Chapter 6
Mike got down to the office about eight on Monday morning. Ginny, his secretary, was already there.
"Good morning," she greeted him cheerfully. Mike was sure that one of the reasons he liked Ginny was because of her cheerful good morning greeting. Between the time he got up and the time he got settled at his desk, her greeting was the only nice thing that seemed to happen to him.
Someone had once told him that there are two kinds of people in the world. There are morning people and night people. The morning .people wake up bright and cheerful and get a good day's work done, but they poop out early in the evening unless they take a nap in the afternoon. They aren't much good for anything after nine in the evening. Night people, on the other hand, are up and raring to go until all hours of the night. But they pay hell getting started in the morning. It is pure agony to roll out of bed in the morning for a night person. Mike was one of the night people. He did not think that he had been happy to get up two mornings in his entire life. The same fellow who had told him about it had said that there was no cure and whichever it was that you were, you were stuck with it for the rest of your life. As a result, Mike made it a habit to try to get up as early as he could as often as he could. This way he tried to trick himself and train himself so that it would be less painful, but it didn't help. He still hated to hear the alarm go off.
Ginny was working over the coffee pot.
"Ready yet?" he asked. "In a jiffy," she said. She made good coffee too.
Mike busied himself at his desk and in a few minutes Ginny set a cup of steaming hot coffee on the desk top beside the papers that he was going over.
"Thanks," Mike said without looking up.
Ginny smiled and returned to her desk.
The mail came in at nine-thirty. Mike took his time going over it until he realized that he was taking too much time. He knew that he was stalling, putting off something that he was reluctant to get started on. So he shuffled the mail into a rough pile and set it aside. He got up and shut the door to the outer office so that he would have some privacy. He barely heard the clatter of Ginny's typewriter through the door.
Returning to his desk he picked up the phone. He leafed through the phone book and found the number he was looking for and dialed it.
"Jack Anderson," he said when the secretary answered at the other end of the line.
"Who is calling, please?" she asked.
"It's personal," Mike said. "I'd like to speak to Mr. Anderson myself."
"Of course," she said in a tone that angered Mike, "all of Mr. Anderson's business is confidential, but he insists that I ask who is calling. May I have your name please."
Mike gave up and told the girl his name.
There was a hollow click, then a short delay before the line cleared again and a harsh voice asked, "Yes, what can I do for you, Mr. Reston?"
Mike had been going over in his mind how he was going to present the matter to the private detective. He knew that Allan Farris' name was big enough to frighten even a big time operator around Harbor City and Anderson was small stuff no matter which way you cut it.
Finally Mike said, "I'd like to retain your services." Let Anderson take it from there. But Anderson would not commit himself. "Yes," was all he said. His voice gave Mike no clue as to how to proceed.
"There is a certain party who I believe is engaged in certain activities that I could like to know more about," Mike explained in a vague way. "I want you to follow him and investigate his activities."
"Him?" Anderson asked. "A man? Not your wife?"
Mike smiled. Divorce business. Probably the only kind of work Anderson ever got. Well, this was almost the same thing, but the approach would be a little different.
"Yes," Mike said. "The man is the husband of a friend of mine and she has reason to believe that he may be carrying on with another woman behind her back. She has asked me to look into it for her."
"Oh, yes, I see," Anderson said. He was obviously back on more solid footing now. He was used to this. "May I suggest that you make an appointment with my secretary and come around to my office. These things are best discussed personally, not over the phone."
"Good," Mike said. "That's what I hoped that you would say."
"I'll look for you then," Anderson said.
Mike thanked him and he switched Mike back to the mean-voiced girl. She made an appointment for two o'clock that afternoon. An appointment, Mike mused. Anderson was probably sitting up on his rear and waiting for a job, but he had to keep up the image. He had to put Mike off. Couldn't fit him in right now. He was much too busy. like hell! He probably had his greedy hand up under his secretary's dress, Mike thought. Had his hand sunk wrist deep into her cunt and that type of thing can never be interrupted just for business.
Ginny knocked on the door and brought in copies of some" letters for Mike to sign.
"I'm leaving for lunch, now," she said.
"Okay, Ginny."
She walked out of the office and closed the door behind her.
Mike paced about the office and tried to get the details straight in his mind. He sat back down, but when he tried to read the paper on his desk his mind wandered and he had to give it up. He looked at his watch. It was almost twelve-thirty.
He locked the office and went out to his car. He drove around downtown slowly just trying to kill a little time. After a while he stopped at a restaurant and had a sandwich. He had difficulty forcing the food down. That killed another half hour. On his way out of the restaurant he remembered Sandy and stopped to phone her at a telephone booth near the door. He dialed her number at work. The phone rang a half dozen times before Mike hung up. Out to lunch too. She usually took a rather late lunch break.
Mike spent a few minutes walking up and down the block looking into the shop windows. On an impulse he whirled and walked back to a sporting goods store he had passed a moment previously.
He entered the store and crossed to the showcase near the cash register.
"May I help you?" a salesman inquired.
Mike hesitated for only a moment, then said, "Yes, I want to buy a hand gun. Let me see that one over there."
He pointed to a pistol under the glass.
The clerk stooped over and slid back the door at the rear of the gun case. He removed the gun Mike had pointed at and set it on the counter. Mike picked it up. The cold metal felt strange in his hand.
"A fine hand gun," the clerk was saying. "Smith and Wesson. .32 caliber."
Mike turned it over in his hand to see the price tag. He stood looking at it for a moment, feeling the heft of the gun in his hand. He had not held a gun since he had gotten out of the service. Even then, he seldom ever had reason to use a pistol. The few times that he did, the weapon was a forty-five and not a little pea shooter like this one.
He made up his mind.
"Fine," he said. "I'll take it."
He handed the gun back to the clerk and he put it into a box.
