Bill Pronzini: Vixen

More time passed. Quiet here, peaceful, though it didn’t do much to cure his unease. Muted traffic noises from out on the boulevard, classical music playing softly on one of the other boats. A breeze had picked up and the night temperature had dropped several degrees, but he barely noticed. Weather conditions meant little to him unless they had a direct effect on a job he was doing. When it got hot enough or cold enough, his bad leg — the one busted in half a dozen places in the high-speed car crash that had killed his partner and effectively ended his Seattle police career — ached and stiffened and sometimes hampered his movements.

Being on a luxury yacht like this one had no meaning for him, either. Boating wasn’t his thing; his experience with watercraft of any kind was limited. Skiffs and rowboats the few times he’d tried fishing, a sport he’d eventually decided wasn’t for him. The only time he’d enjoyed being on a boat was when he and Colleen had gone sailing on Puget Sound with casual friends who owned a small sloop. When was that? Three... no, four years after they were married. That had been a pretty good day. Bright sun, calm water, just enough wind to billow the sails and keep the sloop moving. But the main reason he’d enjoyed it was because Colleen had.

Thinking about that long-ago day brought up an image of her standing next to the main mast. Head tilted skyward, gamin face in perfect profile, long fair hair feathered and swirled by the wind. Tall and slender in blue shorts and white halter, the sun radiant on her long legs and bare midriff. She’d always been beautiful to him, but that day, watching her framed against sun and sky and blue water, she’d taken his breath away. And made him wonder yet again why she’d picked him to fall in love with out of all the men she could’ve had, a dedicated cop who laid his life on the line every day, a divorced man paying child support to an unbalanced alcoholic ex-wife who’d taken his son away from him, a flawed man who didn’t share half her passions, preferred staying at home to traveling, had to be talked into social outings like this one. He’d asked her that question once, in all seriousness, and she’d just smiled and said that a good man was far more important to her than a perfect one and besides, you love who you love and it doesn’t really matter why.

Funny. Since her death he had taken out and savored many memories of their time together, like you would favorite photographs in a family album. But that day on the sloop, the image of her standing there in the wind and sun, hadn’t been one of them. Why not?

Then he remembered why not.

As he’d watched her, a rush of emotion had welled up and on impulse he’d gone to her and taken her in his arms and kissed her with no little passion — surprising himself because he was not a man given to spontaneous displays of affection in the presence of others. “Well, what prompted that?” she’d said, pleased, maintaining the embrace, and he’d said, “Thinking what a lucky guy I am to be married to you.” And she’d smiled and said, “I feel the same about you. Colleen and Jake, two of the luckiest people in the world.”

Lucky. Two of the luckiest people in the world.

Until all the luck suddenly ran out...

The creak of footfalls on the float alerted him, shoved the memory back into storage. But the approaching steps didn’t belong to Vorhees. The tread came from the other direction — the pudgy yachtsman, Greenwood, returning. He paused alongside the Ocean Queen, peering upward at where Runyon was seated.

“Still no sign of Andy yet, eh?” he said.

“Not yet.”

“You try calling him?”

“Twice.”

“Held up on account of what happened to his wife, maybe. He’s a pretty important man and something terrible like that happens, well, it sets off a media bombshell. Those people can be relentless.”

Runyon agreed that they could.

“Or could be political or union business. That what you’re here to see him about?”

“No. Private matter.”

“Oh, I see,” Greenwood said, the way people do when they really don’t see at all. “You planning to wait much longer? Getting pretty cold out.”

“A while. It’s important that I see him.”

“Well, in that case, my wife thought you might like something to drink to keep you warm. Coffee, tea, a hot toddy.”

“Good of you both, thanks, but I’ll pass,” Runyon said. “Mind if I ask you a question, Mr. Greenwood?”

“Fire away.”

“Have you seen Mr. Vorhees anywhere this evening? Say since four or five o’clock?”

Greenwood didn’t have to think about it. “No,” he said, “and I would have if he’d been at the club or around the harbor. I was here all day. Haven’t seen him since last night.”

“What time was that?”

“Oh, about this time. Maybe a little later.”

“Was he alone or with someone?”

“Alone. Seemed to be pretty upset — his wife, I imagine. He didn’t even want to hear condolences.”

Runyon thanked him again, gave an appropriate response when Greenwood asked him to make sure the security gate was locked after him whenever he left, and another when the yachtsman said good night. Alone again, he sat with his mind a blank slate, the door to his memories locked tight.

The half hour between nine-thirty and ten came and went. By then he was aware of the cold because his bad leg had begun to give out little twinges. At a few minutes past ten he called it quits, more than just restlessness working in him.

A high-powered, determined type like Vorhees being late for an appointment was one thing. Failing to show for it without calling or returning calls was something else again.

Runyon drove from the yacht harbor to Nob Hill. There was no reason to suppose that Vorhees had decided to pay another visit to Cory Beckett, but he had to be somewhere and she was capable of appeasing his anger and luring him back into her bed. Sex was as good a reason as any for a man, even one as tough-minded as Vorhees, failing to keep a business appointment.

The facing windows of the Becketts’ apartment were all dark, but it was getting on toward eleven o’clock; Cory could just as well be in bed alone. Runyon didn’t see the Aston Martin in the immediate vicinity, but Vorhees was too intelligent to park a six-figure set of wheels on a public street, even in an upper-class neighborhood like this. The nearest open-all-night garage was in the next block west; Runyon pulled in there, described the silver sports job to the sleepy-eyed attendant.

“Oh, sure, I know that car. Some sweet ride. Belongs to a VIP — Andrew Vorhees.”

“That’s right. He been in tonight?”

“Not since I came on at six. Left the Aston here a couple of hours last night, but not tonight.”

The Vorhees house in St. Francis Wood was dark except for the night-light on the porch. The driveway was empty, the yellow DO NOT CROSS police strip still in place across the front of the garage. No cars on the street in the vicinity, either.

Runyon made two more phone calls on his way down Sloat Boulevard. Knowing they wouldn’t buy him anything, doing it anyway because he was always thorough. The first, to Vorhees’ cell, again went to voice mail. The second, to his home number, went unanswered.

Whereabouts unaccounted for and incommunicado all evening. Maybe there was a simple explanation, maybe there wasn’t, but whatever the reason Runyon didn’t like the feel of it. Not one bit.

He sat alone in his office, guzzling single-malt scotch and worrying, worrying. About Cory, Vorhees, Chaleen Manufacturing. About himself and his future. The wall clock read 6:30. Everybody gone for the day but him, and the only reason he was still here was because he had nowhere else to go. He’d be just as alone, just as worried in his Cow Hollow flat.