The Devil's Only Friend (18 page)

CHAPTER 18

Federle and I rode a tram underground to the stamping plant because I wanted to get more of a feel for the layout of the place. If there had been time, I might have wanted to watch the tankers dumping coal and coke and iron ore along the river. I could have seen it all, how they brought lumber into the rail yard, how they fired up the great furnaces and made steel and shaped it into flat ribbons and coiled it up. They twisted and stamped and cut the steel and then welded or brazed or bolted the parts together. They even made glass in one of the buildings. In the foundry they poured liquid metal into molds until the sprue holes filled up and dribbled over and splashed sparks down the leather chaps of the foundrymen. There was a paint building and even a small paper mill. We might have followed the course of the plant to its end, where in better times automobiles poured off the end of the line and were stacked on railcars or great ships bound for all parts of the world.

But despair loomed over me even as I considered it. It would take a month to properly survey the place. We'd do well enough if we could ignore the mechanical ruckus and work our way down through the people involved. Maybe Federle was thinking the same thing. As the tram rolled down the corridor, I could see him chewing at the inside of his cheeks.

“Listen, bub,” I asked the driver, “who could tell me if the Hardiman brothers are anywhere in one of the buildings?”

“That's hard to say. They want to prowl around all day and night.” He was a fat uniformed guard, and he didn't seem happy in his work.

“Well, if they were prowling today, where might they be?”

“That's hard to say. It's like saying, ‘Where's the mayor of Detroit?' They got their offices, they got their business to attend to, but they got the run of the place, too.”

“It don't seem responsible,” Federle said.

“I just guard this tunnel here. Next week it'll be something else. You could call Cappy Blackwell back at the house desk if you want.”

“Zero-one-one,” I said.

“That's right,” said the driver. “That's the lowest number except Pickett. They only let him park cars anymore since—”

He stopped himself from saying any more. He took us to the end of the route, and Federle flipped him a nickel for a tip. The fat guard let the coin bounce off the tight cloth of his trousers and onto the concrete floor of the tunnel. We got out of the tram and clomped up the stairs toward the open floor of the stamping plant.

“He'll drive right back to Zero-one-one and report everything we said to him,” Federle said. “It's a rat's nest in here.”

“We make 'em nervous. That's good. It doesn't seem they know what we're up to.”

“What
are
we up to exactly, Pete?”

“I don't know, to tell you the truth. These Hardiman boys are trouble if it runs in the family.”

“They got it in for you?”

“It's hard to figure. Maybe they ought to. I never spoke to them, but—” I thought that the stairwell might be wired with microphones, but the noise was getting bad as we approached the top. I leaned close to Federle's ear. “Their father came to a bad end last year.”

“You were mixed up in it?”

I opened the metal door and winced as the noise battered my ears. The place echoed with racket from hydraulic and pneumatic presses, chains, power hammers, hollering, and warning bells. A couple dozen Bliss presses, each big enough to drive a car through, were lined up the length of the building, and eight or ten men manned each one. Scores more swarmed around to perform little steps in the process, stacking, toting, and driving away racks of finished parts. From the look of it, they were stamping panels for a small military truck design, square and plain and boxy.

Federle and I stood dumb for a moment. I fought the urge to cover my ears with my palms, and gradually my hearing became numb enough to stand it. A long, narrow metal staircase went up in stages along the wall closest to us and led to a catwalk that ran over the top of the space, close to the roof of the building. I yanked Federle's arm to move him along with me. By the time we made it to the top of the stairs, we were panting and sweating. I stopped to catch my breath along the wall, and Federle pushed past me and out toward the center of the catwalk. In truth, I wasn't steady on my feet for a number of reasons; my lonely eye could not sort out the lacework of steel cables and girders that made up the catwalk and the roof. But I followed Federle out.

