Ross Thomas: No Questions Asked

“Yes, it probably is. But maybe it will still buy what I need to save my life.”

“Okay, what do you need?”

“First, go to a drugstore and get some aspirin. A lot of aspirin. Next, stop off and get me a quart of black coffee someplace with lots of sugar. Finally, find a liquor store and get a fifth of vodka and some cans of tomato juice.”

“That’s all? Don’t you want something to eat?”

“Just go,” I said. “If you’re back within ten minutes, there’s a slim chance that I might live. But it’s highly doubtful.”

An hour later it was better. The aspirin had relieved any headache. The black coffee had cut through some of the alcoholic fog. And the vodka and tomato juice were patching up my nerve ends. However, there was nothing that I could take for the guilt and remorse that gnawed at me with sharp little bites. Only time would help. A week, a month, or perhaps even a year. After that I could think of Fastnaught lying there dead on the motel room floor and of my scuttling away into the night and instead of sharp black pangs perhaps there would be only a slight involuntary shudder.

I wondered how long it would take for the Los Angeles police to tie me in with Fastnaught. Two phone calls would do it, or if they were unlucky, or tired, or even a little sloppy, it might take three. I decided that I could count on hearing from them by tomorrow or the day after at the latest. By then I might have some answers to the hard questions that they would ask. By then I might even tell them the truth.

I finished the vodka and tomato juice and put the glass on the writing table. Guerriero was sitting in the green chair watching me with a slightly amused expression.

“You’re not going to die after all,” he said.

“The magic elixir worked again.”

“What’s on for today?”

I found the envelope that I had written the name on the night before. The envelope was a little damp. “I’ve got a name and a phone number,” I said. “I’d like to find out something about the name and then maybe I’d like to go see him.”

“Maybe?”

“It depends on who the name turns out to be. If he turns out to be somebody’s long-lost second cousin, we can forget him.”

“What’s the name?”

“Carl Vardaman. One n.”

Guerriero shook his head. “You don’t want to see him.”

“I don’t?”

“I heard about him when I was working in Vegas. They call him Carl the Collector.”

“Is that where he is, Vegas?”

“Sometimes. But most of the time he’s here in L.A. If somebody gets in over a hundred thousand or so and can’t pay, they turn him over to Vardaman. I heard a lot of stories about his collection methods. Nasty stories mostly.”

“Broken legs, arms, things like that?”

Guerriero shook his head again. “That’s old stuff. Vardaman’s methods are more refined. The first thing he does is make whoever he’s trying to collect from take out a life insurance policy for twice as much as they owe in Vegas. Vardaman sometimes even advances the first quarterly premium. The beneficiary, of course, is Vardaman. From what I understand, the realization that you’re worth more dead than alive is a hell of an incentive to go out and scratch up the money. So far, I’ve never heard of Vardaman collecting on any of the policies. But he probably will one of these days — just for the publicity value.”

“What else does he do — or does he?” I said.

“He’s a speculator, from what I hear. Land, gold, commodities, anything that’s fast and profitable. I think he’s got an office in Beverly Hills someplace. Carl Vardaman Enterprises.”

I took the telephone book out of the writing desk and looked under the Vs. Vardaman’s office was on Wilshire Boulevard. I wrote the address down and handed it to Guerriero. “Let’s go,” I said.

Guerriero shook his head. “You certainly run with a funny, crowd,” he said.

“I’m in a funny business.”

Vardaman’s office was on the ninth floor of one of those black glass office buildings on Wilshire just before it runs into Santa Monica Boulevard. The name on the dark wood door said Carl Vardaman Enterprises. It didn’t say Walk In, but I did anyhow.

A woman of about thirty with long black hair looked up from the desk where she was working on a crossword puzzle. She looked me over with large blue eyes that had dark circles under them. Then she gave me a bored half smile and said, “May I help you?”

“I need to see Vardaman,” I said.

“Do you have an appointment?”

“No. I just found out about it.”

Some of her boredom went away. I might be a puzzle. She seemed to like puzzles. “About what?”

“The mixup.”

She frowned. “We could go on like this all day. What mixup?”

I sighed. I made it a long, heavy one, full of exasperation. “The mixup in the Marsh policy. You do know about the policy, don’t you — on Jack Marsh?”

It was all I had to go on and I wasn’t at all sure where it would lead, if anywhere. She frowned again. “I thought that was all—” She stopped. “Have you got a name?”

“St. Ives,” I said. “Philip St. Ives.”

“And you’re with—”

I didn’t finish her sentence for her the way that she seemed to want me to. I smiled at her instead. I tried to make it warm and friendly and even engaging.

“I think you’d better tell him I’m here.”

She frowned again and picked up the phone. “A Philip St. Ives is here,” she said. “He says it’s something to do with a policy on Jack Marsh.” She listened for a moment and then said, “Yes... yes... I see. All right.” Then she hung up the phone and looked at me again. “If you’d like to wait, Mr. Vardaman will see you in a few minutes.”

“Fine,” I said and sat down in a chrome and leather chair and took out a cigarette. I smoked that one and then I smoked another one. The brunette kept busy with her crossword puzzle. Twice, she resorted to a paperback dictionary for help. Nobody came and nobody left. The phone didn’t ring. Carl Vardaman Enterprises seemed to be having a slow day.

I was debating about whether to light a third cigarette when the inner door opened and a man came out and stood there looking at me with the expression of someone who has just discovered ants in the sugar. He wasn’t particularly tall, yet he was thick — all of him. He stared at me and then he frowned and the frown made deep horizontal wrinkles across his tanned forehead.

“You,” he said, “smart-ass. In here.” He jerked a thumb over his shoulder and disappeared through the door. I got up and started after him.

“Is that Vardaman?” I said to the brunette.

“Himself,” she said.

On the other side of the door that Vardaman had gone through was a short carpeted hall with three other doors leading off of it. I went through the door that was open. Vardaman was standing behind his desk next to a high-backed swivel chair.

“Close the door,” he said.

I went back and closed the door.

“Sit down.”

I sat down.

“I don’t know what you know about me,” he said.

“Very little.”

“Let me talk, will you. When I want you to talk, I’ll tell you. It took me two calls to find out all I want to know about you. That’s all. Two calls. One to Vegas, then one to New York. Just two calls and I got your whole life history. You’re very small beans, aren’t you?”

“Very small,” I said.

He sat down in his chair and moved a piece of paper on his desk. His hands were thick and covered with dark hair that ran from the backs of his fingers up to the heavy wrists that were exposed where the sleeves of his brown suede shirt jacket had been carefully turned back just once. Underneath the jacket he wore a pale tan shirt with a long collar. It was open not only at the throat but also halfway down his chest where another patch of dark hair grew.