The Knave of Hearts (18 page)

"Look, boy, he was at least twenty-nine, not
sixteen."

"Kinsey to the contrary, you still find them.
And the rest of your pipe dream is just based on the different way he
impressed these girls, so they each said something different about
him. The little they did say. I mean, it isn’t as if you had Julie
saying he was a country boy with straws in his hair, and McCandless
saying you couldn’t tell him from the latest Parisian movie actor."

"Quite true. But I don’t know, Art, there are
little nuances that build him that way to me. Coming here—from a
smallish place inland—thirty to thirty-six months ago. Liking the
beach. Renting a cabin, even buying one, for weekends there—but
holding a job in the city. That we can say, because if he’d lived
in Santa Monica—anywhere west of Beverly Hills—he wouldn’t have
been at L.A.C.C. inquiring about evening classes, he’d have thought
first of U.C.L.A., nearer him. If, of course, he was really there for
that reason that day. He has some kind of white-collar job—take
your choice, banker, merchant, clerk, salesman—"

"Doctor, lawyer, bookkeeper, pharmacist—"

"
¡Basta, ya!
The hell of a wide field, sure. He doesn’t mix very well, he’s a
loner. For this reason or that. He is—or was, or said he was,
interested in woodworking, in doing something with his hands as a
hobby. Leads? If we had a crew of five hundred men to check
¡ya
lo creo!
The list of every male between
twenty-five and thirty-five who crossed the California border—at a
border station, and how many of the eight thousand per day coming in
do?—inside three years,.
Vaya
,
laugh. Of everybody who rents boat space in Santa Monica Bay. Go and
knock on all the doors of the seven thousand beach cottages—"

"Between Balboa and Ventura? You want to hand on
this case to whoever succeeds you when you retire? And if he was once
in one of them, it might not have been within a year."

"I said if," said Mendoza irritably. "But
damn it, we’ll do some work on this angle, nevertheless. Find out
the days of the week for Piper and McCandless—all of them. Do I
remember McCandless was on the fifth of last month?—let’s see,
that was a Tuesday. There you are, and she was found inland, in
Walnut Park. Just like Mary Ellen, who was killed on a Wednesday. All
right, negative confirmation if nothing else. So will checking our
list of possibles, let’s also find out whether they rent, own, or
borrow beach places or ever have. When they came to L.A. and from
where. If they have any hobbies like woodcarving—why didn’t I get
on that one before?—I should have seen that—damn, I’m too tired
to think straight." He massaged his temples wearily. "What
kind of a list did Mrs. Andrews give you?"

Hackett groaned. "Twenty names. There must have
been more—that she admits. I’ve got them here, complete with jobs
where she remembered, and a few very vague descriptions. What
priority does the list get?—wait its turn at the bottom of the
lists we’ve got a1ready?"

Mendoza stood up, yanked down his cuffs, brushed his
gray Homburg absently; he looked down at the little stack of file
cards, Madge Parrott’s statement; and then he said softly, "Top
A, boy. Get busy on it right now—haul some men off something else."

"And why does it strike you as that important?"

Mendoza went to the door, hat in hand. "People,"
he said. "It always comes back to people, doesn’t it? I’ll
tell you—you ought to see it for yourself. We’ve got several
lists culled from several categories. But of all the categories we’ve
created to collect examples of, the Andrews list is the only one
which was, you might say, prejudged for us on the basis of character.
She looked at all those men, at some time, with an eagle eye, Art—and
what was she looking for? For ultimate quiet respectability,
sobriety, gentlemanliness, the white-collar job, the good manners.
And I think—just from the few bones of him we have—our boy is one
like that. So let’s track these twenty down, presto, pronto, and
then prod Mrs. Andrews for some more names. Because I think there’s
just a little better chance that he was once in her house than there
is that he was once in Haines’ office, or in our records, or
anywhere else we’re looking for him."

"I get you," said Hackett slowly. "That
might be."

"We’ll see. I’m going home. I’ll be back
about two."

"Make it later, catch up on your sleep—you
look tired."

"I’m O.K.,"
said Mendoza almost angrily, pulling the door open. "I’ll see
you then."

