The Heir Hunter (20 page)

Rose parked in a spot stenciled
guest
and stepped to the concrete. She was always happy to run an errand in exchange for an early day at the office. Nick was good about things like that. And with the signing of the Jacobs heir, she knew she would now become one of the higher-paid secretaries in all of San Francisco. She was lucky. Her boss was a good guy.

She thought of her niece Patricia as she waited for the elevator. Patricia was thirty-two now and anxious for a husband and babies. Nick was thirty-five and available. And lonely, she had always sensed. She was confident the two of them would get along nicely. If Patricia lost a little weight, it was a certainty.

She exited on the third floor and walked down the corridor. Yes, she would set up a lunch date down by the
wharf, something casual and low pressure. They would get to know each other slowly over calamari and crab cakes.

She reached apartment 302 and found her key ring. Nick’s apartment key was the one with the gray electrical tape on the end. She held the keys and paused. Listened. A noise, nothing more than a light tinkle, sounded just behind the door.

“Nick?”

She found the key and slid it into the knob. A split second before the flash, Rose heard a shout from within, then the eruption came, tearing through the front wall. It impacted her squarely, lifting her from her feet. The fireball billowed from the apartment in a wave of blinding heat and tore straight through the hallway and into the unit across. The windows exploded outward to the street, spewing fire and showering the sidewalk with burning debris. Everything was silently illuminated on the street momentarily, then the hypnotic effect of the flames wore off and people began to shout—frightened calls against the backdrop of a distant fire engine’s wail.

As expected, neither man was in any kind of condition to drive. Nick and Doug slouched in the backseat of a taxi and laughed at stupid things they hadn’t joked about since the last time they had gotten tanked together. Doug was gagging with loud laughter and undoubtedly annoying the hell out of the cabbie.

“Hey,” he said loudly in Nick’s ear. “That reminds me—remember that time we snuck into that boarded-up house on Anza Street?”

“And that old derelict came out and chased us?”

“We were like ten years old,” laughed Doug. “Hey, we didn’t know what we were on to then. Turns out that was just a warm-up for old man Jacobs’s place.”

“That crazy bum was scarier than any gunman.”

“You’re a cat burglar at heart, Nick. You’re one gutsy
bastard.” Doug turned to the front. “Hey, buddy! Brown corner house on the left.”

The driver nodded and pulled to the curb at the end of Franklin Street. Doug threw a twenty in Nick’s lap and fumbled for the door handle.

“I need a ride down to my car tomorrow morning. Can you swing by and pick me up?”

“Seven-thirty?”

“See ya!”

“Enjoy the couch.”

Nick watched him zigzag to the front door. He laughed. Kimberly was really going to let him have it.
Move over, Fido—you got company tonight.

He leaned back as the taxi took off again. His vision was really starting to swirl now. He let his head fall back as he watched the wavering glitter of Lombard Street pass by in one nauseating river of white and red neon. He hadn’t planned on getting stewed, but hell, they had a valid enough reason. Gerald Jacobs had been the toast of the night. Tomorrow would be an ordeal, but who gave a damn? He could close shop for good now if he wanted to, and the way he felt at that moment, he might do just that. He could just fly off somewhere and never come back.

The road was gently buffeting him. As he sat his mind drifted, a kaleidoscope of faces and pieces of the last week. For some reason, he could see Alex’s mother, sitting in her bedroom of crucifixes and candles, clutching a rosary to her breast. The picture show shimmered and changed, settling in the Columbia County Clerk’s office, with Lloyd Koenig, the attorney with the slick suits and ten thousand dollars in his pocket. There was a bathtub behind him—a red water bath with an old man’s corpse floating facedown in the mess. Jessica Von Rohr now, standing in her living room and shaking her head slowly back and forth . . .

The cabbie’s words registered, cut through the fog of a half dream. Nick pulled his head up with great effort and blinked groggily. The driver whistled and repeated the words, his first of the ride.

“Big fire, mon . . .”

The sight of it seemed to sober Nick up just a bit. He straightened up out of his slouch and put his face to the window. They were on Marina, all right. Two large fire trucks were shooting jets of water at a building. His building?

A cop appeared in the middle of the road and motioned them down a side street.

“Stop, driver. Let me out.”

The driver parked around the corner. Nick paid him and broke into a run, making his way quickly back around to Marina. As he approached his building, he saw people standing behind the police lines, pointing and watching the firemen applying the finishing touches. A fine mist from the hoses hung in the air and dampened his clothes. He looked up and in a sickening flash recognized whose unit it was. He approached a cop.

“Officer, I need to get through,” he said. “That’s my apartment.”

He walked unsteadily past the barricade and scanned the street. Could it be that . . .? No. Rose was home. Had been for hours.

A powerful hand squeezed his arm.

“You deaf, buddy? Nobody goes near that place until we get the okay.”

“That’s my apartment,” he protested loudly.

“Back behind the line or I’m taking you in.”

Nick muttered something and stepped behind the line. Two girls who looked no older than eighteen stared up the building, eyes wide as they snapped gum.

“You two see what happened?”

One of them looked at him suspiciously. “Yeah, a gas line blew.”

“A gas line? How do you know?”

She looked irritated. “What else? The whole building shook.”

Nick turned back to the firemen and watched, even more confused. He felt foolish for having had so much to drink. He could barely think straight.

The crowd was slowly dispersing back into the night. A woman in pajamas stood miserably by a cop and cried. Nick spotted a police officer standing alone and walked up to him.

“Officer,” he said, trying to focus on the cop’s face. “That’s my place.” He gestured weakly toward the building.

The cop looked him over warily. “What’s that?”

“That’s my place,” Nick repeated emphatically. “I live up there. That’s my apartment.”

