The Memory of Eva Ryker by Donald Stanwood Page A

on any of His Majesty’s vessels during that time and he had no living relatives to support him.
    Where did McFarland go from the signing of the armistice until 1932? The story of his father’s inheritance was a fairy tale almost contemptuously thrown my way. Any casual checking would have exposed the lie. But McFarland hadn’t seemed to care.
    McFarland must have known the Kleins. The Heinleys’ testimony was proof of that. But perhaps he had genuinely forgotten. I had no proof, nothing to hold on to …
    â€œExcuse me, sir.”
    I jumped, instinctively, the memory of Sergeant Buckley still unpleasantly fresh.
    â€œYes?”
    â€œYour lunch, Mr. Hall.” The stewardess set up the tray. Roast beef and new potatoes and melon.
    I chucked the file and cleared John McFarland from all my circuit boards. Finishing my lunch, I spent the next hour watching thunderheads and turquoise atolls, content in my mild champagne buzz. I didn’t sober up until I started reading the Adelaide Times , the same Monday issue I’d started before my arrest.
    Banner headlines of a Sydney strike had crowded the story onto page three.
    TITANIC FILM RECOVERED
    HALIFAX ( AP ) A 55-year-old roll of motion picture film is the first of a remarkable series of relics obtained from the R.M.S. Titanic by William Ryker’s salvage team.
    â€œThe 35-mm film was packed in an airtight can,” announced Harold Masterson, head of the salvage operation. “It was picked up by our bathyscaph Neptune on the upper portside decks of the Titanic .”
    Though remarkably well preserved, Masterson stated that the celluloid film is decayed, very brittle, and will require extreme care in reproduction before a print will be released for viewing.
    One rough copy has been made from the processed negative. “Another print is being flown to Geneva,” Masterson said, “for Mr. Ryker to view. I’m sure he will find it extremely interesting.”
    Masterson added that this lost film is only the first of many discoveries to be released for public inspection as the salvage operation progresses.
    I was still brooding over the article as the 707’s tires yelped on the runway of Honolulu Airport.
    The plane had an hour layover and I spent the time nursing a Michelob in the airport lounge. Beyond the tinted windows, the late afternoon sun cast orange-peel light across the city. I watched a formation of black clouds conduct a steamy saturation bombing over Alamoana and the Strip and my thoughts kept coming back to John McFarland.
    People who say there’s no such thing as coincidence are fools. About ten years ago in Las Vegas I watched a GI make twenty-eight straight passes at a Desert Inn crap table. For that matter, everytime I take the Rolls into Paris, I beat the odds by coming back alive.
    McFarland’s death and my visit could be mere happenstance. He could’ve been shot in a row over a busted flush. Maybe, years back, McFarland had sown his seed among the married women of Coober Pedy and a jealous husband commandeering a Land Rover decided to settle the score.
    Maybe. I doubted it like hell. Trouble was, I liked the alternative even less. It meant someone knew I was going to see McFarland. And that somebody wanted him shut up …
    Ah, Christ. It sounded like a bad trip through Pulpland. Faceless killers and a crooked informer and silencers going bump in the night. Starring Norman Hall as the crusading reporter, fearlessly exposing crime in time to meet the Bulldog.
    Then I remembered the one unblinking eye of John McFarland. He didn’t think it was quite so funny.
    â€œYour attention, please,” the Tannoy purred. “Qantas flight four twenty-eight to Los Angeles is now ready for boarding. All passengers please go to Gate eight.”
    I made up my mind. Spotting a vacant phone booth, I fed it a clanging meal of coins. It burped and buzzed and finally got Jan on the line.
    â€œâ€¦ if