What is it about?"
  "Dorothy, this is Mickey. We were talking tonight, remember? I know
  Victor was pretty smashed but drag him out of bed and order some coffee
  from room service, honey. We've got to talk."
  "My name is not Dorothy. This is Mrs. Crichton, and I've just arrived
  from London, and I'm waiting for him to get back. Who is this?"
  Shit! All these British voices sound the same to me, especially after
  a long day at the office. "Murphy. I'm Sir Jeremy's West Coast attorney.
  I'll call again when you've had a chance to settle in."
  "You say you saw Victor tonight?"
  "No. I mean, it must have been someone else. It looked very like him,
  but it gets crowded at the health club, and I was in the pool with the
  chlorinated water getting in my eyes."
  "I planned to surprise him," said Mrs. Crichton. "But there are no
  messages here, and the office number I have doesn't answer."
  Surprise him; she'd do that, all right, and surprise his girlfriend too
  if they both went back to his hotel. "I'm sure he'll show up," I said.
  "Will you ask
 68 LEN DEIGHTON

 him to phone Murphy? Tell him it's a matter of life or death."
  "Life or death?"
  -rm exaggerating," I readily admitted. "This is Southern California;
  everything is a bit larger than life around here. And a bit smaller than
  death."
  "I'll tell him."
  "Thank you, Mrs. Crichton."
  I hung up, and then I began worrying whether some bastard had tapped my
  phone. I would have unscrewed the handset and looked for a hidden mi-
  crophone, the way they do in movies, except that this was a Japanese phone
  with a handset of welded plastic.
  "What should I do about the paperwork, Rex?" I said, but Rex had
  disappeared. He always was a go-to-bed-early kind of dog.
  I felt like going to bed too, but the Westbridge files, three boxes of
  them, were in my downtown office, some twenty-five miles away. And
  Camarillo was forty miles in the other direction. Why did I pick up that
  lousy phone? Why didn't I let Goldie leave his messages on my answering
  machine?
  I had to have something to show that bastard Petrovitch. I mean, I wasn't
  in a position to tell him to drop dead. When the deal went through and my
  check was cashed then maybe it would be different, but not right now.
  Goldie was right; no matter about the fine print, the fact was that
  Petrovitch owned me and the whole kit and caboodle. Maybe the written
  record was secret, but all those sheets of paper, on which it was typed or
  written, were
                   VIOLENT WARD   69

 owned by him. So what did I do? I went and climbed back into my Caddie.
  By four o'clock in the morning I was sitting in my office sorting out
  all the Westbridge stuff with a big industrial-size shredder at my side.
  It was spooky in that place in the dead of night. In the street there
  were some strange people patrolling, I'll tell you: hookers, drug
  dealers, and kids from the gangs, armed to the teeth and pupils dilated.
  The janitor was useless. He has an apartment as part of the deal but he
  didn't budge from it. I could have rolled the whole building away
  without his coming down to see where we were headed.
  I boiled some water and stole a little of Miss Huth's instant and found
  where she stashed the chocolate chip cookies. Then I went through the
  papers sheet by sheet. I made three piles: one, don't matter; two, grand
  jury for Vic Crichton; three, trouble for Murphy. And I'm telling you
  I made sure everything in the third pile was shredded into paper worms,
  shaken, and stirred too. As I sorted through that stuff I saw indiscreet
  little items that could have had me disbarred a dozen times over. I
  didn't take a deep breath until only two piles remained. Trouble for
  Westbridge, Inc., was something I could endure.
  Then I crammed all the totally innocuous stuff into my best pigskin
  document case. With that done I sprinkled a few trouble-for-Westbridge
  items over them just to make it look kosher and stuffed it tight and
  strapped it down. Then I took the more delicate Westbridge material-one
  three-quarter-full
 70 LEN DEIGHTON

 Perrier-water box of it-and put it into my trunk and drove back home with
 it.
  I put it on a rafter in the garage together with a lot of other
  cardboard boxes that had formerly contained my desktop computer, my
  microwave oven, my coffee maker, and all that kind of stuff, because if
  you don't keep the cardboard boxes the stores won't fix items that go
  on the blink. Did you know that? They won't fix them without the boxes.
  The dust and dirt I dislodged from that garage made me dirty enough to
  need a good long hot shower. By the time I was through washing up there
  was no time for sleep. I changed into a sport coat and cords to show all
  concerned that this wasn't a part of my regular schedule and then went
  along Ventura Boulevard to Tommy's Coffee Shop.
 CHAPTER 4
 Fancy Goldie remembering our breakfasts in Tommy's. It's one of those
 restaurants that open at dawn and close in the early afternoon. I parked
 at the back. The sun crept out of the darkness and peeked over the roofs,
 to be reflected in my lovely old Caddie. With its original gold-colored
 paint job, it was spectacular. I stood there admiring it for a long time;
 I love that car. Even the radio was original. It would have made a
 stunning color photo the way it looked that morning. Maybe I should buy
 myself a camera.
  I went in through the back door. Already the dining room was crowded
  with men on their way to work. Brawny fellows in bib overalls and plaid
  work shirts, men who adjusted machinery, fixed
 72 LEN DEIGHTON

 appliances, and mended utilities; straight-speaking American heroes like
 my mother's brothers.
  Goldie was already there, sitting near the window, watching the cook
  cracking eggs and flipping hash browns on the shiny steel griddle. We
  said our hellos. Goldie looked tired. Judging by the clothes he was
  wearing and the blue chin, he'd been up all night. The smell of bacon
  got my appetite roused and I went ape and ordered sausages, bacon, fried
  eggs, pancakes with butter and syrup, toast, honey, and coffee. It was
  just like being back with my folks. The coffee was fine, the eggs went
  over easy, and it was the only place around there that opens at five
  thirty in the morning.
  "Hello, Mr. Murphy," said Cindy. She picked up Goldie's empty plate and
  gave him a refill of coffee.
  "Boy, are you looking great, Cindy!" I'd known Cindy Lewis for years.
  She was a hardworking, sensible woman with two grown daughters. Her hus-
  band had been a marine killed in'Nam. back in the early days. When Danny
  was very young she'd regularly come in to baby-sit for us.
  "It's work that keeps me in shape," she said,
 while she watched me eating. "I tell the young ones
 that but they don't listen. People have forgotten
 how to work. My next-door neighbor is a nice old
 Japanese gentleman who works at Northrop. That
 poor man can't even go into his own front yard to
 water ' his flowers and plants without people think
 ing he's a gardener. They can't believe he gardens
                   VIOLENT WARD  73

 for himself; they pester him all the time with offers of work."
  Goldie nodded soberly. I had a feeling he was going to doze off at any
  moment.
  "Can you beat that?" I said, but oh, boy, I could well believe it. The two
  dumb jerks doing my garden knew as much about gardening as they knew about
  nuclear physics, and they were charging me an arm and a leg. They popped
  in for ten minutes of grass-cutting every Friday morning and didn't even
  take the clippings and leaves away afterward. I tried to remember exactly
  where Cindy lived. I had driven her back there a million times. Next-door
  neighbor, eh? I mean: how much could they be paying him at Northrop?
  "I've been waiting for you to look in, Mr. Murphy; you can settle a bet
  for me. It was Frank Loesser wrote 'Brother, Can You Spare a DimeT Wasn't
  it? I was arguing with my young brother; he thinks he knows everything.
  Back me up, will you? I've got ten dollars riding on it."
  "Too bad. You lost your money, Cindy. Words by Yip Harburg, music by Jay
  Gorney."
  She didn't seem too devastated at losing her ten bucks. She shook her head
  in admiration. "He should go on one of those TV quiz shows," she told
  Goldie. Goldie nodded. She had an exaggerated respect for anything she
  preceived as education.
  I dredged my memory: "Written for a show called Americana sometime in the
  early thirties."
  Cindy refilled my coffee cup. "I can't remember a darn thing these days,"
  she admitted cheerfully.
 74 LEN DEIGHTON

 "I keep forgetting to tell you about your car, Mr. Murphy." She poured
 coffee for the guys at the next table and then came back to me. "Maybe
 somebody else told you already. That old car of yours, it's dripping oil
 everywhere."
   "I know; it's nothing," I said.
  "I noticed it when you drove away last week. A big pool of oil."
  "It's nothing that matters," I said. "Probably a gasket."
  "Why don't you get yourself a nice new car? Now your company has been
  bought out and everything."
  "Are you crazy?" I said. "That's a valuable vintage car."
  "Those Japanese cars are very reliable. My grandson has one. He's got
  a great deal: ninety-nine dollars a month. It's a lovely little car.
  Bright green. Four doors, radio, and everything. So comfortable and
  reliable." Goldie was looking at me with a stupid smile on his face.
  "And I haven't been bought out." Maybe I said it too loudly.
  "I didn't mean anything." She poured coffee for me.
  "Everybody keeps telling me I'm rich, except I don't get the dough. So
  don't go around saying I've been bought out."
  She looked at me and at Goldie and nodded. I could see what she was
  thinking. She was thinking I was making millions of dollars and hiding
  it away
                   VIOLENT WARP   75

 somewhere. "I thought I'd better tell you about the oil," she said, and
 walked away.
  "Stupid woman," I told Goldie. "Japanese cars. I don't want to hear about
  Japanese cars."
  Goldie said, "Did you bring everything?"
  "I brought everything," I said. Goldie nodded.
  I devoured the whole breakfast and even wiped the plate with bread. Was it
  a sign of nerves? I always eat too much when I'm tense. I wish I was one
  of these skinny joes who go off food when they are under stress, but with
  me it works just the other way. Anyway, it was a delicious breakfast:
  cholesterol cooked just the way I like it.
  Then I reached into my leather case and brought out the glove I'd found in
  my safe. I put it on the table. Goldie looked at it without emotion. "Is
  this yours?" I asked him.
  "Could be. I've got one just like it at home."
  "You son of a bitch."
  "Now we're quits," said Goldie. "Don't fool with my phones in future." He
  raised those heavy-lidded eyes of his to look at me.
  "I didn't plant that bomb, Goldie."
  "You just happened to want to make a call? You just happened to notice the
  wiring? Is that it?"
  "Of course it is. I didn't plant that bomb."
  "Maybe not, but I think you know who did. And you made sure I found it. I
  get the message, Mickey. Is this something you dreamed up with Budd Byron?"
  "What's Budd got to do with it?"
 76 LEN DEIGHTON

  "He's the one you promised to get a gun for, remember?"
  "This is too much! Are you bugging my office?"
  "It's not your office any longer. You work for us now."
  I got to my feet and put some money on the table. Goldie reached out and
  grabbed my arm. "These are big boys, Mickey. This isn't a Monopoly game,
  it's real life. Ask yourself, pal. When big corporations are pushing
  hundreds of millions of dollars around the board, they are not deterred
  by some little guy reading aloud the instructions on the box lid." He
  looked at me. "They'll squash you like a bug."
  "Keep your guys out of my house," I said. I pulled away from his grip,
  picked up the glove, and tossed it at him. "You pull a routine like that
  again, and I'll fix you in a way you won't like."
  "Turn off at the water tower," said Goldie. "It's a white limo with
  tinted glass, parked near the main hangar."

  Camarillo airport is a onetime military field with six thousand feet of
  concrete runway, one hundred and fifty feet wide, and that's more than
  enough to land Petrovitch's plane even if old Petey himself is at the
  yoke nursing a hangover. I knew the field. For years, when driving on
  Route 101, I'd stolen a glance at the old blue-and-white Lockheed
  Constellation that marked the end of the runway.
  I recognized the freeway exit ramp. I used to
                   VIOLENT WARD   77

 take Danny up that way to buy strawberries. Danny loved strawberries. I
 remember the first time he saw the strawberry fields-miles of them all the
 way to mountains-he could scarcely believe it was all real. Betty liked them
 too. We regularly bought berries there and took along a big tub of ice cream
 and had a feast in the car.
  I turned in at the water tower, I went past the huts that are now
  municipal offices and spotted the biggest of big white cars, a regular
  Moby Dick of a limo. The driver must have been told to watch for me; he
  flashed the lights. He was parked on the far side of the big red notice
  that said AUTHORIZED VEHCILES ONLY BEYOND THIS POINT. Where else would Pe-
  trovitch want to be?
  The driver, a pugnacious youngster with a battered ear, jumped out of his
  seat brandishing what looked like a wire coat hanger fixed to a transistor
  radio. It was a metal detector, and he used it to locate a bunch of keys
  and three dollars' worth of coins in my pocket.
  Seemingly unafraid of being assaulted with a handful of loose change,
  Petrovich was leaning well back in the real leather and sipping hot coffee
  and looking like a million dollars. How do people do that so early in the
  mornine. I had a splitting headache, red eyes, and disheveled hair.
  "Hello, Mickey," he said.
  Maybe I've given you the idea that Petrovich was a close buddy of mine.
  Not so. He was just a rich, glamorous personality who kept crossing my
  path, which is a zone into which not many glamor-
   78             LEN DEIGHTON

 ous personalities allow themselves to stray. I'd seen him a hundred times
or
 more but always across a crowded room. And when I did find myself having a
 conversation with him, he needed a sidekick at his ear to tell him who I
 was. But today there was no sidekick: just the maestro himself, sitting in
 the back seat of his stretch, dressed in a World War Two-style leather
 flying jacket, open-neck silk shirt, zip-sided boots, and neatly pressed
 Bedford trousers.
  "Hello, Zach," I said, getting into the seat alongside him. "What's on
  your mind?"
  "Someone tried to kill me last night." He looked at me with cold gray
  eyes. I recalled Goldie's warning about being squashed like a bug. No
  matter how civilized they looked, guys like Petrovitch and Westbridge had
  reached the head of the line by stepping over a lot of inert bodies.
  "I know, I was the one who found the bomb."
  Without a flicker of emotion he said, "Goldie thinks you were involved."
  "Goldie is out of his mind," I said.
  "You're wrong; Goldie is a good man. Very efficient."
  "How would a bomb in a back office endanger you?" I said. "You weren't
  planning to spend the evening sitting there waiting for the phone to ring,
  were you? Someone rigs up a lethal gadget like that, it would kill one of
  your sidekicks."
  "Go on," he said, without sounding very interested. "You've got my
  attention. You think it was nothing to do with me?"
                   VIOLENT WARD   79

  "Ask yourself'. What client or associate do you have who is so important
  that you'd sprint upstairs to take the call in person? Were you expecting
  some special call last night?"
  "No, I wasn't." He waited and then said, "Does this puzzle come with a
  solution, or do I have to wait till the next installment?"
  "Who came out of it looking real good?"
  "What do you mean?l~
  "Mr. Super Efficient."
  "You think it's some kind of gimmick to make Goldie shine like bullion?"
  He laughed. Still speaking slowly, he said, "How I'd love to believe that.
  The problem with that one is that Goldie tells me going up to that office
  was your idea, not his. He says you came in asking to use the telephone.
  Did he get that wrong?"
  Ouch. He had me there. "I wanted to phone my partner," I said. I'd been
  about to put the poison in for Goldie, and complain about his breaking into
  my house, but now that didn't look like such a good gambit.
  There was a long silence; then Petrovitch said, "Well, it's dam nice of you
  to trail out here." He made it sound as if I'd insisted upon doing it
  against his urgings. "I'm about to finalize a little deal with Sir
  Westbridge, and I know you know him well."
  "Sir Jeremy," I said.
  "How's that?" He opened the door of a little veneered cupboard and pointed
  his finger. Built into the space between and behind the front seats there
 80             LEN DEIGHTON

 was a mirror-fronted bar, icebox, and coffee dispenser.
  "Not Sir Westbridge," I told him. "Sir Jeremy. Sir is a title. It goes
  with the first name, not the family name."
  "Is that right? Coffee?"
  "Yes, please."
  "Help yourself." He settled back and watched me while I fiddled to get
  a cup off the little shelf without knocking the glasses over and poured
  hot coffee into it. I found a packet of nondairy creamer, tipped some
  into the swirling black mix, and stirred it well before sipping some.
  My God, it was a filthy concoction. I watched little islands of powdered
  milk substitute bumping into one another and spinning around at a
  dizzying rate. It made me want to throw up. I put the cup back into the
  little cupboard. Rich guys eat any kind of filth; I noticed that when
  I was a waiter downtown working my way through college. Any kind of
  filth as long as it costs!
  'Vell, Sir Jeremy came to me saying he lacked liquidity ... that's the
  delicate way these European aristocrats say in deep shit." Petrovitch
  grinned. "I'm trying to make the shit he's in a little more liquid."
  "They don't confide in me," I said.
  "Now they tell me the old guy is dead. But I think he had to leave town
  in a hurry. What do you know about that?"
  "It's news to me."
  "They may be friends of yours," said Petrovitch, "but these guys are
  crooks. Did you know
                   VIOLENT WARD  81

 Crichton carries a gun everywhere he goes? Why would a businessman be
 carrying a gun unless he figures on using it?"
  "I don't know anything about them. They are not friends," I said. "They are
  clients."
  "Touch6, old buddy." He laughed grimly. "Well, maybe we're in accord after
  all. I'm in the throes of a deal with these people and I plan to go through
  with it. But I don't like them and I don't trust them. Say, what is in that
  damned leather case you are hugging so tight?"
  "Westbridge paper-work."
  "Jesus Christ, Mickey. Don't show me that stuff" He gave a brief derisive
  laugh. "You've got a professional relationship with them. You could get
  yourself thrown into prison."
  "Goldie Arnez told me to bring it."
  Petrovitch laughed briefly. "Well, even Goldie gets a little too
  enthusiastic at times. He's a loyal guy but a gorilla at heart.... No, put
  that document case away."
  I suddenly thought I might be able to make my rather hasty decision to fire
  Westbridge into Petrovitch's responsibility. "Do you want the partnership
  to continue to act for Westbridge?"
  "Why not?"
  "Conflict of interests. Also, I think they are being investigated. It could
  spatter everyone."
  "Is that why you brought their paperwork?"
  "I told you why I brought it."
  He smiled. "Don't rock the boat until the deal has gone through. After that
  we'll think about it."
 82 LEN DEIGHTON

  I put the case back down on the beautiful carpeting. You sadistic
  bastard, Petrovitch. He just made me bring that bag full of documents
  out to him so I would know that when the chips were down Petrovitch
  called the shots. Now we had established that he was the boss. I was the
  hustler, but he would save my soul. And now he knew that any time he
  cracked the whip and held aloft the fiery ring, Mickey Murphy would run
  and jump through it for him. I won't forget this, you bastard!
  "What do you know about California laws and charity setups?"
  "Not a thing," I said. I watched him. He savored that stale coffee as
  if it were ChAteau Margaux.
  "But you lowered the boom on two swindlers who were milking a phony
  charity last year. You got yourself an admirer in the prosecutor's
  office. She told me it was your discovery procedure that sent them away
  for fifteen years."
  Not only was this guy spying on me, he was boasting about it. He was
  bugging my office, burglarizing my home, and looking in my safe. How can
  you deal with people like that?
  "Your informant was exaggerating," I said. "It was a little downtown
  Korean charity, and my partners did most of the preparation. They spoke
  the language and pried the papers loose. I would have had nothing to do
  with it except that my partner Charlie got killed in an accident. My
  other partner, Billy Kim, was busy being Charlie's executor so I took
  the case to court."
                   VIOLENT WARD   83

  Airplane noise made conversation impossible. A C-130 Hercules passed
  overhead, a snarling orange and gray monster that was in the circuit for
  the naval air base at nearby Point Mugu. We waited for the sound to
  abate.
  "I need someone who knows his way around the charity business," said
  Petrovitch. "Ingrid is on a committee. I don't want her to get entangled
  with the law. Are you free this weekend? We'll be in Aspen."
  "I can be, Zach, sure."
  "Vic Crichton will be a houseguest. I'm hoping to catch him in the right
  mood and get some sort of agreement roughed out. And you can talk to In-
  grid."
  A man in coveralls came over to the car and said the plane was ready to
  go. Petrovitch said, "Has my own engineer checked it out?"
  "Sure thing, Mr. Petrovitch. He's over there now with your pilot. She's
  been running real sweet this morning."
  "Is that all?" I asked.
  Leaning very close to me, he put his hand out, softly touching my
  necktie like he was searching for the beat of my heart. "I hope I've got
  it right, about you being Mr. Nice Guy," he said in a hoarse whisper.
  For a moment the real Petrovitch was on display, and it was not a pretty
  sight. "Because I hate myself if I misjudge people. I kind of go ape and
  arrange for things to happen that I'm sorry about afterward." His eyes
  were still and icy and unseeing, as if he was looking through me.
 84 LEN DEIGHTON

  "I know the feeling," I said and brushed his hand away.
  As he started to get out, the driver jumped out of his seat and almost
  wrenched the door off its hinges in his excitement. "Sit still and
  finish your coffee," Petrovitch told me. "Have something stronger if you
  want."
  "I'm cutting back on coffee," I said. Coffee like this, I should have
  added. I was counting the minutes to getting to the nearest pharmacy for
  AlkaSeltzer on the rocks. Petrovitch straightened up and looked at
  something on the horizon. Flying very low I saw a navy Tomcat; there
  were fighters based at Point Mugu, and their circuit passed along the
  edge of the Camarillo field. This one flashed past behind the eucalyptus
  trees and was gone; the roar came afterward.
  "Look at them go," said Petrovitch admiringly. "What wouldn't I give to
  change places with one of those navy jocks!"
  "Semper Fi."
  "What's that? Oh, yeah, Semper Fi," he said.
  I watched Petrovitch walking out to the apron, waving his hands in the
  air as he shouted to a white-shirted engineer who was dancing around him
  all the way. Petrovitch was an inscrutable personality. I couldn't get
  the connections between mind and body. Talk about fly by wire-I'd guess
  Petrovitch would rather die than let anyone know what he was really
  thinking. Maybe that's what big money does to people, or what kind of
  people make big money. I wondered if Ingrid was like that now
                  VIOLENT WARD   85

 she was a part of the big bucks society. I watched Petrovitch standing
 arms akimbo as his jet was rolled out of the hangar. White, with a special
 redstripe paint job with PETROVITCH ENTERPRISES INTERNATIONAL painted
 across the tail. "A ship like that really costs," said the driver, as if
 reading my thoughts.
  "It sure beats Economy seating on Aero Mexico," I said.
  "They have to be sure," explained the driver. "They're worrying a lot
  right now. Ever since last month; they have to be sure."
  "That's right," I said, wondering what the hell a good-looking guy with
  a gorgeous wife and money falling out of his shoes had to be worried
  about.
  I suppose he was counting on my asking him about it, because before I
  could think of any way of delving deeper into the oracle he said, "It
  was a wrench they found in the engine. A regular wrench from a tool kit,
  so there was no way of being certain that it was sabotage. But from then
  on, the plane gets a twenty-four-hour guard and is checked again from
  tip to tail before every takeoff."
  "You can't be too careful," I said, opening the door and splashing the
  remains of my coffee onto the tarmac. "A guy who finds a wrench in his
  engine compartment should go through his address book and see if he's
  been going to dancing class with someone his folks didn't invite to his
  parties." I reached into the glittering little mirrored box and grabbed
  a fifth of Jack Daniels I'd spotted behind the decanters. "Enemies with
  style, know what I
 86 LEN DEIGHTON

 mean?" As I upended the bottle and took a quick swig, I met the driver's
 eyes in the mirror. He was watching me, the snooping bastard.
  "What causes a car to drip oil from the sump?" I asked him, wiping my
  lips, replacing the bottle, and closing the little door of the bar. "Is
  that something simple to fix?"
  "Did you look for a wrench?" he asked slyly.
  Goddamned comedian.
  It was then that I remembered something about the bomb. I'd asked to use
  Goldie's cell phone. Going to that office was his idea.

  Coming from the airport at Camarillo along the 101 to town, you
  practically have to pass the front door of my house in Woodland Hills.
  But I didn't pass it. After a night without sleep I needed some
  shut-eye. I went home. After calling Miss Huth to tell her I had a
  number of important appointments near Woodland Hills and would come back
  to the office in the early afternoon, I closed the curtains, undressed,
  and went to bed.
  I remember hearing the Mopstocks' gardeners arrive with all their noisy
  machinery but they didn't spend long on the job. These guys weren't
  dedicated horticulturalists; they weren't dedicated anything. It didn't
  take long before I was sound asleep.
  I was awakened by the telephone and the operator asking me if I would
  accept a collect call from Phoenix.
                   VIOLENT WARD  87

  "Mickey? It's Billy: Billy Mm."
  "Hi," I said sleepily. "How did you find me?"
  "Magda said she thought you were at home sleeping off a hangover."
  "Miss Huth said that?" What a nerve she had, when I'd told her I was
  working.
  "Mickey. I'm in a little trouble."
  "You didn't get into drag again and goose all the bridesmaids?"
  "I've got no time for your Irish jokes. I was hit by a RV full of drunks
  on the freeway. My car is totaled and I'm in the hospital."
  "Jesus, Billy. You okay?"
  "I'm just a little shaken, but they're doing tests. I wanted to fly back
  today, but then I suddenly figured that if I discharge myself from the
  hospital it might affect my legal position with the insurance company."
  "But you are okay?"
  "Hairline fractures of the bones in my hand, nothing. But they're still
  doing tests and stuff. You know what hospitals are like."
  "Is there anything I can do at this end?" I said. I wasn't looking for
  extra work, but Billy had done me so many favors I was in debt to him.
  "Yeah, quite a lot."
  "Say the word."
  "If you look in the safe there is a packet of money there. I want you to
  pay off the Reverend Edgar Stojil: Rainbow, they call him. Do you know who
  I mean?"
  "Sure, he's famous. I saw him at a party: tall
 88 LEN DEIGHTON

 thin guy with sideburns and a red face. He runs a shelter for the
 homeless, right?"
  "The Rainbow's End Shelter for Homeless Men. That's him. Give him all
  the money in the package. There's about eight grand there. Get two grand
  more out of your account to make it up to ten. Cash; he won't take
  checks. I'll pay you back as soon as I get out. Can you do that?"
  "Sure, Billy." I wanted to ask him what it was all about, but I figured
  he'd tell me in good time. Billy Kim always had lots of action going,
  with his investments in restaurants and nail salons and so on.
  "Go down to the shelter, and the Reverend will give you a new U.S.
  passport and tell you what else to do. It's complicated, but I don't
  want to go through it on the phone."
  "Okay."
  "It may take a little time," he said. "Half a day, maybe." I think he
  was disappointed that he didn't have to talk me into it. "Take my spare
  house keys from the safe too. You might need them."
  "How urgent is all this?"
  "Could you see him today, Mickey? I was expecting to be there. Make sure
  you get the passport before you hand over the dough."
  "Okay."
  "And Mickey ... you might recognize some of the people involved. Don't
  be mad at me."
  "We'll talk money later," I said. Billy was always doing deals on the
  side, and snatching other people's clients was his specialty.
                   VIOLENT WARD  89

  The Reverend Rainbow Stojil was the sort of freak created for TV talk
  shows-or maybe by them. His fluffy white sideburns made him easily
  recognized, and his well-modulated speaking voice was classless and without
  regional identification. And did he ooze charm! He was smoking a cheroot
  when I went in to see him. It went well with his black suit and clerical
  collar but the spilled ash showed.
  The Rainbow Rooms-as the wags referred to the shelter for homeless men-was
  a once-grand hotel that Rainbow had bought when it could no longer function
  as a three-ninety-nine per night flophouse. He'd squeezed the purchase
  price from the city and from various charities and business people. Rainbow
  had become famous for the way he spent so much time going to charity
  dinners and talk shows and making emotional speeches at Rotary clubs and
  prizing donations from California's guilt-racked rich.
  "My name is Murphy. I'm Billy Kim's partner."
  He looked at me, flicked ash, and nodded. "Did you bring the money?" It was
  almost the first thing he said.
  "Ten grand," I said and passed it to him.
  He stubbed out his half-smoked cheroot in the lid of a tin that held other
  butts and a great deal of ancient ash. "We need it so badly. Take a seat."
  He was sitting behind a scrubbed table in what had once been the hotel
  manager's office. On the walls
 90             LEN DEIGHTON

 were two colored prints of Matisse paintings and two posters that showed in
 graphic detail how you get AIDS from dirty hypodermic needles.
  At one time this had been the heart of the city, a neighborhood of fine old
  homes and luxury hotels; now it was skid row. The street was littered with
  broken pieces of automobile and huddled slumbering men. Immediately outside
  on the sun-baked pavement that fronted the shelter I could see men in
  ragged clothes sitting with their backs against a chain-link fence. They
  had nothing to do but wait until it was time for the Rainbow Rooms to open
  its doors and serve the one and only meal of the day. They didn't talk or
  play cards or even fight or argue; they just sat.
  Rainbow didn't count the money. Hejust riffled the corners of the bills,
  but he had the legerdemain of a bank cashier and I had the feeling that if
  the wad had been only $9,999 he would have detected it with his fingertips.
  "Poor devils," he said, following my gaze. "They are not frightened of
  work, you know." He said it accusingly.
  "I guess not," I said.
  "They eagerly take turns being on my cleaning team, and that only pays a
  nominal dollar a day."
  I looked at my watch. "What happens now?" I asked him.
  "Do you have ID, Mr. Murphy?"
  I showed him my driver's license. He looked at me and at my photo carefully
  before handing it back. I could see he was suspicious. I said, "My
                    VIOLENT WARD  91

 partner was in a freeway accident. Didn't he phone you?"
  "He left a message. I'm not very good at operating these machines. I
  accidentally erased the message after hearing it once."
  "He was in the hospital when he called."
  The reverend looked at me. "We usually keep it all very discreet. We don't
  use names in these transactions."
  "I didn't know that. I'm sorry."
  "I was expecting him to be collected two days ago. I got a little jumpy."
  He pulled a big register off a shelf that held phone books, street maps,
  and an old clock that had given up at two-thirty a long time ago. He opened
  the book and swung it around on the table. "Would you sign there, Mr.
  Murphy? Most all the other paperwork is done."
  I signed the ledger where it said I was donating ten thousand dollars to
  the shelter on behalf of a client who wished to remain anonymous. It seemed
  okay to do that.
  He passed me some official-looking papers in a brown envelope. "You'll need
  all this. There is the name of the deceased. There is the death certifi-
  cate-natural causes: heart attack-and there is the letter from the doctor
  who was attending him."
  "Attending him?" What was all this?
  "He died three days ago, Mr. Murphy. The doctor attended him during the ten
  days prior to death, as prescribed by law. Otherwise we'd have to have a
  postmortem."
  "You'll have to help me," I said. "My partner
 92             LEN DEIGHTON

 was in a hurry. He said you'd explain everything. Who died, a relative of
 Billy?"
  "The deceased. One of our inmates. You're collecting the body, aren't
  you?"
  "Am I? Is that what Billy ... is that what was done in the past?"
  He sighed. "I wish your partner had come in person. He knows I don't
  like outsiders becoming involved."
  "I'm not an outsider," I said. "I'm a partner of the man we mentioned."
  "He's a tall man. You won't be able to take the body in that Cadillac
  of yours."
  "I'm not putting any stiff into my car," I said. "It already smells of
  tequila. Did the other party put them into his car?" I thought Billy
  only had a Porsche.
  "He always brought a Jeep and a horse trailer," said the reverend. "You
  can get anything into a horse trailer."
  "What do you want me to do with the body?"
  "The law says the deceased goes to a mortuary. The airline won't accept
  a body from people like you or me. He will have to be delivered to the
  plane by someone from the mortuary and collected by a mortuary employee
  at the other end. The airport officials are very stringent about that."
  "What airplane?"
  "The body goes to London. I thought you would know that. They always go
  to London. Airline cargo, hermetically sealed, and charged four dollars
  per pound weight."
                   VIOLENT WARD  93

  "Billy did this?"
  "You'd better come and see." He got to his feet and took a key from his
  pocket. "He'll have to be embalmed anyway," he said. "The airline won't ac-
  cept him if he's not embalmed, so don't get any crazy ideas about taking
  him straight to LAX." He opened a door that gave onto a dark corridor. I
  followed right behind him.
  As we walked I said, "So where do I take it if not to the airport?"
  "I'll give you the address." He went through a door marked STAFF ONLY, and
  I followed him down a flight of stairs to a dark cellar. At the bottom of
  the stairs he took his time unlocking the door; then he stood aside and
  ushered me into a cold and dimly lit room.
  "Holy Mother of God!" I said. The only light came from four candles, but
  it was enough to see a body laid out there on a big table. The body was
  stiff, arms close by its sides and eyes staring at the ceiling, and was
  dressed in baggy pants and clean T-shirt. The clothes were simple but of
  good quality: the leisure clothes of a wealthy man rather than the rags
  you'd expect to find on a down-andouter. He was a middle-aged man of
  above-average height. His face was dark with the stubble that continues to
  grow after death. The candle flames flickered in a draft from the door, and
  with the movement of the light the shadowy face seemed to leer at me.
  Plastic sacks of ice had been wedged around the body, and enough of it had
  melted and escaped from the bags to form large puddles on the
 94 LEN DEIGHTON

 floor. There was a constant dripping sound as more ice melted, It was the
 only sound to be heard apart from my own breathing. On a shelf at the end
 of the room, along with the candlesticks, stood a large brass crucifix and
 two pots of cheap flowers.
  "Who is this stiff?"
  "I'd be obliged to you, Mr. Murphy, if you would show more respect," he
  said. "I knew this man. He worked hard and feared God." Rainbow's voice
  echoed in the little room. "This is our chapel where so many others have
  found final peace. Don't forget you are in the presence of God."
  "A chapel? So many others? How many dead do you handle in the shelter?"
  "County General reckons on about fifty bodies a night picked up on the
  streets of our city. Often a poor soul facing his maker chooses to come
  and spend those final few hours with us."
  I had recovered from my initial shock by now, and I took one of the
  candles and brought it closer to the body. The circulation had long
  since stopped, so that the dead man's skin was dull and gray. His face
  was set in a scowl and the hands-always the most revealing-were hard and
  scarred, with broken nails and calluses. The legacy of a lifetime of
  hard manual work. "And who was he?" I said.
  "He was Jeremy Westbridge."
  I became impatient with the reverend: it was not just his manner; I
  resented everything else about this deal into which I had been gently
  led and where I was now drowning. "We both know it's not Sir Jeremy
  Westbridge. I saw you talking to Sir
                   VIOLENT WARD  95

 Jeremy the other night. This body is maybe somewhere about his shape and
 size and age, but we know it's not him, don't we? We know this is not
 Westbridge."
  "You frighten me, sir," said the reverend. He brought the packet of money
  out of his inner pocket and held it as if about to hand it back to me.
  Then he seemed to find new resolve. "I have had a Jeremy Westbridge
  registered in this shelter for over three weeks, and this is him. I can
  show you the register if you like. What can be your motive in arguing
  otherwise?"
  "Okay. I'm not arguing. Pretend I'm Billy Kim. What do I do now?"
  "With ten thousand dollars I can comfort and shelter hundreds of souls.
  Don't look to me for any kind of contrition for breaking the letter of the
  law; I won't oblige you."
  "Okay, reverend. Put away the violin and tell me what to do. If you don't
  provide a little more help and explanation, I'm going to take my money and
  leave you with the stiff."
  He looked at me. He didn't like my attitude but he liked my ten grand, and
  that was the deciding factor. He said, "Your partner would have taken him
  to the home-I mean, the private address--of the mortician he works with.
  That's what you have to do. They will do everything else. They will take
  him to the mortuary in a panel van. A mortuary panel van attracts very
  little attention in front of a mortician's home."
  "I don't like it," I said.
 96             LEN DEIGHTON

  "I don't like it either," he said. "But it's what you will have to do." He
  looked at me to show me he knew far more than he was supposed to know. You
  have no secrets from Rainbow. I nodded. "We'll have to move him soon, Mr.
  Murphy. He has to be embalmed. He's been here too long already, and those
  bags of ice are not keeping him cold enough."
  "You're right," I said.
  "You'd better get the horse trailer from your partner's home. He tows it
  behind a Jeep that will probably be there with it."
  "It will take a couple of hours," I said.
  "Did I give you the passport?"
  I'd forgotten about the passport. "No, you didn't."
  He found the passport in his pocket and gave it to me. It was a brand new
  U.S. passport, the holder's name one I'd never heard before, but the photo
  was a recent one of Jeremy Westbridge. So that was it. No wonder the guy
  wasn't worried about the feds coming after him. He was changing identities
  with someone who had died on the street. Stojil and Billy were running
  quite a racket. They would have applied for a passport and no doubt all
  kinds of other paperwork while the guy was still alive. Now the real Sir
  Jeremy would have a new name, become a U.S. citizen, and his documentation
  would all be one hundred percent genuine.
  "Don't worry about your car. I sent someone out to guard it."
  "Thanks," I said. I was keeping very cool, but my mind was in a whirl. I
  was remembering what
                   VIOLENT WARD   97

 Vic Crichton had said at the party, about Sir Jeremy going away. Now I
 understood. I put the passport in my pocket. That Billy Kim! What other
 crooked capers was the son of a bitch up to? I was getting deeper and
 deeper into this business, but I couldn't think of any way of extricating
 myself. I owed Billy Kim a whole lot of favors. If I walked away from this
 one, he could end up in prison.
  "Yes, I always do that. Too many kind and generous persons dropped in
  to donate a hundred dollars and went out to find their hubcaps missing.
  By the way, don't say I gave you the mortician's address," he said. "I'm
  not supposed to know who he is. But it's difficult to keep anything
  really secret in this town."
  "That's right," I said. "But fortunately for those of us with secrets,
  no one in this town gives a damn about anything anyway."
  "I must send out for some more ice. The liquor store will wonder what
  kind of a party we are having over here. Perhaps I shouldn't have said
  I wanted it for a celebration."
 CHAPTER 5
 I'd had it too long to trade it in. Maybe I hadn't treated it with due care
 and reverence, but what is "fair wear and tear" anyway? I'd spent far more
 than I could afford on magic creams and maintenance. Dented, maybe, and sure
 the fillings showed; flaking in places and the original finish no more than
 a memory, but what does the bodywork matter? It's what's inside that makes
 a winner. So I sucked in the gut, dabbed on the aftershave, parted my hair,
 and tried to forget what I'd seen in the mirror until tomorrow morning came
 round again.
  So the mastermind wanted me in Aspen: okay. For the time being I would
  dance to the Petrovitch tune, but once the money was paid over to me, and
  my debts were cleared, I'd be my own man. At pre-
                     VIOLENT WARD   99

 sent the partnership had only a "deal memo," and I'd squeezed too many
 slippery clients through the pliable bars of such preliminary contracts to
 believe it would force Peter the Great to go through with the deal. So yes,
 sir; no, sir; I'd be on the early flight out of LAX and bring my laptop
 computer with me.
  I did my exercises. I touch my toes one hundred and fifty times and follow
  it with ten minutes of deep breathing. Yeah, that's right, it's a joke.
  Really I collapse onto the bed, gasping for air. I hate exercising: I
  hated it even back when I was on the football team; that's why I do it
  before I'm fully awake.
  I wish I could have persuaded my dad to do a little bend and stretch. It
  would have prolonged his life. My dad smoked heavily. I read in a news
  magazine that habitual smoking reduces the average person's life by five
  to eight years. So why didn't you listen to me, Dad? We could have had
  another five years together. We could have talked. I would have told you
  all kinds of things I never got around to telling you because I was too
  young and stupid. Now I need you more than ever.
  Sixty times touching the toes-reaching high into the air each time, not
  this flaky stuff of staying bent over and bobbing your head. Sometimes I
  do it holding cans of food in my hands like weights. I did that this
  morning with cans of dog food, and Rex came to me and dropped a ball at my
  feet. "No can do, kid," I told him. "Rain check: I owe you another walk."
  Then, if there's time, I do my tap routine. You've got to be warmed up for
  that.
 100 LEN DEIGHTON

