“All right,” Mason said to Della Street, “try Homer Garvin, Jr.”
“He’s on a honeymoon,” Della Street said.
“Not in the used car business,” Mason told her. “He had his honeymoon in Chicago. Say you want to talk with him personally. Don’t tell anyone who it is unless you have to. Say it’s about a car you want to buy, and you want to talk with him personally.”
Della Street nodded, put through the call, spent a few moments arguing with a salesman, then opened the door of the booth to say, “He’s coming on the line.”
“Okay,” Mason said, “let me take it.”
Della Street glided out of the booth. Mason slipped in to take her place.
A brisk voice came over the receiver. “Yes, hello. This is Garvin talking.”
“Perry Mason, Homer.”
“Oh, yes. How are you, Counselor?”
“Fine! Congratulations!”
“Well, thanks. Thanks a million!” he said. “It was... It was rather sudden — but after all, that’s the way I do things.”
“Going to be out there for a few minutes?” Mason asked.
“Sure, I’m on the job all morning. What can I do for you?”
“We’re coming out,” Mason said. “I want to talk with you.”
“Got a car to trade?” Garvin asked.
“It’s a little more personal than that.”
“Okay, I’ll be here.”
Mason hung up the phone, nodded to Della Street, and they returned to the taxi. Mason gave the address of the block where Garvin had his used car market.
The cab driver slowed down as he came to the address. “Some place here you wanted?” he asked. “This is a used car lot.”
“That’s the place,” Mason said. “Right in there.”
“Okay.” The driver turned in through an archway over which crimson letters some six feet high spelled out: “GIVE-AWAY-GARVIN.”
The car purred into the lot. Cars were parked in a row under a shed on the edge of which were various messages: “IF THEY DON’T MOVE WITHIN THIRTY DAYS — I MOVE THEM! — GARVIN.”... “YOU CAN’T GO WRONG, BECAUSE I WON’T LET YOU! — GARVIN.”... “IF I BUY IT, IT’S GOOD! IF I SELL IT, I MAKE IT GOOD. — GARVIN.”
“Any place in particular?” the driver asked.
“To the office,” Mason said.
The office building was a one-story rambling affair. Several salesmen were on duty, talking with customers or looking for prospects.
Mason told the cab to wait, smiled at the salesmen, said, “I’m looking for the skipper,” and entered the office.
Homer Garvin, Jr. was twenty-seven years of age, unusually tall, with dark hair, dark restless eyes, and quick, nervous gestures. He was wearing an expensively tailored suit, and was talking over the telephone as Mason entered the office.
“All right. All right,” Garvin said into the telephone, looking up at Mason as he did so. “My lawyer’s here. I’ve got to talk over this thing with him. I’ll have to call you back... No, I can’t say when... I may be busy... Good-bye.”
Garvin slammed down the receiver, pushed back the swivel chair, jumped to his feet, and came toward Mason with outstretched hand.
“Well, well, well! How are you, Counselor. I haven’t seen you for quite a while!”
“It has been a long time,” Mason said. “Congratulations!”
Young Garvin bowed modestly. “She’s a wonderful girl, Counselor. I don’t know how I managed to hypnotize her. I guess it’s just good old salesmanship paying off. How are you, Miss Street? You’re certainly looking fine.”
“Thank you.”
Mason said, “We wanted to get in touch with your Dad, Junior, and his office is closed.”
“The office closed!” Junior exclaimed. “Why, the office should be open. Eva Elliott should be there.”
“I have an idea she’s no longer with your Dad. Do you know where he is?”
“Why no! I haven’t... The truth of the matter is I haven’t seen Dad since we got back... To tell you the truth, Mr. Mason, there’s just a trace of a misunderstanding, a little friction. Dad will come around all right, but he thought I was playing fast and loose, and — well, you know how it is. It’s hard for the older generation to understand us younger people. I venture to say my Dad had the same trouble with his father.
“We’re living at a much more rapid pace than we ever did before, and — well, things are different, that’s all. Now you take the way I run my business. I have to operate at high speed. I have to keep moving. I’m like a man skating on thin ice, and it affects the way I live, the way I feel, the way I think. But times are different from what they were a few years ago.”
“You’re talking about friction with your father over business matters?” Mason asked.
“No, a difference over personal affairs,” Garvin said. “I’m sorry I can’t help you, Mr. Mason. How about looking at a car while you’re down here. I’ve got just exactly the sort of car for you. Good, big, powerful, air-conditioned automobile that is in virtually new condition. You can make enough of a saving on it so you could count on economical transportation.”
“I’m afraid not,” Mason said. “How about Eva Elliott, your father’s secretary? If she isn’t at the office, where would she be?”
“You’d have to catch her at her apartment, I guess.”
“Do you know where she lives?”
“Sure. Wait a minute. I have it here.”
Young Garvin opened a drawer in the desk, took out a little, black notebook, thumbed through the pages, said, “She lives in the Monadnock Apartments, Apartment 317, and her telephone number is Pacific 7-2481. But she’ll be at the office. She may have stepped out for a little while, but she’s there. She’s always there. She’s very dependable, that girl. I recommended her to Dad, and she’s making a wonderful secretary. Thoroughly efficient, up on her toes all the time. And she’s sure a pretty girl. Walk in that office and see her sitting there with the back lighting on her blond hair, and it’s a pretty picture.”
“Well, I’ll go take a look at the picture,” Mason said. “If your father gets in touch with you, tell him that I want to see him on a matter of some urgency.”
“I’ll do that,” Garvin promised. “How about a car for you, Miss Street? We’ve got some dandies here, and I’d be in a position to give you folks the real low-down. I’d not only give you a bedrock price, but I’d give you all the history of the automobile. You see I’m making a specialty these days of one-owner cars. Every car you see on this lot has only had one owner.”
“Some other time,” Della Street smiled. “Right now I’m a working girl.”
“Well, remember the address. Here, take one of my cards. You have to use transportation, and that’s quite a big item in a working girl’s overhead. I can cut your transportation costs right down to the bone.”
“Thank you,” Della said. “I’ll be in sometime.”
“Well, do that.”
Junior escorted them out to the taxicab, looked at the cab with some disfavor, said, “Just the mileage that you’re paying on this cab would... Oh well, never mind. I’ll tell Dad if he gets in touch with me, Counselor.”
The cab driver slammed the door and drove out of the used car lot.
Della Street looked at Perry Mason and suddenly burst out laughing.
Mason shook his head. “Well, he’s always trying.”
“Where to now?” the cab driver asked.
“Monadnock Apartments,” Mason said. “You know where that is?”
The driver nodded, eased the cab out into traffic. “About a ten-minute run,” he said.
“Okay,” Mason told him.
Della Street said, “Now the trouble Junior had with his father must have started when he telephoned him from Chicago and told him that he was married, or that he was just about to get married.”