The Case of the Murdered MacKenzie

by Howard Fast

  “You can say that again. Where now?”

  “Oxnard?”

  “Why not? A boat is a good place to hide. He could sail out to one of those uninhabited islands off the Santa Barbara channel and really go to earth.”

  “You think so?”

  “No, but we’re partway there, so why not? You see, Sy, the good folk who have been trying to kill me are now after Mackenzie. It has to play that way. He killed Scott, and now he must disappear. Whatever the game is, he’s played it for a long time. At first he was a stranger, a blank face, but bit by bit he comes into focus. He must have loved Eve Mackenzie; that’s the romantic part of him; but it was a passion that survived her alcoholism, and if you ever dealt with an alcoholic, you know what that means.”

  “I can see what you’re getting at,” Beckman said. “He was her husband. Your wife dies—”

  “Yes, he must have come back on that basis. Consider that he’s been waiting for an opportunity to revenge himself on Feona. He takes it, but where does he go to ground—hotels? No, too dangerous. No friend could be trusted.”

  “Jo Hardin.”

  “I think so. The question is, did Geffner know?”

  “Come on, Masao—that’s his life, his career.”

  “I hope he didn’t know.”

  They drove on to Oxnard, Masuto still trying to think his way out of the maze of the past four days. But the short drive to the Oxnard marina left no time for mental escape, and the white boats, lying so still in the golden sunlight, vitiated any concept of the forces of evil. The marina manager, after he had looked at their credentials, shook his head and said, “Funny, that boat’s been here for months, and no one gave a damn about it. You’re the third one to come asking about it today.”

  “Two other people asking about the Mackenzie boat?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Cops. Officers of any kind?”

  “Nope.”

  “Which boat is it?” Beckman asked.

  “Slip thirty-two.”

  “Which way?”

  “I’ll take you over there,” he said with a snicker. They followed him out onto a long wooden deck to a slip that was numbered 32.

  “I don’t see the boat,” Beckman said.

  “You’re looking the wrong way. Down there.” He pointed into the water, and there beneath them, sitting in twenty feet of water, was a beautiful sloop.

  “Last night,” the marina manager said, “someone opened the cocks. Down she went.”

  “Anyone in there?”

  “No, we sent a diver down. No one in it.” He stepped aside to give them a clear view, and then he said, “There’s the guy looked at it before.”

  He stood at the end of the pier, a tall, broad-shouldered, well-dressed man, blondish hair, steel-rimmed glasses. Both Masuto and Beckman plunged into action, racing down the pier, Beckman, for all his size and weight, a trifle faster than Masuto. When the man at the end of the pier saw them coming, he sprinted across the marina and across the road, dodging the cars like an open-field runner, and then up a slight bluff onto a field of dry, parched grass. Beckman gained on him as he was trying to scramble up the bluff, Beckman taking it by sheer momentum, and then, as he started across the field, Beckman tackled him above the knees, bringing him down with a mighty thud. As Masuto joined them, Beckman had gotten up and the man he tackled had rolled over and was trying to sit up.

  “You big, dumb ape,” the man on the ground said. “You’ve gone and broken my glasses and maybe busted a couple of ribs too.”

  “Who the hell are you calling an ape, mister? Just get the hell up out of there and identify yourself.”

  “Easy, Sy,” Masuto whispered. “I think he’s some kind of cop.”

  “You’re damn right I am,” the tackled man said, handing his identification to Masuto.

  “God save us, he’s a G-man, name of Peter Thatcher. Well, Peter,” he said, handing the wallet back, “why did you run? Having done no wrong, which I trust was the case, why did you run?”

  “Because, Masuto, having been told to avoid a smartass Jap cop under all circumstances, I tried to obey orders.”

  “That’s very praiseworthy, but out here in California, and in other places too, I expect, the language you used is considered insulting and degrading. I would appreciate an apology and some confession of ignorance.”

  “Otherwise,” Beckman said, “well, who is to say how hard you fell when I tackled you. A few more broken ribs can be explained.”

