"Don't be angry. We know there's something she wants, badly. So we have to find out just what it is she wants. Once we find out what it is, then you can decide whether you want to sell it to her, whatever it is. If you do, let me be your agent. I'll get you more than anybody else could."

"People keep moving too fast lately."

"I'm essentially rougher than you are, Kirby Winter. I'm a graduate student of the school of Charla. You move into the Elise. If you start dragging your feet now, they may change tactics." She scribbled an address and a phone number and handed him the piece of paper. "When you find out anything definite, get in touch with me here. It's a little apartment I've borrowed from a hokey friend. He's on one of his annual tours of duty in New York. He goes up there and does commercials so he can afford to live down here and write plays. He's sick with love for me. Look, Kirby. You don't have to like me and you don't have to trust me. What are you losing so far? And call me Betsy."

"Losing nothing, so far. Possibly my mind. Nothing important though."

"Play along and play it very cozy, and when you do find out what they're after, then you can decide whether or not to get in touch with me. Okay?"

"Okay, Betsy."

Her eyes changed. "When people don't push me around, I'm nicer than this, really."

"And I'm less confused, as a rule."

"I don't know anything about your tastes, or your opportunities, but the less you give away to Charla, the more you'll get of her." She looked slightly uncomfortable. "l.u.s.t don't let it dazzle you, Kirby. Just keep remembering she's one of the world's great experts on, horizontal persuasion. Keep your head, and we can make her pay and pay and pay."

"If there's anything to sell."

"If she wasn't convinced there is, she wouldn't be here." She patted his arm and stood up quickly. "I'll be waiting to hear from you. Wait five minutes before you leave."

Chapter Four..

There were nine messages in his box at the Hotel Birdline in downtown Miami. They all requested that he return the phone calls of Mr. D. LeRoy Wintermore, of Wintermore, Stabile, Schamway and Mertz, the law firm which handled Uncle Omar's personal matters, as opposed to the captive attorneys who handled the corporate affairs of Krepps Enterprises and all the other interlocking corporations.

Wintermore was a fragile snow-crested old man with, as Kirby had once heard his Uncle Omar say, a skeptical att.i.tude toward all established inst.i.tutions, including the law.

Kirby packed his two suitcases of personal gear before phoning Wintermore. It took him seven minutes. He phoned the number on the most recent slip and found he had reached D. LeRoy Wintermore at his home. It was Sunday, of course, but it did not feel like Sunday.

"Dear boy!" Wintermore said. "I was fretful about you. When you found what, uh, dispensation Omar had made, you seemed a shade surly."

"I wasn't exactly ecstatic. I don't think I'm greedy especially, but after all, there is supposed to be fifty-million kicking around some place."

"Possibly it was his intention to improve your character, Kirby."

"I have more than I can use now."

"At any rate, there seem to be a few minor difficulties to be ironed out. They want you at a high level conference at the Krepps offices tomorrow morning at ten."

"They?"

"Your uncle's elite corps of earnest executives. I shall be there too, by request, and if it appears that you need legal representation, I shall be ready to stand at your side. Fearlessly."

"What's up?"

"I have no idea, but they seem to have the impression there was some sort of collusion going on between you and Omar. Hidden a.s.sets. Something idiotic. They seem agitated. And something else has disturbed them. Since last Wednesday, every one of Omar's houses and apartments has been thoroughly ransacked."

"Really?"

"And they seem to want to connect it all up with whatever mysterious services you performed for Omar."

"Did he ever tell you what my work was?"

"Dear boy, I never asked."

"Mr. Wintermore, even though the only things mentioned in the will are the watch and the letter, won't I get all Uncle Omar's personal records and papers?"

"In the normal course of events, you would."

"But now I won't?"

