by Josh Lanyon
He was still breathing, which is always a good sign.
As gently as I could I picked him up, placed him on the towel, wrapped it around him, and put him in my car. I drove to the emergency clinic, the cat purring on the seat beside me.
“What’s his name?” the young man at the front desk asked as my towel and cat were whisked to a back room.
“Uh…John Tomkins,” I said.
“That’s different,” the receptionist said, writing it down.
“He was a pirate,” I said. “I mean Tomkins. I don’t know about the cat. Would you have any idea how long this might take?” I needed to call Jake before it got too late.
He shook his head, his expression politely sympathetic.
I sat down to wait, picking up a battered copy of Cat Fancy. Just the name… I was not -- had never considered myself -- a cat person. And I didn’t plan on starting now. Yet here I was, watching the clock and reading an article on nutrition for young cats.
After about ten minutes, the vet came out. “It looks like a dog got hold of him.”
I couldn’t imagine where Tompkins found a dog to tangle with. “Is he…uh?”
He waited.
I gestured, which I guess was supposed to signify animation -- or maybe what the hell was I supposed to do next.
“He’s alive,” the vet supplied -- and I was astonished at the relief I felt. Mostly, I told myself, because I didn’t want to hear what Natalie would have to say about the damned cat getting itself mauled.
The relief vanished in the wake of a nine hundred dollar bill for testing, X-rays, stitches, etc. The only good news was they were going to keep Mr. Tomkins overnight, so I wouldn’t be tempted to strangle him.
I took my bloodstained towel and my bloodstained credit card back, bade them good night, and returned to Cloak and Dagger.
By then it was eleven thirty, which was way too late to be calling married friends at home, but I didn’t have a choice.
I rang Jake up on his cell. It went straight to message.
I said, “Can you call me when you get this? It’s…” A matter of life and death? I didn’t want to be melodramatic, but it sort of was. And no sort of about it. “Urgent,” I compromised.
I clicked off, went back downstairs to check the security gate and all the locks -- jeering at my own unease. Why did I keep putting myself in these situations when they obviously scared the hell out of me?
As I returned upstairs the phone was ringing. I picked it up.
“What’s wrong?” Jake asked. His voice was sleep-roughened, but he sounded alert.
“You’re not going to like it.”
“Tell me something I don’t know.”
“I’ve set myself up to go sailing with Paul Kane tomorrow. I’m pretty sure he’s going to try to kill me.”
There was a very long silence, and then Jake said, “He’ll have to take a number.”
“Look…” And then I couldn’t think of what to say to him. I knew what I was asking -- I’d known before I ever tried to set myself up as bait -- and I knew it might just be too much to ask of anyone.
“You couldn’t leave it alone, could you?” Jake said, and I could hear the fury, although he kept his voice low.
“Murder? No, I couldn’t leave murder alone, Jake. And I’ll tell you what: I don’t know how safe it would have been for me to leave it alone, because your boyfriend has settled on murder as the quickest and easiest way to resolve his problems.”
“Bullshit.”
“Fine. If I’m wrong, I’ll just go for a pleasant sail and come back slightly drunk and slightly sunburned. But if I’m right --”
“You think he’s going to attack you in broad daylight? There’s a crew on board, for chrissake.”
“There was a house full of people at that party in Laurel Canyon. I don’t think crowds intimidate him. And I don’t think he’s planning to shoot me. He’s going to need it to look like another accident. He’ll try to shove me overboard or push me down the stairs or something. Put something in my drink maybe.”
Jake said in choked tones, “That’s nearly as brilliant as your plan. What is your plan, by the way? Besides getting yourself killed?”
“It’s the simplest thing in the world. You come too. And you stop him from killing me. And then you arrest him.”
“On attempted murder? How the fuck does --” He abruptly lowered his voice. “Even if we get him on trying to take you out, how does that prove anything else?”
“Why would he try and kill me if it wasn’t because --”
“I can think of a dozen reasons,” Jake said.
“That hurts,” I said after a pause. He was joking -- sort of -- and that had to be a good sign, right? I added, “Anyway, I plan to wear a wire. I bought some gear at Radio Shack --” I stopped. He was laughing.
It was one of those wheezy, near-silent Muttley laughs. When he managed to speak, he sounded slightly hysterical. “You’re insane,” he said. “How did I never notice this about you before?”
“I’m not insane. This is very simple, very straightforward. Provided he doesn’t kill me, it’s foolproof.”
He said very quietly, “Listen to me carefully. Don’t get on that fucking boat tomorrow. I am not going to back you up on this. I am not going to let you manipulate me any more than I am going to let Paul manipulate me. You think I don’t know what you’re trying to do here?”
Now that threw me. Talk about convoluted reasoning. “You think this is all about getting you to come out?”
“That’s what you’re asking of me. And you know -- you know -- I cannot do this. I will not do this.”
“You’d rather that he got away with murder?”
“He didn’t kill anyone!”
In the wake of that cry we were both silent.
I heard him cover the receiver and speak to someone, then he came back on the line. “I’ve got to go. We’ll talk about this later. Don’t -- I repeat -- don’t get on that boat. Don’t do anything stupid. Do you understand?”
