Scattershot

SEVEN

I got lucky for a change. Twenty-five minutes after I arrived at Bernice Dolan’s building, I found out where she’d gone.

The building was on Greenwich, over near Fill-more, in the heart of Cow Hollow-a three-story, six-unit job that faced toward the bay. The manager let me in, but he had no additional information for me; he didn’t know any of Dolan’s friends or any of her background. As far as he was concerned, she kept pretty much to herself.

Her apartment was on the second floor, and there was nobody home in the other apartment across the hall. I went upstairs and talked to a chubby woman with her hair in curlers, who didn’t know Dolan at all, or claimed not to, and who thought I was either trying to sell her something or bent on raping her; she kept edging the door closed as we talked, until her nose and mouth were all that were visible beyond an inch-wide crack. Then her face vanished altogether and I heard a couple of locks snap into place. She was definitely not a trusting person.

The second apartment on that floor belonged to a heavy-set bearded guy with long bristly hair and a mashed-in snout, all of which features combined to make him look like a hairy pig. When he opened the door and breathed on me I smelled the odor of sour red wine. Sure, he said, he knew Bernice Dolan. She was a terrific lay, Bernice was; they’d got it on together on Christmas Eve, after a party. Small tits, though, he said. Very small. No, he hadn’t seen her recently. Maybe she’d found herself a sugar daddy somewhere, he said, and winked at me. Wouldn’t surprise him if she had. She really was a terrific lay, despite her small tits. It was too bad about those tits, he said. Otherwise she would really be a fox.

I left him to his wine and his anatomical hangups and went downstairs again. It was my intention to go all the way down to the first floor, to talk to the occupants of the sixth apartment, but when I got to the second floor I saw a woman with a bag of groceries unlocking the door across from Dolan’s. I got over to her just as she popped the door open.

“Excuse me,” I said. “I’d like to talk to you for a moment, if I may.”

She hadn’t seen or heard me coming, and at the sound of my voice she jumped half a foot and almost dropped the bag of groceries. She was about forty, and she had nice brown eyes. That was about all you could say for her in the way of looks; she was so plain and frumpy that I found myself feeling sorry for her. But it was probably just as well, under the circumstances. At least she didn’t think I was there to rape her.

“My God,” she said, “you scared the life out of me.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to.”

“Well. You shouldn’t sneak up on people like that.” She gave me an appraising look. “What did you want?”

“I’m trying to locate Bernice Dolan,” I said. “I thought you might know what’s become of her.”

“Why do you want to locate Bernice?”

“A small business matter.”

“She’s not in trouble, is she?”

“Not that I know of. Why do you think she might be?”

“Oh, well, she’s a little wild, you know.”

“How do you mean?”

“Men,” she said. “Bernice is crazy about men.” She paused. “You’re not one of them, are you?”

“No, ma’am.”

“Good. Don’t misunderstand: I like Bernice. It’s just that she’s irresponsible. Men and money and fancy possessions, that’s all she ever talks about.”

“Do you know her well?”

“Not really. We’ve talked a few times. I think-” She stopped, and then shrugged and smiled a faint sad smile. “I think she likes to talk to me because I’m not a threat to her. With her men friends, you see. Attractive women often feel that way about plain women.”

I didn’t know what to say, so I didn’t say anything.

She shrugged again. “Bernice went to Xanadu,” she said.

“Ma’am?”

“That’s what she said, anyway, the last time I saw her. That was about three weeks ago. I came home from shopping and she was just coming down the front steps with two suitcases. I asked her if she was going on vacation and she said not exactly. Then she said she was going to Xanadu.”

“Is that all she said?”

“Yes. There was a taxi waiting for her.”

“Do you know what Xanadu is? Or where?”

“No. The only Xanadu I know is that newspaper tycoon’s estate in Citizen Kane. You know-the Orson Welles movie.”

I nodded.

“Maybe it’s a town or something,” the woman said. “Whatever it is, there’s one thing it’s bound to have plenty of.”

“What’s that?”

“Men,” she said. “Plenty of eligible men.”

I thanked her and headed out to my car. Xanadu, I thought. What the hell is Xanadu?

