Where the Summer Ends Part 27

Russ frowned, said with more confidence than he felt: "I think we'll make our case. Police just can't burglarize a physician's confidential files in order to get evidence for a drug bust."

"Well, I wish you luck," Stryker allowed. "There's a few angles I want to check out on this business first, anyway. I'll probably have the chapter roughed out by the time you're back in town. Why don't I give you a carbon then, and let you comment?"

"Fine." Russ stood up and downed his beer. "Can I give you a lift somewhere?"

"Thanks-but I've got my car parked just down the block. You take it easy driving back though."

Russ grinned. "Sure. Take it easy yourself."

Two nights later Mandarin's phone woke him up. Stryker hadn't taken it easy.

*IV*

Dishevelled and coatless in the misty rain, Mandarin stood glumly beside the broken guardrail. It was past 3 AM. His clothes looked slept in, which they were. He'd continued the c.o.c.ktail hour that began on his evening flight from New York once he got home. Sometime toward the end of the network movie that he wasn't really watching he fell asleep on the couch. The set was blank and hissing when he stumbled awake to answer the phone.

"h.e.l.lo, Russ," greeted Saunders, puffing up the steep bank from the black lakesh.o.r.e. His face was grim. "Thought you ought to be called. You're about as close to him as anyone Stryker had here."

Mandarin swallowed and nodded thanks. With the back of his hand he wiped the beads of mist and sweat from his face. Below them the wrecker crew and police diver worked to secure cables to the big maroon Buick submerged there. Spotlights, red tail lights burning through the mist. Yellow beacon on the wrecker, blue flashers on the two patrol cars. It washed the brush-grown lakesh.o.r.e with a flickering nightmarish glow. Contorted shadows wavered around objects made grotesque, unreal. It was like a Daliesque landscape.

"What happened, Ed?" he managed to say.

The police lieutenant wiped mud from his hands. "n.o.body saw it. No houses along this stretch, not a lot of traffic this hour of night."

An ambulance drove up slowly, siren off. Static outbursts of the two-way radios echoed like sick thunder in the silence.

"Couple of kids parked on a side road down by the lake. Thought they heard brakes squeal, then a sort of crashing noise. Not loud enough to make them stop what they were doing, and they'd been hearing cars drive by fast off and on all night. But they remembered it a little later when they drove past here and saw the gap in the guard rail."

He indicated the snapped-off stumps of the old-style wood post and cable guard rail. "Saw where the brush was smashed down along the bank, and called it in. Investigating officer's flashlight picked out the rear end plain enough to make out the license number. I was on hand when owner's identification came in; had you called."

Russ muttered something. He'd met Saunders a few years before when the other was taking Styker's evening cla.s.s in creative writing. The detective had remained a casual friend despite Mandarin's recent confrontations with the department.

"Any chance Curtiss might have made it?"

Saunders shook his head. "Been better than a couple hours since it happened. If he'd gotten out, he'd've hiked it to a house down the road, flagged down a motorist. We'd have heard."

Someone called out from the sh.o.r.e below, and the wrecker's winch began to rattle. Russ shivered.

"Rained a little earlier tonight," Saunders went on. "Enough to make this old blacktop slick as greased gla.s.s. Likely, Curtiss had been visiting some friends. Had maybe a few drinks more than he should have-you know how he liked gin in hot weather. Misjudged his speed on these slippery curves and piled on over into the lake."

"h.e.l.l, Curtiss could hold his liquor," Mandarin mumbled. "And he hardly ever pushed that big Buick over 35."

"Sometimes that's fast enough."

The Buick's back end broke through the lake's black surface like a monster in a j.a.panese horror flick. With an obscene gurgle, the rest of the car followed. Lake water gushed from the car body and from the open door on the pa.s.senger side.

"OK! Hold it!" someone yelled.

The maroon sedan halted, drowned and streaming, on the brush-covered sh.o.r.e. Workers grouped around it. Two attendants unlimbered a stretcher from the ambulance. Russ wanted to vomit.

"Not inside!" a patrolman called up to them.

