He Huffed and He Puffed (10 page)

Thank god she was gone.

The son of a bitch had tried to kill him. The other two had threatened, but Richard Bruce had actually done it, or tried to. He didn't waste time on threats, that one. When Strode had started his pursuit of House of Glass, he'd needed only one stockholder to agree to sell. Now he had all three of them, right where he wanted them. Bruce's attorney had approved the stock ownership transfer papers and the shipowner had requested a meeting, just as if nothing had happened. But with the other two at last giving in, Strode was now in a position to pick and choose.

Not that it would help the seller any. Strode wanted, without exception, to ruin all three of them. He wanted to
hurt
them. These people were killers, for god's sake, and they were all mad at
him
. Not that he'd expected anything less, but he hadn't anticipated how blatant they'd all be about it. But it didn't matter now; he had them all in the palm of his hand.

He'd choose one, make the deal, and then turn them all in; it was the only way he could protect himself. He'd send the file folders with their painstakingly acquired and damning evidence to the police. He'd tell the Los Angeles police what Richard Bruce had done, he'd tell the Boston police what Joanna Gillespie had done, he'd tell the French police—in Toulon, was it?—what Jack McKinstry had done. And he'd make sure the newspapers got the story. All the newspapers, not just his. He'd make sure their pretty lives would never be the same again, what was left of them.

Bruce ought to get the death sentence, in California. But he might not; it depended on the judge. Or wait a minute—the
Burly Girl
had gone down in Hawaiian waters; wouldn't Bruce be tried in Hawaii? As to McKinstry … Strode had no idea what would happen to McKinstry. He knew nothing of the French system of justice. But Gillespie would plead mercy killing and be out again after serving a few years. That's what would happen.

Strode scowled at the picture he'd just conjured up. No. A thousand times no.

It wasn't enough.

He got up from the lounger and stood at the window staring down at one of the servants sweeping the patio. He raised his eyes to the street, oblivious to whatever was there. A small boy holding on to his mother's hand looked up and waved; Strode didn't see him. Ruining those three just wasn't enough. He wanted to get them, really get them, and get them in a way that all three would understand how hopelessly outclassed they were when they tried to play hardball with A. J. Strode. Get them so they would know they had been
got
.

Strode leaned both hands on the windowsill, pressing his forehead against the cool pane of glass. He stood like that for a long time. When at last he'd decided, he called Castleberry at the office and told him to come over.

One of the downstairs rooms was maintained as a small conference room; it was there Strode met with Castleberry. “I've reached a decision,” he informed his assistant. “This House of Glass business is going to be settled this weekend, one way or another.”

“You've decided?” Castleberry asked with interest. “Which one?”

“I won't know until the weekend's over.”

Castleberry blinked. “How's that? What are you going to do?”

Strode placed the palms of his hands flat on the small conference table, savoring the telling. “I'm going to get all three of them together this weekend. I'm going to give each one a copy of the contents of the file we have on him—and her. I want them to see exactly how much we've dug up.”

“They won't love you for that.”

“Then I'm going to tell them I need only one block of shares to give me control of House of Glass,” Strode went on. He laughed. “And I'm going to leave it up to them to decide which of them sells to me. I set the price, but they choose the seller.
They
decide. And here's the stinger, Castleberry. The two that don't sell get the privilege of seeing their names on the front page of Monday's newspapers. Those two will be made to understand I'm sending the original files to the police. One survives, two do not. And they get to pick the survivor.”

Castleberry was awestruck. He swallowed and said, “Mr. Strode, that's …
diabolical!
Mephistophelian!”

Strode laughed. “Thank you! By god, Castleberry, I haven't felt this good since we started this business. Those three are going to learn the hard way they can't threaten
me
and get away with it!”

Still in something of a daze, his assistant got up, walked around the conference table, and sat down again. “Where will they be meeting?”

“Here. In this house.”

Castleberry shot back out of his seat. “You can't mean that! You're going to meet those three
right here
where they can—”

“No, no—I'm not going to be here at all! I'll go stay with Tracy. They'll only
think
I'm going to be here.”

