Buyer beware an-1 Read online

  Fear fought greed while Carlon watched with the air of a man who'd seen the battle often.

  "A good deal of money," he commented, rooting for his side.

  "I'm known for my avarice, Mr. Carlon."

  "I see you as practical."

  I laughed inside at that, even as I cringed. I already knew what I'd decided, against every instinct but greed,

  "This will have to be a handshake deal, Mr. Nudger, without written records of any kind. Ten thousand now, forty thousand when Joan is located or returned to me. And of course I'll pay your expenses." Without averting his gaze he reached into an inside pocket and withdrew a thick stack of green bills, not in an envelope but rubber-banded together. A bit of psychology there. Good psychology. "I won't require a receipt, Mr. Nudger, as a gesture of our mutual trust."

  That was meaningless, we both knew. Where could I hide from him if I did decide to run with the ten thousand?

  I stood away from the writing desk. With my left hand I accepted the bills, with my right I shook Car-Ion's dry hand. I detected a very subtle change in his attitude, a confirmation in his eyes. He had judged me correctly.

  "I think you'll find," he said, "that my influence can help in your investigation by opening many doors."

  "I don't doubt that," I said, glancing at my own door.

  "Now, Nudger, where do you intend to start?" Car-Ion adopted a much more familiar bearing now that he'd bought me, as if any moment he might slip off his shoes and stretch out on the bed.

  "I'd like to know where Gordon Clark is."

  "Gordon? Why?"

  "Because I need to talk to Melissa."

  I could see the hesitancy move through his body. He didn't like being probed in a soft spot, and Melissa was that. "Surely there's no need to bring her into this, not at this point."

  "She spent the last several months with your daughter, Mr. Carlon. The missing months."

  He stared hard at me, trying to read something in my face. "She's only seven…"

  "I'll know how to talk to her."

  He saw in me what he wanted, and nodded.

  "They're at the Dolphin Motel in Orlando. Their flight leaves at seven tonight."

  Carlon gave me the motel's phone number and his own private number. Then he left, without the ten thousand he'd brought.

  Seven o'clock. To get to Orlando in time to talk to Melissa, I'd have to put off eating again.

  Thanks to Carlon, I wasn't hungry now anyway.

  7

  I was on the outskirts of Orlando by five that evening, and by five fifteen I was listening to the measured ticking of my directional signal while waiting to make a left off a wide four-lane street to park in front of the Dolphin Motel. The drive had taken longer than I'd planned. A brief late-afternoon shower had slowed highway traffic, and though the sun was out brightly again, there were still a few clear droplets and streaks of rainwater on the compact's windshield and gleaming green hood.

  The Dolphin Motel was one of those neat and moderately priced family motels, two stories high and built in a wide, sweeping U around a fenced-in swimming pool. The pool was crowded now with a few adults and a proliferation of the preteen and very young, leaping and splashing with unfeigned ecstasy, as though it would never be over. Near the office I walked past a large sheet-metal dolphin that was lurching repeatedly in clumsy mimicry of that species' graceful arcs through ocean waves. There was a self-satisfied, silly grin on what passed for its face.

  Gordon and Melissa Clark were in Number 27, second floor, toward the rear of the motel. I climbed metal steps to an iron-railed cement walkway, stepping aside for another flock of small children. The motel was no doubt packed with families here for the illusory adventure of Disney World. For a moment the memories began to bloom at the back of my mind, and I reminded myself of why I was here.

  Gordon Clark opened the door immediately at my knock. He looked fresher than he had at police headquarters. The redness was gone from his eyes and he wore neatly creased plaid pants and a blue short-sleeved sport shirt open at the neck. He invited me in and stepped back.

  The room was motel modern-two single beds, angular low furniture and a ceiling fixture that resembled a space satellite. Melissa was sitting cross-legged on the floor, near the foot of one of the beds, piecing together a small jigsaw puzzle. Good practice for her, the way her life was going.

