The Limping Goose

8

They crossed the street and approached a wide store front which was almost completely covered with the name of the store and various sales slogans. On the glass door was the notation, in quite modest lettering:

They entered the store. Although it was early evening the place was well patronized. They approached one of the checkers.

“The manager,” John said easily.

The checker pressed a buzzer and a clarion call went up all over the store. After a moment a man wearing a tan jacket approached the checker.

The latter indicated Johnny. “He wants to see you.”

“No-no,” said Johnny to the manager. “I want to see Mr. Carmichael.”

The manager looked at Johnny puzzled. “Who?”

“Jess Carmichael. The boss.”

The store manager’s eyes suddenly narrowed. “What’s the idea?”

“No idea. I want to talk to Old Jess. This is his store, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” said the grocery manager. “It’s his store, all right. Store Number eleven forty-four.”

Sam tugged at Johnny’s sleeve. “Hey, does he mean Carmichael’s got eleven hundred and forty-four stores?”

“Twenty-one hundred and fifty-nine,” said the store manager, “unless he’s opened a couple of dozen today that I don’t know about.”

Johnny nodded. “Old Jess must be rolling in it. Well, that’s fine, just fine. Now if you’ll tell him that I’d like to see him.”

“You must be crazy!” the store manager finally exploded. “You expect him to be here — selling groceries, maybe?”

“Why not?”

The man tried hard to compose himself. “Look, mister, a joke’s a joke, but I’m a busy man. Will you go and bother somebody else?”

“Is it too much bother for Mr. Carmichael to talk to a customer?” demanded Johnny. “I’ve spent a lot of money in Carmichael stores and I think the least Carmichael can do—”

“Go away!” cried the store manager. “I’m busy. So’s Mr. Carmichael.”

“So am I,” snapped Johnny. “So let’s cut it short. Do I see the boss, or don’t I?”

“I’ve never seen him,” gritted the groceryman. “I wouldn’t know him if I did see him. He’s a name, that’s all. He’s never been in this store and he’ll probably never come in.”

“That’s a funny way to run a business,” growled Johnny. “Man owns so many stores he can’t even get around to look at them. All right, if he isn’t here, where can I find him?”

“His office, his home. How should I know?”

“That sounds silly,” Johnny proceeded. “You’re the manager of this store, ain’t you? Suppose something happens? Who do you call?”

“The district manager.”

“Does he know Carmichael?”

“I doubt it. I doubt if he’s ever seen him. He reports to somebody higher up.”

“And the somebody higher up?”

“How do I know?”

“Somebody’s got to know. Somebody’s got to be able to get to Carmichael.”

“Sure, sure. There’s somebody ’way, ’way up, who probably even knows where he lives—”

“He lives in Manhasset,” suddenly said the checker, beside the store manager. “I read it in a magazine once.”

“Thanks,” Johnny said to the checker. “You’re a bright alert worker. Some day you’ll be manager of this store and he” — nodding to the manager — “will be holding down your job.”

He turned and went out of the store, followed by Sam. Outside Sam said, “Manhasset?”

“Yep. Mmm, that’s out on Long Island. Twenty-some miles. Probably cost us more than a buck apiece, round trip on the Long Island Railroad. We’ve only got a dollar forty-five, thanks to that appetite of yours.”

“We got the pennies and dimes—”

“I’m not going to spend those. Not unless I really have to and we can’t spend the rent money.”

Sam brightened. “Then we can’t go out to Manhasset.”

“Oh yes, we can. There are ways of traveling without money.”

“Not walking, Johnny!”

“Are you kidding? I don’t like to walk any more than you

do. I was thinking of riding out there. In a nice, shiny limousine. A Cadillac.”

“What’s the matter with a taxi?”

“You’ve got to pay for a taxi — cash.”

“But you’d have to pay for a limousine, too.”

“We didn’t pay for our lunch today, did we?”

Sam groaned. “Again?”

“Necessity, my boy, necessity. And don’t feel bad about it. Anybody who can afford to buy Cadillacs and rent them out can afford to, uh, take a little chance.”

They continued on down Forty-Fifth to Park Avenue and turned north to the Barbizon-Waldorf Hotel. In the vast lobby, Johnny found the bell captain’s desk.

“I say, old man,” Johnny said, “I’d like to rent a car for the evening.”

“Yes, sir,” said the bell captain. “With or without a driver?”

