Case File - a Collection of Nameless Detective Stories

by Bill Pronzini

  "Yes, ma'am."

  "Cops," Mrs. Rodriguez said, and shook her head. Then a thought seemed to strike her and she frowned warily. "Say, you're not a cop, are you?"

  "No, I'm not."

  "Good. How come you're looking for Travers?"

  "A private matter."

  "Huh," she said. "He in some sort of trouble?"

  "I don't know. Probably not."

  "Well, it wouldn't surprise me if he was. Kids nowadays, they got no respect for nothing, not even the law. If you ask me —"

  "Thanks for your help, Mrs. Rodriguez," I said, and left her standing there with her mouth open.

  On the way back to my car, I did some wondering about Larry Travers. The fact that he was in the process of moving out of his flat didn't have to mean anything; people move every day for a hundred different reasons. But it seemed odd that Lynn hadn't mentioned it when she gave me his address. Maybe Travers hadn't got around to telling her about the move yet; but that was odd, too, if so. He and Lynn were engaged. Why wouldn't he tell her he was moving?

  Mrs. Rodriguez's diatribe about loud parties didn't have to mean anything either. The testimony of a complainer and a busybody wasn't always reliable, and the way she had kept using the word "orgy" made exaggeration another of her faults. Still, there was probably a fair amount of truth in what she'd told me. So was Travers playing around on Lynn Canale or wasn't he?

  The one person besides Travers who could give me the answer to that question figured to be Tim Downs. He might still be at work, but I seemed to remember that plumbers quit for the day at three-thirty. I decided to try his home first because it was closer than Le Costa Plumbing and Heating, over on Harrison, where Lynn had told me Downs worked.

  I drove up to De Haro. The building Downs lived in was also a Stick-style Victorian, in a somewhat shabbier state of repair, and like the one on Missouri it sat near the top of a steep hill; it would command a nice view of the city from its rear windows. I parked down the block, trudged uphill and climbed onto the porch.

  Downs had the main-floor flat, and he didn't have it alone; a second name was written below his on the mailbox card: Pam Scott. Girlfriend, probably. I rang the bell. No answer here either. I was just about to start back down the steps when a dark green Toyota pulled into the driveway below and a young guy dressed in a soiled work uniform and carrying a lunch pail got out.

  He gave me a curious glance and then mounted the stairs, taking his time about it. He was a big kid, mid-twenties, built like a football player. His black hair hung to his shoulders, curling up on the ends, and he wore one of those bushy mustache-and-sideburns combinations that were popular back in the 1890s. Deep-set blue eyes studied me levelly when he reached the porch and stopped a couple of paces away.

  "You looking for me?" he asked.

  "I am if your name is Tim Downs."

  "That's my name. What can I do for you?"

  I told him who I was and more or less why I was there; I also showed him my license photostat. Nothing much changed in his blue eyes. He wasn't impressed one way or another. "Who hired you?" he asked. "Lynn's old man?"

  "Yes."

  "Yeah, that figures. He's the type."

  "What type is that?"

  "The Establishment type. Always overreacting."

  "Why do you think he's overreacting?"

  "Lots of women get obscene telephone calls," Downs said. "It's no big deal. San Francisco is full of creeps."

  "Lots of women don't have their life threatened," I said.

  "Is that straight? The guy threatened Lynn?"

  "This morning. He said he was going to kill her."

  "Christ. You think he means it?"

  "Maybe. There's no way to tell without knowing who he is. You wouldn't have any ideas, would you?"

  He shook his head. And then he scowled and said, "Why ask me? I don't know anything about those calls."

  "You're a friend of Lynn's, aren't you?"

  "So? She's got a lot of friends."

  "She had her phone number changed yesterday. Except for her father, you and Larry Travers are the only ones she gave the new number to."

  "What the hell?" he said. There was hostility in his voice now, in the set of his mouth. "You think maybe I'm the one who called her up and threatened her?"

  "Did I say that? I don't have any ideas about you one way or another; all I'm here for is to ask you some questions. You don't have to answer them if you don't want to."

