The Emerald Cat Killer (6 page)

“Nope.”

Lindsey decided that it was time to wait the other man out.

They stared at each other for a minute, then Burnside said, “Agent.”

“All right, then I'll need to talk to Mr. Damon's agent.”

Burnside opened a desk drawer and pulled out a Rolodex. “Here you go.” He flipped cards until he found the one he wanted. “Rachael Gottlieb.” He read off a Berkeley address. “Says she's Damon's agent. She signed the contract, he signed it, too. Signed, sealed, and delivered. Check went to Gottlieb. I guess she took her pound of flesh and gave the rest to Damon but I wouldn't know for certain. Maybe she screwed him out of it. No pun intended, Linsley. No skin off my back either way.”

Lindsey jotted Gottlieb's name and address in his organizer and slipped it back into his pocket. “So you never actually met Damon.”

“Nope. Never talk to authors. I have people to do that.” He gestured toward the door that led to the high-tech room. “Don't think anybody talked to him, though. I handled this one myself. Met Gottlieb. Nice piece. Tight jeans, what the kids wear nowadays. Made me wish I was twenty years younger.”

Forty would be more like it,
Lindsey thought. He stood up. “All right. Thank you, ah, Jack. I'll be in touch. Thanks for the book.”

“Any time. Any time. Say hello to my girl on the way out.”

Lindsey said hello to Burnside's receptionist on the way out. Shortly, in the building lobby, he studied the address Burnside had given him for Rachael Gottlieb. Dana Street. He remembered that from past years.

He was about to retrieve his rented Avenger from the parking garage and head for the Gottlieb Literary Agency, but standing in the bright sunlight of Shattuck Avenue he realized that he wasn't ready to meet Damon's agent. Not quite yet. Instead, he walked the short distance to the Berkeley Public Library, settled himself in the airy, high-ceilinged reading room, and opened the copy of
The Emerald Cat
that Jack Burnside had tossed at him.

It was a short novel, less than two hundred pages, and Lindsey felt no need to study every paragraph of Steve Damon's deathless prose. He could get a reasonable take on the book by skimming, and in fact an hour's attention proved sufficient.

The Emerald Cat
seemed to be a standard hard-boiled murder mystery. The title referred to a sleazy bar on San Pablo Avenue in El Cerrito, a town just north of Berkeley. It had obviously been written in the recent past, as the author wrote at length about the Emerald Cat's Dutch doors. Smokers could stand inside the tavern while leaning over the half-door and getting their nicotine fix outside the establishment.

Damon's tough-as-nails private eye was one Troy Percheron. Percheron had an equally tough girlfriend. Damon referred to her as a frail, bringing a grin to Lindsey's face. Her name was Helena Cairo. She was obviously the sexy woman featured on the cover of the book.

There was a fairly brutal murder, motive not quite clear to Lindsey. The victim was one Henry Blank. It wasn't altogether clear to Lindsey why Blank had been garroted, either, but after a series of chases, beatings, drunken interludes, and sexual encounters described in almost as much detail as Percheron's battles with fists, brass knuckles, and tire chains, Percheron subdued the killer, a gigantic brute known as Frank “Frankenstein” Farmer, and turned him over to the local gendarmerie.

Lindsey wasn't exactly an authority on hard-boiled dick novels. He knew the genre more from film noirs, but he'd read a couple of Chandlers and a sampling of Spillanes, enough to know what they were like. As far as he could tell, Steve Damon was an average practitioner of the craft.

He breathed a sigh of relief, slipped the paperback into his jacket pocket, and headed for the garage. Traffic wasn't too heavy and he reached his destination in a matter of minutes.

He'd expected the Gottlieb Literary Agency to be located in an office building like the one that housed Gordian House but in fact he found himself standing in front of a well-maintained Victorian. He looked at the address in his organizer again, then at the house number. He climbed the steps and found a row of doorbells.

There was a handwritten card marked simply,
GOTTLIEB,
next to the buzzer for 4A. Maybe this was the agent's home. Why would Burnside give him her home address rather than that of her office?

He rang the bell and was answered with a loud buzzing. He pressed the latch and the door opened. He made his way to apartment 4A. A young woman greeted him at the door.

