Night Freight

"Very fu

"Art Vickery, if it matters."

"It doesn't, except that I like to know who I'm letting inside my house."

"I like to know whose house I'm going into," Vickery said.

Ha

The creek wound away to the right after fifty yards, into a tangle of scrub brush, sage, and tule grass; to the left and straight ahead were low rolling sand dunes, and behind them the earth became hard-packed and rose sharply into the bluff on which the house had been built. Ha

They were halfway up the winding path before the house itself loomed into view—a huge redwood-and-glass structure with a balcony facing the sea. The path ended at a terraced patio, and there were wooden steps at the far end that led up alongside the house.

When they reached the steps Ha

At the top, in front of the house, was a parking area and a small garden. The access road that came in from the Coast Highway and the highway itself were invisible in the misty darkness. The light over the door burned dully, and as Vickery moved toward it Ha

He was about to tell Vickery that the door was unlocked and to go on in when another man came out of the fog.

Ha

Vickery had seen him by this time and he was up on the balls of his feet again, nervously watchful. The third man halted opposite the door and looked back and forth between Ha

"I am," Ha

"Lieutenant McLain, Highway Patrol. You been here all evening, Mr. Ha

"Yes."

"No trouble of any kind?"

"No. Why?"

"We're looking for a man who escaped from the hospital at Tescadero this afternoon," McLain said. "Maybe you've heard about that?"

Ha

"Well, I don't want to alarm you, but we've had word that he may be in this vicinity."

Ha

"If you're with the Highway Patrol," Vickery said to McLain, "how come you're not in uniform?"

"I'm in Investigation. Plainclothes."

"Why would you be on foot? And alone? I thought the police always traveled in pairs."

McLain frowned and studied Vickery for a long moment, penetratingly. His eyes were wide and dark and did not blink much. At length he said, "I'm alone because we've had to spread ourselves thin in order to cover this whole area, and I'm on foot because my damned car came up with a broken fan belt. I radioed for assistance, and then I came down here because I didn't see any sense in sitting around waiting and doing nothing."

Ha

Vickery said, "You mind if we see some identification?"

McLain took his hand away from his hip and produced a leather folder from his inside jacket pocket. He held it out so Ha

The folder corroborated what McLain had told them about himself; but it did not contain a picture of him. Vickery said nothing.

Ha

"None that will do us any good. He destroyed his file before he escaped from the asylum, and he's been in there sixteen years. The only pictures we could dig up are so old, and he's apparently changed so much, the people at Tescadero tell us there's almost no likeness anymore."

"What about a description?"

"Big, dark-haired, regular features, no deformities or identifying marks. That could fit any one of a hundred thousand men or more in Northern California."

"It could fit any of the three of us," Vickery said.

McLain studied him again. "That's right, it could."

"Is there anything else about him?" Ha

"The people at the hospital say yes."

"That makes it even worse, doesn't it?"

"You bet it does," McLain said. He rubbed his hands together briskly. "Look, why don't we talk inside? It's pretty cold out here."

Ha

He said, "I guess so. The door's open."

For a moment all three of them stood motionless, McLain still watching Vickery intently. Vickery had begun to fidget under the scrutiny. Finally, since he was closest to the door, he jerked his head away, opened it, and went in sideways, the same way he had climbed the steps from the patio. McLain kept on waiting, which left Ha

The three of them went down the short hallway into the big beam-ceilinged family room. McLain glanced around at the fieldstone fireplace, the good reproductions on the walls, the tasteful modern furnishings. "Nice place," he said. "You live here alone, Mr. Ha

"No, with my wife."

"Is she here now?"

"She's in Vegas. She likes to gamble and I don't."

"I see."

"Can I get you something? A drink?"

"Thanks, no. Nothing while I'm on duty."

"I wouldn't mind having one," Vickery said. He was still fidgeting because McLain was still watching him and had been the entire time he was talking to Ha

Near the picture window that took up the entire wall facing the ocean was a leather-topped standing bar; Ha

"I didn't get your name," McLain said to Vickery.

"Art Vickery. Look, why do you keep staring at me?"

McLain ignored that. "You a friend of Mr. Ha

"No," Ha

McLain's eyes glittered. "Is that right?" he said. "Then you don't live around here, Mr. Vickery?"