The Surfside Caper

by Louis Trimble

  I said, “A truck belonging to a man named Craybaugh tried to take a curve too fast up in the hills.”

  He rocked a little on his toes. “You were behind him?”

  “I said, “I was ahead. I spotted him in my rear view mirror.”

  He rocked some more. “You’re Mr. Flynn?”

  I hadn’t tossed my name around yet, but I wasn’t surprised that he knew me. I had had my share of publicity in the trade papers. I said, “That’s right. When the police come about the accident, steer them to me, will you?”

  He looked unhappy. I didn’t know whether it was because my name was Lawrence Flynn or because I had spotted him as part of the help. He gave a grunt and walked back to the magazine stand.

  He was out of place at the Surfside, but no more so than the guest questioning the doorman and carefully not looking my way.

  His name was Jacob Dolphin and he didn’t belong here either. He wasn’t the type the Surfside would want around. But then, I thought, they probably didn’t know who he was. He had a hatful of aliases. He could be using one of them here.

  He looked more than acceptable on the surface, for he was big, heavy-featured, with the kind of face that needs a cigar to finish it off. He could have passed for a vacationing industrialist. He shouted money. He was draped in at least five hundred bucks worth of sport clothes. And he had manners. He was smooth, mannerly, well spoken—when he wanted to be.

  I had seen him when he didn’t want to be seen: when the heavy mouth and the pleasant brown eyes were flat and ugly; when he lifted a big, manicured hand in a sharp cutting gesture—and there was another unsolved murder to plague the San Francisco police.

  I didn’t think he had lifted his hand in the past five years. That was when he retired from dealing in everything that makes dirty money—call girls, horse parlors, gambling setups, impresario of stag parties with a choice of live or filmed talent.

  He had started young, in the last years of prohibition. He hadn’t let up until he built himself a world-wide chain of bank accounts. Then, publicly at least, he retired.

  He passed close to me as he strolled toward the drive-in area. His eyes went over me, stopped just long enough to be natural, and passed by.

  The desk clerk said in my ear, “Yes, sir? Do you have a reservation?”

  I turned to him. I said, “I have a reservation. The name is Lawrence Flynn.”

  If he knew who Lawrence Flynn was, he didn’t let me see it. He checked a file, nodded, and brought up a registration card.

  I signed my name and my San Francisco address.

  He handed the bellhop a key. “Room 223 for Mr. Flynn.”

  I said, “My reservation specified a cottage.”

  His eyes took in my rumpled suit, the dirt on my face and hands.

  I said, “We can fight it out here or we can take it to the manager. And while you’re at it, get on the phone and tell Mrs. Lofgren I’m here.”

  He picked up a phone. He asked for Annette Lofgren. He got her.

  He said, “There’s a Mr. Lawrence Flynn here. He prefers a cottage but there is none available. He, ah, isn’t pleased.”

  He listened a moment. The color began to come back to his face. I could see smugness forming around his mouth. He said, “Mrs. Lofgren is busy at the moment, sir.”

  I didn’t waste any more time with him. I walked to the end of the registration desk and through a door marked “Private.” I closed the door gently, and slowly enough to see Security heading my way with his jaw thrust out.

  I hiked down a hallway to the end of the hall and the door marked “Manager.”

  I rapped and turned the knob. I walked into Annette Lofgren’s office.

  2

  ANNETTE LOFGREN was seated behind a blond wood desk three sizes too big for her. She was a small brunette, slender, in her early thirties. She had thin, almost sharp features. But a full mouth and large, brown eyes softened them.

  She wasn’t a restful person to be around. I always had the feeling that she was plugged into two-twenty current. But we had managed to hit it off pretty well the few times we’d met. Mostly, I think, because of the way we both felt about Nils.

  But today we weren’t going to hit it off at all. There was no welcome in her eyes. There was nothing there but cold dislike.

  Her eyes shifted from my face. The door behind me came open. Security bulled his way into the room. He pushed the door shut and breathed pugnaciously at me.

  I said, “My business is with Mrs. Lofgren.”

