The Goulden Fleece (Harry Gould Thriller Book 1)

by Raymond Obstfeld

  “Well,” I considered. “I thought it was probably a throwback to your youth. Maybe something from some gang you belonged to.”

  “You mean some ghetto gang, don’t you?” he chuckled.

  “Well,” I admitted sheepishly.

  “That’s exactly what I hoped you would think. In fact, that’s exactly why I wear it. The truth of the matter is, however, that I had never even seen a ghetto until I was out of college. I was born, raised, and educated in upper-class Boston. My father was a lawyer and my mother a teacher. But you see when I started working for Mr. De Young’s organization almost twenty years ago, I learned that you do the best business when the other man fears you a little. So I started wearing this earring just so people would think what you did. And believe,” he smiled, leaning forward confidentially, “it hurt like a son of a bitch the first few months.”

  Heather and I laughed with him, having regained our composure somewhat. Carl grinned, having heard the story a score of times before and anxious to hear it as many more again. Mr. Walker noticed me observing Carl.

  “Mr. De Young thinks Carl’s cousin Mike is the one who should be moving up in the organization, but personally, I think it should be Carl. So every night when Michael is home in bed, Carl and I work together.”

  “Mr. Walker’s teaching me a lot,” Carl volunteered.

  Mr. Walker smiled like a proud mentor. I smiled, too. I was glad Carl was getting some help.

  “But you’re probably anxious to get under way, aren’t you?” he said.

  “Yes we are,” I said, “but we’re still one short. There’s another person traveling with us.”

  “Another person?”

  “Yes, Bartlett’s daughter, Melinda. She’s in trouble with the police, and we’ve got to help her get away.”

  “Do they have her in custody?” he asked.

  “Yes.”

  He stared at the wall, squeezing his lips between his fingers. “Well, Mr. De Young gave me strict orders to do everything I can to make you happy, so I’ll see what I can do. She won’t be able to go with you tonight of course, but I’ll go down to the jail in the morning and arrange for her release. Afterwards I’ll send her to you.”

  “Great!” Heather smiled.

  “Thanks a lot,” I said, shaking his hand.

  “Thank you, Mr. Gould,” he said pleasantly. “Shall we go?”

  “Where to?” I asked.

  “We’re going to take you back to the airport.”

  “Wait a minute. We just went that route this afternoon. The place will probably be swarming with FBI and Bower’s men.”

  “Yes, you see, that’s why we’re doing it. They already caught you there once, so they won’t be expecting you to try the same dumb move again.”

  I expressed my continuing loss of faith in that strategy.

  “I’m afraid you’re going to have to trust me, Mr. Gould. Mr. De Young made all the arrangements himself. It’s sure to work. What we’ve done is booked two seats on a plane to San Francisco in the names of Mr. and Mrs. Irwin Hector. An elderly couple will show up at the ticket desk and pick up the tickets for Mr. and Mrs. Hector. That’s where the FBI will be concentrating their search. However, the two of you will be waiting by the boarding ramp and will take the tickets and board in their names. The fact that you are traveling with a woman will already throw them off. They’re probably still on the lookout for a man traveling alone.”

  It sounded plausible, but what made it finally attractive was the scarcity of other options.

  “And to help you get started,” he said, pulling out a bundle of cash from his attaché case, “here’s another $1,000. Compliments of Mr. De Young.”

  “Boy, you’d think I was his brother.”

  “Well, confidentially, he likes you better than his brother. He was having some real troubles until you killed Bartlett. Sure, he could have taken care of him himself, but that would have caused some very bad blood, and spilled a lot more. You did him a big favor.”

  I thanked him profusely, pumping his hand as if I expected to strike oil. Heather kissed him gratefully.

  “Carl here will take you out to the airport. Mr. and Mrs. Hector will identify themselves to you. Just wait at Gate 37 for Flight 124. Got that?”

  I repeated it.

