Buyer beware

21

Los Angeles had been hot, but St. Louis had it beat. This was the damp, sticky kind of heat that followed you indoors, made you perspire even when you were still, and melted the body from the fabric of your clothes so that they clung limply to you.

I waited for our luggage to come around on the metal carousel while Alison made her way through the milling throng of travelers and greeters to rent a car. A woman rattled off flight numbers over the public address speakers as if she were calling a bingo game. No one seemed to be listening.

Our luggage came up fast, and Alison was just completing arrangements for the car when I met her at the Avis desk. The terminal's cocktail lounge looked dim and cool as we walked past, and I could have used a drink but thought better of it. It was almost midnight, and tomorrow morning I might have to be sharper than I'd ever been.

Alison drove the rented Chevy too fast to the Rama-da Inn near the airport. We took adjoining rooms, an unnecessary expense in my estimation but not in hers.

I stretched out on the bed and expected to lie awake for a long time, but when I blinked, it was seven A.M. and time to get moving to make Heath Industries before nine. A cold shower focused my mind on my fear, and I dressed more slowly than I should have. But nothing I did slowed the minute hand on my watch.

Alison was downstairs, waiting for me. We had a quick breakfast of Danish rolls and coffee, then walked out onto the already-warm blacktopped parking lot and got into the rented Chevy. I drove, knowing I'd be less nervous if I kept myself occupied.

Heath Industries was in Westport, a new and sprawling industrial development, west of the city, that was either the downtown or the slum of the future. The morning rush hour traffic was a study in heat and frustration, and it was eight-thirty when we finally parked in the lot of Heath's regional headquarters in an impressive, recently built, tall structure fronted by an artificial lake from which rose a graceful, gull-winged cement sculpture. The Heath building was the tallest in the area and commanded a view of a teeming four-lane highway that dwindled to a sun-shimmering ribbon on the horizon.

We topped the cement steps and entered the lobby- high-ceilinged, decorous and cool. A gold-framed directory told us that Tad Osborne's office was on the top floor. The elevator was a smooth rocket that didn't help my stomach.

A blond Nordic type with too much bulky jewelry sat at a desk in the plush outer office. She smiled at us when we entered and told her who we were, and she seemed to know Alison. Osborne must have instructed her to send us right in when she buzzed him, because she immediately jangled over to the main office and opened the door for us.

Tad Osborne's office was cool and ordered, and beyond a huge window the ribbon of teeming highway stretched to an even more distant horizon. Osborne himself was a medium-sized, balding man with broad, pleasant features, seated behind a very wide desk on which sat only the basics-pen set, ashtray, "out" basket, telephone, and on one corner the mandatory framed family photographs.

"What is it about Mr. Bender that interests you?" Osborne asked after we'd been seated.

Alison arched an eyebrow beautifully. "Mr. Bender?"

"Why, yes… Frank Bender, the Gratuity Insurance agent."

"There's really not much we can tell you, Mr. Osborne," I said, "because we don't have hard information. Why did Bender want to see you?"

Osborne rotated back and forth slightly in his swivel chair, but his gray eyes stayed trained on me. "He called and said there'd been a series of insurance company mergers and he needed my signature to transfer some of my policies. He assured me it would mean a savings without loss of coverage."

"Whatever he tells you, Mr. Osborne, I'm afraid you're on your own. We don't know enough to predict exactly what he'll really have in mind, but there's sufficient reason for us to believe it won't be insurance."

"I'm sure there is, or Dale Carlon wouldn't have vouched for you." He looked at his digital watch. "It's quarter to nine. How is this thing going to unfold?"

I didn't tell him that that question was ruining my health. "Just pretend we're not here. Listen to what Bender has to say, tell him what you think best, and when he leaves, I'll follow him. If it's all right, I'll wait in the file room off your secretary's office so I can see him enter and leave."

"Fine," Osborne said. "I'll tell Mary to cooperate with you."

"Miss Day will be waiting with me, and when I've left she'll want to talk to you to get all the details of your conversation with Bender while they're fresh in your mind."

"Suppose I record our conversation without his knowledge?"

"I wouldn't advise it. Bender might have one of a number of devices to detect an operating recorder."

"Our talk should only take a few minutes," Alison said through her best interviewer's smile. "I'm with Business View, but I promise you nothing you tell me will be used without your permission."

