Death Bed Page 3

  The woman gave me a form to take with me and I did.

  FOUR

  The address wasn’t quite as good as it looked. After I left the library card lady I checked it out in the city directory, and the name beside 3727 Twenty-sixth Street was someone named Jefferson. I’d go out there sooner or later, but since I’d already been granted an audience I decided to start with Shelley Withers. If Karl was still living on Twenty-sixth Street he’d keep, and Mrs. Withers might be able to tell me, accidentally or on purpose, whether there was more to this case than met the eye. When a man as prominent as Max Kottle finds his way down to my level, that’s often the case. By three thirty I was watching the whitecaps cavort like Easter bunnies beneath the span of the Golden Gate.

  I took the Alexander Avenue exit to Sausalito and wound my way down toward the town. The sun had broken through the gray for the first time in days. Its rays lingered on the mist-covered hills, sparkling here, twinkling there, enjoying themselves. I felt rather sparkling myself.

  I turned left onto Sausalito Boulevard and left again onto Third and then turned onto Edwards, the street I wanted. It was narrow and winding, barely wide enough for two cars to slip by each other even if both drivers were being careful. The hillside rose sharply on my right and dropped away just as sharply to my left. Other than shrubbery, the only things I could see were the tops of trees and the roofs of houses. I parked in the first wide spot in the road.

  I spotted the number I was looking for after walking about thirty yards. It was painted on the face of the bottom step of a flight that led up from the street to a gap in a six-foot hedge. From where I stood I couldn’t tell what was on the other side. I climbed two steps and looked back over my shoulder. Belvedere and Angel Island rose up at me, heaps of green liquefied by the late-afternoon light.

  There was a house behind the hedge, a house anchored to the hillside only by a brace of foot-square beams and four concrete pilings. It was literally overhead, its cantilevered deck reaching toward the bay like the beckoning arm of a red-skinned siren. I felt small and helpless standing beneath it, but I would have felt even less secure if I’d lived in it. There was nothing between the house and the bay that a seven-point quake wouldn’t eliminate. But I kept climbing, up the stairs and through a well in the deck, and walked over to the door.

  They had chimes. People who own houses like that always have chimes. This particular set pealed a phrase from Rachmaninoff after I pressed the button. The tones were flat. If anyone within earshot could identify the work I’d give up Scotch for a week.

  I pressed the button again and waited. The door was a slab of frosted glass, eight feet high, four feet wide. The knob in the center of it was silver. For a couple of minutes the only thing I could see was a hazy and vague reflection of myself that made me seem senile and boneless. Then, for a minute after that, a shadow stood behind the door, waiting for something. Finally the door opened.

  The man had black hair flecked with gray and black eyes flecked with red and features that had been designed with a T-square and a protractor rather than a compass and a French curve. The cleft in his chin could have lodged a tribe of Hopis.

  “I’m John Marshall Tanner,” I said.

  The man didn’t answer, but he did step to the side after my name worked its way through his neglected synapses. I accepted his invitation, but not graciously.

  The foyer floor was a path of pebbles that had been set in concrete, then covered with a clear plastic coat so they would shine brightly while they were bruising your feet. We clomped over them to a long, dark hallway and followed it past several closed doors until it opened onto a two-tiered room, large and airy, a brilliant blur of white-on-white.

  The very indistinctness of the room kept me from focusing on anything but the woman. She was sitting on the white leather couch in the exact center of the lower tier. Her gown was red and silk and so were her shoes and so was her hair. They set her off the way a cherry sets off a marshmallow surprise.

  The wall beyond the woman was all glass, curtained except for a narrow slit by a drape of white muslin. A white wall hanging usurped another wall with ropes and wires and shredded yarn. All the furniture I could see had been made to be viewed rather than occupied.

  My escort strode forward and sauntered down the two steps leading to the lower level and walked to the woman’s side. I followed suit. He muttered something that I couldn’t catch but didn’t have to and gestured back at me with theatrical contempt.

