The Grand Tour: Four International Mysteries

by Michaela Thompson

  The leg had been moved. OK. She searched systematically through the bins. Now that finding it was more difficult than she’d expected, she was more determined.

  It wasn’t on the first tier. She climbed on the step stool kept for reaching the higher levels and continued looking. Rims of wheels, several heavy stripped bolts, a honeycomb-shaped metal panel that she thought had something to do with the space program. There are a million reasons why it wouldn’t be here. She tried to think of them and couldn’t.

  In fact, though, it was there. In a corner of the third tier, almost hidden behind another bin, still in the Fun World plastic bag with Bobo’s face printed on it. When she reached in the bag and her hand closed on the cold steel she wanted to shout in jubilation.

  She carried the bag to the hardness tester. Before putting the metal on the anvil, she took several breaths to calm herself down. Steadier after a minute, she positioned the steel on the platform, made sure it was level, and brought it into contact with the penetrator. When the pointer was vertical, she adjusted the dial so the zero was exactly behind the pointer.

  Footsteps. Fernando, making his rounds. She turned the crank to apply the major load and watched the pointer jump, swing, and come to rest. Now, pull the crank to take the load off and read the dial.

  Sixty-five on Rockwell B.

  She was filled with unreasoning, uncritical happiness. Sixty-five on Rockwell B. I was right.

  “Hey, Marina.”

  She whirled around. Don, several file folders under his arm, stood in the doorway. He was frowning. “What are you doing?” he asked.

  Euphoric, she ran to him. “I’ve just found out what happened to Loopy Doop.”

  The frown deepened. “Sure. It was vibration because they didn’t lubricate it right.”

  “No, it wasn’t.” The words came almost faster than she could talk. “Loopy Doop was made out of steel less than half as strong as it should’ve been. I’ve just proved it with the hardness test. My God, when you think about it— steel buckets instead of aluminum, and two overweight people who rode twice in a row—” She grasped his arm. “I know that’s it. I always knew, but the other tests—”

  She stopped as she realized. The samples had been switched somehow, and 4140 substituted. With machined samples, chemical samples, you couldn’t tell where the steel came from. The only piece you could be sure of was the fracture itself.

  Don was looking at her oddly. He moved back a step. So what if he thought she was crazy. This time she knew— knew— she had the right explanation.

  “I’d better get along. Sandy just sent me back for these.” He tapped the files. “See you.”

  Funny that Sandy had sent Don back to work to get something when he’d just told her he and Don had split. She turned back to the hardness tester and repeated the test. Sixty-six on the Rockwell B. All right. Carbon steel, probably, not a high strength heat-treated alloy like 4140. It would’ve held up all right unless a few things went out of kilter, like an extra-heavy load in an extra-heavy gondola over the protracted period of two rides.

  Somebody had known. Somebody had switched the samples for the tensile test and the chemical analysis. They’d done it even though had it been proved that Fun World got inferior steel from— from whatever the company was, the one in Singapore. If Fun World could prove Singapore had sold them inferior steel, they could sue. Who changed the samples? Somebody from Singapore?

  She put the Loopy Doop leg in its bag and took it to the evidence room. Instead of replacing it where she’d found it, she put it in one of the lower bins, hidden under a half-burned ironing-board cover. She relocked the room and, after thinking for a moment, put the key in her pocket instead of in its hiding place.

  On the way to her office, she went over the case feverishly. Fun World used to get aluminum gondolas from Gonzales Manufacturing. Gonzales lost the contract and went broke. Then Fun World bought steel from the place in Singapore, whatever its name was. Steel gondolas, steel parts for the rides, including legs for Loopy Doop.

  She had to call Sandy. First, she wanted the printout with the list of suppliers, so she could get the name of the Singapore place. A lot of that stuff was probably still in her filing cabinet. She unlocked it and found the printout in the bottom drawer where she’d tossed it in her rush to leave for India.

  She leafed through the printout. Singapore Metal Works. The contact was somebody named K. M. Lee.

  Fun World could’ve sued Singapore Metal. Maybe they couldn’t sue Singapore Metal, though. Maybe Fun World knew what they were getting. But why buy inferior steel instead of the best?

  She remembered Enrique Gonzales, embittered after the family’s factory closed. What had he said? Money, lady. Don’t you know that’s what everything’s about?

  Money. Buy steel from Singapore, except you don’t get what’s listed on the invoices, but something only a third as strong and less than half as expensive, but you figure it’s still good enough to do the job. What’s the cost differential? A lot, if you buy a lot of steel. So you pay for the good stuff, get the bad stuff, and you and Singapore divide the difference fifty-fifty, and everything’s fine until you kill a couple of people and maim a few more, and then you have to scramble like crazy.

  She had to tell Sandy. She dialed his number, and the line was busy. She hung up and thought: Suppose Sandy knew. Maybe he’d switched the samples himself. She moved her hand away from the telephone.

