“That isn't going to stop me from taking it to the authorities,” I said.
“Do as you like. But I warn you, detective. I'd like nothing better than to instigate a lawsuit against you for harassment and defamation of character.”
“And I warn you, Yankowski, you won't get away with it this time. Not this time.”
He smiled at me mirthlessly around his cigar. “Won't I?” he said, and turned his back-a gesture of contempt and dismissal-and walked a short distance away. Stood there smoking and looking out to sea, with his back still turned.
Frustration was sharp in me; he was right and I knew it, and I hated him, too, in that moment, as much as I have ever hated any man for his corruption. The hatred brought on an irrational impulse to go over and give him a push, one little push that would send him hurtling to his death. Immediately I swung around and went the other way, back through the sand and iceplant to Sunset Trail and along it to the parking lot.
I could never have done it, of course-pushed him off that cliff, killed him in cold blood. It would have made me just like him, it would have turned my soul to slime. No, I could never have done it.
But on the long drive home, thinking about him standing up there so smug and sure, so goddamn safe, I almost wished I had.
TWENTY-TWO
I did not call Sergeant DeKalb that night, although I considered it. What I had to say to him, the full story of Yankowski's guilt, was better dealt with in person. It could wait until the morning.
On Monday, before I drove up to San Rafael to see him, I stopped by the office to find out if there had been any weekend calls. And damned if Eberhardt wasn't already there, even though it was only ten past nine-making coffee and cussing the hot plate because it was taking too long to get hot.
“Surprise,” I said as I shut the door. “The prodigal has returned.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
“You haven't been around the past few days.”
“Yeah, well, I took a long weekend. So what?”
“So nothing. But a lot of things have been happening.”
“So I read in the papers. You can't keep your ass out of homicide cases, can you? One of these days somebody's going to shoot it off for you.”
“Or part of it. Then I can be as half-assed as you.”
“Is that supposed to be funny?”
“No, I guess not.”
“I don't feel very comical today,” he said.
“Neither do I.”
“Then don't try to be funny.” He smacked the hot plate with the heel of his hand. “Frigging thing takes forever to get hot,” he said.
“Any calls on the machine? Or didn't you check it?”
“I checked it. No calls.”
“Figures.” Leaving my coat on, I went over and cocked a hip against my desk. “Where'd you go for the weekend?” I asked him.
“Up to the Delta.”
“Fishing?”
“Yeah.”
“Wanda go with you?”
Pause. Then he said, “No.”
“I kind of figured she didn't.”
“Yeah? Why?”
“She called me up Saturday night.”
“What for?”
“To tell me she hated my guts. Kerry's too.”
“Drunk?”
“Sounded that way. Eb, listen…”
“Shut up,” he said. He put his back to me and went to his desk and sat down. Out came one of his pipes and his tobacco pouch; he began loading up, getting flakes of the smelly black shag he used all over his blotter.
Neither of us said anything for a while; we just sat there, Eberhardt thumbing tobacco into his pipe as if he were crushing ants, me listening to the coffee water start to boil on the hot plate.
He said finally, “What else she say on the phone?”
“She told me to go fuck myself.”
“Yeah,” he said. “Anything else?”
“No. I hung up on her.”
“Nothing about us, then. Her and me.”
“No. What about the two of you?”
“We broke it off,” he said.
“Broke it off? You mean your engagement?”
“The whole thing. It's finished between us. Kaput.”
That threw me a little; it was the kind of surprise that usually comes only on birthdays and Christmas. I said, “When did this happen?”
“Tuesday night. Big goddamn battle. I haven't seen her since and I won't either.”
“What was the battle about?”
“What do you think?” he said. “She kept bad-mouthing you and Kerry. Drinking vodka like it was water and ranting like a crazy woman. Kept saying she was gonna get back at the two of you. Do something drastic, she said. Talk to one of her ex-husbands, get him to throw a scare into Kerry some night-shit like that.”
“She'd better not go through with it.”
“She won't. It was just crazy talk.”
I said diplomatically, “Well, I guess she had a right to be upset.”
“Upset, sure, but not out for blood. Not crazy. No damn right to act that way at all.”
He defended us, I thought, Kerry and me. That's what the big blowup was all about.
“Made me look at her different,” he said, “made me think maybe she wasn't the woman I figured she was. Made me compare her to Kerry, you want to know the truth.” He looked away from me abruptly, out into the airshaft behind his desk. “Ahh,” he said, “the hell with it. She's a bitch, that's all. I always did have a knack for picking bitches.”
“Eb…”
“Look at Dana. First-class bitch.”
Dana was his ex-wife and not nearly as bad as he tried to paint her. Maybe Wanda wasn't either-but I wouldn't have wanted to bet on it.
“Eb, why didn't you tell me this on Wednesday or Thursday?”
“Didn't feel like talking about it,” he said. “I needed to get away for a few days, get her out of my system.”
“And? She out of it now?”
“Not completely. But she will be. All I got to do is keep thinking about what she called me.”
“What did she call you?”
“Never mind.” He lit his pipe and puffed up enough smoke to make the office look and smell like a grass fire.
“Come on, Eb, what did she call you?”
“I said never mind. I don't want to talk about her anymore, all right?”
I let it drop. But a while later, as I was getting ready to leave for San Rafael, Eberhardt said out of the gray of his pipe smoke, “Tits aren't everything, for Christ's sake.”
“What?”
“Tits. They're not everything.”
“Uh, no, they're not.”
“Man is attracted by more than that in a woman. Man looks for somebody he can be comfortable with, somebody he can talk to. You know what I mean?”
“Sure I do.”
“She said I was a piss-poor excuse for a man because all I cared about were her tits. Said I was a baby-a tit wallower. How the hell do you like that?”
“The nerve of the woman,” I said, straightfaced.
I managed to make it out of the door and over to the stairs before I burst out laughing.
Kerry laughed, too, when I told her about it that night. In fact, she thought “tit wallower” was the funniest expression she'd heard in months. She kept repeating it and then sailing off into whoops and snorts.
When she calmed down I said, “So now you're vindicated, lady.”