GRAHAM PARKIS WAS WAITING at the door when his secretary showed me in. We shook hands and I said, “Thanks for letting me come by at such short notice. I appreciate it.”
“No problem, Samson. I always try to look out for other guys in the trade. We may compete for the money jobs using every known instrument of torture, but underneath the scabs and scars we've all got the same red runny stuff. It's a shit-hole way to make a living. Everybody hates you: the cops, the targets, even your clients. If we don't look out for the other guy a little bit, who can we turn to?”
“Uh, yeah.”
“Make yourself at home,” he said. He waved me into the room.
For a moment it was hard to tell where I was. Then I worked out that it must be an office because there was a computer terminal blinking on a walnut escritoire in a corner. Otherwise I would have guessed a Nevada whorehouse bar. It was that subtle.
“Care for a snifter?” Parkis asked. He pulled two tall glasses from a gilt-edged shelf and then turned his back to open a small freezer.
“Not for me,” I said. “Thanks.”
Parkis drew out a white tub and flicked the top off. “Ice cream,” he said.
“Oh.”
“Teetotal myself, so I know where you're coming from. But ice cream's my tipple.”
There was a spoon in the tub. He dropped two large clots into one of the glasses.
“Want some? Vanilla.”
“No thanks.”
He nodded, and put the ice cream back in the freezer. But before he returned to me he filled his glass with cola. The liquid fizzed around the colder ice cream. Parkis smiled broadly. “Called it a brown cow when I was a kid. Love it. What can I do for you, Samson?”
I explained that I wanted cover in case I became too busy to handle all my business myself.
“No problem about the personnel,” he said. “I've got lots of guys and gals on standby for me. But what kind of money did you have in mind?”
I told him what I planned to charge.
“Oh dear,” he said. He stirred his cow. “I suppose a few people would work down there.” He thought some more. He decided to be generous to a red-runny-stuff brother. “Yeah. I can swing it. There's not going to be much left for you, of course.”
“Oh.”
“But I can see how you could look to go for the cheap end of the market hoping it will parlay into bigger things later on. Yeah, I can see that.” He tasted the brown runny stuff in his glass and found it to his satisfaction.
Frank, in his pep talk, got his facts wrong. I may not have a receptionist, but when people call an Albert Samson they do not always get the man himself. Sometimes they get his machine.
That said, since I moved above the luncheonette I have a classy model. It takes long messages. I can debrief it by calling in. I can change my customer-interface content by phone.
Also it works.
Over the course of the week my answering machine earned its electrons by dealing with a string of calls including what turned out to be two more “now” jobs.
But there was no further contact from Poet. I didn't think a lot about it. Perhaps poets get writer's block when they're murdering fictional wives.
Somewhat more surprising, I did not hear from Frank. However, I was not moved to call him.
I was impressively, satisfyingly busy all week long.
But Saturday in the middle of the afternoon I was in my office again. My Time Management Flow Chart™ showed clearly that I was typing invoices, 3:15-3:35. In fact I was reading, a book. Just for a few minutes. Like I used to in the old days. Before I was a success.
And then my doorbell rang.
It surprised me. Not because I wasn't getting used to the little ways clients have of getting attention, but because I hadn't heard anyone come up the stairs. The stairs may be on the outside of the building, but they are metal and they make no concessions to noise pollution.
I put the book down and went to the door.
I found a young woman standing outside. “Yes?” I said.
She wore a brown coat which was ankle length but open enough in front for me to see sneakers.
“Are you . . . are you . . .?” The voice, such as it was, came from under a floppy hat and from behind a threadbare mask of bright yellow hair.
“I are,” I said. “Do you want to come in?”
She glanced away and by doing so drew my attention to a pale green station wagon parked in front of the gas station down the street. I couldn't tell if anybody was in it but I would have bet the young woman wasn't friendless.
“Uh, you're the detective, right?” she said.
“Right.”
“Yeah, I'll come in.”
The glance to the road had helped my visitor find her words. We went in and sat in the positions that befitted our respective roles.
My Client's Chair used to need dusting. Now I indulge in the fantasy that one day it might wear out.
It was hard to assess the age of my visitor at first. Twenty and tired? Thirty-five and in great shape?
“My name is Albert Samson.”
“Uh, Kate King,” she said.
“Can I help you in some way, Ms King?”
“It's a little complicated.”
“I'm a little simple. That usually evens things out.”
The idea, see, was to put her at her ease.
I had no visible success.
“Uh, look, I need to know, like, how confidentiality works with people like you. Uh, I don't mean people as people like you, but, like, detective-type people.”
Oh.
“The laws of the state say that only you, as a client, may be given any information I obtain while I work for you. Is that what you mean?”
“Uh, yeah. Partly. But what, say, if somebody else, not your client, came to you and said, `Hey, so and so that you're working for, tell me who they are and what they want.' What do you do when that happens?”
“I die with my lips sealed.”
She studied me. “Is that serious?”
She was certainly serious.
I said, “The only time it doesn't apply is when criminal matters are involved. In that case the law says that I have an obligation to cooperate with the police.”
“Oh,” she said.
This was not a reassurance to her. She said, “And what about you? How do you decide when to go to the cops? Just as soon as there's a traffic ticket, do you go and pour it out to them or what?”
I decided she was twenty and tired.
“I don't involve the police unless I feel I have to,” I said in as avuncular a tone as I could. “But nobody in my business can survive without reasonable relations with our friends in blue.”
That didn't reassure her either.
I said, “You have some sort of problem, right?”
“Uh, I might have.”
“And you think that I might be able to help you.”
“Maybe.”
“And would I be right to suspect you would have to be pretty desperate to bring me into it?”
“You can say that again.”
In some company I might have. But not with Twenty, Tired and Humorless.
I said, “What I suggest is that you take the chance and tell me what's on your mind. Then I will tell you whether I think I can help. I won't take you for a ride. I won't charge you anything.”
“Money's not a problem,” she said.
Maybe in the whole world money is only a problem for me.
I said, “But before you say anything, let me try to give you a better idea about the sort of situation in which I would have to go to the police.”
She said nothing and paid close attention.
I said, “If you told me that you had just murdered somebody, or had committed some other major crime—”
“I haven't murdered anybody,” she said quickly.
“On the other hand, suppose you were worried that your boyfriend was a heroin addict. That wouldn't send me to the police, but if you told me that he had committed a murder, then it would. Does that help?”
“Not a lot.”
“I am trying,” I said.
“Yeah,” she said. “I can see that,” and the tone was for the first time, like the content, more personal.
“Well, maybe you can ask me something else that would help you decide.”
“Suppose I was on the run for something.”
“It would depend what the details were.”
She sighed.
“I'm sorry if it's not getting clearer for you.”
“Me too.”
“You could begin to tell me what's wrong. I could stop you if you were getting into things I couldn't keep to myself.”
But she had decided to leave. She stood up and said, “Maybe later.”
“I hope you get some joy somewhere,” I said.
She didn't indicate if she had heard. She marched to the door and left.
I sat for a few seconds, trying to hear her go down the stairs. But there was nothing. Maybe the wind blotted out what little sound she was making. Maybe tired twenty-year-old girls in sneakers just don't make much noise in this world.
I went to the window and saw my visitor get into the light green car down the street. She entered on the passenger side.
I waited, but it didn't drive away. I watched for three or four minutes.
Then I went back to my desk.
I put my book away.
I got out my invoices and began to work on them.
After a while I stopped. I was irritated that I hadn't maintained my observation post longer. I got up and looked out the window again.
The green wagon was no longer there.