“Of course she can walk. It’s only two miles. You tell her that.”
“Well I’ll try and ask her Mr. GASCOYNE. Hold on there a sec and I’ll be right back.”
He slaps his hand over the receiver for one hell of a long time and then he comes back.
“Mr. GASCOYNE well Miss Margie says she’ll do that haike all right if she can stay another naight in the Wolverine on the way back.”
“On the way back? I see. Well Mr. Rasper I don’t know about that.”
“Well Mr. GASCOYNE I know it’s not my place and none of my business at all to pass out advaice to total strangers, so I do beg your pardon when I say Miss Margie here won’t have it any other way. I give you my word of honor on that.”
“Well all right then, but she can stay only if she takes the cheap room downstairs.”
“Oh now Mr. GASCOYNE I wouldn’t put my mother-in-law’s maiden aunt in that room, honestly. It ain’t fit for a dawg.”
“Well it couldn’t be as bad as all that,” I say.
“All right Mr. GASCOYNE I’ll ask Miss Margie here if she wants to stay in that filthy dark little room.”
“Thanks.”
Then there’s a short silence.
“Mr. GASCOYNE I’m afraid Miss Margie here has got the aidea that she’d laike to stay in the bridal suite tonight.”
“Bridal suite? Now Mr. Rasper you just tell her—”
“Please accept my pardon for interrupting you laike this sir, but since I reluctantly faind myself in the middle between the two of you, I can see that nobody at all is going to be happy here unless you give poor little Miss Margie here what she has her heart set on. I mean man to man, Mr. GASCOYNE, Miss Margie’s an awfully naice woman but she’s got this streak in her and unless you give her what she wants she’ll never stop asking for what she cain’t have.”
“All right Mr. Rasper. She can have the bridal suite.”
“Thank you ever so kaindly Mr. GASCOYNE, I, oh just a sec now.”
A little silence there is.
“Miss Margie here also wants to thank you Mr. GASCOYNE.”
“I see. Well thank you for your help Mr. Rasper.”
“Pleasure’s mine to be sure.”
Well I don’t know about this Tom Rasper type but there are times when you have to take advantage of people you wouldn’t otherwise talk to even and Marge does throw these fits over nothing at all now and then. About now I find myself driving down Mirindaranda Road a good clip and suddenly wonder where I’m going in such a goddamn hurry and so I slow down and take it easy for awhile. Then it dawns on me that I don’t really have anywhere to go right now which doesn’t happen very often, last time about five years ago, and I wonder what’s brought on this kettle of fish. Me GASCOYNE with nothing to do, they ought to put that in the headlines. Usually in the wee hours of the morning things get pretty slow and I can’t do much but that’s because everybody insists on wasting a third of their day sleeping, so what I often do between three and five A.M. is pop into one of my all-night drive-in movie places and watch the flicks but right now the sun’s still up. Nothing else to do so I catch the green arrow left and run up Crumble Canyon Drive for kicks which is a pretty posh part of town to live in now and I could see that one coming twenty years ago so I was smart enough to snatch up a lot of the high ground when there wasn’t anything but rabbits and gophers and rattlesnakes using it, but I myself prefer to live in a house trailer over near the airport. I always like to have a couple of wheels under me though I hardly use the joint except for a nap now and then and to fry an egg.
Crumble Canyon Drive starts getting pretty steep so I drop her in low and run past all the fancy houses, sitting ducks for landslides and mudslides and brush fires but that’s the kind of thing these people really eat up, and then I notice the Kaiser’s getting hot in a nasty way so I slow her down to about fifteen and give the rearview a jiggle. Right behind me I see I’ve got a string of Cadillacs and Continentals and Imperials all waiting for a straight stretch to pass me on but I don’t give a damn because half of them are probably leased from me anyway and the other half financed by the CRUMBLE CANYON SAVINGS AND LOAN, but what does get me is that little red Porsche behind all them which I’ve forgotten all about, getting careless in my old age. Well there isn’t much I can do about it and I’ll just let this one stay on because I’ve got the unpleasant feeling that if I shake him off another one’ll pop out from behind the next bush which is a state of affairs I can’t do much about until I find out who the joker is behind it all, like it or not.
