The Bamboo Blonde (24 page)

She decided. With even the faintest possibility offered of seeing Con, she would risk it. Without words, she climbed in beside him. The car continued east toward Seal Beach. It had been ridiculous to suspect Chang; he was driving their own car; Con must have had another set of keys to give him.

She asked no questions. But night was closing in rapidly. When he drew off the road at a lonely, fog-ridden curve, her jumpiness impelled speech. "What's the matter?"

He didn't look at her. "I wonder, Mrs. Satterlee, would you mind being blindfolded the rest of the way?"

She drew away. "I most certainly would," she stated.

He said, "Con don't want anyone to knew where he's hiding out at. He told me to ask you."

She had her hand on the door catch. She knew how it had to be wrestled with but she hoped she could bluff him; certainly he couldn't remember all the vagaries of the chassis. She said, "I don't believe a word of it. Con wouldn't ask me to go in for such hocus-pocus."

His face had expression enough now. His jaw was set. He declared, "Con said to bring you to him and not let you know the way." He took her arms, pulled them behind her.

She heard the clink of steel before she realized that the sound meant the fastening of handcuffs. She opened her mouth for a futile scream. There were no cars in sight; those that would pass would speed up, not hesitate, at screaming; only the thousand-to-one chance that a radio patrol would be cruising near would bring help. While she hesitated, he was grousing, "When Con says something to me it's orders." She did let out a faint sound as the sleep mask covered her eyes. The car had started again with Chang muttering furiously, "It's orders, that's what it is." They were going at rapid speed; they curved and turned and curved again. When they stopped she would run for it; she wouldn't let herself be delivered helpless into Albert George's hands. At least she would try to save herself.

But the car didn't stop in the open. She sensed the move under cover, probably a garage, and she heard the doors clang behind them before he cut the motor.

He told her, "Slide out, Mrs. Satterlee, and up this way." His voice wasn't obsequious now.

With her feet on the floor, she balked. "I'm not going any further. Let me out of here."

He made no pretense of courtesy. "Mrs. Satterlee, you're walking up them steps if I have to drag you. Now get going."

He propelled her, up, up, up. She was more angry than frightened, feeling her way step by step, his heavy breathing beside her. He opened a door and she saw light under the mask. "Sit there," he said.

Her head was swirling as his footsteps receded. She sat there, feeling the overstuffed chair under her; sat there trembling now, waiting for door sounds, for more footsteps, for that voice.

CHAPTER 8

THE voice wasn't stone; it was almost gurgling. "Why don't you take off those fool things?"

A hand lifted the mask, Con's hand, Con standing there, laughing down at her. Con. Fury shook her. Con having the nerve after all this to leave her handcuffed while he draped himself over the opposite chair and began eating one of her steak sandwiches. She had no words.

He said, "All you have to do is press that little jigger by the wrist and off they come. They're Junior G-man's. Bought them for a dime at Woolworth's."

She felt the scarcely hidden clasp with her thumb. In unbroken silence she dropped them indignantly. They clinked.

"Hungry? How about a sandwich?" He held out her own sack.

She was starving but not nearly enough to accept her food from him.

"No?" He unwrapped the other one. "They're pretty good."

She encased her words in ice as she uttered them. "Will you kindly tell me the meaning of this childish mumbo-jumbo?"

"Didn't Chang explain?"

She hadn't heard him come in. "I tried to, Con, honest, but she wasn't buying any. I'm afraid I lost my temper, Mrs. Satterlee, but when Con gives orders, they're my orders."

Con said, "That's all right, Chang. Keep an eye on the street, will you?"

He nodded. "Sure, Con." He went out.

Con asked, "Smoke?" He held out his usual disreputable package. She refused,

"Who slugged you?"

She touched her cheek. "I fell—"

"Yeah. I know that one. You charged a doorknob." He scowled. "Did Chang—"

"No, not Chang," she reassured him.

"Kew?"

She laughed out loud. "No."

"Who was it?" He advanced on her.

She said quickly, "It was Major Pembrooke." She hadn't meant to speak but anyone's sudden motion at her, even Con's, had power to startle now. Her nerves were that shaky.

Con said almost with deadly calmness, "I'll take care of Albert George for that."

