Pulling into a gas station on Lincoln Boulevard, Farr stopped by the public phone booth and looked up Kenji Karate in the directory. But the name was not listed. Kenji—what? Farr couldn’t remember. And the Western Directory was full of Japanese names. He knew he would never come across it by chance.
Jumping into his car again, he turned back onto Lincoln. The hills to the north looked like a painted backdrop. The desert glare, the crystalline air made everything look unnaturally sharp—as if his panic were a burning glass, magnifying the world before consuming it.
Near the freeway at Olympic, the traffic grew heavy and he braked so erratically that his car bucked and nearly stalled. Dizzily, Farr stared at the green freeway directional signs suspended over the street as he waited for the light to change. If you weren’t here Tuesday, you’d better go to the police. To Krug and the other one. Farr groaned aloud. Too late for that.
Behind him, horns blared. The light had changed, he was holding up traffic. As the Jaguar leaped forward, roaring, almost colliding with the truck ahead, Farr whispered “Easy” to himself as if he were an animal needing to be steadied. “Easy does it.” And his panic subsided, replaced by a slow burning anger as mindless and unimaginative as his first shock. He had parked, walked a block up the mall, and was halfway up the stairs to the dance studio when the double blows hit him: Someone did this. Someone planned—? Got to find her brother. No, keys first. But he’s the key. Find him. I knew she was trouble. Knew…Then his mouth opened. Oh. Holly. And finally he knew. It was Holly lying there sick in that bunk. Beaten. And dying.
Farr sagged against the wall, pity and despair opening like wounds in him. She had asked for help, as now he himself must. Pleas like coals quenched in frigid indifference. She begged me, he told himself. Begged. In dumb kid whore’s language, yes. Unbelievably, yes. But he had heard the plea. Understood. And ignored it.
So slowly, he wavered like a drunken man, Farr continued up the stairs, poisoned by the certainty that he had participated in her death.
Outside the small varnished building which served as the office for the yacht club, the manager lounged in a canvas chair, apparently sleeping, his mahogany face tilted up to catch the sun. But as their shadows fell across him, his eyes opened, slitted. “Somebody gonna tell me what’s going on?”
“Maybe.” Krug grinned. “How’s chances of using your phone?”
“Help yourself, it’s right inside.” As Krug entered, he squinted up at Casey. “Do I wait for him, or do you tell me?”
“We’d like to get hold of David Farr. A few questions, that’s all.”
“Yeah, I figured. Saw him take off a while ago.”
“His neighbors claim—Well, somebody had Farr’s boat out Tuesday, they said. You hear anything about that? Complaints or anything?”
“Not me.” Slit-eyed, he stared at Casey. “How come Dave squawks to you guys? He claim somebody tried to steal his boat?”
“He hasn’t claimed anything yet.” Casey hesitated. “Mr. Caswell said it takes keys to get in it and run the boat—”
“Sure it does. So, if it wasn’t Dave, had to be somebody he knows—what’s the problem?”
“That’s what we’re trying to find out.”
“I don’t get it. If Dave didn’t—” Then he sat up. “Jesus, is this Joe with another bee up his butt? Boy, between him and Sally, I got nothing but gripes! See, they got nothing else to do but sit around eyeballing what everybody—Listen, Dave’s a guy minds his own business. It’s probably bugging those two he might be selling and never told ’em.”
“You mean Farr’s been showing his boat?”
“That’s what I hear. ’Course, it could be guff, too,” and he laughed to himself, shaking his head ruefully. “These lubbers. A whole weekend that guy spends looking, still he’s got to ask how you start the auxiliaries, the whole bit. But that’s par for the course around here. What these nuts know about sailing. If you could see it you’d believe it. They’re all out to kill themselves the fastest way.”
“You’re talking about someone who told you he’d been looking at Farr’s boat?”
“Yeah, over the weekend. They got me running my butt off around here, but I saw him around. Then when he showed up on Monday, we gassed a little.”
“Did he mention anything about Farr giving him keys?”
“Not to me. And unless they made a deal, I’d be surprised if he did. Dave’s pretty finicky about the Portia. Anyhow, the guy could be a put-on.”
“What makes you say that?”
