Shot on Location

by Nielsen, Helen

  “Go home, Smith!” Draper yelled, as the car roared past.

  If the name of the game was confusion, Draper was way ahead. Brad moved away from the kerb and continued walking. At the next intersection the street reached a small open square with narrow side streets setting off at angles, like the spokes of a wheel. To his left stood an old Byzantine church—straight ahead across the square he could see a small pavement cafe, dimly lit, with the outside tables now deserted. A car was parked on the nearest street, blocking the view beyond. The other streets were clear. He decided to cross the square, rather than skirt it, in order to save time. He was halfway across the street when he heard the motor start. This time Draper didn’t bother to turn on the lights. The convertible shot out from the kerb just behind the car and hurled towards him. Brad stumbled and fell forward, catching himself on the far kerb and rolling to safety as the little car raced by. He crawled to his feet and saw that Draper was now circling the square, to catch him on the other side. There was no place to hide; no kiosk or convenient monument. There were low shrubs and some sparse flower beds. Running forward across the square in the attempt to beat Draper’s circling manoeuvre, he dropped to one knee and picked up a rock from the border of one bed. Still running, he reached the street as the little car bore down on him. He stopped in the middle of the street and hurled the rock at the windshield and then lunged forward to the pavement beyond, with the music of shattering glass behind him. He threw himself round, to see what he’d done. The rock had hit the windscreen, blinding Draper with a curtain of opaque glass. The car swerved, leaped the kerb and ploughed through a row of tables outside the café, before it came to a crunching halt against the building. As the horn began to wail through the night streets, Brad broke into a run. Angry voices were shouting; in the distance he could hear the klaxon of an approaching police car. Draper would have to get out of this mess himself. Brad was in no mood for more games.

  It was ten minutes before he found a taxi to take him to the Hilton Hotel. Without further incident, he completed the journey. Once inside, he demanded to see the night manager and withdrew the envelope containing Rhona’s bracelet from the safe. He then took the elevator directly to Avery’s suite. Rhona hadn’t lied. The guards were no longer in the hall. He pounded on the door until he heard her call out:

  “Who is it?”

  “Brad Smith,” he said. “I’ve got to see you.”

  The door opened immediately. She was alone. Wearing a black street dress, the symbol of widowhood, she welcomed him without tears.

  “Oh, Brad! Where have you been? I was so worried.”

  “About me?” Brad asked.

  “Of course. I expected you sooner.”

  “Didn’t Lange tell you I went to Corfu?”

  She closed the door behind him and bolted it with the safety lock.

  “Yes, but he didn’t say why.”

  “Where is he?”

  “Out somewhere arranging things. Harry’s transfer. We’re having him flown back to California for interment.”

  “Where’s Dr. Johnson?”

  “With Peter, I think. Brad, you said on the telephone last night that you had all Harry’s things.”

  “That’s right, I did.” Brad unwound the straps of the cameras from his neck and tossed them on the divan. She waited. He reached into his coat pocket and took out Harry’s wallet. “There’s a couple of hundred dollars missing,” he said. “Harry wouldn’t mind. It went for a good cause.” He tossed the wallet on the divan. She still waited.

  “Aren’t you going to offer me a drink?” he asked.

  “Of course.” She backed to the bar and picked up a glass. “Scotch, isn’t it? I’m afraid there’s no ice.”

  “I don’t mind. I drink it neat.”

  She poured about two ounces of Scotch into the glass, but didn’t offer it to him. “Are those all the things you found?” she asked.

  Brad took out Harry’s watch, held it up before her and tossed it down on the divan. She still waited. He took out the case containing Harry’s sunglasses, let her get a good look at it and tossed it down on the divan. She waited. He took out a diamond bracelet and placed it on the bar.

  “But that’s not—I gave that to you, Brad.”

  “Not this one. This is the one I found in George Ankouri’s apartment.” Brad took the glass of scotch from her hand before it spilled on Mr. Hilton’s carpet.

