Buyer beware an-1 Read online

  But he hadn't heard me. He was staring, as if fascinated, at a newspaper on the sofa. I walked over and saw that the paper was folded to the story and photo of a man named Robert Manners, a Los Angeles business executive who had committed suicide due to the pressures of his job. He'd jumped from the high roof of his office building, and a photographer had caught his image on the way down, arms and legs outspread, tie trailing like an aviator's scarf, coattails of an expensive dark suit-one like Carlon's-standing straight out in the rushing wind. I wondered how much contentment Carlon's money had really bought him. Then I recited the phone number again and he gave a little start and focused his attention on me.

  "I'm unfamiliar with the number," he said. "Where did you find it?"

  "It was freshly scratched on the woodwork near the phone. There's a writing pad and pencil by the phone, so it could be that whoever scratched this number considered it very important. A piece of paper can get lost a lot easier than a piece of woodwork."

  "That makes obvious sense, to a point," Carlon said. "How could the police have overlooked.it?" There was an edge to his voice, the voice of a man uncompromising toward incompetence.

  "It wasn't meant to be found. I'd have missed it myself but for the good fortune of being clumsy." Why was I sticking up for Dockard?

  "I don't see any reasonable excuse," Carlon said. "The number was in the house; it should have been found."

  He was right, but it was a waste of time to quibble. I went to the phone, started to lift the receiver, then replaced it. A call might only serve to put someone on his guard. "The phone company should have a cross directory that will give us the address that corresponds with Why don't I give the number to Dockard and let him check it through them?" "The police overlooked, the number," Carlon said. "I see no reason to give it to them now."

  I stood, dumbfounded, and stared at him. "You want your daughter found, don't you?"

  "Of course! That's why I hired you. But perhaps we should take the incompetence of the Layton police as a measure of luck. As far as I'm concerned, Mr. Nudger, the police are involved in this case only because I have no choice."

  I stood in the stale air of the living room, waiting for him to continue. The rattling air conditioner had made little headway, and a bead of perspiration sought its way like a drop of cold mercury down the contours of my ribs.

  "What I don't want," Carlon said, "is for the police to be delving into my daughter's private life. There's more at stake here than just the solution to a murder, to which Joan happens to be merely coincidental. Ruthless as it may sound to you, I have my career to consider. And beyond that, certain political possibilities that might surprise you."

  "And your daughter's behavior reflects on you, is that it?"

  "Not only that. For her own sake I don't want Joan's reputation blackened by aspersions."

  "Or facts?"

  "Or facts, damn it!"

  "We're not only talking about poor judgment here, Mr. Carlon. Withholding evidence in a murder case is illegal. Even a hint of it and I can have my investigator's license revoked and lose my livelihood."

  "You'd have me behind you, Nudger. And how long would it take you to earn fifty thousand dollars?"

  I put my fists on my hips, started to pace on the red shag. I didn't like what he was suggesting, not only because it was illegal but because it was dangerous. I'd counted on the police involvement to give me at least some protection if and when I crossed paths with Branly's killer, and there was a factor in this case that made that crossing of paths even more likely than Carlon thought. I wondered if he'd considered that the death trap that had killed Branly might have been meant for Joan Clark. After all, it was her car, and going to the Laundromat was still basically a woman's chore.

  "I'm not suggesting that we automatically withhold from the police everything you turn up," Carlon said with a note of exasperation. "Whenever you learn something of importance, we can determine whether the police should share in the information. Remember-you're searching for Joan, they're searching for Branly's murderer."

  "What about this phone number?"

  Carlon smiled. "I'll have it checked for an address, confidentially. I'll phone you later today with the information." He walked over, rested his arm on my shoulder in a grand gesture of camaraderie. "After all, it might not be anything important. This might be the phone number of a dry cleaner or delicatessen…"

  "Or Laundromat."

  The smile stayed but the arm went. "That might be, Mr. Nudger. We'll just have to determine the facts."

