He Huffed and He Puffed (14 page)

JACK M
C
KINSTRY, SATURDAY:

I tell you, A. J. Strode is some kind of sweetheart, he is. First he grinds you down so there's not enough left of you to get back up again. Then when you gradually begin to accept ground-downness as a tolerable state of affairs after all and even start to feel a kind of relief that it's over, that's when he steps in and
really
pulverizes you. It ain't over 'til it's over, Jack.

Money money money money, it do indeed make the world go round, yes it do. There was no way I was going to talk the other two into letting me be the one to sell to Strode, so I was quick to propose the three-musketeers routine. Joanna Gillespie likes me; I could tell from the once-over she gave me when we met. But not that much. I suspect Jo's not exactly the self-sacrificing-female type. And Richard Bruce obviously likes to think of himself as a take-charge kind of guy; he sort of reminds me of A. J. Strode. Nope, the only way I was going to get out of this was to have those two working to save my hide along with their own. One for all and all for whatever.

About six in the morning I had to get up and pee; I was heading back to bed when I heard voices across the hall. I looked out and saw one of the maids taking a pitcher of orange juice into Jo's room. I'd forgotten Joanna Gillespie was a diabetic, but her body hadn't and she'd had some kind of reaction. The maid was hovering over Jo's bed, not knowing what to do; I went in and shooed her away. Jo wasn't looking too good, so I sat with her and held her hand. She had long, slender fingers with the filed-down nails that all string players have. Jo was a little twitchy at first but eventually calmed enough to fall asleep. Luckily I can sleep anywhere; I spent what was left of the night in a chair by her bed so I'd be the first thing she saw when she woke up. A couple of hours later she was awake and saying she felt fine. I gave her a quick hug and left her alone. Timing is everything.

As a result of that little episode in the wee hours, Jo and I both had circles under our eyes when we met for breakfast. She greeted me by reaching out and gently squeezing my forearm. (Progress!) Then Richard Bruce came striding in, marching as if he were leading a military parade. He looked exactly the same as he'd looked at dinner the night before; only the color of his suit was different. Yep, he wore a suit and tie to Saturday morning breakfast, yes he did. I was willing to bet he posed for pictures with his jacket hooked on a thumb over one shoulder to show what a regular fella he was.

The take-charge guy took charge. “We ought to do a little exploring,” he said over coffee. “The security guard said the only parts of this house not covered by cameras are Strode's bedroom suite and a private library. We'd better take a look at them.”

I sighed. “You don't think he'd keep all that evidence here, Richard, you know you don't. So why bother?”

“To look for some indication of where he is. If he owns a weekend house in Connecticut, for instance, that might be a good bet.”

“That's not a bad idea,” Jo said. “But what do we do if we find him? We still don't have any way to force him to turn the evidence over to us.”

During our marathon talk session the night before, Jo's favorite plan had been to manufacture some evidence of our own, something to implicate A. J. Strode in dealings so down and dirty that even he wouldn't be able to claw his way out. The trouble with that was it'd take too much time; Strode had given us a 9:00
P.M.
Sunday deadline. But still Jo stuck to the notion that we needed a bigger stick than Strode's, so run right out and get one, please, Jack.

“One step at a time,” Richard said. “Let's see what we can find out first.”

What we found out was that A. J. Strode kept his bedroom and library doors locked. “His private turf,” I shrugged. “We should have anticipated it.”
You
should have anticipated it, Richard Knowitall Bruce. “Now what?”

“We can't break down the door or pick the lock with all those cameras watching,” Jo said.

There was a camera at each end of the hall and one opposite each of two doors; it was only
behind
the doors that life would be camera-free. “I betcha the doors aren't breakable or the locks pickable anyway,” I said. “Strode is a real security nut, isn't he? Why don't we take a little stroll outside? I'd like to get a look at the exterior of this building.”

“You're thinking of windows?” Richard asked. “They'd be hooked up to the alarm system.”

