Gene Wolfe - Free Live Free

“Just a guess.”

“All right, how’d you guess?”

“You said I knew him. I know a lot of characters around town, but you know most of them yourself, and you’ve got guys on the payroll who know them too, so it wasn’t one of those. That left people I knew way back and people I know now in my private life. Somebody who knew the guy way back isn’t worth three hundred a day—the odds against his having anything worthwhile are terrific. That left my private life. Most of the people I know like that are women, but you indicated this was a man, you said him. And you’ve been here in the hotel for a while, you said, trying to get hold of me, but I haven’t seen anything in the paper. So it was probably today, and I asked myself about men I know, privately, that I haven’t seen in the last eight or ten hours.”

Cliff snorted. “And he was the only one? Horseshit.”

“No, he wasn’t the only one, just the one that seemed like the best bet. I didn’t think anybody with big money would be interested in any of the others, so—”

The door to a bedroom opened, and a delicate-looking blond stepped out. As well as Stubb could judge, she was five-two or five-three in her heels. She carried a purse nearly as big as a hatbox, and she had been outfitted by somebody who got a thousand dollars for a cute little blouse to wear shopping.

“I’m terribly sorry, Mr. Rebic,” she said. “But I really think it’s time you introduced me.”

“You’re the boss, Ms. Whitten. Jim, this is—”

She did not give him time to finish. “My name is Standbridge Whitten, Mr. Stubb. Since my friends obviously can’t call me Standbridge, they call me Kip. I can’t imagine why, but I rather like it.”

She extended her hand, and Stubb rose and took it.

“I’m Mr. Rebic’s client. Isn’t that what you call it? Client?”

“Sure,” Stubb said. “Lucky Mr. Rebic.”

“Earlier, you asked to be … briefed? I was eavesdropping quite shamelessly; Mr. Rebic put me up to it. He refused to brief you because I had told him I wished to speak personally with each of the men who would help me find my uncle’s—”

“Ben was your uncle?”

“Yes. I’ll explain in a moment. You see, I feel that even if a man—or a woman—is a professional, he can feel, he is capable of feeling, a real loyalty. If not to his employer then to the cause of justice. To the right, if I may put it so. Don’t you agree, Mr. Stubb?”

“Call me Jim, Ms. Whitten.”

“Only if you’ll promise to call me Kip. My father, the late General Samuel Whitten, always said the most loyal soldiers were the career soldiers, those who were practically mercenaries. His men called him ‘Buck’ Whitten, though not to his face to be sure. He liked to believe it was because he had never lost his rapport with the rank and file. Do you consider yourself a mercenary, Mr. Stubb?”

“I consider myself a day laborer, Kip. Did Ben have money?”

Cliff raised a hand. “Wait a minute, Jim. A briefing’s okay, but you ought to answer a few questions yourself. Was it your impression he did?”

Stubb shook his head. “Not a cent.”

The blond girl’s fingers touched his. “Are you quite sure, Jim?”

“His house was falling apart, and he loved that house. A couple of times I tried to raid his refrigerator, but there wasn’t a damn thing to eat. Every once in a while one of us would feel sorry for him and buy him something.”

“You lived with my uncle?”

“For a few days,” Stubb said. “Yeah.”

“Did he ever speak to you of having—I don’t know, it could be anything. Something valuable. Something hidden.” She pressed his hand.

“He was your uncle, and you don’t know what he had?”

Cliff said, “Watch your mouth, Jim.”

“That’s all right, Mr. Rebic—perfectly all right. He has a right to ask these questions, a right to understand. No, Mr. Stubb—Jim—I don’t know. Only Daddy knew, and he’s no longer with us.”

“I think you’d better explain,” Stubb told her.

“I’ll try to. Many years ago, when they were quite young men, my uncle chose to leave our family. To go off on his own, as it were. He was under something of a cloud, if you understand me.”

“They didn’t like him.”

“He had been wild, I suppose. He and my father were twins, Mr. Stubb. As happens so often, one twin sought attention through accomplishment, the other through rebellion. My great-grandfather was a Rockefeller partner, and our family is still very well off.”

Stubb nodded. “Yeah, I kind of thought it might be.”

“My uncle Benjamin—that was his real name, Benjamin Whitten—apparently announced that he meant to make his own fortune and tell the rest of them to go to Hades.”

“Good for him.”

“But when he had gone, they discovered that a certain extremely valuable article had disappeared. Please don’t ask what it was, because I don’t know. I wasn’t even born when all this happened; and by the time I was old enough to care, no one was left but Daddy, and he wouldn’t tell me.”

“Whatever it was,” Stubb said, “it’s probably long gone.”

The girl pursed her lips. “I don’t think so. You see, before he died, Daddy was conducting certain investigations of his own. He said that if Uncle Ben sold what he had, he would know. And that he hadn’t sold it yet, not in all those years.”

Cliff leaned forward, rubbing his hand. “That means it just about has to be a piece of art or a rock, Jim.”

“If he was sharp enough, maybe willing to go to Amsterdam and take in a partner, he could get a rock cut up without anybody knowing.”

“He might, okay, but it would be tough. Anyhow, my first guess is art. If it had been a rock, it would probably have been in a safe or a safety deposit box someplace, and they wouldn’t have let a wild kid get at it. Art you’ve got hanging on the wall, even if there’s a lot of insurance. He could just take it down and stick it under his coat. A nice little Rembrandt, maybe.”

Stubb cocked an eyebrow at the girl. “What about insurance, Kip? Your folks collect any back then?”

She shook her head. “We—I, now that Daddy’s gone—do own certain valuable paintings, Mr.—Jim. The same company has insured them ever since I can remember, and at Mr. Rebic’s urging I called them. We’ve never had a large claim. Ever.”

Cliff said, “It’s obvious, isn’t it? To collect, they’d have had to say Ben stole it, and they didn’t want to. Hell, he was old General Buck’s brother. They kept their traps shut, hoping he’d come home. Then the rest died, and Buck started looking for him, only he didn’t find him.”

“Then the General died himself,” Stubb finished for him. “And Kip learned—someway—that Uncle Ben had been murdered. I’d like to hear about that, Kip.”

The blond girl suddenly looked a little tired, though her back was as straight as ever. “I didn’t learn that Uncle Benjamin was murdered, Mr. Stubb. I saw him on TV and went to look for him.”

“Sure. You spotted him right off, even though he had left the family before you were born.”

“But I did. Don’t you understand, Mr. Stubb? He and Daddy were identical twins. Daddy passed away only last September. This man had a beard, but otherwise he looked precisely the way Daddy had.”

Stubb nodded, half to himself. “Last night two women came to talk to a woman named Mrs. Baker, looking for Ben Free. Were you one of them?”

“I had a right to search for my uncle!”

“Sure. Did you? Was one of them you?”

Kip nodded.

“Who was the other one? Some girl working for Cliff?”

“No. I—I hadn’t engaged him then. A friend.”