Over the Edge (45 page)

'You okay?'

He puffed out his cheeks, exhaled, and shook his head.

'Motion sickness. Had it since I was a kid. Lost my sea legs the moment we climbed aboard. That last roll was the final straw.'

'What about Dramamine?'

'Dramamine makes it worse.'

'There are patches you can stick behind your ear. Laced with scopolamine.'

'Very funny.'

'No, I'm serious. Anticholinergics are great gastric relaxants. It's one of their legitimate uses.'

'I'll pass.'

A moment later:

'Are those patches prescription or over-the-counter?'

'Prescription. But you can get anticholinergics over the counter, if that's what you're asking - sleep remedies and decongestants.'

'Could you hoard enough over-the-counter stuff to poison someone?'

'I doubt it. There are other ingredients in the pills, many of them in much higher concentrations. Like adrenaline in decongestants. Too much of it, and the heart gives out. A hoard with enough anticholinergic to cause psychosis would be so loaded with adrenaline it would kill the victim first. And even if you knew enough chemistry to extract what you wanted, it wouldn't give you the desired effect. Jamey showed a progression of symptoms that varied over time: He was drowsy when that was called for, agitated on cue. We're talking about a manufactured psychosis, Milo. Custom-tailored to fit the needs of the poisoner. Unadulterated atropine or scopolamine couldn't be counted on to give you that much control. If he was poisoned, it was with weird stuff. In combinations.'

' Designer drugs.'

'Exactly.'

He turned up his collar and began rocking on his heels. I noticed that his colour had returned: the power of intellectual distraction. After several silent minutes he said:

'I'm going back to the car, try County again. The resident I spoke to sounded sharp, but I want to connect with the head guy.'

He walked away with long, purposeful strides, leaving me alone on the wharf. A hundred feet away was a marine filling station with a minimarket just beyond the pumps. I bought bad coffee and a glazed doughnut, stepped under an awning, and sipped and ate as I watched a big sparkling yacht fill its tanks. Twenty minutes later Milo returned, notepad in hand. He looked at Sweet Vengeance.

'Nothing.'

'Not yet. How's Jamey doing?'

'Still stuporous. It was a serious concussion. There doesn't seem to be any major brain damage, but it's too early to tell. Vis-a-vis poisoning, the Woodwork's still at the lab, should be back in a couple of hours. I asked them to rush it, but apparently it takes time for technical reasons. The guy in charge - neurologist named Platt, sounds very on top of things - was pretty sceptical about the whole idea of atropine psychosis. Said the few cases he'd seen were Parkinson's patients, and even those were rare because they use different drugs now. He'd never heard of its being done deliberately. But he also said that if the tests do come out positive, they've got something that can pull him out of it relatively quickly.'

He raised the notepad, shielded it from the rain, and read:

'Antilirium. It unblocks the damage done by atropine and cleans up the nerve endings. But it's strong stuff in its own right, and the kid's pretty beat-up to risk it without chemical confirmation. For now, they're putting him on unofficial detox. The only visitors have been Souza and the aunt and uncle; Mainwaring hasn't been there for four or five days. They're trying to keep an eye out without letting on and haven't seen anything fishy, but if the stuffs that absorbable, Platt admitted it could be slipping in anyway. He said the best they can do in the meantime is log meticulously and keep taking blood. He's handling all the kid's medication personally.'

He looked at his watch. 'What's it been, forty minutes?'

'Closer to half an hour.'

'Ugly out there. They say sharks like this kind of weather. Gets the predatory juices flowing.'

'They had enough air for at least an hour. More, if they're as experienced as they seemed.'

'Oh, they're experienced all right. Hansen - the one with the big chin - moonlights as a scuba instructor. Steve Pepper was an all-Hawaii surfing champion. I'm glad they did it, but they're still nuts to go out there.' He pushed a shock of hair out of his face. 'The impetuousness of youth, huh? I think I had it once but can't remember that far back. Speaking of which, can your little friend Jennifer be counted on to keep quiet about all this?'

'Absolutely. It started out for her as an intellectual lark combined with real compassion for Jamey, but when reality sank in, she was pretty scared.'

'Hope she stays that way. Because if it turns out to be poisoning, we are dealing with heavy-duty evil.'

