Bill Pronzini: Scattershot

“I didn’t design the place, Mrs. Hornback.”

“Yes, well, it offends.”

So do you, lady, I thought. I went over and picked up the coffeepot. “Would you care for some coffee?”

“No, thank you. I had some earlier.”

I decided I didn’t want any, either, and came back and sat down. “What can I do for you?”

She sighed out a lungful of smoke, straight across the desk at me. I waved it away with my hand. I used to be a two-pack-a-day man, until my doctor found a lesion on one lung; now, three years after I quit the things, cigarette smoke irritates my sinuses and makes my chest feel tight.

“I’m here about my husband,” she said.

“Yes?”

“He’s a miserable, no-good son of a bitch,” she I said, “and I’m going to fix his wagon. I am definitely going to fix his wagon.”

There isn’t much you can say to a statement I like that. I just sat and watched her vindictive I eyes and waited.

“He’s got another woman,” Mrs. Hornback said. I “I don’t suppose that surprises you.”

God, no, it didn’t. But I said, “Things like that happen.”

“Typical male response.” She made a vicious production out of jabbing her cigarette into the desk ashtray. “But that’s not the worst of it. He’s also a damned thief.”

“Thief?”

“That’s right. Over the past three years Lewis has stolen at least a hundred thousand dollars from Hornback Designs.”

I frowned at her. “That’s a lot of money.”

“Damn right it is.”

“You’re partners in this design firm?”

“We were partners. I stupidly let him handle the books. I trusted him, the bastard.”

“How did he manage to steal so much money?”

“We have a very successful business,” she said; “we have a yearly income in the high five figures. It wasn’t that difficult for him. He overcharged some of our customers, pocketed cash payments from others, and falsified the books. I think he also took kickbacks from suppliers.”

“How did you find out about it?”

“We’ve had an exceptional year so far, but our bank balance doesn’t reflect it. I began to suspect something funny was going on a few weeks ago. Then I found out about this bitch of his, and I knew something funny was going on.”

“Have you confronted him?”

“Yes. He denied everything, of course. I have an auditor going over the books now, but that takes time.”

“So you haven’t gone to the police.”

“I can’t do that without proof. And I’m afraid he’ll run off with the money and his bitch before lean.”

“This woman-who is she?”

“I don’t know,” Mrs. Hornback said. “That’s what I want you to find out.”

“I see.”

“Every day lately he leaves our office-Hornback Designs is on Union Street-every day he leaves there at five o’clock, and he doesn’t come home until after midnight. It’s her he goes to. I found a woman’s comb in his car, cigarette butts with lipstick on them in the ashtray. That’s how I know he has a bitch on the side.”

A woman’s comb and lipsticked cigarette butts didn’t prove Lewis Hornback had a girl friend; those things could have belonged to customers or acquaintances. But I didn’t tell her that. Edna Hornback was not the kind you could tell anything to, once she had her mind made up.

“I think she’s the one who’s keeping the money for him,” Mrs. Hornback said. “I’ve been through his things; he doesn’t seem to have an extra savings account or another safe deposit box. Or if he does, she’s got the passbook or the key. Find her and you’ll find my money. It’s as simple as that.”

It probably wasn’t as simple as that, but I didn’t tell her that, either. I said, “You want me to follow him, is that it?”

“Yes. Find out where he goes at night, who his bitch is.” She paused. “What are your daily rates?”

“Two hundred, plus expenses.”

She winced. And then got her face under control and drew herself up in the chair. “Well, I don’t mind paying for results,” she said. “And if you find my money, I’ll give you a five-hundred-dollar bonus. How does that sound?”

It sounded fine, in theory. But it didn’t thrill me very much. I was not convinced that Mrs. Hornback was correct in either of her allegations. Maybe old Lewis had misappropriated a hundred grand of their firm’s money, but then again, maybe he hadn’t; she had not given me any proof of it, nor did she seem to have any real proof of it herself. It could all be a fantasy concocted by a vengeful woman. And even if old Lewis did have another woman, as she claimed, I would be willing to bet he had justifiable cause. Not that that part of it was any of my concern. It was up to God to make moral judgments; it was up to me to make an honest living for myself.

I debated. She was not someone I cared to work for, right or wrong in her accusations. On the other hand, her money was as good as anyone else’s, and if I didn’t take the job she would find someone who would. I already had two clients to attend to this week, but the Mollenhauer job was not until Saturday and the Speers investigation could be handled during regular business hours. There was no real reason why I couldn’t spend a few of my evenings trailing Lewis Hornback- particularly now that Kerry was spending her evenings with presentations and one of her bosses.

Mrs. Hornback was in the process of lighting another cigarette. “Well?” she said.

“All right, I’ll do what I can. Do you have a photograph of your husband?”

She had one, which she fished out of a fat wallet and handed to me as if it were contaminated. Lewis Hornback was about the same age as she, with dark brown hair, a mole under his right eye, and nondescript features. He was not smiling in the photo; I had the feeling that he never smiled much. Considering Mrs. Hornback, it was not difficult to understand why.

I put the photograph into my coat pocket and got a contract form and filled it in, making sure to add a clause about the five-hundred-dollar bonus. When I gave it to her she read it over three times, the way George Hickox had yesterday, before she affixed her signature. Her scowl as she made out a retainer check was close to being I ferocious.

I asked her a few more questions-the address of their Union Street office, their home address an apartment on Russian Hill), the make and license number of her husband’s car and where he parked it during the day. Then I promised to tender daily reports by phone and got her out of there. The air in the office seemed thinner after she’d gone; she occupied a lot of space, that woman.

With the Speers file in front of me, I planned out an itinerary for the day. Unless I ran into problems, I ought to be able to cover all the legwork possibilities I had established yesterday; and maybe I would get lucky enough to wrap up the Speers thing right away. In any event I figured to be finished in plenty of time to be waiting for Lewis Hornback on Union Street when he quit work at five.

My love life may have been in an uncertain state these days, I thought as I left the office. But business, for once, was booming.

At four-fifty that afternoon I was illegally parked in a red-marked bus zone on Union, just off Laguna. Hornback Designs was a block and a half behind me, between Gough and Octavia, and the parking garage where Lewis Hornback kept his Dodge Monaco was just thirty yards ahead. As long as a cop didn’t come and chase me away or give me a ticket, I was in a good position to see Hornback coming and to follow him when he left the garage.

I sat with my rearview mirror turned so I could watch the intersection behind me and thought about Kerry. She had been on my mind all day; I kept wondering about that dinner last night with handsome Jim Carpenter, who was Kerry’s age Hid who did not have a beer belly. I had considered stopping somewhere and calling her, but I hadn’t got up enough gumption to do it. I would call her at home later on-and not because I wanted to see if she was home. Or so I told myself. The day itself, so far as tracking down the elusive Lauren Speers was concerned, had been a bust. I had talked to her hairdresser, a man named Mr. Ike; I had talked to the head of a local charity she supported; I had talked to a woman she’d gone on a Caribbean cruise with last year and, through her, to Speer’s travel agent. Zero. I had also stopped by the Cow Hollow address of her secretary, Bernice Dolan; nobody had been home. Do-Ian hadn’t been there for weeks, according to the building manager, but he didn’t know where she’d gone. And her rent was paid through the end of the month, so he didn’t seem to care.