Whirligig

by Fish, Robert L. ;

  “A pity, indeed,” Kek said, and scrawled his signature across the papers with a slightly shaking hand.

  Mr. Zak gathered them together. “But one can’t allow one defeat to determine the outcome of an entire war,” he said stoutly, and looked at the other sympathetically. “Can one—Kek Huuygens?”

  Kek opened the door of the apartment wearily, pocketed his keys, and walked into the living room. There was a light from Lisa’s bedroom, but he didn’t bother to investigate. He dropped his hat and coat on a chair, walked over to the liquor cabinet and poured himself a large brandy, taking it down in one gulp. He held out his hand, studying the outstretched fingers. For several seconds it was firm, rigid, unbending; then it began to tremble with increasing intensity. He forced his fist to clench, holding it tightly a moment, straining, and then opened it, reaching out, pouring a second drink. The brandy seemed to have helped; he felt the euphoric relief of tension disappearing. He loosened his necktie, lighted a cigarette, and went to the sofa, lowering himself into its welcome comfort, relaxing for the first time that day.

  Lisa came in from the bedroom, frowning at him. “Well?”

  Kek smiled at her and winked. He took a drink and puffed on the cigarette, luxuriating. “Well, what?”

  “Don’t be cute,” Lisa said, and for the first time the strain showed in her voice and in her blue eyes which seemed to become a darker blue, almost sapphire. Even her voice seemed to lose some of its aplomb. “What happened?”

  “Nothing happened,” Kek said equably. “Waldeck Imports failed to fulfill their part of the contracts, and were penalized accordingly. Every bank I visited—and I visited all five of them—was sorry to see a nice fellow like me suffer such cavalier treatment, but they were pleased that at least a part of the loss to our company was covered. They forced the escrow money on me, and at the present time Mr. Vries Waldeck’s five million dollars are on deposit and ready to be withdrawn.” He smiled humorlessly. “All right?”

  Lisa collapsed into a chair, staring at him.

  “You mean it worked? The scheme actually worked?”

  “Yes, it actually worked. You sound as if you had doubts that it would.” He tried to sound light. “Scarcely the proper attitude for a helpmate to take.”

  “You know what I mean. I mean—”

  “I do know what you mean, probably better than you do. It’s a funny thing,” Kek said, sitting forward and frowning at the rug, his voice no longer light, “it’s hard to believe. You know, one dreams up a scheme and manages to put it into operation. One obviously avoids all the pitfalls he can imagine, but at the moment of success, it’s still hard to believe. One worries and worries, and then finds the worries were all for nothing. Or almost for nothing. That worries can be handled; problems coped with. That the scheme wasn’t hare-brained after all, but extremely practical. Amazing, isn’t it?” He drained his glass and looked at Lisa. “When did you say Waldeck was coming over?”

  “I told you. He said he was planning on leaving as soon after the first of May as he could. He plans to take a plane to London and then the boat train to Southampton and catch one of the Queens. He thought it might be faster.”

  “It will be,” Kek said, and sat up straighter. He smiled across the room. “I’m afraid you’ll have to go back to being a secretary for a few moments, sweet; I’m just too tired to get up. Call Cunard and find out which ship he’s most likely to catch, and when it’s due in.”

  “Yes, Master.” Lisa disappeared into the den. Kek replenished his drink while he waited. She returned in minutes. “The Queen Elizabeth sails tomorrow. It’s due in on the seventh, a week from yesterday.”

  “Ah!” Kek reseated himself. “Fine! That should give us ample time to clear the accounts and have the proceeds of our little plan all ready to divide.” He looked at her. “You gave him our address and telephone number here, I assume?”

  “You told me to, didn’t you?”

  “I did indeed.”

  “And we’re going to have five million dollars in cash in the house until he gets here?”

  Kek sighed. “You have cash on the brain again, sweet.

  No. I have no idea of how much room five million dollars in reasonably sized American bills would take up, but probably more than our safe provides. And I shouldn’t like to have to cram the excess in drawers or old shoes until Waldeck shows up.”

  “Then—”

  “And,” Kek continued, a twinkle in his eye, “I think if I walked into the banks and withdrew about a million dollars in cash from each one, eyebrows might well be raised. Even—God forbid!—questions asked.”

