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the business. Large, brutal, uncouth individuals, long on brawn and short on
brain. Beneath the smart yellow dress her legs moved against one another.
 This won t do, she murmured to herself, concentrating harder on the central
computer screen.  There s work to be done.
VIII
She spent the rest of the morning and a large part of the afternoon
alternating work with replies to Buddy s anxious inquiries. He called every
fifteen minutes.
 No, Benjy, she d tell him repeatedly,  there s nothing yet. She could
visualize him fuming away in his office upstairs, unable to work. He didn t
have the inner discipline she possessed.
At last, a call, not from him this time, but via her secretary s outside
line.
 Ms. Somerset? I have a Lieutenant Donald Puteney of the LAPD on the line for
you.
 Thank you, Sandy. Go ahead and put him through.
A brief pause, then,  Hi, gorgeous.
 Hi, yourself. You have something for me?
He allowed himself a single sinister ha-ha before getting down to business.
 Your man Pickett drives a 1961 blue and white Ford Galaxie, license number
ay-dee-six, four-two-eff. Her right hand worked with a pencil as he relayed
the information.  Bought it new in October sixty-one from 
 Never mind that, she interrupted impatiently.  Where is he now?
 Highway Patrol finally located him heading east out of Blythe. The ID was
made at the border station and since my office was the one that put out the
request, I was notified. You said that you didn t want him_stopped-sa they let
him through.
 That s whaffwanted. She was trying to picture a map of SouthenrCalifornia.
She rarely drove anywhere outside L.A.  polngeast from Blythe, you said?
 That s right. On Interstate Ten.
 Thanks, Don. That s what I needed to know.
 Hey, wait a minute! What about... ?
 Call you back. She hung up on the disappointed officer and hastily buzzed
Benjamin s office. He made it downstairs in record time. Meanwhile she took a
quick geography lesson.
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ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
 Blythe, he muttered as he strode through the doorway.  Going east out of
Blythe. He sat down opposite her.  That s way south of the Sierras. Even for
someone who might like to take the long way around. He shook his head.  No,
he s running, Ruth, and not into the Sierras, either.
 What s east of Blythe? she asked him.
 Nothing. Not a damn thing. Not until you get to Phoenix. After that on 1-10
there s Tucson and then nothing until.... His eyes widened slightly.  Texas.
You remember? He leaned over her desk.  The only relatives he has, the niece
and grandniece, down by Houston?
 That s a hell of a drive, she observed,  for an old man with a heart
condition to attempt solo in an old car.
 But why else would he be going that way?
 Maybe he knows somebody in Phoenix who s not in our records, she murmured.
 Maybe he s headed someplace we haven t imagined.
 Well, I m not going to wait to find out. I wish to hell I knew what I d done
to make him suspicious of me.
 Too late for that now, she pointed out.  What are you going to do?
 Have him picked up, of course. Who do we have in the vicinity of Blythe?
 Company, you mean? She raised her eyebrows, swiveled in the chair. Her
fingers danced over a keyboard. A moment later she was shaking her head
discouragingly.
 The nearest company facilities are in Ferris. That s practically around the
corner from Riverside. Nowhere near the border.
 Nothing in Blythe itself?
She shook her head again.  Not even a drugstore.
 I know people in Vegas, he said softly,  but even that s too far. And the
roads in that part of the country stink.
 What about the Phoenix-Tucson area? Her fingers moved again.  Here we go.
Southwest Phoenix Division, Eutheria Plant and Products.
 What do we have there?
 Potash, mostly. Some borates. The General Manager s name is Frank Lasenby.
 Right. Get ahold of this Lasenby.
 Get ahold of him yourself, she told him.  I m not your secretary,
Benjamin.
 Come on, Ruth, he said tiredly,  not now, huh?
 Just reminding you. She instructed her own secretary to make the
connection.
 What have we got on this guy Lasenby?
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 Twenty-one years with the company, she said, reading off the screen.
 Family man. No evidence of misconduct, no history of bribe-taking. Seems
pretty straight. She touched a couple of keys, activating a code and
releasing a lock within the system. Information appeared on the screen that
wasn t contained in the general personnel files.
 Here we go. She shifted in her chair.  Suspected homosexual activity. At
least two incidents. One dating back to his college days.
 That ll be enough, said Huddy, sounding satisfied.  Hopefully we won t have
to use that.
 Hopefully, she agreed.  Still, it s always nice when you need something
from somebody to be able to carry a knife in the hand you re not shaking his
with.
 Yeah. Lasenby will help us pick Pickett up before he gets into Phoenix. I [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]