Mourners nd-31

by Bill Pronzini

  Avondale Electric was open on Saturday. Runyon talked to a woman in the office and a man in the warehouse; both had good things to say about Sean Ostrow’s job performance, but nothing at all to tell him about Ostrow’s present whereabouts or the new job in the city. If he’d used Avondale as a reference, his new employer hadn’t seen fit to follow up.

  The residential section where Ostrow had lived in Santa Rosa, between the county fairgrounds and Luther Burbank Park, was close by. Runyon drove over there, even though he knew it would be wasted effort. And it was. He spent an hour at the apartment building and in the neighborhood looking for somebody who’d known Ostrow, and couldn’t even find one person who remembered him.

  Half the day still lay ahead of him. He drove around Santa Rosa for a time, then took Highway 101 to the small towns that lay to the north. Windsor was a newish collection of tract houses and shopping malls, Healdsburg an old tourist-laden wine-country town built around a square, Geyserville a wine-country village without the tourists or the square. He didn’t stay long in any of them, just enough time to mark and memorize the territory. From Geyserville he went west through a long valley filled with vineyards, small wineries, and droves of early summer tourists, then up around Lake Sonoma, then south through a different part of Dry Creek Valley and back to Santa Rosa.

  Still only four o’clock. He could hang around up here and if Ostrow’s sister called and had a photograph, he could go pick it up. No. He’d had enough of the North Bay and its backroads for one day, and there was still Sunday to get through. He drove back down 101 to the city.

  When he came through the toll plaza on the bridge, he took Lincoln Boulevard down through the Presidio. Even before he reached Sea Cliff and Twenty-fifth Avenue, he knew where he was going without thinking about it.

  Risa Niland lived a block off Geary and another block from Washington High School. He turned up Thirtieth Avenue past the school’s athletic fields. In big letters strung across the front of the stadium entrance on that side were the words OF ALL VICTORIES THE FIRST AND GREATEST IS FOR MAN TO CONQUER HIMSELF-PLATO. Nice sentiment, but how many students paid attention to it, took it to heart? Safe bet that it wasn’t many. For that matter how many people could look back on their lives from any age and say honestly that they’d conquered themselves? Not him, for damn sure.

  The three-story building at the corner of Anza and Twenty-ninth was peach-colored stucco with a tile roof and an old-fashioned canopy over the entrance. Two apartments per floor, from the size of it. He saw all of that as he approached the corner; he didn’t see her until he braked at the stop sign.

  Even at a distance he recognized her-the resemblance to Colleen was like a beacon. She was standing just outside the canopy, dressed in jeans and a red pullover, her red-gold hair bound up in a roll, talking to a young, fair-haired, linebacker type in jogging sweats. The guy said something to her that made her reach out and touch his arm. Friends, maybe more than friends. Maybe even the ex-husband.

  Runyon might have stopped if she’d been alone. As it was, he made the turn and drove on by. Neither Risa nor the man glanced his way, and he didn’t look back at them in the rearview mirror. None of his business. Her personal life had nothing to do with him.

  Automatic pilot again. Through the park, east on Lincoln to Stanyan, down Seventeenth to the Castro district and up to Hartford Street just off Twentieth, past the Stick Victorian where Joshua lived with his faithless boyfriend, Kenneth. Nobody on the sidewalk here, no sign of his son, and what if there had been? Four months since he’d seen or had any contact with him. Joshua had had plenty to say in March, when the pair of gay-bashers beat up Kenneth and put him in the hospital; he’d needed his father then, to help find the men responsible, and he’d permitted an uneasy truce. But once the need had been filled and the gay-bashers put out of commission-silence. The old hatreds instilled by his mother had rebuilt the wall between them thicker and higher than ever.

  So what was the sense coming here? Or in the drive-by at Risa Niland’s building? No sense. He got out of the Castro, backtracked over Twin Peaks and down to Nineteenth Avenue. Ate a tasteless dinner at a coffee shop-he had no appetite for Chinese food tonight. And went from there to his apartment, because it was nearly eight and he was tired and because he had nowhere else to go. And as soon as he walked into that cold, impersonal space a sudden wave of feeling came from somewhere inside him, so intense it made him catch his breath. It didn’t last long; he didn’t let it last long. But the memory of it lingered like a bitter taste in his mouth.

