Double

by Bill Pronzini

“Laura’s in town for the week,” he went on. “She wants to meet you. When are you coming back?”

  “I don’t know.” Briefly I outlined what was happening down here.

  “Busman’s holiday, huh?” he said when I was finished.

  “Sort of. I wish I were home.”

  “So do I. I was worried when you didn’t call.”

  “I meant to, but . . .”

  “I know.”

  We went on for a little while, exchanging the small, mundane facts that close relationships thrive on. There had been a power failure and Don’s freezer had defrosted. Did I think he should refreeze the squid he’d had in there? (No.) The mailman had got drunk again and dumped all the mail at the bottom of the steps instead of putting it in the boxes. Should he complain? (Yes.) A celebrity had got mad at him on the talk show and used the F word before they could bleep him. Don had a tape of it for me to hear. (Good.) When we hung up, I felt the warm glow that talking to him always gave me.

  Until I remembered that the name of his cousin in Tacoma was Patricia, not Laura.

  The day went on in the same frustrating fashion. I kept getting a busy signal at June Paxton’s number—along with her address, I now had it memorized—and decided to drive down to Chula Vista to see her. When I arrived at her neat frame house on a street not far from Elaine’s, she had gone out. I called Beddoes a couple of times, both at home and at the hotel, but with no luck. Ibarcena continued to elude me. I checked with Henry Nyland’s housekeeper; he was still in his meeting, as far as she knew. I tried to drop in on Rich Woodall, but he wasn’t home, and the animals were locked up tight.

  About four o’clock, I remembered I’d forgotten to eat and stopped at a burrito stand. I ordered one with chorizo and hot sauce, took it to my car, and the damned thing fell apart in my lap.

  When I went home to change my grease-and-sauce-splattered jeans, Charlene’s kids were tearing the playroom apart, Charlene was lying down and totally ignoring them, my mother was slamming pots and pans around the kitchen and casting her dark looks at all who entered, and my father was singing up a bawdy storm in the garage. I didn’t even ask where John and Joey were—I didn’t want to know.

  I changed, took three aspirin, and headed back to the Casa del Rey, hoping to buy Wolf a drink and see if he’d found out anything from Jim Lauterbach. But Wolf wasn’t at the hotel, and the convivial conventioneers who were warming up for the banquet only depressed me. I had a solitary drink on the terrace outside the Cantina Sin Nombre, brooding about Don, then called Ibarcena’s home number and received a busy signal. With a sense of relief at having something concrete to do, I set out for Ocean Beach.

  Ibarcena lived in a large redwood-shingled apartment complex not far from the beach. To get to his unit, I had to go through a central courtyard where there was a swimming pool and a putting green, then along a side walkway screened from the adjoining building by tall junipers. There was no one at the pool, in spite of the late-afternoon heat.

  I pushed Ibarcena’s bell and heard his voice call, “I will answer that.” He opened the door, wearing a light bathrobe open almost to the waist. His eyes widened when he saw me, and he started to shut the door.

  I stepped forward, wedging my foot between the door and the frame. “Hello, Mr. Ibarcena,” I said. “You remember me—Sharon McCone, Elaine Picard’s friend?”

  “Yes, what is it you want?”

  “I need to talk to you about Elaine—”

  Behind him the phone rang. He made an annoyed sound and stepped back. I moved inside the apartment. Ibarcena gave me an irritated look and went to the phone. When he said “Yes?” his voice crackled with impatience.

  I looked around the room. It was small, with charcoal-gray walls that made it seem even smaller. The furnishings were spare, modern pieces, and the colors were all red and gold and gray—very trendy high-tech. When I looked back at Ibarcena, he was placing the receiver none too gently in its cradle.

  “Who was that?” The voice came from a door in the far wall. I glanced over and saw a young man who couldn’t have been more than sixteen. He was dressed in a skimpy, tight bathing suit, and held a tray containing two iced drinks and a bowl of peanuts.

  Ibarcena made the annoyed sound again. “Lloyd, of course.”

  “Is he still threatening to come over?”

  “Yes. He is all upset—” Ibarcena paused, glancing at me.

  “Lloyd Beddoes?” I said. “What’s he upset about?”

