While Other People Sleep (8 page)

“I'd like to help.”

“I know. Just let it go, Shar.” He pushed the chair up to the desk, raised a hand in farewell, and left the office.

I waited only a few seconds before rushing back to my own office for my purse and the keys to the inconspicuous agency van.

Ted drove his white Dodge Neon straight to Plum Alley but, strangely, did not enter the garage of his building. Instead he backed into a parking space next to the retaining wall at the end of the block and sat there. I continued along Montgomery, found nowhere to leave the van, U-turned in front of Julius’ Castle, and drove back on the higher section of the street. A car was just exiting Plum Alley. I sped up, made another U, and entered the alley; the vacated parking space was halfway down the street, behind a Dumpster that would block the van from Ted's line of sight—if he was still in his car.

I got out of the van and crept through the shadows between the parked cars and buildings for a closer look. Yes, I could see Ted's head, backlit by the lights of the waterfront. He appeared to be watching his own building. From behind a utility wagon I watched him as several people entered and left, each causing him to straighten and take notice. He didn't seem concerned with others in the vicinity, however: a man who pulled in to the space next to him bumped his car door into the Neon, and Ted didn't even turn his head; a woman allowed her German shepherd to pee on the car's bumper, and he didn't roll down his window to protest. If he hadn't moved from time to time, I'd have feared him dead. Finally I went back to the van to wait.

The night grew cold and overcast; I wished I had some coffee and a sandwich. And soon images began to haunt me: An open bottle of Deer Hill Chardonnay and a glass under the warm lamplight in my living room. Cold fluorescent light touching the silvery corkscrew where it lay on my kitchen chopping block. An empty plastic compact that had contained birth control pills on the fluffy green mat in my bathroom. Rumpled bedclothes and a half-open closet door—

Stop it, McCone!

I breathed in deeply and thought I caught the scent of Dark Secrets perfume, but no one was there but me.

The rain started around eight-thirty. Light mist turned into a torrent, smacking down on the van's roof. I leaned against the door, listening to the downpour. I don't like surveillances; they're one of the most boring aspects of my work. And I especially didn't like this one, because over and over my thoughts drifted to the woman who had invaded my home.

Had her primary purpose been to trash it? Maybe, maybe not.

Reconstruct her actions. That might tell you.

Okay, she's been watching the place, sees Hy and me leave. She picks the lock, quickly, so the neighbors won't notice. That means she's as good with a set of picks as I am, and I'm very good. She checks the parlor, the guest room, the home office. She lights a fire, goes to the kitchen, helps herself to some wine. Sits down and has a couple of glasses.

All right, at this point what's she thinking?

That she's getting to know me. She may even be pretending she
is
me. Cozy, relaxing in my own easy chair. But then something sets her off. Something that makes her flush those pills, strip my bed. She does damage to things that're associated with sex.

Is that it? No, sex had nothing to do with her stuffing the cat into the crawl space.

The cat …

Where was Allie on Sunday night? Out, like Ralph. They wouldn't come in when Hy and I wanted to leave, sensed something unusual was going on and got upset, so we said the hell with them. So how did Allie get in?

Now,
here's
a scenario: The woman makes her way back to the bedroom. Allie's at the glass door, wanting in. The woman's now deep into her role-playing; she lets Allie—
her
cat—in and tries to pick her up, to cuddle her.

And Allie, of course, is the most standoffish cat on the face of the earth. She won't let anybody but Hy or me hold her, barely tolerates Michelle Curley, the kid next door who lets her in and feeds her when I'm away from home. Sulks or panics when company comes, depending on who it is. So what's she going to do when a total stranger tries to handle her?

Struggle. Hiss. Scratch her.

And what's this particular stranger going to do when rudely yanked out of her personal fantasy?

Pitch a fit.

The bedclothes get dragged off, the pills go down the toilet, the cat goes into the crawl space. And I'm lucky she didn't do more—

The Neon abruptly started up, its headlights flashing on. I slumped low, let it go by. Then I followed.

Half an hour later Ted and I were parked several spaces apart on Van Ness Avenue near Pine Street, across from the Far West Academy of Martial Arts. He seemed to be watching its entrance.

