Sader said, “You think she’d been drinking?”
“What else? I hadn’t been leering at her in the mirror. Touching her hand was an accident.”
“How did she happen to tell you her name?”
The driver licked his lips nervously. “Standing there, early like that, me and her both nearly freezing, she said, ‘Don’t be surprised if your company hears from my lawyers. I’ll see you busted or my name isn’t’—well, I don’t recall the first name, though she said it—‘my name isn’t Wanderley.’ ”
“Felicia Wanderley?” Sader suggested.
The driver nodded at once. “Yeah, that’s it.”
Dan asked, “What did she do then?”
“She kicked me,” the driver blurted, and as if remembering the painful blow, leaned over to rub his shin. “Then she walked off, the coat swinging out wide behind her. I got a good look at that outfit you described in your bulletin, the white blouse and green slacks, a green scarf over her head.”
Sader was rubbing the edge of the desk with his finger tip. “Handbag?”
The driver shook his head. “She didn’t carry one.”
“You said she took the bill out of her coat pocket?”
“That’s right. It was a twenty.”
“She put the change back into her pocket?”
“I guess so. Gosh, I was so surprised my head was swimming. I never had a dame haul off like that, not for something I hadn’t even thought of doing.”
Dan said, “Where did she go? Into the hospital grounds?”
“I didn’t wait to see.”
Sader took typing paper from a drawer of the desk. “If I write this up as you’ve told it to us, will you sign it?”
“If that’s how I get the reward, okay.”
Sader ran paper into the machine he raised from inside the desk. He typed, and Dan offered suggestions. The driver read what was written, signed it with Dan as witness, and received his reward. Sader warned him again that the police might make the matter public, but the money seemed to have restored the driver’s optimism. “If it comes out, if the old lady starts raising hell, I’ve, got this to rent a hotel room,” he decided, grinning.
“Busses run out to the VA Hospital,” Dan said.
The driver paused at the door. “Sure they do, and she might have taken one, but I don’t know anything about it. ’By.” He went out.
Sader put the driver’s statement aside. “What about Ajoukian, Dan?”
“Wait a minute. What about this driver? Was he telling the truth?”
“I want to talk about Ajoukian, now, Dan. Mrs. Wanderley met the old man at a party on the afternoon of the day before she left home.” He went on to fill in what Margot Cole had told him of the elder Ajoukian’s arrival, his conversation with Mrs. Wanderley in the dining alcove. “Have you by any chance mentioned Mrs. Wanderley to the Ajoukians?”
Dan shook his head smugly. “You kept reminding me that there was no connection between the two disappearances.”
“There may be none. But we’d better make sure. What did you find out this morning?”
“I had no trouble at all finding the bar young Ajoukian must have headed for as soon as he left home Tuesday night. It’s out there in the country, a roadhouse sort of thing, only pretty high-class. It’s called the Chuck-A-Luck Barbecue. There’s a big dining room. Whatever they were cooking for lunch smelled good this morning. The bar is off to one side, nothing shabby or shady. The bartender knows young Ajoukian and between polishing glassware he confided Ajoukian, Jr., had a telephone call at about eleven o’clock. Now get this. Ajoukian left home at eight. He spent nearly three hours in the bar.”
“Waiting?”
“The bartender thought so.”
“Who called him? Man or woman?”
“The bartender strove and strove, but just couldn’t remember. I tried to refresh him with a small remuneration, but he refused it. He’ll accept when and if he remembers what we want him to.”
“How does he place the time so well?”
“On account of a TV show. There’s a set in the bar. He had to turn down the volume when young Ajoukian used the phone. There’s no booth there.”
“What happened then?”
“Young Ajoukian took off without a word. Merely settled his bill and waved a hand in farewell. There’s one more scrap of information. Ajoukian, Jr., made the girls’ eyes bug out. They drooled over him. I told you I figured he has what Valentino used to have.”
“Yes, I recall it,” Sader answered. “Where did the trail lead then?”
