As She Rides By (Vic Daniel Series)

by David Pierce

  'Cause I know my drinkin' buddy, my old amigo Samuel D . . .

  ONE HOUR AND seventeen minutes later I was back home sharing a hot bath with a toy submarine that was supposed to run underwater but wouldn't, a large helping of Epsom Salts, which is supposed to be good for aches and pains, and a liberal squirt of Evonne's bath gel for added color and excitement. Evonne Louise Shirley . . . wonder whatever happened to her, and who cares. From somewhere high above, Ethel Merman's voice could be discerned, belting out "Everything's comin' up roses, but in your case it's purple." Bruises, as we all know, are caused by the rupture of blood vessels under the derma which, technically, has not been lacerated. Call them contusions, if you will. What we all do not know, at least I don't, is why they change from the bluish-purple-puce tones after a few days to that evil greeny-yellow color . . . as for lacerations, I had a few, too, quite a few, enough to mention . . . ah, swirling eddies of idle thoughts as my submarine sank once again straight to the bottom of the tub, hereinafter known as the Red Sea, exaggerating only slightly.

  Then 'twas choices, choices. I don't mind some choices, like between one chili dog or two, or one Hawaiian shirt or another, or whether you start with the foreplay or finish up with it, but among the choices I'd rather not have to make as often as I seemingly did are between iodine or Mercurochrome, Darvons or Demerol, Band-Aids that are either too small or too big because you've used up all the proper-sized ones, and what to do with a useless right arm—go for sympathy with a sling or merely do what Napoleon did and tuck it casually inside your sports coat. There is no doubt that getting beat up is a gigantic drag, because it hurts, and nothing hurts like good old-fashioned pain; it'll do it every time.

  So anyway, I poured stuff on me and over me and stuck sticky stuff here and there and plugged a hole or two and threw out the tattered shreds that were once my third-best cords and put some clothes on and fed and watered the dog and popped another pain pill for the road and then hit it.

  It was six-forty when I pulled up in the almost-empty parking lot beside the IMM building on Olympic, near the Civic Center, and coasted neatly to a stop in a parking place personally reserved for one James J. Frawley Jr., whoever he was. I climbed out, stretched gingerly, then, as requested, mounted the wide stairs and punched the "Night Inquiries" button. A voice squawked something at me. I said who I was. There was another squawk. After a minute or two a uniformed security man unlocked the glass portals, checked my I.D., let me in, locked up again, said, "This way, please," and headed off to the bank of elevators, only one of which seemed to be in operation. In we went, and up we went. Out we got, down the hall we went, into an outer office we went, and then, after a knock, into a larger, much larger, inner office which contained, among other furnishings, a gorgeous old rolltop desk, behind which a man was seated, scribbling away. He got to his feet.

  "Thanks, Tom," he said.

  "Anytime, Mr. Howieson," Tom said. He departed. I crossed to the desk and Mr. Howieson and I shook hands. I must say, he was not what I expected. Like as not, nor was I to him, I dare say. Which was that whiskey company that used to feature distinguished-looking executive types at their ease, often in the library of some exclusive gentlemen's club? Calvert's, maybe. Howieson would look more at ease in a fishing camp; he was short, tanned almost black, wore his graying hair in a crew cut, and wore on his obviously fit frame loud check pants and a baggy madras jacket worn over a polo neck.

  "Beautiful desk," I said.

  "Thank you," he said. "It belonged to my father and before that to his father—they were both lawyers too, only they were more your small-town general practitioners, not a big-shot corporate lawyer like me. Sit, please." He led the way to a trio of well-worn old leather chairs that were grouped around a low table; he sank into one and I did likewise. "Cigarette? Cigar? Drink?" I shook my head. "Nothing? Coffee?" I shook it again. "OK," he said. "That takes care of the amenities, it seems to me. Now let's get down to business, Mr. Daniel."

  "Right," I said. "It is like this, sir. In the course of another investigation, the details of which I will not bother you with at this time, I came across a number of curious coincidences. I was a suspicious man to begin with, Mr. Howieson, even before I embarked on my present line of employment, due to a series of youthful experiences I will also not bother you with at this time, fascinating as they no doubt were."

  "No doubt," he said with a straight face.

  "And my present line of work has not, alas, removed that skeptical attitude to life and those who live it," I said.

