A Wild and Lonely Place

by Marcia Muller

  When I knocked on the bungalow’s door, it took him well over a minute to answer. Footsteps came from the rear and an overhead bulb flashed on. Newton looked out; surprise flared in his eyes and he recoiled.

  I pushed past him into the front room. The finger-smudged glass still stood on the table among the Hummel figurines. I went over, picked it up, and smelled it. Vodka.

  Newton didn’t ask what I was doing; he knew.

  “Who brought them here?” I demanded. “Speed?”

  His gaze slid away from mine. “Brought who?”

  “You know—Mavis Hamid and her daughter.”

  “I don’t understand why—”

  “Yes, you do. Look, Newton, you told me you never use this room except for company, but this afternoon it had a lived-in feel, as if somebody’d been here before it got so cold you needed to light the fire. Habiba’s a jigsaw puzzle enthusiast; you had one half completed on the card table, but didn’t hesitate to dump it back in its box. Mavis is a vodka drinker, and this glass—”

  “I drink vodka.”

  “You didn’t smell of vodka earlier.”

  “It’s been there several days.”

  I held the glass up, let a drop of liquid slide out of it and splat to the floor.

  Newton’s shoulders slumped in acknowledgment of defeat. “All right,” he said heavily. “Speed brought them.”

  “When?”

  “Around noon.”

  So Schechtmann had probably removed them from the consulate while I was trying to persuade Malika Hamid to let them go with me. I remembered Kahlil Lateef leaving the library twice on errands for her; she’d spoken to him in their native tongue and I hadn’t given it a second thought.

  “Why’d he park them here, rather than on the Freia?”

  Newton went to the sofa and sat down. “She wasn’t going to be ready to sail until four, and Speed didn’t want the marina manager to see them. He’d planned to take them directly from the consulate to the boat, but some emergency came up and he had to get them out of there early. So he called Leila, and Leila called me and said Speed would pay if I’d keep them amused for a few hours. That wasn’t easy. The mother…” He grimaced.

  “What about her?”

  “She was drunk and upset and wanted to go home. Speed went down to the marina to check on things and in the hour he was gone she ran out into the yard and tried to get away twice. When he came back he brought a bottle; she drank most of it, but she didn’t calm down.”

  “How was Habiba doing?”

  “She was worried about her mother, but I guess she’d seen her behave oddly before. After a while she just tuned her out and worked on her puzzle. It helped that she had something to look forward to; she said Speed was taking them on an adventure, and when they arrived they’d see her father.”

  “Arrived where?”

  “I don’t think she knew.”

  “Did Mavis know?”

  “She barely knew she was here.”

  His description of Mavis’s last hours made me both sad and angry. “Well, she’s nowhere now, Mr. Newton.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Mavis is dead, and Habiba’s missing.”

  Something bright sparked in his eyes. “What happened?”

  “She was drowned, whether on purpose or by accident, I can’t say.”

  “Speed’s fault?”

  “Had to be. She was floating in the Freia’s slip at the marina. Even if she went into the water by accident, Speed left her there. She was drunk and helpless and she might’ve still been alive—but he left her to die.”

  Newton’s facial muscles rippled, and when he spoke his voice shook with emotion. “I begged Speed not to give her that bottle. He just laughed and said she needed to be sedated. Then he sat right here where I am now and watched her drink.” He stood, took a quick turn around the room, his movements tight and angry. “I hate men who prey on women! I hate them!”

  Then why didn’t you do something? I asked silently. And left him to his recriminations.

  * * *

  Blanca’s eyes widened in alarm when I arrived at Sandy Ronquillo’s condominium. Something in my face, I supposed, plus the disheveled condition of the jeans and sweater that had long been crammed into the travel bag in the trunk of my car.

  “Is she here?” I asked.

  Blanca nodded, glancing across the foyer to a hallway.

  “Sober?”

  She didn’t bother to reply to the absurd question. “She is dressing to go out to dinner.”

