by Jack Lynch
In the hotel lobby, I found a placard listing the day’s events and the name of the room where the Potlatch Bay luncheon was scheduled. I went on up there. Tables had been set for about fifty people. Another table had been set up to one side, where various people could sit and say a few remarks to the media. Microphones had been set up, and camera crews were positioning their light racks nearby. Lorna and Gene Olson were standing off to one side talking to some other people. There was another man there I recognized as being from the Jackson Detective Agency. He was the hatchet-faced fellow with slicked down hair who had been banging cabinet drawers open and closed when I’d gone up to introduce myself to old Grady Jackson. He recognized me in turn.
A couple of minutes later the two men from Potlatch Bay Lorna had introduced me to, Marvin Winslow and Bruce Sherman, came through a nearby door and settled down at the table the cameras and lights were focused on. I made my way through knots of people. Three-legged stands had been set up behind the table. Architectural renderings of the Potlatch project were displayed on them. Now a man I recognized as Seattle’s mayor joined Sherman and the cherubic-faced Winslow at the press table. Still-photo cameramen were flashing pictures. Reporters were asking questions, and the trio at the table were boasting about the Potlatch development.
A tap on my shoulder drew my attention away from the love feast going on in front of the cameras. It was Benny Bartlett, wearing the fake hair, but also his eyeglasses. He winced when he saw my face.
“You look like hell.”
“I know. What happened to the contact lenses?” I asked him.
“They were beginning to irritate me. It doesn’t matter. I’m ready to get out of town anyway, just like somebody wanted all along. What’s going on here?”
“Press conference about the Potlatch Bay deal that Lorna’s firm is going into.”
“Oh? That’s curious.”
“Why?”
“Do you know those birds at the table answering the questions?”
“Sure. The mayor’s on the left, a fellow named Marvin Winslow is in the middle, and the other jasper is named Bruce Sherman. Winslow and Sherman are the developers.”
“I see,” said Benny with a funny sound to his voice.
“What is it, Benny?”
“Something smells. The man you said is named Marvin Winslow. I’ve met him before. Only then his name was Waldo Derington. He’s the fellow who had the scheme to put houseboats on ferroconcrete hulls up in British Columbia.”
I looked from Benny to Marvin Winslow then back to Benny. “Are you sure about that?”
“Dead certain, Pete. I spent most of a day with him.”
“Wait here,” I told him.
The press people were laughing over something Winslow had just said. I started making my way through people and over toward Lorna and the people she was standing by, who were off to one side of the press table. The press conference itself was beginning to break up. Camera lights were going out. Winslow, Sherman and the mayor were standing shaking hands with people. I finally got over to Lorna and tugged at the sleeve of the navy-blue wool suit she was wearing.
“Oh my God, Peter, your face!” She just gaped a moment, then blinked. “What are you doing here?”
Winslow, beaming and with arms raised, told everybody to seat themselves at the luncheon tables. He said he’d be right back, then he and Bruce Sherman stepped back through the door they’d come through earlier.
“Lorna, something’s wrong with this setup. Winslow isn’t the man he says he is. He might be an old con man from British Columbia.”
She looked as if I’d slapped her. “Peter, I don’t believe it. Look at the people here,” she said, gesturing around the room. “These are some of the city’s shrewdest businessmen.”
“Shrewdest.”
“Yes.”
“I’ve always associated shrewdness very closely with avarice.”
“Well, Peter, let me assure you, this is all very legitimate. You just have to be mistaken about Mr. Winslow.”
I looked back over the crowd to where I’d left Benny, but I couldn’t find him. “Look, Lorna, it’s not my money involved here and what I know about high finance you could stuff in a peanut shell, but I was talking to a First Trust officer earlier today. When is it you’re supposed to get these low-interest loans?”
“We sign—or rather just did sign—documents that will channel the development money to the Potlatch Corporation.”
“When did you sign the documents?”
“Just before the press conference.”
“Then no money has actually changed hands.”
“No. Except for the loan fee.”
“What’s that?”
“Oh really, Peter, this is too much…”
“What’s the loan fee?”
“The premium we give Potlatch for making the low-interest loan money available.”
“How much of a fee are they asking?”
“It varies, according to the size of the individual business. Ours was rather modest. Ten thousand dollars.”
“Was? You’ve already handed it over?”
“Yes, I told you that. All of us here did.”
“Checks?”
“No, cash.”
“But that’s crazy. Even I know that. Nobody does business with cash outside of the mob.”
“Peter, please. This is a special situation. We’re all on a tight schedule. They wanted to put the loan fee cash into the local branch of the Hong Kong bank we’re dealing with. That gives us immediate release of the construction financing. Building crews will be on the site tomorrow morning.”
“How much in all would you guess they got? In loan fees? In cash?”
“I don’t know. Maybe a hundred and fifty thousand dollars. Maybe two hundred.”
I looked around for Benny again but still couldn’t find him. A waiter was setting luncheon trays on a stand over by where I’d left him.
“Peter? What is it?”
“I think the Potlatch people aren’t planning to stick around for lunch,” I told her.
