(1969) The Seven Minutes (78 page)

‘Maggie, you’ve got to get back in that house this evening. Do you have a way ? You said you had to give up your key, didn’ t you ?’

She had opened her purse. “The front-door key, yes.’ She rummaged inside her purse and then held up a dull-finished metal key. ‘But not the one to the rear service porch. He overlooked that. This

would get me inside. But how can I use it as long as Uncle Frank is in there?’

‘You can’t. So our job is to get him out of there.’

‘How?’

Barrett was thinking. Suddenly he smiled. ‘I’ve got it. Maybe it’ll work. It’s worth a try. Anything goes now. Is Luther Yerkes in town?’

‘Yes. He phoned Uncle Frank earlier, just before our fight.’

“Where does Yerkes live?’

‘Everywhere. Recently he’s been staying at his Bel-Air house.’

‘Does he have a personal secretary living there?’

‘Yes. I’ve often taken calls. She comes on first - ’

‘A she? Good, we’ll try it.’ He had taken Maggie’s arm and started her toward the gas-station office.

‘Try what, Mike?’

He pointed ahead. ‘See that redheaded girl sitting inside reading a magazine ? You’re looking at Yerkes’ secretary.’

They entered the gas-station office, and the freckled redhead, chewing bubble gum as she flipped the pages of a movie fan magazine, greeted them with a bubble.

‘Do you work here?’ inquired Barrett.

The girl looked startled. ‘No, I’m waiting for Mac - my boy friend. He’s the mechanic’

Barrett had reached into his pocket for his wallet. ‘How’d you like to make an easy fiver?’

The redhead’s eyes went from Barrett to Maggie and back to Barrett. ‘For doing what?’ she asked warily.

‘For making a phone call. We’ll give you a number. When someone answers, you simply say you’d like to speak to Mr Griffith, Mr Frank Griffith, and if he’s the one who answers, or when he gets on the line, you say, “This is Mr Luther Yerkes’ secretary. He’s asked me to call you and tell you something urgent has just come up. He wants you to meet him at his Bel-Air home immediately.” Don’t answer any questions. Just see that he’s understood the message and then hang up.’

The girl stopped chewing her gum. “That’s all - for five dollars ?’

‘That’s all.’

He held out the five-dollar bill, and she started to reach for it, then hesitated. ‘This is nothing illegal, is it?’

‘Perfectly aboveboard,’ Barrett assured her winningly. ‘We’re merely playing a joke on a friend.’

She took the bill. ‘Okay. Let me get a pencil and paper, and tell me again what I have to say so I get it right.’

She searched through the office desk until she found a scratch pad and a pencil stub, and then Barrett dictated the message to her. When he was through, he asked Maggie to give her Griffith’s telephone number. Maggie took the pencil and wrote the number down.

‘Should I do it now ?’ the girl asked.

‘Right now.’

‘Do you mind waiting outside ? Otherwise I’ll be self-conscious.’

‘We’ll be outside,’ said Barrett.

When they had gone outside, he walked Maggie over to the gas pumps and then said, ‘You stay here, Maggie, and keep an eye on her. Make sure she puts through the call. I’ll be loading your things into my car.’

Leaving Maggie, he went to the water cooler, threw Maggie’s garment bag across one arm, gripped a suitcase in each hand, and carried the load around to the back of his convertible. After he’d placed her luggage in the trunk and closed the lid, he saw Maggie beckoning him as the redhead emerged from the station office. He hastened toward them.

‘How’d it go?’ he asked.

‘Just like you told me,’ she said. ‘I called. The man who answered said he was Mr Griffith. I read off what you told me to say. He sounded worried, and he said, “Thanks, tell Mr Yerkes I’m on my way.”’

Barrett grinned. ‘Good girl - and good Samaritan.’

Pleased, she smiled back at him, and then she blew a bubble and turned toward the station office and her magazine.

Maggie had taken Barrett’s arm. ‘Mike, if this really works, he’ll be coming down this street in a minute to take Sunset. We don’t want him to see us.’

‘Right.’ He started her for his car.

At the door, she pulled back. ‘He might recognize me if he sees me sitting here in the light.’

‘Okay. Go to the washroom until I honk you twice. I’ll sit in the car and keep my eye on the rear-view mirror.’ She was leaving him, when he called out, ‘Hey, Maggie, what does he drive?’

