Wolf in the Shadows

by Marcia Muller

  “The marriage was in trouble?”

  “They didn’t spend a lot of time together, they didn’t have much in common, and Tim always spoke of ‘I,’ rather than ‘we.’ ”

  “You think he might have set the kidnapping up?”

  “It’s a possibility, one way he could get away with plenty of cash.”

  “But you saw the photo the kidnappers sent—Mourning was one terrified man, and he wasn’t acting, either.”

  “So something went wrong. His co-conspirators turned on him.”

  “That doesn’t explain Ripinsky being missing. Or the L.C. not being drawn on.”

  “I tell you Ripinsky’s got it and is holding off, figuring we’ll eventually ease up on our surveillance and he can slip it through.”

  “You really think he’s that stupid?”

  Renshaw folded his arms across his chest and stared up at the trees for a moment. “If I look at it logically, no, but … You strike me as someone who works on instinct. Your impressions of the people you’re dealing with meld with the facts you’re presented. Sometimes your conclusions aren’t strictly logical, but they feel right. And nine times out of ten they turn out to be right.”

  “And the tenth time they’re wrong because you’ve shaped them to fit what you want to believe.”

  “Playing devil’s advocate, are we? Well, this is not the tenth time. Mourning’s dead, Ripinsky’s got the L.C., and you’re going to find him for me.”

  So much for instinct, I thought.

  Renshaw asked, “When did you say you plan to fly down to San Diego?”

  “I’ve got a reservation on USAir’s eight o’clock flight. If I don’t make it, there’s another every hour.”

  “Well, I’ll fax you a copy of the L.C. in time so you get it when you check into the Bali Kai. You renting a car down there?”

  “Avis.”

  “Have a safe flight. Success.” He gave me a mock-military salute and went back to the house.

  As I started the MG I smiled wryly. God, Renshaw could be transparent. He didn’t fully trust me, and I was willing to bet that he was on the phone right now, arranging for surveillance on me all the way from my house to San Diego’s Hotel Circle.

  Well, that was okay. When I wanted to shake them, I knew how to do it.

  * * *

  I was packing my weekend bag when the doorbell rang. At first I ignored it, but when it rang again I realized it was obvious I was home because my car sat in the driveway. Dammit, I thought, I’ll never make my flight at this rate! Then I went to answer it.

  Mike Tobias, clutching a fistful of pink carnations. Now, what on earth? Surely Rae hadn’t already begun to spread the rumor I’d come down sick.

  “A present,” Mike said, “to make up for my remarks at the meeting yesterday.” He thrust the flowers into my hands.

  First Gloria, now him. Part of the same scheme that had brought her to my office earlier, or a contingency plan because she had failed to win me over? Who would they decide to send next? Not Hank—he couldn’t fool me, and they knew it. Larry, to soothe me with herbal tea? Pam, to enlist me in the name of sisterhood? Why not summon Jack Stuart back from whatever wilderness he’d fled to to lick his wounds? Surely he was carrying around enough psychic pain to make my heart bleed.

  I didn’t have time to waste on this nonsense, though, so I decided to play into Mike’s scenario and get rid of him. “Mike, thanks. You didn’t have to do this.”

  “Yes, I did. I treated you shabbily. Please say you’ll accept the promotion; All Souls wouldn’t be the same without you.”

  Gloria’s failure notwithstanding, they were holding to the take-it-or-leave-it policy. “As I told you all at the partners’ meeting, I’ll consider the offer very seriously.” It was obvious he was waiting for an invitation to come inside, so I added, “Look, we’ll talk more, but right now I’ve got somebody …” and motioned at the hall behind me.

  “Oh, sorry. Didn’t mean to interrupt your evening. Anyway, you keep thinking on it.”

  “I will, Mike. And thanks again for the flowers.”

  He nodded and went down the steps, stuffing his hands deep in the pockets of his 49ers jacket.

  I took the carnations to the kitchen and put them in a vase, taped a note to it telling Rae to take them home and enjoy them. Then I hurried to the bedroom and finished packing my bag and a big oversized purse that I seldom used. It was seven-oh-seven. Maybe, just maybe, I’d make my eight o’clock flight.

