The Man of Maybe Half-a-Dozen Faces (18 page)

Oh, and thanks for the juicer.

So, I'd made a few calls, talked to a teenager and a couple of machines. Meanwhile the killer was out there moving in on his fourth victim.

It was just after midnight.

What was I supposed to do? Go to bed? I grabbed my coat and headed for the door.

I locked up and walked down the hall to the elevator. At night, the feeling that I was the only tenant in the building was very strong. I never saw anyone here at night. Once you got outside, you could sometimes see a light here and there up-and-down the building, and sometimes even the silhouette of a person, but not often. The dim elevator opened on the dim lobby. I let myself out onto the sidewalk and into a light drizzle.

Aside from Lulu's Escort, a Dodge van, and a very old Mercury, my jeep was the only vehicle in the lot. I got into it, got the thing started and the windshield wipers moving, and pulled out. Back on Eleventh I hit all the lights just right, and less than ten minutes later I drove past Challenger Video.

No cops here. But they would have been able to get Leo's home number and address. Maybe I should call Marvin up and ask him for it. Ha. No, but maybe Leo had come back here, or maybe in person I could talk someone into telling me where he lived. I swung around the block and came back for another look. The coast seemed clear so I pulled into the parking lot.

The small door in one of the big, boarded-up auto bays was locked. That laid-back approach to security I'd noted last time I was here did not extend into the night. I banged on the door.

Nothing.

I knew there were propeller heads in there. The probability that every one of them had gone home would be very close to zero. I banged on the door again.

Inside someone would look up with a dazed expression and wonder what the banging was all about. Anyone who belonged inside at this time of night would have a key.

They simply weren't going to let me in.

I could do some serious pounding, make them believe they were inside one of those big Japanese drums, pound so hard nerdly knick-knacks would dance off desks, rattle the soda machines, make them think a California earthquake was on a Northwest vacation. Of course then instead of answering the door, they'd probably call the police.

I glanced up and down Eleventh. Even if the car Marvin sent out didn't spot me, and it was likely it would, any cop cruising by might think I looked suspicious banging on the door. I dropped my hands and stood there in the weak cone of light from a single light bulb with the rain running down the back of my neck and considered my options.

Pretty easy actually. I could continue to stand there or I could leave.

I next drove by the address I had for Ramona Simmons. Judging by the house nestled in the trees way up a winding road in the south hills, I'd say that whatever Ramona did, she must do it well. There were no cars in the driveway, but there could have been several in the double garage. I couldn't see any lights inside. The noise of my jeep would be the loudest sound in this quiet wooded neighborhood. If anyone were up, they'd probably peek out to see who was driving by.

I parked up the hill between two houses so anyone looking out of either might think I was visiting the other. I could see most of the front and one side of Ramona's house. She might be in there and she might not. If she was in there, she might be asleep and she might already be dead.

There is nothing so distinctive as the sound of a slamming car door in the dead of night, so I eased the jeep door closed and stood there in the rain considering. I could go ring the doorbell, find out if she was home, but if she answered what would I tell her? No matter how it came down, she'd have to mention my visit when Marvin or Frank or one of their officers interviewed her tomorrow or the next day or whenever she finally surfaced. “Oh, yeah, there was this guy rang the doorbell at some god-awful time of the night.…”

My next thought was to just prowl around and see what I could see from the backyard. No. I was not doing good detective work. I was running off in all directions. I was panicking. I'd gotten myself into a position where I simply didn't know what to do, and I was just doing things so I wouldn't be doing nothing at all.

The rain began to fall in earnest. I figured I'd gotten wet enough. Besides which there could be neighborhood watch binoculars trained on me. Someone might have already called the cops. I could still have a nasty encounter with Frank and Marvin tonight. I dug into my pocket for the jeep keys.

I'd automatically locked the jeep. I tried to put my office key in the lock. I dropped the keys into the wet grass. Down the winding street a pair of headlights appeared.

