The Lonely Hunter

A Lt. Hastings Mystery

Collin Wilcox

This book is dedicated to JEFF

Contents

ONE

TWO

THREE

FOUR

FIVE

SIX

SEVEN

EIGHT

NINE

TEN

ELEVEN

TWELVE

THIRTEEN

FOURTEEN

FIFTEEN

SIXTEEN

SEVENTEEN

Preview: The Disappearance

ONE

I WATCHED THEM LIFT the stretcher, then walk leisurely through the open door. The hallway outside was narrow—crowded with spectators, reporters and uniformed patrolmen. As the two coroner’s men manoeuvred the stretcher in the narrow passageway, an arm fell from beneath the grey woollen blanket, loosely dangling.

My notebook lay before me on the expensive capa shell coffee table, together with my hat, my ballpoint pen, my cigarettes and matches. We’d been there for more than an hour, waiting for the lab men, the photographers and the medical men to finish. Now, in the corridor outside, I could hear impatient voices followed, by a knock.

“Tell those reporters,” I said to Carruthers, “that they’d better quiet down, if they ever want to get in here for a look. And tell them that I’m not going to give them a thing. They have to talk to the Captain, downtown. And they know it.”

I looked over the three pages of notes I’d already taken. Then, settling back on the sofa I took a long moment to study the suspect. He was sitting directly across the elaborate table from me. We’d put him on an uncomfortable side chair. He sat hugging himself, with his knees pressed tightly together and his stockinged feet crossed one over the other, like children sometimes sit. He was twisted in the chair, his eyes fixed on the door. I saw him swallow once, then again. The cords of his neck were drawn tight beneath his pale, unhealthy-looking skin. His thin, lank blond hair was tousled, his complexion pimpled and splotched. In profile, his nose was too long, his chin too slight and his lips too slack. His pale blue cashmere sweater was blood-soaked down the front; flecks of blood spotted his fawn gabardine trousers. I wondered what he was thinking.

“How old are you, Ramsey?” I asked abruptly.

He didn’t respond; he still stared at the door. With the tip of his tongue he was rapidly circling his pale lips.

I slammed the flat of my hand down hard on the table. He blinked, then turned vaguely to face me.

I repeated the question.

“Twenty—” He cleared his throat. “Twenty-four.” His voice was soft and hesitant.

“And you’re a window trimmer, for the Footlight Shops. Is that right?”

He nodded.

“And your friend was a hairdresser.”

“Y—yes.”

“And the two of you have been living here for six months. Is that right?”

“Yes.”

“All right. Now—” I glanced at my watch. “It’s two P.M., Ramsey. How is it, that you happened to be home on a Tuesday afternoon?”

“Well, we—we were both on vacation.”

“When did your vacation start, Ramsey?”

“Well, Friday, really. We—” He moistened his lips. “We were supposed to go away tomorrow.”

“Where were you going?”

“To Lake Tahoe.”

“Why to Lake Tahoe?”

He seemed to think about it, puzzled. “Well,” he said finally, “Eric likes—liked—to gamble. So we were—” Slowly he shook his head. Now he began blinking rapidly, swallowing.

“How long have you lived in San Francisco, Ramsey?”

“Well, I was born in Oakland. So I—”

“How about Eric? Where’d he come from?”

“Chicago.”

“How long had he been in San Francisco?”

“About a—a year.”

“How old was Eric?”

“Twenty-three. He—” Ramsey gulped. “He has—had—a birthday next week. I mean, he would’ve had a—” Again he shook his head. His face was beginning to come apart. For the first time I saw tears gathering at the corners of his eyes. Slowly he raised one hand to wipe absently at his eyes, then he began to snuffle softly.

I lowered my voice; I didn’t want to break his mood. “How did the argument start, Ramsey? Tell me everything that happened. Right from the time you first got up this morning.” As I spoke, I gestured to Markham, sitting across the room at a small side table. He nodded, pen poised over his notebook.

“Well—” He frowned, and finally shook his head.

“The more you tell us now,” I said, “the better it’ll be for you. Your lawyer’ll tell you that.”

“Well—” He cleared his throat. “We—we went to a party last night. One of our—our friends is leaving for New York, and—and there was a party for him. So—” Ramsey drew a long, deep, regretful breath. He seemed in better control of himself, no longer snuffling. His voice was flat and dead, his manner resigned. “So we went to the party, mostly because Eric wanted to go. I—I didn’t like the two who were giving the party. Not since one of them—Charles—made a play for Eric, a few weeks ago. That—that was the trouble, you see. Charles and Eric, they—they kept disappearing, all night. So I—” He raised a hand in a lost little flutter. “I finally got tight, and came home.”

“What time was that?”

“About two, I think. Maybe a little later.”

“Were you drunk, then, when you came home?”

“Not really drunk. Just—” He sighed. “Just tight. I felt too miserable to get really drunk.”

“Okay. Now, what time did Eric get home?”

“I—I don’t know. I fell asleep, I guess.”

“But he did come home?”

Listlessly, Ramsey nodded.

“All right. Now, what about today, Ramsey? This morning. Start with this morning. What time did the two of you get up?”

“About eleven, I think.”

“Did you get up first?”

“Yes. But Eric got up just a few minutes later.”

“All right. Then what happened?”

“Well, we—we didn’t say much, for a while. We didn’t really speak to each other. I was too—too hurt, I suppose. And Eric, well—” Helplessly, Ramsey shrugged.

“What about Eric?”

“He—maybe he was too ashamed. I don’t know. Anyhow, he started drinking Bloody Marys. And then, after he’d had two or three, we started to argue.”

“About the party?”

He nodded.

“That would’ve been about noon, then, that the argument started. Is that right?”

“I suppose so.”

“And then what happened, Ramsey?”

“Well, the—the argument got worse, and finally Eric said that he was going to leave. He—he went into the bedroom, and got down his suitcase. It was on the top shelf, in the closet. He had to get up on a chair, to get it down. So then, I—I kicked the chair. I—I was furious. So then Eric, he—he fell against the dresser and smashed some things. My things. So then I—I hit him. But he—”

“Did you hit him with your fist?” I interrupted.

He nodded.

“All right. What happened then?”

“Well, he—he still had hold of the suitcase. And he—he swung it at me.”

“Did he hit you?”

“Yes.”

“Where?”

“On the leg, I think. I don’t remember. Anyhow, he kept after me, swinging the suitcase. He was screaming he’d kill me. I’d—I fell down, then. Against the wall. And as I fell, I remember that right there in front of me was the—the marble cigarette table. It was all I could see, that little table. It—it all seemed to be happening in slow motion. I—I remember picking up the table and getting to my feet, even though he was still swinging the suitcase at me. And—and then, the next thing I knew, a—a policeman had hold of me. I remember that I was still holding on to the table, and I remember thinking that the blood made it slippery to hold. And then I saw Eric. He was—” Ramsey shuddered, and slowly dropped his head down into his hands.

“He was—he was still looking at me,” he said. “Through all that blood, he was still looking at me. His eyes were dead, but he was still staring at me. It—it’s all I could see—those eyes, staring. Those eyes, and a white piece of bone, high on his head. It—it seemed so terribly white, that spot, with all the blood around it, and the hair. Eric’s hair is very dark, you know. It—it’s almost black.”

He was sobbing now.

“Okay,” I said to Markham. “You and Carruthers take him downtown. I’ll lock up here, and put the seal on. Tell one of those uniformed men to stay outside, until we know whether the D.A.’s sending anyone over.”

Markham and Carruthers lifted Ramsey stumbling to his feet.

“How about the reporters and photographers?” Markham asked over his shoulder.

“Tell them it’ll just be a few minutes more. I want to phone the Captain first.”

“Right.”

The phone was in the bedroom. As I dialled, I looked around the room. The body had fallen between the king-size bed and the wall. The white carpeting was saturated with blood, still wet.

“Communications.”

“This is Sergeant Hastings. Give me Captain Kreiger, will you?”

“Right, Sergeant. I’ve got a message for you, too.”

“What is it?”

“You’re supposed to call Operator Eighteen, in Detroit.”

For a moment I didn’t reply. I realised that I was staring helplessly at the spot where the body had fallen. Because of the carpeting, they’d made the outline with an aerosol spray, instead of chalk. It was progress. When I’d first started on the force, six years ago, they hadn’t used aerosol sprays.

Six years ago—

A year before that, when I’d left Detroit, there’d been no one to say goodbye. I’d told my children, on the phone the night before, that I was leaving for the weekend.

And I’d never gone back. Seven years, and I’d never once—

“Sergeant.”

“Okay. Give me the Captain, will you? I’ll make the Detroit call later.”

Somehow I didn’t want to use a bar-room phone booth, so, finally I drove on to the apron of a gas station, and used an outdoor booth.

The connection went through almost immediately. Carolyn answered.

“It’s Frank, Carolyn. What is it?”

“Oh, Frank. I’m so glad you called. How’ve you been?”

“I’ve been all right. How are the children?”

“Well, that—that’s actually why I called, Frank. It—it’s about Claudia that I’m calling. I debated telling you, but when I heard, just today, that she—”

“What’s wrong, Carolyn? Get to the point.”

“Well, nothing’s really wrong, Frank. It’s just that we had some difficulty with her, a couple of months ago, and we—” She hesitated. In seven years, she’d only phoned me once before, When Darrell had—

“Maybe I’d better start at the beginning,” she was saying. “Have you got a few minutes?”

“Go ahead. If you’ve got the money, I’ve got the time.” And, immediately, I regretted saying it. My voice had been sharper than I’d intended. And the remark had been banal.

I could hear her drawing a deep regretful breath. Carolyn never liked being at a disadvantage. I could picture her, leaning forward in the chair, frowning slightly, choosing her words with a cool, stylish precision. In seven years, some of Carolyn’s features had become blurred in my memory. But I could still vividly remember her speech, unmistakably inflected with the socialite’s glib, self-conscious pattern of broad, languid drawls and flip, sharp little quips.

“I suppose,” she said finally, “that it all started two months ago, when Claudia got out of school for the summer. She’ll be a senior next year, you know, and for sixteen she’s—well—she’s very well developed. In any case, just before school got out, she and this boy—his name is Sandy Tomilson—they started to go steady. So—” She paused; I could hear her drawing deeply on her cigarette. “So for a while we—Don and I—we tried to handle it. I mean, at sixteen—almost seventeen—you can’t resist them head-on, you know. So we—”

“What you’re saying,” I interrupted, “is that you didn’t like the boy. Is that it?”

She laughed in her particular low, ironic contralto. I could imagine her tossing back her head, then combing quick, graceful fingers through her thick, tawny-blonde hair, loosely worn.

“That’s putting it mildly, my dear. The boy is a hippie. In fact, out of all this, at least something good’s going to emerge. Don, you see, has always been insistent—absolutely adamant, really—about the children going to public schools. He claims that it gives them a broader base for understanding, or something. But now—”

“Listen, Carolyn, get to the point, will you?”

She sighed. “Well, the point is, briefly, that they fell in love, which in itself, would’nt’ve been so bad. But then, a few weeks after school got out, Sandy decided that he was going to make the scene out west, as he put it. So he—well—he apparently decided to go out to San Francisco, for the summer.”

“All right. What about Claudia?”

“Well, she and Sandy started corresponding. And finally she—”

“She wants to come out here. Is that it?” I fleetingly realised that my breath had shortened. It was the same tight, constricted feeling across the chest that every cop experiences, just before—

“Actually, Frank, the fact is that she’s already there. She’s—”

“In San Francisco, you mean?”

“Yes. Apparently she’s been there for a week. She’s—”

“What’d you mean, ‘apparently’? Don’t you know where she is from one week to another?”

I could hear her taking a long, deep breath. Her voice became very cool and very precise—another mannerism I remembered, too well.

“If you want to try and help, Frank,” she said slowly, “I’d very much appreciate it. But if you’d rather berate me, I’d be most happy to find a good private detective. Don actually would rather—”

“Never mind Don. We’ve been talking for five minutes, and I still don’t know what’s happened.”

“Well, briefly, she and Paula Trilling decided they wanted to take a trip. Paula got a car for her seventeenth birthday, you see, and she wanted to drive to St. Louis, where she has an aunt and an uncle. And she wanted Claudia to go. Well, we decided that it might not be a bad idea. In fact, we thought that Claudia might get her mind off Sandy, if we let her—”

“So Claudia kept on going, is that it?”

She drew a deep breath. “That’s it exactly. She wrote us a letter from Denver, telling us that she simply had to be with Sandy. It was rather a nice, considerate letter, actually. She told us not to worry—that she’d write to us.”

“What did you do, when you got the letter?”

“Well, first, I called Sandy’s parents, to find out where he was living.”

“Did they tell you?”

“Yes. They said he was in San Francisco, but they didn’t have an address.”

“Is he here with their permission?”

“Yes. Sandy, you see, is almost eighteen. And his parents—his father teaches maths at Cooley High School—they apparently decided that he could go off for the summer. His parents—they’re well, they’re really very strange. His father, for instance, wears a beard. Anyhow, Sandy’s been bumming around the country, apparently—picking fruit, riding a motorcycle, sleeping beside the road. It—it’s incredible, really. I couldn’t believe that—”

“Do they hear from him regularly?”

“Once a week, I gather. Sometimes from San Francisco, sometimes from Southern California. Once or twice from a place called Sebastopol, wherever that is.”

“What’d you do after you talked to Sandy’s parents?”

“Well, we—we decided to wait. There—there didn’t seem to be much else to do, until we—”

“You could’ve called me. She as much as told you she was heading for San Francisco.”

“I know. But Don wanted to—”

“All right. What happened then?”

“Well, today—just today—we finally heard from her. And she’s in San Francisco. So I thought I should—”

“Read the letter to me.”

“All right; I’ve got it right here.” Paper rustled. Then:

Dear Mother (she began, then cleared her throat):

I hope you aren’t too mad at me, and too disappointed. I’ve tried so many times to try and tell you how I feel about things, but I never can. If you could only realise that I’ll be seventeen in a few weeks, and that I have a life of my own, that I have to live. I realise that I have to come back to Detroit in September, for school. I’ll get good marks, and I’ll go to college. I promised, and I will. But now, for only the month that’s left, I want to be free. There’s nothing for me at home. And Sandy is taking good care of me. We’re experiencing freedom together. In California, the sun is warm, and the colours are bright, and the people are tolerant and kind. Especially in San Francisco. I never knew there was a place like San Francisco.

I know that you’ll probably tell Daddy. Maybe you’ll tell him to find me, and send me back. But I hope you won’t tell him, Mother. For the two of us—for you and me—it’s better that I stay here. I’m learning to love, here. It’s a terrible thing that the last people you learn to love are the people you should love most. But maybe that’s what will happen. I hope so.

Carolyn again cleared her throat. “And that’s all,” she said. “Except for the signature.”

“I’ve got a picture of the way Sandy’s taking care of her.”

“I know.”

“Well, what’d you want me to do, Carolyn?”

“Find her, and put her on a plane.”

“I’d rather find this Sandy Tomilson, and put a fist down his throat.”

“Do that, too, if you want to. That’s up to you.”

“It doesn’t sound, from her letter, like she’s very happy at home.”

For a long moment she didn’t reply. I could picture her, making sure of her stylish self-control before she said slowly, “This isn’t the time for recriminations, Frank. You’re the one, if you remember, who left. I was willing to try. Always. Right up to the last. I was trying. I—”

“You were trying to keep a pet husband, Carolyn. That’s what you were trying to do. That’s all you know anything about: pet husbands. I was someone to make love to you, after parties—a pet lover. Before that I was a pet football player—a chic, amusing conversation piece. Then—”

“Frank, there’s no need to—”

“Then, when it was obvious that I wasn’t much of a pro player, you got together with your old man and converted me into a pet public relations man—a family pet, for the family business. Which meant, really, that I spent all my time with a highball glass in my hand, trying to think of some reason for smiling at a bunch of—”

“I always thought you were smiling because of the highball glass.” Her voice was very clear and very sharp—yet very quiet. Carolyn never actually lost her temper. She fought with a calm vicious precision.

“Liquor was the first refuge you stumbled into,” she said, “when you finally realised that your days of so-called glory were behind you, and all your clippings were getting yellow. It was Liquor for you—and money. Don’t forget the money, Frank. And don’t blame me for the drinking, either. Or for what happens to the children. You’ve never even bothered to see them. So don’t—”

“I send you three hundred dollars a month, Carolyn. And for the first year, I sometimes didn’t make three hundred a month. My salary—now—is seven-fifty—about half the handout your father gave me when the decree was filed by your expensive lawyers. Which means, that in the last seven years, I could only afford to see Claudia and Darrell three times. I’m still paying for that trip we took to the Grand Canyon, three years ago. And, at the Grand Canyon, all we did was make polite conversation and take snapshots of each other—like people who just happened to meet on a trip, the day before. We just—”

“I should’ve known better than to call you, Frank. I should’ve known what your reaction would be—spite, and jealousy. Don was right. He said—” Her voice was painfully tight, in a moment might slip beyond her control. And, suddenly, I realised that it was what I wanted: to hear her cry. I’d never made her cry. I was still trying. It was my stock in trade—my profession, breaking people down. All kinds of people. But always strangers.

“Okay, Carolyn,” I was saying. “I’ll find her as soon as I can. It’ll probably take time, though.”

“All right, Frank.” Her reply was cool and concise; she’d always recovered fast. “There’s one thing, though, that I should mention. We’re—” She hesitated. “We’re supposed to be flying down to Puerto Rico this Friday. Don and I. There’s a conference of stockbrokers there, and he wants me to come along. Naturally, I wouldn’t dream of going unless Claudia is taken care of. And of course, we’ve made provisions for the children. But I just thought I should mention—”

“I’ll call you, Carolyn, Goodbye.”

TWO

I CLOSED THE MANILA folder, ignoring the suspect. Slowly, deliberately, I tipped back my chair, taking out my cigarettes. I gestured with the pack to Nazario, yawning in the corner. Smiling, the uniformed man shook his head. I lit a cigarette for myself. Then, in studied afterthought, I pushed the cigarettes across the interrogation table.

“Go ahead. Help yourself, Starbuck.”

With shaking fingers he finally managed to take a cigarette from the pack. It was all part of an established, predictable routine. Junkies, drying out, couldn’t get enough smoke in their lungs. So, first, you gave them all the cigarettes they wanted. Then you began holding back. Finally, watching them squirm, you got down to business.

“Light?” I struck the match, leaned forward, and finally found his wavering cigarette with the flame. I lit my own cigarette, shook out the match, and settled back to watch him. He was about nineteen, six feet tall, medium complexion, brown hair—a Caucasian male. He wore a misshapen sweater and filthy jeans. His sick twitching face was a mass of pimples and blackheads; his hair was matted. He’d been arrested four times during the past year on assorted breaking and entering charges. The first two raps got him suspended sentences, the last two thirty days each in the county jail. Now, this time, he’d been discovered by a nurse as he was breaking open a doctor’s narcotics cabinet. She’d screamed, and he’d stabbed her—eight times in the abdomen and lower chest. She wasn’t expected to live.

Although his face was thin and pale, his lips were cherub like, pink and full. Sucking so ravenously, he reminded me of a hungry, fretful baby taking the bottle. It was the same kind of urgency. I flipped open the manila folder. I’d only had time so far to glance at his offences. Now I discovered that his habit cost him forty dollars a day, which meant that he had to steal almost two hundred dollars in retail merchandise daily, just to stay even with his pusher. Unless, of course, he cut out the middle man, going right for the narcotics.

His father, I noticed, had worked steadily for twenty-three years as a shipping clerk, always with the same employer. His mother was dead; his older brother was in the Army.

“Whenever you want to make a statement,” I said, “I’ll get the stenographer. That nurse, you know, might be dead already. If she’s not, though, you’d be doing yourself a lot of good to confess right now, before she dies. You’d be confessing to assault, not murder.”

He didn’t seem to hear me. He was holding the last half inch of the cigarette with his stained, broken fingernails as he sucked in the smoke.

“Did she fight you?” I asked. “That makes a difference too, you know. You might get manslaughter instead of murder. And it’s your life, Starbuck. You can get off with a few years, maybe, or you can go all the way to the gas chamber.”

I reached across the narrow table, gripping his chin, hard—raising his head.

“I’m talking to you, Starbuck.”

His head lolled loosely in my grasp; his eyes were tightly shut. His cheeks were streaked with tears. I could feel his scrawny frame trembling.

“Where’s the lawyer?” he gasped, still with his eyes closed.

“You didn’t call a lawyer, Starbuck. You called your father.”

“He—he’ll get me a lawyer.”

I released him. His head fell forward, bobbing. I motioned to Nazario. The patrolman came forward, gripping the suspect’s hair, pulling his head back.

“Open your eyes,” I said. “I’m talking to you. Open your eyes.”

His small-pupiled addict’s eyes stared at me unseeing. I sighed.

“Want another cigarette, Starbuck?”

Without speaking he nodded, eagerly reaching out his hand. As I lit his cigarette I decided that I probably had another hour to wait before he started climbing the walls. Then, after that, it might be another hour before we’d have to ship him off to hospital, confession or not.

A soft knock on the metal door. I rose, unlocked the door, and stepped into the hallway. Jerry Markham, my new partner, held a paper cup full of coffee in his hand.

“My turn,” he said. “The Captain wants to see you.”

I spent several minutes giving Markham detailed instructions on how to handle Starbuck during the next hour, if I shouldn’t get back. Markham obviously had his own ideas. He’d been an inspector barely three months, but he had lots of ideas.

Finally, with a last caution to use his brains instead of his fists, I walked down the long hallway to the Captain’s office.

I didn’t enjoy the walk; I thought I knew what Kreiger wanted. I knocked on the frosted glass, waited for the familiar “Come,” and reluctantly pushed open the door.

Kreiger was about my age and build; in fact, we’d played football together in O.C.S., training as M.P. officers, more than twenty years ago. That’s how my belated career in crime prevention began: with Kreiger’s shoulder in my gut every time I tried to pick up a little off-tackle yardage in scrimmage. Kreiger, though, had returned to college after the war and changed his major to Criminology. I’d stayed with Business Ad., really majoring in football. I’d gone from college into pro ball, and from pro ball I’d wandered into the wrong marriage, and later into the wrong business—always for the wrong reasons, at the wrong time, in the wrong town. And so, now, Kreiger was sitting in his leather swivel chair behind his desk—the Captain, Homicide Division. I was sitting in the straight-backed visitor’s chair—the sergeant.

“Anything on that Starbuck kid?” he asked abruptly.

I shook my head. “He’s too far gone, drying out. I don’t think we’ll get anything before we have to send him over to the hospital.”

“That nurse,” he said, “will probably die. I just heard from her doctor. He says her spleen is ruptured and one lung’s collapsed, plus other complications. He gives her until tonight.”

I didn’t reply. I knew I wasn’t there to talk about collapsed lungs.

“I also heard from this guy George Miller’s attorney,” Kreiger said in a different, down-to-business voice. “They’re thinking of bringing suit against you.” Kreiger was a casting director’s Captain of Inspectors—or maybe an S.S. officer, depending on the movie. His close-cropped blond hair was still thick, his mouth was straight and firm, his face square and purposeful-looking, bunched with muscles, outlining jaw, cheek and temple. It was an intelligent, thoughtful, reasonable face, reflecting a disposition both deliberate and decisive. I’d never seen Kreiger lose his temper. He took his time making decisions. Then, having once decided, he acted calmly and quickly.

I lit a cigarette. “I guess I’m not surprised,” I said. “You arrest a sorehead who’s drunk and’s got money and influence, I guess you can expect trouble.” I was satisfied with my voice: low and slow.

“You should’ve given me a supplementary report on it first thing this morning, Frank. Your preliminary didn’t give me enough to go on. Yesterday, while you were working on Ramsey, I had to talk to this guy’s lawyer. Today I’ve been getting calls from the papers—all without enough information from you.”

I knew Kreiger well enough not to protest, or even to offer much of an excuse. Instead I said only, “I was going to write the supplementary first thing this morning, but I hadn’t even taken off my hat when I got the call on Starbuck. I didn’t know Miller’s lawyer had contacted the department. I was pretty busy yesterday.”

Trying to find my kid, I could have added. My girl.

“Did Miller tell you, Monday, that he was going to make a stink?”

“Sure he did. But what drunk doesn’t?”

“It’s this damn flu bug,” Kreiger said finally. “If we weren’t short handed, you’d’ve been here this morning. You wouldn’t’ve had to take the Starbuck call.” He pointed to his “out” basket. “I was just looking at the morning report. Exactly one quarter of my inspectors are absent. Who ever heard of a flu epidemic in August? And another five don’t feel so good. How do you feel?”

“All right.”

“Of course,” Kreiger was saying, “you still could’ve let someone else take first shot at the Starbuck call, flu epidemic or not. You could’ve done the report, then caught up. That’s why we have supplementary reports, you know—because preliminary reports don’t cover us.”

“I figured,” I said slowly, “that attempted murder was more important than covering myself on some crummy bar-room brawl, especially when we’re short handed. And I spent all day yesterday on Ramsey.”

And looking for Claudia. My daughter.

On my own time, Captain. My own goddam time.

“There’re all kinds of bar-room brawls, though.” He hesitated, then said, “I guess you’re right, though. Give me the run-down on what happened Monday night.”

“Well, it was my day off, if you remember. I went to a movie. Alone. I got out about eleven fifteen, and I discovered that I didn’t have any cigarettes. There weren’t any drug stores open, so I went into a bar—the Interlude, on Union Street. I had to get some change from the bartender, and while I was waiting for him to finish up with a customer this guy, Miller, started talking to me. He was drunk—sloppy, back-slapping drunk, and he remembered me, from college. Anyhow, he insisted that I have a drink with him. I said no. Then he started to lean on me, especially when he found out that I was a cop. He seemed to think that was very funny—especially since he’s some kind of a big shot sales manager, he told me several times, with a brand new Cadillac, and a brand new wife. He also thought it was very funny that my pro ball career didn’t exactly make history. Apparently he follows football. So when I told him he’d had enough, and he’d better go home. He said he wouldn’t, and got belligerent. Thinking about it, I’ll admit that I could’ve handled it better; for one thing, I could’ve put in a call for a car. But, hell, he got me sore.”

“So what happened then?”

I shrugged. “I started backing him out, intending to put him in his car and forget it. I wasn’t looking for a beef. Not really. I just—just decided I’d rather handle it myself, after all the crap he gave me. And for a couple of minutes I thought he was going to go. But then he took a swing at me. Suddenly. I hit him, in the gut, and we wrestled around for a minute or two while I got the cuffs on him. By that time, a car showed up. So we took him downtown and booked him—D. and D. And that’s all there is to it. Everything.”

Kreiger sat silently for a moment, staring down at the notes he’d made, and the doodles. Then, quietly, he said, “Miller claims you were drunk. He says that you’d both been drinking.” Slowly he raised his eyes, silently staring at me. Waiting.

“He’s lying, Carl. I haven’t had a drink for almost five years.”

We looked at each other, unsmiling. I was remembering the moment, five years ago, when I’d opened my eyes to see Kreiger’s broad, frowning face close to my own. My first conscious thought had been that the room was filled with the sour stench of vomit, a smell familiar to every policeman. People who are frightened, or dying, or drunk either soil themselves or vomit. And frightened, dying, drunk people are a cop’s business—his daily routine.

Then I’d realised that the stench was my own; my clothes were soaked and reeking. I’d tried to raise my head, but couldn’t. I’d been helpless, too sick even to feel ashamed.

Then Kreiger had stirred. Painfully I’d opened my eyes. He was standing. He’d buttoned his jacket and adjusted his hat. Then, slowly, he’d said: “This isn’t going on your record, Frank. One of the boys was off duty. He spotted you, and called me. I was off duty, too, so there’s nothing official. But—” He’d paused briefly, then continued in a low, even voice, “But you’d better understand, right now, that there’s no place in my division for drunks. I don’t care whether he’s a friend of mine or not, a drunk is a drunk. You can’t depend on him. And, if you’re a cop, it’ll cost you someday.” He’d abruptly walked to the door, and twisted the knob. Then he’d turned back, saying, “You’ve had a few tough years, Frank. I’m not forgetting it, and I’m not asking for any bouquets because I decided to give you a hand. I figured you’d be a good cop, and you have been. But let me tell you this—” He’d raised a forefinger, slowly and deliberately. “The next time you feel like taking a drink—one drink—put your gun and your badge on my desk first.”

Now, looking at Kreiger across his big desk, I realised we were both thinking of that day in my apartment, five years ago.

“He’s lying,” I repeated. “I haven’t had a drink since—since that time.”

“What if Miller gets a witness to say you’d been drinking?”

“Then the witness would be lying. He’d be—”

A buzzer sounded. Kreiger’s intercom. He pushed the button.

“Can I interrupt for a second, Captain?” It was Jerry Markham’s voice.

“Sure”

“I just wanted to tell Frank that the Starbuck kid flipped. We got him in a strait jacket. Shall I send him to County?”

Kreiger looked across at me. I nodded.

“Go ahead,” the Captain said. “Send two patrolmen with him in the ambulance, though. Don’t go yourself. I’m short handed today. Tell the patrolmen they’ll get orders from Frank later, but they’re not to leave Starbuck until relieved.”

“Yessir.” The intercom clicked dead.

Kreiger sighed, and pivoted back to face me. For a long moment we gazed at each other, silently. I could feel myself beginning to perspire as I met his pale blue eyes.

Then he picked up a pencil and began idly doodling. “Never mind the supplemental report, Frank,” he said quietly. “I’ve got all I need. Chances are, Miller’s lawyer was trying to scare us, and won’t call back. If he does call, though, I’ll refer him to the D.A. We’ll give him a choice: either get the book thrown at his client for resisting arrest, or else cool the whole stupid mess, depending on whether they make any formal charge against you.”

I realised that I was exhaling, slowly. I knew Kreiger didn’t want thanks, any more than he’d first wanted excuses.

“What about Ramsey?” he asked brusquely.

“We got a confession, and the D.A.’s got a case. As far as I know, everything’s tied up. No loose ends.”

“Good. With this flu bug, I haven’t had a chance to—”

The intercom buzzed again. It was Sergeant Cunningham, in charge of Communications. A man’s body had just been found near the Twenty-fifth Avenue entrance to the Presidio, San Francisco’s major army installation.

Kreiger took down the details on his note pad, then released the intercom switch. “You working on much right now except Starbuck and Ramsey?” he asked.

“Not much.”

I watched Kreiger tear off the top sheet of the note pad, and toss it across to me. “Why don’t you and Markham check this out? You won’t be able to talk to Starbuck for several hours yet.”

“Right.” I took the slip of paper and rose to my feet.

“By the way,” Kreiger said, also rising, “how’s Markham doing?”

I hesitated before answering. “He’s pretty strong minded. He gets an idea, he figures that’s it.”

Regretfully, Kreiger shook his head. “That’s the first big lesson I learned in this business: don’t fit the facts to the theories. I remember a professor of mine saying you either possess an idea, or you’re possessed by an idea.”

I thought about it as I opened the door. “I guess it must take a lot of thinking,” I said, “to possess an idea. It’s a lot easier the other way.”

Kreiger smiled. “Thinking’s sometimes very painful. As who should know better than a cop. Let me know about that dead one in the Presidio. And don’t worry about your old college buddy,” he added shortly, already sitting down at the desk. “If he’s not careful, he’s going to talk himself into a lot of trouble.”

“Thanks,” I said, then closed the door.

THREE

AS WE PULLED IN behind the group of M.P. vehicles I was conscious of a small, nostalgic pang. In some ways, I’d never been happier than during the three and a half years I’d spent as an M.P. officer.

A slim, fortyish officer stepped briskly to my side. “Major Sigler,” he said. “In charge.”

“I’m Sergeant Hastings,” I replied, immediately conscious of my non-com status. “This is Inspector Markham.”

Sigler nodded and gestured smartly towards the men and vehicles. “The body’s down there. Do you have lab equipment coming?” he asked over his shoulder.

“I wanted to talk to you first. If the victim’s a member of the Armed Forces, and since we’re on government property, we might not have jurisdiction.”

We were passing among the jeeps, sedans, station wagons and the single olive-drab ambulance. A small group of uniformed M.P.’s stood in a knot just ahead. As we walked, I tried to orient myself. We’d driven into the Presidio on a broad four-lane boulevard, then immediately turned off towards the bay on a two-lane paved road. We’d driven along the narrower road for perhaps a quarter mile, then parked. Now we were walking down a gravelled drive, only one car wide. Close beside the narrow roadway trees grew thick on either side, arching overhead.

“Where does this drive go?” I asked.

“Originally,” Sigler answered, “it was made to serve a coastal gun emplacement, about a hundred yards down towards the beach. Now, of course, everything is missiles. But the Army keeps these small feeder roads up, for tourists going to the beach.”

“How far ahead is the beach?”

“About three hundred yards.”

A hundred years ago, the Presidio had been built on a tract of sand dunes, beginning a half mile inland and ending at the water’s edge. Over the years, the Army had planted pine and eucalyptus, and now the Presidio grounds were beautifully wooded, cool and secluded. A perfect place to commit murder, and dispose of a body.

With Markham following, I stepped forward. My throat felt dry; my palms moist. You never got used to the first sight of a dead body.

It lay at the bottom of a sloping six-foot road embankment, almost concealed in the underbrush. Like all dead bodies everywhere, it looked like a discarded bundle of clothing, with shoes, hands and head haphazardly attached at odd, grotesque angles. This one looked even more like a bundle of rags, because he lay with his back towards us, face turned away. One leg was drawn up, the other was thrown out at an awkward angle, the ankle caught in underbrush. He’d probably died before rolling down the embankment.

“We’ve had the site completely photographed from up here,” Sigler was saying. “In colour.”

“I looked down at the gravel at my feet. “Was this area examined?”

“Yes. Nothing. The gravel doesn’t take footprints.”

“No physical evidence?”

“No, nothing.” Sigler was standing beside me now, at the top of the bank. He pointed down to the body. “We haven’t even touched the body, or gone near it. But if you’ll notice, the victim has long hair. So there’s practically no chance that he’s a member of the Armed Forces.”

“How about a civilian employee?”

“Well—” He considered it doubtfully, shaking his head. “It’s possible, of course. But extremely improbable. I simply couldn’t imagine anyone being hired, with hair like that. And I couldn’t imagine him being kept on a civilian job here on the post, if he let his hair grow that long. And, besides, if he was a civilian employed on the post, you’d still have jurisdiction. I checked.”

I turned to Markham.

“You’d better call in for the lab crew,” I said, “and you’d better get four uniformed men and the medical examiner. And make sure they notify the coroner, if they haven’t already.”

Markham began walking at a leisurely pace back down the roadway. For a moment I stood watching him. I was thinking that Markham didn’t like taking orders. None of us does, really. But Markham let it show. Plainly.

I turned back to face the body. I examined the embankment immediately between myself and the body. Nothing but gravel. It had to be disturbed, and since the pictures were already taken, I might as well make the first tracks.

Sliding, I went down slowly, stopping a foot from the body lying wedged against a cluster of undergrowth. Although I couldn’t see the face or the front of the body, I felt sure that he must have rolled—or been rolled—down the embankment, striking the undergrowth with a fair force. One arm was doubled beneath the body; the other stretched straight out beyond the head. The fingers of the outstretched arm were crooked in the typical agony of death, but clutched nothing—another indication that he’d probably died elsewhere. In the centre of the back was a circular bloodstain, approximately four inches in diameter. The surrounding ground was entirely covered with leaves and small twigs.

I straightened up, took out my notebook, and began detailing the victim’s clothing:

Heavy turtleneck sweater, Norwegian type. Brown and white yarn, typical European pattern. Probably cost $30-$40.

Pants, corduroy, wide wale, dark green. Slim. Belt, wide brown leather. Hippie style.

Boots, brown rough-cut, about 10in high.

Glancing over the notes I added: Place, Presidio. Time 11.15 a.m. M.P. officer in charge, Major Sigler. Then, gripping a low branch to keep my balance, I stepped across the body, bracing myself against the springy underbrush as I examined the victim’s features.

The long, dark hair covered some of the face. With my pen, carefully, I flicked the hair aside. If I can possibly help it, I never touch the flesh of a corpse.

He was young, in his early twenties. I studied the face, then wrote: Hair, brown. Worn long, down to the base of neck. Covers about ½in of top ear. Eyes brown, features regular. No facial scars. No distinctive dental features visible.

His head lay on the left cheek, eyes glassily studying a small clump of dried grass. His mouth was slack, hanging perhaps an inch open. His face was long and narrow. He’d probably been a good-looking kid. His forehead was smooth: he looked healthy and clean. Although dressed in the hippie style, his clothing was neat and in good repair. When we found his parents, I decided, they’d probably own their own home, have a car less than three years old, and might be making payments on a colour T.V.

Height about 5ft 10in I wrote. Weight 150lbs.

I glanced at the large bloodstain covering the lower chest and upper abdomen. Near the centre of the stain a few threads of the sweater were torn.

Gunshot wound, I wrote. Frontal entry.

I pocketed the notebook, then stepped back across the body. I knelt down, lightly patting his two hip pockets. Both were empty. The left pocket, though, was slightly worn in the outline of a wallet. I patted the right-hand side pocket, but could feel nothing bulky. The other pocket, on the left side, would have to wait for the medical examiner, before the body could be moved.

I got to my feet, and climbed back to the road. Sigler was standing with arms folded, silently looking at me. Two non-coms were lighting cigarettes.

“You’d better be careful of the butts,” I said, “until after the lab crew leaves.”

Sigler frowned first at me, then at his two subordinates. Both men snuffed out their newly lit cigarettes against the soles of their shoes, returning the cigarettes to the packages.

I asked Sigler, “Did your men photograph the surface of the road for tyre marks?”

Again frowning, Sigler shook his head.

“We’ll do it,” I said. “There’s probably nothing, anyhow. Do you know what time the body was discovered?”

“About ten fifteen.”

“Who discovered it?” I asked, taking out my notebook and entering the time.

“A squad of prisoners on clean-up detail.”

