Beware the Curves

Chapter 5

It was late afternoon when I pulled in to Susanville. I located myself in a motel and registered under my true name, giving the address of the agency.

I looked up the Susanville Undertaking Parlors.

“You have a body here — Nickerson?” I asked.

The man at the desk sized me up carefully, then made a show of looking through some records and a card index.

“That’s right.”

“Can you give me his first name?”

“Drude,” he said. “D-r-u-d-e.”

“Know anything about the man’s background or anything?”

“It was a coroner’s case,” he said. “Injuries on the highway.”

“When’s the funeral?” I asked.

“Private.”

“I know it’s private, but when?”

“It hasn’t been decided yet.”

“Could I see the body?”

“It’s a closed casket case. Who are you?”

“The name,” I said, “is Lam, Donald Lam, from Los Angeles.”

“A relative?”

“No, I’m interested.”

“What’s your interest?”

“Just checking. Nickerson lived in Citrus Grove. How come they aren’t having the funeral there?”

“Don’t ask me.”

“The coroner handled the case?”

“That’s right.”

“I’ll get in touch with the coroner.”

“Do that.”

“How about this man’s clothes?” I asked. “I take it he had identification. Could I take a look at his driver’s license?”

“I’d have to get permission.”

“How long would it take?”

“Not long.”

The man picked up a telephone, dialed a number, said, “There’s a Donald Lam here from Los Angeles inquiring about Drude Nickerson, wants to take a look at the man’s driving license and stuff that was in the clothes, wants to be sure of the identification, making inquiries. What’ll I do?”

The man listened for a moment, then said, “Okay.”

He hung up the phone, and said, “A representative of the coroner is coming right over. He’ll show you what you want to see if you can give him a reason.”

“I’ll give him a reason,” I said.

I waited for about two and a half minutes. I tried to get the man at the desk in conversation, but he’d quit talking. He made a great show of doing some paper work.

The door opened and three men walked in. They had LAW stamped all over them.

The man at the desk motioned toward me with his thumb.

The three men moved in on me.

“Okay,” one of them said, flashing a badge. “I’m the sheriff here. What’s your interest in the Nickerson case?”

“I’m making an investigation.”

“Why?”

“I’m a detective.”

“The hell you are.”

“That’s right.”

“Let’s take a look.”

I showed him my credentials.

The sheriff looked at the taller of the two men, said, “All right, Lam, this is the second pass you’ve made on this case. This gentleman here is the sheriff of Orange County.”

“How are you?” I said. “Glad to know you.”

The Orange County sheriff nodded curtly, made no move to put out his hand. “What were you doing checking newspapers in Citrus Grove yesterday, asking about the Endicott case?”

“I was looking up the facts.”

“All right,” the local sheriff said. “I think you’d better come with us.”

They moved in, one on each side, and escorted me out to an automobile.

They took me direct to a private residence. I assumed it was that of the local sheriff.

The sheriff from Orange County took charge. He was rather a nice individual, but he was determined and he was mad.

“You can’t pull a run-around like that with the law,” he said. “You’re a licensed member of a detective agency. This is murder.”

“Sure, it’s murder,” I said.

“Now, you went down to the newspaper in Citrus Grove and started messing around looking up dope on the Endicott murder, didn’t you?”

“No.”

“Don’t lie to me, because we have the information that—”

I said, “If you get your information straight, you’ll find that I was looking up Endicott’s marriage.”

The men exchanged glances.

“Get the newspaper on the phone,” I told them. “I’ll pay for the call. You’ll find out that I didn’t show the faintest interest in the murder at that time. I was looking up the marriage.”

The sheriff waved the matter to one side. “All right. No need to put through the telephone call. We’ll take your word for it. You were looking up the marriage. Why were you looking up the marriage?”

“Because I already had everything on the murder.”

“You admit that?”

“Sure, I admit it.”

“You’d been looking up the murder?”

“Of course, I’d been looking up the murder.”

“Well, now that’s a lot better. That’s just a hell of a lot better. Now why were you looking up the murder? What’s it to you? What do you know about the case?”

“I know everything that the police have given the newspapers about the case,” I said. “The death of this fellow Nickerson gives it a swell angle. I’m looking up a whole series of unsolved murder cases in the Southwest. I’m going to write a regional book. I don’t know whether to call it ‘Southern California Murders,’ or what to call it.”

