I looked over at the quiet blue-green water in the pool for a moment. A couple of eucalyptus leaves were floating on its surface like miniature canoes in a placid Lilliputian lake. I said at length, “Why are you telling me this now, Mr. Martinetti? Do you suspect Proxmire of having something to do with the death of Lockridge and the theft of the ransom money?”
“Not exactly,” he said. “I will admit that the idea has crossed my mind a couple of times, because I know how much he wants Karyn-and Gary, too, for that matter; I can tell it by the way he looks at the boy-and the only thing keeping him from them is money.”
“How long has he worked for you?”
“About a year and a half now. Why?”
“Then you should know him pretty well by this time,” I said. “Is he the kind of man who would conspire to commit murder to obtain what he doesn’t have?”
“Any man is capable of murder,” Martinetti said quietly, “if he’s pushed far enough, tempted strongly enough. A man is capable of a lot of things-and murder is one of them, just one of them.”
“That doesn’t answer my question, Mr. Martinetti.”
“That’s the best answer I can give you.”
“You just said yourself that Proxmire had strong feelings for Gary. Would he jeopardize the boy’s life by engineering a hijack of the ransom money? Would he risk the happiness, the completeness, of the woman he supposedly loves on the off chance-and that’s all he could expect it to be-of the police finding Gary unharmed after the kidnapper was disposed of?”
Martinetti drank again from his glass, deeply this time. “I don’t know,” he said. “It’s possible, isn’t it?”
“I suppose it is.”
“That’s the only reason I mentioned it at all.”
“Would you like Proxmire to be guilty?” I asked him.
His smile was faint and sardonic. “In a way, I suppose I would. In another way, for Karyn’s sake, I hope he isn’t.”
“And if he isn’t, do you intend to allow this situation to go on indefinitely?”
“Our little triangle, do you mean?”
“Yes.”
“Well, I don’t think I’ll have to make a decision, either way. Karyn will be the one to do that, and I doubt if it will be very long before she does-especially after all that’s happened in the past few days. If she loves Proxmire enough, and I suspect that she might now, she’ll ask me for a divorce and custody of the boy.”
“Will you agree to that?”
The faint and sardonic smile again. “Is that relevant to your investigation?”
“No,” I said. “I’m sorry.”
He made a dismissive gesture and drained the last of his drink without saying anything. There was the sound of a glass door sliding open, and Proxmire came out on the terrace. “Allan Channing just phoned,” he called to Martinetti. “I told him about Gary, and he’ll stop by for a few minutes on his way to San Jose.”
“All right,” Martinetti said.
Proxmire retreated into the house. I said, “If you don’t mind, Mr. Martinetti, I’ll be going now.”
“You don’t want to be here when Channing arrives, do you?”
“Not particularly.”
“I can understand that, after the call he made to you this morning.”
“You know about that?”
“He told me about it,” Martinetti said, “after he’d made it. I told him he was a damned fool, for all the good it did. He’s a very rich man, but he’s also a very opinionated and very selfish man. He doesn’t know how to handle relationships, except on a strict money-making basis.”
“Yeah,” I said.
“If it were possible for a man to have an orgasm looking at a bundle of money, I think Allan Channing would be that man.” Martinetti laughed hollowly. “It would be nice if you could sit down and choose your friends according to your own ideals-or the ideals of society. But you can’t do that, can you?”
“No, I guess you can’t.”
He stood up. “Well, to hell with all that. This is too pleasant an occasion for sober philosophical reflections. Do you want to come in and say goodbye to Karyn and the boy?”
“Yes.”
We went into the house again, and I shook hands with Gary and with Proxmire, and stood with a sense of embarrassment that had no real foundation while Karyn Martinetti kissed my cheek a second time and thanked me again for finding her son. Then Martinetti and I walked out onto the front path.
He said, “Will you be by tomorrow? I should be here all day.”
“I think so,” I said. “I’ll call you.”
“I can give you a check for what I owe you then, if that’s all right.”
“Fine.”
We said a parting, and I went away along the path and through the gate and out to where the Valiant was parked, lonely and somewhat tawdry in the lush quiet of Hillsborough. I felt very tired now; it was almost eight o’clock, and I had done a lot of moving around on this day — more moving around than a man should do with twenty-seven stitches in his belly. My legs were weak, and my neck was stiff and my head ached in a faintly annoying sort of way. I thought that after I had something to eat I would go straight home and get into bed. Tomorrow I would have to go down to some doctor or other and have the knife wound checked and the bandages changed; maybe I would have him give me a chest X-ray while he was at it, there was no sense in putting that off any longer.
I sighed very softly and tasted the aroma of the woodsmoke again, and then I went over to the Valiant. “You and me both,” I said, and got inside and took it out of there.
* * * *
18
I parked in front of the first cafe I saw in Burlingame, went inside and ordered some coffee and soup and a mound of creamed cottage cheese with fresh fruit; after I had put all of that away I felt considerably better.
The thought of a cigarette came into my mind then, and to get rid of it I got up from the counter and went back to where a telephone booth was located between the rest-room doors. I put a couple of dimes in the slot, the price of a Peninsula toll call, and dialed Erika’s number.
She came on after a moment, and I said, “Hi, doll.”
“Oh,” she said, “hello, old bear.”
She sounded vaguely cold, vaguely distant, and I thought: Oh Christ, she’s still brooding over last night. Well, I was in a pretty decent frame of mind at the moment and I was not going to let one of her moods spoil it. I said, “I’ve got some good news. I found Gary Martinetti today-mainly through some blind luck. He’s all right and safe at home with his parents.”
“You found him?”
“Uh-huh.” I told her how it had come about.
She said, “Well, that’s very nice.”
“Is that all you’ve got to say?”
“What would you like me to say?”
“You could show a little enthusiasm.”
“For the boy-or for you?”
“Jesus, what’s the matter with you tonight?”
“Not a thing, I’m fine.”
“You don’t act like it.”
“I told you, I’m fine.”
I sighed inaudibly, and said, “All right. Listen, I should be back in San Francisco in about half an hour. I’ll come by and pick you up, and we can have a couple of drinks at my place before I go to bed-”
“No, I’m sorry,” she said.
“What?”
“I’m sorry, I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“I’m going out pretty soon.”
“Out where?”
“To dinner and cocktails.”
“By yourself? Christ, Erika-”
“No,” she said, “not by myself.”
The back of my neck felt a little cold. “With who, then? Some other guy?”
“I don’t think that’s any of your concern.”
“The hell it’s not! You’re supposed to be my girl.”
“You don’t own me,” she said. “I can go where I please, with whom I please.”
“What is this?” I said, and my voice was thick. “The goddamn brush-off or something? Is that it? If it is, you’d better tell me, Erika.”
“Maybe it would be best that way,” very softly.
“Why, for God’s sake?”
“You know why. I told you why last night.”