The Listening Walls

12.

The runways of International Airport were steaming under the heat of a surprise sun, and planes that had been grounded overnight were taking off in all directions as fast as space could be cleared for them. Inside the glass walls the loudspeaker, like an invisible tyrant, gave out constant orders to its subjects: “Pan American, flight 509 for Hawaii, now boarding at Gate Seven... Mr. Paul Mitchell, report to United Air Lines, Mr. Paul Mitchell... Trans World Airlines flight 703 to Chicago and New York has been delayed half an hour... Do not attempt to board planes before your flight number has been announced... Gate Seven is now open for Pan American flight 509 to Hawaii... Mrs. James Swartz, repeat, Mrs. James Swartz, your ticket has not been validated for Dallas, Texas. Report immediately to the United Air Lines desk... Gate Ten is now open for flight 314 to Seattle...

Behind the Western Air Lines counter, a young pink-faced man in horn-rimmed spectacles was doing some paper work behind a nameplate that identified him as Charles E. Smith.

When Dodd approached, the young man said, without looking up, “Can I do anything for you?”

“I’d like a ticket to the moon.”

“What in... Oh, it’s you. Dodd. Somebody been murdered?”

“Yeah,” Dodd said pleasantly. “Your whole family, including cousin Mabel, has been wiped out by a mad bomber.”

“I confess.”

“Good boy.”

“So what else is new?”

“I’m in the market for some information, Smitty.”

“I’m listening.”

“On Sunday night, September the fourteenth, a man and wife supposedly landed here after a flight from Mexico City. What I want to know is, did they both get off the plane, did one of them, did either of them?”

“That sounds simple enough,” Smitty said. “But it isn’t.”

“You keep records, don’t you?”

“Sure, we keep records. We have the names of every person who’s boarded any of our planes for the last two years.”

Dodd looked impatient. “Well?”

“I said boarded. We’re not in business for our health. We collect the fares and get the passengers on board. Where they get off is not our concern.”

“You mean if I bought a ticket to New York and got off at Chicago instead, no one would notice the difference?”

“It wouldn’t be part of our records,” Smitty said. “But someone might notice the difference.”

“Such as?”

“A member of the crew. One of the stewardesses, for instance, might recall you particularly because you tried to get fresh or drank three martinis before dinner instead of one. Or the radio operator, the co-pilot, the pilot — they all take trips to the head and sometimes they stop and chat with the passengers.”

“Do you keep records of the crew on each flight?”

“The dispatch clerk does.”

“How about looking up September the fourteenth. Better check the thirteenth, too.”

Smith took off his spectacles and rubbed his eyes. “What kind of business are you on, Dodd?”

“It’s never clean.”

“I know that, but what’s involved?”

“Love, hate, money, take your choice.”

“I’ll take money,” Smitty said blandly.

“Are you implying that you’d accept a bribe? This is a shock to me, son, a truly terrible sh—”

“Wait in the coffee shop. I get off duty in fifteen minutes.”

The coffee shop was crowded to the doors. It was easy enough to spot the people who were waiting for their planes. They ate with anxious haste, one eye on the clock, one ear on the loudspeaker. The women fussed with their hats and handbags, the men rechecked their tickets. They looked tense and irritable. Dodd wondered where all the happy travelers were that he saw in the vacation ads.

He jostled for a place at the counter and ordered coffee and a Danish pastry. While he ate he eavesdropped on the conversation of the two middle-aged women beside him who were embarking on a trip to Dallas.

“I’ve got this feeling I forgot something. I just know...”

“The gas. Did you remember to turn off the gas?”

“I’m sure I did. I think I did. Oh, dear!”

“You brought the dramamine, I hope.”

“Here it is. Not that it will do any good. I feel sick already.”

“Imagine the nerve of them making me weigh my purse along with my luggage just because it’s a little oversize.”

“Even if I didn’t turn off the gas the house wouldn’t blow up, would it?”

