Ruin Value by J. Sydney Jones

Author:J. Sydney Jones
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Head of Zeus Ltd
Published: 2013-07-12T00:00:00+00:00

“Hey, you got to bend sometimes so you don’t break. My cousin Walt’s always saying that.”

“Who was going to make you break?”

“Yeah, well, this Rollo guy had some pretty tough friends. They didn’t like competitors, you know. Made that clear to me on a couple of occasions. I took the warning. I’m a businessman, so I decided to work with them for the time being. See what developed.”

“These friends of Rollo’s have any names?”

Baxter shook his head. “No. Young guys mostly, kids almost. But they had that look in the eye, you know? Like they could give a shit if you live or die.”

Sort of like yourself, Morgan wanted to say, but didn’t bother. It would be wasted on Baxter.

“You know, maybe they were after me. Set me up. Jesus, you get that Rollo. He’s a real crook.”

“I don’t like the way Rollo’s name keeps cropping up in this investigation.” Morgan took a sip of beer from the frothy stein, then wiped foam from his upper lip with his forefinger.

The pre-dinner crowd was cheery and red-faced in Tegettner’s Restaurant, one of those Nuremberg landmarks in the center of the city that magically escaped bomb damage when buildings to both sides of it had been reduced to piles of cement blocks and rubble. Inside, all was cozy and beery: the wainscoting on the walls was smudged a deep brown from generations of tobacco smoke; elk trophies stared out from high up on the walls under vaulted ceilings, looking somewhat askance at all the goings on as if it were all quite literally beneath them; the waiters wore tuxes—frayed at the cuffs and thin in the seat, but still tuxes. They bore their yeasty loads on silver trays—none of the buxom, dirndled girls of the Munich beer halls for Tegettner’s. Beer was a ritual here; decorum was observed.

Beck sat across the large table from Morgan, nodding at his comment, but paying more attention to the large clock on the wall that told them it was already five thirty-three.

“He’s a punctual man,” Beck said. This was not a reply to Morgan’s complaint, but a resumption of concerns he had voiced ten minutes earlier about Wieland Imhofer. There had been no sight of him all day. No notes left by Imhofer back at the office. The private who had driven him yesterday had reported dropping Imhofer off at a location near the Hauptmark in the afternoon. The detective had told the GI not to bother waiting. Maybe he had simply taken the day off and gone home to his farm to renew his supply of sandwiches. Beck was going to have to contact the man’s wife soon, but wanted to put it off.

“Like I said,” Morgan replied, “he’ll be back once the cash runs low.”

Morgan was sure that Imhofer was on the job for somebody else, double-dipping, and nothing Beck could say would make him think differently. They seem so naïve, these Americans, Beck thought, but underneath it all is a grave suspicion of all motives, an abiding distrust in others.

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