Maybe it would help, I thought bitterly, if she told me that again. Whoever it was in the corridor was banging on the door again. I had to get away from that voice and try to think.
“Hold it,” I said. “Somebody’s at the door.”
I put down the phone and answered it. It was a porter. “Telegram, sir,” he said. I handed him a coin of some kind, and took it.
I closed the door and leaned against it. We’d had it. It wasn’t on the tapes; I knew that. I’d been through everything in the wallet. The little address book! I grabbed it out of my pocket and flipped madly through it. Nothing but addresses.
I looked at the phone lying on the desk. This was the way it ended. You learned everything there was to learn, you took care of every contingency, you memorized, you rehearsed, you perfected—and then some kid locked a dog in a safe a thousand miles away and you were done.
I still had the telegram in my hand. Through the little glassine window I could see some figures, and Brindon, La. I’d never heard of it.
Louisiana!
I slashed it open and stared at the text.
RIGHT THIRTY-TWO LEFT TWO SLANT NINETEEN RIGHT THREE SLANT SIX REPEAT RIGHT THIRTY-TWO . . . TAPED BENEATH PENCIL DRAWER.
I sighed, and pushed myself off the door on watery knees. Picking up the phone and holding it a little way from my face, I said, “Sit down, and I’ll be right with you, as soon as I deal with this crisis.”
I spoke into it. “Coral? You there? That combination is taped to the bottom of the pencil drawer in my desk. But, hold on, I’ll give it to you. Write it down—” I repeated it off the telegram.
“Thank Heavens—”
I interrupted crisply. “One of you go see Mrs. Weaver right away and see if you can smooth this over. Mrs. English, maybe; she’s good with people. Buy Judy the biggest stuffed toy you can find, one of those thirty-five dollar jobs. And, Coral, I hate to be crabby, honey, but I’m working on a real big deal down here—”
“Darling, I am sorry about it.”
When I’d hung up I went over and lay down on the bed. I could have used a drink, but I doubted I could pour it.
She’d heard about the uproar and driven to some nearby town to send the telegram, probably from a pay phone. I closed my eyes, and I could see her so vividly it hurt. When they made her, I thought, they made only one.
It wasn’t only that she’d saved us this time; she’d put the thing on ice once and for all. I could make mistakes by the dozen from now on and it wouldn’t matter in the slightest. Only Chapman could have known that combination.
* * *
Her name sounded like something dreamed up by a cheap press-agent. Justine Laray. Not that it mattered. What did matter was that I was sure I’d found what I was looking for.
She knocked on the door around eleven p.m., and when I opened it and she came in, she sized me up, appraised the luggage and the fat wallet lying on the dresser—all in one glance and without even appearing to—and gave me a bright smile that promised unimaginable ecstasies and almost concealed the contempt she felt for any jerk who couldn’t get a woman without buying one.
It would be a hundred dollars, honey. And when I fatuously agreed to this overcharge it merely increased her contempt. I was sweet, and much better-looking than a lot of those fat expense-account creeps—ugh! Not that she’d ever done much of this, of course. She was really in show business. A song stylist.
“That right?” I said heartily. I slapped her on the behind. “We’re going to get along fine, sweetie. I always like people with talent. Never had any myself, except for making money. And women.”
It might have been a little cruder than usual, but she’d heard the tune. “You don’t mind if I get it now, do you?”
“Hell, no,” I waved a hand toward the wallet. “Take it out of there. Why not take two while you’re at it, and stay all night? Christ, if you don’t get it the Government will, and they don’t even kiss me. I’ll mix us a little drink, huh?”
I’d been cashing the traveler’s checks at a steady rate, and the wallet held close to three thousand dollars now. The rest of the checks were lying beside it.
“You know, I just might do that,” she said archly. She took four fifties from the wallet.
She was around twenty-five, a rather slender girl with nice teeth, short dark hair, and eyes that were almost black. There was nothing of the Latin about her, however. Her skin was dead white, and the eyes were cold. I put ice and Scotch in two glasses and set them on the dresser.
“Come on, sweetie, get out of those hot, sticky clothes and into a cold highball. You still got to meet the Credentials Committee.”
We went to bed. I’d had more fun in dentists’ offices. She probably had, too; but at least she was being paid to endure it. If she drank enough, she might talk about herself.
“You’d never think I was thirty-nine years old, would you?” I said. “Come on, you’d have said thirty-two, wouldn’t you? Hit me in the stomach. Hell, go on; hit me. . . .”
I went to Notre Dame. No, I didn’t play football. I didn’t have to; my old man had plenty of money. But don’t think I was one of those pantywaists that had it all given to me. I made it myself. Radio stations, newspapers, real estate. I was going to be around here at least a week, on a real-estate deal. Stick with me, if you can stand the pace, and we’ll have a ball. Feel the muscles in that stomach, Marian. Like the old washboard, huh?
She drank; she had to, to stand me. She began to get a little tight.
Miami, hah! And Miami Beach. Brother, you could have ’em. What a girl had to put up with from those fat expense-account types that think they’re better”n she is, the hairy pigs. Vegas was for her. Or L.A. She could go to work tomorrow. Did I know she was a song stylist? Brother, the crummy breaks she’d had in this crummy place. That agent of hers—Hah! this was an agent? He couldn’t book Crosby. And that room-mate running off with three of her best dresses. Imagine, stealing from another working girl. . . .
Hey, where you get this Marian routine? My name’s Justine. I already tolja that three times already. Sure, you called me Marian. Three times, for Crissakes. Whatta you carryin’ a torch, or something? Look, don’t call me Marian, or Sweetie, or Hey You. I got a name, just like anybody else. And you use it, buster. You think I’m some cheap tramp that you just grunt or point or something and hand me ten bucks and I fall over. . . .
In the morning she gave me her telephone number so we could eliminate the middleman. I gave her an extra fifty.
“You call me, honey,” she said, putting on lipstick and giving me an arch glance. I was a crude, repulsive, egocentric blow-hard who couldn’t even remember her name, and she detested me, but oddly enough I seemed to have nearly as much money as I boasted I had, and I threw it around.
* * *
The registered airmail from Webster & Adcock arrived at nine-thirty. I slit it open, and looked at the check for a hundred and fifty thousand dollars. Five minutes after the bank opened, I endorsed it, wrote out a deposit slip, and added it to the account.
Back at the hotel, I called Fitzpatrick. He’d already notified me, shortly after noon yesterday, that the owner had accepted the offer.
“Fitzpatrick,” I said now. “I just received the money from my broker, and deposited it. I’ll be able to give you a check for a hundred and seventy thousand dollars by Friday. Or Monday, at the latest.”
“That’s fine, Mr. Chapman. Just fine.”
“In the meantime I’m going to take a good look at the whole South Florida real-estate picture, and may get into it a little deeper. Keep me in mind.”