The Man Who Shot Lewis Vance Read Free Page A

something?”
    “Or something,” I said.
    “He’s dead, lady,” Wayne said, pushing away from the wall. “And we’re going to call the police.”
    “Dead?” she repeated, and backed away from me. “I don’t want no part of ‘dead,’” she said, looking for something, finally spotting her red bag and clacking her red high heels toward it.
    “You’re going to have to stay awhile,” Wayne said, stepping in front of the door. “I don’t like this much, but you walk out of here and that’s one more complication that has to be unwound.”
    “You didn’t talk like that to Claire Trevor in Stagecoach ,” Olivia Fontaine said with her hands on her hips. “She was a hooker and you was … were nice to her for Chrissake.”
    “That was a movie, lady,” Wayne said.
    “Me, other girls I know, love that movie,” she said, forgetting for a second the corpse on the bed. “I saw it five times. Hooker goes riding off with you at the end to a new life, ranch or something. Only thing is, I thought you were Randolph Scott.”
    The second knock at the door was louder than Olivia’s. It was the one-two knock of someone who was used to knocking at hotel room doors.
    Olivia, Wayne, and I looked at each other. Then Wayne nodded at me.
    “Who is it?” I asked.
    “Hotel detective,” came a familiar voice. “Got a call to come up here.”
    Wayne shrugged. Olivia looked for someplace to hide, found nothing, and sat in the chair I had recently passed out in. I opened the door, and he came in. He was Merit Beason, sixty, a massive white-haired man who had once been shot by a Singapore sailor. The shot had hit him in the neck, and when it had become clear he would survive, it also became clear he would never be able to turn his neck again. Hence Merit Beason became known as Straight-Ahead Beason. The stiff neck cost him his job as a Los Angeles cop but it gave him a strange dignity that got him steady if not high-paying work in hotels. Straight-Ahead looked like a no-nonsense guy, a stand-up, almost British butler in appearance, with strong ham arms and a craggy face. His suit was always pressed and he always wore a tie. Straight-Ahead avoided a lot of trouble just by looking impressive, but he wasn’t going to be able to avoid this one.
    He took it all in fast, Olivia, me, Wayne, and the body.
    “You know the guy on the bed, Merit?” I said.
    He stepped into the room, closed the door behind him, and looked at me carefully.
    “Before we talk,” he said without turning his body to John Wayne, which would have been the only way to acknowledge the actor, “I want the cowboy to ease the radiator out of his pocket and put it nice and gentle on the dresser. You think we can arrange it?”
    Wayne took the gun out and did just what Straight-Ahead wanted.
    “Good start,” Beason said, though he hadn’t turned to watch. In the thirty years he had looked straight ahead, he had developed great peripheral vision. “I’ve seen the gent staining the Murphy around the lobby now and then. Gave him a light rousting. Mean customer. Threatened to cut up Merit Beason. Can you imagine that, Toby?”
    “Can’t imagine it, Merit,” I said, shaking my head for both of us. Something he said hit me gently and whispered back that I should remember it.
    “You or the cowboy or the lady shoot him?” Merit asked.
    “None of us,” I answered.
    “Speak for yourself,” Olivia said, jumping up. “I didn’t shoot him is all I know.”
    “Sal,” Beason said, his body moving toward the corpse, “I thought you agreed to stay out of the Alhambra after the unfortunate incident of the trollop and the ensign. You recall that tale?”
    “I recall,” she said. “I’m not Sal anymore. I’m Olivia, Olivia Fontaine.”
    Straight-Ahead was leaning forward over the bed in that awkward stiff-back way he had. When Merit moved, people watched.
    “And I am now General Douglas MacArthur.” He sighed, touching the body carefully. “The former Mr.