Downriver (16 page)

“Public relations,” she corrected. “He was a sweet man. I reminded him of his granddaughter.” There were definitely magnolias in her speech. One of those delta accents.

“Anyway it took me a year to sweep her off her feet. I was going through a divorce at the time. Ever been in love, Walker?”

“Once. I was going through a marriage at the time.”

“The right wife is more than a companion. She knows your head better than you do. Every time I bounced something off her when I was building the business, she echoed the same doubts I had but was unwilling to admit. If Ed met her sooner I’m convinced it wouldn’t have taken eight years.”

“More like eighteen,” she said.

He laughed. Then he wasn’t laughing. “So that’s why I asked Edith to invite you to lunch.”

“I was wondering about that.”

“At first I wanted Al Hendriks here too, but he’s busy in the Detroit office today. Now I’m glad. I sensed a hostility between you yesterday that didn’t have anything to do with this mess you’re investigating.”

I finished my fruit. So far the cooking was okay.

Mrs. Marianne said, “Al’s abrasive but honest. I can see that quality in people. I see it in you.” She smiled. “If he did something wrong in the past, which Tim and I don’t believe for one minute he did, it should have no bearing on his present position as general manager of Marianne Motors. It can only hurt a company that promises to employ over six hundred thousand people during the next five years.”

“My client was framed for armed robbery. He did twenty years.”

“He was an arsonist.”

I looked at Marianne. His face had gotten stony, but free enterprise glittered in his eye. “I have contacts on the police,” he said. “They looked up the case. Your man set a building on fire. Hardly an innocent.”

The cook collected our glasses and dealt out wooden bowls of lettuce and tomato slices without dressing. I waited until she withdrew.

“You don’t do twenty years for a botched arson in an uninhabited building when everyone else is doing it and getting out in two. They hooked him for robbery armed resulting in the death of an accomplice. He didn’t do it.”

“Why?” Marianne demanded. “Because you’re representing him?”

“Actually it’s the other way around.”

He started to say something. His wife touched his arm. Her eyes were on me. “What does Mr. DeVries want? To clear his name?”

“He doesn’t think it’s worth clearing. He wants cash.”

“How much?”

“Two hundred thousand. That’s the amount that was stolen.”

Mrs. Marianne touched her husband’s arm again, although he didn’t look as if he wanted to say anything this time. “Does it have to come from Al?”

“He didn’t say.” I crunched lettuce.

“What do you think?”

“I think he’d take it from anyone who offered it and be satisfied. To the point of not doing anything against Hendriks anyway.”

Marianne shoved aside his salad untouched. “Say I give him the two hundred thousand. I’m not saying I will. What’s my guarantee he won’t come back for more?”

“Call the cops if he does. If you don’t believe his story you’ve got nothing to lose. This isn’t blackmail. That takes evidence and we don’t have it. The money works out to a living wage over two decades. He thinks it’s owed.”

“Tim, pay the two dollars.”

He looked at her, then at me. I folded a tomato slice with my fork. I’ve never found a delicate way to get one into my mouth short of cutting.

“I’d have to have something in writing,” he said. “An agreement not to go public.”

“Nonsense, Tim. What would you do with it if he reneged, take it to court? Think of it as a nuisance settlement and enter it under public relations.”

After a moment he put his palms on the table. “I’ll get my checkbook.”

“While you’re at it,” I said, “make one out to Mr. and Mrs. Cleveland J. Jackson for a million.”

“Who the hell are they?”

“The parents of the young man who was killed. If twenty lost years are worth two hundred grand I figure a son’s life runs to a million at least.”

“You said DeVries would be satisfied.”

“We’re not talking about satisfying DeVries now. We’re talking about satisfying me.”

He stood. “I was going to apologize for threatening you yesterday. The thing took me by surprise and I was worried about a company I spent eight years developing and my entire life dreaming about. I’m not feeling sorry now. In fact—”

The cook came out empty-handed. “Telephone, mister.”

“Who is it?” he snapped.

“Onderson, he say. He say he waiting, where you?”

“Anderson. Damn it, I forgot. I promised to conduct him personally through the downriver plant.”

“Have somebody else do it,” said his wife.

