There was a pattern here—a pattern and a vicious purpose. And a thoroughness and a method that were diabolic.
And somewhere behind it all, a smooth- working organization that moved with secrecy and speed. For apparently all the transactions had been concluded within the last few months and all of them aimed at a roughly coincidental closing date.
One thing I didn’t know, and could only guess at, was whether one man or a small group of men or a vast army of them had been needed to do the dickering, to make the offers, to finally close the deals. I had tried to find out, but no one seemed to know. Most of the men I had talked with were those who had leased their quarters and had no way of knowing.
I walked to a corner and went into a drugstore. I squeezed into a phone booth and dialed the office. When a phone gal answered, I asked to speak with Dow.
“Where you been?” he asked.
“Goofing off,” I told him.
“We’ve been going wild up here,” Dow said. “Hennessey’s announced they had lost their lease.”
“Hennessey’s!” Although I don’t know why I should have been surprised, knowing what I knew.
“It isn’t possible,” said Dow. “Not the two of them in a single day.”
Hennessey’s was the second loop department store. With both it and Franklin’s gone; the downtown shopping district would become a desert.
“You missed the first edition with your airport interview,” I told him, stalling for time, wondering how much I ought to tell him.
“The plane was late,” he said.
“How did they keep it so quiet?” I demanded. “There wasn’t a single rumor about the Franklin’s deal.”
“I went over to see Bruce,” said Dow. “I asked him that. He showed me the contract—not for publication, just between the two of us. There was a clause in there which automatically canceled out the sale in case of premature announcement.”
“And Hennessey’s?”
“First National owned the building. They probably had the same clause in their contract. Hennessey’s can stay on for another year, but there’s no other building—”
“The price would have to be good. At least good enough for them not to want to lose the sale. To keep that quiet, I mean.”
“In the Franklin’s case, it was. Again, not for publication, in strictest confidence,
it was twice as much as anyone in their right mind would pay. And after paying that much, the new owner shuts it down. That’s what hurts Bruce the worst. As if someone hated Franklin’s so much they’d pay twice what it was worth just to shut it down.”
Dow hesitated for a moment; then he said: “Parker, it makes no sense at all. No business sense, that is.”
And I was thinking: That explained all the secrecy. Why there had been no rumors. Why Old George had failed to tell me he had sold the building—scurrying off to California so his friends and tenants couldn’t ask him why he hadn’t told them he had sold the building.
I stood there in the booth, wondering if it could be possible that there had been restrictive clauses in each one of the contracts and if the dates of those restrictive clauses could have been the same.
It seemed incredible, of course, but the whole thing was incredible.
“Parker,” asked Dow, “are you still there?”
“Yes,” I said. “Yes, I’m still here. Tell me one thing, Dow. Who was it that bought Franklin’s?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “Some property management outfit called Ross, Martin, Park Gobel had some hand in drawing up the papers. I called them—”
“And they told you they were handling it for a client. They were not at liberty to tell you who the client was.”
“Exactly. How did you know that?”
“Just a guess,” I said. “This whole thing stinks to heaven.”
“I checked up on Ross, Martin, Park Gobel,” said Dow. “They have been in business a sum total of ten weeks.”
I said a silly thing. “Ed lost his lease today. It is going to be lonesome.”
“Ed?”
“Yeah. Ed’s bar.”
“Parker, what is going on?”
“Darned if I know,” I said. “So what else is new?”
“Money. I checked. The banks are overflowing with money. Cash money. They’ve been busy for the last week scooping it in. People come in loaded and are socking it away.”
“Well, well,” I said, “it is nice to know the area’s economy is in such good condition.”
“Parker,” snapped Dow, “what in hell is the matter with you?”
“Not a thing,” I said. “See you in the morning.”
I hung up quick, before he could ask me any more.
I stood there and wondered why I hadn’t told him what I knew. There was no reason why I shouldn’t have. There was, in fact, probably every reason that I should have, for it fell in line of duty.
And yet I hadn’t done it, because I had been unable to, couldn’t bring myself to do it. Almost as if by not saying it, I’d keep it from being true. Almost as if I didn’t say it, there’d be no truth in it.
And that, of course, was silly.
I got out of the booth and went down the street. I stood on the corner and dug into my pocket and brought out the notice I had gotten in the mail. Ross, Martin, Park Gobel was located in the loop in the old McCandless Building, one of those ancient brownstone tombs that were marked for early razing by the city’s redevelopment authority.
I could see the setup—the creaking elevators and the stairs with marble treads and with great bronze railings, blackened now with age; the solemn corridors with their wainscoting of oak so old it shone with the polish of its aging, with the ceilings high and the doors with great squares of frosted glass reaching halfway down them. And on the first floor the arcade with the stamp shop and the tobacco shop, with the magazine counter and the shoeshine corner and a dozen other little businesses.
I looked at my watch and it was after five o’clock. The street was packed with a solid stream of cars, the beginning of the homeward rush, with the traffic streaming westward, heading for one of the two great highways that led out into the area of huge housing developments and cozy little neighborhoods tucked away among the lakes and hills.
The sun had set and it was that moment when daylight is beginning to fade and twilight has not quite yet set in. The nicest part of the day, I thought, for people who weren’t troubled or had nothing on their minds.
I walked slowly down the street, turning over slowly what was frying in my brain. I didn’t like it much, but it was a hunch, and I’d learned from long experience not to turn my back on hunches. Too many had paid off in the past to allow me to ignore them.
I found a hardware store and went into it. I bought a glass cutter, feeling guilty as I did it. I put it in my pocket and went out on the street again.
There were more people on the sidewalk now and more cars honking in the street. I stood well up against a building and watched the crowd flow past.
Perhaps, I told myself, I should drop it now. Perhaps the smart thing to do was simply to go home and then in an hour or so get dressed and go and pick up Joy.
I stood there undecided and I almost dropped it, but there was something in me nagging, something that would not let me drop it.
A cab came down the street, hemmed in by the cars. It stopped with the stream of traffic, caught by a changing traffic light, almost in front of me. I saw that it was empty and I didn’t stop to think, I didn’t give myself a chance to make a real decision. I stepped out to the curb and the cabby saw me and swung the door open so I could get in.
“Where to, mister?”
I gave him the intersection just beyond the McCandless Building.
The light changed and the cab edged along.
“Have you noticed, mister,” said the cabby, by way of starting a conversation, “how the world has gone to hell?”
The McCandless Building was just the way I had imagined it, the way all the old brownstone office buildings were.