"I'm sorry to hear that. But I really have to-"
The upstairs extension was picked up and Mary said, "Bart?"
"Yes. Mary, has a lawyer named Fenner been out to see you? Kind of slicktalking fellow that tries to act like Jimmy Stewart?"
"No," she said. Shit, snake-eyes. Then she added, "He called on the phone." Jackpot! Fenner was standing in the doorway now, holding his coffee and sipping it calmly. The half-shy, totally cheerful, aw-shucks expression was gone now. He looked rather pained.
"Mamma, get off the extension," Mary said, and Jean Galloway hung up with a bitter snort.
"Was he asking about me?" he asked.
"Yes. "
"He talked to you after the party?"
"Yes, but . . . I didn't tell him anything about that."
"You might have told him more than you know. He comes on like a sleepy tickhound, but he's the city council's ballcutter." He smiled at Fenner, who thinly smiled back. "You've got an appointment with him?"
"Why . . . yes. " She sounded surprised. "But he only wants to talk about the house, Bart—"
"No, that's what he told you. He really wants to talk about me. I think these guys would like to drag me into a competency hearing."
"A . . . what? . . . " She sounded utterly befuddled.
"I haven't taken their money yet, ergo I must be crazy. Mary, do you remember what we talked about at Handy Andy's?"
"Bart, is that Mr. Fenner in the house?"
"Yes."
"The psychiatrist," she said dully. "I mentioned you were going to be seeing a . . . oh, Bart, I'm sorry."
"Don't be," he said softly, and meant it. "This is going to be all right, Mary. I swear. Maybe nothing else, but this is going to be all right."
He hung up and turned to Fenner. "Want me to call Stephan Ordner?" he asked. "Vinnie Mason? I won't bother with Ron Stone or Tom Granger, they'd recognize a cheap prick like you before you even had your briefcase unsnapped. But Vinnie wouldn't and Ordner would welcome you with open arms. He's on the prod for me. "
"You needn't," Fenner said. "You've misunderstood me, Mr. Dawes. And you've apparently misunderstood my clients. There is nothing personal in this. No one is out to get you. But there has been an awareness for some time that you dislike the 784 extension. You wrote a letter to the paper last August-"
"Last August," he marveled. "You people have a clipping service, don't you?"
"Of course."
He went into a harried crouch, rolling his eyeballs fearfully. "More clippings! More lawyers! Ron, go out and snow those reporters! We have enemies everywhere. Mavis, bring me my pills!" He straightened up. "Paranoia, anyone? Christ, I thought I was bad."
"We also have a public-relations staff," Fenner said stiffly. "We are not nickle-and-diming here, Mr. Dawes. We are talking about a ten-million-dollar project. "
He shook his head, disgusted. "They ought to hold a competency hearing on you road guys, not me."
Fenner said: "I'm going to lay all my cards on the table, Mr. Dawes."
"You know, it's been my experience that when anybody says that they're ready to stop screwing around with the little lies and they're about to tell a real whopper."
Fenner flushed, finally angry. "You wrote the newspaper. You dragged your heels on finding a new plant for the Blue Ribbon Laundry and finally got canned--
"I didn't. I resigned at least a half an hour before they could pink me."
"-and you've ignored all our communications dealing with this house. The consensus is that you may be planning some public display on the twentieth. Calling the papers and TV stations, getting them all out here. The heroic home owner dragged kicking and screaming from his hearth and home by the city's Gestapo agents. "
"That worries you, doesn't it?"
"Of course it worries us! Public opinion is volatile, it swings around like a weathervane-"
"And your clients are elected officials."
Fenner looked at him expressionlessly.
"So what now?" he asked. "Are you going to make me an offer I can't refuse?"
Fenner sighed. "I can't understand what we're arguing about, Mr. Dawes. The city is offering you sixty thousand dollars to-"
"Sixty-three five."
"Yes, very good. They are offering you that amount for the house and the lot. Some people are getting a lot less. And what do you get for that money? You get no hassles, no trouble, no heat. The money is practically tax free because you've already paid Uncle the taxes on the money you spent to buy it. All you owe is taxes on the markup. Or don't you think the valuation is fair?"
"Fair enough," he said, thinking about Charlie. "As far as dollars and cents go, it's fair. Probably more than I could get if I wanted to sell it, with the price of loans what they are."
"So what are we arguing about?"
"We're not," he said, and sipped his drink. Yes, he had gotten his salesman, all right. "Do you have a house, Mr. Fenner?"
"Yes I do," Fenner said promptly. "A very fine one in Greenwood. And if you are going to ask me what I would do or how I would feel if our positions were reversed, I'll be very frank. I would twist the city's tit for all I could get and then laugh all the way to the bank. "
"Yes, of course you would." He laughed and thought of Don and Ray Tarkington, who would have twisted both tits and rammed the courthouse flagpole up the city's ass for good measure. "Do you folks really think I've lost my marbles, then?"
Judiciously, Fenner said: "We don't know. Your resolution to the laundry relocation problem was hardly a normal one."
"Well, I'll tell you this. I have enough marbles left to know I could get myself a lawyer who doesn't like the eminent domain statute-one who still believes in that quaint old adage that a man's home is his castle. He could get a restraining order and we could tie you up for a month, maybe two. With luck and the right progression of judges, we could hold this thing off until next September."
Fenner looked pleased rather than disconcerted, as he had suspected Fenner would. Finally, Fenner was thinking. Here's the hook, Freddy, are you enjoying this? Yes, George, I have to admit I am.
"What do you want?" Fenner asked.
"How much are you prepared to offer?"
"We'll hike the valuation five thousand dollars. Not a penny more. And nobody will hear about the girl. "
Everything stopped. Stopped dead.
"What?" he whispered.
"The girl, Mr. Dawes. The one you were banging. You had her here December sixth and seventh."
A number of thoughts spiraled through his mind in a period of seconds, some of them extremely sensible, but most of them overlaid and made untrustworthy with a thin yellow patina of fear. But above both fear and sensible thoughts was a vast red rage that made him want to leap across the table and choke this tick-tuck man until clocksprings fell out of his ears. And he must not do that; above all, not that.
"Give me a number," he said.
"Number-?"
"Phone number. I'll call you this afternoon and tell you my decision."
"It would be ever so much better if we could wrap it up right now."
You'd like that, wouldn't you? Referee, let's extend this round thirty seconds. I've got this man on the ropes.
"No, I don't think so. Please get out of my house."
Fenner gave a smooth, expressionless shrug. "Here's my card. The number is on it. I expect to be in between two-thirty and four o'clock."
"I'll call."
Fenner left. He watched him through the window beside the front door as he walked down the path to his dark blue Buick, got in, and cruised away. Then he slammed his fist against the wall, hard.
He mixed himself another drink and sat down at the kitchen table to go over the situation. They knew about Olivia. They were willing to use that knowledge as a lever. As a lever to move him it wasn't very good. They could no doubt end his marriage with it, but his marriage was in serious trouble already. But they had spied on him.