Bindlestiff (The Nameless Detective) (14 page)

“Don’t worry, he won’t get away this time.”

“I hope not. Okay if I take a shower?”

“Go ahead.”

All I had on was my underwear; somehow I had managed to take off the rest of my clothes last night. I stripped down, turned on the shower, and got under it for about five minutes—hot, cold, hot, cold. That woke me up. I would have liked to brush my teeth, to get rid of that foul taste in my mouth; I settled instead for rinsing them with cold water from the sink tap. I caught a glimpse of myself in the medicine cabinet mirror when I was done. What I looked like was one of those sub-human types who dunked women in vats of boiling oil in the sex-and-sadism pulp magazines of the thirties.

“You’re too goddamn old to take this kind of abuse,” I said to my reflection. “You were better off forcibly retired, you know that? You never did know what was good for you.”

When I went out into the other room Huddleston was sitting in the only chair, smoking a cigarette. He watched me pick up my shirt, find the little vial of pain capsules the doctor had given me last night, and eat two of them. Then he said, “There’s an FBI agent from Sacramento waiting down at the station. He wants to talk to you.”

“FBI, huh?”

“It’s their baby, too, on account of Raymond leaving California with the stolen money and securities fifteen years ago. Dallmeyer is Lester Raymond, all right; his fingerprints were all over his cottage and they matched up in the FBI computer.”

I had my shirt on and I was getting into my pants. “How did they know he left the state?”

“He cashed some of those negotiable securities in Las Vegas and a couple of other places back in ’67 and ’68,” Huddleston said. “But he was slick about it—he left the FBI with a cold trail each time. Turns out he lived in Omaha and Denver before he came to Oroville ten years ago.”

“Oh?”

“Sergeant Collins found evidence at the cottage that proves it. Chief Lydecker notified the Bureau last night.”

“What’s the word on Charles Bradford?”

“Not much doubt that Raymond killed him and cremated the body, just like you said. County lab people came down from Chico and ran tests on the ashes in the locomotive’s firebox; they found bone and dental fragments.”

I thought of Arleen Bradford and Hannah Peterson. “Did anybody notify Bradford’s next of kin?”

“I’m not sure,” he said. “Chief probably did, though. One of the reporters for the local paper got hold of the story this morning; there’ll be a bunch more from the wire services and Christ knows where else in town before long. Our department wouldn’t look too good if Bradford’s daughters got the news from tonight’s papers instead of from us.”

Reporters, I thought. Ah Christ, here we go again.

“Did you want to do it?” Huddleston asked. “Tell the daughter who hired you?”

“Hell, no.”

“I don’t blame you. It’s a lousy job. I had to tell a woman once that her two teenage kids were killed in an accident. I went out and got drunk afterward; it didn’t help much.”

“It never does,” I said. “What about the rest of it? Am I being blamed for letting Raymond get away? Officially, I mean.”

Huddleston shrugged, jabbed out his cigarette in a glass ashtray on the table beside him. “You made a mistake,” he said. “So what else is new? People make mistakes every day. Important thing is, you exposed a murder—and a murderer.”

“Do Lydecker and the FBI feel the same way?”

“I wouldn’t worry too much about it if I were you.”

I nodded, feeling better now, and finished dressing, and we left the motel. On the way downtown Huddleston asked, “You hungry?”

“Yeah. I haven’t eaten in close to twenty-four hours. But mostly what I could use is some coffee.”

“Plenty of coffee at the station,” he said. “There’s a drive-through McDonald’s up ahead; I don’t mind swinging by there to get you some food if you want.”

“Thanks.”

At the fast-food place I bought a couple of Egg McMuffins to go. When we got to the green cinder-block building that housed the police station I saw that my car was parked in one of the slots facing the river; Huddleston told me Lydecker had had it picked up and brought in last night. We went inside. The reporters hadn’t shown up yet, which was a relief. The only person hanging around in there was a uniformed cop manning the duty desk.