  * * *

  The flight was crowded, and my bag didn’t want to go into the overhead bin. Finally I squeezed it between two others that were well over the regulation size for carryons, nearly falling into the laps of the two people who occupied the window and center seats next to mine. Mumbling my apologies, I sat down. I leaned back, closed my eyes, and let the familiar predeparture bustle lull me.

  I’d seen no evidence of surveillance on me at the airport, but that didn’t mean much. RKI’s people would be good, very difficult to spot. Or the surveillance might not begin until San Diego. Renshaw didn’t trust me, but he’d probably assume I’d play straight with them until I had a concrete lead to Hy. His people would keep their distance until I made a move.

  God, I thought, the world that people like Renshaw operated in was a strange one—full of paranoia, suspicion, distrust. I’d come up against a fair amount of duplicity in my own world, but in his it seemed the accepted norm. Could he ever distinguish his friends from his enemies? Probably not; this afternoon he and his own client had been at each other’s throats. Was he ever able to let down his guard and confide in anyone? Perhaps his partner, Dan Kessell, but nobody else. And this was the world that Hy had connections to, somewhere in that nine-year void….

  It occurred to me now that my former boss, Bob Stern, could very well have been right: I might be playing with people who were out of my league. If I made a mistake, it could prove fatal. But I had no choice—had I?

  No, not if I cared for Hy. And I did care—more than I’d allowed myself to admit. Hard to commit your deepest feelings to a man who wouldn’t entrust you with knowledge of his past. Hard to give of yourself when you feared you’d receive nothing in return. Yet here I was—how had Bob put it?—riding to the rescue. No turning back now.

  The plane lifted off, then began its southward turn over the Pacific. I reached under the seat in front of me and pulled the file on the biotech industry that Renshaw had given me from my oversized purse. Leafed through it until I found a copy of an Image magazine profile on the Mournings, and began to read.

  They were originally from the Midwest—she, Wisconsin; he, Minnesota. They’d met and married while students at the University of Wisconsin, then come to the Bay Area; she’d entered Stanford’s prestigious M.B.A. program, he’d gone to work as a biochemist at Syntex, the pharmaceuticals giant. There had been lean times, when she was still in school and he and a partner left Syntex to tinker with biotechnology. There had been in-between times, when she trained in finance under a high-powered San Francisco venture capitalist—later one of the major investors in Phoenix Labs—and he began to get the infant firm off the ground. There had been glitzy, high-flying times, when—so the article implied—they had dipped into the venture capital for personal use; they’d owned a condo on Russian Hill, a beach house down south, a half ownership in a boutique winery in Alexander Valley. And there had been lots and lots of lovers.

  Both Mournings had been frank with the reporter about their earlier extramarital escapades. Too frank, I thought, and not just because I was a private person where such matters were concerned. The reporter seemed to share my view; it came across in the sneering undertone of his prose. Neither Diane nor Tim would have noticed that, I was sure. They struck me as narcissistic, extroverted, certain that nothing they did could possibly be wrong or even in bad taste. A touch of the sociopathic personality to this couple: if it feels good, I do it; if you don’t like it or if I hurt you, tough. As I held out my cup to the f
light attendant for more coffee, I felt vaguely uncomfortable. I set the cup down, rubbed my hands together as if brushing off dirt; touching the copy of the article had made them feel unclean.

  There were other puff pieces: Fortune magazine had named Timothy Mourning one of a hundred bright young individuals who had made a difference; Diane Mourning had been profiled in the Wall Street Journal; they’d both been interviewed by People. The color photo in People showed them posed on the balcony of the Russian Hill condo they’d occupied until fourteen months ago, a typical trite cityscape in the background. Diane wore a black caftan that was as severe as her facial expression, an elaborate hammered-silver and turquoise necklace gleaming against the dark fabric. Tim wore jeans, a sweater, and the grin of a kid who is being photographed by the small-town paper for raising the biggest pumpkin at the county fair. Again I marveled at what an unlikely pair they were.

