Tengu (6 page)

Pullet said, “I
can’t help thinking about that darned orangutan.’’

H
e was driving back from his weekly hour with the analyst when he
turned the corner and found the whole street jammed with police cars and
ambulances and jostling crowds. He slowed down, and a policeman came across and
told him: “You can’t come up here, mister. Not a hope.”

“I live here,”
he said. “What’s going on?”

The policeman
laid a hand on the windowsill of his car. “Hold it right here,” he ordered. He
beckoned across the street to a young ginger-haired detective in a splashy
red-and-yellow Hawaiian shirt. The detective came over and said: “Who’s this?”

“I live here.
Number Eleven. Would you mind telling me what’s going on here?”

The detective
took a notebook out of his hip pocket and thumbed through it. “Number
Eleven
,” he repeated. “That’s Jerry Sennett, right?”

‘‘That’s
right,’’ Jerry told him. ‘‘Is something wrong?”

The detective
put away the notebook. “I have to ask you some questions. Would you care to
pull your car into your driveway? The officer will help you through the crowd.
Take it slow, please.”

Jerry nudged
his eleven-year-old Dodge around the cluster of police cars, with the policeman
walking in front of him, one hand custodially resting on the front fender. Then
Jerry slowly turned into his sloping driveway, which ran alongside the
wrought-iron fence of Sherry Cantor’s garden next door, nosed the car right up
to the low wall at the top of the gradient, and put on the handbrake. He
climbed out. His shirt was wrinkled and sweaty at the back.

The detective
in the Hawaiian shirt came up the driveway after him, taking off his Ray-Bans.
“Do you mind if we go inside?” he asked. “It would give us more privacy.’’

“Sure,” said
Jerry. He led the way up the crazy-paving steps to the front door of his
pale-green bungalow. He couldn’t help glancing toward Sherry Cantor’s house as
he took out his key and opened the door. There were four or five men in
short-sleeved shirts and sunglasses poking around in the garden like golfers who
had lost their balls.

“Miss Cantor’s
okay, I hope?” he asked the detective.

The detective
said: “Let’s just get inside, please.”

Jerry walked
through to the living room. It was gloomy and stuffy because the patterned
drapes were drawn, and the air conditioning had been off all morning to save
energy. Saving energy was one of the things that Jerry believed in, mainly
because it saved him money, too. His service pension didn’t stretch too far
these days.

Jerry Sennett
was fifty-nine, and on the last day of November he would turn sixty. But he had
one of those lean, gentle, Gary Cooper faces that had improved with middle age.
His eyes had an experienced, slightly sorrowful look about them, which always
impressed the younger women he met at neighborhood parties. His hair was
peppery and cut short. He stooped a little, and sometimes his movements seemed
hesitant, but that was only because he was tall and rangy, and prone to
knocking highball glasses off tables if he didn’t make a deliberate effort to
coordinate his movements.

His living room
reflected his character. There were two frayed armchairs, a sofa with a wine
stain on one cushion, a big old television set. On the walls were three prints
of Connecticut in the summer. A 1950’s style liquor cabinet, all veneer and
pink-tinted mirrors, stood in the far corner.

He asked, “Do
you want a drink? I have 7-Up here if you’re not allowed alcohol on duty.”

“Thanks,” said
the detective.

Jerry opened
the cabinet and poured himself a Chivas
Regal,
and a
7-Up for the detective. “By the way,” he said, coming across with the drinks,
“did I ask to see your badge?”

“Do you want
to?”

“Why not?”
The detective took his badge out of his shin
pocket and held it out. Jerry peered at it nearsightedly, and then nodded.
“They tell you to check out the freezer repairman, so I guess it’s doubly
important to check out detectives.’’

The detective
gave a humorless smile. His name was Arthur, and he’d been working under
Sergeant Skrolnik long enough to have lost his sense of fun. He said, “Do you
mind if we sit down?”

“Go ahead,”
Jerry told him, and sat down
himself
, crossing his
long legs. He was wearing sandals, and there was a large Band-Aid on the end of
his big toe.

“I have to tell
you that Ms. Cantor has been the victim of a homicide,” said Detective Arthur.
“It happened this morning, around eight o’clock.”

