Killer in the Street Page 4

  He knew it was a pitifully inadequate description. Hazel Morgan said, “Mr. Walker, if you knew how many—” And then she paused, remembering. “The fifty-dollar bill!” she exclaimed. “You must mean the man who needed change for a fifty-dollar bill.” And then her smile vanished. “Gee, I hope it isn’t counterfeit!”

  “It isn’t,” Kyle assured her. “That man is no fool.”

  “Do you know him?”

  “I know he’s not a fool. Why did he give you the fifty? Couldn’t he get change at the desk?”

  “But he wasn’t a guest of the hotel, Mr. Walker. He needed the change for the car wash down in the next block.” And then, because Kyle looked puzzled, she added, “Guests have their cars washed in the hotel.”

  It was an unexpected break. If Kyle was going to maintain his advantage over the strangler, it was necessary to learn where he was staying. He could now eliminate the hotel and resume the search at the car wash. At midmorning business was brisk at a downtown auto laundry. Kyle turned the station wagon over to the attendants and went to the cashier’s window.

  “Fill out a coupon for the free drawing,” the cashier said brightly. “You may win a new car. Name … address … license number …”

  “I’m not interested in a new car,” Kyle said. “I’m interested in a dirty one that went through here within the hour.”

  “Make?” the cashier asked.

  “I don’t know,” Kyle said.

  “Body style? Color? License number?”

  “I don’t know that either.”

  “Then I don’t know how we can be held responsible if anything is wrong,” the man protested. “Who owns the car?”

  Kyle didn’t even know that. He had to fall back on the description he had given Hazel Morgan and hope for the best. It was mention of the dark glasses that drew a response.

  “Sure, I remember the guy,” the cashier said. “Those glasses bothered him. He went out for coffee, and when he came back I reminded him that he hadn’t filled out a slip for the drawing. He took off the glasses to read. Then he said, ‘Skip it. I can’t see a thing without my bifocals.’ ”

  Kyle had to keep thinking ahead of the attendant if he was going to get any more information.

  “That’s him!” he said. “When we were in the army together, he was as blind as a bat without glasses. You see, this is my problem. I can’t remember my friend’s name. I saw him on the street this morning—first time in years—and then lost him. I want to find out where he’s staying. If I knew what kind of car to look for—”

  The cashier nodded sympathetically. He stepped to the back of the office momentarily and came back holding a wire wastebasket in his hands. He scratched through the contents and finally produced one of the free drawing coupons, slightly crumpled.

  “Here it is,” he said. “I started to fill out the coupon for your friend. After all, a free sedan is a free sedan. I got the car description off the rack.” He smoothed out the paper and read: “1965 Chrysler sedan … license num ber, Arizona SXO 617.” The cashier looked up, beaming “That’s it, mister. I got just this far filling out the coupon and noticed the customer was gone. He picked up his car at the end of the rack and left. I never got his name.”

  “May I keep the coupon?” Kyle asked.

  “Sure. It’s no good without a name and address. That Chrysler was beige color, if that’s any help to you … Hey, mister, don’t you want to try for the sedan either?”

  Kyle didn’t hear. He had a small piece of luck in his hands, and luck wasn’t to be wasted.

  One of the latest buildings Kyle had designed for Sam Stevens was a slender smoked-glass and concrete office complex with an abstract fountain in the forecourt and a breathtaking view of the Santa Catalinas from the penthouse. It was to this penthouse that Kyle moved his own offices, and to these offices that he proceeded after leaving the car wash. The remainder of the building was still in the process of being decorated and leased and, aside from the penthouse, no tenants were installed except a florist, a bookseller and a branch bank on the ground level. Kyle had an automatic elevator all to himself and encountered no one in the penthouse corridor except an electrician working on the music system.

