by David Pierce
"Nope," I said. "I did not, there was nothing in the reports that I read that mentioned it."
"Well, they did," she said. "So there."
"Whereabouts?"
"IMM," she said. "Ever heard of them?" As IMM was the eighth or ninth largest corporation in the State of California, right up there with the giants like Hughes Aircraft and McDonald and Grummond and Pan-Am and IBM and Standard Oil, I allowed that yes, I had heard of them from time to time, they made components for everything seemingly but the one-celled amoeba.
"Mary was his boss, actually," Debby said. "She was the Senior Personnel Executive while he was but a lowly Personnel Executive without the senior, although he was due for her job when she moved up, but she liked it where she was."
"What's the diff?"
"About twelve thousand, a bigger office, and classier artwork on the walls," she said.
"So where would you and Mary see each other?" I said. "Outside of maybe running into each other at the office?"
"We'd see each other at the annual convention," she said. "And the annual Easter Egg hunt for children with learning impairment, as we now put it, at which attendance was compulsory for all executive types and their downtrodden wives. Then the company has a cheap theater ticket plan and we'd run into one another maybe a couple of times a year at a concert or some play. Like that."
"The night in question," I said. "They'd been to see some play together, as I recall."
"They sure had," she said.
"How come you and Mr. Jones weren't along if I'm not being indelicate?"
She laughed. "You mean you think they might have snuck into some handy motel instead?"
"Why, the thought never crossed my mind," I said.
"Mine neither," she said. "Have you ever seen Mary?"
"No, I haven't had the pleasure as yet."
"She's at least fifty-five," Debby said. "Not that means much, thank goodness. However, not to be impolite or catty in the slightest, she looks like a cross between the wicked witch of the west and Hollywood's idea of what a spinster librarian looks like—all mincey and prissy and gloves and pearls and always in frilly blouses."
"Ah," I said wisely. "So not your ravishing beauty, then."
"She also has no tits, blue hair, green glasses that glitter, and, giving her a break, about one and a half lips. I suppose she's a nice enough lady, though. She's certainly efficient at her job, according to John, and he knew more about computers than most."
"Wish I did," I said. "Debby, I have a dream. And in my dream I am sitting at my little Apple II and I am not playing Dungeons and Dragons or listing expenses or just typing out some boring report, what I am doing is plugging in."
"Some dream," she said. "To what?"
"To all those sources of information that I now have to expend a considerable amount of time and a great deal of money to crack," I said. "Given the right modems and the right codes, and I guess I'd need a new computer, too, as my Betsy is a bit of an antique, but much beloved nonetheless, or maybe because of, and she was free, I could find out who owns what property without moving. With a license plate number, who owns the car. With just a name, or maybe even an alias, I could pull a suspect's whole record, home address, place of business, known acquaintances, everything, whatever state he lives in, because there's one beautiful, big, national hookup now. I could get a picture of him, even, if I knew what I was doing and had the right printer. Bank statements, passport details, plane reservations, it's endless."
"Ah, but is it legal?" Debby said.
"There is that," I said, "I suppose. But wouldn't it be loverly. Anyway. There they are at the theater, and you ain't. How come?" She shrugged.
"She never asked me."
"Just John?"
"Just John. I vaguely remember something about her husband being tied up at the last moment so she had a free ticket, and did John want to go? I think he said something about talking business too."
"All seems normal enough," I said. "Nice night, was it, if you can possibly remember?"
She thought for a moment. "Not sure. But John was taking our beautiful brand-new car, and even though he was a terrific driver, I remember telling him to be extra careful, or else; one scratch on that paintwork and was he in trouble. Extra careful—that's a good one."
"Did he smoke?"
She looked surprised. "No; why?"
"Just wondered. Drink?"