The diver pushed back his facemask. "Didn't see him in there before we started hauling either."

"Take another look around where he went in," Saunders advised. "Someone call in and have the Rescue Squad ready to start dragging at daylight."

"He never would wear his seatbelt," Russ muttered.

Saunders' beefy frame shrugged heavily "Don't guess it would have helped this time. Lake's deep here along the bluff. May have to wait till the body floats up somewhere." He set his jaw so tight his teeth grated. "G.o.dd.a.m.n it to h.e.l.l."

"We don't know he's dead for sure." Russ's voice held faint hope.

Sloshing and clanking, the Buick floundered up the lakesh.o.r.e and onto the narrow blacktop. The door was sprung open, evidently by the impact. The front end was badly mauled- grill smashed and hood buckled-from collision with the guard rail and underbrush. Several branches were jammed into the mangled wreckage. A spiderweb spread in ominous pattern across the windshield on the driver's side.

Russ glowered at the sodden wreck, silently d.a.m.ning it for murdering its driver. Curtiss had always sworn by Buicks-had driven them all his life. Trusted the car. And the wallowing juggernaut had plunged into Fort Loundon Lake like a chrome-trimmed coffin.

Saunders tried the door on the driver's side. It was jammed. Deep gouges scored the sheet metal on that side.

"What's the white paint?" Mandarin pointed to the crumpled side panels.

"From the guard rail. He glanced along that post there as he tore through. G.o.dd.a.m.n it! Why can't they put up modern guard rails along these back roads! This didn't have to happen!"

Death is like that, Russ thought. It never had to happen the way it did. You could always go back over the chain of circ.u.mstances leading up to an accident, find so many places where things could have turned out OK. Seemed like the odds were tremendous against everything falling in place for the worst.

"Maybe he got out," he whispered.

Saunders started to reply, looked at his face, kept silent.

*V*

It missed the morning papers, but the afternoon News-Sentinel carried Stryker's book-jacket portrait and a few paragraphs on page one, a photograph of the wreck and a short continuation of the story on the back page of the first section. And there was a long notice on the obituary page.

Russ grinned crookedly and swallowed the rest of his drink. Mechanically he groped for the Jack Daniel's bottle and poured another over the remains of his ice cubes. G.o.d. Half a dozen errors in the obituary. A man gives his whole life to writing, and the day of his death they can't even get their information straight on his major books.

The phone was ringing again. Expressionlessly Mandarin caught up the receiver. The first score or so times he'd still hoped he'd hear Curtiss's voice-probably growling something like: "The rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated." Eventually he'd quit hoping.

"Yes. Dr Mandarin speaking."

(Curtiss had always ribbed him. "h.e.l.l, don't tell them who you are until they tell you who's calling.") "No. They haven't found him yet."

("Hot as it is, he'll bob up before long," one of the workers had commented. Saunders had had to keep Russ off the b.a.s.t.a.r.d.) "Yeah. It's a d.a.m.n dirty shame. I know how you feel, Mrs Hollister."

(You always called him a hack behind his back, you bloated b.i.t.c.h.) "No I can't say what funeral arrangements will be made."

(Got to have a body for a funeral, you stupid b.i.t.c.h.) "I'm sure someone will decide something."

(Don't want to be left out of the social event of the season, do you?) "Well, we all have to bear up somehow, I'm sure."

(Try cutting your wrists.) "Uh-huh. Goodbye, Mrs Hollister."

Jesus! Mandarin pushed the phone aside and downed his drink with a shudder. No more of this!

He groped his way out of his office. That morning he'd cancelled all his appointments; his section of the makeshift clinic was deserted. Faces from the downstairs rooms glanced at him uneasily as he swept down the stairs. Yes, he must look pretty bad.

Summer twilight was cooling the grey pavement furnace of the University section. Russ tugged off his wrinkled necktie, stuffed it into his hip pocket. With the determined stride of someone in a hurry to get someplace, he plodded down the cracked sidewalk. Sweat quickly sheened his blue-black stubbled jaw, beaded his forehead and eyebrows. Damp hair clung to his neck and ears. Dimly he regretted that the crewcut of his college days was no longer fashionable.

