Stardust

“I’m working on a case involving Jill Joyce,” I said. “I understand you’re her father.”

“From whom?” he said. Whom.

“Several sources,” I said. “May I come in?” Zabriskie hesitated a moment, then backed away from the door and nodded for me to enter.

The apartment was neat. The lace curtains stirring listlessly in the faint-hearted air from the open window were white. There was a living room, a kitchenette, and a bedroom. Through a door that was partially ajar, I could see the hospital corner of a neatly made bed. In the living room was a couch with plaid upholstery and wooden arms. A chair matched it. There was a foot locker in front of the couch with some magazines in a neat pile, and a small lace doily. Clean dishes rested in the drainer on the counter next to the kitchen, sink.

I sat in the plaid chair. My shirt was soaked through and my jacket was nearly so. If I didn’t find air conditioning soon my gun would rust.

“So why have you come to see me,” Zabriskie said carefully.

“I’d like to talk with you about your daughter.”

“No,” he said. “Don’t speak of her that way. Call her Jill Joyce.”

“Why?” I said.

“Because I wish it so,” he said.

“Besides that,” I said.

“She never speaks of me as her father,” he said.

“You left when she was pretty young,” I said.

“I left her mother,” Zabriskie said. “Any man would have.”

“You stay in touch with Jill?”

“I tried. Her mother interfered. After a time I stopped trying. But I was always there for her.”

“Did she know that?”

He shrugged. Hot as it was there was no sweat on him.

“A father is available to his child,” he said.

“Though the child may not necessarily know that,” I said.

“I am here for her now,” he said.

“You ever see her?” I said.

“I see her often,” Zabriskie said. “On the television.”

“Does she ever see you?” I said.

“No.”

Zabriskie sat perfectly still.

“When’s the last time she saw you?” I said.

“Nineteen fifty-five,” he said.

“She would have been how old?”

“She was four. It was her fourth birthday. I gave her a present-a stuffed cat-and I kissed her on the forehead and said good-bye and left.”

“And you haven’t, ah, she hasn’t seen you since.”

“No,” Zabriskie said.

“But you’ve been there for her if she needed you, all this time?”

“Yes,” Zabriskie said.

I wiped my forehead with the back of my hand. It didn’t clear the sweat but it smeared it around for a moment.

“Did you remarry?” I said.

“Yes,” Zabriskie said. He smiled. “Three more wives,” he said.

“You don’t have any idea why someone would wish to hurt her?”

“Jill?”

“Yes.”

“No. Jill is a lovely girl, and very successful.”

I nodded. I rolled my lower lip over my upper one. It wasn’t much but it was all I could think of to do.

“Still married?” I said.

“Not at the moment,” Zabriskie said.

I did my trick with the lower lip again. Spenser, master interrogator, never at a loss.

“Okay,” I said. “Well, thanks a lot, Mr. Zabriskie.”

I stood up.

“You’re welcome,” Zabriskie said. He stood up. I walked to the door and opened it. I smiled at him. He smiled at me. Serenely. I went out. He closed the door.

Chapter 28

I STOOD in Forest Lawn Cemetery and looked down I at the marker. Candace Sloan, it said. B. 1950 D. 1981. The headstones stretched out around me in all directions, measuring the green sweep of the hillside. Behind me the rental car was parked on the drive. My suitcase was in it with the big red letters spelling ADIDAS On the side. In an hour and a half I’d be flying to Boston. In six or seven hours I’d be with Susan.

There were flowers at many of the grave sites. And there were a few other people looking at gravestones the way I was. The only sound was the swish of the water sprinklers as they arched repetitiously over the green grass; and, more distantly, the sound of traffic on the Ventura Freeway; and, over all, the hard silence-made more resounding by the hints of punctuation.

I could feel the high hot California sun on the back of my neck as I stood with my hands in my hip pockets staring down at Candy’s grave. I hadn’t been there for the funeral. The last time I’d seen her was in a degenerating oil field, faceup in a hard rain with the blood washing pinkish off her face.

I pursed my lips a little.

Above us the sky was bright blue. There were a few white clouds and they were moving very lazily west toward the Pacific. Some sort of bird chittered somewhere. On the freeway a truck shifted gears on a grade. Still I stared down at the grass in front of the headstone. She wasn’t there. Whatever there was of her there didn’t matter. She probably wasn’t anywhere. I looked up and back, toward the Valley and beyond the Valley, toward the mountains. There wasn’t any smog today, and the snowcaps on some of the highest peaks were clear to see, white above the clay color of the mountains.

None of the stuff that anyone had ever written seemed useful. I had nothing much to offer either. The bird chittered again. Above me the clouds drifted west, and the sun imperceptibly followed. The sky stayed blue, the earth below stayed green. I looked again briefly at the gravestone and blew out my breath once, and turned and walked back toward my rental car.

“Some bodyguard,” I said, and even though I spoke softly, my voice sounded very loud in the still burial ground and the words seemed to hang there as I drove away.

Chapter 29

REALITY again. Outside Quirk’s office, looking down into an alley off Stanhope Street, the temperature was maybe fifteen. The grime-streaked snow was packed like concrete in the rutted areas where the plows couldn’t get because there were always cars. Inside Quirk’s office was Marty Riggs, the big executive- from Zenith Meridien. He had hung up his long scarf. He was holding forth intensely to an audience composed of Quirk; me; Sandy Salzman; Milo Nogarian, the executive producer; Herb Brodkey, a lawyer for Zenith; and Morris Callahan, a lawyer for the network.

“Who the hell was guarding her?” Riggs said. He was every inch the captain of a damaged ship, angry and indomitable in the face of near disaster.

“Spenser assured us the guy was very good,” Salzman said.

I looked at Quirk. His face was expressionless. He was carefully looking at a paper clip, manipulating it in his fingers, apparently trying to straighten it out with only one hand.

“Well, where is he? He’s so good, why isn’t he here?”

Quirk glanced at me and smiled faintly. Riggs saw him.

“Something amusing you, Lieutenant?”

“Whether Hawk’s good enough hasn’t got anything to do with whether Hawk’s here, if you see what I mean. It’s, you might say, ah…” He revolved his hand at me to fill in.

“Non sequitur,” I said.

“Don’t get cute with me, Lieutenant. This is your case and so far you haven’t shown me anything.”

“Actually, Mr. Riggs, it’s not my case. You asked for this meeting, and being a courteous person and a dedicated public servant, I agreed. But my case is who killed your stunt woman. What happened to your star is missing persons-unless she turns up dead.”

“Bureaucracy,” Riggs said. “Herb, I told you we should have arranged a meeting with the commissioner.”

Brodkey looked like Fernando Lamas. He had a rich tan and his nails gleamed. He had probably last been in criminal court when they indicted Fatty Arbucklc. He made a placating gesture at Riggs.

“I understand you’ve interviewed the bodyguard,” Brodkey said.

“Sergeant Belson did,” Quirk said. “He knows Hawk. It’s easier that way.”

“Is this man getting special treatment?” Riggs snapped.