“But still, bringing those three murderous people together under your roof—”

“Yeah, I don't much like that. I thought of booking them all into the same hotel, but I couldn't be sure they'd come if I did that. They have to think they have a chance of getting at me, don't you see? I'm the bait.”

“Well, if you stay with Tracy all the time—”

“I won't budge out of her apartment all weekend. Sit down, Castleberry, and stop worrying. Listen, no one of them will know the other two are coming. I'll send each one an offer to return the incriminating evidence—on condition that the deal is settled here, this weekend. They'll all come thinking they might get a shot at the big bad wolf in his own lair.” He grinned at his assistant's expression. “Yeah, I know what they call me behind my back. But those three little pigs will come, Castleberry. They'll come because they want to get me.”

“And you won't see any of them? At any time?”

“None of them, ever. And you'll see them only long enough to give them my terms. I think I'll tape it. That way you won't have to hang around. We'll just leave the three of them together and see what happens.”

“Good lord.” Castleberry took out a handkerchief and blotted the perspiration on his forehead. “I wonder which one of them will win.”

Strode grunted. “My money's on Richard Bruce. He makes the other two look like babies.”

“Maybe,” his assistant said cautiously. “How in the world are they ever going to decide? Mr. Strode, do you know what might happen? Those three people could end up killing one another!”

Strode smiled his lupine smile. “Now wouldn't that be a pity,” he said contentedly.

PART 2

The Suspects

4

JOANNA GILLESPIE, FRIDAY:

One decent thing about Myron Castleberry—he didn't gloat. He even managed to sound sympathetic as he explained that A. J. Strode didn't want to talk just then but would settle accounts with me during the upcoming weekend. At the time I was so dejected it didn't even occur to me that “settle accounts” might have more than one meaning. Then I understood I was expected to spend the weekend in Strode's home; I said I'd stay in a hotel. But Castleberry insisted that Mr. Strode wouldn't hear of it. He was very smooth about it; he managed to make Strode's command that I come to his home off Park Avenue on Friday afternoon sound like a genuine invitation. I protested I couldn't go an entire weekend without practicing, and Castleberry told me to bring my violin with me if I wished. That made me laugh. I had no intention of taking something as clean and pure as the Guarnerius into A. J. Strode's house and risk contaminating it.

Nevertheless, the so-called invitation surprised me. If Strode was as frightened of my pointing a gun at him as he claimed to be, what was he doing bringing me right into his home? It was almost as if he were inviting me to take a shot at him. And why an entire weekend? How long does it take to sign a set of papers? Strode had something up his sleeve, but I couldn't begin to guess what. What else could he do to me? He already had me where he wanted me. But if the only way I could get my hands on the affidavit that that fool Ozzie Rogers had signed was to go for the weekend, then I'd go for the weekend.

I'd seen my lawyer in Boston; the papers Castleberry had forwarded were checked and officially pronounced proper and aboveboard. I didn't tell my financial manager I was selling; it would be easier simply to present him with a
fait accompli
. Similarly, I did not at first inform Harvey Rudd where I'd be over the weekend. I left a message on his answering machine that I wanted to get away for a few days and I'd call him Monday morning. Poor Harvey; he'd be tearing his beard out by Saturday night. Then I had second thoughts. Entrust myself to A. J. Strode for two and a half days without letting anyone know where I was? That wasn't one of my brighter ideas. I called back and left another message telling Harvey exactly where I was going and how to reach me. Then on Friday I'd casually mention to Strode that I was expecting a call from my assistant. A little insurance never hurts.

