Nemesis (7 page)

After the long day in the East Bay, Runyon was in no mood for telephonic hand-holding. “No idea how long,” he said shortly. “I know it's difficult for you, Ms. Daniels—”

“Verity.”

“I know it's difficult for you, but you'll just have to hang in until he decides to contact you again.”

“It could be days, couldn't it? Even a week or more?”

“Not likely he'll make you wait that long.”

“But it's so hard. I feel so … vulnerable, here all by myself. If I didn't know you were there to help me, I don't know what I'd do.”

He had nothing to say to that.

“I don't suppose … I mean, is there any chance we could get together somewhere for a drink? Tonight if you're not busy, or tomorrow—”

“No, that's not possible.”

“Just one drink, just for a little while?”

“No, Ms. Daniels. It's agency policy not to socialize with clients.”

“But it wouldn't really be socializing—”

“I'm sorry, no. I don't mean to be unsympathetic, but I'll have to ask you not to call again until you hear from the extortionist.”

Short silence. Then, in a different voice, clipped, edged with anger, “Yes, all right, I understand. Good night, Jake.” She broke the connection immediately, the sharp click like an exclamation point at the end of his name.

Coming on to him, and angry at the rebuff? Sounded like it. Why? So maybe she had developed the kind of infatuation lonely women sometimes did for men who offered them a professional helping hand. Common enough, though he'd never had to deal with it before. Another possibility: underneath that bland exterior she was a sexual aggressor. Anger was sometimes the reaction of a rejected predatory woman. And the facts and implications he'd gathered today supported the supposition.

But neither possibility explained why she'd lied about the recorder. She
had
lied; he was sure of it. He wondered if her claim that she didn't make friends easily had been a lie, too. And her apparent blandness and loneliness a front. For all he knew she had dozens of sexual partners and came on to every man who interested her, including the hired help.

Some package, Verity Daniels. Lackluster on the outside, a tangle of contradictions, neuroses, hidden facets on the inside. Trying to unravel that tangle was like trying to reach inside an unfamiliar machine, grab a handful of twisted-up wires, and sort them out blind.

*   *   *

She called again at 11:45 on Friday morning. But this time it was business.

“I just heard from him,” she said in a voice that wobbled a little. “My God, you should have heard the names he called me. Awful, disgusting names.”

“Why the abuse?”

Heavy breath, as if sucked in hard through her teeth. “The police … he thinks I went to the police. He said that's why he didn't meet me at Baker Beach, because he knew he'd be walking into a trap.”

Runyon said, “He couldn't know I was there. Testing you, trying to scare you even more.”

“Well, he succeeded. God!”

“What did you say to him?”

“I told him he was wrong, I didn't go to the police—I followed his instructions, went to the beach alone with the money. He called me more names. He said I'd better be telling the truth because if he found out I wasn't he'd … he'd kill me.”

Not good. Might be an empty threat, part of the design to exert more pressure … if simple extortion was his game. Blackmailers as a breed were generally nonviolent, menacing words their only weapons. But if the perp was driven by some personal motive such as revenge, the threat could be genuine. Had to be taken seriously, in any event.

He asked, “Then what?”

“He demanded I bring him the money today. No police, no tricks … or else.”

“Baker Beach again?”

“No. Lands End. I'm to wait at an overlook on the Coastal Trail a quarter mile from the Fort Miley parking lot, where you can see what's left of old wrecked steamships. Does that mean anything to you?”

“No, but there are maps. What time?”

“Five-thirty. He's being very careful this time, he said. If he doesn't meet me by five-thirty-five, I'm to walk along the trail to where stairs lead up to the Veterans Administration Hospital and wait there.”

Which meant the perp would be watching the overlook for any signs of police presence, and if he wasn't satisfied, he'd either make the meet at the stairs or somewhere between. Probably the latter.

“This time he wants the money in a backpack,” Ms. Daniels said. “I don't have a backpack, I'll have to go out and buy one.…”

“All right. Did the conversation get recorded this time?”

“Um, no. No, it didn't. But it wasn't my fault.”

