The Third Figure (15 page)

“I was only a gangster’s mistress, Mr. Drake. I wasn’t a gangster’s whore.”

She closed the door, very softly. Behind the door, I heard her sobbing.

Dejectedly I made my way down her flagstone walk, pausing at the sidewalk to light a cigarette.

Had I discovered anything? Had I accomplished anything, aside from torturing her? She’d seemed shocked that the murderer might have wanted her caught at the murder scene. Did she, then, suspect the murderer’s identity?

Who, of all the possible suspects, would be closest to her, therefore accounting for her shocked response? Obviously, her anonymous lover—if he really existed. Or possibly her husband.

Did
she suspect someone? Was there really a lover? Suddenly I realized that I must follow her, day and night, until I discovered the answer. And, having made the decision, I remembered Dick Gross’s image of the poor, plodding cop, collecting his three facts a day, five days a week. A few hours ago, the image had seemed funny. Now, I merely sighed. I was probably about to begin a long, tedious exercise in utter futility.

Slowly I crossed the street, heading for my car. The night was pleasant and warm; my footfalls had a reassuring, small-town cadence in the quiet darkness. I paused at the car, searching for my keys while I stared across at the Hanson house. Had it been only yesterday that I’d first talked to her? It seemed …

Close by shrubbery rustled. Suddenly I was whirling from the sound, instinctively throwing myself aside. Yet my movements felt so terribly slow. Dim light glinted on the dark gun barrel, following me. The single instant of blind, helpless panic congealed my thoughts into a frozen kaleidoscope of helpless terror. I was in Korea. I was unarmed. Defenseless.
Zigzag
, they’d taught us.
Hit the dirt
. I saw the shrubbery rustle sharply with the muzzle blast. Clearly I could see the gun barrel—a thick, heavy barrel. My shoulder struck the sidewalk; I was rolling toward the car—the front of the car. In Korea I’d once rolled under a truck, clanging my helmet on the drive shaft, hearing the shrill, savage whine of the sniper’s bullets, ricocheting close beside me. Would the next shot …?

Shot
.

It was all silent. Everything. The night was soundless. My shoulder was wedged between the front bumper and the pavement. I had trapped myself.

I was on my feet, sobbing for breath as I sprinted, zigzagging across the street. Ahead was the Hanson front yard, closer now. I tripped on the curb, wildly recovered and threw myself toward the base of a nearby palm tree. Panting heavily, I scrambled behind the trunk, stretching full on the ground, searching the darkness. If he came for me, I would run back deeper into the shadows.

But nothing stirred. The shrubbery across the street was faintly illuminated by a nearby street light, and nothing stirred.

I was beginning to tremble violently. Slowly, I rested my head against the palm tree. As I did, I was aware that I was moving my hand up to my head, as if to adjust a steel helmet.

I
WAS HARDLY AWARE
of having driven from the Hanson house to the Prescott Motel. I remembered switching off the engine and headlights. Now I was sitting motionless behind the wheel, unable to move.

Had I imagined it? Could it possibly have been a boy, playing? There’d been no sound of a shot. In the uncertain light, I could have imagined the muzzle blast rippling the foliage.

It might have been a prank.

Or he might have used a silencer. Or, according to Dick Gross, a pellet gun. Had there been a ricochet? I couldn’t remember. The endless moments I’d spent wedged beneath the car’s front end had been wildly confused with the memory of Korea, pinned down under the truck, hearing the ricochet of the sniper’s bullets. I remembered that I’d soiled myself as I’d crouched beneath the truck. Crouched behind Mrs. Hanson’s palm tree, I’d merely trembled. For what seemed like hours, I’d trembled. Then, incredibly, I’d begun to feel foolish. A teenage couple had strolled by within a few feet of me, their arms intertwined, laughing softly together. Somehow they’d given me a sheepish courage, and when I saw a man leisurely strolling on the opposite side of the street I’d gotten covertly to my feet, brushed at my clothing and quickly crossed to my car. It had seemed as if the engine would never start, but finally I pulled away, aware that the strolling man was looking at me with open curiosity.

Now, stiffly climbing from the car and crossing the brightly lit motel parking lot, the incident seemed vague and remote. Dispassionately, I recognized that I was in mild shock. It was an advantage of having experienced combat; I knew what to expect. I knew that I would probably sleep very soundly that night and awake to a heightened awareness of sound, color and sensation. It was nature’s way, a sergeant used to say. But he would never explain.

