Lively Game of Death (4 page)

“I loaned it.”

“Loaned it!” the other shouted. “You know that’s against every goddamned ...
who
did you loan it to? WHY?”

“To your brother-in-law. He said it was OK with you!”

Scott swore. “You’re lying, Tom—Abel knows you’re not even supposed to ask to borrow—” He let it die out, shaking his head. “Christ, who knows
what
that nitwit would do!”

“I thought,” said Hilary, “that Mr. Harrison already has a key to that desk.”

Lasker shook his head. “I don’t know who has or doesn’t have keys. I just know Abel Harrison asked to borrow mine.”

“When?”

“Late January or early February, I forget which.”

“And you haven’t asked for the key back since then?” Scott snapped.

“Well, I just don’t have much reason to come into your office. I forgot about it.”

“One more question,” Hilary said. “Can you reconstruct the exact circumstances?”

Lasker looked confused, so I told him she wanted to know exactly what had been said or done when Harrison asked for the key. Hilary thanked me for the transliteration, but her heart wasn’t in it.

The yellow-haired executive pondered for a moment, but could come up with no helpful information other than that he had been at his own desk at the time.

“Which desk was that? Your old one? Or the one after you were promoted?”

“The new one.”

Hilary nodded. “All right, Mr. Lasker. That will be all, I think.”

He rose to go, then noticed the two piles of photographs on the table. “What are these? Tricky Tires pix?”

“No,” Scott said, “just the pile on the left. The others are Goetz’s knock-off.”

Lasker examined the latter glossies. At one point, he stopped briefly and his eyes narrowed. Then he flipped rapidly through the rest of them and dropped them on the table. He looked up at Hilary. “Did you say I could go?”

“Yes, I’ll probably have more questions for you later, so don’t wander away too far.”

“Don’t worry, I won’t,” he answered, heading out the door. He slammed it shut with as much vigor as he had opened it.

Hilary immediately turned to Scott. “All right, what did you think of?”

He smiled slightly and shook his head in admiration. “You don’t miss much, do you?”

“I try not to miss
anything.
Lasker had just said nobody could smuggle the master plans out of the plant, and that’s when the pencil broke in your hand.”

Scott nodded. “I thought of something at that moment, something that startled—”

“I know
what
it did,” she snapped. “I’m asking what it was.”

“Just this: Tom Lasker is one of those people who can look at a picture and tell you practically everything about it. I mean, after he’s looked at it for only a few seconds, he can put it out of sight and tell you exactly what’s in it. I saw him do it at a party once.”

I nodded. “Probably a mnemonic system—”

“Obviously,” the boss cut in, “and kindly stay out of the conversation.”

I decided to glare at her, but she did not deign to notice. She spoke again.

“I thought, Scott, that Trim-Tram is privately held.”

“It is.”

“Then how could Lasker get his hands on any company stock?”

“It’s that damned brother-in-law of mine again, Hilary. He sold Tom Lasker a few of his shares.”

“Why?”

“Why else? The fool is never out of debt.”

“All right,” Hilary sighed, “let’s get the fool in here and see whether or not he can answer some questions.”

But a call to his desk told us that Harrison hadn’t come in yet. And before we could buzz for Saxon, the door opened once more—stealthily this time—and Dean Wallis stuck his head and shoulders into the room. He was wearing a dark winter coat with a 35-mm Mamiya strapped over his shoulder. On his head was a Russian-style fur hat.

“Hey,” Scott barked, “I thought you were on your way to the showroom!”

“I was just on my way out, Scott, but ...” He lowered his voice to a conspiratorial whisper, “is Hilary getting ready to talk to Chuck?”

“Yes,” Hilary hissed, mocking his tone. “Why do you want to know?”

“Well, I don’t like to get anybody in trouble, but I think you ought to know—Chuck was seen here a couple of Sundays ago.”

“In this office?”

“I don’t know,” Wallis continued, standing on the other side of the door and jutting his head through the portal a little farther. “But I
do
know he was at the factory, because his car was in the parking lot. And if you check, you’ll find his name in the sign-in log. I can tell you the exact day if you need to know.”

“Look,” interrupted Scott, “this is a waste of time. Sometimes Chuck likes to work on Sundays, especially at this time of year, when the latest items are already in production.”