  “Good. Well then, good luck Mr. Gould, Miss Stephens. And don’t worry about Melinda Bartlett, I’ll see to it first thing in the morning.” He waved goodbye. “Well, Uncle Nat, how about a few hands of gin?”

  “How about a few glasses of gin?” Uncle Nat said as we closed the door.

  We talked good humoredly on the way to the airport. Carl was excited about his future with the organization. I was excited about my future of being alive. He dropped us off where he and his cousin had deposited me earlier that day. We wished each other luck and shook hands. Heather kissed him gratefully. I hoped this wasn’t going to become a habit with her.

  We went straight to Gate 37 and waited for Mr. and Mrs. Hector surreptitiously to pass on the flight tickets. It was almost a quarter of an hour before anything happened.

  “This time you’ve really had it, Gould,” he said behind me, punctuating his sentence by jabbing his gun into my back.

  Chapter Eighteen

  “I want you to know that I’m doing this all on my own time, Gould,” Jerry sneered defiantly once we were in his car. I was behind the wheel and Heather was beside me. Jerry smirked from the back seat, occasionally poking me in the neck and head with his gun. “Most of the others had already gone home. But I knew you’d try to duck out again. I knew it.”

  “The nose knows,” I said. He self-consciously touched the adhesive bandages covering his broken nose.

  “That’s one I owe you for,” he said in a tone that let me know he intended to pay me back in full. And then some.

  “Take a good look around,” he said, “’cause by the time either of you ever gets out again, the city is likely to have moved. Come on, Gould, start the car. We’re going downtown.”

  “Look, I told your boss this afternoon, and I’m telling you now, you’re making a big mistake. I had nothing to do with that explosion. Besides, Bartlett wasn’t even killed in it.”

  “Sure, sure. Next you’ll be telling me there never even was an explosion, and that the fire started because someone was careless with their cigarette. And what about this $1,000 I found in your jacket. Contract money if I’ve ever seen it. Just drive!”

  I considered suggesting that he call Lt. Bower to verify the fact that Bartlett had not been killed last night, but it occurred to me that having been seen leaving the scene of tonight’s murder, I was still the top suspect as far as they were concerned. They would only accuse me of having gone there to finish the job I’d started last night.

  As I turned the ignition key, I glanced at Heather. She stared with glazed eyes, blinking in a hypnotic rhythm. She looked tired—tired of being threatened, tired of running. Troubles that evolved mostly from being with me. There had to be an end to it for both of us. As we cruised down the freeway at Jerry’s directions, I became almost superstitiously resigned to the fact that I would not be able to leave this town until this whole mess was resolved and the entire truth brought out and confronted. And if that’s what it took, that’s what I would do.

  I eased the car off the freeway and up to the closest curb.

  “What the hell do you think you’re doing!” Jerry screamed nervously, waving his gun at me. “You try anything and I’ll blow your brains out, Gould. All right, pull over here!” he ordered, motioning to the curb against which I had already parked.

  “Before you and your boss make any worse asses of yourselves than you already have, I’m going to give you a final chance to come out of this with promotions instead of what you’re otherwise going to get when they find out what an idiotic mistake you’ve been making.”

  “There’s been no mistake, Gould. I caught you . . .”

  “Look, I’m only going to make this offer once
, what you do about it is up to you.”

  “I don’t take bribes!” he protested, a little too strongly.

  “I’m not talking about that. I think I know who really did kill Bartlett. Now, I’ll tell you who it is if you promise to release us. Then you can go there and arrest him and be the big hero. Otherwise you’ll be scrubbing toilets in the federal building on New Year’s Eve.”

  He rubbed his nose again as if that might somehow stimulate his brain. The prospect of breaking this case alone appealed to him. But he was not convinced.

  “Tell me who it is,” he cajoled chummily.

  “Not a chance. First you agree on the terms, then I tell you.”

  He deliberated some more, once again consulting his nose for advice. If he pulled it off there’d be a promotion and a raise. But if I was conning him, he wouldn’t be qualified to give orders to a police dog.

