He was.
As I leaned there, my gun in my right hand and my neck twisted upward, a shot ricocheted off the railing six inches from my hand. I immediately dropped to the floor for cover (and prayer), and in the process dropped my gun down the narrow shaft between the flights of stairs where we used to spit as kids. This time, however, it spit back. At first there was a lot of clanging and ringing as the gun bounced off the edges of each flight’s railing, until it finally struck the bottom floor and the impact caused it to go off. We listened to the bullet ping-pang off the walls for a second seconds before we recovered our sprinting attitudes and continued plunging down the stairs three and four steps at a time. Heather felt around in her purse while we ran, emerging with the car keys as we reached the last step. I had forgotten about the gun until I opened the door to the subterranean garage; the added light from the garage sliced into the room and flickered off the metal of the gun. I grabbed it from the corner into which it had slid and ran to catch up with Heather. She had her car started by the time Carroll burst through the door, his head swinging from side to side like a radar antenna in an effort to spot us.
Heather peeled through the garage, her tires squealing complaints as we wound upward along the exit ramp.
“What level are we on?” I shouted above the noise of the tires.
“The third,” she answered.
We were just entering the second level when I heard another set of tires screeching behind us.
“He’s following us,” I informed her hoarsely.
Heather stared intently ahead, her mouth set in a grim frown. I wanted to put my arm around her to comfort her and myself, but I wanted us to get out of there alive even more.
We were finally on the first level, speeding toward the final exit while I watched out the rear window. Suddenly we jerked to a halt which slammed me into the dashboard.
“Damn door, come on!” Heather ordered impatiently.
I turned around and watched the automatic metal garage door float lazily up. The tire squeals behind us grew louder . . . I saw the nose of a blue Mercedes . . . Carroll clutching the wheel swing toward us.
“Go!” I shouted.
“But it’s not all the way open.”
“Go!!”
Heather drove her foot to the floor and we leaped out of the garage, scraping the car’s roof against the bottom of the door. She made a sharp left turn on two wheels and we were off.
It was dark but I could see Carroll’s Mercedes growl after us, his headlights on high beam. And just as I signaled Heather to make a right turn, I noticed another pair of headlights pull out from the curb behind Carroll.
“Christ, now Bower’s men are following us, too,” I said in exasperation as both cars mimicked our right turn.
For some unknown reason, Heather considered this new information to be hilarious, and as a result began to rock back and forth in spasms of laughter as she drove.
“What the hell’s so funny?” I asked, concerned that the strain might have been too much for her.
“Did you see the expression on Lt. Bower’s face when Melinda jumped on him?” she said through the laughter.
I hadn’t given it much thought before, but as I now remembered the scene, I began to chuckle involuntarily. “He looked like he thought his wife was going to walk in on him any moment.”
“He . . . he didn’t know which part of her to grab.”
“Maybe he just didn’t want to get her off.”
We continued laughing more than the situation had called for, but when we finally stopped, I felt strangely refreshed, as if I’d just awoke from a good night’s sleep.
We were still being followed. “What now?” Heather asked, her face and voice also relaxed.
“How much gas have you got?”
“Less than a quarter tank.”
“Well, we’re not going to be able to outrun them, so we’ll have to lose them.”
“Fine, but how?”
“Start heading back toward Wilshire. We want to get in the busiest section we can, mix with all the other lights.”
“How about a freeway?”
“No, that’s too confining. There have to be more lights and traffic than that. Also, we want to stay where there’re people and houses around.”
“We’ll go toward Santa Monica,” she said, making another turn. The other two followed like a high-speed funeral procession trying to get to the cemetery on time. Once we mingled with the regular traffic, we had to slow down considerably, but the lost speed was more than compensated for by the added obscurity. Heather weaved in and out, running stop signs and red lights, until we had managed to put almost two blocks between us and Carroll. I had no idea where the other car was.
“All right,” I said, staring steadily out the rear window, “when I give you the word, pull over into a side street or driveway or parking space. Anything that’s available. Then turn off your lights and motor and duck down.”
