THE FOURTH WATCH (14 page)

"Those on backwards?"

"Those on frontwards," Walter said smiling and
chewing nuts.

“
Shirt?"

"Frontwards.”

"Huh," I said.

''Huh indeed."

There was a waitress working the tables now
and she brought us two new beers. I made little connecting circle
of moisture with the bottom of my glass on the tabletop, thinking
about what it could mean.

"Okay," I said finally, "so what's a
diatom?"

"A diatom, my ignorant friend, is a type of
algae. Microscopic little water creatures."

"Well check me on this my wise-cracking soon
to be former employee, but didn't they find Red in the
water?"

''They did. But diatoms are a food source for
other water creatures. They are usually found in ponds and lakes
and the like."

I looked at him. "So what are you saying, that
Red drowned somewhere else and then got moved to his
pool."

''I don't know, and neither does the saw-bones
up at the Med Center. Like I said, diatoms are a type of algae.
Algae grows in pools. It's not impossible that there were diatoms
growing in the pool. It’s just a little odd, because there was a
fair concentration of them in Red's lungs, suggesting that there
was a decent size colony of them around. And what with all the
chlorine and what not that people put in pools, and what with a
wetback wet-nursing the Whorley pool like the Waters of Babylon...I
don't know?” Walter took a quick nip at his bottle, "you tell
me?"

Walter and I looked at each other for a while
in silence and drank our drinks.

Here's what I had. Red Whorley, the legal
paperwork notwithstanding, was the outright owner of a business
worth a few hundred million bucks. He had died in the water with
his pants on backwards somewhere that algae grows. His daughter
thought he was murdered and told the cops so. The cops knew about
the pants and the algae. There was no investigation into Red's
death. Now I was never very good at math, but this didn't add up
very well.

"What did the press have to say about all
this? Did you get to look at any of the news clippings
yet?"

"Just a quick look. I'm gonna go back through
it all. But from what I can see off the top they reported it
straight up as an accidental drowning. Looks to be more coverage of
the celebrities that showed up at the funeral than anything
else."

“
Alright, stay with it anyway. You
know Morris Rosen, right?"

"Yep," Walter said, "the Heeb interpreter, you
think he's a homo?"

I looked at him flatly, then decided to ignore
his remarks. "1 want you to talk to Morris and see what he
remembers the yard guy's story to be, Mr. Herrera, I think it is.
The cops took a statement. I wonder if Morris remembers it any
different then it's in the police report."

"Will do. You get out to the scene yet? Talk
to the family?"

"No," I said, "not yet. My list of places to
go and people to talk to is growing though. I'll ask Alex about the
Will, then I'm going to go to Loading Dock headquarters and talk to
a guy there. I'll get out to the house and I have a bartender to
see."

"That's good news," Walter said, "go see that
one over there and get me another fucking beer!"

8

SOMETIMES I LOVE THE RAIN.
When I do, I remember the poem by Edward Thomas
called 'It Rains'. When I read the words of Thomas, I can almost
hear the rain falling in the dense forest. I love that sound.
Sometimes I hear it in the trees around the shore; or thrumming on
the surface of the lake; pattering on the rocks along the shoreline
and dripping out of the trees into the soft pine straw in the
woods. All these sounds mixing are the sounds of the rain that I
love, when it is softly falling.

Other times the rain rakes against the house,
driven by the wind. It rattles the windows and hisses in the eves.
Sometimes it roars with the sound of a freight train when it
hammers down, pounding on the earth and the lake with ferocity. I
love it then for its power. It can be harsh and gentle, furious and
serene, soothing and sad.

And then there are the other times.

I was driving down Rt. 9, headed for Loading
Dock's Executive Offices, and the rain was pounding down in wind
driven sheets that lashed across the road and thundered on my roof
and windshield. The wipers on the Jeep slashed angrily back and
forth, but could barely fight the torrents to a standstill. I could
hardly see the road.

