She went away laughing, Rosenkrantz leaned forward across the table again. “There’s that little French guy with the funny name, missed the council meeting, nobody’s seen him since.”
“Jacques Daniel Marenne.”
“Yeah. Him. We haven’t talked to his partner yet.”
“And he was missing a couple-three days before Petrock was whacked.”
“So maybe he was whacked, too.”
“So maybe you know why?” No response. He nodded. “Thought so. How do you teach a dog to fetch?”
“Tie a cat to a stick and throw it.”
Then they pointed at one another across the table.
Guildenstern said, “Marenne.”
Rosenkrantz said, “And Nemesis.”
They scattered money on the table and left.
Chapter Twenty-three
Karen Marshall had an apartment in one of the new complexes that face the bay from across the refurbished Embarcadero south of the Bay Bridge. Rents went up a tax bracket with each floor, especially if you had picture windows facing the water.
Marshall opened the door wearing dark glasses and no makeup. Flawless skin, hair pulled back in a ponytail; in a white starched blouse with frills at the cuffs and throat, and black silk tights to show off her superb flanks and thighs.
Her face showed surprise, almost a fleeting consternation, when she saw Kearny in the hall. That answered one question: her interest at II Fornaio had been in Groner, not Kearny.
“How did you get my home address?”
Kearny slipped by her into the room. Gone were his reading specs, his stoop, his briefcase. He looked around like an appraiser for bankruptcy court.
“I asked how you got my address. I didn’t ask you in.”
“At your office. They think I’m an attorney who worked with your father.”
He went over to the picture window, looked out at the wheeling gulls above the bay. A cargo vessel stacked with containers was waddling toward the Port of Oakland like a fat man trying to get comfortable in a bathtub. The double windows shielded them from the gulls’ cries. He turned back to her.
“Why so hostile, Ms. Marshall? I understand you wanted Stan to find out where Eddie Graff had moved to.”
“I asked Mr. Groner, not you.”
“Stan asked me.” He walked around, touching objets d’art on polished surfaces. He had no idea if they were originals or museum replicas. “I’m a private investigator.”
She aimed her dark glasses at him. “A private eye. A shamus. A window-peeper. A doorknob-rattler. A dick. A—”
“I get the idea,” said Kearny. “Anyway, that’s why Stan thought I could find Eddie Graff for you.” He waited for her to ask if he had. When she didn’t, he said, “Do you handle any insurance for the Rochemont family in Marin?”
“What would that have to do with anything, Mr. Kearny?”
“You haven’t asked me yet if I located Eddie.”
“I don’t have to ask.” She gave a sudden rueful laugh. “What did you say to him when you found him?”
“Told him you were looking for him. He didn’t seem surprised.”
“How about angry?” She raised her dark glasses. Her left eye was blackened. “That’s why I called in sick today.”
“At least you’ve got him relating to you again.”
“You call a black eye relating? He still has his key, he was here waiting when I came home yesterday afternoon.”
“What time?”
“I’m not going to file a complaint with the police, so what difference does it make? He’d been here long enough to drink one of the bottles of Dom Pérignon I’d been saving for our reunion.”
“Why the assault?”
“He didn’t say. He just talked in circles for an hour while he finished the other bottle, then hit me and walked out.”
“You didn’t see him Tuesday night, did you?”
“Yesterday was enough.”
“You know he has some other woman he’s seeing? A washed-out little blonde...” He paused for a reaction. None. “What if he comes back?”
“Why should he? I was looking for him, not the other way around. As of yesterday afternoon, I’ve quit looking. So...”
Kearny nodded and stood up. He scribbled on the back of a business card, set it on the coffee table. “That’s his address. If he hasn’t moved out because I talked with him.”
“I supposed I should thank you for finding him, but somehow...” She made a rueful gesture at her dark glasses. “Thank Stan for me.”
“And his wife,” said Kearny, again deadpan.
No response. He couldn’t read her eyes because of the dark glasses. He doubted he could have read them without the glasses.
Kearny went down to his car, thinking. He’d pushed her hard, to the point where she should have told him to go pound salt. She hadn’t. And no questions, questions a person normally would ask in all the openings he’d left for questions. Scared? Indifferent to what he knew (or suspected)?
And she’d furnished Eddie Graff with an alibi for the time frame during which Paul’s car had been blown up and Kearny’s car had been shot at. But hadn’t furnished him with anything for Tuesday night when the intruder broke into the Rochemont mansion. Didn’t know it was important, or didn’t care?
Though it was midafternoon, the CLOSED sign was up on the door at Jacques Daniel’s. Usually they opened for lunch, but with Danny gone Bev was only opening at five o’clock for the evening trade. She was alone behind the bar, washing glasses from last night, after a night spent tossing and worrying. Finally she’d put herself to sleep with a fistful of Halcion.
Why couldn’t she intuit where Danny was? Because they were no longer lovers? But that was silly. Should she be thinking of hiring some help? Notifying someone in Paris or Algiers...
Danny never talked about those years. A closed book. And if she made any of those moves, he would really be gone because she would have admitted it to herself. No. Depend on Larry.
Danny always washed glasses by sloshing them around in soapy water, sprinkling them with salt, running them under the tap, setting them upside down to dry — half an hour or so.
She always had hot soapy water in one of the twin sinks, clear cold water in the other, and wore big thick Bluette rubber gloves that protected her hands and halfway up her forearms. Plunge the glass into the steaming water, scrub it inside and out with a little wire-handled dish mop, skoosh it around in the cold water to remove the soap scum, and set it, still steaming, on the drainboard to dry. Maybe ten seconds, dried in maybe forty-five seconds.
They’d argued a lot about the best way to dry bar glasses.
They’d argued a lot about the best way to do the books. Bev had been pushing for Quicken software. Danny favored an old-fashioned accounts ledger, a checkbook, an adding machine — hands on, he knew exactly how much money came in, knew exactly where every sou went. Très bourgeois.
They’d argued a lot about suppliers.
They’d argued a lot about...
Bev realized she was crying, silently, the tears running down her cheeks and splashing in the steaming wash water. She heard the door open. It was unlocked only for the liquor and beer delivery drivers, and it was for them she’d made hot coffee. Her tear-blurred eyes picked out a tall form in the opening. She sniffed and swiped a wet rubber glove across her face.
“We’re closed,” she called.
“It’s me,” said Ballard’s familiar voice.
With a glad cry, Bev ripped off the cumbersome gloves and, as Larry came around the end of the bar, threw herself into his arms. He hugged her close, rocking her gently.
“Have you been looking for Danny?” she asked him.
“That’s about all I’ve been doing — like I told you, my DKA stuff is going to hell.”