Yellow Dog Contract

by Thomas Ross

  “Max was something like that,” I said, wondering when I had last heard somebody called a cad.

  “I wonder what Mr. Quane found out that would necessitate someone cutting his throat?”

  “I don’t know. But those two guys who were watching Audrey’s house yesterday must have been watching it for Sally, not Audrey.”

  “Yes. So it would seem.”

  “And now you know why I decided that I’d better see a lawyer,” I said.

  Slick sipped his wine and thought about it. “Yes,” he said. “I really do think you should. Of course, I can drop a word here and there that might make things a bit easier for you when you describe your rather aberrant behavior to the police.”

  “I’d be grateful,” I said.

  “They won’t welcome you with loving arms, you understand.”

  “No.”

  “On the other hand, they probably won’t clap you in jail, either.”

  “That’s nice. Ruth will appreciate that. So will the goats.”

  “Anything else?”

  “Well, I saw your client today.”

  “And how was Mr. Gallops?”

  “He’s taken over, hasn’t he?”

  “Oh, quite. I don’t think he hesitated more than a day or two after Mix disappeared before he assumed full direction of the union’s affairs. But then, someone had to.”

  “What kind of board of directors did Mix have?”

  “A tame one, so I understand,” Slick said. “Very carefully assembled over the years.”

  “So Gallops needn’t worry about them?”

  “No, but why should he?”

  “He’s spending a lot of money.”

  “Really?”

  I told Slick about the 200 full-time representatives that Gallops had put on the union’s payroll, and why, and his reaction was similar to mine. “However, Harvey,” he said, “I think that your estimate of the total cost is a bit low. It would be closer to four million a year than three million.”

  “A lot of money.”

  “A great deal,” he said. “I wonder just how one would go about finding two hundred such people? I mean, they would have to have some experience with or at least some affinity for a labor union, wouldn’t they?”

  “Not necessarily,” I said. “From what I’ve heard so far all they’d really have to be good at is convincing a limited group of people to do what they want them to do. And labor union members are no different from anyone else. You can get them to do what you’d like them to do by the skilled use of persuasion and sweet reason. But if that fails, you can always fall back on coercion, bribery, and maybe just muscle, which seems to be what some of Gallops’s new guys are using.”

  “I see. Did Gallops say where he’d found them?”

  “He said an outfit called Douglas Chanson Associates found them for him. Ever hear of it?”

  “The headhunter,” Slick said.

  “Oh?”

  “Yes, he started about ten years ago, I believe, and has done remarkably well ever since.”

  “You know him?”

  “We’ve met on several occasions.”

  “Slick?”

  “Yes, dear boy?”

  “He didn’t used to be with the agency, did he?”

  “Chanson? Certainly not. He got his start, as I said, about ten years ago in what was then a rather ripe field. His specialty was supplying certain government agencies and private industry with competent, middle-management executives. As I said, Chanson is a head-hunter. However, he specialized in supplying his clients with black middle-management executives. He did extremely well, or so I understand. Later, when the women’s movement—uh—burgeoned, shall we say, he supplied his ever-expanding list of clients with female middle-management executives and, recently, or so the rumors have it, he’s been doing rather nicely by coming up with executives who are both black and female.”

  “But that’s not all he does?”

  “Oh, certainly not. He also helps solve those little problems that are always popping up in both government and industry. Labor relations, I understand, just happen to be one of his many specialties.”

  “And you’re sure he didn’t used to be with the agency?”

  “I’m quite sure. For fifteen years Douglas Chanson was a top special agent with the FBI.”

  Slick took the last sip of the wine, collected our glasses, and tucked them back into the wicker basket. He then shook the crumbs from the red and white checked cloth, folded it carefully, and laid it on top of the glasses. As always, he was very neat.

  “So,” I said, “what else have you got for me?”

  “Well, dear boy, right now I am involved in one particular aspect of this affair, but unfortunately I can’t give you any details because, well, because it just might jeopardize everything.”

