Undercurrent nd-3

by Bill Pronzini

  "All right," I said. "But if I were you, I'd be a little more candid with Chief Quartermain than you've been with me. Innocent people don't need to lie or evade the truth."

  I turned and left them standing there-a pair of bronzed statues with the beginnings of what might be an irremovable and no longer concealable tarnish marring their clean, polished luster. When I reached my car I could hear the little boy with the pet rabbit named Bugs, laughing happily from somewhere behind the house. The back of my neck felt cold. And as I drove out of there, the shaded areas on the landscaped grounds seemed deeper and darker, like shadowed corners hiding secret things.

  Most of the shops along Grove Avenue were open to accommodate the Sunday tourist trade, and the sidewalks flowed with shoppers and strollers; vehicular traffic was heavy as well, and they had the traffic lights at the intersections and pedestrian crossings in operation. I crawled east toward Highway 1 and the Carmel Valley Road that would take me to Del Lobos Canyon, where the realtor, Keith Tarrant, lived.

  The light at one of the pedestrian crossings about halfway along flashed red, and I stopped back of the crosswalk and took the time to put a cigarette into my mouth. I cupped my hands around the flame of the match, glancing over them and through the open window the way you do-and I saw the old faded-blue Studebaker pull to the curb on the other side of Grove Avenue. The passenger door opened immediately and a guy on that side got out, leaving the driver alone in the car. He stood on the sidewalk for a moment, face turned toward me, and I forgot the cigarette and the burning match.

  It was the bald man I had seen with Walter Paige the previous afternoon.

  I stared over at him, and he pivoted and moved away swiftly along Sierra Verde-one of Cypress Bay's quaint, winding village streets, and one that ended or began at Grove Avenue on that side. I felt the heat of the match then and dropped it on the floor and looked over to my right for a place to park; there was no opening. The traffic light had gone to green when I turned back again, and an impatient horn sounded behind me. I could not make a left turn across the narrow pedestrian walk that formed a break in the center divider; the only damned thing I could do was to go up to the next full intersection and negotiate a U-turn.

  I got the car in gear and leaned on the gas trying to watch the street in front and the bald guy behind me on Sierra Verde. But it was no good. I lost sight of him before I had gone fifty feet, although I could still see the old Studebaker waiting at the curbing for a break in the steady stream of traffic moving down toward Ocean Boulevard. I tried to read the license number, but the angle was no good for that either; and all I had seen of the driver was a dark masculine head in quarter profile.

  When I reached the intersection I could not complete the U-turn immediately because of the flow of cars, and I was forced to wait for the light. Half turned as I was, I could see the Studebaker wedge its way into the stream, but I still could not read the license number. The light changed finally and I made the turn and got down to Sierra Verde, working the brakes as I came abreast of the intersection. There was no sign of the bald guy; the sidewalks were less crowded along there, and if he had been walking in either of the first two blocks, I would have seen him.

  My first impulse was to turn into Sierra Verde and try to locate him, but he might have gone anywhere-into one of the buildings, down an alleyway, onto a cross street-and if I turned up a blank it would be a complete one. The Studebaker was something else again. I could see it plainly enough two blocks down, stopped at a light. I made my decision, right or wrong, and followed Grove Avenue into the next block as the Stude moved with the changing light.

  It was three cars in front of me when it made the turn north on Carmelo, one street up from Ocean Boulevard, and went out toward the Seventeen Mile Drive that took you on a scenic tour of Pebble Beach and Pacific Grove and the Monterey Peninsula. But the guy in the Studebaker was not going out on the drive. He stopped two blocks short of it, in front of a log-facaded tavern called the Stillwater, and hurried inside. I had a pretty good glimpse of him then; he was thirty or so, thick-shouldered, with dark hair wind-tossed and hanging down over his eyes; he wore brown slacks and a navy-blue windbreaker.

