“No. But he did seem nervous about something, almost frightened.”
“Could it have been the ‘Hoodwink’ extortion business?”
“Well, it could have been. He didn’t seem to want to talk about it.”
“Did he approach you again after the theft?”
“About sleeping with him? Yes.”
“What did you say?”
“I said no. He called me names and I slapped him.”
“And that was when he hit you and gave you that bruise?”
“How did you know it was Frank who hit me?”
“I didn’t, but it’s not much of a deduction after what you’ve told me.”
“Well he did it, yes. With his fist. He said I’d better not lay a hand on him again, or try to threaten him again, or he’d fix me. He said I’d better come across for him, too. Not that weekend-he had too many things on his mind-but as soon as I got back to Los Angeles. Then he shoved me out of the room and slammed the door.”
“Were there any more run-ins with him?”
“No. I saw him Saturday morning, but we never said another word to each other.”
“All right. Is there anything else you can tell me that might be pertinent?”
“I don’t think so, no. I’ve told you everything- much more than I could ever tell anyone else.” A faint smile. “But I feel better for it. It’s been festering inside me much too long.”
“Sure,” I said, “I understand.”
“I can trust you not to say anything, can’t I? If any of this gets back to Ivan or Kerry …”
“It won’t. I just hope you’ve been honest with me.”
“I have. Painfully honest.” Cybil uncrossed her legs and got to her feet. “I’d better go. I left a note for Ivan that I was having dinner with a friend, but he starts to worry if I’m out late.”
“He’s been gone all day, has he?”
“Yes. Since seven this morning. Magic is his great passion these days. May I use your phone to call a taxi?”
“That’s not necessary,” I said. “I’ll drive you back to the hotel.”
I got her coat for her and helped her into it. She let me have another smile, a little brighter than before, and said, “I’m glad I came here tonight. I wasn’t sure about you before I did, but now I am. You’re a decent man and I think you’re good for Kerry.”
“I hope so, Mrs. Wade.”
“Please call me Cybil. And I wouldn’t worry about Ivan’s disapproval. He’s terribly stuffy sometimes, and overprotective, but he’ll come around.”
I said I hoped that too, but I was not worried about Ivan’s disapproval. What I was worried about was that he was the one who had killed Frank Colodny and maybe Ozzie Meeker too, which was a hell of a lot more dismaying prospect. Because the way things looked to me now, no one fitted the murderer’s role half so well as stuffy Ivan Wade.
EIGHTEEN
Somebody kept ringing the damned door buzzer.
At first the sound got mixed up with a jumbled dream I was having; then it broke all the way through and woke me up, brought me jerkily upright. Disoriented and grumbling, I pawed at my eyes until I got them unstuck. There was morning light coming through the window, but it was pale and gray and gave the room a dingy look, like something out of an old B movie. I squinted at the nightstand clock. And the time, for Christ’s sake, was 6:46.
Who the hell would come calling at 6:46 in the morning?
The buzzer kept blaring away, long and short, long and short, until the noise began to rattle around inside my head like a marble in a box. I said a few things under my breath, most of them obscene, and fumbled my way out of bed and into an old robe from the closet. Then I lumbered into the front room and jammed down the talk lever on the intercom unit.
“Who is it?”
“It’s me-Eberhardt.”
Eberhardt? “You know what time it is?”
“Yeah, I know. Buzz me in, will you?”
So I buzzed him in, scowling about it. Then I unlocked the door, opened it, and went back into the bedroom to put my pants on. I heard him come in-he made some noise with the door- and pretty soon he yelled my name.
I yelled back at him to keep his pants on, finished putting mine on, and went out there. I don’t know what I expected to see-Eberhardt as he usually was, I suppose, wearing a business suit, with his hair combed and a pipe poking out of his face-but what I did see brought me up short and made me gawp a little. He was standing over by the couch, none too steady on his feet, and you could smell the liquor on him from across the room. He wore sports clothes instead of a suit, but the shirt was rumpled and one of the buttons was missing, and the fly on his trousers was at half-mast. His cheeks were stubbled, his hair stuck up at sharp angles like the stubby spokes on a mace; his face was red and glazed-looking, and his eyes were a couple of wounds with streaks of blood in them. I had known him more than thirty years, and I’d never seen him like this. Never.
“What the hell, Eb?”
“What the hell, yourself. You got any coffee?”
“I’ll put some on. What’re you doing here?”
“I was in the neighborhood,” he said. “Just thought I’d drop in.”
“Yeah.”
I went into the kitchen and ran some tap water into a kettle. He followed me, propped himself up against the wall next to the door, fumbled around in his jacket until he found one of his old briars. He put the thing in one corner of his mouth and left it hanging there.
“You went out and tied one on, huh?” I said as I plopped the kettle down on the stove and turned on the gas flame.
“Better believe it,” he said.
“You feel any better?”
“No. I feel lousy.”
“You look lousy. Why aren’t you home?”
“Told you, I was in the neighborhood.”
“What does that mean?”
“I spent the night down on Greenwich.”
“Who do you know on Greenwich?”
“Lady, that’s who. Lady I met last night.”
“Uh-huh. Like that.”
“Like that. You think I’m too old to pick up broads in bars? Not me, hot shot. You, maybe, with that flabby gut of yours. Not me.”
I spooned instant coffee into two cups. “Congratulations. So you got laid. How’re you going to make it to work today, the shape you’re in?”
“No,“he said.
“No? No what?”
“No, I didn’t get laid.”
“That’s too bad. Wasn’t she willing?”
“Oh, she was willing. So was I.”
“Well, then?”
He pushed away from the wall, moved to one of the chairs at the dining table. When he sat down he did it heavily, and the pipe fell out of his mouth and clattered on the table, spilling a trail of ash and dottle. He sat there looking at it, frowning.
“Shit,” he said.
“If you didn’t come here to brag about your conquest,” I said, “why did you come?”
“Coffee. And I was in the neighborhood.”
“Come on, Eb. I know you better than that. You’ve got a reason or you wouldn’t be here looking like you do.”
“You think you know me? Nobody knows me. Dana least of all. You want to hear something funny? She called last night. I’m home two minutes and she calls, first I’ve heard from her since she moved out. Reason is, she thought I might be worrying about her and she wanted to let me know she’s all right. Didn’t ask me how I was, how anything was, just wanted to let me know she’s all right and staying with a friend. That’s what she said, ‘I’m staying with a friend.’ Asshole lover of hers, that’s who she’s staying with.”
“So you went right out and got drunk and got laid.”
“No. Don’t you listen? I didn’t get laid.”
“Okay, you didn’t. Go back and see the lady tonight. Maybe you’ll get lucky.”
“Get lucky. Yeah. She threw me out.”
“What?”
“She threw me out.”
“Why?”
“Because she didn’t get laid.”
“Eb …”
“Called me a sorry excuse for a man and threw me out.”
The kettle commenced a whistling shriek. I reached over and shut off the gas.
“Figured it was the booze last night,“Eberhardt said. “Nothing to worry about. But this morning …” His face screwed up and for an awkward moment I thought he might start to bawl. But then he passed a hand over his eyes and his expression cleared; he looked up at me with the same sort of appeal as on Sunday. “You understand me? You’re the same age I am, you been around… you understand?”