Flood Warning

by Will Rayner

  “What if T.J. calls?” she asked, testing the waters.

  Sam paused on his way out into the hallway and calmly considered his answer. “He won’t unless the car breaks down,” he said. “He won’t get into Turlock until this evening.” With that, he was gone. Well, that was reasonable enough, Agnes thought. I guess their little tiff has been forgotten.

  Chapter 20

  What an ugly, misshapen little man, Sam observed, studying the elevator operator. He was more shrunken than little, actually. Also, he exhibited all the characteristics of dwarfism. A large skull with a prominent jaw and forehead. Short legs and arms, and almost no trunk. The term achondroplasia from his college reading days swam into Sam’s mind.

  The dwarf was sitting on his box next to the elevator controls, reading a racing form. No more than four feet tall, Sam thought, as the operator stood up and clambered onto the box. It wasn’t hard to figure out what the platform was for — to enable the dwarf to reach the controls. He was wearing some sort of faded uniform with gilt edging that had started to peel. A tarnished nameplate proclaimed that his name was Lance. “Lance?” Sam muttered to himself. Aloud, he said, “Fourth floor, please.”

  “Ain’t nobody up there,” Lance said. His voice was a hoarse growl.

  “Up, please,” Sam ordered tersely.

  Wordlessly, Lance slid the doors shut and turned the power lever. When the elevator came to a stop several seconds later, Sam laid a restraining hand on the dwarf’s shoulder. “Lance, don’t open the doors just yet,” he said. “I want to ask you a few questions.”

  “I don’t know nuttin’,” Lance said sullenly. “Who are you, another cop?”

  Sam flashed his badge. “Southern Pacific Railway Police. We have reason to believe a crime has been committed on Southern Pacific property and that this building is involved.” There’s always crime of some sort on railway property, Sam reasoned to himself. Pilfering, vandalism, people without tickets, hoboes, so he wasn’t exactly lying to the operator. “Tell me about the people who got off on this floor during the past, oh, three weeks.”

  “How can I remember that? They come and go.”

  “C’mon, the building’s half empty. You can’t have that much traffic.” Sam reached into his trouser pocket and pulled out the small roll of dollar bills. He started counting them as Lance watched, his eyes growing rounder. “Fourth floor visitors,” Sam prompted.

  “Well, the cops have been here a couple of times. Some uniform cops and then the homicide dicks.”

  “What did they ask you?”

  “They asked me what you’re asking me — did I see anything, did I know anything. I don’t know nuttin’.”

  “Who else,” Sam persisted.

  “Well, there was this one guy...” Sam pretended he was reading the elevator’s operating license, but he knew the dwarf was looking at him quizzically, as if there was something familiar about him. T.J., of course. I look a little like T.J. And I’m getting just as devious with that badge trick I just pulled, he thought. “He stayed for a while, one day, then went away,” Lance continued. “Don’t know what he was doing, except maybe he was visiting that accountant up there.”

  “You mean Mr. Fenton. What about him?”

  “It’s like this. He got paid off to leave, like everybody else, except he kept coming back.”

  “Well, he won’t be coming back any more. He’s dead,” Sam said, looking directly into the dwarf’s sunken eyes.

  “I know. That’s when the cops came again. The homicide cops. They wanted to look at his old office.” The dwarf shivered. “I wish people would just leave me alone, I don’t know nuttin’,” he whined.

  “People, what people?” Sam pressed hard; this little squirt knew something. “Who else has been up here. Has the vice squad been here?”

  “I don’t know nuttin’ about them vice cops,” Lance muttered. The indicator bell rang, indicating someone on the ground floor wanted to go up.

  “Saved by the bell,” Sam said aloud as the elevator descended. He peeled off a single-dollar bill but didn’t give it to Lance. “We’re not quite finished,” he said. “You’ll get this after you come back down again — if you cooperate. Meanwhile, mum’s the word.” Waiting in the lobby was a beefy, middle-aged man weighed down by a bulging legal briefcase. Looks like the lawyers are keeping busy, Sam told himself as he stepped aside for him. Probably foreclosing on little old ladies.