* * *

He went home; he had a bath and lay down in the
darkened bedroom, but he didn’t sleep. A cat nap in the car, in the
dawn this morning, and not much sleep on Friday night either.
Something he’d never had to think about, his physical well-being:
it annoyed him to have such a thing intrude on life now, especially
now. His mind prying away obstinately at this business, refusing to
be switched off, that was it; he’d lain awake on Friday night
working it all over again, worrying at every angle to see if he’d
missed some detail to suggest a lead, wasting futile anger on
it—building up things Fitzpatrick’s paper and others had printed,
until they looked like deliberate personal attacks on himself. And
that wasn’t all: unbidden, the unruly mind (what had the mind to do
with it?—tangible plane only, only) turning again, taking him,
telling him— Until he forced it back to this in self-defense. This
safer—this quieter—this bloody-handed killer less dangerous . . .

Not only senseless but unsafe: you stopped thinking
objectively about something—right then you stopped thinking
effectively. But lying sleepless in the dark like that, the body
tired and the mind refusing it rest, this was what happened. The
magnification, the circular subjective pseudo-thinking.

Right now he should be able to sleep, God knew. About
two hours Friday night and two hours this morning added up to four
hours, out of thirty-six, of rest .... The cats, pleased to have him
home in the middle of the day, coming up around him, purring, a
restful sound—restful feel of warm sleek bodies under his hand. He
did not sleep.

There wouldn’t be anything in the medicine cabinet;
he never kept drugs because he never needed them. Aspirin? About
three years ago he’d had a wisdom tooth that needed filling—second
time in his life he’d been to a dentist, the first being when he
had the physical, when he joined the force, nineteen years back; the
dentist then had said cheerfully, Never make much money on you ....
He seemed to remember getting some aspirin for that wisdom tooth.

He got up, rummaged and found it, and cautiously
swallowed one tablet. It didn’t seem to do much. He was tired, God,
he was tired, but he couldn’t sleep. A vague kaleidoscope whirled
before his closed-eyes vision, red and black spots on the cards,
stylized profiles, King-Queen-Jack, Queen-Jack-King, Jack-ace, the
bad one, Serpiente, the ace of clubs, bad luck, bad luck—aces and
eights, the dead man’s hand—all superstition, senseless, sure,
but— Could have kept that ace as a kicker; there were the low ones,
eight of diamonds, eight of spades, to fall back— But, get rid of
the dead man’s hand, the bad luck .... A man who liked, or thought
he might like, to make things with his hands: wood carving—Beach,
the beach: north along from Balboa, the exclusive places, the
expensive places there, Newport, Emerald Bay, Balboa Island, Playa
del Rey, and on up—God, such a stretch of prodigal coast gold in
the sun—seventy miles along the Pacific, the beaches of this
metropolis, the beaches in reach of residents, who might mean any one
of those seventy miles when they said beach. On up—Huntington, the
harbor beaches, Sunset, Rocky Point, Palos Verdes, Redondo,
Hermosa—hermosa, hermosita, my darling, my beautiful . . . El
Segundo, Venice, Santa Monica, Topanga, Point Dume . . . any place,
any place. Take one thing at a time, the job doesn’t look so big:
he was seen along Malibu, Topanga: start there .... Get him in the
trap, by God, if it took till a year from Christmas .... The trap,
the trap . . .
Mi hermosa, mi vida, querida,
leave me alone, leave me alone, I’ve got work to do, let me sleep
.... Nice quiet polite young fellow, and the devil sleeping inside
him to be raised easy. Why? What did it matter?—for the lawyers
.... Sure to God drive a man nuts without trying,
absolutamente
.... An offbeat one: not the usual thing . .
. never the usual thing with her, with her .... The red and black
spots dancing, the devil with horns and tail mocking, spreading the
hand before him—discard and draw, you’ll never get together any
other hand, boy—aces and eights for the dead man .... Go away from
me, my darling, let me sleep.

At two o’clock he got up and dressed—the
silver-gray Italian silk, the austere charcoal tie with the discreet
scarlet fleck, the narrow-brimmed Homburg at just the correct
angle—and drove back downtown to headquarters.
 

THIRTEEN

The man who had been Edward Anthony was lying on the
sway-backed studio couch which had come with the little cabin; he lay
very still, staring up at the ceiling, but inside he was a maelstrom
of emotion, because he had just had a very exciting new idea.

