The Zebra-Striped Hearse (19 page)

It was a cold account. He was preserving his distance from Campion.

“He’s a good painter, I’ve heard. Is he a good man?”

“I wouldn’t care to pass judgment on him. He lives as he can. I took the easy way, myself.”

“I’m afraid I don’t understand.”

“I teach for a living and do my painting, such as it is, on Sundays and on sabbaticals. Campion lives for his work. He cares for nothing else,” he said with some feeling.

“You sound almost as though you envied him.”

“I almost do.”

“It may be a two-way envy, Dr. Damis. Is your middle name Burke, by any chance?”

“It is. My father was an admirer of Edmund Burke.”

“Did you know that Campion’s been using part of your name as an alias? He’s been calling himself Burke Damis.”

He flushed with displeasure. “Blast him, I wish he’d leave me and my things alone.”

“Has he been at your things?”

“I mean this place. He left it like a pigsty when he moved out last fall. I had to spend most of the last week cleaning it up. Frankly, I’ve had enough of Bruce and his messy life and his
outré
relationships.”

“Are you thinking of his relationships with women?”

“I was, yes. We won’t go into them. I’ve long since given up trying to purge those Augean stables.”

“I wish you would go into them.”

“I prefer not to. They’re excessively boring to me. They invariably follow the same sado-masochistic pattern. Bruce has always regarded women as his legitimate prey.”

“Prey is quite a dramatic word. It reminds me of your hawk.”

He nodded, as though I’d paid them both a subtle compliment. The hawk sat still as a figurine on his hand. It occurred to me that this Damis might be attached to Campion and the hawk in similar ways, watching through rimless spectacles as the two predators vaulted into space and took their pleasure.

“It brings up the fact,” I went on, “that Campion’s wife was strangled two months ago. Campion is wanted for the murder. Did you know that, Dr. Damis?”

“I most assuredly did not. I just flew in from Italy last week, and I came directly here.” He was pale as bone now, and almost chattering. “I’ve been utterly out of touch with everyone and everything.”

“But you’ve been in touch with Campion.”

“How do you know that?”

“Call it intuition. You’d talk about him differently if you
hadn’t seen him for a year. Now when and where did you see him?”

“This morning,” he said with his eyes on the floor. “Bruce came here this morning. He’d walked halfway around the lake during the night, and he looked perfectly ghastly.”

“What did he come to you for?”

“Refuge, I suppose. He admitted that he was in trouble, but he didn’t say what kind, and I swear he said nothing about his wife. He wanted to stay here with me. I didn’t see that it was possible, or that I owed it to him. He’s always been the taker and I’ve been the giver, as it is. Besides, I’ve reached a crucial stage in training my hawk.” He smoothed the long feathers of its tail.

“When did he leave here?”

“Around noon. I gave him lunch. Naturally I had no idea that I was harboring a fugitive from justice.”

“How did he leave?”

“He took my car,” Damis said miserably.

“By force?”

“I wouldn’t say that. He is bigger than I am, and more—forceful.” He had dropped his pride, and he looked very young without it. “Bruce has an ascendancy over me. I suppose you’re quite right, I’ve secretly envied his life, his success with women—”

“You can stop doing that now. Will you please describe your car—make and model?”

“It’s a 1959 Chevrolet convertible, red, with a checkered red and black top. California license number TKU 37964.” As I was making a note of the number, he added: “Bruce promised I’d have it back within twenty-four hours. He knows I’m stuck out here without transportation.”

“I imagine he couldn’t care less. I’ll see what I can do about getting it back for you. Do you want me to report it as a theft?”

“It wasn’t a theft. I was a fool to do it, but I lent it to him voluntarily.”

“Did he explain why he wanted the car, or where he was going with it?”

“No.” He hesitated. “On second thought, he did give some indication of where he intended to go. He originally proposed that when he was finished with the convertible, he should leave it in Berkeley, in my garage. It certainly suggests that he was headed in that direction.”

“And he was alone when he came here and when he left?”

“Oh yes, definitely.”

“Did Campion say anything about the girl he’d been with?”

“He didn’t mention a girl. As a matter of fact, he did very little talking. Who is she?”