I thought she was putting herself in a corner there, but I kept quiet.

"I've read some of your articles with interest, Miss Day," Osborne said, spreading thick honey. "You do fine and accurate work."

"Bender should be arriving any time now," I told him. "It would be better if he didn't see us."

Osborne rose and showed us out of his office, resting a hand on Alison's shoulder in what I assumed to be a fatherly manner. A favorable article in Business View wouldn't hurt either Heath Industries or his career.

The file room was almost as large as the anteroom. It was furnished with two wooden chairs, a table, and three walls lined solid with charcoal-gray file cabinets. The fourth wall was all metal shelving stacked with varied but neatly stored office supplies. Alison took a chair near the table. I propped the file room door open at just the right angle and positioned the remaining chair so I had a view of anyone entering the outer office and approaching Osborne's bejeweled secretary.

My nerves took over, tapping my right toe in staccato rhythm on the cork floor, rubbing the fingertips of my right hand on the tabletop until they tingled.

But I didn't have long to wait. Five minutes after I'd sat down, at exactly nine o'clock, Frank Bender arrived.

He was a well-groomed and stylishly dressed man in his late twenties or early thirties, wearing a neat dark suit that went far to disguise the fact that he was overweight. He had an even-featured, handsome face with bright, small dark eyes narrowed by the fleshy padding around them. Holding his attache1 case before him, he aimed exactly the right sort of friendly but impersonal smile at the secretary, and I heard him small-talking her as he gave his name.

Osborne's secretary seemed genuinely charmed as she got up and ushered Bender into the main office. She was still smiling at something he'd said as she walked back toward her desk.

Alison and I looked at each other. There was an anxious, super-alert expression in her eyes, and I wondered if I wore the same expression.

No, I was sure mine was tempered by worry and fear. The things that could go wrong! Might Gratuity be legitimate, a small or newly formed company not yet brought to the attention of the various agencies that had been contacted? Frank Bender looked like a thousand other insurance agents, didn't he?

Then I thought about the business card in Victor Talbert's jacket, in Chicago, on the back of which was the name of a man who'd died a violent death in Los Angeles. As Victor Talbert had died. As Craig Blount, in Seattle, had died.

It was nine-twenty, and Bender hadn't come out. My stomach was vibrating.

He came out at nine twenty-eight, and by then I was on my feet, waiting. Through the crack in the door I saw him walk past Osborne's secretary and smile as he did when he entered. He said something I couldn't understand as he went out, and the secretary smiled and adjusted an earring. With a last look back at Alison, who was now also standing, I left the file room to follow Bender.

He left the parking lot in a light-tan sedan, probably a rental, and I trailed in the Avis Chevy. He wound his way through the streets almost as if he didn't know exactly where he was. I stayed three cars back, eating antacid tablets like candy.

Bender must have skipped breakfast. I watched him pull up to a hamburger restaurant, one of a chain, that had a sign proclaiming that they served eggs and pancakes. Parked in an inconspicuous spot near a discount store, I waited for him and thought of things other than food.

I hadn't carried a gun since I was with the department, and I wondered if I should have one now. Bender looked harmless enough, even amiable, but I remembered the deceptively peaceful death photos of Victor Talbert and the fear on Belle Dee's bloodied face when she opened her apartment door for me. And I remembered my own reaction to the sight of her injuries.

Bender finally emerged from the restaurant, his suit coat unbuttoned and his stocky arms swinging freely, the expansive walk of a well-fed man. I watched him get into his car; then I saw a hazy rush of exhaust fumes from the tailpipe of the tan sedan, and it backed from its parking slot and maneuvered in tight quarters to point toward the driveway to the street.

I started the Chevy and sat with the engine idling. When Bender turned the sedan into the flow of traffic, I reminded myself of Carlon's fifty thousand dollars and followed.

Bender was driving more confidently now, as if he knew where he was going. He was easier to follow.

We took a cloverleaf and were on Highway 67, where it was called Lindbergh Boulevard. Within a few minutes Bender made a left into the parking lot of the King Saint Louis Motel.

The motel was small and not very prosperous-looking, a series of duplex cabins. Bender must already have registered. The tan car made a sharp turn and parked in front of the end cabin. I watched as Bender got out of the car, carrying his attache case, and let himself into the cabin through the door nearest me.

