The Brink of Murder (9 page)

“Okay, I think.”

“Good. Take care and keep under cover a little longer. The newspapers have to be sensational to sell all that advertising.”

“I know,” she said, “and I know something else, too. I know that my husband is no thief.”

Simon concluded the call and reflected on the things people think they know about other people and don’t. But loyalty was the only glue that held the idiot world together and he wanted Carole to cling to hers. Barney Amling had inspired too much of it in his 40 years to be written off as a phoney without even digging for motivation. Simon could think of only three possibilities: passion, money and mental breakdown. There had been too much logic in his preparation for flight to indicate the latter, and there still wasn’t a clue as to the object of overwhelming passion unless Mary Sutton had lied.

It was still too soon for Kevin to have reached his home. Simon got out his sound equipment and inserted the tape he had received from Mary Sutton. The beginning of the tape was standard dictation but it was still a shock to be sitting in his own den listening to Barney’s measured baritone when he had been missing for almost two weeks. Halfway through the dictation the voice tone changed abruptly. The volume rose, as if Barney had started to read a speech, and then lowered in staccato intensity. When the passage concluded Simon heard a click, as if the dictating machine had been turned off. Another click and the letter resumed in the same tone as the opening of the recording. One thing was certain: the entire tape was in Barney Amling’s voice even if the content seemed to come from two different minds.

Simon put the recorder on rewind and took it all from the top again. Then he learned where to stop the rewind to catch only the interpolation and played that part over three times until his mind could play back the words and inflections without benefit of the tape. There was passion in Barney’s voice almost to the point of pain. There was anger and despair. Barney Amling was a winner in a dirty world and he couldn’t have been naïve. The words he was saying to himself constituted no great breakthrough in human knowledge. He had been on the bottom of that scrimmage pile when his first world ended and he must have known, through the shock and pain, that the reason was because he was the best in his line and that made him target for the day. He had hauled himself up from that first disaster and started a new career in a world no less dangerous than the gridiron. Heading for the top again and the second obstacle, alcoholism, broke him again. Up from that disaster to create a career no less brilliant than the first. Naïve, no. The word wouldn’t fit Barney Amling. Those were no cynical generalizations on the tape. The shock in his voice had an explicit target.

Shock. Something more. Simon groped for the right word. Outrage. Barney Amling had spoken from the deepest sense of outrage.

“… Even murder has its rightful place in sophisticated society when no other course of action is possible.”

Simon switched off the recorder for the last time and was amazed to see the day was almost over. The sky had turned bittersweet orange behind Catalina Island. Some of the taller trees at the edge of the grounds flared up against the horizon like slender, black strokes on a Japanese print and the distant sheen of the sea had the stark coldness of winter. In the service yard below he saw Chester diligently polishing the hood of Hannah’s vintage Rolls-Royce, while Hannah, giving evidence of her capacity to get out of the exerciser, issued directives. If Chester one day became president of the college he was about to join as a staff member, he would probably still come around to polish Hannah’s Rolls if she needed him. It was a pleasant thought but not enough to push Barney Amling from his mind. Had Barney polished the hood of his Continental, or had he relegated the job to Kevin or Little Jake? The Continental with its expensive mileage on the odometer. Simon raked through his pocket for Vincent Pucci’s card. With a coastal map he could pinpoint the new development and calculate the mileage from the Pacific Guaranty tower. At the moment Pucci was the only one in Barney’s circle who seemed capable of inspiring the outburst on the tape.

But Simon didn’t have time to get the map. The door chimes at The Mansion were installed in Hannah’s honour to play the opening bars of “Give My Regards to Broadway”. When they began to play it was like a spritely accompaniment to a funeral. With both Chester and Hannah in the service yard, the phrase repeated often enough to inspire an aversion to George M. Cohan before Simon could sprint down the stairs and open the door. A skinny young man wearing a peaked cap removed his finger from the chime button and grinned foolishly.

“Some doorbell you’ve got there,” he remarked. “I haven’t come across one like that before.”

“I’m thinking of having it replaced with a sponge knocker,” Simon said.

“Are you Simon Drake?”

“I am.”

“Red Flash Messenger Service. Sign here, please.”

Simon signed the receipt book and accepted delivery of a nine-by-twelve inch manila envelope. He tipped the boy and closed the door quickly before he could play with the chimes again. There was no indication of the sender on the envelope. He opened it and took out two glossy photographs of a type taken by professional photographers in night-clubs. The setting in each picture seeemed identical—a table at some exclusive restaurant or bar. The subjects in each picture were identical: a man and a woman. The woman was late 30s or a well-preserved 40. Attractive, well-dressed and completely unconscious of the camera. The man, equally oblivious to the camera, was Barney Amling.