And I did. And I believed him.
“Jake…” I wasn’t sure how to say it. “I’ve set something in motion now that I can’t stop. He’s going to come after me, and it would be better if I could control the circumstances of it.”
“You think a boat in the middle of the ocean is controlling the circumstances?” His voice shook both with anger and something not so easily identified. “You just told me your heart is worse, and you pull this stunt. Are you out of your goddamned mind?”
By now it was clearly a rhetorical question.
I said, trying for patience, “This way I know where and I know when he’s going to try. I won’t have that opportunity again. I won’t have any control over it after tomorrow. And if I don’t show up, he’ll know that I know --”
He cut me off, and I almost didn’t recognize that low voice as Jake’s. “I know you’re trying to do the right thing. I know this is partly my fault for letting Paul bring you into this. But I am asking you…” His voice dropped still lower. “I am begging you, Adrien. Don’t do this. There isn’t much I wouldn’t do for you -- but don’t ask this. I can’t help you this time.”
“There isn’t anyone else I can ask, Jake.”
The click of the receiver was soft but definite against my ear.
Chapter Twenty-Four
“Are you really intending not to drink or eat anything this entire trip?” Paul asked lazily.
It was just after nine o’clock in the morning, and we were sailing in open water. The fog was beginning to burn off. It was going to be a beautiful day, but it was still chilly, the ocean smelling of salt and rain and things down deep below the restless green water. Paul and I sat on the open deck of the Pirate’s Gambit. A brunch tray sat on the table between us and it was enticingly arranged with plates. There was something called baked omelet roll -- ham and cheese and mushroom -- fresh fruit, muffins. I was more tempted by the pot of hot coffee.
“I’ll probably have so
mething later,” I said.
He smiled. “I would have to be pretty stupid to poison you aboard my own boat.”
“Yes, you would,” I agreed, and he chuckled.
We were by ourselves. When I had arrived at the marina Paul told me he had canceled the party.
“You obviously have something on your mind,” he’d said. “This way we can chat undisturbed.”
But we hadn’t chatted. We’d put out to sea -- and I was not particularly reassured by the sight of Paul’s captain taking the helm. I’d taken what precautions I could. I’d talked to Guy -- and if possible he was even more disgusted and furious with me than Jake. I’d written down my detailed theory on why I believed Porter Jones had been killed -- heck, I’d written down everything I could think of that might help prosecute Kane if things went wrong -- and I’d mailed it off that morning to Mr. Gracen to be opened in the event of my death.
Of course just receiving a communication like that was liable to result in dear old Mr. Gracen popping off this earthly plane, but that couldn’t be helped. If I wasn’t successful, if Kane was stupid enough -- desperate enough -- to still try to kill me after I explained these precautions, then at least I wanted to know that LAPD would have sufficient cause to reinvestigate Langley Hawthorne’s death. Not to mention my own.
But I was hoping it wouldn’t come to that.
And certainly Paul had been easy and charming for the half hour or so we had been together, chatting pleasantly while he enjoyed his breakfast.
But at last he finished eating, brushed the crumbs from his muffin fastidiously from his hands, shoved the plate aside, and studied me with those bright, amused eyes.
“You know, I really don’t believe that you’re out here planning to try a spot of blackmail.” His mouth twitched. “I have to say, though, you’d be quite good at acting yourself. That bit in the café last night was brilliant.” He mimicked, “I can write my own screenplay!” He shook his head. “What a turn for comedy you have.”
I have to admit I wasn’t quite expecting this relaxed frankness. I said cautiously, “If you don’t think I’m trying to blackmail you, what do you think I’m doing out here?”
“Besides having seen one too many detective films? I think you want answers. I think you’re insatiably curious. And I don’t mind answering your questions. You won’t be able to prove any of this. There is no proof. Now. And I like you, Adrien.” He arched an elegant eyebrow. “I like you a good deal.”
Oddly enough, that was the first scary thing he’d said. It was like finding a cobra curled up in the foot of your sleeping bag. I said, and it wasn’t even a guess, “You destroyed Porter’s memoirs.”
“Yes.” He said it promptly, like awarding points in a contest.
“But why kill him?”
“Because he knew why I destroyed the manuscript. That was a mistake on my part. I should have stalled longer.”
“He knew you murdered Langley Hawthorne?”
“Just for the record” -- he raised his eyebrows as though making sure we both understood this -- “I didn’t murder Langley. His death was an accident.”
“Then why wasn’t it reported as an accident?”
“Because we had been arguing, and I suppose I felt guilty. I knew I would be a suspect in his death. He had told me about his will -- he was very set on Nina and me marrying. And of course neither Nina nor I had any desire to marry each other. We were young but we weren’t stupid.”
“So what happened?”
“We were rowing. Langley turned away and fell against the rail gate. He went into the water and he must have hit his head. By the time I got him out, he was dead. Porter came along as I was trying to resuscitate him. I was panicking -- badly. It was Porter’s idea to…put Langley back and recreate discovering the body. Then he provided me with an alibi for the time that Langley died.”
He made it sound so simple, so plausible, it took me a moment to think of the obvious. “Why would he?”