“Are they still here?”

“No. We sent them back to the guardhouse.”

“Were they cleaning the road?”

“No. That is, not primarily. They were actually going down to the beach. But, of course, they policed the area as they went.”

“They spotted the body from up here, then.”

Sigler nodded.

“That’s correct. Fortunately, the sergeant in charge had sense enough to get them out of the area immediately. He left his corporal here, and went back to the main road with the prisoners. He flagged down an M.P. patrol almost immediately.”

“Do you know whether the entrance on Twenty-fifth Avenue is locked at night, Major?”

His tone was frosty as he answered, “Of course I know. It’s locked at ten P.M.”

“What about the other entrances?”

“Besides the main entrance,” Sigler answered, “there’re four others: Marina Boulevard, Lombard Street, Presidio Avenue and Twenty-fifth Avenue. The main entrance, of course, stays open all night. The other four close at ten P.M.”

I nodded, looking thoughtfully down at the body as I said, “If he was dumped here after ten P.M., assuming he was carried in a car, then the car would’ve had to come in through the main gate.”

He didn’t reply, but instead began fiddling impatiently with the flap of his highly polished holster. Finally he shrugged, almost irritably. I thought I knew his problem. He didn’t like being questioned by someone he regarded as a subordinate.

“Do you have any means of checking cars in and out at the main gate, Major?” I asked abruptly, consciously hardening my tone.

“We don’t have any formal checkout system,” he answered. “No licence plate checks, nothing like that. However, during night hours, and especially after the secondary gates are closed, the guards at the main gates have instructions to keep their eyes open. If they should see a carload of teenagers joyriding, for instance, they’d take down the licence number and notify a radio car.”

“I see,” I answered thoughtfully, watching Markham as he approached us at his previous leisurely pace. “Then our first move it seems to me, is to talk with the men on duty at the main gate last night.”

“Assuming,” Sigler said primly, “that the victim was dumped from a car, and the car did enter the post after ten P.M.”

“That’s true, Major,” I answered slowly, directly meeting his eyes. “But we have to start with assumptions. And I’m assuming that, first, the victim wasn’t murdered on this spot. There’s no sign of a struggle, nothing whatever disturbed. Although his fingers are clenched, for instance, there don’t seem to be any leaves or twigs inside his hands. As nearly as I can see, then, he was carried to this spot and rolled down the embankment. Now—” I paused for breath, nodding to Markham as he joined us. “Now, if my second assumption is also logical—that the murderer was driving around last night with the body of his victim in his car, looking for a place to dump it, then I figure it was after ten P.M.”

“How do you figure that?” Sigler asked.

“Well—” I waved a hand. “I just figure that, if I’d murdered someone, I’d wait until it was late—as late as possible.”

The Major was looking abstracted now, thinking about it. “I’m not sure I agree with you on the time element, Sergeant.”

“How do you mean?”

“I mean that if I’d murdered someone, and was driving around with his body in my car, I think I’d be pretty nervous. I also think I’d stay as far away from surveillance as I could. So the last thing I’d do was drive into an area that’s controlled by a single gate, guarded constantly.”

He had a point.

“However,” Sigler was saying, “if the murder car came on to the post before ten—say nine thirty for instance—he’d find his problem pretty simple. He’d just drive through the Twenty-fifth Avenue gate, dump the body, and be back on Twenty-fifth Avenue in five minutes.”

Reluctantly I nodded. The Major was no fool, however pompous.

“Is this area pretty well deserted after, say, nine o’clock?” I asked.

“Yes,” Sigler promptly replied. “Very.”

“How about your patrols? How often do they make this area?”

“Once every half hour until ten. After that, every hour.”

“Was anything unusual reported last night?”

“I haven’t had time to check.”

“How would it be,” I asked in a more conciliatory tone, “if I send Inspector Markham with you, to your headquarters? Could you find out for us whether anything was reported by radio car last night—and then get statements from the guards on duty at the main gate?”

“Certainly.” Obviously, the Major was anxious to leave. It was close to lunch time; I wondered if there was a connection. “Shall I leave some of my men with you?” he asked.

I moved my head to the non-coms. “How about those two, and one of your radio cars? I’ll contact you if we discover anything that might involve you.”

“Good.” Nodding decisively, Sigler strode away. “Good luck,” he said over his shoulder. “Let me know if I can help.”

I briefed Markham, ordering him to stay at M.P. headquarters until I came for him, so that I’d have the car. Then, slowly following after Sigler and Markham, I walked down to the paved road, to wait for the lab crew and the coroner.

FOUR

KREIGER WAS FROWNING DOWN at the eight-by-ten glossy, a full-face shot of the unknown murder victim. The photographer had done a good job. Most post-mortem pictures betray themselves by muddy-looking, unfocused eyes, and a slackness around the mouth. Photographers don’t like the touch of a corpse any more than the rest of us. And, usually, the coroner’s men were unwilling to move the head on its morgue slab until the eyes caught the light, or to push the dead flesh until the mouth looked more lifelike.

“The trouble with these hippies,” Kreiger was saying, “is that they don’t stay put for more than a week or two, at the most.” He reached for his handkerchief. “I’ve got a cold,” he announced. “It’s even money, by God, that I’ll come down with the flu.”

“You should take a hot bath tonight, and then go to bed and sweat,” Markham said. “Pile the blankets on, that’s what I do.”

Kreiger sneezed, then swore. He turned to face Markham.

“What’d you find out at the Presidio?” the captain asked, his tone more official.

Markham took out his notebook. “First of all,” he said briskly, “I got a list of everyone who didn’t answer roll call this morning. As it turned out, there’s only two guys missing in the whole post, and neither one of them fits the victim’s description. However, Major Sigler’s double checking. Some of these cadre outfits don’t bother with bedchecks and roll calls, so it’s possible someone could be gone and still not be missed.”

“What else’d you find out?”

“I checked the M.P. squeal sheets for last night,” Markham said, “but I didn’t get much there, either. There was only one thing that might tie in with the murder, and that was a couple of teenage neckers who got run out of the parking lot next to the beach.”

“How far is that from the victim’s body?”

“Less than a quarter of a mile.”

“Were these neckers cited, or anything?”

Markham shook his head. “They were just shined, and told to move on.”

“What time was that?”

Markham glanced at his notebook. “About ten thirty.”

“Any licence number?”

“No. But the car was a red Ford, ’64 or ’65. I talked to the guy who shined them. He said both the boy and the girl were sixteen or seventeen. The boy had long blond hair—for a boy—and the girl had short dark hair.”

Kreiger snorted. “For a girl.”

Dark hair—like Claudia’s.

When she was a little girl, she’d loved to play cowboys and Indians. And, with her dark hair, she’d always insisted on being an Indian girl, rescued by the cowboys.

I felt Kreiger staring at me. “Did the guard at the gate remember seeing them come into the Presidio?” I asked.

“No. But, of course, they could’ve come in by another entrance.”

“How do you figure?”

Markham shrugged. Addressing me, his manner was considerably less formal. “I figure,” he said shortly, “that they’d probably been necking for more than a half hour. They were pretty rumpled, according to the M.P.”

“As I remember my hot-blooded youth,” Kreiger put in, “it doesn’t take long to get rumpled.”

“Well, anyhow,” Markham said, a little defensively, “they didn’t come in by the main gate any time before eight P.M., according to the guard on duty. That’s when they changed shifts, eight P.M. And he claims he’d’ve remembered a red Ford with two kids in it.”

“What else’d you get?” Kreiger was again reaching for his handkerchief.

“Not much,” Markham admitted. “Sigler checked the two radio cars that patrol the area where the body was found, but they didn’t report anything unusual last night. Nothing at all.”

“What intervals do the patrols run?”

Markham frowned, riffling the notebook pages. But I knew there was nothing in the notebook. He was stalling, hoping to remember. Finally, though, he was forced to admit that he didn’t know. I decided not to volunteer the information, at least not then. But, sure enough, Kreiger swung around to me.

“How about it, Frank?” he asked.

“They run half-hour patrols until ten,” I answered shortly, avoiding Markham’s eyes. “After ten, it’s once an hour. By then, though, the secondary gates are closed.”

“They close at ten, is that right?”

I nodded.

Kreiger opened the manila folder and withdrew two sheets of onionskin. It was the coroner’s report.

“It says here,” Kreiger announced, scanning the report, “that the victim was probably between nineteen and twenty-three years old, apparently in good health. They figure, assuming that the victim ate dinner between six and seven, that he died between eight and nine. In other words, the process of digestion was approximately two hours along. And that checks out with the temperature of the body, and rigor mortis, and so forth.”

“What else did the coroner say?” I asked. “What about the wound?”

Kreiger nodded, the question anticipated. “First of all,” he said, “there weren’t any powder burns on the face or neck, which certainly seems to indicate that, wherever he was killed, it wasn’t in a car. The bullet nicked the sternum, passed through the right ventricle of the heart, and emerged about two inches to the right of the spine. If it’d hit a few more bones, it might’ve stayed in the body.”

“Either that,” I offered, “or it was a pretty powerful gun.”

“They guess,” Kreiger replied, “that it was a .38, judging by the impression on the sternum. But that’s only speculation. Anyhow, it’s obvious that the victim died right away. No fuss, and not much muss, since the heart quit pumping almost immediately. There probably wasn’t any excessive bleeding, beyond the blood found soaked into the victim’s clothing.”

“That sweater,” I said, “could’ve absorbed a lot of blood.”

Kreiger nodded absently, still scanning the report. “That’s about all,” he said finally. “No visible scars, no especially significant identifying features. Nothing.”

“I figured,” I said slowly, “that he probably came from a middle-class background. I mean, his clothing was fairly expensive, and his appearance wasn’t scroungy. And when the coroner says that his health and his teeth were good, it seems to add up.”

“Fine,” said Markham drily. “That really narrows it down—to the whole middle class.”

I decided not to smile.

Kreiger was rummaging in the folder, extracting another report form. “I don’t have much from the lab yet,” he said, “except that they didn’t find any preliminary evidence of powder burns on the sweater, and nothing significant impacted in the soles of the shoes.”

“How about clothing labels?” I asked.

Kreiger shook his head. “Manufacturer’s labels in the sweater, pants, shoes and belt, but no store labels. It’ll take a lot of checking.”

“If that sweater was bought here,” Markham offered, “it shouldn’t be too hard to trace. Those’re pretty rare.”

“And pretty expensive,” I added.

“You don’t have to tell me,” Kreiger sighed. “My oldest kid decided he couldn’t make it another month without one of those sweaters. They’re woven in Ireland or the Scandinavian countries, a lot of them—and they cost a good, solid forty bucks. The problem is, though, that they’re popular as the devil right now, so there’re plenty around, even at forty bucks a throw.”

“How about the contents of his pockets?”

Kreiger shook his head. “Cleaned out. Everything. Not even a handkerchief. Except for—”

“That seems to indicate robbery,” Markham interrupted.

“Hmmm.” It was a noncommittal sound.

“Well, doesn’t it?” Markham insisted.

Pointedly, Kreiger ignored him, saying instead, “There’s just one thing that the murderer must’ve overlooked.” He paused, looking at me ironically. “A subway token,” he said. “A New York subway token. It was in the watch pocket of the victim’s pants, along with a dime and a nickel.”

I snorted. “Great. A transient. He could’ve been just passing through. And when he’s missed, he’ll be missed in New York.”

Kreiger shrugged, replacing the lab report in the manila folder. Then, depositing the eight-by-ten picture on the folder, he slid both across the desk towards me. “I was talking to the city editor of the Sentinel a little while go,” he said, “concerning something else. And he promised he’d run the victim’s picture on the front page tomorrow morning. So you’d better get the artist to make a sketch of this, Frank, and get the sketch right over to the Sentinel!”

I nodded. Then, glancing at Markham, I quietly asked Kreiger, “Is there anything on that—that matter we were discussing this morning?”

Kreiger also glanced briefly at Markham, and then said shortly, “The subject’s lawyer knows exactly where they stand, and I think they’ll go along.”

“What about Starbuck?” Markham asked, unwilling to be out of the conversation for long.

“Starbuck’s dead,” Kreiger said, rising to his feet. “Didn’t I tell you?”

“Dead?”

“Yeah. They were taking him across that—you know—that bridge-of-a-thing they’ve got at the county hospital. They had him in a strait jacket, and everything—two guards, everything according to the book. But then, about halfway across, he jerked away and threw himself against one of the windows. The security screen gave way—it turned out later that the fastening had been rusted—and he went right down. Twenty feet, on to the parking lot. He hit the side of a pickup truck, and it almost broke him in two.”

“One less junkie,” Markham said. “Just think how many thousand dollars he saved the state of California.”

For a long, silent moment we looked at him. Then, quietly, Kreiger said, “Just think how much the state would save if suddenly all the criminals quit being criminals. Our salaries, for instance—that’d be quite a saving right there. All that’d be necessary would be a few traffic cops, and maybe a couple of guys to handle the barking dog complaints.”

“Well,” Markham said defensively, “it’s the parents who’ve got themselves to blame. My dad, he’d’ve beat me black and blue, if he’d’ve ever caught me smoking pot.” Almost sulkily he opened the door and stepped out into the hallway, then walked away without another word, shoulders hunched.

“A cop like Markham,” Kreiger was saying, “it’s pretty simple for him, in lots of ways. He’s got it all figured out. There’s the good guys, and the bad guys—and there aren’t any left over.”

“What about the nurse?” I asked, moving towards the hallway. “What happened to her?”

“She died, too. They’re both dead.”

I sighed. “Well, I’d better get that sketch made. Take care of your cold.”

FIVE

BY NINE O’CLOCK THE following morning we’d received more than a dozen calls promising positive identification of the murder victim. Most of the callers were anonymous, and sounded like kooks or cranks. But Markham took one call that sounded promising, from a woman in the Sunset district. I’d taken another. My informant was Cecile Franks, the owner and proprietress of a coffee house called the Crushed Chrysanthemum, at Haight Street near Masonic.

The intersection of Haight and Masonic is where it’s happening, according to San Francisco hippies, and most of it seems to happen in or around the Crushed Chrysanthemum. We pulled up in front, at about eleven twenty A.M. Even on a Thursday morning the sidewalk was already crowded with hippies—all sizes, shapes, colours and temperaments.

Markham switched off the engine, then turned to stare. “Look at them,” he said, disgusted. “Half of them shot full of LSD and STP, half of them probably loaded with VD, and all of them too damn lazy to do an hour’s work.”

I was watching a tall, long-faced youth ambling towards us, walking with a kind of gangling, loose-jointed good humour. He wore leather sandals, baggy blue jeans, a fringed buckskin vest and no shirt. His hair grew to his shoulders, held in place by a blue bandana. Colourful Indian beads hung across his narrow, bare chest; rimless glasses perched far down on his long nose. At his side walked a beautiful girl, draped toga-fashion in what looked like a bright-patterned bedspread. Her blonde hair dropped in long, straight strands almost to her waist; her feet were bare.

Claudia could be there. Anywhere.

And Tomilson, too.

Or they could still be sleeping—drowsily caressing each other, sleepily murmuring.

I heard Markham still talking about LSD, and the hippies, and their costumes, and their dirt, and their love-making.

“Come on,” I said, shouldering my way to the doorway. “We aren’t getting anywhere out here.”

The Crushed Chrysanthemum looked as if someone had gone through the city’s salvage shops and junk stores, furnishing the huge room like a jumbo hippies’ pad, complete with throbbing hi-fi, psychedelic posters, flower garlands, incense, and bizarre bric-a-brac from the ’20s and ’30s. Threadbare carpets were laid two and three thick on the floor. Heavy furniture trailed shreds of white cotton stuffing. The walls and windows were completely covered with a haphazard array of brightly coloured drapes, tablecloths, bedspreads and just plain yard goods. From the ceiling hung billows of what seemed to be multicoloured parachutes, some of them jungle mottled, some segmented orange and blue, some a gleaming nylon white.

And everywhere lounged the hippies—talking very quietly, seldom laughing, sipping coffee. A few couples were dancing, but most seemed to prefer sitting or lying. Close by, a girl was stretched full length on a tattered, lumpy sofa while a companion caressed her toes and ankles with urgent, ardent fingers. At first I thought the companion was a long-haired boy. Looking closer, I discovered I was wrong.

Markham’s voice sounded almost awed as he said, “This place must be violating a hundred ordinances a minute. Is this where they’re supposed to have marijuana parties upstairs?”

“I guess so. I’ve never been down in Haight Ashbury much. These hippies don’t seem to get themselves killed or knifed.”

“I can believe it. I don’t know where they’d get the energy.”

I led the way to a huge carved refectory table on which rested an espresso coffee machine, a conventional coffee maker, a tray piled with cups and an assortment of pastries. A young man smiled at us, but said nothing.

“Where can we find Cecile Franks?” I asked.

“Are you from the police?”

“Yes. She’s expecting us.”

“I know. She’s back there.” Preceding us, he drew back a moth-eaten red velvet curtain, fringed in tarnished gold.

A slim dark-haired girl sat at a huge roll-top desk. She wore dark-blue slacks and a simple white silk shirt, open at the throat. Her hair was drawn up into a ponytail. She was talking on the phone, and as we entered she motioned us to a pair of carved Chinese teak chairs placed on either side of a low marble table. She smiled at me briefly, her brown eyes quick and shrewd as she looked me over.

“If we can’t get the paper at the right price,” she said into the phone, “then let’s try Los Angeles. I’ll tell you what the problem is, Marve: they don’t think we’ve got much volume potential, and they don’t feel like bothering with us. So tell them that we’ve already sold a hundred thousand of these posters—and that’s only the West Coast. There’s the whole rest of the country; we’ve got a good chance to go all the way on this thing, but we can’t wait. Make it plain that we wouldn’t even be talking with them if we weren’t looking for a better price than we’ve got already. Tell them that—”

A telephone buzzer interrupted; a second line was blinking.

“I’ve got another call, Marve. If you can’t get anywhere with him, tell him to call me in about an hour. And in the meantime, double check with Jerry Owens, that drummer with The Calumet Sextet. He’s the only one with any initiative. Tell them we can’t do business with their agent, so if they want the September fourteenth booking they’d better get that agent straightened out. Tell them we’ll offer sixty-five hundred for the single concert—no options, no subsidiary rights. Just a single package deal.” Without ceremony she clicked to the second line.

“Hello?”

She listened for a long moment, frowning—tapping irritably at the desk. Finally, drawing a deep breath, she said: “I’ve heard all this before. Now—” She paused, taking deliberate control of herself as she said very slowly and distinctly, “Now, the Sentinel ran a story two months ago about these alleged pot parties we’re supposed to have upstairs every Friday. And I just heard from my lawyer today that the Sentinel’s offering to settle with us for ten thousand dollars damages. So unless your magazine’s got ten thousand dollars extra, I wouldn’t advise you to run the story. I’d advise you to—What?”

She listened, nodding with a bored, monotonous movement of her dark, sleek head. Her face had a kind of thin, hollow-cheeked Semitic intensity. If she’d bothered with make-up, I decided, she’d probably be striking.

“The precise facts are,” she said abruptly, as if she were interrupting the speaker, “that I own this building, with a couple of other people. It’s a corporation. We rent out the apartments upstairs, and what happens up there doesn’t have anything to do with us. They can be reading poetry, or smoking hashish, or doing a little white slaving or maybe just watching T.V. But as long as they pay their rent, and don’t make any noise or break up the place, which they don’t, then I’ve got no complaint. The rest of it’s up to them and—” She glanced at me. “—and the police. It doesn’t have anything to do with me. Now, speaking of the police I’ve got a couple of them here right now, waiting. We’re—” Her dark, intense eyes came mischievously alive. “We’re collaborating on a case, as a matter of fact. So you’re going to have to excuse me. But if I were you, I’d talk to my lawyers before I put anything down on paper. Unless, of course, you want to do a story on the Crushed Chrysanthemum. There, I’ll help you, provided I have approval rights.” She listened for a moment, nodding. “Right. Anytime. Good-bye.”

She pressed the disconnect button, then the intercom buzzer. “Take the calls out there for a while, will you, Bronco? I’ve had it.” Without waiting for a reply she hung up the phone and turned in her swivel chair to face us.

“I’m Cecile Franks. Sorry to keep you waiting. You’re probably wondering what my bag is, as they say. Well, the fact is that I did my Ph. D. thesis on what makes the hippies tick, and I decided to take a year out and do a little field work. My field is Behavioural Psychology. My father’s a successful businessman. We figured that with ten thousand dollars capital and my father backing me, I could double the initial investment in eighteen months, giving the hippies what they want. And that’s about how it’s working out. So far, I’ve been able to figure out which button to push, and when. That’s what it’s all about in the Haight, you know. You create just the right mood, and find just the right sound, and you’ve got yourself a captive market, as Daddy would say. This summer, there’s already been forty thousand hippies through San Francisco, and we figure each one spent between two and three hundred dollars. Maybe more. Hippies, you know, are really refugees from the middle class. You’d be surprised how many dividend cheques we cash in here, every week.”

I glanced sidelong at Markham. He was blinking.

“I’m Sergeant Hastings,” I said. “This is Inspector Markham.” I took both the artist’s drawing and a small photo of the victim from my pocket. I gave her the drawing first.

“Is this the drawing you identified in the paper, Miss Franks?”

She glanced at the drawing, then nodded. I gave her the photo. She swallowed. “Was that taken—after he died?”

“Yes.”

Again she nodded. “Well, I’m pretty sure he’s been in here at least once or twice. I wouldn’t swear to it. But I think his hair was shorter, then. And that makes a difference.”

“Do you know his name?”

“I think it’s Robertson—Don Robertson. But I’m not sure. He used to come in with someone I know, once in a while.”

“What’s the name of the person you know?”

“Frank Walters. They call him Snow Boy.”

“Why do they call him that?” Markham asked.

“I couldn’t tell you.”

“Where can we find Frank Walters?” I asked.

“He lives six or eight blocks from here.”

“How long ago was Robertson in here?”

She thought about it, then said, “I guess two, three months ago. Give or take a few weeks.”

“Did you notice anything particular about him, that might help us?”

She hesitated, glancing at me with her dark, quiet eyes. “He was very quiet,” she said thoughtfully. “There wasn’t much to notice. But—” Again she hesitated, then finally decided to say, deliberately, “But if I had to guess, I’d say he was high on something pretty hard. That’s how I happened to notice him. We keep a close watch for those around here. I don’t know whether you know it or not, but this place is completely, absolutely clean. However, every once in a while—frequently, in fact—they come in after they’ve been smoking, or taking a trip. We get rid of them as soon as we can, but I’d be lying if I said we bounce them as soon as they wander in. There’s just too much grass and acid in the Haight to keep it all out. But this is strictly a commercial enterprise, as I told you. I operate this place, plus a business publishing psychedelic posters, plus I’ve got a controlling interest in the Haight Street Auditorium. I can’t afford to waste my time down at City Hall.”

“In other words,” Markham said, “you’re telling us that you’ve got influence. Is that it?” His tone was unpleasant.

She looked him over, and then said quietly, “My lawyer used to be a law partner of Supervisor Gilliam. You can figure out whether that’s influence. It sure doesn’t hurt. And my father plays golf with the mayor once in a while. That doesn’t hurt, either. I’m telling you because you brought it up. But, in the meantime, I volunteered to help you identify him.” She pointed to the pictures, still in my hand.

“Listen, Miss Franks,” Markham said, his face flushed. “You’ve got a bunch of hippies out there, just—just lying around, practically making love to each other. And you’ve got a place that looks pretty dirty to me, to be serving food. And, for all I know, you’re violating the fire codes, with all this fabric draped around.”

She took a moment, then said deliberately, “The love part, I’d say, is a matter of interpretation. You’ve got yours. I’ve got mine. The law has its own. As for the dirt, it’s not as dirty as it looks. I told you I’ve spent a lot of time trying to decide what’s motivating these kids. I won’t go into it all now, but lack of cleanliness—dirt—is a positive affirmation to them. It’s a manifestation of their rebellion. Most of them will end up badgering their kids to wash behind their ears, just like the rest of us. But, for now, they dig dirt, if you’ll pardon the play on words. So it looks a little dirty out there—repeat—looks. Now—” She drew a deep breath. “Now, as far as the, ah, decor is concerned, the fire marshal comes regularly. Everything is fireproofed, and I’ve got the certificates to prove it. So—”

A girl came through the velvet curtains. She was short and dumpy; she wore a tattered Beethoven sweatshirt and tight blue jeans, shredded and patched. She was barefooted. Her dark, Slavic-looking face was set and suspicious. Her cheekbones were high; her lips were thick.

I glanced at Miss Franks, expecting her to dismiss the dumpy girl. Instead, faintly sighing, Miss Franks said shortly, “These men are from the police. They’re tracking down that picture in the paper this morning. I told them I thought it was Don Robertson—that quiet little guy who followed Frank Walters around sometimes.” Turning to us she said shortly, “This is Maxine Summers.”

Maxine Summers sat in a sidechair, watching us intently. Her eyes, I saw, were very dark, almost black. She looked intelligent, aggressive and unpleasant.

“Do you work here, Miss Summers?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“She’s my assistant,” Cecile Franks interposed.

“Can you help us find Frank Walters, Miss Franks?” I asked.

“I’ll get someone to help you. But before I do, I want it very clearly understood that I don’t have anything to do with Walters. We used to do a little business, but not any more. I’ve got a good reason for saying that.”

“What’s the reason?” I asked.

“The reason is that Walters recently acquired a pretty good corner on the local LSD and STP concession, according to gossip. Just a couple of days ago two detectives from your own Narcotics Squad had Walters down to City Hall, again according to the gossip, And, in addition—” She paused before saying, “In addition, your colleagues even questioned me, concerning Walters.”

“Why’d they question you?” Markham asked.

“They questioned me,” she said, still ignoring Markham, “because they’re trying to find out who’s bankrolling Walters, alias Snow Boy.”

“Bankrolling his LSD operations, you mean?” I asked.

She nodded.

“Maybe,” Markham said, “we should take over with you where the Narco Squad left off.”

“If you want to do that,” she said evenly, “you’d better say so now. I happen to know my lawyer’s leaving town for a few days, and I wouldn’t want to take any kind of action without him.”

“What do you mean, ‘take any kind of—’”

“Come on,” I cut in, pointing to the door. “Let’s find Walters.” I waited for them to go out, Markham first. Maxine Summers was walking close beside me, and as I glanced at her I was surprised to feel a sense of physical revulsion. It had been a long time since I’d felt revulsion for anyone. It’s not one of the luxuries a cop can afford.

Then I realised that she wanted to talk to me, without the others hearing. I dropped back several feet from the service counter. She was looking at me with a shrewd, hostile suspicion as she said. “How’d you happen to come here?”

Watching her, I said, “Miss Franks called us.”

“She asked you to come? Here?”

I nodded.

Her dark, intense little eyes narrowed as she looked directly into mine. Something in her manner seemed almost threatening. Then, suddenly, she turned away, disappearing behind the velvet curtain.

Miss Franks and the boy called Bronco were conferring. I saw Bronco point with a furtive, abbreviated gesture to the back of the huge room. Cecile Franks nodded, then turned to us. “Do you see that older man back there?” She asked.

He sat half turned away from us—a stocky, swarthy man in his middle forties, wearing his hair almost shoulder length. His beard was streaked with grey, his sweatshirt ragged and wrinkled, his blue jeans stained and ripped. As I looked at him, I felt a kind of wry, reluctant recognition. Here was someone my own age. Twenty years ago they’d have called him a Bohemian. Ten years ago they’d have labelled him a beatnik. Now, surrounded by youngsters in their twenties, he seemed almost too old for classification. I sighed.

“That’s Larry Vannuchi,” she was saying. “He can tell you where to find Frank Walters. Vannuchi’s the local guru.”

“The what?” Markham asked.

“The sage, or at least the most articulate exponent of saying everything and nothing simultaneously. But if you’re curious about anything in Haight Ashbury, Vannuchi’s the one to ask. He’ll tell you where to find Frank Walters.”

I thanked her, made sure she’d be available for questioning during the next few days, and then followed Markham.

“Are you Larry Vannuchi?” Markham asked.

The stocky man smiled—a wide, knowing smile. His lips were full and red deep within his tangled beard. Vannuchi weighed about two hundred, and probably stood five foot nine. His face was coarsely formed, like a longshoreman’s, but his voice was thin and reedy.

“Are you from the local constabulary?”

“Yes,” I answered. “We’re trying to locate someone. We understand you can help us.”

His dark eyes were briefly, shrewdly appraising. “Who’re you trying to find?”

I moved my head towards the front door. “Let’s just step outside a minute.”

He gave me another quick, shrewd glance, then turned to his audience. “If I don’t return by nightfall, children, compose me an elegy on the sitar. Then come and play it beneath the jailhouse window by moonlight. Beat the drum slowly and blow the lute lowly—especially if you can’t find a sitar.” His manner had become artificially loud and gay, like an actor, speaking his lines. Now he got briskly to his feet, walking ahead of us through the door. His gait was compact and rolling, as if he might have once gone to sea.

On the sidewalk outside Vannuchi looked from me to Markham, twice. His broad, playfully impudent grin had changed to a kind of thoughtful, mischievous, twisting of his full red lips. “I bet I can tell you,” he said suddenly, “who you’re going to ask me about.”

“Who?” Markham asked, not amused.

“You’re going to ask me about the murdered kid in the paper this morning.”

“That’s right,” I said. “Who is he, Vannuchi?”

“From the picture,” came the prompt answer, “I’d say it was Donny Robertson. One of the casualties of Lotus-land-by-the-Bay. By the way,” he added smoothly, “what’s your name? I don’t think you told me.”

To myself, I smiled. He was one of the cool ones.

“I’m Detective Sergeant Hastings,” I answered, playing it straight. “This is Inspector Markham.”

Genial and relaxed, Vannuchi nodded first to me, then to Markham. My partner snorted.

“Then it actually was Robertson,” Vannuchi was saying. “I wondered.”

“We’re not sure yet; we’re still checking. As a matter of fact, really, we’re looking for a man named Frank Walters. We understand he’s, ah, an associate of Robertson’s.”

“So I’ve heard,” came the cautious reply.

“We also understand,” Markham said, “that you can tell us where to locate Walters. Right?”

Vannuchi elaborately shrugged. “I suppose I could. I know most of the characters around here.”

“Do you live in Haight Ashbury?” I asked.

“Yes.” He pointed upward, above the Crushed Chrysanthemum. “Cecile Franks is my landlady. You see, I’ve already figured out that you’ve met her.”

“She told us,” Markham said, “that there’s lots goes on up there. Does that include you?”

“In the first place, Inspector, I’d be willing to bet that she didn’t admit any such thing. And, secondly, the phrase ‘a lot goes on’ means different things to different people.” He paused thoughtfully, surveying Markham. “God, I’d hate to be a cop. You start out first thing in the morning feeling for a corpse’s pulse. You spend the next few hours bullying people into thinking they’re even worse than they are, hoping they’ll break down and confess. So, if you’re lucky, you end up the day turning the key on someone who’s too stupid or drunk or maybe too beat up to know what he’s admitting.” Again he shook his head, still coolly looking Markham over. “It must curdle the soul. It really must.”

I saw Markham’s colour rising.

“All right, Vannuchi,” he said. “That’s our job description. Now how about yours?” He jerked open the cruiser’s back-seat door. “Maybe we better get inside and talk about you for a while. Like how much money you’ve got, for instance. You’re looking more like a vag to me by the minute.”

He didn’t even blink. “If you want me in the back seat, Inspector, you’re going to have to stuff me in.” He shifted his weight to face Markham squarely.

I sighed. “All right, Vannuchi. You’ve made your point; you’re a tough guy. Now just show us where we can find Frank Walters. Then you’re excused.”

He smiled, pivoted, and promptly got into the car. “Certainly, Sergeant. We can be there in two minutes. Drive on, Inspector Markham. I’ll direct you.” He slammed the door. I got into the front seat. Markham jerked the car away from the kerb.

“Which way, Vannuchi?” I asked, turning back to face him.

“Four blocks down, then turn to the left.”

“What do you do for a living, Vannuchi?” I asked. “Just out of curiosity.”

“Since it’s just out of curiosity, I’ll be happy to admit that I do nothing. Absolutely nothing. I am in the approximate position of Socrates, in Athens. The community provides for me, so that I may enlighten them.”

“A guru.”

“Precisely.”

“What did you do before you became a guru?”

The humour faded from his eyes. “Before I was a guru, I was a success, Sergeant. I am, in fact, a graduate of the Proctor Institute of Design, and I was considered one of the finest, most imaginative, most successful industrial designers on the West Coast. But my clients were legion; my employees were happy and well paid. At age thirty-seven, I had a thriving business, a house in town and a thirty-thousand-dollar hideaway at Bolinas Beach. My wife was blonde, provocative, and as quick with a quip as she was with a swizzle stick. My sons were growing up straight and strong. However, unhappily, my wife fell in love with another man. I, therefore, fell in love with another woman. I also started to drink. I got ulcers. My wife got a divorce. My business first faltered, then failed altogether. Creditors fell upon my assets, fighting it out with my wife’s lawyers. My ulcers began bleeding, but I kept on drinking. Finally I became an embarrassment to myself, as well as to others. That was about three years ago. Since then I—”

“Excuse me,” I interrupted, pointing to a callbox on the next corner. “I’d better call in,” I said to Markham.

He pulled over to the kerb. I checked in with Communications, and was instructed to contact Captain Kreiger.

“Hello, Frank?”

“Yessir.”

“Anything doing?”

When I’d finished Kreiger said, “I’ve got something for you, supplementing what you’ve already got. First, it wasn’t ten minutes after you left that Hickman, from Narco, knocked on my door to ask whether we’re still trying to identify the DOA. It turns out they already had a file on Robertson, or at least a report. They—”

“You mean to say that—?”

“The report was actually appended to their file on Walters,” he went on, “so there wasn’t any goof. Robertson hadn’t ever been booked. And, besides, Hickman has been short handed too, because of the flu. It’s just one of those things. Anyhow, the point is that this Don Robertson was suspected of peddling LSD for Frank Walters. But, other than just the brief report, Narco doesn’t have any background on Robertson.”

“What about Walters? Anything on him?”

“Everything but evidence, apparently. He’s smart. Plus there’s so much drug peddling in the Haight Ashbury that the Narco Squad is running around in circles. They’re understaffed even to handle heroin effectively, let alone LSD and pot. However, there’s some evidence that organised crime is trying to get control of LSD and pot. They’ve tried in New York, and seem to be trying here. Do you know much about that Karen Forest murder, six weeks ago?”

“Nothing except the departmental briefings.”

“Well, she seems to have been tied in with Walters, and since Walters was tied in with Robertson, and since Robertson’s death was probably connected with the fact that he was pushing LSD, I’d better give you the run down.

“Karen Forest came from society, as you probably remember. Or at least she came from the lower fringes of society. She was forty-two, divorced, and had a son going to Harvard, if I recall correctly. Apparently she started hanging around Haight Ashbury out of curiosity, or something. But then she started experimenting with drugs, and then she started sleeping around, according to the file. She thought she was recapturing her lost youth, I guess. Anyhow, she finally bought a house in Haight Ashbury, even though she kept her apartment in Pacific Heights. But, more and more, she was getting hooked on hippiedom, or whatever they call it. Then, six weeks ago, she was found dead.”

“She was shot, wasn’t she?”

“Right.”

“How does Frank Walters fit in?”

“Apparently Walters was one of the men she was playing around with. We uncovered two or three men, at least, but we spent the most time questioning Walters. For one thing, there’s no question that he’s involved in the drug trade. And for another, he’s a Negro. So—”

“He’s a Negro?”

“Yes. And I have to admit he’s a pretty handsome specimen too. It’s easy to understand how any woman would be very attracted to him.”

“Do you think Walters killed her?”

“I don’t know. He couldn’t account for his movements during the time she was killed. But, otherwise, he told a pretty consistent story. Friedman handled the investigation. You can get the details from him.”

“What about the gun?”

“The bullet passed through the body and splattered against the wall. It just happened to hit a nail, so it was a total loss. Walters, it turned out, had a gun. A .38. But he’s had it for years—long before he got into the LSD business. So there wasn’t much we could do about tying in the gun.”

“What’d Walters say about the murder?”

“Well, the murder occurred sometime between nine P.M. and eleven P.M. But Walters claims he was in a movie during that time. We couldn’t get a corroborating witness, but then we couldn’t place him anywhere else—at the murder scene, for instance. Or even in Haight Ashbury. So we finally had to give up on him.”

“How’s organised crime come into it?”

“Well, that was mostly Walters’ idea. You see, we had a tip that Karen Forest had supplied Walters with money to make at least one marijuana buy in Mexico. So we put it to Walters that he’d had a falling out with Karen Forest, either for romantic or financial reasons. He said that, assuming he and Karen had some business dealings, then the Outfit might have murdered her—both to put pressure on him and also to cut off his funds.”

“Makes sense.”

“I suppose so. There’s a rumour that Karen Forest had more than ten thousand dollars in cash in the house when she was murdered. So the Outfit could’ve combined profit with pleasure, so to speak.”

“The motive could’ve been robbery, though, pure and simple.”

“Yes, that’s true. Except that Friedman doesn’t think it was an ordinary breaking and entering. Mrs. Forest probably let the murderer into the house, for one thing. Also, the murderer knew exactly where to look for the money.”

“And you think Robertson could’ve been murdered for the same reason as Karen Forest—to put pressure on Walters?”

“Exactly.”

“Well, then, I guess I’d better have a talk with Walters, the sooner the better. Anything else?”

“No. But why don’t you and Markham come in after you’ve talked with Walters? Bring Walters with you, if you think there’s anything worth sweating him about. In the meantime, Hickman’ll check on Frankie Frichetti, who’s apparently come out from the East to look things over for the Outfit. And I’ll ask Friedman whether he’s got any rumbles on the Karen Forest murder. So we might have something by this afternoon. Have you got anything on Robertson’s movements prior to the crime?”

“No, nothing.”

