“Do sit down, Mr. Longmire,” he said. His accent wasn’t British, but it was still nicely clipped.
I sat down on the settee and looked at Douglas Chanson. He wore a dark, almost black suit with a dove-grey vest and a plain, wide, deep-purple tie. His glistening white shirt and collar looked stiff and starched. Above the stiff collar was an equally stiff face that didn’t look as if it laughed much. The bare chin that poked out from the beard was bony and narrow and above it was a small pursed mouth. Above the mouth was a thin nose and a pair of shiny brown eyes and in between the eyes were the lines of what seemed to be a perpetual vertical frown that creased the center of his pale forehead. He combed his brown and grey hair carefully down over his forehead to make it look as though it wasn’t as thin as it was. Douglas Chanson, I decided, had a generous amount of vanity.
He stared at me carefully for several moments and then said, “I don’t usually do this and I wouldn’t have in this instance unless you’d said that you were associated with Roger Vullo.”
“You checked, I take it.”
“Naturally.”
“I’d like to ask some questions about one of your clients.”
“I’m not at all sure that I’ll answer them. I think you should understand that from the outset.”
“I’d like to ask them anyway.”
“All right.”
“The client is the Public Employees Union.”
“Yes.”
“You recently recruited two hundred new employees for them, right?”
“Two hundred and three, actually.”
“I’m curious about what qualifications they had to have. I recently ran into six of them out in St. Louis.”
“St. Louis? Let’s see, that would be Russ Mary and his team, I believe. Yes, Mary.”
“A rather tall blond guy with cute little waves in his hair?”
“Mr. Mary is rather tall and blond but I don’t find his hair cute.”
“What’s his background?”
“That’s one of the questions that I choose not to answer.”
“Let me put it another way,” I said.
“If you wish.”
“Mary doesn’t have a labor organization background, does he? What I mean is, has he ever worked for another union other than the PEU?”
“No.”
“Has he ever worked for the federal government?”
“I’d have to say yes to that, but with certain qualifications which I’m afraid I can’t mention. Do you smoke?”
“Yes.”
“Good. Perhaps you’d like one of my cigarettes.” He picked up a small, highly polished wooden box that may have been made out of rosewood, opened it, and offered it to me. It contained long brown cigarettes. I took one. So did Chanson. He produced a gold lighter from a vest pocket and leaned forward to light my cigarette. Then he lit his own and leaned back in his chair, drew some smoke down into his lungs, and exhaled it. I took a puff of my own. It wasn’t bad.
“I have them made for me in New York,” he said. “They contain no artificial preservatives. No saltpeter and what have you. I seem to like things that haven’t been tampered with.”
“I roll my own,” I said.
“Do you really. That’s interesting.” He said it as if it really were.
I took another drag on my cigarette and said, “Having met Mary and his five helpers, I was wondering if the other hundred and ninety-seven persons that you recruited for the union were similar.”
“In what way?”
“Mary struck me as a rather take-charge type of guy. Competent. Aggressive even.”
“You mean tough as a boot.”
“Yes,” I said, “maybe I do mean that.”
“The team leaders that I chose are quite similar to Mr. Mary. The helpers as you call them are — how should I put it — competent, let’s say, but in need of firm direction.”
“It must have been quite an assignment. Finding two hundred competent people to do anything can’t be an easy task.”
Chanson nodded judiciously. “But not as difficult as one might think providing you have the resources and enough lead time.”
“You didn’t have very much, did you? Lead time, I mean.”
“Actually, we had quite a bit although it may not sound like much to you.”
“How much?”
“Nearly a week.”
“That’s all?”
“Sometimes we’re only given a day or two.”
“Who approached you?”
“From the union?”
“Yes.”
“That’s another question I choose to skirt, Mr. Longmire. I can only say that the initial approach was made by a confidential emissary from the union. Let me explain my secretiveness so you won’t think that I’m being overly arcane and mysterious. You see, in my business we often have corporate, organizational, and even governmental clients who decide to make sweeping changes from top to bottom. Replacing these personnel quickly is a difficult and sometimes delicate matter. My task, in exchange for what I like to think of as a fair retainer, is to recruit in absolute secrecy qualified personnel who can immediately step into the positions left vacant by these often abrupt changes in top-, middle-, and even lower-level management. Therefore, I wasn’t at all surprised by the confidential nature of the union’s approach. As I think I said, it happens quite frequently in my business.”
“These people you recruited, were they for permanent or temporary jobs?”
Chanson thought about it for a moment. “I see no reason why I can’t tell you that. They were all temporary jobs to last no more than six months.”
“And when were you approached by the union?”
“A little over a month ago.”
“How about being a little more specific?”
“In what way?”
“Was it after or before Arch Mix disappeared?”
“After.”
“How long after?”
“As I recall it was two days after he disappeared. Possibly three, but no more than that.”
“Did you connect the two?”
“The two what?”
“Mix’s disappearance and the union’s sudden demand for your services.”
Chanson stared at me for several moments. “What I thought, Mr. Longmire, must, I’m afraid, remain confidential. However, I think it only fair to tell you that whatever my thoughts were, the FBI and the D.C. police were made aware of them the same day.” He looked at his watch, a big, fat gold one that he kept in his vest pocket on a heavy chain. “I’m sorry,” he said, “but I have another appointment.”
“Just one more question,” I said.
“Yes?”
“How did you turn up Ward Murfin for Roger Vullo?”
He picked up the grey file that he had placed on the table and leafed through it. When he found what he seemed to be searching for he looked back up at me.
“Murfin is an interesting type. I keep extensive files on such types because they are the kind of people who often are quite suddenly needed by the kind of clients that I sometimes serve. In fact, I think you’d be surprised at the files that I do keep. For instance, this one here.” He tapped the folder on his lap. “It says in here that you really do keep bees, don’t you?”
“Yes,” I said. “I do.”
Chapter Twenty-One
Roger Vullo’s office was only a short, hot walk from Jefferson Place, but I didn’t notice the heat because I was too engrossed in putting the finishing touches on my theory about what had happened to Arch Mix and why. It was a sound theory, buttressed by solid facts with only a touch of wild surmise. I intended to lay it on Roger Vullo personally, collect the other half of my ten-thousand-dollar fee, and stop by a travel agent on my way home to make reservations for Dubrovnik. Two seconds after I entered Vullo’s office I knew that I wouldn’t be making the reservations just yet.