“Don’t expect us to fall for a line like that,” the sheriff said.

“Why not? There’s money in that stuff. You can sell it to some of the magazines that specialize in true crime stories, and then you can bring it out in book form.

“In case you folks are interested, I put in a lot of time yesterday and a lot of time today investigating the William Desmond Taylor murder. Now there’s a story!”

“Yeah, it’s been written up about seventeen thousand times,” the Orange County sheriff said.

“Not the way I’m going to write it.”

“What’s the way you’re going to write it?”

“I’m not going to blab that around and have some other writer beat me to it.”

“What writing have you ever done?”

“None.”

“Don’t make me laugh,” the local sheriff said.

“A man has to begin sometime.”

The Orange County sheriff took over. “Yeah, you start in spending a lot of money for traveling expenses. You want to begin at the top,” he said sarcastically.

“Well,” I said, “you began at the top.”

“What do you mean by that crack?”

“You had quite a story about the Endicott murder in one of the true crime magazines. Had you ever done any writing before?”

“I didn’t write it,” he said. “That was ghosted. They used my name.”

“Well,” I told him, “I think I’ve got a talent for writing, and, because of my position as a private detective, I think I can get the inside track on some of these stories and get some red-hot stuff.”

I grabbed up my brief case and said, “Here, take a look. I have no objection to showing you the notes I have on the William Desmond Taylor case. I’m not going to tell you my angle of approach on that case, how I’m going to treat it, but you can take a look at the notes.”

They took a good, long look at the notes. They went through every notebook in the brief case. They exchanged glances. They were puzzled and angry.

“Why did you come to Susanville?” the deputy asked me.

“To check on Nickerson.”

“Why?”

“Because if Nickerson is dead, you’re never going to find the murderer in that Endicott case.”

“Don’t be too sure,” the Orange County sheriff said.

I said, “Perhaps if his conscience gets to bothering him and he confesses, you’ll nab him. Otherwise you don’t stand a chance.”

“Why did you want to see the body?” the Susanville sheriff asked.

“I wanted to see if I could get an exclusive photograph of the body in the coffin.”

“Well, you can’t.”

“All right. I want to get some photographs of the accident, where he sustained fatal injuries. I want to do some research work.”

The sheriff shook his head.

“Why not?”

“Because we don’t want you to.”

“Why don’t you want me to?”

The Orange County sheriff said, “Because we’re baiting — because we don’t want you messing around and interfering with some work we’re doing.”

The resident deputy said hastily, “We’re still working on the case, and we don’t want any outsiders messing around.”

“I can hunt up the records on the accident and take a look at the wrecked cars and get a photograph,” I said. “It’s a red-hot story.”

“No, it isn’t. The newspapers are co-operating, and you’re going to co-operate.”

I became petulant. “I put out some of my good hard-earned money getting up here to get some pictures.”

“Where’s your camera?”

“I’m going to rent one. I’m going to cover all of my cases with rented cameras until I know more about photography and about cameras. Then I can tell the kind of camera I want to buy. But I don’t want to tie a lot of money up in a camera at the beginning of my writing career.”

The Susanville sheriff suddenly said, “Let’s talk things over, boys.”

They got up and went through a door. “You stay here, Lam,” he said.

I waited for about five minutes.

They came back. The sheriff of Orange County said, “You work in Los Angeles?”

“That’s right.”

“Who do you know on the police there?”

“Frank Sellers of Homicide.”

“Stick around,” the resident deputy said. “We’re putting through a call.”

He placed the call, hung up.

The men looked at each other as they waited for the call. I could feel the accusation in their attitudes.

Suddenly the telephone shattered the silence with a shrill ringing.

The sheriff said, “That’ll be Frank Sellers,” picked up the telephone, said, “Hello,” and then from the sudden change in the expression on his face I knew something had happened.

“What’s the name?” he asked. “How do you spell it? How’s that? Give it to me again.”

He picked up a pencil and wrote on the top paper of a memo pad, then said, “Okay, what’s her first name?... Her own car?... Okay, what’s the license number? That’s in California?

“Can you stall her along?... Oh, ten minutes... Well, we’ll work as fast as we can... We’re waiting on a long distance call to Los Angeles now... Okay, do the best you can... Well, if you have to. Call back if you have to.”

