Quicksilver (Nameless Detective)

by Bill Pronzini

  “Is that the plant kind of nursery?”

  “Yes.”

  I wrote Edgar Ogada’s name and address in the notebook. Then I tried some of my coffee; it was weak and tepid. Yeah, that figured, since Art Gage had made it. I was putting the cup down again when Gage came clomping back into the room. In one hand was a smallish cardboard box; in the other were four little jewelry cases. He put everything on the table next to the lacquered tray and plunked himself down next to Haruko again. She didn’t look at him and neither did I.

  One of the items in the cardboard box was a sheet of ruled notepaper that had been folded several times. The words on it—With all the love in my heart—had been written in ink, the fountain pen variety, in a crabbed, almost childlike scrawl.

  I looked up at Haruko. “The printing on this isn’t at all familiar to you?”

  “No.”

  “Do you know anyone who still uses a fountain pen?”

  “I can’t think of anyone, no.”

  I picked up one of the package wrappings. Haruko’s name and address had been printed in the same crabbed scrawl. Someone trying to disguise his handwriting? Maybe. The wrapping didn’t tell me anything else. Plain brown paper, the kind you can buy in any dime store. Stamps affixed in neat rows. No return address, no other markings.

  The jewelry cases were plain, without any sort of store identification. The four pieces they contained—the white jade ring, a gold locket shaped like a heart with a pearl inlaid on the front, a diamond pendant, and a pair of sapphire earrings—were each free of inscriptions or traceable markings. The jade ring was bulky, more a man’s type than a woman’s, and it had some tiny scratches on it, as if it might not be new. I found a scratch on the locket, too. But the earrings and the pendant appeared never to have been worn.

  “There isn’t much here to go on, really,” I said. “I’ll investigate for you, Mrs. Gage, but I can’t promise you anything more than an honest effort. A case like this, where you’re dealing with anonymous mailings ... well, it all depends on who’s responsible. If it’s one of the men you mentioned, there’s a fairly good chance I can either find out or at least intimidate him enough by my presence so that he quits pestering you. If it isn’t one of those men, if it’s someone you know only casually, for instance, there’s just not much I can do.”

  Haruko nodded. “I understand. I considered all that before I decided to call you.”

  Gage said, “Listen, hon, I’m not so sure about this—”

  “Art.”

  “Well, I’m not sure it’s a good idea,” he said. He switched his gaze to me. “How much do you charge?”

  “Two hundred dollars a day, plus expenses.”

  “My God! Haruko ... Christ, we can’t afford—”

  “Art,” she said sharply, “be quiet. We can afford it; the value of the jewelry more than covers the expense. It’s something that has to be done.”

  Gage didn’t like it, but he did shut up again. He sat there looking petulant.

  “I’ll hire you for three days,” Haruko said to me. “That should be enough time for you to ask questions and see if you’re getting anywhere, shouldn’t it?”

  “It should be, yes.”

  “If you find out something and need more time, we can talk about that later. Will you start right away?”

  “Yes. I’ll do what I can today and make up the rest of the time on Sunday.”

  “How much of an advance do you want?”

  “A hundred dollars would be fine.”

  She didn’t make Gage fetch the family checkbook; she actually got off the couch and went to the secretary desk herself. She had nice hips, if you like them plump. Gage obviously did; he watched her move with low heat in his eyes. While she was writing the check I got out the standard contract form I’d brought with me and filled it in. I had Haruko sign it, then handed her a copy in exchange for the check.

  Gage got off his tail, and the two of them accompanied me to the door. As I was putting on my coat and hat, and telling Haruko I’d check in with her sometime tomorrow at the latest, Gage draped a tentative arm around her shoulders. She didn’t shrug him off; instead she nuzzled against him, all kittenish now that she’d got her way, and slid her own arm about his waist. He lost his petulant look, gave me a fatuous grin over the top of her head.

  Love, I thought. Ain’t it wonderful?

  I got out of there.

