The two desks sat back to back. They were steel desks, painted olive green. The rug was oatmeal-colored. The only other furniture in the room besides the two desks and their matching chairs was a red leather lounge under the windows. Sader threw his raincoat on the lounge and went over to Dan’s desk and examined the inside of the paper sack. “This time it’s peanut butter?”
“Sardines,” said Dan virtuously. “Don’t you know it’s Friday?”
“I’m astonished that you remembered it,” Sader said. He took out a sardine sandwich and sat on the corner of Dan’s desk to eat it. “I’ve got a job, too. A disappearance. A woman named Felicia Wanderley dropped from sight on Tuesday night. Her daughter wants her back.”
“Lots of people going away from Long Beach,” said Dan thoughtfully. “And it’s not such a big town, as towns go. Both skipping out on Tuesday—could there be a connection?”
Sader was looking at the window, where rain hung on the glass like a pattern in sequins. “We’ve both lived in Long Beach so long, we think of it as it used to be. The way it was before the war. A village, you might say. The town’s grown up. If the Wanderley woman knew Ajoukian, it would be a miracle.”
“It would save time if they were together,” Dan suggested, munching sardines.
“The Wanderleys are old, Iowa-style society,” Sader said. “Pioneers, financed by mortgages. I know the type, I grew up in this town. They used to own all the big homes along Ocean Avenue, and they were acquainted only with each other.”
“Like the Cabots and God?”
“Now they’re smothered in Long Beach’s new rich, the café owners, the car-agency millionaires, the oil crowd.”
“The oil crowd isn’t new,” Dan corrected. “They swooped in here in the twenties.”
“The oil crowd is new compared to people like the Wanderleys. And what is Ajoukian?”
“Now you sound like a goddam snob,” Dan said.
“I mean, what is Ajoukian if you were Mrs. Wanderley?”
“From his picture, I’d say that to any dame under ninety, Ajoukian was hell on wheels. It’s just my opinion,” Dan answered, licking his fingers.
CHAPTER TWO
“AJOUKIAN, SR., must be over sixty. White hair. Lots of wrinkles. Shakes a bit. He’s really excited about his son’s disappearance. The wife—well, that blond fluffy kind, they’ve always got something like a manicure on their minds.” Dan sighed.
“The wife’s good-looking?”
Dan puckered up and whistled in reply, a tribute to the many perfections of Mrs. Ajoukian. “I could describe her in detail, but you might think I wasn’t a gentleman,” he summed up. “As for Ajoukian, Jr.: the old man showed me a photo. Junior’s dark, very masculine, sulky. I didn’t take in too much at first until I saw the sly attention the old man was giving me. Then I did a double take. He expected me not to like the guy, his own son, and he was enjoying that expectation. Ajoukian the younger has what Valentino used to have. You name it. And before you say anything, Papa, may I remind you I don’t remember Mr. Valentino except from seeing the old films on TV.” He smirked wisely at his partner. “I would say that the young Ajoukian looks dangerous in a sexual manner. He might leap at a girl out of dark corners, even if he was married to her, just for kicks.”
Sader smiled faintly. “What kind of place do they have?”
“Oh, big and rustic. You know what they’re doing now out in Garden Grove. Ranches, all ranches. Farmhouse, barn, stalls, split-rail fences, pasture, duckpond, orange grove, walnuts—and all on one and a half acres. The Ajoukians are pretty used to it; they show no signs of having lived for twenty years on the Hill behind Father Ajoukian’s junk tool yard. Mama Ajoukian died a few years back, as I remember. I guess that must have been the signal to move. She probably spoke with a thicker Syrian accent than Father’s. Be agony, dragging her to cocktail parties in that neck of the woods.”
“They’ll have no trouble standing the tariff,” Sader said.
“No, and Father Ajoukian even offered a bonus if we find the son within three days.”
“When did Ajoukian start buying oil shares?”
“Don’t know. He didn’t say. He was so very, very cautious about giving away any business secrets, I couldn’t help wondering if part of the technique was robbing widows and orphans. He muttered something about having an eye on an old well that wasn’t doing too much but might produce better if it were rebored, or whatever they do to oil wells. Young Ajoukian went out at eight o’clock Tuesday night. He just never came home again.”
