Empty Places, page 20
Tinnerman's laughter returned.
"Mr. Brandt, Mr. Brandt!" he said. "You are being too melodramatic. My political power, as you call it, is simply that I donate a great deal of money to conservative political causes. When you begin to donate to one cause, others approach you to donate to their cause. And those you donate to always come back asking for more. Since I am a very strong anti-communist, I give freely to those causes that are also anti-communist, whether they are organizations or politicians. When you give as freely as I do, you do tend to get treated with a great deal of—" His hands left the wheel and floated up towards his shoulders with a shrug. "—deference. Yes, deference."
He leaned toward me, as if sharing a confidence. "But I assure you, young man, the closest I come to wielding any political power is simply having a very healthy checkbook."
"Still, it's quite an impressive achievement for a Cuban immigrant," I said. "You mentioned you flew bombers at the Bay of Pigs. I take it you fled Cuba when Castro took over in '59?"
Tinnerman's head jounced up and down.
"Yes." His smiled disappeared. "I was a young lieutenant in the Cuban Air Force. I came from a fairly well-to-do family. We had a big house, some land. When the end came—when that pig of a communist stole power—I took an old transport plane with some other junior officers like myself and flew to Florida. "
"Your family?"
"Killed," he said, frowning. "All killed by the communistas."
"I'm sorry."
His act was convincing, if it were an act. I wouldn't know for certain until I tested him.
"So, tell me about the Bay of Pigs."
"Please, I get very angry over that betrayal."
The frown etched deeper into Tinnerman's face and his eyes grew narrow.
"I would like to know," I said, "for my readers."
"Yes, of course, your readers." The Cuban's voice seeped resentment. Tinnerman heard it himself, and apologized. "Forgive me, Mr. Brandt, but many of your readers are to blame for that debacle."
"Please, sir, I'd like to hear."
Tinnerman smiled paternally.
"Yes, yes," he said finally. "You cannot be to blame, Mr. Brandt. You were much, much too young. But I would rather not go into details. So many good men betrayed. So many of mis amigos butchered."
He was stalling, I could sense it. I felt the time was right to push him a bit.
"I have a contact in Central Intelligence," I told him, exaggerating a little. "I thought he might be able to get me some color for the story. You know, some background on your exploits during the raid. Maybe there's some mistake, but he said the only Carlos Tinnerman in the bomber force was killed by anti-aircraft fire."
Suddenly the Jetstream dropped several hundred feet, its turboprop engines screaming as they fought to grab air. My tape recorder flew off its perch on the instrument console and crashed into the overhead, then fell to the floor. I felt my body lifted upward, restrained from following the recorder by my seat belt. I grabbed onto the edge of the seat with both hands. The notebook flew out of the cockpit into the passenger cabin.
The plane leveled off. The engines' roar returned to normal. I looked over at Tinnerman.
The bastard was grinning.
CHAPTER 22
THE RECORDER'S DOOR WAS broken off and the cassette was hanging by a twisted string of tape. The batteries had burst out of their compartment and were rolling around under the Jetstream's front row of seats. My notebook was still in pretty good shape, but I had lost my pen somewhere in the cockpit. I stood in the flight deck door holding the wrecked recorder in one hand, the notebook in the other, looking at the Cuban.
"I am so terribly sorry, Mr. Brandt," Tinnerman said, hiding his grin behind mock concern. "I should have warned you about the turbulence. With this storm, you understand. I should have warned you not to leave anything lying loose. I must pay you for the damages."
"Don't bother," I said. "Occupational hazard. I go through these things like a carpenter goes through nails."
"Please, I must," he insisted.
I dropped the recorder in my pocket and climbed back into my seat.
"Never mind. It wasn't expensive," I said. "Just another tax deduction."
I snapped the seat belt back around my waist and tightened it.
Tinnerman regained his smile and laughed. "You are having quite some busman's holiday, it would seem," he said. "Again, I am sorry. That was quite an air pocket."
"It certainly was."
I've flown puddle jumpers around half of Latin America and knew my share of air pockets. But I'd never seen a plane dive nose first into one. Tinnerman meant that little exhibition as a warning to steer clear of touchy subjects. I didn't like being warned.
