I was debating about whether to light a third cigarette when the inner door opened and a man came out and stood there looking at me with the expression of someone who has just discovered ants in the sugar. He wasn’t particularly tall, yet he was thick — all of him. He stared at me and then he frowned and the frown made deep horizontal wrinkles across his tanned forehead.
“You,” he said, “smart-ass. In here.” He jerked a thumb over his shoulder and disappeared through the door. I got up and started after him.
“Is that Vardaman?” I said to the brunette.
“Himself,” she said.
On the other side of the door that Vardaman had gone through was a short carpeted hall with three other doors leading off of it. I went through the door that was open. Vardaman was standing behind his desk next to a high-backed swivel chair.
“Close the door,” he said.
I went back and closed the door.
“Sit down.”
I sat down.
“I don’t know what you know about me,” he said.
“Very little.”
“Let me talk, will you. When I want you to talk, I’ll tell you. It took me two calls to find out all I want to know about you. That’s all. Two calls. One to Vegas, then one to New York. Just two calls and I got your whole life history. You’re very small beans, aren’t you?”
“Very small,” I said.
He sat down in his chair and moved a piece of paper on his desk. His hands were thick and covered with dark hair that ran from the backs of his fingers up to the heavy wrists that were exposed where the sleeves of his brown suede shirt jacket had been carefully turned back just once. Underneath the jacket he wore a pale tan shirt with a long collar. It was open not only at the throat but also halfway down his chest where another patch of dark hair grew.
There was more dark hair on the top of his head and at the sides and also down his neck. It had a carefully tousled look that must have cost him at least a quarter of an hour a day. Beneath the hair was a hard, handsome face with black eyes that glittered, a mouth that sneered easily and often, and a big chin with a jutting ledge that I could have laid a dime on.
He leaned back in his chair and worked on me with his black eyes. Although he seemed to search for a while he apparently found nothing about me to like. I was just the morning nuisance and he wasn’t going to let it spoil his lunch.
“There are two ways I could handle this,” he said after he tired of his staring game. “One would involve doctors, bone specialists probably, and a long rest in the hospital. That would be kind of—” He searched for a word. “Sordid, wouldn’t it?”
“Sordid,” I said.
“The other way — well, I don’t much like the other way either because it means that anybody with a long nose like yours can come around sticking it into my private business where it hasn’t got any right to be stuck. You follow me?”
“Closely.”
“You know, you’re the second guy this week that’s stuck his nose into my private business. Yesterday, it was some Washington cop. Today, it’s some New York grifter. Where’s it all going to end?”
“One wonders,” I said.
“Now I run a business here and I’ve got to run it efficiently or else I’m gonna be out on the street nickel-and-diming it and scratching around to make a living, which from what I understand is sort of what you do, isn’t it?”
“I couldn’t have described it better myself.”
“So what I’m gonna do, smart-ass, is I’m gonna tell you exactly the same thing I told that Washington cop yesterday, no more, no less.”
“What could be fairer.”
“Okay. Here goes. Mr. Jack Marsh was in debt to a client of mine who runs a perfectly legal business in Las Vegas. Mr. Marsh owed my client one hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars. My client turned the matter over to me for collection. I talked with Mr. Marsh, who fully acknowledged his debt but asked for an extension of time. I said okay. We both agreed that because we live in an uncertain world it would be wise if Mr. Marsh took out a life insurance policy in the amount of two hundred and fifty thousand dollars with Carl Vardaman Enterprises as the beneficiary. This was done. Before Mr. Marsh could pay off his debt he got himself killed in Washington, D.C., and I got fifteen witnesses, smart-ass, who will put me in Vegas at the time that Marsh was getting himself shot. That’s it.”
Vardaman rose. I rose with him. “Just one question and I’ll be on my way.”
“You’ll be on your way anyhow.”
“Who did Marsh take out the insurance policy with?”
“Pacifica Life and Casualty. He said he had a buddy over there but I don’t remember the guy’s name and I don’t wanta look it up.”
“Spivey,” I said. “Max Spivey.”
18
The afternoon hearst paper gave Fastnaught a good ride on its front page with the headline:
The headline almost had more facts than the story itself, which went on to say than an anonymous phone call had led police to the discovery of the body at the Colony Inn motel shortly before midnight yesterday. The story had Fastnaught’s name and rank right, but it had his age wrong. He wasn’t forty-seven. He just looked that way.
I read all about Fastnaught over a martini and an omelet that I had ordered for lunch at a place on La Cienega that Guerriero had suggested after I told him that I was buying. When I was through reading about Fastnaught I put the paper down and went back to my martini.
“How’d you like Vardaman?” Guerriero said. Since I was buying, Guerriero was having a steak and a beer.
“I was glad I didn’t owe him any money,” I said. “Is he as nasty as he says he is?”
“Nastier. Was he any help in whatever it is that you’re trying to do?”
“I’m not sure,” I said. “After lunch I think I’ll go back to the motel and lie down and think about it.”
“Then what?”
“I’ll think about that, too.”
The phone rang at three o’clock. I was lying down so I sat up, picked up the phone on its second ring, and said hello.
“St. Ives?”
“That’s right.”
“You still want to get that book back?”
It was the same voice, the one that was too high to be a man’s and too low to be a woman’s and again it was talking around something, a coin in the mouth, a finger, or maybe even a couple of marbles.
“You’re supposed to be dead,” I said.
“You mean you thought this was Jack Marsh’s voice?”
“I did up until now.”
“You thought wrong. I’ll ask again. Do you want to get that book back?”
“Let’s hear your proposition.”
“One hundred thousand. The same kind of bills as before and no cops this time.”
“That wasn’t my idea.”
“Well?”
“I’ll have to check with the insurance company.”
“You’ve got two hours,” the voice said. “I’ll call you back at exactly five o’clock.”
The phone went dead and I hung it back up. I sat there on the edge of the bed and thought for a moment. The Pliny book was insured for $500,000. The insurance company had already parted with $250,000. To keep from parting with the full half million it might be willing to part with yet another $100,000. But it wasn’t my decision so I picked up the phone and called Max Spivey at Pacifica Life and Casualty.
When Spivey came on I said, “I just got a call from what sounded like that same voice that I talked to in Washington. Whoever it is said that you can buy the book back for one hundred thousand. You haven’t got much time to make up your mind.”
There was a silence. Finally, Spivey said, “I’m thinking.”