  I parked close enough to see the Studebaker's license plate clearly, and copied the number down in my notebook; then I lit the cigarette that was still between my lips and waited with the engine running. I would give him ten minutes, I thought, and if he did not come out, I would go in after him. But it did not come to that; he was out in four and a half minutes, carrying something that might have been a quart bottle wrapped in a paper bag. He got into the Stude again and went down to the next corner and turned right and began to double back toward the center of Cypress Bay. I let him have two full blocks all the way.

  He took me over to Guadalupe, and then east onto Mission Court, and then south on Santa Rosa. He made one more turn, east again, and drove half a block and took the Stude in to the curb. Then he slid out, carrying the paper-wrapped bottle, and went up twenty-five or thirty slab-stone steps, and, using a key, entered the Old Spanish adobe house with the rust-tile roof and the second-floor gallery and the tired reddish bougainvillea growing over the short arbor at the top of the steps.

  Bonificacio Drive.

  The Winestock house.

  And, very probably, Brad Winestock.

  I drove past on the still quiet, still empty street, and made directly for the City Hall. The back of my neck had begun to feel cold again. The Lomaxes were hiding something, in spite of their denials and in spite of what Beverly Winestock had told me about Robin's noninvolvement with Paige; and even though Beverly herself had been cooperative, I had sensed an uneasiness in her, a holding back of something intangible-and since she had known about Paige's death for some time, whereas the Lomaxes apparently had not, she had had more time to prepare herself for possible questioning. Now there was her brother, linked to the bald man, who in turn had been linked to Walter Paige, and maybe she had been lying about the bald guy and about some of the other things as well.

  You could feel the undercurrents lying blackly under the surface of it all, deep and swift, and you wondered where the bald man came into it and where the others came into it and who else might still come into it. You wondered how Russ Dancer's book worked into the scheme of things, if it worked in, and if Dancer had maybe been holding back something, too, for some reason of his own. And you wondered how far the undercurrents extended, and whether or not they formed a kind of intricate pattern, and just how deep and black they really were…

  Ten

  Quartermain was still in Salinas, and the fat sergeant still did not know when he would be back.

  I stood looking at him and debating whether or not I should give him what I had learned thus far. I decided again that it should go directly to Quartermain, because the telling would take a while and Quartermain was patient and a good, careful listener; and, too, because I thought Quartermain would understand my own unauthorized involvement a little better. I told the sergeant the same thing I had earlier-that I would be back-and I went out to my car.

  It was coming on late afternoon now, and I had not eaten anything all day. I stopped at the first cafe I saw and had coffee and a cheeseburger, and came to the conclusion that I would not be wise to confront Brad Winestock on my own. All I could justify in my own mind was the laying of a little groundwork, and if Winestock was directly involved in Paige's death, he could be dangerous. More important, I could conceivably do more harm than good with an unofficial visit-put him on his guard, perhaps even set him on the run if his involvement was deep enough. Quartermain was the one to talk to Winestock, all right; but I saw no harm in carrying out my previous intention of seeing Keith Tarrant and perhaps finding out a little more about those undercurrents which had been created by the catalyst, Walter Paige.

  I went over to Highway 1 and south to Carmel Valley Road; Del Lobos Canyon was five miles in, judging from the map scale, and on the northern side. I drove into the valley and pretty so
on I could see the lazy silver-blue path of the Carmel River, flanked by sycamore and willow trees-and pale-green artichoke fields and strawberry patches, and the well-known Carmel Valley pear orchards with their fragrant white spring blossoms like high, soft drifts of sun-bright snow. Cattle still grazed peacefully on the sloping sides of the valley, the way they had when the California rancheros led their quiet and languid lives on the fertile fields and flowing meadows that comprised the old Spanish land grants.

  Del Lobos Canyon Road was narrow and wound upward along the side of the ravine itself; lichen-coated fence posts lined both sides, and on the left there were towering redwoods and moss-shawled oaks and an occasional home set high among the trees. Down in the canyon you could see flaming poison oak and sycamores and long multicolored carpets of wildflowers.