Jerry stared at
him. “Sherry Cantor’s Jeacft”

Detective
Arthur nodded. “I’m sorry.” He didn’t sound particularly sorry.

Jerry let out a
long breath. “That’s terrible. My God, that’s absolutely terrible. What
happened?

It wasn’t a
shooting, was it? I didn’t have any idea.”

“Someone broke
into her bungalow and attacked her. I guess you’ll hear it on the news in any
case. She was kind of mauled.”

“Mauled? What does
that mean?”

Detective
Arthur doodled with his pencil on the corner of his notebook. “Whoever it was,
they must have been pretty crazy. She was just about torn into bits.’’

Jerry took a
drink. His hand was trembling. “Do you have any idea who might have done it?

Jesus–how can
anyone do something like that?”

“We don’t know
yet. There are plenty of clear prints, stuff like that.”

“My God,”
whispered Jerry. “She was so goddamned pretty.”

“Did you know
her well?”

Jerry looked
up.
“Hardly at all.
She left for work real early, and
I never get out of the sack before nine. But we waved
jo
each other over the fence sometimes, and I talked to her once at a neighborhood
party.”

“What kind of a
girl would you say she was?”

“Hard-working.
Career-minded.
Who
knows–I didn’t really think about it. I guess I saw her on television more
often than I did in the flesh.”

Detective
Arthur sniffed. Jerry had turned on the air conditioning, and the flying fluff
was getting to his sinus condition. “Did you see any men friends coming and
going next door?”

Jerry thought
about it,
then
shook his head.
“Nobody
special.
One or two friends, yes, but it seemed like they came in
groups, mostly. I never saw her with one special man.”

“What about
you? Did she ever invite you next door?”

“Once, to a
party, but I couldn’t go. My son was down here for his vacation, and I’d
promised to take him to a movie. He’s here now, as a matter of fact. I have to
go pick him up at two-thirty.

He’s playing
baseball with some friends. You know how sociable kids arc these days.”

Detective
Arthur said, “Do you mind if I ask you one or two personal questions, Mr.
Scnnett?”

“I’m sure
you’re .going to anyway, whether I mind or not.”

“You’re a
widower, right?”

“That’s right.
My wife died six years ago come September. ‘‘

“And you’re an
architect, retired?”

“I still design
an occasional gazebo. How come you know so much about me?”

“Neighbors.”

“You mean my
neighbors know that much about me? My God, even loggias have ears.”

Detective
Arthur jotted down a couple of notes. Then he said, “I understand you’re
undergoing analysis.”

“Isn’t
everybody?”

“Can you tell
me why?”

Jerry sipped
his drink and looked at Detective Arthur over the rim of his glass.

“You’re not
trying to prove that I’m crazy, I hope?”

“I have to be
thorough, Mr. Sennett.”

“Yes,” said
Jerry, “I guess you do.”

He stood up and
walked across to the windows. He parted the drapes, so that a bright triangle
of sunshine fell across the worn-out rug. “I had a bad experience during the
war,’’ he said quietly.

‘‘It didn’t
make me crazy, but it left a lasting impression that sometimes makes me wonder
if it’s really worth carrying on.”

“Suicidal?”

“No, not exactly.
Despairing, if you can
call it anything.”

“Can you give
me the name of your analyst?”

“Doctor
Grunwald. His office is on El Camino Drive.”

“Expensive,
huh?” asked Detective Arthur.

Jerry turned
away from the window. “With analysis, like everything else, you get what you
pay for.”

“What sort of
progress arc you making? I’m going to have to check that out with Doctor
Grunwald in any case.’’

“Progress?
Some, I guess. I’m keeping happy. But I don’t
expect to get over it completely. When you’ve seen what men are really capable
of doing to other men–well, that’s an experience it’s hard to live with.”

Detective Arthur
said, “If that’s the way you feel, it’s probably just as well you didn’t sec
Sherry Cantor this morning.’’

Jerry finished
his drink. “Yes. It probably is.”

“You didn’t
hear anything?
Any shouting?
Any
breaking glass?”

“Not a thing.”

“You didn’t
hear any cars?
Maybe an engine revving up?”

