Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine Presents Fifty Years of Crime and Suspense (35 page)

“You got someone here named Miyake?” Hatfield asked.

McGonnigal looked through the sheaf of notes in his hand and shook his head.

“Anyone here work for Kawamoto?”

Kawamoto is a big Japanese electronics firm, one of Mitsubishi's peers and a strong rival of Hansen in the mega-computer market.

“Hatfield. Are you trying to tell us that Folger was passing Series J secrets to someone from Kawamoto over the Go boards here?”

Hatfield shifted uncomfortably. “We only got onto it three weeks ago. Folger was just a go-between. We offered him immunity if he would finger the guy from Kawamoto. He couldn't describe him well enough for us to make a pickup. He was going to shake hands with him or touch him in some way as they left the building.”

“The Judas trick,” I remarked.

“Huh?” Hatfield looked puzzled.

McGonnigal smiled for the first time that afternoon. “The man I kiss is the one you want. You should've gone to Catholic school, Hatfield.”

“Yeah. Anyway, Folger must've told this guy Miyake we were closing in.” Hatfield shook his head disgustedly. “Miyake must be part of that group out there, just using an assumed name. We got a tail put on all of them.” He straightened up and started back toward the hall.

“How was Folger passing the information?” I asked.

“It was on microdots.”

“Stay where you are. I might be able to tell you which one is Miyake without leaving the building.”

Of course, both Hatfield and McGonnigal started yelling at me at once. Why was I suppressing evidence, what did I know, they'd have me arrested. “Calm down, boys,” I said. “I don't have any evidence. But now that I know the crime, I think I know how the information was passed. I just need to talk to my clients.”

Mr. and Mrs. Takamoku looked at me anxiously when I came back to the living room. I got them to follow me into the hall. “They're not going to arrest you,” I assured them. “But I need to know who turned over the Go board last week. Is he here today?”

They talked briefly in Japanese, then Mr. Takamoku said, “We should not betray guest. But murder is much worse. Man in orange shirt, named Hamai.”

Hamai, or Miyake, as Hatfield called him, resisted valiantly. When the police started to put handcuffs on him, he popped another gelatin capsule into his mouth. He was dead almost before they realized what he had done.

Hatfield, impersonal as always, searched his body for the microdot. Hamai had stuck it to his upper lip, where it looked like a mole against his dark skin.

“H
OW DID YOU
know?” McGonnigal grumbled, after the bodies had been carted off, and the Takamokus' efforts to turn their life savings over to me successfully averted.

“He turned over a Go board here last week. That troubled my clients enough that they asked me about it. Once I knew we were looking for the transfer of information, it was obvious that Folger had stuck the dot in the hole under the board. Hamai couldn't get at it, so he had to turn the whole board over. Today, Folger must have put it in a more accessible spot.”

Hatfield left to make his top-secret report. McGonnigal followed his uniformed men out of the apartment. Welland held the door for me.

“Was his name Hamai or Miyake?” he asked.

“Oh, I think his real name was Hamai—that's what all his identification said. He must have used a false name with Folger. After all, he knew you guys never pay attention to each other's names—you probably wouldn't even notice what Folger called him. If you could figure out who Folger was.”

Welland smiled; his bushy eyebrows danced. “How about a drink? I'd like to salute a lady clever enough to solve the Takamoku joseki unaided.”

I looked at my watch. Three hours ago I'd been trying to think of something friendlier to do than watch the Bears get pummeled. This sounded like a good bet. I slipped my hand through his arm and went outside with him.

Don't blame
me for not spotting Marybeth sooner. The bar was crowded, I was on a case, and most people, private detectives included, don't notice people in places where they don't expect to see them.

The case was one of those generally dreary prospective-employee background things. I was with a woman named Angie in a bar called Rushing the Growler, a rompin' stompin' burger and beer joint in the city of Frederick, Michigan. Angie was an ex-squeeze of the investigatee. They'd broken up bad, she was eager to talk, and she was a lady who liked her drinks, so I asked her what she'd have.

“Three-Hole Punch,” she said to the bartender.

I lighted a cigar and stared into Angie's dark eyes. “What in heaven's name is that?”

She smiled. “The latest thing, Ben. A shot of 151 Bacardi, a shot of dry gin, and a splash of Golden Grain, shaken with pineapple-grapefruit juice over rocks in a tall glass with a maraschino cherry on top.”

The bartender set it before her. I swear I saw the cubes smoking. No problem loosening
her
tongue, I thought. I ordered a beer, turned to Angie to begin the casual questioning, and in the far corner of the bar, just visible around the edge of the high back of a booth, I saw Marybeth.

She sat across from a broad-shouldered young man with short, smooth black hair. They were alone, and they were talking, and they didn't see me.

I watched them as I absentmindedly probed Angie for information about my subject, information that, under the terrifying momentum of Three-Hole Punch, she seemed glad to provide.

As we talked, I considered how perfect Rushing the Growler was for illicit meetings. Loud, crowded, smoky, big booths, lots of little alcoves. I was, after all, here on a somewhat illicit mission myself. The fact that it led to something more personal with Angie—albeit brief—is not important. I could do that. I wasn't married. Marybeth was. To my brother.

S
INCE
I
GOT
the information I needed from Angie that night, turned in my report the next day, and (not incidentally) got paid, there was no reason for me to go all the way back out to Frederick the next night. But I did anyhow. Marybeth showed up about seven, with her young man in tow. They sat at a secluded corner booth and talked and drank for nearly two hours. She didn't notice me. I wondered what she'd have done if she had.