  "What questions?"

  "Did you give Lynn's new phone number to anyone?"

  "No. Why should I?"

  "Are you sure?"

  "Sure, I'm sure. I didn't even tell Pam."

  "Who's Pam?"

  "Pam Scott, The lady I live with."

  "Do you know if Travers gave the number to anyone?"

  "No. Ask him, why don't you?"

  "I stopped by his flat before I came here. He wasn't home."

  "Yeah, well, he's been busy lately."

  "There's a Flat for Rent sign on his building," I said. "The woman who lives below him said he's moving out."

  "That's right, he is."

  "Where to? Another place here in the city?"

  Downs hesitated. "No. He's splitting."

  "You mean he's leaving San Francisco?"

  "This coming weekend, yeah."

  "Where's he going?"

  "San Diego."

  "Why? He decide to change schools, or what?"

  "Not exactly. He dropped out of U.C. at the end of last semester; he may stay out until the fall, sign up at San Diego State. It all depends."

  "On what?"

  "On whether this deal he's got going works out."

  "What deal?"

  Downs hesitated again. Then he shrugged and said, "Him and another guy are taking a boat down to Dago for the guy's old man. Guy he met over in Berkeley. The old man bought the boat when he was up here over Christmas, had it put in for some minor repairs; he owns a bunch of boats down south. Larry figures maybe he can get a regular job with him."

  "Does Lynn know about this deal?"

  Another shrug. "Maybe Larry didn't tell her yet. Ask him."

  "He didn't tell her he'd dropped out of school either, did he? Or that he was leaving San Francisco?"

  "So he hasn't told her, so what?"

  "He's engaged to marry the girl."

  "Yeah, sure," Downs said, and grinned crookedly.

  "What does that mean? He isn't going to marry her?"

  "Larry's not the marrying type."

  "No? Then why the hell did he get engaged to her?"

  "Come on, man, why do you think?"

  "You tell me."

  "You met her, didn't you? She's a nice kid, but a little square; she's got old-fashioned ideas. Getting engaged was the only way Larry could score with her."

  Anger clotted my throat; I didn't trust myself to speak for a moment. Some sweet guy, this Larry Travers. A girl like Lynn won't go to bed with him, so he tells her he loves her, promises to marry her and strings her along until he's had enough of her and her body. Then he drops her, shatters her dreams and away he goes without giving her another thought. A bum like that was capable of just about anything. Including a series of obscene and threatening telephone calls, for whatever warped reason of his own.

  What I was thinking must have been plain on my face. Downs said, "Hey, man, why get so uptight about it? Lynn'll get over it; they always do. It's no big deal."

  "It's a big deal to me, sonny."

  His jaw tightened. "Don't call me sonny."

  "I'll call you any damn thing I feel like calling you. Where can I find Travers?"

  He glared at me without answering. I glared right back at him. He was half my age and in better physical shape, but the way I felt right now, I was ready to beat the crap out of him and Travers both. Maybe he saw that in my face, too; or maybe he just didn't feel like mixing it up with anybody on his front stoop. His eyes shifted away from me, and he muttered something under
his breath and started past me to the front door.

  I blocked his way. "I asked you a question. Where can I find Travers?"

  "How should I know?"

  "Where does he hang out when he's not home?"

  "I don't have to answer your questions, man —"

  "Not mine, maybe. How about the police?"

  "You can't put the cops on me. I ain't done anything . . ."

  "I can and I will. I used to be a cop myself; I've still got friends on the force. Now, do you want to tell me where Travers hangs out or don't you?"

  He muttered something else under his breath that I didn't catch. Then he said, tight-mouthed and sullen, "Elrod's, on Eighteenth and Connecticut. He's there most days around five."

  "He still living in his flat or not?"

  "Some nights. Other nights he spends on the boat."

  "Where?"

  "China Basin. The Basin Boatyard."

  "What's the name of the boat?"

  "The Hidalgo."

  "All right," I said. "If you talk to Travers before I do, tell him I'm looking for him. Tell him I think he's one of those creeps San Francisco is full of."