  “What’s everything?”

  “I can’t tell you that either.”

  “We’re supposed to have a trade-off, Slick. But so far it’s been mostly a one-way deal. I give and you take.”

  “Well, I can give you just one tiny hint,” he said, “but only if you swear to keep it absolutely confidential. Agreed?”

  “All right,” I said.

  “And I positively will not tell you any more than I’m going to tell you so there’s no use in your asking. Understood?”

  “Sure.”

  He looked up at the hot August sky as if trying to decide how best to phrase his tiny hint. Then he said, “Well, there seems to be a slight possibility that Arch Mix isn’t dead after all.”

  Ward Murfin looked as if he hadn’t had much sleep. When his secretary, Ginger, showed me into his office at the Vullo Foundation, Murfin was stretched out on the couch. He wasn’t asleep though. He was smoking a cigarette and staring up at the ceiling. His eyes were red and swollen and for a moment I wondered whether he had been crying until I thought about it and decided that Murfin probably hadn’t cried about anything since he was five years old. Maybe four.

  He waved his cigarette at me by way of greeting and then said to Ginger, “Would you get us some coffee, honey?” Ginger said, “Of course,” and gave him a concerned, tender look which made me decide that Murfin was probably sleeping with her. I would have been more surprised if he hadn’t been because Murfin always slept with his secretaries. Or at least tried to. He felt that it was an automatic fringe benefit that went with the job along with two-hour lunches, a pension plan, four-week vacations, a company car, and hospital insurance.

  Murfin stretched, yawned, lowered his feet to the floor, and sat up. He held his cigarette between his lips while he rubbed his eyes. When he was done they were more bleary than ever.

  “You know what time we got home this morning?” he said.

  “What time?”

  “Four-thirty. That’s after me and Marjorie finally got Dorothy to bed. She was almost out on her feet by then, but she was still talking about killing herself. Jesus, I think she gets her kicks out of talking about it.”

  “For some people the thought of suicide is a comfort,” I said. “It gets them through their tough spots. The thought of it comforts them because it offers an ultimate solution to all their problems.”

  Murfin looked at me with disbelief. “Where’d you come up with a horseshit theory like that?”

  “From Dorothy,” I said. “We used to talk about suicide sometimes. Usually on Sunday afternoon. Usually it was raining. It cheered her up. Talking about it, I mean.”

  “Shit, I never thought about killing myself,” Murfin said and I believed him. He doubtless lumped suicide with devil worship, witchcraft, animal sodomy, group therapy and other wicked pursuits that he felt to be crimes against both man and nature.

  Ginger came in with the coffee, served us, and left. Murfin took a noisy sip of his and said, “Well, anyway we get home at four-thirty, but do I get to go to sleep? Hell, no. Marjorie’s gotta sit up until six o’clock analyzing it. She isn’t interested in why Max went and got himself killed. Oh, no. W
hat she’s interested in is analyzing what she keeps calling Max’s manipulative relationship with Dorothy which is what she claims is the real reason that Dorothy wants to kill herself. Well, poor old Max is lying down there dead with his throat cut and I can’t find anybody to be his pallbearers, but Marjorie’s gotta sit up until six o’clock in the fuckin’ morning blaming Max for Dorothy’s saying she wants to kill herself, which now you tell me is what makes Dorothy feel better. Jesus.”

  “I’ll go see her this afternoon,” I said. “After I go see the police and tell them how I found Max.”

  “You found him?” Murfin said as something seemed to wipe the tiredness from his eyes.

  “I think I’d better tell you about it,” I said. “In fact, I think I’d better tell you about everything.”

  So I told him and when I was through he wanted more details, so I fed them to him until he was almost sated, except that my mother’s silver spoon seemed to fascinate him. I had to explain several times how I could tell that it was one of her spoons. He finally accepted my explanation with the comment that, “Well, hell, maybe you could, I don’t know. We never had no silver spoons in my house when I was a kid anyway.”

