True-Life Adventure

amusing. Only I used a lot of man-hours checking out those addresses you gave me, and that was taxpayers’ money. Maybe you think I’m a dumb cop, hotshot, but I take my job seriously. I can’t prove two people wouldn’t of got killed if you hadn’t played games with me, but I can prove I wasted a weekend checking out some phony lead for some two-bit intellectual. Next time I see your fat face I hope it’s smashed in about eight or ten places.”
    Two-bit intellectual! I wished he’d go back to “asshole”. I should’ve hung up then. There was no reasoning with that ape. But like a fool, I tried anyway: “It was an honest mistake, Howard.”
    “Like hell.”
    “I thought she’d be there, I swear to God.”
    “You know little Terry’s father, Jacob? He says the kid ain’t sick.”
    “The kid’s aunt says she is.”
    “The kid’s aunt’s a loony.”
    Joan might be at that. She certainly had been. She still changed moods a lot faster than the average person and sometimes she displayed what the shrinks call “inappropriate affect.” But even if she was a loony, what reason would she have to make up a story about Terry’s fatal illness? To throw us off the track, so we’d waste time looking for Lindsay in the wrong place? In that case, why not tell the police instead of me? I didn’t get it, and that made me cross. But since I was a two-bit intellectual, my finely tuned wit was in no way affected by my mood. I handled Blick as brilliantly as always.
    “Takes one to know one,” I said. And hung up.
    I tried calling Jacob again. He still wasn’t in. I asked when he would be. I might as well not have bothered.
    The hell with it. I’d go there and wait for him. Unless he was sick— in which case he’d be home, which he wasn’t— he was bound to turn up soon. He was probably at the dentist’s or something.
    So I got in my small, light-colored car, drove to Emeryville, and stormed Kogene.
    “Is Jacob in?” I asked, using his first name like we were tennis partners.
    “Sorry, he’s not,” said the receptionist. “I don’t know if he’s coming in or not.”
    “Isn’t that sort of unusual? I mean, I thought he came in every day.”
    She shrugged. “Dr. Koehler does pretty well what he pleases.”
    “I think I’ll wait awhile if you don’t mind. See if he turns up.”
    “Of course. Can I get you some coffee?”
    I said yes and she disappeared and came back with it. She seemed a nice lady. Probably she was the one who’d brought in the stack of elderly Reader’s Digests that were all there were to read.
    Within, say, half an hour, I knew a new way to lose weight, a half dozen new jokes, and some interesting facts about teenage alcoholics. It was stimulating, but I had a murderer to catch. Maybe Steve or Marilyn would know where Jacob was.
    I asked if I could see Steve.
    “Mr. Koehler is in a meeting,” she said, looking infinitely regretful.
    “How about Marilyn?”
    “I’ll see.” Again she got up and walked out.
    She came back more regretful still. “Dr. Markham is in the same meeting.”
    I stuck it out for about another half hour. Then I had the nice lady check to see if the meeting was over, which it wasn’t. So I told her I’d give Jacob a ring and I left.
    I’m just not good at waiting. There’s something about it that makes my muscles tense up and gives me a headache and generally makes me want to chew up a few sets of crockery. So maybe I pulled out of my parking place and drove towards San Pablo Avenue a little more carelessly than I should have and a good deal faster than the law allows. It was tempting because there were no other cars on the street. Emeryville’s like that— sometimes completely deserted, sometimes crawling with mile-high semis. Right now it was deserted and I took advantage of it.
    Park, the street I was on, dead-ended at San Pablo, where there was a traffic light. The fact that it was green probably saved my life. Because when I braked to turn onto San Pablo, nothing happened. That is, nothing I wanted to happen happened. I neither stopped nor started, for I had no brakes. I jerked the emergency brake. It offered no resistance and no comfort. I started taking that turn a lot faster than seemed sensible if I wanted the car to remain on four wheels, so I rethought it, took lightning action, and found myself headed for one of Emeryville’s more venerable poker parlors. I realized I probably wasn’t going to hit it, though. I’d probably