Jack Burnside's vulgar description of Rachael Gottlieb might have been fairly accurate for a twenty-something female with an olive complexion, reasonably attractive features, and dark hair drawn back in a ponytail. She was attired in blue jeans and a sweatshirt with a picture of a woman Lindsey did not recognize on the chest.

She looked questioningly at Lindsey. He introduced himself, proffered his business card, and said, “Miss Gottlieb?”

She admitted as much. From the apartment behind her Lindsey could hear voices raised in slow rhythm. The effect was not unpleasant. There were rugs and cushions on the floor and a narrow column of gray rising from a hammered brass incense burner.

The young woman inquired the nature of Lindsey's business.

He asked if she was indeed Steve Damon's literary agent, Rachael Gottlieb.

She was.

He wondered if this was a convenient time to discuss a business matter involving Mr. Damon. Or would she prefer to meet him at her office?

“This
is
my office.” She had a soft voice that would have been at home with the singing—more like chanting—from inside the apartment. “You can come in.”

Either Rachael Gottlieb couldn't afford much furniture or she preferred to do without it. Lindsey found himself seated on a floor cushion, listening to recorded sounds. Rachael Gottlieb left the room briefly, returned carrying a cast-iron pot, and poured a cup for Lindsey. “It's
pu-erh.
It's very soothing. I find that it harmonizes the body with the music of Hildegard. A most astonishing woman. Hildegard von Bingen. Do you know the ‘Antiphon for Saint Ursula'? It elevates the spirit.”

She lowered the cast-iron pot to a three-legged trivet and herself to a floor cushion facing Lindsey. “Now, Mr. Lindsey, what do you wish to know?”

Lindsey sipped the
pu-erh
tea. He didn't know whether it would harmonize his body or not, but it tasted good. He said that he was investigating an alleged plagiarism case involving Steve Damon and asked if Miss Gottlieb could put him in touch with the author.

“That's not so easy.”

Lindsey asked why not.

“I'm afraid he's dropped the class.”

Lindsey frowned. “I'm sorry, you're losing me. What class is that? Aren't you an agent? Isn't he your client?”

She did have a sweet smile. Somehow the spirit of a generation ago survived, at least a little bit, in this eccentric town.

“We were taking a class together at Laney. You know Laney College, in Oakland?”

“I know of it.”

“‘Female Poets from Sumangalamata to Maya Angelou.' You see?” She waved a hand gracefully toward a small stack of books. Lindsey didn't recognize many of the bylines but he was willing to take her word.

“Rigoberto was the only man in the class. He—” She stopped when she saw Lindsey's frown.

He said, “Rigoberto?”

“Oh.” The smile again. “Steve Damon is a pseudonym. Rigoberto, Rigoberto Chocron, was in the class. We went out for coffee afterward. It was an evening class, we went out for coffee a few times and he told me he'd written a novel and he didn't know how to market it. I told him he should ask Professor Rostum, Rosemary Rostum; she taught our poetry class, but he thought she wouldn't like his book. So I suggested that he just go to the library and get a directory of publishers and try to sell it himself but he didn't want to.”

She paused to sip her own
pu-erh.

Lindsey asked if Damon—Chocron—had said why he didn't want to market the book himself.

“He'd been in a certain amount of trouble. He was getting a stipend from some kind of rehabilitation people for going to school. He seemed afraid of publicity. He asked if I would do it for him. I thought maybe he was just shy. Anyway, I looked up local publishers and there was Gordian House, so I called them up and went to see Mr. Burnside and he bought the book. That's about all there was to it. I didn't even take a commission. I just cashed the Gordian House check and paid Rigoberto in cash. He said he didn't have a bank account and he couldn't cash a check himself.”

Lindsey asked Rachael Gottlieb for Chocron's address.

“I don't have it. He dropped out of the class. I think he dropped out of Laney altogether. He was a pretty elusive character, as a matter of fact.” She paused, tilted her head to one side, listening, Lindsey decided, to the gentle voices, women's voices, coming from a set of speakers in the corners of the room.

She smiled that smile again.

“He told me he has a favorite restaurant where he picks up telephone messages. I can give you that.”

Lindsey took it, with thanks. He got to his feet, not as quickly or easily as he might have a few decades earlier. He thanked Rachael Gottlieb for her help.

