“What did you find?”
“Same thing you did. Nothing.”
“I’d hate to think you found what you needed and locked it up in that safe in the corner,” Shephard said.
Harmon looked at the safe, then back to the detective. “And I know you can get a warrant and have it opened. But I’ll save you the trouble by telling you there isn’t anything in it.”
“And if there was you’d move it by the time I got back here.”
Harmon smiled and nodded. “Hell, wouldn’t you?”
Shephard knew that getting such a warrant would be impossible. He also saw that the man sitting across from him knew the law as well as he did. Probably an ex-cop, he thought. He would get nothing from Harmon. But the next best thing was to try for a glimpse of what it was he wouldn’t get.
“How did you know he was Steinhelper when he checked in as Hodges?” Shephard asked. He watched Harmon closely.
Sometimes, while the brain takes its milliseconds to form a response, the eyes in front of it will hesitate and go blank: the mind concentrating only on the task at hand. Harmon’s eyes dulled fleetingly, then came back to Shephard with redoubled confidence.
“Hodges is a common alias,” he said slowly. “For Steinhelper, I mean.” Good, Shephard thought, smiling. Harmon turned off the tape recorder casually.
“You want him?” Shephard leaned forward in his chair.
“’Course I want him, that’s what I was hired to—”
“I got him.” Shephard offered a blank stare.
Harmon’s face flushed slightly, its wrinkles seeming to deepen. If he were a TV show, Shephard thought, it would be time for a word from his sponsors. Harmon offered a stranded smile. “You do?”
“I do.” Shephard waited. “I got him the same place you did. Out of that wallet in cottage five.”
“Get out of here, Shephard. Your games bore the shit out of me.”
“No charge, Bruce. I’ll tell you where he is because I think you’re such a swell guy. Come on, turn your machine back on and get it down. He lives on Fallbrook Street in Sacramento with his wife, and that’s where he is right now. He got mugged and lost his wallet.”
Harmon stood up, and for the first time since Morris Mumford faced him with a hunting knife on a drizzly night in L.A., Shephard felt afraid. Harmon’s face was a heavy yellow, his eyes almost too sunken to see. For a moment, the room seemed to diminish around his bulk.
“Get out, Shephard. Or I’ll break your bones.”
Shephard stood up with an exaggerated sigh. “Sorry I couldn’t make your job easy, Bruce. Buddy. Chum. You must be getting a thousand or so to find this Steinhelper fellow. But I understand how it is. You don’t want me to tell you where he is because you weren’t hired to find out where he is. You’re a lousy liar and a lousy dick, too. You’re not a bad back-seat lawyer though. You like dogs?”
Shephard opened the door. Harmon was still standing behind the desk, his huge hands open at his side.
“One more thing, Harmon. This man you’re looking for is a killer. If you find him first and I don’t hear about it, you go to jail for obstruction. Promise.”
He slammed the door and walked slowly toward Marla Collins’s desk. He heard no footsteps from the office, no opening of the door behind him. Standing in front of her desk, he smiled and shook his head.
“Did you get everything you needed?” she asked cheerily.
“I don’t understand,” he said.
“Don’t understand what, Mr. Cox?”
“How a girl like you can work for a guy like him, Marla. Maybe you’d explain it to me sometime if I were to call you.”
“Well, I don’t think—”
“Please give your number to me, Marla.”
“Collins, Corona del Mar,” she said worriedly.
“Keep it quiet,” he said, nodding toward the office.
“I will.”
He stepped outside to a raw sunlight, the manicured emerald lawns of Newport Center, and the deafening roar of a power mower being ridden across the grass by a Mexican in a big hat.
He had stepped down a short flight of stairs to the underground parking structure before he was fully aware that he had done it. At first the shadows offered relief from the bright morning, but as he moved past the cars in their stalls, he was aware he was looking for something. Nameplates were bolted to the wall over the appropriate stalls: ADAMSON & LIFSCHULTZ ATTORNEYS AT LAW, THE FAIRCHILD GROUP, GOOD LIFE MAGAZINE, LYTTLE PUBLIC RELATIONS, MAGNON ASSOCIATES, ORLANDO FOR HAIR, STANLEY PEAVEY, D.D.S. South Coast Investigators had two stalls reserved, one for clients and one for Mr. Harmon. The client space was empty, but glinting tastefully under the neon light in front of Mr. Harmon’s sign was a midnight blue Porsche Carerra.
Shephard brought his face up close to the tinted window. A CB radio, telephone, and radar detector graced the dash and console, while the back seat contained nothing but tennis gear. Just looking at it made his head hurt, all ten stitches. He noted the license plate, overcame a strong urge to kick the door, then turned and walked back out to the sunlight.
Back at the station he gathered what he could on Bruce Harmon, most of which came from Chief Hannover, an acquaintance. Former Newport Beach police sergeant, distinguished service, retired ten years ago to go private, active socially in Newport Beach, a “respected if not altogether well-liked” man, according to the chief. “Bit of a brute,” he added confidentially.
The afternoon consumed Shephard in routine, giving him a relentless headache. He called the hotels and boarding houses again, but no one close to answering Hodges’s description had checked in anywhere. Neither Robbins nor Yee had found anything new. Marty Odette had called and left a number for Little Theodore, which Shephard tried throughout the afternoon. Wade had called twice. Eight newspapers had called, ranging from UPI to Laguna’s Tides and Times; Shephard scooped up all the numbers and dumped them into the trash. Joe Datilla had sent him a bottle of premium Scotch and a get-well card.
It was nearly four o’clock before he got through to Little Theodore. His voice was guttural, harsh, and rude as always, and strangely welcomed by Shephard. When he hung up, he entertained the image of Little Theodore — all six feet four, three hundred and fifty pounds of him — sitting in the first pew of Wade’s newly opened Church of New Life one sweltering Sunday, sweating conspicuously, but still concentrating on Wade’s sermon. Little Theodore was something of a friend. They arranged to meet at eight o’clock at the Norton Hotel in downtown Santa Ana. Shephard left the station at six to give himself time to prepare the Jota.
He uncovered the machine and wheeled it to the center of his garage. Chrome and black, it sparkled under the single bulb in the ceiling with the splendor of a warhorse preened for battle. The handlebars were short and well forward, the seat narrow and built for one. The seamless gas tank was swept low beneath the seat, a small but flattish tank that would offer his knees a hold through the racking jolts of low-gear speed. The bars, the seat, and two tiny footpegs just above the back axle were the only connections between rider and the hundred and fifty horsepower engine that at high rev could render him deaf and half-blind with velocity and sound. Shephard had owned several motorcycles and driven many more before settling on the LaVerda Jota. He was not the kind of man who often owned the best of anything, but to him, having the Jota was a necessity that transcended its price. He had found the German machines too sluggish and domesticated, the Japanese bikes lacking in character, the American models more nostalgic than functional. But the Jota — which meant a kind of frantic dance in Italian — was perfection. More than perfection, he thought as he opened the fuel lines and checked the gas level; even more than perfection it was release. Aboard the Jota, there was always release.