“555-2900.”
It was exactly twelve-thirty.
There were many places Fletch felt he ought not be. His apartment was one. The News-Tribune was another. Driving around the streets without his driver’s license or car registration, both of which had been taken by the police with his wallet and keys, and, with the police prone to recognize him as Alexander Liddicoat, the robber, and probably looking for him as Irwin Maurice Fletcher, angel-dust merchant, also struck him as imprudent.
So, after he watched Biff Wilson lift himself out of his car, button his suit jacket, and lumber into number 45447 Twig Street, Fletch drove into the used-car lot. He parked his Datsun 300 ZX in the front row of used cars, facing the street. All the other cars in the row, bigger than his, nevertheless were newer and cleaner.
No car salesmen were around. Undoubtedly they were off reenergizing their smiles and chatter with soup and sandwiches.
Fletch took a cardboard sign off the windshield of another car and put it on his own. The sign read: SALE! $5,000 AND THIS CAR IS YOURS!
Seated behind the FOR SALE sign in his car, Fletch could make his phone calls. He also could watch number 45447 Twig Street.
Cindy answered immediately. “Fletch?”
“You feel okay?”
“Sure. Why not?”
“Sorry about the pizza last night.”
“Isn’t that what men do? Negotiate with women and then walk out on them, ignoring their agreements? I mean, even about bringing back pizza? It was no surprise to me. Of course, Barbara mentioned being both hungry and disappointed in you.”
“Hey, Cindy. Don’t be angry. If you only knew what happened—”
“I don’t want to be told. From what I know of men, they’re as incapable of telling the truth to women as snakes are of singing four-part harmony.”
“You’ve met a lot of snakes.”
“I’m not doing this for you, Fletcher. I’m doing this for Barbara.”
“Wedding presents are for brides and grooms, aren’t they? Isn’t that why, so often, there are rods and reels among the packages?”
“We all have to give men everything their little hearts desire so that a few of the good things of this world will dribble down to their dependent wives. Isn’t that the way the world works?”
“You’re doing it to screw Marta.”
“Where are you?”
“None of your business.”
“Cindy, I just want to make sure you’re on a safe phone. That no one is listening in.”
“No one is listening.”
“Good. Who owns the Ben Franklyn Friend Service?”
“Okay. Wood Nymph, Incorporated, as I said. I got into the filing cabinet in Marta’s office this morning. She spent most of the morning at the reception desk. Found references to two other corporations. One is called Cungwell Screw—”
“That’s funny.”
“A riot. The other is called Lingman Toys, Incorporated.”
“Someone has a sense of humor. What’s the relationship among these three companies?”
“I don’t know. I wouldn’t expect terribly accurate or complete evidence of ownership to be lying about Marta’s office, would you?”
“No. But it’s more of a lead than we had, I guess.”
“I think Cungwell Screw and Lingman Toys are investors, owners of Wood Nymph.”
“Any reference to any of the officers of any of the companies?”
Down Twig Street, Biff Wilson dashed out of number 45447. He slammed the door behind him. Looking back, he stumbled down the steps.
“Marta. President of Wood Nymph, vice-president of both, Cungwell Screw and Lingman Toys. President of Cungwell Screw is a Marietta Ramsin.”
The door of 45447 Twig Street opened again. Felix Gabais, empty beer bottle in hand like a football, stood on the front stoop. Really, he was a massive person.
Felix threw the empty bottle at the fleeing Biff Wilson.
The bottle hit Biff on the ear. It fell into the gutter and smashed.
“Jokes everywhere,” Fletch said.
“And president of Lingman Toys is an Yvonne Heller. Treasurer of all these companies is a man named Jay Demarest. I know him.”
“You do?”
The ground-floor window of 45447 Twig Street opened. Therese Gabais leaned as far out the window as she could from her wheelchair. She was shaking her arm and shouting at Biff in the street.
“Yeah. Comes in all the time. Uses the place, you know, as if it were all for him. Never gets a bill. Exercises, gets what he wants when he wants it.”
