Undercurrent (The Nameless Detective) (11 page)

I came around a sharp bend, and ahead on my right—a hundred yards or so off the road—was one of these modern architectural wonders built in tiers at the edge of the canyon and a short distance down the sloping wall. The upper level of the house had a rear balcony that protruded above the second tier and its wider balcony, which in turn looked down on a deep, squarish brick terrace leaning out over the ravine on heavy steel girders. The construction materials were predominately redwood and brick, with a lot of glass that caught the rays of late-afternoon sunlight and transformed them into burning, flame-tinged reflections, like demon eyes radiating images of an Old Testament hell.

I could see most of the terrace from the road, and it looked to be occupied by at least one person. It was the kind of day for sitting on your terrace, if you happened to have one. I drove a little further along and came to an unpaved connecting drive; at the head of it was an unobtrusive metal-on-wood sign that said:
Keith Tarrant—Realtor.
I turned in. The drive itself was shaded with thick-branched walnut trees, and a Japanese gardener had worked up a kind of bonsai garden with dwarf cypress in the fronting yard.

A large two-car port, attached to the side of the house, contained a cream-colored Chrysler Imperial and a sleek powder-blue Lotus; as I neared there, I saw that a winding series of steps had been cut out of the upper canyon wall, beyond the port, and that they led down toward the terrace. I parked to one side, in front of a second unobtrusive sign reiterating the fact that Keith Tarrant was a realtor, and walked over to the cut-out steps and looked down and around at the terrace. A man was standing at the front railing—a plump, light-haired guy with something that looked like a highball glass in his hand.

I went down the steps to where a narrow cut-out path, railed in redwood like the balconies and the terrace, led over to the second-tier platform. "Hello!" I called out to him. "Is it all right if I come down?"

He turned to look up at me, and then came away from the railing and took several steps across the brick flooring. He was smiling loosely. "Business or pleasure?" he asked, and his voice had a mild whiskey edge to it. It was that kind of day, too.

"Business, Mr. Tarrant," I told him, "but nothing to do with real estate, I'm afraid."

"Well, come ahead anyway."

I made my way down to the terrace and stepped through a kind of gate in the side railing and onto the smooth bricks. Tarrant came up to me, and I saw then that he only gave the impression of being plump, that he was not overweight at all. He had a round, convivial face and pale-brown hair thinning across the crown and a nice, easy, precise way of using his hands. He wore a pair of chino slacks and a dark-brown sports shirt and brown loafers, and there was just enough shine in his eyes to confirm the whiskey lilt in his voice. I thought that he was probably coming up on forty.

He said, "What can I do for you, Mr.—?"

I told him my name, but there was no immediate reaction. I said then, "I'm here about a man named Walter Paige, Mr. Tarrant; he was killed in Cypress Bay last night."

Tarrant blinked at me, and frowned, and then the furrows smoothed on his brow and he said, "Oh, you're the private detective, the one that found Paige at the motel."

"Yes."

"We heard about it on the radio this morning. Are you working with Chief Quartermain on the investigation?"

"Not exactly. This is an unofficial visit, more or less."

"I see. Well—what brings you to me?"

"I understand you knew Paige at one time."

"Unfortunately, yes. How did you discover that?"

"From Russ Dancer."

"Oh? And what led you to him?"

"Paige had one of Dancer's books at the motel," I said. "A paperback, published in 1954, called
The Dead and the Dying
. Do you know it, Mr. Tarrant?"

He shook his head. "I don't have much time to read, and I don't usually go in for the kind of things Russ Dancer writes, anyway. Why would Paige have a copy of one of Russ's old books?"

"That's a question that has no answer just yet"

"Doesn't Dancer have any idea?"

"No, he doesn't."

"That's rather odd about the book," Tarrant said. "I can't imagine Paige being interested in anything of Dancer's; the two of them never got along."

"You mean there was hostility between them?"

"I suppose you could say that."

"What was the cause of it?"

"I don't remember exactly."

"A woman?"

"It might have been."

"Was it an open hostility?"

"How do you mean?"

"Did they have words, something more maybe?"

"Words, I guess. It's pretty hazy in my mind. Why don't you ask Russ about it?"

