Night My Friend (16 page)

“About this man who was killed in Chicago, and the note he had on him. Of course the General was interested.”

“I’ll bet.” He tried to light a cigarette but it was hopeless in the rain. “By the way, I wanted to ask you something. About your friend, Dick Mallow, if you don’t mind.”

“Dick?” She wrinkled up her nose in an expression that might have been coy. “You want to know if he’s my boy friend.”

“Not exactly. I want to know if he’s been here every night this week.”

She seemed puzzled by the question, and stepped a bit further into the darkened shadows of the sheltering roller coaster. “Why? Why do you ask? Do you think he killed that man in Chicago? Is that it?”

“Not really, but Felix Waterton was connected with someone here. Since you mentioned the killing, though, what about it? Last Monday night, specifically.”

“I don’t remember. Dick has to work late sometimes. He missed one or two nights early in the week.”

“Then he could have hopped a plane to Chicago.”

“Sure. And he could have flown to the moon. But he didn’t. He never heard of your friend Waterton.”

“He seemed awfully quiet last night after the name was mentioned.”

Even in the near darkness her eyes sparkled with a touch of fury. “He was probably quiet because he was anxious to be alone with me. Or didn’t that thought ever cross your mind, romance still exists?”

“All right, all right. Are you going to take me in to meet the General, or not?” He was growing impatient with her defense of Mallow, who didn’t really seem worth all the concern.

“Come on,” she replied, “while the rain has let up a bit.”

Jane led him through the slush to a long, low building next to the shuttered Fun House. The lights from its glowing windows seemed to cast a bit of unreality across the deserted landscape, which had seemed so natural in the dark. He slid though the partly opened door behind her and found himself in a stark room, filled almost to capacity with people seated at the long makeshift bingo tables. Here and there, on shelves set against the walls, a stuffed animal or packaged blanket remained unclaimed from summer’s prizes.

Toward the front of the room, on the little raised platform where the bingo operator usually sat, a tall, slim man with a shock of white hair stood waiting to address his audience. A movie screen was set up behind him, its glass beading catching and reflecting the overhead lights. Clinton knew without being told that he was looking at General Tracy Spindler.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” the speaker began, “I’m pleased to see such a good turnout tonight, in view of the nasty weather.” Clinton glanced around and figured the audience at nearly a hundred. It was indeed a good turnout, all things considered. He wondered whether Felix Waterton would have been here, had he lived.

“I’m General Spindler, for those few of you who might be new to our little group. Actually, the beliefs of the Noahites are quite simply stated, and we do state them at the beginning of every meeting. We believe that the ark of Noah did not travel the seas of an earthly flood, but rather voyaged here to our planet across a sea of space. We believe that Noah and his family and the creatures that journeyed with them came from a far planet, and brought the first life to this planet earth.”

Clinton leaned against the wall and lit a cigarette. He wondered if the General really believed any of what he was saying. The audience, an oddly homogeneous middle-class group, seemed to believe, and they sat in rapt attention through the twenty-minute film that followed. It was a poorly photographed record of archaeological diggings in the region of Mount Ararat, with blurred close-ups of hands holding oddly-shaped pieces of stone and metal, which might have come from another planet, or from the corner junkyard. Clinton, being by nature a disbeliever, was inclined toward the latter.

At the end of the film, General Spindler was joined on the platform by a tall, leggy girl with close-cropped black hair. She was wearing dark leather boots, and they reached almost to her knees. “Thank you, thank you,” Spindler said, responding to the scattering of applause at the conclusion of the movie. “Now we’ll take a little break before our discussion period, and Zelda will be serving you coffee and doughnuts.”

Clinton followed Jane Boone through the suddenly active audience. While the dark-haired Zelda began dispensing refreshments, they cornered General Spindler on the platform. “This is Sam Clinton,” Jane said. “I told you about him.”

“Yes,” the General acknowledged, nodding his white mane. “You’re the man from Chicago. I read about that killing in the papers.”

Clinton shook hands with the man, and felt the dampness of his palm. “I hope you can shed some light on it, General.”