  We left 355 Star Lane together. I sat in my car for a minute, fixing into my key case the house key Carlon had given me. As I looked up, I saw Carlon lift a manicured hand from his steering wheel in a parting wave as he passed me in his Mercedes. He'd bought a lot for his fifty thousand. That "let the buyer beware" adage is backward.

  But Carlon was good for his word on the phone number. He called me that afternoon at the Clover Inn and gave me a name and address on Dade Avenue, and he asked me to phone him as soon as I'd checked it out.

  Daisy Rogers was the name. I was hoping the number wouldn't belong to a woman. What if Branly had been seeing Daisy Rogers on the sly? That would explain the concealed phone number, and whatever information it might lead to about Branly would be just what he'd chosen to let her know about himself. Probably very little.

  I got directions to Dade Avenue from Eddie at the motel office and found that the street was only three blocks east of the motel, though the 2200 address I wanted was some distance south.

  The 2200 block of Dade turned out to be a palm-lined street of inexpensive stucco houses set almost at the curb, as if the wide avenue had eroded the front lawns like the sea. The address Carlon had given me was on the corner, a small house painted a pale flamingo pink. A screened-in porch ran across the front of the house, and in the front yard was an old wheelbarrow, also painted pink, used as a planter and exploding with a colorful display of flowers. When I got near the porch, I saw that the screening was old and rusty, paint peeling about the framework.

  After five rings of the bell the door was opened by a very old woman with lank gray hair hanging down onto her forehead. She was thin to the point of being emaciated, and age had bent her and humped her narrow back.

  I caught myself staring at her. "Daisy Rogers?"

  "That's me," she said brightly.

  "The Branlys wanted me to let you know they'd be out of town for a few days." I knew I'd be safe in telling her that, since Carlon had kept David Branly's death out of the Lay ton papers.

  She peered at me with lusterless eyes and cocked her head. "The who?"

  "The Branlys-David Branly. He gave me your address and phone number. I was going to call you but was near here anyway on business, so I thought I'd relay the message personally."

  Daisy Rogers shook her head slowly. She might have been seventy or ninety. "Don't know any Branlys."

  I endeavored to look as puzzled as I felt. "Are you sure?… This is your address and phone number, isn't it?" I handed her a piece of paper with the information.

  She placed an ancient pair of rimless spectacles, somebody's future heirloom, on the bridge of her nose, moved out closer to the sunlight and concentrated on the paper for almost a full minute. A musty scent wafted out of the house behind her. "Yep. You're at the right place. Maybe these Branlys know my boy Mark."

  "Is he home?"

  "Should be soon. Why don't you come in? Or you can sit there and wait on the shady end of the porch if you want. Cooler than inside."

  I'd decided to wait on the wooden glider suspended on rusty chains from the porch ceiling when Daisy Rogers looked past me and white eyebrows raised on her speckled forehead.

  "There's Mark now."

  I turned to see a tall, stooped man, bald with a fringe of gray, shuffling toward the porch steps. He was carrying a paper bag, and he looked, if anything, older than his mother.

  "Mark, this is Mister…"

  "I came w
ith a message from the Branlys," I told him.

  "Damn young punk bastards!" he said, wobbling his head as if he hadn't heard.

  "The Branlys?" I asked.

  "All of 'em! I don't mind their fashions and their alley cat morals, but I don't like to be cheated without 'em botherin' to try to fool me!"

  I stood patiently and let him talk, knowing I hadn't made contact.

  "Took this new shirt back"-he held up the wrinkled bag-" 'cause it ripped under the arms when I put it on. Young clerk said he couldn't take it back 'cause it was torn. Told him that was why I brung it back! He said he knew the material was weak; that's why the shirt was on sale. Turned his back on me!"

  "Keep yourself calm, Mark," his mother put in.

  "Did you ever!" he said.

  "I ever," I told him. "Do you know Branly?"

  He stared at me as if I'd dropped from the porch ceiling. "Don't know any Branlys, didn't I tell you?"

  No, sir.