"About what my friend at The Company said?" I asked again.
"He was probably mistaken," Tinnerman offered with a shrug. "It would be easy to understand. We all used noms de guerre. Most of us didn't know the others by their real names. Perhaps he is confusing me with another—perhaps someone with a similar name. Or—" Tinnerman's grin widened as he turned toward me. "Perhaps he simply did not know any of us at all?"
I shook my head and twisted my lips downward. "I'm sure the source of my information did know you and your comrades," I said. "But maybe he was mistaken. It was probably a pretty confusing time for everyone."
"Yes, yes it was," Tinnerman said, returning his attention to the sky. "And as you know about Americans, all of us Spics look alike."
Tinnerman turned toward me again. "Please don't quote me on that," he asked, smiling.
"I won't," I promised, smiling in return. "A little earlier you mentioned you supported several causes. That does include the Contras, right?"
"Si," Tinnerman said with an assertive nod of his head. "Yes, as I told you the other night, I support those politicians who support the Nicaraguan Freedom Fighters."
"I've heard you go beyond that," I said. “Hard rice, for instance. That is, weapons.”
"There are always rumors, Mr. Brandt," Tinnerman said. He glanced outside the cockpit. "Medical supplies, yes. Clothing, yes. Food. My planes on occasion have flown these items to the Freedom Fighters. But weapons, no. As I said the other night, that would be illegal."
"As I pointed out then, not if the weapons were bought overseas and never touched U.S. soil."
Tinnerman shrugged and shook his head, still staring out the windshield. "It does not matter. I still wouldn't do it. I am a patriot, Mr. Brandt, not a gunrunner."
I pulled out a new pen and scratched some notes on paper, then stared out the window myself. The gray clouds completely carpeted the terrain below. Only a single mountain poked above the carpeting. The ravines scarring its sides cast deep black shadows. No other aircraft shared the sky with us. We were alone.
The advice I had given Robin came back to me. Never meet in out of the way places. You couldn't get much more out of the way than this.
"I believe you, Mr. Tinnerman," I said, grinning painfully to hide my lie. "But I wonder if Robin Anderson thought you were."
"What was that?" Tinnerman leaned over, as if to hear better.
"I was just wondering if Robin Anderson, my ex-wife, thought you were a gunrunner."
"Why, Mr. Brandt, would she think that?"
"She was planning to do a story about you when she was killed."
"Was she?" Tinnerman's mouth pulled down into a frown. "How sad. I think I would have liked to meet her."
"She never spoke to you?"
"Never," the Cuban said, shaking his head. "I never met the young lady."
"I thought you might have," I said. "Your business partner had."
"I'm sorry?" Tinnerman leaned closer again.
"Jinx Morgan—that is, Jerry Morgan, your business partner, had met her," I said. "In fact, I understand they had become quite intimate." Tinnerman finally faced me, his face stony. I continued. "I understand they were having an affair."
"Is that so?" Tinnerman said. "Does that disturb you? That your wife was sleeping with another man?"
"Ex-wife. And, no, it doesn't," I said, not believing my own words. "Does it disturb you to know your business partner was sleeping with a reporter?"
"No." Tinnerman shook his head, but he was no more convincing a liar than me. His grin was gone, his face vacant of any emotion. "Should it?"
"You know how it goes with pillow talk," I said. "Morgan could have spilled all your business secrets to a reporter."
Tinnerman finally reacted, but not in the manner I expected. His grin returned to his face, as white and bright as the first time I met him. Then he began to laugh.
"Mr. Brandt! Mr. Brandt!" he said. "Are you inquiring whether I murdered your ex-wife?" I said nothing. "Yes, yes, you are!"
Tinnerman broke into a deep belly laugh, as if he enjoyed the idea.
"I assure you, Mr. Brandt, I never knew your wife. Nor did I know that she was sleeping with Mr. Morgan, nor do I care that she was. There was nothing that Mr. Morgan could tell her that I would find . . . harmful."
I took the tangled micro cassette from my pocket and turned it around in my hand, studying it as if it had some special significance. "Not even the stuff on the tape?"
Tinnerman suddenly busied himself scanning the sky and adjusting the trim tabs. Finally, he turned and said, "I'm sorry, Mr. Brandt. What was that about your tape?"