  Chapter Three

  The Shimata Gallery was in the west wing of the Japan Center, sandwiched between a bookstore and a shop that sold Japanese dolls and puppets. It was a smallish place, with a lot of open floor space and most of its merchandise displayed on table-sized, clear plastic cubes. When I walked in, the only other people there were a dignified-looking Japanese guy of about thirty-five and a scrawny dowager type who had a toy poodle tucked under one arm. They were having a conversation about something called a Noh mask from the seventeenth century; evidently the dowager wanted to give it to her husband for Christmas and was worried that it wouldn’t arrive from Japan in time.

  I wandered around looking at the artwork on display, waiting for them to get done with their business. Handpainted screens, woodblock prints and carvings, scroll paintings, a huge samurai sword in an ornamental scabbard. And a lot of delicate porcelain enameled in whites, reds, blues, and golds: vases, boxes, candlesticks, teapots, beakers, cups and saucers. Some of the stuff appeared to be antique and all of it appeared to be expensive. Proof of that was the absence of any price tags.

  On the way over from the Gage house—I’d walked because it was only two blocks and the rain had stopped for a while—I had tried to decide on the best way to handle this job. I was still deciding. It was one of those oddballs that come along now and then: no crime had been committed, not even a misdemeanor; technically, whoever had sent the presents to Haruko Gage wasn’t even guilty of harassment. So normal investigative channels weren’t going to be of any use. And I had to be careful not to say or do anything that could get anybody after me for harrassment. About the only tack I could see to take was the straightforward one—be upfront about who I was and what I was doing, see how things developed with each of the people I talked to, and let instinct guide me the rest of the way.

  It figured to be routine and pretty dull work; nothing stimulating, nothing that called for deduction or fancy footwork. Just flatfoot stuff—a lot of running around and interviewing. But that was okay. You couldn’t always get challenging cases; and the pulp private eyes could have the exotic ones that involved slinky blondes and guys with guns. All I really wanted anyway was something to occupy my mind for the next few days, so I could keep it off Jeanne Emerson, my diet, Eberhardt, and the new joint office.

  It took five minutes for the dignified-looking Japanese to convince the dowager that her Noh mask would “most definitely” be in her hands by the twentieth of the month. She didn’t look at me as she went out, but the toy poodle gave me a baleful glare. I glared back at it, thinking: The hell with you too, pooch.

  The Japanese guy came over to where I was standing in front of one of the display cubes. There was an air of reserve about him, but it wasn’t the snooty kind. He wore a three-piece suit, charcoal black, with a maroon-and-silver tie. He had a mouth so thin and straight that it might have been drawn on with a ruler and a flesh-colored marking pen, and over his eyes were a pair of tinted Mr. Moto glasses. The glasses looked better on him than they ever had on Peter Lorre.

  “Konnichiwa, ” he said politely. “Good afternoon.”

  “Good afternoon. Mr. Shimata? Kinji Shimata?”

  He bowed. “How may I help you, sir?”

  I told him my name and what I did for a living. Nothing changed in his expression then, and nothing changed in it when I said, “I’m conducting an investigation on behalf of Mrs. Haruko Cage.”

  “Yes?” he said.

  “You know Mrs. Gage, of course.”

  “I am acquainted with her. Why is it she would need a private detective?”r />
  “Somebody’s been bothering her,” I said.

  “Bothering?”

  “Sending her anonymous presents in the mail. Expensive presents, one with a love note included.”

  Five seconds of silence went by. Then he said, “Does she believe I am responsible?” His voice sounded a little stiffer than it had before, but that was all. Behind the Mr. Moto glasses, his eyes were about as emotionally expressive as a carp’s.

  “No,” I said, “she doesn’t have any idea who’s responsible. I’m trying to find out.” I paused. “Whoever the man is, he’s probably someone she knows.”

  “I see.”

  “And he has money—quite a bit of it.”

  “Ah?”

  “The presents are all pieces of valuable jewelry.”

  “I do not sell jewelry,” Shimata said. “Or give it as a gift.”

  “Any idea who might want to give it as a gift?”

  “None whatever.”

  “It’s pretty obvious that the man’s in love with her,” I said. “You were in love with her once, weren’t you, Mr. Shimata?”

