Читать книгу The Comic Book Killer - Richard A. Lupoff - Страница 9

CHAPTER FOUR

Lindsey was sorely tempted to lay Terry Patterson’s list in front of Professor ben Zinowicz and get his valuations right then and there. But he decided he’d better clear the consulting fee with Harden before he went too far. Before he could propose a next step, ben Zinowicz broke into his thoughts.

“The Regents are very touchy about faculty doing outside work during the hours they’re paid by the taxpayers. A professor is a professor, eh?” He paused to preen, then said, “I maintain an office in my home, for my consulting business. I’m in the Contra Costa directory. Please telephone for an appointment—I divide my time between the University and out-of-town engagements. If I’m not home when you call, my secretary will set up an appointment for you. Please do not arrive without an appointment, as you did today, and if you make one, please be very punctual, arriving neither early nor late.” He shook Lindsey’s hand, his grip chilly and stiff.

People no longer believe you can judge a man by his handshake, but Lindsey didn’t buy that. Professor Nathan ben Zinowicz might end up being an important help in cracking this case, but from his handshake, Lindsey knew he wasn’t going to like him.

He retrieved his Hyundai from the municipal garage, obtaining a receipt so he could put the fee on his expense account along with the mileage between Walnut Creek and Berkeley and the money he’d spent on Terry Patterson’s breakfast. He drove back to the International Surety office in Walnut Creek.

Ms. Wilbur looked up from her work when Lindsey entered the office. “Call Mr. Harden at Regional.”

Bart took off his jacket and put it over a hanger, set his briefcase on the floor beside his desk and sat down. Then he responded to Ms. Wilbur’s words. “Did he call me?”

“He wants to know about the Comic Cavalcade claim.”

“There’s no such claim.”

She opened her eyes wide. “Hobart!”

“I talked to Patterson and to the Berkeley police. Patterson has a set of claim forms but he hasn’t filed them yet.”

“I’m sorry,” Ms. Wilbur said, “you know it’s standing procedure to notify Regional at once of all claims above $100,000. I phoned Regional. Mr. Harden wants you to call him right away. And Mrs. Hernández wants you to call home. Your mother is having a bad day. You might have to leave early.”

Lindsey didn’t answer. Sometimes the only way to handle people like Ms. Wilbur is to ignore them. He picked up the telephone and dialed Regional. Harden was on another call but his secretary told him to hold, Harden wanted to talk to Lindsey right away. Lindsey sat there drumming his fingers on the steel desktop, waiting.

Finally Harden came on. “Listen, Lindsey, what’s this about comic books?”

“It was on the overnight tape. Comic Cavalcade, it’s a retail shop in Berkeley. Standard commercial account. They had a burglary.”

“Ms. Wilbur says it’s a claim for a quarter million. A quarter million dollars worth of comic books? What are comics worth nowadays? My kid has stacks of the things, they cost him a buck apiece. Are you telling me this store got taken for a quarter million in comic books? Do you know how much space that would take? What the hell are they trying to pull? What are you doing about it?”

That was just like Harden—excitable, always ready to assume the worst, always ready to think Lindsey hadn’t been on the ball. But this time Hobart Lindsey was ready for him!

“They’re collectibles, Mr. Harden. They’re worth prices into five figures, according to the insured. He referred me to the standard price guides and to a consultant at the University of California. I’ve already had one meeting with the consultant, and I’ll need Regional’s authorization to pay his fee.”

Harden cleared his throat. “What does this big-dome charge?”

Lindsey told him.

“And how many hours will it take?”

“I don’t know for sure, Mr. Harden. But I don’t think it should take more than half a day. Or a day at most.” He expected Harden to hit the ceiling when he put that together with ben Zinowicz’s five-­hundred-dollar hourly rate, but all Harden did was grunt.

“That doesn’t sound so bad, but what’s your plan? Do you think the claim is sound?”

Lindsey could tell what Harden was thinking. If this thing got messed up, it would be his fault and Harden would jump on a jet and fly into Oakland and take the thing out of the local office’s hands. Then he’d try to save International Surety a pile of money by finding a way to disallow the claim. If he succeeded, he’d be a hero at National, and if he failed, he’d lay the blame on Walnut Creek—on Hobart Lindsey’s desk.

