Goodbye California - Alistair [74]
‘Damn your eyes. Anyway, nice to see someone’s been busy around here.’ He extracted the passport, flipped through the pages and passed it to Ryder. ‘And damn your eyes again.’
‘Intuition. The hallmark of the better-class detective.’ Ryder went through the pages, more slowly than Dunne. ‘Intriguing. Covers fourteen out of the fifteen months when he seemed to have vanished. A bad case of wander-bug infection. Did get around in that time, didn’t he? Los Angeles, London, New Delhi, Singapore, Manila, Hong Kong, Manila again, Singapore, Manila yet again, Tokyo, Los Angeles.’ He passed the passport to Jeff. ‘Fallen in love with the mysterious East, it would seem. Especially the Philippines.’
Dunne said: ‘Make anything of it?’
‘Not a thing. Maybe I did have some sleep but it wasn’t much. Mind seems to have gone to sleep. That’s what we need, my mind and myself – sleep. Maybe when I wake I’ll have a flash of inspiration. Wouldn’t bet on it, though.’
He dropped Jeff outside the latter’s house. ‘Sleep?’
‘Straight to bed.’
‘First one awake calls the other. Okay?’
Jeff nodded and went inside – but he didn’t go straight to bed. He went to the bay-fronted window of his living-room and looked up the street. From there he had an excellent view of the short driveway leading to his father’s house.
Ryder didn’t head for bed either. He dialled the station house and asked for Sergeant Parker. He got through at once.
‘Dave? No ifs, no buts. Meet me at Delmino’s in ten minutes.’ He went to the gas fire, tilted it forwards, lifted out a polythene-covered green folder, went to the garage, pushed the folder under the Peugeot back seat, climbed in behind the wheel and backed the car down the driveway and into the road. Jeff moved as soon as he saw the rear of the car appearing, ran to his garage, started the engine and waited until Ryder’s car had passed by. He followed.
Ryder appeared to be in a tearing hurry. Halfway towards the first intersection he was doing close on seventy, a speed normally unacceptable in a 3 5 mph limit, but there wasn’t a policeman in town who didn’t know that battered machine and its occupant and would ever have been so incredibly foolish as to detain Sergeant Ryder when he was going about his lawful occasions. Ryder got through the lights on the green but Jeff caught the red. He was still there when he saw the Peugeot go through the next set of lights. By the time Jeff got to the next set they too had turned to red. When he did cross the intersection the Peugeot had vanished. Jeff cursed, pulled over, parked and pondered.
Parker was in his usual booth in Delmino’s when Ryder arrived. He was drinking a Scotch and had one ready for Ryder who remembered that he’d had nothing to eat so far that day. It didn’t, however, affect the taste of the Scotch.
Ryder said without preamble: ‘Where’s Fatso?’
‘Suffering from the vapours, I’m glad to say. At home with a bad headache.’
‘Shouldn’t be surprised. Very hard thing, the butt of a ‘thirty-eight. Maybe I hit him harder than I thought. Enjoyed it at the time, though. Twenty minutes from now he’s going to feel a hell of a sight more fragile. Thanks. I’m off.’
‘Wait a minute, wait a minute. You clobbered Donahure. Tell me.’
Briefly and impatiently, Ryder told him. Parker was suitably impressed.
‘Ten thousand bucks. Two Russian rifles. And this dossier you have on him. You have the goods on him all right – our ex-Chief of Police. But look, John, there’s a limit to how far you can go on taking the law into your own hands.’
‘There’s no limit.’ Ryder put his hand on Parker’s. ‘Dave, they’ve got Peggy.’
There was a momentary incomprehension then Parker’s eyes went very cold. Peggy had first sat on his knees at the age of four and had sat there at regular intervals ever since, always with the mischievously disconcerting habit of putting her elbow on his shoulder, her chin on her palm and peering at him from a distance of six inches. Fourteen years later, dark, lovely and mischievous as ever, it was a habit she had still