The Collection (131 page)

“Nope. No reason for him to write. Told him I'd be passing
through Chicago in a few days on my way either to Florida or California, hadn't
made up my mind for sure which then, and that I'd look him up to say so long.
That was the last thing between us.”

“And this would have been about eight o'clock Saturday evening,
which would have got him back to Chicago about ten.”

“It's about two hours' drive, yes. And I left Monday. Didn't
take me long to pack up as I thought. Been here since, a week today. Want to
find Albee, or what happened to him---or something---before I take off. No
hurry in my getting to California, but I'm wasting time here and I don't like
Chicago. Kill time seeing a lot of movies, but that's about all I can do. That
Chudakoff, he thinks Albee run off. I still don't. He says if I want more
looking, try you. Here I am.”

“And if we have no better luck than the police,” I asked,
“or if we decide they're right in deciding your son left town voluntarily, how
long do you intend to stay in Chicago?”

Nielson burst into a sudden cackle of laughter that startled
inc. Up to now he hadn't cracked a smile. “What you're asking is how much I
want to spend. Let's take it from the other end. How much do you charge?”

I glanced at Uncle Am so he'd know to take over; when we're
both around I always let him do the talking on money.

“Seventy-five a day,” he said. “And expenses. I suggest you
give us a retainer of two hundred; that'll cover two days and expenses. That'll
be long enough for us to give you at least a preliminary report. And there
shouldn't be many expenses, so if you decide to call it off at the end of two
days you'll probably have a rebate coming.”

Nielson frowned. “Seventy-five a day for both of you to work
on it or for one?”

I let Uncle Am tell him it was for one of us, and argue it
from there. He finally came down to sixty a day, saying it was our absolute
minimum rate---which it is, for private clients. We charge less only to
insurance companies, skip-trace outfits, and others who give us recurrent
trade. And Uncle Am finally settled for a retainer of one-fifty, which would
allow thirty for expenses.

Nielson counted it out in twenties and a ten. Then he had another
thought and wanted to know if today would count for a day, since it was already
two in the afternoon. Uncle Am assured him it wouldn't, unless whichever of us
worked on it worked late enough into the evening to make it a full day.

I'd thought of another question meanwhile. “Mr. Nielson,
when Albee borrowed the money from you, did he tell you he'd lost his job at
the bookstore?”

He gave that cackle-laugh again. “No, he didn't. I didn't
find out that till I phoned the store to see if I could get him at work.
Albee's smart, figured I'd be less likely to lend him money if I knew he was
out of work. Guess I would of anyway---he's never been out of a job long---but
he didn't know that and I don't blame him for playing safe. Told me he wasn't
working that Saturday cause the store was closed for three days, Friday through
Sunday, for remodeling.”

“One other thing, did you give him cash or a check? If it
was a check we'll know something when we find out where it clears from. He
couldn't have cashed a check that size late Saturday night or on a Sunday.”

“It was cash. I'd closed out my bank account, had quite a
bit of cash, cashier's check for the rest. Still got enough I won't have to use
that cashier's check till I'm ready to buy another truck farm.”

He stood up to go and we both walked to the door with him.
Uncle Am asked something I should have thought of. “Mr. Nielson, if he still
is
in Chicago and we find him, what do we tell him? Just to get in touch with
you at the Ideal Hotel?”

“You can make it stronger'n that. Tell him to get in touch
with me or else. I never made a will, see, so being my only living blood
relative, he's still my heir. But it don't have to stay that way. I can make a
will in California and cut him off. Cost him a lot more than eight hundred
dollars, someday.”

He reached for the doorknob but Uncle Am's question and its
answer had made me think of something. I said, “Just a minute, Mr. Nielson. Has
this possibility occurred to you? That he did blow town while he had that eight
hundred as a stake, rather than pay it to a bookie just to stay here, but that
he intends to write to you as soon as he's got another job somewhere and can
start paying off what he owes you?”

“Yep, that's possible. Sure I thought of it.”

