Stupid. Stupid! Two major blunders today, and the second one in spite of my vows to use my head, be careful, not make any more mistakes. I had been lucky this time, but if I let it happen again, the odds were I’d be dead. And Kerry could keep her promise not to cry at my funeral.
Getting old, getting slow, getting stupid — yeah. But there wouldn’t be any third blunder. Quon wasn’t going to kill me; no way. He’d had his chance tonight and he’d blown it, and now it was my turn. Now I was the one who was going to eat some pie.
Mau Yee, I thought, you’re a dead cat. One way or another, sooner or later — a dead cat.
Twelve
Nightmares plagued my sleep — blood and shadow, guns flashing, Chinese faces leering at me with Cheshire cat smiles out of a dark and bloody sky — and I woke up twice, drenched in sweat. But except for the dull ache in my shoulder, the same paralysis in the arm and hand, I was in fair enough shape in the morning.
I took a couple of the Empirin-and-codeine tablets Abrams had given me, and then brewed some coffee and made myself eat a couple of eggs and a piece of toast. It was a few minutes before nine when I left the flat, wearing the .38 and a different overcoat because the one I’d had on last night was soiled and had a rip in one sleeve. When I got downstairs, I scanned the street through the door glass before I stepped outside. I doubted if Jimmy Quon would come after me again right away, in broad daylight, but I had plenty of reason to be paranoid. I also opened the hood on my car to check the engine, and felt around under the dash when I got inside. For all I knew, Mau Yee was as handy with bombs as he was with his puppies.
Nobody followed me as I drove down to the Marina District; I made sure of that, too. The North Point address Chadwick had given me for Philip Bexley turned out to be a private house near the Palace of Fine Arts. It had been newly painted, and there were a couple of strips of lawn and some flowering shrubs in front. There were also an iron grillwork gate across the porch and grillwork bars over the first-floor windows. Everybody in the city had a reason to be paranoid these days.
I found a place to park a few doors away. In the glove compartment was an envelope with an accumulation of business cards people had given me; I rummaged around in there until I came up with one that said: North Coast Insurance Company — Lloyd Rable, Claims Representative. I put the card into my coat pocket and then got out and locked the car and walked back to the Bexley house.
It took a minute or so for somebody to answer the doorbell. A cold wind, damp with fog, chilled my neck and ears as I waited; I’d forgotten to wear my hat today. When a chain finally rattled inside and the door opened I was looking at the beefy guy I had run into outside the Mid-Pacific offices yesterday. He was wearing a different three-piece suit, expensively cut, and he had a briefcase under one arm.
He remembered me, too; recognition formed a row of frown lines between his eyebrows. I hadn’t expected him to still be home — it was his wife I’d figured to talk to — and the question now was, did he know who I was? He did if he was the man behind Jimmy Quon. Or if he’d seen my photograph in the papers and made the right connection. The other possibility was that Orin Tedescu had mentioned my talk with him, in which case I would have to keep on being Andrew James.
He said, “Yes? What is it?” in a neutral voice.
Go slow, I thought, play it by ear. “Mr. Bexley?”
“That’s right.”
“I saw you yesterday morning, didn’t I? Outside your offices? I was just getting out of the elevator and you were just getting on.”
“Yes, I remember.”
“I’m sorry to have missed you then,” I said. “But I did spend a few minutes with Mr. Tedescu. Perhaps he mentioned me?”
“No, I didn’t go back to the office yesterday. What is it you want?”
That took care of Andrew James. And if Bexley had any idea of my real identity, he wasn’t letting on; which might mean he was willing to play games, to see what I was up to. So I said, “My name is Lloyd Rable,” and took the business card out of my pocket and handed it to him through the gate. “North Coast Insurance.”
He looked at the card, still frowning. The bars made it seem as though one of us was in a cage. At length he put his eyes on me again; the only expression in them was one of polite disinterest. “I’m not in the market for any insurance,” he said.
I gave him a toothy smile. “No, no, that’s not why I’m here. I’m a staff investigator, not a sales agent. The head of your company, Mr. Emerson, has applied for a rather large policy with us. He gave your name as one of his references. I’d like to ask you a few questions about him, if you wouldn’t mind.”
“What sort of questions?”
“Oh, on his background, habits, financial status, things like that. Mostly for purposes of confirming data he supplied on his application. It’s standard procedure when an individual applies for a substantial policy.”
“Well... I was just on my way to the office. I’m already late as it is.”
“I won’t take up much of your time, Mr. Bexley. And it would save my having to bother you again later on.”
He thought it over. Or seemed to. Pretty soon he shrugged and said, “All right. I guess I can give you ten minutes.”
“I’d appreciate it.”
Bexley unlocked the gate and showed me into a spacious living room outfitted with blond furniture and at least three dozen house plants that gave the room a greenhouse atmosphere. Somewhere at the rear of the house, kids were making noise. A woman’s voice yelled at them to be quiet. I sat down on the couch, and while I was getting out my notebook the woman appeared in a doorway. She was blond like the furniture, attractive in a gaunt way, wearing a pink housecoat and fuzzy pink mules.
“Who is it, Phil?” she asked.
“This is Mr. Rable,” Bexley told her, gesturing toward me. “He’s an insurance investigator. He wants to ask me some questions about Carl.”
“Oh,” she said, “Carl,” and her mouth got a little pinched at the corners. “Is he in some sort of trouble, I hope?”
“No. He just applied for some insurance, that’s all.”
The woman looked disappointed. “I’m sorry to hear that. If he was in trouble, it would have made my day.”
“Linda,” Bexley said sharply, “why don’t you go do something about those boys? It sounds like they’re tearing up the bedroom back there.”
“They’re just playing—”
“I don’t care what they’re doing. Get them quieted down, will you?”
She made a face and muttered something I didn’t catch; but she went away. Bexley sat in an armchair across from me. There was a cut-glass cigarette box on the table next to him; he got a filtertip out of there and lit it with a table lighter.
I said, “Your wife doesn’t seem to care much for Mr. Emerson.”
“I guess she doesn’t.”
“May I ask why?”
“Personal reasons.”
“Do you feel the same way?”
“Carl and I get along all right.”
“Would you consider him a friend?”
“Not really. A business associate.”
“How long have you known him?”
“Six years. He was with Honeywell when I went to work there; that’s how we met.”