Buyer beware an-1

by John Lutz

  I could see a gleam in Alison's shrewd eyes as I told her what Craig Blount's name has evoked from Elizabeth Manners. Alison began to realize then, I think, that I was holding back a great deal from her.

  "You're right about Gratuity Insurance," she said. "No such company is listed with-"

  "I know," I told her, "it's been checked and double-checked."

  She was wearing a tailored pinstriped outfit that couldn't subdue the curves of her lean body, and I found myself wondering if she would approach sex with her usual brisk and cool efficiency. The feline something in her eyes and the generous arc of her lower lip told me that wasn't likely.

  "Where did you get the name of a fictitious insurance company?" she asked, pausing before the window in fetching silhouette.

  "It's cropped up throughout my investigation. Now it's a link between Manners and Blount, two men who don't seem to be linked in any other way."

  "Nudger," she said, "could you tell me what, precisely, you're investigating?"

  I smiled and shook my head. "We agreed from the beginning there'd be some things I wouldn't tell you."

  She narrowed an eye but didn't argue. "What do we do now?" she asked.

  I was glad she said "we," because right now I needed her. "Can you draw up a list of the business establishment's top executives, nationwide?"

  The suggestion didn't throw her. "How many names?"

  "How about the top fifty? Not the obvious multimillionaires-the corporation men."

  Alison walked to the writing desk, drummed long-nailed fingers on smooth polished wood. "What do you intend to do with the list?"

  "I want you to use your professional status to contact the secretaries or other satellite personalities who surround these men. Let them know that you want to be notified immediately if they hear of a Gratuity Insurance appointment. Can you do it?"

  "Not as easily as you make it sound." She caressed her chin in thought. "How about my drawing up a list of the top people with whom I have connections, or with whose satellite personalities I have connections? I can't guarantee they'll be in the top fifty, but I feel safe to say they could all make the top hundred or two."

  "That should help."

  "And I can talk to the heads of some secretarial organizations," Alison said, picking up enthusiasm. They can get the word out to their members to phone if they hear anything about Gratuity."

  That was something I hadn't thought of, and it put the plan well into the realm of workability. "That's good," I told her. "The list doesn't have to read like a who's who. I want the names of executives in the same league as the men who died."

  "Big league, but not the superstars," Alison said. She took a well-worn portable electric typewriter from the closet and set it on the desk. Then she dug through her luggage and came out with an expandable card- board file and several flat leather-bound books. "This is going to take a long time," she said.

  "Most everything worthwhile does," I told her sagely, myself doubting the wisdom of that pronouncement. "I'll look in on you later."

  "Where are you going?"

  "To see about some stocks."

  As I closed the door behind me, I heard the ratchety sound of paper being rolled into the typewriter.

  At the Gilford and Hollis brokerage firm, I talked to a broker's representative and got a prospectus on each of the five companies that had employed the dead executives whose names had been given to me by Alison, plus a prospectus on Widow Cable.

  I sat in a chair behind a low wooden railing, among several stricken-looking gentlemen who stared at the constantly sideways-traveling ribbon of the big board's lighted numerals, those numerals depicting the rise and fall of stock prices and men's fortunes in eighths of dollars. Now and then one of the men would seem to break the mesmeric spell of the lighted board, get up and walk over to check a teletype or speak in soft tones to one of the busy representatives at a row of desks beyond the railing. I was sure no one would disturb me as I settled back to examine the first prospectus, telling me in accountant's language all about a company called Avec-Stern.

  A great deal of time, concentration and occasional help from one of the broker's representatives revealed no common denominator among the six companies for which the dead men had toiled. The main businesses of the companies were diverse: industrial cable, shoe manufacturing, heavy drilling equipment, bottling, trucking, and importing. Except for the bottling firm and heavy drilling equipment manufacturer, business was down the past several quarters for each company-at least on paper. And there had been no recent dramatic movement in the prices of their stocks. The broker's rep advised against my buying into any of them-except, possibly, the bottling firm.

