Demons

Chapter 5

It must have been a slow day at TRW: one of the reps called back after only forty-five minutes with the information I’d requested. The credit reports on Lawrence April and Walter Merchant told me nothing much; both had excellent ratings and a long history of paying their various bills on time. The one piece of potentially useful news concerned a man named Glenford Grigsby, who lived in Oakland and who was currently employed by an outfit called Health House in Emeryville.

Grigsby’s credit rating wasn’t so hot. Neither was his past employment record. He’d worked for nine different health and athletic clubs over the past fifteen years, as a masseur, a gym attendant, and an “exercise therapist,” whatever that was. One of the clubs he’d worked for, five years ago, was a SoMa establishment called The New You that had been located on Hawthorne Street within easy walking distance of Nedra Merchant’s former office. I hadn’t visited The New You yesterday because it wasn’t there anymore; it had gone out of business in 1989.

After the TRW rep and I were done with each other, I got Health House’s number from directory assistance and called it and asked the man who answered if Glenford Grigsby was working today. Affirmative. It was a quarter to three by my watch; the Bay Bridge wouldn’t be too crowded yet with homeward-bound commuters. If I hustled I could still get over to Emeryville, talk to Grigsby, and get back into the city before the big rush got under way.

Health house was a sprawling, newish complex on the bay side of Highway 80, with easy access to the freeway. Designed for busy office workers, guests of nearby hotels, and residents of the condo high-rises in the area. It had just about anything you could want in the way of healthful pursuits, from indoor tennis courts and swimming pool on down to aerobics classes. Grigsby, according to a woman at the front desk, was something of a jack-of-all-trades, working wherever he was needed within the complex. She consulted a chart and said that right now he was providing competition for one of the members on the handball courts. I told her I had important business with him, and she decided I looked respectable enough to be given a pass into the bowels of the place.

The handball courts were on the ground floor, rear. There were three of them but only one was in use. One of the players was middle-aged, wiry, and intense; he attacked the ball as if it were an enemy he was trying to hurt. The other player was in his thirties, blond, muscled, the Adonis type — Grigsby, from Walter Merchant’s description. He played with a fluid grace, hard enough to work up a good sweat, but I got the impression he was holding back, letting the older man have the advantage. Good employee, deferring to a member... or maybe he just didn’t give a damn about winning a contest in which there was nothing for him but a workout.

I was there ten minutes before the match ended, in a volley so furious the ball caroming off the walls and ceiling was a blur. The older guy won, but he was so drained from the effort he had to lean against the wall to shake hands. Both men used towels and had swigs from plastic water bottles; then they said some things to each other, and the blonde laughed and clapped the wiry one on the back. The older man came out first and walked away stiffly toward the men’s locker room. The Adonis gathered up ball and gloves and towels and water bottles before he quit the court.

“Are you Glen Grigsby?”

He stopped, gave me a neutral look, and said, “That’s me. I hope you don’t want to play handball. Pretty fast in there just now. I’m pooped.”

“No handball. It’s information I’m after, not exercise.”

“That so? What kind of information?”

“About Nedra Merchant.”

The name didn’t seem to have much of an effect on him, except to make him look at me in a different way: mildly interested, faintly amused. “What are you, another member of the club?”

“What club is that?”

“The Hard-on for Nedra Society,” Grigsby said, and laughed.

“If I were,” I said, “I might take offense at that.”

He shrugged. “Why bother me, friend? I haven’t seen Nedra in two or three years.”

“No contact with her of any kind?”

“Sexual or otherwise,” he said. “Listen, nice talking to you, but I’ve got to get a shower before I chill. Give Nedra my love.”

He moved off at a fast walk. I trailed after him, into the men’s locker room where the older handball player had stripped down and was padding naked into the showers. Grigsby opened a locker, frowned when he saw me standing a few feet away.

“Something else?” he said.

“More questions. If you don’t mind.”

“Told you, I’ve got to get a shower.”

“I can wait.”

“Look, friend,” he said, hard, and then seemed to think better of what he was about to say. A wariness crept into his expression. He didn’t know who I was or what I wanted and he didn’t want to push me if I was somebody who could do him harm. Maybe he was afraid of losing another job. “Tell me what this is all about, then maybe we can talk. You’re not a cop?”

“What do you think?”

“I think you’d better show me your badge if you are.”

I showed him the Photostat of my investigator’s license. It didn’t impress him, but he didn’t sneer at it either. He was still wary.

“Like I said, friend, I haven’t seen Nedra in a long time. You can’t drag me into anything connected with her.”

“Such as what?”

“Such as anything. We had our fling, she went her way and I went mine. And that’s the name of that tune.”

“How long did your fling last?”

“Six weeks, give or take.”

“Not very long.”

“Long enough.”

“For what?”

“For me to say sayonara.”

“So you’re the one who broke it off?”

“I’m the one. That’s the way I prefer it.”

“Why? I mean, why did you end it with Nedra?”