  “Then how—?”

  “Well,” Kek said easily, “first we’ll pay our debt to my Swiss friend’s friends—by check, dated tomorrow and delivered by hand tomorrow—which will save us roughly ten thousand dollars in interest, which in turn will pay for the catalogs and some of the stamps you used. And then we will buy bearer bonds with the balance, my sweet, purchased from five different, highly reputable brokerage houses, paid for by the company checks on each bank, to be delivered once the check clears. Which, of course, it will do. Simple?” He smiled and answered his own question. “Simple.”

  Lisa came to her feet and walked to the bar. She filled a glass with ice and poured a generous dollop of Scotch on top of it. She raised the glass in his direction.

  “A toast to you, darling,” she said, “for a wonderful idea.”

  “I’m glad you liked it,” Kek said modestly, and then grinned. “You’ve also given me another reason for being happy the scheme worked. Do you know that’s the first time you’ve called me ‘darling’ in over a week?”

  The Queen Elizabeth docked at six in the morning, and even before the ship’s hawsers had been tossed to the men below and the leviathan snugged to the pier for gangplanks to be laid in place, Vries Waldeck was in the purser’s lobby waiting for shore telephones to be installed, anxious to be first in line. He stood there, impatient, completely impervious to the press of humanity about him, or the rising babble of voices asking hundreds of questions, or the two lines that formed, one behind him, for the use of the instruments once they were installed. He watched as the installation man set the telephones on the small table assigned for that use, bit his lip in irritation as they wasted time calling a number to check their work, and grabbed at one of the phones as soon as they stepped back.

  He dialed the number Lisa had given him, sure that he was wasting his time, positive that there would be no answer, convinced that Huuygens was far away by now with the five million dollars, and confident—as he had been throughout his entire journey—that he had been an utter fool to have trusted a man with Huuygens’ reputation in the first place. To his surprise the telephone was answered instantly. Waldeck’s first suspicion was that he must have dialed a wrong number, or that Lisa had lied to him. The latter was an even more disturbing thought.

  “Gleba? Jack Gleba?”

  Huuygens sounded reasonably wide awake considering the hour.

  “Of Gleba, Vrebal, Klees, Tenza, and Debroski. It sounds like a one-man law firm.” He yawned and then asked curiously, “What took you so long to call? The Cunard office said the ship would dock at six and I expected your call about one minute afterward.”

  Waldeck was impervious to the sarcasm; he didn’t even recognize it as such. He was simply conscious of a great relief.

  “The telephone men—they took so long making the connections.” He took a deep breath, still unable to believe that Huuygens had kept his word, had not disappeared with the money. “You’ll be home? I’ll get there as soon as I clear customs.”

  “It would be my suggestion,” Kek said easily, “that before you come here you check into a hotel, possibly even get a little rest, and then at nine o’clock go to some bank and arrange a safe-deposit box. After that, come over here.”

  “Nine o’clock?” Waldeck’s tone made the idea seem ludicrous. “I’ll be there as soon as I get through customs. I’ll chec
k my bags here; I can get a hotel later. And I can—” He stopped abruptly, suddenly aware that he was speaking in the presence of several hundred people. “I’ll see you later,” he said curtly, and hung up.

  Kek looked at Lisa, who was curled up on the couch across from him, wrapped in a dressing gown. “He’ll be here as soon as he clears customs. He appears to be the impatient type.” He yawned and stretched. “Well, I suppose we ought to put some coffee on.”

  Lisa nodded and uncurled herself. She moved to the kitchen; Kek got to his feet and went in to shower and dress.

  The doorbell rang as he was slipping into the loose sweater he preferred around the apartment. He walked to the door and opened it. Waldeck stood there, a large suitcase in his hand, looking at Huuygens as if he expected him to disappear before his eyes.

  “Have you got the money?”

  “Come in and sit down,” Kek said, trying to sound kindly. “There’s coffee and if you want eggs or toast, Lisa will fix it.” He glanced at the suitcase. “What’s the suitcase for? Are the hotels crowded?”

