Schemers nd-34 Page 6

  “Does she have other outside interests?” I asked.

  “I’m sure I don’t know.”

  “What about money? Her husband give her carte blanche or put limits on her spending?”

  “She has credit cards. Several.”

  “Uses them all regularly, does she?”

  “I can’t tell you that without Mr. Pollexfen’s permission.”

  “Run up any large debts?”

  The thin lips pinched again. But all she said was, “Please don’t ask me any more questions about financial matters. I don’t have the authority to answer them.”

  I’d run out of questions, period. Trying to extract specific information from Brenda Koehler in these surroundings was pretty much a wasted effort. The perfect discreet employee. But insecure nonetheless; she’d continued to glance at the closed door every third or fourth question the entire time we’d been talking.

  I put an end to the interview, left her, and went out to the front parlor where Pollexfen had said he’d be waiting. He was sitting in an armchair reading one of his mystery books the way I read my pulps-carefully, with it open only about a third of the way so as not to strain the binding. When I came in, he bookmarked his place and hoisted himself, wincing, to his feet.

  “Damn arthritis,” he said. “Hell to grow old, isn’t it?”

  “Better than the alternative.”

  “Trite but true. Did Brenda have anything illuminating to tell you?”

  “Not really.”

  “I didn’t think she would. My wife still isn’t home. You’re welcome to wait, if you like.”

  “No, thanks. Another time.”

  “Come back tomorrow morning. I’ll make sure she’s here.”

  “Thanks, but I’d prefer to talk to her somewhere else. Your brother-in-law as well. You have no objections?”

  “Of course not. Suppose I arrange for you to have lunch with Angelina?”

  “Lunch isn’t necessary.”

  “She’ll be downtown anyway. As usual. And one has to eat.”

  “All right, then. If she’s agreeable.”

  “She will be,” Pollexfen said. “As for Jeremy, you’ll have to make your own arrangements.” He added meaningly, “If you can catch him.”

  I t was four thirty when I drove away from Sea Cliff. Tamara would still be at the agency, but I didn’t feel like fighting crosstown traffic. Easier to phone her, then take the shorter route home through the park and on up to Diamond Heights.

  When I reached the Palace of the Legion of Honor I pulled over into the main parking lot to make the call. The Henderson case first-I asked Tamara if Jake had checked in yet.

  “Few minutes ago,” she said. “He thinks the stalker’s motive might have something to do with the father, Lloyd Henderson.”

  “Because of the grave desecration?”

  “Yep. Only problem with that is, the man’s been dead five years. Doesn’t seem likely somebody’d all of a sudden decide to go after his sons.”

  “You look into the father’s background yet?”

  “Doing that now. Another model citizen. Dentist. Retired four years before he died. What could a dentist’ve done that’d make some dude start slinging acid?”

  “Fillings gone bad, maybe.”

  She laughed. “Hey, who says you don’t have a sense of humor. Every now and then you get off a funny line.”

  “By accident, no doubt.” I went on to fill her in on the interview with Gregory Pollexfen.

  She said, “Rich people,” in her scornful way. “So what’s your take? Man swipe his own books?”

  “Possible, but it seems to be another case of no motive. Unless you’ve come up with facts I don’t know about yet.”

  “Nope. Rivera was right-Pollexfen’s a financial rock. Got more money than you or I will ever see.”

  “How about the others in the menage?”

  “Well, Jeremy Cullrane’s no angel. Been in trouble before.”

  “What kind of trouble?”

  “Assault case a few years ago-argument with the husband of a woman he was shagging that led to a brawl. Husband pressed charges but dropped them later. One other mark on Cullrane’s record: arrest five years ago for aggravated assault, charges dropped for lack of evidence.”

  “A sweetheart.”

  “Yeah. And a loser. Considers himself a player, but he doesn’t play real well. Reputed to’ve dropped a bundle in a deal that went sour five years ago, right before the assault arrest.”

  “What kind of deal?”

