“WHAT YOU SAID out there was textbook character assassination,” said Timothy Marianne. “If Al doesn’t sue it sure won’t be because his lawyer told him he had a weak case.”
I said, “My assets include a bottle of Scotch and one of those kitchen knives with a fifty-year guarantee. He can have the Scotch but I need the knife. I might want to cut my throat someday.”
He made a noise halfway between a grunt and a chuckle. We were sitting in his office, which wasn’t nearly as big as you’d expect it to be, especially in a building constructed from his own plans. He had a good view of the river and of Fighting Island behind his desk, but except for the antiques and a hardwood floor you could skate on, the room might have belonged to any corporate vice president in town. His big tufted chair was tipped back as far as it would go and he had one of his Thom McAns cocked up on a corner of the desk. It shared the gold leather top with a pen set, a telephone intercom, and a fiberglass model of the Stiletto the size and approximate shape of a bedpan.
“I learned something of the private investigation business when my first wife was divorcing me,” he said. “Even the sleaziest of them hang out with lawyers too much to think they can get away with slandering a big gun in front of witnesses. What’ve you got?”
“A client who says Hendriks buffaloed him into providing cover for an armored car robbery in 1967. And something Hendriks told me when I spoke to him on the telephone this morning, which I’ll go into later. Just now I’d like to discuss how he came to be with you.”
“Shouldn’t you ask him that?”
“I would if he didn’t hide under his desk every time I try to talk to him. He’s got that in-a-meeting and out-to-lunch line down cold.”
“He’s busy. We all are.” He rolled the Stiletto model forward and back two inches with his toe. He was an angular six feet, slumped almost horizontal in a blue suit that looked as if it had fallen off a truck and he had picked it up and put it on and come straight there. No matter how good his tailor, the careless way he sat and moved would have any suit looking just like it in half an hour. His shoulders were high and narrow, his neck long, his face not as big as it seemed at first because I had been seeing it in newspapers and on television for a couple of years. It was long, tan, and rugged and his brows were darker than his hair, which was clipped short around the thin spots and left long where it was full to play down the retreat. I liked him, I don’t know why. Maybe it was the suit.
“You mentioned murder,” he said.
“One of the robbers was killed. The cops think he was shot by a partner.”
“You think the partner was Al Hendriks?”
“What I think isn’t part of the package. My client thinks Hendriks set him up to take the fall. If he’s right, Hendriks got away clean with two hundred thousand cash. How much has he got invested in Marianne Motors?”
“Not two hundred thousand to start, although his holdings are worth twenty times that now. He was among my first backers when I left Ford to start my own firm. I took him with me out of the accounting pool there. Al’s the best man with numbers I’ve ever seen. If he wanted to steal he could have stolen far more without ever leaving his desk.”
“He wasn’t an accountant yet when the armored car job went down. About when did he start working at Ford?”
“I don’t know. I’d been aware of him for some time when he asked to join the team. He’d run figures for me sometimes as a favor. It was both our jobs if the brass found out. That was eight long years ago. If I’d known how long it would take ...” He played with the model car some more.
“None of the stolen bills ever turned up, according to the cops,” I said. “It takes time to launder that much dirty money. Years sometimes, and then you only get a few cents on the dollar. Meanwhile he had to live. When the cash did come through he couldn’t spend it all right away. Your venture might have come along just at harvest time.”
“I shouldn’t be talking to you.”
“Better you talk to me than I talk to the press. Old Man Stutch might get nervous and withdraw his investment.”
“The Commodore’s too busy concentrating on breathing to worry about money. The man is one hundred years old. But his grandsons are very, very conservative. You don’t strike me as the type who goes crying to the press.”
“I’m not. It was a bad bluff. But I’m fresh out of open doors, and I think you’re just as curious about this as I am.”
“You said something Al told you this morning made you suspicious. What was it?”
I uncrossed my legs and recrossed them the other way. “The man my client claims set him up was a student at Wayne State at the time of the stickup. Hendriks admitted he went to Wayne State, but he said he was studying in England on an exchange program during the race riots, which is when the thing took place.”
“I know he went to Cambridge.”
“Not then. I called Wayne State. Their records say he was carrying a full course load right here in Detroit that July.”
“A mistake.”
“Maybe. I want to hear him say it.”
After a space he took his foot off the desk and got his intercom working. “Denise, when Mr. Hendriks comes in, would you ask him in here? He is? Yes, now.” He hung up. “He’s in his office.”
