by Goulart, Ron
"You're never going to read them all."
"In my declining years, which may be arriving sooner than I anticipated, thanks to you, I plan to spend a good deal of my time in an easy chair with a good book." He returned another dozen assorted volumes to his living room shelves.
"I'm sorry they ransacked your place, too," said H. J. "But, since they were obviously looking for whatever Lloyd may've given me, including photos and files, they didn't take anything and the damage isn't all that—"
"During the three years we were apart I wasn't burgled, looted, or trashed," he said. "Not once."
"Well, neither was I. It's only been recently I started getting tangled up in stuff like this." She reshelved more books. "But this definitely does prove that Lloyd really was on to something important."
"I was convinced of that soon as we found out they'd searched your humble cottage," he said. "This latest demonstration wasn't actually necessary."
She sat on the arm of the sofa, crossing her legs. "Maybe this second raid proves something else," she said thoughtfully.
Ben said, "You mean that whoever conducted these little searches has to be familiar with our current lifestyle?"
H. J. nodded. "Yes, right. They didn't find what they wanted at my cottage, so they came here next," she said. "So it has to be somebody who knows we're getting back together and that I hang out at both addresses."
"Yeah, that might narrow the field of suspects down," he agreed. "But quite a few people know about us."
"It hasn't been on CNN or in Liz Smith's column. So I think—"
"Suppose they're searching everybody Lloyd might have given his files to? I was a chum of his, too," he said. "That way I'd be on their list even if they didn't know you were—"
"We have got to find his files first, Ben." She stood up. "'And soon."
"I would like to have at least a short nap before—" The phone rang.
H. J. answered. "Mavity-Spanner residence."
"I don't even get top billing in my own house no more," Ben complained in his Rodney Dangerfield voice.
"Hush."
"Is that you, Helen, dear? I tried your cottage and then thought I might catch you at Ben's."
"Yes, it's me, Eva." Glancing at Ben, she let her eyebrows climb. "Let me mention again how sad we are about—"
"Yes, yes, dear, everybody is," cut in Dobkin's widow. "But I honestly believe poor Lloyd would want us to carry on. As a sort of memorial to his memory."
"Bare isn't the sort of memorial I personally—"
"Would it be possible for you to drop in around two or so?"
"I suppose so. At your home, you mean?"
"No, I'm at the office," replied Eva. "I need to talk to you about the Love's Claimant cover."
"Lloyd already okayed my rough."
"Yes, I know, and I imagine the poor dear man showed, as always, excellent taste," continued Eva. "But now that I'm going to have to oversee our Regency romance line, I feel I should be on top of what's going on. Don't you?"
"Okay, sure. I'll bring over the rough. Is two-thirty okay?"
"Yes, if that's convenient for you, dear."
"I'll see you then. Oh, and when is the funeral going to be?"
"We haven't scheduled it yet. The police are still—well, we'll be letting all Lloyd's many friends know. And there'll be a notice in the Pilot."
Hanging up, H. J. said, "That was the grieving widow."
"So I deduced. She going to futz up your cover?"
"More than likely." H. J. looked down at the answering machine. "Oh, you have a message." She punched the play button.
"I hope you're not off on a binge or otherwise unavailable," said Willis McCay of the Forman & McCay advertising agency. "I know you weren't planning to attend the awards luncheon today, old buddy, but I just heard something that makes me think you ought to. Call me soon as you can. As a bonus, I can maybe get you seated next to the gorgeous Laura Timberlake Barks, who is in town for the gala occasion. Bye."
"What awards luncheon today?" asked H. J.
"Some half-wit ad group is giving out trophies for the alleged best radio spots of the year."
"And you're in line for one?"
"Yes, dear. I tried to tell you several times, because it's for those Sudz commercials I did where I play the dirty sock. Since Timberlake owns—"
"You certainly never mentioned any such thing."
In his Raymond Burr voice he said, "If you'll consult the transcript of our conversations over the past twenty-four hours, you'll note that I did indeed."