  “Details a little hazy, but I’ll find out.”

  “His own money?”

  “Not unless he’s been dealing drugs on the side.”

  “Could be Pollexfen’s. Through his sister.”

  “Well, the Cullranes grew up lower middle class in Fresno, so no financial resources there. With his business record, doesn’t seem too likely he’d have friends or connections for big-bucks loans.”

  “Promoter, right? Booking agent for club acts?”

  “Among other things,” Tamara said.

  “Where’s his office?”

  “Doesn’t have one. There’s a listing-Jeremy Cullrane Associates, on Geary. But it’s just a mail drop-I checked.”

  “Any hint what he might be involved in now? Some kind of deal, say, that would require a large sum of cash?”

  “Not so far.”

  “He’s seeing a singer named Nicole Coyne, lives in North Beach.” I spelled the name and recited the address. “See what you can find out about her and her financial situation.”

  “Will do.”

  “Anything I ought to know about Mrs. Pollexfen?”

  “Well, she’s a boozer. Two DUI arrests, lost her license for six months on the second. EMT call to their house three years ago-toxic reaction to prescription drugs and alcohol that put her in the hospital for three days.”

  “What did she do before she hooked up with her husband?”

  “Travel agent. She’s more than thirty years younger than him. True love at first sight, you think?”

  “On his part, maybe,” I said. “I’d like to know if there was a prenup.”

  “I’ll see if I can find out.”

  “How faithful she’s been, too. Any whisper stuff, links with prominent men. Both Pollexfen and his secretary made sly little remarks about her daily ‘shopping trips.’ If she has been cheating, she couldn’t have been very discreet about it.”

  “Oh boy,” Tamara said, “down and dirty.”

  “One more thing. Any expensive habits or vices-her, and also her brother and husband.”

  “Poor Tamara. Work, work, work.”

  “You know you love it,” I said.

  “Well, I’ve got the energy for it now. Sure is amazing what getting laid can do for a girl’s stamina.”

  K erry said, “I have news.” There was a time, less than a year ago, when she’d made that same announcement, and the news had been bad enough to knock my world off its axis. Breast cancer. But long, difficult weeks of radiation therapy had done its job; she’d been cancer-free for several months now, as of her most recent checkup two weeks ago. This news couldn’t be linked to the disease. She was smiling and her green eyes were aglow.

  “Good news, right?”

  “Very good. Get yourself a beer and me a glass of wine and I’ll tell you.” When I’d done that and we had drinks in hand, she said, “You are looking at Bates and Carpenter’s newest vice president.”

  “Hey! A promotion!”

  “Effective immediately. Bigger office, bigger perks, and a bigger paycheck every month. How about that?”

  “Terrific.” We clinked glasses. “More hours, too, though, I’ll bet.”

  “Probably. Do you mind?”

  “Not if you’re up to it.”

  “I’m up to it. Jim Carpenter thinks so, too, or he wouldn’t have offered the promotion.”

  “The important thing is what your oncologist thinks. I don’t have to remind you what
he said about too much stress…”

  “No, you don’t. I know my limitations, don’t worry.”

  “It’s my nature to worry, especially where you’re concerned.”

  She patted my cheek and leaned up to kiss me. “You’re sweet,” she said. Then she said, “You’re staring at me again.”

  “Am I?”

  “I catch you doing that a lot lately. I must really look different, huh?”

  “Beautiful. Gorgeous.”

  “Ten years younger?” she asked, pleased.

  “At least.”

  She’d had a face-lift a few weeks ago. Her treat to herself after the breast cancer ordeal. I’d been leery of it at first, all that slicing and dicing, and when I first saw her after the surgery, all bandaged and bruised and swollen like the victim of a bad accident, I’d been more than a little anxious. (Not Emily, though; nothing much bothered that kid of ours anymore.) Kerry had spent two and a half weeks holed up in the condo, going out only for post-op visits to her plastic surgeon, doing her ad agency work by home computer as she had during the cancer radiation treatments. When the last of the bandages came off and the scars finally healed, good-bye, anxiety, hello, happy surprise. The minor age wrinkles and eye bags and mouth lines that had bothered her, if not me, were gone and she truly did look ten years younger. More beautiful than ever. No wonder I kept staring at her.

