“I think maybe I handled that guy wrong,” said Dunc.
“Yeah. He’s takin’ all his screwdrivers back to Chicago.”
“That toddling town,” said Dunc, which was enough to break them up all over again.
Just over a minute later, Nat said, “We’re in.”
Dunc’s pencil flash showed the post with the red alarm box mounted on it. He keyed it, turning the red light to green.
Fluorescents flickered and then glared whitely. “Lights on, we look legit,” said Nat. “A flash bouncing around the walls will bring the cops knocking at our door.”
“Christ,” said Dunc.
The camera was a great black box mounted on a floor-to-ceiling steel pipe framework with a massive bellow lens pointed straight down at a four-foot-square metal-framed sheet of opaque glass.
“Wish that guy hadn’t run,” said Ned. “How much of this shit we supposed to steal?”
“Everything we can unfasten.”
“We can wheel the stuff right onto the truck with a hand dolly,” said Nat.
They found screwdrivers, started in. Nothing seemed delicate or too intricate to understand. Who needed an expert? When they had the four-foot sheet of framed glass loosed from the brackets that held it, Nat opened the loading dock door and they hand-carried it into the truck because of its fragility.
Nat wheeled and padded and roped while Dunc dismantled the camera and its metal pipe framework. They put the camera on its back in the truck with its lens pointing straight up at the roof.
“It’ll be safe unless somebody dive-bombs us,” said Nat.
The whole operation took just under an hour and a half. Dunc reset the alarms and they left.
The client’s warehouse was tucked up against the almost perpendicular base of the hill on the Chestnut Street stub just off Montgomery on the far side of Telegraph Hill. In just over another hour they had unloaded the camera and its accessories.
“I’ll pop for breakfast,” said Nat with a stifled yawn. “The Greek around the corner from the office’ll be open.”
“And I’ll leave Drinker a note after we eat.”
In Chicago, that broad-shouldered town, a disheveled technical expert walked into his supervisor’s office smelling of pretzels, beer, and stale bar smoke.
“Don’t ever send me to San Francisco again,” he said in his prim, angry voice. “It’s just a nest of thieves out there.”
Chapter Thirty-five
At 7:55 Dunc clumped up the interior stairs to the office. Drinker was waiting for him. “Good — I got a hot skip-trace and I gotta be out of the office and Sherry’s off sick. You got contacts in Vegas, don’t you?”
Dunc didn’t even remember telling Drinker of his weeks there. He still had a hard time thinking about Vegas, about Ned, about Artis. “Not really. I was friendly with a bartender and a blackjack dealer at the Gladiator Club, that’s about it.”
“Broad you’re gonna be looking for disappeared from the Fabulous Flamingo — isn’t that what they call it?”
“Have a heart, Drinker. I’ve been up all night, I just came in to type my field report before going home to bed.”
Cope’s sleepy eyes gleamed. “You got the camera? Good. Make your report meaty. The client’s good for a lot of dough.”
“I’ll make it meaty, all right. Your expert from Chicago crapped out on me. Don’t pay the bastard his fee.”
“You’re learning, kid.” Drinker pointed at the unlisted phone on Sherry’s desk that was always answered with Hello, never with Cope Investigations. “Use the skip-tracing phone. Read my notes on the file before you start in.”
As he went down the stairs in his topcoat, fitting his fedora on his head, Dunc leaned over the railing.
“Who’s the client on this?”
Drinker paused. “Don’t worry about long-distance phone charges, the client’s good for it.” Then he was gone.
Another of Drinker’s unnamed-client cases. Dunc opened the file. Kata A. Koltai. What kind of name was that? Something central European? Age twenty-five, listed address on Glover — a one-block street on Russian Hill above the Broadway Tunnel. No listed employment, no listed references. A sister in Portland, Oregon, with a different last name. Pride. Polly Pride.
Koltai had driven to Las Vegas a month ago in a new 1953 Mercury Monterey station wagon, then had disappeared. Drinker had called the SFPD for wants or warrants. None. He had also called around the western states to sheriffs and highway patrol offices. She had been arrested in Arizona two years before for running a “mitt camp” at a county fair midway. Mitt camp; palm reading, right? Anyway, she’d gotten off with a fine.
The motor vehicle departments of Georgia and Mississippi, where cars could sometimes be licensed with just a driver affidavit of ownership, had no record for her. Louisiana DMV, where fraudulently registered cars could often get a clear title that bypassed the original lien-holders, also had no record.
Was the car in her name in California? Did she hold the pink slip? Maybe Drinker knew there wasn’t any lien-holder who might have further leads to her, but Dunc didn’t. He had to find out. The Searching Registration Service in Sacramento would check DMV records for two bits and mail you the result. For a buck they’d do it in an hour. Dunc asked for the hurry-up service.
While waiting for their callback, he tried the TUxedo exchange number. No answer. The Polk cross-directory gave him phone numbers for the other five apartments in her building. Only a Marta Gold was at home, six drinks and a deck of Luckies into her day.
“Kata Koltai?” Sudden wariness. “Who wants to know?”
“California Savings on Geary Street. She’s three months delinquent on her Mercury Monterey and—”
“She ain’t had it three months.”
Oops. He tried to sound confused. “That doesn’t square with our records...” He took a flier. “Is her rent current?”
“Course it is. Ain’t her who...” Dunc waited through a coughing fit and a heavy-duty throat-clearing. “You got too damn many questions, buster.”
Dial tone. So. Somebody was paying Kata’s rent. He called Portland information and got the sister’s phone number. Polly Pride. After four rings a woman’s voice answered.
“Kata?” asked Dunc brightly.
“Polly. Haven’t seen Kata in months. Piss off.”
She slammed down the receiver. Hell, a long shot anyway.
SRS called back collect on the regular agency phone. The Mercury was in Kata’s name, she owned it, free and clear.
Owned it, drove it to Vegas, disappeared. Their client had to be the man keeping her. She had run out on him and he wanted her back. Dunc had to bite the bullet and call Vegas. Though Carny Largo was gone, the Gladiator Club’s new owners wouldn’t have dumped Nicky; good bartenders were too hard to come by. Dunc got put through to the lounge.
“Gladiator Club, hottest slots in town.”
“Gimme a Scotch Manhattan, Nicky.”
“Shit, Dunc!” exclaimed Nicky. “Howzit, kid? Ain’t seen you around, figured you left town after Ned and all. Terrible thing. Not that I miss fuckin’ Carny Largo, y’understand, or that little bastard that followed him around.”
“Rafe. Did they ever catch him for—”
“Hell, poetic justice got done for the little fucker. Somebody stuck a knife in him.”
A surprising wave of relief went through Dunc. Rafe had paid for Artis, and Dunc was safe — if he’d ever been in danger.
“Listen, Nicky, who’s running the place now?”
Nicky got his mouth closer to the phone. “Would you believe, the fat guy with the Scotch Manhattan?”