by Jack Lynch
It astonished him. He even honked out a little laugh. “You’re pulling my leg.”
“No sir. The California State Department of Consumer Affairs. They license everybody. Private eyes, barbers, accountants. You name it, they license it.”
“That’s the silliest thing I ever heard of.”
“It strikes me that way once in a while too. It lightens things just enough so I figure I don’t have to go blab everything I learn to the local cops. My word is good, Mr. Pitt. I could give you references, if we had the time for that sort of thing.”
He made another little chuckle. “All right, Mr. Bragg. Yes, I was one of the extortion victims. Not that what I did was really of such a devastating nature. Faulty judgment while in a command position is what it was. Woody Sommers knew about it. I had maybe three or four sessions with him, is all. He was able to set my thinking straight for me. A couple of men died aboard my ship because of that judgmental error. But Woody was able to show me how half a dozen other factors could have played a part in their deaths as well.”
I nodded. “I should think a certain amount of death and damage was to be expected in a war situation. It was in mine.”
“Oh, sure it is. But not everybody can accept that as easily as some others might. But Doc Sommers managed to ease me over all that. It wouldn’t kill me to have people learn about it now, but it might cause a certain discomfort to my family. And the amount of money they got out of me was a fair enough price, I figured, to avoid all that. I made it plain to them there would be no more of it in the future. I even tried to arrange it in such a way that I might find out who was behind it, in case anybody else I knew fell victim to the same sleazy operation.”
“I’d still like to hear about the mechanics of it.”
He slapped one hand on the arm of his chair. “Why not? So long as the Department of Consumer Affairs has given you a clean bill of health.” He got out of the chair, chuckling again. You never knew what would win over a man.
“How about a drink?”
“Sure. Gin and tonic if you have it.”
“I have it. Wait here.” He went out back to the kitchen. I heard the refrigerator door open and shut and the rattle of ice. A moment later he brought in a gin and tonic for me and what looked like Scotch for him. He went back to his chair and told me about it.
“It was back in late July. Got a call here around eight o’clock one night. My daughter, Stacy, answered it and told me it was for me. When I asked her about it later, Stacy said the caller had a normal-sounding voice when she talked to him. A man. She even said she might have heard that voice before, but she couldn’t be sure. Anyway, when I got to the phone, the voice was all muffled and distorted. Somebody obviously trying to disguise it. What he said was, ‘Angel and Torrence. October 4, 1944. That is a two-thousand dollar mistake. Have that amount of money ready at this same time tomorrow night. Have it in a sealed manila envelope. You will receive another phone call.’ And then he hung up. Angel and Torrence were the two men killed on my ship, at least partially because of an error I made.”
“And you did what he asked?”
“Yes, after thinking about it for a while. And I put a little note in with the money. I told whoever it was that they were right, it had been a two-thousand dollar mistake, and that was all. They’d get no more. He didn’t call the next night until nearly ten o’clock. The man with the same faked voice told me to take the money to a pay phone next to a supermarket at the Barnyard. Know where that is?”
I nodded. It was another collection of shops and restaurants a couple of blocks north of the Crossroads shopping area at Rio Road and Highway 1.
“So I drove on over there. It’s only about a five-minute drive from here. When I got there, a woman was on the phone, but she hung up almost as soon as I got out of my car. I went over and the phone rang almost immediately. The same voice told me to drive next into the main business district here in Carmel. Sent me to another pay phone, on Ocean Avenue. When I got there, same as before, the phone rang. I obviously was being watched. Maybe by the man doing the calling, maybe by somebody in cahoots with him. This time, the man told me to walk up San Carlos to the Hog’s Breath, that bar and restaurant owned by the movie fellow.”
“Clint Eastwood. I know the place.”
“He told me to go down and sit at one of the tables at the very back of the patio area, near one of those gas-fired heaters. You know where I mean? It’s kind of private back there.”
“I know.”
