Goodbye California - Alistair [109]
‘I think you exaggerate, Professor. I think that, where height is concerned, people will leave a very considerable margin of safety between the water levels I suggested and the worst they can fear. As for the Newport-Inglewood Fault, only a madman would remain in the area at ten o’clock tomorrow morning. I do not visualize throngs of people heading for the Hollywood Park Race Track – if they head there, at that time of the morning, which I don’t know. I think your fears are mainly groundless.’
‘Mainly! Mainly! You mean only a few thousand may drown?’
‘I have no cause to love American people.’ Morro still maintained his monolithic calm. ‘They have not exactly been kind to mine.’
There was a brief silence then Healey said in a low voice: ‘This is even worse than I feared. Race, religion, politics, I don’t know. The man’s a zealot, a fanatic’
‘He’s nuts.’ Burnett reached for the bottle.
‘Judge LeWinter wishes to make a voluntary statement,’ Ryder said.
‘Does he now?’ Dunne peered at the trembling, fearful figure, a pale and almost unimaginable shadow of the imposing figure who had so long dominated the Centre Court. ‘Is that the case, Judge?’
Ryder was impatient. ‘Sure it is.’
‘Look, Sergeant, I was asking the judge.’
‘We were there,’ Parker said. ‘Jeff and I. There was no coercion, no force, the only time Sergeant Ryder touched him was to put on handcuffs. We wouldn’t perjure ourselves, Major Dunne.’
‘You wouldn’t.’ He turned to Delage. ‘Next door. I’ll take his statement in a minute.’
‘One moment before he goes,’ Ryder said. ‘Any word about Hartman?’
Dunne permitted himself his first smile. ‘For once, some luck. Just come in. Hartman, it seems, has been living out there for some years. With his widowed sister, which accounts for the fact that his name was not in the phone book. Didn’t spend much time there until a year or so ago. Travelled a lot. You’d never guess what his business is – well, was, till last year.’
‘Oil rigs.’
Dunne said without heat: ‘Damn you, Ryder, you spoil a man’s simplest pleasures. Yes. Boss roustabout. First-class record. How did you know?’
‘I didn’t. Who were his sponsors – you know, character referees?’
‘Two prominent local business men and – well?’
‘Donahure and LeWinter.’
‘Indeed.’
Ryder looked at LeWinter. ‘You and Hartman made up that list of drillers and engineers together, you from your court cases and extensive briefs from the oil companies, Hartman from his field experience?’
LeWinter said nothing.
‘Well, at least he doesn’t deny it. Tell me, LeWinter, was it his job to recruit those men?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘To kidnap them?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Well, then, to contact them, one way or another?’
‘Yes.’
‘And deliver them?’
‘I suppose so.’
‘Yes or no.’
LeWinter gathered together the shreds of his dignity and turned to Dunne. ‘I am being subjected to harassment.’
‘If that’s what you choose to call it,’ Dunne said unsympathetically. ‘Proceed, Sergeant.’
‘Yes or no?’
‘Yes, damn you, yes.’
‘So, to be obvious, he must have known where to deliver those men after recruitment, voluntary or not So, assuming it was Morro who was responsible for their disappearance, Hartman had a direct line to Morro or knew how to contact him. You must agree with that.’
LeWinter sat down in a chair. He looked more like a cadaver than ever. ‘If you say so.’
‘And, of course, you and Donahure had the same line.’
‘No!’ The denial was immediate and almost vehement.
‘Well.’ Ryder was approving. ‘That’s more like it.’
Dunne said: ‘You believe him? That he’s no line on Morro?’
‘Sure. If he had, he’d be dead by now. A sweet lad, this Morro. Even playing the cards close to the chest he never lets his left hand know what the right is doing. Only Hartman knew. Morro thought that Hartman was totally in the clear. How was he to know, how was anyone to guess that I’d trace him because of the alarm linking LeWinter’s safe and Hartman’s office?