What of Terry Conniston?

by Brian Garfield

  “Earle wanted him in.”

  “To handle the kidnaping?”

  “Yes.”

  “How much you tell him about—about the way Earle Conniston died?”

  “Enough.”

  “Who guarantees he won’t blow the whistle?”

  “Diego works for me. If anybody blows any whistles I’ll be the one.”

  Adams flushed, poured a second drink, and said without the belligerent conviction the question required, “Since when did you get elected to give the orders here?”

  “Do you want me to pick up the phone and tell the cops who killed Earle?”

  Adams held his tongue. But Oakley pressed it: Adams had to be convinced. “What do you want to do, Frankie? Call in the police, tell them Earle caught his wife with her head on the wrong pillow and you killed him to keep the truth from getting out? Killed him with what might just be described by a sharp prosecutor as a deadly weapon—an acrobat’s feet?”

  “It wasn’t like that! You know it wasn’t like that!”

  “Maybe. But if Louise and I get behind that version and stick to it, they’ll put you away.”

  “Nuts. The sonofabitch came at me like a maniac. It was self-defense—an accident. It’s your word against mine.”

  “Let’s say it’s the word of a bankrupt third-rate nightclub comic with a shady background against the word of a respected member of the bar and a multimillionaire widow. Whose story would you believe if you were on the jury?”

  “Bastard,” Adams hissed without strength. “You want a fall guy and I’m it, hey? Let’s hear it for Frankie Adams, lez an gennulmen, Frankie Adams the ten-carat loser. Jesus H. Christ.”

  “It doesn’t have to be that way.”

  “You’ve got it all set up. Go ahead and pull the rope.”

  “No. There’s another way to play it. Unless you want to drag a scandalous mess through the courts and the newspapers and end up with your head in a sack.”

  “What are you, kidding?”

  “Which way do you want it?”

  “What choice have I got?”

  “Suppose you and I and Louise were sitting in the front room playing cards when we heard a thud from the back of the house. Suppose we went back to investigate and found Earle had tripped over the rug and fallen and hit the back of his head on the bedpost. Suppose we tell that story and I have a doctor sign the death certificate accidental death.”

  Adams sat slack-jawed, watching him warily. “Where you figure to find a doctor to sign something like that?”

  “Big money can buy a few harmless lies—and a lot of silence. How about it, Frankie?”

  Adams tucked his chin in toward his shoulder like a shy schoolboy trying to remember the answer to a teacher’s question. “What do I have to do?”

  “I’ll let you know. In the meantime you don’t say a word to anyone about anything unless you clear it with me first. Fair enough?”

  “Listen, the first time I got jumped by three big kids in the playground I learned not to fight a squeeze. Don’t worry about me.”

  “I won’t,” Oakley said, and gave him a synthetic smile utterly devoid of trust.

  He shepherded Adams back to the office. Louise looked better; there was color in her face and when he crossed the room her eyes followed his movements alertly. Her hands gripped the arms of her chair tightly.

  Oakley settled into Earle’s chair and veiled his eyes and spoke in a soft voice which eased up against the cork-lined walls and was immediately absorbed:

  “We’ve all heard the tape. I’ve told you what Earle wanted to do. I think he was dead wrong but we’ll see. Diego, what about the tape?”

  “I just played it back again. I think the sonabitch meant business. You asking my advice? Usually, a snatch caper like this, you get the cops and the FBI and they tell you to follow instructions and pay the ransom. Rule of thumb is you got a better chance to get the victim back alive if you pay the ransom and don’ rock the boat.”

  “Rock the boat,” Adams mumbled, incredulous. “Christ, the boat’s already sunk.”

  Oakley ignored him; he said to Orozco, “I get a feeling your next word will be ‘But.’”

  “Yeah. She said one of them wants to kill her so she won’t be able to identify them. Does that mean she’s seen all their faces? Or have they got her blindfolded but one of them wants insurance anyway? She knows their voices.”

  Louise said, “What difference does that make?”

  “Could make a lot, lady. If they keep her blindfolded and she don’t see their faces, maybe they really expect to let loose of her after it’s over. But if they never even bothered to blindfold her it’s a whole different enchilada.”

