Love Me and Die by Louis Trimble Read Free Book Online Page B

me, I’ll have to make a guess. And I’ll operate from that guess because it’s the only thing I have to go on.” I leaned toward her. “And you might not like the conclusions I come up with, Mrs. Jessup.”
    She was still trying to defeat me with that cool, controlled surface she showed. She said, “I’d like to hear your guess.”
    I said, “My guess is that someone is trying to force this company into a bad financial spot so they can buy it up cheap.”
    She stood up. She said, “I think it’s time you talked to Mr. Healy. He’s our comptroller. He can show you exactly where the company is financially.”
    She walked toward the door and opened it. She went on through, leaving me to follow. I realized that she had caught me off balance with her first remark and that she hadn’t let me get my footing again. I had handed out a lot of information, but I hadn’t gotten much in exchange. She wasn’t only beautiful; she was smart too.
    I hadn’t been so thoroughly suckered since I had tried to move in on the redhead on our first date.
    I watched Bonita’s back as she moved ahead of me down the hall. I wanted to hate her, but I couldn’t do it.
    I thought of a number of cracks I might make to try to destroy her poise. I didn’t get the chance. She turned to a door with
Comptroller
on it and rapped.
    A dry masculine voice said, “Come in.” She opened the door and went in. I stayed right at her heels.
    I would have known Chester Healy even without the sign on the door. He was everything Art Ditmer had described him as being, and a little more. He sat behind a half-acre of desk. The top was covered with piles of invoices, bound ledgers, scraps of paper with a fine, crabbed scrawl on them. On one side of the desk was an electric calculating machine. It was whirring and jumping when we came in.
    On the other side was a small tray. It held a glass and an ashtray. The ashtray had a dollar’s worth of cigar butt balanced on it. The glass was about half full of something that looked like very good whiskey.
    Bonita Jessup said, “Chester, this is Mr. Brogan, the man Toby brought from West Coast Industrial Advisors. Mr. Brogan, our salvation, Mr. Healy.”
    The calculating machine took that moment to stop snapping and jumping. Healy looked at it, scribbled a row of figures on a scrap of paper, and punched a button that set the damn thing grinding its gears again. He laid down his pen and stood up.
    He held out his hand. “My pleasure, Mr. Brogan.” I shook the hand. It was thin-fingered and ink-stained. It was also sinewy. And strong.
    He took the hand back and brushed it over a thin layer of pale brown hair. He had the same color gray eyes as Toby. But his looked too large for his thin, almost fleshless face.
    Bonita Jessup said, “Will you give Mr. Brogan a minute and show him our balance sheet, Chester? He seems to feel we may be in financial trouble.”
    She handed me a smile that had enough horsepower to drive one of her big semirigs. She turned and walked out. I watched her go and tried to hate her again. But I still couldn’t. She was just too much woman.

6
    H EALY WAITED until Bonita shut the door behind her. He said, “So you’re an efficiency expert, Mr. Brogan. Sit down. You can be just as efficient on your tail as on your feet.”
    He stopped, picked up the glass, and drained it. He smacked his lips with a sound of genuine satisfaction. He picked his cigar up from the ashtray and tried puffing on it. He located a trickle of smoke and worked until he had a full-fledged coal going.
    He said, “Have a cigar? They’re good. I get them in Mexico for less than half of what they’d cost here.”
    I took out my cigarette. “No thanks.” I lit a cigarette and tried to figure a way through the front he was putting up.
    He opened a desk drawer and lifted out a bottle. The label said the contents were Scotch, twenty years old. “How about a drink? I get this in Mexico too. Save over fifty per cent on the