  “Get her, please.”

  She hurried down the hallway, knocked on a door at its end, and went inside. I paced up and down on the black and white checkerboard, trying to control my anger before it controlled me. After a few minutes the door slammed and Leila stalked down the hall, wearing a short red silk robe and a scowl. “What the hell do you want now?” she demanded.

  “Where is your husband taking Habiba Hamid?”

  Under her freshly applied makeup, her face paled. She glanced over her shoulder. “Sandy,” she whispered. “He will hear.”

  “Then let’s go upstairs to talk.”

  “No, you must leave now!” She put out her hands to push me toward the door.

  I sidestepped. “Shall I raise my voice, Leila?”

  “Don’t! Please.” She looked around in confusion, then grabbed my arm and hurried me upstairs to the living room. Apparently that wasn’t far enough from Ronquillo, because she motioned toward the spiral staircase and led me up to the greenhouse room on the roof.

  The room wasn’t as appealing in the night mist as it had been that afternoon in the sunlight. Its view of the city lights was blurred by moisture that streaked the panes, and the air was cold enough to make Leila shiver. She sat on the edge of one of the chairs, and I remained standing.

  “Now,” I said, “where is he taking her?”

  “How did you find out…? Fig, that rat!”

  “Don’t blame him. Just tell me where Speed’s going.”

  Her eyes moved from side to side as she tried to calculate how little she could get away with telling me.

  “I know you arranged for them to stay with Fig. I know about the Freia and the ship offshore. Now give me the rest of it, Leila, or I’ll start talking very loudly. You don’t want Sandy to find out everything I know.”

  “Everything?”

  “About your husband’s visits to you. About the money he gives you.”

  She put her fingers to her lips for a few seconds, then recovered. “That Fig is a liar, you know, that’s why he can’t keep a job.”

  I didn’t reply.

  “Or was it Blanca who told you? She lies, too. I have caught her stealing.”

  “That I very much doubt. You’re lucky to have an employee like her—and a friend like Fig.”

  “Who, then? Speed? Speed wouldn’t—”

  “You don’t know what Speed would do. Now—where is he going?”

  She bit her lip. “Sandy will kill me if he finds out. All right, you want to know where Speed is taking them. All right, I will tell you. I do not know the exact location, but Speed owns an island somewhere in the Caribbean. He is operating the sports book again, but there he cannot be charged with breaking the law.”

  “He must be breaking the law of some country.”

  She shook her head. “The island is sovereign. I do not know why that is, something about the old man he bought it from having declared its independence from Great Britain and the British not wanting it anyway. It is a small island, and very poor.”

  “But you don’t know its name?”

  “No.”

  “Or its location?”

  She closed her eyes. “I think it is in the Leewards.”

  “Near St. Maarten, perhaps?”

  “I am not familiar with that area, I really do not know.”

  I studied her face for a moment to see if she was lying, but anxiety was all I saw. “Okay, Speed is operating the sports
book again. Why does he risk making trips to San Francisco?”

  “Me, of course.”

  I doubted that. Speed Schechtmann didn’t sound like the type who would risk his freedom for any woman—particularly one in whom fidelity was so demonstrably absent. “He must do something else besides see you.”

  “Well, there is the check cashing.”

  “What about it?”

  “Eric Sparling, do you know him? The man who owns the Freia, he has a chain of check-cashing places, mostly poor people on welfare use them.”

  “And?”

  “Speed brings the checks he collects for gambling debts, and Eric cashes them.”

  “Eric launders money, you mean.”

  “I guess that is what it is called.”

  “Where can I find Sparling?”

  Alarm flared in her eyes. “You can’t tell him—”

  “It won’t be necessary for me to tell him you’re involved. Where?”

  “His office is in his main branch on Sixth Street near Howard.”

  Sixth near Howard was in the middle of Skid Row. Appropriate. “What’s his home address?”

  “I don’t know, Speed never mentioned where he lives.”