“He told me to order a drink and to spend about five minutes sipping it, then to leave the envelope underneath my seat and to get up and leave. I did what he said, then I spent about an hour parked farther up San Carlos, watching people come in and out of the place, but I finally realized what a foolish venture that was. I didn’t know who I was looking for. Didn’t know if they had an accomplice to make the pickup. Anyway, I drove on back home then, fended off questions from my wife, swore I wasn’t having a flaming affair with another woman, and that was the end of it.”
“He never did get in touch with you again?”
“No, sir. Wouldn’t have mattered if he had. I would have ignored him.”
“Was there anybody else sitting in that back patio area while you were there?”
“No. If there had been, I would have stopped them on their way out of there and asked if they’d seen anybody pick up that manila envelope.”
I thought it over.
“Does that help you any?” he wanted to know.
“It tells me somebody had thought things out pretty carefully.”
“That’s what I decided. And I don’t even have a license from the Department of Consumer Affairs.”
“Were there many people around the Barnyard when you went to the phone by the supermarket?”
“Nope. Oh, there were a few people coming and going. There’s a couple of restaurants still open at that time of night. But there wasn’t a lot of foot traffic.”
“The woman who was on the phone when you got there. Is she anybody you might have seen before?”
“I didn’t recognize her. Didn’t pay that much attention, to tell you the truth. It wasn’t until later it occurred to me she might have been a part of it. Keeping the phone away from anybody else until I showed up.”
“Would you know her if you saw her again?”
“No, I decided I wouldn’t. Decided that just last weekend.”
“What happened last weekend?”
“A friend of mine had the same sort of thing happen to him.”
“Extortion?”
“Yes. I’m not going to tell you who he is. But we’re good enough friends so he told me about it. He came up to me one day last week with a sort of sheepish grin on his face and said, ‘You know, Larry, I’ve got a secret, and I have to figure out if it’s a three-thousand dollar secret.’ Well, I guessed what was going on immediately. Three-thousand dollar secret sounded painfully similar to the two-thousand dollar mistake my mystery caller had referred to back in July. So I came right out and told my friend what my experience had been. He was grateful that I told him, and I’d been right. He was being hit up the same way. And he decided that so long as I hadn’t been asked for any more money after that first time, that he’d go along with it as well.”
“Didn’t it ever occur to you somebody might just be trying to build that sort of reputation? To leave everybody alone after the initial payoff, until he’d been through whatever list of people he had, before going back and starting all over again?”
“No,” he said soberly. “That hadn’t occurred to me.”
“What were your friend’s instructions?”
“He was told to put the money in an envelope, just like me, and to take it with him to the jazz festival Friday night. He was told to be in the bar of the Hunt Club at a certain hour.”
“The caller knew he’d be at the festival and would have access to the Hunt Club?”
“Yes, but that wasn’t so unusual, if the
caller knew anything about us. And he certainly knew something about our past, at least. My friend and I and a gang of other people have been going to the jazz festival for years, doing volunteer work in connection with it. That buys us a ticket to the Hunt Club as well.”
“So what happened in the Hunt Club?”
“He got a phone call at the bar. He was told to go immediately out onto the fairgrounds there and to make a purchase at the pottery stall and to ask the woman working at the stall to hold his purchase until later, when either he or a friend would be by to pick it up. And he was to ask the woman to put the manila envelope into the bag along with the purchase. The woman at the pottery stall, of course, was that Nikki Scarborough person. About a half hour after my friend did what he was told, he got around to telling me about it. I told him he should have let me know immediately. I left the arena and watched the pottery stall from some ways off for ten or twenty minutes. But I finally decided we probably were too late. I went over to the stall and asked the woman there about it. She told me that yes, somebody had picked up that particular purchase almost immediately after. Said it was an older man. Somebody she didn’t know. We talked a few minutes and I got one of her business cards. That’s how I learned her name. I thought at the time she was an innocent party in it all. But after what you told me happened today, maybe she was the pickup person all along.”
