Gravedigger (15 page)

“Not in summer,” Dave said. “But it’s been winter. The wild flowers are out up there. Never seen so many. Which means there has to have been a lot of rain. Which means a month may have been enough.”

“I’m not going to like paying a man that tried to waste my investigator,” Lovejoy said.

“He didn’t know who I was,” Dave said. “Anyway, you’re not writing a check. You’re only writing a letter. This isn’t over yet. Far from it.”

“I’ll write the letter,” Lovejoy said. “No need for you to go following him again.”

“I’m not planning on it,” Dave said.

He sat on a couch in the front building and ate wheat crackers that he spread with a French herb cheese, soft, white, specked with green. He washed the crackers and cheese down with bouillon from a mug. Lunch had been late. One-armed, he’d been slow in getting it ready. And proud of maneuvering it without Cecil’s help. It was fancy, a kind of chicken parmesan. Cecil had liked it. They’d taken their time over it. And afterward, there’d been only just enough time for Cecil to shower and get to work. So Dave wasn’t all that hungry now. The expensive stereo equipment Amanda had installed up here played the new Paris Opera recording of
Lulu
with Teresa Stratas. Berg’s music made all other music sound anemic. But he disliked the way recordings hurried operas past him. He missed the intermissions. He got off the couch to turn the record over and winced. He ought to have brought the pain-killers with him. He didn’t feel like hiking for them to the rear building. Maybe he ought to go back there and get into bed. It was early, but he felt bad, he ached. He stood where he was, unable to make up his mind. Out beyond the shiny black french windows, crickets sang—the pulse slow because of the cold. He switched off the stereo and, moving gingerly, made himself a drink. He returned to the couch with it and, clumsily, one-handed, wrapped up what was left of the cheese in its soft foil. He set the empty bouillon mug on the plate with the knife and the cheese. But he couldn’t carry them and the drink too to the cookshack. He twitched a smile. Bad luck. He’d just have to finish the drink here and, when he got to the back building, make another to take up to bed with him. He lit a cigarette and sipped the Scotch, and the telephone rang. He could let the machine answer it. He didn’t. He forced himself up and limped to the phone.

“You’re looking for Charles Westover,” a voice said.

“Where is he?” Dave said.

“It’ll cost you.” A man’s voice. Oddly muffled.

Dave didn’t recognize it. He said, “How much?”

“Five hundred bucks,” the voice said. “Cash.”

“Is this Howie O’Rourke?” Dave said. “I thought you were in jail.”

There was a pause. “A dude I know went bail for me. That’s why I need the five hundred. To pay him back.”

“I doubt that,” Dave said.

“You want Westover or not?” Another pause. Dave didn’t fill it. O’Rourke went on, “Bring the money to the Santa Monica pier. I’ll meet you there in an hour.”

“Come here,” Dave said. “I haven’t got a car.”

“Find one,” O’Rourke said.

“A hundred when we meet,” Dave said. “The rest when I’ve found Westover.”

“I need it all up front,” O’Rourke said. “You can trust me. Come on, man. I have to have the five.”

“Good-bye,” Dave said.

“No, wait!” O’Rourke yelped. “You’ve got a deal.”

“It’s suppertime,” Dave said. “There’ll be a lot of people on that pier. For the restaurants. How do I find you?”

“Just walk around out there,” O’Rourke said. “I’ll find you.” The receiver hummed in Dave’s ear. He laid it in its cradle. Why had Salazar told O’Rourke about Westover’s disappearance? Why had Salazar mentioned Dave to O’Rourke? He sat on the couch, picked up the receiver again, and punched Salazar’s number.

“I want to go home,” Salazar said. “I’m already late.”

“Howie O’Rourke just phoned me,” Dave said. “He’s out on bail. How does he know I’m looking for Westover?”

“He didn’t hear it from me,” Salazar said. “But it wasn’t O’Rourke you were talking to. A man doesn’t get out on bail when he’s in for breaking parole.”

Dave recited the conversation.

“You made a mistake,” Salazar said, “giving him a name to use, saying you thought he was in jail. Whole scenario.”

“What a shame,” Dave said. “First mistake I ever made. But it’s interesting, no? Hell of a lot more interesting than if it had been old Howie himself. He isn’t truthful.”

“My dinner will be interesting,” Salazar said, “if I don’t have to listen to my wife bitch about how late I was getting home for it.”