I let myself into my room from the parking lot. I locked and bolted the door, drew the blinds and then switched on the lights. I poured a half-glass of bourbon and drank of it while I lifted the phone, got the desk and asked for Carrigan. I was told that he’d checked out earlier in the day. Too exhausted to decide whether I felt relieved or disappointed, I undressed and fell into bed in my underwear, having refilled my glass. I lay propped on the pillows, drinking—feeling the liquor’s languor flow first through my limbs, then through my consciousness. This, I was thinking, was how John Hanson must feel, drifting away from reality. This was the sensation the alcoholic craved—this sad, sodden surcease from the self.

What could I do? For eight thousand dollars, what could I do? I’d already decided to follow Mrs. Hanson, hour by hour, day by day, until I discovered whether her lover really existed.

Would I do it?

Would the man with the strange, silent weapon try again? Would he succeed, next time?

Somehow, it didn’t seem to matter. As I drained the glass and switched off the light, I realized that it seemed very important to live tomorrow exactly as I’d planned it: following Faith Hanson minute by minute, hour by hour. As I closed my eyes, I vaguely wondered why.

Two days later, at about 8:30 on Wednesday night, I was parked within a few hundred feet of the spot where I’d run so wildly from the sight of the silent gun barrel. I’d been following Faith Hanson steadily for two days, uneventfully. Now, from the safety of my car, I was staring fixedly at the shrubbery, remembering. The gesture seemed a kind of timid defiance; I felt like a small boy, taunting the neighborhood bully from the security of my front porch. Yet, returning, I felt braver—better. It was another lesson I’d learned in Korea: everything has its limit, even fear. Courage, for some, is simply a surfeit of fear—a final, desperate alternative to the self revealed a coward.

So, idly, I switched on the car radio, searching for a news broadcast. I was yawning as I twirled the dial, thinking that, next day, I should buy a Thermos bottle for coffee.

Then, as I was wondering how much a good Thermos would cost, I became aware of a disembodied sense of diffused reality—a strange sensation of time and place suspended. Slowly I raised my eyes, searching for the focus of the feeling.

I saw the figure of a man slowly walking down the sidewalk in the direction of the Hanson house. His silhouette was stooped and defeated, his steps shuffling and uncertain.

I was parked across the street; he was perhaps six doors down from the house when I first saw him. I blinked, striving for a sharper vision through the obscure aura of recognition and recall.

Without conscious decision, I’d switched off the radio, opened the car door and was walking across the street. He was coming from the opposite direction; the Hanson house was almost exactly midway between us. I stopped beneath the dark shadows of a tree, waiting. How often had he come, in the past weeks?

What would he do?

What had he done?

He was standing in front of the house, staring uncertainly. He ventured a hesitant step up the flagstones, toward the carved front door. But now he paused, stopped and finally retreated. Then, defeated, he turned away—walking back in the direction from which he’d come.

I overtook him within a block. He seemed unaware of my presence as I fell into step beside him.

“Are you Mr. Hanson?” I asked quietly. “John Hanson?”

For a moment he didn’t respond. Then, slowly, he turned his head. He was about my height, and thin. He wore a shapeless windbreaker; his blond hair was matted and unkempt. In the dim light of the streetlamps I recognized the lifeless, opaque eyes of the drunk. Beneath the stained stubble of a week’s beard his face was deeply, despairingly creased into lines of ravaged despondency.

He looked at me, rapidly blinking. Then, still shuffling along, he turned away without having spoken.

Ahead was a neighborhood bar. It was still early on a week night; the place would probably be almost deserted.

“I’d like to talk to you, Mr. Hanson.” I pointed to the bar. “Can we go in there? Maybe you’d …” I hesitated, soothing my conscience with the rationalization that now one drink more or less wouldn’t matter. “Maybe you’d like something to drink.”

Once more the lifeless eyes turned to me. Then, an expression of vague amusement flickered feebly.

“How much information do you want—for how many drinks?”

Not replying, I guided him into the bar. We slid into a booth, sitting on red plastic benches, facing each other across a red Formica tabletop.

