Bill Pronzini - Undercurrent

At one of the benches near the beach, Paige sat down next to an old lady wearing a loose-brimmed straw sun hat. She did not look at him and he did not look at her; he sat with his legs crossed, very relaxed, staring out to sea. I stepped off the wide cinder path and sat down on the lawn under one of the pine trees. I was wearing an old suit, the oldest of the three I owned, and it was of a dark enough color so that grass stains would not show. The walk and the sea air had helped my headache a little, and my chest felt less constricted.

Paige kept on sitting motionless on the bench, communing with the vast Pacific. Out on the rock headlands, cormorants and loons rested between fishing excursions, and even at this distance you could hear the atonal but somehow pleasant barking of sea lions. Near the breakwater, sailboats drifted languidly and a pair of fiberglass ski boats raced side by side, raising fans of white spume not quite as graceful as those created by the skiers they towed behind; and beyond, on the Pacific itself, a charter boat coming in sleek and white against the solid-blue backdrop of sea and sky.

Ten minutes went by. I saw Paige raise his left arm and look at a watch on his wrist and lower the arm again. So all right-he seemed to be waiting for somebody; if you're taking in the air or the sights, you don't usually pay much attention to time. Assuming it was a womanwhy here in the park? Why not at the Beachwood, where you could get down to basics in a matter of seconds?

I was good at asking myself rhetorical questions, so I stopped it and tried to blank my mind enough to enjoy the surroundings. Paige glanced at his watch again at one-ten, and again at one-fifteen; other than that, he was very patient sitting there. It began to get a little cool in the shade, and I moved over to a wide patch of sunlight. One twenty-five.

The old woman in the sun hat got up and moved away arthritically. Paige paid no attention to her. But he paid plenty of attention to the wedge-shaped, balding man who took her place on the bench a couple of minutes later; he acknowledged a greeting, slid over a little, and the two of them began an earnest conversation without preamble. I could see their lips moving in profile.

I got on my feet, and I did not know what to think. The balding guy was forty, maybe, with heavy masculine features and straight, sparse black hair combed away from the elliptical-shaped bald spot extending from forehead to crown, as if he were proud of it; he wore slacks and a white shirt with the sleeves rolled up on his forearms. Nothing in any of that. Well, maybe it was his alleged business deal, and Judith had been overreacting and I had been too quick to convict Paige before he was proven guilty. But then again, what kind of business do you conduct in the park?

I stood there a little uncertainly. I wanted to hear what they were saying over on the bench, but there was no way I could eavesdrop; the bench was situated on a loop in the path, and one of the rectangles of flowers blocked it off for thirty feet to each side and to the rear. The only thing I could do was walk around in front of them on the path, and there was not much percentage in that, since I would not be able to stop anywhere near them without being conspicuous about it.

But I decided to make the walk anyway. If they were talking loudly enough, there was the chance that I could hear some of their conversation. I took off my suit coat and put it over my right shoulder on my thumb and stepped out onto the path. As I approached, sauntering, trying to look like a guy with nature on his mind and nothing else, they were still sitting with their heads close together. I did not look at them as I passed, and they appeared not to notice me. I could hear the mumble of their voices, but that was all; whatever they were discussing, it was strictly for their own ears.

I followed the path some distance away without looking back, and then turned onto the lawn; there was no point in going back the way I had just come. The two of them were still sitting there, still talking. I located an empty bench facing toward them, under a gnarled old oak, and sat down to wait until they decided to break it up. All I could do now was to keep following Paige, and to wait until something definite happened one way or another.

At the end of another ten minutes the balding guy stood up and turned away to the north, the direction from which he had arrived. Paige stayed where he was for a couple of minutes, watching the sea again; then he got to his feet and moved off to the south. I let him get seventy-five yards away, saw that he was paying no attention to his rear flank, and started after him. He took me directly back to the Beachwood.

I waited outside the motel grounds until Paige was inside his cottage. Then I went over to the office, to where they had a soft-drink machine, and bought myself an orange. I drank it there, letting a few minutes go by. Paige did not come out again. Finally I returned to my own cottage, tossed my coat on the bed, and took up my former position in front of the window.

Time passed, and I began to develop the headache once more. Paige appeared once, forty minutes later, to get something out of his car; other than that, nothing stirred in Number 9. The bamboo blinds were drawn across the cottage's front window, but even if they had been up, I could not have seen inside from where I was, and I had not brought a pair of binoculars with me.

Four o'clock. Five. The sun drifted low over the sea, and the sky turned smoky and bloodshot with lines and streaks of pale crimson. A wind came in off the ocean, gathering strength, and tousled the leaves and needles on the trees. It was quiet in the room-too quiet. I began to feel oddly restless. Nerves. Waiting was never any good, and it was worse when you did not know just what you were waiting for. But the waiting I was having to do was nothing compared to the waiting of Judith Paige- and the half-knowledge for her was agony; for me, only a source of irritation.

Five-thirty now, and I was almost out of cigarettes. How much longer? The rest of today, and tomorrow, and part of Monday? Maybe Paige's sole purpose in coming to Cypress Bay was his meeting with the balding guy in the park; maybe that's all there was to it. All rightthen why did he tell Judith he was staying until late Monday afternoon this trip out? And what the hell is he doing over in that cottage? Sleeping? Drinking? Watching the goddamn television?

The rear entrance, I thought. The beach entrance.

Oh Christ, I thought. Some stakeout you are, some smart cop. You sit over here on your fat ass thinking visitors have to come in the front way, or that Paige has to go out the front way, and you can't see the rear entrance or the beach and he could be gone or he could be having a party over there with half of Cypress Bay, and even though you can't watch both entrances at the same time, you should have thought about the beach, you should have been checking it…

I got up on my feet and went over to the door and cracked it like a furtive, neighbor. There was a white-gravel path further down, beyond the office, that led between two of the cottages and onto the private beach. Okay, so let's go out to the beach for a stroll, I thought- and a little voyeurism if you can find a window or a keyhole or a place to put your ear. Play it according to stereotype: the peeper, the snooper. It's that kind of job, isn't it?

I opened the door wide and went out, and the wind was chill on my bare arms; my coat was still inside on the bed. The hell with that too. I started across the grounds toward the gravel path-and all at once the door to Number 9 jerked open, with a sound that was audible above the wind. I managed to keep from breaking stride, but I was looking over there now. The door was still open and it stayed open; Paige did not come out.