  "I'm sorry about how things turned out," I told Clark.

  "It wasn't your fault. And I have Melissa." He turned toward her. "Melissa, this is Mr. Nudger."

  She glanced up from the puzzle. "He has to shave."

  I crossed the room and sat on the edge of the bed nearer her. "I've decided never to shave again. I'm going to grow a long beard and tuck it into my belt."

  She looked at me and smiled slightly. "How long will that take?"

  "Few days."

  Melissa put down her puzzle piece. She was ready to argue about that. "Dave didn't shave once all weekend and his beard wasn't that long."

  "Must be something wrong with his beard. Who's Dave?"

  "Mommy's friend."

  "I came here to talk to you about your mommy."

  "She's gone."

  "Do you know where?"

  "She said she'd be back."

  "Did you like living on Star Lane?"

  Melissa shrugged and stared down at the half-completed puzzle, a striped kitten jumping over something not yet pieced together.

  "It was bigger than your other house, wasn't it?" I asked before she could get interested again in the puzzle. But she was only staring at it for a focal point.

  "No," she said, "the other house was bigger, with lots more people in it."

  "Where was the other house?"

  "On a street with tall houses on it. It was a 'parment."

  "An apartment building?"

  "Uh-huh."

  "In Lay ton?"

  "Uh-uh." She shook her head no.

  "Where at?"

  "On a street with other tall houses on it."

  "How far away?"

  "Long ways."

  She picked up a puzzle piece from the carpet, held it with her little finger extended, as if she were holding toast spread with jam.

  "Did you like Dave?" I asked.

  "Most times…" she answered absently.

  "That one goes there, doesn't it?" I said, helping her fit the piece into the puzzle to complete one of the kitten's forepaws. I was given a smile of gratitude. "Did you like living at the apartment best?"

  "No, there were people all the time. Mommy and Vic always had people there, talking 'stead of sleeping."

  "Who's Vic?" I asked Melissa, glancing at Gordon Clark, who looked stupefied.

  "You know…"

  "A friend of Dave's?"

  She laughed, picked up another puzzle piece.

  "A friend of your mom's?"

  "Yes."

  "What did all these people talk about when they came to your apartment and you were trying to sleep?"

  "Ingerence. Other things sometimes, too."

  "I don't know what ingerence is, Melissa."

  "Well, that's what they talked about. Mom and Vic talked about it all the time, too."

  "Did Dave?"

  She laughed again. "You're silly."

  "Was your mother happy on Star Lane with Dave?"

  She seemed to consider, her wide eyes looking inward. "She was worried all the time."

  "Did they ever argue?"

  "Uh-huh. The time when Vic didn't shave."

  "What did they fight about?"

  "I dunno." She had about reached her limit of conversing with me and was being drawn back to the challenge of the puzzle. I leaned down again, helping her fit the pieces.

  "Did your mom like Vic better than Dave?"

  She giggled as she completed the red ball beneath the kitten.

  "Vic and Dave are the same person, aren't they?" I said.

  "Course."

  "Where did you live before the apartment
build-ing?"

  "Someplace the same. I'm hungry, Dad."

  "We'll eat in a little while, Melissa," Gordon Clark said.

  I stood up from the bed. "Thanks for talking to me, Melissa."

  "I'm hungry now." 'Okay, honey," Clark said, "in just a little while."

  He and I stepped outside on the bright cement walkway.

  "Did talking to her help you any?" he asked.

  "I know more than I did."

  Clark slipped his hands into his pants pockets and stood with his shoulders back, as if to expose himself to the maximum amount of sunlight. "Why do you think this Branly guy called himself Vic?"

  I glanced down at the kids yelling and thrashing their way through cool water in the pool. "We'll know that when we find out why he was killed."

  "And why Joan's disappeared?"

  I nodded. "Why everything." I watched him half close his eyes to the sun. "Do you think Joan might come back to you?"

