“They don’t?”
“No. They call me Sam, from Samson, though my legal name is Meir. So you can call me Sam, too, won’t you?”
“My pleasure.”
“Good.”
“Sam?”
“Yes, Daddy?”
“How old are you?”
“Why?”
“I just wondered.”
“Eighteen next birthday.”
“My God,” I said. “My God.”
I left her reading while I took my shower. Walking carefully from shower to bedroom in order to protect her from the worst of the holes in my bathrobe. She was only a child, after all.
“It’s good to have you here, Sam,” I said after I got dressed.
“It’s terrific.”
“You don’t mind my coming earlier than you expected?”
“I’m not about to close my eyes and pretend you aren’t here yet. Look, I’ll call your grandmother so she can get a bed ready and then we’ll go out to see her.”
“No,” she said.
“What do you mean, no?”
“I came to stay with you. I’m going to sleep here. I brought a sleeping bag and the most expensive air mattress that Trevor’s money could buy. You carry on your life as usual and I’ll just fit in where it’s convenient. You sleep in your room, and I’ll be happy right here.”
“I have an instinct for tolerance,” I said, “but your grandmother won’t like it.”
“Then she’ll have to lump it. Mummy says I’m as stubborn as she is.”
Poor Trevor, I thought. Having just one like that around was more than I could handle. But I remained outwardly mute.
“And I don’t want you losing work or anything silly like that. Not because of me. I don’t want to go sightseeing or anything. I didn’t come here to see boring old Indianapolis. I came to see you. I’ve got books to read when there’s nothing else to do. And I’m not to be a financial burden on you. I’ve got bags of money. Not just my own, either, because Trevor gave me a lot for this trip.”
“What can I say?”
“Nothing about those things.”
So I didn’t.
We got back from seeing my mother at about eleven. Before we turned in, Sam said, “Are you working on a case now?”
I thought for a moment. “Yeah, I guess I am.”
“Can I sort of help, maybe? Keep track of things as you work on it, or something like that.”
“Sure you want to?”
“Oh, yes. You have no idea how much cachet you’ve given me at Madame Graumier’s. The school I go to, in Bern.”
“I know the school. I write letters there.”
“But there isn’t another girl who has one of her fathers that’s a private detective. That is what you really are, isn’t it? I mean you still are.”
“I still are,” I said.
“That’s fantastic. Everybody else’s fathers are things like Trevor— banking and business and show biz and things. I’m considered ever so lucky.”
“You’ll learn,” I said.
“Oh, super.”
“But I’ll have to think about how much I can tell you about cases I work on.”
Her face fell.
“I’m constrained by the law. You’re not my client. You’re not the police. I’ll have to think about it.”
“I’m very discreet.”
“I’ll have to think about it.”
She frowned at me, but that’s fatherhood for you.
Chapter Nine
Sam woke me up early by inconsiderately turning pages loudly as she read. I punished her by sending her out to get some 1” X 1” pictures taken.
“But what for?” she asked.
“Don’t ask,” I said.
I used the time she was away to wake up.
And to have some breakfast. And to dig out some dusty forms. And look over the notes I’d made from my conversations with John Austin Pighee’s wife and sister. It was just as well I’d suggested more things I could do for Mrs. Thomas. For Sam’s sake as much as mine. Hard to give her the false flavor of private detection that she wanted by the two of us sitting around the office.
I heard running footsteps at ten to ten. Sam threw herself at the door and bounced off. Then carefully lifted and pushed, which was what it took to open it.
“Daddy, what are they for?” she asked.
Instead of answering, I got out my ink pad and took her fingerprints.
“Why are you doing this?”
“We fingerprint all strangers in Indianapolis,” I said.
“Don’t be exasperating! Mummy said you were exasperating and I said you wouldn’t be with me, so don’t be.”
“You want to be able to hear about the cases I work on?”
“Yes.”
“And to help on them?”
“Of course. Yes.”
“Well, I can only let you help me if you are an employee.”
“An employee?”
“And for you to become an employee, I’ve got to send the state police photographs and a foil set of your fingerprints.”
“You do?”
“And they have to be identified by a code number. The number of your current Indiana driving license, if you have one. Do you have one?”
“How could I? I’ve never been to Indiana before.”
“Well, we’ll have to think of another number, then—007? Well, I’ll work out something. I’ll send this off this morning, marked ‘urgent.’ Then we’ll get back a card for you. It will say ‘Indiana Private Detective Identification Card’ on it, and it will have the name of your employer, a picture, and the thumbprint of your right hand.”
“Oh, wow!”
“There are only a few snags.”
Her face showed disappointment. “Snags? Oh, I was afraid it was too good to be true. Is it that I’m not old enough?”
“No, there’s no age limit. I can hire anybody I need, but if they do bad things it’s me that loses my license. You’ll have to have ‘good conduct’ while you’re in my employ.”
“O.K.!”
“And you won’t be able to tell anybody anything you learn about people as a result of your employment. Only our client and the police, if it involves a criminal matter.”
