Ralph exploded into the phone. “you’ve got this damned bee in your bonnet about Masters, Vic, and I’m sick of it! He’s one of the most respected members of a highly respected company in a very respectable industry. To suggest that he’s involved in something like that—”
“I’m not suggesting it, I know it,” I said coldly. “I know that he and Andrew McGraw, head of the Knifegrinders union, set up a fund with themselves as joint trustees, enabling them to cash drafts, or whatever it is you do to get payments on drafts, drawn to Gielczowski and at least twenty-two other healthy people.”
“How can you possibly know something like that?” Ralph said, furious.
“Because, I just listened to someone read a copy of the agreement to me over the phone. I’ve also found someone who has seen Masters with McGraw on numerous occasions up near Knifegrinder headquarters. And I know that Masters had an appointment with Peter Thayer—at his apartment—at nine on the morning he was killed.”
“I still don’t believe it. I have worked for Yardley for three years, and been in his organization for ten years before that, and I’m sure there’s a different explanation for everything you’ve found out—if you’ve found it out. You haven’t seen this trust agreement. And Yardley may have eaten with McGraw, or drunk with him or something—maybe he was checking out some coverage or claims, or something. We do do that from time to time.”
I felt like screaming with frustration. “Just let me know ten minutes before you go to Masters to check the story with him, will you? So I can get there in time to save your ass.”
“If you think I’m going to jeopardize my career by telling my boss that I’ve been listening to that kind of rumor about him, you’re nuts,” Ralph roared. “As a matter of fact, he’s coming over here in a few minutes, and I promise you, without any difficulty, that I am not such an ass as to tell him about it. Of course, if that Gielczowski claim is fraudulent, that explains a lot. I’ll tell him that.”
My hair seemed to stand straight up on my head. “What? Ralph, you are so goddamn naive it’s unbelievable. Why the hell is he coming over?”
“You really don’t have any right to ask me that,” he snapped, “but I’ll tell you anyway, since you started the whole uproar by finding that draft. Claims that big are handled out of the home office, not by a field adjustor. I went around to the guys today and asked who’d handled the file. No one remembered it. If anyone had been handling such a big file for so many years, there’s no way they would forget it. This puzzled me, so when I called Yardley this afternoon—he hasn’t been in the office this week—I call him at home once a day—I mentioned it to him.”
“Oh, Christ! That is the absolute end. So he told you it sounded like a serious problem, didn’t he? And that since he had to come down to the city tonight for some other reason, he’d just drop by and talk it over with you? Is that right?” I said savagely.
“Why, yes, it is,” he shouted. “Now go find someone’s missing poodle and stop screwing around in the Claim Department.”
“Ralph, I’m coming over. Tell Yardley that when he walks in the door, as soon as he walks in, and maybe it will save your goddamn ass for a few minutes.” I slammed down the phone without waiting for his answer.
I looked at my watch. 7:12. Masters was due there in twenty minutes. Roughly. Say he got there around 7:30, maybe a few minutes earlier. I put my driver’s license, my gun permit, and my P.I. license in my hip pocket with some money—I didn’t want a purse in my way at this point. Checked the gun. Put extra rounds in my jacket pocket. Wasted forty-five seconds changing to running shoes. Locked the new, oiled dead bolts behind me and sprinted down the stairs three at a time. Ran the half-block to my car in fifteen seconds. Put it in gear and headed for Lake Shore Drive.