Howard Fast - The Case of the Kidnapped Angel

“Well, thank God,” Cominsky said. “She’s a nice lady. I’d hate to think that anything happened to her. Is she all right? Did they rough her up?”

“I don’t know. Wainwright didn’t fill me in on any details.”

“I’m starved,” Beckman said.

“You can grab a bite at the drugstore in the shopping center across the road. It’s not great, but it’s all right. Or you can drive down to the pier and eat fancy.”

“We have to wait for Wainwright to call back.”

A few minutes later the call from Wainwright came through. “Masao,” he said, “I’ll be leaving for Mike Barton’s place in about an hour, and I want you to meet me there.”

“You said his wife is back?”

“Right. No harm done except some tape marks on her mouth and wrists. She says she was snatched out of her Malibu house by two men who wore stocking masks, taken somewhere, and finally dumped on Mulholland Drive, just to the west of Coldwater Canyon. She walked to the fire-house and they drove her home. McCarthy’s with her, and that’s the story he tells me. I got to meet with the mayor and city manager again, because they think they can sit on this and I got to tell them they’re crazy.”

“What about Mike Barton?”

“No sign of him yet.”

“Did you put out anything on him? He should be back by now.”

“Not yet, Masao. You know, he could have made the drop fifty miles from here. The kidnappers could have split up. One takes Angel, one goes to pick up the money. What are you thinking?”

“I don’t know exactly what I’m thinking,” Masuto said. “It’s nothing I can put my finger on. It’s just a smell. It doesn’t smell right.”

“No, it stinks, and I don’t know why either, except when there’s a crime and people tell the cops to keep hands off, well, that stinks for me.”

“Who else is at his house?”

“Ranier’s still there, and there’s a uniformed cop I just sent over and told to sit in his car on the street, and if they don’t like that, they can stuff it. What did you find in their beach house?”

“Puzzles. Questions.”

“You might go straight to Barton’s place.”

“Well, we’re here, so we might as well talk to Netty Cooper who had the party here last night. It’s one-thirty now. I should be able to get to Barton’s place by three or a little later.”

“Okay. I’ll meet you there.”

“Try to hold McCarthy and Ranier there. Also the three servants and a woman called Elaine Newman. She’s his secretary.”

“Hold on, Masao. We can’t detain anyone. You know that.”

“Just ask them, politely.”

“I’ll try. But we got nothing to detain anyone on.”

“We’re not arresting them. All I want to do is talk to them.”

“I’ll try.”

They stopped at the drugstore where Masuto ordered a bacon and tomato sandwich and Beckman ordered ham and cheese on rye. “Didn’t you just eat lunch at my house?” Masuto asked him.

“Sure, but that was a long time ago.”

“Yes, I suppose it was.”

It was only a couple of hundred yards from the police station to the gate to Malibu Colony. At that point, where one turns off the Pacific Coast Highway to the old Malibu Road, the Colony is directly to one’s left, a manned gate, and then beyond it a row of some of the most expensive houses in southern California. Masuto had frequently reflected on the lot of a detective trying to juggle the payment of bills, mortgage, doctor, dentist, grocery, insurance, etc., on a policeman’s salary while protecting people who earned more in one year than a policeman could earn in a lifetime.

At the Colony gate, the guard looked at Masuto’s identification and shook his head. “Heavy today-heaviest day we had in a long time. First the local fuzz and now fancy Beverly Hills cops. What goes on?”

Masuto shrugged.

“Come on, I’m on your side.”

“The creature came out of the sea,” Beckman said.

“Funny, funny.”

“Which is Mrs. Cooper’s house?”

“Down there. You can’t miss it, painted bright yellow.”

They drove through and parked in front of the yellow house. A Chicano maid opened the door and asked them to wait. In a few minutes she returned and asked them to follow her. Unlike the Barton house, this one had a proper entrance facing the road. It was two stories, had striped awnings, an entrance way, a huge living room-dining room with baroque furniture painted white, and, facing the sea, tall glass sliding doors. Netty Cooper was sitting on the deck-terrace with a man-a tall, elegant, good-looking man of about fifty. He was dressed in gray flannels, sported a carefully combed and barbered head of iron gray hair with pale gray eyes to match-and a face that was vaguely familiar.

“Two Beverly Hills detectives,” Netty Cooper said with obvious relish. “I never knew they had any detectives on the Beverly Hills police force, only those handsome men in uniform with the pale blue eyes, and so polite, so very polite. But you do have to be polite to be a policeman in Beverly Hills, don’t you?” Her own eyes were very pale blue. She was a slender, attenuated woman in her middle forties, with a long face, long neck, long trunk, and long legs. Her dyed yellow hair was piled on her head, and her nail polish was so dark it was almost black. She wore a beach dress of pale green, and her sandals revealed toenails painted the same color as her fingernails.

“Yes, ma’am-very polite,” Beckman said. Those who didn’t know Beckman and took him at his appearance, that of an oversized running back, were often surprised by his irony. Masuto was watching the man. He recognized him now, Congressman Roy Hennesy.

“And of course you’ve come about poor Angel’s kidnapping.”

“How do you know that Angel Barton was kidnapped?”

“Oh, one knows. This is a very small place. What has happened to our Angel?”

“She has been returned unharmed.”

There was a pause, and then Hennesy said, “Thank God. Kidnapping is a horrible thing.”

“I am Detective Sergeant Masuto. This is Detective Beckman.”

“How nice! How very nice! And this is Congressman Hennesy, a dear friend. Masuto. How nice to think that we have a Japanese detective on the Beverly Hills police force. I spent three months in Japan, and I would love to chat about it. So many things I didn’t understand. You could be so helpful.”

“I’m afraid not. I’ve never been to Japan.”

“Really? Then you must go.”

“Yes. Thank you for the suggestion. Meanwhile, I’m much more interested in the Barton kidnapping.”

“Oh? Are we on the list of suspects?”

“So sorry,” Masuto said, “we have no suspects but would appreciate information.”

Beckman watched him narrowly. Masuto rarely displayed anger, but when he fell into what Wainwright called his Charlie Chan routine, he was provoked and dangerous.

“How disappointing! I always wanted to be a suspect.”

“Were you at the party last night?” he asked Hennesy.

“I was. But I assure you, I did not kidnap the Angel. If I had, I would never return her. I would give up my seat in Congress and find a desert island somewhere-a place where she and I could live out our lives in idyllic ecstasy.”

“Ah, so. And does she feel that way about you?”

“Sergeant, must you be so literal? Half the men in Los Angeles are in love with the Angel,” Mrs. Cooper said, and then to Hennesy, “but you are a very heartless man to sit there and tell me you dream of running off with the Angel.”

“My apologies, and the disclaimer must include the fact that I am here with you, while the Angel snuggles in the arms of her devoted husband. How devoted, I wonder? How much was the ransom, Sergeant?”