The Fat Innkeeper (34 page)

Bradford reached for the phone, dialed 0. “Hotel operator,” said a pleasant voice. “How may I help you, Mr. Beck?”

This was the service he had expected. This was the pleasant and mellifluous voice he had wanted. The last twenty-four hours
now seemed like a bad dream.

“I have a message,” he said.

“One moment, please,” said a voice. The hold music played Mozart, pleasant and sweeping passages. He didn’t have to wait long,
though, which was almost a pity.

“Thank you for holding, Mr. Beck,” she said. “The message was from a Ms. Cleo Harris. She called at eleven-fifteen this morning,
and left no forwarding number. Her message is, ‘Don’t ever try to communicate with me again, you swine.’ “

There was a long silence between the operator and Bradford, before she said, “There are no other messages, Mr. Beck.”

Another silence. “Can I be of any other assistance, Mr. Beck?”

“Can you put me on hold for a while?” he asked. “I’d sort of like to listen to that music again.”

“Certainly, Mr. Beck.”

The damn itch was back. To the strains of Mozart, Bradford scratched mightily.

“It’s hard being positive,” said Am, “with only one B positive.”

Hiroshi didn’t seem to be sharing his gloom. They were driving back to the Hotel and the Fat Innkeeper was once again intent
on seeing the scenery.

Les (“that’s my real name, honest”) Moore had been the only B positive in the entire group of questionnaires. Am didn’t see
how the New Jersey CPA could have had anything to do with Dr. Kingsbury’s death. Boring people to death would have been Moore’s
way, not poisoning them.

Am had thought there would be several B positives (statistically there should have been two or three out of the sixty, dammit),
and had hoped the identity of the murderer would suddenly be obvious, would jump out at him. Now the only thing jumping out
at him was his gloom. It was time to bring his investigation to a close and hope the police could do better. He’d go through
the process of interviewing Moore, probably be forced into hearing more details of his near-death experience, then he’d slip
into a deep depression. Intuitively, Am knew Moore hadn’t killed Kingsbury. He wished he’d been as intuitive about B positive.

“The gold rush,” said Hiroshi, “occurred in California in 1849, did it not?”

“Uh-huh,” said Am distractedly. “Not here, though. It happened in northern California, around Fort Sutter.”

“San Diego has no gold?”

“Not too much of the ore variety,” said Am. “There are a few tired veins around Julian and Campo. That’s about it.”

“How is it then,” asked Hiroshi, “that in Dr. Kingsbury’s room they found traces of gold?”

Am looked at the Fat Innkeeper. While he had been busy going through the questionnaires, and trying to decipher Kingsbury’s
illegible handwriting, Hiroshi had started reading the investigative reports.

“Traces of gold?” Am repeated.

Hiroshi nodded.

“Where were they found?”

“In the carpeting. Several flakes.”

Am wished he had read the case file. He had thought his answers would be found in the questionnaires or the doctor’s notes,
hadn’t considered they might emerge elsewhere. “Did the police theorize where the gold came from?”

“There was no conjecture in the pages I read,” said Hiroshi.

“The doctor was fond of a certain drink called Goldschlager,” Am said. “There’s actual gold flakes in it.”

“Gold in a drink?” asked Hiroshi. It didn’t make sense to the Japanese man, but then he probably wouldn’t have understood
about pet rocks either.

“You’d have to try it,” Am said, but he was thinking about something else, something he should have considered earlier. Just
how had Thomas Kingsbury been poisoned?

“Gold flakes in a drink,” repeated Hiroshi. “Isn’t gold toxic?”

“It damn well can be,” Am said.

Someone must have doctored Kingsbury’s bottle of Goldschlager. No, that wouldn’t have been certain enough. Someone must have
hand-delivered him a potassium-cyanide cocktail. With all the gold floating around, the doctor wouldn’t have noticed a few
white flakes. By all accounts, Kingsbury didn’t sip this particular drink. He would have downed the poison and the drink in
a single gulp.

Annette responded to the gas. The speedometer rose from sixty to seventy, then to eighty, and kept rising. She started to
make sounds. For the last ten years she had never been pushed beyond sixty-five. Hirsohi looked at Am with alarm.

“I think I know who murdered Dr. Kingsbury,” Am said. Then, to Annette, “We’re going to the beach.”

