I watched her cross and uncross her legs while she thought this over. It was a sight that could lull a man into awakeness. But when I looked up, her eyes were hard.
"You make it sound like if I help you, I gain a valuable friend," she said carefully. "But in my experience tough guys don't make such good friends."
The afternoon was evaporating, and I had an appointment with a doctor. Besides, this tap dance was getting me nowhere. "You keep peeling off the mask," I said sourly. "But there's always another one underneath." I got up from the couch.
"Don't go—"
"If you still want to talk to me in an hour, give me a call at your husband's office." I loved getting phone calls in the field—it made whoever I was visiting jumpy as hell. "After that, my office. It's in the index."
Suddenly she was up out of her seat and pressed against me in all the right places—which on her was almost anywhere. She couldn't know what a mistake that was. I pushed her back against her chair, but not too hard.
"You bastard."
I brushed at my jacket with the flat of my hand. "I understand," I said. "You're scared of something." I paused in the doorway. "Say good-bye to the kitten for me."
In my car I opened the glove compartment and laid out a couple of lines of my blend on a map of Big Sur. I snorted them off the blade of my pocketknife until I stopped shaking, then cleaned it up and started driving back to Oakland.
I drove along Frontage, which runs between the highway and the bay. The sky was clean and blue. I tried to concentrate on it, to keep my mind off what I'd just had in my arms and pressed against my body, as well as the fact that I made my living picking the scabs off other people's lives. But the day I can't shrug off a twinge of self-pity, is the day I'm washed up for keeps.
Don't call me silly.
CHAPTER 5
THE LOBBY OF THE CALIFORNIA WAS CLEAN OF INQUISItors, which is the kind of clean I like. I walked through it to the elevator and pushed the button. I was a few minutes late for my appointment with Testafer, thanks to my reverie by the ocean, but if my bluff had worked, he'd be waiting. And I was sure my bluff had worked. I'd done a job for Stanhunt, and Testafer's affairs were all mixed up with the dead man's. He would wait on the chance that I knew something.
I sat on the same couch and waited for the nurse to come out so we could resume our clever banter, but for a long time nobody appeared. Then a stout, red-faced man with nervous eyes and neat clothes came out of the back room. His hair was full but completely white, which served to heighten the effect of his ruddy complexion. He wasn't dressed to see patients, but I had a feeling it was Testafer. I stood up.
"My name is Metcalf, Doctor."
"Very good," he said, but he didn't look like he meant it. "I've been expecting you. Follow me."
I followed him into the office in the back. He sat down at Maynard Stanhunt's desk, only this time the nameplate read GROVER TESTAFER, followed by a string of initials. He folded his hands across the desk, and I could see that they were as white as his face was red.
"Jenny tells me you have some of the office files in your possession."
"Something got garbled in the translation, Doctor. I keep all my files right here." I tapped my head. "I've got nothing of yours."
"I see. I suppose I have to guess why it is that you wanted to see me."
I tossed my photostat on the desk. "I want to see you for the usual reason. I'm conducting an investigation, and I'd like to ask you a few questions. I can't be the first."
"No," he said, managing a smile. "I spent an hour with the inquisitors today. They warmed me up for you."
"Sorry for forcing the issue, but my client is running out of time."
"Yes," he said. "I got that impression."
"Maybe you can help me with that. Just what is their case against Angwine?"
"They said they found a threatening letter—right here, apparently." He indicated the desk. "They asked if I ever met him, and I said no. I spend very little time in the office lately. I've turned the practice over to Maynard, put it in his hands. Apparently Angwine was a patient, at least to begin with. He's in the appointment book twice, going back about three weeks. Jenny didn't remember him from the description, but then we see a lot of patients."
"Yeah," I said. "And I guess you don't concentrate so much on the faces. Did you see the note?"
"No. I wish I had. The inquisitors were here before I even knew about Maynard's death."
"Do you have any theories about what went sour between Angwine and Stanhunt?"
