“He’s his own Ponzi scheme,” Manville said. “He’s losing money every day, and he has to keep bringing more in to keep the facade going. And he knows it can’t last much longer. I didn’t know there were already rumors starting about him, but he may know.”
Brevizin said, “He told you how much trouble he was in?”
“Yes. He was trying to enlist me on his side.”
“In what?”
“I’m not sure,” Manville said, and spread his large hands, workman’s hands. “He told me he had a way out, it was illegal and dangerous, but it was going to make him a whole lot of money, and if I kept quiet my share would be ten million U.S. dollars, in gold.”
Brevizin squinted. “He said what?”
“Now you’re beginning to not believe me again,” Manville said. “Mr. Curtis told me my share could either be ten million dollars in gold or, if I’d wait a little while, the same amount in a Swiss bank account. I think I was supposed to be impressed.”
“Why were you having this conversation?”
Now Manville too sat back in the sofa, though he didn’t seem very relaxed. He said, “I’ve been working for Mr. Curtis for over a year, on a project out by the barrier reef. I’ve been developing a new technical way to deal with landfill, a cheaper way to convert land to new uses, and we just tried it, Tuesday of this week.”
“Tried it.”
“We set off measured explosions in tunnels in an island out by the reef,” Manville explained.
“That sounds risky.”
“It isn’t, really,” Manville said, “but we did have some environmental protesters, from a group called Planetwatch.”
“Oh, you touch another button,” Brevizin told him. “Planetwatch has been an irritation to more than one of my clients. Including Jimmy Coggins, come to think of it. All right, what happened?”
“A diver from their ship,” Manville told him, “a woman, went into the water just before the explosions, even though they’d all been told there was no fail-safe, no way to stop the countdown. Which was my fault, I should have taken every contingency into— Well. That doesn’t matter here.”
“She was in the water, near the island, when your explosions went off?”
“Yes.”
“And she was killed.”
“Well, no.” Manville did that bleak smile again. “Though Mr. Curtis would have preferred it. For a while, we all thought she was dead, but she survived. And then Curtis wanted to kill her, as though the explosion — or the shock wave, really — had done it, in order to get Planetwatch off his back.”
Brevizin said, “Mr. Manville? Are you sure?”
“Absolutely. It was because I didn’t want him to do it that he told me what his situation was, and offered me the ten million dollars.”
“If you’d kill the girl?”
“No, simply if I’d step aside.”
Brevizin looked over at the window, then back at Manville. “You’re saying he’s that desperate.”
“I think anybody would be,” Manville said, “in his situation. There’s a fellow with Planetwatch named Jerry Diedrich...” He paused and looked at Brevizin.
Who shook his head. “Don’t know the name.”
“Well, for some reason, he has a personal vendetta against Richard Curtis, and shows up wherever Curtis is doing anything at all that involves the environment. Curtis definitely doesn’t want Diedrich around when he makes that move of his to get all the money, and he thought a dead diver could tie up Diedrich and Planetwatch in the Australian courts long enough for Curtis to finish whatever he’s doing.”
Nodding, Brevizin said, “It might. But we’re a long way from you and Robert Bendix and industrial espionage.”
“Well, I wouldn’t go along with him,” Manville said. “I told him I didn’t want Kim to die.”
“Kim. You knew this woman?”
“We met this week, after the event. What happened was, Mr. Curtis and the people investing with him in Kanowit Island — that’s where we were — they helicoptered off on Wednesday. Wednesday night, I found out from the ship’s captain that he’d been ordered to slow us down so we could go past Moreton Island late at night, so some people could come aboard to kill the two of us. We managed to get away, and now Mr. Curtis is afraid we’ll go to the authorities, so he made that charge of his own first. Ruin my credibility before I say anything.”
“It should work,” Brevizin said. “I don’t suppose you have any evidence, any proof, any signed confessions?”
“No, I’m sorry,” Manville said, and sounded as though he really was. Too worried, in other words, to have much sense of humor.
Brevizin said, “Well, do you have anything that would serve to substantiate your story?”
“I’ve been thinking about that,” Manville said. “I don’t have much. I have my own reputation, over the years. Kim and I both tell the same story, and we never knew one another before this week. And the Mallory, the ship we were on, might still be in harbor here. It lost a launch as a result of the business with us, they won’t be able to sail until they replace it.”
“The Mallory,” Brevizin said, and made his first note of the meeting.
“Since I don’t know this man Bendix,” Manville said, “I can’t think why he’d say I tried to sell him anything.”
“He and Curtis could be friends,” Brevizin said, dismissing it. “That aspect doesn’t bother me.”
“Tell me what bothers you,” Manville said. “If it’s something I know anything about, I’ll tell you.”
“I believe you’re probably accurate about Curtis’s finances,” Brevizin said, “and I can make a few calls after this meeting to confirm. I find it hard to believe that any businessman, legitimate businessman, would send out killers to murder two people. Hard, but not impossible. I believe, if I check into it, a ship called Mallory will be in harbor here, missing a launch. I believe it is possible you were framed, for the purpose of shutting you up. I believe it is also possible that everything you’ve said is the invention of a desperate man who’s been caught with his hand in the cookie jar.”
“It could look that way,” Manville agreed, “I know that.”
“Unfortunately,” Brevizin said, “if I choose to believe your story, then I must also believe you don’t have the answer to what’s still most troubling me. Which is, what does Curtis plan to do that’s illegal and dangerous, and when does he plan to do it? And, come to think of it, where? Here?”
“You’re right, that’s the part I don’t know,” Manville said. “I’m sorry. I get the impression it might have something to do with Hong Kong, but only because those are the people he blames for his troubles. And even if that’s right, I don’t know what the plan is.”
“And it must be intended to happen fairly soon,” Brevizin pointed out, “if it would be before Planetwatch got over the legal embarrassment of negligently causing the death of one of their own divers.”
“Oh, yes,” Manville said, “I’m sure it’s soon. I don’t think that house of cards of his can last very much longer.”
“All right,” Brevizin said, “conditionally I believe you. I should probably advise you to turn yourself in to the authorities, to let me begin the legal process, but that would leave your friend Kim alone, and if someone has tried to kill her before they might try again.”
“I think so, too,” Manville said.
“Do you want to tell me where you’re keeping yourselves?”
“Down on the Gold Coast.”
“Good God. Can you stand it?”