He hung up the phone, glanced significantly at the others, picked the top sheet off the memo pad, folded it, put it in his pocket, looked at his watch, started to say something.

The telephone rang again.

He scooped up the receiver, said, “Hello,” and the expression on his face told me he had Sellers on the line.

He identified himself and said, “We’ve got a private detective up here, name of Donald Lam. Do you know anything about him?”

The receiver made squawking noises.

“He’s messing around in a case. He says his only interest is in getting material for an article he intends to write. It’s a case we don’t want anyone lousing up for a while. How do we handle him?”

Again the receiver made squawking noises.

“Give me some more dope,” the sheriff said.

Sellers must have talked for about three minutes.

“Okay,” the sheriff said.

He hung up the phone and turned to me. His voice was more kindly. “Sellers says you’re one hell of a smart operator, that you’ll protect a client all the way, and that we can’t believe a word you say.”

“That’s nice,” I told him.

“Sellers also said that if you give your word you’ll stay with it.”

“That’s if,” I said.

“That’s right, if.”

There was a short period of silence.

“How did you come here?”

“I rented a car from Reno.”

“All right, Lam. You’re free to start back.”

“I don’t want to start back.”

“Sellers gave me a message for you. As a personal favor to him, you’re to start back. Sellers said that if you’re representing a client you won’t go back. He says that if you stick around it will mean you’re working on this case for a client. He says that if you’re just free lancing for a story you’ll come back as a personal favor to him.”

I managed to move over to sit on the corner of the table by the telephone and make it seem I was trying to make up my mind. I put my right hand behind me and rested my weight on it, and when I made certain my body concealed my right hand from them, I eased it over to the container which held the sheets of memo paper by the telephone and pulled off the top sheet. This was the one that had been directly underneath the sheet on which the sheriff had done the writing.

I folded the sheet of paper into halves, palmed it, and as I straightened slipped my right hand into my trouser pocket.

They were watching my face and none of them attached the slightest significance to my motions.

“Well?” the sheriff asked.

“Let me think it over.”

“You’ve thought it over.”

“Sellers is a nice guy. I hate to disappoint him.”

“He says you’re too damned smart to be trusted.”

“That was nice of him.”

“I thought so.”

“That makes sense,” I said.

“Sellers said it would.”

“All right,” I told him, picking up the brief case. “I hate to waste the money but I’m starting back.”

The Orange County sheriff said, “I’m not entirely satisfied with this, fellows.”

“Neither am I,” the third man said.

I put eagerness in my voice. “Want me to stick around for a day or two?” I asked. “Perhaps by that time I can have a real story.”

“No,” the Orange County sheriff said, “on second thought we want you the hell out of here and we want you out now. You’ll have an hour to get started. We’ll show you the right road out of town in case you aren’t on your way by then.”

“There’s no trouble finding the road out of town.”

“There might be for you.”

“I hate to be run out like this”

“We know you do, but it’s a personal favor for Sergeant Sellers — unless of course you’re up here representing a client.”

I told them good-by, walked out, got in my car and slipped the piece of paper from my pocket. There were faint indentations on it. I took my knife, cut the point of a soft pencil to powdered graphite, rubbed the black powder over the paper with my finger and soon had a legible imprint of what the sheriff had written down: “Stella Karis, 6825 Morehead Street, Los Angeles. License No. JYH 328.”

I went to my motel. The manager said the sheriff had phoned to move the things out of my unit and give me my money back.

I opined that was real thoughtful of the sheriff.

I drove down to the second boulevard stop, parked my car and waited. It was dark now but street lights enabled me to read license numbers.

An hour passed.

I was ready to give up and was just starting my motor when my car came along, a Ford, license number JYH 328.

A young woman was driving it and when I fell in behind her I realized she was breaking all speed laws. I tagged along behind for a ways.

Suddenly the red brake lights blazed on in the car in front. The driver pulled over to the side of the road and stopped. The door on the driver’s side opened. I saw a beautiful pair of legs, a flash of skirt, and then she was standing in front of me on the highway.

I slid rubber getting to a stop.

She didn’t budge.

I opened the door and got out.

“Now just what do you think you’re doing?” she demanded.

“Me?” I said. “I’m going to Reno.”

“Yes, I know you’re going to Reno, but you’re afraid you might get lost so you want a pilot car to keep ahead of you and you’ve been tagging me for the last twenty miles. Now suppose you just get that car of yours going and keep it going until you get to Reno.