“Well, maybe Walters’ll know where Robertson comes from. That’s the goddam problem with these hippies—no one knows where they come from. So you’d better work on that angle: his known associates and his recent movements. I’ll see what I can do about tips from the street.”

SIX

MARKHAM PUNCHED IMPATIENTLY AT the doorbell button, then banged twice on the door.

“He’s in there, I bet.” He pointed to the newspaper lying still folded on the worn hallway carpeting.

I stepped closer, my finger on my lips, my ear pressed to the flimsy door panel.

“Is there a manager?” I whispered.

“I doubt it.”

“Why don’t you—” I caught a faint sound. “All right, Walters,” I said loudly. “Open up. Police.” Listening, I heard footsteps softly approaching—barefooted paddings on a bare wood floor, I nodded to Markham, then stepped a long pace back. He moved to one side, knees slightly bent, coat unbuttoned, fingers nervously flexing. Ready. A night chain rattled. I felt myself braced.

The door swung inward, revealing a Negro clad only in chino pants. His back was turned disgustedly; he was already walking back down the narrow, dark hallway. I went inside. Behind me, Markham closed the door. I watched Walters stop in the centre of the spacious living room, then slowly pivot to face me. He was built thick and muscular; his pants were very tight. Nothing concealed.

He stood slack and slouched, head loosely hanging, arms listless at his sides. He was about my height, about my weight, two twenty. His shoulders were wide, his waist slim; he was probably in his middle twenties.

He looked sick—unsteady on his feet, as if his knees might buckle.

Markham moved forward, placing his hand on Walters’ shoulder.

“Sit down, Walters.”

The shoulder moved, but the black man didn’t. He slowly raised his head to stare at Markham. The black eyes seemed deadened, uncomprehending.

Yet his voice was low and precise: “Don’t shove me, man. Black is beautiful. So don’t shove.” As he said it, his eyes came alive, glittered with a brief hatred, then once more died. His head bobbed down. The muscles of his bared torso were taut beneath the smooth dark skin.

He seemed high—stoned on something hard and powerful. Had he been sampling his own wares?

I stepped closer, saying, “Look at me, Walters.”

He suddenly smiled, his thick lips stretching foolishly. It was a mocking burlesque. He cocked his head aside, saying in a broad imitation of a plantation drawl, “I’ll bet you’re the boss. Us criminals, we can spot you boss men every time. You carry those big guns, and you’re dead behind your eyes. Like the judge. Even the gas meter man. I looked at him yesterday, and he was dead. Just like you people are, boss. That’s what my granddaddy would’ve had to call you: boss. You all used to ride horses, knee-deep in dogs, hunting niggers. All through those swamps, with all those black, hungry alligators. But me, I’m free. Liberated. Black is beautiful, boss-man.”

“Sit down, Walters. Right now.” I pointed to the sofa.

Again the flicker of a dangerous, controlled hatred glinted in the dark eyes, once more alert. Then he elaborately shrugged and suddenly collapsed on the sofa. Keeping my eye on him, I beckoned Markham to a far corner of the room, whispering, “See if you can find out where he was Tuesday night. Then wait for me in the car, I might be able to get something out of him, alone. With two of us, we’d have to do it the hard way.”

Markham snorted, eyeing Walters. “That’s all right with me. He could use a going over.”

“Maybe he could, but I couldn’t. This suit is new.”

Again he snorted, his eyes sullen, regretting the lost opportunity to get his hands on a black man. I’d seen Markham like that before—often.

“We should frisk him, at least,” he said.

“He hasn’t got anything. You can see.”

Shaking his head in a subtle arc of resigned, disapproving bafflement, Markham abruptly turned away.

“All right, Walters,” I said. “I don’t have much time, and I want some answers.”

At the sound of my voice his head jerked up, banging the wall behind. “I’m awake, boss-man. I’m just relaxing. Thinking. I got to save my strength, you know. You’re going to ask me questions. And, man, I got to be ready. I got to think. I got to—”

“How long have you known Donny Robertson, Walters?”

“Oh—” He shrugged, head lolling loosely, relaxed and indifferent. “Maybe a year. He’s dead, you know.” He smiled. “Did you know that, boss? Old Donny, he must’ve goofed. He came to the Haight, and lingered around, and pretty soon he discovered that sure enough, he couldn’t find all that love and all that soul-stuff everyone else seems to find—that pearly-white cloud way up in the sky, where you lie all stretched out, reclining on one elbow, maybe, just a-looking down, dreaming and smiling. So old Donny, he got on the big bird instead of a cloud, and flew off to New York. He took the money, and he skimmed off across the sky. And then he flew back.” Walters frowned, then shook his head, saddened and bewildered-seeming. I watched him carefully. Whatever drug he’d taken, it was stimulating him to talk in a kind of loose, free-flowing stream of consciousness.

“And then he got killed,” I said. “Tuesday night.”

“We all get killed, man. The slaves, they’re grubbing along between those rows of cotton, just watching their chance to get at old massa, up in the big house on the hill. And old massa, he’s handing out the whips and the guns, and starving the dogs. Maybe he raises baby alligators, too, and then turns them loose. That’s happened in New York, you know. Maybe San Francisco, too. Little boys, they buy little alligators. Then Mommy flushes them down the toilet. And pretty soon they’re coming out of the manholes, eight feet long.”

“You’re a pretty fanciful guy, Walters. Do you always have this much to say?”

He momentarily closed his eyes, then looked at me with a sudden lucid shrewdness. “I’m gently bred and college educated, boss-man. My I.Q. approaches genius, and when I was a kid they used to call me ‘the professor’, because I’d plan all the candy heists at the corner store. Later, we went into hub caps. However, my father, the postal sorter, made sure that I got to college. I finished three years before my father the postal sorter got killed one night on his way home from a prayer meeting. My father always dressed well, so he could maybe some day get a promotion, and sit at a desk, instead of standing up all day long, smiling and sorting envelopes. So on this dark, moonless night, returning home from the prayer meeting, he got tangled up with a gang of teenage kids, who robbed him and stomped him and knifed him, because he looked so prosperous. Just for kicks, they killed him. The kicks, and the money. Four dollars and seventy-seven cents.”

“So then what’d you do?”

“So then I came down to Haight Ashbury, and went into business. Black is beautiful, down here. Indians and niggers, these hippies dig us, because we’re elemental. There’s one theory, see, that only the best specimens could’ve survived the slave ships and the whippings three or four times a day—to stimulate the cotton production—not to mention slops for dinner—to cut down on the overhead. And, when you think about it, the theory makes sense. Natural selection; survival of the fittest. I’ve often thought that—”

“You said that Donny Robertson ‘took the money’ when he left for New York. What’d you mean, Walters?”

“I meant that he bought a plane ticket, and flew away, up into the sky. Blue is beautiful, up there. I used to fly all the time—fly on a cloud, resting on one elbow. But now I just sell the tickets.”

“You’re flying right now.”

“It’s a once-a-month trip, boss. Product analysis, call it.”

“Donny Robertson, though, stayed high all the time.”

“That he did.” Gravely Walters nodded, ponderously.

“He worked for you. Is that it?”

He playfully waggled a forefinger. “Ah, ah. I was beginning to trust you, boss. I was beginning to see in you some small flickering of humanity. I seemed to see in you some small glimmering, some tiny hint of perception, born perhaps of some distant moment of pain, long forgotten. Maybe some ancestor, a serf, was torn to bloody bits by the massa’s dogs, and the tribal memory lingers. But now—”

He shrugged, as if in regretful admonishment.

“I’m not interested in narcotics, Walters. I’m interested in the murder of Donny Robertson. But the more information you give me, the easier it’ll go with you. Remember that.”

“Ah, boss, boss,” he said softly. “You’re trying to dangle some small, insignificant prize before my wide, flat nose. And, therefore, you disappoint me.”

“Who were Robertson’s known associates, Walters? Give me names.”

“Except for Angie Sawyer,” he answered promptly, “Donny was friendless.”

“Who’s Angie Sawyer?”

“She’s one of the soft ones, boss. She sheltered Donny, when the others cast him out, repelled. She’s soft and blonde, and sorrowful. She—”

“Where’s she live?”

“The Crushed Chrysanthemum, boss.”

“What about Karen Forest? Did Donny know her?”

The dark eyes became suddenly opaque; the thick lips pursed in a pose of puzzled thoughtfulness.

“Karen Forest?”

“That’s right, Walters. She was your—”

Outside, the cruiser’s horn sounded. Three beeps, a pause and another quick series of three. I was wanted. Quick. I rose to my feet. “I’ve got to be going, Walters. You weren’t planning on travelling anywhere for the next day or two, were you?”

He smiled and rose with a surprisingly quick, live, movement.

“No man. No, I wasn’t.”

I handed him my card. “If you decide to go anywhere—anywhere at all—give me a call first. Otherwise, I’ll expect to find you here, whenever I come looking.”

“Right, boss.”

“One more question, Walters. Do you know anyone named Sandy Tomilson?”

He frowned, thinking.

“No, boss. Never heard of him.”

“You’re sure?”

“Absolutely, boss.”

“All right. Remember, stay put.” I walked out, leaving the door open behind me.

SEVEN

AS I SLAMMED THE door Markham yanked the car into a tight U turn, heading back the way we’d come. Our flashing red light was clipped to the dashboard, but the siren was silent. “What is it?”

“A code fourteen. From the Crushed Chrysanthemum.”

Code fourteen. Mayhem. Attempted Murder. Code fourteen was the homicide call—our lucky number. I twisted, raised up the hinged rear seat cushion, and lifted out the riot gun. I pulled back on the slide, then swore as a live shell spun into my lap.

“Who used this last?” I asked.

“Who knows?”

“There was a live one in the chamber.”

“I think I gave it to a patrolman when we went in after that encyclopaedia salesman who’d killed his two kids.”

Ahead, the crowd was already spreading into the street. Markham hit the siren. “Apparently it’s something on the roof.” He glanced at me, slightly smiling. He knew I didn’t like heights. Behind us a hook and ladder truck was swinging on to Haight Street. We pulled into the kerb, three doors down from the Crushed Chrysanthemum.

“Goddam hippies,” Markham said. “They don’t move out of the way for anything.”

We got out of the car and started through the crowd. I put a shoulder into two or three bystanders, spinning them away. One went down, hard. The door next to the Crushed Chrysanthemum was open, leading up a flight of stairs. I eyed the building, deciding that the stairs must lead to Cecile Franks’ apartments. I handed the shotgun to the patrolman, at the same time reaching for my wallet, clipping the badge to my lapel. Markham was doing the same. Sergeant Dave Pass, Traffic, was coming down the stairs from inside. I grabbed back the riot gun, and met Pass in the foyer inside. Behind us, other sirens were dying as squad cars pulled in. The crowd was giving way; the hook and ladder truck was moving into place. I turned to Pass.

“What is it?”

“It’s in the back, Frank. The roof. A hippie girl’s got a kid up there. A baby.”

“She going to jump?”

“Hell, I don’t know. She looks like it to me.”

“Is she the baby’s mother?”

“No, the mother’s upstairs. Down one storey from the roof. I got two men holding her, and I could use two more. I got two men up on the roof, too.”

“How about rigging a net?”

“I don’t know. As near as I can make out, she’s over a light well. I didn’t want to move in too close, and maybe spook her.”

“All right.” I jerked my head towards the firetruck. “You work with them, Dave. Get nets into the light well, if you can. But take it easy.”

“I know.”

“Here—” I handed him the shotgun. “Put this in the car, will you? We got it as a code fourteen.”

“That’s the way I got it.” He took the gun. “If she’s going to toss the kid over, I guess it’s a code fourteen, all right.”

“You stay with the nets.” I turned to Markham. “Let’s go.”

“Right.” We started up the stairs.

“Did you leave one in the chamber?” Markham asked.

“What?”

“The shotgun.”

I looked at him, but didn’t reply. At the second landing a half dozen people were clustered close together.

“All right, let us through.”

Slowly they moved apart. Down the hall another group was watching two uniformed men restraining a blonde girl. She was medium height, with a hippie’s long, lank hair. She was dressed in a tattered terry cloth bathrobe, and she was screaming with a kind of hopeless, exhausted persistence—the way they sometimes scream in the psycho ward, before the sedative begins to work.

I gripped her shoulder, pushing her back flat against the wall.

“Are you the baby’s mother?”

Choking on her sobs, she nodded.

“We’re going up after your kid,” I said. “You stay here. And keep calm, dammit. You’re not helping by—”

“Sergeant.” It was a familiar voice. Turning, I saw Vannuchi puffing up the stairs. I beckoned for him urgently, drawing him aside.

“You live here, right, Vannuchi?”

He pointed wordlessly down the hall.

“What’s it all about? Quick.”

“She’s—” Again he gasped. “—tripping.”

“What?”

“Up there—” He pointed upward. “The girl. On a bad trip.”

“LSD?”

He nodded. Beside me, Markham was swearing. He’d opened the door marked Stairway, which led up to the roof.

“Stay here,” I said to Vannuchi. “Right here. Don’t leave.” I turned to Markham. “All right, let’s go. Easy now. I’ll go first.”

At the top of the stairway, a steel door stood slightly ajar. As I pushed it slowly open, I remembered that I hadn’t asked anyone whether the girl was violent. Or armed. Or both.

The two patrolmen stood about six feet apart. One of them clasped his nightstick behind him, his legs spread wide. Both looked ill at ease, embarrassed. Beyond them the girl knelt, draped in some shapeless white material which fell wide around her on the dirty rooftop gravel. In her arms she cradled a baby wrapped in a green blanket. As I walked slowly towards her, I could see that her left knee rested exactly on the edge of the roof. I stopped, signalling for Markham to do the same.

“What’s she been doing?” I asked the nearest patrolman.

“Nothing,” he whispered. “She just kneels there swaying back and forth a little. And singing.”

“Singing?”

“Well, more like humming. She started out about five feet from the edge, but every time someone gets close, she moves over towards the edge. The way I get it, she thinks the baby’s hers, and she’s protecting it from something.”

“All right,” I said to the patrolmen. “You can go back downstairs. Don’t let anyone come up unless I send for him. Stay in the hallway right below.”

“Check. Good luck.”

Markham and I were standing perhaps fifteen feet from the girl. Now I saw that she was looking far beyond us, unseeing. Her face was streaked with tears. The baby was crying softly. Gently the girl rocked the small green bundle. I couldn’t see the baby’s face. It could be smothering.

I tried a single step forward. Immediately the blank eyes came into focus, shifting their gaze to me. I froze. At my side, Markham also stopped.

“Maybe I should circle to the left, behind her,” he whispered.

“All right. I’ll talk to her. But go slow. Her knee’s right on the edge.”

“I see it.” He began moving away, a half step at a time. The girl’s eyes shifted to him.

I cleared my throat. “Will you give me the baby? Its mother is downstairs. She’s hysterical. She wants her baby.”

Beneath the white folds her arms tightened around the green bundle. Slowly she shook her head. It seemed a good sign; at least she could hear me. Desperately I was trying to remember a departmental lecture on handling LSD cases. “Freakouts,” the lecturer had called them. “Bad trips.” The technique, he’d said, was to get into the fantasy with the victims, then work with them from the inside. To most of us, it had seemed a crazy idea. In the cafeteria afterwards, there’d been several jokes. Now it didn’t seem so funny. And, worse, I could remember reading that many freakouts ended on the pavement, apparently because the victim felt he could float through the air.

“Will you give me the baby?” I repeated. “The mother wants it.”

She was twisting to keep Markham in sight. Her left foot, bare, hung over the rooftop.

“Listen,” I said to Markham, “go down and find out how Dave’s doing with that net. Also, find out how far it is down to the ground.”

“Three stories. That’s how far it is up.”

“Sometimes light wells start on the second floor. Anyhow, check it out, then come back. And tell Vannuchi to come up here. Slow and easy.”

He sighed, shook his head, and strode away. Turning back to the girl, I realised that she was off again in her dream world—eyes blank, body gently swaying to some silent, secret rhythm.

I tried a slow step forward. Immediately the eyes came into focus. She seemed to shrink back, clutching the baby. Did she realise she was at the roof’s edge, inches away from possible death? Did she—

A step sounded softly behind me. Vannuchi stood with hands clasped in front of him, solemnly shaking his head. I stepped back to him.

“Who is she?” I asked quietly.

“Angie Sawyer.”

“What?”

He sighed, regretfully shaking his head. “I should’ve told you more. Everything I knew. If only the fuzz’d been a little easier on us, I would have. This might not’ve happened.”

“You mean it has something to do with Donny Robertson?”

“They say she heard about it, and took a trip. Her first one. You should never take a trip when you’re depressed.”

Suddenly I felt a hot flash of anger. “These goddam flower children. They’re fooling with dynamite, and they don’t have brains enough to realise it. Everyone talks so goddam intelligent. Like you, for instance. But everyone acts so goddam stupid.”

“Well, this isn’t the time to debate it,” he said quietly, staring at the crouched girl.

I sighed. “All right, Vannuchi. You’re the guru. Let’s see you produce. Talk her away from that light well. We usually use a priest, or a minister. So now’s your chance, Vannuchi. Personally, I think you’re a fake. So let’s see who’s right, you or me.”

His eyes were calm as he looked at me; his voice was steady. “That light well goes down three stories to a cement courtyard, Sergeant. She’s halfway over the edge already. You’re wearing the badge; it’s your responsibility. If you want help, you’d better—”

“They’re rigging a net. I can’t do anything. Every time I take a step toward her, she—”

Markham opened the steel door. “The net’s all set,” he said in a loud whisper. “But the fire chief said to say it’s risky as hell, with the baby.”

“Okay.” I moved my head in dismissal. “Get down at the foot of the stairs.”

I turned back to Vannuchi. “How long do these trips last?” I asked in a low voice.

“As much as twelve hours. Even longer, depending on the stuff she took and the dosage.”

“Did she take LSD?”

“I guess so.”

“When did she take it?”

“About an hour ago, I think.”

“Je—sus.” I kicked the gravel at my feet, then regretted it as I saw the girl flinch.

“You know what I’d do?” he said slowly.

“Tell me, Vannuchi. Tell me what you’d do.”

“I’d leave her alone. I’d leave that door open, and I’d wait downstairs, out of sight. Also—” He pointed to the surrounding rooftops. Following the gesture, surprised, I saw knots of people watching us, silently. “Also,” he said, “I’d clear off those people. And I’d keep them away.”

I decided to do exactly as he said. I’d post two patrolmen each on the surrounding rooftops, and I’d station Markham at the bottom of the stairs, out of sight. When she came down—if she did—she wouldn’t see them until they grabbed her.

And then, while I was sweating out Angie Sawyer’s bad trip, I’d have a long, serious talk with Larry Vannuchi.

Impatiently I glanced at my watch.

“How long’s it been?” Vannuchi asked.

“Twenty-five minutes.” I’d left his door open, and placed my chair so that I could see down the hall.

At that moment, what was Angie Sawyer doing? Was she still swaying on the roof’s edge, lost in another world? How many citizens of Haight Ashbury, at that moment, were stoned on some kind of a drug—wandering lost and lonely? Angie Sawyer was one. Walters another, both encountered at random, in less than an hour.

What was it like, in that other world?

I’d never know. Hopefully, please God, I’d never wander farther into that other world than I’d already ventured, five years before.

I allowed my eyes to circle the room as I automatically inventoried the contents: two director chairs, a small bureau and a mattress on the floor. Everything was neat and clean, like a monk’s cell. Orange crates stacked together contained hundreds of paperback books. The walls were painted flat white, without pictures or other decorations. Over the bed, on leather thongs, hung a small piece of twisted driftwood, a tarnished medal for first place in a high school shot-putt competition, and a gold wedding band.

Across the room, Vannuchi looked tired and worried. It was impossible to imagine him a successful, affluent designer. Yet he seemed truthful—even truthful to a fault, or at least to his own occasional disadvantage.

“Why don’t you tell me everything you know about Donny Robertson and Karen Forest?” I said quietly. “It would save a lot of trouble, and probably do a lot of good. And it’d be so simple, Vannuchi. I’m tired of battling with all you intellects down here. Just once today, I’d like to have someone tell me everything he knows about Don Robertson. You said it yourself: you should’ve given me the story before. Already we’ve got one boy dead, plus a girl’s up on the roof, teetering—plus a baby. And maybe all because you, or people like you, decide you’re cop haters. Well—” I took a deep breath. “A lot of people don’t think much of hippies, either. It’s what they call prejudice, Vannuchi, deciding everyone who looks alike acts alike. And prejudice always costs someone—usually the one who’s prejudiced. Just like it might cost that baby’s mother.”

He gave me a long look, thoughtfully frowning—as if he were trying to figure me out. “That’s really very eloquent, Sergeant,” he said slowly. He held up the book he’d been reading. “You should read Eric Hoffer some day.”

“You might find it hard to believe, Vannuchi, but I once went to college. I really did. I graduated, in fact. Not only that, but I met Eric Hoffer a few years ago, when I was a mere patrolman on the waterfront beat. Now, how about it, Vannuchi? Let’s have the story.”

He took a moment to think about it, then started speaking in his high, concise voice—as if he were delivering a lecture: “You’re going to have to sort out rumour from fact, Sergeant. I’ll give you my impressions, plus whatever I believe is the truth, plus the local speculation. You can take it from there.”

I nodded. “That’s my job, Vannuchi. You just talk. In this business, we don’t worry about libel.”

He smiled. “Well, I think that Donny Robertson arrived here just a little after I did, which would make it a little less than a year ago He was like a lot of them: timid and scared. They cling together, you know, trying to live through it. He wasn’t especially bright. I don’t mean he was stupid; he just didn’t have any intellectual basis for ‘making the scene’, as they say. A lot of these hippies, you see, really think they’re accomplishing something, living the bizarre, far-out lives they live. They’re illustrating, by contrast, how far this society has gone towards the brave new world, or 1984. And I happen to agree with them. I think the hippies are the first scattered outriders for a whole host of impassioned pilgrims that might—maybe—succeed in snatching us all back from the flaming brink of eternity. Literally. And in their own way, these hippies are tough. It takes guts, Sergeant, to ignore the fact that people are laughing at you. I won’t go into it now, but—”

From downstairs came a scream. It was the baby’s mother. She hadn’t screamed for almost ten minutes.

Vannuchi winced. “But, in any case, Donny was one of the followers. And, as so often happens with followers, he was susceptible. Suggestible. Where some of the peer group smoked a little grass, for instance, Donny got to be a real pothead. He—”

“What about his parents? Weren’t they interested in what was happening to him?”

“I think they tried to find him once or twice. Most of them do. But, really, most of the parents don’t really look very hard.”

“Where did Robertson come from?”

“The San Jose area, I understand. His father is some kind of an electronics engineer—the proud possessor of the whole bag: the station wagon and the sports car, the swimming pool and the de luxe four-track stereo system—the whole bit. That’s the trouble, you see, with these people. They’re so strangled by their possessions, and so obsessed by their sexual fantasies, that they—”

“All right, let’s get into that some other time, Vannuchi.”

“Well, anyhow, Donny went from grass to acid quicker than most. He was one of those that didn’t seem to care much, really, what happened to him. I suppose, if you take the long view, Donny was sure to get himself killed, sooner or later. Some people try to solve their problems by striking out; others—”

“Please, Vannuchi. I’m convinced: you’re a genuine guru. But I’ve got a meeting downtown in about an hour, and I’d like to have something besides a lot of philosophy to talk about.”

“Have it your own way, Sergeant. But that statement is precisely what I’m talking about: no one in this society has time to stop and listen. They—”

“Vannuchi, please. Try to remember, I’m not money grubbing. I’m trying to find a murderer. So for God’s sake—”

“All right, Sergeant, I’ll give it to you in a couple of sentences—all the rumours, all the smut, all the lurid fancies. First, personality wise, Donny was gentle, dependent and confused. The only person he found was Angie Sawyer.” He raised his eyes up towards the ceiling, and sighed.

“They clung together for several months. Ultimately, however, Donny became practically uncommunicative—isolated, inside himself.”

“He was off on one long trip, you mean.”

“Yes.”

“And, to finance it, he pushed LSD for Walters.”

“That’s the rumour, yes. You should remember, though, that LSD was only recently made illegal. And legality is simply a reflection of the power structure’s—”

“All right, I’ve got all that. Now let’s get to the part where Robertson leaves town. What do you know about that?”

“I know,” Vannuchi said slowly, “that he was supposed to have a considerable amount of money when he left. And also, I know that he was scared. It was the first time, for instance, that I remember seeing him rational.”

“Where’d he get the money, do you think? From Walters?”

“I can’t guess, Sergeant. However—” He hesitated, dropped his gaze uncertainly, and finally said, “However, he left town two days after Karen Forest was murdered. And, as I say, he was changed. Completely changed. Something—something deep behind his eyes seemed to reflect—” He waved a helpless hand. “I can’t describe it.”

“Are you trying to tell me that you think Robertson robbed and murdered Karen Forest?”

“I’m not trying to tell you anything, Sergeant Hastings—except what apparently happened, and how it struck me. That’s what you wanted, wasn’t it?”

I felt a rising excitement. In investigating a murder-and-robbery, unexplained wealth is always the most reliable indication of guilt—and the most convincing evidence to a jury. Money talks, especially in a court of law.

“Did you know Karen Forest?” I asked slowly.

Again he hesitated, reluctantly. “In fact, Karen and I were contemporaries, both in years and background. And also in temperament, as well as weaknesses shared. So we, ah, saw quite a lot of each other.”

“You had a love affair going with her. Is that it?”

“An off-and-on affair, I’d say.”

“Were you questioned concerning her death?”

“Yes. But I had the feeling your colleagues were mostly interested in proving that Frank Walters killed her. The idea of a white woman—and an ex-society matron, at that—having anything to do with a black man seemed to bug them. Badly.”

“How’d you like the idea? Frankly.”

“Frankly, I didn’t give a damn.”

“But you were having an affair with her yourself. I’d think any other man in the picture, Negro or white, would bother you.”

He shrugged. “It wasn’t that kind of an affair, Sergeant. You’d have to know Karen to understand. She was used up, emotionally. All she had left to offer was physical love. And that you can share. It’s when the emotions are involved that jealousy begins.”

“How did she get murdered, exactly?”

“Don’t you know?”

“I don’t know much about it,” I admitted. “I didn’t work on the case.”

“Well, you probably heard the rumour that she had considerable cash in the house, supposedly to finance a drug purchase.”

“I’ve also heard that she often had large sums of money in her house, and that she financed other things in Haight Ashbury.”

“Correct.”

“Did she and Cecile Franks, for instance, ever do business together?”

He smiled. “That’s also correct. They got involved promoting a rock and roll group. And Karen, in turn, got involved with both the drummer and the lead guitarist—both of whom had yet to see their twenty-first birthday. As a result, the entire project blew sky high. It was the only time in local history that Cecile Franks blew both her cool and her bankroll. The gossip was that Cecile had a yen for the drummer, which clouded her good financial judgement. Then there was Maxine Summers, to complete the cast. Maxine is a local member of the lesbian community. But Maxine’s figured out a special way to suffer, aside from merely being a lesbian. She attaches herself to girls who aren’t really interested.”

“She was attached to Karen Forest, you mean?”

He nodded. “Have you met Maxine?”

“Yes. At the Crushed Chrysanthemum.”

Again he nodded. “That’s right. Maxine’s now mooning over Cecile Franks.”

“Who else did Donny Robertson associate with, besides Walters and Angie Sawyer?”

“Well, he occasionally played chess at the Crushed Chrysanthemum with a misanthropic, sadistic, spoiled little creep called John Harper. As a matter of fact, I saw them playing myself, just a day or two before Robertson left town.”

“You don’t seem very fond of Harper, Vannuchi. Isn’t that a little un-Christlike?”

He snorted. “Harper is a plastic hippie, if you’re familiar with the term—straight for a five-day working week, then down in the Haight for weekend trips. Harper is also reputed to be a homosexual, although I don’t think that was his relationship with Robertson. Still—” He shrugged.

“When you say ‘weekend trips’, you mean LSD. Right?”

Vannuchi smiled. “I admit nothing, Sergeant.”

“Don’t worry, Vannuchi. I’m looking for a murderer, not drug addicts. Did this Harper, for instance, consistently go on weekend trips?”

“I wouldn’t say consistently. He’s one of those paranoid types, loaded with suppressed aggressions. That kind usually have bad trips. So they’d rather watch the scene.”

“Do you know where I can find John Harper?”

“No problem, Sergeant. He’s in the phone book. I once heard him boasting about it.”

“Well, that’s a switch.” I glanced at the hallway door. I wondered how Markham was doing, concealed in a cramped broom closet for more than a half hour now. With a certain satisfaction, I could visualise him sweating and fuming. “Do you know anyone named Sandy Tomilson?” I asked.

“Sandy Tomilson—” He hesitated. “The name’s familiar, but I can’t place him. I’ll ask around, if you want me to.”

“I want you to, Vannuchi. Don’t forget.”

He spread his hands, nodding. “I’ll put out the word, as you people say.”

“All right, let’s get back to the actual murder of Karen Forest.”

“Well, she was murdered more than a month ago, if I remember correctly. It was about ten P.M., according to the papers, on a Friday night. At least, that’s when a couple of neighbours thought they heard shots. And I believe that’s about the time your medical examiner decided on. She wasn’t discovered until about two in the morning, though, when some of her hangers-on returned from the revival meeting.”

“Revival meeting?”

“Referring to a programme of music and lights and meditation the Crushed Chrysanthemum offers every Friday evening.”

“Rock and roll, you mean.”

“On the contrary. Rock music is out, Sergeant. This is Indian music, aiming for the astral plane. It’s all very cerebral. The audience scarcely utters a word.”

“The audience,” I said, “is probably completely stoned.”

Cheerfully he nodded. “You’re probably right. But Cecile is very strict: whatever the patrons take, they take before they come. She’s always very prudent, so that, usually, she takes Friday nights off.”

“Who do you think killed Karen Forest, Vannuchi? Make a guess.”

He spread his hands. “I wouldn’t have the faintest idea, Sergeant. I always assumed it was probably some transient thief who happened to hear that Karen had considerable money in the house.”

Out of the corner of my eye I caught a movement on the stairway leading up to the roof. I froze in my chair, motioning for Vannuchi to do the same. A single bare foot was slowly descending the stairway, followed by another foot. She was coming down. Quickly I got to my feet, crossed the room, and closed the door to a half-inch crack. She was moving with a deliberate, agonising slowness. Now her body was visible from the thigh down. With a small shock I saw that she was nude. I had my whistle tightly clenched in my teeth. Another step, and I’d be able to see approximately to her waist, where she’d be holding the baby. I’d give the signal then, two sharp blasts. And we’d all—

Her right foot was lowering, reaching for the next step down. And in that moment her two hands came into view, slack and limp along either thigh.

I was in the hallway, sprinting as I blew the whistle. Markham was directly in my way, blinking in the light.

“Grab her,” I said, brushing him aside. “I’ll go on up. She left the kid up on the roof.”

The patrolmen were on the steps behind me. The girl was turning, running up the stairs. I caught her ankle with one hand, with the other catching her shoulder, shoving her down, against the wall. The metal door ahead was open. I was standing on the roof, breathing heavily.

“Sergeant Hastings.”

I turned. A patrolman on the next rooftop was pointing urgently.

“There,” he called. “Right there. Behind the smokestacks.”

And there it was: the green blanket. As I approached, I heard the gurgle of an infant, and saw the blanket move.

I drew a long, deep, shaky breath, kneeling down on the gravelled rooftop, then gently lifting the small green bundle.

EIGHT

KREIGER’S BUZZER SOUNDED. HE mumbled an apology, lifted the phone and listened. We were sitting crowded in Kreiger’s office—Hickman from Narco, Lieutenant Friedman, Markham and myself, all from Homicide. I yawned, stretched, and settled back in the hard, uncomfortable chair. Friedman and Markham were complete opposites, physically and psychologically. Friedman, in his middle forties, stood five foot ten and weighed about two hundred fifty pounds. He moved with a fat man’s waddling roll, and he never stood when he could sit. His clothing was usually rumpled and smudged with tobacco ash; his collar was always wilted, his necktie never quite tight. He sometimes wheezed when he talked or laughed, and his heavy-lidded eyes gave the impression of a bullfrog on a rock. Friedman was a slow, deliberate talker, and he seemed to think as slowly as he talked. But when Lieutenant Friedman talked, everyone listened. He’d spent more than twenty years on the force; he’d seen every kind of criminal commit every kind of crime. And, when you knew him, Friedman had a wry, ironic sense of humour unusual for a cop.

Markham, not yet thirty, was slim and tall. He moved with a wiry, restless energy: his eyes were quick. He dressed well, and often wore French cuffs, much to Friedman’s barbed amusement.

“Sorry,” Kreiger said, replacing the phone. “I told them to hold calls until we’ve finished. Besides—” He smiled ruefully. “That was my wife, reminding me that we’re having company tonight. Now, where were we?”

“Well, I was saying,” Hickman said, “that personally I don’t think there’s much to this theory that the Outfit killed Karen Forest and Robertson to put pressure on Walters. And, as far as that’s concerned, I don’t see much evidence that organised crime’s moving into Haight Ashbury. These hippies just don’t operate like the rest of us. For instance, they give LSD and pot to each other. Free. Out of love, or something. Therefore, there’s no profit on the turnover, and that’s something the Outfit just can’t stand. So the rumour is that the Outfit is washing its hands of the hippies, just like the rest of us.”

Kreiger turned to Friedman. “What about the Forest murder, Pete? Have you got anything more on it?”

Friedman sighed and shifted his bulk. “Negative, Carl. These hippies are so far out of it that there’s just no doing business with them.”

“Who’d you question? Who were your suspects?”

Friedman grunted, leaned forward, and picked up the folder he’d placed on the corner of Kreiger’s desk. “Well, Walters was our number one boy, I guess. But, thinking of it, I’ve about decided that everyone was so steamed up about him sleeping with a white woman that nobody really stopped to figure that he didn’t have much of a motive.”

“What about the money?” Markham asked. “That’s a motive.”

“What money?”

“The money that was taken from Karen Forest when she was murdered.”

Friedman shrugged. “As far as I could see, Walters would’ve got the money anyhow, plus some more. So why should he kill the golden goose?”

Kreiger turned to me. “You talked to Walters today, Frank. How’d he strike you?”

“He was so stoned it’s hard to say. But he’s intelligent; there’s no doubt about that.”

“What was he doing Tuesday night?”

“I don’t know,” I admitted. “I was just getting around to asking when we got that code fourteen. But I—”

“Walters went out Tuesday night about five P.M. Markham interrupted, “and didn’t get home ’till after midnight according to his next door neighbour.”

I looked over at Markham. He’d done that to me once before: kept his information to himself until it suited him best.

“Where’d he go?” Kreiger asked Markham.

“The movies, he told someone. I haven’t had a chance to check.” Markham’s eyes flickered towards me, then quickly away.

“Walters didn’t have a motive for the Robertson murder,” I said. “Any more than he apparently had one for the Forest murder.”

“Maybe Robertson knew something that Walters didn’t want him to tell,” Friedman said. “For instance, to contradict my own point, Walters could’ve killed Karen Forest, and Robertson could’ve been a witness.”

“Why would Walters have let him go to New York, then?”

“To get rid of him. Then Robertson could’ve come back, maybe to blackmail Walters. Thus getting himself killed.”

“Maybe,” I said doubtfully.

“Or,” Kreiger put in, “Robertson could’ve committed the murder. He left town immediately afterward, and he had some unexplained money. That’s more than coincidence. He’d’ve known about Karen Forest’s money. Everyone else seemed to know about it. Then, when Robertson came back to San Francisco, Walters might’ve killed him, out of revenge. For all we know, Walters could’ve been head over heels in love with Karen Forest. That’s the trouble, though,” he said, pointedly staring at Friedman. “We don’t know enough about the Forest murder. And, more and more, it’s looking like the two killings are tied in together.”

“Who were your other suspects, Lieutenant?” I asked Friedman. “And what were the particulars? Give us a run-down.” I smiled. “We’ll give you a hand. Maybe you haven’t had any first-class sleuths working on that case; No wonder you’re having trouble.”

Friedman nodded dead pan, then slowly burlesqued an indifferent shrug. “Karen Forest was murdered at approximately ten P.M. on the night of Friday, July seventh,” he intoned. It was the standard departmental Dragnet imitation. “She was shot twice with a medium calibre pistol at a range of approximately six feet. The murderer apparently came in through the unlocked basement door, proceeding up to the victim’s bedroom. The victim had a slight cold in the head, and was reading in bed. Also drinking bourbon. Three witnesses living across the street from the Forest residence all testified, separately, that they heard shots at about ten fifteen. One witness, later discovered to’ve been out of his skull on marijuana and wandering around in the alley behind the Forest house, testified that he saw a white American male, early or middle twenties, five foot ten, medium build, hippie-length blond hair, carrying a—” Friedman paused, inhaling deeply “—carrying a brown paper bag emerging from Karen Forest’s basement door, acting very strange. However, two days later, this witness, age fifteen was surrendered to the State of New York on a runaway child warrant, so we didn’t have much chance to cross check his testimony. Still, feeling that his identification of the basement door was significant, we proceeded to roust something like thirty hippies who answered to the description. And, in between times, we sweated and pounded and insulted Frank Walters who, of course, isn’t a white American male, and certainly not blond. And then—” Friedman spread his hands, dolefully shaking his head. “And then the whole investigation slowly began grinding to a halt. And that’s where it is now. At a halt.”

“Did you ever establish whether Karen Forest was actually robbed?”

“Well,” Friedman answered judiciously, “one of my boys went over her financial picture with a fine-tooth comb. It took him three solid days. But we finally decided that eleven thousand dollars was unaccounted for. See, she wasn’t quite as hair-brained as everyone thought. At least, not financially. Everything she loaned out, she got notes for, and we determined that she’d loaned money twice to Walters and once to Cecile Franks, a nice Jewish girl who owns the Crushed Chrysanthemum. We also determined that Karen Forest had withdrawn eleven thousand dollars in cash from her bank on the day she died. So—” Friedman again eloquently spread his hands.

