'Who was her husband?'
'An older guy,' he said. 'They stayed in one of the cottages for a couple of weeks.'
'What year were they here?'
'I couldn't nail it down - maybe six or seven years ago. But if I find those pictures I can tell you. I generally make a note of the date on the back.'
By this time Malkovsky was eager to get to work. Before leaving for the Village, he gave me the address and telephone number of his studio. I said I would check with him there in an hour or so.
I thanked Ella, and went to the parking lot to get my car. An unsteady wind carrying a gritty taste of desert was blowing down from the direction of the mountains. The eucalyptus trees swayed and bowed and waved in the gusts like long-haired madwoman racked by impulse. The night which loomed above the trees and dwarfed them seemed threatening.
I had been concerned about Harry Hendricks ever since I found his car at the roadside near Martel's house. Harry had no more earned my concern than the alleged rat, which Martel said he had killed. Still I had a foolish yen to see Harry alive.
The road to the harbor cut across the base of the headland where Fablon had taken his final swim, and back to the ocean. As I drove along the windswept boulevard, my mind was so fixed on Harry that when I saw the Cadillac parked at the curb I thought I was dreaming. I braked and backed and parked directly behind it, and got out. It was Harry's old Caddie, all right, standing there with a cold engine, empty and innocent, as if it had driven itself down from the foothills. The key was in the ignition. It hadn't been before.
I looked around me. It was a lonely place, especially at this time, with a wind blowing. There was no other car in sight, and nothing across the street but rattling palms and the sighing sea.
On the inland side a tall cypress hedge shielded the boulevard from a view of the railroad tracks and the hobo jungles. Through a hole in the hedge I could see the dark shapes of men crouched around a bonfire which flared and veered.
I went through the hole and approached them. There were three of them drinking dark red wine out of a half-gallon jug, which was nearly empty. Their faces all turned toward me in the firelight: the seamed and gap- toothed face of an aging white man; the flat stubborn planes of a young Negro's head; a boy with Indian features and an Indian's stolid apathetic eyes. He wore nothing above the waist but an open black vest.
The Negro got up with five or six feet of two-by-four in his hands. He staggered toward me on the uneven ground.
'Amscray, 'bo. This is a private party.'
'You can answer a civil question. I'm looking for a friend of mine.'
'I don't know nothin' about no friends of yours.'
Big and drunk, he leaned on his two-by-four like a warrior on his spear. His tripod shadow wavered on the hedge.
'That's his car there,' I said quickly. 'The Cadillac. He's a medium-sized man in a checkered jacket. Have you seen him?'
'Naw.'
'Just a minute.'
The white man rose unsteadily. 'Maybe I seen him, maybe not. What's it worth to you?'
He came up close to me so that I could smell his fiery breath and look deep into the glaring hollows of his eyes. They had a feverish brainwashed wino emptiness. He was so far gone that he would never come back.
'It isn't worth anything to me, old-timer. You're trying to promote the price of another jug.'
'I seen him, honest I seen him. Little man in a checkered jacket. He gave me four bits, I thanked him very kindly. You don't forget a citizen like that.'
The breath whistled through the gaps in his teeth.
'Let's see the four bits.'
He searched elaborately through his jeans. 'I must have lost it.
I turned away. He followed me all the way to the car. His gnarled fists drummed on the window.
'Have a heart, for Christ's sake. Gimme four bits. I told you about your friend.'
'No money for wine,' I said.
'It's for food. I'm starving. I came down here to pick oranges and they fired me, and I couldn't do the work.'
'They'll feed you at the Salvation Army.'
He puckered up his mouth and spat on the window. His saliva ran down the glass between him and me. I started the motor.
'Get away, you might get hurt.'
'I'm hurt already,' he said with his life in his voice.
He staggered back to the hedge, disappearing suddenly through the hole like a man swallowed up by darkness.
12
The BREAKWATER HOTEL was only a few blocks from the place where Harry's Cadillac was parked. It was possible, though hardly likely, that he'd left it there, for reasons of his own, and gone the rest of the way on foot.
The lobby of the hotel was the mouth of a tourist trap which had lost its bite. There were scuff-marks on the furniture, dust on the philodendrons. The bellhop wore an old blue uniform which looked as if he had fought through the Civil War in it.
There was no one at the desk, but the register was lying open on it. I found Harry Hendrick's name on the previous page. He had room 27. I looked at the half-wall of pigeonholes behind the desk, and couldn't see the key in 27.
'Is Mr. Hendricks in?' I asked the bellhop.
He stroked the growth of beard on his chin. It looked like moth-eaten gray plush, but it rasped like sandpaper. 'I wouldn't know about that. They come and go. I'm not paid to keep track.'
'Where's the manager?'
'In there.'
He jerked a thumb toward a curtained doorway with an electric sign above it: Samoa Room. The name meant that it would have bamboo furniture and a fishnet ceiling: it had: and would serve rum drinks containing canned pineapple juice and floating fruit.
Three rather wilted-looking sharpies were rolling dice on the bar. The fat bartender watched them over his belly. A tired looking hostess offered me the temporary use of her smile. I told her that I wanted to ask the manager a question.
'Mr. Smythe is the assistant manager. Mr. Smythe!'
Mr. Smythe was the sharpest-looking of the sharpies. He tore himself away from the dice for a moment. If they were his dice, they were probably gaffed. His true-blue All-American look was warped like peeling veneer around the edges.
'You wish accommodations, sir?'
'Later, perhaps. I wanted to ask you if Mr. Hendricks is in.'
'Not unless he came in in the last few minutes. His wife is waiting in his room for him.'
'I didn't know he was married.'
'He's married all right. Very married. I'd give up the joys of bachelorhood myself if I could latch onto a dish like that.'
His hands made an hourglass figure in the smoky air.
'Maybe she can tell me where he is.'
'She doesn't know. She asked me. I haven't seen him since this afternoon. Is he in some kind of a jam?'
'Could be.'
'You a cop?'
'An investigator,' I answered vaguely. 'What makes you think that Hendricks is in trouble?'
'He asked me where he could buy a cheap hand gun.'
