The Anonymous Client

talk now. What did you drag me down here for?”
    “To have dinner.”
    Taylor stared at him. “What?”
    “Sure,” Steve said. “You haven’t eaten yet, have you?”
    “I had some hamburgers sent up. Look, Steve—”
    “But that was a while ago, wasn’t it?”
    “Around seven, but—”
    “And it’s eleven now. You could eat a nice steak couldn’t you?”
    “Sure, but—”
    “Then let’s have dinner,” Steve said. He summoned the waiter. “I’ll have a scotch, and this man could probably use another bourbon. Then we’d like a couple of steaks, medium rare. The kitchen’s still open, isn’t it?”
    “Sure,” the waiter said. “We serve food till midnight.”
    The waiter wrote down the order and left.
    Mark Taylor turned to Steve Winslow. “Steve, please. Don’t do this to me. I don’t know what you’re up to, but you know how I hate to be out of touch with the office. What the hell’s going on?”
    Steve took a sip of scotch. “I’m afraid your office isn’t a very safe place for you right now.”
    “Why not?”
    “You’re going to have visitors.”
    “You man cops?”
    “Yeah.”
    “Oh shit. How do you know?”
    Steve shook his head. “I can’t tell you that right now. But the way things are breaking, sooner or later Sergeant Stams is going to come down on you like a ton of bricks. When he does, you’re going to have to answer questions. The less you know, the less you have to tell him.”
    “I know too much already.”
    Steve shook his head. “No you don’t, Mark. Actually, you know very little. The rest you just infer. Any conclusions you may have drawn are incompetent, irrelevant, and immaterial, and you can’t be forced to testify about them.”
    “Testify!” Taylor was alarmed. “Am I going to have to testify?”
    “It’s possible,” Steve said. “Which is why it’s important to differentiate between what you know and what you merely surmise. I’m going to tell you what you know.”
    Mark Taylor blinked. “Steve. I got a license.”
    “Just do what I tell you, and you won’t lose your license,” Steve said. “Now listen. This is what you know: On Tuesday I gave you a list of serial numbers of ten one thousand dollar bills. You traced the bills and discovered that they had been withdrawn from the bank by one David C. Bradshaw. On my instructions, you placed Bradshaw’s apartment under surveillance Tuesday afternoon. Your operatives reported to you that a young woman called on Bradshaw that afternoon. Immediately after her departure, Bradshaw also left the apartment. Your operatives followed both parties. The young woman was eventually followed to her home and identified as Marilyn Harding. Your men reported that Miss Harding was also being followed by operatives from the Miltner Detective Agency. Bradshaw ditched his shadow. Later, I informed you that Bradshaw was in my office. Your shadows picked up Bradshaw when he left my office and followed him home. You lifted fingerprints from my desk and had them traced. You found them to be the prints of one Donald Blake, a convicted felon with a history of arrests for larceny and extortion. On Tuesday evening at around six-thirty, Bradshaw left his apartment, ditched his shadows, and returned to his apartment at around nine-thirty. The following morning you dusted the combination of my office safe for fingerprints and found one that matched the right thumb of David C. Bradshaw. At that point I instructed you to call off your operatives and drop your investigation.”
    Mark Taylor squirmed uncomfortably.
    The waiter returned, set the drinks on the table, and departed.
    Mark Taylor downed the rest of his first drink, and picked up his second. He swirled the ice around in the glass. He looked at the ice, rather than at Steve.
    “Well, what’s the matter?” Steve said.
    “I can’t get away with it.”
    “Why not?”
    “Well, in the first place, you haven’t said anything about the letters.”
    “But no one is going to ask you about any letters.”
    “They’re going to ask me to tell them everything I know about the case.”
    “Exactly. That’s just the point I was trying to make. They’re going to ask you what you know about the case. What I’ve just told you is all you know.”
    “I know about the letters.”
    “What letters?”
    “You know what letters,” Taylor said, irritably. “The Bradshaw letters.”
    “See, that’s just what I mean,” Steve said. “You don’t know those letters