Тэлмидж Пауэлл: The Girl’s Number Doesn’t Answer

She sat down with her legs stretched before her. They were slim, lithe, deeply tanned.

“My father hire you?”

“No.”

“Of course you’d say that.”

“Any reason why he should?”

“Me,” she said.

“Really?”

“I’m a bad one.” She grinned. “Sure he didn’t retain you to keep me out of trouble?”

“Positive. Have you ever been in trouble before?”

“No. I’m careful.”

“I guess that pays.”

She motioned toward a chair. “Why don’t you sit down? I won’t bite.”

“I came to see your father,” I reminded her.

“He’s probably knocked himself out with a double dose of Seconal. Do you take sleeping pills?”

“I’m afraid it’s a modern habit I’ve not adopted.”

“Shake, pal. It means you don’t give a damn.”

“That one curved right out of my mitt,” I said.

She shrugged. “It’s just people who give a damn who can’t sleep.”

“Rachie,” I said, “you’ve been reading too many books. You’ve got a corkscrew in your thinking.”

“Really?” she smiled. “I’d like to hear your views sometime.”

“I’m afraid they’d be a little old-fashioned for you.”

“How nice!” she said with animation. “A virtuous American! A big, ugly, virtuous American male! I’ll bet you stand at attention when the flag goes by.”

“I manage to get my hat off,” I said. “If you’ll tell your father I want to get in touch with him...”

“Why?” Cameron demanded.

I turned, and he was standing in the doorway behind me. The bigness of him was clothed in the finest slacks and sport shirt. The shirt was open at the throat. His iron-gray hair was still damp from his shower. He tried to look solidly commanding. He couldn’t quite pull the tired edges together.

I introduced myself, pulled out my wallet, and showed him the photostat of my license, as his strap sandals padded into the playroom.

“I can’t imagine what business you have here, Mr. Rivers.”

“I’m working on the Yamashita case.”

“Oh? In what capacity?”

“I’ve been retained by the man the police have in custody.”

“I should think you’d be ashamed to take his money,” he said, “but I suppose to a man like you a job is a job.”

“You can suppose anything you like. It’s your privilege.”

“If you feel you have to go through the motions,” he said, “you may report to your employer that you made a call here. Good night, Mr. Rivers.”

“I think you’d better get one thing straight. I never make motions for their own sake.”

“I see.” A glint of caution came to his gray eyes. He turned brusquely and made deliberate movements to the bar. He poured himself a stiff hooker of whisky.

Rachie stretched and said, “Pour a drink for me, Papa.” She broke the final word in two, pronouncing it as I understand the French do.

“You drink too much,” he told her. “I want you to go to your room.”

“I prefer not to,” she said with a hateful simplicity.

As they faced each other, the room was tainted with a sense of old battles, many battles. Their wills wrestled for a moment. Then Cameron tossed off his drink angrily.

“Well,” he shouted at me, “don’t stand there like the caricature of a phlegmatic Buddha! The door’s open and waiting for you.”

“Thanks,” I said. “But I came hoping to learn something about the Yamashitas, not witness a man’s defeat by an incorrigible daughter.”

“Bravo, ugly man!” Rachie said with a little pip of delighted laughter.

Cameron turned deep red. Clear across the room I could hear him pulling in his breath.

“Whoever you are, Rivers, I don’t like you.”

“I’m sorry.”

“My first disappointment in you,” Rachie said. “An apology from the ugly man. You’re trying to butter him up.”

“Keep out of this,” Cameron said to her.

“Papa, I shall say whatever I damn well—”

“You heard him,” I said.

Her eyes caught mine. I felt my nostrils flare. She didn’t curl herself in the chair, but she gave that impression. “Yes, sir,” she said.

I turned my attention to Victor Cameron. “You certainly can’t mind a few questions about the Yamashitas.”

“I can, and do.”

“I don’t mind,” Rachie said.

The old lion’s tail had been twisted until the spirit had been milked out of him. As Cameron looked at his daughter, at the twisted excitement and pleasure in her, I could feel the gray shadows closing over his spirit.

Cameron made a motion with his hand. I followed him out of the playroom.

We moved down a hallway for a short distance and turned into a study furnished with leather and walnut.

He closed the door, crossed to the walnut desk, and sat down in a leather chair.

“I can’t see what you possibly hope to gain by this, Rivers.”

“Information.”

“The police have information. I suggest you see them.”

“I have. I’ve read the papers, too.”

“Then why me?”

“Because you knew them, the Yamashitas, better than anyone else.”

“I’ve told the police everything I know.”

“You’ve answered their questions,” I agreed. “Questions based on the belief that Nick Martin is the guilty man. I don’t share the belief. Somewhere there is a man or woman who murdered three people and left an innocent man to pay for the crime. I don’t want to go after a person so violent and desperate. I’m afraid of such a person. I didn’t ask for the job, any more than Nick Martin chose his role. The job caved in on me and trapped me in the bloody debris. So you see, Cameron, this unknown person and I are linked by the common bond of desperation and fear. There’s just one way for me to cut the link. And when I find him or her, I’ll know the kind of person I’m dealing with.”

Light from the desk lamp caught in his eyes. It hardened their grayness and deepened the already deep sockets. “You’re crazy, you know.”

“If you mean I don’t share some of your values, you’re right.”

“What is Nick Martin to you?”

“He’s my friend.”

“And what is a friend? They come into your house, they drink your liquor, they go away again. Shadows.”

“I won’t argue. I just want information.”

“You spoke of there being only one way out for you,” he said. “There is another. Surely you’ve thought of it. I don’t know why you believe in Martin’s innocence. I don’t care. I know that a sensible man would see his proper course of conduct and leave police matters to the police.”

“That would be a very agreeable line of thought,” I said, “if I could string it through my head.”

“You’d forget Nick Martin. You’d know you were not to blame.”

“That’s a respectable way of looking at it,” I said.

“Of course it is. I know what I’m talking about.”

“Are you buying, Cameron?”

“You must have a price. Nick Martin bought,” Cameron said. “He couldn’t have paid much, a broken-down war vet living on pension checks.”

I put my knuckles on the edge of his desk and forced them to stay there. I leaned toward him and smiled. “Why do you want to buy me, Cameron?”

His eyes lost some of their age. “I don’t,” he said. “It was your suggestion.”

“You would have paid.”

“The guilty man is in jail,” he said. “I don’t know what your game is, but it’s obvious you’re up to something devious and dirty in the hopes of making some money. Certainly I’d have paid — and then promptly had you jailed for extortion.”

He got up, came around the desk, crossed the thick carpeting of the study, and opened the door.