The motel was small and not very prosperous-looking, a series of duplex cabins. Bender must already have registered. The tan car made a sharp turn and parked in front of the end cabin. I watched as Bender got out of the car, carrying his attache case, and let himself into the cabin through the door nearest me.
I sat in the car, parked on the gravel road shoulder off Lindbergh, and looked at the cabin's closed door. With a shattering roar, a jet passed almost directly overhead, so low it seemed the treetops flinched. The King Saint Louis was one of a string of motels directly west of the airport. I eased the Chevy forward, turned into the parking lot and, with a soft squeal of brakes, stopped in front of the tiny office.
I asked for one of the cabins nearest the highway. There were plenty of vacancies, as the sparse-haired elderly woman behind the desk informed me, and she was more than glad to comply. I registered under my own name and paid in advance.
The cabins were strung unevenly along a line diagonal to the highway. From my front window I could see Bender's parked car and the front of his cabin. All of the cabins were in minor disrepair, faded redwood with patchwork shingled roofs. I could see tall weeds beyond the back corners of most of them, and outside the window of the back door of my own.
The telephone had a long cord, just long enough to reach the table by the front window. I set the phone down, moved a lamp aside and pulled a wicker-backed chair next to the table. Never letting the front of Bender's cabin out of my sight for more than a few seconds, I dialed the number of Heath Industries and asked for Tad Osborne.
There was something in the voice of the girl who answered the phone as she asked me again whom I was calling, then requested me to hold the line-a high edge of excitement. The next voice I heard was a man's, but not Osborne's.
"Who's calling, please?"
I started to speak, but an uneasiness, a subtle tingling of suspicion, bored into my mind.
"Hello, who's-"
I replaced the receiver.
For a long while I sat still, staring out through the dusty, slanted Venetian blinds at the quiet, sun-brightened face of Bender's cabin. Maybe the girl on the phone at Heath had some personal reason to be excited. Maybe she'd given me the wrong extension and the man's voice was simply that of another Heath employee. Maybe nothing was wrong. Maybe it was.
I phoned Heath Industries again, got the same girl, then the same laconic male voice asking me to identify myself. Not office procedure-police procedure.
I punched the button in the telephone's cradle, dialed the Ramada Inn and asked for Alison's room.
No answer.
I hung up the phone and sat staring out the window. Another jet roared overhead, sending vibrations through the flimsy cabin. I had no way of knowing what, if anything, had gone wrong at Heath, or where Alison was, or if Bender had somehow been tipped to my presence. Doggedly I told myself things might actually be going smoothly-nothing wrong at Heath, and Alison hadn't had time to return to the Ramada, where she was supposed to wait for my phone call. But the fear lay like a slab of lead in my stomach, and my chest seemed to be constricting my heart.
I was plagued by the feeling that events had passed from my control, that the tiger I'd had by the tail had finally turned around. But there was nothing I could do about it now; I could only go on with what I'd planned. I'd try the Ramada again in a while, talk to Alison and get some of the answers.
Noon arrived, passed, and Alison still hadn't returned to her motel room. And Bender's cabin-half in shadow now, peaceful, drapes closed-might have been vacant but for the fact that I knew he was inside. The tan sedan was parked, unmoved and baking in the sun, where Bender had left it.
My back began to ache, and I got up now and then to pace, occasionally sitting down to make another unsuccessful phone call to the Ramada. The intermittent overhead roar of jet engines was beginning to wear on me.
Then, at two o'clock, the door to Bender's cabin opened and he came out.
He'd changed clothes. Now he was wearing gray slacks and a pale-yellow sport shirt. Maybe he'd been asleep; he looked fresh. I stood at the window, leaning over the table and watching him.
I cursed silently as Bender walked past his parked car. At first I thought he was going to the motel office, but instead he turned left and stood on the shoulder of the highway, leaning forward, waiting to cross.
When there was a break in the traffic, he trotted across the highway, and I watched him walk south on the other side. I realized then where he was going. The King Saint Louis didn't have a restaurant, and Bender was headed for the restaurant of the motel across the street for a late lunch.
I had to move to the side, hold back the drapes and peer at an angle through the window now to follow his progress. He passed out of my sight momentarily, but I picked him up again as he entered the motel restaurant. I relaxed my grip on the drapes and stepped back. My stomach said no to what I had to do next.
Walking to the back door of my cabin, I examined the lock. Simple, the sort that can be slipped with a piece of celluloid or a plastic credit card. But there was also a chain lock. I could only hope that the back door of Bender's cabin didn't have one; or, if it did, that it wasn't fastened. Parting the stained sheer curtains over the window in my door, I took a quick look out back, saw only tall weeds and a small gray trash container, and stepped outside.
Slipping the lock on the rear of Bender's cabin was no problem, but the door did have a chain lock and it was fastened. I saw what I'd have to do. If I punched out the door's small windowpane nearest the lock and cleaned up the broken glass, Bender would never know it unless he happened to look behind the door's curtains. My heart was pumping with labored wild-ness and my body was bent by the tightness in my stomach. I wondered how professional burglars ever got up the nerve to operate. With a fast, guilty look around, I rammed my elbow into the window, and the glass broke in four pieces but didn't fall from the frame. No damage to my elbow, and I was grateful there hadn't been much noise.
I removed the largest piece of glass, reached in and, with fumbling fingers, unfastened the chain. Then I added breaking and entering to withholding evidence and went inside.
It was almost as if I'd found shelter; I couldn't be seen now. But the exhilaration and fear had entered with me. I could hear the sounds of my own breathing and rushing of blood, and only my rising anger with myself brought a measure of calm.
The interior of Bender's cabin was exactly like mine. A suitcase stood open on a luggage stand at the foot of the double bed, revealing folded white underwear and shirts. Bender's leather attache case was on the floor, leaning against the side of the dresser. I went to it first, found it unlocked.
The case was empty but for a gold letter-opener and a thin packet of white business cards. The cards were similar to the card I'd found in the pocket of Victor Talbert's jacket, engraved only with GRATUITY INSURANCE.
I closed the attache case and leaned it back the way I'd found it. Then I went to the suitcase and searched carefully beneath the folded clothes. It took me a while, and I found nothing but lint.
After rearranging the suitcase the way it had been, I checked the bathroom. Nothing there but a zippered travel kit containing the usual assortment of shaving cream, razor, spray deodorant and manicure set.
From the bathroom I went quickly to the closet. I'd been inside Bender's cabin for little more than five minutes, and I told myself it would be safer to slow down and do things right than to panic. He probably wouldn't return for at least half an hour.
The "closet contained a suit, a sport coat and two pale-blue shirts on hangers. A search of the pockets netted me nothing but a postage stamp and comb. I straightened the shirts on their hangers, smoothed the lapels of the suit.