“What about Cecile Franks?” I asked. “Did you question her?”

Friedman grinned. “Like I say, she’s a nice Jewish girl, so I naturally never considered her a murder suspect. I did talk to her, though, about Karen Forest, and also about a tribal gathering the hippies had at the Crushed Chrysanthemum on the night of the Forest murder. It turned out that something like seventy-five per cent of our so-called suspects spent the whole evening at the Crushed Chrysanthemum. Which at least made the investigation easier, but of course limited the results, you might say, since everyone gave everyone else an alibi. According to my information—” he glanced sidelong at Hickman—“all our potential suspects were too stoned on drugs to move, much less commit murder. And those few who weren’t, were too absorbed in the strains of Eastern music, accompanied, by a psychedelic light show.”

“Did you interview Don Robertson?” Kreiger asked.

Friedman shook his head. “As nearly as I could make out that snapshot of yours, Robertson, the dead man had dark hair. We were looking for a blond, remember.”

I glanced at my notebook. “How about John Harper? Did you talk to him?”

Friedman frowned, and leaned forward laboriously to spend a long moment riffling through the onionskin sheets in his folder. Friedman had a reputation for keeping the most disorganised files in the entire detective division. “Yeah, here it is,” he said finally. “John Harper. He was one of the thirty we interviewed. He fitted perfectly: five foot ten, long blond hair, the whole bit. He even has a juvenile record for malicious mischief and assault. Only difficulty was, he spent the evening at the Crushed Chrysanthemum.

“How about Angie Sawyer?”

“Negative. Like I say, I decided finally to go along with my eye witness’ description, even though he was stoned. Therefore, I eliminated girls.” He hesitated, then said thoughtfully, “Come to think about it, though, the girls’ hair is getting shorter, while the boys’ is getting longer.”

“How about a boy named Sandy Tomilson?”

“Sandy Tomilson. Let’s see—” He went through the onionskins again. “Yeah, here he is.”

My own reaction surprised me—gut-empty, breath-tightened.

“I understand,” I said, asking the bogus question with a professional indifference, “that Tomilson knew Robertson.”

Friedman shrugged. “Not that I could find out.” He scanned the interrogation report. “He’s just another blond Caucasian male. He was part of the Haight Ashbury scene at the time, so we questioned him. However, like Harper, he also spent the night of the Forest murder at the Crushed Chrysanthemum.”

“Do you have a local address on him?”

“867 Elizabeth.”

I copied down the address, keeping my eyes averted.

Was Claudia there with him? Now? Were they—

“When’s the Sawyer girl going to be ready for questioning, Frank?” Kreiger was asking.

“Wh—what?”

Frowning, he repeated the question.

“Probably not before morning,” I answered. “She’s out at the County Hospital. I thought, though, that I’d have a look through her apartment after we get through here. Incidentally—” I turned to Friedman. “Incidentally, Angie Sawyer has long blonde hair.”

“Great. Let’s get a confession from her while she’s off on her trip, and wrap up the case.” Friedman glanced at his watch, then turned to Kreiger. “I’m due at the D.A.’s office in twenty minutes.”

The Captain turned to me as Friedman left the office. “From you, Frank, we need everything we can get on Robertson. You’d better keep checking ’till you get someone who saw him Tuesday night. He didn’t get off a plane and take a cab right to the Presidio, where he got himself shot. And even if he did, there’s still the cab driver. Also, we’ve got to find out about that unexplained money. That could tie the whole thing up.”

I felt a little defensive as I said, “Angie Sawyer’s our best bet, I think. But she won’t make any sense for several hours yet.”

Kreiger rose to his feet, signalling the end of the meeting. “Check me at, say, seven o’clock, after dinner. I think I’ll have the hotels and transportation terminals checked, provided I’ve still got the manpower. It looks to me like we’re going to be badly stuck for witnesses to Robertson’s movements Tuesday night, unless we really do some leg work. And, in the meantime—” he turned to Hickman, “—check with your boys for me, Dave. It sure can’t hurt.”

Markham irritably thumped his knee against the radio box. “That thing’s worse since they fixed it, I swear to God.”

“You can take it into the shop tomorrow. Why don’t you leave it all day, and I’ll get us another car. Everyone’s out with the flu; it’ll be a good chance.”

He thumped the box again, harder; the car swerved towards the centre line.

“Take it easy. That doesn’t do any good.”

“It so happens,” Markham said, “that I used to fool around with ham radios when I was kid. And sometimes, if you knock them just right, you can fix them. Inside the tubes are little fine wires, and if you rattle the tubes when they’re hot, you can actually weld those little wires back together.”

Not replying, I leaned back against the seat, closing my eyes and yawning.

“Want me to take a turn around the park?” Markham asked, “so you can catch a few winks?”

I grunted. “You’d probably tell Kreiger.” I’d been thinking about Markham’s own private information on Walters’ movements Tuesday night. And the more I thought about it, the less I liked it.

“What’s the matter?” Markham asked finally. “You hacked that I didn’t tell you first about Walters’ movements the other night?”

I opened one eye, looked at him, and closed the eye. I nodded, “That’s right. I’m hacked.”

We drove in another silence, stop and go. Markham cleared his throat, then said, “When was I supposed to tell you? While we were up on the roof today?”

I sighed. “Forget it.”

We drove another two blocks in a taut silence. Finally he said, “You know what your problem is, Frank?”

I didn’t reply.

“Your problem,” he continued, “is that you keep too much inside. You brood about things, instead of coming right out with them.”

“Okay. I’ll mention that to my psychiatrist.” I opened my eyes, sat up, and looked at him. “You want to know what your problem is?”

“Sure. I’m always glad to learn something about myself.” But I saw the colour rising in his neck.

“Well,” I said, “your problem is that, really you’re not glad to learn—about yourself, or anyone else. Take Vannuchi, this morning. Because you didn’t happen to like his looks, you got him sore at you. But, whether you like him or not, Vannuchi’s probably got a higher I.Q. than either one of us, and he knows the score down in Haight Ashbury, which neither one of us knows. So, when you antagonise someone like Vannuchi, you’re working against yourself. And all because, really, you aren’t willing to look past Vannuchi’s beard, and learn something about him.”

“I guess,” he said slowly, “that you can either stand these hippies, or you can’t. And maybe you can stand the idea of a spade shacking up with a white woman. Personally, I can’t stand it. I wasn’t raised that way.”

“How were you raised, that’s something else. Crooks’re still people you know. They get sore, just like the rest of us. And they like to be conned, just like the rest of us. And the sooner you figure that out, and quit getting them sore, the easier it’ll be on both of us.”

“Well,” Markham said, swinging to the kerb across from the Crushed Chrysanthemum, “I guess that’s where we differ: whether crooks’re people or not. I’ve never figured they were.”

“Maybe you’re right: maybe that’s where we differ.” I pointed across the street. “See if you can get into Angie Sawyer’s place. Find out whether anyone saw her Tuesday night, between five and midnight. Maybe—” I glanced at him. “Maybe Vannuchi can help you.”

He returned my look, nodding with a mocking obedience. “Where’ll I meet you?”

“Right here, in about an hour.” I glanced at my watch. “Six thirty, say.”

“Where’re you going?”

“I’m going to find John Harper. He was seen with Robertson just before Robertson left town.”

I drove around the corner, pulled over, and got out the map. 867 Elizabeth was only three blocks away.

It was a run-down apartment building, probably ten or twelve units. The windows were covered with conglomerate burlap, bamboo, bedsheets and paisley prints, or painted with psychedelic flowers.

On the sidewalk I paused, aware that I felt baffled and strangely uncertain.

Was she there? Inside?

With him?

She’d been almost ten years old, when I’d taken that plane from Detroit, seven years ago.

Now she was almost seventeen. A woman.

What was I now? I spent the days and the nights prowling through dingy streets and filthy alleyways, hunting down the human scum that collected there—the defeated, and the dangerous. Yet I was defeated, too. Not once in the past ten years had I felt the same assurance I’d heard yesterday in Carolyn’s voice. She had the looks, the intelligence, and the money—everything.

And she had the children. My son, Darrell, who looked like me—who wrote to me, three times a year.

I was in the entryway, looking over the mailboxes.

There was no Tomilson. And no Hastings.

I’d told Markham an hour. We were due downtown by seven. And I had to make the Harper interview.

Afterwards, then, I would come back. On my own time.

NINE

HARPER LIVED TWO BLOCKS up from Haight Street, in a neighbourhood dividing Haight Ashbury from Buena Vista Heights, an upper middle class district where the homes were old, large and well kept.

Harper’s apartment was on the first floor of a converted mansion that had seen better days. I automatically surveyed the hallway, noting the travel posters, the chipped paint and the worn carpeting. Yet there was no refuse, no piled newspapers, and the place didn’t smell.

On my second ring the door opened.

“Are you John Harper?”

“That’s right.” He was about five foot ten, and weighed perhaps one sixty. His blond hair grew low on his neck; his pale blue eyes were quick and wary; his face was lean and delicately moulded, too handsome, almost effete. He had the tense, neurotic, finely drawn good looks of the spoiled child, grown now into a young adult, too soon. His eyes were cynical and insolently knowing—street wise.

I showed him the badge. “I’m Detective Hastings. We’re investigating the death of Don Robertson. I understand you knew him.”

He blinked, then quickly took an involuntary step back into the room, as if to close the door.

“Would you like to come in?” He stepped aside, his raised arm falling stiffly to his side.

“Thanks.” I walked past him, into the littered room. Years ago, it had probably been a handsome, formal parlour. Now the oak parquet floors were stained and scarred; the plaster was chipped, the wallpaper peeling. The furniture was frowzy second hand, much as I’d seen in the Crushed Chrysanthemum. But, here, the disarray seemed frenzied, almost as if the room had been ransacked. I walked to the bedroom door. Blankets and sheets were twisted together; bureau drawers gaped open, trailing bits of clothing. In the small kitchen dirty dishes were stacked everywhere, and I caught the odour of garbage. I returned to the living room, removed a pile of magazines, and sat down in a lumpy armchair. I noticed that several of the magazines concerned powerboating; the others were Downbeat, the magazine of jazz.

“Are you a musician?” I pointed to the copies of Downbeat.

He shook his head as he sat opposite me. As he did, I noticed that one leg was stiffened at the knee. I watched him settle himself. A small muscle in his jaw was slightly twitching, spasmodically.

“Do you have a boat?”

He again shook his head, swallowed and finally said, “No. But I used to race them. A long time ago.”

“You did?” I was interested. Years ago. I’d done some amateur sportscar racing. I’d never forgotten the thrill of taking a powerful, responsive machine smoothly through a long, fast turn.

“Do you still race?” I asked.

He shook his head.

“Why not?” The more I watched him, the more I wanted to discover the reason for his obvious uneasiness.

“Why don’t you race any more?” I repeated.

“Well, that—that was a few years ago. My uncle has a hydroplane, and he used to race it up at Tahoe. But he—” Harper frowned, then shook his head. “He finally gave it up. His wife—my aunt—she didn’t like it.”

“How old are you?” I asked.

“Twenty-four.”

“Who’s your uncle?”

He hesitated, still frowning. “His name is Randolph Harper. But I thought you were looking for information on Donny Robertson.”

I smiled at him and nodded, hopefully to keep him a little off balance. I’d given him two quick, sharp questions, like light left jabs. Now it was time to put him more at ease, watching him.

“That’s right, I’m looking for information on Donny Robertson. But I’m also looking for general information. Any information. Anything I can piece together, with anything else. For instance, I’m interested in the murder of Karen Forest. We think the two murders might be connected. Did you know Karen Forest?” I asked once more sharpening my voice—no longer smiling.

“Y—yes. I knew her.”

“She had a lot of money, I understand—and spread a lot of it around the Haight Ashbury. Is that your understanding?”

He nodded, slowly and cautiously. His pale blue eyes never left mine. The muscle at his jaw still twitched; his hands were tightly clutching the threadbare arms of his chair.

“Did you know Karen Forest well?”

“Well, she—I knew her, slightly, before she came down to the Haight. Or rather, I knew of her.”

“How do you mean?”

“Well, she was a friend of my uncle’s and aunt’s.”

“Are your uncle and aunt well off, would you say?”

He seemed to think about it. “My uncle owns a fair-size real estate business, if that’s being well off.”

“I see.” I thought about it, deciding to say, “There seems to be quite a colony of your people down in Haight Ashbury—refugees from the privileged classes. Is that what you are, a refugee?”

He shrugged.

“How about Don Robertson? I gather that his parents must’ve been pretty well off.”

“I guess so. He never said.”

“How well did you know Don Robertson?”

“Not well. We talked a couple of times.” His answers were coming more smoothly now; he seemed more at his ease.

“What do you do for a living, Harper?”

Slightly his lips curled; his eyes slid away. “I run errands for my uncle. At the moment—this week—I’m repairing his boat. He bought a hopped-up Chris Craft. He keeps it down at the Marina.”

I nodded thoughtfully, studying him. “You keep talking about your uncle. Are your parents living?”

He smiled, flippantly mocking. “You might call it living.” His sarcasm obviously concealed a secret, bitter pain. To myself, I sighed. It seemed that everyone in Haight Ashbury was mistreated or misunderstood—and wallowing in it.

“What does your father do?”

“He’s a stockbroker. So-called.”

“What about your mother?”

“She lives in Beverly Hills.”

“Your parents are divorced, then?”

Affecting a bored indifference, he nodded.

“Is your mother remarried?”

Again he nodded. As he’d answered my last questions, especially those concerning his parents, the tone of his voice had become quietly embittered. His eyes were bolder, almost defiant now. I was probing where it hurt; he was trying to protect himself. It was the game every cop plays—his single most successful stock in trade. You search for some special, secret nerve. Then, when you find the nerve exposed, you keep picking at it—picking it raw, until the bravado, the bluff and sarcasm all dissolve into a twitching, soggy mess. Then it’s time to get your hat and go home, as Vannuchi had said.

“What did you do before you became your uncle’s errand boy, Harper?”

“I was a hero.”

“How do you mean?”

“I was a rifleman in Viet Nam. I was a sniper; I became very good at killing the fifteen-and sixteen-year-old boys in the Viet Cong. Then one morning before breakfast I got my kneecap shattered.” He looked down at his right knee, then said quietly, “You didn’t notice, because you were busy looking over my humble abode. But I limp. Badly. So, when I saw you poking around, I quickly got to a chair, so I wouldn’t have to limp while you were watching me. It gets to be a habit.”

I decided not to dwell with him on his misfortunes. Instead, crisply, I asked, “Before you went to Viet Nam, were you in college?”

“For a while. I went to Stanford, but flunked out, thereby becoming draft bait, like the less privileged classes. So the Army made me a rifleman. They offered me other jobs, because of my I.Q. But I wanted to be a rifleman.” Again his voice was bitter. And, again, he seemed to take some secret satisfaction from the pain.

“I understand,” I said, “that Don Robertson had considerable money just before he left town. Did you know that?”

For a long, silent moment he looked at me, calmly. Then, he said, “No, I didn’t know that.”

“You knew he left town, didn’t you?”

He seemed to think about it, finally nodding. “It was about a month ago, wasn’t it?”

“A little less,” I answered. “He left just after the murder of Karen Forest.”

Looking at me steadily, he didn’t reply.

I decided to ask, “Were you a special friend of Don Robertson’s, Harper?”

“We used to play chess together.”

“That’s all?”

His eyebrows arched, almost elegantly. “What else would there be, Sergeant?”

“I was hoping you’d tell me,” I muttered. I’d been aiming at a possible homosexual relationship, but decided that I couldn’t quite come out with it. Instead I asked, “What about Robertson? Could you imagine him murdering Karen Forest?”

I’d hoped to shock him but he seemed unaffected. “That’d probably depend,” he answered promptly, “on what he was high on.”

“How do you mean?”

“Well, if he was on LSD, say, he was probably floating on a soft purple cloud somewhere. But if he was on speed, anything could happen. They say speed kills down here. And they’re right.”

“Speed is methedrine. STP. Is that right?”

“Yes.”

I took my notebook out of my pocket, and made a few notes, taking my time. Occasionally I glanced at him, silently. Then, frowning, I said, “I understand that you were questioned in the murder of Karen Forest. I also understand that you were arrested as a juvenile offender. Is that right?”

Slowly he exhaled, as if he’d been waiting for the question, and now felt relieved. Sometimes you could accomplish more by withholding an expected question than by asking it. A suspect—or a jumpy witness with guilty knowledge—constantly expects the worst. When it doesn’t come, he often goes looking for it.

“That’s right,” he said slowly, smiling with a peculiar eagerness. “That’s right, I was questioned. And I got into some trouble years ago. I was wondering if you knew.”

I decided to settle back, watching him. He wanted to make a game of it. In a half hour, I was supposed to meet Markham, I had plenty of time.

“Well, I said slowly, “as far as I know, no one downtown thinks you murdered Karen Forest. For one thing, I understand you had a pretty good alibi.”

Watching me with avid eyes, he nodded, almost breathless with some secret anticipation. His moods swung widely. Sometimes he seemed languid, almost indifferent to his surroundings. Sometimes he seemed co-operative, sometimes insolent and defiant. Now, subtly, he seemed to be taunting me, complacent with some special, secret knowledge. He was daring me to find out.

“Did you have a good alibi?” I asked finally. “I didn’t check it out.”

He smiled, coyly. “I was at the Crushed Chrysanthemum all evening, until two in the morning. I only left the room once—to go to the men’s room. Briefly.”

“What were you doing until two in the morning?”

“Breathlessly listening,” he said sardonically. “It’s required. If you don’t listen breathlessly—absolutely silently—you have to leave. At the Crushed Chrysanthemum, Friday nights are sacred. That’s why they call the session revival meetings. That Friday, for instance—the night Karen was murdered—they had a genuine Indian mystic. A real guru.”

“I understand,” I said slowly, “that everyone stays so quiet because they’re stoned out of their minds.”

Mockingly he nodded. “I’ve heard that too, Sergeant.”

“By the way, what were you doing Tuesday night?”

Suddenly he laughed. “Are you asking me what I was doing during the time Donny was murdered? Is that it?”

I flicked my cigarette into the dirty cup. “That’s it. What were you doing? Say between six P.M. and ten P.M.?”

“I was probably riding my bike. My Norton, that is. Uncle bought me a Norton six months ago. And I often go riding at night.”

“Where were you riding that night?”

“Mostly around the Golden Gate Park. I drove down the Great Highway for a while, too, down almost to Pacifica.”

“Did you stop anywhere?”

He seemed to think about it, then slowly shook his head. “No, I didn’t. Sorry.”

“When you ride your bike, do you ride fast?”

“Why do you ask that?”

“You said you’d raced speedboats. People who like speed in one form usually like it in another.”

He nodded his condescending approval of my reasoning. His manner was beginning to annoy me. His superciliousness was obviously a pose, yet he stuck to the role with a maddening consistency.

“I guess,” he was saying, “that I do ride the bike pretty fast.”

“Have you ever gotten a ticket?”

“Two.”

“In six months?”

He sighed, nodding.

“You didn’t get a ticket last night, did you?”

He smiled, as if I’d made a clumsy play in an intricate game. “No,” he said gently, “I didn’t get a ticket last night. Sorry.”

Abruptly I rose.

I stood looking down at him, then said, “I have the feeling, Harper, that you could help me a lot more than you are. I don’t know whether it’s just a game you find exciting, or whether you’re afraid—either of me, or someone else.” I took out a card and laid it on the arm of his chair. “But, if I were you, I’d give it a lot of thought. And if you think of anything that’ll help us, give me a call. Immediately, Got it?”

Mock-contritely, he nodded. “Got it.”

As I opened the door and got into the cruiser, Markham reached forward to turn down the radio.

“How’d you do?” I asked, lighting a cigarette and slowly stretching.

“Pretty good. I think.” He reached in the back and swung a small canvas overnight bag on to the seat between us. “Take a look. See what you think.”

I unzipped the bag and carefully emptied the contents on the seat. A lightweight plastic rain jacket, man’s medium, three white cotton tee shirts, size thirty-eight, two pairs of undershorts, size thirty-two, four small packets of Kleenex, a ballpoint pen, a pair of yellow wool socks, a paperback copy of Whitman’s Leaves of Grass and another of Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye, and a heavy salmon-coloured expanding envelope of the type used for legal documents.

It contained a bank statement, a social security card and a draft card, all made out to Donald Robertson. The bank statement gave a New York address. I unfolded the statement, eagerly.

The account had been opened July 12th, with an entry of $1347.00. Withdrawals had been made every few days since, until the balance now stood at $482.87. The last withdrawal was the largest, $150 just six days previously. It was about the amount required to buy a plane ticket and allow for a couple of days’ food and lodging.

I re-checked the deposit column. Nothing. Nothing but the original entry for more than thirteen hundred dollars. I refolded the statement and replaced it in the envelope, together with the social security card and the draft card.

“What else’d you find? Of Angie Sawyer’s, I mean.”

“Nothing except a guitar, a few beads and a bunch of paintings. Apparently she paints.”

“What’d you find out about her from the other tenants?”

“Well—” Markham shifted uncomfortably. “I didn’t really find out much. See, as soon as I found out where she lived, and saw that I could get in without any trouble, I decided that was the most important thing: to get inside and look around. But when I was leaving, there was Vannuchi, making a big speech in the hallway about civil rights and police brutality, with about a dozen hippies standing around throwing flowers at us. Honest to God, Frank, there’s something about those hippies, and especially Vannuchi, that I just can’t take. I had a damn good mind, in fact, to run Vannuchi in.”

“Oh, yeah? On what charge?”

He looked at me, snorted, and said nothing.

TEN

BY THE TIME WE got back downtown it was almost seven. The Captain had gone home with his cold, leaving instructions that he wasn’t to be disturbed unless it was an emergency. I’d have a quick dinner, I decided, then spend the evening trying to locate Sandy Tomilson—and Claudia. I was just leaving when a phone call came in for me. I took it at one of the empty reception desks.

“Is this Sergeant Hastings?”

The voice was muffled, disguised. The old, tired handkerchief trick.

“Yes, this is Sergeant Hastings. Can I help you?” Meanwhile, I was signalling Communications, for a line check.

“Cecile Franks,” the voice said, “was involved in the murder of Karen Forest.” Immediately the line went dead. I didn’t even bother to buzz Communications. Instead, I went to my desk, rolled the typewriter over, and wrote out a preliminary report on the tip, placing the report on Friedman’s desk. I told the duty man that I’d be questioning Cecile Franks. I decided not to mention Tomilson, even though, as a potential cross-check witness to Harper’s story, Tomilson could be officially brought into the Robertson case.

But official notice was the last thing I wanted for Sandy Tomilson.

I found Cecile Franks sitting behind the same desk. She was eating a hamburger and a vanilla milkshake.

“Hello, Sergeant.” She pointed to a visitor’s chair. “Sit down.”

“Thanks.”

“Would you like a cup of coffee? Bronco’ll bring it in.”

“No, thanks. I don’t drink coffee in the evenings.”

“I don’t either. In fact, I’ve about decided to give it up altogether. Caffeine isn’t as dangerous as nicotine. But I figure that if nicotine takes eight years off your life, probably caffeine takes another year. Maybe two.”

“That’s very analytical, Miss Franks. You seem like someone who figures the odds very carefully.”

She shrugged, finished the last of the hamburger, then picked up the milkshake carton, invitingly extending it to me. I shook my head. She drank perhaps a third of the milkshake, watching me over the rim of the carton. She seemed more at ease, really, than she’d seemed earlier in the day.

“What can I do for you?” she finally asked.

I’d already decided how I wanted to begin. “We’ve had additional information on the murder of Karen Forest, Miss Franks. I wanted to talk to you about it.”

Her eyes remained steady. “All right. What do you want to know?”

“First, I’d like to know what dealings you had with Karen Forest.”

She looked at me thoughtfully. “Before I answer,” she said slowly, “I think I’d better know why you’re asking the question.”

“Less than an hour ago,” I said quietly, “we had a phone call. The caller stated that you were involved in the death of Karen Forest. It was an anonymous tip, so it’s certainly not evidence. On the other hand, we have to check out all tips, anonymous or not—crazy or not. I’m sure you can understand that.”

“Anonymous, you say?”

“Yes.”

“Was it a woman’s voice, or a man’s?”

“It’s hard to say. The voice was disguised.”

She thoughtfully wadded up her hamburger wrapper, popping the paper ball into the wastebasket. “I think,” she said, “that I should probably phone my lawyer.”

“Certainly. I figured you’d want to do that.”

“Oh? Why?”

“Some people call lawyers as a—a kind of reflex action.”

“You don’t approve of that?”

“If you’ve got the money, Miss Franks, I think it’s great. I admit, it makes my job a little more difficult. Fortunately, though, most people can’t afford lawyers.”

She looked at me silently. She seemed to have forgotten the milkshake, still only half finished. “The point is,” she said finally, “this anonymous call constitutes a slander. I come in contact with lots of people. I make a few enemies, like anyone else who accomplishes anything. And any one of them can make anonymous phone calls. He’s got nothing to lose.”

“Or ‘she.’”

She looked at me sharply. “Why do you say that?”

“Because,” I answered, “if I had to guess, I’d say it was a girl’s voice.”

Her eyes slipped to the velvet curtain, briefly.

“I was wondering,” I said, “whether Maxine Summers is around.”

She didn’t even bother to exclaim, or to quiz me. In a single glance exchanged, we both assessed the other’s reaction—and the other’s suspicions.

“Is she around?” I pressed.

“We had a little—difference of opinion this morning. I haven’t seen her since.”

“Just after we left?”

“Yes.”

“Was the difference of opinion concerning the fact that you’d called the police, Miss Franks?”

Surprised, she nodded. “That’s right?”

“Why do you suppose she was so upset, that you’d called the police?”

She said carefully, “Maxine is a very suspicious person. And she had some trouble with the police a few months ago. So now Maxine’s a cop hater.” She smiled. “If you’ll pardon the expression.”

I returned the smile, deciding not to press her for Maxine’s record. It would be easy enough to check. I had her talking; I wanted to keep her talking. Without her lawyer.

“How long has Maxine Summers worked for you, Miss Franks?”

“Oh, off and on for a month or two.”

“What did she do before that?”

“She had part interest in a bar downtown.” She hesitated, her dark, almond-shaped eyes lingering as she added, “It was on Taylor and Hyde streets.”

The tenderloin—the homosexual, lesbian section. Thus the police record, probably.

“I understand,” I said, “that Miss Summers, ah, spent a lot of time with Karen Forest, before the murder.”

Impassively she looked at me, revealing nothing.

I decided the time had come to light a cigarette, then shift my ground. “Have you any idea,” I began, “why Miss Summers would’ve called me? Assuming, of course, that it was Miss Summers.”

“No,” she answered shortly. “No idea at all.”

“Would the call have anything to do with any financial dealings that the two of you had? You and Karen Forest, I mean.”

“It could’ve been pure malice. Did she say that I—” She hesitated, slightly lifting her chin. “—that I actually murdered Karen Forest?”

I shook my head, then repeated the conversation, word for word. If she’d been disconcerted earlier, she was in complete possession of herself now. She looked, in fact, as if she were expecting me to leave, so that she could get some work done.

I drew slowly on a cigarette, then reached for my hat. “I won’t keep you, Miss Franks. I just wanted to let you know what happened. And I’m glad that you understand why it’s necessary for us to check on all tips, whether we think they’re accurate or not.”

She shrugged. “Certainly.”

“Good. Now—” Again I drew on the cigarette. “As I understand it, you didn’t have any dealings with Karen Forest. Is that right?”

Her eyes narrowed, her lips tightened. “I didn’t say that, Sergeant.”

“Oh. You did have dealings with her, then.”

“I think I did. I’d have to check back.”

“You can’t remember, then. Is that right?”

She hesitated; she’d lost some of her self-possession. Finally she said, “That’s right, I can’t remember. I’m in to several things, as I told you.”

I smiled. “Sure, I understand. How about this: you check back in your records, and I’ll get in touch with you tomorrow. Will that be all right?”

She shrugged, then nodded. Calmly.

“Good. Fine.” I rose, grinding out the cigarette. “There’s just one more thing, then, that I have to check.”

She didn’t reply. I liked the long, tensed arch of her neck, and her dark, sleek hair. Could she be a lesbian? It would be a waste.

“What did you do,” I asked slowly, “on the evening of the Forest murder? That was a Friday—three weeks ago. Or, rather, four weeks ago, tomorrow.”

Slowly, she said: “I went out to dinner that night. Then I went to a play. Othello. At the Winsome.”

“Did you go alone?”

“Yes, Sergeant. I went alone. On Friday nights, I get out of here. For a breath of air. This is business for me, not pleasure. And I have to get away.”

“Did you happen to see anyone that you knew during the evening?”

She shook her head, her eyes holding mine, steadily. Everything about her was perfectly still. Frozen.

I smiled, a little uneasily, perhaps. “Thanks for your time, Miss Franks. I’ll be in touch with you, tomorrow. In the meantime, if you find out who called us, I’d like to know about it. Immediately.”

In the huge room outside, the scene had hardly changed, except that the crowd was larger, and the light dimmer. In the far corner I saw Vannuchi, at the same table he’d occupied yesterday. I hadn’t seen him as I entered. He waved to me, then heaved himself to his feet. I walked to meet him.

“How’s Angie?” he asked. “Have you talked to her yet?”

“Not yet, Vannuchi. Have you found out anything that might help us?”

“Not much. A few characters think they might’ve seen Robertson Tuesday afternoon, but they aren’t really sure. I still think, though, that he was with Angie.”

“How about Sandy Tomilson?”

“That’s why I waved to you. I just saw him five minutes ago in a bead shop, just a block down the street. This afternoon I asked around about him, and then I just happened to—”

“Come on.” I grabbed his beefy arm. “Show me.”

He shrugged, called to his table that he’d be right back, and together we went out on to Haight Street.

We began walking, slowed by the crowds of casually strolling hippies. The night was cold and foggy.

“You seem to’ve lost your normal cool, Sergeant,” he was saying. “Is this Tomilson a real desperado?”

“No. I’m just—checking.”

Briefly it occurred to me that I felt, in that instant, like a suspect must feel during interrogation.

“We’d better hurry,” I said. “Was he shopping in this bead shop? Or does he work there?”

“He looked like he was shopping. I didn’t go inside; I just saw him through the window. Here it is.” We stopped before a narrow shop, crowded with customers. Vannuchi pointed towards the right side of the store. “See that blond kid with the rimless glasses, wearing the khaki safari jacket?”

I nodded. The bead shop was in the same block where I’d parked the car. I decided that I’d wait for Tomilson to come outside, so as not to attract attention. I carefully scanned the dozen-odd customers. Claudia wasn’t among them.

“You can go now, Vannuchi,” I said. “And thanks.”

He stood with his arms folded, feet wide, looking at me.

“After what we’ve been through today, Sergeant,” he said, “I think I’m going to give you some advice.”

I sighed, placing myself so that I could see Tomilson when he came outside.

“Earlier today, Sergeant, you gave me something to think about,” Vannuchi was saying. “You widened my horizons, with your little dissertation on prejudice, and the hippie’s role in society. So, now, I’m willing to return the favour. You broadened my horizons; I’ll broaden yours. Fair?”

“It’s a public sidewalk, Vannuchi.”

“And I did help you, up on the roof, Sergeant. You took my suggestion. Remember?”

“I remember.”

Vannuchi looked at me, thoughtfully chewing at his beard.

“You know, Sergeant, one of the reasons I decided to, ah, retire from twentieth-century society is that everyone, if he’s going to get anywhere, has to assume the role that his profession dictates. Have you ever considered that point?”

“Listen, Vannuchi. It seems like I’ve spent all day, listening to you philosophise. I don’t deny that you’ve been helpful. And I appreciate it. But—”

“I’ll make it very concise, Sergeant. My message is, briefly, this: during the entire course of our association, you’ve seen only one aspect of Haight Ashbury—the seamy side. Maybe that’s the nature of your business—a constant preoccupation with the seamy side. But the point is, there’s more than that to the Haight. Most of the kids down here are sincerely looking for love. And I’m not talking about mass-media love—not Doris Day and Rock Hudson. I’m talking about love as a way of life. Nonviolence. Peace. Understanding. Now, it’s true that twenty years from now—when these kids are your age, and mine—they probably won’t be much different from us. But they will be a little different. And a little difference can add up to a big difference, for society. People change as they grow older, true. They mature, whatever that means. But they remember, too. They—” He paused, drawing a breath. “But I won’t get started. All I wanted to really tell you is this: after you hauled Angie off, I did some thinking about some of the things you told me. I really did. There’ve been, after all, two murders here, in the past month. True, the victims were atypical—especially Karen Forest. But the point is, murder is the antithesis of love. And, I decided, people should do something about it, before there’re more babies teetering over the edges of more rooftops, as you said. So, remembering that you’d mentioned Sandy Tomilson, I asked around about him. And finally I found him, this afternoon, at the Crushed Chrysanthemum. I—”

“Did you tell him that I was looking for him?”

“No. But I talked to him. And the burden of my message, Sergeant, is that Sandy Tomilson is a good kid. He’s a real flower child, Sergeant. Now, to you, the term ‘flower child’ might have a negative connotation, in fact. But I have a feeling, without getting into your personal life, that it’s very important—very important to you—that you don’t pre-judge Sandy Tomilson.” Vannuchi said it seriously, meeting my gaze squarely. Then, making a wry little sign of benediction, he turned away. “That’s the message, Sergeant,” he said over his shoulder. “That’s the word for today.”

For a moment I watched him go: he was already talking to a dark-haired girl, walking along with her, laughing.

Sandy Tomilson was moving towards the door, waiting for another customer to step aside, then moving out onto the sidewalk. He hadn’t seen me; he was walking towards Masonic, in the direction of my car. I fell into step behind him, and as we approached the car I moved to his side.

“Sandy Tomilson?”

He turned, smiling. Then, as if he recognised me, he involuntarily moved a half-step away.

“I’m Frank Hastings,” I said. “Claudia’s father. This is my car.” I opened the door. “Get inside. In the front seat.”

Silently, he obeyed. I saw him looking at the clip board attached to the dashboard, and at the radio beneath. Had he ever been in a police car before?

I slammed the door, then twisted to face him. “Where’s Claudia?”

“I—I don’t know.”

“What d’you mean, you don’t know? I thought the two of you were supposed to be together.”

Miserably, he dropped his eyes, saying nothing. I allowed the silence to continue for a moment, while I studied him. He was about five foot ten, a hundred fifty pounds. He resembled John Harper, except that Tomilson’s features were more regular. Remembering what Vannuchi had said, I made a conscious effort to evaluate Tomilson’s face objectively. And ignoring his haircut, his absurd rimless glasses and his stained safari jacket, he was a good-looking boy. His brown eyes were sensitive and alert; his mouth was straight and firm. His blond hair was long but neatly trimmed. He looked healthy and clean.

“Well?” I said. “How about it? It was bad enough, thinking that Claudia had run away to be with you. But if the two of you stayed together, there was some protection, no matter what else you might’ve done. Now, though, I find out that you aren’t taking care of her, after all.”

“We—” He shook his head. “We found that we didn’t care for each other as—as much as we thought we did. We’d been separated for weeks, after school got out. Months. For the—the first days we were together, here, it was great. Really great. Really—meaningful. Then though, we—we discovered that we just weren’t the same people, anymore. And—well—Claudia met this—this other guy. This poet, so-called. And she—she moved out. I—I don’t know whether—” He let the sentence die, his eyes flickering apprehensively aside to meet mine briefly. He swallowed. Twice.

“You don’t know what, Tomilson?”

“Well, I—I don’t know whether she moved in with him or not. She just—just moved out. She said she had to do her own thing.”

“What’s the name of this—this poet?”

“Clemson. Jeffrey Clemson.”

“How old is Clemson, would you say?”

“About—” He swallowed, looking at me sidelong, guiltily. “About twenty-three, I guess. Maybe twenty-five.”

“Twenty—” I watched my hand, still on the seat-back, bunching into a fist. The hand seemed to be reacting to a will of its own, independent of mine.

“I should work you over, Tomilson,” I said softly. “I should drive you around the corner, and find a dark street, and work you over.”

Slowly, he lifted his head, turned, and stared at me, mutely. He seemed resigned. Miserable. But not afraid. Surprisingly, he didn’t seem afraid.

“I’m sorry it happened this way, Mr. Hastings. I—I feel terrible, about it. But there—there wasn’t anything I could do. I couldn’t’ve—”

“You could’ve called me, Tomilson. Just dialled police headquarters, and asked for me. It wouldn’t’ve taken more than a minute.”

“I—I know. But I didn’t think it would be fair to Claudia. I mean, she has a right to—”

“A right to what, Tomilson?”

“To—to live her own life.”

To my own surprise, I found myself snorting. He was so serious—talking so seriously about children living their own lives. I watched my fist slowly unclench.

“Do you know,” I said slowly, “that actually I’m on duty, down here in Haight Ashbury?”

“About that murder, you mean?”

“About the murder. Right. And, today, I spent an hour or so trying to stop a girl named Angie Sawyer from throwing a baby over the edge of a roof—all because she was having a bad trip. She was probably ‘living her own life,’ too. And Donny Robertson—the murder victim—was apparently so far gone on drugs that even if he hadn’t been murdered, probably by another hippie, he’d never’ve amounted to anything. His life was over, Tomilson, before he ever got himself killed. So then I’ve got you—you and Claudia. Both underage. Living your own lives. Both of you playing house, without knowing what you’re playing at.”

Now he was hanging his head. Suddenly he reminded me of Darrell. Whenever I’d punished Darrell—the few times—he’d hung his head, sniffling. I could still see him—so small, so miserable, and so sorry.

“Do you realise, Tomilson,” I said slowly, “that you could probably be prosecuted on a charge of statutory rape,”

He didn’t respond, except to swallow. He was gripping the front edge of the seat with either hand, staring down at the floor.

“You could probably also be held on a vag charge—vagrancy. You could spend the night in jail, then be sent to the Youth Guidance Centre. I don’t imagine it’d be much fun, being a hippie at the Youth Guidance Centre.”

