Dirty Harry 06 - City of Blood (15 page)

“You see the license plate?”

“No, I didn’t notice it. I was concentrating so much on Martha I wasn’t paying attention to things like that.”

“That’s all right. You and Martha have been what, lovers, friends?”

“Lovers, I’d guess you’d say.”

“How long?”

“A couple of months since the shooting began. I’m working on a movie, you know.”

“Yes, I saw you once. You were quite good.” Ironically, the scene that Harry remembered witnessing was grimly prophetic of what was to come.

This surprised Jim. “You did, you saw me? In the dog-food commercial on the tube?”

“On the set with Martha just a couple of days ago. Let’s say I sort of happened on the shoot. Did you suspect Martha was seeing anyone else? She come to a place like this a lot?”

“Hell, no.” Jim was outraged at the suggestion. “She was a homebody. Whoever that asshole was that took her here, he was the corrupting influence. She lives in L.A., she wouldn’t know about a place like this.”

“But this older man, you think this was somebody else she was seeing? Somebody she might have picked up from the party?”

“Mmmm, let’s see. Well, yes as a matter of fact, that was why we were arguing at the party. Yeah, there was somebody else.”

“You know who it was, you hear a name?”

“A name? No, I asked friends of mine in the cast, but nobody seemed to know his name. All they said was that she was seeing another guy. Maybe they’ll tell you, they wouldn’t tell me.”

Before Harry could probe Jim Corona further there was an enormous roar, like a thunderclap, but so close that the walls of the room shuddered and Harry was virtually knocked out of his chair. Instantly, smoke floated in under the door.

“Shit, there goes our evidence,” Harry muttered.

“What was that?” Corona looked surprised, which was a surprise in itself since he probably had thought he was beyond surprise by this point.

“Stay here, don’t move.” Harry rushed from the room. The men guarding Corona were coughing from the smoke that seeped along the corridor. They resorted to handkerchiefs, which they put to their noses and mouths.

It was impossible to see more than a foot or two ahead, but Harry could hear all right. People were screaming and yelling, betraying panic and confusion.

After a minute, the smoke cleared, leaving in its wake a toxic, pungent stench that hung tenaciously in the air. Everywhere people were running, oblivious to their partial nudity, oblivious to instructions by police to orchestrate an orderly evacuation. There was always the possibility that there was another bomb cached somewhere that might detonate at any time.

The locker room was in tumult. Half the bank of lockers had been blown to the opposite wall by the force of the explosion, and several other lockers had been ruthlessly torn open, their contents scattered and shredded by the blast.

How many people had died was impossible to determine because everywhere you looked there was a bloody limb or mutilated torso. The victims had just concluded their interviews with detectives and had been allowed to get their clothes and go home. Well, these luckless individuals were never going home.

Others were injured and lay writhing and thrashing about amid the wreckage as policemen hastened to minister to them.

In the rubble somewhere Harry was certain there was evidence crucial to unlocking the mystery of the murderer’s identity. But given the magnitude of the destruction the police were unlikely to have much success in sifting it out.

Bressler appeared shortly, and the way he regarded Harry was practically as though he blamed him for this latest disaster.

“You spoke too soon when you said he didn’t burn the joint down this time. This joker just doesn’t cut and run, he leaves his calling card, too.”

Outside they heard the wail of sirens as ambulances and fire trucks came barreling down Folsom.

“You’re going to get this bastard, aren’t you, Harry,” was all that Bressler would say. It was not a question either.

C H A P T E R
E l e v e n

O
ver the course of the next three days, Harry followed every lead that Corona had provided him with. In doing this, he had as much help as he needed, for apprehending the man who had now struck twice in San Francisco had been given highest priority. Basically, what Harry had to go on was a white Porsche and the invitation list for a costume party given on Union. Everybody who was on that list would have to be interviewed. Every Porsche dealer would have to be asked whether he had ever sold a white Porsche and to whom if it turned out he had. And, of course, anyone sighted in such a car, particularly if he was a middle-aged man, would be placed under surveillance.

