Donald Moffitt - Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 57, No. 7 & 8, July/August 2012

“If you think that, you don’t know Miss Enola,” I said, which of course was probably more true of me than of him. At least he’d heard of her.

He shrugged. “Forget about it. What I want to know is why you lied. And also what you said to that Aussie tart Rachel. Whatever it was, she told everybody else at MTRG and suddenly it was like I had the plague.”

“My heart bleeds. But I’ll bet you already know all about tarts,” I said, with astonishing originality and sparkling wit. “I don’t suppose you’d consider what you did to her as taking advantage.” Great. Now I was defending Rachel’s all-too-easy virtue.

“Listen, I asked Rachel out because I wanted to question her about the yacht, and the next thing I know she’s on me like a leopard on a wounded wildebeest. So yeah, maybe I should have done the noble thing and turned her down. So I didn’t call her the next day, sue me. She’s not the kind of girl you call the next day. I have more respect for myself than that.”

“Respect? Really.” I shook my head in disgusted wonderment. “That’s so, so like a guy.”

“Hey. You don’t know me at all. The biggest difference between men and women is that women think they understand men. Men know they don’t understand women.”

“Then why do you care what I told Rachel?”

“Never mind. You’re right. This is getting us nowhere. But I was serious when I said we’re on the same side, so listen up. I know who made the Chengfeng go missing.”

“What? Who?”

“Here’s a hint. There’s an eight-million-dollar insurance policy on the boat and a four-million-dollar life policy on Oliver Long. Guess who took them out?”

The life insurance policy might be for Long’s mother as far as I knew, but there was only one party I could think of that would insure the yacht. “MTRG?”

“Very good. And guess who owns MTRG.”

I knew the answer to that one, if I could remember the name. Rachel’s arrogant ratbag blobhead. No, wait, Adrian was supposed to be the ratbag, so just the blobhead. Mr. Blank Blobhead Blank... in a flash I had it. I’m not always slow and stupid. “Colin Pippinger.”

He gave me a coyote smile. “Colin. Pippinger. So do we go talk to Miss Enola?”

If we really knew who and the why (money, apparently, big surprise), the how couldn’t be far behind. I wasn’t too sure about the most important question as far as the FIAT was concerned, though, which was where. But Miss Enola had an idea about that, didn’t she? The one she was going to call the Navy about.

“Let’s go,” I said. “Be warned, though. She can get—”

“Crotchety. Yeah, I heard.”

Don’t you hate being interrupted? I pulled out my new smartphone and speed-dialed the office. Fredericks answered with a flat “FIAT” instead of saying “hello” or anything normal, but I could be terse too.

“I’m bringing in Adrian Tabi.”

“Please hold.”

A few seconds later Miss Enola picked up the line. “That will be satisfactory, Erica.”

“In short, your theory is that the boat was stolen and Oliver Long kidnapped and murdered at the behest of this man Pippinger for an insurance payoff,” Miss Enola said. “Very interesting. How do you suggest they dispose of the yacht?”

“I’ve got a theory about that too,” Adrian said. He sat in the middle chair between Fredericks and me, his left ankle on his right knee, as relaxed as a team owner lounging in a stadium luxury box. “I’ll bet you didn’t know that the SEC has evidence that MTRG may have been laundering money for a Mexican drug cartel, but that they quit that line when they started attracting attention. You don’t walk away from a deal like that without consequences. It occurs to me that Chengfeng, probably under a new name, wouldn’t get a second glance in Acapulco or Cabo San Lucas — handing it over to a drug lord would appease the cartel and make the boat fall off the radar. I’ve heard you’re well connected. I suggest you get your friends at the DEA to look into it. And have the Coast Guard look for Long’s body. It’s almost certain to wash up somewhere along the Mexican coast.”

Miss Enola treated him to a frosty smile. “I’m afraid you overestimate me.”

Fredericks’s phone chirped and she put it to her ear. “FIAT.” Pause. She lowered it to her lap and addressed Miss Enola. “The U.S. Navy on line one.”

Adrian grinned. “Really?”

“Please excuse me, Mr. Tabi,” Miss Enola said, reaching for her headset.

Adrian seemed reluctant to stand until Miss Enola raised an eyebrow at him. Then he got up, smoothed his trousers, submissively nodded, and walked out of the room.

I started to stand up myself so I could keep an eye on him, but Miss Enola motioned me back down. She shot a glance at Fredericks, who discreetly acknowledged the unspoken order and followed him. Miss Enola put the headset on and tapped the keyboard.

“Hello, Commander,” she said. “Thank you for returning my call... Yes, I have reason to believe it was caused by a massive explosion on board a large yacht... I shouldn’t think so. The yacht, or what was left of it, almost certainly would have sunk, but there’s bound to be flotsam and jetsam... Somewhere along a course between Los Angeles and Hilo... I have already confirmed that it had scheduled to be refueled there but missed the rendezvous and hasn’t been heard from since... Thank you. I look forward to it.”

She tapped the keyboard again and removed the headset.

“The Chengfeng blew up?” I asked.

“So it would appear.”

“That’s terrible.”

“It is, but that isn’t all, I’m afraid.”

I’d say that usually Miss Enola has a poker face like an Easter Island monument, but this time I could actually see her expression switch tracks. She tapped the keyboard again, and Fredericks brought Adrian back in.

“You have provided me with several interesting leads, young man,” she said. “I’m grateful. Fredericks will see you out. You may rest assured that you will hear from me soon.”

“Like I said, we’re on the same side,” Adrian replied. He beamed at her and then he beamed at me and then he beamed at Fredericks and then he left.

Miss Enola gazed off into thin air for a second and then said, “I’m glad you decided to keep your own car, Erica. How did you enjoy being shadowed by Adrian Tabi?”

“About as much as a root canal.”

“How would you like to return the favor?”

Before I left, Miss Enola reminded me to get the Nikon D3X out of the Tesla’s trunk and take it with me, since she wanted pictures. That was good, because I had no idea it was even there. Now, this is a slightly better camera than the one in my smartphone, the same way that the Koh-i-Noor is a slightly better rock than a piece of gravel stuck in your shoe. It was in one of those fancy aluminum cases with a bunch of different lenses and other accessories stowed in black, shockproof foam plastic, but I was still deathly afraid of dropping it when I lifted it out.

Rhonda is not quite as conspicuous as a fire-engine-red Tesla, but even so, woodies aren’t exactly the rage these days, so I wanted to be well back when Adrian exited the parking garage in his Beamer. As it turned out, I don’t think he even bothered to check his rearview mirror. People with fast cars are often like that. It’s like anything behind them is unworthy of notice.

It would make the job a lot easier if every time you tailed somebody, he took you directly to something interesting. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work that way.

Remember how I told Miss Enola that I didn’t do divorce work? This is not because of any ethical qualms on my part. There are people going through divorces who are victims and can really use the help of somebody like me. But it’s not on my menu because either it’s too exciting, or it’s too boring. First of all, by the time an unhappy couple gets to the hiring a private investigator stage, one or both of them have gone crazier than honey-bucket rats and will do deranged things with all the restraint of rabid wolverines, like destroy valuable cameras or attack private eyes’ cars with sledgehammers. But more commonly, one of them is trying to hide something from the other, usually an affair or a large sum of money squirreled away somewhere safe, and they can get very, very sly about it. The P.I. is hired to dig it up. That means hour upon hour of lethally dull surveillance, usually over several weeks, for a five-minute payoff. Pays the bills great, but majorly sedates the brain, not to mention the never-ending fun in the sleep deprivation department.