Bill Pronzini - Labyrinth

“Jim Garner?”

“ ‘The Rockford Files.’ Mean you don’t watch that show on TV?”

“No.”

“Ought to. Got lots of action, lots of cars getting smashed up.”

“Uh-huh.” I tasted the stew. A little salty but otherwise not bad. “Do you know Jerry Carding, Mr. Ingles?”

“Sure do. Used to eat in here once in a while. Damned funny the way he disappeared; damned funny. Got the whole town buzzing.”

“I was hoping you might have seen him last Sunday night. Say between nine and ten?”

“Nosir,” he said immediately. “I’d of remembered it if I had. How come you’re asking me? Police didn’t come around when they was here.” He sounded disappointed that they hadn’t.

“This is one of the few places open on Sunday nights,” I said. “And there’s a chance he left the village on foot. Is it possible one of your customers saw him?”

“One of my customers? Well now.” Ingles scratched his scalp and seemed to do some memory cudgeling. “Zach Judson, maybe.”

“Oh?”

“Zach stopped in for a cup of coffee around nine, as I recall. On his way home from some lodge doings in Tomales. Stayed about a half hour. Could be he saw the boy; ain’t talked to him since.”

“Does Judson live in Bodega?”

“Nope. Jenner.”

Jenner was a tiny place about fifteen miles up the coast. I said, “Could you give me his telephone number?”

“Nosir.”

“Pardon?”

“I said nosir, I won’t give you his number.”

“Why not?”

“Because he don’t have a telephone,” Ingles said, and cackled at his own humor. “Old Zach’s deaf as a post in one ear and half deaf in the other. Wouldn’t hear a phone ringing if he was sitting on it.”

“You can give me his address, can’t you?”

“Sure. Cost you a buck, though.” He winked at me. “Service charge.”

A buck. And a thirty-mile round trip to Jenner that would probably turn out to be a waste of time; for all I knew Judson could be in Tomales again for more lodge doings, and it was doubtful that he had seen Jerry Carding anyway. But what else did I have to do? Hunt up Steve Farmer and try to pump him again about Bobbie Reid? That was about it-and it struck me as a last resort, the thing to do before tossing in the towel and heading home to San Francisco.

I sighed and got my wallet out and put a dollar bill on the counter. Ingles made it disappear in two seconds flat, as if he was afraid I might change my mind. Then he grinned at me and said, “Zach’s is the last house on the west side of the highway, just before you get into Jenner. Big old gingerbready place, looks like it’d fall down if a good wind come along.”

“Thanks.” I finished my stew, gave him some more money for that, and slid a dime tip under the plate when he wasn’t looking. The stew had not been all that good and neither had he.

As I started out he called after me, “Tune in ‘The Rockford Files’ one of these nights. That Jim Garner’s a real good detective. ”

Me too, I thought wryly. Even if I don’t have my own TV show.

I headed the car north on Highway 1. The winding two-lane road had little traffic for a Sunday afternoon, but the fog had come back again, heavy and wet, and it made the pavement slick and visibility poor; it was forty-five minutes before I crossed the bridge spanning the Russian River and approached Jenner.

The hamlet-what there was of it-was located at the mouth of the river, where it widened out and joined the ocean. To the west, between the road and the water, were a lot of tide flats and a few houses. The last house south of Jenner matched Ingles’ description: a ramshackle twenties-style structure that seemed to list inland, as if the constant wind off the sea had been too much for it. A lone cypress tree grew in the muddy front yard, wind-bent and leaning companionably in the same direction; parked near it was a 1940s vintage Chevvy pick-up. Lights glowed behind chintz curtains in one front window.

I took my car into the yard and put it next to the pick-up. When I got out a fat lazy-looking dog came around from behind the house, barked once in an indifferent way, and then waddled off again. I climbed sagging steps onto the front porch and rapped on the door.

Nobody answered. Ingles had said Zach Judson was all but deaf, I remembered; I tried again, using my fist this time, pounding hard enough to rattle the wood in its frame. That got results. The door creaked open pretty soon and a guy about seventy peered out at me through wire-framed spectacles. He had a gnarly face, a mop of unkempt white hair, and one of those big old-fashioned plastic hearing aids hooked over one ear.

He said, “Yep?” in a tone that wondered if I was going to try to sell him something.

“Mr. Judson?”

“Yep?”

I told him my name. “I’m a detective, and I-”

“You say detective?”

“Yes, sir. Investigating the disappearance of Jerry Carding.”

“Who?”

“Jerry Carding.”

“Never heard of any Jerry Carling.”

“Carding, Mr. Judson. Jerry Carding.”

“Never heard of any Jerry Carding.”

“The story’s been in all the papers and on TV-”

“Don’t read the papers. Don’t own a TV.”

“He vanished from Bodega last Sunday night, between nine and ten o’clock,” I said. “A young fellow about twenty, dark hair, Fu Manchu mustache. I understand you were in Bodega around that time and I thought you might have seen him.”

“Yep,” Judson said.

“Sir?”

“Yep. Did see him.”

Well now. “Where was this, Mr. Judson?”

“On the highway. Near Ingles’ cafe.”

“Was he alone?”

“Yep. Hitchhiking.”

“He thumbed you, then?”

“Yep.”

“But you didn’t stop for him?”

“ Did stop for him. Used to hitch rides myself, back when. Decent young fella. Polite, good manners. Missing, you say?”

“Yes.” There was a tenseness inside me now; this was the kind of break I had been looking for. “You took him where, Mr. Judson?”

“What?”

“Where did you take him?”

“Not far. Just up the road a ways.”

“How far up the road?”

“To the Kellenbeck Fish Company,” he said.

I did some hard thinking on the way back to Bodega Bay.

Jerry Carding had hitchhiked to the Kellenbeck Fish Company last Sunday night. All right. Zach Judson had not seen him approach the plant, but it was a safe assumption that it had been Jerry’s destination; there was nothing else in the vicinity, no other businesses or private homes. Meeting someone there? Could be. But then why not meet in Bodega instead? As it was, Jerry had had to walk partway and hitch a ride the rest of the way.

The other possibility was that he had gone to the fish company to look for something, either inside the building or somewhere around it. Something connected with the article he’d written; that seemed likely. Ten o’clock on a Sunday night-a nocturnal prowl. It was the kind of thing an adventurous kid, a kid who wanted to be an investigative reporter, might do.

But what had happened then? Had Jerry completed his search, with or without finding what he’d come after, and later hitchhiked away from Bodega Bay? Or had somebody found him there and been responsible for his disappearance?

And the big question-why? What was there about the Kellenbeck Fish Company that would inspire a “career-making” article and a secret late-evening visit? Yes, and why go there after he had finished the article?

I focused my thoughts on Gus Kellenbeck. According to Mrs. Darden, the past couple of years had not been a boon for anyone in the fishing business; yet Kellenbeck had managed to keep his plant operating at a profit. It was possible that he was mixed up in some sort of illegal enterprise, such as price-fixing or substituting and selling one kind of processed fish for another. But that sort of thing had little news value; it happened all the time, in one form or another. Even a novice like Jerry would have known that.