Riders on the Storm (9 page)

“A man named Al Carmichael is on the phone for you,” Jamie said after the phone rang next.

“Thanks for returning my call, Al.”

“I'm assuming this has something to do with Steve Donovan's death. I still have friends back in Black River Falls and three of them have called me about it. I think they half expected me to jump up and down and celebrate, but as much as I hated him at the end we'd been good friends for four or five years and so I have good memories of him, too. So if you want some kind of bad quote about him, I'm not going to give it.”

“Would the same apply to Lon Anders?”

A snort. “Exactly what are you looking for, Sam?”

I told him. I also explained that I did not believe that my friend Will Cullen had killed the man. And that I was serving as both his lawyer and his investigator.

“You think that's smart? It's pretty hard to be objective in a case like this.”

“I've known Will all my life. I trust my instincts.”

“Well, it's your call, Sam.”

“So how about Lon Anders?”

“A total piece of shit. As soon as Steve hooked up with him things started to change at the place.”

“How so?”

“Somehow Anders was able to convince Steve that he knew something about our business. Anders is a quick study, I'll give him that, but he's basically a peddler. He liked to give pep talks to all the workers there. They thought he was an arrogant, stupid blowhard and they were right. After he got Steve's ear, my staff and I could never get Steve to prototype anything we came up with. And we knew why. It was a turf battle. And what Steve never realized was that Anders would someday push him aside just as he'd pushed me aside. Three of my best staffers quit. They were so frustrated they couldn't take it anymore. Anders took it on himself to find their replacements. They knew even less about our business than Anders did. But behind my back they reported everything to him. What he was doing was building a case against me for Steve's sake. I have a family history of depression. And that's what landed on me. Anders was nice enough to spread the word that I had ‘mental problems' so people started looking at me as if I'd bring a shotgun to work and kill two or three of them. So finally I just resigned and let Steve buy me out for pennies. But I just wanted out of there and didn't really care what he paid me.”

My mind fixed on him talking about Anders someday pushing Donovan aside.

“What were profits like when you left?”

“I admit to being petty when it comes to Anders and the clowns he'd hired. But the products they came up with made money. I
couldn't believe it but I saw it on the P&L sheets and there wasn't much I could say about it.”

“Have you had any contact with Donovan since then?”

“No. I didn't know what I'd say to him or what he'd say to me. But today … well I think maybe I should have called him once in a while.”

“This has been very helpful, Al.”

“I don't really see how, but if you say so, I'm glad.”

“Thanks,” I said. And I meant it.

I was excited about it.

One of the experiences I've never had as an investigator is being followed. The police do it all the time in unmarked cars and it is one of the staples for most private investigators. But it had never happened to me. And in comic strips, short stories, novels, TV shows, and movies, private investigators do it—and have it done to
them
—all the time.

So I was sort of enjoying it.

He'd followed me at about a half-block distance from my office. Drab four-year-old Dodge sedan.

I had half a tank of gas so I was able to run him for half an hour, even up into the limestone cliffs above the river. He was good, very good. Easy peasy. Never panicked once. Just stayed behind me and never once came close to losing me.

After a while it got boring. Plus I was hungry. My exhaustion needed to be fed.

I drove to a Mexican restaurant called “Carlos'.” He was smart. Seeing where I was going he pulled into a parking space across the street and waited till I went inside. I was pretty sure he had no idea that I'd finally spotted him.

From my booth I could see him. An older man a little slumped in the driver's seat. He'd occasionally glance over at me and I'd glance away. Eye tag.

I had a taco and a glass of Pepsi. The Pepsi was warmer than the taco. I'd have to remember not to come in here again.

After relieving myself in the john, I walked through the kitchen and out the back door. Numerous pairs of eyes watched me. One man said, “Hey.” But I didn't wait to find out if that was a friendly “Hey” or an unfriendly one.

There was an alley across the street. There would be no way he could see me from where he was parked.

The old battered garages in this poor neighborhood reminded me of my boyhood in the Hills. Everything there had been in a perpetual state of rot and falling-down, too, but alleys and half-collapsed garages had been a fine place to sail the imaginary seas you saw in all those Technicolor pirate movies or to hide behind huge pretend boulders to shoot at bad guys who populated all the B Western movies.

I came out a block behind him. The temperature had to be approaching ninety because even this slight bit of exercise soaked my shirt. He wouldn't be having that problem. Even at four years of age his car probably had air conditioning.

I had had to cross a street, which gave him the opportunity to see me. Now I walked up the sidewalk leading to his car, which gave him another opportunity. From what I could tell he didn't ever glance in his rearview or look around.

I opened the passenger-side door before he could do anything about it. But then he didn't
have
to do anything about it because he was holding a Smith & Wesson Model 586 with the four-inch barrel pointed directly at me. He had one of those old-time smooth radio voices that suggested both manliness and more than a hint of irony.

“That looked like a terrible place to eat, McCain.” But before I could say anything, he said, “It's too hot to keep the door open. Get in and sit down. And if you're with weapon, please put it in my glove compartment.”

With weapon. Despite the situation I liked that.

“No weapon.”

“Good.”

I sat.

He resembled the actor Robert Montgomery. Intelligent, slightly slick manliness. Gray-streaked hair combed straight back; the blue gaze probably not as strong as he would have liked. Still looked good in the somewhat worn three-piece suit.

