Scattershot

SIXTEEN

There was fog in the city, and thick gray billows of it coming in through the Golden Gate, but when I got across the bridge the sky was clear and the sun was shining. Nice day over in Marin. For some people, anyway.

I kept imagining that occupants of other cars were staring at me as I drove; I felt like a guy in a gorilla suit in one of those slapstick comedies Mack Sennett used to make. Look at the funny man, daddy. Isn’t he something? Yeah. Litchak had hit it right on the nose, in more ways than he knew. I was really something, all right.

It was a quarter past twelve when I took the Greenbrae Avenue exit off the freeway, and twenty of one when I rolled into the quiet, tree-shaded affluence of Ross. The directions George Hickox had given me were easy enough to follow; I arrived at Number Eighty Crestlawn Drive with six minutes to spare.

The Mollenhauer estate was pretty impressive, even by Ross standards. High stone walls surrounded it, topped with iron spikes and pieces of broken colored glass embedded in a layer of concrete. A pair of huge wrought-iron gates were closed across the entrance drive; inside them was an old-fashioned gatehouse and an old-fashioned gatekeeper to go with it. Beyond, the drive hooked up through an acre of bright green lawn dotted with black oaks to where an imposing Tudor-style house sat on higher ground.

The gatekeeper took my name, used a telephone in the gatehouse, and came back finally and swung the gates open for me. I drove inside. Off to the north I saw, as I neared the main house, a second building of the type that used to be called a carriage house. It was being painted, and there was a network of metal scaffolding, ropes, pulleys, and suction clamps along the near side wall; that wall was a fading cream color, but the front was a bright gleaming white-that much of the job had been finished in time for the wedding. The scaffolding looked as out of place in these surroundings as I felt.

In front of the main house the drive blended into a circular parking area with a fountain in the center of it. I put my car between a Mercedes and a Bentley-nice company-and took the.38 and its belt holster out of the portfolio case. When I had the thing fitted on under the left wing of the tux coat I caught up the portfolio and stepped out. There was nothing else in the case except the two pulp magazines. I thought it would be all right if I spent my guard duty reading while I watched over the wedding gifts, instead of just sitting like a lump and merely watching; hell, the way I felt I was going to read whether it was all right or not. But I didn’t want to just walk in there with the magazines exposed in my hand. There was no point in advertising what Mr. Clyde Mollenhauer would no doubt consider my lack of breeding.

A uniformed maid answered the door chimes and admitted me. The interior of the house was opulent, furnished with taste and care, all in antiques. She ushered me through a couple of rooms and down a wide hallway. Halfway along was an open set of double mahogany doors; we went through them into a study lined with books and appointed with masculine-type antiques.

There were three men in the room, all of them wearing tuxedos and looking far more comfortable and proper in them that I did in mine. When the maid announced me the oldest of the trio detached himself from the other two and came over to introduce himself. Clyde Mollenhauer. He was in his late forties or early fifties, tall and trim, with an air of forcefulness about him. He had straight black hair, penetrating eyes the color of burnt umber, and a Hapsburg jaw that made his lower teeth prominent when he opened his mouth.

If he was a bigot or a snob, or if he still harbored reservations about my honesty and reliability, you couldn’t tell it from outward appearances; he seemed courteous enough, and there was no trace of condescension or suspicion in his voice. But I was aware that he had not offered to shake hands with me.

He led me over to the other two. One was George Hickox, looking as stiff-necked and officious as he had in my office. I asked him how he was, and he said he was fine, thank you. He didn’t bother to ask how I was.

The third guy turned out to be Stephen Walker, Mollenhauer’s imminent son-in-law. He was maybe twenty-five, handsome in a brittle, actorish way; his hair, a wavy dark brown, was so flawlessly cut and combed that it looked artificial. When Mollenhauer introduced us Walker gave me a brief nod and looked right through me. This one I was sure about-snob all the way, as young as he was.

A short awkward silence ensued. They were uncomfortable because of who and what I was, — I was uncomfortable because of who and what they were. What do the rich and cloistered say to a big, lumpy Italian private detective whose ass was frying on a griddle? What does the pulp-reading private eye say to them?

There was only one thing I could think of, and I said it: “Have all the wedding gifts been delivered, Mr. Mollenhauer?”

“Yes. All except a special gift for my daughter from me. It should arrive at any moment.”

“If you’ll show me where they are-”

“Certainly.” He looked at Hickox. “George, if the man from the jewelry store should come before I return, bring him to the gift room.”

“Of course, Mr. Mollenhauer.”

Mollenhauer took me back through the house, down another hallway, and finally into a long rear wing; neither of us spoke. The rear half of the wing’s outer wall was made of glass, and through it you could see a stadium-sized terrace with an L-shaped swimming pool at one end. Three women in maids’ uniforms were busily setting up buffet and bar tables and arranging pieces of white wrought-iron garden furniture. It was going to be quite a party; there was even a dais for an orchestra.

We went all the way to the end of the wing, where a window in the back wall looked out past some shrubbery to more rolling lawn and more black oaks. Mollenhauer stopped in front of the last door on the left and unlocked it. He led me inside.

