John MacDonald - The Good Old Stuff

Garver bobbed his head in acknowledgment, sat down on the edge of one of the deep leather chairs, and rested his hard hands on his thighs.

Shay strolled over to the cabinet. “Drink?” he asked.

“I don’t much, but right now...”

With the glasses distributed, Shay perched one massive hip on the corner of the desk, towering over Garver, and said, “My man told you that for three hundred dollars I’ll listen to you. If I want to take on the problem I’ll state a fee commensurate with the difficulties involved. That fee will not include expenses, and I cannot, of course, guarantee results. Then it will be your decision to tell me whether or not to go ahead.”

“Lieutenant Ryan seemed to think—”

“Forgive me, Garver, but I can’t think of anything I’m less interested in than the opinions of Lieutenant Ryan. State your problem.”

“Well, it’s about Allie, Mr. Pritchard. It’s only Thursday, but it seems like she’s been gone for longer than just since Tuesday afternoon. She’s my wife. I’ve been just about crazy. I went to a cattle auction in Randolph on Tuesday and when I came back she just wasn’t there. I’ve got a picture of her here...”

It was an eight-by-ten glossy print, and he had folded it once lengthwise and shoved it into the inside breast pocket of his suit. He handed it over to Shay almost reverently.

Shay had a look on his face of pronounced disinterest. The farmer’s wife had grown weary of the farm. He looked at the picture. His eyes narrowed and he sucked at his lower lip. He handed it to me.

It was a professional job by a man who knew how. She was reclining on some sort of chaise longue, and the picture was of head, throat, and shoulders, stopping just at the verge of becoming too intimate. Eyes too deep and too wise for her age, and a soft, wide mouth that was not wise at all — only willing. The blond hair was spread out around her head. We both stared at Garver.

Suddenly there was something indescribably goaty about him, and his cackling laugh was that of the eternal Pan. “Guess you fellas didn’t expect my wife to be a pin-up girl. The rest of her is just as nice as that face, too. Surprised everybody, I did, coming back with her that day. She’s only twenty.” Then anxiety overcame the sudden wet-lipped look and he said dully, “Can’t imagine what happened to her.”

“Where did you meet her?”

Surprisingly, Garver flushed. “I haven’t told anybody else this, but I guess you ought to know. About six months ago I got a crazy notion to go away by myself. Working too hard, I guess. I went down to Endor City, about a two-hundred-mile drive, and got myself a hotel room. Went to a lot of movies, and then I got tired of the movies and I had a few drinks. Asked the cab driver to take me somewhere where I could have some fun. Drove me way outside Endor City and I didn’t like that place, so he brought me back to a place right in town. You’d never find it if you didn’t know where to look. They call it Roger’s Place. There’s friendly girls there that’ll talk to you right at the bar. I met Allie there. She was unhappy. She said she was tired of young kids that weren’t serious and she said she liked older men. We went to a few other places, I disremember where, and then we went to her place and — well, I guess we kind of forgot ourselves. Anyway, she was a-crying, and a-carrying on and saying she wasn’t that kind of girl at all and I could see she wasn’t and we got married two days later.”

“What was her address there?” Shay interrupted.

“It was a sort of rooming house. Wait a minute. I got it here in my wallet. Oh, here it is. Ten-eighteen Columbine Street. We checked her right out of there. The poor kid didn’t have much more than enough to fill one suitcase. I brought her back here. I live over on the River Road and the house isn’t much, so I contracted for a new house. We just moved into it ten days ago. No, eleven. We’ve been pretty happy. Best six months of my life.” Again his eyes held the hard glint of Pan.

“What is her full name?”

“Allana Montrose Garver.”

“Where from?”

“I don’t rightly know. Back East somewhere.”

“Relatives?”

“The poor kid is alone in the world. Leastways, she was.”

“You have relatives?”

“Neither kith nor kin. There was some second and third cousins, but I don’t know where they are. Haven’t for twenty years.”

Shay poured fresh drinks. Garver covered his glass with the top of his hand and shook his head.

“Now tell me about yourself,” Shay asked gently.

Garver sighed and looked into the past, his eyes clouding. “Got married when I was twenty. Mary died a year later when the kid came. The kid died two days after she did. I went back with my pa. When he died I took over the farm. When I began to do better with feed business and the cattle trading, I sold off a lot of the acreage. My partner is Sam Jarone. We’ve been doing well for the past eight — nine years. He handles the feed business, mostly, and I work out the cattle deals.”

“What are you worth?” Shay asked bluntly.

Garver looked startled. “I don’t know as I—”

“I must know everything, Garver.”

He didn’t like it. “Let me see. Real liquid stuff’ll go maybe four hundred thousand. About another hundred and fifty thousand tied up so tight it’d take a long time to get it loose.”

“A half million, eh?” Shay said dryly.

“I don’t think about it that way.”

“I hope you don’t mind if I do, Mr. Garver.”

“Well, I’m pretty careful about not throwing money around.”

“Now I must ask you some questions that you might not like. First — did Mrs. Garver know your financial position?”

Garver beamed. “No, she didn’t. That’s how I knew she fell in love with me for sure. I never did tell her until after we’d been married a month. That was when I changed my will and the insurance over.”

“She seemed pleased?”

“Why, she certainly did! Huggin’ me and kissin’ me for fair.”

“How was your money going to go before you changed it over?”

“The estate was going half to the Baptist Church and half to the State College and the Department of Farm Economics, and the insurance to Sam Jarone.”

“Much insurance?”

“Eighty-five thousand paid up. It was sort of partnership insurance, but bigger than it had to be. So when I transferred it, I took out forty thousand renewable term, with Sam as beneficiary. That’s what he has, with me named to get it in case something happens to him.”

“Did Jarone seem annoyed that you got married?”

Garver flushed. “Yes, damn him. He has been giving me a terrible time with all those nasty remarks of his. Way he tells it, I could be a hundred and ten years old marrying a kid of fourteen. Matter of fact, I’m forty-eight. Not too much difference there. Hell, when I’m seventy, Allie’ll be forty-two.”

“Are you expecting an increase in the family?”

“No, we’re not. I’ve been hoping, but it just hasn’t turned out that way yet. Can you find her, Mr. Pritchard?”

“Have you considered the fact that she might not want to be found?” Shay said softly.

“That’s a lie! Allie’s been happy with me. I’m thinking it’s this here amnesia and she wandered off, or else somebody took her off and I haven’t gotten a kidnap note yet.”

“Ryan is working on it?”

“He put her on the tape today. I tried to pay him to go at it with special handling and he said he couldn’t and sent me to you. Will you take it on?”

“The fee will be five thousand dollars. Plus expenses. And another five thousand if it goes over two weeks.”

Garver swallowed hard. He stared at Shay. “Say, you didn’t even blink when you said five thousand.”