Free Dead Pigeon by William Campbell Gault Page A

troubled me at the time. Mike had told me Gorman was a dealer. I had investigated and found out it was true. It was when Gorman was out on bail that Mike had warned me about the vendetta. But the history of the man, according to the Beverly Hills police, had never included any acts of violence.
    The day was again overcast when I left the hotel. The sun was out in the Valley. The place called Second Chance was a long, narrow, gray wooden building in Tarzana. It looked like it had once been an army barracks.
    There was no doorbell; I went in. There were several steel chairs in this small room and a desk next to the open doorway that led to the hall. A heavyset man in faded jeans and a tan T-shirt was sitting behind the desk. The man standing in front of it turned as I closed the door.
    It was Gorman. He was thinner and his hair a shade grayer. He smiled.
    “I figured you’d show up here,” he said. “It’s about Mike, isn’t it? I read about it in the paper. Were you the man who phoned?”
    I shook my head. “Could we talk?”
    “Why not?” he said. “This way.”
    He led me down a long hall past a string of closed doors to an open door at the end. There was a small bureau in this room, an army cot, two wooden kitchen chairs, and a draped area against one wall that probably served as a clothes closet.
    He sighed. “It’s a long way from Beverly Hills, isn’t it? Sit down and tell me why you’re here. If you want to know where I was the night Mike died, you can ask the man at the desk. He runs this place.”
    “That’s not the reason I’m here, Tony.” I sat down on one of the chairs, he on the cot. “I’ve been thinking about the trial.”
    “You’re thinking I might have got jobbed?”
    I nodded.
    “Callahan, I never put anybody on the stuff. I had the Beverly Hills trade and the studio trade, sniffers, all of ’em. That was enough for me; I’m not that greedy. They all paid up front. But Mike, ugh!”
    “What about him?”
    “He was into me for over two grand. And when I pressed him, he finked to you. My only charity case—and he finks!” He took a deep breath. “I liked the guy! Nobody else ever got into me for that kind of money.”
    I said, “I had no idea Mike was into the heavy stuff. Marijuana, I knew about that. He was smoking that when we were roomies.”
    “That damned fool,” he said. “The golden boy! The way I see it, he killed himself.”
    I said nothing.
    “Any other favorite suspect?” he asked.
    “A man named Clauss.”
    “Emil Clauss?”
    I nodded. “Do you know the man?”
    “All my brethren know him,” he said. “A vicious cop and on the take. But he never bothered me. The small dealers were his bread and butter. Beverly Hills was not on his beat.”
    “The search is out for him, Tony. Maybe you have friends who can help us.”
    “I’ve never been a stoolie,” he said, “but maybe in this case. A crooked cop who blew away an unarmed dealer? I could switch. I’ll ask around. Leave me your phone number.”
    “I’m staying at the Beverly Hills Hotel.”
    “So was I,” he said sadly. “For years. And now this!”
    I couldn’t see Gorman as a killer. Asking the man at the desk for Tony’s alibi would be ungracious. I didn’t need to. He informed me that Tony had been sound asleep the night Mike was killed.
    I drove out of the Valley sun and headed back down toward foggy Santa Monica. Clauss had probably killed that unarmed drug dealer because he didn’t pay off. It had lost him his job and turned him more vicious than ever. Both Denny and Heinie had confirmed that Mike was far from solvent; he couldn’t even pay his bar tabs. That would be pickings too small to interest Clauss. But Clauss was not a rational man.
    Crystal was out in front, clipping her solitary rosebush. “Now what?” she asked.
    “I thought maybe I could take you to some expensive place for lunch.”
    “Are you coming on to me?”
    “Nope. Just a friendly visit to an old