Toll Call Read online

  I dislike being indebted to others, in either the monetary or the moral sense, so I hate to have other people do me the favors that create such imbalances. But I couldn’t deny that Constable’s suggestion was substantially more certain to protect Peggy than my own neanderthal approach, and as the seconds ticked by and Constable eyed me from his perch on high I could think of no real reason to refuse his offer.

  “Okay,” I said, with a reservation born of years of misfires arising out of just these situations. “But I pay all charges, plus I pay Richard a hundred bucks a week to keep his ears open, and a couple hundred more if anything comes up that requires him to run to the rescue.”

  “That seems satisfactory,” Constable acknowledged. “I’ll try to reach Mr. Manchester right away.”

  I looked at my watch. “I have a meeting, but I’ll be back in the office by four. Maybe you could call me then.”

  “Of course.”

  “I appreciate your help.”

  “I’m happy to do it. I can certainly understand your concern.”

  “I’d better go ask Richard if he’s willing to help me out.”

  Constable shook his head. “There’s no need. I’ll mention it to him when he finishes his current project. I’m sure he’ll be thrilled to have something more … demanding to do than fill out tax forms while he watches over my funny little family.”

  Constable tittered a deprecating laugh, and I thanked him once again, then went back to the office, locked up, and headed for my appointment.

  My destination was the twenty-fourth floor of the Transamerica Building. The meeting was with a lawyer in one of the larger firms in town, a hundred attorneys give or take a dozen, practice strictly commercial and insurance defense. I’d never done any previous work for either the lawyer or his firm, so we measured each other warily as I was ushered into his tasteful, conservative digs by his secretary, who looked nothing at all like Richard Husky.

  The lawyer’s name was Mason Yockey. He was about my age, which would have made him either a senior-junior or a junior-senior partner, at an approximate salary of two hundred and fifty thousand per, not including bonuses. But however much Mason Yockey was paid, the look on his face suggested he wasn’t paid enough.

  Yockey was beefy, of average height, handsome in a rotund sort of way, the way tank cars and beer cans are handsome, but he was not robust. He looked on the brink of an exhausted collapse, and he looked as if he might welcome it when it came.

  He waved me to a chair, thanked me for coming, tugged his tie knot another inch away from his throat, and sat down behind a desk awash in paper. “I got your name from Andy Potter,” he said to open the conversation. “He had a lot of nice things to say about you.”

  “Andy and I go back a long time.”

  Yockey nodded. “You used to practice law, I believe.”

  “Yep.”

  “Why’d you quit?”

  “I got tired of feeling the way you look.”

  I grinned to show it was nothing personal. Yockey seemed neither amused nor insulted, seemed beyond any emotion more electric than ennui. “Yeah,” he managed finally. “It’s been a bad day. Hell, it’s been a bad year. Which I guess is why you’re here. I’m hoping to take a bit of the load off.”

  “How?”

  His gaze lumbered away from mine and landed on the two-foot stack of files on the floor beside his desk. He looked at the stack and then at me, as though it was a problem child and I was the counselor who was going to put out the fire that burned between them. “The defendant in all those cases and about a hundred more just like them is Lind Pharmaceuticals. Ever hear of them?”

  “I think so,” I said, not quite remembering where.

  “Well, they’re not as big as Lilly or Merck or those type, but they do a big business in some specific areas. They’ve got the most effective arthritis medication on the market, and a decent hypertension suppressant, and some more esoteric stuff that does well too. They grossed about three hundred million last year. If it wasn’t for the fucking litigation they’re drowning in, they’d have had a big year.”

  “What kind of litigation?”

  “Ever hear of the Dalkon Shield?” Yockey looked at me carefully.

  “Sure.”

  “Well, about ten years ago Lind made one of those intrauterine devices too. Not nearly as popular as the Shield, but unfortunately it had the same side effects, or so about two hundred plaintiffs claim.”

