Undercurrent

'You don't know?'

'No. Look, just why are you here?'

'I want to ask you some questions about Walter Paige.'

'What's your involvement with Paige?'

'I found his body, for one thing.'

'His… body?'

'That's right.'

'He's dead?'

'He was murdered last night.'

Deepening silence. They looked at each other again, but I could not read what passed between them-if anything passed between them. A muscle jumped on Lomax's left cheek, but there was nothing on his face or in his eyes that told me much. There was nothing in Robin Lomax's expression either as she stepped out of the half-circle of his arm, and the sighing breath she took might have meant anything at all.

'Who… killed him?' she asked softly.

'No one knows yet.'

'Where did it happen?'

'In Cypress Bay. The Beachwood motel.'

Lomax said, 'Why was he back in Cypress Bay?'

'To meet a woman-and possibly for some other reason as well. He'd been coming here for the past five weekends.'

'What woman? Someone from this area?'

'It would seem that way. She was with him shortly before he died.'

Lomax wet his lips. 'And what time was that?'

'Between five-thirty and quarter of six.'

'You think we know something about it, is that it?'

'I didn't say that, Mr. Lomax.'

'Well, we don't know anything about it. Robin and I were right here all of yesterday. We played tennis from midafternoon until dusk.'

'Yes,' she said. 'Yes, that's right.'

I studied their faces and I had the feeling that they were both lying, but it was Quartermain's place and not mine to break them down on it. I said, 'What can you tell me about The Dead and the Dying?'

I had dragged that one out of left field, but it did not get me anything. Lomax looked surprised, and his wife still had that pale, stricken, withdrawn look about her. He said, 'The what?'

'It's an old book of Russ Dancer's. Paige had a copy of it in his overnight bag. Do you know the book?'

'Hardly. We don't read the kind of trash Dancer writes.'

Trash, I thought. A man's livelihood, a man's talent no matter how limited, a man's thoughts and feelings and impressions and guts. Trash. I said, 'You didn't know that Paige had returned to Cypress Bay, I take it.'

'Of course not. How would we know?'

'Mrs. Lomax?'

'No,' she said. 'No.'

'He didn't try to contact you at any time?'

'Why should he contact me?'

'You didn't know him well originally?'

'No. I never cared to know him well.'

'Why not?'

'He was vain and… crude.'

'Who did know him well?'

'I have no idea.'

'You were a regular member of the group, Mrs. Lomax.'

'The affairs of others are no concern of mine,' she said. 'I never gave a thought to Walter Paige then, and I haven't since.'

'Then why were you so upset when I first mentioned his name?'

Her mouth worked soundlessly for a moment, and she clutched at her husband's arm and put her eyes imploringly on his face. Lomax said with tremulous anger, 'Listen, we don't have to talk to you any longer. You're not the police.'

'The police will ask the same questions, Mr. Lomax.'

'I don't care about that. Now get off my property.'

'All right,' I said. 'But if I were you, I'd be a little more candid with Chief Quartermain than you've been with me. Innocent people don't need to lie or evade the truth.'

I turned and left them standing there-a pair of bronzed statues with the beginnings of what might be an irremovable and no longer concealable tarnish marring their clean, polished luster. When I reached my car I could hear the little boy with the pet rabbit named Bugs, laughing happily from somewhere behind the house. The back of my neck felt cold. And as I drove out of there, the shaded areas on the landscaped grounds seemed deeper and darker, like shadowed corners hiding secret things.

Most of the shops along Grove Avenue were open to accommodate the Sunday tourist trade, and the sidewalks flowed with shoppers and strollers; vehicular traffic was heavy as well, and they had the traffic lights at the intersections and pedestrian crossings in operation. I crawled east toward Highway 1 and the Carmel Valley Road that would take me to Del Lobos Canyon, where the realtor, Keith Tarrant, lived.

The light at one of the pedestrian crossings about halfway along flashed red, and I stopped back of the crosswalk and took the time to put a cigarette into my mouth. I cupped my hands around the flame of the match, glancing over them and through the open window the way you do-and I saw the old faded-blue Studebaker pull to the curb on the other side of Grove Avenue. The passenger door opened immediately and a guy on that side got out, leaving the driver alone in the car. He stood on the sidewalk for a moment, face turned toward me, and I forgot the cigarette and the burning match.

It was the bald man I had seen with Walter Paige the previous afternoon.

I stared over at him, and he pivoted and moved away swiftly along Sierra Verde-one of Cypress Bay's quaint, winding village streets, and one that ended or began at Grove Avenue on that side. I felt the heat of the match then and dropped it on the floor and looked over to my right for a place to park; there was no opening. The traffic light had gone to green when I turned back again, and an impatient horn sounded behind me. I could not make a left turn across the narrow pedestrian walk that formed a break in the center divider; the only damned thing I could do was to go up to the next full intersection and negotiate a U-turn.

I got the car in gear and leaned on the gas trying to watch the street in front and the bald guy behind me on Sierra Verde. But it was no good. I lost sight of him before I had gone fifty feet, although I could still see the old Studebaker waiting at the curbing for a break in the steady stream of traffic moving down toward Ocean Boulevard. I tried to read the license number, but the angle was no good for that either; and all I had seen of the driver was a dark masculine head in quarter profile.

When I reached the intersection I could not complete the U-turn immediately because of the flow of cars, and I was forced to wait for the light. Half turned as I was, I could see the Studebaker wedge its way into the stream, but I still could not read the license number. The light changed finally and I made the turn and got down to Sierra Verde, working the brakes as I came abreast of the intersection. There was no sign of the bald guy; the sidewalks were less crowded along there, and if he had been walking in either of the first two blocks, I would have seen him.

My first impulse was to turn into Sierra Verde and try to locate him, but he might have gone anywhere-into one of the buildings, down an alleyway, onto a cross street-and if I turned up a blank it would be a complete one. The Studebaker was something else again. I could see it plainly enough two blocks down, stopped at a light. I made my decision, right or wrong, and followed Grove Avenue into the next block as the Stude moved with the changing light.

It was three cars in front of me when it made the turn north on Carmelo, one street up from Ocean