  Charlene was at her desk in the reception room. She had come to Kyle when Sam relinquished the bulk of the responsibility to his young executive and began to ease into the status of honorary president of the corporation. The pace of modern business was a bit too brisk for the old wildcatter, but Charlene was flexible. She had changed. Her hair was now worn in a simple pompadour she could handle at home, and she had discovered the restorative powers of the sauna, the masseuse and carrot-juice lunches. She was chic and poised and, through close association, had developed a sensitivity to Kyle’s moods second only to that of a wife. Perhaps not second at all. She did share more of his hectic life than any wife could. There was something of the chameleon in Charlene. She became whatever she must to survive.

  And so, when Kyle strode into the reception room with the specs and blueprints under his arm, she knew at a glance that he was in trouble. She waited for an explanation. Kyle ducked his head and started on toward his own office.

  “Mrs. Walker has been calling for the past half hour,” Charlene said. “She sounds worried. Shall I get her on your private wire?”

  Kyle stopped in his tracks and tried to get reoriented. Charley hadn’t changed since the previous day. Her eyes were still gray and the glasses she had started wearing during working hours still had fashionable black frames. She was talking to him about his wife. Gradually, these facts penetrated the mental block created by the sight of a killer in the street.

  “Dee—” He reflected. “My God, I left her dangling! Yes, Charley, get her on my private wire immediately, please!”

  He stepped into his own office—a huge, air-conditioned room where a wide Danish desk was kept in a semblance of order for the purpose of conducting business, and a drafting table displayed the wild disorder of creativity. The panorama visible beyond the glass wall that backed the desk was to be appreciated on less urgent occasions. Kyle had time only to drop the prints and specs on the table before the telephone began to buzz. It was Dee.

  “Kyle, what happened?” she demanded. “You hung up in the middle of a sentence!”

  “I ran into heavy traffic,” Kyle lied.

  “Were you in an accident?”

  Kyle had to nail down his mind to keep it from exploding.

  Dee is my wife, he thought. Five years ago I left New York to save her from the killer I saw this morning. Now she’s in danger again. Anyone I love is in danger if I’m the target the killer has come so far to find. And then the tag of his consciousness caught the echo of Dee’s word: “… accident?”

  “There was no accident,” he assured her. “Just one of those morning bottlenecks…. How’s Mike?”

  “Growing,” Dee retorted. “If you came home once in a while, you could see for yourself how much our son is growing. He’s almost four, you know.”

  She was teasing, but she was irritated. That gave Kyle the opening he needed.

  “I’m going to do better than that,” he said. “I promised Mike a weekend in the mountains, remember?”

  “I do and he does,” Dee answered. “We thought you had forgotten.”

  “But I haven’t. I told you earlier, I closed the deal with Sam for the new shopping center. I still have a few loose ends to tie up before I can get the bulldozers running—then I’ll have a short breather. Here’s what I want you to do, Dee. Pack a few things—whatever you need for three or four days away from home—and get up to the cabin. I’ll join you as soon as I can get away.”

  Dee hesitated. “Do you mean now? Today?”

  “I mean right now, today. Don’t you understand? Dee, if I can tell Sam that you and Mike are waiting for me, it’ll be easier to get away. He’s a softie for the boy—you know that. Do it, Dee. How much time do we have together?”

  He hoped the urgency in his voice
would come through as enthusiasm for the holiday. He hoped she wouldn’t catch the undercurrent of fear. He waited.

  After a few minutes of silence, she said, “All right, Kyle. I can’t believe what I’m hearing, but I’m going to take a chance. But if you stand me up this time the way you have before—”

  “I won’t stand you up,” Kyle promised. “I’ll be up there as soon as I’m free.”

  “Tonight?”

  “Tonight,” Kyle promised. “Tonight for dinner. And, Dee, there’s something else.”

  “What?” she asked.

  “I love you,” Kyle said. “I love you and Mike very much.”

  Kyle put the phone down. I love you. It was strange how words took on different meanings at different times in life. Love was so many things. Little things. Ordinary things. A touch. A look. The sound of a voice on the telephone. But now, above all else, love was taking steps to see that a killer on the street had no contact with Mike or Dee.

