I stopped in its archway. Darkness beyond, and no sounds, not even the soft breathing of a sleeper. Nothing but that familiar nobody-lives-here-anymore atmosphere.
After a moment I reached for the light switch. My fingers encountered it as if I'd moved away this morning instead of years ago.
And that might very well have been the case. So little had changed.
Directly ahead stood the two Salvation Army easy chairs and the coffee table that I'd abandoned when I moved; somebody had taken good care of them, removed stains that I'd assumed would never come out. A mattress, its sheets and comforter rumpled and twisted, stood in the window bay where my own bed had been. My old brick-and-board bookcases, empty now, leaned against the far wall.
I went to the walk-in closet and looked inside. It was a deep one, containing a built-in chest of drawers. Nothing hung there, and the drawers were empty, but a red silk robe hung on a peg behind the door.
My
robe: I recognized it by the initials embroidered on one cuff. A gift from my sister Charlene, who is a connoisseur when it comes to pretty lingerie. D’Silva must have taken it from my house; I wore it so seldom that I hadn't missed it.
I took the robe down, breathed in the scent of Dark Secrets. Replaced it on the peg.
An alcove connected the main room with the kitchen. The small dining table and two chairs that had been there when I moved in still crowded the space. On the table sat a corkscrew and a wineglass. I moved into the kitchen, toward the old fridge mounted in the wall, knowing what I'd find.
Deer Hill Chardonnay. By my standards, D’Silva was spending a fortune on wine that went undrunk. I regarded the chilled bottle with distaste, then remembered a line from an old country song—something about drinking the devil's beer for free but not giving in to him—and took the bottle.
In spite of appearances, I knew I wasn't alone. D’Silva would have the place wired for sound. I went back to the main room, looked around again, spoke loudly and clearly.
“Thanks for the wine, Lee. This time I'll accept it, but I don't find it amusing that you stole my robe and brought your men back to my old apartment. Let me ask you this: did you pay the rent with the money you embezzled from your father?”
Tim O’Riley was not happy to see me. Not at this late hour.
He wore a faded plaid bathrobe, a day's worth of stubble, and the scent of beer. His complexion was ruddier than I remembered it, and he'd lost most of his hair. When he saw me staring at his bald pate, he ran a hand over it as if to reassure himself that it wasn't unsightly, then growled, “What the hell d'you want?”
“Nice greeting after all these years.” I moved past him into the small apartment. The once green cinder-block walls had been painted white, and his hideous paintings-on-velvet had been replaced by serapes and a huge gilded sombrero, but the furnishings were the same. I held out the bottle of Deer Hill to him, plunked myself on the shabby Naugahyde couch, and smiled.
Tim regarded the bottle as if it were full of cod-liver oil and handed it back to me, then pulled his robe more tightly around his considerable girth. “Shit, you move away, don't keep in touch, and then you think you can barge in here in the middle of the night?”
I kept smiling. He'd always scolded me for various and sundry misdeeds, but in his gruff way he'd also liked me.
“Yeah, grin. You think you're big stuff now, I bet. I seen you on the TV, talking about your new agency.”
“Then you know I haven't changed. That TV show was terrible, and besides, I'm still the same person who annoyed you by not bagging her garbage right.”
“Still don't, huh?”
“Nope.”
“You don't want that swill.” He motioned at the wine bottle. “How's about a beer?”
“Thanks.”
“Coming up.”
He went to the kitchen and came back with a couple of Buds, thrust one into my hand; turned a straight-backed chair around and straddled it. “So what'd you do—break in? All the locks've been changed about a dozen times since you left. Building's supposed to be secure now.”
“You'd better check the skylight above the stairs tomorrow.”
“Christ!” He swigged beer, dribbling some on his chin and wiping it off with his sleeve. I tried to remember when I'd seen Tim without a beer can in his hand, but couldn't. He was one of those steady drinkers who maintain the same level of high from morning to midnight and still manage to function.
“Whyn't you ring the bell like a normal person?” he asked. “You could've broke a leg and sued the owners, and then it'd’ve been my ass on the line.”
“I hardly think I'd sue over an accident that happened while I was making an illegal entry.”
“Oh, yeah? Burglars sue all the time. It helps pay their lawyers’ fees.”