We drove for a few more blocks while I waited for an opportunity. Finally it came. We had just made the yellow light as a U-Rent moving van changed lanes, blocking us momentarily from Carroll, whose horn I could hear blaring angrily.
“Now!” I shouted and Heather slid the car against the curb, shut the lights and motor and huddled down on the floor. We heard Carroll give the van a final insulting blast of the horn as he sped by. We smiled knowingly at each other like two kids hiding from the grownups. I thought this was as good a time as any to kiss her.
I thought wrong.
“Hey, man, thanks a lot,” someone was saying as he pulled the back door open.
“Whatchya doin’ down there? Lose something?” someone else asked.
We raised ourselves from the floor only to confront two grinning teenagers sitting in the back seat with knapsacks balanced on their laps and a cardboard sign that said “S.F.”
“We really appreciate the ride, man. We’ve been standing there thumbing for more than an hour,” one of them said.
“Yeah,” the other added with a disgusted nod, “L.A. just ain’t as friendly as it used to be.”
Heather looked at me with a playful grin. “Where to, boss?” she asked me.
“You can just drop us off on Highway One if you’re going that far,” one of them said.
“Yeah, we’d like to make San Francisco by morning.”
I gave a good-natured shrug and Heather drove toward Highway One. Besides, in case Carroll or the police doubled back, they wouldn’t be looking for a car with four people in it.
“Wouldn’t you boys be better off on the freeway?” Heather asked. “It’s a lot faster and you’d probably have a better chance of getting a ride.”
“Yeah, but we’re not in that big of a hurry. Besides, Highway One is a nicer drive.”
We dropped them off and continued on to Malibu.
“Are you sure you want to go through with this? I’m getting scared again.”
“I don’t have any choice. Bartlett seems to be the only one who really knows what’s going on. I’ve got to get him to talk before someone gets me to die.”
We drove on silently the rest of the way, trying to find the address Melinda had given me earlier.
“There it is,” I said, pointing to a row of a dozen or so mailboxes herded together next to a narrow dirt road. We pulled off the road and I got out to examine the mailboxes. There was something about seeing all those boxes in a row that made me feel anxious; I always get that way around mail. Whenever I’d be visiting someone else, if I happened to see a pile of unopened mail lying about, it would take the greatest possible will power not to pick it up immediately and tear it all open. I was convinced that some of my mail was being rerouted to others and that even if the envelope was addressed to someone else, the letter inside was certain to begin “Dear Mr. Gould,” or “Dear Harry.”
“This is his,” I said, pointing to the one that had Morrison stenciled across it. I gave way to the temptation of flinging the lid open. It was empty
.
“It must be down this road,” she said when I’d climbed back into the car. Down the road turned out to be up the road, for we were gradually winding up a dirt incline. We passed several houses set back before we came to the Morrison place, which sat a hundred yards from the road almost hidden by the thick leafy trees standing sentry before it.
Outside it was darker than I ever remembered it getting at night. But that was because I’d spent most of my nights in big cities that never really got dark. The city of Los Angeles glowed a few miles away and we could hear the sound of cars below mingling with the sound of the ocean. For the first time that night I noticed the cool breeze, ordinarily a welcome relief to the heat. But tonight that seemed ominous. Tonight everything seemed ominous.
I had Heather drive ahead around a bend so not to startle Bartlett. I figured he would be pretty nervous and I didn’t want him mistaking me for the killer in the dark. I’d sneak up as close as I could before identifying myself.
“You sure you want to go through with it?” Heather asked, that concerned wrinkle back again.
“Yeah, I’m sure,” I lied.
“Then I’m going with you.”
“No you’re not,” I stated firmly and she knew I meant it. “I need you to wait here for me. You can’t be seen from the house. I’ll try and get back as soon as possible.”
“Do you want the gun?”
“No. I’d better not. I don’t want Bartlett to get jumpy and shoot me.”
“Be careful,” she said quietly.