  The woman had been watching me all the while, smiling serenely if vacantly, and when the man quit talking her right arm lapped toward me like a mastiff’s tongue. I stepped forward smartly and clutched her fingers. They were too warm and too dry and too limp. The lumps that felt like warts were really diamonds. “Mr. Tanner,” she crooned throatily.

  I did half of what Emily Post says you’re supposed to in that situation, then released the fingers. They glided to her thigh and lay there like bright-eyed worms. “Mrs. Withers, I presume,” I said.

  Her precisely painted lips pursed tolerantly. She nodded once and turned to the man. So did I.

  The eyes that jumped from her face to me and back to her again were round and small, the kind of eyes that look down at you from the end of the dice table when you crap out. Everything he wore was shiny. None of the buttons above his waist were being used. “You may leave us, Randy,” the woman said to him.

  “I better stay, Shel,” Randy protested.

  “No.” The word was solid, reinforced with something known best to Randy. “This is family business,” she added. “You won’t be needed.”

  Randy stayed put for a moment, but what he saw in her eyes made him back off. He glanced quickly at something out on the deck, then walked away. As he climbed the steps the hole in his sock winked at me.

  While I waited for Randy to disappear I glanced through the slit in the drape. The portion of the deck I could see through the curtain was red and canopied, and the city beyond the deck was on the far side of two miles of blue-green water.

  Then I noticed something I had skipped. There on the deck, lying prone on a yellow chaise, was the body of a girl, young, firm, tan. I could only see from her knees to her waist, but the part I could see was naked.

  Mrs. Withers’ gesture kept me from lingering over the view. I sat beside her on the couch, my back to the deck. “Your husband seems to believe I’m some sort of threat to you, Mrs. Withers,” I said as I sat down. “I’m not sure what caused it, but I’m just here to get some information about your son Karl.”

  She laughed heavily, the tops of her ample breasts ballooning at the neck of her gown. “Randy helps ward off my pursuers,” she said happily. “At times he’s overprotective. I’m sorry. And Randy is not my husband. Mr. Withers is at our home in Palm Springs, where he spends each winter. The dampness up here makes his joints swell.”

  Another laugh swirled up out of her throat, hissing merrily. She reclined more comfortably against the couch, striking a pose, her bare arm trailing across the back of the brocade like an albino python on a padded limb. I could have licked her thumb by moving four inches.

  “What does Randy do?” I asked.

  “He does me, Mr. Tanner. I suppose you might call him my researcher.”

  “What kind of research?”

  The makeup made room for another smile. “Do you know what I do for a living, Mr. Tanner?”

  I shrugged, feigning ignorance. “I guess not.”

  “Over there.”

  She gestured with one of her fingers and two of her diamonds. Along one wall, stretching six feet or more, was a glass showcase, the kind you see in museums with something old and small inside them. In this one there were twelve miniature easels, and on each easel was a paperback book, thick and squat, with a cover photo displaying a young woman in one stage or another of sexual jeopardy. The titles of the books used words like “savage” and “flame” and “desire.”

  I said the first thing that came to mind. �
�You must be rich as hell.”

  “Not quite,” she said with amusement. “I’m not even as rich as dear old Max. But I’m getting there.”

  “And you owe it all to Randy and his research.”

  “Well, let’s say that Randy does what he can. What he can’t, I get from someone else. Interested?”

  “Not this month.”

  “I thought not. But you may show up in my next book anyway. My imagination simply soars at times.”

  “I can imagine.”

  “I doubt it. Have you ever read one of my books?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Oh, don’t be embarrassed. Men aren’t interested in what I write. Only women. And certain kinds of women at that.”

  “What kinds?”

  “Women who aren’t what they always thought they would be.”

  “None of us are what we always thought we would be.”

  “But some are closer than others. My readers are the ones who missed the boat completely, either because their dreams were too grand or their accomplishments too feeble. Men with the same problem jog or race cars.”