  Fly to Aspen. Klopstock, my next-door neighbor-the professor drives
  there when he goes to see his married daughter. That's not the daughter
  Danny was dating; it's his younger daughter, who married a photographer
  from the nmes who moved to Denver and bought a one-hour photo franchise.
  My neighbor drives to Colorado to see her. In a good car it's no big
  deal, right? Because if it was a big deal, Klopstock wouldn't be able
  to manage it.
  But go there by plane and you arrive totaled, I mean completely
  frazzled. Getting through those security people at the airport here in
  town is more hassle than being inducted into the Green Berets. Stand in
  line! Buzzers sound. Red lights flash. Turn out your pockets! Is that
  really a camera? Where do you put the film in? What have you got inside
  your carry-on bag? Clean shirt and underwear; there's a surprise. A
  computer? So that's a computer! Is it really a computer? What kind of
  honest man would be carrying a computer wrapped in his underwear? You
  must be some kind of kinky computer underwear pervert and terrorist.
  What a lot of malarkey. Just take a look out the airport window, and you
  see a bunch of guys in greasy coveralls strolling around the tarmac,
  climbing in and out of planes, work shirts bulging with guns and
  explosives, and not a security manwhoops! person-in sight. Right?
  Anyone smuggling their personal possessions past the security personnel
  is punished with a tenmile schlepp to the airplane. That will teach you
  to bring hand baggage, right? Then, with a pilot who
                  VIOLENT WARD    101

 looks like he's working his way through high school, we share the experience
 of conquering gravity. Ten thousand feet: wow, look down and you'll see the
 mountains!
  Change planes at Denver, run and wait, run and wait. Denver is lovely too:
  they sell folk art right there at the airport. It's so convenient; it saves
  you from going into town for folk art. You finally arrive at Aspen drained.
  But Aspen is really worth the journey. You'll love it. I mean it: it says
  so right there in the flight magazine. Here is the place where the rock
  stars, the heroes and heroines of the daytime soaps, the unwashed guitar
  strummers and show-biz pixies meet billionaire property men, Arab princes,
  and European royals.
  Aspen has a smart little airport, and the private jets were double-parked.
  I searched the concourse without catching sight of even one of this
  bewitching array of glitterati; I guess they had all gone for a piss.
  Even without an airplane you're seven thousand feet high here in the
  mountains. For folks from ocean-level Los Angeles County it's ear-pop and
  fart time. And for those of us who forgot to bring confetti, it's snowing.
  I come out of the airport building and look around. Ugh! I get down and
  kneel. I promise I'll never complain about Los Angeles again, not ever!
  I spotted a Chevrolet Suburban four-by-four waiting outside the terminal
  building. It's a shiny new Zach Petrovitch kind of a car. How did I know?
  I don't know how I knew; I just knew. These Pe-
   102 LEN DEIGHTON

 trovitch operators knew me too. A big bearded guy in a parka and a red
 woolly hat with a yellow pompom pitched his half-empty bag of hot popcorn
 into the trash, grunted my name, and wrestled my bag away from me. I
 followed him.
  The freezing air slapped my face and the mountains glowered down like
  scorched cakes dusted over with too much sugar icing. Yellow pompom lobbed
  my bag into the back of the Chevy with admirable sangfroid. I always like
  to see my bag aboard: I've never been really comfortable with borrowed
  shirts, hastily bought underwear, and expendable plastic razors. Maybe this
  gorilla guessed my thoughts, for he turned and gave me a sullen grin as he
  slid into the driver's seat. The motor was running, and I stepped up to the
  Suburban and climbed into the front. The stereo was playing soft Mozart.
  The driver didn't look like your average Mozart aficionado, but they play
  a hell of a lot of soft Mozart in Aspen. You hear it in the antique shops
  and in the burger boutiques, the bars, and the toilets too. I think I read
  in the flight magazine that Amadeus and his agent both bought spreads up
  there on the slopes after he hit the big time with Idomeneo.
  You can see the ski lifts and the skiers too, like bugs on a starched white
  sheet. The road, like all roads hereabouts, followed a river. It appeared
  to be frozen over, but looking closer I could see that here and there some
  of the smarter water escaped for long enough to bubble over the shallow
  rocks and make a noise and a splash or two; but no mat-
                    VIOLENT WARD    103

 ter what shape it got itself into, eventually it all turned into ice.
 Maybe there was a moral there, but if there was, I still don't want to
 think about it.
  We left the ski runs behind. Once outside the city limits, the landscape
  was dignified and omnipotent: like the pictures on those five-dollar
  all-denominational. Christmas cards that omit any references to God. The
  snow fell gently, making everything gray except where the snowplows
  whizzed past spewing clouds of white. There were tall green firs, and
  rocks shaped like something animate and only slightly deformed. Clumps
  of mature cottonwoods, bare and brown, looked like clouds of diesel-
  polluted air. While, breathing smoke in the snowy fields, there were
  horses wearing coats. I'm serious. Wearing little checkered coats! This
  was all heady stuff for a Southern California boy whose experiences with
  snow and ice ended for good when Sears put automatic-defrosting
  refrigerators into their catalog.
  We continued down the valley made by Roaring Fork River. This is Route
  82, and, as we got away from the million-dollar homes to the unfash-
  ionable side of town, things got a little more homely. Deep under snow
  here is the Aspen of the waiters, porters, and upstairs maids or, more
  precisely, the bartenders, short-order chefs, strippers, hookers, and
  disco hostesses. Cops live here too. Aspen cops can't afford houses
  within the city limits. The snowladen mobile homes and trailer parks
  gave way to farms and ranches. Not film-star ranches either: spreads
  where men worked to earn
 104 LEN DEIGHTON

 a living. Maybe I had Big Pete all wrong; this wasn't the natural habitat
of
 your jet-set millionaire.
  You should have seen that Petrovitch spread. When finally I got there I
  could see why he'd bought land way outside of town. I'm only guessing but
  he must have had a thousand acres, at least a thousand acres. From the
  mountainside all the way down to the road and then as far as you could see
  along the valley, according to what the driver told me. At least a
  thousand acres.
  It wasn't flashy. You could have driven right through the whole spread and
  thought it was no more than a well-maintained ranch, owned by some farmer
  who needed an Olympic-size heated pool and a twelve-bedroom house with
  annex accommodation for servants and was stashing a four-seat chopper in
  his barn for a friend.
  Petrovitch was in the stable yard when I arrived. He was dressed in
  artfully faded jeans and a heavy woolen coat and tall patterned boots.
  With him, and wielding a big flashlight, was a man in a business suit, a
  coiffure bouffante, and rubber gloves. A timeworn ranch hand was holding
  the jaws open and keeping everything steady while they all looked into the
  mouth of a bored-looking horse.
  "Go on in the house, Mickey," Petrovitch called. "Ingrid's in the kitchen;
  she'll fix you some coffee and tell you all about it. I need just five
  more minutes with Dr. Wilson." Upon hearing his name men-
                     VIOLENT WARD  105

 tioned, Dr. Wilson put down the flashlight and leaned closer to the throat.
  It was cold, and I do mean cold. I was relieved that he didn't invite me
  to stand around and share whatever they were getting from the horse's
  mouth. I followed the driver, who opened the door of the kitchen, leaned
  inside, and dropped my bag with a crash that made me wonder if my underwear
  was still okay. He didn't step inside; I guess he didn't want to make marks
  on the tile floor. "Thank you," I said. He smiled. The Petrovitch people
  smiled a lot; it must have been all the wages he owed them.
  That house was really something. From outside it could have been just a
  regular Colorado barn-shaped clapboard two-story, but inside it was
  something to gloat over. The kitchen looked like the flight deck of a 747,
  orange and red lights flickering in the gloom, and machines that ticked,
  and spotlit worktops. Once inside the kitchen you could see the dining room
  and the walk-in larder and the hallway. That was another world of shiny
  brass fittings, chandeliers conjured from elkhorn, carved Victorian
  closets, handwoven carpets, lush potted plants, and valuable knickknacks
  on inlaid tables. And it was all squeaky clean and well kept. You could see
  these fittings were the real thing, antiques with a patina of age. The
  dining room lights were on, and the table was set for something pretty
  special. There was a huge carved mahogany fireplace with a log fire
  blazing. Above the mantelpiece was a doleful elk eyeing some antique
  Winchester rifles. On all the walls, even in the kitchen, were
 106   LEN DEIGHTON

 valuable paintings of the Old West: Remington and Russell, originals.
 Maybe it was a little like a filmset interior of a Wild West brothel, but
 it was stylish and comfortable and I had to confess I liked it a lot.
  "I'll be right with you, Mickey," said Ingrid, appearing from a paneled
  door. She gave me a big smile, waved a can of coffee, and began rattling
  around in the kitchen. I don't know if she was trying to convince me
  that she was the kind of little woman who fixed home-style meat loaf and
  hash browns for hubby Zach to come home to. I suspect she had an army
  of servants hidden in the cellar.
  "Hello, Ingrid." She was wearing a simple cotton dress, and her blond
  hair was kind of messy. "Quite a place." I didn't know whether I was
  supposed to kiss her, shake hands, or reserve a table for dinner.
  "Do you really like it, Mickey?" Her eyes were wide and wonderful, and
  she asked as if she really cared.
  "It's overwhelming," I said.
  She saw me peeking into the dining room. "We buy at auctions."
  "You dood good."
  She nodded and didn't smile. "Everything in the house-the furniture and
  the fittings and everything-it's all authentic nineteenth century.
  Gathered from old houses around here. We love it." So screw you, Mickey
  Murphy, homy-handed peasant from Alhambra High.
  "Who wouldn't? I can't wait to see the bed-                  VIOLENT WARD   107

 rooms." She gave me a not-amused look and I added, "I mean ... it's just
 great. I always liked cowboys."
  "I've been so looking forward to you visiting with us," said Ingrid. "Have
  you eaten?"
  "No. I steer away from that airline garbage," I said. "It gives me acid
  indigestion."
  "I'll fix you a sandwich and coffee. Decaf-we don't drink ordinary coffee.
  Cream and sugar? Or maybe you'd prefer alcohol?"
  I had the feeling I'd become a social outcast by preferring alcohol. "I
  like decaf. And may I have hot milk instead of cream? I'm pounds over my
  regular weight. I've got to cut down on booze and butter and stuff like
  that."
  She looked at me as if seeing me for the first time. "Hang your coat behind
  the door and sit down. You haven't changed at all, Mickey. I told Zach
  that, after I saw you the other night at the party. You haven't changed at
  all."
  I hung up my coat, sat down, and smiled my shy smile. I wasn't sure whether
  she was referring to my pouring her husband's imported champagne into the
  greenery, drinking decaf with hot milk, making sardonic comments, or
  weighing in at about fifteen pounds heavier than what the insurance
  companies say is healthy.
  While she was setting up the percolator on the ceramic hot plate and
  reaching for the sliced Wonder loaf and the shrink-wrapped salami slices,
  Petrovitch in person came through the door that opened onto the stable
  yard.
 108 LEN DEIGHTON

  "Doc's got to take Aunt Jemima to his surgery," said Petrovitch without
  preamble. "I'll have to go with him. Tell the girls in the office to
  phone around and cancel the dinner. They have a list of who was
  invited." He noticed me sitting at the kitchen table. "Hello, Mickey.
  I'm sorry about all this. Did Ingrid tell you about Vic Crichton?"
  "No," I said.
  "He's got some kind of bug. He's in bed. Maybe you'd look in on him
  later, see if he's in the mood to talk business."
  Ingrid said, "Darling, do you have to go? You should be getting a nap."
  She posted two slices of bread into the toaster and explained to me,
  "They got Zach out of bed in the middle of the night." She went to the
  fridge to get milk.
  Petrovitch mangled his face with his hand and then called after her,
  "Doc's got all the equipment there, and he wants me along."
  "Do you have to, darling?" She turned a control, and the ceramic hot
  plate clicked, and the milk pan got a pink underlight.
  Petrovitch made a little choking noise and said, "There might be a vital
  decision to make. It's better I'm there."
  "Oh, darling," said Ingrid with great emotion.
  I looked at Petrovitch. If I hadn't known what kind of guy he was, I
  would have sworn he was on the verge of breaking into tears. Ingrid saw
  it too and stepped forward to put a hand on his arm, as if trying to
  help him through the moment of pain.
                   VIOLENT WARD  109

  "Aunt Jemima is a horse," she told me over his shoulder. "She's one of
  Zach's favorites."
   "The first one I bought," said Petrovitch.
  "She's an old lady now," said Ingrid. The toast popped up and bell rang.
  "She's not old, not even four," said Petrovitch in a loud voice, almost
  losing control of himself for a moment. But then he was over it. 'Vilson
  is a good man: the best," he said, in the shrill way people praise their
  doctors and their lawyers and their dentists when they badly need
  reassurance and can't find it anywhere. "I know he'll do everything he can.
  He was to speak at a fund-raising dinner in Denver tonight. He's canceled
  everything."
  "Of course he will," said Ingrid. "Remember what he did when Plantagenet
  Royale had that strange digestion problem?"
  "Yeah, I reminded him about that." They embraced some more.
  I felt like an intruder. I just sat there and waited for the milk to boil
  over. When it made a noise and smoke, she jumped and shouted, "Oh, dear,
  what a fool I am." Petrovitch moved aside while Ingrid mopped up the
  spilled milk, using a cloth printed with a colored picture of the Grenadier
  Guards in fur hats marching around Buckingham Palace.
  Petrovitch seemed not to notice her little calamity. He came across to me
  and said sonorously, "There are all kinds of things I was going to talk to
  you about, Mickey, but it will have to wait for another time. Talk to
  Ingrid about her problems." He
 110 LEN DEIGHTON

 went to the window as if checking on the weather and then reached into a
 closet near the door, got a waterproof mackinaw and a Stetson, and went out
 again. He didn't say goodbye either to Ingrid or to me. His mind was fully
 occupied with Aunt Jemima.
  "Zach can be awfully sweet," said Ingrid, as she put a toasted salami
  sandwich and a big mug of coffee in front of me. She poured the remaining
  milk from the pan. "Will that be enough milk?"
  "Oh, sure. I'm not too crazy about milk."
  She draped the milk-soaked tea towel across the sink, took off her apron,
  and sat down at the kitchen table. She sounded somewhat wistful, as if
  trying to forget the times when Zach was not trying so hard to be sweet.
  "It's just dry toast."
  "Yeah, I know," I said. "About him being sweet, I mean."
  "Secretive and complicated but very sweet. I fell in love with him the
  moment I first saw him," she said. "I never knew it could be like that."
  "You're lucky, Ingrid," I said. She touched her hair; she looked wonderful
  sitting there in the shadows with golden light delicately outlining her
  features.
  "I was never friends with Zach, the way you and I were friends. Talking
  about folks and school and sharing homework. With Zach it was seriouslove
  right from the start."
  "I'm glad it worked out for you, Ingrid," I said.
  "It's a special kind of feeling.... You know what I mean, Mickey. We always
  told each other
                 VIOLENT WARD 111

 everything, didn't we? You and me, I mean. I've always thought of you as if
 you were my big brother."
  "Yeah, I know." Why did she have to torture me? Until this very moment I'd
  been able to persuade myself that Ingrid and I had shared the world's most
  perfect love affair, one that would have become torrid if she hadn't been
  snatched away by her folks to go and live in Chicago. I thought she'd loved
  me as I'd loved her: desperately, irrationally, and forever. I'd always
  told myself that her husbands were inadequate substitutes for that old love
  of ours. Now I had to sit and smile and hear her explain that we'd just
  been good friends. A brother? Me? Jesus Christ! Was that the way it really
  was, or was that the way she was now determined to remember it?
  I drank from my coffee mug. It was decorated with a kind of fur design and
  said ANIMAL RIGHTS SYMPOSIUM, ASPEN, COLORADO 1990. Her mug said
 BEEF WITHOUT STEROIDS, HORMONES, OR ANTIBIOTICS. It was a sort of
 his-and-hers environmental-awareness decaf set. "Have you got any sugar?"
I
 needed sugar.
  "We don't use it," she said, but she got up and went to the dresser for an
  antique chinaware jug. She shook its dusty contents onto the table. There
  were two little packets of cane sugar bearing the slogan DANCE AND DINE AT
  THE LAZY NINE plus half a dozen Sweet 'N Low, a box of matches from the
  Hotel Jerome, three bobby pins, and a pencil stub with a broken lead. "It's
  bad for you," she said.
  "I know. Almost everything I really like is." I
 112            LEN DEIGHTON

 ripped those packets open like an addict and tipped both into my coffee.
 If this was all the sugar they had in the house, I was going to have to
 arrange an urgent visit to the Lazy Nine.
  "Here is what I want to talk about," said Ingrid. She produced a
  concertina file out of nowhere, and from it she began bringing letters
  and receipts and account sheets and notes. "Zach is frightened my
  charity may be breaking California law. Inadvertently." She spread it
  all across the table. "He said California has a lot of law. We are
  holding a kind of lottery, but when you see the way we do it you'll be
  able to tell him we are in the clear."
  "I'm not an expert, Ingrid," I told her. "Not on California lotteries."
  She slid some of the typewritten papers along so they were in front of
  me in chronological order. She'd always been methodical. "This is Ingrid
  the business major," I said, reading the sheets. "You had legal advice?"
  "I went to the Los Angeles public library and looked it all up in the
  lawbooks."
  I guessed they were boilerplate examples she'd copied from a textbook,
  but I could find nothing wrong with them. "Brilliant. I'll double-check
  it, of course, but it looks like you did everything right."
  "I think I did. I knew there were laws.... Mickey," she said in a
  different voice as she took the papers and put them away in the big
  brown folder, handling her work with a proud reverence. "By the way ...
  there is one other thing."
  This is it, I thought. It's always like this. They come into the office
  with some long story about
                   VIOLENT WARD  113

 their problems, their neighbors, their office, their boss, and it all comes
 to nothing. Then, as they are going out through your office door, they hang
 the real one on you: boom, boom!
  "What's that?" I said, making it sound real casual. "What's that, Ingrid?"
  I sipped a little coffee. It was very sweet.
  "One of the people on the committee with me in the Los Angeles office is
  a nice man named Pindero: Albert H. Pindero." It all came out in a rush
  like she'd rehearsed it. "He's rich and charming. I liked him, and he was
  always very generous with his time."
  "What happened to him?" When a guy suddenly goes into the past tense like
  that, you can bet he's in trouble.
  She was calm again now. "He disappeared." She tied the pink ribbon that
  held the concertina file together and then looked up and smiled.
  "What do you mean, he disappeared? You mean he's not been able to get to
  your charity committee meetings lately? Maybe he's too busy."
  "Oh, no. He's gone. I went to his home, a big condo apartment on Wilshire.
  I wanted to return a book he'd loaned me. It's all closed down and empty.
  I traced the owners-a property company in New York-and when I called, a
  nice secretary there said the lease ended and the house was vacated.
  Nothing abnormal, this lady said. But it is abnormal; he's vanished. And
  there's no trace of his company, his factory, his office, or anything."
 114            LEN DEIGHTON

  "Vanished how? People don't vanish often, and factories never do."
  "I'm telling you, Mickey darling. There is no record of his company. I
  went through everything; a man at the library showed me how: California
  Manufacturers Register, California Services Register, and so on." Ingrid
  had a sheet of paper in her hand. I could see it was a long list, all
  of the names ticked off in pencil. "You want to hear?"
  No, I didn't. "Did you try the telephone company?"
  "I'm not a fool; of course I did. First I looked at the directories Zach
  has in his study: Standard and Poor's, and Dun and Bradstreet. Then I
  went back to the public library and went through the business
  directories and buyers' guides too. There is no record of Mr. Pindero.
  I've become obsessed with it."
  IvVhat does Zach say?"
  A look of fear passed across her face. "Oh, you mustn't tell Zach about
  it."
  111~Vhy not?"
  Her face was tense. "He wouldn't like it. I never do anything that
  clashes with his business."
  "How would this guy suddenly going lost-andfound clash with Zach's
  business?" I said.
  "You know what I mean, Mickey honey." She smiled nervously. "This is not
  anything that affects Zach. And Mr. Pindero hasn't broken any laws." She
  amplified that. "You would like him. He used to arrive in a lovely old
  sky-blue convertible. He said it was a Dutch Packard. Are you still
  crazy about cars?"
                  VIOLENT WARD    115

  She'd got my attention. "A Packard Darrin? About 1941 or 1942?"
  "It was old. He only took it on the road now and again."
  "Dutch Darrin was a designer who built car bodies on Sunset Strip. He did
  one-of-a-kinds for movie stars in the thirties. If that's what your guy
  has, it's a museum piece. It could be worth anything up to a million
  dollars."
  "Yes, he was so proud of that car. Mr. Pindero was a gentleman. If you'd
  met him you'd know what I mean. He was like a college professor."
  "Is that right? I've got a college professor for a next-door neighbor, and
  I wouldn't trust him to pick up my dry cleaning."
  "You are funny, Mickey," she said, without giving any sign of being
  amused. "One of these days someone will take the things you say
  seriously."
  "There's no sign of that happening so far," I said.
  She touched her hair and smiled. She was about to try a completely
  different approach. "It's just my feminine curiosity, Mickey. I have to
  know what happened to this Pindero gentleman. As long as he's not been
  hurt or anything."
  "There's no other reason?"
  "I know you can find him. You must know someone who specializes in tracing
  missing persons. I'll pay you whatever it costs, and for your time too."
  "You don't have to pay me, Ingrid. We're old friends, aren't we?"
 116 LEN DEIGHTON

  "I'm sorry." She reached out and touched my hand. "I wouldn't want to
  offend you, not for anything. That was stupid of me. But I need you to
  keep this little matter a secret between the two of us.
  "Pindero? You'll have to give me all the details you can remember."
  "I've written it all down," she said, and passed me a sheet of paper. "I
  was frightened you'd say you didn't do that kind of thing---criminal law."
  "Criminal law, commercial law, Gresham!s Law-since the recession started
  to bite we take anything that comes along."
  I looked at the piece of paper. A name and a phony business address. I'd
  seen it all before: the phone number would lead me to a taciturn downtown
  bartender who knew where to get anything from bennies to a bent badge.
  There the trail would end. There wasn't much to go on. The chances were
  that this guy Pindero was some dishonest joe who had never given anyone a
  truthful answer in his life. I meet a lot of guys like that: they give
  false names, false ID, false social security, have checking accounts in
  assumed names, and a Panamanian passport, greenbacks, and an unmarked
  Magnum squirreled away in a deposit box ready for der Tag. I've got a long
  list of guys like that in my big fat unpaid accounts file.
  "I'll do what I can," I told her.
  "And you won't tell Zach I gave you those notes?"
  "No." Notes? There were no notes. She hadn't
                  VIOLENT WARD    117

 written it down at all: she'd run it out on some kind of fancy laser
 printer. There wasn't even a letterhead or a signature. There was nothing
 to connect her to the anonymous sheet of paper, as she must have known.
 "Tell me honestly, Ingrid. Did you arrange all this-having your husband
 tell me to come here to Aspen-just to ask me to find Pindero for you?"
  "Of course not. What a silly thing to say." She looked away from me. She
  could never look you in the eye when she was trying to conceal
  something. Ingrid had always been like that. "Do you still practice
  every day, Mickey?" she said.
  She wanted to talk. "Practice? Law?"
  "Law." She laughed. "No, tap. Tap dancing. You used to get up early and
  do two hours on that board you had in the garage."
  "I never did."
  "You did." She laughed. "Your folks complained about the noise you made
  tapping. You were waking them up. They told me about it. Every morning:
  two hours."
  "Naw. Anyway, that was years ago. I gave all that kind of stuff up long
  before I took the bar exams."
  "Okay." She smiled and wrinkled her nose.
  Ingrid knew me very well: now both of us had told our lies. She knew
  those A-plus marks I got in tap-dancing classes had had a lasting effect
  on me. Even now that I'd become a middle-aged attorney, I still did my
  tap routines every morning and nursed a secret dream of turning pro.
 118 LEN DEIGHTON

  "More coffee? Didn't you like the salami? It's real Italian. What about a
  homemade brownie?"
  On the kitchen wall I noticed a photo of our class. It wasn't an original
  photo, it was one of the photocopies Budd Byron had sent as Christmas
  cards a year or so ago. She'd cut off the strip where he'd hand-lettered
  his greetings. The way in which this fuzzy little card was so beautifully
  mounted and framed said a lot about Ingrid's nostalgia.
  "Just a little more coffee." This was like old times. It was difficult to
  believe I was really here and with her. How many years was it since I had
  sat opposite Ingrid like this, looking at those big hazel eyes and deep
  dimpled cheeks, hearing that infectious laugh, doting on her and watching
  every movement. She brought the percolator and a big tin containing the
  brownies. I took one. "You haven't changed either, Ingrid," I said.
  "You~re just as young and beautiful as you ever were."
  She gave another one of those merry little laughs. "That Irish blarney!"
  she said. "I love it."
  The brownies were great. "You make these?"
  "I helped." So I guess it was one of the kitchen staff. the brownie chef,
  maybe. She also took one, and as she bit into it she said, "I wish I
  understood more about business. Zach gets me to sign all kinds of
  documents, and sometimes I have no idea of what they are about."
  "You shouldn't do that," I said, the lawyer coming to the surface.
  "All kinds of crazy offshore companies, in countries I've never even heard
  of. Millions and millions
                  VIOLENT WARD   119

 of dollars' worth of stock signed over to me, and then the next thing I
 know I'm signing it over to someone else. I guess that's a regular part
 of the way business is done these days?" In her voice there was a mixture
 of pride and anxiety. She sounded as if she just wanted to be reassured,
 but would it be right to reassure someone who was maybe going neck deep
 into what sounded like crooked dealings? Reassure someone you loved, I
 mean?
  I was still trying to decide what to say when suddenly the kitchen door
  crashed open. A cold wind came tearing into our cozy t6te-A-t6te. It was
  Goldie Arnez, looking very much out of place in a dark blue big-city
  overcoat. There were flakes of snow on his smart Madison Avenue felt hat
  and more of them forming white epaulettes on his shoulders. Clipped into
  his top pocket was his everpresent cellular phone. "Mrs. Petrovitch?"
  His voice was hoarse as if the cold air had got to his tonsils; his face
  was flushed and his eyes watery.
  "What is it, Goldie?"
  "Mr. Petrovitch has gone into the operating room with the horse. He
  phoned. I'm bringing a dozen men up here to the stables. I didn't want
  you to worry if you saw them foraging around."
  "Men? What for?"
  "My men, Mrs. Petrovitch. Security guys. Mr. Petrovitch wants all the
  feed taken out and loaded on a truck. He doesn't want the ranch hands
  to do it."
  ,,I don't understand," she said.
  "We'll have to search the rooms where the
 120 LEN DEIGHTON

 ranch hands sleep. They might object; my boys can handle that okay, but
 I didn't want you to worry if there was any kind of commotion."
  "The feed?"
  "There's a laboratory in Denver with analysis clerks on standby. We're
  flying the feed over there and picking up fresh feed they will have
  already tested."
  "Denver?"
  "It's beginning to look like Aunt Jemima was poisoned, Mrs. Petrovitch.
  Your husband thinks the feed might have been tampered with."
  "How terrible! Who would want to do such a thing?"
  "I can think of plenty of people," said Goldie. "It's not the first
  time, is it?" He bit his lip as he realized that wasn't the right
  answer. It was everyone-loved-old-Petey when you talked to Mrs. Petey.
  He shuffled his feet and looked at me. "Hello, Mickey," he said. Goldie
  had always been good at putting his foot in his mouth.
  "Hi, Goldie."
  "Well, I'd better get to work," said Goldie. "Mr. Petrovitch said to
  tell you he'd phone you as soon as he could."
  She smiled sadly. "I understand," she said. Sure, we all understood the
  way it was. When it came to an emergency, Old Petey phoned his muscle
  man rather than his wife.
  Goldie grinned. It was the confident grin of a man who can't be fired.
  For a moment I had a feeling he might have been listening at the door,
  but
                  VIOLENT WARD   121

 Goldie wasn't like that. Goldie was the kind of man who would have wired
 the house.
  Ingrid said, "I'll go over to Dr. Wilson's place, Goldie. I'll drive
  myself in the Jeep."
  "Whatever you say, Mrs. Petrovitch."
  After Goldie went out we both sat there, saying nothing. Then Ingrid
  leaned very close to me so she could whisper in my ear. "It's all my
  fault," she said. "I'm bad."
  "What did you do?"
  She put her arm around me and held me tight. I sat in my chair,
  wondering if Goldie was spying through the window. "I'm very bad."
  "What?" I said again.
  "I fed chocolate bars to Aunt Jemima. It made her ill before."
  "Jesus, Ingrid," I said, only with effort keeping my voice very quiet.
  "Why did you do that?"
  "She loves them. Zach feeds her sugar lumps. I figured maybe a little
  treat now and again would be okay for her."
  "Chocolate bars? Hadn't you better call the vet?"
  "No, Mickey, no. He'd kill me. You don't know how angry Zach can be. I
  told him I hadn't been near Aunt Jemima in weeks. If he found out. .
  "What would he do?"
  "Terrible things." The way she said it made me want to cry for her.
  I sat there until she let go of me. Suddenly she got to her feet and
  said briskly, "I must go to him.
 122 LEN DEIGHTON

 Will you look in on your friend Mr. Crichton? I don't want him to think we
 don't care about him."
  "He's not a friend," I said, "he's a client. I hardly know him."
  "Oh? He was so sweet about you. He thinks you're the smartest lawyer on the
  Coast. He said you'd become very close ftiends and he'd trust you with
  anything."
  "Vic Crichton said that?"
  "You're a funny man. Why do you find it so hard to believe that people care
  about you?"
  I looked at her. I didn't say anything.
  "Dial Nine when you want dinner. Cook will fix you a steak or something.
  Tell her what you want." She looked in the mirror and fluffed her hair.
  "I think you should call them about the chocolate bars," I said.
  "Or'~-another thought came to her-"you could take the Audi: the keys are
  on the hook there. Have fun in town. Whatever! I'll see you in the morning.
  Mickey, I'm sorry about all this. I'm sure Zach is too."
 CHAPTER 6
 It wasn't like staying with fiiends. There was a sort of perfection to the
 Petrovitch house that deprived it ofgrace. The servant girl who showed me
 upstairs to the visitor's suite was dressed in a starched apron, and she
 spoke in a whisper. It was a small apartment with lithographs and cut
 flowers and an antique patchwork quilt that all added to the feeling of
 spending a night in a folklore museum.
  From my window I watched Ingrid hurry across the yard and climb into a
  black Jeep Cherokee with a tall car-phone antenna and the Petrovitch Ranch
  brand painted on its door. She was wearing a striped fur coat. It was the
  kind of striped fur coat that looks very fake because real fur coats are
  not admired in Aspen.
 124 LEN DEIGHTON

  Man, it was cold out there and the snow was coming down heavily, blowing
  in the wind to make whirlpools and covering the newly swept paths with
  fresh layers of white. I could tell it was cold from the clouds of
  steamy smoke the engine emitted as she started up. I spotted Goldie
  standing in the stable doorway. He'd put on heavy rubber boots, the kind
  of footwear worn by the men swilling out operating rooms after major
  surgery. He saluted solemnly as she passed him and then he went across
  the yard, heading no doubt to where his boys were rummaging through the
  ranch hands' quarters. As he reached the deep snow he began plodding,
  holding up the skirt of his coat so it didn't drag in the snow.
  I closed the curtains, switched up the thermostat, and then phoned
  Danny. I was in luck; he was home. I said, "Danny. You know that flaky
  kid who was trying to hang that old wreck of a Studebaker on you last
  month?"
  "He's my best buddy," said Danny guardedly.
  "Okay, okay. Well, didn't he tell me that his dad rebuilt vintage cars?"
  "That's right."
  "Danny, I'm looking for a guy with a restored Packard Darrin.
  Convertible. Blue coachwork. An old guy. He drives it. It should be in
  a museum, but this guy drives around in it. An auto like that is going
  to have a high profile, right? Phone around to some of your buddies, and
  see if anyone has seen it. If you locate this guy it's worth a hundred
  bucks to you:)
                  VIOLENT WARD    125

 "You don't have to pay me," said Danny huffily. Like father like son. "You
 might need to pay off someone. But you should be able to find it. It's got
 to be gassed up and serviced and garaged and waxed and looked after."
  "I'll do what I can."
  "Can you get on it right away? Over the weekend, I mean?"
  "vVhere are you calling from?"
  "I'm in Colorado. Aspen."
  "Aspen! Some guys have all the luck," said Danny. "Hav6 you seen any
  movie stars?"
  "A hundred dollars." I told him again, in case he forgot the reward.
  Forgot a hundred bucks? That will be the day.
  "So I won't be seeing you for brunch on Sunday?-
  "No. I'm sorry, Danny. We'll have to fix another time."
  "It doesn't matter. It's work, I guess."
  "Yeah, it's work. We'll make it next weekend. Maybe Robyna would like
  to come along too." Robyna too-that was the ultimate sacrifice, and
  Danny knew it.
  "Packard Darrin. I'll find it for you. We'll keep the hundred bucks in
  the family."
  "I said I was sorry." I was never quite sure when he was riling me.
  "Listen: brunch at the Beverly Hilton next Sunday. For sure."
  "With Robyna." He brightened as he thought about it. The Beverly Hilton
  brunch was his favor-
   126            LEN DEIGHTON

 ite, and my boy Danny was an authority on all-youcan-eat brunches.
  "Sure. Book a table. Not too near the food." Danny always asked for a
  table near the food.
  "Okay," he said. "I'll make it real early, so we can be first to cut
  into all the cakes and stuff."
  "Sure." What kind of kid is this philosopher? Start talking food and he
  lights up and says tilt. "Leave a message on my machine. 'Bye for now."
  "'Bye, Dad."
  As I put down the phone, I heard a sound like someone moving around in
  the corridor. I went across the room, opened my door, and stepped out
  onto the landing. The whole house was in darkness apart from the
  glimmers of little emergency lights on the staircase. I had a feeling
  someone was nearby, listening and watching everything, but there was no
  one in sight. I stood very still. It was a big rambling place with
  creaky stairs and a clock that chimed. I stood there a long time, but
  there was no movement anywhere. Through the windows the snow reflected
  the moonlight so everything was underlit and kind of spooky.
  "Mickey!" Looming out of the shadows like the ghost of Hamlet's father,
  and with a voice twice as plaintive, was Victor Crichton. He was wearing
  a silk dressing gown decorated with Chinese dragons and bedroom slippers
  embroidered with his initials.
  "I was going to come and find you," I said. I wondered if he'd been
  listening at my door.
  "Do you want a drink?"
  I followed him into his room. The bed was rum-                   VIOLENT WARD  127

 pled, with the bedclothes pulled back and business papers scattered on the
 counterpane. "No, I don't want a drink. You look groggy."
  "I'm never going to eat Mexican food again," he said. "I'm on
  antibiotics."
  "They've canceled the dinner party. They both went into town to visit
  a sick horse."
  "How long have you known these people?"
  "A long time."
  "I wish I'd never got into this."
  "Don't play the outraged innocent, Vic. I know about Sir Jeremy and his
  new passport."
  "Don't link me with that business," said Vic angrily. "Those bastards
  trapped me into playing along with them, just like they trapped you."
  "At the party--2'
  "At the party I was very boozed. And I'll tell you why I was so boozed.
  Sir Jeremy had just laid it on me that I was going into the firing line
  while he made himself scarce."
  I didn't believe him, and I suppose it showed.
  Victor said, "Have you seen what Petrovitch and Sir Jeremy have set up?
  The Peruvian company*2)
  "Tell me."
  "They'll put everything into the hands of nominees, who will then divest
  themselves of all those assets by means of bearer shares. The principals
  go down to Lima penniless and then, by means of the bearer shares, set
  up a company there. No tax at any stage of the transaction."
  "Why Peru?"
 128  LEN DEIGHTON

  "All the Caribbean tax havens have just about had their day. Washington
  has leaned on the governments down there with such energy that no one's
  using them anymore."
  "Do you have a company in Peru?"
  "A small provincial bank that Sir Jeremy picked up for a song. It will
  be useful for the actual machinery."
  "You'll assign the necessary assets?" I suppose it was legal. Guys like
  Victor knew when to keep it all legal.
  "Yes. And Mrs. Petrovitch will do the same for the other side. It's all
  in her name, he tells me."
  "I hate bearer shares," I said. "They can be lost or stolen and there's
  no recourse,"
  "There's no alternative." He walked across the room. The red dragons
  were snarling.
  "I think we should try to think of one," I told him. "Someone grabs
  those bearer shares, and you'll lose your zillions."
  "It comes to nearly a hundred million dollars if the real estate is
  included." He sat down on the bed as if feeling weak. He shook some
  tablets from a bottle and swallowed them with a sip of water. Then he
  put a hand under his pillow in a furtive movement.
  "What have you got under that pillow, Vic? That's the third time you've
  done that."
  He lifted the pillow to reveal a revolver. Oh, no! Not another one. He
  turned to me. "I don't like what I see in this house. I feel better with
  a gun under my pillow."
                  VIOLENT WARD    129

   "What do you mean?"
  "Listen, blue eyes. What I've told you is what Petrovitch says he's
  planning. But he could do it all much more elegantly if he had his wife
  murdered at exactly the right juncture. Furthermore, as a principal of
  the company acting on company business, she would be insured under the
  corporate insurance plan. That would give Petrovitch an extra couple of
  million."
  "Kill Mrs. Petrovitch? Is this something Ingrid told you?"
  "Mrs. Petrovitch? I don't even know the woman. All I'm going by is
  Zachary Petrovitch's reputation."
  "Try to rest, Vic," I said. "Maybe you're getting some kind of fever."
  He kicked off his fancy slippers, took off his dressing gown, and got
  into bed. His face was very white, as if he'd seen a ghost or been
  feasted upon by a vampire. "Maybe I will at that," he said. "We'll talk
  tomorrow."
  "You haven't been eating chocolate bars, have you?"
  "No, I'm allergic to chocolate. It brings me out in spots."
  "Make sure the safety is on before you go to sleep," I told him.

  I suddenly wanted to get out of that place and stretch my legs. A steak
  in some noisy downtown dive would be preferable to sitting in this
  creaky old
 130  LEN DEIGHTON

 mansion working my way through a' backlog of unintelligible notes I'd made
 on my laptop.
  I took the Audi and drove into town. The streets were packed with visitors.
  I'd forgotten what Aspen could be like on a Saturday night when the powder
  snow is deep. I mooched my way from bar to bar until I found a place I used
  to like before they fitted it out to look like Sherlock Holmes's Baker
  Street apartment. There was glitter and tinsel everywhere as if they'd
  forgotten to take it down at Christmas, except that every day was Christmas
  for the folks who owned a place like this.
  The customers were mostly dressed in cowboy style. Not cowhand style; not
  sweaty work shirts and stained jeans, but the silk-and-satin cowboy style
  that Hollywood invented for singers back in the thirties. There were four
  slim long-haired musicians: fiddle, bull fiddle, electronic keyboard, and
  a female vocalist with heavy white makeup. They were playing Country and
  Western, making good music, but the way it was coming over the amplifiers
  was enough to rattle the eardrums.
  "Mickey!" It was someone I knew from college and one of the best friends
  of my ex-wife, Betty. I've got a terrible memory for faces. I knew her
  well; she'd been to the house for dinner many times. I knew her very well
  indeed, but what was her name-Fluffy? Fifi? Frances? "Remember me, darline.
  Felicity'?" Well I was nearly right. "Felicity Weingartner. Remember? USC."
  "Sure I remember, Felicity. Say, didn't I know you at USC? What were you:
  class of 'Forty-five?"
                  VIOLENT WARD    131

  "You pig!" She gave a shrill little laugh but the loud music swallowed it.
  She leaned over and looped her arm through mine as if she was going to grab
  a stein and go into a drinking song. "You do remember, don't you?" A
  waitress arrived and hovered over us expectantly.
  "Easy does it, Felicity. Plonk your ass down and have a drink."
  "Already." She held up a glass and rattled the ice in it. She'd been
  drinking, but not so much that she was in any way drunk. A six-foot-tall
  goodlooker, she was wearing a navy blue cap-sleeve dress. Around her neck
  was a chain from which a big gold zodiac sign dangled. She had curly brown
  hair cut short and a golden tan, very white teeth, and a fixed, dotty kind
  of smile. She was cute.
  "Have another," I said.
  "Just a Coke. I drink too much these days."
  "Irish whisky on the rocks and a Coke," I told the waitress. "What are you
  doing in Aspen, Felicity? I thought you were in movies."
  "I am in movies. We're shooting here in town. I've been here two weeks.
  It's a dump. We've still got three locations to go: Denver, then a mountain
  hut, and then a train station or something. I can't wait to get out of
  here."
  "What do you do in movies?" I asked, more to be polite than because I
  wanted to know.
  "I thought you didn't like movies," she said. So she really did remember
  me. The waitress gave me my whisky and put a cold can of Coca-Cola on the
  table together with a tumbler containing ice. Felic-
   132 LEN DEIGHTON

 ity pulled the ringtop and drank from the can. Aspen is like that.
  "Yeah, well, I'm not a movie person," I admitted. "I prefer videos. With
  videos you can get up and fix yourself coffee or a sandwich. And you can
  roll the same sequence again if you forgot what it was all about."
  "Video. That's like eating candy with the wrapper on. Video is for old
  folks."
  "I'm getting to be old folks real fast these days, Felicity, and that's
  the truth."
  "Are you kidding me? Old folks!" She gave me the kind of playful punch
  that leaves bruises. "I'm with special effects: explosives, smoke, and
  stuff. You name it, I do it."
  "Yeah, I remember now," I lied. "That must be interesting."
  "You get to talk to the director. You see places and people. And with
  these location deals you make money. This shoot is a six-day week with
  lots of nights. That's good bread. I needed this one: I had a repo man
  come for my BMW. Can you imagine?" She gave another of those shrill
  laughs. They must have heard her across the room.
  I looked around to see: there were a dozen or more men wearing zip-front
  jackets and baseball caps crowded around a table that was covered with
  cans and bottles. They were waving to her.
  "Get lost!" she shouted. "The crew," she explained. "A lot of no-good
  drunken bums. The last film, I was with real nice people. You never can
                  VIOLENT WARD    133

 tell." She held the cold can against her cheek. "What brings you here,
 Mickey9"
  "Work." I looked around the room. It was crowded; even the dancers were
  close together. You can tell the tourists from the ones with houses by the
  way they hold their heads. The visitors are always looking around hoping
  to spot some celeb, while the regulars are wearing shades and cowering in
  dark corners. And the people who live here have all got tucks in their
  faces, porcelain teeth, plastic hair, and ten-thousand-dollar wristwatches.
  "Work?" she said. "What kind?"
  "I'm way down Route Eighty-two with a client," I told her. I looked at her
  as I tried to decide whether to mention Ingrid's name. Felicity knew
  Ingrid; she'd been a freshman with us at USC. "I just came to town for a
  drink," I said. "The clients I'm staying with had other things to do this
  evening so they gave me a car."
  "I don't use a car in this town anymore. Have you seen the way they paper
  parked cars around here? I'm living way out near the airport. You can give
  me a ride home if you're going that way. It will save me cab fare."
  "Okay. Sure you don't want a real drink?"
  "We'll have a nightcap at my place," she said.
  "Sounds good," I said. "Let's go."
  "Down, boy, down!" she said.
  I smiled and drank real slowly, and we exchanged small talk for half an
  hour. Her boozy work mates cheered as we went out together. We eased our
  way through the Saturday-night people and out
 134     LEN DEIGHTON

 into the street. Felicity was a neat person. I wondered if she had enough
 old fiiends with cars to manage permanently without a rental.
  I wasn't prepared for the neat little house she was occupying. Not very
  big and not very fancy but in this town--even out near the
  airport-buying a place like that wouldn't leave more than small change
  from a million dollars.
  "What kind of budget you got on this movie?" I said, settling down on
  the velvet-covered sofa and eyeing the fancy light fittings.
  "Don't be dumb. This pad has nothing to do with the production. It
  belongs to my sister, Sheree. You never met her, did you? She's a lovely
  girl." Felicity didn't really mean "girl," she just didn't like to face
  the fact that she was grown up enough for her sister to be a woman. "Her
  boyfriend rented this place for her, plus a swanky apartment in New
  York. In the Fifties, looking out over Park Avenue, doorman, heat, and
  all the bills paid. Can you imagine?"
  "Not easily," I said. 'That kind of thing hasn't happened to me in
  ages."
  "But she's got her troubles, He's moody and demanding. And he's a
  cokehead ... well, I don't have to go on, do I?"
  "He's married, this moody cokehead?"
  "I always said you should have been a detective.
  "Ha-ha. Give me a drink."
  "Fix it yourself, big boy." She slumped down, closed her eyes, slipped
  her shoes off, and sighed.
                  VIOLENT WARD  135

  1 got up and went across to the Art Deco bar. There was every kind of
  drink on the mirrored shelves. I poured a ready-mix Manhattan and found
  ice in the refrigerator that was fitted under the sink. With the drink in
  my hand I looked around. On the piano there were photos, lots of photos,
  all of them in silver frames. Some were group photos and some were
  newspaper glossies and always somewhere in the picture were the same man
  and girl, always smiling and beautiful: Sheree, I guessed, with her
  cokehead.
  "Do you come to Aspen a lot?" I asked her. "Even when you're not working
  here?"
  "To ski sometimes; it's glorious skiing. But for the likes of me it's
  expensive." She came around behind me to see what I was looking at. It was
  the photo of a gang of people crowding around a wedding cake. "That's
  Sheree, and that's Frank Sinatra," she said, tapping the photo.
  "It just looks like someone's arm," I said.
  "It's Frank Sinatra's arm," said Felicity.
  I tapped another section of blue serge suiting and said, "Could that be
  Michael Jackson's ass?"
  "You're a miserable bastard, Mickey," she said, smiling, but not smiling
  so much as to show she didn't mean it.
  "It's the altitude," I said. "I'm real nice at sea level." I spotted the
  smiling face of Zach Petrovitch in another one of the photos: a big melee
  of guests at some kind of function where everyone was wearing tuxedos,
  fixed smiles, and tiaras. "Know that guy?" I asked her.
 136 LEN DEIGHTON

  She looked at me as if I was crazy. As if she were answering the big
  question on a game show, she said, "Zach Petrovitch. He's married to
  your Ingrid. Sure I know him."
  My Ingrid? Oh, well. "He's my client. That's where I'm staying." I sat
  down and rested my feet on a stuffed pig of polished leather. It
  creaked.
  "I wondered about that. Ingrid told me you were working for Petrovitch
  these days." She spread herself across the sofa, letting her skirt ride
  up like wanton women do in movies.
  "You see them?"
  "Sure. Off and on I've seen a lot of Ingrid. For a couple of semesters
  we roomed together. We kept in touch, like I kept in touch with you and
  Betty. I kind of reach out for old friends. I was with Ingrid the day
  she went to see her astrologer about getting married again."
  "And the astrologer okayed it?"
  "No. The astrologer said the signs were real bad. Zach Petrovitch is not
  really Aquarius: he's born on the cusp. That's part of their problem."
  "That's too bad," I said. "And not much anyone can do about it."
  "Ya; looks like. I haven't seen much of her lately. She got a charge
  account with Gianni Versace, and I found myself cutting the Saks labels
  off my favorite dresses, and I began to think this maybe wasn't a
  healthy relationship for either of us. Know what I mean?"
  "It's called status anxiety.))
  "She'd insist we go to fancy places for lunch,
                  VIOLENT WARD   137

 and then she'd keep looking over my shoulder to see who was coming in. I
 felt kind of uncomfortable with her. I guess she felt the same about me.
 We never had a row or anything; I still call her regularly and see her.
 We had coffee together only a couple of weeks ago, and she came down to
 watch the shooting, but Ingrid's different nowadays. She's not our kind
 anymore. She has that big house along the road, she has all kinds of
 celebs out there to stay, but she's never invited me there, not even for
 coffee." She grabbed at her arms and hugged herself. "It's getting chilly
 in here."
  "Ingrid's all right," I said. "She's maybe lost her way.IP
  "She could always wind you around her little finger. You were
  bewitched."
  "We were young."
  "Maybe marrying Petrovitch wasn't smart, not if she wanted the kind of
  care and attention we both know she demands. Petrovitch is a loner."
  "Did you tell her that?"
  "No. I was happy for her. They were in love and he was rich and owned
  half the world."
  "They seem happy," I said.
  "They come from different worlds; they want different things." Felicity
  opened her purse and looked inside it as if she was going to get a ciga-
  rette. Maybe she was, but if so she changed her mind and snapped it shut
  and put it aside. "When she started to feel neglected she drained me,
  Mickey. I helped her all I could, but she took me to the cleaners
  emotionally." Maybe I didn't look con-
   138 LEN DEIGHTON

 vinced because she went on. "One night in LA she came around to see me and
 said she was frightened. I spent half the night talking to her. Finally
 she went back home happy and reassured, and slept till noon, and had her
 maid bring her brunch in bed. Great, except that I grabbed two hours
 tossing and turning, then went to work bushed. I can't be a stand-in for
 her emotional wear and tear. She doesn't understand what it takes out of
 me."
  "Frightened of what?"
  "Frightened of Petrovitch. It's all nonsense, of course. The truth is
  she's become a neurotic woman; she needs counseling."
  "Maybe she gets lonely."
  'We all do. It's okay for you, you've got your lovely son."
  "I haven't got my lovely son. He's living with a Gloria Steinem
  look-alike near Paramount Studios. The last time I went to see him he
  was brandishing a Browning automatic and telling me how much he could
  hock it for. I haven't got my son."
  She continued as if she hadn't heard me. "But what has Ingrid got?
  Dinner parties and charity committees."
  "She's got her husband," I suggested tentatively.
  "Oh, boy, isn't that a man's answer. A husband! Let me tell you
  something: her husband takes balance sheets to read in bed. Ingrid told
  me that for a fact. He takes his accounts to read in bed."
  I didn't like Petrovitch, but that didn't seem like a fair comment. "The
  guy is working his butt off
                  VIOLENT WARD    139

 to make money so she can take a gold charge card to Rodeo Drive, and
 you bad-mouth him." "Talk to In rid
         , gn
  "I was talking to her this afternoon," I said.
  "Did she bend your ear with her problems?"
  "No," I said.
  "Well, maybe you're the one person she should have laid it on. You're
  a lawyer. You're paid to give people advice."
  "Thanks, Felicity. Can I give you half a dozen of my business cards?"
  "My, my. Did I touch a nerve?"
  "So you're in special effects? That sounds interesting."
  She grinned. "Don't press your luck, buster! As a matter of fact I've
  been developing a subject for nearly two years. I got a script written,
  paid for the first draft, and then decided I could get it into better
  shape myself. I took journalism and English at college, so I know how
  to write. Special effects? Hell, no, that's for the birds. I'm going to
  direct the next one."
  "Direct? Could you handle that?"
  "Half those jerks get director credits for standing around while the
  crew makes the movie. I can direct. Yes."
  "When?" I wasn't convinced, and neither was she.
  She tugged at the hem of her skirt. "Good question, old buddy. When I
  can get someone excited about my script, that's when. You know the prob-
  lem with Hollywood?"
 140   LEN DEIGHTON