“Not to any other bar I could find,” Dan complained. “I hit them all on the way in. I had the photo with me and I don’t think they’d forget the guy. Wait a minute, you haven’t seen it.” Dan jerked open a desk drawer and took out an unframed portrait. It was about eight by eleven inches, mat finish, and as it slid toward him over the typewriter Sader glimpsed a man’s face.
He straightened the picture and propped it against the typewriter keys. Young Ajoukian’s dark eyes looked out at the world with amused nonchalance. The short nose, the firm lips were perfectly modeled, though he lacked any touch of prettiness. He was a thoroughly masculine creature, Sader thought, with somewhere a hint of coarseness, an animal vigor that verged on brutality. The black hair lay in a heavy wave. The throat was thick, well set. I wouldn’t want to meet him in an alley, Sader told himself; and then added a correction: I hope Mrs. Wanderley didn’t meet him in an alley.
“Bedroom eyes,” Dan offered.
“He eats little girls alive,” Sader agreed.
“They love it.” Dan thumped the desk in sudden impatience. “You know, I’ve got the craziest feeling his old man doesn’t like him.”
“Jealous, probably. The old man worked for the money. The young one has the looks and the physique to enjoy it.”
“I thought of one possible lead. Old man Ajoukian swears this is the only picture he has of his son. Usually photographers make up more than one. I’m going to try to find out where the other pictures went.”
“Women, you mean?”
“Yeah.”
“Before you start on it, work the Hill with that picture.”
“Hell, I haven’t run into anyone up there yet that doesn’t know him, didn’t know what he looked like.”
Sader’s expression was withdrawn and thoughtful. “I ought to go see Ajoukian, Sr. This Mrs. Cole isn’t going to back up any play I make that might involve her. And Ajoukian may have his own motives for not wanting publicity on his deal with her. I’ll be walking on eggs.”
“Sure, go on out there,” Dan said. “If it’s going to be one case instead of two, we can switch jobs when we feel like it.”
Sader glanced at him. “How come you’re so willing?”
“It’s Mrs. Ajoukian. I might as well admit it—I’m going to make a fool of myself around that girl.”
There was a rapping on the outer door. Sader said, “This must be Miss Wanderley. I asked her here for a conference, hoping the three of us might kick it around and get some new angles.”
“You’re playing with fire, Papa. The clients like to think you’re infallible.”
“Well, I’m not.” Sader got up and went through the outer room and opened the door. Kay Wanderley was in the hall. She wore a neat blue wool dress, a black Persian lamb jacket, a little hat of black velvet and sequins. The clothes were too old for her, Sader thought, too sophisticated. She hadn’t worn the rhinestone jewelry, either; and in missing it he recognized what it had done for her. There had been something childish, youthfully optimistic, in all that sparkling glass.
“Come in, Miss Wanderley.”
“I hope I’m not too early.”
“You’re right on time. My partner is in the other room.” He guided her into the second office; she looked around for an instant before stepping over and offering her hand to Dan as Sader introduced them. She sized Dan up with obvious interest. Dan was young, Sader reminded himself, with a fram
e unimpaired by experiments with opiates like alcohol. Sader felt suddenly older, more worn by life and more buried in cynicism. And as if across some abyss of time he saw the soft curve of Kay’s cheek, as gentle as a child’s. He told himself dryly that Dan’s affliction in regard to feminine clients must be catching.
The office was warm; she slipped off her jacket. Sader handed her the portrait of young Ajoukian. “Did you ever see him?”
“I don’t think so.” She lifted her gaze. “Who is he?”
“His name is Ajoukian. His father made a lot of money in oil tools on Signal Hill, probably during the war when tools were hard to find. Now he and the son are in the business of buying oil shares. I think Ajoukian, Sr., was interested in buying something of the sort from Margot Cole. He met your mother at her house Monday evening at the end of a party.”