“But surely the window alarms are turned off during the day,” Jo said. “The house staff has to open windows now and then, I'd think. Let's go outside and take a look.”

The house had a patio along one side and across the back. The first thing we noticed was that several of the windows were open, thus answering the question about the alarm system. I'd had some image of myself heroically scaling the outside of the building by Strode's bedroom, but there weren't any handholds or trellises or anything to climb. It took us a while to get oriented, to figure out where our rooms were and Strode's locked-up space was. And when we did figure it out, we saw one of
his
windows standing wide open.

“My god,” Jo gasped, “you don't suppose he's been here all the time?”

Just then a maid leaned out and closed the window; nope, he hadn't been here all the time. “Wait,” I told the others and dashed into the house. I reached the bottom of the stairs in Strode's private wing just as the maid was starting down. She was short and on the plump side and burdened with a wooden tray of cleaning things as well as a dust mop and a carpet sweeper—not a vacuum but one of those things they use for quick pickups.

“Hey, m'dear, you've got too much to carry,” I greeted her. “Allow me to remove some of this impedimenta that weighs so heavily on your fragile young bod. I place my strong right arm at your service—or my left, if you like that one better.”

Instead of protesting demurely as a well-trained girl-type servant is supposed to do, she said, “If that means you're offering to carry some of this stuff, grab ahold.”

I took the tray and the carpet sweeper, leaving her with the dust mop. “You must be new here,” I murmured.

She grinned. “Howja know?”

“You're not invisible yet.” She laughed at that, and we went down the stairs chatting easily. I followed her toward the back of the house, where we ran into an older woman in a navy blue dress—the housekeeper?—who, when she saw me helping put away the cleaning materials in a storage closet next to the kitchen, gave the maid one of the most disapproving looks I've ever seen pass from one human being to another.

“Whoops, I think you're in trouble,” I whispered to the maid.

“Whoops, I'm always in trouble,” she whispered back. She took a key ring from her pocket and put it on a hook in a small cabinet on the wall. “Don't worry about it.”

“You sure?”

“I'm sure.”

I started to say something to the housekeeper but then she turned that disapproving look on me, so I beat the hastiest of hasty retreats. I found Jo and Richard sitting at one of the tables on the patio. “Ah. Consider the problem semisolved,” I told them as I sat down. “I know where the keys to Strode's rooms are kept.”

“Where?” they both asked on cue.

“In a wall-mounted cabinet near the kitchen. The cabinet itself has a lock, but it's not locked now.”

“So why didn't you take the keys?” Jo asked.

“Two witnesses, one of whom strongly disapproved of my presence in the servants' domain. We'll wait a bit.”

We waited half an hour; and then, because it would have looked funny if I showed up in the kitchen area again so soon, Jo casually wandered back in that direction. I'd told her the last hook on the right in the second row; and when she casually wandered back again, she had the key ring gripped tightly in her hand. Richard went off to distract the security guard (a different one this morning); Jo and I counted to a hundred and hurried off to Strode's private wing.

The first door we tried unlocked to reveal Strode's bedroom. We closed the door quickly and leaned against it, hearts pounding. But no alarms went off, no feet came pounding down the hall, no fists hammered on the door. Okay so far. The bedroom was like everything else in the house, oversized and overpriced. The bed was the biggest I've ever seen; it had to have been custom-made. The bedroom contained nothing you'd not expect to find in a bedroom. We looked, but we couldn't find any concealed maps with bright red arrows pointing to A. J. Strode's secret hiding place.

Two dressing rooms opened off the bedroom, each with its own bathroom. One of the dressing rooms was empty, stripped bare. “He must be between wives at the moment,” I said. The other dressing room was definitely Strode's. We went through everything, shamelessly. I was fascinated to find he had an entire chest of drawers that held nothing but silk underwear. Six drawers of drawers.

“Jack, look here.” Jo was holding open a door in Strode's dressing room; it led directly into his library.