“What’s your best lead?” Sader asked.
“The Hill, of course,” said Dan. “And brother, do I hate the stink of oil and gas and that boozy steam they have coming out of pipes all over.” He looked into the paper sack and saw it was empty. “Do you think I could kill that fish flavor with a shot of rum?”
“The fish won’t care.” Sader had finished his own sandwich. He went out into the anteroom where the water cooler stood in a corner with a rack of paper cups. He drank two cups of water and came back to the inner office. “Did Ajoukian’s father give you a picture?”
“Didn’t have one to spare. But look, the Ajoukians, father and son, have been on the Hill in one way or another for umpteen years. Everybody knows them, I shouldn’t have any trouble running down anybody who saw him Tuesday night.”
“That’s right.”
“What’re you going to do to begin on this Wanderley woman?”
“The taxi,” Sader said. “She’s supposed to have taken a cab from home.”
But within thirty-five minutes Sader knew that no woman had ordered a cab late Tuesday night from Scotland Place.
It was a point he decided to clarify at once, since Miss Wanderley’s mention of the cab had been casual. He telephoned her. She came on the wire with a breathless murmur. “Hello? Kay Wanderley speaking.”
“This is Sader again. I’ve been trying to run down the driver of the cab your mother took Tuesday night. I can’t find him.”
“Oh, I should have told you,” she said, still breathless. “A friend—this same friend who recommended you”—(Who in hell is he, Sader wondered?)—“knows an official in one of the taxi firms here. He checked for us, his company and the others, and couldn’t find any record of her call. He said there were two possibilities.”
“She didn’t take a cab,” Sader said. “Or she just hailed one passing by, and he happened to be knocking down on the company.”
“Yes, that’s what the conclusion was.”
“I wanted to be sure I’d heard you right,” Sader said. “She did tell you she’d called a taxi?”
“I—I’m pretty sure that’s what she said.”
“She couldn’t have said, ‘I’m going to get a taxi’?”
There was silence on the other end of the wire. Then Kay Wanderley made up her mind. “I don’t think so.”
“I’d like your permission to offer a reward to any driver who can give us information,” Sader told her. “Not using your mother’s name, of course. Just a description. There won’t be any clue to your mother’s identity.”
“It’s okay,” she answered, the first slang he’d heard her use.
She hadn’t asked how big the reward should be, but Sader told her he thought it should be at least fifty dollars. That sum should smoke out something if there was anything to get. Even a driver who was cheating his company would be tempted to contact Sader privately.
She listened and agreed. Then Sader added: “Is there anything else I ought to know? Anything else you’ve done already on your own? Or anything”—he searched for a phrase—“anything that’s frightened you?”
There was a long silence then, and during the time Sader wondered, as he had on first hearing the girl’s story, why she had waited three days past her mother’s disappearance to ask help on it. Most daughters in similar straits, he thought, would have rushed down to the police that first morning. Of course, there had been the help offered by the mysteri
ous friend of whom Miss Wanderley had spoken, the friend who seemed to know Sader enough to recommend him for the job of finding Mama. Sader speculated as to whether the friend might be someone he’d known in the Army. Then the girl’s voice crackled on the wire.
“I’ll call you if I think of anything further,” she said with the touch of primness he remembered.
“Good-by, then,” said Sader.
“Good-by.”
I’d like to talk to your friend, he thought, looking at the phone and imagining Miss Wanderley still listening. Was he the one who cautioned you against publicity? Did he remind you of some failing, some escapade, which might explain Mama’s running away? And if Mother Wanderley didn’t have any romantic notions, do you? And is he it?
The office was empty, Dan having made his departure after downing the shot of rum. Sader dropped the dog-eared notebook on the desk and leafed it to the pages of scribbling about Mrs. Wanderley. He found the telephone number, 201–111, dialed it. A man’s voice came on. “Hello.”
“Mr. Ott?”
“That’s right.” Mr. Ott’s tone was growling, impatient. He was in a hurry, or he had things on his mind. He didn’t sound as if he had much information to give over the telephone.