  Because a professional killer never moved until he was ready. Until he knew where to find his victim. Until he knew his habits, his home, his loved ones …

  The intercom buzzed Kyle back to the moment. Charley’s voice said, “There’s a man on the outside line for you, Mr. Walker. A sales representative—”

  “I’m not taking any more calls today,” Kyle said.

  “But he says it’s important, Mr. Walker. He represents an eastern company—Baemer Air Conditioning.”

  “Never heard of them,” Kyle said, “—and I said no calls today, Charley. No calls from anyone.”

  Kyle gave Charley no chance for argument. He snapped the intercom button to “off” position. Love meant finding a killer before the killer found him.

  The only thing about Dee Walker that had changed in five years was the color of her skin. It was berry-brown from the sun and showed warmly against the pale pink of her capris and halter top. She tossed a white knobby-knit sweater into the back of the convertible, where it landed on top of the fishing gear, a toy poodle and two overnight cases. She weighted the sweater with a novel she would never have time to read and caught Mike by the suspenders as he circled the car on his three-wheeler.

  “That goes into the garage,” she ordered, “—right now!”

  Mike was Kyle minus thirty years. His hair wouldn’t stay brushed and his legs couldn’t keep up with his imagination. He wore blue jeans and Western boots, and the suspenders were a necessary addition because he had no waistline at all.

  “I want to take my bike!” he protested.

  “To the mountains? Who ever heard of taking a bike to the mountains? Hurry, now. Daddy wants us all settled by the time he gets through for the day.”

  It was almost one o’clock. The day’s heat was at its peak and a drowsy silence had settled over the wide residential street, where the houses were low, rambling, air-conditioned and monotonously similar. Dee didn’t mind that. She was getting to be quite philosophical about neighborhood gossips and bores. She could cope with the militantly shrieking clubwomen who saw a threat to their own version of constitutional freedom behind every lamppost, and was even learning to enjoy the backyard barbecues, although they would have been more fun if Kyle occasionally dropped by before midnight.

  But a change of altitude was welcome, and Dee was learning not to question whatever small favors came her way. She watched Mike wheel his bike into the garage and come out on foot, and then hustled the boy into the convertible—a small English model Kyle had bought for her to shop in. She hated it. The stick shift was awkward and threw her backing out of line. She pulled slowly out of the driveway, hoping the blind spot wouldn’t cause a collision, and wasn’t at all surprised when the rear bumper struck metal. A horn blasted behind her. She grabbed the emergency brake.

  “I’m sorry,” she called out. “I couldn’t see you.”

  When she heard the thud of a heavy door slam, Dee shrank back in the seat and tried to look small and helpless. People could be ugly about trivial things. But the man who came to her window and peered inside the little car didn’t seem angry. He was a tall man with wide beige-clad shoulders, eyes hidden by dark glasses, and a face completely devoid of emotion. He stared at her for several seconds before speaking. She felt uncomfortable being scrutinized so closely by eyes she couldn’t see, and then he said, “Don’t apologize, lady. It was my fault. I was looking for a house number and pulled in front of your drive.”

  “Are the bumpers locked?” Dee asked.

  “No, there’s no damage. I’ll get out of your way.”

  But he didn’t move. He continued to stare at her with those annoying eyes until Mike became impatient.

  “We’ve got to go!” he cried. “My daddy said so!”

  There might have been a flicker of interest behind the dark glasses. Dee couldn’t be sure.

  “Your daddy?” he echoed. “Where is your daddy?”

  “My daddy’s at work!” Mike said.

  “Where did your daddy tell you to go?”

  “To the mountains. To Uncle Sam’s cabin in the mountains where we always go to fish. Mommy …”

  Mike began to bounce up and down on the rear seat, and that was what finally caused the man to leave. He smiled automatically, as if his lips were operated by a mechanism.

  “He’s a lively one,” he observed. “Okay, sonny, I’ll move my car.”

