The Unpleasant Profession Of Jonathan Hoag And Other Stories Read online

  Randall made one more try at the lovely lady; the dart stuck in the leg of the radio-record player. "Well?"

  "There is a character on the other end of this who wants to see you very badly tonight. Name of Hoag, Jonathan Hoag. Claims that it is a physical impossibility for him to come to see you in the daytime. Didn’t want to state his business and got all mixed up when he tried to."

  "Gentleman or lug?"

  "Gentleman."

  "Money?"

  "Sounds like it. Didn’t seem worried about it. Better take it, Teddy. April 15th is coming up."

  "O.K. Pass it over." She waved him back and spoke again into the phone. "I’ve managed to locate Mr. Randall. I think he will be able to speak with you in a moment or two. Will you hold the line, please?" Still holding the phone away from her husband she consulted her watch, carefully counted off thirty seconds, then said, "Ready with Mr. Randall. Go ahead, Mr. Hoag," and slipped the instrument to her husband.

  "Edward Randall speaking. What is it, Mr. Hoag?

  "Oh, really now, Mr. Hoag, I think you had better come in in the morning. We are all human and we like our rest—I do, anyhow.

  "I must warn you, Mr. Hoag, my prices go up when the sun goes down.

  "Well, now, let me see—I was just leaving for home. Matter of fact, I just talked with my wife so she’s expecting me. You know how women are. But if you could stop by my home in twenty minutes, at ... uh ... seventeen minutes past eight, we could talk for a few minutes. All right—got a pencil handy? Here is the address—" He cradled the phone.

  "What am I this time? Wife, partner, or secretary?"

  "What do you think? You talked to him."

  "‘Wife,’ I’d guess. His voice sounded prissy."

  "O.K."

  "I’ll change to a dinner gown. And you had better get your toys up off the floor, Brain."

  "Oh, I don’t know. It gives a nice touch of eccentricity."

  "Maybe you’d like some shag tobacco in a carpet slipper. Or some Regie cigarettes." She moved around the room, switching off the overhead lights and arranging table and floor lamps so that the chair a visitor would naturally sit in would be well lighted.

  Without answering he gathered up his darts and the bread board, stopping as he did so to moisten his finger and rub the spot where he had marred the radio, then dumped the whole collection into the kitchen and closed the door. In the subdued light, with the kitchen and breakfast nook no longer visible, the room looked serenely opulent.

  "How do you do, sir? Mr. Hoag, my dear. Mr. Hoag ... Mrs. Randall."

  "How do you do, madame."

  Randall helped him off with his coat, assuring himself in the process that Mr. Hoag was not armed, or— if he was—he had found somewhere other than shoulder or hip to carry a gun. Randall was not suspicious, but he was pragmatically pessimistic.

  "Sit down, Mr. Hoag. Cigarette?"

  "No. No, thank you."

  Randall said nothing in reply. He sat and stared, not rudely but mildly, nevertheless thoroughly. The suit might be English or it might be Brooks Brothers. It was certainly not Hart, Schaffner & Marx. A tie of that quality had to be termed a cravat, although it was modest as a nun. He upped his fee mentally. The little man was nervous—he wouldn’t relax in his chair. Woman’s presence, probably. Good—let him come to a slow simmer, then move him off the fire.

  "You need not mind the presence of Mrs. Randall," he said presently. "Anything that I may hear, she may hear also."

  "Oh ... oh, yes. Yes, indeed." He bowed from the waist without getting up. "I am very happy to have Mrs. Randall present." But he did not go on to say what his business was.

  "Well, Mr. Hoag," Randall added presently, "you wished to consult me about something, did you not?"

  "Uh, yes."

  "Then perhaps you had better tell me about it."

  "Yes, surely. It— That is to say— Mr. Randall, the whole business is preposterous."

  "Most businesses are. But go ahead. Woman trouble? Or has someone been sending you threatening letters?"

  "Oh, no! Nothing as simple as that. But I’m afraid."

  "Of what?"

  "I don’t know," Hoag answered quickly with a little intake of breath. "I want you to find out."

