Nightwork (22 page)

Surprised, Dan’l came into the room a few steps and peered around puzzledly. “He had a couple recorders. Little ones, good ones.” The boy crouched and opened a Turkish cabinet. The lacy hanging pulls of its double doors rattled. Except for a stack of books, it was empty. The books were in identical shiny jackets. Dan’l said, “Geez, I guess the police took the cassettes and stuff. This was so full, junk fell out of it every time he opened it.” He held out one of the shiny books. “He wrote this. You want a copy? There’s plenty.”

“Thank you.” Dave accepted the book scarcely noticing. The report he had read at LAPD this morning had made no mention of Streeter’s papers, files, cassettes. Dave said, “What about storage disks? Did he keep those in there too?”

Dan’l nodded. “That’s right.” He closed the cabinet, remained crouching, staring at it for a moment, then snapped his fingers and stood up smiling. “I know. He packed them. He was going to take them with him.” Dan’l jogged out of the workroom and along a gallery to a room at the front. It was a bedroom. And on the bed lay pieces of soft leather luggage, lids open, half-packed. Curtains were closed across the windows. Dan’l found a pushbutton, a small motor sang, and the curtains parted on a wide blue sky over a narrow blue marina where white pleasure-craft waited under blue wraps, with gulls perching on their mast-tops. While Dan’l ran his hands among the folded clothes in the grips, Dave asked Chrissie:

“This room has a better view. Why didn’t he work here?”

“It kept reminding him the world was wide,” she said. “And he hadn’t seen half of it yet. It made him want to buy a boat and sail around the world. He couldn’t sit and put words on paper, looking at this view.” Her face was turned toward the light, and she smiled a little wistful smile. “The way he described it, I could almost see it.”

Dave looked at it for her. Condominiums not unlike these stood on the marina’s far side, and more moored boats. Then there rose green hills, soon to be tawny in the dry heat of summer. On the hills, toy-size at this distance, shone the white Spanish-style buildings of a college. Farther away still, jet liners rose silent from the airport and made wide, lazy curves out over the ocean.

Chrissie said, “I heard him come in, about three.” She moved to the bed, sat on a corner of it. “He’d said he might not make it back, might sleep in a motel. It was a long drive.”

“To where?” Dave said.

She gave her head a mournful shake. “He wouldn’t tell me. He said it would be better if I didn’t know. For my own safety. We were out by his car. It was then that he said this could be the biggest story of the decade.”

“There’s no cassette recorder here,” Dan’l said. “None of the junk from the cabinet.”

“Since he’d come in so late,” Chrissie said, “I didn’t bring him coffee right away in the morning. I had my own breakfast first. Then I tapped on the door here, and listened. I have good hearing, and I didn’t hear him breathing. So I tiptoed in and touched the bed, and all that was on it was luggage. Which I knew wasn’t there when he’d driven off.”

“Maybe he bought that plane.” Dan’l looked at Dave. “He was talking about having his own plane to fly where he wanted himself instead of on airlines. More mobility, easier access to places they don’t let reporters into.” He gestured at the pathetic grips. “Maybe he was going to fly to Los Inocentes.”

“Poor Adam,” Chrissie said softly, and raised her face to Dave. “Anyway, I wondered why he wasn’t sleeping. And I thought maybe he’d got the part of the story he needed, and he was so excited he couldn’t sleep. It happened sometimes—he’d work all night. So I went to the workroom. The door was closed. I never bothered him in there, but I was worried. I didn’t hear a sound inside. I knocked and called him, but he didn’t answer. So I went in. I missed him with my cane, and I tripped over him. He was lying on the floor. When I touched him, he was cold. It was no use calling him, shaking him.” Her voice went thin and small. “He was dead.”

“You hadn’t heard anyone else in the house?”

“Not even the gun going off.”

“That was because of the silencer,” Dave said. “He didn’t tell you who he was driving so far to see that day? You don’t remember any names from the story he was working on, not one?”

“Two. I overheard him talking to Rue Glendenning—a boy just out of UCLA. A journalism major. They come to Adam sometimes for career advice. And one of the names was Cortez-Ortiz. The other was really strange.” Her clear forehead wrinkled, and she nibbled at her lower lip. She took a deep breath and spoke the word slowly—“Tegucigalpa. Is that right?”

Dan’l laughed. “Sounds like what a turkey says.”

Dave said, “The curtains are open on the French doors in the workroom now. Would you know if they were open when you found your father’s body?”

