Case File - a Collection of Nameless Detective Stories

by Bill Pronzini

  "Oh, I see."

  "You can join me if you like. Guests are permitted."

  "No, thanks. I think I'll head home. I like to do my relaxing with a cold beer."

  He glanced at my protruding belly. "So I see," he said, but gently, without censure.

  We said good night, and he entered the building and I went and got my car and drove home. I drank two cans of Schlitz—the hell with health clubs and the hell with my belly—and then called Kerry at Bates and Carpenter. But she was busy and couldn't talk more than a couple of minutes. She did say that the presentation was going according to schedule and that she still expected to be done with it by noon tomorrow.

  "Is it all right if I stop by the book shop when I'm finished?" she asked. "I like bookstores; and I'd love to see you schlepping books around."

  "I don't see why not. As long as you don't tell anybody I'm really a private eye on a case."

  "I'll try to restrain myself. See you tomorrow, then."

  "Lovely lady, I'll count the minutes."

  "Phooey," she said, and rang off.

  I made myself something to eat, read for a while and turned in early. It had been a reasonably productive day and I was satisfied with it. I had learned a few things; maybe I would learn a few more tomorrow that would establish some kind of pattern. Maybe tomorrow would turn out, I thought, to be an even more productive day.

  Saturday was a productive day, all right.

  The thief hit the Antiquarian Room again, and he did it right under my damn nose.

  It happened, as before, sometime between eleven-twenty, when Rothman checked the room before going out for an early lunch, and two o'clock, when he went up to check it again. I was on the main floor talking to Kerry at the time he made the discovery. She had been there about a half-hour, browsing, looking terrific in a black suit and a frilly white blouse; she was about to buy a book she'd found—a scarce old one of her father's, one of his early novels—and she was telling me how pleased he was going to be because he was down to only two file copies of that particular title.

  I didn't like Ivan Wade—Ivan the Terrible, I called him—any more than he liked me; he was overprotective of Kerry, supercilious, humorless and something of a jerk. So I said, "I'm thrilled for him."

  "Now don't be that way," she said. "The Redmayne Horror really is a scarce book. And they only want fifteen dollars."

  "The Redmayne Horror is a dumb title," I said.

  "It was a pulp serial, originally. That was the kind of title they put on weird fiction back in the forties, in the pulps and in book editions; you know that."

  "It's still a dumb title."

  "Oh, stick it in your ear," she said, and made a face at me. "Can't you see I'm excited about this? I almost knocked over a man with a cane upstairs when I found it."

  "That would be Mr. Rothman. Nice going."

  "Well, I'm sorry. But I —"

  And that was when Rothman appeared on the stairs and beckoned to me urgently. I left Kerry and followed him up to his office, and as soon as he shut the door he told me about the latest theft.

  "It was another rare map," he said. His face was flushed and his knuckles showed white where they gripped the head of his cane. "A sixteenth-century map by the Flemish cartographer and geographer Gerhardus Mercator."

  "Valuable?"

  "Very. Damn, I should have put it in my safe months ago."

  "Where was it kept?"

  "In one of the glass display cases. The lock was broken, just as in the other thefts."

  "Whichever of them it is, he's bold and he's quick," I said. "I've been on this floor off and on ever since you left for lunch. He couldn't have spent much time up here; he had to know exactly what he was after."

  "What do we do now?"

  "What did you do after you discovered the other thefts?"

  "Asked the customers to leave, closed up shop for the day, then gathered my people together and questioned them."

  "All right. Do the same thing this time, only let me get rid of the customers. When you start the questioning, ask everybody if they mind being searched. If any of them refuses, press him on it. Then designate me to do the searching."

  "Do I tell them you're a detective?"

  "No. We won't get anywhere by blowing my cover. Just say you want me to do the searching because I'm new and you don't have any reason to suspect me."

  "The thief won't have the map on his person," Rothman said grimly. "He's too clever for that."

  "I know. But I want to see how they react and what they might be carrying in their pockets. I don't think he'll have the duplicate key on him either—he's probably got it stashed somewhere in the shop—but it's worth checking for."