  Oakley shook his head. “We’ll probably have to make our decision without the answer to that question. What about trying to trace the phone calls?”

  Orozco’s fleshy dark cheeks sagged. “Maybe—maybe. First thing in the morning I’ll get a tap on the line. These new computer exchanges, sometimes you can get a real fast trace on a call if you’re ready for it. I can get a crew of operatives stand ready to move on signal. Beyond that I just don’ know. You people got to make your own decision about the ransom. I only say this—was it my daughter I wouldn’t take the chance Conniston was going to take. I’d play it by the book whether you bring in cops or not. They’d tell you to play it by the book, believe me.”

  “You mean pay the ransom?” Louise asked.

  “Yeah. I mean pay the ransom.”

  Frankie Adams said, “Isn’t there any other way we could start trying to get a line on them?”

  Orozco made a face. “Few honnerd thousand people in this half of Arizona. Where you going to start? That guy on the phone sounded too smart to give away any clues we could use. We got nothing to go on.”

  Louise sat up straight. “All of you are forgetting one little thing.”

  The determined quiet of her tone drew Oakley’s full attention. Louise looked from face to face; finally she said, “None of you is in any position to decide what’s to be done with Earle’s money. That money belongs to Terry and me. We’re his heirs.”

  Oakley closed his eyes down to slits. “You’re saying you don’t want to pay the ransom?”

  “I’m saying I think maybe Earle was right. Maybe we’ll stand a better chance by not paying—by frightening them instead.”

  “In other words,” Oakley murmured, “Terry’s not worth half a million dollars to you.”

  “You make me sound cold-blooded. You know I don’t mean that. The chances are if we pay the ransom we lose both Terry and the money. What’s the good of that?”

  Oakley bounced to his feet; the backs of his knees knocked the big swivel-chair back against the wall. “Don’t even think about it, Louise.”

  “Are you threatening me?” she demanded.

  “If you like. I’ll remind you a criminal forfeits any right to the proceeds of his crime. If you’re found guilty of being accessory to your husband’s murder you won’t inherit a dime—regardless of whether Terry’s alive or dead.”

  Her eyes popped at him. “Convicted of—? You can’t be serious!”

  “Think about it. An able prosecutor smooth-talking a jury. The young wife of the old millionaire, the wife’s boy friend—both conspiring to murder the old man and live happily ever after on his millions. Strike a chord?”

  “It was nothing of the kind.” Her face turned crimson; she looked down at her hands. “What you must think of me.”

  Oakley said, “Don’t misunderstand. What I’m saying is that if the circumstances of Earle’s death ever become public knowledge the newspapers will wallow in it and the classic explanation I’ve just suggested is the first thing they’ll assume. You’ll be dragged through slime—it’s the kind of case that’ll be tried and judged by the press long before it ever gets near a courtroom. Is that what you want? Or would you rather none of it ever got into print? Would you rather be grilled mercilessly by a prosecuting attorney hell-bent on
making a big reputation at your expense or get scot-free after a few perfunctory routine questions by a bored county official? Would you rather have Earle’s death dragged through the front pages as murder or manslaughter, or have it appear quietly in a black box on the obituary page as an accidental death? Yes, damn it, I am threatening you.”

  She studied his face; she glanced at Adams and at Orozco; she said tentatively, “The penalty for blackmail is damned severe, Carl.”

  “Ten to twenty years,” Frankie Adams said dryly. “Felony.”

  Oakley shook his head. “Am I trying to extort a penny from you? Come off it. I’m trying to get Terry back and I believe the only way to do it is to pay the ransom. I’m using the only weapon I’ve got.”

  Louise sank back in her chair. “I suppose I’ve got no choice.”

  “Then you agree to meet the kidnapers’ demands?”

  “If you think it’s best.” She had given up.

  Orozco’s voice rolled between them abruptly: “This here weapon of yours looks to me like the kind of stick you use to beat dead horses with, Carl. Maybe this all hit you too fast to think it out, but how do you figure to raise the ransom money with Conniston dead? And who’s going to make contact with the kidnaper when he calls back and wants to talk to Conniston? He ain’t likely willing to talk to anybody else.”

  “He won’t have to,” Oakley said.