"If you had mentioned that you'd have an opportunity to pump one of the Timberlake heirs, and possibly pick up yet another ugly doodad to clutter this place, I wouldn't have missed that," she insisted. "Now, if you can cease being silly for a minute, let's—"
"Cease being silly? Cease being silly?" he exclaimed in his Sylvester the Cat voice. "Why, suffering—"
"Can McCay really seat you next to her?"
"Probably, if I go. But I'd much rather stay here and snooze."
"Plenty of time to snooze later. You have to attend that lunch."
"You figure I can just lean close to the lady and inquire, 'Say, hon, did you and your putz of a brother knock off Lloyd Dobkin to keep him from revealing who the long-lost Timberlake baby is?'"
"You'll have to be a shade more subtle than that obviously."
"May I can just hum a few bars of 'Poor Butterfly' and see if she turns deathly pale."
"You ought to be able to learn something, Ben, just by talking to her," said H. J., annoyed. "What's the name of this half-wit award anyway?"
"The Paul."
"The Paul? What sort of dippy name is that?"
"Named in honor of Paul Frees, one of the great voice men of yesteryear."
"I suppose that's better than calling the thing the Ben," she said. "Okay, you best phone McCay right away and tell him you're coming. Then you have to get ready and catch a train to Manhattan."
"Only the other day, Helen Joanne, I was reading a piece in the respected New York Times. It pointed out that walking in your sleep can be harmful. I'd better stay—"
"We don't have any more time for dawdling." She grabbed up the phone. "I'll get McCay for you."
"Another thing—it's not safe to leave you alone. In case these guys come back."
"I'm sure they're off ransacking other locations by now." To the phone she said, "Mr. McCay, please. This is Ben Spanner's private secretary."
"Are you going to see Eva?"
"You bet I am. It gives me an excuse to poke around Lloyd's office and other nooks and crannies of the Dahlman Building."
"Okay, but please don't go calling on any of Lloyd's old flames until I get back." He took the phone.
"You have my word," she promised sweetly.
Chapter 8
H. J. left the house approximately s minutes after Ben did. He'd headed for the Westport station to catch the 11:33 train into New York City.
Restless, convinced she wouldn't be able to nap between then and her meeting with the widow Dobkin, she'd looked up Micki Wilder in the Wilton section of their phone book. Earl and Micki Wilder resided at 232 Mott Lane.
H. J. was pretty sure she knew where that was.
Ben had mentioned that the young woman was a former stewardess. That should mean she'd retired from the workplace and might be found at home during the day.
H. J. didn't want to risk scaring Lloyd's girlfriend by phoning first.
Though the rain had stopped, the day was still gray and the sunlight thin.
"You did promise him you wouldn't call on any of these women alone," she reminded herself as she entered the garage.
Yes, but Ben tended to be overprotective. That was one of the things that had caused their marriage to fall apart the first time.
"But we're not married this go-round, only living together." She climbed into her car, which she kept in his garage these days. "And, anyway, there's nothing especially dangerous about
just calling on one of Lloyd's nitwit lady friends. In broad daylight after all."
She backed along the driveway toward the tree-lined road. "Of course, I'll fill him in on everything I've done. He's not likely to be ticked off. Especially if I find out something important."
And she was certain that she would.
Ben stood on the station platform, taking frequent swigs from the cup of black coffee he'd purchased at the café across the way. The stuff tasted a lot better than the bitter brew Fagin tried to pass off as coffee, but it wasn't contributing much toward keeping him awake and alert.
The other commuters scattered along the platform all looked wider awake than he did. Well, by 11:21 in the morning most decent folk were awake. After yawning twice, he drank more coffee.
A heavyset woman in shorts was assuring a heavyset man in shorts, "You're going to like it, Henry."
"I didn't like the novel."
"This is a musical."
"Even if they yodel, I'm not going to like it."