  It shouldn’t be too difficult to obtain. I turned and started down the staircase.

  “Ms. McCone?” Leila hurried after me, frightened now. “You will keep my secrets?”

  “I will, but secrets have a way of coming out on their own.”

  Again she covered her lips with her fingers, as if by doing so she could prevent that from happening. Like Langley Newton, Leila now had to deal with her recriminations.

  Fourteen

  Eric Sparling was unlisted. I called Charlotte Keim’s extension at RKI, hoping she’d still be there and could pull a quick check for me, but only reached her voice mail. When I glanced at my watch I saw it was well after eight. Time was passing too fast, and every minute took a little girl who by now must be very frightened farther away from me.

  I didn’t leave a message for Keim, instead transferred my call to the building operator. Was anyone in, I asked, who could run an address check for me?

  No, he replied, there had been a problem in La Jolla and the central computer was down. Mr. Ripinsky was in the office, though; did I want to speak with him?

  You bet I did.

  “How’re you feeling?” I asked when he came on the line.

  “Better; this bug comes and goes.”

  His repeated bouts with it had me seriously worried, but I knew I’d get nowhere by insisting he see a doctor. Hytended not to give in to illness, but he wasn’t irresponsible; he’d see to it in his own good time.

  He added, “I spoke with Gage, and he told me what went down today, so I gave up on you and came in to access some documents. Just my luck—no computer.”

  “You’ll be there for a while?”

  “Yeah. Some of the night people in the data-search section are putting together a poker game. I thought I’d sit in on it and see if the computer comes back up.”

  “Then I’ll stop by later. Wish me luck.”

  “With what?”

  “I’ll explain when I get there. Just wish me.”

  So because of a balky computer, I was walking along one of the city’s roughest streets toward Eric Sparling’s check-cashing establishment, caressing the .38 and feeling bad all over again about having come to depend on it. The mayor’s controversial Matrix program—designed to roust the homeless from the inner city—may have worked at the Civic Center and Union Square, but not at Sixth and Howard. A man with a little dog begged for spare change in front of a closed sandwich shop; a woman with a shopping cart full of shabby possessions slept in a doorway. Poverty-stricken souls were everywhere; add to them the drunks, addicts, teenaged runaways, pimps, and hookers, and you had the full flavor of life on the city’s sad, seamy underside. I walked quickly, avoiding all eye contact.

  The exterior of Ace Check Cashing flashed neon like a Las Vegas gambling casino, but the interior was a cross between a small bank and the visiting room at a county jail: a high counter, two cashier’s stations equipped with automatically operated tills and microphones. Glass—probably shatter and bullet-proof—rose from counter to ceiling. Only one of the booths was staffed, by a white-haired woman whose slate-blue eyes told me I hadn’t seen the half of it. When she said, “Help you, honey?” the microphone amplified her smoker’s voice.

  I held up my I.D. and asked if Sparling was in.

  The woman looked my license over carefully, then picked up a phone receiver, punched a button, and—turning her head so I couldn’t hear—spoke softly.

  “Mr. Sparling wants to know what this is about,” she said.

  “Tell him it’s about the Freia.”

  Apparently my voice was as loud on the other side of the glass as hers on this side because she didn’t relay the message, merely listened to Sparling’s reply. “He says the boat’s in its slip at Salt Point Marina.”

  “It may be now, but it wasn’t at five-thirty when I fished Mavis Hamid’s body out of the water.”

  The woman didn’t react. She listened to Sparling, then motioned at a door near the end of the counter. “I’ll buzz you in.”

  Before I was through the door, one in the facing wall opened. A silver-haired man with a sailor’s tan stepped out and said, “Ms. McCone? This way, please.”

  I followed him into a narrow robin’s-egg blue corridor. He motioned for me to go around him, latched the door, and leaned against it, arms folded across his chest. “Now,” he said, “what’s this about a body?”