  *

  The real heat arrived with the morning sun. Air conditioning in the auto court’s units consisted of a lazy fan suspended from the ceiling, so it did little to soothe any occupants. T.J. Flood had spent a restless night — as much from the unforgiving mattress as the closeness of the air. “San Francisco it ain’t,” he told his lathered reflection in the mirror.

  By nine, he had breakfasted at a diner on Route 99 and obtained directions to Pheasant Valley Road. The breeze had picked up and was gusting strongly as he parked the Essex in front of a neat, white-painted bungalow. Going up the walk, he had to hold his hat in place as dead leaves scuttled across the dry lawn. The wind fretted at the screen door, slapping it back and forth in sharp counterpoint to the rustling of the poplar trees. T.J. stilled the door with one hand and knocked with the other.

  His knock was answered by a short, frail woman wearing an apron over a flowered shift. She wore no makeup and her hair was a dull brown. Mrs. Brice didn’t know he was coming and T.J. very much doubted she knew about her brother’s death, so he figured he would be the one to break the bad news.

  “Mrs. Brice? My name is T.J. Flood; I talked to you on the phone about your brother, Wallace.”

  “Oh yes, I remember, the man with the strange name. Well, Wallace isn’t here, Mr. Flood, he’s in San Francisco.”

  “That’s what I want to talk to you about. Look, could I come inside for a moment?” He wanted the slight woman near a chair in case she took the news badly.

  “Of course, how rude of me. Come right in. Would you like a cup of tea or some lemonade?”

  A glass of lemonade would be great, T.J. said. He settled himself in an armchair that had seen better days but was still comfortable. At first sip, the lemonade was cold and delightful. “Ah, you’ve heard about the troubles in San Francisco?” T.J. began as the woman sat in the sofa across from him.

  “Oh yes, the rioting. How dreadful. People killed. The radio says the truck drivers won’t take our produce there from the Valley because it isn’t safe. And I understand the army has moved in, with machine guns, for heaven’s sake.”

  “Yes, the violence has been very bad, Mrs. Brice.” T.J. paused for a moment, then decided to plunge right in. “I’m sorry I have to tell you that Wallace was among those killed during the rioting. I’m very sorry, believe me.”

  The woman gave a muted “Ooh” of surprise and regret. She slumped down on the sofa and looked for a moment as if she would collapse. Then she straightened up and asked in a firm voice, “How did it happen?” It was obvious Mrs. Howard Brice had heard bad news before.

  “He was, uh, at his hotel on the waterfront and he just got in the way, I guess. He was shot. He was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

  Mrs. Brice sighed deeply. “Poor Wallace. He was so sure he was going to be on Easy Street. Now, there’s only me, the last Fenton and the last Brice.”

  “There’s no Mr. Brice?”

  “Howard died during the war, at Chateau Thierry. I’ve been alone here, tending my little orchard, for sixteen years now. Oh yes, there was Wallace now and then, but he wasn’t around much. We weren’t that close, actually.”

  “Mrs. Brice, I’d like to look at the stuff Wallace left here on his last visit. May I? There were, ah, some documents he was preparing for me. They’re not in San Francisco.”

  “I suppose that would be alright. I don’t mind, I guess, and poor Wallace doesn’t care anymore. I’ll have to do something about his records now, I guess. Perhaps just throw them out.”

  She led T.J. t
o a small bedroom in the back of the bungalow. The last fruits of Wallace Fenton’s career were piled neatly against one wall, in four cardboard boxes. Two were tied with twine and two were open. T.J. started with the open boxes first.

  Two lemonades later, he found what he had come for. The sheet of paper from 230 California was inconspicuously tucked between the pages of a federal government tome on the tax implications of the National Industrial Recovery Act. He didn’t touch it, but carefully closed the volume and tucked it under his arm. Of a sudden, T.J. was in a hurry. He felt the hot breath of ‘them’ breathing down his neck, the ‘they’ who had scared Fenton away from Buchanan Street. Carrying a ledger crammed with columns of figures as a decoy, he said his goodbyes to Mrs. Brice.

  “Got what you wanted, I see,” she said.

  “You betcha. The police or the authorities will be in touch with you about Wallace’s, ah, body and funeral arrangements.”

