I've heard some pretty dramatic drunkalogues in my time. We weren't even in a meeting, but Champagne Al's story put gooseflesh on my legs.
"What I've done in the last year," he continued, "is to try figuring out why I'm still alive. If Lars is dead and I'm not, there must be some reason, some plan. I've tried to make amends for what I didn't do before. I'm doing what I can to help Krissy-that's Lars's wife…widow. I spend every Sunday afternoon with my nephews. They're cute kids, but life without a father is pretty damn tough."
He stopped talking as though he had used up all the words at his command, but something was still missing. We sat there in silence while the jukebox blared behind us. He lit another cigarette.
"Alan," I said finally. "I don't understand why you're telling me all this."
"Because I want you to know who I am now," he returned gravely. "You probably remember me from the old days. It's taken almost thirty years, but I've finally grown up. I'm not Champagne Al anymore, and I'm man enough to tell you that although I may have been married five times, I've only been in love once. Else Didriksen is the one who got away, Beau. And maybe I still care too much. But when I tell you what I'm about to tell you, I don't want you to think it's sour grapes talking."
"When you tell me what?"
"Gunter Gebhardt was a rotten son of a bitch," Alan Torvoldsen said through clenched teeth. "He had a girlfriend on the side. She lives in a house up on Camano Island."
"How do you happen to know where she lives?"
"Because she showed up in the parking lot down on the dock today. I'd seen her before, lots of times. I saw her driving around in the lot just before I called down to the department looking for you. I thought maybe you'd get there in time to talk to her, but you weren't in. When she left, I followed her home."
"Who is she? What's her name?"
"That I don't know, but I can give you her address. She's a looker all right. She's maybe all of twenty-five, and she's got a figure that won't quit."
He pulled a ragged scrap of paper out of his shirt pocket and handed it over. A street address had been penciled on it in a careless, masculine hand.
"Can I keep this?"
He nodded. "All I ask is one favor in exchange."
"What's that?"
"I've seen this same broad coming and going from the Isolde off and on for months now. I kept hoping that someday someone would tell Else about it or that maybe she'd find out on her own. When you tell Else about this, it's going to be real tough on her. Even with Gunter dead, it's still going to break her heart. So don't tell her how you found out, okay? Whatever you do, don't tell her it came from me."
I raised the cup that still held the dregs of my Club 449 Americano and toasted Champagne Al Torvoldsen in a heartfelt salute.
"You've got it," I said. "My lips are sealed."
9
Alan Torvoldsen dropped me back at Belltown Terrace around nine-thirty. Our newest doorman, Kevin, let me into the lobby, where I stopped long enough to pick up my mail and punch the Up button on the elevator. When the elevator door opened, there was a dog inside-a dog and no one else. And not just one of those little, yappy waste-of-fur dogs, either. This was a big dog-tall, blond, and pointy-nosed. An Afghan maybe. Or perhaps a Russian wolfhound.
Whatever kind of dog it was, standing on all fours, its nose came right to the bottom of my tie. Fortunately, the tail was wagging.
"There's a dog in here!"
"That's just Charley," Kevin said, as though explaining the obvious. "Lives on nineteen. Haven't you two met before?"
"Never. What's he doing in the elevator?"
"Just riding around. Must get bored in the evenings sometimes, locked up in an apartment all day. Gail-the owner-lets Charley spend half an hour or so just before bedtime, riding up and down in the elevator and meeting people."
"He rides up and down all by himself?"
"Don't worry. Charley's very friendly."
"Thank God for small blessings."
Charley moved aside, giving me room enough to join him in the elevator. On the way up, I tried punching nineteen. The door opened on that floor, but Charley looked up at me quizzically and made no move to get off. Instead, he rode on up to twenty-five with me. When the door slid open on my floor, he started forward eagerly, as though he wanted to bail out right along with me.
"No, you don't, pal," I told Charley, barring the way. I was thankful that we were alone and that no one was there to hear me talking to a damn dog. It's bad for the tough-guy image.
"This is where I live," I added. "No dogs allowed."
Before exiting, I hit nineteen one more time for good measure, punched "door closed," and then made sure Charley was still safely inside when the elevator car started back down. I didn't know Charley's owner, Gail, from Adam's off ox, but someone would have to have a serious talk with the woman. Having a dog wandering around loose in a high-rise luxury condo building didn't seem like such a good idea to me.
I let myself into my apartment and started to put the mail down on the entryway table. I usually let it accumulate there for several days before I finally force myself to sit down and go through it all at one time. But the metal box was still there. My grandfather's ashes were still there. I put the mail on the dining-room table.
The red light on my answering machine was blinking steadily. Ralph Ames, my attorney, gave me the machine years ago. It's starting to wear out. Every once in a while, it goes crazy and either eats a tape or garbles a message. Or else it gets stuck in a loop and repeats my message over and over without ever sounding the beep that would allow someone else to leave one for me. Ralph keeps telling me that I ought to get rid of it and sign up for voice mail with the phone company, but I don't want to.
I know all about voice mail. We have it on the phones down at the department. I prefer the machine. With the answering machine, if I'm home, I can screen my calls. When I hear the voice on the recorder, I get to decide whether or not I want to pick it up. With voice mail, there's no way to screen calls. It's potluck; either you answer or you don't. Voice mail may come with a lot of fancy new bells and whistles, but it doesn't come with blinking lights. My old-time machine does. I can count the number of blinks and know exactly how many calls I've had without even picking up the phone.
In this case, there had been only one. I decided arbitrarily that one message could wait, at least until after I had something to eat. By then it was a long time past my noontime burger.
I went into the kitchen and used the last two crusts of bread to make myself a peanut-butter-and-honey sandwich. Reminded by a mouthful of peanut butter, I made a mental note to call my grandmother to check on how her dog, Mandy, was doing. Then I grabbed a glass of milk from the fridge and made my way to the recliner. Once I settled in, I punched the Play button on the machine.
"Detective Beaumont," a familiar African-American voice said. "How you doing, my man? This is Rocky Washington from down at the crime lab. Janice Morraine asked me to call you. Says to ask you how come you're hanging out with folks from the Pentagon or maybe the Joint Chiefs. Give me a call back. I'll be here until eleven."
Rocky is a recent graduate from the University of Washington who is now serving an apprenticeship under the careful tutelage of Janice Morraine. Rocky has a quick mind and a great sense of humor. At work he speaks in perfectly articulated English, so he was clearly having fun and playing around when he left the message.
Joking is fine. We all need a little of that to lighten the load at times, but I couldn't figure out what the hell he was talking about. Pentagon? Joint Chiefs?
I picked up the phone and dialed the crime lab. Rocky answered the phone himself.
"Rocky, this is Detective Beaumont. What's up? I don't know anybody who works for the Joint Chiefs of Staff."