"This guy Simpson . . . he's always had the place?"
"No. There was another. It changed hands about ten years ago. That is, at least the owners changed. But the visitors; they're always the same. You never see them in town at all. They come and go at night or come in by the North Fork Road or by Otter Pass. Sometimes there are a hundred people up there a week or two at a time."
"It can accommodate that many?"
"At least. There are twenty-some rooms in the big house and six outbuildings with full accommodations. It's almost like a huge private club."
"Nobody's ever been nosy enough to look inside?"
After a moment she said, "They caught Jake Adler in there once and beat him up terribly. Captain Cox has been in a couple of times, but said he saw nothing going on. Several years ago two hunters were reported missing in this area. They were found dead a week later . . . fifty miles away. Their car went over a cliff. The police said they had changed their plans and decided to hunt elsewhere."
"Could have been."
"Possibly. Only one of them made a phone call from the hotel the day they were supposed to have disappeared."
I looked at her incredulously. "You report that?"
"They said I wasn't positive enough. I only had a photograph to go on and in brush clothes all hunters tend to look alike."
"Nice. Real nice. How can we get a look in there then?"
"You can see the house from the road a little way up. I don't know how you can get inside though. The wall goes all the way around and down to the lake."
"There's an approach on the water?"
Her forehead creased in thought. "There's a landing there with a path leading through the woods. It's well hidden in a finger cove. Are you . . ."
"Let's see the house first."
We found the spot. I parked the car and stood there at the lip, looking across a quarter-mile gulf of densely wooded valley at the white house that looked like a vacation hotel.
A few figures moved on the lawn and a few more clustered on the porch, their dark clothes marking them against the stark white of the building.
Behind me, Dari said, "A car is coming."
It was a blue sedan, an expensive job, the two in front indiscernible in the shadows. But the New York City plate wasn't. I wrote the number down and didn't bother putting the pencil back. Another plume of dust was showing around the Otter Pass intersection and I waited it out. We were back to black Caddies again and this one had four men in it and upstate New York plates. Fifteen minutes later a white Buick station wagon rolled past and the guy beside the driver was looking my way.
Harry Adrano hadn't changed much in the five years he had been up the river. His face was still set in a perpetual scowl, still blue-black with beard, his mouth a hard slash. And Harry was another number in a crazy combination because wherever Harry went one of the poppy derivatives was sure to follow.
Very softly I said, "Like Apalachin . . . I got to get inside there."
"You can't. The main gate is guarded."
"There's the lake . . ."
"Somebody will be there, too. Why do you have to go inside?"
"Because I want to get the numbers on any cars that are up there."
"You'll get killed in there."
"You know a better way?"
The smile she gave me matched her eyes. "Yes. Grace Shaefer was in town yesterday. She'll be making herself available for the . . . festivities there."
"Do you think she'll go along with that?"
Dari's smile changed. "I figure you'll be able to coax her into it."
"Thanks," I said.
I took her arm and headed for the car. Before we reached it I heard tires digging into the road up ahead and tried to duck back into the brush. It wasn't any good. The black Cad swept by going back toward town and both the guys in it had plenty of time to spot the two of us, if they had bothered to look. It didn't seem that they had, but Benny Quick was driving and that little punk could see all around him without moving his head.
We waited, heard the car fade off downhill, then got in the truck. At the Otter Pass turn-off, fresh tire tracks scarred the dirt and a broken whiskey bottle glinted at the side of the road.
Just beyond the North Fork Road, the road turned sharply, and that's where they were waiting. The Cad was broadside to us and Benny was standing beside it. If we were just casual tourists, it would look like a minor accident, but anything else and it was a neat trap.
I braked to a stop 20 feet short of the Caddy and stuck my head half out the window so the corner post covered most of my face. Benny Quick tried to adjust a pleasant smile to fit his squirrelly expression, but did a lousy job of it.
But Benny wasn't the one I was worried about. Someplace nearby the other guy was staked out and there was a good chance he had a rod in his fist. I tugged the .45 out and thumbed the hammer back. Beside me Dari froze.
I put on the neighborly act, too. "Trouble, friend?"
Benny started toward me. I opened the door of the cab and swung it out as if I were trying to get a better look. I saw Benny take in the Willie Elkins' Garage, Repairs and Towing Call Pinewood 101 sign printed there, make a snap decision, figure us for locals in the woods, and decide to write us off as coincidence.
His smile stretched a little. "No, . . . no trouble. Pulled a little hard on the turn and skidded around. Just didn't want anybody ramming me while I turned around."
He got in the Cad, gunned the engine, and made a big production of jockeying around in the small area. He wound up pointing back toward the mountain and waved as he went by. I waved too and at that moment our eyes met and something seemed to go sour with Benny Quick's grin.
Either he was turning it off as a bad fit a little too fast or he recognized me from a time not so long ago.
Around the bend ahead I stopped suddenly, cut the engine, and listened. Then I heard a door slam and knew Benny had picked up his passenger. Dari was watching me and I didn't have to tell her what had just happened.
Silently, her eyes dropped to the .45 on the seat, then came back to mine. She said, "You would have killed him, wouldn't you?"
"It would have been a pleasure," I said.
"It's terrible," she whispered.
"Well, don't let it snow you, kid. I may have to do it yet."
It was dark when we reached the hotel. The clerk waved Dari over and said, "Right after you left a call came in. Girl said she was Ruth Gleason. She sounded almost hysterical. I couldn't make much out of it. She was crying and talking about needing somebody."
Dari's face turned ashen. She turned to me, waiting. "You said you could reach Grace Shaefer," I reminded her.
Dari nodded.
"See if she can meet us at Jimmie's bar in an hour."
Ten minutes went by before the operator got my call through to Artie. As usual, we made idle talk before I gave him the plate numbers I had picked up on the mountain road. He grunted disgustedly when I told him I wanted it right away. This would take a little time, so I left the number of the hotel and said I'd stand by.
I looked at my watch and told the clerk to put any calls through to me in Dari's room.
Dari's room was on the ground floor at the end of the corridor. I knocked and heard her call for me to come in. I stood there a moment in the semidarkness of the small foyer and then, unlike her, turned the key in the lock. Inside I could hear her talking over the phone.
She was curled up on the end of a studio couch, wrapped in a black-and-red mandarin robe that had a huge golden dragon embroidered on it. The fanged mouth was at her throat.
She had a Mrs. Finney on the wire. Trying to conceal her annoyance, Dari said, "Well, when Grace does call, can you have her meet me at Jimmie's in an hour? Tell her it's very important. All right. Thanks, Mrs. Finney."
She hung up and grimaced. "She knows where Grace is, damn it."