  I brushed by Downs and clumped down the stairs. And I didn't look back.

  V.

  Elrod's was a neighborhood tavern that had been outfitted to resemble an English pub—British and Irish beer signs on the walls, a couple of dart boards, a big fireplace with some logs blazing inside. From the look of the twenty or so patrons, it catered to the under-thirty crowd and was probably what passed for a singles bar on Potrero Hill. I was the oldest person in there by at least ten years.

  The bartender was a young guy with a bright red beard. I ordered a pint of Bass ale and asked him if he knew Larry Travers. Sure, he said, but Larry hadn't come in yet today. A great guy, Larry. Drank beer like it was going out of style; drank beer for breakfast, once poured some on a bowl of cereal to prove it. A hell of a guy.

  Yeah, I thought. A hell of a guy.

  A dollar tip got the bartender to agree to point Travers out to me if he showed up. Then I took my ale into a telephone booth at the rear and called Tellmark, Graham, Canale and Isaacs. Jud Canale was back from court and in his office—it was almost five o'clock—and he came on the line immediately.

  "A couple of things to report," I said, "neither of them good." I told him about the call to Lynn this morning, the threat against her life. And I told him what I'd found out about Larry Travers. The only thing I didn't tell him was the reason why Travers had pretended to want to marry Lynn; I just said he'd been seeing other women all along and was backing out of the marriage by running off to San Diego. Lynn Canale's sex life was her own business, not her father's.

  Canale let me tell it straight through without interrupting. When I was finished he said in a thin, angry voice, "Have you talked to Travers yet?"

  "Not yet. I haven't been able to find him. I will, though. I'm calling from a place where he hangs out; he's liable to show up here sooner or later."

  "Did you tell Lynn what you found out?"

  "No. I didn't think it was my place."

  "You're right, it isn't. It's mine. I'll drive over and talk to her right away."

  "Whatever you think best, Mr. Canale."

  He gave me his home phone number and asked me to call him again as soon as I talked to Travers. Then he rang off, and I went back to the bar and found a place to sit where I could watch the entrance. The place was full now and getting fuller—a more or less even mix of male and female kids in their twenties. I felt out of place among them; I felt old and anachronistic, a product of a different world that they could never really understand, any more than I could really understand theirs. Several of them gave me curious glances, and the look on one girl's face said that she was wondering if I might be a pervert. It might have been funny in other circumstances. As it was, with Lynn Canale and Larry Travers on my mind, it wasn't funny at all. It was only sad.

  Five-thirty came and went. So did a second pint of Bass ale. But Travers didn't come.

  He still hadn't shown at six. I gave him another twenty minutes, until the crowd began to thin out for dinner and other activities, and when the bartender came over and shrugged and said, "I guess Larry's not coming in tonight," I decided it was time to call it quits. I paid my tab and went out into the early-evening darkness.

  The wasted time had made me irritable, and the ale and the noise and smoky atmosphere of Elrod's had given me a headache. I didn't want food; I didn't want to go home yet. I was still fixated on Travers.

  I took my car back to Missouri Street. And there was a light on in the Victorian's upper flat, Travers' flat, and parked in the driveway was a battered old Triumph TR-3. Well, well, I thought. The prodigal returns. But I couldn't find a goddamn parking space anywhere on the block, and I did not want to risk putting the car into somebody else's driveway. It took me a couple of minutes to locate a space a block and a half away.

  When I came huffing and puffing up the hill, the upstairs light in Travers' flat had been put out. The sports car was still in the driveway, though, and I could see a guy loading something into its trunk. There was enough light from a nearby street lamp to tell me that he was big, blond and young. He heard me coming, glanced around and then straightened as I approached him.

  "Larry Travers?"

  "That's right. You're the detective, right?"

  I nodded. "Your friend Downs tell you about me?"

  "Yes." There was no hostility in his voice, as there had been in Downs's; he was playing it neutral. "I'm sorry you feel the way you do about me, I really am. But you just don't understand how things are."

