5. Horvath at J-B.
The second list came slower, over a period of almost an hour. It finally consisted of four numbered items.
Delaney put it aside, rose, lumbered back into the living room. He went directly to Detective Samuel Wilding.
“When’s Blankenship coming back on?” he demanded.
“Tomorrow at noon, Captain. We’re splitting up because of Christmas.”
Delaney nodded. “Tell him, or leave a note for him, that I want to be informed immediately of any change in Danny Boy’s Time-Habit pattern. Got that?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Informed immediately,” the Captain repeated.
He marched through to his dining room and up to the lone man of Detective sergeant MacDonald’s squad on duty. The man looked up, startled.
“When’s MacDonald due back?” Delaney asked.
“Tomorrow at four in the afternoon, Captain. We’re splitting-”
“I know, I know,” Delaney said testily. “Christmas. I want to leave a message for him.” The duty officer took up a pad and waited, pencil in hand. “Tell him I want a photograph of Detective Kope.”
The officer’s pencil hesitated.
“Kope? The guy who got chilled?”
“Detective third grade Roger Kope, homicide victim,” Delaney said grimly. “I need a photograph of him. Preferably with his family. A photograph of the entire Kope family. Got that?”
He looked down at the officer’s pad. It was covered with squiggles.
“You know shorthand?” he asked.
“Yes, sir. I took a course.”
“Very good. It’s valuable. I wish I knew it. But I guess I’m too old to learn now.”
He started to explain to the officer that MacDonald would do best to send a man for the photo who had known Kope, who had been a friend of the family. But he stopped. The sergeant was an old cop; he’d know how to handle it.
He tramped back into his study, closed the doors. He looked at his watch. Almost 7:00 p.m. It was time. He looked at the list on his desk, then dialed the number of Daniel G. Blank. The phone rang and rang. No one answered. He walked back into the living room, over to the radio operator keeping the log.
“Danny Boy in the White House?” he asked.
“Yes, sir. No departure. About half an hour ago Tiger One called in. Princess left the Castle in a cab.” (“Princess” was the code name for Celia Montfort.) “About then minutes later Bulldog One reported her arrival at the White House. They’re both still in there, as far as we know.”
Delaney nodded, went back into his study, closing the door. He called Blank’s number again. No answer. Maybe Danny Boy and the Princess were having a sex scene and weren’t answering the phone. Maybe. And maybe they were at a Christmas Eve Party. At the Mortons, possibly? Possibly. He went to the file cabinet, took out the thin folder on the Mortons that MacDonald’s snoops had assembled. Their home phone number was there.
Delaney came back to his desk, dialed the number.
“Mortons’ residence,” a female voice answered, after the seventh ring.
In the background Delaney could hear the loud voices of several people, shouts, laughter. A party. He didn’t grin.
“I’m trying to reach Mr. Daniel Blank,” he said slowly, distinctly, “and I was given this number to call. Is he there?”
“Yes, he is. Just a minute, please.”
He heard her call, “Mr. Blank! Phone!” Then that familiar voice was there, curious and cautious. Delaney knew what Danny Boy was wondering: how had anyone traced him to the Mortons’ Christmas Eve party?
“Hello?”
“Mr. Daniel G. Blank?”
“Yes. Who is this?”
“Frank Lombard.”
There was a sound at the other end of the phone: part moan, part groan, part gasp-something sick and unbelieving. “Who?”
“Frank Lombard,” Delaney said in a low, soft voice. “You know me. We’ve met before. I just wanted to wish you-” But the connection went dead. Delaney hung up gently, smiling now. Then he put on overcoat and cap and went out into the dark night to find a drugstore that was still open so he could buy a bottle of perfume and take it to the hospital, a Christmas gift for his wife.
Part VIII
1
Something was happening. What was happening? Something…
Daniel Blank thought it had started two weeks ago. Or perhaps it was three; it was difficult to remember. But the garage attendant in his apartment house casually mentioned that an insurance examiner had been around, asking about Blank’s car.
“He thought you had been in some kind of accident,” the man said. “But he took one look at your car and knew you wasn’t. I told him so. I told him you ain’t had that car out in months.”
Blank nodded and asked the man to wash the Stingray, check the battery, oil, gas. He thought no more about the insurance examiner. It had nothing to do with him.
But then, one night, he stopped in at The Parrot. The bartender served him his brandy, then asked if his name was Blank. When Daniel acknowledged it-a tickle of agitation there-the bartender told him a private detective had been in, asking questions about him. He couldn’t recall the man’s name, but he described him. Troubled now, Blank went back to the garage attendant; his description of the “insurance examiner” tallied with that of the bartender’s “private detective.”
Not two days later, doorman Charles Lipsky reported that a man had been around asking “very personal questions” about Daniel Blank. The man, Lipsky said, had not stated his name or occupation, but Lipsky could describe him, and did.
From these three descriptions Blank began to form a picture of the man dogging him. Not so much a picture as a silhouette, A dark, hulking figure, rough as a woodcut. Big, with stooped shoulders. Massive. Wearing a stiff Homburg set squarely atop his head, an old-fashioned, double-breasted, shapeless overcoat.
Then, with great glee, Flo and Sam Morton told him of the visit of the credit investigator, and Dan-you devil! — why hadn’t you told your best friends about your plans to marry Celia Montfort and purchase her townhouse? He grinned bleakly.
Then that humbling, mumbling meeting with Rene Horvath, Javis-Bircham’s Director of Personnel. Blank finally got it straight that a credit investigator had been making inquiries; apparently Blank had applied for a “very large loan”-much larger than that offered by the J-B employees’ loan program. Horvath had felt it his duty to report the investigator’s visit to his superiors, and he had been assigned to ask Daniel Blank the purpose of the loan.
Blank finally got rid of the disgusting little creep, but not before eliciting a physical description of the “credit investigator.” Same man.
He knew now his days at Javis-Bircham were numbered, but it wasn’t important. The phony credit investigation would just be the last straw. But it wasn’t important. He’d be fired, or allowed to resign, and given a generous severance payment. It wasn’t important. He knew that during the last few months he simply hadn’t been doing his job. He wasn’t interested. It wasn’t important.
What was important, right now, was the insurance examiner-private detective-credit investigator-a composite man who had become more than a silhouette, a vague image, but was now assuming a rotundity, a