“What’s he like?”
Now Felix was bending over as well as he could in the gutter and scooping up broken glass from his beer bottle.
“Actually, over the two years I’ve known him, he’s gotten himself into pretty good shape, one way and another. He’s in his thirties, not married.”
“Why would he marry, with the friends he’s got?”
“What?”
Head tilted, hand pressed against his wounded ear, Biff turned back to attack Felix.
Felix threw the bits of glass in Biff’s face.
“Nothing.”
“I’ve even been out with him on dates, you know, as escort. When he takes friends out for dinner, that sort of thing.”
“What are his friends like?”
Brother and sister Gabais screaming at him from the street and the window, Biff hustled into his car.
“Losers. You know what I mean? People who think that if they ever get their lies properly organized they’ll make it big and be as good as other people.”
“Do you think Jay Demarest is a real owner?”
Biff seemed to be having trouble getting his car started.
All the lights on the News-Tribune car began to whir and flash.
“I think he keeps the books, and orders the ground elk’s horn. The fall guy.”
“Being given a few good years and meant to take the fall for the real owners.”
Now Felix was beating up the car. He kicked the rear left fender hard enough to rock the car and leave a good-sized dent. Arms joined at the fists, he landed his considerable weight on the car’s trunk. That made an impression.
“Yeah. He and Marta better look out below. I think they’re both just employees.”
Biff’s car engine roared.
“When can you have the rest of the stuff for me?”
Twice dented, lights whirring and flashing, rear end skittering, Biff’s News-Tribune car fled down the street.
A stone Felix had ready in hand caught up to it and broke its rear window.
Skittering around the far corner, Biff almost hit a bus.
“Ah,” Fletcher said. “The reportorial life does have its ups and downs, its ins and outs.”
“What?”
Retreating slowly, unwillingly, back into their depression, Felix and Therese Gabais intermittently shouted and shook their fists at the corner around which Biff had disappeared.
“When can you have the other stuff?”
“Anytime you want to meet me, I’ll be ready. I’m preparing a list of the services and charges. I’ve got the names and addresses of some of the clients. I’ve even pinched some of the still photographs and videotapes for you.”
“Sure. She’s not beyond takin’ a trick now and again. She has her vanity.”
“Jay Demarest?”
“You bet. Marta probably took those, to keep Jay in line, should the need ever arise. Nice lady, uh? All in the same cesspool together.”
“I don’t want you to risk yourself, Cindy.”
“Not to worry. You can’t make pie without crust.”
“What? Right! Sure. I suppose so. Will you be at this number later?”
The window and the door to 45447 Twig Street were now closed. Therese and Felix Gabais were now back inside their own morosity.
“If not, I’ll be back. Don’t call me at Ben Franklyn.”
“Course not. Marta would ask me when I’m coming to work.”
In the street in front of Fletch, a police car cruised by slowly.
Alston Chambers said, “Glad you called. I’ve been trying to get you. Your apartment doesn’t answer, the beach house doesn’t answer, your car phone hasn’t answered. No one at the newspaper seems to know where you are. I’ve got some news for you. By the way, where are you?”
“At the moment, I’m hiding out in a used-car lot disguised as a satisfied mannequin in a Datsun 300 ZX.”
“Why didn’t I guess that?”
“I need a couple of favors, old buddy.”
“Why should I do you favors? Aren’t I already marrying you off, Saturday, or something?”
“Cause I’m trying to find out who murdered your boss, or buddy.”
“Not even a topic of discussion around here. Bunch of cold-blooded bastards. It won’t interest anyone at Habeck, Harrison and Haller who murdered Donald Habeck unless and until they get to defend the accused, always presuming he or she is rich, or, good for publicity. By the way, who did murder Donald Habeck?”
“You’re always good for the obvious question.”
“That’s my legal training.”
“I don’t know who killed Donald Habeck. So far, I have spent time with each member of the Habeck family, and I believe any one of them could have and would have done it, if, and that’s a big if, any of them knew Habeck was disinheriting them in behalf of a museum and a monastery.”
