There was a long pause, then Stark’s heavy voice said, “I won’t know ’til I see the building, but some of those places out there are connected.”
Moyers was silent for a long moment himself. Connected. Two million in eight-year-old hot jewels didn’t seem sufficiently heavy action for wise-guy interest as elaborate as this; but it could be some soldier running his own show, with the organization raking a percentage if he came up with anything. That made sense, and would explain her expertise, her impact. She would be the very best.
“That in itself would mean something,” he said. “Get what you can. If it’s a dead end, spend some money around town to get a line on her. Stay on her until I tell you to stop.”
“Will do.”
“And bill this to Homelife direct, not through me. I don’t want my name on it if anything heavy is going down.”
“Got you,” said Stark cheerfully. “Hell, Dave, the company pays a lot quicker than you, anyway.”
Finally, Moyers called his office, told them to call him on the mobile phone when they had the Hertz location that had rented the car to Louise. Maybe he could pick up Runyan again when he turned the car in. Failing that, a stakeout on the Westward Hotel in hopes that Runyan would show up there before going after the diamonds.
Five minutes before Moyers found out that Louise had rented her car at the Hertz Main Office on Mason Street, Runyan had parked it in one of the return lanes there, had gotten out, and had walked away after dropping the key and paperwork into the slotbox provided for credit-card customers. He had already worked the rental agreement for all its information.
The same Las Vegas address she had left at the hotel. And a Nevada driver’s license.
Las Vegas was a long way from Minneapolis where she supposedly had been working on a newspaper.
He walked aimlessly, unaware of the car tail being conducted by the big bearded man in the mackinaw.
The stewardess leaned across the empty seats to ask Louise if she wanted coffee, tea, bouillon, a drink perhaps?
“Oh. Nothing, thank you.”
She nodded her warm empty smile and went on. Louise, with a window seat not because she cared but only because the plane was not crowded, watched the endless Western landscape unroll far below her.
She felt drained. Had she done the right thing, just leaving like that? Hadn’t she owed Runyan an explanation, right from the beginning? Las Vegas. Getting out with her face still pretty, but owing the man who had gotten her out. Certainly Runyan could have understood that she needed the diamonds, not for herself, but to pay off the debt? Would have been willing to work something out together?
Then she would have been free to take the thing with Runyan wherever it led. Even if it led nowhere in a matter of months, or weeks — even days. Wouldn’t that have been better than this... this self-loathing?
Stop it. Men weren’t that way. There was very little reason to suppose Runyan would have been even the least bit interested in sharing the diamonds he’d given eight years of his life for. He hadn’t wanted her, he’d wanted her body. He would have refused...
Oh hell, he had wanted her. She could smell it on them, the desire, the wanting. She’d become an expert in that. So, better to have ended it here and now. She’d get over him. She’d gotten over men before, as she’d gotten used to being used by men — and to using them in turn.
She found to her amazement that she was crying silently; or rather, that tears were running down her face without her having any conscious awareness of them. She used kleenex from her purse to wipe her eyes, then resolutely studied the view.
Runyan wouldn’t give her up so easily. He’d be looking for her, trying to find her, get her back. Of course he would. There was no way he could do it; but the fiction that he was trying seemed somehow to comfort her.
Runyan got five bucks worth of quarters from the middle-aged change lady in a porn palace a block from Hertz and started working the phone. No listing for Graham, Louise, in Las Vegas. None in Minneapolis, either. Of course she might have a listing in some outlying bedroom community, but he was just hitting the high points here for his own peace of mind.
Okay, one more shot and then admit that she’d just ditched him, pure and simple. He dialed Rochester information and asked for a listing for Osco Drugs.
“Downtown store or Apache Mall, Sir?”
“Uh... downtown store. But better give me both.”
She hadn’t lied about that, she had been from Rochester — or at least knew it pretty well. Osco Drugs didn’t sound like a chain. Apache Mall would have to be a shopping center, probably more recent than the downtown store. He manages the Osco Drug Store in Rochester, Minnesota... He dialled the number, fed in quarters.
“Osco Drugs.”
“Mr. Graham, please.”
“Just a moment, sir.”
Graham had a slightly querulous voice with the slight Midwestern twang. This was not the general of Louise’s story, trapped in the labyrinth of his own failing mind.
“Do you have a daughter named Louise?” asked Runyan in a heavy official voice.
“Why, yes, we do.” Very quickly. “Who is this? What’s happened? We haven’t—”
“Lieutenant... um, Costanzo, San Francisco, California, police. A man who was in an accident had her name in his wallet, giving you as her reference. If you could give us—”
“I find this very unusual,” said Graham suspiciously. “In the man’s wallet, you say?”
“That’s all we know, Mr. Graham. We were hoping you could help us identify—”
“Our letters to Louise have all come back for at least a year from some place in Las Vegas, out in Nevada, and the phone was disconnected a year ago, we had the sheriff’s office out there check. A different woman lived there, she’d never heard of Louise.” His voice rose, got almost shrill. “What sort of trouble has she gotten herself into now? If she thinks we’re going to pick up the pieces for her again she...”
Runyan hung up. Not hard to see why Louise had left home. But it did nothing for him; he’d hit a stone wall with her.
He found a bar, had a drink. Stared at himself in the mirror. Fighting the mirror, old-time bartenders used to call it. Time to quit thinking with his cock. Louise was lost to him, gone forever. And he was still in the vise. Moyers. The unknown on the phone — that man wasn’t going to give up.
Runyan was going to have to fit himself back into that skin he had sloughed, have to become that earlier, harder man he had been before Q. The man he had come out of prison swearing to himself he would never become again. In the process, he was going to diminish inescapably the man he had sought to become — but he might just stay alive.
He finished his drink and went out to catch a bus. Time to get a handle on Jamie Cardwell, so he could find out what was coming down on him.
Chapter 11
The bearded man who called himself Leo Cronin started the car and popped another dexie when Runyan came out of the bar. Had to stay awake and alert until Runyan got somewhere isolated enough to do it. His hand strayed to the cheap plastic suitcase on the seat beside him. Do it, get the diamonds off the body, get away unseen.
Shirt pocket, maybe — Runyan would know that pants pockets could be picked too easily. Or maybe a money belt-which would mean a few extra seconds to get the damn thing off the body, so the set-up had to be right.
He watched Runyan get on the bus.
Two million dollars.
Even fencing the stones in Vegas for only a percentage of their retail worth would get him out of trouble and set him up in style, really set him up. Him and Louise. She wouldn’t leave if he had the diamonds.