Camouflage nd-36

by Bill Pronzini

  “What?” Sharp look. “No. Donations for Goodwill.”

  He showed her the smile Elena had labeled Butter Wouldn’t Melt in Your Mouth. His wife had a name for all his smiles and grins; the one he liked best and used on her three or four times a week was his Watch Out Tonight, Querida leer. “Spring housecleaning, huh?” he said.

  “Yes, that’s right. Now if you’ll excuse me-”

  “When do you think you’ll be ready again?”

  “… Ready for what?”

  “To take in more dogs.”

  “Come back the first of next month.”

  “Be okay if I have a look around now?”

  Bought him a narrow-eyed stare. “What?”

  “At the kennels. Make sure it’s the right place for Elmo.”

  “No, it wouldn’t be okay. Can’t you see I’m busy?” She turned abruptly, started back toward the house.

  Chavez took the opportunity for a squint down the driveway. Couldn’t see much except part of a wire-fenced dog run and an outbuilding behind it that had to be the kennels. He said quickly, “How about I leave my name and phone number? In case the room opens up.”

  She stopped and turned, no longer even trying to hide her annoyance. “There’s no point in that. The tenant we have now plans on an indefinite stay. Now will you please go away?” That last was neither a request nor a dismissal-she said it like a threat.

  He’d pushed it as far as he could. Anything further and she’d make a real issue of it. Might even be suspicious as it was. He put on his Piqued and Pouty smile and said, with just the right amount of edge, “Sure, lady, whatever you say. I don’t think I’d have liked living here anyway.”

  Nothing from her.

  Chavez took the terrier back down the drive. Elmo was relieved; by the time they reached the street, he’d quit shivering and his stubby tail was wagging again. The woman, Carson, had disappeared back into the house.

  His dependable old Dodge was parked on 20th Street, one house down. He ran Elmo into the backseat, slid himself into the front. Drove off, circled half a dozen blocks, and then rolled back along Minnesota to where he had a pretty clear view of the McManus house and the SUV from that direction. Carson was still inside, the driveway empty-but she’d been back out at least once, because now the front gate was closed against further visitors. Chavez eased over to the curb, shut off the engine. Then he slouched down low on the seat, shifted his behind until he was comfortable, and reported in to Tamara.

  She wasn’t disappointed that he hadn’t been able to get into the house. Matter of fact, there was an undertone of excitement in her voice when she said, “So they’re moving out?”

  “Sure looks that way. They’re still loading up the SUV, both of them now-the other one just showed.”

  “Leaving as soon as they’re done, you think?”

  “Could be. Carson seemed pretty anxious to get rid of me. Want me to run a tail?”

  “Oh yeah. Even if only one of them leaves. Did Carson get a good look at your car?”

  “Doubt it. She didn’t see me coming and she was already in the house when I drove away.”

  “Good. Keep me posted.”

  Chavez said he would and clicked off.

  “Elmo,” he said then, “I shouldn’t have dragged you into this. Seemed like a good idea when I left the agency, but now you’re stuck with me. Might be a while before either of us gets home again.”

  Elmo didn’t seem to mind. He stretched up and licked the back of Chavez’s neck.

  Most investigators hated stakeouts, the waiting, the downtime, but Alex Chavez wasn’t one of them. Elena claimed it was because he was basically lazy and would rather sit on his fat culo than do anything else. But she was only teasing him. She knew he had more energy than most men his age, knew it better than anybody because of how often he demonstrated it to her in bed. Besides, his culo wasn’t fat.

  The reason stakeouts didn’t bother him was because he liked to listen to the radio. The Dodge had a brand-new battery, so he didn’t have to worry about running down the juice by playing the radio with the engine off. It wasn’t music he listened to, not that he didn’t like music. Elena was a big fan of traditional Latin ballads, the kids were into salsa and hip-hop and Hannah Montana; his preference was Garth Brooks. A shame to his heritage, Elena said-more of her teasing. But even a steady diet of Brooks made Chavez yawn and put him to sleep.

  No, what he listened to was right-wing hate radio.

