Kruger had arched his back, picking his head up, stiff - necked, as he talked. Now exhausted, he sank back down.
"I guess," he said, "he's getting back at all of us." He lay in the ochre stain of dried urine, pitiful. "Anything else you want to tell me, Tim?" "I can't think of anything. You ask, I'll tell." I saw a tension travel up and down his bound limbs like a handcar on a twisted track and kept my distance.
There was a phone on the floor several feet away. I brought it near, stayed away from his arms and laid the speaker near his mouth. Holding the gun to his brow I punched in Towle's office number and stepped back.
"Make it good."
He did. I would have been convinced. I hoped Towle was. He signaled me the conversation was through by moving his eyes back and forth. I hung up and had him make a second call, to the security desk at La Casa to set up the doctor's visit.
"How was that?" he asked when he was through.
"Rave review."
Oddly enough that seemed to please him.
"Tell me, Tim, how are your sinuses?"
The question didn't throw him. "Great," he blurted out, "I'm never sick." He said it with the bravado of the habitual athlete who believes exercise and firm muscles are guarantees of immortality.
"Good. Then this shouldn't bother you." I crammed a towel into his mouth while he made enraged, muffled noises through the terrycloth. Carefully I dragged him to the bedroom, emptied the closet of anything that resembled a tool or weapon and shoved him inside, molding him to the confines of the tiny space.
"If I get out of La Casa with the kid and myself in good shape I'll tell the police where to find you. If I don't, you'll probably suffocate. Anything else you want to tell me?"
A shake of the head. Beseeching eyes. I closed the door and moved a heavy dresser in front of it. I replaced the gun in my waistband, closed all the windows in the apartment, drew the bedroom curtains and shut the bedroom door, blocking it with two chairs stood on end. I cut his phone line with a kitchen knife, drew the drapes so that the view of the ocean was erased and gave the place a final once over Satisfied, I walked out the door, slamming it tight.
28
The Seville was running, but shakily, as a result of the grand prix with Halstead. It was also too conspicuous for my purposes. I left it in a lot in Westwood Village, walked two blocks to a Budget Rent - A - Car and picked up a dark brown Japanese compact - one of those square little boxes of molded plastic papered with an allegedly metal shell. It took fifteen minutes to putt - putt through the traffic from one end of the village to the other. I pulled into the Bullocks garage, locked the gun in the glove compartment, locked the car and went shopping.
I bought a pair of jeans, thick socks, crepe - soled shoes, navy blue turtleneck and a windbreaker of the same dark hue. Everything in the store was tagged with plastic alarm clips and it took the salesgirl several minutes to liberate the garments after she'd taken my money.
"Wonderful world," I murmured.
"You think this is bad, we have the expensive stuff - leather, furs - under lock and key. Otherwise they just waltz right out with it."
We shared righteous sighs and, after being informed I was likely to be under surveillance, I decided not to change in the store's dressing room.
It was just past six and dark by the time I was back on the street. Time enough to grab a steak sandwich, Greek salad, vanilla ice cream and lots of black coffee and watch the starless sky from the vantage point of a front table in a mom - and - pop eatery on West Pico. At six - thirty I paid the tab and went into the restaurant's men's room to change. While slipping into my new duds I noticed a piece of folded paper on the floor. I picked it up. It was the copy of the Lilah Towle accident story given to me by Margaret Dopplemeier. I tried to read it again, with not much greater success. I was able to make out something about the Coast Guard and high tides, but that was it. I put it back in the jacket pocket, straightened up and got ready to head for Malibu.
There was a pay phone at the back of the cafe, and I used it to call the West L.A. station. I thought of leaving a convoluted message for Milo, then thought better of it and asked for Delano Hardy. After being kept waiting for five minutes I was finally told he was out on a call. I left the convoluted message for him, paid the check, and headed for Malibu.
It was slow going but I'd constructed my schedule with that in mind. I reached Rambla Pacifica just before seven, and the county sign announcing La Casa de los Ninos at ten after. The sky was empty and dark, like a drop down an endless well. A coyote howled from a distant gully. Nightbirds and bats flittered and squeaked. I switched off my headlights and navigated the next mile and a half by sense of touch. It wasn't all that difficult, but the little car resonated at every crack and bump in the road, and transmitted the shock waves directly through my skeletal system.
I came to a stop a half - mile before the La Casa turnoff. It was seven - fifteen. There were no other vehicles on the road. Praying it stayed that way, I swung the car perpendicular to the road and blocked both lanes: rear wheels facing the ravine that bordered the highway, front tires nosing the thick brush to the west. I sat in the darkened compartment, gun in hand, waiting.
At twenty - three after seven I heard the sound of an approaching engine. A minute later the Lincoln's square headlights came into view a quarter - mile up the road. I jumped out of the car, ran for cover in the brush and crouched, holding my breath.
He saw the empty car late and had to screech to a stop. He left his motor running, the lights on, and walked into the beam, cursing. The white hair gleamed silver. He wore a charcoal double - breasted blazer over a white open - necked shirt, along with black flannel pants and black - and - white golf shoes with tassels. Not a crease, not a wrinkle.
He ran a hand alongside the flank of the little car, touched the hood, grunted, and leaned through the open driver's door.
It was then that I sprang silently on crepe and put the gun in the small of his back.
As a matter of taste and principle I hate firearms. My father loved them, collected them. First there were the Lugers he brought home as World War II mementos. Then the deer rifles, the shotguns, automatic pistols picked up in pawn shops, an old rusted Colt.45, nasty - looking Italian pistols with long snouts and engraved butts, blue steel .22s. Lovingly polished and displayed in the den, behind the glass of a cherrywood case. Most of them loaded, the old man toying with them while watching TV. Calling me over to show off the details of construction, the niceties of ornamentation; talk of chamber velocity, core, bore, muzzle, grip. The smell of machine oil. The odor of burnt matches that permeated his hands. As a small child I'd have nightmares of the guns leaving their perches, like pets slipping out of their cages, taking on instincts of their own, barking and snarling