A. Fair - Gold Comes in Bricks

I didn’t say anything.

“You know, Lam, I’m trusting very much to your discretion in this matter. I’m certainly hoping that you don’t — that you haven’t — that no excess zeal on your part has perhaps laid a foundation for a worse evil than that which you were called in to cure.”

“That would be embarrassing, wouldn’t it?”

“Very. You don’t open up much, do you?”

“I prefer to play a lone hand wherever I can.”

He said, “I could have unlimited confidence in you, Donald, my boy, absolutely unlimited confidence, if I knew one thing.”

“What’s that?”

“Whether your plans had taken into consideration the danger of that ten-thousand-dollar check showing up.”

It was a chance for a grandstand that I couldn’t resist. I said quietly, “Mr. Ashbury, I burnt up that ten-thousand-dollar check in your solarium last night. I ground the ashes into powder with my finger-tips. You can quit worrying about it.”

He looked at me with his eyes getting bigger and bigger until I thought they were going to push his spectacles off the bridge of his nose, then he grabbed my hand and started pumping it up and down. I made allowances for the four cocktails, but, even so, it was quite a demonstration. “You’re a wonder, my boy, a wonder! This is the last time I shall ask you anything. You go right ahead from here on and handle things in your own way. That’s marvellous, simply marvellous.”

I said, “Thanks. You know this may cost you money.”

“I don’t give a damn what it costs— No, I don’t exactly mean that, but— Well, you know what I mean.”

I said, “Bertha is unduly economical at times. She’s penny-wise and pound-foolish.”

“She doesn’t need to be. You explain that to her. Tell her that—”

“Telling her won’t do any good,” I said. “It’s the way she’s built.”

“Well, what do you want?”

I said, “Has it ever occurred to you I may have to bribe someone?”

“No.”

“Well, it’s a possibility to be taken into consideration.” He didn’t seem particularly happy about it. He said, “Well, of course, if you run into an emergency, the only thing for you to do is to come to me and—”

“And tell you who I’m bribing, how much I’ve got to pay, and why?” I asked.

“Well, yes.”

“Then if anything goes wrong and it’s a trap, you’re the one who’s caught.”

I saw his face change colour. He said, “How much do you want?”

I said, “Better give me a thousand dollars. I’ll keep it with me in case I need it. I may come back and ask for more.”

“That’s a lot of money, Donald.”

“It is for a fact,” I said. “How much money have you got?”

He flushed. “I don’t see what that has to do with it.”

“How many daughters have you got?”

“Only one, of course.”

I kept silent while he thought it over. I saw the idea soaking in. He pulled a wallet from his inside pocket and I counted out ten one-hundred-dollar bills. “I see your point, Donald, but remember I’m not a millionaire.”

I said, “A man who has money has an advantage over a man who hasn’t. When he gets in a jam, he can buy his way out. You’d be foolish not to play the trumps you hold in your hand.”

“That’s right,” he said, and then after a moment went on. “Don’t you think, Donald, that you could tell me a few of the details? I’d like to know them.”

I stared at him steadily. “Would you?” I asked.

“Well, why not?”

I said, “The way I play the game, my clients don’t know anything.”

He frowned. “I don’t think I like that.”

“And in a way,” I went on, “the police can never charge them as being accessories.”

He jumped as though I’d stuck a pin into him. He blinked his eyes four or five times rapidly, and then got to his feet hurriedly. “Very wise, Donald, very wise indeed! Well, I fancy it’s about time to adjourn. I’m going to be rather busy after this, Donald. I won’t have an opportunity to talk with you. I just want you to know that I’m leaving things in your hands — entirely in your hands.”

He busted up the meeting as quickly as though I’d broken out with smallpox. I had. Legal smallpox.

About eight o’clock that night Bertha Cool telephoned. She’d had an awful time, she said, getting an office of the type I wanted, but she’d finally secured one. It was in the name of Charles E. Fischler, and was at room six-twenty-two in the Commons Building. Elsie Brand would be there at nine o’clock the next morning to open up the office, and she’d have keys.

“I’ll want some business cards printed,” I said.

“That’s all taken care of. Elsie will have some. You’re the head of the Fischler Sales Corporation.”

I said, “Okay,” and started to hang up.

“What’s new?” she asked.

“Nothing.”

“Keep me posted.”

“I will,” I said, and that time got the receiver on the book before she could think of anything else.

The evening dragged interminably. Alta signalled that she wanted to talk with me, but I figured I knew all she knew. But I didn’t know all Bernard Carter knew, and I wanted to be where he could strike up a conversation that would look sufficiently casual in case he had anything he wanted to say.

He did.

I was knocking balls around in the billiard room when he came in. “Feel like a game?” he asked.

“I’m a rotten player,” I said. “I came down here to get away from the small talk.”

“What’s the matter?” he asked. “Something on your mind?”

“So-so,” I said, knocking the cue ball around the table and watching it bounce back from the cushions.

“Have you seen Ashbury?” he asked. “You know, had a chance to talk with him?”

I nodded.

“Nice chap, Ashbury,” Carter went on.

I didn’t say anything.

“Certainly must be nice to be able to keep in first-class physical shape,” Carter went on, looking down at his tight waistcoat. “You move as easily as a fish swimming around in water. I’ve been watching you.”

“Have you?”

“Yes, I have. You know, Lam, I’d like to know you better — have you whip me into shape.”

“It could be done,” I said, knocking the billiard balls around.

He moved closer. “There’s someone else on whom you’ve made a favourable impression, Lam.”

“Indeed?”

“Yes. Mrs. Ashbury.”

I said, “She told me she’d like to take off a little weight after her blood pressure got back to normal.”

He lowered his voice. “Did it ever strike you there’s something a little strange about the way her blood pressure started to mount and she started to put on weight immediately after she married Ashbury?”

I said, “Lots of women keep on a diet while they’re husband-hunting, and then as soon as they marry, settle back—”

His face grew purple. “That’s not what I meant at all,” he snapped.

I said, “I’m sorry.”

“If you knew Mrs. Ashbury, you’d realise how utterly uncalled for such a statement is, how far it’s removed iron the real facts.”

I didn’t look up from the billiard balls. I said, “You were doing the talking. I thought perhaps that was what you wanted to say, and I’d make it easier for you.”

“That wasn’t what I wanted to say.”

“Why not go ahead and say it, then?”

He said, “All right, I will. I’ve known Mrs. Ashbury for some little time. Before her marriage she was twenty-five pounds lighter, and she looked twenty years younger.”

“High blood pressure can do a lot to a person,” I said.

“Of course it can, but what’s the reason for the blood pressure? Why should her marriage suddenly run her blood pressure up?”