Undercurrent nd-3

by Bill Pronzini

  He could have arrested the balding man as soon as he showed his face, and raided the vacant newsstand immediately, and put the arm on anyone asking to see the bank president who was not known to him; but since no crime had actually been committed, the only charge which could be made was that of conspiracy-and a conviction on that score was tenuous at best. And there was no concrete evidence linking the balding man or any other member of the potential holdup team to the deaths of Paige or Brad Winestock; if neither murder weapon could be located, the State would have nothing but supposition and circumstantial evidence-and a relatively minor arson complaint against the balding guy-with which to go to court.

  In view of that, Quartermain had grimly decided to let the robbery take place if still scheduled. He had explained the situation to the bank president and had assured the man that every precaution would be taken to circumvent any potential danger; the president had agreed, although reluctantly, to the Chief's wishes. Quartermain had immediately delegated three armed men in plainclothes to the National Exchange Bank, to pose as examiners and employees. They had orders to take instantaneous action if the holdup commenced before Quartermain had mobilized the balance of a local, county, and state trap force, or if it appeared in any way that harm would befall a private citizen. The risk factor was still prominent-you can't anticipate the unforeseen-but with each bank employee apprised beforehand of what might happen so that no one would become heroic, the danger was not great. And since the blueprint called for disposal of money and weapons and disguises into the newsstand, and the success of that part of the plan depended on both time and inconspicuousness, the holdup men could not afford any shooting, any trouble at all. They would be very careful, and the bank people would be very careful; as long as fate stayed out of it, there would be no problems.

  As covertly as possible, Lieutenant Favor-returned from Monterey-and several other men dressed in plainclothes had been sent to predetermined stations on Balboa and Pine streets. County and Highway Patrol units were on standby at each of the Cypress Bay exits, and others were deployed in the vicinity if needed. And then the waiting had begun.

  I would have liked to have been an active participant myself, but there were limits to my involvement as a private citizen and this was one of them; all Quartermain could do was to tell me about the Old Bavarian Inn, and its rear garden entrance, and allow me to assume a passive spectator's role. Dancer had wanted to come along, too, but Quartermain had told him no as a precautionary measure and because Dancer was still hangover-sick and badly agitated and in need of a couple of shots of pure oxygen; he had been escorted, grumbling, to the local hospital.

  So I had come alone to the Old Bavarian Inn, and had sat here alone to wait it out, and now I wondered again where Quartermain was and if all the arrangements had been made and if his men in their deployment were cool enough to maintain the illusion of complete normalcy. And how long it would be before the balding man showed, if he was going to show; and if their plan was already in operation, as I knew it could be; and if Quartermain's trap would spring as silently and as bloodlessly as he anticipated…

  I lit another cigarette off the butt of one smoldering in the ashtray, and coughed, and wiped some of the sweat off my forehead. Sporadically, people came in and went out of the dark, beam-ceilinged room-and boisterous laughter and the clink of beer steins filtered in from a pair of tables jammed with tourists in the grape-arbored rear garden. Outside on Balboa, passersby were few and desultory past the alley entrance and the newsstand.

  Two-twenty.

  This is the ideal time, if they're going through with it, I thought. Midafternoon lull. People sunning on the beach or sitting in the park or walking by the sea, people napping in motel rooms and hotel rooms, people drinking beer or eating ice cream in places like this one. Any time from now until three o'clock. After that, the tourists go shopping again and the kids are out of school and the housewives run errands and taxi service, and the breadwinners of both sexes begin getting off work and heading for Two men in the alley, walking toward Balboa.

  I leaned hard against the window, working new sweat off my forehead and blinking heavily to clear strain-shadows from my vision. Two men wearing business suits, one short and thick-set and carrying a large valise and wearing a broad-brimmed hat. A hat-in this weather, in Cypress Bay? The balding guy? He was still in shadow and I could not see his face clearly. The other one was tall and spare, light hair in a brush cut.

