Charles Williams - Man on a Leash

“We’re sure of the guy; the tail’s only a guess. He was right ahead of Snyder at the electronics place and then came into the bar on Van Ness—where Cullen worked—while Snyder was still there. Real bruiser, big as you are but mean-looking, apparently just been in a fight. Had a cut place over one eye and a swollen right hand—”

“Wait,” Romstead interrupted. “Driving a green Porsche with Nevada plates?”

“That’s right. Then you know him?”

“I’ve met him. He’s her brother, Lew Bonner. I don’t get it, though, why he’s poking into it. He had it all worked out; my old man was to blame for everything that happened to her. But what about the tail?”

“As I say, we’re not sure. Could be just a coincidence, but seeing him in Bonner’s area three times in different parts of town is stretching it. Name’s Delevan; he used to be in the business but had his license yanked and did a stretch in San Quentin for extortion—”

“Can you describe him?” Romstead cut in quickly.

“He’s pretty hefty himself, about six two, over two hundred pounds, partially bald—”

“Okay,” Romstead said. “He’s not the one.”

“That shook down your apartment, you mean? When did it happen?”

“Just after I took off for Reno. I think he must have clocked me out, made sure I was on the plane, and then came back and let himself in.” Romstead told him the whole thing. He was puzzled also.

“Sounds pro to me, too, but what the hell would he be after? That’s a furnished apartment, isn’t it?”

“The only things in it that are mine are clothes, luggage, and that hi-fi gear and some records.”

“Planting a bug, maybe?”

“I thought of that, but why? They wouldn’t know I’m interested in them. I didn’t know it myself until this morning. You haven’t got a description on Tallant?”

“No, but I can get one damned fast. Let me call you back in about ten minutes.”

“Fine.” Romstead hung up, frowning. What was Bonner doing in San Francisco, checking back on Jeri? Had he held out on Brubaker or learned something new? He waited, consumed with impatience. When the phone rang, he snatched it up.

“I just called Snyder,” Murdock said, “and he checked back with one of the people he’d talked to in North Beach. Tallant’s about thirty or thirty-two, medium height, slender, black hair, brown eyes—”

“That’s enough,” Romstead cut in. “Have you got an extra man you can get hold of this time of night?”

“Sure. You want Miss Foley covered?”

“Like a blanket, every minute till I get back there. I don’t know what the son of a bitch is up to or what he had to do with the old man, but he sounds wrong as hell to me.”

“We’ll take care of it. What’s her apartment number? And description?”

Romstead told him. “That retainer I gave you won’t begin to cover this, but for references you can check the Wells Fargo Bank on Montgomery Street or the Southland Trust in San Diego.”

“That’s all right. You’re coming back tomorrow?”

“Sometime tomorrow. I guess I should have stayed there; that seems to be where it is. But as long as I’m up here, I might as well go ahead and finish what I started to do. Don’t let her out of your sight. And see what else you can find out about Tallant.”

After he’d hung up, he debated whether to call Mayo again but decided there was no point in getting her upset over something that could be miles into left field. He had complete confidence in Murdock, anyway.

He called Paulette Carmody’s number. She was out, playing bridge, Carmelita said, and would be back around midnight. Well, he could talk to her tomorrow.

7

It was full daylight when Romstead emerged from Logan’s Cafe on Aspen Street after a breakfast of scrambled eggs, orange juice, and two cups of coffee and got into the rented car. He had put on lightweight slacks and a sport shirt, and the water cooler was filled and stowed on the floor behind the front seat. Beside him on the front seat were the Steadman County map and his 8 X 30 Zeiss binoculars. He read the odometer and jotted the mileage on the map: 6327.4. The street was almost deserted, the traffic lights flashing amber in the still-cool air of early morning as he drove out of town, headed south.

The sky was growing pink in the east, the same as it had been that morning two days ago, when he passed the cemetery. He glanced toward it, his face impassive, and went on. He thought of Jeri Bonner and wondered if her funeral would be today. All the unanswerable questions started invading his mind again, but he shut them out. He didn’t intend to spend the day guessing and theorizing from the meager facts he had; too many of them were contradictory, and he was here to do something else, a specific task that might turn out to be futile but still had to be done.

In a few minutes the peaks of the Sierra, far off to his right, began to be tipped with yellow sunlight. The two-lane blacktop, which in reality was a good three lanes wide, ran straight down a wide valley floored with sage and rimmed with buttes and ridges on both sides. Ahead and behind there was nobody else in sight. He bore down on the accelerator until he was cruising at seventy.

He began to watch the odometer, but he saw the gravel road a good mile before he reached it. He turned right into it, stopped, and read the mileage: 6341.1. He subtracted and wrote 13.7 on the map at the juncture of the two roads. Eight miles each direction would cover it. He looked behind and then ahead. You could see almost the full eight miles both ways, he thought. He cranked the windows up, opened the wings a crack, and went on. It wasn’t hot enough yet to need the air conditioning.

The road was badly washboarded and chuckholed, and he had to keep his speed down. A boiling cloud of dust rolled up behind, and he was thankful there was nobody ahead of him. Gravel roared against the underside of the car. A sage hen ran across the road, and several times he saw jackrabbits bounding out through the sage, raising and lowering their great ears like semaphores; but there was no sign of human habitation anywhere. After five miles he topped a low ridge and saw another immense flat spread out ahead of him. He stopped and got out to study it with the glasses. The road ran straight on, diminishing in the distance. There was no house, no shed, windmill, or structure of any kind. There was no use going any farther in this direction. Wherever his father had gone or had been taken, there had to be a habitation of some kind.

He turned around and drove back to the highway. Checking the mileage there, he continued on east on the gravel for eight miles. Nothing. He returned to the highway again and drove back to town. As he went past the motel, he wanted to stop and call Mayo but knew it was too early. It wasn’t even eight o’clock yet; she wouldn’t be up.

Traffic was still light in the streets, but the signals were in operation now. Stopped at Third Street, he checked the odometer and wrote the new reading on the map: 6380.8. He went on through town and out the highway, north this time. A few cars were abroad now, and he passed a couple of big diesel rigs. In about ten minutes he came to the first of the dirt roads leading off to the west. He had to wait for an oncoming car to turn left into it. He stopped, checked his mileage again, and entered it on the map; 6391.1.

The road curved down a slight grade and across a flat, rough and corrugated and full of axle-breaking chuckholes for the unwary, maintained for pickup trucks. Dust boiled up behind him. He checked the rearview mirror and could see nothing at all through the swirling white cloud. An old pickup came clattering toward him and passed, and he had to slow to a crawl until the dust of its passage began to settle. There was no wind at all, and it was growing hot now. He switched on the air conditioner. After eight miles on the odometer he topped another ridge and stopped. He got out with the glasses.