Banshee

Chapter Ten

Quinn always moved slowly, partly because it was her nature to take things easy and partly because she was six feet tall and not yet accustomed to a body that seemed to have outgrown her. When she tried to hurry she became clumsy and indecisive. Now, getting ready for her visit to Kay, she applied her makeup very carefully and then washed it all off again because it might give the wrong impression.

None of her clothes seemed sober enough for the occasion so she borrowed a black turtleneck sweater from Ben’s closet. It was the proper color but too tight a fit and she was forced to cover it with the tan all-weather poncho she wore when she drove her little MG convertible at night or on windy days. Then she put on the only black skirt in her wardrobe, an ankle-length party skirt, and studied herself in the mirror.

Two things spoiled the effect she was attempting to create. The shoes she wore were her usual high-heeled sandals, and her long red hair hung loose over her shoulders, making her look what Ben would call too available. Unable to find a ribbon to tie her hair back, she borrowed a shoelace from one of Ben’s oxfords. He’d be burned up when he discovered the sweater and the shoelace missing, but the confrontation would be brief. She would simply remove the shoelace and the sweater, and for good measure the skirt, and after that everything would be fine.

No, not this time.

“Not this time.” She repeated the words aloud into the mirror. “The little beast will have to come crawling to me first and then maybe I’ll consider it.”

She fingered the swelling on her left cheekbone, already beginning to turn blue. It was the first time Ben had hit her and she’d been too surprised to strike back. She could easily have done so. She was taller than he was and nearly as heavy and she’d had a good deal of fighting experience with her two older brothers. Instead of striking back she burst into tears and that proved to be the best defense of all. Ben ran out the front door as if he were escaping a live volcano.

“He’ll go to a bar down the street, have a couple of martinis and then come crawling back here, full of sorries. Well, I won’t be here and I don’t like sorries.”

After a final look in the full-length mirror she went into the living room. Here the stereo was still going full blast the way Ben had turned it so the neighbors wouldn’t hear any sounds of quarreling. She switched it off but the change in noise level was hardly noticeable. Traffic was heavy along the beachfront boulevard, the foghorns had begun to blow from the end of the breakwater and one of the oil platforms, gulls squawked and squabbled among themselves in the wake of fishing boats coming into the harbor with the day’s catch.

She opened the front door at the same moment as Ben was about to enter. He held the key in his hand, pointed at her like a miniature knife. The martinis showed in his eyes and in his voice:

“Well, well. Going somewhere? No, don’t tell me, let me guess. A Hallowe’en party and you’re dressed up as Miss Salvation Army Thrift Shop.”

“Let me past.”

“Not yet.” He pushed her back into the room and shut the door. “Where’s the party?”

“I don’t think you’d like to know.”

“I think I would.”

“Has anyone ever told you can’t hold your liquor?”

“Never. A recent Gallup poll indicated that ninety-nine and nine-tenths percent of the people never heard of me and wouldn’t give a damn anyway. So where’s the party?”

“There is no—”

“You can’t attend a party without an escort. I hereby offer my services.”

“Where I’m going you wouldn’t be welcome.”

“Home to mother?”

“Not my mother.”

“You’re too big to play cute. Whose mother?”

“Figure it out.”

He tried to put his hands on her shoulders as if he intended to shake the truth out of her but she sidestepped beyond his reach. “I don’t like what I’m figuring.”

“Then it’s probably correct.”

“Kay,” he said. “You’re going to see Kay.”

She half expected him to strike her and this time she was ready to defend herself. But instead he walked over to the window. Its only view was the side wall of Longo’s Fish and Chip café next door. A delinquent with a can of spray paint had made an addition, FISH AND BULL CHIPS.

He said, “That’s it, right? You’re going to see Kay.”

“Yes.”

“I’m asking you not to do it.”

“Really?”

“All right, I’m begging you not to do it.”

“That’s a little better but not good enough. Try bribery.”

“Bribery?”

“You know. Money.”

The gas heater in the room hadn’t been turned on yet, and even under the wool turtleneck and the poncho and long skirt Quinn was shivering with cold. But Ben’s face was sunburn-pink and sweat glistened across his forehead. She felt suddenly quite sorry for him and would have melted in his arms if he’d said the right thing. He didn’t. Anyway, business was business.

He said, “How much do you want?”

“Half.”

