Читать книгу All the Colors of Darkness - Lloyd Biggle jr. - Страница 6

CHAPTER 2

Leaning back comfortably in the booth, one foot up on the seat, Jan Darzek watched Ted Arnold devour a hamburger. He thought, as he had many times before, that Arnold looked more nearly like a janitor than a brilliant engineer. He was short, fat, and bald. He appeared older than his forty-five years. He also looked slightly stupid.

All of which proved nothing except that looks could be extremely misleading, and no one knew that better than private detective Jan Darzek.

“I had an odd dream last night,” Darzek said. “I was on the Moon, looking down at Earth.”

“You couldn’t,” Arnold said.

“Couldn’t what?”

“Look down at Earth. If you were on the Moon. The Earth would be like a large moon in the sky. You’d have to look up at it.”

“Oh. I hadn’t thought about that. It proves my subconscious isn’t scientifically inclined, I suppose. I looked down.”

“And?”

“And what?”

“What did you do?” Arnold asked. “Just look?”

“That’s all.”

Arnold sighed around a bite of hamburger. “Seems like a long way to go, just to enjoy the view.” He sighed again, and carefully patted his perspiration-streaked bald head with a handkerchief. “Air conditioning feels good.”

“It’s an infernally hot night,” Darzek said. “Will you finish that sandwich so you can tell me why you’re making a cloak-and-dagger thriller out of this? It hurts my feelings to have my friends going out of their way to add to my daily quota of mystery.” His tone was angry, but merriment sparkled in his blue eyes, and the stern line of his lips did not quite suppress the smile that flickered there.

“What mystery?” Arnold asked.

“Why did Walker insist on our meeting in this—” he glanced quickly over his shoulder for a lurking waitress “—dump? Why did you come slinking in out of the night like a fugitive from justice?”

Arnold looked sadly at the bulging white of his shirt front, and adjusted the revolting blotch of purple that was his necktie. “Men with my build never slink,” he said.

“You slunk. I’ve tailed too many men myself not to know all the classic symptoms a man displays when he thinks he’s being followed. It’s a wonder you haven’t got a stiff neck, the way you walked up looking over your shoulder. You slunk into the doorway, and spent a full minute watching the passers-by on both sides of the street. Then you had to drag me away from a fairly comfortable chair to a plywood plank so we could have more privacy. And that in spite of the fact that we have this whole crummy joint to ourselves. Even the waitress doesn’t hang around. She’s carrying on a love affair with the cook.”

“Is she?” Arnold said, looking at the kitchen door with interest. “Meeting here wasn’t Walker’s idea. It was mine. I’ve noticed that the place is usually deserted this time of night.”

Darzek leaned forward, and spoke softly. “When does Universal Trans open for business?”

Arnold winced and half turned to look behind him. He whispered hoarsely, “How did you know that?”

“Elementary,” Darzek said, still keeping his voice low. “At the time this stock club of ours liquidated its holdings and invested it all in Universal Trans stock—at your recommendation, you might remember—I scraped together my life savings and bought a hundred shares for myself. Also at your recommendation. I may have mentioned it before.”

“You mentioned it at the time,” Arnold said, “and you’ve mentioned it at least three times a week since the stock started to go down.”

Darzek chuckled. “Have I? I’d forgotten. Anyway, a month ago the market value of Universal Trans stock was maybe a cent a share with no buyers, and a mysterious individual telephoned and offered five hundred for my hundred shares. Said he represented a nationwide syndicate of realtors who were trying to get control of Universal Trans to make something out of the various terminal sites the company has bought or leased around the country. I strung him along, and he’s telephoned three times since then. The last offer was two thousand—just what the stock cost me. Add the fact that Walker has called this meeting. He’s probably had an offer for the club’s stock. Add the fact that I happened to be walking along Eighth Avenue today, and I saw men at work in the Universal Trans terminal. They weren’t tearing the place down, so I kept on adding and came up with an answer. Universal Trans is opening for business.”

Arnold nodded slowly. “When did this character first offer to buy your stock?”

“A month ago.”

Arnold nodded again. “Universal Trans is opening next Monday. But a month ago no one knew that. I didn’t know it myself, and if I didn’t know it no one did. A month ago I wouldn’t have given you five hundred cents for your hundred shares.”

“Someone knew,” Darzek said. “Otherwise, why the pitch?”

“Beats me. We finally got the bottleneck opened up just five days ago, and right up to that moment it looked as if Universal Trans was finished.”

Darzek lit a cigarette, and blew a thoughtful smoke ring. “Queer,” he said.

“Universal Trans has had queerer things than that happen. What with the stockholders’ suits—I think the last count was thirty-one—and the patent disputes, and the congressional investigations, and the Interstate Commerce Commission inquiries, and the Armed Forces threatening to take over the whole works, it’s a wonder we still have a company. Then there are the governmental restrictions—all kinds of governments and all kinds of restrictions. And sabotage. Nothing I’ve been able to prove, but I’m satisfied that it’s sabotage. But the worst problems of all were the technical failures. Just when we thought things were ready to roll, bugs would develop. I hate to think how many times that happened. And all along the way I’ve had the impression that some outsiders know as much about what’s going on as I do. Maybe more. I’ve been followed on and off for the past two years, and it’s beginning to make me nervous.”

“Wonder what’s keeping Walker?” Darzek said.

“He’s on an assignment. He’ll be along.”

