Double

32: “Wolf”

Neither Nancy Clark nor I moved for another few seconds after she spoke. I could feel the sweat trickling down my face, down from my armpits; the hot Mexican sun burned against the back of my neck. From out on the terrace, the little boy’s voice rose in a shrill excited cry — a sound that some tropical bird hidden nearby mimicked with surprising accuracy.

I wanted her to move first, to break the tableau, because I wanted to see what she’d do. She didn’t do much. Just came toward me in a herky-jerky stride, with her long legs flashing in the sunlight and shadow. She was wearing a two-piece black bathing suit that didn’t cover much territory and her skin was browned to the color of toast; but when she got up close I could see that her face had gone pale under the tan. Her eyes had a stricken look.

“Who are you?” she said. “What do you want?”

“I came looking for Timmy.”

“How did you find us?”

“Something the boy said when I talked to him in San Diego.”

“Why? What do you want with Timmy?”

“That depends. His mother’s in San Diego now, you know.”

Her mouth opened a little; her tongue flicked out like a cat’s to lick away a droplet of sweat from her upper lip. The stricken look stayed in her eyes, but it had been joined by smoldering anger.

She said, “What are you, some kind of detective?”

“Yes, ma’am. The private kind.”

“Did Lauterbach send you? Is that it?”

“No.”

The negative seemed to throw her off-balance for a moment. Then she said, “That bitch, then. Did she send you?”

“You mean Mrs. Ferguson?”

“Who else would I mean? Well, I’ll tell you this, mister — you’re not taking Timmy back to her. He belongs here with his father.”

“That’s not what the courts in Michigan decided.”

“The courts in Michigan don’t know what a nasty cunt Ruth Ferguson is. If they did they wouldn’t have granted her custody of a dog, much less a child.”

“Meaning what, Miss... Clark’s not your real name, is it?”

“It’s Pollard, and I don’t give a damn if you know it.”

“Meaning what about Ruth Ferguson, Miss Pollard?”

“Meaning just what I said. She abused Timmy. You don’t know that, do you? Well, it’s true.”

“Abused him how?”

“Whipped him. Locked him in a dark closet for hours at a time, without food, when she decided he’d been naughty. God, what I’d like to do to that woman!”

“How do you know all this?”

“Carl found it out. She’s not the only one who can hire detectives.”

“So you snatched Timmy and brought him here. Kidnapping is a major crime, Miss Pollard. You can get twenty years in jail for it.”

“I don’t care about that. Don’t you understand? We had to get Timmy away from his mother before she really did something ugly to him.”

“‘We’?” I said. “What’s your relationship to Carlton Ferguson?”

“I live with him. I have ever since he divorced that bitch and moved down here.”

Which made her the “very beautiful woman” Pablo Venegas had told me about, the one who shared this villa with Ferguson. Yeah, that figured. Having her grab the kid out of his school was better, safer than hiring somebody. The fewer people who knew where Timmy was being taken, the slimmer the odds that he could be traced. Keep it in the family, I thought cynically, that’s the best way to do it.

“Aunt Nancy! Hey, where are you?”

We both turned. Timmy came running out of the tunnel in the back wing — a white streak in a pair of flowered swim trunks, wet blond hair flattened down on his head. He slowed when he saw us, stopped altogether when he recognized me. But then he smiled and came the rest of the way to where we were; he seemed pleased to see me, the way kids are when they get an unexpected visit from an adult who was nice to them.

“You’re the man from San Diego,” he said. “The man with the funny name.”

I nodded. “How are you, Timmy?”

“Great! My dad’s got a neat pool.”

“He does, huh?”

“Yeah. Aunt Nancy wouldn’t let me go swimming any of the other places, but ever since we got here I can swim all I want.”

“Good for you.”

“I’m getting a tan too. See?”