“I’m—I’m sorry, Mr. Hastings. I really am. Sorry for the trouble we caused. I—I already wrote my parents, that Claudia and I split up. I—I figured that they’d tell Claudia’s mother. It—it was the most I could do.”

I sighed, softly swore, and finally looked away from him, staring out into the cold, foggy night.

Twenty-five years old. A poet, so-called.

“All right, Tomilson,” I said finally. “Maybe you’ve got a chance to bail yourself out of this. But let me tell you something: if you see Claudia, I want you to call me. You can tell her to call, if you want to, but then—an hour later—I want to hear from you, as a double check. And if you don’t do exactly like I say, so help me, I’ll see that you disappear for a week or so—until your parents come and get you. In jail. Do you understand me?”

“Y—” He licked at his lips. “Yes.”

“All right. Now, as long as I’ve got you here, I may as well transact a little business.” I drew a deep, uneven breath—collecting myself, trying to think professionally.

“I understand,” I said slowly, “that you were one of thirty-odd men questioned in the murder of Karen Forest, approximately a month ago. Is that right?”

“Yes. But—” He looked at me with a sudden, walleyed apprehension. “But I—I—”

“What did you tell the officer who interrogated you?”

“Well, the—the truth. I was in the Crushed Chrysanthemum that night. All night.”

“You didn’t leave?”

“N—no. Not once.”

“All right. Did you know Donny Robertson?”

“No.”

“Had you ever heard of him?”

“I didn’t hear about him until yesterday. When I read about it in the papers, and asked friends of mine.”

“How about Karen Forest? Did you know her?”

“Well, I knew about her. But I didn’t know her. See, I haven’t been here very long. Not really. I mean usually—in the summertime—you move around. You—”

“How about John Harper?”

He frowned, thought about it, then nodded. “Yes. He rides a motorcycle, doesn’t he?”

“Right. How’d you happen to know about him?”

“Well, he’s got a Norton. Like I’ve got. I rode it out here. And, well, one day I happened to see his bike parked on Haight Street. And I—I asked around and finally found him.”

“Why’d you want to find him? Just so you could talk about motorcycles?”

He shook his head. “No. I—I was having carburettor trouble. Oh, at least, I thought it was carburettor trouble. And there aren’t many Nortons around; it’s a British bike. So I—I wanted to find out if he knew anything that could help me.”

“And did he?”

“No.”

“Is that the only time you saw John Harper?”

“Yes. At least—” He hesitated.

“At least what?”

“At least, that was the only time I ever talked to him. But I—I saw him again.”

“When?”

“Well, it—it was that night. At the Crushed Chrysanthemum.”

“The night of the Forest murder, you mean?”

“Yes.”

I took a moment to study him. Then: “All right, let’s get to that night. There was a crowd of you—fifty or sixty, I understand—sitting around listening to Indian music and poetry. Is that right?”

He nodded.

“And most of you were high on some kind of a drug, or narcotic. Is that right?”

“Y—yes, I guess so.”

“What were you on, that night?”

“Well, I—I guess I had a little grass, that night. But I just wanted to—”

“How much is a little?”

“One—one stick. A small stick.”

“All right. Now, you say you saw Harper that night, but you didn’t speak to him. Is that right?”

He nodded.

“Don’t just nod, Tomilson. Answer me.”

“All right. Yes. That—that’s right.”

“How far away were you from Harper?”

“Well, he moved around a lot. But most of the time, about ten feet, I’d say.”

“Was it dark in the room?”

“Well, dim.”

“How could you be sure it was Harper, then?”

“Well, I just could, that’s all. I remembered him.”

“All right. Now, you say he moved around. How do you mean?”

“Well, he just did. I remember that he kept leaving the room.”

I sat up straighter. “What do you mean?” I asked, “when you say he kept leaving the room?”

“He kept going out, that’s all. He left the room four, maybe five times.”

“You’re wrong, Tomilson. You were so stoned on pot that you were probably hallucinating. He left the room once. Exactly once.”

Stubbornly, he shook his head. “No, he didn’t. He left more than that. At least four times. I’m positive.”

“How long was he gone, at a time?”

“Just a few minutes.”

“Five minutes, would you say?”

He shrugged. “No longer. It—” He glanced at me sidelong again. “It’s hard to tell, when you’ve been—”

“When you’ve been smoking pot. Is that what you were going to say?”

Mutely, he nodded.

I looked at him for a long moment. I was thinking that to pot smokers, time seemed longer than reality.

I reached across, opening the door. “All right, Tomilson. You can go. But remember: you’re to call me if you talk to Claudia. And tell her that she’s to call me.”

“Y—yes.”

“All right. Now, in addition, I don’t want you to leave town, unless you report to me. And I mean, you aren’t to leave town even for a day. I’m speaking officially, now. Do you understand?”

He nodded.

“And if you change your address, you’re to tell me that too.”

“Yessir.”

“All right.” I motioned to the open door. “You can go now. Don’t talk about this interview. Don’t tell anyone. You understand?”

“Yessir.”

“Okay. Go.”

I watched him move off into the crowd.

ELEVEN

FOR MORE THAN AN hour I’d been prowling Haight Ashbury, systematically driving the area block by block. I felt strangely isolated. Even in his worst moments—surrounded by a hostile crowd, searching the darkest alley—a cop feels himself linked to a vast, almost omnipotent organisation. A call on the radio, a whistle blast, a revolver shot, and within minutes help arrives in overwhelming force.

Now, though, unwilling to admit that my child was a runaway, I had cut myself off. I was no more effectual than any other father, alone in the night.

Did I really expect to find her? Did I really want to find her? She’d left Detroit to meet one boy, stayed with him for less than a week, then found someone else. A so-called Poet. A man, twenty-five years old.

I pulled over to the kerb and glanced at my watch. It was eight fifteen; the night was raw and gusty, chilled by the summer fog. Technically, I was off duty. I could go home, make dinner, watch T.V.

Did I want to find her?

I watched them passing; the strolling hippies, so strangely silent as they walked. Some of them seemed sad; others oblivious—inwardly listening, secretly smiling. How many were high on drugs or marijuana?

Was Claudia, at that moment, on some kind of drug?

Unless I was willing to ask about her, I’d never succeed. Although the hippie community was centred in Haight Ashbury, they lived everywhere in the city, widely scattered.

Purely from reflex, without hope, I was scanning every passing face.

Did I want to find her?

When she’d been a small child, not more than three or four, she’d wandered away. I’d spent hours driving the neighbourhood. The police, too, had joined the search. Just at dusk I’d found her, sitting alone in the high grass of a vacant lot, calmly picking dandelions. For hours, searching, I’d been seething. But when I saw her—finally saw her—I’d had to sit for several moments in the car, blinking. And then I’d—

Diagonally across the street a familiar figure stood expectantly on the kerb. It was Cecile Franks. She wore a slim-cut leather dress; her dark, smooth hair was pulled close to her head, accentuating the lean, taut contours of her face. Her chin was lifted with a kind of arch impatience as she scanned the street. The line of her young, slender body was vital and exciting, yet aloof and indifferent.

I turned the key, starting the engine.

At that moment I had three choices: hundreds of policemen, Vannuchi or Cecile Franks. Of the three, it seemed suddenly as if my secret might be safest with the restless, wilful girl in the leather dress.

I drove to the next intersection, made a U turn, and pulled to the kerb before her. She glanced at me once, briefly, then looked away, chin higher, exasperation plain in her stance. Inside the darkened car, she hadn’t recognised me.

I slid across to the passenger side, lowering the window.

“Are you waiting for someone, Miss Franks?”

Recognition involuntarily widened her eyes.

“I’m waiting for a cab.” The voice was controlled. As always.

“Can I drop you somewhere? I’d be glad to.”

Uncertain, she looked at me. “Is that an order, Sergeant?”

“No, Miss Franks. It’s an offer. I’m off duty.”

A cab was coming. I saw her glance at it, hesitate, then decide. As she moved to the door, I swung it open. She slid into the passenger seat with a single lithe, quick movement. As I reached across with my left hand to close the door, I was conscious of her physical presence, close and compelling. She was staring straight ahead, her chin lifted another wilful fraction.

“Where’re you going?”

“Downtown. Broadway first.”

“North Beach, you mean?”

“Yes,” she answered firmly. Then, less defensively, she added, “I’m going to Alfredo’s Sidewalk Café, actually. Then to a movie.”

“I thought your night off was Friday.”

“Usually it is. Tonight, though, I—I feel like getting away.”

“I hope your, ah, disagreement with Maxine Summers didn’t upset you.” I decided not to mention the anonymous phone call. “Have you heard from her, by the way?”

“I thought you said you were off duty.” Her voice was neutral; her manner was still remote, composed.

I smiled. “I am off duty. As much as a cop’s ever off duty.”

We drove for several moments in silence. I felt that she expected me to pursue the matter of Maxine Summers. When I didn’t, she seemed to relax, leaning back in her seat. Finally she said, “Is it true that policemen carry guns all the time? Even off duty?”

“That’s right. All the time.”

“We were stopped for a red light at Van Ness and McAllister. We were halfway to Alfredo’s, and I hadn’t yet asked her about Claudia. Like a hesitant sophomore, I couldn’t find the opening—and would never find it, waiting and hoping.

I’d always hated to ask favours.

Was I reluctant to step from behind the anonymity of the badge? To a policeman, the process of politely asking seemed strange—unnatural, unnecessary. A policeman demanded; he didn’t ask. To demand was a necessity—a job requirement. A policeman was a lonely hunter, endlessly searching among faceless, hostile strangers. It had happened to me, even before I became a cop. My wife was a stranger, and my children. Even my friends often seemed strangers now. Most of them were policemen, living behind their badges like actors behind masks—strangers to each other’s hopes and dreams, yet closely bound by the constant knowledge of dangers shared, sometimes in courage, more often in fear.

“—very pensive, Sergeant,” she was saying.

“Wh—what?”

“I said, you seem very pensive.”

I didn’t reply. I’d been a fool to pick her up. I’d decided on an impulse, unassessed. A rookie could have done better. I’d been thinking of Claudia—remembering her surrounded by dandelions in a distant, sunny field. Then I’d seen Cecile, slim in her leather dress. Somehow the two images had fused into a single wishful illusion.

Van Ness and Broadway. I was turning right, heading through the tunnel. We were passing beneath Russian Hill, and would soon emerge in North Beach.

“How long have you owned the Crushed Chrysanthemum?” I heard myself asking.

“About a year and a half.” I realised that she was half turned in her seat, looking at me as she answered.

“I understand it’s the centre of everything. Everyone who comes to town—the hippies, I mean—they all head for the Crushed Chrysanthemum. Is that right?”

“I suppose so.”

We were emerging from the tunnel. Ahead was Alfredo’s, two blocks away. Outside the tunnel-darkness, the night was suddenly garish with the glow of neon and plastic signs. Every show was topless. The sidewalk crowds jostled each other, avidly rushing to enjoy themselves. Alfredo’s was an exception: a European-style café, with small potted trees and white-painted iron tables and chairs.

I pulled to the kerb in a no-parking zone. I switched off the motor and set the brake.

“Thank you,” she was saying, reaching for the door handle. Yet, tentatively, she hesitated. Her eyes seemed faintly puzzled.

I realised that I was taking a deep, hesitant breath.

“Would you like a drink?” I said. “I mean, if you’d like one, I’d like to—to buy you one.”

Her dark, often brooding eyes lighted with the quick, reflected lilt of a wide, suddenly irrepressible smile.

“You are off duty, then.” She looked at me for a long moment with her mischievously smiling eyes, then nodded with a decisive bob of her head. “In that case, I accept.”

“Good.” I circled around the car and let her out. We found a good table, close to the railing.

“You’re liable to get a traffic ticket,” she said, after we ordered our drinks.

“No. Not with that car.”

“Is that what they call a cruiser?”

“Yes. An unmarked car.”

“How long have you been a policeman?”

“Six years.”

“You started late, then.”

“Yes. Very late.”

“What did you do before?”

I sighed. “Mostly, I was a football player. A professional football player.”

“Here? In San Francisco?”

“No. In Detroit. You never heard of me.”

“You say that with a certain wry bitterness, Sergeant.” Now a playful mockery in her voice joined the muted sarcasm of her smile. “Weren’t you happy as a football star?”

“I didn’t say ‘star’. I said ‘player’. There’s quite a difference.”

“Between being happy and not-so-happy? Are stars happier than mere players—like rich people are happier than poor people?”

I didn’t reply; I had no desire to discuss it, and she seemed to sense my reluctance. Now she was staring off across the street, her chin propped on her fist, her expression distant, pensive.

“My father,” she said softly, “was a star. A big tennis star.” A regretful undertone was plain in her voice. “I don’t really think it did him much good.”

“Probably not. Being a star, for a man, is like being very beautiful, for a girl. Usually you don’t know how to handle it. And by the time you figure it all out, you’re too late.”

“How do you mean, too late?”

“If you’re a boy, you can end up with a swelled head—and no visible means of support at age thirty-five. If you’re a girl—” I shrugged. “You can end up pregnant, I suppose. By the wrong man. Always the wrong man.” And, as I said it, I thought of Claudia, somewhere in the city. shacked up.

“That can happen to any girl, beautiful or not.”

“I suppose so.” I was absently fingering the picture of Claudia I carried in my pocket—the picture I’d taken from the small silver frame on my dresser.

Suddenly without conscious thought, I placed the picture on the table between us.

“Do you know her?”

She looked down at the picture.

“What’s her name?” she asked, studying the picture.

“Her name is Claudia Hastings.”

She glanced once more down at the picture, then again up into my face, comparing the two.

“Your daughter.”

I nodded.

“I didn’t—somehow I didn’t think you had a family.”

“I don’t, not really. They—my ex-wife and the children—they live in Detroit.”

“Is she a runaway?”

“Let’s just say that I’m trying to find her.”

She nodded, staring at me with her dark eyes, now inscrutable. Then, finally, she picked up the picture with a grave little gesture, handing it to me as a diplomat might present his calling card.

“I haven’t seen her, Sergeant.” She paused, then said, “That’s why you offered me a lift. To find out about your daughter.”

“Yes.”

“You don’t want to go through your own department, unless you have to. And you don’t want to ask at the obvious places: The Switchboard, and Huckleberry House. Because you don’t want to run into your own people.”

I nodded, looking away involuntarily. For the second time that day, I realised how a suspect must feel during interrogation.

Finally, in a brisker, more businesslike voice, she said, “If you want me to, Sergeant, I’ll see if I can find her. I’ll check around, and I won’t mention your name. I promise.”

“Thanks, Miss Franks. I’d appreciate it.”

“And in return,” she said, still with the same brisk manner, “I wish you’d tell me something. Two things really.”

I shrugged. “If I can, I will.”

“First, I’d like to know why, for God’s sake, your detectives are checking both my bank account and my father’s bank account.”

“I imagine it’s because of that anonymous tip. We have to take tips seriously, unless we know, absolutely, that a crackpot’s involved.”

“I can understand that. But why my bank account? And why my father’s bank account?”

“Because the tip concerned Karen Forest’s murder. And we’re pretty sure she was murdered for gain. Money. You obviously don’t need money. When the figures verify it, you’ll be in good shape.”

“But what about my father’s financial affairs? I don’t see why—”

“You said that your father was backing you,” I replied, signalling for a fresh round. “We’d just want to check it out. If he’s rich, and he’s backing you, then you’d have no need for money. It’s all part of the same process. It’s the way investigations are always handled. You check and double check, then start checking all over again. You don’t take anything for granted; you can’t. Sooner or later you find a couple of discrepancies, and usually those discrepancies lead to other discrepancies. Finally, if you’re lucky, you find yourself a murderer.” As I said it, I smiled at her. But her eyes slid aside, frowning.

“A policeman checking on my father’s financial affairs can do irreparable damage,” she said in a low voice.

“I doubt it. No one likes to have the law checking on him. That’s natural. It’s uncomfortable; a nuisance, just like jury duty. Still—” I spread my hands. “Sometimes they’re both necessary: a police check and service on a jury.”

“It all sounds very pat; I’ll bet you’ve used that speech a hundred times.”

I grinned, pointing to her glass. “You’d better drink up. Now that we’ve got the business out of the way, let’s enjoy ourselves.”

She didn’t answer the smile. Instead, picking up the glass with both hands, she stared down into the amber liquid as she said, “What would your fellow officers think, if they knew you were drinking with someone who’s been accused of murder?” Her face was curiously frozen, as if she were keeping some new, secret emotion painfully suppressed.

“I’ll let you know tomorrow. While we’ve been sitting here, three radio cars and one team of detectives passed us. And the detectives, at least, recognised me.”

Her lips moved in a small, rueful smile. “Have you found Maxine Summers, by any chance? She still hasn’t shown up for work.”

“You didn’t tell me that.”

“Yes, I did.”

“You said she hadn’t been around today. But you didn’t tell me that she hadn’t reported for work. When was she due, anyhow?”

“Five o’clock this evening.”

As I looked around for a phone booth I asked, “If Maxine is missing, and you’re here, who’s minding the store?”

“Bronco.” She shrugged. “Wednesday’s always a slow night. And, besides, if Maxine doesn’t show up tomorrow, I’ll have to work tomorrow night. So I decided to take the time off when I could get it.”

“Excuse me,” I said, rising. “I have to make a phone call. I’ll be right back.”

“Do you want to come in for some coffee?” She took the key from me, dropped it into her purse and stepped into the dimly lit hallway.

I glanced at my watch. It was one-thirty, and I was due at the county hospital shortly after eight A.M.

“Maybe I’d better pass. Not that I wouldn’t like a cup of coffee. But—” I shrugged and realised that I was shuffling uncomfortably. The hallway was narrow. A single step forward, and I could slip my arms around her. In the dim light her eyes were large and pensive.

“Good night, then. Thank you. Tomorrow, I’ll ask about your daughter She shouldn’t be hard to find.”

“Thank you.”

Suddenly she seemed a little lost—a slim, wistful girl with large eyes, standing in a long hallway that lead into a darkened, empty flat.

“Good night.” I was moving a single pace towards her.

We were closer now. I raised my right hand to touch her shoulder. Beneath the soft suede leather she seemed to tremble slightly, then moved a little closer.

“Good night,” I whispered again.

She nodded, then swallowed, lifting her chin.

I was gripping her shoulders with both hands, kissing her. She held her arms at her sides, but she came closer. Her lips were seeking mine with a passion controlled, yet urgent, intense.

Finally she drew a deep, unsteady breath, moved away, and smiled. Her dark eyes were softened with the first blurring of desire, but her smile was faintly mischievous.

“It’s not fair, you know. I was drinking Scotch; you were drinking Cokes.”

“I’m one of those who can’t drink. So I don’t.”

We were talking very softly. Then, suddenly, I was kissing her again. Now her arms came up to my waist. I felt her tremble, then felt her body deeply respond to mine.—Finally, with a tight, tremulous laugh, she buried her face in the hollow of my shoulder.

“Is this the way you treat your suspects, Sergeant? It must be exhausting for you.”

I didn’t reply, but only held her closer.

“There’s a bruised quality about you that I like, Sergeant,” she whispered. “You’ve got scar tissue on your soul. And that means, to me, that you’re sensitive enough to get hurt, and tough enough to heal. It’s a good combination, Sergeant. I like it. Most of the so-called men I know, they don’t heal. They fester, and they think the festering process is the tortured writhing of their immortal, artistic souls.”

“Being bruised comes natural to me, I guess. It’s my profession, you might say. Bruise or get bruised.”

“Don’t fret.” She drew back, then lightly caressed my cheek. “You’re in the wrong profession, I’m sure. But so’s everyone else. Me, for instance. I should be having babies, so I can grow up and get fat and become a Jewish mother.”

I chuckled, “Beautiful girls. Remember what I said.”

“I don’t think of myself as beautiful, I’m afraid. Just as you don’t think of yourself as very sensitive, or very compassionate. But you are, Sergeant. Believe me, you are. And, besides, you’ve got strong, sinewy arms. You’ve no idea what a comfort it is, for a girl to feel strong arms around her.”

I held her away, looked at her, and then lightly kissed her. “Good night, Cecile. I’ll call you tomorrow.”

“In the line of duty, Sergeant?”

“The first time, maybe. The next time, no.”

She smiled, then lingeringly closed the door behind me.

TWELVE

AT SEVEN-THIRTY THE next morning, waiting for my eggs to poach, I checked with Communications on the hold-for-interrogation order I’d requested the previous evening on Maxine Summers. There had been absolutely no developments—no trace of her, no indications that she’d fled to escape either questioning or apprehension.

I got the morning paper from the hallway, and then sat down to a quick breakfast. As I ate, I stared absently at the newspaper, aware that the print was blurred before my unfocused eyes.

I was remembering the feel of Cecile Franks beneath her suede leather dress.

I was remembering, too, Inspector Carruthers’ smile as he and Sabatini had cruised by Alfredo’s Sidewalk Café about eleven-thirty the previous evening.

Two years ago, Detective Sergeant MacLean had been called to answer captain’s charges of threatening a Mexican waitress with arrest on a trumped up prostitution charge unless she went to bed with him. MacLean was now a house-painter, and drinking heavily. He’d been the departmental example—the target of Kreiger’s outrage.

I got my gun and hat. I was due at the county hospital at eight-thirty.

I walked softly into Angie Sawyer’s room.

She was sleeping, and I motioned for the intern and the uniformed man to leave us alone. I waited until the door closed, then lit a cigarette. I drew a chair up to the bedside, then sat watching her, smoking.

She looked to be in her early twenties. Her hair was blonde, long and straight. Her features were only average—lips rather full, nose wide, eyebrows dark and too thick, growing close together across the bridge of her nose. Idly, I wondered whether she dyed her hair. I leaned forward, but couldn’t see any hint of darkening at the roots. And, after all, she was a tawny blonde, so that the dark thick eyebrows were believable. Her best feature, I decided, was the modelling of her cheek and jaw. The cheek was sculptured in intriguing hollow planes; the jaw was wide and lean.

I nudged the bed with my knee. She stirred, moaned and snuggled back into the pillow, softly sighing. Her lips moved, murmuring. She seemed very vulnerable—childlike, and innocent.

“Miss Sawyer.”

Her eyes came open, suddenly. She blinked; her glance fled swiftly around the small white room. Then she saw me. She frowned, puzzled, and twisted to see me better. Now, startled, she seemed to shrink away, curving her body beneath the covers toward the far side of the bed. “W—who’re you?”

“Don’t you remember?”

She shook her head. I noticed that her hands, gripping the white sheets, were stained and dirty. Hadn’t they washed her?

“I’m a policeman.” I showed her the badge. “Detective Sergeant Hastings. I tried to get you down from that roof yesterday.”

“Roof?”

“Never mind. How do you feel?”

“Thirsty.”

“That’s all. Just thirsty?” I reached over for a pitcher, pouring her a glass of water. Awkwardly she raised herself, then drank. I took the glass from her. Looking closely at her hands, I decided that her fingers were stained by paint, not dirt.

“Do you know where you are, Miss Sawyer?”

She looked slowly around the room, frowning in a kind of innocent perplexity. It was as if we were playing a question and answer game—a childhood game, in some distant, sunny field.

Her eyes returned to mine. “In a hospital?” Her voice was very soft.

“That’s right.” I nodded. “You’re in a hospital.” I hardened my voice. “Do you know why you’re here?”

She shook her head. Her eyes had wandered absently away. Her lips were moving, as if she were singing silently to herself.

I leaned forward, firmly gripping her forearm, shaking her. “Miss Sawyer. Look at me.”

Obediently she moved her head on the pillow.

“I’m here,” I said distinctly, “because you were arrested yesterday.” I paused, to catch her reaction.

She was frowning, for the first time troubled. “Arrested?”

I nodded.

“B—but what for?”

“Apparently you had a bad trip. We found you up on the roof of your apartment building. You were kneeling on the edge of the roof, teetering. You had a baby in your arms.”

“A—a baby?”

I sighed. “You don’t remember. Is that it?”

She shook her head, bewildered. “I—I don’t know. The last thing I remember, I was seeing the most wonderful things—mushroom trees, and rainbow mountains and sleek, beautiful animals with hard, shining muscles, creeping through a shining bright jungle.” As she spoke, her eyes became vague and unfocused.

“I don’t know about rainbow mountains, Miss Sawyer,” I said shortly, deliberately harsh. “I do know, though, that you can be held on a half dozen counts, including kidnapping.”

With an obvious effort, she was concentrating. “Kidnapping?” She frowned, as if the word had no real meaning for her.

“Listen, Miss Sawyer, I’m assuming that you don’t remember what happened yesterday afternoon. I’m also assuming that you took an hallucinatory drug about noon yesterday. Thursday. Now, I’m primarily interested in what happened before that—especially what happened Tuesday afternoon and evening. Do you remember?”

“Y—yes. The day Donny came to see me. Is that the day you mean?”

I exhaled, leaning back in my chair. “Yes, Miss Sawyer. Now, I want you to tell me about that day, and that night. Every little detail.”

“But—but Donny’s dead.”

I suppressed an impatient exclamation. “I know he’s dead. That’s why I’m here—to find out who killed him.”

She only stared. Her eyes were large and brown. Doe eyes. Most of the flower children, I was thinking, had large, soft eyes.

“Listen, Angie. We can either do this the hard way or the easy way—either here, or downtown, where we’ll charge you with a few of the offences I’ve mentioned. Now, it’s not very pleasant downtown, Angie. You’re locked up in what we call a tank—a big cell with maybe a dozen girls in it. Prostitutes, drunks—the whole thing. And those tanks stink, Angie. Do you understand that? People who get locked up, they don’t wash themselves. And they vomit, and—and other things, too. Do you understand?”

Slowly she nodded. She seemed to comprehend it.

“All right—” I glanced at my watch. I wanted to be downtown by ten at the latest and it was already almost nine. “All right. Now. if you understand, then I want you to give me a full and complete account of everything you know concerning Don Robertson’s movements during Tuesday afternoon and evening. And I mean everything, Angie. But I’ve got work to do, Angie. I’ve been assigned to find out who killed your friend Donny Robertson. So start talking, Angie. Everything. And quick.”

“He’s dead.” She blinked. “Someone killed him.”

“All right, start there. Who killed him?”

“He didn’t say. He knew, I think. But he didn’t say.”

“Did he know someone was going to kill him? Is that what you’re saying?”

She nodded.

I drew a long, slow breath. In a few minutes, if I handled her right, I could have the whole story. I’d knock on Kreiger’s door, sit down in the visitor’s chair, and lay it all out for him.

“All right; I want you to tell me exactly what happened Tuesday. When did you first see him? What time of the day?”

“About—about noon.”

“Did he come to your apartment?”

“Y—yes.”

“All right. Then what happened?”

“We—we just talked.”

“What about?”

“About where he’d been, and what he’d done.”

“He’d been to New York. Is that right?”

She nodded.

“Why’d he go to New York, Angie? Did he say?”

Again she nodded.

“Well?”

“He said that if he’d stayed, he’d’ve been killed. Just like Karen Forest was killed.”

As the sound of the name I felt a quick, surging excitement. “He said that? Exactly that?”

“Yes.”

“He was afraid he’d be killed by the same person who killed Karen Forest. Is that right?”

“Well—” Doubtfully she hesitated.

I realised I could be leading her—trying to make the story add up to my preconceived answer, regardless of the truth.

“Could it have been,” I said slowly, “that he killed Karen Forest, and was afraid of being caught?”

“Oh, no. Not Donny. He never would’ve killed anyone He—”

“We found an overnight bag in your apartment that belonged to Donny,” I interrupted. “Do you know anything about it?”

“Well, it’s Donny’s. He asked if he could leave it.”

“Was he going to stay with you?”

“Yes. But he—he never did. He came to my apartment about noon, and we talked until it was time to get supper. He went out, to buy some food, to cook. But he—he—” She vaguely waved her hand, sad and bewildered.

“He never came back. Is that it?”

She nodded, frowning and biting her lip.

“Did you open the bag, after he left?”

“No.”

“All right. Can you give me the names of other friends of Donny’s?”

“I—I don’t think so. He—he didn’t have many friends. Not really. He was alone, most of the time, or else with me. He—he used to walk a lot. In the park. On the beach, too.”

She seemed confused, again slipping away. I decided to try and shock her back into reality: “Was Donny Robertson a homosexual, Angie?”

It worked. She looked at me, focused, then said, “Oh, no. Some people thought he was, because he was so gentle, and—and vague about things, and so kind, and shy. But he wasn’t a homosexual. I—we—” She hesitated. “We lived together, for a while. Before he—” She faltered.

“Before he got so deeply involved in drugs. Is that what you were going to say?”

“Yes.” She sighed, staring off dreamily as she answered. Yet her answers were becoming steadily more rational. She was coming around.

“I liked Donny,” she said softly. “Down in the Haight, there’re lots of people. But it’s possible to still feel lonely, you know. I—I guess that’s why Donny and I were together, for a while. Because we had that—that same feeling. A lot of the people down here, they’re—they’re so sure of themselves, and what they’re doing. It’s just—just like high school, and college. There are the insiders, and the—the—” She moistened her lips, and blinked. “—and the people like Donny, and me. I—I guess that’s the way it is everywhere.”

“All right. Now I want to get back to his friends, Angie. I’ll name a few people. You tell me whether Donny knew them, whether he liked them, whether they liked him. Do you understand?”

“Y—yes.”

“All right. I’ve already asked you about Frank Walters. Did Donny know him?”

“Y—yes. But he—he never talked about him.”

“Never?”

“Well, hardly ever.”

“You knew, though, that Donny was supposed to be peddling drugs, for Walters, didn’t you? Pot? Acid?”

“Well, I—” She looked away, frowning.

“What about Karen Forest, Angie? Did Donny know her?”

“I—I don’t think so.”

“How long did you and Donny live together?”

“Just—just about three months, I think.”

“Were you living together at the time he left town for New York?”

“No.”

“Where was he living at that time?”

“With some boys, I think.”

“Do you know their names?”

“No.”

“All right. How about Cecile Franks? Did Donny know her?”

“Well, a—a little, I think. But everyone knows about Cecile. I mean, she—”

“You knew her by reputation, then.”

Hesitantly, she nodded.

“Did you ever hear that Karen Forest and Cecile Franks had any dealings with each other?”

“No, I didn’t. But I wouldn’t. I mean—” Helplessly she shrugged. “I mean, I didn’t know those people. They’re—it’s like high school, like I was saying. Everyone’s so—”

“Larry Vannuchi—do you know him?”

She smiled. “Oh, yes. I like him. He—he’s wonderful. So kind.”

“Did Donny know Vannuchi?”

Still smiling, she nodded—happily bobbing her head.

I took a deep breath I wasn’t getting what I’d hoped for from the interrogation. “Listen to me, Angie. From my own information, and from what you’ve told me just now, it’s obvious that, somehow, Donny was involved in the murder of Karen Forest. He—”

“Oh, no. Not Donny. He couldn’t’ve—”

“He left town immediately after the murder,” I continued, “with some money—a big wad of money, unexplained. And now I find out that he made the statement that he’d be murdered like Karen Forest was murdered—presumably by the same person. Or else—” I paused, again to get her attention. “Or else,” I said slowly, “it could be that Donny murdered her, and was afraid that he’d be killed by someone avenging Karen Forest’s death. Isn’t that possible?”

“No, no. He said that he’d be killed just like Karen Forest was killed. He—”

“Isn’t it also possible,” I interrupted, “that what you thought was fear was actually guilt? Don’t you see how it adds up, Angie? Don Robertson could’ve been afraid of being arrested for murder. You liked Donny, and I can understand that. But you also admit, that most of the time, Donny was stoned. And I think he got stoned on the wrong kind of stuff. I understand that normal, even mouselike people can become killers if they take too much methedrine. And I think that—”

“No, no.” Her voice was a low, tortured moan. “Not Donny. He was the gentlest, tenderest, most—”

“Listen, Angie. I’ve gotten it from others how gentle and sweet you are. Yet, yesterday afternoon, I find you on the edge of a roof, within exactly one inch of maybe dropping—or throwing—a baby over the edge. A little, tiny, defenceless baby. Apparently, according to some of your friends we interviewed, you thought you were saving the baby from some kind of threat. And all the while, downstairs, the kid’s mother was going crazy. She couldn’t’ve screamed more—she couldn’t’ve hurt more—if you’d been carving her with a knife. So don’t tell me about how sweet Donny Robertson was. Don’t tell me how—”

With a small, strangled cry she stiffened, convulsed, and then sharply doubled up, as if I’d suddenly hit her. She twisted away, hiding her face deep in the pillow. Her voice was muffled as she said, over and over, “I want my mother. My mother will talk to you. She’ll tell you. I want my mother.”

Silently I picked up my hat and left the room, without looking back. I pushed open the door and walked slowly across the parking lot. The sky was grey; the air was damp and cold.

THIRTEEN

FRIEDMAN GESTURED TO THE inch-thick folder on his desk. “Look at that. We find Robertson Wednesday morning. Approximately thirty-six hours ago. And already we got enough material for a T.V. series. Is that the overnight bag Markham found?” he asked, gesturing.

“Right.”

He emptied the contents on the desktop. Quickly he rifled through the clothing, then opened the salmon envelope. After a moment’s study he said, “I teletyped New York last night, and asked them to go through Robertson’s apartment, then phone me.” He glanced at his watch. “I should be hearing, before long. What else’ve you got? What’s this about a tip that Cecile Franks killed Karen Forest?” He glanced at me with his deceptively sleepy, bullfrog’s eyes.

“What d’you mean?” As I said it, I realised that I was shifting in my chair.

“The squad room gossip has it that you were interviewing Cecile Franks in North Beach last night. Over drinks.”

“I was cruising around last night, and saw her waiting for a cab. It looked like a good chance to talk to her.”

“Hmmm. Besides, there’s nothing wrong with her looks, I understand. Ah—” He sighed, dolefully mock-regretful. “You hard-muscled athletes. What lives you must lead. Just remember, though, the lesson we all learned from our friend MacLean.”

“But it wasn’t like—”

“You don’t seem the type, somehow, to be buying murder suspects drinks at a sidewalk café, Frank. I’m surprised.” He was plainly waiting for an answer—a good answer. “Besides, you were off duty last night.”

“She’s not a murder suspect, Pete, and you know it. Just because some jerk picks up a phone and dials police headquarters, that doesn’t mean—”

“Sergeant, you’re protesting too much. Why don’t you simply admit that your head was turned by that pretty Jewish girl?”

I chuckled, then shrugged with a fair imitation of innocent indifference. Friedman’s explanation, after all, was more comfortable than the whole truth.

“All right, Lieutenant, my head was turned. I admit it. But don’t think I seduced that nice Jewish girl. It wasn’t like that, Lieutenant.”

“Good. I’d hate to see you involved with her. Besides—” He sighed, and now his voice seemed genuinely touched with a faint regret as he said, “Besides, I had Schrager check up on Cecile Franks’ father.”

“I know. She told me.” It was a relief to be telling the truth, unquestioned. “Why’d you do it?”

“Just a hunch. Cecile Franks made a big deal about her father being such a high-powered businessman. Come to find out, though, he’s one of these guys who’s always two payments behind on his new Cadillac.”

“What about her financial condition?”

“Schrager’s working on it. How’d you come out with this Sawyer girl?”

Again, this time in more detail, I reported. When I’d finished he sat for a moment looking out the window.

“Do you really think,” he asked slowly, “that Robertson could’ve murdered Karen Forest?”

“In his normal state of mind, he was apparently a mouse. On the other hand, he was usually out of his skull on drugs. Let’s say he got high on methedrine. Suddenly he’s Dr. Jekyll. Suddenly he’s looking down at the body, trying to remember how it happened.”

“What about our blond Caucasian male theory? Robertson was a brunette.”

“You know yourself, Pete: that whole thing’s based on one doubtful witness.”

“Our only witness, though. And we’ve got to start somewhere. We’ve—” His buzzer sounded. Frowning, he picked up the phone. “Friedman. Yeah; what’ve you got?” He listened for a moment, then said, “All right, stay with it for a while; there’s nothing much doing right now. See what else you can find. Call me back in an hour, why don’t you?” He hung up, thoughtfully turning to face me. “That was Schrager.”

“And?”

“Cecile Franks apparently isn’t exactly making a million dollars down in Haight Ashbury. According to Schrager, she’s got maybe three hundred dollars in the bank. About half the time, though, she’s overdrawn. Not only that, but there’s a high turnover in her account, for large amounts. So three hundred dollars is nothing. She’s in trouble, in other words.”

“Maybe she’s got some of her assets hidden.”

“Maybe.” He frowned. “Dammit, I wish I’d asked Schrager to check on her financial situation a month or two ago. It’s possible, I suppose, that she could’ve decided to rob Karen Forest purely for the money.”

“If she did it, though, she wouldn’t’ve deposited the money in her bank account. She’s too smart for that.”

“Yeah,” he answered absently. “Maybe we should get an accountant, and subpoena her books. I’ll have to check with the D.A. Christ, It’ll probably take a week, at least.” He sighed. “Just when I was enjoying the prestige of being Captain. I find out that we might have a Jewish murderess.” He shook his head. “Okay. What about this Harper? What’d he have to say?”

I reported on that interview, too. Then, almost reluctantly, I added Tomilson’s testimony, contradicting Harper’s.

“Who’s this Tomilson, anyhow?” Friedman asked.

“Just a hippie. I found out that he was in the Crushed Chrysanthemum that night, and that he’s already been questioned.”

“Do you think he’s got the facts straight?”

“Yes,” I answered slowly. “Yes, I think Tomilson probably does have his facts straight.”