I went over to the red-jacketed waiter.
“Did you notice a short fellow with a wispy beard and thick eyeglasses here a couple of minutes ago?”
“Why, yes, I did. He left—well, actually appeared more to be propelled on the arm of another tall gentleman.”
“Tall, with a narrow face and slicked-back hair?”
“That’s right, sir. They went through that doorway over there.”
He pointed to the same door Winslow and Sherman had made their exits through. I trotted on over there and opened the door. It opened onto a short utility hallway. A fire door off it led to a concrete stairway. From the landing I could hear the clop-clop of feet a couple of floors below and what sounded like arguing voices. I couldn’t tell if one of the voices was Benny’s, but I started down the stairs anyhow. I heard another door open and close. When I got down to it and opened it, I was in the hotel garage. I heard a car door slam off to the right and started toward the sound.
A big dark green Buick screeched around a row of cars and came right at me. I had to leap back to keep from being hit. Bruce Sherman was at the wheel, with Winslow seated beside him. The man from the Jackson agency was in the back. As they went by, I saw the Jackson man drive a fist down at something or somebody beneath him. It had to be Benny. They hadn’t waited for a parking attendant. Neither did I.
TWENTY-FOUR
I almost lost them in heavy traffic on streets around the hotel, but I got a break when they were stopped at a red light. I pulled up to within three cars of them. They drove north, on Dexter Avenue, along the west shoreline of Lake Union. I was trying to weigh my options. I didn’t much care about the cash some of the shrewdest businessmen in Seattle fell all over themselves to give to their Canadian friends. I just wanted Benny before he got killed or hurt badly. Dolly and the boys wouldn’t like to have their husband and father dead. Nor would they like him to sustain the sort of
beating that I had.
Probably, the Potlatch people just wanted Benny out of the way until they’d left town. Probably, the Jackson agency man had been hitting him just to keep him quiet. But then, who knows about men like that? I just wanted to stop it. I began moving up on the Buick. I was going to try to force it over wherever I found a spot where I figured I had a chance to pull it off. I expected the Jackson man would be armed. I had my .38 with six bullets in it on my belt. Spare ammunition was in the suitcase in the trunk of the car. I’d slipped up there.
Bruce Sherman must have seen me drawing closer. The Jackson man turned and stared back at me through the Buick’s rear window. He turned for a minute to speak to the men in the front of the car. Then the Jackson man rolled down the window beside him to stick his head and one arm out of the car. There was a pistol in his hand, and it was aimed in my direction.
It didn’t seem real somehow. Outside of the movies and TV, I’d never actually seen a man do that or try to do that—hit somebody from a moving car. It was crude and old-fashioned. But then this was Seattle, folks. In addition to being crude and old-fashioned, it also was very effective. I saw a flash from the pistol barrel and hit the brakes. So did several other people driving in front and in back of me. The Jackson man shot again, then pulled his head and arm back inside the Buick and kept an eye on me through the rear window.
The Buick was speeding up now, swinging through traffic. I kept pace as best I could. We zoomed down a moderate grade to where the Fremont Bridge crosses the ship canal, but the Buick didn’t cross the drawbridge. It turned sharply left onto Nickerson Street, which runs along the south bank of the canal.
I made the same turn in their wake, almost colliding with a beer truck. The truck driver and I both had fear on our faces when we whistled past each other. The Buick continued over to 15th Avenue Northwest, then swung right and crossed the Ballard Bridge. I followed at a respectful distance. We came down off the bridge and worked our way through streets that put us onto the main arterial that ran west past the locks and up to the big yacht basins behind the breakwater of Shilshole Bay.
They turned into one of the yacht basin parking lots and screeched to a stop near one of the long piers running out into the harbor. Winslow and Sherman got out of the car, each of them carrying a couple of briefcases. They began trotting out to the pier. The Jackson man got out of the back and dragged Benny out after him. Benny was staggering, but at least he was conscious and on his feet. He’d lost the fake beard and wig. He still had his eyeglasses, but they were dangling from one ear. He grabbed them off and stuffed them in a pocket. I parked a good fifty yards away from them and just sat behind the wheel. The Jackson man had one hand on the back of Benny’s shirt collar. He held his pistol to Benny’s head in the other. He gave me a look that dared me to follow them. Then they started on out the pier after the other two men. I turned the car in a tight circle and drove back out of the parking lot and turned north, toward the yacht basin where Captain Ed moored his charter boat.
I ran out to his slip, but this time it was empty. In the slip next to Captain Ed’s, a large woman wearing yellow oilskins was hosing down the front deck of a smaller boat. I called to her.
“Any idea where Captain Ed is? Or when he’ll be back?”
“He went out early this morning with a fishing party,” she told me. “Probably won’t get in for another couple of hours.”
I looked out over the water for some sign of a boat with Benny and the others on it.
“You got a problem?” she asked.
“Yeah. I wanted to charter Captain Ed’s boat.”
“What for?”
I looked back at her, wondering if she’d believe me if I told her. She was a muscular woman with a round face and short dark brown hair. She looked as if maybe she could drink and swear right along with the fellows.