  That was the correct term. Limbaugh, Beck, the rest of them-a pack of greed-driven racist hatemongers hiding behind the cloak of patriotism. He’d been assaulted by that kind of crap all his life, on and off the radio and television. Down in El Centro when he was growing up and before and after he joined the county sheriff’s department, even up here in liberal San Francisco. Wetback, spic, greaser-he’d heard all the epithets dozens of times and been called worse to his face. Heard “close the borders,” “go back to Mexico where you belong,” “keep America safe for Americans.” Well, the Chavezes were as American as Limbaugh and Beck, every one of them born and raised in this country.

  Elena, the rest of his family, didn’t understand why he listened to the trash that came spewing over the airwaves. Wallowed in it, they said. But he didn’t look at it as wallowing. Know your enemy, that was one reason he did it-what they’re saying, doing, thinking. Made it easier to deal with the results of their rhetoric when he was confronted with it, easier to keep his anger in check, easier to do his job.

  The other reason was because it gave him a benign feeling of superiority. Alex Chavez and the Chavez family were good, God-fearing people who worked hard for what they had, whose hearts were full of love, not hate. They were better Christians, better role models, more honest believers in family values. Better Americans because they didn’t try to tell anybody else what to think and how to live their lives. Better human beings. Knowing that, having it verified every time he tuned in to one of the wing nut broadcasts, helped him maintain his equilibrium and his essentially cheerful outlook. Ironic, when you looked at it that way. A kind of justice in it, too. The more the haters ranted and raved and spewed their venom against minorities, the happier and prouder he was that he’d been born one himself.

  Limbaugh’s diatribe today had to do with President Obama’s foreign-policy decisions and how the health-care reform law was destroying the country. The usual garbage, regurgitated. After a while Chavez only half-listened, because he’d heard it so many times before he could have recited most of it himself, word for word.

  Across the street Carson appeared one last time, carrying a couple of what looked to be Tiffany table lamps, found space for them inside, then closed the Explorer’s hatch and disappeared into the house again. Otherwise nothing much happened for close to an hour. At the forty-minute mark Elmo gave out with his I Have to Go whine. Well, that figured. World’s smallest dog bladder. Chavez slid out on the passenger side, let the terrier out, kept one eye on him while he sprayed the trunk of a sidewalk tree and the other on the house. One thing you could say for Elmo: he never dallied when he was doing his business, like some dogs did. Do it and get on with the important things, like munching a Milk-Bone and then curling up and going to sleep on the backseat.

  Chavez was scanning through the radio dial, looking for one or another of Limbaugh’s fellow garbagemen, when the wait came to a worthwhile end. The two women walked out of the house together, the Rottweiler with them on a leash. Not hurrying but not taking their time, either. Carson went down to open the gate while McManus prodded Thor in on the driver’s side of the SUV. While she drove out to the street, Chavez fired up the Dodge. Carson closed the gate and hopped in on the passenger side; then the Explorer rolled out of the driveway.

  And the chase was on.

  Not that it was much of a chase at first. McManus was a cautious driver and there wasn’t much traffic, so he hung back at a safe distance as she headed south on Third. She turned west on Cesar Chavez Street (named af
ter a great man whose surname he was proud to share), bypassed the edge of the San Jose Guerrero neighborhood where he lived, and went on up to Church Street. Right on Church, left on Clipper, up the hill to the intersection with Market, then left across Twin Peaks and down the west side on Portola Drive. He had a pretty good idea by then where they were going, and it wasn’t to any Goodwill store.

  He knew for sure he was right when the SUV turned down Sloat, then north on Nineteenth Avenue. While he waited two cars behind at a stoplight just beyond Stern Grove, he slid his cell phone into the hands-free device mounted on the dash and called Tamara to tell her McManus and Carson were on the move and likely heading for the Golden Gate Bridge.