  “Well, thank you for coming all the way to Turlock to tell me, Mr. Flood, even if it was bad news. Are you really a private detective? I’ve never met one before.”

  “Yes, I am, Mrs. Brice, and I’d appreciate it if you treated this little visit of mine as confidential.”

  Mrs. Howard Brice looked dubious at that and T.J. didn’t press the point. Out on Pheasant Drive, the breeze had died down and the sun’s heat was a physical force.

  *

  The elevator stopped at ‘5’ on the brass half-moon above the lobby gate and Sam watched as the needle paused for a moment, then began its descent. As the dwarf slowly came into view — feet first, then the rest of his shrunken body — the elder Flood stood directly in front of the elevator.

  “I have a few more questions,” he said as soon as Lance slid the gate open. “We won’t go anywhere. Let’s just stay here and chat a bit longer.”

  “Supposin’ somebody wants me, supposin’ they ring the bell?”

  “Then I suppose we’ll have to deal with that. Meanwhile, answer me this — did anybody say anything about what was going on up on the fourth floor? You’ve got big ears. I bet you must have heard something.” Elevator operators are often considered part of the furniture, Sam knew, and passengers have been known to be indiscreet. They feel safe and protected in the rectangular womb of the elevator.

  “I didn’t hear nuttin’ I wasn’t supposed to hear. I didn’t do nuttin’ I wasn’t supposed to do. Nobody told me nuttin’ or gave me nuttin’— nuttin’ at all. You ain’t gonna get nuttin’ outta me.”

  On the contrary, little man, Sam thought. I’ve already gleaned the information that somebody gave something to you in connection with the fourth floor. Now to find out the details. However, his attention was diverted by two very large men entering the lobby from California Street. From T.J.’s description, he knew it was Pat and Mike of the vice squad.

  Unhurriedly, and with his averted face a polite mask of indifference, Sam Flood strode toward the front door without a backward glance. If he had done so, he would have noted Mike giving him a long, lingering look.

  Chapter 21

  “The bad news is, it’s in some kind of code,” T.J. told Sam, handing him the sheet of paper he had brought back from Turlock. He had wrapped it in tissue paper to ward off fingerprints.

  “So this is the fruit of your little excursion,” Sam remarked as he laid the sheet on the desk in front of him and carefully turned aside the tissue. Across the top, he could see, was the legend, P.E.A.C.E. It was underlined. Below was a list of five numbered entries, printed out neatly by hand with a good quality fountain pen:

  1. Procure Lasting Fortune (G)

  2. Establish Forest Circle (A)

  3. Maintain Maritime Link (B)

  4. Conclude Acquisition

  5. Erase and Eliminate

  Below the list was a drawing of a simple triangle, with the points labelled Alpha, Beta, Gamma. The senior Flood read the list in silence, then said, “Alpha, Beta, Gamma, the first three letters of the Greek alphabet. Appropriate, given the recent circumstances, one could say.” Carefully, he tilted the paper up by one corner and looked at the other side. “Good quality bond. Nothing on the reverse. And the printing is precise and legible.”

  “Yeah, not like my scribbling,” T.J. said. “Someone has paid attention during their Palmer Penmanship class, I’d say.”

  “No, I would surmise the author was taught his penmanship elsewhere,” Sam said. “The shape of the numerals and some of the lettering, the crossing of the t’s for instance, suggest a European influence. But what does this list signify, Thomas?”

  “Well, it’s fairly obvious it’s an agenda of some sort, or maybe a set of priorities.”

  “Both, perhaps,” Sam answered. “It also suggests the person who wrote this is familiar with the technique of drawing up a course of action. Something more substantial than the numbers racket, or horse betting.”

  T.J. abandoned the chair he was sprawled in and walked around to look at the evidence over his father’s shoulder. “The letters G-A-B on the list refer to the points on the triangle, I bet,” he said, “but what’s that all about? A ritual, maybe?”

  “It’s a map,” Sam Flood said with an air of conviction. “Crude, and of course, coded, but a map nevertheless. Wellington Koo told me the opium — Shannon’s so-called ‘goods’ — might easily be sitting in the bay, tied up by this labor problem on the docks. As of now, however, we don’t know which part of the triangle each point signifies.”