From the top the view was hazy, but it was clear enough to see that there was too much going on, too much traffic, for any mayhem to pass unnoticed. I thought I could see in general how we might pick our way through the factory floor, since it only made sense that there would be a system set up for the men to get around as need be. But it was hard work to keep my attention in the heat and the moisture from all the men and the panting machinery. Sweat oozed out of me, and I knew I'd have to go down before I could get a full map of the place into my head. Federle, who stood only a few feet away from me, seemed impossibly distant. He pointed toward the east end of the building. I moved toward him and peered down through the murky air.

“Something's doing,” he yelled.

I squinted my eye and blinked trying to make out something, anything more than a smear.

“It's a whole gang coming in.”

“I can't see.”

“It looks like…” Federle stood straight up and stared for a moment more. “They're pushing somebody in a chair.”

“It's Old Man Lloyd,” I said, not loud enough to reach Federle's ear. I pulled him along again and we made our way down to the floor. It was necessary to climb again over a bridge to get inside the light rails that ran all along one side of the building.

I was like a horse run ragged and wrapped in a blanket, and I knew that I would keep sweating until we could get out of the plant and into the fresh air. At least the noise seemed more bearable toward the center of the floor; or else my hearing had been damaged permanently. It took a long time for the parade to reach us, but we let it come and tried to catch our wits and our breath. As they came near, I could see that Lloyd's secretary, James, was pushing the Old Man along very slowly. A group of suited lackeys fanned out behind them, a pack of jackals reduced to waiting for scraps. Near the front of the pack, I soon made out the two Hardiman brothers, bent together and warily watching the route ahead.

The secretary saw me first, and he couldn't help showing a look of dismay. He bent down close enough to Lloyd to say something in his ear.

Lloyd had gone so old as to be beyond making expression with his face. He rolled his eyes toward me and lifted a hand to summon me closer.

“Pursuing justice, Mr. Caudill. That's your task.” Lloyd's thin, reedy voice cut better through the air than I thought it would. “Walk along with us. The work must continue.”

“This is my man Federle,” I said.

Lloyd turned a sharp eye toward him, but did not have the energy to make a long assessment. “You've spoken to my son?”

“Yes,” I said. “He wasn't any help.”

“He can be difficult. But you shouldn't underestimate him.”

“Where is he now?”

Lloyd pursed his mouth sourly, and his dry, gray tongue darted over his lips. “You've met the Hardiman boys, then?”

The whole procession crawled awkwardly forward, and it put me at a disadvantage to have the Hardimans to the left of me, to the blind side.

The larger and older of the pair spoke. “We know you by reputation, Mr. Caudill. It's said you're quite a rough character.” He spoke leisurely, with his hands in his pockets and an amused look on his face. “I'm Charles Hardiman, and this is my younger brother, Elliot.”

He didn't put out his hand to me. Elliot wouldn't even meet my eye. He only stared ahead angrily.

“Our mother does not speak well of you,” said Charles. “There's some bad blood, apparently.”

“I never did anything to her,” I said.

“You knew our father, though, didn't you?”

“He shot me once,” I said, showing the place where the bullet went into my shoulder. “That whole thing didn't work out so well.”

“I ought to spit in your face,” blurted Elliot.

I walked in front of him and stopped, and the whole gaggle began to turn like a wheel around us.

“Why don't you go ahead and spit on me,” I said.

I could see that he was thinking about it. Color rushed up into his face. Though he was a grown man, he held himself like a child going into a tantrum. There had been no trace of the outsized goons who had dipped me in the water, but I knew that the regular Lloyd security men would quickly side against me if any fracas broke out with the Hardiman boys.

“Mr. Caudill!” Lloyd bleated. He raised a withered hand toward us, but I felt no magic from it.

“C'mon, Pete,” murmured Federle, close at my shoulder.

Charles Hardiman took my sleeve and tugged me to a forward position again.

“Be civilized, Caudill,” he said. “Elliot nurses feelings of resentment. It's a matter of disposition. You can allow for that, can't you?”

He kept hold of my elbow and we broke off from Lloyd's procession. Federle ambled along with us, as did a couple of lackeys and a thin, pockmarked man with a gun inside his jacket. We kept walking, passed the guard stationed at the door to the tunnel, and finally turned off into the long hall leading toward the swing rooms and the cafeteria. It was heavily traveled and noisy, but much quieter than the factory floor.