The older man’s eyes clouded over for a moment. “All I know is what I read. Do you have any further details?”

Clinton glanced around at the crowd lined up for coffee and doughnuts. “Can we go some place and talk?”

“I only have five minutes before the discussion begins.”

“Let them linger over their coffee. I won’t take long.”

“Very well,” the General agreed, and Jane Boone led them behind the platform to a little storeroom cluttered with prizes.

Clinton seated himself gingerly on a carton filled with dusty bingo boards. “Well, as you probably know from the papers, Felix Waterton was murdered in Chicago last Monday night. He was shot twice in the head, and his body was dumped by the side of a country road and set afire with gasoline. He was a client of mine, a very good client.”

General Spindler shrugged. “Outside of the newspapers, the name means nothing to me. Should it?”

“Waterton was involved in certain financial transactions in Chicago. As near as I’ve been able to piece together since his death, large quantities of money were being siphoned off and hidden somewhere. I know he often made mysterious trips east, and I believe he was planning to come here tonight.”

Spindler nodded. “Miss Boone told me about the note. But that’s no connection with me, or with the Noahites.”

“What else is happening at the Bayshore Amusement Park today?” Clinton asked. He started to light a cigarette but then thought better of it. The place was a firetrap just waiting for a spark to set it off.

General Spindler glanced at Jane. “Perhaps you should ask Miss Boone.”

She seemed to resent the implication of it. “You’re the only thing happening here today, General Spindler. And, frankly, I don’t think my father would have rented you the place if he knew what he was getting into.”

The door of the storeroom swung open and the dark-haired Zelda entered. “They’re waiting for you,” she said quietly, without changing expression.

General Spindler got to his feet. “You must excuse me. My public awaits. Perhaps later we can continue this.”

Clinton and Jane drifted back to their places at the rear of the bingo hall and settled down to witnessing a protracted discussion of the film they’d seen earlier. After a somber young man had risen to ask why the Great Powers conspired to keep the truth of human origin such a closely guarded secret, Jane apparently decided she’d had enough. “I have to go,” she said, giving his arm a slight and unexpected squeeze. “Dick’s probably looking all over for me.”

“I’ll see you later,” Clinton told her. “I have to talk with the General some more.”

He stood, leaned, and finally sat through another hour of questions, answers, and general discussion. The mood of the meeting was a gloomy seriousness that pervaded to the end, when the would-be space people began filing slowly out. Only a few remained grouped around the platform, and those seemed as intent upon the girl, Zelda, as upon anything else.

“Can we continue our discussion?” Clinton asked the General.

“Not here. There’s a little bar across the street that’s usually open.”

“I know the place,” Clinton replied, wondering if Mallow would be there with his hand in Jane’s.

Spindler turned to the girl. “Zelda, pack up the projector and screen. I’ll be back shortly.”

As they crossed the rapidly emptying parking lot toward the glow of light from the little bar, Clinton said, “That Zelda is a very attractive girl.”

Spindler snorted. “Thank you, she’s my daughter. Her looks get her into trouble occasionally.”

When they were settled for a drink, Clinton continued, “Do you really believe all this bunk about the ark coming from another planet, General?”

“I see that you are a doubting man. Of course I believe it—publicly. And you’ll never get me to say anything else.”

“What does the government think of your activities?”

“I’m retired, sir. Have been since just after Korea. While I was an army man, I gave it a full measure of devotion and ability. Now I’m something else.”

But Clinton wondered if he was. “Did you start the Noahites?”

“I did. They’re all mine.”

“Your own private army.”

General Spindler smiled, but there was no humor in his eyes. “They are believers, every last one of them. They believe with an intensity that would be hard for someone like yourself to imagine. Some of these people drove all the way from Boston to be here tonight.”

The bar was empty except for them, and Clinton wondered vaguely where Mallow and Jane might be. Back at the merry-go-round, probably. “There are always people like that, General, waiting to be found and herded together by someone like you.”

“I admit it. Perhaps that is the basis of our civilization.”

“Would they do anything for you?”

“I think so.”

“Would they kill for you? Did they kill Waterton?”

