Oddments

by Bill Pronzini

  Who and what was Buckmaster Gilloon? Is it possible for one enigma to be attracted and motivated by another enigma? Can that which seems natural and coincidental be the result instead of preternatural forces? Perhaps you can understand now why these questions have plagued me in the sixty years since I knew him. And why I am haunted by that single passage I read by accident in his notebook, the passage which may hold the key to Buckmaster Gilloon:

  Ifajimbuck stands alone by the sea, on a night when the dark moon sings, how many grains of sand in a single one of his footprints?...

  Caught in the Act

  When I drove around the bend in my driveway at four that Friday afternoon, past the screen of cypress trees, a fat little man in a gray suit was just closing the front door of my house. Surprise made me blink: he was a complete stranger.

  He saw the car in that same moment, stiffened, and glanced around in a furtive way, as if looking for an avenue of escape. But there wasn't anywhere for him to go; the house is a split-level, built on the edge of a bluff and flanked by limestone outcroppings and thick vegetation. So he just stood there as I braked to a stop in front of the porch, squared his shoulders, and put on a smile that looked artificial even from a distance of thirty feet.

  I got out and ran around to where he was. His smile faded, no doubt because my surprise had given way to anger and because I'm a pretty big man, three inches over six feet, weight 230; I played football for four years in college and I move like the linebacker I used to be. As for him, he wasn't such-a-much–just a fat little man, soft-looking, with round pink cheeks and shrewd eyes that had nervous apprehension in them now.

  "Who are you?" I demanded. "What the hell were you doing in my house?"

  "Your house? Ah, then you're James Loomis."

  "How did you know that?"

  "Your name is on your mailbox, Mr. Loomis."

  "What were you doing in my house?"

  He looked bewildered. "But I wasn't in your house"

  "Don't give me that. I saw you closing the door."

  "No, sir, you're mistaken. I was just coming away from the door. I rang the bell and there was no answer—"

  "Listen, you," I said, "don't tell me what I saw or didn't see. My eyesight's just fine. Now I want an explanation."

  "There's really nothing to explain," he said. "I represent the Easy-Way Vacuum Cleaner Company and I stopped by to ask if you—"

  "Let's see some identification."

  He rummaged around in a pocket of his suit coat, came out with a small white business card, and handed it to me. It said he was Morris Tweed, a salesman for the Easy-Way Vacuum Cleaner Company.

  "I want to see your driver's license," I said.

  "My, ah, driver's license?"

  "You heard me. Get it out."

  He grew even more nervous. "This is very embarrassing, Mr. Loomis," he said. "You see I, ah, lost my wallet this morning. A very unfortunate—"

  I caught onto the front of his coat and bunched the material in my fingers; he made a funny little squeaking sound. I marched him over to the door, reached out with my free hand, and tried the knob. Locked. But that didn't mean anything one way or another; the door has a button you can turn on the inside so you don't have to use a key on your way out.

  I looked over at the burglar-alarm panel, and of course the red light was off. Tweed, or whatever his name was, wouldn't have been able to walk out quietly through the front door if the system was operational. And except for my housekeeper, whom I've known for years and who is as trustworthy as they come, I was the only one who had an alarm key.

  The fat little man struggled weakly to loosen my grip on his coat. "See here, Mr. Loomis," he said in a half-frightened, half-indignant voice, "you have no right to be rough with me. I haven't done anything wrong."

  "We'll see about that."

  I walked him back to the car, got my keys out of the ignition, returned him to the door, and keyed the alarm to the On position. The red light came on, which meant that the system was still functional. I frowned. If it was functional, how had the fat little man gotten in? Well, there were probably ways for a clever burglar to bypass an alarm system without damaging it; maybe that was the answer.

  I shut it off again, unlocked the door, and took him inside. The house had a faint musty smell, the way houses do after they've been shut up for a time; I had been gone eight days, on a planned ten-day business trip to New York, and my housekeeper only comes in once a week. I took him into the living room, sat him down in a chair, and then went over and opened the French doors that led out to the balcony.

  On the way back I glanced around the room. Everything was where it should be: the console TV set, the stereo equipment, my small collection of Oriental objets d'art on their divider shelves. But my main concern was what was in my study—particularly the confidential records and ledgers locked inside the wall safe.

  "All right, you," I said, "take off your coat."

  He blinked at me. "My coat? Really, Mr. Loomis, I don't—"

  "Take off your coat."

  He looked at my face, at the fist I held up in front of his nose, and took off his coat. I went through all the pockets. Sixty-five dollars in a silver money clip, a handkerchief, and a handful of business cards. But that was all; there wasn't anything of mine there, except possibly the money. I shuffled through the business cards. All of them bore the names of different companies and different people, and none of them was a duplicate of the one he had handed me outside.

  "Morris Tweed, huh?" I said.

  "Those cards were given to me by customers," he said. "My cards are in my wallet, all except the one I gave you. And I've already told you that I lost my wallet this morning."

  "Sure you did. Empty out your pants pockets."

  He sighed, stood up, and transferred three quarters, a dime, a penny, and a keycase to the coffee table. Then he pulled all the pockets inside out. Nothing.