He turned around so I could see that the white skin of his back was reddened with a light sunburn. But I could also see something else, something that brought a tightness into my chest and made my hands flex involuntarily. Down low on the boy’s back were a series of horizontal, all-but-healed marks that looked to have been lacerations — the kind you get when somebody lays a stick across your hide.

I glanced at Nancy Pollard. She knew I’d noticed the marks, and her mouth was set in a thin, tight line. Her expression said: There, you see?

Timmy was facing me again. “Did you come here to see my dad?” he asked.

“Yes. But I wanted to see you, too.”

“You did? Really?”

“Really. Is your dad here now?”

“Sure, he’s out by the pool. Come on, I’ll show you.” He wheeled and ran a little way and then stopped to see if we were following. “Come on! You too, Aunt Nancy!” Then he was off again, into the shadows of the tunnel.

I went after him, not hurrying; Nancy Pollard fell in alongside, walking in a stiff-backed way, eyes straight ahead. When we emerged onto the terrace I saw that it was about the size of a football field, floored in squares of colored tile, with a waist-high stone parapet all around. The pool was on the left, an L-shaped job made out of gray stone, without the usual diving board and chromium ladders, so that it resembled a pond. A couple of wooden walls had been erected on the inner sides, to help support a clear Plexiglas roof; the other two sides were open and had pole supports and rolls of mosquito netting — a nifty arrangement that would allow you to drop the netting and swim at night without getting gnawed on.

Near the pool was a palm tree to provide shade, and under its fronds, on one of several pieces of dark wood deck furniture, was a brawny guy in trunks and huaraches and a pair of wraparound sunglasses, reading a magazine. He glanced up as Timmy raced toward him shouting something about a visitor, and when he saw me he got up on his feet. It was like watching a bear get up. He had enough hair on his chest and shoulders and arms to make a winter coat for a midget.

Timmy ran to him and he put his arm around the boy. He wore an expression of mild puzzlement, but that changed when Nancy Pollard nodded at me and said, “Carl, he’s a detective,” in a flat warning voice. His face closed up hard, his eyes got dark with anger and something else — resolve, maybe. You could see the muscles tensing up and down his body.

I stopped and Nancy Pollard stopped, and we all looked at each other in heavy silence. I didn’t want to talk in front of the boy, and neither did Ferguson. He said, “Timmy.”

“Yes, Dad?”

“Go inside and ask Maria-Elena to bring three bottles of cold beer and some snacks. Stay there and help her get everything together.”

“Do I have to?”

“Yes. Go on, now. Be a good boy.”

“Can I have another of those mango drinks?”

“Tell Maria I said it was okay.”

Timmy nodded, gave me a shy smile, and was off again. Nancy Pollard moved to stand next to Ferguson; the two of them were like a barrier between the running boy and me. None of us said anything until Timmy was out of sight. Then Ferguson said, controlling the words, “You’re not taking him. Not unless you’ve got a platoon of Mexican policia waiting outside.”

“I didn’t come here for that, Mr. Ferguson.”

“No? Then why did you come?”

“To meet you. And to find out some things.”

“What things? Who the hell are you?”

“He’s a private detective,” Nancy Pollard said. “He was at the hotel in San Diego. He’s the one I caught talking to Timmy before that woman died.”

Ferguson said to me, “Who are you working for? Lauterbach? Or my ex-wife?”

“Neither one. I’m here on my own.”

His mouth took on a bent, bitter look; he thought he had me pegged now. He said contemptuously, “Blackmail.”

“Wrong. But it might have worked out that way if Lauterbach hadn’t been murdered.”

Both of them reacted to that, with surprise that seemed genuine enough. “What happened to him?” Ferguson asked. He sounded puzzled again. “How was he killed?”

“Somebody shot him Sunday morning. In his office building.”

Nancy Pollard caught her breath — a second reaction almost as sharp as the first. When I looked at her, she wouldn’t meet my eyes; she turned a little to one side to make avoiding them easier.

I said, “You know something about Lauterbach’s murder, Miss Pollard?”