"I'll do that—or the police will."

Tarrant gave me his loose smile. "How about a drink? I could stand another one."

"I don't think so, thanks."

He shrugged and drained what was left in the highball glass. "I'll fill up again, if you don't mind. Sunday is the only day I get to relax, and I always manage to relax a little better with a few drinks inside me."

"Sure," I said.

He turned and crossed to the overhang of the second-tier balcony and under it and through an open sliding-glass panel, into a lounge or game room. I had a glimpse of a long bleached-mahogany bar and a couple of ivory-leather stools and what appeared to be a felt-topped card table. I walked over to the terrace railing, in front of an arrangement of patio furniture, and put my hands on the redwood planking and looked over and down. It was a long way into the oak-floored canyon below. I had never been much for heights, and I stepped back a little and gazed across the gap at a lupine-and poppy-strewn meadow that stretched from the top of the ravine wall toward the horizon. It did not quite make it; chaparral and pine took over, and leaned up to touch the white- streaked blue of the heavens.

Tarrant came back after a time, with a full glass, and I said, "Nice view you've got," because it was the thing to say—and because it was.

"The finest in the valley, for my money," he agreed. "That's why I saved it for myself."

"Do you operate your realty office from here?" I asked him. "I noticed the signs out front."

"Mostly. I keep a small office and a secretary in Cypress Bay, of course." He had some of his fresh drink. "Was there anything specific you wanted to know about Walt Paige—or just general impressions? I really don't know much about him."

"Well, were you surprised to learn of his return to this area?"

"Surprised and not at all pleased. I never particularly liked him, to be frank. He was arrogant and overbearing, and we were hardly more than civil to one another."

There was something in the way he said it that made me ask, "Was this morning's radio report the first you knew of his return?"

"No. He made a local call to me here, four or five weekends ago."

"For what reason?"

"He wanted to rent a piece of property in Cypress Bay that I happened to be handling."

I frowned. "Real estate or a private home?"

"Neither. A small vacant shop on Balboa, off Grove."

"What sort of shop?"

"It was formerly a newsstand," Tarrant said. "The previous owner had gone out of business the week before, due to a lack of funds and some hard luck with vandals."

"Did you rent the shop to Paige?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"To put it simply, I didn't like the idea of him settling in Cypress Bay; he wasn't the kind of man you like to see in your community. So I refused rental to him."

"How did he react to that?"

"He didn't like it, naturally."

"Was he abusive?"

"Not really. He tried to talk me into reconsidering, but when he realized I wasn't having any, he broke the connection."

"Did you hear from him again?"

"That was the one and only time."

"Is the shop still unrented?"

Tarrant moved his head negatively. "Central store property in Cypress Bay is in heavy demand, and I've never had any problem renting vacancies; that's why I could afford to refuse to do business with Paige. I rented the shop two days later, to a party from Los Angeles."

"Did Paige tell you why he wanted it?"

"He said he had come into a small amount of money, and had always liked Cypress Bay, and was interested in going into business there. He didn't say what sort of business, but I assumed it was another newsstand that he had in mind; the shop is too small for much else."

I tried to make something out of all this, and made nothing at all. I said, "Do you know if he contacted anyone of a mutual acquaintance while he was in Cypress Bay the past five weekends?"

"Such as who?"

"Russ Dancer, Robin Lomax, either of the Winestocks."

"Not to my knowledge, no."

"Paige had been seeing a woman during these weekend visits of his," I said. "It's possible she was one he knew when he lived here previously. Any idea who she might be?"

"He had quite a string of conquests to his credit, from what I gathered," Tarrant said. "I never knew what any of them saw in him. How do you know he was seeing a woman in Cypress Bay?"

"There were indications."

"Indications?"

"Facts that haven't been made public."

"Oh—I see. No, I don't know who she might be. Do the police think she killed him?"

"There's the chance of it."

"And they have no clues to her identity?"

"Not at the moment, anyway."

"Frankly, I hope they never find out," Tarrant said. "If she killed Paige, she did the world something of a favor." He had a little more of his drink. "You were working for Paige's young wife, according to the radio. Divorce evidence?"

"In a way."

"That's ironic, isn't it?"

