John Lutz - Buyer beware

After five rings of the bell the door was opened by a very old woman with lank gray hair hanging down onto her forehead. She was thin to the point of being emaciated, and age had bent her and humped her narrow back.

I caught myself staring at her. "Daisy Rogers?"

"That's me," she said brightly.

"The Branlys wanted me to let you know they'd be out of town for a few days." I knew I'd be safe in telling her that, since Carlon had kept David Branly's death out of the Lay ton papers.

She peered at me with lusterless eyes and cocked her head. "The who?"

"The Branlys-David Branly. He gave me your address and phone number. I was going to call you but was near here anyway on business, so I thought I'd relay the message personally."

Daisy Rogers shook her head slowly. She might have been seventy or ninety. "Don't know any Branlys."

I endeavored to look as puzzled as I felt. "Are you sure?… This is your address and phone number, isn't it?" I handed her a piece of paper with the information.

She placed an ancient pair of rimless spectacles, somebody's future heirloom, on the bridge of her nose, moved out closer to the sunlight and concentrated on the paper for almost a full minute. A musty scent wafted out of the house behind her. "Yep. You're at the right place. Maybe these Branlys know my boy Mark."

"Is he home?"

"Should be soon. Why don't you come in? Or you can sit there and wait on the shady end of the porch if you want. Cooler than inside."

I'd decided to wait on the wooden glider suspended on rusty chains from the porch ceiling when Daisy Rogers looked past me and white eyebrows raised on her speckled forehead.

"There's Mark now."

I turned to see a tall, stooped man, bald with a fringe of gray, shuffling toward the porch steps. He was carrying a paper bag, and he looked, if anything, older than his mother.

"Mark, this is Mister…"

"I came with a message from the Branlys," I told him.

"Damn young punk bastards!" he said, wobbling his head as if he hadn't heard.

"The Branlys?" I asked.

"All of 'em! I don't mind their fashions and their alley cat morals, but I don't like to be cheated without 'em botherin' to try to fool me!"

I stood patiently and let him talk, knowing I hadn't made contact.

"Took this new shirt back"-he held up the wrinkled bag-" 'cause it ripped under the arms when I put it on. Young clerk said he couldn't take it back 'cause it was torn. Told him that was why I brung it back! He said he knew the material was weak; that's why the shirt was on sale. Turned his back on me!"

"Keep yourself calm, Mark," his mother put in.

"Did you ever!" he said.

"I ever," I told him. "Do you know Branly?"

He stared at me as if I'd dropped from the porch ceiling. "Don't know any Branlys, didn't I tell you?"

No, sir.

"Offer you a cold beer?"

I declined with thanks.

As I left, he was trying clumsily to light a pipe while discoursing on the advantages of wooden matches over the new paper ones.

In the sun-heated compact I sat for a minute and looked around at the other houses. I had come to the address Carlon had given me, and Daisy Rogers had confirmed the telephone number. It was possible I'd misread one of the numerals scratched in the woodwork by the Star Lane phone. I started the car and drove farther south on Dade Avenue, until it intersected Palm Road.

The air conditioner Carlon had turned on yesterday was still humming its rattling tune, and the air inside the Star Lane house was almost breathable. I shut the door behind me and went directly to the phone and examined the numbers scratched on the underside of the woodwork. They were as clearly legible as I remembered.

A phone directory rested on the crosspiece of the telephone table's wooden leg braces. I reached down for the directory, opened the front cover, then tossed the book onto the red shag carpet. Picking up the telephone by the hand-hold behind the receiver cradle, I brought it down with me as I settled onto the carpet, next to the directory, and leaned my back against the wall. I opened the directory and began going down the line, dialing long-distance area codes, then the number scratched into the woodwork.

As each distant telephone was answered, I would ask for David Branly, then Vic Branly, and I would try to gauge the reaction of whoever was on the other end of the line. What I most often got was a vague puzzlement, sometimes annoyance.

I was beginning to perspire, and my back was aching from leaning against the hardness of the wall. Then finally, after dialing area code 312 and the phone number that was now etched in my memory as deeply as it was in the woodwork, I got the sort of reaction I'd been seeking.

"Dave?…" came the puzzled voice after I'd spoken. "There is no David Branly here…" It was a man's voice, nasal and uncertain.

"What about Vic?" I asked.

"Who is this?"

"A friend of Dave's."

A click and a buzz greeted that statement.

I replaced the receiver in its cradle and waited, watching a fly crawl laboriously up the opposite wall. As if the altitude had become too much for it, the fly began to veer to the right as it neared the ceiling. Something was making a hissing sound in the quiet room-my breathing.

The telephone rang.

On the third ring I picked up the receiver and pressed it to my ear, said nothing.

"Hello, Dave?…" came the same voice that had been on the line a few minutes before. "Vic?…"

Gently I replaced the receiver, picked it up again for a dial tone. Dale Carlon's secretary followed her instructions and rushed through my call to him.

"How long would it take you to get me a name and address for the Daisy Rogers number with a 312 area code?" I asked Carlon. "Probably in Chicago."

"You mean it's not a local number?"

"Not for our purposes. A very old woman and her son live at the Dade address."

"What about the son?"

"He seems older than the mother and has rips in his shirt."

There was little time in Carlon's day for digression. His telephone voice was terse. "I should be able to have that corresponding name and address for you within an hour."

"I'll be waiting at the Star Lane phone," I told him and got off the line so he could get busy.

Sitting on the carpet with my arms crossed on my knees, I wondered if Carlon could do it, if his influence carried that far from Layton.

I got up, stretched, and walked around the cramped, oppressive living room to work the stiffness from my aging bones. The air seemed to get staler, the walls closer together.

An hour and ten minutes had passed when Carlon called back.

The phone number belonged to a man named Roger Horvell, 67 Sirilla Street, in Chicago. I thanked Car-Ion, then punched and freed the cradle button to get a dial tone. After talking to Eastern Airlines in Orlando, I drove to the Clover Inn to pack.

This time Lieutenant Dockard was waiting for me.

Dockard was standing with his foot propped on the dusty front bumper of his unmarked car, parked in front of,my cabin. He smiled as I parked next to him, looking over my rented compact as if pondering whether to get one for himself.

I got out of the car, nodded to him and walked over to where he was standing.

"You and I need to talk," Dockard told me, squinting into the sun behind me but holding his friendly smile.

"We talked a lot yesterday," I said.

Dockard didn't move from his relaxed position, but I could see he was waiting for me to invite him inside, out of the heat. I decided to let the sun work for me and keep the conversation short.

"We need to understand a few things about your working for Dale Carlon," Dockard said, seeing that our talk was going to be brief and getting to the point. "Mr. Carlon has… let's say a habit of stepping outside the rules sometimes and doing things in his own fashion."