by Brad Latham
He called Manhattan to report to Mr. Gray.
“You find it?” Gray opened the conversation.
“No.”
“What is this thing, Lockwood?”
“I’m not supposed to say. Especially not over the phone. Why don’t you ask Mr. Gordon?”
“I did. He won’t tell me.” Lockwood could almost see the vexation on his chief’s face. In the entire history of Mr. Gray’s time at Transatlantic (which Lockwood and the other claims investigators measured in hundreds of years) Lockwood had never heard of an investigation in which his chief wasn’t allowed to know what was being investigated. Lockwood loved it, but played it straight.
“Well, I’m convinced they had it, Mr. Gray,” Lockwood reported. “And I’m convinced after the search we put the place through today it’s not here.”
“So we got a theft.”
“Definitely. But who or why—that we don’t have.”
“We have a ‘time of the essence’ clause, Lockwood. The penalty is $1000 a day.”
Lockwood sighed. “I know. I know. If you and I okay the payment and it turns out that Dzeloski or Greer or one of these guys is in on it, or some other stockholder…. Hey! Have we investigated Northstar’s financial structure?”
“I’m way ahead of you,” Gray said. “I’ve got Steve working on it. He ought to have something for you. I’ll put him on after we get through.”
Lockwood felt warmer toward Mr. Gray. He might not have a drop of the milk of humanity in him, but he knew his job.
“Great, thanks. But if we okay the claim and we’re wrong, we’re in trouble.”
“And if we don’t approve it and the board sees that they’ve got to pay out $1000 a day in penalties, we’re going to be in more trouble,” Gray said.
Lockwood heard Gray’s swivel chair squeak and the wheeze of a long exhalation of English Oval. “That’s why I put you on this thing, Lockwood. We got till Monday morning at 9:10—ninety-six hours after we were notified—to give Northstar a check for $75,000 or face $1000 a day extra.”
Lockwood squirmed. “We don’t want to pay it and we don’t want not to pay it.”
“Exactly,” Gray said. “Old man Gordon would never have written a policy like this. You young squirts—you think you know so much—you can beat the system, twist it—”
Lockwood cut him off. “This is getting us nowhere. What do you want me to do? There was a ‘product,’ and me and about a hundred guys from the government are sure it was stolen—”
“I want the thing back!” Gray shouted. “We’re paying $75,000 for nothing. If it wasn’t for that ‘time of the essence’ clause, we could stall them for a few months while we found whatever-the-hell this thing is.” Lockwood didn’t feel comfortable with this business strategy, but it was the wrong time to say so. “I’m going to speak to Gordon about this, find out if there’re any more surprises in his personal safe.”
Lockwood smiled and looked at his watch. He still had time to shower before he left for Myra’s. He was sure a lot of this was bluff on Mr. Gray’s part. Gordon. Jr., was no slouch at defending himself from other shareholders and upset directors of Transatlantic, and he wasn’t the type to take any guff from people on his payroll. He hadn’t stayed on top because of his boyish charm and breezy good manners; Lockwood knew that for all his youth, their president knew as much about insurance as any man in the business.
“I’ll keep hunting, and I’ll keep stalling their requests for a check,” Lockwood said. “But don’t be surprised if they put a lot of pressure on Gordon, possibly from Washington, and don’t be surprised at heat from Gordon. You might want to send another couple investigators out here.”
Gray’s voice whipped back across the wire, “You not man enough for this, Lockwood?”
“Mr. Gray, listen. I can’t tell you what was stolen—I’m not allowed to—but both the British and American governments are boiling mad, and our check—for reasons that I don’t understand—is necessary to replace this ‘object.’ Why they don’t just get the government to advance them money is beyond me, but it has something to do with politics and opposition on a congressional committee. From what I gather, the whole point of paying our exorbitant premium was to make sure nothing slowed down production.”
“I’ll give you Steve,” was Mr. Gray’s answer. “You call me tomorrow. And tell me you found it, you hear me, Lockwood? I sent you out there because you were my best. Don’t disappoint me.” Gray clicked off.
Steve had information on half a dozen of the people who worked at Northstar. For the next quarter-hour Lockwood jotted down notes on Myra Rodman, Josef Dzeloski, Stanley Greer, and several of the engineers who worked in Area C. He filled up most of an entire notebook, and as they worked through Steve’s information, Lockwood gave Steve other questions he wanted answers to.
“Thanks, Steve. You’ve done a great job.”
“Not according to Mr. Gray,” Steve answered. “He wants me to tell him from these people’s bios what’s being made out there.”
Lockwood laughed. “What’d you tell him?”
“Given these folks’ background, I’d say they were building a wireless refrigerator that can navigate itself from Times Square to Elephant Breath, Montana.”
They both laughed.
“I hope you didn’t spill this to our chief,” Lockwood said. “That’s an important government secret you’ve discovered.”
“My lips are sealed. Be glad you’re out there—for two days Gray’s been like a bear with the black ass.”