  The flight attendants came along, collecting cups and glasses. The plane began its steep descent directly over the city of San Diego to Lindbergh Field. I leaned forward, looked across my seatmates to the window, and saw the lights of home.

  Home? No—former home. Years and years since I’d lived here. The landscape had changed: high-rises, the Coronado Bridge, tracts that spread as far northeast as Escondido. The north county was now referred to as “north city”; the South Bay bore more resemblance to Tijuana than to San Diego proper. I’d heard the spirit of the city had changed, too—warped by the pressures of too much growth, too much crime, too many immigrants from Mexico. Racial prejudice, both covert and overt, was evident in the statements and actions of many residents. People in the north locked their doors and security gates against Hispanics; people in the south struggled to survive crime, overcrowding, and a swelling drug problem.

  Still, the city had been my home for nearly twenty years. There would be landmarks to guide me. And alien and dangerous as the territory might seem on this particular evening, I knew I could make my way across it to familiar, safe ground.

  Brer Rabbit was born and bred in a brier patch; when predators threatened, he lay low there. Later on tonight I’d find a brier patch of my own.

  Nine

  As soon as I saw the Bali Kai, I remembered it from prom night. Pseudo-Polynesian was all the rage back then, and for those of us who considered ourselves the high school’s smart set, nothing would do but to commandeer a wing of rooms for our post-prom party. Parents objected, were cajoled, and gave in. Tuxes and limos were rented; formal dresses and corsages were bought. Actually, what went on in the wee hours of that morning was pretty innocent. Oh, three girls got drunk and threw up, and two couples had sex for the first time, but most of us just drank a little and necked a lot, gobbled up the warmed-over hors d’oeuvres that passed for exotic South Seas fare, and stifled yawns as we waited for the glorious, interminable night to be over.

  The intervening years had not been kind to the Bali Kai. The tiki heads that guarded the lobby entrance were cracked and weathered; the bamboo and fake thatching merely looked silly; even the palms flanking the reception desk seemed to suffer from a fungal ailment.

  Renshaw’s fax of the letter of credit had arrived, and at its top he’d written and circled a four-digit number, presumably my emergency security code. I stuffed it into my purse, showed the desk clerk my identification, and asked if the night manager or security officer was available. He checked, said both were on break but should be back within the half hour. I told him I’d come back later.

  Carrying the map of the motel grounds that the clerk had given me, I went out to my rental car—a tan compact of some indeterminate breed, whose lethally fast automatic seat belt had serious potential to decapitate its driver. The map, on which the clerk had drawn an intricate series of circles and arrows showing how to get to my room, only served to confuse me. After studying it both upside down and sideways, I slipped it into my purse and set off unaided.

  The Bali Kai was one of a long string of establishments on the south side of Hotel Circle. It sprawled between the frontage road paralleling Interstate 8 and the cliff face rising to the Mission Hills district where I grew up. Next door to it was an even larger motel where my brother Joey, a man of many trades, had been working as a bartender a couple of summers ago when I’d paid my annual duty visit to my family. Beyond that was an Italian restaurant; I made a mental note of its name.

  Finally I found my room in one of the far-flung wings, carried my bag inside, and went straight to the phone. Alicia Ferris, Renshaw’s friend who had acted as Hy’s local contact, was at home and expecting my call. When I asked about her conversations with Hy, she said they’d spoken only the one time, around nine on Sunday evening.

  “Can you repeat what he said—the exact words, if possible?” I asked.

  “Well, it was something like ‘This is Ripinsky. Tell Renshaw it’s a go for eleven. I’ll be in touch afterward.’ And then he thanked me and hung up.”

  “How did he sound? Tense? Anxious?”

  “Neither. I’d say controlled. He had a job to do, and that was it.”

  I sighed. Not much to go on.

  “Ms. McCone,” Ferris said, “you should give me your room number there at the motel, in case I need to reach you.”

  “One thirty-three.” I glanced at the key that lay next to the phone for confirmation.

