Collins, Max Allan - Nathan Heller 10 (19 page)

“Who was getting ‘shut out,’ Margot? Obviously, you kept your job.”

“Oh, there’s a lot of examples. There’s that boy up in Oakland who she took under her wing—Bobby Myers? I know she felt bad about that, but I heard Mr. Putnam tell her he was a ‘snot-nose snoop,’ and to stay away from him.”

“Who is this kid? How old is he?”

“Thirteen, fourteen, maybe? He’s one of the amateur radio buffs that were going to monitor the flight. A man named McMenamy set up a whole network of radio operators, partly to help Mr. Putnam with material for progress-report press releases. He got shut out, too.”

“Who, did? The kid, you mean?”

“Both of them.”

I reached behind me in my hip pocket and pulled out the little notebook I kept tucked next to my wallet; I removed the nubby pencil stuck in the spiral. “What was this guy’s name again?”

“Walter McMenamy. He lives in L.A., some kind of radio expert, works for Mr. Mantz, sometimes.”

I wrote that down. “And the kid’s name?”

“Bobby Myers. I heard Mr. Miller tell Mr. Putnam that he had to ‘pull the plug on those ham radio morons.’ I’ve never heard such cruel things as that man says.”

For hanging out in a house where presidential envoys and generals came constantly calling, this kid led a sheltered life.

She continued: “The list is really long, Nathan, of aides and advisors and volunteers, tossed out with the trash.” A thought flashed through her eyes. “Like Albert Bresniak, the photographer.”

“Spell that name.”

She did, and I wrote it down, and she explained, “Mr. Putnam picked him, personally, to be A. E.’s ‘official photographer.’ Very young, maybe twenty-two, very talented boy. He was supposed to go with her on at least some of the flight.”

That made sense. Putnam had a deal with the Hearst papers—they had been publishing excerpts from Amy’s flight journal that had been cabled and phoned home—and a photographer along on several legs of the flight would mean some nice exclusive photos.

“Was this photographer, Bresniak, scheduled to go on the first attempt?”

“No. Mr. Putnam approached him in April or May, I think. Albert was ready to go along clear up till a few days before A. E. took off. Mr. Miller was furious when he found out about Albert being invited. I heard him really bawling out Mr. Putnam.”

“And then Albert was suddenly part of the legion of the unwanted.”

“Yes…. Nate. There’s something else I need to tell you. It’s quite personal, but I think it’s something you should know.”

“Shoot.”

A knock came at the door, but before either of us could respond to it, Joe—the houseman—leaned in and said, “Miss DeCarrie—Mr. Putnam and Mr. Miller pull in drive.”

“But they’re not due yet!”

“Mr. Putnam pull in drive. Mr. Miller with him.”

And then Joe shut the door and was gone.

“Criminey,” she said. “He wasn’t supposed to come back till tomorrow…”

“We got nothing to hide,” I said. “I’m not going out a window or anything.”

I walked her into the living room, where Putnam—impeccable as always in a double-breasted gray worsted and black and white tie—was just coming in, saying, “What do you expect me to do, Miller? Indulge in public sobbing?”

And the man coming in behind him said, “All I’m saying is, you came off cold-blooded to that reporter. ‘I have confidence in my wife’s ability to handle any situation…’”

Putnam stopped his companion’s conversation with the raised hand of a traffic cop, nodding toward Margot and me.

“We have company,” Putnam said. Behind the rimless glasses, his cold dark eyes were fixed on me in that unblinking gaze of his.

William Miller—looking like an undertaker in a black worsted suit and a black silk tie whose small red polka dots were like drops of blood—formed an immediate smile, a small noncommittal smile developed no doubt as a reflex. He was fairly tall, medium build, his hair prematurely gray and receding on an egg-shaped skull, complexion ashen, eyes dark and intense under dark ridges of eyebrow, his mouth rather full, even sensual, the only hint of emotional content in an otherwise cold countenance.

“Who have we here?” he asked, in a pleasant, even soothing baritone.

“Heller?” Putnam said, answering Miller as if he weren’t sure he was really recognizing me.

“G. P.,” I said. “You weren’t expected.”

“Neither were you,” he said. “What the hell’s this about?”

We were standing near the entryway, facing each other awkwardly like gunfighters who forgot their six-shooters.

“I’m concerned about your wife,” I said. “I came out here to offer my sympathy and help.”

