The Longer the Thread

by Emma Lathen

  “But don’t let us stop you,” Thatcher urged warmly. “I’ve been wanting to see the courtyard. I’ve heard a great deal about it. Perhaps you’ll join us for a drink later in the evening.”

  Norma’s resistance was drowned by the Romeros, who swept her along with them.

  “What’s happened to Lippert?” Thatcher inquired.

  “Heading for a bar, if you ask me,” Olmsted said sourly. He had not had an enjoyable meal. “He was up and away with the last drop of coffee.”

  “Then let’s choose a different bar. I’ve had enough of him for one evening.”

  Olmsted was too preoccupied to ask who had been the chief sufferer. “You know, Lippert was hitting that business about Harry’s going back to New York again. Do you think he’s just covering up because Harry was too sore to come to this shindig?”

  “I wouldn’t put it past him,” Thatcher grunted. “But Marten says the same thing. And he’s not making any bones about the fact that there’s trouble brewing between Zimmerman and Lippert.”

  “I’d like to know what the hell’s going on out there. They could pick a better time for their bickering.”

  “I expect the time picked them.” Thatcher’s spirits were rising with the absence of all Slax personnel. “After all, they had a major crisis in Bayamón. Zimmerman hears about it on the phone, plucks Annie Galiano out of thin air in New York, flies down and wraps the whole thing up. I assume that is Lippert’s basic grievance, whether he knows it or not.”

  “That’s no reason for Harry to flit without letting me know,” Olmsted said hotly. “Ah, there’s the woman who’ll have the inside dirt.”

  He pointed to a table by the pool. Annie Galiano must have been the first person to reach the bar. Now she was leaning back, resting from her labors. She waved an expansive invitation.

  “I didn’t know you were coming to the banquet, Annie,” Olmsted teased her. “It doesn’t seem like your style.”

  “The union supports all sorts of activities,” she said gravely. “You’d be surprised at some of the cultural events I’ve helped sponsor.” She snorted richly. “Ballet, yet!”

  Thatcher immediately suggested another drink to dispel the memory of Swan Lake. There was no nonsense about long rum drinks with spears of pineapple for Mrs. Galiano. She was drinking straight Scotch.

  When he returned with the drinks, he found that Olmsted had wasted no time.

  “Did Harry say anything to you about leaving today, Annie? That’s the story Slax is handing out.”

  Annie’s bushy eyebrows rose. “Leaving today? I don’t believe it. He was on the phone to me last night, and he didn’t mention it. Besides, we still have a few details to iron out.”

  “But what did he say today? He seems to have made some last-minute decision.”

  “I haven’t heard from Harry today,” said Annie.

  Olmsted was persistent. “He said he was going up to union headquarters this morning.”

  “Maybe. I wasn’t there this morning.” Annie’s interest was roused. “Was it about anything special?”

  But here Pete Olmsted had to confess he did not know. Obviously he suspected fresh trouble at Slax which Harry was concealing from the Sloan.

  “He might try to hide something from you. But not from me.” Annie had no illusions about her role in Harry’s life. “Hell, I’m the first one he’d come running to. And the one thing he wouldn’t do is jet out of town. Take it from me, if there’s trouble, it’s family trouble.” Internally Annie reviewed the situation. “And who wouldn’t have trouble with that family?”

  This rhetorical question led Annie and Olmsted, both specialists in their way, to a discussion of notable families in the garment trade.

  “I ask you!” Annie was demanding within minutes. “Is a brassiere factory the place to bring your sex problems?”

  Pete immediately countered with the tale of a married couple, joint owners of a small establishment specializing in ski wear, who had been divorced. Immediately following the court decree, came the ski boom with a fantastic rise in the firm’s profits. “They were seeing more of each other after they both remarried than they’d ever seen before. Sixteen, eighteen hours they’d spend each day in the office together. And whenever the new husband or wife called up to complain, they’d get a blast, usually from the ex.”