  "Turn around," I told him.

  When he did that I patted him down the way you see cops do in the movies. Nothing.

  "This is all a misunderstanding, Mr. Loomis," he said. "I'm not a thief; I'm a vacuum-cleaner salesman. You've searched me quite thoroughly, you know I don't have anything that belongs to you."

  Maybe not—but I had a feeling that said otherwise. There were just too many things about him that didn't add up, and there was the plain fact that I had seen him coming out of the house. Call it intuition or whatever: I sensed this fat little man had stolen something from me. Not just come here to steal, because he had obviously been leaving when I arrived. He had something of mine, all right.

  But what? And where was it?

  I gave him back his coat and watched him put it on. There was a look of impending relief on his face as he scooped up his keys and change; he thought I was going to let him go. Instead I caught hold of his arm. Alarm replaced the relief and he made another of those squeaking noises as I hustled him across the room and down the hail to the smallest of the guest bathrooms, the one with a ventilator in place of a window.

  When I pushed him inside he stumbled, caught his balance, and pivoted around to me. "Mr. Loomis, this is outrageous. What do you intend to do with me?"

  "That depends. Turn you over to the police, maybe."

  "The police? But you can't—"

  I took the key out of the inside lock, shut the door on him, and locked it from the outside.

  Immediately I went downstairs to my study. The Matisse print was in place and the safe door behind it was closed and locked; I worked the combination, swung the door open. And let out the breath I had been holding: the records and ledgers were there, exactly as I had left them. If those items had fallen into the wrong hands, I would be seriously embarrassed at the least and open to blackmail or possible criminal charges at the worst. Not that I was engaged in anything precisely illegal; it was just that some of the people for whom I set up accounting procedures were involved in certain extra-legal activities.

  I looked through
the other things in the safe—$2,000 in cash, some jewelry and private papers—and they were all there, untouched. Nothing, it developed, was missing from my desk either. Or from anywhere else in the study.

  Frowning, I searched the rest of the house. In the kitchen I found what might have been jimmy marks on the side door. I also found—surprisingly—electrician's tape on the burglar-alarm wires outside, tape which had not been there before I left on my trip and that might have been used to repair a cross-circuiting of the system.

  What I did not find was anything missing. Absolutely nothing. Every item of value, every item of no value, was in its proper place.

  I began to have doubts. Maybe I was wrong after all; maybe this was just a large misunderstanding. And yet, damn it, the fat little man had been in here and had lied about it, he had no identification, he was nervous and furtive, and the burglar alarm and the side door seemed to have been tampered with.

  A series of improbable explanations occurred to me. He hadn't actually stolen anything because he hadn't had time; he had broken in here, cased the place, and had been on his way out with the intention of returning later in a car or van. But burglars don't operate that way; they don't make two trips to a house when they can just as easily make one, and they don't walk out the front door in broad daylight without taking something with them. Nor for that matter, do they take the time to repair alarm systems they've cross-circuited.

  He wasn't a thief but a tramp whose sole reason for breaking in here was to spend a few days at my expense. Only tramps don't wear neat gray suits and they don't have expertise with burglar alarms. And they don't leave your larder full or clean up after themselves.

  He wasn't a thief but a private detective, or an edge-of-the-law hireling, or maybe even an assassin; he hadn't come here to steal anything, he had come here to leave something—evidence of my extra-legal activities, a bomb or some other sort of death trap. But if there was nothing missing, there was also nothing here that shouldn't be here; I would have found it one way or another if there was, as carefully as I had searched. Besides which, there was already incriminating evidence in my safe, I was very good at my job and got along well with my clients, and I had no personal enemies who could possibly want me dead.

  Nothing made sense. The one explanation I kept clinging to didn't make sense. Why would a burglar repair an alarm system before he leaves? How could a thief have stolen something if there wasn't anything missing?

  Frustrated and angry, I went back to the guest bathroom and unlocked the door. The fat little man was standing by the sink, drying perspiration from his face with one of my towels. He looked less nervous and apprehensive now; there was a kind of resolve in his expression.

  "All right," I said, "come out of there."

  He came out, watching me warily with his shrewd eyes. "Are you finally satisfied that I'm not a thief, Mr. Loomis?"

  No, I was not satisfied. I considered ordering him to take off his clothes, but that seemed pointless; I had already searched him and there just wasn't anything to look for.

  "What were you doing in here?" I said.

  "I was not in here before you arrived." The indignation was back in his voice. "Now I suggest you let me go on my way. You have no right or reason to hold me here against my will."

  I made another fist and rocked it in front of his nose. "Do I have to cuff you around to get the truth?"

  He flinched, but only briefly; he had had plenty of time to shore up his courage. "That wouldn't be wise, Mr. Loomis," he said. "I already have grounds for a counter-complaint against you."

  "Counter-complaint?"

  "For harassment and very probably for kidnapping. Physical violence would only compound a felony charge. I intend to make that counter-complaint if you call the police or if you lay a hand on me."

