Undercurrent

Sixteen

We came into City Hall, and Quartermain's office, through the police entrance at the rear. He folded his big, loose body into his chair, picked up the phone, and called out to the front desk. Donovan, it seemed, was plagued by local, San Francisco, and wire-service reporters who had gotten wind of Winestock's murder and the fire-gutting of Dancer's shack. The reporters wanted to know, since Quartermain and I had been on the scene both times, if the events had any connection with the killing on Saturday of Walter Paige. Did the Chief want to come out and give them a statement?

Quartermain was in no mood for reporters. He told Donovan to tell them he had nothing to say at this time, that a statement would be issued when events warranted it; then he asked if there was any word as yet on Russell Dancer or on the balding man. Donovan said that there wasn't. Wearily Quartermain cut off and called the Highway Patrol office in Monterey and talked for a while to Daviault. When he broke that connection, he said to me, "They dug two steel-jacketed thirty-eight slugs out of Winestock, both from the heart region, and they figure death was instantaneous. Probably shot somewhere else and taken to Spanish Bay in the car; the blood on the seat was smeared and there's the absence of powder burns. No prints except Winestock's on the car, inside or out; killer apparently wore gloves. Winestock had nothing helpful in his pockets or his wallet: no address book, no papers with phone numbers or addresses, nothing at all. If he ever had anything, it was removed before the killer got out of there. Another frigging dead end."

I shook my head and glanced up at the sunburst clock; it was seven-forty. "It's still too early to reach the book dealer in San Francisco," I said. "The two I told you about don't open until ten A.M., and I don't know the last names of the owners."

"I'll call the Monterey police, about the bookshop over there; they ought to know the owner, and they can get him out of bed and down to look through his stock. I've got a feeling it won't do much good, but we've got to try it."

He made the call, slapped the receiver down, and looked across at me. "How about some coffee?"

"I don't think so-but you go ahead."

"I guess I don't want any either."

"You know, I can't help thinking now that we could figure out why that damned book is important without it and without Dancer-that we know enough facts to be able to take a reasonably accurate guess. But the pieces are so well scattered, and relatively unimportant by themselves, that I can't pick them out and fit them together."

He nodded thoughtfully. "The trouble is, we've been up all night, and we're so close to this whole thing that we maybe can't see the forest for the trees. But we might try going over it again anyway.. "

We went over it again, and failed to come up with a viable guess, and finally lapsed into a frustrated silence. And more time passed. And nothing happened.

And so you keep on sitting there, willing the phone to ring, the door to open-and the phone remains silent and the door remains closed. You listen to the rhythm of the clock, very loud in the stillness. The chair is uncomfortable, and there is dull pain in your temples and a murkiness to your vision, as if a coat of transparent lacquer had been sprayed over the surface of your eyes. Your throat is dry and gritty, your tongue thick and wrapped in sourness. Your joints feel stiff and atrophied, and your legs ache, and your thoughts are heavy and oddly detached.

You're in fine shape, all right, sitting and waiting and fighting off sleep and not knowing why you're doing it to yourself, why you're there, because you're not getting paid for any of this and the reason you got into it in the first place is sitting home alone in the fine old bitch city San Francisco, where nobody should ever be alone. You should be home, too, you should be out of it, you should be doing something for Judith Paige and for yourself. So why are you here, you wonder, why are you still involved? Because you're a cop and you've always been a cop and you can't let go of the scent once you've got onto it? The old argument-but there's more to it than that, really, you know there is. How about this, then: because it's there-the case, the human folly, the human misery-and you feel you have to surmount it; it's like one in a long string of Everests, only where you're concerned, it isn't mountains but evil. That might be it, that just might be it, because down underneath it all you're a dreamer, a romantic, an optimist masquerading as a bitter realist-you poor tired old bastard you.

I felt as if I were petrifying in the chair and pulled myself up and began to walk around the office. Quartermain was sitting tensely, hands flat on his thighs, his eyes dull and hard. Grayish beard stubble patterned his long cheeks, and his throat, visible where he had long since pulled away his tie, was a V of loose skin hollowed above his collarbone. I thought, looking at him, that he was almost certainly a mirror image of myself-and the thought was somehow a little frightening.

Without thinking about it, I got out a cigarette and put it between my lips and fired it. I had the first drag and then remembered the tender condition of my lungs, but it was not too bad; the smoke burned harshly at first and I coughed a couple of times, and after that it was all right. The taste of it was gray ash, but I smoked it down anyway.

The clock on the wall said it was five past eight.

Quartermain slapped the desk top with the palm of his hand, so abruptly and so sharply that I jumped and wheeled around to look at him again. He stood up. "The hell with this," he said. "This goddamn sitting around is driving me nuts. Let's get out of here, let's go for a ride, let's get something done."

"I'm for that," I said. "Where do we go?"

"Out to Cypress Point."

"The Lomaxes?"

"The Lomaxes," he said. "And they'd damned well better be home when we get there."

