Goodbye California (9 page)

She passed through the bedroom into the bathroom, waited some prudent seconds, turned the shower on, returned to the living-room and
beckoned Julie who followed her back to the bathroom. Susan smiled at the young girl’s raised eyebrows and said in a soft voice: ‘I don’t know whether these rooms are bugged or not.’

‘Of course they are.’

‘What makes you so sure?’

‘I wouldn’t put anything past that creep.’

‘Mr Morro. I thought him quite charming, myself. But I agree. Running a shower gets a hidden mike all confused. Or so John told me once.’ Apart from herself and Parker, no one called Sergeant Ryder by his given name, probably because very few people knew it: Jeff invariably called her Susan but never got beyond ‘Dad’ where his father was concerned. ‘I wish to heaven he was here now – though mind you, I’ve already written a note to him.’

Julie looked at her blankly.

‘Remember when I was overcome back in San Ruffino and had to retire to the powder room? I took John’s picture with me, removed the backing, scribbled a few odds and ends on the back of the picture, replaced the back and left the picture behind.’

‘Isn’t it a pretty remote chance that it would ever occur to him to open up the picture?’

‘Yes. So I scribbled a tiny note in shorthand, tore it up and dropped it in my waste-paper basket.’

‘Again, isn’t it unlikely that that would occur to him? To check your basket? And even if he did, to guess that a scrap of shorthand would mean anything?’

‘It’s a slender chance. Well, a little better than slender. You can’t know him as I do. Women have the traditional right of being unpredictable, and that’s one of the things about him that does annoy me: ninety-nine point something per cent of the time he can predict precisely what I will do.’

‘Even if he does find what you left – well, you couldn’t have been able to tell him much.’

‘Very little. A description – what little I could give of anybody with a stocking mask – his stupid remark about taking us to some place where we wouldn’t get our feet wet, and his name.’

‘Funny he shouldn’t have warned his thugs against calling him by name. Unless, of course, it wasn’t his name.’

‘Sure it’s not his name. Probably a twisted sense of humour. He broke into a power station, so it probably tickled him to call himself after another station, the one in Morro Bay. Though I don’t know if that will help us much.’

Julie smiled doubtfully and left. When the door closed behind her Susan turned around to locate the draught that had suddenly made her shoulders feel cold, but there was no place from which a draught could have come.

Showers were in demand that evening. A little way along the hallway Professor Burnett had his running for precisely the same reason as Susan had. In this case the person he wanted to talk to was, inevitably, Dr Schmidt. Bramwell, when
listing the amenities of Adlerheim, had omitted to include what both Burnett and Schmidt regarded as by far the most important amenity of all: every suite was provided with its own wet bar. The two men silently toasted each other, Burnett with his malt, Schmidt with his gin and tonic: unlike Sergeant Parker, Schmidt had no esoteric preferences as to the source of his gin. A gin was a gin was a gin.

Burnett said: ‘Do you make of all this what I make of all this?’

‘Yes.’ Like Burnett, Schmidt had no idea whatsoever what to make of it.

‘Is the man mad, a crackpot or just a cunning devil?’

‘A cunning devil, that’s quite obvious.’ Schmidt pondered. ‘Of course, there’s nothing to prevent him from being all three at the same time.’

‘What do you reckon our chances are of getting out of here?’

‘Zero.’

‘What do you reckon our chances are of getting out of here alive?’

‘The same. He can’t afford to let us live. We could identify them afterwards.’

‘You honestly think he’d be prepared to kill all of us in cold blood?’

‘He’d have to.’ Schmidt hesitated. ‘Can’t be sure. Seems civilized enough in his own odd-ball way. Could be a veneer, of course – but just possibly he might be a man with a mission.’
Schmidt helped his meditation along by emptying his glass, left and returned with a refill. ‘Could even be prepared to bargain our lives against freedom from persecution. Speaking no ill of the others, of course’ – he clearly was – ‘but with four top-ranking nuclear physicists in his hands he holds pretty strong cards to deal with either State or government, as the case may be.’