  “You mean infections, infertility, spontaneous abortions, wires through fetuses’ jaws, and like that?”

  Yockey seemed to shudder. “Yeah. All that stuff. Christ.” He paused to regain his breath and his perspective. “Anyway, my job is to come up with a defense to all these claims and I guess one of them is going to have to be one that the courts have thrown out in most jurisdictions but has been admitted in Oregon and a few others.”

  “What defense is that?”

  “Basically it’s a promiscuity thing. If we can show a plaintiff has had multiple sex partners over the past few years—a promiscuous lifestyle in other words—we can argue that any uterine infection or other reproductive problem resulted from a venereal disease of some sort and not from the use of our device.”

  “What do you mean by promiscuous lifestyle?”

  “Sex with multiple partners, like I said.”

  “How many is multiple?”

  “I don’t know. Five. Ten.”

  “How about two?”

  “Two?” Yockey rubbed his head. “Sure. I guess. Two or more. Hell, those hayseeds on the jury will buy anything if you present it right. Two. Multiple. Like I said.”

  When I didn’t respond, Yockey continued. “So basically that’s the job. We give you a list of plaintiffs in this area and you locate witnesses who can testify that they screwed any greasy dick that came their way and I try to convince a judge that kind of garbage is relevant so we won’t be tossed out on our ass when we offer the evidence in court. We’ll pay your rate, plus expenses, plus a premium of a thousand dollars per plaintiff that you give us a successful defense for. What do you say?”

  “You really want to know?”

  Yockey fidgeted. “Sure. That’s what you’re here for.”

  I smiled. “I was going to say you ought to be ashamed of yourself. But from the look of you I’d say you already are.”

  THIRTEEN

  My glittering self-righteousness lasted about a block and a half. By the time I turned into the alley I work in I was feeling sorry for Mason Yockey and ashamed of my own hypocrisy. My house is all glass and has been for years. I don’t throw that many stones, and when I do they somehow turn into boomerangs and I usually regret it.

  When I got to the second floor there was a young man on a stepladder right outside my office, stapling a wire along the shadow molding in the hallway. An untethered length dangled down beside my doorjamb, swaying to and fro, like a lead I’d never followed but should have.

  The man on the ladder was half my age, with a tangled cape of henna hair that fell below his shoulders, cords faded to the color of ice, and bare feet. When he saw me coming he hopped off the ladder and waited for me. The smile on his face revealed a lot of gum. “You Mr. Tanner?”

  “Yep.”

  “I was hoping you’d show up.”

  “You need to get inside.” I gestured toward the door.

  “Right. Arthur told me what you need. I got a little micro mike right here, small enough not to attract attention but sensitive enough to pick up anything above a burp. Take me about ten minutes to hook her up, then I’m gone. Amp and speaker’s already installed, right behind Richard’s desk. Stuck it onto one of those human sculpture things. A few of them talk already, so it’ll just seem like one more if it starts broadcasting when someone’s around. Got a headset option for him, too, in case you don’t want everyone in the waiting area hearing what’s going on down here.”

  “Sounds good,” I said. “How much am I going to owe you for all this?”<
br />
  “Installation’s free. Gear will run you about a hundred.”

  “That sounds too cheap. And I want to pay you for your time.”

  “The time’s on me,” he objected. “And the Japs dump this stuff over here for next to nothing, for sure below cost. This is pretty basic, what with the wires and all; outmoded, really. Everything I use is a fucking loss leader, anyway, which is why I can underbid the big boys when I want. A buck goes a long way in electronics these days. And it’ll stay that way unless they do something stupid with the yen. My name’s Manchester, by the way.”

  He stuck out a hand and we shared a brisk shake. He was one of those kids you see around from time to time, competent, intelligent, totally immersed in passion—music, chess, mathematics, computers—apparently as happy as hogs in mud, as Ruthie Spring would say. I’d always envied such a focus, and I envied young Manchester right then.

