Robert L. Pike
Reardon
This Boole Is Gratefully Dedicated
to
Chief Thomas J. Cahill
&
Lt. William Osterloh
and the many other officers of the
San Francisco Police Department
whose co-operation made this book
possible.
Chapter 1
Tuesday — 6:15 P.M.
Through the porthole-like view furnished by the binoculars, the thick cables of the Golden Gate Bridge glinted, their edges truly golden, silhouetted against the lowering sun dipping into the Pacific in the background. The stepped towers held the thick strands like some giant cat’s cradle, casting elongated shadows across the still-bright waters of San Francisco Bay. The foreshortened view offered by the powerful glasses made the heavy traffic on the bridge appear almost frozen, inching in both directions. The girl holding the glasses shook her head impatiently at the view; an architect herself, she considered the Golden Gate Bridge towers a design disaster, ruining what should have been the most beautiful bridge in the world. Grauman’s Chinese mixed with male Gothic, she thought, and wrinkled her tiny nose.
She dropped her field of vision to the waters beneath the bridge, searching for more interesting fare and suddenly caught her breath. An ocean liner, startling in its white symmetry, was slowly entering the harbor, barely moving as it awaited the immigration cutter. The small speedboat was visible in the field of vision, bouncing across the slightly choppy waters. A ship’s ladder angled sharply from the purser’s deck to just above the whitecaps of the bay, providing access for the officials when they arrived.
Through the high-powered lenses the clean lines of the ship stood out sharply; the slightly tilted funnel breathed faint wisps of smoke, the wide bridge jutted in sentinel position above the sloping smooth wooden decks. The polished railings were lined with passengers dressed for disbarking, their luggage visible behind them, piled against the outer wall of the main salon. The brown hills of Marin County formed a background for the ship; to the right Sausalito and Tiberon edged the bay with tiny blocks of houses. The girl sighed at the beauty of the scene, drinking it in.
Lieutenant James Reardon of the San Francisco police, emerging from the bedroom of his small bachelor apartment, drew his turtleneck sweater over his head and used his fingers to comb his tousled red hair, still damp from his shower, into some semblance of order. He was a stocky man in his early thirties; he had a rugged yet remarkably sensitive face with sharp, intelligent gray eyes. At the moment he was smiling affectionately at his girl friend, Jan, sitting cross-legged, yoga fashion, on the kitchen table wearing one of his summer robes with the sleeves rolled up to accommodate her shorter arms, her feet shod in a pair of his bedroom slippers, and her forehead wrinkled in concentration above the arched eyepieces of the binoculars. Reardon straightened his turtleneck to a more comfortable grip around his thick neck, walked over and lightly ran his finger down Jan’s back, feeling the smooth familiar skin beneath the thin silky cloth, and also feeling, as always, the slight tenseness that gripped him at touching her.
“What I like about you, my darling,” he said, making his voice sound policeman-tough, “is your complete brazenness. People get arrested for the Peeping Tom bit, you know, and doing it in front of a police lieutenant doesn’t make it any less of a crime.”
Jan wriggled a bit under the finger investigating her back, but kept the glasses glued to her eyes. “I suppose you keep these binoculars here to keep an eye on suspicious neighbors.”
“Of course,” Reardon said righteously. “You never can tell when a young lady undressing might reveal something of a criminal nature.” He grinned and stared down at Jan with the pride of possession.
She was a small girl in her late twenties who objected to being called a girl; it didn’t seem to fit with the success she had already found in her profession. Her face was pert; her hair cropped in a style that seemed almost careless but was the result of long hours by a meticulous hair stylist. She had a quick, sharp, gamin-type intelligence coupled with a keen sense of humor; she also had a small pug nose and wide-set hazel eyes, which at the moment were concentrating solely on the scene before her. She sighed prodigiously and handed the glasses over her shoulder, continuing to watch the ship without the benefit of the binoculars.
“Look,” she said simply.
Reardon took the glasses from her and swung them to rest on an apartment building half a block down the hill on Larkin, only a block from his own apartment on Chestnut and Hyde. He changed the focus slightly, bringing them to bear on one particular window.
“Damn!” he said with mock disappointment. “It’s dark. Not one of the girls — I mean, the suspects, is home.”
“No, you idiot!” Jan grinned at him affectionately and tugged him around. “Just coming into the bay, near the Golden Gate — the ship. Isn’t it lovely?” Her face became serious for a moment. “Jimmy, why can’t we take a trip on a ship like that? To Hawaii, or perhaps down along Lower California? To Acapulco, maybe. When you get your vacation? I can arrange mine to suit.”
Reardon turned obediently in response to the urging on his arm, adjusting the focus as the view changed to Russian Hill park, then the roofs of homes below, sparkling in the late afternoon sun, then the Hyde Street Pier, and finally the blue waters of the bay. He swung the glasses slowly and finally located the slow moving boat. The block buildings of Fort Mason formed the foreground now. The immigration cutter was just releasing its officials; one was already swaying his way up the ladder. Even as Reardon watched, the last one sprang for the bobbing platform and the little dispatch boat skidded off, heading back for shore.
The eyes of the binoculars mounted the side of the vessel, skipping the parallel rows of portholes, jumping to the promenade deck where the passengers remained lined up like multicolored silhouettes in some shooting gallery. The damp-haired lieutenant scanned the deck slowly, pleasurably. A trip with Jan on a ship like that would be very nice — except for one thing. He studied the empty swimming pool, protected with heavy rope netting, led the view along the salon wall with its stacks of luggage and piles of deck chairs lashed for the port stay, moving toward the prow of the ship. Here a gang of seamen were readying the power winches, rigging the davits in preparation for unloading the forward hatches of their cargo. He was about to lower the glasses when a girl, dressed in what seemed to be some type of uniform came out onto the forward deck. Through the glasses he saw her settle herself in the niche formed by the railing and the deck housing, staring at the city. Reardon tightened the focus of the binoculars, studying her.
She was lovely; tall and straight with high, full breasts straining against the soft white of her dress; she appeared to be an employee of the ship taking a few moments from her work to enjoy the incomparable beauty of the sprawling, hilly city climbing out of the bay. Her shoulder-length hair whipped about her face, responding to the brisk breeze sweeping the choppy waters. Reardon touched the knurled knob of the glasses the merest bit, happy he had not stinted in purchasing the finest of optical equipment. Her face, he saw, was broad with a high forehead and slightly oriental features. It turned in his direction and for one brief instant her large dark eyes seemed to be looking directly into his, as if she could see him with equal clarity. He became aware that Jan was talking to him; he answered without lowering the glasses, almost absently.
“Yes, honey?”
“I said, would you mind taking a trip on that?”
His eyebrows rose. “Are you serious?”