Bill Pronzini - Bindlestiff

I remembered the telephone message I’d had from Hannah Peterson on Friday night. She had sounded pretty distraught, all right, almost pleading-and maybe frightened. But of Lester Raymond? It just didn’t make sense that he would try to harm one of Charles Bradford’s daughters.

“You’re a detective,” Runquist said. “Maybe you could find her, find out what’s going on. I want to hire you.”

“Well, I’m not sure that I-”

“I love Hannah, mister,” he said, and his voice had dropped to a tense, gravelly whisper, like a man coming down with laryngitis. “I’m wild about her. And I don’t know what else to do. Somebody’s got to do something. Come up here and talk to me about it, will you? I’ll pay you whatever you want. Only for God’s sake help me find her!”

What can you say to that kind of emotional plea? Only one thing, if you’re somebody like me.

“All right, Mr. Runquist,” I said. “I’ll come up and talk to you. I’ll see what I can do.”

It was a little better than an hour’s drive to Sonoma, forty miles northeast of San Francisco, and my watch said eleven-fifteen when I got to the big, tree-shaded plaza in the middle of town. It’s a pretty place, Sonoma, located at the lower end of the Valley of the Moon and surrounded by wooded hills, orchards, farmland, and vast acres of vineyards. Although the wines of the Napa Valley to the east are more prominent, a lot of people who know about such things say that the Sonoma Valley produces wines of equal if not superior stature. There are a trio of wineries within the city limits of Sonoma, in fact, one of which, Buena Vista, has the distinction of being the first winery in California; it was founded in 1832 by a Hungarian named Agoston Haraszthy, who selected and imported thousands of cuttings from the finest vineyards of Europe and who was responsible for creating the type of wine called zinfandel. I knew all of that because I had spent a fair amount of time up here over the years. If I ever moved out of the city, which wasn’t likely, Sonoma was the place I would come to.

I turned right in front of the city hall. As early as it was, there were a lot of people out and around-picnickers in the plaza, the inevitable tourists wandering around gawking at the place where California’s independence from Mexico had been declared in 1846 and at the Mission San Francisco Solano de Sonoma, and the other old frame and adobe brick buildings that flanked the square. Church bells echoed in the distance. The air was warm and heavy with the smell of growing things and, faintly, of pulped grapes: this was the time of year the crush takes place. All in all, a pleasant small-town Sunday morning. Except that Harry Runquist wasn’t enjoying it, and Hannah Peterson, wherever she was, probably wasn’t either. And for a parcel of reasons, neither was I.

Runquist had told me he lived on East Napa Street, half a dozen blocks from the plaza. I found the place within a couple of minutes: a big, old, twenties Victorian with a lot of gingerbready trim on the front porch and windows that had leaded-glass borders. The number, 618, was plainly visible on one of the fancy porch columns. A huge carob tree shaded both the front lawn and a realty company’s FOR SALE sign jutting up near the sidewalk.

I made a U-turn at the next corner and came back and parked in front of the house. When I got up on the porch I saw that there was a pumpkin sitting on a table to one side; even though Halloween was still better than three weeks away, it had already been carved into a jack-o’-lantern. There was a screen door, with the main door behind it standing wide open. From somewhere inside I could hear a steady clacking, clattering sound-the kind a toy or model train makes.

I pushed the doorbell button. The train sound quit almost immediately, and a few seconds later a guy materialized in the dark hall within and looked out at me through the screen. I said, “Mr. Runquist?” and he said, “Yes,” and unlatched the screen.

He was in his mid-thirties, medium height, medium build, with a lot of curly brown hair and a saturnine face that was homely in a pleasant sort of way-the kind of face women like because it has strong masculine characteristics. But there were deep hollows in the cheeks now, and beard stubble flecking them, and his eyes were bloodshot. He’d been drinking-I could smell wine on his breath-but he was sober and pretty strung out. He couldn’t seem to keep his hands still.

“Thanks for coming,” he said. “You made good time.”

“Traffic wasn’t bad for a change.”

“Come on in.”

The room he led me into was smallish and had probably been referred to as “the front parlor” fifty years ago. It was a comfortable room: old heavy furniture, a tiled Victorian fireplace, built-in shelves laden with books, and rattan blinds drawn over windows in the front and side walls. An archway to the left opened into what had been intended as a dining room; now, though, it was empty of furnishings and contained only a massive model train layout. The model had been built on sheets of plywood that took up most of the carpet in there-an intricate configuration of tracks, dozens of miniature cars and locomotives, depots, loading platforms, crossing signs, lighted signal lamps, semaphores, a bunch of other scale-model accessories, and a bank of control switches.

Runquist saw me looking at the layout and said dully, “O-gauge stuff: American Flyer, Ives, Lionel… you know anything about model railroads?”

“No, I’m afraid not,” I said. “I heard you running it when I came up.”

“It helps keep my mind occupied.”

“Are you in the railroad business, Mr. Runquist?”

“No,” he said. “I’m a winemaker-Vineland Winery, up near Glen Ellen. My grandfather founded it. Model railroading’s just a hobby.” He passed a hand across his face. “Hannah’s a train buff, too. That’s how we got together. Met at a party, found out we were both buffs.. she helped me build part of the layout.”

I nodded, remembering what Hannah Peterson had told me about her father’s passion for trains rubbing off on her. “Have you known Mrs. Peterson long?” I asked him.

“Almost a year.” He glanced at one of the chairs, started toward it as if he intended to sit down. Then he changed his mind and pawed at his face again. “I could use a glass of wine,” he said. “Would you like one?”

“It’s a little early for me, thanks.”

“Me, too, usually. But I’ve been so damned worried about Hannah… Come on, we’ll talk in the kitchen.”

I followed him out into a big, old-fashioned kitchen bright with morning sunshine. A rear porch opened off of it; it had been made over into a kind of dining area, with a long table set under windows that overlooked the back yard. The yard contained a walnut tree, a pepper tree, and plenty of shrubs; and near the back fence was something I hadn’t seen in years-a shake-roofed gazebo.

“Nice place you’ve got here,” I said as Runquist opened the refrigerator.

“Yeah,” he said. “Too big for me, though.”

“You live here alone, do you?”

“Ever since my divorce two years ago.” He took out a bottle of white wine, poured some into a glass, put the bottle away again. “My ex-wife got custody of our daughter; took Monica back east to live with her mother. I got the house.”

He sounded bitter about it. But it was none of my business, so I didn’t say anything. I was thinking about the jack-o’-lantern on the front porch. Runquist must have carved it for himself, for some sort of nostalgic reason; that, coupled with the model train layout, told me a good deal about what kind of man he was. I already knew what kind of woman Hannah Peterson was, or thought I did, and I wondered if he had made a mistake falling in love with her. She had doubtless made a lot of men unhappy in her life, men who saw only her beauty and her superficial charm. Because I found myself liking Runquist, I hoped he wasn’t going to be just another name on the list.