  Louise, full of acid, snapped, “I suppose you’re going to reincarnate him?”

  “In a way. In the morning Earle Conniston’s going to call the president of Farmers and Merchants and arrange to have the cash ready for me to pick it up. In the afternoon when the kidnaper calls back Earle Conniston’s going to answer the phone.”

  Looking past her astonished disbelieving face, he saw slow comprehension spread across Frankie Adams’ narrow features. Oakley said relentlessly, “I’ve heard you do Conniston’s voice. Nobody will know the difference, especially over a telephone. You’re going to be Earle Conniston.”

  Adams shot bolt upright in his chair, ready to rise—but Oakley’s eyes jammed him back down in his seat.

  “You’ve got to be out of your gourd,” Adams said.

  “You can do it.”

  “Count me out. Nuts.”

  Oakley just looked at him patiently until Adams began to squirm, remembering the earlier conversation; Adams seemed to grow smaller and heavier in the chair. “Look, I’ll try it if I have to but I’m in no shape to do a convincing act. Besides, there’s too many holes in it—it’s no good. We can’t keep Conniston alive forever, can we? What happens when they find out we concealed his death?”

  “I’ll take care of that. Nobody’s going to find out.”

  “Maybe so. Maybe so. But Christ, I can’t even remember what he sounded like.”

  “I’m sure Mrs. Conniston’s willing to coach you.” He ignored Louise’s sarcastic glance; he added, “If it matters you’ll be paid for the performance.”

  “A bribe, you mean.”

  “Enough to keep body and soul apart,” Oakley agreed with a thin smile. “Maybe it’ll encourage you to work on it. I want you to practice voice and delivery until you’ve got it letter-perfect.”

  “Easy for you to say—but what the hell, when I got here I was just about ready to go out on the street with a tin cup, that’s no secret. How much I get paid?”

  “I won’t haggle. Say ten thousand.”

  Louise said, “Whose money are you slinging around like that?”

  He didn’t answer her. Adams said, “Only one thing. I wish I could be sure I can trust you.”

  “None of us can afford not to trust each other,” Oakley replied. “And don’t forget Terry. She’s got to trust us too.”

  After a while Adams said abstractedly, “He talked like an obstacle race. Didn’t he? Left out articles and subjects of sentences. Voice a little like Gregory Peck, deep in the diaphragm. Christ, I guess I’ll have a hack at it.”

  When the sun burst through the window Adams was practicing Conniston’s voice, listening to Oakley’s remarks: how to talk to the banker, the name of the banker’s wife about whom Conniston always asked, the ostensible reason for raising so much unmarked cash—a big under-the-table payment to secure the cooperation of key stockholders in a corporate takeover. Oakley took him over it a dozen times; when he left Adams with Louise and Orozco he had a taut feeling of expectant confidence. He went back to the bedroom to shower and shave and change into fresh clothes. When he checked his watch it was shortly after eight—ten o’clock New York time. He called a stockbroker in Phoenix and kept his voice low: “How many shares of Conniston stock do I hold? How many shares outstanding?… All right. Sell two hundred thousand shares short for me…. Never mind that. Do it through dummies—scatter it so it won’t look like a power play. I’m not trying to manipulate it but I expect it to go down a few points and I want to make a few bucks, that’s all. Breathe one word to anybody and I’ll make it hurt, Fred.”

  Afterward he immediately called another broker in Los Angeles and repeated the substance of the conversation; he repeated the short-sell order with half a dozen brokers across the country before he rang off and turned toward the front of the house, walking briskly on crepe-soled shoes, and saw Orozco looming darkly in the corridor. The fat man, vigilant and silent, held his troubled glance until Oakley felt uncomfortable enough to look away. When he came up, Orozco said mildly, “I went to call my boys to get working on the wiretap call-trace but you were on the line.” There was no hint of guile on Orozco’s dark bland cheeks. But Oakley knew he had heard the whole thing.

  “Just keep it to yourself, Diego. It’ll be worth your while.”

  “I’m sure it will,” Orozco murmured, and turned heavily back into the office. Oakley had to steel himself against the sound coming out of the office—Earle Conniston’s voice.

