by Keith Miles
My hands were still tied behind my back and my feet were bare. My head was pounding, my muscles aching and my stomach knotted. I was hardly in a fit state to meet my Maker.
I went up the narrow staircase, out on to the deck. Bright sunshine threw dazzling patterns on to the green water. Blue sky stretched all around us. There wasn’t another craft in sight.
The swarthy young man was in the stern, resting on one knee. When I saw what he was doing, my lungs broke out in armed rebellion against me. There were three large buckets on the deck, each filled with solid concrete. He was patiently threading a chain through the handles. Evidently, it would be wound around me as well.
It was not an appealing way to take my leave of the world. I wondered if I was to be shot first. Or would they simply rely on three buckets of cement and the law of gravity?
I was pushed into the stern and made to stand by the rail. The chain made an ugly, rasping noise as it was twisted once more around the handles and I tensed myself to feel its weighted coldness against my skin.
Then another sound intruded. A helicopter.
Both men reacted in surprise and I clutched my opportunity with tied hands. As the sailor turned away to look upward, I put my foot in the small of his back and pushed hard. Before the young man could grab me, I dived overboard into the surging water, kicking hard with my feet and trying to stay submerged for as long as possible.
The sailor was vindictive. As soon as I surfaced, he fired vengefully at me and the bullets sent up tiny waves all around me. I went under again and used my legs to go even further from the yacht. The water was less than warm and the current was strong but I had no quibble to make. An unscheduled dip with my hands tied was a big advance on a downward plunge with three buckets of cement.
More shots were fired when I came back up for air but they were all off-target. I heard the engine start up again and was caught in the wake as the propeller churned the water. At first I thought they were beating a hasty retreat. When I floated on my back and stole a glance at the yacht, however, I saw that my executioners had decided on a more effective way to kill me.
Taking the craft in a wide circle, they brought it back with the clear intention of slicing right into me. I had no defence against them except another dive in the hope that I could get beneath the hull. My sodden clothes were an added handicap. They restricted my movements and clung coldly to my body. Even in a swimming costume, it would not be easy to avoid the approaching yacht. Dressed and unable to use my hands, I was going to need a lot of luck and determination. Timing would be crucial.
I lifted my head to watch the craft bearing down on me. Its prow was high in the water as it cleaved its way forward at top speed. Creating a white spray, it closed in on its target. I waited until the last possible moment and then dived, kicking frantically with my bare feet to send myself down. The hull raked past me with only inches to spare and the propeller all but touched me. Turbulence was overwhelming and I lost all control. I simply held my breath, closed my eyes and waited until I eventually bobbed back to the surface.
The effort had taken virtually all my strength and I knew that I could not repeat the manoeuvre. As the yacht turned in a circle for a second attack, I steeled myself for the impact. All I could do was to float on the surface. I was, literally, a sitting duck.
My enemies were not able to take advantage.
When the craft was forty yards or more from me, shots rang out in earnest. The helicopter had its own firepower. It was coming in fast and the two men decided to put self-preservation before the minor chore of killing me. Veering off to the right, they took the yacht in a mad dash across the open sea.
The waves created by the sudden change of direction swamped me and sent me under. I came up spluttering to find that the helicopter was now hovering above me. There was a splat as a self-inflating rubber dinghy landed in the water nearby; then a man was winched down on a cable. When he got into the dinghy, it was a matter of seconds before he’d paddled to me and hauled me out of the drink. A sharp knife cut through the rope that held my hands and I rubbed at the pain in my wrists.
I’d swallowed more than my fair share of the Pacific Ocean but I was still able to gurgle my thanks. It was the first time in my life that I’d been glad to see a policeman.
As soon as the man was safely in the dinghy, the helicopter had swung away to give chase and I wondered if we were going to have to paddle all the way back to Marina del Rey. My question was soon answered. Two high-powered police launches appeared on the horizon. While one turned off in the direction taken by the yacht, the other headed towards us with shrill urgency. It reduced its speed when it got close and floated alongside.
Patch Nelms reached over to lift me bodily into the stern of the craft. My rescuer climbed aboard as well and secured his dinghy. I lay on the deck like the day’s catch, dripping all over and with just enough vestigial strength to twitch. As the launch set off again, Victor Salgado looked at me with undiluted amusement.
‘Well done!’
‘What for, Lieutenant?’ I murmured.
‘Leading us right to ’em.’
‘Is that what I did?’
‘Sort of,’ he explained. ‘Orgaz got the number of the automobile that took you away from that car lot. We traced it to Marina del Rey. Checked on all the craft that’d set sail. One of ’em belonged to Rutherford Fucking Kallgren.’
‘Kallgren?’
‘Yeah. Vain bastard. Puts his insignia on every goddam thing he owns. Probably had it tattoed on his wife’s ass so he’s got something to look at when she goes down on him.’ He chuckled at his own joke. ‘His vanity saved you. That yacht was not only flying the Kallgren flag. Had his fucking logo painted on the top of it. Dozens of boats had seen it. We got a fix and came running.’
‘How you feeling?’ asked Nelms.
‘Wet.’
‘You did great.’
