It was some dump, plush and mahogany with all the trimmings. He didn’t ask me to sit down, but I pulled up a chair anyway. If there was going to be any talking done, I was going to have to start it. Havis Gardiner was trying so hard to control his temper he was about to blow a blood vessel.
“I’m looking for Vera West, Mr. Gardiner. Got any idea where she is?”
Instead of answering my question he picked up the phone and asked for the police. He told them I was there and wanted to know the reason why.
Somebody told him.
His face came apart at the seams and he hung up slowly. “So you think you’ve gotten away with it!” he rasped.
“That’s right, I did. Now let’s talk about Vera West.”
Gardiner studied me for a full minute, his eyes going over me from head to toe. “I certainly don’t know where she is, McBride. And do you know what I’d do if I were you?”
“Yeah, cut my throat. Shut up and listen to me a second. I’m going to tell you right out and you can believe it or not, but you’ll be better off if you do. I never stole a cent from this outfit. Okay, so I took a powder, but that’s my business.”
The study he was making of me took on an intense concentration. Every emotion he was possible of having flitted across his face until he wound up leaning halfway across the desk toward me.
“What are you saying, McBride?”
“That I was trapped in a nice frame. Is that plain enough?”
“No, it isn’t.
“Let me put it this way then. Why was I accused of misappropriating that two hundred grand?”
Gardiner couldn’t decide whether to be puzzled or worried. He opened his hands, stared at them, then looked back at me again. “You know, McBride, if the law had caught up with you I wouldn’t even consider arguing this matter. Your coming back voluntarily, even with a possible escape like those missing fingerprints of yours, changes the matter somewhat.
“It should,” I said. “Nobody ever heard my side of it before.”
“What is your side?”
“Tell me how it happened first.”
His hands made a gesture of resignation. “I... I don’t know quite what to think now, McBride. Only Miss West had access to those unclaimed account books. She never had use of them either. I happened to notice her with them one day and wondered why she was taking them out of the vault. She said you wanted to see them. I was curious enough to check and believed I found evidence of fraud.”
“How much was missing?”
His mouth pursed speculatively, as if I should know without asking. “Two hundred one thousand and eighty-four dollars exactly,” he said.
“That’s a screwy total.”
“The district attorney thought the same thing. An indication that there was an intention of taking more and more. The eighty-four dollars was the remainder of one account that hadn’t been entirely cleared out.”
“I see. What happened next?”
“When I sent you and Miss West on vacation at the same time I contacted the District Attorney who, in turn, brought in the state auditor. They found the shortage and traced it directly to you.”
“That was nice of them,” I said.
“McBride... why did you run?”
I wished I could have answered that. If I could say why there wouldn’t be a problem left to solve. I shrugged unconcernedly. “I blew up, that’s all. I got chicken about it and took a powder. I’m back now and that’s what counts.”
“You came back... to clear yourself?”
“What else?”
He leaned back in his chair, folding his arms across his chest. “That is incredible, simply incredible. I... don’t know whether to believe you or not.”
“That part’s up to you.”
“If... mind you, if you are telling the truth, I certainly want to see you cleared of this matter. Until now I’ve had no doubt about it.” He smiled at me sagely. “But I’ve made mistakes before and I’m always thankful to be corrected in time. McBride, I’ll reserve my judgment until this matter comes to a head one way or another. However, I’m going to put every means at my disposal to work to get the truth. Every indication we have points to your guilt. Can you give us something to start on?”
“Find Vera West,” I said. “She’ll know.”
“Do you know what happened to her?”
“I’ve heard a few things. First Servo, then a disappearing act.”
“Then you know quite as much as I do.”
“You’ll look for her?”
“I most certainly will. At least the insurance company will and they’ll be notified immediately.”
“When she left here, did she leave anything behind? Letters or anything of that sort?”
“No, she cleaned out her desk completely. She’s never corresponded with us since, either. If she’s working somewhere else she never wrote here for a recommendation.”
I stared at him a second and nodded. I glanced around the room with elaborate casualness, smiling and bobbing my head as if I appreciated the homecoming. I said, “You know, I miss the old place. How about letting me take a look at my old stall?”
He scowled an answer. “I don’t see...”
“Ah, you know how it is after five years. Old things look good.”
He didn’t like the idea a bit. It wasn’t a businesslike thing to do. But he decided to let a whim be a whim and stood up. If the whole thing hadn’t been such a surprise he probably would have tried having me tossed out on my ear. I followed him out the door, down a corridor, through a couple of steel-ribbed gates and into the cashier’s booth that was like any other cashier’s booth in any other bank in any other city in the world.
There was a guy with a permanently curved back hunched on a stool. He glanced around, then went back to his work. Packets of currency were everywhere. Little individual files flanked the guy on the stool hemming him in. Three open ledgers lay on the side tables.
I saw the alarm button under his foot and another alongside his knee. The handle of a gun stuck out of a shelf under his table top. While we watched the guy dropped a dime. He was off the stool in a hurry and went down on his knees until he found it. I guess we made him nervous.
I backed out of the booth grinning and shut the door. Gardiner said, “I don’t understand...”
“Sentiment,” I muttered.
Sentiment hell. I was feeling sorry for Johnny. Even if he had copped a wad it would have been a good enough excuse to get out of that cage. Now it was easy to see why he took to the outdoors. You got dirty, rained on, cursed at and worked to death, but at least you were free. There was plenty of air around you.
Gardiner took me to the door, unlocked it, passed me through the grillwork outside and walked across the hall to the front door beside me. The animals in their cages stopped talking and tried to make like they were very busy. The guard unlocked the front door and held it open. Gardiner said, “You’ll be staying around town, of course.”
I let the grin split my face in two. It was the kind of a grin that said somebody would die before I left if I left at all. “I’ll be around,” I told him.
Lyncastle Business Group, the plaque read. It was made of bronze set in a mahogany frame and recessed into the wall. The office took up the first floor of the building and none of the doors ever seemed to fully close before somebody shot through them again. I picked what looked to be the main entrance and stepped inside.
A guard in a blue uniform gave me what was supposed to be a polite smile and pointed to a row of benches along the side. There were a dozen men and an elderly woman already parked there waiting. Most were fingering brief cases and casting anxious glances at the clock over the receptionist’s desk.
I cast anxious glances at the receptionist.