Aces and Knaves

by Alan Cook

  My mind went back to what James had said. Could I believe him? If he wasn't Ned's murderer, who was? Maybe I could find out more by working for him. If there was anything to find out. But it would give me a purpose in working for James.

  I went over the top of the hill and down the other side. After a while the road became less steep. A car drove slowly past me and stopped some distance ahead, in a driveway, since the legal parking places were filled. The driver got out and came up on the sidewalk. He stood there in the dark. I would have to walk past him.

  I thought about Ned. Was this man a mugger? No, Ned was killed by the gangbangers. Still, mugging was always a possibility. Did muggers drive late-model German cars? Only if they had stolen them.

  I had to make a decision about turning around or crossing the street. Then I recognized Stan. Or thought I did. He moved and a ray from a streetlight shone on his face. It was definitely Stan.

  As I approached he said, "Why are you walking? Let me give you a ride."

  "Did you follow me?" I asked.

  "I saw your car at the house after you left. I figured maybe you had car trouble and decided to walk rather than bother us. I knew your approximate route because I drove you back to your hotel before. So I took a chance. At first I didn't recognize you because the parked cars blocked my view. Then I got a good look at you in the rear-view mirror."

  "I'm walking on purpose," I said. "There's nothing wrong with my car."

  "But how will you get your car?"

  "I'll pick it up in the morning."

  "Well, I've come this far so let me take you to your hotel. It's dangerous to walk this late at night."

  He had a point. Suddenly, I felt very tired. I got in the car when he opened the door. As he started it I said, "Nice car. Is it yours?"

  "Of course. Whose did you think it was?"

  "When you drove me back to the hotel before, I guess I somehow assumed it belonged to James."

  "Why should I drive his car when I can afford my own? With Tartan stock doing so well I've made a ton of money on my options. You will too. Didn't James talk to you about stock options?"

  "He mentioned them." It hadn't occurred to me that working for James might actually make me rich. Or that all the young men who worked for him were rolling in money. But it made sense. I looked at Stan with new eyes. "Why are you living in his house, then?"

  "It's a nice place to live. Better than an apartment. Cheaper, too, since I don't pay rent. But I could afford to pay rent if I wanted. Or even buy a house."

  Stupid question. My suspicions about Stan and James must be correct.

  "Did James invite you to the team-building exercise over the weekend?" Stan asked.

  "He mentioned it and said I was invited. I'm going to talk to him tomorrow to get more details about my job, but perhaps you can tell me what that's all about. Team-building. It sounds like spring football practice."

  "It's definitely along the same lines. James believes in teamwork. We all have to trust each other, work together, fit together like cogs so that the company runs like a well-oiled machine. That sort of thing. We climb cliffs and belay each other with ropes. Stuff like that. You're an outdoor person, anyway, so you'll enjoy it."

  Chapter 33 CLIFFHANGER

  So my first official duties with Tartan Enterprises consisted of running off into the wilderness with Stan and some of the other men who worked for James. James didn't come with us. I guess he was too old and too smart to participate.

  Actually, Pinnacles National Monument isn't wilderness, exactly, but it does have a lot of jagged rocks. And we were supposed to climb some of them to prove we could trust each other. The only rock climbing I had done had been on a wall in a gym with a very secure rope holding me, but I figured if the others could do it I could.

  A dozen of us had carpooled to Pinnacles in three vans from San Francisco on Friday evening. Before that I had spent two days at home, gathering some essentials together to be shipped to San Francisco. James had said I could use his guest bedroom for a couple of weeks until I got my feet on the ground. He mentioned that several of his employees might need roommates and that I could probably share an apartment with one of them. I hoped they weren't all gay.

  I had spoken briefly to my father to try to make peace with him. I think he believed me when I said I hadn't tried to get Elma to switch her proxy, but it was obvious he couldn't understand why I was going to work for James. I told him that when I learned enough I might work for him. And perhaps I would.

  I had said goodbye to Emerge and to Esther. I had explained to Esther why I was moving to San Francisco—perhaps over-explained because I didn't want to hurt her. She had accepted my explanations and said I should do what was best for me. Not to worry about her. She would be fine. She cried a little.

  But I had realized for some time that I could never marry her and this was a convenient time to break off the relationship. It wasn't fair to her if I continued to use her for my own selfish purposes. She deserved a chance at happiness.

  The Tartan crew camped out in tents and sleeping bags and awoke early Saturday morning to bracing temperatures and hot chocolate. After we had eaten pancakes cooked over Coleman stoves and buried in maple syrup the world didn't look bad at all. Stan, who was apparently our leader, started giving directions. He split us up into pairs.

  My partner was Jed, who had been in the same van with me. I had seen him once in the casino, working as a croupier at the craps table. I wasn't sure I wanted to trust my life to him just because he knew all the bets you can make with a pair of dice, but when he stripped down to a T-shirt I saw that he was quite muscular and my confidence in him grew.

  Jed had been here before and he picked a relatively easy climb for us to start on.

  "Since you're new at this it will give you a chance to get your feet wet," he said. "First, I'll belay you from the top while you make the climb and then we'll reverse positions. We'll have a chance to build up confidence in each other so we can go on to something tougher."

