He Huffed and He Puffed (7 page)

“He's not here?” she interrupted. “He agreed to come!”

This woman kills people
, Castleberry reminded himself. “I'm sure you'll understand when I say Mr. Strode is reluctant to meet with you again in light of what happened last time. We have to take such threats seriously.”

“Threats? Oh—you mean the gun?”

“I mean the gun.” Castleberry was not prepared for her reaction; she burst out laughing. “It's not funny, Ms Gillespie.”

“Yes it is! What about you? Aren't you afraid to meet me alone?” She laughed again.

Silently he gestured toward the next table. The guard moved his jacket just enough to let her see the shoulder holster he was wearing.

She stopped laughing. “Good lord, you are serious, aren't you? You needn't be, you know. It was just that he made me mad, the way he—” She broke off. “There's no way to explain it to someone who wasn't there. And why should I have to? Who are you, by the way?”

“My name is Myron Castleberry.” He saw her eyes widen a fraction in recognition and wondered where she'd heard his name. “I'm Mr. Strode's executive assistant. Please sit down.”

She sat. “Do you know that man you work for accused me of being a parricide?”

Parricide
, Castleberry thought; that was the word he'd been looking for. Interesting that Joanna Gillespie should know it. “Are you sure you want to talk about that here?” In public, he meant.

“I'd just as soon not talk about it at all.” She waved a waiter over and ordered antipasto. “I have to eat something during the afternoon,” she explained. “Well, what happens now, Mr. Castleberry? Do you want to frisk me before taking me to see Strode?”

“You misunderstand, Ms Gillespie. Mr. Strode doesn't want to meet with you at all. He asks that you tell me whatever it is you have to say. I'm empowered to act on his behalf.”

“Meaning you're going to make me another offer for my House of Glass shares. Don't bother. There won't be any deal.”

Castleberry studied her face. Was the woman just stupid or did she have something up her sleeve? “Ms Gillespie, I'm sure Mr. Strode made it clear that—”

“Oh yes, he made it clear, all right. He's going to start a smear campaign against me unless I sell. He even got that idiot Ozzie Rogers to sign a paper that makes me look bad. That got me to thinking—how did A. J. Strode know about Ozzie in the first place? I mean, how did he know I'd seen Ozzie's ad and answered it?” She paused. “So I called Ozzie and asked him. He said Strode had wanted to hire him too. Isn't that interesting, Mr. Castleberry? What do you suppose an upright businessman like A. J. Strode would want with a hired gun?”

Castleberry was thinking that Mr. Strode would have found this scene amusing. “Go on.”

“I asked Ozzie to put that in a letter and sign it, and he did. And it cost me only
two
thousand. He said my name came up during negotiations and Strode paid him five thousand dollars to sign an affidavit. Only it wasn't Strode himself Ozzie dealt with. He said it was some lackey named Thornberry or something like that.”

Castleberry waited, not reacting to the dig.

“So you can tell your boss that if he has any ideas about publishing his little paper that Ozzie signed … he'd do well to remember I've got one too. And the newspapers would just
love
the one I've got. I brought a copy, in case you think I'm bluffing.” She took a folded paper from her bag and put it on the table.

Amateur
, Castleberry thought, ignoring the paper lying on the table. “Ms Gillespie, Mr. Strode has need for a large and highly qualified security force. The men provided by the Rent-a-Cop agencies aren't quite what we need. So we're always on the lookout for someone sharper, quicker—”

“Like Ozzie Rogers?”

“No, not like Ozzie Rogers. We never made him an offer—we're not looking for Rambo. But we have hired several men whom we learned of through various gun magazines.”

“Sure you have.”

Castleberry inclined his head toward the guard at the next table. “We found him in
Soldier of Fortune
. And there are others. We can prove it, Ms Gillespie. My interviewing Ozzie Rogers was simply part of our ongoing search for good security men. There was nothing illicit or secret about it.”

She stared at him.

