Deadfall (Nameless Detective) (5 page)

When all of that was done I went with him to the door, and shook his hand, and watched him walk away to the stairs. And I thought: It’s not just for him. It’s for Leonard, no matter what kind of man he was—and for me, too. Because I saw Leonard crawling in his own blood in that dining room; because I was there with my hand on him when he died.

My second visitor of the morning showed up fifteen minutes after Tom Washburn left. And if I had been surprised to see Washburn, I was literally struck dumb by the appearance of this one.

I might have been gone when he came in—I had plenty of things to do, now, outside the office—but Eberhardt insisted on telling me a couple of jokes he’d heard at some party in Noe Valley the night before. Eb is a social animal, a party-goer, whereas I prefer Kerry’s company whenever possible, or a pulp magazine’s if I can’t have hers. He was forever trying to drag me to this or that shindig, large and small, stag and co-ed. The first time I’d weakened and given in, I had been bored and uncomfortable. The second and last time, I had gotten sick on somebody’s lousy fish canapes that turned out to be loaded with salmonella. Eberhardt’s circle of friends does not include any gourmet cooks.

Anyhow, he’d heard these two jokes and thought they were hilarious. The first one had to do with a beautiful blonde, a well-endowed Texan, a copy of the
Kama Sutra,
and a billy goat; it was long and involved and had a punchline that was not worth waiting for and that I promptly forgot, along with the rest of the joke. The second story was much shorter and somewhat funnier, not that it was exactly a tickler of ribs or a splitter of sides.

“So this guy goes into a drugstore one night. He’s just been married, it’s his wedding night, and he’s kind of nervous. He tells this to the druggist and then he says his new wife doesn’t want to get pregnant on their honeymoon so she sent him in to buy some protection. He doesn’t know much about stuff like that, he says —he’s still a virgin, see—so could the druggist show him what to buy.”

“Uh-huh,” I said.

“So the druggist shows him a rack of condoms, right? The guy looks ‘em over, picks a brand, and asks how much. The druggist say,̒̒̒̒̒̒̒̒̒̒̒̒̒̒̒̒̒̒̒‘Two dollars plus tax.’ The guy turns pale. ‘Tacks?’ he says. ‘Jeez, I thought those things were supposed to stay on by themselves.’ ”

Eberhardt was laughing uproariously, and I was chuckling a little, when the door opened and the second visitor walked in. I had never seen him before and as it turned out, neither had Eberhardt; but one look at him and both of us quit laughing. He was that kind of guy. Mid-forties, six-two or so, lank brown hair, handsome in a saturnine sort of way; stiff-backed and solemn-eyed and pinch-mouthed. Wearing a three-piece charcoal-gray suit, a slender blue-checked tie, and black shoes polished to a high gloss. He reminded me of an undertaker. You just knew, looking at him, that there wasn’t a funny bone in his body. If he’d come in in time to hear either of Eberhardt’s jokes he wouldn’t have cracked a smile. He might not even know
how
to crack a smile.

He stood just inside the door, looking around in a disapproving way, like an investigator for the Board of Health. He studied Eberhardt; he studied me. Then he nodded once, strictly to himself, and came my way and stopped in front of my desk.

I said, “May I help you?”

He said, “Fornication is a sin, sayeth the Lord.”

I said, “Huh?”

“You’re a fornicator—you lust after men’s wives. You stand on the brink of eternal damnation.”

I couldn’t have said anything then if my life depended on it. I just gawped at him.

“ ‘Woe unto them that draw iniquity with cords of vanity,’ ”he said, “‘and sin as it were with a cart rope.’ The Book of the Prophet Isaiah, five: eighteen.”

“Listen,” I said, and then stopped because the word came out like a frog croaking. I tried again. “Listen, uh …”

“ ‘Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.’ Galatians, six: seven.”

I opened my mouth, and closed it again. Eberhardt’s was hanging open like a Venus’s-flytrap.

