Oddments (20 page)

Immediately I went downstairs to my study. The Matisse print was in place and the safe door behind it was closed and locked; I worked the combination, swung the door open. And let out the breath I had been holding: the records and ledgers were there, exactly as I had left them. If those items had fallen into the wrong hands, I would be seriously embarrassed at the
least and open to blackmail or possible criminal charges at the worst. Not that I was engaged in anything precisely illegal; it was just that some of the people for whom I set up accounting procedures were involved in certain extra-legal activities.

I looked through the other things in the safe—$2,000 in cash, some jewelry and private papers—and they were all there, untouched. Nothing, it developed, was missing from my desk either. Or from anywhere else in the study.

Frowning, I searched the rest of the house. In the kitchen I found what might have been jimmy marks on the side door. I also found—surprisingly—electrician's tape on the burglar-alarm wires outside, tape which had not been there before I left on my trip and that might have been used to repair a cross-circuiting of the system.

What I did
not
find was anything missing. Absolutely nothing. Every item of value, every item of no value, was in its proper place.

I began to have doubts. Maybe I was wrong after all; maybe this was just a large misunderstanding. And yet, damn it, the fat little man had been in here and had lied about it, he had no identification, he was nervous and furtive, and the burglar alarm and the side door seemed to have been tampered with.

A series of improbable explanations occurred to me. He hadn't actually stolen anything because he hadn't had time; he had broken in here, cased the place, and had been on his way out with the intention of returning later in a car or van. But burglars don't operate that way; they don't make two trips to a house when they can just as easily make one, and they don't walk out the front door in broad daylight without taking
something
with them. Nor for that matter, do they take the time to repair alarm systems they've cross-circuited.

He wasn't a thief but a tramp whose sole reason for breaking in here was to spend a few days at my expense. Only tramps don't wear neat gray suits and they don't have expertise with burglar alarms. And they don't leave your larder full or clean up after themselves.

He wasn't a thief but a private detective, or an edge-of-the-law hireling, or maybe even an assassin; he hadn't come here to steal anything, he had come here to
leave
something—evidence of my extra-legal activities, a bomb or some other sort of death trap. But if there was nothing missing, there was also nothing here that shouldn't be here; I would have found it one way or another if there was, as carefully as I had searched. Besides which, there was already incriminating evidence in my safe, I was very good at my job and got along well with my clients, and I had no personal enemies who could possibly want me dead.

Nothing made sense. The one explanation I kept clinging to didn't make sense. Why would a burglar repair an alarm system before he leaves? How could a thief have stolen something if there wasn't anything missing?

Frustrated and angry, I went back to the guest bathroom and unlocked the door. The fat little man was standing by the sink, drying perspiration from his face with one of my towels. He looked less nervous and apprehensive now; there was a kind of resolve in his expression.

"All right," I said, "come out of there."

He came out, watching me warily with his shrewd eyes. "Are you finally satisfied that I'm not a thief, Mr. Loomis?"

No, I was not satisfied. I considered ordering him to take off his clothes, but that seemed pointless; I had already searched him and there just wasn't anything to look for.

"What were you doing in here?" I said.

"I was
not
in here before you arrived." The indignation was back in his voice. "Now I suggest you let me go on my way. You have no right or reason to hold me here against my will."

I made another fist and rocked it in front of his nose. "Do I have to cuff you around to get the truth?"

He flinched, but only briefly; he had had plenty of time to shore up his courage. "That wouldn't be wise, Mr. Loomis," he said. "I already have grounds for a counter-complaint against you."

"Counter-complaint?"

"For harassment and very probably for kidnapping. Physical violence would only compound a felony charge. I intend to make that counter-complaint if you call the police or if you lay a hand on me."

The anger drained out of me; I felt deflated. Advantage to the fat little man. He had grounds for a counter-complaint, okay—better grounds than I had against him. After all, I
had
forcibly brought him in here and locked him in the bathroom. And a felony charge against me would mean unfavorable publicity, not to mention police attention. In my business I definitely could not afford either of those things.

He had me then, and he knew it. He said stiffly, "May I
leave or not, Mr. Loomis?"

There was nothing I could do. I let him go.

He went at a quick pace through the house, moving the way somebody does in familiar surroundings. I followed him out onto the porch and watched him hurry off down the driveway without once looking back. He was almost running by the time he disappeared behind the screen of cypress trees.

I went back inside and poured myself a double bourbon. I had never felt more frustrated in my life. The fat little man had got away with something of mine; irrationally or not, I felt it with even more conviction than before.

But what could he possibly have taken of any value?

And how could he have taken it?

I found out the next morning.

The doorbell rang at 10:45, while I was working on one of my accounts in the study. When I went out there and answered it I discovered a well-dressed elderly couple, both of whom were beaming and neither of whom I had ever seen before.

"Well," the man said cheerfully, "you must be Mr. Loomis. We're the Parmenters."

"Yes?"

"We just dropped by for another look around," he said. "When we saw your car out front we were hoping it belonged to you. We've been wanting to meet you in person."

I looked at him blankly.

"This is such a delightful place," his wife said. "We can't tell you how happy we are with it."

"Yes, sir," Parmenter agreed, "we knew it was the place for us as soon as your agent showed it to us. And such a reasonable price. Why, we could hardly believe it was only $100,000."