  “Tell me who it is. If I think you’ve got something, I’ll let you both go. If I think you’re pulling one, I’ll break your arm.”

  I had little choice. I knew he couldn’t be trusted, but he knew that I knew, so maybe he was on the level.

  “All right,” I said, drawing in a deep breath as if what I had to say needed a lung full of air. “Henry De Young killed Bartlett.”

  “Harry, do you know what you’re saying?” Heather asked in amazement.

  “Huh,” Jerry grunted disappointedly. The down payment on his new boat would have to wait. “That’s your big revelation? He may have been behind it, the one who paid you off, but he didn’t do it personally, so we’d never get him. I’ve already got the trigger man, Gould. You.”

  “You don’t understand, I mean that De Young actually did it himself.”

  “That doesn’t make any sense, Harry,” Heather admonished. “Then why would he have gone through all this trouble . . .”

  “He couldn’t have done it himself, Gould. He wasn’t even at the party last night.”

  “I’m telling you Bartlett wasn’t killed last night. In fact, Bartlett was the one who set that bomb off. He wanted everyone to think he was dead. Only now he really is dead. His partner shot him tonight and made off with a million dollars in cash. And that partner was Henry De Young.”

  “But Harry, Mr. De Young indirectly saved our lives. He even gave you money and personally arranged our getaway.”

  “Exactly. And look where it got us. Right where he knew it would. I don’t think there ever was a Mr. and Mrs. Hector. He meant for us to be picked up, because he wanted the police to convict me of Bartlett’s murder. And he’d keep a million dollars. Only this is one time I don’t plan to fall for it. This time someone else takes the fall.”

  Jerry peered into my eyes, trying to decide how much of what I’d said I really believed. He couldn’t find any answers, because I wasn’t sure myself. It was while Heather and I were waiting by the ramp for the non-existent Mr. and Mrs. Hector, that the possibility of De Young being the killer first arose. He had been generous to a fault to me that day, throwing money and armed escorts at me. Maybe he had meant it sincerely, but I doubted it. Besides, if he were sincere, and I showed up at his house in the custody of an FBI agent, he would help me. So what did I have to lose?

  “All right, Gould, it’s worth a try. We’ll go down there and check it out. Start driving.”

  “Wait a minute. We made a deal. I told you who I thought it was, now you’ve got to let us go.”

  “I don’t have to do anything, Gould. Now drive.” He jabbed my ear with is gun.

  “All right, I’ll go, but she stays.”

  “We all go,” he grinned. This is where he was paying me back.

  “Then start shooting, ’cause I’m not driving until she gets out of the car.” I folded my arms with stubborn determination.

  He considered for a moment before agreeing. “Okay, she can stay. Get out!” he told her, jerking his pistol at the door. Heather looked at me and I nodded. She got out silently and waited on the curb until we had pulled away and were heading back to town, this time toward De Young’s rustic Beverly Hills home.

  By the time we reached our destination, I knew for certain that De Young was the killer. I’d begun adding up the facts, examining the motives, and eliminating other suspects until there was one man left. Henry De Young. I was suddenly very anxious to confront him and learn the truth. There were still some questions I couldn’t answer.

  All this squatted in my mind as Jerry and I sneaked onto the property and around the house, looking for a way to enter unnoticed. Some of the windows were ajar against the heat.

  “This shouldn’t be too tough,” Jerry whispered. “Guys as big as Bartlett and De Young here don’t have to worry about burglars. Every crook within five hundred miles knows not to touch even the neighborhood in which they live. Jerry hoisted one of the open windows and we slid quietly into a dark room.

  “I’m certain De Young’s the killer,” I whispered to Jerry, as we crept toward the door. Neither of us could see a thing. “I’m certain it’s De Young,” I whispered again.

  Jerry coaxed the door open. There were voices in the living room where I’d been earlier that day. We began to walk down the hall when we heard someone coming. We jumped quickly into the first room we came to. The lights were already on. I was startled to see De Young slumped over his desk in what appeared to be a sound sleep.