I sat in the car, parked on the gravel road shoulder off Lindbergh, and looked at the cabin's closed door. With a shattering roar, a jet passed almost directly overhead, so low it seemed the treetops flinched. The King Saint Louis was one of a string of motels directly west of the airport. I eased the Chevy forward, turned into the parking lot and, with a soft squeal of brakes, stopped in front of the tiny office.

I asked for one of the cabins nearest the highway. There were plenty of vacancies, as the sparse-haired elderly woman behind the desk informed me, and she was more than glad to comply. I registered under my own name and paid in advance.

The cabins were strung unevenly along a line diagonal to the highway. From my front window I could see Bender's parked car and the front of his cabin. All of the cabins were in minor disrepair, faded redwood with patchwork shingled roofs. I could see tall weeds beyond the back corners of most of them, and outside the window of the back door of my own.

The telephone had a long cord, just long enough to reach the table by the front window. I set the phone down, moved a lamp aside and pulled a wicker-backed chair next to the table. Never letting the front of Bender's cabin out of my sight for more than a few seconds, I dialed the number of Heath Industries and asked for Tad Osborne.

There was something in the voice of the girl who answered the phone as she asked me again whom I was calling, then requested me to hold the line-a high edge of excitement. The next voice I heard was a man's, but not Osborne's.

"Who's calling, please?"

I started to speak, but an uneasiness, a subtle tingling of suspicion, bored into my mind.

"Hello, who's-"

I replaced the receiver.

For a long while I sat still, staring out through the dusty, slanted Venetian blinds at the quiet, sun-brightened face of Bender's cabin. Maybe the girl on the phone at Heath had some personal reason to be excited. Maybe she'd given me the wrong extension and the man's voice was simply that of another Heath employee. Maybe nothing was wrong. Maybe it was.

I phoned Heath Industries again, got the same girl, then the same laconic male voice asking me to identify myself. Not office procedure-police procedure.

I punched the button in the telephone's cradle, dialed the Ramada Inn and asked for Alison's room.

No answer.

I hung up the phone and sat staring out the window. Another jet roared overhead, sending vibrations through the flimsy cabin. I had no way of knowing what, if anything, had gone wrong at Heath, or where Alison was, or if Bender had somehow been tipped to my presence. Doggedly I told myself things might actually be going smoothly-nothing wrong at Heath, and Alison hadn't had time to return to the Ramada, where she was supposed to wait for my phone call. But the fear lay like a slab of lead in my stomach, and my chest seemed to be constricting my heart.

I was plagued by the feeling that events had passed from my control, that the tiger I'd had by the tail had finally turned around. But there was nothing I could do about it now; I could only go on with what I'd planned. I'd try the Ramada again in a while, talk to Alison and get some of the answers.

Noon arrived, passed, and Alison still hadn't returned to her motel room. And Bender's cabin-half in shadow now, peaceful, drapes closed-might have been vacant but for the fact that I knew he was inside. The tan sedan was parked, unmoved and baking in the sun, where Bender had left it.

My back began to ache, and I got up now and then to pace, occasionally sitting down to make another unsuccessful phone call to the Ramada. The intermittent overhead roar of jet engines was beginning to wear on me.

Then, at two o'clock, the door to Bender's cabin opened and he came out.

He'd changed clothes. Now he was wearing gray slacks and a pale-yellow sport shirt. Maybe he'd been asleep; he looked fresh. I stood at the window, leaning over the table and watching him.

I cursed silently as Bender walked past his parked car. At first I thought he was going to the motel office, but instead he turned left and stood on the shoulder of the highway, leaning forward, waiting to cross.

When there was a break in the traffic, he trotted across the highway, and I watched him walk south on the other side. I realized then where he was going. The King Saint Louis didn't have a restaurant, and Bender was headed for the restaurant of the motel across the street for a late lunch.

I had to move to the side, hold back the drapes and peer at an angle through the window now to follow his progress. He passed out of my sight momentarily, but I picked him up again as he entered the motel restaurant. I relaxed my grip on the drapes and stepped back. My stomach said no to what I had to do next.