He made himself appear to be thinking it over, which invariably meant he wasn't. "No," he said eventually. "Not really. I assume it was something personal."
"Everything you handle is personal," I said. "Can you be more specific?"
"Something between them, I mean. Unrelated to the practice."
"I see," I said, and in a way I did. Testafer was a man trying to create distance between himself and something he found altogether distasteful. His vagueness could have been a cover for some involvement, but it also suited his personality.
"Maynard and I were never close," he explained. "I was ready to retire, but it's always preferable to keep a practice open if you can. Maynard was a good doctor, someone I could hand it over to without embarrassment. Ours was a highly successful business relationship, and there was mutual respect, but we were never close."
"You're young for retirement. What are you, fifty-five? Fifty-eight? You must have made a caboodle."
Testafer winced at my usage. "I'm almost sixty, Mr. Metcalf. You're a very good guesser."
He managed not to mention the caboodle. I decided it was a waste of time to push him any further. He was giving me the company line. I'd have to case him out from the angles.
"Where does this leave you now?" I asked. "Will you look for a new golden boy, or close this thing down?"
Now I'd gotten him a little angry. "I have my patients to think of. I'll begin seeing them again, until other arrangements can be made."
"Of course. What about Mrs. Stanhunt? Does she inherit Maynard's half of the practice, or does it all revert to you?"
"Mrs. Stanhunt and I haven't been in touch yet. But she'll be taken care of..." He was improvising, and it made him nervous.
"Until other arrangements can be made?" I suggested.
"Well, yes."
I tossed him a curve ball. "I don't suppose Danny figures in your plans."
He looked at me carefully. "I'm afraid I don't know what you mean."
"Don't be afraid," I said. "I must have made a mistake."
"I suppose you did."
I fiddled with my cuff long enough to bother him. He wasn't eager to talk about Danny, whoever Danny was.
"What can you tell me about the place where Celeste Stanhunt stays?"
"Pansy Greenleaf lives there with her son," he said. "Only he isn't home much anymore. He's a—babyhead." He used the term regretfully.
"I noticed. She seems to have elevated an evolved kitten into a sort of child substitute. What does Mrs. Greenleaf do for a living?"
"I wouldn't know," he said sardonically. "I never thought to ask." The emphasis he put on the last word let me know he meant to be insulting. "She was a friend of the Stanhunts," he added in a dismissive tone.
"Who you didn't ever get close with," I filled in.
"That's right."
I pretended to notice the time. "Well, I won't keep you any longer. You've been very helpful."
"My pleasure," he said, swallowing hard. He looked eager to see me gone.
"If you think of anything I ought to know..." I wrote my number down on a prescription pad, then got up. "I'll let myself out. So long."
I went out into the hall, closing his door behind me. The nurse was gone. I opened the door to the reception area and slammed it, but with me still inside, then went over to have a look at the office files.
First I checked for Orton Angwine: no file. I flipped through a random folder or two, but every
thing looked pretty standard. If there was something wrong with these files, it would take another urologist to spot it.
I could hear Testafer moving around in the office behind me, so I figured I didn't have long—if he opened the door, I'd be directly in his line of sight. On the other hand, he didn't look like the type to raise a big fuss if he caught me. He was already afraid of me, afraid of what my investigation might uncover, or he wouldn't have tried so hard to appear cooperative, maybe wouldn't have agreed to see me at all.
The problem was, I didn't know why he was afraid of me. I could ask him who Danny was, for instance, but then he'd know that I didn't. And without him worried I'd get nothing at all.
I picked up another file. It seemed pretty harmless: a sixty-seven-year-old guy named Maurice Gospels with congestive urethritis—whatever that was. I closed the cabinet and tucked the file inside my coat. Then I stepped back over to the office and turned the knob.
Testafer was bent over the desk, sucking through a metal straw at a pocket mirror dusted with white powder. His head jerked up as I entered the room, and a trail of half-snorted make fell out of his nose. He didn't say anything, and for a minute neither did I. It was like looking into a mirror twenty years down the line.
