Chinaman’s Chance

Simms looked at his watch. “That’s one minute.”

Ploughman stubbed his cigarette out in a ceramic tray. He took his time. “Well, I’m out here from back East just a couple of months or so and what happens? I get a big case dumped in my lap. Congressman Ranshaw’s wife gets drunk and shoots him in some motel and then kills herself. A hell of a thing.”

Ploughman shook his head sorrowfully and then lit another cigarette. “So guess who’s not more than a couple of blocks away at two o’clock m the morning when the squeal comes in? Me and Lt. Lake, and how’s that for coincidence? Now, I don’t know how many homicides Lake and me’ve handled — hundreds, probably — but this is the goddamnedest thing you ever saw. I mean, the Congressman’s wife shoots him okay. No problem there. But then she shoots herself in the stomach and then I guess she changes her mind and crosses over to the door somehow, maybe going for a doctor or something, and then changes her mind again and puts the gun up against her nose and pulls the trigger.”

Ploughman shook his head in wonderment. “Right up the nose, can you imagine? Well, there were a couple of other things that looked sort of funny — at least to a homicide cop. But almost anybody else could see it was an open-and-shut case, especially after Lake and I sorta tidied things up a little. And of course, since he was a Congressman we figured that maybe he had some important documents with him. Maybe even top-secret government stuff. But we didn’t find a thing. Not in the room, anyhow. So we decided to go out and look in his car.

“Well, there wasn’t any car. So this kid on the desk, the one that called it in, he tells us that just after he heard the shots he waits a little while and then goes outside and sees this car driving off. It’s about two o’clock in the morning and dark, but the kid’s seen a lot of TV and stuff, so he writes the license plate down. In fact, the kid heard another car driving off just after the shots, but he didn’t get the license plate of that one. He was sort of scared to go out, probably. Well, there’s a lot more, about who the plate checked out to and stuff, but I guess my time’s up. Besides, you know all the rest.”

Ploughman leaned back in his chair — not smiling now, but a relaxed, almost confident look on his face.

After a moment, Simms said, “You’re very convincing.”

“Well, you gotta be logical about these things.”

Simms nodded. “Suppose we do it your way. Whom would you use — Lt. Lake?”

“We might as well keep it in the family.”

“When?” Simms said.

“Well, that all depends upon how long you’re going to need.”

“We’ll probably have to bring someone in.”

“That makes sense.”

“Today’s Saturday. I think you could start Lake on his — uh — inquiries Monday. No later than Monday.”

“Okay. Anything else?”

“There is one small matter.”

“What?”

“I have reason to believe that we may be having a couple of unwelcome visitors.”

“Oh? Who?”

“Two men. An Artie Wu and a Quincy Durant.”

“That first one sounds like a Chinaman.”

“Yes. A rather large one. Both in their middle thirties — around there.”

“What do they want?”

“I’m not quite sure.”

“Trouble?”

Simms nodded. “Possibly. Probably, in fact.”

“I’ll look into it.”

“You might have to be rather convincing.”

Ploughman rose. “I’ll think of something.”

Simms was also up now, and the two men moved across the room together toward the tiled hall. “I appreciate your frankness, Chief,” Simms said. “It helped clarify several points that have been bothering me.”

“Well, you’ve gotta talk things over every once in a while.” Ploughman paused almost in mid-stride, turned toward Simms, and snapped his fingers as if just remembering something. “There is just one more thing,” he said.

“What?”

“Whenever this help that you’re gonna bring in gets done, you might tell ’em that they oughta dump everything over in Burbank. That’s what the L.A. cops do a lotta times. Over in Burbank, well, over there they won’t even hardly notice it.”