At the nearby phone a slim young man in an expensive business suit was saying, "Now he insists he has to have more than two mill."
Suddenly a dense cloud of the scents of pine, leather, and musk engulfed Ben. Narrowing an eye, he looked to his left and saw large Larry Dahlman approaching.
"I suppose you heard all about it from H. J.?" Larry inquired, holding out his hand.
Ben shook hands, then absently wiped his palm on the side of his coat. "Yeah. I'm sorry about Lloyd."
"I hear—perhaps this is none of my business—that you and H. J. are together again."
"We are."
"She's a very attractive woman."
"She is."
"And exceptionally bright and witty."
"That, too."
"I'm very fond of her, as was my late brother-in-law."
"Shouldn't you be off someplace mourning?"
Shaking his head forlornly, Larry said, "I know I ought to be over at Eva's place, looking after her, but—"
"She's at the office."
"Really? Well, work's a great cure for the blues."
Ben glanced down the track. "You have to go into New York, huh?"
"Yes, exactly. I don't want to at a time like this, but I have an unbreakable lunch date." He shook his head again. "'A business thing, with a very successful old college friend. I don't dare break it."
Nodding, Ben asked, "'Are you going to be taking over as editor of Bare?"
"I haven't actually discussed it with either Dad or my sister, but I imagine I will," he said. "Not that editing that rag is going to put me at the pinnacle of journalistic success."
"Pays better than your current job, though."
He sighed. "It's still extremely difficult to accept the fact that Lloyd's gone." He rubbed at the corner of his eye with a forefinger. "If only I hadn't been running yesterday when it happened."
"You couldn't have prevented it."
"I didn't even get to run my regular route," said Larry. "Because of that stupid molasses spill, I had to make a ridiculous detour. Almost got hopelessly lost twice."
Ben took another look down the track. There was still no sign of the impending train. "That must be an interesting job, though, running things at Bare. All those naked women, for instance."
"No, after you've weeded through a ton of pictures, it gets very dull. Tits and ass, tits and ass, tits and ass."
"At least some of the women must stand out, ones with freckles or tattoos."
"I hardly notice any of that anymore."
"On that 'My Best Girl' feature--do guys really send in pictures of their wives, sweethearts, and next of kin?"
"Hundreds of them. You can't imagine, Ben, how many morons there are in the world. We have our fair share around here, but in other parts of the country the percentage has to be much higher."
"When you finally contact the women, to get them to sign a release and all—what are some of them like?"
"Lloyd took care of all the actual paperwork. Just as well, too, since I'd be tempted to tell them they ought to be ashamed of themselves."
"You're going to have to handle all that from now on, though. Did Lloyd keep intelligible files? I hear he hated computers."
Larry chuckled. "Hey, is there one of those amateur models you have a yen for?" he asked. "You're sure curious."
"'Actually, Larry," Ben replied in his Bullwinkle voice, "I have a tremendous crush on your grizzly bear mascot."
"Here's the train; want to share a seat?"
"I'd like to, except . . ." Ben patted the empty breast pocket of his suit coat. "Got a couple commercials I really have to concentrate on."
"Sure, I understand. Well, if I don't see you before then, I'll see you at the funeral."
As Ben turned away, he said to himself in his Jiminy Cricket voice, "What did I tell you about lies, Pinoke?"
Chapter 9
After honking at her twice, the dented red Porsche whipped around H. J.'s car at a narrow, blind stretch of Mott Lane.
"Asshole," she mumbled as the impatient car disappeared over the crest of the hill.
The Porsche was parking in the wide driveway next to the big, white colonial house. Its door came snapping open and a tall, lean man of about forty lunged out of the driver's seat. He was wearing a spotless tan raincoat over a gray business suit and had a tweedy cap on his head.
He ran across the lawn to the oaken front door. He let himself in, slamming the door behind him.
H. J. parked in the drive, as far from the red sports car as she safely could. She sat watching the house for a moment or so. Murmuring, "Over the top," she eased out of the car.
