A Catskill Eagle

CHAPTER 48

AN ASIAN MAN ANSWERED HUGH DIXON’S DOOR. Without any hesitation he said, “Come in, Mr. Spenser,” and I stepped into Dixon’s baronial foyer. It was as I remembered. Polished stone floor, a grand piano in the center. There aren’t that many foyers big enough for a grand piano. The Trump Tower was the only other one I’d seen in recent memory.

“I’ll tell Mr. Dixon you’re here,” the Asian man said, like I dropped in regularly and he’d seen me since 1976.

“Thank you.”

He was gone maybe ninety seconds and came back and said, “This way, please.” It wasn’t the terrace this time, it was the study, or library, or office, or whatever people in Dixon’s income bracket called it. Bookshelves, leather furniture, Oriental rugs, a huge and ornately carved mahogany table with a phone on it and a green banker’s lamp. Behind it Dixon sat in his wheelchair.

“It’s good to see you again,” he said when I came in. The Asian man left silently.

“I need help, sir.”

Dixon nodded his head toward one of the leather chairs. “Sit,” he said.

“I’m afraid I might not find my way out,” I said. “I’ve lived in places smaller than that chair.”

“As you wish,” he said. “What do you need?”

Dixon looked better than he had eight years back. His face was calmer, his eyes had less ferocity in them, and more life. But his massive upper body still loomed in profound stillness in the wheelchair as it had since the bomb blast took his legs and family in London.

“I need money,” I said. “A lot.”

Dixon nodded. His head was grayer than I remembered. “Easy,” he said. “I have more of that than almost anything else.”

“It is better that you not know why,” I said.

“Don’t care,” Dixon said. “When you have little else to care about, you care about yourself, or try to. You care about your word, things like that.”

“Yes, sir,” I said.

“I told you if you ever needed help I’d give it to you. You and the black man.”

“Yes, sir, in Montreal.”

“Is the black man still alive,” Dixon said.

“Yes, sir, he’s in this too. The money is for both of us.”

“How much?” Dixon said.

“Ten thousand dollars,” I said.

Dixon nodded. “Will you have a drink?” he said.

The Asian man had come in. He went to a sideboard and brought a tray from it to Dixon. On the tray was a cut-glass decanter, and two brandy snifters.

“Sure,” I said.

The Asian man poured two glasses of brandy and gave me one. He gave the other to Dixon and left the decanter on his desk.

“Lin,” Dixon said, “I want ten thousand dollars in”-he looked at me-“small bills?”

“Tens and twenties and hundreds,” I said.

Dixon nodded and said, to Lin, “To go.” Lin left. Dixon and I drank some brandy.

“I can’t pay you back, sir,” I said.

“You may or may not be able to,” Dixon said. “I don’t expect you to return the money.”

I nodded. We drank some more brandy. “How have you been, sir?” I said.

“I am better,” he said. “Time helps. And”-he took some more brandy, and nearly smiled-“I have remarried.”

“Congratulations,” I said. “That’s very good to hear.”

“Life goes on,” he said. “And you?”

“Lately it’s been complicated, but…” I shrugged. “In a while it will uncomplicate, I think.”

Dixon picked up the decanter and gestured toward me with it. I stepped over to his desk and he poured some more brandy into the snifter. He put more into his glass and put the stopper back in the decanter. We drank.

“Will I have to wait to see you again until you need another ten thousand,” Dixon said, nearly smiling again.

“Probably, sir,” I said. “I’m not too sociable a guy.”

Dixon nodded.

“A man who has as much money as I do is used to people who make it a point to keep in touch in case they do need ten thousand dollars. It is a great pleasure to see someone who doesn’t.”

“I took you at your word, sir.”

“Many people say that. You seem actually to do it. I don’t assume you take everyone at his word.”

“Or hers,” I said. “No, sir. Just people who can be taken at their word.”

“And how do you distinguish which are those people,” Dixon said.

I tapped my forehead. “A piercing intellect,” I said.

“Or luck,” Dixon said.

“That helps too,” I said.

The sun was coming in from my right as it set, and where it hit the rug it made the colors seem almost translucent. We drank our brandy quietly. The house was still. It was so big it would seem still if someone were building a nuclear submarine in the other wing.

Lin returned with a square package the size of a shoebox, wrapped in brown paper and tied neatly with brown cord. He handed it to me and left.

“I have other resources,” Dixon said. “In addition to cash in small bills.” He took a small engraved card out of a drawer in his table. It had a telephone number on it and nothing else. Dixon held it toward, me and I took it and put it in my shirt pocket.

“Thank you,” I said. I drank the rest of my brandy.

Dixon said, “Good luck.”

I said thank you again and left.