  He balled his fists childishly and took a step toward me. Annette said icily, “That will do, Tibbetts. I can handle this.”

  Security let his arms drop to his sides. He said, “I saw Flynn come in here. I didn’t know he was authorized.”

  Annette said, “I’ll call if I need you, Tibbetts.”

  He didn’t twitch a muscle her way. He took the whiplash of her voice with no expression. He turned on his heel and marched out.

  Annette said, “You can go too, Larry. I don’t need you. Things have changed.”

  I stood in front of the desk feeling as if I’d been kicked below the belt. My temper started up. I pushed it back down. I was beginning to see behind the cold front she was trying to present to me. And I saw trouble. The kind of trouble that fit the pattern of wrongness I had felt in the lobby.

  She was using this attitude to hide the fact that she was a frightened, bewildered woman. I had seen this sort of thing happen before. The problems pile up. They become so big you forget there is such a thing as a solution. You can’t think any more. You can’t fight. You can only wait until that final piece of trouble hits the pile. Then you come apart at the seams.

  And Annette was almost ready for the big blowup.

  I said, “Is Dolphin’s being here bugging you this way?”

  Fear jolted into her eyes. She said, “Who?”

  But there was no steam in the word. And it was strictly off key. She had been raised in the hotel business in San Francisco. She might never have seen Dolphin, but she’d certainly know the name.

  I said, “Jacob Dolphin, retired gambling czar, former rumrunner, high-class pimp, impresario of obscene stag shows and producer of same for home movies. Name something dirty and he made money at it.”

  The pretense went out of her. She said shrilly, “Is that why you were so anxious to come all the way from Australia to help? Because you knew he was going to be here. Is that why Global Hotels sent you to spy on me?”

  I said, “Whoa up. When did Global get into the game?”

  She stood up, knocking her chair over. She paid no attention. She shouted at me, “Give me credit for a little sense! At least have the decency to admit that Global Hotels sent you here to find out just what the situation is. Oh, they’d like a bad report, wouldn’t they? So they can throw it in my face! So they can beat the price down.”

  She stepped around the desk. “Go ahead. Tell them anything you want. And then tell them I have another offer. A better one. And now get out of here!”

  She ran for a side door. She jerked it open and disappeared.

  If I had been doing this job for money, I’d have walked out then. But I wasn’t getting money, not from her. I was doing what the schmaltz boys call a labor of love. I was trying to make a payment on my old and unpayable debt to Nils Lofgren.

  I went after her. I got the knob turned and the door cracked open before she could flip over the lock. I shouldered my way into the living room of her private apartment. I snapped the lock on the door. I didn’t want Tibbetts barging in again.

  I said, “All right, let’s get down to business. First I see something like this Tibbetts in the lobby. Then I see Jacob Dolphin walking around as if he was as good as the rest of the guests here. What gives? Nils wouldn’t have either one of them around.”

  Her face was wet and ugly with tears. She opened her mouth as if she was going to scream at me again. Then the starch went out of her. She said dully, “Don’t tell me what Nils would
or wouldn’t have done. Don’t you think I know?”

  I said as gently as I could, “Believe this, Annette. I heard the rumor that you might have to sell. But I didn’t hear that Global was interested in buying. I didn’t come here to spy for them. I came in answer to your wire.”

  I put my hands on her shoulders, holding her so that I could look at her. She made no effort to get away. She looked into my face, her eyes bright, wet. Flickers of doubt showed in them.

  “Don’t lie to me, Larry. I couldn’t take if from you.”

  I said, “I told you the truth.”

  She said, “Then why is that Calhoun girl here?”

  I said stupidly, “Ingrid Calhoun?”

  “Ingrid Calhoun,” she repeated. “The one you met in Paris just after Nils and I were married. The one you brought to visit us when we were building here. She still works for Global Hotels. I checked on her after she arrived yesterday.”

  I said, “I don’t know why she’s here. I didn’t even know she was planning to come.” I rejected the possibility of Global Hotels sending her to the Surfside to do a job of undercover work. She wasn’t the type. She was a big, easy-going blonde with about as much subtlety as an atom bomb. The kind of trouble Jacob Dolphin carried with him wasn’t anything she could ever cope with.