'I impressed that on her.'

The surface of the water broke with a splash. One head, then another, appeared. Masks were pushed back; mouths, thrown open.

'Yo! Sarge!'

'We got it, sir!'

The divers hoisted themselves on deck, pulled off their flippers, and leaped nimbly off the boat. Hansen handed something to Milo.

'The hull hatch was soldered shut,' he said, 'so we had to pry it off, which took awhile 'cause one of the screwdrivers snapped. But once we did, it was a piece of cake. Steve stuck his hand in, and bingo. It was wedged about six inches up, positioned so the strainer was still open. Looks like the plastic kept it dry.'

Milo inspected the package in his hands. The book appeared intact, swaddled in layers of clear Teflon bags that had been heatsealed. The word Diary, scrawled in lavender, was visible through the plastic.

'Excellent work, gentlemen. I'm going to notify your watch commander. In writing.'

Both men grinned.

'Anytime, Sarge,' said Pepper, teeth chattering. Hansen slapped him on the back.

'Now go get warmed up.'

'Yes, sir.'

They jogged off.

'Come on,' said Milo. 'I want the lab to look at this. Then we'll find a quiet place to read.'

A BORED-looking desk sergeant opened the door of the interrogation room and told Milo he had a call. He left to take it, and I picked up the black book and started to read.

What Old Man Skaggs had believed to be poetry was, in fact, a collection of impressionistic jottings, Black Jack Cadmus's version of a journal. The entries varied from incomplete sentences to several pages of inspired prose; on some days he'd written nothing. The handwriting was expansive and backslanted, so ornate as to verge on the calligraphic.

He was most expressive when writing about land purchase and management: how he'd cadged three hundred acres of orchard out of a San Fernando farmer at a bargain price by charming the man's wife 'told her the pie was the best I'd ever eaten and complimented the baby. She leaned on the rube and we cut the deal that afternoon'; the maximum number of bungalows that could be constructed on a desert plot in the east end of the Valley; the most economical way to supply water to his projects; a

Mexican crew boss who knew where to get cheap labour.

By comparison, his personal life had received short shrift in the sections that I read; his marriage, the births of his sons, even the beginnings of his wife's mental deterioration were most often relegated to single-sentence status.

One exception was a rambling August 1949 analysis of his relationship with Souza:

Like myself, Horace has pulled himself up out of the gutter. We self-made men have plenty to be proud of. Give me one bootstrap yanker for a hundred of those California Club pansies sucking their allowances straight from Mama's teat; Toinette's old man was one of those, and look how fast he slid down once he was forced to deal with the real world! But I think the experience of climbing to the top also leaves us with some scars, and I'm not sure old Horace has learned to live with his.

His problem is that he's too damned hungry - too damned intense! Took the thing with Toinette way too seriously. She told me he misunderstood; she never thought of him as anything more than a chum. Then to run like a mutt to fish-faced Lucy, only to have her throw him over for the medico! He smiles through it all, like a good little gentleman, but it worries me. I know he's always thought I should have cut him in as a full partner. But lawyering - even good lawyering -just doesn't put you on a par with the man who does all the thinking and the risk taking! Even after the war I continue to outrank him.

So I figure down deep he's got to hate my guts, and I'm wondering how to diffuse it. I don't want to cut the ties; he's a first-class manoeuverer and a good friend to boot. Asking him to be Peter's godfather was what the hoity-toities would call a gracious gesture on yours truly's part, but the bottom line is bucks. So maybe I'll add on to his Wilshire parcel as a bonus, it's prime, but I'll have a lot more soon when the Spring St. deal goes down. A little charity camouflaged as

gratitude could go a long way. Got to keep H. in his place but also make him feel important. Now if only he'd hitch himself up with a nice girl - preferably one that has nothing to do with me!

Milo returned, green eyes suffused with excitement.

'That was Platt. The blood tests are positive for anti-cholinergics. Lots of it. He was blown away, wanted to know when it would be okay to write it up for a medical journal.'

He sat down.

'So now' - he smiled - 'we've got more than theory.'

'When will they be giving Jamey the Antilirium?'

'Definitely not today, probably not tomorrow. The head injury complicates things; it's hard to know how much of the stupor comes from the concussion and how much from the dope. They want him to be stronger before they give his nervous system another jolt.'