“A criminal matter?” Eyes bright.
“Agreed?”
“Oh, yes!”
“Let’s get this form filled in.” And there it was. I was father of the year.
I’d never had an employee before, though they send you the forms every two years when the license comes up for renewal.
“Well,” I said, when the form was completed, checks for fees enclosed. “I’m off.”
“Off?”
“You’re not an employee yet.”
“But . . .”
“I’ve got to try to see some people before lunch. I’ll stop back and try to fill you in on things when I get a chance. Bye.”
End of reign for father of the year. Years get shorter all the time.
I drove to Loftus Pharmaceuticals but instead of looking for space in front of an administration building, I drove to the main gate. I was approached outside the barrier by the same guard I’d identified myself to about the same time the previous morning. He seemed to recognize me but asked me for my pass.
“I don’t have one,” I said. “I want to see the man in charge of the company’s salesmen. I need some information about one of them.”
“Sales Staff Supervisor?”
“Sounds like it.”
“He isn’t expecting you?”
“No.” I showed him my I.D. “I want to see him about one of his salesmen, who had an accident.”
“I’ll call him for you,” he said. “You want to park over there?”
I nodded and parked.
When I got back, the guard had cleared my way in. “Do you know where to find him?”
“I don’t even know his name.”
“Mr. Joseph Bartonio,” he said, and gave me d
irections.
Bartonio was certainly a sales administrator rather than a salesman.
His office was not a showy one; he was comfortingly unkempt, a middle-aged man whose face was dark, creased, and old.
“I’m investigating the accident which John Austin Pighee was involved in. I want to know what one of your salesmen was doing working in a research lab and getting himself blown up.”
“Insurance people at last,” he said. “You took your time.” He picked up a pencil and started doodling while I decided whether to unclarify his mind. Before I decided, he said, “It shocked hell out of me to hear that John had been hurt. Awful.”
This caught me by surprise; it was the first expression of sympathy for the man that I’d heard from anybody but his sister.
“It really shook me,” Bartonio said, “because, see, I was responsible for him being there in the first place.”
“I don’t understand, Mr. Bartonio. . . .”
“Call me Joe. I get uncomfortable any more when people call me anything but Joe.”
“I don’t understand how you were responsible for John Pighee being in the lab.”
“I been around,” he said. “I know when a guy is restless. John was a good salesman. Crack. Ace. But I knew he didn’t want to go all the way that route. I been here a long time. Not quite as long as Sir Jeff . . . but a guy like John who’s good, you either find a slot he really likes or he moves out to somebody else. There are guys came into this company after me that make more money now and have more responsibility. But I’m good at handling people. I’m good at knowing my salesmen.”
“I’m sure you are.”
“Now, fifteen years ago, twenty years ago, he’d have gone straight into some kind of management. Ten, twelve years ago, he would have gone into the research labs and worked from there. But five years ago, when John came along to us, science majors were a dime a dozen. If he wanted to get his Ph.D., then maybe he’d get considered. But a guy like John doesn’t have time for that kind of thing. So a couple years out of college getting the facts of life, and he walks in here, to sales. Now, a drug salesman with his kind of scientific knowledge, with his kind of go—now, there is a drug salesman.”
“I can see how it would help,” I said.
“Most of my guys, they got to sell to the nonscientific side of people who buy drugs. Institutions, doctors, so on. John could do that but he could also sell to their heads. You don’t get them often that can go both ways. I may not be class myself, but I can tell class.”
“Which doesn’t tell me much about how he happened to be working in the labs.”
“Part time. He was splitting his time. Part here, part there.”
“Even part time.”
“I saw he was getting restless. I talked to a friend of mine in the company, guy who knows about personnel, what makes guys tick. We pulled a few strings. Got him on a project.”
“A friend? At the lab? Dr. Dundree?”
Bartonio raised an eyebrow. “Higher than Jay Dundree. I don’t know what Dundree thought about it, but my guy has the clout to make him like it.”
“But what kind of work was Pighee doing?”
“I don’t know. I’m not technical, see. I can add and subtract, but ask me what I’m selling and I couldn’t tell you more than what it says on the label and the guff with the instructions.”
“How high up is your friend?”
He hesitated. “You ask that like I was doing something bad. I tell a guy, and he places a guy for the good of the guy and the good of the company. That can’t be bad.”
“I need to know what Pighee was working on. I need to know who to go to. Who is your friend?”
“Aw, hell,” Joe said, “Henry Rush. P. Henry Rush.”
“What exactly is P. Henry Rush?”
“Just a director, that’s all.”
“A good friend?”
“Just a guy on the board I know is interested in helping the company develop the potential of the people who work for it.”
“Well,” I said, “I appreciate your help.”
“I’m just surprised it’s taken you guys so long to get here.”
“I don’t want to leave you under a misapprehension,” I said.
“I’m not from an insurance company and I never said I was.”
“No? Who are you, then?”