"Always a martini after work. At a party, sociably. Beer and football on Saturdays, usually with a few pals. Sometimes a couple of Bloody Marys on Sunday. He always used that terrible mix that I hated so he'd make mine up special. I always said if you have to make mine up special, how come you don't make them all up special? He always said because to him that gruesome mix was the best part. Yecch." She snuck a glance at her watch.
"Just one or two last desperate flings," I said hastily. "Then we are history, I promise. The sergeant who broke the awful news to you, Sergeant Brav, he said you told him that night that the only insurance policy your husband held was a company one for fifty grand that hadn't been altered for years and years."
"What I told that nice man, who even called the credit companies for me to cancel John's stolen cards—which were never recovered, by the way, or used, thank goodness—anyway what I told him was, as far as I knew. I went down the next day to check, and I was right."
"Went down where?"
"To the bank, where else? To our safe-deposit box. John's oldest friend, who's also our lawyer, he went with me and helped me do it all, thank God. We needed John's birth certificate, the insurance, the title deed to this place, we needed to change all three accounts into my name, change the car registration, you name it. Look into his pension. File the will. Check with the police when his body would be released. Make the funeral arrangements. Buy a plot. Be polite to his sister. You cannot imagine, Victor. You cannot imagine." Well, I thought I might be able to, if you really want to know, having been through much of the same when my mother died, but I didn't bother telling her so. Of course, there were minor differences—Mom didn't have any ski clothes for me to dispose of.
"Your safe-deposit box," I said. "All neat and tidy within, I suppose? No surprises? No gold bars, illicit diamonds, or stacks of century notes?"
"Pu-leese," she said. "I should be so lucky. John was an accountant, after all, and you know what they're like. Neat and tidy is right."
"What did he account? Anything in particular?"
"Pensions," she said.
"Know what Thoreau said?" I said, getting to my feet. King immediately did likewise.
"Yeah," she said. " 'Gone fishin'.' "
"He said a happy man is one who can keep all his accounts on one thumbnail."
"Tell that to IMM," she said, getting up in her turn. "Their pension department alone is humongous."
"Debby, thank you," I said. "You've been swell. And if I may say so, I think you are pretty swell, too."
"Why, thank you, sir, she said, coloring prettily," she said. "I only wish I could have been of some help, come up with something, anything, to try and make a little sense of it all. As it is, it all seems so totally unnecessary, somehow. Why John?"
Why John indeed, I thought. She took us out the back way this time and around the house and then across the lawn again.
"Nice lawn," I remarked.
"All John," she said. "He was fanatic about it. One stray scrap of paper blown onto it and he was out of the house like a shot. As for weeds, he could spot the birth of a dandelion at a hundred yards in a thick fog.
"Richard," she said, pulling up abruptly. "Richard found a stray scrap of paper, only it wasn't really a scrap."
"Richard?"
"Richard the lawyer."
"Where?"
"In the safe-deposit box, of all the unlikely places. King, no!" King backed out of the flowerbed he had one paw in.
"If it wasn't a scrap," I said, "what was it?"
"A sheet," she said. I opened the car door and King hopp
ed in.
"Of figures?" I inquired hopefully. "Like money figures?"
"Nope," she said. "Just some names and addresses."
"Lots?"
"Ten, twelve, fifteen?" she said. "I don't know. I was sitting there like a zombie and Richard said, 'What's this?' and shoved it under my nose. I looked at it and said I didn't know so he chucked it away. Who cared. If he wanted to keep a secret list of old flames so he could send them Valentine's cards, more power to him."
"Absolutely," I said. "Don't suppose you remember any details at all on the piece of paper, given the state you were in and the quick look you got at it."
She shook her head. "There was something they all had in common, it seems to me, but I can't remember what and maybe I'm even wrong about that."
"And maybe not," I said. "I hear tell that a terrible disaster can sometimes provoke a heightened awareness as well as shock. Say just for fun you are right. What could they have had in common? Not something easy like different names but the same address?" She shook her head again. "Similar addresses, like Orange, Mulberry, Mango, and Lemon avenues? That doesn't even make sense to me. All LA addresses?"
