But the Chief wasn’t convinced. The stern set of his face throughout told me that even before he launched into a speech about how much pressure he was getting from various sources, including the Mayor’s office, and how all this sensational publicity was harmful to the police image. There would be even more pressure after today’s events came out in the media, he said. It was a public relations matter, he said. A private detective wasn’t supposed to go around involving himself in homicide cases, he said, particularly when he kept making the cops look bad by upstaging them. He admitted that I had more or less exonerated myself of any wrongdoing in the Hornback case, but, he said, that didn’t necessarily mean he could allow me to keep on working as a private detective in the city of San Francisco. He had the matter under advisement and would make a decision “in a couple of days” as to whether or not he would recommend suspension of my license. Meanwhile, it would behoove me to keep a low profile and stay out of trouble. That was the word he used: “behoove.”
When he finally threw us out of his office, and Eberhardt and Kayabalian and I were standing in the outer hall, I said, “It doesn’t look good, does it?”
“I wouldn’t say that,” Kayabalian said in his optimistic way. Eberhardt just grunted.
“Nice irony,” I said. “He wants to yank my license because I’m too good at what I do. I’m not supposed to solve crimes; I’m not supposed to prevent crimes. What the hell am 1 supposed to do?”
Eb said, “Stay out of trouble. It could still go your way.”
Kayabalian nodded agreement. “Let me handle this. You’re not going to get railroaded out of a job because you devote your time and effort to upholding the law, not if I can help it.”
Eberhardt grunted again.
I said, “Yeah. All right.”
But I felt like a goddamn prisoner as we rode down in the elevator.
FIFTEEN
I had dinner with Kerry that night-the first time I’d seen her since Sunday.
It was six o’clock by the time I got home and I was afraid she’d made other plans for the evening, but she was in when I called, and over her anger at me. Or at least keeping it under wraps. When I told her what had happened during the day she was both sympathetic and irate at the way I was being treated. And she agreed to dinner without having to consider the idea, although she said she preferred to go out somewhere rather than cook for the two of us.
I picked her up at seven and we went to a seafood place on the Embarcadero that had a view of the bay and specialized in calamari dishes. She didn’t say anything about Ivan the Terrible on the ride over, and I wasn’t about to bring the subject up myself; our conversation, for the most part, was limited to the Hornback case and to my session with the Chief of Police.
She was wearing a green dress, cut low in the front, that did nice things for her figure and for her eyes; she looked terrific. Just being with her took away some of the gloom I’d been feeling since my visit to the Hall of Justice.
We ordered drinks and calamari salads, and ate sourdough French bread, and she told me to quit dropping crumbs in my lap and on the floor. I took that as a good sign. She was always after me about my manners and general appearance and demeanor, but in a constructive way-a caring, intimate way. It was that old feeling of intimacy that I craved more than anything else.
The salads came, and while we went to work on them there was one of those conversational lulls. When I glanced up from my plate she was holding her head in a way that accented the clean lines of her face; the coppery hair seemed to shimmer and ripple liquidly in the soft lighting. A wave of tenderness moved through me. And I said, “Did I ever tell you you’re beautiful?”
“More than once,” she said, smiling. “But then I’ve always thought your taste is suspect.”
“Not mine. Yours, maybe.”
“Mmmm. I sometimes wonder.”
“About what you see in me?”
“Not that. Just about you.”
“What about me?”
“Who are you, really. What goes on inside that shaggy head of yours.”
“You’re what goes on inside my head.”
“Yes, I know. But why?”
I leered at her. “You know why.”
“I’m serious,” she said.
“So am I.”
“Just sex? All those romps in the hay?”
“Come on,” I said. “You know I love you.”
“But why? Is it because my parents were both pulp writers?”
This conversation was beginning to get away from me; I sensed it taking on a significance I didn’t like. “Of course not. What kind of question is that?”
“The pulps mean a great deal to you.” she said. “More than you realize, maybe. Would you be after me so hard if my folks were doctors or social workers?”
“Kerry, what are you saying? It’s you I’m after, not your parents. Sure as hell not your father.”
“Don’t start in again about my father.”
“I’m not starting in again. I’m only trying to-”
“Why is it so important to you that we get married? We’ve got a good thing going as it is.”
“I’m old-fashioned, that’s why,” I said, and I couldn’t keep the budding annoyance out of my voice. “Where I come from, people who love each other get married.”
“I’m not so sure it has to be that way.”
“No? You got married once, didn’t you?”
“‘Yes, and it was a big mistake.”
“So you think it might be a big mistake to marry me, too.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“Or maybe you don’t love me. Is that it?”
“I do, after my fashion.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means I care for you, very much, but I don’t know you. I don’t know who you are.”
“Sure, you do. I’m an open book.”
“I thought so at first. Now …”
“Now what?”
“I keep finding out things,” she said. “Jealousy; I never thought you’d be so jealous. Or so intense about our relationship. Or so bitter toward my father. Or so … well, so relentless.”
“I’m not relentless.”
“But you are. It’s a kind of macho thing.”
“Macho? Me?”
“You have a certain dominant-male attitude, yes. You’ve got to have things your way; otherwise they’re just no good for you.”
I put my fork down-harder than I’d intended, because a couple at the next table glanced over at us. “That’s not true,” I said.
““You meet a woman, decide she’s what you want, and a few days later you’re pressing for marriage. That’s machismo. You don’t seem to care what I want.”
“I thought you wanted me.”
“How could you think that? You don’t know who I am; you don’t know me any better than I know you. All you know is that I’m the daughter of two pulp writers. And you love the pulps, and boy, wouldn’t it be great to wrap up all your passions in one neat little package.”
“That’s a lot of crap,” I said.
“Is it? What attracted you to me in the first place?”
“You attracted me. You.”
“Not my background? Not the fact that we met at a pulp convention?”
“Listen, you were the one who came on to me, remember? How come? Your mother wrote private eye stories; you told me you’d been fascinated by private eyes ever since you were a kid. So what attracted you to me, huh?”