  The woman fascinated me, in spite of myself. Her cheeks were geological treasures of foundation and base and blush and rouge and powder and God knows what else, and her eyes seemed sculpted from blocks of black crust, possibly coal. The effect should have been ghastly, but it wasn’t. Quite. If not for the stalks of wrinkles that sprouted above her lips and the flesh that dripped below her bicep, she could still pass for what she was struggling so mightily to be. “How do Randy and your husband get along?” I asked.

  “They’ve never met. They never will.”

  “Anyone else live here?”

  “My daughter, Rosemary. Six cats. One watchdog. Not that it’s any of your business.” The arm came off the brocade. “You said you were here about Karl.”

  I nodded. The fun and games had ended and in her eyes I saw a glimpse of the resolve that had gotten her into Max Kottle’s bed at the age of nineteen. “I’m trying to find him,” I said.

  “What’s he done now?” She eyed me carefully, her lips pursed once again, extending the wrinkles.

  “Nothing I’m aware of.”

  “Then why do you want him?”

  “I’d prefer not to say.”

  “Then you may leave. I’m too old for guessing games.”

  She had called my bluff with the confidence of the inventor of the game. I decided there wasn’t much point in fencing over Max Kottle’s identity, at least not with her. “His father wants to see him,” I said.

  “Max?”

  I nodded.

  “Why? After all these years?”

  “Do you have to know?”

  “I most certainly do.”

  “Max is dying.”

  The words plucked a nerve. Her hand began to vibrate. It drifted to her throat where it clutched at her flesh, as though to remove it from bone. “How?”

  “Cancer.”

  “The poor man.”

  She stood and walked to the glass wall and looked out. She seemed held erect only by the folds of her gown. “Max has always been like an insurance policy for me, Mr. Tanner,” she said, still facing the window. “I always felt that, whatever might happen, I could rely on Max to see that I had enough to get by on.” She laughed dryly. “I imagine, in light of what he must have told you about me, you find my confidence somewhat naive.”

  “Somewhat.”

  “Well, whatever he says now, Max was very much in love with me at one time. The past is never erased completely from the memory. But you tell me my insurance policy is being canceled. Well, luckily, with the books, I no longer need it.”

  “Max needs you,” I said quickly. “If you know anything at all about Karl’s whereabouts.”

  “Max needs me,” she repeated dreamily. “That’s a first.” She turned to face me. “Would you like a drink?”

  It was close enough to five not to be an issue. “Scotch.”

  She walked to a glass cupboard at the far side of the room and took out a crystal decanter and two glasses and filled them both. I nodded to show I’d take it neat. As she walked over to hand me the glass her gown rustled like a gonfalon in a zephyr.

  “I was not originally inclined to give you any information,” she said as she retook her seat. “But I’ve changed my mind. A woman’s prerogative. Unfortunately, I have little information to give you.”

  “I’ll take what I can get.”

  She nodded. “I haven’t seen or heard from Karl in more than four years. He clearly desires privacy. I was not a very good mother, Mr. Tanner, as I’m sure you’ve guessed. Until now I thought the least I could do was respect my son’s wish to stay incommunicado. But things have changed.”

  “Because of Max?”

  “Yes. It’s not public knowledge, is it, that he’s dying?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Karl should know. Also, I believe it might be in my best interest to help Max gratify his last wish, so to speak. Do you think so?”

  “I don’t know.” I assumed she was talking about the will.

  “Will you tell Max I was cooperative?”

  “If that’s the way I see it. Tell me about Karl.”

  “Since the time he went to prep school we’ve seen each other only briefly. During his last years at Berkeley, when he began to despise his father so, he began to sympathize more with me, and he came to see me a few times. But then he got into that trouble and went to Canada, and when he came back I couldn’t tell what he was thinking, about me or about anything else.”

  “Then you’ve seen him since he came back?”

  “Yes. He stayed here for a few days when he first returned. I gave him some money and the next day he left without a word.”

