by Marc Behm
The Eye slowed down, stopped beside them. ‘There’s a garage up ahead,’ he called stupidly.
He couldn’t for the life of him understand what made him do it. It was pure compulsion. They ignored him. They were bending into the MG’s steam, laughing and quipping. He drove on.
Pink Cardigan roped the two cars together and pulled her into Gilroy. They left the MG at a garage and had a drink together in a roadhouse.
The Eye drifted in after them. He sat at the bar. They were at a corner table, wrapped in shadows. His radar was erratic again. Bad vibes!
He was calling her Diane. She called him Ken.
The room was almost deserted. Two husky tennis players in white shorts were standing at the bar, filling the place with a locker room stink. The bartender was arguing with somebody. The shutters were closed, covering the tables with a pall or murk.
Ken. Ken. Ken. The Eye knew him; he was certain of that, the vibes told him so. Kenneth. Kenley. Kendall. Indianapolis. St. Louis. Kansas City. A heavy. A hardcore case. A Southerner. He opened the filing cabinets of his mind and dug out armfuls of old records covered with cobwebs. Tennessee. North Carolina. Mississippi. Nashville. Memphis. Chattanooga. Rough stuff. Brutal. Nasty. A rebel.
He was doing most of the talking. Joanna-Diane just sat back and let him smother her in thick sorghum molasses guile. Ken. Ken.
‘Did anybody ever tell you’ – he put two cigarettes between his lips – ‘that you have eyes like a puma?’
‘Pumatang,’ she laughed. ‘Pumatang eyes.’
This stopped him cold for an instant. Then he smiled. ‘My goodness,’ he drawled. ‘How you do talk.’ He lit both cigarettes, gave her one.
‘You’re superb,’ she said. The Eye recognized the voice – the accent – the intonation – everything – even the irony. It was Dr. Martine Darras speaking. ‘Superb and formidable. And pink.’ She touched his cardigan sleeve. ‘Why do men insist on wearing pink?’
‘My little sister knitted this for me.’ He took her wrist and looked at the bandage. ‘You cut yourself, honey girl?’
‘I fell down,’ she said. ‘Skiing. In Chamonix. My daddy and I. I dropped into the deep snow covering the rocks. He pulled me out and wrapped his scarf around my arm. “Can you hang on to me?” he said. And he lifted me on his back and skied down the mountain. The awful people there … the snobs and the playboys … the ski bums and the millionaires and the sharpies … all the sneering smug people with faces like Babylonian idols … they were ashamed. Because they were incapable of doing such a thing themselves, you see. They would have left their daughters in the snow to smother and freeze.’
He grinned, his even white teeth phosphorescent in the dimness. ‘Tell me more,’ he said.
The Eye went outside. The Porsche 927 was in a corner on the blind side of the parking area. He picked the lock of the trunk, lifted it open. A blanket covered the floor. He pulled it aside, revealing a Bowie knife in a rubber sheath, an army bayonet in a scabbard, a five-inch hunting knife, its point sticking in a cork, a moon knife, three king-sized switchblades, and a pair of brass knuckles. They were laid out in a neat row, like an array of butcher’s tools in Dr. Frankenstein’s laboratory.
Ken. Yes, he remembered him now. There was a shoebox, too; he opened it. It was filled with dozens of sachets, needles, a spoon, two syringes, and a jar of blue devils. He closed it, re-covered everything with the blanket.
His name was Dan Kenny. The Eye shut the trunk, relocked it. Louisville, Kentucky. Dan ‘Ken Tuck’ Kenny.
Alias Kenny Tucker. A psycho. Three convictions – one stickup, one assault and battery, one homosexual bust. He’d been on the front pages for a week or so in seventy-six because of a lurid sexual aggression charge pressed by a male victim in Elkton. The case had never gotten to court.
At six thirty they went back to the garage. Then they drove off together, Kenny leading the way in the 927, Joanna following in the MG. They drove toward Santa Cruz and checked into a motel on Monterey Bay. It was going to be a wild night.
The Eye unpacked his .45, loaded it, stuck it in his belt. Their unit was the last in the block, in the dunes, separated from the beach by a high wire fence. He looked through the bathroom window, Joanna was sitting in the tub, leaning back tiredly, her face in her hands. A transistor sat on a chair beside her, playing Beethoven’s C-Minor Piano Concerto. Her goat disc was lying on the sill, three inches from his forehead. He moved to another window.