“We’ve got a contradiction, then. We’ve got—” Again his buzzer sounded. He answered, then said: “All right, I’ll take it. I want the call recorded, do you understand?” He listened, then nodded. “Right. When you’re hooked in, put the call through.” To me he said, “It’s New York. They’ve—Yeah? Hello? Right. Lieutenant Friedman. No Captain Kreiger’s got the flu. We’re having some kind of an epidemic. Yeah, I know. In San Francisco, though, it’s miserable in August. Last weekend I put up a new T.V. aerial, and I almost froze. It’s—what?” He listened, then said, “No, I’m not fooling. It’s the fog. Every evening about five or so, the fog comes in. And it doesn’t burn off ’till about eleven A.M. the next morning. Then it’s back at five. Promptly. What’ve you got?” he asked finally. “I’m having it recorded, as you can hear. So just reel it off.”

Finally he said, “Well, thanks a lot, anyhow. If you hear anything else, let me know. Call me. And thanks again Yeah, I’ll tell him. Goodbye.” He hung up.

“Well, that wasn’t much help,” he said. “Robertson’s room was practically bare, except for dirty dishes, a few posters and books, some clothing and a typewriter. Apparently he was writing the great American novel. It’s strange, maybe, that he didn’t have some of his writing with him, when he left for San Francisco. You don’t suppose he left any of it with Angie Sawyer, do you?”

“I don’t know. I’ll ask her, though.”

“Yeah, ask her. A neighbour of Robertson’s said he heard the typewriter going, but there wasn’t any manuscripts, or anything, in the apartment.”

“What else’d the neighbour say about him?”

“Well,” Friedman said, “I don’t think the N.Y.P.D. sent out their best, most imaginative sleuth on this one. They told him to take an inventory of the contents of the apartment, and apparently that’s what he did. Period.”

“Anything unusual, besides the typewriter? Correspondence, maybe?”

“Negative.” Friedman sat silently puffing on his cigar.

Finally he said, “San Jose checked with Robertson’s parents, to see if they might’ve given him money.”

“And?”

He shrugged. “Negative.”

“Did they have any idea why he might’ve been killed?”

“Still negative. His father came up yesterday to make the identification and claim the body. I talked to him myself. He just assumed that the kid got what was coming to him.”

“No fooling?”

“Well, he sugar-coated it with a lot of pious talk about the wages of sin—incidentally making the point that he was an elder in the local Methodist Church, plus being production manager of Kimball Electronics, plus being a Shriner. He also made the point, several times, that he’d warned the kid about his dissolute, immoral life. And now it was all coming true. It was a pretty sickening performance, if you really want to know. After twenty-four years chasing bad guys, I’m getting so I’m not shocked at much. But this guy—this so-called father—really turned me off.”

“Maybe he felt differently, after he made the identification.”

Friedman snorted. “You know,” he said, “whatever modest success I’ve achieved as a sleuth, I’ve achieved it by figuring personalities, as much as so-called facts. Take this business of Robertson’s sudden departure for New York, and the thirteen hundred dollars. Now, they’ve got to be explained. No argument. They’re facts. Still, those acts are undoubtedly influenced by other facts—which, obviously, we don’t have. So, until all the facts are in, I’ve never been much of a believer in trying to look for these so-called patterns of evidence that everyone’s so enchanted with.”

“That’s fine. However, the D.A. is also enchanted with facts.”

Friedman waved a casual, airy hand. “The D.A.’s office and the police department are natural enemies, as everyone knows.”

“You said it, Lieutenant. Not me.”

“Incidentally, there’s some rather interesting developments on the call you put out for this Maxine Summers. Carruthers prevailed on her landlady to let him inside her apartment for a peek, and he found some Thursdays newspapers, with stories on the Robertson murder cut out.”

“That’s all?”

“Just one other thing: a blond wig. The landlady changed her mind, about the time Carruthers got his heart in his work. He couldn’t con her so he had to leave. But I’ve decided to get a warrant. Maxine Summers has a record. Did you know that?”

I nodded. “Not much of a record, though. No more than Harper, for instance.”

“True. Still, Sergeant, by the time you get to be lieutenant, like me, you’ll realise that behaviour patterns are very important.”

“A minute ago, you were knocking patterns of evidence.”

“I know,” he grunted, examining his cigar’s ash. “That’s because I’m flexible.” He sighed, glancing at the clock. “What we’ve got so far,” he announced, “is not really much. The net net of our efforts, as they say in advertising, are two contradictions. We’ve got Cecile Franks’ prosperity story contradicted. And we’ve also got John Harper’s movements in the Crushed Chrysanthemum contradicted. We’ve also got a girl with a police record missing, who’s been cutting up newspapers. By the way, how far is it from the Crushed Chrysanthemum to Karen Forest’s house?”

“Seven blocks, I think. Maybe eight.”

The buzzer interrupted. With a groan, Friedman answered. Listening, he labouriously dug out his key ring from a pants pocket drawn in tight creases across his bulging midriff. He unlocked his desk drawer and took out his service revolver and handcuffs.

“All right. Sergeant Hastings and I will be right there. Tell Markham to get the car.”

He hung up the phone and rose, checking his gun.

“They’ve found Maxine Summers,” he said, reaching for his hat. “She’s out in Golden Gate Park. Dead.”

“To me,” Friedman said, “it looks like Donny Robertson all over again. She wasn’t murdered at the scene, and she was dumped in a wooded area. She was probably killed in the late afternoon yesterday, and she was killed by two shots by a medium-calibre revolver, both of which shots were fired at close range, and both of which passed completely through the body. Indicating, obviously, that the gun was powerful—like the gun used on both Robertson and Karen Forest.” We were standing on a narrow dirt bridle path, just wide enough for a car to enter, completely concealed. Surrounding us were giant trees—eucalyptus, pine and sycamore, all of them a half century old. Golden Gate Park is the largest, lushest, most naturally forested park in the country. Every year, on the average, five murder victims are discovered here. Maxine Summers was the third this year.

I watched them lift the body on the stretcher, cover it, and walk toward the Coroner’s wagon.

“You know,” I said thoughtfully, “I saw her about noon yesterday. And Cecile Franks said Maxine was supposed to go on duty at the Crushed Chrysanthemum at five P.M.”

“So?”

“So the point is, that when I saw her, she was wearing a Beethoven sweatshirt and ragged blue jeans. Which, I gather, she always wore, especially in the Crushed Chrysanthemum and on Haight Street. Yet now—” I pointed to the coroner’s wagon. “Now, she’s dressed up in a tweed suit, complete with high heels.”

“In which she looks terrible.” Friedman jerked his head to our cruiser. “Let’s go over and sit down. There might be something on the radio.”

He gave impatient instructions for the area to be cleared, and posted four patrolmen to the murder scene, now roped off and being examined by the lab men. As a necessary first step, a complete plaster cast was being taken, section by section, of the bridle path. It was a process that would take two hours, at least. Even with a crew of six.

We got into the back of the cruiser. In the front seat, Markham adjusted the radio.

“It’s a good thing, Frank,” the lieutenant was saying, “that your love affair with Cecile Franks hasn’t gotten too serious yet. Because it’s—”

“Listen, I already told you—”

“Because it’s beginning to look like we’re going to have to give a little closer attention to Cecile Franks. We do know that she was supposedly away from the Crushed Chrysanthemum during the time Karen Forest was murdered. She was off on the town, dressed up—an established habit with her, apparently, and a highly visible one. Which is, incidentally, the best kind of an alibi. And then we come to last night. And we find the same thing happening all over again.” Friedman shook his head, with obvious regret. He’d been only half kidding, I suddenly realised, about hating the thought of a Jewish girl suspected of murder.

“Maybe,” he was saying, “I’d better put Carruthers and a couple of others on her. See what we can find out about her movements yesterday. Does she drive, do you know?”

“No, I don’t.” I was staring off across the park, blankly. All day long, I realised, I’d been thinking about the touch of Cecile Franks. I was remembering her quick, glancing humour, and her dark, sombre eyes. I was remembering the urgency of her mouth on mine, and the sensation I’d felt as she burrowed into the hollow of my shoulder, wistfully laughing, almost shy.

“You know,” Friedman said, “if it turns out that this whole thing concerns drugs, I think the police commission had better do something, before we have some kind of a hippie gang war on our hands. After all—” He waved a pudgy hand. “We’ve got two victims directly tied to drugs, and a third victim that could’ve been involved in anything, the way I get it. And we’ve got Cecile Franks, with a lot of money—thousands and thousands—flowing in and out of her account.”

“Well, I don’t think she’s a murderess.”

Snorting, he said in a tired, quiet voice, “This whole thing keeps coming back to the Crushed Chrysanthemum, Frank. And it all keeps coming back to Cecile. We’ve already had one tip that she had something to do with the Forest murder, and you thought the tip might’ve come from Maxine Summers. Well—” He pointed to the departing coroner’s wagon. “There goes Maxine.”

“I think,” I said slowly, “that we need to know more about Maxine Summers.”

“Hey,” Markham said, turning up the radio. “This sounds like something, Lieutenant. It’s for you.”

“—car is being held at 2157 Union Street. Vehicle is a green Ford, 1963 four door, licence CVV 306, reported on an eight-oh-seven at four P.M. yesterday afternoon, reported recovered by owner at twelve-fifteen P.M. today. Owner reports possible bloodstains on passenger’s seat and door, and possible bullet holes in passenger’s front door.”

“Tell them to keep holding both the car and the owner right there, and tell the crime lab to send a crew to the scene.” Friedman laboriously got out of the car. “I’d better get back to the Hall; you two see what this is all about. That just could be the death car. Let me know if you need assistance.”

“I didn’t notice the bloodstains,” he repeated, “until I was almost halfway home. It was more like someone spilled water on the seat, you know. But then I stopped, and saw them spots on the door—them brown spots, and right then I knew. And then, when I saw them holes, which I hadn’t noticed either, why I—” Mr. Bellini paused for breath, his eyes large.

I glanced covertly at Markham, who shook his head and lifted his eyes, elaborately exhaling.

“—I figured there wasn’t any point in not doing what I was going to do, which was drive home and call you fellows. But then, when I saw them bloodstains, I was already in the car, and driving. And, naturally, I didn’t touch nothing, or nothing like that. And—” Again he paused, breathing deeply.

“Listen, Mr. Bellini,” Markham interrupted, “we’re pretty tight on time, so—”

“Will they take my car down to the lab, did you say? The crime lab? Downtown?”

“Well I don’t—”

“If they do, can I come?”

“No, Mr. Bellini,” I said, “you can’t come. We’ll give you a receipt for your car, and you can bill the city for car rental while we’ve got it, which’ll probably be a day or two. But, right now, I want you to tell me exactly what happened—how you discovered it was missing, and how you recovered it.”

“Sure. I been leaving it out on the street, since I got that boat, which was a couple of weeks ago. I mean, it’s pretty silly, I guess, leaving a car outside to make room for a boat. But it’s sillier yet to leave a boat out in the street. So—”

“Listen, Mr. Bellini. Get to the point, will you? We appreciate your co-operation. But we’re in a hurry. Was the car open? Unlocked?”

“Well, yes. I’d been down to the corner earlier in the morning, see, and I was going out again. So—”

“The keys were in it, too?”

He looked at me shamefaced, then nodded.

“What time was it that you first noticed the car missing?”

“Well—” He thought about it. “Probably about ah—” he frowned. “Probably about three-thirty, I’d say. Yesterday. In the afternoon.”

“And when was the last time you saw it?”

“About noon. The missus and I, we went over to the neighbours.”

“After you reported the car stolen, Mr. Bellini, did you ask around the neighbourhood, to see whether anyone might’ve seen who took it?”

“Well, sure I did. I spent the whole day, yesterday, going up one side of the block and down the other. Which was more, I don’t mind saying, than the police did.”

“Did you get any idea when the car might actually have been stolen, Mr. Bellini? What time, I mean?”

“About one-thirty, I figure,” he answered promptly.

“You’re sure?”

“Well, I’m not sure. I mean, I’m not positive, or anything. But Clarence Rafferty, he saw it there about one, or a little after. He’s a bartender, and he was just getting up. And Mrs. Flowers, across the street, she swore it wasn’t there at about quarter to two, when she left for her dentist, or someplace. So—” He shrugged. “So I figure it was stolen about one-thirty.”

“All right. Now, did any of your neighbours see anyone suspicious in the neighbourhood?”

“Well, Clarence Rafferty, he saw some kid riding up and down the street on a motorcycle a couple of times. And, since we don’t get many of those around here, I guess you might say that—”

“Did Mr. Rafferty describe this motorcycle rider?”

Mr. Bellini shrugged. “He was just one of those hippies, that you see riding those motorcycles all over. You know, with the long hair.”

“Where’d you recover your car, Mr. Bellini?” Markham asked.

“A friend of mine saw it, just a couple of blocks away. His wife called me up about eleven, after she heard that it’d got stolen.”

“We’ll be in touch, Mr. Bellini,” I said, edging towards the door. “And thanks a lot. I think you might’ve really helped us.”

He followed me closely, still talking: “That’s one thing I don’t understand, you know. Why would someone steal a car, and then park it just a couple of blocks away? I mean, if they used it for some kind of a job, or something—a holdup, like—then it seems to me they’d be taking a chance, just dropping it off a couple of blocks away. Don’t it?”

Now I had the door open. “Thanks again, Mr. Bellini. Which house is Mr. Rafferty’s?”

He pointed directly across the street.

We checked briefly with the crew going over the car, then walked to the Rafferty house. A tall, sad-looking man with a long, narrow face and sparse brown hair opened the door.

“Are you Mr. Rafferty?”

“Yes. I saw you coming across the street, so I thought—”

“We understand, Mr. Rafferty, that you saw Mr. Bellini’s car parked across the street at about one P.M. yesterday. Is that right?”

He nodded decisively. “Right.”

“Did you see any strangers in the neighbourhood at that time, Mr. Rafferty?” I asked. “Anyone at all, that didn’t seem to belong here?”

“Well, no one except that blond kid on a motorcycle, that I told Bellini about. I was out watering the flowers, and I saw him riding up and down the block a couple of times, acting kind of strange.”

“How do you mean, strange?”

“Oh, I don’t know.” He shrugged, irritably.

“Was he riding the motorcycle fast, or slow?”

“Well, that’s the point: he was riding slow, and kind of looking around. Usually, you know, they go like a bat out of hell. So when Bellini said his car was stolen, I thought of this kid. I mean, he was all dressed up in a leather jacket, and all. And besides, those hippies and those Hell’s Angels, you can’t tell them apart, anymore.”

“Do you think you could recognise this man, if you saw him again?”

He thought about it, sucking his teeth. Finally: “Sure, I think so. Why not?”

I gave him my card. “When do you go to work, Mr. Rafferty?”

“Tonight, I don’t. It’s my day off.”

“All right, then. I’m going to see if we can’t arrange for a lineup, so you can identify this man. If we pick him up, that is. We’ll probably be calling you in an hour or two. So please don’t leave without notifying us.”

He blinked. “You mean you know who he is?”

I smiled turning away. “I hope so, Mr. Rafferty. Thanks very much.”

FOURTEEN

“ARE WE GOING TO BE relieved?” Markham asked, glancing at his watch.

“No.”

“Well, it’s five minutes to five. I’m supposed to go off at five-thirty. And I’ve got a date tonight.”

“All right; let’s give it twenty minutes more, then I’ll call in.”

We sat in silence for several minutes. Finally he said: “If he’s going to work on a boat, he won’t be doing it this time of day. Not with this fog coming in.”

“His uncle said he was coming down here. They’re going to take the boat out tomorrow, and the carburettor isn’t working right.”

“He could’ve come and gone, though, before we got here.”

“I don’t think so. I checked with the watchman.”

“Did you check the carburettor, too?”

I didn’t answer him, content to sit slumped down in the seat, staring at the hundred-odd small boats bobbing at anchor in the grey, calm water. If it hadn’t been for Markham’s complaints I would actually have enjoyed the last few hours. We were parked in an observation area some four hundred yards from the spot where we expected Harper eventually to show. Until the last half hour, we’d had a spectacular view across the bay, towards Sausalito. Now the fog was coming through the Golden Gate, like some enormous blob of white protoplasm, slowly creeping to smother everything it touched. Within an hour’s time, I knew, the bay and its inlets, all but the tops of the surrounding hills, would be completely covered.

Overhead, the K.T.G. helicopter thummered not more than three hundred feet above us.

Markham craned his neck out the window. “Boy, how’d you like to have a job like that? Do you ever hear that guy?”

“What guy?”

“Shelly Wendell. The guy who does the traffic broadcasts from the helicopter. He used to be a disc jockey, you know. He’s been around for a long time. I can remember listening to him when I was a kid. And a couple of years ago I remember once his motor quit on him, over the Bayshore Freeway. It was just about this time of day. You could hear the whole thing, right on the radio. He talks back and forth to the station announcer, you know, while he gives the traffic report. So this time I’m telling you about, when the motor quit, Shelly said to the station announcer that—”

“Wait a minute.” I pointed to a blond-haired man’s figure mounted on a motorcycle. He was approaching the marina from the opposite side. “That’s him. That’s Harper.”

He’d already reached the boat’s berth, and was dismounting from the motorcycle.

A blond-haired figure—

Put Tomlinson and Harper in a line-up, and the resemblance would be remarkable.

Even Donny Robertson, with blond hair, would have been—

“You know,” Markham was saying, “he’s going to see us long before we get to him. The dock’s deserted.”

“He can’t go anywhere, though. Not unless he wants to swim.” I pointed. “I’ll walk from this side of the jetty; you come from the other side.”

“How about the boat? With this fog, we’d never find him if he takes off in the boat.”

“I don’t think he’s going anywhere,” I replied, still inside the car. “You go ahead. I’ll let you get to the other side before I get out. He knows me.”

“Right.”

He began walking with his long, light stride.

I reached for the radio and, using the pre-arranged code we’d assigned to the Robertson case, advised Communications that we’d made contact with the suspect. I was told that the other two units staked out at Harper’s apartment and along Haight Street would be called in.

“Do you need assistance, Inspectors Sixteen?” Cunningham asked.

“Negative.”

“Roger. Lieutenant Friedman is standing by.”

“Roger. Out.” I hung up the mike.

Markham was turning into the opposite jetty. I got out of the car, closed the door, and slowly began walking with my hands casually in my pockets, looking at the moored boats as I ambled along. Ahead, I saw him drop down into the boat’s cockpit. I was about three hundred yards from the suspect; Markham was somewhat closer. The three of us were alone on the long, narrow dock. The wind was cold and raw.

I felt very conspicuous, as I always did—taller than my six foot one, twice as wide and beefy as my two hundred ten pounds.

Harper seemed to be fiddling with the cockpit controls. Was he starting the engine? I’d seen him take a fair-sized carton from his motorcycle’s luggage rack. It was probably the new carburettor.

Two hundred yards. Glancing ahead, I saw that Markham’s steps seemed to be quickening. He was—

A motor coughed, faltered, and caught. Harper suddenly stood up in the cockpit, flung off a rope, and dropped back into the seat. The motor’s note rose to a loud, powerful roar; the stern dug into the water.

We were running down the dock, drawing our guns. Already the boat had cleared the anchorage, gathering speed. Markham fired, high. Harper was bending low over the wheel, looking over his shoulder. His pale face was distorted by a wild, wolfish grin. He guided the boat with his left hand, expertly. His right hand dropped to the seat at his side.

I stopped running, panting heavily. The boat was seventy-five yards out, churning up a wide, frothing white wake. Harper was raising his arm; in his hand glittered a gun.

“Duck,” Markham shouted.

I dropped behind a piling. I heard the two shots.

Markham raised to his knees, holding his gun in both hands, carefully sighting.

“Don’t hit him,” I shouted. “Aim for the boat. The boat.”

It was impossible. The range now was more than a hundred yards, widening fast.

“Come on.” I holstered the gun, rose to my feet, and began sprinting for the car. I dug in, lowering my head. We’d covered almost a hundred yards. Glancing over my shoulder, I saw the boat clear the backwater, heading towards Marin County.

The boat was already greyed and indistinct in the thickening fog; in two more minutes it would be invisible.

What the hell could we do?

A hundred yards to the car. Behind me, Markham’s steps were coming closer. When I got to the car, I’d be too winded to say anything. I slowed. From Marina Boulevard, a traffic patrol car was driving toward the jetty. The gawkers were pulling to the kerb, illegally. The goddam gawkers.

Ahead was our car; Markham was even with me. The gawkers were getting out of their cars, pointing. Excited. Happy. The kids were hopping up and down.

I fell against the car, wrenching open the door. Markham was on the other side, just reaching the handle. I slumped down into the seat, grabbing the mike, flipping the switch.

“Code Twenty,” I gasped. “Acknowledge. Code Twenty. Inspectors Sixteen. Code Twenty.” I released the button.

“Code Twenty acknowledged, Inspectors Sixteen,” came a calm female voice “What is your position?”

“The Marina Green. But we don’t need assistance here. Repeat: we don’t need assistance here.”

“Roger.”

“Suspect in—” I paused, panting. “Suspect in file 1582—repeat, file 1582—is proceeding across the bay towards Marin County in a blue and white motorboat. Request immediate assistance from—” I gasped. “—from Highway Patrol, Marin County Sheriff’s Office, and Coast Guard. Suspect is John Harper, white American male, long blond hair, weight one sixty, height five foot ten, pale complexion. Wearing brown leather jacket, blue jeans, white sneakers. Limps in right leg. Suspect is armed. Repeat: armed. Acknowledge.”

The information was acknowledged and repeated.

“We’ll remain at this position,” I said. “Out.”

“Christ,” Markham was saying, “they’ll never get him. He can be across the bay in fifteen minutes, and he can dock a dozen places. Especially in this fog.”

I clicked the mike. “Inspectors Sixteen. Supplementing your A.P.B., request that Marin officers place all clocking facilities under immediate surveillance.”

The message was acknowledged. Then, after a standby pause, Friedman’s voice came on the air. “I’m asking for Army assistance, too, Frank. They’ve got a small airfield in the Presidio. Is it foggy on the bay?”

“Yessir. It’s—” At that moment I spotted a small shape hovering above the spires of the Golden Gate bridge, just visible over the thickening fog bank. It was the K.T.G. helicopter.

“Lieutenant,” I said, “we have the K.T.G. traffic spotter helicopter about a mile away, over the Golden Gate Bridge. They’re in constant communication with their radio station. Maybe they could give assistance.”

“Roger. What’s your position?”

“The Marina Green. They could land right here.”

“All right. Hang on. Out.”

“Hey,” Markham said. “Good thinking.”

“Thanks.” I pointed to a steady stream of pedestrians coming towards us across the broad, grassy ten acres of the Green. “We’re going to have to clear an area for the ’copter. You’d better take those two uniformed men and see about it.”

“Okay.”

I watched Markham trotting away, urgently beckoning to the traffic patrol car. As I watched, another patrol car and two motorcycle patrolmen were swinging off Marina Boulevard. I glanced at my watch, trying to calculate how long Harper had been under way. Not less than five minutes, I decided; not more than ten.

The helicopter was coming directly towards me, fast and low. Plainly I could see the two passengers, earphones clamped to their heads, looking down at us. The second patrol car had drawn up beside us. I pointed to the gawkers.

“Hold them up,” I shouted to the two patrolmen. “It’s going to land. That ’copter is going to land. Right here.” Then, outside the cruiser, I waved in a wide, long-armed arc to the helicopter. I saw an answering wave from the right-hand passenger in the round plexiglass bubble. I moved both arms down, pointing to the ground. He waved acknowledgment. The ’copter was descending. Three boys with a large brown dog were running towards a spot close beneath the ’copter. The noise of the motor and the thummering of the blades was suddenly intense; the ’copter was within fifteen feet of the ground. I was shouting at the boys, screaming. Then, suddenly, they laughed, turned and sprinted away toward the jetty. Pranksters. Swearing, I shouted for a patrolman to detain them—put them in the rear of a squad car, as a goddam lesson.

The ’copter was on the ground, lightly bouncing, once. The right-hand door was swinging open. I grabbed the riot gun, and together Markham and I were running for the ’copter.

“Keep low,” he shouted. “Watch the blades.”

The right-hand passenger was removing his headset, and unstrapping himself.

“What is it?” the passenger shouted, now standing crouched on the ground. “What’s up? I’m Shelly Wendell.”

“Detective Sergeant Hastings,” I shouted, pointing out across the bay. “We’ve got a fugitive out there. In a boat. A murder suspect. Can I commandeer this?”

“Sure. Be my guest. Besides, the boss says to let you have it.”

“Thanks.” I turned to Markham. “Stay here, Jerry. Keep the two patrol cars here, in case. Okay?” I was already stepping up into the ’copter. The pilot was reaching across my lap, latching the seat belt, then testing it. Wendell was fumbling with the headset, clamping the phones over my ears, adjusting the microphone in front of my mouth. Then, lifting one earphone away and pointing to the dash he shouted, “Here’s the switch. This orange one. When it’s down, you’re on the air. If you don’t want to broadcast, flip it up.”

“Right.” I settled the shotgun between my legs.

“Listen, Sergeant, make it as exciting as you can, will you? The station called me to come down, to help you guys. It was on the air; it’s the only way they could get to me. Like, a half million people heard it. So we do you a favour, you do one for us. Like, this is Dragnet, only for real. Okay?”

I nodded. “Yeah. Okay. Now close the door, will you?”

“Right. Wilco.” Wendell’s long, basset-creased face broke into a jowly grin. “Good hunting.” He flipped down the orange switch, winked broadly, and slammed the door. Quickly the pilot reached across to secure the catch. Then, gunning the motor, he moved the controls. Suddenly we were above the crowd.

“Where to?” It was the pilot’s voice in my earphones.

I pointed towards the fog bank. “That way. Towards Marin. How low can you get?”

“As low as you want, but I can’t fly in that fog.”

“Why not?”

“Because there could be a ship in there. We could hit it. In that fog, visibility’s zero.”

“Okay, then. Get up on top. Maybe we can see the water anyhow.”

The motor’s note deepened. The ’copter’s nose dropped as we rapidly accelerated forward. The fog seemed almost solid, yet became misty as we approached. We were—

“Who do we have up there?” asked a new voice in my earphones.

“Wh—” I looked at the pilot.

“The station,” he said. “You talk to him, back and forth. The only difference from regular broadcasting procedure, you have an open line both ways. Like a telephone. And you’ve got a directional mike. Very fancy. They can’t hear me, for instance. Or much of the engine noise, either.”

“Oh. Well—” I cleared my throat, craning my head for a better look at the small plastic microphone suspended on its slim silvery shaft four inches in front of my mouth, like a telephone operator’s. “Well, this is Detective Sergeant Frank Hastings. I’m—”

“Give us a run-down on the situation, Sergeant,” the brisk voice said. “Tell our K.T.G. radio audience what it’s like, chasing a fugitive in the K.T.G. helicopter.”

“Well, right now we can’t see much. I mean—”

“Can you tell us the identity of the fugitive, Sergeant?”

“Well, not—not at the moment. But—”

“Can you tell us what he’s wanted for?”

“Well, for questioning. He—”

“Can you give a description of him and his getaway boat, Sergeant?” the voice interrupted eagerly. “You’re on the air right this instant, you know. Live. So if you give us the description—give it to the half million K.T.G. radio listeners, you’ll have the biggest posse in the history of crime prevention.”

“Well, that—that’s a good idea. But, first, remember that this man is armed and dangerous. Very dangerous. He’s a Caucasian male, wearing a brown leather jacket, blue jeans, white sneakers. Blond hair, long. Twenty-four years old, good features, about a hundred sixty pounds. He walks with a limp in his right leg, and he’s driving—ah, piloting—a fast blue and white boat. It’s very fast. And, repeat, he’s armed and dangerous. So, if anyone sees him, keep him under long—repeat, long surveillance, and contact the nearest officer. But no one should—”

“What’s your position now, Sergeant?”

“We’re on top of the fog bank, about halfway across the bay, maybe more. We’re probably at about—” I looked at the pilot. “About five hundred feet high, I’d say.”

The pilot nodded.

“Can you see the water at all, Sergeant?”

“Negative.”

“How about the shoreline, Sergeant? What about the area where your suspect’s probably headed? Is the shoreline fog shrouded?”

“Well, not so much, that I can see.”

“No sign of the suspect yet, eh?”

“Negative.” Then, turning to the pilot, I asked, “Can’t we get down lower?”

“It wouldn’t do any good, Sergeant. We couldn’t see anything. Believe me.”

“All right, then, let’s—” I frowned, then finally reached forward to flick the orange switch up. “Let’s go over to the Marin shore, and start at Sausalito. Follow the shoreline. If we can once see him, we can—”

“Sergeant,” came the voice in my ear. “Sergeant, you’re out of contact. Come in, Sergeant Hastings.”

I sighed, flipping the switch down.

“Sorry. We were discussing our plans.”

“I see. Certainly, Sergeant. Pretty difficult to keep anything secret with a half million people listening, eh?” He laughed. “Can you tell us, though, what you plan to do when you finally spot your suspect?”

“Well, first, I’ll keep him under surveillance, while I call for help. There shouldn’t be any trouble apprehending him, once we find him.”

“But what if he shoots it out with you, Sergeant? What then?”

“Well, that’s happened before. It always ends up the same.”

“With the suspect’s death, you mean.”

“Usually.” We were swinging down over the Sausalito docks. Easily two hundred boats rode at anchor. In that first moment, I counted a half dozen blue and white craft.

“Hover around here for a couple of minutes,” I instructed the pilot.

Nodding, he moved the controls, allowing the ’copter to rotate slowly on its axis.

“What’s your position now, Sergeant?” the announcer’s voice asked.

I didn’t reply. After a moment’s silence the announcer’s voice said, “It’s obvious that the Sergeant is too busy right at the moment to answer. But whatever happens, you’ll be the first to know, you K.T.G. listeners. And now, while we pause for a commercial message, the staff here is going to attempt to contact the Communications Centre at downtown police headquarters. Since Sergeant Hastings can only communicate with K.T.G.,—hold on, please. We’re getting something now. We’re advised that—Yes, ladies and gentlemen, police communications is coming on the air, live, to communicate with Sergeant Hastings, in the K.T.G. traffic ’copter. And so, after this brief message we’ll be back on the air with this live, second-by-second, thrill-by-thrill trackdown of a dangerous armed fugitive from justice.”

I flipped up the orange switch. “See anything?” I asked the pilot.

“No.”

I pointed toward the Belvedere-Tiburon peninsula, jutting out in the bay toward San Francisco. “Let’s try there.”

“Roger.” The ’copter swung in a short, stomach-dropping arc, lowered its nose, and headed away. Now the fog was creeping up into the smaller valleys. And, pouring over the Sausalito hills from the ocean side, thick white clouds came tumbling down in the gusty wind to meet the slower creeping tendrils of the lower ocean fog.

“We’ll never find him,” I said. “All he’s got to do is stay in that fog until it’s dark, then coast in to shore.”

“Except,” the pilot answered, “that it doesn’t get dark until nine o’clock. He might run out of gas.”

“Not if he’s smart, and idles the boat.”

“Is he smart?”

I grunted. “We’ll know in a few hours.”

The pilot pointed to a large, heavily wooded island situated perhaps a half mile from Alcatraz. “Want to take a turn around Angel Island? If he wants to hide out, that’d be the perfect place. There’s only a government caretaker crew on the whole island, outside of maybe a few picnickers.”

“All right. Good. Then we can—”

“And now,” the announcer’s voice said abruptly, “we bring you the voice of Lieutenant Friedman, acting Chief of Homicide, San Francisco Police. Can you hear me, Sergeant Hastings?”

“Yes, I hear you.”

“Fine, Sergeant. And now, here’s your superior officer, Lieutenant Friedman.”

A click, a pause, another click. Finally: “Hello, Sergeant Hastings?” It was Friedman’s voice. Momentarily forgetting that we were on the radio, I was wondering at his formal address.

“Yessir.”

“What’s your position?”

“We’re circling Angel Island now.”

“Any results?”

“Negative.”

I heard him sigh, finally saying, “I’m having Markham check the Marina Yacht Harbour and the, ah, suspect’s uncle, trying to find out how much gas the boat has. Meanwhile, the Army is sending a combat-type helicopter to the downtown heliport, and I’m taking a half dozen men and leaving right now to meet it. Understood?”

“Yes. Roger.”

“All right. Is your ’copter identified?”

“Yes, Lieutenant,” the announcer’s voice broke in. “There’s a big K.T.G. sign on the front. Big red letters.”

“All right, good. We should be with you in fifteen minutes, Frank. Are you staying up over the fog?”

“Yes. The pilot says it’s not safe to go down inside, because we might hit a ship.”

“All right, then, we’ll be able to see you. No problem. We’ll just have to pick up the suspect when he leaves the fog.”

“Roger.”

We were completing our circuit of Angel Island. Momentarily I’d taken my eyes from the shoreline, and was vainly trying to penetrate the fog. Where was he? At that moment, where was—

“Hey.” The pilot tapped my arm, then pointed down. “Look down there. Wait; I’ll swing us around, so you can see.”

The ’copter rotated, at the same time dropping at a sharp angle to the left.

“See it?”

Partially concealed beneath the branches of pine trees growing down to the water’s edge, a blue and white cabin cruiser was drawn up. It must be Harper’s boat. It was the same blue and white—the same cabin, the same approximate size.

The boat seemed empty, gently bobbing in the water.

“Drop down. Get closer. Let’s see if we can—”

“What is it, Sergeant?” came the announcer’s excited voice. “Have you spotted him?”

“Can you still contact Lieutenant Friedman?” I asked as calmly as possible.

“We’ll see, Sergeant. We’ll sure try. Have you—”

“Just see if you can get him on the air, please.”

We were slowly approaching the abandoned boat from a distance of perhaps twenty-five feet. Now I could set that the boat was tied to a tree trunk, not to a dock. No ordinary person—no boat owner—would ever—

“Hey,” the pilot shouted, at the same time jamming the throttle full forward, jerking back the controls. “Hey what the hell? He’s—”

Immediately in front of me, the plexiglass shattered ii a jagged sunburst of splintered safety glass, circling a small centre hole.

“Get away,” I shouted. “Fast. He’s a marksman. A sniper.”

The announcer’s voice in my earphones babbled excitedly. We were rising, banking, turning sharply to the left and swinging sharply around.

We were out of range.

“—making contact with the Army helicopter,” the announcer was saying. “Are you all right, Sergeant? Come in, please.”

“We’re all right.” Then, flipping up the switch, I said to the pilot, “Keep about this height, and fly over the boat, then hover. Can you do that?”

The helicopter turned, travelled a few hundred feet, then remained still. Fifty feet below, I could see the foliage wildly whipping in the rotor blast.

Nothing stirred.

“Are you returning your quarry’s fire?” the voice in my ear was excitedly asking. “Can you see him? Have you been hit, Sergeant? Is the helicopter damaged? Come in, please. Come in, if you’re—”

The pilot tapped my arm, then pointed to the fuel gauge. The needle touched the last mark, “R.”

“We can’t stay much longer, hovering. Takes too much fuel.”

“How much longer?”

“Five, ten minutes. No more. We’ve got a reserve, but we’ve still got to go home.”

I pointed to a clearing near the top of a large rise, perhaps at quarter mile away. “How about landing there, when the time comes?”

“Fine. What’re you going to do?”

“Wait for reinforcements, then spread out and take him.”

A roar of static came on the air, followed by Friedman’s indistinct voice, as if he were talking through a very bad connection. Hastily, I flicked the switch. “Lieutenant,” I broke in. “Can you hear me, Lieutenant?”

“Roger.”

“We’ve made contact with the suspect, Lieutenant. On Angel Island, west side, where he’s moored the boat. We’re going to land a quarter mile away; you can land there, too. Can you read me?”

“Roger. We’ll be there in five minutes.”

Slowly, I exhaled, flipping the switch for the last time, then taking off the headset and hanging it on the dashboard hook.

“Okay, let’s land.”

“Right,” the pilot said. And, in less than a minute, we were down.

“Shall I shut her off?”

“You might as well. We’ll stay here, until they come. Let’s get out, though, and take cover. No telling what that creep’ll do.” I opened the door, then stepped out, holding the riot gun ready as I scanned the clearing.

“In that case,” the pilot was saying, “I may as well take the keys.” He smiled, joining me. “Bad enough, your boy escapes in a boat. We’d all look pretty bad if he did it again. In a ’copter.”

He was tall and lean, with a weather-seamed face and sparse sandy hair. He looked in his middle thirties, and had a quick, friendly smile.

As we stood back in the shadows of a huge oak I asked, “How long’ve you been flying?”

“Almost fifteen years.”

“Always helicopters?”

“God, no. I hate them. I’m about ready to quit this job, in fact, and go back to crop dusting.”

“Don’t you use helicopters for crop dusting?”

“Sometimes. Mostly, though, we use biplanes. ’Copters are too expensive. Especially compared to bipes.”

“Isn’t crop dusting dangerous?”

He grinned. “This is the first time I ever got shot at, Sergeant. I sure wouldn’t trade you jobs.”

The roar of a motor was coming, fast.

“There’s your friends, Sergeant. That’s a ’copter.”

And, a moment later, a huge olive-drab helicopter appeared overhead, hovered for perhaps fifteen seconds, then quickly landed. Two detectives, two uniformed men and finally Friedman jumped to the ground, bending double as they trotted to join us.

“Well,” said Friedman, puffing from the short run, “you’re quite a radio star.”

“Thanks.” I turned to the pilot. “Maybe you should go over and stay with those Army men. Are they armed?” I asked Pete.

“Yes. Besides, they’re going right up again. They’re going to spot for us.” He nodded to the pilot and then jerked his head towards the waiting ’copter. The pilot moved away, seemingly reluctant.

“Where’s Harper?” Friedman asked as the others clustered around us.

I pointed to a nearby path. “I think he’s holed up down by his boat. That path leads to the area. I checked it from the air.”

“Okay. Good.”

He thought a moment, studying the terrain. He was still puffing.

Finally he said, “Frank, you’d better take these guys—” He swept the two uniformed men with a gesture, “—and spread out on the left side of the path. We’ll do the same on the right. Let’s try to keep each other in sight, with about twenty feet in between. No shooting across the path; no shooting except down towards the water.” He paused, “Everybody got it?” he asked. “If we don’t flush him out, we’ll go right down to the water, then try it again. Clear?”

