F is For Fugitive

18

At five-thirty I was knocking on Shana Timber-lake's door, already convinced there was no one home. Her battered green Plymouth was no longer in the drive. The cottage windows were dark and the drawn front curtains had that blank look of no occupancy. I tried the knob without luck, always interested in the notion of an unsupervised inspection of the premises, a specialty of mine. I did a quick detour around to the back, checking the rear door. She'd put a second bag of trash out, but I could see through the kitchen window that the dirty dishes were piling up again and the bed was unmade. The place looked like a flophouse.

I went back to the motel. What I wanted most in the world was to lay my little head down and go to sleep, but I couldn't see a way to pull that off. I had too much work to do, too many troubling questions yet to ask. I stepped into the office. As usual, the desk was unmanned, but I could hear Ori on the telephone in the family living room. I slipped under the counter and knocked politely on the door frame. She glanced up, catching sight of me, and motioned me in.

She was taking reservations for a family of five, negotiating a sofa bed, a crib, and a cot with variations in the room rate. Maxine, the cleaning lady, had come and gone with very little evidence of her effectiveness. All she'd done, as far as I could see, was to clear off a few surfaces, leaving a residue of furniture oil in which dust was settling. The counterpane on Ori's hospital bed was now littered with junk mail, news clippings, and old magazines, along with that mysterious collection of coupons and fliers that seems to accumulate on end tables everywhere. The wastebasket beside the bed was already spilling over. Ori was idly sorting and discarding as she talked. She concluded her business and set the telephone aside, fanning herself with a windowed envelope.

"Aw, Kinsey. What a day it's been. I think I'm comin' down with something. Lord only knows what. Everybody I talk to has the twenty-four-hour flu. I feel so achy all over and my head's about to bust."

"I'm sorry to hear that," I said. "Is Ann around?"

"She's inspecting some rooms. Every time we get a new maid we have to check and double-check, makin' sure the job's done right. Of course, the minute one's trained, off she goes again and you have to start from scratch. Well, look at you. What'd you do to your hand there, poke it through a winda screen?"

I glanced at my knuckles, trying to think of a convincing fib. I didn't think I'd been hired to punch out the local doctor's wife. Bad form, and I was embarrassed now that I'd lost control of myself. Fortunately, my ills were of only passing interest, and before I could answer, she was back to her own.

She scratched at her arm. "I got this rash," she said, mystified. "Can you see them little bumps? Itch? It's like to drove me insane. I never heard of any kind of flu like that, but I don't know what else it could be, do you?"

She held her arm up. I peered dutifully, but all I could see were the marks she'd made while clawing at herself. She was the kind of woman who would launch, any minute, into a long monologue about her bowels, thinking perhaps that her flatulence had some power to fascinate. How Ann Fowler survived in this atmosphere of medical narcissism was beyond me.

I glanced at my watch. "Oh gee, I better get upstairs."

"Well, I'm not gonna let you do that. You sit right down here and visit," Ori said. "With Royce gone, and my arthritis acting up, I don't know where my manners have went. We never had a chance to get to know one another." She patted the side of the bed as if I might be a lucky pup, allowed at last on the furniture.

"I wish I could, Ori, but you know I have to-"

"Oh no, you don't. It's after five o'clock and not even suppertime yet. Why would you have to run off at this hour?"

My mind went blank. I stared at her mutely, unable to think of any plausible excuse. I have a friend named Leo who became phobic about old ladies after one wrapped a turd in waxed paper and put it in his trick-or-treat bag. He was twelve at the time and said that aside from spoiling Hal-loween for him, it ruined all his candy corn. He never could trust old folks after that. I'd always been fond of the elderly, but now I was developing much the same distaste.

Ann appeared in the doorway, a clipboard in hand. She shot me a distracted look. "Oh, hello, Kinsey. How are you?"

Ori launched right in, not wanting to let anybody else establish a conversational beachhead. She held her arm out again. "Ann, honey, look at this here. Kinsey says she's never seen anything like this in her life."

Ann gave her mother a look. "Could you just wait a minute, please."

Ori didn't seem to pick up on the prickliness. "You're going to have to go to the bank first thing in the morning. I paid Maxine out of petty cash and there's hardly anything left."

"What happened to the fifty I gave you yesterday?"

"I just told you. I paid Maxine with that." "You paid her fifty dollars? How long was she here?"

"Well, you needn't take that tone. She come at ten and didn't leave till four and she never set down once except to eat her lunch."

"I bet she ate everything in sight."

Ori seemed offended. "I hope you don't begrudge the poor woman a little bite of lunch."