It was dark, the rain was pouring down, and I'd dropped my keys. I would have less than a minute to find them before the car coming up the hill picked me up like a spotlighted burglar.

I got down on my knees and pawed around in the grass. I'd heard the keys fall; I knew about where they were; they weren't where I thought. I could feel my pants getting soaked at the knees. The rain poured down on my back.

This could be the patrol car Marvin sent out, and if it was, I was just the sort of thing it would be looking for. I scrambled around the side of the jeep just as the car dipped over a hump and its lights swung down on where I'd been.

The car cruised on by. I peeked around at it after it had passed. Not a cop. I sat down and leaned back up against the jeep. Another dumb move since now the seat of my pants was as wet as the knees. I took a couple of deep breaths and then crawled back around to where I'd dropped the keys.

I imagined a grid on the ground, and starting in the upper left, I carefully searched each square until (somewhere beyond the middle but still far from the end) I found the keys.

thirteen

The body wasn't discovered for two days.

I spent the day after the killer called driving the four known local BOD members crazy with phone calls. I had to keep checking to see if they were all still alive. Bernie's mother finally just let her machine deal with me. Ms. Divey told me that Lucas Betty was just fine and that I should quit calling! I was pretty sure the reason he wouldn't talk to me was that he didn't want to pay me for putting him in touch with Dennis. He did have a point in that Dennis hadn't shown up for their meeting.

Leo yelled at me, too, and I left so many messages on Ramona's machine that she complained to the police. Word got back to Frank who spoke to Marvin who called me and warned me that if I didn't cut it out I'd be in big trouble.

Marvin said he understood how I felt. He came by later that afternoon and we went over the killer's call again. I don't think either of us came up with anything new. Since they hadn't found the body yet, I tried to tell myself the call had been a hoax. I didn't believe it. The killer was just jerking us around. The call and then all of this silence was not out of character. This was the guy who sent Gerald Moffitt a “next to last warning” and then killed him anyway. I wondered if Gerald was still expecting his “last warning” when he died.

I didn't follow Frank the day after the killer called, and the day after that he didn't go to the Quack Inn, so I was still no closer to knowing what he was up to.

If Yuri had gotten my message, he hadn't bothered calling back.

But then on Friday, Prudence blew back into my office, and the way she looked and the way she talked, just the whole package of her wacky presence reminded me how I'd gotten hooked on this case in the first place. Today she wore a long brown dress printed with tiny yellow flowers and jingly brass rings on her wrists. There's probably a name for dresses like that. It almost touched the floor, and you could just see her feet in black shoes with pointed toes. There was a big daisy in her straw hat, but I think it was plastic.

She pulled up the client's chair and sat down like we had an appointment.

We just looked at one another for a few moments.

Then she said, “Your mustache is coming loose on the left.”

“It's been that kind of day,” I said. “In fact, the whole week has been like that.” I pushed Sky's mustache back onto my lip, and somehow just knowing it was in its proper place seemed to clear my head a little. “So, what brings you back into my life?”

“There's been another killing,” she said.

“I knew there would be,” I said.

“Your message to Yuri,” she said. “You said you had new information. Is that it?”

Yuri had gotten my message. He'd talked it over with Prudence. Neither had bothered to call or come around until someone else had been killed.

“Yuri agrees we should meet,” she said.

“And you came by to soften me up?”

“We all need to talk.”

“Who did he kill this time?”

“I don't know,” she said. “Name withheld pending notification of next of kin.”

“So how do you know it's one of ours?”

“Stuff they said on TV,” she said.

“You watch TV in the morning?”

“Your question displays an unattractive and unjustified sense of superiority on your part,” she said. “How can you hope to be in touch with your culture if you don't watch TV?”

“I didn't say I don't watch TV,” I said. “But have you ever noticed that with just a few exceptions, the people you watch on TV don't watch TV themselves?”

