“Yes. And rooms.”
“Hotel rooms?”
“Yes.”
“Not offices? Business offices?”
“Sometimes. Not usually.”
“All right People met you. Faces. Men? Women? Both?”
“Men mostly. Some women, but mostly men.”
“What did they talk about?”
“I don’t know.”
“Try to remember.”
“I can’t. There aren’t any voices; there aren’t any words.”
“Were there schedules? You met with people, that means you had appointments. They expected to meet with you and you expected to meet with them. Who scheduled those appointments?
Someone had to.”
“Cables. Telephone calls.”
“From whom? From where?”
“I don’t know. They would reach me.”
“At hotels?”
“Mostly, I imagine.”
“You told me the assistant manager at the Carillon said you did receive messages.”
“Then they came to hotels.”
“Something-or-other Seventy-One?”
“Treadstone.”
“Treadstone. That’s your company, isn’t it?”
“It doesn’t mean anything. I couldn’t find it.”
“Concentrate!”
“I am. It wasn’t listed. I called New York.”
“You seem to think that’s so unusual. It’s not.”
“Why not?”
“It could be a separate in-house division, or a blind subsidiary--a corporation set up to make purchases for a parent company whose name would push up a negotiating price. It’s done every day.”
“Whom are you trying to convince?”
“You. It’s entirely possible that you’re a roving negotiator for American financial interests.
Everything points to it: funds set up for immediate capital, confidentiality open for corporate approval, which was never exercised. These facts, plus your own antenna for political shifts, point to a trusted purchasing agent, and quite probably a large shareholder or part owner of the parent company.”
“You talk awfully fast.”
“I’ve said nothing that isn’t logical.”
“There’s a hole or two.”
“Where?”
“That account didn’t show any withdrawals. Only deposits. I wasn’t buying, I was selling.”
“You don’t know that; you can’t remember. Payments can be made with shortfall deposits.”
“I don’t even know what that means.”
“A treasurer aware of certain tax strategies would. What’s the other hole?”
“Men don’t try to kill someone for buying something at a lower price. They may expose him; they don’t kill him.”
“They do if a gargantuan error has been made. Or if that person has been mistaken for someone else. What I’m trying to tell you is that you can’t be what you’re not! No matter what anyone says.”
“You’re that convinced.”
“I’m that convinced. I’ve spent three days with you. We’ve talked, I’ve listened. A terrible error has been made. Or it’s some kind of conspiracy.”
“Involving what? Against what?”
“That’s what you have to find out.”
“Thanks.”
“Tell me something. What comes to mind when you think of money?”
Stop it! Don’t do this! Can’t you understand? You’re wrong. When I think of money I think of killing. “I don’t know,” he said. “I’m tired. I want to sleep. Send your cable in the morning. Tell Peter you’re flying back.”