Darzek leaned back, stretched his long legs out under the table, and studied the flickering neon sign in the restaurant window. He was mentally trying to make something out of the words, DENOITIDNOC RIA, when the door jerked open and Ron Walker hurried in. He came back to their booth without breaking his stride, tossed his hat onto a nearby table, and slid in beside Darzek.

“What’s new?” Darzek asked.

Walker shrugged. “Nothing much. ’Tis rumored the mayor will clamp on water restrictions if it doesn’t rain. The weather bureau says this summer of 1986 will be the hottest in forty-eight years. Or maybe it was eighty-four years. Three congressional committees are due in town next week—one of them, incidentally, to investigate Universal Trans again. In Detroit, or maybe it was Chicago, some judge has ruled that a husband’s failure to equip his home with an air conditioner does not constitute proper grounds for divorce. Looks like it’s going to be a dull summer.”

“Obviously that was the wrong question to ask a reporter,” Arnold said. “He smells smoky.”

“Warehouse fire,” Walker said. “Empty warehouse. Dull. Even the firemen were bored. Where’s the waitress? I’m hungry.”

Arnold picked up his empty coffee cup and hurled it at the kitchen door. It shattered noisily, and the waitress made a panicky entrance a moment later.

“Put it on the bill,” Arnold said.

They waited silently while she brought more coffee and fixed a plate of cold sandwiches for Walker.

“You were right about the cook,” Arnold said to Darzek, when she had hurried back to the kitchen. “She was mussed.”

Walker waved a sandwich. “Darzek is always right. Time probably hangs heavy on the girl’s hands. Look—we haven’t had an official meeting since—when was it? Couple of years, anyway. Universal Trans stock has been so low we’ve been practically bankrupt for that long. How would you like to recoup and make a fair profit?”

“How much profit?” Darzek asked.

“I can get thirteen thousand for our six hundred shares. That’s a thousand more than we paid. I don’t know what this idiot expects to do with the stock, but I thought you two should know about the offer.”

“Syndicate of realtors?” Darzek asked.

“Why, yes. He said—” Walker turned slowly, and stared at Darzek. “How did you know?”

“I own a hundred shares of Universal Trans myself. They approached me a month ago.”

“Evidently they have money to throw away.”

“They’re not throwing it away,” Arnold said. “The stock will be worth double what we paid for it ten minutes after Universal Trans opens for business on Monday.”

Walker leaped to his feet, upsetting his coffee cup. “Is that official?” he demanded.

“Official and confidential,” Arnold told him. “Sit down and start mopping.”

Walker went to work on the spilled coffee with a handful of paper napkins. “Fine bunch of friends I have,” he grumbled. “Last month Darzek sat on a jewel robbery for a week, and not a whisper did I get.”

“I gave you a three-hour start when I cracked the case,” Darzek said. “And I’ll give you odds your editor wouldn’t use this story. How many grand openings does this make for Universal Trans? Six?”

“Seven,” Arnold said. “We probably won’t even get snide editorial remarks on this one. The official news release goes out at noon tomorrow, and we expect a lot of papers to ignore it.”

“Or bury it,” Walker said. “Page thirty-two, foot of the obituary column. ‘The Universal Transmitting Company announced today that it would open for business on Monday.’ Period. Taking any full-page ads this time?”

“No. We figure people would ignore them, so we’re going to save the money. That’s what the Boss said, but personally I think he doesn’t have the money to save. Anyway, we’ll get all the publicity we need once we start moving passengers, and it’ll be free.”

Walker nodded. “I’ll get myself assigned to cover the opening. I doubt that anyone else will want it. Everyone in favor of hanging onto the stock? Right. Meeting is adjourned. And Ted, you darned well better be right.”

“I’ll be right—barring accidents. And Monday you’ll be darned glad we dumped that airlines stock.”

“I want some more coffee,” Walker said.

Arnold summoned the waitress with a shout, and they sat silently while she refilled their cups.

“There’s just one thing that bothers me,” Darzek said, when she had returned to the kitchen. “Why was someone trying to buy my stock long before anyone at Universal Trans knew about this opening?”

“Speculators,” Walker said. “Or maybe they have a syndicate of realtors. I’ve heard of stranger things.”

Arnold shook his head. “More likely someone wants to get control of the company and kill it. Put it permanently out of business. The airlines interests, or the railroad and trucking interests, or—sure. Real estate. Why not? Can you guess what Universal Trans is going to do to real estate values? When we get operating properly a man will be able to live in California and commute to Wall Street by transmitter easier than he can commute now from Central Park West. The cost will be comparable with what the average commuter pays today for a train ticket. You should hear the Boss on that subject. He claims that Universal Trans is going to revolutionize our way of life more than the automobile did, and—”

He broke off and stared at Walker. “Did you say warehouse fire?”

“Over on the west side,” Walker said.

Arnold got to his feet slowly. He walked slowly to the pay telephone, and when he had made his call he sat down on the nearest chair and gazed thoughtfully at a blank wall.

“I don’t like this,” he announced finally. “That was my warehouse. We were using it for some tests.”

“Will this affect your grand opening?” Darzek asked.

Arnold shook his head. “We didn’t have much there, and we moved it out this afternoon.”

“Then there’s nothing to worry about. Write it off. It was insured, wasn’t it?”

“I suppose so. We were just renting it.”

“Forget it.”

“I don’t like it. We’ve had so many things happen—”

“Probably a coincidence,” Darzek said.

“You’re wrong there,” Walker said. “The fire marshal has it down as arson.”