Double

Dummy, I thought. The moon. The moon is out tonight. You can fix your position by it, like a good little Girl Scout.

The birds were quieting down now, and I didn’t hear any footsteps coming to investigate the commotion. I stepped out from the cover of the bushes and looked up at the sky. The moon was there all right. I took a mental reading, figured out which way was which, and soon was on the right path, heading for the little bridge and the gate beyond.

At the bridge, I paused, looking around and listening. The light was still on in the office, but all was quiet. Probably the guard had checked to see who was there, and now Woodall really was working late, to back up whatever story he’d given security. I slipped across the bridge and grasped the iron bars of the gate. It was still open.

I went through it fast, breathing hard, and hurried down the walk and across Zoo Drive to where Woodall’s car was still parked. From here I’d be able to hear him close the gate if he left, so I decided to take the opportunity to examine the car. It would be easy to do, since the convertible top was down.

I slipped into the driver’s seat. The car smelled of leather and more faintly of cigarette smoke. I opened the glove compartment and found it empty except for the registration and a San Diego map. The ashtray was full of butts, and a side pocket on the door was stuffed with odd bits of paper. I pulled them out and went through them.

There were credit card slips from gasoline stations, mostly Union Oil; a crumpled bill from an auto repair shop; an empty matchbook from an Italian restaurant; ticket stubs for the symphony; several business cards. I looked carefully at each card. One was from a New York Life Insurance salesman; another from the alterations department of a downtown men’s store; still another from a lawyer, Newell Dunlap.

And one from Arthur Darrow.

I looked closer at Darrow’s card. It was ragged, seemed old. Probably it had been in the side pocket a long time. It gave Darrow’s occupation as an investment counselor, and showed both business and office addresses and phone numbers in Borrego Springs.

Turning it over, I found a notation in a thin, spidery hand: 9 p.m., Les Club.

Les Club. French for “The Club,” I supposed — but if that was so, it was bad French. It should have been Le Club, instead of the plural Les. In any case, a utilitarian label with a Continental flare.

But for what? It sounded as if it could be a restaurant. Or a bar. A fancy nightspot, perhaps. Or even a health club, as I’d first supposed.

Well, whatever it was, I’d now found a link connecting Woodall with Arthur Darrow. Darrow, who was connected to Elaine by Jim Lauterbach’s file. Lauterbach, who had been hired by Henry Nyland. Nyland, who suspected Elaine had been involved with another man — another man who had to be Woodall. Woodall, whom Karyn Sugarman had classified as an Inadequate Personality. Sugarman, who...

Everybody seemed connected. Loosely connected, to be sure, but all linked by something called Les Club.

30: “Wolf”

My Western Airlines flight on Tuesday morning went north out of San Diego, to L.A. to pick up a bunch of noisy tourists, and then turned around and proceeded on down to Mazatlan. I took that as an omen of things to come. And I wasn’t far wrong.

In Mazatlan it was hot and so humid the air had a wet drippy consistency that made it difficult to breathe. There was no air conditioning in the waiting area for the feeder flight to Los Mochis; I sat there for an hour with my jacket off and my shirt unbuttoned halfway down my belly, simmering in my own sweat. The plane, when I finally boarded it, was small and cramped and even hotter than the waiting area; and the pilot handled it on takeoff, in the air, and on landing with a kind of wild nonchalance that scared the hell out of me. None of the other five passengers, all of whom were Mexican, seemed bothered in the slightest.

Los Mochis was a modern little city in the middle of El Fuerte Valley, surrounded by rice fields and canebrakes and sugar mills. It took me fifteen minutes to recover from the flight, which was all right because it took the airline people fifteen minutes to find my missing bag. The first three taximen I talked to either didn’t speak English or had no interest in driving me all the way to Topolobampo Bay; the fourth guy, whose name was Hernando and who said proudly that he was a Tarahumara Indian, agreed to do the honors. Which was too bad for me, because he drove with the same kind of wild nonchalance exhibited by the feeder pilot — only worse, like somebody who had just escaped from an asylum. I didn’t get to see half the countryside we passed through, on account of I had my eyes shut most of the time.