  Trying to decide what to do, she riffled back through the printout. Something caught her eye. A name, maybe. What had it been? She turned a few pages, searching. Another page. There it was. The Delightful Novelty Company of Bombay, India. Contact: V. Shah.

  Marina stared at the line of print. It said that the Delightful Novelty Company supplied Fun World with prizes for the games arcade. Brightly painted wooden toys, perhaps. Plastic whirligigs on the ends of sticks.

  After a moment of suspension, it broke over her. I was testing the steel, talking about how it might not be strong enough. If you want to stop me, don’t do anything as stupid and crude as try to intimidate me. Get me to intimidate myself, take myself off the case, get myself out of the way to leave more room to maneuver—more time to fix up maintenance records that look like they’ve been faked. More time to melt down Loopy Doop.

  Someone broke into Clara’s office and looked at my file. Cloud Sister, Rain Sister, Nagarajan, the Hotel Rama, all there. Someone asked questions about Patrick, looking for ways to get to me. Someone trumped up letters and got Vincent Shah to send them, got him to make a phone call. It didn’t take that much. I was ripe for it. I jumped at it.

  She was first aware of her anger as a metallic taste. It spread to fill her head, her hands, her body. She stood up. I’ll tell the police. I’ll shout it on street corners if I have to.

  The Loopy Doop fracture. That was the proof. She hurried out of her office and across the pier toward the testing section, digging in her jacket pocket for the evidence-room key.

  The sound of Fernando’s chair scraping made her look toward the front door. Someone was coming in. Instinctively, she ran the last few steps to the testing section and hid in the doorway. Across the pier, she saw Don come in the front door and speak to Fernando at his table. Don, who could’ve switched the samples as easily as Sandy could. And I was telling him all about my great discovery.

  As Don and Fernando talked, Fernando waved his arm in her direction, and she pressed closer to the wall. After a few more minutes’ conversation, Fernando stood up and went outside.

  She waited. Don stood by Fernando’s table, shifting his weight in a jittery little dance. After a few minutes, the front door opened again. It wasn’t Fernando. Tall, blond, wearing a dark overcoat, Eric Sondergard walked in and looked around him.

  49

  Marina watched Don and Sondergard. They know I’m still here. That’s what Don asked Fernando. They’ve told Fernando something, done something to him to get him out of the way. He wouldn’t be suspicious of
anything Don said.

  Don and Sondergard were talking. Don was gesturing animatedly, and Marina could hear, in her mind, his repetition of what she’d just told him. About the steel, about everything.

  So Eric went to bed with me, created a subterfuge to lure me off to India, all in the interest of saving his own ass. He had understood her need perfectly, as he must understand Don’s. What had he used to make Don betray Sandy? Maybe Don didn’t like being the secretary, playing second banana. Maybe Eric figured out how to make Don feel important. Eric had to understand people, to be able to manipulate them so well. Who understands Eric’s needs, though? Possibly K. M. Lee, at Singapore Metal Works.

  Sondergard nodded and clapped Don on the shoulder. He started toward her, leaving Don behind him at the door. Marina moved back into the testing section, feeling her way around the machinery to the door of the evidence room. The key was slippery from the sweat of her hand, and the room was dark, but she managed to fit it into the lock and get through the door as she heard Sondergard’s footsteps approaching.

  Moments after the door closed behind her, a bright outline appeared around its edge. He’d switched on the light. She heard him move to the desk where the key was usually kept and stop.

  He was here to get Loopy Doop, not just to look for her. While she was away, it hadn’t been worth the risk of arousing suspicion by destroying the fractured steel itself, but now he’d have to. Evidence did sometimes get lost. Of course, they’d still have imprints and photos of the break, but nobody could do a hardness check from an imprint or a photo. Since maintenance was set to take the rap, there probably wouldn’t be a trial anyway. Fun World would try to settle out of court.

  All was quiet. He’d be feeling around for the key, opening the little box— She heard his feet shuffle, then the sound of his steps quickly receding.

  As long as Don was at the door she could never get across the open expanse of the pier’s interior without being seen. She was stuck. She moved to the bin where she’d hidden the Loopy Doop steel under the ironing-board cover.

  Eric Sondergard. Had Bobo been in on it too? Maybe not. Bobo had put her on the case, as the maintenance chief had called Breakdown in, without Eric’s OK. The minute that happened, Eric started to poke around for something to use against me, to disorient me if he needed to. He struck a gold mine. If I weren’t in such bad trouble I’d have to laugh. What a bonanza he got.

  She heard steps coming back. What now? Kick the door in, shoot the lock off like in the movies? There was nowhere to hide. She stood with her back to the bin where Loopy Doop sample was and locked her knees, standing as straight as she could.

  No shots, no battering force. Simply the sound of the key slipping into the lock and turning, then the blinding light pouring into the evidence room and Sondergard’s silhouette in the doorway. Don must have Sandy’s master key. Too bad she hadn’t thought about that.

  “So here you are,” Sondergard said.

  “Right back where I started from.”

  He moved into the room and now she could see him better. The lines in his face, the circles under his eyes, were deeper than ever.