I leaned across the front seat and kissed her for luck. It also helped to keep my lips from quivering. I closed the car door softly and began my approach to the house, which included a lot of tiptoeing and breath-holding. My heart was beating a rhythm that seemed to be saying, “go back—go back—go back.” The cool breeze had turned into a cold breeze and when I made a movement to button my jacket, I remembered that I had run out of the apartment without it.
There was a light on inside the house, but the shades had been pulled. I peered around one of the huge spreading trees while debating whether this was really worth it. I tiptoed to the front door after unsuccessful attempts to see around the drawn shades. The door was unlocked. I pushed it silently open. It was an old house and the floor boards moaned at my first step as if to say, “Oh boy, this is all I need now.”
I was in a long green hallway off which all the rooms seemed to stem. There was a staircase at the end of the hall which led to the second floor. I started walking down the hall, giving each room I passed a sweeping glance: a sitting room with a reading lamp and a fireplace; a den with an old roll top desk and metal filing cabinets; a dining room with a hardwood table and a corpse; a kitchen with an old stove and . . .
I back-pedalled to the dining room. There a man’s body lay on its side with its back arched toward me. The right hand was wrapped in a white gauze bandage. The blood around his chest had begun to dry. I stopped down and gently tipped him onto his back. It was Farrow. He looked surprised.
“Ah, Harry, my boy. So good to see you again,” Bartlett said as he entered through a connecting door from the kitchen. “I’ve been meaning to thank you for the job you did the other night. Capital job, first-rate.” He smiled broadly and, except for the gun he was pointing at my stomach, we might have been two next-door neighbors laughing over our wives’ strange but endearing peculiarities.
“You’ll have to excuse me, the place is a mess, but I wasn’t expecting so much company this evening,” he continued.
“I can’t help noticing that I wasn’t the first guest,” I said dully, my mind scrambling to incorporate what was going on.
“No, no,” he chuckled as if I’d just told an off-color joke. “No indeed. I’m afraid Farrow made a mistake. He left the hospital and decided to hide out here. It seems he was planning to kill you in revenge for killing me.”
“You mean he didn’t know you were alive?”
“Dear me, no. You can imagine his surprise upon seeing me here. The boy nearly died of shock.”
“That and a bullet through the heart.”
“Yes, well. There really is no room for him in my plans. Enough has gone wrong already without any more problems.”
“Look Bartlett, I’m not interested in any of your plans. I don’t care anything about the embezzlement . . .”
“So you know about that?”
“Yeah, I had a run-in with a guy named Carroll Sarris. He thinks I killed you for the money. The FBI thinks I killed you to stop you from turning state’s evidence. The police think I killed you on a contract. And De Young’s just glad I killed you, never mind why.”
He thought this extremely amusing and continued laughing to himself for several seconds.
“Now, as I said, I don’t care how you got the money or what you’re going to do with it. I don’t care if you’re turning state’s evidence or turning into a teenage werewolf. All I want you to do is tell the police who set the bomb and get me off the hook. Now that isn’t too much to ask for saving your life, is it?”
“Certainly not,” he quickly agreed. “But what about Farrow here?”
I hesitated. Things were going on I didn’t understand, and the less I knew perhaps the healthier I’d stay. “That’s your business,” I stated flatly.
He smiled again. “I don’t know whether you’re as dumb as you appear to bee, but you can’t be dumb enough to think I’m going to let you walk out of here alive. Can you, Mr. Gould?”
I nodded stupidly, unable to speak. This man had just told me he was going to kill me and I couldn’t move a muscle in my body. I couldn’t die yet, I thought in panic. There were still a few books I wanted to read, a movie I’d put off seeing until next week. I had a letter to write to my parents. A man should be given proper notice when he’s going to die.