The library had four bookcases, a TV, a sofa, a lounge chair, a desk. It may have been Strode's private library, but it sure as hell didn't have any of his private papers there. No tax records, no correspondence, not even any household accounts. No file cabinets. He must have handled everything from his office; this place was for relaxing, not working. We did find quarterly reports and similar papers relating to various corporations, probably companies Strode was considering moving in on. Light reading for him. We couldn't even find any incidental clues, such as a matchbook from an out-of-town restaurant.

Jo looked at me disconsolately. “Nothing.”

I put an arm around her. “Hey, Jo, it was a long shot at best. We have to try everything we can think of.”

“I know, but it's beginning to look hopeless.”

I looked for signs that a long, passionate embrace would be welcomed at that point and decided no. Instead I gave her a quick kiss and said lightly, “We still have the better part of two days to come up with something. Right now let's pray that Richard is still standing so as to block the appropriate monitors or whatever the hell it is he's doing.” We left the door between the library and the hall unlocked, if for some reason we should want to get back in again. We slipped out into the hall and down the stairway. Safe.

Jo and I let Richard see us standing outside the security guard's room. When he came out, Jo passed him the keys and then
he
was the one to wander casually off in the direction of the kitchen.

When Richard came back, we all drifted toward the television room, avoiding the living room with its exhibition-hall atmosphere. This time Richard didn't bother tossing his coat over the I-spy camera. I told him the search was a bust, which he'd already guessed, and we all sat there avoiding one another's eyes. I couldn't stand that more than a minute so I jumped up and started inspecting the shelves of videotapes that lined the walls. The cassettes were a fair indicator of their owner's interests in life, ranging from golden oldies like
Debbie Does Dallas
to ones I'd never heard of.
Snow White and the Seven Hunks?
Family porn. The morning was just about shot and we hadn't accomplished a thing. I couldn't think of what to do, but I was damned if
I
was going to be the one to suggest we draw straws to decide who came out of this intact.

How long do you have to go on paying for a mistake? The sheer neverendingness of it was getting to me. Christ, everything I'd tried had backfired. I'd correct one mistake, but then the correction would turn out to be a worse mistake. So I'd correct the correction, and the result would be a still bigger mistake. It had to end somewhere. Didn't it? Sure it did. With my neck in a noose.

If only Sandy and Robin and Chris hadn't horned in! They'd still be alive today, if they'd just minded their own business. I
tried
to get them to stay behind, I did everything I could think of to discourage them—but would they listen? They would not.
Oh no, Jack, you're not leaving us behind!
and
You're taking Tony Dwyer and not us?
and
We're coming, Jack old buddy
—
no arguments now!

All I wanted was to get Tony Dwyer up in a helicopter alone; the last thing I needed was an audience. Dwyer was such a jerk. He
liked
lending people money; it gave him power over them. He
liked
being able to point his finger and say
he
owes me and
she
owes me and
they
owe me; it was the only way he could make himself important. And oh, how he loved watching me squirm when he threatened to tell Brother Phil how much I owed! But there comes a time when you have to stop the squirming, when you have to stop letting noodniks like Tony Dwyer twist your balls just to amuse themselves. There comes a time when you have to say
Enough
.

But godalmighty, I never planned on Sandy and Robin and Chris being up in that helicopter with us! I
loved
those three; I'd known Sandy and Chris since college and Robin almost as long.
Why
did they have to pick that day of all days to invite themselves along? And then to make matters even worse, when we got to the Marseilles branch they wouldn't let me check out the new helicopter alone.
Too many innovations, Jack
, they said.
Lots of new features you don't know about
, they said.
Take an experienced pilot with you, Jack
. They said.

So instead of being alone in a helicopter with Tony Dwyer, there I was with four extra people. I didn't know what to do; Dwyer was nervous about helicopters and it had taken me forever to talk him into making our little trip along the coast. I finally got him to come by telling him there was a man in St.-Tropez who owed
me
money. Not enough to pay back the entire amount I was in for—that way he'd still have power over me—but enough to keep him from blabbing to Phil. That's the way I put it to him:
enough to keep you from blabbing to Phil
. He bought it.