Karen answered the phone. “Hawley’s Home for Wayward Women. Hawley speaking.”
There was a long pause on the other end of the line.
Then Graham said, “Karen, have you been drinking?”
“Yep.”
“Can I speak to Neal?”
“You could if he was here, but he’s not here,” Karen answered. “May I take a message?”
There was another silence while Graham considered what, if anything, to tell her. Just because Joey Beans was involved with Jack Landis didn’t mean there was necessarily any danger, and he didn’t want to alarm Karen.
“Yeah, why don’t you have him call in, okay?” Graham said.
“No reason, I guess.”
“How’s everything going there?” Graham asked. “Okay?”
“Yeah…” Karen said as she debated what to tell Graham. She thought it would be better if Neal told him such little things as the fact that Candy Landis was sitting at her kitchen table eating frozen pizza with Polly Paget and discussing baby names. “Everything’s fine.”
“How’s our friend?”
“Late.”
“Huh?”
“I mean radiant,” Karen said. “Our friend is radiant.”
“Hey, Karen, take it easy on the sauce, okay?”
“You betcha.”
“Have Neal call,” Graham repeated. “Right away.”
“Right away.”
“Good night.”
“Back at ya.”
Karen hung up.
“Who was that?” Polly asked.
“Neal’s dad,” Karen answered. “And his mom, his grandfather, his best friend, teacher, and boss.”
“We have one of those speaker phones,” Candy said as she poured herself another glass of white zinfandel. This was her fifth glass, which matched her normal biannual intake of alcohol.
“You sounded a little tipsy on the phone,” she warned Karen. “I think that Polly should answer the phone from now on, seeing as how she is not drinking. She can be the designated talker.”
“Friends don’t let friends talk drunk,” Karen agreed.
Polly asked, “Is there any pizza left?”
Neal was halfway through his first beer at Brogan’s when Walter Withers staggered in. Dust covered his rumpled suit and sweat stained his white shirt. The briefcase in his hand looked as if it weighed a good eighty pounds. And he was drunk.
But his tie is still knotted, Neal noticed with a mixture of admiration and disdain.
Withers’s eyes narrowed like the gun slits on a tank as he shuffled toward Neal. When he was at least an inch from Neal’s face, he spit out, “That was a low thing you did, Neal. I must have walked six miles before I got picked up.”
Neal swiveled on his stool to face Withers.
“You walked!”
“Disappointed?”
“Didn’t your buddy Charles come looking for you?” Neal asked.
“Who’s Charles?”
“You can drop the act,” Neal said. “You got the job done. Your client is sitting with Polly as we speak.”
Withers hauled himself onto the bar stool, an action that his sore muscles might have made a lot more difficult save for a lifetime of practice.
“I don’t think so,” he answered. He couldn’t imagine Ron Scarpelli even coming to this godforsaken wilderness, and besides, he hadn’t told the lascivious voyeur where he was. Or had he?
“I’m telling you, Walter,” Neal answered. “Candy Landis is bonding with Polly right now. Congratulations. You beat me, okay?”
As gratifying as that might be, my boy, although I do detect a trace of rancor in your inflection, Withers thought, the euphoniously named Candice Landis is not my client. However, if you do persist in believing that, there might be some small advantage to be found…
“Experience, my boy, that’s all,” Walter said. “May I make it up to you by buying you a drink?”
“I have a drink,” Neal answered. He swallowed some beer to demonstrate.
“Then may I make it up to you by buying myself a drink?” Withers asked. “A whiskey, please.”
Brogan poured a shot, then set the glass and Withers’s car keys on the bar. Walt picked up the glass.
“You can tell me where the ‘Jehovah’s Witness’ went,” Neal said.
Have I suffered that dreaded first blackout? Withers wondered. I seemed to have missed a Candy Landis and a Jehovah’s Witness-at least.
“Perhaps into the Jehovah’s Witness Protection Program,” Withers suggested. “Does it matter?”
“I guess not,” Neal said. “So what are you going to do now?
“Well,” Withers answered, “now that Chuck has seemingly abandoned me, I suppose I will try to find a room and then return to Reno in the morning. Unless, of course, you’d like to put me up.”
I’d like to put you up on a sharp pole, Neal thought.
“Why don’t you go to Reno tonight? The hotels are much better there.”
“I’m a little tired, my boy,” Withers answered. He drained his glass and added, “From all the exercise, I suppose.”
“There’s a motel across the street,” Neal said.
“Yes, I think I’ll just have a nightcap and hit the hay.” He yawned dramatically.
Neal didn’t believe him-not the nightcap, not the yawn, not one damn word he had to say. There was no reason on earth Walter Withers would hike even one mile if he thought he’d done his job, and he’d have been cocky, not angry, when he walked in. And most of all, he wouldn’t be hanging around a bar with the opposition-he’d get his car keys and get the hell out of town.
“Open the briefcase,” Neal ordered.
“I’m sure that you meant to say, ‘Would you mind opening the briefcase, please?’ ” Withers said. “In either case, the answer is no.”
“What I meant to say was, ‘Open the briefcase,’ ” Neal repeated. “When I want a lesson in etiquette, I’ll write to Miss Manners. Now open the briefcase and show me what’s inside.”