Regardless of what Neal thought, Ted had to suspect him of infidelity.

I squirmed around in the driver's seat of the van, seeking a more comfortable position. Across the six lanes of rain-slick pavement was a four-story building occupied by one of our major electronics retailers, the Good Guys; some enterprising window dresser had turned TVs face out across its entire facade, and now the credits of the local CBS affiliate's news show began to roll. Soon dozens of tiny news clones began smiling and talking and bobbing their stiffly coiffed heads in perfect synchronization high above the sidewalk. I watched, in danger of becoming hypnotized.

At the stoplight behind me brakes squealed and tires shrieked. I glanced back, saw a car that had slid sideways across two lanes. Why was it that the vast majority of San Franciscans forgot how to drive at the first drop of rain? Weren't they aware that rubber adhered to pavement even when both were wet? What would they do if they lived in Seattle, where it
really
rained? Or in the Sierras, where the roads were now slick with ice and snow?

Mental question-and-answer session, designed to keep my mind alert at this late hour—as well as off the subject I'd begun to label as The Woman.

People were beginning to drift through the door of the academy now. Through the windows of the parked cars ahead of me I saw Ted's silhouette straighten; I did the same, my hand on the key.

Neal came outside, gym bag in hand, waving good-bye to a pair of men. He turned down Pine Street and walked toward Polk.

Ted waited for a break in traffic, then pulled away from the curb. I waited a little longer before I followed. The Neon shot across three lanes, made a left on Bush. I got caught at the light, but when I turned onto Bush, I spotted Ted making another left onto Polk. I duplicated it, saw that he was driving unhurriedly, keeping Neal in sight as he walked along to Anachronism, bypassed the shop, and crossed in mid-block to a parking garage.

Ted pulled over to the curb and idled there. I stopped to let pass a trio of young men who seemed to have pierced every conceivable body surface with metal objects that looked as though they'd been subjected to a few whirls in the garbage disposer, then waved across an elderly couple toting sacks from an all-night supermarket. In minutes Neal's beat-up Honda exited the garage and turned north on Polk. I eased forward, watching Ted follow.

Separated at times by various other vehicles, the three of us proceeded along Polk, through the Broadway tunnel, and ultimately to Tel Hill. By the time I arrived at Plum Alley, Ted had emerged from his building's garage and was entering the lobby courtyard. Neal—who parked on the street, since the apartment was allotted only one garage space and Ted's car was the more valuable—had presumably gone inside.

I idled a few doors down from the building as Ted checked their mailbox and stepped onto the elevator. Watched him through the glass blocks as it rose to the third floor. When he passed behind the art-glass windows, I realized why I always had the sense of being underwater when I walked down that hallway; Ted looked as if he were drifting among the strange sea creatures.

Submerged, perhaps, in whatever lay heavy on his mind.

When I got home, I found a grocery bag on my front porch. Another unpleasant surprise, no doubt.

Without touching it, I opened the door, disarmed the security system, and turned on the overhead light. Then, cautiously, I brought the bag inside and opened it.

A bottle of Deer Hill Chardonnay—the right vintage, no less. Taped to it was a Post-it note bearing one typed word: “Sorry.”

I let my breath out in a hiss that was a combination of relief and rage.

Sorry.
She'd broken into my home, drunk my wine, flushed my pills down the toilet, terrorized my cat—and now she was
sorry?

Yeah, sure she was.

I left the bottle in the bag, picked it up by its top edges, and took it to the kitchen. Tomorrow it would go to Richman Labs for fingerprint analysis and to see if it was contaminated, but I suspected the fee I'd pay the investigative laboratory would be wasted; she'd been careful last night, and she'd have been more careful with this specious gift.

Before I reset the alarm, I gave consideration to asking the neighbors if they'd seen who dropped off the bag, but decided against it; I'd already bothered them this morning, and it was too late to go ringing doorbells.

Both cats were sleeping on the sitting room couch, let in by Michelle from next door. The light on the answering machine was blinking—one message. I hit the play button and heard Hy's voice.

