"He looks the same as the victims in the jewelry store."
"Yes," Lash agreed. "And he was felled by the same thing they were. Which was not any poison ray. It's a damn shame we didn't know then what we know now."
"Which is what, exactly?"
"The birthday party, Casey. The only survivor of the 'ray attack' was a clerk who had been out sick and missed the party. And a secretary who was out sick on the day of the attack, but who had attended the party the day before, died the same way and at roughly the same time. Finally, the caterers who served at the party were killed when their building burned down. Are you seeing a glimmer?"
"I think maybe I might be," Casey said cautiously. "But, can you answer the big question: Who did it?"
"It couldn't be more obvious, man! It's on every street corner!"
"If you say so."
*****
The death of reporter Jack Caldwell made the papers and the radio news broadcasts the next morning. Caldwell's demise was ascribed to a chronic heart condition.
Lash had worked through the night, giving his all to his analysis of the shirt. When he finally finished, the result was exactly what he had expected. He yawned and stretched and walked over to the radio. He switched it on and sat down to clear his mind a little.
The top story on the news involved the corpse that had been pulled out of the river that day. The John Doe had been identified as one Cornell Woodley, a disgraced actor who had vanished several years earlier.
The disappearance of Cornell Woodley had been a nine day wonder a few years previously. It had a rather spectacular denouement, thanks to a certain reporter. The newsman had parlayed his success on the Woodley story into a revitalized career.
It hit Lash suddenly.
Smiling, he picked up the phone and called Casey.
*****
An hour later, Lash had dashed off a list of errands for Rickey to perform. After he had sent her on her way, with a strong admonition to be very careful, he joined Casey at the large table in the dining room, where he had spread out some old newspapers he'd retrieved from his cache in the basement.
"Let's just take a look at some of Jack Caldwell's biggest stories over the past few years. The most notable of which involves the Cornell Woodley case."
"The actor that disappeared," Casey said. "The one whose body turned up in the river today."
"Yes, indeed. You may recall that he disappeared just in time to avoid being arrested for statutory rape, as a matter of fact. And not only that, but Woodley was also implicated in an arson case. The home of the girl whose parents had filed the rape complaint burned to the ground. The family barely made it out alive, and it was pretty plain that they were the real targets.
"He slipped the net and everybody figured he killed himself, someplace where the body was never found. He didn't take any money with him and he didn't have any friends who would be willing to risk prison to help him hide out.
"Caldwell worked that story. Searched for Woodley. He says he never found him. But he did find evidence of organized moral turpitude on the part of a number of actors and studio bosses. Caldwell's investigation led to several high profile arrests and convictions. And a newspaper star was born.
"But suppose things didn't happen quite like that. Suppose Caldwell found Woodley. Suppose Woodley cut a deal with Caldwell. Finding the missing fugitive would be a feather in the reporter's cap. But smashing a Hollywood vice ring would be a whole damn headdress. Woodley had probably been a member of the ring of perverts, and he ratted everyone else out in exchange for Caldwell's silence.
"After that, Caldwell's career trajectory changed markedly for the better."
"Yeah, sure," Casey said, sounding very puzzled. "But what does that have to do with all the spaceman stuff? And Max Heath?"
"At the height of his infamy, nobody in the history of New York City sold more papers than Max Heath. Heath may very well be dead. But what did your people fish out of the river very recently? An actor. A talented and totally unscrupulous character actor. See? And if including him in this spaceman business doesn't point straight to the culprit..."
"It does?" Casey was puzzled.
"Absolutely. For sheer audacity, this is a masterpiece."
"I have no idea what you're getting at."
"I'm talking about someone whose personal philosophy is grounded in the perpetuation of spectacular lies. Someone who sees the truth as a commodity, to be used when profitable, discarded when not. Look at the wild stories that have emerged over the past few days. How many people actually believe them? Perhaps not very many. But that doesn't matter. What matters is that they shell out plenty of good money to read them. And that, my friend, is your answer."