The room’s normal function was probably that of a spare bedroom; now it was jammed, like a kid’s dream of Christmas, with what had to be well over two hundred gaily wrapped packages of varying sizes and shapes. They were everywhere- along the walls, on the double bed, and on all the other furniture-but you could tell that they had been laid out by careful hands, to avoid possible damage. A small table had even been positioned near the foot of the bed to hold the tinier presents; the seven packages on it had been arranged in a row, three with pink bows and three with blue bows and one with a white bow in the middle. Cute.

The only entrance to the room was the door we had just come through. An open door on my left revealed an enclosed bathroom, and a pair of closed sliding doors adjacent figured to conceal a closet. In the back wall was a wide window that offered the same view as the one in the hallway.

I went over to the window first. It was catch-locked and also bolt-locked-as a general precaution against burglars, not just to protect the wedding presents, because the bolt was not new. From there I moved into the bathroom. A window in there, too, high up in the wall; it was also double-locked. I went back into the room and opened the sliding doors and looked inside the empty closet.

Mollenhauer watched me do all that without saying anything. But when I reclosed the closet doors he spoke for the first time since we had left the study. “I had my staff make certain the room was secure before any of the gifts were brought in.”

“I have no doubt of that, sir,” I said. “It’s just that when I take on a job I like to be thorough.”

He seemed to approve of that. “Do you have any questions?”

“Just one. Would you like me to stay in here the whole time or out in the hall?”

“The hall, I think. You can take a chair from the other guest bedroom across the way. It’s rather overcrowded in here; you wouldn’t be comfortable.”

Uh-huh, I thought. He did not give much of a damn about my comfort. He wanted me out in the hall so he could lock the door again when he left me alone, in case I happened to have any larcenous ideas myself toward the presents. Maybe it was just another general precaution, but more likely it was the Hornback thing; he may not have been suspicious of my honesty-at least he hadn’t pulled rank on Hickox and had me thrown off the job-but he still wasn’t taking any chances.

There was movement out in the hall, and we both turned. The young bridegroom, Walker, appeared and came inside, followed by a short, wispy-looking guy about forty, wearing a pinstriped suit and carrying a small gift box with a fancy pink bow on top. Hickox was there, too; he came in last, which used up just about all the extra space in the room.

“This is Mr. Patton, sir,” Hickox said to Mollenhauer. “From Grayson Jewelers.”

Mollenhauer acknowledged the wispy guy with a nod. The bunch of us were standing so close together that I could smell the mouthwash on Walker’s breath; he glanced at me as if he were smelling something on my breath as well and not liking it much. The hell with you, buster, I thought. I gave him the kind of smile Bogart used to give people in his movies and backed away to stand in the bathroom doorway.

Patton said, “Would you care to examine the ring?” He had a voice like the squeak of a mouse.

“Yes,” Mollenhauer said. “I would.”

The wispy guy put the gift box down on the table and took off its lid. Tissue paper rustled as he reached inside. A moment later he came up with a little blue-velvet ring case, snapped it open, and handed it to Mollenhauer.

I had a glimpse of the ring it contained. A gold scrolled job with a patina of age, indicating that it was probably an heirloom, with a diamond mounted on it as big as a cherry. The diamond’s facets caught the room light and reflected it dazzlingly. I didn’t know much about precious stones, but a conservative estimate of that baby’s worth had to be in the high five figures.

“Perfect,” Mollenhauer said. “You’ve done an excellent job with the setting.”

Patton beamed at him. “Thank you, sir.”

“Carla will adore it, Clyde.” Walker said. He sounded as if he adored it, too-it or what it was worth. “It belonged to your grandmother, didn’t it?”

“Yes. Of course, the original stone was much smaller.”

Of course, I thought.

Hickox said, “It’s one-forty, Mr. Mollenhauer. Shouldn’t we be getting started for the church?”

“Yes, you’re right.”

Mollenhauer closed the case; Hickox took it and returned it to the gift box for him. He arranged the tissue paper over it and then put the lid back on.

When the four of them turned from the table Mollenhauer looked at me and frowned; the frown said he had forgotten I was there-me and my big private eyes, taking in the tempting sight of that ring. He made an abrupt gesture for me to go out into the hallway. I went and stood against the far wall while he and the rest of them filed out.

Mollenhauer shut off the lights, locked the door, and tested the knob a couple of times. Then he said to me, “The reception begins at four. You’ll be on duty until approximately eight o’clock, when Mr. Walker and my daughter will begin opening their gifts on the terrace.”

Hickox had already informed me of that. But I nodded and said, “Yes, sir.”

“You’re not to leave your post at any time,” he said. “Is that clear?”

What if I have to go to the bathroom? I thought. This time I just nodded.

“Nor are you to fraternize with any of the guests who might happen back here. I expect you to be discreet.”

“I understand.”

He put his back to me; he had nothing more to say. For all the attention the other three paid me, I might have been a floor lamp. I did not even get a glance as Mollenhauer led them away.