  “Come on, come on,” Thatcher said. “I’ve been knocked over and maybe broke a rib and lost my glasses, so a little anger can be excused. Sure, I’m sorry. We’re on the same side.”

  “Maybe.”

  “You guys just looking for Mackenzie, or do you know where he is?”

  “Why did they tell you to steer clear of me?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Does your bunch ever talk to the C.I.A.?” Beckman wondered.

  “Can you drive?” Masuto asked him.

  “I guess you don’t know where Mackenzie is,” Thatcher said. “If you did, you wouldn’t be down here looking at his boat.”

  “Send an optician’s voucher to our office, and they’ll refund whatever the new glasses cost. Can you drive?”

  “I always keep a spare pair in my car. Part of the burden of wearing glasses. But a word of advice, Masuto. They told me about an Oriental cop and that I should keep an eye peeled for him. Someone else might have opened up on you.”

  “That’s part of the burden of being a Jap—as you put it,” Masuto said. “But tonight I’m going to shed my burden. I’ll be at home, in what I call my meditation room, meditating. It’s a way of getting rid of some of what the world does to you.”

  “Oh, yes. You’re a Zen Buddhist, as I recall.” He offered his hand. “No hard feelings anyway.”

  They shook hands, and Thatcher strode off. Beckman stared at Masuto thoughtfully.

  “Well?”

  “That’s what you’ll be doing tonight, sitting there in your little meditation room, meditating?”

  “Yes.”

  “I thought we were working together tonight. Did I have to talk my wife out of believing that I would be shacked up with some lady of small virtue and large boobs tonight—or was that just an exercise in persuasion?”

  “You’ll watch me.”

  “Yes, of course,” Beckman mumbled. “That’s as reasonable as everything else in this case. Sure. I’ll enjoy watching you. Anyway, I think Thatcher took it all pretty well. I hit him like a ton of bricks.”

  When they were in the car, driving south on the Pacific Coast Highway, Masuto said to Beckman, “Stop at Alice’s Restaurant. I want to use the phone there.”

  At the restaurant, Masuto put through a call to Los Angeles headquarters of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Switched to Personnel, he said, “This is Detective Sergeant Masao Masuto of the Beverly Hills police force. I’m not there now, but here’s my badge number, and I’ll wait while you call them and verify. But make it quick. I’m in a phone booth, calling long distance.” The lady at the other end said she’d take his number and call back. Beckman came in to see what was happening. Then the pay phone rang, and the lady from the Justice Department asked what she could do for Sergeant Masuto.

  “I want to know whether there is a Peter Thatcher here in Los Angeles or in any other part of the service.”

  The computer was quicker than such mundane tasks as personal phone calls. The lady at the other end of the wire assured Masuto that no one named Peter Thatcher worked for the Justice Department, in the Bureau or anywhere else.

  Chapter 24

  Wearing his saffron-colored terry-cloth robe and Japanese thong sandals, Masuto entered the living room, where Beckman sat eating peanuts and poring over an album of the pictures the Masutos had taken in Japan. Somewhat abashed, Masuto explained that the color of the robe had nothing to do with the quality of his meditation. “It’s true the saffron color i
s favored by some orders of Buddhist priests, but it means nothing. It’s a little conceit of mine. Some people who meditate burn incense. I don’t—it makes me feel that I’m choking.”

  “You’re sure about this—this meditation thing?”

  “Well, yes, Sy—as sure as I can be about anything in this curious business. They’ve been here. They were careful, but not careful enough. They moved certain things and replaced them a bit off. Oh, they were here. They know all about me, but of meditation in any real sense, I’m sure they know nothing at all. Such people simply cannot comprehend what meditation is, and they will regard it as some sort of religious devotion that I must perform.”

  “I’m not sure that I know any more than they do.”

  “That’s only because there’s so very little to know. Meditation is a very simple matter, but this is not an age where simple matters are understood. Now, let’s examine the battlefield.” He turned down all the lamps except one. “I haven’t thrown the bolt on the front door, so they will be able to slip-card it. They will come through that little vestibule and into the living room. There, through the living room to the sun porch. I call it my meditation room. Please.” He motioned to Beckman to follow him, and then opened the glass doors to the sun porch. “We’ll leave these wide open so that from the front door they will be able to see me sitting here and meditating.”