“So I'm afraid you've wasted two thousand dollars,” he went on. “When I first talked to Ozzie, he said he couldn't start immediately because he thought he'd be doing a job for some lady violinist he'd just met. Why did you tell him you're a violinist?”

She looked disgusted. “Ozzie wanted to shake hands when we met, and I refused—I have to be careful of my hands. Then of course I had to tell him why.
That's
how you traced me?”

“At the time it meant nothing. But when your parents died within a year of each other, I began to wonder if you were the lady violinist Ozzie had meant. Then when your name popped up as a House of Glass stockholder, I thought I'd better find out. It was a simple enough matter to show your photo to Ozzie.”

The corners of her mouth turned down. “I hope Strode pays you well.”

“Very well indeed.” He looked her straight in the eye. “Ms Gillespie, take a word of advice. Don't try to play this game with Mr. Strode. He's too experienced and too ruthless. Sell the shares quickly and be done with it.”

“God, I hate being bullied!”

“Doesn't everybody? But you have no choice. I'm to tell you you'll get Ozzie Rogers's affidavit the minute the transfer papers are signed.”

She gave him a disheartened smile. “And of course you won't be keeping any copies.”

“There are no copies. Mr. Strode will have no interest in your personal affairs once the stock is in his name. Incidentally, I'm empowered to make you another offer.”

She picked up the copy of Ozzie Rogers's letter and jammed it carelessly into her shoulder bag. “Put it in writing, will you? I'll have my financial manager look it over.”

“Look it over? Just tell him you want to sell.”

She sighed. “Mr. Castleberry, you got me this time, no question of that. But I know better than to make any decisions when I'm feeling this down. I'll think about it.”

Castleberry pursed his lips. “I'd advise you not to put it off too long. Mr. Strode is not a man of infinite patience.”

“I said I'll think about it.” She got up from the table and walked away.

Castleberry and the guard exchanged a querying look. Was it a victory or not?

Just then the waiter came up with the antipasto Jo Gillespie had ordered. “Did the lady leave?”

The guard moved over to Castleberry's table. “I'll take it,” he said, and started in on his third lunch of the day.

3

The company jet touched down in Los Angeles around five in the afternoon, too late to do any business that day. Strode had planned it that way; he was not as physically resilient as he used to be, and he wanted a good night's sleep before tackling the man they had come to see. Castleberry never suffered from jet lag, but one of the two bodyguards they'd brought with them was looking a little peaked.

Two days had passed without a call from either Joanna Gillespie or Jack McKinstry. They were both going to lose money when he shut down House of Glass and they were both risking exposure as murderers by not selling to him. But still no word from either of them. There was only one explanation for that. They were both looking for a way to get A. J. Strode.

Regretfully Strode faced up to the fact that he'd run out of time. He had to close a deal for control of House of Glass and he had to do it fast. Then he had to send what he knew about the murderous activities of Gillespie and McKinstry to the appropriate police as well as publish the details in his newspaper. That's the only way he could be safe; he was convinced that neither the violinist nor the former playboy would hesitate to kill him if either ever found a way past his guard.

Unfortunately, there was only one stockholder left. His name was Richard Bruce, and Strode's file on him had been complete long before the other two. But what he'd learned about Bruce made him reluctant to move. Gillespie and McKinstry were small-time; Strode hadn't worried about dealing with them (although perhaps he should have, he now admitted). Richard Bruce, however, was a horse of a different color.

He was the sole owner of Bruce Shipping Lines, which consisted of a fleet of various-sized freighters that regularly sailed between Los Angeles and the Orient. Bruce had started nearly twenty years ago with one ship, the
Burly Girl
, a tramp steam freighter of 12,000 tons with a crew of thirty-seven. The
Burly Girl
was old and barely seaworthy; the constant maintenance costs and the ever-escalating insurance premiums kept Bruce from being able to get ahead of the game. He was teetering on the edge of bankruptcy.

But an even greater threat to Bruce's solvency came along in the new and radical changes being made in the design and operation of cargo ships that were taking place about that time. The
Burly Girl
was built the way all freighters had been built for over a century—the stackhouse amidships, with three cargo holds forward of the engine and two aft. The cargo was loaded by means of huge derrick-supported nets, a method that had not basically changed since the days of ancient Rome.