On the surface, an absurd statement—rendered more absurd because it was true.
Tim asked, “So what happened? You get a yen to visit your old stomping grounds?”
I sipped a little of the beer. “Actually, I'm interested in the present tenant of my old apartment.”
“Aha!” He smiled knowingly. “Somebody's caught on to Ms. Elizabeth and her cottage industry.”
“Ms. Elizabeth?”
“The tenant.”
Elizabeth is my seldom-used middle name. “What cottage industry?”
“To put it delicately, the woman's a whore, and your old place is her crib. She's only there when she's got a john in tow.”
“How often is that?”
“Three, four times a week.”
“Not a very successful whore, then.”
“Okay, high-priced call girl whose johns aren't picky about their surroundings.”
“How come you rented to her?”
“I didn't know about her at first. She seemed respectable enough, but even if she hadn't … Shit, Shar, things've changed here. Ms. Elizabeth pays her rent in cash, on time. Doesn't do drugs, puke in the lobby, or have noisy fights in the middle of the night—which is more than I can say for most of the other tenants.”
“How long has she had the studio?”
He thought. “September? October? I'm not sure. For years after you moved, a nice Vietnamese couple rented it. Last April the wife got mugged walking from her car to the building, and they up and moved to be near some relatives in Modesto. After that the owner—new one, doesn't give a shit about the building or his tenants—he decided to raise the rent so high that there weren't any takers. Finally Ms. Elizabeth came along asking about it.”
“She asked about that specific apartment?”
“Well, sure. I had a sign on the front of the building—studio for rent. September, I'm pretty sure it was.”
So this obsession had been building to an alarming level as long as six months ago. “What can you tell me about her?”
Tim finished his beer, went to get another. “Okay, she brings guys here during the week, sometimes on the weekend. No sleazes, though. They look like professional people.”
“Different men or repeats?”
“Some repeats, but not many.”
“You sound as if you've been watching her.”
“Who wouldn't? She's not like other hookers.”
“How?”
He frowned in concentration, rolling his beer can between his palms. “Well, she's smart. You can see that in her eyes. Has got education. You can tell that from how she talks. But it's the way she acts that's got me. Sometimes it's like she's not really here. Like she's far away, in some dream world. Maybe like she's somebody else.”
Somebody else?
Me.
“You ever check out her apartment?”
“I wouldn't do that!” He sat up straighter, tried to look injured.
“Come on, Tim, I know you. And don't forget—you're talking with somebody who just entered this building illegally.”
A rueful smile. “Okay, yeah, I checked it out.”
“And?”
“Nothing interesting. No personal stuff that would tell me anything about who she is or where she came from. Not even many clothes. Just booze and snacks in the kitchen, the usual woman stuff in the bathroom. No phone, and she never gets any mail here. Like I said, the studio's just her crib.”
“When's the last time you saw her?”
“Earlier tonight, maybe around seven.”
Damn! I'd come close again, only to miss her. Had she engineered that?
If she had the Mariposa Street flat wired, as I assumed she must, she knew I'd discovered her identity. She might even know I'd spoken with Russ Auerbach. But I'd flown to Paradise VFR, without having to file a flight plan; she couldn't know I'd spoken to the people from her past there. Unless she was in contact with one of them …
“Tim,” I said, “what was … Ms. Elizabeth doing when you saw her?”
“Leaving alone, with a little suitcase. I said hello, asked if she was going away for the weekend. She said yes, and it was gonna be a great one because she just loves the beach.”
“Can you think of anything else about her? Anything at all?”
He considered, arms resting on the top of the chair's back. “The reason you're asking—has she done something bad?”
I nodded.
“Hurt people?”
“Yes.”
“Okay, then, let me tell you my personal opinion of our Ms.Elizabeth: There's something spooky about her. Something scary. Anybody that crosses her, they better watch their ass.”
Tonight I feel restless. It's well after two in the morning, yet I don't want to go home. The house seems violated, even though it's been nearly two weeks since Lee D’Silva invaded it. So I'm driving south from the city.
Besides, how can I go home to a phone that never rings with the call I so badly need? I'll drive till I'm exhausted.