I flipped the micro cassette, caught it, and stuffed it back into my pocket. "Not my tape," I said. "Robin's tape."
The Cuban showed little reaction. One eyebrow lifted up, his mouth puckered in thought. "What tape is that?"
"The other night Miss Hall and I were stopped by two gunmen who told us they wanted a tape. They were pretty insistent about it." I rubbed the fresh damage on my head. "Very insistent, in fact."
"Yes, Mr. Brandt," Tinnerman said, scanning the sky again. "I read about your misfortune in the paper. How horrible. I didn't mention it because I thought it would be too sensitive a topic for discussion."
I touched the wound again and winced. "I guess you could say it's still a tender subject."
"But what, Mr. Brandt, does that have to do with Mr. Morgan, Miss Anderson and, most particularly, me?"
"Well, I think the tape has to do with Miss Anderson. And possibly Mr. Morgan. As for you—" I scanned the sky casually, then turned back to the Cuban. "I thought maybe you could tell me about the gunmen."
"Me?" Tinnerman turned and looked at me as if I were speaking nonsense. For all I knew, maybe I was. "What would I know about the men who attacked you?"
"They followed us from your house when we left the party," I said. "A friend, an ex-cop, was following me for my own protection, and spotted them as we left your estate. They weren't behind me when we arrived."
Tinnerman's eyes narrowed behind the amber lenses. "This is nonsense, Mr. Brandt. First you question me about my identity, then accuse me of being a gunrunner and profiteer. Now I associate with gunmen whom I turn loose willy nilly on those I invite to my home. This is pure, insulting nonsense."
Tinnerman's outrage might have been convincing if he hadn't over spoken. I caught the slip immediately and threw it back at him.
"I never called you a profiteer, Mr. Tinnerman." The Cuban's eyes went blank for just an instance, long enough for me to know I had him. "However, I understand the Contras have. How would you know that unless the information about your gunrunning is true?"
Tinnerman's face reddened. His mouth tightened into a slim slit and his eyes flared through the lenses.
"Mr. Brandt, this interview is over," he said through a clenched mouth. "I offered my time for an interview, not an inquisition. I will not sit here while you accuse me of all sorts of felonies. We are returning to the airfield."
Tinnerman kicked left rudder and the Jetstream banked sharply to port, pushing through the air in a tight, angry turn. The G-forces pressed me deep into the seat. The small pistol taped to my stomach suddenly weighed a ton. Tinnerman straightened the aircraft and pushed the throttle controls to the firewall. The turboprops screamed as they chewed the air.
I had hit a sensitive spot, and I was determined to keep probing it.
"Why did you tell Charlie Davis not to help me find Robin Anderson's murderer?" I had to shout to be heard over the engines' roar. Tinnerman ignored the question. "I know you told him not to help me, Tinnerman. Why?"
Tinnerman's head swung angrily to the left, then to right until his dark fierce eyes focused on me.
"Very simple, Mr. Brandt." His words came out like a snake's warning hiss. "I am a member of the television station's board of directors, and I was concerned about any liability the station might incur by helping you. I feared you might falsely accuse someone—as you have just done with me."
"Why'd you tell the mayor the same thing, then?" I asked. "You're not on the city council, too, are you?"
"I don't know what you are talking about." Tinnerman's attention swung back to the empty sky.
"Tom Wilson told the chief of police to stop my investigation of Robin's murder," I said. "Someone had to tell him I was looking into Robin's case. The only persons who could have told the mayor I was doing that were you, your wife, and Assemblyman Manchester. Laurie Hall mentioned it when she introduced us, and Manchester overheard. The assemblyman wasn't going to tell the mayor. He had his own concerns about Robin Anderson to deal with. So that leaves you and your wife. And I suspect your wife doesn't have the clout with the politicos that you do."
"Your amateur detective work was reported in the newspaper, Mr. Brandt," Tinnerman said. "Obviously, Tom Wilson read it there."
"Not likely," I told him. "Wilson contacted the police chief early in the morning after I was mugged. The newspaper publishes in the afternoon. Wilson couldn't have read about it until that evening." I looked back over the great emptiness we were flying through. "No, you had to have told Wilson, Mr. Tinnerman. You urged him to throw a stonewall in my way just like you did Charlie Davis. And you told them both that night at your party. Why?"