After his eyes and his brain had agreed on this fact, Simon turned the photographs over to the back side. Each bore a commercial stamp: “Souvenir of The Golden Fleece”.

T
HE GOLDEN FLEECE
. The words were English, not Spanish. This wasn’t a pair of photos some thoughtful informant had taken in Argentina or in any other country south of the border. The background was typical of a posh American night-club or restaurant but, not being dated, they could have been taken weeks or even months ago. A change of attire was obvious at once on the woman. In one picture she wore a sequined sweater, in the other a mink stole. Her hair photographed dark and looked freshly groomed. Scrutinizing the pictures under light, Simon ascertained that Barney Amling had worn a different suit in each photo and that one of them had a pin-stripe weave. No such item was kept in the quick-travel wardrobe, so the pictures must have been taken in a local bistro. To Simon, who was more at home on his boat than in a night-club, the name was unfamiliar, but what the pictures were meant to convey was obvious. On at least two occasions Barney Amling had been in the company of some woman who was not his wife, and the anonymous sender considered this an important factor now that Barney was missing. Simon opened the front door again to see if the messenger was still on the grounds. All he could see was a long, empty driveway curving off into the sunset.

Hannah and Chester came into the house through the service entrance and found him closing the door.

“We heard the chimes,” Hannah said. “Who was here?”

“Nobody,” Simon lied. “I think there’s a short in the bell. I’ll have to look at it in the morning.” He held the envelope and photos out of sight but signalled Chester as he started back up the stairs. “I have some work to do. Can you spare a minute, Chester?”

Upstairs in the den Simon waited for Chester and then closed the door. He tossed the photos on to the top of the desk. “Red Flash Messenger delivery,” he said. “No sender’s name. What do you think?”

Chester examined the photos with interest. “I’ve never met your missing friend,” he said, “but I’d say the man in these pictures is Barney Amling. Who’s the broad?”

Chester’s choice of words was provocative. “She does look more like a broad than a lady,” Simon reflected.

“She’s no socialite,” Chester said. “Look at those eyes. She’s been around.”

“How long?”

“Anywhere from twenty-five to forty years. It’s not the length of time, Simon—it’s the m.p.h. This one
moves.
Who is she?”

“I wouldn’t be standing here getting a résumé of the sensuous woman if I knew.”

“Then why didn’t you want Hannah to see the pictures?”

“I’m not sure. Somebody in a black sedan followed me yesterday. I managed to lose them on the freeway and later jumped one of Reardon’s men about having me tailed. All I drew was a blank stare. I guess I just don’t want Hannah to worry.”

“So you can do all the worrying yourself.” Chester still held the photos—one in each hand. “If this is the woman Amling took a million dollars for he’s getting short-changed. His wife’s a much foxier dish.”

“I agree,” Simon said. “I have to check this out, Chester, but I’ve been living in the same clothes for two days. I couldn’t get a table in a twenty-four-hour ‘burger joint the way I look—much less something as glossy as The Golden Fleece. While I shower and dress you can dig out the Los Angeles classified from the telephone file and try to locate the Red Flash office that handled this delivery. It’s a big operation with several outlying branches. If it was sent from one of the branches I’ll at least have an idea of the area where my unknown helper operates.”

“Then what will you do?”

“Unless you’re familiar with the place stamped on the back of the photos, we can try the classified again and see if it’s listed in the pin-pointed area.”

“The Golden Fleece,” Chester reflected. “It has a familiar ring. I’ve seen it somewhere but my budget is more in line with those twenty-four-hour ‘burger joints you mentioned.”

Simon didn’t answer. He was already lathering up in the shower. Except for a spare tyre that was beginning to develop about his middle, and a rope burn from the last cruise that had already scabbed, he was in great shape for a man pushing 36. He had never suffered a broken bone, only one sprained ankle, and was pretty much a stranger to pain. But Barney Amling had known all kinds of pain when he was crippled and was probably never completely free of it afterwards. Friends forgot about that before the sheer force of his personality until the current headlines sent the mind reeling backwards for causes. Crippled body, crippled mind? The thought was disgusting. Simon shook it from his mind.

He completed the shower, shaved and got into his underwear. He selected a clean shirt with French cuffs and a dark brown suit because Wanda liked to see him wear brown. Her telephoned invitation was still in the back of his mind. He was almost dressed when Chester came back from telephone duty.

