Relative Danger Read online

  The face in Edna’s group photo startled Doug. The man looked so much older than the image he had created of his uncle. He needed a shave, had a fighter’s build, and looked a hell of a lot tougher than his brother. His eyes, even when he was laughing, looked hard. He had the same firm jaw line as most of the Pearce men, the same small ears, the same charcoal-colored hair that, if he had lived, would have turned more gray than black. But there was something about the man in the photo, something none of his uncles seemed to have, an edge maybe, a sense of danger that just didn’t fit with the genes he knew. So this was the terror of the Pearce clan, the token rebel, this twenty-four-year-old with Dillinger’s eyes? Actually, it wasn’t hard to imagine.

  “Russell had the best stories,” Edna said, breaking the silence. “You never knew if they were true or not and I suppose we didn’t care. His gift was keeping us all entertained with tales right out of Conrad, full of jungles, gunfights, jailbreaks, beautiful women and jealous husbands. Just when you were certain he was making the whole thing up, that it was just too much, he’d say something like ‘and that’s where I got this…’ and he’d pull out some souvenir—a glass eye, a shark’s tooth on a chain, an opium pipe with a bullet lodged in the bowl, a fresh scar. They were never proof, and he never convinced me the stories were real, but it was fun listening and pretending. We all pretended a bit too much then, I suppose. It was a different time. But,” she said, motioning with her wine glass, “I guess everything I have I owe to your Uncle Russell.”

  Doug followed the wine glass and took in the room. “He must have left you a fortune.”

  Edna laughed and sipped more of her wine. “The only things Russ left me with were memories,” she said and laughed again. “But, yes, I guess it was a fortune because I wouldn’t trade those memories for the world. What I meant was that the things I learned from your uncle allowed me to earn my keep. His expertise was smuggling and you couldn’t spend as much time with Russ as I did and not master a few skills. Later, when I returned to Canada, I put those skills to use.”

  “You were smuggling things into Canada?”

  “Out mostly, and mostly south. But only until I put together enough money to apply my skills in a legitimate import/export business. I scraped along, built the business up and sold the whole thing to a wonderful gentleman from Hong Kong back in the mid-Eighties. Since then I’ve kept busy investing in small businesses overseas. It pays the bills.”

  Doug looked around the room again. “You must have big bills.”

  Edna refilled her glass, topped off Doug’s and motioned him to take a seat on the couch. “This is what I called you about—all that’s left of Russ’ earthly goods.” From a shelf below the photo she took out a cardboard box, about the same size as a twelve-pack of Odenbach cans, and set it on the glass-topped table in front of the couch.

  “This was forwarded to me not so very long ago when an old friend passed on. I had forgotten all about her, in a way, until I got this. The poor dear had so little yet she held on to this. Well, that was Russ—women just couldn’t resist him.”

  The box was made of thick cardboard, like an old suitcase, a neat leather strap holding it shut. It had a few stickers pasted on the side—Tusker Beer “It’s Tusker, Buster!” Pacific Rail Lines Baggage Claim #109. Madame Tussaud’s Wax Museum. U.S.N. Montana/visitor—and Doug was trying to guess if the box was his uncle’s or the late poor dear’s.

  Doug unpacked the box, setting each item down on the table. There were some folded National Geographic maps with seemingly random locations circled in red or black, bills of lading from a dozen different shipping companies, a penciled-in Pirates-Phillies scorecard from May 2nd, 1948, stacks of addresses, TELEX numbers, and cryptic cables with now-meaningless strings of numbers and letters, overdue bills, an owner’s manual for a Norton motorcycle, two pairs of Ray Ban sunglasses, a handful of notes written in what looked to him like Chinese, Arabic, and Russian, an ashtray from Pan Am’s Pacific Clipper Air Service…the mementos of a well traveled—if pointless—life. Edna pulled things out at random, explaining the more obscure items, sometimes adding a short anecdote, sometimes a laugh, sometimes a puzzled “I have no idea what this is.”

