“I doubt that any of the others could stand my fee.”
Her face grew thoughtful again. “I see. What kind of service do you offer?”
“I offer to arrange a quiet payment of damages to the owners of the other two cars, so you don’t have to worry about eventual suits if they ever find out who side-swiped them. With a bonus tossed in to keep them from telling the cops there’d been a contact. And to make the same kind of arrangement with John Lischer. I warn you in advance that part will cost plenty, because on top of whatever I can get him to agree to for damages, he’ll have to be paid to keep it from the cops that there’s been a settlement. I’ll also take care of having your car repaired safely.”
“Why can’t you do just the last part?” she asked. “If no one ever discovers it was my car, why should we risk contacting the other people?”
“I’m thinking of your interest,” I said. “Once there’s a settlement, even a secret one, none of the other parties will press charges in the event the police ever catch up with you. Because I’ll get quitclaim agreements from all of them. Then if you do get caught, the probability is the cops won’t press charges on their own. And even if they do, proof that you made cash settlements with all the injured parties will be an extenuating circumstance. I doubt that any judge would give you more than a token fine and suspend your driver’s license for six months. But without settling, you’re in for a jail sentence if you ever get caught.”
“I see.” Her brow puckered in a slight frown. “And you say you can get my car repaired safely?”
“Safely,” I assured her.
“How? I wouldn’t care to have some shady repairman work on it. All he’d have to do is check the license plate like you did, and be all set for a little blackmail.”
“I said safely. Does your husband ever go out of town?”
“He flies to New York this coming Monday. A banker’s convention. He’ll be gone a full week.”
“What time’s he leave?”
“Six P.M. from the airport.”
“Fine,” I said. “As soon as it’s dark Monday night, I’ll pick up the car and drive it to Kansas City. I’ll switch plates and take it to a garage where I can get fast service. By the time your husband gets back from New York, your car will be back in the garage as good as new. Meantime, between now and Monday, I’ll arrange settlements with John Lischer and the other two car owners.”
She thought it over. Finally she said, “What is your fee?”
“Five thousand dollars,” I said.
She didn’t even blink. “I see. You’re a rather expensive man, Mr. Calhoun.”
I shrugged.
“And if I refuse to engage you?”
I said, “I have my duty as a citizen.”
“How would you explain to the police keeping silent thirty-seven hours?”
“I’d phone and ask why they haven’t acknowledged my letter,” I said blandly. “I was quite drunk that night. Too drunk for it to occur to me I ought to tell the police at the scene I had seen your license number. But the very next morning I wrote them a letter. Letters can get lost in the mail.”
She nodded slightly. “I guess you’re in a pretty good bargaining position, Mr. Calhoun. But I have one more question. Suppose this John Lischer insists on as much as a five-thousand-dollar settlement? With your fee, that would run the amount up to ten thousand. Where do you suggest I get that much money?”
I looked at her in surprise. “With this home and with three cars in the garage, I assume you’re not exactly a pauper.”
“No,” she admitted. “My husband is quite wealthy. And I can have all the money I want for any purpose I want just by asking. The only catch is I have to tell what it’s for. I haven’t a cent of my own except a checking account which currently contains about five hundred dollars. I could get the money by telling my husband what it’s for, but if I did that I wouldn’t need your services. I’m not afraid of the police. The sole reason I’m willing to engage you is to prevent my husband from finding out I wasn’t home in bed at the time of the accident.”
“Think up some other excuse. A charity donation, for instance.”
She shook her head. “My husband handles all our charity donations personally. There simply isn’t any excuse I could give him. If I told him I wanted a ten-thousand-dollar launch, he’d tell me to order it and have the company bill him. He wouldn’t give me the money for it. I’ve never in my life asked him for more than a couple of hundred dollars in cash.”
I said, “Then hit your boy friend. Harry Cushman’s got a couple of odd million lying around, last I heard, and nothing to spend it on except alimony and nightclubbing.”
She looked thoughtful. “Yes, I suppose that would work. Harry wouldn’t want publicity any more than I would. Shall I ask him for a check?”
“Cash,” I said.
“I’ll phone him as soon as you leave. Suppose you come back about this same time tomorrow?”
“Fine,” I said. It sounded like a dismissal, so I got to my feet.
She gave me an impersonal nod of good-by. She was leaning forward and reaching behind her back to untie my square knot when I walked out of the room.
4
The next day was Thursday. At noon I phoned City Hospital and learned John Lischer’s condition was charted as unchanged. Two hours later the colored maid Alice again let me into the foyer of the Powers home.
This time, instead of making me wait while she checked with her mistress, she merely said, “Mrs. Powers is expecting you, sir,” walked off and let me find my own way to the sun porch.
Thick carpeting in the big living room and dining room muffled my footsteps so that Mrs. Powers couldn’t hear me coming. I stopped at the open door of the sun porch.
Perhaps Mrs. Powers was expecting me, but apparently she had also expected the maid at least to announce my arrival, because she wasn’t exactly dressed for company. As yesterday, she was stretched out in one of the deck chairs with sun flooding her body. Her eyes were closed, though she didn’t seem to be asleep, and she wore nothing but a bra and a pair of yellow shorts as brief as the red ones she had worn the previous day.
A man can stand only so much temptation. When she looked up at me with no expression whatever on her face, I dropped a hand on each of her smooth shoulders, pulled her against my chest and kissed her.
She made no resistance, but she made no response either. She just stood there, her lips soft but unmoving, and her eyes wide open. After a moment I pushed her away.
“Was your mother frightened by an ice cube?” I growled at her.
“Maybe you’re just not the man to melt the ice, Mr. Calhoun.”
Turning, she padded across the enclosed porch on bare feet to a small table. A brightly-colored straw bag lay on the table, and she removed a banded sheaf of currency from it.
“Your fee,” she said, returning and handing me the money. “One hundred fifties.”
“How about the settlement?”
“We don’t know what that’s going to amount to, do we?” she said. “Harry wants to see the agreements releasing me from further claims in writing before he pays any more money. When you bring me those, I’ll see that you get whatever money the agreements call for.”
“Harry is smarter than I thought he was,” I remarked.
I riffled through the bills enough to make sure they were all fifties, then stuffed them in a pocket without counting them. “I’ll pay my personal expenses and the car repairs out of this, and you can pay me back when it’s all over.”