The guy reached inside his suit coat. I thought for a second that he was going after a weapon of some kind and got ready to launch myself at him; but all he came out with was a business card. He put the card down in front of me. Then he folded his arms and waited stoically.

I looked at the card. And then stared at it. In blue letters on a virginal white background it said:

I put my eyes back on him and said, “Jesus Christ!”

“No,” he said, “merely one of His servants. You know who
I
am.”

I knew who he was, all right. Ray Dunston, Kerry’s whackoid ex-husband. What I had trouble believing was that he was standing here in my office, looking and talking the way he was. Five years ago, when Kerry had divorced him, he had been a woman-chasing, small-time criminal lawyer in Los Angeles. Two years ago he had taken a dive off the deep end: given up his practice and any number of normal activities, including sex, and joined one of those off-the-wall Southern California cults, where he had shaved his head and worn robes and spent his days chanting things like “Om mani padme hum.” Now here he was, wearing a three-piece suit again and with his hair grown back, calling himself the Reverend Raymond P. Dunston of the Church of the Holy Mission, involved in something called the Moral Crusade, quoting scripture and accusing me of being a fornicator. If that wasn’t enough to boggle a reasonably sane man’s mind I did not want to find out what was.

I said, “What are you doing here? What do you want?”

“I’ve come to claim what is mine.”

“I don’t have anything that belongs to you.”

“Of course you do. My wife.”

“Your … you mean Kerry?”

“Kerry Anne Dunston.”

“For God’s sake, she divorced you five years ago!”

“For
God’s
sake,” he said piously, “she did not. Divorce is a pernicious invention of man. God does not recognize divorce.”

“He doesn’t, huh? Did He tell you that Himself?”

“Yes, He did.”

“He … what?”

“He told me so. We speak often, God and I.”

Oh boy. He had clear brown eyes that met mine steadily, all full of righteousness and calm reason, but behind them he was as mad as a hatter. I shifted uneasily in my chair and pushed back from the desk. I had figured him for a loony when Kerry first told me about the cult, and I had figured there might be trouble with him when she confessed that he’d been bothering her, trying to talk her into remarrying him and joining in a life of wholesome chanting in the commune. She had managed to keep him at a distance, and after a while he seemed to have given up and gone away for good: she hadn’t heard anything more from or about him in months. Or she said she hadn’t, anyway. What he’d been doing in the interim, obviously, was climbing another rung on the ladder of lunacy, and now he’d come in person to claim his soul mate. No commune this time, though. No sir. This time he expected her to live with him in San Jose, if not in the Church of the Holy Mission; to join him on the Moral Crusade, whatever
that
was; and to sit in on his fireside chats with God.

I stood up. He didn’t look violent, but with loonies you never know. God might have told him that if reason didn’t work, it was all right to murder fornicators.

“Have you talked to Kerry about this?” I asked him. Out of the corner of my eye I saw that Eberhardt was also on his feet. His mouth was still hanging open; he looked like a man trying to wake up from a confusing dream.

Dunston said, “No. She refuses to listen to the Voice of Truth. You’ve cast some sort of spell over her.”

“Spell?” I said. “What do you think I am, a witch?”

“Warlock,” he said.

“What?”

“She was never like this before you seduced her,” he said. “She always listened to me, obeyed me. But you enticed her, bewitched her, made her lie down in your bed.”

“I didn’t even know her when she divorced you!”

“ ‘How shall I pardon thee for this? Thy children have forsaken me, and sworn by them that are no gods: when I had fed them to the full, they then committed adultery, and assembled themselves by troops in the harlots’ houses. They were as fed horses in the morning: every one neighed after his neighbor’s wife.’ Jeremiah, five: seven and eight.”

“Look, Dunston—”

“The Reverend Dunston. I am ordained.”

“Sure you are. Ordained.”

“But I do pardon thee, just as God will if you seek Him out. I forgive your sins and I forgive hers. I hold no animosity. I mean only to have her back.”

“She won’t go back to you.”

“She will. Yes, she will. God has decreed it.”

“He told you that too, did He?”