  They kept on walking, briskly, and then they stopped, and where they stopped was at the padlocked alley door to the newsstand. The thin one used a key on the lock and removed it and pulled the door open and went inside and closed the door after himself; it was difficult to be certain from my angle, but it did not look as if he had closed it all the way. The one in the hat came forward, out of the alley, and stopped to squint at the bright flush of the sun.

  It was the balding man, all right.

  Even with the hat I had no trouble recognizing him, and I thought: So they're going through with it, the stupid cocky bastards are going through with it after all. They've got a guy inside already, one I don't know or I would have noticed him entering the bank-three of them then, a skeleton crew, but that's all they really need. I let out a soft breath and felt some of the tenseness flow out of me, some but not all because the trap was yet to spring and a lot of things could go wrong, a hell of a lot of things could go wrong.

  The balding man took a pair of wide-lensed and very dark sunglasses from the breast pocket of his suit jacket and put them on; then he pivoted and started down the sidewalk to the south. He passed the six storefronts and turned into the National Exchange Bank without hesitation-a professional man going to work.

  Four minutes later the amber-colored shades in the front window and front door of the bank went down, and I knew the door had been locked as well.

  I had not seen anyone enter the National Exchange except the balding guy in better than ten minutes; there would not be many citizens within, and that was a blessing. I could visualize what was taking place at the moment: the balding man and the electrician with drawn guns, one holding employees and citizens at bay, the other scooping money into the valise; then, if nothing goes wrong, the order to lie down on the floor, and the exit. If nothing goes wrong…

  The palms of my hands were hot and slick with sweat, and I gripped the edge of the booth table with unconscious pressure, my nose inches from the glass like a kid looking through the window of a candy store. I seemed to be hearing the tick of a clock, even though there was no clock in the room that I could see, and the ticks were painfully slow. A man and a woman strolled by the newsstand, arm in arm, and two cars passed and a kid came by on his bicycle; the shadows cast by the buildings had begun to lengthen, encroaching on the golden wash of sunlight. The shades in the bank stayed down and the door stayed closed, but there did not seem to be anything unpredictable or volatile happening down there.

  Another minute passed, and two and three-and then the bank door opened inward. I stopped breathing; but it was all right. They came out, the balding guy and the electrician, the latter an average-looking type with red hair; they came out walking, not running, closing the door behind them and then starting up the street at an even pace. The balding guy was wearing his sunglasses and carrying the valise. They watched the street ahead of them and occasionally behind them as they walked and did not see anything that bothered them and kept on coming.

  When they reached the alley they turned in without hesitation because there was no one abreast of it or approaching it in either direction, on either side of the street. The balding man had his sunglasses off and his hat off before they had taken three steps into the deserted passage. I saw him shoving those items, and something from his coat pocket that would be a gun, into the valise; the other guy tugged at his scalp and the red hair came off and went into the bag, revealing him to be dark-haired, and he shoved what was probably a second gun in there as well. All of that took maybe fifteen seconds,
and now they were at the alley door to the newsstand. The balding guy reached out, caught the knob, looked back, saw that the alley was still deserted and that there was no one visible on the street, opened the door, tossed the valise inside, closed the door, and with the other guy took half a dozen steps toward Pine Street.

  And the trap sprung.

  It happened very quickly, and I found out later that Quartermain had had a man upstairs in the attic of the Old Bavarian Inn, equipped with a walkie-talkie and giving forth with a running commentary that let the others know exactly when the valise had been dumped and the two men were unarmed in the empty alley. Two plainclothesmen came out of the malt shop next to the newsstand and another one came out of the curio store that bordered the other side of the alley and Quartermain and Favor appeared from somewhere on my side of the street, running across; the five of them converged on the alley mouth, guns drawn, and I could see another team of officers sealing off the Pine Street mouth. The balding guy and the other one had no chance to fight and no place to run; they had gun muzzles in their bellies and handcuffs on their wrists within seconds. Quartermain and Favor had taken the newsstand, jerking open the alley door, rushing inside; they came out with the valise and with the tall guy, hands shackled behind his back, just as one of the local black-and-white cruisers was pulling into the passageway from Pine Street.

