“Hell,” Dortmunder decided. “I knew it. What’s gone wrong, Wally?”
“I don’t know,” Wally said, “but something sure has. Fairbanks has sent the word out that there will be no information given out as to his whereabouts from now on. If people want to reach him, they should make contact through his corporate headquarters in Wilmington, Delaware, a place he’s never been to, not even when they laid the cornerstone for the new building.”
“Well, goddamit,” Dortmunder said. “Why’s he doing all that?”
“I don’t know, John,” Wally said. “I’m sorry. I do know he still plans to have his two business meetings in Chicago, but I can’t find out where he’ll be staying or when he’ll get there or when he’ll leave. Then he’ll definitely be somewhere in Australia on the days he’s supposed to be there—”
“Which doesn’t help a lot.”
“Oh, I know, John. And the next time he’s willing to have his whereabouts known is next Monday, a week from now, when he gets to Las Vegas.”
“Vegas doesn’t change?”
“I guess because everything was all set there already, so it’s too late to keep it secret. But after Las Vegas, there isn’t a word on what he’s gonna do or where he’s gonna be. Not a word.”
“But Vegas is still what it was.”
“So far, anyway,” Wally said. “He’ll be at the Gaiety Hotel, Battle-Lake and Casino two nights next week, Monday and Tuesday, after he gets back from Australia.”
“Unless he changes his mind again.”
“I’m sorry, John,” Wally said. “I know I said I could track him for you. But this is very unusual for Max Fairbanks. Maybe the IRS is after him or something.”
“Somebody’s after him, don’t worry about that,” Dortmunder said. “Thanks, Wally. If there’s any change—”
“Oh, I’ll let you know, you or Andy, right away. Or probably Andy, he’s got an answering machine.”
“Right.”
“Tell him, there’s about four messages from me on his machine.”
“About this conversation we’re just having right here.”
“Oh, sure.”
“I’ll tell him,” Dortmunder said, and immediately forgot. “So long, Wally.”
When he hung up, everybody wanted to know what the other, more interesting, half of the conversation had been, so Dortmunder repeated Wally’s bad news, and Andy said, “So we don’t get the ring. I’m sorry, John. Not this trip.”
“Damn it to hell,” Dortmunder said. He was really angry. “We come all this way, and what do we get? A lousy fifty thousand dollars!”
36
For some reason, this time, when Max told the story, it seemed less funny. Maybe it was the fault of this particular audience.
Which was certainly a possibility. For this go-round of the retailing of the story of his theft of the burglar’s ring, Max had an audience of just one: Earl Radburn, chief of security of TUI, the man whose job it was to see to it that nobody stole anything anywhere within the sovereign domain of TUI, within the Max Fairbanks fiefdom. Telling his anecdote once more, this time under the ice-blue gaze of Earl Radburn, Max couldn’t help but feel that somehow the man disapproved of him.
Well, so be it. Who was boss here, anyway? If Earl Radburn can’t see the humor, that’s Earl Radburn’s loss.
Anyway, Earl was not a man noted for much sense of humor. A compact, hard-muscled ex-marine probably in his fifties, he had a pouter pigeon’s chest and walk—or strut—a sand-colored nailbrush mustache, and stiff orangey hair cropped so close to his tan scalp he looked like a drought. His clothing was usually tan and always clean, creased, starched, and worn like a layer of aluminum siding. If he had a home life nobody knew it, and if he had a sorrow in his existence it was probably that this job didn’t come with a license to kill.
Max, having left DC immediately after a quite successful congressional hearing—what a nerve the government has, taxing decent citizens—had had himself driven over highways put down some time ago by the government up to his corporate headquarters here in Wilmington, Delaware, choosing this place because everybody knew he never came here, had never been here before, and was in fact pleasantly surprised when he first laid eyes on the industrial park encircling TUI’s glass-sheathed, modern-architected, low, broad-based main building. While driving up, he’d phoned Earl Radburn in Earl’s security office in New York, and Earl had driven down to meet him.
Now they were alone together in a bright and airy conference room, with greensward as neat as a golf course outside the large windows, their sofas comfy, their soda water bubbly, and Earl as much fun to tell an anecdote to as an Easter Island head. Nevertheless, this is the fellow to whom he must once again recount the lark of stealing a burglar’s ring.
“In any event,” he said, when he had finished and Earl had made absolutely no response at all, “there you have it. That’s what happened.”
Earl said, “Sir,” which was his way of saying he’d stored the information he’d been given so far and was ready to receive more. Get on with it, in other words.
So Max got on with it. “Before the local police managed to bring the man to their station, he escaped.”
Earl’s lip curled slightly.
“He went back to the house,” Max said. “Fortunately, we’d, I’d, left by then. He ransacked the place.”
“I’ve read that report,” Earl said.
“I thought that was the end of it.”
“But now,” Earl suggested, “you think he’s the one broke into your place in New York.”
“I know it,” Max said.
Earl’s expression didn’t change, but his skepticism was palpable. “Sir,” he said, “you can’t know it. You can suspect it, but—”
Max held up his right hand, palm toward himself, displaying the ring. “He wants this ring. He wants it back. He’s going to come after me again, I know he is.”
Earl looked at the hand. “You wear the ring, sir?”
“Absolutely! It’s mine. I stole it fair and square, and I’m going to keep it. Don’t you see my corporate symbol on it, right there?”
“A coincidence,” Earl assured him.
“Of course it’s a coincidence! A wonderful coincidence! That’s why I’m going to keep this ring.”
“There could be more than one coincidence in the world, sir,” Earl pointed out. “The robbery in New York could have been done by anybody.”
“It was him, I tell you,” Max insisted, though he couldn’t quite bring himself to acknowledge to Earl that the reason he knew with such assurance was that the I Ching had told him, through the hexagram for the Marrying Maiden. He said, “I can feel him out there, I know he’s there. That’s why I’ve insisted on a complete blackout of my movements from now on.”
“Which complicates all our jobs, sir,” Earl said.
“It’s temporary, and it’s necessary. I have a plan, Earl.”
Earl waited, a rough-hewn statue awaiting a pedestal.
Max said, “The only place I’m going that I haven’t made a secret, the only place in this country, is Las Vegas, because that was set up and the news distributed some time ago. I’ll be there a week from now, next Monday and Tuesday, and I’m sticking to it. So that’s the only place he can try for me again. With your help, Earl, we’ll set a little trap for this burglar.”