  "Offer you a cold beer?"

  I declined with thanks.

  As I left, he was trying clumsily to light a pipe while discoursing on the advantages of wooden matches over the new paper ones.

  In the sun-heated compact I sat for a minute and looked around at the other houses. I had come to the address Carlon had given me, and Daisy Rogers had confirmed the telephone number. It was possible I'd misread one of the numerals scratched in the woodwork by the Star Lane phone. I started the car and drove farther south on Dade Avenue, until it intersected Palm Road.

  The air conditioner Carlon had turned on yesterday was still humming its rattling tune, and the air inside the Star Lane house was almost breathable. I shut the door behind me and went directly to the phone and examined the numbers scratched on the underside of the woodwork. They were as clearly legible as I remembered.

  A phone directory rested on the crosspiece of the telephone table's wooden leg braces. I reached down for the directory, opened the front cover, then tossed the book onto the red shag carpet. Picking up the telephone by the hand-hold behind the receiver cradle, I brought it down with me as I settled onto the carpet, next to the directory, and leaned my back against the wall. I opened the directory and began going down the line, dialing long-distance area codes, then the number scratched into the woodwork.

  As each distant telephone was answered, I would ask for David Branly, then Vic Branly, and I would try to gauge the reaction of whoever was on the other end of the line. What I most often got was a vague puzzlement, sometimes annoyance.

  I was beginning to perspire, and my back was aching from leaning against the hardness of the wall. Then finally, after dialing area code 312 and the phone number that was now etched in my memory as deeply as it was in the woodwork, I got the sort of reaction I'd been seeking.

  "Dave?…" came the puzzled voice after I'd spoken. "There is no David Branly here…" It was a man's voice, nasal and uncertain.

  "What about Vic?" I asked.

  "Who is this?"

  "A friend of Dave's."

  A click and a buzz greeted that statement.

  I replaced the receiver in its cradle and waited, watching a fly crawl laboriously up the opposite wall. As if the altitude had become too much for it, the fly began to veer to the right as it neared the ceiling. Something was making a hissing sound in the quiet room-my breathing.

  The telephone rang.

  On the third ring I picked up the receiver and pressed it to my ear, said nothing.

  "Hello, Dave?…" came the same voice that had been on the line a few minutes before. "Vic?…"

  Gently I replaced the receiver, picked it up again for a dial tone. Dale Carlon's secretary followed her instructions and rushed through my call to him.

  "How long would it take you to get me a name and address for the Daisy Rogers number with a 312 area code?" I asked Carlon. "Probably in Chicago."

  "You mean it's not a local number?"

  "Not for our purposes. A very old woman and her son live at the Dade address."

  "What about the son?"

  "He seems older than the mother and has rips in his shirt."

  There was little time in Carlon's day for digression. His telephone voice was terse. "I should be able to have that corresponding name and address for you within an hour."

  "I'll be waiting at the Star Lane phone," I told him and got off the line so he could get busy.

  Sitting on the carpet with my arms crossed on my knees, I wondered if Carlon could do it, if his influence carried that far from Layton.

  I got up, stretched, and walked around the cramped, oppressive living room to work the stiffness from my aging bones. The air seemed to get staler, the walls closer together.

  An hour and ten minutes had passed when Carlon called back.

  The phone number belonged to a man named Roger Horvell, 67 Sirilla Street, in Chicago. I thanked Car-Ion, then punched and freed the cradle button to get a dial tone. After talking to Eastern Airlines in Orlando, I drove to the Clover Inn to pack.

  This time Lieutenant Dockard was waiting for me.

  9

  Dockard was standing with his foot propped on the dusty front bumper of his unmarked car, parked in front of,my cabin. He smiled as I parked next to him, looking over my rented compact as if pondering whether to get one for himself.

  I got out of the car, nodded to him and walked over to where he was standing.

  "You and I need to talk," Dockard told me, squinting into the sun behind me but holding his friendly smile.

  "We talked a lot yesterday," I said.

