Bill Pronzini - Quicksilver

“Private detective?” he said. “My God! What do you want? Who sent you?”

“Nobody sent me, Mr. Mixer. I-”

“Clara’s father? Is he the one?”

“I’m afraid I don’t know anyone named-”

“Well, you tell him I never touched her. You hear me? It’s all a pack of lies. All I did was tutor her.”

“Pardon me?”

“Tutor, tutor. You know what tutor means, don’t you?”

“Of course I know what-”

“There was never anything between Clara and me. No physical contact of any kind. I don’t even find her attractive; I’ve never liked women with big behinds. Tell him that, the old fool.”

“Look, Mr. Mixer…”

“Nellie!” a woman’s voice called from somewhere inside the house. “Nellie, what are you doing out there?”

“Oh my God,” Mixer said. He glanced over his shoulder, looked back at me again. Sudden guilt had spread like jam over his vulpine features.

“ Nell ie?”

He half-turned. “Stop that yelling!” he yelled. “I’ll be there in a minute, Darlene.”

“It’s pretty wet out here,” I said when his attention returned to me. “How about buzzing me in so we can talk?”

“Hah,” he said. “I don’t care if you drown out there.”

“You’re all heart. Who’s Darlene?”

“What?”

“Your friend inside. Darlene.”

“She’s not my friend,” he said quickly. “She’s one of my students.”

“I called up City College a while ago,” I said. “They told me you were too sick to teach today.”

“Too sick to leave the house. Yes, that’s right. I was just, ah, tutoring Darlene.”

“In your bathrobe?”

He looked down at himself as if he’d forgotten he was wearing the robe. Little red splotches appeared on his cheeks; they matched the color of his hair. “I, ah… that is, I… coffee, I spilled coffee on myself while we were…” He quit sputtering all of a sudden, drew himself up, bared his teeth in a foxy snarl, and said, “I don’t have to explain anything to you. Go away. Go tell Clara’s father I’ll sue him if he doesn’t stop harassing me.”

“I’m not working for Clara’s father,” I said, getting it out fast because he had started to shut the door. “I don’t know anybody named Clara. I’m here about Haruko Cage.”

The door stayed open about halfway. “Who?”

“Haruko Gage. She’s been-”

“Who the hell is Haruko Gage?”

“You don’t remember her, is that it?”

“Nellie!”

“No,” Mixer said, “I don’t remember her. Who is she?”

“A former student of yours. You asked her to move in with you about three years ago.”

“I did what?”

“Or don’t you remember that either?”

“Nellie!”

“Haruko Gage? Good God,” he said, “not Haruko Fujita? The little Japanese girl who was studying art?”

“Probably; Gage is her married name. Or do you routinely ask Japanese girls to live with you?”

That got me another foxy snarl. “You can’t talk to me like that. I won’t allow it.”

“You can’t let me stand out here in the rain, but you’re doing it anyway. Haruko Gage has been receiving anonymous presents in the mail-expensive jewelry, one with a love note. You wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?”

“Nel-lie!”

“Goddamn it,” Mixer said. “Be quiet, Darlene!”

“Well, hurry up, can’t you?” the woman’s voice called. She sounded young. “I’m getting cold sitting around here like this. Besides, I can’t get your stupid movie camera to work right.”

The red flush came back into Mixer’s face, dragging the guilt along with it. He said something that sounded like “Gah,” jerked his head back, and slammed the door.

I shoved my finger against the doorbell button, kept it there. At the end of thirty or forty seconds the door opened and Mixer said, “Go away, leave me alone! I’ll call the police!” And the door banged shut again.

I gave it up. I went back down the stairs and got into the car and used my handkerchief for a rain towel. Now I knew what Alice felt like after she’d spent some time in Wonderland; it was as if I had just done verbal battle with the Mad Hatter. Or, more appropriately, it seemed, the Mad Lecher.

Cross Mixer off the list? What with Clara and Darlene and Christ knew how many others eager for his tutoring, it didn’t seem likely that he would be writing anonymous love notes and blowing a wad of money on fancy jewelry for Haruko Gage. Still, he was a screwball; and you never know what a screwball might do. I wanted at least one more session with Mixer, under different and more conventional circumstances, before I wrote him off.

The thing about him that bothered me most was his ability to attract Haruko and Clara and Darlene and presumably a whole dewy-eyed and horny legion of college-age females. What the hell did any of them see in a scrawny, color-blind, unlovely specimen like him? Why would women even consider dropping their drawers for the Nelson Mixers of the world?

It was nagging little questions like this that made you wonder about life’s fundamental equity.

Somebody was tailing me.

I spotted the car six blocks from Mixer’s house, when it followed me into a turn east on Geary Boulevard. White Ford about two years old, with one of those whip antennas that CB subscribers have on their vehicles. Two people in it, but that was all I could tell; they hung back pretty good and stayed in another lane and the rain made it difficult to see clearly through the rear window. I couldn’t make out the license plate either.

Well, I was getting old. In my salad days, even though these guys appeared to be doing all the things you’re supposed to do to conduct a successful shadow job, I would have tumbled to them within five minutes of leaving Pacific Heights. My flat was where they’d picked me up, of course; I remembered seeing the Ford as I headed down Laguna to Geary. They’d hung around on 46th Avenue waiting for me to get done with Mixer, and now here they were again.

But hell, the last thing I’d have expected today was a tail. The idea of it annoyed me-and made me a little uneasy. Who were they? What did they think they were going to find out by shagging me around the city?

I swung over into the far left lane and made a left turn on 30th Avenue; drove past Presidio Middle School and turned right on Clement and went down to 25th Avenue and turned left again. The white Ford stayed with me all the way, still hanging back far enough so that I couldn’t get a look at the occupants or read the license plate. No doubt at all now that the Ford was there to keep me company.

I drove straight down 25th at a nice easy pace and passed between the stone pillars that marked the entrance to Seacliff, one of San Francisco’s ritzier residential districts. Left on Scenic Way and left again on Seacliff Avenue, past a lot of elegant homes strung out along the cliffside and commanding panoramic views of the Golden Gate. The street forked after a few blocks, with the main branch blending into El Camino del Mar and leading up to Land’s End; Seacliff Avenue hooked to the right and dead-ended after about a block and a half. I stayed on Seacliff. The Ford was two blocks behind me as I veered that way.

On my left were more houses and on my right was a parking area bounded by a long cyclone fence. Beyond the fence, a steep slope fell away to China Beach-a narrow inlet that had been a campsite for Chinese fishermen last century and now was a locally popular sunbathing spot. Nobody was down there today, in the rain and with the surf crashing heavy and white over the offshore rocks; the beach was all but invisible under the high tide. And the parking area was empty.

I cut into the lot, made a fast U-turn, and slid out onto the street pointing the way I’d come. I had timed it right: the Ford had already veered in and slowed to a crawl, and there was no place for them to go. I got the license number and I got a good look at their faces as I drove by-making it obvious so they’d be sure to know I was on to them. Two men, big and tough-looking, the driver wearing a mustache and a startled look, the passenger with a nose like a blob of brownish putty.