"Inside, you mean?"
"Yes. Waiting in the dark."
"How'd he get in?"
"A window in back . . . there's a service porch. . . ." Bellin drew a deep, shuddery breath. "He'd unscrewed the light bulb over the stairs. I thought it was burned out and I came up and he . . . he was waiting. He grabbed me around the neck. He had a gun . . . he said if I didn't tell him what he wanted to know he'd kill me."
"What did he want to know?"
"Where he could find Grady. If her folks were alive, if she has any sisters or brothers or other relatives. I told him I didn't know, I hadn't seen or talked to her in months, and she never talked about herself anyway, she was always so secretive . . . but he wouldn't listen, he just started beating me. Asking the same questions over and over and hurting me, he wouldn't stop hurting me. . . ."
"You have any idea who he is?"
"No. No."
"What did he look like?"
"I don't know. The whole time . . . in the dark . . ."
"His size, then. Big, small, fat, lean, tall, short?"
"Big," Bellin said, "he was big. Not fat, just . . . big. Strong. He dragged me down the hall, he almost broke my neck. . . ."
"What about his voice?"
". . . I don't know what you mean."
"Was there anything distinctive about it? Did he have an accent? Speak nasally? Anything like that?"
"No. It was just a voice . . . God, I don't remember, I don't want to remember." He shuddered, remembering. Sweat had run down into his eyes; he knuckled it away.
"Why did he think you'd know where Grady is?"
"He knew we'd dated, that I asked her to marry me last year. I don't know how but he knew."
Something he found in her apartment, maybe, I thought. "Did he give you any idea of why he wants to find her?"
"No."
"Something he let slip, a hint?"
"No."
"All right," I said. "He kept on asking you questions, kept on hitting you. Then what?"
"I . . . passed out. I couldn't take it anymore."
"Was he still here when you came to?"
"No, he was gone."
"What condition was the place in?"
"My things . . . thrown around. He'd been through everything while I was unconscious."
More likely he'd done the searching before Bellin got home. If he'd found what he was after, he wouldn't have waited around; he'd have been long gone. But I asked the question anyway: "Did you have anything of Grady's that might lead him to her?"
He shook his head. "She didn't leave me with anything. Except this," and he reached out to touch the framed photograph.
"You call the police, file a report with them?"
"I didn't dare. I didn't even go across the street to the hospital to see about my neck. I've had this brace for years . . . a car accident once . . ."
"He told you not to notify the police?"
"While he was hitting me. He said if I did, if I told anybody he'd been asking about Grady, he'd come back and . . . he'd . . ." Bellin shuddered again. The fear had made his voice as brittle as old glass; and when he flicked another glance my way I could see it hot and curdled in his eyes. "What if he . . . what if he finds out I told you?"
"He won't," I said flatly.
"You don't know how terrified I've been that he'd come back. I've hardly slept since it happened. When you were here earlier and rang the bell . . . I thought you might be . . ."
"Yeah. But you're still here anyway. Why didn't you go stay with relatives or a friend?"
"Looking the way I do? I'd have to explain . . . I couldn't do that. And what if he does come back? It might be worse if he couldn't find me . . . he might do what he threatened to . . . oh God!"
"So you've been holed up here since Saturday night, licking your wounds."
"What else could I do?" He was close to tears now.
You could be a man, I thought. But I didn't say it. I got to my feet, and the movement made him lift his head again.
"You're really a detective?" he said.
"That's what I am."
"Trying to help Grady, you said. Because of . . . him?"
"Yes."
"He hasn't found her . . . hurt her . . . ?"
"Not so far," I said.
"Then you know where she is? Is she safe?"
"She's not your concern, Bellin."
"She should be, we should have been married. . . ." There was a tear on his cheek now; it made one of the healing bruises look glazed and shiny. "I've been worried sick about her," he said. "I called her apartment that night, as hurt as I was. And her office yesterday, but all they'd tell me is that she's on vacation."
I didn't say anything.