“Now, Mr. Caudill, what's your business here?” Charles Hardiman asked. “Do you aim to ramble about the plant disrupting operations?”

“I work for Old Man Lloyd,” I said. “I don't answer to you.”

“You're aware that Mr. Lloyd has resigned all his duties toward the company, then. Control has passed to his son Whitcomb.”

“Who do you think got us these badges?” I said.

“Which is it? Do you work for Jasper Lloyd or Whitcomb Lloyd?”

I shrugged. “I don't work for you.”

“You're investigating these murders,” Elliot said. “Is that it?”

“Lower your voice, Elliot.”

“Is that it?”

“Till you get the balls or the blow to kick me out, I'll investigate whatever I want to,” I said. “What have you got to hide?”

“You go to hell,” Elliot said.

The pockmarked man sidled a little closer, hoping to be able to try out his piece. I could tell that Federle was thinking about this, too, from the way he held himself. He was wishing for the gun I had stashed in the Chrysler.

“You piece of shit,” Elliot said, trembling now.

“This isn't like you, brother,” said Charles.

Reason got the better of Elliot, and he clamped his lips shut.

“Mr. Caudill, will you introduce me to your sharp-eyed friend here?”

“He's Federle.”

“Mr. Federle, have you anything to say?”

Federle looked hard at Charles Hardiman and shook his head.

“He's dumb as a post.”

“Elliot, for God's sake, shut up.”

“Let him alone,” I said. “He wants to have a poke at me.”

“In fact, Elliot and I are rather accomplished boxers. Father insisted on an education in the manly arts.”

This time reason got the better of me, and I made no comment about their father's manliness.

“Look here,” I said. “I didn't come to roust you. We're just looking around.”

“The men on the floor don't like strangers nosing around. Just now there's an acute paranoia regarding Axis spies lurking about, bent on sabotage. You've seen the lovely posters placed around the complex by our diligent security personnel?” Charles's eyes were sparkling now. “Certainly this paranoia could be stoked—by a sophisticated party—to ill effect for any interloper on the premises. It could cause any kind of trouble.”

“Maybe you should worry about what the men on the floor think of you,” I said.

“That's a keen point, Mr. Caudill. But as I am intimately familiar with the workings of the plant, I feel I can trust my judgment here. I have no worry for my own safety or that of my brother.”

I took a moment to go over what he had said. Charles was as smart as his father but not as rash. If he said he meant to make trouble for me, I could take him at his word.

“You'd be willing to risk wrecking the place to get rid of me?”

“Wreck the place, Mr. Caudill!” He laughed. “Some day we hope to own it!”

Now Elliot had found a way to control his anger toward me, to see himself as the better man again. He gazed coolly at me and said, “We
will
own it.”

“Federle thinks the two of you know something about the dead women,” I said.

Charles Hardiman lifted his eyebrows and looked back and forth between me and Federle. Then he said, “There's an interesting angle. I'd be interested to see how that could work.” He glanced up and down the long corridor. “We'd be better off to talk about this privately.”

“He's just goading us, Charles,” Elliot said, squinting now. “He's out of place here, and he knows it.”

“Is it true, Mr. Federle? Why would you harbor such an odd prejudice against us?”

Federle said nothing, but his demeanor cooled, and he looked flatly at Charles Hardiman.

“Nothing to say? A hard man?” He met Federle's gaze for a time, and then looked to me. “Caudill, what's the gist of all this? If you've anything substantial to discuss with us, you can make an appointment.”

“Probably in another week the FBI will be crawling all over this place,” I said. “That doesn't bother you?”

“Why should it?”

“It'll be bad for business, maybe.”

Charles mulled it over for a moment and then smiled. “I don't see why it should be. Half the commanders of the armed services have been through here already. We've had visitors here who are so critical to the war effort that they can't be named. It's beyond you, Mr. Caudill.”