  Dee watched the man in the rear-view mirror. He walked back to a big Chrysler sedan—beige, like the color of his suit. He got inside the sedan and started the motor. She envied him the automatic shift when the car eased back along the curbing. The driveway cleared and she backed the convertible into the street and nosed it toward the mountains while Mike waved a gay good-bye out of the rear window. At the first intersection, she stopped and glanced in the rear-view mirror again. The Chrysler hadn’t moved. I was rude, she thought. I should have asked what house number he was looking for.

  Chapter Five

  At twenty minutes past twelve, forty minutes before Dee Walker encountered a stranger in her driveway, Charley Evans picked up the telephone on her desk and dialed a number from her private collection: Renée’s Beauty Salon. Renée, who had been just plain Mavis when they were in high school together, answered immediately.

  “Sweetie,” Charley said, “I have a big favor to ask. I know this is short notice and I haven’t been coming in regularly, but someone special’s coming in tomorrow—”

  “What time?” Renée sighed. “And I warn you, no fancy rinses. I won’t stay in this shop one minute after five for anyone!”

  “How about two-thirty?” Charley asked.

  Renée was incredulous. “This afternoon?”

  “This afternoon. I just got the rest of the day off. I’ll be free as soon as I get two letters in the mail. Can you find a spot for me?”

  Renée hesitated. “Are you sure you’re all right?” she asked. “You sound funny.”

  “Of course I’m all right! Well, maybe a little nervous. You know how I always said that a session under the dryer relaxes me.”

  And then Renée laughed. “If you’re that nervous, he must be special! Come in at two-thirty. I’ll take you myself.”

  Charley replaced the telephone in the cradle and sat for a moment with one hand held over her eyes. She heard Kyle’s door open behind her, straightened and faced him with a well-practiced smile. Kyle had showered and shaved. The bathroom in his office could refresh the outer man, but nothing could erase those tension lines. He now carried a black attaché and a narrow-brimmed straw hat, and his own smile was as forced as hers.

  “If any calls come in, make a list of them,” he said. “I think I did tell you to cancel my appointments.”

  “What about the Booster Club luncheon?” Charley asked.

  Kyle scowled. “Not today?” he asked hopefully.

  But it was today.

  “One-thirty at the Country Club—and you’d better be there because they’re honoring Sam.”

  Kyle was exceptionally
solemn. He knew Charley was studying him and trying to understand what was wrong. If it had been a slight matter—trouble with Dee or a problem concerning the job—they would have talked it out together. Years ago—during the difficult transitional period when he was battling his own misgivings and Dee’s periodic bouts of homesickness—Charley had been, for a brief time, more than just a secretary and a friend. She was adult about it. She never used it as a club to get a favor or a wedge to open a door he didn’t want to open. But there was still, on occasion, a fragment of mystery. A sense of an almost intimacy that belongs to two people who have once needed one another and still retain, intangibly, the best of it.

  But no one could share this trouble. There was too much at stake to risk human weakness.

  “Thanks for reminding me,” Kyle said. “And, Charley, have fun. Get your hair done—or something.”

  “You must be a mind reader,” Charley said. “Or do I look shaggy?”

  “You look wonderful. You always look wonderful.”

  Kyle stepped to the door.

  “Mr. Boss—”

  He looked back at Charley.

  “I wish I could say the same for you, but I can’t. You look terrible. Can’t you get the monkey off your back and get some rest? Take a trip somewhere.”

  “That’s what I’m planning to do,” Kyle said. “Just as soon as I possibly can.”

  He opened the door and stepped out into the hall. The electrician had completed his work and departed, and the speakers were emitting a silky Latin beat that reminded him, as he pressed the down button and waited at the elevator, of another kind of jazz accompaniment while he waited for another elevator five years ago. But that had been different: loud, savage, frenzied while the driving sound of rain held constant behind it. The elevator door opened and Kyle stepped inside. He pushed the lobby button and watched the doors glide shut. The cage began to move downward while that same silky music sifted from a concealed speaker. But it was the temple-block obbligato that Kyle heard. The elevator stopped and the doors opened silently. Kyle started to step out, but he couldn’t. An elevator was a box, and he had stood in that box once before. The imagery was too strong. He had to force it out of his mind before he could move.