‘Government. No question. Dr Durrer of ERDA would have called in the FBI hours ago. And while we may be important enough we mustn’t overlook the tremendous emotional factor of having two innocent women as hostages. The nation will clamour for the release of all of us, irrespective of whether it means stopping the wheels of justice.’

‘It’s a hope.’ Schmidt was glum. ‘We could be whistling in the dark. If only we knew what Morro was up to. All right, we suspect it’s some form of nuclear blackmail because we can’t see what else it could be: but
what
form we can’t even begin to guess.’

‘Healey and Bramwell could tell us. After all, we haven’t had a chance to talk to them. They’re mad, sure, but they seemed fairly relaxed and not running scared. Before we start jumping to conclusions perhaps we should talk to them. Odds are that they know something we don’t.’

‘Too relaxed.’ Schmidt pondered some time. ‘I hesitate to suggest this – I’m no expert in the field – but could they have been brain-washed, subverted in some way?’

‘No.’ Burnett was positive. ‘The thought occurred to me while we were talking to them. Very long odds against. Know them too well.’

Burnett and Schmidt found the other two physicists in Healey’s room. Soft music was playing. Burnett put a finger to his lips. Healey smiled and turned up the volume.

‘That’s just to put your minds at rest. We haven’t been here for seven weeks without knowing the rooms aren’t bugged. But something’s bugging you?’

‘Yes. Bluntly, you’re too casual by half. How do you know Morro isn’t going to feed us to the lions when he gets whatever he wants?’

‘We don’t. Maybe we’re stir-happy. He’s repeatedly told us that we will come to no harm and that he’s no doubt about the outcome of his negotiations with the authorities when he’s carried out whatever mad scheme he has in mind.’

‘That’s roughly what
we
had in mind. It doesn’t seem like much of a guarantee to us.’

‘It’s all we have. Besides, we’ve had time to figure it out. He doesn’t want us for any practical purpose. Therefore we’re here for psychological purposes, like the theft of uranium and plutonium: as you said, the pointed gun without bullets. If we were wanted for only psychological purposes then the very fact of our disappearance would have achieved all he wanted and he could have disposed of us on the spot. Why keep us around for seven weeks before disposing of us? For the pleasure of our company?’

‘Well, there’s no harm in looking on the bright side. Maybe Dr Schmidt and I will come around to your way of thinking. I only hope it doesn’t take another seven weeks.’ Healey pointed towards the bar and lifted an interrogative eyebrow, but Burnett shook his head, clear indication of how perturbed he was. ‘Something else still bugs me. Willi Aachen. Where has he disappeared to? Reason tells me that if four physicists have fallen into Morro’s hands so should have the fifth. Why should he be favoured? Or, depending on your point of view, so blessed?’

‘Lord only knows. One thing for sure, he’s no defector.’

Schmidt said: ‘He could be an involuntary defector?’

Burnett said: ‘It’s been known to happen. But it’s one thing to take a horse to water.’

‘I’ve never met him,’ Schmidt said. ‘He’s the best, isn’t he? From all I hear and all I read, that is.’

Burnett smiled at Healey and Bramwell then said to Schmidt: ‘We physicists are a jealous and self-opinionated lot who yield second place to no one. But well, yes, he’s the best.’

‘I assume that it’s because I’ve been naturalized only six months and that he works in a super-sensitive area that I’ve been kept away from him. What’s he like? I don’t mean his work. His fame is international.’

‘Last seen at that symposium in Washington ten weeks ago. The three of us were there. Cheerful, happy-go-lucky type. Frizzled head of hair like the blackest gollywog you ever saw. Tall as I am, and heavily built – about two-hundred-and-ten pounds, I’d say. And stubborn as they come – the idea of the Russians or anybody making him work for them just isn’t conceivable.’