“I can’t. I promised. He’s the biggest dealer in the Southwest.” He looked at me. “We’re not through.”

“Go play tour guide. I’ll talk to Mr. Walker.”

He hovered. She said, “Twenty percent of Marianne stock is in my name. I’m not going to sell out the company.”

“No deals without my approval.”

“You’re the chairman. Run along now, shoo.”

He went out, trailing the cook. A minute later we heard the Stiletto’s exhaust booming down the driveway. His wife smiled at me. “My rival’s a sports car,” she said.

“He’s an idiot.”

“Those things he said — he isn’t that way, really. He’s a gentle man with dreams.”

“I didn’t say I didn’t like him.”

She leaned her chin on her hand. She looked almost Oriental except for the hair. “I’m thirstier than I am hungry, how about you?”

“I’m caught up on my fruit and roughage quota this week,” I said.

She summoned the cook. “Elda, we won’t be dining after all. Take the afternoon off.”

“Roast is almost ready.” She wiped muscular hands on her apron.

“I’ll put it in the refrigerator. Mr. Marianne and I will have it for dinner.”

When she’d gone, banging the front door behind her, we went into the living room. Mrs. Marianne walked a little in front. She had a trim waist and slim hips, slightly rounded. Trailing behind I smelled a spring night.

“What should I pour?” She mounted a platform behind the bar.

“Anything over ice is okay.”

She got the ice out of a pygmy refrigerator, filled two barrel glasses, squirted soda in one, and poured from a Stolichnaya bottle. I was sitting in an ivory-upholstered rocker when she brought the drinks over. “The sofa’s more comfortable.”

It looked it, six feet of white crushed leather with yellow claw feet. I switched seats and accepted the glass that didn’t contain soda. She curled up on the cushion next to mine, slipping off her shoes and tucking her feet under her. This close I could see fine lines at the corners of her eyes and mouth. They looked better than the amount of make-up it would have taken to cover them completely.

“Were you a police officer?” The last
r
almost wasn’t there. We were pretty far down the Mississippi now.

“I took the oath.”

“And?”

“It didn’t take me.” The imported vodka had a bite. It wasn’t a polite Saturday afternoon drink by any standards.

“You said you were married once.”

“Not enough.”

“Tim changed my stand on marriage. My sister had a bad common-law relationship. She died in an accident soon after it ended. I always thought she planned it.”

“I’m sorry.”

“She was an early casualty of the sexual revolution. You remember how it was.”

“I was majoring in sociology. I missed Woodstock.”

“You don’t look like you’ve missed much since.” She was pretty close now. The Scotch I’d had that morning and the vodka I was having and her dewy perfume were lifting me out of myself. I was treading fog.

“Do you really own a fifth of Marianne Motors?” I asked.

“Tax precaution. Tim has my proxy.” She was studying my face. “Did you break your nose once?”

“Twice. It helps hold up my dark glasses.”

“I’m glad you didn’t have it fixed. It saves you from being pretty. I had my fill of pretty men in the modeling business.”

“I bet you did.”

“I wasn’t born the day I met Tim.”

“You said.”

She watched me over the rim of her glass. “Do more women hire you than men, or is it the other way around?”

“Women had the edge when I started. Now it averages out about equal. Wives and mothers ducking out on their families to get themselves fulfilled. The husbands come in.”

“The women — the ones who hire you and the ones you find — I imagine they’re desperate. A Casanova could make out like a rabbit in your profession.”

I drank. “I should warn you I don’t seduce so well on melon balls and lettuce.”

“I bet you do.”

She climbed into my lap, all hungry lips and busy hands and her thigh pressing my groin. I fought, not hard enough to spill my drink. Her lips tasted of strawberry gloss and Stolichnaya.

When we came apart she said, “Do you have something to ask me?”

“Yes.”

“Ask.”

“Where did you and Alfred Hendriks go last night?”

She stiffened and drew back. Rattled the ice in her glass.

“Well. Aren’t we the good little detective.”

“The good randy little detective. I believe in telling someone when she’s done a good job. But I work Saturdays. Does your husband know?”

“Why, are you thinking of telling him?”

“So I’m right. You and Hendriks are fooling around.”

She laughed. It was a tinkly kind of laugh, straight off the levee. “I bet that works most of the time. But not in this case, because we aren’t. I’m faithful to Tim.”