"I love her," he said. "I still love her. I can't stand the idea of anything happening to her."
Sure, I thought. So you didn't call the police; so you've been cowering in here the past three days. And when he was hitting you, hurting you, you'd have told him where Grady was if you'd known. Damn right you would have. In ten seconds flat.
"I don't understand any of this," Bellin said miserably. "A man like that, an animal . . . why would somebody like him be after Grady?"
"That's what I'm trying to find out."
For the first time he made eye contact. "Don't let him hurt her. Please don't let him hurt her."
There was nothing for me to say to that. I turned away from him, toward the hallway.
"Tell her I love her," he said. "Will you do that? Tell her I'll always love her, no matter what. . . ."
I went out of there thinking: Things could be even worse for her than they are. She could have said yes to Bellin's proposal.
Chapter 8
All the way home I brooded. It was one thing to speculate that Grady Haas might be in danger, another to find her apartment searched, still another to see and hear what had been done to Todd Bellin. Somebody was after her, all right, there was no doubt of that now—somebody to whom violence came easy, who was brutal, methodical, relentless. A psychopath, possibly; a hardcase almost certainly. The mystery man she'd met on April Fools' Day? Someone connected with the mystery man? Someone else entirely?
One thing I could be sure of: He hadn't quit looking for her, whoever he was, and he wouldn't until he found her or I found him. Men like that are even more focused, and much more implacable, than men like me; they don't frustrate. Grady may have lived in a narrow little world the past dozen years, but even though she didn't talk to anyone about her roots, not even a man who'd proposed marriage to her, neither had she made any effort to hide her background. Sooner or later he'd get a whiff of the farm in San Bernado. You did not have to be a trained skip-tracer to track somebody down; all you needed was cunning, dedication, the person's name, and some knowledge of who he or she is.
That was what put him one big step ahead of me. I had no idea who he was, not even a description to go on. Nor any idea of the why of it—what had happened last Thursday night or early Friday to send Grady running home to San Bernado and him into an urgent hunt for her. Only Grady herself knew the answers, and maybe even she didn't realize how deadly the situation was. I had to have her cooperation to even out the odds; without it, trying to work blind, there was damned little I could do to help her.
As soon as I came into the flat, I went to the telephone. Arlo Haas answered almost immediately, as if he'd been sitting with his hand on the receiver.
"Can you talk?" I asked him.
"Grady's upstairs in her room."
"Everything all right, then?"
"Same as before."
"No telephone calls for her, no visitors?"
"No." He'd picked up on the tension in my voice; I could hear tension in his, too, now. "What is it? What'd you find out?"
I told him, holding nothing back, not trying to sugarcoat any of it. He didn't speak when I was done. The line was dead quiet; I could not even hear him breathing.
"Mr. Haas?"
"I'm here," he sa
id in a thin voice. "I better go talk to her right now."
"Tell her what happened to Todd Bellin. About hiring me, too, if you have to. Whatever it takes to get the truth out of her."
"Where're you? Home?"
"Yes. The number's on my business card. One other thing, Mr. Haas."
"Go ahead."
"I don't think Grady ought to keep on staying there with you. He hasn't found out about the farm yet; that doesn't mean he won't."
"I got a twelve-gauge shotgun," Haas said grimly. "He comes around here, I'll blow his fucking head off."
"I believe it. But you can't spend every minute with her, and you can't keep an eye on every door and window."
"Damn cripple," he said, but there was no bitterness or self-pity in the words; only anger.
"I didn't mean that. I meant you're only one man . . . just the two of you there alone."
"Gus too. He's a good watchdog."
"Still. There must be someplace else she can stay."
"Well, Mary Ellen Crowley."
"No. She'd be too easy to find out about."
"My housekeeper, then. Mexican woman, Constanza Vargas, lives with her husband in San Lucas. She'll do it if I ask her."
"Good. Tonight, if you can arrange it. Otherwise, as soon as possible."
"If you think it's best."
