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.