He could hear the breakers coming in out there, just
now and then, because there was also the highway traffic going past;
but when the glittering-garish rows of cars thinned out for a little,
then there was the sound of the low lazy surf coming in, breaking
gently on the smooth beach. He liked—almost best of all the things
he liked about the beach—watching the surf on a day like this. When
it was gentle and slow, and beyond the white crests the sea like
glass. He didn’t like it when it was rough—a gray winter day or a
windy day—with the breakers like white-maned lions showing their
teeth. But a day like this, he’d often sit on the sand for hours,
just watching the sea come and go. It was restful. He’d never seen
the sea until three years ago, and it fascinated him. Which was, of
course, why he had bought the little beach house, with the money
Father had left. It was, the man had said, a bargain, and he supposed
it was: much more solidly built, of good stout oak timber, than any
other he’d seen, these little three- and four-room places built for
temporary rentals mostly, ramshackle—but this one built by someone,
some old man (the agent said) to live in all year. The disadvantage
to it, which the agent had talked fast to avoid mentioning, was its
isolation from any other habitation, from the nearest little shopping
center. That had been funny—the agent that day—because that was
what he liked about the house, the way it sat alone here, away from
everything. What a house looked like—his surroundings in
general—meant little to him; but he liked being away from the
garish beach business places, the beach cabins clustered like
frightened children all together, close—crowded. When he came down
on Friday nights, after work, he’d bring the few perishable items
of food, just what he’d need for the weekend, and it didn’t
matter about the nearest grocery being five miles off.

He never went into the sea: he couldn’t swim and
didn’t particularly want to. He simply liked to watch it, and smell
it, and listen to it. It was very restful to have this place to come
to, away from the city and people crowding in on him all the while.

Because that was one of the things which annoyed and
distressed him, since he’d come here. He realized quite well that
it wasn’t just because he’d been brought up in a small town and
that he found so many of the people he met here almost frighteningly
sophisticated, holding what seemed to him immoral opinions, and—once
or twice, when he’d unthinkingly expressed disapproval—laughing
at his. It hadn’t been all that different back home; even among
regular churchgoing people, people you’d think were
righteous-minded, there had been many who had  taken on too-free
ways and thoughts, and laughed at Father. The thing was, here he was
alone, with no solid background behind him, so to speak, and
inevitably he’d learned to keep quiet, to look and sound as much as
possible like anyone else here. Lip service, you might say. For one
thing, the job: he wouldn’t have it long if he didn’t know how to
seem ordinary, correct by their standards—or if he came out with
something which most people would think odd. Back home, he hadn’t
mixed much with anyone; he hadn’t needed to—there was Father, and
the shop; but here he’d had to, a little at least.

So it was nice to have this place all to himself, to
come to and rest. Julie had liked it, he remembered, all but where it
was. "It could be fixed up a lot nicer than our place,"
she'd said, "it’s a swell cabin, but gee, stuck away off like
this! You’d have to have a car—and you oughta put up curtains
over the back window too, but I guess a man wouldn’t notice that—"
That had been just before he got hold of her, before the awful
craving that he’d held down got too much for him and
he—

She hadn’t wanted to come, he remembered. She’d
been a little short with him, not interested in him, but she had
wanted a ride home from Tony’s. Not interested in seeing his place,
but he’d stopped all the same and persuaded her to come
inside....One like Rhoda, she’d been, not a nice girl, and he’d
thought—

But there it was.

And the house was, he realized then, a safe place,
because she had screamed quite loud at first, but nobody had
heard—nobody around to it hear. Nobody hearing Celestine either
.... He’d liked Celestine, a nice quiet modest girl, and he wanted
her to see his house—he hadn’t meant anything wrong when he asked
her to stop by on her way that morning. Why, how could he have, when
he told her just how to get here and all, openly? But once they were
alone here together, all of a sudden— And of course, he couldn’t
leave her any place nearby. Though you couldn’t be sure, perhaps,
that the papers printed everything the police knew, still there
hadn’t been any suggestion that anyone thought it hadn’t happened
where they’d found her, up in that cove. Most of the blood had been
on her clothes .... Realized then what a safe place the house was,
and he’d planned it here with Jane, he’d thought perhaps here he
might ask her to marry him, even so soon—But she’d got
frightened; he’d said he’d drive her home and then came this way
and she was alarmed—those foolish women—and it had been awkward,
difficult, he’d had to stop her noise, and then when he touched her
. . . Known then it had to be, and she wasn’t moving or
screaming—she’d fainted—and he could drive where he wanted,
somewhere quiet, and— And a Friday night, it seemed quite natural
to come the rest of the way—home—afterward; only not until he was
on the coast road remembering her still there in the back of the car,
another awkwardness ....