Night My Friend (31 page)

“The makeup was good,” Harry admitted. “But of course she couldn’t possibly imitate a voice she’d never heard.”

“You gave her a bad start, visiting her apartment Tuesday, just after she’d washed the coloring out of her hair. And then she had to mention the magazine with Lois’ picture in it, because she was afraid you’d already spotted it.”

“You knew it wasn’t Lois,” Harry said.

“I knew. I had a pretty good idea of the whole caper, in fact. The news vender, Otto Carry, described the woman he saw as having a mole on her right cheek. That matched the newspaper photo, but you told me it had been mistakenly flopped, that the mole was really on her left cheek. That told me two things: it wasn’t really Lois, but somebody who tried to make up as her; more important, it wasn’t anybody who had known Lois in life, or she wouldn’t have made that mistake with the false mole. That eliminated most of your friends, and immediately turned my suspicions to the one woman in the case, who by your own admission looked something like Lois to begin with, and was an actress besides.”

“And Otto Carry didn’t recognize her without the hair coloring and the mole.”

“Would you expect him to, after one quick glimpse?”

“But Rosie Yates worked from two pictures for her makeup. Didn’t she notice the correct position of the mole in the color shot?”

The detective shrugged. “She guessed which was the right one, and guessed wrong.”

Harry had one more question. “But who was it Betty Angora saw in her garden, the day after the accident? It couldn’t have been Rosie then.”

“I don’t answer questions like that, Mr. Gordon,” Kater said. “I’m only a detective. Maybe she just saw what she wanted to see, some dream or other. It started everything in motion, though, that vision of hers.”

Harry didn’t get to Lester Shaw’s funeral. He was a day late getting out of the hospital, and when he went to visit Muriel she wasn’t at home. He thought of calling on the Angoras, but decided to wait a while. Lois was really dead, and now he had his whole lifetime to get used to the idea.

G
EORGE GRANGER HADN’T SEEN
Beach since he’d gotten out of the hospital and so this first meeting was something of a shock. The months of mental and physical torment had aged Howard Beach in a way that Granger wouldn’t have believed possible. He was an old man now, though not yet 50, and his white hair, wrinkled skin and tired eyes produced a sad and sorrowful sight.

“How’s the construction business?” Granger asked, shaking the damp, bony hand.

“I wouldn’t know. I’ve been away.” Howard Beach’s eyes stared through him, as if focused on something far away. “Have you heard anything from Linda?”

Linda Beach, Howard’s young bride, had walked out on him on her 27th birthday. Two months later, Howard had received a letter from a San Francisco address asking for a divorce. He’d brooded about that letter for three weeks, while trying to reach Linda by phone and by wire. Finally, one rainy night, he’d gone out to his garage, closed the door behind him and turned on the car motor. A neighbor had found him just in time and Howard Beach had been in the hospital ever since. Granger had heard rumors of shock treatments and psychiatrists, but he hadn’t tried too hard to learn the details. Beach was no more than a casual business associate.

“Linda? No, I wouldn’t expect to, really. I just met her once, Howard. At a builders’ dinner with you.” Granger spoke with the careful solicitude one uses for the ill.

“I’ve written her, but the letters just come back.” He stared down at his hands as he spoke. “She’s moved, but her lawyer says she’s still in the San Francisco area.”

“Lawyer? She still wants a divorce?”

Howard Beach nodded. “I suppose when you get to my age… Maybe I’m too old for her. Maybe if we’d had children, things would have been different.”

“Don’t blame yourself,” Granger said, trying to make it sound sympathetic.

Howard Beach brightened a bit. “I don’t, really. Anyway, I phoned you because I wanted to ask a favor, George. It’s a big favor and I’ll understand if you say no.”

“What is it?”

“I heard you were driving out to California with your wife. Will you be visiting San Francisco?”

Granger nodded. “For a few days. I’m only taking two weeks’ vacation. We’ll spend most of it driving.”

“I was wondering…” He went over to a chair and picked up a full-length fur coat. To Granger’s inexperienced eye, it looked like beaver. “She left some things here—this coat and her jewelry box—that I’d like her to have. I was wondering if you’d take them to her, since you’re going to be out there anyway.”

“But you don’t know her address.”

“I’m sure someone could tell you where she’s staying. If nobody at the old address knows, call her lawyer.”