  “Oh—” she said. “Oh, that’s where it went!”

  She was acting. She hadn’t acted in a long time, and the improvisation was unconvincing.

  “I thought it was stolen. I must have dropped it—”

  “On George’s bed—the way you dropped this one on mine?”

  Brad took out the other bracelet and placed it beside the twin, and then drank all of his whisky, without taking his eyes from her pretty face.

  “You make it sound terrible,” she said.

  “It was terrible,” Brad answered. “You should have been with me when Harry died. You should have seen his convulsions when I gave him the hypodermic shot he begged for. I thought it was a pain killer.”

  “You gave him—”

  “I killed him, Rhona. He was dying anyway, but I killed him. I don’t like being used that way. You should have told me it was the syringe you wanted back before anyone else could get to it. Then I would have known what it contained was lethal.”

  “Oh, no, Brad. I didn’t—”

  “Oh, yes, Rhona, you did. It had to be you because there was no one else who knew about Harry’s shots, except Dr. Johnson, and he wasn’t concerned about the syringe. We’re alone now. Why don’t you tell me about it?”

  “Where is it? Where is the syringe?”

  “You’re evading the issue. If you do that, I’ll have to use my imagination and it could be even worse than the truth. I can start with two facts: you gave George Ankouris a bracelet worth five thousand dollars, and you must have promised him more, just as you promised me more, because he told his girl he was going to buy a plane that costs almost twenty-five thousand. He was to make one more flight with Harry, he told her. Just one. He couldn’t have been sure of that unless he knew Harry wasn’t coming back alive. Now I know that Harry had a bad heart because Johnson told me so. The wrong injection could kill him and nobody would be the wiser. What did you use—insulin?”

  “You don’t know anything!” she protested. “You’re trying to trick me.”

  “But I do know. I forgot to tell you—I used only half the injection. I wasn’t sure what it was.”

  He waited to see how she would play it, and then she stopped acting. She didn’t move or change her position in any way, but she seemed to crumble inside. “You don’t understand,” she said.

  “Try me.”

  “You’ve got everything figured out. Do you think I was in love with that pilot?”

  “No. I think you needed the pilot to make sure Harry took his shot like a good boy and that the syringe was then broken or lost. Dropped over the side of the plane, probably. In any event, got rid of, just in case Dr. Johnson or anyone was curious. That’s what terrified you when you heard about the crash. Even if Harry was dead, he might have that damaging evidence of intended murder on his person. The police might get to it before you could. Murder is a frightening business for an amateur. I’ve heard that most murderers give themselves away one way or another. You gave yourself away to me and I didn’t know it until this morning in Kastoria.”

  Brad waited for her to say something. She would protest, plead or break into tears. She didn’t. She just stood waiting for the complete story, as if she were sitting in a court of law and judgment was about to be pronounced.

  “Did you call Peter Lange last night after I called you?” he asked.

  She shook her head. “He called me,” she said.

  “But you did tell him that you had talked to me. I know because he said this morning that you were expecting me back. He’s clever, Rhona.”

  “What ha
s Peter to do with this?”

  Brad’s glass was empty. He poured himself another two ounces. “Before I tell you that,” he said, “you have to let me know if I’m warm. Was I right about George? Was he your insurance that Harry wouldn’t come back?”

  She nodded dumbly.

  “That was risky. You left yourself open to blackmail.”

  “It didn’t matter. Harry had to die.”

  “Why?”

  “Because he was divorcing me. He framed me, Brad. He asked for a divorce the first time, when we had been married just a year. I refused. That was when he had me written out of The Bandits. It was also when he locked me out of his bedroom. He hired detectives. He had me watched. He waited for me to make just one mistake, but I didn’t. I lived like a nun until eight months ago. Then everything changed. No more detectives. No more watching. I thought he’d abandoned the idea of divorce.”

  “Eight months ago,” Brad repeated. It had a familiar ring.