They were home.

The entrance gate on Inspiration Way was closed but not locked, and when we got down far enough into the small valley the forest-green Mercedes appeared in front of the terrace wall. Quartermain parked behind it. The front door of the house opened just as we got to it, and Jason Lomax came out and shut the door behind him. He wore an olive-green business suit and a silk tie and alligator-skin shoes, and with his razor-cut hair and barbered mustache, the attire gave him the look of a successful if stuffy advertising or corporation executive. A professional, intelligent smile would have completed the image; but Lomax's mouth was a thin, hard incision, with ridged muscle at the corners, and his eyes held the glitter of synthetic diamonds.

"Morning, Jason," Quartermain said. His tone was deceptively mild, edged with authority, and I knew that even though the Lomaxes were important people in the community of Cypress Bay, too much had happened in the past thirty-six hours for him to use the soft approach; he was not about to stand for any bullshit, no matter what the source or cause.

Lomax said coolly, ignoring me, "Good morning, Chief. Is there something I can do for you?"

"There is. Is your wife here at the moment?"

"Yes, she's here. But I don't think-"

"Shall we go inside? Or do you want to call Robin out here? What we have to talk about concerns her, too."

Lomax stared at him for a long moment, read his haggard face correctly, and asked, "All right, then. But I know why you're here, and you're making a very large mistake. I told this man yesterday"-gesturing at me the way you would gesture at a tree stump-"everything my wife and I know about Walter Paige and his death, which amounts to almost nothing at all."

"I hope so, Jason. I hope that's what it amounts to."

Lomax started to say something else, changed his mind, and turned grimly to the door. He opened it and we went inside and into a long, deep living room furnished in eighteenth-century Early American, paneled in maple, floored in gros point, and decorated with old-bronze lamps and knick-knacks. Blue drapes were open at a picture window that took up most of the side wall, and beyond you could see the flagstone terrace and, around toward the back, part of a green-tile swimming pool.

Robin Lomax entered by way of a door at the rear of the room. She wore a plain short-sleeved white dress-she was the kind of woman who would wear white whenever possible, because it complemented her tanned skin and because it made her look young and fresh and innocent-and her face was carefully composed, her lips turned in a small, polite smile. But there was faint disapproval and more than a little fear in her eyes as she looked at Quartermain and me, as if in our rumpled, unshaven condition we were derelict intruders come for some dark purpose. The amenities were brief and strained-the polite good mornings, her invitation to sit down, her automatic offer of coffee, which we automatically refused. Then we took a long sofa and the two of them sat in facing chairs and we got to the point of it.

Lomax asked stiffly, "Just what is it you want to ask us, Chief?" His manner continued to negate my presence.

"To begin with, where you were last night?"

The question startled them; they had not been prepared for that kind of opener. He said, "Last night?"

"Yes. We came by just after dark, and no one was here."

"Oh, I see. Well, we took Tommy to his grandmother's in Salinas and then we went to dinner and cocktails at Del Monte Lodge."

"You left in something of a hurry, didn't you?"

"Hurry?"

"You neglected to close the front gate, and you forgot to turn on the night-lighting here on the grounds. When you go out for a casual evening, don't you usually attend to those things?"

Robin Lomax moved uncomfortably in her chair and looked at her husband. He said, "We were rather upset. Your private detective's visit accounted for that"

"He's not my private detective, Jason."

"He's here with you now. He seemed to have your sanction to come around here yesterday making accusations…"

"No one made any accusations, Mr. Lomax," I said evenly.

Quartermain made an angry, impatient gesture. "All right," he said to Lomax, "so you took your son to his grandmother's and then you went out to supper and cocktails at Del Monte."

"Yes," Lomax answered, and nodded.

"Do you normally go out to dinner when you're upset?"

"We had promised Robin's mother that we would bring Tommy to see her, and the drive to Salinas seemed just what both of us needed. We felt much better on the way home, and we decided to stop at the lodge. That's all."

"What time did you leave there?"

"Midnight or shortly after."

"Did you come straight home?"

"Yes, of course. Why are you asking all these questions about last night?"

"Because Brad Winestock was murdered just before or just after midnight-shot to death at Spanish Bay, or somewhere else, and then taken out there in his car."

Robin Lomax made a small, shocked sound and reached out in a blind sort of way to pluck at her husband's arm again. He just sat there, staring at us. "Who did it? Who would want to kill a poor nothing like Brad Winestock?"

"Very possibly the same person who killed Walter Paige."

"And we're under suspicion for both crimes, is that it?"

"I didn't say you were under suspicion, did I, Jason?"

"Well, you're acting as if we are, coming here with your questions and your intimations. We're respectable people, for God's sake, and I resent your trying to involve us in sordidness and murder."

