Blowback(25)

When I got to the intersection with the road that ran through The Pines, I had to wait for a string of slow-moving cars to pass. And while I was sitting there I became aware of the property directly across the way-a weathered frame house set behind a long split-rail fence; I had noticed it before, coming and going, but without paying any attention to it. In the yard, I saw now, were half a dozen apple trees and an elderly woman wearing a bandanna over her head and working on one of the trees with a small battery-powered saw. But that was not all. Swaggering along the inside of the fence, tail feathers spread in bright magisterial fans, were two fat long-necked birds.

Peacocks.

After the last of the cars had gone past, on impulse, I drove across the road in a wide turn and parked on the shoulder parallel to the fence. I got out and went over and leaned on the top rail, looking at the birds. Neither of them looked back. Thirty feet away on the hard-packed earth a single feather lay glistening iridescently in the sunlight.

Beside the apple tree, the woman had shut off the saw and was standing with a hand shading her eyes, peering in my direction. After a moment she came over to where I was in a long-legged masculine stride. She was in her sixties, sharp-featured and thin-mouthed, all bone and gristle.

“Hello,” she said warily.

“Hello.”

“Something I can do for you?”

“I was just admiring the peacocks.”

“Them? Nasty strutting parasites.”

“If you feel that way, why do you keep them?”

“My late husband fancied 'em.” She smiled without humor. “Come to think of it, they had plenty in common. He was kind of a nasty strutting parasite himself.”

“Do you sell their feathers?”

That got me a narrow look. “What for?”

“Well, some people use them for home decoration.”

“Do they?”

“I think so. Like cattails or pampas grass.”

“You want to buy some?”

“No. I was just wondering if you'd sold any recently.”

“To who?”

“To anyone.”

“I got better things to do than sell peacock feathers.”

I glanced again at the single dropped feather. More to myself than to her I said, “I guess it'd be easy enough for someone to stop and pick a few up. Just reach through or climb over when there was nobody around.”

“You think so, do you?”

“It's possible.”

“Well, you just get that idea right out of your head, mister. I got dogs too. Mean dogs.”

I smiled a little. “Don't worry. I haven't got any plans along those lines.”

“No?”

“No. Sorry to have bothered you, ma'am.”

“Tourists,” the woman said, and stalked off.

I got back into the car. Probably nothing in it, I thought. Why would hijackers or potential murderers take the time to gather peacock feathers? Still, it was an angle, and worth mentioning to Cloudman.





Nine




In the village I found a parking place half a block from The Pines Hotel and made my way back to it along crowded sidewalks. The lobby was dark and mercifully cool, with pegged floors and Victorian furnishings and the largest antique roll-top I had ever seen in a corner behind the hotel desk. Through a rectangular doorway on the left I could see part of a long, narrow bar; a sign above the doorway said in old-style lettering: Gold Rush Room. Clever.

The guy on the desk wore a Western shirt, complete with green sleeve garters, and an air of professional hospitality. I asked him for the number of Charles Kayabalian's room, and he said he would see if Mr. Kayabalian was in and whom should he say was inquiring. When I said my name he smiled as if pleased by the sound of it and went to a small switchboard and plugged in. I heard him announce me; then he listened, said “Yes sir,” turned and indicated an extension phone on the counter. So I picked up the receiver on that, thinking that the attitude of The Pines Hotel was more big-city than old-fashioned Mother Lode. I could have gotten in to see the mayor of San Francisco with less ceremony.

“Mr. Kayabalian?”

One of those deep Melvin Belli voices said, “Yes. Thank you for coming. But you've caught me just out of a shower; can you give me ten minutes?”

“Sure.”

“I'll meet you in the bar if you like.”

“Fine. I'm wearing slacks and a blue knit shirt.”

“Ten minutes,” he said.

I hung up and went over through the rectangle into the bar. The walls were decorated with a lot of gold-rush paraphernalia and memorabilia: sluice pans, hand picks, a red miner's shirt tacked up like a crucifix, kerosene lanterns on iron brackets, frontier handguns in glass cases, old photographs and claim deeds and maps, a wooden grave marker with the inscription Here Lies a Lady Named Charlotte, Born a Virgin and Died a Harlot which may or may not have been authentic. There were three high-backed redwood booths along one wall, only one of which was occupied by two men working on tall glasses of draft beer. The bar itself was deserted except for a man down at the far end, and I was ten paces inside before I realized that I knew him.