Near the top of the ridge we’re climbing the engine starts missing like mad and it sounds like the timing’s going wild and if that’s more than steam leaking through the hood joints I’m in bad trouble. Still I’ve got to keep going and I make the first level stretch at the top and drop her back into drive and speed her up a little to cool the engine while the Crumble Canyon touring club roars past me with their painted women looking out the side windows at me like they’re afraid I’m going to be their new neighbor or something. I get the Kaiser up to thirty now and putt along Bigview Ridge Road and the temp drops some but not enough though the steam stops and I can relax a little to take a gander at the view which is not bad today for a change since the air’s clear and the sun’s getting ready to set.
The houses finally run out and then I roll past a bunch of land I haven’t cleared the brush off yet and come to Bigview Park and decide to pull into the Bigview Park Panoramic View Spot Parking Lot which gives a lovely view of the whole shooting match and what’s more important there’s a faucet and a hose there. I lease these thirty acres to the city, which put up the park and keeps it maintained because they think I’m going to give it to them in ten years or something but they’re all wrong because I’m waiting for people to move in next to the park and then when the area is a nice jammed-up suburb all around Bigview Park I’ll clear out all the damn bushes and throw up one of my BONANZA-BANQUETTE shopping centers which’ll probably start making money even before it opens.
I pull the Kaiser in which has started up boiling again and stop her and get out with the motor running and open up the hood. Then I go get the hose and turn it on and give the radiator a good hosing down which causes a big white cloud of steam but stops the boiling pretty fast. I unscrew the radiator cap and discover the thing’s only half full and wonder why but a quick look at the hose running from the engine head to the radiator is enough to solve that one, the damn thing’s got a nasty split in it, just bought the thing too, a BIG DADDY SPECIAL it was.
I hoof it around to the trunk and unlock it and pull out my tool box and throw off the lid and pull out a roll of friction tape which I take back to the radiator and wind around the split hose. Won’t last forever but I keep a full jeep can of water in the back and if I take it easy it shouldn’t leak too much. I take the tape back and while I’m messing around in the trunk I open up a can of BIG DADDY SUPER SWELL KOLA with that magic ingredient that makes the kids really lap it up can after can and tank myself up and throw the can under an oleander bush for the squirrels to eat. Finally I close the whole works up and get back in the car and feel a little drowsy, so time to retire as they say and I push back the seat and slouch down and hit the hay.
I wake up ten minutes later but frankly don’t feel any better at all, maybe even a little tireder. I pull the seat up and just about start up the engine when the view sort of catches my eye and so hell why not just sit a minute, I don’t have anywhere to go. A few lights are beginning to come on down there in the city and the shadows are getting deep so that the freeways and expressways and skyways show up real nice around the masses of houses and buildings all sort of glued together in the distance except for Police Tower with its fifteen stories lit up like a Christmas tree and GASCOYNE CENTER at the other end of town but not lit up yet because the only window in the place is the one out of my office. They look the same height from here and it doesn’t show that GASCOYNE CENTER is seven feet shorter except that i
f you count the radio-TV tower GASCOYNE CENTER is taller though most people don’t count that. The trouble is everybody remembers GASCOYNE CENTER is seven feet shorter. One-track mind the public has. I’d slap a couple of extra stories onto the top except that the idiot architect didn’t provide for it structurally. Last thing he ever built in this town. Just then Chester calls.
“What’s up Chester?”
“I got the information on the Apotheosis Insurance Company and the Roughah policy. Sure you want to hear it boss?” he says in the sort of tone of voice that makes me worry.
“Go ahead shoot,” I say.
“Well it seems—” he says but gets interrupted by a wheeze and a gasp and a little choking sound.
“You all right Chester?” I ask, it sounds like an act to me.