‘Diane!’
‘Ho?’
‘Hurry up, honey girl!’
‘Hold your horses, motherfucker. Honey girl is in the middle of ablutions.’
In the bedroom ‘Ken Tuck’ Kenny was pulling off his pink cardigan, chuckling. ‘How you talk!’ He unbuttoned his shirt. Around his waist he was wearing a heavy money belt. He unbuckled it, dropped it on the floor behind the couch, walked to the shoebox sitting on the bureau, lifted off its lid, took out a syringe. He turned. Joanna’s purse was on the bed. He went over to it, opened it, peeked into it. It was packed with money. He whistled. ‘What a doll!’
The Eye went back to the bathroom window. Joanna rose out of the tub, dripping all over the floor. ‘What?’
‘I said, What a doll.’
‘I can’t hear you.’
‘Doesn’t matter none.’
She pulled on a kimono, too weary to dry herself, picked up the disc, clasped it about her throat. She went into the bedroom.
The Eye glided to the other window. Kenny was no longer there. She walked over to the bureau and stood frowning at the syringe. She reached into the box, took out a needle. Where was Kenny? She went to the bed, opened her purse. The money was still there. She hissed with relief, rummaged, pulled out a tiny revolver. The Eye gaped. Where the hell did she get that? She must have picked it up in Vegas. She slipped it under the pillow. Where the fuck was Kenny?
He pivoted.
Kenny swung at him. He ducked. The fist swooped over the top of his head and thumped against the wall. He ran. Kenny lurched after him, swinging at him again, bellowing. The brass knuckles grazed the Eye’s shoulder, ripping open his jacket and lacerating his spine. He jumped up to the top of the fence, flopped over it, dropped, rolled down an incline of dunes. He somersaulted to his feet, raced along the beach.
Kenny laughed. ‘Asshole!’ he shouted. He went back into the unit, quivering, elated, rocking on his heels. Joanna stared at the knuckles. He tossed them on the bed. ‘Just some little peeper outside,’ he wheezed. ‘Gettin’ hisself an eyeful of the action.’ He fingered the front of her kimono. ‘Can’t blame him. You look real cool and nice, honey darlin’.’
She pointed to the syringe. ‘What’s this, Ken?’
‘It’s for you, baby doll.’
‘Oh, no.’
‘Sure.’
‘Not me.’
‘I don’t like to turn on alone.’
‘You go right ahead. I’ll just watch.’
‘Just watch, eh?’ He pushed her against the wall, grasping handfuls of her. ‘Watch the freaks. See them perform. A free floor show.’ He was bulging. He rubbed it against her. ‘It’ll be something to tell your friends afterwards.’
She tried to move past him. ‘I don’t have any friends.’
‘Something to tell your daddy.’ He rammed his knee between her legs. ‘Ol’ daddy.’
‘My daddy is dead.’
She pushed him back, ran toward the bed for the gun. He hit her across the side of the head. She fell to the floor. He stepped on her hand.
‘You like that? You want some more?’ He struck her again, flattening her against the rug. ‘Huh? An’ if you start yellin’, I’ll kick your teeth down your throat!’ He leaned over and bit her on the rump. ‘Little ol’ puma girl!’ He jerked back the kimono, wiped his face on her thighs.
He left her lying there and went to the bureau. He pulled off his trousers, stroked his erection, slapped it playfully. He crumpled a piece of newspaper, dropped it in an ashtray, st
ruck a match, set it on fire. He took a spoon from the shoebox, heated it on the flame.
He stuck a needle on the syringe, filled it. He danced over to her, bent down, rolled her on her back. He stabbed her arm, pushed in the piston.
Then he cooked another jolt for himself, injected it, and sat on the floor patting his penis until the charge hit him. He crawled over to Joanna, pulled off her kimono. He played with her toes, her nipples, her navel. He tried to enter her ear but lost his hardness. He put it in her hand and wiggled his hips until he was oblique again.
She gazed at him, scowling at the hair on his chest. He sat on her face, bounced up and down, tried to empty his bowels. Then he dropped forward on his elbows and listened.
Outside, a car motor was sputtering.