  “I could tell it was her spoon,” I said. “Believe me.”

  “Yeah, okay, you could tell. So what do you think?”

  “I think I want to be paid one half in advance. Five thousand dollars.”

  “What the hell for?”

  “Because, like Max, I don’t have any insurance and if I keep on poking around and, like Max, come up with a hot idea about what really happened to Arch Mix, then somebody might decide to cut my throat, which would leave my wife a very poor widow.”

  “Aw, shit, Harvey.”

  “I’m serious,” I said.

  “Okay, we’ll check it with Vullo.”

  “Good.”

  Murfin took another loud sip of his coffee, put the cup down, lit another cigarette, stretched, leaned back on the couch, and looked up at the ceiling. “You say Gallops put two hundred guys on the payroll,” he said. “How do you figure that?”

  “I figure,” I said, “that you and I had better take a run out to St. Louis.”

  Murfin stopped looking at the ceiling and instead looked at me. He nodded happily, gave me one of his more knavish smiles, and said, “Yeah, that’s just what I was figuring.”

  Roger Vullo listened with rapt attention as I gave him the same report that I had given Murfin. I knew Vullo’s attention was rapt because he forgot to bite his fingernails. However, when I was through, or thought I was through, he wanted even more details than Murfin had demanded although Vullo didn’t seem to find it at all strange that I could recognize one of my mother’s old silver spoons. But then Roger Vullo had had silver spoons in his house when he was a kid.

  One of the details that Vullo was especially interested in was how Max Quane had looked as he had crawled from the bathroom into the living room to die on the cheap green rug.

  “He didn’t say anything before he died?” Vullo asked.

  “No. He was pretty far gone.”

  “Not a word?”

  “No.”

  “Poor Quane,” Vullo said and I think that was the only expression of sympathy or regret that I ever heard him make about Max Quane.

  It was Murfin who broached the subject of paying me half of my ten-thousand-dollar fee in advance. Vullo listened quietly to my reasoning although he started nibbling at his fingernails again. The little finger on his left hand seemed to be giving him particular trouble. When I was through with my pitch, he picked up his phone, spoke quietly into it, and then looked at me after he hung it up. “The check will be in shortly, Mr. Longmire.”

  “Thank you.”

  “You really do feel that you might be in some danger?”

  “I hope not, but there may be the possibility.”

  “How does it make you feel?” he said. I thought it was a strange question, but when I looked at him carefully I could detect only real interest, although it may have contained a trace of prurience.

  “Nervous,” I said. “Watchful. Apprehensive. Perhaps even a little frightened.”

  “Paranoiac?”

  “Maybe, a little, but I don’t really think so.”

  Vullo nodded thoughtfully. “You know, I’ve never been in any real danger that I can think of. It must be interesting.”

  “Yes,” I said. “Extremely.”

  “Now, then,” he said, all brisk business again, “this trip to St. Louis. When do you think you might go?”

  I looked at Murfin. “Tomorrow?”

  “Yeah, tomorrow. They aren’t going to bury old Max until day after tomorrow. We ought to be back in time.” He looked at Vullo and then asked in the tone of a man who has just been struck by an absolutely brilliant idea. “How’d you like to be a pallbearer at Max’s funeral?”

  The idea caused Vullo to make a savage attack on his right thumbnail with his teeth. When he had won he looked up at Murfin and said without a trace of regret, “I’m extremely sorry, but I really don’t think that my relationship with Quane was quite that personal.”

  “That’s the trouble,” Murfin said with a sigh. “I can’t find anybody who thinks they and Max had anything personal going.”

  “Surely Mr. Longmire knew Quane quite well.”

  “Harvey?” Murfin said. “Harvey don’t go to funerals.”

  That was a new fact and new facts always interested Vullo. He looked at me and said, “Why not?”

  “I no longer do things that I don’t like to do, if I can avoid doing them. I can avoid going to funerals. So I don’t.”

