Free Sugartown by Loren D. Estleman Page B

conversations like this.”
    “That changes things some. Our subscription information is confidential.”
    “Bull. You sell it to every mail-order advertiser that comes along.”
    “That’s business.” He paused again. “But a subscription to one or all of our magazines entitles you to some things.”
    “I’m not a collector.”
    “Suit yourself, Jack.”
    “I could be, though,” I said, before he could hang up. “Which one would you recommend to a beginner?”
    “ Numismatics Monthly . It runs fifty dollars per year.”
    “How much for six months?”
    “We don’t offer six-month subscriptions.”
    “What do the others run?”
    “Fifty dollars.”
    “Uh-huh.”
    “Listen, you want the list or not?”
    “I’m just interested in two names,” I said. “Why don’t you tell me if they’re on any of the lists and if they are I’ll get a check off to you.”
    He laughed. It wasn’t a very nice laugh. “You must think I’m a philatelist.”
    I said, “Okay, one way or the other you get it.”
    “How do I know you’ll come through?”
    “How do I know you’ll tell me straight?”
    “I guess we just have to trust each other,” he said. He didn’t like saying it. It lay like alum on his tongue. “Okay, shoot.”
    “His name’s Michael Evancek.” I spelled it. “He might be going by Michael Norton.”
    I heard keys rattling. After a minute he said, “No Evanceks. We got two Nortons, Philip in San Francisco and a B. Norton in Dayton, Ohio.”
    “Barbara?” I jumped on it. Barbara Norton was Jeanine Evancek’s sister.
    “Just the initial. Sec.” More keys rattled. “We got a kill on it. Subscriber moved a few months back without filing a change-of-address.”
    I asked him for the old number and wrote it down, along with Philip’s San Francisco address. They might not have liked the name Michael any more than they did Evancek.
    “I don’t see how you function without a computer,” Circulation mused.
    “It’s tough. I’m like a musician without a saddle. Who do I make the check out to?”
    “Albert C. Moss.”
    The publishing firm’s name was entirely different. I wrote down Albert C. Moss and said I’d get the check off by the end of the week.
    “Where should we send the magazine?” Albert asked innocently.
    I laughed nastily and pegged the receiver. They grow them funny in Cedar Rapids.
    I looked at my watch. Then I looked at the bathing beauty on the calendar on the wall. Then I looked at my watch again to see what time it was. I was going to have some fun explaining fifty dollars for a magazine subscription on the expense sheet. Especially when neither of the two names and addresses it bought, one of them obsolete, probably had anything to do with Michael. I wondered if Karen McBride was really sort of involved with someone or if I was using the wrong aftershave. My mind was starting to wander. I called Long-distance Information again and asked for the main branch of the U.S. Post Office in Dayton, Ohio. A clerk there looked up B. Norton in the change-of-addresses and gave me a number on Gilbert in Detroit.
    My heartbeat accelerated a little. There was probably nothing in it. There was no B. Norton in the Detroit directory. I called Local Information. They had it under New Numbers and I worked the plunger and dialed it and got a busy signal. I hung up and smoked a cigarette and tried again. Same thing. Well, when you flush two birds you’re supposed to go for the far one first anyway.
    San Francisco Information put me in touch with Philip Norton. He had a high affected voice that made me hold the receiver a little away from my ear. He said he was 45, owned a coin shop off Golden Gate, and had never been in Michigan in his life. But if I was ever in the Bay Area I should look him up.
    B. Norton’s line was still busy. I wasn’t very nice to it. I wanted to get that one out of the way and start shaking loose some real leads. There were a million Nortons in the world, probably