Bill Pronzini - The Vanished

I came back to San Francisco the same way I had arrived in Germany: bone-tired.

There had been delays at Heathrow again, and inclement weather on the transatlantic flight, and it was after three when the plane landed at San Francisco International on Wednesday. I had regained the nine hours lost going over, and so it was midnight European time and better than eighteen hours since I had last slept.

It was cold and clear in The City, and that was a pleasant change from the sweeping rain and snow which had blanketed most of Europe. I took the shuttle into the Downtown Terminal, went directly from there to the Argonaut Hotel.

Not quite as genteel as the Royal Gate, it was nonetheless another of those gilt-edged mirrors of old San Francisco; Elaine Kavanaugh had, for one thing, excellent taste. I spoke to a desk clerk who might have been a younger brother of the one at the Royal Gate, found out that Elaine was in her room, and waited while he had me announced. A couple of minutes later he came back with her approval and told me I would find her in 722.

When I came out of the elevator on the seventh floor, she had her door open at the far end of the hall, waiting for me. She wore a yellow sweater and a plaid skirt, and her hair was carelessly combed, her face haggard and etched with desperate hope and infinite weariness. There were purplish half-moons under her eyes, and worry lines on her forehead and at the corners of her unpainted mouth. Her flesh had a loose quality, a kind of mass relaxation of the molecules of her being, and she looked at least as old as I am.

If I tell her what I suspect, I thought, she’ll age even more, she’ll disintegrate right here in front of me. The prospect was an ugly one. During the plane flights I had tried to think of different ways of handling my meeting with her, using half-truths at this or that level, but none of it was particularly appealing. Finally, I had decided to just let it happen spontaneously, que será será , and that still seemed to be the best idea.

She caught my arm and drew me inside, and then shut the door and leaned back against it, looking at me with those desperate eyes. ‘My God, I thought you were never going to come,’ she said. ‘I’ve been waiting and waiting-why didn’t you say something in your wire?’

‘There was nothing immediate to say.’

‘But didn’t you find out something?’

‘I don’t know yet.’

‘What does that mean? Did you or didn’t you?’

‘I’m just not sure.’

‘There must be some reason you decided to come home so quickly, for God’s sake.’

‘There’s a possibility I have to check out,’ I said. ‘Some people your fiance may have gone to see in Northern California.’

‘Where in Northern California?’

‘A town called Roxbury.’

‘Where’s that? I’ve never heard of it.’

‘It’s near Eureka.’

‘Who would Roy know up there?’

‘The family of someone he… met over in Germany.’

‘Why would he go to visit this family?’

‘I didn’t say that he did.’

‘But you think he might have?’

‘There’s the chance.’

‘Who was this someone he met in Germany?’

‘Just a guy,’ I lied automatically, and I felt uncomfortable, I felt lousy about this whole damned thing. I could not look at Elaine. I went to the window across the room and stared out at the city, lighting a cigarette; my cough had gone away again, the way it always did, and I knew I was back fighting to keep myself under a pack a day, same old circus, same old carousel.

She came up behind me, and I could see her reflection in the window glass. I said, ‘Have you been all right?’

‘I’m beginning to understand what people with claustrophobia must feel like.’

‘But you didn’t go out.’

‘No. And no one has bothered me.’

‘Well, I’m glad to hear that.’

‘Look at me,’ she said, and there was some of that desperation in her voice now.

I did not want to look at her, but I turned anyway, slowly, and met her eyes and tried to keep my own blank and gentle. She said, ‘Why won’t you tell me what you found out? About these people Roy might have gone to see?’

‘Because I’m not sure it means anything. I don’t want to get your hopes up.’

‘I have a right to know. You’re working for me, you know.’

‘Listen, Miss Kavanaugh, bear with me a little. I’m not withholding anything important. I just want to have a chance to look into this thing before I talk about it. That’s all.’

‘Does it have something to do with that portrait of Roy?’

‘It might.’

‘Did you find out anything about it in Germany?’

‘Possibly.’

‘What?’

‘I don’t want to talk about it just yet.’

‘Do you have an idea now why it’s important?’

‘No,’ I said truthfully.

‘Or who stole it? Or who made those telephone calls?’

‘No.’

‘Or where Roy is now?’

‘No.’

Her eyes searched my face, the pupils moving, fluttering like restless birds. Finally she pivoted and crossed the room and sank into one of the chairs. She sat with her hands twisted together in an attitude of prayer, staring down at them, not moving. Then, abruptly, her head snapped up and she said, ‘He’s dead, isn’t he?’

‘What?’

‘That’s why you won’t tell me what you learned in Germany. You think he’s dead, for some reason you think he’s dead, and you want to make sure before you tell me. That’s it, isn’t it?’

‘No,’ I said, ‘no, that’s not it.’

She caught her lower lip between her teeth and bit at it until I thought she might draw blood. Her eyes were on her hands again. Silence gathered thickly in the room, and I watched her and tried to think of something to say that wouldn’t sound false and unconvincing-but there seemed to be nothing. I felt like a damned heel, and yet there was no other way to do it without being even more cruel; I had only suspicions, not facts.

She broke the silence after a long moment, and her voice was flat, empty, teetering on the edge of hysteria. ‘Yes, he’s dead, I know he’s dead and you know it too, that has to be it.’

‘Miss Kavanaugh, please-’

‘He’s dead, he died somehow and I’ll never see him again-oh God, oh God, he’s dead, damn you, I know he’s dead, why don’t you tell me, I know he’s dead! ’ She began to rock back and forth like a little girl with a doll in her lap, clutching her hands, her mouth quivering.

I went to her, awkwardly, hurriedly, and took her shoulders. ‘Easy now, it’s all right,’ I said, and the words were banal in my own ears. ‘You don’t know he’s dead, I don’t know it, I don’t even think it-’

‘No, he’s dead,’ she said, ‘he’s the only man I ever loved, the only man I was ever with, we were lovers, listen, we were lovers and I don’t care because we loved , we loved, it was beautiful every time, oh my God, I wish I was dead too…’

Her eyes were fixed, catatonic, and bubbles of saliva formed at the corners of her mouth. I slapped her, hard enough to jerk her head around, reddening her cheek. Her mouth went slack, and then her eyes cleared and she blinked at me, focused on me, and the dangerous moment-the potentially suicidal moment-was over. She was all right again, embarrassed, and she put her face in her hands and began to cry, softly, quietly.

I left her and returned to the window, looking out at the city again, at the inanimate testimonials of civilization and all its subtle barbarity. After a time the muffled sobbing sounds ceased behind me, and Elaine said, ‘I’m sorry, I… I didn’t mean to act that way.’