There was a service station two blocks up; I pulled in there and went into their phone booth and looked up Xanadu, just to see what I would find. I didn’t find much. The only listing was for some sort of art gallery on Union Street. I thought about driving over there, since Union was only a short distance away, but there didn’t seem to be much point in it. A woman doesn’t pack two suitcases and call a taxi to go to an art gallery a few blocks from where she lives.

I found a dime in my pocket, dropped it into the coin slot, and rang up the guy I know on the Examiner. The first thing he said was, “Another favor, I suppose?” in cynical tones.

I said, “What’s Xanadu?”

He said, “Huh?”

“Xanadu. X-a-n-a-d-u.”

“What about it?”

“I want to know what it is.”

“It’s a mythical principality. ‘In Xanadu did Kubla Khan a stately pleasure dome decree.’ You’ve heard that before, haven’t you? It’s from Kubla Khan, the Coleridge poem.”

“I suppose so,” I said. “But that’s not the Xanadu I’m looking for. The one I want is a place of some kind.”

“Well, there’s the old tyrant’s estate in Citizen Kane. Welles patterned him after Willie Hearst, you know-”

“That’s not it, either. It’s a real place somebody I’m trying to find went to about three weeks ago.”

“If you say so.”

“No bells ringing?”

“Dead silence,” he said.

“Will you check into it for me?”

“Look, I’m pretty busy-”

“I’ll buy you a steak dinner.”

“When?”

“Next week. You name the night.”

He sighed. “All right-but we go to Grisson’s.”

Grisson’s was the most expensive steak restaurant in the city. I wondered if I could get away with putting his dinner on my expense account bill to Adam Brister, decided I would damned well try, and said, “Deal. I’ll be back in my office inside an hour. Call me there if you come up with anything.”

“I’ll see what I can do.”

On the way back to Drumm Street I stopped at a McDonald’s and bought a Big Mac and a bag of fries. Kerry had accused me of being a junk-food addict, and she was probably right. But what the hell. You have to eat, and you might as well eat what you like. The way I figured it, nobody had ever died from eating a Big Mac and a bag of fries for lunch.

My answering machine had one message on it, from Edna Hornback. She’d called, she wanted me to call back-very terse, very nasty. More abuse, I thought. And up yours, Mrs. Hornback. I erased her voice from the machine, erased her name from my thoughts, and started typing up a report for Adam Brister on the Speers investigation thus far.

I was in the middle of that when Kerry called.

“I was hoping you’d be in,” she said. “I’m worried about you.”

“Why?”

“Why do you think? You’re all over the afternoon paper; I just saw it a little while ago. How come you didn’t call to tell me what happened last night?”

“I got home too late,” I said. “And I had to go in early this morning to talk to Eberhardt. You’d already gone to lunch when I did get a chance to call.”

“I still wish you’d let me know. It was a shock to pick up the paper and see you mixed up in another murder.”

“Yeah, I guess it was.”

“Have the police found out anything yet?”

“No. But they’ll get to the bottom of it eventually.” I paused. And then I said, “So did you just get back from lunch?”

“A few minutes ago, yes.”

“Kind of a long one, wasn’t it?”

“Not really. We had a lot of things to discuss.”

“I’m sure you did.”

“Now what does that mean?”

“Nothing. It was just a comment.”

Silence. Then, “My God, are you jealous?”

“What would I have to be jealous about?”

“Not a thing. But you are, aren’t you.”

“No,“I said.

“Yes you are. I can hear it in your voice.”

“Balls,” I said. “Let’s have dinner tonight.”

“I can’t.”

“Why can’t you?”

“Because I can’t.”

“Another business meeting?”

“That’s right. Or don’t you think so?”

“Don’t get huffy.”

“I’m not getting huffy. God, you can be irritating sometimes. What’s the matter with you?”

“I’m going through male menopause,” I said. “I keep having hot flashes every time I think about you and your friend Carpenter.”

“He’s not my friend, he’s my boss.”

“All right.”

“All right. You big jerk.”

“Balls,” I said again.

“Balls to you, too,” she said and clanked the receiver down hard enough to make me wince.