Unknown to Professor Burnett, unknown to any other person who had ever known Willi Aachen in his prime, Burnett was wrong on every count. Professor Aachen’s face was drawn, haggard and etched with a hundred lines, none of which had existed three months previously. The mane of frizzled hair he still had but it had turned the colour of snow. He was no longer tall because he had developed a severe stoop akin to that of an advanced sufferer from kypho-scoliosis. His clothes hung on a shrunken frame of 150 pounds. And Aachen would work for anybody, especially Lopez. If Lopez had asked him to step off the Golden Gate Bridge Aachen would have done it unhesitatingly.

Lopez was the man who had worked this change on the seemingly indestructible, seemingly impregnable Aachen. Lopez – nobody knew his surname and his given name was probably fictitious anyway – had been a lieutenant in the Argentinian army, where he had worked as an interrogator in the security forces. Iranians and
Chileans are widely championed as being the most efficient torturers in the world, but the army of the Argentine, who are reluctant to talk about such matters, make all others specializing in the field of extracting information appear to be fumbling adolescents. It said a great deal for Lopez’s unholy expertise that he had sickened his ruthless commanders to the extent that they had felt compelled to get rid of him.

Lopez was vastly amused at stories of World War heroes gallantly defying torture for weeks, even months, on end. It was Lopez’s claim – no boast, for his claim had been substantiated a hundred times over – that he could have the toughest and most fanatical of terrorists screaming in unspeakable agony within five minutes and, within twenty minutes, have the name of every member of his cell.

It had taken him forty minutes to break Aachen and he had to repeat the process several times in the following three weeks. For the past month Aachen had given no trouble. It was a tribute and testimony to Lopez’s evil skill that, although Aachen was a physically shattered man with the last vestiges of pride, will and independence gone for ever, his mind and memory remained unimpaired.

Aachen gripped the bars of his cell and gazed through them, with lack-lustre eyes veined with blood, at the immaculate laboratory-cum-workshop that had been his home and his hell for
the previous seven weeks. He stared unblinkingly, interminably, as if in a hypnotic trance, at the rack against the opposite wall. It held twelve cylinders. Each had a lifting ring welded to the top. Eleven of those were about twelve feet high, and in diameter no more than the barrel of a 4.5-inch naval gun, to which they bore a strong resemblance. The twelfth was of the same diameter but less than half the height.

The workshop, hewn out of solid rock, lay forty feet beneath the banqueting hall of the Adlerheim.

Ryder, Dr Jablonsky, Sergeant Parker and Jeff waited with varying degrees of patience as Marjory transcribed Susan’s shorthand, a task that took her less than two minutes. She handed her notepad to Ryder.

‘Thank you. This is what she says. “The leader is called Morro. Odd”.’

Jablonsky said: ‘What’s odd about that? Lot of unusual names around.’

‘Not the name. The fact that he should permit one – or more – of his men to identify him by his name.’

‘Bogus,’ Jeff said.

‘Sure. “Six foot, lean, broad-shouldered, educated voice. American? Wears black gloves. Only one with gloves. Think I see black patch over his right eye. Stocking mask makes it difficult to be certain. Other men nondescript. Says no harm will come to us. Just regard the next few days as a holiday. Bracing vacation resort. Not the sea.
Can’t have anyone getting their feet wet. Meaningless chatter? Don’t know. Turn the oven off”. That’s all.’

‘It’s not much.’ Jeff’s disappointment showed.

‘What did you expect? Addresses and telephone numbers? Susan wouldn’t have missed anything, so that was all she had to go on. Two things. This Morro may have something wrong with both hands – disfigurement, scarring, amputation of fingers – and with one eye: could be a result of an accident, car crash, explosion, even a shoot-out. Then, like all criminals, he may occasionally be so sure of himself that he talks too much. “Not the sea, but bracing”. Could have been telling lies to mislead, but why mention it at all? Bracing. Hills. Mountains.’

‘Lots of hills and mountains in California.’ Parker sounded less than encouraging. ‘Maybe two-thirds. Just leaves an area about the size of Britain to search. And for what?’