"Who knows?" she said. "It's gone, Victor, if it was ever there. What does it matter, anyway?"
"You got me there." She gave me a tired smile. We shook hands. She said good-bye to King, and headed back to her packing. King and I headed back to the office. On the way, I mentioned to him that, generally speaking, safe-deposit boxes were designed to contain items of value, and while a list of old flames certainly did have a value of a kind, was a safe-deposit box really the most appropriate place to cache it? Likewise lists of debtors, say, or Freemasonry brothers' secret names, or German pen pals, or whatever. The kind of list one does put in a safe-deposit box, especially an accountant obsessed with order, is, therefore, a list of some importance, some value. A list of credit card numbers, the manufacturer's identification numbers of valuable household appliances, your car(s) engine block number, and of course a list of all your secret Swiss and Cayman bank accounts, if you're Benny; they are worth storing away safely. Likewise your real Hope diamond, while you wear the fake to hoity-toity gatherings.
Thus the surmise that said list had some importance to the deceased. And where did that get me? Right up the old polluted waterway, and without a propelling instrument.
Chapter Thirteen
But somebody musta had a loose mouth, or else they couldn't hold their juice,
Or it coulda been some dirty little stoolie after a piece of the reward . . .
WHAT DO I want?" I asked the office wall.
It responded not.
"What have I got?"
Again, a definite lack of answer.
"What do I do now?"
That one I answered myself—call Benny the Boy. So I did, catching him just on the way out, he informed me.
"The way out to do what?"
"Oh, looking at an old airstrip out Norco way that's up for sale," he said.
"Are your intentions honorable, Benny?"
"Need you ask?" he said.
"That's a relief," I said. "I'd hate to think of you getting mixed up in anything legal."
"Fat chance," he said. "I tried it once, remember?"
"Sure do," I said. "For a while there you were the hammock king of San Diego."
"All things must pass, thank goodness," he said.
"Pensions," I said.
"What about them?"
"Anything."
"Company-operated pension plans," said Benny, "began to proliferate in 1948 because of a National Labor Relations Board ruling that unions should be allowed to negotiate for pension plans as a part of their overall bargaining process."
"Did they," I said.
"They did," he said. "Now, however, the percentage of workers entitled to a pension of some kind on retirement is slipping fast and is probably down to around forty percent."
"How come?"
"Don't you ever read anything but the sports pages and the funnies?" Benny said.
"Not if I can help it," I said. "I used to read Popular Mechanics, but my subscription ran out in 1957. Anyway, how come pensions are on the skids, Benny?"
He said, "Because of lots of reasons, like companies having less money available now because of the economy's present lethargy, because more and more people work in the service area, in smallish companies which obviously don't have the funds to offer pension plans, because unions aren't as militant now as they were, generally speaking, and also because there's so much red tape and paperwork needed now due to expanding governmental regulations that running a pension plan has gotten highly complicated and much more expensive."
"A large company," I said, "that did have a pension plan, how would it work?"
"Money goes in, monthly," he said. "Years and years and years pass. You retire. Depending on the number of years you've put in, you get a percentage of your mean salary, up to a hundred percent, paid back to you, monthly. Sometimes, if you die, half that sum continues to be paid to your spouse until his or her death. All of which you certainly know already, Vic, so what's up?"
"Me," I said, "if you're talking about the creek. Otherwise, I dunno, probably nothing. In a huge company, Benny, what would a Senior Personnel Executive, Pensions Department, do?"
"High-level filing," he said.
"Is that all?"
"Sure," he said. "He'd have any number of executive V.P.'s above him doing the real work."
"Like what?"
"Guess."
"OK," I said. "Like practicing putting golf balls into one of those plastic things that kicks the ball out again across the carpet to you."
"Aside from that," he said.
"I give up," I said.
"Like investing, Vic," Benny said. "You know how much money a major corporation has in its pension fund?"