  "And if none of that does any good?"

  "Then you'll have to let them go home. And you and I'll search this place from top to bottom. If none of them can leave with the map, then it's still got to be here somewhere."

  We went downstairs together. Kerry was still waiting; when I joined her she said, "What's the matter? You look upset."

  "Trouble. Another theft. You'd better go now; we're closing the shop."

  "Oh boy. Will you still be able to make our date tonight?"

  "I hope so. If I can't I'll call you."

  It took twenty minutes to clear the store of customers and to get the front door locked. Turner and the others knew right away what was going on; none of them had much to say at first, and I could see them giving each other faintly mistrustful glances. Lennox looked aggrieved, as if he took the thefts personally and the money was coming straight out of his pocket. Boyette seemed more angry than anything else, but it was a put-upon kind of anger; he was suffering another hangover and his bloodshot eyes said the last thing he wanted to deal with was another crisis. Vining was subdued, the set of his face grave and concerned. Turner wore an expression of mingled agitation and worry—the look of a loyal company man whose boss is in trouble. None of the four seemed nervous. Or any more guilty, on the surface, than I was.

  The six of us were gathered near the cashier's desk. Rothman started off by explaining what it was that had been stolen this time. Then he asked if anyone had seen anyone else go up to the Antiquarian Room; nobody had. Had anyone seen anything of a suspicious nature between eleven-thirty and two o'clock?

  Nobody had. Who had left the store during that time period? Boyette had, and so had Lennox. But Turner had seen them both leave, through the alarm gateway as always, and nothing had happened.

  Rothman said then, "I'm sorry, gentlemen, but these thefts have become intolerable; getting to the bottom of them calls for extreme measures. Do any of you object to being searched?"

  The only one who did was Boyette. "Why the hell should I stand for that?" he said. "Even if I were guilty, I wouldn't be stupid enough to have the map on my person."

  Lennox said, "Then you shouldn't object to being searched."

  "I've had enough of this crap. Thefts, suspicion, body searches—pretty soon it'll be accusations. I won't stand for it; I'm leaving right now and I'm not coming back."

  "If you do, Harmon," Vining said, "it will make you look guilty, you know."

  "I don't care," Boyette said. He looked mean and belligerent; there was a pugnacious thrust to his jaw. "Is anyone going to try to stop me?"

  Rothman glanced at me, but I gave him a faint headshake. I had no right to restrain Boyette, or to search him, without some proof of guilt; if any of us tried, it would leave us open to a lawsuit.

  "All right, Harmon," Rothman said coldly. "Consider your employment terminated. I'll mail you what I owe you in salary. Adam, let him out."

  Turner went through the gateway and unlocked the front door. The alarm was still operational, and when Boyette stomped through after him the bell didn't go off. It was still possible that he was guilty, but he wasn't walking out of here with the Mercator map.

  When Turner relocked the door and came back to join the rest of us, Rothman said, "Does anyone else feel the same way? Or w
ill you all submit to a search?"

  There were no more objections. Rothman designated me to do the searching, as we'd agreed, and I frisked each man in turn. Turner first, because I knew he wasn't carrying the map; he'd gone through the gateway just as Boyette had. Then Vining, and then Lennox. No map. All three men had keys—no loose ones, though; they were all on rings or in cases—and Rothman examined each one stoically. His silence told me that none of the keys was the duplicate to the Antiquarian Room door.

  There was nothing to do then but let the three of them leave, too. Turner was the last to go, and he went reluctantly. "If you're planning to search the shop, Mr. Rothman," he said, "I can help . . ."

  "No, you go ahead. Marlowe will help me this time."

  As soon as Turner was gone, Rothman and I began our search. We started with the Antiquarian Room; it wasn't likely that the thief would have hidden the Mercator map in there, but we gave it a good going-over just the same. No map. We went down to the second floor and searched the stacks, the storage room next to Rothman's office, the bathroom. No map. We combed the first-floor stacks and shelves, the display tables, the cashier's desk, even the window displays. No map. In the basement we searched the paperback sections, the Americana and travel shelves, the stockroom. No map.

