He picked up his phone and punched up a number without looking it up. He waited, talked briefly with Mary Smith, nodded several times, probably for my benefit, and hung up.
“No,” he said.
“She won’t authorize the statements?”
“No.”
“She say why not?”
“No.”
“And you didn’t ask?” I said.
“It’s her right,” Tyler said. “She doesn’t have to explain.”
“How nice for her,” I said. “You have any thoughts on who would want to kill Nathan?”
“I thought Mary did it.”
“Because?”
“Because according to the paper the cops say she did it.”
“And you believe it?”
“Sure. Why not?”
“She seem the type?” I said.
“Oh hell. I didn’t know them like that. It was mostly a business friendship.”
“So you think she murdered her husband, but you still need her permission to give me access to something as innocuous as his monthly statements?”
“I have a fiduciary responsibility here. I can’t betray it. If I did, and word got around, who would trust me?”
“You’re a stockbroker,” I said. “You think people trust you now?”
“I don’t think we have anything else to talk about,” Tyler said.
“We do, Brink,” I said. “But I’m willing to let it wait.”
He didn’t say anything. I got up and let myself out and, encouraged by her hip sway when she’d ushered me in, smiled my killer smile at the secretary. She smiled back at me pleasantly.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
When I got to the garage there was a fat guy lingering around the elevator, and Curly had come up quite close behind me. All three of us waited for the elevator. Curly and the fat guy were in competition to see which of them could look more nonchalant. When the elevator doors opened I turned and went past the two men and took the stairs instead of the elevator. Except in high-status buildings, elevators were for sissies.
I hotfooted it up the stairs and stopped on the fourth-floor landing. I could hear footsteps behind me. I went into the garage and walked toward my car. The fat guy was already there, exiting the elevator. Behind me Curly emerged from the stairwell. There was no one else in sight. The fat guy stepped in front of me.
He said, “Hold it there, pal.”
I stopped. Behind me I could hear Curly’s footsteps.
“You know,” I said, “if you’d use the stairs every time, instead of taking the elevator, you wouldn’t be so fat.”
“Fuck you,” the fat guy said.
“Gee,” I said. “I hadn’t thought of it that way.”
I glanced back. Curly had stopped a few feet behind me. I did a half turn so that I could see both of them.
“We wanna know what you’re doing,” the fat guy said.
“Isn’t it obvious,” I said. “I’m talking with a couple of assholes.”
“You’re a funny guy,” Fatso said. “Ain’t he a funny guy, Bo.”
“Funny guy,” Curly Bo said.
“We ain’t funny guys,” Fatso said.
“I can see that,” I said.
“And we want to know what you was talking to Brink Tyler about.”
“Who?”
“You know who, you was just in his office.”
“Oh,” I said. “The Brinkster. Yeah. We were talking about diversifying my portfolio.”
The fat guy didn’t know what to say. He was used to people being scared of him, and it confused him that I wasn’t. Also, he probably didn’t know what a portfolio was. Bo, aka Curly, decided to step in.
“Okay, pal,” he said. “Let’s not fuck around here. We ask questions. You answer them, and you answer them straight. You understand? Or you get your ass kicked.”