"I'm not trying to involve you, I'm trying to do my job the best way I know how. Now, the two of you knew Paige six years ago and you knew Brad Winestock; you reacted violently when confronted by Paige's name yesterday, and you seemed hardly willing to answer questions pertaining to Paige and your relationship with him. Those are the simple facts, and I'm here to find out the reasons for them. As long as you cooperate, and as long as you have nothing to hide, I'll apologize for my intrusion and for any inconvenience and you won't be bothered again. I don't see the need for indignation in any of that-unless you do have something to hide."

"We have nothing to hide," Lomax said.

"Fine. Now suppose you tell me about Walter Paige, and why you were so upset at the mention of his name yesterday."

Lomax and his wife exchanged glances-they were good at exchanging glances-and again I could see nothing of any significance pass between them. He said, "Very well. I'll tell you why Walter Paige was and still is a filthy name around here, and I'll tell you why both my wife and I are glad he's dead even though we had absolutely nothing to do with his death."

He paused, and took a long breath, and went on, "Paige thought he was irresistible, and that every woman in the world ought to fall fawning at his feet. Well, Robin didn't fall and that hurt his ego. So he got her somewhat… intoxicated one night, after she'd had a minor argument with me-we were going together at the time, you see-and he tried to attack her. She fought him off and managed to get away from him, but it was a very messy business, as you can well imagine. Naturally, when she told me, I wanted to attend to Paige personally, but we both saw the folly of that. We simply put the matter out of our minds as best we could, and shortly afterward Paige left Cypress Bay. We thought he had gone for good. When we heard he was back"-looking at me now, finally acknowledging my presence-"and this was before you told us of his death, you may remember, we were both angry and upset."

"And that's all there is to it?" Quartermain asked.

"Absolutely all."

The hell it is, I thought. I said, "You seemed almost as unnerved by the fact that I was a private detective as you were by my mention of Paige's name. Why, Mr. Lomax?"

His eyes flared with a kind of unreasonable hatred for me, and then he blinked and it was gone. Mrs. Lomax worked on her lower lip with her sharp white teeth; the fear was still in her eyes and she seemed to be having difficulty maintaining her composure.

Quartermain said, "Answer his question, Jason."

"We're not at all used to being visited by private detectives, right out of nowhere on a Sunday afternoon." Lomax's voice was brittle again. "Naturally we were surprised and a little taken aback. Private detectives, if you can believe television and films, are hardly the type of people one likes to be confronted with unexpectedly."

God, what a supercilious bastard! What he knew about private detectives you could put in a goddamn thimble; what he knew about a lot of things-including natural human emotions and compassions-you could put in a goddamn thimble. I looked at Quartermain, but I could not tell from his expression what he thought of Lomax's rehearsed-sounding and pompous answers.

He said, "You were both here between four and six o'clock Saturday afternoon, is that right?"

"Yes," she said, "that's right."

"Playing tennis," Lomax added.

"And you hadn't seen or heard from Walter Paige in six years?"

"Yes. Or rather, no."

"And you've never heard of a book of Russell Dancer's called The Dead and the Dying."

"Certainly not."

"And you don't know a fortyish, kind of bald man who was apparently a friend of Paige's and of Winestock's."

"No."

"Do you have anything more to tell me, about anything at all we've discussed just now or which might have any bearing on either or both murders?"

Lomax moistened his lips. "No," he said, "we have nothing more to tell you, Chief."

"Then I'll take you at your word," Quartermain said, "and hope for your sakes that I don't have to come back again with more questions." He stood up and I stood up with him. "Thanks for your time, Jason, and yours, Robin."

Lomax started to get up, but Quartermain told him we could find our own way out and muttered a good morning. I followed him across to the door and out and through the facing garden to his car. Once inside, he said, "They're holding something back, too, the stubborn goddamn fools. Jesus Christ, I can't get a straight story out of anybody!"

I did not say anything; I had nothing to offer on the subject of the Lomaxes. Their involvement, whatever it was, was too nebulous at this point to make conjecture worthwhile. Quartermain had taken his questions as far as he could without getting tough, and you don't get tough with people like the Lomaxes unless you've got something definite to back you up. As it was, there would no doubt be repercussions from the City Fathers once Lomax, being the kind of man he was, got through screaming about police harassment. It took a lot of guts, I thought, for Quartermain to handle things as he had-to allow me to keep my unofficial hand in. He's a good cop, a hell of a good cop, and he deserves better than he's getting. He deserves a break. And soon, damned soon.

As if reading my thoughts, he said as he started the car, "God, I wish things would open up for us before long, before anything else happens. I wish we could get a break, just one little break."

And we got one.

Just like that, just as if all you had to do was ask for it in the right kind of thoughts and words.

Donovan called on the transceiver while we were driving back to City Hall. He had just had a report from the county sheriff's unit which Quartermain had earlier asked be posted on Beach Road: they were on their way into Cypress Bay, and they were bringing with them-badly hungover but otherwise alive and well-the driver of an old wood-sided station wagon that had turned up at nine-ten.

The driver's-and the break's-name was Russell Dancer.