Bill Pronzini: Vixen

“What did we do?”

“Don’t play games with me. Your lies to Andrew Vorhees almost cost my brother his freedom.”

“We didn’t tell him any lies. Just repeated yours.”

“I ought to sue you for slander.”

“But you won’t because you know you have no case. We never accused you of anything, or even once took your name in vain. Ask Vorhees, if you haven’t already.”

Her mouth worked and puckered as if she were about to spit. Instead she said, “Damn you, you might’ve helped send Kenny to prison.”

“But that didn’t happen. You were confident he’d get off, and that’s exactly what did happen. He didn’t even have to stand trial.”

“No thanks to you.”

I smiled at her. “How’s your relationship going with Vorhees, by the way? Wedding bells in the offing? After a decent period of mourning, of course.”

No reaction. Cory ice.

“More likely he’s getting ready to bounce you out of his life, if he hasn’t already. That’s the real reason you’re here, isn’t it?”

“Fuck you.”

“Such language. Did you know he’s thinking of hiring us?”

She hadn’t known. It was three blinks before she said, “Hire you? To do what?”

“He hasn’t said yet. Maybe to investigate you.”

“What? He wouldn’t do that.”

“Sure he would,” I said. “You and Frank Chaleen. Not very smart of you to try juggling two affairs at the same time with prominent men who don’t get along.”

The icebound venom in her eyes was so intense now it darkened the irises, made them seem like black holes. She said, spitting the words, “My personal life is none of your business.”

“It is if this agency is paid to conduct a legal investigation and what we find out is a matter of public record.”

“I won’t stand for being harassed.”

“No one is harassing you. Except possibly Andrew Vorhees.”

“I’m warning you,” she said. “Leave me and my brother alone. If you make any trouble for us, bother us in any way ever again, you’ll regret it.”

“Threats in front of witnesses, Ms. Beckett?”

She stood shredding me with those eyes, a stare-down that went on for maybe fifteen seconds. Then she did the one thing I was not expecting — the thing, I realized afterward, she’d come here intending to do.

Without warning, cat-quick, she stepped forward and belted me open-handed across the face.

It was a hell of a blow. She was no lightweight; there was considerable strength in that slender body. I staggered backward a step from the force of it, bells going off in my head, before I recovered my equilibrium. She stayed put long enough to watch with chilly satisfaction as I lifted my hand, grimacing, and then she spun on her heel and stalked out.

Chavez, still gawking, murmured something in Spanish. Even Tamara was impressed. She said from her office doorway, “Wow, that was some slap. You okay?”

My cheek stung like fury. Touching it with fingertips made me wince. “I’ll live.”

“You’re lucky the bitch didn’t use her nails.”

“Yeah,” I said. “Or her gun.”

It was full dark when Runyon pulled into the parking lot next to the St. Francis Yacht Club. This part of the city was ablaze with lights after nightfall — rectangles, blobs, streamers, shimmers from the Marina District homes, the Palace of Fine Arts, the rushing traffic on Marina Boulevard, and closer in here, stationary lights at the club building, along the West Harbor walkways and floats, on a few of the boats anchored in the basin. The combined light-glare made the water and the overcast sky look like sections of sunstruck black glass.

There weren’t many cars in the lot, and no one in sight as he followed the walkway to the gate nearest the slip where Andrew Vorhees’ yacht was berthed. He expected the Ocean Queen to be one of the lighted craft, but it was just a bulky shadow-shape in its slip, showing no illumination of any kind.

Runyon checked the radium dial on his Timex: 7:56. Vorhees should be here waiting for him by now. And should have left the security gate open or unlocked for access to the yacht. It was neither.

Delayed for some reason. Busy man, Vorhees, the demands on his time increased now by the load of personal problems weighing on him. Even relatively important appointments, as this one would seem to be, were subject to obstruction of one kind or another.

A need for movement set him pacing the walkway from one end to the other. Still no sign of Vorhees after half a dozen or more back-and-forth treks. He went back to the parking lot. Tamara had given him Vorhees’ cell number, but his call went straight to voice mail. He left a terse message, giving the time and his location; Vorhees already had his number, in the exchange with Tamara, but he added it anyway.

He swung the Ford around and reparked it so that it was facing Yacht Road. The agency file included the fact that Vorhees drove a two-year-old silver Aston Martin. Should be easy to spot when he finally showed up.

Except that he didn’t show up.

Eight-thirty, nine — no sign of him.

And no return call.

Runyon tapped the redial button on his cell. As before, the call went straight to Vorhees’ voice mail. No point in leaving a second message. He quit the car, walked back along the concrete strip to where the dark shape of the Ocean Queen loomed below.

The restlessness in him intensified. This lengthy a delay didn’t seem right. Vorhees was a public-sector, politically connected businessman, the kind of man who didn’t blow off meetings on a whim; if he was going to be this late for an appointment that he’d initiated, he should have made contact and given a reason by now.

Brisk footsteps sounded on the walkway behind Runyon. But it wasn’t Vorhees. A pudgy, sixtyish man in a yachting cap approached the gate, stopped, and gave him a curious but not unfriendly glance. “Hi there,” he said. “Don’t know you, do I?”

“Afraid not. I’m here to see Andrew Vorhees. Business matter.”

“Oh, sure. Poor Andy. You know his wife died in an accident a few days ago?”

“Yes.”

“Terrible thing. Terrible.” The pudgy yachtsman shook his head, then peered in the direction of Vorhees’ yacht. “Doesn’t look like he’s aboard.”

Runyon said, “Belowdecks, maybe.” He didn’t really believe it.

Neither did the yachtsman. “Could be,” he said dubiously, “but he’d have to be sitting in the dark. You’d see a light otherwise.”

“All right if I go aboard and check? Wait for him on deck if he’s not here yet?”

“Well... You’re here on business, you say?”

“That’s right.”

“Kind of late in the day, isn’t it?”

“Mr. Vorhees has been tied up all day. This is the only time he had free.” Runyon added his name and the agency’s name, omitting the fact that they were a firm of private investigators.

The pudgy man subjected him to a closer scrutiny, decided he was who he said he was and that there was no need to ask for his ID. “I guess it’ll be okay,” he said. “My name’s Greenwood. I own the Belle Epoch, two slips down from Andy’s.”

“Nice to meet you, Mr. Greenwood.”

Greenwood opened the gate with a key and they went together down the ramp to the board float that stretched between the slips. At the Ocean Queen, Runyon thanked the man and swung himself on board. Greenwood stood for a moment watching as Runyon went to the main cabin door and rapped on it, then moved on when there was no response from within.

When the yachtsman had passed out of sight, Runyon tried the door. Secure. The afterdeck benches were covered by tarps to weather-protect the cushions; he sat on the one on the port side where he could watch the walkway and gate above.