“Where did the ruthlessness come in, Mr. Sharvis?”
“You better call me Brad. That last name makes me feel too dignified.”
“Okay. I’m Gil.”
“I’ll tell you, Gil. Suppose he got his eye on a piece he wanted. He’d go after it. Phone calls, letters, personal visits. He’d hound a man who had no idea of selling until, in some cases, I think they sold out just to get Temple Davisson off their back. And he’d fight for an hour to get forty dollars off the price of a twenty-thousand-dollar piece.”
“Did he handle his deals through you?”
“No. He turned himself into a licensed agent and used this office for his deals. He pays toward the office expenses here, and I’ve been in with him on a few deals.”
“Is he stingy?”
“Not a bit. Pretty free with his money, but a tight man in a deal. You know, he’s told me a hundred times that everybody likes the look of nice fat batches of bills. He said that there’s nothing exactly like counting out fifteen thousand dollars in bills onto a man’s desk when the man wants to get seventeen thousand.”
Darrigan felt a shiver of excitement run up his back. It was always that way when he found a bit of key information.
“Where did he bank?”
“Bank of Clearwater.”
“Do you think he took money with him when he went after the Drynfells plot?”
Sharvis frowned. “I hardly think he’d take that much out there, but I’ll wager he took a sizable payment against it.”
“Twenty-five thousand?”
“Possibly. Probably more like fifty.”
“I could check that at the bank, I suppose.”
“I doubt it. He has a safe in his office at his house. A pretty good one, I think. He kept his cash there. He’d replenish the supply in Tampa, picking up a certified check from the Bank of Clearwater whenever he needed more than they could comfortably give him.”
“He was anxious to get the Drynfells land?”
“A very nice piece. And with a tentative purchaser all lined up for it. Temple would have unloaded it for one hundred and seventy thousand. He wanted to work fast so that there’d be no chance of his customer getting together with Drynfells. It only went on the market Wednesday, a week ago today.”
“Drynfells held it a long time?”
“Several years. He paid fifty thousand for it.”
“Would it violate any confidence to tell me who Davisson planned to sell it to?”
“I can’t give you the name because I don’t know it myself. It’s some man who sold a chain of movie houses in Kansas and wants to build a motel down here, that’s all I know.”
Darrigan walked out into the morning sunlight. The death of Temple Davisson was beginning to emerge from the mists. Sometime after he had left the Coral Tour Haven and before he appeared at the Aqua Azul, he had entangled himself with someone who wanted that cash. Wanted it badly. They had not taken their first opportunity. So they had sought a second choice, had made the most of it.
He parked in the center of town, had a cup of coffee. At such times he felt far away from his immediate environment. Life moved brightly around him and left him in a dark place where he sat and thought. Thought at such a time was not the application of logic but an endless stirring at the edge of the mind, a restless groping for the fleeting impression.
Davisson had been a man whose self-esteem had taken an inadvertent blow at the hands of his young wife. To mend his self-esteem, he had been casting a speculative eye at the random female. And he had been spending the day trying to engineer a deal that would mean a most pleasant profit.
Darrigan and Kathy Marrick had been unable to find the place where Davisson had taken a few drinks before stopping at the Aqua Azul. Darrigan paid for his coffee and went out to the car, spread the road map on the wheel, and studied it. Granted that Davisson was on his way home when he stopped at the Aqua Azul, it limited the area where he could have been. Had he been more than three miles south of the Aqua Azul, he would not logically have headed home on the road that would take him through Indian Rocks and along Belleaire Beach. He would have cut over to Route 19. With a pencil Darrigan made a circle. Temple Davisson had taken his drinks somewhere in that area.
He frowned. He detested leg work, that dullest stepsister of investigation. Sharing it with Mrs. Marrick made it a bit more pleasant, at least. It took him forty-five minutes to drive out to the Aqua Azul. Her raspberry convertible was under shelter in the long carport. He parked in the sun and went in, found her in the lobby chattering with the girl at the desk.
She smiled at him. “It can’t be Nero Wolfe. Not enough waistline.”
“Buy you a drink?”
“Clever boy. The bar isn’t open yet. Come down to the cabaña and make your own and listen to the record of a busy morning.”
They went into the cypress-paneled living room of the beach cabaña. She made the drinks.
“We failed to find out where he’d been by looking for him, my dear. So this morning I was up bright and early and went on a hunt for somebody who might have seen the car. A nice baby-blue convertible. They’re a dime a dozen around here, but it seemed sensible. Tan men with bald heads are a dime a dozen too. But the combination of tan bald head and baby-blue convertible is not so usual.”
“Any time you’d like a job, Kathy.”
“Flatterer! Now prepare yourself for the letdown. All I found out was something we already knew. That the baby-blue job was parked at that hideous Coral Tour Haven early in the afternoon.”
Darrigan sipped his drink. “Parked there?”
“That’s what the man said. He has a painful little store that sells things made out of shells, and sells shells to people who want to make things out of shells. Say that three times fast.”
“Why did you stop there?”
“Just to see if anybody could remember the car and man if they had seen them. He’s across the street from that Coral Tour thing.”
“I think I’d like to talk to him.”
“Let’s go, then. He’s a foolish little sweetheart with a tic.”
The man was small and nervous, and at unexpected intervals his entire face would twitch uncontrollably. “Like I told the lady, mister, I saw the car parked over to Drynfells’s. You don’t see many cars there. Myron doesn’t do so good this time of year.”
“And you saw the bald-headed man?”
“Sure. He went in with Drynfells, and then he came out after a while.”
“After how long?”
“How would I know? Was I timing him? Maybe twenty minutes.”
Darrigan showed him the picture. “This man?”
The little man squinted through the viewer. “Sure.”
“You got a good look at him?”
“Just the first time.”
“You mean when he went in?”
“No, I mean the first time he was there. The second time it was getting pretty late in the day, and the sun was gone.”
“Did he stay long the second time?”
“I don’t know. I closed up when he was still there.”
“Thanks a lot.”
The little man twitched and beamed. “A pleasure, certainly.”
They went back out to Darrigan’s car. When they got in Kathy said, “I feel a bit stupid, Gil.”
“Don’t think I suspected that. It came out by accident. One of those things. It happens sometimes. And I should have done some better guessing. I found out this morning that when Temple Davisson wanted a piece of property he didn’t give up easily. He went back and tried again.”
“And Mr. Drynfells didn’t mention it.”
“A matter which I find very interesting. I’m dropping you back at the Aqua Azul and then I’m going to tackle Drynfells.”