Two days after Cubbin’s death, Walter Penry received a scrawled note on a piece of ruled tablet paper from his immensely wealthy, immensely eccentric client, informing him that his services were no longer required.
A day after it was announced that Hanks had won, Mickey Della sent him a bill for the balance of his fee which amounted to, in Della’s estimation, $21,312.57. Hanks threw it in the wastebasket.
A number of editorial writers who had mourned Cub-bin’s death as the passing of a colorful labor statesman, indeed the passing of an era, now started writing about how Hanks’s election signaled the dawn of a tough, new breed of leadership for the nation’s hard hats.
And on October 27, a Friday, ten days after his father’s death, Kelly Cubbin went calling on Coin Kensington.
The fat old man opened the door to his hotel suite and liked what he saw. He’s got his old man’s looks, he decided, but he’s got something else, too. He’s got spunk.
“Come in, son,” Kensington said. “I’ve been expecting you.”
“Thank you,” Kelly said.
“You like a drink?”
“No thanks.”
“I’m having a little refreshment of my own concoction. You take a Coke, add a jigger or two of chocolate syrup, and a couple of scoops of vanilla cream.”
“Sounds good,” Kelly said.
“You like one?”
“Sure.”
Kensington calculated how much ice cream he had left, decided that there was enough, and bustled over to the kitchenette. “Find yourself a seat, son. Walter Penry said you wanted to see me.”
“Did he tell you why?”
“He said it was something to do with your dad’s death.”
“That’s right.”
Kensington came over from the kitchenette carrying two of his concoctions. “I find this real tasty,” he said, handing Kelly one.
Kelly sampled it with a spoon. “Good,” he said. “I never had one with chocolate syrup before.”
“I gotta confess to you, son, that I’m afraid I’m addicted to chocolate. You know it makes me sympathetic to folks who’re hooked on drugs or booze. I’ve tried to quit and there were times when I thought I had it licked, under control, you know, but then I’d bite down on a little old bar of Baby Ruth and whoosh, I was gone again.”
With that Kensington devoted himself to the sticky mixture and Kelly watched him poke it into his, mouth. I guess gluttony’s what he has left, Kelly thought, that and power and wealth and the desire to meddle in other people’s lives. I can understand that because that’s what I wanted to do, be the village wise man, and maybe that’s what he’s been able to do except on a grander scale. Wise man to the nation, not the village.
“I was sorry about your dad, son,” Kensington said when he finished his sweet.
“Did you know him?”
“No, not personally, but I’d read after him, as they say. Now I ain’t gonna tell you he was a great man, but I think I’d have liked him if I’d known him.”
“A lot of people did, I guess.”
“Now just what is it you wanted to see me about?”
“I want to find out who killed him.”
“Huh,” Kensington said and set his mind to racing. Well, now, maybe he knows something and maybe what he knows can be useful and just maybe it’ll tie up all those loose ends that are still flopping around all over the place.
“Cops say that Goff fellow killed him,” Kensington said.
“He pulled the trigger for a price,” Kelly said. “I want to find out who met his price.”
“From what Penry tells me they got eleventy-dozen FBI agents tracking that Goff boy back to the year one.”
“I know,” Kelly said. “I used to be a cop.”
“Any good at it?”
“I would have been if I stayed in it long enough to get mean.”
“You got a theory, then?”
Kelly nodded. “That’s right. I’ve got a theory.”
“And you’re gonna tell me because I’ve got something to do with it?”
“That’s right.”
“Well, I’m listening, son.”
“It’ll take a while.”
“I got time.”
“Goff didn’t have a motive. None at all. I’ve done some checking on him and all he was interested in was his job over in Baltimore and television and paperback westerns. I’m not saying I’ve done as thorough a job as the FBI’ll do, but I’m satisfied that Goff wasn’t crazy. So that means that he did it for money.”
“So who paid him?”
“I think they’re going to find out that Goff was a pro, a free lance. I don’t think they’re ever going to find out who paid him because I think it was a professional murder broker and those guys just don’t get caught.”
“How much you think he got paid?”
“You can get a pretty good east-coast murder done for around seven or eight thousand, if it’s somebody that’s going to stir up a lot of heat. My guess is that whoever signed up to kill my old man probably asked ten or eleven thousand.”
“How much would just a run-of-the-mill kind cost?” asked Kensington who always found details fascinating.
“Anywhere from two-fifty up to three thousand.”
“Huh. Life’s pretty cheap when you get right down to it.”
“It is in this country, but it’s even cheaper in others.”
“Well, I suppose you’ve got a suspect.”
“Two,” Kelly said.
“Well?”
“You’re one of them.”
“That’s what I thought. Why?”
“The stock market. The day after my old man got killed, the stock in the companies that the union has contracts with took a nose dive. They kept on diving for three days because they didn’t know whether there was going to be a strike or not. Stock in two of them dived so far that they even suspended trading.”
“I know that,” Kensington said.
“Anybody who knew that my old man was going to be killed, and who knew the market, could have sold short and cleaned up. You sold short, Mr. Kensington.”
“How much did I make?”
“Three million dollars, give or take a hundred thousand.”
“I made four point two million, boy, but your homework’s pretty good.”
“How’s my theory?”
“It’s a pretty good theory, but it just ain’t true. I sold short because I back my judgment and I honestly thought that Sammy Hanks would beat your dad. Even after that television fiasco, I still thought Sammy would beat him. Now I didn’t have any inside information, but I can spot a trend because that’s my trade and the trend in labor unions in the last few years has been to throw the rascals out and your dad, and no offense is intended here, was about the top rascal of them all. So I figured Sammy would win and with all his strike talk, he’d just scare the hell out of the market. Well, there wasn’t any reaction after that TV program, because they thought your dad had it won, but when he got killed and there was the chance that fit-throwing nut was gonna be president, well, the smart money panicked and I cleaned up. Now you can believe that or not, son, but that’s how she happened.”
After a moment, Kelly nodded. “I believe you.”
“Good. Now who’s your other suspect?”
“Before I tell you, I want to find out if you’ll do what I want you to. I don’t guess I put that very well. What I’m asking for is your help. I went to Penry, but he said he couldn’t do it without your okay.”
“Penry works for me. If you need something done and I think it needs doing, then I’ll sic him on it.”
“I want to check somebody’s checking and savings accounts for the last three or four months. I can’t get that kind of information.”
“Big sums of money, huh?”
“Yes.”
“In or out?”
“Out.”