Trace (Trace 1)

by Warren Murphy

  “Jesus, you’ve got some job,” she said. “Did it look like they were willing to deal?”

  “Ordinarily, I think you could buy them and seven generations of their family for eleven dollars,” Trace said. “But I got the feeling that Yule has them snowed, that they’re convinced they’re going to get the hundred thou. Less his fee, of course.”

  “We’ll just have to wait and see, then,” she said. “I don’t mind telling you that when this thing gets closer to court, I’m going to move to have George removed from the case because he’s got nothing to do with it. The Plessers’ argument is with your insurance company and with the dead man, not with Dr. Matteson.”

  Trace nodded appreciatively. “Very shrewd.”

  “You figured that out, huh?”

  “Yep. You save your options. Later, you can always have Matteson sue the insurance company if the first case doesn’t go in your favor.”

  “You’re smarter than you look,” she said. She got up from behind the desk and walked to the refrigerator. Inside, Trace saw only an apple.

  “Did you eat lunch yet?” she asked him. She kept staring into the refrigerator as if hoping that somehow its contents would magically change, and then she slammed the door shut.

  “I haven’t even eaten yesterday’s lunch yet,” he said.

  “Well, there aren’t any real restaurants in this town, but I know a cocktail lounge down the street that makes a reasonable sandwich. You interested?”

  “Yes.”

  “Follow me, Trace,” she said.

  The woman had led Trace into the ratty little lounge where everybody had greeted her by her first name and the waitress had brought her a brandy and water without its being ordered.

  Now as they sipped their drinks, she was explaining why she had only one girl working in her office.

  “I took it over, the practice, from my father when he died last year. Before that, I was his associate. Well, he had all these people working there who’d been there since the time of the Flood and he’d never let them go. He used to have to go out every hour and shake them to make sure they were still alive. When I took over, I knew that one girl with a computer could do the work of all the rest of them, so I let everybody go.”

  “Is it working out?”

  “Until today, when you tried to make Betsy crazy with that microphone nonsense,” she said.

  “I won’t do it anymore. Did you just fire all those poor people who worked for your father? Christ, you’re heartless.”

  “Fire? Pension, me bucko. My father had the biggest private pension plan in the world, I think, outside of General Motors. They’ll collect forever, but at least I don’t have to watch them sleep. Don’t worry, Trace, nobody got hurt in the deal and I get more work out in a day than I used to in a week.”

  The waitress came back for a food order and watching the lawyer agonize over the menu made Trace think of Chico. Like almost all trim and beautiful women, Jean Callahan paid a lot of attention to her calories. She finally settled on a hamburger with no roll and no catsup and hold the french fries. Chico was the exception; she ate like a Russian weight lifter, ordering almost everything on the menu, eating it all, then starting to steal food from the plate of whoever she was eating with. Yet her lithe dancer’s body never seemed to add an ounce. Whatever works, Trace thought. He’d hate to have to live on the difference between the two women.

  “Listen,” Trace said when the waitress had left, “I’ve got to call you Jean. I had a teacher once named Miss Callahan.”

  “Was she a good teacher?”

  “I hated her. She kept praying mantises in a plant on her desk.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know. I think she taught biology or something. I don’t remember ’cause I spent all my time trying to look up her dress. She caught me one day and she kept me after school. She told me that the last kid she caught trying to look up her dress, she tied to the desk and left him there overnight. When class started in the morning, there was nothing left but a skeleton. The praying mantises ate him. It almost made me queer, so if I have to call you Miss Callahan anymore, it’ll ruin my lunch.”

  “Try Jeannie. Everybody else does. I’m glad you recovered.” She signaled the bartender for two more drinks.

  “Coming up, Jeannie,” he called back.

  “Better be careful,” Trace said. “You’re going to get whacked and I’m going to take advantage of you.”

  “Make that four more drinks,” she said sotto voce, and smiled.