Now that I could see him close-up the fine features and baritone voice were all that was left of a man who had, most likely, seen better days. The right arm was dead, just hung there. And as I watched him he convulsed almost imperceptibly. Even so, in snapshot he looked like all the upscale private investigators on the covers of the used mystery pulps I used to buy for three cents apiece.

“Stroke.”

“I'm sorry. And I'd be even sorrier if you weren't pointing that at me.”

“My apologies. I never liked it when somebody pointed a gun at me, either.” He set the gun on his lap.

Then we just sat and looked at each other for a minute.

“We're doing the same thing, McCain.”

“Yeah, and what would that be?” But I had a pretty good idea.

“You haven't figured it out by now?”

“You're a private investigator.”

“That's right.”

And then—the air of dash, the sleek patter, the stroke—I recognized who he really was.

“You're Gordon Niven.”

“At your service. And in case you're wondering how I can still get work, I do it all by phone and mail. I sound pretty sturdy on the phone. They call me and tell me their problem and I agree to help them on my own terms. Not everyone agrees but at least thirty or forty percent do.”

In Des Moines there was this legendary investigator named Gordon Niven. He'd been a bona fide spy in the big war and the highest-priced private investigator in Chicago for the fifteen years following it. Then he fell in love with the wife of a prominent radio host. She
left her carousing and abusive husband on the condition that they settle in Des Moines, her hometown. His work crisscrossed the state. He broke up counterfeiting rings, drug rings, seditionist rings and did every other kind of investigative work as well. He built and lived on a giant sprawl of an estate and never quite quit courting his new wife. I'd read his interviews in the paper. Despite his usually polished demeanor he still got downright corny about her. But I thought I'd heard a rumor that they'd split up.

“You mind if I ask why you're following me?”

“I need some help.” He clapped his dead arm. “There's this and there's the fact that you may be the man who'll help me finish up what I'm doing here and get back home. My wife and I have reconciled. I miss her. And frankly, I'm tired.”

“Maybe I could be of more help if you told me what's going on.”

“That would violate the private-eye code.”

“What private-eye code?”

“Haven't you ever read your Raymond Chandler?”

“Of course.”

“Well, Marlowe adheres to a strict moral code. In fact Marlowe is why I got into this business after the war. Spying's a very dirty game. I had to kill two people and let someone I liked be tortured to death. No moral code in spying. The opposite, if anything. Then I happened to read
Farewell, My Lovely
and as ridiculous as it sounds I realized that that was a field where I could make my own moral code and not be forced to violate it.”

Here I was sitting with a living legend who was telling me that he partially became a living legend because of Philip Marlowe.

“So when do I get to know what's going on?”

With his good hand he waved me off. “Go somewhere interesting, will you, McCain? So far this has been pretty boring.” The grin made it clear he was kidding me.

“I'll do what I can for you, your Lord and Majesty.”

“You have to admit, you're at least a little bit pleased to be working with me.”

I sure as hell wasn't going to give him the satisfaction of agreeing with him.

“Take care of yourself, McCain. I'm relying on you.”

I got out of the car and started walking to the rear of it when I looked through the backseat window and saw three manila file folders spread across it. The folders didn't interest me but the black-and-white photograph of the woman lying on one of them did.

Her image stayed with me all the way back to my car.

What the hell was Gordon Niven doing with a photo of Steve Donovan's wife Valerie?

“Our numbers have increased in Vietnam because the aggression of others has increased in Vietnam. There is not, and there will not be, a mindless escalation.”

—Lyndon B. Johnson

J
AMIE WAS JUST TELLING ME THAT
C
HIEF
F
OSTER HAD CALLED
wanting to talk to me when Foster himself walked through the doorway and said, “I was headed to the courthouse but when I saw your car I thought I'd stop in.”

In order to see my car Foster would have to pull into an alley and check the space allotted for three cars. Not quite as casual as he made it sound.

“Think I could get a few minutes of your time?”

“Sure.”

He glanced at the back of Jamie's head. “Kind of stuffy in here. How about we go sit on the steps.”

“Who wants to be in air conditioning when you can soak in the ninety-degree temperature?”

“I couldn't have said it better myself.”

I went down the hall and dragged a couple of Pepsis out of the vending machine and then followed him out the door. Nothing more comfortable than concrete steps.

“You want to go first, Sam?”

“Oh, the working together thing.”

“You have the edge. You know this town a lot better than I do.”

“Well, one thing I've found out is that I think Lon Anders and Steve Donovan may have had a falling-out over business.”

“And why would you think that?”

“I talked to Donovan's old business partner. He said that Anders wanted the business all to himself. That being the case, maybe Anders killed Donovan.”

Two kids with Dracula T-shirts came strolling down the alley toward us. I'd seen them many times before. They liked to sit on a nearby deserted loading platform and smoke cigarettes. Foster's black hard-ass Mercury with its whip antenna said police. The kids glared at us as they passed by. They had squatters' rights on the loading platform. This was summer vacation. Kids were supposed to do what they wanted with no adult interference.

“Guess I'd need some more evidence than that. The way Anders tells it, Carmichael almost ruined the company.”

“Then there's a guy named Teddy Byrnes.”