  18

  My visit to Barber and Associates was unproductive. The agent in charge of the Dogpatch property lease was a middle-aged black woman named Royster; I got her to talk to me on the grounds that I was conducting a routine insurance investigation that peripherally involved R. L. McManus. Ms. Royster was unaware McManus was in the habit of subletting a room, but she didn’t seem to be particularly concerned about it. She checked the lease agreement to determine if there was a clause forbidding sublets; there wasn’t. Ms. McManus had been a model tenant, she said, always paying her rent on time, not once requesting repairs or improvements to the property, and making no complaint when the monthly nut was increased, as it had been twice in the seven years she’d lived there.

  Ms. Royster knew nothing about McManus’s background or personal life, other than the fact that her references had been impeccable. Knew nothing about Jane Carson, either. Even if there had been something in the file that might have been pertinent, she probably wouldn’t have confided to me what it was. Privileged information.

  The only new thing I learned from her-and it wasn’t much-was that the owners of the house, an elderly couple now residing in Burlingame, had also operated a dog-boarding service on the property. The established existence of kennels and dog run was probably what had attracted McManus to it seven years ago.

  The visit to Barber and Associates may have been wasted, but a second trip to Dogpatch wasn’t. My first stop there, The Dog Hole, yielded a little info of the sort I was looking for-enough to put Tamara on the scent again.

  The rail-thin elderly guy I’d spoken to the first time around occupied the same bar stool, sipping port and playing a quiet game of solitaire. Cheating at it, too: he switched a king and queen in a row of hearts as I sat down next to him. Lonely, bored, drinking just enough to maintain a mild sedative buzz-a man with nowhere else to go and nothing else to do, marking time.

  He remembered me, he was grateful for the company, and my offer to stand him to another drink made him friendly and gregarious. His name was Frank Quarles, he said, and chuckled and tacked on a mild joke he’d probably told a few hundred times before: “My late wife used to say we was well named because we sure did have a lot of ’em. Quarrels, get it?”

  I chuckled to let him know I’d gotten it, then told him I was still looking for the man in the photograph. He hadn’t seen Virden since last Tuesday, he said. I eased the conversation around to McManus’s roomers. Quarles couldn’t recall any of the women, but when I brought up the old man Selma Hightower had mentioned, it struck a chord in his memory.

  “Oh, sure, him,” he said. “I’m seventy, but he was a real geezer. One foot in the grave and the other on a bar stool.”

  “He came here regularly, did he?”

  “Pretty regular for a while. Two, three months.”

  “Then what happened?”

  “Just stopped showing up. Figured he must’ve passed over.”

  “You spend much time with him?”

  “Not much, no sir. Damn near deaf, so he kept pretty much to himself. Nice old bird, though. Wasn’t above buying a round for the house now and then.”

  “Sounds like he had money.”

  “Must’ve. Wore this old black overcoat with a velvet collar. Made out of lamb’s wool, he said.” Quarles aimed a glance at the muscle-bound bartender, lowered his voice. “Drank good Scotch, too. Not the blended bar crap they serve here. Twelve-year-old single malt.”

  “Do you remember his name?”

  “Well… it’s been a while and my memory’s not what it used to be.” Up went the voice again. “Hey, Stan. You remember that old guy came in regular for a while last year? Drank single malt Scotch?”

  “Glenlivet. What about him?”

  “Remember his name?”

  “Nope. My business is drinks, not names.”

  I said to Quarles, “Maybe another glass of port will help you dredge it up,” and signaled to the bartender.

  “Thank you, sir.” Quarles closed his eyes, his face screwed up with effort. Pretty soon he opened them again and sighed and shook his head. “Just can’t quite get it. Foreign name, that’s all I can remember.”

  “He was a foreigner?”

  “Not anymore. American citizen.”

  “What nationality?”

  “Greek. Sure, I remember that now.” Quarles took a sip of his port. “Came over here when he was a kid, made his money in the restaurant business. What the devil was his name? Papa something. No, it sounded like ‘papa.’” Another sip, another frown that suddenly morphed into a smile. “Pappas. That’s it, Pappas.”

  “First name?”

  “Wasn’t Greek. American. Wait, now… same as that actor, tall fella, played in a bunch of Westerns.”

  “John Wayne?”

