Bedroom. I sifted through the files in the box on the closet floor, again examining each piece of paper in turn. Waste of time; the big trouble in her life went back three weeks, not two years. The remainder of the closet contained clothing, shoes, sweaters stored in plastic boxes—nothing else. The dresser drawers told me she was fond of percale sheets and satin nighties and panties trimmed in lace. I hauled the dresser out from the wall and peered behind it; there wasn't even any dust back there. I looked more closely at the books in the bookcase. Then I got down on one knee and checked under the bed, even though I'd done that on Tuesday. No dust under there either.
I laid my left hand on the nightstand, the way you do to boost yourself up from a kneeling position. Did it automatically, without paying much attention to where the hand went —and my fingers bumped against the hardcover copy of California Gold, dislodged it onto the carpet. The book landed on the upper corner of its spine, so that the pages fanned open and the duck-shaped bookmark fell out. When I reached to pick them both up I saw that there was writing on the bookmark, on the bottom part that had been hidden inside.
Sunbrown. Un./Webs. 6:30.
It meant nothing to me. The writing was Grady's, the same as on the cancelled checks in her file—in this case the hurried sort that people use when they're jotting down information given over the phone.
I took the bookmark into the living room, got her copy of the telephone directory out of the desk. There was one Sun-brown listed—Sunbrown Tanning Salon. The address was 2297 Webster, which would put it near Union Street. Un./ Webs. . . . Union and Webster.
Grady Haas and a tanning salon? I remembered how pale she'd been yesterday, the whiteness of her arms and ankles. And she was hardly the narcissistic type of woman who goes in for artificial tanning; it would serve to call attention to her, when she had structured her life to avoid attention.
Her mystery man, then? A telephone call, an arrangement to meet at a certain place at a certain time . . . who else? She didn't have any casual friends, and a business meeting seemed unlikely, given the location and the nature of her job.
As I pocketed the bookmark, sounds came filtering in from the lobby—the entrance door thumping shut, footfalls echoing faintly on the tile floor. I stood tight and still, listening.
Whoever it was wasn't coming here; he or she was on the stairs now, going up. I went to the door, eased it open a crack when I could no longer hear the footsteps. Upstairs somewhere, another door banged shut. I stepped into the lobby, made sure the lock was engaged, then walked soft out into the vestibule.
The first bell I tried was Norman/Tagliozzi; no answer. I thumbed the one for the Voorhees apartment, and pretty soon the intercom clicked open and a woman's voice said, "Yes? Who is it?"
I gave my name and profession and said that I'd like to talk to her about Grady Haas. There was a pause; then the voice asked, guardedly, if it was important. I said it was. She said, "All right, I'll be down in a minute. I have to go out again anyway."
I waited four minutes, leaning against the vestibule wall with my wallet in my hand. She came down quietly, so that I saw her through one of the heavy glass panels flanking the door before I heard her. She didn't open the door right away, either; she peered out at me, taking my measure, the way smart urban dwellers do these days with unexpected and unknown callers—in particular, smart young female urban dwellers who know, or have a pretty good idea, that they're alone in a building. I smiled to reassure her, held up my open wallet so that she could see the Photostat of my license. Finally she opened the door, but just far enough to slide herself through; and she drew it shut quickly behind her.
She was about twenty-two, blond, of serious mien; lean and narrow in beige slacks and a bulky green sweater. In her left hand she carried a couple of books, one of which was a college text on medical jurisprudence. Her right hand was on the catch of her purse, and I'd have been willing to bet that she had a can of mace inside and that she was as fast on the draw as a Hollywood gunslinger. She moved over to stand with one foot on the sidewalk, her eyes still wary even though I stayed where I was. There was nothing personal in her ultracautious attitude, but it made me feel the way I had in the San Bernado Union School: like a dirty old man.
"Something about Grady Haas, you said?"
"That's right, yes. You're Ms. Voorhees?"
"Christine Voorhees. Missus."
I gave her the same story I'd used on Lisa Fisher—the missing heir possibly entitled to an unspecified sum of money. It didn't impress her much. She shrugged, tucked a stray wisp of hair under the little toque she wore, and shrugged again.
"Well, I don't know what I can tell you," she said. "I don't know her very well. In fact, I hardly know her at all."
"Have you and your husband lived here long?"
"Three years. But between us I'll bet we haven't spoken a hundred words to Grady Haas in all that time."
"She keeps to herself, as I understand it."
"Does she ever."
"So you're not acquainted with any of her friends?"
"For all I know she doesn't have any friends."
"Does that include men as well as women?"
Another shrug.
"I've been told she has a new male friend," I said, "a man she met within the past few weeks. But I can't seem to find out who he is."
"Well, I'm sure I don't know."
"I don't even have a good description of him. You wouldn't happen to have seen her with a man during the past three weeks, would you?"
". . . As a matter of fact, I did."
"When was that?"
"Oh, about two weeks ago. A Saturday night. Tom and I . . . Tom's my husband . . . we were coming home from dinner and Grady Haas and this man were just going into her apartment."
"Did you get a good look at him?"
"I only saw him for a few seconds. She pulled him inside as if she was afraid we might take him away from her."