  We covered every inch of that building, from top to bottom. There was no way the map could have been gotten out, and yet there was no place an item of its size and fragility could have been hidden inside the shop that we had overlooked.

  So what had happened to it?

  Where the hell was the missing map?

  It was ten of seven when Rothman and I finally called it quits, left the shop and went our separate ways. I was almost as frustrated as he was by then. On the drive home to my flat, I kept gnawing at the question, the seeming impossibility of the theft, like a dog gnaws at a bone. And the more I gnawed, the more I felt as if I were close to the marrow of the thing.

  The answer was something clever and audacious, yes, but I also sensed that it was something simple. And that I had heard enough and seen enough the past three days to put it all together—a lot of little things that just needed to be shifted around into the right order. Damn it, I could almost taste the marrow.

  I gave Kerry a brief call, to tell her I would be late, and then showered the bookstore dust off me and put on my suit. Dusk was settling by the time I got up to Diamond Heights. The weather had cleared and the view from up there was spectacular; you could see both bridges, the wide sweep of the bay, the Oakland hills and the Pacific Ocean in the opposite direction. It was too nice an evening, I told myself, to let my frustration spoil things with Kerry, and as I parked the car in front of her building I decided I wouldn't let that happen.

  I went into the vestibule and rang her bell, and she buzzed me in right away. When I got upstairs she was waiting for me in a shimmery green dress with plenty of cleavage—a dress designed to knock your optic out, as the pulp private eyes used to say.

  "Sorry I'm so late," I said, admiring her. "It was some afternoon."

  "That's okay. Did you catch the thief'?"

  "No. He swiped another rare map and managed to get it out of the store again, past the alarm system. I ought to be able to figure out which one of them it is and how he did it, but I can't seem to do it."

  "Uh-oh. Does that mean you're going to be moody tonight?"

  "No. I am not going to be moody tonight."

  "You're already moody." she said.

  "Bah. Let's go eat."

  We went down and out to the car. Kerry said, "I'm starved. You must be, too."

  "Yeah. They do a fine chorizo-and-peppers dish at the Oaxaca, very hot and spicy."

  "So of course you have to drink a lot of beer with it."

  "Sure. What's Mexican food without cold Mexican beer?"

  "You put away more beer than any man I've ever known," she said. "I swear, sometimes I think you've got a hollow leg."

  I leaned forward to switch on the ignition. Then I stopped with my hand on the key and stared over at her. "What did you say?"

  "I said sometimes I think you've got a hollow leg. What's the matter?"

  "That's it," I said.

  "What's it?"

  "The answer."

  "I don't know what you're talking about . . .

  I waved her quiet, started the car, switched on the headlights—it was full dark now—and pulled away from the curb; I tended to think more clearly while I was driving. By the time we approached Diamond Heights Boulevard, I had most of it put together. And when we were headed down the steep, curving boulevard, nearing Glen Canyon, I had the rest of it. All I needed was confirmation of one thing, and Kerry herself could give me that.

  But before I could ask her about it, there was a roar of noise outside and the interior of the car was bathed in the bright glare of headlights. Another car had come boiling up behind us, so close that its lights were like huge staring eyes framed in the rear window. Damn tailgater, I thought, and took my foot off the accelerator and tapped the brake pedal gently, just enough to let the other driver see the flash of the brake lights.

  Only he didn't slow down; he just kept coming. And his front bumper smacked into my rear bumper, hard enough to jolt the car and almost wrench the wheel loose from my hands.

  Kerry twisted around on the seat. "My God! What's the matter with him? What's he doing?"

  "Hang on!"

  The other car jarred into us again, harder than before, shattering one or both of the taillights. Even though I was ready for it, I had to fight the wheel and feather the brakes to keep my car from fishtailing into a skid. The tires made screaming noises on the pavement; I could smell the burning rubber and the sudden sour odor of my own sweat.