I sat there and thought: She’s right, I am a big jerk. She calls, worried, and what do I do? Make jealous noises and dumb remarks and get her upset enough to hang up on me. I felt even more like a horse’s ass than I had on Sunday. The thing to do was to call her back and apologize. I made up my mind to do that and reached out for the receiver.

Before I could pick it up, the thing went off again.

Maybe she’s calling me back, I thought, but she wasn’t. It was Mrs. Hornback. “Oh, so you’re there,” she said. “Didn’t you get my message?”

“I got it.” ‘ “Then why didn’t you call me?” * “I had some other things to attend to.”

“I’m a grieving widow,” she said, but she didn’t sound like one. She sounded like the Wicked Witch of the East. “Don’t you have any feelings?”

“I might ask you the same question,” I SSaid. “I understand you’ve been making accusations against me to the police.”

“I have not been making accusations.”

“Inferences, then. You seem to think I had something to do with your husband’s death.”

“For all I know, you did.”

“That’s slander, Mrs. Hornback.”

“Not if it’s true.”

“Look, lady, what is it you want? Or did you just call up to harass me?”

“I want what’s rightfully mine,” she said. “I want the money Lewis stole from Hornback Designs.”

“I don’t know anything about that.”

“Well, you’d better find out.”

“What?”

“You’d better find out who has my money and who killed Lewis. You’d better find that bitch of his.”

“That’s not up to me. It’s up to the police.”

“The police are incompetent,” she said. “You’re the only one who can do it.” She paused dramatically. “If you’re not guilty yourself, that is.”

“Are you threatening me?”

“You’re still in my employ,” she said. “You took my money and you didn’t earn it. Well, I’m warning you, you’d better earn it now.”

“I have no obligation to you-”

, “Of course you do. You claim to be an honest detective. All right, start detecting. That’s what I’m paying you for.”

I opened my mouth, closed-it again. A funny noise came out of my throat-like a dog growling.

She said, “What did you say?”

“I didn’t say anything.”

“Are you going to find my money and Lewis’s killer or aren’t you?”

“I don’t work for you any longer, Mrs. Hornback.”

“If you don’t,” she said, “it’s because you have something to hide. That’s how I see it. That’s how my attorney sees it, too.”

And for the third time that day, somebody banged a telephone receiver down in my ear.

I got up and took a couple of angry turns around the office. The woman was demented; she ought to be locked away in a place with mattresses on the walls. She had just tried to hire me to prove I wasn’t a murderer and a thief-that was what the whole crazy conversation amounted to. Great Christ. I had a certifiable lunatic on my hands. The worst kind, too; vindictive and monomaniacal. There was no telling what she might do next.

I sat down again. What I needed right now was an attorney of my own to advise me, before this whole thing got out of hand. I looked up Charles Kayabalian’s number in my address book. Kayabalian was an Armenian I had met three years before, during a messy murder case up in the Mother Lode country-a bad time in my life because I had been waiting to find out whether the lesion on my lung was malignant or benign. The case had involved a stolen Oriental rug, and Kayabalian was a collector of Orientals; he was also a very good attorney. I had had occasion to consult with him on minor matters a time or two since.

He was in and free to listen to my tale of woe. When I finished relating it he said in his Melvin Belli voice, “From a legal standpoint, my friend, I doubt if you have much to worry about. The Hornback woman would have to prove felonious intent on your part, and from what you’ve told me, there’s no evidence to substantiate such a claim.”

“Could she sue me anyway?”

“Yes. For criminal negligence.”

“She couldn’t prove that, either.”

“Probably not. Any competent judge would throw a suit like that out of court. Still, it could damage you professionally.”

“So what do you advise?”

“Don’t talk to her anymore,” Kayabalian said. “If she calls you again, tell her politely that you have nothing to say to her on advice of counsel and hang up. Meanwhile, I’ll get in touch with her and her attorney.”

“What will you say to them?”

“You leave that to my discretion. The main thing I want to find out is how serious she is about a potential suit.”

