by Marc Strange
“It’s the sand,” Larry says as we cruise down the Esplanade. “Something about the sand around here. It sticks together or something.”
“It’d better,” I say. I’m looking at a colossal creation involving Noah’s Ark crammed to the gunwales with two of everything. “That thing must be ten feet tall.”
“Hey, we’re talking world championships. Teams from all over come for the sand. Grab the next right and then left.”
We continue out Rockwell Drive along the eastern shore of the lake, past a yacht club and a marina. The bluffs on our right are stacked against a two-lane road of blind corners and sudden dips. A waterfall washes the asphalt, and blocks of rock the size of refrigerators lie at the base of shale slides.
“How far?” I ask.
“Keep going.”
“I keep thinking that cliff’s going to land on top of me.”
“Sort of like life,” Larry says. His flask is empty.
When we find Warren Carleton, he reminds me of a walrus. His moustache is snow-white and is obviously the pride of his face. He has the ruddy complexion of a man who spends his days on the water and his nights by a fireplace. Carleton is sweeping leaves off his patio as we come up to the gate. He waves us in to a wide garden of faded flowers and fruit trees hanging on to a few late apples and pears.
“I know you,” he says. “Joe Grundy. Hammering Joe Grundy. I used to follow boxing before it got all weird. I saw you more than once. Nice to meet you.”
“Thanks,” I say. “This is Larry Gormé. He works for the Emblem.”
“An ink-stained wretch, eh? You look like you could use a drink, Mr. Gormé. How about you, Joe?”
“I’m the designated driver.”
“Well, then, we mustn’t let you go to waste. Follow me.” He parks his broom and barges into his home.
“We don’t want to impose,” I say through the open glass doors.
“Don’t you recognize hospitality when you hear it?” he says from the kitchen. “Besides, I’m lonely as hell this week. My wife is in Vegas for her annual slot machine offensive. I don’t approve, but she always seems to come home with more money than she took. Beats me how she does it. I’m having a cold one. What’s your poison, Gormé?”
“Beer will be good,” Larry says.
“This is about Parker Prescott, I’ll bet,” Carleton says. “I ran a few reporters out of here some time ago. You may have been one of them, Gormé. Were you up here bothering me last year?”
“Might have been,” Larry says.
“Thought so. I’ve read your stuff.” He hands Larry a frosted bottle of Beck’s. No glass. “Not bad when you get your facts straight.”
“Thanks,” Larry says. “If you ran me off last year, how come I’m getting a beer this time?”
“I didn’t run you off personally. I ran a mob off. You vultures were getting on my nerves. Besides, not every day I get a visit from a heavyweight contender.”
“I was never a contender,” I say.
“Never made the top ten,” he concedes, “but you were lurking pretty close there for a while.”
“The good years,” I say. “They didn’t last.”
“It’s a rough game,” he says. “Ginger ale, juice, water?”
“I’ll have a Canada Dry,” I say. “Thanks.”
“So,” he says, handing me a cold can, “how do you fit into this?”
“I work for the Lord Douglas Hotel where Mr. Buznardo was shot Monday night. I’m looking into the case for the hotel.”
“Aha.”
“An employee of mine is suspected of having done it.
I’m hoping there’s another explanation.”
“Don’t know if I can help you there,” he says. He has a deep and satisfying swig from the bottle and wipes his pride and joy. “I hadn’t seen Jake Buznardo for almost two years, since right after Parker died.”
“I understand you and Mr. Prescott were partners in the beginning.”
“Four Star Marine. We made plywood for boats. Finest quality. We couldn’t compete, of course, not in the long run. The big outfits were turning out a pretty good product themselves, but we had a few innovations they wanted to get their hands on. We made a good deal for ourselves.”
He leads us through a walkway beside the house and onto an expansive deck with a fine view of the lake. The clouds are heaped against the lumpy islands across the water; the sky is in motion.
“We went our separate ways after that,” Carleton says. “Park decided he wanted to play the market — he was more of a cowboy than I was. Me, I liked fast foods. I figured people would always be eating on the run — I knew I was — so that’s where I went. Franchises, hamburgers, pizzas, tacos. I did okay. Sit down, gentlemen. Let’s have a look at the water. That’s what it’s there for.”
