“First,” I said, “you say he’s hip, now he’s beat. Which is he?”
“Is there a difference?”
I said, “Norman Mailer seems to think so.”
“Who is Norman Mailer?”
“That,” I said, “is a good question. But back to this girl. What color is she? Green? Orange? Or what?”
“Ed, she’s Hershey-bar colored. But listen, why pry this stuff out of me piecemeal? I’ve got the file handy, so why don’t I give you names and addresses of people we talked to—there aren’t many—and what they told us. Then maybe you’ll let me get back to work and quit yakking.”
I told him that would be fine and I pulled over a pad of foolscap and made notes, and when I finished, Uncle Am and I knew as much as the police did. About the disappearance of Albee Nielson, anyway. I thanked Chudakoff and hung up.
Uncle Am came out of the inner office and sat down across from my desk in the outer one. “Well, kid,” he asked, “how does it hit you?”
I shrugged. “Looks like Albee just took a powder, all right. But if Nielson wants to spend a little before he’s convinced, who are we to talk him out of it?”
“Nobody. Anyway, we’ll see what he’s got to say.”
It wasn’t long before we heard what he had to say. Nielson looked anywhere in his fifties. Grizzled graying hair and a beard to match, steel-rimmed glasses, and the red skin and redder neck of a man who’s worked outdoors all his life, even under a relatively mild Wisconsin sun.
“Damn cops,” he said. “That Chudakoff. Wouldn’t believe me. Told him Albee wouldn’t run away. Not for eight hundred dollars, and when he had it.”
I asked, “How did you and Albee get along, Mr. Nielson? In general, and the day he came to you for the money?”
“General, fair. Oh, we didn’t see eye-to-eye on a lot of things. Crazy ideas, he had. Left me alone the minute he got through high school, came to Chicago. But we kept in touch. Letter once in a while. And he dropped up once in a while, sometimes just overnight, sometimes a whole weekend. Usually when he could borrow a car.”
“You ever visit him here?”
“Once-twice a year, if I had business in Chicago. Not overnight, ‘less I had business that kept me. Then I stayed at a hotel, though. Didn’t think much of that—what he called a pad, of his.”
“What about Albee’s mother? And any brothers or sisters he was close to?”
“No brothers or sisters. Mother died when he was twelve. What’s she got to do with it?”
“We’re just trying to get the whole picture, Mr. Nielson,” I said. “And Albee and you lived alone till he was graduated from high school and he came to Chicago?”
He nodded, and I asked, “How long ago was that?”
“ ‘Leven-twelve years. Albee’s thirty now.”
“Did he ever borrow money from you during that time?”
“Small amounts a few times. If he was out of work a while or something. But always paid it back, when he got a job. That was back when. Ain’t borrowed since, till now, from the time he got that bookstore job. That paid pretty good.”
“So you didn’t worry about his paying back the current eight hundred?”
“Oh, it’d of taken him a time to do it, but he would of. Especially as he’d learned his lesson—I think—and was through with gambling.” He stopped long enough to light a pipe he’d been tamping down, “Oh, I bawled hell out of him before I give it to him. That kind of gambling, I mean. Not that I’m agin gambling in reason. Used to go into Kenosha most every Saturday night myself for a little poker. But stakes I could afford. It was going in debt gambling that I laid Albee out for. Laid him out plenty, ‘fore I give him the money.”
“But you didn’t actually quarrel?”
“Some, at first. But we got over it and he stayed for supper, and we talked about my plans, now I’m partially retiring.”
“What do you mean by partly retiring, Mr. Nielson?” Uncle Am cut in with that; I’d been wondering whether to ask it or skip it.
“Place near Kenosha’s a little too much for me to handle any more. By myself, that is, and I don’t like hired hands. Always quit on you when you’re in a jam.
“So I’d decided—if I could get my price, and I did, near enough—to sell it and get a smaller truck farm. One I could handle by myself, even when I get some older’n I am now. Maybe give me time to set in the sun an hour or two a day, not work twelve, sometimes more, hours a day like I been. And in a milder climate.
“That’s mostly what me and Albee talked about. I’d thought Florida. Albee said California climate’d be better for me, dryer.”
“Have you made up your mind now which?”
“Yes-no. Made up my mind to take a look at California. Saw Florida once. If I like California better, and find what I want, I’ll stay.”
“And since this conversation with Albee a week ago Saturday, you haven’t heard from him? Not even a letter?”
“Nope. No reason for him to write. Told him I’d be passing through Chicago in a few days on my way either to Florida or California, hadn’t made up my mind for sure which then, and that I’d look him up to say so long. That was the last thing between us.”
“And this would have been about eight o’clock Saturday evening, which would have got him back to Chicago about ten.”
“It’s about two hours’ drive, yes. And I left Monday. Didn’t take me long to pack up as I thought. Been here since, a week today. Want to find Albee, or what happened to him—or something—before I take off. No hurry in my getting to California, but I’m wasting time here and I don’t like Chicago. Kill time seeing a lot of movies, but that’s about all I can do. That Chudakoff, he thinks Albee run off. I still don’t. He says if I want more looking, try you. Here I am.”
“And if we have no better luck than the police,” I asked, “or if we decide they’re right in deciding your son left town voluntarily, how long do you intend to stay in Chicago?”
Nielson burst into a sudden cackle of laughter that startled inc. Up to now he hadn’t cracked a smile. “What you’re asking is how much I want to spend. Let’s take it from the other end. How much do you charge?”
I glanced at Uncle Am so he’d know to take over; when we’re both around I always let him do the talking on money.
“Seventy-five a day,” he said. “And expenses. I suggest you give us a retainer of two hundred; that’ll cover two days and expenses. That’ll be long enough for us to give you at least a preliminary report. And there shouldn’t be many expenses, so if you decide to call it off at the end of two days you’ll probably have a rebate coming.”
Nielson frowned. “Seventy-five a day for both of you to work on it or for one?”
I let Uncle Am tell him it was for one of us, and argue it from there. He finally came down to sixty a day, saying it was our absolute minimum rate—which it is, for private clients. We charge less only to insurance companies, skip-trace outfits, and others who give us recurrent trade. And Uncle Am finally settled for a retainer of one-fifty, which would allow thirty for expenses.
Nielson counted it out in twenties and a ten. Then he had another thought and wanted to know if today would count for a day, since it was already two in the afternoon. Uncle Am assured him it wouldn’t, unless whichever of us worked on it worked late enough into the evening to make it a full day.
I’d thought of another question meanwhile. “Mr. Nielson, when Albee borrowed the money from you, did he tell you he’d lost his job at the bookstore?”
He gave that cackle-laugh again. “No, he didn’t. I didn’t find out that till I phoned the store to see if I could get him at work. Albee’s smart, figured I’d be less likely to lend him money if I knew he was out of work. Guess I would of anyway—he’s never been out of a job long—but he didn’t know that and I don’t blame him for playing safe. Told me he wasn’t working that Saturday cause the store was closed for three days, Friday through Sunday, for remodeling.”