“No, of course not.”

“When did you and Timmy arrive here?”

“That’s none of your business.”

“Nancy,” Ferguson said. “Let’s get to the bottom of this.” Then, to me, “They arrived yesterday morning around ten.”

“Were you here to meet them?”

“Certainly.”

“Were you here all weekend?”

“Yes. Are you trying to imply that Nancy or I had something to do with Lauterbach’s death?”

“The thought crossed my mind,” I said. “He recognized Timmy somehow, at the Casa del Rey hotel, and put two and two together. One of the things he did was call your ex-wife and tell her he could find the boy for her. She’s put up a five-thousand-dollar reward for Timmy’s return. Or maybe you already know about that.”

He didn’t say anything.

I said, “Lauterbach could’ve traced you, gotten in touch, and tried to blackmail you for more than the five thousand.”

“Well, he didn’t. I didn’t even know he’d moved away from Detroit until—” Abruptly he broke off.

“Until what? Until Miss Pollard told you she saw him at the Casa del Rey?”

They exchanged glances.

“Yeah,” I said. “She’s the one he tried to put the bite on, isn’t she?”

Ferguson said, “Neither Nancy nor I is a murderer. Believe that or not, but it’s the truth.”

“Let’s say I believe it. I still want to know what happened between her and Lauterbach.”

Nancy Pollard glanced at Ferguson again, wet her lips, and said, “All right. Friday night was the first time I saw him. He and some other men from the convention were drunk. Timmy heard them singing and went outside when my back was turned — he’s a very curious little boy.”

“What happened then?”

“I ran out and got Timmy, and Lauterbach saw me too. I didn’t know who he was; I’d never seen him before. He went away with the others and I didn’t think anything more about it until Saturday morning. Then he showed up at our bungalow, alone.”

“Demanding money?”

“Yes. I was terrified that he’d call the authorities and they’d arrest me and take Timmy back to his mother. I told him I’d call Carl, try to raise some money. He wanted to stay there while I made the call but I wouldn’t let him. It was obvious he didn’t know where Carl was and I wasn’t about to let him find out. He said I’d better not try to run away because he’d be watching the bungalow, and finally he left.”

“And what did you do?”

“Tried to call Carl, but the telephone service down here isn’t very good and I couldn’t get through. Then Timmy slipped out again and I found him talking to you. I thought you were working for Lauterbach, that he’d hired you to keep tabs on us. I was half frantic by then. I tried calling Carl again, still couldn’t get through. I was still on the phone when the assistant manager, Ibarcena, came and said there’d been an accident, a woman had been killed. We weren’t supposed to leave the hotel until Sunday morning but he wanted us to go immediately.”

I asked, “Did you see Lauterbach around anywhere when you left?”

“No.”

“Where did Ibarcena take you?”

“To a motel on the edge of the Mexican quarter.”

“He left you and Timmy alone there?”

“Yes. That’s where we spent Saturday night.”

“Did you see or talk to Lauterbach again before you left San Diego?”

“I... no.”

“Try to get in touch with him at all?”

She hesitated. “Why would I do that?”

“You might have been afraid he’d think you left the Casa del Rey because of his blackmail demand. Afraid he’d be angry enough to call the authorities. Did you try to contact him, Miss Pollard?”

Another glance at Ferguson, who nodded slightly. She said, “You might as well know it all. I tried to call him several times at his home and at his office, both on Saturday night and early Sunday morning. Carl told me to keep trying; I’d finally got through to him late Saturday. We both felt I had to talk to Lauterbach before Timmy and I left for Mexico.”

“And?”

“He answered his office phone about ten-thirty Sunday morning. He was angry, abusive; he wanted to know where Timmy and I were. I wouldn’t tell him. He said that unless I came to his office inside an hour he’d call the police.”

“Did you go?”