“Nice view,” I say.
“Yeah, the sky’s kind of dramatic today.”
“Have you been following the story, Mr. Carleton?” I ask.
“Call me War. That’s what I answer to, have since I was a kid. And, yes, I have followed the story. I even called Gormé’s paper a couple of times to correct one of their more egregious blunders.”
“Which one was that?” Larry asks. “I stepped in it more than once.”
“This was the one where you said Park Prescott was visiting spiritualists and witch doctors. Load of garbage.”
“I had confirmation.”
“You made it sound like Park had gone loony. It wasn’t like that.”
“How was it?” I ask.
“Not a witch doctor,” he says with a look at Larry, “a shaman. Guy named Gene Eugene over near Agazzis. They used to go over there once in a while, listen to the wind or whatever. It was a cleansing ritual.”
“How about the spiritualist?” Larry asks. “We talked to her.”
“Mazie? She’s a sweet old bat. Reads tarot cards and charts the stars. My personal opinion, Park used to visit her for the female companionship. She has a warm and generous nature.”
“All this was Buznardo’s doing?” I ask.
“Yeah,” Carleton says, “after Buzz moved in, Park started getting out a bit. Not the places he used to go. He didn’t go to Paris or Hong Kong anymore. He just went to Agazzis to listen to the wind.”
“How did they meet?”
“Park and Buzz? The kid brought him a fish. Can you picture it? Kid comes up the beach carrying this salmon, Park told me, comes up to the back door with this nice fish he’s caught, and he asks Park if he can build a little fire on the beach to cook it.”
Collecting Larry’s empty bottle, he clinks it against his own. I waggle my can to indicate I still have a beverage. Carleton then carries the bottles into the house through the open French door, and I follow him through to the kitchen as he continues his story. “Park says, ‘There’s a barbecue pit on the patio. Knock yourself out.’ So the kid cooks the salmon and brings Park a piece, and he eats it. He said to me that it was the first food he’d eaten in a year that tasted like food.” He puts the empties into a recycling box and grabs a fresh pair out of the fridge. “Then the kid asks if it’s okay if he sleeps on Park’s beach before moving on in the morning. Park says, ‘Sure, why not?’”
Carleton leans against the sink and turns his head to gaze out at the garden. “That night it rains. Park wakes up at midnight or whatever, and he remembers the kid is sleeping on the beach, so he puts on a hat and goes out to see if the kid’s okay, and there he is, Buzz, under a poncho, happy as a clam, watching the rain come down. Park tells him to come up to the house for some coffee. So he does. They sit in the kitchen and drink tea, not coffee, because the kid asked for tea. They sit there until morning, and Park tells Buzz he’s on his way out, that he’s come here to die, that the doctors have given him only a short time to live. Buzz asks, ‘What, you’re dying tomorrow?’ And Park says, ‘They say six months, maybe a year. Buzz cracks up. He thinks it’s hilarious.”
Delighted with the memory, Carleton laughs,
then tells me, “Buzz says, ‘Shit, I thought you were dying, and Park says, ‘I am dying, goddamn it.’ Then Buzz says, ‘Bullshit, the sun’s coming up, you stupid fucker, what more do you want?’” He wipes a tear from his cheek without embarrassment and flashes me a generous smile.
“Buzz was dying, too,” I say.
Carleton stares at me. He’s still wearing a damp smile. “I know. He told me. He wanted my advice about how to make sure Molly was looked after. He knew he probably wouldn’t live long enough to give it all away. He was going to give it a shot, though. I’ll give him that. At the very least it would have exposed the true state of Prescott Holdings’ finances.”
“What did you tell Buzz?”
“About what?”
“About how to look after Molly.”
“I told him to make a will. If he didn’t want to deal with lawyers, he should write it out in his own handwriting and have it notarized and his signature witnessed.”
“Did he do it?”
“I don’t know, son. I didn’t see them for a while. Molly was visiting that summer. I think they drove around to some music fairs.”
