He sat on the swaybacked davenport and motioned me to a chair. “Tell you the deal I have in mind. Seven hundred for the truck and the load. Nothing for nothing.”
“Aren’t you pretty business-as-usual, for a man who lost a driver and a truck? Not to mention a daughter.”
“What daughter are you talking about?”
“Anne. She’s missing.”
“You’re crazy. She works for Kerrigan.”
“Not any more. She dropped out of sight last Friday, according to Mrs. Kerrigan. They haven’t seen her all week.”
“Why doesn’t anybody tell me these things?” He raised his voice in a querulous shout: “Hilda Where the hell are you?
”
She appeared in the doorway, wearing an apron that curved like a full sail over her breast.
“What is it, Father? I’m trying to clean out the kitchen.” She came forward hesitantly, looking at him and around the room as if she had wandered into an animal’s lair. “Everything in the house is filthy.”
“Forget about that. Where’s your sister taken herself off too? Is she in trouble again?”
“Anne in trouble?”
“That’s what I’m asking you. You see more of her than I do. Everybody in town sees more of her than I do.”
“It’s your own fault if you don’t see her, and she’s not in any trouble that I know of.”
“Have you talked to her lately?”
“Not this week. We had lunch together one day last week.”
“When?” I said.
“Wednesday.”
“Did she say anything about leaving her job?”
“No. Has she quit?”
“Apparently,” Meyer said. He went to the telephone that stood on a desk in the corner of the room, and dialed a number.
Hilda looked at me anxiously. “Has something happened to Anne?”
“Let’s not jump to conclusions. You wouldn’t have a picture of her around, a recent picture?”
“I have at home, of course. I don’t know if Father has. I’ll see.” She moved to the door on white flitting legs as if she was glad to escape from the room.
Meyer dropped the receiver. He turned to me with his hands open, the palms held forward in a helpless gesture. “She don’t answer. Doesn’t Kerrigan know where she is?”
“He says not.”
“You think he’s lying?”
“I got the idea from his wife.”
“Don’t tell me she’s waking up after all these years. I thought he had her buffaloed for keeps.”
“I wouldn’t know,” I said cautiously. “Who is this Kerrigan?”
“A phony, in my opinion. He come to town along toward the end of the last war, had a job at the Marine Base – public-relations officer or something like that. He was younger then, and a lot of the girls went for the uniform and the big line. Annie wasn’t the only one.”
He had said too much, and covered quickly: “Look at the girl he married, Judge Craig’s daughter. She come from one of the best families in town if that means anything, but Kerrigan got her dancing to his tune. He sold off the Craig ranch property the first year they were married, and went into real estate. Then he shifted to the liquor business. Then he decided there was more money in motels. He’s no businessman, I can tell you that. I gave him five years when he started. Well, he’s lasted seven so far.”
“How’s his credit?”
“Pretty shaky, I hear.”
“Seventy thousand dollars’ worth of bourbon is a big order for a man with a bad credit rating.”
“Biggest I ever handled for him. But that ain’t my worry. They tell me what they want hauled and I haul it.”
“Do you do all his hauling?”
“Far as I know.”
“Did he know what driver you were going to use?”
“I guess he did at that. Tony’s the only one bonded for that amount.” His small eyes peered at me from under bunched gray eyebrows. “What kind of line are you thinking along, boy? You think he ’jacked his own whisky?”
“It’s a possibility.”
“If I thought that, I’d cut out his liver and lights and eat them for breakfast.”
“It’s a little early to plan a menu,” I said. “I need more facts. Right now I need a hundred dollars from you.”
“Damn it, I thought you forgot about that.”
He turned his back on me, but I caught a glimpse of his roll. It would have choked a brontosaurus. He thrust it back into his jacket pocket and buttoned the leather flap. Two reluctant fifties changed hands.
“Anything else?”
“As a matter of fact, there is. About your daughter Anne, has she been in trouble before?”
“Nothing serious. Just the usual.” He sounded a little defensive. “Annie was a motherless girl, see. Me and Hilda did the best we could, but we couldn’t always control her. She ran with a fast crowd in high school, and after she went to work she spent more than she earned. I had to bail her out a couple of times.”
“How long has she worked for Kerrigan?”
“Three-four years. She started as his secretary. Then he gave her a course in management down south so she could run his motel business. I wanted her to come home and keep my books for me, only that wasn’t good enough for Annie. She wanted a life of her own, she said. Well, she’s got it.”
“What kind of a life has she got?”
“Don’t ask me.” He hefted the twin burdens of his shoulders. “Annie left me when she was fifteen and I hardly seen her since. Only time I do is when she wants something.”
He shuffled to the fireplace and stood looking down into the dead ashes. The light from the naked ceiling fixture fell on his head like the glare of loneliness.
“Annie never cared about me, neither of them ever cared about me. Sure, Hilda comes and sees me once in two-three months. Probably her husband puts her up to it, so he’ll inherit the business when digger gets me. Well, he can wait, the bastard can wait.” He turned and announced in a loud, hoarse voice: “I’m going to live to be a hundred, see.”
“Congratulations.”
“You think it’s funny?”
“I’m not laughing.”
“Laugh if you want to. I come from a long-lived family and I’ll have the last laugh, boy. Digger won’t get me for a long time yet.” His feelings shifted suddenly, away from himself: “What about Annie? Is she mixed up in this some way?”
“It was your idea. There may be something in it. She’s close to Kerrigan, and pretty close to Aquista, I understand.”
“You understand wrong. Tony was stuck on her, all right. She couldn’t see him for sour apples. Hell, she was scared of him. She came around here one night last year, she wanted–” He paused, and looked at me warily.
“Wanted what?”
“Something to protect herself with. The guy was bothering her, making a nuisance out of himself, and it was getting her down. I told her I’d fire him and run him out of town, only she couldn’t see that. She’s a pretty softhearted kid in her way. So I gave her what she asked for.”
“A gun?”
“Yeah, an old .38 revolver that I had.” He caught and answered my silent question: “Anne didn’t shoot him with it, if that’s what you’re thinking. All she wanted was something to protect herself from him. It just goes to show that Tony was a big nothing to her.”
“Is Kerrigan?”
“I wouldn’t know about that.” But his eyes clouded with embarrassment.
“Have they been living together?”
“I guess so.” The words came hard, forced from the bitter mouth. “I heard last year that he was paying the rent on her apartment.”