“I’m stuck up here with no car,” Dave said. “Drive me to the pier? You can arrest the man for attempted extortion and impersonating a criminal. Afterward, I’ll buy you a big juicy lobster and all the booze you can drink.”

“You want the Santa Monica police,” Salazar said.

“I don’t know anyone on the Santa Monica police. I’ve only got an hour. It would take that long to explain to a stranger what it’s all about. Anyway, Westover’s officially a missing person. His son reported it. Westover disappeared from your jurisdiction. Now’s your chance to find him.”

“Shit.” Salazar sighed. “Okay. Where do you live?”

He peered through a grimy window in the hangar-size room where the merry-go-round used to turn, all gilt and crimson, aglitter with mosaics of mirror, the staunch and gaudy horses rising and falling on their tall brass poles in ceaseless dream. Worklights glared tonight where for years there had been only darkness. The horses lay along one side of the room, their paint and gesso stripped, their white carved wood shining softly, like the pieces of unfinished furniture in Don Gaillard’s shop. Under the worklights, reaching from ladders, men painted the carousel itself. Someone was restoring it. It was going to turn and glitter again. From its bowels the orgatron would shout and wheeze and bang its drums and cymbals into the popcorn night once more. He was pleased. He had good memories of this merry-go-round. Old, very old, but still good.

He turned away and checked his watch. The man who claimed to be Howie O’Rourke was forty minutes late. Dave glanced back toward where the pier raked up to meet the palisades. Salazar leaned against a lamppost, smoking one of his little brown cigarettes. Dave wanted to go to him, find the car with him, be driven home. He wasn’t in pain. He had swallowed pills to keep the pain back. But he was tired. He had walked twice to the end of the pier, along the thick, splintery planks, through pools of yellow light cast by spaced lamps along the pier, to where winches rusted now that used to raise and lower boats before the building of the marina, but where people still fished at night, elbows on chalky wooden railings, eyes on the black water below that lisped around barnacled pilings and gave back wavery reflections of the lamplight. He had been out there twice and back here to the merry-go-round barn. He was fed up. But he didn’t want to leave too soon. He would give it another few minutes.

“What happened to your arm?” Lyle Westover said. He was neat, new suit, shiny shoes. A girl almost as frail as he was with him. She stood back a pace and looked shy. Her hair was honey-color. She didn’t wear makeup, didn’t need it. She was pretty. Poor Trio! “Are you alone? We’re going to eat over there. Will you join us?”

“Thanks, but I’m working. Look, don’t take anything out of your mailbox addressed to your father, all right?”

“Shall I watch for him, talk to him?”

Dave shook his head. “That would be dangerous.”

“I do care about him, you know. Just because I flew off to Nashville, just because I’m going out to dinner—”

“Stop punishing yourself,” Dave said. “Who’s your friend? What does she play?”

Her name was Jennifer, and she played the cello.

“Dangerous?” Lyle said. “How did you hurt your arm?”

Dave told him. The boy looked ready to weep. He said, “He must be crazy. This isn’t him, Mr. Brandstetter. This is not the way he is. Not the way he used to be.”

Dave said, “Do you know a young woman, blond, bony, connected with your father? Someone who worked for him, maybe? A secretary?”

“Miss Halvorson was his secretary, but she was sixty. When he closed his offices, she went back to Iowa. That’s where her mother lives. Her mother is ninety. I’m sorry about your arm.”

“Occupational hazard,” Dave said. “Don Gaillard has disappeared too. I think they may be together—up there in Yucca Canyon.

“I left the address book for you,” Lyle said.

“There are no Yucca Canyon numbers in it,” Dave said.

Salazar came up. Dave told him, “This is Lyle Westover. John Salazar, sheriff’s office.”

Lyle held out his hand and Salazar took it and hung onto it. “Are you the one who phoned?”

Lyle blinked. He said he hadn’t phoned anyone. Who did Mr. Salazar mean? But his speech was thick, and Salazar didn’t understand. That was clear from the dazed look he threw Dave. He let go Lyle’s hand.

“I guess you weren’t the one who phoned,” he said.

“Good to see you,” Dave said. “Have a nice supper.”

Lyle mumbled and awkwardly shook Dave’s hand. The girl managed a timid little smile. They went off together. Lyle walked like a badly strung marionette. He and the girl entered a shacky, gray board restaurant, where the prices were anything but shacky. Lyle hadn’t wanted credit for Nashville, but apparently he’d taken the cash.

“You hustled them off fast,” Salazar said. “Did I hurt his feelings? I didn’t mean to. I was shocked. What’s wrong with his mouth?”