“Not only is Red Flash a big operation,” he reported, “but, lucky for you, it’s a twenty-four-hour one, too.”

“Lucky?” Simon echoed.

“The photos were sent from an office in the South Bay area. The sender was a Mr Smith who no doubt traces his ancestry back to Pocahontas.”

“Did you get a physical description?”

“Only that it was a
Mr
Smith. The clerk who handled the transaction went off duty and won’t be back until Monday due to the Thanksgiving holidays.”

“What about The Golden Fleece?”

“Bull’s eye!” Chester grinned. “It came to me as soon as the man on the telephone said South Bay. There’s a new hotel at Marina del Rey. It’s called Marina View Inn. I stopped in at the coffee shop once, but that’s strictly tourist class. The main dining room is in a separate building facing the marina and it’s called The Golden Fleece. Probably because the prices are pegged to fleece you of all your gold plus any loose change. Shall I make a reservation?”

“Thanks, I’ll play it by ear,” Simon said.

“You’ll do fine. You’re cute enough for a wedding cake. Sure you won’t stay for dinner? Hannah’s teaching me how to make Stroganoff.”

Simon buttoned the jacket of the brown suit thoughtfully. “Too fattening,” he said. He took a beige poplin car coat from the closet and fitted out the pockets with the required licences and credit cards. Chester watched him soberly.

“I heard that Barney Amling’s bank finances Vincent Pucci,” he remarked.

“It’s not a bank. It’s a Savings and Loan Association.”

“So split a hair on me. But Pucci has a reputation of being friendly with the local Mafioso. If the police didn’t have you followed maybe Pucci did. You questioned him, didn’t you?”

“Amicably.”

“Oh, sure. What did you expect—brass knuckles? Maybe I should take a raincheck on the Stroganoff and go with you tonight. This whole set-up could be a trap.”

“You’ve been reading comic books again,” Simon said.

“I was only trying to be helpful.”

“You’ve been.” Simon put on the car coat, stuffed the photos back into the Red Flash envelope and went back to work.

• • •

In the entire United States there were probably no more than 500,000 people who could actually afford to stay at the Marina View Inn or to dine at The Golden Fleece, and it was unlikely that any of them would ever be caught, living or dead, on the premises of either establishment. The inn was designed for the other 199,500,000 citizens who worked all year for one big fling on their vacations or on the convention of whatever business they were in. They could then stay in a luxurious room with a balcony and dream about how great it would be to be rich and own one of the gleaming yachts in the harbour. They would be wrong because the owners of the yachts weren’t all that rich. There had been a time when yachts were owned only by movie stars, oil tycoons and heirs of the land rich. Now a new breed had taken to the water: school teachers, lawyers and small businessmen, seeking relief from overcrowded cities and bad air, gravitated seaward to create new forms of overcrowding and pollution—thus proving that man could never run away from himself but would never stop trying.

Simon found the restaurant with no difficulty and drove into the parking-lot where a corps of attendants waited to make sure no motorist escaped the palm extended for compulsory gratuity. While one of the boys parked the Jaguar, he passed through a pair of massive carved doors into a huge dining room lighted by an open-hearth fireplace and scores of amber-globed lanterns designed to give the atmosphere of a Spanish galleon. He waded across the deep-piled carpeting to a vacant table near the windows, ordered a Scotch on the rocks from a white-jacketed waiter and asked to speak with the maître-d’. The French cuffs fitted with gold links that had been Wanda’s wedding gift were impressive. Within moments the request was filled.

“Did you wish to place a special order, sir?” The maître-d’, wearing a purple-velvet dinner jacket and black trousers, spoke with the breathless air of one about to announce the Second Coming. “I can recommend the tournedos de boeuf—”

Simon shook his head. “Ulcers,” he said. “I’m on a liquid diet. What I want from you is information. Pull that lantern on the table a little closer and look at these photos. They were taken here, weren’t they?”

Simon placed the two photos side by side on the table and watched the man’s facial reaction. Recognition was instantaneous. He turned each picture over and read the imprint on the back. “Oh, of course,” he said. “You want the house photographer, Phillipe—”

“No, I don’t want the photographer,” Simon insisted. “I want you to identify the people in these pictures.” When the man hesitated, Simon took a $20 bill from his pocket and placed it alongside the photos. “I’ll settle for one identification,” he said. “Do you know the woman?”

“I don’t believe that I know
you
, sir,” the man hedged.