“You felt faithful.”

“What I did here was for him. You’re an attractive man, so is Al. I already said that doesn’t affect me. Even if I didn’t love Tim, if I were some kind of leech, do you think I’d jeopardize a goldmine to play nice with the help?”

“I don’t know what you’d do, Mrs. Marianne. I just met you. So far I’ve been fed and liquored and almost ravished by the mistress of the plantation. Laying out the one million two would be a lot less trouble. I’d like to know what makes me worth it.”

“Go ahead, tell my husband. He’ll laugh in your face, just before he has you hauled before a judge.”

“There’s nothing to tell. One automobile ride isn’t grounds for anything, and by now you’ve already started on your story. Besides, I don’t work that way. All I did was ask where you two went. You gave me the rest.”

She swung a bare foot back and forth off the edge of the sofa. “If you’re waiting for me to walk you to the door, forget it.”

“I’ll find it. I’m a detective.” I set my glass on the carpet and got up. “Thanks for lunch. I’ll recommend this place to all my overweight friends.”

“You don’t have any friends. Only clients.”

“And not enough of them. It’s none of my business now, but I think your roast is burning.”

She didn’t move. “What will DeVries say when you tell him you turned down two hundred thousand dollars?”

“He might fire me. I’ve been fired before. If I gave you a list of some of the people who have canned me you’d be impressed. We don’t always agree on what they hired me to do.”

“You keep saying you’re a detective. What are you really?”

“Protoplasm in an eighty-nine-dollar suit, plus tax. But it’s my suit. Enjoy your weekend, Mrs. Marianne.”

Driving away from there I could still smell her perfume. I opened the windows and smoked a cigarette to flush out my sinuses. I had sweated a little in spite of the air conditioning in the house, and by the time I parked in the lot near my building I had a chill. The heat in the stairwell warmed me.

There was no good reason to be there except the homing instinct. I’d reached another dead end and had nothing to do upstairs but check for customers. As it happened I had one waiting.

I
T WAS A BLUE
single-breasted today, with a matching cap and visor planted on the back of his head as if to halt the retreat of the curly hair. If I knew my chauffeur’s etiquette, it meant he was driving blue today instead of the gray Cadillac. When I entered the waiting room he rose lazily from the upholstered bench, grinning in his beard.

“You’re more important than I had figured,” he said. “The old man almost never works this time of day.” He handed me a gray cardboard folder sealed with shiny black tape.

“Do I tip you or what?”

“You could if you want your arm broken. I left all that when I went to work for the Commodore. You get any sleep? You look awful.”

“It’s my love life.”

“Man, I hope she’s worth it.” He pulled the cap forward. “Anything back?”

“Tell him thanks and I’ll be in touch.”

When he’d gone I picked up my mail, unlocked the inner office, and put the mail on the desk without looking at it. I slit the tape with a letter opener I never used and spread out the folder’s contents. Personnel at Wayne State and the University of Michigan had worked fast to get student transcripts printed out and hand-delivered to the mansion in Crosse Pointe, and Cambridge had worked just as fast to cable information across the Atlantic to a terminal at Stutch Petrochemicals. There would be scholarships involved, maybe a college or two. Here and there someone had penned clarifying comments in the margins in a faint but steady hand that had to be the Commodore’s. It had all been supervised by someone who either didn’t know or refused to acknowledge that in the computer age nothing has to go anywhere without collecting dust and disinterest on several desks in between.

After twenty minutes I swiveled away and looked out the window at the roof of the tax office next door, where a half-naked workman burned brown to the waist was spreading tar. What I’d found out looked the same when I was watching him as when I was reading it in print and the old man’s spidery script.

A scholarship had come through for Alfred Hendriks, a freshman studying at Wayne State, to enroll in the Cambridge School of Economics beginning in April 1967. He didn’t register for classes until that fall, pleading delay due to a death in the family. Mail and messages until then were to be forwarded to an apartment address on Detroit’s Twelfth Street in care of a Frances Souwaine. She would be a skinny blonde hippie-type, although there was no mention of that in the folder. Whether she was or not, it put Hendriks where Richard DeVries said he was at the time of the riots in July.