  "No, but I'll let you know if she does." Clark smiled his curiously dreary smile, shook my hand. "I'll mail you the second part of your fee."

  "That won't be necessary," I told him. "I didn't earn it." As I heard myself speak, I was amazed at the generosity rooted in my newfound wealth.

  "I have Melissa back."

  "You probably would have got her back without me."

  He slipped the fingertips of his right hand back into his pocket. "I feel I should warn you about something, Nudger."

  "Go ahead," I told him. "I have so much to worry about now, it probably won't make much difference."

  "In confidence, of course."

  "Of course."

  "I don't think you should trust your client all the way."

  I waited for him to tell me why. He chose not to, so I nodded and thanked him for the word of caution. He was Dale Carlon's son-in-law; he should know.

  When Clark opened the door to go inside, Melissa peered out from the comparative dimness of the motel room.

  "Come back when you have your beard," she said.

  I decided to have dinner at a western-style steak house in Orlando before driving back to Layton. As I ate the surprisingly good rib-eye and baked potato, I thought over my conversation with Melissa. She was a typically succinct and scatterbrained seven-year-old, and though our talk had brought out a few hard facts, I suspected that what she'd given me were puzzle pieces much like the ones she'd held in her hands. Why did Branly use two first names? Where was the apartment in which they'd lived? Who were the people who had visited them often? And what the hell was "ingerence?"

  By the time I reached dessert I knew which way I'd have to go in the investigation. Melissa hadn't given me a starting point, so it would have to be the dead David Branly. He was easy enough to keep tabs on, and the Layton police should have had some background information on him by now. If I probed about in that area of time just before his death and traced his movements, I was bound to learn something of the recent activities of Joan Clark. The trouble was that Branly's murderer was also a part of that area of time, making it a dangerous area in which to be probing about.

  The house on Star Lane would be the place to start, and with Dale Carlon's influence the Layton police should be completely cooperative.

  I finished my ranch-house pudding and signaled a cowgirl for a refill on the coffee. It was going to be a long drive back to Layton.

  8

  Gaining access to the Star Lane house was no problem, involving only a phone call to Dale Carlon, who offered to meet me there the next day with the key.

  In the morning, again using Carlon's influence,.1 phoned Dockard at the Layton police headquarters from my cabin at the Clover Inn and asked him what had been turned up on the Branly killing.

  "To date, nothing much," Dockard said. "The ME tells us Branly died in his late twenties, perfectly healthy except for all those shotgun pellets. Nothing on the gun yet, either. Wiped clean of prints. You know how impossible it is to trace a shotgun. It's an Ithaca twelve-gauge semi-automatic with the stock and barrel sawed down. A fairly expensive gun, about seven years old, according to the company's check of the serial number."

  "Making it all the harder to trace. Anything found in the house that might help?"

  "We combed it fine; there's nothing there, but you're welcome to look for yourself if you want."

  As long as Carlon's behind me, I thought. "What about Branly's fingerprints? You should be able to get some specific information about him through them."

  Dockard's tone was tolerant. "His prints aren't on file. Apparently he was never in the service and hasn't got a record."

  I thanked the lieutenant and hung up. The fact that Branly had no record was in itself interesting. It made the possibility of his having been killed in a gangland assassination all the more unlikely.

  There was little comfort for me in that unlikelihood. The lone and unpredictable killer frightened me more than the underworld hit man. If I had to be murdered, I wanted it done by a professional. Anything to reduce the possibility of prolonged pain.

  I shook my head and called myself a few derogatory but accurate names. After setting my watch by the clock on the nightstand, I left for my appointment with Carlon at the Star Lane house.

  I was ten minutes early but Carlon was there, waiting in front of 355 Star Lane in his gray Mercedes. When he saw me drive up in the green compact, he got out of his car and came toward me. He was dressed in a tailor-made, very expensive navy-blue suit that was as out of place on Star Lane as was his Mercedes. I, on the other hand, fit right in.

