“Then when I went to see Jennie and I showed her the machine, she just folded. So I convinced her that the police would go easy on her if she cooperated, and she said she would.”
“She’s probably skipped by now,” Trace said.
“Police can find her,” Sarge said. He savored a large drink from his beer mug. “My agency’s first case. A roaring success,” he said. “I’m very proud of me.”
“So am I,” Chico said, spraying peanut chips across the bar. She patted the top of Sarge’s bandaged head.
“It’s all right,” Trace said. “I’ll just sit here and drink while you two big detectives congratulate each other.”
“Chico,” Sarge said, “you want to be a partner in a detective firm? I was thinking of Dev, but he’s a little slow on the pickup. I think he spends too much time trying to think big thoughts.”
“We’ll talk about it,” Chico said.
“Promise?”
“I promise.”
“Good,” Trace said. “Get her off my hands.”
Daylight was peeking into the city when they got back to their hotel room. Trace was feeling pleasantly high, and as he lay in bed next to Chico, he said, “A nice day.”
“And tomorrow will be nicer,” she said.
“Oh? How’s that?”
“You drank tonight. Without permission. Tomorrow, you call your kids.”
“I can’t believe you’re saying that to me,” Trace said.
“It was our deal. No heavy drinking. You lost when you started sucking it up tonight,” Chico said.
“You’re hateful,” Trace said.
“You told me once you loved me. You remember that?”
“I take it back. I regard you as a hateful person, directly responsible for the sneak attack upon Pearl Harbor. You are a woman who will live in infamy.”
“And you are a man who will call his two children tomorrow.”
26
Trace spent a lot of the next day on the telephone.
He told Walter Marks that the Armitage case had been cleared up, Trace had personally saved Garrison Fidelity a half-million dollars, and his expense account would probably be a little high.
“You know how carefully I watch things, trying to keep costs down, but this one, well, expenses were heavy. Me and my staff, you know.”
“What staff?” Marks said.
“The private detective I hired. And Chico. She did a lot of work too. And we used the latest in electronic surveillance equipment. It’s going to be a big bill. I just thought I’d let you know.”
“You better have receipts,” Marks said. “Without receipts, I don’t pay for anything.”
“It’s nice to know that in a world of changing values and mores, some things are constant,” Trace said.
“What are you talking about?”
“You’re too goddamn cheap to live, Groucho,” Trace said.
“I don’t care about that. I want receipts.”
“You will get them,” Trace said.
“When?”
“As soon as I have time to write them.”
He hung up and called Robert Swenson, the president of the insurance company.
Swenson congratulated him when he heard that the Armitage killing had been solved. “Good work.”
“Thanks. Listen, Bob, does your brother-in-law still have that factory in Brooklyn?”
“Yeah. He still doesn’t make a nickel at it either. Somebody once told him that tax losses are good, and he can’t seem to get it through his head that they’re only good if you’ve got some kind of plus income to apply them against. He is a total minus.”
“I want to make him more minus,” Trace said.
“I don’t think I should talk to you anymore,” Swenson said.
“No. Seriously. Sarge has opened up a detective agency and he needs some clients. How about your brother-in-law hiring him? To stop thefts or something.”
“Sarge need the money?”
“He needs an excuse to get out of the house,” Trace said.
“I’ve met your mother,” Swenson said. “Consider it done.”
“And, of course, it didn’t come from me. Or you. Have the brother-in-law say he read about Sarge in the papers or something,” Trace said.
“All right,” Swenson said. “Anything else?”
“Tell Groucho to get off my back about my expenses on this case.”
“Just send in the receipts. I’ll see that he pays them.”
“You’re a big help,” Trace said.
He waited until late afternoon, trying to build up his courage to call his ex-wife and children. Finally, he realized that Chico would be back soon from shopping, so he hooked up the electronic voice changer to the telephone and dialed the New Jersey number.
When his ex-wife answered, he said, “Let me talk to the daughter.”
“Who?”
“The daughter. The girl,” he said.
“She’s not here. Who is this?”
“Let me talk to the son, then.”
“Who is this? Whose voice is this?” his ex-wife demanded. “I don’t know you. Who are you?” Her voice sounded like glass cracking.
“The son. Let me talk to him.”
“He’s not here either.”
“You’ll have to do, then,” Trace said. He began to breathe heavily into the phone. “Haaaaaa, haaaaaaa, haaaaaaaa.”
“Creep,” his ex-wife said, and hung up.
Quickly, Trace disconnected the electronic device and put it back in the bedroom.
When Chico came back, she said, “Did you call?”
“Call whom?”
“Your kids, of course.”
“Of course, I did. I promised you I would, didn’t I?”
“And?”
“They hung up on me,” he said.
She shook her head. “Well, at least no one can say you didn’t try,” she said.
Trace’s mother was due back in New York Thursday afternoon. He and Chico returned to Las Vegas aboard a Thursday-morning plane.
When Elephants Forget (Trace 3) Page 22