The Lasko Tangent (16 page)

“I can imagine.” I could—but not the way she thought.

She read it. “Mr. Paget, what’s going to happen to Peter?”

“Nothing. But I need to find him. Have you any idea where he is?”

Her voice shrunk. “He wasn’t to tell me,” she hesitated.

“Damn it, Mrs. Martinson, help me out.” I shook my head. “I’m sorry. I know it’s not the same, but I’m involved in this thing too.” Lehman’s unspoken presence thickened my speech. “You’ll help your husband best by telling me everything. Especially that.”

She gave me a candid gaze. I decided that her eyes were very nice. “Mr. Paget, I love Peter very much.”

“I won’t forget that,” I said quietly.

She touched my hand. “All I know is that Peter said he would be somewhere safe. Near Boston.”

It figured.

The Frenchman brought us dinner. She picked at it. I encouraged her, pointing out things that looked good. I asked a few more questions and turned up nothing. She was not a stupid woman, not at all. But she had abdicated responsibility for the world of men. Or, more accurately, had never presumed to have any. She was all victim, hurt and hopeful at once. And I liked her.

We finished dinner. “Do you have a picture of your husband?” I asked.

She fumbled in her purse and produced a wallet-size snapshot. “This is Peter,” she said. The warmth in her voice was crossed with fear, as if Peter might be only the picture.

The picture showed a lean man with sharp features and dark curly hair. He had all the elements of good looks. What stopped me was a sort of spurious winner’s smile. Somehow he reminded me of a guy who would show up for tennis with a graphite racket and a $100 outfit, and flash all the strokes you wish you had. And then leave you wondering why he lost.

“Can I keep it?” I asked. She nodded. I placed it carefully in an inside pocket.

The Frenchman returned, casting a doleful eye on the woman’s picked-over plate. It had a messy, abandoned look, as if someone had begun surgery and then decided to quit. It affronted his sensibilities. I cheered him up by saying that duck
l’orange this fine was tough to come by. She watched the byplay with empty eyes, as if it were no more or less significant than the rest of her day. I flashed on Valerie Lehman, staring in pretty bewilderment at her nice furniture. We passed on dessert. I took her arm and steered her out the door.

The night was a dark cocoon of privacy. We walked across the street to her car. There were no buildings or people near us.

We stood by the car. “You know,” I told her, “I don’t know your name.”

It took her a second to understand. “Oh,” she answered, “it’s Tracy.”

I smiled. “I’m a believer in the importance of names. Tracy Martinson is a fine name.”

She put her hands on my lapels, half-leaning. “Please find Peter for me.”

“I’ll try not to let you down,” I said quietly. She looked up at me as if she knew what I meant. Someone else had let her down. A soft breeze blew her hair against my shoulder. I brushed it away, across her cheek. She shivered and clung to me. But this wasn’t my kind of occasion. Or hers. I waited. She pulled back.

I asked her to wait. I scribbled my hotel, office, and home numbers on a scrap of paper. I pressed it in her hand. “Will you be all right alone?”

She answered slowly. “Yes.” But she wouldn’t, at all.

I was looking at her, thinking that, when the headlights cut across her face. I turned toward the harsh glare and sudden roar of an accelerating car, racing toward us from the once-quiet street, maybe fifty feet away. In the dark it looked like a huge malevolent bug. Tracy screamed in my ear. I froze. The crazy thought bolted through my brain: “Just like Lehman.” Twenty feet. I wrenched out of it, grabbed Tracy, and hurtled sideways onto the hood of her car, feet trailing. The car squealed past as we kept rolling, off the hood and onto the grass on the other side. I held her there, face down in the grass. We heard the growl of the motor as it sped down the choppy road.

I pulled her up, and dragged her by the hand across the road. We got to the restaurant and then she leaned on my shoulder, crying softly. The Frenchman scurried up, alarmed and sympathetic. There had been an accident, I said. He sat Tracy down and steered me to the phone. I reached Duval at the Government House. I was glad of that.

