Ashes To Ashes: Ashton Ford, Psychic Detective (4 page)

Then and only then I tried the telephone
number that Karen Highland had given me just three days earlier.
What I reached was a telephone company recording advising me that
the number was no longer in service.

How I hate chaos.

So I called my drinking buddy, the doctor
who had come over to check out Karen the evening before.

I bullied my way through two "services" to
finally acquire a female voice that sorrowfully informed me that my
friend, the doctor, had died of an apparent heart attack "late last
night."

Someone or something was manipulating my
little corner of reality, I was sure of that.

Or else the system, the social mechanism,
had reached the edge of chaos and was about to engulf me in its
collapse.

I could not buy that.

So I did something that
could get me a few years in Leavenworth. I went back to my TRS-80
and accessed a government mainframe in Washington to invade
confidential files in search of a "Highland" with a promising
profile.

It took me up past the noon hour, and I was
glad it was a weekend, with most of Washington away from the
office, to afford me that kind of time on the access.

But, yeah, I found the "right" Highland.

And a hell of a lot more.

I found my validation. And a new respect for
the mechanism.

Chapter Four: Kingdom
Come

You hear a lot about Bel Air, but few people
ever actually see the place. It is perhaps the most exclusive
residential neighborhood in greater Los Angeles, occupies a walled
area directly across Sunset from UCLA, home to the very rich. Not
that every home in there is an out-and-out mansion, but even the
most modest would be valued into seven figures.

The particular estate I was contemplating
that Saturday afternoon more likely ran into eight figures. The
confines of this minikingdom were set off behind a high stone wall.
The palace, itself, appeared to consist of two stories of stone and
ivy with stately rooflines, occupying probably an acre of its own.
I could spot the roofs of several smaller structures buried in the
trees and I could imagine the rest: luxury pool, maybe a tennis
court or two, several acres of lawn and flowers, lots of exotic
shrubbery.

In a neighborhood of the very rich, the
Highland estate quietly proclaimed its status among the
superrich.

I was impressed.

But I would have been surprised to find less
after my morning foray into confidential government files.

Joseph Highland, at his death, had been one
of the richest men in the world. The full extent of his personal
fortune could only be estimated, even by his own accountants. The
estate had been in probate for more than ten years and still all
the numbers were not in.

The founder of this kingdom seemed to have
had fingers into just about every big pie in the world, and a fist
or two into some of the hottest ones—transportation, motion
pictures, petroleum, commodities of every sort, electronics,
aviation, international banking on a grand scale, stocks and bonds
to dazzle the mind, insurance, on and on; the list seemed
endless.

Apparently he had been a very private man,
almost secretive, running his worldwide business empire from behind
those very walls, seldom venturing physically into the world
beyond—a shadowy figure who never publicly attached his name to his
holdings—that name actually concealed at great lengths beneath
layer upon layer of corporate identities, never appearing on
social registers or listed in connection with the various
philanthropic foundations in which he was heavily involved.

Heavily, yeah—old Joe Highland had given
away more than a billion bucks just during the final ten years of
his life. That much, at least, was documented.

The official record—what I could find of it—
revealed but one marriage and one child, a son—Thomas James
Highland—who seemed to have been as reclusive as his father and who
had, himself, expired within a year of the death of the father.

Karen, it seemed, was Thomas's only child,
Joseph's granddaughter and sole heir to all that mentioned
above.

That understanding had
jarred me, bringing forth a dozen or more fanciful scenarios to
explain the unsettling events of the previous twenty-four hours.
And I was glad that I had not overreacted to that latest event
starring Karen Highland, heiress to an international financial
empire. I would have had a sweet time trying to establish a
"kidnapping" from my beach cottage of a lady who apparently did not
exist in the official system, and an even sweeter time after a
supposed police trail led to this palace in Bel Air.