Runyon waited.

“He didn't call on my home phone,” she said. “He called my cell. Because the landline might be bugged, he said. How he got that number, too … I don't know. How could he know so much about me?”

Take her at her word, there wasn't anything else he could do. He said flatly, “We'll find out when we catch him.”

“So you
will
be there? At Lands End? I don't think I could go through with this if you weren't.…”

“I'll be there. Same instructions as before—don't look for me, don't pay any attention if you see me. And don't forget to take the Q-Phone with you.”

“I won't.” She drew another sighing breath. “Jake … about last night. I'm sorry I bothered you, really I am. It's just that I was feeling so nervous, so lonely. Am I forgiven?”

Forgiven. As if she were a penitent seeking absolution. Or a wannabe lover trying to mend fences.

He said in the same flat voice, “We'll talk later tonight. Try not to worry too much about tomorrow.”

“I won't.” Another of her nervous little giggles. “I'll be on my guard.”

*   *   *

The parking lot adjacent to Fort Miley at the end of El Camino Del Mar was less than half full when Runyon arrived at twenty past four. He'd been there before, but only on a drive-through. Lands End ran from Point Lobos down near the Cliff House all the way along the shoreline to the Palace of the Legion of Honor and the Lincoln Park Golf Course—a lot of rugged, wooded acreage crisscrossed by walking paths and hiking trails. As with Baker Beach, he'd never had cause to wander the area on foot. The extra time was necessary to familiarize himself with the area and the designated drop point.

He parked at the outer end of the lot. This time he did take the Magnum with him, slipping it into its clamshell belt holster under his loose-fitting shirt. This was city land, there were fewer people around, and the terrain was rugged enough in places to make ambush a possibility. He wouldn't draw the weapon unless he had to, wouldn't use it unless it meant saving the client's life or his own. But he felt better having it close at hand.

With the Nikon slung around his neck, he made his way down a steep set of wood-and-packed-earth steps to the Coastal Trail below. The sea breeze was fairly light today, carrying the pungent smells of sea salt and cypress. The maps he'd looked at told him the shipwreck overlook was to his right, away from the Sutro Bath ruins that lay below Cliff House. He took his time, stopping now and then to pretend to take photos of the Golden Gate Bridge and the rocky sweep of the coastline. There were a fair number of people on the path, on foot, on bicycles, pushing baby strollers, but their number would thin out by five-thirty.

The shipwreck overlook was maybe a quarter-mile from the parking lot, beyond where the wide asphalt path roughened into packed earth. It was long and wide, made of concrete with a row of benches in the middle, bellying out so that you could stand at the edge and look more or less straight down to the rocky shoreline below. The trail was open on both sides. Opposite the overlook, a man-made retaining wall had been built to contain sliding rock off the steep cliff above; a low extension of the wall stretched out on one side for twenty or thirty yards.

The wall was the only place to set up a surveillance, unless he wanted to sit or stand on the overlook itself. Neither option appealed to him. Conspicuous if he lingered in the area. A moving surveillance was tricky, too, potentially dangerous, but he'd have no choice if this was where the perp intended to make contact.

Runyon walked out onto the overlook. While he was standing there, pretending to line up a photo, a couple of twentysomethings came wandering in from the trail and stood at the outer edge staring down. The girl, a chubby blonde as Nordic fair as her partner was Mediterranean dark, said, “I don't see anything down there. You see anything, Jerry?”

“No. Must be high tide.”

“What difference does that make? The signboard says you're supposed to be able to see parts of old shipwrecks, engines and stern posts, whatever they are. From the
Frank
something and two other old ships—”

“
Frank Buck.
But only at low tide.”

She ignored that, asked Runyon to look through his telephoto lens and tell her if
he
saw anything. He looked and shook his head. “Sorry, no.”

“I told you, Carol,” the boy said. “Only at low tide.”

“Oh, screw low tide, I wanted to see the old wrecks.”

“I'd rather screw a young wreck like you.”

