Bones(45)

“I could use an update on those bones and the other stuff from the fissure. I'm not sure he'd give it to me.”

“But you think he might give it to me.”

“He might. You mind calling him?”

“Shit,” he said, but he reached for his phone just the same.

I got out the Yellow Pages and looked up Professional Organizations. No listing for cartographers, not that that was very surprising. So then I looked up the number for the big Rand McNally store downtown, Rand McNally being the largest map company around, and dialed it and asked to speak to somebody who could help me with a question about cartographers. A guy came on after a time, and I asked him if there was a professional organization for map-makers, and he said there was—The American Society of Cartographers—and gave me a local number to call. I also asked him if he knew a cartographer named Ellen Corneal, but he had never heard of her.

When I dialed the number the Rand McNally guy had given me, an old man with a shaky voice answered and said that yes, he was a member of the American Society of Cartographers and had been for forty-four years; he sounded ancient enough to have been a member for sixty-four years. I asked him if he knew a cartographer named Ellen Corneal who had graduated from Cal in 1938.

“Corneal, Corneal,” he said. “Name's familiar … yes, but I can't quite place it. Hold on a minute, young man.”

Young man, I thought, and smiled. The smile made Eberhardt, who was off the phone now and watching me again, scowl all the harder.

The old guy came back on the line. “Yes, yes,” he said, “I thought I recognized the name. Ellen Corneal Brown.”

“Sir?”

“Her married name. Brown. Her husband is Randolph Brown.”

“Also a cartographer?”

“Well, of course. The man is quite well known.”

“Yes, sir. Do you know if she's still alive?”

“Eh? Alive? Of course she is. At least, she paid her dues this year.”

“Can you tell me where she lives?”

“No, no, can't do that. Privileged information.”

“But she does reside in the Bay Area?”

“I'm sorry, young man.”

“Would you at least give me a number where I can reach her?”

“Why? What do you want with her?”

I told him I was a writer doing a free-lance article on map-making, emphasis on women cartographers. That satisfied him; he gave me the number. No area code, which made it local. And from the first three numbers, it sounded like a Peninsula location—San Bruno, Millbrae, maybe Burlingame.

Eberhardt said when I hung up, “DeKalb's out somewhere and won't be back until after one. I'll call him back.”

“Thanks, Eb.”

“Goddamn flunky, that's all I am around here. Take messages, call up people, type reports. Might as well be your frigging secretary.”

“You'd look lousy in a dress,” I said.

“Funny,” he said.

“Who wants a secretary with hairy legs?”

“Hilarious,” he said. “See how I'm laughing?”

I dialed Ellen Corneal Brown's number. A woman answered, elderly but not anywhere near as shaky as the society representative, and admitted to being Ellen Corneal Brown. I told her how I'd gotten her number and asked if she was the Ellen Corneal who had graduated from UC in 1938. She said she was. I asked if I might stop by and interview her as part of a project involving her past history—not lying to her but letting her make the assumption that it was her past history in the field of cartography that I was interested in. She wasn't the overly suspicious type, at least not without sufficient cause. She said yes, she supposed she could let me have a few minutes this afternoon, would two o'clock be all right? Two o'clock would be fine, I said, and she gave me an address on Red Ridge Road in the Millbrae hills, and that was all there was to it. It happens that way sometimes. Days when things fall into place without much effort and hardly any snags.

But not very often.

I finished my coffee and got on my feet. “I think I'll go get some lunch,” I said to Eberhardt. “You want to join me?”

“No. I'm not hungry.”

“Late breakfast?”

“I'm just not hungry. Why don't you go eat with Kerry?”

“She's got a business lunch today.”

“Big agency client, huh?”

“Reasonably big.”

“Well, I hope she doesn't get drunk and decide to dump a bowl of spaghetti over his head.”

I didn't respond to that.

“That was a goddamn lousy thing she did the other night, you know that?” he said.

“You change your mind, Eb?”

“About what?”

“Talking out what happened at Il Roccaforte?”