  "I've been waiting to hear."
  "Nepotism. The whole lousy industry is packed with the cousins,
  brothers-in-law, and children of the guys at the top. Run the credits of
  any new movie, and you find the great-grandchildren of the guys who were
  running the industry back in the thirties."
  "It's not so easy," I said. "There's a lot of competition, even for people
  with the right family." I have movie clients, plenty of them. Getting from
  being an outsider with a script under your arm to being a director with a
  few million bucks to make a picture is a leap that few wannabes made. I
  hoped she wasn't going to ask me to twist the arm of someone I knew.
  "And too many kids from film schools. Every last lousy college in the
  country has got a film school. Usually run by some dumb nerd with a sub-
  scription to Variety who learned about movies by doing the Universal
  Studios tour."
  "You should see the guys teaching law," I said.
  "They know all the shots: 'We'll take the umbrella scene from Hitchcock,
  the baby carriage sequence from Eisenstein, the sunrise from David Lean,
  the horsemen from Peckinpah.' The trouble is they haven't got one original
  idea in their head; all they know is camera angles."
  "Can I have another drink?" I said, getting up to help myself.
  "Too many goddamned car chases," she called, waving her empty glass at me.
                  , VIOLENT WARD  141

  "And not enough sex and violence," I said, taking the glass and pouring
  her a refill.
  She looked at me for a moment and said, "You're all right, Mickey."
  "If you say so, Felicity."
  "You got a football scholarship to college, didn't YOUT)
  "When people say that to me in that tone of voice, I know it means: I can
  believe you're brainless enough, but do you have the build for W" I gave
  her the drink. "That's right. I was lucky. They needed people on the team
  that year. The Marine Corps had kicked me out with an injured hand after
  ten months of service. USC was awarding football scholarships, and as a
  disabled vet I hit the spot with the board."
  "You don't have to apologize. It's just that you never did look like one
  of those football dudes."
  "I was on the team with Budd Byron. He switched from Political Science to
  Theater."
  "I see him all the time. We were on a movie together last summer."
  "Yes, he keeps working."
  "He's a fine actor and still gorgeous looking. I could go for him."
  "Lucky Budd." I sipped my drink and then put it down. I didn't want it
  anymore. The mood had changed. When we first came back here I had the
  feeling that she could hardly wait for us to tumble into bed. But the
  moment had passed.
  Maybe she saw that and wanted to make a
 142            LEN DEIGHTON

 preemptive strike. "I really must get some shuteye .
  "Yep, I must be getting along," I said. "I've got a meeting with Zach
  Petrovitch in the morning, and I have documents to read."
  I guess we were both putting Band-Aids on our egos. "And I have to be
  on location by six-thirty. There's a lot of preparation for tomorrow's
  shoot, and we've got a eight-year-old director who throws tantrums if
  he's kept waiting."
  I kissed her decorously, once on each cheek the way the beautiful people
  who'd been to Europe did it. And then I drove back to ranchero
  Petrovitch. It was a wonderful night and the mountains gleamed in the
  moonlight. I didn't see anyone as I parked the car, but there were
  several little buzzes as the security cameras turned and focused and
  checked out who I was and where I went.
  It was still only a little past midnight. I didn't look in on Vic
  Crichton, in case I got a fusillade of lead. I decided to do half an
  hour's work, and while I was tapping away at my laptop I heard cars com-
  ing and going. While working I kept thinking of Ingrid, trying to decide
  if she was really happy or not. I couldn't tell. Feeding chocolate bars
  to your husband's favorite filly sounded like something a shrink could
  make a saga from. Jealousy? Hatred? Indulgence? I gave up on it and
  switched to TV. I could only find electronic snow: maybe nighttime TV
  in Aspen was always that way. I felt tired. I'd fallen into some kind
  of generation gap, I guess.
  I went and opened the window to breathe some
                   VIOLENT WARD  143

 of that clear Colorado air. On the mountainside, like strings of amber
 beads, the lamps of Sno-Cats crawled across the slopes, reupholstering the
 ski runs for morning. I closed the window tight. You can have too much of
 that kind of fresh air.
  Finally I went to bed and read a book I found on the shelf: Selected
  Letters of Ernest Hemingway, the author. Oh, boy, and I thought lawyers
  had problems! After I'd switched off the lights I lay in bed listening
  to the owls hooting and that wildlife ruckus. Out here in the Colorado
  mountains all the animals came out after dark; in this respect it was
  a lot like Los Angeles.
  I was awakened by voices. At first I couldn't hear what they were
  saying; the sounds were muffled by the deep snow. But I recognized the
  voices as the folks who live on the hill: Petrovitch and Ingrid. Then
  I heard Ingrid say, "Maybe you get too emotionally involved with them."
  Petrovitch said something about "I'm not going to shoot her, and that's
  final." And then the door closed and silenced the voices.
  It was almost dawn; it probably would have been dawn but for all those
  lousy mountains blocking the light. I guessed they'd been holding hooves
  all night. Instead of quarreling over kids they quarreled over horses;
  maybe the nags answered some kind of need for them. Or maybe not. In any
  case, what business was it of mine? I turned over, thumped the feather
  pillow, and went back to sleep.
 144 LEN DEIGHTON

  Next morning a phone call from some in-house female secretary told me that
  Mr. and Mrs. Petrovitch would both be sleeping late. I could fly home.
  They'd contact me next week when I was needed. Okay, folks, no offense
  taken; everything is itemized and on the bill. I gave Vic Crichton a miss.
  I had breakfast in the morning room, just me, seated, and two servants
  pouring coffee and orange juice. Before me there was a bowl piled high with
  watercress and grapefruit salad, two small oatcakes, and muesh with
  yoghurt. It was delicious and healthy, but I couldn't help hoping that on
  the plane they'd serve fried eggs, crispy bacon, and pork sausages.
  The man in the woolly hat was wearing his Eddie Bauer fur-collared parka
  when he took me to the airport via downtown Aspen, where vital errands had
  to be done. He was a taciturn fellow, and I didn't ask him whether Aunt
  Jemima had gone to that big racetrack in the sky. After he'd picked up a
  package from a laboratory and posted some mail, we crawled through downtown
  Aspen in heavy traffic until halted by some kind of private cop brandishing
  a stop sign and a walkie-talkie. "Hold it, buddy."
  The mountains shut the light out. The gray snow-packed sky made the street
  shadowless and drained the world of color, except that small section of it
  the camera crew saw. For them a searchlightthe gigantic kind of carbon arc
  lamp that the movie world calls a brute-flooded the street with an oval
  lake of yellow light and ridged the houses with gold
                  VIOLENT WARD 145

 trim. Aspen's main street, usually a set piece of ordered car parking, was
 now crammed with vehicles strewn around like forgotten toys at bath time.
 Not just cars: bulldozers and station wagons, vans and buses, trucks and
 cranes.
  Downtown Aspen was a scene to behold. In a mad reversal of normal life,
  snow was being trucked down from the mountain and shoveled into the
  street from the backs of slowly moving dump trucks. They were bringing
  snow into Aspen! Aspen, which had its every last street swept clean of
  snow every night: what kind of kooks were these movie folk?
  "No cars-not until we get the shot."
  "We'll be through and away in ten seconds," I said.
  He smiled to reveal broken teeth. "This is eighteen eighty-two, mister.
  No cars, get it? We don't want the camera to spot the tracks of your
  deeptread Michelins, do we?"
  The street was crowded with people: some of them were in costume, many
  of them were drinking coffee and eating doughnuts being dispensed from
  an open-sided van marked KING KONG LOCATION CATERING. Tracks had been
  laid along the sidewalk, and on the camera dolly a bearded cameraman in
  a fur hat was bent over to peer through the eyepiece of the camera. Two
  powerful grips were flexing their muscles, ready to push the dolly
  backward along the tracks.
  "Mickey! Mickey, hurry. What luck: youre just in time!" It was Felicity.
  She was wearing a bomber
 146  LEN DEIGHTON

 jacket with a fur collar. In her hands she had two steaming Styrofoam cups
 of coffee. She was smiling and bright-eyed, as though working on the movie
 energized her.
  "In time for what?" I opened the car door. It was cold out there.
  "Have coffee and come see what I do for a living.l~
  "I've got a plane to catch."
  "They'll hold the plane." She gave me one of the coffees.
  "For me they won't hold the plane," I told her.
  "We have some film that must go to the lab. The LA flight won't leave until
  it's on board."
  "She's right. It will be okay," my woolly-hatted friend agreed.
  "Movies rule the world," I said. But I got out of the car and plodded
  behind her to a place where a row of folding chairs had been arranged for
  the technicians. The director was huddled on a high stool. He was dressed
  in black: black pants, black boots, black windbreaker, black turtleneck,
  and a black fur hat. He was a big fellow for an eightyear-old.
  "Be quiet. Sit here. Want more coffee? A doughnut?" She indicated a canvas
  chair with SPECIAL EFFECTS stenciled on the fabric.
  I shook my head. "Are you sure about that plane?"
  "Sure, I'm sure. Watch! Watch the actor in the middle, the one with the big
  Stetson. They're just about ready to go."
                  VIOLENT WARD   147

  I'd had dozens of movie clients. Watching movies being made was no big
  deal. "Where's the focus puller?" I asked her.
  She was up to that. "It's a tracking shot at walking speed. They won't
  need to change focus; the distance between the actor and the camera dolly
  remains the same throughout."
  "Um," I said, and drank my steaming coffee while one of the assistant
  directors bull-horned everyone into silence. Then the script girl snapped
  her Polaroid shot and clipped it into the book for continuity.
  Felicity leaned across to say, "It sure would be great to get it in one
  shot. It's a lot of work setting it up. See the other cameras? This is a
  key shot in the story, and the director wants it covered from a lot of
  different angles. Mute camera for this one; no need to hold your breath.
  The airport being so close by makes location recording impossible here."
  "Let's go. Camera! Action!" called the assistant director.
  The camera dolly rolled back, keeping always about ten feet away from the
  three cowboys, who came stomping out of the saloon and through the snow,
  cursing and waving their arms in anger.
  "Come out, gunman!" shouted the director. From the same doorway behind
  them came a man with a rifle. He put it to his shoulder, aimed, and fired.
  I heard the faint whine of some sort of radiocontrolled gadget. Then I was
  stupefied to see the tall cowboy's skull explode in a great thick cloud of
  blood. Pow! Brains, blood, and skull fragments
 148 LEN DEIGHTON

 rained down upon the snowy street as the figure crumbled, flailed his arms,
 and collapsed into goreencrusted snow.
  It was horrific. His head burst open so that imitation blood, gray brains,
  and torn pieces of Stetson were scattered everywhere. For a moment even
  these hardened movie people seemed stunned by the sight of the mess, and
  then the director shouted, "Cut! We'll do it again." He was angry as he
  called to some unseen special effects guy who'd triggered the explosion.
  "Alan, I don't want to see damage to the Stetson. That wouldn't happen in
  reality, would it? Can we fix that?"
  Felicity waved a hand in the air, and the director nodded.
  A bulldozer roared in to scoop up the bloodstained snow and the bits of
  skull and brain. As the actor was helped to his feet by a special effects
  man and a wardrobe girl, I could see the way in which a false head had been
  fixed to a frame he wore. He was a double: really some six inches shorter
  than he would seem to be in the film. A girl stood by, holding a new head
  complete with radio antenna that would be hidden by the Stetson. A second
  hat, exactly like the previous one right down to the last stain and crease,
  was also ready.
  "Pretty good, eh?" said Felicity. "I told them to put reinforcing in the
  Stetson, but that dumb director said it would be okay without."
  "It's disgusting," I said. I spoke with great feeling.
  "You've turned white," she said. She chortled.
                  VIOLENT WARD   149

 "You're really going to enjoy your airline breakfast."
  "What kind of mind dreams up a sequence like that?" It would have served
  her right if I'd thrown up my grapefruit-and-watercress salad.
  "You're upset, Mickey. I'm sorry," she said, without sounding very
  sorry. "I didn't know what a sensitive kind of guy you are, or I would
  have warned you."
  "All us footballers are like that," I said. But I'd heard something in
  her voice that betrayed her delight. I knew then I had misread the
  entrails last night. She'd felt rejected by my getting up and going
  home, and she didn't like to be rejected.
  But she wasn't going to let me get away so easily. Hanging on my arm,
  she said, "I couldn't sleep last night. You made me feel guilty ...
  about Ingrid, I mean. I shouldn't have said she was neurotic. Maybe deep
  inside I was a tiny bit jealous. I'll go talk to her and cheer her up
  and be a little more supportive."
  "They're sleeping late. They had a sick horse up there last night," I
  said.
  "She didn't feed Jemima candy bars again, did she?" When I didn't reply,
  Felicity said, "She swore she wouldn't. I guess things must be bad
  between them. She does it to punish him, of course."
  "You're doing a great job, Felicity," I said. "See you in 1A sometime."
  She let me get into the car before replying. "Yeah, sure," she said. I
  heard a very loud maybe.
  Once in the car I sat back in the leather and
 150 LEN DEIGHTON

 fought down waves of nausea. I opened the window and waved as the car drew
 away. I needed air. "Did you see that stunt?" I asked the driver.
  "Yeah. Great, wasn't it?"
  "Maybe Mr. Petrovitch would like to come down and watch," I suggested.
  "They're blowing heads off all morning."
 CHAPTER 7
 Flying back from Colorado was not a pleasure for me, but at least I was
 heading in the right direction. When I'm working and a client foots the
 bill, I have my secretary arrange a car for me, but this had all been
 planned so hurriedly I took one of those doorto-door buses for the outward
 journey and on my return flight I just walked out bag in hand and flagged
 down the first cab I saw.
  "You want to go to Woodland Hills?"
  I asked him because some of those guys are choosey about journeying into
  the sticks. This one even helped me with my bag; there must be a recession
  or something.
  "Sure, that's my kind of habitat." The driver was a short fat Armenian with
  a curly gray mus-
   152   LEN DEIGHTON

 tache, a worried face, and a tire lever under his seat. He saw the label on
 my bag. "You been in Aspen, huh? How is the snow?"
  "I couldn't tell you, buddy. I was there on business." I didn't want him
  to think I was some rich jerk who could go to Aspen for a weekend and tip
  with my eyes closed.
  "Are you a travel agent?" He jumped into the driver's seat, revved up, and
  tore away like we were doing the Indy.
  I held on tight as he went around the airport feeder road on two wheels.
  "I'm a lawyer. I was with a client."
  "Lawyer, huh? So what do you think the jury will do? Will you look at that
  guy!" He gave a blast on the horn, went through the changing signals, and
  tore up the hill at full speed.
  "What jury?"
  "The Simi Valley trial. The amateur video." He said it like I must be a
  visitor from Mars. "The cops and the black guy in Foothills a year ago.
  Don't tell me you haven't seen the tape?"
  "I've seen it." Who hadn't seen the blurred pictures of the figure on the
  ground and the batonwielding policemen? The Rodney King beating was
  prime-time TV. Every talking head in the world collected fees for
  discussing it under lights.
  As we fed into the traffic and slowed to its speed, the driver leaned back.
  "I had a fare who'd just arrived from Taiwan. Oriental guy but perfect
  English, hardly any accent. First thing he asks me is what's happening to
  those cops on trial. This guy
                  VIOLENT WARD    153

 travels all the time. He told me that video clip has been shown on every TV
 station in the world."
  "I guess so. Even in Aspen."
  "Is that so? Do you think they pay a fee to that guy every time they use
  it?'"
  "I'm not sure."
  "So what will the verdict be?"
  "I never predict verdicts; you're safer guessing what the horses will do
  at Santa Anita."
  "Not guilty. Mark my words. That's how the verdict will come in."
  "You think so?"
  "And you're a lawyer? Sure. Not guilty. You know what the law says. It's
  a crime to resist an arresting officer. It's in the code: submit, it says.
  Resist having the cuffs put on, and a cop can club you senseless. That's
  what the law says, Mac. You going to tell me I'm wrong?"
  I said, "The law says reasonable force can be exerted until an arrestee is
  restrained."
  He nodded sagely; he'd had this conversation before. "Okay. Maybe you like
  it, maybe you don't, but it's the law of the land. No way that jury can
  find those cops guilty. No way! You're a lawyer, you know that."
  "You can never tell what a jury will do, believe me.))

  But he gave no sign of having heard my caution. "They got to have the law
  framed that way. A cop is often alone in the car when he confronts a
  perpetrator. No way a single cop can cuff a huge guy like that if the guy
  is determined not to be
 154 LEN DEIGHTON

 cuffed. No way, except being able to club him senseless if he resists."
  "Reasonable force," I said. "Not club anyone senseless; just use reasonable
  force."
  He wasn't listening to me. He was like all my clients. They come to you for
  advice and never listen to what you tell them. He said, "You want to do the
  Coast or the One-oh-one?"
  "Whatever you say."
  "Let's try the One-oh-one. Yep, that guy is a bodybuilder. I have those
  guys in the cab sometimes, but when I spot that kind of muscle flagging me
  I keep going. I don't slow for them guys."
  44'WhY7
  "Why? Why?" His voice rose. Overcome by my ignorance and foolishness, he
  swiveled in his seat to get another look at me. "Are you kidding? Because
  a black guy built like the Bonaventure Hotel is likely to have done his
  long stint of muscle-building at government expense, that's why." We bumped
  over a series of potholes. "I don't know why they let them have all that
  expensive gym equipment in prison. Bodybuilding-shit! All those cons should
  be fixing the roads.... Look at that son of a bitch!" There was another
  jolt.
  "How do you know so much about the law?" I said. I mean about cuffing
  perps."
  "Cabbies have to know the law. Let me tell you, my son is a cop and it's
  tough being a cop in this town. Okay, some towns are worse, but do you know
  how many IA cops have been blown away in the last ten years? He's
  twenty-one years old. I
                  VIOLENT WARD   155

 begged him not to do it. He says he wants to help people. My old lady
 worries every night about the kid. Did you see those figures Time magazine
 got from the county DA's office? We've got thirteen thousand hardcore
 killers walking the streets in this city-and a lot of those goons are fresh
 from Asia, straight out of the jungle."
  "It was a woman," I said, remembering the newspaper account. "The one who
  pulled that guy over for speeding and driving under the influencethat was
  a woman CHP officer who started the whole business."
  "Jesus." He shuddered. "Am I glad no daughter of mine rides these streets
  through the night. If you saw the things I see when I'm on late shift.
  Pushers, pervs, psychos. I'd rather she was a twenty-five-dollar hostess
  in Dreamland. There are people out there on the street who will kill for
  the price of one fix. Ever been to Little Phnom Penh in Long Beach, the
  Cambodian section?"
  "I've heard of it," I said.
  "Stay away; it's a battlefield. I won't go there anymore. Gangs run that
  neighborhood. There are drive-by shootings every day. No one is safe."
  "It's the next ramp," I told him.
  "What? Oh, sure, no sweat. I know Woodland Hills. This is a nice
  neighborhood. Good schools and decent people. Respectable white European
  people, not like all this foreign immigrant shit we got downtown. You're
  lucky."
  By the time I reached my home it was getting dark, but the sun's got
  visiting rights to Southern
 156            LEN DEIGHTON

 California and we see it on a regular basis. I walked around the house
 feeling good and went out on my deck to watch the sunset, smell my little
 orange trees, and listen to the traffic pounding down the freeway.
  I made sure that Mrs. Santos, my Mexican cleaning lady who is really from
  Colombia, had given Rex his canned food. Although his water bowl was not
  empty, I poured more into it. He wagged his tail.
  "It's good to be home, Rex," I said. He smiled and drank some water just
  to show me he needed it.
  I sat down on my big chintz sofa with a chilled glass of one of those
  low-cal no-alcohol beers. I had a selection on the fridge door and was
  working my way through them. One day I was going to cut out alcohol
  altogether-the cops had been leaning on drunk driving lately and the courts
  seemed to single out lawyers for punitive sentencing. In fact, some of
  these lead-free brews were actually drinkable. Yum-yum.
  I hit the button of my phone to take the messages. It was all routine
  except for a long message from Jo-Anne, a nice girl I'd been dating off and
  on since Thanksgiving, when I met her at a cookout in Palos Verdes. She
  worked as a broker in the stock inarket, and the message said she was going
  to Chicago Monday morning to visit with her mother and would be back
  midweek. We'd both been getting pretty serious lately, but I didn't want
  to talk with her right now. Meeting Ingrid again had jolted my mind in a
  way I didn't think was still possible. I
                  VIOLENT WARD   157

 wasn't about to try and explain any of that to JoAnne. Not even the most
 understanding of women is going to nod through the notion of being put on
 hold because I'd had a cup of coffee with a married woman who gave me the
 brush-off more years ago than either of us cared to calculate.
  I hadn't been back home for half an hour when the door buzzer sounded.
  It was a little late for social calls. I squinted through the viewing
  lens in the door and switched on the light that illuminated the entry
  porch, The light seemed to startle him, and he jumped back. It was no
  one I recognized. I opened the door as far as the safety chain allowed.
  "I'm a friend of Betty, your wife," said the guy on the doorstep. This
  character must have been waiting outside in a car, and seen me arrive,
  and waited some more. Can you beat it? It's sobering to find out what
  kind of guys your ex-wife attaches herself to. This greasy-haired
  individual in his natty suit, a cigar between his teeth and a readymade
  floral-pattern bow tie, was straight from Central Casting: the crooked
  fight manager in a black-and-white B-movie who wants his boy to take a
  dive.
  "I'm a friend of your wife," he said again, in a New York accent. "No
  need to be seared." He plucked the cigar from his face and gave me an
  unconvincing smile.
  "Scared? I'm relieved," I said. "I'd figured you for a talent scout from
  the IRS."
  "Yeah, well, as a matter of fact, I want to talk
 158 LEN DEIGHTON

 about money," he said, and waited for me to release the chain and ask him
 in.
  "Talk on."
  "You want to let me in?"
  "I got a fierce dog," I told him. "And he hasn't been fed yet."
  "You've got to let Betty have more money," he said. "She can't manage on
  what you give her, and she can't work."
  "Why can't she work?"
  "She's not strong. You know that."
  "I don't know anything of the kind," I told him. "You can take it from me,
  Betty is strong. She may not be muscular, but she is one of the strongest
  women I ever wrestled with."
  "Cut the comedy," he said. "She can't manage, and you've got to give her
  a cash settlement out of all that dough you're getting for the sellout."
  "Beat it," I said.
  "Ten thousand."
  "Get out of here. I'll have you arrested for demanding money by threat."
  "She said you were an asshole."
  "Look, buddy, if you feel the dough I give her each month is inadequate,
  you give her some of your own moola."
  "Ten thousand, and she'll never bother you again." He removed the cigar
  from his mouth and tapped ash onto the ground.
  "I said beat it." I closed the door.
  Boom, boom! My visitor delivered a succession of blows to the door panels.
  It wasn't a very good
                  VIOLENT WARD   159

 door: the lock had been forced three times over the years, and one of the
 hinges was very shaky. And this guy was heavy-duty, a veritable steam
 shovel. "Let me in!" He was shouting and hammering on the door so the
 whole house shook.
  I figured any minute the glue around that panel was going to give, and
  then those big hands were going to come groping through the door for me.
  Where the hell was Rex? He always went and hid when I needed him. "Rex!
  Rex!" I called in a low confident voice. "This is a ten-thirteen, Rex,
  old buddy: officer requires assistance." No sign of the mutt. Just a
  couple of growls and a bark would have been backup.
  Lacking Rex, I had to cool this maniac before he leveled the house. I
  shouted, "Stop that and get out of here, greaseball, or I'll blow both
  your goddamned heads off." That got his attention, all right. "With this
  Magnum," I added, although all I had stashed behind the door was a rain
  hat and a dated certificate from the termite and pest control inspector.
  He stopped pounding on the door and shut up, maybe to snatch a drag on
  his cigar. Then he shouted, "I'll be back, Mickey Murphy. I'll be back!"
  "That's right, it's been lovely, let's do it again," I said. "Go home
  and take your vitamins." Jesus, what did I do to deserve this panorama
  of life in a great city? I went into the family room-family room: that's
  a laugh; the last time a family was in this room was when my cleaning
  lady brought her
 160            LEN DEIGHTON

 two cousins and her husband to get the cobwebs from the higher reaches of
 its cathedral ceiling.
  I sat down and clicked my way through all thirty channels offered by the
  cable company. Then I riffled through my videos without finding any
  Hollywood musical I wanted to see for the hundredth time. I was hungry. I
  got a pollo alla cacciatore from the freezer and slammed it into the micro.
  It wasn't bad; not like the picture on the package, of course, but there
  was an element of excitement as I sifted through the thick red sauce, en-
  countering pieces of olive, tomato, and mushroom until I discovered the
  elusive piece of chicken.
  After I'd eaten this spicy mixture I made a really strong brew of coffee
  in the automatic, sat down, and slipped off my shoes while it hissed and
  bubbled. I seemed to be having a lot of arguments lately. This is not you,
  Mickey, I thought as I saw my bulbous and distorted self reflected in the
  dark blank screen of the TV. You are arguing with cops doing their duty,
  firemen trying to save lives, your son's charming and beautiful girlfriend,
  and even the well-meaning associates of your dear ex-wife. Come to think
  of it, maybe a Magnum would not be such a bad idea. And a shoulder holster.
  There was that Browning my son Danny kept wrapped in a half-eaten burrito,
  or maybe some friendly neighborhood gun store would sell me an M60 on time.
  I looked at my mail. I already had it in my hand. Mrs. Santos put newly
  arrived mail-together with her itemized bill-in the plastic jug of the
  coffee machine. It had to be removed before cof-
                     VIOLENT WARD 161

 fee could be made. And since last month, Mrs. Santos had been using her
 son's computer to print out her bills: tracking paper and that crazy
 expanded lettering that some of them do. She couldn't read, write, or speak
 the language but on that computer she was a regular Horowitz, and her
 counting was unassailable. Don't get me wrong; we're all immigrants, and I
 like her. Mrs. Santos caught on fast, and I admire that: it sure was taking
 me a long time to adjust to life in the U.S. of A. If Mrs. Santos stood for
 public office I'd vote for her, because put her in the White House with her
 son's computer, and this nation would not have a four-trillion-dollar
 deficit for long, believe me.
  Mail. More two-for-one coupons for the giantsize tubs of fried chicken
  pieces. But I can't get through one of those giant-size tubs before my skin
  goes yellow and I get broody. One dollar off the new Lightfinger car wash,
  and a one and only chance to invest in real estate. The only real letter,
  with handwritten address, was from Danny. It said BY HAND across the top
  and had a stamp that looked like it had been soaked off some other missive.
  I opened it. There was a folded sheet of lined yellow paper from a legal
  pad and a Polaroid photo of a lovely old motorcar. On the yellow paper,
  Danny had written:

   If this is the one you want, its in a lockup in
   Topanga Canyon. It belongs to a guy named
   Panter who's had it for years. He doesn't drive it
   much on account of it's too valuable but all the
 162 LEN DEIGHTON

   car buffs know about it. I'll have his address late
   Monday or, failing that, Tuesday morning. Did
   you say one hundred bucks?
                         Yrs, Danny

  It was a lousy photo, but it looked like a Packard Darrin, all right.
  That was a valuable car: if a Bugatti wanted to give a Ferrari a fancy
  motorcar it would buy a Packard Darrin. I tried to decide where the
  Polaroid shot had been taken, but there was so little background it was
  difficult to be sure. A palm and a section of sidewalk with a yellow
  painted line on the curb and a traffic signal in the background. It
  wasn't Topanga Canyon; Malibu maybe.
  Panter, Pinter, Pindero. I'd buy any of those. These guys never changed
  their name drastically. Some of them kept the same initials so their
  monogrammed shirts, flatware, signet rings, and silver hairbrushes
  didn't look like they all belonged to someone else.
  So it seemed I had found Mr. Pindero. Chasing that Packard Darrin was
  a lucky shot. I guess this guy Pindero was attached to that buggy the
  way I was to my vintage Caddie. Well, if he wanted to disappear he was
  dumb to keep such a tight hold on that car. Car freaks notice every such
  machine on the streets. Riding around in a conspicuous car is no way to
  go into hiding; you may as well get yourself paged in the Polo Lounge.
  Topanga Canyon? Well, that might tempt a guy with the heat on him as a
  place to go and avoid the scrutiny. It was worth
                  VIOLENT WARD    163

 a try. I burped. Maybe I should warn you: there is a lot of garlic in
 chicken cacciatore.

  It rained all through the night, which gave the raccoons a bad time.
  They kept me awake scampering about and trying to prize off my roof
  shingles. If they were building some kind of home up there I would have
  to do something to evict them; they're destructive little critters.
  By morning the rain had stopped, the clouds were broken and scattered,
  and there was sunshine. Topanga Canyon connects the 101 to the Pacific
  Coast Highway, but it's not like the other canyons. Its steep sides are
  green and rugged, and everything sparkled after the rain. You can't
  drive Topanga without being reminded of all those cheap movies made when
  Hollywood belatedly discovered there had been a war in a place named
  Viet Nam. Its hills are scrubby and steep, its roads narrow and winding.
  But it's not all greenery. You can find just about anything you want in
  Topanga. It's a wacky stretch-Sunset Strip served country style. Hot-dog
  vendors, car wreckers, antique dealers, saddlemakers, college
  professors, vagrants, and movie stars all call Topanga home.
  Trails ascend on both sides, and all the intersections are adorned with
  dozens of hand-painted signs to help find the homes of residents. I
  found a fingerpost bearing the name of Panter and turned onto the narrow
  side road. It took every last cubic millimeter of the big V-8 to pull
  my Caddie up that
 164            LEN DEIGHTON

 steep stretch of slippery surface, muddy hairpin after hairpin, to the
 hilltop where Albert H. Pindero, aka Panter, had stashed himself.
  My Caddie is big, and negotiating such bends, with other drivers coming
  down, was a hair-raising experience. There were narrow entranceways every
  few yards, to add a little extra terror. Twice I was nearly run off the
  road: once by some swimsuited kids in a pickup and the next time by a
  frizzyhaired woman in a dented Honda who nearly hit me while I was stopped
  and asking directions from a man pruning his roses. She waved her fist at
  me as she went past pounding the horn.
  The top of the hill was heavily wooded and there were more road junctions,
  and more signs, together with dented and rusty mailboxes: conglomerate and
  glistening in the rain and looking like the sort of well-kept abstract
  sculpture that rich insurance companies enshrine in their lobbies. But
  none of these signs said Pindero or Panter either. I reached a dead end at
  wide wrought-iron gates with an ARMED RESPONSE keep-out notice and an
  empty trash bin.
  I switched off the engine, got out of my car, and took a deep breath. I
  looked around, but the trees and undergrowth were enough to conceal any
  houses nearby. It had become a glorious day. The sun was slanting through
  the trees to speckle the rock-strewn soil. The air carried a spicy scent
  of freshly cut timber, and from somewhere out of sight came the cruel
  growls and gasps of a chain saw. There is always the noise of construction
  out in
                  VIOLENT WARD   165

 those green canyons. Houses bulged with extensions, new decks, pools,
 jacuzzis, carports, and guest accommodations.
  As I went to unlatch the iron gate a man emerged from behind the trees.
  "What do you want, mister?" Forty-ish, he was wearing a new checked
  shirt, clean jeans, and sneakers. Quick-eyed, freshly shaven, with good
  lace-up shoes and two hundred pounds of muscles. In my book that added
  up to an ex-cop who worked out.
  "This is a beautiful spot," I said.
  I wasn't jesting. The sky was deep blue instead of khaki, the smell of
  sage and eucalyptus outbid the smog, and the birds were singing instead
  of coughing. It was hard to believe we were only a few miles from the
  big La-La. Maybe I would move out this way when I no longer had to
  commute every day.
  "I'm looking for the owner of a big old Packard Darrin," I said.
  He tossed a cigarette butt to the ground, crushed it into the mud with
  his heel, and looked at me. "What about it?"
  I knew that saying I wanted to buy the old car would invite the reply
  that it was not for sale, and that would terminate the conversation. "My
  name's Murphy. I'm a collector-Murphy's Vintage Automobiles of
  Bakersfield. Maybe you've heard of me. I possess an even finer example
  of elegance. A real collector's item, a jewel. Maybe your boss would
  like to buy it."
  "Got IDT'
 166 LEN DEIGHTON

  "An out-of-date Price Club ticket, and an Amex card cut in two pieces."
  He came through a wicket gate to pat my jacket with a casual touch to
  see if I had a gun. I had the feeling he'd done it often. Up close he
  smelled of fried onions. It wasn't a very thorough search and I was
  grateful: I never did like snorting fried onions on an empty stomach.
  "So who are you really, buster?" he said, after giving up the search for
  a gun-
  "Who do you think I am, the Avon lady? Take a look at that car I'm
  driving. I'm a dealer. Museumquality antique cars. I'll write what I'm
  selling down for you. You tell your boss." I tore a page from my
  notebook and wrote in block capital letters the name of an
  ultra-desirable motorcar.
  He took it from me and, before reading it, leaned down to look inside
  my Caddie. He opened the glove compartment to see if I had artillery
  stashed there. Finding nothing, he picked up the photo album in which
  I had put part of my big collection of car photos. He flipped its pages
  without responding to the glorious pictures. Bored, he put it down and
  looked in the back seat. "Is this jalopy some kind of antique?" he said
  as he straightened up. He stared at me. A hungry-looking Doberman came
  out of the woods to look at me too.
  "You bet your ass it is," I told him. "This baby is a 1959 antique that
  goes from zero to sixty em pee aitch in ten seconds." He gave no
  response to this. I said, "Go down to your friendly neighborhood BMW
  dealer and get a brand-new 525i and see if you can
                  VIOLENT WARD    167

 get that shiny chunk of imported machinery to do that."
  He nodded. I think I impressed him. "That good,eh?"
  "You betcha."
  While he was reading what I'd written on the slip of paper, I looked
  around and noticed that several of the nearby trees were chipped and
  gouged and some were adorned with paper targets peppered with bullet
  holes. I guessed it was just for appearances. As a way of keeping
  trespassers at a distance, it had a lot to recommend it. I retrieved my
  photo album and made sure he hadn't left finger marks.
  The big man read the note I'd written, looked again at the car, and then
  pulled a cellular phone from his pocket and pushed its buttons. "Got a
  guy out here with a big old Caddie, boss. Antique job," he told the
  phone. "Says his name is Murphy. Says he's got an antique car to sell.
  Better than yours, he says." He read from the paper I'd scribbled out
  for him: "1933 Packard Twelve Special-Tailback Speedster with a custom
  body by Darrin." I heard some kind of unintelligible splutter that I
  hoped was amazement, and then without hurrying the big man unlatched the
  gate and pulled it wide open. "Drive on up to the house." As I started
  up the motor he reached into the car, grabbed my arm tightly, and said,
  "But if you are any kind of process server, rent-a-cop, or lawyer you'll
  be riding back down with the paramedics. Got it?"
  As a fully paid-up member of the county bar I
 168 LEN DEIGHTON

 felt discriminated against. What was a kindhearted Irish attorney doing at
 the bottom of the popularity stakes? That was a spot reserved for realtors
 and politicians. But I didn't say anything like that to this big guy. I
 smiled and, tapping my leatherbound photo album, said, "Don't worry about
 that, buddy. When your boss sees these pictures he's going to have you take
 that old Packard of his down to the nearest wrecker's yard and cube it."
  The man's crooked smile said he didn't think so, but he waved me through
  and pointed up the steep muddy track between the trees. Two young, fit,
  sleekly groomed Dobermans rushed out, shouting abuse at me as I drove past,
  angry at having missed their chance of pissing on my wire wheels.
  At the end of the roadway a house of dark timber fitted snugly into the
  wooded landscape. With its picture windows and shallowpitch roof it was the
  sort of mountain cabin you can only build somewhere winter never comes.
  Parked outside was a new Ford pickup and a well-used Jeep. No sign of the
  Darrin, but there was a garage big enough to hold one. The house door had
  a brass knocker and a BEWARE OF THE DOG sign-now he tells me!
  "Anyone at home?" I called from the entry. No reply. I walked in and along
  the corridor. Through an open door I saw a neat kitchen brightly lit by
  fluorescent tubes. Piles of dishes occupied both sinks, a compacter bin was
  piled high with the wrappings from TV dinners, and the air was heavy with
  the carbonized smells of fried chicken and boiled coffee. He must have
  dined on pollo alla cac-
                    VIOLENT WARD  169

 ciatore too. I hope he enjoyed it; I could still taste mine.
  I walked to the end of the corridor, where it opened up onto an interior
  balcony. From there I could see that this house wasn't the simple
  singlestory structure it had seemed from outside but was nestled
  artfully into the hillside. The front door opened onto the top floor of
  a three-story building. From where I stood, I could look down into a big
  family room with brightly colored rugs and leather furniture arranged
  to face a massive stone fireplace. No fire: just ashes and half-burned
  logs remaining from some ancient conflagration. At the far end of the
  balcony, a stainless spiral staircase led down to the main room. But the
  facing wall consisted mostly of tall bronze-tinted windows, providing
  a dramatic view along Topanga Canyon. Far below me I could see cars
  moving on the winding road that led to the Pacific Ocean.
  It was all tastefully done, with abstract art on the walls and
  glass-beaded cushions on the sofa, but there was something suggesting
  that this was a house furnished for some other people and some other
  time. Rented; or maybe a turnkey deal that included everything but a
  wife and kids. Along the wall there was a six-foot-long brightly lit
  aquarium, where tropical fish of improbable colors dashed around,
  playing tag between the shells and rocks.
  While I was still leaning on the wooden-railed balcony, taking it all
  in, a gruff voice from behind me said, "So you are Murphy?"
  I turned. It was gloomy where he was sitting.
 170            LEN DEIGHTON

 He'd arranged a desk in the shadow of an old upright piano at the end of the
 balcony. It was an elaborate instrument, its front ornately carved in oak
 and its ivory keys exposed like yellowing teeth, curiously resembling the
 man sitting near it in his swivel chair. Hidden in the shadows, he could see
 the room below us and the magnificent view through the windows. There was
a
 pair of binoculars on a shelf, just in case he wanted a closer view of
 anything.
  "Murphy. Yes, that's me," I said. "I've got a car to show you."
  "That Caddie outside?" He had a small blackand-white monitor balanced on
  his desk, and he could see my car from some kind of video security camera
  on the roof. He must have watched my arrival.
  "No, another one."
  "A 1933 Packard Twelve Special-Tailback Speedster with a custom body by
  Darrin?" he said, quoting my message.
  "Not exactly," I said, hesitating.
  "Well, I thought it wouldn't be exactly," said the man in a lazy drawl.
  "Because there ain't no such animal." The phone rang. It was someone he
  called Hamp. They talked briefly about whether he was comfortable and
  about paying money by bank draft. I guessed it was the owner of the house
  calling to check up on things.
  "That's right, sir," I said when he'd finished his call. "I wanted to get
  your attention."
                  VIOLENT WARD    171

  "You got it, wise guy. Who sent you?" Long pause. "Petrovitch?"
   "I'm here on my own account."
   "So what kind of shakedown is it?"
  "No kind of shakedown. I'm an old friend of Mrs. Petrovitch, a close
  friend. She was worried about you. She said you'd disappeared."
   "I haven't disappeared; you found me."
  "She wanted to be sure you were safe and well. That's all."
  "Mrs. Petrovitch did?" He rubbed his chin. "She's always got a new surprise
  for me."
  "Ingrid considers you a personal friend; she was worried about, you. She
  discovered that your apartment on Wilshire was vacated and then couldn't
  trace those phony companies you gave as references."
  "Is that right?" He got to his feet and stepped into the sunlight. Ingrid
  thought this guy looked like a college professor? Man, I've been away from
  school too long. He was tall and slim, a big old-fashioned Wild West-style
  mustache dominating his face. He had that man-living-alone look: a chin
  grizzled and stubbly with several days'growth of beard, frayed carpet
  slippers, and a clean denim shirt that had come straight from the washing
  machine without being ironed. And he had that man-living-alone fragrance
  on his breath; he'd been drinking.
  "Known her long?" he asked, and picked up his coffee mug and drank from it.
  His other hand he hooked into a wide leather belt that had the sort of
  ornate brass buckle they sell in Wild West stores.
 172 LEN DEIGHTON

  "A long time," I said.
  "Me too. Know her husband? Her first husband, I mean."
  "No," I said.
  "I knew him. He was at State College in Urbana; my brother's roommate.
  First time I ever met Ingrid she was with Jack Piech." Then suddenly, in
  that way a drunk gets sober and suspicious, he said, "So what is a long
  time? And what's your angle?"
  "I was in high school with her," I told him. "Alhambra. She lived with her
  folks on the next block. She asked me to find you, that's all." I smiled
  my best friendly smile. "I've got no angle." So this guy knew her first
  husband; Ingrid hadn't told me anything about that.
  He nodded and relaxed for a moment and resumed his position on the swivel
  chair behind his desk. It creaked as he sat down. "Okay. Yeah, I did a
  little business with her first husband, Jack Piech."
  "I never knew him."
  "Jack and his father had a little savings and loan. They must have made a
  lot of dough." He upended his coffee. "You want some coffee? It's on the
  hot plate. Grab a mug from the hook."
  Why not? I went across to the hutch, chose a mug, and poured coffee for
  myself. It was a dark and bitter-smelling brew. I took a tall carton of
  Ralph's Mocha Mix Lite-"half the fat and calories of regular mocha mix"-and
  poured a lot of it into the coffee, together with two big spoonfuls of
  sugar.
                  VIOLENT WARD  173

 Sugar: this was not a guy who used low-calorie sweeteners.
  "Come here," he said, and when I went across to his desk he already had
  the cap off a bottle of Chivas Regal. He poured a slug of whisky into my
  coffee. "It gives it a little flavor," he explained, and poured a hefty
  measure into his own mug.
  I nodded and sipped at it. Phew! Flavor it already had, but that whisky
  would certainly kill the germs. I looked up and smiled. "That really hits
  the spot," I told him.
  "I know," he said and swallowed some whisky from the bottle. He tried to
  replace the cap on the bottle but had trouble doing it. He was drunk, but
  he'd spent a lot of time learning how to conceal the effects. "Look, even
  if Petrovitch killed Jack Piech I don't want to get into it." Drunk and
  very talkative. I'd come at the right time to get an earful.
  "Killed him?" I said. No reply. For a moment I thought he'd dried up.
  Drunks do that sometimes: they talk like there's no tomorrow, then
  suddenly they seize up like an engine filled with sand. "Killed him how?"
  "Didn't Ingrid tell you? Petrovitch bought his way into Piech's savings
  and loan. That's how he got started in the big time. Made five million,
  Ingrid said."
  "Ingrid said?"
  "Maybe it wasn't Ingrid who told me. She's kinda discreet about money."
  "I don't get it," I said.
 174            LEN DEIGHTON

