The Man Who Risked His Partner

  “Because you might be wrong. It’s been known to happen.”

  Buttoning my jacket to create at least the illusion that I was dressed for the weather, I climbed out of the Continental.

  I didn’t stop him from joining me. If I left him alone, he might drive off. He could easily have another set of keys. And I didn’t have any idea which Territorial Apartment Eunice Wint lived in. So I let him go with me. In fact, I let him lead the way.

  The building was a standard apartment complex, square cinder-block construction behind the ersatz chalet style. The entryway led to a central courtyard with an untended swimming pool, its scum freezing in the cold. The apartments were ranked around the pool in two layers, like a cross between Alcatraz and Better Homes and Gardens. The management had spent enough on lights to keep strangers from falling into the pool, but not enough to make the place look habitable.

  Haskell took me up some chipped cement stairs to a door on the upper level. The light made the door look badly faded, vaguely destitute. It rattled on its hinges when he knocked.

  Trusting and innocent as usual, Eunice didn’t even ask who was there. She just undid the lock and swung the door open. At the sight of her lover, her face lit up like a touch of sunlight. Then she noticed me, and her pleasure turned to embarrassment.

  “May we come in, Eunice?” he asked noncommittally. “Mr. Axbrewder wants to ask you a few questions.”

  Just like that, as smooth as oil, he took control of the situation, left me gaping in the doorway as if he and Eunice were going to humor me because it was Be Kind to Dumb Animals Week. Just by being there, he seemed to take possession of the room. The way he slipped his arm around her and kissed her was proprietary and protective.

  I closed the door behind us, wondering what she knew about him that he wanted to hide.

  She was wearing a worn terry-cloth bathrobe as threadbare as the carpet. It looked like it had attended too many high school slumber parties. An elastic band held her hair back from her face. A manicure set on an end table beside the dispirited couch suggested that we’d interrupted her in the process of beautifying herself for the night. Which in turn made me think that she’d been hoping for a visit from Haskell later on.

  She made an obvious effort to rise to the occasion, but her surprise and uncertainty got in the way. Intending something polite and appropriate, she opened her mouth and asked me, “What happened to your face?”

  Haskell laughed contentment and malice. “Axbrewder has a part-time job at night. He puts on makeup and scares children into obeying their parents. He’s a professional bogeyman.”

  Eunice tittered nervously. She didn’t know what else to do.

  Neither did I. In less than a minute, Haskell had made my questions impossible. I felt like an idiot. Obviously, I never should’ve let him into the apartment ahead of me.

  But I couldn’t just stand there until smoke started coming out my ears. I had to do something. So I faked an avuncular expression to hide my disgust and blundered ahead.

  “Mr. Haskell likes to kid around, Ms. Wint. Unfortunately my business is a little more serious than that.

  “Do you know Gail Harmon?”

  Haskell’s relaxed posture and superior smile didn’t change. Nevertheless I saw the small muscles around his eyes go tight.

  Eunice considered the name for a moment. Then she shook her head.

  I believed her. If she’d tried to lie to me, she would’ve blushed for three days.

  “She used to have a job where you work,” I explained. “I wanted to ask her the same questions I’d like to ask you. She’s the one who scratched my face.”

  That confused her. She didn’t know which end to tackle first. “Why did she—? What questions—?”

  “She used to know Mr. Haskell fairly well,” I told her. That took me pretty close to the edge of professional ethics—the part where it says you keep your client’s dirt to yourself—but I didn’t much care. Still, I made an effort to watch my step. “I’m talking to all kinds of people about him. Perhaps he hasn’t told you what I’m doing here.”

  She shook her head again. He hadn’t explained anything about me.

  “I’m his bodyguard, Ms. Wint. I’m trying to protect him. I asked Gail Harmon if she knew anyone who might want him killed.”

  “Killed?” Her hands fluttered to her face in alarm. “Reg?” She cast a horrified look at him. “You didn’t tell me—” Back to me. “Is somebody trying to kill him?”

  “I’m afraid so.”