“I don’t know yet whether it’s sound. I’ve already visited the store, interrogated the proprietor, consulted the police and contacted an outside consultant. All of that in”— consulted his Timex –“less than five hours. I’ll keep you posted on my progress, Mr. Harden.”

Lindsey could hear him snort. “Not good enough, Lindsey. Look, we don’t want to pay out any quarter million bucks. If you can pin this on the insured and disallow the claim, that’s great. If you can’t, you’re to recover the stolen property. You know what I’m talking about?”

“You want me to play detective?” Harden didn’t respond. Sometimes the unspoken word means more than the spoken. “Do you want me to try and get the comics back through a fence?”

“I’m not telling you what to do. You know the way this industry operates. We’ll offer a reward for the stolen goods if that’s what it takes. Insurers have been known to buy items back from third parties, no questions asked. Do you understand me? If it’s going to cost us a quarter mil one way or a fraction of that the other, which do you think the company will go for?”

“Well, uh—”

“Do you understand me, Lindsey? This is a big claim and we don’t want it botched. I don’t want it botched. Do you understand me? If you don’t think you can handle it, just say so and I’ll send somebody out there who can.”

You bet he would! Somebody named C. C. Harden.

“I can handle it, sir! I’ve never let you down before and I’m not going to start now.”

As Lindsey hung up he looked at the back of Ms. Wilbur’s head. Whose side is she on? he wondered. At International Surety it wasn’t uncommon for spies to be planted in other people’s offices. Up the ladder and down, it worked both ways, but of course it was easier to work it downward than up. And if that takeover happened, there could be a bloodbath around here!

You didn’t even have to place the mole, sometimes you could turn somebody who was already on site. Just let a subordinate’s secretary understand that you wanted informal reports on activities in the office. Her boss was not to know about it. And then if there was ever any problem between secretary and boss, suddenly she had a friend on high! All she had to do in the meantime was keep her eyes peeled, her ears tuned—and send off a little confidential message, strictly untraceable, whenever anything interesting happens.

Lindsey cleared his throat. “Ms. Wilbur, would you phone for a sandwich for me? Have the deli send up a ham and cheese.”

She said, “Huh.” He knew she didn’t like performing tasks like that; she considered them unprofessional. But she picked up her phone and dialed.

Lindsey punched the other line and dialed home.

With hardly a syllable of greeting, Mrs. Hernández launched into a diatribe. “You better come home, Meester Leensley. Your mama she’s not having such a good day. She been talking about bad things. She threaten me, Meester Leensley. I try and get her to lie down but I don’ know if I can get her to do it. Maybe you can do something with her, Meester Leensley.”

He sighed. Maybe a little butter would help. A little—what did Mrs. Hernández call it—mantequilla. “You know you’re wonderful with her, Mrs. Hernández. Maybe because you’re a woman you understand her better than I do. Don’t you think you can handle it?”

Mrs. Hernández mumbled.

“Maybe a cup of tea,” he suggested. “And you know how she loves the old movies on TV. Maybe you could find one for her.”

Mrs. Hernández said, “I guess so. I guess I give it a try. Maybe she take a nap for me, even.”

Lindsey said, “You’re a gem, Mrs. Hernández.”

“But Meester Leensley, are you sure you really wanna go on like thees? I don’ know how much I can take. I might have to get a different job. Don’ you think your mama might be better off—you know—in a—you know—home, Meester Linsley?”

Maybe she would be, he thought. He’d miss her, but it would certainly give him more freedom. There was no way he could invite any young ladies over to the house, the way things stood. And that put an awful crimp in his social life, such as it was. He enjoyed a drink now and then with friends, and he did get invited to an occasional party. He liked women, he liked talking with the ones he met, he liked being near them. But it seemed never to go anywhere beyond that. He did keep himself presentable. He’d never been an athlete, but he jogged every morning and he kept himself in pretty good condition for a man pushing thirty-five.

Still, she was his mother, that was the bottom line. He was not going to just put her away. Well, it would take a lot of thought before he did.

“You keep things under control, okay, Mrs. Hernández? Call me if it’s a real emergency. I’ll be home the usual time.”

* * * *

Over the next couple of days the case of the copped comics moved along in routine fashion.

