Obedience

by Joseph Hansen

  “What can I do for you?” she said cheerfully.

  “You may think I’m not securely wrapped,” Dave said, “but that man who just came in here, just got off the elevator at this floor? I’d swear he was an old friend of mine from high school. Ed Williams—right?”

  “The thin man with glasses? Oh, no.” She shook her head. “I’m sorry to disappoint you. That was Mr. Priest. Warren Priest. He’s a chief Customs inspector.”

  “Priest? Are you sure?” Dave said. “Excuse me. Of course you are. But I could have sworn—”

  She tilted her head at him, amused. “If you don’t mind my saying so,” she said, “weren’t you and this Mr. Williams in high school rather a long time ago?”

  Dave laughed. “Only a few decades. You’re right, of course. If we passed each other on the street, we’d neither of us know it, would we?”

  “People do change.” She smiled. “More’s the pity.”

  Drycott Security Services had offices in a flat-roofed pale yellow structure up a side street of wholesale storage buildings—brick, dingy white paint, loading docks, rippled iron access doors, high wire fences, barred windows. A visitor to Drycott Security had to punch a button by a locked black wrought-iron gate. The bell push activated a surveillance camera over the front door of the place. The little click it gave in turning to focus on him, made him look up at it. It eyed him glassily. A voice came from a slotted black metal box next to the door, a cheerful young female voice.

  “Thank you for coming to Drycott Security today. Please state your name and the purpose of your visit.”

  “My name is Brandstetter.” Thankful it wasn’t raining, he got out the ostrich-hide folder, opened it, held it up for the camera to look at. “I’m a private investigator, on assignment with the Public Defender’s office of San Pedro County. I’m looking into the recent murder of Le Van Minh. He was your client—you guard the Le warehouse on the docks at the harbor. I have a couple of questions about that.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Brandstetter,” said the cheerful voice. “I’ll be back to you in just a moment.” The sound clicked off. He lit a cigarette, turned, and watched a cat with kittens playing in a storage yard across the street. Something clanked behind him. He turned back. The voice said, “Thank you for waiting, Mr. Brandstetter. Please come in.”

  He dropped his cigarette, stepped into the narrow area between gate and front door, and the gate clanked behind him. When he put his hand on it, the door lock buzzed, he pushed the door, and was in a reception office that had no one in it to receive anybody—desk, chairs, a large painted plaster eagle on the wall, plants in corners, a standing U.S. flag. The door closed behind him, lock clicking quietly.

  The cheerful young voice came out of a speaker over a door in the opposite wall. “Please go through the patio, sir. Mr. Drycott is expecting you.”

  The patio was sheltered by a sprawling, old avocado tree. Avocados large as softballs lay on the tiles. Dave’s shoes rustled heaps of big dry leaves on his way to a bulky old man waiting for him in an open doorway. Drycott pumped his hand and laughed a hearty laugh that showed silver fillings in his back teeth—old G.I. dentistry.

  “Brandstetter,” he roared. “Proud to meet you. You’re an ornament to our profession. You make us all look good.” He slapped Dave on the back, and propelled him indoors. “Yes sir. I’ve seen you on television, read about you. Siddown.” He waved a hairy paw at a visitor’s chair. He dropped into a high-backed tufted leather executive chair back of a rangy desk. His face darkened. “Of course, I couldn’t side with you against Colonel Zorn. The President didn’t much like that either, but—the law of the land has got to be followed, I guess, even if it lets the Commies take over the world.”

  “Duke Summers put Zorn out of business,” Dave said. “Not I. You calling Duke Summers a Commie sympathizer?”

  “Course not,” Drycott said brusquely. “Never mind.” He waved the memory aside. For the moment. When he’d walked in Dave had noticed beside a glass-fronted case of medals on Drycott’s office wall, a photograph of Drycott with Ronald Reagan, Lothrop Zorn, and other military men. Among twenty photographs, mostly from World War II, but some from later wars. Always wars. Drycott sat forward. “What can I do for you? These damn Vietnamese. Nothing but trouble. Downright subversive of those liberals in Congress to let them in, lend them money, teach them English. They’re not like other people, Brandstetter. I know. I was sent over there by Jack Kennedy, in the first wave of advisers.” He frowned and shook his head grimly. “Nothings too low for the little yellow bastards. Never was. No morals at all.”