"Omar had a rather serious warning of his heart condition three months ago. He came to my office and took personal material from our files and left us just the basic essential doc.u.ments. I asked him what he was going to do with the papers he took. He said he was going to burn them. He smiled rather broadly and said he was going to burn everything. And then he took a silver dollar out of my left ear. He was extremely clever with his magic tricks. It is my understanding he did burn everything, except for one case of doc.u.ments now in the main vault at Krepps Enterprises. A lovely man, dear boy. Lovely. But with a secrecy fetish. And the executive staff over there seem to find you infected by the same disease."

"I was following orders. I'll be there at ten, Mr. Winter-more."

He hung up and looked around the room and wondered if he would ever find reason to check into the Hotel Birdline again. It was centrally located, but sometimes the nights were made hideous by people hammering on the wrong doors and cawing in the hallways and striking one another with the damp sounds of expert impact until the sirens came. But it was cheap and reasonably clean and he could always get a room in or out of season, and the management stored, free of charge, that small store of personal possessions he did not take along with him on his world-wide errands of mercy, support and investment.

Now he carried his suitcases down to the desk, experiencing stomach pains which reminded him he'd forgotten lunch. Hoover Hess, the owner, was working the desk. He was a loose, asthmatic, scurfy man with the habitual expression of someone having his leg removed without anesthetic. His smile was a special agony. He had gone as high as a seventh mortgage and been down as low as a second. He averaged out at about four.

He smiled. "Hey, Kirb, this thing with your uncle. I'm sorry as h.e.l.l. It happens like that sometimes. Bam! You're gone before you got time to fall down. How old was he?"

"Just turned seventy, Hoover."

"Well, I guess now you're set, hey?"

"Not exactly. I want to check out. I'll be over at the Elise on the Beach."

"Like I said, set. Taking a suite? Why not? Live it up, Kirb. Order up some broads. Order up some tailors. Drink that stuff from the good years."

"Well, I'll be sort of a guest over there, Hoover."

"Sure. Until the legal thing clears and they give you the bundle. I understand. And I'm sorry to lose a good customer. What I want you should do, Kirb, when you get the bundle, we'll sit down some place and let me show you the books on this thing. What I figure, consolidate the mortgages. It would be just the right kind investment for you."

"I really won't have anything to invest, Hoover."

"I know how it goes. You got to have an answer. Every clown in the world comes around with hot deals, but you know me a long time, right? You don't have to give Hoover Hess any brushoff. I know you good too, Kirb. You play it just right. Nice and smooth and quiet. No fuss from any broad you bring here, right?"

"But I didn't, "

Hoover Hess waved a pale freckled hand. "Sure. Be cute. That's the way you play it. The one I see those times, she was a lady. The gla.s.ses is always good, the flat heels, the outfit like a school teacher. Some guy hasn't been around, he gets fooled, right? But you been around, you watch her walk, and you know it's cla.s.s stuff, chin up, swinging that little round can only one sweet little inch side to side walking through here to the crummy elevator." Kirby suddenly realized Hess was talking about Miss Farnham, Wilma Farnham, the only other staff member of Uncle Omar's secret give-away program, the one-woman clipping service, keeper of the files, translator of foreign news items, totally devoted to Uncle Omar's hidden program. She had been on the job six years, working out of a small office in a building far from the main offices of Krepps Enterprises. His field reports went to that office. The money was arranged through that office. Uncle Omar had a.s.signed rough priorities to the projects she dug up. Then the two of them, Kirby and Miss Farnham, had worked out the schedules. When he was in town they often had evening conferences over work in progress and future missions in his room at the Birdline. She always pushed hard for the health things, the bush hospitals, the village ambulance services, the child nutrition programs. She was consistently dubious about the struggling little entrepreneurs, and always made Kirby feel she thought him too gullible for the job. She had worshipped Uncle Omar. He felt guilty, realizing this was the first time since returning he had wondered what would become of her now. But there stood Hoover Hess, leering at him.

Feeling that he was betraying and degrading Miss Farnham, he gave Hess a broad, knowing, conspiratorial wink.

"Out of them gla.s.ses," Hess said, "and out of them old-lady clothes, with her hair mussed and a drink in her, I bet she's a pistol, Kirb."

"How much do I owe you this time?"