The Complete Bragg Thriller Box Set

by Jack Lynch

  “What kind of a life do you think she’s leading these days?”

  He sat there solemnly, the glass on the stand, his hands clasped in front of him, and staring at the white wall-to-wall carpeting. “Making pornographic films. That kind of life.”

  “I understand they aren’t as pornographic as they could be.”

  “She takes her clothes off. That’s pornographic enough for me.”

  “How did you find out about it?”

  He raised his eyes. “She told me. When I took those photos—which somebody sent in the mail to me, by the way—I took those photos over to Melody’s and demanded an explanation. Only she called them art films.”

  “What sort of explanation did she give?”

  “She didn’t give me one. She told me to go suck.” He lowered his eyes again. “I’m not even sure what that means these days.”

  “But you could guess by the tone of her voice.”

  He nodded. “She is a pretty good little actress. That was the last time I saw her until the dinner party last night, with her making up to Mrs. Anderson and simpering over Duffy. And she was very correct with me. You’d think our previous meeting had never happened. Even kissed me on the cheek when I came in the door.”

  “You struck out trying to talk sense to her, so you sent the photos along to your brother.”

  He nodded, concentrating on the rug again.

  “What did you hope to accomplish by that?”

  “Like I said. I wanted him to get involved. Hire a detective, or a whole carload of them, if that’s what it takes.”

  He got up from the sofa, ignoring his drink, and took a turn around the room. “I want Samuel to sit down and reason with his daughter. I want him to talk sense with the girl before she ruins her life, and maybe some other lives around her. Duffy Anderson. Marinship Shores.” His voice dropped an octave. “Me.”

  “I can see how her line of work might give Duffy Anderson the vapors, but what would it have to do with the Shores project and you?”

  He didn’t answer right away. He crossed to his drink and had some of it, then sat down again.

  “Mr. Bragg, this is a very delicate and fragile thing we have at the Shores project. There were people, a lot of people, who said we never could bring it off. But we’re doing it. We got the package together, and now we’re starting to build. But if the engagement between Melody and young Duffy should go sour…Well, I think that could lead to some other things going sour as well. I just don’t see why she feels the need to make that sort of film.”

  “It pays well, what little I know about it. Seems to me she would have to do something to live up on Bulkley, the way she does.”

  He closed his eyes and shook his head. “I don’t even want to think about it. I just want her out of the movie business.”

  “How did she get into it in the first place?”

  “I don’t know. I hardly ever saw the girl the past couple of years or so, until she and Duffy found each other. But I can guess.”

  “What would your guess be?”

  He looked up and blinked. “I am not totally naive about such things, Mr. Bragg. I know there are people with a taste for such films. I imagine the people who make such films go to local talent agencies, and so forth. And I can even see how a person with Melody’s artistic temperament could look upon it as any other sort of acting job. Just not the top of the line, is all. But my gosh, for people brought up the way Samuel and I were, it’s a terribly embarrassing thing. And I think it would be for Duffy. And his parents as well.”

  “Your brother says you disapprove of the business he’s in, as well.”

  That one hurt him some. He looked away and didn’t say anything.

  “But your brother also says his bookie business put you through law school.”

  His head snapped up. “That is not entirely true, Mr. Bragg. My brother supported me financially. I will be grateful for that for the rest of my life. But my brother isn’t what put me through law school. This,” he said sharply, pointing at his own skull, “is what put me through law school. Not all of the money in the world could have done that if I didn’t have this to go with it.”

  I decided things were getting a little too stuffy for my taste. It wasn’t too hard to picture Melody rebelling against her family, the same as Terri Anderson was rebelling against hers. I suspected, though, that Melody’s rebellion could be far more dangerous than Terri Anderson’s ever would. Terri had a tart tongue. Melody took action. I didn’t know if she had it in her to derail the Shores project, but she seemed capable of wreaking a lot of damage. And I had the impression that up to now she’d just been warming up.

  I repeated to Arthur Moss that I would be submitting my report to his brother in the morning. I told him I still thought it would be a good idea if he got on the phone first to make his own amends. He looked pretty gloomy when I left.

  Driving back down to Bridgeway, I felt lucky. Almost too lucky. I’d found out what Samuel P. Moss had asked me to find out in relatively fast order. I’d met some interesting people, but I didn’t feel I wanted to get overly involved with any of them. Maybe Terri Anderson would be fun after she grew up a little more and controlled her drinking, but it might already be too late to hope for that. In San Francisco these days, volunteers were going into schools and trying to give them some straight information about alcohol before they were introduced to it in family situations or in some other kind. They were talking to every grade level, beginning with first grade in elementary school. But I didn’t suppose that Terri had gone to school in San Francisco.

  Instead of driving up to my apartment, I decided to take one more swing by the Donita Rose, to see if Red Dewer ever came home. I had the information my client asked for, but I was sure it wouldn’t be all that he wanted. In some areas I had even more than Samuel P. Moss would want, and I would tread lightly there. But I felt sure that what he really wanted was something more about his daughter that would make sense to him. He still might not approve, but he needed something to rationalize it, if he was to live with it comfortably. I wasn’t sure I could find that out for him, but Red Dewer was one last possibility.

