Leonard

Excerpts from Change At Jamaica

LEONARD

(from Chapter 12 - Going Greyhound)

Leonard Lowenthal had never before ridden on a Greyhound bus. He had never imagined what it would be like to ride on a Greyhound bus. He was a man who didn’t waste time imagining the unlikely or impossible. Facts and logical conclusions from facts were not just his profession. They were his life. If a friend had told him a month ago he would be on an all night Greyhound bus from Saint Louis to Denver, he would not have bothered to laugh. He would just have silently stared the absurd prediction into the realm of unicorns, leprechauns, and other creatures of illogic that had no place in his world. Yet here he was, in the back seat next to the W.C., trying to look inconspicuous in his rumpled gray suit and crushed felt hat, but finding himself the only man on the bus with a gray suit and felt hat. He frowned. That did not make him inconspicuous, but it kept his neighbors, who were disconcertingly friendly and curious, from talking to him and asking questions. He was on a case. He had two clients who wanted him to corner the same man. That man sat in the front window seat to the right of the driver, next to a very attractive young lady whom no one but Leonard had recognized. His quarry was almost certainly innocent of Leonard’s assignment. But he wasn’t so sure of the companion.

That girl was sharp. She had looked at him carefully as she entered and later exited what the bus company euphemistically called a “restroom.” Her eyes bored into him. It seemed impossible to keep secrets from her. But that too was absurd. No one had that power, not he nor Sherlock nor even Mycroft Holmes. Female intuition was not in Columbo’s mathematically correct universe. Yet why had she smiled at him knowingly? As if she was laughing at his attempt to hide back here.

Still, he was smug about the way he had found them. Telephone books were one of his primary resources. He had shipped his massive collection from his Chicago office to his New York office. The Yellow Pages were always invaluable. “If it isn’t in the Yellow Pages it doesn’t exist” was for him not a slogan but an axiom. He had let his fingers do the walking. They had walked past all the big hotels: the Adams Mark by the river; the towering Marriott on Market Street; the Hyatt in Union Station; the Courtyard - “Only minutes From the Arch.” People didn’t hide in big hotels, even though the police and the media persisted in looking there. They looked for tucked away places where they could be tucked away. Two names had caught his attention: The Gateway and the Mark Twain. He had been in Saint Louis several times and had never come across either. Even their addresses were obscure to him. Perfect! He would try the latter first. It suggested three obvious fictitious names: Thatcher, Finn, and Sawyer. No, the clerk had said on the phone, there was no Mr. and Mrs. Thatcher registered in the hotel. How about Finn? No Mr. and Mrs. Finn. Sawyer? No, oh wait a minute. Yes. There was a Mr. and Mrs. Frank Sawyer from Denver, Colorado. Could he describe them? He wasn’t sure . . Oh really? Investigator? Had they done something? Of course he understood. They had to protect their guests, but on the other hand . . . The man was tall, a bit heavy-set, dark curly hair and a thick beard. The woman was much younger. Long black hair. Attractive? Well, he wasn’t an authority, but he supposed she would be considered attractive. The last comment endeared the clerk to Leonard’s heart. No subjectivity there.

He had flown to Saint Louis that night and registered at the Mark Twain with the same clerk the next morning. The man and his swing-shift and all night colleagues kept Columbo informed of Mr. and Mrs. Sawyer’s comings and goings. He had not bothered to follow them. It was the middle of summer and very hot in Saint Louis and he had no desire to do any sightseeing. He was certain the city was only a way stop for the “star” and her “agent.” Sure enough, the third day he was there his friend the day clerk had called his room the moment he had finished ordering a taxi to take the couple to the Greyhound Bus Station. He had followed discreetly in a second cab.

That station had not been a very good introduction to the largest bus company in the world, serving every major and minor city, every out-of-the-way place that had a highway going past it or through it, all the outposts of American civilization that, if they had nothing else, were fortified with a MacDonald’s, a KFC, and/or a Burger King. Then again, the station might have been exactly what it should be. The taxi driver, at the end of a long discourse about “incidents” at the station, had given him advice that could have been the motto over the entrance. Not “All Ye Who Enter Here, Abandon Hope!” That would be too extreme. Just “Watch your back. Watch your bag. Keep your wallet out of sight.”

. . .

About 6:30 a.m., as the bus continued its steady climb up the American central plateau toward the Rocky Mountains, there was a narrow patch of redness to the right and behind. Susan and Howard were both awake. They munched on peanut butter and cheese crackers and drank mountain spring water from a plastic bottle. Susan insisted they drink lots of water, even if it meant more trips to the W.C. in back.

“Are you a nurse?” he asked when she continued to hold the bottle toward him after he’d shaken his head.

“I used to be. I’ve been lots of things.”

“A real veteran of life,” he said after drinking several swallows.

“You could say that. Nobody has to tell me about being aware.”

She sounded defensive, and he put his arm around her shoulders. “I meant it as a compliment.”

“Then that’s how I’ll take it. But now I think I’ll take another little trip back there.”

He released her and asked, “Is it . . . ?”

“Safe? Perfectly. For a veteran.”

She rumpled his hair and went back. On the way out of the rest room, as she was shutting the door, she seemed to stumble into Leonard Lowenthal’s arms. She had noticed he was awake when she went in. Now she sat on his lap and smiled at him.

“I must have lost my balance. I’m glad you caught me.” She seemed in no hurry to get up, and Leonard, red faced, didn’t seem to want her to. She whispered in his ear, “You are a private detective, and you know who my friend is and who I am. I'm going to give you a chase. If you catch us, you’ll get a reward.”

“Dear lady, this moment is a reward in itself,” he whispered to her in return. “But don’t you think you’d better . . . ?”

“You are a perfect gentleman, and you’re right.” She got up, patted his knee, and turned and slowly made her way back to the front. He watched her and regretted about thirty years or so. Then, as one of the “young crowd,” as he called them, stirred in front of him, he again assumed his protective frown.