The girl’s eyes settled on the picture; she teased her lower lip with her teeth. Something about young Mr. Ajoukian seemed to fascinate her. Sader wondered if she felt the impact of the casual brutality he’d sensed.
“This man”—Sader bent to tap, the picture—“disappeared on Tuesday night.”
“You mean—left home, as Mother did?”
“That’s right. He may have been on his way to Signal Hill from Garden Grove.”
She seemed bewildered. “It doesn’t seem to tie in.”
“On the surface, no.”
“Do you think there is a connection?”
“At first I’d have sworn there was none.” Sader didn’t miss Dan’s sly lip-pursing. “But before we try to find a connection, we have another item. Your mother was seen at about five o’clock Wednesday morning by a cab driver who took her out to Veterans’ Hospital.”
Her bewilderment increased. “Why should she go way out there?”
“We don’t know. We can speculate. The whole incident has a funny ring to it. It could be that your mother wanted to distract attention from her being on the Hill. She made a scene with the driver, frightened him and made him mad, and rather unnecessarily impressed him with her name.”
Sudden color ran over the girl’s fair skin. “She wasn’t like that, when she wasn’t drinking.”
“Probably not. I don’t think she was drunk, though.”
Dan said, “Who did she know at Veterans’ Hospital?”
“No one!”
“And visiting hours don’t begin at five in the morning,” Sader pointed out dryly. “But this was a time, and a destination, easily remembered.”
The girl said, “If she didn’t want anyone to connect her disappearance with the Hill——” Then she stopped; there was a minute or so of silence.
Dan said suddenly, “Look, suppose your mother ran into young Ajoukian up there Tuesday night and figured he was trying to gyp her friend, from something the old man said Monday, and engaged in a brawl that turned out . . . uh . . . rather seriously. Maybe Ajoukian got hurt. She thinks he might sue her.” He met Sader’s cold stare and saw the girl’s quick, pallor and added hastily, “Don’t get sore. I’m just talking off the top of my head, as they say.”
“I’m sure that there is no connection between Mother and this young man,” Kay said after a moment, and put the picture on the corner of Sader’s desk. “She would not have the strength to injure anyone like him.”
“Suppose, though,” Dan persisted, “we find more evidence linking them. What do you want us to do? Ignore it?”
Her eyes on Dan were calm, not unfriendly. She had crushed down the panic and whatever emotion young Ajoukian’s portrait had roused. Sader had an idea she was growing up all at once, fast. “I’ll trust you to use good judgment,” she said quietly.
Dan reached over, picked up the picture, squinted at it. “Was there any particular type of man your mother was attracted by? Like him, for instance?”
“He is good-looking,” Kay said, “but my mother had no interest in romance in any of its—variations.”
“No gentlemen friends?” Dan raised black brows in surprise.
He was getting the same reaction Sader had, yesterday. Frost. She shook her head, her eyes reproving. “No, none.”
“She was rather an attractive woman, judging by her picture, to have given all that up.”
Some stiffening, a defensive armor, seemed to leave her suddenly. “It was when she began to drink that I noticed she no longer craved the company of men. I’m not going to apologize to you for my mother’s behavior. She wouldn’t approve of it. She wouldn’t even want me discussing it. But you might as well understand, since you’re looking for her. She was raised in an atmosphere of immense family pride, and pride of wealth as well. While my father lived it must have seemed a complete, orderly, perfect world to her. Then he died, and she found herself an odd woman at social affairs, and all at once Long Beach was crowded with strangers, the city was crammed with newcomers who’d never heard of her. A couple of mild attachments she formed with men turned out badly. She took up selling real estate, mostly to pass time, and she saw a new side to life, trickery and knavery and sharp dealing. She grew impatient and quick-tempered. She—she started to drink.”
This was a defense, Sader thought, which did credit to the child, an insight into the mother’s deterioration that surprised him. But there was another picture painted by Kay’s words, one she couldn’t have intended, of a childish, spoiled woman too self-centered to adjust to loneliness and age.
