The Solomon Organization

by Andrew Neiderman

  He looked up at her, putting on his best look of sincerity. She was impressed and waited, holding her breath. His hesitation made her anxious.

  “What was it then?” she finally asked.

  “Maureen, Mr. Beezly does know a man named Philip Dante, doesn’t he?” She shook her head.

  “Not that I know.”

  He nodded and then described Dante. She thought a moment. He saw from the glint in her eye that she knew someone who fit the description, but was not sure if she should tell him.

  “Why did you come to see Mr. Beezly with a private detective?” she asked again.

  “Maureen,” he said. “I have a confession to make. I did follow you to the supermarket. I was waiting for you to come out of work.”

  Her eyes widened with fear. He reached across the table quickly and put his hand over hers.

  “Please, don’t be afraid. Just listen to me. It’s a matter of life and death, not just for me, but for my five-year-old daughter.”

  “What?” She shook her head. “I don’t understand,” she said. She looked like she was going to jump up and run out of the restaurant.

  “You will. I promise,” Scott said. “If you will just listen. Please,” he pleaded and she sat back as he began his story, selectively telling her what would make her sympathetic, emphasizing the horror of his daughter being kidnapped. When he was finished, she looked overwhelmed. She shook her head.

  “Mr. Beezly wouldn’t have anything to do with something like that, I’m sure,” she said.

  “How do you know? You said you weren’t working there that long.”

  “It just seems so…impossible to imagine him part of any organization that would harm anyone. He’s the nicest, kindest…”

  “Maybe it’s not him or maybe he doesn’t know he’s being used this way,” Scott said, deciding on another tack. “But I’m positive I was in that office. How else would I know that the room after his was a conference room?” He paused to let what he was saying sink in. “Maureen, you hesitated before when I described Philip Dante. Is there someone who fits that description?”

  “Well…”

  “Yes? Maureen, it might be the only way I can get my daughter back. My wife is devastated.”

  She thought a moment and then nodded.

  “There is someone and he wears that same ring. It’s what made me notice him, I guess.”

  “Who is he?”

  “He’s been at the office only a few times. His name is Edward Clark.”

  “What can you tell me about him?”

  “He lives in New York. He’s an attorney, or at least, that’s what I’ve been told.”

  “Do you have a phone number and address?”

  She thought a moment and shook her head.

  “He’s never left a number with me and Mr. Beezly calls him directly. I’ve never had to send anything to him,” she added, realizing the oddity of it all herself.

  “Well what is he supposed to be doing with Mr. Beezly?”

  “Something to do with a project back East.” She shook her head again. “Now that you bring it up, I don’t know much about him and what they are doing together. It’s not like other business associates. Oh, my,” she muttered. “This is beginning to frighten me.”

  “You’re in no danger, Maureen,” Scott said quickly. “It’s just fools like me who get themselves into one pickle after another and become victims of fanatics. Could there be something in a file, something put there before you came on board?”

  “No, not in the file cabinets in the outer office. There is a file cabinet in Mr. Beezly’s office, but I never go into it. It’s for his personal affairs.”

  “Really? Well,” Scott said, taking a pen out of his pocket, “if you should think of anything or if this Edward Clark should reappear, would you call me? Here’s my number. I promise, no one will know you did,” he added quickly. “It could provide the solution to the mystery of where my daughter is. She must be terrified every moment.”

  Maureen’s eyes saddened and she took the phone number. Scott sat back.

  “I guess I kind of lucked out with this place, huh?” he said, looking around the restaurant. Maureen smiled and nodded.

  “Yes,” she said. “I think I’ll come back.”

  He nodded at her and thought, yes, but I’m sure you’ll be alone. He was drained of sympathy and compassion, otherwise he would have felt sorry for her. Right now, nothing seemed more insignificant than someone else’s loneliness. He paid the bill and left, eager to relate to Dyce what he had learned.