  “When he hired David. Harry saw to it that we were together constantly, and David is kind. After Harry’s cruelty and sarcasm it was wonderful to be treated like a human being. Then we got careless. I knew Harry was seeing Pattison Blair, but I didn’t know how far he would go to be free to marry her.”

  “David Draper,” Brad reflected. “Your lover! No wonder he panicked when I came back to Athens. An old beau could spoil everything.”

  “But he’s not my lover any more,” Rhona insisted.

  “Five million dollar widows are hard to come by,” Brad mused. “No wonder he wanted to run me down.”

  “You aren’t listening to me!”

  “I’m listening better than you know. Was David in on the scheme to kill Harry?”

  “Of course not! Don’t you understand? Harry used David to strike at me. He threw us together deliberately. When he sensed I was attracted, he left us alone in the house in Rome for two weeks. When he came back everything we had said and done was on tape and on film. The house was bugged. It was horrible. I trusted David and all the time he was working for Harry.”

  “Did he tell you that?”

  “Of course not. He denied it. Just the same, Harry had everything he needed to get a divorce on his own terms—and they weren’t generous. I’m thirty years old, Brad. I can’t start over, in my profession, at my age—not without money! I earned Harry’s money! Believe me, I earned it! If you knew the way he belittled me before others—the way he put me down. He was trying to make me leave him, but I didn’t. I stuck it out and I won. Harry’s dead. I didn’t kill him and you didn’t kill him, but he’s dead. Nobody ever need know about the syringe. Brad, why did you have to dig so deep? Why did you put this between us? If you knew how I felt last Monday when I got your note! When I heard your voice—saw you walk into this suite! I made a mistake, Brad. I should have married you.”

  Brad finished his drink. He didn’t know if she was lying or not, but it no longer mattered. There was a five million dollar wall between them now, and he didn’t have Draper’s instincts.

  “You didn’t make a mistake,” he said. “I’ll never be rich.”

  “I don’t care about that!”

  “Oh, but you do, baby. You do. Like you said, you’ve earned those millions. If you haven’t, you will.”

  “Don’t be vindictive, Brad. Give me the syringe.”

  “I don’t have it.”

  “But you do! You said last night on the telephone that you had everything.”

  “Last night I did have everything. When I got up this morning, the leather case containing the syringe was gone. That’s how I knew it was the one thing you had sent me to get.”

  “I don’t believe you,” she said. “You’re just trying to frighten me because you’re angry.”

  “You’re not that lucky,” Brad said. “You’ll learn soon enough who has it. Only one person in the Kastoria Hotel had a reason to enter my room. Peter Lange. He knew when I went in to dinner with Dr. Johnson. He must have broken in then, to search for anything I might have to back my claim against Harry. All of Harry’s things were laid out on the dresser. Lange would recognize everything but the syringe because that, Johnson said, was Harry’s secret.”

  “But why would he take it? He didn’t know what I planned.”

  “He might have suspected. He was on Corfu with the rest of the party last week. He could have followed you to George’s apartment. In any event, he had to know about the divorce plans because he was in charge of drawing up the settlement. It doesn’t take much imagination for anyone to know who—besides Harry and his doctor—knew about his vitamin shots. By this time I’m sure Peter’s had the contents of that syringe analysed. He can cause a big scandal if he demands an autopsy, but I don’t think he will. He doesn’t want to destroy Saga. He wants to marry it. I advise you to accept. He doesn’t have David’s charm, but he’ll double your five million and won’t give a damn how much fun you have on the side. Just don’t marry David. He’s emotionally unstable. You’ll wind up back in Arizona waiting on tables, while he looks for another rich widow.”

  Brad concluded his speech and placed his empty glass on the bar. He saw understanding forming behind the shock in Rhona’s eyes, followed by panic as one hand groped aimlessly at her throat. He turned and walked to the door.

  “Brad! Don’t leave me!”

  He unlatched the door, before looking back.