“Half of what?”

“If we were married I’d get half of everything under community-property laws, wouldn’t I? And we’re as good as married already, aren’t we?” She knew she was on the wrong track but she couldn’t seem to get off it or to brake herself to a stop. “I feel like your wife, Ben. I feel like we’ve been married three and a half months and this is our very first quarrel. And everything will turn out all right because we love each other… Don’t we?”

He stared at her without speaking.

“Me feeling married to you already, maybe that sounds silly to you.”

“No.”

“You don’t think it’s silly?”

“No. I think it’s incredibly preposterously stupid and exactly what I’d expect from you.”

“Don’t you dare talk to me like—”

“Married. Jeez, what a laugh. You’re a slut, a tramp who walked in off the street.”

“That’s a lie. You gave me a ride home from the Cielo theater when my car wouldn’t start.”

“Everything else started. You moved in the same night.”

“It was at least a week later.”

“Anyway, you turned out to be a pretty fair screw. Not great, but pretty fair.”

“How would you know, you goddam pervert?”

He came toward her with his fists clenched but she ran out the door and down the narrow alley between the apartment building and Longo’s Fish and Chip café.

Her little convertible was parked in one of the slots reserved for the café patrons. Mr. Longo himself hurried out the rear door as she was getting into the car.

He was angry. “I want you should stop parking in my customer slots.”

“I’ve only been there fifteen minutes.”

“Two hours. I timed you. And never once you bought any fish and chips either.”

“Lay off, will you? I got problems.”

“I got customers.” Mr. Longo wiped his forehead and neck with his greasy apron. “You young chicks think all you got to do is shake your boobs at any man and right away he gives you what you want. Lemme tell you, I seen plenty of boobs in my life and ain’t one of them ever made me compromise my principles, which is business before pleasure.”

“Listen, my boyfriend’s after me to beat me up. Please let me out of here, will you? Please?”

“You gonna come in once in a while, buy some chips?”

“Sure, sure. Every day.” He stepped back and she put the key in the ignition and revved the motor up. Now go fry your balls, you old goat.

Quinn had seen the house only once before, several nights previously. It was late and she and Ben had been drinking. The very size of the house had intimidated her and she wanted to turn around and go home. But Ben kept saying, “Come on, baby,” in the half coaxing, half bullying tone she usually responded to.

“I’m scared, Benjie. What if the dogs—”

“They won’t bother us. They sleep in the kitchen at the rear of the house.”

“My feet hurt.”

“Take your shoes off.”

“We should have brought the Porsche up.”

“Too noisy.”

So the Porsche remained on the street below.

Ben carried her shoes for her while she walked barefoot on the grass alongside the driveway. The grass was cold and wet and almost immediately she began to shiver.

Ben was very considerate. “Here, take my coat.”

“Then you’ll be cold.”

“No. I’m burning up.”

She knew from the way he put his coat around her shoulders that he was going to make love to her in the child’s playhouse that he called the palace.

She turned her head so her cheek brushed the back of his hand. “The bed will be too small, won’t it?”

“If we can make it in the Porsche we can make it anywhere.”

She giggled and hung on to his arm and everything seemed fun as it always did when Ben was in a good mood.

It didn’t last. Even before they reached the palace she sensed that his excitement was different this time, hardly connected with her at all.

There was a full moon and she could see the palace door quite clearly, carved with brightly painted figures, a little girl sitting on a throne with her hand on the head of a black dog, a king and queen dancing, a court jester, a tree with golden apples.

“Someone went to a lot of trouble for an ordinary playhouse.”

“Not someone. Me. And it’s not an ordinary playhouse. It’s the palace of a princess.”

“Did you do all that carving?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“I told you.”

Ben opened the door and switched on an overhead light and a lamp. “Come in.”

“I don’t want to.”

“You said you did.”

“I was sort of drunk.”

“This is a hell of a time to sober up.”

“I wasn’t as drunk as you to begin with.”

“Jesus Christ, are we going to stand here arguing about which one of us was drunker?” He pulled her into the room and kicked the door shut.

Everything in the palace was built to scale, not for a child as young as Annamay, but for a rather small adult. Quinn could stand up straight but her head grazed the ceiling and she stooped instinctively the way she used to when she first started to grow faster than her peers.

“Why did you make the ceiling so low?”

