He Huffed and He Puffed

by Barbara Paul

  So Jack had borrowed from Tony Dwyer whenever he ran a little short. But the day inevitably arrived when he was unable to pay him back. One of Jack’s friends told Pierce she’d heard Dwyer threatening to collect from Jack’s brother if he didn’t make good immediately. How much was the loan, Pierce had asked. No idea, she’d said.

  Strode thought it must have been a sizable amount. In debt and threatened with the loss of control of his own money, Jack McKinstry might have been driven to desperate measures. He could have planned the crash ahead of time, taking the controls himself and pretending something was wrong with the autopilot. It would have been tricky, leaping to safety just before the helicopter plowed into the cliff. But McKinstry was experienced in the ways of helicopters; he would have known how to time it. The one thing he hadn’t counted on was the pilot’s getting out too.

  If all that was true, it meant that Jack McKinstry had deliberately killed three of his friends to rid himself of one enemy.

  Strode was a steely man, but McKinstry’s callousness appalled him. Pierce had been unable to turn up any hard evidence that McKinstry had been paying off the pilot, but good-sized hunks of his income remained unaccounted for ever since the helicopter crash. Perhaps that was the real reason the former playboy had gone to work: to keep up the blackmail payments. The significant question was whether the seemingly good-natured Jack McKinstry was in fact cold-blooded enough to sacrifice the lives of three people he liked to get himself out of a financial hole. Strode didn’t spend much time puzzling over that; no one was ever exactly what he seemed.

  The clincher, as far as Strode was concerned, was the pilot. The man had been living in Redondo Beach ever since the so-called accident. But when Strode had sent Castleberry with his second offer for McKinstry’s House of Glass shares, McKinstry had let it slip that he knew Strode was making inquiries about the helicopter crash. That was about the same time the pilot had suddenly dropped out of sight. What a coincidence.

  But now Pierce had found him, and the man turned out to be just as corruptible today as he was four years earlier. The pilot was a lot shrewder than Ozzie Rogers; he hadn’t come cheap. He’d wanted to be set up in his own business running a helicopter charter service in Florida. Strode had agreed.

  Myron Castleberry and the pilot worked out a statement in which the latter attested that Jack McKinstry had deliberately rammed the helicopter into the face of the cliff. The pilot stated that McKinstry was at the controls and that he himself had tried to take back the controls when he saw they were in danger of hitting the cliff, but the other man had fought him off. When McKinstry jumped, the pilot had followed suit; he was sorry about those other people, but there was nothing he could have done to save them. No mention was made of any hush money the pilot had been collecting from Jack McKinstry ever since. Castleberry had to draw up three drafts before the pilot read one he liked, but in the end he even agreed to testify in court if it ever came to that. No one thought it would.

  Strode was feeling confident. The hold he had over Jack McKinstry was even stronger than the one he had over Joanna Gillespie. And since they were to meet at the well-populated McKinstry family beach house, it wasn’t likely that Jack would pull a gun on him.

  Strode rented a limo to take him to the McKinstry place. The various members of the McKinstry clan had their own homes scattered all through the Los Angeles area and Orange County, but the beach house at Malibu was the family gathering place—fully staffed year round, available without notice to anyone named McKinstry in need of a little R & R. Jack McKinstry had said that was where he’d be on Saturday afternoon. The uniformed driver who came with the limo headed north through Santa Monica and then west on the Pacific Coast Highway toward Malibu.

  When they got there, Strode was not surprised to find a wall around the place. The gate was electronically controlled; the limo driver pressed the speaker button and pronounced Strode’s name, which proved to be the only open-sesame needed. Inside the walls, Strode saw that the house was large enough to do service as a medium-sized hotel. The maid who answered the door said they were all out back and led the way. Strode had a quick glimpse of exquisite tile flooring and expensive-looking furnishings in such a variety of styles that he suspected every McKinstry in the clan had taken a hand in the decorating. On a rear deck that ran the width of the big house, the maid pointed to a stairway leading down to the beach.

