“Okay. This little disappearing act of his was in the works for Monday night, which is why he stopped at the drugstore in North Beach after dinner-to buy razor blades and Band-Aids. But something happened long before he headed up to Twin Peaks that altered the shape of his plan.”
“What was that?”
“He spotted me,” I said. “I guess I’m getting old and less careful on a tail job than I used to be. Either that, or he just tumbled to me by accident. I don’t suppose it matters. The point is, he realized early on that he had a tail, and it wouldn’t have taken much effort for him to figure out I was a detective hired by his wife to get the goods on him. That was when he shifted gears from a half clever idea to a clever one. He’d go through with his disappearing act, all right, but he’d do it in front of a witness, and under a set of contrived circumstances that were really mysterious.”
“It’s a pretty good scenario so far,” Eberhardt said. “But I’m still waiting to find out how he managed to vanish while you were sitting there watching his car.”
“He didn’t.”
“There you go with riddles again.”
“Follow me through. After he left the tavern, Dewey’s Place-while he was stopped at the traffic light on Portola or while he was driving up Twin Peaks Boulevard-he used the razor blade to slice open his finger. He let blood drip on the seat and then bandaged the cut. That took care of part of the trick; the next part came when he reached the lookout.
“There’s a screen of cypress trees along the back edge of the lookout, where you turn off the spur road. They create a blind spot for anybody still on Twin Peaks Boulevard, as I was at the time; I couldn’t see all of the lookout until after I’d turned onto the spur. As soon as Hornback came into that blind spot, he jammed on his brakes and cut the headlights. I told Klein about that-seeing the brake lights flash through the trees and the headlights go dark. But when you think about it, it’s a little odd that somebody would switch off his lights on a lookout like that, with a steep slope at the far end, before he stops his car.”
Eberhardt said, “Now I’m beginning to see it.”
“Sure. He hit the brakes hard enough to bring the Dodge almost but not quite to a full stop. At the same time he shoved the transmission into neutral and shut off the engine and opened the door; the bulb for the dome light was defective so he didn’t have to worry about that. Then he slipped out, pushed the lock button down-a little added mystery-closed the door again, and ran a few steps into the trees. Where there were enough heavy shadows to hide him and to conceal his escape from the area.
“Meanwhile, the car drifted forward nice and slow and came to a stop nose-up against the guardrail. I saw that much, but what I didn’t see was the brake lights flash again. As they should have if Hornback was still inside the car and stopping it in the normal way.”
“One thing. What about that match flare you saw after the car was stopped?”
“That was a nice touch. When the match flamed I naturally assumed it was Hornback lighting another cigarette. But afterward there was no sign of a glowing cigarette end in the darkness- that was the second thing I didn’t see. What really happened is this. He’d fired a cigarette on his way up to the lookout; I noticed a match flare then, too. Before he left the car he put the smoldering butt in the ashtray, along with an unused match. When the hot ash burned down far enough it touched off the match. Simple as that.”
Eberhardt made chewing sounds on the stem of his ghoulish pipe. “Okay,” he said, “that takes care of the disappearance. Now explain the murder.”
“Carolyn Weeks killed him; I think that’s obvious now. He went straight to her after he slipped away from the lookout; I make it that she picked him up in her car. Either they had an argument or she’d been planning to knock him off all along for the money. You’ll find that out when she’s in custody. But she stuck the knife in him somewhere along the line and then dumped his body in the park.”
He nodded. “Which leaves how you knew where to find her.”
“Well, I followed Hornback around to a lot of places that night,” I said. “Restaurant, drugstore, newsstand for a pack of cigarettes, Dewey’s Place for a couple of fortifying drinks-all reasonable stops. But why did he go to the branch library? Why would a man plotting his own disappearance bother to return library books? It had to be that the books were just a cover. The real reason he went to the library was to tell someone who worked there, tell his girl friend, about me and what he was going to do and where to come pick him up.”
Eberhardt started to say something, but the phone buzzed just then. He picked up, said, “Eberhardt,” listened for a time, and then said, “Right, stay with it.” He looked in my direction as he put the handset down. “That was Klein.”
“Anything?”
“He and Logan just finished searching Carolyn Week’s apartment,” he said. “There’s no sign of the money.”
“Damn. And still no sign of Weeks, either, I suppose.”
“No.”
Two minutes later, while we were sitting in silence, each with our own thoughts, Charles Kayabalian showed up. I had called him from the Library, after listening to Eberhardt yell at me, because I wanted legal representation while I argued my case with the Chief. He’d had an appointment but said he’d be at the Hall by three-thirty, and he was as good as his word. I spent five minutes alone with him, outlining the situation. Then he and Eberhardt and I took the elevator upstairs.
The session in the Chief’s office lasted almost an hour. It was a good thing I’d had the foresight to request Kayabalian’s presence, — he didn’t say anything during my recap of the Hornback mystery, but afterward he offered an eloquent defense of my reasons for going alone to the library and of my professional conduct in general, stressing my record as a police officer and as a private investigator. I let him do most of the talking in that vein; he did a far better job in my behalf than I could have. Even Eberhardt, in his grudging way, allowed as how I had assisted the Department on a number of occasions and was always cooperative and aboveboard in my dealings with them.