That kind of money also spells power of a
very special kind—a power that ordinary citizens seldom get a sniff
of—the kind of which you and I, pal, do not wish to run afoul.

Not that I was running scared. It just
seemed logical, to me, that a Karen Highland—any Karen Highland, by
any other name—would enjoy (or suffer) a rather elaborate security
system that could not tolerate aimless wanderings about the
countryside and/or casual overnight flops here and there.

It seemed obvious to me,
in that hindsight, that Bruno Valensa had been Karen's personal
bodyguard, that he'd probably accompanied her everywhere outside
the palace—and I could picture the consternation at home when the
princess failed to arrive at a reasonable time and the bodyguard
turned up dead at the county morgue.

I was considering myself fortunate that
those guys had not marched me into the surf and ordered me to swim
to Catalina with my hands bound behind me.

But there are scenarios and scenarios.

I had to at least see the lady in her
natural habitat and satisfy myself that she was in good hands. Then
I would run, not walk, to the nearest exit and leave the entire
experience happily behind me.

Didn't work out that way.

The guy at the gatehouse gave me no trouble
whatever. I identified myself, told him I was calling on Miss
Highland. He relayed my name by intercom to the house or somewhere
and I was passed right on through with maybe a ten-second delay,
all told.

Which gave me a funny feeling. Had I been
expected to show up here? Who was behind the cadre of bodyguards or
whatever that had invaded my home that morning with such damned
arrogance—waving guns, yet—and what the hell was I walking into
here.

Hey—I've seen the same movies you've seen
about the poor dear heiress dominated and manipulated by greedy
scoundrels trying to do her out of her megabucks. Stuff like that,
fiction or not, sticks in the mind—maybe because we all at least
subconsciously recognize the fact that art imitates life, that
there is some basis in reality for fictional drama.

So I was a bit uneasy,
sure, I don't mind saying so, but that feeling was very quickly
overpowered by another. My initial, outside impression of that
palace could not match the inside reality. My Maserati felt right
at home amid all that splendor as it tooled along the wide, curving
drive toward the house, past seas of flowers and immaculate
flagstone pathways, over tumbling brooks with waterfalls and living
swans, exotic flowering trees dotting acres of rolling lawn—but
that Maserati had always seemed smugly superior to me, as though
she knew I really could not afford her, and frankly I felt a bit
out of place, definitely uncomfortable, perhaps smarting just a bit
from the memory of my protective instincts toward the mistress of
such a joint. In short, the reality of Highlandville put me in my
place, reminding me that, after all, a movie is just a movie, but
life is a bowl of cherries.

I almost turned around and went right back
out, but I resisted the impulse, set my jaw, and sallied on.

Glad I did.

Something was going on there. Twenty or so
cars were parked beyond the portico and a uniformed attendant was
standing ready to receive mine. I told the guy, no, thanks, nobody
drives the Maserati but me, and I took her on through and placed
her carefully beside a Rolls.

A guy in a waiter's uniform looked me over
as I quit the Maserati, apparently deciding that my tennis shorts
and polo shirt qualified me as a guest, in contrast to a service
person, because he gave me a friendly smile as I approached and
directed me toward an area behind the house.

A party was in progress
back there—several couples of the beautiful set lounging beside the
pool in skimpy swimwear and chatting amiably, several others
hoisting drinks at an island bar, two couples playing cards at a
poolside table—all in swimsuits or otherwise scantily clad. The
only guy there wearing long pants and shoes was bare from the waist
up; this one saw me coming and trotted over to intercept me at the
edge of the lawn.

"You're Ford?" he asked casually, with a
smile. Before I could confirm that, he went on to say, "Toby told
me he was sending you on up. Glad you could make it. We all want to
thank you for taking such good care of Karen last night. Kid had us
worried to death."