Terry Patterson filed his claim forms.

Lindsey looked them over and phoned Comic Cavalcade.

Patterson answered the phone. “Did I fill everything in right, Mr. Lindsey? The forms were a little complicated.”

“You did ’m just fine, Terry. You really going to push on with this? I warn you, there’s a stiff penalty for insurance fraud. Don’t take my word. Ask a lawyer. Ask that cop, that what’s-her-name.”

“Officer Plum, sir. I don’t have to ask. I believe you, Mr. Linsdey. I really do. But this is no fraud, everything happened the way I told you. This is an honest claim.”

“Well...” Lindsey let that hang for a while, then he said, “You understand contributory negligence, Patterson, don’t you? A rusty hasp and a two-bit padlock don’t constitute exercising reasonable care and responsibility.”

“Your company inspected the store when they issued the policy, Mr. Lindsey.”

Damn! “All right,” Lindsey sighed. “We’ll process the paper, Patterson. But don’t hold your breath till you see a check. There’s a lot of investigating that needs to be done.”

He counted to five and laid the receiver on its cradle, then walked to the window and gazed out at the traffic headed toward the freeway. Where had the pleasant, slow-paced Walnut Creek of 1960 gone? If he had wanted to live in a city, he’d have sold the house and bought a condo and moved Mother and himself to San Francisco. Who needed traffic jams and exhaust fumes and punks in Walnut Creek?

Walnut Creek was no longer the sleepy little suburban haven it had been when he was a child. But even as long ago as then, the town had already grown from suburb to commuter’s bedroom community. Over the years, Walnut Creek had continued to change until it had become the bustling, noisy city of today, complete with tall office buildings, high-rise apartments, and traffic jams.

He shook his head and walked back to his desk to call Officer Plum at the number on her card. He got Berkeley police headquarters: That should have been obvious, he told himself. Officer Plum wouldn’t go handing out her personal phone number to people she met in the line of duty.

It took him four tries to reach her, and even then she couldn’t take the call and promised to get back to him. Later, she told him she’d been out on cases. He felt stupid. Had he expected her to be assigned to the Comic Cavalcade burglary full-time?

Lindsey would have preferred not dealing with a Berkeley claim. The town, he thought, is too weirdly mixed. Too many leftover hippies and remnants of 1960s radicalism. The university and the thousands of students it draws. And the street people—every time he walked on Telegraph Avenue—as seldom as he could arrange!—there seemed more of them: filthy, pathetic derelicts. Where did they all come from? You didn’t see that in Walnut Creek, that was for sure!

Away from the University there were black neighborhoods and integrated neighborhoods, old money that lived in huge mansions in the hills and vagabonds who slept in the parks. Even some heavy industry was still left, but it was slowly dying, being replaced by a whole section of new, high-tech enterprises.

No, it was all too mixed for him. He felt more comfortable when things were clearly defined. Berkeley was definitely not his kind of town.

Lindsey checked his pocket organizer, found his note concerning Ridge Technology Systems, and looked up their phone number and address in the Oakland-Berkeley directory. He reached for the phone to call George Dunn, Terry Patterson’s contact at the company—then changed his mind. An unannounced visit might be more productive than an appointment.

As far as Lindsey was concerned, he knew all he wanted to know about Berkeley. But when Officer Plum returned his phone call she responded to his demand for effective service with a lecture on the city and its problems.

Mainly she told him that she wasn’t putting too much time or effort into solving the Comic Cavalcade burglary. She made it very clear that some eighty-year-old dowager, who happened to be the widow of a distinguished ex-Chancellor of the University of California, had higher priority with the burglary squad than a comic book store run by a twenty-six-year old ex-hippie dropout.

In a way Lindsey could sympathize, but that wasn’t going to save International Surety’s quarter million bucks—nor would it make the name Hobart Lindsey shine at Regional.

He hung up in disgust and redialed, asking for the commander of the felony squad, one Lieutenant O’Hara.

Now there was a cop! Who could ask for anything better than

Lieutenant Joseph Francis Xavier O’Hara!

O’Hara invited Lindsey to come into his office for a little chat, so Lindsey drove to Berkeley for the second time in a week.

