The Green Ripper by John D. MacDonald Page A

operation here. Everything will turn out roses. We've got a nice community coming along. We're keeping a lot of
     
     
The Green Ripper open space, and nothing tacky gets built. What was it you had going with Herm,gentlemen? Was it something to do with the commercial area?"
     
     
"Actually," Meyer said, "we're trying to find out who it was who flew in almost three weeks ago, maybe November twenty-eighth or -ninth, to talk to Mr. Ladwigg, and flew out the next morning."
     
     
"In a little blue airplane," Broffski said. His voice was no longer amiable, his face no longer jolly. "I am getting damn sick and tired of that tucking blue airplane. I am going to close that strip. Who needs it?"
     
     
He bounded up and went around us to his office door. "Morse! Get in here a minute."
     
     
Morse Slater came in, recognized me at once, and came over to me. I stood up, and he shook my hand and said, 'Tm terribly sorry I had to miss the service, Mr. McGee. I thought until the last minute I would make it, but something came up."
     
     
I said, "Sure. Understood. Meyer, this is Morse Slater. I told you about him."
     
     
As they shook hands Broffski said, "What's going on? What service?"
     
     
"Gretel Howard," I told him.
     
     
There was a sudden look of comprehension. "McGee! Right. I heard about you from her. What has all this got to do with the tucking blue airplane?"
     
     
Meyer said politely, "Has someone else been interested in it?"
     
     
'~e had the FAA out here. You tell them what it was about, Morse."
     
     
We all sat down and Morse said, "Apparently it was some sort of serious violation of the air safety rules, flying close to a commercial liner, something like that. It was a Mr. Ryan from Washington, a field investigator, and they had traced the plane here. He was a very stubborn mam He couldn't seem to accept the idea that no one except Mr. Ladwigg knew where the airplane came from or who was flying it. He insisted on talking to some of the other employees, and he even had me take him over to the Ladwigg home and let him interrogate Mrs. Ladwigg."
     
     
"Catherine didn't know from nothing," Broffski said. "She never saw the guy. She said Herm put him up in the guest wing and talked business in there from the time he arrived until late at night. Herm told her not to bother about dinner, and when she checked the guest wing after the man had left, she found paper bags and cups from one of the fried chicken places down the Drive, so she thinks Herm went out and brought food back. The next morning early she heard Herm drive out in the Toyota. All Herm ever told her was that it was a big deal for a good-sized tract, and they were talk- ing construction and deadlines. Damned imposition for him to go bothering Catherine."
     
     
Morse Slater said, "Ryan said to me that he wanted to find out if the aircraft had flown in from
     
     
The Green Ripper the islands with a load of coke or grass. He said he wanted to get that pilot out of the air. He just couldn't understand why we didn't have some record of the identification on the plane. I showed him the strip, of course. A grassy strip, an old shed, a wind sock, and a padlocked gas pump. There's nobody there to check anything in or out."
     
     
"We let Ryan look through Herm's desk notes and appointment calendar," Stanley Broffski said. "He said he'd come back with a subpoena if we didn't. There wasn't a clue."
     
     
'~hen was Ryan here?" Meyer asked.
     
     
Slater stared at the ceiling for a moment. "Last Thursday, the thirteenth. He disrupted the day, most of it."
     
     
"Remember his whole name?" Meyer asked.
     
     
"Ryan, Howard C. In his forties. Pale, broad, soft. Very autocratic. An irritating fellow."
     
     
'A still don't understand why you two men are here," Broffski said. "Why should you give a shit who flew in and out in that airplane? What should it have to do with you?"
     
     
I reached into the deepest pocket in one of the old bags of tricks and