‘A Bentley. A blue S3 sports model. You can’t miss it.’

As Barrett settled into the front seat, he watched Maggie disappear into the ladies’ room, and then he fixed his sight on his rear-view mirror. Briefly an old Buick filled the mirror, and then was gone. After that, for perhaps a full minute, there was nothing to be seen at the street intersection behind him except the traffic light changing again. Then, all at once, the gleaming grill and the majestic B of the sleek blue Bentley slid across his rear-view mirror. As it slowed to turn left on Sunset, Barrett came quickly around in his seat, in time to catch a glimpse of Frank Griffith’s grim profile. Then there was the back of Griffith’s head, and then the Bentley continued away, going east on Sunset Boulevard, until it had receded from view.

Barrett hit his horn twice. Maggie and the service-station attendant appeared almost simultaneously. While Barrett signed the charge slip, Maggie clambered into the seat beside him.

She looked at him inquiringly.

He felt triumphant and showed his elation. ‘Scratch one blue Bentley,’ he said. ‘We’re home free. Now let’s rescue Cassie McGraw.’

Some new concern crossed Maggie’s face. ‘Mike, I think we’d better hurry. We told Uncle Frank to go to Luther Yerkes’ Bel-Air house, didn’t we?’

‘Yes. Why?’

‘Darn it, we should have made it his Malibu house. Bel-Air’s practically around the corner from here. Yerkes has his place on Stone Canyon Road. That’s the nearest part of Bel-Air, just past UCLA. Uncle Frank will be there in ten or twelve minutes at the most. The second! he gets there, he’ll know he’s been had. I’ll bet he makes it back here in eight minutes flat. That gives us less than twenty minutes.’

Barrett had already started his car. ‘Okay, you get in there and out of there in ten minutes. Think you can do it?’

‘Unless something goes wrong. Please hurry, Mike.’

Barrett made a right-hand circle around the station lot and then drove out of it and swung north up the long block leading to the Griffith residence. The entrance lights were on, but only a side section of the house was visible from the driveway. The rest of the residence was hidden behind hedges and trees.

As he neared the driveway Barrett said, ‘You’ve got the key to the back service porch?’

‘Yes.’

‘Then you get out here.’ He had slowed the convertible in front of the driveway and applied the brakes. ‘I’ll back up along the hedge. That way I’ll be able to spot you when you come out from the side yard, and at the same time I’ll be able to keep an eye on the street we just took up here. I’ll watch for Griffith when he comes up from Sunset.’

She opened the door and stepped out. ‘How much time have we got left, Mike?’

He peered at the dial of his wristwatch. ‘To play it safe, give yourself nine minutes, ten at the most. Now move. Good luck.’

He saw her hasten up the driveway and cut left across the lawn to the walk leading around the house toward the service porch. When he could no longer see her, he shifted into reverse and backed slowly away from the driveway and against the curbing beneath the hedges. He switched off the ignition and turned off his lights.

It should be easy, he thought. In short minutes he would have what he wanted and could restore to Zelkin and Sanford their faith in the word ‘trust’ and in his own judgment, and he would have his lead to the witness who might save the crumbling defense and The Seven Minutes.

With his left arm propped up on the steering wheel so he could constantly check the time, Barrett took his eyes at short intervals from the watch in order to look down the street toward Sunset,

then he looked at the watch again, then the street again.

Maggie had been gone six minutes.

Soon, eight minutes.

Now, surprisingly, a full ten minutes had passed, and still there was no sign of her, and now each fleeting minute seemed to be composed of only six seconds, not sixty seconds.

Around and around his dial the second hand raced.

Now thirteen minutes … fourteen … fifteen.

Mike Barrett blinked and he realized that a set of powerful headlights was rising up the street from Sunset Boulevard far below. He could feel the perspiration on his brow. God, if it was Griffith…

It was Griffith.

In its ascent the car traveling up from Sunset Boulevard had passed beneath a bright street lamp, and the silver of its grill and the rich blueness of its bonnet announced it as the Bentley. It was coming up faster now, faster and faster.

He acted instinctively. No conscious thought sparked his act. On with the ignition. Foot pumping the starter. Hand releasing the emergency brake. Foot clamping down on the gas pedal.

Just as the blue Bentley loomed in full view, heading for the driveway, Barrett’s convertible plunged straight into its path, blocking its access to the driveway.