“This is not my business, Mr. Nielson, but if that does
happen, would you still make a will to disinherit him?”

“Make up my mind if and when it happens. Maybe according to
what he says when he writes, and if he really does start paying back. Right now
I'm mad at him if that's what happened---if he did that without letting me know
so I wouldn't waste time and money trying to find him here. But I could get
over my mad, I guess.”

“If you don't know just where you're going in California,
how are you having your mail forwarded?”

“Fellow bought from me's going to hold it for me till I
write him. But no letter's come yet could be from Albee. I phoned last night to
make sure. Just a couple bills and circulars. No personal letters like could be
from Albee even if he changed his name. I thought of that, son. May be a
farmer, but I ain't dumb.”

“That I see,” I said. “And you'll probably phone Kenosha
once more the last thing before you start driving west?”

“Right, except for the driving. Sold my pickup truck with
the farm. Buy another in California. Be a hell of a long drive, rather go by
train.”

“Do you want written reports?” I asked him.

“Don't see what good they'd do. Just phone me at the hotel
what you find out. If I see any more movies before I go, I'll do it by day,
stay there evenings so you can call me. Or Albee can, if you find him.”

That seemed to cover everything anybody could think of so we
let him leave. Uncle Am strolled into his inner office and I strolled after
him.

“What do you think, Uncle Am?” I asked.

He shrugged. “That Albee took a powder. I think his papa
thinks so too, but if he wants to let us spend a couple of days making a final
try, more power to him. He's a stubborn old coot.”

“Uh-huh” I said. “Well, I guess it's my turn to work on it.
You put in four days' work last week and I got in only two. This'll even it
up.”

“Okay, kid. Going to take the car?”

I shook my head. “Most of the places are pretty near here.
I'll do it faster on foot or an occasional taxi hop than having to find places
to park.”

He yawned and took a deck of cards out of his desk to play
some solitaire. “Okay. I'll be here till five. Think you'll work this evening,
or call it half a day today?”

“I might as well work through,” I said. “So don't figure on
dinner with me and look for me when you see me.”

I went back to my desk and took the paper I'd taken the
notes on during my conversation with Chudakoff. And said so long to Uncle Am
and left.

I decided to go to the bookstore first. It might close at
five, and the other addresses I had were personal ones and I'd probably stand a
better chance of finding the people I wanted to talk to by evening than by day.

It was the Prentice Bookstore on Michigan Avenue. I'd never
been inside it, but I knew where it was. It took me about twenty minutes to
walk there.

There weren't any customers at the moment. A clerk up front,
a girl, told me Mr. Heiden, the proprietor, was in his office at the back. I
went back, found him studying some publishers' catalogs, introduced myself and
showed him identification.

“You let Albee Nielson go on Friday, the fifth?”

“Yes. And haven't seen him. I told everything I knew to the
detective---the
city
detective---that came here last week. Who you
working for? The man he owed money to?”

“For Albee's father,” I said. “He's worried about his son's
disappearance. For his sake, do you mind answering a few more questions?”

He gave me a grudging “What are they?” and put down the
catalog he'd been looking at.

“Why did you fire Albee?”

“I'm afraid that that's one I
won't
answer.”

“Had you given him notice?”

“No.”

“Then doesn't that pretty well answer the other question?
You must have found that he was dipping in the till, or knocking down some way
or other. But decided not to prosecute, and now it'd be too late, and it'd be
slander if you said that about him.”

He give me a smile, but a pretty thin one. “That wasn't a
question, Mr. Hunter. I can't control what conclusions you may choose to
draw.”

“Would you give him a recommendation for another job?”

“No, I wouldn't. But I would refuse to give my reasons for
not giving one.”

“That would be your privilege,” I admitted. And since I
wasn't getting anywhere on that tract, I tried another. “Do you know anything
about Albee's life outside the job? Names of any of his friends, anything at
all about him personally?”

