what about him? “Something like that. Why?”
“Oh, he was in again, looking for you.”
“He was?” I asked. That was all I could manage.
“Yeah. You know, boss, that must be something really hot they’re working on.”
Don’t mind me, Otis; don’t let me hurry you. I love these rambling dissertations. What do you think of T. S. Eliot? “You say he wanted to see me?”
“Yeah. He just wondered if you ever remembered who gave you that new bill.”
“No,” I said, breathing again. “It throws me.”
He leaned his elbows on the case and frowned at the cigarette in his hand. “You know, I was just thinking. I mean, about that twenty. You remember those two motors we fixed for Nunn . . .?”
I was beginning to feel limp. Torquemada lost a good man when Otis blundered into the wrong century. “What about them?” I asked.
He shrugged. “Probably nothing. But he must have picked ’em about Saturday, because I noticed Monday they was gone. The bill would have been over twenty dollars, and he’s got a pretty sad reputation for being mixed up in anything crooked that’s going on. It’s just a shot in the dark. . . .”
And Ramsey was here pumping him. I lit a cigarette for myself.
“. . . I didn’t think of it till after the F.B.I, man had left, but you might mention it when he comes back. I think they’re still around here, a couple of ‘em. They’re making every place in town.”
Is this the last trip, Otis? You’re sure you don’t want to feed me through the rollers again? I frowned thoughtfully at my own cigarette, since that seemed to be what they were doing now, and said, “No. Wait. I think she came after those motors. His wife, I mean. Early Monday morning, before you got here. Seems to me she gave me a check.”
Was that too risky? It would be if it got as far as Ramsey, but not if I stopped Otis here and now. “Yeah,” I went on. “I’m pretty sure of it. Signed her own name to it. Her first name, I mean. Janice? Jeanette? No. Jewel. That was it.”
“Oh.” He shrugged. “Well, it was just a thought. Guess it’s about time to check in at the salt mine. You got your whip and the leg-irons?”
You’re not really going to get off my back and go to work, you cadaverous ray of sunshine? “Strength, comrade,” I said. “Soon comes the day.”
The morning passed in a blur. I waited on people automatically, going through the motions like a machine while my thoughts raced along an endless treadmill. The F.B.I, must be swarming in on this place like an air attack; it was just a miracle I’d got those twenties shut off in time. But maybe I hadn’t; there was still one more floating around somewhere. One could do it.
How was I going to find it, something no larger than a two-suiter bag in over fifty square miles of wilderness? It was impossible. No. For over a hundred and sixty thousand dollars, nothing was impossible. But it wouldn’t be that much, I cautioned myself. Some of it would be in securities I’d have to destroy; more would be like those twenties—too risky to pass. But there still could be over a hundred thousand of it. But where? Think of it—fifty square miles. Thirty-two thousand acres of timber and underbrush and swamp.
Otis went out to lunch. When he returned, I started out. The phone rang before I could get in the car. I went back. Otis had answered it and was holding out the receiver as I came in the door. “For you, boss.”
“Thanks,” I said. He went back toward the shop.
“Mr. Godwin?” It was a woman’s voice. It was Jewel Nunn.
I wondered if she had told Otis who she was.
Eight
“Oh, hello,”” I said. “How are you?”
“I hated to bother you,” she said hesitantly. “But yesterday when you left you forgot to pack one of your shirts.”
“Well, thanks a million for calling,” I said. “Just throw it in a corner somewhere, and the next time I come out I’ll pick it up.”
“Oh, I’ve got it with me.”
“Where are you?”
“I’m in Hampstead, at the drug store. I had to come in to buy some things, and I thought that since I’d be this near to Wardlow I’d just bring the shirt along. I could leave it here—or if you’ve got a few minutes to spare you could meet me here and I’d give it to you.”