“He pays my salary. He likes to know what he’s getting for it. Also I had told him on the phone about your gun disappearing, and he wanted to ask me about it.”
“Did you have to tell him about that?”
“I thought I’d better. You’re his client, and he doesn’t like to have his clients shot, and if somebody used the gun to kill you with and I hadn’t told him about it he would have been annoyed. Besides, I thought he might want to make a suggestion.”
“Did he make one?”
“Not a suggestion exactly. He made a comment. He said you’re an ass. He said you should have corralled everybody and got the cops in to find the gun.”
“Did you tell him I’m convinced that my daughter-in-law took it?”
“Sure. But even if she did, and if she intends to use it on you, that would still be the best way to handle it. It would get the gun back, and it would notify her that you haven’t got a hole in your head and don’t intend to have one.”
He showed no reaction to my mentioning a hole in the head. “It was you who said we’d probably find it in a tub on the terrace.”
“I didn’t say probably, but what if I did? We’d have the gun. You said on the phone you’ve got instructions for me. About looking for it?”
“No, not that.” He took a pull on the cigar, removed it, and let the smoke float out. “I don’t remember just how much I’ve told you about Corey Brigham.”
“Not much. No details. That he’s an old friend of yours — no, you didn’t use the word friend — that he got in ahead of you on a deal, and that you think your daughter-in-law was responsible. I’ve been a little surprised to see him around.”
“I want him around. I want him to think I’ve accepted his explanation and I don’t suspect anything. The deal was about a shipping company. I found out about a claim that could be made against it, and I was all set to buy the claim and then put the screws on, and when I was ready to close in I found that Brigham was there ahead of me. He said he had got next to it through somebody else, that he didn’t know I was after it, but he’s a damn liar. There wasn’t anybody else. The only source was mine, and I had it clamped tight. He got it through information that was in this room, and he got it from my daughter-in-law.”
“That raises questions,” I told him. “I don’t have to ask why Susan gave it to him because I already know your answer to that. She gives things to men, including her — uh, favors, because that’s what she’s like. But how did she get it?”
“She got my gun yesterday, didn’t she?”
“I don’t know and neither do you. Anyhow, how many times has that rug walked in here?”
“Not any. That was a new one. But she knows how to find a way to get anything she wants. She could have got it from Jim Eber. Or from my son. Or she could have been in here with my son when Nora and I weren’t here, and sent him out for something, and got it herself. God only knows what else she got. Most of my operations are based on some kind of inside information, and a lot of it is on paper, it has to be, and I’m afraid to leave anything important in here anymore. Goddamn it, she has to go!”
He pulled at the cigar, found it was out, and dropped it in the tray. “There’s another aspect. I stood to clear a million on that deal, probably more. So Brigham did instead of me, and she got her share of it. She gives things to men, including her favors if you want to call it that, but all the time her main object is herself. She got her share. That’s what I’ve got instructions about. See if you can find it. She’s got it salted away somewhere and maybe you can find it. Maybe you can get a lead to it through Brigham. Get next to him. He’s a goddamn snob, but he won’t be snooty to my secretary if you handle him right. Another possibility is Jim Eber. Get next to him too. You met him yesterday. I don’t know just what your approach will be, but you should be able to work that out yourself. And don’t forget our deal — yours and mine. Ten thousand the day she’s out of here, with my son staying, and fifty thousand more when the divorce papers are signed.”
I had been wondering if he had forgotten about that. I was also wondering if he figured that later, remembering that he had told me Thursday night to get next to Jim Eber, I would regard that as evidence that he hadn’t been aware that Eber was no longer approachable.
I reminded him that it takes two to make a deal and that I hadn’t accepted his offer, but he waved that away as not worth discussing. His suggestion that I cultivate Eber made it relevant for me to ask questions about him, and I did so, but while some of the answers I got might have been helpful for getting to know him better, none of them shed any light on the most important fact about him, that he was dead. He had been with Jarrell five years, was unmarried, was a Presbyterian but didn’t work at it, played golf on Sunday, was fair to good at bridge, and so on. I also collected some data on Corey Brigham.
When Jarrell finished with me and I went, leaving him at his desk, I stood outside for a moment, on the rug that walked like a man, or a woman, debating whether to go and join the pinochle players, to observe them from the new angle I now had on the whole bunch, or to go for a walk and call Wolfe to tell him what Jarrell’s instructions had been. It was a draw, so I decided to do neither and went upstairs to bed.
I slept all right, I always sleep, but woke up at seven o’clock. I turned over and shut my eyes again, but nothing doing. I was awake. It was a damn nuisance. I would have liked to get up and dress and go down to the studio and hear the eight o’clock news. It had been exactly ten-thirty when I had phoned headquarters to tell them, in falsetto, that they had better take a look at a certain apartment at a certain number on 49th Street, and by now the news would be out and I wanted to hear it. But on Tuesday I had appeared for breakfast at 9:25, on Wednesday at 10:15, and on Thursday at 9:20, and if I shattered precedent by showing before eight, making for the radio, and announcing what I had heard to anyone available — and it would be remarkable not to announce it — someone might have wondered how come. So when my eyes wouldn’t stay closed no matter which side I tried, I lay on my back and let them stay open, hoping they liked the ceiling. They didn’t. They kept turning — up, down, right, left. I got the impression that they were trying to turn clear over to see inside. When I found myself wondering what would happen if they actually made it I decided that had gone far enough, kicked the sheet off, and got up.
I took my time in the shower, and shaving, and putting cuff links in a clean shirt, and other details; and history repeated itself. I was pulling on my pants, getting the second leg through, when there was a knock at the door, and nothing timid about it. I called out, “Who is it?”, and for reply the door opened, and Jarrell walked in.
I spoke. “Good morning. Come some time when I’ve got my shoes on.”
He had closed the door. “This can’t wait. Jim Eber is dead. They found his body in his apartment. Murdered. Shot.”
I stared, not overdoing it. “For God’s sake. When?”
“I got it on the radio — the eight o’clock news. They found him last night. He was shot in the head, in the back. That’s all it said. It didn’t mention that he worked for me.” He went to a chair, the big one by the window, and sat. “I want to discuss it with you.”
I had put my shoes and clean socks by that chair, intending to sit there to put them on. Going to get them, taking another chair, pulling my pants leg up, and starting a sock on, I said, “If they don’t already know he worked for you they soon will, you realize that.”
“Certainly I realize it. They may phone, or come, any minute. That’s what I want to discuss.”
I picked up the other sock. “All right, discuss. Shoot.”
“You know what a murder investigation is like, Goodwin. You know that better than I do.”