Williams, a uniformed man, carried a tear gas gun; one of the detectives had a Tommy gun. The others had shotguns—except for Friedman, who never carried anything except a service revolver. Many years ago he’d accidentally discharged a Tommy gun, wounding a ten-year-old bystander.

“All right, let’s go,” the Lieutenant said. “And be careful with that chopper, Bill,” he said to the detective carrying the Tommy gun. “We’re short handed enough as it is, with this flu bug. Okay,” he went on, turning away and walking to the right side of the pathway, “let’s go. Slow and easy. And watch where you’re shooting.” He extended both arms to the ’copter: The powerful motor roared; the ’copter was suddenly air-borne.

I turned to the left, instructing Williams to walk on the outside, with a newer man between us. As I spaced them out, I watched the new man nervously fingering his shotgun as he licked at his lips, scanning the nearby underbrush with anxious eyes.

“It’s possible,” I said to the new man, “that Harper’s only got two shots left in his gun. Maybe not even that, unless he has spare shells. So we don’t have to shoot too quick. Understand?”

He nodded.

“What’s your name?”

“Rifkin.”

“Okay. Just take it easy, Rifkin. The first hundred shoot-outs are the toughest.”

He managed a smile.

“Okay,” I said, “let’s go. Slow and easy.”

The ’copter was hovering a bare fifty yards ahead, whipping the foliage, sending up huge clouds of dust. I glanced across at Friedman. He’d pushed his hat forward on his forehead, reminding me of a Western bad guy.

We’d covered maybe ten yards across the clearing, maybe more. Rifkin, on my left, was hanging back slightly. I was relieved; I was wishing he’d drop back even farther. If I’d known he was so green, I’d’ve put him on the outside, where he’d do the least damage.

Twenty yards. Ahead was a fringe of underbrush, the first terrain where a man could hide.

It was like hunting—exactly like deer hunting. Or maybe boar hunting, the most dangerous kind, at close quarters.

We were in the underbrush now, our pace slowed. I looked carefully up into the trees, still slowly walking forward. I was holding the riot gun half raised, and I saw that my knuckles were white. Except for the sound of the ’copter’s engine, the woods seemed very quiet.

Japanese snipers, in the war, had—

The ’copter was coming, fast and low. As it approached our line it swung broadside, hovering. A man in an olive-drab jump suit crouched in the open doorway, urgently gesturing toward the far side of the clearing we’d just left.

“They’ve spotted him,” I called.

“Spread out,” Friedman was saying as we all emerged from the underbrush. “Don’t bunch up.”

We moved behind the ’copter, across the clearing and into another line of underbrush, thicker than the first. The ’copter was almost directly overhead now, still raising its enormous dust cloud.

I clicked the safety off. Friedman and I were ahead of the others as we moved into shoulder-high laurel and juniper. The ’copter had moved to hover perhaps twenty feet ahead.

“Let’s spread out,” Friedman said, grunting as he bent double to duck under a low branch. “He must be close now.”

Nodding, I motioned for my two men to move to the left; Friedman was crouched, watching the two detectives move to his right. We were all in the underbrush now. I walked ahead, very slowly. Rifkin was too close to me, but I decided to let it go. We’d do better to—

A small movement flicked in the high grass close beside a huge oak tree. Was it an animal—or Harper’s brown leather jacket?

I caught Friedman’s attention, pointing to the oak. He nodded, then placed a fat forefinger to his lips. Now he signalled for me to circle the tree on the left, while he went to the right side. Nodding in return, I motioned for Rifkin and Williams to move with me, around and behind the tree. The ’copter was moving away, maybe fifty feet. In another moment we’d—

He burst running from the underbrush surrounding the oak tree, dragging his limping leg. Now, whirling, he fired. Four quick shots. I dropped to the dirt. “Down,” I shouted. “Get down. He’s re-loaded. Get down.”

But Rifkin, standing straight, had the shotgun to his shoulder, firing.

“Hold it,” Friedman was calling. “Wait.”

Three shots, then three more. At the last shot Harper screamed, spun, and fell heavily. Rifkin, running forward, had dropped the shotgun, drawing his revolver. Harper was struggling to his knees. His gun lay on the ground, out of reach. His left side and thigh were bloody. He raised his head, dazed, looking at Rifkin.

I was on my feet, running.

“Rifkin. Stop. Don’t.”

But the revolver was raised. Harper was raising a trembling hand, mutely begging. I left my feet, sweeping Rifkin’s legs in an arm tackle. Williams was beside me, grabbing for the gun. Rifkin struggled. He was cursing me. Harper was sobbing—alive. I sat up, then rose to my feet, brushing off my clothing. Rifkin was still swearing, demanding his gun. Williams looked at me. I nodded.

“Put it in the holster, Rifkin,” I said. “The war’s over.”

He was on his feet, facing me. Bewildered. Babbling.

“But he was shooting at us. Trying to kill us. You saw him. Why’d you—”

“You’re paid to get shot at, Rifkin. It goes with the job. Now put it away.”

Shaking his head, rapidly blinking, he slowly returned the gun to its holster, fastening down the strap. His face was pale, his eyes large and staring. Harper was stretched full length on his back, eyes closed, breathing heavily. His hands were twitching; he was in shock. Friedman had torn the shirt and trousers away, revealing a shotgun wound low on the left abdomen, touching the point of the upper thigh.

“He should make it,” I said.

FIFTEEN

I WATCHED THE DOCTOR straighten, dropping the stethoscope down around his neck. He turned to me.

“He’s all yours, Sergeant. I wouldn’t talk too long, though.”

“Thanks. No problems?”

“No problems. Nothing vital hit, except for a little nick in the lower intestine. But we’ve sewed that up and he should stay here for, say, two days, because there’s always a chance of infection. But it’s just routine.” He nodded briskly, and left the room, closing the door softly.

I sat down on the bedside chair, and opened my newspaper. I’d covered the entire first section, story by story, in the last hour—all except the society section. Now I had a choice: sit staring at nothing, or read the society news.

I turned the page, studying a studio photograph of a blonde girl with a long nose and narrow-set eyes. She was being married in October, and after a Bermuda honeymoon she and her new husband would move to Chicago, where her prospective father-in-law owned a savings and loan company.

Slowly lowering the paper, I stared off across the room, my eyes unfocused.

I could still see her picture in the paper, and mine. It was our wedding picture. I’d been smiling, holding the huge silver knife over the cake—posing for the photographers. She’d been saying something about my being accustomed to posing, but only for sports pictures. Now, she’d said, it was her turn.

And she’d been right. I’d often thought about it, how very right she’d been.

The next day, reading the society news, I’d been secretly disappointed that my football career was hardly mentioned, while my new in-laws’ wealth and status were discreetly featured in every story. And my wife’s sorority. To society editors, sororities were more important than—

He was moaning, stirring. I blinked my eyes into focus. He was staring at me. He was trying to smile—a bitter, twisted smile.

“I was aiming for you, Sergeant.” His voice was clear and fairly strong.

“Why?”

“Oh—” He raised his hand a few inches, then let it fall back. “Just because it was a familiar face, I suppose.”

“It might seem funny to you, Harper. But to the judge it’s going to sound like attempted murder.”

“That’s all? Just attempted murder?”

I didn’t like his embittered self-possession. Because, really, we still hadn’t developed a single piece of evidence connecting Harper to the murders. We’d spent four hours dismantling his apartment, unsuccessfully. We’d searched the boat, and a room he’d sometimes occupied at his uncle’s house. We’d been looking for Karen Forest’s money, plus perhaps some possession of Robertson’s—anything incriminating. All we found was a box of .38 shells and several marijuana cigarettes.

“Is my uncle getting me a lawyer?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“And I don’t have to say anything until he arrives. Is that right?”

I nodded. “That’s right, Harper. But what you should remember, is that the more information you volunteer, the easier time you’ll have. Of course, your lawyer might try and plead you not guilty, so that he can stick your uncle with a nice, fat fee. But if he advises a not guilty plea, Harper, he’ll be conning you. On the other hand, if you confess to murdering Robertson and Karen Forest and Maxine Summers right now, there’s probably no question that you’d never get anything worse than life. Which, translated, means twenty years, maybe less. You’d be forty-four years old, when you get out. I’m forty-three.”

He smiled—lips curling derisively, pale blue eyes unnaturally calm and appraising. He seemed to be enjoying himself—playing some strange, mad game.

“What I get from all that, Sergeant, is that you don’t have much of a case against me.”

“The case for murder, we certainly aren’t going to tell you about, Harper. But I can tell you this: you took several shots at several police officers yesterday. That’s attempted murder right there, not to mention a half dozen other charges. If the D.A. wants to, he can ask for indictments on charges, that running consecutively, would probably come to forty years. Then there’s still murder—for which, if you’re found guilty—the sentence would probably be the gas chamber. So—” I spread my hands, hopefully in a gesture of reasonableness. “One way it’s twenty years. The other way it’s forty years at least, and maybe the gas chamber, too.”

His reaction was the sneering smile of a small, spoiled boy. “It wouldn’t be so bad confessing,” he was saying, “except for the fact that I’d be ruining the perfect crime. Assuming I did it, of course. Which, naturally, you’re assuming.”

I smiled back at him. “There’s no such thing as a perfect crime, Harper. If there were, then what’re you doing here?”

“I got panicked, and ran. It was a mistake. But you’ve already admitted that you don’t have any proof against me—not proof of murder.”

“I said we weren’t about to tell you what proof we had. I didn’t say that—”

“I’ll tell you what I’ll do, Sergeant—” He tried to raise himself higher on the pillows, then winced with sudden pain.

I rose, gently took his shoulders, and raised him higher. His eyes, closely seen, were shadowed by the same scared, lost, bewildered uncertainty I’d seen deep in the eyes of every hood, or grafter, or pimp, or murderer I’d ever questioned. They were all the same—all of them lost and scared, yet desperate to conceal it.

I poured a glass of water, extending the glass. Silently he took it, staring at me as he drank.

“I’ll tell you what I’ll do,” he repeated.

“What’ll you do, Harper?” I replaced the glass, then resumed my seat.

“If you can figure out how the murder was committed, then I’ll confess. That’s how sure I am that you’re simply clutching at straws, without any proof.”

“You’re talking about the Forest murder.”

He nodded. “This is strictly between us, of course—a private deal. No witnesses. In front of witnesses, I’ll deny everything. I’ll say that you were coming after me yesterday evening at the Marina, and I—I got scared, and ran.”

“Shooting.”

He shrugged.

“You think of yourself as quite a little superman, don’t you, Harper? I’ve decided that you committed the Forest murder just like Leopold and Loeb did—just for kicks. Am I right?”

Mockingly he seemed to consider it. “Not a bad guess, Sergeant. At least, you’ve got me interested.” He waved a hand. “Continue. Pray continue.”

“You got the money, of course. Maybe that was the motive, originally. But when the time came, you knew that you’d really come to murder her.”

Listening, his eyes were changed—guarded now. I was coming close.

“You say I murdered her,” he was saying, his voice very soft, his eyes very bright with a fixed fascination. “But you don’t say how. Don’t forget, Sergeant—” He was almost crooning. “Don’t forget, I was questioned about her murder. I was—”

“That was before you tried to shoot it out with us, Harper. An innocent man doesn’t do that.”

“You’re forgetting our little agreement, Sergeant. You were going to tell me how I murdered Karen Forest, not why. And if you guess correctly, I might—”

A knock sounded. Impatiently I rose and opened the door. It was Williams, posted in the corridor.

“The Lieutenant wants to see you.” He pointed to a small waiting room at the end of the hall.

I walked impatiently to the waiting room, lighting a cigarette as I went.

“You look a little miffed,” Friedman said.

“If I do, it’s because I think I was getting somewhere with Harper.” And, as concisely as possible, I told him the whole conversation.

Listening, sometimes nodding, Friedman reflectively smoked his cigar, occasionally making small sounds of agreement.

Finally, when I’d finished, he announced, “Between the hours of three-thirty A.M. and five A.M. this morning, I think I figured out something that would make Harper the Forest murderer and also account for his alibi. In theory, anyhow.”

“Good. Let’s hear it.”

“Of course,” he said, waving a magnanimous hand, “what you’ve just told me has put a lot of the finishing touches on my theory. So, when they’re interviewing me for the newspapers and T.V., I’m going to be sure and give you credit. You probably won’t have a speaking part, though.”

“Uh, huh.”

“Anyhow,” he continued, “here’s what I think happened: First, I think Harper decided to hit the Forest place, probably for the loot—plus the opportunity to do someone a bad turn, therefore relieving a few of his aggressions. Then, when she gave him a little trouble, he killed her. Now you’re wondering, I presume, how he could’ve been simultaneously at both the Crushed Chrysanthemum and Karen Forest’s. Right?”

I shook my head. “Wrong.”

He frowned, speculatively looking me over.

“Does that mean,” he said, “that you’ve developed a so-called theory of your own?”

“Right.”

“All right—” He waved a magnanimous hand. “Give it to me, Sergeant. It’s the duty of lieutenants to encourage underlings. Let’s see how close you came.”

“Well, this morning I happened to hear that when Carruthers went back to Maxine’s apartment, he found a blond wig, plus a couple of newspapers with words and phrases apparently cut out with a razor blade. Indicating, obviously, blackmail. But Carruthers didn’t connect the two. He figured the wig belonged to Maxine. Of course, Carruthers didn’t have the advantage of knowing Cecile Franks, who told me that Maxine didn’t wear wigs. So, adding up Harper as Karen Forest’s murderer, plus the mysterious wig, plus blackmail, I decided that the wig belonged to Harper, who gave it to Robertson, who impersonated Harper at the revival meeting. Then, somehow, Maxine got hold of the wig. Maybe Robertson ditched it outside the Crushed Chrysanthemum. Maxine might not’ve made the connection until after Robertson came back, and got murdered. Or maybe she was biding her time. Anyhow, it’s the only way it could’ve worked. As you said yourself, it’s a long hike.”

Friedman sighed. “First he’s a radio personality. Now he’s a super sleuth.” Mock-morosely, he puffed at his cigar.

Then, suddenly, he rose to his feet. “Come on,” he said, already striding away. “I’ll try it on Harper. You just nod and look mean. Besides, his lawyer’s due any minute.”

And, a moment later, Friedman and I were standing it the foot of Harper’s bed, silently staring at the suspect. Finally, Friedman began speaking in a slow, solemn voice. “I only got a couple of hours sleep since we brought you here last night, John. But we finally got it all tied up. We have all the witnesses we need in the Forest murder, and we’re making good progress on the other murders. Fibres from your clothing, for instance, were found in the car you stole for the Summers murder.”

Harper didn’t do more than blink. He didn’t say anything; he just looked at us, his eyes moving ceaselessly between Friedman and myself.

Friedman raised his eyes to stare at Harper. “You told Sergeant Hastings that if he came up with a solution to the Forest murder, you’d do the sporting thing and confess. Are you willing to make the same offer to me, Harper? Because, if you are, I’ll send for the steno right now.”

Harper’s face was certainly paler. Briefly I wondered whether he might slip back into shock—just about the time his lawyer arrived, perhaps with a doctor in tow.

“Of course,” Friedman was saying, “I should have checked you closer in the Forest murder, with your lousy juvenile record. Except of course, that you had an airtight alibi. Cut and dried. Right?”

Harper was staring at Friedman, mutely.

“Right?” Friedman asked, his voice suddenly sharp. “I’m talking to you, Harper. We’re talking about what you were doing the night Karen Forest was murdered. And, according to the statement you gave me, you spent the entire evening at the Crushed Chrysanthemum. Now, is that right, or isn’t it?”

“Y—yes. That’s right.”

“All right. Now, let’s get the statement you gave Sergeant Hastings, night before last. You said—again—that you remained at the Crushed Chrysanthemum during the entire evening, from approximately eight P.M. until approximately two A.M. You didn’t leave the premises. Is that right?”

“Yes.”

“Fine. Good.” Friedman nodded, smiling now, as if in encouragement. “You further stated, to Sergeant Hastings, that in fact, you only left the hall once. To go to the men’s room. Is that correct?”

This time, Harper only nodded. His eyes were wary; he licked at his lips, glanced down quickly towards me, then returned his gaze to Friedman.

“Well, then,” the Lieutenant was saying, “if you don’t want to change your testimony, stating that during the whole evening you only left the hall once, then I wonder if you’d tell me how it happened that—”

“No,” Harper broke in sharply. “No, the—that’s not right. I—I made a mistake. I left the big room twice. I—I just remembered.” He bobbed his head. “I—I didn’t think it was important, how many times I left. B—but just when you were talking, I—I was thinking. And I remember that I left twice, to go to the men’s room.”

Regretfully smiling, Freidman shook his head.

“No, Harper. I believed you the first time. Or, at least, I believed what you told Sergeant Hastings. I believe, see, that you did leave the room once. You went to the men’s room, and you let Donny Robertson inside—he looked enough like you, with identical clothes, and the wig, and all. Then you walked over to Karen Forest’s house, murdered her, robbed her, stashed the loot, and returned to wait outside the men’s room of the Crushed Chrysanthemum for Robertson to let you in. So, really, you were telling the truth; you did leave just once. However, several witnesses—we’ve turned up four, so far—all say that you actually left the room several times. So, the way I figure, Robertson got bugged, sweating out your return. He probably checked the men’s room every few minutes, instead of waiting the required number of minutes. Like, say, twenty minutes. Is that how long it took you to do it, Harper? About twenty minutes? Because that’s what we get from our witnesses, Harper. They all agree, of course, that the switch would certainly have been convincing, if they hadn’t stopped to think about it—or if you hadn’t turned up on Bay Area radio yesterday evening, playing Billy the Kid. And they all agree that you did a masterful job, picking the Friday night session at the Crushed Chrysanthemum, for your little masquerade—when almost no one was paying attention to anything but his own private little visions of dwarfs and elves. And, also, everyone agrees that—”

The door opened behind us. It was the doctor, followed by a bald man carrying a brief case. Friedman managed to say cheerfully, “Here’s your lawyer, Harper. You’d better talk this over with him. And remember what Sergeant Hastings said about the difference between serving twenty years and maybe going to the gas chamber.” He nodded briskly to the lawyer, and together we left the room.

“Do you really have all those witnesses?” I asked quietly as we walked towards the waiting room.

He smiled sidelong at me. “You must think I’m some kind of a demon for work, Sergeant. I spend an hour and a half, from three-thirty A.M. to five A.M., tossing and turning while I wrap up a vicious triple murder, and you expect me to jump out of bed a couple of hours later and get right at pounding the pavements. I need rest. Relaxation. I—Oh, oh. Here’s Vannuchi. I’ll leave you two to talk, while I phone the D.A.”

Turning, I saw Vannuchi seated in a corner of the empty waiting room. I hardly recognised him. His grey-streaked beard was trimmed to a neat Vandyke. He wore a well-cut tweed suit and expensive cordovan shoes. Beside him lay a suede hat with a rakish green feather.

“It’s a hell of a note,” he said. “The first time in over a year that I really have something that I’ve got to do outside the Haight, and I can’t wear my sweatshirt.”

“Why can’t you wear your sweatshirt, Vannuchi?”

He looked at me, then ruefully snorted. “Because, he said abruptly, “I’d feel silly coming to a place like this wearing a sweatshirt. If you really want to know.”

“Well, that’s progress. I guess.”

“Yeah? Well, everyone has his own idea of progress.” He paused, then asked in a different voice, “Did Harper confess?”

“Not yet. But he will.” It was a stock answer.

“But you’re satisfied that Harper murdered Karen Forest, Don Robertson and Maxine Summers?”

“It looks like it, Vannuchi. But even if we can’t prove it, he’s still in plenty of trouble.”

“I know. I heard you yesterday. You’re quite a celebrity, Sergeant. Last night on the radio, this morning in all the papers.” After a moment’s silence Vannuchi looked down at his large hands, clasped in his lap. “It’s incredible,” he said. “I never liked Harper. I understood him, I think. But I never liked him. Still, to do something like this—” He shook his head.

“If you understood him well enough, though, it shouldn’t surprise you, what he did.”

He raised his head, looking at me. “You sound like me, Sergeant. You throw out a little syllogism—a little epigram, for the audience to think about. Then you just sit back and watch them try to field it. A gadfly. If the audience is puzzled enough—if you’re obscure enough while you still manage to sound profound and provocative—then you’re a hit.” His voice was flat and dispirited; his eyes were dull and listless. He looked old and tired.

“Do you want to see Harper, Vannuchi?”

“No.”

“Why’d you come, then?”

“To help you, if I can.”

“How?”

“By telling you about my conversation with Angie Sawyer this morning.”

I sat up straighter. “What’d you find out?”

“She said that when she got home from the hospital, she found a letter, written by Don Robertson. It was a—a kind of confession, I guess. Apparently Donny concealed it in one of her dresser drawers, where she’d be sure to find it.”

“All right; what’d it say?”

“Well, chronologically, he started with the first time Harper proposed his stand-in scheme. I suppose you know about that.”

I nodded. Matter-of-factly, I hoped.

“Harper was apparently very clever about it,” Vannuchi continued, now speaking more rapidly. “He started it off by saying that he’d made a bet with someone. He offered Donny fifty dollars to make the switch. But it wasn’t until two days later that Harper came to him, and told him the whole story. Apparently Harper heard that you were questioning guys that answered his description, so he figured he’d better get Robertson out of town. He explained that Donny was an accessory—that he had to leave town. He gave him fifteen hundred dollars, and took him down to the plane, and made sure Donny got off.”

“Why did Robertson come back?”

“Conscience, I’d say. Old-fashioned, middle-class conscience. He brooded, all the while he was in New York. And, after three weeks, he just couldn’t stand it. Because, you see, Donny was basically one of the sweetest, gentlest, most passive people I’ve ever known. Without thinking about it, he already possessed the values that most of these hippies are trying so hard to achieve. But of course, he was weak. Terribly weak. Anyhow—” Vannuchi sighed. “Anyhow, finally, Donny decided that he had to come back to San Francisco and persuade Harper to give himself up. Or, at least, to tell Harper that he was going to give himself up. That’s how naïve Donny was. He didn’t recognise the danger.”

“Naïveté is one thing,” I said. “Stupidity is something else.”

“It’s all a question of semantics, Sergeant.” He picked up his hat. “In the long run, I guess, Donny had to come up a loser. But not dead. That didn’t have to happen. If only he—he’d just had enough sense to realise what Harper would do, once he’d discovered what Donny planned.” Slowly, heavily, Vannuchi rose to his feet.

“They say it takes a crook to catch a crook,” I said, also rising. “If you don’t have a little of the devil in you, it’s pretty hard to figure which way the devil’s going to jump. That’s the problem with living somewhere like Haight Ashbury, Vannuchi. You lose touch with the devil. And sometimes it can cost you.”

He shrugged, sighed, and offered his hand, sadly.

“Are you going back to the Haight?” I asked. “I’ll give you a ride.”

“No. Not today, anyhow. I—I haven’t seen my kids for months. And I have a friend—she’s a T.V. pitch woman, actually—who’d probably invite me to dinner, if I’d give her a call.” He smiled, for the first time as if he meant it. “Who knows, she might invite me for the weekend. Or longer.”

“If she does,” I said, walking along with him, “let me know about it. I’ll want to keep in touch.”

“Don’t worry, Sergeant.” Again he smiled. “We are bound together, I feel, for a short distance along the way. Like a couple of characters in Aeschylus. By the way, Cecile Franks says she’s found something of yours. She’s waiting for you at the Crushed Chrysanthemum.”

I’d forgotten Claudia. With everything that had happened, I’d actually forgotten.

Cecile, too. I’d forgotten her.

The day was sunny; it was about two P.M., and the fog hadn’t come in yet.

I watched Vannuchi walking toward the street and a bus stop. Just short of the bus stop was a phonebooth. He eyed the booth for a moment, hesitated, and then went inside.

I walked to my cruiser, and climbed behind the wheel. Then, slowly, I drove away.

SIXTEEN

SHE WORE A LIGHT summer dress and a white sweater thrown over her shoulders. Her hair was brown, like mine. Her eyes were a clear blue. Like mine. Her mouth was wide and firmly set; her arms were smooth, tanned to a tawny brown. Beneath the sweater her full young breasts swelled with an exciting, mature promise.

Had she lived with the two of them—Tomilson, and the poet? In barely two weeks’ time?

Had she made love with them?

I would probably never know.

Barely three hours ago, I’d watched her pack the new bright-coloured hippie costumes she must have just bought. I’d seen many girls like her—young, beautiful girls dressed in bizarre, loose-fitting toga-like costumes, sometimes in skin-tight jeans. Something in their free, unconcerned stride made them seem anybody’s girl—for a day or a night, a week, or a warm summer in the sun.

What had she done? What was she feeling?

I couldn’t ask. I could only sit staring out at the airport, watching the lights of the planes. In less than an hour, her plane would be called. We’d walk down the ramp, and I’d kiss her, and she’d be in Detroit a few hours later.

In the Grand Canyon, the last day, we’d—

“—Wanted to call you, Daddy,” she was saying.

“Wh—what?”

She was staring down at the table.

“I wanted to call you. And I—I wanted you to know. Before—”

I swallowed, then said, “Is there any way that I—I can help you, Claudia? Anything I can do?”

She tried to smile. “Not unless you want to take me in as a permanent boarder.”

“I could do that, too. For a while, at least.”

“No,” she answered, very softly. “I want to get out of San Francisco. Right now. Just like this. I—I want to get away, and think about myself. I—I’ve frightened myself, the past two weeks. That’s the only way I can express it. And I—I want to think about it. I want to lock myself in my room, and look around at all my things, and just—just think about it.”

I looked at her for a moment. Then, involuntarily, my gaze turned aside, to rest on the huge silver shape of a jetliner approaching the terminal. I’d spent the past six years professionally assessing human misery—objectively picking the precise moment when one more question, one more insult, or one more threat would bring a confession. I’d been successful; in another year—two years, at the most—I’d make lieutenant. I’d been successful because I’d been smart enough and tough enough to do the job. And because, most of all, I’d been detached—utterly, coldly, completely detached. When a fighter gets angry, he’s finished. When a cop feels pity, he can’t get the job done.

Now, sitting in an airport restaurant, I was looking across the table at my own daughter. In her face I saw the same kind of misery that was my stock in trade—my profession.

I drew a slow, deep sigh.

“Right now,” I said, “I imagine you’re thinking that you’ve made a mess of things. And in a way, I guess you have. I—I don’t know much about you, Claudia. I guess it’s pretty obvious. But I know a little about people making a mess of things. I see it every day—eight hours a day, sometimes more. And I know a little about making a mess of things from my own experience, too. I can look back and see that I believed too many locker room compliments, and too many clippings from the sports pages—and I believed too many girls, and too many well-dressed men with drinks in their hands. It was simpler, you see, to believe them. Easier. Just like it’s easier, for you, to think there’s nothing more important—more real—than how you look, and how you feel. You’re young, and beautiful. And that’s a kind of reality, I guess. But—” I paused, aware that I was shaking my head. I couldn’t think what I wanted to say—really wanted to say. But she was looking at me now. She was listening—biting her lip, blinking.

“But you can’t just go by what makes you feel good, Claudia. That—that’s too easy. You’ve got to be tougher than that. Stronger. I don’t know whether you’re happy at home. You probably aren’t, if you ran away. And if—if things aren’t happier for you at home, that’s partly my fault—your mother’s and mine. Because your mother and I made mistakes, you’re unhappy right now. It’s unfair. It’s tough. Every day, I see what happens to people in a box like that. There’s no place for them to go, except to break out. And that’s where I come in—to see that they don’t hurt someone else, when they break out.”

“You know, Daddy,” she said slowly, “I can never think of you as a policeman. Somehow I just never can.”

“That’s what I’m telling you: I can’t either. I think of myself as—as someone who’s going to bring them to their feet on the next play. I—I’m a failure, Claudia. I feel like a failure. Just like, right now, maybe you feel like a failure, too. So I know how it feels.”

“Mother said, one time, that you couldn’t make it out in the world.”

“She was right,” I answered. “Not in her world, any how. Not in society. Not as a public relations man in her father’s business.”

“Are you happy, Daddy? Now?”

“No. I spent too long thinking about my clippings. Then I spent too long with a highball glass in my hand. Now—the past six years—I’ve carried a gun. And that’s a kind of failure, too. Because you’re on one side, and everyone else is on the other. I don’t know any really happy men who carry guns.” I glanced at the big wall clock. It was time to go. And I still hadn’t said it. I’d been giving this girl—my daughter—a pointless, rambling lecture that sounded, remembering it, like a locker room pep talk—or a squad room briefing.

She was looking at the clock. Now she was gathering up her purse and gloves—her very proper, very white gloves. Carolyn would feel encouraged, seeing those gloves.

She rose. As I gathered myself to rise, she stepped towards me, resting her hand on my arm, to keep me in my seat.

“Let me go by myself, Daddy. That’s the way I came.” She leaned forward, brushing her lips to my cheek. “Thank you,” she whispered, and then turned away.

I watched her walk through the doorway, without looking back.

SEVENTEEN

I WAITED UNTIL SHE slipped into the old checked hunting shirt she often wore for a robe, then I switched on the bedside light.

“Would you like me to fix you some eggs?” she asked, looking into the dresser mirror as she ran careless fingers through her long, thick hair.

“All right. Will you cook them with sherry, like you did Friday?”

“If I do, will you marry me?”

“No.” I lit a cigarette.

“If I give up the Crushed Chrysanthemum and agree to go to the Policeman’s Ball, will you marry me?”

“Afraid not. Sorry.”

“How about if I ask Daddy to move to Chicago for the next twenty years?”

I sighed. “I’ve told you many times, that I don’t dislike your father. It’s him. He’s a cop hater.”

“Daddy is suffering from a crisis of identity. His perpetual crisis of identity.”

“What your father is suffering from is the inability to realise that he isn’t a big shot. Do you realise how much money you’d have now, if you hadn’t been subsidising ‘Daddy’ for the past year or two?”

She shrugged. “He was entitled. That was the deal. He did put up the money. He borrowed it, true. But he still put it up. That’s finance, sweetie. He backed a winner.”

I snorted.

“Anyhow,” she continued, “you’re right. Daddy and I have slipped into an inversion of roles, and it’s destructive for him. So I’m going to sell out, give him half, and re-examine psychology. Unless, of course, I become pregnant.”

“Cecile—”

“Have you got some sherry? Eggs Benedictine aren’t good, you know, with anything else.”

“I think so. Look.”

She turned the silver-framed picture of Claudia to catch the dim light.

“I remember,” she said softly, “the first time I saw that picture. I think I must’ve been interested in you even then, because I remember, very distinctly, that I was disappointed when I discovered the real reason you picked me up that night. Are you sure you won’t marry me?”

“Cecile—”

“Claudia is a nice girl, Frank,” she said, gazing at the picture. “She’s going to do all right. You wait.”

“She’s back with Sandy Tomilson, apparently. Much to her mother’s disgust. It sounds to me like Claudia’s being condescending to both of them: Sandy and her mother.”

“Good.” Decisively she nodded, turned the picture to its proper position and left the room.

“Eggs Benedictine in twenty minutes,” she said. “Be there, Lieutenant.”

Turn the page to continue reading from the Lt. Hastings Mysteries

1

AS I PULLED TO a stop and set the brake, the reporters came to cluster in a listless group around the cruiser. Dan Kanter, from the Bulletin, was yawning. Crime reporters weren’t accustomed to working in the morning, and as I glanced at my watch I saw that the time was only 9:15. It would be a long day.

I got out of the cruiser, automatically taking the count: two squad cars, a motorcycle, two cruisers, the crime lab truck, an ambulance and the assistant coroner’s car. It was the standard assortment, indicating a standard departmental homicide—nothing very dramatic, or puzzling, or very important. Yet the neighborhood was Sea Cliff, one of San Francisco’s best. Thus the larger-than-usual gaggle of reporters, so early in the morning.

“When’re we going to get a look, Lieutenant?” Kanter was asking.

“I don’t know. I haven’t had a look yet myself.”

“How’d the squeal read?”

“I don’t know. I got the call on my way to work. Just the call, no squeal.” I began pushing my way along the sidewalk. “You probably know more than I know.”

“They’re about ready to move the body,” someone complained, “and we haven’t got any pictures yet.”

“There might be a reason,” I answered shortly. “Anyhow, they won’t move it until I’ve had a look.”

“We understand it’s the family maid,” Kanter said.

Not replying, I nodded to the patrolman standing in the lushly planted entryway. As he opened the front door, I turned back to the reporters. “As soon as I find out anything, I’ll let you know. Before the body’s moved.” Then, ignoring the ritual rumblings of protest, I walked into the house.

Dick Culligan got to his feet, nodding. He’d been sitting at one end of a long brocaded sofa, talking to a slim, pale woman, a brunette of medium height, probably in her middle forties.

“This is Lieutenant Hastings,” Culligan said. “Mrs. Allingham, Lieutenant.”

She looked at me with large dark eyes. She was wearing a tailored silk housecoat. Her lips were pressed into a tight, prim line. Her face, without make-up, was creased with a network of small, well-bred wrinkles. She looked intelligent, rigidly self-possessed—and worried.

She nodded to me, then managed a low-voiced greeting. Her fingers, clasped in her lap, were fretfully twisting. As she swallowed, the cords of her neck tightened spasmodically. But she held my eyes steadily, determinedly.

I stared at her a last long, deliberate moment before Culligan said, “The lieutenant and I will be a few minutes, Mrs. Allingham. If you’d—” He paused, then said, “If you’d like to get something on—” He let it go unfinished.

Nodding, not replying, she got to her feet. Her walk was steady and self-possessed. She held her head straight and didn’t look back as she left the large living room.

As I followed Culligan down the rear corridor, I looked in at each room as we passed. The furnishings were elaborate and expensive. The Allinghams, I was thinking, must have paid a hundred thousand for the house and another thirty or forty thousand for the furnishings.

The corridor ended in a narrow flight of stairs. Culligan led the way down to a second level, obviously the maid’s quarters, laundry and utility rooms. A lab man was dusting the door handles, the doorframes and the opaque glass of an outside door. We squeezed past a big motorcycle patrolman, even bulkier in leather jacket, crash helmet and boots. As the lab man turned, I recognized Carl Estes, a young, breezy health-food fadist with a dumpy little wife and three dumpy little children.

“Hi, Carl. How’re you doing?”

“I got a thousand prints, Lieutenant, and one lovely little bloody smear.” He pointed to a brownish smudge on the frame of the outside door, close beside a heavy barrel bolt, drawn back. Culligan examined the blood closely, then grunted, “That’s no print, Carl.”

“I didn’t say it was. I said it was a smear.”

Culligan grunted again, straightened and waited for me to look. Then we walked the twenty-odd feet to the maid’s room.

She was lying beside the bed, flat on her back. Charlie Benson, the assistant coroner, was kneeling over the body. He looked up, then silently straightened, standing back. The room was perfectly quiet. I walked slowly forward, taking Charlie’s place beside the body.

Her right arm was extended straight out from the body; her left hand clutched the covers of the narrow bed. Her long dark hair had fallen across her face, but among the heavy dark strands I could see her right eye, staring straight up. Her left eye was concealed. Her mouth was open wide; her swollen tongue protruded between clenched teeth. Her throat was bruised, and on the dark flesh beneath her jaw were several small, shallow scratches. Her legs were drawn up in the typical agony of violent death.

She was wearing a transparent pink nightgown, cheaply made. The nightgown had been ripped down to the waist. She’d been stabbed repeatedly, perhaps a dozen times, from the base of her throat to her navel.

She’d been short, compactly made. Her breasts were full and firm, her waist narrow, her hips wide. She’d probably been in her middle twenties and weighed about a hundred and ten pounds.

I glanced at Charlie Benson. He stepped forward to stand beside me, staring thoughtfully down at the body.

“How long’s she been dead, would you say?”

He shrugged. “Six to ten hours, maybe. We’ll know more when we take the temperature and cut the stomach open.”

“What about those scratches on her throat?”

“Fingernails, probably. Looks like she was strangled, then stabbed. She might’ve been dead from asphyxia, as a matter of fact, before she was stabbed. Unusual.”

“Has she been raped?”

Again he shrugged. “Can’t tell. Not until we get her downtown. If I had to guess, though, I’d say no.”

I nodded, then looked carefully around the room. A table was crumpled against a wall, broken like a balsa wood movie prop. A small chintz armchair was overturned. A lamp, an alarm clock and broken bottles of perfume littered the floor. The odor of cheap perfume somehow made the excremental stench of death even worse. The alarm clock, I saw, was still running; the time was correct.

“Have you got everything you need?” I asked the photographer.

“Not quite, sir. I had one job already this morning, and—”

“All right. When you’ve finished, check with Inspector Culligan, will you?”

I took a last look around, nodded to the silent detectives and patrolmen, then walked out into the hallway, followed by Culligan. The door to the laundry room was open. I found a light switch, and we went inside.

“Well?” I asked, leaning against a large table heaped with laundry. “How’s it look? Anything?”

“Nothing yet.” Culligan looked back over his shoulder, toward the open door, obviously anxious to resume his investigation unhampered. Culligan was only thirty-three, young for a senior homicide inspector. But he looked forty-five. He was tall, stooped and balding. His complexion was sallow, accentuated by heavy, frowning brows and a perpetual five o’clock shadow. His biggest professional problem was a kind of ill-tempered impatience. He sometimes jumped to the wrong conclusion, rather than take the time to check his leads, then check them again. But Culligan was a hard-working, conscientious cop, unconcerned about the time clock. If ulcers didn’t slow him down, or cynicism affect his judgment, he’d be a good homicide detective. Someday.

“What’s the rundown?” I asked.

“Well—” He sighed, then returned his gaze to concentrate reluctantly on me. Culligan wasn’t interested in impressing a superior officer. That was something else about him that I liked.