“Take the dramamine. It will quiet your nerves.”

When they left, Dodd silently wished them bon voyage and put his topcoat over one of the vacant stools to save it for Smitty.

He was on his second cup of coffee when Smitty came in. “Done?”

“Done,” Smitty said. “Saturday, September thirteen. Pilot Robert Forbes, lives in San Carlos but now in flight. Co-pilot James Billings, Sausalito, now off duty. Radio operator Joe Mazzino, Daly City, now on sick leave. Three stewardesses. Two of them, Ann Mackay and Maria Fernandez, are now in flight. The third, Betty deWitt, turned out to be married and was fired last week. Her husband’s Bert Reiner, a jet pilot attached to Moffett Field and they live in Mountain View down the peninsula. Mrs. Reiner’s your girl, if you can get to her.”

“How come?”

“She was the only one of the crew on both flights, the thirteenth and fourteenth, taking the place of another girl who was ill. The trouble is, Betty might not want to cooperate. She was sore as hell when they found out she was married and gave her the sack.”

“I’ll try my luck anyway. Thanks, Smitty. You’re a model of efficiency.”

“Don’t applaud,” Smitty said. “Just pay.”

Dodd gave him ten dollars.

“Jesus, you’re a cheapskate, Dodd.”

“It took you fifteen minutes to get the information. That’s forty bucks an hour. Where else could you make forty bucks an hour? See you later, Smitty.”

He took the Bayshore Freeway back to town. When he reached his office his secretary, Lorraine, was on the phone and he knew from the sour expression on her face that she didn’t like the assignment he’d given her.

“I see... Yes, Mr. Kellogg must have given me the name of the wrong kennels. Sorry to have bothered you.”

She hung up, crossed out another number on the scratch pad, and immediately began dialing again.

Dodd reached over and broke the connection. “Aren’t we speaking to each other this morning?”

“I have to save my voice for all these lies I’m telling.”

“Any luck so far?”

“No. And I can feel an attack of laryngitis coming on.”

“Until it arrives, keep phoning.” Dodd knew better than to sympathize with Lorraine’s ailments, which were numerous and varied enough to fill a medical textbook. “Any mail?”

“The letter came you were waiting for from Mr. Fowler in Mexico City. Special delivery. I left it on your desk.”

Lorraine took a cough drop, parked it expertly inside her left cheek and began dialing again. “I am calling about Mr. Kellogg’s Scottie...”

Dodd opened his letter. It was typewritten in the uneven hunt-and-peck style Fowler had used when he was a sergeant on the Los Angeles police force, and bore no date, return address or salutation.

Good to hear your voice again, you old sinner. But what’s all the hurry and excitement about anyway? Everything at this end seems on the up and up.

Mrs. Kellogg was released from the A.B.C. Hospital on September twelve. I talked to the interne working on the ward she’d been in. He was reluctant, twenty-five bucks worth reluctant, but he admitted that the authorities weren’t anxious to have Mrs. Kellogg leave so soon and gave their permission only when Kellogg offered to hire a nurse to accompany his wife on the trip home. According to the interne, there was considerable disagreement among the doctors about the severity of Mrs. Kellogg’s concussion. Concussions can’t be measured exactly even by an electro-encephalogram test, which Mrs. Kellogg refused to submit to when she learned it involved needles inserted in the scalp. Personally, I can’t see where Mrs. Kellogg’s fear of needles fits into anything, but you wanted me to give you every single detail, so hang on. The interne’s diploma is still wet, so naturally he knew all about concussions. He read it to me out of a book: the severity of a concussion can be judged by the degree of retrograde and anterograde amnesia involved. Ain’t it the truth?