Carleton remembers his mission and abruptly heads back to the deck, talking as he goes. “What a character! He took off one time, disappeared for a month, and when he came back, he had a banjo. Park had mentioned he always wanted to learn how to play the banjo. The kid had gone to Calgary and traded some Haida mask for a banjo. Park said he didn’t even know how to tune the damn thing. But the kid said he’d teach him.”
He hands Larry a fresh beer, then moves to the railing to look out at the water. “That was it. They played music, took walks, went for drives, camping trips. Fixed up a little sailboat and bopped around the lake. Very quiet life. No stress. Once a month or so I’d drop by, and Park and I would have a few drinks, maybe play a sloppy game of chess, talk about the old days, women we’d known and places we’d been, deals we’d made. He got better for a while, couple of years, anyway, better than when he first got the news. Buzz looked after his diet — holistic, raw food. I don’t know much about that stuff. I made my fortune with double cheeseburgers, but it was working. It bought Park a few more years. I started thinking maybe I should try drinking wheat grass myself, but it tastes like swamp water to me.”
“It’s starting to make sense,” I say. “Why he would leave everything to someone like Buzz.”
“Oh, sure. But in the end it all came down to what would destroy Wade Hubble.”
“He hated him that much?” Larry asks. He’s looked half asleep for most of the visit, but he’s awake now.
“He hand-picked Hubble,” Carleton says. “Thought he would be leaving things in good hands. Finding out he’d been betrayed was a nasty blow, considering the other nasty blows he was dealing with. He wanted to bring Hubble down, expose him. In the end he decided to sic Buzz Buznardo on him.”
After a while, we move into the front room of Carleton’s house. He gets a fire going in the handsome stone fireplace and serves us bread and cheese and cold cuts. I’m happy to see Larry eat something. Carleton is a good host without making a big deal about it. And he’s a good talker, which makes my job a lot easier. He recounts, with great relish, the subtle and nasty war that grew between Parker Prescott and the man he picked to run Prescott Holdings.
“When Park found out he was ill, the prognosis wasn’t very good. So he organized things so they could continue after his death. He took Prescott out of any speculative interests, built a portfolio with a steady guaranteed return that could weather market fluctuations. It was a well-considered scheme for a man who was facing the end. But it cut Wade Hubble off at the knees.”
“How so?”
“Wade assumed Park was going to die pretty quick. That’s what everyone believed. That’s what Park himself thought was going to happen. So Wade Hubble sat quietly and waited for Park to disappear. But the tough old fart lived on. And on. And Wade started getting frustrated. There was money to be made, and he wasn’t free to make any. He was managing a portfolio that just sat there. At the same time he couldn’t get off the bus. You don’t walk away from a half-million-dollar salary. There aren’t many positions at that level open, and companies that go headhunting new management look for innovators, motivators, people who make things happen, not for people who are just sitting around clipping coupons. And don’t forget, from Wade’s perspective, there’s a fly in the ointment.” “Who’s that?”
“Edwin Gowins and the Horizon Foundation. They stand at the pay window every year saying, ‘Show me the money.’ Hubble has to hand it over. Gowins gets to spend it. And Gowins has his own agenda, of course. He’s the man who disburses. He has people doing handsprings to get on his list of worthies.”
“I saw his trophy wall,” I say. “Very impressive.” “Oh, yeah, old Edwin never met a camera he didn’t like.” “Gowins has an old portrait of Mr. Prescott.” “Big gilt frame, right? Gowins hated the frame, wanted to have it replaced. Park heard about it and sent him a note. The portrait stayed.”
“So Prescott was in communication with Hubble and Gowins?”
“Only about important things like where his portrait was to be hung, but yeah, he had his finger on the pulse, and once he started getting stronger, after a year or so, he opened up a line of communication. Very quietly. He had a mole inside.” He gets up to poke the fire and shift the main log. “A year or so before he died Park got wind that things weren’t kosher. He was getting weaker physically, not mentally. He began to see that no matter how carefully he’d arranged things, it wasn’t going to stay that way after he was gone. That’s when he started getting his affairs in order. Inside six months he legally adopted Buzz as his son.
