Bagley, Desmond - Landslide

by Landslide

  "I'm not very sociable with rattlesnakes, either," I observed.

  She slapped me, so I slapped her in return. I'm willing to play along with all this bull about the gentle sex as long as they stay gentle, but once they use violence, then all bets are off. They can't expect it both ways, can they? I didn't slap her hard -- just enough to make her teeth rattle -- but it was unexpected and she stared at me in consternation. In her world she'd been accustomed to slapping men around and they'd taken it like gentlemen, but now one of the poor hypnotized rabbits had stood up and bitten her.

  The elevator door slid open silently. She ran out and pointed down the corridor. "In there, damn you," she said in a choked voice, and hurried in the opposite direction.

  The door opened on to a study lined with books and quiet as a cemetery vault. A lot of good cows had been butchered to provide the bindings on those books and I wondered if they shone with that gentle brown glow because they were well used or because some flunkey brightened them up every day the same time he polished his master's shoes. Tall windows reached from floor to ceiling on the opposite wall and before the windows a big desk was placed; it had a green leather top, tooled in gold.

  Behind the desk was a man -- Bull Matterson.

  I knew he was five years older than McDougall but he looked five years younger, a hale man with a bristling but trim military moustache the same colour as newly fractured cast iron, which matched his hair. He was a big man, broad of shoulder and thick in the trunk, and the muscle was still there, not yet gone to fat. I guessed he still took exercise. The only signs of advanced age were the brown liver spots on the backs of his hands and the rather faded look in his blue eyes.

  He waved his hand. "Sit down, Mr. Boyd." The tone of voice was harsh and direct, a tone to be obeyed.

  I looked at the low chair, smiled slightly and remained standing. The old man was up to all the psychological tricks. His head twitched impatiently. "Sit down, Boyd. That is your name, isn't it?"

  "That's my name," I agreed. "And I'd rather stand. I don't anticipate staying long."

  "As you wish," he said distantly. "I've asked you up here for a reason."

  "I hope so," I said.

  A glimmer of a smile broke the iron face. "It was a damn silly thing to say," he agreed. "But don't worry; I'm not senile yet. I want to know what you're doing in Fort Farrell."

  "So does everyone else," I said. "I don't know what business it is of yours, Mr. Matterson."

  "Don't you? A man comes fossicking on my land and you think it's not my business?"

  "Crown land," I corrected.

  He waved the distinction aside irritably. "What are you doing here, Boyd?"

  "Just trying to make a living."

  He regarded me thoughtfully. "You'll get nowhere blackmailing me, young man. Better men than you have tried it and I've broken them."

  I lifted my eyebrows. "Blackmail! I haven't asked anything from you, Mr. Matterson, and I don't intend to. Where does the blackmail come in? You might have your secrets to hide, Matterson, but I'm not in the money market where they're concerned."

  "What's your interest in John Trinavant?" he asked bluntly.

  "Why should you care?"

  He thumped his fist and the solid desk shivered. "Don't fence with me, you young whippersnapper."

  I leaned over the desk. "Who, in God's name, do you think you are? And who do you think I am?" He suddenly sat very still. "I'm not one of the townsfolk of Fort Farrell whom you've whipped into silence. You think I'm going to stand by when you burn out an old man's home? "

  His face purpled. "Are you accusing me of arson, young man?"

  "Let's amend it to attempted arson," I said. "It didn't work."

  He leaned back. "Whose house am I supposed to have attempted to burn?"

  "Not content with firing McDougall just because you thought he was making friends with the wrong people, you ---- "

  He held up his hand. "When was this so-called arson attempt made?"

  "Last night."

  He flicked a switch. "Send my daughter to me," he said brusquely to a hidden microphone. "Mr. Boyd, I assure you that I don't burn down houses. If I did, they'd get burned to the ground; there wouldn't be any half-assed attempts. Now, then: let us get back to the subject. What's your interest in John Trinavant?"

  I said, "Maybe I'm interested in the background of the woman I'm going to marry." I said it on the spur of the moment, but on second thoughts it didn't seem a half bad idea.

  He snorted. "Oh -- a fortune-hunter."