  “Good. Feel free to call me if you need anything at all.”

  As I hung up, I contemplated Ferris’s request for the room number. It was possible she was simply trying to be helpful, but she wouldn’t need the number to reach me by phone. Perhaps Renshaw was using her in his surveillance, was planning to have his people search my room when I went out. For all I knew, Ferris was one of their operatives. But why ask such an obvious question that might tip me? Why not just get the room number from the desk clerk? Of course, the clerk might mention to me that someone had asked—

  Whoa, I told myself. I was starting to think in as fully paranoid a fashion as anyone at RKI. Then I reminded myself that paranoia has its uses. Even though I hadn’t spotted anyone maintaining surveillance on me at any point during my journey, I had that feeling of being covertly watched.

  I took the motel map from my bag and familiarized myself with its layout. Then I dredged up my memories of the place next door, where Joey had worked. The bar stretched between the lobby and swimming-pool area, with an entrance at either end, and as I recalled, the ladies’ room ran beside it, also with two entrances. Beyond the pool enclosure was a maze of paths leading through the gardens, among which the wings of guest rooms were set. Dark gardens, spreading from the main building to the cliff face, with parking lots on either side …

  It might work.

  I removed the phone book from the nightstand drawer and looked up the number for Reliable Cab Company—a firm whose reputation fit its name, if my mother, who dislikes driving and does as little as possible, was to be believed. I reached for the receiver, then pulled my hand away. Paranoia striking again. It wasn’t possible RKI could have bugged the line in the minutes since I’d given Alicia Ferris the room number, but how could I be certain that their operatives didn’t have an in with someone on the staff? Ferris’s question could be a smoke screen; they might have known for hours what room was assigned me. When dealing with people like them, it was better to err on the side of extreme caution.

  I copied the cab company’s number down and put the slip of paper in my pocket. Then I got started on the room. Opened my travel bag and hung some things in the closet. Draped a robe over a chair and scattered toiletries on the bathroom vanity. Then I added a rolled-up T-shirt and some extra underwear to the oversized purse, gave the room a final once-over, and headed back to the main lobby.

  A man in western wear sat reading a newspaper in one of the rattan chairs, and two women in shorts were studying brochures in front of the tourist information rack. All three looked at me as I crossed to the reception desk, but that didn’t necessarily mean anything; there was little enough to look at
here at eleven-thirty on a sultry Tuesday evening.

  Mr. Perkins, the night manager, was barely out of his teens, and the sight of my I.D. made him nervous. He withdrew to his office to call his daytime counterpart about their policy on opening guest records to investigators. While he was in there, I placed ten dollars on the counter, and the desk clerk brought the information up on his computer screen.

  Hy had checked in shortly after midnight on Sunday; he’d had breakfast from room service at nine, and there was a coffee-shop charge at four-thirty and a bar charge at eight. The only phone charge was for the one call to Alicia Ferris’s number at nine. His room key and credit-card authorization had been retrieved from the express checkout box on Monday morning. I asked the clerk if the room had been occupied since then; he checked and told me it was currently in use.

  Mr. Perkins emerged from his office and said he’d been unable to contact the day manager. Perhaps I could speak with him when he came on in the morning? I said I would, waited until he disappeared again, and asked the clerk if the security man had come back from his break yet. He hadn’t, but the clerk thought he might be in the coffee shop. His name was Ken Griffith; I should look for a balding heavyset man in a tan uniform.

  As I crossed to the coffee shop, one of the women by the tourist information rack gave me a curious look. The man in western wear kept his eyes on his newspaper.

  Ken Griffith was the coffee shop’s sole customer. He sat in a rear booth, picking through the remains of a salad, and when I showed him my I.D., he invited me to join him. I scanned the menu, thinking I should eat something, but the offerings—Pago Pago Burger, Tahitian Fruit Salad, Castaway’s Low Calorie Plate—looked singularly unappetizing in the unnaturally bright color photos. Griffith applauded my abstinence; even the Chinese Chicken Salad he usually had, he said, sucked.