“I had no choice. But he wasn’t there. That’s the truth — I swear it. His office was unlocked and Timmy and I sat there for over an hour waiting, but he didn’t come. I didn’t know what to think. It never occurred to me that he might be somewhere in the building, dead. But I couldn’t wait any longer. Ibarcena was picking us up at one o’clock. I had to take the chance that neither Lauterbach nor the authorities would be able to stop us from leaving the country, and that they wouldn’t be able to find us down here.”

“What time was it that you got to Lauterbach’s office?” I asked her.

“After eleven sometime.”

“Did you see anyone on his floor when you arrived?”

“No, no one.”

“Anyone in the building?”

“Well... a man bumped into me in the lobby, coming out of the elevator just after we got there. I was standing in front of the doors when they opened and there he was.”

“What did he look like, this man?”

“I don’t know, I didn’t pay much attention to him. He was just a man carrying a machine under one arm.”

“What kind of machine?”

“It looked like a tape recorder, one of those small ones. I noticed that because a corner of it dug into my arm when he bumped me.”

“Can you remember anything about him? The color of his hair, his size, what kind of clothes he was wearing?”

“No. It was just one of those things that happen in two or three seconds. We ran into each other, he said, ‘Excuse me, dear,’ or ‘sweetheart,’ something like that, and then he was gone and Timmy and I were in the elevator.”

“You don’t have any impression of him at all?”

“No. I was too nervous and worried.”

“Any chance you’d recognize him if you saw him again?”

“I don’t think so.”

The man had to be Lauterbach’s killer, I thought. The time element was right, the tape recorder under his arm was right. He must have taken the recorder from Lauterbach’s office after the shooting; I remembered that I hadn’t seen any electronic equipment in there on Monday morning, and how odd that had seemed considering Lauterbach’s past record and the stuff I’d noticed in his car on Friday night. Whatever had been taped on that machine figured to be the motive, or part of the motive, for his murder.

Not much of a lead without some clue to the man’s identity, but a small lead was better than none. I would pass it on to the cop in charge of the case, Gunderson, as soon as I got back to San Diego.

I said to Ferguson, “Let’s back up a little. How did Lauterbach know Timmy by sight?”

“I once made the mistake of hiring him, earlier this year in Detroit.”

“To do what?”

“Confirm what a friend from Bloomfield Hills told me — that my ex-wife was abusing Timmy.”

“And did he confirm it?”

“To my satisfaction, yes. But he tried to gouge me for more money and I fired him and brought another detective into it.”

“Who also confirmed the abuse?”

“That’s right.”

“Why didn’t you go to the authorities? Why kidnap the boy?”

“It was the only choice I had. The proof my detective found is inconclusive in the eyes of the law. Timmy wouldn’t have been taken away from my ex-wife immediately, not without an official investigation. And the boy is terrified of her — she threatened to beat him bloody if he ever told anyone how she treated him. She’d have done it, too. She might have done it anyway, even if he hadn’t told the truth. She hates Timmy because he’s my son, a part of me. When she hits him she’s really hitting me. Can you understand that?”

“I can,” I said, “if it’s true.”

“You saw Timmy’s back,” Nancy Pollard said. “Isn’t that enough proof for you?”

“Not necessarily. It doesn’t prove his mother was the one who put those marks on him.”

“Ask him. Just ask him.”

“I guess I’ll have to do that.”

“I have the detectives’ reports,” Ferguson said. “I’ll show you those too, if I have to. But why should I? I still don’t know who you are or what you’re doing here. Or how you found us.” He turned to Nancy Pollard. “How could he find us with all that maneuvering around they put you through?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “Something Timmy said to him when they talked in San Diego... I don’t know.”

“What maneuvering?” I asked her. “And who’s ‘they’?”

She didn’t answer. But Ferguson said tiredly, “The people I made arrangements with to get Nancy and Timmy from Bloomfield Hills down here.”

“You mean Lloyd Beddoes and Victor Ibarcena?”

His expression went blank. “Who?”