The old woody rattled but held. Anyone who regularly travels Southern California freeways is used to seeing unusual sights,
but this one was worth taking notice: a woody that was almost half a century old was racing for all she was worth toward home.
Most of those in the fast lane gave the right of way to Annette. It was a good thing. Her brakes had always been iffy, and
no one would mistake her handling for that of a sports car.

“Why this hurry?” asked Hiroshi, clearly alarmed. His inquiry was voiced just before they took the Ardath exit going eighty
miles an hour. Between them and a long drop to some intersecting freeways below was a guardrail, one they came perilously
close to slamming into.

Am answered the question after getting Annette more centered on the asphalt. “Marisa is talking with Lady Death,” he said.

The Fat Innkeeper had no idea what Am was talking about, looked at him as if he had lost his mind. “My reporter friend is
interviewing Angela Holliday,” Am said. “The murderer. At least I think so.”

“Ah,” said Hiroshi. He didn’t relax, but at least seemed to understand.

Lady Death had told Am that she had filled out one of Kingsbury’s questionnaires, had even described how they had gotten together
for drinks before the conference so that they could talk. Her questionnaire hadn’t been among those in Kingsbury’s room. For
some reason, she must have retrieved it. For likely the same reason, she had also murdered Dr. Kingsbury. The doctor had even
made a reference to his meeting with Angela Holliday. He had told Skylar he had “a date with deceitful destiny.” What did
that mean? As for the supposed break-in of her room, Lady Death had probably seen Am and Marisa drinking in the Lobby Lounge
and been curious.

Marisa, he thought, more alarmed than ever.

Annette was losing power on the ascent up Ardath. “Come on,” said Am, “come on.”

She pushed up and over the rise. Glistening far below was the ocean and La Jolla Strand.

“Hold on,” Am warned Hiroshi.

The descent into La Jolla is often backed up with traffic. As Ardath merges with Torrey Pines Road, there is the inevitable
gridlock. Neither Am nor Annette were going to be denied on this day, though. They didn’t slow up, found open spots where
none seemed to exist. Am knew the illegal shortcuts and used them, sailed through a gas station’s parking lot and then through
an alley behind a restaurant. Hiroshi’s eyes were closed. He was holding the dashboard very tightly.

Am was afraid of more than crashing. What if Marisa had mentioned to Lady Death that he was searching for their B-positive
murderer? It seemed unlikely. Marisa hadn’t been looking forward to the interview, had probably kept the casual conversation
to a minimum. He doubted it was the kind of thing she would volunteer anyway, but he was still afraid for her. It was a hell
of a time, Am thought, to learn just how much he cared.

He sailed through a red light, then, to the loud blaring of horns, turned west toward the ocean. It wouldn’t do to park in
front of the Hotel, not when every moment might count. The fastest way to the Crown Jewel Suite called for an unusual route.

On the south side of the Hotel is a boat-launching area that’s open to the public, where four-wheel-drive vehicles pull their
boats out to the water. It’s the only place on the La Jolla Strand where it is legal to drive onto the sand, and even at that,
the course is very regulated. Am had another path in mind.

His turn into the boat launch thruway was too wide and too fast. In desperation, Am slammed on the brakes. Annette fishtailed,
spinning out to a gravel pathway. The woody’s gymnastics spared her a collision into a boat trailer by inches. Hiroshi tried
to say something to Am, but he wasn’t listening. His only focus was on swinging Annette’s wheel around and pressing forward
again. The Fat Innkeeper had apparently had enough. He opened the door and jumped out.

Squeezing by the boat trailer and truck, Annette shot ahead toward the sand. The ride rapidly got bumpy. The beach was covered
with seaweed. Too late, Am realized the reason. The tide was high. Very high.

He steered Annette toward the seawall, but not in time. A wave crashed into Annette’s side. Her beloved ocean pushed into
her. For a moment, Am let up on the gas pedal, and that was a mistake. The water pooled around the wheels, and Annette sank
into the La Jolla Strand equivalent of quicksand. Am pushed hard on the gas, but her tires only dug deeper holes.

Am jumped out of Annette, gave her one last forlorn look. She reminded him of something. Then he remembered. She looked like
another beached whale.