"We have a fine holster that would be the very thing for this gun," the clerk said. Mike shook his head. "Just the gun," he said. The clerk nodded.
As he wrote out the charge ticket he told Mike, "You realize, of course, that I will have to register this sale. If you want to carry this weapon on your person you will have to make an application at city hall for a permit to carry a concealed weapon."
Mike gave him the particulars that came into his mind and an address that would probably put him some five hundred yards back into the city sewage disposal works, but the clerk took it happily and there was not trouble.
Mike dropped the gun into his jacket pocket, fully conscious of the weight it made. He returned to his car and transferred the pistol to the glove compartment.
By then it was time for his appointment with Jack Anderson and he drove straight to Anderson's office.
The Anderson Detective Agency consisted of two dirty little rooms in an old, even dirtier, building. The girl at the outer desk had Mike sit down for a moment while she got up and went into the other room to see if Anderson was ready for him. Mike watched her tight ass twitch past and found it hard to imagine such a nice shape belonging to the acid cold voice that had been the one he had heard on the phone earlier. Her tits bounced nicely as she walked past.
In a moment she returned and told him that he could go in. She stood holding the door for him and she let her full breasts rub firmly up against his arm as he walked past.
Mike walked into Anderson's inner office. He was seated with his feet up on his desk and paper cup in his hand. He had probably filled it from the bottle of whiskey that was perched next to his left foot.
"Sit down, Reston," he said and waved his hand at a chair in front of the desk. He made no effort to get up and shake hands and neither did Mike.
Anderson was a beefy, middle-aged man with a florid puffy face. His red nose with its patchwork of broken veins bespoke his fondness for the bottle.
Before Mike was settled in his chair Anderson said, "Just to get the formalities out of the way before we begin, I charge fifty bucks a day. That doesn't include expenses."
The detective looked at Mike and studied his face, waiting for Mike's reaction to the price he had quoted. Mike Anderson was ready to come down if he hesitated and ready to tack on some extras if he thought the traffic could handle it.
Mike held his face passive.
"We are prepared to pay a fixed fee that will amount to much more than that, Mr. Anderson," Mike told him. He paused for effect. "Much more."
He saw a wary look creep over Anderson's face. This was his business and he may have been a slob, but he was sharp. And greedy.
"Well, now..." he hedged. "I don't know if...."
Mike cut him off.
"The reason we are prepared to pay a bit more than your usual fee is quite simply because we want to insure your silence after the job is over."
"I'm not a blabber mouth, Reston."
"I didn't say you were."
"Hell you say."
"We just want to be sure," Mike said softly. There was no point in getting overheated. Not now.
Anderson swung his feet off his desk and leaned forward toward Mike.
"How much did you have in mind?" he asked.
"A thousand dollars down," Mike said firmly.
"And?" The detective's voice was eager. That was what Mike was playing for.
"We can get to that," Mike said.
"All right. Who is it? And just what is it that you want done? Remember, Reston. No funny business. I got a permit that I don't want to lose."
"The job is simple. All you have to do is follow a man and find out who he sees, where and when. Then you let me know. After that I take over. You won't even be in on the final play."
"You'll get the goods?" Anderson asked.
"That's right."
"Okay. Who is it?"
Mike took a deep breath.
"Allan Farris," he said evenly.
For a moment there was silence. Then Anderson rose to his feet.
"I'm sorry," he said, "but I'm a private detective, not a fucking idiot. Find yourself somebody else."
"Sit down," Mike said harshly.
"Don't give me that crap, Reston."
"Sit down," Mike said again. "Let's talk money."
Anderson wavered for a moment and then sat back down. Money. It was Mike's strong card.
"I told you that I would handle the final arrangements. Farris will never see you. All you have to do is the tail job. And who will ever let the cat out of the bag about who did the tailing? We want this as quiet as you do."
"You and his wife?" Anderson asked. Mike nodded.
"What about the rest of the money?"
"As soon as you give us the word that you have what we want we will pay you another four thousand dollars."
Mike watched as the man licked his greedy lips. Mike had counted on the man's greed more than anything else, sure that it would overpower his fear.
"Five grand," Anderson said as if to himself.
Before he could say no, Mike went on.
"All you have to do is to keep an eye on him. We know that he's playing around. All we want to know is where and when."
Anderson nodded.
"The five grand has to be in cash."
"You'll have it," Mike said. "What else will you need? A picture of him?"
Anderson shook his head.
"No," he said, "I know what he looks like. I just hope that he doesn't know what I look like."
"We want it as soon as possible," Mike said. "And one more thing. When it's all over we want all of the copies of your files." Mike paused. "Deal?"
"Give me the grand," Anderson said.
"I'll send it over with a messenger later in the day," Mike told him.
Anderson eyed Mike curiously.
"Where do you fit in?" he asked.
"That's no business of yours," Mike told him flatly.
Anderson grinned. He showed teeth dirty and stained.
"You getting what Farris is missing out on at home, huh? I've seen that blonde honey of his. How's it feel to stick your cock into the million dollar twat?"
"Shut up," Mike snapped.
Anderson laughed out loud.
"You come in here and sneer at me and ask me to do your dirty work for you. You got a hell of a lot of nerve, Reston, to act uppity with me. You stink, buddy. Hell, we all do."
Anderson tilted back his head and drained his paper cup.
"We all stink," he repeated.
"Go easy on the sauce when you work for us," Mike said.
Anderson waved Mike away and poured another drink from the bottle.
Mike left Anderson seated at his desk staring at the wall over the doorway and dreaming of the five thousand dollars. Mike was glad to be out of the man's office. It had a bad smell and a bad feel to it. But he would be a lot safer with someone like Anderson doing the tailing than if he did it himself. And five thousand out of a half million would be nothing.