Double

The keys were on the pavement outside, where he must have dropped them after he got the door open; he’d passed out right on top of them. I put the keys in my pocket. Then I got my notebook out and wrote on a clean page: Drunk driving is a felony. You ought to know that, Lauterbach. You can pick up your keys at the hotel desk. I signed it A fellow P.I., and put the note on the dashboard where he’d be sure to find it when he got his senses back, such as they were.

In the row of parked cars beyond Valdene’s coupe, somebody gave several sharp blasts on a horn. I glanced over there as I shut the driver’s door on the Ford. A guy in a suit was standing alongside what appeared to be a light-colored Cadillac, looking impatient; then, when neither Valdene nor I ran to do his bidding, he came stalking toward us. I got a look at him as he passed through the glare of the coupe’s headlights. About my age, mid-fifties, with a stiff military bearing, brush-cut iron-gray hair and a matching mustache. Fancy three-piece suit, a diamond stickpin in his tie. I knew it was a diamond because other kinds of jewels don’t throw off that kind of reflected dazzle.

He said something as he neared us, but the words were lost in the roar of an airplane passing overhead: one of the Navy patrol planes that were constantly taking off and landing at the North Island Naval Air Station nearby. He looked up in annoyance, waited for the noise to fade, and then said, “What’s the idea of parking your car in the middle of the lane? If you don’t move it instantly, I’ll call the police.”

“I’ll move it,” Valdene said. “We were just trying to—”

“I don’t care what you were trying to do. There’s no excuse for blocking the lane this way.”

“Look, mister, we maybe just saved your life.”

The rich type blinked at him. “What was that?”

“The guy in this Ford is drunk, drunk as hell. We hadn’t come along and spotted him and my friend here took his keys away, he might’ve woken up and started driving. He might’ve run right up your fat tailpipe.”

A sputtering sound came out of the rich guy; he didn’t know what to say. For about five seconds, anyway. Then he said, “Move your car,” huffily, and stalked off to the Cadillac.

“Asshole,” Valdene said.

“Lots of them around these days, Charley.”

“That kind’s one of the worst. Damn politician.”

“You know him?”

“Seen him on television. His name’s Henry Nyland. Used to be in the Navy. Now he’s running in a special election for the San Diego City Council. One of those Let’s-Nuke-the-Commies nuts, big on religion and all hot for censorship. That type sets my teeth on edge, you know?”

“Yeah,” I said, “I know.”

We walked back to the coupe, not hurrying, and Valdene drove around to the hotel entrance. I gathered up my pulps, we shook hands, he told me again how great it was to meet me and not to forget Sunday afternoon and Sleepers West, and we said good night.

The plush lobby was empty when I entered. But as I started across to the desk, to get my key and to turn over Jim Lauterbach’s car keys for safekeeping, the doors to one of the elevators whispered open and Elaine Picard came out. She passed within ten feet of me, and I said hello, but she either didn’t hear or chose to ignore me. She looked tired, preoccupied; the skin across her forehead was drawn so tight it had a waxy look.

I watched her walk out through the front doors. Odd lady, I thought. Not as odd as that guy Rich who’d been bothering her this afternoon, but odd enough. Maybe it came with the job. I had yet to meet a female P.I. of any variety who wasn’t strange in some way, and that included McCone.

Not to be sexist, though. Women didn’t have a corner on the oddball P.I. market; this convention was proof positive of that. Look at Jim Lauterbach. Look at the guys who held earnest discussions about worblegang veeblefetzers.

Hell, look at me.

7: McCone

When I arrived at ten the next morning, the Casa del Rey’s lobby was much less crowded than it had been the afternoon before. Guests sat around on the heavy Victorian furniture; a few of them wore convention badges; some of them looked hung over. A Japanese family with two little girls in fluffy pink dresses posed for a photograph in front of — strangely enough — the rental-car counter. Otherwise all was quiet.

I stopped a bellboy and asked the way to the hotel offices. He indicated a door marked PRIVATE to the left of the registration desk. I crossed the lobby and went through it, finding that all luxury stopped just over the sill.