Past the county line on Skyline Boulevard, where it angles close to the sea. Down there are the old riding stables, where a friend's little girl used to take lessons. Sometimes I'd drive her there when her mom couldn't, and on one of those days I heard on the car radio that the stables had caught fire and many of the horses had died. She came running out of school—happy little girl in her jaunty riding habit—and I had to break the news I'll never forget the heartbroken look on her face as her first realization that the world can he a sad, brutal place sank in.
Turned out the fire was set by a developer who wanted the land. A guy with an agenda, and to hell with other people.
An agenda—just like Lee D’Silva has.
Now I'm speeding through the slumbering suburb of Pacifica. Winding through the inland valley toward the still-wild San Mateo County coastline. Hugging the dangerous curves of Devil's Slide—going much too fast, and I don't care. Half Moon Bay goes by in a blur of closed businesses and darkened homes, and now I know where I'm headed.
The state beach at San Gregorio. I park in the deserted lot, zip up my flight jacket, and hit the sand.
There are caves hollowed out of the cliffs here, hollowed by the sea waves. Just like at Bootleggers Cove below Touchstone. I guess that's what drew me—the closest approximation to the place I love more than any on earth. Because I share it with Hy.
Share. Not shared.
The sand's cold and wet, and the hard moonlight makes the surf shimmer. Tide's out, hut the waves still pound, tearing away at the edge of the continent. After half a mile or so, I begin to feel at peace, he-cause I'm in my element.
Water: as much my element as the air.
Ever since childhood, I've headed for water when I'm upset. Not because it's beautiful or placid, but because it so mirrors the nature of life itself: shifting currents, eddies, waves, and—at times—violence. Tonight it makes me realize what I've learned in the past couple of weeks.
Everybody acts upon a certain given that provides the illusion of personal safety. For some it's that the job is secure, the doors and windows locked, the kids tucked in bed. For others, it's that they have money and power and can buy or sell anything or anyone. For still others, it's that they have a relatively warm and dry place to shelter till sunrise.
But for me, it's my connection to Hy—that, and a largely false assumption.
The assumption, I now know, is that people—no matter who they are—act on understandable, although sometimes obscure, motives. That they want identifiable things and act in a manner that is consistent with getting them.
That belief is at the basis of the problem I'm having understanding Lee D’Silva. She wants something from me, she's performing all these acts to get it, she's leaving me messages right and left. But they're messages in a psychological language that's different from any I've ever encountered.
What do they mean?
What the hell does she want from me?
W
hen I crawled into bed shortly before four, I hadn't expected to sleep at all, but I dozed off toward sunrise and when I woke, it was after ten. Exhaustion, both physical and emotional, had finally caught up with me. Now I felt rested and clearheaded, except for a nagging sense that I'd overlooked something important. I tried to identify it while showering and dressing, then gave up on it as a lost cause. There were more important items on my schedule, such as sitting down with Greg Marcus to see if I had enough on D’Silva for the SFPD to put out a pickup order on her. If so, Greg could steer me to an officer who would handle the matter quickly and discreetly.
Greg was on duty but couldn't see me till two that afternoon, so in the meantime I made phone calls. To Tamara Corbin, telling her to drop the surveillance on D’Silva's Potrero Hill flat. To Rae, asking how things had been going at the office and finding out that the place seemed to function beautifully without my presence. To Russ Auerbach and Misty Tyree, with whom I went over much the same ground as in our previous conversations. And I called RKI's La Jolla headquarters and Buenos Aires office.
Gage Renshaw and Dan Kessell were either away from headquarters or ducking my calls—and I suspected the latter. Nobody there or in Buenos Aires would tell me anything about Hy's situation, much less acknowledge that a situation existed. Possibly they were ignorant of what was going on; at RKI information was shared on a strict need-to-know basis—an operational policy rooted in the backgrounds of the principals.
Renshaw had spent years with the DEA, the last few on an elite and now defunct special task force; Kessell had owned an air charter service that undertook delicate and not totally aboveboard transport missions in Southeast Asia. And Hy had flown many of those missions, had returned from Asia with enough guilt and nightmares to last several lifetimes. Pseudo-spy games came naturally to all three, but they were not my favorite form of recreation. Now I chafed at having become an unwilling player.