“Mr. Heller called,” Margot said, with a smile as tellingly strained as Miller’s was ominously casual, “and I invited him over. I hope I wasn’t out of line, Mr. Putnam, but I knew he was a friend of A. E.’s…”

“Why don’t you leave us alone, Margot,” Putnam said. “Go to your quarters.”

She nodded and said, “Yes sir,” flashed me a pained smile, and was gone.

“You want something to drink?” Putnam asked me. He was slipping out of his suitcoat.

“Why not?” The Zombie had pretty well worn off.

“Joe!” he called, and the houseman appeared and took Putnam’s jacket. Miller made no move to remove his, nor did he move to take a seat; just stood there with that small meaningless smile, his arms folded, his weight evenly distributed on both Florsheimed feet.

“Bring Mr. Heller a rum and Coke,” Putnam told Joe. “Manhattans for Mr. Miller and myself.”

Miller gestured, no. “I’ll pass, tonight, thank you, Joe.”

Joe nodded, disappeared, while Putnam loosened his tie, unbuttoned his cuffs, rolled up his sleeves, saying, “Nate Heller, this is William T. Miller. He’s with, uh…”

He left it for Miller to fill in, which he did: “Bureau of Air Commerce.”

We shook hands; his grip was cool, also firm but he didn’t show off.

“Mr. Heller runs the A-1 Detective Agency in Chicago,” Putnam told Miller. “He did some work for me, a year or two ago. Accompanied A. E. on one of her lecture swings.”

The tiny smile settled in one cheek; like Putnam, Miller rarely blinked. With these two standing staring at me, it was like having a conversation with a wax museum exhibit. “You’re a little off your beat, aren’t you, Mr. Heller?”

“Every time I leave Chicago,” I said pleasantly, “somebody says that. Do you think I should be staying in my own back yard?”

Miller’s shrug was barely perceptible. “There’s something to be said for home team advantage.”

A phone rang in the nearby hallway, and Putnam called, “I’ll get that, Joe! Just concentrate on those drinks!”

Miller and I stood facing each other, and I worked at giving him just as unconvincing a smile as he was giving me, while Putnam dealt with the phone call. We didn’t speak; we eavesdropped—not that we had any choice. Putnam was on a long-distance call and was working his voice up to an even more obnoxious level than usual.

“Well, Beatrice,” he was saying, “I know what you’re going through. Who could know better than I?…Yes…. Yes, I know, dear….”

I asked Miller, “Do you know who he’s talking to?”

“Yes.”

“Who?”

He thought about whether or not to answer, then did: “Fred Noonan’s wife.”

“Beatrice,” Putnam was saying, “I have a hunch they’re sitting somewhere on a coral island, just waiting for a ride home—Fred’s probably out sitting on a rock right now, catching their dinner with those fishing lines they had aboard. There’ll be driftwood to make a fire, and…Bea, please…Bea…. For Christ’s sake, Bea! Look, one of two things has happened. Either they were killed outright—and that comes to all of us sooner or later—or they’re alive and’ll be picked up…. Keep your chin up, Bea…. Bea?”

Miller’s smile was gone; faint disgust had replaced it.

Putnam came strutting back, shrugging, saying, “She hung up on me! What the hell’s wrong with that woman? What does she want from me?”

“This is what I was talking about,” Miller snapped.

“What is?”

But Miller said nothing, and Joe came in carrying a little tray on his palm with my rum and Coke and Putnam’s Manhattan on it.

“Let’s sit out on the patio, shall we, gentlemen?” Putnam asked, plucking his drink off the tray.

I took mine also, sipped it.

“Actually, G. P.,” Miller said, glancing at his watch, “it’s been a long day…so if you’ll excuse me.”

“Nice meeting you,” I said.

Miller said, “Pleasure, Mr. Heller,” shooting me the meaningless smile one last time, and slipped past us into the dining room, turning toward the hallway to the new wing.

Soon Putnam and I were seated on the patio in white basket-weave metal lawn chairs, a round, white-metal, glass-topped table between us. Stretched out before us was a beautifully landscaped back yard washed ivory by moonlight, with stone paths, a trellis with climbing flowers, a fountain, potted agaves, and a flourishing vegetable garden.

But Putnam, leaned back in his chair, was glancing skyward. “It’s comforting to know she’s under this same sky,” he said, and sipped his Manhattan.

I gave the star-scattered sky a look, thinking,
What a crock,
and said, “I’m sure it is.”