  “Where’s Emily?” I asked.

  “It’s her choral group night, remember?”

  “That’s right. Our daughter, the budding chanteuse. So how about you and I celebrate the promotion?”

  “What did you have in mind?”

  “Oh, something Tamara told me this afternoon, about stamina.”

  “And that is?”

  I told her. Then I told her, juicily, what I had in mind. She actually blushed a little.

  Face-lifts do wonders, all right. For a woman’s selfimage and morale. And for a man’s libido.

  7

  JAKE RUNYON

  He picked Bryn up at six thirty. She was ready; she never kept him waiting. The scarf covering the frozen left side of her face was midnight blue with some kind of gold design. When he’d first met her four months ago, she wore dark-colored or paisley scarves with her plain sweaters, skirts, slacks. The outfits were still the same, but now the scarves had color in them. Her way of dressing up for him.

  Subdued tonight. She had periodic bouts of depression, she’d told him, and when she was depressed she was even quieter than usual. “I’m not very hungry,” she said. “Do you mind if we drive for a while before we eat?”

  “Where would you like to go?”

  “I don’t care. Anywhere.”

  “Down the coast? Highway One?”

  “Yes, all right.”

  He’d told her that he liked to drive, even on those days when the job required him to log in a lot of miles. She understood his restlessness, his need not to be trapped by stationary walls. She preferred the confines of her brown-shingled house-familiar, the place where she’d been happy before the stroke that had left her with partial facial paresis. But sometimes a restlessness seized her, too. At night, for the most part. Days, she had her watercolors and charcoal sketches and the graphics design business she was trying to build up.

  He was seeing her three or four times a week now. Mostly at night, even on weekends. She didn’t like to go out much in the daylight hours. They had dinner usually, at one of the same two coffee shops on Taraval. In other restaurants, places where she wasn’t known, people had a tendency to stare at her or to cluck their stupid tongues because of the scarf and the way she was forced to eat, twisting open the good side of her mouth to take the food, chewing and swallowing in awkward movements with her head down over her plate because no matter how careful she was, pieces of food or dribbles of liquid sometimes leaked out. If there was one thing she hated more than anything else, it was pity-a stranger’s pity worst of all.

  Now and then they took in a movie; she was comfortable in darkened theaters. In good weather they went for walks on Ocean Beach or Land’s End, away from people. Or sat in the car somewhere and talked. He’d been inside the brown-shingled house only twice, once to see her paintings and graphic designs, once for a glass of wine.

  He had not touched her except to take her arm when they went up or down stairs, or to help her on and off with her coat. And yet a closeness had developed between them, a slow-developing bond of trust. Different by far from his relationships with the other two women in his life, the caretaker role he’d had to assume with half-crazy, alcoholic Andrea, the fire and passion and soul-deep love he’d shared with Colleen. If it ever moved to another level with Bryn… all right. Now, what they had was enough. They’d never discussed it, but he thought she felt the same way.

  Most people would find their relationship odd, he supposed. If he’d had to explain it to somebody else, he couldn’t have found the right words. The closest he could come was that before they met, they’d been like a couple of turtles hiding in their shells. Hers fashioned by the stroke and a shit of a husband who couldn’t deal with her affliction and losing custody of her nine-year-old son to his father; his made from the loss of Colleen and the six months death watch he’d had to endure while the cancer ate at her from within. Now the turtles’ heads were out, only partway but still out. A couple of lonely, damaged creatures, blinking in the light, finding understanding and acceptance in each other and taking solace from it.

  He drove them down through Pacifica, over Devil’s Slide, to Half Moon Bay. Nice night, clear, the stars cold and nail-head bright in a black sky. Bryn had very little to say, focused inward. He didn’t try to make conversation. The silences between them were comfortable now.