  I let go of the table edge and sat back limply and said "Oh Christ!" aloud with soft reverence.

  It had been just that kind of happening.

  Twenty

  I went to City Hall again. By previous agreement the prisoners had been taken immediately to the larger jail and police facilities in neighboring Monterey, and a trip over there would have been pointless for me; there was no way I would be allowed to sit in on the interrogation of the holdup men-and I was in no physical condition or frame of mind to deal with reporters. I also did not trust myself to make the drive, as short as it was; the few blocks to City Hall were tortuous enough.

  Donovan had long since gone off duty and there was a sergeant named Cole, whom I had met earlier, behind the front desk when I came in. I asked him if he had any identification on the three bank robbers, and he said yes, word had just come in: they were Androvitch and Collins and Sarkelian. That was all the information he had at the moment; he did not know which was the balding man. I thanked him and asked him if I could go into the Chief's office to await Quartermain's return, and he passed me through immediately.

  When I got down there and opened the door into the anteroom, I saw that someone else was waiting for Quartermain. Robin Lomax sat primly in one of three upholstered chairs across from the secretary's desk-hands folded in her lap, knees together, back rigid-still wearing the white sleeveless dress of the morning, still looking fresh and innocent and tawny-gold healthy. But her eyes were different now; the fear was gone, leaving them old and defeated like ancient, intelligent entities forever trapped in the body of a mannequin.

  The eyes moved up and over me as I entered, touching me with dull hatred, and her unpainted mouth betrayed her distaste at my appearance. Dirty old man. Gaunt-eyed and stubble-cheeked, wearing soiled clothes, smelling sour. Dirty old private detective. Subhuman species. Trash. Something odorous, something unclean: a four-letter word. The quirk of her mouth told me all that, and the old and defeated eyes confirmed it, and I felt a sudden and unreasoning anger take hold of me. What gives you the right to disparage me, lady? I thought. What gives you the right to hate me without knowing me or what I am or what I stand for? I'm no threat to you or to your shallow little existence; I'm no threat to anybody, I'm just a tired, half-assed do-gooder living in a world I never made…

  And then I thought: The hell with it, the hell with it, she wouldn't understand and you can't take it out on her, she's hurting in her own way too. The anger faded into mild irritation and then into nothing at all. I closed the door and walked over toward her and said, "Hello, Mrs. Lomax."

  "Hello," cold and remote.

  "Have you been waiting long?"

  "A few minutes."

  "The Chief might not be back for some time."

  "So I've been told."

  "Is there something I can do?"

  "You've done quite enough, thank you."

  Yeah, I thought. I said, "All right, Mrs. Lomax," and turned and went over to the secretary's desk. He had been sitting there watching and waiting patiently. We exchanged nods, and I asked, "Is it okay if I go into the Chief's office to wait?"

  He knew me well enough by now, but he was still hesitant. "Well, I don't know…"

  "All I'm after is that couch in there. I've been up for going on thirty-six hours and if I don't get a place to lie down pretty soon I'm going to fall flat on my face. I'm not kidding you."

  He saw the truth of that in my eyes, and it made up his mind for him. "I guess it's all right, then," he said.

  "Thanks."

  I looked at Robin Lomax again, but as far as she was concerned I was no longer there. I went into Quartermain's office and shut the door and moved directly to the old leather couch and stretched out supine with my head on one of the rounded arms. The leather was soft and cool beneath my enervated body, and I closed my eyes and put one arm across them to shut out additional light.