Despite his unswerving stride, he had no destination in mind. The ramshackle front of the Yardarm suddenly loomed before him, made him aware of his surroundings. Mandarin paused a moment by the doorway. Subconsciously he'd been thinking how good a cold beer would taste, and his feet had carried him over the familiar route. With a grimace, he turned away. Too many memories haunted the Yardarm.

He walked on. He was on the strip now. Student bars, bookshops, drugstores, clothing shops and other student-oriented businesses. Garish head shops and boutiques poured out echoes of incense and rock music. Gayle Corrington owned a boutique along here, he recalled-he dully wondered which one.

Summer students and others of the University crowd pa.s.sed along the sidewalks, lounged in doorways. Occasionally someone recognized him and called a greeting. Russ returned a dumb nod, not wavering in his mechanical stride. He didn't see their faces.

Then someone had hold of his arm.

"Russ! Russ, for G.o.d's sake! Hold up!"

Scowling, he spun around. The smooth-skinned hand anch.o.r.ed to his elbow belonged to Royce Blaine. Mandarin made his face polite as he recognized him. Dr Blaine had been on the medicine house staff during Mandarin's psychiatric residency Their acquaintance had not died out completely since those days.

"h.e.l.lo, Royce."

The internist's solemn eyes searched his face. "Sorry to bother you at a time like now, Russ," he apologized. "Just wanted to tell you we were sad to hear about your friend Stryker, Know how good a friend of yours he was."

Mandarin mumbled something appropriate.

"Funeral arrangements made yet, or are they still looking?"

"Haven't found him yet."

His face must have slipped its polite mask. Blame winced. "Yeah? Well, just wanted to let you know we were all sorry. He was working on a new one, wasn't he?"

"Right. Another book on the occult."

"Always thought it was tragic when an author left his last book unfinished. Was it as good as his others?"

"I hadn't seen any of it. I believe all he had were notes and a few chapter roughs."

"Really a d.a.m.n shame. Say, Russ-Tina says for me to ask you how about dropping out our way for dinner some night. We don't see much of you these days-not since you and Alicia used to come out for fish fries."

"I'll take you up on that some night," Russ temporized.

"This week maybe?" Blaine persisted. "How about Friday?"

"Sure. That'd be fine."

"Friday, then. 6:30, say. Time for a happy hour."

Mandarin nodded and smiled thinly. Blaine squeezed his shoulder, gave him a sympathetic face, and scurried off down the sidewalk. Mandarin resumed his walk.

The hot afternoon sun was in decline, throwing long shadows past the mismatched storefronts and deteriorating houses. Russ was dimly aware that his feet were carrying him along the familiar path to Stryker's office. Did he want to walk past there? Probably not-but he felt too apathetic to redirect his course.

The sun was behind the old drugstore whose second floor housed a number of small businesses, and the dirty windows of Stryker's office lay in shadow. Behind their uncurtained panes, a light was burning.

Mandarin frowned uncertainly. Curtiss never left his lights on. He had an obsession about wasting electricity.

Leaning heavily on the weathered railing, Russ climbed the outside stairway that gave access to the second floor. Above, a dusty hallway led down the center of the building. Several doorways opened off either side. A tailor, a leathershop, several student-owned businesses-which might or might not reopen with the fall term. Only Frank the Tailor was open for the summer, and he took Mondays off.

Dust and silence and the stale smell of disused rooms. Stryker's office was one of the two which fronted the street. It was silent as the rest of the hallway of locked doors, but light leaked through the not-quite-closed doorway.

Mandarin started to knock, then noticed the scars on the door jamb where the lock had been forced. His descending fist shoved the door open.

Curtiss's chair was empty. No one sat behind the scarred desk with its battered typewriter.

Russ glanced around the barren room with its cracked plaster and book-laden, mismatched furniture. Anger drove a curse to his lips.

