“If you would, I’d appreciate it.”
“Certainly.”
“How long will it take?”
“Oh, a day or so. If you’ll just give me your address and a number where I can reach you...”
“I’m leaving for Los Angeles on business pretty soon,” I said, “and I don’t plan to be home much in the interim. Could I call you instead?”
“Of course. Tomorrow, around this time?”
“Fine.”
He gave me one of his cards and I tucked it away in my wallet. He said it had been a pleasure; I said yes, it had. Then I went back out on the street to hunt up a telephone booth.
Emerson, Bexley, and Tedescu. Three names — three possibles. If they owned all of the Mid-Pacific stock, then it had to be one of them who had given Eberhardt that stock-transfer form. But why? What was the common denominator that linked a police lieutenant, a Chinese body-washer, and an outfit that manufactured a component for computers?
I found a phone booth in the lobby of one of the larger office buildings on Montgomery. Neither Emerson, Bexley, nor Tedescu was listed in the San Francisco directory. Which meant that they each had unlisted numbers, or lived somewhere outside the city, or both. I could go to the Pacific Telephone offices and look through the directories for the nine Bay Area counties, but that would take too much time and might not get me anything. There was a better way to handle it.
I put through a long-distance call to Ben Chadwick in Hollywood, charging it to my home phone. Chadwick was a private investigator who specialized in work for the major film companies, and he had done a favor or two for me in the past. When I got him on the line he spent a couple of minutes talking about the loss of my license and the shooting, what a shame it all was, how sorry he felt. But he sounded sincere. He was a pretty decent guy.
I finally got him off that by saying, “I need a favor, Ben. Nothing major; I’d do it myself if I could, but all my pipelines are closed up these days.”
“You’re not working, are you? Without a license?”
“No,” I lied. “It’s a favor for a friend.”
“Yeah, sure. What is it you need?”
“A check on three men who live up here — addresses, whether or not they have criminal records, that sort of thing. You’ve got police and DMV contacts; it shouldn’t take long. Can do?”
He sighed. “I suppose so. Who are they?”
“Carl Emerson, Philip Bexley, Orin Tedescu.” I spelled Tedescu’s name for him. “They own a company called Mid-Pacific Electronics. See if you can find out anything about that, too.”
“Okay. You still have your office?”
“Yes, but the phone’s disconnected. And I don’t know when I’ll be home. I’ll call you back later today.”
“I should be here. Take it easy, huh?”
“You know me,” I said.
“That’s what I mean,” he said, and rang off.
When I came out of the building I turned north and walked up to Pine. I wanted a look at the offices of Mid-Pacific Electronics now, and if I could manage it, a look at Emerson and Bexley and Tedescu.
Seven
The building that housed Mid-Pacific Electronics was one of the newer Financial District high-rises — sculptured facade with plenty of glass, marble-floored lobby, brass-trimmed elevators, and a bank on the ground floor to lend it all an air of ultra-respectability. According to the directory, Mid-Pacific had its offices on the fifteenth floor, right near the top. I got into one of the elevators and let it whisk me up in padded silence.
When the thing stopped and the doors whispered open, a beefy guy in a hurry almost ran me down. I managed to avoid him, and he blinked at me and said, “Sorry,” as he maneuvered himself into the elevator. He was in his thirties, wearing a three-piece suit, and what hair he had was dust-colored and wispy, like a skullcap made out of lint. He jabbed one of the buttons, giving my arm sling a curious glance. I turned away from him, but there was a full-length mirror on the opposite wall; I had a glimpse of him fiddling with his hand-painted tie before the doors slid shut.
On both sides of the mirror were brass arrows and brass numerals to let you know where the various offices could be found. 1510 was down to the right. The lettering on the door, when I got to it, said Mid-Pacific Electronics in fancy scrolled brass. I rotated the knob and went inside.
The anteroom was tastefully decorated, with a couple of chairs, a table that had some magazines on it, and a reception desk behind which were a couple of unmarked doors. The desk was occupied by an efficient-looking young woman, attractive if you liked females who wore gold-rimmed glasses on a thin gold chain. She was stuffing envelopes with what looked to be invoices, but she quit doing that as I entered. The smile she gave me was professional and did not have much candlepower behind it.
“May I help you?”
“Yes. My name is Andrew James. I’d like to see Mr. Emerson, please.”
“I’m afraid he’s not in. He’ll be at our Peninsula plant all day. Was it a business matter?”
“More or less. How about Mr. Bexley? Is he in?”
“No, you just missed him. He left not more than three minutes ago.”
“Big fellow wearing a three-piece suit and a hand-painted tie?”
“Yes, that’s right.”
“We bumped into each other out at the elevators,” I said. “We’ve never met, though, so I didn’t know who he was.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Well — is Mr. Tedescu available?”
“He’s in his office, yes, but he may be busy. May I tell him why you’re here?”
“It has to do with your company stock. I understand Mid-Pacific is going public soon and I’m interested in buying shares when that happens.”
“I see,” she said. “Will you have a seat, please?”
I had a seat. She got up and went through one of the doors, closing it behind her. I looked at the magazines on the table; except for a copy of Fortune, they all dealt with the electronics industry and most were trade publications. I didn’t open any of them. It would have been like trying to read something written in a foreign language.
The secretary came back pretty soon, leaving the inner door open this time. “Mr. Tedescu will see you, Mr. James,” she said. “Follow me, please.”
She led me down a short corridor past two more closed doors into a good-sized office at the far end. The room was cluttered but not messy, dominated by a massive oak desk and a table with draftsman’s tools and electronic designs spread over its surface. A short, plump man stood behind the desk, between it and three tall windows. The view in which he was framed would have been impressive on a clear day; now, under the overcast sky, the city and bay beyond looked gray and dismal, as if all the color had been bleached out of them.
The secretary went away and the plump guy came around the desk to greet me. He was in his forties, dark-haired, and the ruptured blood vessels in his cheeks marked him as a habitual drinker. He also had the biggest pair of ears I had ever seen, the kind that would have saddled him with the nickname Dumbo when he was a kid. But he didn’t seem self-conscious about the ears; in fact, he wore his dark hair in an old-fashioned brush cut, as if to emphasize their jug-handle quality. A badge of distinction in an otherwise nondescript appearance.
“Mr. James?” he said, giving me his hand. “I’m Orin Tedescu.”
“Pleased to meet you, Mr. Tedescu.”
“Same here.” He had a sharp, penetrating gaze and he used it to size me up as we shook hands. But there was no recognition in it; if he knew or suspected who I was, he managed to conceal the knowledge. “What happened to your arm? An accident?”
“Yes,” I said, “an accident.”