  Dyce wasn’t home when Scott called, so he left a message on his machine. Then he poured himself a double Scotch on the rocks and sat in his claustrophobic apartment and waited. A little over an hour later, the phone rang, but it wasn’t Dyce. For a moment no one responded. Then he heard Justine’s voice.

  “Daddy, where are you?” she said.

  “Justine!”

  “When are you coming for me, Daddy?” she asked.

  “Justine!” he screamed. He heard the line go dead, but he screamed again anyway.

  “Justine! Oh, God, Justine,” he whimpered into the mouthpiece. That was definitely her voice. He waited, hoping she would come back on. When it was clear to him that she wouldn’t, he cradled the phone and fell back into his seat.

  Why were they doing this? he wondered and then remembered that his phone was tapped. The police had heard it, too. Justine’s cries made it seem as if he had planted her somewhere and she was getting anxious.

  They’re tightening the noose around my neck, he thought. When the phone rang again, he practically flew out of his seat.

  “Justine?”

  “What?” Dyce asked.

  “Oh, God, Dyce. They had my daughter call me just now. They’re making it seem as if I put her someplace.”

  “Definitely her voice?”

  “Yes. The bastards.”

  “That why you called?”

  “No, I met with Maureen.”

  “Don’t say anything,” Dyce said before Scott could begin. “Go to a pay phone and call me.”

  Scott hurried out of his apartment and down to the corner where he knew there was a pay phone. As he punched out the number, he gazed around. All the shadows looked deeper, darker. They were watching him; he felt sure. They were always watching him. If it wasn’t the police, it was the Solomon Organization.

  Dyce answered on the first ring and Scott told him what he had learned by taking Maureen to dinner.

  “Edward Clark, huh? Chances are that’s a pseudonym, too,” Dyce said, “but I’ll check it out.”

  “What about this file cabinet in Beezly’s office?”

  “Yeah, my mind took off on that one. But we get caught breaking and entering, it’s all over for you,” Dyce said. “Not to mention my ass being hung out to dry.”

  “I’ve got no choice. I’m nowhere, not an inch farther than I was the minute that they let me out on bail. They’re tearing me apart,” he moaned. “It was her; it was her on the phone. They made her ask me where I was and when I was coming for her.”

  “Jesus,” Dyce said and then he was silent a moment. “All right,” he said. “I got a friend who is familiar with most of the security systems used in this town. Let me see if he knows anything about that building.”

  “What have you found out about Beezly?” Scott asked.

  “His wife’s dead; he lives alone, but what I found out about one of his sons is more interesting.”

  “And that is?”

  “He was recently divorced. There wasn’t a custody battle, but the children were living with her.”

  “What do you mean, were?”

  “Not a week after the divorce was final…”

  “Yeah?”

  “She was killed in a car accident: a truck ran a red light and plowed into her,” Dyce said.

  “That sounds like it was just an accident.”

  “There’s more. The truck had been stolen and the driver…he disappea
red right after plowing into her.”

  “Jesus.”

  “There’s more,” Dyce repeated. “His son’s lawyer for the divorce…”

  Scott held his breath.

  “Yeah?”

  “Was your lawyer too…Michael Fein. Might be just a coincidence,” Dyce said quickly. “A good divorce lawyer gets a reputation and other people call him. Nothing really unusual about it.”

  “Except he’s not a good lawyer,” Scott said.

  “Says you.”

  “But what if it wasn’t a coincidence?” Scott thought a moment. “Shit, he’s the one fixed me up with Faye Elliot, my brilliant attorney, who keeps mocking my story and pushing me toward a confession.”

  “Yeah but she fixed you up with me, so there ain’t much you can make of that. Unless you’re a total paranoid and think I’m bullshittin’ you, too.”

  Scott was silent. Dyce was right, but still…

  “Look, you don’t have to be paranoid to know your phone’s tapped for sure,” Dyce said. “I’ll call and tell you to meet me someplace tomorrow night. I’ll mean tonight and the address won’t be real. Whenever I tell you to meet me, meet me in front of Beezly Enterprises, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  “You still got to do your best to be sure you’re not followed,” Dyce said.