Tinnerman sat rigid behind the controls, the muscles in his jaw working overtime.
"Never mind, I think I know."
Adrenalin was pumping through my blood. I could feel each nerve ending in my body tingle. My voice seemed detached from me, as if someone else was talking and I was just listening.
"I think there's more to the Morgan-Anderson link than you want to admit," I heard myself say. "What did that ugly little dwarf tell her while they were in bed? What did Jinx Morgan tell Robin that would make you want to kill her? Did she tape it? Is that the tape your gunmen wanted?"
I studied the Cuban's face. It stayed rigid, cast in concrete.
"Yes, I bet that's it. Maybe that tape's still at Robin's apartment, hidden, waiting to be found." Nothing. I tried harder. "Maybe I already found it."
The Cuban said nothing. He didn't look at me, he didn't even acknowledge what I said. Instead, he pushed the wheel forward and kicked the left rudder. The Jetstream nosed over into a screaming, spiraling dive. The force of the dive pushed me into the seat and tugged at the skin on my face. We fell toward the gray blanket of clouds, which now looked as hard and threatening as terra firma. We spun blindly into the gray mass and for what seemed hours, our entire world was a dark, lightless arcade ride.
Tinnerman sat braced in his pilot's seat, his hands on the wheel but his attention focused on me. His face bore a maniacal mask of anger. I wondered if he planned to ram the aircraft into the earth and kill us both. The thought sent a chill down my already frozen spine. I thought of the Cuban as some big crime boss, the top man. Perhaps I figured wrong. Maybe he was just another soldier and considered himself expendable.
I pushed that thought out of my head and tried to focus on swallowing my heart back down where it belonged. I stared back at the Cuban and did the most incongruous thing I could imagine. I smiled. Tinnerman's face didn't move, but his eyes momentarily lost their flare and I knew I had called his bluff.
"I'm right, aren't I, Tinnerman?" I said.
The Jetstream punched through the clouds and spun toward earth. The browns and tans of the desert curled into giant swirls of color. The aircraft's automatic crash alarm bleated its warning in a dull, mournful electronic voice. "Pull up! Pull up! Pull up!"
Tinnerman spit out an oath in guttural Spanish, then took the wheel and yanked it into to his gut. The plane vibrated violently and the engines shrieked in protest, but slowly the aircraft leveled out. I glanced at the altimeter. It read less than 2,000 feet. The Jetstream's nose came up, and we started a slow climb toward the west.
My hands ached. I noticed for the first time that both hands were gripping the edges of my seat. The flesh in each finger was ghostly white.
We came through the clouds east of the Coachella Valley near Desert Center. The Jetstream screamed west, staying low. I wondered if Tinnerman were planning to put the plane down on one of the dozens of old Army airfields left from World War II. I imagined being left on one of those dirt airstrips, shot and dying in the sand like Robin, alone and miles from anywhere. My hand sought the solid comfort of the small automatic in my coat pocket. But the Cuban didn't slow the plane at all. He was simply taking the quickest route back to the airport.
The rain was falling harder in the valley. It burst against the aircraft's windshield and streamed off in long, horizontal fingers. We crossed into the valley, flying parallel to its northern wall. To the left was the great patchwork of civilization, the colors muted by the rainfall. Below, the empty desert. To the right, the foothills leading up to the valley wall. I could see the giant concrete access doors of the Colorado Aqueduct spotted along the hills, and the twisting, winding scar of the service road that linked them. I followed the path through the hills until it converged with Dillon Road, near the spot where Robin died. A white sedan like Matt drove raced up the dirt trail, the rooster tail of dust that would normally follow it kept down by the rain.
The Cuban said a few quiet words into his microphone, then we were dog legging into the airport's landing pattern. Minutes later, the Jetstream's wheels touched down on the runway and coasted to a stop. Tinnerman turned the plane around with its engines and taxied up the tarmac to the Desert Air hanger. He killed the turboprops and, without a word to me, climbed from his chair and stalked down the aisle to the cabin door. The door popped open with a hiss, stairs folded down, and Tinnerman disappeared through the opening.