  "No, Petrovitch got it." The big guy laughed hoarsely.
  "How?"
  "The S and L. I don't have to draw you a diagram, do I? They set up a lot
  of phony accounts: always a few bucks under a hundred thousand so as to get
  the federal insurance. Then they loaned the assets on the security of land
  deeds for upcoming deals." He stopped as if exhausted, but another swallow
  of booze got him started again. "I don't have to tell a smart young guy
  like you how it works. The land deal goes sour-the local authority won't
  give permission to build some big office building or shopping mall. The S
  and L is left with the deeds to a lot of parcels of land no one wants. The
  government pays out, the savers lose a little dough, and Petrovitch sits
  back and counts his money. The federal government sorts out the mess of
  debt and pays him all over again. That's what those boys in Washington do
  all day. Did you think they were there to make laws to protect the
  Constitution or something?"
  "Killed Jack Piech?"
  "Don't get me wrong. Piech was loving every minute of it until he saw how
  deep they were going."
  "Who killed Jack Piech?"
  My question didn't register. His mind was still on cruise control. "Sweet,
  eh? Even the dumbest insurance company would only pay off a percentage of
  insured loss-sixty cents on the dollar or whatever-but Uncle Sam pays off
  one hundred cents on
                  VIOLENT WARD    175

 every dollar. Limit: one hundred K per account, so they fixed all the
 accounts at ninety-five grand!" He laughed. "Those Washington fat cats have
 got the Mafia beat when it comes to thieving."
  "Killed Jack Piech?"
  He looked at me and frowned as he tried to remember who I was and what I
  might be doing there. Then illumination came to him. "Yeah, yeah, yeah.
  Jack had to be wasted. Jack was going to tell the bank inspectors the whole
  story. He was going to spill to the SEC. Jack and his dad had lived in that
  neighborhood all their lives. They were the leaders of the country club
  set: five-hundred-aplate dinners for a new hospital, a committee to buy
  valuable paintings for the county museum. Maybe it was all too easy or they
  got religion or something, but these dudes suffered a sudden fit of
  remorse. They had a family confab with Ingrid sitting in, and then Jack and
  Ingrid flew to New York to break the news to Petrovitch. Jack told him the
  Pieches were going to undo the whole thing. Repay everything. Keep the bank
  solvent. And they had stock enough to force the decision."
  He sighed, and his head lolled back and his mouth slightly opened. He
  stayed that way, and for a moment I feared he'd slumped off into a drunken
  sleep. Then he belched mightily. That seemed to awaken him.
  "What happened to Jack Piech?" I said.
  "A beer truck hit him as he was crossing Sixth Avenue. Died on his way to
  Bellevue."
 176 LEN DEIGHTON

  "Are you telling me Petrovitch arranged that truck?"
  "He sure didn't drag him out of the way. Ask Ingrid."
  "And Ingrid married the man who murdered her husband?"
  "It was an accident," he said sarcastically. "Petrovitch went into deep
  mourning, paid for a fine funeral, and gave an Oscar-winning display of
  grief and mortification. He consoled Ingrid. Ain't that the way it goes?"
  "Who told you all this?" I said. "Did you get this from your brother?"
  "Or was it Ingrid who called the shots? Maybe she enticed Zachary
  Petrovitch into the deal. Maybe she urged Jack Piech to go into the swindle
  and then-when Jack got cold feet-conspired with Petrovitch to kill him.
  What do you think? Could the little lady be that schemine. "
  I didn't answer. I could see he enjoyed the bewilderment that must have
  showed on my face. He was in the kind of mood where he'd say anything to
  get a reaction.
  He waved a finger at me. "Ask Ingrid; she knows. It took me a little time
  to figure her out, but figure her out I did. She is one dangerous little
  lady. Excuse me, will ya?" In a remarkable display of displacement
  activity, he reached for the phone and called someone to ask the price of
  spark plugs and a muffler. He was a compulsive telephoner. Hollywood is
  full of them: men who can't sit still for five minutes without making a
  phone call.
                  VIOLENT WARD 177

  "How do you know all this?" I said.
  "I used to be a hit man. Ingrid tried to hire me; I turned her down. I
  don't get into family fights."
  "Cut the bullshit and tell me. I want to know," I said.
  He looked up at me and grinned. "I told ya: I used to be a hit man. For
  the mob. You meet a lot of influential people that way. The trouble is,
  you lose contact with them again." Another big grin.
  Why was I listening to all this drunken babble? This guy was flowing with
  venom, and I wasn't smart enough to turn off the tap. "The things you're
  saying-"
  Pindero held up a hand to hush me. He listened to the phone and wrote down
  some prices and then put the phone down. After a long silence while he
  studied the bottom of his mug of whisky as if trying to read his fortune
  there, he looked up. "That's the way Petrovitch does things. That's the
  new way to do business. Speedy, smooth, and without a great deal of
  paperwork. You murder the opposition." He laughed. "Murder them. It was a
  marriage made in heaven."
  "You're crazy."
  "I'm not crazy. You'll find out one of these days. It's people like that
  who are putting us hit men out of business." He shifted in his chair and
  fixed me with an intense stare. "You tell Ingrid you couldn't find me. I'm
  not about to hurt her; tell her that. But she has to solve her own
  problems." I was near him and he reached out to grab my arm, but I stepped
 178 LEN DEIGHTON

 out of the way. "Never get into family fights. First law of survival,
 right?"
  "Did you get all this from Jack Piech's dad?" Sometimes a grieving
  relative will find a scapegoat and dump all their misery there.
  "Naw! It's like I told you. Jack's dad signed the whole shebang over to
  Petrovitch. Now he's living in a trailer in El Paso, scared of his own
  shadow. I went there and saw him: he wouldn't hardly talk to me. Scared
  shitless. He insisted he was happy with the Petrovitch deal, but that
  old man was looking over his shoulder the whole time. While we're sit-
  ting there in the trailer, a guy calls by to deliver a repaired set of
  dentures. Can you imagine? After all the dough they had, he's sitting
  there and can't even afford some new false teeth."
  "And how do you figure in all this?" I said.
  He looked at me as if staring into a bright light. "I don't figure in
  it; I'm retired. You tell Mrs. Ingrid Petrovitch I'mjust fine. But don't
  tell either of them where to find me. I'm planning to stay just fine.
  I don't want no part of her deal. If she takes my advice she'll just
  disappear too. You can't fight the whole world."
  Forgetting for a moment what it tasted like, I gulped down a mouthful
  of the coffee and booze, spluttered, and got to my feet. "You got a
  great car, Mr. Pindero," I said. "But it makes you too conspicuous. If
  you're hiding from the world, you'd do better to sell it to me and get
  out of town for good."
  "You really want to buy it?"
  "I sure do."
                  VIOLENT WARD   179

  Very slowly, as if committing it to memory, he said, "It's too darn
  conspicuous. You're right about that." He took a little time to arrange
  some pencils on his desk. "I might take two hundred thousand bucks for it."
  "It's worth more than that," I told him.
  "Kho are you, Mother Teresa on vacation? Yeah, it's worth more but I don't
  want the ads or the dealers and all that hassle. You bring me two hundred
  grand in cash and we'll talk. But I mean cash: used hundred-dollar bills."
  The notion of owning a real museum piece like that car brought out all the
  worst kind of covetousness in me. With the money I'd be getting from the
  Petrovitch deal I could afford it. "Hold it for me," I said. "I'll put
  together the money somehow, even if I have to take out a second mortgage.
  Hold it for me."
  He smiled to see my excitement. I couldn't tell whether he was just
  stringing me along or not. "You bring me cash. But don't come back here
  hand in hand with the Petrovitch family."
  "No." It was no good trying to conclude a deal with him in his present
  condition. I felt like telling him to sober up, but I knew that's one of
  the most dangerous things to say to a drunk. "I hate Petrovitcb. He's
  buying my firm. When the deal is finalized, I'll keep well away from him."
  "Finalized," he said contemptuously. "Didn't they teach you anything at
  college? Shit! I've laid it out for you as clear as I can make it." He held
  up his hands like a kindergarten teacher taking a class in rhythm. Fingers
  splayed, he tapped an index finger
 180 LEN DEIGHTON

 against his palm. "Petrovitch doesn't finalize deals. He finalizes
 people."
  From outside I heard a sound like twigs snapping. I guessed it was
  the guy at the gate putting more holes in a paper target. Maybe they
  were not just for appearances.
 CHAPTER 8
 I went home to Woodland Hills and shuffled through some newly arrived
 bills. After opening a can of dog food for Rex I told him about my trip
 to Topanga Canyon. Rex was mad because I hadn't taken him along, but I
 explained there were other dogs there, big critters that might have torn
 him to pieces. Rex wagged his tail-, he saw the sense of that.
  I switched on the TV. There was a talk show about fathers who don't
  spend enough time with the kids. What about mothers who come into a
  guy's office and pretend they're going to leap off the window ledge?
  I switched off the sound. I have this largescreen projection TV. People
  look almost lifesize.
 182 LEN DEIGHTON

 With the sound turned off it provides all the companionship of friends and
 neighbors with none of their demands for food, drink, and flattery. I sat
 watching this silent show. A sleek-haired guy with a microphone was
 running around lithely and blithely, selecting mothers and kids in the
 audience who stood up on cue, opened their mouths, and waved their arms
 around. It was restful to watch.
  And I thought about the old man of Topanga and his lovely car. Sometimes
  when you get away from a meeting you see it all in a new perspective.
  Of course Pindero was stoned out of his mind, but that didn't explain
  why he was moving around, covering his tracks and giving out false
  names. And would Petrovitch really want to push Jack Piech under a beer
  truck? It was all crazy talk, but almost anything is possible. Just sit
  in my office for a week and you'll believe it.
  I had been thinking of Ingrid a lot. I loved her. I really adored her.
  I even found myself reluctant to go out of the house on errands just in
  case she phoned me and I wasn't there to take the call. I know that's
  teenage stuff, but meeting her again had renewed all the adoration I
  stored up over the years. Even the prospect of speaking to her was
  enough to give me a glow. I phoned Ingrid at the Aspen house. "I think
  I found your guy," I said, after she'd given out with a cautious hello
  that made my scalp tingle.
  She said, "You must have the wrong number. Please check your phone book
  and don't call this number again."
                  VIOLENT WARD    183

  She'd recognized my voice okay. Ingrid was scared or I was very much
  mistaken. Very very scared, if her voice was anything to judge by. And that
  gave me a sick feeling in the stomach. You know what it's like when you
  love someone desperately and you feel they are in some kind of trouble.
  I replaced the phone and sat there thinking about it. Poor Ingrid. No one
  except me understood what she was really like: vulnerable and childlike.
  I made coffee and watched some more lousy TV; that always helps me think.
  Talk shows, more about the Rodney King trial, a Cosby rerun, and then the
  news came on. I switched up the sound. Two guys had got themselves on
  prime-time TV by holding up a liquor store equipped with a video camera.
  See you around, guys! A "gang-related" drive-by in South Central and a
  member of the City Council talking about increasing the sales tax. I guess
  that was to pay for some of those fancy foreign trips by the mayor's
  appointees. I hit the mute: life was sometimes better with the sound off.
  The phone rang. Rex barked to show me what a grand house dog he was. I keep
  saying I'll send him to one of those training schools for dogs, but I'm not
  sure Rex has the right SAT score. And, as he said once when we talked it
  over, would I like to have a week with the Marine Corps on Parris Island?
  "Hello?" I said cautiously.
  "I'm sorry I hung up on you." It was Ingrid, with a different voice. She
  must have gone to another phone. "So you found him?"
  "Pindero? Yes, that's right," I said. "It wasn't
 184 LEN DEIGHTON

 too difficult. He's okay, really okay. But you didn't level with me,
 Ingrid. You didn't tell me you knew him in Chicago."
  Long pause. "I know. Maybe I should have told you more. What did he
  say?"
  "Don't sound so worried, honey. He didn't say much. He was boozed. I
  just made sure he was okay, like you said."
  "Are you seeing him some more?"
  "I can if you want. He's not far away."
  "Wbere?"
  At first I wasn't going to tell her. Then I thought what the hell.
  "Topanga Canyon. The only reason you couldn't find him is because he's
  calling himself Panter. The house is signposted Panterthe Pacific Ocean
  end of Topanga."
  "You're so clever, Mickey."
  "It was easy," I said, bathing in the warm admiration. "Wrought-iron
  gates, TV camera, and some kind of security guy roaming around the
  grounds. But I talked my way in to see him. He's okay; or he will be
  when he recovers from his hangover. Are you coming to LAT'
  "Yes. Let's meet. I'll be in town this weekend. Would Sunday, sometime
  around noon, be okay?"
  I'd promised to take Danny for Sunday brunch at the Beverly Hilton. It
  was stylish, sophisticated, and the biggest spread in town, and Danny
  went for it. I couldn't put him off again. I said, "Beverly Hil-
  ton-brunch at noon. I'll be with my son, but we can talk while he's at
  the counter refilling his plate. He
                  VIOLENT WARD   185

 does that quite a lot. No need to book, just come along and find me behind
 a stack of Irish bagels."
  "That's wonderful," she said. "Thanks. You didn't tell me what Mr. Pindero
  said when you found him."
  "Like I say: not much, except that he knew you in Chicago. You should have
  told me, Ingrid."
  "Why?"
  I was bursting to ask her if Petrovitch had been with her first husband
  when he died, but this wasn't the right moment. "I don't know." She was
  right. She wasn't on trial or even my client. She didn't have to tell me
  the whole truth or even a large part of it.
  "You're a wonderful friend, Mickey. There is no one quite like you. I do
  adore you."
  "Yeah, I know."
  "The only real friend I've got. I've got to go, dearest. 'Bye now."
  "'Bye," I said. She hung up immediately. I wondered where she'd had to go,
  to find a phone she'd feel easy about using. Poor Ingrid. I worried about
  her.

  It's a lousy reflection on human nature that while I was mightily concerned
  about Ingrid, and about her friend Pindero, a great deal of my thinking had
  been on the prospect of buying that magnificent Packard. See, it was the
  sort of opportunity that only comes once in a lifetime, and coming when I
  was about to pocket a sizable sum of money,
 186 LEN DEIGHTON

 seemed to be a sign from heaven. It was a museum piece; I even dreamed
 about that Packard.

  It was Saturday when, after an appointment in Santa Monica, I finally
  succumbed and headed toward Topanga. I took the Pacific Coast Highway.
  You can get into the canyon from that end, and on a nice day you have
  a swell view of the ocean. This wasn't a nice day. A film of high clouds
  reduced the sun to gray shadeless light, while beneath them ragged scud
  came hurrying in from the ocean. On the PCH it was chilly, and I kept
  the roof closed.
  It wasn't so hard to find Pindero's place the second time, but the
  wrought-iron gates were locked with one of those fifty-dollar steel
  padlocks that resisted all my efforts to get it open. So I left my car
  and clambered over the fence to walk the rest of the way to the house.
  The hungry Dobermans were nowhere in sight, and there were no sounds
  from construction workers. The wind had dropped, but a night of steady
  rain had left puddles, and there was a smell of damp earth. Even up here
  on the hilltop it was humid and airless.
  There was no sign of life anywhere: no Ford pickup, no Jeep. I pushed
  at the big paneled front door and stepped inside. It was darker today,
  and airless, and the kitchen smelled worse. I didn't need to go farther
  to decide that Pindero had taken off. I had a spooky gooseflesh-making
  tingle that is nature's ingenious way of telling you you're scared
  shitless. Even in the gloomy light I could see that
                  , VIOLENT WARD 187

 the furniture and all the junk-right down to the cushions-was unchanged, but
 there was no sign of Pindero. The ornate piano was still in the same place,
 and the fish tank, although unlit, was bubbling away like freshly opened
 champagne. There were screwed-up papers all over the floor. I opened one;
it
 was a bill from the company that hauled the trash. This time his name was
 Pinter. There was no fire in the big stone fireplace, just ashes carelessly
 strewn all around the hearth and spilling out across the rug. I stared out
 of the double-glazed windows. Down below, a long line of traffic crawled
 along the canyon road like a column of ants.
  I looked all around the place in case he'd left a clue about a forwarding
  address. I even hoped there might be a message for me about his car, but
  there was nothing like that. Maybe I should have guessed he'd been giving
  me the runaround.
  I went back to the desk. On the wall beside it were some outlets with a
  crazy cluster of electric plugs that would have given a fire chief
  apoplexy. I hit the light switch and there was a sudden jangle of sound,
  loud piano music, animated and discordant. The sound went through my head
  so I shouted aloud. One of the electric plugs belonged to the player
  piano, and its whole keyboard had come alive, vibrating with a fast Scott
  Joplin solo. I switched it off quickly and the music stopped and the light
  went off. I breathed a sigh of relief. The second switch I tried
  controlled the fish tank lights. Startled fish awoke and darted around the
  carefully arranged stones and came close to the glass to
 188  LEN DEIGHTON

 mouth obscenities at me. I picked up the packet of fish food and tapped some
 out so that it spread over the water. The fish upended themselves to gobble
 it.
  I searched through all the desk drawers. There was nothing in them, except
  some giveaway ballpoints from Citibank, a dog-eared Heritage paperback
  dictionary with the back cover missing, and-in the deep bottom drawer-some
  more piano rolls: Lehdr, Gershwin, and Strauss.
  Maybe if I'd been a trained detective I might have spotted something of
  significance, but nothing I could see meant anything except that
  Pindero-or Pinter or Panter or whatever his name really washad taken off
  in some haste. Such a sudden departure looked like he was running scared;
  I wondered if my visit had done that.
  I went into the kitchen and touched the stove the way they do in movies.
  It was cold. Groceries were piled high on the table: two six-packs of
  Coors, a quart-size carton of milk, a tub of margarine, a small plate with
  an opened can of cat food on it, and a box containing some pieces of fried
  chicken. None of it was so chilly that it had recently been in the cold.
  It was all neatly stacked inside a cardboard lid, as if someone had
  cleaned out the refrigerator before leaving. The refrigerator's glass
  shelves, stained with rings of spilled food, had been put in the sink,
  ready to be washed. Nice going, Mr. Pindero, old buddy. I wouldn't have
  had you down for a Domestic Science major.
  It all looked okay and the kitchen was purring
                  VIOLENT WARD    189

 contentedly. I went into the bedroom. The bedclothes, expensive-looking
 pink sheets and pillows with flower prints, had been stripped off the mat-
 tress and thrown onto the carpet, The whole place bore the signs of a man
 who had learned how to housekeep without assistance. On the table by his
 bed were a reading light and some detective-story paperbacks, one of them
 half read and face down. Alongside the book stood a glass tumbler and an
 empty bottle of Chivas Regal, with seven more full bottles of the same
 brand in a cardboard box on the floor in the corner. On hangers in the
 closet were some unironed shirts, denim pants, and a leather jacket. Clean
 underwear was stacked on the closet's shelf, while discarded socks and
 handkerchiefs had been tossed into a basket on its floor. A wastebasket
 in the bathroom contained nothing except empty cigarette packs and
 discarded razor blades. Above the sink a razor and a can of shaving foam
 had been abandoned. Why did a guy leave so hurriedly that he didn't even
 grab his soap and razor?
  There was the sudden sound of thunder, or it may have been a plane; the
  way the sound reverberated through the hills and valleys made it diffi-
  cult to distinguish. Either way it made me jump. I looked up at the sky
  but the plane must have been above the clouds. Whatever I did, it was
  impossible to shake off a feeling that I was not alone. I became
  convinced that I had arrived to interrupt Pindero's packing and he was
  watching everything I did and waiting for me to depart. Why else would
  his soap and razor be there?
 190 LEN DEIGHTON

  I went to the back door and stepped outside to walk around the house.
  It wasn't raining, but the air had that silky dampness that is the sign
  of rain to come. I tried to decide what had prompted my deep feelings
  of unease. I'm not the sort to tap into the supernatural for guidance;
  I always left all that stuff to Betty. I inhaled the pine-scented air.
  The house was built on what I estimated to be an acre of steeply sloping
  hilltop. I walked across the brown lawn to peer through a dusty window
  into the neat clapboard garage. There was a car there; not the Packard
  Darrin, it was one of those fancy British four-by-fours, a Range Rover.
  An array of hammers and tools were clipped on the wall, and the shelves
  held sprays and old cans of ant killer, stain, and paint.
  None of the buildings here were old, they just looked old, the way
  people like things to look when they move out of town. As I strolled,
  other houses came into view, dark wood with gray roofs, cunningly
  landscaped into the trees. When I got down to where I had left my Caddie
  I stopped. There was no movement anywhere. Even a big blackbird at the
  foot of an oak was standing very still, watching the ground so
  attentively it failed to see my approach. I wondered what it could see.
  A small rodent? A snake? In the heat of summer a stretch of rock-strewn
  ground like this would be alive with adders and rattlers but now even
  the worms kept deep under cover.
  I turned around and looked back at the house. Everything told me to get
  in my car and leave, but I
                  VIOLENT WARD    191

 could not do it. There was something unusual in that house. Leaving before
 I figured it out would keep me awake all night, wondering what I had seen
 and yet missed.
  So I walked back to the house and went inside again. It was the kitchen
  that drew my attention. I sat down at the table and fidgeted with the beer
  and stuff that had obviously been taken from the fridge. I had the feeling
  that a skilled investigator would have found some clue to reveal where
  Pindero had gone. Car. Car. Car. Since talking with him, the idea of
  buying his Packard had hardened in my mind. If I could find him again I
  felt sure I could talk him into selling that car. With the cash in hand he
  would succumb. I'd bought a lot of cars. I could tell when a man was in a
  selling mood. Pindero would sell; I was convinced of it. I had to find
  him.
  With these thoughts reeling in my brain I went back to his desk and sat
  down as he had been sitting, within an arm's length of the piano. What a
  view! As the afternoon turned cooler the canyon was filling with white
  mist that rolled down from the hilltops. Maybe it had been thunder I'd
  heard; we'd had rain four days in a row. Perhaps Pindero was only away on
  a brief errand; maybe he'd be back any moment. I could leave a note for
  him. It was a stupid thought; so much of what I was looking at said he'd
  taken off with no thought of ever returning. Maybe he had another house,
  a beach place or ski resort that was complete with razor and soap and
  clothes and stuff.
 192            LEN DEIGHTON

  It was that damned sound that was troubling me. There was something
  unusual-if not to say unnatural-about it. I mean, the sorts of whining
  and buzzing noises that all kitchens make falter, stop, and start, don't
  they? They don't go on forever unless someone has gone out leaving a tap
  running or a mixer or something switched on. I went over to the shiny
  black glass-fronted oven and touched the door, opening it so that the
  interior light came on: nothing. The dishwasher was off. I looked at the
  overhead light, thinking it might be a noisy transformer, but when I
  switched off the fluorescent tubes the buzzing continued. I touched the
  microwave and the coffee machine and the compactor, but none of them
  seemed to be the source of the noise.
  Only then did I locate the sound and realized there was no mystery after
  all. It was the compressor of the Admiral side-by-side
  refrigerator-freezer that was making the sound. I had the same twodoor
  model at home. But even the compressor of a big refrigerator is switched
  off by the thermostat when the food inside is chilled. I stroked the
  heavy door and looked at the sink, where the refrigerator's glass
  shelves, marked by spilled food, waited to be washed, and pulled open
  the fridge door to look inside.
  It seemed as if the lightbulb had failed, for the interior was dark, but
  then I saw that the whole gloomy interior space, some eighteen cubic
  feet, was crammed with a huge parcel wrapped in black plastic. As I
  stood looking at it, it moved. With ago-
                    VIOLENT WARD    193

 nizing slowness, the whole shiny parcel came tumbling out of the
 refrigerator.
  I staggered back to avoid it as it fell with a crash onto the kitchen
  floor, moving and spreading out like shiny molten lava. But it wasn't any
  kind of liquid that spread across the floor; it was Pindero's legs and
  arms. His hands, cold and gray, came reaching across the floor as if
  trying to grasp my ankles. His feet were bare and blue, his toes shiny and
  red. Still moving, the parcel gave the sound of tearing plastic, as
  Pindero's body came bursting out of the improvised body bag that had been
  made from black plastic trash bags. I could see one eye and a section of
  his face as he peered through a tear in the ripped-open bag. He was dead,
  very dead. His eyes were wide open, and his lips were drawn back over a
  half-opened mouth to make a fierce smirk on his pale and waxy face, and
  tiny flakes of frost had begun to form on his curly mustache.
  I touched the body. It was cold but maybe not cold enough. I put my
  fingers into the bag until I could reach to his armpit. He was not
  completely cold. Jesus! I jumped to my feet and looked around. No wonder
  I had the feeling I was being watched; if the body was still warm, his
  killer could still be in the vicinity. How long had Pindero been in the
  cold compartment? I stepped back. I had no intention of even trying to
  shove him back into that cramped space.
  Almost without knowing what I was doing, I found myself with a kitchen
  towel in my hand, wiping the long smooth plastic handles of the
  refrigera-
   194 LEN DEIGHTON

 tor. What else had I touched? All the appliances and the doors. I went
 back over my steps, using my pocket handkerchief instead of the towel. I
 wiped everything I might have touched, including the light switches and
 even the piano keys, and made sure there were no muddy footprints on the
 carpet for forensics to spot. What else? I backed down the hall very
 slowly. When I got to the front door I went through it carefully and
 pulled it tightly closed until I heard the latch snap. Wipe the handle.
 The door was firmly locked. The next person inside would have to force an
 entrance.
  Without hurrying I went back along my trail to the car and wiped the
  fence where I'd climbed over it. Then I got into my car and sat for a
  moment, putting my thoughts together. My hands were trembling, my mouth
  was dry, and I felt sick with the unmistakable nausea of fear. Wouldn't
  it be better to go back up to the house and call 911? Like hell it
  would. I'd seen people get caught up in murder investigations. The one
  who found the body remained the prime suspect until the perpetrator was
  tried and convicted. If the cops never found the perpetrator, or if the
  courts failed to convict, the one who found the body had to live with
  suspicion forever. Maybe a happily married bookkeeper in Jackson,
  Wyoming, could shrug that one off and even enjoy the notoriety a little,
  and parlay it into a social advantage. But a lawyer in downtown La-La
  might find his day-to-day life, supporting the forces of law and order,
  becoming a little complicated. I didn't relish the prospect of going
  into a courtroom
                  VIOLENT WARD   195

 to be torn to pieces by some young ambitious prosecutor in an intrepid
 demonstration of how the law extends no privileges to its own.
  I closed the car roof and put the radio and the heater on. It had become
  much colder and was getting darker every minute. All those trees that look
  so green and welcoming in daylight look like the backdrop for Macbeth when
  the sun goes behind a cloud. I started up the engine and turned the car
  around. For just one moment, as I stared in the direction of the house, I
  considered going back there one more time. Then I spotted the blackbird,
  still motionless at the foot of the oak. It wasn't waiting for anything
  that was nice to have. From here I could see the blackbird was dead, no
  more than a bundle of feathers, its insides a cavity hollowed away by
  termites. Let me get out of here!
  I went down that hill like I'd never traveled before. Those branches
  really reached out to get me. It was all in my mind, I know, but that
  didn't help me stop shivering. The gray clouds sagged over me like a
  bulging wallpapered ceiling when the upstairs bath is overflowing. As I
  got down to the bottom of the canyon it dripped. Big isolated blobs at
  first, but as I swung onto the canyon road the paper really ripped apart.
  The wipers couldn't cope with it, and the windshield made the landscape
  dissolve into jelly. My wheels hissed like snakes, the canvas top was
  drumming, and the paintwork on the hood was pounded to make prickly white
  spray. When the storm comes up like thunder out of China 'cross the bay,
  you really
 196 LEN DEIGHTON

 know you live on the edge of the mighty Pacific Ocean.
  In the canyon the rain came sluicing down from on high, making waterfalls
  that became muddy brown rivers as they hit the roadway and scattered
  stones and litter everywhere. Huge palm fronds lay like dead alligators on
  the wet roadway and scrunched under my wheels. At the end of the canyon I
  met the sight of the Pacific Ocean and the teeth of the storm. The world
  went shiny, and the steel-colored ocean looked fierce.
  I took my Caddie to a Hand Wash in Marina del Rey. The guys working there
  were all sitting around laughing and joking. They must have thought I was
  crazy to wash a car in the middle of a rainstorm, but I wanted to make
  sure there were no leaves, twigs, or mud traces on bodywork or tires,
  nothing that would connect me to Pindero's hilltop hideaway. They did
  their special interior cleaning, vacuuming every part of the floor and the
  upholstery. Only then did I drive home. And when I got home I soaked in
  the tub and then took every stitch of the clothing I'd worn to the local
  dry cleaners. I wanted to put that trip to Topanga out of my mind
  completely.
  Except that putting things out of one's mind is not so easy. I spent that
  evening with the sight of Pindero's body engraved in my brain. I watched
  TV without knowing what was on the screen. I fixed a steak and salad for
  myself, charred rare just the way I like it. I touched my toes and tapped
  out my dance routine until the sweat ran off me, but no
                  VIOLENT WARD   197

 matter what I did I couldn't shake the idea that the buzzer would sound and
 I would find some cop standing in my doorway. I wondered how Pindero had
 died. I wondered if I had been observed all the time I was up there, or
 whether it was just my nervous disposition. I wondered to what extent the
 killer was still depending on that refrigerator to keep the body cold and
 out of sight. With the corpse spread out across the kitchen floor and
 decomposing in the California air, the schedule would change dramatically.
 CHAPTER 9
 Next day was Sunday. From the very back of my walk-in clothes closet I
 selected a green linen leisure suit. I'd bought it with a fat fee I
 collected for getting an elderly studio executive out of a nasty drug bust
 that could have seen him charged with dealing. Six months later he was
 arrested in Atlantic City with a suitcase filled with the stuff and went
 away for five years.
  Pale green: I wore it a few times for the St. Patrick's Day lunches a gang
  of us mick lawyers used to celebrate at Jimmy's. Then wives started to
  come along too, and it was staid and different and sober, and everyone was
  careful about what they said, and after a couple of dull gatherings there
  were no more of those frolics. The recession started to show its
                  VIOLENT WARD    199

 teeth, the pale green leisure suit went into the back of the closet, and
 from that time on I celebrated St. Pat's with corned beef on rye at my
 desk.
  While dusting off my green suit and feeling low, I found myself looking
  out the front window and noticing a strange-looking plastic bag propped
  against my mailbox. It was shiny black, doughnut shaped, and secured
  with wire. No sooner did I start cursing the disposal company for not
  taking my garbage away than I was struck by the absence of Rex. "Rex!
  Rex!" None of my neighbors had black plastic bags, trash cans, boxes,
  or anything else obstructing the sidewalk in front of their homes. It
  was then that I realized the black plastic bag had a shape I recognized.
  "Rex! Rex! Come here, boy!"
  I grabbed a knife from the drawer in the kitchen and ran out through my
  front door. "Rex, Rex, Rex!" I tried to lift the dead weight and then
  broke a nail as I tried to undo the wire that secured the top of the
  bag. "Rex!" I cut into the black plastic to make a gap big enough to get
  my fingers into and then ripped the plastic open. Pouring out all over
  my feet came grass and twigs and leaves and other rubbish that the
  gardeners should have taken away with them.
  "Rex!" There was a happy bark and Rex came bounding out of the house,
  laughing and waving his tail. "You goddamned useless mutt!" I aimed a
  kick at him but missed. He jumped away and circled me to come back and
  nuzzle into the grass cuttings and spread the mess farther across the
  sidewalk. "Where you been?" I could see lint on his coat. "You
 200            LEN DEIGHTON

 know the linen closet is off limits, you cur!" Rex cowered down, one ear
 pressed hard against the ground, like I'd thrashed him. That was his cunning
 way of trying to get sympathy. He knew that damned linen closet was a no-no,
 and yet as soon as he saw me go to bed he went there and snuggled down in
 the best place in the house. "First chance I get I'm going to trade you in
 for one of those stuffed leather pigs," I told him.

  It was a cloudless Southern California day. Brunch at the Beverly Hilton
  was a dressy affair: my suit still fitted me and I felt good in it. Ingrid
  showed up on the dot; she was always on time and made me glad to be
  looking my poshest. She arrived looking great in a smoky gray silk
  two-piece with real pearls. We had one of the window tables that line one
  side of the restaurant; there was a view of the blue pool and the palms.
  The sunlight came into the room to shine on her hair and through the water
  glasses to make intricate patterns on the tablecloth.
  Life was good. "My name is Vicky, and I am your waitress." It was not true
  of course, the girl hovering over us was no more a waitress than any other
  young actress and model to be found waiting tables in the restaurants of
  Los Angeles, but she smiled sweetly and poured champagne for me and Ingrid
  and poured orange juice into the glasses where Danny and Robyna would be
  sitting when they came back from the buffet.
                  VIOLENT WARD   201

  "You're looking great, Ingrid."
  She waited until the waitress was out of earshot. "The first time you
  phoned I couldn't talk."
  "Sure, I understood."
  "I hear clicks on the line when Zach picks up the other phone, but the
  second call was okay, I think. I can never be certain." She looked at
  me. 'Vhat did Mr. Pindero say9"
  This was what I feared. I had no intention of telling her the truth
  about my second visit up there. "Not much. He'd been drinking. He wasn't
  in great shape. I didn't spend much time with him."
  "He was alone?"
  "A cat, two Dobermans, and a chorus line of tropical fish."
  She put down the champagne she'd been toying with and looked at me,
  smiling dreamily as if coming awake. "He's a nice man," she said.
  The sight of Ingrid's lovely face, and the sunny scene behind her,
  suddenly faded, and I could see only a colorless view of Pindero's body
  splayed across the floor tiles. I pushed it from my mind. I didn't want
  to think about it or what had happened up there.
  Perhaps she saw some aspect of that fear in my face, for she became
  serious and said, "I didn't want to get you involved, Mickey. I really
  didn't. But there's no one else I can turn to." She looked at me, gave
  a bleak little smile, and turned her head to see Robyna and Danny at the
  buffet counter, piling food onto their plates. I suppose it wasn't a
  good idea to invite her to a brunch with Danny and
 202            LEN DEIGHTON

 Robyna. Ingrid needed a chance to talk to me in private.
  "I'll help all I can," I told her.
  "I think I'm in danger," she said. She reached out and touched my hand,
  and just that light physical contact made me shiver. Maybe she noticed,
  for, as if regretting the gesture, she withdrew her hand and looked
  away.
  "Danger how?"
  "I can't explain ... not now."
  "From this Pindero guy?" I said.
  She shook her head and looked out the window. The pool was rippling in
  the sunlight. You know what it's like when you build a pool in
  Hollywood; before you've even got it full of water, guys are sitting
  around it discussing their contracts. There was a lot of self-promoting
  activity out there today: sunbronzed workout artists oiling their
  biceps, guys on phones, and, nearer to us, a tycoon wrapped in a towel
  watching a short fat guy in jogging clothes and a ponytail kneel down
  to walk a pencil through the floor plans of a mansion.
  Ingrid studied them all and looked around constantly with furtive
  movements that took in everything. I guess she was afraid of being
  followed. She fiddled with her knife and fork. Neither of us had been
  up to get food yet. "From Zach," she whispered. "Danger from my
  husband."
  "Danger? Why?"
  "Maybe I shouldn't have said danger. I can't explain."
  "Try."
                  VIOLENT WARD   203

  "I'm an encumbrance to him. He'd like me out of the way."
  "Zach? Your husband?"
  'Tes.21

  I tried to remain calm. "Do you have any evidence to support that idea?"
  "No. None that would convince a lawyer."
  "Ingrid," I said, ignoring the jibe and trying to smile, "maybe you are
  just going through a bad patch. Marriages do. I know all about that."
  "No, Mickey, I'm not a hysterical or neglected wife, if that's what you're
  thinking."
  "You told me he loves you and I believe it. I saw the way he looks at you.
  I'm sure he does." It hurt me to say it, but it was the truth as I saw it.
  "Do you think there's another woman?"
  "There's got to be. He's so mysterious and I'm so trusting. All those weeks
  when he was having an affair with Felicity, I never even suspected."
  "Felicity Weingartner?"
  "If she hadn't confessed I wouldn't have found out. I never could really
  confide in her after that." She looked into the distance. "Zach never tells
  me anything at all. After I spoke to you on the phone, he suddenly told me
  we had to come to IA. Then yesterday, when I'd booked a table for lunch at
  a perfectly lovely place, he suddenly remembered someone he had to see. He
  returned in the afternoon so nervous and flustered and guilty rm sure he
  has another woman here."
  "What time yesterday?"
  "What time? Oh, I don't know. It was while I
 204  LEN DEIGHTON

 was having my hair fixed. I got back all ready to go to lunch and there was
 this message saying he had to go out on business."
  "Maybe he did."
  "When a husband is being unfaithful a wife can tell, Mickey. He was so
  hyped up. When he returned he gave me a peck on the cheek and went straight
  to his study. I could hear him pacing up and down. Then in the evening he
  said that if anyone started asking questions, I was to say he'd been in all
  day." She drank some champagne. "'Who would want to know where you've
  been?' I said, 'somebody's angry husband?' But he just gave a little smirk
  and said it was nothing like that. It was business, he said."
  "Does this mean you're going to divorce him?"
  "I can't, Mickey. I have a son by my first husband. Zach is his godfather
  and his principal trustee. If I went for a divorce I could lose my son. You
  know what the courts are like, and Zach gives John so many expensive
  presents he's sure to want to stay with him."
  "I didn't know you had a son."
  "He's a lovely boy. He's at school in Connecticut. Zach has mixed feelings
  about him. He hates me having pictures of John Junior around the house. I
  have to hide them."
  'That's terrible." Even Felicity didn't know Ingrid had a child, or was she
  keeping Ingrid's secret?
  "No, it's very human. Zach so wanted a son of his own; he loves John
  Junior, but he also sees my child as some kind of reproach to his manhood.
  If
                  VIOLENT WARD   205

 only we'd had a family of our own it might have been different."
  "There's still time."
  "No. We've seen all kinds of specialists. Zach can't have children."
  "That's tough."
  "It affects him, there's no denying it. You know what he's like; he's
  macho. He fights for everything he wants, and he has to win." She drank
  some champagne. "I can't desert my son ... Jack's son. Jack was a good
  husband, and he adored that boy. I just have to tough it out, but at
  times I get really low."
  "How did your first husband die?" I asked.
  "A truck hit him when he was crossing the street. He was a lovely man."
  "That was lousy luck," I said.
  "At one time I almost confided some of my problems to that lovely Mr.
  Pindero, but I suppose the poor old boy didn't want to get mixed up in
  my troubles. He's not like you, Mickey. You really care, I know you do."
  "Iffhere is Zach now?"
  "He's talking to lawyers in Sacramento. I wish I knew who he was with
  yesterday. If that woman knew what she was doing to my marriage, she
  wouldn't torture me this way."
  I looked at her. Now I knew who was spying on me up at Pindero's place
  the other day: Zach Petrovitch. He must have listened in on the second
  phone call too, heard me describe where Pindero was living, and acted.
  I said, "Don't put anything in
 206  LEN DEIGHTON

 writing that would give your husband an alibi for yesterday, Ingrid."
   "You always talk like a lawyer."
  "I'm serious. If he was doing anything criminal at that time you could
  find yourself indicted as an accessory."
  "It's not anything criminal, it's another woman. Don't you see?" She
  wrestled with herself before saying: "Zach is convinced it's my fault
  we've not had children."
  "Danny's coming," I warned her as I saw him approaching.
  "The shrimp is real good," said Danny, as he plonked his plate on the
  table and sat down. "And they have great-looking prime rib and the best
  cheesecake in the world." Robyna's plate contained a modest serving of
  salads, nuts, and grains. She sat down and looked at Ingrid with unabashed
  interest.
  Ingrid smiled at her. When he was given a chance to eat as much as he
  wanted of all his favorite foods, Danny reverted to being a child. Looking
  around the restaurant, I thought maybe everyone did.
  "Our turn now, Ingrid," I said with forced cheeriness.
  "I can't wait to try the cold cuts," said Ingrid politely, but it didn't
  sound very convincing. I caught an expression on Danny's face that said he
  found Ingrid an object of curiosity and admiration. Her expensive clothes
  and careful makeup marked her as an out-of-towner. They were unusual here.
                  VIOLENT WARD 207

 This was the edge of the world, a place where the beautiful people went
 to the beach in designer sun tops, not to the opera in Chanel suits with
 pearls.
  I'd told Danny that Ingrid was the wife of a client, but I could see
  they were both convinced she was a fancy lady friend I was parading for
  them. Danny didn't look too pleased about this. He wasn't prepared to
  believe that anyone could replace his mother. As I got up to follow
  Ingrid to the food counter, I gave him a fixed stare. I sure hoped he
  wasn't going to say something stupid to Ingrid. He could be rude if he
  felt his mother's place threatened.
  I watched Ingrid while she put some poached salmon on her plate and took
  oak salad and grated carrot and jalapefto olives and stuff and arranged
  it all to look good. I took herrings in sour cream with smoked eel and
  potato salad.
  Ingrid pretended to be studying the buffet thoughtfully; when she was
  sure no one was within earshot, she took me aside and said, "About six
  months back I went down to get a drink from the ftidge. We were in the
  house in Aspen. You know where the kitchen is situated. I could hear
  Zach talking with people sitting around in the bar. I heard him say
  something like 'you make sure he's dead, really dead.'Goldie was there
  too. He kind of frightens me, that Goldie."
  "He has that effect on a lot of people."
  "Yes. Well, Goldie said, 'We don't want another foul-up like last
  time.'The other man-I didn't recognize the voice; he wasn't one of
  Zach's regular
 208 LEN DEIGHTON

 friends or anything-said, 'This is what I do for a living, Mr.
 Petrovitch.' Zach said, 'Next time I do it myself' I'm maybe not getting
 the words exactly right, but that was what they said in essence." She
 stopped as two people came past, heaping smoked salmon and cream cheese
 on their plates.
  I said, "It's easy to misunderstand overheard conversations. In the
  courts there are examples every day."
  "You don't believe me."
  "I'm trying to put your mind at ease," I told her. She was mad at me
  because she thought I wasn't treating her seriously enough. "I'm just
  trying to get at the facts."
  In a troubled and impatient whisper she said, "I know my husband is
  planning to kill me. The only'fact'that will prove it is my dead body."
  Despite her agitated manner, she still had her emotions well under
  control.
  "It won't come to that."
  "Why won't it? What are you going to do to prevent it? I'm scared,
  Mickey. I've never been frightened of anything before in my whole life,
  but now I'm scared."
  "Maybe you should take your son and leave home. Separate."
  "That's dumb." Her profound desperation could be heard in the flat way
  she said those words. "I've explained all that to you. John Junior has
  no passport, and Zach as guardian would have to submit the application.
  If I ran away, Zach would apply to the court for custody on the grounds
  of my being
                  VIOLENT WARD 209

 nuts, or an unsuitable person to be a guardian, or some other legal trick
 that would give him the boy. I'm trapped."
  "Perhaps there's a chance of compromise. Shall I talk to your husband, tell
  him you're desperately unhappy? Ask him to let you go?"
  She looked at me with contempt. "If Zach knew I was talking to you this
  way, he'd get rid of you too. I pretended I was asking you more questions
  about the charity regulations."
  "I'm not frightened of him, Ingrid."
  "Well, I am." She looked at her watch. "The car will be waiting. I must
  go."
  "You can't," I said.
  "It's okay for the next week or two. I'm safe. Nothing will happen to me
  until I've signed over the companies he's so concerned about. He's fixing
  up some kind of nominee holding; he told me that. He wants me to go to
  South America with him and sign a whole lot of documents in what he calls
  the appropriate jurisdictions." She looked at the door. "There's Goldie,"
  she said. She put her half-filled plate down on the table. "I must go. It's
  a wedding anniversary; people I've known for ages. And I promised to look
  in for a moment at Budd Byron's party. There are no friends like old
  friends, Mickey. It's taken me until now to discover that."
  "Wait a minute," I said. Her cutting away at this moment of high stress was
  unbearable. To persuade her to stay I felt like telling her what I'd found
  in the icebox on the Topanga hilltop, but I'd resolved to tell no one; I
  still had no evidence that
 210  LEN DEIGHTON

 Petrovitch had murdered Pindero and stuffed him in the fridge. On the
 other hand I really was worried about her.
  "I know what I'm doing," she said. She made a sudden effort to change
  the mood. "Maybe I'm exaggerating. Zach's a darling most of the time."
  Across the room Goldie was standing in the doorway with his hat in his
  hand, a faithful retainer look on his face and Ingrid's fur coat over
  one arm.
  "Call me anytime," I said.
  She gave me a peck on the cheek. "Don't look so solemn. It will be all
  right."
  I watched her go. Women like Ingrid should display a warning from the
  surgeon general: Associating with this woman will impair your powers of
  reasoning and lead to insane actions that endanger your health.
  I went back to the table and sat down with Danny and Robyna. "Are you
  going to Budd Byron's party9" said Danny.
  "How did you hear about that?"
  "He sent me an invite but we can't go. I've got a test tomorrow morning
  and I need to improve my average. Will you give him this?" said Danny.
  He brought out a printed yellow sheet of paper and smoothed it on the
  tablecloth. It was a pawn ticket with This is a pledge and not a sale
  and a five-digit number printed sideways along its edge. It took me a
  moment to decipher the computer printout: THREE HUNDRED AND TWENTY-FIVE
  DOLLARS.
 9-MM HANDGUN. BROWNING MODEL 35. DANIEL M.
                  VIOLENT WARD  211

 MURPHY. SEX: M; RACE: W; HAIR: BRN; EYES: BLK; WEIGHT: 150; BIRTH DATE:
 01/23/70.
  "You pawned the gun!"
  "Don't get excited, Pop. The pawnshop has a back room filled with them."
  "Don't fool with guns, Danny. Didn't I tell you that a thousand times?"
  "This pawnbroker preferred the gun to the stereo. He said customers always
  come back for their guns, but stereos go out of style."
  "Let me look at that again." I picked up the pawn ticket. "That's not your
  date of birth. Did you show him fake IDT'
  "All the kids at school have them."
  "You walk in there with a heater. You have your name and address filed into
  their computer. And you use fake ID. Are you out of your mind?"
  "I needed the money, Dad. My brakes needed relining."
  "Didn't any of those street-smart friends of yours tell you that the Police
  Department has a pawnshop detail where they file all routine reports about
  suspicious merchandise? The police clerk will take the counterfoil, bring
  your name up on the computer, read off your driver's license, and see
  you've given a false age."
  He wet his lips nervously the way he'd done as a small child. "I'm sorry,
  Dad."
  "I can't straighten this one out for you. This is not like a speeding
  ticket."
  "My brakes needed relining."
  I'd always told him that maintaining the
 212  LEN DEIGHTON

 brakes and steering and other vital parts of his car was top priority, so
 he invariably used that as a defense. I picked up the pawn ticket, folded
 it into two, and put it into my billfold. "I'll redeem it." I felt like
 driving down to the pawnshop right away.
  "You don't need to redeem it. Budd wants the gun. He's going to buy the
  ticket from me and collect it himself "
  "He can't do that, can he? It's illegal."
  "Sometimes you talk like an out-of-town hick, Dad. Why wouldn't it be
  legal? I just have to sign the form, that's all."
  "Okay, I'll tell Budd to redeem it tomorrow without fail, before the
  cops get interested."
  "Budd wants a gun real bad. He said it gets scary up there."
  "Don't call him Budd when you talk to him. It's better to call him Mr.
  Byron."
  "He said to call him Budd."
  "Scary? He's just highly strung." Danny was looking at my billfold
  longingly. I said, "You want me to advance you the money? Is that it?"
  "Budd will pay you when you give him the ticket."
  "How much?"
  "Four hundred."
  "Four hundred! What kind of a loan shark did I raise?"
  "Budd insisted."
  "Okay." I tossed four bills onto the table. "You stay away from that
  pawnshop. Let Budd redeem the gun; at least he can prove he's over
  twenty-one."
                  VIOLENT WARD    213

   "Thanks, Dad."
  "Let me tell you something, Danny. Until last year the cops used to
  collect the counterfoils every day. Now the pawnshops mail them in.
  Thank your lucky stars that we'll probably just be able to get out of
  this before the shit descends on your head."
   Where has your friend Ingrid gone?" said Danny.
  "She had to go to a meeting." I let him change the subject. I didn't
  want to give him a bad time.
   "Is she on the sniff?" said Robyna.
  "How's that?" It was Robyna's way of getting under my skin.
  "I thought she was spaced out," said Robyna. "She's kind of odd, isn't
  she?"
  It's true that Ingrid has a calm and inscrutable manner. She'd been that
  way when young. I'd always thought of it as a legacy from her mysterious
  Scandinavian forebears: the result of endless expanses of snow and ice
  and unrelenting melancholy. I had a weird idea about what Sweden was
  like back when I was in high school and had never been farther from home
  than Lake Havasu. "No, she's not spaced out, Robyna, she just has a lot
  of worries. Now, is there anything else I can do for

 YOUTY
  "You bastard!" said a voice from behind me. I looked up and saw my wife,
  Betty. Ex-wife, I mean. "I knew you had a fancy woman, Mickey. Why do
  you always lie to me?"
  "What are you talking about?" I said, although I knew she must have been
  spying on me and
 214 LEN DEIGBTON

 ~katched my t6te-A-Wte with Ingrid. "That was a client-" Realizing that
 Ingrid wouldn't want anyone to know she was consulting me, I amended it.
 "The wife of a client, I mean."
  Betty's face registered anger and satisfaction in equal amounts. "Now the
  truth is coming out," she said. "You're carrying on with the wife of a
  client. I hope you're proud of yourself." I looked around. Where were the
  kids? They'd made themselves scarce. The people at the next tAble were all
  looking at us, but when I stared back they went back to eating their
  brunches.
  "Felicity knows her," I said. "You ask Felicity."
  "You two-faced bastard. You should be disbarred."
  "Get yourself under control, Betty."
  "To think of the way you lie to poor little Danny
   she said, and dried up as if thinking about it were too much for her. So
   that was it. Danny had invited Betty to eat with us. It was another of his
   endless attempts to reunite his parents. No wonder he went so pale when
   he saw me with Ingrid. And no wonder he was staying out of the way now.
   "Womanizer!" said Betty. She turned and marched out to the pool as if she
   was about to throw herself into the deep end. In a way, I couldn't help
   feeling sorry for her. At least, maybe I would feel that way tomorrow. I
   watched her choose a seat by the pool and sit down.
   Danny was watching her too as he returned with his plate. "Did you invite
   your mother along9" I asked him.
                  VIOLENT WARD   215

  "She said she had to see you. She was worried about the cops digging up the
  yard."
  44TY"at?"