“To remind adults that this is not their place, it belongs to the princess and her duke.”

“You’re kind of crazy, aren’t you?”

“Not kind of. Very.”

“I don’t believe it. I read in a magazine once that people who are really crazy don’t know it.”

“I’m an exception.”

“Stop talking like that. You’re making me nervous.”

“All grown-ups are supposed to feel nervous in the palace. It’s not their place.”

“Then why are we here?”

“I belong,” he said. “I belong.”

The tone of his voice, the musty smell in the room, the threatening touch of the ceiling against her head increased her anxiety. Trying not to show it she sat down on the small bird-and-flower print davenport. Ben stood looking down at her frowning, her sandals still in his hand.

“God, you have big feet.”

“What of it?”

“They’re as big as mine.”

“No, they’re not.”

“Want to bet?”

He sat down beside her on the davenport, slipped off the leather moccasins he was wearing and put on the high-heeled sandals. His hands shook as he buckled the straps and stood up.

“See? They fit exactly. You lose.”

“I didn’t bet. Now give me back my shoes.”

He pretended not to hear her. He was walking around the room, not awkwardly the way men in drag did on television or in the movies, but quite gracefully and naturally as if he’d been doing it all his life.

She watched him, first in disbelief, then in anger. “What are you, some kind of freako? Give me back my shoes. I want to go home.”

“Why? The fun’s only beginning.”

“I don’t think this is fun, watching some guy prance around in women’s shoes.”

“It’s a game.”

“I don’t care. I hate it.”

“Come on, baby, dance with me.”

“Leave me alone.”

“Okay, I’ll dance with the kiddies.” He picked up the two dolls from the bunk bed, Marietta with her half-bald head and Luella Lu with her glued-in eye. Holding them close against his chest he began circling the room. “They’re Annamay’s children so of course they love dancing as she did. The princess and I often danced. Round and round, just like this. Round and round—”

When he passed the davenport she reached out with one foot and caught him on the shin. He stumbled and fell to the floor, the dolls flying out of his arms like caged birds unexpectedly released. He winced as he picked himself up, holding his left elbow with his right hand.

“You tripped me, you bitch.”

“Open the door and let me out of here or I’ll scream.”

“Chances are you’re a good screamer. Right?”

“The best.”

“Give us a sample.”

“If I scream your fancy friends will come running and want to know why you busted into their kid’s playhouse.”

“It’s not a playhouse. It’s real, it’s a real palace.”

“This kinky stuff makes me sick. Let me out before I throw up all over the royal rug.”

He looked at her soberly, bitterly. “You’re not fit to be in this place anyway.”

“Good. Then I’ll leave.”

“Beat it, you tramp.”

He stepped away from the door and she darted outside without waiting for her shoes. She started down the driveway, running barefooted in the wet grass.

By the time she reached the Porsche parked on the street she was out of breath but quite calm. Ben had left the car unlocked so she opened the door and dropped into the single passenger seat and waited.

She didn’t have long to wait. About five minutes later Ben appeared and got into the car without saying anything or even looking at her. He was wearing his own leather moccasins.

She said, “Where are my shoes?”

“I put them someplace. I don’t remember.”

“But I want—”

“Forget it. I’ll pay you for them. How much?”

“They cost me a fortune.”

“You probably bought them at a garage sale. I’ll give you ten bucks.”

“Fifty.”

“Twenty-five.”

“What a cheapskate you are. You live in a dump, you never take me anyplace, you drive this broken-down hunk of tin that sounds like a truck.”

“Broken-down hunk of tin?” He sounded outraged. “Jeez, you’re ignorant. This is a classic three fifty-six Speedster.”

“Big deal.”

“If you don’t like it, get out and walk. Feel like walking?”

“No.” She leaned her head against the back of the seat and closed her eyes. “I’m tired, Benjie. Take me home.”

“Where’s home?”

“The apartment.”

“Why would you want to go back to a cheap little dump like that?”

“Because it’s our place, Benjie, yours and mine. And I don’t mind it being a dump, really. I mean, I never had things so great at home either.”

He released the hand brake and let the car roll halfway down the hill before starting the engine. It was hard to talk above the noise and neither of them tried. But when they pulled into the parking lot behind the apartment building Ben said quietly, “I’m sorry. I got drunk and did a lot of crazy things and I’m sorry.”

“It wasn’t the real you, Benjie.”

