The Vanished

CHAPTER NINE

When I got to my flat, there was no mail, no further evidence of illegal entry, and no beer in the icebox. The kitchen contained a faint odor, the origin of which turned out to be a bowl of stew I had cooked but not eaten four days previous. I had forgotten to refrigerate the damned stuff, and it had some kind of gray-green substance over the surface of it. I threw it into a garbage bag and took the bag down the stairs to the trash can, wedging the door shut again with the broom handle and the copper wire when I came back up.

You need a keeper, I thought, that’s what you need. To clean out this cage once in a while.

In the apartment, I called Cheryl’s number another time, and on this occasion I knew intuitively that she would be home. I sat on my unmade bed, listening to the circuit noises and looking at the soiled sheets and the piles of laundry strewn around the bedroom. A goddamn keeper, all right. I wanted a cigarette and gave in to the desire, and in my ear there was a click and her voice said, ‘Hello?’

‘Hi, Cheryl,’ I said. ‘How are you?’

I did not have to tell her who it was this time. She said, ‘Fine. And you?’ and her voice was soft and warm.

‘Fine. I got back into town earlier this afternoon and tried to call you then, but there was no answer.’

‘Doug and I were shopping at Stonestown,’ she said. ‘Did you find out anything about Roy?’

‘Nothing encouraging.’

‘It’s a terrible thing when someone you know just disappears like that, for no reason.’

‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘Listen, Cheryl, I’m leaving for Germany tomorrow. Sands’ fiancée seems to think there might be a clue to what happened to him over there. I don’t know when I’ll be back-just a few days, I think- and I was hoping you’d be free tonight.’

‘Oh,’ she said, ‘I have to work.’

I tried to keep disappointment out of my voice. ‘Tonight of all nights.’

‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I work evenings three times a week, and this happens to be one of them. I wish it wasn’t.’

I liked the way she had said those last words. I asked, ‘Well, how’s the food out at Saxon’s?’

‘Fairly good, for a coffee shop.’

‘Maybe I’ll come out for a steak tonight.’

‘I’d like that, but… well, the owner doesn’t take kindly to employees having personal discussions while they’re working.’

‘I guess it wasn’t such a good idea.’

‘I hope you understand.’

‘Of course. Can I see you when I get back from Germany?’

‘Yes,’ she said.

‘It’s a date. Do you like Russian food?’

‘I’m not sure I’ve ever eaten any.’

‘I know a place. I think you’ll enjoy it.’

‘It sounds very nice.’

‘Cheryl-’

‘Yes?’

‘I’ve thought of you often since Tuesday night.’

‘Have you?’ Her voice was softer.

‘Yes. I just wanted you to know that.’

There was a moment of silence that was not in any way awkward. She said then, ‘I think I’d better go now. I have to be to work at six.’

‘I’ll call you as soon as I get home.’

‘Please do.’

I paused. ‘Is your brother there, by any chance?’

‘Yes, he is. He’s been wondering about Roy, and I know he wants to talk to you. Just a moment.’

Doug Rosmond came on immediately and asked me about Oregon. For the third time that day I recounted my trip to Eugene and explained about the theft of the sketch of Roy Sands, and for the third time the reaction was typically innocent: dismay at my discovery of Sands’ suitcase in the transient hotel, incredulity at the theft of the sketch, which Rosmond said Chuck Hendryx had mentioned on the phone as being ‘a pretty good likeness, probably done by one of those sidewalk artists.’ He had never heard of the Galerie der Expressionisten and wondered where I had gotten the name.

‘It was on a piece of paper among Sands’ effects,’ I said. ‘It’s an art gallery in Kitzingen.’

‘Why would Roy have the name of an art gallery?’

‘That’s a good question, especially after the theft of the portrait.’

‘Do you really think his portrait has something to do with his disappearance?’

‘It might,’ I said. ‘That’s one of the reasons I’m leaving for Germany tomorrow.’

‘Germany? You mean Elaine Kavanaugh is sending you all the way over there?’

‘That’s right.’

‘That seems like a hell of a shot in the dark.’

‘Maybe it is, but it’s about all we’ve got left.’

‘You think you can find out about the portrait over there?’

‘That’s what I’m hoping.’

‘I guess Elaine is getting desperate, and I don’t blame her. If I were in her place, I’d probably have you do the same thing. It’s better than just sitting around, waiting.’

‘That’s for certain.’

Rosmond wished me luck, and I told him I would be in touch-unnecessarily, because of Cheryl-and we said a parting. I went into the living room and stood at the bay window and looked out through the curtains at the approaching darkness, the subtle transformation of chill bright gray into ebon black. The sharp winter wind blew eddies of dust in a series of miniature tornadoes along the gutters, slapped at the glass with the thin, cold fingers of a crone.

But I was thinking of Cheryl, and that made it a very nice evening in all respects.

The telephone was ringing.

And ringing and ringing.