“Monastery! What in hell are you talking about?”
“I forgot. You and I haven’t talked lately. Believe it or not, ol’ chum, I believe a liar for once told the truth.”
“And no one believed him?”
“Of course not. I believe Donald Habeck really wanted to give five million dollars to the museum and, knowing how to use the press, by making the announcement through the press, embarrass the museum into accepting the gift and promising to use it to develop a collection of contemporary religious art. Of that Habeck crafty scheme, I and the News-Tribune were to be the unwitting tools.”
“Telling the truth once in your life doesn’t make you a monk. Does it?”
“I believe Donald Habeck wanted to enter a monastery. If you can believe any of my insane and otherwise unreliable sources, you can believe it. Over the years, he had taken religious instruction. He had not divorced the only wife he ever had. She had been permanently endowed in an institution years before. Maybe Donald was trying to relate thusly to his son, a monk. Maybe they each had the same instinct. Maybe, as sometimes happens, the son, thinking he was rebelling from his father, instinctively and inadvertently perceived and fulfilled his father’s inner-most ambitions. Also, of course, Habeck was not lying when he said no one cared ‘a tin whistle’ for him. No one did. Plus, lately Habeck had been reading Russian novels, in which icons abound and the theme of personal withdrawal is very strong, especially as written by Dostoevsky.”
There was a long pause before Alston next spoke. “Er, Fletch?”
“Yes, Alston?”
“Do you also believe you are following approved, police methods of investigation here?”
“Of course I am. Why not?”
Alston’s voice sounded distant from the phone. “I’ve never known the police to consider the victim’s recent reading list as evidence of anything.”
“Why not? What better way is there of knowing what a person is thinking?”
“Back to hard facts.” Alston’s voice became stronger. “You know Habeck and Jasmine never married?”
“Donald and Louise never divorced. I know Jasmine is not Mrs. Habeck. I know she isn’t even Jasmine. Which brings up one of the favors I ask, ol’ buddy.”
“Jasmine isn’t what?”
“She thinks she’s in the Federal Witness Protection Program. In fact, while she was giving evidence in a trial in Miami, Donald Habeck absconded with her.”
“In the middle of her giving testimony?”
“I believe so. Donald apparently gave her the impression she was through testifying, free to go, and that he was some sort of an official. Jasmine has a one-cell brain. She believed him because he was a lawyer, was kind to her, in his fashion, and, I suppose, wore a nice suit.”
“He did have nice suits,” Alston mused.
“Not from the internal view. Would you please ask a federal officer to call upon her at Palmiera Drive and attempt to straighten out her life for her? She might still have evidence which would interest courts in Miami, as well as points north and west.”
“That’s a favor? Sure. Always glad to get in good with the feds. My news is that Donald Habeck did indeed have a will, drawn up five years ago, and not altered since.”
“And this will stands?”
“Yes. Under its terms, everything goes straight to the children of Nancy Habeck and Thomas Farliegh, as they come of age.”
“Wow! This shoemaker’s children have shoes. Or will have.”
“Nothing remarkable about leaving everything directly to the grandchildren.”
“You haven’t seen these grandchildren fight over a noisy toy tank.”
“Brats, uh?”
“Given an inheritance, the violence those kids will be able to raise might astound the Western World, as we know it.”
“Great. Sounds like they’ll each need lawyers.”
“Of one sort or another.”
“And you don’t think their papa, the poet of violence, bumped off their grandpapa?”
“What Tom Farliegh is best at is engineering mud into his babas’ maws.”
“Come again?”
“Violence is not natural to Tom Farliegh. He gets it from his in-laws.”
“I was hoping you’d pin the punk. So none of the family bumped off Habeck?”
“Any one of them could have, including Louise, including Nancy, even including the son, Robert, who is a monk. Each in her or his own way expressed the sentiment, to hell with Donald Habeck. Two elements, one big, one small, bother me. The big one is that I can’t establish that any of them knew before Donald was murdered that he planned to disinherit them all in behalf of a museum and a monastery. Of course, it’s hard to prove what people know and when they know it. But with the wife in an institution, the daughter in squalor, and the son in a monastery, when each says she or he didn’t know the change in Donald’s life and death plans, how can one not believe them?”