“Better you than me,” Lockwood said. “Look, suppose I call you tomorrow? I got another interview in an hour.”
“At 7:00 at night? This interviewee wear skirts, lipstick, and earrings?”
“My lips are sealed.”
“I hope they stay sealed all night. Call me tomorrow this time. I ought to have more info.”
A half-hour later Lockwood was in his silver Cord on Highway 27, on the way to Myra’s. He felt hopped-up and excited as he thought of her. This could be the night. It was always a good sign when a woman invited you for a meal after you had taken her out.
He stopped and bought the most expensive bottle of red wine the liquor store had, but even though the wine was French, at $2.10, he was sure it couldn’t be much.
The night before, when she had been so difficult, he had played it cool. At one point in the evening he figured he would just deposit her back at her place and not ask her out again. But over the course of the evening she had changed, warmed up, and all day today Lockwood had felt her light body still dancing in his arms, as easy to move around as the lightest of down-filled pillows. And now after all, she had invited him to her place—he would be on the home stretch if he only avoided turning her off with a bad move.
She met him at the door in a robe of bold Mediterranean colors that flowed to the floor and billowed around her.
“You’ve never seen a caftan before?” she asked.
“No, I don’t think so.”
“Don’t just stare, come in. I got several in Paris, at the North African bazaars. Do you like it?”
“I love it. Gives you terrific freedom of movement.”
She twirled, which caused the torso and skirt of the multicolored caftan to flutter around her body.
He admired her small house, and she asked him to light the fire in the grate while she mixed them martinis. After the fire caught, he opened the red wine and put it just off the hearth to warm and air. Myra turned on the phonograph on which sat a stack of records, and a lonely horn warbled and argued with the orchestra.
“The fire’s a good idea,” he said after they sat on the sofa. “These spring nights out here get chilly, don’t they?”
“I find they do.” She smiled, and he wanted to lean over and kiss her lips, glazed with just the lightest touch of red.
She raised her glass. “To your success in finding Baby.”
He drank to that. On the way over he had thought of asking her quest
ions about her background—she had belonged to some socialist groups when she was in Paris whose loyalties worried Steve—but tonight wasn’t the night for such questions. Not for Lockwood. Myra obviously wanted him to feel at ease, and she drew him out about his work and life in Manhattan. He found himself telling her about his job, Mr. Gray, and the sorts of people he would run into when his job was to recover stolen jewelry or bonds.
“You live by yourself in Manhattan?” she asked.
He figured she was asking if he was married. “I live in the Summerfield Hotel on West 47th, near Times Square, by myself.”
“How exciting!” she said. “Isn’t that the street they called ‘Dream Street’ in Life magazine last year?”
“Yep, filled with show biz types, too—and show-business hopefuls.”
“The only big city I’ve ever spent any time in was Paris. At the Sorbonne,” she said.
“Come to town. I’ll show you a good time,” he promised.
“You look the type,” she said in a flirtatious way. “I bet you hang out in Peacock Alley, the Persian Room, and El Morocco.”
“Are you making fun of them?”
Lockwood felt on firmer ground with her now. The fire, the sofa for two, the martinis, the horn music in the background—he had been here scores of times. The questions, the back and forth answers, the thrust and parry—he had played this scores of times too. You didn’t know how it was going to end—in the sack or not—but the game itself was a delight. Lockwood relaxed into it.
“I wasn’t making fun of them,” she said. “New York’s probably very exciting.”
“I think it’s tops. I got to Paris once, too.”
“When?”
“Right after the war. I was just a kid then, and didn’t really appreciate it, but I remember walking around Paris a couple of days goggling over it.”
She served supper after they had finished their cocktails —a couple of tender filets with Bearnaise sauce, twice-cooked potatoes, and squash to which she had done something wonderful with fresh herbs. He poured the wine he had brought, and they ate in a cozy alcove off the living room, lit only by the fire and the light from four candles on the mantle. Record after record played, and Lockwood relaxed more and more. He let the supper and the wine and the candle-lit mood play itself out. He would wait till they were having coffee in the living room before he made a move.
A lot could happen in front of a fire, the two of them bemused by the red wine (it hadn’t been such a bad bottle) and the food, as they glided about the small floor in each other’s arms. Lockwood intended to play it so that every bit of it happened.
Myra matched him glass for glass and they grew merrier throughout the dinner. The light in the dimly lit room gathered around her. The highlights in her light auburn-colored hair shone. The dimple below her mouth deepened, and her eyes sparkled as they talked. Everything he said moved her to laughter, to a smile, a light frown, to some new way of looking at things, and Lockwood felt equally moved by her every word, every gesture, every smile and movement. Supper turned into a flirtatious dance.
Later, before the fire, having finished their coffee and a couple of Lockwood’s Camels, a new record fell onto the changer and the clarinet announced the first few notes of “Willow Wanting.”
“Oh, God, I love this,” she said.
“Let’s dance,” he responded.
