Tinman

by Karen Black

  I thought the logic of Corky’s conclusion was best left unchallenged for the moment. Besides, it seemed such a poignant footnote to memories of Jasmine Jarlemain. I seemed to recall that she had won a prize at the state fair for composing a Minnesota song, accompanying herself on the kantele, or Finnish harp. What other worlds might she have conquered, if pointed in the right direction?

  “Well?” Corky prompted me.

  “Well, it will all come out in the wash,” I said, edgily. Then, checking myself as I glanced at Corky’s face, I softened my tone. “On the way downtown I’ll tell you the tale of Jasmine Jarlemain.

  “Jasmine Jarlemain?”

  “Alias Jazzy Saint James.”

  I went into the bathroom, leaving Corky looking after me with troubled eyes.

  When I came out after a shave and shower, Corky was sitting out on the deck, working today’s L.A. Times crossword puzzle. I looked at my watch, surprised at how late it was. Tinman’s office should be open by now. I got an outside line and called Hennie’s private number. No answer. Next I called the main TINMAN number and asked for Mr. Hennigan. His secretary, whose name I had forgotten, assuming I ever even knew it, said, “Mr. Hennigan’s office, Mary Lou speaking.” Okay, I’ll stick her name in my memory bank.

  “Is Mr. Hennigan in?” I asked without identifying myself, knowing she wouldn’t put me through without that information.

  Instead of asking who was calling, she said, “I’m sorry, Mr. Hennigan isn’t in yet; he had a meeting outside the office. May I take your name and number and give him the message when he arrives?”

  Good girl, I thought, making up a business excuse for your boss being late. I’d actually instructed my secretary to do the same thing…“cover my ass” I think had been my instructions. “I’ll call back later,” I responded and hung up the phone.

  I redialed the main TINMAN number, this time asking the honey-voiced receptionist for Mr. Nathan.

  “Mr. Nathan’s office, Sandra speaking.” Another name I needed to remember.

  “Hi, Sandra,” I tried to sound like an old friend…well depending on your definition of friend, I guess I was. “Is Leonard in? Greg McGregor calling. I think he’s expecting me.”

  She managed to sound professional and friendly at the same time. “Yes, Dr. McGregor, he is. Just a moment.”

  “Greg, where are you?”

  “Leonard, I need to postpone our meeting today until tomorrow if that would work for you.”

  After a slight, almost what I’ve heard referred to as a “pregnant pause,” he responded. “No. We can make that work. Anything wrong?”

  “No, not…wrong. There’s a guy out here I’ve been working with…a customer of my company back in St. Paul and today turns out to be the only day he can meet with me. I sincerely hope this doesn’t screw up your schedule. I wanted to call you as soon as I thought the office would be open.” I’d come up with this cock and bull story earlier, when I decided to postpone and decided I ought to give Leonard some reasonable excuse. I didn’t want to piss him off just for the hell of it.

  “That’ll be fine. Nothing tomorrow I can’t change.” He sounded gracious, I almost felt guilty, but not quite.

  I went out to the deck, took the paper out of Corky’s hand, and before she could protest, I pulled her up into my arms. “We have this afternoon free. You said you liked museums. How would you like to spend the day museum hopping?”

  “Sounds wonderful. Give me ten minutes to change.”

  I tried, unsuccessfully, at three different museum stops, to reach Hennie. The first, around 11, he was in a meeting upstairs. Again, I left no message. The second time, around 1 p.m., he was “out to lunch.” The third time, about 4 p.m., Mary Lou said “Sorry, Mr. Hennigan has left for the day.”

  Returning at the end of an exhausting afternoon, we stopped at a Jack in the Box for a juicy hamburger and sixteen ounce Dr. Pepper for me and a large salad and water for Corky. As soon as we entered our not so classy motel room, we collapsed on the bed.

  CHAPTER XVI

  Los Angeles, Day 5, Friday, TINMAN Meeting

  Corky was dressed in Levis. The short haircut instead of a braided pigtail, a “THINK SNOW” tee-shirt instead of the faded plaid, and sneakers instead of cowboy boots gave her a different look, but she definitely was not dressed-for-success in the business world. She saw the question in my eyes.

