Aces and Knaves

Chapter 15 ELMA-1

The Mackay house was in Manhattan Beach, less than 15 minutes away from Arrow's condo in her car. With only the narrow Hermosa Beach in between Redondo and Manhattan, the distance was short.

Parking was the biggest problem and Arrow had to squeeze into a space on a narrow street up the hill one block from Highland Avenue. She proved she was adept at parallel parking.

The house itself was comfortable but not huge; beach lots, even several blocks up from the beach where this house was, tended toward postage-stamp size. Many of the houses completely filled their lots. This one had a modern, cube-like design, and was at least two stories high, maybe more-it was hard to tell at first glance-since it was built on the side of the hill that led down to the ocean.

The house fronted on one of the numbered streets that banned cars. We walked a short distance uphill on this street and then up a flight of steps to the front door of the house. Not for the mobility-challenged.

The woman who answered the door to Arrow's ring didn't look like the wife of Ned Mackay. I guess I was expecting someone who resembled Ned, but where Ned had been short, Elma was tall, probably as tall as Ned; where Ned had been stocky Elma was slender-too slender to have borne three children; and where Ned had been tending toward baldness Elma had short but very red hair. She must have been a beauty when she was younger-she was still a beauty. She wore a blouse and a skirt; both had some green in them. They weren't clothes of mourning.

She invited us in with a quick smile, shook my hand at Arrow's introduction and said to me, "Don't mind the mess. I didn't have time to pick up."

I didn't see a mess, especially compared to my place. I said, "I'm so sorry about Ned. He was very helpful to me."

"Yes, you were with him when he died, weren't you. I would like to ask you some questions. But first, my condolences on your father's illness. Richard is a very dear friend. Dionysus can survive without Ned, but it can't survive without both Ned and Richard."

Elma had us sit down in the living room. The large corner windows overlooked the ocean, or at least a small slice of ocean, between the houses in front of us.

Elma offered us coffee or tea; I chose herb tea. Arrow took coffee. No children were in evidence. She told us she was planning for Ned's funeral service on Tuesday. She spoke with what must be a Scottish lilt, but it was barely detectable. When I apologized for interrupting her she said that the plans were pretty well set. His body had been returned to Los Angeles so there would be a casket.

In turn, I told her what I knew about Ned's death, including what Pat Wong's uncle had said about him being set up with the cocaine.

"Ned was a lot of things, but he wasn't a drug dealer," Elma said, vehemently. "The police searched the house from top to bottom and found not a trace. Not a trace!"

She showed some of the fire that must have kept the police from running wild through the house. She appeared to be ready to handle questions about the future of Dionysus.

I said, "Elma, you and Richard together now own a majority of the stock of Dionysus."

Elma looked at me with her green eyes, fully alert, but she didn't say anything.

"This means you two control the company."

"I know what it means," she said, softly.

Based on Arrow's description of her financial acumen, I hadn't been sure. And I wasn't sure how to proceed. I said, "Have you heard of a man named James Buchanan?"

Again she stared at me, not saying anything. I thought I'd drawn a blank. This was encouraging because it meant that Buchanan hadn't contacted her. But slowly her expression changed, from alertness to something incomprehensible. She said, "What does James Buchanan have to do with this?"

"He wants to gain control of Dionysus," Arrow said.

"How do you know?" Elma still spoke softly, but with intensity.

"He is head of a company that invests in other companies," I said. "Sometimes he is content to be a minority stockholder; in other cases he takes control. He has been buying the stock of Dionysus. We know because he has to file reports with the SEC-the Securities and Exchange Commission. And because he told us."

"We think he wants to get control of Dionysus," Arrow said, "so that he can replace Richard."

Elma didn't say anything for a while. She appeared to be far away. After a full minute had gone by, she asked, "What does James look like now?"

This question caught both Arrow and me by surprise. We exchanged glances. Finally, Arrow said, "He has gray hair, but he still looks youthful. He has a zest for life."

"James always had a zest for life. Maybe too much so."

"So you know him," I said.

"I…knew him. Many years ago." Again Elma appeared to be somewhere else, but then she snapped back to the present. "So you think James is likely to contact me?"

"We think so," Arrow said. "If he can convince you to vote your stock for him, that's his best chance for gaining control of Dionysus."

"So James needs me," Elma said with a little smile. "That's a switch." She looked at Arrow and me. "Arrow, since you've been so helpful to me, and Karl, since you are Richard's son, I owe you both an explanation of my involvement with James."

Having dropped that bombshell, Elma heightened the tension by going to the kitchen to refresh our drinks. My stomach did flips. I asked Arrow, "Are we in trouble?"

"I don't know," she said, frowning. "This is the first I've heard of anything between Elma and James."

Elma came back with a plate of cookies. I immediately stuffed two into my mouth and was working on a third before I realized what I was doing. I deliberately set the partially eaten cookie down on the napkin in front of me.

I watched the freckles on Elma's nose as she sat back down in a large armchair, wondering what secrets they had seen. She took off her shoes and drew her legs up underneath her. She had freckles on her legs, too. I like freckles.