“Yes. That too.” Dunston turned abruptly and went to the door, opened it. At which point he looked at me again and said, “ ‘Many waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it.’ The Song of Solomon, eight: seven. Those whom God has joined together, no man can put asunder.” And he was gone.

I stood there. Eberhardt stood there. Neither of us moved or said anything for at least fifteen seconds. Then Eb blew out his breath gustily and said with awe in his voice, “Now I’ve seen it all.”

“That makes two of us.”

“I thought he was in some kind of commune. The Hare Krishnas or something.”

“Yeah. Or something.”

Eberhardt came over to my desk and picked up Dunston’s card. “Church of the Holy Mission. The Moral Crusade.” He flicked a fingernail against the card and said, “From the Hare Krishnas to Jerry Falwell—that’s some leap.”

“You’re telling me?”

“You ever hear of either one, the church or the crusade?”

“No. You?”

“No. I can check ’em out, if you want.”

“I want. Thanks, Eb.”

He went back to his desk. I picked up the phone and dialed the number of Bates and Carpenter, the ad agency where Kerry worked as a chief copywriter. The switchboard put me through to her secretary, who said that Kerry was in conference, could she call me back in about an hour? I said, “No, she can’t call me back in about an hour. I don’t care what she’s doing, I want to talk to her
now
. Tell her it’s an emergency.” There was something in my voice that made the secretary decide not to argue; she went away meekly. I waited. A full minute went by. Then there was a clattering noise, followed by another clattering noise, as if the phone had been dropped, and Kerry came on sounding out of breath.

“What is it?” she said. “What’s the matter? Are you all right?”

“That depends on your definition of all right. Your ex-husband just showed up here at the office.”

“What!”

“We had a nice chat,” I said. “He called me a fornicator and a witch, or maybe it was a warlock, and accused me of seducing you and then casting a spell on you to keep you from going back to him.”

Silence for three or four seconds. Then she said, “Oh my God.”

“But that’s not the best part. No more commune for old Ray; no more shaved heads and robes and chants. He’s back to wearing three-piece suits, he lives in San Jose, and he’s an ordained minister—he says—in something called the Church of the Holy Mission.”

“Oh my
God!”

“God, right,” I said. “I almost forgot. He talks to God now. Personally.”

“Talks to …” She made a funny little strangled noise.

“Yes indeed,” I said. “And God told him divorce is a pernicious invention of man, so as far as he’s concerned the two of you are still married.” I waited a while, and when she stayed silent I said, “He wants me to give you up. He said if I don’t I’m going to hell.”

“You mean he
threatened
you?”

“Not exactly. No.”

“Thank God for that. He was never violent when I knew him.” Pause. “He’s living in San Jose, you said?”

“Apparently. You didn’t know that, huh?”

“No. How would I know?”

“He hasn’t been in touch with you?”

“Not in months. You don’t think—?”

“I don’t think anything. I’m just asking.”

Another pause. “This new church—what kind is it?”

“Good question. It has something to do with the Moral Crusade. Him too.”

“I never heard of the Moral Crusade. Like the Moral Majority?”

“Probably. Eberhardt’s checking on it.”

She said nervously, “What are you going to do?”

“About what?”

“About Ray.”

“I don’t know yet. You got any suggestions?”

“No. Just don’t do anything until we talk this out.”

“What are you afraid I might do? Drown him in holy water?”

“Don’t grouch at me. It’s not my fault, is it?”

“Well, you married him.”

“He wasn’t a lunatic when I married him, for God’s sake. He was
normal
.”

“Yeah,” I said. “Normal.”

“Well, he was.” There was some mumbling in the background. Pretty soon she said, “Listen, I have to go now. I was in an important meeting with a client…. I’ve got to get back. We’ll talk about this tonight, okay?”

She sounded flustered and edgy, and all at once I was sorry that I’d shaken her up like this. It
wasn’t
her fault she had an ex-husband who claimed a personal relationship with God, or that he’d decided to walk into my office this morning. Why take it out on her?