The Girl, the Gold Watch and Everything Read Online Free PDF Page B

This is a simple emotion. Contempt. She's really quite easy to understand. Her only motivation is greed. Greed for money, power, pretty things, admiration, sensual pleasure. She likes to use power, Winter. So does Joseph, but she's captain of that team."
    "He's your uncle?"
    "Hardly. She calls him her brother, but he's more a sort of half brother-in-law. And not what you'd want to call a wholesome relationship. But they do seem so charming, don't they? It makes them a deadly team."
    "I keep feeling that you are dramatizing this. I just can't believe they—"
    "Wait a minute. I just thought of something. You are his only living blood relation. And it was in the papers, so Charla must know that. So in addition to whatever is in the will, won't you get his personal papers and records?"
    "I guess so. I hadn't thought about it."
    "Believe me, Charla will. And Charla has. Now don't you dare turn anything over to her."
    "What do you think I am?"
    "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. "Just 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 attitude toward all established institutions, 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