FOUR
“It’s been sooo long, Benny. It’s years since we did our little number on poor Ross,” Teddie said, sending a broad smile across the table. “You’re lucky to catch me in, you know. I’m only here for the wedding. Then I’m off to Arizona for the winter.”
“It’s only the beginning of October.”
“Well, between you and me, Benny, I hate to stay cooped up in this town. I don’t know how you handle it. Really I don’t. I mean you’re not so old, you’ve got a portable profession. I don’t see the attraction, frankly.”
Teddie Forbes had pressed my hand with something of the ancient warmth when she’d arrived in The Snug. She was looking at me so intently that I had to let my eyes wander away to the velvet and leather decor of the room. It was full of overtones of Ireland, from the piped-in music to the foolish leprechauns on the coasters under the drinks. She’d been her usual ten minutes late, just for old times, and I’d had plenty of time to take in the throng of trendy business people unwinding or wheeling and dealing over martinis and imported beer. Teddie was reminding me that a decade ago I had let the PI/client relationship get a little sloppy.
“My parents are still here, Teddie. I’m the apple that didn’t fall far from the tree.” She sent an intimate look at me over the rim of her martini glass and I lifted my rye and ginger ale to meet it.
Teddie Forbes had got prettier in the decade she’d been out of my sight. The puffy, dissipated face I’d been holding onto over the years had been replaced by sharply sculpted features with cheekbones and everything. The crowsfeet in the corners of her eyes made them look wiser than her years. I figured that she must be crowding forty by now. She was in the pink and had all the confidence that comes from knowing it. Her figure was still full, but now seemed as though she’d grown into it. She’d also learned a thing or two about clothes since I saw her last. She used to dress like a medicine-show wagon. Across from me, she sat in a tidy grey tweed that brought out the blue in her enormous eyes.
“… Now a week after I get to Flagstaff, I’ll start getting homesick for this looney-bin of home and friends and memories. I know it. I’m a sucker for nostalgia, Benny.” She took a deep sip and then gave me a smile that said we had come to the business part of our meeting. I was glad of that. She’d had me worried for a minute. “Well?” she asked.
“Teddie, something is going on at Kinross Disposals. My client thinks a family member may have been killed because he stumbled on what’s going on up there.”
“Wow!” Teddie said, putting down her drink without taking her blue headlamps off my face. “Do you think Ross is behind it?”
“Teddie, I know what you’re hoping. No, I don’t know anything except that I can’t see how I can get into the Kinross yard without being spotted. I’m not Dick Tracy and I’m not Sherlock Holmes. I can’t drive a big truck. I don’t even speak their lingo. It could take me a couple of weeks before I could arrange phoney ID, and that can run into money. If I go as myself, the phonebook unmasks me as a private investigator. Besides, in a place this size, I’m bound to run into somebody-somebody, hell! I’m sure to meet a dozen people who know me the first day on the job. That’s assuming they’ll hire me. I’ve never been in a spot like this.”
“Poor bunny, she said, enjoying my discomfort.
“There’s no way I can go undercover. No way into this puzzle. I’m going to have to do a crabdance around it until my client runs out of money. It’s going to be two steps back, three steps sideways for every half-step forward.”
“What are you going to do then? I can’t help you get through the gate at Kinross, Benny. I’m on the board of the holding company, but that doesn’t mean much, I can tell you.”
“I thought that you could help me to get Kinross and Phidias straight in my head. Ross has nothing to do with Kinross any more, right?”
“Right. That’s Norman Caine’s responsibility now. Ross has been kicked upstairs to run the parent organization. That’s Phidias.”
“Good. Now we’re getting somewhere. It’s the human side I’m short on. I need the facts on what’s going on behind the scenes.”
“That’s a tall order. I haven’t seen those people in a long time.”
“I know that. I know that. But I’m just trying to get a handle on this thing. I’m looking for a place to begin, that’s all. I thought you could tell me something about Norman Caine and what’s been going on.”
“Caine’s new. He hasn’t been around more than a couple of years. I’ve seen him a few times with Sherry, of course. But that’s only natural, considering-”
“Sherry?”
“Ross’s daughter. I mean our daughter. Remember? She and Caine are engaged. They’re getting married-”
“Great, Teddie! This is terrific stuff. It’s just the sort of information I need!”
“You’re a great talker, Benny. You come on like a real womanizer.”
“Me?”
“Sure. I can always spot a womanizer.”
“How?”
“When you tell them that you come from Grantham, Ontario, they lean across at you and say, ‘So you come from Grantham! That’s very interesting!’”
“And am I like that?”
“Aw, Benny, I know you too well.” Teddie gave me one of those warm smiles that had Special Delivery written on it. She knows how to make a man feel totally alone with her and the sole focus of her interest. She probably didn’t even know she was doing it, but I intended to relax and enjoy it all the same.
“Norman Caine is marrying Sherry. Is that like Kinross marrying Phidias, or France marrying Portugal?”
“It’s a bit like that, but Caine isn’t quite up there with the Forbeses yet. He’s trying hard, but he hasn’t quite made it.”
“He has a free hand with Kinross, does he?”
“As far as I know, he has. But, Benny, they are both family companies. The Forbeses change the rules to suit themselves. I can’t swear that Ross hasn’t kept out of Kinross’s affairs, honest.”
“What’s happened to Ross since you left him? I he still with that travel agent?”
Teddie smiled and tilted her head at my ignorance. After scolding me for not holding my ear to the ground, she answered the question. “Ross left Marie Gladwell flat when he met Caroline Grier, back in 1982, I think. He and Marie had been keeping house without benefit of clergy for seven years. While he was still legally married to me, he kept up appearances, but that was it.”
“It’s beginning to come back to me. The last time I saw you, you told me I wouldn’t have to testify after all.”
“Ross sweetened the settlement when he found out what we had on him.” She was trying to get the waiter’s eye and wasn’t doing any better than I was. Her martini had disappeared with impressive speed, and she was gnawing on the olive stone, prettily. She went on speaking, although her eyes were no longer on mine. “I got out of town for a year after that. Even now, I stay as far away from Ross as I can. Ross is the perfect bully, you know, aggressive when the light’s on, but in the dark he goes to pieces. I should have seen him for a weakling from the beginning. He’s not a patch on the Commander.”
“The Commander? Ah, yes. His father. Has he been collected to his ancestors or does he still give Ross a hard time?”
“He’s still alive, but I don’t think he goes into the business any more. He must be pushing eighty! But, I’ll bet he still gives Ross a mark to shoot at. Murdo Forbes! Gosh, he was formidable in his day. I remember him firing six executives on Christmas Eve without batting an eye. All friends of his, people he played golf with.”
“Never had the pleasure,” I said. “Who runs things now? Ross?”
“He’s still CEO, but Norm Caine is breathing down his neck from one side, and the old man can’t stay retired one hundred percent. The Commander’s chairman of the board, naturally; Caine has the ambition, and Ross has the stock.”
“I can almost feel sorry for him. He’s the kid who can’t escape the shade of his old man, and at the same time he’s getting beaten by a poor newcomer. I’m glad I’m not Ross Forbes.”