‘Thanks.’
‘Know something?’ added Salgado.
‘What, Lieutenant?’
‘We’ll make a fucking cop outa you yet.’
The threat was enough to send me into a dead faint.
***
Orgaz worked his wonders with the management yet again. When I walked barefoot into the motel with a blanket wrapped around my still soaking clothes, he soothed them with a few words and guided me to my room. I unlocked the door, then held Orgaz back as he tried to follow me in.
‘I like my privacy,’ I insisted.
‘Lieutenant says I gotta stick close.’
‘I need a shower.’
‘You take a leak, I’m supposed to hold it for you.’
‘Give me fifteen minutes.’
‘Okay,’ he agreed reluctantly. ‘But I’ll be right here.’
He sat on the floor and leaned against the jamb.
I locked the door after me, then went straight to the bathroom to run a shower. After stripping and sluicing myself off, I towelled thoroughly and put on the clothes I’d worn on the last day of the tournament. Since my only surviving footwear was still on the yacht, I had to remove the studs from my golf shoes and put those on.
I checked the time. Seven minutes before Orgaz started tapping at the door. It was enough to give me a head start. I opened the window as quietly as possible and stepped through it. Keeping low past the other windows, I made it to the road, then sprinted to the indoor car park. Fortunately, the ignition key had survived my dip in the Pacific.
I got into the Honda and drove away.
The yacht had been overhauled by the police and the two men taken into custody. Salgado and Nelms had gone off to interview Kallgren and I’d been asked to change before being taken back to headquarters by Orgaz. But I refused to be cut out of the action altogether. There was one person I was determined to confront myself.
Phil
Reiner. The quiet man was going to hear noise.
Somehow he was connected with the death of Zuke Everett, the murder of Mardie Cutler and the attempted drowning of Alan Saxon. I wanted to get to him before the police. He was mine.
The Bel Air Hotel is situated in a residential neighbourhood that translates into block after block of superb mansions. I went down Stone Canyon Road, then turned into the hotel car park. As I hurried away from the Honda, I noted the leisured elegance about the place, with its feel of a country villa. It was very stylish.
Clive Phelps had given the Bel Air a five-star rating on the strength of one of its waitresses but it was important to me because of one of its guests. Phil Reiner. Staying there while his new lord and master was footing the bill. Living on blood money.
When I got to the desk, the receptionist told me that Reiner was in his room. Spurning the lift, I went up the carpeted stairs as fast as my tired legs would carry me. On the second floor, I turned down a wide corridor and strode quickly along until I found the room that I was after.
I knocked firmly on the door. There was no reply. I knocked much harder and called out.
‘Reiner! Open up!’
A surprised voice came at me through the timber.
‘Who is it?’
‘Alan Saxon. I want to speak to you.’
‘It’s not convenient just now, Al.’
‘Let me in.’
‘I’ll come down to the lobby in a while.’
‘Let me in!’ I demanded, banging on the door.
‘Take it easy!’
‘Well, hurry up in there!’
‘Okay, okay,’ he appeased. ‘I’m coming.’
The door was unlocked, then opened six inches. Phil Reiner peered tentatively around it. He was wearing a bathrobe and had a towel around his neck. I’d never seen him without his gold-framed spectacles before. He seemed much younger.
‘I was taking a bath,’ he explained.
‘I’ve just taken one myself. In the Pacific.’
I pushed past him and walked into the middle of the room. Its size and opulence were striking. It made my own accommodation look like a broom cupboard with social pretensions.
‘What the hell is this?’ he asked angrily.
‘I’m sure you can guess, Phil.’
‘Alan, you’d better have a damn good reason for forcing your way in here.’
‘Try this for size. Kallgren tried to have me killed today. He hired two men to take me out on his yacht and help me to explore the ocean bed with a bucket of cement in each hand.’
‘You’re out of your skull!’
‘While I was in the cabin on Kallgren’s yacht, I heard your dulcet tones on the answering machine.’ The information startled him. ‘Am I still out of my skull?’
‘No,’ he admitted. ‘I did ring Mr. Kallgren a couple of days ago when he was out sailing. But only to fix up dinner.’
‘A celebration, you said.’
‘Well, yes.’
‘What were you celebrating? Zuke Everett’s murder?’
‘I find that remark in very bad taste!’
‘I wasn’t too struck with a remark of yours, Phil.’
‘Mine?’
‘On the last day of the tournament. Just as I was leaving Golden Haze. You told me that Howie Danzig would have lost out even if Zuke had lived.’
‘So?’
‘That proved you were in on the whole thing.’
‘What whole thing? This is crazy!’
‘You knew that Zuke was all set to join the Kallgren stable, didn’t you? That’s why his manager would have lost out. Zuke’d had secret negotiations and was about to sell out. Then he did something that was quite unforgivable.’
‘Go on.’
‘He changed his mind. After that marvellous third round, Zuke decided that he could play his way out of trouble, after all. Given the chance. But he wasn’t, was he?’
‘Get to the point, Alan.’
‘The police thought at first that he might have been murdered by mistake. That the killer was really after me. It was dark and we do look alike. But Zuke was definitely the target that night in his garden. He had to be punished for obeying his instincts.’