The room got quiet. Then the man himself came in. He was wearing his dark hair shorter these clays and it had started to gray, but his even features and trim build and the Cupid’s-bow mouth could still stampede the distaff side of any singles bar in town. His dark suit and paisley necktie lay on him like cloth of gold. When he saw me sitting on the customer’s side of the desk his stride slowed, but he kept coming and stopped in the middle of the room. He had never seen me before.
“Al, this is Amos Walker,” Marianne said. “He wants to ask you a question. I’m sure you can satisfy him and then he can leave and we can go back to work.”
“Walker.” He pulled up the crease on his pants and sat in the chair facing mine. He had a dandy’s taste in shoes, alligator with gold ornaments on the straps. He recognized the name from that morning. When I told him what I’d told Marianne he crossed his legs.
“I admire your deviousness,” he said. “You could make it in the business world. Not far, but you might survive the office intrigue. Universities don’t open student files to anyone who asks. Certainly not in the time since we spoke.”
“I never even called them.”
“I didn’t think so. Anything else, Tim?”
“I guess not.”
Hendriks rose and looked down at me. “I ought to take you to court. You’d be bareass in the street by Thanksgiving.”
“Nice shoes,” I said. “Know where I can get a pair like them for thirty bucks?”
“Stupid. Your client’s got a stupid detective.”
He went out. Marianne propped his foot on the desk, stuck his hands in his pockets, and hoisted his eyebrows. “What was that about? You didn’t strike me as a crank.”
“I didn’t expect him to break down and confess. Maybe I hoped he’d cook up some kind of excuse, but not too hard. Mainly I wanted to see how he’d take it.”
“Pretty calm, I thought.”
“So did I. If he’d shown just a little indignation I might be closing the file on him right now.”
“You’ll continue?”
“I’m like a bad cold that way.”
“Are you always this sure of yourself?”
“I’m not sure now. If I were, this job would be a lot closer to finished. I’m being paid to find the ones who committed the robbery.”
“You could lose your shirt. Al doesn’t make empty threats. It’s one of the reasons I made him general manager.”
“The day I get a summons with his name on it and mine, I’ll know I’ve got the wrong man.”
“Explain.”
“It would force me to prove he’s guilty. Only an innocent man would risk it.”
“You’ve got a hell of a lot to learn about the law,” he said. “Just when you think you’ve got a handle on it, it changes color and scoots out from under you. Why do you think it took me eight years to get this far?”
“It’s far.”
“The higher I go the scareder I get. At first I was afraid I’d never have the money. Now that I have it I’m afraid someone will take it away. Never make a pretty woman your wife.”
I couldn’t tell if he was talking about the auto business or Mrs. Marianne. I got up. “I’ll let you get back to work.”
He nudged the model car with his toe. It rolled six inches and stopped at the edge of the desk. “My security chief isn’t working out. There might be an opening there soon.”
“I met him. Firing him would be a mistake. I wish you hadn’t said that. It puts you on the dark side of the list.”
“I can’t have you running around raising suspicions, even unfounded ones. This is a superstitious industry. One bad rumor and investors take to the hills.” He pushed the car back the other way. “Don’t make me destroy you, Walker. I’m just starting to like you.”
The guard downstairs had finished his sandwich and was reading a paperback with a naked woman and a scar-faced cowboy on the cover. He collected my tag and deposited it in the box without looking up.
“Mr. Hendriks asked me to put something in his car,” I said. “I forget what it looks like.”
He turned the page. “What am I, a car hop?”
I didn’t push it. Outside, the skyline was clawing at the sun. I took off my coat, loosened my tie, picked a direction, and started walking along the front of the huge building. It wouldn’t be parked where the general population left its cars.
My shirt was soaked through when I found the executive lot, two rows of diagonal spaces behind the building on the far end. It would have been closer if I’d gone the other way. But the exercise had loosened the muscles in my neck. Most of the cars, including the one parked in front of a sign with Marianne’s name on it, were Stilettos. The one in Hendriks’ space was a blue Porsche. It must have been a topic of some lively conversation upstairs.
I looked around. The lot had no guard. I inspected the underside of the canopy over the executives’ entrance and stepped away to scan the roof, but there was no surveillance camera either. Mr. Piero was wasted on the dummy offices in Detroit. I walked around behind the Porsche, unholstered the Smith & Wesson, and shielding the movement with my body, smashed the right taillight lens with the butt. I scooped up all the shards from the pavement, wrapped them in my handkerchief, and put them in my left side pocket. Then I walked back the short way to get my car.
There were some unoccupied spaces opposite the Porsche. I pulled into one that was starting to come into shadow and killed the engine. I cranked down the window on the passenger’s side for cross draft and sat back and wanted a cigarette but didn’t light one. The sun hung lower and lower in my rearview window and then dropped below the edge.