  “Le Van Minh was well thought of,” Dave said.

  Drycott grunted skeptically. “Not by somebody. Somebody murdered him. And probably with good reason.”

  “On the day of his funeral,” Dave said, “I went down to the Le warehouse. Something funny was going on there, smuggling, I think—but I couldn’t stop it. Your security guard ran me off. Only a skinny old man, but he had a gun.”

  Drycott’s face twisted. “A skinny old man?”

  Dave nodded. “At least seventy.”

  Drycott gave an amazed laugh, wagged his head, flicked one of many switches on a panel that blinked tiny lights. “Bring me the file on Le Electronics, please?”

  “Yes, Mr. Drycott,” a male voice said.

  Drycott let go the switch, and blinked at Dave, head tilted. “You sure it was our logo on his shirt?”

  “Drycott Security Services,” Dave said.

  “Reason I ask,” Drycott said, “is that I never put anybody in one of my uniforms who’s a day over forty. We don’t hire pensioners. They can’t protect anybody.”

  A straight-backed young man with a white sidewall haircut came in, laid a file folder in front of Drycott, turned with military precision, eyes front, and went straight out of the room again. Drycott opened the file, thumbed pages, peered at them. “Here it is. Day before the funeral, we got a call saying no guard would be needed that day. Place would be closed. Regular drive-by patrol would be enough.”

  “Let me guess who made that call,” Dave said. “Rafe Carpenter, right?”

  Drycott frowned, moving a finger on the page. “Right.” He squinted at Dave. “Doesn’t sound Vietnamese.”

  “No morals, though.” Dave stood. “No morals at all.”

  15

  HE WOKE ON the couch in the long back building and didn’t know what time it was. The only light came from embers glowing in the iron basket in the fireplace. What had wakened him? Sounds from the bathroom. Numb, stiff in the joints, he shifted position, and a book tumbled to the floor. The frames of the reading glasses dug into his nose. He took them off, folded the bows. “That you?” he said.

  “What?” Cecil was startled. He came and stood, a tall, lean silhouette between Dave and the hearth. “What are you doing down here?”

  “Waiting for you,” Dave mumbled. “What kept you?”

  “Getting a feature together for tomorrow on the latest election polls. Never enough time.”

  “You could have phoned,” Dave said.

  “Ho. Look who’s talking.” Cecil switched on a lamp Dave remembered stretching a weary arm up to turn off just before his eyes had fallen shut. How long ago? He squinted at his watch. “Good Lord, it’s two-thirty.”

  “And that,” Cecil said, “is only because I hurried.” He was back in the shadows jingling glass, ice, and bottles the bar. “I could hurry or I could phone. I chose to hurry.”

  “Never mind.” Dave sat up, swung his feet to the floor. “You’re here. That’s all that matters.” He moaned, yawned, rubbed a hand down over his face. “I wish Tracy Davis’s lunatic half-brother had gotten into trouble someplace near here. The harbor’s too far. All that driving wears me out.”

  Cecil came into the light and handed him Glenlivet over ice. Holding brandy in a small snifter, he sat on the raised hearth, saw the book on the floor, bent, and picked it up. “The Vietnamization of America. Man, can’t you give it
a rest?” Disgusted, he laid the book on the bricks. “Get your mind off it.” He waved a long arm at the half-finished, half-stocked shelves. “Read a detective story.”

  “They don’t fool me anymore.” Dave drank some of his whisky. “No, I was looking for a reference to a certain Chien Cao Nhu.”

  “Oh, yeah? The one that used to broker sailing craft on Long Island Sound? Till somebody blew up his Mercedes? He wasn’t in it, but the District Attorney set a Grand Jury to look into what happened, and Chien dropped out of sight.”

  Dave shook his head in wonder. “You are a fount of obscure information.”

  Cecil grinned. “I try to remember everything. They tell me it helps you get ahead in the news business.”

  “He’s here now. Down at the harbor.” Dave reached for cigarettes and lighter under the lamp. “Still selling sailboats from the enchanted Orient. And less attractive imports, I suspect.” He lit a cigarette. “The Vietnamese community regards him as a prince of a fellow.”