He eyed the book in my hands.

'Learn anything?'

'So far only that Jack Cadmus's and Souza's view of their relationship don't jibe."

'Yeah, well that sometimes happens, doesn't it?'

He held out his hand, and I gave him the diary.

'Now that we've got method, it would be nice to firm up some motive before I call in Whitehead and the gang. How far'd you get?'

'August ninth 'forty-nine.'

He found the place, backtracked, a few pages, read for a while, and looked up.

'Arrogant son of a bitch, wasn't he?'

'The scars of a self-made man.'

Twenty minutes later he found the first entry on Bitter Canyon.

'All right, here we go - October twelfth 1950: "I'm in a good position on the Bitter Canyon base because Horn-burgh came to me rather than vice versa. That means the army wants to get rid of it quickly and they know I can come up with quick cash. But why? From the way Horn-

burgh threw around the Hail, Comrades bunkum, he'll be trying to jew me down by playing on my sense of patriotism. When he does, I'll turn it back on him. Ask him if a decorated hero isn't entitled to a fair deal from his Uncle Sam. If he keeps on buddying up, I'll ask him what he did in the war; Horace has checked around and says he was a West Point pansy who spent his entire tour pushing paper in Biloxi, Miss." '

Milo turned a page.

'Let's see, now he's off on something else - a downtown office building . . . he's going to have to bribe someone to get a zoning variance . . . okay, here it is again: "Horn-burgh took me for a tour of the base. When we got close to the lake, it seemed to me that he looked a little antsy, though it may have been the heat and the light. The water's like a giant lens; when the sun hits it a certain way, it's blinding - damn near unbearable - and a milquetoast like Hornburgh is used to being pampered. As we drove, his jaw kept flapping; the man may be a colonel, but he blabs like a woman. Gave me the whole song and dance about the potential for development: houses; hotels, maybe even a golf course and country club. I let him go on then said, 'Sounds like the Garden of Eden, Stanton.' He nodded like a dummy. 'Then how come' - I smiled - 'the army is so damned eager to dump it?' He stayed smooth as cream, yammered about needing to let go of the land due to congressional restrictions and peacetime budget concerns. Which is a lot of gobbledygook, because the army does as the army damn well pleases - hell, they say Ike will be the next pres, so it can only get better. So the whole situation bears watching''.'

Milo hunched forward and peered at the diary.

'Back to the office building again.' He frowned, running his index finger over the yellowed pages. 'The bribe worked . . . Here's something on the wife. They were invited to a party at the Huntington Sheraton, and she stood in a corner and wouldn't talk to anyone. It pissed him off . . . C'mon, Bitter Canyon, where are you . . . Wouldn't it just be my luck for that to be all of it?'

He perused silently through September and October, pausing from time to time to quote a passage out loud. The quotes painted Jack Cadmus as the quintessential robber baron - ruthless, single-minded, and self-obsessed - with occasional lapses into sentimentality. The man's feelings toward his wife had been a combination of rage, bafflement, and compassion. He professed his love for her but viewed her weakness with contempt. Terming his marriage 'deader than Hitler', he described the mansion on Muir-field as 'a damned crypt' and berated Antoinette's doctors as 'Harvard-educated quacks who pat my back with one hand while dipping into my pocket with the other. All they have to offer are idiot grins and jargon.'
 
He'd escaped the emotional void by embracing work, power brokering and putting together one deal after another, playing the high-stakes poker game known as big business with an almost

erotic zeal.

'Aha,
  
here
 
we
  
go
 
again,'
  
said
  
Milo.
  
'Wednesday, November fifteenth: "I've got Hornburgh and the damned U.S. Army by the short hairs! After plenty of phone bluffs I agreed to come down for another tour of the base. Once I arrived, Hornburgh made a pathetic attempt at flexing his own muscles - sent word that he'd be tied up in ordinance inventory for a while and had his driver zip me around in a jeep. Far as I could tell, nothing much was going on; the place looked empty. Then we passed a group of wooden bungalows on the east end and a passel of MPs marched out from between the buildings, all stiff and deadly serious. Looked like an escort, so I took a gander, and when I saw who they were guarding, I nearly jumped out of the jeep and went for his throat.