  “We know you’re the one who killed Bartlett,” I accused him nervously. “You may as well admit it and save us all a lot of time. Admit that you killed Eugene Bartlett.”

  He didn’t stir. Jerry tiptoed over to him, took his pulse, and promptly announced, “He’s dead.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  “Would you please follow me, gentlemen?” Carl, the sandy-haired nephew asked. But the gun in his hand didn’t leave us much choice. He gave us each a quick frisk, removing Jerry’s gun, before guiding us into the mountain-cabin living room.

  “Please sit down,” Walker smiled in the manner of a gracious host. “Drinks?”

  “Look Walker, you’re holding a federal officer . . .”

  “Shut up!” he glared at Jerry as if he hated to have his act interrupted. He reset his smile and faced me. “You were quite foolish in coming back here, Mr. Gould. Quite foolish. I gave you a chance to live.”

  “You knew I’d get caught.”

  “Well, let’s just say I had calculated the odds to be strongly in favor of that. But there was the possibility that you could elude the police and make your escape. That, too, would have been satisfactory. Then they would be chasing you someplace else. However, since you stubbornly insisted upon returning, I’m afraid this will be your last stop.”

  “Then you were Bartlett’s partner. You’re the one who killed him this evening,” I said evenly. I was getting used to being wrong.

  He smiled modestly, as if we’d just discovered he had once won a Nobel prize. “Yes, I killed him. And then set fire to the place. He told me about his plans for you. It was too good an opportunity to pass up. All I had to do was add his body and they’d blame you for it: you had to come back to finish the job you’d started last night. You shot Farrow who tried to protect his friend. Then you shot Bartlett. You went downstairs to set the fire, but Bartlett wasn’t quite dead. He crawled to the cellar door and locked you in, the fire would have eventually burnt the ropes so no one would know you had been tied up. It was as simple as that. And now I’m a million dollars richer.” He gestured easily to the black leather doctor’s bag on the coffee table.

  “Why didn’t you just kill me when you had me before?”

  “Well, I considered it. But for the police to have found your body without any adequate explanation might have made them suspicious. And to have you disappear completely, without leaving the usual traces of an amateur like yourself, would have made them even more suspicious. They might have begun questioning the events more carefully. And that just wouldn’t do. But now,” he beamed, raising his hands to us as if to give a benediction, “now I have
the two of you. And when they find both of you dead, shot with each other’s guns, they will know that you”—he pointed to Jerry—“in the performance of your duty, attempted to apprehend this known criminal. And that you,”—he pointed to me—“desperate at having already killed so many people, tried to fight it out. The result: you killed each other. A little cinematic perhaps, but it’ll work.”

  Walker stood up and stretched. “Carl, I’m afraid it’s about that time. You know where to take them. I’m afraid this is goodbye, gentlemen. Mr. Gould, it’s been a most interesting experience knowing you.”

  Carl moved toward us. I was more annoyed at this point than frightened. There were too many questions that hadn’t been answered. I had the feeling I was being cheated. It was like having to leave a mystery movie right before the final scene. I tried to stall.

  “I thought he was your uncle,” I sneered, shooting an accusing glare at Carl. He lowered his eyes ashamed.

  “Yeah, but Mr. Walker’s taking care of me. Uncle Hank would’ve just kept me as a dumb torpedo for the rest of my life. But Mike he moves up after only a few months. It just isn’t fair. I just wanted a chance, too.” He was pleading for understanding. He wasn’t quite sure that what he had done was right, even by the twisted standards of his profession. Walker saw his doubts.

  “Now, Carl. We talked about all this before. Do you remember what we agreed upon? Do you?” Carl nodded. “You remember how they kept you back. Kept you from going to college, kept you from advancing. Just like they kept me back. For twenty years I was always second, always the adviser. Just because they didn’t want a black man moving up in their organization. They did that to the two of us. But now we’ve shown them who is smarter, haven’t we?”

  Carl nodded again, his doubts momentarily gone. Walker smiled at me.