The Howard Hughes Affair: A Toby Peters Mystery (Book Four) Read Free Page B

tough and stupid. The grey double handed me a card. On the card was my photograph. I nodded, handed it back, and sat down at a bench across from an old desk covered with bills and paper. The rain pinged in boredom on the tin roof as one of the two went back outside and the other stayed to keep his eyes on me.
    “What now?” I asked. “Do I get blindfolded and transported to Northern Canada?”
    “Mr. Hughes will be right down,” he said. He and Walter Dean back on Romaine had gone to the same school. I could hear the buzzing of a small airplane outside and turned to look across the field. A dot appeared in the distance out of the waves of dark rain and grew larger as it headed toward us and touched down on the ground with a slight bump and whirr. The plane, a two-engine silver thing, kept getting bigger and moving slower till it came to a stop about thirty yards from us. Two men climbed out, one well built and wearing a light-colored suit, the other tall and thin with slacks and an old zipper jacket. The one in the suit ran ahead while the thin guy ambled, ignoring the rain and deep in thought. The guy in the suit burst through the door, panting. He was about fifty with thick glasses. He looked at me, took off his jacket, snapped it once to get the top layer of moisture off and looked at the door. The second man came in. He pushed back his wet, dark hair and clenched his teeth without looking at anyone and unzipped his battered jacket, revealing a clean white shirt and no tie. Something was on his mind. He was in his mid-thirties, about six-foot four and had a slight mustache, which couldn’t make up its mind whether to be something admirable or something inconspicuous. From the way the business-suited duo looked at him trying not to look at him, I assumed he was Hughes.
    “Noah, tell Rod to back it another eighth of a revolution. No, make it a seventh. I’ll take it up as soon as it’s done.” The guy who had been in the plane with Hughes nodded, put his wet jacket back on and went into the rain without a word. Hughes sat at the edge of the desk, looking out of the window at the resting plane. He touched his lower lip, looked through me, and closed his eyes. Inspiration hit, and he turned to pick up the phone.
    “Did Noah get there yet, Rod?” he shouted, as if unsure of the power of the phone to carry his voice. “Right, well in addition to the seventh, check the rear flaps again. I know you did.” Hughes hung up and crossed his arms. I gave him about three more minutes while I tried to gain sympathy from the guy who looked like the FBI, but he wasn’t having any.
    Finally, I said, “Mr. Hughes.”
    Hughes didn’t answer, and I got up. This time I was a little louder.
    “Mr. Hughes.”
    Nothing.
    The third time, I gave it something close to a shout. Hughes looked up.
    He turned his eyes on me and slowly focused into the room.
    “You’re…”
    “Peters, Toby Peters. I eat avocado and bacon sandwiches, wait around in blue offices for hours, take long rides in the rain, and occasionally do a confidential investivation.”
    Hughes looked at me with serious interest for the first time.
    “You’re five-foot nine, 44 years old. Your brother is an LAPD police lieutenant in the Wilshire District. You have an office in the Farraday Building, exactly $323 in the bank and a bad back which must be causing you some pain now because it flares up in humid weather.”
    “What kind of gun do I have?”
    He paused for a second, chewed on his mustache with his lower teeth, cocked his head as if he hadn’t heard. Apparently he was a little hard of hearing and didn ‘t feel like admitting it, so I asked the question louder.
    “You own a .38 automatic, but you’ve never fired it at anyone and you don’t like to carry it. You have a good record with a reputation for knowing how to keep secrets. That’s important to me.”
    “Thanks,” I said.
    “You also have a reputation for doing foolish things.”
    He did