Free Deadfall (Nameless Detective) by Bill Pronzini Page A

the main cable car line between downtown and Fisherman’s Wharf. I made my way up to Post Street, and along there until I found the Summerhayes Gallery—one of dozens of art galleries of different types in the area.
    It didn’t look like much from outside, just a narrow storefront with drapery covering its one window and discreet gold lettering on the glass; but you only needed one good look around the interior to know that this was a high-class place. The floor was parquet, polished to a high gloss, and there was nothing on it except half a dozen Plexiglas cubes, a couple of the smaller ones on pedestals, and glass-fronted and -topped display cases along two walls. The other wall, on my right, had a closed door in its middle. The only decoration was a big tapestry—Turkish, maybe —that hung above the display case directly opposite the entrance. There weren’t any paintings in sight; it was not that kind of gallery. There weren’t any people in sight, either, but I doubted if I would be allowed to remain alone for very long. A little tinkly bell had announced my arrival.
    I wandered a little, looking at what was in the cubes and display cases. Antique boxes, some enameled and some bejeweled and some fashioned of mother-of-pearl. Carved ivory flower arrangements. Exotic paperweights made out of crystal, ivory, intricate patterned glass. Porcelain eggs. A small selection of snuff bottles and boxes, all of curious design, some that looked hand-painted and some that had scenes engraved on their surfaces. Much of the stuff appeared to be Oriental or Far Eastern in origin, with China being the predominant supplier.
    I was peering at something I took to be an incense burner—a big bronze elephant that seemed to have a camel’s hump on its back and that also seemed to be trying to goose itself with its trunk —when the woman’s voice said, “May I help you?” about two feet away.
    It made me jump a little because I hadn’t heard her approach; she walked softly for a big woman. And big she was: a fiftyish gray-blonde at least six feet tall, with wide hips and a substantial chest encased in a cream-colored designer suit and a mauve blouse. She was smiling politely, but there was a wariness in her gray eyes. I was not the sort of person she was used to seeing in here.
    I said, “Yes, thanks. I’d like to see Eldon Summerhayes.”
    “I am Mrs. Summerhayes,” she said. She had a faint accent—Scandinavian, I thought, maybe Norwegian. “My husband is busy at the moment. Is there something I can do?”
    “Well, yes and no. I’d prefer to talk to both of you at the same time, if you wouldn’t mind. It’s about the Purcell family tragedies.”
    Her nostrils pinched a little and the smile went away. She said, “Are you a policeman?”
    “Not exactly. A private investigator.”
    “I see. For whom are you investigating?”
    “Tom Washburn.”
    “I’m afraid I don’t … oh. Leonard’s friend.”
    “Yes.”
    “But why do you come to us?”
    “You were at Kenneth’s party the night of the accident,” I said. “Mr. Washburn believes there’s some sort of connection between Kenneth’s death and Leonard’s murder.”
    She sighed the way she walked: so softly you could barely hear her. “I’ll speak to my husband,” she said. “Please wait here.”
    I watched her move off toward the inner door and disappear through it. When nothing happened after about thirty seconds I took another look at the bronze incense burner. Definitely trying to goose himself, I thought. But the hump was what really intrigued me. Why would an elephant have a hump? What artist in his right mind would give an elephant a hump? Well, I thought then, there’s your answer. The artist wasn’t in his right mind; like most artists in one way or another, he was screwy. But the hump still bothered me. It was one of life’s little mysteries, and I don’t like unsolved mysteries, little or otherwise.
    I was looking over at the inner door