I got her off the line so she could ring Branislaus. The police weren’t going to do much except put out a pickup-and-hold order on Runyon, but it would have been cruel to tell her that. Cops are overworked, especially on summer Saturday nights, and all she had to give them was a husband gone for one hour, a missing target pistol, and an uncorroborated suspicion that he intended to do himself harm; he’d never even mentioned suicide to her or she’d have told me about it. The suicide prevention people couldn’t do much either, except to help hold her together. If anybody tracked down Victor Runyon before he pulled the trigger on himself — or afterward — the chances were it would be me.
He wasn’t at Nedra Merchant’s house. No sign of his BMW on Crestmont, and the place was dark and still locked up tight. But I parked and went in to check it anyway, just to make sure.
While I was at the door, a car rolled uphill and then swung over directly in front of the gate, on the side of the street where you weren’t supposed to park. I recrossed the deck, went through the gate. The car was a new, beige Cadillac Eldorado, and the man getting out of it was Walter Merchant.
We both stopped and looked at each other, him with one hand holding the car door open. His expression said he was puzzled, concerned, and a little sheepish. The bright glaze on his eyes said he’d been out liquor tasting. He wasn’t hammered, but he wasn’t sober either.
“What’re you doing here, Mr. Merchant?”
“I might ask you the same thing.” No word-slur, at least.
“Looking for somebody on behalf of my client.”
“One of her conquests?”
“Who I’m looking for is my business.”
“Wouldn’t have anything to do with Nedra’s disappearance, would it?”
“No, it wouldn’t. I told you I’d let you know if I found out what happened to her. I haven’t; I still don’t have a clue. Now, why are you here?”
He let out a boozy sigh. “I can’t give you much of an answer, I’m afraid. I’ve been for drinks with a client who lives over on Parnassus. That’s not far away and on my way home I thought, well, why not?” He chuckled self-deprecatingly. “Oh, hell, I don’t know. Nedra’s been on my mind ever since you told me she was missing.”
“You come up here often, do you?”
“Christ, no. This is the first time in years.”
“Uh-huh.”
“The truth, whether you believe it or not. I was married to the woman for five years, lived with her in this house for five years. I’m concerned about her — you can understand that, can’t you?”
I could understand it, all right. His torch was burning hot again after years of being dampered down to a sizzle; hell, I was the one who’d relit it for him. So now here he was, mooning around up here too. Runyon and Cahill and now Merchant — a regular goddamn convention of bewitched males making pilgrimages to the lair of the enchantress.
Merchant said, “You leaving now?”
“That’s right.”
“Me too. Home and hearth await.”
“Maybe you’d better sit here for a while. Or go for a walk, get some fresh air.”
“I’m sober enough to drive.”
“Are you? The legal limit is point-oh-eight and you’re carrying more than that for sure.”
“Never cite the law to a lawyer,” he said.
He got into the car. I thought about reaching in, yanking his keys out of the ignition; but it would probably mean laying hands on him, and he was litigious as hell. I might have done it anyway, but I’d waited too long: he slammed the door and I heard the lock click.
I leaned down to the window. “Don’t kill anybody on your way home.”
He pulled a face — half smile and half grimace — saluted, and put the car in gear. The U-turn he executed was slow and careful; so was his progress around the first curve and out of sight. So maybe he wouldn’t kill anybody on the way home, himself included — the damn fool.
Mount Davidson was only a few miles from Mount Sutro; I went up there next. Highest hill in San Francisco at over nine hundred feet, and atop it, one of the city’s manmade parks dominated by the huge cross where Easter morning services are held every year. Lonely enough spot at night, despite regular police patrols — just the sort of place that might attract a potential suicide. But not Victor Runyon, at least not this soon after nightfall. None of the cars parked up there was a BMW.
Downtown. SoMa was jumping: bright lights, restless crowds, and just about any kind of night action you wanted, from stand-up comedians to sadomasochistic gay sex shows performed by leather-clad men in cages. The building in which Runyon had his business office was shut down, but there was a security guard in residence. He knew Runyon, he said. And hadn’t seen him in over a week. He assured me that there was no way Runyon could have gotten into the building tonight unseen.
Getting on toward ten o’clock now. I headed up Market: no place to go except back to Crestmont, start all over again. Nights like this, on missions like this, I felt like a hunk of metal hurtling through black space. Moving at speed, veering off on tangents now and then, sometimes traveling in circles, but without any real destination or purpose in the scheme of the universe; lighted objects all around, some close, some remote, none with any connection to me — other fragments rushing on their aimless courses, different and yet fundamentally the same. A small, useless thing, all alone on a zigzag course toward the edge of the void.
Bad thinking — bad anytime. I switched on the radio to get some distracting noise into the car. Drive, just drive, don’t think.
Crestmont, the red-shingled house. Still no sign of Runyon.
Mount Davidson. Still no sign of Runyon.
I came down out of the park on Dalewood, swung over and got onto Portola Drive. But instead of heading down Market again, I turned on Diamond Heights Boulevard. Useless to go to SoMa again; he wasn’t going to be at his office now either. Out driving around somewhere, maybe, trying to work up enough nerve to blow himself away. Or already dead in some other private place. Why the hell keep chasing around the way I had been? Why try to stop him at all? Just let the poor bastard do it, if he hadn’t already. He was no good to his family anymore, likely never would be again; and worst of all, he was no good to himself. Everybody concerned would be better off with him dead and gone.
But I didn’t believe it. I was not that cynical — not yet. Busted-up humans like Runyon could be fixed; and even if they couldn’t, the people who loved them had the moral right to keep them alive. In Runyon’s case, I had the moral obligation to help his loved ones keep him alive. I had played the vengeful god once, not long ago: decided spur-of-the-moment that the world would be better off with a man dead and then made him that way. The man had been evil, but that didn’t make what I’d done right; just, maybe, but not right. It was a decision and a responsibility I never wanted to be mine again.
Back to SoMa, then, and the whole circuit a third time if necessary. But not just yet. First, a little detour up Gold Mine Drive.
Kerry wasn’t home.
I didn’t see her car on two passes, and when I U-turned and came back again I parked in front of her building and went into the foyer and rang her bell. I could have let myself in with my key; I could have gone into her apartment and poked around to see if there was any evidence of an affair with Paul Blessing. I even thought for a few seconds about doing just that. But I couldn’t go through with it, any more than I could drive over to Tiburon and see if she was with Blessing at his house. Or come back here later and hang around to find out if she came home.
I did not want to learn the truth in any of those ways, on the sly, like the sleazy keyhole peepers and divorce mucksters that had given my profession a bad name. I had too much respect for Kerry, for what we’d had together, for myself, to invade her privacy and turn a painful situation into an ugly one. A little dignity isn’t much to hang on to when a relationship starts to come apart, but it’s something at least. Something important.