“I figured out what she wanted, that’s why.”

“And what was that?”

“Not my hot bod,” Grigsby said. “Sex wasn’t enough for her. Not little Nedra.”

“No?”

“No. She wanted somebody to kiss her feet as well as her ass, you know what I mean?”

“Not exactly.”

“Worshipers, that’s the kind Nedra goes for. Guys who fall all over themselves when she’s around, treat her like a goddess, give up everything for her. She picked wrong when she picked me. I don’t get on my knees for any woman, not outside the bedroom.”

“How did she take it when you walked? Upset, was she?”

“Nah,” Grigsby said. “Philosophical. Lots of fish in the sea, that’s her attitude.”

“That was five years ago?”

“More like six.”

“So she was still married at the time.”

“Married but thinking about getting unmarried, the way she talked. I don’t mess with women with rings on their fingers, not usually, but she came on so strong, and she’s such a sweet piece... well, hell, you know how it is.”

“Yeah, I know how it is.”

“Figured you did.” He’d put the handball equipment in the locker and now he was stripping off his sweats. “Shower time,” he said. Then he said, “No peeking now,” and gave me a grin that I didn’t return as he skinned out of his jockstrap. He took himself off to the showers.

I stayed put. The older guy came back and slid a curious glance my way, but he didn’t say anything. He was dressed in a suit and tie by the time Grigsby came back.

“Christ, you still here?”

“I’m still here.”

“Now what do you want to know?” He began working on his muscle-and-sinew with a towel, vigorously.

“Six years since you broke it off with Nedra,” I said, “but you told me it’s only been two or three since the last time you saw her.”

“That’s right. But I didn’t start up with her again, if that’s what’s in your head. I ran into her one night in Jack London Square. Hell, she looked right through me. Couldn’t be bothered saying hello to a nobody, even if the nobody did make her come twenty or thirty times, once.”

“Why do you say it like that, the nobody reference?”

“Guy she was with is somebody.”

“Public figure?”

“In your town, yeah.”

“Name him.”

His mouth got sly. “Cost you twenty bucks.”

I took a ten out of my wallet and waggled it in front of his nose. “This is all it’s worth to me.”

“I’ll take it,” Grigsby said, and grinned, and made the ten disappear inside his locker. “What the hell, I’d have given you the name for nothing.”

“I’m waiting.”

“Dean Purchase,” he said.

“...That better be straight, and no mistake.”

“It’s straight, no mistake.”

Dean Purchase. Well, well.

Purchase was a VIP on the San Francisco political scene: one-time assistant director of public works; former supervisor, with two terms on the board in the late seventies and early eighties; special adviser to two previous mayors and chief administrative assistant to the present one. Old San Francisco money; his family had been in city banking since the days of Charles Crocker. He was brash, boisterous, arrogant, and a publicity hound. He was also married to a local socialite and had half a dozen children.

Dean Purchase and Nedra Adams Merchant. An interesting combination, if true. Based on his public persona, Purchase didn’t seem to be the kind of man who would fall under the spell of an alleged control freak. But there was no telling what he was like underneath, where women were concerned. Or just how manipulating and persuasive Nedra could be when she wanted a man. Purchase may have represented a major challenge to her: a public figure, a man in a position of power. If power was in fact her bag, sexually controlling a powerful man, even for a little while, would be a consummate thrill.

But even if that were true, was a Purchase-Nedra liaison relevant to my investigation? Glen Grigsby was the type who might stoop to anonymous threatening telephone calls, but Purchase wasn’t. If he wanted to hurt you, he’d go right ahead and do it in the open, no pussyfooting around. He might have had a fling with Nedra, she might even have got deep under his skin for a while, but I couldn’t see him doing anything in the long run to jeopardize his career and family standing, not for her or for any other woman. He used people, people didn’t use him.

Talk to Purchase about Nedra or not? Hard choice. If I opened up a can of worms he’d welded shut, he could do me some damage; he had enough clout if he felt like using it. Chances were, he’d be a dead-end and a waste of time anyway. Better to just let it go and concentrate my efforts in areas that were more likely to be productive. Right?

Right.

So I drove back across the Bay Bridge and took the Fell-Laguna exit and went straight to city hall.

Purchase had a large private office just down the corridor from the mayor’s, and not one but two secretaries on duty in the anteroom. He was in a meeting, I was told, and besides which, his schedule was such that he never saw anyone — not anyone, sir — without an appointment. Perhaps if I left my name and the nature of my business, he would be willing to grant me one...

I asked for an envelope, wrote Purchase’s name and the word “Personal” on the front. Then, on one of my business cards, I wrote: “Regarding Nedra Merchant. Matter not pertaining directly to you, strictly confidential.” I underlined confidential three times, added my signature, sealed the card inside the envelope, and left it with the secretaries.

A mistake, maybe. But I get stubborn — and nowadays, a little reckless — when I’m trying to open a tough nut. I also don’t like to be intimidated, especially by a man who doesn’t even know I exist.