  "She's renting that house on Mulholland where you lived way back. The cops
  came and dug up the yard, looking for a dead body. She wants to know if she
  can make them reinstate the flower beds and stuff."
  "Wait a minute, wait a minute. Cops looking for a body? What is all this?"
  "I told her you'd probably know all about it." He looked unconcerned. "And
  the waitress said, 'Are you four brunches or five?"'
  "Tell the waitress I don't know how many brunches I am. Tell her I'm coming
  back to sort out the bill in a minute."
  I got up and hurried out to where Betty was lolling back on a lounger. She
  was calmer now.
  "I'm sorry," she said. "I'm really sorry, Mickey. And I apologize."
  "Have you been drinkine." I said. I'd never heard her apologize before.
  "Of course not." She held up a glass of orange juice from the breakfast
  jug.
  "What's this about cops digging up the yard?"
  "Yes, that's what I wanted to ask you. Can I charge the city for the flower
  beds? You remember those two lovely camellias? They'll never recover."
  "What did they say, the cops?"
  "It's a homicide investigation. They came with a crew and equipment. They
  asked for you, and when I said you weren't there they said they
 216 LEN DEIGHTON

 wanted to dig. What could I do except say yes? Now the landlord wants to
 replant and make me foot the bill."
  "Asked for me by name?" The idea that the cops thought I was dead and
  buried in a backyard on Mulholland Drive was nothing less than
  horrifying, but I didn't want Betty to see I was worried. She talked too
  much.
  "They thought it was your home. They said, Was I Mrs. Murphy?"
  "What did you tell them?"
  "What am I going to tell them? I said yes."
  "Didn't you tell them we're divorcedT'
  "They didn't ask."
  "You let them think it was my home?"
  I didn't let them think anything. They came in like they owned the place
  and searched the closets and everywhere. They put it all back, but when
  you're not expecting it-"
  "Did they take things away?"
  "What did you bury in the yard, Mickey?"
  I didn't bury anything in the yard. I haven't been up on Mulholland in
  ten years or more."
  "They took away samples of dirt and stuff in evidence bags. They were
  looking for a body."
  "What is going on?" I said to the world in general.
  She smiled at me as if I were joking. She never did take things
  seriously. "It was Danny's idea," she said. "My coming to brunch with
  you was Danny's idea. I thought we'd be alone. Just you and me and
  Danny. I have a favor to ask you."
                  VIOLUT WARD 217

  "I can't keep shelling out more dough. Times are tough. There's a
  recession, remember. No matter what the White House spokesman says, I've
  got a real-life recession down here in the savings account, where it
  hurts."
  "It's not about money," she said.
  "Not about money?"
  "You don't have to be sarcastic," she said.
  "Give me a break, will you? I send your money regularly. You don't have
  to tell some has-been prizefighter to try and lever more out of me."
  "Prizefighter?" She wrinkled her brow and then she laughed.
  "Prizefighter!"
  "What's funny?"
  "That 'has-been prizefighter' is Juan, my astrologer."
  "I should have guessed. Juan, the only astrologer in town with oiled
  biceps: oh, boy. That's where my money goes. It's always a mystic or a
  guru or a fortune-teller or some other kind of phony. Why don't you grow
  up, Betty?"
  "He just wanted to help me. He's not a moneygrubber. He's a sweet man."
  She was defensive, now.
  "Oh, sure. I knew he was some kind of altruist when I saw him drive off
  in that metallic-silver five hundred SEL. Do you know what an import
  like that costs?"
  "Don't start going on about imports. You sound just like your father."
  "So what's wrong with that?"
  "Nothing. I liked him, you know that. In his
 218 LEN DEIGHTON

 last few months I visited the hospital more often than you did. You always
 had urgent work on Sunday mornings."
  "I guess so." That knife went deep. She knew how to get between the ribs.
  Dad was a great guy, but I was a less-than-great son; I didn't make enough
  effort. I said, "Remember the surgeon's face when they fitted his pacemaker
  and he asked if it had a lifetime warranty?"
  Betty said, "Sometimes I wonder if I'll stay as cheerful as that if I wind
  up in some old people's home, hoping Danny won't find urgent work to do on
  Sunday mornings."
  It was a chilling thought. Ten minutes with Betty, and I needed to go lie
  down in a darkened room. She really knew how to get to me. "Yeah. It's how
  we get punished, I guess. I miss him."
  "Danny or your dad?"
  "Both," I said feelingly.
  "Danny has his own life, Mickey. When he was just a kid we were all
  together, like we were on the dock or something. But suddenly he takes a
  short step and he's on a boat. At first it doesn't seem so different, but
  then boat and dock are moving apart. There's water between us. And all of
  a sudden his boat is almost out of sight and he's off to live his own life.
  Married soon, maybe, with kids of his own. And he won't be a part of our
  life anymore. Does that sound flaky?"
  "No."

  "I tried to do a little poem about it, but I couldn't get the rhymes
  right."
                  VIOLENT WARD 219

  "It doesn't sound flaky, Betty. I guess all parents find it tough."
  "That's what Felicity said." She drank some orange juice,. "Felicity got
  together with Paul again."
  "Is that right? She was looking very detached when I saw her in Aspen."
  "Could we try again?" she said. "Sort of a second honeymoon? You know: go
  somewhere and try again. You and me, like it was in the old days. We had
  some laughs, didn't we?"
  "Go where?" I wasn't abodt to schlepp across to Vegas again. One honeymoon
  in Vegas is more than enough. How many gambling games can you lose in one
  weekend? "I'm busy; I couldn't get away if I wanted to." Any flicker of
  interest, and she'd have us sharing a thatched hut in Kauai or renting a
  drive-yourself gondola in Venice, Italy.
  "It doesn't have to be anywhere special. We could go to the Hilton in
  Anaheim."
  "The Hilton in Anaheim?" I couldn't keep my voice level.
  My surprise didn't register with her. "I'll book it and pay. They do a
  special weekend rate at the Anaheim Hilton with a complimentary champagne
  breakfast. Saturday and Sunday."
  "I don't care if they give us complimentary mouse ears in Disneyland and
  a free pie at Knott's Berry Farm, the answer is no. No, Betty, no." I said
  it with conviction. Maybe you think that sounds cruel, but you have to be
  very careful with Betty. Any other response and she'd start thinking I was
  hankering to strap on the harness, blinkers, and
 220  LEN DEIGHTON

 reins again. "Like I say, I'm locked into work right now."
  "Felicity and Paul patched things up at the Anaheim Hilton. They're
  really happy again."
  A fat guy with tattooed arms ran past us, feet slapping, and jumped into
  the pool, arms flailing: splash! It made Betty jump and sprayed us with
  water.
  "That's great," I said dabbing water from my arms. Now it was all
  explained. Felicity Weingartner had a big reconciliation with her
  live-in boyfriend at the Anaheim Hilton, so we have to go to the Anaheim
  Hilton. For Betty it always had to be metaphysical. It had to be good
  omens or vibes, something in the lines of your hand or in the stars. Or
  numerology: what was their room number?
  "Come and have dinner tonight. Baked sea bass with black bean sauce. I'm
  using that recipe we got from the waiter at the Mandarin."
  "It's Budd's birthday party."
  "Yes, I was invited too," she admitted. "For lunch."
  "I told him I'd be late."
  "He's weird."
  "I saw him on TV last week. He was a cop who got gunned down in Miami
  Vice."
  "I saw it. He came on with the titles, read out Miranda, and then he
  gurgled and was gone."
  "He looked really great," I said.
  "Because they're reruns; that's why he looked great. That was years
  back, when he was younger. What has he done lately9"
                  VIOLENT WARD    221

  "He's working his ass off. I know that for a fact."
  She looked at me to see if I was sincere. "You're always so loyal to him,"
  she said, in a voice that wondered why I wasn't similarly loyal to her.
  "You used to keep on about how handsome he was."
  "Did IT' She lifted her eyebrows and gave a faint reflective smile as she
  remembered. "Maybe I did." She looked pretty-almost beautiful when she
  smiled. It was easy to remember meeting her and thinking she was the only
  one for me. She got up.
  "Are you going to Budd's?" I said.
  "I've got guests for dinner. I have to cook."
  I nodded. I wasn't going to press her to come and see Budd with me. An
  evening with a roomful of movie actors was a heavy enough prospect without
  having Betty along to give a running commentary.
  "I'll call you," I said.
  She put up her hand and gently ran her fingers through her hair to loosen
  it. "Forget Budd Byron. He'll have all his actor friends with him. Let's
  you and me have dinner instead. Tell him you're sick or something." She
  looked great; she must have been doing her exercises again.
  "I thought you had people coming to dinner. You said you had to cook."
  "I can rearrange it."
  "No," I said.
  "Honey ... being together again would save you money," she said.
 222             LEN DEIGHTON

  "No. Lay off me, Betty, will you? I'm real low on conjugal motivation
  these days." "What's that mean?" "It means we're through. It's all
  over."
CHAPTER 10

 Budd's party was not the sort of Hollywood celebration that Betty had been
 so caustic about. There were no megastars parading complete with an en-
 tourage of press agents and gofers, no studio executives with ponytails
 and designer stubble chins, no fashionable catering, no upstairs rooms
 where pretty young boys, shapely girls, and little bowls of white powder
 were arrayed for guests to help themselves.
  For nearly twenty years Budd had owned this rickety old house perched
  up in the Hollywood Hills near the Laurel Canyon intersection. It was
  only a stone's throw from all the litter, traffic, and panhandling
  horror of Sunset, but it was a world apart.
  Manderley. What star-struck romantic had
 224             LEN DEIGHTON

 named it? It was an old house by Hollywood standards. You could tell the
 age of these houses in the hills by the mature trees that were part of
 their landscaping. Manderley sheltered under the canopies of three horse
 chestnuts. Inside it was crammed with Asian carpets and heavy furniture
 that Budd bought cheap back in the seventies, when cash-hungry studios
 turned their back lots over to the speculators and opened their property
 warehouses to the auctioneers. Okay, so it was a film set: an incongruous
 clutter of orphaned furnishings that would never get along together. But
 all his friends and visitors escaped their chaste design-conscious
 interiors to revel in the novelty of his cluttered home.
  And who wanted to go inside anyway when, with a chilled drink in your
  hand, you were standing in the warm sunshine exchanging gibes with a
  crowd of old buddies and marveling at a view right across the city? Budd
  had set up an elaborate portable bar, fashioned like one of those old
  New York ice-cream carts. There was every kind of drink you can think
  of; chips and nuts from Trader Joe's and warm popcorn and cheese straws,
  and those tiny Japanese snacks that look like plastic and taste like
  seaweed.
  I arrived late. It was long past lunchtime, and the Weber barbecue was
  cooled and closed down. Beside it there were toasted buns, mustard, and
  a huge floral-patterned plate of hamburgers and franks that had been
  left to go cold. Champagne was being served while, for those who didn't
  like
                  VIOLENT WARD   225

 bubbles, half a dozen bottles of Mondavi Chardonnay stood in a plastic tub
 of ice and bottles of Beaulieu Cabernet Sauvignon were lined up ready to
 uncork. This was all set to go on late. But I stood there that afternoon
 transfixed by the view. The storms had gone; the ragged clouds were dipped
 in gore, and the sun was dropping out of them like a silver dollar coming
 out of an upended collection box.
  ,'You never get used to it," Budd said. Having greeted me and brought me
  a drink, he answered the question I'd never put to him. Budd had broken
  free from a group of open-mouthed thespiansmostly young-who were listening
  to Pop Pedersen, a red-faced fifty-year-old raconteur who had been Budd's
  agent ever since he started work.
  "It's a great spot, Budd," I told him. "You got the most spectacular home
  in the city."
  To the standard compliment he gave his regular reply: "It's my
  million-dollar view."
  Budd was looking great; the big fellow always looked great. He was wearing
  a custom-made tuxedo-white jacket and black pants-with a fashionable
  high-collar shirt and wine-red bow tie. Budd did not subscribe to the rule
  that a host must not outdress his guests. "It's good to see you, Budd." We
  didn't have to say much to each other; we were pals. "Danny had to study.
  He's sorry not to be here. I brought you a pawn ticket."
  "What do I owe you?"
  "Happy birthday," I said. Behind him, Pop Pedersen was responding to his
  appreciative audi-
   226  LEN DEIGHTON

 ence. He mimed some business with a door and a girl and a bed. Show-biz
 agents are all actors at heart, how else can they stay in that stressful
 business?
  After a moment or two of scanning the ticket to be sure it was signed,
  he stuffed it into his pocket. "What a wonderful birthday present. I
  knew you'd come through, Mickey. When you told me Danny had a gun, I
  could tell how badly you wanted someone to take it off his hands."
  "Oh."
  "Did I get it wrong?"
  "Did I say Danny had a gun, Budd? I don't remember that."
  "Maybe Danny told me. He phoned to thank me for inviting him."
  "Maybe that was it," I said.
  Behind him Pop was ending his story by grabbing the lapels of an
  imaginary hotel manager and shouting, "Rule number one for beach hotels,
  you son of a bitch-print the do-not-disturb notices in some language the
  chamber maids can understand!" They all laughed while Pop drank his wine
  and bathed in their reaction.
  "I'm glad you could get away," said Budd. "You more than anyone." I knew
  he meant it. He had this big wide sentimental streak.
  "Everyone always turns up, Budd. It's an event," I said. "Did Ingrid
  look in on you?"
  "Just old friends," Budd said, nodding and looking around. "Round up the
  usual suspects.
                  VIOLENT WARD   227

 That's it, right?" And then, in belated reaction to my question: "Ingrid?
 Yes, that's right, she did."
  I watched him in surprise. I would have thought a visit by Ingrid would
  have brought a stronger reaction. As well as being a minor celebrity,
  Ingrid was someone Budd adored almost as much as I did.
  I looked around at the mutual friends: college buddies and Budd's actor
  friends. No one there looked like they were seeking asylum from the au-
  tograph hunters, but I recognized a few faces that regularly uttered lines
  in the soaps. And scattered around the patio were plenty of beautiful young
  women. Some were in faded designer jeans and T-shirts, while others wore
  snazzy low-fronted audition dresses. Long-legged girls with good teeth and
  chunky jewelry always went for Budd. With his broad shoulders and wavy
  blond hair, he was the ultimate fashion accessory.
  "Happy birthday, Budd," called another latecomer. It was a homicide
  detective named Felix Chiaputti who'd been a history major with us at col-
  lege. He never looked like a cop; I suppose that was how he came to be a
  detective. He was wearing a dark-blue polo shirt and a light-blue cotton
  cord suit, with the jacket draped over his shoulder so that a
  short-barreled Smith & Wesson could be seen in its holster on his belt.
  "Felix! Just the man I want to see," I said. The news that the cops were
  digging up the yard at Betty's home in Mulholland had alarmed me, but it
 228 LEN DEIGHTON

 was better to get around to it gradually. "How's the homicide business?"
  "Frisky," said Felix, after he'd gulped down a lot of his bourbon. "How
  are things with you?"
  "Mustn't grumble."
  "I needed that," he said, finishing his drink with a second swallow and
  stepping aside to pour himself another from a bottle he grabbed from the
  bar.
  .Tough day? I didn't know cops worked on Sunday." He turned on me with
  pointing finger, opened mouth, and narrowed eyes. I knew how to get to
  him. "Only kidding, Felix," I added hastily.
  "I spent the afternoon discussing sailing boats and catamarans and where
  best to take them in the Caribbean."
  "You've got a boat now?"
  "Plump little guy with very white front teeth and golden molars . . .
  way-down-south accent. Boat? Are you kidding? I've got trouble meeting
  the payments on my condo."
  "So?"
  "This guy says he likes Haiti best: lots of quiet little beaches and
  clear water you can snorkel in. That's why he bought a holiday home
  there, but then he likes unspoiled places. He's not looking for caviar
  and nouvelle cuisine; he's just plain folks. He's like you and me,
  except he's got a thirty-foot trimaran named Pegasus and knows all the
  little islands in the Caribbean better than I know the singles bars in
  Santa Monica."
  "Is that right?" Why would Felix know the sin-                  VIOLENT WARD 229

 gles bars? Was he cheating on his wife, Maureen? I noticed that Felix was
 combing his hair forward from the back of his head, to hide his balding
 crown, so maybe the answer was yes. I said, "What does this guy have that
 I don't have?"
  "Resources, Mickey, that's what he has. He married the heiress to a
  pantyhose fortune."
  "What's your connection with this guy?"
  "On his last voyage he chopped his wife into bite-sized pieces with a
  cleaver he bought in a Chinese market on Broadway and fed her to the
  sharks. They have a lot of sharks around Haiti, and bite-size pieces for
  sharks are pretty big. They get used to the idea that boats throw
  garbage over the side, and they follow them. I put that to him. He
  agreed. He had books about sharks and their habitats on his bedside
  table. He said they're an endangered species. He seems to have lost the
  cleaver. It must have gone overboard with the garbage, he says.
  "Jesus. What will happen to him?"
  "He'll inherit ten point seven million dollars from his wife. It's
  mostly in T-bonds, but a guy with chutzpah like that will switch to
  equities unless I've got him all wrong."
  "I mean, what will he get?"
  "Get? He'll never go to trial. If I asked the attorney's office for a
  grand jury, my boss would send me off for counseling and then fire me.
  All I've got as evidence is a lady's Rolex with a gold wristlet that
  forensics says was sliced right through with a heavy steel blade. On the
  gold there are minute
 230 LEN DEIGHTON

 traces of a distinctive low-quality steel exactly like that of a Chinese
 cleaver I got from the same store. With no more than that I couldn't even
 get the bastard for polluting the ocean. Well never be able to hang it on
 him. He's done everything right. He even asked me for his wife's watch back.
 He said it had sentimental value and implied some cop might steal it. I
 don't know how I kept my hands off the little bastard. He used to be a
 doctor, can you believe it?" Felix shook the bottle to get the last drop.
 "It was almost empty when I took it," he said, meeting my eye.
  I said, "Judging f - im the bills my doctor sends me, I don't know why he
  doesn't have ten million dollars of his own."
  "Maybe he has." Felix stepped across and found another bottle of bourbon
  and poured some and drank that pretty swiftly too.
  I said, "If you're driving home, I'd take it easy."
  "Pegasus, he calls the boat. I looked it up. It was an immortal winged
  horse that sprang from the blood of the slain Medusa. Then I looked up
  Medusa and found she wasn't a god, she was a mortal woman."
  I looked at him. "That's cute," I said, "even for a history major. Are you
  saying this guy named his boat with murder in mind?"
  "It's a thought, isn't it?" He looked around. "We're all getting older, I
  guess. "
  "Speak for yourself," I said. "Say, does this happen a lot-men killing
  their wives and getting off scot free?"
                  VIOLENT WARD    231

  "You're not remarried, are you? You're still divorced from Betty?"
  "Take it easy, Felix. I'm asking because I have a client who feels
  threatened. She thinks her husband is going to kill her."
  "Maybe she's nuts," he said.
  "You're a hard man, Felix. But what kind of advice can I give her if she
  isn't nuts?"
  "Why doesn't she just take off?"
  "There is a custody dimension. If she takes off she figures her husband
  will say she's irresponsible and mentally unstable and persuade the
  court to give him custody of her kid."
  He looked at me and rubbed his face for a moment before answering.
  "Fifty-eight percent of all murders in the U.S. are done by close
  friends or family. Family and workplace: it's where it all starts. Not
  many wackos go out and kill someone they don't know for no reason at
  all. Statistically she's got more chance of being wasted by her husband
  than by anyone else. And if there's money in the offing the chances go
  up. Say, is this someone I know?"
  "No, it's a client."
  He looked at me suspiciously. "You're not another of these people with
  a secret film script going the rounds, are you? This town is full of
  them. You and Budd maybe? Budd was asking me exactly the same kind of
  questions only two weeks back."
  "Budd was?"
  "Okay, so it's secret. I won't tell on you."
 232  LEN DEIGHTON

  "Listen, Felix. I'm not writing a film script. I've got problems and I
  need your advice."
  "Go!"
  "Betty is living in that old house we used to rent on Mulholland. A team
  of homicide guys went up there the other day. They searched the house
  and dug up the yard. Do you know anything about that?"
  "Not a thing. What were they after?"
  "You tell me. They asked for me, Betty says. That's all I know."
  "No messages? Nothing in the mail? Nothing by fax? They didn't contact
  your office?"
  "I haven't been to the office for a couple of days."
  "These things always have a simple explanation," said Felix, as if cops
  were constantly engaged on surprise digging raids in yards all over
  town. "You know what the mail is like these days."
  Before I could say anything more, his wife Maureen arrived with three
  mini hot dogs. I knew her. She was a determined thirty-year-old talent
  agency executive with beady blue eyes and fashionably frazzled hair.
  Cute in a ferocious kind of way. "I'm telling Mickey about the wife
  murderer."
  "Felix was hoping for an expense-paid trip to the Caribbean," said
  Maureen. "When the guy returned of his own volition, Felix was
  determined to put him into the gas chamber as revenge."
  "Maureen's never lost her great sense of humor," he said. "That's what
  holds our marriage together. Right, Maureen?"
                  VIOLENT WARD    233

  "I've never been more serious in my life," she said, offering me a hot dog
  on a bun. I wasn't hungry, but it was so friendly of her to include me in
  the logistics that I took one.
  "Did you put mustard on this, sweetheart?" Felix asked her.
  "Would I shortchange you after all these years of slaving for you?"
  Felix bit into his hot dog and then closed his eyes and pursed his lips as
  he savored it. "Gelson's." He pronounced his verdict on the hot dog. "My
  favorite: with Safeway's as runner-up. Maureen's got her own outfit now.
  Did you know that?"
  "Agenting?" She certainly never pushed any of her legal work my way.
  Maureen nodded. "Yeah. Mostly writers and directors. I'm planning to
  package producers too, when I get a development deal that's right. I'm
  staying clear of actors for the time being: too temperamental." She had a
  low, clear, attractive voice. At one time she'd been in radio, a kid's
  story program, but when they refused to give her her own show she left.
  "Congrats, Maureen," I said. "Are you putting on a little weight?"
  "Yeah, I am, you bastard." She stopped eating her hot dog and stared at it
  accusingly. Maybe she read my mind about her never giving me any legal
  crumbs swept off the agenting table. "I'm a victim of the Hollywood
  business lunch. But I've been doing real well, and it's good working for
  yourself." So there!
 234 LEN DEIGHTON

  "You should see the office, Mickey," said her proud husband. "Santa
  Monica Boulevard, near Rodeo. Oak paneling, carpets up to your ankles,
  hand-painted art on the wall; we should live so well at home!"
  "Don't be mean, honey," said Maureen. "I've got to have a neat place to
  take executives and the talent. Clients need the reassurance prosperous-
  looking representation provides. The kind of clients I'm interested in
  don't want an agent who works out of a cocktail lounge with a mobile
  phone."
  "Let me know when you get a vacancy," I joshed.
  "Right now," she said. "I need someone right away." She plucked the hot
  dog from her roll, ate it, and dropped the roll into a nearby bin.
   "What kind of a someone?" I asked.
  "Someone prepared to pound shoe leather. Someone who can figure a
  percentage without a Japanese calculator and knows his way around the
  studios and the eating places. I'm eating two or three lunches some
  days, and it's killing me. You got any ideas?"
  "My ex, Betty, is available; she's looking for a job." This was not
  exactly true. Betty had given no indication that she was looking for a
  job, or even that she'd take one if it came along. But Betty in paid
  employment sounded good to me. If she had some kind of income it might
  get her off my back.
  "Betty? Betty Murphy that was?" She looked at me quizzically. I guess
  she could see what was in my mind.
                  VIOLENT WARD   235

  "Betty Murphy that is," I said. "She likes my name better than her own,
  Vanderbilt. People in credit departments were always making jokes about
  repayment plans."
  "Does she have any experience?"
  "Of eating three meals a day? Sure she does. Four, some days. Refrigerator
  raids in the A.M., too. I'll show you my check stubs."
  "You louse! Are you serious?"
  "Betty could do it," I insisted. I was getting keen now.
  "I need a negotiator. A catalyst; a mediator. Agenting is not the breeze
  some folk seem to think it is. It's very tough, and you have to be quick
  on your feet with these film deals."
  "Negotiator! She negotiated me into the poorhouse."
  "And she was your secretary at one time, so I guess she can write letters
  that sound legal."
  "She can draw up an agreement. She worked for Pop Pedersen back before
  Danny was born."
  "If you're kidding me, Murphy-"
  "I'm telling you the truth."
  "Is Betty here?"
  "No. But I just lunched with her. Give her a call. She'd be great for you.
  Very tenacious, if you know what I mean."
  "I know Betty," said Maureen, in that resentful we-girls-stick-together
  kind of voice. "You're a bastard, Mickey. I can see why she left you."
  "Give her a call. This is where you can reach her." I scribbled Betty's
  number on the back of a
 236 LEN DEIGHTON

 business card and gave it to Maureen, who put it away in her smart
 alligator purse.
  "Maybe I'll give Betty a job and she'll make you eat your words."
  "Just as long as she picks up the tab for them."
  As I spoke, Budd yelled from the far side of the patio, "Felix! Come
  over here and arrest this guy!"
  Felix smiled at me, took his wife's arm, and began to move off.
  "I've got to ask you something, Felix," I said. "See me before you go,
  will you?"
  He nodded and moved away. But I had the feeling he didn't want to take
  up the conversation again.
  "Not many people here," said a man Budd had introduced as a famous movie
  producer. I'd never seen him before. He was a tough-looking little guy
  with very wide shoulders. Close to, you could see he'd had a face lift
  at some time. Now he needed another. His hair was perfect, wavy and
  graying at the temples, and his face was craggy and distinguished.
  "Harold Torvik."
  "Good to know you, Harry," I said. "My name is Mickey Murphy."
  "I don't know any of these people," he said.
  It was hard to tell whether he was complaining or boasting. I looked
  across the patio with him and studied the other guests. "It's just close
  friends."
  "That's the way it looks," he said. He adroitly snatched a newly poured
  glass of champagne from the tray of a passing waiter. "Are you an
  actor?"
  "An attorney. I was at college with Budd."
                   VIOLENT WARD  237

  "He told me he went to college," he said, as if it was difficult to
  believe.
  "A football scholarship," I said. "Budd and I were both on football
  scholarships."
  "Football? Did he get a letter?"
  "He did all right." It wasn't exactly true. I always suspected that Budd
  got the scholarship more because he looked like a football star than
  because he stood any chance of becoming one. To see Budd so carefully
  groomed, dressed in his uniform, helmet under his arm, shy smile, and
  determined distant stare, inspired us all. He personified the love we
  all had for the game.
  "But he didn't graduate?"
  "He got so many movie offers he left."
  "His agent sent me a video of his acting work. Has he ;ver had a star
  role?"
  "Sure, lots," I said. This guy was bugging me, but if Budd was being
  considered for something important I felt I'd better stay there and sing
  his praises.
  "I mean in a big production."
  "Oh, sure," I said loyally. "He's done everything. For sample videos,"
  I said, improvising desperately, "actors like to show a wide variety of
  minor roles to emphasize versatility."
  "Tell me some titles."
  "I've got a terrible memory," I said. "And to tell you the truth, I'm
  not a big moviegoer except for musicals."
  "Me neither; movies are a load of shit. I never
 238            LEN DEIGHTON

 go to movies; never watch them on TV or on videos either."
  "I thought you were a movie producer," I said.
  "No, that's just Budd's flight of fancy. My line is bowling alleys. I've
  had a lot of people try to get me to invest in movies. I wouldn't touch
  them."
  He paused and waited. "Why?"
  "Because movie bookkeepers can show you a grievous loss on a gold mine.
  I've got eight bowling alleys: Chicago, San Diego, Dallas ... right
  across the country. You want to make a little extra dough, let me put
  it into bowling. It's a wonderful investment, and I guarantee you won't
  get gypped. My books are open to every investor. I run a clean business,
  and it pays." He produced an expensive-looking leather wallet and gave
  me his card. "Budd will be my guest when we open the newest and biggest
  one in my group: Albany."
  "Congratulations."
  He gave the ghost of a smile. "I thought your pal was a big movie star,
  but I'm beginning to think he's a wannabee."
  "You're wrong, Harry. Budd Byron is a wellknown face," I said. "You
  don't see many movies, you told me, but movie buffs will know his face,
  even if they don't recognize the name at first. And he's a very fine
  actor."
  He looked at me. "Is that right?"
  "Yes, it is. Budd is one of Hollywood's most famous personalities."
  He looked at me. That was going too far and we both knew it. He sniffed
  and took a gulp of cham-
                    VIOLENT WARD   239

 pagne and then dabbed his mouth with a spotted silk handkerchief "Maybe
 you're right. Anyhow, Budd's price is all I can afford-I can't splash a
 fortune on an opening-and shit, what do bowling freaks in Albany know
 about film starsT' We both stood there while he scrutinized the other
 guests. Then he suddenly moved off to talk to a young girl in a
 see-through blouse who was trying to open a can of 7-Up all on her own.
 She saw help coming and beamed at him. I guess she spotted the can opener
 in his pants.
  Budd was doing the rounds; he was a conscientious host. To round off the
  party Pop Pedersen was taking Budd and a bunch of the guests to
  Morton's. Budd asked me to join them but I said no. I could see it was
  going to be one of those evenings that ended up in some little bar in
  Santa Monica with a lot of guys smashed, maudlin, and sitting around
  with their cellulars on the counter. promising to produce a dozen
  gorgeous sexy girls who never answered the phone.
  "Another time, maybe. I've got things to do at home."
  "Come on, Mickey! What kind of things?"
  "What kind of things? Listen, either I stop off on the way home to buy
  more chinaware or locate the owner's manual for the dishwasher. My
  tumble dryer is on the blink, and I'm up to here in dirty laundry. My
  cleaning lady is home nursing a sick daughter, and if I don't start
  cleaning up soon, the board of health will cite me for trying to start
  a cholera epidemic."
 240 LEN DEIGHTON

  "Come on, Mickey. Forget those chores. Pop would love to have you
  along."
  Budd didn't believe me, I could see that. He thought I was rejecting him
  and our friends. "Look, Budd," I told him. "The real story is that I've
  lined up a big-titted blonde in Marina del Rey. Her husband's at a paint
  manufacturers'convention in Dallas, and this could be my big chance."
  "Gotcha," said Budd and gave me a fixed, uncertain smile. He didn't know
  what to believe. He couldn't even distinguish what I wanted him to be-
  lieve. And that was good. The beneficial interactions of urban American
  life only succeed because we don't know what to believe. If we knew what
  to believe, we'd be beating our neighbor's door down.
  "Well, you're welcome to join us if you change your mind," Budd said.
  "Have you got a drink?"
  "I've had enough to drink." I quite liked Pop Pedersen, but he was one
  of those guys who has got to convince you of his unquenchable libido,
  and I couldn't face an evening trying to laugh at funny stories that
  would all end with Pop performing energetically in bed, beach, or back
  seat with some beautiful starlet.
  The sun was fast disappearing now, and the light was golden. I moved to
  the terrace rail and sat down on one of the loungers. What a city it
  was: the biggest collection of strangers in the world, people from every
  part of the globe with nothing in common but a belief that making money
  in the sunshine was no more strenuous than making it in the rain and
  snow. The city was laid out before me.
                  VIOLENT WARD    241

 From up here you could see that most of it consisted of low butlike
 prefabricated buildings giving the effect of a vast army camp. Standing
 around awkwardly, like tall grown-ups at a children's party, were some
 elegant glass skyscrapers: a cluster of them glinting in the distant haze
of
 Century City and more around City Hall downtown. And everywhere, marking the
 grid patterns, made by the long avenues, were spiky rows of palms reaching
 high into the smog. And when the sun was very low-like this, its rosy glow
 came through the haze so it looked as if the whole city was ablaze, from
 Pasadena to LAX.

  It was dusk when I left Budd's party and drove over to my office. I went
  upstairs and sat at Miss Huth's desk to go through the mail and messages.
  There was nothing there to explain the cops digging holes in Mulholland.
  While sitting there I heard voices from the next office. It was Billy Kim
  talking to Vic Crichton. I'd not seen my partner since he was discharged
  from the hospital in Phoenix. I had a lot to say to him, so I rapped on
  the door and went in.
  "Billy," I said. "Why didn't you tell me you were back?"
  Billy looked at Vic Crichton and Vic looked at his shoes. The quality of
  the ensuing silence and the stance of the two men told me I'd interrupted
  some kind of argument, one of those fierce arguments that are conducted in
  low voices.
 242   LEN DEIGHTON

  "Hello, Mickey," said Billy Kim softly. He was standing behind his desk.
  In greeting he held up his left hand, clad in a plaster cast. "When this
  comes off I'll be in good shape. I was planning to see you."
  Vic Crichton was sprawled in an easy chair with a drink in his fist.
  "I'm glad you've come, Mickey," he said. "Palk to your partner and get
  some sense into his head."
  "Mickey is not a party to what we are talking about, Vic. Leave him out
  of it."
  "Don't give me that shit," said Vic, his face reddened by emotion and
  exertion and maybe by the alcohol too. "I talked to Mickey in Aspen,
  didn't 1, Mickey? He took the stiff to the mortician. Do you think I
  don't know that? We own that mortuary; we know what's happening."
  A bottle of brandy was on the desk in front of Billy and there was a
  glass there too, but Billy seldom drank alcohol and his obvious anger
  was not brought on by drinking. "I don't need you, Vic," said Billy Mm
  slowly and deliberately. "You need me, but I don't need you. It would
  serve you well to remember that."
  "There's no shortage of stiffs," said Vic, spitting out the words like
  pips from a papaw. He got up from the chair and walked across to the
  window. It was dark outside, and the lights of the city-the billboards
  and advertising signs, the movements of cars along the elevated
  freeways-sparkled like scores on a pinball machine. "Walk across this
  city in the early hours of a chilly morning, and you'll trip over a
  dozen dead 'uns. You can take your pick
                  VIOLENT WARD   243

 for shape and size before the city comes to collect them."
  "Maybe you forgot that you need a certified death certificate for U.S.
  Customs," said Billy Kim, with that oriental calm I knew to be the
  precursor to a display of violent temper. "I have to pay the doctor for the
  certificates. I have to pay all of them."
  "Listen to me, you creep," said Vic, swinging around from his position at
  the window. "The airline won't accept a dead body for carriage except from
  a mortuary." He went up close to Billy. "And before you tell me how easy
  it would be to fix one of the airline guys, let me remind you that it has
  to be consigned to a mortuary at the other end, and the law says the
  foreign mortuary has to send someone to collect it." He raised his hand to
  point a finger in Billy's face. "Your contribution was minimal. Maybe that
  auto accident shook your little oriental brain more than the medical tests
  revealed."
  Billy blinked as the finger almost touched his nose. He struck Vic's hand
  aside and I was fearful that the Englishman would reach for that gun he
  liked to carry under his arm. But Crichton showed no fear. He stepped back,
  raised his arms a few inches in a gesture of surrender, and grinned defi-
  antly. "I thought there was some kind of Chinese saying that a fight means
  a fool has lost an argument."
  "I'll kill you, you bastard," said Billy.
  "No, you won't," said Vic cheerfully. "I'm calling your bluff and you'll
  have to back off."
  I said, "Listen, you dumb bastards. Getting a
 244 LEN DEIGHTON

 new identity for Sir Jeremy seems to have gone to your heads. But too many
 people know what you did. You should be covering your tracks, not fighting
 about money. Stojil obliged you by selecting a suitable shape and size of
 dead vagrant, and he got a passport and whatever else Sir Jeremy wanted. But
 that doesn't mean Stojil will sit still and take the rap for you if the cops
 go sniffing around the Rainbow Rooms. Neither will Vic's obliging mortician
 protect you, even if he is on the payroll. If you two have an argument about
 money, it will be cheaper and better to settle it quietly and quickly."
  "Don't kid around, Mickey," said Vic. "Is this the next scene in the
  shakedown? Did you arrange this between you?"
  "Wise up, Vic," I said. "The alarm bells are ringing and you've got
  everything to lose. How much money are you guys arguing about?"
  "I don't like being swindled," grumbled Vic. But there was a change in his
  manner. Maybe he was the one who had been bluffing.
  "Listen carefully," I said. "The cops have been up to a place I used to
  live on Mulholland. They've been digging up the backyard. Any guesses
  about what they were looking for?"
  "Nhat do you mean?" said Billy.
  "My guess is that the British cops have got wind of your racket. If they
  did a postmortem on that body you air-freighted to London and compared the
  dental X-rays with those of Sir Jeremy, they will be asking who this
  corpse is and what happened to the real Sir Jeremy. It seems they've
                  VIOLENT WARD   245

 opened a homicide investigation that will lead them to Stoj*l."
  The sirens screamed from somewhere on the other side of the city.
  "Murder?" said Vic, his brow furrowed and his voice croaking. "Arrest
  Stojil for murder?"
  "If your pal Sir Jeremy is in hiding somewhere on the other side of the
  world, it might be tricky for anyone to prove he's still alive," I said.
  "If Stojil convinces them he isn't the perpetrator, the cops will start
  looking at us."
  "Is this on the level, Mickey?" asked Billy Kim. "Were the cops really
  looking for a body?"
  "You'll find out when they come sniffing around your backyard.
  Meanwhile, you'd better get rid of any evidence you wouldn't like to see
  passed to the jury for closer inspection. Kiss and make up, guys. Close
  ranks, sit tight, and pray."
  "You're right, Mickey," said Billy Kim in a chastened way. Vic nodded.
  By the time I left the office I believed I'd managed to make them see
  sense. In fact, they were waiting for me to go away in order to plan
  their next escapade.
 CHAPTER 11'
 When my next-door neighbors, the I(lopstocks, had people over, they always
 parked their own three cars along my curb. This way they had their front and
 their ramp for parking the cars oftheir guests. There was nothing I could
do
 about it, but looking out the window and seeing the IKlopstocks' big white
 Mercedes sitting outside my front door exasperated me. They knew how I felt
 about imports. Sometimes I wondered if they did it deliberately, but there
 were no city ordinances or local regulations to prevent people from parking
 anywhere in the street they wanted, except when the disposal trucks came to
 collect the garbage on Friday mornings. But with those cars positioned at
my
 curb it was tricky to steer a course into my own garage, and that bugged me.
                  VIOLENT WARD   247

  So I was mad a few days later, when I got home very late, to find the
  street looking like a parking lot. It was a clear moonlit night with
  just a slight breeze, and I could smell charred chicken and hot wine
  punch. I'd suspected that morning that one of the YJopstocks' fancy
  barbecue parties was coming on-line. Suddenly the trees in their yard
  were strung with colored lights, and stacks of rented chairs and tables
  were being delivered. Now here it was.
  "Hi there, Mickey honey!" Binnie KJopstock was standing outside saying
  good night to some guests.
  Henry KJopstock was there too, wearing a tuxedo-a tuxedo!-and helping
  a tipsy woman into her Lexus. "Do you really have to leave so earlyT'
  I watched him as he wrapped her long fringed coat under the seat so it
  didn't get caught in the door. She was giggling, and the driver of the
  Lexus-her husband, I guess-said, "Pull yourself together, Fleur" in a
  voice amplified by alcohol and, when it had no effect, said, "Pull
  yourself together and say we had a great time."
  Binnie and her daughters were all wearing short 1920s-style dresses
  glittering with sequins and glass fringes and bugle beads. Binnie came
  across to me as I drove slowly onto my ramp. I was trapped.
  I brought the window down. "Hi, Binnie!" I said.
  ,,Working late at the office again, you toiler?"
  "How did you guess?"
 248 LEN DEIGHTON