I went into the kitchen, feeling fidgety, and opened a beer and paced around with it. Ten minutes passed; fifteen. It was after nine now. I wanted another beer, talked myself out of it. To have something to do I opened up the record cabinet and poked through my jazz albums—an activity I hadn't indulged in for a while. I used to listen to jazz regularly, but as sometimes happens with minor hobbies I had drifted away from music in recent years. Kerry playing the Miles Davis album last night had reminded me of what I'd been missing.
Dixieland had always been my favorite; gutbucket, the hotter the better. I found an old Jelly Roll Morton reissue and put it on the stereo. I was listening to "Cannon Ball Blues," Jelly Roll's piano solo with the horns ad-libbing, the sweet steady beat taking some of the edge out of me, when the telephone rang.
That brought the edge right back. I shut the volume down before I answered, but it wasn't Arlo Haas's voice I heard; it was Kerry's.
"The wedding's off," she said.
"What?"
"Bobbie Jean just called me. She and Eb had a big fight tonight—I mean a big fight. She gave him back his ring."
"Oh boy. What started the fight?"
"He finally went too far. Did you know he'd ordered a huge wedding cake?"
"Not until this afternoon."
"And hired a band to play at the reception?"
"The Grenadiers. Yeah."
"And somebody to videotape the whole thing?"
". . . No."
"And a chauffeured limo to take them from the church to the reception and from the reception to the airport?"
"My God."
"Bobbie Jean didn't know about any of this until tonight," Kerry said. "She hit the roof when he told her. All that extravagance—and he doesn't have nearly enough saved to pay for it all. She doesn't want to go into a third marriage several thousand dollars in debt. I don't blame her."
"Neither do I."
"She told him the only way she'll marry him now is in a civil ceremony, the way she wanted to do it in the beginning. He wouldn't hear of it; you know how he is. They ended up screaming at each other and she returned the ring and walked out."
"She's upset tonight, sure, but maybe tomorrow . . ."
"No, her mind's made up. She said she won't back down and I think she means it. She's already started calling people to tell them the wedding's off."
"Terrific," I said. "When Eb hears about that it'll ensure he doesn't back down. His pride won't let him."
"He'll listen to you sometimes," Kerry said.
"Not about something like this."
"You'd better talk to him anyway."
"Yeah. Listen, babe, I'm expecting a business call. After it comes I'll call Eb and then get back to you. Half hour or so, all right?"
She said all right and we rang off. I started out of the bedroom, grumbling to myself, taking Eberhardt's name in vain; the phone rang again before I was through the doorway. This time the voice on the other end belonged to Arlo Haas. And the news he had for me wasn't good.
"She won't talk about it," he said. He was on the raw edge; I could hear it in his voice. "Won't tell me who he is or why he's after her."
"Why not?"
"Just keeps saying it don't matter, she don't care anymore if he finds her."
"You make sense out of that?"
"None, dammit, and I'm her father."
"You tell her what happened to Bellin?"
"I told her. Said she was sorry, that's all."
"How'd she react when you told her about me?"
"Didn't react. Just looked at me and said, 'You shouldn't have done that, Daddy,' but not as if she cared."
"She say anything at all about the man?"
"Not a word," Haas said. "I tried everything—pleading with her to shaking her till her teeth rattled. None of it done a lick of good."
"What about getting her away from there? Will she go?"
"She don't want to."
"Can you get her out anyway?"
"If I have to drag her," he said. "Nobody home at the Vargas place when I called, but I'll fix it up with Constanza when she gets home. Grady'll be in San Lucas by noon tomorrow, one way or another."
"Good. That buys us a little more time." I paused. "You might want to think about getting away for a while yourself, Mr. Haas."
"No, I'm staying put. He shows up, I want to be here to greet him. Me and Gus and my twelve-gauge."
I didn't argue with him. It was his home, his decision.
He said, "What're the chances of you finding him first?"
"Straight answer? Not good. I haven't got anything to go on—no description, no leads."