  "Indeed, one might suspect the very opposite," Mr. Howieson said.

  "Indeed is putting it mildly," I said. "Anyway." I got out the notes I'd made at the office after seeing the Lubinskis' courier and his peas on their way, while I was filling in the time before driving down to Huntington Beach. "March 14th," I said. "One of your employees, a Jonathan E. Flint, while returning from the theater with another of your employees, a Mrs. Leonard Richard Jones, alias Mary, was killed by a single shot in the head. Through my extensive contacts with the LAPD, otherwise known as Sneezy, I obtained a copy of the investigating officer's report of the crime and also copies of other relevant paperwork, which I'll fax you if you want."

  "Skip it," he said.

  "Just as well," I said, "as I don't have a fax."

  "John Flint," he said. "Of course I remember, I was at the funeral, showing company solidarity and all that. And Mary Jones, of course I know her, if only slightly, as we are in different departments. I am too modest to mention that we are also on different floors and different rungs of the oh-so-slippery corporate ladder. Mr. Daniel, I am beginning not to like this at all. Go on, please."

  "Of course you also know what department both Flint and Jones toiled in," I said.

  "Do I ever," he said, looking grim. "Pensions."

  "Nebulous is the word for it," I said, "but when I was talking to the widowed Mrs. Flint, she mentioned she'd come across a sheet of paper in their safe-deposit box she'd never seen before and couldn't make hide nor hair out of, so she'd chucked it. All she remembered was it was a list of names and addresses with some common denominator, something in common linking them. What that factor was she could not recall."

  "Pensions," said Mr. Howieson. "Those fucking pensions."

  "Lots of money in pension plans these days, a little bird told me," I said. He shot me a look. "What exactly did Flint and Jones do in pensions or with pensions?" I said. "I mean specifically."

  "I do not know," he said, pushing himself forcefully up and out of the armchair. "But I will soon find out." He crossed to the desk, looked up a number in a rotary file, grabbed the phone, then dialed.

  "Mr. Douglas? R. Howieson, from the office . . . I will tell you what you can do for me, sir, with apologies to the wife and family for disturbing your evening, you can join me here as soon as possible . . . Yes, you could say it was an emergency situation, Frank . . . twenty minutes? Thank you." He hung up. "Twenty minutes," he said to me.

  "I heard," I said.

  "Scotch, bourbon, Irish, or Canadian?" he said.

  "Irish," I said.

  He slid back the doors of a wooden cabinet recessed in one wall, revealing a compact but well-stocked wet bar, and poured us a couple of hefty slugs into the kind of glassware you find in cheap bars or my kitchen.

  "See," I said, "what were Flint and Jones doing going out together in the first place? They never had before. They were not romantically involved and they too were on separate rungs on the greasy—I mean slippery—corporate ladder, verifiable facts all. And there's more," I said, "more bits and more pieces, but maybe we'd better wait for Mr. Douglas, because otherwise it's all conjecture, let alone libelous slander."

  "Mind if I work?" he said.

  "Nope," I said. "Mind if I have some more Irish?"

  "Nope," he said. He called the security guy, told him to expect another visitor, then resumed his scribblings. I resumed my sippings and idle musings.

  I interrupted
him only once during the following half hour by asking him where the little boys' room was. He told me.

  Frank Douglas showed up right on the dot of seven-thirty. At least he looked like he was supposed to, being an accountant type—worried and balding and wearing an off-the-peg dark gray suit.

  "Mr. Daniel here is looking into something for me," Mr. Howieson said, interrupting his underling's apologies for being late and the way he looked. "In conditions of absolute secrecy and total confidentiality. Understood?"

  "Yes, of course, Mr. Howieson," Douglas stammered.

  "Mr. Douglas here is Mrs. Mary Jones's immediate superior," Mr. Howieson said. "He will answer all your questions succinctly and accurately. Am I correct, Frank?"

  "Of course, sir," Frank said, shaking in his shoes by then.

  "It's just a question of procedure, Frank," I said. "Of office routine, stuff like that." I smiled at him; he gave me a nervous grimace in return, not reassured at all. "Who does what, for example?"

  "Who does what what?" he said.

  "In your department, Frank, who does what? How many are there in pensions, anyway?"