  "I could tell by your go-to-work outfit. You should get out more. Spoil
  yourself "
  She had some nerve. Go-to-work outfit. This was my best suit; a dark
  wool three-piece I'd bought to wear in court. I smiled and pressed the
  garagedoor opener. My overhead door rolled back with a crash to expose
  the terrible disorder in my garage. Apart from oil-stained newspapers
  all over the floor, the rear section had become a storage space for old
  dusty broken things: a bicycle Danny had outgrown, a stuffed toy lion
  my folks had given him for his ninth birthday, some tires with a lot of
  mileage left on them. It was stuff I didn't need but couldn't throw out.
  Binnie looked sadly at the mess. The Klopstocks were obsessionally
  well-ordered: they even stored their paper Christmas decorations. "I
  knew you wouldn't mind about all the cars," she said. I kept the smile
  coming, but it wasn't easy. "Now your wife has left and Danny has flown
  the coop, there's plenty of room."
  "Yeah, yeah," I said in my usual cowardly way.
  "And it gives the old shack a touch of class having the five hundred SEL
  standing outside, right?" She'd turned around and said it loudly so her
  friends could hear.
  "Have a good evening, Binnie," I said and rolled forward into the
  garage.
  "Come and have a drink," she called.
  "It's past my bedtime."
  "We'll go on for hours yet," she threatened. Oh,
                  VIOLENT WARD   249

 my God. I pressed the garage control so my door came down with a crash.
  As I stepped through the garage into the house, I switched on the light
  in the hallway and spotted a sheet of orange-colored paper. It had been
  pushed under the front door instead of into the mailbox. I picked it up
  and read it. A drawing of palm trees framed a hand-lettered invitation
  to a party at the Klopstocks'. Today's date: a last-minute resort. Dooo
  come Mickey dearest! Binnie had scrawled in felt pen along the margin.
  Well, every inhabitant of suburbia knew what kind of ultimatum that was.
  As the hands of the clock came creeping around to zero hour, my
  neighbors had decided on a preemptive strike that would deprive me of
  any chance of complaining about 1,000 watts of Japanese woofer and
  tweeter that would bring Cher and her greatest hits into my home with
  me. The music was still going. Cher had now given way to heavy metal,
  a tuneless boom boom boom, Cole Porter on a lifesupport machine.
  I sat down and listened to the messages on my phone, hoping Danny had
  called. I liked to hear his voice. But there was nothing from Danny. I
  made myself coffee and started to load the dishwasher. I hadn't been
  kidding Budd about the state of the house. I needed Mrs. Santos real
  bad. I wondered how fast her daughter was recuperating, but I couldn't
  think of a tactful way of calling and asking. Did she really have a sick
  daughter? Maybe that was just her Latin way of saying she was going to
  work for someone else for more money. Maybe I
 250  LEN DEIGHTON

 should advertise. Maybe I should throw a cleaning lady festival: hot Latin
 music, polish as a floor prize, and everyone brings a bottle of Palmolive.
  I went to bed and read until midnight; then I turned off the light and
  worried. I do that sometimes when I take in too much caffeine. When fi-
  nally I did drift off to sleep, the phone rang. I was going to let it
  go, but then I thought maybe it was Danny and Danny didn't like leaving
  messages.
  "Yeah?"
  "Mickey?"
  "Yeah, Mickey. How are you?"
  "It's Ingrid." Her voice was thin and strained.
  "Sure it is." Did she really think I wouldn't recognize that velvet
  voice?
  "What's that noise?" she said. "What's going on with you?" The noise
  from next door was number six on the Richter scale and was getting down
  the wire to her.
  "I've rented my spare room to the Philharmonic."
  "I need your help, Mickey." She sounded very shaken.
  "What is it?" I switched on the light, looked at the time, and yawned
  nervously.
  She didn't answer. It was like she was having second thoughts about
  calling me and was debating whether to hang up.
  "What can I do for you, Ingrid sweetheart?"
  "Mickey..." I let her pause, and she said it in a rush. "Would you drive
  out here and pick me up?"
                  VIOLENT WARD  251

  "Where are you? I mean, sure I will; but tell me where. You're not in
  Aspen?" "I'm standing outside Alice's." "Malibu, on the pier?"
      17
  "Yes.
  "Alone?"
  "Yes. No. There are people fishing."
  "Is Alice's still open?"
  "I don't think so. The windows are all dark. Why9"
  "How did you find a phone?"
  "In my purse. This is my own phone, silly." It was the first time her
  voice lightened. She almost laughed.
  "Malibu pier?"
  "Don't keep asking the same questions, Mickey. Can you come or not?"
  "Sure, but it will take me thirty minutes. Maybe more."
  "I can wait. Just do it, dearest."
  "Are you all right?"
  "I don't want to talk on the phone."
  "I'll be there."
  I hung up and shivered. I dressed hurriedly, sorting out a turtleneck
  pullover and a green nylon flying jacket that belonged to Danny. I
  looked like hell, but I couldn't spare the time to shave. As I rolled
  out of the garage the music from next door was making the tarmac
  tremble,
  Topanga and Malibu are both winding and inconvenient on a dark night,
  so I went up the 101 through Kanan, which is wider and straighter.
 252 LEN DEIGHTON

 Stabbing my way through the buttons I found a late-night station playing
 hits of the fifties: I guess geriatrics just can't sleep.
  Soon the ocean came into view. There is something awe-inspiring about
  being on the rim of the Pacific at night. The black sky reaches down to
  join the black ocean so that it is like a ride through space. Jammed
  tightly together along the Pacific Coast Highway at Malibu stand the
  million-dollar hovels of the rich and successful. Facing them on the
  other side of the road is a diverse collection of eating places, stores,
  motels, and gas stations.
  The lights never go out on the PCH, but right now there was little or
  no traffic. Standing under a restaurant's flashing neon sign, revelers
  in furs and tuxedos stood by their shiny new light-dotted cars saying
  protracted farewells. They stopped talking and turned to watch as I
  cruised past looking for Ingrid. What a scene it all made: like one of
  those big outdoor Italian operas they stage for the tourists in Verona:
  the star-littered sky, the battlements dotted with stagy lights, the
  costumed chorus carefully posed and silent, staring out into the hushed
  auditorium and waiting for the dramatic entrance of the prima donna. And
  there she was.
  Ingrid was waiting for me at the side of the road. Dressed in an
  ankle-length green Loden coat, hair tucked into a black beret pulled
  down tight on her head, she looked like Marlene Dietrich in an old
  black-and-white spy movie. She was barefoot, holding her expensive shoes
  in her hand, and a cellular
                  VIOLENT WARD   253

 phone stuck out of her pocket. An old recording of "Perfidia" was playing
 softly on my car radio as I opened the car door, and the roar of the ocean
 came flooding in to overwhelm Dorsey.
  "Jump in!" I said. She brought in a draft of cold air. "What are you doing
  out here alone at this time of night?"
  She slammed the door and didn't answer, just dropped her shoes on the seat
  beside me, flicked the heater fan full on, and held her hand against the
  outlet to feel if there was warm air coming. I waited there for a moment
  to let her catch her breath. Across the road the chorus split up and drove
  away. A moment later the neon sign was extinguished and two waiters came
  out to stack bags of garbage at the roadside. The opera was over.
  "Are you all right?" I asked her.
  "No, I'm not all right." She was hunched on the seat, massaging her bare
  toes.
  "Where do you want to go?"
  "Can we go back to your place, Mickey?"
  "If that's what you want to do."
  "I need time to think," she said. She opened the glove compartment and
  looked inside.
  'Vhatever you say, IngTid."
  "Have you got a gun?" She closed the compartment.
  "No, I haven't got a gun."
  "Budd is getting a gun," she said.
  "Wasn't that some party the other day? I'm sorry I missed you there."
 254            LEN DEIGHTON

  "Budd says everyone should have a gun," said Ingrid. "He says this is
  a dangerous town."
   "It will be when Budd gets a gun," I said.
  "Thanks for coming to get me, Mickey. You were the first person I
  phoned. I thought of phoning Budd, but I phoned you."
   "I'm glad you did, Ingrid. Budd is in Albany."

  The party next door was still going on. A little group of unsteady
  guests had gathered on the sidewalk, saying a noisy good night to the
  KJopstocks. The KJopstocks were saying good nights back to them. The
  Klopstocks were the noisiest people I ever encountered. They couldn't
  toss a tissue into the trash without creating a racket loud enough to
  raise the whole street. But what could I say? Danny had strummed
  mega-decibel guitar for years. I couldn't suddenly start playing Mr.
  Hush-hushwhisper-who-dares.
  Binnie Klopstock saw me, of course. You can't avoid that woman's gimlet
  eyes. She waved and bent down low to see who was in the car with me.
  When she saw it was an attractive woman, she leered and waved those long
  spindly fingers at me.
  When we got inside the house, Ingrid just stood there, blinking in the
  light and holding her arms across herself like someone who has just been
  rescued from drowning. She went to the window and pressed her nose
  against the glass, trying to see into the yard. There was nothing to see
  beyond the lights strung across the next-door yard.
                  VIOLENT WARD   255

  "Coffee? A drink?" I asked.
  She remained where she was, face pressed against the glass. "Where are
  we?" she said at last.
  "What do you mean? This is my home."
  "This is not Mulholland. You can see right across the valley from
  Mulholland."
  "I live in Woodland Hills," I said.
  "I thought you lived in Mulholland."
  "That was years ago. Coffee?" I flicked the switch of the coffee
  machine. "I need a hot drink."
  She turned around to face me. "Yes, coffee. Thanks, Mickey. Did I get
  you out of bed?"
  "Ingrid, did you tell anyone else that I lived on Mulholland? I mean,
  did you give anyone that address recently?"
  "I may have."
  "Ano?"

  "I can't remember."
  "Try. Please try."
  "Poor Mickey. I'm a terrible trial for you." She came away from the
  window. "I'm so cold. May I take a bath? Is the water hot?" She was
  moving around restlessly now, gripping her coat in front as if all the
  buttons had come off.
  "You want to take off your coat? Sit down? The coffee will come through
  in a minute. Shall we phone Zach and tell him you're safe and well?"
  '!He's in Minneapolis, a business trip. You see, Mickey. . ." Again
  there was the awkward pause. She was standing under the light, holding
  her coat with both hands and looking very disheveled, very vulnerable,
  and very beautiful.
 256 LEN DEIGHTON

  "What's wrone. "
  "I haven't got any clothes on," she said in a little-girl voice. "I'm
  naked under this coat."
  "Are you kidding?"
  "I wish I were."
  Oh, my God, how did I get into this situation? "V*That were you doing
  naked out there on the pier?"
  "I've just got a coat on ... and these shoes." She raised a foot in a
  childish gesture.
  "What's going on, Ingrid? Tell me who you gave the Mulholland address
  to. It's important."
  Deep sigh. "I was going to drown myself tonight."
  "You were what?"
  "I worked it all out. I threw my clothes into the ocean as soon as I got
  there."
  "What for?"
  She turned away and spoke over her shoulder. "It was like the point of
  no return. I figured I'd never have the nerve to walk back along the
  pier naked." She came closer to me.
  "I mean, why would you want to drown yourself? You said you had John
  Junior to care for."
  She reached out for me, putting her arms around my neck like she was in
  the ocean and going down for the third time. "But I just couldn't do it.
  I'm a coward. I didn't have the nerve to go through with it. It was so
  cold, Mickey. Hold me tight."
  I held her tight and felt the warmth of her body.
  She whispered, "There was a wind off the ocean and I looked down at it,
  and it looked so gray
                  VIOLENT WARD   257

 and rough. I just couldn't jump in. I just couldn't. Don't laugh at me."
  "I'm not laughing." Her face was very cold, and I could smell her
  perfume and the ocean smells in her hair.
  "Ingrid," I whispered, "did you ever try to kill your husband?"
  I thought she might react fiercely to such a suggestion, but she
  remained very still. "I have thought about it, Mickey. May God forgive
  me, I thought about it a lot."
  "That bomb in the phone, the night of the party ... remember?"
  "You found it."
  "Yes, I found it. I've thought about it a lot. Who do you think put it
  there?"
  "You don't think I did that?"
  "I've been thinking about it. Whoever put it there would have had to get
  your husband to use the phone. Who could have persuaded him to go up to
  that office? Someone close to him, I think."
  Without letting me out of her tight embrace, she twisted her head to see
  my face. "Goldie? Is that who you mean?"
  "Goldie could have arranged it. But Goldie spotted the wiring. You see,
  Ingrid, you could have found some way of getting your husband there."
  "How?"
  "You could have invented some reason."
  "You're not serious?" Her eyes looked directly into mine.
 258 LEN DEIGHTON

  "I'm trying to show you how an investigator could make out a strong case
  against you."
  "But it's Zach who wants to get rid of me," she said angrily, tears
  welling up in her eyes.
  "Take it easy, Ingrid. I want you to remember who you gave that
  Mulholland address to. These things might be connected."
  "You don't want me to just make up a name, do you, Mickey?"
  "I want you to remember who it was."
  "Give me time and I will," she promised. "But let me take a tub bath.
  Once I'm really warm again I'll be able to think properly."
  "Take the master bathroom. On the left. There are clean towels right
  there in the closet. I don't use the other one since Danny left home,
  so there's no soap or anything." The coffee had dripped through, and I
  poured some for us both.
  "Am I being a dreadful nuisance?" Between sips of coffee she looked down
  at the little gold watch on her wrist. "Look at the time; it will soon
  be daylight. Can I sleep here? I've got to think this problem through,
  Mickey. You're the only person I could turn to and know I'd be safe."
  What kind of rep have you got, Murphy? If the word ever gets out that
  a beautiful naked woman said that to you in the middle of the night,
  you're going to have to move to another town.
  But I was still dopey about Ingrid. I couldn't think straight. Having
  her here like this was everything I'd ever dreamed of, but this crazy
  situation was everything I didn't need. "Sure, Ingrid. I keep
                  VIOLENT WARD    259

 Danny's bed made up. You can sleep in his room if you can find a way past
 the airplane models and amplifiers and broken clocks he's going to fix
 someday."
  "Thanks, Mickey. You always were a darling."
  "There are clean pajamas in the closet, and I'll find you a sweater."
  She went into the bathroom, and I heard the water running. As I sat down
  and tried to get my thoughts in order, the phone rang. It was a woman's
  voice. "Mr. Murphy?"
  "That's right."
  "Michael Murphy? Attorney?"
  "You got it."
  "Sheriffs office, Malibu, here, Mr. Murphy. Would you have Mrs.
  Petrovitch come to the phone?"
  "She can't come to the phone right now," I said. "I'm speaking on her
  behalf. What can I do for you?"
  "I have her physician here. He says his patient is in a disturbed state
  of mind and needs medical care."
  "Is that right?"
  "Yes, it is," said the woman in the sheriffs office.
  "Well, you tell him I'm her attorney, and I think she's fit and well and
  perfectly capable of deciding if she needs medical treatment, of
  choosing a physician, and of phoning for one if she feels she can afford
  his fees. So tell him good night."
  "Don't hang up, sir. Did you collect this lady from the pier tonight?"
 260 LEN DEIGHTON

  C'Why?9)

  "Someone did. Someone in a 1959 Cadillac Coupe like the one registered
  in your name."
  "Okay, so you've got a line into the motor vehicles computer. Yes, I
  collected her. So what?"
  "Mr. Petrovitch will be coming to your home to pick her up. Can I assume
  you will cooperate? I don't want to send an officer with him unless you
  are going to make difficulties."
  "Now?"
  "That's right."
  So Zach Petrovitch wasn't in Minneapolis after all. "I'll be home. It
  will be okay."
  "Thank you, Mr. Murphy."
  I went and beat on the bathroom door. "Your husband's coming to collect
  you," I called.
  I was frightened that she might take that idea badly, but judging by her
  tone of voice she accepted it mildly enough. "He'll notice I haven't got
  any clothes," she said.
  "Yes, I thought of that too," I said.
  "I remembered about the Mulholland address," she called through the
  door. "Zach copied it from an old address book of mine. He said he had
  to send you some legal documents."

  I don't know if you have ever delivered a naked woman to her husband in
  the hours of darkness, but it's not something I'd recommend to the
  fainthearted.
                  , VIOLENT WARD  261

  "I borrowed a pair of your pajamas," she said while we sat waiting.
   "Yes, I see."
  "And this lovely sweater. It's cashmere, isn't it? I'll send it back, of
  course." She had the innocent sincerity of a small child. And like a small
  child she seemed unable to understand the unkind and cynical world around
  her.
  "Ingrid," I said, "do you often get depressed to the point where you go to
  the ocean to drown yourself?"
  "It's all right for you, Mickey. You're the outgoing cheerful type. You're
  strong and aggressive and independent. You always have been. Not everyone
  can be like you."
  "But are you content to go back home with your husband?"
  "It's my problem, and I must just work it out my own way."
  It was the white stretch limo that arrived for her. Goldie was sitting in
  front alongside the driver. Petrovitch was sitting in back looking
  mournful. I went out first to speak with him.
  "She's okay," I told Petrovitch. He sat very still. There was a bag at his
  feet, a smart Louis Vuitton bag that a woman might take on a weekend. He
  had a drink on the little refrigerator table in front of him. His face was
  set like a granite portrait bust, but there was no sign of anger. He was
  a man who knew how to keep his emotions suppressed-or at least concealed.
  That's the secret of big business, I suppose. Maybe it should be illegal;
  carrying a con-
   262 LEN DEIGHTON

 cealed emotion makes it tough on those who want to know what's coming.
  "You picked up Ingrid at the pier?"
  "She was distraught," I said. I was waiting for him to blow his top, but
  it was a look of suffering rather than anger that passed across his
  face.
  He reached for the bag and passed it to me. "Here are her overnight
  things. Tell her to get some clothes on," he said.
  "You know what happened?"
  "She phoned me from the pier," he said.
  "She knew you were here in town?"
  "You mustn't believe everything Ingrid tells you. She's a sweet girl,
  but she suffers from a highly developed sense of melodrama." He smiled.
  This guy was indomitable. Given this situation almost any husband in the
  world would be fragmenting. Petrovitch was reserved and rational and
  almost able to grin.
  "Ingrid said you sent some legal documents to a place I used to live on
  Mulholland," I said.
  "I don't send legal documents to private addresses. You've got an
  office, haven't you?"
  "That's what I thought. I'll fetch her."
  "No need," he said. He was looking beyond me. I turned to see Ingrid
  standing in the doorway. She was carrying her shoes, and now she
  supported herself with one hand while she slipped them on.
  I said to Petrovitch, "I'm worried about Ingrid. How are you going to
  look after her?"
  He looked at me without replying.
  I said, "She has a lot of friends. If anything
                  VIOLENT WARD    263

 happened to her, a lot of people would be very troubled. Know what I
 mean?"
  "I know exactly what you mean, Mickey," he said.
  I stepped back to let Ingrid climb into the back seat alongside
  Petrovitch. He grabbed her and hugged her tightly to him. "What have you
  been telling this man about me, baby?"
  "Nothing, darling. Just that you're a sweetie." She gave me a big smile
  and then kissed her husband on the cheek.
  "I'll look after her, Mickey," said Petrovitch. "You can depend on it."
  "Good night, Ingrid," I said, as I closed the door, but she gave no sign
  of having heard me.
  As the car moved away I saw her clinging to Petrovitch like a teenage
  kid in a drive-in. I mean they were embracing! That Ingrid must be the
  greatest actress since Sarah Bernhardt. But that still didn't explain
  how the cops got that address of mine in Mulholland or what they were
  looking for. And what was all that stuff about hearing clicks when Zach
  picked up the extension to hear what she was saying on the phone? She
  had her cellular phone.
CHAPTER  12

 My secretary, the indomitable Magda Huth, came running out of the office
 to intercept me in the corridor. Her accent was more pronounced than ever.
 "She's here again, Mr. Murphy. The window woman. I couldn't stop her. I
 tried but I could not."
  "Is Mr. Kim here yet?"
  "No."

  "What did you say about the window?"
  "That woman."
  "What woman?"
  "The one who throws herself from the window. She is here again. She's in
  your office."
  "That's okay, Miss Huth," I said, showing more composure than I felt.
  "You want I call the Fire Department?"
                   VIOLENT WARD 265

  "Not for a moment. Get me the usual." I went and looked in Billy Kim's
  office. It was empty. The idea of any sort of combination of Vic
  Crichton and Billy Kim made me uneasy. Although they came from opposite
  sides of the earth they were very much alike: highly intelligent
  womanizers looking for shortcuts to fame and fortune. Such people make
  dangerous associates.
  "Two Toni-chinos and two almond croissants?"
  Every morning she double-checked the order.
  "Tell them it's almond croissants or nothing. No more stale Bear Claws."
  Miss Huth was watching me anxiously as I opened the door of my office
  and went inside to greet Betty.
  "Hello, Betty," I said. She was standing waiting for me. I was tired.
  I wasn't getting enough shut-eye. I watched her warily as I settled
  behind my desk and flipped through my mail. "Sit down, Betty honey," I
  said but she remained on her feet.
  "I didn't recognize Ingrid Petrovitch. She had about six pages in People
  magazine last year. I was on the phone to Felicity Weingartner, and then
  I remembered. Ingrid Petrovitch was at school with you.... You were
  sweet on her, weren't you? I don't know why I didn't recognize her."
  "What is it, Betty?" I said impatiently. "Have the cops been back
  digging again?"
  She shook her head. "Do you like my outfit?"
  I had been wondering why she was standing in that funny way; she was
  posing like a model so I could admire her new suit. It was dark green,
  the
 266            LEN DEIGHTON

 jacket fashionably oversize and the tight skirt too short. "It looks great,"
 I said.
  "I had to have a whole new wardrobe and a new hairstyle. What do you
  think?" She turned so I could see her bubble-cut hairdo. It made her look
  like Shirley Temple.
  "Just great," I said vaguely, and then I took in what she had said. "Why
  do you have to have a whole new wardrobe?"
  "My job with Maureen."
  "Maureen Chiaputti's agency?"
  "Lebowitz Talent International. Lebowitz is her real name."
  "Is that right? I thought she was married to Felix. I thought Chiaputti was
  her real name."
  "You are the archetypal pig," said Betty. I saw Miss Huth peeking over the
  frosted glass partition, and when I met her eyes she raised her eyebrows.
  I beckoned her to bring the coffee in.
  "And Maureen's paying you real money?" I asked, determined not to get
  sidetracked.
  "Not yet. I'm on retainer, with a bonus payment for any deals I make. I
  work hard over there. I'm showing her how to put the accounts on the
  computer and setting up proper filing systems. And I'm out talking to
  clients too. I like it."
  "That's great, Betty," I said, as Miss Huth placed the coffees on my desk.
  She did it with that kind of deferential care she showed only when there
  were visitors present. She smiled at Betty and then tiptoed out again.
  Betty said, "Coffee for me?" in a coy way that
                  VIOLENT WARD  267

 suggested she was some little orphan child whose birthdays had never been
 remembered.
  "Grab what you want," I told her.
  "We'll be putting together the stars, story, screen rights, script, and
  director to sell the whole deal to a studio. Packaging. That's where the
  real money is."
  "Star? Wait a minute, these are not almond croissants." In mid-bite I
  picked up the phone. "These are not almond croissants." Almond crois-
  sants have marzipan filling.
  "They are hazelnut croissants," admitted Miss Huth.
  "With jelly filling."
  "With jelly filling, yes."
  "I don't like jelly. I don't like it in Bear Claws and I don't like it
  in hazelnut croissants. Now do you understand? Don't eat it, Betty!
  They'll have to change them."
  "I like it, fine," said Betty, nibbling away contentedly.
  "I shall tell them right away," said Miss Huth, swooping in to take back
  my pastry.
  I watched her go. I said to Betty, "I'd really like to know what she's
  eating out there. I'd bet a million dollars it's an almond croissant."
  "That's because you are paranoid," said Betty calmly. Having eaten half
  her croissant, she delicately wiped her fingers on the paper napkin. "We
  haven't got any actors. That's the next step."
  Red lights flashed and a loud bell started ring- 268 LEN DEIGHTON

 ing in my ear. "Is this something to do with your visit?"
  A soft and wonderful loving smile. "We'd love to sign Budd Byron."
  "Budd has been with Pop for years. You know that."
  "We'd split the commission with Pop."
  "And Pop would get half instead of a whole commission? Why are you
  telling me this?"
  "Because Budd is coming here this morning, and I want you to help me."
  I confess to a sinking feeling at the imminent arrival of Budd. I'd
  forgotten he was coming. "Is Budd big enough?"
  "Maybe not. But he's well-known around town, and other actors like him.
  We've got some name directors and good writers, but we can't put deals
  together without actors. Signing Budd will break the deadlock.
  "No, no, no," I said. "If it all went wrong I'd feel guilty."
  "You've never felt guilty about anything in your whole life," she said.
  "You mean, if anything went wrong it would be bad for business."
  "That's another reason," I agreed.
  "I'll wait outside and catch him as he's coming out." Betty was looking
  good these days. I guess the new outfits and changed hairdo had put
  fresh life into her. She always said her dress allowance wasn't big
  enough. "I'll take off and come back after Budd is closeted with you.
  I'll make it look like I just blew in."
                  VIOLENT WARD   269

  I picked up the phone. "Where the hell are those almond croissants?"
  Miss Huth said, "They were all out of sweet croissants. They could do
  plain croissants or Bear Claws. I said you didn't want them."
  "How do you like that!" I put the phone down.
  "What's wrong?"
  "Nothing," I said. "Have you abandoned that croissant?"
  "Yes," she said, and passed it to me. She got up to go.
  Between bites I very casually said, "Someone was telling me Felicity had
  an affair with Zachary Petrovitch."
  Betty looked at me, trying to discern a purpose behind my remark.
  "Petrovitch? And Felicity? Don't make me laugh. Who dreamed that one
  up?"
  "I don't remember. One of the guys I work out with, maybe."
  "He's out of his mind."
  "Yeah, that's what I told him."
  "If she'd been to bed with Petrovitch, I'd have heard."
  "That's what I figured."

  Budd arrived on time. He always did. He was in California casual
  clothes: tailored pants in wide blue and white stripes, a soft dark-blue
  suede jacket, and Ferragamo moccasins. He was careftdly tanned, and the
  arrangement of his wavy hair
 270            LEN DEIGHTON

 might or might not have been the result of an hour with the hairdresser.
  "That was some party," I said, coming forward to greet him. Before I could
  shake hands, he embraced me in one of those two-arm show-biz body hugs that
  make you think the other party is going to sink his fangs into your neck.
  "Good to see you, Mickey!" he said loudly into my ear, as he held me
  captive and slapped my back. His voice was low, vibrant, and carefully
  modulated. It was an actor's voice, and his timing was an actor's timing.
  He held me tight and he was strong. He was always boasting about the hours
  he spent with the weights and the rowing machine.
  He released me, and I reeled away to catch my breath. "Drink?" I said and
  went into a bout of coughing.
  He watched me, bent over and coughing, with the restrained interest that
  actors view all human activity they might one day be called upon to simu-
  late.
  ,,Perrier water for me," he said, when I had finally recovered and
  straightened up, breathless, blinking, and watery-eyed.
  I got him his fizzy water and sipped some myself to relieve my throat. Budd
  was seated in the client's chair when I got back behind my desk.
  "Yes, some party!" I repeated softly when I felt fully recovered.
  He half turned in his chair and, in a practiced movement, flipped back his
  suede jacket to reveal a shoulder holster under his arm.
                  VIOLENT WARD 271

  "Jesus!" I said. ,Is that Danny's gun? Are you crazy? Save this kind of
  stuff for the movies, Budd. Carrying a concealed weapon will get you into
  a lot of trouble, and I won't be able to get you out of it."
  He buttoned his jacket to hide the gun. "I want to talk to you about
  Ingrid. We've got to help her."
  "Help her do what?"
  "You think she's blissfully happy," said Budd accusingly, "but her life is
  a misery. That husband of hers is a gangster. Someone should knock him
  off." It came out in a rush; then he looked at me and waited for my
  reaction.
  I said, "You don't mean that."
  "I do mean it."
  "Look, Budd, there have been a couple of attempts to murder Petrovitcb.
  Someone put a wrench in his airplane and a bomb in his phone. I'm your
  attorney. I don't want you ever saying anything like you just said, to
  anyone at all, again. Never ever. Do you understand?"
  "I put the wrench in his airplane engine.
  "You what?"
  "Don't get mad. Someone has got to do something before he kills Ingrid."
  "You put a wrench in his airplane engine?"
  "I went out to Camarillo last month. His plane was in the hangar. I tossed
  a wrench into the intake. They found it. I knew they would. They have to
  do a preflight check. Relax, Mickey. Nothing happened."
  "Did you leave your prints on the wrench?"
  "I'm not stupid."
 272             LEN DEIGHTON

  "On any of the doors or gates?"
  "I wore gloves."
  "I can't handle this sort of stuff, Budd. Maybe you need an analyst."
  "I won't do it again. I just wanted to throw a scare into him."
  "Does anyone else know about this?"
  "No one."
  "You didn't put the bomb in the telephone?"
  "No. I heard about that, but it was nothing to do with me. I think that
  may have been some kind of business vendetta."
  "So it was just the once you tried to kill Petrovitch?" I tried to keep my
  voice level and normal.
  "You don't have to look at me like that," said Budd indignantly. "This guy
  is going to kill Ingrid. Maybe you don't care about that, but I do. I was
  hoping for some kind of help and encouragement."
  "Help and encouragement to kill Petrovitch?"
  "Do you know he pushed Ingrid's first husband under a truck?"
  "Believe me, Budd, when guys like Petrovitch waste you they don't fool
  around wrestling on pedestrian crossings. Stay clear of him."
  "I'm telling you he did it."
  "Someone told me that story, but it's not so easy to arrange for an
  articulated truck to hit someone crossing the street. Can you imagine how
  many times you would have to drive around the block to hit a nimble
  pedestrian who is not going to cooperate?"
  "I should have known better than to talk to
                   VIOLENT WARD  273

 you, Mickey." His sudden loss of faith in me was evident in his slumped
 shoulders and deep sigh.
  "So why did you?"
  "Because you're my attorney."
  "I'm not your nurse," I said.
  "I don't need a nurse," he said. Cut! Take two: Budd swelled up, smiled,
  and beamed the full Budd Byron charm in my direction. "How are the trips
  to Marina del Rey going?"
  "Marina del Rey?"
  "You and that big-titted blonde you got lined up in Marina del Rey. Her
  husband was at a paint manufacturers' convention in Dallas the night of my
  party. Wasn't that where you were rushing off to?"
  You couldn't make any kind ofjoke with Budd. He took everything literally;
  that's how he was taking Ingrid's problems with her husband. "That's
  goingjust dandy," I said.
  "Can I come in?" called Betty in her little-girl voice.
  Betty had of course chosen exactly the wrong moment to crash into the
  room. Budd shriveled. He smoothed his jacket into place over the gun and
  jumped to his feet.
  "I only want to say a little hello to my lovely friend, Budd," she said,
  as though she was always in and out of my office and noticing who was
  doing business with me. She flung herself into his open arms, kissed him,
  and proclaimed, "I caught Fire and Fireflies and you were marvelous."
  "It's not showing yet," said Budd.
 274 LEN DEIGHTON

   "Westwood. It started yesterday."
  Budd looked at her with profound respect. Betty went on, "I can tell you
  the scene with the girl on the fire escape had the audience rocking.
  That was your picture, Budd."
  "I haven't seen it yet."
  "Go," said Betty. "This is a classic." She turned to me. "You saw it?"
  "No," I said. I hadn't the slightest idea what she was talking about.
  "You said it only started yesterday," I added defensively.
  "Saturday, as a matter of fact," said Budd. "It's a week of previewing."
  "A classic," said Betty. "Have you ever thought of going into more
  substantial roles? Star parts, I mean. You could be a major star-a Cary
  Grant-if that was the way you wanted to mold your career."
  "You think so?"
  "Listen," said Betty. "I'm developing a story about an insurance
  salesman. I'm talking heavy drama." After Budd nodded she continued.
  "I'm with Lebovitch Talent International these days. Mean anything?"
  Budd nodded. "I have a truly wonderful script, and a certain big-name
  director is reading it now. This is a story about a guy who sells life
  insurance door-to-door, but he's also a vicious serial killer who
  dismembers his victims. Psychotic. Bizarre. And yet it's all done in a
  light comedic vein. It's a comment on the world we live in.)~

  "Wonderful," said Budd. "That sounds wonderful." His muffled anger was
  a declaration of the
                  VIOLENT WARD   275

 stand he was prepared to make against the world we live in.
   "I can see you in that role, Budd," said Betty.
  "Betty. I had no idea you were. . ." said Budd. Still on his feet, he
  paused for a moment and pirouetted with his hands aloft. I knew it was
  some bit of business he'd done in the movie.
  Betty glowed. "That's it!" I remember the way Betty had been bowled over
  by Budd the first time they met. Budd had the same effect on every woman
  in the world. He was the clean-living college-educated all-American
  quarterback who looked like he'd know what to do in bed. Ingrid was not
  immune to his charms either. The first time Ingrid saw Budd she could
  talk of nothing else for ages afterward. Lucky for me that Budd had
  never tried to take any of my girls away from me. He could have had any
  of them by raising an eyebrow.
  Betty smiled. She was looking at Budd as if he were a new St. Laurent
  gown she'd just discovered was part of a fire sale. She stood against
  the wall under the expensively framed steel engraving of Cork, with one
  hand on her hip and the other raised and gesturing extravagantly. "I
  wish you'd told me you had that kind of talent. It's the rarest thing
  to find in this town. One in a million actors have that-well, let me
  come out and say it: comic genius." And then in a lowered and more
  reverent voice she added, "It's precious. Very very precious."
  "You are too much," said Budd, thrusting his hands deep into the pockets
  of his pants, hunching
 276 LEN DEIGHTON

 his shoulders, and staring at the toes of his shoes. AH he needed was a
 straw in his mouth.
  I was watching Betty's performance with great interest. If there was any
  acting genius in evidence, it was in Betty's effortless handling of
  Budd. This was Betty's forte. And there was something sensual, if not
  to say sexual, about this dance they did. The more she excited Budd, the
  more excited she became. I'd never seen this side of Betty. Maybe that's
  why our marriage collapsed.
  Betty said, "Is there any chance you could spare five minutes one day
  this week? I'd love to talk to you about the project and maybe get your
  views and advice on some other deals I'm doing."
  "What about Pop?" I said. I wasn't going to have the story going around
  that my ex-wife stole Budd away from his agent right there in my office.
  You could bet that some smart-ass would embellish the story so that I
  was standing by with a fully filled Montblanc: and the contract and got
  a large slice of the action.
  "Pop9" said Budd innocently, as if he'd never heard the name before.
  Right before my eyes I'm watching my wife fitting the glass slipper on
  this guy's foot. I looked out the window, just in case the golden coach
  and horses were having problems parking. What were those two middle-aged
  ugly stepsisters calling themselves, Lebovitch Talent International?
  Maureen and Betty should be sitting back worrying about their kids'
  midterms and waiting for the menopause. Instead, they were screaming
  around the studios, coming on like a cou-
                     VIOLENT WARD  277

 ple of speed-happy teenyboppers. My God, what this town does to people!
  They both looked at me wide-eyed. "Pop Pedersen," said Betty in a low
  reverential voice. "A professional of the first magnitude! I love that
  man. I learned everything I know from that gentleman. He was a mighty
  big man when I worked for him. I was just a baby in those days, but how
  I learned! The industry should have put up a statue to that guy years
  and years ago."
  Well, requiescat in pace Pop Pedersen. At least she hadn't called the
  poor old bastard a wonderful human being.
  "He's getting on now," said Budd, who hadn't missed the implication that
  Pop was aged and past it.
  "A gentleman," said Betty reflectively. She turned to me and said
  scornfully, "Do you think I'd do a deal like this with Budd and not
  include Pop in it?"
  ,,I figured it might slip your memory that he has Budd signed," I said.
  "I love him," Betty proclaimed to the world.
  "I can come back with you now," said Budd. "Where is your office?"
  "Close by. We'll be there in three minutes. I'm going to show you some
  videos. I want you to see what magic this director gives to his actors.
  And have you meet my partner. No chance you can do lunch, I suppose?
  Tokyo is socked in, and my guy from Sony had to cancel everything he'd
  set up."
  "I'm free for lunch," admitted Budd.
 278 LEN DEIGHTON

  "You get a fun crowd at the Grill at lunchtime." "I'd like that," said
  Budd.
  "Then let's do it," said Betty. She turned to me and said softly, "I
  charged all my new shmatte on your plastic, so don't go ape when you get
  the bill."
  "You did what?"
  "Things are going great for me, Mickey. Big, big deals. If I'm going to
  become independent, the way you say you want, I must have good clothes."
  Budd had discreetly moved away and was studying with an almost unnatural
  intensity a steel engraving of Limerick, one of a series of six prints
  of Irish cities that the interior decorator said was right for my image.
  It was brilliant of Betty to time this revelation of her extravagance
  so that Budd was there to witness me going red in the face and inhibit
  me from beating her over the head with my leather-bound edition of
  American Jurisprudence.
  "I'll see," I said. "But this is instead of the dentistry, not as well
  as."
  She looked over her shoulder to see how far away Budd was and lowered
  her voice accordingly. "Can you advance me a fifty?"
  "You're not going to cuff the Grill, are you?"
  She grinned wolfishly. "Maureen has an account there. But I'll need
  small change for tips and the powder room."
  "You'd pull a routine like that with no money at all? What would you
  have done if I'd said no?" I gave her five twenties.
  "You're a darling," she said, and gave me a
                  VIOLENT WARD   279

 peck on the cheek to which I did not respond. "Let's go, Budd darling,"
 she called.
  Budd stared at me from the far side of the room. "Are you okay, Mickey?"
  "Sure I'm okay."
  "You don't look good." He flicked his hair back. He looked very
  handsome. Maybe he could be another Cary Grant.
  "I'm okay," I said.
  "You drink too much coffee," he said. "It does the same thing to me."
  I sat down behind my desk and smiled at them as they left. "Miss Huth,"
  I said into the phone, "can you let me have fifty from petty cash? I'm
  going to treat myself to a nice lunch."
  "You'll have to pay me back this afternoon, Mr. Murphy. This is the day
  I do my bookkeeping."
  "Come to think of it, I'd rather have a pastrami sandwich from Tony's.
  On toasted rye. Put it on the account."
 CHAPTER 13
 A week later a call from Felix Chiaputti brought a date for lunch, but
 when Felix is involved even the most workaday encounters can go out of
 control. Either he's decided it's a great day for the beach or he drags
 you along to a hotel room in Century City to sit in on a poker game that's
 been going for three days and nights. Or he arrives with two exotic
 dancers and comps for a matinee, or he's waving invites for a press junket
 with giveaway rock videos. What I'm saying is that Felix is a man of
 infinite resources. He was always like that. Even at college he knew
 places where he could eat on the cuff or drink booze without showing ID.
  Now Felix was sitting in a booth in Cy's Steak and Sandwich on Pico,
  within walking distance of
                  VIOLENT WARD   281

 my office. It was as normal as any lunch I'd ever eaten; I knew there
 would be an added dimension. Felix lifted the upper bread slice from his
 rare New York steak on toasted rye to inspect his grilled beef very
 carefully. Felix never did anything without checking it out, not even
 taking a bite out of a steak sandwich.
  "Budd was looking great, wasn't he?" I said.
  "He's a crazy guy. These sudden enthusiasms he has.... Suddenly he's
  into guns. Do you know he's at the gun club almost every day punching
  the centers out of targets?"
  "Did he tell you that?"
  "About the gun club? Cops are always in and out of gun clubs. Most of
  my guys know Budd and know I know him."
  "Something wrong with your sandwich?"
  "No, it's great."
  The decor in Cy's is Route 66 but the prices are Century City. The walls
  are crammed with ancient out-of-state license plates, fifties newspaper
  front pages, and photos of slick-haired trendsetters such as James Dean
  plus a bulbous jukebox lighted up and belting out such discoveries as
  "Rock Around the Clock." But Felix showed an interest in the pictures
  and artifacts on the walls to an extent that was unnatural.
  "What do you keep looking around at?" I asked him.
  He smiled. "Looking around?" He took the head off a Coors and wiped his
  lips delicately.
  "Yes," I said. "Looking around."
 282            LEN DEIGHTON

  "There's a guy might look in and say hello."
  "I thought this was just a spontaneous notion, this steak sandwich at
  Cy's."
  He smiled. "Yeah, well, this is a drinking buddy of mine. I thought you
  might want to talk with him."
  "Me? What's he going to talk about? Selling insurance?"
  "Talk off the record. He doesn't know you're a lawyer."
  "Thanks, buddy. I'll do the same for you sometime."
  "Don't get emotional, Mickey. It will be better if you talk to him off
  the record."
  "Better? Better?" I bit into my sandwich.
  "Cy's got a little gold mine here," said Felix, looking around again.
  He said old Cy was a friend of a friend, but for all its folksiness I
  think Cy's is an artfully designed fast food franchise with outlets
  throughout the nation and a quote on the New York Stock Exchange. Felix
  is inclined to embroider the facts sometimes. It was the proximity of
  the movie industry: it happened to everyone, particularly the witnesses
  I questioned.
  I said, "I wish you'd tell me what this guy is going to be talking
  about."
  "He'll be talking about a homicide investigation," said Felix through
  a mouthful of steak. "Good, huh?"
  "The guy who fed his wife to the sharks?" I drank some of my Coors. Beer
  is fattening. I was rationing myself to one per day.
                  VIOLENT WARD    283

  "Nothing to do with that." Felix opened his sandwich and put more
  mustard on his steak. "You asked me about the guys who were digging up
  your old place on Mulholland. An old buddy of mine is in charge of that
  investigation. I asked him about it, and he wanted to meet you. You
  might be able to help him."
  "Help him bow?"
  "Just talk to him, Mickey."
  91"YT)
  "Because it's better that way."
  "Better than what?"
  "Better than having him haul you- down to the station to quiz you.
  Right?"
  "Sounds kind of threatening."
  "It wasn't meant to be. I don't know anything about it."
  Felix could be the most exasperating man in the world. I flagged down
  the waitress and said we'd like apple pie and coffee right away. "What's
  the big secret?"
  "Routine. Get yourself eliminated from the blotter over a sandwich and
  beer."
  I looked at my plate and took a deep breath. "If you say so, Felix."
  "Trust me."
  "What alternative do I have?" The waitress arrived with the apple pie
  and brandishing two carafes of coffee. She looked disappointed that I
  wanted decaf. Felix had the real thing and she brightened.
  "We're practically family," said Felix, in what I
 284 LEN DEIGHTON

 took to be a curious and oblique reference to Maureen and Betty. When the
 waitress heard him she looked from him to me, smiled, and nodded know-
 ingly.
  When she had moved on I said, "Bring him on, I'll talk to him. Where and
  when?"
  "He's waiting outside."
  "I thought he might be."
  Felix got a little excited. "Don't start acting like it's a sting,
  Mickey."
  "Bring him on. What are you guys looking for, a confession to the Hoffa
  killing?"
  Felix beckoned, and his buddy, Lieutenant Pete Laird-who'd been peering
  in through the window--came and sat in the booth with us. Laird was a
  tall thin forty-year-old with a cream-colored zip-front golf jacket over
  a red shirt, white pants, and speed-cop glasses. His hair was black and
  neatly combed, and he wore a signet ring and a gold wristwatch.
  "Hi, Mickey," he said. He sat down and rubbed his hands together. "With
  you being Felix's pal, I figured we could get this over with as fast as
  possible."
  "What's on your mind?" I said.
  "Do you use Topanga on your way home?"
  The alarm bells were ringing. "Not often, not on my way home I don't.
  What you make on the PCH you lose in the canyon. I stick to the One-oh-
  one. If that gets overloaded I come off and drive Ventura Boulevard and
  maybe stop for a coffee."
  Laird nodded. As an explanation it was far too
                  VIOLENT WARD   285

 long. After the number of times I'd told witnesses to keep their answers
 short, you'd think I'd do the same myself. A long explanation sounds like
 guilt to a cop. "Know a guy named Pindero? Pinter, maybe. Lives up the
 hill not far from the ocean."
  "Know him: no. I went to visit him. He has a car I'd like to buy."
  "A car?"
  The waitress came. "Are you all on the one check?" she said.
  "Separate bills," said Felix.
  "Just regular coffee for me," said Laird, but she gave him a menu and
  he sat reading it as though engrossed.
  "A very special Packard," I said. "I like Packards."
  "Is that what you drive?"
  "No," I said. "I drive a fifty-nine Caddie Series Sixty-two."
  "You mean you're a collector? A dealer?"
  "I have been known to buy and sell. I like old Cadillacs."
  "Except when you like Packards," said Laird.
  "Right."
  "We got a witness to your being up there," said Laird.
  "Witness? Who needs a witness? I just told you I was up there."
  "Driving your Cadillac?" The waitress came with Laird's coffee and
  refilled my cup from the orange-top decaf pot. She smiled at us and told
  Laird today's special was a meatball sandwich that came
 286            LEN DEIGHTON

 with coleslaw and pickle. Laird said he'd have it on toasted rye.
  "No, I was in my silver Mercedes Five hundred SEL," I said sarcastically.
  "It matches my wife's nails."
  He let it go. "You met with Pindero?"
  "I heard he was likely to be putting a nice old car on the market. When I
  talked to him, he said it wasn't for sale."
  "How long you stay?"
  "He was very drunk. I could see there was nothing to be gained from talking
  more."
  "You drink with him?" said Laird.
  Shit! Fingerprints on the coffee cup. "He gave me a cup of coffee and
  poured whisky into it. I didn't finish it."
  "On account of having to drive this silver Mercedes of yours back down the
  hill?"
  "You got it."
  "My witness says you were in there for an hour."
  "Well, you tell your witness to buy himself a new plastic Casio."
  "Anyone else up there?"
  "There was a guy on the gate."
  "You get a good look at him?"
  "Clean-shaven, short brown hair. Forty. One hundred and eighty pounds,
  maybe: in good shape."
  "Okay. We located that one already."
  "Do you want to tell me what this is all about?"
  "Pindero was wasted up there sometime between Friday eleven A.m. and nine
  A.M. Monday."
                  VIOLENT WARD   287

  "Between cleaning-lady visits, huh?"
  "You don't seem too upset about it."
  "You want me to go into deep mourning? I told you, it's just a guy I
  visited to buy a car. How was he killed?"
  "An intruder put a plastic bag over his head."
  "You kidding? I thought that was just for geriatrics."
  "The M. E. thinks the guy was probably paralytic. His blood levels were
  out of sight, A helpless drunk like that would offer no resistance to
  a determined man with a plastic bag."
  "How about a determined woman?"
  He looked at me. "No, not unless she was a big strong woman. The killer
  did a lot of lifting and moving up there." He didn't mention the
  refrigerator. I guess he was hoping I'd say something that revealed more
  knowledge than I was admitting to.
  "Tell me the truth. How did you come to drag me into this
  investigation?"
  "I told you. A witness."
  "Okay. If that's the way you want to play it." I knew a witness would
  be sure to have seen my big Caddie. Laird would not have nodded through
  my jokes about the silver Mercedes if there really was a witness. But
  if not a witness, how did they know I'd been up there?
  Laird's meatball sandwich came, and he bit into it as though he hadn't
  eaten for days. I let him eat in peace. Cops and lawyers learn to gobble
  on the run like that; that's how they get ulcers.
  "I was hoping you would be able to help," said
 288  LEN DEIGHTON

 Laird. I watched him swallow the last of his sandwich and push aside the
 coleslaw and pickle. I eat slowly nowadays, and it all tastes better.
  "Well now, you know I'm not about to break down and confess. You should
  take a look at his phone bill; that would maybe show the time of death
  more accurately. This guy was making calls all the time I was up there.
  And don't ask me who he was calling, because I don't know."
  "Okay, Mr. Murphy. I hope we won't have to bother you again." He changed
  his mind about the pickle and bit the end off it.
  "Has this Pindero guy got a sheet?" I asked.
  "What do you know about that?" said Laird.
  "What do I know about it?" I snapped. "I know nothing about it, that's
  why I'm asking you."
  Felix tried to lower the temperature. "Yes, Pindero was a small-time
  hoodlum. He did five years for turning over a warehouse: there were five
  of them; the night watchman was badly crippled. The word was that
  Pindero had long ago been an explosives expert for the mob. Someone said
  that he blew away some bookies by putting bombs inside their phones. But
  we've got no record of that and he was a loudmouth. It maybe was all
  talk. You know the way some of these small-timers like to build a rep."
  "You got some kind of tip-off about me, is that it?"
  ,'Why do you say that?" asked Laird calmly, very calmly. I knew I'd hit
  it.
  "What else can I conclude? You haven't even got a license number to find
  me on the computer.
                  VIOLENT WARD   289

 Then you go and dig up the yard of a house I haven't lived in for years.
 It was an anonymous phone call, right? Someone's trying to finger me. If
 I've got it wrong, tell me."
  "There was no informant, Mr. Murphy."
  "Level with me, lieutenant," I said. "If you were acting on information
  from some troublemaking kook, would you admit it?"
  "I might," said Laird. Using the tip of his wetted finger, he picked
  crumbs from his plate until the last one was gone. "I figured you'd want
  to help us.~,
  "Yeah, well, if'I think of something else I'll let you know," I said.
  Laird brought out his wallet and gave me his card with the Police
  Department badge on it. "My son will be graduating from UCIA this year.
  Theater Arts with a minor in Journalism. The project he did for his
  screen-writing course would make a great vehicle for Harrison Ford with
  Shirley MacLaine as the young grandmother." He must have seen the look
  on my face, for he added hastily, "I know you do a lot of business with
  the studios-"
  "Every bum in this town wants to be a movie producer."
  Laird's expression didn't change. "I'm talking about a chance for my
  son," he said. "It's a great script. It's got pace and sensitivity. You
  could at least read it."
  "You guys don't know the difference between an investigation and an
  audition," I said.
 290 LEN DEIGHTON

  "Well, thanks anyway," said Laird and got up. So did Felix.
  "Are you going my way?" Felix asked Laird. Laird nodded. They must have
  arrived in the same car. That Felix! He was so devious.
  Felix leaned over and tossed two tens on the table. "You'd better be
  innocent, pal," he said quietly, in a voice that was both compassionate
  and ominous. Then he followed Laird.
  As they went through the door, all the tension and fear came bubbling
  up inside me so that I was suddenly very angry. I put down money for my
  food and followed them to the door. I watched them walking to Laird's
  unmarked police car. "Hey, compadre!" I shouted to them.
  Laird ignored me until Felix tapped his shoulder, whereupon he looked
  up and, squinting into the sun, cupped his ear.
  "What about getting your kid to write a real story for the movies . .
  . something maybe I could get them interested in?"
  "For instance?" Laird shouted. People were turning to watch.
  "A story with a lawyer as hero. A hard-working California attorney with
  the cops on his back, who nails a killer or gets all the women or saves
  the world or something."
  "A lawyer?" said Laird, frowning hard with the effort of thinking about
  it.
  "A lawyer. A California lawyer."
  "You must be out of your friggin' mind,"
                  VIOLENT WARD    291

 shouted Laird angrily. He got into the driver's seat and slammed the car
 door.
   Felix looked at me and shrugged.