Barrett clutched the steering wheel, waiting for the impact of steel against steel, but instead there was the rubbery screeching of tires, then brakes, as Griffith wrenched his Bentley aside to avoid the crash. The squalling and slithering of tires on pavement, the other car’s, Barrett’s own car’s, and then, finally, came the grazing of metal upon metal.

Both cars had shuddered to a rest in the street in front of the driveway. Griffith’s car was almost parallel to Barrett’s, but ahead of his own, its right side against his left fender.

The driver’s door of the Bentley was flung open, and a large, husky man was bulling out of the car and charging toward him. It was Frank Griffith, and his face was red with rage.

‘What kind of idiot driving is that ?’ he bellowed, as he advanced. ‘You could have killed us both! What in the hell kind of driving is that ? Don’t you look to your left at a cross street ?’

‘I’m sorry,’ said Barrett, summoningup his most contrite expression. T guess I had my mind on something else. It’s entirely my fault. I really am sorry. Are you all right ?’

‘Guys like you ought to be put away,’ growled Griffith. ‘Sure I’m all right. Lucky for you. But I don’t know what in the hell you’ve done to my car. Back up, will you, and let me see. And don’t you take off.’

Good, thought Barrett. Eat up time. Stall. Don’t let him trap Maggie inside the house.

He fumbled with the ignition key, starting the car several times, deliberately letting it choke each time.

‘Goddammit !’ roared Griffith. ‘Will you back up or won’t you ?’

At last Barrett had the motor going. He set the gear in reverse and backed up a few yards. At last he got out of the car, and strolled toward Griffith, who was standing wide-legged, belligerent, his meaty fists on his hips, waiting for him. Barrett noticed the dent in his own fender.

‘Look what you did to my car,’ said Griffith.

What he had done, Barrett could see, was scrape a strip of blue paint off the Bentley’s passenger door and a portion of its fender.

‘This is going to take a whole new paint job to make it match,’ grumbled Griffith. ‘This is going to cost your insurance people at least eight hundred bucks. You’ve got insurance, haven’t you?’

‘Yes, I have.’

Griffith had taken a pen and a small address book out of his jacket pocket. ‘You’d better find your insurance card while I’m taking down your license.’

As Griffith went to make a note of the license number, Barrett sought the insurance company’s card in his wallet, and he wondered about Maggie and silently prayed for her.

He found the card as Frank Griffith returned to him. Just as Griffith snatched the card from him, Barrett remembered that his name, address, and telephone number had been typed on the card.

He held his breath.

Griffith was copying down the name of the insurance company and its address. Now his eyes had come to the name of the policy holder. For a moment, he stood motionless, and then he lifted his massive head and stared at Barrett. His hands stuffed address book, pen, insurance card into his pockets, and when they came out again they were knotted. He stepped closer, and automatically Barrett retreated, until he was pinned against the Bentley. Never in Barrett’s life had he seen such hatred in another’s face.

‘I should have recognized you, you sonofabitch,’ Griffith was saying. ‘What in the hell are you doing here?’

‘It’s a free country,’ Barrett said inanely.

‘A free country, eh ? Not for the likes of you, it isn’t. What were you hanging around here for - to spy on me and my son?’

‘I have no further interest in you or your son.’

‘I’m not so sure. You showed you had no balls this morning in court. Now maybe you’re trying to find something to make up for it.’

Barrett had raised his left arm slightly. He waited for Griffith to swing at him.

Griffith emitted a snarl. ‘I’d like to clobber you, but I’m not giving you any more publicity. You’re not suckering me into that. But I’ll tell you what I am doing. I’m putting you on warning. You beat it, see. You get your ass out of here as fast as you can. Me, I’m going inside. But I’m coming out in five minutes. If you’re still here snooping around, I’ll beat you up, and then I’ll turn you over to the

cops for prowling. You hear me?’

With that, he spun away from Barrett, stomped around his car, and got behind the wheel. Barrett flashed a glance at the house. No Maggie. He stepped into his convertible and backed off farther and waited, engine idling. Griffith’s Bentley shot into the driveway. Barrett closed his eyes, offered another prayer for Maggie, then opened them and eased his car forward for a better view.

He could see Griffith striding out of the carport. He could see Griffith opening the front door. Then he could see Griffith no more.

Poor Maggie.

There was nothing to do. It was too late.