“Ah, I don’t know—”
As the manager shrugged, squinting into the distance, Casey automatically followed his glance to the water glistening white and blinding as glare ice; a tiny sailboat bobbing in and out of vision like a retinal shadow. When he turned back, the manager was a faceless outline. And in the moment before his sight cleared, the man emerging inside the outline, an idea stirred below the surface of Casey’s mind, dimly connected with the illusion of facelessness.
“—Just a hunch maybe,” the manager was saying. “And Dave’s never said anything about selling the Portia. So maybe the guy’s one of these dingalings? You know what I mean. Gets his kicks going around playing big shot. I got this buddy sells Caddies in Hollywood, says he gets ’em every day. They keep hanging around the showroom—”
“Okay,” Krug said from the door, looking impatient and sweaty, “I got Pete covered, let’s get moving,” and he stepped out.
“Wait a minute, Al. This man you talked to Monday,” Casey said to the manager, “he happen to mention his name?”
“If he did, I didn’t hear it.”
“But you know what he looks like. You could describe him?”
“Sure, I guess so.” Stretching out his legs, he studied the toes of his plimsolls—two thick white rubber snouts. His ankles were bare and deeply tanned. “Let’s see—a big guy, maybe fifty or so. But in great shape. Sort of a fruit-type, though, like I was telling you. A ham actor maybe, somebody like that. You know what I mean? The personality bit. Comes on like Esquire, with this tweed cap and the biggest damn cookie-duster I ever saw on a guy his—”
“Color,” Casey interrupted, watching Krug’s eyes widening in a deadpan face. “Mustache. Hair. What color—you remember?”
“Well…Kind of sandy, I guess you’d call it.” His glance flickered from one to the other. “You know this guy, hunh.”
“Could be.” Krug sucked in his breath. “Yeah, maybe we do at that.” Then he thanked him brusquely, and hustled Casey off.
“Could be a coincidence, of course,” Casey added when he had filled Krug in on the manager’s story. “Either that, or it’s a whole new ball game.”
“What’re you talking about, new? It’s ninth inning and the bases’re loaded!” He punched Casey, hard. “You had it pegged, sport—pegged right down the line. We got two, not one. A pair of killers.”
“I don’t know, Al.”
“The hell you don’t. Listen, use your head. First the brother disappears. Then this so-called uncle comes looking for him. Then the girl gets a lock put on her door. But she’s still spooked, so she shacks up with Farr—”
“But why? Why go to Farr if he’s the uncle’s partner? Al, if she knew enough to be scared, she had to know who to be scared of, didn’t she?”
“Oh, for chrissake—”
“Look at the evidence.” Starting the car, Casey gunned out of the parking area. “We’ve got a body in the bay with a card on it. Then we get Farr’s boat—the karate thing—everything neatly pointing in one direction. Al, if Farr did it, then exposed himself this way, he’s got to be crazy!”
“I’ll buy that.”
“But if he isn’t—don’t you see?—someone could be using him.”
“Or vice versa. Look, this guy is a lawyer. He knows the law—the whole machinery’s on his side if he’s innocent. So if he is, why’s he running so scared?”
“Maybe he only looks like running. What he’s reall
y doing is trying to protect himself by finding her brother.”
“Then he’s dumber and crazier than I thought—and I wish him luck.”
“You wish—? Oh. The postcard.” Casey whistled through his teeth. “Even if he finds the brother—”
“Yeah, next we scoop him out of the bay, too.” Krug hawked and spat a gob out the window. “For my dough, the name of the game is narcotics, and Farr’s in it up to his neck. So forget the so-called uncle. Who we want is Farr. And when we get him, we’ll find out everything else we need to know.”
“Maybe so,” Casey said, but he couldn’t quite make himself believe it. And it was hours before he could pin down his doubt; hours after that before he made a dim connection between intuition and fact.
TWENTY-ONE
Late in the afternoon the wind shifted and the fogbank which had been gathering on the horizon moved in, blotting out the sun. At the end of Santa Monica Pier, the foghorn began its rhythmic hooting; the noise of traffic and planes overhead muted slowly, absorbed by the damp grayness.
Staring out at the transformation wrought by the fog—veiled buildings, dripping windshields, glazing of the asphalt parking lot—Casey kept thinking, We’re missing something. But what could it be? The idea twinged as distractingly as a sore tooth, producing nothing, only a reaction finally from Krug.
