Free Quicksilver (Nameless Detective) by Bill Pronzini Page A

“Do you know Ken Yamasaki?”
    “Sure. Not too well, though. He thinks he’s an intellectual; I don’t think I am.”
    “Could he be Haruko’s secret admirer, do you think?”
    “It wouldn’t surprise me.”
    “How about Kinji Shimata?”
    “Shimata ... no, never heard of him.”
    “Nelson Mixer?”
    “Is that somebody’s name?”
    “Yes. A history teacher at City College.”
    “I didn’t go to college,” he said and shrugged again.
    I thanked him for his time, and he said, “Sure, I hope you find the nut,” and I left him and went out of the greenhouse. Most of the vehicles and workers had disappeared; so had Ogada Senior. The black-veined clouds were overhead now, scudding along in front of the sharp west wind like bales of gangrenous wool.
    The rain started again, hard driving bullets of it, before I was halfway to my car.

    With the exception of Ken Yamasaki, I had exhausted the list of names Haruko Gage had given me and I hadn’t learned much of anything so far. I had Yamasaki’s address, but I couldn’t look him up until I cleared it with Leo McFate. After having had my license suspended for a time five months ago, even though I hadn’t done much of anything wrong to deserve it, I could not afford to get the cops miffed at me again. And I couldn’t go down to the Hall to see McFate until four o’clock; he’d answered the homicide squeal last night, which meant he was working the four-to-midnight swing this week.
    Another talk with Haruko seemed to be the only tack I had left. I could find out if she knew about Ken Yamasaki’s apparent Yakuza connections, and I could ask her some more questions about her past, maybe get a few more names worth checking out.
    I came back into San Francisco on the 19th Avenue exit off Highway 280, drove straight to Japantown, and managed to find the same parking spot near the Gage Victorian that I’d occupied yesterday. When I went up and rang the bell, Haruko herself opened the door. She was wearing a tight white sweater today, and a pair of form-fitting designer slacks, and her glossy black hair was piled high on her head and held in place by a lacquered Oriental comb. Artie must have licked his chops when he saw her dressed up like that. Even I had to admit that she looked pretty sexy.
    “Oh, good,” she said when she saw me. “Did you get my message?”
    “Message?”
    “The one I left on your answering machine.”
    “No, I didn’t get it. I haven’t been home.”
    “Are you here because you found out something... ?”
    “I’m afraid not. I talked to Shimata and Mixer and Ogada, but no luck so far. I just wanted to ask you a few more questions.”
    “Damn,” she said angrily, but the anger wasn’t directed at me. “Well, I called you this morning because I received another package.”
    “Oh? The same sort as before?”
    “Not exactly. Come in and I’ll show you.”
    She led me into the cluttered, ersatz-antique parlor where we’d held yesterday’s conference. On the coffee table were a small white gift box with the lid on and some package wrapping and twine. There was no sign of her wimpy husband.
    I picked up the wrapping paper. All that was printed on it this time, in the familiar crabbed, childlike scrawl, was a single word: Chiyoko .
    Haruko said, “He didn’t mail it this time; he must have brought it here himself and left it on the porch beside the mailbox. Art found it at nine-thirty, when he went out to buy coffee.”
    “What does ‘Chiyoko’ mean?”
    “It doesn’t mean anything. It’s my middle name.” She seemed to think that needed explanation; she said, “If Japanese-Americans have middle names at all, they’re usually American names; but my father liked to be different. Haruko Chiyoko. It sounds strange.”
    It didn’t sound strange to me, but what did I know? I said, “So do you make a secret of it, then? Or is it common knowledge?”
    She shrugged. “Everybody who knows me knows it’s my middle name,” she