“Couldn’t you send these things to the lawyer?”

Howard Beach seemed suddenly very tired. “George—don’t you understand? I want to hear about
her.
I want you to come back and tell me you actually saw her, tell me she’s all right, that she’s happy. God, George—sometimes I lie awake all night thinking of the awful things that might be happening to her out there, all alone.”

There was nothing Granger could say, nothing but, “Of course I’ll do it for you. I’ll take the stuff out and try to find her. I can’t promise anything, but I’ll try.”

Howard Beach smiled for the first time. “I’ll put the coat in a box. I don’t know how to thank you, George.”

Granger didn’t tell his wife about it till they were loading the car for their trip. She picked up the large, gray cardboard suit-box, with its girdings of tape and twine, and asked, “What’s this?”

“Don’t get excited. You remember Howard Beach. He asked me to deliver some things to his wife in San Francisco—her fur coat and some jewelry.”

“Why couldn’t he mail them?”

“He’s not sure of her address. Besides, he wants to hear how she is.”

Sue Granger snorted. “But you hardly know them!”

“I just couldn’t say no, honey. It won’t take long. If I don’t find her right away, I’ll dump the box at her lawyer’s and forget about it.”

“I’ll bet! George, sometimes you’re just too… too…”

He kissed her lightly on the lips and took the box out to the car. He loved his wife and always would, but he was still young enough to remember Linda Beach as a beautiful young woman who’d smiled at him once across a dinner table.

They entered San Francisco from the north, coming down Highway 101 from Santa Rosa, crossing the magnificence of the Golden Gate and swooping down into the Presidio Drive. It was a May-like day, even though it was still early April, and there was not a trace of the fog and mist they’d expected. The temperature was just under 60 degrees.

“I won’t be long,” Granger told Sue at the hotel. “I’m just going to drive out to the address Beach gave me.”

“I’ll be back from shopping by 5,” she said. “And I don’t want to spend my first night alone in a hotel room.”

“Don’t worry.”

The address Howard had given him proved to be in the North Beach section, not far from Fisherman’s Wharf. It was an area full of restaurants and shops, with a noisy life of its own that even at noon reminded him a little of Greenwich Village. He parked the car on a narrow side street and found the number he was looking for, a three-story brick building over an Italian restaurant.

A girl in tight pants and long hair passed him on the narrow stairs. “Pardon me,” he asked, “but does Linda Beach live here?”

She paused, eyed him up and down, and then said, “Linda’s been gone for months. You her husband?”

“No, just a friend. Where could I reach her?”

The girl shrugged. “Ask the landlady. Mrs. Cossa. She’s downstairs.”

He found Mrs. Cossa behind the nearly deserted bar in the restaurant. She was a big woman with an indifferent expression. “Beer?” she asked.

“Information. I’m looking for Linda Beach.”

“You a detective or something?”

“No, just an old friend from back east.”

“You look like a detective.”

“I’m not. Could you give me Linda’s address?”

“She didn’t leave one. I kicked her out for not paying her rent. That’s the last I saw her.”

“How long ago was that?”

“After Christmas. I let her stay over Christmas. Then I kicked her out. This neighborhood—we used to be decent around here, before the artists and the girls moved in. Now they have parties and all sorts of carrying-on.”

“Did she have any close friends in the building?”

“Girl on the top floor. Myra White.”

He wondered if that was the girl he’d spoken to. “Long blond hair?”

“That’s Myra. Pretty soon I’ll kick her out, too, if she don’t get rid of that guy she lives with.”

He went back into the street and started walking. He knew Myra was out and there was probably nothing more to be gained from her, anyway.

Well, he’d tried, hadn’t he? Maybe he’d just call the lawyer and forget about it. He found a pay telephone and dialed the number. In a moment he was speaking to Jay Tearbon, a brisk man who spoke in clipped phrases.

“Busy day. What can I do for you, Mr. Granger?”

“I’m looking for a client of yours. Linda Beach.”

“Beach. Oh, yes.”

“Could you give me her address?”

“Just why do you want to see her?”

“I have some things from her husband.”

“Ah—I’m sorry. Mrs. Beach wants no contact at all with her husband.”

That was fine with Granger. “Could I drop this package off at your office for her?”

