Bill Pronzini - With an Extreme Burning

The only problem with the place, according to Mr. Hagopian, was the price. “Two-seventy-nine is more than we can afford,” he said when the tour was finished. “Would the owner come down to two-fifty, do you think?”

“He might,” Cecca said. “You wouldn't insult him by offering at that price, I can tell you that.”

“Well, let us think about it overnight, to make sure it's the home we want. I'll be honest with you: We have an appointment to view another house tonight. It may not be what we're after, but we should look at it.”

“I understand. Take as much time as you like, Mr. Hagopian.”

But as they got back into the car she felt certain she would hear from them again tomorrow, and that they would make an offer right away. If Elliot was at all reasonable, and she thought he would be, they ought to have a firm deal by the end of the week. You got so you could gauge buyers, some buyers, with reasonable accuracy. Not the Agbergs variety, who waffled and argued over minute details and drove everybody crazy until they made up their minds; people like the Hagopians, who knew what they wanted and acted immediately when they saw it.

Months of frustration, lean months in which she'd sold just two properties, and now, in what amounted to a single day, she was about to make a pair of fairly substantial sales. For a real estate agent, it was like winning the lottery. But there was no pleasure for her in the sudden turnaround. The irony, in fact, was bitter. What good was business success, a measure of financial security, when your life was in jeopardy?

“It looks like you were wrong about Louise Kanvitz, Mr. Mallory.”

“What the hell do you mean, wrong?”

“I spoke to her at length this afternoon. She denies any knowledge of your wife's lover. Says she didn't even know your wife might have been having an affair until Ms. Bellini brought up the subject last week.”

“She's lying. Of course she'd deny it at first.”

“She also denies any wrongdoing in the sale of your wife's last two paintings. And she has proof to back that up.”

“Proof? What proof?”

“She identified the person who bought them.”

“Who is he?”

“It isn't a ‘he.’ The buyer is a woman, an artist in Bodega Bay named Janet Rice.”

“Did you talk to this Janet Rice?”

“On the phone. She confirms it.”

“And you believe her.”

“She was pretty convincing.”

“I'll bet she was. You ask her why she paid so much for paintings by an unknown artist?”

“She agrees with Louise Kanvitz that they'll be worth a lot more someday.”

“My wife was an undiscovered genius, is that it?”

“You don't think that's possible?”

“No, I don't. She was good but not that good. Get an art expert in to look at her work, he'll tell you the same thing. Kanvitz and Rice are both lying.”

“Why would Ms. Rice lie?”

“Is Kanvitz a friend of hers?”

“Evidently. That was where she spent the weekend—at Ms. Rice's home in Bodega Bay.”

“Well, for Christ's sake, there you are. Kanvitz is lying to protect her blackmail scheme and Rice is lying to protect Kanvitz.”

“A conspiracy?”

“I'm not saying Rice is a blackmailer or knows that Kanvitz is one. I'm saying Kanvitz asked her to lie and she's doing it. Work on the two of them, break them down—one or the other will admit the truth.”

“How do you propose I do that without violating their constitutional rights?”

“Fuck their constitutional rights! What about my constitutional rights? What about my wife's and Francesca Bellini's constitutional rights?”

“Calm down, Mr. Mallory. Flying off the handle isn't going to accomplish anything.”

“All right. All right.”

“I'm not telling you I think you're wrong. It's entirely possible that Janet Rice is lying.”

“Then what are you telling me?”

“The same thing I told you yesterday. That I have to work within the boundaries of the law. I'm checking on Ms. Rice and I plan to talk to her again, in person. I've also ordered the increased patrols in your neighborhood and Ms. Bellini's, and I'll keep trying to convince Judge Canaday to issue a court order for the telephone wiretaps—”

“Keep trying? You mean you asked and he turned you down?”

“I'm afraid so. Insufficient cause.”

“Fine, terrific.”

“These things take time, like it or not.”

“Time we might not have.”

“I don't like suggesting this, but … have you and Ms. Bellini considered leaving town for a while?”

“Running away, hiding out? Oh, we've considered it. But we're not going to do it. Suppose he discovers where we've gone and follows us? Or you never identify him and he hunts us down or waits until we turn up again? We're not about to spend the rest of our lives hiding, living in fear. This thing has got to end soon, St. John, one way or another.”

“What does that mean, ‘one way or another’?”

“It doesn't mean anything. It was a statement of fact.”

“You're not considering something foolish, are you? Taking the law into your own hands?”

“How would I do that? I don't know who he is either, remember?”

“I'll warn you anyway, just in case. Don't do anything outside the law or you'll regret it. Let us handle this—it's the only way. Do you understand?”

“All too well, Lieutenant. All too goddamn well.”

When Cecca arrived home at five, there was a message from Eileen's brother waiting on the machine: Eileen was well enough to be moved and had been flown from Lakeport to Los Alegres Valley Hospital earlier in the afternoon. Thank God, she thought. Immediately she called the hospital and spoke to an admissions nurse.

“Yes, Mrs. Harrell is here,” the nurse said. “But she's not ready to have visitors.”

“When will she be ready? Tomorrow?”

“Perhaps. Call again in the morning.”

“How is she? Is she able to talk?”

“Her condition is stable.”

Cecca thought as she hung up: I wish I could say the same for mine.

SIXTEEN

The room was very white. Too white. White walls, white ceiling, white woodwork, white metal table and chairs and bedframe and sheets. Even the blind eye of the wall-mounted TV set seemed a pale gleaming white. Sterile. Familiar. One of the private rooms in Los Alegres Valley's intensive care unit: She'd know it anywhere, as often as she'd been in and out of this one and others like it over the years.

They really ought to put a little color into these rooms, Eileen thought. She'd brought it up more than once at staff meetings, but nobody would listen to her. Proper atmosphere, they kept saying, as if that meant anything. As if you couldn't maintain a proper hospital atmosphere by adding a little color to all that white. Not that there was anything wrong with white; white was very soothing and comforting. It was just that a little color here and there would make the rooms more cheerful. More hopeful, too. White was comforting, color was hopeful—couldn't you always find hope in bright colors? The curtains on the windows, for instance … yellow, or light blue. Or a wall decoration of some kind, a vivid painting of some kind, maybe a seascape or fruit in a bowl. Just a little color.

Of course there was color in this room now, but it wasn't permanent. Flowers. Let's see … roses, carnations, peonies, azaleas, African violets. Very pretty. Lots of different arrangements and plants, on the table and on the floor. Somebody was a very popular patient.

I shouldn't be lying here like this, she thought then. Why am I lying here? I should be up, making my rounds.

But she was so tired . So tired. Couldn't seem to think clearly about anything either. Every time she tried to think about something other than the room, something she wanted to remember … no, didn't want to but had to … it was as if she were being yanked away from it. Funny. She felt drifty and lost, not like herself at all. Almost a stoned feeling, like the time in college, such a long time ago, when she and Ted … Ted … they had eaten half a trayful of hash brownies. Oh, Lord, had she been stoned that night! But it had been a happy, giggly kind of stoned, and this was different. This wasn't happy, this was sad. This was really lost. This was sad and lost and—