The General closed his eyes. “You are a devious man, Mr. Clinton. What is it you want?”

“The truth, only that. I worked for Felix Waterton all these years, and I want to know what he was up to. I want to find the money he was stealing from a lot of people.”

“I know nothing of any money.”

Clinton leaned back against the firm leather of the booth. “I’m a tax lawyer, General. My mind works in devious ways. It took me a long time to tumble to what Waterton was up to, but once I did the rest of it wasn’t too tough. I gather your Noahites is incorporated? And it’s probably a non-profit institution, a quasi-religious group of sorts. As such, it would pay no income tax on donations. Felix Waterton was looking for such an organization. He could have made donations to you through his various corporations, and achieved a double purpose. He would have avoided tax payments on his sizeable profits, and at the same time he would have removed the money to a perfect hiding place, a place where it would be waiting for him. I think you and the Noahites have a good big chunk of Waterton’s money, General.”

Spindler’s frown deepened. “You’d have a difficult time proving all this, just on the basis of that piece of paper. Perhaps Waterton was delivering the money to Miss Boone, or even to that friend of hers who’s always around.”

But Sam Clinton shook his head. “First of all, an amusement park wouldn’t be in a position to hide large profits in their books. And, more important, if Waterton’s contact all these years had been the amusement park itself, he’d hardly have needed to write down its name. I’m sure he’d have remembered it. No, he wrote down the name because he
wasn’t
familiar with it, because you’ve only been holding your monthly meetings here since the park closed in the fall. I suppose he usually sent you the money by check at regular intervals, but this time he decided to visit you for some reason, perhaps because he knew I was starting to uncover the truth about his operations.”

“I repeat, prove it!”

“You’ll have to open the Noahite books to an investigation. And, of course, the whole set-up makes you the logical suspect in Waterton’s killing. You can explain that away too, if you’d like.”

“I was in New York last Monday. A dozen people saw me.”

“Maybe.”

The white-haired man’s eyes flicked with an icy fury. “What do you want? Money?”

“
The
money.”

He let out his breath, “You asked me if they’d kill for me. They will.”

“I don’t scare,” Clinton said, getting to his feet. The beer was half-finished on the table between them. “Think it over.”

He walked out of the bar and back across the street to the towering darkness of the amusement park. It was colder now, and the intermittent drizzle gave hints of turning to snow.

Clinton followed the lights and found Jane Boone cleaning up in the bingo hall after the meeting. Spindler’s daughter, Zelda, was still in evidence, talking quietly with two younger members of the departed audience.

“Hello,” he said. “Where’s Dick tonight?”

“He’s working. He said maybe he’d drop by later.” She was busy picking up paper cups with coffee dregs and damp cigarette butts in their bottoms. “Did you talk to the General?”

Clinton nodded. “I think we understand each other.”

She brushed some gray ashes from the table-top. “You know something? I read mysteries once in a while, and I’ve got a theory about your murder case.”

“Oh?”

“I heard you and the General talking about Waterton’s body being burned.”

Clinton nodded. “Almost beyond recognition. They weren’t sure it was he until Tuesday.”

“That’s my theory. Maybe it
wasn’t
Waterton at all, see!” She faced him with sparkling eyes. “He killed someone else, poured gasoline on the body and set it afire. Now that he’s declared dead, he can safely collect this money you say he’s hidden.”

But Sam Clinton shook his head. “It was Waterton, all right. They got a couple of fingerprints off the body. The Chicago police think it was more an attempt to make the killing look like a gang job, rather than hide the identity.”

“Why is it so important to you, all of it?”

He sat on the edge of the table. “I don’t know. Maybe just because I was a sucker for so many years. I never tumbled to what he was doing until too late, and now I want to find that money.”

Suddenly the dark-haired Zelda had joined them, her booted feet moving silently across the floor. Clinton didn’t know if she’d heard their conversation, but she said softly, “I can tell you about my father and Felix Waterton—
all
about them. I’ll meet you back here in an hour.” Then she was gone, as quickly as she’d come, and they saw her join General Spindler and the two young men outside.