“Will you for chrissake get your head out of that bag?” he snarled. “Jesus, you’ve gone ape over that goddam Berry case.”
“But I know something’s getting by us, Al. If only I could think—”
“Think, my ass. Get a ouija board, why don’t you? For scientific detection, they say there’s nothing like ’em—every Sherlock Holmes at the funny farm’s got one. Now listen,” he went on, “we don’t move an inch till we get all the reports, y’understand? Lab, fingerprint, the works. Until then, we do our job here, and forget about the Berry case.”
But Casey couldn’t forget. His mind was a ferment of formless ideas which gnawed at the bottom of his consciousness. Something forgotten. Something unrealized yet. Some catalyst waiting to transform the stable pattern of their evidence.
The phone rang and Haynes answered, scribbling as he listened, saying, “Yeah—okay—got it—”
“Pete?” Krug asked as he hung up.
“Himself in person. The belt’s a match,” Haynes recited from his notes. “Some of the prints they lifted from the boat are positive matches. The rest you’ll have to wait—”
“The rest we don’t need.” A broad grin creased Krug’s weatherbeaten face. “Time now for a call on Saretti—right, sport? Keep your fingers crossed. Because if I can squeeze anything out of him, we’ll probably be booking ourselves some suspects tonight.”
A halo of fuzzy radiance surrounded the lights spaced along the mall. In the fog, the canned music issuing from invisible speakers seemed eerily subliminal. Some of the stores lining the mall were open, some were not, shoppers were few. But the second-floor windows of the dance studio blazed. Hoping he had remembered Kenji’s schedule correctly, Casey took the stairs two at a time. From the top, even before he reached the door, he heard the sharp high cries of the Tae Kwon Do students. Buddha in a business suit, Kenji sat in his usual corner, watching.
“Ah, Mr.—”
“Kellog,” Casey flashed his badge.
“Yes, so sorry. Policeman, of course. You wish a chair?”
“No, uh, well, all right, thanks.” Casey settled into the rickety folding chair beside him. “I’d like to ask you about Mr. Farr’s keys. You remember when we were here the other day—”
Kenji kept nodding. “Yes, yes, much talk today of Mr. Farr’s keys. Yet he tell me himself is of no importance. Very strange.”
“He’s been here today? When?”
Kenji shrugged. “Some hours ago. Many assurances of no importance.” He smiled to himself. “Not so, perhaps?”
“I don’t know,” Casey said truthfully. “Maybe you can help me find out. What was it Mr. Farr wanted to know about the keys?”
“For insurance purposes, he says. A matter of locks changed or not. Suggestion of course that keys were taken. We agree that Kenji is not responsible. My school yes.” He shrugged. “But I have partner, as I remind Mr. Farr. And there is dance school. And landlord. Many persons involved.” He stopped, sighing. “As Mr. Farr remembers, there is man taking pictures Tuesday night. Not of students, as I assure him. Of building. To be sold perhaps, this man tells me.” Then his voice rose. “I have card he gives me, I do not lie! Is most rude of Mr. Farr suggesting wrong.”
Sorting it out, Casey said, “You mean a card from like—a real estate company. This man said he was a photographer for them.”
“Yes, real estate. Only a minute, he says. One picture, two—no disturbance, then he goes.”
“You still have this card?”
“Yes, certainly.” From his inside breast pocket, he fished a packet of business cards fastened with a rubber band. Casey waited while he thumbed through them, reading each one to himself. “Here is the one.” Kenji displayed it cautiously.
Making a quick note of the company name and address in his notebook, Casey asked routinely if Kenji could describe the photographer.
“Describe?” He looked bewildered. “No, I do not—”
“His appearance, I mean. What he looked like.” Casey waited. “Was he tall? Short?” But size would be relative, he realized, since Kenji was scarcely five feet but enormously fat. “Was he old? Middle-aged? Young maybe?”
Breathing noisily, the effort of translation obviously becoming more difficult by the minute, Kenji pondered and fumbled verbally. But he was trying, Casey had to keep reminding himself as he pried a garbled description of the photographer from the real estate company out of Kenji. A tall man. A big man, yes. A man not young, but not old, either. Middle age seemed to hit the mark. No, he was not bald. In fact, much hair, this man. On the face also.