  There were two photos, one of Edna looking much as she did in the Paris shot, but this time wearing not much more than a towel. A small towel. “I’ll take that if you don’t mind, Douglas. I’m afraid I’m not very photogenic.”

  The second photo must have been taken the same day as the one he had seen in his father’s gun cabinet, but it was only of Doug’s father, arm cocked like he was ready to toss a baseball to whoever was taking the picture. “My dad,” Douglas said, holding up the picture.

  “Russ’s younger brother, right?”

  “Right,” he said, hoping this mystery woman would add something like “your uncle talked about him all the time,” but she didn’t.

  “That’s it, that’s all that’s here,” Doug said as he started putting things back in the box—last things out, first things back in, like inventory at the brewery.

  “There are other things,” Edna said. “Postcards and letters. Mostly to me but also to other people we knew. I appear to be the unofficial custodian of the Russell Pearce correspondence collection. Your uncle and I were close and as the people we knew died off, they’d send me their letters and photos. People commit the strangest things to writing. Especially young women. Photos, too.”

  “I guess they figure that you’d want to enjoy the memories,” he said, but she laughed as he said it.

  “My memories of Russell are quite different, and I was never that naive. No, I think they send them to me because they know that I’ve always had an interest in Russell’s death.”

  “That’s funny. I’ve always had an interest in his life and nobody tells me anything.”

  “These wouldn’t tell you much. You’d learn more about the people who wrote them—or posed for them—than you would about your uncle. But to me each adds something to the puzzle, although I’m not sure what exactly. You see I’ve had this plan in mind for the longest time—I should have done something about it years ago when I was younger but, well, I didn’t. Besides, the letters and things didn’t start arriving until a few years ago. I wanted to use this collection of ephemera as a bank of clues and reference material. I thought with that, and a little on-site investigating, we could solve everything.”

  “What do you mean solve everything?”

  “Well your uncle’s murder, for starters.”

  Douglas stared at the woman. “Murder? Uncle Russ was murdered?” He tried to say more but nothing came out.

  “Oh my gosh, yes. You didn’t know? No one told you?” Edna Bowers set down her glass and leaned forward, gently placing her hand on top of Doug’s knee. “Of course I thought you knew. I’m so sorry.”

  Doug shook his head, “Oh no, it’s okay. Like I said, I really didn’t know the guy and hey, he’s been dead for years. Really, it’s alright, I’m just surprised.” He sighed, finished his glass of wine and held out the empty glass for more.

  “I suppose you want the details? Well, he was shot in a hotel room in Singapore. The police suspected his friend Charley Hodge. I heard they found a gun, but they never made an arrest and I know Charley couldn’t have done it anyway. Whoever did it—killed Russell—did it for the jewels. Russ had enemies—my God did he have enemies—but not in that part of the world. It was a robbery and Russ must have tried something silly and that’s it. He bled to death on a hotel room floor.” Edna stood up and grabbed the empty wine bottle. “I hope this does not sound rude, but I’m having some more. Care to join me?”

  ***

  Two hours later, Douglas decided that he liked wine. He liked Edna Bowers, too. He liked Fritz and Toni and Carmen and Hani and Shorty and everyone else in the silver-framed photo. He liked Paris, he liked Madrid, he liked that little place in, where was that? Andorra? Well, he liked it wherever it was.

  Edna had lots of stories and lots of wine
and they went well together. She did most of the talking, which was good because he had no interesting stories to tell. What could he match against her tale about the bullfight and the one-legged barber—his story about sneaking five people into the drive-in? Or her adventures with the barnstorming troupe? Or the fire at the circus, the German landmine, Bobo the gorilla, the Greek pornographer, sailing on the Nile or camping out in the Taj Mahal? He started to tell her about trying to make a still in his garage but that reminded her of the time she and Russ were stuck in Afghanistan with fifty cases of Russian vodka and no truck. She had had the life, he thought. Him? What kind of life do you get when you live in Pottsville?