  I grinned at him. "If I were a fortune-hunter I'd set my sights on your daughter," I pointed out. "But it would take a stronger stomach than mine."

  I didn't find out what he would have said to that because just then Lucy Atherton came into the room. Matterson swung round and looked at her. "An attempt was made to burn out McDougall's place last night," he said. "Who did it?"

  "How should I know?" she said petulantly.

  "Don't lie to me, Lucy," he said gratingly. "You've never been good at it."

  She cast a look of dislike at me and shrugged. "I tell you I don't know."

  "So you don't know," said Matterson. "All right: who gave the order -- you or Howard? And don't worry about Boyd being here. You tell me the truth, d'you hear?"

  "All right, I did," she burst out. "I thought it was a good idea at the time. I knew you wanted Boyd out of here."

  Matterson looked at her incredulously. "And you thought you'd get him out by burning old Mac's cabin? I've fathered an imbecile. Of all the stupid things I ever heard!" He swung out his arm and pointed at me. 'Take a look at this man. He's taken on the job of bucking the Matterson Corporation and already he's been running rings round Howard. Do you think that the burning of a cabin is going to make him just go away? "

  She took a deep breath. "Father, this man hit me."

  I grinned. "Not before she hit me."

  Matter son ignored me. "You're not too old for me to give you a good lathering, Lucy. Maybe I should have done it sooner. Now get the hell out of here." He waited until she reached the door. "And remember -- no more tricks. Ill do this my way."

  The door slammed.

  I said, "Your way is legal, of course."

  He stared at me with suffused eyes. "Everything I do is legal." He simmered down and took a cheque-book from a drawer. "I'm sorry about McDougall's cabin -- that's not my style. What's the damage?"

  I reflected that I was the one who had lectured Clare on sentimentality. Besides, it was Mac's dough, anyway. I said, "A thousand bucks should cover it," and added, "There's also the question of a wrecked Land-Rover that belongs to me."

  He looked up at me under grey eyebrows. "Don't try to shake me down," he said acidly "What story is this?"

  I told him what had happened on the Kinoxi road. "Howard told Waystrand to bounce me, and Waystrand did it the hard way," I said.

  "I seem to have fathered a family of mugs," he muttered and scribbled out the cheque, which he tossed across the desk. It was for $3,000.

  I said, "You've given your daughter a warning; what about doing the same for Howard? Any more tricks on his part and hell lose his beauty -- I'll see to that."

  Matterson looked at me appraisingly. "You could take him at that -- it wouldn't be too hard." There was contempt in his voice for his own son, and for a moment I was on the verge of feeling sorry for him. He picked up the telephone. "Get me Howard's office at the Matterson Building."

  He put his hand over the mouthpiece. "I'm not doing this for Howard's sake, Boyd. I'm going to get rid of you, but when I do it'll be legal and there'll be no kickback."

  A squawk came from the telephone. "Howard? Now get this. Leave Boyd alone. Don't do a damn' thing -- I'll handle it. Sure, he'll go up to the dam -- he's legally entitled to walk on that land -- but what the hell can he do when he gets there? Just leave him alone, d'you hear? And, say, did you have anything to do with that business at McDougall's cabin last night. You don't know -- well, ask
your fool sister."

  He slammed down the telephone and glared at me. "Does that satisfy you?"

  "Sure," I said. "I'm not looking for trouble."

  "You'll get it," he promised. "Unless you leave Fort Farrell. With your record it wouldn't be too much trouble to get you tossed in the can."

  I leaned over the desk. "What record, Mr. Matterson?" I asked softly.

  "I know who you are," he said in a voice like gravel. "Your new face doesn't fool me any, Grant. You have a police record as long as my arm -- delinquency, theft, drug-peddling, assault -- and if you step out of line just once while you're in Fort Farrell you'll be put away fast. Don't stir anything up here. Grant. Just leave things alone and you'll be safe."

  I took a deep breath. "You lay it on the line, don't you?"

  "That's always been my policy -- and I warn a man only once," he said uncompromisingly.

  "So you've bought Sergeant Gibbons."