  Dockard didn't move from his relaxed position, but I could see he was waiting for me to invite him inside, out of the heat. I decided to let the sun work for me and keep the conversation short.

  "We need to understand a few things about your working for Dale Carlon," Dockard said, seeing that our talk was going to be brief and getting to the point. "Mr. Carlon has… let's say a habit of stepping outside the rules sometimes and doing things in his own fashion."

  "You were careful to explain that to me yesterday."

  Dockard picked at an imaginary wart on his palm. "I understand the confidence you owe Mr. Carlon," he said, weighing each word for its potential to boomerang, "but you also have some responsibility to the law. Mr. Carlon means well, but he's not a professional like we are. He might get some mistaken notions…"

  "Any particular notion in mind?" I asked.

  A large mosquito droned in unpredictable circles around Dockard's head, sizing him up. Dockard swatted the air where the mosquito had been. "What I mean, Nudger, is that the more people we have working on this case, the sooner it's likely to be solved. I wouldn't want you to think it would be best to withhold anything from the Layton police. And of course we'll share whatever we know with you."

  There was a something-for-nothing offer. Dockard wouldn't dare withhold anything pertinent from me now that I represented Dale Carlon.

  "I'm aware of my obligation to the law," I said.

  "I'm sure. It's just that Mr. Carlon, well-meaning as he is, might instruct you to operate, sometimes, with us still in the dark. And I think, considering the circumstances of the case, that I owe you a certain confidence if you keep me informed."

  "Without Carlon's knowledge?"

  "I'm only asking you to obey the law, Nudger." He flicked a hand again at the phantom mosquito.

  What Dockard was saying was that whenever Carlon instructed me to keep something from the Layton police, I could tell Dockard without fear of Carlon's finding out. It was less serious to betray a client's trust than to withhold evidence in a murder investigation, and Dockard was giving me the opportunity to exchange one transgression for the other. I remembered his words of yesterday, about Carlon being the one man not to cross; and today he was asking me to do just that.

  "You're telling me I can have it both ways," I said.

  "If that's how you want to think of it. Either way I'd like you to keep this talk confidential."

  "You've g
ot that."

  "At least my way, if Mr. Carlon does have some wrong suggestions, you've got an out."

  At the risk of fifty thousand dollars, I thought, not to mention the possibility of Carlon's revenge. I doubted if Dockard knew the stakes were that high. People like Carlon confused things.

  "If the situation comes up," I said to Dockard, "I'll think about it."

  There was something in his face that made me feel he knew the situation already had come up. He nodded, removed his foot from the dusty chrome bumper. "It's something for you to consider."

  Now the mosquito began droning about me. I'd thought it was my friend. Dockard walked around to the driver's side of the car and opened the door.

  "I remember Joan Clark," he said before he got in. "She's not going to be found easily if she doesn't want to be."

  I stood and watched Dockard drive off the lot. He yielded to an overloaded station wagon making a left to get to the Clover Inn's office, then his plain car, with its square-tipped shortwave antenna, merged with the light traffic on Main Drive.

  Dockard had given me something to think about. Was his proposition made out of a genuine concern to solve Branly's murder and find Joan Clark as soon as possible? Or was he trying to make sure that the Lay-ton police department and Lieutenant Dockard accomplished whatever was needed and received full credit from Carlon? I didn't doubt that the latter might be his motive. A man like Carlon could do a lot for a police lieutenant like Dockard in a town like Layton.

  I swatted at the mosquito.

  There was another very strong possibility I couldn't overlook. Was Carlon aware of Dockard's visit? After our conversation at the Star Lane house, had he asked the lieutenant to put the proposition to me to test me?

  That possibility was reason fifty thousand and one for me to play the game straight with Carlon and to not mention to Lieutenant Dockard that I was going to Chicago.

  10

  My flight arrived at Chicago's O'Hare International on time to the minute. After making my way through the crowd that was bustling to the incomprehensible rhythm of the public address speakers, I claimed my luggage and took a Continental limo into the city.