Walking to the back door of my cabin, I examined the lock. Simple, the sort that can be slipped with a piece of celluloid or a plastic credit card. But there was also a chain lock. I could only hope that the back door of Bender's cabin didn't have one; or, if it did, that it wasn't fastened. Parting the stained sheer curtains over the window in my door, I took a quick look out back, saw only tall weeds and a small gray trash container, and stepped outside.

Slipping the lock on the rear of Bender's cabin was no problem, but the door did have a chain lock and it was fastened. I saw what I'd have to do. If I punched out the door's small windowpane nearest the lock and cleaned up the broken glass, Bender would never know it unless he happened to look behind the door's curtains. My heart was pumping with labored wild-ness and my body was bent by the tightness in my stomach. I wondered how professional burglars ever got up the nerve to operate. With a fast, guilty look around, I rammed my elbow into the window, and the glass broke in four pieces but didn't fall from the frame. No damage to my elbow, and I was grateful there hadn't been much noise.

I removed the largest piece of glass, reached in and, with fumbling fingers, unfastened the chain. Then I added breaking and entering to withholding evidence and went inside.

It was almost as if I'd found shelter; I couldn't be seen now. But the exhilaration and fear had entered with me. I could hear the sounds of my own breathing and rushing of blood, and only my rising anger with myself brought a measure of calm.

The interior of Bender's cabin was exactly like mine. A suitcase stood open on a luggage stand at the foot of the double bed, revealing folded white underwear and shirts. Bender's leather attache case was on the floor, leaning against the side of the dresser. I went to it first, found it unlocked.

The case was empty but for a gold letter-opener and a thin packet of white business cards. The cards were similar to the card I'd found in the pocket of Victor Talbert's jacket, engraved only with GRATUITY INSURANCE.

I closed the attache case and leaned it back the way I'd found it. Then I went to the suitcase and searched carefully beneath the folded clothes. It took me a while, and I found nothing but lint.

After rearranging the suitcase the way it had been, I checked the bathroom. Nothing there but a zippered travel kit containing the usual assortment of shaving cream, razor, spray deodorant and manicure set.

From the bathroom I went quickly to the closet. I'd been inside Bender's cabin for little more than five minutes, and I told myself it would be safer to slow down and do things right than to panic. He probably wouldn't return for at least half an hour.

The "closet contained a suit, a sport coat and two pale-blue shirts on hangers. A search of the pockets netted me nothing but a postage stamp and comb. I straightened the shirts on their hangers, smoothed the lapels of the suit.

The blast of a jet engine made me take a step toward the back door; then I stood leaning on the dresser, waiting for the sound to subside.

In the first dresser drawer I opened I found a dollar's worth of change and a set of gold cufflinks. The rest of the drawers were empty.

I stood in the center of the cabin and looked desperately around. There was nowhere else to search. I'd risked everything for nothing.

After making sure things were arranged the way I'd found them, I moved toward the back door. And that's when I saw the strip of white beneath the dark suitcase.

I stepped over, lifted the end of the suitcase and discovered that what I'd seen was the edge of an airline ticket. It was made out to Emmett Marshal, either Bender's real name or the name he traveled under, and it was a return-flight ticket to Chicago. The departure time was noon tomorrow. I replaced the ticket where I'd found it, letting the edge of white show as it had before.

When I left Bender's cabin, I removed the remaining broken glass from the back door's window frame and made sure the curtains hung completely over the opening. I dropped the pieces of broken glass onto some soggy cardboard in the gray trash container as I passed, and I entered my own cabin the back way and locked the door behind me.

The floor seemed to be made of sponge. I sat weakly on the edge of the bed and realized that I was practically panting, winded from doing nothing more than holding my breath.

After a few minutes I involuntarily laughed out loud, and that seemed to drain me of my tension. I got up, crossed to the telephone and dialed the number of the Ramada Inn, knowing it well enough now to dial it without thinking. When I asked for Alison's room, her telephone was answered on the first ring.

There was anxiety and weariness in Alison's voice instead of the usual crispness.

I sat down in my chair by the front window. "Alison, where were you earlier?"

"Talking to the police."

"The police?…" My fingers were suddenly slippery with perspiration on the smooth receiver.

"Tad Osborne's been murdered."

Fear rushed into me. I didn't know whether to curse my bad luck or my stupidity.

That I should curse my greed never occurred to me.