“I know,” she said, “because I went to them to shout for Harry. The curtains were open, so were the doors. But not across the patio. Mostly they’re closed. To keep the cat in. Trinket. She’s never allowed out. I realized that after a moment. The Gernsbachs couldn’t hear me.”

“This trip of theirs,” Dave said. “Where did Mrs. Gernsbach tell you they were going?”

“She didn’t. Only that it was a very sudden decision. He left first, so I guess it was on business.”

“What business would that be?” Dave said.

“Savings and loans,” she said. “He’s operations manager for one of them. Pacific Sphere? Some name like that.”

“He’s got a great computer setup over there,” Dan’l said. “Interfaced with the ones at his offices.”

Chrissie went on, “See, Lily’d been over in Altadena with her mother for a few days. And when she got home, here was this note from Harry. She was awfully upset. Lily hates having to rush.”

“Maybe it was to Washington,” Dave said. “Congress is investigating savings and loan operations these days. I’d like to talk to them.”

“Me, too.” Chrissie sighed. “I wish they hadn’t gone.”

“Tegucigalpa is the capital of Honduras,” Dave said. “I don’t know what Cortez-Ortiz is. Or who.”

“No,” Chrissie said absently. Then she stood up. “I know who’ll have his papers and things. Mike Underhill.”

Dan’l made a sour mouth and groaned. “That creep. I wouldn’t trust him with anything of mine.”

Dave wouldn’t either. It took him a moment, but then he attached the name. Underhill was a flashy journalist who, a few years back, had written a biography short on facts and long on fantasy of a reclusive Texas billionaire, had lived high on a big publisher’s advance in Ischia and Saint-Tropez, and then had been jailed for a year on fraud. The book was scrapped, and Underhill was made to repay the publisher’s half million. Had he done it? Was he still trying? Who would give him a job, a paycheck?

“Adam trusted him,” Chrissie said. “He said somebody had to. Mike had had a rotten break, was all. Those kinds of books are always half made up. Who cared? But Mike wasn’t Truman Capote or Norman Mailer. He didn’t have a big name. And instead of some crazy murderer, he chose the richest man in the world, and of course he got the shaft. Adam said it wasn’t fair.”

“And he had Underhill working for him?” Dave said.

“Not full time. Just once in a while. But he was here the day before Adam took that drive. Adam must have given him the material—his notes and things.”

“To work up?” Dave wondered. “While your father flew to Los Inocentes?”

Dan’l said grimly, “You better get them back, Chrissie. If you don’t, he’ll write the article, claim it was his, and never mention Adam. Take all the glory for himself.”

“I’ll dress,” she said, “and we’ll go.” She started for the bedroom door, the gallery that looked down on the tranquil Chinese room far below. “The car keys are in the kitchen.”

“Great.” Dan’l went out after her. “I love to drive that car. It’s awesome.” He got into step beside her. “You want me to guide you down?”

“I’ll do that.” Dave followed them. “You go ahead. I have some more questions for Chrissie.”

“I can go downstairs by myself,” she said.

“I’ll get the car.” Dan’l swung down the corkscrew stairs like a playground child, bare heels making the treads gong.

“What questions?” Chrissie groped out to find the slim black rail with thin fingers. Once she had the rail to steer by, she went down almost as briskly as Dan’l. Dave followed. “I sleep down here, at the front, under Adam’s bedroom.”

“And above the front door,” Dave said, “so it was easy to hear him come in the other night, morning. These stairs are noisy. You heard him climb them?”

“Yes.” She took another step down, then stopped and stood motionless. “But nobody else. That’s what you want to know, isn’t it?” She turned her head, raised it to him. “You don’t think he killed himself. You think someone killed him.”

“It’s a dangerous world,” Dave said. “That was what he liked about it—isn’t that what you said?”

“He had friends all over that world.” She started on down again. The cane hung from her wrist on a loop. Now and then it rang against the ironwork. “They might hate each other—Israelis and PLOs, the IRA and the British, antinukers and generals—but they all liked Adam Streeter.” She reached the gallery and started along it toward the front. “He was a journalist, Mr. Brandstetter. He didn’t take sides. If he did, how could he work? He didn’t have enemies.”

A voice came up from below. “He had one, Chrissie.”

A sound snagged in Chrissie’s throat, and she stopped so abruptly that Dave bumped into her. He looked down. A woman in red stood in the center of the lovely room, gazing up with a mocking smile. Years had marred her looks, but she had been beautiful once and, before that, pretty in the same dark way as Chrissie. There was no mistaking that they were mother and daughter. What time did to some of us!