“Well,” he said, “the call came in about seven-thirty this morning. The victim, Maria Gonzales, was supposed to’ve been up by that time, fixing the Allinghams’ breakfast. When she didn’t appear, Mrs. Allingham came down here to get her up. Apparently the girl overslept once in a while. Anyhow, the girl’s door was closed. The outside door at the end of this hallway—the one with the blood smear on it—that was closed, too. Everything appeared normal. But—” Culligan shrugged, gesturing to the room across the hall.

“What happened then?”

“Well, Mrs. Allingham let out a squawk and ran upstairs. Her husband came down, looked at the body and then phoned in downtown. His name is Herbert Allingham.”

“Where’s Mr. Allingham now?”

“He, uh, left about nine o’clock.” Culligan’s eyes flickered up to meet mine. He’d exceeded his authority. But I didn’t comment or change my expression. “He’s a stockbroker, see. I questioned him from about eight-fifteen until quarter to nine. He said that he had a big, important deal that he couldn’t miss out on. He was on the phone to his office and everything. They even called him from New York during that time—all of them in a lather, apparently. So, finally, I let him take his kid and leave. They’ll both be back just after three P.M. And, hell—” He jerked his hand in a typically impatient gesture, frowning. “The guy’s a big shot. Obviously. He did everything he could to cooperate, but he said that if he didn’t get downtown by nine-thirty at the latest, his big deal would fall through. And I believed him.” Now Culligan’s narrow dark eyes were touched with a kind of defensive defiance. “I verified his employment and everything. It all checked.”

Something about verifying Herbert Allingham’s employment struck me as funny, but I didn’t let it show.

“All right. What about the kid?”

He nodded, anticipating the question. “Darrell Allingham. He’s—” Culligan fished out his notebook. “He’s seventeen, a senior at Farnsworth School. That’s a private high school for boys, not too far from here. He usually leaves with his father in the morning, and both the mother and father seemed anxious to get him out of the house. So, again, I didn’t see any harm.”

“Did you talk to the kid?”

“Just to get a statement on his movements last night and cross-check his parents’ movements.”

“Does it all add up?”

“So far it does.”

“What’s the story?”

“Mr. and Mrs. Allingham went out about six-thirty P.M. They got home late, about two A.M. It was—” He glanced again at the notebook. “It was one of those museum openings, at the De Young. Mr. and Mrs. Allingham went to a cocktail party first, then to dinner, then to the opening. Then they went to another big party afterward. Apparently it was a big social occasion—tuxedos and all. Like opening night at the opera or something.”

“What about the kid?”

“Maria—the victim—gave him dinner about seven P.M. He says he did his homework and watched TV until eight-thirty, then went out.”

“Where?”

“To a movie. He got home about midnight. And—”

“On a Thursday night?”

Culligan nodded, then shrugged.

“All right. What about—”

The photographer stuck his head in the door. “All set, Lieutenant. I’m leaving. Prints in an hour and a half, downtown. Mr. Benson wants to know whether it’s all right with you if he moves the body.”

I looked at Culligan. He shrugged again, then nodded.

“All right,” I said. “He can take it away just as soon as Inspector Culligan gets there to witness the removal. Five minutes. Tell him, will you?”

“Check. See you later, Lieutenant.”

I said good-bye to him, then turned back to Culligan. “What about the maid’s movements last night? Anything on that yet?”

“We haven’t had a chance to check. But Mrs. Allingham says the girl had a couple of friends in the neighborhood—other servants, including a chauffeur just down the street that the victim used to date.”

“Okay, so far so good.” I glanced at my watch. “I’ve got to go downtown. You canvass the neighborhood and look around for the weapon. I think you should be able to handle it with the men you’ve got. I’ll get the lab findings and the coroner’s report, then get back out here sometime between three and five. If I can’t make it, I’ll call you. And if I leave for anywhere but here, I’ll let you know. Okay?”

“Yessir.”

“I’ll talk to the reporters on my way out and tell them they can’t come inside. It’s too close quarters, don’t you think?”

“Definitely.”

We were standing in the narrow hallway. Estes, the lab man, was carefully sweeping the floor, a square yard at a time. Marking the squares, he emptied the contents into separate plastic envelopes, tagging the envelopes to correspond to the floor areas swept.

“Anything else turn up?” I asked him.

“Not that I can see, Lieutenant. It’ll take hours, I’d say, to sort out those prints and eliminate the members of the household.”

Not replying, I looked thoughtfully up and down the hallway. Beside me, Culligan was doing the same.

“That bolt on the outside door,” I said finally. “It was found open. Is that it?”

“Right. But the door was closed, on a spring lock.”

“Was she in the habit of bolting the door?”

“Most of the time she did, but not all the time, according to Mr. and Mrs. Allingham.” Culligan hesitated, then decided to say, “I haven’t been able to pin it down yet—I was just starting to interrogate Mrs. Allingham, for instance, when you came—but I get the feeling that both she and her husband are holding something back, where Maria’s concerned. For instance, I asked them whether Maria entertained men in her room. And Mrs. Allingham especially didn’t seem willing to give me a straight answer.”

“What about her husband?”

“Well, he—” Culligan hesitated again, searching for the thought. “He’s kind of a high-powered, big businessman type. You know: used to asking the questions instead of answering them. So it was hard to pin him down, especially about Maria’s habits. But I just get the feeling that both of them are holding back, like I said.”

“Maybe the old man visits Maria downstairs once in a while. It’s happened before. Or the boy. He’s seventeen, you say?”

Culligan nodded, frowning. Benson came out into the hallway. “Hey,” he said, “I haven’t had breakfast yet.”

“You’re not the only one,” I answered. “Tell you what: you get the body moved, and I’ll talk to the reporters. Then I’ll toss you for ham and eggs.”

“Beautiful. I know a good place just a few blocks from here. Ten minutes?”

“Ten minutes.” I jumped over one of Estes’ unswept squares, stared one last time at the blood-smeared door and then went upstairs.

2

BY 10:45 BENSON AND I had finished a hurried breakfast and gone our separate ways. It was a warm October morning, and I was driving down Pine Street with the windows open, heading for the Hall of Justice. I’d turned the radio low and didn’t catch the call the first time. The second time, though, the urgency in the dispatcher’s voice caught my attention, just in time.

“… oh-two. Repeat: Code two-oh-two, sector twelve. Location: O’Farrell Street, between Scott and Divisadero. All units, sector twelve, respond. Officer needs assistance.”

Code 202: homicide in progress. Our lucky number.

I jammed the flashing red light into the dashboard bracket, opened the siren and made the six blocks in good time through light morning traffic. Two squad cars were already on the scene, nosed into the curb in front of a ramshackle tenement building, the kind originally built as two elegant Victorian flats fifty years before. Two officers crouched behind their cars, both men aiming their shotguns at the house. A third officer was sitting propped against the nearest squad car. His face was white, his eyes half closed, lips pale. Blood soaked his uniform at the belt line.

I pulled in behind the nearest squad car, turned up the radio, clipped on my badge and left the door open, providing cover as I dodged to the next car. Close by, several sirens sounded; an ambulance was rounding the corner. Now two more squad cars were arriving, and two motorcycle units. I motioned the motorcycles to either end of the block, to divert traffic.

The face of the wounded man was familiar, but I couldn’t remember his name. He was deep in shock, his eyes rolling up. I moved aside as the two ambulance stewards came up, crouched low. I turned to Bert Harris, the nearest patrolman. “Where’s your fourth man?” I asked. “Covering the back?”

Harris nodded.

“Who is it?”

“Charlie Byrnes. I don’t think you know him.”

“Does he have a shotgun?”

“No. He had to jump a couple of fences.”

“Is there an alley back there?”

“I don’t know, Lieutenant. I don’t think so.”

I cupped my hands toward the closest squad car. “Cover the back,” I called. “Drive around the block. There’s already someone back there, so watch yourself.” The two men nodded, backing their unit toward the intersection, already clogged with cars.

“What happened?” I asked Harris.

“We were turning the corner of Divisadero and O’Farrell, heading in this direction.” Harris’ voice flattened into the official tones of an officer reporting. “We were just cruising. Byrnes and I. Then I see someone running down the street in front of us, going away—running like he’s scared. I looked again and saw that he had a pistol in his right hand. He was a white male, brown hair, about a hundred fifty pounds, I’d say. He’s wearing black jeans, I think, and some kind of a blue shirt. I think the shirt has white trim—one of those cowboy-type shirts, as near as I could see. He—” Harris gulped for breath. “He kept running down O’Farrell, here, and we just drove behind him while we put in the call for assistance. For about a block, he didn’t even notice us. He was just running, with his head down, like he didn’t know there was anyone within miles. But then, just here, he suddenly looked over his shoulder and he saw us. So, right quick, he dodged in between these two houses.” Harris bobbed his head backward, toward the shabby Victorian tenement. “By that time, we knew assistance would be along in a minute or two. So we got out of the unit and proceeded down between the houses, slow. We were just going to keep contact with the suspect and wait for help. So then Smith and Blackman—” He moved his head toward the wounded man, now feebly groaning as they strapped him into the gurney. “They came up. They were covering the front while we looked around in the backyard. But then, all of a sudden, the suspect shot right through the front window and hit Blackman. It turned out that the suspect entered the house through a tiny little door under the back porch, that we didn’t even notice. He must’ve known it was there, the way I figure.”

As he was talking, I raised my head for a look, and for the first time noticed that most of the glass was gone from the front windows—two full stories and two smaller windows on top. Dirty lace curtains stirred in the warm breeze. Nothing else.

“So,” Harris was saying, “Byrnes and I ran around to the front and covered Smith, while he hauled Blackman back to—”

“Just a minute,” I interrupted. And to the ambulance stewards: “Hold it, you men. Wait till I give you the word before you get out from behind this car. You could draw fire.” I looked around the crouched semicircle of a dozen officers, half of them with shotguns, all of them clustered behind the two cars, waiting for instructions. I found four familiar faces, two with shotguns. I ordered them to break in pairs for the houses on either side of the Victorian tenement, where they could get a good angle of fire, protecting the ambulance men without exposing themselves. Another half dozen men I assigned to crowd control; someone was already on the loudspeaker, haranguing the sluggish rubberneckers, forcing them beyond the suspect’s line of fire. Now I saw a cruiser pulling up and was surprised to see the bulky figure of Pete Friedman behind the wheel.

As the four men broke for the two adjoining houses, dodging and running low, we all drew our guns to cover them. But, carefully watching the gently blowing curtains, I could see nothing stir. Was he still in there? Could he have—?

A shot cracked out. Glass splintered from one of the small third-floor windows. The savage whine of the ricochet sounded behind me. I dropped to the street and whirled. No one was hit, and now the crowd, black and white mixed, was pulsating with the particular low, primitive mumble of a mob, restless and frightened.

“Hold it,” I called as several officers raised their weapons, aimed at the small window. Then pointing to the single man with an automatic rifle, I said, “When these ambulance men move, you put a timed volley into those two windows. Empty the whole clip. Got it?”

“Yessir.” He rested the big rifle on a squad car’s roof, carefully sighting. The man looked good, calm and competent, deliberately nestling his cheek snugly against the rifle’s stock.

I turned to the crouching ambulance stewards. The older of the two was licking his lips, looking walleyed back over his shoulder.

“All right, you men,” I said softly. “Are you ready?”

The older man seemed about to shake his head, but finally gave me a sick, sheepish grin. He looked as pale as the victim, who still lay with eyes closed, lips twitching. I wondered whether the patrolman was dying.

“All right,” I said sharply, gesturing to the stewards. “Go.” And to the rifleman I called, “Shoot.”

The rifle cracked as the patrolman began squeezing off his shots. The savage, mind-searing crack of the high-powered weapon took me fleetingly back to a foxhole—face in the mud, hands clasped over my helmet, trembling, desperately wondering whether I’d soiled myself. Frantically praying, wildly, incoherently.

A patrolman opened the ambulance doors; another patrolman waited at the wheel. The two stewards pushed the gurney inside; the doors slammed shut. The ambulance was moving, gathering speed. I exhaled, called for the rifleman to stop shooting, then returned my gaze to the house. A hand lightly clapped my shoulder. Friedman’s broad, sweaty face was close to my own, just below the level of the squad car’s window. Lieutenant Friedman, at two hundred and fifty pounds, was always very particular about his cover.

“What’re you doing here?” he asked.

“I was on my way downtown when I heard the two-oh-two.”

He snorted. “I was on my way to the dentist. Next time I’ll leave the radio off. I think I’ve got an abscess.” He eased himself down to sit flat on the pavement.

I realized that I was smiling. “Well, you’ve probably missed your appointment by now. You may as well stick around. We can co-manage this operation.”

Again he snorted, settling his bulk more comfortably, then sighing. “I’m senior. I’ll plan the strategy. You can execute it. What’s going on?”

Harris and I gave him the details. Friedman listened sourly, constantly exploring the inside of his mouth with his tongue, occasionally touching his cheek tenderly. Finally he rose laboriously to his knees, took off his hat and studied the house. “Anybody got any vests?” he asked.

“We have,” Harris said. “Byrnes and I.”

“Get them, then,” Friedman ordered. “Then get on the horn and find out whether there’s anybody in the crowd from that house who knows the layout.”

Harris nodded, then moved away.

“What’d you think?” Friedman asked.

“I think we’d better call in and let the captain know what’s happening. Then I think we may as well send four men into the house, to make the suspect stay put. Then we can fire a gas grenade through that upper window and see what happens.”

Friedman promptly nodded. “Excellent. Right out of the book. You want to go in?”

“Not really.”

“You take this one, I’ll take the next. Honest to God, Frank, I don’t want to jiggle this tooth. You’ve just got no idea how—”

“All right.” I looked around. “I’ll take Harris, Smith and that guy with the rifle. Do you know him?”

“Yeah. His last name is Lloyd. He’s a good man. Doesn’t get rattled, and he got a departmental citation not so long ago. He’s one of those killer types, though. You’ve got to—”

Harris was running across the street to us, keeping low. I watched the blowing curtains, but could see no sign of movement. Harris dropped to the ground, his notebook in his hand.

“Here’s the house layout,” he said breathlessly. “If the guy’s still up in that front window on the top floor, according to this colored girl I found, he’s got himself bottled up. There’s only one stairway leading up to that apartment. See?” He pointed, explaining the rough sketch.

“Does this girl live there?” I asked.

Harris nodded, gulping for breath.

“Does she know the suspect?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Did you describe him to her?”

“Well—” He hesitated.

“Never mind,” Friedman said. “Why don’t you and Harris get the vests on, Frank, while I call in to Captain Kreiger? If there’s a chance the suspect’s got himself bottled up, we’d better move.”

I nodded, assembled the three officers and explained the plan. Harris and I, with the vests, would go first, carrying our service revolvers. Smith and Lloyd would back us up, carrying shotguns. We buckled on the vests, checked our weapons and waited behind the cars, crouched low. We all had gas masks, slung over our shoulders. In my left hand I carried a walkie-talkie; in my right hand, my service revolver. Friedman and I checked our walkie-talkies. Then, at Friedman’s nod, we ran for the building—spreading out, running low, zigzagging.

I got to the porch first. We were still exposed to fire from a downstairs window. I hit the door with my right shoulder, popping it open, splintering the panels. We were inside the dingy entryway, littered with papers and candy wrappers. The stairway was to our right, just as Harris had drawn it. Four ground-floor doors opened off the entryway, all of them closed. I looked at the door that apparently led into the front apartment.

In a low voice, struggling for breath, I said into the walkie-talkie, “We’re by-passing the front apartment downstairs, Pete. Nobody’s stirring. But you could station a couple of men in the entry hall down here. We’re proceeding upstairs. I’ll tell you when to fire the gas.”

“Roger. I’ll send in the two men immediately. Watch yourself. Kreiger told me, before I left, that he’s got some kind of a new, cushy assignment for you. So stay well.”

“Roger. Here we go.” I slipped the walkie-talkie into my side pocket, telescoping the aerial. I instructed Lloyd to keep an eye behind us. Then, slowly, Harris and I began climbing the stairs. Smith came next, then Lloyd, coolly glancing back over his shoulder.

We reached the second-story landing. There were two doors, one for the front apartment, one for the rear. I pointed to the front apartment and placed the men: Harris to the right of the door, myself to the left; the other two stood back to either side. It was the operation repeatedly drilled into every policeman: how to enter a dangerous room. I nodded to the three men and got answering nods in return. I shifted my gun to my left hand and slowly tried the door. The knob turned, the door moved inward a fraction of an inch, unlocked. I took a deep breath, nodded again and crouched low. Harris, on the other side, was doing the same. I would go in first, breaking to the left. Harris, coming right behind me, would break to the right. If trouble developed, we would fall flat, the two men behind us firing over our heads.

At the last second, I remembered the walkie-talkie. I took it out of my pocket, placing it carefully on the floor beside the door. Then, nodding a last time, I slammed open the door, throwing myself into a narrow, dark hallway. Ahead was a living room, opening on the street. I was standing in the center of the room, still crouching, my feet crunching bits of shattered glass littering the floor.

The place seemed empty—silent, harmless. I instructed Lloyd and Smith to keep the outside hallway under surveillance while Harris and I checked the closets, beds and bulky furniture. We finished in the kitchen. Seeing a dirty glass on the drainboard, I opened the cold-water tap and filled the glass, thirstily gulping. The two faucets both dripped, and beneath each faucet the porcelain of the sink was worn through to black iron. I filled the glass again and offered it to Harris. He shook his head. I drained the second drink, hearing myself noisily swallowing. Something in the sound momentarily evoked the sensations of football on a fall afternoon: drinking from the water bucket, watching the plays, listening to hurried instructions; breathing deeply, absently feeling for bruises; wincing unconsciously when a player got badly crunched.

“Okay,” I heard myself saying. “Let’s try the top floor. I’ll call for the gas.” I went out into the hallway, switching on the walkie-talkie. “We’re going up to the top floor, Pete. Can you get a gas cannister in there?”

“Sure. I’ll confirm it. I’ve got Bertha now. No problem.”

“Roger. Let me know.”

Bertha was an armored car, similar to a Brinks van.

I slipped the walkie-talkie into my pocket, leaving the switch open. Then, nodding to the others, I started up the last flight of stairs.

As I cautiously poked my head above the floor level of the third landing, I saw only one door. If he was up there, we had him. I motioned for the others to look, then to keep their heads down.

“I’ve never figured out,” Harris was whispering, “why they always head for the top floor. If he’s there, he’s cooked.”

“Sometimes they’re looking for the roof.”

Harris shrugged, shaking his head. Lloyd was between us now, slipping his shotgun into the bannister spokes, training the gun on the single door. He settled himself comfortably—naturally—behind the gun. He was young, still in his twenties. He was tall and well muscled, and he moved with a slow, deliberate grace. His face was good-looking, clean-cut—an all-American face. But his dark eyes, staring down the gun barrel, were somehow too calm. Deadly calm, they suddenly seemed. Dead and calm.

I watched Lloyd raise a deliberate hand to remove his uniform hat. His eyes never left the door. He dropped the hat to the stairs. I watched the hat tumble slowly down to the landing.

“Don’t shoot too quick,” I warned. “If he gets any of that gas, he won’t be able to—”

I heard a small thud, then a low hissing. At the same moment, the walkie-talkie crackled.

“There it is, Frank,” I heard Friedman say. “Have you got good cover?”

“Roger. We’re all set.”

“All right. Don’t take any chances. Remember that cushy assignment Kreiger’s got for you.”

“Roger.” I clicked off the radio, slipping it back in my pocket. “Keep your heads down,” I cautioned. “Don’t—”

From the paint-peeling door came the stifled sound of a cough. For the first time, I saw that the door was splintered around the lock. He’d kicked it in.

“All right,” I yelled. “Come on out. Open the door and throw out the gun. Then, when we tell you, come out with your hands clasped behind your neck. We’ll give you exactly ten seconds. And remember, first the gun. Then, when we give the word, you come out. Not before. You have ten seconds.”

Now the coughing was louder. I listened for the sound of movement, my eyes fixed on the door. Nothing stirred. I reached for the walkie-talkie.

“Give us another cannister, Pete.”

“Roger. Half a minute.”

But almost immediately I again heard the thump, and the hiss. Two perfect shots, in succession. Lloyd still stared fixedly down the barrel of his shotgun. Now his lips were drawn back. His teeth were clenched, his jaw muscles corded.

The door opened. From inside came the sound of choking, gasping. The yellowish-white gas eddied out into the hallway.

“Throw the gun out,” I called. And to my three men: “Keep your heads down. He might—”

He was staggering out into the hallway. He tripped on the torn carpeting, falling to his knees. He looked young, barely twenty. His eyes were tightly shut, his cheeks wet. With his left hand he reached out, clutching the bannister. He was retching; vomit stained his shirt and trousers. I could smell the odor plainly. The small revolver was in his right hand, raised to point at the opposite wall, twelve feet from our heads. He was still on his knees, shaking his head like a groggy fighter. Beside me, Harris was shifting his pistol to his left hand, drawing his night stick. He began crawling up the stairs, silently, keeping low. If Harris could get close enough with the stick, he could—

The suspect suddenly lurched blindly to his feet, then fell against the bannister. The revolver was pointed down at the floor.

“Drop it, goddamnit,” I was yelling. “Drop it, or—”

Lloyd’s shotgun blasted, a foot from my head. The suspect smashed back against the far hallway wall, hung spread-eagled, then slipped to the floor. His shirt was bloody; the wall above him was blotched with bits of bloody flesh and shreds of bloody clothing. His legs jerked spasmodically, his fingers twitched. He was huddled in the fetal position. The head lay at a strange, awkward angle, as if the neck were snapped. The eyes, still streaming tears, stared at the blank wall, a few feet above my head. The mouth gaped. The legs no longer jerked; the fingers were still.

I stood up, reaching for the walkie-talkie. I cleared my throat, biting my tongue against a rising sensation of nausea. “Okay, Pete. Tell them to bring the stretcher up.”

“Roger.” There was a pause. Then: “Everyone all right?”

“Everyone’s all right. No problem.”

“Here we come.”

I returned the walkie-talkie to my pocket, then holstered my gun. Harris was climbing the stairs, his gun held on the dead boy while he took his revolver, emptying the cylinder. Smith, behind him, was covering. I watched Lloyd take his shotgun from between the bannister spokes. He ejected all the shells, according to regulations, then reloaded the magazine, leaving the chamber empty. He pointed the gun toward the ceiling, clicked the hammer, then set the safety. Now he lowered the gun, and without glancing at the body, walked the few steps down to the landing, picking up his uniform hat. He carefully brushed the hat, adjusted it on his head, then turned to stare silently up at me. He held the shotgun easily, as if the weapon were a part of his arm. His dark eyes were expressionless.

Friedman’s battered brown felt hat appeared on the stairway. Looking down, I saw a small, graying, bald-headed man plodding behind Friedman’s heaving bulk. He wore a tattered gray sweater, with a dirty undershirt beneath. His chino trousers were wrinkled and badly stained; his blue-veined feet were thrust into run-over carpet slippers.

As Friedman gained the last landing, he stepped aside, puffing, to let the small man go ahead.

“This is Mr. Kirsch,” Friedman said, glancing briefly at the corpse. “He lives—lived—in the same building with the suspect, just a couple of blocks away.” He pointed to the body, still bleeding heavily. “Is that your neighbor, Mr. Kirsch? Leo Powell?”

The bald man glanced once at the body, then closed his eyes. He turned, suddenly sitting on the stairs. I saw a single tear slowly streaking Mr. Kirsch’s pale, gray-stubbled face.

“Well?” Friedman prodded.

“That’s him, all right. That’s Leo.” He shook his head. “Honest to God, I don’t understand it. Some of the punks in this neighborhood, black and white, you can tell from the time they’re little tiny kids, they’re going to end up bad. But Leo, I known him for five, six years. He’s like a little kid, even though he’s eighteen, nineteen. He never hurt nobody—nobody at all. Never gave nobody any trouble.”

“What was he doing with the gun, Mr. Kirsch?” I gestured for Harris to hand me the suspect’s revolver. “Here, look. This is the gun he was carrying. Have you ever seen it before?”

Listlessly Mr. Kirsch glanced at the gun. His hands hung dangling loosely between his knees.

“It looks like Charlie’s gun—Charlie Powell. Leo’s old man.” He shrugged his bony shoulders. “I don’t know nothing about guns; they all look the same to me.”

“Is Mr. Powell home now?”

“I guesso. I don’t know; I didn’t come from home. I was shopping. Buying some food, up at the corner. But Charlie, he’s probably sleeping it off. He came home last night gassed, like he does about half the time. Then he starts knocking the old lady around, like he does. So he’s probably sleeping it off. I dunno. I left the house about ten o’clock this morning. I thought I heard them arguing, but I wasn’t sure. Usually Charlie, after he gets gassed, he sleeps all morning. Especially Fridays. That’s his day off. Friday. He goes out Thursdays and gets gassed. Then, on Fridays, he sleeps.”

“Was Leo in their apartment this morning, do you know?”

“I guesso. He quit school, I understand, last week. He’s been looking for a job. But—” Mr. Kirsch hesitated, his wayward glance straying back toward the body. “But it’s pretty tough, you know, for someone like Leo to get a job.”

“Why’s that?” Friedman asked.

“Because he’s, you know, deaf and dumb. Has been, all his life. Well—” He gripped the railing, pulling himself upright. “I better get home, see what I can do for Charlie and his old lady. When he’s not drinking, Charlie’s all right.”

Friedman and I exchanged a glance.

“We’ll send someone with you,” Pete said quietly. “A couple of men.”

“Okay.” Mr. Kirsch shrugged. “Whatever you say.” He got to his feet, half turned toward the body, then caught himself. “What’d you suppose Leo was doing with the gun, anyhow?” he asked Friedman. “Robbing someone, or something?”

“Let’s go over to your place, Mr. Kirsch.” Friedman took his arm.

I watched Mr. Kirsch clumping stoop-shouldered down the stairs, followed by Friedman. Then I looked at Lloyd. The handsome patrolman was staring down at the tattered stairway carpeting. He was thoughtfully frowning.

3

“WELL,” CAPTAIN KREIGER SAID, carefully sprinkling Parmesan cheese into his minestrone. “You’ve had a pretty busy morning.”

Not replying, I sipped my coffee.

“Friedman’s taking care of the reports and procedures on that Leo Powell thing,” he said. “All he’ll need from you is a routine report. Any time today. Or tomorrow, for that matter.”

“All right. How’s Blackman doing?”

“Fine. Most of his symptoms were shock, according to the doctor. The bullet didn’t damage anything vital. It was only a .22. Luckily. It nicked a little of the intestine, but nothing else.”

“That’s good.” I was staring off across the restaurant. Then, surprised, I realized that I’d been thinking of absolutely nothing. I blinked, shifted in my chair and focused my attention on Kreiger. He’d been watching me, his eyes speculative.

“It’s too bad,” he said slowly, “about that Powell kid. Still, it almost sounds like he’s better off dead. He’d’ve had to get around being a deaf-mute, and then get around killing his father, no matter which way it went for him in court.”

I still said nothing. I could never measure the depth of Kreiger’s compassion. His expression seldom changed; his face almost never betrayed anger, or pleasure, or pain. He often smiled, but the pleasure was always very private. Yet over the years a single cryptic, dispassionate phrase of Kreiger’s sometimes seemed to sum up everything that was bad about police work, and still leave some of the good.

I’d known Kreiger for more than twenty years, off and on. Our lives in some ways had developed almost identically. Yet the results, for me, had been so different—sometimes so disastrous. We’d both gone to college on football scholarships. We’d both been drafted into the Army in the spring of 1943. We’d both played football in the Army, then become M.P. lieutenants late in the war. We got out of the Army, went back to college—and played football. We’d kept in touch. Kreiger had played tackle for Minnesota; I’d played linebacker for Stanford. We’d both gotten honorable mention in our senior years.

But that’s when it all began to change. After his M.P. experience, Kreiger had changed his major to criminology. He married Nancy in his senior year. They moved to San Francisco, started a family and decided never to leave. At forty-four, Kreiger was still physically squared off. He could press two hundred pounds in the police gym, and I never saw him hit a man more than once. Without a doubt, Kreiger would be the next chief of detectives.

I’d graduated in business administration—still specializing in football—coasting through classes, finding the real meaning of college in sports clippings, fraternity parties and the back seats of convertibles.

After college I’d gone with the Lions, first as a second stringer, next as a third stringer, finally as a free agent, on my own. Out of a job. But by that time I’d made my second mistake. I’d married Carolyn. We’d—

“—don’t look like you’re enjoying that coffee much,” Kreiger was saying.

I lowered the cup into the saucer, shrugging. “Like you say, it’s been a busy day.”

He sipped two spoonfuls of minestrone, allowed perhaps a full half-minute to pass, and then said in a slightly more official tone, “I meant it when I said that Pete’s handling the Leo Powell thing, Frank. Don’t worry about it; don’t waste your time thinking about it. With the Maria Gonzales murder and this new case, you’ll have plenty to do, plenty to think about. But—” He hesitated, eating a deviled egg in one large, precise bite. “But I want your reconstruction of what happened with Leo Powell. Just for my own information—unofficially.”

“Well, unofficially, I’d say that Leo Powell’s father got home last night drunk and started beating up on his wife. Then, this morning, they started in again. To me, just looking at the two of them in their apartment, I’d say they both clobbered each other pretty good—both of them using something to hit the other with. Then I’d say that at some point Leo got the family gun and shot his old man. Maybe he thought his mother was already dead; it wouldn’t surprise me if he did. That’s what I thought when I first looked at her. So then I think Leo ran out of the apartment, with the gun in his hand. And that’s when Harris and Byrnes spotted him, purely by luck. The rest of it, of course, is cut and dried.”

Kreiger ate his second deviled egg, wiped his mouth, then looked at me directly. “Still unofficially, do you think it was necessary for Lloyd to blast the Powell kid?”

I chewed a mouthful of pastrami and rye, swallowed and said, “We didn’t know until afterward that the kid was a deaf-mute. Under the circumstances, I don’t think Lloyd was wrong.”

“Would you have pulled the trigger, Frank?”

I finished my coffee and signaled the waitress for a refill. “Probably not. But it was all happening pretty fast.”

Kreiger nodded, satisfied. He drained his own coffee cup as the waitress approached. He glanced at his watch, then said, “Have you got anything from the coroner or the lab on Maria Gonzales?”

“No. But I’ll probably have the reports when we get back to the office. I told Culligan I’d be out to the Allingham house between three and five this afternoon. What’s this new assignment, by the way? Pete said it was cushy.”

Kreiger allowed a hint of humor to soften his thoughtful stare. “I don’t know whether ‘cushy’ is the right word. But we’ve just inherited the job from Missing Persons, and it’s a job I want done right. I think you should stay on it for two or three days at least. Personally. Use enough men and really dig.”

“All right. What’s the job?”

“The Carol Connoly disappearance.” He looked at me. “You know the case?”

“Isn’t she the so-called ‘beautiful young society matron’ who disappeared without a trace a few days ago?”

“Right. Tuesday night. The file’s on your desk right now. Why don’t you look it over before you go out to check on the Gonzales thing, then stop by the Connolys’ afterward? Talk to the woman’s husband.” Kreiger paused, frowning down as he toyed with his teaspoon. “The fact is, this Connoly woman’s husband—his name is Victor Connoly—has been making quite a stink ever since his wife disappeared. I talked to him this morning and told him that Missing Persons had jurisdiction during the first seventy-two hours. So he insisted—” Kreiger took a deep breath, tightly clenching a fist and wrapping his knuckles softly on the table. “He insisted that I have my ‘best man’ at his home this evening. After dinner. And an hour later, I got the same word from the boss.”

“Influence.”

“Right.”

“It doesn’t sound so cushy to me. It sounds more like a Friedman dodge, if you really want my opinion.”

Kreiger’s mouth lifted in a frosty Aryan smile. I’d once told him, joking, that he looked like a Hollywood director’s idea of the perfect Gestapo officer, with his clear blue eyes, close-cropped blond hair and thick neck. Kreiger hadn’t seen the humor.

“Friedman’s supposed to be inside this month,” he answered. “He just happened to have a bad tooth this morning.”

“That tooth’s really bothering him.”

Kreiger glanced at his watch. “He’s at the dentist right now. He got a cancellation for one o’clock.”

I ate my last bite of pastrami and drank the last swallow of my coffee. “What about this Connoly woman? All I know is what I’ve read in the papers.”

Kreiger again checked the time, then watched me with obvious disapproval as I lit a cigarette. He’d decided to quit smoking three years ago, suddenly one afternoon. He didn’t understand why others couldn’t do the same.

“First of all,” he said, “Victor Connoly’s father founded the Connoly Savings and Loan Company. Both of Connoly’s parents are dead, I think, and Victor’s running the business, even though he isn’t much more than thirty-five. If that. Personally, I didn’t care for him much.

“Anyhow, it seems that Tuesday morning Connoly left for Los Angeles, on business. His company has a branch down there, and he’s back and forth all the time. His wife stayed home and apparently went through a completely routine day. But that night, about eight P.M., she went out.”

“Where?”

“To a rehearsal of one of those little theater groups. The name of the group is The Dramatists, and it operates out of one of those old firehouses that’s been remodeled. Apparently she just stayed at the rehearsal for a half hour or so. Then she disappeared. And—” Kreiger spread his hands. “And that’s all there is. Period. End of the report.”

“What’d Missing Persons do?”

“The usual: circulated the mug to the big cities and made routine inquiries locally. In this case, since it wasn’t just some hooker who disappeared, they did the best they could on the routine check. But I don’t have to tell you that Missing Persons is short of staff, so that even their best wasn’t much.”

“What’d they think happened to her?”

“They aren’t speculating.”

“What about her husband?”

“He isn’t speculating either. But he sure as hell wants her found.” Kreiger glanced at his check, then reached for his wallet. “What about the Maria Gonzales murder? How’s it look?”

“There wasn’t enough information when I left. If I had to guess, I’d say she was entertaining a gentleman caller and got herself strangled, then stabbed. She had her own private entrance, and she’s supposed to’ve had a boyfriend. Maybe she had more than one. Also, the multiple stab wounds make it look like a sex killing, like the murderer did it in a frenzy, at least subconsciously trying to mutilate the victim.”

“Was there any actual mutilation?”

“No. But Benson said she might’ve been dead before she was stabbed. Which is a little unusual. Anyhow—” I totaled my own check and counted out the money. “Anyhow, I’ll know a lot more when I get the coroner’s report and the lab findings. I’ll see what they say, then go back out to the Allingham house. I’ll look over the Connoly file, too, and interview Mr. Connoly after dinner, to get started. Okay?”

“Fine. By the way, Nancy’s going to have a dinner party a week from tomorrow night. She’s taking up jewelry making, you know, and she’s having her instructor and his wife over, plus some other people from the class. There’ll be eight or nine altogether, I think. Can you come?”

“Sure. Thanks.” I held the door for him, and we went out into the street, walking slowly toward the Hall of Justice, enjoying the warm sun, watching the girls in their thin, short summer dresses. “What time is the party?” I asked.

“Seven, I guess. I’ll let you know. You want to bring someone?”

I shrugged. “Not especially. Nancy might not want me to, anyhow. You know: the unattached bachelor every hostess is supposed to need so desperately.”

He smiled. “I’m afraid Nancy’s about given up on trying to matchmake for you. I keep telling her that someday you’ll call up and announce that you’re getting married. And until then, I tell her, she’ll be the last to know.”

“Tell her not to hold her breath. In three or four more years, you know, I could be a grandfather.”

“What’s that got to do with getting remarried?”

“I don’t know. Except that the last year or so I’ve reluctantly decided that I spend less and less time thinking about the next roll in the hay.”

“I’m glad to hear it. I still remember that Italian girl you stole from me while we were liberating Rome.”

“It wasn’t so much that I stole her; I just outdrank you.”

Realizing that I’d said it, I stopped myself from looking at him, keeping my eyes to the front. It was the first time in years that either of us had spoken of drinking. And even then, that winter afternoon in my apartment, we hadn’t exchanged more than a few words.

How long had it been?

How many years since—

“And then she outdrank you.” His voice was noncommittal, revealing nothing. He glanced with brief annoyance at a passing hot rod, its pipes rapping.

“I was young then,” I muttered. “Three drinks, and I was on my ear.”

He didn’t reply. We were turning into the last block; ahead was the Hall of Justice, an enormous cube of smooth marble, gleaming aluminum and sparkling glass.

Six years, it must have been, since I’d awakened to find Kreiger standing impassively above me. Maybe seven years. We’d still been in the Old Hall, downtown. I’d gone off duty late at night and gone directly home. A girl had called, then come over—a blonde named Kathy. I could still remember her name and her body and her nervous laugh, but I couldn’t remember her face. She’d brought a bottle of bourbon, celebrating, she said, her final decree. I’d refused a drink; she’d insisted, sitting on my lap, squirming, laughing into my face with her boozy breath, twisting to press her eager breasts against my chest.

Again she’d insisted that I have a drink; again I’d refused. And again she’d laughed and urgently kissed me, then tipped her glass to my lips. Something in the combined sensations made me push her aside, slopping her drink down my shirt front. I’d gotten to my feet, stared at her in a mute fury of disgust, then poured myself a drink silently.

Kathy—my faceless friend.

The next afternoon, I’d opened my eyes to see Kreiger staring down at me. He said, very quietly, that he was off duty, acting privately. Then, just as quietly, he told me to turn in my badge and my gun if I ever again took more than one drink. Then he’d turned and—

“—going to take the last week of my vacation this month,” he was saying as we climbed the broad granite steps of the Hall. “I think we might try Carmel. Off-season it shouldn’t be so expensive.”

I nodded, pushing open the big glass door. “The weather down there’s good this time of year, too,” I answered. “Better than the summer. Just like it is here.”

Silently Kreiger nodded, pressing the elevator’s “up” button.

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Copyright © 1969 by Collin Wilcox

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Table of Contents

Title Page

Dedication

Contents

ONE

TWO

THREE

FOUR

FIVE

SIX

SEVEN

EIGHT

NINE

TEN

ELEVEN

TWELVE

THIRTEEN

FOURTEEN

FIFTEEN

SIXTEEN

SEVENTEEN

Preview: The Disappearance

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