  “Right.”

  “And Scott.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Watch where you park; you don’t want to get no ticket.” Scott started to laugh. “No, I’m serious. More burglars get caught because the cops track their cars to a street through parking tickets than anything else in this town. It’s got…”

  “The best parking enforcement in America. I know,” Scott said. He laughed to himself and hung up. Dyce was pretty good at what he did, he thought, and he liked him, too, liked his sense of humor and his nonchalant understanding of the underbelly of life here in the City of Angels. No, there weren’t many people he felt he could trust at the moment, but if there were two, one was himself, and the other was Dyce.

  He hurried back to his apartment to wait for his call. Just before midnight, it came.

  “All right,” Dyce said, “I’ve got what I need. Meet me tomorrow night at one A.M. in front of the Avco Theater on Wilshire in Westwood, understand?”

  “Absolutely.”

  Scott cradled the phone and waited a few moments. He wished there was a back way to get out of his little apartment. How was he going to be sure he wasn’t followed? He turned off all the lights and peered out of his front window, searching the shadows for signs of someone watching his apartment. He saw no one but he sensed there was someone out there, waiting. He thought for a moment and came up with an idea. He went to the phone and called a taxi company, requesting a pickup in front of the laundromat at the end of the block in ten minutes. Then, as quietly as he could, he slipped out the front door.

  He walked down the pathway toward the parking lot, but at the last moment, turned sharply and headed down another pathway. He heard footsteps behind him, so he broke into a run and then turned into the entryway of another building in the complex. He followed the corridor to a side exit and emerged on the west end of the street. Hovering as closely to the shadows as he could, he made his way to the corner and stepped into a dark entryway to gaze back.

  A man appeared down the sidewalk, looked in both directions, and then started toward him. Scott waited until the taxi appeared. Then he shot out and got in. When he looked back, he saw the man running in frustration. They had expected him to go to his own car, Scott thought. Dyce would be proud of him.

  It was an expensive taxi ride, but Scott thought it well worth it. For one thing, there was no problem with finding a place to park. He got out in front of the Beezly building and went to the side to wait for Dyce, who, he found, was already there waiting for him.

  “What the hell was that all about?” Dyce asked. Scott explained his brainstorm. “Great,” Dyce said. “Now all they got to do is check with the taxi company and find out where he dropped you off.”

  “Oh,” Scott said. He suddenly felt very stupid and very helpless. This was beyond him after all.

  “Let’s move ass,” Dyce said. He took him around the building to a rear entrance used for deliveries. There he pulled a ring of master keys out of his pocket and experimented with a few until he found the one that would open the door. He gazed back at Scott to indicate caution, and then the two of them entered the office building.

  “How do you know where we should go?” Scott whispered.

  “Friends. I told you…that’s what you’re paying me for, my friends,” Dyce replied. They went to a service elevator and traveled up to the Beezly offices. The building was deadly quiet, but there were hall lights on. Dyce hesitated a moment and then went to the Beezly office door. Once again, he experimented with his master keys until he found the one that would let them inside. But when he opened the door, he didn’t enter.

  “On your knees,” Dyce said.

  “What?”

  “Crawl.”

  Scott followed Dyce in on all fours, feeling rather stupid, but sweating and even trembling with anxiety. Dyce paused in the lobby and nodded toward a tiny red light.

  “Laser beam security all the way to Beezly’s office,” he explained. “Keep low.”

  They continued on all fours until they reached Beezly’s office. Once again, Dyce fumbled with his keys until he found the right one.

  “Where’d you get those keys?” Scott asked.

  “Standard equipment for us private eyes,” he said, winking. The lock snapped open, but Dyce hesitated. “My friend wasn’t sure about this. Could be on an alarm.” Dyce opened the door very slightly and ran his hand up the jamb. Confident it wasn’t on any alarm, he opened the door enough for them to slip through. They paused inside Beezly’s office and looked around. Feeling secure, Dyce turned on a desk lamp.

