Double

12: “Wolf”

The clerk on the registration desk was the same one who’d checked me in yesterday. Young, spiffily dressed, polite in an aloof way. And as adamant as the black maid I’d talked to a few minutes ago, if a little more patient.

“You must be mistaken, sir,” he said. “Bungalow Six has been empty for over a week.”

“You’re sure of that?”

“Yes, sir, of course I am.”

“All right. A woman about thirty-five, brown-haired, slender, fairly attractive. A little boy, seven or so, on the hefty side; fair-skinned, blond hair. His first name is Timmy — I don’t know hers or their last name. Maybe they’re staying in one of the other bungalows?”

“No, sir. Only three of the bungalows are occupied at the moment and I know all of the guests. None of them is a woman such as you described. And certainly none is a little boy.”

“Here in this building, then?”

“Not to my knowledge, sir. If you could give me their last name...”

“I told you, I don’t know their last name.”

“Then I’m sorry, I don’t know what I can do.”

“You can let me talk to the manager.”

“Mr. Beddoes isn’t available.”

“No? When will he be available?”

“I don’t know, sir.”

“How about his assistant?”

“Mr. Ibarcena has left for the day.”

“And you don’t know when he’ll be available either, right?”

“No, sir, I don’t.”

I gave it up; this wasn’t getting me anywhere. And none of it made any damned sense. Timmy had as much as told me he was staying in Bungalow 6; his mother had come from there when she was calling him, had dragged him back in that direction when they’d left me. Now they were gone, and nobody would admit that they’d ever been here. Why? What the hell was going on?

Well, maybe the drunk, Jim Lauterbach, had some answers. He’d been there at the bungalow; he’d talked to the maid just before I had. Personal interest in Timmy and his mother? Or professional interest? That was another question that kept nagging at me.

I took a tour of the lobby and the Cantina Sin Nombre, but Lauterbach wasn’t in either place. There was some activity on the mezzanine, and I went up there and the convention was still going on — people milling around, waiting for another panel or product demonstration to start, talking and drinking wine, a couple of them laughing. It surprised me a little and it shouldn’t have. There was no reason for the Society to cancel the rest of the convention just because one of its members had died suddenly. No reason for the Casa del Rey to curtail its normal operations, or for its employees to show any apparent signs of sadness or grief, just because its security chief had tumbled out of the east tower and cracked herself open like Humpty-Dumpty. Just clean up the remains, clean up the blood, pretend none of it had really happened, and then it was business as usual.

It annoyed me — all these people, all that pretense. Because Elaine Picard had been a human being, and she had died badly, and I had seen and heard her die, and death was not something that ought to be ignored or treated with indifference. But there was another reason, too: Timmy and his mother. Something peculiar was going on around here, and that also ought not to be ignored or treated with indifference.

Some of the conventioneers tried to buttonhole me, but I knew what they wanted and I brushed them off. Lauterbach wasn’t anywhere to be seen. Either he was still out roaming the hotel grounds or he was long gone.

I left the building again, made my way back through the gardens to Bungalow 6. No Lauterbach. The black maid had vanished too; the place was shut up tight. I tried the door, the windows in the front wall, but there was no way in short of felonious breaking and entering. And after the maid’s visit, I had a feeling that there wouldn’t be anything to find even if I did get inside.

Fifty feet of landscaped ground — scrub palms, jacaranda, some other vegetation — separated Bungalow 6 from Bungalow 5. But the foliage wasn’t dense enough to obscure completely the view of anybody looking out of Number 5’s side windows toward the front of 6. I followed the path over to 5 and knocked on the door.

Nobody answered immediately. I thought that maybe this was one of the allegedly deserted bungalows and started to turn away — and the latch clicked and the door edged open and I was looking at a tiny woman somewhere in her seventies. A tiny bald woman: except for a few strands of wispy red hair, the whole top of her head was barren. She saw me looking at it, showed me her dentures in a pleased way, and said, “Never saw anything like it, did you, young man?”

“Ma’am?”

“My bald spot. I’m bald as an eagle.”

“Uh, well...”

“Been that way for years now. Started getting the bald spot when I was sixty-two, along with my Social Security. At first I wore wigs, you know. Then I turned seventy and I said phooey on that. When you get that old you don’t mind people staring at you. It’s better than no attention at all.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“You woke me up,” she said. “I was taking a nap. I always do in the afternoons. Old people need naps, same as kids.” She squinted at me out of bright blue eyes. “Are you with the hotel?”

“No, ma’am. I’m a guest here too.”

“What do you think of the place?”

“Well...”

“Used to be a first-class hotel — not anymore. Some conglomerate bought it. Japanese, I believe.” She paused. “That’s funny, don’t you think?”

“Ma’am?”

“A Victorian hotel with a Spanish name owned by Japanese.”

“It does seem kind of odd.”

“The Perkins family built it and they had a sense of humor. Called the place their Spanish Victorian. They knew how to run a hotel, too. Now... well, the service is terrible. I had to call the desk three times to get clean towels. Three times. And I’ve been coming here thirty years, with one husband or another.”

“Yes, ma’am. I was wondering—”

“Drunks,” she said, “that’s something else we never had to put up with in the old days. A bunch of rowdies last night, whooping it up like Indians. One of them puked in the rhododendrons out front. I complained about that, I’ll tell you.”