"Here," I said, and tossed the folder onto his desk. He covered the mirror with his hands to protect the make. "This is the stuff Stanhunt let out of the office. I don't have a use for it anymore."
Testafer leafed frantically through the Maurice Gospels folder, looking for something incriminating, while a dry white stripe made its way down his upper lip and dotted his chin. Me, I left.
CHAPTER 6
I DROVE BACK TO MY OFFICE, STEELING MYSELF FOR THE inevitable confrontation with the boys from the Inquisitor's Office. It had to happen sooner or later. If I was lucky, they'd lead me back to Orton Angwine. If this investigation had a future, it would only be with his help, and the only live prospect for my wallet's future was his money. I didn't feel too bad about that. If I didn't help him, the money wouldn't be of much use to him anyway.
But the waiting room was empty, except for a pair of evolved rabbits in miniature three-piece suits. They were looking at photo magazines and only gave me the fleetingest red-eyed glances as I bustled through to my part of the suite. I could hear the dentist's cleaning equipment buzzing away at something in the back room. Someone had to clean their bridgework, I guess, and my dentist wasn't doing so well that he could afford to turn away the business.
I hung my coat up on the hat tree and sat down behind the desk, then took a few deep breaths and got out my card and ran it through the decoder in my drawer. The inquisitors have been known to stretch the truth about just how much they're taking off or adding to your card. I had a little trouble remembering exactly what my karma had been before the episode in the lobby of the California anyway.
The stripe on my card read out at sixty-five points, which wasn't too bad. The inquisitors usually restored any points I'd lost during the course of an investigation, and they sometimes grudgingly awarded me a few extra if my work made the Office look good. Sixty-five was comfortable; big enough to work with, but small enough that the boys wouldn't be tempted to penalize me in the spirit of fun anymore. Sixty-five was humble in the eyes of the Office; much more would be overreaching myself. Low karma was one of the things you learned to live with on this job.
I picked up my phone, punched the number for the delicatessen on the corner, and ordered an egg salad sandwich for delivery. Then I called the index and asked the computer for a few listings. Not surprisingly, Orton Angwine wasn't there. I tried Pansy Greenleaf, the woman Celeste was staying with, even gave the computer the Cranberry Street address, but no cigar. Just for fun I checked under my own name, and, sure enough, I was listed. It was a comfort.
I went through the mail. It was piled up from almost a week back, bills and junk mail mostly, a postcard from a guy in Vegas who owed me money, and a freebie pen from one of the aerospace companies. I slipped it out of its envelope, and it drifted loose in front of my face; anti-grav, the first I'd seen. It seems like the biggest innovations always announce themselves in the tackiest ways. You expect some kind of paradigm shift, and then a pen or a comb or a snorting straw arrives in the mail with a salesman's phone number printed on it. It's never a very good pen, either. You use it for a week, and it runs dry.
There was a knock at the door. "Come in," I said. I slipped the pen into my pocket and started rustling in the drawer for money to pay for the sandwich. But it wasn't the sandwich man.
The first guy was about my age, with crooked teeth and a ten-dollar haircut. He was standard-issue Office stuff, the kind that all look and think alike, except for the different flavor cough drops they suck. Then they stand too close to you, so you can smell the flavors and be impressed with their originality. I'd waltzed with these guys a million times in the past, and I could look forward to waltzing with them a million times in the future. They were the type I probably would have turned out to be if I'd stayed working for the Office.
The second guy was a different story. He was thick, disheveled, and badly shaven, and he wore a shoulder stripe and a couple of medals. I'd drawn the brass. He pushed into the room and slammed the door and said "Metcalf?" and when he looked me in the eye, I have to admit I flinched.
"Looking at him," I said.
"Where were you an hour ago?"
"You boys aren't here to wax floors, are you? I had a doctor's appointment."
The big one sat down in the chair across from my desk, where only that morning Angwine had been sitting. The other guy looked at the dusty chair in front of the water stain in the corner and elected to stand by the door. "Pass me your license and your card," said the brass.
