Hush Money by Peter Israel Page A

all. He was sitting by the picture window looking out at the channel, behind a big polished wood desk with nothing on it but his elbows. Their portrait was up on the wall behind him. He kept running his hand through his hair, and while I was talking young Karie walked in, not the one in the portrait but the one with the lopped-off hair and the runny nose, and she put her arm around his shoulder and stared at me.
    â€œNow I’m going to lay it all out for you, Cage,” he was saying, “clear as a picture …”
    But before he could lay it all out for me, I fell sound asleep.
    It wasn’t the phone that woke me up, it was my stomach. My watch said two o’clock. I called the motel operator and asked her what time it was. “Why it’s two o’clock, sir,” she said cheerily, and I told her to put me onto room service.
    I guess that’s human gratitude for you. A couple of hours before I’d been happy as a pig in sunshine just to be alive. Now nothing would satisfy me short of a bath and a meal, both hot. I had them with a shave thrown in, also a couple of fingers of Chivas just to keep the ice cubes from making so much noise in the glass. All in all I wasn’t feeling as bad as I thought I should be, which goes to show what clean living will do for you, and the only thing missing was something I’d been going without for more days and nights than I cared to count. An idea which led me, oddly enough, to my friend Miss Plager.
    I got no answer at the Bay Isle hideaway, ditto at the big house in town. Maybe the help got Friday off. I tried the Wilshire office and the switchboard operator said both Mr. Beydon and Miss Plager were in conference and not to be disturbed, and I told her to cut out the crap, sweetly enough though to keep her from hanging up on me. She checked it out and came back with the news that they were down at Bay Isle. I said if they were they weren’t answering the phone. She giggled nervously at that and said maybe I ought to call Pacific Telephone.
    I tried Bay Isle again, letting the buzz buzz a few dozen times. I tried the various other numbers I’d used. Zero. I called the operator and let her try Bay Isle for me, and then on a hunch I got Andy Ford’s Blue Pacific Villas number from directory assistance and tried it and a recorded announcement told me “This is a recorded announcement, the number you have just called has been disconnected, please check your directory or dial directory assistance,” and then I dialed the campus and got through to Robin Fletcher’s dormitory and was told there was no answer up in 708, and then I called my answering service and the biddy’s substitute told me there were no messages for me at all. “None whatsoever, Mr. Cage,” said the biddy’s substitute.
    A tough day for Ma Bell all around.
    The one person I did reach, though it took some doing, was Freddy Schwartz. He had his buzz on for the day, and he was all ears. I asked him as casually as I could to run a check for me on the Diehl finances, not just the Diehl Corporation but the brothers as individuals. He wanted to know what was up. I wouldn’t tell him, and he accepted it pretty well. I asked him if he knew anything about the dope scene down this way, and he said that was out of his beat but he’d ask around. I also tried on the Society of the Fairest Lord for size. He thought I was pulling his leg. His laugh turned into a cough, and for a minute I thought he was going to have apoplexy right on the phone. “You laughed when you killed Christ too, old buddy,” I told him. Finally he agreed to check that one out too, but as I hung up I could see him shaking his head and motioning to the bartender.
    Nobody followed me when I drove out of the motel. My bag was in the back seat and the receipted motel bill in my spiral, and I was heading home, home sweet home. It was spooky, kind of. I mean, for some twenty-four