Warshawski 01 - Indemnity Only Read Free

and tried to steady myself. “You wouldn’t even identify yourself until I pushed you to it. You pick at my office, at me, but you can’t come out and ask anything directly. Are you trying to find out whether I’m honest, rich, tough, or what? You wantsome references, ask for them. But don’t waste my time like this. I don’t need to argue you into hiring my services—it was you who insisted on making an appointment for the middle of the night.”
    “I’m not questioning your honesty,” he said quickly. “Look, I’m not trying to get your goat. But you are a girl, and things may get heavy.”
    “I’m a woman, Mr. Thayer, and I can look out for myself. If I couldn’t, I wouldn’t be in this kind of business. If things get heavy, I’ll figure out a way to handle them—or go down trying. That’s my problem, not yours. Now, you want to tell me about your son, or can I go home where I can turn on an air conditioner?”
    He thought some more, and I took some deep breaths to calm myself, ease the tension in my throat.
    “I don’t know,” he finally said. “I hate to, but I’m running out of options.” He looked up, but I couldn’t see his face. “Anything I tell you has to be strictly in confidence.”
    “Righto, Mr. Thayer,” I said wearily. “Just you, me, and Arnie’s Steak Joynt.”
    He caught his breath but remembered he was trying to be conciliatory. “It’s really Anita, my son’s girl friend. Not that Pete—my son, that is—hasn’t been a bit of a problem, too.”
    Dope, I thought morosely. All these North Shore types think about is dope. If it was a pregnancy, they’d just pay for an abortion and be done with it. However, mine was not to pick and choose, so I grunted encouragingly.
    “Well, this Anita is not really a very desirable type,and ever since Pete got mixed up with her he’s been having some peculiar ideas.” The language sounded strangely formal in his husky voice.
    “I’m afraid I only detect things, Mr. Thayer. I can’t do too much about what the boy thinks.”
    “No, no, I know that. It’s just that—they’ve been living together in some disgusting commune or other—did I tell you they’re students at the University of Chicago? Anyway, he, Pete, he’s taken to talking about becoming a union organizer and not going to business school, so I went down to talk to the girl. Make her see reason, kind of.”
    “What’s her last name, Mr. Thayer?”
    “Hill. Anita Hill. Well, as I said, I went down to try to make her see reason. And—right after that she disappeared.”
    “It sounds to me like your problem’s solved.”
    “I wish it was. The thing is, now Pete’s saying I bought her off, paid her to disappear. And he’s threatening to change his name and drop out of sight unless she turns up again.”
    Now I’ve heard everything, I thought. Hired to find a person so her boyfriend would go to business school.
    “And were you responsible for her disappearance, Mr. Thayer?”
    “Me? If I was, I’d be able to get her back.”
    “Not necessarily. She could have squeezed fifty grand out of you and gone off on her own so you couldn’t get it back. Or you could have paid her to disappear completely. Or you may have killed her orcaused her to he killed and want someone else to take the rap for you. A guy like you has a lot of resources.”
    He seemed to laugh a little at that. “Yeah, I suppose all that could be true. Anyway, I want you to find her—to find Anita.”
    “Mr. Thayer, I don’t like to turn down work, but why not get the police—they’re much better equipped than I for this sort of thing.”
    “The police and I—” he started, then broke off. “I don’t feel like advertising my family problems to the police,” he said heavily.
    That had the ring of truth—but what had he started to say? “And why were you so worried about things getting heavy?” I wondered aloud.
    He shifted in his chair a bit. “Some of those students can get pretty