  “I’m dying to go with you to peek inside TINMAN, but I don’t see what good tagging along would do. So, why blow my cover? I’m still your secret weapon.” She made one of her “cutesy” faces, and twirled her hand, with her index finger pointing upward, in a circular motion. “You take the high road, and I’ll take the low road.”

  “What do you mean by that?” I asked, taken aback, primarily, if truth be told, by Corky’s independence.

  “While you confront Leo in his high-rise office, I’m going to visit Mrs. Morales in her humble casita.”

  “Mrs. Morales?”

  “That sweet little old Mexican lady you told me about who took care of Charley’s flowers. I called the maid service at the hotel yesterday while I was waiting for you and got her address. She hasn’t been to work this week, doesn’t feel so good.”

  “What do you think you might find out?”

  “¿Quien sabe? As you would put it.” She smirked. “That little old lady has been fussing over Charley for years. She might notice things nobody else would ever think about, and she’ll talk to me. I know the language.”

  “Come here,” I said, pulling her down on my lap. “Kiss me.” She did, warm and sweet, with meaning. “You’re a genius, and I’m a dope. Forgive me.”

  “It’s hard not to be up-tight.” She touched the tip of my nose.

  I squeezed her and pulled her close. Every day I became more certain of my feelings for Corky…deep feelings. What might have initially brought us together as a shared loss, was quickly turning into sometime more…much more, and it was almost scary, particularly so given the speed with which it was moving. I’d often heard the phrase, “opposites attract.” That certainly seemed true in our case, given our vastly different views of the world. But despite a few noticeable clashes, we seemed to be able to work it out. Promising? I certainly hoped so. We’d probably have to perfect the art of compromise.

  “Now please be careful. I even worry about the part of town you’re going to. And remember, the police may be looking for a cute little wetback that was pushing a hamper down the hall just before they found LeeRoy in the apartment with a bump on his head.”

  “You want to know the thing I worry about? I’m going to be so homesick when I walk into Mrs. Morales’s little house.”

  “Here.” I gave her my handkerchief, “in case you need it.”

  “Okay. Andale!” She grinned at my blank look. “It means, hop to it.”

  “You want to know something I’m concerned about?” I asked as we started the drive downtown. “What line do I take with Leonard, and what am I trying to accomplish? I remember Leonard once told me that lawyers have an adage, never ask a witness a question if you don’t already know the answer. So here I am walking in on Leonard, who is one hell of a smart lawyer, with a load of questions, and I don’t know the answers to any of them.”

  “Maybe you better let Leonard do the talking and ask the questions.”

  “Shrewd advice!” I laughed without much mirth, and Corky looked a little hurt. “Oh, no, Honey,” I hastened to add, “I wasn’t scoffing at your advice, I like it. I was laughing at the paradox.”

  “Paradox?”

  “If Leonard asks the questions, can I assume he is following his own advice, and already knows the answers? In which case Leonard’s questions should tell me what he does know. Or is he really asking because he wants the answers, which tells me what he doesn’t know?”

  For several seconds Corky stared at me with a baffled look on her face, then she nodded as she seemed to understand what I had said. “Greg,” she added seriously, “
I got the idea from your account of day before yesterday that you were pretty hostile with Leonard.”

  “Wouldn’t you be?”

  “Maybe. But you might catch more flies with honey. Why don’t you come on like you’re shocked and saddened at Charley’s death, and sorry you were so upset and touchy about Hennie? You’ve been laying low since the attempt on your own life, and you’ve been very suspicious of a connection with Charley’s murder, but in fact you have no hard evidence, and maybe it’s all just what it seems to be…a mad bombing in Saint Paul and a mugging in Denver.”

  I grinned at Corky. “I think your message is that if I won’t heed the old adage about fools rushing in where angels fear to tread, at least I can keep in mind that a soft answer turneth away wrath.”

  “Something like that. Just think about it.”

  We agreed that Corky would take the car, public transportation ranging from minimal to miserable in Los Angeles.