Eventually, the white Porsche was found—smashed and burning at the bottom of a steep cliff off Coastal Highway 1, not far from the resort town of Timber Cove. There was no occupant nor was there any witness found who could tell the authorities in Timber Cove how the vehicle came to plummet off the highway.

The invitation list was scarcely more helpful. First, there were hundreds of names on it, and second, the sponsors of the party, Global Film Company executives, admitted that many people had undoubtedly gotten in who were not on the list, friends of friends, enterprising bullshit artists who could talk their way into a private party at the White House if they had to, and so the original list was far from reliable. What’s more, Harry realized, he wasn’t certain which name he was looking for. It was just at this point that any clue whatsoever would be invaluable.

In the interim, the police lab was working overtime in an effort to sort through all the debris that had been carefully recovered from the floor of the devastated locker room. Like archaeologists picking through pottery shards and metal fragments from a lost civilization, the technicians toiled indefatigably in an effort to separate and identify the various objects. But there were so many of them, and there was so much that had been incinerated in the explosion and the fire that it sparked, that little hope was held for finding anything significant soon—or ever, for that matter.

Frustrated, cursing the murderer’s shrewdness in concealing all evidence that might lead police to him, Harry decided that he would take advantage of an offer that had not so long ago been made to him.

Which was why he found himself on the fourth day of November in front of Cavanaugh-Sterling Headquarters.

William Davis, Harry reckoned, would have connections that practically no one else in the city had, and he hoped to take advantage of them. And it wasn’t as though Davis was not an interested party. Global, after all, was a subsidiary of his company, and though no public announcement had yet been made, it was obvious that production on the movie being shot in the city would be suspended indefinitely. With one lead actress dead and her male lead confined to a psychiatric hospital for shock, there was no way that the movie could be completed. It would prove too expensive to recast and start all over again.

Although Harry had been assured that he would not have to wait to see Davis, he was not surprised to find himself banished to a waiting room where the only source of distraction were old magazines and the most recent stockholder’s report, in which Cavanaugh-Sterling’s executives gave themselves a pat on the back for record-high earnings in the previous twelve-month period.

Harry gave Davis five minutes, which was about what he expected Davis would give him if he ever got in to see the man. Then he returned to the secretary, a young woman of nineteen or twenty whose pretty face was tautened into a look of perpetual exasperation. Working for Davis must take years off your life, Harry thought as he stared at her.

“You tell Mr. Davis that I can’t wait.”

“Please, don’t be impatient. Mr. Davis is a very busy man. You don’t know.” The secretary, as though to convince him, showed him a list of names. “Telephone messages,” she said. “Just from this morning.”

“I’m impressed. I sympathize. But I’m still leaving.”

The secretary panicked and buzzed Davis. After conferring with her boss for a few moments, she ran out to where Harry was waiting for the elevator to come.

“He’ll see you now, sir.” She took hold of his hand, fearful that he might go away anyhow, then, realizing that this gesture was an inappropriate one for a secretary to make, quickly released it.

Davis seemed no different to Harry than when their last interview had taken place. If anything, he looked better, his skin burnished by a Palm Springs tan, his body made leaner by a strict regimen of exercise and eighteen holes of golf twice weekly.

“Pardon the delay, Inspector, it has been a trying morning.” He motioned Harry to sit, adding, “They’re all trying mornings. For a man in my position there’s no escaping responsibilities, I am afraid.”

Harry waited a moment longer to see if he had anything else he wanted to say in his defense, then began himself, “I am sure you’ve heard about what happened down on Folsom Street three nights ago.”

“A terrible tragedy.”

“And, of course, it is a tragedy that directly affects you.”

Davis looked puzzled. “In what way?”

“In that it has shut down production of one of your subsidiary’s films.”

“Ah yes, of course. Global. So it has.” Davis did not sound disturbed by this, and it was possible that it was the first time he’d given the matter any thought. On the other hand, Harry decided, this man seemed absolutely incapable of expressing any emotional response whatsoever.