He pulled himself up, bounded to the door, unbolted it, jerked it open, rolled outside. The 927 and the MG were parked side by side in the yard. He ambled around them, trying to open their doors. They were both locked.
‘You all there, now, hey!’ he shouted. He stumbled back into the room, slammed the door, bolted it.
Joanna was crawling toward the bed. Squeaking with glee, he took her by the ankles and tugged her back across the floor. He went into the bathroom, sat down on the edge of the tub, took one of her stockings, squirmed lasciviously, pulled it on, holding his hairy leg in the air. Then he clipped her bra around his chest. He got up, shimmied out into the other room. He clapped his hands, jogged, warbled.
He cakewalked around the bed, hopped over Joanna – stopped. The Eye was leaning against the bureau, smiling at him. His arm flew out like a catapult, whipping the barrel of the .45 across Kenny’s jaw, shattering his even white teeth and knocking him cold.
He threw back the bed covers, lifted Joanna gently, eased her naked body between the sheets. Her mouth spumed and she murmured, ‘Don’t hurt her … please don’t hurt her.’ She glared at him through the slits of her eyes, trying to rise, but he held her down until she passed out, then wet a washcloth and wiped her face.
He took the car keys from Kenny’s trousers, unbolted and opened the door, dragged Kenny outside, unlocked the 927, dumped him into it.
He came back into the room, took the money belt from behind the couch. Its pouches were filled with tightly packed wads of one-hundred-dollar bills. He helped himself to twenty of them, left the rest on the pillow beside Joanna.
He gathered up the pink cardigan, the shirt and trousers, loafers and socks, Kenny’s overnight bag and the shoebox, carried them outside, kicking the door shut behind him. He emptied the sachets on Kenny, scattered the needles and syringes around him, dropped the bag and clothing on top of him.
He climbed behind the wheel, released the brake, and rolled silently out to the highway. About five miles up the beach he parked in the dunes, unlocked the gas cap, and poured several handfuls of sand into the tank, then let the air out of two tires.
The sun was rising by the time he came into the yard of the motel.
The MG was no longer there.
He ran into the unit. The bed was empty. The money belt was gone. So was Joanna’s luggage. So was Joanna.
Gone.
He stood there for a moment, looking around inanely. The brass knuckles were lying on the floor. He picked them up, reached under the pillow. The revolver was still there, too. He pocketed it and left.
An old woman in pajamas was standing on the porch, lighting a cheroot.
‘Good morning,’ she said.
‘The girl in number one eleven …’
‘She just left.’
‘How long ago?’
‘Twenty minutes.’
‘Which way did she go?’
‘How the fuck do I know?’ She waved toward the highway. ‘That way.’
He got into his car and drove to the gate. He sat staring up and down the empty road. To the left was Santa Cruz, to the right Wastonville. Which way indeed! She could be halfway to San Francisco by now, or on her way back to LA.
He turned left. In Santa Cruz he bought a newspaper and checked the horoscope column.
CAPRICORN. ‘Absence makes
the heart grow fonder.’
You will lose nothing by
going off by yourself for
a while to think things over.
Unknown shores beckon. Heed
the call.
10
He drove to Los Gratos and San Jose. To Palo Alto, to Redwood City, to San Mateo. He drove everywhere, showing blow-ups of the Minolta photos to desk clerks, chambermaids, bartenders, waitresses, gas station mechanics, bus drivers, taxi drivers, hairdressers, railroad porters, newsboys.
Back in Beverly Hills the house on Oak Drive was still empty, a For Rent sign on the lawn. He telephoned Ted Forbes, pretending to be one of Charlotte Vincent’s old school chums from New Jersey and asking him if he had her address.
‘No, I haven’t,’ Ted answered. ‘Charlotte left Los Angeles months ago. In March. We haven’t seen her since.’
‘How can I get in touch with her?’
‘I haven’t got the faintest idea. Sorry.’
The Eye hadn’t the faintest idea, either. He drove past the bookstore on Hope Street. It was now a barbershop.
He spent two months in Alameda, turning in endless circles, roaming the countryside, visiting Livermore, Tracy, Stockton, Sonora, Angel’s Camp, Lodi, Rittsburg, Richmond, Berkeley, Oakland. He spent another month in San Francisco, checking thousands of hotels.