"Mother, she worked six hours. What are you paying her?"

Ori, uneasy on this point, began to pluck at the covers. "You know her son has been sick, and she says she doesn't see how she can keep cleaning for six dollars an hour. I told her we could go to seven."

"You gave her a raise?"

"Well, I couldn't very well tell her no."

"Why not? That's ridiculous. She's slow as molasses and she does shitty work."

"Well, pardon me, I'm sure. What's wrong with you?"

"Nothing's wrong! I've got problems enough. The rooms upstairs were a mess, and I had to do two of them again-"

Ori cut in. "That's no reason to snap at me. I told you not to hire the girl. She looked like some kind of foreigner with that black hair braided down the back."

"Why do you do this? The minute I walk in the door, you're all over me. I've asked you and asked you to give me time to catch my breath! But oh no… whatever you want is the most important thing in the world."

Ori shot me a look. This was the kind of treatment a sick old woman was subjected to. "I was just trying to help," she said, her voice quavering.

"Oh stop that!" Ann said. She left the room in exasperation. A moment later, we could hear her in the kitchen banging drawers and cabinet doors. Ori wiped at her eyes, making certain I noticed how upset she was.

"I have to make a phone call," I murmured, and eased out of the room before she could enlist my support.

I went upstairs, feeling out of sorts. I had never worked for such unpleasant people in my life. I locked myself in my room and lay down on the bed, too exhausted to move and too unsettled to sleep. The tensions of the day were piling up, and I could feel my head begin to pound from the lack of sleep. Belatedly, I realized I'd never eaten lunch. I was starving. "God," I said aloud.

I got out of bed, stripped, and headed for the shower. Fifteen minutes later, I was dressed in fresh clothes and on my way out. Maybe a decent dinner would help get me back on track. It was absurdly early, but I never eat at a fashionable hour anyway, and in this town the concept would be wasted.

Floral Beach has a choice of restaurants. There's the pizza parlor on Palm Street, and on Ocean, there's the Breakwater, the Galleon, and the Ocean Street Cafe, which is open for breakfast only. A line was already forming outside the Galleon. I gathered the Early Bird Special drew crowds from as far away as two blocks. The sign indicated "Family-Style Dining," which means no booze is served and there are shrieking kids on booster seats banging spoons.

I pushed into the Breakwater, heartened by the notion of a full bar. The interior was a mix of nautical and Early American: maple captain's chairs, blue-and-white-checked cloths on the tables, candles in fat red jars encased in the kind of plastic webbing it's fun to fiddle with while you talk. Above the bar, fishing nets were draped across the wooden spokes of a ship's wheel. The hostess was dressed in a mock pilgrim's costume, which consisted of a long skirt and a tight bodice with a low-cut neckline. She had apparently donned an Early American push-up bra because her perky little breasts were forced together like two pattypan squash. If she leaned over too far, one was going to pop right out. A couple of guys at the bar kept an eye on her, hoping against hope.

Aside from those two, the place was nearly deserted and she seemed relieved to have some business. She seated me in the no-smoking section, which is to say between the kitchen and the pay phone. The menu she handed me was oversized, bound with a tasseled cord, and featured steak and beef. Everything else was deep-fried. I was wrestling with the choice of 'plump shrimp, litely battered amp; served with our chef's own secret sause,' or 'tender sea scallops, batter-coated, litely sauteed and served with a zesty sweet 'n' sour dip,' when Dwight Shales materialized at my table. He looked as if he'd showered and changed clothes, too, in preparation for a big, hot night on the town.

"I thought that was you," he said. "Mind if I sit down?"

"Be my guest," I said, indicating the empty seat. "What's the story here? Should I have eaten at the Galleon?"

He pulled out a chair and sat down. "The same people own both."

"Well, then, how come the line's so long over there, and this place is empty?"

"Because it's Thursday and the Galleon offers free barbecued ribs as an appetizer. The service is always lousy, so you're not missing anything."

I surveyed the menu again. "What's good here?"

"Not much. All the seafood is frozen and the chowder comes out of cans. The steak is passable. I order the same thing every time I come. Filet mignon, medium rare, with a baked potato, tossed salad with bleu cheese, and apple pie for dessert. If you have two martinis up front, you'll think it's the fourth best meal you ever ate. Up from that is any quarter pounder with cheese."

I smiled. He was flirting, a hitherto unsuspected aspect of his personality. "You're joining me, I hope."

"Thanks. I'd like that. I hate to eat alone."

"Me, too."