“I’m a private detective and I’m working for John Pighee’s sister. She wants to know more about what happened to him.”
“Yeah? Oh, well. I haven’t told you anything I couldn’t have told a dozen guys, one way or another.”
“But you haven’t?”
“Nobody’s asked. I guess they already got all the answers.”
Chapter Ten
I left Joe Bartonio’s office and walked around the Loftus site for a few minutes. The corporate area was larger than was apparent from the main gate. Off to the south there were three large production areas, flat buildings that looked like modular units for a giant airport. Widen the connecting roads and they’d be ready to land the Concorde. Between them trucks prowled, getting loaded to disperse medicine to the waiting world. There was a lot of activity.
I worked my way to the only other Loftus building inside the perimeter that I knew. Research Three. I was looking for Dundree. I was going to threaten him.
I signed in again at the table by the entrance door. The halls were as devoid of human life as they’d been the last time I’d been there. The statutory showers at the end of each corridor were friendly by comparison.
I checked the office where I’d talked to Dundree, Dr. Merom, and Lee Seafield the day before, but no one was there. I felt free to explore. Dundree said that Pighee’s accident had taken place upstairs, so up the stairs I went.
There was still nobody in the halls, but at least I heard a few voices and the hums of some engines. I was about to face up to the decision of right or left when a young woman burst from a door next to the stairwell and nearly ran into me.
“Oh, God,” she said. “Sorry.” She wore a white lab jacket and her hair was held close to her head by a net.
“Is this place always so empty?” I asked. “You’re the first person I’ve run into in the corridors in days.”
She seemed surprised by the question. Then said, “Well, I guess not many people actually work in the building. Most of it is routine quality testing—this side of this floor and all downstairs—and a lot of that is done with machines.”
“But the place doesn’t smell,” I said. “Isn’t it supposed to?”
“Is it?”
“Well, a research lab and all that?”
“Yeah,” she said, “I know what you mean, but the ventilation here is very good.”
“Oh,” I said. “Do you know whether Dr. Dundree is in the building?”
“I don’t think so. Mornings he’s usually in the admin office, outside the gate. Did you try there?”
I shook my head. “He said that in one of these labs there was an explosion several months ago. Is that right?”
“Why, yes,” she said. “In January. One of our people was hurt.”
“John Pighee. Did you know him?”
“No. He was only here part time. And he kept to himself.”
“You’re what?”
“A technician,” she said. “I’ve been here nearly three years, and then they brought in someone from the outside to work on Storeroom.”
“Storeroom?”
“Oh, that’s what’s on the door. The lab they had that accident in. It was converted a long time ago and they’ve been running some hush-hush kind of research in there for years. But we call it Operation Storeroom. That’s it.” She pointed to a door halfway down the hall on our left.
“Can I have a look?”
She laughed. “Lee’s in there now. And he doesn’t let anybody in. None of them do.”
“That’s Lee Seafield? The tall guy with—”
“The curly corn-silk hair, yeah. We think he bleaches i
t, but no one’s ever spotted the roots.”
“How many people work on this big project?” I asked.
“Lee, Marcia—that’s Dr. Merom—and Dr. Dundree’s been filling in since Mr. Pighee’s accident.”
“No one else? No technicians?”
“Nope. Oh, except that Lee is a technician, but he’s been here for years. They say he’s not very good at taking tests, or he’d have got his doctorate. He’s smart enough.”
“You weren’t here when Mr. Pighee had his accident, were you?” “No. But Ray was.”
“Ray?”
“Ray McGonigle. He’s another technician. He was the first one there.”
“Is he around?”
“He was, but he’s gone to lunch, I think.”
“Already?”
“We’re nursing some cultures and one of us has to be with them all the time. He went early. I go when he gets back. It’ll be nearly an hour. He only just left.”
“Do you know where he went? Is there someplace I can catch him eating lunch?”
“He went off the premises. He had a couple of records to buy, he said. He doesn’t really like it here and he goes off at lunchtime a lot.”
“Do you like it?”
“It’s better for me, because I’m not that ambitious. Down under, Ray is. But things are just so competitive there’s hardly room to turn around unless you’re some kind of genius or something.”
“Is Ray some kind of genius?”
“Well, he’s black,” she said. “And when he—”
A shout pierced our conversation: “Sonia!”
“Oh, God. My cultures!” She ran down the hall toward a doorway through which an angry Dr. Merom had put her head. I turned away discreetly, and heard the door close behind the errant technician.
I was alone in the corridors again.
I left the building and went back to the Security Building at the main entrance, where I signed out. Then I walked to the Clinical Research administration office.
Dr. Jay Dundree’s secretary wasn’t eating when I walked I into her office. Which made a change from the day before. “You’re still too thin,” I said.
“What? Oh.”
“Yeah, it’s me again. Is Dr. Dundree here?”
“He’s in there,” she said, “but I don’t know if he’ll see you.”
I gave her my card, wrote John Pighee’s name on the back. “Give it to him and see.”
The Silent Salesman Page 5