William Rabkin - A Fatal Frame of Mind

“Do you have a plan yet?” Shawn said.

“I’m working on it,” Gus said, which was technically true as long as panicking over not having a single idea could be considered a kind of work.

“Keep working,” Shawn said. “That way, if you come up with one, you can compare it to the one of mine we will already have used.”

It took Gus a moment to work through the logic behind the grammar. “You have a plan? What is it?”

“Watch and learn,” Shawn said, then reclined his chair and closed his eyes.

Gus didn’t want to watch. He didn’t want to learn. What he wanted was to wake up in his seat in the Bijoux Theatre to discover that he’d fallen asleep in the middle of Dangerous Indiscretion and there were only three more features to go before the festival was over. But since that didn’t seem likely, he waited in his seat, wondering what it was he was waiting for and if there was any chance it wouldn’t make everything even worse than it already was.

He didn’t have to wait long. After a moment, the cockpit door swung open, and Malko went over to Kitteredge.

“I hope you enjoyed the flight, Professor,” Malko said.

“Your flying is even more graceful than your minuet,” Kitteredge said, and Gus was surprised to see a tinge of red coloring the hunchback’s cheeks.

Malko reached past Kitteredge and hit a few buttons on a console. There was a thunk as machinery whirred into gear. The cabin door swung open, and a flight of stairs extended into the darkness of the barn’s interior. Kitteredge squeezed Malko’s outstretched hand and then disappeared down the steps.

Malko waited by the open door until it became obvious that Shawn and Gus were not going anywhere. Then he turned and walked heavily back to their seats.

“End of the line,” he said. “Everybody out.”

“That’s true in so many ways,” Shawn said, cracking one eye open but refusing to raise his seat back. “Just not in the one you’re thinking of.”

Malko lifted his lip in a sneer, and Gus thought he was actually going to growl like a dog. Instead, he spoke clearly and forcefully. “Both of you, out of the plane now.”

“Listen, Malk,” Shawn said. “Mind if I call you Malk? Mal? Ma?”

“Out.” This time it was less a word than a bark.

“I understand that you’re fond of the professor,” Shawn said as if he hadn’t noticed the hostility coming from the other man or remembered how handy he was with a shotgun. “But there’s something you’ve got to understand. He’s nuts. Absolutely stark raving insane. I’m pretty sure your master doesn’t realize this, or he never would have sent us all off like this, but-”

“My what?” Malko said. To Gus’ ears it sounded less like a question than a death threat.

“That’s the guy,” Shawn said. “Your master. You know, the one who orders you around and shoves torches in your face when you don’t obey.”

“Flaxman Low is my employer,” Malko said quietly, but with an undercurrent of bloodlust in his throat. “I was hired through a top-flight recruiting agency and work under union contract.”

“And I’m sure he’s a great boss,” Gus said quickly, before Shawn could ask if Malko had answered a want ad specifically asking for someone to dig up dead bodies for parts. “He’s also a great friend to Professor Kitteredge. I’m sure he doesn’t want to see any harm come to him. And that’s what this is all about.”

Gus glanced at Shawn, hoping that this was indeed what it was all about. He was beginning to have a glimmer of Shawn’s plan, and while it was pretty flimsy, it wouldn’t get any stronger if Gus cut its legs off.

“Exactly,” Shawn said. “We’ve all been wrong about the prof. He’s seriously sick, and he needs help. We need to take him back to Santa Barbara and get him into a hospital for observation. Once the doctors rule that he is mentally ill, his lawyers can get him a deal. But we need to get him back home first.”

Gus watched Malko’s face carefully as he listened to Shawn. At first it looked like the hunchback was simply going to order them off the plane again. But as Shawn went on, Malko’s features began to soften.

“I have to say I was worried about the same thing,” Malko said. “Mr. Low gives him the benefit of the doubt when he talks about this Cabal, but I studied psychology in college, and I recognize the symptoms of paranoid schizophrenia. It pains me to see him this way.”

“Then you’ll help us?” Gus said. He couldn’t believe it was going to be this easy.

“I’ve got to refuel the jet, and that’s going to take a little while,” Malko said. “That gives you two some time to come up with a story that will get him to agree to return. If you can do that, I’ll do whatever I can.”

“Thank you,” Gus said.

“I’m doing it for Professor Kitteredge,” Malko said, and turned to walk to the door.

Gus undid his seat belt and waited for Shawn to do the same. “That was your great plan?” he said. “To ask for help?”

“It’s not the complexity of the plan, but how well it works,” Shawn said. “Besides, I like to keep the tactic of sincerely telling the truth in my toolkit. It isn’t the right thing very often, but once in a while it comes in handy.”

Gus led Shawn to the jet’s door and then down the short flight of stairs into the darkened barn. He peered into the gloom but couldn’t see Kitteredge anywhere.

“Professor?” he called.

There was no answer.

“Professor Kitteredge?” he said again as Shawn stepped down next to him. “Langston?”

“I’m afraid Professor Kitteredge can’t talk right now,” a man’s voice said from somewhere in the darkness.

“Did that sound like Malko to you?” Shawn said. “Because I don’t remember him speaking with an English accent.”

“Who’s out there?” Gus called. “Where’s Professor Kitteredge?”

“Who I am is of no importance right now,” the voice said, sounding much closer to James Mason than to Malko. “As for the professor’s whereabouts, you can see for yourself.”

A row of fluorescent lights across the barn’s ceiling flickered on. Gus blinked against the sudden illumination, then opened his eyes. They were standing in what appeared to be a traditional wooden barn, aside from the substitution of the private jet for a stack of hay bales. One wall was covered with farm tools hanging from hooks, and the other was hidden behind a series of stalls.

It was the nearest of those stalls that caught Gus’ eye. Because Professor Kitteredge was standing in its doorway. And behind him was a man in a pinstriped, three-piece suit. A man whose face was completely covered by a black ski mask.

And he was holding a gun to the professor’s head.

Lassiter was shocked at how easy it had been to get in to see Hugh Ralston, the museum’s executive director. He and Henry had spent twenty minutes talking about what to do if they were asked to produce a badge, and the closest they got to an answer was a mutual agreement to improvise.

But Ralston’s secretary didn’t ask for any identification. She took one look at the men standing across from her desk and hit the intercom to let her boss know that there were two police detectives to see him.

If only the next part of the interview had gone as well. Not that Ralston wasn’t cooperative. He seemed almost desperately eager to please.

It was just that he didn’t know anything. They’d started out by asking standard questions about Clay Filkins-friends, enemies, home life, financial troubles. All the things that Juliet O’Hara had undoubtedly already asked in the course of the official investigation. Ralston didn’t have any objections to answering them again; he just didn’t have any information to give the police. They’d worked together for a couple of years, and Ralston had held Filkins in the highest regard professionally, but they’d never spent any time together outside of work, and all their conversations in the office had been strictly business. Not that they objected to speaking personally; it was just that there was so much about the museum they both found fascinating that there was never a need to change subjects.