Double

by Bill Pronzini

  I moved toward the shaft of light, keeping close to the thickly planted vegetation next to the building. As I neared the window, I paused for a moment. Behind me it was quiet, but in the distance I could hear indistinct noises—animal noises, an occasional birdcall. The wind rustled through the leaves of the tall palm trees, and the moon shone in the dark sky behind them. In spite of the night’s warmth, I shivered.

  Crouching, I went closer to the window and stopped just outside the beam of light. Through the glass I could see an office with four desks. Woodall stood at a file cabinet, the kind with small drawers that hold 3” X 5” cards. His back was to me and he was reaching into one of the drawers.

  He turned, a white card in his hand, and I hunched lower. He went to one of the desks, pulled the plastic cover off a typewriter, and inserted the card. Still standing, he began to type.

  After about thirty seconds, he pulled the card from the typewriter, went to a different drawer in the file, and flipped through the cards until he found the place he wanted to insert the one he had in his hand. Then he shut the drawer and looked around the office, an expression of satisfaction on his face.

  I started to inch closer, to see if I could make out the label on the file drawer. Woodall stared directly out the window at the place where I was and I froze, even though I knew he couldn’t see me. He remained standing there for a few seconds, then turned and went through a door behind him. A second light flashed on.

  I moved closer, crawling through the plants until I was below the window, then stood up and peered through the glass.

  The file had little blue labels on each drawer. They were alphabetical —A to C, and so on. The top drawer of the cabinet, however, had a longer notation. I strained my eyes and made out the words Adopt-an-Animal Program. Quickly I ducked back down and squatted behind a rubber tree plant.

  So Woodall. had been adding a card to the file of people who sponsored zoo animals. And as near as I could tell, the drawer he’d added it to was P to R. P for Picard. The 3” X 5” card undoubtedly listed her as the proud mother of a gorilla named Fred.

  Woodall had lied to me about how he knew Elaine. And now he’d manufactured evidence to back up the falsehood. But why, I wondered, hadn’t he merely filled out the card when he was at work?

  Well, for one thing, the card file was in an office with four desks. It would have been hard for Woodall to get to without someone observing him. And secondly, he might not have felt it important until today. After all, there had been another murder—

  I heard a noise in the zoo proper, outside the archway. Standing up, I slipped back toward the gate. A silhouette appeared in the archway, swinging a flashlight. I looked around, saw the little footbridge to my right, and tiptoed across it into the darkness beyond.

  Ahead of me were tall shapes that reminded me of a bandstand. A path sloped downward and I took it, not thinking, just wanting to get away from what was surely a security guard. After a moment I looked back to see if his light was gone, but found the path had turned and I could no longer see the bridge or the courtyard.

  I doubled back, came to a fork in the path, and took the left-hand branch of it. After a few seconds, I realized I couldn’t see the administration center at all. I’d taken the wrong branch, and it was leading me farther away, into the zoo itself.

  Now what? I thought, stopping and looking around. I could see nothing but dark vegetation and hear nothing but the distant animal sounds and the overhead drone of a plane heading for Lindbergh Field. Closing my eyes, I tried to picture the zoo as I remembered it from dozens of past visits. But that didn’t help much; I’d always come in through the visitors’ gate.

  Where were the guards? How often did they patrol? The one I’d seen had probably checked the courtyard; if he’d noticed the open gate and locked it, I was in real trouble. Or had he seen the light in the office and gone in to see who was working late? There was no way of telling until I got back there. If I got back there.

  I went back up the path, took another fork, but found it wasn’t the right one either. At this rate, I could wander all night. The zoo covers a hundred acres of canyons and mesas in the northwestern reaches of Balboa Park. The animals live in relative freedom in natural habitats, which are separated from visitors by low walls and moats rather than barred cages. I supposed if I came to something I recognized, the bear den or monkey island, I could find my way to the main gate. And that was just down from the administration center—

  Off to my right something screamed.

  I almost screamed back at it. Then I leaped off the path, heading for the cover of the shrubbery. Whatever it was yelled again, and then a great ruckus started, with all sorts of shrieks and flapping.