And I wondered what I was going to do about it. For the next couple of days, I made a brave, determined attempt to do exactly nothing. None of your business, Ben. Stay out of it, Ben. Don't you have enough trouble of your own to handle, Ben? That routine.

But one thing I've never been able to do for very long is kid myself. I know my own cons too well. I'm a nosy bastard is the point. Which is, probably, why I'm a detective. I wondered how other detectives dealt with this kind of situation. Have to bring it up at the next meeting of the Greater Detroit Nosy Bastard Club, private detective division.

A few nights later, I rolled over to the Ford assembly plant in Wayne. A big lazy moon hung high in the hot, black summer sky as I parked three spaces down from a gleaming, sky blue Ford Econoline van. I nervously smoked a cigar as I waited, leaning against the hood of my Mustang. A bell shrieked from the distant plant, signaling shift-end, and men poured out, fired up their cars, and got the hell out of there. After a couple of minutes my brother, Bill Perkins, came strolling down the lane toward his van. I raised a hand and he nodded and continued toward me, black lunchbox hanging from one hand.

Bill's eight years older than me. We don't look much alike. He's short, stocky, almost totally bald now, with a narrow face and big nose and squinting eyes. He's placid of face, calm of voice, a man of slow, totally predictable movements. He wore a green shortsleeved dress shirt, snug slacks, highly polished black loafers. “Hey, Ben,” he said as he reached me.

“Bill,” I nodded. “Buy you a beer?”

“Why sure.” I pulled a cold six of Stroh's off the front seat, snapped two loose, handed him one, and popped mine. Bill set his lunchbox on the hood of the Mustang and opened his beer as I leaned an elbow on the ragtop and took a gulp. “What brings you out this way?” Bill asked.

Impossible to answer truthfully because I didn't know myself. I mean, I knew, but I wasn't going to blab about having seen Marybeth twice in a saloon with a stranger. I was, so to speak, sounding him out. I didn't know what I expected to get done here, which is a dangerous way to do business. Carole Somers, a trial lawyer acquaintance of mine, says that the cardinal rule of examination is: Don't ask a question unless you already know the answer.

“Haven't seen you in a while,” was my lame answer.

“Ee-yeah. Couple-three months. We doing Stapfer on the Fourth again, right?”

“Sure.” This was about the only tradition my family had left. When we were boys, our daddy and Uncle Dan always took us fishing on Stapfer Lake on the Fourth of July, which was a couple of days off now. Bill and I continued the tradition even though Daddy died back in '63 and Uncle Dan was permanently disabled and living in a rest home (I mean, retirement community). “Uncle Dan coming along?” I asked.

“Talked to him yesterday,” Bill answered. “Said he'd try.” Uncle Dan hadn't come with us—had been physically unable to—for fifteen years. But we always invited him, and he always said he'd try.

I dropped my cigar on the dirty pavement and crushed it out with my boot. Over the rim of my beer can, I eyed my brother as I tipped beer into my mouth. His face was shrouded in shadow; his bald head gleamed in the moonlight. He leaned silent, placid, solid as a bridge abutment. I groped for words, for the angle that, in my investigating work, usually came easily, and could think of nothing. Bill was my brother, but as adults we were strangers. The few conversations we had over the course of a year fell into well-worn, predictable patterns. Cars and tools and baseball and the old neighborhood, none of which could help me find out what I wanted (not necessarily needed) to know.

The parking lot was silent now, afternoon men on their fast ride home through the dark, midnight men beginning their shift on the thumping, screaming, hot assembly line inside. Bill broke the silence. “Saw baby sister the other day.”

He let the unasked question hang in the air. I hadn't seen Libby in two years, not since our Uncle Andrew died.

With just the slightest shrug, Bill sipped his beer and went on.

“Took off a lot of weight. Looking damn good now. She got her a job counseling in one of those weight-loss places. Doin' good.”

I set my empty beer can on the ragtop, fetched myself a fresh one and, as I popped it, asked casually, “How's Marybeth?”

“Fine, thanks.”

“Still working that job out there?”

“City of Frederick police. Right. Just a typist, but the pay's good. You know them civil service jobs.”

“Pretty long drive, though.”

“Oh well, I-94 straight out, not too bad.” Bill drained his beer. “She's staying out at her sister's in Jackson for a few days. Having a little visit, drive to work's a lot shorter from there.”

Bill absently drummed his empty beer can with his thick fingers. I asked, “'Nother one?”

“Naw, better roll, Ben. Thanks.” He handed me his empty, picked up his lunchbox, and headed toward the Econoline with that slow, rolling walk that reminded me so much of Daddy. Over his shoulder he called, “The landing at Stapfer. The Fourth, six
A.M.
sharp. Got it?”

“Yeah, bro.” I gathered up the empties, tossed them into the back of the Mustang, and got out of there.

Driving through the hot night, I thought about Marybeth staying at her sister's in Jackson. A visit? Or had she left Bill? Or had he thrown her out? And what about the guy she was meeting at Rushing the Growler? What the hell gives here, anyhow?

It was none of my business, but it didn't feel right. I'd have to look into it, keep an eye out, and if something needed fixing, I'd sure God have to fix it.

I
T WASN'T LIKE
I was between jobs and had nothing better to do. My big corporate client had six more job applicants who needed checking out, at five hundred per, cash money. Carole Somers had called that morning about a client in Wayne County jail, charged with murder, thought maybe I could help. The outdoor maintenance work at Norwegian Wood was getting pretty intense, this being the height of the summer, lot of work to schedule and ass to kick. But I did as little as I could get away with the next day, drove like hell to Frederick during the supper hour, and by dusk, about the time Marybeth arrived with her Mister Wonderful, I was ready.