But he kindly took Charles Mundin's name, just in case.
However Mundin bought a gun and started his own inquiries in Belly Rave. Lots of people had seen Norma and her ancient Cadillac the day of the disappearance. But not afterward.
And that was that.
It took a week, during which Mundin found himself making regular trips to the Lavin Ryan home loaded down with groceries. He also found that Ryan was tapping him for cash to feed his habit.
Don Lavin was sinking into a kind of catatonia without his sister. Ryan, sometimes coldly confident with a bellyful of yen pox, other times devoured by the weeping shakes, begged Mundin to try something, anything. Mundin tried a doctor.
The doctor made one visit—during which Don Lavin, sparked by some flickering pride, rallied wonderfully and conversed good-humoredly with the doctor. The doctor left, with an indignant glare at Mundin, and Don lapsed back into his twilight gloom. "All right, Ryan," Mundin said bitterly, "now what?"
Ryan shook the last pill out of the tin, swallowed it, and told Mundin now what.
And Mundin found himself calling on William Choate IV.
Poor Willie's office was a little smaller than a landing field. He sprinted the length of it to embrace good old Charles.
"Gosh," he burbled, "I'm so glad you could come and see me! They just put me in here, after old Sterling died. It used to be his office, see? So when he died, they put—"
"I see," Mundin said gently. "They put you in here."
"Yep. Say, Charles, how about some lunch?"
"Maybe. Willie, I need a little help."
Willie said reproachfully, "Now, Charles, it isn't about a job, is it? Gee, that'd be an awful spot to put me in."
Well, Mundin thought, they had succeeded in beating one thing into his head, though not two. "No," he said. "I just want a little advice. I'd like to know when and where the annual stockholder's meeting of G.M.L. Homes comes off."
Willie said happily, "I don't know. Don't they have to publish it somewhere? In a newspaper?"
"Yes, they have to publish it in a newspaper, Willie. The trick is to find out what newspaper. There are maybe fifty thousand of them in the country, and the law just says that it has to be published in one—not necessarily English language."
Willie looked sorrowful. "I only speak English, Charles," he said.
"Yes, Willie. Why don't you ask your Periodical Search Department?"
Willie nodded vigorously. "Oh, sure, Charles. Anything to oblige. Anything at all!" Willie uncertainly asked his squawk box whether they had anything like a Periodical Research Department, and the squawk box said yes, sir, and connected him. Half an hour later, deep in the intricacies of the preliminary pre-hearing of the Group E Debenture Holder's Protective Committee, the squawk box coughed and announced that the G.M.L. Homes meeting was advertised in the Lompoc, California, Picayune-Intelligencer. Time, day after tomorrow. Place, Room 2003, Administration Building, Morristown, Lone Island.
"Whew!" said Willie dubiously. "They won't get many people to come there, will they?"
The next morning Mundin was waiting at a two-dollar ticket window of the New York Stock Exchange when the opening bell rang.
He examined the crumpled instructions from Ryan nervously, as sweating and tense as any of the passionate throng of devotees pressing around him, but for other reasons.
Ryan's instructions were complete and precise, except for one thing: They didn't tell how to get the two thousand dollars to put them into effect. Mundin swore under his breath, shrugged, and swiftly punched Number 145. Anaconda Copper. He inserted his token, threw the lever and tore off his ticket At 19,999 other windows in the gigantic hall, 19,999 other investors were doing the same. And outside, on the polychrome street, ten thousand late-comers milled and murmured, waiting for their turn inside.
The market moved.
The angular Big Board in the center of the hall flashed and twinkled—fast, then slow, then dead slow. It locked. The lights stopped. The pari-mutuel computers began to hum.
Mundin leveled his field glasses on 145, but it was hard to stay on it. His hands were trembling.
The gong rang, and the line he was watching flashed: 145, np 3.
The great hall trembled with noise, of which Mundin's obscene monosyllable was only the twenty-thousandth part. A lousy six cents profit, he groaned. Not worth taking to the cashier's window.
A passing broker, a grimy Member's button in his lapel, said intimately: "Hey, bud—watch metals."
"Beat it or I'll have you run in," Mundin snapped. He had no time to waste on phony touts. He swept his field glasses over the Big Board, trying to make some sense out of the first movement of the day.
Industrials were down an average of four, the helpful summary told him. "Rails"—meaning, mostly, factory-site land developments—were up three. Chemicals, up eight.
Mundin figured. That meant that the investors would lay off chemicals because they would figure everybody would be selling chemicals because of the rise—except for the investors who would be on chemicals because they would figure everybody would lay off chemicals because they'd figure everybody would be on chemicals. Because of the rise.
Thirty-second warning bell!
"Bud," said the broker insistently, "watch metals?'
"Go to hell," Charles said hoarsely, his fingers shaking over the buttons. He punched Anaconda again, bought five tickets, cursed himself and waited.
When he heard the great groan at last he opened his eyes and swept the board with his glasses. 145, up 15.
"Remember who told ya," the broker was saying.
Mundin gave him a dollar. He would, after all, need a pair of hands. . . . "Thanks, bud," the broker said. "You're doing a smart thing. Look, don't switch. Not yet. I'll tell ya when. This is a morning crowd—Tuesday morning at that Not a crazy hysterical Monday-morning crowd that gets in fast and gets cleaned out fast. Look around and see for yaself. Little fellows taking a day off. The family men that play it smart—they, think. Smart and small … I been watching them for twenny years. Don't switch."
Charles didn't switch.
He kept feeding a dribble of dollars to the broker, who was either lucky or a genius that day. By noon Charles had a well-diversified portfolio of metals with a cash-in value of four hundred and eighty dollars.
"Now," the broker said hoarsely. He had borrowed Charles's field glasses to scan the crowd. "See?" Some of them's leaving. Some of them breaking out sanniches. The handle's dropping. They're getting not-so-smart now, not-so-small. I been watching them twenny years. Now they start doing the stupid, obvious things, because they're gettin' hungry and a hungry man ain't smart. I feel it, mister, the way I never felt it before. Sell twenny points short. Jeez, I wish I had the nerve to say thirty!"
Two minutes later he was pounding Charles on the back and yelling, "We did it, bud! We made it! We made it!"
Metals had broken—thirty-eight points: Charles, by now icy-calm, gave him five dollars. Step One in Ryan's instructions; build up a stake. He'd done it.
He turned the dial to the five-hundred-dollar range. "Give me a winner," he told the tout.
The broker gasped and stuttered.
"I've got to," Charles said. "This is taking too long. I'm in a hurry."