She rose and he took her in his arms, and tonight was a thousand times better than last night at Gurney’s. Last night he had enjoyed dancing flamboyantly to show her off and make the crowd watch them. Tonight he surrendered to the soft mood between them, to the mood she had created with the dimly lit evening. Lockwood had played it casually all evening, not rushing things, and now he didn’t increase his speed. He wanted their feelings to rise till both were eager for each other. He wanted to dance with her till their feelings overcame them, and he asked himself where her bedroom was.
Right away he was pretty certain she wasn’t wearing undergarments. Three changes of records later he knew she was wearing nothing underneath the caftan—for he felt no elastic around her waist.
And then Myra wound both her arms, the loose sleeves of the caftan falling back to her shoulders, around his neck. Lockwood put his arms around her thin back and drew her to him. Their bodies danced in harmony as if they were two parts of one creature. Lockwood wouldn’t have been surprised to find them breathing in unison. In the soft light he saw her big serious eyes looked at him in a sad questioning way. He felt she was asking him—and herself—just what she was getting into, for they were very different.
Lockwood saw no way to reassure her except to give her lips the lightest possible kiss. She kissed back just as lightly. They swayed together, and their kisses intensified from gentle to determined. Lockwood’s hands and arms held her more firmly. Myra’s hands pulled his head to hers as they kissed.
He picked her up in his arms and started toward the only door leading out of the living room.
Her long nails glazed his neck and ears as she whispered into his ear, “First door to the right.”
Lockwood put her down on the large double bed, and while he slipped out of his clothes, she pulled down the covers and plumped up the four pillows. When he got into bed, they embraced, and he ran his hands up under her caftan, his hands hungry for the delicious feel of her skin. Then he removed the billowing robe and dropped it over the other side of the bed.
They wound themselves around each other, and still Lockwood held back. It wasn’t that he didn’t want her—he wanted her as much as he had ever wanted any woman—but a night as delicious as this happened rarely. He wasn’t about to devour it in one wolfish gulp. They explored each other’s bodies for a time, and then Myra whispered, “Please now, enter me now,” and gently, gently, gently, he entered her, and ever so gently she and he joined. Lockwood dropped down a black well of relief and delight, letting go all daylight cares.
Gradually their passion mounted, till it was hardly Myra and Lockwood, but universal man and woman, male and female animal coupling in a blind fury of ecstatic passion, till in one bright glowing orgasmic shower of light they burst into brilliance together, and then the dark April night flooded back to them.
They lay in the darkness of the broad bed listening to the Long Island crickets chirping in unison. He stroked her. She shivered and asked him to pull up the covers.
For another two hours they loved each other. It wasn’t till two o’clock that Lockwood got back into his gunmetal-gray Cord for the drive back to Patchogue.
He drove slowly. He felt dreamy and unfocused, and he was glad he didn’t encounter any other cars. It had been as wonderful an evening as he had ever spent; the only bad thing about it had been getting up at this ungodly hour for the drive back, but it certainly wouldn’t do for anyone to see him leaving her place in the morning. Long Island wasn’t Manhattan.
Chapter 7
The next morning while Lockwood was dictating his report to an office secretary, Guy Manners interrupted him.
“Could you give us some privacy for a few minutes, Tracy?” Guy asked the secretary.
When she was gone, Guy turned on the radio.
“You come in here to listen to that corny music?” Lockwood asked.
“I want to talk to you privately,” Manners said. “We’ve found that background noise keeps secret microphones from working.”
“Yeah? What do you want?”
“I want you to approve this claim for the $75,000, Lockwood.”
“Jesus, haven’t we been over this ground enough? You got your job to do. I got mine.”
Manners sighed and sat down in the club chair across from the desk. He looked weary and grim, as if he wasn’t used to making so little progress on a case.
“Part of my job is making sure that no word of either the bombsight’s existence or that it’s missing is discovered.”
Lockwood raised his eyebrows and said, “Both those would make great stories for Life magazine, wou
ldn’t they?”
Manners nodded glumly. “I want you guys to act like insurance people, and us to act like cops. Let Uncle Sam handle this thing, Lockwood. We’re talking about treason.”
“What’s this? You think I’m not American enough?”
“Are you still clinging to the notion that maybe there wasn’t a bombsight, and maybe it wasn’t stolen? If it was stolen, you guys owe Northstar the money.”
“True. I was dictating my report when you came in.”
“What’s it say?”
“It says there was this ‘object,’ and that it did cost $106,000 to make—I’ve been over the shop’s figures with Greer, and I accept them—and that it sure isn’t on the premises.”
Manners brightened. “All right. You’re making some real progress.”
“Yep.”
“So, you guys are going to pay off.”
“Did you know that Myra Rodman, Stanley Greer, and all of the top engineers of Northstar own some of the stock?”
“What? What’s that got to do with anything?” Manners asked.
“One of the constants in common law around insurance claims—and in our policies, for what’s that worth to you—is that a beneficiary cannot receive compensation from committing a crime.”