  “Ah. She told you I once proposed marriage.”

  “She did.”

  “A mistake,” he said. “A grave mistake. She did not do me the honor of accepting; for this, I am now grateful.”

  “Why is that?”

  “She would not have made me a good wife.”

  “No? Why not?”

  “She is a demanding woman. A materialist. I am surprised she wishes no more of this expensive jewelry.”

  “She’s worried the admirer might want something in return one of these days.”

  “Ah. Yes, I understand.”

  I wasn’t getting anywhere with him. His voice revealed nothing more than his words, and his eyes still resembled a carp’s. If there was any hot and unrequited passion for Haruko Cage burning inside him, he had it buried deep and under control, at least as far as outward appearances were concerned.

  I said, “Well, I won’t keep you any longer, Mr. Shimata. I appreciate your talking to me.”

  “Not at all.” He bowed slightly. “Sayonara.”

  “Sure-sayonara. ”

  So much for Kinji Shimata. One down, three to go.

  On the Buchanan Mall across the street I found a public telephone kiosk and looked up the address and telephone number of Tamura’s Baths. The bathhouse was only about six blocks from here, just outside the unofficial boundary of Japantown. I wrote the numbers down in my notebook, then put a dime in the coin slot and rang the place up.

  The woman who answered told me in a thick Japanese accent that Ken Yamasaki didn’t come to work until six o’clock. I asked for his address, but she wouldn’t give it to me. So I thanked her, broke the connection, and looked up his name in the directory. That didn’t do me any good either; there were seven Yamasaki’s listed, none of whom was named Ken or Kenneth.

  I flipped back to the M’s. Nelson Mixer was listed—an address out on 46th Avenue—but when I dialed his number nobody answered. My watch said it was quarter of four; there was still a chance I could catch him on campus at the city college.

  It took me twenty minutes to drive out to where CCSF was located on Phelan Avenue off Ocean. It was a good-sized complex, built on hilly terrain, with a domed science building and its own fieldhouse and football and track stadium. A bunch of students were milling around under umbrellas in front of the campus bookstore; I asked one of them where the registrar’s office was. He told me—Colan Hall—and pointed it out, and I got myself rained on pretty good before I got there.

  I also got rained on inside, figuratively speaking. “I’m sorry, sir,” the woman at the registrar’s desk said. “Professor Mixer isn’t teaching today. He’s ill.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that.”

  “Yes, sir. He has the flu. We’ve had a large number of absentees because of it—the weather, you know.”

  “Uh-huh. Will he be in tomorrow, do you think?”

  “I really couldn’t say.”

  So I left her and got a little wetter on my way back to the car. Now what? I could drive all the way across town to Mixer’s residence, but I decided against it. He hadn’t answered the phone earlier, which meant he either wasn’t home or he was too ill to get out of bed. Either way, I would probably be wasting my time.

  Nelson Mixer, I thought as I started the engine. What the hell kind of name was that, anyway? It didn’t sound like a man; it sounded like a brand of quinine water.

  When I located the Ogada Nursery in South San Francisco it was almost five o’clock and fully dark. My headlights picked up the rain-washed sign first, mounted at the edge of a muddy private road that branched off El Camino Real—WHOLESALE ONLY the sign said—and then the buildings and some open fields beyond. There were two long rows of attached greenhouses made out of corrugated, opaque fiberglass sheets, half a dozen in each row, with the rows set at right angles to each other. In the ell between them was a smaller wooden structure that might have been a potting shed. Off to one side, where the road ended, was a modest white frame house with some cypress shrubbery surrounding it.

  There weren’t any lights on in the greenhouses or in the frame house, but the windows of the smaller wooden building shone a misty yellow through the rain. I parked on a blacktopped area under the overhang of the shed’s roof, next to an old pickup truck with a bashed-in front fender and broken headlight. I got out and ran over and whacked on the door with my hand.