“But you do know our mutual friend, Andrew Jackson, seventh president of the United States and bearer of good tidings. Now do you know the lady?”

The ploy worked. “As a matter of fact,” the man said, closing his fingers over the bill, “I do. Her name is Castle. Miss Verna Castle.”

“Does she come here often?”

“Quite often. Have you examined the menu here on the table, sir?”

“Ulcers,” Simon repeated.

“Not the inside of the menu, sir. Here on the cover under the words ‘The Golden Fleece’—what do you see?”

Simon slid the menu closer to the lantern. Under the words “The Golden Fleece” were the words “Marina View Inn … A Verna Castle Enterprise”.

When Simon looked up the maître-d’ was grinning above the amber lantern like the host of a late-show horror film. “Miss Castle owns the Marina View Inn,” he said, “and she comes and goes as she pleases. Now, about the tournedos de boeuf—”

“All right,” Simon sighed, “but only if you have the bartender build me another Scotch on the rocks and send over your shutter bug, Phillipe.”

Phillipe appeared shortly after the Scotch and just before the dinner. He looked more Nordic than French and couldn’t have been very far into his teens. He had long blond hair and sideburns almost to his chin—a scanty growth worn to conceal adolescent acne. He snapped Simon’s picture with his Polaroid and presented it to him complete with the souvenir stamp on the backside. He asked for a dollar. Simon took a $5 bill from his wallet and showed him the two pictures of Barney Amling and Verna Castle. The boy started to back away but the five dollars had magnetic quality.

“Did you take these two pictures?” Simon asked.

“I’m not sure,” Phillipe stammered. “Another guy works on my nights off.”

“I’ve never known an artist who couldn’t recognize his own work,” Simon said. “How old are you? Sixteen? That’s under age. Where’s your work permit?”

“Hey,” Phillipe protested, “what are you? A cop?”

“I’m a lawyer. Sometimes I’m a mean lawyer and I can cause you a lot of trouble if you want it that way. If you don’t, you can tell me why you took these pictures.”

“For money,” Phillipe said.

“Whose money? Anyone can see the people in these shots didn’t know they were being photographed. They aren’t even looking at the camera. What’s more, they didn’t buy the pictures because I have them. Who did buy them?”

Phillipe began to gnaw on his lower lip. “I can’t remember,” he said.

“Sixteen,” Simon reflected. “Maybe only fifteen and a half. Do you know Kevin Amling?”

A convincing lie took more practice than Phillipe had lived long enough to achieve. He tried again to back away but Simon’s hand fastened on his wrist. “You do know Kevin,” he said. “Where is he?”

“I don’t know. Home, I guess.”

“You’re lying.”

“Please, mister. The boss is watching. I have to circulate.”

“Kevin!” Simon said sharply.

“I’m not sure where he is. He works here in the kitchen sometimes. Maybe he’s there now.”

Simon let go of the boy’s wrist and pushed the $5 bill into his hand. “Now that we’ve established where Kevin is,” he said, “I want you to tell him that Simon Drake will be waiting for him in the parking-lot in five minutes. If you don’t, I’ll see that you never work in this place again.”

Simon hated to come on so heavy with the boy but it was the only way to get results. He finished his drink, ignored the dinner and pocketed the photos. That left just enough time to pay the bill and keep his date with Kevin.

It was cold on the parking-lot. The wind whipping in off the sea was as sharp as a rapist’s knife. Simon turned up the collar of his coat and buttoned it to the throat. The boys working on the lot were stamping their feet and rubbing their hands together to keep their fingers limber. One of them approached Simon and requested his parking ticket.

“I’m waiting for someone,” Simon said, “but that’s my car parked about thirty feet from here and I can still walk that far even if I don’t look it. I’ll give you the ticket and your tip if you give me the keys. Then you can crawl back into one of those warm sedans and listen to the radio.” It wasn’t customary but for a dollar tip the boy complied. “You can also tell me where to find the service entrance to this place,” Simon added.

Simon pocketed the car keys and followed the boy’s directions to the rear of the building. A stack of metal garbage cans glinted coldly under the floodlight above the door. The door was closed. Watching for it to open, he heard the stacatto roar of a motor bike being gunned into mobility somewhere in the shadows beyond the light. The solitary eye of a single headlamp split the darkness as the bike lunged forward, and Simon caught a glimpse of a yellow vinyl jacket and a gold helmet. The bike swerved, spluttered and skidded over on its side. The motor was still howling when he pulled the rider free.