“Oh, with a driver, I suppose. This city traffic, you know—”

“Yes, sir, I know. Let’s see, will you want it by the mile or by the hour?”

“What’s the difference?”

“It’s thirty cents by the mile. Six dollars per hour.”

“I think I’d better take it by the hour, then. I want to take a drive out to Long Island and visit awhile.”

“What is the number of your room, sir?”

“Eight twenty-one,” replied Johnny truthfully, although he neglected to say that this was the number of his room at the Forty-Fifth Street Hotel.

“Thank you, sir,” said the bell captain. “I believe there’s a car at the service entrance now. I’ll just phone and make sure.”

A few minutes later, Johnny and Sam climbed into the tonneau of a Fleetwood Cadillac. A uniformed chauffeur turned in his seat and touched the visor of his cap. “Where to, sir?”

“Manhasset.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Jess Carmichael’s place; do you know where it is?”

“I believe it’s near the Whitney estate, sir.”

Johnny winked at Sam. “So it is.”

The car rolled smoothly out of the hotel garage, turned toward the East River Drive and purred along to the Triborough Bridge. A half hour later they left the parkway and sped along a winding drive. A few minutes more and they approached a wrought-iron gate.

A guard stepped out of a small stone house and moved up to the limousine. He touched his cap.

“I’m calling on Mr. Carmichael,” Johnny said easily.

“Is he expecting you, sir?”

Johnny shrugged. “More or less, I imagine.”

“Could I have your name, sir?”

“Fletcher, Johnny Fletcher.”

“Now comes the trouble,” said Sam under his breath.

The guard stepped back into his little house and picked up the phone. A moment later he returned to the limousine. “Wilkins, the butler, says he doesn’t have your name down. What is it about?”

“Does it have to be about anything?” Johnny asked tartly. “Tell this Wilkins or whatever his name is, that I’m a customer of Mr. Carmichael’s. That’s all, don’t add another word.”

The guard frowned but went back into his house. He talked again into the phone, then came out and pressed a button that swung open the gates.

The limousine rolled up a curved drive and stopped before a pile of dressed stone that was worth roughly half a million, give or take a hundred thousand.

“May be a while,” Johnny said to the chauffeur of the hired car.

“That’s all right, sir,” the man said. “I’ve a book to read.”

They got out of the Cadillac and walked up to the front door. Johnny leaned on the door button. The chimes were still bonging inside when a liveried butler opened the door.

“Mr. Fletcher?”

“That’s right, Wilkins. I just stopped in to offer my condolences to Jess.”

“It’s a very sad thing, sir,” said the butler. “Mr. Carmichael is taking it very badly.”

“That’s only natural.”

The butler consulted a leather booklet in his hand. “I’m afraid I don’t have your name here, sir.”

Johnny looked at him blankly. “Are you supposed to have it?”

“Yes, sir, you see, there are so many people who try to call on Mr. Carmichael that he found it necessary to make up a list of his friends to whom he is in.”

“And my name isn’t in the book? Well, what do you know about that?”

“If you could tell me the nature of your business. Joseph, at the gate, said that — that you were a customer, but I didn’t understand—”

“Then why’d you let me through the gate?”

Wilkins looked at Johnny uneasily. “Well, Joseph said that your car—”

“...was a Cadillac. If I’d come up in anything smaller I suppose I couldn’t even have gotten this far?”

“I didn’t mean that, sir. It’s only that...” The butler again took refuge in his leather book. “Are you a friend of Mr. Carmichael’s?”

“From the looks of things,” Johnny said coldly, “I guess I’m not.” He paused, then added sarcastically, “But if it isn’t asking too much of you, I’d appreciate it if you’d just step in and tell Jess that Johnny Fletcher is here.”

“And your business?”

Johnny turned and struck Sam violently on the shoulder. “Now, how do you like that?” He turned back to Wilkins. “Tell Jess that I’m a customer of his. Tell him that. No more and no less. And if he still doesn’t want to see me, that’s that.”

The butler walked off, crossing the large wide hall and entering a door which he closed behind him. He was gone four or five minutes, then returned.

“Mr. Carmichael will see you in the library.”

He led the way through a drawing room, another hall, then opened a pine-paneled room and stood aside. Johnny and Sam went into the library, a room some twenty by thirty feet in size, lined with bookshelves containing mostly leather-bound and other unread books.