The Snatch nd-1

by Bill Pronzini

  The steering wheel had the feel of Erika’s fingers on it as I drove away into the night.

  * * * *

  19

  Valldemar Drive turned out to be two blocks of split-level and ranch-style development homes, with a lot of trees and flowers and well-thought-out landscaping. Number 87 was of the former type, constructed of redwood with a fieldstone facade, and there was a large horse chestnut tree growing in a carpetlike front lawn to set it off somewhat from its neighbors.

  I parked just off the curving front drive and got out and went up onto the sidewalk. At the foot of the drive there was a black metal pole with a carriage-type gas lamp on top of it; pale electric light shone through the cut-glass sides. An iridescent plastic sign in a wrought-iron frame was fastened to the center of the pole; The Shanleys-and below that, Peggy and Glen-was imprinted there.

  The drive was bordered on the right with neat rows of yellow and white narcissus and lavender iris and pale pink gladiolas, and on the left by a low rough-hewn split-rail fence. At the back, parked in front of a darkened garage, was the green panel truck; there was no other vehicle in sight. I went along to where there was an opening in the fence, and a path made of variegated concrete blocks cut diagonally through the lawn, under the chestnut, and blended into a concrete porch covered with an arbor of honeysuckle. The fragrance of the vines’ pale white flowers was rich and cloying in the cool night air.

  I passed under the arbor and stepped up to the door. There was another gas lamp set on the wall beside it, this one dark, and below it I could see an ivory bell button. I pushed the button and stood there holding my hat in my left hand, trying to decide how I was going to handle things-and then the soft pad of footsteps sounded inside and a light came on in the lamp. The door opened and a woman looked out.

  She was in her late twenties, tiny and compact, breasts a little large-pleasantly so-for the petiteness of her body, and a waist no thicker than a big man’s thigh. She had one of these freckled pixie-ish noses that would wrinkle up like a rabbit’s when she laughed, and carelessly fluffed hair the color of burnished copper, and large, innocent, gold-flecked green eyes. A bulky beige sweater and black flare slacks and a frilly apron with large heart-shaped pockets comprised her dress.

  She asked quizzically, “Yes? May I help you?”

  “Mrs. Shanley?”

  “Yes?”

  “I’d like to speak to your husband, if I may.”

  “Oh, well, I’m afraid he’s gone to San Jose,” she said. “His lodge is holding some sort of bowling tournament down there. Was it something to do with business?”

  “Not exactly,” I said. I got my wallet out of my suit coat and opened it and let her look at the photostat of my operator’s license. “I wanted to ask him some questions concerning the kidnapping of Louis Martinetti’s son.”

  She blinked rapidly, and her mouth became a small, moist circle. “You’re that detective in the newspapers, the one who was stabbed, aren’t you?”

  I nodded. She seemed a little awed, and her eyes moved down to my stomach, as if she expected to see blood there-or gaping flesh; then she blinked again and brought her gaze back up to my face. “Such a terrible thing, a kidnapping,” she said gravely. “An awful, evil thing. Has there been any news yet?”

  “As a matter of fact, there has,” I told her. “Good news. The boy has been found, unharmed, and he’s home with his parents at the moment.”

  The gravity gave way to a gladsome smile, and her freckled little nose wrinkled exactly the way I had thought it would. The relief in her eyes appeared to be authentic. “I’m so relieved!” she said. “Did the police arrest anyone?”

  “A woman accomplice.”

  “A woman murdered that man and stabbed you?”

  “I don’t think so, Mrs. Shanley.”

  “Oh. Do you know who did yet?”

  “Not yet, I’m afraid.”

  “Well, at least the boy is safe and that’s the main thing, isn’t it?”

  “Yes.”

  She took her lower lip between her teeth and nibbled on it and put her hands in the pockets of her apron. “I suppose you want to ask Glen a lot of routine questions,” she said. “He’s been sort of expecting it.”

  “Why is that, Mrs. Shanley?”

  “Isn’t that the way it’s done?” she asked. “I mean, don’t you investigators go around to everyone who knows or works for the victim in a case like this and try to find clues?”

  “Yes, that’s usually the way it’s done.”