  "Wait a minute, Mr. Hoag," Randall said. "This seems to be getting more confused rather than less. You say you are afraid and you want me to find out what you are afraid of. Now I’m not a psychoanalyst; I’m a detective. What is there about this business that a detective can do?"

  Hoag looked unhappy, then blurted out, "I want you to find out what I do in the daytime."

  Randall looked him over, then said slowly, "You want me to find out what you do in the daytime?"

  "Yes. Yes, that’s it."

  "Mm-m-m. Wouldn’t it be easier for you to tell me what you do?"

  "Oh, I couldn’t tell you!"

  "Why not?"

  "I don’t know."

  Randall was becoming somewhat annoyed. "Mr. Hoag," he said, "I usually charge double for playing guessing games. If you won’t tell me what you do in the daytime, it seems to me to indicate a lack of confidence in me which will make it very difficult indeed to assist you. Now come clean with me—what is it you do in the daytime and what has it to do with the case? What is the case?"

  Mr. Hoag stood up. "I might have known I couldn’t explain it," he said unhappily, more to himself than to Randall. "I’m sorry I disturbed you. I—"

  "Just a minute, Mr. Hoag." Cynthia Craig Randall spoke for the first time. "I think perhaps you two have misunderstood each other. You mean, do you not, that you really and literally do not know what you do in the daytime?"

  "Yes," he said gratefully. "Yes, that is exactly it."

  "And you want us to find out what you do? Shadow you, find out where you go, and tell you what you have been doing?"

  Hoag nodded emphatically. "That is what I have been trying to say."

  Randall glanced from Hoag to his wife and back to Hoag. "Let’s get this straight," he said slowly. "You really don’t know what you do in the daytime and you want me to find out. How long has this been going on?"

  "I ... I don’t know." "Well— what do you know?" Hoag managed to tell his story, with prompting. His recollection of any sort ran back about five years, to the St. George Rest Home in Dubuque. Incurable amnesia—it no longer worried him and he had regarded himself as completely rehabilitated. They—the hospital authorities—had found a job for him when he was discharged.

  "What sort of a job?"

  He did not know that. Presumably it was the same job he now held, his present occupation. He had been strongly advised, when he left the rest home, never to worry about his work, never to take his work home with him, even in his thoughts. "You see," Hoag explained, "they work on the theory that amnesia is brought on by overwork and worry. I remember Dr. Rennault telling me emphatically that I must never talk shop, never let my mind dwell on the day’s work. When I got home at night I was to forget such things and occupy myself with pleasant subjects. So I tried to do that."

  "Hm-m-m. You certainly seem to have been successful, almost too successful for belief. See here—did they use hypnosis on you in treating you?"

  "Why, I really don’t know."

  "Must have. How about it, Cyn? Does it fit?"

  His wife nodded, "It fits. Posthypnosis. After five years of it he couldn’t possibly think about his work after hours no matter how he tried. Seems like a very odd therapy, however."

  Randall was satisfied. She handled matters psychological. Whether she got her answers from her rather extensive formal study, or straight out of her subconscious, he neither knew nor gave a hang. They seemed to work. "Something still bothers me," he added. "You go along for five years, apparently never knowing where or how you work. Why this sudden yearning to know?"

  He told them the story of the dinner-table discussion, the strange substance under his nails, and the non-co-operative doctor. "I’m frightened," he said miserably. "I
thought it was blood. And now

  I know it’s something—worse."

  Randall looked at him. "Why?"

  Hoag moistened his lips. "Because—" He paused and looked helpless. "You’ll help me, won’t you?"

  Randall straightened up. "This isn’t in my line," he said. "You need help all right, but you need help from a psychiatrist. Amnesia isn’t in my line. I’m a detective."

  "But I want a detective. I want you to watch me and find out what I do."

  Randall started to refuse; his wife interrupted. "I’m sure we can help you, Mr. Hoag. Perhaps you should see a psychiatrist—"

  "Oh, no!"

  "—but if you wish to be shadowed, it will be done."