“We only watch them when they're too busy doing other things,” she said. “Maybe when we're not watching them, they're watching TV. Maybe they're watching us when we're not watching TV.”

I thought about that for a moment, but since it was one of those thoughts that could pull me out of the here and now, I pushed it aside.

“Let's see if we can find out about the murder.” I picked up the phone and dialed the police, asked for Marvin Zivon. When he came on the line, I told him Prudence was in my office and we were wondering about the new murder she'd seen reported on TV.

“Hang on,” he said.

The next voice I heard was Frank Wallace's.

“Brian,” he said, “Don't move. Don't even think about moving. I'll be right over.” He hung up.

“What's wrong?” Prudence asked. I must have looked a little white.

“Lieutenant Wallace,” I said, “Frank. He's coming right over. He didn't mention you. You can still leave before he gets here.”

“Why bother?” she asked.

I got up and searched around until I found all the stuff I needed to make coffee. I could make juice for everyone. No, I was mostly out of produce. I would make coffee. I wondered who was dead.

I walked to the window and looked out. I walked back to the coffeemaker to see how it was doing. I slipped into the washroom and looked at myself in the mirror. When I came out I went back to the window for another look at nothing. It hadn't escaped my notice that Prudence was following me with her eyes like I was playing tennis or doing a gymnastics routine or … dancing. I grabbed the edge of my desk just to stop my movement. I forced myself to sit back down in the chair behind my desk.

We sat there quietly. Mine was a monumental struggle not to fidget. I couldn't help tapping my foot on the floor; I didn't even notice myself doing it until I followed her X-ray eyes through my desk to the floor where my foot was tapping along like crazy. I fisted my toes and stopped it.

I was as tight as a stubborn knot in your shoelaces by the time Frank banged into the office. Marvin followed him in.

Frank was focused like a lion going for a gazelle. He never took his eyes off me as he approached. He marched right past Prudence without looking at her. He put his hands on my desk and got in my face.

“Hello, Frank,” I said. “You remember Prudence Deerfield.”

He glanced to his right and saw Prudence. She smiled at him.

“So the gang's all here.” He pushed up and away from my desk.

“Pull up a chair, Frank,” I said. I got up and walked over to the coffeepot. “Coffee?”

He ignored me. “Have you seen your brother, Ms. Deerfield?”

“Not since Gerald died,” she said. “That's why I hired Mr. Howells.”

“Mr. Howells?”

“Me,” I said. I handed Frank a cup of coffee and he took it! Prudence was distracting him. Encouraged by that, I went back and poured one for Marvin.

“Coffee, Prudence?”

She shook her head no.

“It's going to go hard on him the longer he stays out,” Frank told her.

“Why are you so hot for Pablo?” I asked. “He's probably just hiding out so he doesn't end up dead.”

Frank ignored that. I was tempted to perch on the edge of the desk for a less formal arrangement, but at the last moment I decided I liked the idea of the desk between me and him. I poured myself the last of the mango, banana, and lime juice and took it with me back to my seat behind my desk.

“What is that crap?” Frank asked.

“Juice.”

“Jesus.”

“So what do we know about this last one, Frank?” I asked.

He looked at Prudence, and she looked down at her hands in her lap. He turned my way and gave me a scowl that could have peeled paint from the wall. He didn't say anything for a moment, but then he seemed to switch gears. “We know,” he said, “that Nathan Ivanovich was watching a rented video called
Lucky Pierre
hosted by Joe Bob Briggs when he was killed.”

Prudence groaned.

“A Russian?” I asked.

“French,” Marvin said.

“Ivanovich?”

“Pierre,” Marvin said. “Don't you think?”

“He wasn't Russian,” Prudence said. “Oh, maybe his grandparents were.”

“You knew the victim?” Frank asked.

“Yes,” Prudence said. “Nathan dropped out of sight some years ago. Everyone thought he probably went into some other line of work.

“He wasn't on the BOD list,” I said. “Could he have been one of the anonymous ones?”