“A mustache,” Casey suggested, his scalp prickling, an icy touch of recognition. “Is that what you mean—mustache?”
“Yes, yes, that is it.”
“What color, do you remember?” But this was the one that would defeat him, he saw. So without wasting any more time, Casey thanked him and got out fast.
The real estate company was a one-desk cubbyhole just off Wilshire. From where he stood at the glass door, Casey could see a tray of the realtor’s business cards on the desk top—available to anyone who walked in. He took the name from a handprinted notice posted at the bottom corner of the door pane: In case of emergency call Edgar A Satterwitt, and a Santa Monica phone number. He had gone to school with a Satterwitt. Another owned a dry-cleaning shop just up the street from his father’s hardware store…
But old home week didn’t help a bit, Casey found. Edgar A. Satterwitt sounded ancient and cranky. On top of that, he didn’t hear well over the phone. Under no circumstances would he receive a caller at this hour, police or no. He did not remember any big man with a mustache in his office, furthermore he was sick and tired of hearing about him. Didn’t the police have something better to do these days of crime-filled streets than to bother decent people who stayed home evenings?
Although the old man went on in this vein for some time, listening was worth it to Casey, for before he hung up and left the phone booth, he had assured himself that Farr had been to Satterwitt, too.
TWENTY-TWO
Outside his car windows, Venice unreeled like a nightmare landscape, veiled in fog, dark, labyrinthine. Ramshackle two- and three-story frame houses wore Room for Rent and Vacancy signs, Dressmaking and Alterations, or, simply, Peace. Roofs and porches sagged, dripping. Here and there doors stood open. On the high verandas once peopled with tourists taking the sea air, derelict-looking groups of hippies squatted, communing, turning on, sheltering from the damp. Along the dark streets, passers-by looked furtive or somnambulistic. The land of the alienated, Farr thought. A fitting place for the beginning or end of a bad dream.
He was
no longer shocked or frightened now, only angry. For what had seemed at first a malevolent force had been revealed to him as human. Faceless, yes, remorseless, yes; nevertheless, a man to be dealt with. And no man can play Devil forever.
A dim form materialized out of the dark. Farr slammed on his brakes just in time as a girl wearing a long dress and a fringed shawl darted across the narrow street ahead of him. She was barefoot, he saw. Moth-pale in the glare of the headlights, she turned, smiling, giving the peace sign. A girl like Holly.
Driving slowly onward down the dark alley-like street, Farr hunched over the wheel, the cold, inert, helpless regret which lived in him now, gnawing painfully. If only, he kept thinking. If only—what? He were someone else? If he were, she’d be alive. Yes, and drawing him into some rotten mess—drugs, blackmail, God knows what. But even so…Farr groaned. Even so, guilt is not conscience, or remorse feeling. Only time would give substance and dimension to what had happened. And meanwhile he must concentrate on this hour, the next, and the next. On finding her brother. Because his life as he knew and desired it depended now on Delbert Berry.
In a deserted lot between two old brick apartment buildings which faced on the wide Venice beach, Farr parked his car, vaguely recognizing a weathered sign advertising summer and winter rates. Lock your car, no bailment created…Violators will be…The asphalt paving was full of potholes, and the fence enclosing it had long since collapsed.
Lost in the fog, the surf boomed distantly. The wide beach-front walk which skirted the sand seemed empty of life, fogbound. Last night it had been full of strollers, Farr remembered—old people walking old dogs, hippies clustered around guitarists and bongo drummers, swish pairs and threesomes headed for their hangouts where jukes and pool tables passed the time between pickups.
Unclear which direction he had taken last night, Farr chose south, and shivering in the clinging sea chill, hurried along the sandy walk. At shoulder-height unshaded windows framed small shabby rooms where bereft-looking elderly tenants hunched before television sets. He glimpsed a woman knitting; saw a shadow looming hugely on a kitchen ceiling, a cat perched like a sphinx on the back of a chair, a dime-store sampler tacked on a wall: Bless This House. Storefronts came next—a bar, a beanery, a dark filthy window full of sea shells. Then another parking lot. Another brick apartment building. A motel, then. Almost certain he had guessed wrong, Farr slowed his pace, stepping aside as a vehicle approached, headlights refracted into luminous blobs in the moisture-laden air.
The Complete Krug & Kellog Page 12