Brian Freemantle - Charlie Muffin U.S.A.

‘Don’t get greedy,’ warned the Deputy Director.

Charlie never despised good luck, any more than he liked doubting instinct. Sometimes his good fortune had not been immediately obvious, but at others it had shown itself as clearly as the hangover the morning after Hogmanay. His arrival in Florida was like several New Year celebrations rolled into one. It might never have happened had he flown into Miami, which had been his original intention. But Clarissa, who knew about such things because her comfort was very dear to her, had asked him just before he left New York why he was bothering with an hour’s car journey up the coast when there was a perfectly good airport at Palm Beach itself. And so he had flown there instead, and as the aircraft circled for landing, he had seen the name TERRILLI written on a hangar roof and several other buildings, which he presumed were administrative, and felt the sort of happiness that comes to a jig-saw aficionado when he finds the first bit that fits from a three-thousand-piece puzzle.

Having come to appreciate the advantage of Clarissa’s accommodation in New York, Charlie had taken a suite at the Breakers. Without bothering to unpack, he settled at the sitting-room coffee table and spread again the information and pictures he had obtained in New York, this time concentrating only upon Giuseppe Terrilli. His first reaction was one of annoyance, because the location of Terrilli’s businesses in Florida had been mentioned in two of the newspaper cuttings he had photocopied in the Wall Street Journal office and he had missed the significance, which showed a carelessness of which he was not normally guilty.

‘But is it the link?’ he demanded of himself. If it were, then it was tenuous. There could be a dozen perfectly logical, understandable explanations why a man interested in stamps should choose to see the exhibition in New York rather than wait for it to reach the State in which he lived. Nevertheless, it was a coincidence and coincidence, like instinct, was always worth consideration. Reacting to his training, he reached sideways to the telephone table and took up the Palm Beach directory. The airport numbers were in heavier type and then came G. Terrilli’s, against an address off Ocean Boulevard. From the map he had already studied in the foyer, Charlie estimated Terrilli’s home to be a five-minute fast walk from the hotel. He replaced the book, sighing contentedly: still a puzzle without even the edges completed, but surely he was beginning to recognise the colours.

At last he unpacked, gazing out as he did so at the cloudless sky and the people far below at the poolside, and then, beyond to the beach. Everything seemed bleached by the heat, so that the constantly tended and watered trees, lawns and shrubbery stood out starkly green. Charlie turned back into the room, looking down at his comfortably spread shoes and shifting his toes so he could see the movement. It was going to mean a lot of walking, the pavements were going to be hot and at the end his feet were going to hurt. Bugger it.

It took him longer than he had expected to reach South Lake Drive, and he was already sweating when he got to the Chamber of Commerce building backing on to the golf course. The blue-rinsed lady welcomed a respite from a view with which she was bored and, imbued with the proper civic pride, launched into her prepared address about the benefits of the community. Charlie let her speak, interposing the odd question only when it became absolutely necessary, and as he had with the procuring of the photograph in New York, clouded his enquiries with sufficient other questions to disguise any interest in Giuseppe Terrilli.

After an hour, in addition to what he had learned in New York about the man’s business activities, Charlie knew him to be an archetypal Palm Beach resident, respected benefactor, admired philanthropist, a member of all the right organisations and a stalwart pillar of local society.

He thought the air conditioning was better at the offices of the Palm Beach Daily News and they gave him a chair in the newspaper library, where he spent three hours going back through ten years of bound copies, discovering the death of Terrilli’s wife and studying intently the faded, grainy photographs of the mourners after the private funeral. In only two of the reports in all that time was there any reference to Terrilli’s interest in stamps, and even then it was so oblique that Charlie would have overlooked it had he not been searching for it.

Back in his suite, Charlie ran cold water into the bath, took off his shoes, socks and trousers and sat on the bath edge, soaking his feet and trying to assess what he had discovered. Nothing, he decided, after fifteen minutes. From the information he had been able to assemble, there was no reason why Giuseppe Terrilli shouldn’t run for President of the United States or found a religion to rival Christianity.

Was he trying too hard? Had he spent so much time during the last eight years jumping at his own shadow that he’d lost the touch? Or was he just looking the wrong way? He considered the question, answering it with another. What other way was there to look?

‘ There are different ways of reaching the end from the same beginning. ’

Another piece of advice from Sir Archibald. So what had been the beginning? An unease about Jack Pendlebury and then Pendlebury’s response to Terrilli. Since which time he had been mainly looking away from Pendlebury; which was perhaps the mistake.

Charlie dressed and, because he knew it would be expected, went downstairs, contacted the security division of the hotel and embarked upon a detailed tour of all the precautions that had been installed to protect the exhibition. Half way through, the ubiquitous Heppert arrived, falling into step beside Charlie and repeating much of what the Breakers official had already said. Once again, the video was duplicated.

As he had in New York, Charlie ended by telling both he thought their precautions were adequate, aware once again of Heppert’s disappointment. As an apparent afterthought, he invited the heavily bespectacled man into the coffee shop.

Charlie followed the American’s aimless conversation for fifteen minutes, before bringing the discussion to Pendlebury.

‘Sound man,’ judged Charlie, inviting the other man’s contradiction.

‘First class,’ agreed Heppert immediately. ‘Came up with one or two things none of the rest of us had thought of.’

‘Been with your company long?’

Heppert shrugged. ‘Never met him before.’

‘Never met him?’ Another piece of the puzzle, thought Charlie.

‘I gather he’s been attached to headquarters for some time, but I’ve never worked with him. He’s highly regarded.’

‘Really?’ Charlie encouraged him.

‘Seems to be allowed an awful lot of autonomy.’

‘Is that unusual?’

‘Kind of. Our people normally like to be kept well in the picture.’

Heppert put down his coffee cup so that he could consult his watch. It was a heavy, digital affair with a minuscule calculator built into one edge. It went with the executive spectacles.

‘Should be here soon,’ he said.

‘Didn’t he come down with everybody else?’

‘Had to make a call at the Washington office.’

Charlie estimated that he had directed the conversation almost to the point where Heppert might become suspicious, so he allowed the talk to meander again. Charlie ordered more coffee even though he wanted to leave, anxious that Heppert would never think back upon it and imagine some reason for the encounter.

It was late afternoon by the time Charlie got back to his suite. It took only minutes to get the telephone number of the Pinkerton Washington office, and Charlie was connected before he had had time to ease off his shoes. He had to identify himself and his business, and was finally connected to someone who confirmed Pendlebury’s visit but apologised that the man had already left on his way south to Florida. He enquired if he could be of any help, but Charlie declined, promising to await Pendlebury’s arrival.