“Maybe. Do you have any other reason to think so?”
“I’m not just sure, that’s the aggravating part of it. You see, it crossed my mind when I went over and spoke to her Friday night, that she could have been the woman on the telephone at the Barnyard, that night back in July. Can’t be sure, because I didn’t make any big deal of noting what the woman on the phone looked like. But there was something about her posture. Kind of a slouch around the shoulders. It could have been the same woman, but I’m not positive.”
I finished my drink and got up to go, thanking him for his help. “One other thing,” I said at the door. “You said you won’t tell me your friend’s name. Will you tell me if he was there at the Hunt Club when I stopped in with Mrs. Sommers Friday night, and Billy Carpenter introduced us all?”
“No, Mr. Bragg, I won’t even tell you that. But you shouldn’t spend so much time wondering about who might have made another payoff, like I did. Seems to me you’d want to find the man who decided he wasn’t going to make a payoff.”
TWELVE
I didn’t bother phoning ahead this time to the widow Sommers. I figured things were getting down to the rough-edged state where a person could let the formalities slip on past like a leaf in the storm gutter. I had to ring the bell a couple of times and cool my heels before the front porch light went on. She had one of those glass-bead peek-a-boos in the door that lets a person inside look out at who’s standing on the doorstep, and there was enough time that went by between when the light went on and she said anything, for me to know she’d taken the trouble to see who was calling. Despite that, she had to go through a little charade.
“Who is it?” she called through the door.
“The FBI. Open up or we’ll break down the door.”
A bolt was shot back and she opened the door, just enough to stick her head around its edge. “Why, Peter, I didn’t expect to see you again tonight.”
“I’ve learned a couple of things. We should talk some more.”
“Oh? All right.” She opened the door far enough for me to step through. As I went in I shot her a glance. At least I meant it to be a glance, but it lingered for a minute. She was holding a large white beach towel in front of her, and from the way she held it, I had the impression she didn’t have on any clothes. She used one hip to nudge shut the door and gave me a little smile. “I was in the hot tub out back. Why don’t you join me?”
“No thanks. I don’t intend to be here that long.”
She patted herself here and there with the towel. “Well then, maybe I’d better put on a robe.”
She went past me down the hall toward one of the bedrooms, still clutching the towel across the front of her. She didn’t bother wrapping any of it around her backside, and I’d been right. She didn’t have on any clothes. And from the foxy little way she moved down the hallway, I knew she knew I’d be watching her. And after that I decided I’d better be watching myself. Maybe I’d have been smarter to bring Allison with me.
Sam the cat stuck her head around the kitchen doorway and bawled at me.
Jo came back wearing a belted, white terry-cloth robe. White worked well for her, contrasting starkly with her glossy black hair and the bright red lipstick she wore.
“Why don’t we go out onto the patio?” she asked. “It’s pleasant out there this evening. And my drink is there. Can I fix you one?”
“No thanks.” I followed her out back. Amber lights spotted beneath the eaves of the house bathed the area in a warm glow. From the looks of the glass on the metal table at one side of the patio, she still was drinking gin and tonic. A little portable radio beside the glass was playing country western. She turned it down and sat with her drink in an aluminum tube chair with white plastic thongs stretched across the frame. I sat in a similar chair across from her.
“Have you learned something important?” she asked me.
“Yeah, I think I have.”
“What’s that?”
“Somebody got their hands on your husband’s tapes and has been extorting money from half the retired military community around here.”
She blinked at me but didn’t say anything.
