Buyer beware

11

After leaving Horvell's apartment I took a cab to claim my luggage. Then I rented a car-knowing I'd be in town for a while-this time a full-size sedan.

I checked in at the TraveLodge Motel, on South Michigan Avenue, not too far from the headquarters of High Grade Hardware. I made a few phone calls, had dinner and a few drinks to untie my knots, and slept almost as deeply as Victor Talbert.

High Grade Hardware's corporate headquarters turned out to be a tall, square building of what looked to be burnished copper glinting in the bright morning sun. Outside the imposing entrance was a tall aluminum flagpole, and beneath the American flag flew the company's smaller flag, a black crossed hammer and wrench insignia on a field of white.

The reception area inside the entrance was also done up in black and white. I walked over to an astoundingly beautiful blonde seated behind a wide, bare desk and told her who I was and that I had an appointment with T. J. Harper, the personnel manager.

Harper saw me immediately, which surprised the blonde. She didn't know that after a Dale Carlon phone call the president of High Grade Hardware had passed down the word to cooperate with me. I was beginning to experience occasional exhilarating delusions of power, but I knew that I'd still bleed.

T. J. Harper's office continued the black and white motif, with a large plaque with High Grade's hammer and wrench insignia mounted on the wall behind his desk. An affable-looking man with an air of efficiency, Harper was wearing a blue pinstriped suit and a semi-military haircut that was gray wire at the temples. He smiled a nice smile and motioned for me to sit down, then sat down himself and laced his fingers on his desk top. I felt somewhat like a job applicant.

I told him I appreciated his taking the time to see me and that I wanted information about a former employee at High Grade. He didn't seem surprised when I told him the name of that former employee.

"Victor Talbert was a fine young man," he said, "an ideal employee. It was regrettable that we no longer had a niche in which to fit him. Under present conditions it simply doesn't pay to do some of the things you'd like to do."

"Did Talbert get along all right with the other employees?"

"Certainly," Harper said, as if I'd been indelicate to ask. "He had no enemies here except within the framework of honest competition. If it were possible for Victor Talbert to walk in here today, and an opening suited his qualifications, I'd rehire him without a qualm. He was strictly the victim of declining sales, and job training that became obsolete practically overnight. That sort of thing happens frequently."

"How did he take his dismissal?"

Harper unlaced his fingers and dropped his hands out of sight beneath the desk. There were faint damp spots on the polished wood where his hands had rested. "He was disappointed," Harper said, "but I explained the situation and he understood. At least he said he did."

"Did he mention what he planned to do when he left High Grade? Or have any of his prospective employers contacted you for a reference?"

Harper stood and walked to a file cabinet. He pulled open a long drawer and withdrew a thick file folder as if he'd known exactly where to reach. Seated back at his desk, he flipped the folder open and leafed through the contents.

"It's a fine record," he said. "High scores on every sort of test, several commendations from superiors. Here's what I want-yes, a bank, First Security Trust, called on the thirteenth of last month in regard to a loan application Victor Talbert had submitted to them. They learned nothing here that would discourage them from granting him the loan."

"Loan for what?"

"That I couldn't tell you. Banks don't go into detail on such matters." Teeth flashed in a confidential smile. "Usually we here at High Grade don't reveal anything we might consider personal about present or past employees. If it weren't for the extenuating circumstances in Victor's case, you wouldn't have gotten in to see me."

I'd been put in my place. Outside Harper's window I could see the corner of the white company flag cracking in the breeze.

"Of course, you found that out earlier," Harper said, still smiling.

The office was suddenly cold. "Earlier?"

Now the smile faded. "Yes, didn't you phone yesterday morning for an appointment?"

"This appointment was arranged for me."

"But I thought… Well, someone called here yesterday and requested to see me regarding Victor Talbert. The caller was informed that High Grade Hardware has a policy that forbids giving out any unauthorized personnel information."

"Did the caller leave a name?"

"No, that's why I thought you'd called." The intercom buzzed and a female voice informed Harper that someone named Mr. Sathers wanted to see him at his earliest convenience. That seemed to put Harper on edge. "Mr. Sathers is the top man," he explained.