  Alone.

  And lonely.

  20

  TAMARA

  Saturday night she almost got laid.

  Almost: The Sad, Pathetic Story of Tamara Corbin’s Love Life.

  Almost messed up and almost pregnant by one of a succession of losers in high school. Almost permanent relationship with the almost love of her life. Almost sex with a man she almost hadn’t gone out with in the first place. And the reason for Saturday night’s almost Lord!

  Man wasn’t a pickup, he was an actual date. First date she’d had with anybody except Horace since her first semester at S.F. State. Blind date, which was the reason she almost hadn’t gone out with him. Vonda was responsible. She got together with the girlfriend for a drink after work on Friday, poured out her tale of Horace woe, and the first thing Vonda said was, “Only way to forget a man is to find yourself another one quick.” Then she’d gone and done something about it, quick; Vonda never wasted any time when it came to men. By nine o’clock Friday night, the blind date was all arranged.

  His name was Clement Rawls, he was a stockbroker with the same company Vonda’s boyfriend, Ben Sherman, worked for. Ben was white-and Jewish, leave it to Vonda-and if Clement had been either or both of the same she would probably have said no. Not that she had anything in principle against dating white guys or Jewish guys, but she’d never done it and this wasn’t the time to start. But no, Clement was African-American. A hunk, Vonda said, and to her surprise he’d turned out to be just that. Few years older than her, nice smile, sexy eyes, the Denzel type. Cool, easy to talk to, funny, didn’t come on too strong. Only thing wrong with him-the only thing, anyway, until the kink he revealed to her when they were alone together-was that he was hung up on his appearance and pretty fond of himself. Metrosexuals didn’t appeal to her; Mr. Clement Rawls would’ve eventually tied her patience in a knot. But he was no more interested in a long-term relationship than she was, and for one night it didn’t really matter.

  He picked her up at her apartment-he drove a Beamer, what else? — and they went out to dinner and then club-crawling in SoMa with Vonda and Ben. About an hour with him was all it took to break down her resolve against any more casual sex. Love and respect and all that were fine, but when your hormones were running wild everything else took second place to scratching the itch. He was a terrific dancer and a terrific kisser, a combination that told her he’d be good in bed and got her even more hotted up. When he finally took her home she hadn’t had any last-minute hesitations about inviting him in.

  Should’ve figured he was too good to be true. Should’ve had a clue when he dragged his briefcase out of the backseat and brought it in with him, but she figured as self-confident as he was, he expected to spend the night and the briefcase contained his toothbrush and a change of underwear. Wrong. Wrong big time.

  Everything went along fine for a while. They drank some more wine and made out on the couch, both of them getting their temperatures raised-man really did know how to kiss. So then she said, “Come on in the bedroom, Clement,” and they got up and swapped some more spit and she started leading him into the other room.

  And then it all fell apart. He unlocked their lips and whispered in her ear, “Before we go to bed, there’s something I’d like you to do. Something, well, special to please me.”

  Uh-oh. “What kind of special?”

  “It’s nothing, really. You won’t mind.”

  “If you want
to tie me up-”

  “No.”

  “Or lick Cool Whip off my-”

  “No, no.”

  “I’m not into games. Or pain, I draw the line at pain.”

  “Nothing like that, I promise.”

  “What, then?”

  “I’ll show you.”

  He let go of her, put his hands on that briefcase of his instead, and showed her. Whipped this thing out of there that for a couple of awful seconds looked like some kind of dead animal.

  ‘Yo, what is that?”

  He shook it out, extended it toward her. Long and blond and hairy “A wig?” she said.

  “A wig,” he said.

  That was what it was, all right. About three feet of blond hair so pale it was almost platinum, straight except for some tangles and end flips. She stared at it hanging from his fingers like some kind of trophy scalp. He was staring at it, too, hot-eyed, his mouth hanging open a little as if he might start drooling on it.