But the Chief wasn’t convinced. The stern set of his face throughout told me that even before he launched into a speech about how much pressure he was getting from various sources, including the Mayor’s office, and how all this sensational publicity was harmful to the police image. There would be even more pressure after today’s events came out in the media, he said. It was a public relations matter, he said. A private detective wasn’t supposed to go around involving himself in homicide cases, he said, particularly when he kept making the cops look bad by upstaging them. He admitted that I had more or less exonerated myself of any wrongdoing in the Hornback case, but, he said, that didn’t necessarily mean he could allow me to keep on working as a private detective in the city of San Francisco. He had the matter under advisement and would make a decision “in a couple of days” as to whether or not he would recommend suspension of my license. Meanwhile, it would behoove me to keep a low profile and stay out of trouble. That was the word he used: “behoove.”
When he finally threw us out of his office, and Eberhardt and Kayabalian and I were standing in the outer hall, I said, “It doesn’t look good, does it?”
“I wouldn’t say that,” Kayabalian said in his optimistic way. Eberhardt just grunted.
“Nice irony,” I said. “He wants to yank my license because I’m too good at what I do. I’m not supposed to solve crimes; I’m not supposed to prevent crimes. What the hell am 1 supposed to do?”
Eb said, “Stay out of trouble. It could still go your way.”
Kayabalian nodded agreement. “Let me handle this. You’re not going to get railroaded out of a job because you devote your time and effort to upholding the law, not if I can help it.”
Eberhardt grunted again.
I said, “Yeah. All right.”
But I felt like a goddamn prisoner as we rode down in the elevator.
FIFTEEN
I had dinner wit
h Kerry that night-the first time I’d seen her since Sunday.
It was six o’clock by the time I got home and I was afraid she’d made other plans for the evening, but she was in when I called, and over her anger at me. Or at least keeping it under wraps. When I told her what had happened during the day she was both sympathetic and irate at the way I was being treated. And she agreed to dinner without having to consider the idea, although she said she preferred to go out somewhere rather than cook for the two of us.
I picked her up at seven and we went to a seafood place on the Embarcadero that had a view of the bay and specialized in calamari dishes. She didn’t say anything about Ivan the Terrible on the ride over, and I wasn’t about to bring the subject up myself; our conversation, for the most part, was limited to the Hornback case and to my session with the Chief of Police.
She was wearing a green dress, cut low in the front, that did nice things for her figure and for her eyes; she looked terrific. Just being with her took away some of the gloom I’d been feeling since my visit to the Hall of Justice.
We ordered drinks and calamari salads, and ate sourdough French bread, and she told me to quit dropping crumbs in my lap and on the floor. I took that as a good sign. She was always after me about my manners and general appearance and demeanor, but in a constructive way-a caring, intimate way. It was that old feeling of intimacy that I craved more than anything else.
The salads came, and while we went to work on them there was one of those conversational lulls. When I glanced up from my plate she was holding her head in a way that accented the clean lines of her face; the coppery hair seemed to shimmer and ripple liquidly in the soft lighting. A wave of tenderness moved through me. And I said, “Did I ever tell you you’re beautiful?”
“More than once,” she said, smiling. “But then I’ve always thought your taste is suspect.”
“Not mine. Yours, maybe.”
“Mmmm. I sometimes wonder.”
“About what you see in me?”
“Not that. Just about you.”
“What about me?”
“Who are you, really. What goes on inside that shaggy head of yours.”
“You’re what goes on inside my head.”
“Yes, I know. But why?”
I leered at her. “You know why.”
“I’m serious,” she said.
“So am I.”
“Just sex? All those romps in the hay?”
“Come on,” I said. “You know I love you.”
“But why? Is it because my parents were both pulp writers?”
This conversation was beginning to get away from me; I sensed it taking on a significance I didn’t like. “Of course not. What kind of question is that?”
“The pulps mean a great deal to you.” she said. “More than you realize, maybe. Would you be after me so hard if my folks were doctors or social workers?”
“Kerry, what are you saying? It’s you I’m after, not your parents. Sure as hell not your father.”
“Don’t start in again about my father.”
“I’m not starting in again. I’m only trying to-”
“Why is it so important to you that we get married? We’ve got a good thing going as it is.”
“I’m old-fashioned, that’s why,” I said, and I couldn’t keep the budding annoyance out of my voice. “Where I come from, people who love each other get married.”
“I’m not so sure it has to be that way.”
“No? You got married once, didn’t you?”
“‘Yes, and it was a big mistake.”
“So you think it might be a big mistake to marry me, too.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“Or maybe you don’t love me. Is that it?”
“I do, after my fashion.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means I care for you, very much, but I don’t know you. I don’t know who you are.”
“Sure, you do. I’m an open book.”
“I thought so at first. Now …”
“Now what?”
“I keep finding out things,” she said. “Jealousy; I never thought you’d be so jealous. Or so intense about our relationship. Or so bitter toward my father. Or so … well, so relentless.”