  She was nice to look at, Trace thought, and she was wonderful to listen to. She had a whispering throaty voice that seemed as if it should naturally be talking in your ear. From a distance of no more than two inches. Preferably while lying down.

  He decided he’d better stick to work.

  “So tell me about Mitchell Carey,” he said abruptly.

  “Mitchell Carey?”

  Trace nodded and she said, “What’s he got to do with this?” He could almost sense her bristling.

  He realized he’d been clumsy and quickly he said, “They’re friends of my boss. He heard that Mr. Carey was sick and asked me to look in on the wife. So I go over there and I run into some blonde with Bride of Frankenstein hair and she tells me some story about there being a pack of killers running amok at Meadow Vista and she mentioned your name.”

  “You can’t stop people from mentioning your name,” the woman said. “The insolent little twerp.”

  The waitress brought the two new drinks and the hamburger, sitting alone on a small plate.

  “This Muffy kid doesn’t sound like one of your favorites,” Trace said.

  “She’s not,” Jeannie said just before she filled her mouth with a hunk of hamburger.

  He waited until she had finished chewing before asking, “Why not?”

  “She came to see me with that story, that she was afraid that something might happen to Mr. Carey because she saw that Plesser story in the paper. I told her to butt out, that nothing was going to happen.”

  “What’d Mrs. Carey say?” Trace asked.

  “Nothing. She just sat and listened.”

  “I don’t think she’s all that well herself,” Trace said. “Did you tell the kid you were representing Matteson?”

  “No. That would really have made her bonkers.”

  “Shouldn’t you have told her?”

  “It’s none of her business. Listen, Trace, Mrs. Carey’s like an aunt to me. Her husband and my father were close friends all their lives. When I was really little, their house was practically a second home. Then they had Buffy. She came very late—”

  The waitress came back with two more drinks, which she set on the table. “Frankie bought you these.”

  “Thanks,” Jeannie said, and waved to the bartender, who nodded back. “Do you know what that little bitch did?” she said.

  “What little bitch?”

  “That Muffy or whatever her name is. The first time I saw her, she wasn’t in town a week, and I was out at the Careys’ house and she almost chased Amanda from the room. Then she starts pumping me about having Mr. Carey declared incompetent and how do you draw wills. Jesus Christ, like she had already taken over. Is that nerve or what?”

  “I’d say it’s nerve,” Trace said. “Mrs. Carey was telling me the business is closing down or being sold or something?”

  “Being sold. Mr. Carey made plans for the sale before his stroke. I’m handling all the arrangements. You know, it’s funny, he called and told me about selling and I went up to his house to talk to him about it and he kept calling me Littlejean like he did when I was little, and I know he kept thinking about whether or not I’d be able to handle a big sale like that but he was going to go through with it because of loyalty to my father. I hope he lives to see that I handled it well.”

  “He’s not getting any better,” Trace said.

  “It’s tough after a stroke,” she said.

  “Not because of Dr. Matteson?” Trace asked.<
br />
  “Forget it,” she said. She nibbled at the hamburger and said, “I think I’m getting drunk. I’ve talked too much.”

  “Exactly my plan,” Trace said. “What are you doing for dinner?”

  “Waiting for an invitation.”

  “Will you have dinner with me?” he asked.

  “On one condition.”

  “I hate women who impose conditions. What condition?”

  “We eat at my house. I love to cook.”

  “Okay. I’ll bring the wine.”

  “Bring red,” she said.

  15

  Dexter, the clerk, called out to him as Trace walked through the lobby of the Sylvan Glade Country Club toward the steps to his room.

  “I have a message for you, Mr. Tracy,” he said. As he fumbled through papers under the desk, he asked, “And how are you finding our town?”

  “Very nice. A lovely town.”

  “Do you think your principal will approve? That is, if you’re allowed to say.”

  Principal? Trace realized Dexter was talking about the Vatican. “I think I’m going to give them a report that will have you blushing,” he said.