Sader said, “I’m selling insurance, Mr. Ott. We’ve got a splendid new policy for people like you.”
“People like me don’t need insurance,” Mr. Ott growled, and hung up.
“You interest me,” Sader said into the dead phone, “and for that I shall give you some personal attention. As soon as I spread the word about Miss Wanderley’s fifty dollar reward.” He slapped the book shut and stuck it into his pocket, and left the office, making sure that the hall door was securely locked. There were no records, no money, but there was Dan’s rum. He was fond of it; he wouldn’t want it stolen.
Mr. Ott’s duplex dwelling was located on an east-west street above the traffic of Highway 101, which crosses Long Beach just below the fringe of Signal Hill. His house faced north and must on sunny days give a view of the heights of the Hill, its pin-cushion tangle of derricks, tanks, and the towers of refineries. Sader parked a half block from the place, after passing it once. Rain washed down his windshield in a steady torrent, was only momentarily swept aside by the wipers. Judging by what he could see through the wet glass, Mr. Ott’s duplex was an up-and-down affair, and somewhat better built and kept than the rest of the neighborhood. The lower half was finished in white pine siding, the upper in blue stucco. The ornamental shutters were stone-gray, the porch steps painted red. Sader decided that Mr. Ott was perhaps a painter, or perhaps had spruced up the place for Mrs. Wanderley to sell it.
He left the car without locking it, walked quickly through the downpour to Mr. Ott’s front porch. He rang the bell and waited.
Shuffling steps sounded inside, the door drew open, and a giant of a man looked out at him through the screen. He had an immense tangle of fuzzy gray hair, about two days’ growth of whiskers, and underwear which buttoned up the front—if there had been buttons. Right now it was pinned up the front, and the pants below had the suspenders hanging, as if Mr. Ott had been about to put on a shirt, or to shave.
Sader said politely, “I’m sorry to disturb you, Mr. Ott, but I’m making inquiries about a friend of yours who has disappeared. May I talk to you?”
Ott’s glance congealed with what Sader took for enmity. “You mean Felicia Wanderley? Nuh, I don’t know where she is.”
“You had heard that she disappeared?”
“Margot Cole told me. She said Felicia’s girl had been telephoning everybody.”
Sader touched the handle of the screen door tentatively. “Do you mind if I come in?”
Ott drew back grudgingly, and Sader took this as an invitation to open the screen and follow him into the house. They passed down a short hall and into Mr. Ott’s living room. The house needed the touch of a broom in about the same degree as Mr. Ott needed the application of a razor. The furnishings weren’t worn or shabby, though there was a lack of taste, harmony; and right now everything was quite dusty. Nothing here resembled the glossy, settled luxury of the Wanderley home, and this caused Sader to wonder about the acquaintance between Mrs. Wanderley and Ott.
Ott sat down on the edge of a chair, gingerly, as if Sader’s presence made him ill at ease. Sader said, “Did you see Mrs. Wanderley on Tuesday?”
“She was here for ten or fifteen minutes, waiting for a buyer to show up. He didn’t come and she decided he hadn’t been serious.”
In the moment of silence following, above the wash of rain at the windows, Sader heard a whistle on the Hill, a high hoarse blast; and he wondered how Dan was getting along up there, asking after young Ajoukian. “Was there anything unusual about Mrs. Wanderley? In her manner. In what she said.”
“Not a thing.” Ott supported his paunch by folding his hands under it. “She got sore about the guy not coming around after he’d said he would. That’s all.”
“What was his name?”
“She didn’t tell me. You know how real-estate people are. They try to be so damned mysterious. Afraid you and the buyer might get together without them.” He sucked his front teeth loudly.
“How was she dressed?”
Ott looked disgusted. “How would I know? She had on clothes—a dress, I guess, coat, hat, shoes.”
“A fur coat?”
“I don’t remember. I’ve got no memory for women’s doodads.”
Sader took out cigarettes, offered Ott the pack. Ott took a cigarette after a moment’s hesitation, then looked it over as if suspecting Sader of some trick. After Sader had lit both cigarettes, he said, “What do you think might have happened to Mrs. Wanderley? Would she have walked out on her home and her daughter?”
