Buyer beware an-1

by John Lutz

  Happy to use the front entrance, I walked across a large reception area lined with red-vinyl sofas and low tables spread with dog-eared magazines. Everything but the magazines seemed new, slickly and professionally done, and there was a toy-and-game-equipped alcove off the reception area for the children to play in as they waited.

  Half a dozen people were seated about the room, ignoring each other-two elderly men and four women. One of the women had on a low-cut dress she could have worn anywhere, another a heavy, jeweled necklace that soaked up most of the light in the room.

  Behind a long, curved counter several white-uniformed women were moving about with smooth efficiency, and as I approached, one of them, a severe-looking young darkhaired girl, asked if she could help me.

  I told her I'd like to talk to Dr. Steiner.

  "Do you have an appointment?"

  "No," I said, "it has to do with one of his patients."

  "The doctor's very busy right now."

  "I can wait for a while."

  "He has a full schedule today."

  The nurse, or whatever her title was, was beginning to annoy me. No doubt part of her job was to protect Dr. Steiner from pesty private detectives and medical supply salesmen, but I did wish she'd let him know I was there.

  "I only need a few minutes of the doctor's time," I told her, careful to hide my growing irritation. "My name is Nudger, Alo Nudger. Would you tell him I'm here?"

  She neither moved nor dropped her professionally detached manner. "If you'd tell me the nature of your business…"

  "It's private."

  "Concerning which patient?"

  "Mr. Robert Manners."

  She pardoned herself and turned her back on me to riffle through a long, slender drawer of indexed three-by-five cards. There was something about her squarish hips and broad waist. Even from behind she looked intractable.

  "I can find no Robert Manners," she said, sliding the long file drawer shut as she turned again to face me.

  "Who am I talking to?" I asked.

  "Nurse Malloy."

  "Nurse Malloy, will you do me a favor and tell Dr. Steiner I'm here, and that it concerns Robert Manners and that it's important."

  She glared at me with cool disinterest, as if she'd tired of toying with me and had more important things to do. "I checked. I'm sure the doctor has no such patient, Mr. Nudger."

  "Manners is dead," I told her, my voice taking on ice. "And I'm sure Dr. Steiner wouldn't like it if he knew you were preventing me from talking to him about that unpleasant fact."

  She stared at me as I were inanimate yet thought-provoking. "I'll inform the doctor," she said with distaste. "You should realize I'm only performing my duties. If everyone who came in here wanting to see one of the doctors was allowed to go in without first establishing a good reason, there'd be little time to care for the patients."

  I didn't like the implication that I and people like me were somehow a threat to the proper medical care of the ill, but I said nothing as Nurse Malloy turned and disappeared through a doorway behind the curved counter. The two other women behind the counter continued their work and ignored me.

  Almost five minutes passed before the nurse returned.

  "Dr. Steiner can give you a few minutes," she said. Then her face brightened as if the sun had struck it, and she looked past me. "Mrs. Nesmith!" she said in a pleased voice. "You're here to pick up your medicine." The very old woman who was Mrs. Nesmith shuffled forward and basked in Nurse Malloy's good cheer. I saw that it helped to be a paying customer.

  Dr. Steiner invited me into a small, antiseptic room with a sterile white washbasin and a leather-upholstered table covered with something resembling butcher paper.

  Steiner looked like an expensive doctor-stocky, middle-aged, with heavy-lidded, serious eyes and a brush mustache. It was easy to imagine him in a laboratory somewhere, a microscope-glance away from some major medical breakthrough.

  "Nurse Malloy tells me you're interested in Robert Manners," he said. "I am busy, Mr. Nudger…"

  "What I'm interested in, Doctor, is the state of Manners' health preceding his suicide."

  "I see." A cautious note had entered his voice. "Who do you represent?

  "No one directly connected with Robert Manners. The information I'm seeking is only incidental to the case I'm on."

  I could see he didn't believe me. "I'm sorry," he said with a smile. "Professional ethics forbid me to divulge a patient's medical history without permission."

