Гарольд Роббинс - The Raiders

"Your name suggests anything but that, Mr. Cord."

"So, what was his blood-alcohol percent?"

"Point-one-seven."

"Drunk," said Jonas.

"Yes. The statute says you shouldn't drive if you've got point-one-five."

"Marginal?"

"I took part in a test, drinking and blowing in the meter, so I could relate to those numbers when I have to present a case to a court," said Carter. "Frankly, Mr. Cord, if I had point-one-seven in me, I couldn't find my car, much less get the key in the ignition and start it."

Jonas nodded. "Okay, schnocked."

"Yes, sir. I'm afraid that's what Mr. Parrish was."

"Kinda depends on the man, doesn't it?" Jonas suggested. "I'd be willing to bet I could drink enough to make the meter show one-point-seven, and I could take a cop out in the car with me and pass a driver's license test."

The young district attorney smiled. "I'm skeptical about that, Mr. Cord," he said. "But what's the point?"

"When a man knocks back as much vodka every day as Ben Parrish has been doing for years, he develops a certain tolerance for it. I don't like the son of a bitch much, but I'd be willing to ride in a car with him after he'd had six drinks. My point is, I don't think what he had to drink is what caused the accident."

"I'm listening, Mr. Cord."

"I don't mean to put down your investigators. I know they're honest and did what they believed was right. But I have investigators, too, and I think yours missed some facts. They missed some because they'd made up their minds what had happened and only looked for the facts that sustained their theory. They missed others because they couldn't have known them and couldn't have found them — unless they know what I know."

The young lawyer reached for his cigarettes, then quickly put them back in his pocket.

"Go ahead and smoke," said Jonas. "I quit for good reasons, but you don't need to be uncomfortable."

"Thank you." Carter lit a cigarette. "So, what facts have we overlooked, Mr. Cord?"

"Ben Parrish's car was smashed in thoroughly on the right side, where it hit the guardrail, which your investigators' report emphasizes. But why was the driver's-side door smashed in, too? Doesn't that suggest something?"

"I suppose it does," said Carter. "What did you have in mind?"

"Simple enough. Somebody rammed Ben Parrish and forced him into the guardrail. The big dent in the left door is at the height of an automobile bumper. Right above that is a smaller dent, with traces of green paint in it. Somebody rammed him."

"Why would somebody do that?"

"To kill him," said Jonas. "If that guardrail hadn't held — held really beyond what they're expected to do — Ben Parrish would have gone into the ravine."

"And what are the facts we couldn't have known?"

"This is where I ask you to believe I'm not the man to come to you with wild and stupid accusations. Ben Parrish is my son-in-law, as I suppose you know. Off the record, I'm not very happy about that, but that's the way it is. I think somebody may have tried to kill him to get at me. I've made some tough people very angry."

"Can you be more specific?" Carter asked.

"Well ... How much specificity goes with the smashed-in door on the left side of the car? If he'd gone through the guardrail and rolled down into the ravine, no one would have noticed that left door. Even my guys wouldn't have. It would have been so simple. Drunk driver hits guardrail, rolls down rocky bank. The guardrail fouled somebody up."

Carter used his cigarette to give him a moment to think. He inhaled deeply and let the white smoke trickle out of his mouth. "What do you want me to do, Mr. Cord?"

"Whatever is right," said Jonas. "Have your investigators look at the car again. If they and you conclude the accident wasn't an accident, then the drinking wasn't so significant. Was it?"

"He broke the law, Mr. Cord. Drinking and driving is dangerous."

"But if he was a victim of attempted murder, that puts a little different complexion on the case, doesn't it?"

"You're suggesting I drop the drunk-driving case?"

Jonas shook his head. "I don't want to say anything that so much as suggests I'm trying to exert improper influence. I brought an additional fact to your attention: the left door. I brought you an idea as to why someone might have tried to force Ben Parrish off the road and kill him. I hope you'll agree the case may not be a simple matter of drunk driving. It may be more."

"All right. I'll look into it."

Dave Amory sat with Bat in the Chrysler Building office. Most of Bat's endemic clutter was hidden under the covers of the rolltop desks. He faced Bat across the big table that served as desk for the chief executive officer of Cord Enterprises.

"It's war now, Bat," said Dave. "Teamsters drivers in four cities — Detroit, Chicago, Cleveland, and Newark — have refused to make deliveries to InterContinental loading docks, claiming they are non-standard and unsafe."

"Let independents haul our air freight," said Bat.

Dave shook his head. "We tried it in Chicago, figuring that would be the safest. They hit the trucks. Somebody dropped concrete blocks on them as they went under overpasses. Non-union companies are afraid to touch our air freight."

"Well, Hoffa is not the only guy who can play that game," said Bat grimly.

"Be goddamned careful, Bat," said Dave Amory. "Be goddamned careful."

Detroit Free Press :

Jay Fulton, vice president of the International Union of Teamsters and Warehousemen, was seriously injured last night when a concrete block, dropped from an overpass on the Jeffries Freeway, shattered the windshield of his limousine and disabled his driver, causing the car to veer across the center divider and into the path of an oncoming sixteen-wheeler.

Fulton, 46, is also a trustee of the Central States Pension Fund. Hospital officials removed him from the critical list early this morning, but he remains in guarded condition with fractured ribs, a punctured lung, a concussion, and a broken arm.

Teamsters President James Hoffa described the attack as "A cowardly attempt on the part of certain bosses to prevent this union from protecting its members. Such outrages will never succeed."

Detroit News :

Early arrivers at the executive offices of the International Union of Teamsters and Warehousemen knew something was wrong as soon as they entered the building this morning.

That smell—

It was the stench from a gooey mixture of tar and kerosene and maybe some other things, that had been poured into all the drawers in some sixty file cabinets.

Left atop one of the cabinets was a box of wooden kitchen matches, suggesting that the files could have been burned if the intruders had so intended. One secretary, who asked not to be quoted by name, said the files would not have been any more completely destroyed if they had been burned. "Who can separate one paper from another?" she asked. "Who can read anything?"

The Teamsters Union takes some pride in its security. An official who similarly asked to be unnamed said it was apparent to him that someone had been paid more to let the files be destroyed than that someone was being paid to protect them.

"If the bosses can do this to us," he asked plaintively, "what can't they do?"

10

"Bat ... Did you do it?"

Bat drew a deep breath and blew it out noisily. They were in bed. In the past she had not wanted to bring up things like this when they were in bed. Priorities. Why now?

"Bat ... ?"

"What do you want me to say?"

"I just want to know if— Off the record. I'm not asking as a newspaper reporter. I'm asking as the woman who loves you."