“Bullshit,” he said.
“You don't seem to understand. This isn't an archeological expedition anymore, it isn't a simple search for the motive in your father's suicide. It's a homicide case now.”
“I don't give a damn,” he said.
“Is that what you're going to say to Sergeant DeKalb when he shows up?”
“To hell with Sergeant DeKalb. If he wants to arrest me for any reason, let him. I don't care. That's what you don't seem to understand. I don't care who killed Bertolucci, I don't care who killed his slut of a wife or why, I don't care about any of it anymore.”
“Why not? Just because your father wasn't the kind of man you thought he was?”
No answer. Kiskadon wasn't looking at me either, now. He reached for the canister of tobacco on the table and methodically began to load the bowl of his pipe.
I glanced around at Lynn Kiskadon. Her expression was pleading, helpless; her eyes said, You see? You see?
I saw, all right. But there wasn't anything I could do about it, not for him and not for her. What could I do? I was no head doctor; I didn't know the first thing about dealing with the kinds of neuroses running around inside Kiskadon's skull. I was fortunate if I could deal with the ones inside my own.
Kiskadon struck a kitchen match and lit his pipe. When he had it drawing he said, still without looking at me, “I appreciate all you've done, but I won't need your services any longer. Send me a bill for the balance of what I owe you. Or I can write you a check right now if you'd prefer it that way.”
Nothing to say to that except, “Have it your way, Mr. Kiskadon. I'll send you a bill.” Nothing to do then except to turn and walk out of there, avoiding Mrs. Kiskadon's eyes. And nothing to do after that except to feel twice as shitty and twice as frustrated on the drive back home.
EIGHTEEN
T
en minutes after I came into my flat, just as I was about to call Kerry, the telephone rang. I picked up the receiver and said hello, and there was a wheezing intake of breath followed by a series of fitful coughs. So I knew it was Stephen Porter even before he identified himself.
“That box of Harmon Crane's papers I told you about,” he said, panting a little. “I finally found it. It was in the basement, just as I thought, but hidden at the bottom of Adam's old steamer trunk.”
“Anything among the papers that might help me?”
“Well, I really can't say. Most of them are manuscript carbons. There are some letters written to Harmon, and some by him, but they seem mostly to be business-related. Of course—” He coughed again. “Of course, I haven't read everything. Perhaps you'll be able to find something useful.”
“Perhaps. When can I have a look at them?”
“Right away, if you like. I'd drop the box off to you, but I have a student coming at noon.…”
“No, no, I'll come by your studio. Half an hour okay?”
“Yes, fine. I'll be”—more coughing—” I'll be here.”
I postponed the call to Kerry and started immediately for North Beach. The weather was better over there and the tourists and Saturday slummers were out in full force; there was no way I was going to find legal street parking. And the nearest garage to Porter's place was blocks away. So I parked in a bus zone down the street from his building, the hell with it.
Porter was wearing the same green smock and the same red bow tie, or at least identical twins to the ones he'd had on the last time I was here: both were spotted with dried clay. He had a cigarette burning in one hand and what breath he had left made burbling noises in his nose and throat.
The box was on one of the clay-smeared worktables, cardboard and largish; the papers jammed into it looked to be mostly yellow foolscap. I asked Porter if he wanted me to sort through them here, and he said, “No, you can take the box with you,” and then lapsed into a coughing fit so severe it bent him double and turned his face an apoplectic beet red. I wanted to do something for him but there wasn't anything to do. I just stood there, feeling helpless, until he got his breath back.
“One of my bad days,” he said. “Damned emphysema.”
Damned cigarettes, I thought.
I carried the box to the studio door. Porter went with me, firing up another Camel on the way. Walking dead man, I thought then. And tried not to let him see the pity I felt when I said good-bye.
Manuscript carbons. Handwritten notes. Typed fragments and unfinished stories. Letters from Crane's New York agent and from the editors of various book and magazine publishers. Carbons of letters from Crane to those same individuals. A few personal letters addressed to Crane. Carbons of his responses and some other personal correspondence. Most of his papers, it seemed, from 1942 until the time of his death.