I gave him Mrs. Hornback’s number. He said he’d be in touch after he talked to her and her lawyer, and to let him know right away if I learned of any fresh developments in the police investigation. He sounded confident enough, but I didn’t feel particularly relieved after we rang off. Lunatics make me nervous, attorney or no attorney in my corner.

It had been better than half an hour since my abrasive conversation with Kerry, but I still felt I ought to apologize to her. The only problem with that was when I called Bates and Carpenter her secretary said she was away from her desk and unavailable to take calls. Which may or may not have been true. Maybe she just didn’t want to talk to me. Or maybe she was off in Jim Carpenter’s private office, conducting more business.

Damn women. And damn me and my petty jealousies.

I put the handset down. Two seconds later the bloody thing’s bell went off again. But this time it was my friend on the Examiner, and he had some good news.

“I found Xanadu for you,” he said. “At least, it’s the only one anybody around here knows about.”

“What is it?”

“A resort playground for the rich and decadent. Down on the Big Sur seacoast.”

“Ah,” I said.

“Yeah,” he said. “Eighteen-hole golf course, tennis and racquetball courts. Olympic-sized swim ming pool, sauna and steam rooms, two restaurants, three bars, a disco night club, and forty or fifty rustic cottages for the guests to hole up in.”

“Sounds exclusive.”

“It is. The tariff is a mere fifteen hundred per week per person, not including meals, drinks, or gratuities.”

“Nice play if you can get it,” I said.

“Ain’t that the truth. This sound like the Xanadu you’re after?”

“I think so.”

“Good. That means you won’t try to weasel out of my steak dinner next week.”

“Any night. Call me on Monday.”

“I think I’ll have a porterhouse,” he said. “Unless there’s another steak on the menu more expensive.”

I called Monterey County information and got the listed number for Xanadu. Then I called Xanadu and asked to speak to Ms. Lauren Speers. The woman who answered said she would ring up Ms. Speers’s cottage, and while she was doing that I hung up. She had already told me what I needed to know; I had found Bernice Dolan and I had found Lauren Speers.

All that remained now was to contact Adam Brister and to drive down the coast to Xanadu with the papers he had given me to serve. I decided I would make the drive first thing tomorrow. A day away from the city, and away from nut cases like Edna Hornback, could only be a blessing.

Blister sounded pleased when I reached him at his office. He told me to contact him again after I had served Speers and that he would issue a check for the balance of my fee, plus expenses, as soon as I presented him with a report and an itemized list. He also said I was a good detective. At least somebody thought so, even if it was only a greedy-eyed member of the bar.

By then it was almost five o’clock, and I was tired of telephones and business matters. I went home to drink beer, read a pulp magazine, and brood in solitude.

Charles Kayabalian called at eight o’clock. “I just returned from dinner,” he said. “I tried you at your office at five, but you’d already left.”

“Did you talk to Hornback and her attorney?”

“Both of them, yes.”

“And?”

“I believe you’re right about the woman’s mental state,” he said. “My conversation with her was a little strange, to say the least.”

“Is she serious about a lawsuit?”

“Very serious. Assuming you don’t go along with her wishes and find out who killed her husband and what happened to the money she alleges he stole. In her view, that’s the only way for you to exonerate yourself.”

“What did her attorney have to say?”

“He’s backing her one hundred percent. I don’t like the man-his name is Jordan and he’s an opportunist. He seems to see the matter as a cause celebre, a way to make a name for himself.”

“So what do we do if they go ahead with the suit?”

“File a countersuit for harassment,” Kayabalian said. “I see no other alternative.”

“Wonderful.”

“If the police find out who murdered Lewis Hornback and what happened to the money,” he said, “it would probably get you off the hook. We’ll just have to hope that happens.” He paused. “You don’t intend to conduct your own investigation, do you?”

“Christ, no.”

“Good. It wouldn’t be a wise idea. Unless you managed to solve the mystery, Mrs. Hornback’s case against you would be strengthened.”

“I’ll stand clear, don’t worry.”

He told me again to keep in touch, after which I went back to my beer and my brooding. This was shaping up to be one of the most complicated weeks of my life. I was beginning to think that I had been better off without a lady friend and without a booming business. Love and money were terrific, but peace of mind was a hell of a lot better for you in the long run.