  "I'm not exactly asking you to do that, Doctor. Can you just tell me if Manners' medical state prior to his death might have caused him to commit suicide?"

  Dr. Steiner gave my question a lot of thought, thick eyebrows lowered in a superb bedside frown. Maybe he was worried about a malpractice suit.

  "I've already talked to Mrs. Manners," was all he said.

  "So have I."

  "Then I assume you know the answer to your question." He gave me a good-bye smile. "As you saw in the reception area, we have several patients to be served."

  And in the income bracket not to be kept waiting, I thought as he stepped smoothly aside to let me exit first.

  I left Dr. Steiner's hoping my health would last forever.

  Outside the medical center I made a few phone calls from a public booth, trying to get in touch with an old friend of mine, Lieutenant Sam Hiller, of the Los Angeles police.

  Hiller was off duty, but I contacted him at his home, and he told me to drive in to see him and gave me directions.

  It would be good to see Hiller, I thought, getting back into my car. We'd worked together for a while, until he decided to go with the Los Angeles Police Department because it had the reputation of being the best and most demanding of its officers. That was the sort of situation Hiller craved.

  Then, six years ago, Hiller was shot while attempting to quiet a family disturbance, and five months of hospitalization and three operations changed him. He eased up somewhat, on himself and everyone around him. I'd gotten along with the old Hiller, but the new Hiller was much more pleasant company.

  He lived in a condominium unit in one of those sprawling low projects that look like luxury military barracks. The slant-roofed two-story buildings were lined along a wide cement walkway punctuated by potted trees and ornate lampposts. A young boy was repeatedly running at one of the metal posts, gripping it and letting his momentum swing him in circles.

  My knock on Killer's door was answered by a call to come in.

  The room was neatly and symmetrically arranged, clean, without clutter-books lined precisely on their shelves, lamp shades and pictures as straight as if they'd been adjusted with levels. Hiller himself was sitting with his stockinged feet propped on a hassock, watching the Dodger game on television. I was struck, as I had been before, by how he maintained his uncompromising perfectionist's attitude toward things but not toward people.

  He stood and shook my hand, got us each a beer and told me to have a seat on the couch.

  "They don't bunt," he said, settling back into his chair. "Ballplayers nowadays can't bunt." He looked older than when I'd last seen him, had less hair and more loose flesh beneath his jutting jaw.

  Together we watched an attempted sacrifice bunt result in a sickly pop fly to the third baseman. Hiller shook his head in disgust.

  "What are you onto, Nudger?" he asked.

  "I need to know something about a suicide here," I said without directly answering his question, knowing he wouldn't push. "A big businessman named Robert Manners."

  Hiller sat still for a while, eyes fixed on the TV. "I recall it, but I don't know much about it."

  I sipped my cold beer. "There probably isn't much to know, but Manners' doctor was no help. I thought I might be able to check the autopsy report and whatever else is available through you."

  "Sure."

  The third out was a near home run. Hiller groaned, excused himself and left the room. I heard him talking on the telephone in the hall. He was on the pho
ne for a long time. When he came back to the living room, he was carrying two more cans of the very cold beer.

  "What happened, Nudger?"

  "Strikeout, walk, double play," I said, accepting the chilled wet can. "What happened where you were?"

  "Probably a strikeout there, too. The autopsy report on Manners says he was in good health until he hit the sidewalk. And a subsequent investigation turned up nothing to suggest his death was anything but suicide."

  I nodded, took a pull on my beer in disappointment.

  "There is one thing, though," Hiller said. "I talked to the officer who handled the investigation. For what it's worth, he says a suicide finding didn't sit quite right with him, but it was only a feeling. The facts said suicide."

  I understood what Hiller was saying, but I also knew how often hunches were wrong. "Is the case still being actively investigated?"

  Hiller stared at me "You know better than that. Time, money and manpower come into it. They don't let us go looking for crime when there's no live victim and there are far to many live victims walking around out there today."

  Hiller had a point I couldn't contradict.

