“For Chrissake, Jack Falkoner isn’t in Palo Alto.”
“His wife is.”
Dunc put his finger on the buzzer and kept it there. The brown-shingle bungalow at Melville and Bryant hadn’t changed in the three months since he’d last seen it. Ginny Falkoner finally opened the door to peer out fearfully.
No tight halter and skimpy shorts to show her tempting figure: now a shapeless housedress. No black eye, but a drawn look and pasty skin almost jaundiced in color. And she’d lost weight. Her shoulders were hunched as if she feared a blow.
“Pierce Duncan,” he said. “I was here in Septem—”
“I remember. About your duffel bag. Jack isn’t here. I don’t know where he is. Jack never calls when he’s on the road.”
“They’ve been here, haven’t they?”
In almost a whisper she said, “Yes.” Dunc went in past her, she shut the door immediately. Somehow, they both knew he didn’t mean the cops even though he wasn’t sure who he did mean. “I told them what I just told you.”
“Did they believe you?”
“They left.”
They were standing just inside the door. The polished oak floor gleamed. “Did they tell you he stole a lot of money?”
“Jack? Jack wouldn’t steal.”
Something, maybe even fear, turned over in his gut like a striking bass. “Why didn’t you go through with the divorce?”
Her voice was just a whisper. “He said he’d...”
She stopped. This was the strangest conversation he’d ever had with anyone in his life, yet both of them understood it.
“And you believed him?”
“I... There were... I had two friends...”
“Lovers,” pronounced Dunc. “He told me about them.”
“It wasn’t like that!” she cried. Her momentary animation died. “Friends. Nothing more. I... They’re both... dead.”
Dunc couldn’t keep looking at her. Why had he ever wanted to be a detective? A brace of suitcases stood just inside the living room archway. He finally asked her, “How?”
“Jerry was found dead in an alley in San Mateo during a race meet at Tanforan. The police said it was a mugging.” Her eyes and voice faltered. “The other one, Tommy...”
“If he was in danger, where would Jack run to?”
Clear blue eyes met his. Her voice was suddenly strong. “Jack would never run. Jack is an implacable man.”
He almost didn’t call in. Something was awry about the stolen bearer bonds, but he knew he wouldn’t get any answers out of Drinker Cope. In the end he dropped coins into the same pay phone he’d used to look up Falkoner’s address three months ago.
“What?” said Drinker’s impatient voice.
“He’ll double back on them”
There was a long pause. “Shit, he’d be nuts to do that.”
“You say he’s nuts, his wife says he’s implacable. I say I’ll see you in the morning.”
“Wait a minute, it’s the middle of the goddamn afternoon.”
Dunc had hung up. He deliberately hadn’t said anything about Ginny Falkoner being all packed up to leave.
Drinker would think she was maybe going to join Jack, would want her shadowed. But Dunc knew that she believed she had to flee for her life, either from her husband or from his pursuers, and that she felt there was little to choose between them.
Chapter Thirty-nine
A light blue Ford pulled out behind Jack Falkoner on the traffic circle at Bakersfield. He cursed silently to himself; the tail job was clumsy, but why was the pursuer there at all?
North of Delano he squealed off old U.S. 99 near Earlimart to pull up in front of a little run-down country crossroads sort of store still occasionally surviving in the San Joaquin Valley.
A short man wearing a defeated face and dirty overalls came out chewing an outsize cud of tobacco.
“Fill it up — regular,” said Falkoner. The man unhooked the nozzle. The pump was old-fashioned, an overhead glass cylinder full of yellowish gas that gravity-flowed into the car’s tank. “You got a pay phone here?”
“Our own phone, out back — cost you a dollar to use it.”
Good. His follower couldn’t call anyone. “I can wait.”
How had this guy gotten onto him so quick? Mr. David? He didn’t have the kind of mind to foresee Falkoner’s strategy. Ginny? She knew him that well, but she’d be too scared to tell.
Three noisy barefoot children slammed through the screen door to clamor at the candy counter like puppies worrying a bone. A tall faded woman in a washed-out housedress came from the bowels of the store to scream harsh threats at them.
The blue Ford rounded the corner, braked sharply when the driver saw Falkoner walking around behind the building toward the outdoor rest rooms. The lean-to was flanked by latticeworks into which thick vines had grown. Falkoner slammed the door sharply, then slid out of sight behind the greenery.
Cautious feet scuffed the dust. Foliage rustled. Falkoner could see part of the man’s face through the leaves. Young, big, redheaded, homely, deceptively like a farm kid from Hicksville.
The redhead jerked open the door with a squeal of hinges. Falkoner slammed the knife edge of his hand on the kid’s wrist. The .357 Magnum fell to the dirt. The redhead made the mistake of going down to scrabble for it. Falkoner lifted a knee into his face, scooped up the Magnum, dragged him around behind the lean-to, and killed him with the gun butt. He removed the man’s identification and took the Magnum’s shoulder holster.
The surly man in the dirty overalls was still cleaning bugs from the Mercury’s windshield when the blue Ford, Falkoner behind the wheel, dug out to speed past the gas pumps.
Dunc was lying on the bed thinking about Ginny Falkoner when Ma Booger slid two phone slips under his door. He got up to look at them. Both from Drinker Cope. Call him at the office. Call him at home. Dunc lay back down. Ginny said Jack wouldn’t steal. Ginny said Jack was implacable. Drinker had lied to him.
They weren’t looking for Falkoner because he was a thief, they were looking for him because he was dangerous. Ginny’s bags had been packed. Maybe to escape Jack’s pursuers, but more likely Jack. She believed he had killed her two men friends. Dunc was pretty sure she was right.
So what did he do to stop Jack Falkoner before he maybe killed again? He’d already done it with his phone call saying Falkoner would double back; all that was left was his report. Reports seemed to be as close to writing as he got these days, so he worked hard at them.
But he just didn’t want to run into Drinker when he went into the office to write them.
He stepped over the phone slips and out the door. Half an hour later he paused outside a narrow joint on Bush between Taylor and Jones, the Say When club, from which jazz poured generously into the night. The sandwich board beside the door said BIG JAY McNEELY in big letters. A woman with ash-colored hair and wearing a man’s pea-coat and striped sailor’s jersey tapped her feet to the beat as she studied the placard.
“Is he any good?” Dunc asked her.
“What do your ears think?” she asked him tartly without breaking her rhythm. “Chet Baker got his start here at Say When. He was stationed at the Presidio during the war, and Charlie Parker needed a trumpeter. They’re all good here.”
Dunc edged through the doorway for a look inside. At that moment the long drink of water on the piano stool stood, grabbed a saxophone off its stand, and started blowing it sweet and rich.
“That’s Harry the Hipster, he’s no sax man,” she exclaimed, looking around Dunc’s shoulder.
He had to step back as the Hipster, wearing a rumpled suit and a day’s growth of beard on sallow cheeks, stalked out still blowing wild on his saxophone. The rest of the band kept right on playing. Harry got on board a passing bus without lowering his horn. They watched it pull away from the curb.