  Dexter smiled. “Oh, I hope so.” He handed Trace a pink message note. “That Chico person,” he said. “You must have spoken to her. She was very polite this time.”

  “I told her you were my right-hand man,” Trace said. “Thanks, Dexter.”

  He read the note as he walked away. It said simply, “Will call tomorrow,” and Trace thought it was significant that she had left no return telephone number.

  He took a shower, then lay naked on his bed and called Walter Marks’ office at Garrison Fidelity.

  “Mr. Marks’ line,” the vice-president’s secretary said.

  “This is Devlin Tracy. Let me talk to Groucho,” he said, as he always did.

  “Just a moment. I’ll see if he’s in,” the secretary said, as she always did.

  Trace didn’t have the energy to argue with her, but he wondered why secretaries always made that particularly nonsensical statement to callers. Anyone with half a brain knew that the secretary would know whether or not her boss was in. Therefore, she was saying, in essence, I’ll see if he wants to talk to you. Didn’t it embarrass secretaries to come back on and say, He stepped out, can you leave a message? It would embarrass anybody with any sense.

  Therefore, secretaries did not have any sense. A neat little syllogism, perhaps not so elegant as the ones his Jesuit professors in college had taught him: God created everything in the world, including evil; anything created by God has a worthwhile purpose; therefore, evil has a worthwhile purpose. This, Trace had found out early, was part of an intellectual package deal. You had to accept that and then the second part of the package, namely: only God can understand why He has done certain things; we are not God; therefore, we cannot expect to understand everything God has done.

  Trace had suggested to his professor a new syllogism: only Jesuits can pretend, with a straight face, to believe Jesuit theology; I cannot swallow this crap with a straight face; therefore, I am not, and never will be, a Jesuit.

  The priest-professor had responded in turn: only those who understand will graduate this school; You do not understand; therefore you will not become a graduate of St. Luke’s College. Q.E.D.

  And Trace had changed his major the next week to accounting. At least, the errors in accounting were correctible. Nobody ever launched an inquisition because it took two tries to make a balance sheet come out even.

  Marks came onto the telephone. “What is it, Trace? Don’t you ever call anymore?”

  “We only talk when I call you; we are talking; therefore I have called you. That’s called a syllogism, Groucho. All A is B; C is A; therefore, C is B. You see what you missed out on when you passed up Catholic college. You could have found a way to make the insurance business seem noble and worthwhile. If you had done that, you’d be the president emeritus of every insurance company in America. Even Jesuits would buy insurance. Just in case they were wrong.”

  “What are you talking about? Is this going to be one of those nasty conversations?”

  “No. You give me 110 percent of everything I demand and I’m pretty sure we can conclude this conversation on a high note of friendship, accord, and mutual respect. Where’s Bob Swenson?”

  “Mr. Swenson’s in Europe. You know that.”

  “And since I know that and you know I know that, you also know that that’s not what I mean. Where in Europe is he?”

  “Why?”

  “Because I want to talk to him about this Mitchell Carey thing. I want to find out who told him what and why. Every time he gives you a message for me, it’s garbled and it’s worse than having no message at all.”

  “I told you everything he told me,” Marks said.

  “You told me everything you think he told you. There’s a difference.”

  “What’s going on that’s so important anyway?” Marks asked.

  “I think killers are massing at Carey’s door,” Trace said perversely, “ready to do him in, should we drop our guard. What’ve we got, a half-million-dollar insurance on him? I’m trying to save us money.”

  Marks sighed. “Okay. Let me look up the number.”

  He was back a moment later and gave Trace the telephone number of a hotel in London.

  “Mr. Swenson is there in Room Ten-forty-two. Where are you anyway, in case Mr. Swenson calls, he can reach you.”

  “I’m staying at the Sylvan Glade Country Club in Harmon Hills. But, Groucho, if you tell my ex-wife, my ass is grass. She doesn’t know I’m in New Jersey. She finds out and I leave.”

  “I know about the love between you and your ex. I wouldn’t tell her anything.”