  At one of the stoplights in Half Moon Bay he said, “Go on a little farther, or head back?”

  “A little farther.”

  She didn’t speak again until they were approaching the beach at San Gregorio. Then, “I saw my doctor today.”

  “What did he say?”

  “No change. He’s honest, he doesn’t give out false hope. It’s almost certain now that I’ll have the paralysis for the rest of my life.”

  “He could still be wrong.”

  “He’s not wrong. Sometimes…”

  When she didn’t go on right away, Runyon glanced over at her. She was staring straight ahead, back stiff, knees together, hands cupped together in her lap-the sitting posture of a young girl.

  “Sometimes,” she said finally, “I feel like I’m going crazy.”

  “I know the feeling.” Mourning Colleen in the allconsuming way he had, Joshua lost to him, work his only sanctuary… he’d been close to the edge himself, closer than he’d let himself believe. “But you won’t let it happen.”

  “Won’t I? I still have nights when I just want to… give up.”

  “I know how that is, too.”

  “No, I mean…”

  “I know what you mean.”

  “Did you ever feel that way? After your wife died?”

  “Yes.”

  “Ever… you know, come close to ending it all?”

  “A couple of times.”

  “How close?”

  “Close enough.” He wouldn’t give her the details-metallic taste of the. 357 Magnum muzzle in his mouth, finger tight on the trigger, sweat pouring off him, the sudden fevered shaking that once made him drop the gun into his lap. No, that was a piece of his own private hell he’d never share with anyone.

  “What stopped you?” she asked.

  “I wanted to live more than I wanted to die.”

  “I… I’m not sure I feel the same way.”

  “If you didn’t, you wouldn’t be here.”

  “That’s not necessarily true. I think I’m a coward.”

  “You’re not a coward,” he said. “Cowards go through with it, leave the mess for somebody else to clean up.”

  “I wouldn’t do it that way, the bloody way.”

  “There’re other
kinds of messes. The people you leave behind. You wouldn’t do that to your son, would you? Leave him that kind of legacy?”

  She made a soft, anguished sound. “Oh, God. Bobby.”

  “No,” he said, “you wouldn’t.”

  “I miss him,” she said, “I miss him so much. Two weekends a month

  … it’s so damn unfair.”

  Her visitation privileges, she meant. The ex-husband was a lawyer, the self-righteous, conniving type. He’d not only found a self-serving excuse to abandon Bryn when he learned her paralysis was likely to be permanent, he’d sued for custody of the boy and convinced a sympathetic judge to rule in his favor. He had another woman now; Bryn thought he might’ve had her even before the stroke. The plan was for the boy to have a stepmother sometime this summer.

  Runyon had met Robert Jr. once, on one of Bryn’s weekends with him last month. Nice kid, nine years old; smart, shy, liked computers and video games and football. No question that he loved his mother, but he seemed a little uneasy around her. Wouldn’t look at her directly, as if the covered half of her face frightened him or made him nervous.

  Runyon said, “You’ll have more time with him as he gets older.”

  “Will I? You didn’t have any time with your son.”

  “Different situation. My first wife was a vindictive alcoholic-I think I told you that. She poisoned Joshua against me. After twenty years, there’s no antidote. Don’t let your ex do that to Bobby.”

  “He hasn’t. I don’t think he will. Robert can be a prick, but he cares about Bobby. And doesn’t care enough about me to hurt me any more than he already has.”

  “What about the new woman he’s with?”

  “I’ve never met her and I’m not sure I want to.”

  “Know much about her?”

  “No, except that she sells real estate. She’s been good to Bobby-he likes her.”

  “Can I ask you a personal question?”

  “Yes.”

  “Have you talked to Bobby about the paralysis?”

  “Mother to son? Yes, as much as you can to a nine-year-old about a thing like that.”

  “Let him see your face, without the scarf?”