  “Oh my God.” Instead of her usual blush, she turned pale. For a second I thought she was going to faint. But she lowered herself to the couch and stayed there, her eyes staring at something I couldn’t see. “Oh my God.”

  “Nice going, Axbrewder,” Haskell rasped. Angry or amused, I couldn’t tell which. “You have all the finesse of a bulldozer, do you know that? What good do you think you’re doing?”

  I gave him a glare that would have chipped paint, but I didn’t let him deflect me. “Ms. Wint,” I said—gambling a little, but what the hell—“forgive me if I seem callous. I’m just trying to do my job. For some reason, women who know Reg Haskell don’t react normally when I tell them he’s in danger. Gail Harmon tried to tear my face off. And you—

  “You believed me right away, didn’t you. As soon as I said it, you knew it’s true. And you haven’t asked me why.”

  Haskell tried to interrupt, but I stopped him by grabbing his bruised arm and digging in a bit.

  “You know what I think, Ms. Wint? I think you know someone who would like to see him dead. And I think you know why.

  “Who is it?”

  She didn’t look up. Images and possibilities unreeling in her head transfixed her.

  “Ms. Wint.” Quietly, but with an edge in my voice. “I need your help. I’m trying to protect him.”

  Her lips moved. Her eyes lifted to my face and dropped again. She seemed to be trying to pull her thoughts together from a dozen different directions at once.

  “Is it Jordan Canthorpe? Your fiancé?”

  Without knowing how, I’d touched something deep in her—some loyalty to her own choices and mistakes, some kind of dignity. A bit of her color came back, and she looked at me straight.

  “Mr. Axbrewder, I think every other man in the world must want Reg dead. He’s the only one who’s really alive. The rest of you are just going through the motions.”

  That was it. I couldn’t ask her any more questions. If anyone else—even Sara Haskell—had offered me that load of horseshit, I would’ve laughed at it. But from Eunice Wint I accepted it. She was only an innocent bystander, after all. She had the right. And I’d pushed my own meanness as far as I could stand it. The idea of jumping up and down on a girl who had fallen in love with someone other than her fiancé sickened me.

  And maybe she was right. I sure as hell didn’t have anything to match the gleam of Haskell’s grin.

  So I let go of his arm. I said, “Thank you, Ms. Wint.” I gestured for him to follow me, and I let myself out of the apartment, making a special effort not to pull the door off its hinges.

  He caught up with me at the bottom of the stairs. Ready for anything in his nice, warm coat. He didn’t make the mistake of smiling at me, but he couldn’t keep the bounce out of his stride, couldn’t hide his eagerness. Someone was trying to kill him. It was even more fun than bridge.

  From where I stood, the temperature felt like it had actually gone up a couple of degrees. Poised for some serious snow.

  As we walked out to the car, he said, “Now tell me, Axbrewder. When have I ever been wrong?”

  Reg Haskell, old buddy, old pal. You were wrong when you hired Ginny and me. You should’ve been enough of a man to face your problems yourself.

  17

  Nosing the Continental off Foothill over the crest into Cactus Blossom Court, I saw Ginny’s Olds parked in Haskell’s driveway. All the exterior lights of the house were on.

  A car I didn’t recogn
ize sat beside the Olds.

  A little abruptly, I pulled over to the curb. The car was a late-model beige Mercury sedan, and I had the feeling that I’d seen it before. Probably there weren’t more than five hundred cars just like it in Puerta del Sol.

  Maybe it belonged to Sara Haskell? That was a dizzying prospect, as they say.

  I turned to Haskell. “You recognize that car?”

  He shrugged. “It looks like Jordan Canthorpe’s.”

  Muttering curses to myself, I jerked the Continental into

  reverse, backed into the nearest driveway, and headed in the opposite direction.

  Haskell watched me like I was an amusing and slightly dangerous lunatic. “Don’t tell me,” he said, “let me guess. You think it’s a trap. You think the branch manager of the First Puerta del Sol National Bank has your partner at gunpoint, waiting to shoot me when we walk in. You’re paranoid, Axbrewder. You should’ve asked me whether Jordan’s capable of that.”