  Birds. I must be near where they kept the big birds—ostriches and emus and God knows what else.

  Had I caused this uproar? Or did it happen frequently? Would the guards come to investigate, or just ignore it as a matter of course? I crouched in the shrubbery, waiting.

  Birds. That didn’t help me one damn bit. The things were everywhere, all over the zoo. I’d have to figure out some other way to get my bearings.

  But how? It was dark, and I didn’t dare use my flashlight....

  Dummy, I thought. The moon. The moon is out tonight. You can fix your position by it, like a good little Girl Scout.

  The birds were quieting down now, and I didn’t hear any footsteps coming to investigate the commotion. I stepped out from the cover of the bushes and looked up at the sky. The moon was there all right. I took a mental reading, figured out which way was which, and soon was on the right path, heading for the little bridge and the gate beyond.

  At the bridge, I paused, looking around and listening. The light was still on in the office, but all was quiet. Probably the guard had checked to see who was there, and now Woodall really was working late, to back up whatever story he’d given security. I slipped across the bridge and grasped the iron bars of the gate. It was still open.

  I went through it fast, breathing hard, and hurried down the walk and across Zoo Drive to where Woodall’s car was still parked. From here I’d be able to hear him close the gate if he left, so I decided to take the opportunity to examine the car. It would be easy to do, since the convertible top was down.

  I slipped into the driver’s seat. The car smelled of leather and more faintly of cigarette smoke. I opened the glove compartment and found it empty except for the registration and a San Diego map. The ashtray was full of butts, and a side pocket on the door was stuffed with odd bits of paper. I pulled them out and went through them.

  There were credit card slips from gasoline stations, mostly Union Oil; a crumpled bill from an auto repair shop; an empty matchbook from an Italian restaurant; ticket stubs for the symphony; several business cards. I looked carefully at each card. One was from a New York Life Insurance salesman; another from the alterations department of a downtown men’s store; still another from a lawyer, Newell Dunlap.

  And one from Arthur Darrow.

  I looked closer at Darrow’s card. It was ragged, seemed old. Probably it had been in the side pocket a long time. It gave Darrow’s occupation as an investment counselor, and showed both business and office addresses and phone numbers in Borrego Springs.

  Turning it over, I found a notation in a thin, spidery hand: 9 p.m., Les Club.

  Les Club. French for “The Club,” I supposed—but if that was so, it was bad French. It should have been Le Club, instead of the plural Les. In any case, a utilitarian label with a Continental flare.

  But for what? It sounded as if it could be a restaurant. Or a bar. A fancy nightspot, perhaps. Or even a health club, as I’d first supposed.

  Well, whatever it was, I’d now found a link connecting Woodall with Arthur Darrow. Darrow, who was connected to Elaine by Jim Lauterbach’s file. Lauterbach, who had been hired by Henry Nyland. Nyland, who suspected Elaine had been involved with another man—another man who had to be Woodall. Woodall, whom Karyn Sugarman had classif
ied as an Inadequate Personality. Sugarman, who ...

  Everybody seemed connected. Loosely connected, to be sure, but all linked by something called Les Club.

  30 “WOLF”

  My Western Airlines flight on Tuesday morning went north out of San Diego, to L.A. to pick up a bunch of noisy tourists, and then turned around and proceeded on down to Mazatlán. I took that as an omen of things to come. And I wasn’t far wrong.

  In Mazatlán it was hot and so humid the air had a wet drippy consistency that made it difficult to breathe. There was no air conditioning in the waiting area for the feeder flight to Los Mochis; I sat there for an hour with my jacket off and my shirt unbuttoned halfway down my belly, simmering in my own sweat. The plane, when I finally boarded it, was small and cramped and even hotter than the waiting area; and the pilot handled it on takeoff, in the air, and on landing with a kind of wild nonchalance that scared the hell out of me. None of the other five passengers, all of whom were Mexican, seemed bothered in the slightest.

