Bad Samaritan Read Free

missing persons work down there in Los Angeles?”
    “Some,” I said. “Let’s sit down. That noise was getting to me out there.”
    “And me,” she said. “Yakety-yakety-yak. And nobody says anything. I can’t understand how Si can stand it. He’s not nearly as dumb as he looks.” We sat together on a leather couch.
    “Judging by his library,” I said, “he can’t be very dumb.”
    “Oh, not that way. But when he isn’t playing golf or reading, he’s throwing parties. Is that a constructive life?”
    “I guess not, ma’am.”
    “Don’t call me ma’am. I’m not that old. My name is Maude.”
    “Okay, Maude. Who is this missing person, a lover?”
    “Watch your tongue, Callahan. It’s a girl. I’m not sure she’s down in Los Angeles, but that’s the last place her friends up here know about. She stopped writing to them some time ago.”
    “Do her parents live up here?”
    “Yes. Her mother is a waitress and her father is a slob. It’s the mother I worry about. She’s a good friend of mine.”
    “Has she made any effort to find her daughter?”
    “None.”
    “Then why—”
    “Never mind the why. I want to find her. You could send the information to me and the bill to Si. I don’t live with him here. I live down where the people live.”
    “I knew we were soul mates,” I said. “There won’t be any bill. You give me your address and her name and I’ll prowl around when I’m not working on a case. Okay?”
    “Okay.” She handed me a slip of paper. “It’s all right there. Now, go and join your drunken playmates.”
    “I’d rather sit here with you,” I said.
    “I don’t blame you. So run out and get me a glass of sherry and yourself another tumbler of booze, and we’ll talk about something besides golf and bridge and capital gains.”
    I brought her the sherry and myself another jolt, and we sat in that book-lined room and talked about other things. Si was her only child, I learned. His father had died when he was twelve, and that’s when she had begun to work. Si had started as a carpenter’s helper when he finished high school, and wound up as one of the state’s biggest builders, a real Horatio Alger story.
    “I can’t understand a man who worked that hard winding up with these—these butterflies!” she said.
    “It couldn’t have been all work with him. Nobody who plays six-handicap golf could have spent all his time working.”
    “He started caddying when he was ten, during the school vacations,” she explained. “He was always tall and he lied about his age.”
    “The habit persisted, he’s no six-handicapper. I’ve played against scratch players with weaker games than his.”
    “He is a very competitive man. I suppose golf is the only outlet he has for it now.”
    Then, from the doorway, my beloved said, “What are you two party poopers doing in here?”
    “Getting away from a poopy party,” said Maude. “When are you going to marry this wonderful man, Jan?”
    “When he decides to get into some sensible work. Brock, if you’re going home tonight, we’d better leave. It’s almost midnight.”
    “Okay. I’ll be in touch with you, Maude.”
    “Thank you. Jan, you’d better grab this man while you can.”
    An hour later, Jan stood next to my waiting Mustang and asked, “Why can’t we get married and live up here?”
    “What could I do up here?”
    “I have about seventy thousand put away. You could buy some kind of business with that. You’re not dumb, Brock.”
    “And I’m not Skip Lund. I earn my own way, lady.”
    “Oh, for heaven’s sake! Seventy thousand dollars hardly ranks me with the Christophers. Call it a loan.”
    “Dump me,” I said. “There must be a dozen solid citizens you could marry in this town. You really don’t need me. I need you, but you don’t need me.”
    “No more than my heart,” she said. “Damn you! Get the hell out of here! Go!”
    “When will I see you?”
    “When I come over the horizon. Good