“What happens if you find him before the law does?”
“Nothing happens. I’m not a vigilante, Tamara.”
“I know it, but do the cops? Does the bald dude?”
“You going to give me an argument?”
“No sir, not me.” In a softer voice she said, “Must’ve been pretty bad last night.”
“Yeah, pretty bad. Can you get to work right away?”
“Nothing on my plate except what’s left of a crappy pizza. I’ll see if I can get hold of Felicia first thing.”
“Call me as soon as you find out anything. If I don’t answer, keep trying until I do.”
I was on Clay now, a couple of blocks from Byers’ building, and I spotted a parking space opposite the Presidio Heights Playground — the first I’d come across in ten minutes of circling. Tight fit, but I got the car maneuvered into it. The fog had all but burned off here; I walked to Locust through pale sunshine and blustery wind, the pick gun in one pocket and my .38 in the other.
Still nobody home. Or at least nobody answering the bell. The vestibule, the sidewalk, the street in front — all empty. I stooped to peer at the locking mechanism on the entrance doors. Flush-mounted cylinder lock, a steel lip on the doorframe to protect the bolt and striking plate. It had been there awhile, seen a lot of use; that was good because pick guns work best in old locks.
I unpocketed the thing, slid the pick into the keyhole, worked the knob to adjust the tension, and squeezed the trigger. It made a small chattering noise, vibrating in my hand, but nothing happened. I fiddled with the knob, tried again. Nothing. Another adjustment, another squeeze. Nothing. I gritted my teeth, got set to try again. And stopped and just stood there.
For Christ’s sake, I thought, what am I doing?
The angle of daylight was such that the door glass acted as a mirror: my cloudy reflection stared back at me. I was sweating and I looked a little wild-eyed and the facial Band-Aids and bruises completed an image to frighten children. Standing here with a burglar tool in my hand like a demented sneak thief, hearing clicks in my head instead of voices.
“You damn fool,” I said under my breath, but that only added to the Halloween image. Not thinking clearly. Not acting like a rational man or a professional detective. Get a grip, goddamn it!
I put the pick gun away in my pocket, cleaned the sweat off my face. All right, use your brain. Think. There are other ways to get into a building, into a locked apartment. Risky, all of them, but a hell of a lot more reasonable than playing stupid Watergate games in broad daylight.
I took a couple of slow breaths, calming down, and then rang the bell for 1-A, L. Timmerman, Bldg Mgr. And this time a male voice said through the intercom, “Yes?”
“Mr. Timmerman?”
“Yes, what is it?”
“Police business.”
There was a murmur that might have been “Oh, shit.” After which he said, “Right away,” and the door buzzer sounded.
Just like that, you horse’s ass, you.
I went in, and a skinny guy about fifty with protuberant front teeth like a beaver’s was coming out of a door labeled 1-A. Before he shut the door I could hear noise from a TV set tuned to a college football game, crowd sounds and the overheated voices of a pair of announcers. When he got a good look at me he blinked and his jaw dropped an inch or so. He said in a surprisingly deep baritone, “What happened to you?”
I told him the truth. “Run-in with a dangerous felon.”
“I hope he got the worst of it.”
“Not yet, but he will.”
“You here about the Byers woman?”
“That’s right.”
“Well, I told that lieutenant, what’s his name, Fumente...”
“Fuentes.”
“Right, Fuentes. I told him and the city cop... uh, officer with him everything I know early this morning. Which isn’t much. Like I said to them, I mind my own business.”
“I’d like a look inside her apartment, Mr. Timmerman. Check on something that might have been overlooked. You mind opening it up for me?”
Ticklish moment. If he asked to see ID, I’d show him my investigator’s license with my thumb over the part that said I was a private not public detective. If he wanted to see the entire license or a badge, I would back off and walk away. Impersonating a police officer is a felony; so far I hadn’t made that claim, at least not directly, and I wouldn’t if push came to shove.
But he’d already taken me at face value. And he was anxious to cooperate; he didn’t want trouble with the law any more than I did. He said, “No, sir, I don’t mind. Just let me get my passkey.”
On the second floor, when he’d finished unlocking the door to Byers’ studio, I said, “You go on about your business, Mr. Timmerman. I’ll let you know when I’m done so you can lock up again.”
“Sure thing. Take your time. I’m not going anywhere today, just watching the Cal game on TV”
The apartment seemed even more disarrayed than it had on Thursday night, but probably not as a result of the police visit. The Chinese partition had been knocked askew, revealing the bed — a double without a headboard — and the fact that the none-too-clean sheets and blankets had been pulled loose and were trailing on the floor, either by a restless sleeper or as the result of vigorous lovemaking. In the wall behind the bed a closet door stood open; most of the hangers in there appeared to be empty. Next to the closet was a cheap maple dresser, all its drawers open, part of a black net brassiere caught on the knob of one.
I moved over there for a closer look. All that remained in the closet were a couple of inexpensive dresses, a blouse that lay crumpled on the floor, and a pair of scuffed sandals. Three of the dresser drawers had been cleaned out; the fourth contained the black bra, some wadded-up pantyhose, and the husks of two long-dead flies.
Packed up and long gone, I thought. In a hurry, from the looks of it.
In the bathroom I opened the medicine cabinet. The usual clutter, but no toothbrush or prescription medicines or other essentials. Nothing essential to me, either. I wasted a couple of minutes checking inside the toilet tank and other possible hiding places, doing it out of thoroughness rather than hope. If there’d been anything to find, Fuentes and the San Francisco cop would have turned it up this morning.
I went out to the kitchenette. The lid to the tape compartment on the answering machine was open; if Byers had replaced the tape I’d confiscated on Thursday, Fuentes had carted the new one away. I poked through drawers and then took them all the way out to see if anything had been taped underneath or behind. Looked inside the cupboards, the small refrigerator, and the even smaller stove. Peered into corners and crannies. Nothing. Under the sink was a garbage bag about a third full. The contents didn’t appear to have been disturbed; the two cops had either overlooked or ignored the bag. I used two fingers on each hand to sift through it.
Coffee grounds, empty cans, a shriveled apple, a sour-smelling half-and-half container, a few wadded-up yellow sheets from the five-by-seven pad by the phone. And another sheet from the pad that had been folded and torn into several little pieces. The wadded ones were meaningless — part of a grocery list, tic-tac-toe games, and the kind of doodles people make when they’re talking on the phone. I fished out as many of the torn scraps as I could find and fitted them together, puzzle fashion, on the breakfast bar until I could read what was written there.
Dingo 4.15 V.V.S.
Meaningless, too, maybe. And maybe not. The 4.15 could be a time... a reminder to meet somebody named Dingo at V.V.S., whatever that was. Or was it some kind of code message? The handwriting was Byers’ — same as the grocery list — and the fact that it had been torn up rather than wadded like the other throwaways made me wonder if she’d done it to make sure somebody — Cohalan? — didn’t happen to see it. I scraped the pieces together, slipped them into my wallet.