What was there about Alison? What inconsistency was stirring, invisible in the back of my mind? She ever threatened to become a dilemma in the case, and yet it was she who had gotten me this far.
And though I'd pursued the investigation in the only direction I'd seen open to me, would it actually lead to Joan Clark? Collecting the remainder of my fifty thousand dollars depended on that alone. Again I experienced that foreboding, that gradually heightening perception of a drawing nearer, an inexorable movement toward the vortex.
What if Alison was right about the possibility of Bender's having changed flights? It wasn't likely, but unlikely things happened all the time, and to me. Where would I be if he had changed flights, slipped away?
I knew where. I downed the rest of the drink I'd intended to nurse.
At twelve thirty-five I watched Frank Bender pass through security, wondering if he still had the gold letter-opener or if he'd disposed of it in St. Louis.
Weighted down as he was with his luggage, it was simple to follow him through the crowded terminal. But he did what I'd hoped he wouldn't and headed toward the taxi area.
Things got less simple then. I had to run to where my car was parked, and the damned thing refused to start. On the fourth try, when the starter was growling like a record played at slow speed, the engine turned over and I gunned it in frustration before jamming the shift lever into drive. Luck was the big reason I was able to get behind Bender's cab as it turned onto the expressway and headed for the city.
Inside the city limits the cab turned right onto Fifty, drove awhile, then made a left and began to wind through side streets. I followed well back in the light midday traffic. The cab had a mud-splotched liquor advertisement on its trunk and a limber whip antenna, and that made keeping track of it easy.
We passed through an old and doomed area of the city, then on into a marginal neighborhood of small shops and brick apartment buildings, and suddenly things began to look familiar.
The cab veered to the curb and parked beneath a block-lettered sign: EXECUTIVE TOWERS. I looked at the recently face-lifted apartment building as I drove past. Jerry Congram's former home.
Parked down the street, I watched in my rearview mirror as Frank Bender got out of the cab with his luggage and entered the building. The taxi's battered grill moved to the left in my mirror, and I turned off my engine as the cab shot past me with its backseat unoccupied.
I kept an eye on the building entrance in my mirror for about ten minutes, then I got out of the car and walked back along the sidewalk.
There was no Frank Bender on the Executive Towers' mailboxes, no Emmett Marshal. Bender must have been living here under a third name. I considered asking the manager about him, but that might only serve to tip Bender. One thing I could be fairly sure of was that, after leaving owing three months' rent, Jerry Con-gram hadn't moved back into the Executive Towers. I crossed the red and white tile floor, left the lobby and walked back to my car.
I passed the time by sitting in the rental car and then in a booth in a little doughnut shop across the street, waiting for Bender to emerge from the apartment building. This was the endless, monotonous part of my job. The disc jockeys on the car radio began telling the same jokes, playing the same music; the coffee tasted like the cup before, only worse, leaving a bitter aftertaste and frayed nerves; and the pavement I occasionally walked along to loosen my leg muscles became a treadmill.
The sun was setting, angling long dark shadows and softening the sharp vertical edges of the buildings. Supper was two glazed doughnuts washed down with more black coffee.
When the sky was almost completely dark and I was sitting behind the wheel of the rented Chevy, enjoying the breeze between the rolled-down windows, Bender walked out of the Executive Towers. He was wearing a dark business suit and carrying his attache case and a precautionary light raincoat.
I sat up straight, started the engine and let it idle. Bender walked to a small green sports car, a convertible with its canvas top up. He unlocked the car, tossed the attache case and folded coat inside, then lowered himself into the front seat. The sports car jumped forward and edged into the sparse traffic, and with a gentle touch on the accelerator I followed the low red tail-lights.
We took side streets for a while, then got onto Fifty but soon made a left onto a wide street with a grassy median. Traffic began to thin out as we drove for almost half an hour, then the median disappeared. Soon we were in a suburbia of middle-class tract houses and strip shopping centers. The sports car led me left on another narrow road, and the subdivision houses were fewer and farther apart.
Brake lights flared red ahead of me, and I slowed and watched Bender make a right turn. When I reached where he'd turned, I saw an unmarked dark road leading up a rise. I got a glimpse of twin taillights as the sports car took the rise toward some distant yellow lights, then I drove past the unmarked intersection to a spot where the road shoulder was wide and I could turn around.
When I reached the steep side road I sat for a while. My stomach was quivering, not helped by all the bitter coffee I'd drunk, and my heart was hammering out a warning. But I'd come this far. And, dammit, it was a public road. I jerked the wheel to the left and accelerated.
The narrow road was blacktopped but in need of repair. Deep chuckholes rocked the car every five or ten seconds as I drove steadily uphill. I passed a small, faded wooden billboard that told me I was driving toward Devon Acres, a subdivision of "affordable luxury."
The road flattened out, flanked by woods. I rounded a curve, and scattered over a wide stretch of flat land was Devon Acres.
Most of the lots were empty, though there were a few houses under construction. The houses that were fully built and spaced widely over the area were all lighted. Judging by the faded sign I'd seen, Devon Acres was one of those big subdivisions that had started strong but fallen into financial difficulty. I spotted the low-slung taillights of Bender's car far ahead of me, saw them merge as the car slowed and turned. Then I watched the play of his headlights flash behind large trees as he went up what appeared to be a driveway to the most isolated of the long ranch houses.
I drove past without slowing, quickly studying the house. Lights were burning in the west side, and it was built as at the base of a wooded hill. There were several other cars parked about the house and in the long driveway.
If I could park in an unnoticeable spot, I could cut around to the back of the house through the trees. There wasn't more than a dozen or so houses occupied in Devon Acres, so the risk of being spotted by a neighbor was small. It was a workable plan, I knew. The question was, did I have the guts. The answer was no, but I had the need.
The street curved slightly, and I parked the car in the drive of a partially built house, where it was invisible from the house Bender had entered. I got out without slamming the car door and walked quickly into the darkness at the side of the skeletal-roofed house.
For a while I stood bent over with my hands on my knees. Fear was making me sick. In a few minutes the sickness passed, but not the fear, and I entered the woods.
I didn't understand how anyone could move silently through the woods at night. Every step I took seemed to bring an explosion of crashing brush and splintering twigs. I told myself that the noise seemed louder than it was, that I was right on top of it. But I wasn't very convincing.
Suddenly the square light of a window appeared through the trees, no more than fifteen feet from me. I had been dropping downhill without realizing it as I moved toward the house. My right hand shot out to brace myself against a tree, then scraped rough bark soundlessly as I lowered myself to a squatting position. This was closer than I'd intended to get, but here I was.