Runyon was trying to get to his feet. I helped him, with one arm around his waist for support. “Let me have your key, Mr. Runyon.”
“Key?” he said.
“To the house. So we can go inside.”
It didn’t seem to register. So I patted his jacket pockets, found his keycase and fished it out; he didn’t seem to know what I was doing. I walked him to the door, tried two keys before I located one that unlocked it, and took him inside.
Hallway. Closed door to the garage on the left, staircase to the lower floor on the right; beyond the staircase, a smallish formal living room opened at the front, dappled now with sunlight. At the rear on that side, a dining room. Kitchen straight ahead. Another room — probably a family room — was closed off from the hall and from the kitchen by sliding panel doors.
Silence.
A faint musty odor, as if the place had been closed up a long time. Or not cleaned in a long time.
I took Runyon into the sunlit kitchen. Fine ocean view from here, and a wide balcony across the entire rear width of the house so that you could sit outside on nice days to enjoy it. I got Runyon into one of the two chairs at a dinette table. Found a dishtowel under the sink and ran water over it and then used it to sponge some of the blood off his face. He winced and mewled a little when I touched his broken nose. Otherwise he just sat there, neither helping nor hindering me.
Cut on his upper lip, cut on one cheek, neither one deep or long enough to require stitches. Some bruises and abrasions. The only real damage was to his nose, the source of most of the blood. He’d be all right. Physically, at least.
I opened the refrigerator, looking for ice. There was nothing in it. Nothing in the freezer compartment, nothing in the regular compartment — as bare as if it had just been delivered by Sears.
What the hell?
I rinsed out the bloody towel in cold water, took it to Runyon. He looked up at me blankly, like a child. “For your nose,” I said, and he nodded and held the towel against his face.
There was an uneasy feeling inside me now. I went into the hallway, opened the door to the garage. Empty. I shut the door, started for the stairs, changed my mind and walked over and opened the sliding door to the closed-off room adjacent to the kitchen.
It was like entering a church. Or a funeral parlor.
Two layers of drapes were closed against the lowering sun; the room — family room, as I’d guessed — was full of dark-light and shadows, the shadows given a grotesque, shimmery animation by the unstable glow from a pair of burning candles. So Runyon hadn’t just arrived when the balding guy showed up and braced him; he’d been here awhile, in this room. The candles were on a heavy marble-topped coffee table, flanking something oddly shaped that I couldn’t identify from the doorway. Something that contained a lot of flowers: the damp, sweet smell of them was cloying in the airless space.
Carefully, with the little hairs prickling on my neck, I crossed the darkened room. Two candles, tall and black, in sculpted silver holders. The odd-shaped arrangement between them was a kind of bower: red and yellow roses, carnations, three or four other varieties — the bouquets Runyon had bought last night, all of them recently sprayed with water to keep them fresh. And in the midst of the flowers, an eight-by-ten photograph of a woman in an expensive silver frame. I leaned down to it. Dark, slender woman in some kind of Asian outfit, although she herself didn’t appear to be Asian; waist-length dark hair, sultry smile. Across the front, in a bold hand, was written: To darling Vic. My love, Nedra.
A shrine.
That was the only word for what I was looking at here — a queer, homemade shrine.
I took myself out of there, stumbling once on the carpet in my haste. Runyon hadn’t moved from the dinette table; his eyes were closed, the wet towel tight against his nose and turning crimson again. I gripped his shoulder, shook him gently. Shook him again, harder, until his eyes snapped open and lifted to meet mine. They were focused now; he was more or less aware of externals.
“Where’s Nedra?” I asked him.
His head wagged brokenly.
“Vic, where’s Nedra Merchant?”
“...Gone,” he said.
“Gone? Gone where?”
“Gone,” he said again. His features seemed to crumple like old paper, and he laid his head on his arms and began to weep.
I made a quick, superficial search of the rest of the house. Downstairs was a master bedroom, a spare bedroom, an office, two baths, a small storage area — and nothing out of the ordinary in any of them. Nedra Merchant’s bedroom had its own private black-tiled bath and was done in an exotic Oriental style — or what an Occidental might perceive to be an exotic Oriental style. Black teak furniture, ornamental masks and jade statuettes, gold drapes and carpeting and counterpane on the big, round bed. And mirrors, lots of ornate-framed mirrors strategically placed so that Nedra and her bed partners could watch themselves at play.
Man-eater, maybe. Sybarite, probably.
Gone, definitely.
And yet, most if not all of her clothes were still here. The walk-in closet was jammed with casual and evening wear; her dresser drawers were loaded with lingerie; her jewelry case was full of earrings and bracelets and the like, accent on jade items that had to be reasonably expensive; and I’d noticed a matching set of Gucci luggage out in the storage room. All her cosmetics and perfumes appeared to be here, too. neatly arranged on the vanity table in the bath.
Some sort of extended vacation or business trip?
Planned disappearance, for personal reasons or financial gain?
Foul play?
Whatever it was, and however long she’d been gone, Victor Runyon had continued coming here two and three times a week ever since. Why? In the hope that she’d come back? To try to find a clue to her whereabouts? Or to keep renewing his sick little shrine with fresh flowers and fresh candles — an ongoing vigil, votive offerings to God or the gods asking her safe return, a continual private wake? Jesus. The man was not simply obsessed with Nedra Adams Merchant; he was coming apart at the seams, walking the edge of nightmare.
On the table next to Nedra Merchant’s bed was a black-and-gold telephone. I picked up the receiver, heard a dial tone, then tapped out Runyon’s home number from my notebook. Two rings, and Kay Runyon’s voice said a guarded hello.
I identified myself. “We need to talk, Mrs. Runyon.”
“You’ve found out who Nedra is?”
“Yes, but it’s more than that. A whole lot more.”
“...Do you want to come here? Vic’s... away again tonight.”
“I know. I’m with him now. There’s been some trouble.”
Faint intake of breath. “Trouble?”
“He’s been hurt. Not too badly, but he needs medical attention. I’m going to take him to the emergency room at S.F. General. Will you meet me there in half an hour?”
“My God, what happened?”
“He was attacked. I’ll tell you about it when I see you. Half an hour at S.F. General.”
“Yes,” she said, “yes, I’ll be there.”
I went back upstairs, into the kitchen. Runyon wasn’t there. Family room, I thought — and that was where he was, sitting now on a long sofa in front of his shrine, staring fixedly at Nedra Merchant’s photograph. The dancing candlelight made his bruised and bloodied face look ghastly, as if he’d been made up for some sort of horror show.
I said, “Time to go, Mr. Runyon.”
“Go? Go where?”
“The hospital. Get that broken nose taken care of.”