Double

The telephone directory gave me Jim Lauterbach’s home address in National City; and downstairs at the desk, the fashion-plate clerk, Scott, gave me a map of the area. I went out and got into the rental clunker and took it back through Coronado, onto the long curving bridge to the mainland. National City was a short distance south on Highway 5 — a place full of industrial complexes, evidence that it had once been a rail center, and what seemed to be a large number of old Victorian houses. I stopped at a Union 76 station and got directions to Division Street, which was close to the freeway.

The address turned out to be a trailer court, and a run-down one at that. I drove in and stopped at a weed-choked mobile home with a sign in front that said MANAGER. A thin, lemon-haired woman in an ancient pair of pedal pushers confirmed that the Jim Lauterbach who lived there was a private detective and said that his trailer was on Lot 12, toward the rear. I went back there on foot, through brown grass and dust and heat, and found 12: a tarnished silver Airstream, with a tattered awning along the front and some cactus growing at the back. There was no car parked near it, and when I went up and banged on the door, nobody answered.

Wild-goose chase, I thought. I moved over to a side window that had grayish chintz curtains pulled together on the inside. By standing on my toes and chinning myself a little on the sill, I could look past the curtains and inside. There wasn’t much to see. The interior of the trailer was a mess: dirty dishes, clothing strewn around, a dozen or so empty and crushed beer cans, an overflowing garbage pail. Lauterbach was a slob — but then so was I. You can’t condemn a man for sloppy housekeeping habits.

I went back to the door, looked at the latch, remembered all my preaching to McCone, and tried it anyway. Locked. Well, that made it easy to walk away. I never had been any good at picking locks or jimmying windows.

I turned and came out from under the awning, and a bulky guy in a T-shirt that said “Charger Power” on it was standing in front of the next trailer, watching me. He said suspiciously, “You looking for somebody?”

“Jim Lauterbach. You wouldn’t happen to know when he’ll be back?”

“Nope.”

“Or where I might find him?”

“Nope. You a friend of that peckerhead’s?”

“Not exactly. Why is he a peckerhead?”

“He’s a private cop. All cops are peckerheads.”

“I’m a cop,” I said.

We looked at each other for about five seconds. Then he spat on his brown grass, turned around, and went inside his trailer and slammed the door. Score one for the peckerheads.

When I got back to my car I drove around until I located a 7-11 Store that had a pay telephone in its parking lot. The directory hanging under the phone yielded the number of the Owens Detective Agency, plus an address on Sixth Avenue in San Diego. I found a couple of nickels in my pocket and dialed the number and let it ring a dozen times. Nobody answered.

So maybe he’s back at the hotel, I thought. The convention’s still going on; he could still be hanging around.

I drove back across the bridge, paid a dollar and twenty cents to get through the toll plaza, and battled the Sunday traffic on Coronado to the Casa del Rey. People were gathered on the mezzanine, waiting for the last panel to start, but Lauterbach wasn’t among them. I spotted Charley Valdene, again minus the stock private-eye getup, lurking outside the meeting room, and took him aside and asked him if he’d seen the drunk we’d ministered to on Friday night.

“Not today, no,” he said. “And I’ve been here since ten o’clock. How come you’re looking for him?”

“Personal business.”

“Nothing I can help you with, I guess?”

“No.”

“You’re still coming out this afternoon, aren’t you?” he asked. “For Sleepers West?”

“I don’t know, Charley. Some things have come up; I’ll have to see how they develop.”

He looked a little hangdog, but he nodded and let it go at that. He’d be here at the hotel until about three, he said. I told him I’d let him know by then.

Upstairs in my room, I called Eberhardt’s home number and this time he was in. I said, “You’re a hard man to get hold of. I called last night and Friday night both.”

“Yeah, well, I been busy.”

“Doing what?”

“Making time.”

“What?”

“Making time,” he said, and there was something that sounded like a smirk in his voice. “I met a lady Friday night.”

“Yeah? Where?”

“Grocery store near here. We were both buying some cut-up chickens and I dropped my package on her foot.”

“How romantic,” I said.

“Yeah. Her name’s Wanda.”

“What does she do?”

“You mean for a living?”

“What else would I mean?”

“She’s a clerk at Macy’s downtown. Women’s footwear.”

“Uh-huh.”

“We been together all weekend,” he said, with some more smirk. “Getting to know each other.”

“I’ll bet.”

“She’s here right now. Out in the kitchen.”

“Cooking up the chicken you dropped on her foot, no doubt.”

“... How’d you know that?”

“I’ve got mystic powers,” I said.