Straits of Fortune - Anthony Gagliano [7]
“Too bad Vivian didn’t think so. Why’d she shoot him, and, better yet, why are you telling me all this and not the police? I work with the living, not with the dead.”
“She did it to protect me.”
“From Matson?”
“From Matson and the people he worked for.”
“He made porn movies. What does the director of Hitch-hiking Bitches and Lesbian Gymnasium have to do with you?”
“On the face of it, nothing. But things aren’t always what they seem, and neither was Matson.”
“You’re being mysterious, Colonel.”
“Matson was a blackmailer. Did you know that?”
“He had money. Why would he want to waste time getting yours?”
He waved the question away with the back of his hand as though it were irrelevant. “He managed to talk my rather delinquent daughter into helping him steal some very important research from my files. Work I had done years ago while employed by the government. He was going to sell it.” The Colonel cracked his knuckles and flexed his palms out and away from him, his fingers locked. Then he cracked each knuckle individually using the thumb of either hand.
“You are wondering what he stole, perhaps.”
“No, I was still wondering why you called me out here.”
“I need your help.”
“As in?”
“I want you to take that bastard’s yacht out there and sink it down to the bottom of the sea.”
I thought about it for a moment. “And for that I get a hundred grand. Is that what you’re telling me?”
“Well?”
“Let me think about it.”
“There’s no time to think about it, Jack. That yacht has been anchored there in the same spot for over a day now. It’s only a matter of time before the coast guard takes notice. Then it will be too late. It’s not just a question of Matson. There are certain sensitive items belonging to me on board that I do not wish to be found. The sooner the boat disappears, the less chance of that there will be. So the time for thinking is rapidly fading, Jack. This is a time for action.”
“What did Matson have on your daughter?”
The Colonel glared at me with an expression that was an ugly mixture of disgust and rage long contained. “It would appear she inadvertently starred in one of his films when she wasn’t thinking straight. When she went out to his boat, he took the ransom and my research, but he reneged on the film. He taunted her. Told her he’d made copies. That turned out to be a mistake.”
“So she shot him over a film?”
“There was a bit of passion involved. She felt betrayed.” He lifted a copy of the Wall Street Journal from the table. Beneath it was a blue videocassette. He picked it up and held it out to me. Then he reached into the pocket of his robe, brought out a key, and tossed it at me. The key took a bounce on the table, but I caught it on the rebound as it came off the glass.
“That’s the key to Vivian’s room. I assume you still know the way. Why don’t you go upstairs and make use of the VCR and watch the film? It might fuel your ambition.”
“I don’t have any ambition. Not as far as your daughter’s concerned.”
“You did once.”
“Once is over.”
“Think about the money, then.”
I looked at the film cassette and put it down. Then I thought about Matson and looked out at the yacht, so white it could have been a shape carved from ivory. It had lost all its innocence, like the Trojan horse on the morning after. The Colonel sat watching me. After a few moments, I took the cassette and stood up.
“This orange juice is too sweet,” I said. Before he could answer, I had turned and gone back through the French doors and was bounding up the winding stairway that led to the bedrooms.
Even on the second floor, the place was still more of a museum than a place where people lived. It lacked the warmth of occupation. There were no toys scattered in the hallway, no family dog or cat stretched out on the marble tiles, just a lot of style