  Using a pay phone, I called Brian Cheevers and asked him if Witlow Cable had ever done business with any of the other companies. He promised to check, but his answer was a tentative no.

  Outside the brokerage house I sat on a bench and tried to piece something together from what I'd learned inside. The weather was clear, and it wasn't so hot today. The sun felt good on my face and shoulders. I leaned back with my eyes half closed, watching through a haze the bright, multicolored stream of traffic, wondering if anything would ever fit together again for me.

  Lornee was gone; and the children, gone, not just from me but from the world in which I lived. Life had taken a sudden, unpredictable direction, and now things seemed either too real or unreal, by turns. What was I doing here, on a curbside bench in Los Angeles, the sun on my face and a cold weight in my heart, full of fear and uncertainty as I goaded for greed the possibility of my violent death? What was anybody doing anywhere? I needed a drink.

  But I knew better. I stood and moved away from the sun-warmed bench and the debilitating melancholy that I both courted and hated. As the traffic light changed and I crossed the concrete street in the sanctuary between parallel lines, I felt like an unreal man in an unreal city. The L.A. syndrome. This wasn't the place for me.

  When I got back to the Clairbank, Alison had just finished telephoning, running up an enormous bill. I told her not to worry about the cost, that it came out of expenses.

  "Maybe we can collect on it twice," she said, "me from my magazine and you from your client."

  It occurred to me that I might want to sleep with her so I could reform her, but that didn't sound reasonable.

  She leaned back from the phone, stiffly flexing the fingers of her right hand. Then she took her half-smoked cigarette from the ashtray, drew on it, and released thick smoke from her mouth sensuously, as if that were some exotic power she alone possessed and the cigarette had nothing to do with it.

  "Getting cooperation?" I asked.

  Alison laughed. "Of course. They're all afraid I'll write something nasty about their company and they'll lose their jobs."

  "Did anyone you talked to know anything about Gratuity?"

  "No. I thought they might, too. It would have saved us the trouble of waiting for a call."

  "Maybe we won't have to wait long," I said. "Gratuity is pretty active for a nonexistent company." I tried not to show my disappointment at hearing that none of the people Alison had phoned knew anything about Gratuity. Maybe I expected too much. Interlocked and overlapping as the business world was, it was a vast world nonetheless.

  Alison's telephone would have to be answerable at all times, so I offered to take a room at the Clairbank to spell her if she wanted to get out of the hotel. But she assured me that wasn't necessary, that she had volumes of work to do and would be glad to stay cooped up in her hotel room to do it while waiting for the phone call that might not come. Television would supply the entertainment; room service, the food.

  I took a room at the Clairbank anyway.

  During the next few days I got better acquainted with Alison, though not to the degree I had in mind. Maybe there was something to the "opposites attract" theory, because we seemed to hold opposite opinions on almost every subject. Or maybe Alison intrigued me because I didn't know how much of her was an act and
how much was genuine. Sometimes she would say things in a certain tone, with a certain unguarded expression, and I would glimpse, beneath her surface, something like the fear that knotted my insides. Her facts and figures and cold logic, then, seemed a device to hold off a world that puzzled and frightened her.

  On the third day, Alison's phone rang and I picked up the receiver. The call was from Chicago, and it was for Alison. I handed her the receiver and watched her cool and perfect features as she listened. As she replaced the receiver, she smiled a smile from one of those Italian Renaissance paintings.

  "Somebody representing Gratuity Insurance has a nine o'clock appointment tomorrow morning in St. Louis with Tad Osborne, divisional manager of Heath Industries."

  "What do you know about Osborne?"

  "He's in his late forties, worked his way up through the sales division of Gayton Equipment, left them about five years ago to take over at Heath, an electronics component manufacturer with a lot of government contract work."

  "How would you say Osborne ranks in the scheme of things with the six who died? In prestige, income, responsibility?"