  I didn’t answer. I was thinking, Canthorpe. Or Canthorpe and Novick. Or Novick alone. I couldn’t afford to take the chance. Reacting intelligently, for a change of pace, I drove a mile back down Foothill to a gas station and used the pay phone to call Haskell’s house.

  Ginny answered after the fourth ring. “Hello?” The way her voice twitched on the word scared me. Suddenly all the things I feared didn’t seem paranoid at all.

  I braced myself inside the phone booth, clamped the receiver to the side of my head. “Ginny. You all right?”

  “Brew.” Relief and exasperation—and a small stretched tremor like a hint of hysteria. “Where are you?”

  “Are you all right?” Please, Ginny, tell me you’re not in trouble. Make me believe it.

  “Of course I’m all right. Or I was until I had to spend half my life waiting for you. What are you doing? Where the hell are you?”

  She didn’t sound all right. She sounded ragged and overwrought, close to craziness. But she wouldn’t have talked that way if she’d been in danger.

  I let a sigh slip through my teeth. “There’s a car parked next to yours. I don’t know who it belongs to, so I decided to check before I barged into the house.”

  “That’s Canthorpe.” She didn’t seem particularly interested in how smart and cautious I was being. “Get over here. You’re going to love this.”

  I said, “Five minutes,” but she didn’t hear me. She’d already hung up.

  I’m fine, I thought. Thanks for asking. Actually, my evening has been pretty entertaining. I’ll be glad to tell you about it. Since you’re so interested.

  I put the receiver back in its cradle—gently, Axbrewder, gently—and returned to the car, trying to believe that what I felt didn’t matter.

  As I got into the Continental, Haskell gave me a quizzical look. His air of superiority wasn’t what I needed at the moment. When I didn’t say anything, he murmured, “Don’t keep me in suspense. What’s going on? Is Fistoulari being held hostage? Are we going to storm the house?”

  Damn him, anyway. “Better than that,” I muttered as I wrenched the car away from the gas station and aimed it back up Foothill. Snowflakes did crazy little dances in the headlights as we rushed through them. “You’re a bridge player. We’re going to table the dummy. That’s you. We’re going to put your cards down where everybody can look at them.”

  He replied with a moment of frozen silence. Then, slowly, he shook his head. “It’s amazing,” he mused. “I don’t know how you stay in business. Do you treat all your clients like this?”

  No. Just the ones who lie a lot.

  Gritting my teeth, I wheeled the Continental down Cactus Blossom.

  There weren’t any cars except Ginny’s and Canthorpe’s outside. The rest of the neighborhood had already put its cars away. I parked the Continental, and we got out. Without any particular caution, we walked into the aisle leading to the front door. I used my key to let us in.

  When I got the door open, I heard Ginny call from downstairs, “Is that you, Brew?” She sounded the way a knife looks after you use its edge to turn screws for a while. “We’re in the den.”

  I answered to reassure her. Smiling slightly, Haskell took off his coat, hung it up in the closet. Behind the smile, he wore his sober, serious face. But the shine in his eyes made him look like a kid playing some keen game he thought he was going to win. When I’d relocked the door, I gestured him ahead of me, and we went down the stairs.

  In the den, its picture window blind against the darkness of the arroyo, we found Ginny and Canthorpe on their feet waiting for us.

  Canthorpe’s pinstripe had lost its immaculate line. For all I knew, he’d been wrestling in it. And his self-effacing mustache seemed even thinner than before. Stress and anger showed in his pale eyes.

  In contrast, Ginny’s eyes looked sunken and hollow. The skin of her broken nose was white against the high hot patch of color on each cheek. She made no effort to conceal her stump.

  “Jordan,” Haskell said amiably, “what brings you here?”

  Canthorpe didn’t respond. His fingers twitched at his sides.

  “Would you like a drink?” Haskell went on. Polite and amused, on top of his game. “I need one. Ms. Fistoulari? Axbrewder, you deserve a drink by now.”

  “Mr. Haskell,” Ginny said carefully, “this isn’t a social occasion.”

  “I know that.” Not ruffled at all. “Somebody is trying to kill me, and I hired you to protect me, but all you’ve done is dig into my life and attack me with what you find. This will be more of the same. But we can still be courteous about it.”

