Bad Samaritan Read Free Page B

conservative estimate, you can be assured, once we’re through probate, that you’ll be able to live very well without diminishing the principal.”
    I didn’t go back to the office. I went directly to Heinie’s for a shot of bourbon and a beaker of Einlicher. Then I phoned San Valdesto from Heinie’s wall phone.
    Jan was there. I told her. “You always wanted me to amount to something and I finally have.”
    “You landed that insurance company retainer,” she guessed.
    “I don’t need it. I have inherited half of Homer’s money.”
    A silence on the line.
    “Jan?”
    The silence continued.
    “Jan, are you there?”
    “Have you been drinking?” she asked quietly.
    “I had an ounce and a half of whiskey and one tall beaker of beer— after I got the news.”
    “You got the news from a man in a bar?”
    “I got the news from a partner in the most distinguished law firm in town, Grant Robbins of Weede, Robbins, McCulloch and Adler. They’re handling the estate. We can be married now, Jan. When?”
    “Tomorrow, if it’s true. You stay in the office this afternoon and you stay home tonight!”
    “I’m picking up my golf clubs and coming up there,” I told her. “To hell with the office!”
    “Brock, are you sure ?”
    “Once we’re through probate, I’ll be solvent. Until then, we’ll skimp along on your little seventy grand. Tell Glenys to lay an extra plate for dinner.”
    “I’ll be waiting,” she said.
    I still had another duty to perform before I left town. I drove over to Wilshire and down to the impressive offices of the Calvin National Investigative Service.
    They had offices in every major city in the country, and they handled all the kinds of investigative work anyone would never need. Lately they had been doing a lot of missing persons searches. The daughters of the rich had turned into wanderers and the fathers of these girls wouldn’t be likely to hire any cheap peeper for that delicate a mission.
    I’ve forgotten the name of the local manager, a gray man. Gray hair, gray complexion, dark gray suit.
    “Brock Callahan?” he said, and I thought he sniffed. “Aren’t you a—a private investigator?”
    “Yes. But I have to go out of town for a while, and I’ve a case I was supposed to start on today. I thought, perhaps, as a professional courtesy, you boys could work on it.”
    “Professional courtesy? Our rates, Mr. Callahan, are based on our rather expensive overhead. Is your client prepared to pay our rates?”
    “I doubt it. But I am. This is more than just business, the woman who hired me is a good friend.”
    “I see. You realize we require a retainer.”
    “I do. Unfortunately, at the moment I am rather low on funds. I could give you a couple hundred. And if you wanted to check my credit, you could phone Grant Robbins, of Weede, Robbins—”
    He held up a hand. “I know the firm. You’ve done work for them?”
    “At the moment,” I said, in my most refined voice, “they are working for me. They’re handling an estate in which I am a major beneficiary.”
    “One moment, please.” He got up and left the room. When he came back to sit behind his desk again, he asked, “Is this a local case?”
    “It’s a girl who is missing,” I said. “She lives in San Valdesto but the last knowledge of her whereabouts was in Los Angeles.”
    His phone buzzed. He picked it up said, “Yes. I see. Thank you.”
    He smiled at me. “There will be no need for a retainer, Mr. Callahan. If you’ll just give us what facts you have? It’s a runaway case, I presume?”
    “More or less.” I gave him what facts I had, including Maude Marner’s address. I said, “I appreciate your trusting me.”
    He didn’t even blush. He smiled and said, “Professional courtesy.”
    Jan and I were married by a Unitarian minister in the formal garden of the Christopher acreage in Montevista a week later. A week after that, she found a little cottage in the same general area that she was just