  “And did all these arrangements last?” Thatcher asked politely.

  “Well, there was so much money flying around, nobody was willing to break anything up. But, of course, the original pair had a lot to sympathize with each other about. The new marriages may still hold, but the working arrangement isn’t what anybody had in mind.”

  Reminiscences continued to flow. In Thatcher’s opinion they made a pleasant contrast to the overriding concern with Slax and its problems which had been his lot so far this evening. Annie and Pete might have gone on indefinitely if they had not been interrupted by Cesar Romero.

  “Have you seen David?” he asked quietly. “Norma is asking for him.”

  “He hasn’t been in here.” Pete Olmsted could not keep a note of self-congratulation from his voice. “He’s probably in one of the other bars.”

  Ignoring this suggestion, Romero, after a punctilious request for permission from Annie, sank into a chair.

  “No doubt you are right. Norma asked me to see if he was here in the patio.” Romero was taking a very fine reading of his instructions. Probably he too had had enough of David Lippert.

  Olmsted reluctantly abandoned anecdotes of Seventh Avenue and returned to business. “David and Eric are both saying that Harry’s taken a plane out.”

  Romero nodded without any evidence of embarrassment, but he chose his words carefully. “Norma told me about it. I knew Harry was upset, but I didn’t know he was leaving.”

  Olmsted was beginning to be exasperated at this further evidence that Harry Zimmerman had seen fit to take everybody into his confidence except his banker. “Oh, he talked to you too, did he?”

  “Only on the phone.” Romero sounded very tired. “He was irritated about something. Norma said that he and David had some kind of misunderstanding. She seemed surprised.”

  Romero, in his turn, could see no cause for surprise at a flare-up between David and Harry.

  Thatcher, while admitting that he did not have Romero’s experience with the principals, felt bound to object. “This is not the best time for the management of Slax to be diverted by personal quarrels.”

  “I don’t believe you can call them personal.” Romero smiled wearily. “Both Harry and David, in their own way, are thinking about Slax.”

  “And Norma?”

  “In some ways she is the most single-minded of all. There was a problem at Slax. It has been successfully solved. She expects everyone to be happy.”

  Thatcher thought he detected an undertone he could not understand. Romero sounded almost too detached.

  “You disapprove?”

  Romero stared somberly into the depths of his glass before replying. Then he said: “In my opinion they are all overlooking a very important point. They seem to think that Slax’s problems have been solved.” His words were wry. “As for me, I cannot forget that we still have a murderer at large in Bayamón.”

  While Thatcher was coming to the conclusion that Cesar Romero was the only person at Slax capable of keeping an eye on essentials, David Lippert at last surfaced from his after-dinner retreat.

  He came bursting onto the patio, his eyes glittering and his hands shaking.

  “Been pouring it down like water,” Olmsted whispered.

  “Cesar!” David cried. “They just told me!”

  Romero was startled. “I know Norma’s been looking for you, but—”

  “Never mind that!” David was shouting. “My God, why are you sitting there? We’ve got to get down there.”

  Cesar had half risen and grasped Lippert’s arm. “Go where? David, get hold of yourself!”

  David’s eyes seemed to focus on Romero fo
r the first time.

  “They were paging me in the lobby when I came in.” His shoulders slumped forward in defeat. “It was the police. Our warehouse down at the docks is on fire!”

  Chapter 13.

  Made to Order

  For everyone connected with Slax, the fiesta was over.

  Within minutes, Thatcher found himself leading Olmsted through the Convento lobby, outside to the car someone had summoned. David and Norma Lippert were just ahead, with Eric Marten and Cesar Romero a step behind.

  “Okay, Cesar, let’s go,” said Marten, once they had all crowded into the car.

  Romero, who had taken the wheel, threaded his way carefully through the thronged streets of the old city. But once on the expressway, he accelerated with a roar. Soon they were speeding past a city that seemed lifeless and somber after the dazzle of the fiesta. Finally, with a savage swerve, he turned the car eastward, heading toward the scruffy industrial no-man’s-land that surrounded the docks of Cataño.