  "I don’t like it," said Randall. "He doesn’t need us."

  Hoag laid his gloves on the side table and reached into his breast pocket. "I’ll make it worth your while." He started counting out bills. "I brought only five hundred," he said anxiously. "Is it enough?"

  "It will do," she told him.

  "As a retainer," Randall added. He accepted the money and stuffed it into his side pocket. "By the way," he added, "if you don’t know what you do during business hours and you have no more background than a hospital, where do you get the money?" He made his voice casual.

  "Oh, I get paid every Sunday. Two hundred dollars, in bills."

  When he had gone Randall handed the cash over to his wife. "Pretty little tickets," she said, smoothing them out and folding them neatly. "Teddy, why did you try to queer the pitch?"

  "Me? I didn’t—I was just running up the price. The old ‘get-away-closer.’ "

  "That’s what I thought. But you almost overdid it."

  "Not at all. I knew I could depend on you. You wouldn’t let him out of the house with a nickel left on him."

  She smiled happily. "You’re a nice man, Teddy. And we have so much in common. We both like money. How much of his story did you believe?"

  "Not a damned word of it."

  "Neither did I. He’s rather a horrid little beast— I wonder what he’s up to."

  "I don’t know, but I mean to find out."

  "You aren’t going to shadow him yourself, are you?"

  "Why not? Why pay ten dollars a day to some ex-flattie to muff it?"

  "Teddy, I don’t like the set-up. Why should he be willing to pay this much"—she gestured with the bills—"to lead you around by the nose?"

  "That is what I’m going to find out."

  "You be careful. You remember ‘The Red-headed League.’ "

  "The ‘Red-headed—’ Oh, Sherlock Holmes again. Be your age, Cyn."

  "I am. You be yours. That little man is evil."

  She left the room and cached the money. When she returned he was down on his knees by the chair in which Hoag had sat, busy with an insufflator. He looked around as she came in.

  "Cyn—"

  "Yes, Brain."

  "You haven’t touched this chair?"

  "Of course not. I polished the arms as usual before he showed up."

  "That’s not what I mean. I meant since he left. Did he ever take off his gloves?"

  "Wait a minute. Yes, I’m sure he did. I looked at his nails when he told his yarn about them."

  "So did I, but I wanted to make sure I wasn’t nuts. Take a look at that surface."

  She examined the polished chair arms, now covered with a thin film of gray dust. The surface was unbroken—no fingerprints. "He must never have touched them— But he did. I saw him. When he said, ‘I’m frightened,’ he gripped both arms. I remember noticing how blue his knuckles looked."

  "Collodion, maybe?"

  "Don’t be silly. There isn’t even a smear. You shook hands with him. Did he have collodion on his hands?"

  "I don’t think so. I think I would have noticed it. The Man with No Fingerprints. Let’s call him a ghost and forget it."

  "Ghosts don’t pay out hard cash to be watched."

  "No, they don’t. Not that I ever heard of." He stood up and marched out into the breakfast nook, grabbed the phone and dialed long distance. "I want the Medical Exchange in Dubuque, uh— " He cupped the phone and called to his wife. "Say, honey, what the hell state is Dubuque in?"

  Forty-five minutes and several calls later he slammed the instrument back into its cradle. "That tears it," he announced. "There is no St. George Rest Home in Dubuque. There never was and probably never will be. And no Dr. Rennault."

  III

  "There he is!" Cynthia Craig Randall nudged her husband.

  He continued to hold the Tribune in front of his face as if reading it. "I see him," he said quietly. "Control yourself. Yuh’d think you had never tailed a man before. Easy does it."

  "Teddy, do be careful."

  "I will be." He glanced over the top of the paper and watched Jonathan Hoag come down the steps of the swank Gotham Apartments in which he made his home. When he left the shelter of the canopy he turned to the left. The time was exactly seven minutes before nine in the morning.

  Randall stood up, folded his paper with care, and laid it down on the bus-station bench on which he had been waiting. He then turned toward the drugstore behind him, dropped a penny in the slot of a gum-vending machine in the shop’s recessed doorway. In the mirror on the face of the machine he watched Hoag’s unhurried progress down the far side of the street. With equal lack of rush he started after him, without crossing the street.