He looked over my credentials, and I stared at the ceiling. When he put them back on the desk between us, I let them lie there as a show of nerve.
"Where's Inquisitor Carbondale?" I said.
"He's been switched to Marin County," said the big one. "My name is Morgenlander. This is Inquisitor Kornfeld." The quiet one nodded at the mention of his name.
"Nice to know you boys are on the beat."
"Wish I could say the same, dickface." Morgenlander smiled. "There's been some question of you working the Stanhunt case. We wanted to bring speculation to an end."
"No problem, Inquisitor The answer is yes." I got my cigarettes out of the desk drawer.
"The answer is no," said Morgenlander. "It's a conflict of interest. You're my suspect, dickface."
"I've already met your suspect, Morgenlander. The guy's on his last legs. Nice work."
"Angwine's got a problem. His future's all used up. I'd hate to see that happen to a dickface like you."
I turned to Kornfeld, who still hadn't cracked a smile. "Do I have a dick on my face? Tell me honestly."
"You better cancel the fancy punctuation, dickface," said Morgenlander blithely. "Your license is a piss mark in the snow, as far as I'm concerned." He adjusted his tie, as if his head were expanding and he needed to make some room for it. "Now tell Inquisitor Kornfeld about your trip to the doctor;"
"I'm seeing a specialist," I said. "To see if I can have the dick on my face removed." I lit a cigarette and took a drag. Morgenlander leaned across the desk and slapped it out of my mouth. It rolled under the chair in the corner and smoldered in the dust.
"You're wasting my time, dickface. Answer my questions." He got his magnet out of his pocket and aimed it carelessly at my card.
I spat in the corner; The place was getting disgusting.
"Go ahead," I said.
"Who put you onto the Stanhunt case?"
"I was in it from before it was a case," I said. "I worked for Stanhunt, back before he developed a hole in the back of his head."
"You're working for Angwine."
"I'd like to be. I lost track of him."
"Bullshit," said Morgenlander. "He sent you to the doctor. He's still trying to collect."
I was going to
be dizzy when the merry-go-round let off. "That's saying Angwine is a blackmailer." I hoped the question would slip by in the excitement.
"Don't play dim, dickface. What did he want you to say to the doctor?"
I decided to play along. "He didn't mention any specifics. I was just feeling Dr. Testafer out."
There was a knock on the door. Inquisitor Kornfeld stepped away from it, and I called out, "Come in." An evolved Irish setter from the deli downstairs came into the room carrying a white paper bag with a grease stain at the bottom. He looked nervously around at the inquisitors, then stepped past them to hand me the bag.
I told the setter thanks and gave him five bucks more than the check required. He gulped his appreciation, then backed through the open door arid out into the waiting room, looking like he wanted to drop to all fours and run away howling. Kornfeld closed the door and leaned back against the wall.
Nobody said anything while I opened the bag and took out the egg salad sandwich. It was one of those funny moments when a bit of normal human activity embarrasses everybody out of their bluster and hostility, and roles are momentarily laid aside. I chewed down a triangular wedge of sandwich and rubbed at my face with a paper napkin before Morgenlander finally started in again, and this time he left out the dickface stuff. We'd somehow graduated beyond that by virtue of the delivery puppy and the sandwich.
"It's a tough case," he said. "The boys at the top handed me Angwine on a platter, and there's a lot of pressure to let it go like that."
Morgenlander's tone verged on shoptalk, and maybe it was my imagination, but Kornfeld, without saying anything, seemed distinctly uncomfortable. "Angwine's a sewer rat," Morgenlander continued. "I don't mind if he goes to the freezer, but there's more to it than that."
I nodded, to keep him talking.
"I'm not saying he's innocent. He did the killing. I'm just saying there's more to it. I've got to warn you off, Metcalf. Do yourself a favor. If you get in my way, I'll have to take you down. That's just the way it is." He put his magnet in his pocket and nodded to Kornfeld.
Gun, with Occasional Music Page 3