O’Hara’s office was upstairs in the old building that housed the Berkeley Police Department. He looked up and grunted. “Understand you’re dissatisfied with the conduct of one of our officers. Is that right?” O’Hara was in civilian garb. He had his coat off and his revolver on his hip. Lindsey said, “Not exactly. Officer Plum seems to be a conscientious worker. I just don’t think she’s very interested in this case, Lieutenant.”

O’Hara already had a file folder on his desk. He opened it, pulled a pair of rimless glasses out of his pocket, and slipped them onto his nose. “Officer Plum seems to have conducted a correct investigation of this crime.”

“What about fingerprints?”

O’Hara turned a couple of sheets of paper. “They found plenty. Some of them were even clear enough to use. Let’s see, we found Terrence Patterson’s, Janice Chiu’s, A. Lincoln Morris’s—that’s the staff of Comic Cavalcade. They were very cooperative in giving us samples for comparison.” He gave Lindsey a deep look.

“We found a great many others, presumably belonging to customers. We found several belonging to Professor Nathan ben Zinowicz from U.C. Those were on file with the state, you know. They’re printed when they get a teaching credential—part of the old loyalty check. Law’s still on the books. And we even found a couple of yours, Mr. Lindsey. Checked them with your company’s bonding people. You aren’t the burglar, are you?”

Lindsey’s jaw dropped. He started to get red, then realized that O’Hara had been jibing at him—as well as establishing his subordinates’ efficiency.

O’Hara raised his face from the papers. “We found a lot of others, but none that seem to lead us anywhere. So...” He closed the folder and tossed it back onto his desk.

“What do you do now?”

“It’s an open case,” he said.

“What does that mean?”

“It means we keep the case on our open list, and if anything further develops, we pursue it.”

“That sounds like hooey to me.”

O’Hara looked at Lindsey and glowered. “What do you want us to do?”

“I want you to work on it. This is going to cost International Surety a quarter of a million dollars if those comic books don’t show up!”

O’Hara spread his hands helplessly.

Lindsey found himself getting really angry. “What are we paying taxes for? Why do we have police? When we need them they don’t care, they just want to sit on their duffs and collect their salaries.”

Lieutenant O’Hara leaned forward and poked a blunt finger toward Lindsey’s face. “Let me tell you something. This town has one of the most highly trained and hardest working police forces in the United States. We are also one of the busiest, and I would say the most constrained by rules and political interference.

“Now, I’m a fairly high-ranking officer on this police force, Mr. Lindsey, and in another four years I plan to retire on what you would call my nice fat pension. In my years of service I’ve been run down by a maniac, shot twice, I’ve saved a child from drowning and delivered eleven babies, and if you want to see my medals and certificates of commendation I keep ’m in this drawer in my desk along with my lunch box.

“Now, this town has a large transient population because of the University and the street people, and we’ve got very serious problems with murders, rapes, and drug-pushing all the way from the schoolyards and the flatlands to the rich people in the hills. You understand that? I am not going to pull an officer off residential burglary investigations with their potential for violence and death, to have her chase down a box of comic books to save your company paying off an insurance claim!”

Lindsey felt his face getting hot and red. “These aren’t just comic books, Lieutenant O’Hara! There’s a lot of money involved. Have you read that folder? Have you talked to Officer Plum? We’re talking about a quarter of a million dollars!”

O’Hara said, “If anybody tries to fence those comic books, we’ll hear about it and you’ll get them back. If the burglar wanted ’em for himself, I’m afraid they’re gone forever. If that satisfies you, that’s very good. If it doesn’t, then you’re free to try and track ’m down yourself, provided you don’t overstep your rights as a citizen.

“And now I’m goin’ to sit here on me fat Irish duff and eat me lunch of arroz con pollo. Don’t let the door smack you on the ass on your way out!”

Lindsey opened and shut his mouth. He couldn’t think of anything to say. Finally he picked up his briefcase and stamped out of O’Hara’s office.

On the staircase outside he came face to face with Officer Plum. She looked up at him, startled. “Mr. Lindsey! Were you looking for me?”

He ground his teeth and shook his head. “Never mind!”

“Did you get some new information on that Comic Cavalcade case?” she asked.

Lindsey said, “Never mind! One thing I’m learning, if you want something done around here, you have to do it yourself!”

He shoved past her and headed for the street.