  “Glen is a good citizen,” Mrs. Shanley said firmly. “He’s always willing to cooperate with the authorities.”

  “That’s good to know.”

  “Yes. I don’t think he can be of much help, though.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Well, when he came home the night that poor little boy was taken and told me about it, I asked him a million questions and he couldn’t tell me anything at all.”

  “He knew about the kidnapping the day it happened?”

  She inclined her head vigorously. “It was his day to work at the Martinettis’-he goes there once a week, in the afternoons-and he happened to be weeding under the study windows, you see, when Mr. Martinetti and that friend of his, Mr. Channing, were talking inside about what had happened. Glen isn’t the type to eavesdrop, but, well, you don’t just walk away when you hear something like that, do you?”

  “No, I suppose you don’t,” I said. “I wonder if you’d mind telling me if your husband was home the following night, Mrs. Shanley? The night I was attacked and the kidnapper murdered.”

  “Yes, certainly he was. We watched television for a while, and then some friends came over for drinks and we played canasta until after midnight.”

  “Do you know if your husband told anyone else about the kidnapping that first day?”

  “I don’t think he did.” She frowned thoughtfully.

  “We didn’t go out that night either, and no one dropped by … Oh, he might have told Art, I guess. Art telephoned about something just before supper and they talked for quite a while; I was in the kitchen, and I didn’t hear any of the conversation.”

  “Who would Art be, Mrs. Shanley?”

  “Glen’s brother. He lives in Half Moon Bay.”

  “Anyone else he might have told?”

  “Not that I know of,” she answered. “Glen said that it was the kind of thing you didn’t want to go spreading around, and he told me not to say anything about it.”

  “And you didn’t, of course.”

  “Oh no.”

  I turned my hat around in my fingers. “Would your husband happen to have an interest in electronics, Mrs. Shanley?”

  “Electronics?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you mean stereo equipment?”

  “Generally, yes.”

  “Glen isn’t very interested in things like that, really,” she said. “His only hobby is his work.”

  “I see.”

  “But Art fools around with stereo equipment,” she said. “He’s built a couple of things from component kits or whatever you call them. Why do you ask?”

  I rubbed at the bridge of my nose. “No special reason,” I said noncommittally. “Would you happen to have your brother-in-law’s address, Mrs. Shanley? You did say he lived in Half Moon Bay?”

  “Yes,” she said. “He has an ocean-view cottage on Dreyer Road-that’s a little winding lane a couple of miles south of the village; there are only two cottages at the end of the lane, and his is the nearest one at the fork.”

  “What does he do for a living?”

  “Well, he’s unemployed at the moment. Usually he works as a plumber’s helper, but there’s been such a building depression lately that he can’t find work.”

  “All right, Mrs. Shanley,” I said. “Thank you for your time. You’ve been very cooperative.”

  “I’m afraid I didn’t have much to tell you,” she said. “Will you still be wanting to talk with Glen
?”

  “It’s very likely,” I said. “I’ll be by tomorrow-or perhaps one of the District Attorney’s investigators instead.”

  “He should be home until about noon,” Mrs. Shanley said. “He doesn’t have an appointment until one o’clock.”

  “Thanks again, Mrs. Shanley,” I said, and managed a small smile for her and then turned around and went out to the street again. I sat in the darkness inside the Valiant and thought: Well, what have you got now? A brother who dabbles in electronics like a million other people in this country, who is unemployed like a few million others on top of that, and who may or may not have known about the kidnapping the same day it happened. That’s all you’ve got, too, because if that girl was lying about her husband being home with her the night of the hijack, she’s as good as Hepburn and twice as good as Taylor.

  So what now? A talk with Art Shanley? Well, you’ve got nothing better to do tonight, and no place better to go than Half Moon Bay, because home is no more appealing than it was a little while ago. If it’s a dead end, then you’ve made a full cycle out of it and you’ll have something to report to Donleavy and Martinetti in the morning, even if it is negative.

  I sat there awhile longer, thinking, but Erika came into my thoughts with her whispering words and her softness and her rejection, and abruptly I started the car and put the heater on high; it had grown very cold in there.

