"Is it important?"
"Yes, terribly. Something has happened."
"I'll go home. Call me there in a half hour."
I was alone, but I don't take chances on a phone that runs through a switchboard. I went home, and the phone rang a couple of minutes after I got there. "The Palo Alto trip is off. He's broken his leg."
"What!"
"I don't even know how he did it, yet. He was holding a dog or something, a neighbor's dog that was chasing a rabbit, and slipped and fell down. He's in the hospital now. Lola's with him. They'll be bringing him home in a few minutes."
"I guess that knocks it in the head."
"I'm afraid so."
I was at dinner before it came to me that instead of knocking it in the head, maybe this fixed it up perfect. I walked three miles, around the living room, wondering if she'd come that night, before I heard the bell ring.
"I've only got a few minutes. I'm supposed to be on the boulevard, buying him something to read. I could cry. Whoever heard of such a thing?"
"Listen, Phyllis, never mind that. What kind of break has he got? I mean, is it bad?"
"It's down near the ankle. No, it's not bad."
"Is it in pulleys?"
"No. There's a weight on it, that comes off in about a week. But he won't be able to walk. He'll have to wear a cast. A long time."
"He'll be able to walk."
"You think so?"
"If you get him up."
"What do you mean, Walter?"
"On crutches, he can get up, if you get him up. Because with his foot in a cast, he won't be able to drive. He'll have to go by train. Phyllis, this is what we've been hoping for."
"You think so?"
"And then another thing. I told you, he gets on that train but he don't get on it. All right, then. We've got a question of identification there, haven't we? Those crutches, that foot in a cast-there's the most perfect identification a man ever had. Oh yeah, I'm telling you. If you can get him off that bed, and make him think he ought to take the trip anyway, just as a vacation from all he's been through-we're in. I can feel it. We're in."
"It's dangerous, though."
"What's dangerous about it?"
"I mean, getting a broken leg case out of bed too soon. I used to be a nurse, and I know. It's almost certain to affect the length. Make one leg shorter than the other, I mean."
"Is that all that's bothering you?"
It was a minute before she got it. Whether one leg was going to be shorter than the other, that was one thing he didn't have to worry about.
Decoration Day they don't have mail delivery, but the day watchman sends over to the General Fidelity box and gets it. There was a big envelope for me, marked personal. I opened it and found a booklet. It was called "Colloids in Gold Mining. An examination of methods in dealing with the problem." Inside, it was inscribed, "To Mr. Walter Huff, in appreciation of past favors, Beniamino Sachetti."
Chapter 5
His train was to leave at 9:45 at night. Around four o'clock, I drove down to San Pedro Street and talked employers' liability to the manager of a wine company. There wasn't a chance of landing him until August, when the grapes came in and his plant opened up, but I had a reason. He explained why he wasn't ready to do business yet, but I put on an act and went back to the office. I told Nettie I thought I had a real prospect, and to make out a card for him. The card automatically gave the date of the first call, and that was what I wanted. I signed a couple of letters, and around five-thirty I left.
I got home around six, and the Filipino was all ready to serve dinner. I had seen to that. This was June 3, and I should have paid him on the first, but I pretended I had forgotten to go to the bank, and put him off. Today, though, I had stopped at the house for lunch, and paid him. That meant that when night came he could hardly wait to go out and spend it. I said O.K., he could serve dinner, and he had the soup on the table before I even got washed up. I ate, as well as I could. He gave me steak, mashed potatoes, peas and carrots, with fruit cup for dessert. I was so nervous I could hardly chew, but I got it all down somehow. I had hardly finished my coffee when he had everything washed up, and had changed to cream-colored pants, white shoes and stockings, a brown coat, and white shirt open at the neck ready to go out with the girl. It used to be that what a Hollywood actor wore on Monday a Filipino house boy wore on Tuesday, but now, if you ask me, it's the other way around, and the boy from Manila beats Clark Gable to it.
He left around a quarter to seven. When he came up to ask if there was anything else for him to do, I was taking off my clothes getting ready to go to bed. I told him I was going to lie there and do a little work. I got some paper and pencils and made a lot of notes, like I was figuring up the public liability stuff for the man I talked to in the afternoon. It was the kind of stuff you would naturally save and put in the prospect's folder. I took care there was a couple of notes on the date.
Then I went down and called the office. Joe Pete, the night watchman, answered. "Joe Pete, this is Walter Huff. Do me a favor will you? Go up to my office, and right on top of the desk you'll find my rate book. It's a looseleaf book, with a soft leather back, and my name stamped in gold on the front, and under that the word 'rates.' I forgot to bring it home, and I need it. Will you get it and send it up to me by messenger, right away?"
"O.K., Mr. Huff. Right away."
Fifteen minutes later he rang back and said he couldn't find it. "I looked all over the desk, Mr. Huff, and through the office besides, and there's no such book there."
"Nettie must have locked it up."
"I can tell her if you want, and ask her where she put it."
"No, I don't need it that bad."
"I'm sorry, Mr. Huff."
"I'll have to get along without it."
I had put that rate book in a place where he'd never find it. But it was one person that had called me at home that night, and I was there, working hard. There'd be others. No need to say anything to him that would make him remember the date. He had to keep a log, and enter everything he did, not only by date, but also by time. J looked at my watch. It was 7:38.
A quarter to eight the phone rang again. It was Phyllis. "The blue."
"Blue it is."
That was a check on what suit he would wear. We were pretty sure it would be the blue, but I had to be sure, so she was to duck down to the drugstore to buy him an extra tooth brush, and call. No danger of its being traced, there's no record on dial calls. Soon as she hung up I dressed. I put on a blue suit too. But before that I wrapped up my foot. I put a thick bandage of gauze on it, and over that adhesive tape. It looked like the tape was wrapped on the ankle, like a cast for a broken leg, but it wasn't. I could cut it off in ten seconds when I was ready to. I put the shoe on. I could barely lace it, but that was how I wanted it. I checked on a pair of horn-rim glasses, like he wore. They were in my pocket. So was 58 inches of light cotton rope, rolled small. So was a handle I had made, like stores hook on packages, but heavier, from an iron rod. My coat bulged, but I didn't care.
Twenty minutes to nine I called Nettie. "Did you see my rate book before I left?"
"Indeed I didn't, Mr. Huff."
"I need it, and I don't know what I did with it."
"You mean you lost it?"
"I don't know. I phoned Joe Pete, and he can't find it, and I can't imagine what I did with it."
"I can run in, if you want, and see if I can-"
"No, it's not that important."
"I didn't see it, Mr. Huff."
Nettie lives in Burbank, and it's a toll call. The record would show I called from the house at 8:40. As soon as I got rid of her I opened the bell box and tilted half a visiting card against the clapper, so if the phone rang it would fall down. Then I did the same for the doorbell clapper, in the kitchen. I would be out of the house an hour and a half, and I had to know if the doorbell rang or the phone rang. If they did, that would be while I was in the bathroom taking a bath, with the door shut and the water running, so I didn't hear. But I had to know.