She looked at me with appealing eyes. “Mr. Lam, please don’t go away. I want you to be here in order to protect Robert.”
“From what?” I asked.
“I don’t know. It seems to me there’s something sinister about this. I think Robert’s in danger. I’m his mother. I have a mother’s intuition. You’re a trained wrestler with muscles of steel. They say that you’ve taken the biggest and best of the Japanese jujitsu wrestlers and tossed them around as though they’d been dolls. Please keep your eye on Robert.”
I said, “You can count on me,” and went off to find Alta. I found her in the solarium. She was seated on the chaise longue. She moved over and made room for me to sit beside her. I said, “All right, tell me.”
She clamped her lips and shook her head.
“What did Ringold have on you?”
“Nothing.”
“I suppose,” I said, “the three ten-thousand-dollar cheques were made for a charitable donation. Perhaps he was a collector for the Community Chest.”
I saw the dismay come into her eyes. “The three cheques?”
I nodded.