Parnell Hall: The Underground Man

“Whereas?” Steve said.

“Whereas, if you cooperate with me, I could make it worth your while.”

“Oh?”

“Yes. You have to understand. I’m his heir. We all are. We’re blood relations. When he dies, his money goes to us.”

“It does?”

“Yes, it does. In equal portions, share and share alike. I’ve seen the will.”

“I see,” Steve said.

“I’m sure you do,” Jenson said. “But that’s just the thing. Uncle Jack’s lost his marbles. He’s not responsible for his actions and he might do anything. You see the situation. Now he’s consulted a lawyer, and of course that worries me. What if he should try to change his will? He can’t, of course, because he’s not legally competent, but what if he tries? What if he decides to disinherit all of us, and leave the whole shooting match to some wino he met on the subway?”

“What if he did?”

“Well, I don’t think you’d want to be in the position of helping a man who didn’t know what he was doing throw away his money by doing something idiotic.”

“I see.”

“So I’m asking you point blank. Did Uncle Jack consult you about his will?”

Steve shook his head. “You’re inquiring into matters which I’m not at liberty to discuss.”

Jenson’s jaw dropped open. “Are you kidding me?”

“No, I’m not.”

Jenson got to his feet. “I don’t believe this,” he said. “After all I told you. I mean, you sent your secretary out of the room so we could talk man to man. I thought you understood the situation, then you make me an answer like that.” Jenson shook his head. His face was flushed. “Some attorney,” he said. “What did he promise you? A hundred grand? Two hundred? It doesn’t matter, ’cause you aren’t going to see a penny.” Jenson drew himself up and glared at Winslow. “What a fucking disgrace,” he said. “A man’s trying to defraud his family out of millions, but you can’t discuss it. Probably even think you’re gonna help him do it. Well, fat chance. I’d like to see you try to collect your fee.”

Jenson turned and stalked out, slamming the door behind him.

Tracy Garvin stuck her head in the door.

“Well?” Steve said.

“That man is definitely pissed off.”

“No, no,” Steve said. “I mean-”

Tracy held up her hands. “Relax. Mark Taylor’s men picked him up. They’ll follow him until further notice.”

Steve exhaled and his features relaxed. He smiled. “Nice work.”

“Just routine.”

“Yeah, as if we had a routine. How’d you work it out?”

“Nothing to it,” Tracy said. “We have no Halsburg case. No surprise there. We have no cases at all. Any name you picked would do. So you had to be trying to tell me to get a message to Mark Taylor without tipping off Jenson. The only thing I could think of was you wanted to have him followed, or you wanted him thrown out of your office. I couldn’t really see you calling in detectives to give the guy the bum’s rush-not at that point, anyway-so I figured you must want him tailed.”

“You figured right.”

“Why?”

“’Cause I think I made a bad mistake, and I want to try to make up for it.”

Tracy frowned. “What do you mean, a bad mistake?”

Steve rubbed his head. “Tell you what. There’s no point my going through this whole thing twice. Why don’t you give Mark Taylor a ring, tell him to drop down here. I need to fill him in anyway.”

“Sure,” Tracy said. She went in the outer office to make the call.

Steve Winslow leaned back in his chair and rubbed his head again. Jesus Christ. Once, just once, it would be nice to have a client come in, tell him the facts and retain him in the case. Just once it would be nice to approach a case from the point of view of knowing what the hell was going on.

Steve chuckled. No, it probably wouldn’t. A case like that would probably be boring as hell.

The door opened and Tracy Garvin ushered Mark Taylor into the room.

Taylor said, “Hi, Steve,” and flopped his two hundred and twenty pounds into the clients’ chair. Taylor was Steve’s age, in fact had been his roommate at college. He had been an exceptional linebacker with pro aspirations, before an injury had ended the dream. Instead he ran the Taylor Detective Agency, and had offices in Steve’s building. Or rather, Steve had offices in his building. The Taylor Detective Agency had been there for years. When Steve had finally scraped up enough money to set up a practice, Mark Taylor had put in a word with the super to get Steve in.

“Hi, Mark. You pick him up?”

“Oh, yeah. He’s covered. I got a man on him, and he’ll stick like glue, if that’s what you want.”

“That’s what I want.”

“That’s what I figured. Of course, I couldn’t be sure.” Taylor grinned, jerked his finger at Tracy Garvin. “Tracy here calls me up, says, ‘I think Steve wants someone followed.’”

“That’s not what I said,” Tracy protested.

“Maybe not in those words,” Taylor said, “but that’s the gist of it. Anyway, she gives me a rundown of what happened, says she figures that means you want this guy tailed. The way she tells it, I figure you do too. But I’m a nice guy, and I don’t want Tracy out on a limb taking the responsibility on herself, so I gave her the chance of a lifetime, Taylor special, money-back guaranteed surveillance.”

Steve grinned. “What the hell is that?”

“I told her I’d follow the guy, and if it turned out that wasn’t what you wanted, there’s no charge.”

“It’s what I wanted.”

“Good. Then I’ll bill you. So what’s the scoop? Why am I tailing this guy?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well, that’s helpful. Glad you called me down here. Otherwise, I’d be working in the dark.”

“Yeah, well that’s the problem,” Steve said. “In this case, we’re working in the dark.”

“You got a client?”

“In a way.”

“Oh, great. I can’t wait to find out what way that is.” Taylor turned to Tracy. “Is he putting me on?”

“No.”

“All right, Steve, what’s the pitch? What do you mean, in a way? You got a client or not?”

Steve shrugged. “That’s open to interpretation. More to the point, no client asked me to tail Jenson. I did that on my own initiative.”

“Is Jenson the client?”

“No.”

“Then who is?”

Steve rubbed his head. “O.K. Let me give you a brief rundown. This morning an old ragged man off the street comes into my office and asks me a whole bunch of questions about probate law.”

Mark Taylor started at him. “What?”

“That’s right.”

“A street bum?”

“One of the homeless. And he doesn’t tell me his problems, like you’d expect a guy like that to do. No names, no specifics. No, the guy just wants to discuss abstract points of law.”

“A homeless guy?”

“Yeah. He asks me a whole bunch of questions and I answer them. He still doesn’t say why he wants to know. Then he gets up, throws two hundred bucks on my desk, and walks out.”

Taylor’s jaw dropped open. “A homeless guy paid you two hundred bucks?”

Steve grinned, put up his hands. “Hang on. You ain’t heard nothing yet. This afternoon another man comes into my office. Carl Jenson. The person your men are tailing. Tells me the street guy’s his uncle-his great uncle actually. And get this-he tells me this uncle’s an eccentric multimillionaire who’s lost his marbles, sold his house out from under him, and went to live with the homeless on the subway.”

Taylor blinked. “You’re kidding.”

“Not at all. Jenson’s argument is his uncle’s mentally incompetent, so anything I do for him won’t be legally binding. His pitch is, if I throw in with him against his uncle and help him get his hands on the money, he’ll pay me a whopping big fee.”