Little Dog Laughed by Joseph Hansen Read Free Book Online Page B

out on television.” He clicked a slim steel lighter to set his cigarette going. “Also, he dashed home and started to pack. Someone was after him, and he was running scared. That’s what it looks like.”
    “Not so scared he was giving the story to hired hands,” Cecil said. “It had to be the head honcho or nobody. So finally Dot Yamada picked up the phone and rang for Donaldson. He’d never forgive Jimmie, but maybe he’d forgive a pretty lady.”
    “And Donaldson was home in his own bed for once?”
    “Strange as it seems,” Cecil said.
    “And he agreed to come?” Dave sipped the icy martini.
    “Lives in Malibu. Agreed to meet Streeter at his condominium. That would be quickest.”
    “You’re sure?” Dave said.
    “I read Dot’s lips when she hung up the phone,” Cecil said. “It was plain as could be. ‘He’ll meet you at your house,’ she said, and smiled.”
    “Only he didn’t, did he?” Dave said. “Chrissie would have heard him. And she didn’t hear him. Streeter was the only one she heard come home that night—no one else.”
    “Jesus,” Cecil said. “What you’re saying is Dot’s phone call was a fake. She only pretended to talk to Donaldson. She was stringing Streeter along.”
    “If Donaldson had gone,” Dave said, “he’d have had a scoop on the murder, wouldn’t he? It would have been all over your store. All over the newscasts. And it wasn’t.”
    “Shit.” Cecil shook his head glumly. “Dot Yamada sent him home to be killed. She was playing a game.”
    “She couldn’t have known,” Dave said, “but it wasn’t the way to handle it.” He got to his feet. “We’d better eat. Food can dry out in warming ovens.” He watched Cecil gather up beer bottle and glass, and take them to the shadowy bar. Dave moved toward the door. “What did Max send?”
    Cecil said, “It’s those veal scallops he does with the melted Swiss cheese and all.” He followed Dave out into the coolness of the night, crickets singing down the dark canyon. He pulled the door shut behind him, and they crossed the bumpy brick courtyard, curled oak leaves crackling under their feet.
    Dave said, “You know all about current events.”
    Cecil shrugged. “ Poquito ,” he said.
    “Then tell me, please”—Dave paused for a last intake from his cigarette before he flicked it away, sparking red across the bricks—“about one Cortez-Ortiz.”
    “General Cortez-Ortiz.” Cecil stepped around Dave and opened the cookshack door. The light inside was cheerful. The aroma of Max’s cooking was rich in the air. Cecil said, “I’ll tell you while we eat.”

5
    W HEN DAVE’S FATHER DIED of a heart attack, four or five years ago, while racing his new Bentley along a midnight freeway, he had widowed his ninth wife, a smart, good-looking, very young woman named Amanda. She had wandered dolefully through the enormous rooms of Carl Brandstetter’s showy Beverly Hills house, wondering what to do with her life, until Dave talked her into remodeling this place for him. Lately she’d added a second sleeping loft in the rear building—this after a case Dave worked on had meant housing a family of children with no place else to hide. Added sleeping quarters seemed sensible. Now he had them. The back building still held the tang of freshly sawed lumber.
    But the cookshack Amanda had done on the first go-round. It stood at the near side of the brick courtyard, about twelve by fifteen feet, shingled like the two larger buildings. Those she had modernized—temperately. This one she had turned backward in time. Walls and cupboards she’d stripped to the original pine. The refrigerator-freezer was new in its works, but housed in a gigantic old oaken icebox of many thick doors. The cookstove was a stately farmhouse model of white porcelain panels framed by glittering nickel plate, cunningly fitted out with the latest burners, grille, rotisserie, convection oven. The sink came from a wrecker’s, but was