Stuart Kaminsky - The Howard Hughes Affair

I waited till he was outside my locker and then pushed on the door as hard as I could. Both the door and my body hit the man, sending him backwards over the wooden bench. I was definitely not working myself into his good graces.

I scrambled up and ran through a fire exit in the corner. No one was outside as I headed for the mesh fence that surrounded the tennis courts behind the gym. A drizzle had started. The courts were empty and still wet from yesterday’s rain. I leaped for the fence, clinging as my feet missed the links and dropped to the asphalt court surface just as the man arrived behind me. Instead of following over the fence, he raced for the entrance to the courts about thirty yards away. It was the only way out, and I was too tired to beat him to it. I thought of going back over the fence and turned to give it a hell of a try, but going over the first time on top of my workout had taken too much out of me. Ten years earlier, I would have made it. I was almost to the top on pure stubbornness when I felt the pull at my leg. I looked around in the drizzle for someone to call, but there was no one in sight.

I tumbled back into the court and fell into a shallow puddle. The man hovered over me looking casually toward the Y and the street, as if he were enjoying an outing on a clear day. He was smiling a friendly smile as he helped me up and brushed water from my clothes. He kept one hand on his gun under his jacket and I was convinced he could get it out quickly. I didn’t like his smile.

“Very quietly,” he whispered. “Move very slowly and ask no questions.”

There was no point in fighting. The man put an arm around my shoulder and led me slowly back toward and around to the front of the Y. We passed a girl with a book over her head to keep off the rain, but I didn’t say anything. There was nothing she could do to help.

He led me to the big black Caddy that had chased me earlier. The front grill was bent from where it had hit the cab. He opened the back door and motioned me in. I went and he slid next to me. A thick-necked gorilla in the front seat drove off.

I thought I might catch my breath, regain some strength and go out the door at the first traffic light if there were enough people around. We turned down Pico and came to a red light in about three minutes. I tried to pull the lock button up, but it didn’t move. The man with the skeleton face didn’t even turn his head.

For a few seconds, I considered that I might be dreaming, that I had suffered a concussion and passed out on the gym floor or in the locker room. Young Doctor Parry had warned me about further blows to the head, and I was already two above the limit. Maybe I was back in Cincinnati and these were friends of Koko the Clown.

A solid gun in my side convinced me that I wasn’t dreaming and the skeleton man said softly, “Don’t try anything more. And be very quiet.”

We drove out of the drizzle and through Topanga Canyon. In about fifteen minutes we were in Ventura County, and after another twenty minutes we turned into a driveway in Calabasas. I didn’t like it, especially the fact that I hadn’t been blindfolded. These gentlemen weren’t worried about my seeing where I was being taken, which led me to the conclusion that I might not be coming back from this trip.

I could think of a few dozen things I didn’t like about the situation, not the least of which was the fact that the two dark-suited gentlemen who were my hosts began to speak to each other in German as they led me into an isolated house on an isolated hill. The skeleton man’s gun was out now, and my chance for a run was down to nothing. The gun was a big bulky Luger that could make a big bulky hole in a man, woman, child or tree.

The house itself was badly lit even with the lights turned on. Some of the furniture was covered with sheets, as if the owners were on a vacation. I was led to a wooden chair in the living room and told to sit down. I did. The skeleton man hovered over me with his gun while the short man with the neck muscles and a decided wheeze tied my hands behind me. He was good at it.

There appeared to be some Germanic debate between the two about how to handle me. I was pulling for the wheezer in spite of what he had done to my wrists. I had the distinct feeling that the smiling corpse did not like me, though I couldn’t remember having met him before. I was sure I would have remembered.

Skeleton won the debate and the wheezer walked to a radio on a table and turned it on loud. He found Mr.District Attorney just as Harrington was telling Miss Miller that he was worried about the D.A. Skeleton didn’t seem to like Mr.District Attorney . He told the wheezer something in German. The wheezer found some music and turned it up loud.

“Mr. Peters,” said the skeleton, turning to me, “we have some questions for you to answer. If you answer them, we have no trouble and we take you back home with a minimum of pain.”

He was a clever one. I had to hand him that. He wasn’t telling me I would get off scot free if I talked. He figured I wouldn’t buy that. His hope was that I’d settle for a little abuse in exchange for freedom and not think about the likelihood of the abuse being eternal.

“There are some things I can tell you,” I said. “And some things I can’t. I’ve got a client.” I also figured that if I told them everything that I would no longer be needed. I wasn’t even sure of what “everything” was.

“We’ll start with what you can tell us, then,” said the skeleton man to the music of Guy Lombardo. Skeleton man was putting on a pair of gloves. “Before we begin, however, I’d like to know if you have any problems, illnesses we have to be careful of. We don’t want you to pass out before you give us what we need. You understand?”

We exchanged professional grins and I said I understood. I played Br’er Rabbit and told him I had ulcers. I had no ulcers. I also had no desire to be hit in the stomach, but considering the state of my head, I tried to steer him to my midsection. As useless as my head had been, it might still have a function in the future if I ever got there.

Skeleton hit me hard in the stomach to the accompaniment of Guy Lombardo playing “Happy Days are Here Again.” My satisfaction at having tricked the skeleton was tempered by the pain in my stomach and the taste of nausea in my mouth.

“I thought you wanted me awake,” I gasped.

“But I hit you so gently, Mr. Peters. Now, tell us why you killed Frye, the man in your office last night. We’ll start with that.”

“I didn’t kill him,” I said. “He tried to kill me and someone killed him after he knocked me out. That’s the truth.”

“Suppose you go over everything that happened,” he said, nodding to the man at the radio to run the volume down so he could hear me. “You must believe that we did not want Mr. Frye to kill you. He was, how do you say it, overzealous. We simply wanted to frighten you a bit. Please believe me.”

“I believe you,” I gasped, swallowing. Then I told him what happened the night before, leaving out the visit by Trudi Gurstwald and leaving out Hughes. When I got to the point about Frye’s message in blood and said he had written “unkind,” Fritz-the-skeleton looked puzzled, but Hans at the radio had an inspiration and started to babble something. Skeleton told him to be quiet.

“That was very good, Mr. Peters,” said Skeleton. “Now suppose you tell us how much you have found out in your quest to discover who supposedly stole some of Mr. Howard Hughes’ military plans. Yes, we know about that.”

“I can’t tell you any more,” I said, looking straight up at him. There was a little more I could tell him. I could have told him about the holes in Major Barton’s chest, assuming he hadn’t put them there. I could have told him about Bugsy Siegel. I didn’t think it meant much, but I decided not to tell him in the hope that stalling would keep me alive long enough to work something out.