  “What you want me to do with that?”

  “Wear it,” he said.

  “You don’t mean in bed while we-?”

  “Yes.”

  “Man, what for?”

  “It excites me.”

  “… Yeah, so I see.”

  He wiggled the wig. “Put it on,” he said.

  “No,” she said.

  “You won’t be sorry. It enhances my performance.”

  “Not gonna be any performance with that thing on my head.”

  “Come on, now, it’s just a harmless fantasy-”

  “I don’t do fantasies. I don’t do wigs.”

  “The sex will be fantastic, you’ll see. Best you’ve ever had.”

  “Oh, sure. Blondes have more fun, right?”

  “Don’t you want to find out?”

  “Uh-uh. No way.”

  “Tamara, it’s important to me that you wear it.”

  “Must be. What, you carry it with you everywhere you go, just in case you get lucky?”

  “I won’t dignify that question with an answer.”

  “Dignify? I don’t see much dignity in a black man hauling a Marilyn Monroe scalp around in his briefcase.”

  “It’s just a wig. You make it sound like something obscene.”

  “It is if you don’t wash it.”

  “What?”

  “Bet you never wash it. Expect me to put it on my head with all your other women’s cooties still in there.”

  “For God’s sake-”

  “Listen here. You want a white woman, why don’t you go find yourself one instead of messing with me?”

  “I don’t want a white woman. I don’t date white women.”

  “Black woman in a blond wig? That what boils your pot?”

  He blinked. His mouth thinned down tight. The wig wiggled. “There’s nothing wrong with that.”

  “Any black woman, right? Just so long as she’s wearing Marilyn’s hair.”

  “This isn’t Marilyn’s hair!”

  “Looks like it from where I’m standing.”

  “And you’re wrong, it’s you I want-”

  “You sure about that?”

  “What do you mean, am I sure?”

  “Can’t help but wonder.”

  “Wonder what?”

  “If it’s a woman you really want. Or just that scalp.”

  He puffed up like a toad and made a couple of sputtering sounds.

  She was on a roll now. No longer horny, no longer interested in Mr. Clement Rawls, and with her claws out in frustration. She said, “You ask me, you’re in love with that thing. The way you hold it, look at it, practically drool on it. Wouldn’t surprise me if you pet it and hump it all by itself when there’s nobody else around.”

  “You can’t talk to me like that! You smart-ass bitch, who do you think you are!”

  That was when she threw him out.

  And that was the end of that.

  Sad and pathetic, all right. But the worst thing about this Saturday night almost, aside from the fact she hadn’t gotten laid, was that now her story had a new twist that made her feel sorry for herself in a different way. A cheating chump cellist wasn’t bad enough, oh no. Now the Man Upstairs had to go and throw in a scalp-sucking stockbroker fool and turn a tragedy into a Whoopi Goldberg farce.

  21

  I was driving down a dark, twisty road, going somewhere in a hurry. Trees, houses, fence posts materialized and dematerialized like wraiths in the stabbing headlight glare. There were other people crowded into the car with me, front seat and back; I couldn’t see their faces in the blackness, but I could feel them close around me, somebody’s fetid breath moist on the back of my neck. I was sweating from all the body heat. A disembodied voice kept saying, “Slow down, slow down, slow down,” and I kept driving fast, rustlings and whisperings all around me as the clutch of passengers shifted position.

  Up ahead something took on sudden definition in the headlights: railroad tracks, flashing red semaphore lights, a crossing arm that was just starting to come down across the road. One of the faceless people shouted, “Look out! Train coming!” Another one in the backseat threw an arm around my neck and yanked my head back. I struggled to loosen the grip so I could breathe. And then I could see the eye of the locomotive bearing down from the left, big and bright like a madman’s eye, growing larger and larger until it took away most of the dark. I hit the brakes, hard. The car slewed, skidded, came back on a point. Warning bells began to clang as I brought us to a grinding stop nose up to the crossing arm. The locomotive was a roaring giant now, its headlamp as painfully blinding as the sun at midday, and the bells kept clanging and jangling One of the faceless women said, “Who’s that at this hour?”