He stuck out a hand and I shook it
courteously as he kept right on talking without a pause, but I
would have liked to tell him that the guys with the guns had
already conveyed the gratitude of the kingdom. This guy looked
about forty-five or maybe a young fifty, it would be hard to say,
very smooth veneer covering a tough-as-nails personality, kind of
guy you'd expect to see at the head of the table at a board meeting
of some megabuck corporation—all self-assured, a touch superior and
more than a touch condescending behind that facade of chatty
amiability.

"I'm Terry Kalinsky," as
though I should immediately know what that meant. "That's my wife,
Marcia—" He was indicating a tall, blond woman of roughly his own
age, still very pretty and sexy in a one-half-ounce bikini, seated
on the diving board with a cocktail. "—and I'll let you make your
own introductions to the others, we don't stand on formalities
here. Karen should be along in a few minutes, I sent word that you
were here, meanwhile why don't you try the bar and just sort of
mellow in. Uh, you want to try the tennis court later—" He was
noticing my shorts. "—I'm sure you could scare up a partner, maybe
even some mixed doubles. I'd go for that, keep me in
mind."

Kalinsky walked away and left me standing
there with my mouth poised for speech and nary a word uttered. He'd
not even heard the sound of my voice, and the impression was clear
that he felt no loss from that.

I wandered to the bar and was trying to
massage the guy through my mind with a whiskey and soda, also
trying to get the drift of what the hell was going on here in the
very shadow of the recent intrigue.

The "kid" may have had them "worried to
death" last night, but the recovery from that seemed complete—so
on with the games, eh?

Or, I thought, maybe I was overplaying the
thing in my own mind. But then there was Bruno and his missing
corpse, the flying squad at my house, all that damned ruckus—for
what?

And who the hell was Kalinsky?

Maybe I was about to find out. His wife was
approaching, eyes fixed on me in an openly curious stare, swaying
along in the exaggerated movements of a cultured woman who has been
taught to walk properly, even barefoot in a bikini, but with the
motor nerves influenced by too many pulls at the cocktail
shaker.

I smiled and made room for
her at the bar, but she kept on moving, until one bare hip was
nestled against mine. The voice was quietly pleasant, well
modulated despite the same type of motor-nerve interference, just a
touch of humor or maybe tease. "So. And just who are you, my
lovely?"

I did not take it badly. Some people just
come on that way—some people like these, especially. I'd traveled
these crowds before. Not quite this rare, but close enough that I
was not intimidated by Marcia Kalinsky.

I gave her my name and nothing else,
figuring that should suffice since they-all had been so wanting to
thank me for taking care of the kid last night.

But apparently the name meant nothing
whatever to this one, right away placing her outside the circle of
"we all."

"I'm Ashton Ford, Mrs. Kalinsky."

"What is an Ashton Ford—something like a
Model-T?"

I laughed politely. What the hell—why not?
"Not exactly. Nice party." That gave me an excuse to break the
stare-down and glance about at the others.

"It's a rotten party. Same bunch every
Saturday. I'm sick of them." That bare hip was pressing closer in a
reminder that it was there. "I'm ready for a real party,
skinny-dipping in the pool, all that good stuff—you know?"

I knew. And I had to get away from that
inviting hip. Besides which, it appeared that an ample bosom was in
imminent danger of defeating the few threads restraining it, and I
have never really learned to act cool in such an emergency.

But there was a diversion,
of sorts, at the edge of things; another group of guests was
arriving, moving noisily in from the parking area.

Also, and at the same moment, the princess
herself—Karen Highland—presented herself at poolside.

She was stark, staring naked and walking
directly toward me.

About halfway there, she lofted ahead a
greeting in clear, sweet tones. "Ashton! How wonderful!"

By this time she is at my side, the other
side opposite bare hip, clasping my hand warmly and raising it
overhead in some sort of triumphant gesture.

"Look, everyone! This is Ashton! My sex
surrogate! He has kindly consented to give me an orgasm!"

Everyone, it seemed, was just staring at us
rather stupidly. The silence, for a moment there, was
thunderous.