“A lawyer never believes anyone, and that’s the truth.”
“The weird thing that bothers me is how these people get around. Would you believe, in this day and age, none has a car? The Farlieghs’ car is just one more broken toy in their front weed-patch. Robert’s use of vehicles is limited. Louise sits in cars until their owner comes back and takes her where she wants to go, ultimately. None would seem to be able to time things, such as murder, too well. I don’t think the murderer drove into the parking lot of the News-Tribune, but how did he or she get there without a car?”
“Pardon me for saying so, Fletch, but there are other lines of investigation to be followed. I hope you’re leaving something for the police to do. Wash out my mouth, but Habeck’s partners, for example.”
“You’re right. But the family came first. Donald Habeck was about to announce he was disinheriting them. That’s a clear motive for murder, isn’t it?”
“…The list of his present and past clients…”
“Yeah. I saw Gabais. Habeck used him for publicity; in Gabais’s words, wrecked not only him, but his crippled sister. Hates Habeck. But I don’t think Gabais could organize himself enough to do murder. I think he pretty well gave up on his life when he saw his dogs’ heads bashed in.”
“…Stuart Childers.”
“Yeah. Tell me about him. How strong was the evidence that he killed his brother?”
“Very strong, but, unfortunately, all self-admitted. I’ve got the file somewhere here on my desk. Thought you’d want it. Here it is. Richard was the elder brother, by about two years. A complete playboy. Never worked, never married, sponged off his parents, hung out with the yachty set, wrecked about one sports car a year. In his last car wreck, the girl who was with him was killed. Variously over the years Richard had also been charged with possession of small amounts of controlled substances, paternity twice, vandalism, one case of arson. He tried to burn down a boat shed. His parents always got him off.”
“Using Habeck, Harrison and Haller?”
“Yes. That’s how I know.”
“Parents are rich?”
“You’ve heard of Childers Insurance. Biggest, oldest, richest insurance brokerage firm in the city.”
“On City Boulevard, right?”
“That’s where their main office is, yes. Stuart, on the other hand, was the good son, dutiful, diligent, all that, never any trouble, graduated college with honors, worked for Childers Insurance every summer since he was sixteen, entered the firm as a qualified broker the November after he graduated.”
“Good son, bad son, bleh,” Fletch said.
In the street in front of him, another police car cruised by slowly.
“After the last car wreck, in which the girl was killed, Mama and Papa Childers turned Richard off. No more family money for him. He had to prove himself, go get a job, stay out of trouble, et cetera, et cetera.”
“There’s always an instead right about here in this story.”
“Instead, Richard proved himself by blackmailing his brother. Or attempting to.”
“What had Stuart done wrong?”
“Gotten his honors degree by cheating. Paid some instructor to write his honors thesis for him. Richard, of course, never graduated from college, but had contacts at the old place, knew the instructor, et cetera.”
“And the thought of being exposed, especially to his parents, proven to be no better than his brother, drove Stuart crazy.”
“So he said.”
“Who said?”
“Stuart said. Richard was found dead on the sidewalk fourteen stories below the terrace of his apartment. There was lots of evidence of a fight having happened in the apartment, turned-over chairs, tables, smashed glass, et cetera. Stuart’s fingerprints were found in the apartment. So were others’. Because of Richard’s wild acquaintance, the inquest’s finding was Death by Person or Persons Unknown.”
“I know Stuart confessed.”
“Loud and clear. He walked into a police station late one afternoon, said he wanted to confess, was read his rights, taken into a room where he confessed into a tape-recorder, waited until the confession was typed up, then signed it.”
“Enter Donald Habeck.”
“Donald Habeck entered immediately, as soon the Childers knew their son was at the cop house confessing to killing his brother. Habeck ordered an immediate blood-alcohol test. Apparently, Stuart had braced himself with almost a quart of gin that day, before going to confess.”