“Who are you working for, Nate?” he asked, still looking at the sky. The moon was reflected in the lenses of his rimless glasses like Daddy Warbucks’s eyeballs.

“Nobody.”

“’Fess up. Who hired you? Mantz?”

Maybe Mantz had been right: maybe G. P. did have him followed in St. Louis.

I said, “I came out here because of Amelia.”

Now he looked at me, and half a smile formed; he raised his Manhattan glass and sipped. “Nate Heller? Working gratis? Has hell frozen over?”

“Does everybody have to have an angle?”

His expression turned astounded and amused. He gestured with the Manhattan glass almost as if he were toasting me. “You didn’t come here thinking
I’d
hire you? What could you do for A. E. that the Army and Navy can’t?”

Well within earshot were the open double windows of the study where Margot and I had spoken; I wondered if Miller was sitting in that darkened room right now, listening in, like a good little spy.

“Yeah, the Army and Navy,” I said, and took a swig of rum and Coke. “I notice you got them doing your dirty work…or is it the other way around?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Interesting houseguest you got there. He looks like John Wilkes Booth on the way to the theater.”

He leaned forward. “Why were you bothering my secretary?”

“I thought she was your wife’s secretary.”

“What has that stupid girl told you?”

I sipped my drink, shook my head, grinned. “How did you manage it, G. P.? How did you get Amelia to go along with you on this one? Or did you keep her in the dark about a lot of it? Of course, you had Noonan aboard, and he was Naval Reserve, and ex-Pan Am, the spy airline; was
Noonan
the real pilot of this mission?”

He smirked dismissively and sat back, sipped the Manhattan again. “What kind of gibberish are you talking?”

“I mean, Amelia’s a pacifist. You’d think the last thing she’d do is the military’s bidding. On the other hand, if her wonderful friends in the White House leaned on her, maybe…”

He was staring into his back yard. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I’m talking about you funding this flight by selling your wife out to the government. I’ve barely waded into this thing and already I’m drowning in the government’s involvement, from airstrips on Howland Island to cameras in the belly of that second Electra Uncle Sam bought her.”

That last one startled him. He gestured with the hand that held the Manhattan glass. “If what you’re saying is true…and I’m not saying it is, I’m not saying it isn’t…that would only make my wife a patriot.”

“Extra, extra, read all about it: we’re not at war right now. I seem to recall, in the campaign, FDR getting lambasted with a ‘warmonger’ label, for wanting to beef up the Army and Navy.”

“I seem to recall him winning the election, anyway.” G. P.’s face was expressionless now; his voice empty. “Please leave.”

“Maybe I do have an angle, at that. Like you said, G. P. Maybe there is a way for me to make a buck out of this.” I leaned across the table. “Can you imagine the kind of dough the
Tribune
would pay for a scoop like this? Colonel McCormick would dearly love to drag FDR’s aristocratic ass through the mud. I think they’ll like exposing you, too—we can start with you hiring that guy to put the acid on those rudder cables.”

His face remained impassive, but the hand holding the Manhattan glass trembled.

I snorted a laugh. “You know, it must have killed you, when you had to put a lid on so much of your publicity effort, once the military lowered its veil of secrecy. Here you trade your wife’s good name and maybe her life away, to fund the biggest flight of both your careers—and you can’t even properly exploit it! It’s a pisser.”

The glass snapped in his hand. He dropped the shards to the tabletop; his palm was cut, bloody. But he ignored it and said, “I would never risk my wife’s life. I love her. How can you accuse me of these atrocities? Do you actually imagine I don’t love her?”

Those unblinking eyes had filled with tears; maybe it was his cut hand.

“That’s the oldest murder motive in the book,” I said. “A woman you love that doesn’t love you, anymore…. Better bandage that up.”

“You go to hell.”

“Probably. But I got a hunch I’ll be running into some familiar faces.”

I rose, and didn’t go back in the house, just walked around it, skirting a fancy Cord roadster in the driveway, and walked half a block down to where I had parked the Terraplane. For all my indignation, I was driving an automobile that belonged to Putnam, and even though I’d been told he wouldn’t be around, I had rightly figured it might make sense to leave it out of sight.

As I was starting up the car, the rider’s side door opened and Margot slipped in beside me, wearing a red silk kimono, belted tight around her. She was out of breath.

“Oh, thank God, I wanted to catch you before you left,” she panted. “What did you and Mr. Putnam talk about?”