Whitey sat and pretended to be deaf. The dispatcher’s voice went on like the voice of doom. The Imperial had collided with a truck at the intersection of Ocean Boulevard and Roundtable Street. Traffic Control Car Seven was directed to the scene of the accident. A few seconds later the dispatcher relayed a report that the driver was injured.
“You see?” Whitey cried aggrievedly. “You almost made me miss an accident.”
He started his engine, and honked softly. His fat little partner, the mosquito liberator, came running out of the garage. The ambulance rolled into the street and turned toward the foot of the city, singing its siren song.
I followed it. Colonel Ferguson had a blue Imperial.
chapter 16
THE LONG BLUE CAR had smashed its nose on the side of an aluminum semitrailer. A policeman was directing traffic around the damaged vehicles. At the curb, another policeman was talking to a tough-looking man in oil- stained coveralls. They were looking down in attitudes of angry sympathy at a third man who was sitting on the curb with his face in his hands. It was Ferguson.
Whitey and his partner got out of the ambulance and trotted toward him. I was close on their heels. Whitey said to the policeman in a tone of whining solicitude: “Is the poor fellow badly hurt, Mahan?”
“Not too serious. But you better take him to Emergency.”
Ferguson lifted his head. “Nonsense. I don’t need an ambulance. I’m perfectly all right.”
It was an overstatement. Worms of blood crawled down from his nostrils to his mouth. His eyes were like starred glass.
“You better go along to the hospital,” Mahan said. “Looks to me like you bust your nose.”
“It doesn’t matter, I’ve broken it before.” Ferguson was a little high with shock. “What I need is a stiff drink, and I’ll be right as rain.”
Mahan and the ambulance men looked at each other with uneasy smiles. The man in coveralls muttered to no one in particular: “Probably had one too many already. He sure picked a hell of a time to run a red light.”
Ferguson heard him and lunged up to his feet. “I assure you I haven’t been drinking. I do assume full responsibility for the accident. And I apologize for the inconvenience.”
“I hope so. Who’s going to pay for the damage to the truck?”
“I am, of course.”
Ferguson was doing a fine job of setting himself up for a lawsuit. I couldn’t help interjecting: “Don’t say any more, Colonel. It may not have been your fault.”
Mahan turned on me hotly. “He was doing sixty down the Boulevard. He’s due for a pile of citations. Take a look at his skidmarks.”
I took a look. The broad black lines which Ferguson’s car had laid down on the concrete were nearly two hundred feet long.
“I’ve said I’m sorry.”
“It ain’t that simple, Mister. I want to know how it happened. What did you say your name was?”
I answered for him. “Ferguson. Colonel Ferguson is not obliged to answer your questions.”
“The hell he isn’t. Read the Vehicle Code.”
“I have, I’m an attorney. He’ll make a report to you later. At the present time he’s obviously dazed.”
“That’s right,” Whitey said. “We’ll take him along to the hospital, they’ll fix him up.”
He put his pale thin hand on Ferguson’s shoulder, like a butcher testing meat. Ferguson moved impatiently, stumbled on the curb, and almost fell. He glanced around at the growing circle of onlookers with something like panic in his eyes. “Let me out of here. My wife-” His hand went to his face and came away bloody.
“What about your wife?” Mahan said. “Was she in the car?”
“No.”
“How did the accident happen? What did you think you were doing?”
I stepped between them. “Colonel Ferguson will be in touch with you later, when he’s himself.”
I got hold of Ferguson’s bony elbow and propelled him through the gathering crowd to my car.
Mahan pursued us, waving citation blanks. “Where do you think you’re going?”
“To a doctor. If I were you, officer, I wouldn’t push this any further right now.”
I opened the door for Ferguson. He got in, disdaining my assistance. Mahan stood and watched us drive away, his pad of blanks crumpled in his hand.
“You’re Johnny-on-the-spot, aren’t you?” Ferguson said.
“I happened to be listening to the local police calls, and got the first report of your accident. Do you have a doctor in town?”
“I never go to doctors.” He emitted a sort of snuffling neigh through his damaged nose. “Look here, I need a drink. Isn’t there someplace we can go for a drink?”
“If you say so.”
I took him to a bar and grill on the edge of the lower town. The noon-hour crowd had thinned down to a few tables of men drinking their lunches. I hustled Ferguson to the rear of the establishment and suggested he wash his face.
He came out of the men’s room looking a little better, and ordered rye on the rocks. I ordered a corned-beef sandwich. When the waiter was out of hearing, he pushed his battered face across the table toward me. His eyes were bleak. “What sort of a man are you? Can I trust you?”
“I think so.”
“You haven’t simply been hanging around hoping that some of my money will rub off on you?”
It was an insulting question, but I didn’t let it insult me. I was willing to put up with a good deal for the sake of candor. “It’s a natural human hope, isn’t it? Money isn’t an overriding motive with me. As you may have noticed.”
“Yes. You’ve talked to me straight from the shoulder. I’d like to feel I can do the same with you.” His voice altered. “God knows I have to talk to someone.”
“Shoot. In my profession you learn to listen, and you learn to forget.”
The waiter brought his drink. Ferguson sucked at it greedily and set the glass down with a rap. “I want to engage your professional services, Mr. Gunnarson. That will insure your forgetting, won’t it? Confidential relationship, and all that.”
“I take it seriously.”
“I don’t mean to be offensive. I realize I have been offensive, when this matter came up between us. I apologize.” He was trying to be quiet and charming. I preferred him loud and natural.
“No apology needed. You’ve been under quite a strain. But we’re not getting anywhere.”
“We have if we’ve reached an agreement. Will you be my legal adviser in this matter?”
“I’ll be glad to. So long as it doesn’t interfere with my representing my other client. Other clients.”
“How could that be?”
“We don’t need to go into detail. I have a client in the county jail who was involved with Larry Gaines. Innocently involved, like your wife.”
His eyes winced.
“And like your wife,” I added, “she’s suffering out the consequences.”
Ferguson took a deep, yawning breath. “I saw Gaines today. It’s why I lost my head. I threw discretion to the winds and tried to run him down. God knows what will happen now.”
“Have you delivered the money?”
“Yes. It’s when I saw him. I was instructed to procure a cardboard carton and place the money in it, then leave the carton on the front seat of my car, with the door unlocked. I parked the car where they told me to, on Ocean Boulevard near the foot of the pier, and left it standing there with the carton of money in it. Then I was supposed to walk out to the end of the wharf. It’s a distance of a couple of hundred yards.”
“I know the place. My wife and I often go there.”
“Then you probably remember that there’s a public telescope on the pier. I couldn’t resist dropping a dime in
