Bill Pronzini: Mourners

“Or your friend’s parents, same thing.”

“Maybe. Hell, probably. There has to have been some damaging effect on Troxell, too. But what kind, exactly? Simple mourner syndrome, or does it go deeper than that?”

“Don’t ask me. I’m just a glorified secretary around here.”

Another one to let slide by. I pushed my chair back. “Time for me to get a move on.”

“Where you off to?”

“To have a talk with Troxell’s friend, Drew Casement. Maybe he can give me some insight into what’s going on inside the man’s head.”

JAKE RUNYON

He couldn’t get Risa Niland out of his mind.

She rode with him all the way back to the city, a presence that kept interfering with his thoughts and memories of Colleen. The resemblance, the initial shock… yes, sure. He understood that. What he didn’t understand was the way he’d reacted afterward, was still reacting. Abandoning a surveillance, talking to the woman as he had, the impulsive offer of help, this fixation-none of that was like him at all. Unprofessional, out of character. Disturbing, because he sensed that it wasn’t just a momentary aberration he could shake off and forget about. He’d spent months after Colleen’s death coming to terms with the rest of his life; established a mind-set and a course of action, his narrow, empty little world arranged and compartmentalized and clearly defined. And now this. All of a sudden, in a few short minutes, something had happened to throw it all off kilter again and he didn’t even know what it was.

He forced himself to focus on James Troxell. Three places he knew of where the man might have gone; his home in St. Francis Wood was the least likely, check the other two first. Potrero Hill was the closest. He swung over to 101, followed the same route to Wisconsin Street the subject had taken last night. No sign of the silver BMW anywhere in the vicinity of the Linden property. He made a quick check of the neighborhood, just in case, and then drove downtown to the financial district.

Troxell had a monthly space lease in a parking garage on New Montgomery, a couple of blocks from where Hessen amp; Collier had their offices. The location of the space was in the case file: second floor, number 229. And that was where he found the BMW, nose in tight against a concrete pillar. All right. Evidently this was one of Troxell’s days to attend to his profession.

He reported this to Tamara. Did she want him to hang around in case Troxell decided to go out again? The answer he wanted to hear was no, and that was the answer he got. She had another job for him, the kind he preferred, the kind that would keep him moving and his mind occupied.

Most Bay Area commuters worked in San Francisco and lived in one of the neighboring communities. Ralph Linden was one of the smaller percentage whose lives were structured the other way around, city dwellers with jobs outside the city-the fortunate types who had a relatively easy daily commute because they traveled opposite morning and evening rush-hour traffic.

The company that employed Linden, Yumitashi International, was located in Emeryville-two floors of a high-rise on the inland flank of Highway 80. The glass doors to the reception area bore a circular logo with the initials YI intertwined in the center; another, much larger logo, this one sculpted of bronze, covered part of one wall inside. There were no other adornments except for a couple of modernistic paintings that looked like original art and several pieces of modernistic furniture. Runyon saw nothing anywhere to indicate the nature of Yumitashi International’s business enterprise.

He told the woman on the reception desk that he was there to see Ralph Linden. She sent him down to the lower floor, where he repeated his request to another receptionist there. No, he didn’t have an appointment; it was a personal matter. One of his business cards persuaded her to call into the inner sanctum. Before long a fresh-faced young Japanese woman appeared through a doorway, smiled at him in exactly the same bright impersonal way as the two receptionists, asked him to wait please, and went back inside with his card. Short wait. She returned in less than five minutes, and this time it was him she took inside.

Two other employees, one Japanese male and one Caucasian female, offered bright impersonal smiles in the hallway; another Japanese male did the same from inside one of the offices. One big happy family at Yumitashi International. Or the smiles were company policy designed to convey that impression. Either way, the effect on Runyon wasn’t the one they intended. All the smiley faces gave him an off-center feeling, as if he’d stumbled into a training center for pod people.

Ralph Linden wasn’t one of the clones. He was on his feet behind his desk, mouth turned down instead of up, muddy brown eyes behind thick-lensed glasses betraying a nervous bewilderment, when the smiling woman bowed Runyon into his small office. The business card was between the thumb and forefinger of his left hand, the way you’d hold something that might explode. He looked at it again as the woman retreated. When the door closed softly behind her, he said, “I don’t know you, Mr. Runyon, I don’t understand why you’re here. What would a private investigator want with me?”

“Information.”

“What sort of information? You mean about me?”

“Not directly.”

“My wife? Someone in my family?”

“No.”

That seemed to make Linden even twitchier. He was a bulky man pushing fifty, immaculately dressed in a three-piece gray suit, white shirt with gold cuff links, conservative tie. But he didn’t wear the clothes well; he wouldn’t wear any clothes well. There was a rumpled, ungainly look about him, as if he’d been fitted together out of mismatched spare parts. Wrinkly bald head, long jaw, heavy beard shadow, large ears, thin neck, long arms, big hands with knobby wrists, narrow upper body, broad hips. Uneasy on his feet, too, unlike a lot of big men. Even standing still he conveyed the impression of being loose-jointed, awkward. He would shamble when he walked, and prefer sitting down in any kind of interview or social situation, preferably with something like his gray-metal desk like a barricade between himself and anybody else. He’d relax a little then, be easier to talk to.

Runyon said, “All right if I have a seat?”

“This won’t take long, will it? I’m very busy, and the company discourages personal-” A thought seemed to strike him. “This doesn’t have anything to do with Yumitashi International, does it? If it does-”

“It doesn’t. I just have a few questions.”

“Well,” Linden said again, and immediately lowered himself into his chair.

Runyon wedged his body into a molded plastic chair that was more comfortable than it looked. The office was a fifteen-foot-square box, neatly kept, the walls painted an antiseptic white, with one small window that faced west and provided an oblique view of one of the other high-rises on the bayshore side of the freeway and a small piece of the Bay Bridge approach. The desk, the two chairs, a computer workstation, and the two of them filled it and made it seem even smaller. Some sort of graph or chart was displayed on a side wall, headed with the words EXPANDING HORIZONS — ironic in this tight, cramped space. He wondered how anybody could stand to spend eight or more hours a day, five days a week, cooped up in here. He’d been in the office two minutes and already he felt claustrophobic.

He waited until Linden was settled. Right-the man was more at ease sitting down. Then he said, “I’m here about your rental unit, Mr. Linden.”

“My… what?”

“Rental unit.”

“You must be mistaken. I don’t own any rental property…”