  Waldeck closed the door behind him and moved farther into the room, the suitcase gripped tightly in his hand, disregarding Kek’s words. His voice was harsh.

  “I said, do you have it?”

  “The money? Of course I have it. Relax!”

  “I want to see it.”

  “Before coffee?”

  Waldeck’s voice tightened. “I said I want to see it. Now!”

  Huuygens sighed. “You’re an impetuous man,” he said sadly. “You’ll end up with ulcers. Well, all right. Come along.” He led the way into the den. Waldeck followed him warily, as if someone might suddenly appear from behind a door or from a closet and attack him before he collected. Huuygens squatted before the small safe and dialed the combination. He swung the door open and pulled out a heavy manila envelope.

  Waldeck frowned. “You can’t have the money in there!”

  “You’re as bad as Lisa,” Kek said calmly, and straightened up, carrying the envelope to the desk and beginning to untie the string that had bound it. “To you the only money is cash. I’m surprised at you.” He opened the envelope and withdrew a thick stack of ornately decorated certificates. “These are bearer bonds, which are as good as cash—as you ought to know. And a lot easier to handle, a lot less bulky, and safer in every way.” He nodded toward a chair across the desk. “Sit down.”

  Waldeck dropped into the chair, setting his suitcase beside him as if appreciating its unsuitability, and reached for one of the certificates. He studied it intently.

  “It’s legitimate,” Kek said dryly. He reached over, picking the paper from Waldeck’s fingers and adding it to the pile.

  “It’s all there?”

  “Less one hundred thousand dollars for the interest and expenses,” Kek said. He slid open the desk drawer and drew out an envelope. “The receipts are here if you want to check.” Waldeck said nothing; his eyes were frozen on the stack of notes. “There are four hundred and ninety bonds here,” Huuygens went on smoothly. “Each worth ten thousand dollars. You get three hundred and ninety of them. I keep one hundred.” He looked at the other sardonically. “Shall I count them, or will you?”

  “Start counting,” Waldeck said hoarsely, and hitched his chair closer.

  “Right.” Kek began, counting off his hundred, laying the smaller pile aside, and then moving to the balance. Waldeck’s lips moved silently as he counted along with the other. Kek finished at last and looked up. Waldeck’s eyes, oddly enough, had shifted with the final certificate; they were locked almost hypnotically on the smaller pile that was Huuygens’ share. For one instant Kek had a cold feeling at the look of pure avarice on the other’s face, and then he put the thought away. Just be happy, he said to himself, that you’re through dealing with this character. Everything worked out fine, Lisa and I have a million dollars in bearer bonds safely in hand, in two months it will have been converted to cash and safe in some deposit box in some bank, and if we never see Waldeck again, it will be soon enough.

  Waldeck apparently felt the same way. He forced his eyes away from the small stack on Huuygens’ side of the desktop, placed his bundle in his inner pocket, and came to his feet, holding his empty suitcase. Kek took his share and slid it back into the safe.

  “Coffee, anyone?” Lisa, dressed, stood in the doorway.

  Waldeck’s cold eyes assessed the woman carefully, as if she might be an adversary he should worry about. “Madame …” He bowed slightly from the waist with almost Teutonic precision.

  “M’sieu Waldeck. Vries.” Lisa smiled at him in a friendly manner. “Would you like some coffee? Or breakfast? I can make you something in a few minutes …”

  “Thank you, no, madame. M’sieu … Madame …” His eyes flickered briefly toward the safe a moment and there was a momentary touch of bitterness in them, undoubtedly at the thought of Huuygens’ portion, and then returned to the other two. “If you will pardon me …” The door closed behind him with a click containing finality.

  Lisa stared at Kek, her blue eyes wide with astonishment.

  “What’s the matter with him that he wouldn’t even stay for some breakfast?”

  “He’s a hungry man, my sweet,” Kek said succinctly, and twirled the knob of the safe.

  11

  It was ten thirty in the evening on May fifteenth, one week later, and Kek and Lisa were sprawled on the living room rug surrounded by travel folders, when the doorbell rang. The two looked at each other in surprise. During the execution of the plan they had assiduously avoided any personal friends, and tradesmen or even building personnel would scarcely call at that hour. Kek shrugged to indicate his ignorance of the identity of a possible visitor, climbed to his feet and opened the door. Vries Waldeck stood there.