  I came around a sharp bend, and ahead on my right-a hundred yards or so off the road-was one of these modern architectural wonders built in tiers at the edge of the canyon and a short distance down the sloping wall. The upper level of the house had a rear balcony that protruded above the second tier and its wider balcony, which in turn looked down on a deep, squarish brick terrace leaning out over the ravine on heavy steel girders. The construction materials were predominately redwood and brick, with a lot of glass that caught the rays of late-afternoon sunlight and transformed them into burning, flame-tinged reflections, like demon eyes radiating images of an Old Testament hell.

  I could see most of the terrace from the road, and it looked to be occupied by at least one person. It was the kind of day for sitting on your terrace, if you happened to have one. I drove a little further along and came to an unpaved connecting drive; at the head of it was an unobtrusive metal-on-wood sign that said: Keith Tarrant-Realtor. I turned in. The drive itself was shaded with thick-branched walnut trees, and a Japanese gardener had worked up a kind of bonsai garden with dwarf cypress in the fronting yard.

  A large two-car port, attached to the side of the house, contained a cream-colored Chrysler Imperial and a sleek powder-blue Lotus; as I neared there, I saw that a winding series of steps had been cut out of the upper canyon wall, beyond the port, and that they led down toward the terrace. I parked to one side, in front of a second unobtrusive sign reiterating the fact that Keith Tarrant was a realtor, and walked over to the cut-out steps and looked down and around at the terrace. A man was standing at the front railing-a plump, light-haired guy with something that looked like a highball glass in his hand.

  I went down the steps to where a narrow cut-out path, railed in redwood like the balconies and the terrace, led over to the second-tier platform. "Hello!" I called out to him. "Is it all right if I come down?"

  He turned to look up at me, and then came away from the railing and took several steps across the brick flooring. He was smiling loosely. "Business or pleasure?" he asked, and his voice had a mild whiskey edge to it. It was that kind of day, too.

  "Business, Mr. Tarrant," I told him, "but nothing to do with real estate, I'm afraid."

  "Well, come ahead anyway."

  I made my way down to the terrace and stepped through a kind of gate in the side railing and onto the smooth bricks. Tarrant came up to me, and I saw then that he only gave the impression of being plump, that he was not overweight at all. He had a round, convivial face and pale-brown hair thinning across the crown and a nice, easy, precise way of using his hands. He wore a pair of chino slacks and a dark-brown sports shirt and brown loafers, and there was just enough shine in his eyes to confirm the whiskey lilt in his voice. I thought that he was probably coming up on forty.

  He said, "What can I do for you, Mr.-?"

  I told him my name, but there was no immediate reaction. I said then, "I'm here about a man named Walter Paige, Mr. Tarrant; he was killed in Cypress Bay last night."

  Tarrant blinked at me, and frowned, and then the furrows smoothed on his brow and he said, "Oh, you're the private detective, the one that found Paige at the motel."

  "Yes."

  "We heard about it on the radio this morning. Are you working with Chief Quartermain on the investigation?"

  "Not exactly. This is an unofficial visit, more or less."

  "I see. Well-what brings you to me?"

  "I understand you knew Paige at one time."

  "Unfortunately, yes. How did you discover that?"

  "From Russ Dancer."

  "Oh? And what led you to him?"

  "Paige had one of Dancer's books at the motel," I said. "A paperback, published in 1954, called The Dead and the Dying. Do you know it, Mr. Tarrant?"

  He shook his head. "I don't have much time to read, and I don't usually go in for the kind of things Russ Dancer writes, anyway. Why would Paige have a copy of one of Russ's old books?"

  "That's a question that has no answer just yet"

  "Doesn't Dancer have any idea?"

  "No, he doesn't."

  "That's rather odd about the book," Tarrant said. "I can't imagine Paige being interested in anything of Dancer's; the two of them never got along."

  "You mean there was hostility between them?"

  "I suppose you could say that."

  "What was the cause of it?"

  "I don't remember exactly."

  "A woman?"

  "It might have been."

  "Was it an open hostility?"

  "How do you mean?"