‘Instincts?’
‘When it came to the crunch, Zuke just couldn’t sell his soul to a man like Kallgren. His instincts were against it. So would mine have been. Zuke and I were similar in that respect as well, you see. We both loved the game for its own sake and loathed the idea of the sharks moving in on it.’
‘Kallgren is not a shark,’ he said defensively.
‘Why did you team up with him, Phil?’
‘That’s my business.’
‘You’re in this up to your neck, aren’t you? I bet you couldn’t believe your luck when Zuke was snuffed out. Just in time to let you romp home to win that tournament.’
‘That’s one hell of an accusation!’ he protested.
‘Oh, I can do a lot better than that.’
‘I think it’s time you left, Alan.’
‘Shall I tell you how I see it?’ I persisted. ‘Zuke Everett told Kallgren what he could do with his offer and that’s why he got himself killed.’
A smooth voice behind me took my breath away.
‘I hope you have a very good lawyer, Mr. Saxon.’
Rutherford Kallgren had come in from the bathroom. He was wearing a dressing gown. In that single moment of recognition, all sorts of things were explained. About Phil Reiner and his excessive love of privacy. About Kallgren and his meticulousness. I now understood why the golfer had signed up with his new management.
It all came as a complete shock to me and I was left with egg on my face. Kallgren walked over to stand in front of me.
‘Let’s take it from the top, shall we?’ he said, calmly.
My rage cut straight through my embarrassment.
‘You planted Mardie Cutler on Zuke.’
‘I went along with the idea,’ he conceded, easily. ‘Why not? It was useful to have someone in the house keeping tabs on him. All’s fair in love and business.’
‘Even murder?’
‘Believe it or not, I do draw the line at that.’
‘Then what happened to Zuke and Mardie—a suicide pact?’
‘You’re way out of line here!’ urged Reiner.
Kallgren was placid. ‘Let him finish, Phil.’
‘When Zuke pulled out of his deal, you had him killed. Because Mardie was an integral part of it all, she had to be removed as well. Today it was my turn.’
Rutherford Kallgren subjected me to his sardonic gaze. When he finally spoke, there was a subdued fury in his modulated voice.
‘I have my blemishes, Mr. Saxon,’ he confessed. ‘Which of us doesn’t? But I do not shit on my own doorstep. I spent years dreaming about Golden Haze and more years building it. Do you think I wanted a dead body lying all over my inaugural tournament? Do you imagine that Tom Bellinghaus enjoyed having blood on those nice new greens of his? Zuke Everett was a fool. I offered him a great deal and he reneged on it. That might’ve hurt me but it didn’t make me kill him.’
It sounded uncomfortably convincing. He rolled on.
‘As for Mardie Cutler, my wife adored that girl. Greta was heartbroken when she heard the news. Okay, Mardie was useful to us. Indirectly. Where’s the harm in that? But she was also a friend of my wife. I was not involved in her death in any way.’
‘What about today?’ I challenged.
‘Today?’
‘Those men on your yacht.’
‘I’ll be most interested to know who they are,’ he returned. ‘As Phil told you, I was on my yacht a couple of days ago but I haven’t been near it since. As a matter of fact, it was on loa
n.’
‘On loan?’
‘To one of my senior executives.’
The name sprang from my lips at once.
‘Suzanne Fricker?’
‘She asked if she could have the use of it.’
Evidence which had consistently pointed to Kallgren now transferred to her and was far more damning. She had motive, means and opportunity. Suzanne Fricker was the person behind it all.
A Barbie doll with a killer instinct.
‘Would you get the hell out of my room now!’ said Reiner.
I shuffled my feet and hunched my shoulders in token apology. Having gone into the room with guns blazing, all I’d managed to do was to inflict a few wounds on myself. I’d disturbed them during an intimate moment to level wild charges at them. They were both deeply angry.
I shielded my embarrassment behind a long silence and drifted towards the door. The two of them stared impassively at me. Kallgren then took control with aplomb.
‘I think we should forget what happened in this room.’
‘Fair enough,’ I agreed.
‘Alan Saxon never actually came here.’
The bargain was struck. In exchange for my discretion, I was being spared any legal repercussions. My stupidity would remain hidden from public gaze and so would their relationship.
‘For the record,’ Kallgren added. ‘My wife does know.’
‘Know what?’ I asked, blankly.
He nodded his approval. I would say nothing.
‘Goodbye, Al,’ said Reiner.
‘Goodbye, Mr. Saxon. Catch an early plane home, won’t you?’
I went swiftly out of the room and pulled the door behind me. The egg on my face had thickened now but I didn’t mind that. I now had overwhelming proof that Suzanne Fricker was the real murderer.
She had chosen the buckets of cement for me.
I used a public telephone at the hotel to try her office number. Her secretary told me that she was at home, then gave me some advice on how I could best drive there from the Bel Air Hotel. I was on the move immediately. With no time to appreciate the beautiful gardens, I ran to the Honda, jumped in and accelerated away. The drive to her apartment block gave me time to compose my thoughts.
