At midnight some unease made him pull in at a motel near Glendora, two hours from the city. It was a single row of neat, freshly painted white cottages that had covered carports and doors leading directly inside. The cabin closest to the road had a red neon sign, MOTEL, with vacancy smaller underneath.
After he rang the bell twice, a light went on and an old man in an old-fashioned nightshirt that covered him from neck to midthigh came out rubbing his eyes.
“I have trouble sleeping if I can hear traffic passing,” said Falkoner. “Is your last unit in the line empty?”
Clicking his false teeth together, he leaned past Falkoner as if to make sure there was a last unit. Up close like this he had an old man’s incontinent smell of urine. “Yep.”
“How much?”
“Five bucks.”
“Commercial rates. Three-fifty. It’s after midnight.”
After a long moment, he gave a defeated nod. “Okay.”
Established as a commercial traveler on a budget, Falkoner wrote “Simmons” on the registration card in a slanting backhand script not his own; mixed up the license number in a way that could have been accidental; and took Kata’s suitcase with him before locking the car.
Kata herself he left in the spare-tire welclass="underline" the cold night air would keep her fresh.
Chapter Thirty-eight
In the morning Dunc did two hours with the weights at the downtown YMCA on Golden Gate Avenue, then ran a mile on the oval track on the mezzanine above the basketball court. A half hour under a hot shower couldn’t wash away the slaughterhouse stink, because it was in his mind, not on his skin.
Tonight he would say the seventh of the dozen rosaries given him as pre-penance by the priest in Las Vegas five months ago. It was Tuesday, which meant the Sorrowful Mysteries.
“Let me talk to Danny,” said Falkoner into the service station/garage pay phone. He rubbed his eyes and cursed the gray fingers of smog reaching even out here from Los Angeles.
“Yeah, who’s calling?”
Morning traffic made it difficult to hear. “Falkoner.”
“Falkoner? I’m sorry, Mr. Dannelson is out.”
Falkoner squeezed the receiver with a hand gone suddenly sweaty. There were muttered angry words, a click, and Danny Dannelson’s jovial voice came over the line.
“Hello, Jack? That damn fool didn’t get your name right. We expected you last night, boyo. Where in hell are you?”
Falkoner hung up, thought for a moment, then went around behind the repair garage. With his Swiss Army knife he removed the license plates from a parked car, walked back to the motel with them under his jacket, and changed the Mercury’s plates.
The maid had made up the room. He turned on the radio, used one of the fresh towels to wipe everything he’d touched. Dannelson’s clumsiness had prepared him for the 10:00 A.M. news.
Police were investigating the disappearance and possible murder of a woman who had been telling fortunes at the Caliente Club outside Palm Desert under the name of Madam Pollyanna.
At the Olympus Cafe on Franklin Street between Bush and Sutter, Elias Stavropolous, a short wide swarthy Greek with a brigand’s mustache, put two English muffins into the toaster and brought Dunc a pot of tea without being asked.
The 10:00 A.M. news was saying that two boys playing near the woman’s house had seen a man carrying a blanket-wrapped body to her black station wagon just at dusk. They had told their parents, who had alerted the cops.
Dunc opened the Call-Bulletin and started reading what the Board of Supervisors had to say about Herb Caen’s proposal in the Chronicle to string a wire in the Broadway Tunnel so car radios wouldn’t die on the way through.
The police had found no sign of a struggle, no blood, said the newsman; the woman’s clothes and personal items and car had been gone. But under the paper lining of a kitchen shelf they had found over $700 in small bills.
“Who’s gonna run off on her own an’ leave that kinda money lying around?” demanded Elias as he returned with Dunc’s food.
Dunc nodded indifferently, crunched muffin, slurped tea.
Chester Langly, a parking attendant at the Blue Owl, had given the description of a hitchhiker he’d left off at the mouth of the road where the woman’s house was located.
Damn him, Falkoner thought as he sopped up the last of his egg yolk with his toast. Mr. David had given him the contract on Kata Koltai personally, so now Falkoner — because of Langly — was too compromised to be left alive.
Los Angeles and Las Vegas and San Diego — probably Tucson and El Paso, too. Seattle. Airports, bus and train depots, seaports like San Pedro to prevent him trying it by boat.
Where in Christ’s name wouldn’t they be looking for him?
He grinned to himself. Of course. It was what they should expect of Jack Falkoner. At the motel office he paid cash for three more days and told the indifferent clerk he wouldn’t need maid service. Kata went into the bathtub. Leaving the air conditioner on high might add a day before the smell got noticed.
Sherry was explaining over the phone, in clipped businesslike tones, that she had an application for employment from a Mr. Charles DeWitt and needed his current residence address. She tipped Dunc a wink, wrote things on her pad, hung up.
“Where have you been? Drinker’s having a fit.”
“Gee, Dunc, great job on Flaherty,” he said.
Her eyes widened theatrically. “So he’s our man! Good work, Dunc! I’ll tell Drinker to close and bill—”
“Dunc, goddammit, get in here!”
Drinker had the blinds turned halfway up to keep bands of sunlight from hitting the top of his littered desk. He pointed at the hardback chair. Dunc sat.
“You nailed Flaherty? Great. I got a hot one for you.” He put his elbows on the desk. “Old pal of yours skipped with a quarter million bucks worth of bearer bonds and our client don’t wanna move against his surety bond. So I want you to—”
“I don’t have any old pals that smart,” said Dunc.
“The client’s covering all the usual places himself — buses, trains, planes, airports, seaports. All they’ve come up with is a big fat zero.” He fixed his eyes on Dunc’s face. “I want you to tell ’em where to look.”
“What’s the joke? I don’t know anybody who—”
“Jack Falkoner. Guy you told me you was with at Juárez.”
“Hell, Drinker, I also told you I had a day on the road with him, a night in Juárez, and an hour in Palo Alto when I picked up my stuff.”
Drinker Cope adjusted the blinds again to keep the sun out, said almost vaguely, “Yeah, you did. But at least you know him. I’m grabbing at straws here, kid, but this’s a hell of an important client and you got the instinct.”
Dunc felt a little strange, trying to find someone he’d gotten drunk with and fought beside. But he didn’t owe Jack Falkoner anything; the man had stranded him in El Paso. And it was satisfying that Drinker was starting to think of him as a real private eye, after all.
He went back to his own desk in the rear of the office, put his feet up, and let Jack Falkoner stride through his mind.
Running around on me... I’ll deal with them...
Army surgeons wanted to cut my arm off... Fuck ’em...
In Mexico we can do more than we’re big enough to do...
Suddenly he knew what he had to do. He went into Drinker’s office without knocking. “I’m going down to Palo Alto.”