*****
"I did what you asked me to," Rickey said upon her return. "It was expensive. I had to shell out some serious bribes. I wrote down every penny and I want it all back."
"Of course, of course," Lash assured her.
Rickey handed Lash a written report. He read it through twice and smiled broadly.
"An airfield just across the state line from New Jersey," he remarked. "Now that's mighty accommodating of him. Crossing state lines."
She shrugged. "If you say so. By the way, here's a cable from Al Cord. He did some sniffing around for you out in Los Angeles. Says you can call him for a full report."
"Excellent."
Rickey badgered him for another twenty minutes, but he refused to reveal anything.
Chapter Eight
DRAWING THEIR PLANS
Lash and Casey sat in a very shabby, very dark little bar, mugs of beer untouched on the table in front of them.
"We're going to have to confront Amsterdam," Lash said. "And we can't take no for an answer this time."
"Okay," Casey agreed, "but how? The guy practically lives behind barbed wire. None of his people are gonna tell us where he is. And all of this speculation of yours is not enough to get a judge to sign off on a warrant. Hell, maybe I can fly to Mongo and get Ming the Merciless to issue one."
Lash's eyebrows went up. "I thought you didn't know Flash Gordon from the Man in the Moon!"
"I may have glanced at some of that junk over the last day or so."
"You picked it up pretty fast. I think there's a fan club you can join."
"Never mind that," Casey said with a scowl. "What about Amsterdam?"
"I'll get in there," Lash said confidently, "then I'll make sure you have probable cause to raid his office. There may be awkward questions after the fact, but we will be preventing future slaughter, so I can live with the consequences."
Lash laid out his plan for Casey.
"You better run along," he said when he had finished. "From here on in, you could seriously incriminate yourself by hanging around with me. Everything checks, and I'm sure this will work. Maybe we'll even get lucky with regard to a certain... sick friend."
Lash left the bar and went back to his headquarters. He spent an hour or two alternating lab work with phone work. The puzzle he was putting together got clearer by the minute.
Finally, he got the phone call he was waiting for:
"Hello?" Lash said into the receiver. "Yes, of course. He is? What did he say? You're sure of that? He said until after midnight? Good. Have that rig on the roof of the adjacent building, then. Yes. Thank you."
Then he hung up and dialed Casey's number.
"Okay, Detective, we're on. What's that? You were about to call? Oh, he did, eh? That's great news. Give me two hours."
Chapter Nine
THE THUNDER CHILD
J. Tyler Amsterdam sat at his desk, alone, in his office on the top floor of the Banner building. He was a cool, colorless man, whose almost sluggish manner gave no hint of the truth. Only his eyes, remarkably clear and dark, hinted at inner tempests.
He was going over a stack of financial reports, ticking off items and signing each page at the bottom with an expensive new Biro ballpoint pen.
Suddenly, there came a t
errible racket from the balcony outside his office. Glass shattered and the French doors flew open. There, framed in the doorway, stood a green reptile-faced creature.
Lash had decided that a bit of melodrama might be necessary at this point. He was convinced that he would never get in to see Amsterdam by any of the usual channels. In order to force a confrontation as quickly and directly as possible, he had resorted to some daring-do. He had taken a great risk getting onto the balcony by means of a rope ladder tossed over from the building next door.
Amsterdam gave him a lopsided smile. "You're a bit early with that. It isn't Halloween yet. Is that Mister Lash under that rubber?"
The publisher's calm was unnerving. Lash whipped off the silly mask, which he had donned strictly for the hell of it, and stuffed it into a jacket pocket.
"Yes," Lash said as casually as he could. "You're a difficult man to pin down. I have a very good idea what's been going on. I'll get right to the gist, you being such a busy man and all. It all started with Woodley, didn't it?"
"Go ahead, this is fascinating." Amsterdam put down his pen and sat back.
"Jack Caldwell was rather desperate at that point in his career," Lash said. "He needed a scoop. When the Woodley thing broke, he pursued it. We all know how that supposedly turned out. But I think it really went a bit differently."