“She is, or was, a tall blonde girl named Harriet Blackwell.”

“I never heard of her, I’m afraid. Has something happened to her?”

“The indications are that she’s in the lake.”

He was shocked, and his feeling communicated itself to the bird on his fist. The hawk spread its wings. Damis calmed it with his hand before he spoke.

“You can’t mean that Bruce drowned her?”

“Something like that. When he came here this morning, were there any signs that he’d been in a struggle? Scratch marks on his face, for instance?”

“Yes, his face
was
scratched. His clothes were in bad shape, too.”

“Were they wet?”

“They looked as though they had been wet. He looked generally as though he’d had a rough night.”

“He’s in for rougher ones,” I said. “Just in case he does come back this way, we’ll want to station a man here. Is it all right with you?”

“I’d welcome it. I’m no more of a physical coward than the
next person, but—” His apprehensive look completed the sentence.

“It’s unlikely that he will come back,” I told him reassuringly. “Assuming he doesn’t, I’d like to have your ideas on where to look for him. Also, I want your Berkeley address, in case he follows through on his original plan.”

“Couldn’t we skip the Berkeley address? My mother lives there with me, and I don’t wish her to be alarmed unnecessarily. I’m sure that she’s in no danger from him.”

“Does she know Campion?”

“Very slightly. Minimally. We had him to dinner, once, a couple of years ago. Mother didn’t like him at all—she said he had a dark aura. At that time, though Mother didn’t know it, he was living with some black-stockinged tramp in Sausalito. He’d previously lived in Carmel, Santa Barbara, San Diego, Los Angeles, and probably a number of other places. I wouldn’t know where to start looking for him. Unless,” he added after some thought, “he’s gone to his sister.”

“Campion has a sister?”

“He has, but it’s far from likely that he’s with her. She’s a very stuffy Peninsula type, he told me. They don’t get along.”

“Where does she live on the Peninsula, and what’s her name?”

“I’d have to look it up. I’ve never met the woman. I only happen to have her address because Campion used it as a mailing address when he was moving around.”

Carrying the hawk with him, Damis went to a table in the corner of the room. He opened a drawer and got out a shabby brown leather address book. I stood beside him as he flipped the pages to the C’s.

Bruce Campion was the first name on the page. Scribbled under and around it were addresses in the various cities Damis had mentioned. They were all scratched out except for a Menlo Park address—c/o Mrs. Thor Jurgensen, 401 Schoolhouse Road—which I made a note of.

“I used to think we were good friends,” Damis was saying. His eyes were fixed on the hawk, as though it was feeding him his lines by mental telepathy. “But over the years I caught on to the pattern of our relationship. I heard from Bruce only when he wanted something—a loan or a recommendation or the use of something I owned. I’m heartily sick of the man. I hope I never see him again.”

I made no comment. He said to the hawk: “Are you hungry, Angelo? How about another sparrow wing?”

I left him communing with the silent bird and drove Fawn into State Line. We had
filets mignons
, carelessly served in one of the gambling clubs. The fat drunk in the white Stetson was balanced precariously on a stool at the bar. He seemed to have shifted gears under his load. His imperfectly focused eyes were watching the girls in the place, especially Fawn.

She had some wine with her meat, and it set her talking about Ralph again. He used to take her fishing at Luna Bay when she was in her early teens and he was in his late ones. Once he rescued her from the San Gregorio surf. Her memories had a dreamlike quality, and I began to wonder if she had dreamed them in the first place. But she ended by saying: “I can’t take your twenty dollars. It’s the least I can do for Ralph.”

“You might as well take it—”

“No. There has to be something I won’t do for money. I mean it.”

“You’re a good girl.”

“He said as she lifted his wallet. The hustler with the heart of gold—cold and yellow.”

“You’re being hard on yourself, Fawn.”

“And don’t keep calling me Fawn. It isn’t my name.”

“What do you want me to call you?”

“Don’t call me anything.”

“Tell me your real name.”

“I hate my real name.” Her face was as blank as a wall.

“What is it, though?”

“Mabel,” she said with disgust. “My parents had to give me the most unglamorous name in the world.”

