it.”
“If you do see Anne, you’ll let me know right away?”
I promised her that I would, and drove back into the city.
CHAPTER 8 :
Bougainvillea Court was guarded by
a pair of date palms which stood like unkempt sentries on either side of its entrance. When I left my car, a heavy-bodied rat crossed the sidewalk in front of me and scampered up one of the palm trunks. A pockmarked concrete cherub presided over a dry fountain in the center of the court. Each of the eight cottages surrounding it had a small front porch overgrown with purple-flowering bougainvillea. There were lights and music in most of them, but not in number three.
The door opened when I touched it. I switched on my pocket flashlight. The edge of the door was grooved and splintered around the lock. I stepped inside and closed it with my elbow. Six days missing, I thought, and sniffed instinctively for the smell of death. But all I could sense were the stale odors of life: old cigarette smoke, mixed drinks, heavy perfume, the musky indescribable odor of sex.
My light picked walls and furniture out of the darkness. There were brown Gauguin nudes on the walls and big-hatted Lautrec tarts in light wood frames; a false fireplace containing a cold gas heater, a small bookcase, spilling paperbacks, a bird’s-eye maple secretary, a rattan portable bar, and a sectional davenport covered in zebra stripes, which looked both new and expensive.
The secretary was hanging open, the bolt of its flimsy lock bent out of shape. Its drawers were stuffed with papers and envelopes. The topmost envelope was addressed to Miss Anne Meyer in a masculine hand. It was empty.
A curtained archway led through a short hall to the bedroom and bathroom. The bedroom was small and feminine. The vanity and the Hollywood bed had yellow organdie skirts that matched the curtains. The closet was full of clothes—sports clothes, business suits, a couple of evening dresses, lightly scented with sachet.
It was impossible to tell if anything was missing, but there were gaps in the shoe-stand. The bed was carelessly made, and there was a rumpled depression on one side where someone had sat. A white-gold wristwatch studded with small diamonds lay on the bedside table.
There was nothing under the bed; nothing of special interest in the chest of drawers, except to underwear fetishists. Anne Meyer had spend a lot of money on underwear.
I entered the bathroom, closed the Venetian blind over the little high window, and switched on the light. Nylons were strung on the towel racks over the tub. I opened the medicine cabinet above the sink. It contained the usual clutter of bottles and boxes. One cardboard box half full of blue-banded capsules was prescribed: “To be taken when needed for rest and sleep.”
Shutting the mirrored door, I saw my face through the tiny snowstorm of toothpaste specks on the glass. My face was pale, my eyes narrow and hard with curiosity. I thought of the palm rat running in his shadow on the sidewalk. He lived by his wits in darkness, gnawed human leavings, listened behind walls for the sounds of danger. I liked the palm rat better when I thought of him, and myself less.
Radio music from the next cottage came loud and insistent through the closed and blinded window.
Baby, won’t you please come home?
There was no toothbrush in the holder beside the sink. I went back to the vanity in the bedroom. Certain things were missing that probably should have been there: lipstick, powder, face cream, eyebrow pencil. But there were tweezers and a razor.
I returned to the front room and went through the drawers of the secretary. There was nothing personal left in them,though bills and business letters were undisturbed. A half-used checkbook showed a balance of over nineteen hundred dollars. The last stub recorded a payment of one hundred and forty-three dollars and thirty cents to Mademoiselle Finery, on October 7, eight days ago.
The pigeonholes were stuffed with
“If you do see Anne, you’ll let me know right away?”
I promised her that I would, and drove back into the city.
CHAPTER 8 :
Bougainvillea Court was guarded by
a pair of date palms which stood like unkempt sentries on either side of its entrance. When I left my car, a heavy-bodied rat crossed the sidewalk in front of me and scampered up one of the palm trunks. A pockmarked concrete cherub presided over a dry fountain in the center of the court. Each of the eight cottages surrounding it had a small front porch overgrown with purple-flowering bougainvillea. There were lights and music in most of them, but not in number three.
The door opened when I touched it. I switched on my pocket flashlight. The edge of the door was grooved and splintered around the lock. I stepped inside and closed it with my elbow. Six days missing, I thought, and sniffed instinctively for the smell of death. But all I could sense were the stale odors of life: old cigarette smoke, mixed drinks, heavy perfume, the musky indescribable odor of sex.
My light picked walls and furniture out of the darkness. There were brown Gauguin nudes on the walls and big-hatted Lautrec tarts in light wood frames; a false fireplace containing a cold gas heater, a small bookcase, spilling paperbacks, a bird’s-eye maple secretary, a rattan portable bar, and a sectional davenport covered in zebra stripes, which looked both new and expensive.
The secretary was hanging open, the bolt of its flimsy lock bent out of shape. Its drawers were stuffed with papers and envelopes. The topmost envelope was addressed to Miss Anne Meyer in a masculine hand. It was empty.
A curtained archway led through a short hall to the bedroom and bathroom. The bedroom was small and feminine. The vanity and the Hollywood bed had yellow organdie skirts that matched the curtains. The closet was full of clothes—sports clothes, business suits, a couple of evening dresses, lightly scented with sachet.
It was impossible to tell if anything was missing, but there were gaps in the shoe-stand. The bed was carelessly made, and there was a rumpled depression on one side where someone had sat. A white-gold wristwatch studded with small diamonds lay on the bedside table.
There was nothing under the bed; nothing of special interest in the chest of drawers, except to underwear fetishists. Anne Meyer had spend a lot of money on underwear.
I entered the bathroom, closed the Venetian blind over the little high window, and switched on the light. Nylons were strung on the towel racks over the tub. I opened the medicine cabinet above the sink. It contained the usual clutter of bottles and boxes. One cardboard box half full of blue-banded capsules was prescribed: “To be taken when needed for rest and sleep.”
Shutting the mirrored door, I saw my face through the tiny snowstorm of toothpaste specks on the glass. My face was pale, my eyes narrow and hard with curiosity. I thought of the palm rat running in his shadow on the sidewalk. He lived by his wits in darkness, gnawed human leavings, listened behind walls for the sounds of danger. I liked the palm rat better when I thought of him, and myself less.
Radio music from the next cottage came loud and insistent through the closed and blinded window.
Baby, won’t you please come home?
There was no toothbrush in the holder beside the sink. I went back to the vanity in the bedroom. Certain things were missing that probably should have been there: lipstick, powder, face cream, eyebrow pencil. But there were tweezers and a razor.
I returned to the front room and went through the drawers of the secretary. There was nothing personal left in them,though bills and business letters were undisturbed. A half-used checkbook showed a balance of over nineteen hundred dollars. The last stub recorded a payment of one hundred and forty-three dollars and thirty cents to Mademoiselle Finery, on October 7, eight days ago.
The pigeonholes were stuffed with
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