  The boy seemed to notice me for the first time. He set the tray on a chrome-and-glass coffee table and retreated toward the door.

  “Don’t leave, Roger,” Ibarcena said. “This will not take long.”

  The boy remained by the door, poised for flight. I was beginning to see what was going on here; Ibarcena was gay—a fact that didn’t really surprise me, given his appearance and mannerisms—and obviously had a penchant for young men. I’d interrupted a romantic interlude.

  “Why is Beddoes upset?” I asked again.

  Ibarcena sat down on the red couch, drawing his robe closer around him. “He has been under a very great strain since Elaine Picard’s unfortunate death.”

  “Haven’t we all.” I sat down uninvited on the chair across from him. Behind me, Roger moved restively.

  “Just what is it you want, Ms. McCone?” Ibarcena asked.

  “I need to talk to you about Elaine. It seems she had discovered some illegal goings-on at the Casa del Rey shortly before her death. She’d written a letter to her lawyer.”

  Ibarcena’s eyes narrowed and he leaned forward. “What was in that letter?”

  “She detailed the things that were going on,” I lied.

  “And what were they?”

  “Things about Nancy and Timmy Clark, for instance.”

  Ibarcena paled under his tan and drew back. His eyes darted from me to Roger, and he ran his tongue over his lips.

  When he didn’t speak, I added, “It was very convenient for you and Lloyd Beddoes that Elaine was killed when she was, wasn’t it?”

  Roger gave a sort of a squeak. Ibarcena glanced anxiously at him. In a moment, he cleared his throat and said, “Is what you are saying that Mr. Beddoes or I had something to do with Ms. Picard’s accident?” His accent had become thicker and he stumbled over the question.

  “For an accident, it was very good timing.”

  Ibarcena stiffened and stood up. “I do not like what you are hinting at, Ms. McCone. And I do not feel that I owe you any answer whatsoever. But to clear your mind of these suspicions, I think I should tell you that Mr. Beddoes and I were together in his office at the time of Ms. Picard’s accident.”

  I remained sitting. “Again, it’s convenient.”

  “Our secretary has confirmed this to the sheriffs men.”

  “Then you’re in the clear.”

  “There is nothing to be ‘in the clear’ about. Ms. Picard either threw herself off that tower or fell by accident.”

  “Tell me about Nancy and Timmy Clark, Mr. Ibarcena.”

  His face went red and he made a move as if to pull me to my feet, but at that moment footsteps sounded outside on the walkway. Lloyd Beddoes’s voice called Ibarcena’s name, and then Beddoes began pounding on the door.

  Ibarcena flung out his arms in a gesture of despair. Behind me, Roger said, “It’s the old switch-hitter himself.”

  “Be quiet.” Ibarcena went to the door and opened it. Beddoes stood there, looking disheveled and hot. His thick blond hair was rumpled, as if he’d been clawing at it with his fingers.

  “Come in, Lloyd,” Ibarcena said calmly. “Do not try to break the door.”

  Beddoes half stumbled into the room. First he caught sight of me and he gaped. Then he spotted Roger. He turned to Ibarcena, shaking his head from side to side. “How could you, Victor? After everything? After all we’ve been?”

  “Get Mr. Beddoes a drink, Roger,” Ibarcena said. “It will calm him.”

  Roger started toward the tray he
’d brought in earlier, but a furious look from Beddoes stopped him. The young man glanced around, as if looking for a place to hide, and then he stood still.

  “Lloyd,” Ibarcena said, “you must sit down and try to relax. Scenes like this are not good for your heart.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with my heart.”

  “At your age . . .” Ibarcena shrugged.

  I was amazed that Beddoes—the “fine figure” of a man, as June Paxton had said—was gay. Or was he? Roger had called him a “switch-hitter.” But what really surprised me was the change in Victor Ibarcena. A moment ago, he’d practically been cringing under my none too subtle accusations. Now he was cool, totally in control. A nasty light glinted in his eyes as he looked at Beddoes—something almost sadistic. He’d been Beddoes’s lover, and now he was relishing the idea of casting him off for a mere boy.