  C H A P T E R Nine

  Terry Conniston sat like a taut-wound watch spring in the shade of the sagging porch overhang. Near the perilous breaking-edge, she felt as if at any moment she might start screaming and not be able to stop; and so she kept herself rigidly under control, all her movements slow and cautious, all her decisions ponderous. Her slender fingers clenched and opened at regular intervals; she watched a domed anthill which squatted naked like a cancerous boil on the face of the ground below the porch. The brutal little monsters had denuded the surrounding earth of everything but rocks and sand.

  Overhead little gray birds flitted soundlessly from rooftop to rooftop and the indifferent sun burned down like brass; the desert heat was thick and close. The young sandy-haired one called Mitch sat against the wall at the far corner of the porch, making a point of not watching her. His face was not cruel like the others’; he seemed willing to respect her desire to be left alone. At first she had been surprised by the casual way they had of keeping desultory watch on her but not confining her at all. Only gradually had it dawned on her that since she didn’t have keys to either car her only means of escape would be afoot across the desert, and they would be able to see her on the flats anywhere within a mile of the ghost town. It was a far more effective prison than bars.

  About noon by the sun, with a look compounded of the irascible and the hangdog, Mitch uncoiled his length and went inside, leaving her alone. She didn’t stir. In a little while he returned with an army-style mess kit of cold food out of cans, handed it to her without a word and went back to his post.

  Floyd, the dark evil one, came out and stood on the porch and stretched like a cat. When he glanced at her she felt mesmerized by his cold eyes. Floyd had a driving, brutal, elemental thrust of granite personality. His magnetism, in spite of it, was uncanny—repellent and fascinating at once: the charismatic impact of raw unshielded masculinity, erotic and frightening.

  The pulse throbbed at Terry’s throat. She addressed herself to her meal, keenly aware that Floyd was watching her with cynical vicious amusement.

  The girl, Billie Jean, appeared behind Floyd, filling the ca
ved-in doorway with her body, all meaty thighs and bovine lactic breasts which bobbed and surged with her movements. She studied Floyd’s back for a while before she stepped out and passed Floyd with a slow flirt of the shoulder, grinning. Floyd casually reached out and rubbed her breast. “You’re a fire hazard, Billie Jean.” It made her laugh.

  “How about a jab in the fun hole, Floyd?”

  “Later—later.”

  Disappointed, Billie Jean moved away, dropping off the porch into the sunshine and wandering aimlessly up the street. Floyd said, “Stay close.”

  “I ain’t going nowhere,” she said petulantly.

  “If you hear an airplane or a car duck inside a building and stay out of sight.”

  “I know,” she pouted, and ambled away.

  Floyd turned toward Mitch and spoke as if Terry weren’t there: “I’m going to make a phone call, arrange for the drop. Keep things under control.”

  “What if I can’t?”

  “That’s up to you,” Floyd said. “If you fall you break, Mitch. Law of gravity.” His unrevealing eyes touched Terry briefly; his mouth smiled frighteningly and then, according to his bewildering intricacy of thought, it was time to go: he jumped catlike from the porch and trotted across the street into the barn. Shortly he came out, driving the dusty Oldsmobile, and put it into the central powder of the street, rumbling away.

  In the stretching quiet that followed, an overwhelming anxiety slowly poisoned what was left of Terry’s willed patience. Unable to remain still any longer she got up. Her knees felt weak. She stepped hesitantly toward the edge of the porch, waiting to see how Mitch would respond. He didn’t get up; only his head turned to indicate his interest in her movements. She stepped down into the sunshine and walked very slowly along the street.

  She had gone twenty or thirty paces when Mitch caught up with her. He didn’t touch her; he fell into step beside her and said, “I hope you don’t mind if I walk along with you.”

  A sharp report rose to her lips but died stillborn. When she looked at him, his eyes were kind. She thought, I need any friends I can get. Yet in the back of her mind she couldn’t help thinking of stories she had heard about policemen and confidence men and spies—evil men working in teams, one partner softening you up with friendliness while the other stood ready to pounce. She couldn’t see what they stood to gain by that kind of tactic in her case but just the same she couldn’t begin to trust Mitch. He was, after all, one of them.