  The road had steepened and hooked over toward the long, narrow, tree-choked expanse of Glen Canyon; for a stretch of maybe five hundred yards, Diamond Heights Boulevard paralleled the canyon's eastern rim. In the reach of my headlights I could see that there was no guardrail, just a sidewalk and some knee-high brown grass on a strip of bank and then the drop-off, sheer, almost straight down. If we went off there, there wasn't much chance that we'd survive.

  And that was just what the driver of the other car wanted, all right. It wasn't a drunk back there, or kids playing dangerous games; it was somebody bent on mayhem.

  Downhill to the left, on the other side of the curve, a residential Street cut away uphill. I yelled at Kerry again to hang on and got set to drop the transmission lever into low gear so I could make a fast, sharp left-hand turn into the other street. There was nothing else I could do with the trailing car hanging on my bumper the way it was.

  But the driver saw the street, too, and before I got close enough to make the turn, his headlights flicked out to the left, into the uphill lane. In my side mirror I could see the bulky shape of the car outlined behind the glare; then he accelerated and pulled up abreast. I glanced over at him, but all I could make out was one person, his face a white smear in the darkness. Then I put my eyes back on the road and kept them there, muscles tensed, hands tightened on the wheel, because I sensed what he was going to try to do next.

  It was only a couple of seconds before he did it, just as I started into the wide left-hand curve along the rim of the canyon: he pulled slightly ahead and then whipped over into me, hard along the front fender. There was a crunching sound, and Kerry cried out, and the car shimmied and the right front tire scraped against the curb on that side. But I was able to maintain control, even though we were still crowded together and he was trying to use his momentum to shove us up and over the bank.

  I came down hard on the brake pedal, bracing myself, throwing my right arm out in front of Kerry to keep her from flying into the windshield. The tires shrieked again; we bucked and slid through the curve, losing speed. The other car glanced off, with another tearing-metal noise, yawing at a slight angle in front of me. Then the driver got it straightened out and braked as I had, swinging back full into the other lane so he could
try ramming us again.

  He would have done it, too, if it hadn't been for the third car that came sailing around another curve below, headed uphill.

  I saw the oncoming headlights sweep through the scattered eucalyptus that grew inside the canyon further down, but the other driver was too intent on me to notice them because he didn't try to swing back into the downhill lane. Frantically I stood on the brake and got ready to yank on the emergency brake, if that was what it took to bring us to a stop; it seemed sure there would be a collision and all I could think was: Kerry might be hurt, I can't let her get hurt.

  There was no collision. The driver of the third car saw what was happening, leaned hard on the horn, and managed to swerve up onto the sidewalk and across somebody's front lawn. But the guy who'd tried to kill Kerry and me had run out of luck. He saw the third car in time to swerve himself, back into the downhill lane, only he did it too sharply; he missed the third car, all right, by at least twenty feet—and he missed hitting mine by the same distance when he veered in front of me—but the rear end of his car broke loose and he wasn't able to fight through the skid and pull it out.

  His car went out of control, spun all the way around, and then hit the curb and bounced up into the air like something made out of rubber. Its headlights sprayed the trees as it hurtled toward them, sideways. In the next second it was gone, and in the second after that the explosive sound of buckling metal and breaking glass and splintering wood erupted from inside the canyon.

  I managed to bring my car to a stop. When I took my hands off the wheel they were as wet as if I'd dunked them in water.

  "God," Kerry said in a soft, trembly voice.

  "Are you all right?"

  "Yes. I . . . just give me a minute. . ."

  I touched her arm, and then opened the door and got out. People were spilling from houses in the vicinity, running toward the canyon; the driver of the third car, a heavyset woman, was slumped against her front fender, not moving, looking dazed. I ran up onto the sidewalk and ahead to where the other car had gone over. It was wrapped around one of the eucalyptus about a third of the way down the slope; the upper part of the tree had been sheared off and was canted at a drunken angle. From the mangled appearance of the wreckage, I didn't see how the guy inside could have survived.