He repeated the hypothesis he had shared with Casey earlier, then added some embellishments.
"Caldwell used fraud to make himself a star. He cut a deal with the devil. Maybe some money changed hands. A very valuable list of names sure did. You doped it out, but you didn't blow the whistle. Caldwell and his stories were too valuable to you by that time, right? You didn't show him the door, you joined in. Put all your resources behind him and his phony stories, because those stories sold papers. You knew this already, of course. You're an old hand at it. But what Caldwell did-- and what he might be persuaded to do in the future... It must have been exciting."
Amsterdam sat motionless in his chair throughout Lash's recitation, as cold and silent as a marble slab.
"It got out of control, didn't it?" Lash continued. "Like a dope addict. You needed more and more audacious stories, bolder lies-- sweeter victories. Greater risks for yourself, and greater profits, too.
"It was Woodley that was made up to look like Max Heath. An interesting detail, that. I haven't decided whether it was a stroke of genius, or just plain insanity. I have also learned that a cargo plane was hired-- illegally, and without the knowledge of its rightful owners-- and taken on a brief flight the night the cylinder landed, from an airfield in New York State. That, I think, we can trace back to you. You dropped the cylinder in just the right place, at just the right time. Who built that thing for you? Someone out in Hollywood, I bet. We can find him if we really try.
"So far, you were just despicable. But with the jewelry store massacre, you graduated to full-fledged monster. I won't go into a lot of detail because you know damn well what happened. The catering firm that did the birthday party at the jewelry store. A slow acting poison. That's where you went too far.
"Anyhow, Caldwell was okay with it until it turned lethal, wasn't he? He started making noise. His conscience started flaring up. Did he threaten to go to the police? So you fed him a little 'poison ray' somehow? He must have known plenty about you and your dirty dealings."
Amsterdam shrugged. "Maybe so," he said softly. "Who knows? Who will ever know? I have it on good authority that Caldwell is a bit too dead to do anything to me."
"Where did you hear that?" Lash countered. "In your own newspaper? Don't you know better than to believe everything you see in print?"
"What do you mean?" For the first time this evening, Amsterdam looked vaguely concerned.
"Oh, I imagine we'll find out. And now, here we are, you and me."
The newspaper magnate shook his head. "Lash, do you really believe you can stop me all by yourself? Even if any of what you say is true?"
"Let me answer your question with a question. Remember what I said about the cargo plane? You hired it in New York and flew it over New Jersey. You crossed state lines, genius, and that makes it a matter for the Feds! You might be able to buy City Hall, but there's no way you'll ever buy off Uncle Sam."
"I might argue that," Amsterdam said blandly, "but I have a feeling you're right. Thanks to you, there's too much for them to ignore. I face utter ruin. There is only one course of action open to me. I honestly don't know why they call it the coward's way out. It takes nerve to do this, I think."
He sprang from his chair and ran full-tilt through the French doors and out onto the balcony. Then he hopped up onto the railing and jumped.
"Oh, hell no!" Lash roared, charging out and across the balcony. "It can't be that easy." Gripping the rail, he peered down toward the street, looking for a falling Amsterdam. He saw nothing. "What the hell?" He stood on his toes and leaned over the rail, stretching his neck and upper body. He was very precariously balanced when a hand whipped up and caught him by the collar.
"Did you really believe," said J. Tyler Amsterdam, "that a man like me would kill himself simply because of a slug like you? Did you really think I wouldn't have a contingency plan?" He had jumped down to a narrow ledge a few feet below the balcony.
Lash grabbed the man's arm with both of his hands, and was endeavoring to pull him up. Through clenched teeth he said, "Why do you keep asking me if I really believe this or really think that? It's annoying. Obviously I did, okay? Why waste time asking? But it doesn't matter. You are going to jail, then court, then the chair. No shortcuts for you, pal."