  Beddoes remained standing. “After all we’ve been to one another, I can’t believe you’d take on this ...”

  “After all we’ve been, Lloyd?” Ibarcena’s voice was cutting, and he smiled. “You make yourself sound the model of fidelity. Must I remind you of your jaunts to that house of ill repute? At least I didn’t go with a woman.”

  Beddoes backed up, blinking. “That wasn’t—”

  “Wasn’t what?” Now Ibarcena advanced on him.

  “It’s only . . . It doesn’t mean ...”

  “Do not tell me what it means. You have been having it both ways too long, Lloyd. And I am sick of it.” Ibarcena glanced back at Roger, who still stood frozen. “Now I will not have to put up with you any longer.”

  Beddoes’s face crumpled, and for a moment I thought he might cry. He made a strangled sound, then turned and fled from the room.

  Ibarcena looked at me. “I suggest you follow him, Ms. McCone.”

  “So you and Beddoes were lovers. How’s this going to affect your job?”

  He came at me suddenly, grabbing my arm with bruising fingers. “I said, get out!”

  He dragged me toward the door and shoved me through it, his face contorted with fury. I stumbled over the sill and almost fell into the juniper hedge. Ibarcena slammed the door, and the dead bolt turned. Inside, his voice was raised in wordless ranting.

  I stood rubbing my arm. The man was certainly subject to sudden mood shifts. I was willing to bet poor Roger was still standing there as if he were playing Statues. And Lloyd Beddoes was nowhere to be seen.

  22 “WOLF”

  When I woke up on Monday morning, there was no longer any question that I would be staying on for at least one more day. So first thing after I got out of the shower, even though it wasn’t eight yet, I called Kerry. She was always up by seven-thirty at the latest; and I missed her and wanted to hear her voice.

  She sounded grouchy, and when I asked her how she was she said, “Crappy. That damn dog-food commercial.”

  “It didn’t go well, huh?”

  “No. We didn’t finish shooting until last night.”

  “How come?”

  “Trouble with the dogs.”

  “What dogs?”

  “The goddamn mutts they brought in to eat Bowzer Bits. Don’t be dense.”

  “What happened?”

  “One of them bit Al Douglas, the director. Then it bit me.”

  “What? Are you all right?”

  “I’ll live. It was just a nip. But it still hurts.”

  “Where did you get nipped?”

  “Never mind where.”

  “Not on your—”

  “I said never mind.”

  “Poor baby. I’ll kiss it and make it better when I get home.”

  “Like fun you will,” she said. “And how was your weekend?”

  “Also crappy. But I’m going to stick around here another day or two, just the same.”

  “What for?”

  I told her what for. She didn’t like it; she never likes it when I get involved in homicide cases. Which is all right, because I don’t like it either.

  “So you’re working with that McCone woman,” Kerry said. “She’s attractive, isn’t she.”

  “So are you.”

  “No fooling around?”

  “Hell. She’s young enough to be my daughter.”

  “So am I. That didn’t stop you with me.”

  “Cut it out,” I said. “Desist. You can worry about my health, that’s okay. But you don’t have to worry about my virtue.”

  “Mmm. Take care of yourself, will you?”

  I said I would. Then I told her that I missed her, and told her some other things, and she said maybe she’d let me kiss her dog bite and make it better, after all. I was smiling when I rang off and I thought she probably was too.

  It was after eight by then. I called the airline and canceled my one o’clock return flight and got an open reservation instead. While I had the directory out, I flipped open the Yellow Pages to “Investigators” to see if the Owens Detective Agency carried an ad. It did, a small one that said it opened for business “promptly at 9 a.m., Monday thru Friday.”

  I had a quick cup of coffee in the coffee shop and then took my rental car across the Coronado Bridge and downtown. The building that housed the Owens Agency was on Sixth Avenue between Broadway and E Street, a block that just missed being shabby. It was flanked on one side by a transient hotel and on the other by an out-of-business Mexican café. The lobby was empty except for a couple of potted plants and a big sand-filled urn. The elevator was old and cranky and made grumbling noises to itself, but it got me to the third and top floor in under five minutes.