Nodding his head in know-it-all fashion, Wallis said, “I am quite cognizant of all you’re saying, Scott. But the Sunday Saxon showed up, the day that I’m talking about, was during his winter vacation. Remember? He took off a week and told everybody he was going to be out of town. The Sunday he was here, he was supposed to be in Miami with his wife. At least, that’s what he seems to have wanted everybody to believe.”

Having produced the effect he wanted, Wallis, without another word, withdrew from the room, closing the door as he did.

Scott and Hilary stared at one another.

H
ILARY RAMMED SAXON BROADSIDE
with Wallis’ accusation as soon as the burly executive walked in. It was a blunt-edged performance, not much to my liking. What could the guy do except to act confused and deny it, or else just get mad?

The bald-headed businessman did neither; instead, he laughed. And he laughed. Saxon was tall and powerfully built, and when he guffawed, it set his whole frame in motion. It was almost infectious.

I judged the toyman to be in his mid-sixties, though Scott later said that Saxon was at least a decade younger than he appeared.

At length subsiding, Saxon wiped his eyes. “What do you think, Scott? Looks like the lady wants to slap a Jolly Roger on my ass!”

“Is it true?” she persisted. “Were you at Trim-Tram that Sunday?”

“Sure I was. For chrissake, Hilary, you think I’m going to lie when my name’s right on the logbook? What difference does it make? I’m in charge of R&D ... you don’t think I’d have to make a special trip to steal Tricky Tires? I invented the damn thing!”

“I understood it was more complicated than that. If you wanted to raise some extra cash by selling out to a knock-off artist like Sid Goetz, you couldn’t do it just from memory, could you? You’d have to restudy the designs, wouldn’t you?”

“Look,” Saxon snorted, “even if I was planning something unkosher, it wouldn’t be with Sid Goetz! I wouldn’t sell that bastard a thimbleful of water in the middle of the Sahara. Because if I did, Goetz’d find a way to come out
ahead
on the deal.”

“You haven’t answered the original question.”

Saxon turned to Scott. “How long have I been with Trim-Tram now, twenty-three years?” Scott nodded affirmatively. “All right, now you don’t have to believe this, Hilary, but a few of us older futzes still actually have a sense of company loyalty. I draw a damn good salary, I own some stock, I enjoy the work—I
like
this shlocky place! Why would I want to sabotage it?”

“How do I know why you might need money?” Hilary replied. “You still haven’t answered the original question.”

The burly VP leaned back in his chair and stared at the boss-lady through half-shut eyes. “I’ve never told this to you before, Blondie, but you turn me on. You’re very sexy ... for a machine.”

Flushing, Hilary answered him in staccato imitation of a cheap criminal lawyer. “All right, if you think I’m a machine, I’ll act like one. Answer the following questions. One, who works with you? Two, who else sees your designs? Three, where do you keep the keys to this office and to Scott’s desk? Four, do you have any urgent financial needs? Five, what were you doing here that Sunday?”

It was a little uncalled for, Hilary’s mode of interrogation, but I don’t think it warranted a second laughing binge. But Saxon indulged in one, anyway, probably just to annoy Hilary, which it did. But at length the executive calmed down and, resting both hands palm-flat on the conference table, leaned forward to direct an amused stare into the lady’s resentful eyes.

“Okay, Blondie, I will try to accommodate and answer you, point by point. First of all, who works with me? Answer: nobody. Not on Tricky Tires. Second question: who saw the engineering designs? Besides me, there were Scott here and Tom Lasker. That’s it. Some of Tom’s men saw different portions of the plans, bits and pieces, but no single person or section ever gets to see the complete design for any new toy.”

“What about Abel Harrison?” Hilary asked.

“What about him?”

“Did he ever see all of the Tricky Tires plans?”

“Him?!”
Saxon looked genuinely startled. “What in holy hell would I want to show
him
for?”

“Never mind. Proceed.”

“All right,” he continued, “next, I think you wanted to know where I keep my key.”

“Keys.”

He shook his head. “Key. If you’re going to play detective, Blondie, you’re going to have to start observing. The door to this conference room is without a lock.”