  "Did they have words, something more maybe?"

  "Words, I guess. It's pretty hazy in my mind. Why don't you ask Russ about it?"

  "I'll do that-or the police will."

  Tarrant gave me his loose smile. "How about a drink? I could stand another one."

  "I don't think so, thanks."

  He shrugged and drained what was left in the highball glass. "I'll fill up again, if you don't mind. Sunday is the only day I get to relax, and I always manage to relax a little better with a few drinks inside me."

  "Sure," I said.

  He turned and crossed to the overhang of the second-tier balcony and under it and through an open sliding-glass panel, into a lounge or game room. I had a glimpse of a long bleached-mahogany bar and a couple of ivory-leather stools and what appeared to be a felt-topped card table. I walked over to the terrace railing, in front of an arrangement of patio furniture, and put my hands on the redwood planking and looked over and down. It was a long way into the oak-floored canyon below. I had never been much for heights, and I stepped back a little and gazed across the gap at a lupine-and poppy-strewn meadow that stretched from the top of the ravine wall toward the horizon. It did not quite make it; chaparral and pine took over, and leaned up to touch the white- streaked blue of the heavens.

  Tarrant came back after a time, with a full glass, and I said, "Nice view you've got," because it was the thing to say-and because it was.

  "The finest in the valley, for my money," he agreed. "That's why I saved it for myself."

  "Do you operate your realty office from here?" I asked him. "I noticed the signs out front."

  "Mostly. I keep a small office and a secretary in Cypress Bay, of course." He had some of his fresh drink. "Was there anything specific you wanted to know about Walt Paige-or just general impressions? I really don't know much about him."

  "Well, were you surprised to learn of his return to this area?"

  "Surprised and not at all pleased. I never particularly liked him, to be frank. He was arrogant and overbearing, and we were hardly more than civil to one another."

  There was something in the way he said it that made me ask, "Was this morning's radio report the first you knew of his return?"

  "No. He made a local call to me here, four or five weekends ago."

  "For what reason?"

  "He wanted to rent a piece of property in Cypress Bay that I happened to be handling."

  I frowned. "Real estate or a private home?"

  "Neither. A small vacant shop on Balboa, off Grove."

  "What sort of shop?"

  "It was formerly a newsstand," Tarrant said. "The pr
evious owner had gone out of business the week before, due to a lack of funds and some hard luck with vandals."

  "Did you rent the shop to Paige?"

  "No."

  "Why not?"

  "To put it simply, I didn't like the idea of him settling in Cypress Bay; he wasn't the kind of man you like to see in your community. So I refused rental to him."

  "How did he react to that?"

  "He didn't like it, naturally."

  "Was he abusive?"

  "Not really. He tried to talk me into reconsidering, but when he realized I wasn't having any, he broke the connection."

  "Did you hear from him again?"

  "That was the one and only time."

  "Is the shop still unrented?"

  Tarrant moved his head negatively. "Central store property in Cypress Bay is in heavy demand, and I've never had any problem renting vacancies; that's why I could afford to refuse to do business with Paige. I rented the shop two days later, to a party from Los Angeles."

  "Did Paige tell you why he wanted it?"

  "He said he had come into a small amount of money, and had always liked Cypress Bay, and was interested in going into business there. He didn't say what sort of business, but I assumed it was another newsstand that he had in mind; the shop is too small for much else."

  I tried to make something out of all this, and made nothing at all. I said, "Do you know if he contacted anyone of a mutual acquaintance while he was in Cypress Bay the past five weekends?"

  "Such as who?"

  "Russ Dancer, Robin Lomax, either of the Winestocks."

  "Not to my knowledge, no."

  "Paige had been seeing a woman during these weekend visits of his," I said. "It's possible she was one he knew when he lived here previously. Any idea who she might be?"

  "He had quite a string of conquests to his credit, from what I gathered," Tarrant said. "I never knew what any of them saw in him. How do you know he was seeing a woman in Cypress Bay?"

  "There were indications."