  "Don't be a fool," said Matterson. "I don't have to buy policemen -- they're on my side anyway. Gibbons will go by the book and you are recorded on the wrong page."

  I wondered how he knew I had been Grant, and then suddenly I knew who had employed a private investigator to check on me. But he wouldn't have done that unless he had been worried about something; he was still hiding something and that gave me the confidence to say, "To hell with you, Matterson. Ill go my own way."

  "Then I feel sorry for you," he said grimly. "Look, boy: stay out of this. Don't trouble yourself with things that don't concern you." There was a strange tone in his voice; with any other man one might have thought he was pleading.

  I said, "How do I get back to Fort Farrell? Your daughter brought me up here, but I doubt if she'll be willing to take me back."

  Matterson chuckled coldly. "The exercise will do you good. It's only five miles."

  I shrugged and walked out on him. I went down the stairs instead of taking the elevator and found the great hall deserted. Going outside the house was like being released from prison and I stood on the front step savouring the fresh air. There were too many tensions in the Matterson household for a man to be comfortable.

  Lucy Atherton's Continental was still standing where she had left it, and I saw that the key was still in the ignition lock. I climbed in and drove back to Fort Farrell. The exercise would be even better for her.

  Chapter 5

  I parked the Continental outside the Matterson Building, cashed the cheque in the Matterson Bank and walked across to pick up the Land-Rover. Clarry Summerskill said, "I've fixed the pump, Mr. Boyd, but that'll be another fifteen dollars. Look, it'll pay you better to get a new heap -- this one is about shot. I've got a jeep just come in which should suit you. I'll take the Land-Rover as a trade-in."

  I grinned. "How much will you give me on it?"

  "Mr. Boyd, you've ruined it," he said earnestly. "All I want it for now are the spare parts, but I'll still give you a good price."

  So we dickered and I ended up by driving back to Mac's cabin in a jeep. Clare and Mac had just about finished cleaning up, although the stink of kerosene still lay heavily on the air inside. I gave Mac a thousand dollars in folding money and he looked at it in surprise. "What's this?"

  "Conscience money," I said, and told him what had happened.

  He nodded. "Old Bull is a ruthless bastard," he said. "But he's never been caught in anything illegal. To tell you the truth, I was a mite surprised at what happened last night."

  Clare said thoughtfully, "I wonder how he knew you were Grant."

  "He hired a detective to find out -- but that's not the point. What I want to know is why he thought it necessary to check up on me so many years ago. Another thing that puzzles me is the old man's character."

  "What do you mean?"

  I said, "Look at it this way He strikes me as being an

  honest man. He may be as ruthless as Genghis Khan and as tough as hickory, but I think he's straight. Everything he said gave that impression. Now, what could a man like that be hiding?"

  "He did bring up the question of blackmail," said Clare tentatively. "So you want to know what he could be blackmailed for."

  I said, "What's your impression of him, Mac?"

  "Pretty much the same. I said he'd never been caught in anything illegal and he never has. You get talk around town that a man couldn't make the dough that he has by legal means, but that's only the talk of a lot of envious failures. Could be that he is straight."

  "So what could he have done that makes him talk of blackmail?"

  "I've been giving thought to that," said Mac. "You'd better sit down, son, because what I've got to tell you might knock you on your back. Clare, put the kettle on; it's about time we had tea, anyway."

  Clare smiled and filled the kettle. Mac waited until she came back. "This has something to do with you, too," he said. "Now I want you both to listen carefully, because this is complicated."

  He seemed to hunt a little, searching for a place to begin, then he said, "Folks are more different now than they used to be, especially young folks. Time was then you could tell a rich man from a poor man by the way he dressed, but not any more. And that goes in spades for teenagers and college students.

  "Now, in that Cadillac which crashed there were four people -- John Trinavant, his wife and two young fellows -- Frank Trinavant and Robert Boyd Grant, both college students. Frank was the son of a rich man and Robert was a bum -- to say the best of him. But you couldn't tell the difference by the way they dressed. You know college kids: they dress in a kind of uniform. Both these boys were dressed in jeans and open-necked shirts and they'd taken off their jackets."

  I said slowly, "What the hell are you getting at, Mac?"