She bit her lip. “All right, then, where do you put the key to the desk drawer?”

“In the middle drawer of
my
desk, which I keep locked when I’m not in the room.”

“You mean your office?”

“Right.”

“And what about the key that opens your desk drawer?”

“There isn’t any. I use a combination lock like kids use in gym classes.”

“And the combination?”

“Memorized.”

“Really?” Hilary arched an eyebrow. “I’m so impressed.”

He ignored it. “Now I think the question about my finances comes next, right? All right, I make a good salary, as I said, and, other than a good number of Trim-Tram shares which Scott sold me—God, it must have been fifteen years ago—I don’t fool around with stocks. I invest in a mutual fund, and I don’t have any outstanding debts.”

“Can you prove that?”

“I don’t know, but I forgot to mention that I also don’t drink, gamble, or smoke, and I’m wild in bed—marry me!” He leaned forward and rolled his eyes lasciviously at Hilary.

You wouldn’t think that such heavy-handed baiting could produce any effect on her, especially since she’d withstood other of his sallies, but surprisingly enough, she was a bit nonplussed, at a disadvantage for a moment or two. I can only guess, but maybe Saxon’s foolery had touched Hilary in her only insecure spot: the personal measurement of her femininity. Sometimes I honestly believe she is unable to assess her status with the opposite sex.

Anyway, after reddening somewhat and stammering, she was quiet for an uncomfortable minute or two. And when she did speak again, it was to ignore Saxon and address Scott Miranda.

“I can’t understand, Scott, why this room has no lock in the door. With all the cloak-and-dagger security draped around Trim-Tram, how could you keep the Tricky Tires master plans in an unlocked room?”

“Because,” Scott asserted, “I’ve been the only one who knew the plans were kept here.”

“What?
Three other people have keys to your desk and—”

“But none of them would have any more cause to root around in the drawers than I would in rummaging through their things.”

Hilary held up her hand. “Now wait a minute. Dean Wallis knew all about where the plans are kept. And you said that they sometimes had to be taken out of this office, under the surveillance of several executives, for consultation.”

“Wallis only knew about the site because I briefed him before you arrived, Hilary. And anytime Tom Lasker needed to consult the masters, he told me, and I arranged to bring them—but without telling him where I’d gotten them from. The extra execs were always on hand, but only to keep an eye on the masters while Tom was using them. And that was only two or three times in the past that he had to see the whole set at one time. No,” Scott shook his head, “I guessed no one would figure on the plans being kept in my desk, instead of a safe, so I didn’t make a secret of the hiding-place, I just didn’t mention it at all. ...” His voice trailed off and he winced.

“What’s the matter?” Hilary asked.

“My damned brother-in-law again! I just realized—I’m always asking Abel to get things out of my desk ...”

The implication hung in the air for a silent moment. The specter of Abel Harrison was assuming all-enveloping proportions and I, for one, wouldn’t have been startled to see him pop out of his brother-in-law’s desk dancing widdershins around the Tricky Tires prototype.

Saxon was the first to speak again, but it was only to ask Hilary whether or not she was finished with him.

The look she gave him was chillier than Dante’s ninth circle, and her voice turned it into a matched set. “I am
still
waiting for you to tell me why you were at Trim-Tram the Sunday you were supposed to be on vacation.”

“And you’ll wait a long, long time, too,” he answered, no longer smiling, “because it is none of your frigging business!”

I made him apologize to her for that one, but it was impossible to get him to answer any more questions.

B
ORROWING SCOTT’S KEY TO
his desk, I accompanied Saxon to his office. It was a much smaller room than the president’s, and the clutter of plastic, chrome, and rubber miniaturized toy components made it seem even smaller.

Saxon twirled the dial to the combination lock he’d mentioned. It clicked, and he withdrew it from the metal handle it encircled on one of his desk drawers. He fished out his copy of the crucial key, and I compared it with Scott’s, notch by notch.

Satisfied, I returned it to him and turned to go. But I stopped long enough to ask why Saxon was eyeing me with mock sympathy, shaking his head, all of that act.

“Because,” he cracked, “I hate to see a good man out of work.”

“Meaning?”

“You mean you don’t know? How long have you worked for Hilary now?”

“About four months.”