  "I understand how things are, all right," I said. "I also understand that somebody threatened Lynn Canale's life this afternoon. Or don't you care about that?"

  "Sure, I care about it."

  "How about her? Do you care about her?"

  "Why do you think I don't? Because I'm moving to San Diego and I haven't told Lynn yet? That doesn't make me a bad guy; and it doesn't mean I'm trying to run out on her, or that we won't see each other again."

  He sounded very earnest, and in the pale light from the street lamp his expression was guileless. He was a handsome kid: athletic build, boyish features, long blond hair and a neat blond mustache. But it was all on the surface. Inside, where it counted, he wasn't handsome at all.

  I said, "Where were you at one o'clock this afternoon?"

  "Why? Is that when Lynn got the threatening call?"

  "Where were you?"

  "I didn't make that call, if that's what you think," Travers said. "Lynn is special to me; the last thing in the world I want is to see her hurt. Why don't you go find out who did do it, instead of bothering me?"

  I took a step toward him. "Answer my question, Travers. Where were you at one o'clock this afternoon?"

  He didn't answer the question. Instead, he slammed the trunk lid, moved away from me to the driver's door and hauled it open. I went after him, but he was quick and agile; by the time I got around there, he was inside and he had the door shut again. He shoved the lock button down as I caught hold of the handle.

  "Travers!"

  But he wasn't listening. The starter whirred and the engine came to life; he ground gear teeth getting the transmission into reverse. I stepped back out of the way just before he released the clutch and took the Triumph, tires squealing, out into the street. A couple of seconds later, he was rocketing off down the hill. And a couple of seconds after that, he was gone.

  There was no point in trying to follow him; my car was too far away. I swallowed my anger and made myself walk slowly down the steep sidewalk. Round one to Travers. But there would be a round two, and that one, by God, would be mine.

  When I got to where I had left my car, I debated driving over to China Basin. But that might not be where Travers was headed; and, in any event, you couldn't get into a boatyard at night without a key or somebody letting you in. So I pointed the car in the opposite direction and w
ent home to my flat in Pacific Heights. I had done enough for one day. As long as Lynn was in a safe place, Travers could wait until tomorrow.

  I opened myself a beer, took it into the bedroom and dialed Jud Canale's home number. He wasn't in yet; there was a whirring click and I got his recorded voice on his answering machine. I left a brief message outlining my abortive talk with Travers and said I would get in touch again in the morning.

  Dinner was leftover pizza and another beer. After which I took a 1935 issue of Black Mask off one of the shelves where I keep my collection of mystery and detective pulp magazines, and crawled into bed with it. I got halfway through an Erle Stanley Gardner story about Ed Jenkins, the Phantom Crook, but my head wasn't into it. I kept thinking about Lynn Canale, and about Travers, and about those calls.

  I shut the light off finally and waited for my thoughts to wind down and sleep to come. I was still waiting two hours later.

  VI.

  Jud Canale got in touch with me in the morning, while I was having toast and coffee a few minutes past eight. He sounded tired and upset, and one of the reasons turned out to be that Lynn had refused to go home with him last night, or any night to come. She hadn't even spent the entire evening in her apartment; she had gone off with Connie Evans to a Drama Club meeting, because she said she couldn't stand staying cooped up. But she was all right so far. There hadn't been any more anonymous calls during the night, or any other disturbances. Canale had insisted that she phone him first thing this morning, to check in; she had done that a few minutes before he called me.

  The second reason he was upset was that Lynn had also refused to accept the truth about Travers. Even if Travers had dropped out of U.C. and given up his apartment, even if he was going to take a boat to San Diego, even if he hadn't told her any of this yet, she was convinced he had his reasons and that he still loved her. She was certain he hadn't been fooling around with other women either. That sort of loyalty and trust was good to see in a young person like Lynn, but in this case it was tragically misplaced. When she did accept the truth, as she would have to sooner or later, it was going to go twice as hard for her. Love, like dreams and old beliefs, dies hard.

  "What are you going to do about Travers?" Canale asked. "Talk to him again today?"