  “You go through the desk drawers,” he said. “I’ll work on that file cabinet.”

  Scott hurried to it and began his search. It took Dyce a little longer to open the file cabinet than it took him to open the doors. He pulled a small pocket flashlight out of his jacket and started to peruse the documents. Scott paused when he located Beezly’s pistol.

  “I found his gun,” he whispered.

  “Don’t touch it,” Dyce commanded. “Come here,” he said and Scott approached. Dyce opened a file marked S.O. and began flipping the documents. They both whistled under their breaths.

  “These guys have been in business for a while,” Dyce remarked. “We got enough late-night reading. Let’s do it right here.”

  They hovered around the desk lamp and started to peruse the folders in the file.

  “Looks like summaries of other divorces, other cases and their dispositions,” Scott said. “Some in Los Angeles, some in other California cities.”

  “Uh huh. Look for something similar, something repeated in each,” Dyce said. Scott nodded and went back over the documents more closely. He looked up.

  “Michael Fein was the lawyer for at least a half a dozen of the Los Angeles divorces.”

  “I see that, too. There goes my theory of it being just coincidence.”

  Scott concentrated on the summaries and dispositions.

  “There are a few others that end with the same statement: delivery made to Doctor Goodfellow. The little boy in this case was just a little more than two.” He handed it to Dyce, who perused it quickly. “Delivered,” Scott muttered. “They kidnapped and gave away someone else’s child. Dante said they do whatever they think is necessary…wise men,” he quipped, “Solomons. We’ll just go to this Doctor Goodfellow, whoever the hell he is and…”

  “Yeah, but there’s no address, no phone number. Any on those?”

  “Damn,” Scott said, thumbing through and not finding any. “Wait, here’s a folder with canceled checks.” Scott flipped through them and looked up. “They’re all made out to the Goodfellow Foundation.”

  “
Let me see those,” Dyce said and turned them over quickly. “First Interstate Bank, Barstow,” he read.

  “That’s where this Goodfellow is then, right?”

  “Chances are…” Dyce smiled. “Easy enough to check out.”

  “Then this is where my daughter’s been taken. Jesus,” Scott said and held up the folders with Goodfellow’s name on them. “All the children involved in these divorces were…delivered.”

  “Come on. We got what we need,” Dyce said. He took the files out of Scott’s hands and returned the folders to the file cabinet.

  “Wait. Shouldn’t we bring those documents to Faye Elliot? Now we have the concrete evidence, proof that I’m not making all this up?”

  “Illegally obtained proof,” Dyce said. “Besides, I got to wonder about her now that we see Michael Fein’s been heavily involved here. Course, maybe she’s just an innocent part of all this and we can get her to start a real investigation. You wanna take the chance?”

  Scott thought a moment.

  “No. You’re right. I just want to get my daughter back and prove my innocence. After that, we’ll worry about who’s doing what and we’ll have these other cases examined.”

  “Sounds like a very wise decision,” Dyce said. He closed and locked the cabinet.

  They made their way out of the office and building quickly, backtracking and hesitating only once on the bottom floor when they heard the voices of two security guards down the corridor. Once the voices died away, they exited through the delivery entrance and hurriedly walked around the building to Dyce’s vehicle.

  “What do we do now?” Scott asked as they drove up the freeway.

  “I’ll get an address for this Doctor Goodfellow, and then we’ll start for Barstow. Unless you wanna get some sleep first.”

  “Sleep? Who the hell can sleep?”

  “That’s what I thought you would say. Look, we don’t want to be followed, but by now they’ve discovered I’m not home and figured we were together. They’ll be all over your apartment complex, too. I’m going to drop you off at an all-night car rental I know in Santa Monica. Get a car and pick me up at Barrington and San Vincente in about a half hour. I’ll be on the north side, the west corner. Understand?”