I told him I understood and asked if he wouldn’t mind going over his report with me. And damned if he didn’t let loose with a sigh of relief! We started on the report with Max attacking the expenses first, justifying each item to death. He’d padded the amount of billable hours and was cheating me on the expenses but I sat there nodding in agreement. It doesn’t pay to be too hardnosed about these things, and besides, it wasn’t all that likely the client would notice. If he did, well, Max and I could always go over it again.
We quickly finished the report. Crowley Industrial Rentals was having a problem with some of its power tools disappearing. Max had traced them back to an employee who had been borrowing them to make his own pool table. It seems this fellow had his retirement coming up and thought a pool table would help pass all the idle time he was soon going to have. He never did get a chance to finish it and that was a shame, what with his retirement coming upon him faster than expected.
I was disappointed. Before leaving for Oklahoma I was planning to use Mary’s case for my next column, but that idea was no longer feasible. I had hoped Max would have something I could use, but his case was no good either. The public doesn’t like reading about a big company coming down hard on the little guy. Hell, I might as well pack up and close the office for the good that story would do me.
Max cleared his throat to get my attention. He asked if I had any cases he could take a crack at.
I shook my head and frowned. “It’s kind of slow right now. I’ll call you, though, as soon as something comes up.”
He started to get up, hesitated, and then sat back down. “Do you think you could pay me now for the Crowley job?”
“Now Max, you know I always pay after the client pays. But if you’re a little short I’d be glad to give you a loan.”
I reached for my wallet, making it slow. Max stopped me and mumbled to no one in particular to forget it. He stared at his hands. “I’ve been wanting to talk to you about something.”
“Sure, what’s on your mind?”
He hesitated for a second, and then said, “I’m not happy with our arrangement.”
I didn’t say a word. I let him go on.
“I don’t think forty percent is fair after all I’ve done for you.”
I’d had a good idea where the dissension in the ranks was coming from. Now I knew.
“That’s what I pay out,” I said. “None of the other detectives have ever complained about it. And it’s not like I’ve ever held a gun to your head and made you work for me. If you don’t like what I’m paying, you don’t have to take it.”
“Yeah, and what am I supposed to do?”
“It seems to me you could quit bitching and moaning and expecting a free ride from me. Maybe you should try standing on your own two feet for a change.”
His big face flushed with anger. “You promised me!”
“Aww,” I said under my breath.
“Well, you did.”
I looked him in the eye and we stared at each other. I was starting to get disgusted with the whole thing.
“Max,” I explained, “that’s just not true. I’ve always been on the level. I never promised you anything except the jobs I’ve given you. And I’ve always paid you fairly. You’ve gotten every dime I’ve owed you.”
“But,” he was beginning to get flustered, “what are you going to do? Change the names and turn that into next month’s adventure from the files of Johnny Lane?”
He was glaring at his report. I shook my head, showing my disappointment. “If you feel that strongly about it I certainly won’t. But you’re being unreasonable. You know that’s part of what’s agreed on. I’ll tell you what I think I am going to do,” I said, feeling a meanness edging into my voice. “Next month I’ll introduce my sidekick. Every hero needs a sidekick. Mine can be Max, the dickless dick. Got a nice ring to it. Yes sir, I think the whole next feature will be about how Max became the dickless dick. A pretty funny story, his girlfriend getting all excited and forgetting to take her false teeth out.”
That left him speechless. And there was quite a bit of truth in it, although you couldn’t really say he was dickless. A doctor was able to stitch it up for him, leaving it almost as good as new. But that’s an awful difficult thing to explain to your wife, why something like that needed to get stitched up. He just about begged me to feed Moira a story about it happening in the line of duty, and only God knows how I was able to do it with a straight face.
After a few seconds some color came back to his face. “I’ve spent almost twenty years working for you. Helping you build up clients and your business. And I did it because you promised you’d make me a partner.”
“No, sir. You’ve been working for me because it was the easy way out. I was able to offer you jobs without you having to go out and bust your own hump.” I could feel my temper slipping away. “How many other folks would let you charge five days for a two-day job? Maybe I should pay more attention to you boozing yourself up on my time. Maybe if you took a little responsibility for yourself and cleaned up your act and quit looking like a drunken slob, folks would consider hiring you. You look like a goddamned disgrace.”
And he did too. A good week’s worth of growth was planted on his face. And it would have taken a far greater detective than myself to figure out which had been cleaned last, his clothes or his hair. Which was just plain lazy, what with the little hair he had left.
He muttered something that sounded like ‘bass turd’, which was a funny thing to call somebody. I didn’t let it bother me since I couldn’t even begin to imagine what one of those would look like.
“Look,” I said. “When I was first starting out-”
“Yeah, I remember reading all about that and it’s something I’ve always wondered about. What exactly did happen?”
I’d had just about enough. Without really looking at him, I told him it had certainly been a pleasure and he could bet his check would be in the mail as soon as possible.
He gave me a screw-you-too look, walked as far as the door and stopped. A good while passed without him so much as moving, and then his shoulders collapsed. The sunlight drifting through the window cast his shadow on the opposite wall. With his head bowed and his shoulders slouched forward, it looked like the shadow of a man hanging by his neck.
He let out a low moan from deep in his gut. In a voice just above a whisper, he asked if we could try talking again.
I didn’t say anything. He sat back down and without looking at me, at least not exactly, he said, “I guess I lost my temper back there. I-things haven’t been going well for me.” He shifted uncomfortably. “I don’t know where my money goes. I guess with Moira and the boys, and all their expenses, it’s never enough. I’m sorry. I must have been mistaken about what I thought you promised me. This won’t happen again.”
He was looking as sick as can be. I took out the bottle of rye from my desk drawer and poured us both drinks. He took his in one gulp and I poured him a bigger one.
“These things happen,” I said. “I guess this must have been building up for some time now?”
He nodded in agreement.
“Moira’s been harping about it, hasn’t she? Getting you all worked up?”
“I-I-” he sputtered, looking awful uncomfortable. “I guess she’s been talking about it, but-”
“That’s what I thought,” I said. “You should have a talk with her and explain how much I’ve really done for you.”
“I’ll talk with her, Johnny. I’m sorry and-”
“Don’t worry about it. As far as I’m concerned, it’s forgotten.”
I offered him my hand and he took it, being a good deal friendlier about it than when he first came in. He reeled off a few more apologies and I told him again not to worry about any of it. Before leaving, he stopped at the door and asked if I would call him as soon as any jobs came up and I assured him I would.
I settled down to work, chipping away at the mountain of phone messages that had piled up during my absence. After an hour or so I ended up with one definite job and four appointments. Tommy Burns was available for work so I started him on it, giving him the information he needed over the phone.
I had hesitated before calling Burns. I couldn’t help feeling a little troubled thinking about Max. We went back a long way, and I was even the godfather to one of his boys. We used to be friends; at least I think we were. But