On the day of Mrs. Kellogg’s release she and her husband returned to the Windsor Hotel. From there he put in a call to a Mr. Johnson at the American Embassy. Telephoning in this country is an art, not a science, and the switchboard operators have the temperament of opera stars. The wrong words, the wrong tone, and the telefonista gets her wires crossed. Apparently, Kellogg used the wrong tone. There was a lot of trouble about the call, which is how I happened to find out about it from the telefonista herself. I went over to the Embassy and talked to Johnson. It turned out that he was the man who’d broken the news of the affair to Kellogg and offered his services when Kellogg came down here.

Kellogg’s request was simple enough. He wanted the name of a reputable lawyer who specialized in civil matters. Johnson sent him to Ramon Jiminez. Jiminez is a substantial citizen, active in politics, as well as a smart lawyer. He refused to give me any information. But when I told him I already had the information and merely wanted a confirmation or denial, he admitted that he had executed a power of attorney giving Kellogg control of his wife’s affairs, financial and otherwise. Everything was legal and aboveboard. At the mere mention of the word coercion, he blew his stack (in a nice, quiet way, of course) and asked me to leave his office. My own feeling is that there can’t have been any coercion involved or Jiminez wouldn’t have touched the thing with a ten-foot pole. Why should he risk his reputation for the peanuts Kellogg could afford to pay? (I’m assuming that your statement about Kellogg’s finances is accurate.)

Now, about the other matters you wanted me to check. No official hearing, like our American coroner’s inquest, was held concerning Mrs. Wyatt’s death, but some dozen eyewitnesses gave depositions to the police. The ground witnesses, i.e., those passing on the avenida, must be discounted, their stories were so contradictory. A combination of excitement, darkness, superstition and religious awe doesn’t make for accurate observation. Mrs. Kellogg’s account of the tragedy agreed substantially with that of the chambermaid, Consuela Gonzales, who for reasons known only to herself was spending the night in a nearby broom closet and heard Mrs. Kellogg screaming. She rushed into the room. Mrs. Wyatt had already flung herself over the balcony and Mrs. Kellogg was lying on the floor in a dead faint. I tried to contact Miss Gonzales at the hotel but she was fired for stealing from the guests and being insolent to the manager. The bartender, while not a witness to the death of Mrs. Wyatt, testified that she was very drunk and in a belligerent mood. If you’re looking for sour notes, you have one right there: belligerent drunks pick fights with other people, not themselves. But this is pretty slim — belligerence can turn to depression at the drop of another martini, or, as in this case, tequila. In any case, the police here — and they’re not as carefree and inefficient as you’ve probably been led to believe — are thoroughly satisfied that Mrs. Wyatt’s death was a suicide. They released her body and her effects to her sister in San Diego, Mrs. Earl Sullivan.

Dodd read the report through a second time, then he buzzed for Lorraine.

“Send a wire to Fowler.”

“Straight or night letter?”

“Night letter.”

“O.K., you have fifty words.” She copied Fowler’s address from the envelope containing the report. “Shoot.”

“Check all means of exit for O’Donnell. Search apartment for letters, bank statements, photographs, evidence of love interests. Get names of all friends he might contact. Keep up the good work. Sincerely. Dodd.”

“That’s not fifty words,” Lorraine said.

“So?”

“Maybe you should add something, like ‘give my best to your wife.’ ”

“I could,” Dodd said, “but it might not be in the best of taste. He’s a widower.”

“Oh. But if you’re paying for fifty words, and it’s almost two dollars...”

“Kindly send it as is, with no further editing. After that I’d like you to call Moffett Field and get the address and phone number of a pilot named Bert Reiner. I don’t know his rank. He lives in Mountain View with his wife.”

Lorraine rose. “Well, that’s a change from kennels and dog hospitals anyway.”

“You’ll get back to them.”

“If I only knew why you wanted to find this Scottie, it would make my work less boring. I mean, I’m your secretary, I should know these things.”

“Maybe you should, at that. Remind me to tell you, for Christmas.”

The exchange had given Lorraine a headache. She took an aspirin to relieve the pain, half a tranquilizer to quiet her nerves, and a vitamin pill on general principles. Then she reached for the telephone again.