“Just wanted to let you know I arrived here safely. Buenos Aires is even better than I remembered it; someday you'll have to make the trip with me. Anyway, I miss you. Hope that woman hasn't given you any more trouble, and that you've got the problem with Ted and Neal sorted out. You have my itinerary and numbers, so if I don't get hold of you, call me. Love you.”

I'd call him tomorrow. I badly needed the comfort of a talk.

Tonight I'm underwater. Murky water in a dimly lighted aquarium where opaque green plants wave their silky tendrils. The pebbles under my feet glisten and shift with my steps.

How can I be underwater and still breathe?

I watch myself move through the plants, clumsy in contrast to their gracefulness.

Movement at the far side of the tank, whipping the plants to a frenzy. Bubbles rise toward the surface. I draw back into a sandstone cave.

Strange sea creatures appear. They're brightly colored: red, blue, gold, vermilion. They dart and weave among the green tendrils, uttering unworldly cries that echo off the glass.

I watch, both fascinated and afraid.

Now comes a procession that silences the sea creatures. A series of faceless women draped in filmy teal-blue cloth. They drift among the sea creatures but don't touch them.

Each woman carries a bottle of wine and a glass.

Sorry, they murmur as they drift close to my hiding place.

Sorry, sorry, sorry …

Thursday

K
eim's on line one, Shar.”

“Thanks.” I picked up. “Charlotte, where are you?”

“Detroit Airport, about to board my flight home.” She'd spent the week shadowing the traveling businesswoman from Chicago to Minneapolis to the Motor City.

“Still nothing?” I asked.

“Nothing at all. This woman works too hard to fool around on the road. The client must be paranoid.”

“You call him yet?” The client, Jeffrey Stoddard, wanted oral reports on a daily basis.

“I tried, but he wasn't home. I'll try again on the in-flight phone—”

“No, I'll call him and you can fill him in on the details when you get back.” Keim, like so many fans of high technology, loved to talk on the airliner phones and had previously run up her expense account to an unjustifiably high level.

“Okay,” she said. “I guess if I get bored, I'll have to call Mick—on my own nickel, of course.”

“Don't stand up in the aisle while you're talking.” That practice has always struck me as a particularly obnoxious way of calling attention to oneself—“I haven't a minute to waste,even at 33,000 feet. I'm important!”—to say nothing of an annoyance to those who aren't impressed with the airborne dialer's need to stay connected.

“Exactly like last night?” Neal asked.

“Yes.”

On both Tuesday and Wednesday Ted had driven directly from the pier to Neal's bookstore, idled at the curb down the block, and tailed him home.

“He must suspect me of something. But what? And what cause have I given him?”

“Does he ever quiz you about where you've been, what you've been doing?”

“Never, but that's no surprise, considering he's been following me.”

“Does he display unusual curiosity about your phone calls or mail?”

“No, but… lately he's been rushing to answer the phone every time it rings. And my mailbox key disappeared two or three weeks ago; I suppose he could've taken it. He claims the locksmith doesn't have masters for that type of key, so it can't be duplicated.”

“… Right.”

“So where d'you go from here?”

“Well, I'll follow Ted one more time, to make sure this is a regular pattern. After that… We'll talk about it.” The intercom buzzed. “Got to answer another call.”

“Ms. McCone, Kelly at Richman Labs. We have the results on the items you dropped off for testing on Tuesday. No latents on the bag, the bottle, or the Post-it note. The seal on the bottle wasn't tampered with, and the wine tested negative for contaminants. An IBM Wheelwriter 1500 was used to type the note.”

A common typewriter available for public use in copy shops and libraries. The results were exactly what I'd suspected.

“Mick, will you come to my office? I've got a new assignment for you.”

In a couple of minutes he appeared, carrying a Pepsi and a half-eaten salami sandwich, the former of which he set on my desk. I frowned and shoved a coaster across to him. He then set the sandwich down, smearing mayonnaise all over. “Sorry,” he muttered, swiping at it with the side of his hand and eyeing the case file.

I said, “This investigation's for Anne-Marie, so give it priority. One of her important clients is divorcing and suspects her husband has hidden a substantial portion of their communal assets. We're to find out where.”