Stryker's office had always been in total disorder; now it looked like it had been stirred with a stick. Whoever had ransacked the office had done a thorough job.

*VI*

Through the Yardarm jukebox Johnny Cash was singing "Ring of Fire" for maybe the tenth time that evening. Some of those patrons who had hung around since nightfall were beginning to notice.

Ed Saunders hauled his hairy arms out of the sleeves of his ill-fitting suitcoat, slung the damp garment over the vacant chair beside him. He leaned over the beer-smeared table, truculently intent, like a linebacker in a defensive huddle.

"It still looks completely routine to me, Russ," he concluded. Mandarin poked a finger through the pile of cold, greasy pizza crusts, singing an almost inaudible chorus of "down, down, down, in a burnin' ring of far..." A belch broke off his monotone, and he mechanically fumbled through the litter of green Rolling Rock bottles for one that had a swallow left. Blackie the bartender was off tonight, and his stand-in had no conception of how to heat a frozen pizza. Mandarin's throat still tasted sour, and he felt certain a bad case of heartburn was building up.

The bottles all seemed empty. He waved for two more, still not replying to Saunder's a.s.sertion. A wavy-haired girl, braless in a tanktop, carried the beers over to them-glanced suspiciously at Saunders while she made change. Mandarin slid the coins across the rough boards and eyed the jukebox speculatively.

The city detective sighed. "Look, Russ-why don't you let Johnny Cash catch his breath, what do you say?"

Russ grinned crookedly and turned to his beer. "But it wasn't routine," he p.r.o.nounced, tipping back the bottle. His eyes were suddenly clear.

Saunders made an exasperated gesture. "You know, Russ, we got G.o.d knows how many break-ins a week in this neighborhood. I talked to the investigating officer before I came down. He handled it OK."

"Handled it like a routine break-in-which it wasn't," Mandarin doggedly pointed out.

The lieutenant pursed his lips and reached for the other beer-his second against Mandarin's tenth. Maybe, he mused, it was pointless to trot down here in response to Mandarin's insistent phone call. But he liked the psychiatrist, understood the h.e.l.l of his mood. Both of them had known Curtiss Stryker as a friend.

He began again. "By our records, two of the other shops on that floor have been broken into since spring. It goes on all the time around here-I don't have to tell you about this neighborhood. You got a black slum just a few blocks away, winos and b.u.ms squatting in all these empty houses here that ought to be torn down. Then there's all these other old dumps, rented out full of hippies and junkies and G.o.d knows what. h.e.l.l, Russ-you know how bad it is. That clinic of yours-we have to just about keep a patrol car parked in front all night to keep the junkies from busting in-and then the men have to watch sharp or they'll lose their hubcaps just sitting there."

Mandarin reflected that the cessation of break-ins was more likely due to the all-night talking point now run by university volunteers at the community clinic-and that the patrol car seemed more interested in observing callers for potential dope busts than in discouraging prowlers. Instead, he said: "That's my point, Ed. Routine break-ins follow a routine pattern. Rip off a TV, stereo, small stuff that can easily be converted into cash. Maybe booze or drugs, if any's around. Petty theft.

"Doesn't hold for whoever hit Stryker's office. h.e.l.l, he never kept anything around there to attract a burglar."

"So the burglar made a mistake. After all, he couldn't know what was there until he looked."

Russ shook his head. "Then he would have taken the typewriter-beat up as it is-or finished the half bottle of Gallo sherry Curtiss had on the shelf. Doubt if he would have recognized any of his books as worth stealing, but at least he would have taken something for his trouble."

"Probably knew the stuff wasn't worth the risk of carrying off," the detective pointed out. "Left it to try somewhere else. Looked like the door on the leathershop was jimmied, though we haven't contacted the guy who leases it. It's a standard pattern, Russ. Thief works down a hallway room by room until he gets enough or someone scares him off. Probably started at Stryker's office, gave it up and was working on another door when he got scared off."

"Ed, I know Curtiss's office as well as I know my own. Every book in that place had been picked up and set down again. Someone must have spent an hour at it. Everything had been gone through."