  Cecil was watching him smoke. Grimly. “If you’d retire like you promised, you could quit cigarettes. It’s the tension that makes you smoke.”

  Dave granted. “Maybe you’re right. Chien keeps interesting company.” He told Cecil about his visit to Hoang Pho.

  “They could have been talking boats,” Cecil said.

  “And I could be Mike Tyson,” Dave said. “Warren Priest checks the shipments that come into the Le warehouse. Rafe Carpenter worked at the warehouse. Carpenter met Chien Cao Nhu at the warehouse when it was closed the day of old man Le’s funeral. And gave him two attaché cases. Hai tells me no drugs or other contraband have ever been found by Customs in any Le shipment. What do you conclude?”

  “They weren’t talking boats?” Cecil said.

  Dave laughed. “They weren’t talking boats.” He sobered. “Our friend Don Pham may have been right about the Le family. It’s a beautiful house. But all that goes on there is not beautiful.” Leaning back on the couch, he told Cecil about his morning there. “I understand the old woman perfectly, but I don’t understand Thao, I don’t understand Quynh, and for that matter, I don’t understand Fergusson. They’ve got some kind of secret between the three of them, and I’m damned if I can figure out what it is.”

  “Ba’s room—that must have been sad,” Cecil said.

  Dave nodded, drank some more of his whisky. “But the saddest place I saw today was Carpenter’s.”

  Cecil looked startled. “You went there?”

  “The American dream. Brand-new. Four bedrooms on a large lot of sloping green lawn overlooking the ocean. Pool, Jacuzzi, steam room—the works. Drug money is big money, no mistake. But what’s going to happen now? The little kid wanders in and out. He understands his dad is dead. But he keeps looking for him. You can see that. His mother doesn’t know where she is. Carpenter had her fooled completely. It took me an hour to get out of her that, yes, sometimes Rafe did go off on mysterious errands at night. More importantly, that he was home playing poker with three witnesses the night Le Van Minh was killed. I checked them all out. It’s true.”

  “That wasn’t what you went there to learn,” Cecil said. “That sends you back to square one. Why did you go?”

  “Looking for a skinny old man,” Dave said. “The security guard who ran me off the docks that day.”

  “But why at Carpenter’s house, of all places?”

  “Because at Drycott Security Services, they didn’t know him. Carpenter had rung and told them not to send a guard that day. Where would you look for him?”

  “And was he there?”

  “Not in person. Seems he’s in Paris. Flew out the day after old man Le’s funeral. But there was a framed photo of him on the piano. Holland Carpenter. Rafe’s father.” The telephone jangled. “Jesus.” Dave sat up. “Now what?”

  “I’ll get it.” Cecil set the snifter on the bricks and jogged to the desk. “Brandstetter’s house,” he told the receiver. “Who? What? Cotton? But he—all right. All right. Just be cool. We’ll be there.”

  Frowning, Dave pushed up off the couch.

  Cecil set down the receiver. “That was Lindy Willard. It’s about Cotton.”

  “What about him?” Dave picked up his cigarettes and lighter. “He’s supposed to be in New York.”

  “He’s here, and she says he’s been kidnapped.”

  “It doesn’t make sense.” Dave pushed the cigarettes and lighter into a jacket, shrugged into the jacket, and strode quickly through the shadows toward the door.

  Cecil followed him. “Did you expect anything about Cotton Simes to make sense?”

  “I sure as hell didn’t expect him to come back.” Dave felt in the jacket for keys. They were there. He pulled the door open. “He was scared to death when he got on that jet.” He stepped out, waited for Cecil, closed the door, and they crossed the courtyard, headed for the Jaguar.

  “Lucky we never take off our clothes,” Cecil said.

  “Do you really think so?” Dave said.

  He had begun to dislike the harbor at night, the strong sea smell, the cold wind, coldest at this time, with sunrise an hour or so away. Nearing the Old Fleet, he had begun to look out for followers. Don Pham may have vanished, but Dave doubted he had given up. Cecil was doing the driving. At Dave’s suggestion, he swung up extra streets, down alleys, doubled back. Twice they glimpsed a dark limousine—some undertaker looking for an address?—but they saw no black-clad little figures flitting into doorways.