“However, if, as I suspect is the case, you’re a local minion of the law making certain that I’m leaving the county, you can go back to Susanville and tell them that I don’t want any part of the place.”

I said, “I’m not connected with the Susanville law. I’m on my own. And if you don’t mind my saying so, a good-looking young woman like you could get into serious trouble stopping her car to find out who had been following her for the last twenty miles.”

“That’s right!” she blazed at me. “I mind your saying so. It was so nice of you to think of it first. Now get going, and keep going! How many of you are in the car?”

“Just me.”

She walked over to the car and took a look.

“All right, go on ahead.”

“I might have something in the line of information that you could use,” I said. “My name’s Donald Lam.”

“I don’t care a hoot what your name is. As far as I’m concerned you can get lost.”

I climbed in the car and pulled ahead of her. I rolled on down the road about five miles until I found a crossroad, then brought my car to a stop, backed into the crossroad, switched off the lights and the ignition, and waited.

Headlights appeared down the road. I could hear the whine of tires on the highway. A car rocketed on past. It wasn’t the car the girl had been driving.

This was out in the wilderness and cars were relatively few and far between. I sat behind the steering wheel and waited.

Another car rocketed past. That wasn’t the girl’s car. Five minutes after that another car came along rather slowly.

That was the girl’s car.

I gave her about five minutes’ start, then gave my car the gas. I overtook her, went tearing on past, got over a little rise in the road and slowed almost to a stop. When I saw her headlights in my rearview mirror I kept going. I kept ahead of her for another twenty or thirty miles before she got the idea. Then she came barreling up with her headlights on high blazing into my rearview mirror and crowded me off the road. I stopped and she stopped.

She got out of the car and walked over to the window.

“What did you say your name was?”

“Donald Lam.”

“What do you do, Mr. Lam?”

“I’m a private detective.”

“How interesting! You don’t have one of your cards, do you?”

I gave her one of my cards.

“Could I see your driving license, just to check?”

I showed her the driving license.

She put the card in her purse. “All right,” she said, “now I know who you are, and if you keep annoying me on the road I’m going to have you arrested when we get to Reno.”

“Arrested for what?”

“Arrested for annoying m e and a few other assorted misdemeanors.”

I smiled and said, “This is a public highway. I haven’t annoyed you in any way. You’re going to Reno. I’m going to Reno.”

“You mean there’s nothing I can do?” she asked.

“Not a thing unless I try to flirt with you, and I haven’t done that. I haven’t annoyed you. I’ve followed the letter of the law as far as driving is concerned and—”

She reached up her left hand, hooked it in the neck of her blouse and jerked.

The fabric gave a rip. She lifted the hem of her skirt, took the cloth in both hands and pulled. For a minute she couldn’t make it, then the hem gave way and the skirt ripped halfway up to the waist.

“Ever hear of criminal assault?” she asked.

I nodded.

“All right, that’s what you’ve done. Have any idea what the penalty for that is?”

I shook my head.

“I don’t either,” she said, “but there’s a very nice, homey, little penitentiary down at Carson City and that’s where you’re going. You asked for this, Mr. Lam. Now you’re going to get it. I tried to be nice about it, but you had to be the smart guy.

“You followed me along the road. I stopped to protest. You grabbed me and threw me down by the side of the road. I struggled to free myself. Finally the lights of another car showed up and I screamed for help. You let go of me and I dashed to my car and managed to keep ahead of you all the way into Reno.”

“You aren’t in Nevada yet,” I told her. “You’re still in California.”

She didn’t answer that, just turned, raced back to her car, jumped in behind the steering wheel, slammed the door and took off from there fast.

I tried to pass her and couldn’t. She was driving like the devil and whenever I’d try to get by she’d swing over to the center of the road.

We were doing eighty when the red spotlight blazed on behind me. The officer waved me off to the side of the road.

There was nothing for it. I swung over to the side of the road.

The traffic officer pulled alongside. “Follow me,” he ordered, “but don’t try to keep up with me. I’m stopping that car up ahead.”

He took off with a roar. I gave the bus all it would take. I saw the red light on the girl’s car, heard the scream of the siren softened by distance.

The girl gave him a run for it. I had to step on it to keep up with him. He finally got her crowded off the road just before we came to the state line, about fifteen miles out of Reno.