“Now you understand,” Kay said, her lips trembling.
“Sure,” Dan agreed comfortingly. “And it must have been tough on you, seeing that happen to her.”
“It isn’t important,” Kay replied. “Nothing is important now except finding her. Where is she?” She looked from Dan to Sader in worried appeal.
“I have no definite lead yet,” Sader told her. “I would say, though, that the most important item to date seems to be the story told by the cab driver. That places your mother alive, and a free agent, much later than when you last saw her.”
But Sader’s innermost thoughts were disturbed by a strange hunch that the principal discovery was the reticence of the bookkeeper in the field office on the Hill. Under the coltish alarm he had sensed something else, the miasma of greed. The little man had the soul of a trader. And traders love to dicker. Sader reached for the picture of Ajoukian on Dan’s desk.
“I’m going to borrow this.” He opened a drawer of the desk, took out a manila envelope, put the picture in it. “By the way, Miss Wanderley—had you ever heard a story of how Milton Wanderley was injured?”
“Do you mean, when he fell from the tree? Yes, I’ve heard it.”
Sader sat on the corner of his desk, the envelope twisting in his hands. “What did your mother think of it?”
“She said he’d fallen on his head and that it made him slowwitted.”
“No hint of guilt? Milton says your grandfather knew the tree wasn’t safe to work with.”
She shook her head. “I hadn’t heard it.”
“Supposing it was true. Would it have preyed on her mind?”
Kay seemed surprised at the question. “I’m sure that it wouldn’t. Why should she be blamed for something Grandfather did?”
“Her attitude toward Milton seemed pretty severe.”
“She hated the idea of his using those pigs to make a living,” Kay said frankly. “I used to think she attached too much importance to it.”
Sader nodded. He saw that Kay’s loyalty to her mother would blind her to the woman’s obvious coldness, self-interest, and vanity. He wondered for a moment if Milton’s story of Felicia’s last visit had been true. If Milton had had anything to do with her disappearance, the suggestion that she was angry over another’s dishonesty would be a clever diversion.
Too clever, perhaps, for a man mentally dulled and tormented by the pain of an old head injury.
Summing up to himself, Sader felt that the conference had produced nothing to help them in finding Mrs. Wanderley. In fact, Kay’s defiant insistence that there could be no conn
ection between her mother and young Ajoukian seemed to cross out what he had done at Mrs. Cole’s.
When Dan suggested that Kay should go to lunch with him, Sader agreed. She needed the company of somebody young, brash, and full of taunting good humor. He excused himself from joining them, saying he wanted to take Ajoukian’s picture to somebody on the Hill.
The sky was gray, heavy; and there were a few pelting drops as he walked to his car. He drove up Cherry again, turned on the winding road that led past working rigs and scattered tanks to the little office where he had talked to the bookkeeper. The car crested a slight rise and he saw the building in the distance ahead of him.
A tan coupé was backing from the graveled space in front of the little office. Sader slowed down. The other car lurched back and hit a post, and he heard the metallic clang. The tan coupé dived forward, reversed again, missing the signpost but scraping a telephone pole.
“Crazy driver!” Sader muttered, his gaze sharpening. He noted the open office door, and something else, a cat’s-cradle of torn vine, which had climbed beside the steps and now hung awry. With a twist of his wrist he turned his own wheel, set his car crosswise in the road. The tan coupé, free at last, sprang toward him. For an instant he expected a collision.
There was a nerve-jarring squeal of brakes. The tan coupé slewed to a stop. Sader opened the door beside him and stepped out, went around the rear of his car, and approached the other warily. He saw Tina Griffin behind the wheel, her face turned his way. You wouldn’t have guessed the exotic tilt to her eyes, he thought, seeing them like this, narrowed in fear and rage. The black hair fell about her face like witch-locks.
“Let me past, damn you!” she screamed, her lips pulled back from her teeth.
Sleep with Strangers Page 8