The interview had gone far better than Marisa had expected. Angela Holliday had opened up to her, had given her more than
sound bites. She hadn’t pulled out her damn hourglass, and hadn’t acted as if Marisa were just one in a line to get a few
quotes out of her. They had far exceeded the half-hour time limit, but weren’t close to running out of things to say. Their
talk wasn’t a one-way conversation. Angela asked questions of Marisa, learned about her life outside of her stories (“Sometimes,”
Marisa had said, “I wonder if there is one”), and her goals.

By mutual consent, the two women had decided to watch the sunset together. It was, said Lady Death, her favorite time of the
day.

“Anthropologists say that among tribal people the twilight is a time for quiet,” Angela said. “When the sun is setting, there
is a melancholy that comes over them. The term for it is ‘Hesperian depression.’ It is a time they think about their mortality.”

“You’ve thought about that more than most,” said Marisa.

“Yes.”

The congruence of water and sun, of boiling horizon, was still a few minutes away. “Would you like a drink?” asked Lady Death.
“I’ve recently become enamored of this rather exotic schnapps called Goldschlager…”

“I tried it for the first time last night!” said Marisa. “I’d love one.”

The drinks were served, and a toast was made: “To new horizons,” said Lady Death.

Marisa had never learned to shoot drinks. She sipped hers, and watched the sunset. The two women were contemplating those
thoughts that sunsets bring when the interruption occurred. One moment their attention was on the ethereal, and the next it
was on a woody being wildly driven along the beach. A woody. Marisa got up and looked for a camera crew. Sometimes Hollywood
comes to San Diego’s beaches to do filming. But there were no cameras, just a chariot of the surf-gods mired in the sands.

The driver jumped out of his wood-paneled wagon, and gave it a desperate look. Marisa had expected a teenager, but this was
no youth. Even from seven stories up, the figure looked familiar. When he turned around, Marisa knew who the crazy driver
was. “Am,” she shouted, “Am!”

He yelled up to her, screamed, “Don’t,” but she couldn’t be sure of what else he said. He shouted a second time, but she still
couldn’t make out his words. Then he yelled, “I’m coming up,” vaulted up the beach stairs, and passed from her sight.

“Did you hear what he was yelling?” asked Marisa.

“He said he was coming up.”

“No,” said Marisa. “Before that.”

“I think he yelled, ‘Don’t drink.’ “

“Don’t drink?” Marisa was puzzled at the words.

“I guess I won’t offer you a refill then,” said Lady Death.

Marisa’s glass was empty.

“I wonder what he meant by that,” said Marisa. She was still looking down at the beach. The waves were crashing into the abandoned
woody. “Poor car,” she said.

Lady Death cleared the glasses.

The fastest way to the Crown Jewel Suite was a service elevator on the south side of the Hotel. Am desperately pushed 7, then,
breathing heavily, tried to think about what to do next. The only thing on his mind had been to get to Marisa. It was still
difficult to think beyond that. He had been the dog chasing the bus. Now he was about to catch it.

The elevator doors opened. Am ran across a walkway to the Crown Jewel Suite and remembered too late that he didn’t even have
a pass key on him. He knocked on the door, decided if it wasn’t opened within three seconds he would grab an entry key from
one of the maids. That, or break it down.

The door opened almost immediately. “Am,” said Marisa.

She looked bewildered, but he didn’t care. Am reached out and hugged her, which might have confused her even more, but not
so much that she didn’t return the hug.

“Aren’t you supposed to save the embracing until after you’re out of danger?” asked Lady Death.

It was a good question, especially as she was pointing a gun at them. She motioned the two of them away from the door, directed
them with the gun to sit down on the sofa, then closed the door behind her.

“What’s going on here?” asked Marisa. Her question was more rhetorical than not. Guns have a way of saying a lot.

“Your boyfriend went mad,” Angela said. “Probably a hundred people saw that. He drove his car on the beach and started shouting
like a crazy man. Then you opened the door and he pushed his way into this room. The rest, I’m afraid, is going to be an awful
blur. And an awful mess.”

“Too many people know about B positive,” said Am.

“That’s not what Marisa said.”

Am turned to her, in a quick look confirmed his fears.

“You know what the worst thing is?” said Lady Death. “I don’t even know my blood type. I threw away my medical questionnaire
without even taking notice of it. I think it’s rather rare, Mother said something about it once, but I’m not even sure. Can
you believe that? A half hour ago Marisa told me about your theory. She swore me to secrecy, of course. Since that time I’ve
been going crazy trying to remember what my blood type is. And wondering what I’d have to do, if necessary, to keep it a secret.”