“Sure boss, just one of my shooting pains. Well anyway this company was set up especially to insure Roughah, not legal of course, which means the idea was to squeeze fat premiums out of Roughah without intending to pay up if Roughah kicked the bucket. The gimmick was that Apotheosis said it would be the middle man and reinsure Roughah with a lot of other companies with small policies but it never did this, just kept the premiums.”
“Yes.”
“Well fine and dandy, but the character,” he says gasping and coughing again, “but the fellow who set the company up put some bright-eyed college graduate to run the thing and this kid gets the idea to go straight and make the whole operation legal, especially because the wheel behind it all keeps out of the way as long as Roughah’s payments are pushed on to him.”
“Yes.”
“Well the kid changes the name of the company and starts making a little honest money when all of a sudden Roughah goes and gets himself killed.”
“Yes.”
“And this means that if it’s proven that Roughah was murdered and didn’t commit suicide the Apotheosis Life Insurance Company owes Nadine Roughah a cool million which it doesn’t have and that means the whole swindle comes out in the bankruptcy proceedings.”
“I get the picture Chester. What was the original name of—”
“THE RESURRECTION ASSURANCE COMPANY which is in our files boss and we’re checking it up now.”
“That’s enough Chester.”
Damn my lousy memory. It was me back in ’53 that set up RESURRECTION ASSURANCE and that means if I prove Roughah was murdered I’m the one who gets screwed, goddamn. This one really throws me down and walks all over me. Especially since it’s partly my fault. So many damn things going on these last ten years I can’t keep them straight anymore. Getting too old. But damn it wasn’t my fault that Johnny-A got himself killed in ’57 and I had to replace him with Chester the half-wit. And then that asshole college kid who has to go change the name of the company and for the worse of course. He ought to know that people who buy life insurance in this world can’t pronounce Apotheosis. Let people alone one minute and they go get a bright idea and ruin everything.
Well so much for the Roughah case, I guess I’ll just have to write that one off. Bad days happen. Nothing to do but keep on going and wait for the next good one. Somehow tomorrow looks good. O’Mallollolly will be out by then and I’ll go back and see the Widow Roughah and we’ll have a little talk about the little gold coin. I begin to think Dmitri’s last words—John Doe—could be the name under which the Swiss bank account is held, even though that it’s a bank account number isn’t proven yet, and I’ll see if she’s interested in buying a little information. But still it’s hard to get over having wasted two whole days on the Roughah thing.
Well there’s only one thing to do when things get like this and that’s go home and take a snooze and have a bite to eat, not that I really need it but it might cheer me up some. I haven’t seen my old fourteen-foot HOLLY ROLLER MOBILE HOME, custom made, for about three weeks now and a cold shower might just do the trick even if I can’t sleep. I usually just lie on the couch and listen to the jets coming in and taking off, nice racket they make.
I push the starter button and the thing catches but it takes a hell of a long time to get the engine started which happens when it overheats like that, floods I think. I race it a little to clear out all the crud and she throws a nice cloud of exhaust all over the landscape and I plunk her into reverse but damn if the linkage doesn’t jam again and there I am right up against the curb and my physique is such I couldn’t move this heap pushing or pulling with a block and tackle in ten years and there’s not a damn soul in sight. Not my day.
Well the hell with it and I throw it in low and floor it and the front end leaps over the curb and then the back bounces over and there’s this awful crunching and crashing and then bla-bla-bla-bla which just keeps on going so I know what I’ve just lost is the muffler. All this time too I’m crashing through the oleander bushes and hedges and lawns of Bigview Park as fast as I can so I don’t get stuck in the mud because they’ve just watered it, and I’m trying to find a path or service road out. I keep going through and mowing down the shrubbery and then I break out into a big circular lawn and drive around that leaving tracks about five inches deep but can’t find any way out so I pick a part of the bushes doesn’t look so bad and floor it and crash into it, mud and pieces of lawn flying everywhere and then bushes and branches scraping and scratching and snapping and the motor going bla-bla-bla-bla. Then I hit another little clearing and flush out a couple of teen-agers, whatever the hell they’re doing there, and finally fall into a ditch that seems three feet deep at least but fortunately I’m going fast enough that I bounce right out of it onto a dirt road, stopping just in time to keep from falling into the ditch on the other side, but I banged my knee pretty bad on the steering column.
