The Case of the Murdered MacKenzie: A Masao Masuto Mystery (Book Seven) (16 page)

“You got to be crazy, Masao. Let's go in there together.”

“I'm not crazy and I don't think anything's going to happen and I think they'll be as polite as punch. So just do as I say, Sy. Wait an hour and then drive up there, which will give me thirty or forty minutes with Mr. Soames.”

Downstairs, the city mechanic was leaning against Masuto's borrowed Ford. “I been waiting for you, Sergeant,” he said. “There are three places they're likely to put a bomb, under the hood—” he raised the engine hood “—here or here. Mostly they don't trigger it to the hood, but to the ignition, but even so, I'd raise the hood very slow, looking for wires.” He then got down on his knees and pointed under the car. “Place number two—right there under your seat. And place number three, back there against the gas tank. Then you really go out in a blaze of glory. You know what I would do if I were in your shoes, Sergeant?”

“Tell me.”

“You know, the people in the mob, they live with this kind of thing, so they developed a piece of mechanism small enough to fit in your pocket. You can stand a hundred feet from your car and turn on the ignition. You can buy it for forty-five bucks downtown in Meyer's Hardware, and if you ask me, the department ought to pay for it.”

It had never occurred to Masuto that one could live like this for a lifetime. He thanked the mechanic and drove off. An hour later he was on the approach road to the Fenwick Works.

Begun forty years ago by Lyson Fenwick, who owned some four thousand acres of the hills to the east of Malibu Beach, the Fenwick Works was devoted at first to his dream of a plane with vertical takeoff. After Fenwick's death, the direction of the plant was switched to esoteric guidance systems, bombsights, and target-seeking missiles. The plant, a complex of white stone buildings, was situated on a high bluff, overlooking the Pacific in one direction and the canyons of the coastal range on the other. The approach road, twisting up toward the plant, reminded Masuto of pictures of medieval castles, and the twelve-foot-high chain link fence that surrounded the place and the two ten-foot guardposts that flanked the gates did nothing to lessen the feeling. Two men, dressed in the gray uniforms of private guards, each of them armed with a holstered pistol, stopped his car and asked, very politely, what his business might be.

He identified himself and said that he wished to see Mr. Soames.

“Do you have an appointment?”

“I'm afraid not.”

“You're a long way from Beverly Hills,” the other guard said.

“Suppose you call Mr. Soames and tell him I'm here.”

The two guards stared at him, their faces blank. There are no intelligence tests for armed guards, and Masuto could almost follow their laborious attempt to figure out which would bring them the good conduct medals, roughing him up and turning him away or calling Soames's assistant, since Soames was beyond their level of direct approach. They decided for the latter and used the telephone, and then they opened the gate and told Masuto, “The big building on the left. Just park opposite and go in. Someone will meet you. Pin this on your lapel.” He handed Masuto a badge while the other guard stuck a card on the Ford's windshield.

Masuto parked his car in the paved area opposite the big building that formed the center of the complex, and then he walked toward the entrance. As he approached the double doors, they opened and a pretty, young blond woman stepped out, smiled, and informed him that he was Sergeant Masuto. Masuto agreed with her conclusion, and nodded.

“I'm Marion Phelps, Mr. Soames's secretary. He asked me to escort you to his office.”

“That's very thoughtful of him,” Masuto said.

“Mr. Soames is a very thoughtful man.”

That ended their conversation. They entered the building, where Miss Phelps smiled at an armed guard who sat at a table covered with lights that blinked on and off, panels of switches, and two telephones; and then they turned to the left and went through a pair of glass doors into a room furnished in what might be called industrial modern: leather and metal chairs and couches, chrome, and polished stainless steel.

“If you will wait here just a moment,” Miss Phelps said.

Masuto remained standing, and it was no more than a minute until Soames appeared. He was absolutely genial. He shook hands with Masuto. “Glad you finally turned up,” he said. “I consider it an experience. Your reputation goes before you.”

“We have reopened the Mackenzie case,” Masuto said with stiff formality.

Soames looked at his watch. He was one of those large, good-looking men who had learned and mastered all the gradations and inflections of graciousness, and who knew how and when to use them. “It's twelve-forty,” he said. “I usually don't lunch until one, but I'm sure you're hungry, Sergeant, and it gives us time for one drink. We have our own dining room here, and I don't think I'm boasting when I say that we set the best table in southern California.”

“I'm sure you do,” Masuto agreed, “and I'm most grateful. But I have luncheon plans, so why don't we use the twenty minutes to talk.”

Soames regarded him thoughtfully before he said, “As you wish. My office is through this door.”

The office was large but not opulent. If anything, it was, Masuto decided, expensively severe. On the desk, no pictures of wife or child, and on the walls, large abstract paintings in tones of blue and gray. A controlled man, a man who never let the situation get out of hand. There would be no anger today, no rage, no raised voices.

“Please sit down, Sergeant,” Soames said. “Do you smoke? I have excellent Cubans, Romeo and Juliet, if you're a cigar smoker. Or a cigarette?”

“Thank you. I don't smoke.”

“And I am sure that you'd refuse a drink. Ascetics have always puzzled me.”

“I'm not an ascetic. I don't drink on duty.”

“Of course. Then it's not a part of being a Zen Buddhist?”

Masuto smiled. “Did you have me investigated, Mr. Soames? Do you also know my tastes in travel and women?”

“In any area that concerns us, we inform ourselves.”

“Yes, I am sure. But since your time is limited, could we get to the substance of what brought me here?”

“Of course.”

“You know who David Pringle is?”

“Yes. Of course. He's a theatrical lawyer who took care of poor Eve's affairs.”