“Certainly, certainly. Leave it with my secretary.” Tearbon hung up and that was all.

Granger stared hard at the telephone, wondering what to do next. The lawyer hadn’t impressed him, but there seemed no place to turn. He started walking back to where he’d parked the car, suddenly conscious of the city sounds around him. Down the block, construction workers were blasting rock for a building foundation, and that reminded him of Howard Beach. The man had been through a lot—a runaway wife, attempted suicide, months of mental care. Perhaps he owed it to Howard to try once more, to bring the man some news of Linda, if only that she was living happily with a bearded artist in some dingy loft.

He looked up and saw a girl with familiar blond hair hanging down her back. “Pardon me—Myra White?”

She turned and eyed him once more, cradling a package of groceries in one arm. “Didn’t I just see you at the apartment?”

“That’s right. I asked you about Linda Beach.”

“So what do you want now?” She wore no makeup and, oddly enough, didn’t need any. He guessed her age at just over 20, several years younger than Linda Beach. And yet they could have been friends.

“Mrs. Cossa says you were her friend. You must know where she is.”

“I don’t know. I haven’t seen her in months.”

“It’s important that I find her. I have a package from her husband.”

This caught her interest for a moment, but then she glanced up at the apartment windows across the street. “Look,” she said, “my boyfriend doesn’t like me talking to strangers. He might be watching. You don’t want to find Linda, really you don’t.”

“Why not?”

“She’s been sick.”

“Perhaps her husband could help her.”

“Nobody could help her. I’ve got to go now.”

“Look, call her. Tell her I have some of her things—her fur coat and jewelry box. I’m sure she’ll want them. Tell her it’s George Granger. I think she’ll remember me.” He only had time to add the name of his hotel and then she was gone, hurrying across the street with her groceries.

He was back at the hotel long before Sue and he went downstairs for a haircut while he waited for her return. She finally got back, burdened down with two shopping bags, anxious to try on the dress she’d purchased.

“Been back long?” she asked.

“An hour or so.”

“Did you deliver the box?”

“Not yet. I talked to a friend of Linda’s, who’s going to contact her. If I don’t hear anything by tomorrow morning, I’ll take it down to the lawyer’s office.”

Sue Granger started to make a face, but then thought better of it.

They dined at an expensive restaurant near the hotel and spent the rest of the evening strolling through the downtown area like a couple of kids. For a little while, George forgot about his search for Linda Beach. But when they got back to the hotel, he found a message waiting for him.
Phone Myra White,
it said.

“You’re going to call her
now
?” Sue asked irritably.

“I’ll take a chance. She’s not the type who’s in bed before 12.”

Myra answered on the third ring. Her voice was familiar but a bit out of focus, as if she’d been drinking. “It’s too late now. But she’ll see you in the morning.”

“Where?”

“You come here. We’ll take you.”

He couldn’t argue. “All right. I’ll be there at 10.”

“Now what?” Sue wanted to know.

“Tomorrow morning will end it. I’ll see her and that’ll be it.”

“I hope so,” Sue said, settling into her side of the bed.

Myra White was waiting for him when he arrived, standing on the sidewalk next to a thin youth whose hair was just a bit too long. She introduced him as Charlie and never mentioned his last name. They climbed into Granger’s car, with the girl in front and Charlie in the back. As he followed their directions, he wondered for the first time about his own safety. He had mentioned the fur coat to Myra. People had been robbed and even killed for far less.

“Nothing but hills in this city,” he said, making conversation.

“Some say there are 42 of them,” Charlie supplied, as if quoting a fact from a guided tour.

“How far are we going?”

Myra lit a cigarette. “Not far. Down by the docks.”

“You said she was sick.”

“She’s sick.”

Another thought crossed his mind. “Is she alive?”

Charlie laughed a little and they drove on in silence for a time. Finally, Myra signaled for him to stop. They were in front of a shabby brick building facing the waterfront. George grabbed Howard Beach’s box and followed them into the building.

The stairs were lit by a single dim bulb. Granger followed Myra up the staircase, watching the lithe movement of her hips beneath the tight slacks, aware that Charlie was bringing up the rear. Suddenly he was afraid. He wanted to tell them to take the damn coat and the jewelry and leave him alone. He silently cursed Howard Beach and Linda and everything that had led him to this place.