“I’m sorry. I
woke up at nine, or maybe a few minutes after. I fixed breakfast for David and
me, and then I took him straight down to the Whartons’ house on Rosewood. You
can check the time I got there. After that, I drove over to Bevcrly Hills.”
Detective Arthur read back his notes to himself. Then he said, “I guess that’s
going to be all for the time being. Sergeant Skrolnik may want to come around
and ask you a few more questions, so I’d appreciate it if you stayed around.”

“I wasn’t
planning on going anyplace,” said Jerry.

Jerry escorted
Detective Arthur to the door. They walked down the driveway together to the
sidewalk and stood for a moment by the gate. Most of the police cars had left
now, and the crowd had dwindled down to a few teenagers sitting on the curb
drinking Coke and a couple of elderly women with nothing better to do.

It was
grillingly hot.

Detective
Arthur said, “Well, thanks for your help,” and walked off.

Jerry stayed
where he was for a while, feeling emotionally empty and upset. The men in
sunglasses were still in Sherry Cantor’s garden, searching the flowering
bushes, and occasionally calling out to one another when they thought that
might have come across something interesting.

On the low stone
wall that Jerry’s house shared with Sherry’s bungalow, a lizard basked between
the two numerals that made up the number 11.

After a few
minutes, Jerry climbed back up his driveway and into the house. He went into
the living room and fixed himself another whiskey and he stood by the liquor
cabinet drinking it and thinking. The air conditioning whirred and gurgled, and
he thought, without much conviction, that he ought to have it serviced.

He remembered
the day that Rhoda had died, of cancer. It had been as hot as this. He had
taken a walk in Hancock Park, and then sat on a bench in the shade of a tree
and wondered how everything could be so damned normal, how traffic could come
and go, how people could laugh and talk as if nothing had happened. Today, at eight
o’clock, Sherry Cantor had died, and yet the sun was still shining, and the
supermarkets were still open, and you could still take a drive to the ocean and
paddle your toes.

Even Our Family
Jones would go on without her. The scriptwriters would simply think of some
reasonable excuse for writing Lindsay Jones out. They were probably thinking
about it right now. She had already vanished, as if she had never been.

Jerry checked
his watch. It was almost time to go fetch David. Quite honestly, he would be glad
of the company. He sometimes thought that he was spending too much time alone
these days.

He wondered if
David would like to take a drive out to Griffith Park this afternoon, and
practice his pitching.

Doctor Grunwald
had told him this morning, just as he’d told him dozens of times
before, that
he ought to stop feeling so guilty about what
had happened. It hadn’t been his fault, after all. But when the sun was shining
like this, and when a pretty girl had died, the same way all those others had
died, for no apparent reason–
well,
it was difficult
not to feel responsible.
Even now, all these years later.

‘‘You didn’t
know what they were going to do,’’ Doctor Grunwald had insisted. “You didn’t
know.”

“No,” Jerry had
told him. “But I didn’t question it, either. My sin was that I didn’t even
question it.”

He went into
the kitchen. It was narrow, tiled in blue, and it bore all the hallmarks of a
man living alone. The catsup bottles were still on the table after this
morning’s breakfast, the counter beneath the toaster was strewn with crumbs,
and the pans that hung underneath the wall cupboards had only been scoured in
the middle, where it was essential. He opened the huge refrigerator and took
out a pack of bologna sausage. He didn’t really feel hungry after hearing about
Sherry Cantor, but he knew that he would need the energy if he was going to
take David out this afternoon.

He started to
build himself a sandwich, with bologna and sliced pickle. He tried not to think
about that hot day, thirty-four years ago, when he had first realized the
enormity of what he had done. A radio was playing “You Don’t Bring Me Flowers”
somewhere outside, and he raised his eyes and looked out of the kitchen window
toward the street.

A man in a
white wide-brimmed hat and a white suit was standing not far away from Jerry’s
gate.

Spanish, maybe, or Mexican.
Although the shadow of the
midday sun obscured his face, the man appeared to be looking up toward the
house. His hands were pushed deeply into the pockets of his coat, and he was smoking
a cigarette. There was something about him that was oddly unsettling, as if he
were a leftover from some black-and-white private-eye movie of the 1950’s.