"No."
"Hundreds of millions, son. And that kind of money you do not change into Krugerrands and hide under the mattress."
"You invest it," I said.
"Spot on," Benny said. "In mutuals, in land, in the stock market, in art, you name it. And that is what the big shots in charge of the fund get paid a lot of money for doing—investing large sums profitably over a long period of time. They do not get eighty grand, plus stock options, for writing out checks every month to the widow of one of their former tail-assembly welders."
"Ah so," I said. "Benny, muchas gracias, you have given me cause to ponder yet again."
"That's nice," my friend said. "Vic, I've got to go, the Daimler's here. See you Friday."
"OK, babe. Thanks." We rang off. The Daimler's here . . . does one really need a Daimler limousine to go looking at some godforsaken deserted tarmac out Norco way? What could the boy be up to now? When I asked him about it a few months later, all he'd reveal was that he'd indeed bought the property in question, at four o'clock that very day we talked. At six o'clock he sold it again, for a lower price. How you come out of a deal like that ahead is beyond me, but I'm damn sure he did somehow. Only thing I could figure was that he needed a legal flying field in his name or one of his companies' names for a couple of hours, presumably to fly something in, so what he'd done was to buy it, use it, and then sell it back by prearrangement to the original owner. But when I put this surmise to him, he just smiled, shook his head, and said, "No flights in, no flights out." So you figure it, you armchair sleuths, you.
What did I want? Facts, instead of wild conjecture. I got out the road map again, and the phone book. I looked up the address of the theater Mrs. Jones and Mr. Flint had attended that night of March 14, 1989, and found it on the map. I put a little dot where the recording studio was located. I marked out the shortest way to get from one to the other. The shortest route did not intersect the corner of 8th and Berendo, where the shooting took place, but to be fair, it did pass within a block or two of it. What was I thinking?! Was I really toying with the idea that there was something nonkosher about the story of the unidentified male,
black, approx. 25 to 30? Not quite yet, not quite yet.
I then phoned the state meteorological service, introduced myself as my brother, gave his shield number, which I happened to know, and asked a helpful lady there to please check on the Los Angeles weather for me for the night of March 14th, it was in connection with a serious felony I was investigating.
"No problem; hang on a tick," she said. A minute later she said, "Rain throughout the central LA area as a result of low-pressure field moving in from southwest, ceasing early morning. That do you?"
"Just fine." I thanked her, and hung up. Then I looked up and called the Diners Club and American Express emergency toll-free numbers. I like calling toll-free numbers, I often do it just for a little chat. In no time at all, thanks to Tony's credentials, I discovered that Mary Jones was in possession of a valid American Express Card, and that it had not been reported as lost or stolen or disfigured any time during that calendar year, let alone on or about March 14-15-16. Hmm.
Then I thought a bit. Then I rang the theater. After hanging on for a while, and being treated to a medley of popular show tunes of yesteryear, a pleasant female voice said, "Alameda Theater box office, can I help you?"
"Well, I certainly hope so, miss," I said in a dithering fashion. "I just don't know what to do. We're supposed to come and see the show tonight, that's me and Mrs. Bardwell and Hayley, our eldest? I can't tell you how much we've been looking forward to it."
"What's the problem, Mr. Bardwell?"
"It's the tickets!" I said. "She's off visiting Mother in Culver City, and I just don't know what she's done about them. She works for IMM, you know, where they have this cheap theater ticket program? She told me how it operates once, but my memory is like a total sieve these days, I think it's my new medication, frankly. I really do."
"How it operates, Mr. Bardwell," the lady said patiently, "is that we give special rates for group bookings."
"Do you!" I said. "Just like the airlines?"
"Just like the airlines," she said. "So a large company such as IMM will make a block booking, and pass the savings along to their employees. Sometimes the seats are all booked for one or two specific nights, but often they are spread out at so many per show over an entire month, to give the employees more choice."