  I went down a hallway past a door marked LAVATORY, another one marked DUTTON DESIGN & MANUFACTURING CO., a third that said K. M. ARDRY, ATTORNEY-AT-LAW—DIVORCE SPECIALIST. There didn’t seem to be much going on behind the last two doors. Most people probably hadn’t shown up for work yet.

  The Owens Agency was at the far end. I tried the knob, half expecting to find it locked, but it turned under my hand and let me into an anteroom large enough for three cane-bottom chairs and two small tables. Nobody was in it. Opposite, bisecting the room, was a floor-to-ceiling partition made out of wallboard to waist level and old-fashioned pebbled glass the rest of the way up; a doorframe and a door were set in the middle of it, the door standing open, and on the other side I could see the rest of the office. I went over and poked my head through for a closer look. That part was empty too.

  So maybe he’s down in the john, I thought. I backed up to one of the cane-bottom chairs and sat down to wait.

  Ten minutes went by. There weren’t any magazines around; nothing at all on the tables except a lone ashtray. I sat there. But I don’t sit well without something to do with my hands or something to occupy my mind. I began to fidget, to cross and uncross my legs, to squirm my fanny around on the chair. I had quit smoking years ago and had no desire to start up again, but at times like this I found myself developing a vague hunger for a cigarette. At least smoking one would have been an activity.

  From out in the hallway I heard footsteps, voices—but none of them came this far down. Other people arriving for work. And where the hell was Lauterbach? The air in the anteroom was warm and stuffy and smelled of stale cigarette smoke. You’d have thought the first thing anybody would do on a Monday morning would be to open a window, air the place out a little.

  Well, maybe Lauterbach hadn’t come in yet. But then why was the door unlocked? Was he that careless—go off on Friday or Saturday and forget to secure his office? Could be. Lots of people are careless. And he might have been in a hurry, distracted—even drunk, given Lauterbach’s apparent taste for the sauce.

  Another five minutes of just sitting was all I could take. I got up and tried to pace, but the anteroom was too small for that. All right, what the hell: I went through the open door into the back half of the office.

  Old kneehole desk that looked as if it had come out of a cheap secondhand store. Windows behind it that looked out on Sixth Avenue and a parking lot across the street. Bank
of file cabinets, the top drawer of one pulled open. A table with stacks of police-science brochures, F.B.I. flyers, electronics magazines, and bulletins from the National Society of Investigators. A smaller table containing a hot plate, a coffeepot, a jar of coffee, a jar of peanut butter, a package of crackers, a box of sugar, an almost empty fifth of Ten High bourbon, a dirty knife, a dirty coffee cup, a dirty glass with a cigarette butt lying on the bottom like a dead bug, and a sifting of crumbs. The walls were bare except for a framed photostat of Lauterbach’s California license and another of his Michigan license. And that was all there was to see. No electronic equipment, which struck me as a little odd, considering Lauterbach’s apparent fondness for the stuff. But then maybe he kept whatever he had in his trailer or locked in the trunk of his car.

  I wandered over to the desk, letting myself feel annoyed at Lauterbach’s absence so I would have an excuse to snoop. The desktop was cluttered but not half as sloppy as the inside of his trailer, if it hadn’t been for the remains of his lunch or breakfast or whatever, the office would have been moderately neat. Telephone, pens and pencils, typing paper, a notepad, part of last Friday’s San Diego Union—that was all.

  Two of the desk drawers were pulled out a little; I went around behind the desk with the idea of opening them a little more, so I could see what they contained. As I bent toward the lower one my foot snagged one leg of the chair, which was pushed up into the kneehole, and scraped the thing back a few inches. Inside the kneehole something fell over with a small plopping sound. I moved the chair the rest of the way out and bent down to peer under there. A briefcase. It had been propped against the inside of the kneehole—a sort of semi-hiding place, I supposed, where a man like Lauterbach would put something large that he didn’t want out in plain sight.

  I didn’t move for a couple of seconds, looking at the briefcase and listening. There wasn’t anything to hear except muted traffic sounds from the street and the distant clacking of somebody’s typewriter. So then I dragged the case out and put it on the desk and opened it. The only item inside was a thick manila file folder with a typed name on the tag at its top.