“At least I’m sure of the extortion part,” I continued, “and I’m pretty sure your husband’s tapes were involved. It would be too big a coincidence if they weren’t. Nikki Scarborough was a part of it. I don’t know if she was in up to her neck or was just being used by somebody else. Gus Wakefield was one of the intended victims, only somebody screwed up, mistaking him for his brother. That pretty well means your husband himself wasn’t behind it. He wouldn’t make that kind of mistake. I talked to another man this evening who was one of the extortion victims, and he told me about a third victim. All of these people were one-time patients of your husband. While Nikki Scarborough might have been a part of all this, I don’t think she was smart enough to put it together and run the show. So that means somebody else.”
“Do you have any idea who?”
“You, maybe.”
She showed genuine surprise. “You’re kidding.”
“No, I’m not, Jo. I figure you’re either behind it, or play a major role in it.”
“That’s just not true!”
We stared at each other for the better part of a minute. I didn’t know if she was telling the truth or not. I would have had a better chance of gauging that in a complete stranger. I’d known Jo, not well maybe, but at least for enough years to tip askew whatever mechanism that might let me judge whether or not she was lying to me.
“Well,” she said finally, “you don’t believe me. That almost calls for another drink.”
She started to get up, but I raised a hand and pushed air across the table. She sat back down. “You don’t need another drink. And it doesn’t really matter whether I believe you or not. If you aren’t a big-league player in all this, you can still help me by telling me more than you have. Either about your husband’s tapes, or the relationship he had with Nikki Scarborough, or some of those phone calls your husband had. Something. There is no way somebody outside of the family could have had access to the information on the tapes without a woman as bright as yourself having a suspicion or two about it.”
“You’re just guessing, Peter.” Color was rising in her cheeks and her voice had a brittle edge. I’d finally scratched her under that cool, flirting-widow composure. I hadn’t seen her like this before, not even when she’d broken down and cried for me in county jail.
“I have a dead husband and a dead girlfriend,” she told me. “To get the money to hire you to find out who killed my husband, I went to my family, which is the last
thing I ever wanted to do. We are not a close-knit family, Peter. My brother and my mother think of me as very…”
She couldn’t bring herself to say whatever came first to her mind. The word she finally settled for was “common.”
“I had to do a little groveling for that money, and I’m certainly not about to grovel in front of the man I’m giving it to. And let’s get something else settled. I didn’t hire you to get to the bottom of any so-called extortion. I frankly don’t care about any of that. All I want from you is for you to find out who killed my husband so the insurance company can’t stiff me. If you’re not good enough to do that, I’ll find somebody who is.”
Her hand rattled the ice in her glass, and she got to her feet. “And something else. Neither you nor anybody else is in any position, while in my home, to tell me whether or not I need another drink. You can sit there and decide whether you can handle all this while I’m getting it.”
When she went past me, a large part of one long leg scissored out of the terry-cloth robe, but it wasn’t because she wanted to show me a good time. And I didn’t know what to do about it all. I still didn’t think she was being honest with me. But she was angry.
I took a deep breath and stared up at the stars. There were two kinds of people I’d never learned how to deal with. One was drunk women. The other was angry women. I had a feeling that before much longer, Jo Sommers was going to be both of those. Which meant it was time for me to get out of there, but she wanted an answer from me. Did I want the job? Or, as she put it, was I good enough for it? With the restrictions she wanted to put on things, I wasn’t ready to answer either one of them.
And then I heard something that didn’t belong there right then. I heard the little squeak of warped wood I’d noticed the gate alongside the house made when anybody went through it. It was almost ten o’clock at night. Too late for the garbage man, and close friends would ring the doorbell.
The disc jockey on the country western station was talking to a phone-in listener. I turned up the volume, got up and crossed to the sliding glass door just as Jo was coming back out with her drink. I put a finger to my lips and motioned her back inside. She took me seriously, because I had the .38-caliber reminder of the war I’d been in out of its holster and in my hand. I’d decided to start carrying it around with me after finding the girl’s body that afternoon. I stepped inside the house, and right then Sam the cat got the idea she wanted to go outside. I made a grab for her and missed, then just slid shut the door and locked it. Couldn’t worry about the cat right then.