There was a brief silence then Ryder said: ‘Maybe it’s not what. Maybe it’s not where. Maybe we should be asking ourselves why.’

The front-door bell rang for an unnecessary length of time. Jeff left and returned with the Chief of Police, who appeared to be in his customary foul mood, and an unhappy young detective called Kramer. Donahure looked around him with the thunderously proprietorial air of a house-owner whose premises have been invaded by a hippy commune. His glare settled on Jablonsky.

‘What are you doing here?’

‘Funny you should ask that.’ Jablonsky spoke in a cold voice and removed his glasses so that Donahure could see that his eyes were cold too. ‘I was about to ask you the same.’

Donahure let him have some more of the glare then switched it to Parker. ‘And what the hell are you doing here?’

Parker took a slow sip of his gin, an action that had a predictable effect on Donahure’s complexion. ‘An old friend visiting an old friend. Maybe for the thousandth time. Talking over old times.’ Parker took another leisurely sip. ‘Not that it’s any of your goddamned business.’

‘Report to me first thing in the morning.’ Donahure’s larynx was giving him trouble again. ‘I know what you’re talking about – the break-in. Ryder is not only not on the case, he’s not a cop any more. You don’t discuss police business with the public. Now, get out. I want to talk to Ryder privately.’

Ryder was on his feet with surprising ease for a man of his bulk. ‘You’ll be getting me a reputation for down-right lack of hospitality. I can’t have that.’

‘Out!’ A difficult word to snarl but Donahure made a creditable attempt. Parker ignored him. Donahure swung round, crossed the room, lifted a telephone and yelped in agony as Ryder’s left hand closed over his arm. The ulnar nerve in the elbow is the most exposed and sensitive of all
peripheral nerves and Ryder had powerful fingers. Donahure dropped the telephone on the table to free his right hand for the purpose of massaging his left elbow: Ryder replaced the phone on its rest.

‘What the hell was that for?’ Donahure rubbed his elbow industriously. ‘Right. Kramer. Book Ryder for assault and obstruction of justice.’

‘What?’ Ryder looked around. ‘Anyone here see me assault Fatso?’ Nobody, apparently, had seen anything. ‘Californian’s home is his castle. Nobody touches anything without my say-so.’

‘Is that so?’ Triumph overcame the throbbing nerve. He dug into a pocket and produced a piece of paper which he flourished at Ryder. ‘I’ll touch anything I like in this house. Know what that is?’

‘Sure. A search warrant with LeWinter’s name on it.’

‘It’s a warrant, Mister.’

Ryder took the warrant. ‘Law says I’ve the right to read it. Or didn’t you know?’ Ryder glanced at it for all of a second. ‘Judge LeWinter it is. Your poker-playing pal at City Hall. Next only to yourself the most corrupt official in town, the only judge in town who would issue you with a warrant on a trumped-up charge.’ He looked at the four seated people. ‘Now please watch the reactions of this upholder of public morality, especially his complexion. Jeff, would you have any idea what this trumped-up charge might be?’

‘Well, now.’ Jeff thought. ‘A trumped-up charge of theft, I’d think. A stolen driving licence? A missing police radio? Or something really ridiculous, like harbouring a set of binoculars with an LAPD stamp.’

Observe the complexion,’ Ryder said. ‘An interesting clinical study. Violet with overtones of purple. I’ll bet a good psychologist could make something of that. A guilt complex, perhaps?’

‘I’ve got it,’ Jeff said happily. ‘He’s come to search the place for evidence stolen from the scene of the crime.’

Ryder studied the warrant. ‘I don’t know how you do it.’

Donahure snatched the warrant back. ‘Too damn right. And when I do find it –’

‘Find what? That’s why it’s a put-up job – you’ve no idea what you’re looking for. You haven’t even been out to San Ruffino.’

I
know what I’m looking for.’ He marched off to an adjacent bedroom then halted as he became aware that Ryder was following him. He turned. ‘I don’t need you, Ryder.’