“I’m not relentless.”
“But you are. It’s a kind of macho thing.”
“Macho? Me?”
“You have a certain dominant-male attitude, yes. You’ve got to have things your way; otherwise they’re just no good for you.”
I put my fork down-harder than I’d intended, because a couple at the next table glanced over at us. “That’s not true,” I said.
““You meet a woman, decide she’s what you want, and a few days later you’re pressing for marriage. That’s machismo. You don’t seem to care what I want.”
“I thought you wanted me.”
“How could you think that? You don’t know who I am; you don’t know me any better than I know you. All you know is that I’m the daughter of two pulp writers. And you love the pulps, and boy, wouldn’t it be great to wrap up all your passions in one neat little package.”
“That’s a lot of crap,” I said.
“Is it? What attracted you to me in the first place?”
“You attracted me. You.”
“Not my background? Not the fact that we met at a pulp convention?”
“Listen, you were the one who came on to me, remember? How come? Your mother wrote private eye stories; you told me you’d been fascinated by private eyes ever since you were a kid. So what attracted you to me, huh?”
“I don’t deny it was your profession.”
“Well, then?”
“But I don’t get off on the idea of spending the rest of my life with a notorious private eye. It’s not that important to me, not in the long run where it counts.”
“Are you saying I do get off on your background?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “I’m just trying to understand who you are, why you want me so much. I’m just trying to make up my mind what kind of future we’d have together.”
“It sounds to me like you’ve already made up your mind.”
“There you go with that macho stuff again. Why do you always have to jump to conclusions when things don’t suit your way of thinking?”
I couldn’t think of anything to say; words splut tered in my head like a lot of faulty Roman candles. People were looking at us; we’d been talking in louder tones than either of us had realized. The anger we’d been building up lay as heavy as smoke in the air between us, and we both seemed to become aware of it at the same time. Kerry averted her eyes, put them on her salad bowl. I picked up my fork again and sat there holding it trident-fashion, like a pathetic Neptune.
“I don’t want to fight,” she said in a low voice. “Please, let’s just drop it.”
“All right. Consider it dropped.”
We finished eating in silence, Kerry picking at her food, me compulsively wolfing bread and salad and beer. I made a couple of overtures at small talk over coffee, but it was no good; she had her thoughts and I had mine, and we had stopped communicating for the time being. Maybe for good, I thought. I felt low and helpless and confused; I felt lousier than I had in the Hall of Justice, or at any time during this whole miserable week.
We said exactly ten words to each other on the ride up to Diamond Heights. “Do you want me to put on the heater?” I said, and she said, “Yes,” and that was it. When we got to her building I walked with her to the door. Fog eddied around us, turning the street lamps and apartment lights into fuzzy smears in the darkness. It was damned cold, but no colder than it had grown between us.
I said, “I don’t suppose I get to come in.”
“I’d rather you didn’t tonight.”
“Or any other night?”
Silence. She was rummaging in her purse for her key.
“I’ll be over in Ross most of tomorrow,” I said. “The wedding-presents thing
. But we can do something on Sunday-even go jogging again if you want.”
“I don’t think so. I’ll be busy on Sunday.”
“Doing what?”
“That’s my business, isn’t it?”
“Another date with Jim Carpenter?”
It just came out; I hadn’t planned to say it. But she didn’t respond. She just bent over and keyed open the door.
“Kerry, look, I’m sorry. …”
“So am I,” she said. She straightened and kissed me on the cheek, sisterlike; her lips were very cold. “Take care tomorrow. Don’t get into any more trouble.”
“I won’t. I’ll call you, okay?”
“Good night,” she said, and in she went, and the door clicked shut behind her.
I stood there for thirty seconds or so, shivering in the chill fog. Then I tucked my tail between my legs and went home to sleep in my lonely bed.
I was up at seven on Saturday morning, prowling around my flat like a caged bear. I still had a compulsive need for food; I ate two pastrami sandwiches, some leftover Kentucky Fried Chicken, an apple, and washed it all down with a quart of milk. When I was done I felt greasy and bloated and mean. If anybody had come around just then I would have jumped all over him, growling and biting.
Last night’s restaurant scene kept replaying in my mind. None of what Kerry had said to me was true; I’d been through that particular psychoanalytical trip myself, not long after I met her, and I had rejected the implications. The pulps had been a central part of my life for three and a half decades, yes; I had always tried to emulate the pulp detectives I admired, yes. But I did not allow them to govern my emotions. I did not love Kerry because of her connection to those yellowing old magazines and the people who had written for them.
The macho thing-that was crap, too. I didn’t need to have things my way in order to be happy; I did care about Kerry and her feelings and what she needed. I loved her, that was all. I wanted her, wanted the commitment, wanted a life together. It was true that I didn’t know her and she didn’t know me; but we were learning. That was what love was all about, wasn’t it? Learning about each other, unveiling secrets, taking the good with the bad-cementing the bond. No one could ever really know another person, no matter how close you became or how long you were together. All you could do was learn as much as possible. And keep on learning.
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