Withers ignored Neal and turned to Brogan. “May I have another drink, please, my good man?”
“I ain’t your good man,” Brogan rumbled. His voice blended into the dog’s low growl. “And I ain’t selling you another drink. I ain’t going to get my ass sued off when you drive that car into somebody, either.”
He put his big hand over the car keys.
“I’m not accustomed to barmen getting cheeky with me,” Withers said.
“Open the briefcase, Mr. Withers,” Neal said.
Withers slid off his bar stool, picked up the briefcase, and pulled himself to his full height.
“Well, you can go to hell, my boy,” he said as he weaved in front of them. “And you can go with him, my good man. I have never been treated so shabbily in my life. You can both rest assured that you will hear from my attorney, of the law firm of… of… Howard, Fine and Shep… an experience you will not enjoy… I assure you.”
Neal got off his stool and caught him before he hit the floor.
“He’s got a load on,” Brogan said.
“I loaded him,” said Neal.
He gently laid the unconscious Withers on the floor and took the briefcase out of his hand. Setting it on the bar, he said, “If you’re squeamish about felonies, you might not want to watch this.”
The nice thing about metal, Neal thought, is that it trains itself to the touch. After the owner dials the same combination a few hundred times, the dials simply respond to the touch and go right to the required numbers. Unless, of course, the owner changes the combination every month or so, which is what Walter Withers had apparently done, because the dials refused to cooperate.
“Impressive,” Brogan muttered as he handed Neal a screwdriver.
“Thank you,” Neal answered. There was nothing like having an unconscious victim, all the time in the world, and no need for secrecy. It was also nice not to have Joe Graham there to observe and make sarcastic comments. He ripped the lock open with the surgical delicacy of a stockyard butcher.
“Shit on toast,” Brogan said.
“Yep,” Neal agreed.
The briefcase was full of real cash. No outfit in the business would use this amount of real money as a prop. Neal figured that Withers’s original story about Top Drawer magazine had been the truth, or as close to the truth as one ever came in a scam like this.
“I ain’t gonna ask,” Brogan said.
“Thanks,” Neal answered. “If you can help me get him up, I think I can carry him across the street. Leave his keys on the bar; he can get them in the morning.”
Brogan came around the bar and helped lift Withers into a fireman’s carry over Neal’s shoulder.
“What if he comes back tonight?” Brogan asked.
Neal answered, “I doubt he’s going to come to soon, but if he comes back in, shoot him.”
“Never shot a man wearing a tie before,” Brogan observed as Neal staggered out of the bar.
Neal crossed the street and walked over to the motel. He knew that the door to the office-a double-wide trailer-would be unlocked. He went in, leaned Withers against the wall, and reached into the large Maxwell House can on a wooden shelf and pulled out a key. He took a twenty-dollar bill from his wallet and put it in the can. Hefting Withers over his shoulder, he crossed the gravel parking lot, let himself into room number four, and flopped the old detective down on the bed. He loosened Withers’s tie and maneuvered his jacket off him.
Withers started to snore.
Neal took the opportunity to go through Withers’s jacket. There were a few loose bills in his wallet, a driver’s license, and an American Express card. Tucked under the bills were some slips of papers with names and phone numbers… Ron Scarpelli… Sammy Black… and someone named Gloria, whose phone number was the same as Neal and Karen’s.
Neal put the wallet back and hung the jacket up.
He found a pad by the telephone and wrote, “Walter, a cheery good morning. I have your briefcase for safekeeping-both ours and yours. I guess you know where to call. You make any other calls and you can kiss the money good-bye.”
He left the note on the pillow.
Overtime woke up and for a single second didn’t know where he was. Then he recalled parking the car off a dirt road on the outskirts of town to get a little sleep. He needed the sleep to achieve sufficient clarity of thought.
Point one: Nobody at the target location had actually seen him, so his person was secure.
Point two: They might have seen the car, so the car was dangerous. He would have to acquire a new vehicle.
Point three: A question, a dangerous unknown. Who were the people who had come in behind him? Were they still in the house? Was the target still in the house?
The terrain has shifted, Overtime thought. The fog of battle has descended. The tactical situation was unclear.
So what to do? The cautious option would be to withdraw, to find a new staging area and contact the client. Advantage: Safety. Disadvantage: Acknowledgment of failure. Damage to reputation. Fresh contact with client.
It was one of his prime rules: Each contact with the client represents a danger of exposure-telephones tapped, tapes rolling, voiceprints tracking.
Reduce client contact to the minimum. Contact client only when absolutely necessary.
Question: Was it now necessary?
Analysis: You are in a small, remote town where individuals attract attention. The target may be at least aware that there is an exposure.
Question: Where is that idiotic private investigator, the oblivious screen?
Further analysis: The target may be deceived that the exposure has already occurred or been diverted. It is nighttime. The approach to the potential target area is simple and without risk. The escape from target area presents few problems-with a different vehicle.
Analysis: The situation is unclear but not without possibilities.
Decision: While disadvantages do exist, the overall gain, predicated on the acquisition of a new vehicle, suggests an attempt.
He got back in the car and headed for town.