Man on a leash - By Charles Williams Page 0,44
the fifth call, and Debra told her about the deck she’d hidden in your father’s car and maybe promised to send her enough for a fix if she could.
“I guess Jeri didn’t think that night she knew how to break into a house, but another thirty hours of withdrawal symptoms and she didn’t have any doubt of it at all. She could break into Fort Knox with a banana. So she went out there sometime after two o’clock Wednesday morning, as soon as Bonner was asleep. And in the meantime, apparently Debra’d been worked over till she broke down and told the man about it, so he was waiting. Obviously he didn’t guess about the letter, though.
“The San Francisco police got the name and address from the phone company. J. L. Stacey, probably an alias, in a furnished apartment out near North Beach, but when they got there, the birds were gone without a trace. Bonner, of course, couldn’t have got the information, so I guess he was just going it blind, trying to run down somebody who knew who Debra was.
“And, incidentally, while we’re on the subject of phone calls, both of those your father made”— Brubaker picked up another sheet of paper from the litter on his desk—” to Winegaard at seven A.M. July sixth and to Richter at ten fifteen A.M. July tenth, were from his home phone. So whatever he was doing out there at the Van Sickle place, he came home on Monday to phone and then left again, for God knows where until he showed up at the bank on the morning of the twelfth.”
“He didn’t go anywhere, from beginning to end,” Romstead said. “He was taken. He was kidnapped.”
Brubaker got up and began to pace the office. “Jesus Christ, when I think that I could’ve been a pimp or a geek in a sideshow, biting the heads off chickens! Look, Romstead, kidnap is a federal offense, and if we had one single damned shred of evidence to hang a kidnap case on, we could call in the FBI. We’d have a whole army of special agents working on it. As a matter of fact, I’ve talked to them, but after they talked to Richter, they said forget it. They must have thought I was nuts. And Richter, believe me, is getting plenty pissed about it. He says he’s going to make a recording. First there was Sam Bolling, and then the San Francisco police, and then you, and then the FBI, and then me.
“So maybe I was wrong about the heroin theory, so I don’t have the faintest damned idea what he was doing out there at the old Van Sickle place or what he did with that two hundred and fifty thousand dollars, there is no evidence whatever he was there, or anywhere else, against his will, and how in hell” —Brubaker dropped into his chair again and slammed a hand down on his desk among the papers— “how in hell—you tell me—could he have been kidnapped if he came into that bank himself—alone—to get the money?”
“I don’t know,” Romstead replied. “But I’m going to find out.” He got up.
“Well, there’s no way I can stop you from trying. But did you ever hear the old story about the man tracking the tiger through the jungle?”
Romstead nodded. “Yeah, I know.”
“Well, if I were you I’d keep a good lookout behind. That second set of tiger tracks may be closer than you think.”
He went back to the motel and called Mayo. She grabbed up the phone on the first ring, and he gave a sigh of relief as he heard her voice.
“I’ve been worried all day,” she said.
“Not too worried to go out with another man. I tried to call you around eleven.”
“Oh, hell, of all the rotten luck. That’s when I ducked downstairs to get the mail. And I wasn’t gone five minutes. Did you find the place?”
“Yes. But there’s nobody there now and nothing to prove who they were.” He had no intention of saying anything about Bonner. “I’ll tell you about it when I get there. I’m not sure yet what flight I’ll be on, so don’t figure on meeting me at the airport. Just stay near the phone, and I’ll call as soon as I’m in town. Should be before ten.”
“Are you leaving for Reno now?”
“Very shortly. Just as soon as I talk to Mrs. Carmody.”
“Hah! Maybe she’s the reason I couldn’t come with you.”
“You’re obsessed with sex. You