Samson 4 The Silent Salesman by Michael Z. Lewin

Author:Michael Z. Lewin [Lewin, Michael Z.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pan Macmillan
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty Four

I borrowed fifteen dollars from Sam and five dollars from McGonigle and a couple of dimes from the pocket of my other pants. I drove back to Russell Fincastle.

His list covered six sheets of paper. After I bought it, I went straight back home, where I dropped into my chair, a clapped-out yo-yo.

Sam and Ray had piled my disturbed belongings against spare walls without attempting to sort them out or put them back where they had come from. Sam was making us lunch. I surveyed my kingdom. Decided to leave it in untidy piles. I was moving soon anyway.

Lunch was goose pate on hot crumpet.

Ray asked, “You always eat this kind of funny food here, man?”

“I only buy the kinds with a joke on the wrapper,” I said. “Hey, why aren’t you at work?”

“I got a call this morning from the boss. He said he found some mistakes in my time records and that they owed me some vacation time and could I take it this week.”

“Isn’t that lucky, Daddy?”

“So I called up your lady daughter and she said she needed some wheels so I came over.”

“Wheels?”

“I needed some way to get to the hospital. Daddy.”

“Did you get in to see her?”

Sam’s face saddened. “No. She was asleep. We waited nearly an hour, but she was still asleep.”

“Did you find out what’s wrong with her?”

“They’re still doing tests. But they said she’s got malnutrition. She hardly ate anything while she was here. I really feel bad about it.”

“It takes longer than a couple of days to get into that kind of condition,” I said. “No one’s been looking after her for a long time and she hasn’t had much of an urge to look after herself.”

“But we’re looking after her now, aren’t we, Daddy?”

“Yes, love,” I said. “We’re looking after her now. If we get half a chance.”

I put Sam to work on the list from Fincastle. Making a tally of each of the people who signed out of Research Three in the calendar year before Pighee’s accident. I wanted patterns.

Myself, I went to find Lieutenant Miller again.

“But they robbed me!”

“Somebody robbed you,” he said. “You don’t know who.”

“I don’t believe in coincidences,” I said.

“What coincidences?”

“Yesterday at the Loftus Clinic I mentioned that Pighee left an envelope to be opened after he died. They reacted surprised, or worried, or something. I said that I had it in my office.”

“Was it in your office?”

“Of course not. The Pighees’ lawyer has it. But the next day my office is turned over, and out of frustration they rob me of nine hundred and thirty-eight dollars.”

“That’s a lot of bread to have lying around.”

“I like to keep a little change on hand. In case I don’t feel up to going to the bank.”

“But whoever it was took the money. So you don’t know they were after anything else.”

“Except that all my files were turfed out. The whole place was turned over. I don’t believe in coincidences. The simplest explanation is that the Loftus people had a guy break in to look for the envelope that wasn’t there.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.