Bones nd-14

by Bill Pronzini

  The telephone rang almost immediately after I cradled the handset. Michael Kiskadon, bubbling over with eagerness and curiosity. How was my investigation going? Had I found out anything yet? Who had I talked to? Who was I going to talk to? I gave him a brief verbal report, assured him I would be in touch as soon as I had something definite to report, and told him I had an appointment to get him off the line. But I had a feeling I'd be hearing from him again before long. He was that kind of client, and clients like that can be a pain in the ass.

  Eberhardt breezed in just as I was about to leave. He was all smiles this morning, chipper and cheerful and whistling a spritely tune. “Coffee,” he said, sniffing. “Man, can I use some of that.”

  “Big night, huh?”

  “Yeah, well,” he said, and smirked at me.

  “You not only got laid last night,” I said, “you got laid this morning. Not more than an hour ago, in fact. You had to hurry getting dressed so you wouldn't be any later than you usually are.”

  He gawped at me. “How the hell did you deduce all of that, Sherlock?”

  “Your fly's still open,” I said.

  North Beach used to be a quiet, predominately Italian neighborhood, the place you went when you wanted pasta, Chianti, a game of bocce, conversation about la dolce vita and il patria d'Italia, the company of mustachioed waiters in gondolier costumes singing arias from operas by Puccini and Verdi. Not anymore. There are still Italians in North Beach, and you can still get the pasta and Chianti and conversation, if not the bocce and the singing waiters; but their turf has been reduced to a mere pocket, and the vitality and Old World atmosphere are little more than memories.

  The Chinese are partly responsible, having gobbled up North Beach real estate when Chinatown, to the west, began to burst its boundaries. Another culprit is the so-called beatnik or Bohemian element that took over upper Grant Avenue in the fifties, paving the way for the hippies and the introduction of drugs in the sixties, which in turn paved the way for the jolly current mix of motorcycle toughs, aging hippies, coke and hash dealers, and the pimps and small-time crooks who work the flesh palaces along lower Broadway. Those topless and bottomless “Silicone Alley” nightclubs, made famous by Carol Doda in the late sixties, also share responsibility: they had added a smutty leer to the gaiety of North Beach and turned the heart of it into a ghetto.

  Parts of the neighborhood, particulary those up around Coit Tower, where the Cranes had once lived, are still desirable, and in the shrunken Italian pocket you can still get a sense of what it was like in the old days. But most of the flavor is gone. North Beach is tasteless now, and hard and vague and unpleasant-like a week-old mostaccioli made without spices or garlic. And that is another thing that is all but gone: twenty-five years ago you couldn't get within a thousand yards of North Beach without picking up the fine, rich fragrance of garlic. Nowadays, you're much more likely to smell fried egg roll and the sour stench of somebody's garbage.

  Stephen Porter's studio was on Vallejo Street, half a block off upper Grant. It was an old building, the entrance to which was down a narrow alleyway plastered with No Parking signs. A hand-lettered card over the topmost of three bells read: 1A-Stephen Porter, Sculptor. And below that: Lessons Available.

  I rang the bell and pretty soon the door lock buzzed. I went into a dark hallway with a set of stairs on the right and a cat sitting on the bottom step giving me the once-over. I said, “Hello, cat,” and it said, “Maurrr,” politely, and began to lick its shoulder. The hallway ran past the stairs, deeper into the building; at the far end of it, a door opened and a man poked his head out. “Down here,” he said.

  I went down there. “Mr. Porter?”

  “Yes, that's right. You're the gentleman who called? The detective?”

  I said I was, and he bobbed his head, coughed, wheezed a little, and let me come in. He was about sixty, a little guy with not much hair and delicate, almost womanish hands. The hands were spotted with dried clay; so was the green smock he wore. There was even a spot of clay on the knot of his spiffy red bow tie.