“So the confession was no good?”
“Not only did the cops know he was drunk while making the confession, they even gave him maintenance drinks, of whiskey, to keep him going during the confession, and before he signed.”
“How could they be so stupid?”
“Listen. Cops try to get what they can get before the lawyer shows up. And that’s usually when they make their mistakes.”
“In vino veritas is not a tenet of the law, huh?”
“In Habeck’s own handwriting, I read you from the file: ‘In court, keep Stuart sedated.’ ”
“They drugged him.”
“Right.”
Fletch remembered Felix Gabais saying, “You know what a defendant feels like at a trial? He’s in a daze…. What they’re sayin’ has nothin’ to do with what you’ve always thought about yourself…. You’re struck dumb….” “Maybe they needn’t have bothered.”
“The confession was found inadmissible by the court. And, even though Richard and Stuart were known not to be friends, Habeck pointed out that a person’s fingerprints found in his brother’s apartment is insufficient evidence for the charge of murder, especially when there were many unidentifiable fingerprints there.”
“You said everyone has a right to the best defense.”
“Of course.”
“Even involuntarily?”
“I don’t know. All Habeck had to do here was raise a question of reasonable doubt, and that’s what he did.”
“Stuart Childers confessed!”
“Now, Fletch.”
“What?”
“Now, Fletch… Have you always meant absolutely everything you’ve said after too much to drink?”
“Absolutely!”
“If I believed that, I wouldn’t be talking to you. Or you to me.”
“In vino a germ of truth?”
“Inadmissible. Especially when the vino came out of the cops’ locker.”
“I give up.” At the edge of the used-car lot a man wearing a ready smile and a lavender necktie dropped a lunch bag from a fast-food store into a waste receptacle. “In behalf of leaving no stone unturned, I guess I better go see Stuart Childers. The cops won’t listen to him again.”
“Maybe he keeps confessing to every crime in town just hoping for another free drink at the police station.”
“I’ve listened to every other nut in town. Might as well listen to him.”
“Got a story to tell you.”
“No more stories.”
“You like stories about lawyers.”
“No more, I don’t.”
“I remembered that in the old days, when my grandfather was a lawyer in northern California, lawyers used to charge by the case, rather than by the hour. So in their offices they would saw a few inches off the legs of the front of the chairs their clients would sit in. You know, to make them lean forward, state their case, and get out.”
“What’s funny about that? The chairs in modern fast-food restaurants are designed that way.”
“What’s funny is that when lawyers began charging by the hour instead of the case, they all bought new chairs for their clients, and sawed a few inches off the back legs. You know? So the clients would relax and talk about their last vacations?”
On the sidewalk, the car salesman stood, arms akimbo, smile ready, looking for a customer.
Fletch cleared his throat while Alston laughed. “My second favor, ol’ buddy…”
“Yes?”
“Would be a real favor. Three corporations called Wood Nymph, Cungwell Screw, and Lingman Toys….”
“I don’t think they’re on the exchange.”
“Even the telephone exchange. I need to know their relationship to each other. And, of most importance, who owns them.”
“I’ll trace them right now.”
“No need. Anytime within the next half-hour will do.”
“No. Seriously. I’ll do it right now.”
The salesman spotted Fletch sitting in the Datsun. “Doesn’t Habeck, Harrison and Haller give you any other work to do?”
“Not anymore. I resigned from Habeck, Harrison and Haller an hour ago.”
“What?”
Alston Chambers had hung up.
“So. How do you like it?” the used-car salesman asked Fletch through the car window.
“Like what?” Fletch asked.
“The car. Want to buy it?”
“I hate it.” Fletch turned the key in the ignition. “Listen to that! Muffler’s no damned good!”
To the amazement of the used-car dealer, Fletch put the Datsun in gear, roared off the lot into the street, and away. The FOR SALE sign blew off the windshield and landed on the sidewalk, not far from the salesman’s feet.