Nancy Pollard said, “No, they were only the ones at the last stop. It was somebody else Carl talked to, somebody in Chicago.”

“I won’t give you his name unless I have to,” Ferguson said.

“Let me get this straight. This guy in Chicago runs some sort of escape network, is that it?”

“Runs it, or handles arrangements for it — I don’t know which. I got his name through channels. It took me weeks and everyone was extra cautious.”

“I’ll bet. How does it work?”

“I’m not sure, exactly. But there are a number of different people involved. Nancy and Timmy were shunted over half the country last week.”

She said, “They took us by car from one city to another and put us up in a hotel for a day or two. Kansas City, Denver, San Francisco, and then San Diego.”

I nodded; I was getting it now. “The idea being to make it impossible for anyone to trace you and Timmy.”

“That was the idea,” Ferguson said bitterly. “Only you seem to have done it without much trouble.”

“I got lucky.” I turned back to Nancy Pollard. “Where were you taken from San Diego on Sunday?”

“A private airfield out in the desert somewhere. I don’t know where. Ibarcena made us put on blindfolds. We waited there for hours before the plane came.”

“And then you were flown down here?”

“To another airstrip somewhere in Mexico. Then we were blindfolded again and taken by car to a third airstrip. The plane from there brought us to Los Mochis.”

So now the whole operation was clear, at least as far as the Casa del Rey was concerned. Beddoes and Ibarcena were little spokes in a big wheel — opportunists recruited to turn their hotel into a way station for fugitives on the move through the network, fugitives like Roland Deveer, the missing financier. Whenever they’d put somebody up in one of the bungalows, they had probably told selected members of the staff that the person was some sort of V.I.P. who desired anonymity, so no registration forms were to be filled out and they were to act as if the bungalow was empty. Elaine Picard was one of the staff members they’d have had to tell, because of her role as chief of security, and she’d doped out the truth — maybe seen Deveer and recognized him. That would account for the newspaper clipping Elaine had sent to her lawyer.

I considered pushing Ferguson for the name of the man in Chicago, but I didn’t believe it was necessary. Once Beddoes cracked — and he would, sooner or later — the identity of the ringleaders would come out. Yank one of the bricks out of the foundation of an organization like this and the whole shebang would collapse.

Ferguson said, “All right, now you know everything. Suppose you tell us just what it is you’re investigating? Timmy’s disappearance? Lauterbach’s murder? The hotel men in San Diego?”

“All of those, in one way or another.”

“And you don’t have a client? You paid your own way down here?” He seemed incredulous. “What kind of detective are you?”

“Sometimes I wonder myself.”

“Why didn’t you just contact my ex-wife, if you knew where to find us? You said she’s offering a five-thousand-dollar reward.”

“I could have contacted her — she’s in San Diego now, called in by Lauterbach, and I saw her on the TV news last night. But I didn’t much like the way she talked about Timmy, as if he were a piece of property. And I remembered him telling me that he didn’t like her because she made him afraid.”

Ferguson nodded slowly. He no longer seemed angry; a kind of wary hopefulness had come into his expression. “So you came to Los Monos to see if I might have had just cause to kidnap him. If I might be a more fit parent than his mother.”

“Something like that.”

“And? What have you decided, now that you know the whole story?”

I didn’t say anything. Beyond Ferguson and Nancy Pollard, a door to the rear wing of the villa opened and Timmy came out ahead of a middle-aged Mexican woman carrying a huge tray. Ferguson saw me looking in that direction, glanced over his shoulder, and then put his gaze back on me.

“What are you going to do?” he said.

I still didn’t say anything. But I didn’t have to this time; it was there in my face. Ferguson read it, and let out a heavy breath, and Nancy Pollard read him, and then all three of us knew what I was going to do. They didn’t speak either. We just stood there, waiting, and the only sound in the hot stillness was Timmy’s voice as he ran toward us shouting, “Dad! Aunt Nancy! Wait’ll you see what Maria-Elena made for us to eat!”