“Did you happen to get a good look at these rowdies, Mrs. ...?”

“Andersen. But it’s Miss. I took back my maiden name when my fourth husband died. Oh, yes, I saw them. Nasty specimens. Never did like a man who couldn’t hold his liquor.”

“Was one of them a big guy in a red shirt?”

She nodded emphatically. “He was the loudest one.”

“Did he go next door, this man?”

“Next door?”

“Bungalow Six.”

“I didn’t see him if he did. When the big fat one puked in the rhododendrons I went straight to the phone to call the manager.”

“What about the people staying in Bungalow Six, Miss Andersen? Have you seen them in the past day or two?”

“I didn’t know anybody was staying in that bungalow, not until this afternoon.”

“Oh? Then you did see them — a little boy about seven, a brown-haired woman in her middle thirties?”

“That’s right. Why are you so excited about that?”

“I’m trying to find them,” I said. “They seem to have disappeared. You wouldn’t have any idea where they went?”

She shook her bald head. “Not a clue. They went away with that Mexican fellow.”

“What Mexican fellow is that?”

“I can never remember his name. He’s the assistant manager, I believe.”

“Ibarcena? Victor Ibarcena?”

“That’s him,” Miss Andersen said. “I’m not nosy, you understand; I’m too old to be nosy. Only reason I saw them was that I was getting ready for my nap and I like the window open when I sleep. I chanced to look out just as the woman and the boy and the Mexican fellow were leaving. He was carrying their bags.”

“Did you see which way they went?”

“Out to the highway. I expect they had a car parked there. That’s the way Hank and I always used to come and go. Hank was my fourth husband. He hung himself.”

“Ma’am?”

“Hung himself. Left a note saying there wasn’t much use to go on living when he couldn’t get an erection anymore and had a bald wife besides.”

She said that with a straight face, but there was a twinkle in the blue eyes and I had the feeling she was pulling my leg at least a little. She was some little old lady. She’d probably mowed the men down pretty good in her time, and not just a field of four husbands.

I thanked her, and she said, “Don’t mention it, young man,” and I went straight back to the hotel. All right, now I had confirmation that Timmy and his mother had been staying in Number 6. And now I knew that Victor Ibarcena had hustled them away this afternoon. But there was still a lot I didn’t know, a lot that was still puzzling. Like, where had Ibarcena taken them? And why in such a hurry? And why had the desk clerk and the maid both lied to me about them being registered?

In my room I dragged the San Diego telephone directory out of the nightstand. With Ibarcena away somewhere, and Lloyd Beddoes “unavailable,” the best lead I had to some answers was still Jim Lauterbach. There was only one J. Lauterbach listed in the directory, with an address in National City; but when I dialed the number and let it ring a dozen times, there was no answer.

I sat on the bed, brooding. And wondered why I was brooding — why I was doing all this work. Maybe it was just restlessness and boredom. For all I knew, there was nothing the least bit sinister about this thing with Timmy and his mother. No danger to them, no fancy intrigue. It was none of my business, in any case, just as Elaine Picard’s death was none of my business.

Sure. But private detectives are as curious as cats, and meddlers besides; that’s the nature of the beast. McCone knew that and accepted it and didn’t worry about it, but I always had to go around grumbling and rationalizing. So why didn’t I just cut it out? I knew damned well why I was mixing into this thing, and it didn’t have much to do with restlessness or boredom. It was the way Timmy had looked there on that bench, and afterward as his mother was dragging him off: scared and trying not to show it. Brave little kid harboring secrets, on his way to see his dad in some town in Mexico that had monkeys in it...

The telephone rang. Now who the devil is that? I thought. I snagged up the receiver and muttered a hello.

“Wolf, good, I caught you in. This is Sharon.”

She sounded relieved — and a little odd, a little nervous. “What’s up, Sharon?”

“Well, I need a favor.”

“What kind of favor?”

“A small one. Two small ones, actually.”

“Uh-huh. What are they?”

“Um, first I need you to come and pick me up.”

“Pick you up. What happened, your car break down?”

“No. I’m downtown — not too far from the hotel.”

“Where downtown?”

“The second favor,” she said quickly, “I sort of need you to vouch for me. For my integrity as a private investigator and all that.”

“What?”

“They won’t let me go otherwise.”

“What?”

“Wolf, I’m in jail.”

“What!”

“Well, not really. They haven’t booked me yet.”

“Booked you for what?”

“I got picked up in Chula Vista, at Elaine’s house. For, um, breaking and entering. That cop you talked to, Knowles, showed up just as I was coming out and he dragged me all the way back here to the sheriff’s department and if you say I-told-you-so, I think I’ll scream.”

I didn’t say anything. I just sat there holding the receiver and thinking: Why me, Lord?

“Wolf? Are you still there?”

“Yeah, I’m still here. But I wish I wasn’t.”

“There’s nobody else I can call,” she said. “Except my family, and I’d never hear the end of it if I did that. Will you come? Right away?”

Go directly to jail, I thought. Do not pass Go, do not collect two hundred dollars. I sighed. “So tell me how to get there,” I said.