"Can you describe him?"
"Well, he was good-looking. I remember being surprised she could attract such a hunk. I always thought she was . . . you know, that she didn't much care for men. Tom said maybe it was business or something, but it didn't look Hke business to me. Not the way she was holding on to his arm."
"Big, was he?"
"Heavyset, broad shoulders. Not too tall, though."
"Under six feet?"
"Tom's five-eleven. About that."
"How old, would you say?"
"I don't know . . . thirty-five or so."
"What color hair?"
"Brown. Dark brown."
"Straight, wavy, curly?"
"Straight."
"Cut short or long?"
"Short. Not a flattop, just a regular cut."
"Did you notice the color of his eyes?"
"No. The light isn't very good in the lobby."
"Is there anything else about him you can remember?"
"Well . . . he had a nice tan."
"Did he."
"Like he'd just come back from Hawaii."
Or spent some time in a tanning salon.
"He had a scar too," Christine Voorhees said. "A little one under his eye. I saw that all right because it stood out against his tan."
"Which side of his face?"
"Um . . . the right side. Under his right eye."
"About how long was the scar?"
"An inch or so. Just a small one."
"Straight or jagged?"
"Curved, like a . . . what's that sword the Arabs have?"
"Scimitar?"
"Right. Like a scimitar."
"Did the man say anything to you or your husband?"
"No. She didn't give him time."
"And you haven't seen again since that night?"
"No."
"Do you remember the last time you saw Grady Haas?"
"Not really. Last week sometime."
"Last Thursday night, by any chance?"
"Thursday night? No, I don't think so. Tom an
d I stay home on Thursdays to watch L.A. Law."
"Early Friday morning, then?"
"No, I don't think so."
"Did anything unusual happen last Thursday night or Friday morning?"
"Unusual?"
"Here in your building or in the neighborhood."
"I'm not sure I know what you mean by unusual."
"Loud arguments, unexplained noises—anything out of the ordinary."
"No. Why do you want to know that?"
I said something vague about covering all the bases. "Would you know if Grady Haas was home Thursday night? Hear her moving around, see her lights on?"
"We live on the third floor and I got home before dark." Christine Voorhees had relaxed during the course of our conversation, to the point where now she was bored with it and with me. She glanced at her watch. "I really have to be going or I'll be late for my next class. There's nothing else I can tell you."
"You've been very helpful, Mrs. Voorhees."
"Have I? Good," she said, without meaning it.
I watched her walk away. The new breed. Excellent student, probably, and someday she'd be the kind of lawyer who had all the fine points of the law honed sharp. But I wouldn't want her working for me. There wasn't much humanity in Christine Voorhees. She and others of her generation were like the machines they had learned to rely on: highly competent, coldly logical, utterly humorless, and about as emotional as a microchip. The world they were inheriting may be badly flawed, but it wasn't half as bleak, to my way of thinking, as the one they were going to help reshape.
* * * * *
Union Street lies between Pacific Heights, where I've lived for thirty years thanks to a landlord who has yet to give in to the Heights' now-exorbitant rental prices, and Cow Hollow and the Marina, which were so heavily damaged in the October quake that repairs are still going on. One of the city's trendy streets. Union; has been for years. Antiques shops, art galleries, boutiques, new and antique jewelry stores, and chic restaurants have taken it over from Van Ness to Fillmore, though they haven't yet squeezed out such venerable fixtures as Perry's watering hole, the Metro Theatre, and Solar Lights Books. A tanning salon, one of the few eighties fads that had yet to die out, was a perfect fit. So perfect that Sunbrown almost certainly wasn't the only one in the neighborhood.
It was just down from the north corner of Union and Webster. And it was closed, which wasn't surprising; Union Street businesses tend to open late and stay open until seven or eight o'clock, to catch the evening trade. I parked in a yellow zone long enough to go over and look at the sign on the salon's front. SAFE, GOLDEN TANS, it said. FDA APPROVED. WOLFF AND SILVER UVA TANNING SENSORS. PRIVATE ROOMS, AM/ FM STEREO SYSTEM. OPEN 11 AM-11 PM DAILY. It was now just ten o'clock.
My office was only about a mile away; I went there instead of hanging around Union. No business. And for the third day in a row, no sign of Eberhardt. Annoyed, I called his home number and got the machine again. This time I left a message: "We need to talk. And there's work that needs to be done. Get your ass down to the office or at least let me know you're still alive."
The mail came while I was making up a deposit slip to go with Arlo Haas's check. In one envelope was a check from a skip-trace client I'd been dunning for four months and last week had threatened with a mail-fraud claim. There's nothing like the threat of mail fraud to make a deadbeat reach for his wallet; everybody is afraid of the feds and that goes double for people like my ex-client, who use the mails as part of whatever services they render. I added his check to the deposit slip, and when I toted up the new balance in the agency account I was pleasantly surprised.
Maybe my luck was changing. Maybe this was going to turn out to be a decent day after all.