  “When was that?”

  “Let me see. Six or seven years ago, I believe.”

  “And since then?”

  “He has been here, oh, maybe three times. Always at night. Always alone. He was frequently high on drugs.”

  “What was he doing for a living?”

  “Nothing that I could see. I’m not sure why he came here, I gave him no more money. He would sit and stare out this window for hours, then fall asleep on the couch and be gone by the time I woke up the next morning. We barely exchanged a word.”

  “What was the trouble he got into?”

  “I don’t remember the details. Something to do with all those war demonstrations. The police were here once. A building was burned, I think. Something like that. Someone was hurt.”

  “Is Karl wanted by the cops?”

  “I suppose so. I’m not sure. They wanted me to call them if I saw him again. Of course I wouldn’t.”

  I couldn’t tell whether her indifference was calculated or real. It could easily have been either, she was that kind of woman. “Can you give me any lead at all?” I asked.

  She frowned. “How do I know you’re really working for Max? How do I know you’re not someone else?”

  “Call him up.”

  She paused. “No. You wouldn’t lie about something like that. You wouldn’t dare. If Max found out, you’d be finished in this town. In this world.”

  “How about that lead?”

  She thought for a minute. “Just one. I said Karl always came here alone, but once he brought a girl. This was the last time I saw him, about four years ago. She was even more silent than Karl, if that was possible. Lovely, but disturbed.”

  “Who was she?”

  “I remember her first name. Amber. I used the name in one of my books.”

  “Anything else?”

  “Not really. She was blond, thin, blue eyes as big as robin’s eggs. She appeared to worship Karl.”

  “Any idea where I can reach her?”

  “As a matter of fact, I do. She telephoned me last week and left a number. She’s looking for Karl, too.”

  Mrs. Withers went off to get the number for me. I glanced back at the deck but the naked body was gone. When she
came back, Mrs. Withers handed me a piece of paper. “I must ask you to leave now,” she said at the same time. “I have guests.”

  I told her I would let myself out. On the way down the hall I heard voices. I paused in front of one of the doors. “Who is he?” It sounded like Randy, but I couldn’t be sure.

  “None of your business.” A girl. Young. Recently naked, I guessed.

  “Everything in this place is my business.”

  “Like hell. You’re nothing but the hired hand, and the only tool you’re hired to use is the one between your legs.”

  “You bitch. He’s old enough to be your father.”

  “That makes him just about as old as you, doesn’t it, Randy?”

  “You’re like animals. I can hear everything the two of you do in here, you know. So can your mother.”

  “I doubt that. If she heard she’d probably come in and join us.”

  “Whore!”

  “Get out of here, Randy. I’m warning you. If you take another step I’ll see to it Shelley makes you pack your bags by the end of the day. Think of it. You might have to start earning your living with something besides your cock.”

  The sound of steps came toward me. I hurried across the pebbles and out the door.

  FIVE

  I wanted to talk to Amber that night but I couldn’t; I had a dinner appointment with a friend.

  To say Chet Herk is a newspaperman is to say William Faulkner wrote books. More can be added. Chet got a journalism degree at Missouri back before journalism students were more common than colds and before all official pronouncements of propriety were taken with a dash of sodium chloride. After a brief stint with UPI, Chet came West and latched onto the Oakland Tribune. When we first got together I was a young lawyer and he was a cub reporter and we were both grasping at straws any sane person would have shunned, trying to make both names and dollars for ourselves.

  Less than a year after we met I got a client who was charged with multiple homicide—the chain garroting of his girl friend’s parents and younger sister at their home in Hayward. Just before he was killed the girl’s father had forbidden her to see my client anymore, mostly because of his oddly cut hair, and that was more than enough motive to suit the Hayward cops. The case was considered closed. I pleaded my client not guilty because that’s what you always do, but sometime after that he convinced me he really wasn’t, and for some reason Chet Herk decided he wasn’t, either.