Donald Westlake: The Ax

What I'm thinking about is Arcadia. I'm thinking I'll have to go over there tomorrow, find out what's going on. It seems to me the best way is to get to the luncheonette when the workers come in at noontime, and listen to what they have to say.

Of course, the danger there is that I might be recognized later. I'm wondering if there's any theatrical place around where I could buy a mustache that wouldn't look fake. Or should I start growing a mustache, and be clean-shaven tomorrow and mustached when I finally get the job?

I haven't decided, about the mustache or anything else, by the time the counseling session is over. Marjorie and I drive back home in silence, me continuing to brood, only vaguely aware that she's looking at me, wondering about me.

There's a message on the answering machine, in the kitchen. Marjorie pushes the button and I pause in the doorway, disinterested, and the female voice says:

"This is Mr. John Carver's office at Arcadia Processing, calling for Mr. Burke Devore. I'm calling on Tuesday, the first of July. Could Mr. Devore please return Mr. Carver's call no later than Wednesday, the second of July? His number here is five one eight three nine eight four one four two. Thank you."

Marjorie looks at me, and I know I'm smiling so broadly my cheeks should split. She says, "Burke? What is it?"

"My new job," I say.

He was very good, on the phone, Mr. John Carver, amiable and interested. He told me they had an unexpected need for a product line manager of just my history and experience. He told me there'd been a tragic accident: "The funeral was yesterday." Which, of course, was why no phone call on Monday.

He said more. He said I was their first choice, that my resume made it look as though I was just the manager they were looking for, but that their need is immediate, and when I wasn't home at the time of their call — unfortunate, very unfortunate — they couldn't be sure I was still available, and so of course they'd made a few other calls, which meant he was already seeing three applicants on Wednesday, the day after our conversation. But he promised they wouldn't make a decision before talking to me, and we made an appointment for Thursday at eleven in the morning, and today is Thursday, and I am having a very good time deciding what tie to wear.

Marjorie comes in while I'm knotting the tie, a maroon one in honor of the good lawyer Porculey, but without cows jumping over moons. The last two days, Marjorie has been as smiling and elated as I am, believing I really will get this job, believing it only because she sees I believe it so thoroughly, but now the smile has been replaced by a confused and questioning look: "Burke," she says, "that detective is here."

I'm blithe, I barely hear her: "Who?"

"The detective who was here before. Burton."

Detective. The one investigating the two mill managers shot by the same gun.

No. Not now. After all this, after all I've been through? To be stopped now, as though none of it had ever mattered?

Go through the process. It could be something else, or he could have nothing more than suspicions. All I have to do is remain firm and constant. All I have to do is remember my own advice to Billy; choose the best story available, and stick to it, no matter what.

"Okay," I tell Marjorie, smiling at her in the mirror. Then I finish knotting my tie, and, wearing tie and shirt and trousers and slippers, I walk out to the living room.

He's studying the Winslow Homer again. Are we going to have another discussion of sailing before we get to the subject? He turns when I walk in, nods and smiles, extending his hand. "Mr. Devore. Good to see you again."

Is this friendliness real, or a lie? I smile back, lying, and shake his hand. "Mr. Burton. Or do I say Detective Burton?"

"Either way," he says. "I can see you're on your way somewhere, I won't take a lot of your time. I have another name and another photo to try on you."

Which of my resumes will this be? One of them, that's for certain. I say, "If I can help."

"Sure." He's taking his notebook out of his inner jacket pocket, opening it, finding the color photo he wants. "The name is Hauck Exman."

My Marine, gone on a sea voyage. You could talk sailing with him, Detective Burton. I shake my head. "Doesn't ring a bell."

He hands me the photo, and I look at it, and it's a formal shot, him in a tuxedo somewhere, looking mostly like the President's bodyguard. "No," I say. "Tough-looking guy. Who is he?"

"At the moment," he says, as I hand him back the photo, "he's our prime suspect."

I am astonished, and I don't mind showing it. "Suspect! How did that happen?"

He's pleased with his detective work, that's obvious, and he'd like nothing better than to share it. "It took some digging," he says, "but we—"

I say, "Oh, excuse me. Won't you sit down?"

He's willing, but doubtful. "You've got time?"

"Plenty," I tell him.

"Okay, then."

We both sit, in the same positions as the first time, and he says, "We finally linked up the other two, Everly and Asche. Four five years ago, there was a government contract for some kind of special paper, I apologize, I don't really understand all that stuff—"

"That's okay," I tell him, "most people don't."

"It was the Treasury Department," he says, "but it wasn't money, it was something else. The bidding companies all sent reps to Washington to talk to the Treasury people—"

"I remember that," I say. "Or I think that's the one. It had to do with import forms, and we didn't bid. I mean, the company I was with then. It wasn't quite our line, anti-counterfeit stuff, and we weren't looking for extra business anyway."

"Well, these other companies did," Burton tells me. "And among the company representatives down there, all at the same time, were Everly and Asche and Exman."

"Ahhhh," I say. "And they met."

"We haven't been able to prove that," he says, "but I don't think we have to. I spoke to Exman a couple weeks ago, the same way I spoke to you, and I have to tell you, I didn't like the way he acted."

I can see it. The haughty Exman, so involved in his own problems, feeling so intensely the humiliation of being a suit salesman, and how easy it was to give short shrift to this earnest detective. No, they wouldn't have hit it off. I say, "Did you arrest him?"

"Didn't have the evidence," Burton says, and shrugs. "But now, it looks like, my visit spooked him. He ran away."

"Ran away!"

"Disappeared completely," Burton tells me, with clear satisfaction. "Left his car behind in the parking lot where he worked, didn't say a word to anybody, just took off."

"I can't imagine it," I say. "Didn't he have a family? You say he was working?"

"Not easy for most people to do," he agrees, "suddenly up and leave your entire life behind. But now we're looking into it, and what do we find out? Exman's been having trouble at home. His wife had already seen a lawyer about a divorce, he'd been playing around, she caught him, all the usual stuff. And she's not the first wife, she's the fourth."

"Making trouble in his own life," I suggest.

"And everybody else's." Burton puts his notebook away, the photo inside it. "When we searched the house, it was full of guns. Full of guns. Maybe a dozen weapons of all different kinds. We're testing them all now, against the bullets we have, but the feeling is, he probably disposed of the gun that did the killing."

"Where do you think he is?"

"We're talking to his girlfriends," Burton tells me, "both of them, and the place he always seemed to talk about most was Singapore."

"You think he's in Singapore?"

"Well, he didn't take his passport. On the other hand, he just might have another one." Burton gets to his feet. "I shouldn't keep you any longer. We'll track him down, sooner or later."