Ott’s eyes narrowed; he didn’t look at Sader but at the burning tip of the cigarette in his hand. “Women,” he said, as if this summed it all up.
Sader waited a moment or two, then persisted, “You think she would have?”
“They’ll do anything,” Ott growled.
“How did you meet her? How long ago?” Sader saw Ott’s anger, just under the surface, and added, “I’m not trying to pry into your affairs. I’m on a job, part of the work is asking questions. Don’t take it personally.”
Ott drew heavily on the cigarette. He moved back a little in the chair. “I met Felicia Wanderley a long time ago. I knew her husband before he died. We drilled a few wells together. What I mean is, I drilled them. He put up the money.”
A bell rang in the recesses of Sader’s mind. He said, “Do you know a father and son named Ajoukian?”
Ott looked at him through the smoke. “That crumb? Who don’t? I been gypped by him plenty when I was on the Hill and had to rustle up some tools in a hurry. Thank God I got out of the oil game.” He drew on the cigarette, then added, “I’m talking about the old man. I don’t know young Ajoukian.”
“Do you think Felicia Wanderley knew these people?”
Ott’s fuzzy gray brows climbed toward his hairline. “How would she?”
“Ajoukian’s business these last few years isn’t selling tools, it’s investing in oil shares.”
“That still wouldn’t bring them together,” Ott said. “Wanderley and I drilled, and we sold. It’s all gone years ago.”
“She has no interest in any oil properties?”
“Nothing I know of,” Ott answered slowly. “I don’t get the drift, mister. Why are you trying to connect her with the Ajoukians?”
“Young Ajoukian dropped from sight on the day Mrs. Wanderley disappeared, Tuesday.”
Ott sat still and silent for a minute. “You’re working on that, too?”
“My partner’s on the Hill now, asking about Ajoukian.”
Ott got up and walked restlessly across the room to the windows. The curtains looked dusty; he pushed them aside and Sader saw the glass, sparkling with water. “The old man made a lot of money,” he said finally, without looking at Sader. “He had a shack back
of his yard, and kept his old lady there. He’d have sheltered a cow better. What I say about women, it don’t apply to Mrs. Ajoukian. She was square and decent and kindhearted. She fed anybody she figured was hungry, providing Ajoukian wasn’t there to keep her from giving food away. She whitewashed the inside of the shack, she kept the kids clean—they had a little girl; she died—and my guess is she never had any idea the money Ajoukian made. She was too ignorant to know about banks. Too dumb to know her own rights.” He came back to his chair and sat down in it, solidly this time. “We got off Mrs. Wanderley.”
“I’m glad you could fill in even a little about the Ajoukians,” Sader told him. “I’ll pass along what you’ve told me to my partner. Sometimes the secret of what’s happened lies in the background, sometimes a long way back into the past.”
“I haven’t seen the Ajoukians, father nor son, for years,” Ott said quickly. “I heard he’d moved out of town and that his son got married.”
“You never heard Mrs. Wanderley mention them?”
“Nuh. Would she know somebody who made money in junk?”
“My partner saw young Ajoukian’s picture. He says the boy is handsome.”
Ott showed no spark of interest, and Sader wondered if he could be as indifferent as he seemed. “I guess he don’t resemble his old man. Look, if this is all you got to ask——”
Sader stood up promptly. “Just one thing more. Did Mrs. Wanderley come here Tuesday in a taxi?”
Ott shook his head. “I don’t know. Could be. I didn’t see a cab. I had the idea she might have come on the bus.”
Sader snapped his fingers in vexation. The big yellow busses were so much a part of Long Beach’s congested traffic picture that he’d ignored them. And as clearly as if he were looking at one now, he imagined the yellow behemoth stopping at the corner of Ocean Avenue, opposite the entrance to Scotland Place, and Mrs. Wanderley stepping into the glow of its headlights Tuesday night.
“Her car’s laid up,” Ott was saying. “She put it in a garage.”
Sleep with Strangers Page 2