  Strode sighed and started down. Below, a spirited volleyball game was in progress on the beach; very California. The players ranged in age from about ten to over sixty; they were yelling and whooping and giving it their all. Strode recognized the man about to serve; he was Philip McKinstry, Jack’s older brother and the present head of the family business. Philip didn’t serve open-handed; he jumped into the air and punched the ball with his fist as hard as he could toward a girl of fourteen or fifteen. She managed to keep the ball in the air and someone else took over. Strode noticed quite a few scraped elbows and knees; these people played for keeps.

  Jack McKinstry was standing on the sideline wiping his face with a towel. He was wearing a burgundy-colored tank top with white shorts and sneakers. Strode was amused. The man was thirty-nine years old and he still dressed like a teen-ager. Lean and tan, flashing white teeth. Only the dark brown hair spoiled the California-surfer image. But Strode thought wryly that he himself was the one who looked out of place, in his business suit and shoes not made for walking on beaches.

  Jack saw him coming and hurried over, hand outstretched. “Hello, A. J.! Welcome to Jocksville. You ever play this insane game?” Without waiting for an answer he went on, “Sometimes I think it’s just a socially sanctioned outlet for sadomasochistic tendencies, with which the McKinstry family seems to be embarrassingly well endowed. You have to love punishment to be any good at the game.”

  “Giving or getting?” Strode asked with a smile.

  “Both, alas. But when the getting starts to outweigh the giving, you can always take a discretionary breather. Which is precisely what I am doing now. Want a beer?”

  Chatting away, he steered Strode over to a cooler and fished out two bottles; Strode was surprised to see they were the same Australian lager Harvey Rudd had ordered in Pittsburgh. Jack took a long swallow and looked back at the game. “Now I ask you, A. J.—isn’t that a sight to warm the cockles of your heart?” he asked in a bantering tone. “Assuming your heart has cockles, whatever they are. But just look at them. Restores your faith in the American family institution, doesn’t it? Six days a week we’re sweet as pie. Then on Saturdays we all get together and kill each other. It’s our weekly catharsis.”

  “It looks a bit strenuous to me,” Strode said easily. “I play a different kind of game myself.”

  “Aha! I suspect that was a subtle introduction of the subject of my House of Glass shares. Frankly, A. J., that game is a little out of my line. I don’t know the rules.”

  “Have you thought over my offer?”

  “I asked my brother Phil for advice, and you know what he told me? He said to beware of the big bad wolf!” He laughed so infectiously that Strode smiled back, even though he didn’t find it funny at all. “That’s a hell of a reputation you got yourself there, A. J. Why do you want House of Glass?”

  It was the same old story. The minute A. J. Strode showed interest in a company, suddenly everyone else was interested too; even Jo Gillespie had reacted that way. He told Jack McKinstry the same thing he’d told her: “I’m going to shut it down. Sell your shares to me now and you won’t take a licking.”

  Jack raised an eyebrow. “Shut it down? My, my—what did House of Glass ever do to warrant such harsh and inhumane treatment? A nice company that works hard and pays its taxes and builds a better world in which to live and all that.” He rolled his eyes in mock horror. “And why, pray tell, is A. J. Strode so eager to save me money? Not that I doubt the purity of your motives, A. J.—never think that! I can see the altruism written all over your face. But as Shakespeare so elegantly put
it, what the fuck are you up to?” He grinned.

  Just then a young voice piped up, “Uncle Jack! Uncle Jack!”

  “Whoops, I’m up. Back in a few minutes.” Jack trotted over to join the game, and an exhausted twelve-year-old boy sank heavily to the sand on the sideline.