Chapter 11
The woman behind the reception desk in Sunbrown's sun-brown anteroom was halfway through her twenties, cornsilk blond and sunbrown as a nut. She was so sunbrown and so healthy-looking, in fact, that I felt pale and sickly, not to mention old, in comparison. She laid aside the paperback she'd been reading—Passion's Sweet Hurricane, by one Jennifer Javier—and showed me a smile that would have dazzled the Cheshire cat. If an ad exec for a toothpaste company ever got a look at that smile and the teeth that went with it, he'd have her under contract in ten minutes flat.
"May I help you, sir?"
"Well, I don't know," I said. I put a worried note into my voice and a worried expression on my face. "I'm trying to find my daughter and I . . . well, the man she ran off with is a customer of yours. At least I think he's a customer of yours. I really don't know much about him, you see, not even his name. . . ."I stopped and cleared my throat before I went on. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to babble at you like that. It's just that I'm worried about my little girl. She's only eighteen and I'm afraid he . . . well, that he doesn't really love her, if you know what I mean."
The sunbrown blonde's smile had disappeared; in its place was a look of sympathy mixed with a touch of avid interest. Readers of historical romance novels tend to be a compassionate lot, especially when there's a peg of soap-opera sex, pathos, and intrigue to hang their compassion on.
"I know what you mean," she said. "Do I ever. I'd be worried, too, if my daughter ran off with some guy when she's eighteen."
"You have a daughter?"
"She's three. Her name's Candy Two."
"Too?"
"The number two. I'm Candy One."
"Oh, I see."
"What's her name? Your daughter?"
"Grady," I said. "Grady Haas."
It didn't mean anything to her. She said, "The guy she ran off with . . . you don't know his name?"
"Grady called him Buck, but that's not his real name. I've seen a picture of him, though; she's got one in her room at home. I guess I should have brought it along. . . ."
"Well, what does he look like? I know most of our customers; I probably know him."
"He's about thirty-five, not too tall, heavyset, broad shoulders, short brown hair. And he has a little curved scar under his right eye."
"Oh," she said, "Jack King."
"Jack King."
"Sure. That must be why he didn't come in on Monday."
"He had an appointment this past Monday?"
"Monday afternoon, but he didn't show up. I guess it was because he ran off with your daughter."
"Has he been a customer long?"
"Not long. A month or so. Just since he came here."
"Here?"
"To the city."
"He's only been in San Francisco a month or so?"
"That's what he said."
"Where did he come from?"
"Back East someplace. Maybe New York."
"What makes you think that?"
"Well, he's got that kind of accent."
"Brooklyn? The Bronx?"
"New York," she said.
"Would you have any idea where he lives?"
"You mean in New York?"
"No. Here in the city."
"Sure. We have his address."
"Ah," I said.
"All our customers have to fill out a form," Candy One said. "That's so we can send them literature and stuff, like when we're having specials or when we get in some new equipment."
"Would you mind looking it up for me?"
"Jack King's address?"
"Yes," I said patiently, "Jack King's address."
"We're not supposed to give out personal information. . . ."
"If it was your daughter, I'd do it for you."
". . . Oh, hell, all right. I'll be right back."
She went away through a door behind the desk. Jack King, I thought. It sounded like another phony—two playing cards, jack and king—but it didn't have to be. Depended on who and what he was, if there was any reason for him not to provide his real name, as there'd been when he called Intercoastal asking for information about Grady. The same was true of his real local address.
Candy One brought a piece of paper back with her. I favored her with my best
forlorn look, added a sigh, and held out my hand—and she let me have the paper without objection or hesitation. Sunbrown Customer Questionnaire, with not much filled out on it. The name Jack King, printed in a bold hand. Broadmoor Hotel, San Francisco. Occupation: salesman. The other spaces on the form he'd left blank.
I said, "So he's a salesman. Do you know what he sells?"
"No, I don't think he ever said."
"Maybe he mentioned it to another employee."
"I can ask Bud. He works the machines and does massage."
"Please. And ask him if King mentioned where he was from or anything else about himself."
She went away again, and this time when she came back it was with nothing for me. "Bud says he and Jack King hardly talked at all. Mr. King just went in and got into bed and that's it."
"Bed, did you say?"
She laughed. "One of our tanning beds. You didn't think I meant with Bud, did you?"
* * * * *
The Broadmoor was one of the city's older hotels, having risen like a latter-day phoenix from the ashes and rubble of the 1906 quake. It was on Sutter, a few blocks uphill from Union Square, and catered to businessmen and tourists who preferred a lodging place that was small, quiet, not too expensive, and within walking distance of the downtown attractions. Respectable was the word for it, with a Victorian flavor that had been enhanced by a complete remodeling a few years back. If Jack King had been living there for a month or so, it meant that he or the company he worked for—if he worked for a company—had money and taste. You won't find the Broadmoor in most puff literature about the city's hostelries.
The lobby was pillared, darkly appointed, and empty when I walked in out of another blustery afternoon. The youngish desk clerk wore a bow tie and an expression that straddled the line between servility and snootiness. He gave me the onceover, to make sure I wasn't one of the homeless people who wandered the streets even up here, and decided to step over into his servile mode. But only a short step; I wasn't the sort of moneyed type who commanded total deference.
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