  While I was standing there watching them drive away into the traffic I
  heard a woman's voice calling, "Hey, dude! What's with you, Perry Mason?"
  I looked around and at first couldn't see who was shouting, but then there
  came a loud shrill laugh and I saw it was a woman in an open-top ca-
  nary-yellow sports car that had pulled in to the curb.
  "Perry Mason," she shouted again as if very pleased with her joke. "See you
  in court!" She hit the horn several times and shouted "Mickey!" very
  loudly.
  When I'd put on my shades I could see it was Felicity Weingartner sitting
  behind the wheel of a mean-looking Corvette.
  "You want a ride to your office, Mickey9" She was wearing a checked suit
  with a gold brooch and fancy wristwatch: the Hollywood career woman as
  dreamed up by Central Casting. She gestured with her mirrored Ray-Bans so
  I could see her new nails.
  "In this jalopy? How can I decline?" I opened the door and got in beside
  her. She must have been coming from the beauty salon: her cheeks were
  carefully shadowed, her eyes had copious mascara and false lashes, and her
  hair glinted with a bronze tint that had never been there before. I stroked
  the
 292  LEN DEIGHTON

 dashboard. She put on her shades and tapped the gas pedal so that the V-8
 launched us into the traffic like a shot from Cape Kennedy. "Take it easy,
 Felicity," I said, as I strapped in tight. "This is not like pedaling
 along in your Beetle."
  "You pig. I never had a Beetle in my life. That was a Rabbit."
  "Those German domestic animals all look the same to me. How long have
  you had this machine?"
  "Three days and four hours. My press agent said it would be good for my
  image."
  "Your press agent said that?"
  "Didn't you hear?"
  "About your press agent? Does he have a car for my image?"
  "This one used to belong to Robert Redford."
  "Did it?"
  "Or was it Richard Gere? One of the two. At least that's what the
  salesman told me. But it was the color that sold me. What do you think?
  It goes well with my hair, right?"
  "Dark at the roots and splitting at the ends?"
  "Bastard!" She aimed a blow at me and connected. "I'm into
  preproduction. For my movie. I got a deal. Producer: with a single-name
  card on the credits and a shared script credit too. Didn't Betty tell
  you?"
  "Your movie?"
  "I'wenty million dollars below the line. I've even put Sheree on the
  production at one grand a week."
                  VIOLENT WARD    293

  "I thought you disapproved of nepotism. Sheree? Doing what?"
  "She can scout locations or something."
  "Will she know what to look for?"
  "It will give her a chance to break up with that married man," said
  Felicity. "He's a bastard."
  It was the kind of nutty irrelevant answer a woman gives you. "Twenty
  mil. Wow!"
  "Below the line. Add the stars and so on, and I'll have nearer thirty."
  "That's real money. Is this the movie you told me about in Aspen? The
  one you were going to direct?"
  "I can't believe you don't know." She shook her head to emphasize this
  disbelief. With palms pressed on the steering wheel, she wriggled her
  fingers to show her wonderful crimson nails. "Everyone in this town has
  heard about what Betty got for me. There was a whole page in Billboard
  and a big ad in Variety."
  "There was nothing in the Law Gazette."
  "You should buy the trades; then you'd know your wife is hot, and I mean
  hot!"
  "Ex-wife," I said automatically. "Betty got this deal for you? This
  wouldn't be the door-to-door insurance salesman who turns out to be a
  psychotic serial killer, with Budd Byron as the salesman?"
  "So you do know!" She chortled with relief. "I guess Betty's success is
  pretty hard for you to handle. You always were a male chauvinist pig."
  "It's not hard for me to handle," I said. "I've always had a yen for
  rich women. Watch out for that
 294 LEN DEIGHTON

 truck, Felicity! He's going to change lanes." Ahead, and towering over us,
 was a huge truck, its cabin bright and shiny like a Cours dtl6gance
 contender. Its driver had a tattooed arm and an exhaust pipe on the roof
 from which he could spray black clouds of diesel over the traffic
 following him.
  She swung around to make an agonized face at me. "Yeah, poor Budd. We
  had to let him go."
  "But it was all being set up around Budd. Betty made a big thing out of
  talking him into joining her."
  "Yep, that's the way it goes sometimes. But once we heard Meryl Streep
  might be interested, we had the script rewritten for her."
  "You mean she's going to be the serial killer?"
  "She's not signed yet." Felicity crossed her fingers and held them up
  as we were overtaking the truck. The truck driver, perhaps
  misunderstanding this gesture, made a wholehearted attempt to crush the
  Corvette against a line of parked cars. But Felicity hit the gas and we
  leapt ahead of him, squeezing through the narrow gap with a roar and a
  squeal of rubber. I closed my eyes, but Felicity's voice betrayed no
  alarm. "In the new script she's a very lovable unemployed Russian
  nuclear scientist, single-parenting in Baltimore. Betty says Streep will
  love the challenge of the accent."
  "Poor Budd. He ratted on his agent to go for that one with Betty."
  "He'll get over it," said Felicity callously. She came to an abrupt stop
  outside the door of my office.
  I could hear something in her voice. "Are you
                  VIOLENT WARD   295

 telling me he's fighting mad at you both?" I wanted to be prepared for
 Budd's storming into my office, wanting me to enjoin or sue or picket the
 studios. I knew from past experience that any kind of rejection could make
 Budd very emotional.
  "We'll write in a cameo for him. He could be a plainclothes cop,
  couldn't he?"
  "He could be a cop," I agreed. As I was opening the car door I said,
  "Felicity, you know Ingrid very well. Did she have any children by that
  first marriage?"
  "To Jack Piech? Of course not. She's never had any children. That's why
  she's always so sorry for herself."
  "You're sure?"
  "Of course I'm sure. Why do you ask?"
  "I have a lot of old toys in the garage," I said.
  "Why can't you ever tell the truth, Mickey Murphy?"
  "The truth always makes me look like an idiot," I said.
  "Yes. Well, there's nothing I can do about that," she said, and blew me
  a kiss before driving away.
  Felicity and her car caused a minor sensation among a gang of kids who
  use my entry as a hangout. They ran after her as she accelerated away
  and argued about whether or not she was Diane Keaton.
  I checked incoming calls with Miss Huth. So far there were no urgent
  messages from Budd Byron, which was a great relief. I continued my final
  sorting of the papers concerned with Vic
 296 LEN DEIGHTON

 Crichton's company. Now that I had told them to find another attorney, the
 sooner I got rid of them the better. I was determined to have everything
 ready so that as soon as they paid me off and gave me the details of their
 new lawyer I could kiss them goodbye forever.
  But there were documents to be signed to confirm and make legal the new
  arrangements. Also, there was the new offshore company in Lima, Peru.
  These guys follow each other like sheep. Do you know that? Petrovitch
  decides to use nomineespeople signing things on behalf of other
  people-as signatories for the holding company and its negotiable assets.
  The next thing I know, Crichton decides they want their holding
  company's negotiable assets put into a newly formed company in Lima with
  nominees holding a big chunk of stock. Then, when the
  Petrovitch-Westbridge deal goes through, they use nominees again. As I
  say, they follow fashion like sheep. I always advise clients to avoid
  documents with nominees empowered to sign. It's like giving someone a
  blank check; it's asking for trouble.
  At four o'clock I was looking at the clock and waiting for Victor
  Crichton, who was supposed to go through the amalgamation paragraph by
  paragraph. It would be the last job I would do for them, and I didn't
  want any last-minute wrangle to keep us from closing. Vic was late. It
  was arranged as a three-thirty appointment, but Brits are always late.
  I was mad at myself. I should have just made the appointment for half
  an hour earlier than I
                  VIOLENT WARD   297

 wanted him to come. "Crichton didn't call, did he?" I asked Miss Huth when
 she came in with letters for me to sign. She'd spent all day transcribing
 them from her machine.
  "How is this, please?" she said. My God, why can't I find a secretary who
  can speak and write the English language?
  "Is this the best you can do?" I said, looking at the letters. She
  couldn't work the word processor, and her typing was patterned with
  white-out and littered with misspellings.
  "You want I should do them once more? I will do them again and again until
  they are right."
  "Some of these you already typed twice. We'll run out of paper if you keep
  doing them till you get them right."
  She smiled as if that was a wonderful tribute to the German work ethic.
  "That is true," she said.
  The phone rang; it was Vic calling. "Sorry I'm late, chum," he said.
  "What delayed you this time? Were they polishing your star on the
  Hollywood Boulevard sidewalk? Or were you rescuing a small child from
  drowning?"
  "That's next week," said Vic. "Right now I have a little problem with my
  transmission. I'm waiting for the tow truck."
  "What are you driving?" I said, making it casual.
  ,'Ahh! I knew you'd ask. I'm in my late boss's B N1W. P)
  "Serves you right," I said.
 298            LEN DEIGHTON

  "I knew my having a breakdown in an import would warm your heart, Mickey.
  Put you in a good mood."
  "So what's happening?"
  "I'm at Wilshire and Westwood. I can't get a cab, and I must find somewhere
  to rent a new car."
  "I'll come and get you," I said. "Give you a ride in a real automobile. Are
  you at the intersection?"
  "I stalled at the traffic light, and then it just seemed to seize up," said
  Vic.
  "Stay there."
  As soon as I put down the phone, Miss Huth buzzed me. "Mr. Byron is on
  number three," she said.
  .Tell him I'm in a meeting."
  "I told him you were in conference. He says it's very urgent."
  "Oh, no. Tell him I'll call him back as soon as I get five minutes to
  myself "
  "He sounds very worried."
  "Maybe tonight from home, tell him. Tell him right now I have a dear friend
  injured in an auto crash, and I have got to rush to him."
  "Is that true? A crash?"
  "Just tell him, Miss Huth."

  Westwood at Wilshire is the only section of Los Angeles that looks like
  downtown New York City. Glass-sided skyscrapers and pedestrians complete
  the illusion. Crichton was waiting there, making
                  VIOLENT WARD 299

 the intersection look even more New York with his English wool suit and
 striped school tie.
  He climbed into the car. "I wish I hadn't sold my old Range Rover, it
  never let me down. Get me to Santa Monica, and I'll find a rental
  company in one of the hotels." I pulled away into the traffic. Santa
  Monica was becoming jammed as more and more commuters were bunching up
  to get onto the San Diego Freeway and go home.
  "If you don't want to come back to the office, maybe we can sit down
  somewhere quiet. I brought all the papers with me."
  "Before we start talking about the amalgamation agreement, are you
  wired, old pal?"
  "Wired? What do you mean, wired?"
  "You know what I mean," he said.
  "Wired? No, and I'll tell you why. That Scotch tape tears all the hair
  off my chest."
  "I'm serious, Mickey."
  "Are you? I thought you were trying to make me laugh. No, Vic, I'm not
  wired, if you mean strapped into a concealed recorder. I don't spy on
  my clients. And I don't report what they say to the Justice Department.
  Do you?"
  He was unabashed. "No, in England we-haven't got the technology. You
  have to stick a quill pen up your ass and wriggle."
  "Are we talking about the cops?"
  "I thought they might have got to you."
  "Who?"
  "Forget it. I've got a lot on my mind these days. Is everything ready?"
 300 LEN DEIGHTON

  "Let me tell you once again," I said. 'I don't like these setups with
  nominees to sign and bearer shares."
  "I know, you've told me that ten thousand times."
  "Once Petrovitch and you and the other signatories have signed, witnessed,
  and completed, you become vulnerable."
  "Stick to what you know, Mickey. This is out of your league. Let me tell
  you how it works. I sign everything away and I am divested of all assets;
  same thing with Petrovitch. Everything valuable is in those bearer shares
  and they are in a drawer in some offshore bank. No one owns them. Now I go
  to Peru a pauper. I find the bearer shares in a drawer. I now control a
  vast company, but the wealth arose in Peru and so is subject to no more
  than nominal tax.91

  "We're talking about almost a hundred million dollars," I said. "It's
  safer if you have a fully notarized power of attorney, just in case some
  other clown opens the drawer before you get to it."
  He thought about it for a moment and then nodded. "Whatever the
  instrument, make sure it gives me the right to take possession in any name
  I like."
  "The power of attorney will come from you and from Ingrid. Signed at the
  same time as you divest yourself of the assets. You'll have the power of
  attorney in your pocket, never mind about some drawer in a faraway land."
  "Why are you acting so nervous?" Vic joshed.
                  VIOLENT WARD    301

  His little smile irritated me. "I'm giving you professional advice," I
  said.
  "I know, Mickey, I know. And I appreciate it. But we're not doing
  anything we haven't done before. It will be all right."
  "They probably have a car rental desk at the Santa Monica Loew's," I
  said. "We can sit in the lobby and go through it all."
  "This bloody business with the stalled motorcar has made me a bit tight
  for time. Is there any need for me to go through it line by line? You've
  checked it through, haven't you?"
  "There is a lot of it," I said. "Amendments and letters modifying some
  of the conditions. It's very complicated."
  "We'll do it when my mind is clearer," he said. "Meanwhile don't let
  them scare you, just stand your ground."
  "I've nothing to worry about," I told him.
  "Don't get shirty, old mate. When someone discovers that the federal
  government has got its figures wrong, the bureaucrats shrug and say no
  one gets it right all the time. But when the federal number crunchers
  find that your secretary mistyped the date, or you described a witness
  as a blonde on the day she became a redhead, the feds yell criminal
  conspiracy and toss you into the cooler for twentyfive years."
  "No one is going to be going through our confidential files," I said.
  "There's a little matter of client-attorney confidence. They'd be in
  violation of the Fifth and Sixth amendments."
 302 LEN DEIGHTON

  "Your faith and erudition do you credit, old boy, but that won't stand in
  their way, believe me. Nothing does nowadays, not even double jeopardy. The
  Supreme Court has made sure that if the state don't get you, Uncle Sam
  will."
  "First you tell me I've got nothing to worry about; then you tell me
  they're going to throw me in prison."
  "I want you to see how serious it is. Then you will see how neatly it will
  be solved by torching your office. Billy Kim says it's okay by him."
  "Arson?" I could hardly believe it.
  "No papers, no nothing."
  "Do you know the penalties for arson?"
  "No, what are they?"
  "I don't know," I admitted, "but that wouldn't be the end of it. They would
  get me for concealing evidence, being an accessory.... I'd be disbarred.
  It's a crazy idea and I don't want any part of it. Petrovitch virtually
  owns that partnership. He'd take you apart if you tried anything like
  that."
  "I don't think he would," said Crichton.
  "Have you talked to him about it?"
  Crichton looked at me as if I were an idiot.
  "Is this what it was all about? Did Petrovitch buy me out in order to burn
  down the office, destroy the paperwork, and leave no trace?"
  "You'll have to ask him about that," said Vic. "But I would have thought
  it was obvious. Petrovitch is up to his fanny in lawyers; he doesn't need
  you. He only started groping you because you
                  VIOLENT WARD    303

 were acting for us and it could all be done under the one roof "
     21
  "No.
  "So what did you think got his attention? Your natural Irish charm? Your
  experience with big international corporations? Or maybe your luxurious
  downtown offices?"
  "I'm not your pet poodle."
  "You're in this too deeply to walk away from it now."
  "Drop dead."
  "I haven't got time to argue. I must rent another car and get back on
  the road." He beamed at me as if one big smile would seal our friendship
  forever. "vVhat can you tell me about Mrs. Petrovitch? Ingrid
  Petrovitch?"
  "I know her. We were at college together."
  "She's signing for Petrovitch. Does she have the authority? Did you
  check all that?"
  "Of course I did. She'll have forty-nine percent, like you, with two
  percent held by the partnership against a voting deadlock."
  "Sounds workable." He opened the door, got out, and gave me another of
  the cheery smiles he specialized in. "Thanks for the ride, chum. Nice
  car." A significant pause while he stroked the paintwork of the door.
  "It's a lot like one I saw recently outside a hilltop house on Topanga."
  "This time rent a domestic," I said. It was only after he'd walked away
  that I realized what he'd said. I was going to chase after him, but I
  figured that would be playing into his hands.
 304            LEN DEIGHTON

  I must have sat there in the car for ten minutes or more. Then, instead
  of heading up the Pacific Coast Highway and home, I drove back to the
  office and sitting at the word processor I brought the documents up on
  screen and read them through. Then I drafted a power of attorney for the
  two principals, Vic and Ingrid, to sign. It would leave the whole
  fortune floating in the air for that short period when the Peruvian
  company was formed, but I suppose everyone concerned knew what they were
  doing. Then I printed out four copies of the agreement and all the other
  documents. I shredded all the old paperwork. I felt better after that;
  I hate bearer shares.

  Late that night, at home, I got a call from Goldie. "Mr. Petrovitch is
  arriving in town tomorrow. The car will collect you at noon. Shall I
  send it to the office or your home?"
  'Vait a minute, Goldie. I'll need to look in my appointments book."
  Sarcasm was always lost on Goldie. "He's flying directly to California."
  "So what?"
  "Direct. He's catching a flight from Rome and not going to New York.
  He's coming out just to talk with you." Goldie said this in a voice
  charged with awe.
  "What's he want to talk about?"
  "I'm not sure," said Goldie, in a voice that told
                   VIOLENT WARD305

 me he knew darn well. "But he'll see you at the mansion. That's quite an
 honor."
  "Don't let's wade out of our depth, Goldie. This is a meet with Zachary
  Petrovitch, not an audience with the Pope."
  "Listen, you dumb Irishman. The boss never flies from Europe to
  California without breaking his journey in New York. And he's canceled
  a board meeting and a briefing with the lawyers who have already flown
  from Washington to New York and are waiting there for him, clocking up
  expenses like there's no tomorrow."
  "You sound a little frayed, Goldie. You got something on your mind?"
  There was a long silence. Then Goldie said, "Mrs. Petrovitch is on my
  mind. Her social life is such that she's lost in a blur. She's an
  ingenious and energetic lady. I can't keep up with her, and neither can
  the boss."
  "She'll have to be here to sign. There is a newly drafted power of
  attorney that Mr. Petrovitch or one of his people should read though.
  It's instead of the bearer shares. I've explained it on the fax."
  Long silence. "I sure hope we've spelled your name right, Mickey. I've
  always gone out on a limb for you, but when you pull these dumb routines
  with me, I wake up screaming."
  "Routines?"
  "Don't overdo the injured ing6nue, Mickey, or you'll be tired out for
  tomorrow's matinee."
  "Send the car to the office," I said.
  "Noon," said Goldie. "And no hardware."
 306 LEN DEIGHTON

  "Take a couple of Librium tablets and lie down in a darkened room. It
  might pass off."
  "I mean it. No hardware. You'll be searched."
  "Good night, Goldie. It's always nice chatting to YOU."
 CHAPTER 14
 Petrovitch had a place up on Hillcrest, where the folks from Bel Air go
 and live when they get rich. The electric gate opened to let the car
 through. A twelve-foot outer wall, marked with fidgeting video cameras,
 surrounded two or three acres of well-irrigated lawns, ornate renaissance
 fountains, and the sort of shrubs that get replaced when they are not
 flowering.
  It was a sunny day with the weatherman predicting highs in the
  seventies, touching eighty in the valleys. These sprawling mansions
  looked right across the city, and there was a breeze from the ocean that
  sometimes caught the water in the fountains and flicked it across the
  grass. At the base of the nearest fountain, three brawny men were
 308 LEN DEIGHTON

 standing around trying to look like gardeners, but they didn't bend down to
 weed in case the machine guns fell out of their work shirts.
  The house was neo-classic Disneyland: six tall fluted columns supporting
  an ornate pediment, with marble steps to the ten-foot-high front door. A
  four-car garage was arranged alongside it, a more pagan shrine for lesser
  gods. The driver flicked a button, and an overhead garage door swallowed
  the white limo with a whoosh of machinery and the creak of straining
  woodwork. As it crashed closed again, the darkness lasted no more than a
  moment before fluorescent lights flickered on to reveal a large concrete
  garage area, with two more cars, a repair bench, and stacked bundles of
  paper and boxes marked GLAss and PLAsTic for recycling. The doorway that
  led to the house was lined with a .metal detector. Goldie was standing
  there grinning at me. "Hi, Mickey! So you tore a piece out of your busy
  schedule?" he said sarcastically.
  I smiled and went and stood inside the frame of the metal detector while
  he made sure I wasn't armed. I let him.gloat. This was his territory, and
  he wanted to make sure I knew it.
  The Roman theme continued inside, where a large foyer featured the lifesize
  busts of pale emperors on red marble columns set between uncomfortable
  thrones. Swagged drapery on every side introduced a disturbing and
  prescient note of Napoleonic France.
  Beyond the lobby a grandiose staircase swept up to a long balcony. Goldie
  led the way up to a
                  VIOLENT WARD   309

 room on the first floor that Petrovitch had converted into a study. The
 Roman theme was somewhat modified at this point, which was just as well
 because I didn't fancy having my conference with old Petey sprawled on the
 terracotta in my toga and vomiting after every roasted peacock. A large sit-
 ting room held two soft leather sofas, a liquor cabinet, and four busy
 paintings depicting, according to the engraved brass tags, four decisive
 battles of imperial Rome. The windows overlooked the garden; as is usual in
 houses built for Southern California's mega-rich, no windows faced toward
 the street, where there might lurk kidnapers and tourist buses.
  The long wall without windows held two oak display cases in which Roman
  coins were arrayed on red velvet cushions under tiny spotlights. Between
  the cases stood a glass-fronted cabinet where a polychrome drinking vessel,
  an Etruscan statuette, a bronze portrait head, fragments of marble, and
  similar priceless treasures were arranged with the studied disregard with
  which decorators display the possessions of millionaires.
  Petrovitch was standing at the far end of the sitting room. Behind him,
  through the double doors, I could see a metal L-shaped executive desk with
  seats for master and secretary. Within reach of both was a computer
  keyboard with a screen on a lazy Susan so it could be swung into position
  either way. On the desk were a dozen or so silver-framed photos of Ingrid
  and Petrovitch and some elderly
 310    LEN DEIGHTON

 folks whose prominence there would seem to owe more to kinship than to
 physical beauty.
  'Tou're looking great, Mickey," said Petrovitch in a husky voice. He was
  cool and good-tempered, affecting a British style with his red
  suspenders, shirt with broad blue stripes, and cutaway stiff collar with
  club tie. "Drink?"
        27
  "Coffee.
  "Get Mickey a cup of coffee, will you, Goldie?" As Goldie disappeared into
  the study room, Petrovitch sat down and stretched out his long thin legs
  to admire his patent leather Gucci loafers. Above his head, Marcus
  Aurelius was expelling the Germans from the Danube provinces; the river
  was very blue, the way Johann Strauss always liked his Danube. "Are you a
  gambling man, Mickey?"
  "No, I'm not."
  "Neither am L I figure I take enough risks all day without going to a
  middleman for more."
  Goldie brought me a cup of coffee. I guess old Petey didn't want me
  snooping around in his study.
  "But I've wagered Goldie one hundred bucks on the way you'll answer a
  question."
  I looked at him and drank coffee.
  "Goldie says you won't answer truthfully; I say you will. The trouble is,
  I don't know how we're going to settle the bet. We won't be sure if your
  answer is the truth or not. Right?"
  "The same as being in court," I said.
  "What I want to know is, do you hate me, Mickey?" He smiled.
  "Hate you?"
                  VIOLENT WARD  311

  "Don't play for time. Just tell me."
  "Why should I hate you?"
  "Maybe you just despise me?"
  "Don't put me on the spot, Mr. Petrovitch," I said.
  ,,Do you hear that, Goldie? Mr. Petrovitch, he calls me now. Is that a sign
  of something?"
  "You're my client," I said. "I work for you as a lawyer; I don't run a
  dating agency."
  "You mean you don't give a shit about me either way? You do your job, file
  your time slips-in six-minute segments, I notice; I guess that makes it
  easier to calculate from a per hour time base-and hope for the best."
  "If you want to work with another attorney-"
  "Not at all. You've got all the attributes I'm looking for."
  "For instance?"
  "I want advice from someone who doesn't give a shit about me. I got so many
  people playing the angles, it's getting hard to distinguish friends from
  enemies."
  "I don't hate you," I said truthfully.
  'Tou've never done much to conceal your dislike of me, Mickey. I didn't pay
  much attention to that, but then I got around to figuring that your casual
  hostility was part of your aggressive disposition, and maybe a reliable
  indication that you were not plotting against me."
  "I'm not plotting against you," I said, looking into his face and trying
  to decide what kind of paranoid personality I was dealing with.
 312  LEN DEIGHTON

  "No, if you were plotting against me you'd be smart enough not to let your
  hostility show."
  "How did you eliminate Goldie?" I asked.
  Petrovitch looked at Goldie and then looked back at me again. "I had to
  start somewhere. And Goldie and I have been together a long time."
  "What kind of plots are you suffering under?" I asked him.
  "I don't have to tell you someone is trying to kill me; you found the
  telephone bomb yourself. My wife is involved." He said it evenly and
  coolly.
  "What kind of evidence you got for that?"
  "Tell him, Goldie."
  Goldie coughed and cleared his throat. "Mrs. Petrovitch hired a hit man,"
  he said awkwardly.
  "How do you know?" I said.
  Goldie said, "Don't screw around. You know all this. She knew Pindero back
  when she was young. When she met him again on this charity commiittee she's
  so dedicated to, she tells him some yarn and he tells her he was a hit man.
  She pays him five grand as first installment on a hit. He planted the bomb
  in the phone but when that didn't work he took off. You went and found him
  for her. Don't screw around."
  "I didn't know all that," I said.
  "You talked with the law, didn't you?"
  "Laird? That was just routine after some louse phoned my name in to them.
  Was that you, Goldie?"
  "Don't let's start playing Truth or Consequences," said Goldie. "There's
  too much at stake."
  Petrovitch said, "Ingrid went up to Topanga
                  VIOLENT WARD    313

 Canyon with someone, and when they came down again Pindero was dead and
 stuffed into the icebox. We figured you were the helper."
  "Jesus!" The painting over my seat was a turbulent version of Rome's
  Capture by the Goths, the dark flames reaching into the sky. Treachery
  by slaves decided the fate of the city.
  "Didn't Ingrid ask you to waste me?" said Petrovitch.
  "No. At least not in those words," I said.
  "She said I was trying to murder her, did she?" I didn't respond.
  "That's probably the way she's using her new assassin," he said. "That
  makes it easier for them, I guess. And she plans to go away with them
  ... plans it down to the last detail."
  "But now I'm in the clear?" I asked.
  "We heard Ingrid give your name to the cops. She told them you went up
  to Topanga."
  "And gave them my address in Mulholland? I wondered about that." I
  looked from one to the other and tried to hurry them along. "So who else
  was there with her?"
  "We don't know," said Goldie and bit his fingernail.
  ,,She has more than one accomplice," said Petrovitch. "That's what had
  us puzzled at first. We couldn't pin down any one person who could have
  done all the things that were being done."
  "Where is Ingrid now?"
  "She's coming back here this evening."
  "Well, I guess you have nothing to fear from her directly," I said. "If
  she went to so much trouble
 314 LEN DEIGHTON

 to get someone to kill you, she's not likely to do it herself "
  "No, she needs to be a long way away when it happens. The insurance
  company will put her under the microscope."
  "How did it ever get to be like this between you?" I said. I got to my
  feet and walked across the room, desperately needing to stretch my legs.
  "She's sick," said Petrovitch. "It's my fault, I guess. I neglected her
  when she needed care and attention."
  "Is it the money9" I asked. I looked at the coins in the glass case. The
  Roman emperors were all frowning. I think maybe the spotlights were
  getting in their eyes.
  "She feels rejected, and it's eaten into her soul. She's devious and
  manipulative. At first I even liked that, it seemed very female, very
  childlike. But when she started doing bad things I couldn't handle it
  anymore."
  "Has she seen a shrink?" I said, abandoning the ancient world for more
  urgent problems.
  "She refuses. But her regular doctor is a shrewd old guy. He's helped me
  a lot."
  "No drugs?" I sat down alongside him with my feet stretched out. We
  compared shoes.
  "Not for her, only for me." Rueful smile. "I'm in analysis. He's arranged
  counseling too. It's kind of traumatic."
  "I imagine it is."
  "The thing that torments me is the murder of
                   VIOLENT WARD 315

 the old guy in Topanga. Did she kill him, or was she just around when it
 happened?"
  "Maybe we'll never find out," I said.
  "Goldie, would you go find the driver?"
  It was a neat way to tell me the audience was at an end and tell Goldie
  that the master wanted a word with me in private.
  I got to my feet. Petrovitch got up too. Take away the curly beard and
  the noble-looking horse and a distinct likeness to Marcus Aurelius was
  apparent. Of all the Roman emperors, here was the one to resemble:
  humane, studious, unassuming, and ready to share power. Good old Zach
  Petrovitch, he certainly chose the right decorators.
  "This signing," said Petrovitch, as if it was just an afterthought.
  "Have you arranged the witnesses and whatever we need? Is the other side
  ready?"
  "It can be ready tomorrow," I offered. "Vic Crichton is in town, and I'd
  like to get the whole thing off my hands. It's to be done by means of
  a power of attorney. I guess you got my message."
  "That's okay. Tomorrow will suit me fine. Any time in the P.m. Line it
  up. Your office?"
  I was about to tell him what a dump it was and suggest some other venue,
  but with him in the middle of paying good money for those premises that
  seemed inappropriate. "Great," I said. "Great."
  As he shook hands and said goodbye he said, "I still love her, Mickey.
  You'll understand that, I know. That's why I'm taking such a hit."
  "I know," I said.
  Goldie reappeared and escorted me down to the
 316 LEN DEIGHTON

 garage and told the driver to take me wherever I wanted to go. "Mexico
 City," I said. "Do you know a good whorehouse?"
  After I got into the back seat of the white limo, Goldie followed me,
  leaving the car door open to show that he was getting out again.
  "It's straight stuff," said Goldie. "No matter what you think, it's true."
  "Is it, Goldie?"
  "I'm not going to sit around and let it happen. It's not just a matter of
  being on his payroll; he's the guy I look after. I like him: he won a
  Silver Star flying a chopper in 'Nam. It's my rep too. Am I getting through
  to you?"
  "You still think I'm a part of it?" I said, trying to repress any sign of
  panic. "You think I'm trying to knock off my own client?" I forced a smile.
  He reached out very slowly and took my arm in his gorilla hand.
  Goldie had cold gray eyes, and looking into them wasn't comforting. "I'm
  not sure," he said. "But I'll tell you this, Mickey. I'm on the way to
  finding out, and when I find these people I will blow them away."
  "Like you blew away Pindero?"
  "I think we both know the son of a bitch I'm talking about," he said.
  "Did you give my name to the cops, Goldie? About Pindero?"
  "I told you, it was Mrs. Petrovitch did that."
  "Yeah, I forgot. You told me."
  "I'm going to blow that bastard away. I mean it,
                  VIOLENT WARD   317

 Mickey. You're a buddy, but it won't make any difference." He let go of
 my arm and stepped back out of the car, still watching me.
  "Tell me something, Goldie," I said. "What charity is it that Mrs.
  Petrovitch is so dedicated to? I mean the one where she met brother
  Pindero, who got so tragically dead?"
  Asking Goldie even the simplest kind of question brought a suspicious
  frown to his face, like I knew the answer already and was trying to
  needle him. "Rainbow Stojil," he said. "The Rainbow's End Shelter for
  Homeless Men. Don't tell me you haven't heard of it."
  "Heard of it? I gave them a big donation only recently."
  He closed the car door with more force than it needed. Stojil? Ingrid?
  More than one helper? How much of Petrovitch was real life? None of it,
  maybe. None of these rich people were real-they were just poor folks
  acting.
  "Where did you say, buddyT
  "My office," I said.
  "That's a lousy neighborhood," said the driver.
  "What are you, a realtor?"
  I sank back in the leather and thought about Zachary Petrovitch standing
  there in that room full of Roman pictures. From a paranoid like that I
  would have expected a mural of Julius Caesar being stabbed to death on
  the steps of the capitol building, but I guess that wasn't one of the
  decisive battles of imperial Rome. It was just a felony.
 CHAPTER 15
 The trial of the policemen accused of beating Rodney King was being aired
on
 the Fox channel. The transmission was live and screened all day. It had been
 going for weeks. The evening news often featured day-by-day clips from the
 trial, but I didn't watch the news regularly. Maybe I should have, but like
 most people in Los Angeles I figured a trial out in Simi Valley, Ventura
 County, was not something to miss the sports for. And for the likes of me,
 seeing the law in action was too much like work.
  The verdict came through about three in the afternoon. I had been at LAX
  and was on my way from the airport to my office to keep my appointment with
  Mr. and Mrs. Petrovitch and Crichton.
                  VIOLENT WARD   319

 We were to read through and then sign the agreement and the other papers.
  The sun was shining, and I'd had a good lunch at the airport with a
  satisfied client who was in transit. When I have meetings there I like
  to use the main restaurant because they have valet parking and I can be
  back on the road more quickly. The airport traffic was light, and I came
  under the 405 with the car stereo playing a tape of Mercer, feeling that
  everything was just fine. That's always a dangerous state of mind.
  The first time I became aware of something unusual was when I spotted
  a crowd standing watching the window of a TV store where dozens of TV
  screens were tuned to the Fox live transmission. It took me a moment or
  two to guess what was drawing these little crowds.
  Once the verdict was brought in, the news spread through the city like
  a tidal wave. People who had shown no interest in the trial all week
  were suddenly inflamed or indignant or excited.
  My first evidence of the city's hysteria came a block or two later, when
  half a dozen black kidsbig guys about eighteen or nineteen years oldcame
  running out to my car when I stopped at a red light. There were four of
  them; they began beating on the glass with their fists and trying to
  wrench the doors open. I maybe would have toughed it out but a fifth guy
  arrived waving a baseball bat and swung it at my windshield. I shouted
  abuse at them and jabbed the gas pedal so that the car shot forward and
  the baseball bat hit metal instead of
 320            LEN DEIGHTON

 glass. Traffic coming across the intersection had to swerve as I went
 weaving through the cross-street traffic. There were yells of anger and a
 dissonance of horns, but I got through to the other side and kept going.
  I began to realize I'd not encountered just one freak gesture of
  hostility. I could see other signs of agitation. People were arguing and
  shouting, and a fleeing figure-a young white guy-was chased across the
  street in front of me, so I had to brake to avoid him and his pursuers. I
  kept rolling and figured that as long as I didn't stop I'd be safe. I saw
  a black-and-white coming the other way with beacon flashing and siren on.
  I switched my radio from station to station without finding any news
  bulletins. At the next intersection I slowed and took the right-hand lane.
  I found myself saying a prayer of thanks to that unknown guy who wrote
  into the traffic code permission to turn right on a red signal. It gave me
  a chance to keep moving, and now there were crowds gathering at every
  intersection to molest and attack any motorist who stopped for a light.
  It was a rough district to drive through. Had the traffic in town been
  heavy, I might have been tempted to route myself from LAX to my office by
  the freeways, but that's a long detour. The noon radio bulletin promised
  traffic everywhere was light, so I had taken the most direct route. No one
  had confided to me the fact that the city was about to disappear in smoke
  and flame.
  As I turned the corner and neared my office, I
                  VIOLENT WARD    321

 saw a group of men in T-shirts and jeans smashing the windows of a dry
 cleaners I'd used from time to time. The Korean proprietor and his two
 muscular sons came out the door wielding shotguns. The men smashing the
 windows ran off, shouting and laughing. All along the street, shop windows
 had been broken. The sidewalks were marked with white puddles of broken
 glass, and at the end of the block there were flames billowing out of the
 little momand-pop grocery store.
  My car phone buzzed. I thought it would be Miss Huth, complaining again
  about the social decline of the neighborhood, but it wasn't.
  "Murphy,9"
  "You got it," I said. I recognized Goldie's voice, so I guessed what was
  coming.
  "Mr. Petrovitch for you," said Goldie.
  Without preamble, Petrovitch said, "Where are you, Mickey?"
  "South Central, and it's very active. You?"
  "I'm on the Harbor Freeway heading north."
  "You have a good view from there," I said.
  "There are fires all over South Central-to the right and the left of us.
  Is your office okay?"
  "I'll be there in a couple of minutes," I said. "But it's not a choice
  location for a meeting. Stay on the freeway and keep going; it's not
  healthy down here in the streets."
  "I can't reach Ingrid," he said. "I missed her at the restaurant. She's
  driving over to your office, but she's not answering her phone."
  "I'll go to the office and wait for her. It's better
 322  LEN DEIGHTON