Bartlett glanced at his watch. “I’m afraid it’s going to have to be another fire. Let’s see now: Farrow escapes from the hospital to seek vengeance on Gould, suspected slayer of Eugene C. Bartlett. Farrow captures Gould and brings him back to his secluded house, once owned by his late employer and friend. With Farrow’s childish sense of justice, he plans to seal Gould in the house and burn him to death, an eye for an eye repaid. However, as Farrow sets the blaze the desperate Gould jumps the injured Farrow and the gun goes off shooting Farrow, who falls to the ground having wrenched the gun from Gould with his final burst of strength. He knows he has a few seconds to live and spends those final agonizing moments repaying his dead employer by shooting his killer in the heart. They are both burned in the fire. End scene.
“Not great, but the police are anxious to wrap this whole thing up and get the FBI off their backs. And everyone lives happily ever after. Except you, of course.”
“Of course,” I said, my blood beginning to tingle in a revitalizing excitement. My eyes were wide and clear and my mind felt as if it had just taken a cold shower.
“Don’t feel too badly, you did get a day extra. Don’t forget you were supposed to die last night in the explosion.”
“But only because I was mistaken for you.”
“Dear boy, you mean you still don’t know?” he asked, intrigued by my ignorance. “There was no mistake. The bomb was supposed to kill you. You and Putnam and Farrow. I thought you’d all be waiting together. I didn’t figure on your stepping off to the balcony and Farrow going to the bathroom. I suppose I could have used more explosives, but I thought the incendiary device would be enough. I guess I should’ve hired a professional to do it for me.”
My heart was doing a jitterbug in my throat. “You mean you’re the one who set the bomb?”
“Of course. Who did you think?” He glanced at his watch again. “I’m afraid I really don’t have much time for explanations, dear boy. I’m expecting another guest shortly, and I don’t want to rush this job. The bullet’s got to be just right.”
“But why? Why did you do it?”
He looked at his watch and then at me. “Well, a few more m
inutes won’t hurt. I suppose it’s the least I can do for you. Last request and all that. Let me tell you it wasn’t an easy plan. First I had to lay the foundation. It had to appear as if my life was really in danger, so I had my partner take a few shots at me. That way, everyone knew someone was trying to kill me.”
“But your friend Mark Bendix was killed.”
“Well, I wouldn’t call him a friend exactly. More like a social acquaintance. Golf and things like that. Though I must admit it was no easy job telling his wife of his death.”
“Yeah, it must’ve been real hard on you.”
“You don’t know the half of it. But it had to be convincing, so when Mark was killed everyone was certain I was to be next. That made way for the eccentric ad in the paper. Which in turn led to you. I needed a down-on-his-luck private eye or ex-cop who needed the work and wasn’t too sharp. He also had to be the same general size as me and have no close relatives.”
It was all suddenly falling into place. The cuff links, the tie clasps, the clothes, the money. Each complex piece linking into the next.
“Then I set up a nice party of the most respectable witnesses to my demise.”
“Then you got the three of us into the bedroom under the assumption of unmasking your would-be assassin, slipped down to the basement and detonated the bomb. We were to have been killed in the explosion, and the fire that followed was to burn us beyond recognition—even with the most sophisticated equipment.”
“That and a $10,000 bribe to a contact in the coroner’s office.”
“And all they’d find was your watch and wallet, which you planted in the room earlier, and the cuff links I was wearing, identical to yours. They’d discover what was left of my body and witnesses would place you in the room at the time of the explosion and, with a minimum of investigation, everyone would be satisfied that you were dead. Only you forgot about the tie clasp.”
“Yes,” he admitted reluctantly. “That was my tragic flaw, so to speak. A perfectly innocent oversight that could have happened to anyone. I’d had the duplicate set of jewelry ordered months in advance but since then, at the insistence of my tailor, I’d begun to wear bow ties. He’d assured me they were the latest thing in men’s wear, so I wore them at social affairs. And when I sent you to get outfitted, I forgot about the bow ties. A stupid careless oversight. So when I instructed Melinda to throw your cuff links into the fire, she added the tie clasp accidentally. She never was any use to me. However, all’s well that ends well.”
The Goulden Fleece Page 12