  It’s not as if he didn’t want an exciting life. He did. He had his James Bond daydreams, his Indiana Jones fantasies. And he had his Walter Mitty life. In high school a teacher had made the class write letters to themselves that she would mail back in ten years, and, true to her word, ten years later he got the letter. After an opening paragraph about how stupid of an assignment this was, he listed twenty things he said he wanted to do by the time he got this letter: “Number One, sleep with fifty HOT women, Number Two, skydive, Number Three, bag a twelve pointer, Number Four, win at Indy, Number Five, see Kiss live.…” Ten years later he had accomplished none of them, with the possible exception of the last one: “Number Twenty, be a bum.”

  But how do you have an exciting life these days? You can’t just run off and sign on some tramp steamer. He had obligations, bills, a truck loan. You have to be responsible, not like the old days. The world wasn’t like it used to be, at least that’s the impression he got when he watched the Discovery Channel.

  “…so I figure,” she was saying, “if you’re interested I’d pay all the bills and.…”

  “I’m sorry,” Doug said, snapping back, “I phased out there a second. What’s this about bills?”

  “I was saying that if you wanted to travel around the world a bit, I’d pay the bill.”

  “Whoa, I really tuned out. Can you go over it one more time from the top?” Doug was focused now, drink down, elbows resting on his knees, his hands propping up his chin.

  Edna set her drink down too. “Like I said, I think we can use the information in your uncle’s letters to solve his murder and clear Charley’s name. You don’t realize how much that means to me. And you could recover the jewels. I’ve read all these letters dozens of times and I think I can retrace his route pretty closely. I recognize a lot of the names and places and.…”

  “And you want me to go?” Doug interrupted. “How come? I mean that’s nice of you, but why don’t you go?” That sounded rude, he thought, so he added, “I mean if you know the places and all, it could be like a vacation, you could clear your friend’s name, an adventure, like old times.”

  “Old times are just that, Douglas. Old. I have no trouble getting around here in Toronto or in London, but I’d have to go to Singapore and places a lot less developed. Don’t get me wrong, I’d love to see them again, but I’m afraid I’m really a bit too old this time. Besides, I’ve seen it all—wouldn’t you like a chance to see it yourself?”

  She’s reading my mind, he thought. And where is Singapore, anyway?

  “I figure that you could visit all the places in a couple of months and the costs wouldn’t be as great as you think. Besides, I’d be paying for it all. And you do have some time now that you’re out of work.”

  Doug looked up.

  “Oh don’t look at me like that Doug, you told me yourself not thirty minutes ago. And it’s nothing to be ashamed of. Not going on this paid vacation, now that would be a shame.”

  He picked up his glass again and took another large sip. “It sure sounds inviting, but I’ve never been anywhere. Hell, I got lost coming here. How would I ever get around overseas?”

  “I’ve got that all worked out,” she said. “I know people who would check up on you, names of hotels, places to visit. It’s not like traveling in the Fifties, you know. It’s all five-star hotels and McDonald’s now—not that you’ll be spending time at either—but it is so much simpler than you’d imagine.”

  “Oh,” Doug said, surprised at how disappointed he felt. “So I guess there’s no adventure in it, just picking up some information and stuff?”

  She smiled as she took a last sip of wine. “There’ll be adventure, Douglas. I guarantee that.”

  Chapter 3

  For the fourth time that morning, Doug stopped himself whistling the opening bars of “As Time Goes By.”

  “Casablanca. I’m in freaking Casablanca,” he said out loud as he looked over his balcony at the Sea Port Hotel, across the palm-lined street from the last remaining shops and alleys of the old quarter. He had arrived the night before and, just as Edna promised, it had all gone smoothly. The flight from Kennedy, economy, was smooth and he didn’t know what all those comedians had been talking about, the food was great. He had a window seat but there was nothing to see. The airport in Casablanca was better than the one in Scranton, and there was a driver from the hotel with his name on a card, just like the movies. There was cold beer in the fridge in the room and a basket of fruit on the table. He had a passport with an exotic-looking Arabic/French stamp in it and a black folder with his instructions was waiting for him at the front desk. This was definitely cool.