  “For God’s sake,” Marten demanded from the back seat, “can’t you go any faster?”

  Thatcher glanced across Norma Lippert to study the driver by the dim light of the dashboard. Romero was concentrating with an intensity that created its own isolation. Thatcher doubted if he had heard Marten; he might have been alone in the car.

  Marten was too keyed up for silence. “What did the police tell you, David? How bad is it?”

  Lippert was slumped in the corner, next to Olmsted. “They just told me there was a fire,” he repeated dully. “That’s all. Just a fire. How long is it going to take us to get there, Cesar?”

  There was no answer from Romero.

  Norma, who was sitting forward tensely, did not turn her head. “It never takes more than twenty minutes, David,” she said impatiently.

  It was less than that when Thatcher felt Norma stir for the first time. He followed her gaze.

  “Yes, there it is, I’m afraid,” he said.

  To their right, an angry red glow was silhouetting dark buildings.

  “Oh, no,” she said in a low, horrified voice. “It can’t be.”

  No one replied. Romero turned off the highway and began weaving through a maze of cluttered streets, shadowed by gaunt wooden structures. Above them the pulsating glow in the sky was widening. After a third turn, Romero braked the car suddenly.

  “I do not know how much closer we can get,” he said.

  Ahead of them was an inferno. Coils of smoke writhed upward in spirals shading from red to gray to black before disappearing into the inky tropical sky. Barely visible above the intervening buildings was a rim of white-hot light, from which geysers of flame spurted, probed the darkness, then flickered down out of sight.

  Thatcher did not see any fire-fighting equipment or even the blazing warehouse itself, until Romero nosed the car around the final corner.

  “We had better park here,” he said. “They will not let us go any farther.”

  Eric Marten flung open his door and thrust himself out. Already he was loping ahead, toward the fire. More slowly, Pete Olmsted and David Lippert followed. In the front seat nobody moved for a moment.

  The Slax warehouse was a large, ramshackle structure sharing the long block along the waterfront with other nondescript buildings. When Thatcher got out of the car, he could see that a cordon had been drawn around the area. Not thirty yards ahead he could see a barricade. Beyond, there was chaos—flashing red lights from the fire trucks, hip-booted men manhandling heavy hoses against the blinding glare, greasy pools of water reflecting the flames. The stench was overpowering.

  By the time the others reached him, Eric Marten was shouting at one of the helmeted firemen.

  “But, señor—”

  Martin cut him short. “They’re concentrating on the other buildings,” he said viciously over his shoulder. “You can see what they’re doing. They’re letting our warehouse burn to the ground!”

  “No,” the fireman protested. “You do not understand. We hose the other buildings to keep the fire from spreading. But your buildings we must approach from the sea. There, look for yourselves!”

  As he spoke, he dramatically swept his arm toward the pier. A fire ship was positioning itself. Spotlights clicked on, and a giant crane loomed over the whole scene. Jets of water began arching from the ship’s tower directly onto the warehouse. They looked pitifully inadequate.

  “We do what we can,” the fireman said fatalistically. “But what can you expect?”

  Romero asked a question that Thatcher knew was unnecessary. “What does that mean?”

  The fireman became explicit. “This is no ordinary fire! You should have smelled the kerosene.”

  “Kerosene?” David Lippert echoed stupidly.

  Marten turned on his heel and strode a few paces away, where he stood surveying the devastation with bleak eyes.

  For once, Romero was blunt. “Arson, David! Somebody set this fire!” Then he too subsided, hands in pocket, watching the holocaust.

  David Lippert must be the only one watching this spectacle, Thatcher thought, who had not immediately suspected sabotage.

  A swirl of fire rose to meet the water pouring in from the fire ship.

  “But they’re not trying to save anything inside!” Norma cried with a half-sob. “Are they just going to let it burn?”

  Without replying, the fireman went off to talk to the men who were bringing up another hose.