Not being able to see the road can be a
problem, especially on Rt. 9 headed east, which is usually a
parking lot moving at 80 miles per hour in the morning. The parking
lot will sometimes go from 80 to zero in a heartbeat, because Rt. 9
is dotted with traffic signals, and you can crest a hill at full
speed and suddenly discover traffic backed up at a red light. That
can be a problem on dry roads. In the rain it can be a life and
death experience.

*****

THE LOADING DOCK
HEADQUARTERS
were located in Natick,, not
far from the Mall, in a two-story brick rectangle on Flutie Pass.
Exiting 9 on the Pass, you are instantly confronted by a dozen
signs and have about two seconds to pick a direction. When I called
Jed Archer to make this appointment, he gave me directions which,
basically, were to always go away from the mall. If the sign says
Mall to the right, I go to the left, and so on. The heavy rain
complicated the process, but soon I emerged from the maze onto a
stretch of road dominated by office buildings of all shapes and
sizes. It was like coming out of white water onto a lazy stream. I
drifted along, squinting between wiper swipes until I spotted
it.

The Loading Dock, Slip # 1, was perched on a
knoll on the left-hand side of The Pass. An immaculate lawn dotted
with dogwoods surrounded it. Rosebushes and showy flowerbeds
bordered the paths and walkways. I turned into the parking lot and
followed the signs to the Visitor Parking. Mercifully, Visitor
Parking was located just to the left of the main entrance. I jumped
out of the Jeep, popped open my umbrella and hurried behind it to
the entrance as the wind tried to pull it from my hands. I stood in
the foyer and shook off the rain and raised my eyebrows at a toothy
redhead seated in the center of the receptionist kiosk. ''Nasty out
there," I told her.

She smiled at me like a horse. "Still raining
is it?"

I turned back to the windows. Rain thundered
against the pains and rain snakes slithered across the entry doors.
A waterfall splattered down across the entire front of the lobby as
the gutters filled faster than they could channel the rain
away.

''Nah,'' I said, "It stopped, I was just
rolling around in a puddle out there in Visitor
Parking.”

She squealed with laughter and gave me a big,
toothy grin.

''I have an appointment to meet with Jed
Archer," I told her after she had regained her
composure.

''Mr. Archer," she said, "of course. Whom
shall I say is calling?"

"Just between us, you can say that it's
me."

Again the high squealing whinny.

"And who might you be?"

"Michael Knight, Esquire, at your
service."

"Esquire," she said, her eyes narrowing,
''what's that?"

"It’s Latin for 'ferocious lover'. In English
it can also mean that I'm a Lawyer.”

"A Lawyer," she whispered, "how exciting! Do
you have a lot of interesting cases?"

''I live everyday of my life on the edge," I
told her.

I don't think she knew that I was kidding
because she said, "Really? You should write a book, like that
Grisham guy. You're kind of cute like him too," she said and gave
me a sly sideways glance and plenty of teeth.

"And macho like you wouldn't
believe."

She snorted, picked up the phone, dialed and
spoke into it for a moment. "He'll be right down to get
you."

"Thanks," I said and then wandered
over to the waiting area so I wouldn't have to regal Mrs. Ed with
tales of the triumph of justice against all odds. I stood with my
hands folded behind my back and watched as rainwater rushed across
the blacktop and into the catch basins on the edges of the parking
lot. I didn't quite know what I was doing here. Alex had told me to
talk to this guy, but he was a little vague as to why, and I wasn't
supposed to say that Alex had sent me to see him. As a
result
, I
was a
little vague when I made this appointment with Archer. I was
meeting Alex for lunch when I was done here. I would have preferred
to meet with him before, but I learned long ago that Alex, like the
ghost of Christmas yet to come, did things in his own
time.

Jed Archer came down the staircase behind the
receptionist's corral with some difficulty. He was an enormous man,
in both height and girth. He had a head full of salt and pepper
hair and a square, black mustache in the center of his big and
ruddy face. He crushed my hand in a meaty paw. "Mr. Knight? Jed
Archer, common' in, did you say hello to Edna?"

"I did," I told him. Mr. Ed in drag, Ms.
Edna.

"Well let's go on up to my office
then."