  I unlocked the office and let the kid finish up his job. He put the microphone behind the ficus and fastened the on-off button in the kneehole in Peggy’s desk. When he was done he suggested we check it out.

  I went down to Constable’s office and stood beside Richard as the kid made various noises in my office with what sounded like a harmonica. The speaker broadcast every reedy tone in a surprisingly rich facsimile. When he’d finished with a riff I looked at Richard. “This arrangement okay with you?”

  He grinned. “Anything Mr. Constable wants is okay with me. He tells me to chase a pack of Libyans with my hands tied behind my back, I just take off running.”

  I smiled. “I don’t think there’ll be more than one,” I said. “But he might be a little nuts. The main thing is to keep my secretary from getting hurt. You just scare him off. Don’t try to apprehend him.”

  Richard folded his arms and looked like he was carrying firewood. “You really think he’ll make a try for her right here in the building?”

  “I don’t know what I think at this point. Maybe by tomorrow I will. Did Constable tell you I’m paying you a bonus for this?”

  He shook his head.

  “Well, it’s worth a hundred a week to me not to worry when I leave Peggy alone. And if you have to play Superman, there’s a few hundred more in it for you, depending on my bank balance.”

  “You don’t have to do that. Hell, it’s worth it for the excitement.” Richard looked behind him at the thicket of modern art. “Watching over Arthur’s family all day isn’t exactly as stimulating as watching Riggins come at you off-tackle and wondering how you’re going to knock him down.”

  Despite his disclaimer, I wanted to be certain Richard kept on his toes, so I told him I’d pay the first week in advance. When I reached for my wallet he waved me away. “I like to earn my money, Mr. Tanner. Next week will be fine.”

  We chatted for another minute, then I went on my way, which was back to the office to tell young Manchester his system was working fine and to thank him for his effort.

  He told me there was nothing to it, just some old stuff he’d been wanting to get rid of anyway, and he had a deal on some video disc players if I was interested. Better than cost. When I told him I’d pass, he gathered up his tools and started to leave. But when he reached the door he stopped and looked back at me with a half smile on his lips. I thought he was going to ask why I wanted the microphone installed, but he had something different in mind.

  “Been cheaper to use the one you already had,” he said, still smiling, still watching me closely.

  I didn’t know what he was talking about and I told him so.

  He nodded thoughtfully, as though I’d confirmed a suspicion, then beckoned for me to follow him out into the hallway. When we got there he closed the office door and leaned back against it. “I hate to tell you, Mr. Tanner, but your place is already bugged.”

  I tried to conceal my surprise. “Are you sure?”

  He nodded. “No doubt about it. And this isn’t some Stone Age junk like I hooked up, either. This is state of the art. Little transmitter about the size of a pea, will broadcast anything audible in that room a distance of half a mile.”

  “Any idea where it transmits to?”

  Manchester shrugged. “I sure don’t have any way to track it. The spy guys have tracing gear that could do it, but that’s not my line of work. None of my business what’s going on here, Mr. Tanner, but if I was you I’d pry the little bastard out of there and drown it.”

  “Where is it?”

  “You know that print behind your secretary’s desk? The Cézanne?”

  I nodded.

  “Look in the upper right corner of the frame. Little quarter-inch hole drilled in there among the curlicues, the bug’s stuck right inside, snug as an egg in a nest. Perfect position, which is why I was checking it out as a possible mount for my own device. That baby cost five hundred bucks, easy, Mr. Tanner. Pick up a pin dropping and send it three thousand feet. Wish I had one of my own, just to see what makes it tick.”

  “Any idea who might do that kind of work? Planting it, I mean?”

  He looked at the letters on my office door. “Hell, man. I thought that was the kind of stuff you guys did.”

  I thanked Manchester for his help and went back in the office and got out my Swiss army knife and pried the little bug out of the picture frame. It weighed nothing and was entirely unremarkable, except for its totalitarian implications. I was wondering who might have wanted to eavesdrop on me when I realized that the target was clearly Peggy, the bugger undoubtedly the spider.