  The room he led me into was a single, cavernous enclosure, brightly lit by flourescent ceiling tubes, that looked as if it had been formed by knocking out some walls. Along one side was a raised platform piled high with finished sculptures, most of them fanciful animals and birds. At the rear was a curtained-off area, probably Porter's living quarters. The rest of the space was cluttered with clay-smeared tables, a trio of potter's wheels complete with foot treadles, drums full of pre-mixed clay, and some wooden scaffolding to hold newly formed figures while they dried. Spread out and bunched up on the floor were several pieces of canvas, all of them caked with dried spatters of clay. But they hadn't caught all of the droppings, not by any means: what I could see of the bare wood underneath was likewise splotched.

  “There aren't any chairs out here, I'm afraid,” Porter said. “We can go in back, if you prefer…”

  “This is fine. I won't take up much of your time.”

  “Well,” he said, and then turned away abruptly and did some more coughing and hacking, followed by a series of squeaky wheezes. When he had his breath back he said, “Emphysema.” And immediately produced a package of Camels from the pocket of his smock and fired up.

  I stared at him. “If you've got emphysema,” I said, “why not quit smoking?”

  “Too late for that,” he said with a sort of philosophical resignation. “My lungs are already gone. I'll probably be dead in another year or two anyway.”

  The words gave me a chill. A few years back, when I was a two-pack-a-day smoker myself, I had developed a lesion on one lung and spent too many sleepless nights worrying that maybe I'd be dead in another year or two. The lesion had turned out to be benign, but I still hadn't had a cigarette since. It was a pact I'd made with whatever forces controlled the universe; and so far they had kept their end of the bargain by allowing me to go on living without medical complications.

  I said, “I'm sorry, Mr. Porter,” and I meant it.

  He shrugged. “Weak lungs and frail bodies run in my family,” he said. “My brother Adam died of lung cancer, you know.”

  “No, I didn't know.”

  “Yes. He was only fifty-four.” Porter sucked in smoke, coughed it out, and said wheezily, “You're interested in Harmon Crane. May I ask why?”

  “His son hired me to find out why he shot himself.”

  “His son? I didn't know Harmon had a son.”

  “Neither did he.” I went on to explain about Michael Kiskadon and his purpose in hiring me.

  Porter said, “I see. Well, I don't know that I can help you. Adam knew Harmon much better than I did.”

  “But you were acquainted with him?”

  “Oh yes. I was very young and impressed by his success. I used to badger Adam to take me along whenever he got together with the Cranes.”

  “How did Crane feel about that?”

  “He didn't seem to mind. At least, not until the last few weeks of his life. Then he wouldn't deal with anyone.”

  “Do you have any idea what caused his depression?”

  “Not really. But it was right after he returned from Tomales Bay that we all noticed it.”

  “Oh? What was he doing at Tomales Bay?”

  “He had a little retreat, a cabin; he went there when he was having trouble working in the city.”

  “Went there alone, you mean?”

  “Yes. He liked solitude.”

  “How long did he usually stay?”

  “Oh, a couple of weeks at the most.”

  “How long was he there that last time?”

  “I'm not sure. A week or so, I think. He came back the day after the earthquake.”

  “Earthquake?”

  Porter nodded. “I might have forgotten about that, if it hadn't been for the one last night. The quake in '49 was just about as severe, centered somewhere up north, and it did some minor damage in the Tomales Bay area. Harmon had a terror of earthquakes; he used to say t
hat was the only thing he hated about living in San Francisco. Adam thought the quake might have had something to do with Harmon's depression, but I don't see how that's possible.”

  “Neither do I. Did Crane say anything about his experience out at Tomales?”

  “Not to my knowledge.”

  “Not even to his wife? Didn't she talk to him after it happened? On the telephone, I mean.”

  “Well, he did call her briefly to tell her he was all right. But that was all. And he wouldn't talk about it after he returned to the city.”

  “How did Mrs. Crane feel about his trips to Tomales? Didn't she mind him going away alone like that?”

  “No. Amanda was always very… passive, I suppose is the word. Whatever Harmon did was fine with her.” Porter paused, fought down another cough, and ground out his cigarette in a hollowed-out lump of clay. “You've talked to her? Amanda?”

  “For a few minutes yesterday.”

  “About Harmon's death?”

  “No. She wouldn't discuss it.”