  "I guess you never know when you might have to climb up the side of a building in the business world," I said. "Is that part of being a corporate raider?"

  Jed smiled and said, "Listen, Karl, I don't agree with everything that I have to do, either, but you learn to roll with it. Especially when the stock is going up. James gets a bug in his ear about team-building about every six months. So just relax and enjoy it. Let me show you how to tie a bowline."

  We had a rope that I wrapped around my waist. I felt like a sailor as I put a loop in the rope, took the end and passed it through, then around the rope and back through the loop again. A bowline wasn't hard to tie, but once tied it didn't come undone. My confidence grew another notch.

  Fortunately, the rock we were climbing had a walking path up the back of it. Only one side was steep. I watched a couple of the other guys climb the route first. I noticed where they placed their hands and feet and how they used their centers of gravity to bind them to the rock rather than tear them away from it.

  I didn't have any special climbing shoes. I wore my running shoes, but we weren't supposed to tackle anything difficult enough to require advanced equipment.

  When it was our turn, Jed walked up to the top and lowered one end of the rope to me. I tied the bowline securely around my waist and called up to him, "Belay on."

  Jed pulled the rope taut from above and I gingerly started looking and feeling for the footholds and handholds the others had used.

  I slipped when I was just a few feet above the ground, but Jed held me easily before I had fallen six inches. Knowing that I was safe made me bolder and soon I was using cracks for footholds that I wouldn't have trusted with my weight before.

  I received some coaching from several others and after 20 strenuous minutes I climbed over the last pitch and onto the relatively flat surface at the top, fifty feet above the ground.

  Jed sat there with his feet firmly braced against a large rock, hauling in the rope, which went ar
ound his body.

  "Good job," he said. "Now you can belay me. Remember, if I fall you hold my weight with the hand gripping the end of the rope that has gone around your body. That gives you a mechanical advantage and all the work is done by your legs, which contain your strongest muscles."

  "Sounds logical to me," I said. "If you're willing to trust me I'm willing to trust myself."

  I sat where Jed had sat, with my legs firmly braced and the rope around me. He pulled on it a few times until I became confident that I could hold his weight. Then he walked down to the bottom and made the climb while I belayed him. He did it without falling, for which I was thankful.

  Later in the morning we made another climb, somewhat tougher than the first one. I slipped once, but Jed held me and I made it to the top with muscles straining.

  The picnic-style lunch wasn't bad. It turned out that several of the guys were pretty good cooks and they whipped up potato salad and sandwiches. The banter was what you would expect from young men, ribald jokes, talk about sex. I got the impression that most of them were straight, sexually speaking. It shouldn't be too bad rooming with one of them. They joked about James, too, but they all seemed to respect his business acumen.

  I had about decided that I should fit into this group without much of a problem. After lunch we did two more climbs, with about the same difficulty level as the second one we had done in the morning. We were resting in the shade and watching others climb when Stan appeared.

  "Karl," he said, heartily, slapping me on the back, "I hear you're a natural rock climber, a regular mountain goat."

  "Not quite," I said. "I think I'm a bit too big to make this a career. The more compact guys seem to have an advantage."

  Stan, who qualified as one of the more compact guys, said, "In some ways, yes. Perhaps in balance, as an example. But with your long arms and legs you have an advantage in reaching for handholds and footholds. I know an interesting climb I'd like you to try. Come with me; I'll be your partner."

  "I'm not sure I'm up for another one," I said. "I'm discovering muscles I never knew I had. And they are rebelling against having to support my weight with my knees constantly bent and my body in awkward positions I've never been in before."

  "Not even when having sex? Well, just let me show it to you. If you don't feel up to it you don't have to do it."

  Stan said this with enough of an edge in his voice so that if I refused it might be interpreted as weakness on my part. Since I was the new guy I had to be careful. I got up slowly—I did have sore muscles—and followed him along the stony path that led between the rocky pinnacles that gave the monument its name.

  After ten minutes of ups and downs and having to watch my step, I said, "You must know this place pretty well."

  "Well enough," Stan replied. "This is my fifth trip. But take heart. We're almost there."

  Something had been bothering me about Stan for several days, but it had remained fuzzy. The uneasy feeling came back to me now that I was alone with him. It had started on the street in San Francisco—when he had picked me up in his BMW. That was it. It had to do with the knowledge that Stan had made a lot of money with Tartan stock options.

  The cliff he stopped in front of was higher than anything I'd tackled so far. The slope at the bottom wasn't so bad, but it became almost vertical at the top. As I mentally gauged the difficulty I felt tired just thinking about doing it.

  "It isn't as bad as it looks," Stan said. "In fact, the bottom part is no harder than anything you've already done. If you don't want to do the top part, just tell me and I'll lower you back down."

  If anybody else had suggested I attempt this I probably would have refused, but for some reason with Stan I thought I had to prove something. Maybe it would give me an edge over him if I made it to the top. Maybe it was his suggestion that I couldn't do it that gave me determination. I decided to prove him wrong.