  Thoughts-questions-began to tumble fretfully across the surface of my mind. How was Quartermain making out in the interrogation of Androvitch and Collins and Sarkelian? Had one of them killed Paige and Winestock? The balding man? Would he confess to it if he had? And Robin Lomax-why was she here? What had made her come down to sit and wait for what might be hours? Why did she want to talk to Quartermain? Why was the fear gone from her eyes, to be replaced by tired resignation? Where was her husband? And on and on and on.

  I concentrated, finally, on blanking them out; they were questions that could have no answers until Quartermain returned from Monterey. One by one, they faded until they were all gone-and immediately, perversely, something else began tugging at my mind, a thought that was not a thought, an evanescent scrap, something very important, a sentence or two sentences that someone had spoken today or last night. I reached for it mentally, but a kind of warm fog seemed to be unfolding inside my head and my consciousness commenced sinking into it and I could not quite grasp the thought even though I kept on reaching and reaching and reaching…

  Someone began gently shaking my shoulder, and I came up out of fevered and fitful darkness with a groggy sense of disorientation at first and then with returning awareness. Pain went to work in my temples in a dull, steady cadence, and harshly in my throat as I tried to swallow. I forced myself into a sitting position and pried my eyes open. Light burned at my retinas, and then diminished, and I could see all right.

  Quartermain gave me a pallid smile and said, "Sorry to wake you, but I thought you'd want to talk. And I had some coffee and sandwiches made up; we both need a little nourishment."

  "It's okay, Ned, thanks,"

  "Did you get much sleep?"

  "I don't know, what time is it?"

  "Quarter of seven."

  "Christ, that late? I guess about three hours, but it feels more like three minutes."

  I put my head in my hands and tried to gather enough strength to get up on my feet. My mouth felt cottony, and my head and throat kept on hurting. I took several thick breaths and heaved up and moved shakily over to the desk and sat down again in one of the armchairs. I was fully awake now, and I remembered the evanescent thought I had been trying to grasp just before falling asleep; but the thought itself seemed to be gone for the time being, vanished into my subconscious.

  Quartermain walked around behind the desk and sank into his chair. His long face was so deeply lined that the creases looked like knife cuts, and his eyes seemed to be bleeding. I said, "You've got to get some sleep yourself pretty soon. You look dead on your tail, Ned."

  "Don't I know it?" He poured coffee for both of us and slid one of the cups over to me. "But Christ knows when I'll get to bed now, or when any of u
s will."

  "Problems?"

  "Yeah. Paige's death. The bald guy-his name is Sarkelian, Edward Sarkelian-claims he didn't have anything to do with the stabbing of Paige. The other two, Androvitch and Collins, claim the same thing."

  "They couldn't be lying?"

  "No reason for them to lie, not now. We've got them cold on the Winestock killing. One of the guns stuffed into the valise with the bank's money was the murder weapon; a ballistics check proved that. Androvitch, the tall one that waited in the newsstand, says it's Sarkelian's gun. He also says Sarkelian shot Winestock; he's trying to cop a plea."

  "What does Sarkelian say?"

  "He admitted it. In the face of the evidence, the public defender we got for them advised him to tell it straight, and he told it. I think you and I both figured him for a sharpie, but he's not smart at all-a strong-arm body, a three-time loser, and all for armed robbery. He knows he's going back for life anyway, with this fall, and the way things are in California these days, he knows the odds are good he'll never be executed for murder even if he's given the death sentence in court. But he flatly denies killing Paige. He says he had no motive, and the other two back him up."

  I began to think about all the undercurrents that had manifested themselves in the past two days, and the kind of man Paige had been, and I was not surprised that it had turned out this way. I said, "So it's two separate murders, two separate cases."

  "Some irony, isn't it? Paige's death led us to the book and the book led us to the robbery, but that's as far as it goes. The damned book didn't have anything to do with the murder of Paige, after all."

  I drank a little coffee and took a bite out of a sandwich and managed to force it down. Hunger pangs instantly began to form under my breastbone. I ate more of the sandwich, mincingly. "What else did you get out of Sarkelian and the other two? Was Paige the mastermind behind the robbery?"