“Not a thing, I'm afraid. Except his home address and
telephone number, and of course you already have those. Before he started here
I checked a couple of references he gave me, but I'm afraid I've forgotten now
what they were except that they checked out all right. That was almost five
years ago.”

“Do you remember what kind of jobs they were?”

“One was taking want-ads for a newspaper, but I forget which
newspaper. The other was clerking in a hardware store---but I don't remember
now even in what part of town it was. And as for friends of his, no. He must
have, or have had, some, but none of them ever came here to see him. Almost as
though he told them not to, as though he deliberately wanted to keep his
business life and his social life completely separated. I've never known even
what
kind
of friends he had. And he never talked about himself.”

He was being friendly now and cooperating, once we'd skirted
the subject of why he'd fired Albee. But his very refusal to answer that
question, I thought, pretty well did answer it.

So I did the only thing I could do, gave him a business card
and asked him to call us if he did happen to think of anything at all that
might be the slightest help in our finding Albee for his father. He promised to
do that, and maybe he even meant it.

On my way out, I saw the girl clerk was still or again free
and asked her if she'd known Albee Nielson. The name registered, but only from
seeing it on sales slips and employment records. She'd worked there only a week
and had been taken on because Nielson, as she thought, had quit the job.

So I went out into the hot July sunlight again. Next was
Albee's pad, and his landlady. On a short street called Seneca, near the lake.
Only a ten minute walk this time; he'd picked a place conveniently near to
where he had worked. Handy to the beach, too, if he swam or sun-bathed.

It was an old stone front, three stories, that had probably
been a one-family residence in its day but had now been divided into a dozen
rooms. That's how many mailboxes there were and there was a buzzer button under
each. Nielson was the name on No. 9, and I pushed the buzzer button under it.
Even took hold of the doorknob in case an answering buzz should indicate that
the lock was being temporarily released. But I got just what I expected to get,
no answering buzz. Well, that was good in one way; if Albee had been home and
had let me come up to see him, we'd have had to give Floyd Nielson most of his
hundred and fifty bucks. We couldn't have charged more than half a day's time,
and expenses so far had run to zero.

I went back and looked through the glass of Nielson's
mailbox. There was something in it that looked like it was a bill, but I
couldn't read the return address. The lock was one of those simple little ones
that open with a tiny flat key; if I'd thought to bring our picklock along I
could have had it open in thirty seconds, but one can't think of everything.

I looked over the other mailboxes for a Mrs. Radcliffe;
Chudakoff had said she was the landlady. Sure enough, it was No. 1, and had
“Landlady” written under the name in the slot. I pushed her button and put my
hand on the knob of the door; this time it buzzed and released itself and I
went on through.

Mrs. Radcliffe had the door of No. 1 opened and was waiting
for me in the doorway. She was about fifty and was small and wiry. Chicago
rooming house landladies come in all sizes but most of them have two things in
common, hard eyes and a tough look. Mrs. Radcliffe wasn't one of the
exceptions, and I was sure, too, that she hadn't named herself after a college
she'd been graduated from.

I gave her a business card and the song and dance about
Albee's poor old father being worried about him, but it didn't soften her eyes
any. Finally I got to questions.

“When did you last see Albee, Mrs. Radcliffe?”

“Don't remember exactly, but it was over a week ago. Then,
just seeing him come in or go out. Last time I talked to him was on the first.
Paid me a month's rent then; it's still his place till the end of the month,
whether he comes back to it or not.”

“Have you been in it, since then?”

“No. I rent 'em as is, and people do their own cleaning. I
don't go in, till after they've left, to get it cleaned up for the next
tenant.”

“Are they rented furnished or unfurnished?”

“Unfurnished, except for stove and refrigerator; there's a
kitchenette in each for them who want to do light housekeeping. And each one
has its own bathroom. Couples live in a few of 'em, but they're fine for one
person.”

“Would you mind letting me look inside Albee's?”

“Yes. It's his till his rent's up.”

“But you let Lieutenant Chudakoff go up and look around.
We're working the same side of the fence. In fact, he's a friend of mine.”