  He repeated his offer of drinks. None of us accepted. He shrugged to say it was our loss, not his, and left the room. When he returned a minute later, he carried a tall glass full of liquor and ice cubes. For an irrational moment, I hated him because I needed that drink more than he did and I couldn’t have it.

  “Now,” he said, glancing casually around at us, “what is it this time?”

  I think he was having fun.

  But Ginny was in no mood for it. Internal pressure put a lash like a lick of venom in her voice. “Mr. Haskell”—soft and poisonous—“before you accuse us of unprofessional conduct, I want to say just once that we did not tell Mr. Canthorpe your half-assed story about el Señor’s money laundry. We talked to him because we thought he could help us figure out how el Señor found you so fast.” And because he still has reason to want you dead, Reg Haskell, even though you aren’t worried about that at all. “We did not bring him into this in order to attack you.”

  Haskell couldn’t argue. He couldn’t claim that the question of how he’d been discovered wasn’t crucial. Instead he sat down on the couch facing the window, made himself comfortable, sipped his drink, and waited for her to go on.

  “When I called him this afternoon to see if he’d made any progress,” she said, “he informed me that your entire story is a fabrication. There is no money laundry. You’ve been stringing us along from the beginning.”

  Haskell widened his eyes. Lowered his glass to his knee. Looked at Canthorpe. “That’s cheap, Jordan,” he said softly.

  Then he faced Ginny. “I told you from the start that I couldn’t prove anything. That doesn’t mean I’m lying. It just means the connections are tenuous. And there is no way that he could have checked my research in just one morning. Not without asking me for details to put him on the right track.” It was a good performance. He did righteousness well. “Before you take his word over mine, you ought to consider his reasons for wanting to hurt me.”

  “Damn you, Haskell,” Canthorpe snapped. “Not everybody in the world is as unscrupulous as you are. I wouldn’t stoop to lies because of you. And let me tell you something. I know—”

  Ginny cut him off. “As it happens,” she said sharply, “I don’t need to take anybody’s word for anything. We’ve talked about el Senor all day”—straight at Haskell—“but we’ve never mentioned his name. Obviously he must bank under his own name. Otherwise you
wouldn’t know it was him.

  “Mr. Haskell, why don’t you tell us el Señor’s real name? Just to prove you know what it is.”

  He met her glare without blinking. As a precaution, I shifted positions slowly, moving around behind the couch to grab at him if he tried anything stupid. For a long minute, he didn’t respond. Apparently the fact he’d been caught lying again was a matter of intellectual rather than personal interest.

  When he spoke, he didn’t sound worried, just curious and thoughtful. “That’s clever. You told Jordan the name, and he checked the account computer. He found out that nobody by that name banks with us.”

  “That’s right,” she said. “But there’s more.”

  He raised an eyebrow. “Really? I would have thought you had enough by now to keep you entertained.”

  In response, she raised her left forearm like she’d forgotten it didn’t have a fist anymore. Maybe she didn’t realize what she was doing. She was too tense, too close to the edge.

  “This isn’t entertainment,” she gritted. “It’s my job. I believe in doing it right.

  “But for that I need the truth. All you’ve given us is lies. Not because you have any reason to lie. If you did—if we were dangerous to you in some way—you wouldn’t have hired us in the first place. No, you tell lies because you think it’s fun. Part of the game. You get your jollies by manipulating people, jerking them around. You’ve been playing with us from the start.

  “Well, grow up, Reg.” She turned his name into a snarl. “The game’s over. When I got back this evening, Mr. Canthorpe was here waiting for me. Your lies about a money laundry made him suspicious, so he did some checking of his own.

  “We know where you get your money, Reg.”

  “My money?” he asked innocently. “You mean my investments?” But he didn’t look particularly guilty. Just interested. Curious about what was coming next.

  “Investments, shit,” Canthorpe put in. From him the obscenity sounded quaint. But his face was pale with vehemence, and his hands clenched at his sides. “You’ve been using the bank’s money to finance your gambling habit.”