The officer was mad.

I came up behind, parked my car, got out and walked over to where the officer was standing.

I raised my voice. “You should have given me an opportunity to explain back there. I tried to catch your attention.”

He whirled to me. “You get the hell back there and mind your own business,” he blazed. “I told you to take it easy. I was going ninety miles an hour catching up to this car and you were right behind me.”

“Sure, I was right behind you!” I shouted at him. “I was trying to stop you. What the hell did you think I was trying to do?”

The belligerency in my voice caused him to size me up, taking a new slant on the situation.

“Someone assaulted this girl,” I said. “We were dashing ahead looking for the law. If you’d only stopped and listened to what I was trying to tell you, you could have caught that carload of hoodlums going toward Susanville. But not you! You were so damned intent on giving orders that you wouldn’t listen.”

He cocked his head to one side.

“What’s this you’re talkin’ about?” he asked.

“About a carload of hoodlums that crowded this girl off the road and tried to assault her. Heaven knows what would have happened if I hadn’t come along! Take a look at her. Look at her clothes.”

The officer said, “What are you giving me? She’s drunk. She was driving all over the road. You were trying to pass her and she was swinging out in front of you. You were chasing her and—”

“She’s emotionally upset,” I said. “She’s hysterical. She was trying to get to someplace where she could telephone the road patrol.”

“I had my siren on,” he said, “and she didn’t pay a damn bit of attention.”

I moved up to the car. “Did you hear his siren, miss?” I asked.

She started to cry. “I guess I heard it but I was too afraid to stop. I thought it was those boys coming back.”

I said to the officer by way of explanation, “That’s the way they got her to stop in the first place. One of the kids made a sound like a siren. It was a pretty good imitation. She pulled off to the side of the road and stopped and they dragged her out of the car.”

“Where were you?” he asked.

“I must have been just about five miles behind,” I said. “They crowded me off the road as they went by.”

“What kind of a car?”

“A ’52 Buick, black sedan.”

“How many people?”

“Four,” I said. “All kids. One had a T-shirt and tan leather jacket, another a suède blazer, a third a buttoned sweater and the fourth had a sport coat and shirt with no tie, the collar on the outside of the sport coat.”

“Get their license number?”

“I did,” I admitted sheepishly, “and then in the excitement I forgot it. I didn’t have a chance to write it down. I was trying to keep this young woman in sight and see that nothing happened to her.”

The officer was undecided for a moment. He said, “That sounds like a gang we’ve been having trouble with. One of the kids a tall blond?”

“Yeah,” I said. “The one in the blazer. Looked like a basketball player.”

“About nineteen or twenty? Something over six feet?” he asked.

“I’m not too certain,” I said. “They got out of there in a hurry when I brought my car to a stop.”

“Just you by yourself, and you were going to take on these four hoodlums?” he asked.

“They didn’t know I was alone in the car,” I said. “I have a gun that I could have used if I had to.”

“You’ve got a gun?”

“That’s right.”

“Let’s take a look at your permit.”

I showed him my credentials.

He thought things over for a while, then turned to the woman. “Let’s see your driving license.”

She gave it to him.

“Stella Karis, eh? Okay, what do you want to do? Do you want to make a complaint?”

She said, “I did, but I don’t. Why should I get my name in the papers, after all I’ve been through?”

The officer said, “That’s not going to help the next girl who gets waylaid on the road, Miss Karis.”

I said, “If they interview you, Miss Karis, you don’t need to tell them anything about the officer chasing you instead of the carload of juveniles.”

His eyes narrowed. “Nineteen-fifty-two Buick, you say?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Black sedan?”

“Either black or such a dark color that it looked black. As I get the story, they passed her once, then dropped behind her and let her pass them. Then they passed her again, studying the car, then dropped way behind and the third time they made a noise like a siren. When she slowed to a stop they dragged her out of the car, and—”

“Okay, okay,” the officer said. “But you should have remembered the license number.”

“If you’d listened to me when I was yelling at you,” I told him, “there was still time for you to have overtaken this car.”

“Maybe,” he mumbled, `but that didn’t give her an excuse to be driving all over the road.”

“She’s emotionally upset.”

“Okay, okay,” he said. “I’ll go on in to the checking station and telephone for a roadblock. Those hoodlums probably turned off, but there’s a chance we may catch them. We’ve been having trouble with that gang. Could you identify the car, Lam?”