  “It's just as well. She… well, she had a severe breakdown, you know, after Adam and that shyster, Yankowski, found the body. She hasn't been right in the head since.”

  “So I gathered. She asked about you, Mr. Porter.”

  “Did she?” A kind of softness came into his face; he smiled faintly. “I suppose she wonders why I haven't been to see her the past few months.”

  “Yes. She said she'd like to see you again.”

  He sighed, and it turned into another cough. “Well, I suppose I'll have to go then. I stopped the visits because they depress me. Seeing her the way she is…” He shook his head. “She was such a vital woman before the shooting. An attractive, vital, happy woman.”

  He was in love with her too, I thought. At least a little. She must have been quite a woman before the night of December 10, 1949.

  I said, “Crane's little retreat at Tomales-do you recall where it was?”

  “No, not exactly. I never went there. Adam did, once, at Harmon's invitation; it seems to me he said it was on the east shore. But I can't be sure.”

  “Did Crane own the place?”

  “I believe he leased it.”

  “Would you have any idea who from?”

  “Well, as a matter of fact, I would. An Italian fellow in Tomales. The town, I mean. Harmon used his name in one of his Johnny Axe books, made him the villain. He liked to do things like that-inside jokes, he called them. He had a puckish sense of humor.”

  “Was the Italian a realtor?”

  “No, I don't think so. A private party.”

  “What was his name?”

  Porter did some cudgeling of his memory. But then he shook his head again and said, “I just don't remember.”

  “The title of the book?”

  “Nor that. I read all of them when they were published, but I haven't looked at one in years. I believe I stored them away with Adam's books after he died.” Porter paused again, musingly this time. “You know,” he said, “there was a box of Harmon's papers among my brother's effects.”

  “Papers?”

  “Literary papers-manuscripts, letters, and so on. I don't know how Adam came to have them; probably through Amanda. If you think they might be of help, I'll see if I can find the box. It's somewhere down in the basement.”

  “I'd appreciate that, Mr. Porter. You never know what might prove useful.”

  “I'll start looking this evening.”

  “Can you give me the names of any other friends of Crane's I should talk to?”

  “I didn't really know any of Harmon's friends,” he said. “I don't believe he had many. He spent most of his time writing or researching. Have you talked to Yankowski yet?”

  “Yes. He wasn't very helpful.”

  “I'm not surprised. An unpleasant sort. I don't know why Harmon dealt with him.”

  “How did your brother feel about Yankowski?”

  “The same as I do. He found him overbearing. And the way he pestered poor Amanda after Harmon's death…”

  “Pestered her how?”

  “He wanted to marry her. That was before he found out her mind was permanently damaged, of course.”

  “He left her alone after he found out?”

  “Fortunately, yes.”

  There didn't seem to be anything more to ask Porter; I waited while he lighted another Camel and got done coughing, thanked him for his time, and started for the door. But he wasn't quite ready to let go of me yet. He tagged along, with his face scrunched up thoughtfully again and his breath making funny little rattling noises in his throat.

  When we got to the door he said, “There is one thing. I don't know that I ought to bring it up, after all this time, but… well, it's something that has bothered me for thirty-five years. Bothered Adam, too, while he was alive.”

  “What is it, Mr. Porter?”

  “The circumstances of Harmon's death. They just didn't seem right.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “Well… in the first place, it's very hard to believe that he would have killed himself, even in a state of severe depression. If you'd known Harmon you'd understand. He wasn't a courageous man; he feared death more than most of us.”

  I frowned at him. “Are you suggesting his death might not have been suicide?”

  “I'm suggesting that it is a possibility.”

  “Who had reason to want him dead?”

  “No one that I know of. Or that Adam knew of. That was one of the reasons the police discounted the idea when Adam broached it to them.”

  “What were the other reasons?”

  “The main one was the locked office door. They said there was no way anyone but Harmon could have locked it from the inside. But that door was exactly what bothered us the most.”

  “Why?”

  “Harmon never locked doors, not even the front door to his house; he was a trusting man and he was forever misplacing things like keys. Besides, he was alone in the house that night. Why would a man alone in his own home lock his office door, even if he did intend to take his own life?”

