'I charge twenty-five hundred dollars plus expenses,' I said, 'five hundred in advance.'
Clark agreed to that with a curt nod. A fusillade of hail swept his side of the trailer, but he didn't seem to hear. 'There won't be any… trouble, will there?'
'Not if I can prevent it,' I said, and I meant that. 'Do you have Joan's address in Layton?'
'Certainly.'
'And a photograph. Recent. And a photograph of Melissa.'
'I can supply those, too.'
'Then when you show up here with the court order, Mr. Clark, I go to work.'
Clark smiled for the second time, making it a bit better than the first.
There was a lull in the storm as well as in our conversation and no reason not to take the opportunity to leave.
Clark stood and slipped into his black rain gear. He would need the umbrella again. Though the hail had stopped, a perfectly vertical light rain fell with a gray, foreboding steadiness.
'I should be back tomorrow or the day after with the court order,' Clark said as he stepped down from the trailer's threshold and opened his umbrella.
I motioned for him to wait, ducked back inside for a moment and gave him one of my cards. 'Give me a call, make sure I'm here.'
'Good idea,' he said, tucking the card into a side pocket of his raincoat. He turned and walked to his car with an unhurried pace, refusing to make any more concessions to mere rain.
I closed the metal door, went back to the sofa and sat down. Already I could feel the heavy pulsing in my stomach that I felt every time I took a new case. Clark had asked if there might be trouble. There might always be trouble in the taking of a child from its natural mother. I didn't allow myself to dwell on the kinds of trouble that were possible.
Once I accepted Clark's money, I was committed to deal with that trouble. And I needed Clark's money.
2
He was back the next day with his court order.
I saw Clark's aging compact slow near my trailer, heard the crunch of tires on gravel and caught a glimpse of red glowing brake lights before the car passed out of my line of vision. I was doing my exercises on the concrete patio in what passes for my backyard. Having just finished my third set of deep knee bends, I was standing with my hands on my hips, waiting for my legs to stop trembling. It's not that I'm so much the physical culture type, but I'm at an age. Every day on the sports page I read about some athlete or other, washed up at thirty-six or -seven-even the great ones. That bothers me.
Gordon Clark was wearing a tailored gray suit this time, with a vest and a blood-red tucked-in tie. He was carrying an attache case. I felt a bit shoddy in my T-shirt and sweat pants.
He smiled at me, a superior smile that said he was the superior specimen. Not that I'd argue with him. I'm big enough, and not fat, but I'm not exactly whipcord muscle. I suspected that beneath the neat gray suit, Clark was. ‹ 'You don't look so tough,' he said.
'Mr. Happy's not supposed to be tough.'
'I got the court order. I was near here so I thought I'd drop it by.' He opened the attache case, an expensive model with chrome trim, and handed me a piece of paper with a familiar heading.
'Okay,' I said, 'I'll have it copied and return it to you.'
He reached into the open attache* case again, like a magician reaching into his bag of tricks, and handed me out the next surprise. It was a check for five hundred dollars, closely followed by some photographs.
I walked out of the shade of the trailer to study the color snapshots. The first was of a woman, Joan Clark, leaning against what looked like a colonial pillar on a porch. She had a nifty upturned nose, close-set but large dark eyes and a small, too-curvaceous-to-be-wiry figure, one of those women who would look young even in late middle age, until the looker got close enough to notice the touches of time. The next photo was of Joan Clark and her daughter standing on the bank of a very blue lake. The daughter, Melissa, looked much like her mother, except that she was blond. And the daughter had the same innate tininess about her, the same tilt to her nose. I wondered if her mother was really blond. The third snapshot was of Melissa seated on a corner of a sofa with that characteristic knees-together, legs-straight-out pose of a seven-year-old. She had her father's smile, but with more candlepower.
'That last one of Melissa is the most recent I could find,' Clark said. 'It's about four months old.'
I set the photos, check and court order on the metal table by my webbed lawn chair, weighting them with the heavy glass holder that contained a yellow candle that was supposed to keep mosquitoes away in the evenings.
'What's their address in Layton?' I said.
'It's three fifty-five Star Lane, on the south side of Layton. They've been there about a month. Do you want me to write it down?'
'I'll remember it, if I have to.'
Clark cocked his head to the left. 'What do you mean by that?'
'I mean it would be best if you flew down to Layton with me. It's the way I usually operate if I can.'
He shook his head like a bull trying to shake loose a barb in the bullring. 'I can't.'
'It would be easier for the child. We wait for the right time when she's alone and simply take her with us, as if the mother knows about us.'
'But I hired you so I wouldn't have to do this myself. You're supposed to be an expert…' Clark shrugged helplessly, pleading to be understood. 'Look, I'd like to, really. But I just can't. My job… You understand. If it isn't absolutely necessary…'
'As long as I have that court order and your signature on one of my contracts,' I told him, 'it's not necessary.'
'Then I'll have to pass.'
I nodded, went inside for a minute and got one of my standard contract forms and a pen. Clark read the short contract quickly and bent over the metal patio table to sign it.
'Is there any way your ex-wife could find out you hired me?' I asked.
'None at all. I haven't discussed this with anyone.'
'Follow that policy,' I advised him. 'Surprise is important. I'll leave for Layton tomorrow, unless you have some reason for suggesting a better time.'
'Tomorrow's all right with me. The sooner this thing's done, the better.'
'Where can you be reached?' I asked him. 'I might need to contact you, and I'll have to know where to bring Melissa when we return.'
'I'm with Standard Implement.' Clark reached into a gray pocket and held out an embossed white business card that proclaimed him to be a sales manager. Then he hastily drew the card back, took a pen from another pocket and scribbled his home address and phone number on the back of the card before handing it to me. His address was in a fairly expensive apartment development on the west side of the city, where expensive 'executive' apartment developments were stacked on top of one another. Clark seemed to play his role as best he could with what he had.
'Can you tell me anything about your ex-wife that might be helpful?' I asked. 'Habits, favorite activities, that sort of thing.'
Clark ran his fingertips an eighth of an inch beyond the contours of his neat dark beard. 'I can't think of any habits that might be helpful. Joan used to love to play tennis, though. Spent a lot of time on the court.'
'Any good?'
'Good? No, but she wears down her opponents. Joan is competitive in almost everything. Aggressive. If she suspects what you're up to, your job won't be without problems.'
'I'll know how to handle the situation, Mr. Clark.'
He looked me up and down, as if trying to reassure himself that I could. When he turned to leave, he took