‘I know. But my wife does.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘She’s got some pretty nice jewellery in there.’

Donahure balled his fists, looked at Ryder’s eyes, changed his mind and stalked – if a hippopotamus could ever be said to stalk – into the bedroom, Ryder at his heels.

He started with a dressing-table drawer, rifled through a pile of blouses, left them in an untidy heap, slammed the drawer shut, moved to the next drawer and repeated his cry of pain as Ryder found the ulnar nerve again. In the living-room Parker rolled up his eyes, rose, picked up his own glass and that of Jablonsky and headed purposefully for the bar.

Ryder said: ‘I don’t like untidy people. Especially, I don’t want filthy fingers touching my wife’s clothing.
I’ll
go through her clothing and you can watch. As I’ve no idea what the hell you’re looking for I can’t very well hide it, can I?’ Ryder made a meticulous search of his wife’s clothing, then allowed Donahure to take over.

Jeff brought a drink into the kitchen. Kramer, leaning against the sink with his arms folded, looked glum and unhappy. Jeff said: ‘You look like a man who could do with a morale booster. Gin. Donahure is loaded up with bourbon. Never smell it.’ Kramer took the drink gratefully. ‘What are you supposed to be doing?’

‘Thanks. You can see what I’m doing. I’m searching the kitchen.’

‘Found anything yet?’

‘I will when I start looking. Pots and pans, plates and saucers, knives and forks – all sorts of things.’ He gulped some of his drink. ‘Don’t know what the hell I’m supposed to be looking for. Damned sorry about this, Jeff. What can I do?’

‘Just what you’re doing. Nothing. Inactivity becomes you. Any idea what our fat friend is looking for?’

‘No. You?’

‘No.’

‘Your father?’

‘It’s possible. If he knows he hasn’t told me. Not that he’s had a chance to.’

‘Must be something important. Something that makes Donahure pretty close to desperate.’

‘How come?’

‘Sergeant Ryder is how come. Or maybe you don’t know the reputation of the bogeyman?’

‘Ah.’

‘Yes. Takes a desperate man to provoke your old man.’

‘Like a man playing for high stakes. Well, now. You interest me.’

‘I interest myself.’

‘Looking for incriminating evidence, perhaps.’

‘Incriminating whom, I wonder?’

‘I wonder.’

Footsteps and voices approached. Jeff plucked the glass from Kramer, who had a drawer open before Donahure entered. Ryder was close behind him. Donahure gave Jeff the benefit of his customary glare.

‘What are you doing here?’

Jeff lowered the glass from his lips. ‘Keeping an eye on the cutlery.’

Donahure jerked a thumb. ‘Out.’ Jeff glanced at his father.

‘Stay,’ Ryder said. ‘Fatso’s the one who leaves.’

Donahure breathed heavily. ‘By God, Ryder, push me any more and I’ll –’

‘You’ll do what? Give yourself a heart attack by picking up your teeth?’

Donahure took it out on Kramer. ‘What did you find? Nothing?’

‘Nothing that shouldn’t be here.’

‘Sure you searched properly?’

‘Pay no attention,’ Ryder said. ‘If there was an elephant in this house Donahure would miss it. Never tapped a wall, lifted a rug, tried to find a loose tile, didn’t even look under a mattress. Couldn’t have had police schools in his days.’ He ignored Donahure’s apoplectic splutterings and led the way back to the living-room. He said to no one in particular: ‘Whoever made this oaf a chief of police was either mentally deficient or a victim of blackmail. Donahure, I’m now looking at you with what is known as undisguised contempt. You better go make a fast report to your boss. Tell him you’ve made a classic blunder. Two blunders. One psychological, one tactical. I’ll bet for once you acted on your own – no one with an IQ above fifty would have tipped his hand in that crass fashion.’

‘Boss? Boss? What the hell do you mean, boss?’