  “You really screwed up with Loopy Doop, Eric,” she said.

  “You’re telling me.” He moved toward her. “Where’s the sample?”

  “You expect me to give it to you?”

  “Why not?” He sounded tired. “Really, Marina. When you come down to it, what the hell is it to you?”

  “Why should I let you get away with murder?”

  “It wasn’t murder. It was a miscalculation.” He took another step.

  “You made me think Catherine might be alive, sent me screaming to India—”

  “That was the only part of this whole debacle that was interesting. I even read a little of the Rig Veda. I don’t apologize. The trip probably did you a world of good.”

  “Is what you’re going through worth the money you got from Singapore Metal Works?”

  “I haven’t run the calculation lately.” He was close now. “I need the sample.”

  “You can’t have it.”

  “You don’t think I’ve gone through all this to let you put the brakes on, do you?”

  “No. I think you get the sample, and I— go into the bay, maybe. Off the Golden Gate Bridge, or is that too dramatic? Depressed over recent traumas in India.”

  “I hadn’t thought of the Golden Gate Bridge. You do have a flair,” he said.

  She moved away slightly and said, “You want the sample?”

  “I’m here to get it.”

  “Take it.” She pulled the plastic Fun World bag out of the bin and swung it at him with all her strength. The steel caught him in the ribs and he bent over, his face contorted. He fell heavily to his knees, coughing.

  As she backed away, she heard Don’s voice saying, tentatively, “Eric?”

  He was in the doorway. She got ready to swing again, but he rushed past her to kneel at Sondergard’s side. Clutching the bag, she ran for the door.

  50

  Several weeks later, Marina received a letter from Vijay:

  My dear Marina,

  What an incredible business this is! I have spoken with Mr. Vincent Shah, and he admits to sending the letters and making the telephone call, but he says Mr. Sondergard told him it was for a joke on a friend only. He is very frightened, and will cooperate with the police to the fullest extent.

  It seems you hardly need Mr. Shah to bring Mr. Sondergard to justice. Imagine a man who would put the lives of others, children even, in danger for his own gain! And trick you into coming to India, too! Although for that I think, evil as he is, I owe him a debt.

  There are now few newspaper stories about Nagarajan-Baladeva. I have heard, though, that the people around Goti are saying he is not dead at all, and will return in another guise. People always wish to believe such things, I think.

  I have arranged for a new bullock cart to be presented to Nathu Dada. He had expressed to me his need for this when we were at his farm.

  Sushila and I are to be married in a month’s time. I shall wear a red turban, and ride a horse, and my young cousin will hold a parasol over my head. It surprises me that my mother did not insist on hiring an elephant for the occasion!

  I will close this letter now, Marina. I think of you often.

  Vijay

  Marina put the letter down on the kitchen table, amid the clutter of a late Saturday breakfast. She would write soon and tell Vijay how the case against Sondergard was progressing. The Fun World empire was in turmoil, was probably finished. Bobo, energized more by fury at Sondergard, she thought, than anything else, was running the company. “The crap he used to tell me about you you wouldn’t believe,” Bobo had said when she visited him. “He even told me— you have to forgive me for saying this—he even told me you’d made some sort of advances to him. Can you beat that?” His eyes reddened with indignation.

  “Eric had to control, to manipulate everything,” Marina told Sandy, realizing she was talking as much about Nagarajan as Sondergard. “He found out where the weak spots were. He didn’t care who he hurt, or even killed.”

  Sandy was gray, shaken. Don’s defection had devastated him. He spent a lot of time talking about security measures, procedures to assure he would never be betrayed again. “You have to face it. Complete control isn’t possible,” she said.

  “I’m damn well going to have complete control of this place from now on,” Sandy said.

  Balmy air drifted through the open window, and sunlight gleamed on leftover jam, toast crumbs, the last half-cup of coffee. In another apartment, somebody’s stereo was playing. She listened. The music was faint, but it might have been the Vivaldi that was one of Patrick’s favorites. Impossible to tell for sure. As she listened, she watched the sunlight playing over Patrick’s copy of The Gramophone. When the music ended, she got up. There was no such thing as zero risk. She had decided to make a phone call.

  THE END

  DEDICATION
>
  TO MY MOTHER

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Ernie Eason patiently and imaginatively contributed his technical expertise to this book. I couldn’t have done it without him, and am deeply grateful. Thanks are due to Kirin Contractor for her invaluable advice and to David Mandelbaum, who answered some of my questions about India.

  Responsibility for the many liberties taken with their areas of expertise is mine.

  I would also like to thank Steve Whealton, Alan Friedman and Paul De Angelis for their help.

  Some details of Indian serpent-worship were taken from Indian Serpent-Lore: Or, the Nagas in Hindu Legend and Art by J. Ph. Vogel (Arthur Probsthain, London, 1926).

  I am grateful to Dr. G. Nagarajan, of Bangalore, India, who I hope will not regret telling me the meaning of his name.

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