Huddleston got me some coffee and then took me to Lydecker’s office. Lydecker wasn’t in it; neither was the guy from the FBI. So I got to sit there alone for ten minutes, eating my breakfast, before the grind started. That was a relief, too. I always did cope with things better on a full stomach.

The door opened finally and a tall, lean guy came inside like he owned the place. That made him FBI; they always take over like that, as if working for the government automatically gives them some sort of special gift of importance. This one’s name was Dillard and he was like every FBI agent I’d ever met: of indeterminate age, clean-cut, low-key, polite, and persistent as hell. Efrem Zimbalist, Jr., in the flesh. Living proof that once in a while Hollywood manages to get its stereotypes exactly right.

Dillard asked me two or three hundred questions, some of them twice; I answered each one in the same low-key, polite way he asked them. We got along all right as a result. I even managed to get him to tell me what it was Sergeant Collins had found at Raymond’s cottage last night. Evidently Raymond had been something of a pack rat when it came to his personal papers; there had been a box full of old bills and receipts dating all the way back to 1967. The papers proved that he’d first taken up residence in Omaha, where he’d bought a garage and rented a house and lived for thirteen months. Then, for undetermined reasons, he’d sold the garage and moved to Denver and opened a hobby shop, one that had specialized in model railroading items. He’d sold that place, again for undetermined reasons, late in 1971, after which he’d come back to California and put together the railroad museum here.

As for Raymond’s present whereabouts, they were still unknown. His van had been found abandoned about an hour ago in Red Bluff, some fifty miles northwest of Oroville; from there he could have hitched a ride, or hopped a bus or a freight, or stolen a car, and headed just about anywhere. The FBI and the state police were busy checking every possibility.

Dillard asked, “You have no idea where Mr. Raymond might have gone, is that correct?” Mr. Raymond. The Bureau’s representatives were polite to and about everybody these days, including people who committed multiple acts of homicide.

The question was one of those he’d asked me before, and I gave him the same answer: “No. Yesterday was the first time I laid eyes on the man—the first I even knew he existed.”

“He said nothing at all to you during your, ah, skirmish last night?”

“Not that I can remember.”

“And the last you saw of him was when he jumped from the boxcar?”

That was a bright question. Raymond had given me a concussion and I’d been unconscious when the freight pulled into the yards. When the hell was I supposed to have seen him again? But I said, “That’s right. I don’t even know where it was that he jumped. It couldn’t have been too far from the museum, though. He had enough time to get back there on foot, clean out his cottage, and leave town before the police arrived.”

Dillard made some notes in a leather-bound book, closed the book, and got out of Lydecker’s chair. He said, “I think that will be all for now. We appreciate your cooperation.”

“Sure. Are you going to want me to hang around here for a while? Or can I go back to San Francisco today?”

“Is there any particular reason you want to return to San Francisco?”

Another bright question. These FBI guys were pips, all right; if you opened one of them up, what you’d find were wires and gears and little wheels that went round and round in perfect geometric circles. Old J. Edgar had been a technological genius: he’d invented a bunch of functional robots long before the scientists came out with their first experimental model.

I said, “No particular reason, no. It’s where I live and where I work, and I’d like to sleep in my own bed tonight. You have my home address and telephone number; that’s where I’ll be three hours after I leave here.”

“Yes, of course,” Dillard said. “Well, we’ll let you know.” And he went out and left me alone again.

I sat there and looked out the window at the parking lot. I still felt tired and my head still hurt. Mild concussion. Christ. But I was lucky I was sitting here and not lying in a hospital bed with my brains half scrambled like a carton of old eggs. For that matter I was lucky I wasn’t dead.

Lydecker came in after a while with a statement for me to sign. I asked him if I could go home pretty soon, and he said he thought I could. Then he took me out of his office and put me in another room, a small interrogation cubicle with nothing in it except a table and four chairs. I did some more waiting. At the end of twenty minutes Huddleston showed up with another cup of coffee and the news that the first battery of reporters had arrived outside.

