He said, “I had you checked out. You’re between cases a lot. Twenty thousand dollars is the biggest money you’ve ever seen. You’ve been minor league all your life.”
“Why waste all that bread on a minor leaguer then?”
“Because you’re the best I could get. You’re tough, you won’t cheat me, you’ll stick. I heard that from my people. I also heard that sometimes you think you’re Captain Midnight. Mostly that’s why you stayed in the minors, I heard. For me that’s good. A hungry Captain Midnight is just what I need.”
“Sometimes I think I’m Hop Harrigan,” I said.
“No matter. If I could do this myself I would. But I can’t. So I’ve got to hire you.”
“And sometimes you think you’re Daddy Warbucks. Just so it’s all straight between us. I’ll find these people for you. I’m not only the best you can get. I’m the best there is. But the things I won’t do for money are one hell of a lot more numerous than the things I will do.”
“Good. A little ego doesn’t hurt. I don’t care what you do or what your philosophy of life is or whether you’re good or bad or if you wet the bed at night. All I care about is these nine people. I want them. Twenty-five hundred a head. Dead or alive. The ones you get alive I want to see. The ones you get dead, I want proof.”
“Okay,” I said. He didn’t offer to shake hands. I didn’t offer to salute. He was staring out at the hills again. The cat jumped back up in his lap. “And you want me to keep the picture of your family?” I said.
He didn’t look at me. “Yes. Look at it every morning when you get up and remember that the people you’re after blew them into mincemeat.”
I nodded. He didn’t see me. I don’t think he saw anything. He looked at the hills. The cat was already asleep again in his lap. I found my way out.
2
The secretary in Jason Carroll’s outer office had blond hair that looked real and a tan that looked all over. I speculated on the all-overness as she led me down the hall to Carrcill. She was wearing a blue top and tight white pants.
Carroll got up from behind his chrome and onyx desk and came around to greet me. He was blond too, and tan, and slim in a double-breasted blue blazer and white trousers. They looked like a dance team. Sissy and Bobby.
“Glad to see you, Spenser. Come in. Sit down. Mr. Dixon told me you’d be stopping by.” He had a firm and practiced handshake, and a Princeton class ring. I sat on a chrome couch with black leather cushions, near a picture window from which you could see a lot of the harbor and some of the railroad yards behind what was left of South Station. A stereo was playing something classical very softly.
“My office is on the second floor over a cigar store,” I said.
“Do you like it there?” Carroll asked.
“It’s closer to sea level,” I said. “This is a little rarified for me.”
There were oil paintings of horses on the office walls. “Would you care for a drink,” Carroll said.
“Beer would be good,” I said.
“Would Coors be all right? I bring it back whenever I’m out west.”
“Yeah, okay. Coors is okay for a domestic beer, I guess.”
“I can give you Heineken’s if you prefer. Light or dark.”
“I’m kidding, Mr. Carroll, Coors would be swell. I can’t usually tell one beer from another. As long as it’s cold.”
He touched an intercom switch and said, “Jan, could we have two Coors please.” Then he leaned back in his high leather swivel chair, and folded his hands over his stomach and said, “How can I help?”
The blonde came in with two cans of beer and two chilled glasses on a small tray. She served me first, probably my Jack Nicholson smile, then her boss, and went out.
“Hugh Dixon has hired me to go to London and start looking for the people who killed his wife and daughters. I’ll need five grand to start with and he said you’d give me what I need.”
“Of course.” He took a checkbook from the middle drawer of his desk and wrote a check.
“Will this be enough?”
“For now. If I want more will you send it?”
“As much as you need.”
I drank a little Coors from the can. Rocky Mountain spring water. Zowie.
“Tell me a little about Hugh Dixon,” I said.
“His financial position is extremely stable,” Carroll said. “He has a great many financial interests all over the world. All of which he has acquired through his own efforts. He is a truly self-made man. ”
“I figured he could pay his bills. I was more interested in what kind of man he is.”
“Very successful. Very successful. A real genius for business and finance. I don’t think he had a great deal of formal education. I think he started as a cement finisher or something. Then he got a truck and then a backhoe, and by the time he was twenty-five he was on his way.”
Carroll wasn’t going to talk about Dixon, I guessed. He was just going to talk about his money.
“How did he make most of it? What sort of business?” If you can’t lick ‘em, join ’em.
“Building trades at first, and then trucking, and now he has conglomerated so extensively that one cannot specify his business anymore.”
“Those are tough trades,” I said. “Candy asses do not flourish there.”
Carroll looked a little pained. “Certainly not,” he said. “Mr. Dixon is a very strong and resourceful man.” Carroll sipped a little of his beer. He used the glass. His nails were manicured. His movements were languid and elegant. Breeding, I thought. Ivy League will do that for you. Probably went to Choate too.
“The terrible tragedy of his family…” Carroll couldn’t find the words for a minute and settled for shaking his head. “They said he shouldn’t be alive either. His injuries were so terrible. He should have died. It’s miraculous, the doctors said.”
“I think he had something to do,” I said. “I think he wouldn’t die because he had to get even. ”
“And for that he’s hired you.”
“Yeah.”
“I will help all I can. I went to London when it… when he was injured. I know the police on the case and so forth. I can put you in touch with someone in Mr. Dixon’s London office who can help on the scene. I handle all of Mr. Dixon’s affairs. Or at least many of them. Especially since the accident.”
“Okay,” I said. “Do this for me. Give me the name of the person who runs the office over there. Have them get me a hotel room. I’ll fly over tonight.”
“Do you have a passport?” Carroll looked doubtful.
“Yeah.”
“I’ll have Jan put you on a flight for London. Do you have a preference?”
“I don’t care for biplanes.”
“No, I suppose not. If it doesn’t matter I’ll have Jan arrange for flight fifty-five, Pan Am, leaves every night for London at eight. First class all right?”
“That’ll be fine. How do you know there will be room?”
“Mr. Dixon’s organization flies extensively. We have a somewhat special status with the airlines.”
“I’ll bet you do.”
“Mr. Michael Flanders will meet you at Heathrow Airport tomorrow morning. He’s from Mr. Dixon’s London office and will be able to fill you in.”
“I imagine you have a somewhat special status with Mr. Flanders.”
“Why do you say so?”
“How do you know he’ll be free tomorrow morning?”
“Oh, I see. Yes. Well, everyone in the organization knows how strongly Mr. Dixon feels about this business and everyone is ready to do anything necessary.”
I finished my beer. Carroll took another sip of his. A man who sips beer is not trustworthy. He smiled at me, white teeth in perfect order, looked at his watch, two hands, nothing so gauche as a digital, and said, “Nearly noon. I expect you’ll have some packing to do.”
“Yeah. And maybe a few phone calls to the State Department and such.”
He raised his eyebrows.