  I parked and walked out Six Pier again. Things hadn’t changed much, except this time there were lights on in Shirley’s houseboat. My watch said it was almost 12:30. The boat at the end of the pier was still dark and quiet. I clambered over the rail again and tried to raise somebody. I didn’t have any luck. A bell on a buoy out in the boat channel was clanging as the water rocked it from side to side. Waves were lapping lightly on nearby houseboats, as if a larger vessel had just moved past in the night. I heard a dog yap over on one of the other piers.

  When I climbed back over the rail and stepped down onto the pier, I saw a door open on the side of Shirley’s boat. She looked out warily, then saw me and stepped outside.

  “I live over here, not over there,” she told me. “Can’t you ever get things straight?”

  I walked over to her. “I was looking for Red Dewer again. Haven’t seen him tonight, have you?”

  “Not here. I just got home myself. I did see him in town. Come on in.”

  I stepped inside. The craft was just one long, open room, for the most part, with the kitchen up at the end toward the Donita Rose and the living room pretty much covering the rest of the space. In one corner Shirley had an old-fashioned bed a foot or more off the deck with a big, brass headboard on it. There was a dining table along the far wall next to a row of windows looking out over the harbor. There wasn’t much more furniture, but a lot of big, purple-and-gold lounging cushions that looked comfortable to sit on were spread around, and the place was lit cheerily by thick candles burning inside colored glass chimneys. The deck was covered with a dark-brown carpet that was soft to the footfall.

  “Can I get you something to drink?”

  “I don’t think so. I still have a bad taste in my mouth from the last one I had.”

  “Oh?”

  She didn’t pursue it,
but crossed to the kitchen end of the boat and opened a refrigerator backed against the forward wall of the boat. She had changed out of her waitressing outfit into a pair of jeans and a thick turtleneck sweater of forest green. She bent over, resting her hands on her knees, to peer into a lower shelf of the refrigerator. The jeans were a snug fit. She had a nice form.

  “How about a beer?”

  “That sounds all right. I’ll take one.”

  She brought out a couple of Heinekens and took a pair of chilled mugs from the freezer compartment. She poured the beers and brought them across to a mound of cushions set along the wall. Across from them, on a small stand, was a twelve-inch color television set showing a late movie. She handed me the beer, then crossed to turn off the set.

  We settled onto the cushions. “How did the rest of the night go?”

  “It was pretty dull after you left. But the music was good. Tell me about yesterday—what you said about the Shores people who talked to the county about codes and things.”

  “I walked in on a small dinner party last night. Two of the people there were on their way over to a meeting at the civic center with a supervisors’ committee. One of them was Paul Anderson, who I take is the developer of the Shores project. He’s the father of the girl who was doing the strip at your place tonight. And I told you, her brother was the boy with the black girl, Melody Moss. Melody’s uncle is an attorney, Arthur Moss. He’s part of the Shores project as well, and was the man who went with Anderson to talk to the supervisors.”

  “Sounds incestuous as hell.”

  “It has some funny twists and turns to it,” I agreed. I went on to tell her what I’d been told about their plans for the houseboats. She listened quietly, with a thoughtful expression.

  “Just like the rumors,” she said quietly when I had finished.

  “You must get pretty good rumors down here.”

  “They’re probably planted so we can see the handwriting on the wall. The county people actually didn’t seem too hostile today. They’ve been getting a lot of heat lately over the housing situation in the county. I was talking with some of the other people here at the Basin when I got back. I think we’re going to form another committee, with some carpenter and plumber types on it who maybe could work out a compromise over building codes and the sewer things. There still might be a way most of us can fix things up well enough to stay here after the Shores project is finished.”

  “Did the county people tell you that?”

  “Let’s just say they were sympathetic—more than they have been in the past. They even suggested a couple of ways we might be able to get some money to install a basic sewer system. It would cost us some money, but they think Beamer could be pressured into providing a piping network to shore, and they said the county might spring for facilities to transfer it from there into the county system.”

  “Sounds like a lot of work down the road.”

  “Listen, it’ll be worth it if I can keep my home.”

  A funny sound came to us from across the water outside, a series of three or four poofs. One of them was strong enough to shake the windows looking out onto the water. Shirley had frozen, and was staring out with a rigid little expression.

  Then somebody shouted “Fire!” from one of the neighboring piers, and the shout was taken up by others.

  “Oh my God,” said Shirley, scrambling to her feet and crossing to the windows. “The whole end of one of the piers is on fire.”

  I went over to stand behind her. It looked like it was going to be a whale of a fire. At least two of the houseboats at the pier’s end appeared to be ablaze. What was funny about it was that they were tied up on opposite sides of the pier, instead of being side by side.

  By now Shirley was dialing a number on the telephone. It was one she knew by memory. When fire occurs in a community of people living on the water, it is a far more serious matter than a residential fire on land. It’s a threat to them all. Shirley was reporting the fire to the Tamalpais Valley Fire Department.