“What if it was?”

“I wouldn’t care. I mean, I’d care, sure, but I’d still want to marry you.”

“Marry me?”

“Why not? I think that deep down inside what you really want is a child of your own. I can give you one. And maybe she’ll grow up to be like Annamay and you can build her a playhouse. And if you want to call it a palace, that’s okay with me.”

“Out,” he said. “Get out of the car.”

“Why? I thought we’d sit here and have a nice little talk.”

“This nice little talk is heap big crap.”

“I only wanted to cheer you up.”

“I am not cheered by references to marriage and related subjects. You know nothing, understand nothing. So shut up. I’ll pay you fifty bucks for the shoes.”

“I won’t take it.”

“Why not? It’s what you asked for to begin with.”

“I didn’t pick them up at a garage sale like you said but I bought them at that discount store on lower State Street for fourteen ninety-five.”

“All right, I’ll pay you fourteen ninety-five.”

“Plus tax.”

“Plus tax.”

“I never cheated anyone in my life. Since you lost my shoes it’s only fair you should pay for them but no more than I did.”

“Will you shut up about those goddam shoes?”

“Sure I will,” she said. For now.

The now didn’t last long.

Three days later she found herself at the Hyatts’ front door.

Kay opened the door herself. It was the first time Quinn had seen her except for a news photo taken as she came out of the coroner’s inquest. Quinn had found the picture among a sheaf of newspaper clippings in the bottom drawer of Ben’s bureau. It showed a woman with her head partly turned away from the camera, one hand shielding her eyes from flashbulbs. That there were other pictures of Kay in Ben’s possession Quinn was certain but she had never been able to locate them, and when she asked questions his answers were either evasive or deliberately provocative: Kay was beautiful, stunning, mysterious, anything he could think of to make her jealous.

Kay Hyatt didn’t fit any of those descriptions. She was a small slim woman with rather drab blond hair and a tan that was beginning to fade with the approach of winter. She wore a plain brown wool suit and no jewelry except a gold wedding band. Her green eyes looked at Quinn with a penetrating directness as if they were seeing things that weren’t supposed to be visible. She didn’t speak.

After a time Quinn said in a thin tight voice that was too small for her:

“I’m Quinn.”

“Yes.”

“We talked on the phone.”

“Yes.”

Quinn gave a nervous little laugh. “You must think I’m pretty brassy to come charging over like this.”

“I haven’t known you long enough to form an opinion.”

“Doesn’t Ben tell you about me?”

“No.”

“Not anything? Ever?”

“No. Come inside,” Kay said. “It’s too cold to talk out here.”

Quinn went in, keeping her hands hidden under the poncho so Kay wouldn’t see she was trembling with anxiety and indecision.

Once the door closed behind her, all outside noises were shut out and inside noises were absorbed by the spongy material that covered the floor and walls. To Quinn, accustomed to the continual sounds of the harbor and beachfront traffic, the silence was disturbing. She wanted to hear footsteps, voices, the sounds of life. But there was only this empty air, like a hole waiting to be filled. Quinn tried to fill it by talking loudly and rapidly as she followed Kay across the hall to the living room.

“He should have told you about me. We’ve been living together for three and a half months and we’re going to be married. At least we were going to be married until lately when he began taking you to concerts and stuff. Want to hear the truth? Ben don’t — doesn’t know beans about music. He told me one night when he was drunk. He just sits there pretending to listen while he thinks about other things like what he’s going to have for dinner. All he really knows is how to pronounce composers’ names right, like Wagner for example. Vogner treated his varicose veins with vodka.”

“Indeed? Was the treatment successful?”

“No no, it’s not really true, it’s how I’m supposed to remember about v’s and w’s. Which I do, but it doesn’t make sense to me. A v is a v and a w is a w.”

“I hope you don’t have to go through the whole alphabet to come to the point.”

“I already came to it. Ben and I would be married next month or week, maybe even tomorrow, if you weren’t in the picture.”

“Is that your idea or his?”

“Every man needs a nudge to get married. So I nudge.”

“I was referring,” Kay said, “to the part about me. How do I fit into what you call the picture?”

Quinn hesitated for a moment, squinting in concentration. “Ben has this thing about you. It’s not ordinary love, I could handle that easy. But this other, it’s queer, and in some way Annamay is — was a part of it.”