“No one seems to know,” Dave said. “It wasn’t that. I was afraid one of you might mention O’Rourke. And when that child finds out what happened to the money his father borrowed from Gaillard, he’s not going to take it well.”

“Where’s our man?” Salazar frowned up and down the pier. “You sure there was a man?” He looked closely into Dave’s eyes. “What kind of pills are you taking?”

“There was a man, all right.” Dave moved off toward the shaky wooden staircase that led by crooked stages down to the parking lot below the pier. “But he never meant to meet me. Not here, not anywhere. He didn’t want money. He wanted me out of my house, didn’t he? Which means I’d better get back there and find out why.”

“You have a blanket or something?” Salazar’s suit was thin. He stood in front of the fire he had built in the grate in the back building, but it was still cold in the high, hollow, pine-walled room. Dave sat at his desk, disgustedly sorting through receipts. These had piled up from the remodeling—carpenter’s bills, bills from electricians, suppliers of lumber, plaster, conduit, pipe, brick and mortar, shingles, glass, fabric, carpet. Dozens of them. He smiled. Grimly. Here were the ones he needed. Best Audio. Tape deck, cassette deck, turntable, amplifier, receiver. White’s. Television sets, video recorder. Bay Office Supply. Typewriter, copying machine, telephone answerer, calculator.

“Take a blanket off the bed, up there,” Dave said. “Then if you want to, you can write down these serial numbers for me.” Wilshire Camera. Leica, Bausch & Lomb. He kept the receipts for the stolen stuff out, and pushed the rest, flimsy pink, yellow, blue carbon copies, back in the drawer, and shut the drawer. “But they won’t turn up, will they? Exercise in futility.”

Salazar came to the desk wrapped in a blanket, and made drama out of trying to keep the blanket around him while he dug out a notebook and pencil. Maybe it wasn’t acting. He shivered and his nose had started to run. He hooked a foot around a chair leg and moved the chair to the desk and sat down on it. In the band of light from the desk lamp his fingers toiled, copying the numbers off the receipts.

“What you need is booze.”

“What I’m going to get”—Salazar jerked his head, sniffing noisily—“is double pneumonia. This son of a bitch must have known you had all this expensive junk. Who could it be? You just remodeled. Somebody who worked here fixing the place up?”

Dave came back from the bar with brandy for Salazar and for himself. “Drink that. If it doesn’t make you well, it will make you forget you’re sick.” He sat down again. The pain-killers were wearing off and he really did want to crawl into bed now. “Maybe you’re right. But there were a lot of them, and I didn’t stand around admiring what they did as they did it.” He pulled the rumpled receipts out of the drawer again. “Here are all the contractors, if you want to check out the personnel.”

“Gee, thanks.” Salazar closed the notebook. “Okay. That gets the serial numbers of everything stolen.” He drank deeply from the brandy. “Hey. You may be right about this.” He closed a hand over the receipts and stuffed them into an inside jacket pocket. Blanket huddled around him, he went back to the fireplace and slowly turned in front of it, toasting himself. “Get a lot of robberies up here—housebreakings?”

“I don’t know the neighbors well enough to ask,” Dave said. The telephone rang. He picked it up. “Brandstetter.”

“Is that you this time?” Dave didn’t know the voice, not at first. “Because I don’t talk to machines. The stupid country is going to hell. No people anymore, just machines.”

“You’re at the filling station in Yucca Canyon,” Dave said. “What’s happened? The Rolls come in again?”

“Not the Rolls,” the filling-station boy said, “the girl, the skinny one with the cheap blond hair. Only this time she’s driving an old Impala. Right-front fender smashed. The headlight’s out.”

“Beautiful,” Dave said. “Did you get the license number?”

“I thought you’d like that,” the boy said. He gave the number. Dave said, “Just a second.” And, to Salazar, “You want to write this down for me, please?” He repeated the number. Salazar wrote, the blanket slithering to his feet. The boy said, “Nevada.”

“Is that so?” Dave said. And to Salazar, “Nevada.”

The boy said, “You see, I didn’t lose your card. I tacked it up like you said. This any help?”

“A great help,” Dave said. “Thank you very much. Have you seen, by any chance, a gray panel truck, yellow lettering, name Gaillard, ‘Fine Furniture’ or something like that on the side?”

“Just the Impala. Green and white. Nineteen fifty-eight. The damage was new.”

“If you call that damage,” Dave said, “you should see the other car.”

“What happened? What other car?”