 I'm there. My secretary will be popping her rivets: she's never seen our
 lovely city en rete. "
  "Ingrid may have heard the news on the car radio and gone straight
  home."
  "You go home too," I said. "III ask Ingrid to call you if she arrives
  at the office."
  "Do that," said Petrovitch and rang off. He wasn't a man noted for his
  lingering goodbyes.
  I saw a gang of about a dozen men in a parking lot, systematically
  smashing the cars, levering the trunks open, and ransacking them. Then
  I saw the first of the many looters. Dodging through the traffic came
  individuals, then streams of men, women, and children, every last one
  of them laboring under the weight of some item or other, from car
  batteries to sewing machines. The looting had started; political science
  gave way to economics. Seeing so many shiny possessions cradled in the
  loving arms of new owners, the gangs roaming the streets were irre-
  sistibly diverted from violence to theft.
  As I neared my office the sky became darker with smoke and I saw more
  violence. Bloodied people rushed past. A white man was on the ground
  bleeding, and a woman was standing over him sobbing. From an overturned
  car, its doors opened wide, papers, hats, shoes, a newspaper, an um-
  brella, and broken glass had spilled onto the road. Many LA drivers
  regularly carry handguns in their glove compartments; today guns were
  what everyone wanted. Above the noise of the engine I heard the regular
  crack of gunfire. Everywhere I looked, there were indications that
  attacks had been made
                 VIOLENT WARD  323

 on shops and people who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong
 time. Some of the business premises had BLACK scrawled or sprayed across
 doors and windows, but that had not always saved them from smashed windows
 or fire bombs. As I got to the office and turned into the garage I saw that
 the van parked across the street selling tacos and soft drinks had been
 wrecked and set afire. It was now just a blackened shell with blistered
 paint and smoldering tires. There was a stink of burning in the air, and the
 crack of gunfire was growing more frequent.
  I breathed a sigh of relief as I went down the ramp and into the garage
  under my building. It was gloomy. The fluorescents were off so that the
  only light came through the windows along the sidewalk. There was no sign
  of the janitor; the little glass office he called home was locked up. I
  went around my car and examined the dent the kid had made in my paintwork;
  it was as big as my fist, but the paint was intact and with luck it
  wouldn't flake before I got it fixed.
  Not all the building's tenants had fled for home. There were half a dozen
  cars there still. I saw Miss Huth's old Buick, and on the far side of the
  garage I recognized a white BMW and knew I had a visit from Budd.
  On the stairs I caught up with two of my neighbors. Karen, a big
  earth-mother Nicaraguan nurse from the single mothers advisory center, had
  a shotgun under her arm. Clive, the architect, was nursing a big machine
  gun with a curved magazine
 324 LEN DEIGHTON

 and wooden stock. "Jesus Christ!" I said. "What are you doing with an
 AK-Forty-seven?"
  "Don't you have a gun?" said Karen in surprise.
  "Not like that, I don't," I said.
  "You'd better stay with us," said Clive. I looked at him. His
  bold-patterned bow tie and neatly trimmed beard looked incongruous with
  the battleworn old gun. "We're going on the roof to protect the
  building."
  "I'm expecting visitors."
  "They won't be coming," said Clive. He looked out of the window. The
  street had become quiet.
  "I'll be okay. You go ahead," I said. "And be careful. You'll kill
  someone."
  "Tacka tacka tacka tacka tacka, "he called. Oh, my gosh, every man is
  a Rambo at heart.
  "Is that thing loaded, Karen?" I couldn't believe that my neighbors were
  all armed to the teeth.
  "Of course it is," she replied, pushing her long black hair back with
  her free hand. "I keep it under my desk. I'm always having people
  threatening me and trying to steal the cash."
  "In the prenatal advisory bureau?"
  "You're a lawyer," she said. She was touchy in the way people get when
  they are nervous or frightened. "So don't pretend you don't know what
  goes on in this neighborhood."
  "Okay. Well, take care, you two," I said.
  "You should have a gun in the office," said Clive. "It's not fair to
  your staff to leave them unprotected."
  "I'll see about it."
                  VIOLENT WARD 325

  "Tacka tacka tacka tacka tacka." His voice echoed in the narrow stairwell
  as he trotted up to the roof brandishing his machine gun. He put an arm
  around her protectively, but I figured Karen's dark skin would keep her
  safer on the streets than Clive and his AK-47.
  When I opened the door to my office I saw Budd facing me with an
  apprehensive look on his face. In his hand he had Danny's Browning, and it
  was pointing at my belly. When he saw it was me he said, "Oh, I'm sorry,
  Mickey. I didn't see your car arrive."
  "You want me to go out and drive in again?" I hate having guns pointed at
  me.
  He'd been sitting in the room that used to be Korea Charlie's office,
  alternately looking at the TV and then out the window and exchanging his
  thoughts with Miss Huth. I could see her now, standing on tiptoe to see
  over the frosted glass partition. I wiggled my fingers at her.
  "What are you doing here, Budd?" I asked as I gently nudged the gun aside
  so it didn't point at me.
  He ignored my question. "Holy shit! Have you seen what's going on out
  there?"
  "Have I seen it? I've just driven through it, buddy." I went to the phone
  and dialed Danny. After a few minutes with the busy signal I put the phone
  down again.
  Budd was watching me. "I've never known anything like this," he said. "Were
  you here for the Watts riots?"
  "I was only fourteen years old," I said causti- 326 LEN DEIGHTON

 cally. "You must have been twelve." I wasn't in the mood for another of
 Budd's flights of fancy.
  Now that she was quite sure my arrival wasn't a visit from a friendly
  neighborhood riot mob, Miss Huth emerged from her den to greet me. "We
  were worried about you, Mr. Murphy," she said.
  Budd said, "Miss Huth said you'd be here any time. She said you had an
  appointment at-" He looked at the clock.
  "Sit down," I said. "You're making me nervous striding around with that
  gun in your hand. Put the damn thing away." To Miss Huth I said, "Is the
  coffee machine working9 Have you heard from Mr. Kim or Crichton or
  anyone?"
  "I'll make you fresh coffee, Mr. Murphy. I am so pleased you are safe. Mr.
  Kim is at the Rainbow Hostel."
  "How do you know?"
  "He just phoned from there," she said, "and I had to phone him back to
  tell him Mr. Crichton's date of birth."
  "Did he take any money from the safe, do you know?"
  "Yes," said Miss Huth. 'Twenty thousand dollars in cash. I had to get it
  from the bank. I am worried about him with all this trouble in the
  streets."
  The TV in the corner was babbling away. I was thankful I'd kept that
  ancient set although I seldom looked at it except during some really
  important football game.
  By now most of the TV channels had suspended normal programming. The
  newsrooms were
                  VIOLENT WARD   327

 permanently on the air, bringing minute-by-minute reports from their mobile
 camera teams using vans with portable antennas. It was a hell of a scene to
 watch when you knew that the real thing was going on in the street outside
 your door. Most of these transmissions from the battlefront were shaky and
 wobbly. Sometimes the picture collapsed completely and the anchors in the
 studio had to ad lib their way through the break or find some earlier
 footage to transmit. In the back rooms of the TV stations every telephone
 was in use, as reporters heard-and tape-recorded-reports of fires and vio-
 lence across the city. Other staff members were using the phones to locate
 politicians, sociologists, writers, and academics: instant-wisdom talking
 heads always ready to give a TV camera their views on the world.
  The choppers normally assigned to spotting traffic conditions on the
  freeways were providing live pictures of Central Los Angeles, with columns
  of smoke ascending vertically into the air. I was looking out of the window
  as Miss Huth came in bearing a cup of coffee, and a chopper came roaring
  over at rooftop height, its rotor blades thudding heavily against the still
  air. It circled a couple of times, and then there was a burst of smoke and
  a rolling ball of fire appeared just a block away. The chopper went in
  close to shoot pictures.
  "It's a paint store," said Budd, who by watching TV had become an expert.
  "Until now most of them have been hitting the liquor stores and getting
  smashed. But if they start torching the paint stores
 328 LEN DEIGHTON

 and lumber yards, they'll turn the town into a fireball."
  "If they start on the gas stations the explosions will tear whole blocks
  apart," said the ever-cheerful Miss Huth. "Already there are many dead."
  "Calm down," I said. I was looking out the window. Moving along on the
  other side of the street were some kids who hung around on the corner.
  Four of them were staggering under the weight of a glass-fronted
  commercial refrigerator filled with beer.
  "These blacks are torching their own neighborhoods," said Budd. "Are
  they crazy?"
  "They are not blacks," I said. "Not all of them, anyway. Look in the
  street there. Watch the TV. Take a ride around the block. At least half
  the rioters are light-skinned-Latinos and whites too. It's not a race
  riot, it's just a riot."
  "Could this spread across the whole state?" said Miss Huth.
  "Not at the rate these guys are boozing and looting," I said. "By
  tomorrow morning those without a hernia will be too hung over to riot."
  "I hope," she said.
  Budd was glued to the TV again, his fear mingled with pride. "Hollywood!
  Where else in the world could you have half a dozen airborne cameras
  filming killings and arson from just a few feet away from the action?
  This is terrible."
  "Look what's happening across the street," called Miss Huth.
  On the opposite sidewalk and in the parking lot
                  VIOLENT WARD   329

 a crowd had gathered. Most of them had bottles in their hands and drank
 contentedly. The crowd was watching some men in baseball caps, shorts, and
 T-shirts battering at the door of Graham's discount store. The active
 looters weren't kids, they looked like men in their thirties, and neither
 did they look particularly impoverished. They had already smashed the glass
 doors, and now they were using tire levers to break open the grille. There
 was a crash, and one of the men overbalanced and almost toppled over as the
 gate broke open. The crowd cheered and laughed and slapped one another on
 the back. Then, politely, without pushing, they went scrambling one by one
 through the gap made in the grille and through the doors. More looters came,
 picking their way over the shards of glass and disappearing inside the
 darkened store.
  There must have been a dozen or more inside when a black-and-white bumped
  up over the curb and stopped at the broken doors. A cop got out. For just
  one moment the looters froze like a film stopped in mid-action. A
  middle-aged Hispanic woman with a bandanna around her head was emerging
  with a small TV set in her arms. She put it down on the ground and stood
  by it possessively. The second cop got out of the car, and cops and crowd
  looked at each other.
  "What are they going to do?" said Budd.
  "What can they do?"
  "Nothing," said Budd.
  The cops evidently came to the same conclusion, for they got back in the
  car, and it edged for-
   330            LEN DEIGHTON

 ward and ran across the sidewalk and back onto the road again. As the car
 went around the corner the looters came back to life suddenly; a film
 restarted.
  "Is that what we pay the police for?" said Miss Huth. I looked at her.
  I'd always had her down as an illegal immigrant, but maybe I was wrong.
  I said, "The cops are always being told not to provoke ethnic crowds.
  They probably have direct orders to play it cool."
  "Play it cool?" she said. "What is to play it cool?"
  "Not get involved," said Budd over his shoulder.
  Miss Huth shrugged. She didn't understand any of it. "You want me to try
  phoning Nine-oneone?" she asked.
  "No," said Budd. "They've got a police radio in their car. They're not
  in trouble. We don't want cops here." He looked at the clock. "Where are
  your visitors?"
  Before I could reply, Miss Huth said, "Something is happening at the
  warehouse." We went to the window but could only see the flat gray roof
  of Graham's warehouse, the place we bought all the fittings and
  furniture after our office was vandalized at Christmas.
  I could see an unnatural and slightly bluish haze rising from the
  building.
  "They're inside Graham's," said Miss Huth.
  "What are they after there?" said Budd.
  "Looking for cash in the office maybe," I replied.
                   VIOLENT WARD   331

  "There is heat coming out of the roof," said Miss Huth. "You can see
  it." The haze, growing more dense, made the building wobble gently.
  "Shit!"
  There was no warning. Graham's pipes and tubes and air-conditioning
  plant, which make the flat roofs of Los Angeles so ugly, suddenly snaked
  and ripped open and the whole roof blew off with a mighty explosion that
  came booming into our ears and rattled the doors and windows.
  "Oh, my God!" said Miss Huth. "What ignited?"
  "Were there people inside?"
  "I guess so," I said. The whole scene was now enveloped in smoke.
  "Should we phone the Fire Department?" said Miss Huth.
  "I don't imagine we can tell them anything they don't already know. They
  must be getting reports from all over town."
  Miss Huth wrung her hands. "That woman Karen came in here. She had a
  gun. So did the architect."
  "I know."
  "The architect! He had a machine gun." She was generating anger within
  herself, and her voice became shriller. "It's not right, an architect."
  Still looking at the TV, Budd suddenly produced a snippet of the new
  wisdom he'd gleaned. "Those fires where the oily black smoke is turning
  gray: that's a sign they've got hoses directed on the fire.)l
  "It won't be long before it's dark," said Miss
 332 LEN DEIGHTON

 Huth. "Should we wait until dark to leave? Or would it be wiser to drive
 in the light?"
  I thought about it. In the distance I could see that traffic on the
  freeway was moving. Moving fast as hundreds of drivers made for the
  routes out of town.
  "Once it's dark we stand a better chance," said Miss Huth, making up her
  own mind. I'd never seen her nervous before; I'd never seen her anything
  less than ferocious.
  "I'm not sure about that, Miss Huth," I told her. "It may be better if
  you can see where you are going. By nightfall the streets are going to
  be littered with all kinds ofjunk that would bring a car to a permanent
  stop."
  Budd kept ducking in to watch the TV, and whenever he did he emerged
  more nervous. "Did you see that piece of film taken from the chopper?
  They were dragging guys out of cars and beating them to death."
  "I'm sure it is spreading all over the state," said Miss Huth. "The TV
  says they are getting calls about riots in places way out in Ventura and
  fires in Huntington Beach."
  "Then switch the goddamned, TV off." I went to the window and looked out
  again. "Stay calm." I hadn't reckoned on its getting worse. I thought
  it was just a local disturbance that the cops would contain within an
  hour or two. Now the whole city seemed to be engulfed. There were more
  and more columns of smoke reaching into the blue sky. Not many of them
  were turning gray.
                   VIOLENT WARD 333

  "Stay calm! Are you crazy?" she said. "Do you want to know what Mr. Byron
  and I just saw on WT)
  "No, I don't want to know. It won't help to get emotional," I told her.
  "It won't help to sit here refusing to face facts either," said Budd.
  I stayed by the window, but I turned around to see him. "I know the
  facts," I said. "I can guess at them, anyway."
  "Then tell me," he said.
  I waited for Miss Huth to go back to her office. "You're waiting for Zach
  Petrovitch, aren't you?"
  "I'm taking Ingrid away with me," said Budd. "We'll find a place no one
  can find us." He had thought about it a lot, I suppose. I felt sorry for
  him. No one knew better than I did what it was like to be in love with
  Ingrid.
  "Conspiring to murder is a capital offense. In this state it carries the
  death penalty."
  The phone rang. It was Vic Crichton. "I've got myself a rented chopper.
  What is it like where you are?" he asked.
  "Not healthy," I said, "but momentarily quiet. Do you want to do it next
  week?"
  "No," said Vic. "I am heading in your direction. Better everything is
  signed today. Is Mrs. Petrovitch with you yet?"
  "Not yet."
  "I'll land in that empty lot across the street from your building. Is it
  all clear?"
  "It's empty."
 334 LEN DEIGHTON

  "Bring the documents across when I land. My pilot is getting jumpy about
  the fine print on his insurance policy."
  "Anything you say," I told him, and hung up.
  "Was that your son?" asked Miss Huth.
  "No. Where did Budd Byron go?"
  "I don't know," she said. "Everyone is acting strangely today."
  "You can say that again." I put the four copies of the agreement and the
  powers of attorney and other papers into the impressive leather folders
  that we use to make clients feel important. Everything was quiet on the
  street outside. All the activity had moved over to the next block, where
  the serious looting was going on.
  Mrs. Petrovitch arrived on time. I saw her at the wheel of a Honda as
  it turned into the ramp and disappeared into the garage. "Stay here and
  take care of things," I told Miss Huth. I got the goldplated Parkers
  that we always use for signings, put the leather folders under my arm,
  and went down to meet Ingrid. She was wearing a belted trench coat and
  looked beautiful, although somewhat subdued.
  "The other party is coming in by helicopter," I said. "We'll do it all
  as quickly as we can."
  "Good," she said.
  "Your husband wants you to phone him," I said. "He's worried about you."
  She looked at me and nodded.
  No sooner did I put my nose out on the street than I heard a helicopter
  circling the building as
                  VIOLENT WARD 335

 the pilot of Crichton's rented chopper took a look at the empty lot. The
 explosion had completely destroyed Grahams. There was nothing left of it
 but a smoldering shell. And it seemed to have chased bystanders away too,
 for the whole parking lot was empty. On any other day a helicopter landing
 there would have been a sensation, but today choppers filled the sky
 everywhere you looked.
  As the helicopter landed and kicked up dust, I took Ingrid's arm and
  hurried across the street. Vic Crichton was ready and waiting for us.
  He got out, and after hurried greetings he put the leather folder I gave
  him on the seat in the helicopter and bent over it to sign the papers.
  "Sign where I made pencil marks," I said, giving Ingrid the other
  folder. "It's already witnessed."
  It took only a couple of minutes for all four documents and the letters
  and amendments to be signed and complete. "Why don't you come with me
  in the chopper, Mrs. Petrovitch?" said Crichton, in that fancy British
  voice of his. He got back inside but held the door open.
  "Can I leave the car with you, Mickey? I'll come and get it tomorrow."
  I looked back toward my building. I could see Clive and Karen on the
  roof brandishing their guns and watching our activities.
  "I need my two copies of the agreement," I said. "You keep your powers
  of attorney. You have now assigned your assets and neither of you have
  any holdings in any of the companies named on the
 336 LEN DEIGHTON

 schedule. Helicopter? Sure, Ingrid. The way things are today that makes
 good sense."
  Budd came running across the lot, expecting no doubt to find Petrovitch
  sitting at the controls of the helicopter. When he saw Vic Crichton
  sitting next to the pilot he halted suddenly. "What's happening?"
  "Save it for another time, Budd," I said. He turned to Ingrid, who tied
  the belt of her coat in an agitated gesture that a shrink would have
  called self-abnegatory.
  "It's all over, Budd," she said hurriedly. "You and me, it's all over.
  I love my husband. Zach and I are reconciled. It would never have worked
  out."
  Budd's face registered amazement. He looked at me and then at Vic and
  then at Ingrid again. "Are they making you say this? You're being
  threatened?"
  Ingrid gave me the briefest of glances, wet her lips, and said, "No,
  Budd. It's entirely my own decision. I've been ill, and now I'm going
  to be all right."
  "I can't believe it," said Budd. "You mean we're not going away
  together? You promised."
  She looked at me again and bit her lip before telling him. "You'd better
  know I've sworn out a complaint before a magistrate."
  "You've what?" said Budd. He waggled his head violently, like a dog
  shaking itself dry or a man trying to unhook his head from his neck.
  "Nhat am I supposed to have done?" His movements were clumsy and awful
  to see. There was none of that detached skill that actors use to convey
                   VIOLENT WARD 337

 grief. Budd was flapping around, crippled and uncoordinated and out of
 control.
  "There will be no indictment unless you try to make contact again," said
  Ingrid calmly.
  "Wh-what?" I'd never known him to stutter before. "What for?"
  "Trying to persuade me to help you," said Ingrid.
  "Help you what?"
  "Mll my husband."
  I looked at Vic Crichton. He was crouched in the front seat and holding
  the headset to his ears as if totally oblivious to what was going on
  behind him.
  The gun was still in Budd's pocket and I thought he would reach for it,
  but in his anxiety he seemed to have forgotten about it. He stepped to-
  ward her and, without touching her, said softly, "How can you do this
  to me, Ingrid?"
  "It's my marriage," she said. "I had to do everything I knew to save
  it."
  She swung around and climbed up into the back seat of the chopper. Then
  she clipped her seat belt together as if she'd done it many times
  before. I guess rides in helicopters were nothing new for rich ladies
  like Ingrid.
  "I can't stand the stink," said Budd, looking up at her, his face
  contorted with rage. "It's the smell of treachery!" he yelled above the
  sound of the engine. "You're a rotten whore!"
  Ingrid looked at him eye to eye without blink- 338    LEN DEIGHTON

 ing. "Once an actor always an actor," she said, and closed the door and
 locked it.
  I'll never forgive her for that final jab of the knife. Like a rich kid
  who couldn't learn the value of money, Ingrid had become a spendthrift
  with love. Her supply was infinite. She'd never had to crave it and
  cherish it the way the rest of us did. All her life she'd been showered
  with love from every side. There were always men around who would die
  for her. Budd was no more than the next in line.
  "Let's go," said Vic to the pilot. "Goodbye, old chap!" he said politely
  to Budd through the open window. "See you next week, Mickey." The pilot
  speeded up the blades to a scream, and the shiny machine lifted into the
  air.
  "Don't promise," I told him. A flicker of a smile went across Ingrid's
  face, but she wasn't looking at me.
  "Come back to the office, Budd," I said. I put my hand out to touch him.
  "I'll tell you all about it."
  "No, no, no!" he shouted, his eyes wide and his hair blowing crazily in
  the downwind of the blades.
  As the chopper was in that tilted-forward attitude they assume as they
  ride the air cushion, Budd went running after it across the potholed
  empty lot. He pulled the gun from his pocket and was firing it as fast
  as he could pull the trigger. Over the rough ground he couldn't keep up
  with the forward speed of the chopper, and it drew ahead of him. At that
  range, and on the run, he would have had to be Annie Oakley to hit
  anything. The chopper rose majestically into the sky. There was no
                  VIOLENT WARD    339

 sign that pilot or passengers were aware that they were being attacked.
 I saw Vic calmly turning his head as if asking Ingrid if she was
 comfortable enough in the back seat.
  I watched Budd as he went running off down the street, still waving the
  gun. I called after him but he seemed not to hear me. When it was
  obvious that he would not return I went back to the office and dialed
  Danny's number again. It was still busy. I began to wonder what kind of
  signal I'd get if Danny's building was in flames.
  Miss Huth heard me trying to use the phone and came in to ask who I
  wanted to call.
  "Keep calling my son, will you, Miss Huth? I'd like to know he's safe."
  I looked out the window. There was a sudden flurry of traffic. Some
  cars, obviously stolen, were crammed with drunks who went past shouting
  and singing. Once a black-and-white went past at speed. It took some
  ill-aimed rocks, and a bottle hit its roof and bounced off to smash in
  the street. But most of the attention of the lawbreakers had turned to
  looting, and the streets were filled with people carrying their plunder
  home and coming back for more. It was stores rather than homes that were
  being broken open. People didn't want used items when they could get
  them in their original cartons complete with warranty. TV sets were
  favored, along with VCRs and stereos. Camcorders, computers, and fax
  machines were also of a tempting size, weight, and shape. Anything
  fitted with wheels was vulnerable to the covetous ambitions of some-
   340  LEN DEIGHTON

 one or other. A long leather sofa, a huge freezer, and a large
 photocopying machine had all been manhandled past by means of the tiny
 wheels fitted to them.
  It was tempting to glue oneself to the TV. Watching the tube converted
  it all into entertainment and made the immediate environment seem less
  dangerous, and yet new fires were cropping up in all parts of the city
  as fire bombs were lobbed into shops and hotels from passing cars.
  Miss Huth said, "There is always the busy signal from your son. Now I
  am going home."
  "Will you be all right?"
  "Of course I will be all right." She put a cover on the typewriter, put
  the lid on her tin of cookies, locked the petty cash, and went off as
  if nothing unusual was happening. But from the way she made her exit I
  had the feeling that she was holding me personally responsible for the
  riots.

  There were new fires and plenty of wrecked cars, some of them stolen
  ones deliberately wrecked by drunken drivers. The hospitals were now
  providing the numbers of people injured and killed by the rioters, but
  I drove across to Danny's place without seeing anything
  life-threatening. Of course I was worried sick that something had
  happened to Danny, but when I got to his apartment I found Betty there
  already. She was sitting on the sofa talking to him.
  "Mickey, darling! How wonderful!" She was
                   VIOLENT WARD 341

 looking terrific: the combined effects of losing about fifteen pounds and
an
 unrestrained rampage through the designer boutiques of Rodeo Drive. "I was
 worried about him," Betty told me, stroking Danny's head. Danny usually
 objected vociferously when she did things like that, but today he smiled.
"I
 guess you were worried too," she said.
  "No, I just happened to be passing," I said.
  Danny said, "Robyna will be back in a minute." He got to his feet and
  looked out the window to see if she was coming.
  Betty looked at me. I shrugged. "I didn't come to see Robyna," I said.
  "It's getting worse," said Danny, looking through a pair of Zeiss
  binoculars he'd got in exchange for the fancy sports shoes his Uncle Sean
  had sent him. Was it a college or a garage sale that he went to every day?
  Robyna arrived, her hair awry, buffing and puffing and cuddling a bag of
  groceries. "You're still here? Good," she said. Without even acknowledging
  my presence she went and kissed Betty on the cheek. I could see Robyna got
  along just fine with Betty. Robyna went into the kitchen, set out some cups
  and saucers, and started making tea.
  "None for me," I called. "I'm just passing through."
  "It's getting worse out there," said Danny again. "The next-door apartment
  is empty. We have the key; you could stay there. It's real nice inside."
  "Stay next door?" I said. "When I've got a proper home to go to?"
 342 LEN DEIGHTON

  "I'd love to stay, Danny," Betty told him. "I'm nervous with all these
  fires and shootings."
  "I'll look after you, Mom," said Danny, and went and put his arm around
  her.
  I said, "Okay, I'll have some tea as long as I don't have to drink it
  with milk."
  "I thought you Irishmen all loved tea," called Robyna from the kitchen.
  "No," I said. "You're confusing it with boiled cabbage. It's the Brits
  who like tea."
  Robyna came in with a huge wooden tray. On it was a brown teapot, and
  a cake decorated with pecans and icing. Danny was waiting with a knife
  to cut the cake. Robyna held up one of the teacups and said, "A house
  present from Betty. Aren't they cute?"
  The cups and saucers were very ritzy: fat little blue Chinese guys on
  a rickety bridge. A house present! I hope this wasn't a sign that Robyna
  was starting to build a nest.
  "It's like a celebration," said Betty, as Danny cut slices of cake and
  handed them out on matching little blue Chinese pattern plates with
  silver-plated forks.
  "It's just a frozen Sara Lee," said Robyna. "All the best stuff was
  gone."
  I was biting into the cake when I realized what she meant. "Wait a
  minute, Robyna," I said, swallowing hard. "Did you just go out and steal
  this cake we're eating?"
  'There's no other way of shopping, Mr. Mur-                   VIOLENT WARD 343

 phy," she replied calmly. "The shops are all closed because of the riots."
  "The shops are closed because of the riots," I repeated. "So you go out
  and loot the goddamned markets?"
  "Don't go on at her, dear," said Betty, in that dreamy tone she adopts
  when she's not been listening to what I say. "The cake is lovely,
  Robyna. It was so considerate of you to fix something for us."
  "It's like an English tea," said Robyna. "I was going to do cucumber
  sandwiches too. One of the girls in my chemistry class is English. She's
  a nutrition major."
  "A nutrition major!"
  "Eat your cake," said Betty, "and be grateful your son is sharing with
  such a sensible girl." Oh, they were thick, very thick. Poor Danny.
  "What do you think of Mom's new career?" said Danny, reaching for
  another piece of cake. "Pretty nifty, eh? You heard she packages
  productions: stars, writers, directors, the whole schmear."
  "Do I hear a career in philosophy creaking at the foundations?"
  "Well, I've always been interested in directing," said Danny.
  "Of course you have," I said. "Being interested in directing is as near
  as anyone can get to being jobless without the stigma of unemployment."
  "I'll find a place for him," said Betty, giving him an affectionate pat
  on the arm. "Just as long as he graduates, I'll find something for him."
  Danny
 344 LEN DEIGHTON

 smiled smugly. Telling him stuff like that wasn't going to motivate him.
  "He could handle the power lunch," I suggested.
  "Why don't you stay overnight too, Dad?" Danny coaxed. I could put your
  car in my lockup."
  So he'd noticed the way in which I was going to the window regularly to
  make sure those bastards hadn't zeroed in on my car.
  "Maybe," I said. There were developments along the Robyna-Danny axis I
  didn't care for. I didn't want Betty there brainwashing him, or plotting
  with Robyna, without me being able to put in my point of view. Betty's
  new career in movies seemed to have turned the kid's head.
CHAPTER 16

 Like most of the city's inhabitants, I spent many of those early hours of
 the riots comparing the TV coverage with wary glances out the window,
 until eventually I could hardly distinguish between those two distorting
 sheets of glass. The denizens of the newsrooms welcomed a seemingly
 endless stream of professionals. Reporters and camera teams, they came
 wide-eyed and excited and gleefully overloaded with news that was theirs
 for the taking on every street corner. And by nightfall my memories fused
 with theirs, and I indiscriminately looted their stories and carried them
 off to tell them as my own.
  "Come away from the TV, Danny. Robyna has helped me, and I've fixed
  corned beef hash the way you like it."
 346            LEN DEIGHTON

  The smoke-darkened blue sky changed to night. When the sky had
  disappeared, the city was crisscrossed with the orange-colored dots of
  sodium streetlights, which became blobs as the cameras tipped and
  joggled to get a new angle. A camera follows the crowd: bang! you almost
  feel the fist that strikes it. Race down the street, camera running,
  people screaming. Is it television, is it reality, or is it neither?
  "There is someone on the roof. Jesus, there is someone on the roof!"
  "It's okay, Dad. It's just my neighbor."
  "He's got a gun, Danny!"
  "All my neighbors have guns. We're doing two hours: turn and turnabout.
  I said I'd spell him at midnight."
  "Stay out of it, Danny."
  "They might try and torch the lockups," said Danny, guessing that
  concern for my Caddie would help me see it his way. "That's what they
  did across the street. Folks use them for storage."
  "I'll come up with you," I said.
  Those night hours on the roof with Danny will never fade from my memory.
  The view across the burning city was awesome. Sometimes for an hour or
  so Los Angeles seemed to be going to sleep, and then the sudden glare
  of red and yellow flames tore holes in the night to show where another
  building had been ignited and blown apart. What a panorama-with the city
  twinkling like fairyland and large sections of South Central totally
  dark as electricity outages severed the power connections.
                  VIOLENT WARD   347

  It was cold on the roof, but it was a chance to talk to Danny in a way we
  hadn't talked in a long time. He was a good kid. We talked about football
  and automobiles. We talked about politics and his allowance. We talked
  about everything except the riots and his grades; he made sure of that.
  "Did you see where the police seized a Packard Darrin? Sounds like the one
  you were looking for."
  "How do you know?"
  "It was in the paper. The owner was murdered in a house in Topanga. I was
  going to send you the clipping, but I figured you'd have seen it. You
  didn't read about it?"
  "I haven't got time to read the papers."
  "What happens to stuff like that? Will they sell that car at auction?"
  "I don't know."
  "I thought maybe you wanted to buy it."
  "At one time I did. But I lost interest in it. I like my Caddie."
  After I sat on the roof with Danny for an hour and a half I was almost
  frozen to death. Two of Danny's neighbors came and took over from us, and
  brought us hot soup.
  The apartment next door to Danny was surprisingly comfortable. I guess the
  residents-an Iranian couple plus a brother-in-law who ran a plush nail and
  beauty salon in Beverly Hills-made a good living, but they were smart
  enough to hide all signs of it until you were inside. Then, pow!there was
  booze and cigarettes and silk walls and shag carpeting everywhere you
  looked, and no mat-
   348 LEN DEIGHTON

 ter where you strayed there was an ashtray within arm's reach. Were they
 smokers! You could smell it everywhere. And there was every kind of ashtray
 you've ever seen. Brass ashtrays and ceramic ones, Mickey Mouse ashtrays and
 thatched cottage ashtrays and ashtrays that played a tune. Some tobacco
 kooks they must have been. They'd all gone to Vegas for a vacation and given
 Danny the key so he could look after the apartment for them. The Iranians
 had called Danny at midnight. They were watching the LA riot scenes on TV
in
 a hotel room in Vegas and worrying.
  When I came down from the roof shivering and frightened and burping with
  the taste of tomato soup, Betty was already in bed and asleep in the big
  master bedroom with its fluffy carpet and deep pile bedspread. I must have
  made a noise or something; she woke up when I came into the room.
  "Hello, Mickey," she said. "Is Danny okay? The poor baby."
  "He's a grown-up now," I said. "We can't keep calling him baby. You got to
  let him go, honey."
  She sat up in bed. She was wearing one of Danny's striped shirts as a
  nightdress. It looked good on her. "We never talk anymore," she said.
  "You're looking swell these days, Betty."
  "I wish I could say the same about you, Mickey. You look like hell."
  "It's cold out there."
  "I told you not to go. You want me to make you a hot drink? They got
  everything here."
  "Neighbors fixed tomato soup for us."
                  VIOLENT WARD   349

  "Tomato soup doesn't agree with you, Mickey. It gives you indigestion."
  "Now you tell me. Maybe I'll just close my eyes for a minute."
  "It's nice here . . . this apartment, I mean. Did I tell you? I've got
  to get out of my place. The landlord wants it for himself."
  "You can use the Woodland Hills house if you want."
  "Can I really, Mickey? I'll pay rent. I'm earning big bucks now."
  "You don't have to pay me anything. That place is too big for one
  person."
  "You'll be there too? Is that what you mean?"
  "I've nowhere else to go," I said.
  "We'd need a new bed," she said. "One like this would be just great,
  wouldn't it?"
  "I'll let you know in the morning," I said.
  "Oh, Mickey. I do love you."
  I never did get up to switch off the TV. It was going all night. All
  normal programming was dumped, and the major local channels went over
  to a minute-by-minute news service. More and more pictures came in from
  the helicopters that now had the sky to themselves.
  As dawn broke over the city, the cameras revealed empty streets littered
  with unimaginable amounts of debris, wrappings, rubbish, and discarded
  loot. Hundreds of fires were burning in the city, and they'd produced
  a fairy-tale gauze over the whole basin as far as the Hollywood Hills.
  The smoke rising from the fires was solid and black, and
 350 LEN DEIGHTON

 the TV news desk reported that there was intermittent gunfire and snipers
 so active that Fire Department personnel were no longer willing to enter
 South Central without police escorts.
  The looters showed a considerate willingness to plunder only in regular
  shopping hours, and only when daylight was fully switched on did the TV
  vans get their cameras rolling at some of the most popular scenes of
  pillage. Men, women, and children were clambering out of smashed stores,
  laughing and joking as they staggered away under black plastic trash
  bags bulging with stolen goods. The supply of booty was dwindling now,
  but there were still TV sets to be found by the venturesome. Others had
  to be content with Teflon pans, toaster ovens, and blankets; from one
  store came a dozen gleeful kids bowling brand-new car tires along.
  Housewives were shopping without tears, coming out of a Hughes Market
  with bags filled to overflowing with frozen pizzas, steaks, Daz,
  Palmolive, and ice cream. The violence and hatred of yesterday seemed
  to have been largely replaced by relief and good humor. The cops were
  obviously under orders to stand back, and they were doing so. The
  looters were summoning that gleeful hysteria that marks the finale of
  a hit show.
  Suddenly I woke up fully. The bed was empty.
  The door opened suddenly. "Mom! Felicity is here," announced Danny. In
  the other direction, Betty's head emerged from the bathroom. "She wants
  to see you," Danny told her. "And there's fresh coffee next door. How
  did you two sleep?"
                  VIOLENT WARD   351

  "That's none of your goddamned business," said Betty and disappeared back
  into the bathroom. I could hear the water running fiercely.
  Felicity pushed past Danny and came into the bedroom to look around at the
  furnishings. "Hey, not bad!" she pronounced. I pulled the bedclothes up to
  my chin. She laughed.
  "Felicity wanted to see the apartment," Danny explained, when he saw I was
  mad at his letting her in like that.
  "Is Betty up and about?" she said.
  "Hours ago," said Danny before I could answer.
  "I didn't get a lot of sleep last night," I said.
  "What do you think? What do you think?" Felicity kicked the mattress under
  me to get my attention. She was like that.
  "Think about what?"
  "About me, Rambo!" She was pirouetting around with her arms held high.
  I recognized a cue when I got one. "You look sensational, Felicity.
  Sensational!"
  "Bastard!" she said. I guess you can't do anything right for some people.
  "You're thinner, more lovely, and rich. What do you want me to tell you?"
  "I've had it done."
  C1"at?"
  "Do you want coffee, Dad?" said Danny, a sure signal that he didn't expect
  me to escape in a hurry.
  "Cream, no sugar."
  "Tummy tuck, nose job, cheek implants, new eyebrow line. My sign was in the
  ascendant; the
 352 LEN DEIGHTON

 numerologist said the numbers figured, so I said, 'Do it all, baby, do it
 all!"'
  "Great, great," I said. "But stop spinning around, will you, Felicity
  honey? I've just woken up and you're making me dizzy."
  "Can you smell all that burning and stuff? The whole city stinks of
  smoke and ashes this morning."
  "In this apartment who would notice?" I said. I suppose I should have
  noticed all that cosmetic surgery when I was in her car but I spent all
  my time with my eyes on the road.
  Danny brought two cups of coffee. I took them both, pushed Felicity
  gently out of the bedroom, and knocked on the bathroom door. "Your
  coffee is here, lover," I said.
  Betty came out again, this time wearing a clinging pale-blue silk robe.
  She smiled, downed her coffee, and went off to find Felicity. It was
  like the concourse of Union Station.
  "Felicity is up and about early," I said when Betty returned. Betty
  looks good in pale blue.
  "She brought my overnight bag. I've been staying with her the last week.
  We've been going over the preproduction on this movie." She sipped her
  coffee. "What did you do to Budd?"
  "What did I do to Budd?"
  "You got it word perfect: now answer."
  "I didn't do anything to him. What's wrong with him?"
  "He called Maureen last night. We're his agent now, you know. He sacked
  Pop Pedersen."
  "So I heard."
                  VIOLENT WARD   353

  "He says he's looking for mature roles."
  "Aren't we all," I said.
  Danny popped his head around the bedroom door. "The TV just showed a guy
  arriving outside a store in South Central in a Yellow Cab. He looted
  himself a microwave oven, put it in the cab, and they drove away. They
  showed it happening on TV. Can you beat that?"
  "Stay at home today, Danny," I said. "There's going to be a lot of
  reaction out there."
  "The cops are doing nothing," said Danny.
  Betty said, "The cops are mad at everyone from the mayor to the
  President of the United States of America. The cops figure the hell with
  the public."
  "Wait a minute, Betty," I said. "You are a liberal. Aren't you the one
  who collected nearly a thousand signatures petitioning Chief Gates about
  police brutality?"
  She was looking at her toenails. "A man on TV said the President should
  be talking to the arsonists, not complaining about the verdict the jury
  brought in. What's the goddamned Constitution all about anyway?"
  "I don't know," I said. "I need at least four cups of coffee and a shave
  before I can discuss the Constitution. Anyway, what was all that stuff
  about Budd?"
  "He's writing a screenplay. He says you gave him the idea. Some kind of
  screwball story about a loopy rich housewife planning to knock off her
  husband while telling everyone that he's trying to kill her. He was a
  bit incoherent over the phone, but I
 354 LEN DEIGHTON

 go for it. Maybe it's for Greta Scacchi. All I remember is Budd says he
 wants to play the heavy."
  "Budd wants to play the heavy?"
  "He made it sound like you knew about it," she said.
  .Not me," I said. "I never heard of any loopy housewives, let alone rich
  ones."
  "He wants me to be the executive producer. He said the time has come for
  Hollywood to make a movie with a lovable villain. Do you think he's on
  to something?"
  "You'd produce it?"
  Betty smoothed the robe over her hips. "To tell you the truth, Mickey,
  I was thinking of getting myself an Equity card."
  "Equity card?"
  "What was that step you used to teach me, Mickey? Hop, shuffle, step,
  Heel, heel. Toe, heel; toe heel. Is that the way you do it?"
  "Hey, Betty. That's not bad," I said. "Hop, shuffle, step." I could see
  she'd been taking lessons.
  I remained at Danny's all that day. It was late afternoon when Zachary
  Petrovitch located me. He came buzzing in at the yoke of his own bright
  red chopper and landed in the road outside. Goldie was with him, of
  course, sitting up front toting a Skorpion machine gun. They'd both been
  up all night, hopping around from-spot to spot, trying to locate Ingrid,
  and now their faces were drawn and gray.
  I climbed up into the chopper and Petrovitch took off immediately. The
  blades beat the air to a fury; beneath us gangs of looters waved at us
  and
                  VIOLENT WARD   355

 grinned, thinking we were a TV camera crew. Petrovitch and Goldie had
 discovered the whole scam: Vic Crichton and Ingrid had been close for a long
 time, and now they had assumed new identities with the help of Rainbow and
 departed to collect their loot.
  "I never thought this would happen," said Petrovitch. "She outguessed me."
  "She's an unusual woman, Mr. Petrovitch," I said. "You figured that the one
  she persuaded to murder you would be the one she ran away with. It was a
  natural mistake."
  "What else do you know?"
  "I suppose she's gone with Vic Crichton. Budd Byron, the guy she was making
  a fool out of, was the one trying to kill you."
  "I covered everything except the possibility that she'd change her
  identity. They'll get away with it. I can't stop them. They've got real
  passports and Amex cards and everything. That company in Lima will yield
  anything up to a hundred million in negotiable assets. I can't even sue
  them or sue the bank. I chose Peru because it has no effective treaties
  with the U.S."
  "It was Vic Crichton who was with her at the house in Topanga. He killed
  the old guy," said Goldie.
  "Is Crichton in love, or is it the money?" said Petrovitch.
  "I don't know," I said. "Crichton is a Brit. The Brits never fall in love;
  it's against the law."
  "When they get to Lima they're sure to use
 356   LEN DEIGHTON

 their authority to transfer the assets to another bank or into another
 company. Has Crichton set up anything like that down there?"
  - "Not to my knowledge," I said. "I guessed there might be something like
  this in the works, but I couldn't see exactly how it would operate."
  "If you guessed, why didn't you do something about it?" said Petrovitch
  with an uncharacteristic bitterness. "You're an attorney, aren't you?
  You're supposed to protect the public from swindlers."
  "I did do something," I said. "I got them to agree to having the power
  of attorney instead of bearer shares."
  "What are you getting at?"
  "The assets went from your company and the Westbridge company to Ingrid
  and Crichton. They then signed powers of attorney. They fly to Peru and
  then reacquire everything in the new jurisdiction."
  "Don't remind me," said Petrovitch.
  "They knew they would change identity. They agreed to the powers of
  attorney because that would enable them to receive the money for them-
  selves in their new identities."
  "I know all that."
  "But they can't get it," I told him.
  "Why not?"
  "Because the authority vested in a power of attorney ends at the death
  of the signatory. Ingrid Petrovitch and Victor Crichton are certified
  dead by the Los Angeles County Coroner, and you can't be deader than
  that. That's why Rainbow makes so
                VIOLENT WARD  357

 much money: those death certificates are one hundred percent kosher, just
 like the passports and social security numbers he provides."
  "Wait a minute," said Petrovitch.
  "You make sure the people in Lima, Peru, know that Ingrid Petrovitch and
  Victor Crichton are dead. Fax them copies of the death certificates, and
  there is no way the powers of attorney can be used to do anything."
  "I believe you're right. But I have no way of preventing the transfer of
  funds."
  "With the two beneficiaries dead, all shares except the nominal two
  percent held by the partnership against voting deadlocks revert to you in
  effect. They will be held against your instructions by the bank."
  He looked at me. He got it of course, but apart from a brief and mirthless
  little smile he didn't show the tumult that must have been in his mind.
  "And Crichton didn't object to any of that?" Petrovitch was giving all his
  attention to flying the chopper. There was a lot of smoke, and three TV
  choppers were flying around in tight circles, risking everything for
  close-up pictures.
  "Vic Crichton read it very hurriedly, and Mrs. Petrovitch didn't read it
  at all. Crichton was mainly concerned with being able to pass the power on
  to his assumed identity; he didn't remember that the power of attorney
  would end on the date of Rainbow's death certificate. People never are
  scared at the sight of their own names anyway. It wasn't easy for them to
  see that, out of all the names in the
 358  LEN DEIGHTON

 world, theirs were the only ones that would spoil their plan."
  "Will you look over there," said Goldie. "It looks like your office is
  burning, Mickey."
  I looked; he was right. "I'm not surprised," I said.
  ,,No," said Goldie, trying to be very subtle. "I guess with all this
  rioting there'll be no difficulties with your insurance company."
  "Nor with the cops, the county, or the Securities and Exchange
  Commission," I said.
  Goldie looked at me and then at Petrovitch, who became very concerned
  with his piloting. "So what's happened to them?" said Goldie, who had
  not followed the conversation because he was so eager to look down at
  the riot-torn streets. Now, having seen what he wanted to see, he
  relaxed. "Tell it in plain English, so I can understand."
  "Vic Crichton and Ingrid Petrovitch are officially dead," I said. "The
  certified death certificates will by now have been supplied by the
  county. The doctor who attended them for the mandatory ten days prior
  to death will have signed to say their deaths were due to natural
  causes. Two bodies, of approximately the right size and weight, will
  have been embalmed and hermetically sealed into caskets and put on a
  plane to London." I looked at my watch. "Collected at the other end by
  now, if my calculations are right and LAX is open again."
  "Quit kidding," said Goldie.
  "They can't get the money," Petrovitch told him. "Murphy has completely
  snookered them.
                   VIOLENT WARD 359

 They can't collect the money or exercise any authority. They're dead." He
 nodded. "You took a mighty big chance on guessing right," he said
 reflectively.
  "Not much risk," I said. "If the two of them didn't plan to cheat you and
  die the way I suspected, the powers of attorney would still be current and
  effective."
  "So we didn't lose the money?" said Goldie.
  "You made three million," I said. "Ingrid and Crichton were insured for one
  point five million each while they were acting as principals."
  "We can figure out the details while we're flying to Lima," said
  Petrovitch. He'd already pointed the chopper in the direction of Camarillo
  airport. "Mickey had better come along. He's the only one around here who
  hasn't made a dumb move."
  I could feel Goldie bristle at that verdict. To change the subject, I said,
  "By the way, Goldie, that's the neatest rug I've ever seen. I've been ad-
  miring it ever since the night of the party."
  Goldie ran his fingers across his head. "It's my own hair, you creep," he
  said awkwardly. Goldie never was able to take a joke.