What was the man up to? I'd be hard put to name someone in the world I detested more than A. J. Strode. That slimy, grasping man actually thought I'd killed my parents for money. There are times when it's simply impossible to
rise above
what other people think of you, as we're always being told we ought to do, and this was one of them. Ozzie Rogers was the biggest mistake I ever made in my life; I knew two minutes after I met him that a Texas mercenary couldn't solve my problems for me. And now Ozzie himself was the problem. To tell the truth, I didn't mind giving up my House of Glass shares all that much; the company meant nothing to me and I could always reinvest the money elsewhere. But I had only Castleberry's word for it that Strode would keep no copies of Ozzie's affidavit. Strode was a vengeful man, and I had made the mistake of failing to kowtow when the Great One had made his wishes known. He could easily ruin me just out of spite.

I
loathe
being coerced.

Perhaps he just wanted to gloat a little; that certainly seemed in character. If a weekend of letting Strode stick needles in me would keep him out of my life from now on, then that was a price I was willing to pay. So I showed up at the big house in Manhattan late Friday afternoon. An armed guard at the gate checked my name on his clipboard and let me in.

Castleberry met me at the door, his mouth full of apologies about how Mr. Strode had been detained but would see me at dinner. The interior was about what one would expect—large rooms with high ceilings, ostentatious furnishings chosen primarily and perhaps even solely to show off the owner's wealth. I glanced into the living room, a misnomer if there ever was one; the place looked more like an art gallery than a space to live in. Spotlighted paintings, museum-quality furniture, niches in the walls to show off the modern sculpture. There were even
display cases
. In a room just off the foyer I could see another guard, seated before a bank of television monitors. One of the screens was a regular TV tuned to a game show with the sound turned down. The other screens showed rooms and hallways; a few were dark.

I objected. “I can't be spied on like this—this won't do at all.”

Castleberry assured me my privacy would be respected. “Most of the cameras are located on the first floor and outside the house. Upstairs, only the halls and stairways are covered. There are no cameras in any of the bedrooms or bathrooms.”

“Oh, that's considerate of you. Is that supposed to make me like it?”

“Nobody likes it,” he said regretfully, “but Mr. Strode has to have strict security. Every burglar in the city would like to get into this place. Besides, the insurance company insists upon it.”

So there was nothing to do but put up with it. A maid—actually dressed in black uniform and wearing a frilly white apron, heaven help us!—led me upstairs to a guest room that must have been decorated with an eye to getting coverage in
Architectural Digest
; the article would have been titled “How To Achieve Perfect Symmetry When Money Is No Object”. Everything in the room focused toward a lovely, wide bay window that led the eye out-of-doors beyond the limitations of the building's walls, like a central vanishing point in an old perspective painting. I rather doubted that A. J. Strode had overseen the decoration of the room. I wondered who had.

I told the maid I preferred to do my own unpacking, and when she'd left I moved one chair a couple of feet out of position just to give myself the feeling of having some small control over my environment. We all have our little superstitions. I looked around for a radio but there was none; a television, but no radio. It hadn't occurred to me I might have to go the entire weekend without music or I could have brought along a transistor. I tried PBS on the TV, but got two kids extolling the virtues of the number
seven
. Arts & Entertainment? Interview of a mystery writer. Boring.

Then I opened my suitcase and took out the .380 Walther automatic pistol that had so successfully intimidated A. J. Strode in Pittsburgh. Once I'd gotten over my initial distaste about coming here, it occurred to me that I didn't have to be without resources simply because we were on Strode's home territory. The man could be frightened; some opportunity might arise where I could make him back off again—perhaps permanently this time. I didn't think it likely, but I was ready to grasp any straw that came floating by. The guard evidently had not been instructed to search my suitcase; I'd half expected that. The question now was where to keep the gun. There were plenty of hiding places in that overdecorated guest room, but I needed something quickly accessible. I finally decided on one of the throw pillows on the seat in the bay window; the pillow cover had a zipper, and the automatic slipped inside quite nicely.

Then I sat down by the pillow and stared out the window. It was probably as well that Strode had been detained. I'd just finished six straight hours of practicing before catching the shuttle to New York, and I hadn't yet made a complete mental shift from my world to Strode's. Strode was exactly the sort of big bad wolf my father used to warn me about all the time. I could just hear him saying,
See, you know nothing about the world
—
look at the mess you've landed yourself in
.