Ross Thomas: No Questions Asked

“I’ve got it,” I said.

The phone went dead. I hung it up and turned toward Spivey. “The Santa Monica pier at three A.M.” I said. “I lower a fishing line over the end and bring up the book. Then I lower the money. It’s nice.”

“Where does that leave you?” he said.

“You mean how am I going to be able to cross them?”

“Uh-huh.”

“I don’t know yet. I probably won’t know until I’m in the middle of it.”

“What if you can’t?”

“Well, if I can’t, I can’t. And then you’ll be out another hundred thousand, but you’ll have the book back, and I won’t make as much money as I’d hoped I would.”

“One other thing,” Spivey said.

“What?”

“What if they decide to cross you again?”

“That thought occurred to me.”

“And?”

“If they try a cross, I’ll put contingency plan number two-A into operation.”

“What’s that?”

“I don’t know yet,” I said.

Guerriero didn’t show up until six o’clock. He came in carrying a brown paper sack.

“Did you get it?” I said.

He nodded. “I had to go see a couple of people, but I got it.” He handed me the paper sack. I opened the sack and took out a .38 Colt. It looked like a Detective Special. I made sure that it was loaded and then put it on the bedside table.

“Well, what did you decide?” I said.

“Tell me again how much,” he said. “That’s the only part that I like so far.”

“Five thousand dollars,” I said.

“That’s a lot of money.”

“It is indeed.”

“It would pay for a year’s tuition.”

“It would pay for a lot of things. Well?”

“I’ve been trying to rationalize it.”

“And?”

“Well, I think I’ve come up with something.”

“What?”

“If I did it and you paid me five thousand, and I spent it on tuition, then I’d sort of be working my way through college, wouldn’t I?”

“Sure you would,” I said.

I rented a car from the Hertz people. I rented a big Ford LTD because I have this theory that before long all that they will be renting are Honda Civics, and that by renting a big Ford I was actually doing research into what will soon become the nation’s past.

The Ford had power everything and after Guerriero dropped me off at the Hertz place I drove around a while, running the windows up and down, adjusting the seat, and playing with the button that locked the doors. The Ford also had a lot of scat to it and on a quiet street where there didn’t seem to be any kids or cops I jammed the accelerator down to the floor. The Ford took off with a whoosh and by the time I had reached the end of the block I was doing an effortless seventy.

Back at the motel I found Maude Goodwater’s number and dialed it. When she answered on the third ring, I said, “This is Philip St. Ives. You mentioned that we might have dinner sometime. I was wondering if you could make it tonight?”

“Well, I’m not quite sure—”

“There’s been a new ransom demand for the book and the insurance company has agreed to pay it. In fact, there’s a chance that I might get the book back tonight, but I have to eat first. Why don’t you join me?”

There was a silence. Finally she said, “It’s — well, it’s such a surprise, I mean about the book, I don’t know quite what to say.”

“Say you’ll have dinner with me.”

“I’d already decided to do that. The reason I said I wasn’t sure is because I meant I wasn’t sure what I could feed you.”

“I was sort of planning on us going out.”

“I wouldn’t hear of it.” she said. “When I mentioned something about dinner, I meant dinner here. Do you like lamb chops?”

“Very much.”

“Lamb chops it’ll be. Seven or seven-thirty?”

“Fine.”

“I’m dying to hear about the book, but I’ll make myself wait until you get here. My God, I’m excited! I didn’t realize I was so caught up in this thing.”

“I haven’t got it back yet.”

“Don’t tell me any more. You can tell me all about it when you get here.”

“Okay,” I said. “It’ll be about seven-thirty.”

We said good-bye and I hung up the phone and found the L.A. map and studied it until I was pretty sure that I could get to the Santa Monica pier without getting lost. I reached under the pillow and took out the .38 and put it in my jacket pocket. I picked up the cheap attaché case and glanced around the room to see if there was anything that I had forgotten. There didn’t seem to be so I went out to the Ford and locked the attaché case in the trunk.

I took Wilshire out to San Vicente and followed that until I found a hardware store. I went in and bought a length of fishing line and a flashlight. Next door was a liquor store so, remembering my manners, I bought a bottle of red wine and, a couple of doors down, a bunch of flowers.

Back in the Ford, I headed west on San Vicente. Under the coral trees that grew along the strip that divided the boulevard, some serious-faced joggers, hard breathers all, plugged along in their slow and solitary race toward better health.

When San Vicente ended at Ocean Avenue I turned left and drove until I came to Colorado Avenue. I turned right and went up over a viaduct that had a 10 m.p.h. sign on it. On the other side of the viaduct was the broad Santa Monica pier that seemed to stretch a half mile or so out into the ocean.

On the pier I drove slowly past the old merry-go-round, which seemed strangely familiar to me until I remembered that it was the one that had been used in The Sting , although the film was supposedly laid in Chicago. Past the merry-go-round on the pier’s left-hand side was a series of hamburger and hot dog stands, a shooting gallery, some souvenir shops, a fishmonger, and maybe a double handful of strollers, mostly young, who wandered up and down in search of amusement.

When I got to Moby’s Dock, which turned out to be a modest-looking restaurant and bar, I stopped the car next to a No Parking sign and got out. I crossed the pier and, starting at the west edge of Moby’s Dock, began walking toward the end of the pier, counting my paces. When I got to ninety-nine I stopped.

The pier’s grey metal railing jutted out in a shallow U-shape to form a railed-in area. It was about wide enough and deep enough for four people to stand in. An elderly black man was standing in it, a fishing pole in his hand, a look of patience on his face.

I moved up next to the black man and peered over the railing. The sea, a soiled grey, lapped at the wooden pilings about thirty feet below. As I turned to go the black man nodded to me. “Catch anything?” I said.

“Just fishin’,” he said and grinned. I grinned back and returned to the Ford. I drove on down the pier until it ended at a group of small buildings that housed a bait shop and the pier’s maintenance office. There was a turn-around place that I used, and started driving slowly back toward the beginning of the pier.

When I got to the railed-in enclosure that jutted out from the edge of the pier, the old black man was putting some fresh bait on his hook. He looked up and saw me and gave me a wry smile. I waved at him and drove on, looking carefully at all the nooks and crannies and doorways and recesses that, once it grew dark, somebody could hide in. There were a lot of them.

I left the pier thinking that I didn’t much like what I had seen. I didn’t like it because it had no emergency exit. There was only one way on and one way off and there were too many places that somebody with a gun or a knife or just a very large rock could hide. From the point of view of whoever had the stolen book the pier was perfect. From my point of view it was awful.