  As with some of the other rocks, there was an easy walking route to the top. Stan followed that and lowered the rope to me. By now I was an expert at tying bowlines. I pulled the loop snug around my waist and called, "On belay."

  If anything, the first part proved to be easier than the rocks I had already climbed. I temporarily forgot my aches and went about the business of climbing. I didn't have to worry because Stan was belaying me from above.

  I saw another mental picture of Stan: talking about how much James had liked Ned. Stan had acted—what? Jealous? Could Stan have been jealous of Ned? Jealous of the fact that James and Ned had known each other all their lives. That Ned might again assume a major role in the life of James?

  I concentrated on my climbing and made it to the vertical pitch in just a few minutes. But there I got stuck.

  I stood on a narrow ledge, with two decent handholds, so I wasn't in immediate danger. I searched the rock wall with my eyes, looking for additional handholds and footholds. Letting go with one hand at a time, I carefully felt along the rough surface, trying to detect cracks that I couldn't see because I had to keep my head close to the cliff face for balance.

  A rock projected out from the face above me and just within my reach, but it was below an overhang. Even if I had been strong enough to pull myself up onto it I couldn't have kept my balance.

  I also couldn't climb down. The irony of rock climbing is that you can climb up pitches that you could never climb down.

  "How are you doing down there? You haven't moved for a while."

  Stan's voice wasn't far above me. We were close enough to converse easily, even though I couldn't see him. Another picture came to me, the picture of the gangbanger called Rabbit giving me Stan's name. It all fit together now. I had thought James had ordered Ned's murder, but I had been wrong. Stan had paid to have Ned killed, not James. Stan had the money and he had the motive.

  "I can't move. You'd better lower me down." I tried to keep any hint of panic out of my voice.

  "You've almost made it. It would be a shame to stop now. I know the holds are there. You stay where you are. I'll go back down and spot the holds for you. I have a small pair of binoculars."

  "Stan, don't go off belay. I can't stand here much longer." The palms of my hands were suddenly wet with sweat. I couldn't hold onto the rock with slippery hands.

  "It'll just take me a minute to get to the bottom. Belay off."

  I pressed my body against the face of the rock. One small shift of my weight would throw me off balance. That hadn't bothered me when I felt secure, but now my body became my enemy. My left leg started to tremble from having to support my weight in an awkward position. I tried to picture myself glued to the rock and to wipe out all other thoughts.

  It was probably no more than a minute, although it seemed much longer, when I heard Stan's voice below me. I very cautiously bent my head and looked down. A wave of vertigo made me quickly raise my head. It was a long way to the bottom and there were jagged rocks below me.

  "Karl," Stan called, "I'm looking for holds. Don't see too many. I guess you're right about that. The route you should have followed is more to the left, away from the overhang."

  "Too late now," I said. "Please get the hell back up here and lower me down."

  "I don't think so."

  "What!"

  "This is part of your initiation. You have to find your own way down."

  "Bullshit! That's fucking bullshit! Get your ass up here."

  "Relax, Karl. You don't want to panic. I'm sure you can do it. At least I'm giving you a chance. That's more than Ned had."

  "What does Ned have to do with it? Get up here!"

  "I couldn't give Ned a chance. He was moving in on my territory. He and James were too buddy-buddy; they went back too far together."

  "You paid to have Ned killed." It was more of a statement than a question.

  "Of course. What better way to utilize my stock-option gains than to ensure that I'll remain top dog with James."

  "Stan, you're sick. We can get help for you."

  "Not too sick to k
now that you're also trying to horn in on my territory. Horn in, get it? Even staying in the house with James. I was going to shoot you the other night when I followed you, but I decided that was too desperate; I would have been caught. But an accident...that could happen to anybody."

  "You can't get away with it."

  "Of course I can. I'm going back to the campsite now. I'll say that we got separated, but that you are an experienced outdoor person and can find your way back. When it's time to leave and you haven't shown up I'll volunteer to stay behind and look for you—along with a couple of others for witnesses. We'll locate your body before dark. You tried to climb a cliff by yourself and fell."

  I started to say something about the rope tied around my waist being incriminating evidence, but stopped. Stan had left the other end of the rope at the top of the cliff and I didn't want him going up there again if he wasn't going to help me.

  I argued with him, but I heard his voice getting farther away. I cautiously looked down and saw him moving along the trail. He would be out of sight in a minute.

  Chapter 34 STANDOFF

  I had to act now. I carefully pulled on the rope with my right hand where it snaked up the cliff. It didn't move. I pulled a little harder. If I had to jerk it I would lose my balance. Still no movement. I didn't have any margin for error. I tugged again. It moved a little. At least it wasn't wedged between two rocks.

  I slowly pulled it down, foot by foot. I wanted to coil it over my left shoulder, but to do this I had to take my left hand off the cliff momentarily for each coil. I pressed my right shoulder against the cliff and found I could still use my right hand to make each loop and keep my balance.

  It was tedious work and I was losing strength rapidly. In addition, although the rope was light, its weight changed my balance as I coiled more and more of it around my left shoulder.

  If I went too fast I would lose my balance. If I went too slowly I would lose my strength and then my balance. My leg trembled continuously now. My whole body was drenched in sweat.