She picked the cigarette from the ashtray, absently replaced it without drawing on it. Now that I was bringing the police in on the case, Alison had little choice but to do as I asked.
"Joan's in my apartment," she flatly admitted. "How did you guess I was hiding her?"
"Dale Carlon mentioned that you were a family friend," I said, "and that you knew Joan. Where would Joan go for help in her predicament, afraid for her life? Not to the police or to her father. Not to a private investigator, one of a bad type and a total stranger. But you, a family friend, another woman and a trained investigator in your work, could understand and have a professional interest. And more importantly, you could work on the case without attracting suspicion. You could arrange for the arrest of the people who wanted to kill her, and maybe she thought she could stay out of it."
Alison toyed with her tall glass, nodded. "At first she thought that, then she wanted me to find Congram so she could try to buy her life with her father's money. Joan has faith in me. I was sort of her big sister-godmother when she was younger."
"Does Carlon know where she is?"
Alison snubbed out her cigarette with short jabs. "No, Joan never talked to him. The seriousness of her situation dawned on her by degrees. Now she realizes money can't guarantee her safety. She simply wants her potential killers off her trail, in the hands of the law. I thought she was safe with me; I guess I made some mistakes."
"Not many," I said. "I knew someone was touching bases before me at times and thought it was whoever had killed Talbert, but it was you, working the same trail I was. I was searching for Joan Clark and you were working for her, searching for Congram. When you got the call about Osborne, it came from Chicago; I figured that for some reason you'd routed some of the calls through your office. But yesterday you were on the phone with your editor, conning him into thinking you were chasing another story. You'd already had feelers out for a Gratuity Insurance appointment, to be called to your home number, where Joan would always be waiting to forward the message to you. It was Joan who phoned from Chicago about the Osborne appointment."
Alison played her lighter flame over the tip of another of her long cigarettes, leaned back. I enjoyed the frank admiration in her green cat eyes. "You pieced things together neatly, Nudger, I'll admit. What about Osborne's remark in his office?"
"Now who needs ego boosting?" I asked her. "I knew you were too sharp not to have noticed when Osborne mentioned that Dale Carlon had arranged the appointment for us, but what he said didn't register with me until later. I never told you who'd hired me, and you let Osborne's remark go by without question. Not like you at all, Alison."
She'd wanted to hear that last part. She smiled at me.
"I think we should go," I said, and she agreed with me.
24
Alison's apartment wasn't the worst place to hide. It was on the seventh floor, and large, filled with modern furniture that somehow managed to appear comfortable. The pale walls were graced with multicolored inkblot paintings that seemed to be there more for the brown and yellow color scheme than for art. Two wide glass doors led to a garden balcony, the ledges of which were lined with narrow planters of tangled green vines.
Alison looked around, glanced at me as if surprised not to see Joan Clark in the apartment. Then she walked to a closed door and knocked on it.
"Joan? It's me, Alison. You can come out."
Alison was about to knock again when the door opened slowly and Joan Clark stepped out.
When she saw me, her slender body gave a slight backward jerk, and her large dark eyes darted sideways to question Alison mutely. She was wearing a wrinkled gray pants suit that distorted her slender curves, and her hand raised as if by helium and clutched her jacket closed in woman's universal reaction to distress.
"This is Alo Nudger, Joan," Alison said gently.
Joan stared at me, without surprise now. She looked worse than her photograph. The upturned nose lent her a wary, haunted expression that matched the hollowness of her eyes. Her hair was much lighter than in her snapshots, cut short and carelessly tousled.
"Alison's told me about you," she said in a calm voice. She was about to say something else, then caught herself and stared at me with cautious appraisal.
"You don't have to worry now about Congram or Gratuity Insirance," I said.
Something flared in her eyes for a second, something I couldn't decipher. "You know about them?"
"Just enough," I said. "I'd like for you to tell me the rest. It's the only way now, the best way."
She seemed to withdraw to someplace beyond me to consider that, walking absently to a chocolate-colored sofa and sitting lightly.
"You're working for my father," she said, as if it were an accusation.
"And for you, Joan. At this point your interests are the same."
Alison sat next to her, rested a soft hand on her arm. "He's right, Joan. You should see your only way out of it now. Do what he asks."
Joan laughed, almost a bitter sort of cough, and looked up at me. "You're not going to tell me my father's concerned with my safety?"
I shook my head. "I'm not going to pass judgment on your father. All I said was that your interests coincide."
"I don't have to go back."
"No, and if you do go, you don't have to stay."
Joan leaned back on the sofa, breathed out her uncertainty and tension in a long sigh. She'd reached a decision; for everybody's sake, I hoped the right one.
"All right," she said, "what do you want me to do?"
I sat opposite her in an armless chair. "From the beginning, tell me about Victor Talbert and Gratuity Insurance."
She didn't move; her dark eyes locked on something low and invisible on the other side of the room. "I loved Vic… We loved each other. And things were beautiful until he lost his job." Now she did look at me, frowning and haggard despite her youth. "You have to understand what losing the job meant to Vic, what a crushing thing it was to him. He was ambitious, hard working and dedicated-not just to his job but to everything he did. The idea that he might fail never entered his mind, because he wouldn't let it. Nobody wanted success more, or feared failure as much."
I waited for her to continue and didn't say I could have introduced her to more than a few Victor Talberts.
"Vic tried to get another job," Joan continued, "and he could have had several with starting salaries and responsibilities below what he considered his level. He refused them, out of personal and professional pride. Then he decided to go into business for himself, and he went all over trying to get financing, but no one would give him a loan. That's when he began to get sour on himself, really depressed, and that's when Jerry Congram came along."
"Had he known Talbert before?"
"No, Congram said his 'research and recruiting department" had recommended Vic to him. Vic was impressed with Jerry. So was I and so was everybody. Jerry can tell you things, make you believe in yourself, make you believe almost anything. When he was gone, sometimes you'd begin to wonder… But then he'd be back, with all his fire and all his belief. I'll admit, Vic and I were dazzled, and Vic had hope again, and something to suit his abilities."
"A position with Gratuity Insurance?"
Joan nodded her head, kept it bowed.
"Joan, I need to know how Gratuity Insurance works, how many people are involved."
She didn't hesitate. "There were fifteen, including Vic. I wasn't actually an employee, but I was going to be and Congram trusted me. Congram recruited junior executives and other strongly business-oriented people to work for him. He was very careful; he'd learn everything about someone before even considering approaching them for recruitment. Everyone has to be loyal to him, ambitious, aggressive, and believe in the system."