Dan’l called, “I’m sorry. I tried to keep her out.”

“Pack your things, Chrissie.” The woman’s voice was brittle and bitter and heedless. She marched for the stairs. “You’ll be living with me now.”

“I’m all right here, mother,” Chrissie said.

“Nonsense—you’re helpless.” The woman’s shoes clanged on the stairs. “I tried to make that senile judge understand that. That your father would be gone half the time. You can’t manage on your own.”

“I’m helping her,” Dan’l said.

The beat of the woman’s shoes stopped. “Don’t be ridiculous,” she said. “You’re only a child. And so is she. And children need their parents.” She began to climb again. “Especially blind children.”

“I’m not a child,” Chrissie cried. “I’ll be eighteen next year. Go away, Brenda. You have no right to be here.”

“No right?” Brenda climbed again. “I’m your mother. Who has more right than that?” She reached the gallery. Temper had got her up the stairs, but she was winded. “Anything could happen to you alone here.” She stood panting, hanging on to the flat glossy gallery railing. “Go on.” She jerked her chin toward the far bedroom. “Start packing. I’ll come in a minute and help you.”

“I’m not leaving with you,” Chrissie said. “The court took away your rights. If you’ve forgotten that, I haven’t. It was the happiest day of my life.”

“Hear that?” The woman said this with a wry smile to Dave. “That’s daughterly love these days. Who are you?”

Dave told her. “I’m investigating his death. It’s routine.”

She scowled. “You mean there won’t be any insurance? That’s what you mean, isn’t it?” She advanced on him. Dave smelled gin. “When they commit suicide, you don’t have to pay.”

“That’s all you think about,” Chrissie said. “Money. It’s all you’re here for. You don’t want me living with you. It’s Adam’s insurance you want, it’s Gandy’s money.”

“Gandy was my mother,” Brenda Streeter said. “That money should have come to me, and you know it. I was Adam’s wife, you little bitch, for sixteen hellish years. He owed me that insurance money. I earned it.” Her laugh was rough with resentment. “Oh, did I ever! What did you ever do for him but depend, depend, depend?”

“He never complained,” Chrissie said.

“Ha! Why should he? He could walk out anytime he wanted, and stay away for months. Karachi. Danang. Sidon. I was stuck with you. Every damn day. Twenty-five hours a day.”

“You’re drunk.” Chrissie turned and headed for her room, whose door stood open, bright with sunshine. She guided herself with a hand on the gallery rail. “I’m phoning security. Do you want to leave first, or wait for Mr. De Lis to throw you out?”

Dan’l came at a run up the stairs.

Brenda jeered, “Mr. De Lis let me in. He had no choice.” She dug in a red shoulder bag, pulled out a paper, flapped it. “I have a court order, signed and sealed. Making me your temporary guardian now that your father is dead.”

Chrissie had stopped, turned back. “You can’t have. Judge Farmer wouldn’t do that to me. He knows what you are.

Brenda’s laugh had a jagged edge. “Judge Farmer is dead, Chrissie.” She jammed the court order back into the bag, stepped around Dave, strode toward the girl. “I’m surprised you didn’t know that, since he was such a friend to you.” She gripped Chrissie’s arm.

“Leave her alone.” Dan’l darted past Dave, caught Brenda from behind, pulled her off balance. With a cry, she sat down hard on the hard, shiny planks of the gallery. Grunting, she struggled to get to her feet. “You vicious brat. Get out of here.” Dave went to help her up. She batted his arm away and snarled, “Keep your hands to yourself. I don’t like you.” She caught the railing, dragged herself to her feet, stood swaying, pushing messily at her hair. A puddle glistened on the planks where she had sat. A blotch darkened the back of her skirt. “Go away, both of you.” She took Chrissie’s arm again. “This is between me and my daughter.”

Dan’l asked Dave tearfully, “Can’t you do anything?”

Dave watched the woman tug the girl away. “Maybe later. Come on. I’ll have to drive them. She’s too drunk.”

They went to wait in the kitchen. Dan’l moodily drank soda. The kitchen was teakwood and copper with accents in Chinese red. Dave smoked. The women’s voices came down to them, edgy but faint. Misery was on Dan’l’s face, along with the acne. He picked at the sores. Small birds squabbled in the patio shrubs. He watched them. He said to Dave:

“Silencer? You can’t put a silencer on a revolver.”