“Sure,” I said. “Tonight. Or is it tomorrow night, or maybe the day after? I forget.”
Fastnaught shook his head. “It’s tonight. You got wet shoes. That’s how I know it’s tonight.”
“Jesus,” I said.
“I’m a hell of a detective,” he said. “There isn’t a thing in God’s world that would get you out in all this snow before noon today unless you had to go pick up the money. If you went to pick up the money, it means that you’re ready to make the switch, except that you’re not gonna do that in the middle of the five o’clock rush, so that means tonight.”
“My word, Holmes.”
“Yeah, I thought you’d like the wet shoes stuff,” Fastnaught said. “It sort of helped, too, that I tailed you to the bank this morning. You and that other guy, what’s his name?”
“Spivey.”
“Uh-huh. Spivey. Max Spivey. He’s big, isn’t he?”
“Kind of,” I said.
“Hell, I’ve been detecting all over the place this morning and me with the worst hangover a man ever had. I even did some more checking on this guy Jack Marsh. Guess what I found out?”
“How much is it going to cost me?”
Fastnaught grinned at me, and for a moment the grin took away most of the age and the lines that the liquor had written on his face. He looked very much like he did when I first knew him — young and merry and full of what-the-hell.
“Nothing,” he said. “I’m gonna throw this one in free — except I’m gonna let you pay for the lunch.”
“All right.”
“I’ve been out to L.A. a couple of times on business and both times I worked with the same guy out there and we got to be pretty good drinking buddies. Well, this guy is a gossip merchant. I mean most cops are gossips, but this guy eats it. So I call him at home this morning just before I called you. Well, we go back and forth for a while — you know, the how the hell are you stuff and then I shoot him a couple of real juicy items about the White House and an L.A. congressman that I’d picked up somewhere, probably in the John at work. You know the kind of stuff you hear in this town.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Well, after that I ask him to tell me what he can about this guy Jack Marsh who I understand used to be with the cops out there before he went private. So this guy, this buddy of mine, tells me that almost everybody out there knows or at least has heard of Jack Marsh on account of he’s so mean. Not that he’s not good, my buddy says, in fact, he’s probably the best private guy around out there, but he sure was one mean cop and from what my buddy hears he’s even meaner now that he’s gone private. My buddy says he doesn’t know how Marsh was when he was in Army intelligence, but he was probably mean then too. He used to be a captain, Marsh, I mean.”
“Who was he mean to?” I said.
“Well, there were a couple of Mexicans out there who probably thought he was mean, but they’re not around anymore to tell about it.”
“Dead?”
“Dead. It was a liquor store stickup and it could have gone either way, but my buddy says Marsh chose the other way. That was the first time. There were three more times before he quit and went private. It got so that guys didn’t much want to work with him out there on account of he was so mean.”
“But good?”
“Yeah, that’s right, mean but good. Well, the other thing that my buddy hears is that Marsh is making a lot of money out there and that he’s shacked up with this rich fox now that he’s moved up in society. Well, guess who this rich fox is?”
I decided to spoil it for him. “Maude Goodwater. Except I don’t think she’s so rich anymore.”
“But it’s her book. I mean the one you’re gonna buy back.”
“That’s right. It’s her book. It used to be her father’s.”
“And she’s shacked up with Jack Marsh.”
“I think they call it living together nowadays. Maybe because it gives it a little more tone.”
“Maybe,” Fastnaught said. “Okay, she’s living with mean Jack Marsh and she sends him here to Washington to pick up the book, but the next thing we know somebody’s taken mean Jack out while he’s got the book tucked under his arm and they’re willing to sell it back and maybe mean Jack along with it for a quarter of a million. You like it?”
“Not much,” I said.
“I sure as shit wouldn’t like it if I was you,” he said. “Maybe you’ll like it even less when I drop the next little juicy item on you. And maybe you’ll change your mind about having me in your hip pocket.”
“Maybe,” I said.
“Well, last month, my buddy tells me, a grand jury out there came within a cunt hair of handing down an indictment for extortion. Now guess who they were thinking of indicting?”
“Our Jack,” I said.
“Yeah, our Jack,” Fastnaught said. Something started working in his face and it spread to his eyes. They lost their dullness and took on a fresh, cold sparkle. “I’ve just had a flash,” he said.
“And you’re going to share it with me.”
“You bet. You say this Goodwater broad is hard up?”
“That’s what I understand. Although I’m not sure what the rich think hard up is. I suppose it means that she’s down to her last twenty or thirty thousand — something like that.”
“So she decided to sell the book.”
“That’s right.”
“For how much?”
“I don’t know. At least half a million, from what Laws over at the Library of Congress tells me.”
“Okay, let’s see how this one fits. She and Marsh are sitting around out there in L.A. and she’s crying because she’s down to her last twenty or thirty thousand, like you say, and she’s gonna have to sell the book just to scrape up half a million and Marsh comes up with this idea. Why doesn’t she let him go pick it up? Then he’ll just sort of disappear for a while and let everybody think he’s been kidnapped along with the book. After that they’ll call in some real honest go-between, who’s not too bright, and he’s got just the guy in mind, and they’ll let the insurance company cut its losses and pay a quarter of a million to get the book back. What do you think, sugar? he says and she says, swell, honey, that’s a wonderful idea, why don’t you go ahead and set it up and we’ll split. How do you like it, St. Ives?”
“It’s got a lot of drama,” I said. “There’s one thing that bothers me.”
“What?”
“What if I make the switch okay and get the book back?”
“Well?”
“Well, what if our Jack Marsh doesn’t turn up until two days later when somebody finds him floating in the Anacostia?”
Fastnaught shook his head. “That isn’t gonna happen.”
“Can you guarantee it?”
I could see his mind working. Finally he said, “No, I can’t guarantee it.”
“Well, that’s why you can’t ride along in my hip pocket.”
“No way, huh?”
“None.”
He slumped back in his chair and looked at me with eyes that had lost the snap and sparkle they had had a few moments ago. They had gone dull again and old. The change made Fastnaught look tired and a little used up. “Well,” he said, “the least you can do is buy me a brandy.”
“I’ll do better than that,” I said. “I’ll buy us both one.”
8
Right after I rented the Ford sedan from Hertz and bought a flashlight it began to snow again. It was about 3:30 in the afternoon and the snow had started coming down thick and steady and wet in a determined sort of way as though it had made up its mind to cover everything up at least twelve inches deep even if it took all afternoon and the rest of the night.
According to the radio the federal government had made up its mind a little more quickly this time. It had decided to let all of its employees go home at four and I got caught in that traffic and it wasn’t until five that I got back to the hotel.