  I tossed the insidious little nugget up in the air and caught it, then opened the drawer of my desk and took out a bottle of vitamin E capsules that had been in there since the last time I swore to do something about my health. I dropped the bug in with the oblong cure-alls, then replaced the bottle in the desk, locked up the office, and drove to the Marina, stopping along the way to pick up my shaving kit from my apartment, seething all the while at the stealthy invasion of my privacy. By the time I got to Peggy’s I knew a little more about what she had been going through since the spider put her in his sights, and had empathized enough with the past targets of my own eavesdropping efforts to resolve not to do that anymore.

  When I buzzed at the street door Ruthie let me in. The smells of jam and cleanser still loitered in the stairwell, though less densely. When I got to the third floor Ruthie was waiting for me in Peggy’s doorway. “You got back early,” she said as I joined her.

  “The meeting didn’t turn into a job after all.”

  I was too embarrassed to tell Ruthie about the bug. When I looked past her into the apartment I could see the couch was empty except for the forsaken afghan and the equally forsaken Marilyn. “Where’s Peggy?” I asked.

  “Napping.”

  “How’s she doing?”

  “Physically, she’s choice to prime. The ribs are almost a hundred percent and she can walk on the ankle if she’s careful and doesn’t tip. Says she’s going to work in the morning. You should probably try to stop her but you probably won’t be able to.”

  I nodded. “She’s almost as independent as you are.”

  Ruthie looked at me. “Almost,” she muttered enigmatically.

  Because of the way she said it I looked at her. “What does that mean?”

  She bit her lip and shrugged. “Nothing, I reckon. We had a little spat, is all. She didn’t like me fussing over her, I guess, and I can’t blame her since I’d feel the same way if we were vice and versa. And she liked it even less when I started asking questions about this dude on the telephone. Sometimes I ain’t real tactful, I suppose. Probably because I come from a long line of Texas assholes. And there’s no asshole in the world as big as a Texas asshole. ’Course being an asshole will get you a long way in the detective business. Or just about any damned business these days.”

  Ruthie’s jaw swelled in an angry bulge. I didn’t want to do anything to fan the flames, but I had to ask her what Peggy had to say about the spider.

  Ruthie pushed herself away from
the doorjamb. “Come on inside, Marsh. I’ll see if she’s still bedded down, then we can palaver in the front room. I got a cup of coffee turning tepid on the windowsill.”

  Ruthie went to the bedroom door and peeked inside, then went to the couch and sat down. I joined her in the living room, taking the chair I’d occupied the night before, depositing my kit on the coffee table.

  Ruthie sipped her coffee and made a face. “Too late in the day for this swill. Want me to make some fresh?”

  I shook my head. “Keeps me awake.”

  “Hell, Marsh. You should be glad there’s something in the world that does.”

  I let Ruthie prattle away about all the reasons there are not to fall asleep in the middle of your life, because I knew she was doing it mostly to gather her thoughts. After a couple of minutes she wound down, and when she was ready to talk about what I wanted to talk about she crossed a leg and looked at me. “Seems to me this thing’s a little like the Patty Hearst business,” she said.

  “How do you mean?”

  “The guy on the phone is fucking little Peggy over, and for some reason she’s helping him do it. What I mean is, I’m not real sure she wants it to stop.”

  I’d had the same impression and for reasons that had more to do with me than Peggy I had tried to suppress it. Now I tried to rebut Ruthie. “I don’t think she liked getting shoved down the stairs.”

  “No, but I think she kind of likes it when he talks trash to her. Now, Marsh. Don’t give me that look. You know it’s true and you know we’re not going to get this gopher out of her garden unless we know exactly what the variables are. Correct?”

  “Correct.”

  “So why do you suppose she let this John guy whittle on her like that?”

  I shrugged. “We all have some unresolved sexual desires, Ruthie. Maybe Peggy’s working through something from her past.”