  It opened after about ten seconds, revealing a short, stoop-shouldered Japanese of indeterminate middle-age. His black hair was shot through with streaks of white, but the skin of his face and hands was mostly free of wrinkles. He looked tired, as if he’d been working long hours without much rest. He had a trowel in one hand; bits of soil and mulch clung to the fingers of the other.

  “Yes, please?” he said.

  “I’m looking for Mr. Ogada—”

  “I am Mr. Ogada.”

  “No, sir, I mean Edgar Ogada. Your son?”

  “Yes, Edgar is my son. But he isn’t here.”

  “When do you expect him back?”

  He shrugged. “Tonight. Tomorrow he must deliver all of these.” He opened the door a little wider and gestured with the trowel. It was a potting shed, all right, among other things, and right now it was jammed with Christmas poinsetta plants; they were lined up in rows on several benches and on the floor.

  “But you don’t know what time tonight he’ll be back?” I asked.

  “No, I’m sorry.”

  “Or where I might find him?”

  “No. Edgar comes and goes as he pleases. You are a friend of his?”

  “We’ve never met. I have a small personal matter to discuss with him.”

  “Come back tomorrow afternoon,” Mr. Ogada said. “After twelve o’clock. The poinsettas will be delivered by then.”

  “Thanks. I’ll do that.”

  He shut the door and I ran back to the car. So far I had not accomplished much in the way of earning my fee; I hadn’t even been able to track down Yamasaki, Mixer, or Edgar Ogada yet. What with the rain and the hunger pains that were starting up again in my stomach, not to mention Eberhardt and the new office, it had not been an all-star day.

  But there was still time to salvage it. I could talk to Ken Yamasaki later tonight, for one thing. And much more important than that, I was going to spend the evening with Kerry. The whole night with her, maybe.

  Like the song says: Who could ask for anything more?

  Chapter Four

  Kerry was reading a pulp magazine when I got to her apartment on Diamond Heights. She had it open in her hand as she let me in —an early forties issue of Midnight Detective, one of a batch I had loaned her at her request. I recognized it from the garish cover painting of two Caucasian guys getting ready to blow up an Oriental in a mandarin robe; they had two sticks of dynamite apiece and the Oriental had a hatchet in one long-nailed claw and a big automatic in the other, and there was
a half-naked girl lying on the ground to one side, tied up and looking terrified. It was a typical pulp cover: none of it made much sense.

  She shut the door, gave me a quick kiss, and started to poke her nose back into the magazine. I said, “Is that all I get?”

  “For now.”

  “Must be a pretty interesting story you’re reading.”

  “It is. One of Russ Dancer’s.”

  “Good old Russ.”

  “Mmm. I’ll be done in a minute; I only have two more pages to go.” She turned back toward the living room.

  “I think I’ll have a beer,” I said casually.

  “No you won’t,” she said. “There’s diet soda in the fridge. Tab and Fresca.”

  Tab and Fresca, I thought. Fifty-four years old, I come in from a hard day on the job, and what am I supposed to drink? Crap with saccharine in it that had croaked a lot of laboratory animals. Tab and Fresca. Bah.

  Instead of making for the kitchen, I followed Kerry into the living room and watched her curl up on her modernistic couch with the copy of Midnight Detective. She was nice to watch—anytime, anywhere, no matter what she was doing. Tall, willowy without being skinny, terrific legs, and a fanny to start a monk drooling into his cowl. Shoulder-length auburn hair; dark green chameleon eyes that changed shades according to her moods; humor lines crinkled around the eyes and a wide, soft mouth. Fifteen years younger than me, a fact which upset the hell out of her father, an ex-pulp writer called—by me, anyway—Ivan the Terrible. The thought of old Ivan being upset made me smile. I liked Ivan about as much as I liked being on a diet.

  As for Kerry—hell, I loved her and I didn’t care who knew it.

  She finished the story pretty soon and put the magazine down. “That,” she said, “was pure hokum. But I loved every word of it.”

  I couldn’t remember which of Dancer’s stories was in that issue. I asked, “One of the Rex Hannigans?”

  “No. Straight suspense, not a private eye story. All about midgets and burial crypts and a four-foot headless ghost that really isn’t a ghost at all.”