She cried in sudden terror. "You mustn't! You mustn't! He's dangerous, terribly so. You mustn't do anything to him!"

He set his chin. "He's not as tough as he thinks."

"You mustn't!" she reiterated. She repeated Kew's warning. "He's after you. Con. He will kill you."

"Why did he sock you?"

"Because I wouldn't give him the envelope Walker Travis brought for you."

"My God, didn't you see Chang take that one?" She stared at him. A ruse. Chang picking up the envelope. Sleight-of-hand. And she'd been taken in as she was supposed to be.

"Did you think I was risking that falling into Albert George's hands? Chang
trailed
Walker from the time he left Navy Landing until he passed over that envelope to you."

"Chang is working for you."

"Didn't you ever catch on to that?" Why didn't he put his arms around her instead of sitting over there asking foolish questions? He pretended to love her; she'd married him again because she'd believed he was as crazy about her as she about him. Yet after this tense separation he could
loll
around chewing on a steak sandwich as if it were the most important thing on earth.

She reminded him frigidly, "You forget. You haven't been particularly garrulous about what's trashing all around me."

"That's out now," he cut in. "You didn't stay clear. And I need some help."

"That Dare and Chang can't give?" She spoke with scorn.

"That's right. But why drag her in?" She retorted, "Perhaps because she has the privilege of seeing you without being bound and gagged in the process."

"Now what are you referring to?"

"I haven't seen your pajamas in my closet recently."

He had the grace to look embarrassed. "You weren't supposed to snoop around her place."

"Snoop!" She'd like to Albert George him. "They were in plain sight. Where you usually hang them. Where were you? Under the bed? Or sneaking down the fire escape?"

He didn't like "sneak" any better than she did "snoop." "I used the fire escape, yes. when you barged in unexpectedly. I didn't know it was you."

"I'm certain it was unexpected. I don't see how you dressed so quickly. She hadn't time to do more than wrap a negligee and pretend she was going to the beach."

He was beginning to answer her anger in kind. His eyes were kindling. "You can't talk. You certainly moved your boy friend in fast enough."

"You're making a mistake," she stated.

"Yeah? He goes in before dinner and comes out the next noon. Not to stay. No indeed, just to go pack a bag and come in again. While you're making yourself swell all over town in his Lahdedoosenberg."

He couldn't really believe his insinuations. "You must have efficient spies. I can only tell you they aren't efficient enough. If they were they'd get facts, not suggestion of facts. Kew believes I need protection."

He shut his teeth together. "Does he think I'd be fool enough to leave you unprotected? Chang's been on you since I left." He scowled at her. "He wasn't gone five minutes with that envelope and if I'd known Albert George was in the neighborhood I'd have come for it myself."

"I'm glad you didn't," she said under her breath.

The major might strike her; he wouldn't use such gentle persuasion on Con. She didn't want to think about that. She asked, "What do you want me to do?"

"Get Walker Travis to the cottage tonight-alone."

Her eyes lifted quickly. "That's not as simple as it sounds. Don't you know that he's disappeared?"

"What?" He was so startled that his question was bullet-hard and Chang poked his rolling eyes in at once. Con walked over to her. "He couldn't disappear." He seemed so certain of it she hated to insist.

"He has. Captain Thusby is investigating."

"He couldn't disappear. Chang, get Thusby for me."

"Be right back." He pounced for the garage door.

"Now tell me." Con sank down again.

She told him what she knew. He was up walking the room before she'd finished.

"It couldn't happen. My God, Garth's had him guarded like the crown jewels."

She said, "Garth's in Long Beach." She couldn't bear the sick look over his face. She forgot all fancied rancor, going swiftly to him. "Con, what's happened? What is it?"

He asked harshly, "Where's Pembrooke?"

"He went to San Diego today with Admiral Swales to—" She broke off. "They've found Mannie Martin."

He said, "Mannie was found the night Shelley was murdered." That was where he had been that night, all night. Called to identify a friend. He knew all along that Mannie had been murdered.

He said, "Garth suppressed it to give us more time. A fishing smack found the body, what was left of it. Off San Diego. It wasn't a convenient riptide. Riptides don't return a speed boat to Navy Landing when the pilot's gone overboard. And riptides don't leave bullet holes."