Archer led the way back up the stairs.I was
praying to God that he wouldn't topple over backwards. He would
have gone over me like a train and left me molded flat to the
stairs. He led me down a long carpeted corridor that ran the length
of the building and emptied into a maze of cubicles. The occupants
of most were on the phone and seemed to be engaged in frenzied
activity. Around the edges there were offices against the outer
walls, with various views out onto the grounds. In the corner was a
very large office that I followed him into.

Archer waved me into a thick leather chair and
worked his way around to his own behind a mahogany desk that looked
like an aircraft carrier. He settled into it heavily. The office
was square, and in the very corner of the building. It smelled of
pipe tobacco, and a giant crystal ashtray on Archer's desk held an
ivory meerschaum smoked yellow over time. The inner walls were
covered with rich eastern tapestries and giant windows dominated
the outer walls. The windowsills were covered with lush flowering
plants. There was a full bar against one wall, and a huge
conference table, surrounded by eight Captain’s chairs, against
another. Both the bar and the conference table were made of
mahogany and matched his desk perfectly. A leather couch filled the
wall next to the office door and an exquisite Persian rug covered
the floor. The desk had an elegant blotter in the center of it. On
the right of the blotter was an olive-green cordless telephone. On
the left sat a beautiful quill pen on a stone pedestal, and the
ashtray. There were no files, no note pads, no Post Its or lists of
things to do anywhere, no suggestion whatsoever that Jed Archer did
a lick of work in these fancy digs.

Archer banged his pipe empty and loaded it
from a fat pouch, then got it going with a lighter that looked like
a socket wrench. Outside I could see curtains of rain rolling
across the blacktop. Archer settled back into his chair and sucked
at his pipe, filling the room with aromatic clouds. Finally he
shrugged his shoulders. "So, what is it that 1 can do for you, Mr.
Knight?"

"Well," I began, "I assume Ms. Whorley ...
"

"Didn't tell me jack shit."

''I see."

"Said her lawyer was gonna come on by, that he
had a few questions about Red, and the business, and asked me to
give you a few minutes."

We smiled at each other. "Okay then," I said,
''then let me start with an easy one.

How long you been working here Mr.
Archer?"

"Well let me see," he said, his eyes going to
the ceiling. He sucked at his pipe and blew a cloud of smoke across
his desk. ''Red got here before me, can't think of anyone else that
did though." I hadn't noticed it before, but he had a faint
southern accent in his voice, as if he had come North long ago and
had almost, but not quite, lost his twang.

"Are you a partner, then?"

He chuckled mildly. ''No, Sir, had
a chance, but blew it. Thirty years ago I guess it was. Red and I
were young buyers for a big Japanese trading company that supplied
American department store chains with 'Treasures from the Orient'.
We searched the globe for bargains that the Japs could buy up in
bulk and load into the stores. There was a pile of money to be made
if you bought right, and Red and I were buying right and the Japs
were piling up the money. Red couldn't stand that. He was the best.
He had an eye for the stuff. He'd go into a Korean furniture
company and see a fabric that he liked. Then he'd go into another
and see a style of furniture that he liked. He'd get the furniture
guy to get the fabric and he'd tell'em that at this or that price,
he'd buy every piece they could make in the next three months. I
mean he'd be out on a limb like you wouldn't believe. Next thing
you knew though, that stuff was flying out of every department
store in the stable at fifteen times what Red was delivering it
for." Archer shook his head. "So then ... well, it's a long story
... but Red was getting paid pecans and the Japs were giving him
all this honor and loyalty stuff, but nothin' he can spend, so he
decides that he wants to go out and do it on his own. But the thing
was, he wanted to
own
the stores. Now you got to know, that when Red got a thing in
his head, it possessed him like a demon. He said he could set it
all up himself: stores and buyers all working together, and the
game is the buy and the sell. Nothing to get in between. No blowing
the department store purchasing guys. No bribing the managers for
floor and shelf space. Just him ... at the beginning, in the middle
and on the end. People get what they want at half of what they're
paying in the Jap department stores, and there'd still be plenty
left for Red to get rich on!"