“Where are your parents, by the way?”

“I put them out for adoption.”

“Before or after you changed your name to Fawn?”

“If you have to know,” she said, “I changed my name the night King went AWOL on me and left me in this hole. The funny thing is, I’m getting sick of calling myself Fawn. I used to think it was glamorous, but now it just sounds like nothing. I’m getting ready to change my name again. Do you have any suggestions?”

“Not on the spur of the moment.”

She leaned toward me, smiling intensely and nudging the edge of the table with her papillae. “Let’s go to my place and have another drink and talk about it.”

“Thanks, but I have work to do.”

“It can wait, can’t it? I stood up my date for you.”

“Also, you’re too young for me.”

“I don’t get it,” she said with her puzzled frown. “You’re not
old.”

“I’m getting older fast.” I rose and laid some money on the table. “Do you want me to drop you anywhere?”

“I’ll stay here. It’s as good a place as any.”

Before I reached the door, the drunk was moving in on her with his white Stetson in his hand and his bald head glowing.

I
FOUND A
telephone booth and called Arnie Walters’s office in Reno. He answered the telephone himself.

“Walters here.”

“This is Lew Archer. I have some information on Campion’s movements. He’s driving a red Chevvie convertible—”

“We know that.” Arnie’s voice was low and fast. “Campion’s been seen in Saline City, talking to the key boy of one of the local motels. A patrol cop made him but he didn’t pick him up right away. He wanted to check with our bulletin, and he had an idea that Campion was checking in. But when he got back to the motel, Campion had cleared out. This happened within the last couple of hours. Do you have later information?”

“You’re ’way ahead of me. Did you get the name of the motel?”

“The Travelers, in Saline City. It’s a town in the East Bay.”

“What about Harriet?”

“Nothing so far. We’re starting dragging operations in the morning. The police lab established that the blood in the hat is her type, B, but that doesn’t mean much.”

“How do you know her blood type?”

“I called her father,” Arnie said. “He wanted to come up here, but I think I talked him out of it. If this case doesn’t break pretty soon, he’s going to blow a gasket.”

“So am I.”

By midnight I was in Saline City looking for the Travelers Motel. It was on the west side of town at the edge of the salt flats. Red neon outlined its stucco façade and failed to mask its shabbiness.

There was nobody in the cluttered little front office. I rang the handbell on the registration desk. A kind of grey-haired youth came out of a back room with his shirttails flapping.

“Single?”

“I don’t need a room. You may be able to give me some information.”

“Is it about the murderer?”

“Yes. I understand you talked to him. What was the subject of conversation?”

He groaned, and stopped buttoning up his shirt. “I already
told all this to the cops. You expect a man to stay up all night chewing the same cabbage?”

I gave him a five-dollar bill. He peered at it myopically and put it away. “Okay, if it’s all that important. What you want to know?”

“Just what Campion said to you.”

“Is that his name—Campion? He said his name was Damis. He said he spent the night here a couple months ago, and he wanted me to look up the records to prove it.”

“Was he actually here a couple of months ago?”

“Uh-huh. I remembered his face. I got a very good memory for faces.” He tapped his low forehead lovingly. “ ’Course I couldn’t say for sure what date it was until I looked up the old registration cards.”

“You did that, did you?”

“Yeah, but it didn’t do him no good. He took off while I was out back checking. The patrol car stopped by, the way it always does around eight o’clock, and it must of scared him off.”

“I’d like to see that registration card.”

“The cops took it with them. They said it was evidence.”

“What was the date on it?”

“May five, I remember that much.”

It was evidence. May the fifth was the night of Dolly Campion’s death.

“You’re sure the man who registered then was the same man you talked to tonight?”

“That’s what the cops wanted to know. I couldn’t be absotively certain, my eyes aren’t that good. But he looked the same to me, and he talked the same. Maybe he was lying about it, though. He said his name was Damis, and it turns out that’s a lie.”

“He registered under the name Damis on the night of May the fifth, is that correct?”

“They both did.”

“Both?”

“I didn’t get to see the lady. She came in her own car after he registered for them. He said his wife was gonna do that, so I thought nothing of it. She took off in the morning, early, I guess.”