  “You couldn’t have cared about Harry,” she cried. “He cheated you. You know that.”

  “I’ll get more ideas,” Brad said. “Next time I’ll be wiser.”

  “But I promised you a half interest in Saga. I meant it.”

  “I don’t want it. I wouldn’t feel comfortable with my partner.”

  “And I gave you the bracelet.”

  “It doesn’t fit.”

  “Where are you going? What are you going to do?”

  “Get some sleep. I’ve earned that.”

  Brad walked out of the suite and closed the door behind him. He took the elevator down to his own room. The telephone was ringing when he stepped inside but he ignored it. He dropped down on the bed, but sleep wouldn’t come. He had travelled a long way on an impulse he still couldn’t define. He knew now that it wasn’t the money he had hoped to get from Harry, because losing it left no pain. It might have been Rhona after all. The Rhona he had loved and remembered and wanted to come back to, the way every soldier wants to come back to something after a war. Well, like the man said: you can’t go home again. He thought it all out and then looked at his watch. It was almost midnight. He picked up the telephone and placed a person to person call to Estelle Vance in Beverly Hills, where it must be early afternoon. He waited until it was completed and her earthy, no nonsense voice brought him back to reality.

  “This is Brad Smith,” he said.

  “Well, it’s about time you called in,” she responded. “Where are you?”

  “In Athens.”

  “Athens? What are you doing in Georgia? You get right back here. I’ve got a cheque on my desk for you. The Wittenbergs closed the deal on that apartment complex and now they want to buy a little beach house you showed them, for a hundred and twenty-five thousand. They won’t sign another thing, until that nice Mr. Smith comes back to make the sale. Brad, are you listening to me?”

  “As if I were at my mother’s knee,” Brad said. “I just called to see if I still had a job.”

  “Of course you’ve got a job. You’re a natural born salesman. I do wish you would get married so I can know where to find you. Georgia! Whoever heard of going to Georgia for malaria!”

  Chapter Twenty

  BRAD PUT DOWN the telephone before Estelle could ask more questions. When it started to ring, he took it off the cradle. He couldn’t sleep now. Estelle had inadvertently reminded him of something he had to do and morning was too far away. He left his room and took the elevator to the ground floor. It was after midnight. There was still plenty of activity at the bars, but the lobby was almost deserted. H
e stepped outside and looked for a cab, but before a driver could respond to his shout a saloon, with American insignia on the door, pulled up to the kerb before him. Brooks Martins was at the wheel.

  “Can I drop you anywhere, Smith?” he called.

  Brad opened the door and got inside. “I want to see Katerina Brisos,” he said. “I don’t know the address.”

  “Then you’re in the right car, because I do. You’re a hard man to reach. I’ve been trying to call you for several hours.”

  “I wasn’t answering my telephone. I thought it was someone I’m trying to forget.”

  “A woman?”

  “Naturally.”

  “Will it be difficult?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Work helps in a situation like that. I can use a good man if you’re interested.”

  “I want to leave Athens.”

  “I don’t blame you. But that’s no problem. The whole Middle East is a powder keg now. There are Russian guns all over the Arab Union—most of them pointed at Isreal. There are Russian guns in Africa. Nobody knows if the split with the Mao-ists will last, or if it’s just another phase of the revolution. It’s a dirty job for a nice fellow but somebody has to mind the store.”

  “And end up like Harry Avery?”

  “Well, there’s always that possibility. He left a letter with me before he went on that last mission. I opened it today. He requested, in the event of his death, that he be buried in his uniform.”

  So Harry Avery would end up a hero. That was all right. Omar Bradley Smith would be the last man on earth to challenge that picture. But he was still disturbed about Stephanos. “I’ve been wondering ever since I got back from Vietnam,” he said, “how do we tell the black hats from the white hats any more? Brisos said he wasn’t a Communist, but he didn’t think much of American policy. When I saw what was done to him at Kastoria, I knew he wasn’t lying about the torture. Are we responsible for that?”