  Strode finished his lager and sat down on a beach chair. He and big brother Phil McKinstry caught each other’s eye and exchanged nods; each knew the other by reputation. Strode sat watching and listening to the players yell I got it. One of the players was a particularly long-limbed young thing who didn’t seem to be wearing any panties under her bright red short-shorts. He was going to have to get Jack away from the game to someplace they could talk free of distractions. A pier jutted out from the beach with two motorboats tied to it. The yacht—and Strode was sure there was a yacht—would be in a nearby marina. Out on the pier someone was working on the engine of one of the boats, leaving the other free; but Strode had no intention of getting into a smallish boat alone with Jack McKinstry. He looked along the beach toward an impressive outcropping of rock; that looked isolated enough to be private.

  After a few more minutes of bone-jarring play, it was Jack’s turn to serve but he flipped the ball to a teammate instead. “Oh, Martha!” he called out. “Aunt-ie Mar-tha! Wouldn’t this be a good time to give your poor aching bod a rest?”

  “It would be a perfect time,” panted an older woman on the opposing team. She left the game the same time as Jack; the two sides were still balanced.

  “Let’s walk,” Strode said, and headed away from the volleyball game toward the rocks farther along the beach. Five steps and he had sand in his shoes. He felt sweat running down his back and took off his jacket. Strode was reminded of a certain photograph of Richard Nixon, taken as a part of the desperate last-ditch attempt to generate sympathy during the man’s final days in office. The photo showed a preoccupied President walking on a California beach with a dog (later revealed to have been borrowed for the occasion); Nixon was wearing a dark business suit and tie and didn’t seem to notice the seawater soaking his expensive city shoes. Strode felt as phony as Nixon looked in that staged photograph; god, how he wanted to be back in New York. He loosened his tie and wiped his face with his sleeve. When they got to the big outcropping of rock, Strode saw two rough paths leading through.

  “The one on the left,” Jack’s bantering voice directed. “That path was hacked out of solid rock, at the expense of strained muscles, blistered hands, and several cases of terminal stoop—all to accommodate city softies such as yourself. You have to be a mountain goat to manage the other one.”

  Strode took the left path and once among the rocks began to think that hadn’t been such a good idea. The footing was uneven and the path was so narrow they had to walk single file; it was hard to talk that way. “Does it get any wider?”

  “Not much, but there’s a place to sit down up ahead.”

  A minute later they came to a flat area. Strode lowered himself gingerly on to a bed-sized rock that was warm from the sun. Strode sat there uncomfortably, squinting at the sea and listening to the water slapping at the rocks below. Well, he’d done business in stranger places than this. He looked at the man sitting near him—so open, so friendly. Such a good actor.

  He said, “All right, Jack, what’s it going to be? I pay off the loan, you reclaim the shares you used as security and pass them on to me. I’ll even see to it that you make a profit. So what do you say? A nice friendly sale we agree on right now?”

  Jack laughed. “Oh me—I can almost hear you thinking or else. What are you going to threaten me with, A.J?”

  “I think you know. The minute you heard I was asking questions about your helicopter accident four years back, your pilot buddy dropped out of sight. Is that what you needed the loan for, Jack? To pay him to get lost?”

  “You mean Billy? He’s still living in Redondo Beach as far as I know. Haven’t seen him for a while, though. All that business about the helicopter crash—that was a long time ago, in a galaxy far far away. It’s over, man.” Still smiling.

  Strode grew impatient. “Enough of this, Jack. You were the one who set the time and place for this meeting. So I come here, I see the picture of family unity you want me to see, I get the message that the McKinstry clan is solidly behind you now. But do you know something? It doesn’t make one damned bit of difference. I want your House of Glass shares, and you’re going to let me have them. You’re going to do it for the simple reason that you don’t want brother Phil to find out you murdered four people because you owed one of them money.”

  The smile disappeared. “Hey hey, A. J.—that’s not funny. Not funny at all!”

  “It’s not meant to be. You intended to kill all five of them when you flew that copter into the cliff, but one of them got away. Why didn’t you just kill the pilot later, Jack? One more death shouldn’t have bothered you.”

  Jack stood up slowly, his eyes boring holes in Strode’s face. “You’re out of your fuckin’ mind, do you know that? Billy was flying that bird.”