  He picked up the folder that contained the paperwork Edna said he’d need for this part of the trip. There was a map of the city with a few key addresses highlighted, photocopies of pages from travel magazines, a list of contacts and phone numbers, and the first set of instructions, neatly typed out. It was still early—the breakfast buffet did not open for another hour—so he pulled a chair out onto the balcony, grabbed a beer and the folder. It was already warm, but comfortable, and the smell of fresh bread—of all the smells he had expected in Morocco, fresh bread was not one of them—floated up from the bakery next to the hotel.

  “The information I have that pertains to the last weeks of your uncle’s life starts here in Casablanca. According to the papers I have, he arrived on June 16, 1948. He signed off the Belle Noctche and received four hundred and twelve dollars in back pay. Apparently, he had gotten into a fight with a shipmate over some missing hashish and the shipmate’s younger sister and the captain sided with the other man. There were also some rumors about how he had conspired with Jesus to cheat his shipmates out of money.”

  Doug reread the last line, but it didn’t make sense. The next line, however, cleared it up.

  “Jesus Alverez was the radio operator on the Belle Noctche and, according to Charley, they would delay the results of sporting events. It’s a common Spanish name and an old confidence trick,” she added.

  “According to information I have here from Charley,” the note continued, “the two of them—and a third person Charley never met—were involved in a complex operation involving some merchandise that was being re-routed from its original destination to Palermo, Sicily. Charley was supposed to finalize the deal but became romantically involved with the wife of the port agent and the deal fell through. This is what led them to getting involved with the jewels.”

  It’s all how you say things, Doug thought. The way she wrote it you’d hardly think criminal activity was involved.

  “The third man, the one Charley knew only as Sasha, arranged for Russell to meet Omar Sabagh, a Syrian involved in the black market. These two, then, worked out the plans for the theft. Charley was indisposed at the time.”

  He tried the term out to see how well it would work. Indispose you. Indispose off. It was indisposingly great. We indisposed all night. Nope. It didn’t work.

  “Attached are the addresses of some people I want you to look up and I’ve marked them on the map as well. I want you to talk to them before I send you more details about the actual theft. That way you are not influenced by the things I say and are able to listen clearly to their accounts.”

  This was her plan? It sure sounded a lot more planned when he was half-drunk in Toronto. W
hat was he supposed to hear and why would any of these people talk to him? It didn’t make sense, but she was paying for it. Maybe it would fall together as he went. Relax and enjoy it, he thought.

  He put the packet back in the folder and picked up a few postcards he bought in the hotel lobby. “Hey Guys,” he wrote, “You’ll never guess where I am.”

  ***

  Thanks to the map and the saint-like patience of a young police officer eager to practice his English, it took Doug only forty minutes to find the first address on the list, a small restaurant less than a half mile from the hotel. Casablanca was not at all as he pictured it, but he realized that his picture was based more on a California movie set than anything else. There were wide streets radiating out from central hubs along which small cars of some Euro-design jockeyed for position at each stoplight. The buildings looked like four- or five-story wedding cakes with the ornate facades, rooflines, and window frames resembling intricate frosting patterns. The corners curved gently, blending into the next wedding cake building, and every floor had a balcony and every balcony had the same wrought iron rail, painted the same flat white. Up close, however, the dusting of built-up carbon from the unleaded and diesel fuel turned the frosting into ordinary cement. There was no sand, no open market bazaar, no camels, no Rick’s.

  At every rounded corner there were outdoor cafés, a remnant of French rule the photocopy said, but rather than chic Parisian women sipping espresso, the tables were filled with men—and only men—drinking pot after pot of a sickeningly sweet mint tea, smoking French cigarettes, and eating pastries. With every building and every street corner looking the same, it was by chance that Doug stumbled upon the right street corner and Le Café du Desert. He cleared his throat and took a deep breath. Time to start the investigation.