Hanson ordered a double shot of bourbon; I ordered bourbon and water. Until the drinks came, we sat silently, avoiding one another’s eyes. I didn’t know what Hanson was feeling, and I was almost unwilling to begin my probing. Finally, though, after a long gulp of my highball, I said:

“I’ve talked to both Mrs. Hanson and Johnny during the past few days, Mr. Hanson. I—I’m trying to find out who murdered Dominic Vennezio.”

He didn’t reply, but sat perfectly motionless, staring at the glass of whisky on the table before him. His hands rested inertly on either side of the glass. Then, in a low, distant voice, he said, “Different things make you realize what’s happened to you. A long time ago, whisky was my problem. Now it’s wine. I haven’t had a drink of whisky in months—it’s been that long since someone bought me a drink. If you get money, you see, you buy wine. Not whisky. So …” He raised an unsteady hand, gesturing toward the glass. “So, when I see a glass of whisky and know it’s mine, I—I” He shook his head. Then, sighing deeply, he took up the glass, lifting it slowly to his lips. He sipped the dark liquid, grimaced and lowered the glass. “It’s a—a defeat, in a way, drinking whisky. The last defeat.”

I’d dealt with enough alcoholics to realize the futility of discussing their problems. They inevitably began by soddenly agreeing with you, then finished by cursing you.

So, quietly, I said, “Would you mind telling me what you’ve done during the past two years, Mr. Hanson? Since you left La Palada?”

He didn’t answer, staring down into his glass. Then, slowly and deliberately, he pushed the glass away from him, until it rested at a midpoint between us. His hands, I saw, were red and cracked, with many white scars and running sores. His fingernails were dirty and broken.

With his hands flat on the table, he raised his head, meeting my eyes. In the movement, with the hands stretched out before him, there was a sense of supplication. Yet his eyes were steady, searching my own, intently.

“Who are you?”

“My name is Drake. Stephen Drake.”

“You’ve seen Faith, you say.”

“Yes. I’ve been hired to find out who murdered Dominic Vennezio. As I told you.”

“And have you found out, Mr. Drake?” As he asked the question, quietly and rationally, I realized that he wasn’t actually drunk—not now. I realized, too, that his mind was more alert than his dispirited, humiliated bearing made it seem. As Russo would have said, class tells. They’d driven a sports car, Mrs. Hanson had said, and hired caterers for their cocktail parties.

“No, I haven’t found out,” I replied. “I’m still trying, though.”

“Do you think Faith had something to do with the murder?”

“I don’t know. I think, though, that somehow she might have been a reason for the murder, without being actually involved.”

“A reason.” He nodded. “Yes, I see what you mean. Faith has been a reason for lots of things. Take me, for instance.”

“I know. She told me.”

“Did she?” Sadly he smiled. “Perhaps she’s repenting. It could happen, I suppose.”

“Does she know you’re in town?”

“No.”

“Have you lived here in Los Angeles for the whole two years, Mr. Hanson?”

“No. When I left, I went back to San Francisco—home. I stayed there for a year and a half.”

“You’ve been back here for about six months, then.”

“Yes.”

“What have you been doing, for those six months?”

He raised his right hand, turning it for my inspection.

“I’ve been washing dishes, Mr. Drake. It’s a trade I learned in San Francisco, after my money ran out. Have you found out about my money?”

“The ten thousand dollars, you mean?”

He nodded. “Yes, the ten thousand dollars.”

I nodded in return. “Yes, I know about that.”

“Does Faith know?”

“Yes, she does.”

“Did you tell her?”

I sighed, deeply. “Yes, I did. I—I’m sorry.”

For a long moment he looked at me. Then, wearily, he smiled. With his red, sore-splotched hand he scratched at his stubble. “You’re honest—an honest man.”

“Thank you.”

“Do you work for Frank Russo?”

“No.” I finished my drink. Silently he watched me, then pointed to the glass resting midway between us.

“Take mine. My doctors say I shouldn’t drink.” Ironically he accented the phrase.

I did as he asked.

“Wasn’t it dangerous for you,” I said, “coming back to Los Angeles while Vennezio was still alive?”

“It might’ve been. I didn’t care. I came to see my son.”

“Your son? But—”

“But what, Mr. Drake?”

“He said he hadn’t—I mean—”

“Did he say he hadn’t seen me?”

“Well, yes. He said that—”