  “Bullshit. Tony Dwyer was putting the screws on you for the money you owed him, and you sent three of your oldest and dearest to their deaths rather than pay up. When it came down to it, greed outweighed friendship. You call me a wolf? I’m a lamb compared to you.”

  Jack looked as if he were entertaining thoughts of strangling Strode. The younger man said, slowly and carefully, “I don’t know what makes you think you can accuse me of a thing like that and get away with it. You try spreading that story and I’ll have your balls on toast for breakfast.”

  Strode snorted in derision and reached into his jacket pocket for an envelope which he handed to Jack. The envelope held a photocopy of the affidavit the pilot had signed.

  A tic appeared under Jack’s right eye as he read the paper through. “It’s his word against mine.”

  “Yes, you can argue that if you think it’ll do you any good. But don’t you imagine the French police can find what my detective found—once they know there’s a reason to look? The debt to Dwyer, the payoffs to Billy the pilot.”

  “You didn’t find any record of a payoff. You couldn’t have.”

  “Does it matter? All I have to do is make that paper public and the case will be reopened.” Strode gave him his lupine smile. “What do you suppose brother Phil will do when that happens, hmm?”

  Jack growled low in his throat and tore the affidavit into pieces that he hurled angrily toward the sea. A breeze carried the pieces back and scattered them across the rocks. “Don’t bother telling me that was just a copy. I could see that!” Abruptly Jack charged off deeper into the rocks; he scrambled over a boulder and was out of sight.

  Strode used the time to empty the sand out of his shoes. His buttocks had grown numb from sitting on the rock; he stood up and gave his backside a brisk rub. Let Jack have his little tantrum; in the end he would do business. Then Strode remembered something: Joanna Gillespie had charged off into her bedroom in just that same way, and she had come back with a gun in her hand. What if Jack was looking for a hunk of rock just the right size to make a good head-bashing weapon?

  He was seriously considering leaving when Jack came back—empty-handed, Strode was relieved to see. “I’m not going to let you do this,” Jack announced. “One thing you don’t know is that my brother and I are on better terms now than we’ve ever been before in our lives. Phil already knows I was at the controls when the autopilot locked. I told him so, four years ago. He’s the one who paid Billy to say he’d been piloting. And he’ll believe me when I tell him you’ve bribed Billy to accuse me of murder—just to force me to sell my House of Glass shares. Well, forget it, Strode. You’re not taking on just me but the whole McKinstry organization. You’re never going to get your hands on those shares.”

  Strode shook his head in disbelief. “You’re not very quick, are you, Jack? You don’t have the sense to know when you’re over a barrel. Do you think I’m bluffing?”

 
“No, and neither am I. Don’t try to bully me, Strode. I won’t let you.”

  “You’re willing to risk a murder investigation rather than give in to me, is that it? What do you think’s going on here, some boys’ game?”

  “I think you like making people crawl. Well, not this time, old buddy. You’ll have to get your kicks somewhere else.”

  “You think that’s all this is? Muscle flexing?”

  “What else? I told you before, I’m not going to let you do this to me.” Jack paused. “Now we’re going back. And you’re going to smile and act as if we’re two good buddies returning from a friendly little chat. Do it, Strode.” He started back along the way they’d come.

  Strode had no choice but to follow. He was angry; the asshole was letting his pride get in the way of his own best interests. Strode wondered if Phil McKinstry really did know his younger brother had been at the helicopter controls instead of Billy. Jack was such a glib liar that nothing he said could be taken at face value.

  The volleyball game was over. Two children were splashing in the water. Most of the players had gone into the house to shower or collapse, but a few remained on the beach. One of them, Strode was pleased to see, was the long-legged woman in the red shorts. He stopped by her and said, “That’s a vigorous game of volleyball you play.”

  She grinned at him confidently. “Good for getting the kinks out. It’s kind of hard on the younger kids, though.”