  "Stick around for a while," he invited. "Watch the ball game. It's a genuine pitchers' duel."

  "For an inning or so," I said. "I've got an appointment later at a hotel with a beautiful girl."

  Hiller laughed. "As long as no money changes hands." He propped his feet on the hassock again.

  When I left him to drive to the Clairbank, the Dodgers had just scored three runs on a triple, and he was happy.

  The Clairbank was one of L.A.'s older hotels, spacious and accommodating, the sort that still offers top service at moderate rates. I crossed the carpeted lobby, took a smooth but slow elevator to the fourth floor and knocked on the door of 407.

  "You're late," Alison said as she opened the door.

  "And hungry," I told her, glancing at my watch to see that it was five after seven. "Why don't we talk things over while we're having dinner downstairs?"

  Alison must not have eaten, either, because she agreed, stepped into the hall and closed the door behind her. She was wearing a pale-green outfit with a loose-fitting skirt and chunky, thick-soled shoes, which, despite the work of a deranged fashion designer, failed to rob her ankles of their grace.

  The Clairbank had a comfortable restaurant with good food and a varied menu. Over chicken oreganata specials, we discussed.

  "What did Elizabeth Manners tell you?" Alison asked, sipping her wine.

  "That her husband committed suicide," I said truthfully, but stopped short of mentioning the letter. "He'd been apprehensive for some time, then especially so just before his death."

  "Do you think she really believes it was suicide?"

  "I'm sure she does. And I'm sure she'll never get over it."

  "You might be right. This sauce is terrific."

  I watched her use her knife and fork enthusiastically on her chicken breast. She bothered me. She was one of the few women whom I felt I should dislike but who greatly appealed to me. I considered trying to work out a way to spend the night in the Clairbank, in room 407. Maybe it was something in the sauce.

  "Okay," she said, "let's compare notes on Mr. Brian Cheevers."

  Cheevers had told her, almost word for word, what he'd told me. Alison had also gotten a duplicate story from Manners' secretary, Alice Kramer. Not much on the West Coast had panned out.

  "So we learned nothing," Alison said, with some dejection, to her half-consumed chicken breast. "There was nothing unusual or business-related about Manners' suicide."

  For some reason I felt I had to console her. "Either that or everyone has his story memorized to perfection."

  She looked up at me. "Do you suppose that's possible, some sort of conspiracy?"

  I understood why she was a reporter. Some of the juiciest news is wished into being.

  "You know anything's possible," I told her.

  Alison waited until we'd got to the rice pudding before saying, "Oh, incidentally, I found something on your Gratuity Insurance. I phoned the secretary of Craig Blount, a high-level executive killed in a hit-and-run accident a few weeks ago in Seattle. She told me she remembered that some time ago a man from Gratuity had called at the office and seemed to upset her boss tremendously."

  "Upset him how?"

  "Made him edgy and bad-tempered," Alison said, "which wasn't like him."

  Good as the food was, my fluttering stomach would accept no more. I set my fork down and sat back in my chair.

  "What's the matter?" she asked.

  "The thing about Gratuity Insurance," I told Alison, "is that there is no such company."

  19

  The next day I knocked again on Elizabeth Manners' door. When I got no answer I looked about and found her in the garden, with a pruning shears, working on an espaliered lemon tree. She turned, startled, as she heard my footsteps on the path.

  "Mr. Nudger!" she said with what seemed to be genuine pleasure. "I hope you've returned because you've discovered something."

  "Maybe a crack of light, Mrs. Manners." It was peaceful in the garden, pleasantly shaded. I hated to pull Elizabeth Manners into the subject of her husband's death.

  "Gardening pacifies the soul," she said, working the red-handled shears expertly; but I could see her tenseness as she waited for what I had to say.

  "Was your husband acquainted with any of these business executives?" I asked, feeling somewhat like the serpent in the garden. I read her the list of five names given to me by Alison.