I took my cue to get to the essentials. "Mr. Harper, did you know anything about Victor Talbert's social life, what he did after hours?"

He drummed his fingertips, thinking. "No… not really. He attended all the company functions, handled himself quite well. He was well mannered, didn't drink to excess and possessed an admirable sense of tact. I'd be very surprised if there was anything… irregular about Victor."

"He was earmarked for bigger things here, wasn't he, until the presence of a favorite nephew eased him out?"

Harper's expression didn't change but his color darkened and a vein throbbed briefly at his graying temple. "I don't know who you've been talking to," he said, "but that's hardly an accurate way of describing the situation. Sheer economics dictated that someone had to go. Victor's job specialty was no longer needed, and to utilize his talents anywhere else would have meant a costly retraining and breaking-in period."

"And the nephew had this training?"

"Precisely." He leaned back, laced his fingers again. "Mr. Nudger, at Victor Talbert's level, potential isn't enough."

I nodded. Harper couldn't tell me flatly that Talbert had potentially been the superior of the two employees.

"Not that it matters now," he said.

"It might matter," I told him, "only not to Victor Talbert."

"I understand he's been murdered. Any ideas as to who and why?"

Carlon must have had to divulge the fact of Talbert's murder to get my appointment with Harper. "None here," I said. "That's more in the police department's line."

Harper shifted in his chair and licked his lips. I could see he wanted to say more but knew he shouldn't.

"Do you have any past or present employees named Congram?" I asked.

Harper pressed his intercom button and repeated my question to his secretary in the outer office.

Within a minute she buzzed him back with a negative answer.

It had been a blind stab anyway. "What's the nephew's name?" I asked.

"Paul Madden."

"Is he in the building now?"

"Probably."

"I'd like to talk to him. And I'd like to talk to whoever was Victor Talbert's direct supervisor."

"They're busy," Harper said, "but I'll arrange it." He punched a burton on his desk phone for an inside line and cleared the way for me. I thanked him, shook hands with him and left his black and white office.

After getting myself lost several times in the building's labyrinth of halls, I managed to talk to both Madden and Victor Talbert's old supervisor, a tall, stern man named Graham Winkler. Madden had seemed a decent, sympathetic sort, somehow too lethargic for his surroundings. He told me he'd felt bad about Talbert's dismissal but that Talbert had taken it well and they'd remained friends, even to the point of having an after work drink together on Talbert's last day at High Grade.

Winkler substantiated what both Harper and Madden had told me. Victor Talbert had been highly thought of, considered an ideal company man. He was keenly intelligent, remarkably ambitious, and above all, a realist. I thought I detected a touch of resentment in Winkler over Talbert's dismissal, and I didn't blame him, if the man had been such a whiz. He'd have made any supervisor look good.

Talbert's past, as I uncovered it, wasn't exactly shaping him up to be the fugitive murder victim he'd become. Ambitious, hard working, a young man who inspired admiration and loyalty, he'd been the type a father would want his daughter to marry, the type Dale Carlon might have chosen for his own daughter Joan. Then had come the break in the pattern-the fear Horvell had described-and the blast of a rigged shotgun in a parked car in Florida. I needed to know the reason and was almost afraid to discover it.

The things a man will do for money… You think the temptation doesn't apply to you, that you're too solid and sensible to bend, until the time arrives and temptation becomes opportunity.

One thing I knew was that I didn't belong in a place like this, with its contrived pressures, strict written and unwritten rules that had to be obeyed if you wanted to survive, much less advance, in the pecking order. That advancement was the important thing, the thing that drove the Talberts of the world.

I found my way out of High Grade's headquarters, passing in the hall several dignified-looking types with gold hammer-and-wrench insignia pins on their lapels. As I walked toward my car, I could hear the snap of the flags and the dull metallic thumping of rope against the tall aluminum flagpole. I wondered idly if High Grade employees held a ceremony each morning as they raised the flags, and I wondered which flag they saluted.

Before starting the car I reached into my shirt pocket and pulled out the slip of paper that Horvell had given me with Belle Dee's address written on it. I laid the paper beside me on the front seat and unfolded a Chicago and surrounding area street map. Without much difficulty I located the street I wanted and used a ballpoint pen to circle it.