There was a good deal of confusion after that, followed on my part by disbelief, anger, and despair. When I finally got it all sorted out it amounted to this: the Parmenters were supposed to meet here with my "agent" yesterday afternoon, to present him with a $100,000 cashier's check, but couldn't make it at that time; so they had given him the check last night at their current residence, and he in turn had handed them copies of a notarized sales agreement carrying my signatures. The signatures were expert forgeries, of course—but would I be able to
prove
that in a court of law? Would I be able to prove I had not conspired with this bogus real estate agent to defraud the Parmenters of a six-figure sum of money?

Oh, I found out about the fat little man, all right. I found out how clever and audacious he was. And I found out just how wrong I had been—and just how right.

He hadn't stolen anything from my house.

He had stolen the whole damned
house.

"E
xcuse me. Do you play liar's dice?"

I looked over at the man two stools to my right. He was about my age, early forties; average height, average weight, brown hair, medium complexion—really a pretty nondescript sort except for a pleasant and disarming smile. Expensively dressed in an Armani suit and a silk jacquard tie. Drinking white wine. I had never seen him before. Or had I? There was something familiar about him, as if our paths
had
crossed somewhere or other, once or twice.

Not here in Tony's, though. Tony's is a suburban-mall bar that caters to the shopping trade from the big department and grocery stores surrounding it. I stopped in no more than a couple of times a month, usually when Connie asked me to pick up something at Safeway on my way home from San Francisco, occasionally when I had a Saturday errand to run. I knew the few regulars by sight, and it was never very crowded anyway. There were only four patrons at the moment: the nondescript gent and myself on stools, and a young couple in a booth at the rear.

"I do play, as a matter of fact," I said to the fellow. Fairly well too, though I wasn't about to admit that. Liar's dice and I were old acquaintances.

"Would you care to shake for a drink?"

"Well, my usual limit is one . . ."

"For a chit for your next visit, then."

"All right, why not? I feel lucky tonight."

"Do you? Good. I should warn you, I'm very good at the game."

"I'm not so bad myself."

"No, I mean I'm
very
good. I seldom lose."

It was the kind of remark that would have nettled me if it had been said with even a modicum of conceit. But he wasn't bragging; he was merely stating a fact, mentioning a special skill of which he felt justifiably proud. So instead of annoying me, his comment made me eager to test him.

We introduced ourselves; his name was Jones. Then I called to Tony for the dice cups. He brought them down, winked at me, said, "No gambling now," and went back to the other end of the bar. Strictly speaking, shaking dice for drinks and/or money is illegal in California. But nobody pays much attention to nuisance laws like that, and most bar owners keep dice cups on hand for their customers. The game stimulates business. I know because I've been involved in some spirited liar's dice tournaments in my time.

Like all good games, liar's dice is fairly simple—at least in its rules. Each player has a cup containing five dice, which he
shakes out but keeps covered so only he can see what is
showing face up. Then each makes a declaration or "call" in turn: one of a kind, two of a kind, three of a kind, and so on.

Each call has to be higher than the previous one, and is based
on what the player
knows is
in his hand and what he
thinks is
in the other fellow's—the combined total of the ten dice. He can lie or tell the truth, whichever suits him; but the better liar he is, the better his chances of winning. When one player decides the other is either lying or has simply exceeded the laws of probability, he says, "Come up," and then both reveal their hands. If he's right, he wins.

In addition to being a clever liar, you also need a good grasp of mathematical odds and the ability to "read" your opponent's facial expressions, the inflection in his voice, his body language. The same skills an experienced poker player has to have, which is one reason the game is also called liar's poker.

Jones and I each rolled one die to determine who would go first; mine was the highest. Then we shook all five dice in our cups, banged them down on the bar. What I had showing was four treys and a deuce.

"Your call, Mr. Quint."

"One five," I said.

"One six."

"Two deuces."

"Two fives."

"Three treys."

"Three sixes."

I considered calling him up, since I had no sixes and he would need three showing to win. But I didn't know his methods and I couldn't read him at all. I decided to keep playing.

"Four treys."

"Five treys."

"Six treys."

Jones smiled and said, "Come up." And he had just one trey (and no sixes). I'd called six treys and there were only five in our combined hands; he was the winner.

"So much for feeling lucky," I said, and signaled Tony to bring another white wine for Mr. Jones. On impulse I decided a second Manhattan wouldn't hurt me and ordered that too.

Jones said, "Shall we play again?"

"Two drinks is definitely my limit."

"For dimes, then? Nickels or pennies, if you prefer."

"Oh, I don't know. . ."

"You're a good player, Mr. Quint, and I don't often find someone who can challenge me. Besides, I have a passion as well as an affinity for liar's dice. Won't you indulge me?"

I didn't see any harm in it. If he'd wanted to play for larger stakes, even a dollar a hand, I might have taken him for a hustler despite his Armani suit and silk tie. But how much could you win or lose playing for a nickel or a dime a hand? So I said, "Your call first this time," and picked up my dice cup.

We played for better than half an hour. And Jones wasn't just good; he was uncanny. Out of nearly twenty-five hands, I won
two
—two.
You could chalk up some of the disparity to luck, but not enough to change the fact that his skill was remarkable. Certainly he was the best I'd ever locked horns with. I would have backed him in a tournament anywhere, anytime.

He was a good winner, too: no gloating or chiding. And a good listener, the sort who seems genuinely (if superficially) interested in other people. I'm not often gregarious, especially with strangers, but I found myself opening up to Jones—and this in spite of him beating the pants off me the whole time.