  Annette didn’t look as if she believed me. I said, “Damn it, why are you so bugged by the idea Global is spying on you? What have you to hide?”

  She was like quicksilver. Her attitude changed on me. She said coldly, “I have nothing to hide. Now go away, please, Larry. There’s nothing you can do here.”

  I kept my fingers on the firm flesh of her shoulders. I said roughly, “I make my living at this sort of thing, remember? If it’s because of Jacob Dolphin, I’ll find out why. If it’s something else, I’ll find that out too. I can do it without your help. I can do it a lot more quietly with your help. So don’t try running me off. The only choice you have is whether to help me or not.”

  I put a little more heat to it. I said, “And even if I wasn’t interested in your problems, I’d stick around. I don’t like people trying to kill me.”

  Her eyes were enormous with bewilderment. I said, “You knew I was coming. Did you tell anyone else?”

  She shook her head dumbly. I said, “But others could find out—that flycop Tibbetts, the pipsqueak of a desk clerk. The word could get around.

  She said, “What difference could it make if everyone here knew you were coming? I don’t understand what you’re talking about.”

  I said harshly, “I’m talking about a truck driven by some guy named Milo Craybough. He tried to run me off the road. And it was no accident. It was attempted murder.

  Her face went the color of dirty snow. She sagged onto the couch pressing against the back of her legs. She said in an empty voice, “And you think I had something to do with that?”

  I said, “What do you expect me to think after the brush-off you handed me? After the accusation you made?”

  She didn’t answer that. She said, “What are you going to do now?”

  I said, “I told you. I’m going to try to clean up whatever mess you’ve got yourself into.”

  She said in a bitter voice, “It’s a little late.”

  I said, “Because Dolphin is here?”

  She said resignedly, “All right, because Dolphin is here. Yes, I knew. But I can’t do anything about it without causing a scandal. If I try to get rid of him, the guests will find out who he is.”

  I knew what she meant. The kind of guest who forks over big money to stay at a place like the Surfside wasn’t the kind who would want a Jacob Dolphin breaking bread in the same dining room. But as far as I was concerned she was making with a lot of nothing.

  Experience had taught me that out of a roomful of high-bracket guests, seventy-five percent or better wouldn’t be upset; they’d be titillated by the idea of having rubbed shoulders with a reputation like Dolphin’s.

  She said, “He’s in cottage twelve. It’s the last one. Eleven is next to it and that’s—that’s reserved.”

  Her hesitation tripped her up. I said, “It was the one reserved for me, wasn’t it? What did you do, tell the clerk to move me to a room when Dolphin showed up and got Cottage Twelve? Were you afraid to let me get too close to him?”

  She said, “I was just trying to protect myself. I told you I thought Global hired you to come here.”

  I said, “And you still aren’t sure that they didn’t, are you?”

  She didn’t answer that. She was tired of fighting. She walked over to the phone and called the desk clerk. She put a lot of authority in her voice as she told him to give me Cottage Eleven.

  When she wanted to, I thought, she knew how to handle her staff.

  She walked away from me and went into her bedroom. She said, “Please go now. I want to rest before the evening work begins.”

  • • •

  I was glad Annette Lofgren had cued me on Ingrid Calhoun. If I had seen her without warning I think I’d have blown my stack all over the Surfside’s supersized, heated, lighted swimming pool.

  Because Ingrid was the last person I would have expected to see. And she was the one person I had forgotten about when I was tossing names at the truck driver. She worked for Global Hotels as director of their travel service. I had sent my request for a reservation at Surfside directly to her. She had known before anyone else that I was coming here. And when I was coming.

  But I couldn’t imagine Ingrid trying to promote me a coffin. The last time we dated, a year ago, she acted as if she wanted me very much alive. The livelier the better, and I remembered the evening. She was big and blonde and close enough to being beautiful to satisfy any normal Playboy reader. She was also a very sweet girl. She was hardly the type to kill a man just because he hadn’t made a pass since his first abortive attempt three years before in Paris.