“Ben is a friend of the family.”

“That’s not enough for him. He wants to be in the family, to be a member of it, to live in this house and play in the palace like Annamay. It’s funny how grown-up he is in some ways, if you know what I mean. But in other ways he’s a little boy, pretending crazy stuff like he’s of royal blood because his last name happens to be York. After he’s had a few drinks and we’re in bed, he tells me a lot of things like that, especially if he thinks I’m sleeping, or just as drunk as he is.”

“I have never seen Ben drunk.”

“Around you he’d be careful,” Quinn said. “Around me he figures, what’s he got to lose?”

“Does he often drink too much?”

“No oftener than a dozen other guys I’ve — I know. Usually he’s fun after a few drinks and he pulls silly stunts like the other night when he brought me to the palace. It started out to be fun, anyway.”

“He brought you here, to Annamay’s palace?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Well, like I said, it started out as fun, a fun thing to do. Then it kind of got out of hand. He went a little crazy. He put on my sandals and began dancing around the room with the two dolls in his arms, getting more and more excited. It scared me. I mean, I hardly knew who he was, what he was.”

“Is this what you came here to tell me?”

“Some of it. There’s more.”

“I’ve heard enough.”

“Plenty more. Oh, he puts on a great front for you, pretending to be so highbrow and classy. He’s no classier than I am. Which is maybe why I understand him. I don’t expect a guy to act one hundred percent normal all the time. Let Ben have his freaky times.”

“I want you to leave, Miss Quinn.”

“But—”

“Now.”

“Okay,” Quinn said. “Sure.”

The two women walked in silence out into the hall to the front door. When the door opened the cold moist air of late afternoon drifted in, carrying the sounds of a live world into the dead hall.

Quinn took a long deep breath. “I only told you what you ought to know.”

“That a family friend had unnatural feelings about me and my daughter?”

“All I meant was, he has freaky times.”

“And in one of those freaky times he might have done something improper, may even have killed her. Is this what you’re suggesting?”

“No, no. I didn’t… I never said… my God, he adored her. All his violence was directed against me. This bruise on my cheek, that was when he tried to stop me from coming here today. But I don’t stop easy, not when the stakes are high. I want to marry Ben. I want to live in a house like this some day, only noisier, you know, kids and stuff. Ben needs a family of his own, maybe a little girl like Annamay, I can give it to him.”

“Get out of here, you insensitive clod.”

“I don’t care what you call me,” Quinn said. But she was talking to a closed door.

She had left the top down on her convertible and the seat and back and dashboard were as wet as if someone had turned a hose on them. There was a blanket in the trunk which she could have used to wipe off the seat but she didn’t bother. She sat in the little puddles of water, feeling the moisture seep through her skirt and into her bones. By the time she reached the apartment house the chill had spread up her spine and into her head.

The parking lot was full as usual, so she parked her car in one of the slots reserved for the customers of Longo’s Fish and Chips. Then, shivering, teeth chattering, she went into the café by the rear door, sat at the counter and ordered a cup of coffee and a bag of chips.

She drank the coffee while she was waiting for the chips to cook.

Mr. Longo watched her through his thick glasses.

“This don’t entitle you to park all night,” he said. “One hour’s the limit. One. Like in numero uno. Savvy?”

“I can hear.”

“Your boyfriend drive a white Porsche?”

“Yes.”

“He took off right after you did. I guess he didn’t catch up with you. You don’t look beat up to me.”

“Don’t I?”

“Unless you got bruises where they don’t show.”

“If I have, you’re not going to see them. Savvy?”

She ate the chips with a sprinkle of vinegar and a dash of salt. Mr. Longo kept watching her as though he’d never seen anybody eat before.

“So you got bruises where they don’t show, huh?”

“What’s it to you?”

“It kind of interests me. I wonder where they are.”

“Keep wondering.”

“Oh, I will. Count on it.”

“You owe me a month’s free parking just for the way you’re looking at me, you old goat.”

“Shit. Pretty girls are a dime a dozen.”

“Okay, here’s a dime. Get yourself a dozen and leave me alone.”

The chips tasted rancid, the counter bore water stains and cigarette burns, Mr. Longo’s apron was dirty. She half closed her eyes and tried to picture her future with Ben, the church wedding, the big house with the happy noisy children. But she couldn’t see past Mr. Longo’s dirty apron and grease-spotted glasses.