  "Okay, I'll come right out with it," he said. "How do you know you are Robert Boyd Grant?"

  I opened my mouth to tell him -- then shut it again.

  He smiled sardonically. "Just because somebody told you, but not out of your own knowledge."

  Clare said incredulously, "You think he might be Frank Trinavant?"

  "He might," said Mac. "Look, I've never gone for all this psychiatric crap. Frank was a good boy -- and so are you, Bob. I checked on Grant and decided I'd never come across a bigger sonofabitch in my life. It's never made sense to me that you should be Grant. Your psychiatrist, Susskind, explained it all away cleverly by this multiple personality stuff, but I don't give a good goddam for that. I think you're plain Frank Trinavant -- still the same guy but you happen to have lost your memory."

  I sat there stunned. After a while my brain got working again in a cranky sort of fashion, and I said, "Steady on, Mac. Susskind couldn't have made that kind of error."

  "Why couldn't he?" Mac demanded. "Remember, he was told you were Grant. You've got to realize the way it was. Matterson made the identification of the bodies, he tagged the three dead people as Trinavants. Naturally there was no room for error in the case of John Trinavant and his wife, but the dead boy he named as Frank Trinavant." He snorted. "I've seen Highway Patrol photographs of that body and how in hell he was sure I'll never know."

  "Su rely there must have been some means of identification," said Clare.

  Mac looked at her soberly. "I don't know if you've seen a really bad auto smash -- one followed by a gasoline fire. Bob, here, was burnt beyond recognition -- and he lived. The other boy was burnt and killed. The shoes were ripped from their feet and neither of them was wearing a wrist-watch when they were found. The shirts had been pretty near burnt off their backs and they wore identical jeans. They were both husky guys, much about the same size."

  "This is ridiculous," I said. "How come I knew so much about geology unless I'd been taking a course like Grant?"

  Mac nodded. "True." He leaned forward and tapped me on the knee. "But so was Frank Trinavant. He was majoring in geology too."

  "For God's sake!" I said explosively. "You'll have me believing in this crazy story. So they were both majoring in geology. Did they know each other?"

&n
bsp; "I shouldn't think so," said Mac. "Grant went to the University of British Columbia; Trinavant to the University of Alberta. Tell me, Bob, before I go any further: is there anything in all that you know of that would blow this idea to hell? Can you find any sound proof to show that you are Grant and not Frank Trinavant?"

  I thought about it until it hurt. Ever since Susskind took me in hand I knew I was Grant -- but only because I was told so. To make a mean pun, I had taken it for granted. Now it came as a shock to find the matter in question. Yet try as I would, I couldn't think of any real proof to settle it one way or the other.

  I shook my head. "No proof from where I'm standing."

  Mac said gently, "This leads to an odd situation. If you are Frank Trinavant, then you inherit old John's estate which puts Bull Matterson in a hell of a jam. The whole question of the estate goes into the melting-pot again. Maybe he'd still be able to enforce that option agreement in the courts, but the trust fund would revert to you and the financial flapdoodle he's been pulling would come into the open."

  My jaw dropped. "Wait a minute, Mac. Let's not take this thing too far."

  "I'm just pointing out the logical consequences," he said. "If you are Frank Trinavant -- and can prove it -- you're a pretty rich guy. But you'll be taking the dough from Matter-son, and he won't like it. And that's apart from the fact that he'll be branded as a crook and will be lucky to escape jail."

  Clare said, "No wonder he doesn't want you around."

  I rubbed my chin. "Mac, you say it all boils down to Matterson's identification of the bodies. Do you think he did it deliberately or was it a mistake? Or was there a mistake at all? I could still be Grant, for all I know and can prove."

  "I think he wanted the Trinavants dead," said Mac flatly. "I think he took a chance. Remember, the survivor was in a bad way -- you weren't expected to live another twelve hours. If Matterson's chance didn't come off -- if you survived as Frank Trinavant -- men it would have been a mistake on his part, understandable in the circumstances. Hell, maybe he didn't know himself which was which, but he took the chance and it paid off in a way that even he couldn't expect. You survived but without memory -- and he'd tagged you as Grant."