The newer ships went about it differently. The engine, the superstructure, and the stack were all moved aft, leaving a long empty hull forward. The hull was then divided by vertical bulkheads into compartments to hold aluminum or steel cargo containers. The containers were loaded with their cargoes while still on the dock and then shifted directly into the hull compartments; the nets were dispensed with entirely. Loading order was determined by a shipboard computer; the introduction of automation cut the usual crew by over half. One of the new container ships could arrive in port with its crew of twelve or fifteen, unload its cargo, load a new one, and be gone in less time than it took the
Burly Girl
just to unload. There was no way Richard Bruce could keep up with that kind of competition.

Then one August seventeen years earlier the
Burly Girl
sailed from Japan with a cargo primarily of textile machinery, with the remaining space taken up by refrigerators, sewing machines, and motorcycles. It was a full load; the
Burly Girl
was riding low in the water when she left Yokohama harbor. Just off Hawaii she ran into a squall that shouldn't have caused trouble but did. A distress signal was sent out indicating the crew was jettisoning the cargo. But it did no good. Old and tired, the
Burly Girl
just couldn't make it. Before help could arrive, she sank. All hands were lost.

There was much grumbling in the offices of the marine insurers in Los Angeles. The
Burly Girl
had been due for an examination by an insurance inspector upon her return, and everyone who knew the ship agreed she didn't have a chance in hell of passing the inspection. She'd been a serviceable ship in her day, but that day was long past. But the premium payments were up-to-date; the insurers had no choice but to pay.

The insurance check saved Richard Bruce's neck. Instead of replacing the
Burly Girl
, he bought shares in three of the new-style cargo ships. All three prospered; Bruce was on his way.

But then a Honolulu-based salvage company located the wrecked ship. The forward holds were still intact; and to everyone's surprise, the supposedly jettisoned cargo was still there. When the shipping crates were broken open, however, they were found to contain rusted auto parts, twisted scraps of metal, cast-off cast iron. Where the ship's manifest had said textile machinery, there was nothing but junk. What's more, divers uncovered evidence that the
Burly Girl
had been scuttled.

The engine room had been deliberately flooded; the inspection covers had been broken off the main condensers—a big job with two covers per condenser, and with no way it could have happened by accident. The divers looked further; they inspected the bilge suction lines running from each hold. In the aft starboard hold, they found the check valves had been taken out of the lines, causing them to pump seawater back into the hold. The flooding of either the hold or the engine room alone wouldn't have been enough to sink the ship; but the fact that the safeguards in both places had been removed made it clear as day that someone didn't want the
Burly Girl
to make it back to port.

The investigation took over a year. Eventually a shipping broker in Yokohama was found who admitted to arranging a sale of the missing cargo for the captain of the
Burly Girl
. The broker protested that Captain Stone had presented the proper bill of lading, which he himself had had no reason to suspect of being bogus. The cargo had been loaded on another freighter and shipped to San Francisco.

Captain Stone had obviously scuttled the
Burly Girl
to hide his theft of the cargo, and he'd sailed directly into the squall as a cover. But how could one man alone steal an entire ship's cargo? He must have had help. It would have been virtually impossible to hide something like that from the first mate; the mate must have been in on it. And Captain Stone must have had an accomplice standing by in a boat to pick him up. But what of the rest of the crew? There'd been thirty-five other men on board in addition to the captain and the mate. Had Stone just abandoned them?

Something else the salvage company's divers had found: the remains of two bodies in the engine room. There was no way of telling how many, if any, had been swept out to sea. Perhaps the men had been evacuated, except for the two unfortunate hands who'd been trapped below. But since none of the crew had reappeared anywhere, it seemed more likely that the captain's rescue plan included only himself and the first mate or whoever it was who'd helped him. But whichever way it had happened, at least two men had died as the result of the commission of a felony. A warrant for murder was issued in Captain Stone's name.