Amsterdam struggled furiously. His feet were planted against the side of the building, giving him a great deal more leverage than Lash had standing on his tiptoes. Lash really believed that he might get pulled over the railing to take one hell of a plunge.
And then, from inside the office, Lash heard the sound of a door being broken down, followed by footsteps heading briskly in his direction.
"That'll probably be my security people," Amsterdam said. "I pressed my silent alarm button just now. Which means you are out of time."
Lash felt a pair of arms slip around his waist. Whoever it was that grabbed him had just added their own weight to his, swinging the balance of leverage decidedly in his favor. His new benefactor heaved him backwards, pulling him away from the rail. Lash clutched Amsterdam's upper arm and hauled him back onto the balcony.
They fell in a heap. Lash's rescuer got to his feet first.
It was Jack Caldwell! And he hadn't come alone. In the doorway Lash saw Sam Casey and two Federal agents.
"I owe you big, Lash," the reporter said. "You too, Amsterdam. I'm paying both of you off right now. And I'll finish it in court when the time comes. I'll have to pay for my own crimes, too, but that's okay. I'm just glad I'm alive to do it!"
"What the hell?" Amsterdam blustered. "You men can't come in here. This is private property. Do you have a warrant? Where's your probable cause?"
"Oh, we have probable cause, alright," Detective Casey said smugly. "Or we will in a second, anyhow."
"We'll see about that," Amsterdam replied in a very nasty tone of voice. "I don't know what's going on, but I want you to arrest this lunatic for breaking and entering and assault."
"Thank you, Mister Amsterdam," Casey said with a wicked little grin.
"Thank me? For what?"
"Probable cause to enter these premises. You just reported a crime."
*****
Amsterdam was placed under arrest. Though Casey had relished his little "gotcha" with the probable cause issue, the fact was that an arrest warrant had been issued by a judge less than an hour before, based on statements by the almost late Jack Caldwell. The law enforcement contingent had arrived quietly and dealt with Amsterdam's security men before making their way upstairs.
As he was being led out to a squad car, the publisher gave Lynn Lash a poisonous glare and called him a very nasty name.
Lash laughed. "Are
you surprised?" he asked sardonically. "Did you really believe I'd come and confront you all by myself? Did you honestly think I'd tip my hand if I didn't have a witness that could prove everything I said? You did, didn't you? Admit it!"
The publisher did not say a word. The look on his face was eloquently malevolent, and his eyes were the closest thing Lash had ever seen to a "poison ray."
*****
Later, back at Lash's apartment, the science sleuth, Casey and Rickey sat in the living room sipping drinks.
"Slow acting poison," Lash was saying. He was deep into his postmortem report on the case of the bogus spacemen. "Not a poison ray. The birthday party took place shortly after closing time the previous day, remember? The poison requires 24 hours to do its work. The onset of symptoms is rather sudden at that point. Not precise in every case, of course, but close enough to blame the phony ray.
"What I wish we had known then was that the victims were not yet dead when they were taken out of the building. The poison induces a deep coma at first, and the vital signs drop to the point that they're undetectable. Death follows within one to three hours. If the antidote had been administered-- as I did with Caldwell-- they could have been saved. Caldwell's timing was impeccable, I must say. He arrived on my doorstep less than an hour after I had concocted the antidote, and minutes before the poison got him. He was damn lucky, and so was I.
"And as for the bank robbery-- I performed a spectroscopic and an ordinary chemical analysis on the shirt I got from the witness in the hospital. I found traces of a very peculiar chemical. Are you familiar at all with ergot? No? It's a fungus that has some rather... striking effects on human perceptions when ingested. Or inhaled, as the bank employees did-- delivered as an aerosol, probably through the air ducts-- and as I did in Caldwell's apartment. Among other things, it plays with one's sense of the passage of time. Visual perception is acutely distorted, so that a rubber mask may appear to be genuine skin, complete with pores, underlying musculature, and so on."
The New Adventures of Lynn Lash Page 7