‘You’d make as good an actor as you are a police chief. You know, I do believe I’m right. Bluster – your only stock in trade, of course – but
beneath bluster you’re running scared. “Boss”, I said. “Boss”, I meant. Every puppet needs his puppet-master. Next time you’re thinking of making any independent move I suggest you first consult someone with intelligence. One assumes your boss must have a little intelligence.’

Donahure tried out his basilisk stare, realized it was the wrong fit, turned on his heel and left. Ryder followed him to the front door. ‘Not your day, Donahure. But then it wasn’t quite Raminoff’s day either, was it? But I hope his had a better ending. I mean, I hope he managed to jump clear before he dumped your van in the Pacific’ He clapped Kramer on the shoulder. ‘Don’t look so perplexed, young man. I’m sure the Chief will tell you all about it on the way back to the station.’

He went back into the living-room. Parker said: ‘What was all that about, then?’

‘I’m not quite sure. I talked about his blunders and I’m sure I was right. He’d never make the lead in “The Great Stone Face”. I blundered myself, but in a different way. I blundered into what seemed to be a sensitive area. I wonder what that area could be…’

‘You said it yourself. He’s taking orders from someone.’

‘That crook’s been taking orders all his life. Don’t look so shocked, Dr Jablonsky. He’s a crook, and has been for as long as I’ve known him, which is far too long. Sure, the Californian police
forces are no better than the other States in the Union as far as the three P’s are concerned – power, politics and promotion. But it is remarkably free from genuine corruption – Donahure is the exception that proves the rule.’

‘You have proof?’ Jablonsky said.

‘Just look at him. He’s living proof. But you would mean documented proof. That I have. What I’m going to say you can’t quote me on, because I didn’t say it.’

Jablonsky smiled. ‘You can’t faze me any more. As I said, I’ve got the hang of your double-talk now.’

‘Not for repetition. Ah! Something else.’ He picked up the picture with the shorthand. ‘Not for repetition either.’

‘I can tell Ted?’ Marjory said.

‘I’d rather not.’

‘Wait till I tell Susan you keep secrets from her.’

‘Okay. But a secret shared is no longer a secret.’ He caught her interrogative glance at Jablonsky and Parker. ‘My dear child, the first thing nuclear physicists and intelligence cops learn is how to guard their tongues.’

‘I won’t talk. Ted won’t talk. We just want to help.’

‘I don’t want your help.’

She made a moue.

‘Sorry.’ He took her hand in apology. ‘That wasn’t nice. If I need you, I’ll ask. I just don’t want to involve you in what may be a messy business.’

She smiled. ‘Thank you.’ Both of them knew that he would never ask.

‘Chief of Police Donahure. He has a rather special house, Spanish-Moroccan, swimming pool, wet bars everywhere, expensive furniture in awful taste, no mortgage. Mexican couple. Late model Lincoln, full payment on delivery. Twenty thousand dollars on bank deposit. Living high off the hog, you might say, but then Donahure doesn’t have a wife to spend all his money for him – understandably, he’s a bachelor. An acceptable life-style – he doesn’t get paid in pennies. What’s not so acceptable is that in seven different banks under seven different names he has just over half a million dollars salted away. He might have some difficulty in accounting for that.’

‘Nothing that goes on or is said in this house is going to surprise me any more.’ Jablonsky nevertheless managed to look surprised. ‘Proof?’

‘Sure he’s got proof,’ Jeff said. As Ryder didn’t seem disposed to deny this, he carried on: ‘I didn’t know until this evening. My father has a dossier on him, complete with signed affidavits, which would make very interesting reading in Sacramento.’

Jablonsky said: ‘This true?’

‘You don’t have to believe it,’ Ryder said.

‘I’m sorry. But why don’t you lower the boom on him? Repercussions wouldn’t matter a damn to you.’

‘They wouldn’t. But they’d matter to others. Nearly half of our friend’s ill-gotten gains come from blackmail. Three prominent citizens of this town, basically as clean and innocent as most of us are, which doesn’t say a great deal, have been badly compromised. They could also be badly hurt. I’ll use this document if my hand is forced, of course.’