At least the engine’s still running so I climb out and limp around the car to see what the damage is. A lot of paint’s gone but there wasn’t much left anyway and the left headlight got poked out and I lost a good part of the left rear fender which was pretty rusted out anyway, damn dogs always peeing back there. But the tires are okay, that’s what counts, so I hop back in and put her in drive and head for Bigview Ridge Road and when I hit that I have to wait a hell of a long time to turn left because the rush hour’s on full blast now.
I get her going finally and right off pick up the red Porsche which was hiding behind a pepper tree or something, well I just don’t give a damn. Then I think I hear the phone ringing but am not sure so I turn back up my hearing aid and it is. I pick up the receiver and it’s Chester but I can’t understand a damn thing with all the racket so I pull over to the side of the road and shut off the engine.
“Boss are you there?”
“Yeah Chester. The muffler went out. That’s what—”
“Nuddard won’t print the editorial or anything.”
“Won’t what?”
“He won’t do it boss.”
“He’s fired!”
“I think he’s already resigned.”
“Goddamn he can’t do this to me. I own that newspaper and I own every newspaper in town and he can’t just walk out on me like that, who does he think he is? Chester find somebody to put out that newspaper and quick!”
“I can’t boss.”
“You can’t?”
“I’ve tried boss. Stevens on the TV stations won’t touch it and has resigned and so has what’s-his-name on the radio stations. There’s nobody boss.”
“You do it Chester!”
“Boss the whole damn newspaper staff has walked out.”
“Shit!”
“And that’s not all—”
“What?” I ask.
“O’Mallollolly’s got the CENTER surrounded with God knows how many cops. This has been going on for a half hour but nobody up here knew about it until just—”
“He can’t do that either! Call the Mayor and have him fire O’Mallollolly, my orders.”
“The Mayor’s been kidnapped.”
This is awful. Just awful. I calm myself down and nibble on a Ritz cracker.
“Oka
y Chester you’ve got to act fast and clean now if we’re going to get out of this one at all. I want you to go down to the fourteenth floor, no don’t leave the phone, send Wesley down with signed orders to start burning Records and Documents, everything there. Some of the people have been there long enough so they remember when we got scared in ’51 and burned all the papers. The incinerator will hold about three filing cabinets at a time, start with File X and tell them to go slow and do a good job, not to hurry. All right?”
“Yeah. One more thing.”
“Yes?”
“Tsvkzov’s closed out his bank account. That check he gave you is worthless.”
“The prick!”
I hang up and just sit there by the side of the road with cars rushing by every which way and me wondering how the hell this is happening to me and how I can stop it from keeping on happening. I get the awful feeling that something’s been going on behind my back for a longer time than I care to think about and all this is happening according to somebody’s plan, and I’d say O’Mallollolly’s the one and that he’s bought up the town but I happen to know that he hasn’t even paid for his own house and in fact he even missed last month’s payment. Somebody really big must be back of him but nobody in town I know of is that big and nobody in the whole damn state either. It doesn’t make sense and it makes me sick. Here I had things running smoothly and everybody happy and now everything goes haywire for no good reason at all. Makes you lose your faith in human nature.
I start the Kaiser back up and throw her into drive and push my way into the traffic mess and decide now’s the time for long shots and one good idea comes to me right away, and that’s having the morning Times printed upstate by the Capital Tribune end of the chain and having the whole edition shipped down by special plane. It’ll be late but better than never.
I pull back over to the side of the road and turn off the motor and give Chester a ring.
“Yeah?” somebody says.
“Who’s this?”
“William.”
“William who?” I ask.
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