She heard the argument when she was still a hundred feet from the front door.
"Can't you do, for Christ sake, anything right?" a man was saying loudly.
That must be Earl Wilder, the fellow with the aggressive roadside manner, H. J. thought.
"Don't yell," requested a woman just as loudly. "I've been very upset by all this, Earl, and your hollering at me doesn't—"
"What did I tell you to do when you phoned me at the goddamn office, Micki?"
"To phone the police, but—"
"So where the fuck are they? It took me twenty-six minutes to drive here from Stamford. Haven't they—"
"I didn't get around to it yet."
By this time H. J. had reached the red brick porch. She stood there, listening.
"Didn't get around to it yet? Shit, Micki."
"If you keep on shouting at me, I—"
"Why didn't you, for Christ sake, get around to it? Our house is broken into while you claim to be out shopping, but you can't even get off your ass to—"
"I was shopping, Earl. I can show you the itemized grocery bill from the Village Market if you'd like."
"All you had to do was walk over there and pick up the goddamn phone."
"I'm rattled and upset."
"You've good reason to be, allowing burglars to break into our house and tear it apart. You let them steal us blind and—did they take my new CD player?"
"I didn't allow anybody to do anything, dammit. I was out from about half past nine until almost eleven. When I got back, I found the place like this. I sure as hell didn't invite anybody to make this mess."
"So you say."
"Besides, Earl, I don't think they stole much of anything."
"What are you raving about? Of course they stole something. That's what burglars do."
"It's just that I haven't found anything missing so far. I mean, they did pull out all the drawers and toss—"
"Let's call the goddamn cops first. Then we can take an inventory of everything that's missing."
"Okay, go ahead and call them."
"Oh, I'm supposed to make the phone call, huh? One of your boyfriends probably broke into my house to steal money so he could buy booze and drugs, or maybe extra condoms. But I have to do all the—"
"I'm not fooling around. And if I were, it wouldn't be with a housebreaker.
They don't earn enough to interest me."
"What's that supposed to mean? I'm earning almost forty-seven thousand a year at—"
"Call the cops if you're going to."
"I will. After they get here and do their job, Micki, you and I are going to have a talk."
Reaching out, H. J. pushed the door bell.
"Now what the hell is that?" shouted Wilder.
"Somebody at the door."
"Well, answer it and get rid of them. Probably another one of your boyfriends. He'll be surprised to find me at home."
A moment later the door was opened a few inches. A pretty, dark-haired woman of about H. J.'s age looked out at her. "Yes?"
H. J. smiled innocently. "Good morning. I'm with the Wilton Bible Society and—"
"This, honestly, isn't a really good time to call."
"Who the hell is it?" The door was yanked open wider and Earl Wilder glared out.
Smiling again, H. J. said, "Good morning, sir. I'm glad to find both of you at home. I'm with the Wilton Bible Society and we're—"
"Go away." Pivoting on his heel, he went striding toward a phone. He was still wearing his raincoat.
"You'd better go," Micki advised her.
Leaning close, H. J. asked, "Did Lloyd Dobkin leave any of his files with you?"
"What?"
"Did Lloyd—"
"I'm afraid I don't know anyone by that name."
Wilder was yelling into the receiver, "How do you expect me to have the damn number for the police? You're supposed to know it, operator."
"I'd hate," said H. J. softly, "to have to discuss all this with your husband."
After glancing over her shoulder, the dark-haired woman stepped out onto the porch and shut the door. "Listen, is that what this break-in is all about? Does someone think Lloyd left some of his stuff here?"
"I think so, yes. Did he?"
She shook her head. "Good lord, no. He knew better than that," she answered in a whisper. "My husband just about stages a white-glove inspection when he gets home from work every night. You couldn't hide a dead gnat in this house without Earl's finding the damn thing."
"Can you think of anywhere else Lloyd might have left—"
"Who are you anyway?"
"H. J. Mavity. My husband and I are trying—"