“Quit bragging and spell it out.”
Hackman halved his smile. “All right. Your boy’s a kid named Steve Wyatt, one of the portfolio managers over at Bierce, Claiborne amp; Myers. You wanted a man with a respectable name who could be controlled. He’s it. Young and fast, and he plays pretty loose. He’s what you might call a high-society black sheep-if your name’s Wyatt it means you can hobnob with Phippses and Cabots, it’s a wealth-symbol name, but Wyatt’s father was a klutz who spent the whole damned family fortune, or otherwise separated himself from it. Mostly in the twenty-nine crash, of course, but it had help from him. The Wyatt kid’s got the name but not the substance-he’s out to regain the family’s lost wealth any way he can, so he can resume his proper place in the scheme of things and mingle with the kind of people he thinks he deserves to mingle with. He’s got most of the credentials for it-fancy prep school and a Yale degree, you’ll find it all in the file.”
Hackman opened a desk drawer, withdrew a folder, and pushed it across the desk. Villiers reached for it. “I’ve got no use for Yale men.”
“What’s wrong with them?”
“They’ve got no sand. Will you go on?”
“Okay. I went into this in considerable detail after I heard from you last month. I think Wyatt’s the one we want. We looked over quite a few, believe me.”
Villiers leafed through the file, not making any pretext of reading it. “How reliable is this information?”
“Impeccable. Ironclad. I had eight private dicks on it for a month. You’ll get the bill.”
“How did a man with his record get a job with Howard Claiborne?”
“It’s all in there. Family connections. Wyatt’s mother’s related to Claiborne, cousin or something.”
With more vehemence than he usually displayed, Villiers said, “I don’t trust anybody whose family put him where he is.”
“What’d I do, step on a sore bunion? Listen, if you wanted somebody trustworthy, you wouldn’t be able to use him. Wasn’t the idea for me to find somebody who’d be willing to sell out? What are you worried about? You can buy him, and he’ll stay bought-you’ve got enough in that file to make him jump through hoops.”
“All right.”
“You want me to interview him, or do you talk to him yourself?”
“I’ll talk to him.” Villiers looked at his watch. “It’s almost four. Get him over here in twenty minutes.”
“That may be a little rough-”
Villiers lifted his eyebrows. Hackman swallowed the rest of his statement, swiveled in his chair, and reached for the phone. He spoke into it briefly and hung up. “He probably won’t come on such short notice.”
“When you get him on the line, I’ll talk.” Villiers sat back and opened the file folder. “Then I’ll want a private office where I can study this before he gets here.”
“I’ll fix something up.” The phone buzzed; Hackman grunted into it, pushed a button, and said, “Wyatt? This is George Hackman of Hackman and Greene-that’s right. Can you hold on one second?”
Hackman cupped his hand over the mouthpiece and nodded. Villiers got up and reached across the desk for the phone.
“Wyatt? My name’s Mason Villiers, possibly you’ve heard of me.”
“Sure. Nice to talk to you.” The voice was young, well modulated, with quick delivery and a slight snappish arrogance.
Villiers said, “There’s a matter I’d like to discuss with you that may be to the advantage of both of us.”
“Me? Are you sure you’ve got the right boy, Mr. Villiers?”
“Quite sure. I’m at Hackman’s office, you know where it is. Be here in twenty minutes.”
“Well,” Wyatt’s voice said, and after a beat added, “it’s kind of rough right now-I’ve got an appointment.”
“Break it.”
“I really can’t-”
Villiers cut him off. “Among the items I want to discuss with you is a woman named Sylvia.”
There was a long silence, at the end of which Steve Wyatt said in a different voice, “I’ll remember this, Villiers.”
“I’ll see that you do. Be here in twenty minutes.” Villiers handed the phone back to Hackman, who hung up, his face twisting up in spasms of soundless laughter.
Hackman said, “He’ll be here, just as sure as there’s a hole in his ass.” It was wasted on Villiers, who had gone back to reading the file. Hackman said less firmly, “Well, then, uh-suppose I leave you here to read that? I’ll be out front.” When Villiers didn’t respond, he left.
At six minutes past four the door opened and Hackman admitted the young man to the office.
Villiers looked up without hurry. The young man stood motionless just inside the door. He was handsome in a tennis-bum fashion-thin nostrils, large clever eyes, sandy hair brushed to one side, shaggy but carefully groomed sideburns and hair fluffing out fashionably over the back of his suit collar. He had a long, spare, sinewy body which looked neat in a lean dark suit, deep blue shirt, and modishly wide blue tie. Roman-coin cufflinks and soft expensive shoes. The suit, Villiers guessed, was a Dunhill-maybe five hundred dollars.
Villiers did not rise; Steve Wyatt did not offer to shake hands. He slid his cool glance past George Hackman and brought it to rest on Villiers. Villiers’ hard eyes penetrated him, sizing him up. “All right, you’ve had your look. I’m Villiers. Sit down.”
Steve Wyatt settled into a chair beyond the corner of Hackman’s desk. “I’m listening.”
Villiers opened the folder. “You know who I am and what I do. I’m-”
“What’s that?” Wyatt interjected. “The story of your life?”
“Not mine. Yours.”
Wyatt snorted.
George Hackman said, “Think again, boy. We’ve investigated you right down to the price you pay for pants and the brand of gin you drink and the number of women you balled in nineteen-sixty-two.”
Wyatt bridled. “What is this? Some sort of blackmail? You’ve come to the wrong store to make that kind of buy. I’m not rich.”
Villiers shook his head. “George, suppose you go outside.”
“But I-”
“It’ll be better if there are no witnesses to this conversation. Better for me and better for Wyatt.”
“Oh-all right. I get you.” Hackman got out of his swivel chair and went.
When the door closed Steve Wyatt lifted a flat cigarette case from his inside pocket, selected a cigarette, and lit it in the manner of an actor. Squinting through the smoke, he said, “What’s this all about?”
Villiers closed the file and set, it down beside his chair. “You’re twenty-eight years old, not married, no close surviving family except your mother, Fran Wyckliffe Wyatt. You-”
“Why tell me what I already know?”
“To convince you I’m not bluffing. You went to the right schools as a child, the right summer camps, the right birthday parties and dancing classes and tennis lessons and ski resorts. You marched with the Knickerbocker Greys; you graduated with gentlemanly marks from Hotchkiss and Yale, where you made Skull and Bones, and in nineteen-sixty-four you made a good showing in the Bermuda Cup Race sailing a boat that belonged to a second cousin of your mother’s. You’re a fair shot with a skeet gun, a good horseman and beagler, and a fair if casual hand with a tennis racket. You’re a good swimmer. You can hold up your end of a conversation, whether it’s opera, pop art, stock market, or who’s who. It’s only natural, because you come from a family that represents the luster of aged vintage money, if not the money itself. You’re poor, and your mother is poor. You’ve always been a hanger-on, living off relatives. When-”
“All right, all right. You said you wanted to talk to me about someone named Sylvia. I don’t know any Sylvia.”
Villiers shook his head with a mild grimace. “That won’t do, and you know it.”
“I tell you, the only Sylvia I ever heard of was Sylvia Ashton Warner, and I never met her. Sylvia Sidney, maybe? I never met her either.” Wyatt had a glittering smile and a quick glib-ness. His accent was the kind of maloccluded patois spoken by some of the upper crust who had obviously been taught as children to speak with pencils clenched in their teeth.