  I drove over to Skyline Boulevard, and it took me fifteen minutes to make the nine-mile drive across the mountains to Half Moon Bay. I turned into one of the service stations at the Highway 1 junction there, got gas for the Valiant, and went into the attendant’s office to look at a posted area map on the wall. Dreyer Road was a thin black line extending erratically south in a rough parallel to Highway 1; it began on Cliffside Drive, a road which right-angled seaward off the highway about three miles south, and according to the map scale, dead-ended less than a mile after it commenced.

  I went out and paid the attendant and turned south, passing on the outskirts of the village of Half Moon Bay-a small cluster of buildings huddled seaward like old ladies under the tattered gray shawl of the coastal fog. The mist, which had been thick and fleecy on the road coming over, was higher and thinner here at sea level. It made the highway as slick as polished black glass under my tires and headlights, and spotted the windshield with the kind of liquidity you get from an aerosol spray can.

  The section of the coastline beyond the village was barren and sparsely populated. To the left, undeveloped and thinly vegetated land stretched away into the wet gray-black of the night; to the right, the soil was rocky and grown with cypress and eucalyptus in a kind of windbreak well removed from the road. Deep, slope-sided, element-eroded ravines split the high cliffs overlooking the Pacific in hundreds of places, some of them extending inland as far as half a mile. You could see the lashing assault of the wind-swept sea on the jagged rocks from certain spots along the highway, but at others your vision was cut off by the trees and the rocky terrain and you were as much as a mile from the ocean itself.

  I knew the area a little; there were a few homes and cottages strung out on the bluffs, or set back along the sides of the ravines-man-made blemishes on the awesome face of nature. Most of them had access to narrow strips of driftwood-strewn beaches along winding paths down the steep gorge slopes. It was in one of these dwellings that Art Shanley apparently lived.

  I reached Cliffside Drive and turned off and followed its narrow, pitted expanse past a few lighted homes and a lot of wet, shiny ice plant that was greenly opalescent in the diffused radiance from my headlamps. A quarter-mile in, a wooden sign loomed on the left and the wordsDreyer Rd. were visible on it in small black lettering. I swung down there, and it was nothing more than a graveled cart track winding in a southwesterly direction, hugging and skirting two of the shallower ravines without any sign of habitation. Then the road straightened out onto a fog-shrouded bluff face, and split into two forks. There was a lot of thickly bunched scrub oak and cypress growing in the crotch of the fork and paralleling the branch which wobbled its way further southwest and ended a few hundred yards distant at the vaguely discernible outlines of a darkened cottage. The second branch hooked back to where another cottage squatted dimly at the edge of the near ravine; that would be Shanley’s, from what his sister-in-law had said. Bars of pale light shone through straight-louvered shutters over a long front window, glowing eerily through the shimmering wetness of the fog.

  I turned the Valiant in that direction and coasted into a wide circle before it. A black or dark blue Rambler American, sheened with wetness and rust-scarred by the perpetually damp salt wind, was parked with its front wheels touching one of three logs which had been set as brakes thirty feet in front of the cottage. I parked beside it at a second log.

  The building, I could see in the shine of the headlights, was weather-beaten pineboard, a dull eroded gray with a lot of humps and knots like a beachcomber’s shack. It was enclosed in front by a similar board fence, and off on one side was a small matching shed. There was a look of instability to it all, as if a good stiff storm wind would hurl the cottage and the shed out over the cliffs and into the ocean.

  I switched off the lights and got out of the car. Cold wind whistled in from the sea, eddying the fog like mildewed garlands around my head. The sound of the turbulent Pacific seemed unnaturally loud out here, as if the bluff were a tiny atoll and the ocean was all around it, hammering at it, chipping it apart and consuming it piece by piece, inexorably. I shivered a little and pulled the overcoat tight around my neck, moving quickly to the unlatched gate in the fence.

  A crushed oyster-and-clam-shell path, grown through with coarse grass, extended into a wide rectangle before the door; on both sides of it, ice plant caressed the rough boarding of the cottage with shining green fingers. I went up to the rectangle and reached out and knocked on the door.

