The day was getting on toward dinnertime, so I stopped at a place on Union that makes pretty good pizza and ordered a pepperoni-and-extra-cheese to go. In my flat I opened a bottle of Schlitz and sat eating in front of the bay window, where I could look out over the Bay and watch the sunset bathe the hills of Marin in a soft reddish glow. It made me feel kind of pensive. And aware of how quiet and empty the flat was.
I went into the bedroom. Kerry had insisted on making the bed this morning, and it had never looked so neat. The whole damned room looked neat for a change; it wasn’t half bad that way, either. A different perspective. I sat down on the bed, hauled up the phone receiver, and dialed Kerry’s number. The thing buzzed ten times, emptily, before I put the handset down again.
To pass the time, I decided on some reading. But instead of taking a pulp off one of the shelves, I dragged out the “Hoodwink” manuscript, which I had carted home from the office, and had another go at that. I went all the way through it without feeling any more enlightened than the first time I’d read it-but when I put it down there was a funny scratching sensation at the back of my mind. Over the years I had had enough similar itches to recognize them as insights trying to be born: there was something about the novelette- plot, style, something-that I was overlooking.
I read it a third time. But the insight, whatever it might be, stayed in labor. There was no use in trying to force it through; it would get itself born eventually.
Damn, but it was quiet in there. I turned on the little portable television, something I seldom do, just to have some noise. A little while later, I went into the bedroom and dialed Kerry’s number again. Still no answer. The nightstand clock said that it was after ten. She told me she’d be home tonight, I thought. So where is she?
So she’s out somewhere. She’s a big girl; she doesn’t have to answer to you if she decides to stay out on a Saturday night. What’s the matter with you? Mooning around here like a lovesick jerk. You’re fifty-three years old, for Christ’s sake. Go to bed, why don’t you? You old fart, you.
I went to bed.
But I didn’t sleep right away. The damn bed felt empty, too, and I could still smell the sweet musk of her perfume on the other pillow.
I dreamed I was in a room where half a dozen guys were playing poker. They were all private eyes from the pulps: Carmady, Max Latin, Race Williams, Jim Bennett-some of the best of the bunch. Latin wanted to know what kind of detective I thought I was; his voice sounded like Kerry’s. I said I was a pulp detective. Carmady said, “No you’re not, you can’t play with us because you’re not one of us,” and I said, “But I am, I’m the same kind of private eye you are,” and Bennett said, “Private eyes can’t fall in love with younger women because they can’t be dirty old men,” and I said, “But I’m not in love with her,” and Williams said, “You old fart, you,” and the phone went off six inches from my ear and put an end to all this nonsense.
I sat up in bed, rubbed at my eyes until I could focus on the dial of the clock. It was 8:40. Welcome to a new day, I thought, and fumbled the handset up to my ear.
A male voice I didn’t recognize made a question out of my name. I confirmed it, and the voice said, “My name is Arthur Pitchfield. I’m the public defender assigned to represent Russell Dancer.”
“What can I do for you, Mr. Pitchfield?”
“You can’t do anything for me, I’m afraid. I’m calling for Mr. Dancer. He’d like to see you as soon as possible.”
“He would, huh?”
“Yes,” Pitchfield said. “I told him there’s very little a private investigator can do for him-no offense-but he insists you’re a friend of his.”
Sure I am, I thought. “He’s still at the Hall of Justice?”
“Of course. Even if bail had been set, he couldn’t meet it.” A pause. “I’m advising him to plead guilty, you know.”
“What does Dancer say?”
“He says no,” Pitchfield said. “He claims he’s innocent.”
“Tell him I’ll be down around ten,” I said, and hung up on him.
I sat there for a little while, waking up. Well, I told myself, you might have known it was coming. Maybe you did know, huh? You agreed fast enough. But it could be the poor bastard is innocent, despite all the circumstantial evidence. What can it hurt to talk to him? Nothing much you can do for him, Pitchfield may have been right about that, but at least you can listen to what he has to say.
Then I thought, wryly: An old fart, a lovesick jerk, a brother-figure to an alcoholic ex-pulp writer. Some private eye. Is it any wonder Carmady and Latin and the rest of the boys want to kick you out of the fraternity?
TWELVE
The Hall of Justice was a massive gray stone building on Bryant Street, south of Market, not all that far from Skid Row and the Tenderloin. It looked just like what it was; you could take away all the signs and bring somebody in from Iowa or rural New Hampshire and ask him what the building was, and he’d tell you in two seconds flat. On gray days it looked even more austere, and this was a gray day. The fog had come in sometime during the night, along with a chill wind, and built a high overcast that wiped out the nice summery weather we’d been having.
It being Sunday, there was available street parking on Bryant. I put my car into a slot a half-block away, went down and inside, and rode one of the elevators up to where they had the holding cells on the top floor. I filled out a form, and one of the cops on duty took it and went away somewhere. It took him ten minutes to find his way back. Five minutes after that, I was ushered through a metal detector and then into the visitors’ room, where I sat myself down in one of the screened-off cubicles. And another three minutes after that, Dancer was brought in.
He was wearing one of the orange jumpsuits the city and county provide for their prisoners; it looked as incongruous on him as a dress. He walked like a man in pain, and one look at his eyes told you he was suffering plenty. The whites were gray and bloody, the pupils a runny brown color. The effect was of something-eggs, maybe-that was spoiled and decomposing. He winced as he sat down, dug the heels of his hands into his temples, and grimaced. Then he put those eyes on me. And through the wire mesh and the hangover dullness, I was looking at a frightened man.
“Thanks for coming,” he said. His voice sounded hoarse, brittle. “I wasn’t sure if you would.”
“I figured I owed you this much.”
“What did that prick Pitchfield say to you on the phone?”
“Not much. Just that he wanted you to plead guilty and you weren’t having any.”
“Fuck him. I didn’t kill Colodny; why should I plead guilty? ‘Cop a plea,’ he says. ‘They’ll let you off with second-degree, and you won’t do more than six or seven years in jail. Jesus!”
“It doesn’t look good for you, Russ, you know that.”
“I don’t care how it looks. I’m no murderer.”
,
were pretty drunk yesterday …”
“So I was drunk. I’ve been drunk a thousand times in my life, and I never killed anybody. Why would I want to kill Colodny? I didn’t have any motive.”
“The police must think you did.”
“Sure-that ‘Hoodwink’ crap. They say I got him to come to my room on some pretext and then shot him. They found a portable typewriter in Colodny’s room that matches the typeface on that note he slipped me, so they know he was behind the extortion scam. And one of the others told them about the scuffle we had in the hotel bar and that there was bad blood between us back in the pulp days. That was all the cops needed.”
“You did attack him in the bar,” I said.