Bill Pronzini: The Vanished

When they were gone-leaving me with the empty assurance that they would do what they could to recover my stolen property-I had another brandy for my nerves and then went into the bedroom and dialed the number of the Royal Gate Hotel. The switchboard rang Elaine Kavanaugh’s room and she answered immediately, as if she had been lying tensely awake in the darkness, waiting for the telephone to ring. ‘Yes? What is it?’

I told her who was calling; then: ‘Somebody broke into my apartment tonight while I was out. I came home and caught him at it and chased him out, but he got away without me getting a look at him.’

I could hear her breathing over the wire. She said at length, ‘I don’t understand. I’m sorry for you, but why did you call me?’

‘I have my doubts that this was an ordinary burglary attempt,’ I said. ‘The only thing stolen, except for a couple of inconsequential items that seem more like an afterthought than anything else, was that sketch of your fiancé you gave me this morning.’

‘The sketch? Are you sure?’

‘I’m sure.’

‘But-why would anybody want to steal that?’

‘I was about to ask you the same question.’

‘I have no idea. None at all.’

‘What can you tell about that sketch, Miss Kavanaugh?’

‘Just what I told you at your office. I found it among Roy’s things when I was looking through them. That’s all.’

‘Where exactly among his things?’

‘Inside his duffel bag.’

‘Was there anything else in there that might connect with the sketch?’

‘No, just clothing and such. Do you really think this is important?’

‘It might be,’ I said. ‘Are you sure he never told you about the portrait in any of his letters?’

‘Yes, I’m certain he never mentioned it.’

‘Then you don’t have any idea where he had it done?’

‘No.’

‘Or when?’

‘No.’

‘Or who drew it?’

‘No, I’m sorry, no.’

‘Do you remember a signature? I can’t recall seeing one.’

‘I don’t think it was signed.’

I shifted the receiver to my left hand. ‘Did you tell anyone about the sketch? That you’d found it, that you’d given it to me?’

‘No, of course not.’

‘Is your fiancé interested in painting, can you tell me that?’

‘Painting? No… not really. He likes sports, hunting, masculine things.’

‘Why do you suppose he sat for the sketch, then?’

‘Why-to surprise me, I suppose. He knows how much something like that would please me, and I… well, I just assumed he had it done for me.’

‘I see.’

‘Do you… think the theft of the sketch has something to do with his disappearance? Really think so?’ Her voice had grown very soft, and there was anguish in it now.

‘I don’t know. It might have.’

‘But I don’t see what! It was just a good portrait of Roy, that’s all.’

‘So it would seem,’ I said. ‘Did your fiancé happen to mention in any of his letters how he got along with his buddies-Hendryx and Gilmartin and Rosmond, in particular?’

‘How he got along with them? I don’t understand.’

‘Was he on good terms with each of them?’

‘Well, of course he was. They’ve been friends for years, all of them. I don’t see-’

‘I’m just fishing in the dark, Miss Kavanaugh. I’m sorry if I upset you, but I thought you’d want to know about the theft and I did want to ask you some questions about the portrait.’

‘Yes,’ she said, ‘yes, of course. But I… oh God, this is so confusing, so frightening on top of everything else. What does it mean? What can it mean?’

I had no answer for her. I said, ‘I’ll call you tomorrow from Eugene, Miss Kavanaugh. Maybe some of the answers are up there.’

‘I hope so. I can’t take much more of this waiting, this not knowing.’

I said a few gentle parting words, replaced the receiver, and released an audible breath. My watch told me it was almost 1:00 a.m. I thought: She’s not going to sleep much tonight, maybe you should have waited until tomorrow to tell her about it. Well, it was too late now; I had called her, and she had had nothing to tell me. A lot depended now on what I was able to find out in Oregon; if I ran into a blank up there, there was not much more I could do for Elaine Kavanaugh short of interrogating Hendryx and Gilmartin and Rosmond-and if one of them had stolen the sketch, he would not be likely to admit it to me.

I went out to the utility porch and fussed with the door again, wedging it more tightly shut, and then I walked through the apartment shutting off lights. I looked at the broken lamp in the living room, and finally kicked what was left of it into a corner; I was in no mood to do any cleaning up tonight. In the bedroom I undressed and got into bed and lay there looking up at the dark ceiling, listening to the low moans and creaks and cries of the old building, waiting for sleep to come.

I had to wait a long time…

My flight to Eugene left on schedule at nine the next morning, and it was quiet and uneventful and took something better than an hour. I sat over the wing, tired and vaguely irritable from lack of sleep, and brooded about the theft of Roy Sands’ portrait; it got me no further than the brooding I had done the previous night. I thought about Cheryl, then, and that made things considerably better for the duration.

It was snowing a little, not much, when we arrived. I rented a car at Mahlon Sweet Field, because it was the simplest way to do things and in the long run the most economical; and I asked the clerk for a city map and directions to the Western Union office in Eugene proper. He didn’t know where it was. I looked it up in the telephone directory and found that it was on Pearl Street, and then located Pearl on the map. I traced out a route that seemed the quickest-and took Highway 99 south-east into the city.

The snow was coming down pretty good now, and there was a lot of traffic. Eventually I reached the down-town area I wanted, left the car in the county parking lot at 7th and Oak, and walked down to Pearl.

The Western Union office had a poorly designed facade, front trim and entrance door set in light green-glass facing material; there were some display candygrams in the front show window, for the holiday season. I entered a large, weakly lighted room with a lobby marked off by counters, the furnishings and transmitting stations behind them giving the impression of age and heavy wear.

A girl about twenty-three, with flaxen hair and a long, tragic face, listened to me tell her who I was and why I was there; she seemed a little awed by my profession. Since the telegrams sent by Sands had gone out after six o’clock, she told me, it would have been a guy named Johnny Saddler-the night man-who had handled the business. She said he came on at six.

I thanked her and left the building, and I could feel her eyes on me as I went through the door and out into the lightly falling snow. It was the old Bogart image, embellished and nurtured by radio and television; they expected you to talk tough and to make cute wisecracks, or at the very least to leer suggestively with one side of your mouth. It stopped being amusing after a while, or even diverting, and became only tedious.

I had noticed that the Eugene City Hall was in the immediate downtown area, and I decided to pay a visit there before I did anything else. It turned out to be a modern affair-wood grille façade made of vertical timbers stained a dark brown-and comprised an entire city block between 7th and 8th avenues, Pearl and High streets; the offices were built around a landscaped court, and the entire area was raised some six to eight feet above the surrounding streets. The police station was on the northwest corner, and you got in there through a solid blue door set into a complete glass storefront.