  "Counting secretarial?" he said.

  "Why not?" I said.

  "Eh, well, of course Mr. Michaelson's not expected back in the office till the end of the week, and Mr. Gillespie's in Europe and one of the receptionists, Sally, she's up in Oregon helping her mother move . . . "

  "Roughly, Frank, roughly," I said before Howieson got at him and scared him even more, as I could see he was just about to.

  "Well, surprisingly few, considering," Frank said.

  "Considering what, Frank?" I said.

  "Considering the amount of work involved," he said.

  "How much work is involved, Frank?" I said.

  "Well, at my level," he said, "there is the paying out monthly to some forty-two hundred separate entities, with all that that involves—making out the checks accurately, addressing forty-two hundred envelopes accurately, franking them, inserting the checks, then mailing them. Naturally, all of these steps are now done automatically by computer, including printing the checks—all but the actual envelope-stuffing, that is, the girls do that."

  "They would," I said.

  "Then there's the whole other side of it," he said. "The monies coming in and their disposition."

  "Mr. Gillespie," I said, "the one living it up in gay Paree or wherever he is, is he involved with the other other side of it, the investment side?"

  "Why yes he is," Frank said. "And he's in Berne, actually."

  "Mr. Daniel," said Howieson from his desk. "Am I right in thinking all this might take a while, as in several hours?"

  "Easily," I said. Frank snuck an unhappy look at his watch.

  "Then I am homeward bound," Mr. Howieson said. He got up, went over and put his glass in the small sink, then came over to us and shook both our hands. "Frank, good of you to come in, it shall not be forgotten. Mr. Daniel, I'll be available at home tomorrow from seven to eight-thirty, in my car from eight-thirty to nine, and here thereafter. I left all three numbers on the desk. Needless to say I await your call with extreme impatience. So: Happy hunting, or do I mean unhappy?"

  Out strode Mr. Howieson. Frank relaxed visibly, only to tense up again two seconds later when Mr. Howieson popped his head back in the door.

  "Tom," he said. "Dial four. He'll order any food you might want, pay for it, and bring it up. He'll open locked premises. You know where the bar is."

  "Always seem to," I said. He grinned and vanished. "Speaking of bars, Frank, what's yours?" After considerable hemming and hawing, he finally allowed as he might have a weak vodka and tonic, thanks, with just a zest of lemon if there was some. There wasn't, so I doubled up on the vodka instead. "Now," I said when we were both settled down comfortably again, drinks close to hand, "let's try again, Frank. Who does what, and in particular, what does Mary Jones do and what did Jonathan Flint do under her, if I may put it that way without causing any blushes?"

  Frank summoned up the ghost of a smile, which was pretty good going, all things considered, as from where he sat, being the immediate superior of the names that were floating about, he was potentially in deep shit.

  He took a long swallow of his drink, then looked at it quizzically. "Do you know anything about computers, Mr. Daniel?"

  "Vic," I said. "Call me Vic. I've got a little PC in the office so I know a bit about them."

  "Well, what Mrs. Jones does," he said, "you could call a combination of bookkeeping and programming."

  "Frank," I said with a sigh, "we do not seem to be getting anywhere. We are not being specific, Frank. What precisely does Mary do during her working hours, Frank? Does she stuff those envelopes? Does she enter entries? Does she sign things? Does she drop the outgoing mail down the mail chute? Does she steal paper clips? Talk to me, Frank. Better yet, let's take our booze down to your department and you can tell me there. Do we need Tom for that?"

  "No, I've got keys," he said.

  "I think I'll tell him anyway," I said. "In case we set off any alarms. He may want to close up here, too." I went over to the desk, pocketed the numbers Mr. Howieson'd left for me, dialed four, told Tom our plans, topped up my drink, and we left. A couple of minutes later we were four floors down in pensions, which was a large, airy, open-plan office studded with computer outlets, various sizes and shapes of printers, shelves of various shapes and sizes of paper and envelopes, and all the rest of the paraphernalia you'd expect.

  "There," Frank said when the last of the overhead fluorescent lights had flickered on. "Where Mrs. Jones works." He pointed to a tidy desk by the south window. Then he pointed to a cubicle separated from the other work spaces by moveable screens. "Where I work."

  "Where do I work?" I asked him.

