Десмонд Бэгли - Landslide

Over a cup of strong black coffee I began to feel better. You knew you were going to have a tough time , I argued with myself. Are you going to chicken out now? Hell, you haven’t even started yet — it’s going to get tougher than this.

That’s what I’m afraid of , I told myself.

Think what a wallop you’re going to give Matterson , I answered back. Forget yourself and think of that bastard.

By the time I finished the coffee I had argued myself back into condition and felt hungry, so I ordered breakfast, which helped a lot more. It’s surprising how many psychological problems can be traced to an empty gut. I went out into King Street and looked up and down. There was a new car dealer a little way down the street and a used car lot up the street. The big place was owned by Matterson and, since I didn’t want to put any money in his pocket, I strolled up to the used car lot.

I looked at the junk that was lying round and a thin-faced man popped out of a hut at the front of the lot. ‘Anything I can do for you? Got some good stuff here going cheap. Best autos in town.’

‘I’m looking for a small truck — four by four.’

‘Like a jeep?’

‘If you have one.’

He shook his head. ‘Got a Land-Rover, though. How about that? Better than the jeep, I think.’

‘Where is it?’

He pointed to a tired piece of scrap iron on four wheels. ‘There she is. You won’t do better than that. British made, you know. Better than any Detroit iron.’

‘Don’t push so hard, bud,’ I said, and walked over to have a look at the Land-Rover. Someone had used it hard; the paint had worn and there were dents in every conceivable place and in some which weren’t so conceivable. The interior of the cab was well worn, too, and looked pretty rough, but a Land-Rover isn’t a luxury limousine in the first place. The tyres were good.

I stepped back. ‘Can I look under the hood?’

‘Sure.’ He released the catch and lifted the hood, chattering as he did so. ‘This is a good buy — only had one owner.’

‘Sure,’ I said. ‘A little old lady who only used it to go to church every Sunday.’

‘Don’t get me wrong,’ he said. ‘I really mean that. It belonged to Jim Cooper; he runs a truck farm just outside town. He turned this in and got himself a new one. But this crate still runs real good.’

I looked at the engine and halfway began to believe him. It was spotless and there were no telltale oil drips. But what the transmission was like was another story, so I said, ‘Can I take her out for half an hour?’

‘Help yourself,’ he said. ‘You’ll find the key in the lock.’

I wheeled out the Land-Rover and headed north to where I knew I could find a bad road. It was also in the direction of where McDougall had his cabin and I thought I might as well check on its exact position in case I had to find it in a hurry. I found a nice corrugated stretch of road and accelerated to find out what the springing was like. It seemed to be all right, although there were some nasty sounds coming from the battered body that I didn’t care for.

I found the turn-off for Mac’s place without much trouble and found a really bad road, a hummocky trail rising and dipping with the fall of the land and with several bad patches of mud. Here I experimented with the variety of gears which constitute the charm of the Land-Rover, and I also tried out the front-wheel drive and found everything in reasonable condition.

Mac’s cabin was small but beautifully positioned on a rise overlooking a stretch of woodland, and just behind it was a stream which looked as though it might hold some good fish. I spent five minutes looking the place over, then I headed back to town to do a deal with the friendly small-town car dealer.

We dickered a bit and then finally settled on a price — a shade more than I had intended to pay and a shade less than he had intended to get, which made both of us moderately unhappy. I paid him the money and decided I might as well start here as anywhere else. ‘Do you remember a man called Trinavant — John Trinavant?’

He scratched his head. ‘Say, yes; of course I remember old John. Funny — I haven’t thought of him in years. Was he a friend of yours?’

‘Can’t say I remember meeting him,’ I said. ‘Did he live round here?’

‘Live round here? Mister, he was Fort Farrell!’

‘I thought that was Matterson.’

A gobbet of spit just missed my foot. ‘Matterson!’ The tone of voice told me what he thought of that.

I said, ‘I hear he was killed in an auto accident. Is that right?’

‘Yeah. And his son and wife both. On the road to Edmonton. Must be over ten years ago now. A mighty nasty thing, that was.’

‘What kind of a car was he driving?’

He looked at me with speculative eyes. ‘You got any special interest, Mister...?’

‘The name’s Boyd,’ I said. ‘Bob Boyd. Someone asked me to check if I was in these parts. It seems as though Trinavant did my friend a good turn years ago — there was some money involved, I believe.’

‘I can believe that of John Trinavant; he was a pretty good guy. My name’s Summerskill.’

I grinned at him. ‘Glad to meet you, Mr Summerskill. Did Trinavant buy his car from you?’

Summerskill laughed uproariously, ‘Hell, no! I don’t have that class. Old John was a Cadillac man, and, anyway, he owned his own place up the road a piece — Fort Farrell Motors. It belongs to Matterson now.’

I looked up the street. ‘Must make pretty tough competition for you,’ I said.

‘Some,’ he agreed. ‘But I do all right, Mr Boyd.’

‘Come to think of it,’ I said, ‘I’ve seen nothing else but the name of Matterson since I’ve been here, Mr Summerskill. The Matterson Bank, Matterson House Hotel — and I believe there’s a Matterson Corporation. What did he do — buy out Trinavant?’

Summerskill grimaced. ‘What you’ve seen is the tip of the iceberg. Matterson pretty near owns this part of the country — logging operations, sawmills, pulp mills. He’s bigger than old John ever was — in power, that is. But not in heart, no, sir! No one had a bigger heart than John Trinavant. As for Matterson buying out Mr Trinavant — well, I could tell you a thing or two about that. But it’s an old story and better forgotten.’

‘Looks as though I came too late.’

‘Yeah, you tell your friend he was ten years too late. If he owed old John any dough it’s too late to pay it back now.’

‘I don’t think it was the money,’ I said. ‘My friend just wanted to make contact again.’

Summerskill nodded. ‘Yeah, it’s like that. I was born in Hazelton and I went away just as soon as I could, but of course I had a hankering to go back, so I did after five years. And you know what? The first two guys I went to see had died — the first two guys on my list. Things change around a place, they certainly do.’

I stuck my hand out. ‘Well, it’s been nice doing business with you, Mr Summerskill.’

‘Any time, Mr Boyd.’ We shook hands. ‘You want any spares, you come right back.’

I climbed up into the cab and leaned out of the window. ‘If the engine drops out of this heap in the next couple of days you’ll be seeing me soon enough,’ I promised, softening it with a grin.

He laughed and waved me away, and as I drove down King Street I thought that the memory of John Trinavant had been replanted in at least one mind. With a bit of luck Summerskill would mention it to his wife and a couple of his buddies. You know what? Me and a stranger had a chat about a guy I haven’t thought of in years. You must remember old John Trinavant. Remember when he started the Recorder and everyone thought it would go bust?