John MacDonald - Slam the Big Door

He stretched out for a while, then changed and went over to the mainland and ate and went to a drive-in movie. Two westerns. The good guy finally nailed the bad guys. He rode back to his room, tall in the saddle, lean, noble and deadly, rolling a cigarette with one hand and shooting hawks out of the sky with the other. He was always a hell of a wing shot.

Troy wasn’t home yet when Mike got in, but was home and sleeping when he left in the morning. He had sorted out the important pieces of information. He talked to two more men who contributed a little, more in the line of confirmation than anything new. He drove to where yellow bulldozers and draglines were working and talked to the man who had bossed the Horseshoe Pass Estates job. He questioned him closely about the bad luck he had had on the job, and when he became convinced the man was lying, and not interested enough to lie very well, he felt he was ready to tackle Corey Haas. Corey Haas managed his varied business interests from a small office in a shabby old building on West Main in downtown Ravenna.

He was a gaunt stooped man in his late fifties, with bad teeth, a threadbare suit, thinning hair dyed a violent purple-black, an artificial affability in his manner, the gray rubbery face of a retired comedian, and a firm over-prolonged handshake.

“Rodenska? Aren’t you the fella visiting Troy and Mary? Sit down. What can I do you for on this beautiful day?”

“I guess I wanted a little free advice, Mr. Haas. I got talking to Rob Raines the other night about my putting some money into Horseshoe Pass Estates. I know you own stock in it.”

“Eighteen percent,” Haas said with a wistful smile. “They’re right pretty stock certificates.”

“Rob didn’t think it was a good idea, but I guess he didn’t want to say anything about his girl’s stepfather, so he told me you’re an honest man and you’d tell me the things he didn’t want to.”

Haas shook his head. “Now, I could paint a big wonderful picture for you and I could make it sound good, and maybe we could take your money away from you, Mr. Rodenska. But it wouldn’t be right, and it wouldn’t be fair. Frankly, I got stung. I figure I’ve lost my money. Oh, I may come out with some if we can ever unload the whole corporation, but I just thank God I didn’t have more to put into it, or I might have, and that would be gone too. I only got in on account of knowing Mary’s daddy so well, and knowing her first husband — lot older man than Troy, and I hate to say it, but a lot smarter man too. It’s pitiful that girl has to lose her money that way. I can go into details that probably wouldn’t mean too much to you, Mr. Rodinski.”

“Rodenska.”

“I’m sorry. Man likes to hear his name said right. Were you thinking of any sizable amount?”

“Three hundred thousand, maybe.”

He pursed his lips and shook his narrow head. “Wouldn’t help. It’s too late for that. Throwing good money after bad. Rob did right sending you to me. It would be a terrible mistake. I can go into details about what them problems are, but like I said...”

Mike pulled a sheaf of notes out of his pocket. “Care if I go into details?”

“What? What’s that?”

“Want to hear what I think of it?”

“I don’t see how you’d have much of an idea about—”

“Let’s try it and see.” Mike began to talk, carefully, explicitly. At first Haas looked dazed. And then all expression went out of his face. His eyes were watchful. From time to time he reached up and touched his throat with his fingertips and swallowed.

Mike put his papers back into his pocket. “Those are the figures. Those are the problems. Three hundred thousand would more than bail it out. You know that. I know that. Troy knows that. I’m going to loan the corporation three hundred thousand, and take Troy’s and Mary’s stock as security. I didn’t come here for advice. I came here to tell you something, Haas. I’m going to hire a detective. And if there’s any more bad luck out there, and he can prove who caused it, like your bribing that construction clown to goof off, you’re going to have a conspiracy suit on your hands. I’m sorry I can’t get your eighteen percent back from you. You stand to make a lot of money out of it. And it’s too good a thing for you to ever let go of. That’s all I have to say to you.”

“Just a minute,” Haas said quietly. “Sit down, Mr. Rodenska. I thought you were just a newspaperman.”

“That’s all.”

“You would have made a hell of a good businessman. You still might.”

“A glorious ambition.”

“Eh?”

“I just collected facts and suspicions, Haas. I did some leg-work. That’s all.”

“That’s all,” Haas said bitterly. He seemed to be trying to make up his mind about something. He waited long minutes. “All right. It won’t hurt me none to admit something else has been cooking, and when it all blew up and the dust settled, Jamison would be out but not hurt too awful bad, and I’d have me a bigger piece of it. It’s worth waiting for the size money that thing’ll make. So I’ll tell you this. Detective or no detective, I can work against you and give you a hell of a lot of problems one way or another. Or I can work with you, and things will smooth out just fine.”

“What’s on your mind?”

“I’ll split the risk with you. One-fifty apiece, hear? We’ll juggle the stock around. You’re in for a third, I’m in for a third, and the Jamisons are in for a third. You and me, we’ll run it right.”

“No thanks.”

“Why not?”

“Mister Corey Haas, I wouldn’t go in with you on a ten-cent pail of water if we were both on fire.”

“That’s a rough way to talk to a man, Mr. Rodenska.”

“I can make it rougher.”

Haas smiled. “You’re new here. Jamison was new. Don’t have any idea what makes the wheels go around here. You just bought yourself a mess of trouble. Go into it if you want, newspaperman. The more I think about it, the more I don’t think three hundred will quite do it.”

“We can try,” Mike said, and left.

He placed a call to Purdy Elmarr from a drugstore booth. An hour later he was seated on Purdy’s front porch, with a bourbon in his hand. The old man gave an impression of ageless strength that did not match the frailness of his voice over the phone. There was no cordiality in him. He looked out toward the highway, his face still.

“My basic deduction, the reason I came to see you, may be entirely wrong, Mr. Elmarr. So I can save both of us time by starting with a question. Are you interested in any way in Horseshoe Pass Estates?”

There was a long silence. The old man spat over the railing. “Keep talking.”

“As I told you, I’m a newspaperman. Ex-newspaperman, at least for a while. I’ve done a lot of interviewing. I listen to what people say and how they say it. And I remember. I want to give you as near a verbatim conversation as I had today with Corey Haas as I can manage. There’s no point in telling you why I came to go to him. But I did. Here is what was said.”

Except for the infrequent lift of the glass to the lips for a measured sip, the old man was motionless as a lizard. Mike wondered if he was really hearing any of it, or if he was far off in one of the misty reveries of senility.

“That’s all. I said, ‘We can try.’ I left and phoned you within the next five minutes.”

Purdy Elmarr stood up and went to the table and fixed himself a fresh drink, slowly, carefully. He went back to the chair, sat down and said, “He’p yourself any time you feel like.”

“Thanks.”

“One thing. That Raines boy bring up my name?”

“No. It was just a guess.”

“Never liked newspaper people. Spent my life keeping my name out of the papers. Every time you open a paper, there’s the same damn fools grinning out at you. So I never got to know one. Why’d you bring this to me?”