  “Tell them they’ll need help,” I told Shirley. “They’d better alert neighboring departments right away.”

  She told them, while I peeled out of my jacket and tossed it over onto the cushions.

  Shirley hung up the phone. “What are you doing?”

  “Going to see if I can help. I’ll be back.”

  TEN

  Lights were blinking on in floating homes throughout the Basin. I ran to the hub of piers and started out the one with fire at the end. People were gathering on the pier ahead of me. Some of them were moving shoreward, others stood in small groups, chattering nervously. There was a lot of yelling and confusion in the direction of the burning homes. By now I could see that there were three structures ablaze, as well as the end of the pier itself.

  At least there wasn’t an onshore breeze to fan the flames. Still, the outermost houseboats were roaring enough to pose a danger to neighboring structures. The fire cast chilling shadows on the frightened bystanders. A couple of people nearest the burning homes were up on their own roofs with garden hoses, wetting them down. I heard the first sirens in the distance.

  Fifty yards from the end of the pier a bearded man in undershorts and a woman wearing only a pair of cut-off jeans were struggling to maneuver a sofa up a ramp to the main pier from the floating finger pier alongside their home. I tried to discourage them.

  “Firemen are coming. They’re going to need room up here to get past with their gear. Try not to block things.”

  The man hesitated. The woman dropped her end of the sofa with a curse and ran back toward their boat.

  Half a dozen dogs were barking up and down the docks by now, adding to the shrieking and general clamor. The first fire truck was pulling into the parking area. A man nearby, wearing a gold cap and pair of trousers, was standing with hands on hips yelling across the water to the next pier.

  “Come on, Charley! Get it going!”

  A large, husky fellow was bent over an outboard motor at the rear of a small, flat-bottomed barge with assorted gear on it. I slowed down.

  “What’s that?” I asked the man in the cap.

  “It’s supposed to be our insurance against this sort of thing,” he told me, sweat running down his face from the heat of the flames. “Has a hose and pump on it, but I told him it wouldn’t be any damn good if he couldn’t get the motor started.”

  He seemed to express the frustration of a lot of the people around him.

  There was a bright arc of electricity and a shower of sparks from one of the utility poles near the end of the burning pier, and lights went out all along the pier back to the shore. A ball of gray fur streaked out of a houseboat just ahead of me. It was a cat, its hair puffed out and frizzled. It was running for its life and went past me like a shot. I went up to the groups of people in various stages of dress standing nearest to the flames. The men on the roofs now were alternating their thin streams of water from their own homes to the pier below them, as flames licked back shoreward.

  A girl with lank, blonde hair gripping a blanket around herself was crying her heart out and trying to shout at the same time, staring out into the heart of the blazing structures.

  “Buddy! Oh, Buddy!”

  “Are there people out there?” I demanded.

  A bearded man in rumpled clothing and sneakers shook his head. “We all got out. It was a goddam miracle. One minute, nothing. The next minute everything in sight was on fire.”

  “Buddy’s in there!” the crying girl shouted. “Buddy didn’t get out!”

  The bearded man looked away with embarrassment.

  “Who’s Buddy?”

  “Her dog,” said the bearded man hopelessly.

  One of the other women, dressed in shorts and a sweatshirt, tried to comfort the crying girl, but she shook herself free and turned on the bearded man.

  “He might be a dog to you,” she cried, “but he just happens to be the only real friend I have in this whole fucking world!” She w
as being wrenched by sobs, and was having trouble breathing.

  “Where is the dog?” I asked her.

  She looked up at me through swollen eyes, but let go of one side of the blanket to point at one of the outermost burning structures. It was one of the original starting points of the blaze. More than half the craft was a roaring furnace, but what breeze there was helped slow the advance of the flames down the rest of its length. It was one of the larger crafts, with a small second deck at the outer end, still relatively unscorched.

  “He was in the back. He sleeps there. By the time I was awake I couldn’t get to him.”

  “Would he jump in the water?”

  “No. Before the flames got too bad I went down the finger pier. I could see him barking. But he hates water. He wouldn’t jump.”

  I looked back toward shore. It looked like just a two-man skeleton crew had come on the fire truck. They probably would be supplemented by volunteers who’d come straggling in, but now they were having slow going trying to lay hose down the length of the pier.

  “Anybody here have a rowboat?” I yelled.

  “I had one,” said the bearded man. “No more.”

  I yelled the same question to nearby residents, but people had too many problems of their own to pay any attention to me. Dozens of people were struggling down the pier with suitcases, lamps and a whacky assortment of other treasures. Charley still didn’t have the outboard motor started. A fire boat would have been a godsend, but the nearest ones were over in San Francisco or out at the navy base on Treasure Island. The whole pier would be gone by the time they could get there.

  I kicked off my shoes and started stripping down to my shorts. The bearded man turned. “What are you doing?”

  “Something foolish, I suppose.”

  The girl had pulled the blanket back around to cover her nakedness. She had something approaching hope on her face. It was more than I felt.