  Carlon nodded a hello to me, then handed me a house key. "You might as well keep it, Nudger."

  "Okay," I said, "let's go see if it works."

  I unlocked the front door and we stepped inside, onto the red shag carpet. The atmosphere was hot and stifling, and I had the same claustrophobic feeling that I'd experienced entering the house the first time, with Dockard and Avery. There was even an aftertaste of fear.

  "My God!" Carlon said. "Don't they have any air conditioning?" He spotted a thermostat and went for it, pushing something that brought a click, a rattling hum and supposedly cool air.

  I walked around the living room slowly, then went into the kitchen. The rotting remains of the carryout chicken dinner had been removed. The slugs had been dug from the wall, and presumably, the bullet in the cupboard had been located and removed. Everything else seemed unmoved, as if I were looking at a photograph for the second time. The chrome-legged chair still lay on its side on the linoleum, and I saw that the kitchen wastebasket still contained litter.

  "The landlord's being compensated to keep hands off for a while," Carlon explained behind me.

  I opened the green refrigerator, found a still-sealed quart of milk, a few condiment jars and some bologna going bad on the top shelf. The refrigerator clicked on to add its hum to the air conditioner's, and I closed the door.

  "Do you really expect to find something here that the police missed?" Carlon asked.

  "Not necessarily, but I might interpret something differently."

  He faded back into the living room. After checking out the kitchen, looking inside cupboards and drawers, under shelf paper, behind the stove and then through the litter in the wastebasket, I joined him.

  "Find anything?" he asked.

  "Only what you'd expect after somebody moved out on a few hours' notice." I went to check the bedrooms.

  The first bedroom must have been Melissa's. There were a few toys lying about, some brightly covered books and some threadbare dresses in the closet. The dresser drawers contained only the usual assortment of underclothes and some blankets. Decals of cartoon characters covered the wall behind the bed, and their happy, zany expressions seemed out of place in the otherwise drab room.

  The other bedroom had been Branly and Joan's, a pale blue room furnished cheaply and sparsely. There was little sign of Joan there-a pink hairbrush on the dresser top with a few dark hairs caught in its bristles, an empty perfume bottle an
d a pair of high-heeled shoes with one of the heels broken. There were more of Branly's effects in the bedroom, but they were curiously impersonal. A suit and three shirts in the closet- pockets empty-and some socks and underwear in one of the dresser drawers. I could almost imagine Joan Clark removing anything,that might pertain to his identity before she left. Sadly enough, she seemed to have forgotten nothing.

  I checked empty drawers, the tops of closet shelves; I even peered under the bed. With no results. On the floor, near the bed, were a couple paperback books-a Gothic romance and a self-help book on salesmanship, both worn and dog-eared. I turned the books binding-up and thumbed through the pages in the hope of finding something wedged there, but nothing fell out. Maybe Branly had been a salesman, or maybe the books had been left in the house by a previous tenant. I walked back into the living room, disgusted with my lack of progress, my stomach churning just from being in the small and depressing house.

  "It seems to me you're wasting valuable time here, Nudger," Carlon said, standing with his hands locked behind him as he stared out the front window.

  "There was only one way to know for sure," I said, reaching for my roll of antacid tablets. I fumbled, trying to pry the top disk loose from the silver foil, and the roll of tablets squirted from my fingers and bounced across the carpet, not getting very far in the thick red shag. When I bent to pick up the roll, I saw something that made me forget my immediate need for a tablet.

  The house had apparently been decorated just before Branly and Joan had moved in; the woodwork was freshly enameled. But near the kitchen doorway, where the telephone sat on a small table, I saw a set of numerals scratched on the underside of the flawlessly enameled molding that ran along the wall, four feet above the floor. I moved nearer and examined the phone number more closely.

  "This number mean anything to you?" I asked Car-Ion, then read off the numerals.