Man on a leash - By Charles Williams Page 0,8

man, but politically he was somewhere off to the right of the Hapsburgs and Plantagenets.”

“And it’s true, then? He was a millionaire?”

“Oh, yes. His net worth was considerably over a million.”

“Well, you don’t believe that crap of Brubaker’s, do you, that he was mixed up in the drug racket?”

“No,” Bolling said. “Of course not. He said he made it in the stock market, and I see no reason to doubt it.” He reached into a drawer for a document bound in blue paper and set it before him. “I won’t bother to read you all this at the moment because a good deal of it is meaningless now until somebody finds out what happened to that two hundred and fifty thousand dollars.” He glanced up. “Brubaker told you about it?”

Romstead nodded. “But why do you think he drew it out in cash? And what did he do with it?”

“I couldn’t even guess,” Bolling replied. “I’ve been racking my brains for ten days, and I get absolutely nowhere. It was a stupid thing to do, and your father was far from a stupid man. But what we’re concerned with right here is that there are two immediate effects regarding the will, and one of them, I’m sorry to say, is very bad news for you. If that money is never recovered, you bear the whole loss.”

“How’s that?” Romstead asked.

“All the other bequests were fixed sums, and you were to get the residue of the estate.”

Romstead tried to think of something to say, but there didn’t appear to be anything. There was a moment of silence, and then Bolling asked, “You understand what I’m saying?”

“Oh— Sure. I guess I was just savoring the moment. How many other people have lost a quarter million dollars in a few seconds?”

There was admiration in Bolling’s smile and shake of the head. “Well, I’m glad you don’t shatter easily.”

“Oh, it’s not all that heroic,” Romstead protested. “You might say I didn’t have it long enough to get attached to it.”

“Our only hope is that it may be recovered yet.”

“Could he have deposited it in another bank? Or stashed it in a safe-deposit box?”

“No. We’ve exhausted that possibility—with help from the police, of course. We’ve checked every bank chain in California and Nevada and even furnished a description just in case he used another name for some unknown reason. Not a trace.”

“Doesn’t look very promising,” Romstead said. “But what was the other effect you referred to?”

“On probating the will and settling the estate. The whole thing’s at a standstill, for the reason that we don’t know how much the estate is.”

“I see what you mean. For federal tax purposes?”

“Sure. It would make a big difference. And the tax people don’t accept figures like give-or-take-a-quarter-million-dollars. As far as they’re concerned, the last person to have possession of that money was your father, and if that wasn’t the case, it’s up to him—or us, that is—to prove otherwise. If he bought something with it, whatever he bought has to be appraised and the arrived-at value added to the tax-liable value of the estate. If it was stolen from him between the time he drew it out and the time he died, that might change the picture, but we’d have to prove it was stolen, and when, where, and by whom, and if we were in a position to do all that, we could probably recover it anyway.

“Practically all of your father’s worth is in securities; the only real property he owned is his place here, which consists of ten acres, the dwelling and other structures, and furnishings. Total assessed value, about seventy-five thousand dollars. You inherit that, along with the car, plus whatever’s left after taxes, bequests to the San Francisco Opera Association, the San Francisco Symphony, and three women in Europe and the Far East that I gather are old girlfriends. If the other money’s never recovered, but is still taxed, that’ll be roughly eighty thousand.

“So as it stands now, you’ll get a little over a hundred and fifty thousand dollars instead of the four hundred thousand dollars it would have been.”

Romstead nodded. “Well, that’s considerably better than a kick in the ass with a frozen boot. I didn’t expect anything.” He went on. “But about that money—how’d he draw it out? He surely didn’t keep anything like that in a checking account?”

“Oh, no. He asked his broker to sell securities in that amount and deposit the proceeds in the bank.”

“In person or over the phone?”

“On the phone.”

“What