He arrived in two minutes, wondering what he could do. I glanced at Tracy, sitting at the table.

“Can you watch her house?”

He nodded. “Surely. But what of you?”

“I’ll be all right. This was a warning, I think. If they had wanted to kill us, there are better ways, like two bullets in the head. But I’m not quite dangerous enough for killing. I think what they want is for her to shut up, and for me to lay off.”

“This is to do with her husband then.”

“Yes. He’s missing.”

“And you saw nothing?”

“Nothing except the car.”

We talked another moment, while I explained as much as I could. Then we retrieved Tracy. She was still white and dazed.

“It’s all right,” I told her. “The Inspector will guard your house.”

She nodded distractedly and started with Duval through the door. She stopped and turned suddenly, as if she had forgotten something.

“Thank you, Mr. Paget.”

It was a thanks I didn’t rate. I could have left her safe at home. “I’ll try to find your husband,” I promised. But I wondered if I would.

She turned and walked with Duval to his jeep. She got in and gave me a last quiet look. Then they drove away. I watched until I couldn’t see her any more. Then I drove back to the hotel.

Twenty

I parked in front of the hotel and got out. The night was still and a tropic breeze blew in from the ocean. Some other time I’d have put on cut-offs and walked along the water at the edge of the beach, listening to the surf. But not tonight. I headed for the room, feeling stiff and bruised.

I was still shaken and feeling the vague disquiet that goes with being somewhere you hadn’t expected to be. I stopped for a moment at the hotel steps, looking up at the stars.

I heard the rustle of clothes the last second before he hit me. A thick arm flashed. Then the pain tore through my head and buckled my legs. I fell into a sudden dark hole.

I fought through fog to a vicious ache that pounded my head. My stomach churned and my legs were numb, as if disconnected from my nervous system. I lay there regaining consciousness in gauzy chunks.

I was sprawled on my back looking at the stars, and I suddenly knew that I would have been dead if someone had cared. Christopher Paget, the last act on the Amateur Hour. My pockets were turned inside out.

I staggered up and dragged myself up the stairs, falling, then half-crawling, then righting myself to walk the last few steps.

My key was in the door and the room was open and torn up. I edged to the doorway and leaned there. The whole thing was like television, I thought. But it wasn’t, not at all.

I stepped in. No one home. I locked and latched the door and inched woozily around the room. Nothing seemed to be gone. I lay down on the bed.

I fished inside my coat pocket. My wallet was still there. I opened it. No money missing. I slid the words of Lehman’s memo out of its crevice. It hadn’t been touched. They weren’t hunting for a scrap of paper, I thought. It was the chips. They were looking for the goddamned chips.

I had just enough strength left to call Tracy. She answered in a hopeful voice. She was OK, she said. Duval was there. Was there anything new? Nothing at all, I said. Just checking. I wished her good night and hung up.

Something made me think of the words on the scrap of paper. But they kept swimming out of sight. I fell asleep, still clutching the scrap.

I was jolted awake by the savage tropic sun streaming through the windows. My head throbbed. I cleaned up and packed in a fever of delayed anger. I checked out and picked up the parcel of chips. Then I went to town and called on De Jonge.

He looked up from his neat desk with a phlegmatic gaze. “Good morning, Mr. Paget. Are you all right?”

I wanted to dump over his desk, mess up his office and chuck Bernhard and Juliana out the window. But I didn’t do any of those things. I didn’t sit either.

“Good morning, Inspector. I’ve come to report a case of white flight. One of your businessmen is missing. Your economy is threatened. And I’ve got a headache.”

He sat up in his chair. “What is this all about?”

I started with the attack and break-in, while I gathered my thoughts on how to cover Tracy. I assured him I wasn’t hurt any more than anyone who’d been beaned with a brick. No, I didn’t know who did it, although I wondered what Kendrick did for fun. No money lost to speak of, and no valuables. I left out the chips I had stolen.