  Cynthia waited on the bench until Randall had had time enough to get a half block ahead of her, then got up and followed him.

  Hoag climbed on a bus at the second corner. Randall took advantage of a traffic-light change which held the bus at the corner, crossed against the lights, and managed to reach the bus just as it was pulling out. Hoag had gone up to the open deck; Randall seated himself down below.

  Cynthia was too late to catch the bus, but not too late to note its number. She yoohooed at the first cruising taxi that came by, told the driver the number of the bus, and set out. They covered twelve blocks before the bus came in sight; three blocks later a red light enabled the driver to pull up alongside the bus. She spotted her husband inside; it was all she needed to know. She occupied the time for the rest of the ride in keeping the exact amount shown by the meter plus a quarter tip counted out in her hand.

  When she saw them get out of the bus she told the driver to pull up. He did so, a few yards beyond the bus stop. Unfortunately they were headed in her direction; she did not wish to get out at once. She paid the driver the exact amount of the tariff while keeping one eye—the one in the back of her head—on the two men. The driver looked at her curiously.

  "Do you chase after women?" she said suddenly.

  "No, lady. I gotta family."

  "My husband does," she said bitterly and untruthfully. "Here." She handed him the quarter.

  Hoag and Randall were some yards past by now. She got out, headed for the shop just across the walk, and waited. To her surprise she saw Hoag turn and speak to her husband. She was too far away to hear what was said.

  She hesitated to join them. The picture was wrong; it made her apprehensive—yet her husband seemed unconcerned. He listened quietly to what Hoag had to say, then the two of them entered the office building in front of which they had been standing.

  She closed in at once. The lobby of the office building was as crowded as one might expect at such an hour in the morning. Six elevators, in bank, were doing rushing business. No. 2 had just slammed its doors. No. 3 had just started to load. They were not in No. 3; she posted herself near the cigar stand and quickly cased the place.

  They were not in the lobby. Nor were they, she quickly made sure, in the barber shop which opened off the lobby. They had probably been the last passengers to catch Elevator No. 2 on its last trip. She had been watching the indicator for No. 2 without learning anything useful from it; the car had stopped at nearly every floor.

  No. 2 was back down by now; she made herself one of its passengers, not the first nor the last, but o
ne of the crowd. She did not name a floor, but waited until the last of the others had gotten off.

  The elevator boy raised his eyebrows at her. "Floor, please!" he commanded.

  She displayed a dollar bill. "I want to talk to you."

  He closed the gates, accomplishing an intimate privacy. "Make it snappy," he said, glancing at the signals on his board.

  "Two men got on together your last trip." She described them quickly and vividly. "I want to know what floor they got off at."

  He shook his head. "I wouldn’t know. This is the rush hour."

  She added another bill. "Think. They were probably the last two to get aboard. Maybe they had to step out to let others off. The shorter one probably called out the floor."

  He shook his head again. "Even if you made it a fin I couldn’t tell you. During the rush Lady Godiva and her horse could ride this cage and I wouldn’t know it. Now—do you want to get out or go down?"

  "Down." She handed him one of the bills. "Thanks for trying."

  He looked at it, shrugged, and pocketed it.

  There was nothing to do but to take up her post in the lobby. She did so, fuming. Done in, she thought, done in by the oldest trick known for shaking a tail. Call yourself a dick and get taken in by the office-building trick! They were probably out of the building and gone by now, with Teddy wondering where she was and maybe needing her to back up his play.

  She ought to take up tatting! Damn!

  She bought a bottle of Pepsi-Cola at the cigar stand and drank it slowly, standing up. She was just wondering whether or not she could stand another, in the interest of protective coloration, when Randall appeared.

  It took the flood of relief that swept over her to make her realize how much she had been afraid. Nevertheless, she did not break character. She turned her head away, knowing that her husband would see her and recognize the back of her neck quite as well as her face.