Boulevard, and went out toward the Seventeen Mile Drive that took you on a scenic tour of Pebble Beach and Pacific Grove and the Monterey Peninsula. But the guy in the Studebaker was not going out on the drive. He stopped two blocks short of it, in front of a log-facaded tavern called the Stillwater, and hurried inside. I had a pretty good glimpse of him then; he was thirty or so, thick-shouldered, with dark hair wind-tossed and hanging down over his eyes; he wore brown slacks and a navy-blue windbreaker.
I parked close enough to see the Studebaker's license plate clearly, and copied the number down in my notebook; then I lit the cigarette that was still between my lips and waited with the engine running. I would give him ten minutes, I thought, and if he did not come out, I would go in after him. But it did not come to that; he was out in four and a half minutes, carrying something that might have been a quart bottle wrapped in a paper bag. He got into the Stude again and went down to the next corner and turned right and began to double back toward the center of Cypress Bay. I let him have two full blocks all the way.
He took me over to Guadalupe, and then east onto Mission Court, and then south on Santa Rosa. He made one more turn, east again, and drove half a block and took the Stude in to the curb. Then he slid out, carrying the paper-wrapped bottle, and went up twenty-five or thirty slab-stone steps, and, using a key, entered the Old Spanish adobe house with the rust-tile roof and the second-floor gallery and the tired reddish bougainvillea growing over the short arbor at the top of the steps.
Bonificacio Drive.
The Winestock house.
And, very probably, Brad Winestock.
I drove past on the still quiet, still empty street, and made directly for the City Hall. The back of my neck had begun to feel cold again. The Lomaxes were hiding something, in spite of their denials and in spite of what Beverly Winestock had told me about Robin's noninvolvement with Paige; and even though Beverly herself had been cooperative, I had sensed an uneasiness in her, a holding back of something intangible-and since she had known about Paige's death for some time, whereas the Lomaxes apparently had not, she had had more time to prepare herself for possible questioning. Now there was her brother, linked to the bald man, who in turn had been linked to Walter Paige, and maybe she had been lying about the bald guy and about some of the other things as well.
You could feel the undercurrents lying blackly under the surface of it all, deep and swift, and you wondered where the bald man came into it and where the others came into it and who else might still come into it. You wondered how Russ Dancer's book worked into the scheme of things, if it worked in, and if Dancer had maybe been holding back something, too, for some reason of his own. And you wondered how far the undercurrents extended, and whether or not they formed a kind of intricate pattern, and just how deep and black they really were…
Ten
Quartermain was still in Salinas, and the fat sergeant still did not know when he would be back.
I stood looking at him and debating whether or not I should give him what I had learned thus far. I decided again that it should go directly to Quartermain, because the telling would take a while and Quartermain was patient and a good, careful listener; and, too, because I thought Quartermain would understand my own unauthorized involvement a little better. I told the sergeant the same thing I had earlier-that I would be back-and I went out to my car.
It was coming on late afternoon now, and I had not eaten anything all day. I stopped at the first cafe I saw and had coffee and a cheeseburger, and came to the conclusion that I would not be wise to confront Brad Winestock on my own. All I could justify in my own mind was the laying of a little groundwork, and if Winestock was directly involved in Paige's death, he could be dangerous. More important, I could conceivably do more harm than good with an unofficial visit-put him on his guard, perhaps even set him on the run if his involvement was deep enough. Quartermain was the one to talk to Winestock, all right; but I saw no harm in carrying out my previous intention of seeing Keith Tarrant and perhaps finding out a little more about those undercurrents which had been created by the catalyst, Walter Paige.
I went over to Highway 1 and south to Carmel Valley Road; Del Lobos Canyon was five miles in, judging from the map scale, and on the northern side. I drove into the valley and pretty soon I could see the lazy silver-blue path of the Carmel River, flanked by sycamore and willow trees-and pale-green artichoke fields and strawberry patches, and the well-known Carmel Valley pear orchards with their fragrant white spring blossoms like high, soft drifts of sun-bright snow. Cattle still grazed peacefully on the sloping sides of the valley, the way they had when the California rancheros led their quiet and languid lives on the fertile fields and flowing meadows that comprised the old Spanish land grants.
Del Lobos Canyon Road was narrow and wound upward along the side of the ravine itself; lichen-coated fence posts lined both sides, and on the left there were towering redwoods and moss-shawled oaks and an occasional home set high among the trees. Down in the canyon you could see flaming poison oak and sycamores and long multicolored carpets of wildflowers.
I came around a sharp bend, and ahead on my right-a hundred yards or so off the road-was one of these modern architectural wonders built in tiers at the edge of the canyon and a short distance down the sloping wall. The upper level of the house had a rear balcony that protruded above the second tier and its wider balcony, which in turn looked down on a deep, squarish brick terrace leaning out over the ravine on heavy steel girders. The construction materials were predominately redwood and brick, with a lot of glass that caught the rays of late- afternoon sunlight and transformed them into burning, flame-tinged reflections, like demon eyes radiating images of an Old Testament hell.
I could see most of the terrace from the road, and it looked to be occupied by at least one person. It was the kind of day for sitting on your terrace, if you happened to have one. I drove a little further along and came to an unpaved connecting drive; at the head of it was an unobtrusive metal-on-wood sign that said: Keith Tarrant- Realtor. I turned in. The drive itself was shaded with thick-branched walnut trees, and a Japanese gardener had worked up a kind of bonsai garden with dwarf cypress in the fronting yard.
A large two-car port, attached to the side of the house, contained a cream-colored Chrysler Imperial and a sleek powder-blue Lotus; as I neared there, I saw that a winding series of steps had been cut out of the upper canyon wall, beyond the port, and that they led down toward the terrace. I parked to one side, in front of a second unobtrusive sign reiterating the fact that Keith Tarrant was a realtor, and walked over to the cut-out steps and looked down and around at the terrace. A man was standing at the front railing-a plump, light-haired guy with something that looked like a highball glass in his hand.
I went down the steps to where a narrow cut-out path, railed in redwood like the balconies and the terrace, led over to the second-tier platform. 'Hello!' I called out to him. 'Is it all right if I come down?'
He turned to look up at me, and then came away from the railing and took several steps across the brick flooring. He was smiling loosely. 'Business or pleasure?' he asked, and his voice had a mild whiskey edge to it. It was that kind of day, too.
'Business, Mr. Tarrant,' I told him, 'but nothing to do with real estate, I'm afraid.'
'Well, come ahead anyway.'
I made my way down to the terrace and stepped through a kind of gate in the side railing and onto the smooth bricks. Tarrant came up to me, and I saw then that he only gave the impression of being plump, that he was not overweight at all. He had a round, convivial face and pale-brown hair thinning across the crown and a nice, easy, precise way of using his hands. He wore a pair of chino slacks and a dark-brown sports shirt and brown loafers, and there was just enough shine in his eyes to confirm the whiskey lilt in his voice. I thought that he was probably coming up on forty.
He said, 'What can I do for you, Mr.-?'
I told him my name, but there was no immediate reaction. I said then, 'I'm here about a man named Walter Paige, Mr. Tarrant; he was killed in Cypress Bay last night.'
Tarrant blinked at me, and frowned, and then the furrows smoothed on his brow and he said, 'Oh, you're the private detective, the one that found Paige at the motel.'
'Yes.'
'We heard about it on the radio this morning. Are you working with Chief Quartermain on the
