Free Troublemaker by Joseph Hansen Page A

somebody?"
    "No. Fists are all he knows. He hits people. He's been in court about it." Bobby lengthened his stride toward the apartment deck, where the chrome-plated stem of the punching bag glittered. Dave kept pace.
    "Rick had a new lover. Wasn't Ace worried?"
    "What?" Bobby turned sharply. The radio fell. A lanky brown dog came from under a faded beach umbrella and sniffed at it. Was it a lunch box? Bobby kicked at the dog and picked up the radio. The dog slunk back to the umbrella, where a mound of old white flesh slept in gingham ruffles. "He never mentioned it. Anyway, he wouldn't hurt Rick. Hell, he was always protecting the big, dumb slob. They were friends. A long time."
    "Till death did them part," Dave said.
    "Yeah," Bobby said. "Get lost, will you?"
    Two miles up the beach from Ace Kegan's, on battered benches in the sun, along a gritty walk that marked off Surfs crumbling ocean-front apartment houses and dim stores from the beach, old men argued with each other in loud Yiddish. Long-haired, bearded boys played guitars and tambourines and grinned while a bowlegged little old woman with a Day-Glo kerchief over her hair did a slow Polish village dance. A pack of breedless dogs ran past, tongues lolling.
    The Hang Ten turned a blank stucco face to the scene. Bolted to its door was a wooden surfer, clumsily chiseled in low relief. Wind had piled trash at his feet, greasy burrito wrappers, Big Mac boxes, Styro-foam cups. These crunched under Dave's shoes as he put on his glasses to read a yellowed card tacked at the edge of the door. In faded felt-pen lettering, the bar's hours showed.   noon- 2 a.m. He checked his watch. Noon had passed but the door's three padlocks were clamped.
    He found a phone booth and dialed his office. For messages. There'd been half a dozen calls. His secretary told him about them in a thin whimper. A terrified skinny little girl of sixty, Miss Taney had teetered on the edge of nervous collapse all her life. The names of three of the callers meant nothing to Dave. The fourth had been Lieutenant Yoshiba of the Los Santos police, upset about something. The fifth had been Heather Wendell, upset about something. The sixth had been Gail Ewing, Tom Owens's sister —upset about something.
    Yoshiba was out to lunch. At the Wendell house it was the gaunt giant Billy who picked up the receiver. The lost husband and father. Found. Dave estimated it was the phone in his son's rooms he was using. That would put him near the bottles. He sounded as if he'd had one in his hand for a few hours. One or more. He tried to work up indignation. Why didn't Dave leave his wife alone? Wasn't it bad enough to have lost her son? What did Dave mean, telling Ace Kegan he thought she'd killed Rick? He, Billy, had heard Ace say it at the funeral. Where was Heather? At a lawyer's office, that's where.
    "I'll get back to her," Dave said.
    "You're in trouble," Billy warned him.
    "I've got a lot of company," Dave said.
    The dogs barked into the phone again at Tom Owens's beautiful beached ark. Gail Ewing said, "I'm extremely unhappy with you for disturbing Tom. He had nothing to do with this horrible business. It was poor judgment on his part to take that boy in. Obviously. But that doesn't mean people like you have the right to harass him."
    "People like me aren't bad compared to the police," Dave said. "I haven't told them the tie-in yet, Mrs. Ewing. From what your brother said, there didn't seem much reason to. He didn't act harassed. But you do. Why? No, let me tell you. You know something your brother doesn't. What is it, Mrs. Ewing? Were you on the extension phone Monday when Larry Johns asked Rick Wendell for fifteen hundred dollars?"
    Dave heard her draw a sharp breath.
    He said, "That's why you called me —right? To tell me about it?"
    "Yes," she said. "No."
    "I can send Lieutenant Yoshiba," he offered.
    She said flatly, "Where are you? I don't want to talk here."
    "It's lunchtime," he said. "There's a place called