  They left the car on the street, by the crusty iron guard rails of the sea wall, and went down rickety steps to the unstable wooden walkways of the Old Fleet, where the shabby boats rocked asleep on black water. The scaly steel lampposts along the walkways were few and their bulbs gave only grudging light that reflected in yellow ripples below. Cecil pointed. Down the way, fairy lights twinkled in the rigging of the Starlady. Lindy Willard stood on top of the cabin, where she’d eaten croissants and drunk Bloody Marys with Dave the other morning. Clutching a mink coat tight around her, she peered anxiously in their direction.

  “Now just a minute, there,” a sharp voice said.

  They stopped and peered into the darkness. A sturdy little figure stood on the deck of the tubby boat. Bundled in a checked flannel bathrobe, a white sailor cap on her gray hair, the brim turned down. She cradled the orange and white cat on her left arm. Her right hand pointed a gun. A little copper-finish twenty-two pistol.

  “Norma Potter,” Dave said. “Where did you get that gun?”

  “Ah, it’s you, Mr. Brandstetter.” She came towards them. “And who’s that with you?” She gave a little shriek, and took a step backward. “Cotton?”

  “Not Cotton,” Cecil said, and gave his name. “I’m a friend of Mr. Brandstetter.”

  “You work for television news,” she said. “That’s right. You were down here before.” She looked along the moorings. “Well, there’s bad news tonight. Four of those little Asian boys in black were here. Two hours ago. They took Cotton away.” She peered up at Dave. The cat slipped down, landed soundlessly on the deck, and scurried off. “I didn’t even know he was still living here.”

  “Where did you get that gun?” Dave said.,

  “I didn’t mean for you to see it,” she said. “I found it on the deck here, the morning after Mr. Le was killed. I didn’t know it was a twenty-two that killed him. Not then, not till you told me. Didn’t look to me much better than a toy, but it might come in useful. Turned out I was right. After Andy was jailed, everybody around here just kind of gave up hope. So it’s me for myself, isn’t it? And I won’t be sent packing, Mr. Brandstetter. I can’t be. I’ve got no place to go. They have to let me stay here.”

  Dave reached for it. “Hand it over, please.”

  She clasped it to her breast with both plump hands. “I guess you don’t know what ‘desperate’ means, do you?”

  “There’s no way you can shoot all the developers and bureaucrats and lawyers that want you people out. And if you could,
you’d still have to move. To jail.”

  “I can always blow my brains out,” she said.

  “Don’t do that,” Dave said. “Who’d feed your cat?”

  “You,” she said promptly. “You’re a fool for cats.”

  “Why didn’t you shoot the doll-boys?” Dave said.

  She passed the gun over to him, shamefaced. “Lost my nerve. I heard Cotton yell. I heard scuffling. And I got the gun from where I’d hid it and came up here swearing I’d shoot, but I couldn’t make myself do it.” She looked up at him again, her wrinkled face a pale small sad moon in the half darkness. “It takes a special kind of person to be able to kill somebody in cold blood, doesn’t it?”

  “A kind we’d be better off without,” Dave said.

  “Why didn’t you call the police?” Cecil said.

  “The phone’s out there. In the dark.” She waved an arm. “Old woman alone—I was afraid. Anyway, it was over, they had Cotton, they were gone. What could the police do?”

  “They ought to know,” Dave said. “I’ll tell them.”

  Lindy Willard came down the metal ladder from atop the cabin faster than looked safe for a woman her age. In very high spike heels. Dave and Cecil had climbed on board. She came towards them with that regal sway of hers. She still wore the wig she’d performed in. Sequins glittered in it. But she had on jeans and a man’s shirt under the fur coat. Gusts of Chanel Number Five came off the coat. Gusts of gin when she breathed at them. She glanced angrily back along the row of boats. “What did old Norma want with you?”

  “She saw the little boys in black take Cotton away”

  “He was all right,” she said in that glorious big voice that went echoing out across the water, “when I left at eight. He’d got here about six, buses, taxis.”

  “From the airport,” Cecil said.