  I said, “What? What?”

  Kerry said, “The phone, there’s somebody on the phone.”

  And I was sitting up in bed, damp and disoriented, part of the sheet in a stranglehold around my neck. The lamp on Kerry’s nightstand was on; the light made me squint. I fought off the sheet and blanket, fought off the remnants of the dream, and got my hand on the phone and finally shut off the noise.

  I growled something half coherent into the receiver. A woman’s voice said my name, then rushed into an apology for calling so late, and then there was a jumble of words that didn’t signify. What did come through was the emotion behind them: they were soaked in the raw fluids of panic.

  “Slow down,” I said, “I can’t understand you. Who is this?”

  “Lynn Troxell.” Raggedy breath. “Oh God, I didn’t know who else to call…”

  That got rid of most of the sleep fuzz. “What is it, what’s happened?”

  “It’s Jim, he’s gone.”

  “What do you mean, gone?”

  “A few minutes ago. I woke up, he wasn’t in bed, and then I heard his car. I don’t know how he could have found the keys but he must have, I hid his spare set, too…”

  The red numerals on the nightstand clock swam into focus: 12:57. Sunday night, Monday morning.

  “He’s going to kill himself,” she said.

  Christ! Completely awake now, the night sweat cold on my back and under my arms. “What makes you think that?”

  “He left me a note.”

  “Saying what, exactly?”

  “ ‘I’m so sorry for all the pain. Please forgive me.’ ”

  “Nothing else?”

  “Just ‘all my love’ and his signature. He never writes notes, it can’t be anything but…” Another raggedy breath. “I thought he was all right, he seemed all right. Drew talked to him for a long time this afternoon and said he seemed all right… oh God, I don’t know what to do…”

  “Have you notified the police?”

  “I wanted to, but… no, I called Drew first and he said the note isn’t enough for them to do anything, it’s too vague, it doesn’t mention suicide…”

  He was right about that. A 911 call wouldn’t have bought her anything but frustration and more panic.

  “He thought mayb
e the place on Potrero Hill, he’s on his way there now, but what if Jim isn’t there? I can’t think where else he might have gone…”

  I could; I had a better idea than Casement’s. I said, “I’ll see what I can do to find him, Mrs. Troxell.”

  “Will you? I know it’s not your problem anymore, but I didn’t know who else to call… You’ll let me know right away, no matter what?”

  “Right away. You have my cell phone number if you hear anything first. Meanwhile, try to stay calm.”

  “Calm,” she said. “Yes, all right, yes.”

  Kerry had picked up enough from my end of the conversation to understand what was going on. She said as I yanked on my pants, “Is there anything I can do?”

  “No. One of us chasing around in the night is enough.”

  “Is there anything you can do?”

  “If there is,” I said, “it shouldn’t take long to find out.”

  Ocean Beach.

  That seemed the most likely place he’d head for. Not Potrero Hill. Troxell was a neat, almost fastidious individual, conscious of the feelings of others; he wouldn’t want to clutter up the Lindens’ lives by doing the dutch in their backyard. His wife had said yesterday that he was drawn to water, and the beach, the Pacific were a magnetic pull; he’d already been out there twice this week. Walk into the ocean, maybe, let the undertow drag him out; hypothermia would make the drowning fairly quick. Neat, clean. From his point of view, anyway.

  Suicide. Building to it, planning it all along. That was the reason for his call Saturday evening. In his careful way he’d wanted to make sure he wasn’t still being watched, followed. The thank-yous and explanations had been sincere enough but nothing more than camouflage. Hell, I’d known it at the time. Refused to admit it to myself because I couldn’t be sure and there hadn’t been anything I could do about it. You can’t stop a person from plotting to do away with himself, any more than you can stop a person from plotting a crime, until it reaches the commission stage. Something I could do now, if it wasn’t too late, but even then it might only be a stopgap measure. If a suicide case is determined enough, nobody-not a loved one and esspecially not a stranger-can prevent him from going through with it sooner or later. Still, you have to try. As long as he’s alive there’s hope he can be saved. Even if there wasn’t you’d still have to try.