“I think some men are planning to go somewhere on a boat from a basin just south of here. They’ve got a bunch of money that doesn’t belong to them, and they’re holding a good friend of mine hostage. I think some of the same men kicked the hell out of me the other evening. I’m kind of mad, and I’m worried about what they might do to my friend. That’s why I wanted to charter Captain Ed’s boat. I was going to offer him double his normal charter rates if he was willing to risk going after those people.”
She stared at me for a couple of moments. “You from around here?”
“Used to be. Now I’m a private detective from San Francisco.”
“Show me some ID.”
I climbed down onto the boat and showed her my investigator’s license. She nodded.
“You want to hire a boat, you can hire this one. It’s faster than Captain Ed’s, and I’m a better skipper. Same deal as you’d offer Captain Ed. What do you say?”
“I say let’s get going.”
I don’t know much about boats, never much cared to. But it was soon apparent this woman knew about them and was capable around them. She told me her name was Dee and her boat was the Puget Pan. She said she was the girlfriend Captain Ed had told me helped him with his charter service. Her boat was about twenty feet long and was powered by a big pair of outboard motors. She kept the boat fueled, and within three minutes of the time I’d first called to her, we were pulling out of the slip.
She roared out past the breakwater and made a wide looping circle. She reached back to hand me a pair of navy surplus binoculars and told me to study the other traffic leaving the harbor. Five minutes later, a boat twice the size of the Puget Pan purred out from behind the breakwater with the man from the Jackson agency standing by the stern rail scanning the shore.
“That’s it,” I told Dee. “The black hull with the white housing. Think you can keep it in sight without their knowing we’re keeping tabs on ’em?”
“Easiest thing in the world,” she told me, putting on power and roaring out into the choppy bay.
She was smart, this lady skipper. She kept us well ahead of the black and white boat, looking over her shoulder to keep track of its course. I stayed down in one corner, pretty much out of sight, in case they had binoculars on the other boat.
“Is this something we should try getting the coast guard in on?” she asked.
“Yeah, maybe. I couldn’t prove anything about the money, but as long as my friend’s alive, he can sure swear to the abduction.”
She steered the craft with one hand while she worked overhead radio switches with the other, then unhooked a microphone and began speaking into it. I couldn’t hear her over the noise of the big motors. We were far enough out into the sound by now to be encountering some larger swells. I had to tell my stomach to behave itself. The black and white boat chugged along behind us.
“Any luck?” I shouted when she rehooked the microphone.
She shook her head. “Couldn’t raise them. I’ll try again.”
We stayed on a northwesterly course for six or seven miles, until the black and white boat turned sharply left and curled around the northern point of Bainbridge Island. Dee spun the wheel and turned us in a clockwise circle until the black and white boat was out of sight. She brought us in close to the shoreline before slipping into the same southwesterly channel the black and white boat had taken.
Dee used the contour of the shoreline to keep us out of sight of the boat ahead of us except for brief stretches of open water. We tailed the black and white for nearly twenty minutes before its nose turned toward shore. Through the binoculars, I could see a small wooden dock at the base of a sloping brown cliff. Wooden stairs had been built into the face of the cliff leading to the plateau above.
“Any idea what’s up above the pier?” I asked.
“Nope. I’ve been through this channel lots of times but never been ashore there. What do you want me to do?”
“Try to keep us out of sight until we see what they’re up to.”
She nuzzled the Pan in behind a low jog of shoreline and cut back on the throttle. We watched the black and white craft go i
nto the dock. The Jackson man jumped down and tied some lines.
Winslow and Sherman clambered down quickly, carrying their briefcases. They and the Jackson man began climbing up the stairway dug into the cliff. There wasn’t any sign of Benny. I clamped my jaws tight until the three men reached the top of the stairs and moved out of sight.
“Let’s hit it,” I told Dee, and the double outboards roared to life.
It took us a couple of minutes to reach the dock. Dee brought the boat into a curving slide to just behind the black and white boat. I jumped onto the dock and fastened a line to a metal cleat. Dee cut the motors and followed me onto the dock, fastening another line. I trotted up to the black and white boat and clambered up a short boarding ladder.
Benny was lying, groggy, at the rear of the cabin.
“How you doin’, tiger?” I asked him.
He began to chuckle. “Jesus Christ, Pete, what are you doing here?”
“I got another boat. What’s going on?”
“They have a plane up there. I faked being unconscious and heard them talking. They’re on their way north, to Canada.”
“Well, what the hell. So what? Let’s go home.”
Benny struggled to his feet. “What do you mean, so what? Those are the people who did all those awful things to me, Pete. Or at least had them done to me. I heard them swearing about me showing up at the luncheon. The whole thing was to prevent me seeing and recognizing Waldo Derington before they’d pulled off their scam and left town. We can’t let those people get away with that.”
“What do you want me to do?”
“Go get ’em. Me and Dolly and Timmy and Al want to see a little justice done around here for a change. Just go get ’em.”
I had to grin at him. His priorities were right. I don’t think either one of us would give a damn about the money. No skin off our noses. It was the principle of the thing.