  “Good. And as long as you’re so agreeable, I’ve got something else for you.”

  “What’s that?”

  “I’m tired of itemizing my out-of-pocket expenses every time I do something for you people. From now on, I’m putting in for a steady hundred dollars a day. Anything big I spend’ll be over that.”

  “Best news I’ve had in years,” Marks said.

  “Huh?”

  “Just put in the hundred dollars.”

  “Why?”

  “Because, dammit, I just got a statement from accounting and your average out-of-pocket is $147 a day. Put in the hundred. We’ll both be happy.”

  “Aaah, I hate insurance men,” Trace said.

  He dialed London, charging the call to his credit card, and was surprised to find that it was late night there. He was always surprised because he could never figure out if it was later in the east or in the west. But there was no answer in Swenson’s room and Trace declined to leave a message. There was no telling when Swenson might come in and Trace didn’t want to be awakened in the middle of the night.

  As Trace dressed, he whistled cheerily and then realized he was in such a good mood because he was indulging in one of mankind’s oldest, most noble pleasures: revenge. He had no delusions about where Chico was and what she was doing. She was in Memphis, Tennessee—not Egypt—and she was tipping on him with some other man. If she hadn’t been, she would have left a number where he could call her back.

  It had been a good run and what did he expect? Eternity? Four years wasn’t bad.

  There had been some kind love between them, the unusual love of a part-time hooker and a full-time ne’er-do-well, but friendship had come first. And now she was trampling on that friendship by lying to him. How do you lie to friends and still call them friends? It was more of a question than he could answer right now. He just knew that somehow things were different, and once things started going differently, they kept going differently. Maybe it was time to look for a new roommate.

  He thought of Jeannie Callahan. Or maybe to fall in love.

  The telephone rang. Maybe Chico, he thought as he walked to the bedside. It wouldn’t be Marks. Maybe Swenson.

  It was none of them.

  “Hello, Devlin,�
� said a whiny voice. “This is your mother, Mrs. Patrick Tracy of Manhattan.”

  “Yes, Mother. I recognize the name,” Trace said with a sigh.

  “Did you know that tomorrow is Cousin Bruce’s birthday?”

  “No, Mother. Somehow it must have slipped my mind.”

  Trace tried to remember Cousin Bruce. All he could summon up was the image of some middle-aged moron who was fifty pounds overweight, waddled like a duck, had a bald spot, and laughed like a hyena, sometimes at nothing more humorous than a burned-out light bulb. Then Trace realized that could describe all his cousins, all the offspring of his mother’s siblings beyond number, all named either Bruce or Barry.

  She was talking. “…no wonder it slipped your mind out there in Las Vegas with that woman, I guess you’ve got more important things to do than think about your family, your real family.”

  “That woman’s name is Chico and you can call her that and I’d rather study remedial Swahili than think about…Who is it? Bruce?” Trace said.

  His mother sniffed as if Trace had confirmed all her suspicions. “I hate it when you’re nasty with me, but never mind that. The reason I called is that we’re having a birthday party for Cousin Bruce.”

  “Stop calling him Cousin Bruce,” Trace said. “Just plain Bruce will do nicely.” Who in hell had cousins named Bruce? What had his father been thinking of when he married this woman?

  “I said we’re having a birthday party for Bruce. I want you to come.”

  “For Christ’s sakes, Ma, Bruce must be fifty years old.”

  “Forty-eight. And is that a reason not to have a party?”

  “It would be for someone with some taste or decency. I can’t make it.”

  “You don’t even know when it is.”

  “I still can’t make it.”

  “It’s next Wednesday, a week from now.”

  “I’ll be back in Las Vegas then,” Trace said.

  “Oh, sure. You’ve got lots of time for that woman and gallivanting around the countryside, but no time for your family,” Mrs. Tracy said.

  “Mother, I’m here working. That’s the male equivalent of your shopping. Let me talk to Sarge.”