“Your unit?” the cop said, giving him more attention now. “Can you come with me please?”

“What was it?” asked Nick as he followed him through the crowd. “What happened?”

The cop led him to a man in an overcoat with a thick gray mustache and a hard scowl. Nick knew without asking that he was a detective. The man held a cigarette and was talking with a fireman by one of the trucks. The detective turned to the approaching cop and gave him a little head nod.

“This man says it’s his apartment.”

The detective squinted at Nick and gave him the onceover. “Number 302?”

Nick nodded. The detective gave the cop a get-lost look and then they were alone.

“What’s your name?” the detective asked.

“Nick Merchant. When did—”

“Just getting home, Mr. Merchant?”

“Yeah. I want to know what happened.”

“You aren’t the only one,” the man said. He took his time removing and lighting another cigarette. “A very powerful explosion of some kind tore through your apartment about half an hour ago.”

“An explosion? What do you mean?”

“An explosion. You know . . .” He spread his fingers in front of his face.
“Ka-boom!
You keep anything combustible or explosive in your place?”

“Like what?”

“Like dynamite,” he snapped. “Help me out, will you?”

“Ask a sensible question and I might,” Nick answered angrily.

“Where have you been this evening?”

“At a restaurant,” replied Nick. “I got in on a flight from Des Moines about eight o’clock and went directly out to dinner.”

“Uh-huh. What do you do for a living?”

“I’m a private investigator.”

The detective gave a knowing little frown. “Work out of your home?”

“No, I don’t.”

“Ever had any problems with your work? Threats maybe, sour business deals?”

“I can’t say I have, no.”

The detective nodded condescendingly. Nick was irritated but trying to keep cool. The man was asking the proper questions. He had asked the very same ones while he wore the badge.

Something in Nick’s peripheral vision suddenly grabbed his attention. He noticed his neighbor from 305 sitting on the curb with a rag to his chin. The young man looked up at Nick slowly as he approached. He was shirtless.

“Did you see what happened, Jay?”

The man was staring at him reproachfully. The rag in his hand was spotted red. He and Nick had gotten to know each other fairly well those past few months, sharing
laughs as they periodically ran into each other in the hallway. Now his eyes were suspicious, his face hardened and accusative.

“Yeah, I saw it,” his neighbor said. “I was just getting home from work. That lady you know came and tried to get into your place. The second she went in, it blew.”

Nick collapsed to a knee as his mouth went dry. “The lady I know?”

“Yeah. I’ve seen her here before.”

“About fifty or so? Five foot five, hefty?”

“Yeah, the one I’ve seen going in there before. What kinda alarm system you got in your place anyway?”

Nick sat next to him and felt the wet grass seep through the seat of his pants. He buried his face in his hands and shuddered. He had instructed her to go and pick up those papers. He had sent her there! A nausea swept over him.

The detective approached him and spoke in a softer tone. “Can you talk to us?”

“Just give me a minute,” he replied numbly.

A mist hung in the air, soaking through Nick’s clothes and making him shiver. He looked down at his shoes. The puddles of water looked reddish. The blood was running from his neighbor’s chin, forming little red rivers between the pebbles and dirt.

A new detective now—younger, his face clean-shaven and softer. “Are you Nick Merchant?”

“Yes, I am,” said Nick.

“You’re in apartment 302?”

“You got it,” he replied from his soggy seat in the grass. He was still drunk, but he didn’t really care now. “Look, I just got back in town. The cab dropped me off and I saw the fire. I have no clue about any of this.”

“Do you keep anything combustible in your apartment?” asked the detective.

“No, I don’t.”

“You say you know who the dead woman might be?”

Nick closed his eyes tightly. “I might. My neighbor says he saw a woman who fits the description of my . . . secretary entering my apartment a second before the blast.”

“Does your secretary have the key?”

“Yes, she does. She was picking up some documents.”

The detective stooped down closer to him. “Do you have any roommates?”

“No, I don’t.”

“You don’t?”

“That’s what I said. No roommates.”

“Okay then,” the detective said. “Anybody else have the key besides your secretary?”

“Yeah, the landlord.”

“Besides him. We’re trying to figure this out, friend.”

“Nobody—nobody else has the key. Why do you ask?”

“We’re trying to figure out who the other body inside the place is.”

Nick looked up at him. “Inside?”

The detective nodded. “Male, as far as we could tell. Any idea who that might be?”

Nick looked up at the smoky shell that was once his apartment and shook his head. He had no idea. None whatsoever.

He sat a while longer until the cold forced him to move. The trucks were still there, but the hosing had stopped. His apartment was a black cavity in the building, like the burnt husk of a candle.

The younger detective approached him.

“Where can we get ahold of you, Mr. Merchant?”

Nick didn’t respond. He didn’t know the answer. He looked at his watch. Eleven o’clock.

The detective noticed that Nick didn’t look entirely steady.

“Are you all right?”

“I’m great,” he mumbled. “Just . . . great.”

“Keep this,” the detective said, offering his card. “We’ll need to talk soon.”

Nick nodded remotely and took the card. The cop turned and left.

The scattered few who still needed to stand and gawk were finally getting bored now that the spectacle was over. Nick loped across Marina Boulevard to the parking lot in the back of the complex. He saw his car under the wooden canopy of what used to be his apartment. It looked untouched. The lot was poorly lit and empty. He scanned it. If they knew his apartment, they could find his parking spot. Despite the artificial courage of the booze, he turned back. He was in no condition to drive anyway.

He walked south on Bay Street toward Chestnut. Considering the hour, the streets were fairly crowded. He was drawing looks—his suit was wet, the seat of his pants dirty. He looked like a mugging victim and felt much worse. He reached Lombard and ducked into a taxi.