Ross Thomas - No Questions Asked

“Like what?”

“How the hell should I know?”

“That’s just your conscience bothering you. All I want is about fifteen minutes of your time. Maybe twenty.”

There was a brief pause while Doc Amber thought it over. After he made up his mind he was brisk and businesslike.

“I’ll come by and pick you up at your place in fifteen minutes. We’ll ride around. If you got some questions, you can ask ’em. Maybe I’ll answer ’em. Then again, maybe I won’t.”

“That’s fair enough.”

“Fifteen minutes,” he said. “Outside.” Then he hung up.

If it hadn’t been for the thick pillow that he sat on, Doc Amber wouldn’t have been able to see over the steering wheel of the white Lincoln Continental. As it was he still had to tip his head back and stretch his. legs a little to reach the pedals, even with the front seat pulled as far forward as it would go.

He was exactly on time. When I got into the big car he didn’t offer to shake hands. All he said was, “You’re getting older, St. Ives.”

“We all are,” I said.

Amber turned left or right at every corner until we reached Wilshire Boulevard. Then he turned west. We were still going west when he said, “Well, at least there ain’t no tail.”

“Did you think there would be?”

“I got a paranoiac nature,” he said. “In my business I got to.”

“Business seems to be pretty good,” I said. “The car, the suit, the Gucci’s. They are Gucci’s, aren’t they?”

“They just look like Gucci’s. If you wanta know something, they’re a hell of a lot better than Gucci’s. I have ’em made over in England special on account of I got such small feet.”

Almost everything about Doc Amber was small and neat and compact except his hands. They were a jockey’s hands — hard and lean with long, strong-looking fingers. He was wearing a double-breasted flannel suit of pale grey with a vest, which you don’t much see anymore, and I had the feeling that it, like his shoes, had been made in England. His shirt was a rich cream color adorned with a neat maroon bow tie. He didn’t wear a hat. A hat might have mussed his hair, which went back from his forehead in thick, careful waves. At his temples it had turned a silver grey, just as though he had planned it that way.

At fifty or a little past, Doc Amber was still a remarkably handsome man with a profile that should have been on a coin, with its high forehead, strong lean nose, chiseled lips, and a chin that jutted just right. Only his eyes gave any clue to what really went on inside that handsome head. They were a dark grey, almost black, and they moved around so much that some might have called them restless. I called them shifty because that’s what they were.

“Well,” I said as we stopped at a light. “It’s been a while.”

“Is that what you wanta talk about, old times?”

“Just curious. The last time I heard you were still working the widow lathes down in Miami.”

“I decided to move.”

“L.A.’s your territory now?”

“L.A., Vegas, La Costa — Acapulco now and then.”

“How’d you get together with Jack Marsh?”

He turned to look at me. “That’s it, huh? You wanta tie me in with him.”

“You’re already tied in with him. I just want to know how it happened.”

Amber shrugged. “There was this old broad that I was working down in La Costa. She said she was fifty-five, but Christ, she was sixty-three at least. I thought she was really gone on me, you know how they are, so I moved in for a fast close. I was using the Mexican silver mine.”

“Jesus,” I said, “I didn’t think anybody used that anymore.”

“You’d be surprised. Well, you know how it goes. For a hundred thousand I’d let her in on it although I really shouldn’t because I’d have to cut the Mexican general out.”

“It wheezes,” I said.

“I know. Well, she was all hot for it but she tips it to her brother. The brother hires Jack Marsh and that’s how me and Jack met.”

“He put the chill on, huh?”

“Fast,” Amber said. “I’d never been chilled off anything so quick in my life. That Jack. He was one mean son of a bitch.”

“Then what?”

“Well, I come back to L.A. and I’m sitting around the Polo Lounge with this mark that I’m thinking of trying to work the spud on — you know, the stolen twenty-dollar bill plates.”

“The green goods racket,” I said. “Sweet Christ, that’s got whiskers, too.”

“They all do,” Amber said. “But with a little variation they’re fresh as new paint. Anyway, I’m sitting in the Polo Lounge with this mark and who should waltz in but Jack Marsh. Well, I brush the mark off quick and then Jack comes over and it turns out that he was looking for me on account of he wants to do a little business.”

“What kind?” I said.

Amber turned and looked at me coldly. “That’s where my story ends, St. Ives. Until I hear yours.”

“Mine’s simple,” I said. “A rare old book was stolen in Washington and I signed on as go-between to ransom it back. It didn’t work out that way and I got hit on the head by Jack Marsh and he got killed and whoever was in on it with Marsh made off with the two hundred and fifty thousand bucks plus the old book and the insurance company would sort of like to get them both back, the money and the book.”

This time Amber looked at me with a frown that carved a deep V into his forehead. “Me, huh? You figure it was me who went in with Marsh?”

“You were in on part of it,” I said.

Amber stopped at another light on Wilshire. “Let’s go get a drink,” he said, “and maybe I’ll tell you the rest of it. Providing, of course.”

“Providing what?”

“No cops.”

“All right,” I said. “Providing you didn’t kill too many people, no cops.”

They knew Doc Amber at El Padrino bar in the Beverly-Wilshire where we decided to get a drink. The waiter addressed him by name, solicitously inquired about his health, made sure that we got a good table, and saw to it that the peanuts were fresh. He even got us a couple of drinks, a stinger for Amber and a gin and tonic for me.

“I thought you hung out at the Happy Pelican,” I said.

“The Pelican’s home. This is where I work. Here and the Polo Lounge and a couple of other places.”

“You were all set to tell me what Jack Marsh wanted you for.”

“He wanted a tin mittens to tighten up a mark for a mill’s lock he had set out in Malibu.” Amber grinned and I saw that his teeth were still his own and nicely cared for. “We used to talk like that, you know.”

“Nobody ever talked like that,” I said.

“You’d be surprised. You want me to translate?”

“Marsh wanted you to pose as an outside authority to do some additional convincing on a sure scam that he was working on a mark out in Malibu. Close?”

“Perfect.”

“The mark was Maude Goodwater, right?”

“Right.”

“What was your job?”

“I was the representative of the prospective buyer of that book of hers, the Pliny.”

“How much was your cut?”

“The book was to go for seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars. My cut was to be a finder’s fee of two percent, fifteen thousand.”

“What kind of spiel did you use?”

“I talked English, careful English, like I’d learned it just last week — you know what I mean?”

I nodded.

“Then on top of that I used a lot of jargon that I picked up in a hurry.”

“Where?”

“Where else? The library.”

“So there wasn’t any buyer?”

“Just the one I made up. I made him up to be a funny old bird, a recluse, even an eccentric who couldn’t stand any publicity.”