“Hot stuff, huh?” a voice said behind me. “Important people: big-shotting themselves to death.”
I looked around.
A short, thickset man in a white guard’s uniform, his peaked cap at the back of his head, gave me a friendly grin. His face was red and sweaty, and as he came closer, I smelt whisky on his breath.
“It takes all kinds to make up the world.”
“Damn right. All this crap though is so much waste of good money.” He waved his hand at the signs. “As if they should care who parks where.” His small, alert eyes travelled over me. “You looking for anyone in particular, buster?”
“Old man Creedy,” I told him.
“That a fact?” He blew out his cheeks. “Rather you than me. I’ve had all I can stomach. This is my last day here and am I rejoicing!” He leaned forward and tapped me lightly on the chest. “Why is it money always goes to the punks? This guy Creedy: nothing ever pleases him. His shoes aren’t shined enough, his car isn’t clean enough, the roses aren’t big enough, his food either isn’t hot enough or cold enough. He’s never happy, never satisfied; always moaning, yelling or cursing and driving a guy nuts. If I had the tenth of his money I’d be as happy as a king, but not him.”
I sneaked a look at my watch. The time was four minutes to three.
“That’s the way it is,” I said. “Just one of those things. I’d like to continue this theme, but I’m due to meet him at three and I’m told he takes it badly if he’s kept waiting.”
“He certainly does, but don’t kid yourself that being punctual will mean you’ll see him when he’s fixed for you to see him. I’ve known guys wait three or four hours before they get to him. Well, you’re welcome. I’d rather have a meeting with a dose of cholera.” He pointed. “Up those steps and to the left.”
I started off, then I had a sudden idea and I turned back.
“Would you have anything to do around six o’clock tonight?”
He grinned.
“I’ll have plenty to do around six o’clock tonight. I’m celebrating. I’ve been with this old punk for twenty months. I’ve got a lot of drinking to get in to soothe the pain out of that stretch. Why?”
“I’ve some celebrating to do myself,” I said. “If you’re not tied up with anyone, maybe we could do it together.”
He stared at me.
“Are you a drinking man?”
“On special occasions: this could be one.”
“Well, why not? My girl doesn’t approve of me drinking. I was planning to have a lone bender, but I’d as soon have a guy with me. Okay. Where and when?”
“Say seven. You know a good place?”
“Sam’s Cabin. Anyone will tell you where it is. The name’s Fulton. First name, Tim. What’s yours?”
“Lew Brandon. Be seeing you.”
“Sure thing.”
I left him, took the steps three at a time, turned left, walked the length of an ornate terrace to the front entrance. I had a minute in hand as I tugged at the chain bell.
The door opened immediately. An old man, four inches over six foot, thin and upright, wearing the traditional clothes of a Hollywood butler, stood aside with a slight bow and let me walk into a hall big enough to garage six Eldorado Seville Cadillacs.
“Mr. Brandon?”
I said he was right.
“Will you come this way, please?”
I was led across the hall, out into the sunshine that blazed down on a patio, through french doors and along a passage to a room containing fifteen lounging chairs, a carpet so thick and soft it made me think I was walking in snow, and a couple of Picasso paintings on the wall. Six weary-looking businessmen, clutching despatch cases sat in some of the chairs. They stared at me with that numbed indifference that told me they had been waiting so long they had not only lost their sense of time, but also their sense of feeling.
“Mr. Creedy will see you before long,” the butler said and went away as quietly and as smoothly as if he had been riding on wheels.
I sat down, balanced my hat on my knees and stared up at the ceiling.
After the others had gaped at me long enough to satisfy their curiosity, they went back into a coma again. At three minutes past three, the door jerked open and a youngish man, tall, thin, with one of those high-executive chins and a crew cut, wearing a black coat, grey whipcord trousers and a black tie came as far as the doorway.
The six businessmen all straightened up, clutching at their despatch cases and pointed the way a setter points when he sights game.
His cold, unfriendly eyes ran over them and stopped at me.
“Mr. Brandon?”
“That’s right.”
“Mr. Creedy will see you now.”
As I got to my feet, one of the men said, “You’ll pardon me, Mr. Hammerschult, but I have been waiting since twelve o’clock. You said I would be the next to see Mr. Creedy.”
Hammerschult gave him a bleak stare.
“Did I? Mr. Creedy thinks otherwise,” he said. “Mr. Creedy won’t be free now until four o’clock. This way,” he went on to me, and, leading the way down the passage, he took me into a smallish lobby, through two doors, both lined with green baize, to another massive door of solid polished mahogany.
He rapped, opened the door, looked in, said, “Brandon’s here, sir.”
Then he stood aside and waved me in.
II
The room reminded me of the pictures I had seen of Mussolini’s famous office. It was sixty feet long if it was an inch. Placed at the far end between two vast windows, with a fine view of the sea and the right arm of Thor Bay, was a desk big enough to play billiards on.
The rest of the room was pretty bare apart from a few lounging chairs, a couple of suits of armour and two heavy, dark oil paintings that could or could not be original Rembrandts.
Behind the desk sat a small, frail-looking man, his horn glasses pushed up and resting on his forehead. Apart from a fringe of grey hair, he was bald and his skull looked bony and hard. He had a pinched, tight face: small features and a very small, tight mouth. It wasn’t until I encountered the full force that dwelt in his eyes that I realized I was in the presence of a big man.
He gave me the full treatment, and I felt as if I were under X-rays and that he could count the vertebra of my spine.
He let me walk the length of the room and he kept the searchlight of his gaze on me. I found I was sweating slightly by the time I reached his desk. He leaned back in his chair and eyed me over the way you would eye a bluebottle fly that has fallen in your soup.
There was a long pause, then he said in a curiously soft, effeminate voice, “What do you want?”
By then, and by his reasoning, I should have been completely softened up and ready to fall on my hands and knees and rap my forehead on the floor. Okay, I admit I was slightly softened, but not as soft as he would want.
“My name’s Brandon,” I said, “of the Star Inquiry Agency of San Francisco. You hired my partner four days ago.”
The thin, small face was as deadpan as the back of a bus.
“What makes you imagine I would do that?” he asked.
From that I knew he wasn’t sure of his ground, and he was going to probe first before he took the hoods off his big artillery.
“We keep a record of all our clients, Mr. Creedy,” I said untruthfully. “Sheppey, before he left our office,
