Buyer beware

2

He was back the next day with his court order.

I saw Clark's aging compact slow near my trailer, heard the crunch of tires on gravel and caught a glimpse of red glowing brake lights before the car passed out of my line of vision. I was doing my exercises on the concrete patio in what passes for my backyard. Having just finished my third set of deep knee bends, I was standing with my hands on my hips, waiting for my legs to stop trembling. It's not that I'm so much the physical culture type, but I'm at an age. Every day on the sports page I read about some athlete or other, washed up at thirty-six or -seven-even the great ones. That bothers me.

Gordon Clark was wearing a tailored gray suit this time, with a vest and a blood-red tucked-in tie. He was carrying an attache case. I felt a bit shoddy in my T-shirt and sweat pants.

He smiled at me, a superior smile that said he was the superior specimen. Not that I'd argue with him. I'm big enough, and not fat, but I'm not exactly whipcord muscle. I suspected that beneath the neat gray suit, Clark was. ‹ "You don't look so tough," he said.

"Mr. Happy's not supposed to be tough."

"I got the court order. I was near here so I thought I'd drop it by." He opened the attache case, an expensive model with chrome trim, and handed me a piece of paper with a familiar heading.

"Okay," I said, "I'll have it copied and return it to you."

He reached into the open attache* case again, like a magician reaching into his bag of tricks, and handed me out the next surprise. It was a check for five hundred dollars, closely followed by some photographs.

I walked out of the shade of the trailer to study the color snapshots. The first was of a woman, Joan Clark, leaning against what looked like a colonial pillar on a porch. She had a nifty upturned nose, close-set but large dark eyes and a small, too-curvaceous-to-be-wiry figure, one of those women who would look young even in late middle age, until the looker got close enough to notice the touches of time. The next photo was of Joan Clark and her daughter standing on the bank of a very blue lake. The daughter, Melissa, looked much like her mother, except that she was blond. And the daughter had the same innate tininess about her, the same tilt to her nose. I wondered if her mother was really blond. The third snapshot was of Melissa seated on a corner of a sofa with that characteristic knees-together, legs-straight-out pose of a seven-year-old. She had her father's smile, but with more candlepower.

"That last one of Melissa is the most recent I could find," Clark said. "It's about four months old."

I set the photos, check and court order on the metal table by my webbed lawn chair, weighting them with the heavy glass holder that contained a yellow candle that was supposed to keep mosquitoes away in the evenings.

"What's their address in Layton?" I said.

"It's three fifty-five Star Lane, on the south side of Layton. They've been there about a month. Do you want me to write it down?"

"I'll remember it, if I have to."

Clark cocked his head to the left. "What do you mean by that?"

"I mean it would be best if you flew down to Layton with me. It's the way I usually operate if I can."

He shook his head like a bull trying to shake loose a barb in the bullring. "I can't."

"It would be easier for the child. We wait for the right time when she's alone and simply take her with us, as if the mother knows about us."

"But I hired you so I wouldn't have to do this myself. You're supposed to be an expert…" Clark shrugged helplessly, pleading to be understood. "Look, I'd like to, really. But I just can't. My job… You understand. If it isn't absolutely necessary…"

"As long as I have that court order and your signature on one of my contracts," I told him, "it's not necessary."

"Then I'll have to pass."

I nodded, went inside for a minute and got one of my standard contract forms and a pen. Clark read the short contract quickly and bent over the metal patio table to sign it.

"Is there any way your ex-wife could find out you hired me?" I asked.

"None at all. I haven't discussed this with anyone."

"Follow that policy," I advised him. "Surprise is important. I'll leave for Layton tomorrow, unless you have some reason for suggesting a better time."

"Tomorrow's all right with me. The sooner this thing's done, the better."

"Where can you be reached?" I asked him. "I might need to contact you, and I'll have to know where to bring Melissa when we return."

"I'm with Standard Implement." Clark reached into a gray pocket and held out an embossed white business card that proclaimed him to be a sales manager. Then he hastily drew the card back, took a pen from another pocket and scribbled his home address and phone number on the back of the card before handing it to me. His address was in a fairly expensive apartment development on the west side of the city, where expensive "executive" apartment developments were stacked on top of one another. Clark seemed to play his role as best he could with what he had.

"Can you tell me anything about your ex-wife that might be helpful?" I asked. "Habits, favorite activities, that sort of thing."

Clark ran his fingertips an eighth of an inch beyond the contours of his neat dark beard. "I can't think of any habits that might be helpful. Joan used to love to play tennis, though. Spent a lot of time on the court."

"Any good?"

"Good? No, but she wears down her opponents. Joan is competitive in almost everything. Aggressive. If she suspects what you're up to, your job won't be without problems."

"I'll know how to handle the situation, Mr. Clark."

He looked me up and down, as if trying to reassure himself that I could. When he turned to leave, he took two slow steps and turned back. "One thing I don't want, Nudger, is for Melissa to be hurt. Can you guarantee that she won't be?"

"I can guarantee I'll do everything to prevent it. I consider it the most important part of my job."

He stood still for a moment, then nodded, as if he'd decided I was a thorough enough professional. Then he walked toward his car.

I felt sorry for him just then. He hadn't anticipated any of this when he'd walked down the aisle and uttered his vows.

After a few more deep knee bends, I gathered up everything Clark had left with me and went inside. I phoned the airline reservation desk for space on a morning flight to Orlando. From there I would have to rent a car and drive the rest of the way to Layton.

All that remained for me to do except pack was to drive over to the post office and use their pay copier to make duplicates of the court order and the photographs Clark had given me. The original court order I would return to Clark; one copy I would place in my safe-deposit box; one copy I would take to Florida, along with Clark's signature on a copy of my contract.

In a way I was glad Clark had refused to accompany me. The father's presence didn't always make it easier on the child. Sometimes the mother put up a fuss, and the husband, out of habit or rekindled responsibility, sided with her. When that happened, I sometimes got my lumps from both of them; and usually I was re-hired to accomplish the same task, now made more difficult, a few days later. Or the woman might physically resist both of us, and she and the man would fight over the child, yanking it back and forth like so much merchandise. I had seen a few children injured seriously that way. Physically and otherwise.

The trailer's air conditioner clicked on and began to hum. The sun was asserting itself outside. I got up from where I'd been sitting, by the phone, walked into the kitchen and mixed myself a bourbon and water. My stomach didn't suit my profession. It was fluttering again with precase jitters.

I wasn't in my business because I had the nerves for it. After four years as a civilian employee of the city police department and three years as a patrolman, my superiors had come to that same unflattering conclusion. Thus began my three-year reign as local TV's Mister Happy-we dropped the "Officer" so the children would realize that policemen were much like everyone else when they weren't working-and I was the smiling cop who projected the image of Good Guy to the kids. I had always got on with the kids; just the duty for me, the higher-ups had decided. And they were right. It wasn't exactly what I'd had in mind when I joined the force, but even after three years I wasn't about to leave before I had to.

Police work was what I was trained in, and I had my contacts; so when I left the department, my choice of occupation seemed logical. At the time, anyway.

But maybe I had no right to bitch. My much maligned and misunderstood profession kept the food and liquor coming in and a tin roof over my head.

Just as the diluted bourbon was achieving its soothing influence on my nerves, the girl at the airline reservation desk phoned back and said that she'd made a mistake and asked whether I would consider a later flight that laid over in Atlanta for an hour.

I agreed to that and took an antacid tablet.