Paul said irritably, “Because he was my friend and because he knew exactly how it would look to the authorities. He did it to help me -- nothing could be done for poor old Langley. And it was an accident.”
“And in these memoirs Porter described what had really happened?”
Paul nodded. “He wanted to set the record straight. Clear his conscience. Not that his conscience wasn’t perfectly clear.”
Maybe it was, maybe it wasn’t. But I still thought the story of Langley Hawthorne falling through the rail gate and conveniently drowning before help could reach him was a little pat. How the hell long had it taken Kane to drag him out of the drink? Why hadn’t he yelled immediately for help? Maybe Porter had begun to think Kane’s story was a little pat too as he reexamined his past.
Paul said, “Porter couldn’t -- or refused to -- understand that there was as much danger to me now as there ever had been should the truth of Langley’s death come out.”
I said, “So you poisoned the friend who had helped you when you needed it most --”
He interrupted, “Porter was dying. He had pancreatic cancer. Have you any idea of how painful a death that is?”
“Oh,” I said. “You did him a favor.”
His eyes narrowed. “I did, actually. It was fast, relatively painless, and he had no idea it was coming. Not a bad death, frankly. Believe me, losing Porter as a friend and a business partner gained me nothing.”
I could pretty well see the way this was going to play out. I just hoped Kane was speaking loudly enough for the tiny recording device taped beneath my shirt.
“So why drag me into it?” I asked. “Optioning my book -- what was that about?”
He lowered his lashes and then suddenly opened his eyes and smiled at me. The beauty of that smile took me slightly aback. “I’ve always been curious about you: my unknown rival for Jake’s affections.” His smile was self-mocking. “But then he married and broke it off with you.”
“But not with you?”
“Not for long.” He watched my face. “After he married we grew closer. Much closer. One night he had a few drinks and he started talking about you. And I decided I would arrange a meeting with you by optioning your book. I do like the book, by the way, but I don’t think it’s particularly commercial.”
The unkindest cut of all.
“So why the hell drag me into the murder investigation?”
“Didn’t you enjoy it?”
I opened my mouth -- and then closed it. He chuckled. “Of course you did. And I enjoyed watching you enormously -- and watching Jake.”
If I’d had any doubts before, that cleared them up. He could talk about accidents and panic and doing favors for old friends, but he was cold and calculating and cruel. A sociopath. No conscience, no remorse, no empathy. In fact, I thought it possible he might have drowned his own kid. I wondered if anyone had looked into that accident.
“And Al January?” I asked carefully.
“You can take responsibility for that one,” he said. “Why the fuck you had to drag Al into it, I don’t know. What did you think would happen when you started asking him about Langley and Porter’s memoirs?”
He had me there. I hated thinking I might be responsible for Al’s death. If I managed to get out of this alive, I was going to make damned sure I never got involved in another criminal investigation. I said, “So Al called you and told you I’d been asking questions about Porter’s memoirs, which started him thinking -- because the truth is only one person could have easily poisoned Porter’s drink, and that was you. That was a nice little touch having me hand Porter his glass.”
“I thought so. I didn’t plan it, though,” he admitted. “It just happened. I thought you might drink it, actually. It stood beside your own glass for what felt like an eternity.” He smiled. “But you were quite careful not to touch it, and I really couldn’t afford to let Porter go on bitching about his lost masterpiece.”
A funny little chill went down my spine as I realized how close I’d been
to dying that afternoon. It could have all ended right there -- and Jake would have shown up and found me as his homicide case.
And Kane would have got away with it.
I said, “So you raced over to Al’s, bashed him over the head --”
“Not hard enough apparently, but even if Al makes it, after traumatic head injuries the victim often doesn’t remember the hours previous -- he might lose the whole day.”
“Well, we can only hope!” I said, unable to stop myself from copying his cheerful tone. His smile was odd.
“Any other questions? You’re probably dying to know where I came up with the digitoxin, aren’t you?”
“Nina left an old bottle around after the last party she catered for you?”
He looked pained. “Of course not. What a strange idea. No. A former lover left them. As a matter of fact, I hung onto those pills for nearly three years. I had a feeling they would come in useful at some point.” And the look in his eyes sent another of those slithers down my spine. “Any other questions?” he asked gently.
“Just wondering where we go from here.”
He drawled, “You mean you’ve no notion at all? Not a one? You’re not wearing a wire under that sweater of yours? You’re not carrying your grandmother’s Webley tucked in the back band of your jeans?”
I didn’t move a muscle.
High above us a gull swooped low, squawking. I thought that I would never forget the bright heat of the sun and the smell of salt in the air: so that was the sound and taste of betrayal.
Kane laughed. “Of course you are. Well, that narrows our options a bit. If you were willing to play…but you’re not. You’re bound and determined to see me brought to justice, aren’t you? Regardless of the cost to…anyone. Yourself included.”
I don’t think I could have moved if my life had depended on it -- and it probably did.
“So let me tell you what I have planned for you. I’m going to settle one final curiosity, the curiosity of what the attraction is between men like myself and Jake. You’ve always wondered about that, haven’t you?”