"I guess you could say that."

"How is she taking his death?"

"Badly."

"She'll get over it. Women are adaptable creatures."

"Yeah," I said. "Look, Mr. Tarrant, do you know a dark, balding man, about forty, wedge-shaped and heavy-featured? He may be a friend of Brad Winestock's."

Tarrant frowned thoughtfully. "No, I don't think so. I haven't seen Winestock in some time—we don't move in the same circles any longer—and I wouldn't know any of his current friends. Why do you ask?"

"Paige met this man shortly before he was killed," I said. "The police would like to know who he is and why he had his meeting with Paige."

"I see."

I said, "Well, I won't bother you any longer, Mr. Tarrant. I appreciate your talking to me."

"Glad to do it," he said. He got a wallet from the rear pocket of his chinos. "Let me give you a couple of my business cards, in the event you or your friends are ever in the market for real estate in this area."

I wanted to tell him it was not likely that I or any present or future friends of mine would ever be in the market for property in Cypress Bay and environs, but I said nothing. I let him give me three small white embossed cards and tucked them away in my own wallet. We shook hands, and he raised his glass to me in a congenial parting and turned away to look down into the canyon as I crossed the terrace to the side railing.

When I reached the top of the cut-out steps, I paused to light a cigarette; then I shook the match out and put it under the cellophane wrapping on the Pall Mall package and started over to my car. Just as I got there, the front door of the house opened and an auburn-haired woman wearing a yellow sundress came outside. She stood for a moment, looking at me uncertainly, and then she came forward and around the car to where I was standing.

She was a few years younger than Tarrant, tall and golden and little—not beautiful, but possessed of a certain intangible beauty nonetheless. A dusting of tiny sepia-colored freckles adorned the bridge of her nose, and she had a wide, mobile mouth and eyes that were very pale except for a violet-blue rim about the irises. The auburn hair was cut semi-long; she wore it waved, with long bangs to partially conceal a high forehead. Her body was strong and nice, and the yellow sundress, low at the bodice and high at the hem, let you see a good deal of it.

She said, "I'm Bianca Tarrant, Keith's wife," and smiled in a vague way. Her eyes had the same kind of shine that Tarrant's had had, and you could tell that he had not been drinking alone on this afternoon.

"How are you, Mrs. Tarrant?"

"I was down in the lounge," she said, "and I heard part of what you and my husband were talking about—enough to know who you are and why you're here."

I had nothing to say to that, so I smiled at her and waited politely.

She said, "Have you any idea who killed Walter Paige?"

"Not at the moment. The police are working on several possibilities."

"He was a good man," she said softly. "He didn't deserve to die the way he did."

"Did you know him well, Mrs. Tarrant?"

"We were good friends six years ago."

"Had you seen him since he returned to Cypress Bay?"

"No. No, I hadn't seen him. I didn't know he'd come back."

"And if you had?" I asked gently.

"What?"

"Would you have liked to see him again?"

"Yes," she answered, "yes, I would have liked to see him again." The pale eyes seemed depthless now. "I hope you find his killer. I hope you make him pay dearly for his crime."

She turned before I could say anything else, and walked quickly and somewhat unsteadily back to the house. The door clicked shut after her. I stood there by the car, looking at the closed door and listening to the soft voice of a late-afternoon breeze calling across the rim of the canyon—and thinking again about those deep and black and far-reaching undercurrents.

Eleven

I wedged my car into a parking space on Balboa Street and went over to look at the newsstand Walter Paige had attempted to rent.

It was still unoccupied and there was not much to see. It had a narrow adobe front with a padlock on the door, and an oblong facing window that was partially obscured by soaping and imprinted with the words
Martin’s News
Agency
; there was a sidewalk awning, but it had been rolled back above the door and window. The shop's immediate neighbor to the north was a combination candy store and soda fountain; to the south, a dark and cobblestoned little alley led eastward through the center of the block to Pine Street, and its opposite wall belonged to a curio shop. I was able to look inside the newsstand past the soaped glass, but there was nothing except shadowed emptiness. Apparently the new tenant had not as yet taken possession; or if he had, intended to renovate before moving in fresh stock and opening for business.