The following is the April 23, 1949 entry in the Rocky Stone notebooks:
The office was silent as a piano recital without a piano. It stayed that way all morning. I took a cat nap on the couch until something came by to wake me up. It came in the form of Wanda, who was showing in a pudgy, unkempt figure of a man. An ink stain rested along the sides of his first two fingers. A reporter named Gus Cantelmi, who writes for the Chronicle under the name Hugh Cantelmi, a scribe I trust a little more than I do the others. He made himself comfortable in my guest chair, crossed his legs, and stared at me with fishy eyes. I dropped my hat down over my eyes to let him know I wasn't interested.
“I've been trying to see you, Rock,” he said, as he retrieved some ink from underneath his fingernails. “You're normally not this elusive.”
“I was on a job in New Mexico. But I'm sure Wanda told you all about it.”
“She did. That's not why I'm here, though. Something happened while you were out and I wondered if you might know something about it. After all, you worked with the guy.”
I sat up. “What guy?”
Gus's face was grim. It wasn't good news whatever it was. “Chuck Garrison. They found him in the Los Diablos River a couple nights ago. He was an investigator in the D.A.'s office up until a year ago. I figure you know him.”
I shook my head. “Not personally. He was just coming in when I was getting out. I don't think I ever said three words to him. I assume since they found him in the Los Diablos River he didn't drown. What caused his untimely death?”
“No one knows” said Gus, ominously. “Natural causes, so says the coroner. Personally I think it stinks, but then I'm the suspicious type.”
“So you are,” I replied. “I wish I could be more help to you.”
He smiled. “You could buy me lunch.”
“What with?”
“Then I'll buy you lunch.”
That suited me just fine. Funny thing, him thinking I knew something about Garrison's death. I rolled back into my mind and thought about the guy: he was a tall, skinny kid with a head full of wavy, dark brown hair and chiseled features. For all I knew he might have become a short, fat, bald old man with a big red nose. I think I shared a Zagnut bar with him once, but that was the closest we got to friendly.
Gus drove me to a diner on Chestnut and treated me to the best meal five cents could buy. We sat at the counter trying to figure out how best to keep it down when he turned to me and asked,
“Do you know Fulton Bricksetter?”
“Go fish,” I replied.
“He's one of your wealthier men in town. Invalid, confined to a wheelchair. Probably waiting to die, poor sap. He has a daughter.”
“I'm not interested.”
“You will be,” said Gus. “She's of the wild sort. Always getting into trouble. I happen to know he's searching for her whereabouts. A good word from me, and you're as good as in.”
“And in return, exclusive rights to the story?”
He grinned at me and it was disgusting. “What more could you do for an old pal?”
I said I wouldn't mind the work and we shook on it. The lunch he bought me chose that moment to kick me in the ribs and it made me think twice about the whole deal.
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