  Vullo thought that over and to help his thoughts along he bit the nail on his right index finger. “I think I find that a rather irresponsible attitude,” he said finally.

  “So do I,” I said, “but being responsible to anyone other than myself and my family is one of the things I now avoid because I never much liked it anyhow.”

  “You’re very blunt.”

  “I see no reason not to be.”

  “No, I don’t either,” Vullo said. “In fact, it’s rather refreshing. However, we do have a problem that you may be able to help us with. I trust you won’t mind giving us your thoughts?”

  “Not at all.”

  “We need to find a replacement for Quane,” he said. “I think you’ll agree that he had certain singular qualities that will make replacing him rather difficult.”

  If Roger Vullo wouldn’t mourn for Max Quane, at least he would miss him—or his singular qualities, which consisted largely of a quick, cunning mind, a thoroughly manipulative personality, a streak of utter ruthlessness, and an unerring eye for other people’s weaknesses. If he had really wanted to, Max Quane could probably have been a highly successful business executive, or if that were too tame, a Hollywood agent.

  I thought about where Vullo might find himself another Max Quane and then I had an idea. But before I could tell him about it his secretary came in with the check. She handed it to Vullo who scrawled his name on it and then moved it across his huge desk to Murfin who signed with something of a flourish and handed it to me. I looked at it, saw that it was for five thousand dollars, and put it in my pocket.

  Vullo dismissed his secretary with a curt nod and when she was gone I said, “I’ve heard about someone who might be able to help you find a replacement for Max. He’s a headhunter.”

  “What’s that?” Vullo said, not at all ashamed of his ignorance.

  “Someone who specializes in finding just the right person to fill hard-to-fill jobs. In fact, the one that I’m thinking of was the one who somehow located those two hundred guys that the union’s hired. His name’s Douglas Chanson although he calls himself Douglas Chanson Associates.”

  Vullo gave his right thumbnail a nasty nip. “How very curious that you should mention Chanson,” he said.

  “Why curious?”

  “He’s a friend of mine and when I was just starting the Foundation I went
to him for advice and counsel. And it was he that recommended Murfin here.” Vullo looked at Murfin. “I never told you that, did I?”

  “No,” Murfin said, “you never did.”

  “Douglas suggested that I be discreet in my approach to you, so I was. You don’t mind, do you?”

  “No,” Murfin said, “I don’t mind.”

  “So perhaps Mr. Longmire has a good suggestion. I think I will get in touch with Douglas again. What do you think, Murfin?”

  “Whatever’s right,” Murfin said.

  I could see that our meeting with Vullo was over, at least as far as he was concerned, so rather than risk one of his peremptory dismissals, I started to get up. I was almost halfway there when the phone rang. Vullo frowned, picked it up, said, “I see,” looked at me, and frowned again. “It’s for you,” he said. “Would you mind taking it in Murfin’s office?”

  “Not at all,” I said and headed for the door with Murfin close behind me. When we reached his office I picked up the phone and said hello. It was my sister and she sounded frantic, or as near to frantic as Audrey would ever permit herself to be.

  “All right, calm down,” I said. “What’s the matter?”

  “Sally called.”

  “So?”

  “She wants to come home.”

  “Well, good.”

  “She sounded awful.”

  “What do you mean awful?”

  “How the hell do I know what I mean by awful? She sounded scared and mixed up and desperate and, I don’t know, panicky, I reckon. She wanted me to come get her.”

  “Why doesn’t she take a cab?”

  “Goddamn it, Harvey, I told you she’s scared out of her mind. She wants me to come get her, but I can’t leave the kids and I don’t want to take them over there so I told her I’d get you to go.”

  “Where’s over there?” I said.

  “It’s over on Twelfth Street Southeast.” She read the number to me. It wasn’t much of a neighborhood. “I didn’t want to take the kids over there.”

  “No,” I said, “I don’t think you should. When did she call?”

  “About ten minutes ago. Maybe fifteen. I called Slick and he said you might still be at Vullo’s.”