"Once upon a time," Elma said, "I was a girl living in northern Scotland, in the village of Wick. There were two boys-friends of each other-also living in Wick. They were a few years older than I was. Their names were James Buchanan and Ned Mackay."

Elma paused and took a bite of a cookie, while Arrow and I surreptitiously glanced at each other. Elma appeared to be collecting her thoughts. "When I was old enough to notice boys I set my cap for James. James was…how shall I say it? I think flamboyant is the best description for him. He was popular and he liked to take risks. He bet on things. But he managed to get the odds in his favor and he won most of his bets.

"Girls were attracted to him and at first I didn't think I had a chance. But when other boys started noticing me I realized that I was not without my charms. On Saturday evenings there would be singing and dancing at Mackays Hotel, which was owned by a distant cousin of Ned. I had a good voice and I would sing songs about Loch Lomond and the Highlands."

The lilt in Elma's voice became more definite now as she became engrossed in her tale.

"I was 15 when I caught James' eye. He began squiring me. Ned was sweet on me too and when James wasn't there-he played the bagpipes in a band and sometimes traveled to other cities to perform-I would dance with Ned or go to the movies with him. But I liked James better.

"As long as James had me to himself when he was around he didn't mind me going with Ned when he wasn't because they were friends and Ned didn't infringe on James' territory. He was content to be in James' shadow-then. We were a loose triangle. This went on for a couple of years. I felt like a queen with my two beaus."

Elma smiled to herself as she relived the memory. I could understand why James and Ned had liked her.

"It sounds ideal to me," Arrow said. "I can't even hold onto one beau."

"It didn't last, of course.”One day they went away. Took the train to Glasgow and flew to America."

"Together?" I asked.

"Together. In those days they did everything together. Shared everything-including me." Elma's faced clouded. "They left me at the same time. My heart broke into little pieces. In retrospect, I should have seen it coming. Wick wasn't big enough for James. He was always so restless, so full of grand ideas. That's one reason I liked him. Ultimately, the same thing proved to be true for Ned."

Elma stopped talking, still lost in her memories.

"But that's not the end of the story," Arrow said.

"No, it isn't." Elma said. She was smiling again. "After my heart mended itself I tried to adjust to life without James and Ned. Wick wasn't the same without them. I began to see the warts-the provinciality. The narrowness of thinking in a small town where, if you get out of step you are a pariah.

"My mother was glad James and Ned were gone because she felt that as long as I had two boyfriends, I would never get married. However, my father sensed the reasons for my rebellion, even though it mostly manifested itself in moodiness, and offered to send me to university. I wanted to go to a university all right, but not in the UK-in the US. I saved my money and got some help from my father and an uncle.

"The day I boarded the train for Glasgow to fly to the US my mother was so upset I almost didn't go. I thought she might die of grief. I was her only child. But I was too selfish to stay; so I went."

"Alone?" Arrow asked. "Did you go alone?"

"Yes, I went alone. There was nobody left in Wick who had the wanderlust-nobody to go with me."

"So you had more balls than James and Ned."

Elma laughed. "I didn't see them again for five years. I graduated from college and moved to Los Angeles, where I got a job teaching at a private school. And then one night I ran into James at a party-and his wife. He and Ned were in partnership together and they had just taken over a printing company.

"I'll summarize the rest so I don't bore you to tears. James put me in touch with Ned. We dated; we got married. Their company grew but Ned was still second fiddle. He chafed under the arrangement. I urged him to break with James. Finally, James bought him out and moved to San Francisco. They went their separate ways and both prospered."

Perhaps James had prospered more than Ned. I wondered whether Elma ever wished she had married James. There was another thing. Before giving it any thought I said, "Did you know that when Ned went to San Francisco on business he visited James?"

Elma shook her head slowly, her green eyes boring into me. "No, he never told me that. Are you sure?"

"I was supposed to meet him at James' house the night he was killed. James and one of his assistants told us-told me-that Ned was a frequent visitor there. James has set up a mock gambling casino and lots of people go there."

"I can't say that I'm shocked, or even surprised. Ned kept things to himself."

"Just one more question, Elma. Did Ned gamble?"

"Gamble? He might bet a dollar on a football game once in a while. But he didn't play the horses, if that's what you mean. He didn't even buy lottery tickets. Why?"

"He didn't like casino gambling? Dice? Blackjack?"

"No. I don't think he's been to Las Vegas more than three times since we've been married. He helped to get financing for a casino once, but that was strictly a business deal. Of course, I don't know what he did at this casino you said James has."

"That isn't a real casino. No money changes hands."

"I have a question," Arrow said. "James may make an offer to buy your stock-and everybody else's. Would you sell?"

Elma smiled at her audacity. "I haven't spoken to James in over five years."

"He seems to prefer boys to girls now."

"There were shades of that even when he was a teenager back in Wick. I was young and naive, it's true, but I always thought his roughhousing with his friends went beyond the bounds of camaraderie."