Ross Thomas - No Questions Asked

“And she bought it?”

Doc Amber almost looked hurt, as though I had questioned his professional integrity, which, in a sense, I suppose I had. “Whaddya mean did she buy it?” he said. “She woulda put up the finder’s fee in advance, if it hadn’t been for Jack Marsh. Hell, I could’ve walked out of there with fifteen thou in my pocket and no questions asked.”

“Sorry, Doc,” I said. “I forgot how good you are.”

“I sure didn’t get no fifteen thou, I’ll tell you.”

“How much did you get?”

“Outa Marsh? Well, good old Jack Marsh was gonna pay me a grand for my afternoon’s performance. The only trouble was that Jack couldn’t come up with the whole grand until his own scam peeled out for him.”

“So how much did you squeeze out of him?”

Doc Amber looked around the room to make sure that nobody was listening. Nobody was. He leaned toward me and whispered fiercely, “Now, goddamn it, St. Ives, you gotta swear you’ll never tell nobody this.”

I crossed my heart. “I swear.”

“Two hundred bucks,” he said bitterly and shook his head. “Two hundred lousy bucks. Can you believe it?”

“What I find hard to believe, Doc, is that you didn’t try to cut yourself in somehow on the big score that Marsh was setting up. You must have known it was big.”

“Did you know him? I mean did you ever do a deal with Marsh or have him come down hard on you?”

“We only met once and briefly. He just had time to half cave in the side of my head.”

“Yeah, well, that’s what I mean. You don’t fuck with people like Jack Marsh. Not if you want to keep on walking around and talking with all your teeth. He was one mean son of a bitch.”

“So he didn’t tell you what he was up to?”

“Why should he?”

“And you didn’t ask?”

“I knew better than that.”

“So what did you guess? As I recall, you’re a pretty good guesser, Doc.”

“Well, there’s one thing I didn’t have to guess. I just knew. I mean, if you’ve been doing what I do for as long as I’ve been doing it, then you can almost smell how bad people need money. I said need, not want. Jack Marsh needed money bad. Real bad.”

“You got any idea about what he needed it for?”

Amber shook his head. “I got no idea. But I am pretty sure of one other thing.”

“What?”

“You say Jack Marsh was teamed up with somebody else on this book thing?”

“That’s right.”

“Then it’s a cinch bet that whoever it was needed money just as bad as Marsh did.”

“Maybe even worse,” I said.

“That’s right,” Doc Amber said. “Maybe even worse.”

I got back to the Riverside motel at eleven and I was brushing my teeth at eleven-fifteen when the phone rang. I put down my toothbrush, went into the bedroom, picked up the phone and said hello.

“That lawyer of yours. He doesn’t much like to be woke up at two in the morning, which is what it is back east.” The voice was a little slurred, but not too much. I didn’t have any trouble recognizing it.

“How are you, Fastnaught?” I said.

“Not too bad, good buddy. Not too bad at all.”

“Sounds like you’re having a party. All by yourself.”

“A little celebration, St. Ives. Just a little celebration.”

“What’s the occasion — or is there one?”

“You know what I told you back in Washington?”

“You told me a lot of things back in Washington.”

“Yeah, but the most important thing I told you was that I was gonna call you and that’s what I’m doing. I called you in New York but you didn’t answer.”

“Shame on me.”

“That’s because you were out here. I mean, that’s why you didn’t answer in New York.”

“I think I can follow that.”

“So I called your lawyer in Connecticut and—” Fastnaught chuckled. “He sure as hell didn’t like being got out of bed at two o’clock in the morning. That’s what it is back east, you know. There’s a time difference. Three hours.”

“I thought it was two.”

“Nah, it’s three. So this lawyer of yours — Myron Greene — he’s a Jew, ain’t he?”

“You want me to ask him?”

“Anyway this Jew lawyer of yours, and that’s what I’d get if I needed a lawyer, a smart Jew one—”

“His name used to be O’Malley, but he changed it.”

“Hah, hah. Well, anyway he told me where you were out here so I thought I’d call you up and let you know, just like I promised.”

“Know what?”

“I got it wrapped, St. Ives. I got it wrapped with a big blue ribbon. And tomorrow morning I’m gonna go down and see this buddy of mine in the LAPD and we’re gonna get us a warrant and then we’re gonna go over and make us a bust.”

“Who?”

“Who what?”

I think I bit my lip. Or maybe I just ground my teeth. “Who are you going to bust?”

“Well, now, that’s what I was sorta planning on telling you when you got over here.”

“Over where?”

“Where I’m at. I thought you’d come over here and we’d have a couple of belts and then I’d tell you how I done it and then I’d get to see the look on your face. That’s what I’m looking forward to — the look on your face.”

“Incredulity mixed with awe.”

“Huh?”

“Nothing. Why don’t you just tell me over the phone?”

“Nah. Huh-uh. That wouldn’t be any fun. That way we couldn’t do any celebrating. But I’ll tell you what I’ll do.”

“What?”

“I’ll give you a hint — a bit fat hint — and then by the time you get over here, if you’re half as smart as you seem to think you are — maybe you’ll have it all figured out just like I do. You sort of think you’re a pretty smart son of a bitch, don’t you, St. Ives?”

“Brilliant, really.”

“Yeah, well, see how brilliant you are on this little item. Jack Marsh, that guy I shot in Washington. Well, Jack Marsh was worth a hell of a lot more dead than he was alive.”

“That’s it?”

Fastnaught chuckled again. “Yeah, that’s it. It’s a beauty, isn’t it? I mean it’s sort of a puzzle the way I told you, but maybe you can get it worked out by the time you get over here.” He chuckled again. “But you probably won’t so then we can have a couple of short ones and then I’ll get to see the look on your face that I’m looking forward to seeing when I tell you all about it. Okay?”

“Sure,” I said. “Fine.”

“Well, I’ll see you in about fifteen minutes.”

“Fastnaught,” I said.

“Yeah, what?”

“You forgot something.”

“What?”

“You forgot to tell me where you are.”

Fastnaught’s motel was on La Cienega near Rosewood Avenue. I got out the city map that the motel furnished its rooms with and looked it up. It was two miles away from where I was on La Brea. Maybe a little more. I thought about calling Guerriero but it seemed ridiculous to get him out of bed to take me someplace that was just two miles away. If I were in New York, I would have taken a cab or the subway or maybe even a bus. But this was Los Angeles, where there wasn’t any subway and the city buses, from what I had observed, took mysterious routes on a weekly basis. As for cabs, I might get one in fifteen minutes. Or thirty. Or maybe even an hour. There was another possibility, of course. A grim one. I could walk.

After having decided to make the sacrifice I felt that I needed something to quicken my step. I took a large jolt of Scotch right out of the bottle. I had no shame. I patted my pockets to make sure that I had the motel key, closed the door carefully behind me, and started off on what I was sure would turn out to be a fool’s journey.