The waitress appeared and we ordered drinks. I confess I was curing my fatigue with a martini on the rocks, but it was quick and efficient and I enjoyed every minute of it. While we talked, I did a covert assessment of him. It interests me how people's looks change as you get to know them. The first flash is probably the most accurate, but there are occasions when a face undergoes a transformation that seems almost magical. With Dwight Shales, there seemed to be a more youthful persona submerged in a fifty-five-year-old shell. His hidden self was becoming more visible to me as he talked.

I listened with both eyes and one ear, trying to discern what was really going on. Ostensibly, we were discussing how we spent our leisure time. He gravitated toward backpacking, while I tended to amuse myself with the abridged California Penal Code and textbooks on auto theft. While his mouth made noises about an assault of ticks on a recent day hike, his eyes said something else. I disconnected my brain and fine-tuned my receiver, picking up his code. This man was emotionally available. That was the subliminal message.

A chunk of lettuce dropped off my fork and my mouth closed on the bare tines. Ever the sophisticate. I tried to act as though I preferred to eat my salad that way.

Midway through the meal, I changed the tenor of the conversation, curious what would happen if we talked about something personal. "What happened to your wife? I take it she died."

"Multiple sclerosis. She went into remission numerous times, but it always caught up with her.

Twenty years of that shit. Toward the end, she couldn't do anything for herself. She was luckier than most, if you want to look at it that way. Some patients are rapidly incapacitated, but Karen wasn't in a wheelchair until the last sixteen months or so."

"I'm sorry. It sounds grim."

He shrugged. "It was. Sometimes it looked like she had it licked. Long periods symptom-free. The hell of it was she was misdiagnosed early on. She'd been plagued by minor health problems, so she started seeing a local chiropractor for what she thought was gout. Of course, once he got hold of her, he mapped out a whole bullshit program that only postponed her getting real help. Class three subluxation. That's what he said it was. I should have sued his ass off, but what's the point?"

"She wasn't a patient of Dr. Dunne's, by any chance?"

He shook his head. "I finally forced her to see an internist in town and he referred her to UCLA for a workup. I guess it didn't matter in the final analysis. Things probably would have come out the same, either way. She handled it much better than I did, that's for sure."

I couldn't think of a thing to say to him. He talked about her for a while and then went on to something else.

"May I ask you about your relationship with Shana Timberlake?"

He seemed to debate briefly. "Sure, why not? She's become a good friend. Since my wife died,

I've spent a lot of time with her. I'm not having an affair with the woman, but I do enjoy her company. I know tongues in town are wagging, but to hell with it. I'm too old to worry about that sort of thing anymore."

"Have you seen her today? I've been trying to track her down."

"No, I don't think so."

I looked over to see Ann Fowler coming in the door. "Oh, there's Ann," I said.

Dwight turned and caught her eye, motioning to her with pleasure. As she approached, he got up and borrowed a chair from a nearby table and moved it over to ours. The dark mood was still with her. She radiated tension, her mouth looking pinched. If Dwight was aware of it, he gave no sign.

He held her chair. "Would you like a drink?"

"Yes, sherry." She signaled for the waitress before he had a chance. He sat down again. I noticed she was avoiding eye contact with me. And drinking? That seemed odd.

"Have you eaten?" I asked.

"You could have told me you wouldn't be with us for dinner tonight."

I felt my cheeks heat at her tone. "I'm sorry. It didn't even occur to me. I was going to take a nap when it dawned on me I hadn't eaten all day. I took a quick shower and came straight over here. I hope I didn't put you out."

She didn't bother to reply to that. I could see that unconsciously she'd adopted her mother's strategy, hanging on to her martyrdom and milking it. I'm not crazy about this as a mode of interaction.

The waitress arrived and asked Ann what she wanted. Before she disappeared, Dwight snagged the woman's attention. "Hi, Dorothy. Has Shana Timberlake been in today?"

"Nope. Not that I've seen. She's usually here for lunch, but she may have gone in to San Luis. Thursday's her day to shop."

"Well, if you see her, tell her to give me a buzz if you would."

"Will do." Dorothy moved away from the table, and he turned back to us.

"How are you, Dwight?" Ann said, with forced pleasantness. It was clear she was cutting me right out of the loop.

I was too tired to play games. I finished my coffee, tossed a twenty on the table, and excused myself.

"You're leaving us?" Dwight said, with a quick look at his watch. "It's not even nine-thirty."

"It's been a long day and I'm beat."

We went through our good-night maneuvers, Ann being only minimally more polite than she had been. Her sherry arrived as I left the table and headed for the door. I thought Dwight seemed slightly disappointed at my departure, but I might have been kidding myself. Martinis bring out the latent romantic in me. Also headaches, if anybody's interested.