She left the café without paying. Mr. Longo didn’t say a word.

When she returned to the apartment she found a man who was a stranger to her standing in the hall outside the door marked QUINN, YORK. He was a tall thin man with graying hair and a shabby brown suit. His face looked rather shabby too, as if he’d worn it too many times without pressing.

Quinn said, “That’s my place.”

“You’re Miss Quinn?”

“Yes.”

“I’m Michael Dunlop, a friend of Mr. York. Mrs. Hyatt called me and asked me to come over and talk to him.”

“He’s not here.”

“Perhaps I could wait for him.”

“It won’t do much good,” she said, but she unlocked the door and went inside and switched on a couple of table lamps. She didn’t ask him in so he stood in the doorway.

“When do you expect him, Miss Quinn?”

“I don’t.”

“Even if you had an argument he has to come home sometime.”

“Home? You call this dump a home?”

“He lives here, doesn’t he?”

“That’s not the same thing.” She turned on the wall gas heater and stood in front of it, massaging her hands to warm them. “He doesn’t live here. He parks his butt here like he parks his Porsche. Home.” She repeated the word as though it had the rancid taste of Mr. Longo’s chips. “Home is the kind of place Mrs. Hyatt lives in. He’d like to live there too but he never will. I fixed it so he never will.”

“How did you do that, Miss Quinn?”

“I told her a few things about him. A very few, considering what I could have told her.”

“It’s chilly out here in the hall,” Michael said. “Do you mind if I come inside?”

“Why bother? It won’t do any good to wait for him. He’s not coming back, not tonight anyway. He’ll find some bar, have a few drinks, then go for a long fast ride maybe with some chick he’s latched on to. If he gets picked up by the cops on a five-oh-two and needs someone to bail him out, he won’t call you or the Hyatts or any of their crowd. He’ll call me because I’m his real friend, I’ll come up with the money, no questions asked.”

“You sound as though that’s what you’re expecting to happen.”

“It wouldn’t be the first time.”

Michael went in and closed the door after him. “So you consider yourself his best friend, Miss Quinn.”

“We’re also lovers.”

“Some of the things you implied about him to Mrs. Hyatt were neither friendly nor loving.”

“I was mad.”

“So you were speaking as a jealous woman rather than as a concerned citizen willing to go to the police and repeat the allegations.”

“The police? Are you crazy? Why would I want to mess with them?”

“In the interests of justice.”

“Justice? Why, they couldn’t even find my car when it was stolen. And when it turned up in Bakersfield and my mother had to drive me over to pick it up, they wouldn’t even pay for the gas. Some justice. And it had two flat tires.”

“I don’t think you’re aware of the seriousness of some of your allegations concerning Mr. York.”

She stared at him in silence for some time, her full mouth getting thinner and thinner until it became a straight ugly line. “You can’t make me go to the police. And if you send them here I’ll clam up, I won’t say a word. I won’t even be here. I’m getting out.” A tear trickled down her left cheek and she slapped it away with the palm of her hand as if it were a fly. “Let him wait for me for a change. Let him wonder what bar I’m in and who I’m picking up.”

“Miss Quinn—”

“Let him think the same rotten thoughts I’ve had to think.”

“Miss Quinn, more is involved here than a quarrel between you and Mr. York. If you know of any suspicious incident involving him and the Hyatt girl, you owe it to her parents to speak up.”

“I owe nobody nothing,” she said and slapped at another tear. “Now leave me alone. I got to think. I got to think.”

“I wish I could help you.”

“You can help me. Bug off.”

“All right.”

He went out into the hall. Through the closed door he could hear her sobbing and slamming things around. She was a noisy thinker.

Driving home he listened to the six o’clock news. The outside world hadn’t changed much in the past twenty-four hours. The situation in Poland was worsening. Labor unrest in Western Europe was increasing. An earthquake had shaken Chile and a typhoon had hit the Philippines. The county Board of Supervisors was split on a growth, no-growth decision. An attempted downtown bank robbery had been thwarted. There was a twenty percent chance of rain in the mountain areas and a local woman had received a telegram from the President congratulating her on her hundredth birthday. A white sports car driven at a high rate of speed had gone over the cliff into the ocean on Miramar Road. The occupant or occupants were presumed dead. Rescue work could not begin until daylight.