into a saddle leather chair that turned its back to a glass wall that showed blank blue sky, a lone helicopter. Out of a deep drawer he lifted his phone but he didn't dial. His father came in.
Carl Brandstetter was a straight, ruddy man of sixty-five with handsome white hair, blue eyes and an expensive tailor. He turned back to say something out the door, let it fall shut, nodded to Dave and walked to a cabinet where liquor, ice, glasses hid themselves behind insulated steel finished to look like wood. He bent to open doors and take out bottles. "Go on with your call."
"It can wait." Dave stood. "What did the doctor tell you?"
"To stop smoking." Carl Brandstetter snorted, dropped miniature ice cubes into a pitcher of thick Danish crystal. "And drinking." He measured gin with a squat glass jigger. "And working." He measured vermouth, set the bottles back, found ajar of stuffed olives, shut the door. "And sex." From the snowy little cave that was the freezer compartment he took stem glasses and dropped an olive into each.
Dave said, "That doesn't leave you many options."
"Backgammon." His father moved the crowded ice with a glass rod. "At the senior citizen center. And a little light shuffleboard, maybe once a week." He poured from the pitcher, turned, smiling, holding out a frost-crusted glass to Dave. "But no tournaments. Nothing to work up the adrenaline."
"Heart?" Dave took the glass, tasted the drink.
"It appears to be broken." Carl Brandstetter sat in a white goat-hide chair and placed his glass on a low glass-and-steel table where an Aztec metate —rough gray stone on three legs—was the ashtray. "That would give some women in this city a laugh."
"It was always their hearts," Dave said. There had been nine of them, if you included only wives. Carl Brandstetter wasn't a collector —he was a discarder. Dave watched him start a cigarette with a gold lighter that for shape and incising matched his cuff links. "You're smoking. You're drinking."
The older man said, "I feel fine. When I'm dead I'll no doubt think giving it up would have been worth it. Right now, it's unreal. The sun is shining. I have a lovely and devoted young wife who will stop in the Bentley shortly to drive me to dinner at — "
"The women," Dave said, "it won't matter a damn to. It will matter to me."
The board chairman of Medallion Life raised white brows. "Sentimentality? From you?"
"Just fact," Dave said. "Why not cut down a little?"
"What's in the package?" his father wondered.
Dave sipped his drink. "Do we own a metal detector?"
"Not that I know of. Why?" Carl Brandstetter rose, hefted the parcel, read the label. "Hmm. Anonymous."
"It's possible somebody would like me dead," Dave told him. "It's happened before —remember?"
"On this Wendell matter?" Carl Brandstetter set down the box, went to pick up his glass. "I'm told there's been static. The mother is turning attorneys loose on us. The business partner wants you fired."
"I'm still not sure those two didn't kill him." Dave lit a cigarette, sat on a desk corner, spelled out his reasons. "But there are new characters in the drama. A little ex-wife from Texas. The suspect's. Her baby and her backwoods lawyer, demanding fifteen hundred dollars in delinquent child-support payments."
He went on with that part of the story while Carl Brandstetter took a gold penknife from a pocket and cut the twine on the package. He folded back the brown paper. More twine bound the carton inside. He cut this too, folded the knife blade with a click, put the knife away. He grinned at Dave.
"You don't want to leave the room?" Dave said, "You never did have any imagination."
"You've got enough for both of us," his father said. "The Johns boy killed him. It's more obvious now than before. The fifteen hundred dollars was the motive."
"He didn't get it," Dave said.
"Who did?"
"I'd suggest you ask the first police officer on the scene. They're badly paid."
Carl Brandstetter opened the flaps of the
Carl Brandstetter was a straight, ruddy man of sixty-five with handsome white hair, blue eyes and an expensive tailor. He turned back to say something out the door, let it fall shut, nodded to Dave and walked to a cabinet where liquor, ice, glasses hid themselves behind insulated steel finished to look like wood. He bent to open doors and take out bottles. "Go on with your call."
"It can wait." Dave stood. "What did the doctor tell you?"
"To stop smoking." Carl Brandstetter snorted, dropped miniature ice cubes into a pitcher of thick Danish crystal. "And drinking." He measured gin with a squat glass jigger. "And working." He measured vermouth, set the bottles back, found ajar of stuffed olives, shut the door. "And sex." From the snowy little cave that was the freezer compartment he took stem glasses and dropped an olive into each.
Dave said, "That doesn't leave you many options."
"Backgammon." His father moved the crowded ice with a glass rod. "At the senior citizen center. And a little light shuffleboard, maybe once a week." He poured from the pitcher, turned, smiling, holding out a frost-crusted glass to Dave. "But no tournaments. Nothing to work up the adrenaline."
"Heart?" Dave took the glass, tasted the drink.
"It appears to be broken." Carl Brandstetter sat in a white goat-hide chair and placed his glass on a low glass-and-steel table where an Aztec metate —rough gray stone on three legs—was the ashtray. "That would give some women in this city a laugh."
"It was always their hearts," Dave said. There had been nine of them, if you included only wives. Carl Brandstetter wasn't a collector —he was a discarder. Dave watched him start a cigarette with a gold lighter that for shape and incising matched his cuff links. "You're smoking. You're drinking."
The older man said, "I feel fine. When I'm dead I'll no doubt think giving it up would have been worth it. Right now, it's unreal. The sun is shining. I have a lovely and devoted young wife who will stop in the Bentley shortly to drive me to dinner at — "
"The women," Dave said, "it won't matter a damn to. It will matter to me."
The board chairman of Medallion Life raised white brows. "Sentimentality? From you?"
"Just fact," Dave said. "Why not cut down a little?"
"What's in the package?" his father wondered.
Dave sipped his drink. "Do we own a metal detector?"
"Not that I know of. Why?" Carl Brandstetter rose, hefted the parcel, read the label. "Hmm. Anonymous."
"It's possible somebody would like me dead," Dave told him. "It's happened before —remember?"
"On this Wendell matter?" Carl Brandstetter set down the box, went to pick up his glass. "I'm told there's been static. The mother is turning attorneys loose on us. The business partner wants you fired."
"I'm still not sure those two didn't kill him." Dave lit a cigarette, sat on a desk corner, spelled out his reasons. "But there are new characters in the drama. A little ex-wife from Texas. The suspect's. Her baby and her backwoods lawyer, demanding fifteen hundred dollars in delinquent child-support payments."
He went on with that part of the story while Carl Brandstetter took a gold penknife from a pocket and cut the twine on the package. He folded back the brown paper. More twine bound the carton inside. He cut this too, folded the knife blade with a click, put the knife away. He grinned at Dave.
"You don't want to leave the room?" Dave said, "You never did have any imagination."
"You've got enough for both of us," his father said. "The Johns boy killed him. It's more obvious now than before. The fifteen hundred dollars was the motive."
"He didn't get it," Dave said.
"Who did?"
"I'd suggest you ask the first police officer on the scene. They're badly paid."
Carl Brandstetter opened the flaps of the
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