De Jonge was apologizing and looking embarrassed. There was nothing in that for me, so I moved on to Tracy, leaving out what she had told me.

“Mrs. Martinson couldn’t help,” I summarized. “But I think he’s disappeared—because I was visiting.”

He flushed. “I told no one.”

“I believe you, Inspector.” I did, provisionally. “I’m asking you to take this seriously. The woman needs some police protection.”

De Jonge’s face was strained. “Please sit down for a moment.”

I cooled off and sat. De Jonge’s voice became sympathetic. “Whatever you may think, Mr. Paget, we are concerned when someone disappears. The police will ensure that nothing happens to Mrs. Martinson.”

I rose. “All right. Thanks.”

He held up his hand. “Mr. Paget, you are not a patient man. You asked me yesterday to check some records. Would you like to know what I found?”

He was right about me. “Peter Martinson hiding in a filing cabinet?”

He gave his pipe an offended look. “No. But I did learn when Carib Imports was founded. Just this July. Peter Martinson signed the papers.” He eyed me. “I hope that is useful.”

I retracted the irony. “It is, Inspector.”

He stood and stuck out his hand. “I’ll contact you if we discover anything.” He paused. “I’m sorry that we were not more helpful.”

He probably was. I shrugged and took his hand. His eyes turned back to Juliana. I said good-bye and drove to the airstrip.

The airstrip had one building, the naked cinderblock shelter that housed customs and baggage. There was a telephone inside. I used it to call Robinson. His long-distance voice was fuzzy. “How is it down there?”

“Lousy. I got beat up last night. And I can’t find Martinson.”

“Christ. What happened?”

I made my decision. “I struck out. No information. No nothing. Listen, did you find out anything about Green?”

“One thing. Lasko controls a substantial interest in the First Seminole Bank.”

I thought. “We’d better get Green back in, quick.”

“I’ll do that. You all right?”

“I think so.”

“Well, that’s something.”

I thanked him and hung up. It was a long wait and a long trip to Washington. It was night when I got there. The Capitol dome was spotlit against a black sky. St. Maarten seemed very far away.

Twenty-One

I sat alone in my office early next morning, trying to make sense of it all. The thing was: I couldn’t trust anyone. If I showed them Lehman’s memo, Lasko would find out. If they knew I’d stolen the computer chips, Lasko could see where I was headed. And if I said I was tracking Martinson, he might end up dead. If he weren’t already. The one way to be sure was not to talk much—even to Robinson. It wasn’t that I didn’t trust him. But I couldn’t ask him to hide the ball. If he went along, it could be trouble for him. If he let it slip, it could be trouble for me. I fingered my skull gently. It still hurt.

The isolation was oppressive. I was the only one who held the pieces—the sham company, Lehman’s memo, Martinson’s disappearance—even if I couldn’t fit them together. And I couldn’t let the pieces go. It would have helped to level with someone. Preferably someone who nodded when I mentioned murder and leaks in the agency, and cheered when I lied and hid things in my desk. But that wasn’t going to happen. I was wondering about Martinson when Robinson opened the door.

He blinked at the sunlight which came through my window. “How are you, Chris? Hurt any?”

I reached for the blinds. “My head, some.”

“You’re a little white. Seen a doctor?”

“I may do that.”

He nodded, satisfied. “So what happened?”

He got the abridged version, the one without the chips, the memo, or Tracy’s story. I was getting pretty good at it. Robinson sat, listening intently. “And you couldn’t find Martinson?”

“No.”

“Think he’s hiding out with Lehman?”

“Christ, I hope not.”

Robinson shook his head. “I’m not used to this.”

“Who is?”

“What I can’t figure is why Lasko, who’s got serious problems with Justice on this antitrust suit, needs more with us.” Robinson pondered his own question, then switched tacks abruptly. “How much trouble are you in?”

“You mean how many intimations of mortality am I having?” He nodded glumly. “Well, I keep telling myself that killing me is like killing a cop. So I figure that they won’t unless they have to.”