  Los Mochis was a modern little city in the middle of El Fuerte Valley, surrounded by rice fields and canebrakes and sugar mills. It took me fifteen minutes to recover from the flight, which was all right because it took the airline people fifteen minutes to find my missing bag. The first three taximen I talked to either didn’t speak English or had no interest in driving me all the way to Topolobampo Bay; the fourth guy, whose name was Hernando and who said proudly that he was a Tarahumara Indian, agreed to do the honors. Which was too bad for me, because he drove with the same kind of wild nonchalance exhibited by the feeder pilot—only worse, like somebody who had just escaped from an asylum. I didn’t get to see half the countryside we passed through, on account of I had my eyes shut most of the time.

  Near the Bahia Ohuira we entered a stretch of heavy jungle, vivid green and spotted with bright-colored flowers. It was even hotter and more humid in there, which made the interior of the taxi—a twenty-year-old Dodge sans air conditioning—feel like the interior of a stewpot. We couldn’t even open the windows for a breath of air because, Hernando said, the jungle was the home of “oh so many millions of mosquitoes who will gladly suck out every drop of our blood.” The land around the village of Topolobampo, not far ahead, had remained uninhabited until recent years because of the mosquitoes, he said. Malaria, he said. But the disease had been wiped out, he said, except in rare cases, and then only tourists were afflicted.

  Topolobampo was an old village with a cluster of new-looking hotels spread out along the narrows where Bahia Ohuira became Bahia Topolobampo and where there was a confusion of mangrove islands and dark estuaries. We went through the town, southwest toward the Sea of Cortez. And a little while later, in midafternoon and in the middle of a hot windstorm, we finally rolled into the town on the water with monkeys in it.

  Los Monos was down near the mouth of the bay, tucked in between the water and a series of low jungly hills—maybe fifty buildings in all, most of them old, built around a central plaza with a fountain in its middle and a church at one end. At the other end was the shrimp cannery and a network of little piers and boat moorage, where three or four dozen fishing vessels writhed under the lash of the wind; the bay and the sea beyond were a dazzling blue laced with whitecaps. What looked to be the only hotel was on the west side of the square, a threestory tile-roofed adobe structure painted pink and called El Cabrillo.

  The place looked like a ghost town: there wasn’t another human being in sight, nothing moving anywhere except a lot of dust and leaves and things swirled up by the wind. It gave me a vague eerie feeling, until I remembered that the afternoon siesta was practically a second religion in Mexico. That was where everybody was, inside out of the heat and that hammering wind, having themselves a short snooze. It seemed like a pretty good idea. But not as good as a cold cerveza, if they had cold beer in Los Monos, and a bucket of water to douse my head with.

  Hernando slammed the Dodge to a quivering stop in front of the hotel. My legs felt a little weak when I got out; it had been some wild ride. I paid him the price we’d agreed on, plus a tip, and asked him to wait. If Carlton Ferguson didn’t live here I wanted a ride straight back to Los Mochis, even if it meant another hour and a half of fear and trembling. And if Ferguson did live here I might need a ride to wherever his house was. Hernando was cheerfully agreeable, and when I left him he was about to attack the contents of a huge straw lunch basket.

  The lobby of El Cabrillo was small, hot, strewn with sturdy native furniture, and empty except for a round little man dozing in a desk area about as large as an elevator shaft. He didn’t speak English, it turned out, but he went and got somebody who did—a middle-aged guy with a Pancho Villa mustache, the fierce effect of which was spoiled by a ready smile and pleasant brown eyes.

  “I am Pablo Venegas, owner of this first-class hotel,” he said. “You wish a room, señor? Two are available, one on the top floor with a magnificent view of water and jungle—”

  “Thanks, but I may not be staying the night. That depends on what you’re able to tell me.”

  “Por favor?”

  “I’m looking for a man named Carlton Ferguson, an American engineer. Does he live in Los Monos?”

  “Ah, Senor Ferguson. Sometimes he comes to have dinner in my first-class restaurant. He is my good friend.”

  So far, so good, I thought with some relief. “Can you tell me where he lives?”

