Эд Горман - Riders on the Storm

I hadn’t paid much attention to the business over the years but did hear from time to time that their market share was thinning due to both domestic and foreign competition. I do remember that there were layoffs a few years ago. But then there was talk that the company had stabilized and the layoffs had ended. The figure I remembered was that the downturn had cut their work force by about twenty percent.

Even with Donovan gone the business was running full force. The two parking lots were crowded and the loading docks were busy. I parked in Visitors and noticed two special parking spots. One was marked Donovan. One was marked Anders. The latter was filled with a brand-new silver Porsche. I went inside.

Busy in here, too. People with papers hurrying left and right. A long desk where a prim but attractive middle-aged woman sat. She wore a pewter-colored blouse that she filled nicely. A pair of pince-nez rested enviably on her bosom. She was so programmed that she couldn’t help smiling even on the bereavement watch for her boss.

There was only one way I could make this work. I needed to be brazen. It wasn’t my style and a dump truck was pouring vats of acid into my stomach. And the sweat wasn’t from the eighty-six-degree heat.

“May I help you?”

“I’d like to see Mr. Anders.”

“You do realize what’s happened to our founder, don’t you?”

“Yes. I’m very sorry. That’s why I’m here to speak to Mr. Anders.”

“They were not only coworkers. They were best friends. I can’t imagine what Lon — Mr. Anders — is going though.”

“But he is here. I just saw his car.”

She’d admirably kept her irritation in check until now. “May I ask what your name is?”

“Sam McCain.”

“And what would your business be with Mr. Anders?”

“Will Cullen is my client. That’s what I’d like to see Mr. Anders about.”

She leaned most attractively back in her chair and said, “Is this some kind of joke? You represent the man who murdered Mr. Donovan and you want to see Mr. Anders?”

“Afraid that’s the case.”

She sat up straight again. “Well, I won’t let you.”

“Of course you will. Your job description includes informing your employers who is here to see them. You don’t decide if they see me; that’s their decision. Now please inform Mr. Anders that I’m here.”

“He’s a very good-sized man and he has a very bad temper.”

“Then I’ve been warned and I appreciate it. Now please tell him I’m here.” I really liked her perfume. She was probably ten years older than me but that didn’t bother me at all.

“You certainly have your gall,” she said as she leaned over to finger the proper button. “I’m so very sorry to disturb you, Mr. Anders, but there’s a man here who insists on seeing you.”

“Who the hell would be bothering me on a day like this? What’s his name?”

“He says it’s Sam McCain.”

There was a considerable pause. “I can’t believe this.”

“I can’t either. I was even considering calling the police and not even telling you.”

“Send him in.”

“Are you serious?”

“Would I say it if I wasn’t serious, Annette? I’m not really in a joking mood today, believe it or not.”

“All right.” She obviously wanted to ask him if he’d lost his mind. “Thank you, Mr. Anders.”

A very nice shape, too, tall and almost regal, her dark skirt loving its duty. I followed in the wake of her perfume.

She opened the door and allowed me to enter what appeared to be a photographic library. Black-and-white as well as color photographs covered half the walls. Each contained dead animals of the kind found in Africa. Rhinos, lions, tigers, even an elephant. And standing with his booted foot on or near their heads was none other than my host, Lon Anders. He wore Hemingway khaki as well as a pith helmet. He’d even grown a wispy beard in some of them. And always at the ready was the rifle he held straight up in his grasp. He’d bravely let his guides find his prey and do everything but kill it for him. They would have made sure that there was no chance the animal would get loose and charge him. And then, heroically, he would blast the shit out of the poor beast.

I thought what I always thought when I saw these great white hunter photographs. We have to start arming the animals. The kind of photo I wanted to see was of a giant elephant’s foot on the head of a douchebag white hunter.

The other half of the walls were covered with framed photographs of him in three different types of flight suits during the days he was a pilot in Nam. I thought of Randall Shepard because in one of the pictures he was giving a thumbs-up.

He said, “You’ve got a lot of balls coming here.”

“Your secretary used the word ‘gall’ instead of ‘balls.’”

“Hilarious. Now what the hell do you want?”

“I thought maybe you could help me figure out who really killed Donovan.”

“Is this some kind of joke?”

“Your secretary used that line, too.”

Lon Anders: running-back size, Scandinavian good looks, Marine Corps blond crew cut and the empty, angry blue eyes I’ve seen on a number of men convicted of murder. Tan shirt, brown knitted tie, brown pleated slacks. This was the swaggering country club Lothario who tried to get blow jobs from the college-girl waitresses after they were finished for the evening.

“Your nut-job buddy Cullen killed Steve. Talk to Paul Foster, he’ll tell you. If Cullen hadn’t wigged out he’d probably be signing a confession right now.”

“And you were doing what last night?”

He was pretty good. He smiled. He must’ve had sixty teeth and had elves polish them when he slept at night. “You know, McCain, I’ve always heard that you were a dumb little jerk but I have to say — you just don’t have any common sense at all. If I was worried about being a suspect do you think I’d let you in here?” He pointed to his phone unit. Very sleek. “Why don’t you call Paul and tell him you think I killed Steve?”

“You call him ‘Paul,’ too, huh?”

“Yeah, I call him Paul. We’re on a number of committees together. He also likes to play handball. We’re friends the same way Steve and I were friends.”

“I hear you and Steve weren’t good friends at all.”

“I’m not even going to comment on that.”

“So if you didn’t kill him, who do you think did?”

The teeth again. They were spectacular. He went around the desk and sat down. I started to sit in one of the visitor chairs but he said, “Don’t even think about it. I don’t want your shit-kicker ass contaminating the furniture. This stuff is imported. And you’ve got three more minutes, by the way, and then I start breaking your bones.”

“I hear Teddy Byrnes was playing bodyguard for Donovan.”

“You have lousy sources if you heard that. Teddy’s a cousin of Steve’s. He got off to a bad start in life.”

My laughter came out much louder than I would have expected. “‘Got off to a bad start in life’? He’s a psychopath. What was Donovan going to do, ‘rehabilitate’ him?”

“As a matter of fact, in a way he was. One thing about Steve, he always believed in giving people second chances. You should see his office wall. He’s got so many plaques from places like Big Brothers you wouldn’t believe it.”

“I doubt Al Carmichael would agree with that.”

He was pretty damned good at scoffing. I wondered if he’d ever done any community theater. “Al Carmichael. He damned near destroyed this company. It took everything Steve and I could do to save it.”

“I guess my lousy sources gave me some bad information on that one, too. The way I heard it, you and Donovan screwed him out of his part of the business.”