“I didn’t see any distinctive marks but I know there were four of these young punks and it was a ’52 Buick, black sedan. That’s about the best I can give you except that I could identify that tall blond kid, or I think I could. And perhaps the chunky fellow with the low black hairline. The rest of them I didn’t see so good.”

“Okay, I’ll go on in and phone.”

The officer strode back to his car, jumped in, and whipped by us like a streak.

I stood by the window of Stella Karis’ car.

Abruptly she began to laugh. She said, “Donald, did you really think I was going to turn you in?”

“You tore up some good clothes.”

“I didn’t want you messing in my business. I’ve found that’s a perfect way to get rid of any man who makes a nuisance of himself. It literally scares them out of their wits. Now I’ve got to get into my suitcase and put on some fresh clothes.”

“Better wait until you get across the state line,” I said. “We pass the checking station right up the line here.”

“Okay, you lead the way.”

I told her, “Okay. Now how about dinner in Reno?”

She laughed. “You’re one fast worker,” she said. “What’s your game?”

“I’m checking up on Drude Nickerson, the cabdriver,” I said. “They ran me out of town.”

Her eyes got wide. “Is that what you were doing?”

I nodded.

“You’ve got yourself a dinner date,” she said. “Know a good motel?”

I nodded.

“Lead the way.”

The traffic officer was telephoning from the checking station as we went by. I waved at him and he gave us a casual signal with his hand. I gathered that he didn’t want publicity any more than we did. I also had the disturbing thought that he might be doing a lot of thinking and after he got done with his thinking the results might not be so good.

We crossed the state line and about five miles out of town I pulled to a stop.

Stella Karis stopped her car behind mine, got out a suitcase, opened it, walked around on the side of the car that was away from the road.

It didn’t take her sixty seconds to get out of the torn blouse and skirt and into other clothes. She came around the car to look me over.

“Are you kidding or are you on the square?” she asked.

“I’m on the square,” I told her.

“You’re interested in Drude Nickerson?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“For reasons that I can’t tell you and couldn’t tell the local law. They told me to get out of town.”

“What’s your opinion?” she asked.

“About you?”

“Don’t be silly. About Nickerson.”

“I can’t give you any opinion at the present time.”

“Why not?”

“Various reasons.”

“Do you mean you don’t have an opinion or you can’t give me one?”

“I can’t give you one.”

“My!” she said. “You’re helpful.”

“I’m working,” I told her.

“Very well,” she said. “You asked me for a dinner date. You have the dinner date. I am also going to worm the information I want out of you.”

“How?” I asked.

“Wiles,” she said. “Seductive charm. Perhaps liquor.”

“What’s your interest in Nickerson?” I asked.

“I haven’t any.”

“Don’t make me laugh.”

She said, ‘Lead the way to a motel. Don’t try any funny stuff when it comes to registering. You get a single and I’ll get a single and I hope they’re far apart. Give me twenty minutes to freshen up, then come tap gently on the door of my cabin and we’ll go to dinner. Are you on an expense account?”

“Yes.”

“Okay,” she said, “you buy.”

“I buy,” I told her.

I got in the car and led the way into Reno, picked out a good motel. It was filled up. I went to another one. It was filled up. I walked back to Stella Karis’ car.

“We may have trouble getting accommodations,” I said.

“Okay,” she told me. “We’ll do the best we can.”

“Suppose we can’t get two separate cabins,” I said. “Could we—?”

“We could not,” she interrupted.

“Could we,” I asked, “stay in separate courts?”

She smiled. “I misjudged you, Donald. We could.”

“All right,” I said. “We’ll keep trying.”

The next motel was a good-looking modern place. It had two singles.

The manager looked us over rather skeptically, but gave us keys to the single cabins.

“Twenty minutes,” she said.

“Going to do any telephoning?” I asked her.

She smiled. “I might. How about you?”

“I’m sending a wire.”

“Okay,” she said. “Twenty minutes.”

I went to my room and composed a wire to Bertha.

“PRESENT SITUATION PURELY HORTICULTURAL. JUST ANOTHER PLANT. NO REASON TO GET EXCITED BUT DON’T THINK OUR CLIENT WANTS TO ADD A PLANT OF THIS COMMONPLACE VARIETY TO HIS COLLECTION. REGARDS, DONALD.”