The furnishings were a grab-bag of bits and pieces; some folding chairs of various styles, a couple of folding-leg card tables, one sturdy wooden table and a couple of small battered gray-metal desks. At one of these sat Jock Cayzer; approaching him, Mike said, “Is our phone line in?”
“Let’s see.” Jock lifted the receiver of the phone which was the only thing on the surface of his desk, listened, and shook his head. “Not a thing.” Cradling the receiver again, he called toward the other end of the people-filled trailer, “How much longer on the phone?”
“One minute!” The person who answered was a big bearish young man with shoulder-length blond hair and shaggy blond beard. He was dressed in work pants, a yellow T-shirt and a large tool-filled workbelt around his waist, and he was kneeling on the floor at the far end of the trailer, a screwdriver in one hand and a telephone receiver in the other. “Just checking with the operator,” he called, waved the screwdriver, and went back to work.
Mike said, “I’m assuming that place has a phone and we know the number.”
“It does,” Jock assured him, “and we do.”
“Good.” Then Mike added, “According to Merville, they killed our inside girl.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Jock said. “We didn’t do her any favor.”
Lynsey had followed Mike, and now she said, with new worry, “If they’ve already killed once, they don’t have anything to lose anymore.”
“These people started killing years ago,” Mike told her, and went over to the wooden table, which was filled with an untidy Rube Goldberg assembly of electronic parts and wiring. Half of it comprised a two-way police radio, at which an operator sat, receiving occasional messages from elements at the perimeter of the siege area. The rest was the recording equipment, being fussed over by their regular technician from the Burbank office. Mike said to him, “You ready to tape phone conversations?”
“I think so.” The technician looked harried, very unlike his normal calm self; he apparently didn’t like being transported out of his comfortable home environment. “I won’t know for sure,” he said, “until they get the phone working.”
“They say that’ll be just a minute.”
“They always say that,” the technician said.
The radio operator said, “Sir?”
“Yes?”
“An L.A. Sheriff’s car on the beach just reported. The word’s got around, and the offshore is filling up with small boats.”
“Boats! Are they looking to get killed?”
“I guess they’re just looking, sir.”
Mike pointed to the array of radio equipment. “Can you get the Coast Guard on that thing?”
“I believe so, yes, sir.”
“Get onto them, explain the situation, and tell them we’d appreciate their cooperation clearing that area. And if they feel like sinking a couple of those stupid bastards out there, we leave them to their own initiative.”
The radio operator grinned. “Yes, sir.”
“Try your phone now!” cried the young man from the far end of the trailer.
Mike watched as Jock picked up the phone and listened. “Sounds good,” Jock called.
“Terrific.” Mike said to the technician, “You set?”
“I need to hear a conversation.”
“Right. Jock? Dial the weather or something.”
Jock waved an okay, dialed the number, and the technician fiddled with his dials and switches. Suddenly a female voice filled the trailer: “—perature seventy-eight degrees, humidity—”
The technician hit another switch, and nodded in embattled satisfaction. “Set,” he said.
“Good.”
Mike crossed to the other desk, sat down, and drew its telephone close. As he did so, Lynsey, standing in front of the desk, said, “Is that supposed to make me feel better?”
Mike looked at her, not knowing what on earth she was talking about. “Huh?”
“Telling me they started killing years ago. Why should that make me feel better?”
“Oh. Because it isn’t new to them,” Mike told her. “They’re less likely to panic, because they’ve already known for years the consequences of getting caught.”
“I see,” she said, surprised. “I see what you mean.”
“Now do you feel better?”
“Not really. I won’t feel good till this is all over and Koo is safe.” Then she added, “May I sit by you?”
“Of course. Drag over a chair.”
She did, bringing one of the lightweight metal folding chairs and placing it at the side of the desk. Meantime, Mike asked Jock for the beach house phone number, and dialed it as Jock read it off. Lynsey sat down and Mike nodded at her, listening to the phone’s ring-sound in his ear.
She said, “What if they don’t answer?”
He held up a finger, meaning he didn’t want to talk right now. He was counting the rings: five, six, seven...“We’ll wait for them,” he said. Eight, nine...
In the middle of the fourteenth ring, someone picked up at the other end, but at first didn’t speak. Mike waited, hearing the faint sound of breathing, and finally he said, “Hello?”
It was a woman’s voice: “Wrong number.”
“Peter Dinely, please,” Mike said.
There was a sharp intake of breath, then silence. Would she hang up? No; she said, “Who is this?”
“Michael Wiskiel, of the Federal Bur—”
“Hold on. Hold on a minute.”
“Sure.”
He heard the receiver clatter onto a hard surface. Looking at Lynsey’s expectant face, he pressed the phone hard against his ear, trying to hear what was going on in that room at the other end, but heard nothing until the new clatter of somebody picking the receiver up again. A wary voice said, “Yes?”
“Peter Dinely?”
“Where did you get that name?” The voice sounded like the one on the final tape, but less harsh; the same voice without the rage. Which answered the question about the tape’s authenticity, now that it no longer mattered.
“Ginger Merville told me,” Mike said.
Surprisingly, the man at the other end laughed. “Poor Ginger,” he said, but not as though he actually sympathized. “Did he come to you or did you go out and grab him?”
“We grabbed him.”
“So he couldn’t even make a deal. I imagine he’s very upset.”
“I imagine you all are,” Mike said, trying to sound as though he cared. “Merville told us Koo Davis is still alive.”
“Oh, did he?”
The voice now seemed to imply that Merville was wrong.
Mike looked away from Lynsey’s eyes. “You’re in a lot of trouble, Dinely,” he said, “but you could stop now before you make things worse.”
“Are you stupid, or do you think I’m stupid?”
“Neither,” Mike said. It was obviously necessary to stroke this fellow’s ego a bit, and Mike was more than willing. He was willing to do whatever was needed to get Koo Davis back, safe and sound. “You’re smart,” he told Dinely, “you’ve proved that the last few days, but there’s just too many of us. It didn’t matter how smart you were, you couldn’t pull this off and get away with it.”
“But we have gotten away with it, so far.” Dinely’s air of self-confidence was almost convincing; almost. “And we’ll go on getting away with it,” he said, with just a bit too much bravado. “I take it you want Davis back.”
“Alive.”
“Of course. We’ll make a deal.”
Mike closed his eyes and pressed his lips together, knowing what was coming. The clear route to the airport, the plane waiting, Dinely’s promise to release Davis once he was aboard the plane. Mike would agree, of course, because once the gang was out of the house and in motion there would be a thousand different ways to stop them. But without endangering Koo Davis even further? Very aware of Lynsey’s presence, but keeping his eyes shut, Mike said, “Let’s hear it.”