But he really had no reason to believe she was still in California. He just couldn’t think of anywhere else to look for her, couldn’t think of anything else to do. He’d get out of bed at six in the morning, thinking it was twilight, and drowse around in a doze until noon, waiting for the sun to set, then go back to bed and wake again at four or five, thinking it was dawn. One afternoon he found himself on Half Moon Beach and had no idea how he got there, one evening he fell asleep in his car in a parking lot in San Lorenzo, only to wake up five hours later on the other side of the bay in a bus terminal waiting room in Belmont. He looked in the mirror one morning and was astonished to see that he had a mustache.
He would lie on the floor for hours in his hotel room, surrounded by her photos, trying to evoke some living shape of the real Joanna from the myriad of artificial faces and wigs, trying to abstract some substance from her, something he could absorb for its nourishment of hope. His radar probes ranged in every direction, through hundreds of villages and cities, but she resisted him resolutely.
For three months, he didn’t do a single crossword puzzle.
In August he read in the paper that three convicts had been killed in a cell block riot in a prison in San Jose. One of them was Dan ‘Ken Tuck’ Kenny. He’d been serving a ten-year sentence on a narcotics rap.
In early September he finally faced the fact that he had failed. He either had to give it up or flip. So he shaved off his mustache and called Baker.
‘No shit! I don’t believe it!’
‘I lost Paul Hugo, Mr. Baker.’
‘I’ve got two guys in Rome looking for both of you!’
‘I’m not in Rome, I’m in Frisco.’
‘Frisco?!?’
‘He flew to Cairo in May, then went to Hong Kong via Bombay and Singapore.’
‘You gotta be kidding me!’
‘He came back to the States yesterday and I lost him this morning. What do I do now?’
‘Call it off. His parents bought it last week in a car smash-up in Florida. No more client.’
‘That’s too bad.’
‘Don’t worry. Their last payment’ll cover your expenses. How much have you been spending?’
‘Something like … uhh … forty grand.’
‘Jesus H. Christ!’
‘I tried to keep it down to a minimum, but –’
‘All right. No sweat. Come on back.’
‘I’d like to take a couple of weeks off first. How about some bread?’
‘See the local people. Let them hand
le the fucking bookkeeping!’ He hung up.
The Eye faked some vouchers on the hotel typewriter and took them to the Watchmen, Inc. office on Post Street. The cashier cleared everything by Telex and gave him a check for forty-five thousand dollars, which covered all his expenses for the last eight months three times over.
He deposited it in a bank, bought two suits, a half-dozen shirts, a sweater, some ties, a pair of Hugo shoes (Founded in 1867), and a Harris Tweed topcoat. He traded in his car for a new VW Rabbit. He changed hotels. He drank three double cognacs. Then he went to bed and waited to see what would happen.
He was surprised to find himself suddenly back in the school corridor, trying to open the classroom doors. They were all locked, naturally. He was still playing in the same old B picture! He laughed with delight. He loved this movie! He’d seen it hundreds of times! The hero was a poor fink looking for his daughter, and he kept pounding on doors … it was hilarious! There was this classroom somewhere in the building and fifteen little girls were sitting at tables. One of them was Maggie … but he didn’t know which one. She was hiding from him. Why? That was the mystery. The Mystery of the Fifteen Tiny Pupils. Anyway, the big scene – the denouement (ten letters meaning ‘the resolution of a doubtful series of occurrences’) – was when he came barging into the room yelling, Maggie! Hey, Maggie! Where are you? and … Well, it was only a movie. He’d catch her between classes. During – what did they call it? Recess.
He sat down on a bench in the corridor and smoked a Gitane, waiting for the bell to ring. Facing him, hanging on the wall, were two towel racks, one marked His, the other Hers. He took out the paperback to finish Crossword Number Seven.
Czechoslovakia. Hold it! He knew the solution, but his pen was empty. He tried to scratch in the four letters, but it was impossible. No ink. But it didn’t matter. He knew the goddamned solution, he’d just have to remember it when he woke up. It was the name of a saint beginning with a J. St. John … St. James … St. Joseph … St. Joan … J… J … Why J? Hospitaler! The Knights of St. John of Jerusalem! But what the fuck did that have to do with Czechoslovakia? Then her voice whispered in his ear, Don’t hurt her.