“I spoke to him this morning. He told me a number of things that confirmed my own conclusions. Mine were simply conclusions from scanty evidence. He spoke of what he knew. He told me that the dead man in the bathtub in the Mackenzie home was not the Mackenzie you employ but his twin brother.”

“Oh?”

“You don't appear surprised. But of course you knew that.”

“What else did Mr. Pringle tell you?”

“That you offered Mrs. Mackenzie fifty thousand dollars not to reveal this and to accept an indictment and trial. And incidentally, if anything happens to Mr. Pringle—well, let me simply say that we will find the perpetrator.”

“That's rather dramatic, isn't it, Sergeant?”

“Did you know the body was not Robert Mackenzie?”

“Yes, we knew.”

“Where was Mr. Mackenzie?”

“He was in Canada the night his brother was murdered, so he could not have been involved.”

“Where in Canada?” Masuto demanded.

“I can't tell you that.”

“Why was he in Canada?”

“I can't tell you that either. It has nothing to do with this matter.”

“I think it has.”

“That's your privilege, Sergeant.”

“Did you offer Mrs. Mackenzie fifty thousand dollars to stand trial?”

“Of course not. Think about it, Sergeant. It's absolutely absurd.”

“Then Pringle was lying?”

Soames leaned back in his chair and stared at Masuto thoughtfully. Then he spread his hands. “All right, but this is confidential, sir, on your honor as a gentleman. Anyway, the poor woman's dead. Eve Mackenzie was a hopeless alcoholic, but the kind of alcoholic who could go about things and give the appearance of being cold sober. She always moved very slowly, which gave her an appearance of great dignity. Now, she could tell her lawyer or anyone else anything, invent anything. You're not surprised?”

“I knew she was an alcoholic.”

“That answers your question.”

Masuto shook his head. “Hardly. Tell me, Mr. Soames, did you know that Robert Mackenzie's name was not Robert Mackenzie and that he was not born in Edinburgh?”

Soames looked at his watch. “Just one o'clock, Sergeant. Are you sure you won't break bread with us?”

“I think not.”

“Do you know, Sergeant,” Soames said, “a wise man knows when to stop asking questions. A wise man knows when a nuisance becomes an impediment. Don't press your luck.”

“That's not a threat, is it?”

Soames laughed. “Would I engage in threats? Sergeant, even a man so experienced as yourself falls into the trap of believing the nonsense one sees in films and on television. We don't eliminate people and we don't kill people. When I asked you not to press your luck, I simply meant that overreaching could have unpleasant consequences in terms of your employment, pension plan—that sort of thing.”

“But, you see, I am lucky. In the past three days there have been two attempts to kill me, and I survived both.”

“Yes, I know about that. I assure you, we had nothing to do with either of those stupid acts. If I should find it necessary to take some action—ah, but why talk that way? Why not let the whole thing drop? What's done is done. I think that's a good Zen position—the moment is now, and that is all that matters.”

“For action,” Masuto said. “Not for memory.”

“You refuse to lunch with us. In any case, I would like you to stay here this afternoon. There are people coming from Washington whom I would like you to meet.”

“I'm afraid not this afternoon. I have work to do.”

“I think you must stay, Sergeant. I was asked to have you here. I don't think you should make a scene. It's only for a few hours.”

The door to his office opened and two armed guards stepped into the room. At the same time, the telephone on Soames's desk rang. Soames picked up the telephone, listened, and said, “He's on his way.” Then he turned to Masuto. “You do have a way with you, Sergeant. There's an oversized man standing at our gate who claims to be a Beverly Hills detective and who is holding his gun to the throat of one of our guards, and who says that if you don't walk out of here in the next five minutes, he'll have to shoot the guard. Now, that's a little outrageous and totally uncalled for. Please get over there and put an end to it.”

The two guards escorted Masuto out more hurriedly than he had entered. He got into his car without recalling the city mechanic's advice about the bomb and drove to the gate. The gate was open. On the outside, Beckman was holding a guard by his shirt front, half off the ground, the muzzle of Beckman's revolver pressing against the underside of the man's chin. Three other guards, shotguns pointed at Beckman, stood around the two.

“Go down the road,” Beckman shouted to Masuto.

Masuto drove down to the access road, stopped, got out of his car, and turned around. Beckman shouted to the shotgun guards, “I'm taking this baby down to the main road. He can walk back from there.” He herded him into his car and then said to him, “You behave while I'm driving or I'll break your neck. I need only one hand for that.”

They had lunch at Alice's Restaurant on the Malibu Pier, two tall men, one heavy and slope-shouldered, the other slender and wiry, each noticing the other's hand still shook a bit. Beckman had a hamburger. Masuto had cold fish. It was tasteless, but then anything would have been tasteless the way he felt. He had eaten here in the past with Kati and the children. The food had always been very good.

“It's me,” he muttered, pushing the plate away.

“I know,” Beckman said, but he went on eating. “Masao, what was that all about?”

“I don't know,” Masuto said slowly. “I just don't know. I think I'm beginning to get a glimmer, and then it's turned on its head. We never had anything like this before.”

“What do you suppose they planned to do with you up there at Fenwick?”

“Nothing. I think they had some brass coming up from Washington, and they were going to put the heat on me with no holds barred. Nothing physical, but I think they felt that if they had me there, they could talk me into dropping the investigation—or maybe threaten and frighten me into it. But why? Why are they so damned eager to close the case and to make the world forget that a man was killed who was Mackenzie's twin brother?”

“Masao, who are they? Who are we up against?”

“I don't know that either. I think it's the C.I.A., and then I have to ask myself, why would the C.I.A. want me dead? I don't put it past them, but why? No, it's not that simple, and it's not just Fenwick and the C.I.A., and where's Mackenzie, who isn't Mackenzie, and I don't think he's a Scot either.”