  The anger drained out of me; I felt deflated. Advantage to the fat little man. He had grounds for a counter-complaint, okay—better grounds than I had against him. After all, I had forcibly brought him in here and locked him in the bathroom. And a felony charge against me would mean unfavorable publicity, not to mention police attention. In my business I definitely could not afford either of those things.

  He had me then, and he knew it. He said stiffly, "May I leave or not, Mr. Loomis?"

  There was nothing I could do. I let him go.

  He went at a quick pace through the house, moving the way somebody does in familiar surroundings. I followed him out onto the porch and watched him hurry off down the driveway without once looking back. He was almost running by the time he disappeared behind the screen of cypress trees.

  I went back inside and poured myself a double bourbon. I had never felt more frustrated in my life. The fat little man had got away with something of mine; irrationally or not, I felt it with even more conviction than before.

  But what could he possibly have taken of any value?

  And how could he have taken it?

  I found out the next morning.

  The doorbell rang at 10:45, while I was working on one of my accounts in the study. When I went out there and answered it I discovered a well-dressed elderly couple, both of whom were beaming and neither of whom I had ever seen before.

  "Well," the man said cheerfully, "you must be Mr. Loomis. We're the Parmenters."

  "Yes?"

  "We just dropped by for another look around," he said. "When we saw your car out front we were hoping it belonged to you. We've been wanting to meet you in person."

  I looked at him blankly.

  "This is such a delightful place," his wife said. "We can't tell you how happy we are with it."

  "Yes, sir," Parmenter agreed, "we knew it was the place for us as soon as your agent showed it to us. And such a reasonable price. Why, we could hardly believe it was only $100,000."

  There was a good deal of confusion after that, followed on my part by disbelief, anger, and despair. When I finally got it all sorted out it amounted to this: the Parmenters were supposed to meet here with my "agent" yesterday afternoon, to present him with a $100,000 cashier's check, but couldn't make it at that time; so they had given him the check last night at their current residence, and he in turn had handed them copies of a notarized sales agreement carrying my signatures. The signatures were expert forgeries, of course—but would I be able to prove that in a court of law? Would I be able to prove I had not conspired with this bogus real estate agent to defraud the Parmenters of a six-figure sum of money?

  Oh, I found out about the fat little man, all right. I found out how clever and audacious he was. And I found out just how wrong I had been—and just how right.

  He hadn't stolen anything from my house.

  He had stolen the whole damned house.

  Liar's Dice

  "Excuse me. Do you play liar's dice?"

  I looked over at the man two stools to my right. He was about my age, early forties; average height, average weight, brown hair, medium complexion—really a pretty nondescript sort except for a pleasant and disarming smile. Expensively dressed in an Armani suit and a silk jacquard tie. Drinking white wine. I had never seen him before. Or had I? There was something familiar about him, as if our paths had crossed somewhere or other, once or twice.

  Not here in Tony's, though. Tony's is a suburban-mall bar that caters to the shopping trade from the big department and grocery stores surrounding it. I stopped in no more than a couple of times a month, usually when Connie asked me to pick up something at Safeway on my way home from San Francisco, occasionally when I had a Saturday errand to run. I knew the few regulars by sight, and it was never very crowded anyway. There were only four patrons at the moment: the nondescript gent and myself on stools, and a young couple in a booth at the rear.

  "I do play, as a matter of fact," I said to the fellow. Fairly well too, though I wasn't about to admit that. Liar's dice and I were old acquaintances.

  "Would you care to shake for a drink?"

  "Well, my usual limit is one . . ."

  "For a
chit for your next visit, then."

  "All right, why not? I feel lucky tonight."

  "Do you? Good. I should warn you, I'm very good at the game."

  "I'm not so bad myself."

  "No, I mean I'm very good. I seldom lose."

  It was the kind of remark that would have nettled me if it had been said with even a modicum of conceit. But he wasn't bragging; he was merely stating a fact, mentioning a special skill of which he felt justifiably proud. So instead of annoying me, his comment made me eager to test him.

  We introduced ourselves; his name was Jones. Then I called to Tony for the dice cups. He brought them down, winked at me, said, "No gambling now," and went back to the other end of the bar. Strictly speaking, shaking dice for drinks and/or money is illegal in California. But nobody pays much attention to nuisance laws like that, and most bar owners keep dice cups on hand for their customers. The game stimulates business. I know because I've been involved in some spirited liar's dice tournaments in my time.

  Like all good games, liar's dice is fairly simple—at least in its rules. Each player has a cup containing five dice, which he shakes out but keeps covered so only he can see what is showing face up. Then each makes a declaration or "call" in turn: one of a kind, two of a kind, three of a kind, and so on.

  Each call has to be higher than the previous one, and is based on what the player knows is in his hand and what he thinks is in the other fellow's—the combined total of the ten dice. He can lie or tell the truth, whichever suits him; but the better liar he is, the better his chances of winning. When one player decides the other is either lying or has simply exceeded the laws of probability, he says, "Come up," and then both reveal their hands. If he's right, he wins.

  In addition to being a clever liar, you also need a good grasp of mathematical odds and the ability to "read" your opponent's facial expressions, the inflection in his voice, his body language. The same skills an experienced poker player has to have, which is one reason the game is also called liar's poker.