  But she was definitely here. In the flesh. In a great deal of flesh. She was sitting on the edge of the swimming pool in a flesh-colored bathing suit that needed two long looks before it became visible at all.

  And she was with Jacob Dolphin.

  He was dressed in checkered trunks and a long, fat cigar. He was squatted beside her, saying something, leaning toward her.

  I saw her eyes slide past his hairy, bulky body. They landed squarely on me. Dolphin swung his big head to see what had caught her interest.

  I swore at her for being a damned fool. I swore at Global in case they were instrumental in getting her down here to play cloak-and-dagger games with a man like Jacob Dolphin.

  I didn’t give her a tumble. I looked through her and past her. The bellhop was ahead of me, carrying my stuff. I stayed right on his heels.

  Ingrid’s eyes snapped back, away from me. Her lips moved as she said something to Dolphin. He was looking at me too. He stopped and glanced down at her. She tilted her head toward him the way a woman does when she wants a man to know she’s interested in him. Laughter rippled her throat and curved her lips.

  I followed the bellhop past the formal rose gardens and on to the edge of the forest. I wondered who at Global Hotels had had the idea of sending Ingrid here to do a job on Jacob Dolphin. The whole idea frightened me. Dolphin was no callow kid. He had handled hundreds of women a lot cleverer than Ingrid Calhoun.

  The bellhop said, “This way, sir.”

  We were at a junction of two paths. One took off to the right; the other went straight ahead. I was supposed to go straight ahead.

  I said as if I’d never been here before, “Where does the other one go?”

  “Cottage twelve,” the bellhop said. “A Mr. Dorffman has it. He’s that big guy out by the pool. The one trying to make time with the blonde.”

  “I might try that myself,” I said.

  He grinned. “I’ve seen a half-dozen guys try since she came yesterday. They didn’t get anyplace.”

  I said, “The big guy—Dorffmann, didn’t you say?—he looked like he was doing all right.
”

  “He’s been trying long enough,” the bellhop said.

  He stopped talking as we reached the cottage itself. It was quite a production, designed to fit the heavy forest that came close to it on three sides. Three stone steps went up to a small porch. The door at the top of the steps led into the rear end of a full-length living room.

  The living room opened by way of French doors onto the lanai. It ran the full width of the building and was about eight feet deep. A waist-high wall enclosed it to keep the guests from falling off and down a sheer twelve-foot drop to the beach below. A small gate at the right side opened onto steps that curved gracefully along the cliff face down to the sand.

  The sun was slanting far down toward setting now. The shadows were long and cool. The air was a little sharp with the scent of the salt water that rolled up on the sand not fifteen feet from the base of the cliff.

  It was quite a retreat. It should have been with a tab of sixty bucks a day, not counting meals.

  There were also a bedroom, a bath, and a fully equipped kitchenette complete with freezer in case the guest should catch any fish. Even the essential staples—flour, cornmeal, tea, coffee—were provided. A notice on the wall by the kitchen cupboard said that other foods could be ordered. A checklist was provided to make the ordering easier. Surfside hadn’t missed a trick.

  I used the checklist and ticked off a few items. I never knew when I might be too busy to make the dining room.

  The bellboy put away the silver dollar I flipped him, gave me a grin, and disappeared. I unpacked, laid out fresh and slightly more formal clothes. My muscles were threatening to go a little stiff from the mountain climb I had made. A long, hot shower soaked a little limberness back in.

  I dressed and mixed myself a drink from the bottle of rye I had picked up on the way down. The bellhop had brought the groceries I’d ordered while I was in the shower. I took some cheese and crackers and my bottle and went onto the lanai. The last of the sun was gone. The sea was taking on a purple tinge. It was a beautiful evening. I ate cheese and crackers and sipped whiskey and wished I could enjoy it.

  I was still wishing when I heard the bushes off to my right crackle sharply. I sat up straight and squinted through the gloom toward the little gate. Jacob Dolphin came out of the forest. He was wearing dinner clothes. He walked through the little gate and onto my lanai.