  For all the years he had known Masuto and worked with him, Beckman had never seen this small room before. It was about eight feet deep and ten feet wide, a porch with windows, built onto the back of the Culver City bungalow. Masuto had put grass blinds over the windows, grass-colored paper on the walls, and yellow vinyl on the floor. The room was completely bare, unfurnished except for a black mat and a black pillow.

  Beckman shook his head. “Mostly I go along with you, Masao. But this—well, I just don’t know why.”

  “Let me try to explain the way I see it—no, feel it is better, because I have only a sense of what may happen. Remember, nothing may happen: We may wait all night—and then nothing. But if they come—”

  “Who?”

  “You keep asking me, Sy. I don’t know. Tonight we may find out, and I have to find out. I can’t live like this. I find fear deplorable, and I have been constantly afraid. I don’t enjoy being afraid.”

  “All right. You dropped the word with Thatcher—”

  “Maybe. We look at it differently. From our point of view, they are watching the house. This is terribly important to them. Think of what ends they have gone to, removing the body, hiring Albert Dexel, and Thatcher—and who knows how many others. Apparently, money is no object.”

  “Damn it, who are they and what do they want?”

  “This we find out tonight. Now, come with me.” He led Beckman into Ana’s bedroom, all pink and white. “You leave here by the front door, Sy, circle about ten blocks, and come in on the street behind us. The couple in that house—” he pointed through the window “—both work the night shift down at the airport. Go to the end of their driveway, and there’s my hedge. Work your way through it and you’re right there in the backyard. Your eyes will be used to the dark. I’ll kill the light in this room, but you’ll see me here. The window will be open, and you’ll crawl through. We’ll just hope that no one sees you, but they must be convinced that I am alone in the house.”

  Beckman sighed and nodded and left the house by the front door. Exactly seven minutes later, Masuto helped him crawl through Ana’s window.

  “You’re right,” he admitted. “They’re in a car down the street.”

  “Yes, I imagined so. Now, over here, this French door leads from Ana’s room onto the sun porch. I always keep it closed and the grass shade drawn, but as you can see, with the lights out here and the lamp on on the sun porch, you have a good view of the whole porch. I don’t mind the children watching me meditate. I hope they’re inclined to imitate me, but mostly I meditate before they awaken or after they sleep.”

  “I still don’t understand why the meditation.”

  “All right, let me try to explain. They know I have a reputation for karate, but I don’t want a contest. I don’t want them coming in with guns. I sit in the lotus position, and a simple inquiry will tell them that in such a position, I am immobilized. I cannot leap to my feet. I am more or less defenseless. I want it that way. Even if they come to kill me, I want them to feel free to talk.”

  “That’s great. Even if they come to kill you. That’s great. That’s absolutely brilliant. I hate to say this, Masao, but you sound like the number one shmuck of southern California.”

  “I suppose so.”

  “There’s got to be another way to do this.”

  “No.” His voice hardened. “We’ll do it this way.”

  “What is with you? Can’t I make a suggestion?”

  “I’m putting my life in your hands,” Masuto said. “We’re too long good friends for you to get angry now. If at a point they try to kill me—well, it’s up to you.”

  “Great. I need that.”

  “I trust you, Sy.”

  “Sure, I can see myself explaining to Kati why you’re dead. Explaining it to Wainwright, thank God, will not be necessary. I’ll be fired first.”

  “We’ll both stay alive. And, Sy—”

  “Yeah?”

  “Don’t interfere. Don’t stop it. Don’t breathe—unless it means my life or someone else’s life. You can hear everything through this door. So take your position, and then we wait.”