She seemed to find that clever and funny; she giggled, swatted Jerry on the arm, then nuzzled against him, and the two of them wandered off in the direction of Point Lobos.

Runyon went the other way. The trail narrowed and roughened, winding through stands of cypress and pine and ground cover dominated by weeds, ivy, blackberry tangles. There were a couple of places along it where the perp could wait to intercept the client, if that was what he was planning. Nothing for Runyon to do in that case except shadow her as closely as he could and trust the Q-Phone to tell if and when he should make his move.

The stairs that led up to the trail above, El Camino Del Mar, and the VA Hospital beyond that, were a quarter-mile or so from the shipwreck overlook. A sign posted there confirmed it. The stairs, steep and curving, were set back in a flat little grotto in the middle of a long dip in the rock-and-dirt path. Runyon climbed upward into a sharp right-hand turn thirty yards or so above the trail. From there, the path was hidden by trees and outcroppings. He went up through another switchback to see if the grotto was visible from a higher elevation. It wasn't.

Back down to the grotto. Bad place for a stationary surveillance here, too. The trail ran more or less straight and open past the inclines in both directions, and vegetation crowded in close to it on the seaward side. If Verity Daniels got this far, the perp could come for the meet from any of three directions. And again Runyon would have to stay on the move and let whatever he heard over the Q-Phone dictate his actions.

All right. He had the lay of the land now, literally. He went back past the shipwreck overlook—it was deserted now—and on to the one below the parking lot. After five by then; Ms. Daniels would be here pretty soon. He sat on the low concrete wall, playing with the Nikon while he watched the stairs and the dwindling number of walkers, joggers, and bicyclists that passed by. The perp could be any of them, or none of them. Already here or on his way to the overlook from any of several directions.

What bothered Runyon about the setup was that no matter where the contact took place, there was no quick and easy escape route. If the perp was so worried about a trap, why pick Lands End in the first place? Once he had the money he'd have to walk a long distance, climb a bunch of stairs, to get himself out of harm's way. Unless he had a bicycle, but that would only take him so far. Reckless? Stupid? Neither trait squared with all the preliminary caution.

Verity Daniels showed at five-ten. Wearing a light white jacket over a bright red sweater, the backpack she'd bought strapped over her shoulders. There was a flicker of recognition when she saw him as she came off the stairs, but then she immediately lowered her head. He shifted his gaze seaward until she passed.

Runyon let ten minutes pass before he flipped his cell open, tapped out the Q-Phone number. At first he didn't hear anything. If she hadn't brought it with her … But she had. The muted cry of a gull, a child's shrill yell from somewhere nearby. So far so good.

At 5:25 he got up and made his way toward the shipwreck overlook. Most of the walkers were in pairs; the only man alone he encountered was elderly and had a small dog on a leash. One youngish guy wearing a Giants cap passed on a bicycle, heading in the same direction. Possible.

He had the cell phone to his ear as he walked, moving his mouth as though he were holding a conversation. Five-thirty, and there wasn't anything to hear. Or to see when he came in sight of the overlook. Ms. Daniels was standing hunched near the edge, the pack like a Quasimodo hump on her back—alone, nobody else in sight.

Runyon closed the cell, put it away in his shirt pocket as he neared the end of the low retaining wall on the inland side. He stopped there, sat down to go through more pretense with the camera—unscrew the telephoto, replace it with a different lens. She looked his way, then off in the other direction, hugging herself as the now-chilly sea breeze quickened.

Two more minutes ticked away. A lean, balding guy wearing a tank top and shorts appeared from the opposite direction, paused to peer at the overlook signboard. Runyon tensed … but then the man moved on without looking at the client, without looking at Runyon, either, as he passed by. Nobody else appeared on the trail.

Five thirty-five.

Verity Daniels glanced at her watch for the third or fourth time, stood poised for a few seconds, cast a quick look in his direction, then left the overlook and started away down the empty trail.

Runyon let her get out of sight before he followed, putting the cell to his ear again. Still nobody around as he moved into the narrowing section of the path. And nothing to hear from the Q-Phone except faint background sounds, the thrumming of the wind.