“Well, it could be worse,” Davis continued after reflecting for a moment. “Movies are a risky business as you know and what with advertising costs, which can double your below-line expenditures, very often you make more by shelving the project altogether.”

“Then why go into the business at all, Mr. Davis?”

“Write-offs. The longer I live the more business, all business, I don’t care whether it’s movies or toilet paper, comes down to just one thing. Write-offs.”

“Write-offs?” Harry repeated dubiously.

“That’s exactly it.” Davis smiled triumphantly as though he had just imparted a great piece of wisdom to his guest.

But tax write-offs were not what Harry had come here to discuss.

“If you don’t mind, I’d like to get back to the subject.”

“The subject? Ah, you mean the unpleasantness down on Folsom Street?”

“Unpleasantness is one way to put it.” Harry made no effort to keep the sarcasm out of his voice. “I would be greatly appreciative if you could use whatever contacts you have in the movie business or out of it that might help us find the killer. All we know at this point is that he is middle-aged and has been known to drive a white Porsche.”

“And that’s all? I would have thought the police would’ve made greater progress than that.”

“Sometimes these things are a bitch to crack.”

The phone began to ring, but Davis ignored it. “Yes, I realize that. I suppose that I should not maintain very high expectations of the police, present company excepted, of course. I am still waiting for a report pertaining to the identities of the terrorists who attacked the Cavanaugh-Sterling executive staff.”

“I can’t help you there. I am no longer working on that case.”

“It’s not of any importance right now. I’ve bolstered my security force. At least I have the privilege of buying protection. I fear for the citizens of our city who are forced to rely on the police for it. Not that there aren’t some brave men among your people, but they operate under the handicap of laws which systematically undermine the rights of the victims for the benefit of the criminals.”

Just as he had refused to enter into an argument over taxes, Harry balked at discussing the police force’s relationship to the law or the populace. “I must ask you again, Mr. Davis, do you think that you could help me? Perhaps if you communicated to the people who run Global, somebody there might know something. We have fairly reliable information that this middle-aged man—”

“Our Porsche driver?”

“That’s right. This man was seeing Martha Denby at least for a few weeks prior to her death.”

“Martha Denby?” Davis was looking bewildered again.

“One of the victims. The actress in the film your company was shooting.”

“Oh yes, how stupid of me. It’s hard to remember these things. Cavanaugh-Sterling owns, completely or at least in part, eighty-seven companies, you realize. Global is just one of them.”

“A man of your responsibilities has too much on his mind, I expect.”

“That’s correct, Inspector.”

The phone was demanding to be answered again.

Davis stood up. The interview was obviously at an end. “I will do all in my power to help you find this man. And if anything develops I certainly will notify you immediately.”

He took Harry’s hand. “It’s always good to see you,” he said in the manner of a conscientious host at a cocktail party. “You can find your way out?”

“I can always find my way,” Harry told him, but Davis wasn’t listening. He was already on the phone and for him Harry wasn’t there any longer. That was how Davis was, going from one thing to another, one person to the other, never looking back.

The afternoon wasn’t a total loss. Owens came by Harry’s desk and told him that if he was free he was invited to dinner that evening.

“My wife is worried you’re not eating right. She feels responsible for putting some nourishment in your body.”

“That’s very thoughtful of her. You can tell her that I accept. By the way, how’s that shoulder?”

Underneath Owens’ shirt Harry could barely make out the white swaths of tape that held the bandages in place. “Recovering nicely. Still hurts if I move too suddenly, but nothing to get alarmed about.”

With the slaying of the Mission Street Knifer, or the Halloween Monster as Owens now referred to him, Owens was no longer assigned to Harry who was once again on his own. But even in the short time that they’d been partners, perhaps partly because of what they had gone through together in Golden Gate Park, Harry regarded him as a friend. And in a department, department hell, in a world where people came into Harry’s life too fast and left too easily, it was good to be able to hold onto a friendship. It was good to hold onto anything.