  Sitting on a chair in the darkness behind the French door, Beckman watched Masuto remove his shoes and then compose himself in the lotus position on the small round cushion which he had placed on the black mat. He placed his hands together on his lap, one on top of the other, thumbs touching. His lids drooped as he stared at the floor in front of him and he became motionless, with only the rise and fall of his breath to say that there was life in the saffron-robed figure. It had been a long and difficult day, and in Ana’s dark room, Beckman struggled to remain awake. He had drawn a chair up to the door, and he sat there, his big forty-five caliber automatic pistol in his hand, staring at the motionless figure of Masuto.

  They must have decided to wait half an hour after Beckman had pretended to leave. The little house was hardly soundproof, and the noise of the door opening brought Beckman back from his half-doze, awake now and intent.

  The man who entered the house and walked across the living room to face Masuto was about five feet nine inches, a tight body, a lined, severe face, intelligent blue eyes, and thin sandy hair. He was about forty-five years old. As Masuto looked up at him, he held out a hand, palm down, and said, “No, please don’t rise Mr. Masuto. I prefer you in this position, and I have heard too much about the lethal power of your hands to want them on my level. Indeed, if you insist on rising, I will have to draw my gun, and I much prefer a conversation that is not at the point of a pistol.”

  “I have no intention of rising,” Masuto assured him. “It is you who interrupt my meditation.”

  “For which I apologize.” His English was excellent, but with a slight accent which Masuto guessed was Russian. “Let me introduce myself. My name is Alexander Brekov, and I am legal counsel to our ambassador in Washington. But that is simply a mutually understood subterfuge. I am actually a part of the K.G.B., and I tell you this without hesitation because it is well known to your F.B.I. and also to your C.I.A.”

  “Or possibly because you intend to kill me before you leave?” Masuto wondered.

  “You are an interesting adversary, Mr. Masuto. Feona decided that you had to be destroyed. She was foolish, and the foolish die. I decided that you’re a reasonable man. Zen Buddhists are reasonable men. I see no reason why you should be different.”

  “I like to think of myself as a reasonable man. Tell me, Mr. Brekov. Who was Feona Scott?”

  “K.G.B.” He half smiled. “You Americans love those three letters. She was a Russian agent.” He shrugged. “Not the best. Let me explain. The m
an you know as Robert Mackenzie is a Soviet agent whose real name is Andre Rostikoff. Years of effort—very expensive effort—went into his training, from age fourteen. I can’t tell you what it takes to take a Russian and turn him into a Scot—his memory of history and family, his language, his manner, his walk, his reactions—so that he becomes even more Scottish than a man born in Scotland. And do you know how Mr. Mackenzie, né Rostikoff, repaid the Soviet people? By becoming a double agent. We were not sure of this at first, but certain things in his reports aroused our suspicions, and Feona, whose real name was Sonia Dukovsky, was sent to join him and to find out what was going on. This she did. She obtained the proof that he was indeed working with the C.I.A., and that through his efforts, two of our agents were uncovered.”

  “And then, unexpectedly,” Masuto said, “his twin brother appeared.”

  “Yes—I suppose that was obvious to you. His twin brother was one of those who attack us because we do not see civil liberties in the Western manner. He was a poet of sorts, a dissenter, and finally he was given the right to emigrate. Now, how he tracked down his brother out here in California, I don’t know. Possibly there had been some communication; I suspect so. In any case, he showed up at the Mackenzie house at an unfortunate moment, with both Robert and his drunken wife away. I’m sure you know what happened. Feona lost her head and killed him, and then she phoned me, and I sent the man you know as Thatcher over there. His name is Gregory Roboff, and he’s not very smart. By the way, he is sitting in the car across the street, and while he is not bright, he is an excellent shot. Just a remark. He allowed Feona to talk him into that crazy business of putting poor Ivan Rostikoff into the bathtub, because she read it in that drunken woman’s notebook. Well, that is why Robert Mackenzie shot her. He is a sentimentalist. He avenged his brother’s death.” Now Brekov took out a package of Turkish cigarettes. “May I smoke?”

  No one had ever smoked in his meditation room.

  “There is an ashtray in the next room. You may bring it in here if you wish. You say Feona Scott desired me dead. Why? I did her no harm.”