He still didn't move to touch her; without touching him she sat on the floor in front of his chair.

"That letter I had from Mannie—"

She interrupted, "I've read it."

"What did you do with it?"

She didn't meet his eyes. "Kew burned St."

He said after a moment, "It doesn't matter anyway. You know then. Some way or other Mannie caught on that Pembrooke's scheme was a lot of hot air."

"You mean there isn't a plan for a Pan-Pacific network?"

"That was a blind. We know that much. Mannie told Walker Travis that the night before he disappeared. But he didn't spill the whole story. Trivial as it may seem, he didn't have time. He had to get back to the studio for a big movie broadcast. He told Walker he'd meet him at Navy Landing the next evening, Monday, and give him the rest of the dope. Before he went to
The Falcon.
He realized something might happen to him there. But he also told him, as if it were a joke, Walker says, that he, Walker, was already in possession of all the facts.”

He lit two cigarettes, handed one down to her.

"And then, as you know, he didn't meet Walker. He called that he'd make it later after his appointment with the major, not before."

"But he didn't meet the major either."

"No, he didn't. The major's alibi is unbreakable. He sat there at
the
St. Catherine in view of the staff and guests from nine until after one. just as he says." His mouth was hard. "But Mannie might have met one of the major's men."

She breathed, "Oh." Only, "Oh."

He spoke loudly, "Maybe that did happen, I wouldn't know. One thing doesn't fit. Mannie's papers weren't taken from him. They were safe in the waterproof glove compartment of his launch. Garth's had them from the first. Nothing but contract and plans. Nothing incriminating to anyone." He looked at the tip of his cigarette. "We know that Mannie had the real dope on Pembrooke. He wrote that to me. We figure that in one of his last confabs with the major, possibly by mistake, he picked up the wrong notes. That's what the major has been after. If he had Mannie killed, he didn't get what he wanted. That's what we're after. A document that tells what Pembrooke's actual purpose is here."

"But without that—if Lieutenant Travis has the facts—"

"Garth's fishing trip was a blind," he broke in. "He's been shut up on that battleship with Travis since last Wednesday trying to work it out, trying to get Walker to remember. They've gone over Mannie's papers and Walker's notes until they've worn out the script, and they still haven't solved it. Codes and chemicals—everything known to the department-nothing works." He said. "Garth left me to take charge of things on shore."

She stated simply. "That's why we came here."

"That's why." He admitted harshly, "When I had Mannie's letter, I got in touch with Garth. He asked me to take over while he concentrated on Walker. Not that I'm any big shot but he can trust me, and he can't trust many, even those closest to him." He spoke without hope, "We've failed."

She tried to comfort. "You can't be certain it's failure."

"Can't I?" he demanded. "Garth's coming ashore doesn't mean success. Not with the major running loose. And if Walker's gone, it is failure. We'll never know. Pembrooke will go scot-free, free to carry out whatever his plan is."

She cried out, "Well, what did you expect? Letting the lieutenant run around by himself at all hours."

"There's always the Achilles heel," he admitted. He was staring into space. We had it. The human element of Walker Travis. But he simply couldn't function under the supervision Garth wanted. He went all to pieces when it was tried. The job they were doing is worse than any mental third degree, and added to it, to a Navy man, was the element that failure meant clanger to the country. We had to give in on one thing; Walker had to see that woman of his or he couldn't go on. He's been too near a complete breakdown since Mannie's disappearance not to coddle him to some extent. Don't think he wasn't guarded. An X chief and two of his closest Navy pals were always on the tender that brought him in to Navy Landing. The Naval Intelligence and the X picked him up there, without his knowledge. The only time he wasn't under their eye when on shore-was when he was in his own room with his wife. We couldn't do anything about that." He lit a cigarette. "Where the devil is Thusby?"

She said, "Chang will bring him in. Even if he has to slip him a Mickey Finn or a blackjack, he'll bring him in." Ten-cent-store handcuffs! "But you haven't explained why Garth would let Lieutenant Travis run around loose carrying an envelope of dangerous documents if the whole Navy was guarding him. Or why it had to be brought to our cottage."