Death Smells of Cordite. Gordon Landsborough

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ their wages. It took some working out, thought Farran cynically, but that’s how they’d got it in their heads. They argued that for years—on an average twenty years—the Farran concern would be having the use of part of their earnings. Multiplied by ten thousand, it represented millions. They thought it was a swindle. And somehow, because they were touchy, they’d come out on strike.

      Farran thought, “There’s more to it than this,” but couldn’t think what it was.

      He gave the red coupé a lot of gas, going over the plain towards the screen of hills behind L.A. It was a pretty good car, as it should have been, because it had cost half a million to make.

      It could do around a hundred and forty, so he’d been told, though he’d never tried to shove the needle up so far. He liked to tool around at a modest pace; he wasn’t in any hurry when he was on four wheels. Eighty suited him—or maybe an occasional ninety when there weren’t any kinks in the road. But not speeding. He liked to do his speeding at least twenty thousand feet above sharp bends and traffic snarls.

      Farran let the needle doodle around the eighty figure. Burt might be a sorehead, but he sure could design a car—given half a million or so.

      It had been Burt’s idea. Right after the war, when cancellation came in for combat planes and the mighty Farran plant stood nearly as empty as it was now, Brother Burt had come up with the scheme. Aviation, according to him, was pretty well through. There’d be no more wars, and what chance had civil aviation alone of keeping this mighty plant going?

      So he said, “The world needs cars. They’ll never get enough automobiles, because we’re building roads now to burn ’em out within a couple of years. Okay, let’s turn Farrans over to making good, fast autos.”

      He even brought Henry Ford up to clinch the argument, though it was an argument in reverse. “Ford turned from making cars to making planes, didn’t he? What Ford can do that way, we can do oppositely.”

      It had been his brainchild—and he had a good brain for designing, though it wasn’t geared to practical production techniques.

      The baby took a long while to emerge. Maybe there was more to making a car than looked from the outside, as Henry Kaiser was also beginning to find. When a year had passed, and half a million in research was down the drain, Farran put a stop to the agony.

      “We know how to make planes,” he said. “Okay, we’ll stick to making ’em. We’ll gamble on the market picking up within a couple or three years, and we’ll go ahead with carrier planes.”

      It had picked up. And but for these strikes, they’d have been sitting pretty, too. The one prototype car made, hand-built down to the last nut and bolt, almost, was a beauty, though not to be bought at such a price ever again.

      And it had done some good, because Burt wouldn’t come near the factory now. Burt stayed home these days and sulked, because he hadn’t been given the fifty million he’d found they’d need to get even a modest assembly line moving. He still got up ostentatiously when Farran came into the room, and stalked silently out.

      Farran turned into the Boulevard some time later, and thought that was one good thing, anyway, getting rid of Burt. The Farran plant was stiff with relatives, and he didn’t give a darn for any of them. Not many, anyway.

      He stopped off at Clem Cole’s bar and had lunch, though the coffee didn’t have the smell of that strong brew from the strikers’ wagon, and the hamburgers definitely lacked virility. Then he got back into his car and turned towards Santa Monica Harbour.

      Maybe with this wind offshore he’d do some sailing. There wasn’t anything else to do, and sailing did take your mind off bellyaches. And he’d got a nice boat all waiting for him.

      Two blocks from Clem’s he saw Lydia van Heuson. She had come out of Macartneys and looked about to get a taxi. She was dressed to kill, and the moment she saw Farran she thought he was the answer.

      Farran trailed his eyes away just as he saw Lydia’s face brighten and her hand come up. Then he went right on past her, just as if she wasn’t there. “The hell, she can buy a taxi,” he thought. He’d been out with Lydia plenty times, and she wasn’t for him anymore. Not for a mind soured by a strike back over the hills costing half a million a week.

      But it did something, seeing Lydia. He went right across, instead of coming left at the next intersection—even avoiding a woman brought you trouble. And that meant driving on to the next crossing and making the turn there.

      In itself, with all those horses prancing under the bonnet, that was no hardship, but coming into the unaccustomed turn Farran remembered the name of the street—and a number.

      He stopped on an impulse. This was where Joe McMee had set up office a couple of months back—he’d promised to look him up and hadn’t, and always when he remembered he’d felt a bit of a heel in consequence.

      They’d been through college together, Joe McMee and Russ Farran. Joe had been a better boy in the lecture room than on the football field, and he’d only made the team in a few games, but Farran had got to know—and like—him during those times.

      A good, steady, plodding type, Joe, yet curiously brilliant on occasions. A man of contradictory character, Farran thought. Joe had joined the F.B.I. when his degree came through, and for a few years was quietly out of everybody’s ken.

      Then he’d hit the headlines, digging out some of the Detroit Chopper Boys. In his curious way he had had his usual flash of brilliance and made good.

      He’d spoken to Farran over the phone on making L.A. He’d quit the F.B.I. Farran felt the regret in his voice. He’d married, got a wife who thought there was no sense in taking risks.

      “She’s right,” Joe’s slow, heavy voice had come over the wire to Farran. “I got hurt with the Chopper Boys. Bad. And that’s something you’ve always got to expect in the Bureau. Getting hurt, I mean.”

      So, for his wife’s sake, he’d quit the G-job and set up office here in L.A. No, he didn’t call himself a detective, Joe told him modestly. Just a private investigator. Now, there must be a lot of things needed investigating at a place as big as Farrans.…

      Farran promised to look him up some time when he was in town, and turned him over to his Labour Relations Officer, who might find work for him. Farran hadn’t thought to ask Uncle El how Joe had made out with him.

      He got out of his car slowly. He didn’t really want to meet Joe. Not while he was in this broody mood. They’d been pals at college, but friendships kind of died as the years of maturity piled up. Still, out of politeness, now he was in the district, he’d drop in on Joe. Perhaps Joe wouldn’t be in, he thought hopefully. Then he’d be able to go sailing with an easy conscience.

      He went up. Joe’s office looked like any of the other hundreds in the same building. Just one door with his name in black across the glass—Joe McMee, Private Investigator. Farran walked through without knocking. It’s a habit you get when you own hundreds of doors and you want to save seconds of time all day.

      There was no one in the microscopic reception office, but Farran saw that the inner office door was slightly open, so he went straight on through the little swing gate and walked in on Joe McMee.

      Joe was lying on his back, one foot stuck in a wire wastepaper basket. His chair was over on its side against the wall, and there were some—but not many—papers on the floor.

СКАЧАТЬ