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Authors: John D. MacDonald
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would be out of character for Billy Ingraham to give that kind of an order, and out of character for you to follow through if he did. Yet, in certain circles, that would be standard operating procedure. It might be difficult for them to imagine any other response to theft."
"Then Billy would be a target too."
"If they assume you were following his orders. You would be a hireling, a secondary target."
"Aren't we getting pretty fancy?"
"In testing any hypothesis, one useful method is to carry it to the ultimate limits of absurdity and find out if it still hangs together. This scenario assumes that Gigliermina was well connected with powerful people in Peru, and they are not concerned with degrees of intention or degrees of guilt. The girl is dead and vengeance requires that anyone who had anything to do with her death be killed."
"By a diplomat?!"
"By someone anxious to do him big favors."
"Okay. But back up a little, Meyer, damn it. Somebody did kill the three of them. See how absurd this is, for example. They came back from Yucatan with cocaine. Free-lance. He had some kind of contact, and he phoned from the gas station across the road from the Starfish Marina. He set up a meet, and somebody came with the money to buy it. Cannon or the NicBride girl noticed that it was funny money, and that turned it into a bad scene."
"But from your description, Travis, it looked more as if the three aboard were trying to buy something with that money. It was discovered and they rammed it into his mouth. If the people who came aboard wanted to buy something with counterfeit, and it was discovered, they would have kept the counterfeit and whatever they came to buy. The ugly gesture said, 'Don't try to cheat us with counterfeit!'"
"It looked like very good quality."
"And probably could be passed one at a time with no trouble, but not in a batch."
"So maybe Cannon didn't notice it was counterfeit. Maybe he got paid already for what he brought in, and somebody hijacked them for the money, searched for it, made them tell where they had hidden it aboard, found it and found out it was no good."
Meyer shook his head sadly, a black bear who couldn't get at the honeycomb. "We're getting too far down too many roads, friend McGee. We need more bits and pieces."
"While they adjust their sights?"
Meyer looked grim, aimed a finger at me and said, "Bang, you're dead."
"That's very funny! That's truly hilarious. Maybe you'd write it down so I won't ever forget it."
"I'm sorry," he said, looking dismayed. "That was out of character. Just an impulse. Everybody steps out of character now and then."
"You seldom do."
"I am as surprised as you are."
On Christmas morning, in a hotel suite in Cannes, R. William Ingraham died of a massive cerebral hemorrhage. It was in the morning Lauderdale newspaper on Wednesday the twenty-sixth. The story covered his many accomplishments in altering the local landscape, and the awards and honors given him. They had contacted a few politicians on the state level, and the tenor of their response was that Ingraham had been a good citizen, civic-minded and responsible. and his death was a loss to all Floridians. The page one article said that the grieving widow, Millis Hoover Ingraham, was bringing the body home for burial.
I knew that Frank Payne, who is my lawyer whose services I seldom require, had been Ingraham's attorney for many years and would probably, along with the bank, be handling Billy's estate. So I went to see him that afternoon in his bank building offices. He was in a new firm. Those fellows group and regroup as often as square dancers. This one was Marhead, Carp, Payne and Guyler. I sat for fifteen minutes wondering how good the legs were on the receptionist. Her desk had what is called a privacy screen. Frank's secretary came and got me and took me back to a corner office that looked like a small library in a British club. Frank shook hands and patted his growing gut apologetically, saying he was
"Then Billy would be a target too."
"If they assume you were following his orders. You would be a hireling, a secondary target."
"Aren't we getting pretty fancy?"
"In testing any hypothesis, one useful method is to carry it to the ultimate limits of absurdity and find out if it still hangs together. This scenario assumes that Gigliermina was well connected with powerful people in Peru, and they are not concerned with degrees of intention or degrees of guilt. The girl is dead and vengeance requires that anyone who had anything to do with her death be killed."
"By a diplomat?!"
"By someone anxious to do him big favors."
"Okay. But back up a little, Meyer, damn it. Somebody did kill the three of them. See how absurd this is, for example. They came back from Yucatan with cocaine. Free-lance. He had some kind of contact, and he phoned from the gas station across the road from the Starfish Marina. He set up a meet, and somebody came with the money to buy it. Cannon or the NicBride girl noticed that it was funny money, and that turned it into a bad scene."
"But from your description, Travis, it looked more as if the three aboard were trying to buy something with that money. It was discovered and they rammed it into his mouth. If the people who came aboard wanted to buy something with counterfeit, and it was discovered, they would have kept the counterfeit and whatever they came to buy. The ugly gesture said, 'Don't try to cheat us with counterfeit!'"
"It looked like very good quality."
"And probably could be passed one at a time with no trouble, but not in a batch."
"So maybe Cannon didn't notice it was counterfeit. Maybe he got paid already for what he brought in, and somebody hijacked them for the money, searched for it, made them tell where they had hidden it aboard, found it and found out it was no good."
Meyer shook his head sadly, a black bear who couldn't get at the honeycomb. "We're getting too far down too many roads, friend McGee. We need more bits and pieces."
"While they adjust their sights?"
Meyer looked grim, aimed a finger at me and said, "Bang, you're dead."
"That's very funny! That's truly hilarious. Maybe you'd write it down so I won't ever forget it."
"I'm sorry," he said, looking dismayed. "That was out of character. Just an impulse. Everybody steps out of character now and then."
"You seldom do."
"I am as surprised as you are."
On Christmas morning, in a hotel suite in Cannes, R. William Ingraham died of a massive cerebral hemorrhage. It was in the morning Lauderdale newspaper on Wednesday the twenty-sixth. The story covered his many accomplishments in altering the local landscape, and the awards and honors given him. They had contacted a few politicians on the state level, and the tenor of their response was that Ingraham had been a good citizen, civic-minded and responsible. and his death was a loss to all Floridians. The page one article said that the grieving widow, Millis Hoover Ingraham, was bringing the body home for burial.
I knew that Frank Payne, who is my lawyer whose services I seldom require, had been Ingraham's attorney for many years and would probably, along with the bank, be handling Billy's estate. So I went to see him that afternoon in his bank building offices. He was in a new firm. Those fellows group and regroup as often as square dancers. This one was Marhead, Carp, Payne and Guyler. I sat for fifteen minutes wondering how good the legs were on the receptionist. Her desk had what is called a privacy screen. Frank's secretary came and got me and took me back to a corner office that looked like a small library in a British club. Frank shook hands and patted his growing gut apologetically, saying he was
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