  “What about all our material and supplies?” Norma asked distraughtly.

  “Norma,” Thatcher said to her firmly, “I don’t think they can risk sending anybody into the building.”

  He paused to look at her. Norma’s hair was disheveled. Her ivory satin pumps were sodden with the filthy scum being washed along the street. She seemed almost wild.

  “I doubt if there’s anything to be gained by watching this,” Thatcher added. “Why don’t you let us take you home?”

  “No!” He barely caught her whisper before David Lippert spoke.

  “God!” he said loudly. “Harry! I just remembered Harry! How am I ever going to tell him about this!”

  Suddenly Norma’s temper snapped.

  “I’ll call him if it bothers you so much,” she said scathingly. “Or Eric or Cesar will. What difference does it make! Don’t you understand, David? This is more of the same. We were all wrong about the sabotage. It wasn’t Domínguez after all. We thought his murder solved everything and—”

  She would have said more, but Cesar Romero seized her arm.

  “Norma,” he said urgently, “this is not the time.”

  He showed her the fire truck nearby—and the police car next to it. Standing there, seemingly intent upon the fire, was Captain Vallejo.

  But Thatcher could see that the policeman was taking in every word.

  “Did you notice Vallejo?” Eric Marten had rejoined them. “Now that it’s too late the police are keeping an eye out!”

  Romero was struck by a thought. “Eric!” he exclaimed. “The shipments! The shipments Harry was talking about—” He broke off with a quick glance toward Thatcher and Olmsted.

  Olmsted was not reassuring. “It’s no secret,” he said. “Harry told us all about the trouble you’ve been having with freight forwarders.”

  “Maybe Harry told too many people,” David Lippert said bitterly. “Don’t look at me like that, Norma. It’s true. They couldn’t have picked a better time to hit us, could they?”

  “David’s right, Norma,” said Marten. “There must be forty to fifty thousand dollars’ worth of finished goods in there. They should have been shipped last week. Now”—he turned to look at the blaze—“they’re going up in smoke, with the rest of the warehouse.”

  As if to punctuate his comment, there was an ominous rumble from the center of the fire. The roof was beginning to cave in.

  The fireman came hurrying back. “We are moving the cordon back,” he shouted. “You will have to leave.”

  Again Eric Marten had to
speak. “Is anybody investigating this?” he demanded.

  The fireman swore under his breath. “Can’t you see we are busy? Is this the time for talk? Move back, move back.”

  They obeyed his orders, only to discover that, behind them, the street that had been almost deserted now held a substantial crowd. There were, at a guess, a hundred people, young and old alike, watching the cataclysm with rapt fascination.

  “What’s she doing here?” Norma’s voice was a whiplash.

  Thatcher peered into the gloom. Pushing her way toward them was the one person who had not joined them in the frantic drive to Cataño.

  “She was going to fix everything just fine at Slax,” said Norma savagely. “She knew how to handle Prudencio Nadal! Sure she did. She handled him, all right! Look what he’s done to Slax now!”

  Annie Galiano must have overheard Norma as she approached. But all she said was, “Harry sure picked a lousy time to leave, didn’t he?”

  It was a flat statement, addressed to the world at large. Thatcher recognized it as rough-and-ready sympathy. Nevertheless, he could have predicted that Norma would not.

  “You keep your filthy tongue off Harry!” she spat.

  “I was just—”

  “Everything was supposed to be fine,” Norma swept on. “You were going to take care of Prudencio Nadal, weren’t you? Well, you did a great job! I hope you’re satisfied now.”

  “Norma!”

  “Norma!”

  But Annie dismissed Norma as if she were a fractious child. She turned to look at the fire. “Looks like they’re getting it under control,” she said.

  The unending streams of water, the plodding firemen, were gaining some sort of dominance. Flames still licked along the sills, but the inner cauldron had spent itself. There was little left to burn. The roof had collapsed, together with one of the walls. The interior had been gutted.