He had three separate psychiatrists sign off on his mental health, reasoning power, acuity, ability to make informed decisions. He nullified all previous wills and brought in the best estate lawyer on the West Coast to write a new, ironclad one. It was simple, clear, and solid. Buzz got everything — ownership, power, even the right to change the constitutions of both companies.
“Then Park died. Quietly, on the beach, at sunset, sitting in a deck chair looking out at the ducks and the seals. The local doctor had been advised that it was coming. Same with the funeral home and Park’s specialist in Vancouver. There was no fuss, no big announcement…”
We sit for a while and watch the fire. The wind sneaks in through the partially closed French windows and makes the flames dance.
“You ever run into a man named Axelrode?” I ask. “Buzz’s lawyer hired him to keep tabs on Buzz during the court case.”
“I saw him once,” Carleton says. “They didn’t come up here very much after Park died, but Buzz and his sister were up together a few times. I can’t say I warmed to the man.”
“Would you happen to know who the mole was inside Prescott Holdings?” Larry asks.
Carleton looks at him, then smiles like a satisfied cat. “He isn’t in Prescott. He’s inside Horizon.”
chapter thirty-six
Larry is subdued, or maybe the four beers have made him sleepy. He’s leaning against the passenger window. “How much farther?” I ask. “Halfway into Harrison,” he says. “You’ll see it. It’s got a red roof.”
“I can’t see any roofs. Just trees.”
“You’ll see it. What are you going to do there?”
“Not a thing. I just want to see the place. You feeling all right?”
“Me? Sure. Just depressed as hell. It’s the beer poured on top of Irish coffee. It’s a morose combination.” “Want some food?”
“I ate. Crackers. Very absorbent. Saltines.” “Yeah,” I say, “that should keep you going.” “Old bastard’s got a good set-up, don’t you think?
Comfortable retirement. Expensive beer. Depresses the hell out of me.” “Envy?”
“Pure and simple. No, not so pure and not so simple. I couldn’t have done what he did. Some people have good sense, some people just bang into walls until they find the exit. The
re it is, on the right, around this bend. Slow down.”
The gate is wide open, and a silver Mercedes is parked on the gravel driveway inside.
“Tourists,” Larry says. “There should have been security.”
I park behind the Mercedes and climb out.
Larry stays put. He waves me forward. “I’ve seen it.”
I’m halfway up the gravel drive when a large man comes out of the back door. It’s Bubba. He looks severe for the two seconds it takes for him to recognize me. Then his face relaxes and he gives me a half-smile. “Oh, hey there. Grundy, right? From the hotel?”
“Hi, Bubba,” I say, sticking out my hand, “nice to see you again. Saw you at the service for Buzz but didn’t get a chance to say hello.”
“That asshole ex-cop messed it up. It was nice until he showed. Very spiritual. Molly was happy with the way it went until that prick ruined the moment.”
“What did he want?”
“Guy’s a psycho. Says she’s making a big mistake.”
“What’s the mistake?”
“I don’t know. I tell him to fuck off, he gives me static, I run him off.”
“That’s all he said?”
“He said I should steer clear of Neagle.”
Molly MacKay is standing half behind Bubba. She has one hand on his arm.
“Did he say why?” I ask her.
Molly stares at me for a long moment, unsure whether I’m friend or foe. “I’m suing the hotel, you know.”
“Yes, I heard.”
“Alvin says we have to cover all the bases.”
“You’re going to need a new lawyer,” I say. “Alvin Neagle is dead, probably murdered sometime this morning.”
She grips Bubba’s big arm with both hands, and her knees buckle. He has her supported in a heartbeat, moving behind her, hands under her elbows, leaning her against him. They make a likely looking couple. Earth Mother and Mountain Man.
“Oh, Jesus,” she says. “Who did it?”
“Don’t know yet,” I say.
“Probably that Axelrode,” Bubba says. “You okay?” he asks her. “You want to sit down?”
She turns and lets Bubba help her inside. I stand for a moment, wondering how much farther I can intrude without getting a two-handed cop shove. I decide I don’t have much choice, and follow them inside.