  I didn't say anything.

  “You see?” Porter said. “It could have been murder, couldn't it?”

  SEVEN

  When I left North Beach I drove over to the foot of Clay Street and got onto the freeway interchange, heading south for Redwood City. As I drove I mulled over what Porter had told me. Not suicide-murder. Well, it was a possibility, as he'd said; and it would make an intriguing mystery out of Crane's death. But the police had determined that there was no way for a locked-room gimmick to have been worked, and I had a healthy respect for the SFPD Homicide Detail; I knew a lot of the men who'd been on it over the years, from my own days on the cops and from my friendship with Eberhardt, who had worked that detail for a decade and a half as inspector and then lieutenant. No, if they'd felt Crane's death was suicide, then it must have been suicide. And never mind why he decided to lock the office door before he put his. 22 Browning against his temple and pulled the trigger. He'd been drunk at the time, depressed and overwrought; a man in that condition is liable to commit any sort of irrational act.

  Sure, I thought, sure. But all the same I wanted a look at the police report-if it still existed and if Eberhardt could find it. Even the best of cops makes mistakes now and then, just like the rest of us.

  It was a little past noon when I reached the Redwood City exit off 101. For the San Mateo county seat, it's a quiet little town sprawled out on both sides of El Camino Real and the Southern Pacific Railroad tracks. Not nearly as affluent as Atherton and Palo Alto to the south, or Burlingame and Hillsborough to the north. Just a town like a lot of other towns, with a fair amount of low-income housing along tree-shaded streets. A few writers had lived there over the years, some of whom had written for the pulps. I wondered if any of those were still alive and if Russ Dancer knew them. And if he did, if he had anything in common with them after all these years.

  I pulled into a Chevron sta
tion near Broadway, the main downtown arterial. And pumped my own gas while a fat, indolent teenager looked on, waiting to take my money. Self-service at gas stations is one of my pet peeves. High prices, and you do all the work yourself. What the hell did attendants like this one do to earn their salary? Not much, that was for damned sure. Instead of walking over to where he was, I got back into the car so that he had to move his fat in order to get paid. Small satisfaction, but you take your satisfactions where you can these days.

  I took another one by sitting there at the pump for an extra couple of minutes while I dug a Redwood City street map out of the bag of maps in the glove compartment and looked up Stambough Street, Dancer's last known address. Only it wasn't Stambough, it was Stambaugh: I had mistaken an a for an o in the scrawled return address on Dancer's Christmas card envelope. Stambaugh Street was only a few blocks from where I was, not far off Broadway-more or less downtown and more or less close to the SP tracks.

  But I didn't go there directly after I left the nonservice station. I stopped instead on Broadway and went into the first cafe I saw to eat lunch. I was hungry, and Dancer isn't somebody you want to deal with on an empty stomach.

  I took my copies of Axe Marks the Spot and Axe of Mercy with me, and skimmed through them while I ate. Neither one had an Italian villain in it. I couldn't recall which of the others did have; it had been too long since I'd read them. I would have to go see Kiskadon later on and check through his copies.

  With a cheese omelette and a glass of iced tea under my belt, I drove to Stambaugh Street. The number I wanted turned out to be a somewhat seedy rooming house near a block-long thrift store: a sprawling, two-story Victorian with turrets and gables and brick chimneys, all badly in need of paint and general repair. Two sickly palm trees grew in a front yard enclosed by a picket fence with a fourth of the pickets broken or missing altogether. Nice place. Every time I crossed paths with Dancer, he seemed to have tumbled a little further downhill.

  I parked in front and went through the gate and up onto the creaky front porch. There was only one entrance and no marked mailboxes to identify who lived there. Just a doorbell button and a small card above it that said ROOM FOR RENT-SEE MANAGER. I tried the door, found it locked, and pushed the bell. Pretty soon somebody buzzed me into a dark hallway that smelled of Lysol and, curiously, popcorn. The somebody-a woman-was leaning out of a doorway beyond a flight of stairs, giving me a squint-eyed look.