  Alison twisted a turquoise ring on her finger as she thought. "Generally they're in the same league, VIPs, but not the top men." She stood, looking at me expectantly, wondering, now, how we were going to act on the information we'd come up with.

  "We should be able to get a flight to St. Louis today," I said.

  "That's no problem," Alison said. "I have the airline schedules. The problem, as I see it, is getting Tad Osborne's cooperation."

  "Leave that to me," I told her with some pleasure, watching her cock her head with inquisitive surprise.

  Alison's lips parted, and I thought she was going to ask me how I was going to handle Osborne, but she said, "I'll get reservations on the next available flight."

  We had two hours until flight time. I left Alison to her packing and went to my room and phoned Dale Carlon.

  21

  Los Angeles had been hot, but St. Louis had it beat. This was the damp, sticky kind of heat that followed you indoors, made you perspire even when you were still, and melted the body from the fabric of your clothes so that they clung limply to you.

  I waited for our luggage to come around on the metal carousel while Alison made her way through the milling throng of travelers and greeters to rent a car. A woman rattled off flight numbers over the public address speakers as if she were calling a bingo game. No one seemed to be listening.

  Our luggage came up fast, and Alison was just completing arrangements for the car when I met her at the Avis desk. The terminal's cocktail lounge looked dim and cool as we walked past, and I could have used a drink but thought better of it. It was almost midnight, and tomorrow morning I might have to be sharper than I'd ever been.

  Alison drove the rented Chevy too fast to the Rama-da Inn near the airport. We took adjoining rooms, an unnecessary expense in my estimation but not in hers.

  I stretched out on the bed and expected to lie awake for a long time, but when I blinked, it was seven A.M. and time to get moving to make Heath Industries before nine. A cold shower focused my mind on my fear, and I dressed more slowly than I should have. But nothing I did slowed the minute hand on my watch.

  Alison was downstairs, waiting for me. We had a quick breakfast of Danish rolls and coffee, then walked out onto the already-warm blacktopped parking lot and got into the rented Chevy. I drove, knowing I'd be less nervous if I kept myself occupied.

  Heath Industries was in Westport, a new and sprawling industrial development, west of the city, that was either the downtown or the slum of the future. The morning rush hour traffic was a study in heat and frustration, and it was eight-thirty when we finally parked in the lot of Heath's regional headquarters in an impressive, recently built, tall structure fronted by an artificial lake from which rose a graceful, gull-winged cement sculpture. The Heath building was the tallest in the area and commanded a view of a teeming four-lane highway that dwindled to a sun-shimmering ribbon on the horizon.

  We topped the cement steps and entered the lobby- high-ceilinged, decorous and cool. A gold-framed directory told us that Tad Osborne's office was on the top floor. The elevator was a smooth rocket that didn't help my stomach.

  A blond Nordic type with too much bulky jewelry sat at a desk in the plush outer office. She smiled at us when we entered and told her who we were, and she seemed to know Alison. Osborne must have instructed her to send us right in when she buzzed him, because she immediately jangled over to the main office and opened the door for us.

  Tad Osborne's office was cool and ordered, and beyond a huge window the ribbon of teeming highway stretched to an even more distant horizon. Osborne himself was a medium-sized, balding man with broad, pleasant features, seated behind a very wide desk on which sat only the basics-pen set, ashtray, "out" basket, telephone, and on one corner the mandatory framed family photographs.

  "What is it about Mr. Bender that interests you?" Osborne asked after we'd been seated.

  Alison arched an eyebrow beautifully. "Mr. Bender?"

  "Why, yes… Frank Bender, the Gratuity Insurance agent."

  "There's really not much we can tell you, Mr. Osborne," I said, "because we don't have hard information. Why did Bender want to see you?"

  Osborne rotated back and forth slightly in his swivel chair, but his gray eyes stayed trained on me. "He called and said there'd been a series of insurance company mergers and he needed my signature to transfer some of my policies. He assured me it would mean a savings without loss of coverage."