  “On a hill beyond the village,” Venegas said. “Perhaps two kilometers from here. A fine villa. It was formerly owned by a general in the army, but his family moved away after he was blown up by guerrillas.”

  “Would you know if Ferguson is home?”

  He shrugged. “I have not seen him.”

  “When did you see him last?”

  “Perhaps two days ago.”

  “Did he have a little boy with him? About seven years old, with light-colored hair?”

  “Little boy? No, he has no children I know about.”

  “Does he live alone in his villa?”

  “Ah, no. With a woman who is not his wife, I think. A very beautiful woman.”

  “How do I get there?”

  He told me, and the directions seemed simple enough. I wasn’t quite ready to leave when I had them straight—I wanted to ask him a few more questions about Ferguson—but he must have thought I was. He said, “You seem hot and tired, señor. Some food before you go? My wife prepares the finest huachinango—what you call the red snapper—that you have ever eaten.” I started to shake my head, and he said without missing a beat, “A cold cerveza, then? Dos Equis, Tres Equis, Tecate, Carta Blanca?”

  “Cold?”

  “My first-class hotel is equipped with a gasoline-powered refrigera tor. The cerveza is very cold indeed.”

  The inside of my mouth and throat felt like a sandpit; I didn’t need any more persuading. I followed Venegas into a little bar, where a pair of ceiling fans stirred the air with sluggish monotony and gave free rides to a colony of flies as big as bees. The bottle of Dos Equis he sold me was as cold as advertised.

  “Tell me, Senor Venegas,” I said, “what sort of man is Carlton Ferguson?”

  “You do not know him?”

  “No. I’m here to see him on a private matter.”

  “Ah, he is a fine man. He gave the padre ten thousand pesos to fix the roof of the church.”

  “A generous man, then?”

  “Yes. Very generous.”

  “How long has he lived here?”

  “For almost one year.”

  “And what does he do?”

  “Do, señor?”

  “For a living. How does he make his money?”

  “Ah. He is a very great engineer. He works on the government project to improve the port of Topolobampo.”

  “Would you say he’s well liked?”

  “Oh, yes. Everyone likes him.”

  “So there’s been no trouble with him since he came to Los Monos.”

  “None,” Venegas said.
He was frowning now, so that his mustache bristled and he looked a bit more like a bandit. “Why do you ask these questions, señor? They are very odd questions.”

  “A private matter, like I said.”

  He lowered his voice, even though there was no one else around. “You are policia?”

  “In a way,” I said.

  “Ah,” he said. “A matter of seriousness, señor?”

  “No. It’s nothing for you to concern yourself about. You can just forget I was ever here.”

  “Of course,” he said solemnly. He had misunderstood: he thought I was some sort of government official, from the State Department or maybe even from the C.I.A. He was very impressed. He said, “If you desire to have a room later on, I will see to it that you are accommodated to the utmost. The finest room in El Cabrillo—I guarantee it.”

  I thanked him and went back outside. Hernando was asleep on the front seat of the Dodge, which he had moved over into the shade of a date palm. I woke him up, climbed into the back seat, repeated Venegas’s directions, and off we went in a screech and a roar.

  Beyond the church, an unpaved road climbed up into the low hills that flanked the bay to the north. That road connected with another one, and we climbed higher through lush jungle, an open area dotted with papaya trees, then more jungle, toward the crest of one of the hills. Here and there, high stucco walls with wooden gates marked the location of villas hidden among the vegetation. We passed three of these; the fourth we came to was almost invisible behind a screen of mango trees that had pink-flowered tropical vines climbing through them. This, according to Venegas, was where I would find the villa that belonged to Carlton Ferguson.

  Hernando skidded the car over under the mangoes, narrowly missing their trunks, and braked to a stop about an inch from one of the gateposts. I asked him again to wait, and he nodded and smiled and lay down on the seat to continue his siesta. I got out, went over to the gate. It wasn’t nearly so windy up here, but it was just as hot and more humid; the air had that wet drippy feel I was beginning to hate.