  No answer. I waited half a minute, and then knocked again, listening for some sound from within. There was nothing except the stentorian and relentless roaring of the wind-lashed Pacific flinging itself on the rocks beyond and below.

  I worked saliva into my mouth and took a couple of careful steps sideways, into the ice plant. My shoes crushed the wet pulpy tendrils with the same sound as when you step on a thick-shelled beetle. I leaned forward, retaining a breath, and put my eye up to one of the bars in the louvered shutters and looked inside the cottage.

  A melange of mismatched furniture-rattan, overstuffed fabric, imitation Danish Modern-and the light coming from an inverted and milky-bowled floor lamp. Mail-order stereo components, all of which had apparently been built from kits, on tiers of shelves made out of brick building blocks and lengths of wood along one otherwise bare wall. A small wooden table cluttered with capacitors and resistors, solder and spools of wire and a soldering gun, various-sized parts and tools. Bare wood floor, a darkened archway to another room-nothing else. I touched my tongue to my cold lips and moved as far to the left as I was able so that I could see more of the room: more bare wall, a battered portable television set on a roll-stand, a cylindrical brass-finished smoking stand. The area immediately in front of the door was still blocked from my vision.

  I stepped back onto the crushed-shell rectangle and knocked on the door a third time. Still nothing. Before I could consider the advisability of the move, I reached out and grasped the knob and twisted it slowly, silently. The door opened a couple of inches under my hand.

  There was the smell of something in there, a lingering chemical odor that I had known a long time ago and would never forget: spent gunpowder. The hairs at the base of my neck rose, and a different kind of chill swept over me now; I could feel my heart begin to jump irregularly in my chest and there was sweat under my arms and flowing cold-hot along my sides. My stomach throbbed and ached.

  I released the knob and pushed the door open with the tips of my fingers, keeping my body motionless. It swung inward with a faint, odd, empty sound, and then I could see the flooring ac
ross the threshold that had not been visible from the window.

  A man lay on his right side there, a couple of feet into the room, facing away from me. His legs were drawn up, and both hands were frozen in clawed agony at his chest. Blood had spilled out between the spread fingers; a pool of it, with appendages as thin as spider’s legs jutting out into the cracks in the boarding, shone a deep burgundy in the pale light.

  I took a couple of steps inside, moving woodenly. The man was about thirty, dressed in faded corduroy trousers and canvas shoes and a white terry-cloth pullover with the word Art stitched in blue script over the left pocket. His face was contorted, the eyes squeezed so tightly shut they seemed sewn, and he had bitten through his lower lip in his agony.

  I knelt down by his head and made myself look at his chest. It was a bullet wound, all right, but there was no sign of exit. I touched the skin at the base of his neck: still warm. He had not been dead very long.

  I straightened up and kept on staring down at the thing that had been Art Shanley, undeniably Art Shanley, and I thought: He’s the one, yes, he’s got to be the one. He learned of the kidnapping from his brother and saw his chance ro get his hands on more money than he’d ever seen before or would see again. He went down to Martinetti’s late that same night and planted the bug in the phone and waited all the next day-maybe in his car, maybe just walking around with a portable radio-for the ransom call to come in. When it did, he went up to the drop site early and hid out there to wait for Lockridge, the kidnapper, and for me to show up with the money. But he was too quick after I put the suitcase on that sandstone rock, too nervous maybe, and he used the knife on Lockridge before I was gone. When I came back down, he slashed me and then got out of there with the money and he was in the clear-hethought he was in the clear.

  I kept staring down at him, and the sight of his twisted features jarred my mind and suddenly I began thinking very clearly, very rationally, very rapidly. A lot of little things fused and grew and begat bigger things, and I began to tremble, standing there, tremble with more than mere coldness, the sound of the churning ocean growing and growing in my ears until it filled the room with crushing, cataclysmic noise. We had thought it all tied together, the kidnapping and the hijacking, but they were two separate entities, paralleling one another but never coming together until tonight. Now that I knew that, I knew also who had killed Art Shanley-who, and why, not all the answers, but enough of them, too many of them, and the knowledge made disgust flow through me with the palpable bitterness of camphor.