  “Look, I’m kind of new to this spy stuff, or whatever the hell is going on, but let’s put some signals in place. Just in case. Let’s meet at three in the Museum of Contemporary Art on the gallery level. I haven’t been there in years but I think it’s just one flight down from the main entrance; there may be an entrance fee, so just mill around until we see each other. It’s just a few blocks from the TINMAN building.” It was one of the few museums I had intentionally omitted yesterday, and if everything was okay, we could enjoy it this afternoon.

  “If I think I’m being followed or if I suspect some other problem, I’ll leave my necktie properly tied. In that case, you pretend to ignore me and go get the car. If I believe there is no problem, my tie will be loose, and we can tour the museum. If I’ve indicated a problem, after we pass each other, I’ll start walking down Broadway. At three fifteen you pull the car up just a little ahead of me so I can jump in and we can be off before my tail can react.”

  ““I’m impressed. That’s pretty well thought out. Are you sure you’re new at this spy stuff?” She smiled radiantly. I gave her a self-satisfied grin.

  We pulled into a surprisingly rare available parking spot; I jumped out and bought a city street guide at a news stand. We found Mrs. Morales’s street just off Crenshaw, a little south of Olympic, and charted the driving route.

  Corky let me off a block or so from TINMAN. “You still owe me the story of Jasmine whoever,” she called as she drove off.

  *

  “They’re expecting you on the nineteenth floor, Dr. McGregor, and please wear your badge where it can be seen.” The blonde touched a button that opened the private elevator to the executive suite.

  “Thank you for the VIP treatment,” I said, noting she was, in her way, sensational. But I entered the first waiting public elevators instead, just for the hell of it, and to mess a little with their carefully crafted reception plans.

  “Oh, no, Dr. McGregor,” she cried, leaping up and running after me on stilted heels, a veritable symphony of jiggles, but the doors slid shut, and I was on my way. The receptionist on the nineteenth floor, a less ornate type, was a little cross to see me. My reception was arranged at the executive elevator, and it took several minutes to straighten that out and verify my badge with security before I could walk into Leonard’s office.

  Leonard looked somber and tired as he rose to offer his hand, but he essayed a little humor. “If you’ve become a prairie populist, Greg, let me apologize for the VIP reception that backfired.”

  “Not at all, Leonard, my fault, I just grabbed the nearest elevator without even thinking; my mind was apparently elsewhere. Sorry, and let me apologize for being so uptight with you the other day. I hope my last-minute postponement of this meeting until today didn’t cause too many problems.”

  “No, today’s fine. We’re all up tight, Greg. I had no idea that you’d had a very close call with a bombing until we tried to reach you late the other night after the Denver police contacted us about Charley. Do you have any idea who or why?”

  “Well, at first, no, unless it was one of those deranged, random bombers you read about from time to time. Then, when Charley was murdered, I became absolutely paranoid about there being some connection. Now, I’m not so sure. Some nut puts a bomb on your front porch, and a few hours later, nine hundred miles away, a guy you hadn’t seen for a couple of years gets mugged. Where’s the connection?”

  Leonard, who had taken a seat behind his large, elegantly appointed desk, carefully put his fingers together and nodded sagely. “Yes, strange, totally unconnected things can and do happen, but if they happen to happen to us, it is difficult indeed to accept them as pure coincidence. We are all too ready to invoke some deus ex machina, to read it in the stars, or imagine that some sinister cabal is weaving a plot against us. We get paranoid, as you put it. Pure chance is the hardest of all to accept.”

  Leonard seemed quite taken by this concept. He swiveled around to gaze thoughtfully out the broad expanse of window that walled his room. “Pure chance,” he repeated.

  How convenient it would be for TINMAN, I thought, suppressing a cynical smile, if I bought Leonard’s little self-serving homily on the fickle finger of fate. Just bad luck, and that would be the end of it. On the other hand, I thought, suppose I let TINMAN think I bought it. They would have no more to worry about from me, just a friend hanging around until the funeral and then back to the lab. I postured myself for this role by slumping down in my chair, stretching my legs out and staring gloomily at my shoes.