  “No sir, no, not the Duke. Famous, though, won an Oscar for that film about the lawyer and his family down south. Had ‘bird’ in the title…”

  “ To Kill a Mockingbird. Gregory Peck.”

  “That’s it. Real fine actor. How could I forget his name?”

  “Gregory, then-Gregory Pappas. You’re sure?”

  “Pretty sure. Yep, pretty sure.”

  I left Quarles smiling wistfully over what remained of his port and drove up 20th Street past the McManus house. Nobody around, the driveway empty, the Room for Rent sign still absent from the front fence. No sign of Alex Chavez’s Dodge, either. Been here and gone-I wondered how he’d made out.

  Selma Hightower wasn’t home. At least, nobody answered the bell. I tried to recall which of the other neighbors had been cooperative on my first canvass, picked the likeliest of them, and was hoofing it around the corner on Minnesota Street when my cell phone went off.

  Tamara. With news from Alex Chavez about McManus and Carson.

  “If Alex can stay with them long enough, we’ll have some idea of where they’re going,” she said when she’d relayed the gist of it. “Wherever it is, it’s north out of the city.”

  “If he’s right, they’re heading for the bridge.”

  “Must be on it by now. He’d’ve called back if they’d turned off. Bet you they’re running.”

  “Maybe. What do you think spooked them into it?”

  “Us, our investigation.”

  “Virden’s disappearance? If they’re responsible, they went through a lot of trouble to cover it up and as far as they know they got away with it. Why cut and and run now?”

  “They can’t be sure we’re not close to nailing their asses.”

  “Would that be enough reason for you to suddenly throw up everything and take off? Because somebody might be getting close? Running is an admission of guilt, you know that.”

  “What about the ID theft?”

  “Minor crime compared to homicide or manslaughter. And hard to prove without a complaint being filed. Virden didn’t call the law on them and neither did we. No, that’s not it.”

  “Something to do with the property or the house? Like maybe a dead body that’s starting to stink and they don’t know what to do with it?”

  “Jesus. You have a gruesome turn of mind sometimes.”

  “Well, that couldn’t be what happened to Rose O’Day,” Tamara said. “Over three years ago that she went missing. I wish we had the names of the more recent roomers.”
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  “I’ve got one name,” I said, and relayed what I’d been told about Gregory Pappas. “It may or may not be the man’s right name. Quarles’s memory is pretty shaky.”

  “I’m on it soon as we hang up. You still in Dogpatch?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then how about you take a look around the McManus property? Perfect time for it, nobody there.”

  “I was thinking the same thing,” I said. “But don’t get too excited-I’m not about to break any laws.”

  “Just bend them a little, huh?”

  I let that pass. “Get back to me right away if Alex has anything to report.”

  “Will do.”

  I left the car where it was, walked down to the McManus place. Trespassing on private property is a tricky business, but if the house was deserted I ought to be able to get away with a look around the exterior areas without making inquisitive neighbors or passersby suspicious. First rule: always act as if you belong. I opened the front gate and marched up onto the porch, not hurrying and not looking anywhere except straight ahead.

  I leaned on the bell for half a minute. Empty echoes, as expected.

  There was a path that angled over to the driveway. I followed that, again taking my time and trying to look purposeful, and turned down the driveway past a narrow side porch to the backyard. Beyond the house was a low building that ran most of the property’s width, fronted by an empty wire-enclosed area-kennels and dog run. The rest of the yard was flower-bordered lawn crisscrossed by flagstone paths. The near end of the kennel building ended close to a tall neighboring fence; the entrance would be around on the far side. I headed in that direction. And that was when the frantic barking and whimpering started up inside.

  At least two dogs, judging from the different cadences. Which meant what, if anything? Worth taking a look.

  I opened the door, stuck my head inside. Canine odors mingled strongly with those of excrement-the kind of smells you get when a place hasn’t been cleaned in a while. No lights on, the interior shrouded in gloom. I fumbled around on the walls, found a switch, and flipped it. A couple of low-wattage ceiling bulbs chased away the shadows, let me see two facing rows of wire-gated cages.