  Kek stared at him, frowning. A cold feeling of impending disaster swept him. “Yes?”

  “May I come in?”

  “Of course. Pardon me.” Huuygens led the way to the living room. Waldeck did his little precision bow for Lisa. She remained sitting on the floor for a moment and then came to her feet, assuming a more dignified position on one of the chairs, nodding to him politely. Kek walked over to the bar. “Can I offer you something? A dry martini?”

  “No, thank you. Nothing.”

  “Then I think I will,” Kek said, and poured himself a brandy. “Sit down.”

  Waldeck sat on the edge of an easy chair, appearing uncomfortable, sitting ramrod straight. Kek carried his drink to the sofa and seated himself across from the other. His eyes were sharp, studying Waldeck’s expressionless face.

  “Now,” he said quietly, “what can I do for you?”

  Waldeck’s eyes moved to Lisa as if wondering if she should be excluded from the conference, but then decided she could stay. He turned back to Huuygens.

  “I’m worried.”

  “You are? What about?”

  Waldeck stared at him impassively. “Some of the possible consequences of what we did are just beginning to strike me.”

  “Oh?” Huuygens took a sip of his drink and waited.

  “Yes. Some of the hidden dangers …”

  Kek lit a cigarette, flipped the match into an ashtray, and studied the other with narrowed eyes. “Such as what?” He forced himself not to display his growing anger. “You are completely in the clear. Everything you did, every step you took, was completely legal. Nobody can touch you unless they can prove collusion, and”—he could not help from adding—“they won’t be able to do that if you keep away from here and from me!”

  “I’m not thinking of myself,” Waldeck said significantly. “I’m thinking of you. However minor the infractions of inventing names and addresses, the fact remains that you are liable—under any name—for income tax on the forfeited funds, and I understand the United States government follows those things like a bloodhound.”

  “It’s very nice of you to worry,” Kek said, making no attempt to disguise his sarcasm, “but really, the problem is min
e, don’t you think? So why not let me worry about it?”

  Lisa was watching the two men with wide-open eyes. Neither one paid her the slightest attention.

  “My dear Huuygens,” Waldeck said sharply, and there was a touch of the old imperious manner that Kek remembered from Brussels. “I’m afraid I can’t agree. I should be delighted to let you worry, except for one thing.” He leaned forward, tenting his fingers, frowning at the other over them. “I doubt if you would keep quiet if you saw the fruits of your wonderful scheme going up the chimney while I remained free and in excellent financial health. To be blunt, in such a case I can foresee the strong possibility of blackmail applied to me for your silence. And I am not happy about it.”

  Kek stared at him. In all honesty the idea had not occurred to him, but he recognized the other’s fear as a legitimate one. He knew that he would certainly have considered it had the shoe been on the other foot. He wondered for a brief instant what other possibilities he might have overlooked. Is it possible you don’t worry enough? he thought.

  “What would you suggest?”

  “I have no suggestions. I have only worries.” Waldeck shrugged. “I thought I should advise you of them. Possibly you can figure out a solution—you’re the idea man.” He came to his feet. “I’m at the Plaza,” he said, and walked to the door. Once again the bow, the cold look in Kek’s direction. “Madame … M’sieu …” The door closed behind him.

  “What was that all about?” Lisa asked wonderingly.

  “Complications,” Kek said shortly. His gray eyes studied the loveliness of her oval face. He sighed. “You’d better go to bed, sweet. You can read there if you want, or listen to the radio. I’m going to have to sit here and think.”

  “No more travel plans?”

  “Not for tonight.”

  She rose with an obedience that was rare for her, kissed him good night lightly, and walked from the room. Kek remained, sitting forward on the edge of the sofa, staring at the wall behind which lay the den. Behind that wall was a closet and in that closet was a safe that held his share of the bonds. He started to bring his glass of brandy to his lips and then reached over, placing it on the end table instead. Drinking was for relaxing. It didn’t mix with planning. He lit a cigarette, frowning down at the carpet fiercely.