Bill Pronzini: Bones

“On the contrary.”

He favored me with a lopsided grin. “Aren't you going to sit down?”

“I'd rather stand. Aren't you going to offer me a drink or one of your cigars?”

“Certainly not.”

We watched each other like a couple of old pit bulls. I knew what he was thinking and he knew what I was thinking and yet here we were, putting on polite conventions for each other, pretending to be civilized while we sniffed around and nipped at each other's heels. It was a game he'd play for a while, but not indefinitely. If you cornered him, or if you just bothered him a little too much, he would go straight for your throat.

I said, “About the night of the suicide. Crane called and asked you to come to his house, is that right?”

“It is.”

“And he was very upset, barely coherent.”

“That's right.”

“Drunk?”

“Very.”

“What did he say, exactly?”

“Words to the effect that he needed to talk.”

“He didn't say about what?”

“No.”

“Did he sound suicidal?”

“No. If he had I would have called the police.”

“Instead you went over there.”

“I did.”

“And met Mrs. Crane and Adam Porter.”

“Yes. They had just returned from dinner.”

“Did they seem worried about Crane?”

“Not unduly. Not until I'd told them of his call.”

“Then he hadn't given either of them any indication he might be considering suicide?”

“No.”

“What happened after you told Porter and Mrs. Crane about the call?”

“She became upset and called Crane's name. When there was no answer we all went upstairs and found the door to his office locked. We shouted his name several times, and when there was still no response we broke in.”

“You and Porter.”

“Yes.”

“Whose idea was it, to break in?”

“Adam's, I think. Does it matter?”

“I suppose not. Was there anything unusual about the office?”

“Unusual? The man was lying dead across his desk.”

“I think you know what I mean, Counselor. Anything that struck you after you looked at the body and found the suicide note.”

He sighed elaborately. He had put on his courtroom manner like a sweater; I might have been a jury, or maybe a judge. “We were all quite distraught; Amanda, in fact, was close to hysterics. The only thing I remember noticing was that the room reeked of whiskey, which was hardly unusual.”

“Had Crane been dead long?”

“Less than an hour,” Yankowski said, “according to the best estimate of the police coroner. He must have shot himself within minutes after he telephoned me.”

“Why do you suppose he'd call you to come talk to him and then almost immediately shoot himself?”

He gave me a reproachful look. “You've been a detective almost as many years as I practiced law,” he said. “Suicides are unstable personalities, prone to all manner of unpredictable behavior. You know that as well as I do.”

“Uh-huh. Were you a close friend of Crane's, Counselor?”

“Not really. Our relationship was mostly professional.”

“Then why did he call you that night? Why not someone close to him?”

Yankowski shrugged. “Harmon had no close friends; he was an intensely private man. I think he called me because I represented stability-an authority figure, the voice of reason. I think he wanted to be talked out of killing himself. But his personal demons, coupled with whiskey, drove him to it anyway. He simply couldn't make himself wait.”

There wasn't anything to say to that; it sounded reasonable enough. So I said, “I understand you met Crane while he was researching a book.”

“That's right. He sat through a narcotics trial at which I was assistant defense counsel-a similar case to one in a novel he was writing at the time-and we struck up an acquaintance.”

“How did you happen to become his attorney?”

“A short time after we met, a woman in Menlo Park began harassing him, claiming he had stolen her idea for one of his early Johnny Axe novels-I don't remember which one. Nothing came of it; I persuaded her to drop her notion of a plagiarism suit.”

“I'll bet you did. What was her name, do you remember?”

“Tinklehoff. Maude Tinklehoff. No one could forget a name like that.”

“Did she make any other trouble for Crane?”

“I hardly think so. She was in her late sixties and suffering from cancer; I believe she died a short time after my dealings with her.”

“How long before his suicide was this plagiarism business?”

“At least two years. Perhaps three.”

“Did you ever do any other legal work for him?”

“I drew up his will.”

“Uh-huh. Who got the bulk of his estate?”

“His wife, of course.”

“You mean Amanda Crane.”

“Certainly.”

“Did he happen to leave you anything?”

This question didn't faze him either. “Nothing at all.”

“Did he leave anything to either of his ex-wives?”

“No. He wasn't on speaking terms with Michael's mother, Susan, and he had long since fallen out of touch with his first wife.”

“Ellen Corneal.”

“I believe that was her name, yes.”

“Did you know her?”

“No. Nor Susan, if that's your next question.”

“Do you know what happened to Ellen Corneal?”

“I have no idea.”

“Amanda Crane seems to think her husband was married just once before her,” I said, “to Kiskadon's mother. Why do you suppose that is?”

He frowned at me around the nub of his cigar. “How do you know what Amanda Crane thinks?”

“I spoke to her this morning in Berkeley.”

For some reason that made him angry. He came bouncing up out of his chair and leaned his face to within a couple of inches of mine and breathed the odors of bourbon and tobacco at me. I stood my ground; I wasn't about to back down from the likes of Yank-'Em-Out Yankowski, bad breath or no bad breath.

“I don't like the idea of you bothering her,” he said.

“Why should my seeing Mrs. Crane concern you?”

“She's a sick woman. Mentally disturbed.”

“So I gathered. But if you're so worried about her, how come you haven't been to see her in years?”

“That is my business.”

“The reason wouldn't be that she turned you down when you proposed to her, would it?”

His eyes went all funny, hot and cold at the same time, like flames frozen in ice. He put his free hand against my chest and shoved, hard enough to stagger me a little. “Get out of here,” he said in a low, dangerous voice. “And don't come back.”

I stayed where I was for a time. I was afraid if I moved it would be in his direction, and taking a poke at a seventy-year-old shyster lawyer in his own back yard would be a prize-winning act of stupidity.

“I told you to get off my property. Now! ”

“My pleasure, Counselor.”

I put my back to him and went out through the gate, leaving it wide open behind me. Inside the house I could hear the dog making growling noises, but they weren't as vicious as the ones I'd just heard from Yankowski. Pit bull-yeah. Sniff around, sniff around, and then right for the throat.

Whatever that thing in the house was, its master was a far nastier son of a bitch.

Kerry and I were having dinner when the earthquake happened.

It was a little after six-thirty and we were in a cozy Italian place that we both liked-Piombo's, out on Taraval near Nineteenth Avenue. San Francisco's best restaurants aren't downtown or at Fisherman's Wharf or in any of the other districts that cater to tourists; where you find them is in the neighborhoods, residential and otherwise. The chef at Piombo's makes eggplant parmigiana and veal saltimbocca to rival any in North Beach, and at two bucks less a plate.