“Terrific,” I said. “Do I have to talk to them?”

“That’s up to you.”

“Then no way. I’ve had enough questions for one day.”

“How’s your head?”

“It hurts.”

“Want me to get the doc to take another look?”

“No. It’s not that bad. Listen, when can I leave? Or am I going to become a permanent fixture around here?”

“You sound a little pissed off,” he said.

“Not me. What would I have to be pissed off about?”

“Dillard, for one thing. Those FBI guys are a pain in the ass.”

“You said it, I didn’t.”

He gave me a lopsided grin. He seemed to like me, which was more than I could say for either Dillard or Lydecker; that was some small comfort, at least. I needed all the allies I could get.

“Don’t worry,” he said, “I think they’re going to release you pretty quick.”

“I’ve been hearing that ever since I got here.”

“Just hang in a while longer.” He went to the door. “Bradford’s daughters have both been notified, by the way,” he said before he went out. “The chief took care of it while I was out fetching you.”

It was another half hour before Huddleston came back; Lydecker was with him. I was in a foul humor by then, but I didn’t let them see it. And Lydecker took the edge off it by saying, “All right, we’re through with you. You can go now.”

“Thanks.”

He told me I would be wise to drive straight back to San Francisco, to keep myself available in case I was needed again—the usual speech. I said that was what I intended to do. Huddleston went out front with me and helped me run the gantlet of half a dozen babbling reporters; I tried to ignore them and their questions, but one of them plucked at my bad arm, bringing a cut of pain, and I shook him off and snapped at the pack of them that I had no comment to make. My nerves were in worse shape than I’d thought.

We got outside and over to my car. Huddleston gave me his hand and said, “Good luck,” and I said, “I may need it,” and got into the car and drove out of there as fast as I could without breaking any laws.

If I could go to my grave without coming back to Oroville again, there was still a chance I’d die a happy man.

It was almost eight o’clock when I drove across the Bay Bridge into San Francisco. The trip had taken me four hours—I had stopped three times, once for gas, once for something to eat, and once for coffee—and I felt lousy. My head throbbed, my thoughts were muzzy, my left arm and hand were sore again. A five-year-old kid with a cap pistol could have tried to mug me and I would not have been able to fend him off.

When I got to my flat I took a beer out of the refrigerator and then went into the bedroom and switched on my answering machine. There were several messages, one of which was from Arleen Bradford and another of which was from Hannah Peterson. Miss A. Bradford said I should call her as soon as I could; she sounded pretty distraught. Her sister said, “This is Hannah Peterson. Please call me right away, it’s very important. I need to talk to you about what happened to my father.” She sounded distraught, too, even more so than Arleen. Charles Bradford must have meant more to her than I’d given her credit for.

I drank most of the beer as I listened to the playback tape. That was a mistake; I didn’t remember until I drained the last of the can that you’re not supposed to drink alcohol when you’ve got a concussion. That one beer had the effect of three or four stiff drinks of hard liquor; I began to feel woozy, light-headed. Arleen Bradford and Hannah Peterson could wait until tomorrow. I was in no shape now to deal with grief or anger or whatever else the two of them wanted to throw at me.

I shut off the machine, shut off the lights, and started to shed my clothes. I had just enough time to get out of my pants before the bed reached up like a hungry lover and gathered me in.

S
omewhere, a long way off, bells were ringing. I crawled down the steep embankment, trying to get away from the train that was bearing down on me. A guy who looked like Lester Raymond was leaning out of the open door of one of the boxcars, screaming obscenities about death; he smelled like burning flesh. Then he jumped off, and disappeared—poof, like magic stuff—and over the sound of the bells the hobo named Flint said, “You want sympathy? Hey, man, sympathy is what you find in the dictionary between shit and syphillis.” Then Raymond was there again, beating my head against something hard and unyielding. Then I woke up.