Just at the doorway he stopped and turned back, feeling like Peter Falk in a rumpled trench coat. “Just one more thing, Miss Gottlieb.”

She nodded, holding her cup of
pu-erh
tea to her lips, smiling amusedly at him over the rim.

Lindsey decided that she was a
Columbo
fan after all.

She waited expectantly on her floor cushion.

“How did Mr. Damon—Chocron—give you his book?”

She looked puzzled.

“I mean, was it a typewritten manuscript or a computer printout or—you see?”

“Oh, yes. It was on a disk. Mr. Burnside said they don't bother with paper manuscripts anymore. They ask their authors to e-mail their manuscripts, or else to turn them in on CDs. I told Rigoberto and he said, okay, he'd download the book and give me the CD at our next class. That was before he dropped out of the poetry class.”

Lindsey said, “Do you know anything about his computer?”

She smiled gently. “No. No, I don't. Good-bye, Mr. Lindsey. I hope you enjoyed the
pu-erh
tea.” She floated to her feet and crossed the room to close the door.

On the porch of the Dana Street house he blinked at the late afternoon sunlight, wondering how long he had spent in Rachael Gottlieb's apartment listening to Hildegard's music. Whoever Hildegard was. He checked his watch. Next stop—? He had to make a plan.

He returned to his hotel room, opened his own laptop, plugged it into a phone jack, and sent a report to Denver. Then he did a Web search for Marston and Morse, Publishers, and placed a phone call. He made an appointment for the following morning.

He closed down the laptop and stretched out on the hotel bed. It wasn't time for dinner yet. He'd earned his day's pay from International Surety. He kicked off his shoes and burrowed into the pillow to take a nap. Somehow the nap stretched into a good night's sleep. He must have awakened enough to climb out of his clothes during the night, because he woke up with sunlight streaming through the window and his clothing neatly hung in the closet.

FIVE

Marston and Morse, Publishers, was located in a new building on University Avenue. The company occupied a suite on the top floor. The décor was a combination of modern efficiency and green chic. There were plants in the lobby and a female receptionist who had to be older than she looked.

When Lindsey extended his International Surety card, she took his hand in both of hers, extracted the card, and released his hand as if she was sorry to let go. She whispered into a bead-mike mounted on a hair-thin wire, smiled at Lindsey, and said, “Please, have a seat. Mrs. Morse will be right with you.”

Before Lindsey had time to settle himself into a chrome-and-burlap chair, he found himself facing a slim, business-suited woman in her fifties. At least, her silver-gray hair said as much. Her unlined face could have said thirty. Her deep green eyes could have said anything.

She said, “Mr. Lindsey, won't you please come in?” She led the way into a comfortable office. Large windows faced toward the bay. They were high enough in the building that he could see Alcatraz Island, the Golden Gate Bridge, and the Marin Highlands.

“I'm Paula Paige Morse. I'm the president and editor-in-chief of Marston and Morse. I understand that you're investigating this
Emerald Cat
matter. What can I do to be helpful?”

Lindsey said, “I want to be honest with you, Mrs. Morse. My company insures Gordian House. If your claim against them holds up, International Surety stands to lose a good deal of money.”

“Of course.” She was seated opposite Lindsey. They were in matching chairs, separated only by a blond-wood coffee table. The walls, between well-stocked bookcases, featured some very good abstract paintings. And they didn't look like prints. “I hope that doesn't create ill will between us. Marston and Morse doesn't operate that way. We prefer to think of Gordian House and ourselves as fellow problem-solvers.”

She's actually serious,
Lindsey thought. In this day and age. Truly amazing. He said, “I'd like to hear Marston and Morse's side of this complaint.”

“Marston and Morse isn't a very large company, but it's been in business since the 1950s. Delbert Marston was a popular novelist who wrote for Paige Publications in Chicago. They published mainly paperback fiction. A lot of it was fairly lurid. And, yes, in case you were wondering, Delbert Marston was my great-uncle. Mr. Marston had his eye on more literary productions. In the 1960s, he moved to the West Coast and started a company of his own, publishing literary biographies, philosophy, poetry, and what we like to think of as serious, quality fiction.”