  Mrs. Manners continued to work the shears for a while before answering. Then she lowered them to her side and faced me. "Craig Blount. I don't think they were acquainted, but I remember the morning Robert and I were having breakfast and he read about this Blount's death in the newspaper. It seemed to disturb him, so much so that he couldn't finish his breakfast."

  "Did he say what it was about Blount's death that upset him?"

  "No, he tried to pretend that he wasn't upset, but I could see that he'd been thoroughly shaken. After he'd left for the office, I picked up the newspaper and read the piece on Craig Blount, but I couldn't find anything that warranted Robert's reaction."

  "How long before his death was this?"

  She laid the shears on the cement bench, as if they'd suddenly taken on weight. "Only about a week," she said. "That's why I remembered. Many things seemed to upset Robert during that period, but that newspaper story did particularly."

  "May I use your telephone?" I asked her.

  "Certainly. The door's unlocked." She bent gracefully to pick up the shears, to displace her grief again in the garden.

  I phoned Alice Kramer, Manners' secretary, at Wit-low Cable and asked her if she'd heard of Craig Blount. She hadn't, and she couldn't remember Manners' mentioning even a similar name in her presence.

  I left Elizabeth Manners' home with an idea, about which I had more than a few doubts. But it was the only idea I had, so I clung to it.

  At a large drugstore that sold everything from cough syrup to furniture, I got a handful of change from a schoolgirlish blonde cashier behind one of the registers and made my way to the phone booths.

  The booths were in a secluded spot behind men's outerwear, and I was glad for the privacy. I fed change to the hungry telephone until it was glutted, then managed to get in touch with Dale Carlon.

  "What have you learned?" Carlon asked immediately in his crisp business voice.

  "I've got a connection between Talbert and Gratuity and the Robert Manners who killed himself, Manners and Gratuity and somebody named Craig Blount, who was killed in a hit-and-run accident in Seattle a few weeks ago."

  "There is no Gratuity Insurance, Nudger. I checked."

  "So did I. That's what interests me."

  "Whoever or whatever they are, do you think my daughter is mixed up with them?"

  "I'm reasonably sure of it."

  Carlon's exasperated outlet of breath was amplified to a draw
n-out rasping in the receiver. "You're keeping things quiet, aren't you, Nudger?"

  "Too quiet. The police should know what I know, Mr. Carlon. If they did, you might see an extensive and effective investigation."

  "We'll decide when and what to tell the police, Nudger."

  What he meant by that was he would decide, and he had fifty thousand good arguments in his favor.

  "Ever heard of Business View?" I asked him. "It's a magazine."

  "I have. Used to subscribe to it."

  "Then I take it it's a reputable publication."

  "Very much so. I think it's published in Chicago. It's one of those financial monthlies that reports on the stock market and analyzes and predicts trends."

  "There's a female reporter here who works for the magazine, gathering information about Manners' death. Her name's Alison Day."

  "Alison?" He sounded surprised. "I know her well, Nudger. She's dedicated and, despite her comparative youth, widely respected in her profession. I've known Alison both professionally and as a friend of the family, for years. She recommended Joan to her college sorority."

  "Then you vouch for her?"

  "Completely. She's a thorough professional in her field. That's not to say, Nudger, that you should confide in her. She is a reporter."

  "She doesn't know who I'm working for or why," I assured Carlon.

  "I think you should go to Seattle," Carlon said after a pause.

  "I don't think it's necessary at this point," I told him. "If I decide to, I'll let you know."

  Gently I replaced the receiver, before he could insist. I had worked for Dale Carlons before; their egos demanded that they be better than everyone at everything.

  On the way out of the drugstore, I stopped at the pharmaceutical counter and bought a fresh roll of antacid tablets. My next stop was going to be the Clairbank Hotel.

  20

  Alison's room at the Clairbank was large and comfortable. It lacked the careful color and style coordination of chain hotel rooms. The long triple dresser didn't quite match the smaller dresser on the opposite wall, two overstuffed wing chairs looked more like they belonged in an English men's club than a hotel room, and the flowered spread on the double bed matched neither beige carpet nor heavy drapes. The overall effect was one almost of hominess.