  Leonard pivoted slowly back to face me. “Sorry, Greg,” he said, dripping sympathy, “C’est la vie.”

  “Yeah,” I said morosely, “that’s about it.”

  “Bullshit!” Leonard’s voice cracked like a whip. “You don’t believe that crap, and neither do I, so why don’t we quit kidding each other?”

  I sat up like a shot. “You’ve got my attention, Leonard. What are you proposing?”

  “Straight answers to a couple of questions. Charley was walking across the park to the Denver Public Library when he was killed. It is safe to assume he was not returning an overdue book. Who was he planning to meet there?”

  If I had been wired into a polygraph lie detector, it would have jumped off scale. I had seen Charley’s murder, and he was planning to meet me. It would be a long time before I could handle a direct question on that subject without a blip in the parameters that measure emotional stress. Leonard was a perceptive man. I wondered how much of what the polygraph reads is also written in expressions, voice and body language. We often say we can “tell” when someone is lying, and Mike says I’m not any good at it anyway, so I decided it was no use for me to try.

  “Me,” I said. “He was planning to meet me.”

  Leonard nodded approvingly. “Why?”

  “You tell me.”

  “What makes you think I know?”

  “Obviously Charley’s phone was bugged.”

  Leonard seemed hurt by this idea. “Greg, that is absolutely not so. At least I have no information that Charley’s phones were bugged. But what you’re implying is that you and Charley made plans over the telephone to meet in Denver Sunday. You missed connections because of the bombing, and Charley was intercepted and murdered.” Leonard’s logic was just far enough wide of the mark to raise the interesting possibility that Charley’s phones really weren’t bugged, at least by TINMAN. We made plans over the phone to meet in Los Angeles, then changed to Denver because of the bombing. Or was that splitting hairs?

  Leonard was about to speak when the telephone beeped. He picked it up and said rather flatly, “I told you to hold my calls.” He listened to a brief response, and replied in a somewhat conciliatory tone, “All right, keep me informed. Sorry,” he said, turning back to me, “what makes you think Charley’s phones were bugged?”

  “Isn’t everybody’s?” I laughed mirthlessly. Clearly Leonard didn’t think it was funny either. “The point is,” I continued seriously, “Charley thought his phone was bugged. He wouldn’t tell me anything o
ver the phone. Just said it was urgent that we meet and implied that a lot of money was involved. So, you tell me what Charley might have wanted to talk about?”

  Leonard pushed a button on his desk, and the secretary came in. “Sandra, would you get a copy of our monthly activities report for Dr. McGregor? Any luck?” She shook her head. She was back in a couple of minutes with four or five single-spaced pages stapled together listing TINMAN projects: dams, canals, aqueduct tunnels, vehicular tunnels, power plants, hydro-electric projects, airports, highways, railroads, bridges, quarries, mines, harbors, refineries, pipe lines, nuclear waste repositories…a cross section of the civil engineering infrastructure for the modern world. Each listing gave a brief description of the project, the public or private owners or sponsors, the total cost, the prime contractor, TINMAN’s role in the project, and the current status and estimated date of completion. Nine-digit numbers abounded. A footnote stated that the above listing did not include projects classified for national security reasons. “What about these classified jobs,” I asked.

  He shrugged. “What can I say? They’re classified.”

  “Well, even without them, you’ve got enough going here to make several million people mad at you. But why would any of them pick on Charley and me?”

  “Isn’t it maddening?” Leonard agreed. “Peoples’ needs and desires, even at times their highest aspirations, have gotten the world into this Catch 22 where modern society can’t exist without these things. Well-meaning people go down to public hearings and rant and rave about some dam or highway or mining project, and then they get in their automobiles, representing a couple of tons of mining products, drive home on the six-lane freeway, and get mad all over again if they flip the switch and the light doesn’t go on or the water runs out.” Leonard cast his eyes upward as though seeking divine consolation and started going down through the project summary, commenting on various conflicts and disputes associated with various projects…political controversy, environmental objections, international rivalries, financial problems, structure and design failures, “changed conditions,” lawsuits….