  "Any desk with a terminal," he said.

  "Except Mary's," I said. "Without being paranoid any more than usual, she might have her board rigged up to snitch if anyone fools with it."

  "You can't be serious," he said. "Mary?" He rubbed the bridge of his nose, where some sunburned skin was peeling.

  "Mrs. Flint," I said. "Debby. I went to see her before she left town and I vaguely remember her saying something about her hubby not being too happy because he was due for a promotion but presumably didn't have the seniority to jump over Mary to your level, but she wouldn't move up because she was happy where she was, so he was stuck. Any truth in all that, or are we talking here office gossip or petty jealousy?"

  "I believe she did turn down a promotion sometime ago, yes."

  "Would the difference in salary levels and improved artwork on the walls be as significant as the difference between Jones's salary level and Flint's, which Debby told me was considerable?"

  "Certainly," he said.

  "Are we not in the United States of America?" I said.

  "We are."

  "And do you not find it curious, if not outright suspicious, that an IMM executive would turn down a substantial promotion?"

  "Well, now that you mention it . . . " he said.

  "Yes, I do mention it, Frank. Now, tell me this, amigo. Tell me in one short phrase, preferably yes or no. Jones and Flint—were they handling incoming or outgoing funds?"

  "The latter," he said.

  "Ah," I said.

  "All incoming contributions whether company-based or employee-based go through me."

  "Ah. Now here's the big one, Frank, ready? Did anyone other than Jones and Flint assist with the outgoings?"

  "Only secretarily," he said.

  "Meaning stuffing envelopes and licking stamps?"

  "Well, we use a stamp machine, but basically, yes," he said, looking worriedly into his empty glass. "Also, no one else has the entry code but me."

  "Thank you, Frank," I said. "Now comes the fun time when you sit me down and turn me on and code me in and we let the pensions roll."

  He sat me down at a metal-topped desk on one of those surprisingly comfortable secretary chairs that have an adjustable bac
k and five sort of tentacles with wheels supporting it, dragged a similar one over from the desk next door, then flicked on the screen, which went, "Ping!" He tapped. A series of what we computer aces call menus came up, which are really only a listing of your next options. He chose "Pensions," which turned out to have a whole menu to itself. From that menu he choose "MPS." "Insert code," the machine told him. I looked away politely as he did so. Some seconds later, up came the first page of forty-two hundred pensioners' names, addresses, and the monthly sum they were due, starting with "Aaron, Peter L. 501 N. Mariposa Avenue., Los Angeles 90046 CA USA. 2/L. Coc. $1824.46?"

  "What's '2/L?' " I asked Frank.

  "His basic pension level at retirement," he said.

  "What's 'CoC?' "

  "Payment made by company check."

  I looked at that first page; there didn't seem to be anything of interest to anyone except the guys getting the bread. I said, "Scroll me down, Scottie."

  He punched a key that said, "Page Down," and a new page came up, if you follow me. I looked at it. I asked him what that capital "F" meant at the end of one line. He said it indicated a foreign payment.

  "Ooh la la," I said. I thought for a moment as more pages rolled past. "Does anyone get paid by directly debiting your company account and directly crediting one of their bank accounts?"

  "Not yet," he said. "But they will be one of these years when we upgrade."

  "So much for that one," I said. "Well, hell, Frank, it's got me."

  "What exactly are we looking for, Vic?" he asked then, not unreasonably, if you ask me—I would have asked it hours ago.

  "Would you say Jonathan Flint was a methodical, a careful worker, indeed, a careful man?" I put to him as yet another page slid into temporary oblivion. I have a pal who should be grown up by now, as he's my age, but he still says "obolivian" for "oblivion"; kinda apt, somehow.

  "I certainly would," Frank said.

  "Say he was sitting here one afternoon, or over there, or wherever he did sit, and he saw something, one entry maybe, that rang a little bell, God knows why. He investigated, and found a whole lot more, enough to fill a sheet of paper. He was bothered but perhaps not unduly worried. We know he wasn't unduly worried, Frank, because off he goes to the Drama with Mary, the only person, according to you, who might be responsible for these as yet mythical entries that do not as yet unduly worry him. He is, however, bothered enough by same to make a duplicate list, which he stashes in his safe-deposit box, being the careful type.