Haas was silent.
I said, "Keep working on Grady. Try to get something out of her that I can work with."
"I will."
"Call me if you do get something. Anytime tonight. Otherwise I'll check in with you in the morning."
The fidgets were back; I did some more pacing to work them off. This new wrinkle was puzzling as well as frustrating. Why wouldn't Grady care that a man was hunting her, evidently with the intention of doing her harm? It had to be an intensely personal reason, one that was tangled up in whatever her relationship was with the man; nothing else made sense. So she had to know him . . . intimately, as a lover? The mystery man? In any case he had to have done something pretty terrible to shatter her long-standing defenses. Without the what and why, I couldn't find who; without who, I couldn't find what and why. . . .
On one of my passes through the kitchen I noticed the clock on the stove. Quarter of ten. Eberhardt, I thought. I went into the bedroom and called his home number, listened to the line make empty sounds for half a minute. Either he wasn't answering his phone or he was out somewhere soaking his injured pride in an alcohol bath. Eb doesn't drink much, and when he does set out to tie one on he doesn't drink well. He gets maudlin and sloppy and has a tendency to show up on friends' doorsteps in the middle of the night, looking for a shoulder to cry on. That would be all I'd need tonight.
I rang up Kerry. She said hopefully, "Maybe he went over to Bobbie Jean's to try to patch things up."
"Fat chance. The hat-in-hand apology isn't his style."
"Well, I'll call her anyhow. I might as well work on her until you have a chance to work on him." She sighed. "Isn't this fun?"
"Like a compound fracture."
"Marriage," she said. "Sucks," she said.
She was gone before I could think of a suitable rebuttal. At the moment I was no longer sure there was one.
I listened to some more of the Jelly Roll Morton album, without any pleasure. Arlo Haas didn't call back. Neither did Kerry. At ten-thirty I tried Eb
erhardt's number again; still no answer.
At eleven I went to bed. But not to sleep. It wasn't Eberhardt and his botched wedding that kept me awake; he'd brought it all on himself and I couldn't work up much sympathy for him. It was Grady Haas and her botched life. Little Miss Lonesome—a woman who had never really lived and who was already half dead inside at the age of thirty-one. Who could sleep with somebody like that huddled in a comer of his mind?
Chapter 9
I still felt pretty fidgety in the morning. But it was an undercurrent of restlessness, like a low-grade virus. For months after my abduction I had suffered random attacks of claustrophobia —days when I would awaken tense, sweaty, with goblin shapes hovering in the comers of my mind. Days, or parts of days, when I could barely function; when I would need to go for long aimless drives or walks in open-air places until the trapped, desperate feeling finally wore off. It had been a while now since I'd had one of those crippling spells; most of the time I could almost believe that I was through with them for good. Then a morning like this one came along, a ghostly reminder of those bad dead days, and of the fact that I wasn't really healed and never would be.
I cut my daily exercise program in half, made quick work of shower, shave, and dressing, and drank my coffee while I used the phone. I tried Eberhardt's number first. This time I got his answering machine, which meant that he'd made it home all right last night and that he was probably nursing a hangover this morning. It was just as well; I was not in the mood yet to confront him or his pigheadedness.
Arlo Haas had nothing to tell me, except that he'd made arrangements with Constanza Vargas and Grady was already on her way to San Lucas. He'd hammered at Grady for two more hours last night, without getting through to her; she simply wouldn't talk about her trouble, just kept begging him to leave her alone. This morning she'd hardly spoken. Hadn't even argued about leaving the farm. When Mrs. Vargas came, Grady had gotten in the car and sat there straight and stiff as they drove off. Like somebody being taken away to prison, Haas said.
It was just eight-thirty when I left the flat. Too early to open up the office; there wasn't anything for me to do there anyway except routine work. So I drove out past the U.S.F. campus to Temescal Terrace. I hadn't spoken to Grady's neighbors yet and maybe one of them would still be home this early. They were the only avenue I had left to explore.
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