  "Whatever he tells you, Mr. Osborne, I'm afraid you're on your own. We don't know enough to predict exactly what he'll really have in mind, but there's sufficient reason for us to believe it won't be insurance."

  "I'm sure there is, or Dale Carlon wouldn't have vouched for you." He looked at his digital watch. "It's quarter to nine. How is this thing going to unfold?"

  I didn't tell him that that question was ruining my health. "Just pretend we're not here. Listen to what Bender has to say, tell him what you think best, and when he leaves, I'll follow him. If it's all right, I'll wait in the file room off your secretary's office so I can see him enter and leave."

  "Fine," Osborne said. "I'll tell Mary to cooperate with you."

  "Miss Day will be waiting with me, and when I've left she'll want to talk to you to get all the details of your conversation with Bender while they're fresh in your mind."

  "Suppose I record our conversation without his knowledge?"

  "I wouldn't advise it. Bender might have one of a number of devices to detect an operating recorder."

  "Our talk should only take a few minutes," Alison said through her best interviewer's smile. "I'm with Business View, but I promise you nothing you tell me will be used without your permission."

  I thought she was putting herself in a corner there, but I kept quiet.

  "I've read some of your articles with interest, Miss Day," Osborne said, spreading thick honey. "You do fine and accurate work."

  "Bender should be arriving any time now," I told him. "It would be better if he didn't see us."

  Osborne rose and showed us out of his office, resting a hand on Alison's shoulder in what I assumed to be a fatherly manner. A favorable article in Business View wouldn't hurt either Heath Industries or his career.

  The file room was almost as large as the anteroom. It was furnished with two wooden chairs, a table, and three walls lined solid with charcoal-gray file cabinets. The fourth wall was all metal shelving stacked with varied but neatly stored office supplies. Alison took a chair near the table. I propped the file room door open at just the right angle and positioned the remaining chair so I had a view of anyone entering the outer office and approaching Osborne's bejeweled secretary.

  My nerves took over, tapping my right toe in staccato rhythm on the cork floor, rubbing the fingertips of my right hand on the tabletop until they tingled.

  But I didn't have long to wait. Five minu
tes after I'd sat down, at exactly nine o'clock, Frank Bender arrived.

  He was a well-groomed and stylishly dressed man in his late twenties or early thirties, wearing a neat dark suit that went far to disguise the fact that he was overweight. He had an even-featured, handsome face with bright, small dark eyes narrowed by the fleshy padding around them. Holding his attache1 case before him, he aimed exactly the right sort of friendly but impersonal smile at the secretary, and I heard him small-talking her as he gave his name.

  Osborne's secretary seemed genuinely charmed as she got up and ushered Bender into the main office. She was still smiling at something he'd said as she walked back toward her desk.

  Alison and I looked at each other. There was an anxious, super-alert expression in her eyes, and I wondered if I wore the same expression.

  No, I was sure mine was tempered by worry and fear. The things that could go wrong! Might Gratuity be legitimate, a small or newly formed company not yet brought to the attention of the various agencies that had been contacted? Frank Bender looked like a thousand other insurance agents, didn't he?

  Then I thought about the business card in Victor Talbert's jacket, in Chicago, on the back of which was the name of a man who'd died a violent death in Los Angeles. As Victor Talbert had died. As Craig Blount, in Seattle, had died.

  It was nine-twenty, and Bender hadn't come out. My stomach was vibrating.

  He came out at nine twenty-eight, and by then I was on my feet, waiting. Through the crack in the door I saw him walk past Osborne's secretary and smile as he did when he entered. He said something I couldn't understand as he went out, and the secretary smiled and adjusted an earring. With a last look back at Alison, who was now also standing, I left the file room to follow Bender.

  He left the parking lot in a light-tan sedan, probably a rental, and I trailed in the Avis Chevy. He wound his way through the streets almost as if he didn't know exactly where he was. I stayed three cars back, eating antacid tablets like candy.