Thomas Perry - Dead Aim

“I’m sorry,” he said. “The door was unlocked, and I didn’t think that I would startle you.”

She had restored her composure. “That’s all right, Mr. Mallon,” she said. “But I’m afraid that Miss Fleming isn’t here. She won’t be in today.”

“Do you have a number where I can reach her? It’s very important.”

Sylvia looked past him instead of into his eyes as she said, “I’m afraid I don’t have a number for her yet. She had to leave suddenly, and she hasn’t given me one. But if you’d like to leave her a message, you can either put it on voice mail, or you can leave it with me and I’ll let her know as soon as she calls in.”

His eyes wandered around the room as he composed a sentence that was short enough and clear enough to get to Diane intact. “As soon as she calls in, please let her know that I’ve got to speak with her right away.” His eyes had passed over the office, but now they returned to Sylvia’s desk. There was a box there, the kind of carton that held reams of copying paper, and it sat in the center of the blotter.

“You’re taking the plants home,” he said.

She shrugged uncomfortably, went to her desk, and carefully set the pot in the box. “She said it might be a week or two, so she gave me the time off. It’s not a big practice, and it’s usually not very busy. I’m going to send a note to all the clients today, before I go home.”

Mallon said, “Can I see it?”

She shook her head. “I haven’t written it yet.” She added, “It will say pretty much what I’ve just told you. That’s all I can say. There will be a list of three attorneys who have agreed to stand in for her if any client has anything urgent.”

Mallon tried again. “Is she here, or is she in some other city?”

“She’s out of town.” Sylvia stepped away from her desk and got another plant to put into the box.

“I can’t believe this,” he said. “Is she on a vacation, or sick, or going out of business, or what? I really need to know.”

“Honestly, Mr. Mallon,” said Sylvia, “I have no reason to think anything at all is wrong. She hasn’t said anything like that to me, and I don’t know of any reason to keep it from me. But I know that if you have an urgent need for an attorney, she would never want you to lose anything because of her. I can retain one for you, and Miss Fleming can take over when she returns. I know she had placed Brian Logan on retainer for you. Let me get you his number.”

Mallon wanted to protest, to tell her the solution she was offering had nothing to do with the problem, but he could see it was pointless. He waited while she looked in her Rolodex, scribbled the number down, and handed it to him. “Thank you.” He managed a faint smile that lasted only a second, then turned and left the office.

As Mallon walked toward the parking structure on Anacapa where he had left his car, he felt more and more uncomfortable. He stopped and turned around, then walked to State Street. He stopped at one of the banks where he had an account and withdrew five thousand dollars in cash. The hundred-dollar bills made a big, satisfying lump in the envelope in his inner jacket pocket. He was not sure that he understood his reasons for wanting the money, but this morning as he’d gone from the hotel to Diane’s office and out again, the town had begun to seem smaller. It was a narrow place sloping down to the edge of the vast, empty ocean on one side and hemmed in by a wall of mountains on the other. The money made him feel as though he were ready to leave instantly if he wanted, and that seemed to help.

He went back to the hotel where he had spent the night, and checked out. Then he drove home, went into the kitchen, and checked the answering machine beside the telephone. There were no messages.

His confusion about Diane was growing. Was he becoming suspicious of everyone? He had retained Diane a few years ago, right after she had come to Santa Barbara from an enormous law firm in Los Angeles. She had been young but seemed a little tired, as though she had burned herself out, and that had endeared her to him. He had already found that his retirement did not, as he had hoped, allow him to dispense entirely with lawyers, and she was smart and inoffensive. His requirements for legal services had been small and intermittent: he needed a local tax attorney to be sure that he stayed out of trouble with the I.R.S. and to handle the certifications and agreements that were occasionally necessary to the financial management of a fortune.

He made an effort to think clearly about Diane. Taking off like this without warning, without revealing a destination, and without even a prediction as to when she might return seemed strange. What could be said in her favor was that she had provided for professional services for her clients. But what he needed was not her professional services. She was simply the only one who knew everything he knew, and he wanted to verify that he could reach her if he needed to.

He had a very strong feeling that she would call him. He stared at the telephone for a few minutes, then played back the messages he had already heard to be sure he had not missed her voice. He made breakfast, washed his dishes, and did his laundry, always staying where he could reach the telephone quickly. When afternoon came, he called Diane’s office again to see whether Sylvia had left yet, but wasn’t surprised when the telephone wasn’t answered.

Late in the afternoon, Mallon’s phone rang. He picked it up, his ear tuned for the high pitch of Diane’s voice. It was a woman’s voice, but a different one. “Robert?”

“Yes?”

“Robert, this is Laura Amester at Wells Fargo Private Banking.”

“Hi,” Mallon said, manufacturing a convincing imitation of patience and calm. “How are you?” Laura was the administrator in San Francisco who controlled his investment accounts at Wells Fargo.

“Well,” she said quietly, “I guess that was what I was calling you to ask.”

Mallon had begun to dread this conversation as soon as he had recognized her voice. Laura sometimes called to plumb Mallon’s deepest feelings about some prospective investment decision, and Mallon had no feelings about investment decisions. But this was not how those conversations usually began. He said, “I don’t understand.”

“I just got your order to liquidate about twenty minutes ago. To tell you the truth, it took me a few minutes to recover from the shock, collect myself, and decide to ask you why. You hadn’t said that there was something that you were dissatisfied with. I wondered what-”

“Hold it,” he interrupted. “I haven’t sent you any order to do anything.”

“But… are you sure?”

“I could hardly forget something like that. What does this order say?”

“It says we’re to sell all of your holdings and wire the money to your account at Moncrief and Tydings. It’s signed by your attorney, Diane Fleming. I tried to reach her first, but I missed her, I guess.”

“You haven’t sold anything yet, have you?”

“No. The markets were already closed for the day when we got this.”

“Then don’t. Don’t do anything,” he said. “Let me make this absolutely clear. I didn’t approve this. I didn’t even know about it. She never had my permission to make any decisions, or to send you anything without my seeing it. I don’t know if she was even the one who did this, but don’t pay any attention to it. I want my investments left where they are. This seems to be some kind of fraud.”

“I’m amazed,” said Laura. “This is one of those times when I’m glad I called before I did anything.”

“What do I do now, to be sure something else like this doesn’t happen?”

“I can guarantee it won’t now that we’ve talked. The next thing I’m going to do is turn on the recorder.” There was a pause.