I pushed my way up through the folds of a deep, warm, comfortable sleep-the first good rest I had had in days. The bell was strident, demanding, in the darkness of the bedroom. I lay quietly for a moment, reluctant to let go of the warmth and the comfort, waiting for the bell to stop. It kept on ringing. I lifted my left arm and looked at my watch, and it was twenty past one. Some time of night for a telephone call; and it will be a wrong number, sure as Christ made fools and drunks, it will be a wrong number.

I swung my feet out of bed and stumbled over to the phone, on the dresser where I had put it earlier. I got the handset up to my ear, a little groggily, and muttered, ‘Yeah? Hello?’

A muffled, neuter voice whispered, ‘If you go to Germany tomorrow, you’re a dead man, mister. And Elaine Kavanaugh is a dead lady. I’m not kidding, mister-you think I’m kidding, you go ahead to Germany and see what happens.’

The line buzzed atonally, emptily.

I stood holding the receiver, fully awake now, and I had a ridiculous urge to burst out laughing. A threatening telephone call. For Christ’s sake! Pulp detectives got threatening telephone calls in six stories out of ten, they were always getting them. And then the irony left me and I felt a coldness that was born of anger rather than fear settle across my shoulder blades; anger crept up into my throat, too, and forced itself out in the form of several sharp, savage words. I slammed the receiver down and went to the nightstand for a cigarette.

Hendryx? I thought. Gilmartin? Doug Rosmond? One of those three, goddamn it, it almost has to be one of those three, nobody else knew I planned to leave for Germany tomorrow, not unless Elaine or one of them told someone, and that isn’t probable. Well, whoever it was has to be the same one who broke in here-

And the phone rang again.

Two in a row, is that it? I made the dresser in two strides and swung the handset up viciously-and Elaine Kavanaugh’s voice said in a broken, frightened, liquid rush, ‘Somebody… somebody on the phone… he said he would kill me… and you… oh God, my God, he said he’d kill us both if you went to Germany!’

So that was the way he was playing it. Her first and then me. Cover all bets. One of us would scare off-that was the reasoning, the son of a bitch. I said thinly, ‘Easy, Miss Kavanaugh, try to calm down.’

‘But you… you don’t understand…’

‘I understand,’ I said. ‘I got the same kind of call, just two minutes ago. The same threat.’

‘For the love of God, why?’ Her voice had a shrill, cracking edge to it. ‘I don’t understand this… I don’t know what’s happening…’

I spoke softly to her for several seconds, getting her calm. When she seemed in control again, I said, ‘Did you recognize anything about the voice-anything at all?’

‘No, it was muffled, disguised.’ She released a stuttering breath. ‘Do you… think he meant what he said? About… killing us?’

‘I don’t know,’ I told her. ‘I don’t know what kind of man we’re dealing with here-his motivations, anything about the way he thinks. He might be bluffing, and then again he might not be.’

‘What are we going to do?’

‘That’s up to you, Miss Kavanaugh,’ I said tightly. ‘I’m not particularly brave, but I don’t like voices in the night telling me what to do. As far as I’m concerned, nothing’s changed. But I don’t want you harmed; if you want to call the trip off, we’ll do it that way.’

‘This is all so… insane,’ she said. ‘Death threats and Roy missing-I don’t know what to do, what to think.’

‘Maybe we’d better just forget the whole thing.’

‘No. No, we can’t do that. I’m… afraid, but I have to know about Roy. I have to know where he is, if he’s all right.’

‘Then I’ll have to go to Germany as we planned.’

‘Yes,’ she said, and her voice broke faintly, as if she had undergone a violent shudder; then, more firmly, ‘Yes.’

‘You’re certain that’s what you want?’

‘I’m certain.’

Good girl, I thought. I said, ‘Then it’s settled. But I want you to promise me that you’ll pack your things and check out of that hotel early in the morning. Will you do that?’

‘Where will I go?’

‘To another hotel. Any one you like, but make it some distance from the Royal Gate. Register under another name-anything but Smith or Jones. You can call me at my office tomorrow and tell me where you’ve gone.’

‘All right. If you think that’s best.’

‘While I’m in Germany, I want you to stay in your room. Don’t go out, don’t tell anyone- anyone at all-where you are, and don’t open your door to anyone but a member of the hotel staff. You can have your meals sent up, and books to read or a television to help pass the time. It’ll be hell for a few days, but you’ll have to do it. Do you think you can?’

‘Yes,’ she answered, and I believed her.

‘You’ll be okay tonight. Take a couple of sleeping pills, if you have them, and try to get some rest. I’ll do all that’s humanly possible to find Roy Sands for you; I hope you can believe in that.’

‘I can.’

‘That’s fine,’ I said, ‘because we’ve got one thing going for us now, one thing those threatening calls told us for sure.’

‘What?’

‘That there’s something damned important to be found out in Kitzingen, Germany.’