Man on a leash - By Charles Williams Page 0,29

for some electronics supply outfit.”

“You can’t recall the name?”

“No, I’m sorry. But it seems to me he said it was on Mission Street.”

“Fine. That’s enough for a start. Thanks a million.”

After he’d hung up, he remembered something else he’d intended to ask her. It was about the crewman the old man had turned over to the narcs for having heroin aboard his ship. Until you had a solid lead to follow, you had to consider everything a possibility. Well, he’d call her tomorrow from up there.

He brought out a bag and began to pack. The phone rang. It was Mayo. There was a flight at three o’clock, with space available. He asked her to make the reservation for him.

“Okay. I’ll drive you to the airport.”

“You’re an angel.”

“With an angel’s sex life. I might as well be having an affair with a whaler.”

Just as he hung up, the doorbell chimed.

Larry Murdock was a lean-faced man in his middle forties with coolly watchful gray eyes and an air of quietness about him. He introduced himself and produced a wallet-sized photostat of his license. Romstead closed the door and they sat down.

“You’ve had police experience, no doubt?” he asked.

“Yes. Fifteen years, here in San Francisco. What is it you want done, Mr. Romstead?”

“Just more of the same. Ringing doorbells and asking questions. I’m trying to backtrack two people to see if they knew each other, and how well, and what other people they knew. It’ll probably go faster with two men on it, if you’ve got somebody available. Okay?”

“Yes. I think we can handle it.” Murdock took a notebook from a pocket of his jacket and undipped a pen.

“Fine. There’s a lot of background you’ll need.” Romstead told him the whole thing, from the discovery of his father’s body to and including his interviews with Winegaard and Richter. He wound up with descriptions of his father and Jeri Bonner and the address of his father’s apartment on Stockton Street. Murdock listened without interruption, now and then taking notes.

“I don’t think he was ever in the apartment in that period from the sixth to the fourteenth, but I haven’t seen the building and don’t know what the setup is in regard to privacy of access,” he concluded. “But you can see what I’m after.”

“Sure. Whether anybody at all saw him around the place, whether he was alone if they did, and if the girl had ever been seen in the area or with him. Since it’s all right with you, I’ll start another man checking out the girl, beginning with the electronics supply places.”

“Good. Personally, I think she was on the lam from something or somebody, or she wouldn’t have gone home. She was a junkie, and her chances of making a connection in that town would be close to zero.”

“Yes. Unless her, sources had dried up here and she remembered that deck stashed in your father’s place.”

“That’s a possibility, of course,” Romstead conceded. “But there’s another thing about that I can’t quite buy.”

“I think I know what you mean,” Murdock said. “If she knew about it at all, why didn’t she know it was uncut? So why the OD?”

“Right,” Romstead replied. “Maybe she didn’t run far enough.” He was beginning to have a solid respect for the other man. He went over to the desk by the window and wrote out a check for three hundred dollars. “I’ll be in Coleville tonight, and I’ll give you a call.”

Murdock thanked him for the retainer and left. Romstead finished packing the bag, put in his binoculars, and called Mayo. She was ready. He carried the bag down to her car. They swung up onto the freeway and headed out Bayshore. The car was a new Mustang, and she handled it with cool competence. He relaxed, which he seldom did when someone else was driving.

“Very flattering,” she said, passing Candlestick Park.

“What?”

“When a man keeps his eyes on your legs instead of traffic. Sort of overall endorsement.”

“Well, you are a good driver,” he agreed. “That’s why they wouldn’t let you in medical school.”

“And the legs?”

“They’re why you didn’t need to get into medical school.”

“Chauvinist pig.”

It was overcast at the airport with a chill wind whipping the bay and fog pushing in over the hills above South City like rolls of cotton batting. She had to double park at the unloading zone. “Call me,” she said.

“Tonight.”

“And tomorrow.” They kissed, and she clung to him tightly for a moment until the inevitable horn sounded behind them. He lifted out