  T.J. returned to this chair. “So, okay. As of now, we don’t know what the map or the list means, but at least we’ve got our mitts on it. That’s more than we had a couple of days ago.” Sam let the allusion to their recent disagreement pass without comment. He knew his son’s trip to Turlock was not so wild a goose chase after all, and he was still embarrassed about letting his emotions show during their argument.

  “All we have to do is figure out what ‘Lasting Fortune’ means, and ‘Forest Circle’ and all that Greek stuff, and we’ll know who ‘they’ are,” T.J. continued.

  “‘They?’”

  “Little Wally Fenton kept saying ‘they’ were after him. Well, ‘they’ caught up with him, no thanks to me. And the mugs who did Fenton also did The Greek and Benny the Bundle — we’ve pretty well agreed on that. Then we tell Jimbo Bracken and get Packy Shannon off the hook.”

  “No, first of all we give Lieutenant Bracken this piece of paper. Wait a minute, don’t interrupt. We have to give homicide something; this will keep them occupied and out of my office.”

  “But it’s my list. I figured out where it was and went and got it. Let the flatfeet do their own digging. We give this to Bracken, we’ll never see it again.”

  “You’re not thinking straight, Thomas. What did Mr. Fenton do when this paper was shoved under his door?”

  “He ... copied it ...” T.J. slapped his forehead with the palm of his hand in mock revelation.

  “Exactly. So we will copy it, too. Not you, Agnes. Her penmanship is much more acceptable. What you have to do before you leave is make out your report. Don’t forget a detailed accounting of your travel expenses.”

  *

  Lieutenant James T. Bracken was damn well annoyed. God knows, he’d had plenty of opportunities in the past to be irritated by the antics of the two shamuses known as Flood and Flood, but this latest wrinkle took the cake.

  He opened the file folder Sam Flood had given him and carefully removed the tissue paper guarding the Fenton document. Not only had the two Floods meddled in police business by looking for homicide evidence on their own hook, he told himself, but they had actually found something.

  Bracken took a few minutes to scan the agenda and the diagram, then took a pair of tweezers out of a desk drawer. “There’s nothing on the other side,” Sam volunteered as the lieutenant used the tweezers to pick up the paper by one corner.

  “You’d know that, of course, because you’ve already looked, which is why I’ve got a big bone to pick at the moment with Messrs.
Flood and Flood.”

  Sam said nothing. He had expected this reaction ever since he called Bracken and had been invited down to the Hall of Justice. Bracken let loose a theatrical sigh designed to convey the impression his job was fraught with complications.

  “Explain to me please, my dear Mr. Sam, in short words that I can understand, how such an outstanding citizen as yourself came into possession of a document that should have been in homicide’s hands a long time ago.”

  Sam did his best. Wallace Fenton had contacted T.J., he said, and told him that he — Fenton — had found something which was connected with 230 California Street. The accountant had told T.J. two things, Sam said — that the sheet of paper had been shoved under his door on the fourth floor, and that he had heard an argument which suggested the paper was important. After The Greek’s body was found, Fenton panicked and told T.J. the paper was in a safe place.

  “He did all this on the phone?” Bracken asked. “They didn’t meet? I would have said, get your ass over here pronto with that evidence.”

  “They were supposed to meet, but Fenton stood T.J. up. So T.J. went out to Fenton’s flat on Buchanan Street...”

  “How did he know ...” Bracken interrupted, then changed his mind. “Never mind, it ain’t no problem finding where people live, especially if you’re a dick.” That was fine with Sam; he wasn’t particularly anxious to discuss at length how detectives — private and otherwise — gained their information.

  Anyway, Sam continued, Fenton went doggo for a few days and T.J. managed to find out he had a sister in Turlock. The sister, name of Brice (which Sam spelled out), told T.J. on the phone that her brother had been there, left some files and went back to San Francisco.

  “Then Fenton called T.J. again. They were supposed to meet at the Seaboard Hotel. You know what happened there.” Short words, Sam thought, concise sentences and all very plausible. Most of it was true, too.