“Call me and I’ll come at once,” she said. “I’ll have it out with him. If that doesn’t work we’ll have to take other steps. And I’m sure you’ll find him for me, Mr. Sweeney.”
Back at my desk I phoned the Westshire Apartments and asked for Mrs. Donaldson. She was registered but wasn’t in just now, would I care to leave a message? I said no, and hung up.
I was counting the pictures of Ulysses S. Grant, one of our finest Presidents I think, for the fifth time when Hilda Hansen entered. She grinned at the bills and reached out her hand. I gave her three of them.
Hilda said, “We’re in business again.”
“We’re still in business,” I corrected.
She bristled a little. “Are you going to tell me about it, or do I have to hire a detective to find out what my boss is doing?”
I told her about it.
“I hope nothing’s happened to him,” she commented, gazing dreamily at the photo of Robert Donaldson.
“Don’t worry. He’s probably latched onto some rich tomato on his route,” I said. “You know these traveling salesmen.”
“I don’t,” Hilda remarked acidly, “but, unlike some people I know, he appears to be a nice clean cut young man.” Hilda came into second hand contact with all the crud I did business with, typed my reports, kept the files and was sharper than most sergeants. Still, she always managed the optimistic view.
“Set the machinery in motion,” I told her. “Find Jack Holland and tell him to light someplace where we can get hold of him. I’ll phone you later.”
Hilda nodded. She was staring at the snapshot again. I picked it up and left the office.
Two
The Mayflower Shirt Company is a square, two-storied, corner building on lower Mission Street with display rooms under the main offices. I went in the side entrance and upstairs, past an idle switchboard to where a girl at a wide flat desk with three phones on it guarded a labyrinth of frosted glass cubicles. I asked for the boss.
The girl looked me over. “Who shall I say?”
“Bill Sweeney.”
She flipped a switch and picked up the receiver of one of the three phones, “Mr. Sweeney to see Mr. Booker.” She paused and asked me, “What do you want to see him about?”
I told her it was personal business. She relayed the information, nodded agreeably at the receiver and hung up. She said, “Follow me,” and led me through the labyrinth to a back corner of the building where she opened a door with “Sales Manager’s Office” stencilled on the frosted glass. She said, “This is Mr. Sweeney,” to another girl behind another desk with three phones on it, and left me.
“Go right in,” the new girl motioned to a door behind her.
The office wasn’t the glassed-in enclosure I expected. It’s walls were of inlaid mahogany and two Japanese prints hung on one of them. Opposite the prints a door with a brass knob the size of a cantaloupe had been cut in the mahogany. A large curtained window overlooking Mission Street was flanked by mauve drapes. The window was closed and the room was stuffy. A desk to match the woodwork, a leather couch and four, soft leather chairs stood on a red frieze carpet.
A slight, pasty faced man with bald head and incongruously bushy eyebrows sat behind the desk. He watched me through small gray agates.
“Mr. Booker?”
He said, “Yes,” in a weak voice that matched his chin.
I took a card from my billfold and handed it to him. “Mrs. Donaldson asked me to make inquiries about her former husband.”
He read the card, stood up as if it hurt and reached for my hand. I gave it to him and he tried pumping it a few times, until the weight became too much for him. “Sit down, sit down,” he said, waving at one of the soft leather chairs. “I’m glad you came by, most glad. I’ve been worrying about Robert. Where is he, why has he gone, was there an accident...?” He sank into the chair and ran a hand over his forehead, up through the hair he once had. “We’re filling in as best we can, but it can’t last much longer. Two weeks already.”
“When did you last hear from him, Mr. Booker?”
“Let’s see.” He riffled through the pages of a desk calendar and sighed deeply after the strenuous exercise. He said, “Two weeks ago last Wednesday, September twenty-ninth. Robert made an early call in Crescent City. That’s the last I’ve heard.”
“Has he ever been away like this before?”
“No. A day or two, once in a great while, but he always phoned in.”
“What happened to his car after the Crescent City call? Does he use a company car?”
“His own car. He’s on mileage and expenses.” Booker talked in a cracked hollow monotone, the echo of a distant grave.
“Can you think of any reason he might want to leave, to disappear?” I asked.
“Not one. He’s a good, well liked salesman, works our best northern California accounts. He’s been with us seven years.” He paused, gathering strength to register amazement. “Why, he has over two thousand dollars in our credit union.”
“Have you noticed any changes in Donaldson since he’s worked for you?”
“Oh, yes.” The filmy eyes opened wide and fastened vacantly on my necktie. I don’t know how the guy lived through the Fourth of July. “Robert started here as a stock clerk after the war,” he droned. “He became floorman, then salesman. He’s gone up and up.”
“I mean personally, especially during the past months, was there anything different about him?”
“No. I can’t think o£ anything.” He began worrying his mythical hair again.
“Could you give me an idea about what he’s been doing for the company lately? I suppose you keep records.”
“Yes. The records I can show you,” Booker said. He pushed himself out of the chair and went to the door, spoke to his secretary. I lit a cigarette and dropped the match in his desk tray, a large polished seashell. Booker returned to his chair with a large Manila folder. He opened it and inspected the contents.
“These are Robert’s expense sheets up through Friday, September twenty-fourth.” He handed me the folder. “I can bring you up to date. On the following Monday, he worked here in the office until about ten, and left for Eureka. He made some calls going north and he was in Eureka on Tuesday, we’ve received his orders. He must have gone directly to Crescent City from there and spent the night. His call in Crescent City next morning was before nine o’clock, and that’s a half day’s drive from Eureka.”
There were ten long pink sheets in the folder, one for each month, with the dates printed on the left, remarks and figures opposite most of them. Clipped to each of the pages were hotel and motel receipts.
“When Robert is on the road,” Booker explained, “he usually heads north through Tasco, over to Chico, down through Sacramento, to Oakland and home. Seven or eight times a year he extends the trip to cover the smaller, hard to get at areas. He takes in the territory up to Crescent City one time and Alturas, on the other side of the state, the next.”
Booker took an almost deep breath, the recitation sapping his strength. He continued, “Opposite the dates on those sheets are his expenses for meals and lodging. Receipts for the lodgings are attached at the top.” He paused again and I snuffed out my cigarette in his pretty ashtray. “At the bottom you’ll find the upkeep and mileage records for his car. Pull your chair over to the desk and look them over.”
I did this and studied each page briefly while Booker leaned back in his chair and watched me through half closed eyes. The records were all neatly typed, and signed by Robert Donaldson. The hotel bills were from pretty much the same sources, except that during the past six months Donaldson had passed up the Saint George Hotel in Tasco, where he stayed earlier in the year, for Casper’s Cozy Corner in Gravenstein, a small town south of Tasco.