  I took a few steps along the corridor, distancing myself from him. “You are Eric Sparling?”

  He nodded.

  “Well, I’m surprised the sheriff down in San Mateo County hasn’t been in contact with you. They’ll want to question everyone who keeps a boat at the marina—and the body was floating in the Freia’s slip.”

  “Get to the point, please.”

  “The point is that the body was the woman your associate, Speed Schechtmann, kidnaped from the Azadi Consulate this morning.”

  “Schechtmann left the country years ago.”

  “And has returned a number of times, with your help.”

  “Nonsense. And what’s this about him kidnaping someone?”

  “Mr. Sparling, you don’t have to cover up with me. I know all about you having the Freia pick Schechtmann up offshore. The marina manager has seen the two of you together. And I know about the check-cashing service you perform for Speed.”

  “Check cashing is my business.”

  “Social Security checks. Welfare checks. Payroll checks. But not checks that are in repayment of gambling debts.”

  His lips twitched and his eyes moved to my right hand, where it rested on the gun. He glanced along the corridor, then back at me. “Is this a shakedown?”

  “Blackmail? No, Mr. Sparling. I need information.”

  Again he glanced along the corridor. Someone back there should have been paying attention but wasn’t.

  I pressed my advantage. “Look, I don’t care about your connection with Schechtmann and his betting operation. I don’t care what kind of checks you cash, or for whom. I do care about finding out where Speed is taking Habiba Hamid, the daughter of the dead woman.”

  Silence.

  “You really don’t want to jeopardize a pretty nice setup here by aiding and abetting a kidnaping, do you?”

  “Speed didn’t kidnap either the mother or the kid. He was supposed to be taking them to Dave Hamid, with his mother’s blessing.”

  “Why?”

  “These bombings—she felt they’d be safer down there.”

  “Down where?”

  Another silence.

  “It’s still kidnaping; neither Mavis nor Habiba wanted to go.”

  “…Was Hamid’s wife murdered?”

  “We won’t know until after the autopsy but yes, I’d say so.”

  “By Speed?”

/>   “Besides your crew and the little girl, he was the only one there. By the way, why haven’t any of the crew contacted you?”

  “The Freia’s not due back yet. And if what you say is true, my captain certainly wouldn’t put out the word on the marine radio.” He spoke distractedly, as though he was considering his options. There was a sound at the far end of the corridor; Sparling shook his head and by the time I glanced back there, whoever it was had gone away.

  He said, “There’s no proof they were on the Freia; my crew will back me up.”

  “I don’t really care about proving anything. All I want is the little girl.”

  “Why?”

  “She’s in danger.”

  “That’s ridiculous.”

  “Is it? You know Speed—and Dave Hamid.”

  “Hamid’s her father, for God’s sake! She calls Speed her uncle.” But I’d struck a nerve, which produced a tic under his right eye.

  I said, “I can find them by other means. I know Speed’s running the sports book from a private island somewhere in the Leewards. It used to belong to Great Britain until the former owner declared independence; there can’t be too many of those around. But going about it that way will take longer and put the little girl at greater risk. Won’t you help me, so I can go there and bring her back as soon as possible?”

  “You’ll never get near it.”

  “I’ve got to try.” I hadn’t been fully committed to the idea until I saw the tic under Sparling’s eye, which had grown more pronounced. He knew something about Hamid and Schechtmann that would give support to my uneasy feelings.

  Sparling looked away, covered the tic with his fingertips.

  “She’s nine years old, Mr. Sparling. A young nine. Her mother’s already been killed, and she probably witnessed it. Think about it.”

  He shifted uncomfortably from foot to foot, then became still, his gaze turning inward. He didn’t like what he saw; the tic came faster. After a moment he said, “I have two daughters. Five grandchildren. In spite of what you might consider me and my business, I’m not an insensitive man.”

  “Then help me.”

  “You’ll be taking your life in your hands if you go near that island.”

  “I’ve risked it before.”