A Time of Predators

Curt held his breath as Matthews broke off, but the detective was nodding again and writing on his scratch paper. He finally thanked the woman and hung up and expelled a long whistling breath.

“It’s always damned touchy when they’re on the run,” he said. “Let’s hope she’s not just ducking a hill collector.”

“The only thing that bothers me,” said Preston, “is how the hell you knew she’d been having phone trouble?”

Matthews laughed and stood up. “I didn’t — and I doubt if she has been having phone trouble. It’s just that everyone always thinks there’s something wrong with his phone, if he’s asked about it.” He handed the paper to Curt. “Arroyo Towers, apartment twelve, 1482 Robles Drive in San Mateo. She says that if a white Ford is parked in her stall, she’s home. If the car’s gone, she’ll be down at the supermarket and you should wait. I’d make sure the car is there before you ring her bell, just on the off-chance she’d be coming back and get a look at you before you want her to.”

Chapter 20

Because of the rush hour, Curt’s fourteen-mile drive to the Arroyo Towers took until 4:35 P.M. He noted the white Ford in the correct stall, checked mailboxes, and found Occupied in the name slot for apartment twelve. When he pushed the plastic button above the box, the gleaming aluminum-and-glass door clicked open to admit him to the lobby of the modernistic apartment building.

The elevator moved with maddening deliberation; in the carpeted hallway, Curt paused to wipe his palms down his trouser legs. It was like staring from the jump door of the Lockheed, with empty sky whipping by outside at 120 miles an hour, your hands gripping the metal edges of the door, knowing that when the lights flashed red and then green, and the jump master bellowed in your ear, you could only go forward.

Curt rang the bell of apartment twelve.

Barbara Anderson opened the door. “Mr. Drumm? I... oh!”

“Curt Halstead. I wrote you a letter earlier this week...”

She had started to slam the door, but had paused indecisively when Curt made no move to stop her. Her orange dress had a starched white apron over it which couldn’t conceal the excellence of her figure; the smell of baking brownies had followed her to the door.

“I... got your letter.” Her clear greenish eyes held his, but her voice shook just a little. “I didn’t answer it because I... because my son is not the boy you are trying to get in touch with. He...”

“We both know that isn’t so, Mrs. Anderson,” said Curt reasonably.

Then he stepped forward, through the still-open door, so she had to give way before him in a parody of hospitality. Joe Louis once said that if he saw the opening in another fighter’s guard, it already was too late to exploit it. Before Curt really registered that the woman was staring blindly at his face with true terror in her eyes, and was going to scream, he already was flopping down in the nearest easy chair.

“I could do with a cup of tea” he said conversationally. As if on cue, a sharp ding! came from the archway to the kitchen. “And I think your brownies are ready to come out for cooling.”

“I...” The blindness was fading from her eyes; the muscles along her delicate jaw were relaxing. She had a fine-boned face, a wide generous mouth, without lipstick, heavy eyebrows and lashes. She ducked her head under his relaxed scrutiny. “I... of course. Brownies.”

From his easy chair, Curt watched her disappear into the kitchen, then prowled the room with his eyes. The apartment was new, soulless, its rug a pale acrylic fiber, its walls prefabricated, its glass sliding door in the far wall opening on an iron-railed balcony all of three feet wide. Even the picture over the sofa had come with the apartment. Instant decorating, like instant coffee; quick, but obviously ersatz.

“What sort of work do you do, Mrs. Anderson?” he called through to the kitchen.

“I’m a... I work in a hospital. A registered nurse.”

That explained the three o’clock return: shift work, probably arranged so she could pick Jimmy up after classes during the school year.

Five minutes later Barbara Anderson reappeared with a tray of tea things. She also had renewed lipstick and rouge on a face that had gone pallid when she had seen him in the hallway. Curt decided that she was probably a self-reliant woman, as Paula had been — which would have helped destroy her marriage if her husband was actually as weak as he had sounded on the phone. Curt got started.

“As I explained in my letter, Mrs. Anderson, I am a professor at Los Feliz University and live off Linda Vista Road — just across the golf course from where your son saw the four men in the station wagon.”