had to call the Los Angeles office this morning. Wainwright said you’d been around. What’s your poison?’
‘Make it bourbon.’ So Wainwright couldn’t keep his big mouth shut after all. Richardson ran the files at Gunnarsson Associates; the records were totally computerized and Richardson knew which buttons to push. Now Hardin regarded him with interest. ‘Jack, did you hear any of the guys in the office beefing about me? Complaining of how I do my work, for instance?’
Richardson looked surprised. ‘Not around me. No more than the usual anyway. Everyone beefs some, you know that.’
‘Yeah.’ Hardin sipped his whiskey. ‘Gunnarsson canned me this morning.’
Richardson whistled. ‘Just like that?’
Hardin snapped his fingers. ‘Just like that. Took him about thirty seconds.’
‘Why?’
‘I called him a cheapskate for one thing.’
‘I’d have liked to have seen his face,’ said Richardson. ‘No wonder he fired you.’
‘I don’t think it was the reason,’ said Hardin, ‘I think it was something else. Could you do me a favour?’
‘I might, depending on what it is. Don’t ask for dough, Ben. I’m broke.’
‘Who isn’t?’ said Hardin feelingly, ‘I’d like you to ask your metal friend across the street for the name and address of the British lawyer who started the Hendrix case.’
‘The Hendrix case,’ repeated Richardson, and frowned. ‘Gunnarsson seems to be keeping that one under wraps. He says he’s handling it personally. I don’t have any information on it so far.’
Hardin found that interesting but he made no comment. ‘But the details of the original letter from England should be in the files.’
‘I guess so,’ said Richardson without enthusiasm. ‘But you know how Gunnarsson is about security. The computer logs every inquiry into any case and Gunnarsson checks the log.’
‘He can’t check every log; he’d be doing nothing else.’
‘Spot checks mostly,’ admitted Richardson. ‘But if he’s handling the Hendrix case personally that’s one log he might very well check. I can’t risk it, Ben. I don’t want to get fired, too.’
‘For Christ’s sake!’ said Hardin in disgust. ‘You know enough about the computer to gimmick a log. You wrote the goddamn programs for the data base.’
‘What’s your interest in this?’
‘I’m damned if I know; I’ve got to do some hard thinking. There’s something wrong somewhere. I feel it in my bones. But, for your information, Gunnarsson isn’t handling the Hendrix case. I’ve been handling it, and I cracked it. Then I get fired. I’d like to figure out why I was fired.’
‘Okay, Ben; I’ll see what I can do,’ said Richardson. ‘But you don’t talk about this. You keep your mouth zipped.’
‘Who would I talk to? When can I have it?’
‘I’ll see what I can do tomorrow. I’ll meet you in here at midday.’
‘That’s fine,’ said Hardin and drained his glass. ‘This one’s on me. Then I’ll go clean out my desk like a good boy.’ He signalled the bartender, ‘I wonder what Gunnarsson’s idea of severance pay is.’
Gunnarsson’s idea of severance pay made Hardin madder than ever. He tried to complain but could not get past the acidulated spinster who guarded Gunnarsson’s office, and neither could he get through on the phone. Gunnarsson’s castle was impregnable.
But Richardson came up with the information he needed next day. He gave Hardin an envelope and said, ‘You don’t know where you got it.’
‘Okay.’ Hardin opened the envelope and took out a single piece of paper. ‘This isn’t a computer print-out.’
‘You’re damned right it isn’t,’ said Richardson, if Gunnarsson found a printout with that information floating loose he’d head straight for me. Is it what you want?’
Hardin scanned it. A London inquiry agency, Peacemore, Willis and Franks, requested Gunnarsson Associates to search for any living relatives of Jan-Willem Hendrykxx—Hardin blinked at the spelling—and to pass the word back. Hendrykxx was reputed to have married in South Africa and to have had two sons, one of whom was believed to have emigrated to the United States in the 1930s. There was also the address and telephone number of a lawyer in Jersey.
It told Hardin nothing he did not know already except for the unusual spelling of Hendrix, and the Jersey address confused him until he realized that it referred to the original Jersey in the Channel Islands and not the state of New Jersey. He nodded. ‘This is it.’ There was something more. Peacemore, Willis and Franks was the British end of Gunnarsson Associates, a fact not generally known. It meant that Gunnarsson had been in it right from the start, whatever ‘it’ was. ‘Thanks. It’s worth a drink, Jack.’
If Hardin was mad at Gunnarsson he was also broke. He moved out of his apartment on the East Side and into a rooming house in the Bronx. It cost more in subway and bus fares to get into Manhattan but it was still cheaper. He wired instructions to San Francisco to sell his car and wire the money. He did not expect much but he needed the cash, and a car was a needless luxury in the city.
He carefully maintained his pipelines into the offices of Gunnarsson Associates, mainly through Jack Richardson, although there were a couple of secretaries whom he took to frugal lunches and pumped carefully, trying to get a line on what Gunnarsson was doing in the matter of Hank Hendrix. The answer, apparently, was nothing at all. Worse still, Hendrix had vanished.
‘Maybe Gunnarsson sent him to England,’ Richardson said one day.
‘You can check that,’ said Hardin thoughtfully. ‘There’ll be an expense account for the air fare. Do me a favour.’
‘Goddamn it!’ said Richardson heatedly. ‘You’ll get me fired.’ But he checked and found no record of transatlantic flights since Hendrix had arrived in New York. On his own initiative he checked for any record of medical expenses paid out for the treatment of Hendrix’s wound and, again, found nothing. He was a good friend to Hardin.
‘Gunnarsson is playing this one close,’ commented Hardin. ‘He’s usually damned hot on record keeping. I’m more and more convinced that the bastard’s up to no good. But what the hell is it?’
Richardson had no suggestions.
Probably Hardin would not have pressed on but for a genuine stroke of luck. Nearly a month had passed and he knew he had to get a job. His resentment at Gunnarsson had fuelled him thus far but an eroding bank account was a stronger argument. He had set aside enough for Annette’s next payment and that he would not touch, but his own reserves were melting.
Then he got a wire from
