“The two-way? Sure.” Brooke slipped the instrument off her wrist, gave it to him. Be careful with it,” she cautioned. “It’s mighty expensive.”
“It should be!” Jeff turned it about in his fingers, studying it. A stylish little woman’s wristwatch, and it was running. There was nothing at all to indicate it could be anything other than that, but he’d heard it in action. “Yes, very expensive!” he said thoughtfully. He placed the watch on the table beside the bills. “That sounds like a peculiar family you’ve got,” he remarked. “You really weren’t lying about the Brownlee job?”
Brooke smiled. “Take a look at what’s inside the cape,” she said. “That’s my prowling outfit, or most of it.”
Jeff laid the dyed muskrat cape on one end of the table, opened it, fur side down. There were a number of zippered pockets in the lining. Jeff located variously shaped objects in some of the pockets by touch, took them out and regarded them.
“Earphone,” he said. “So this matchbox-sized gadget it’s connected to should be another radio?”
Brooke nodded. “Local police calls.”
“Yes, handy. And a fancy glass cutter. The two keys?”
“Duplicates of the ones Brownlee had for his den safe.”
“Which made that part of it simple, didn’t it?” Jeff remarked. “And a pocket flash could be useful, of course. Why the cigarette case, if that’s what it is?”
“Open it,” Brooke told him.
He pressed the snap of the case, looked at the long-tipped narrow cigarettes clasped inside, a brand he didn’t know. “Imports?” he asked.
“Uh-huh.”
Jeff sniffed at the cigarettes. “Anything special about them?”
“Just their length. They taste lousy.” Brooke put out her hand. “There’s a back section, you see. Let me—”
“Just tell me what to do,” Jeff said.
Opening the hidden inner section of the case turned out to be a more complicated operation than switching the wristwatch over to its transmitter function, even under Brooke’s guidance, but after some fumbling Jeff accomplished it. He pursed his lips, considered a silk-packed row of thin metal rods in silence for a moment.
“Picks,” he said then. “You any good at using them?”
“Pretty good, I think,” Brooke said. “I should be able to open almost any ordinary lock with one or another of those.”
“Look kind of light.”
“Not too light, Jeff. That’s beryllium—harder than steel.”
“I suppose you know it can be worth ten years just to be found with a set of picks like those on you?”
“That’s why it’s a cigarette case,” Brooke told him.
Jeff shook his head. “Where did you get all these things?”
“They were custom-made. For me.”
Jeff snapped both sections of the cigarette case shut and put it down. “None of it really makes any sense!” he remarked. “Your people must have money.”
“Plenty,” Brooke agreed.
“Then why do you play around with stuff like this? Are you nuts who do it for kicks?”
“It’s not for kicks,” Brooke said. “It’s training. The Brownlee job the other night was a test. It’s a way of finding out if I can qualify for the fancy things the family does—that some of them do, anyway.”
“And what do they do?” Jeff asked.
“I don’t know that yet, so I can’t tell you. The family operates on a theory.”
“Okay. Let’s hear the theory.”
“If you decide to stay legal,” Brooke said, “you give away too much advantage to people who don’t care whether they do or not. But if you do things that aren’t legal, you can get yourself and others into trouble. It takes a knack to be able to do it and keep on getting away with it. So it’s only those who show they have the knack who get into the nonlegal side of the family. The others don’t break laws and don’t ask questions, so there’s nothing they can spill. The family keeps getting richer, but everything looks legitimate. And most of it is.”
Jeff shook his head again. “Just who is this family?”
“Oh, the Camerons and the Achtels and some Wylers and a few on the Nichols side. There could be others I don’t know about.” Brooke added, “The Wylers and Nichols are kind of new, but the Camerons and Achtels have been working together a long time.”
Jeff grunted. “Supposing you’d got caught at the Brownlee house?”
She shrugged. “That would have been it for me. Nothing much would have happened. The family’s got pull here and there, and I’d have been a fool rich kid playing cops and robbers. But I’d never have got near a nonlegal operation after that. I’d have proved I didn’t have the knack.”
“What if it was just bad luck?”
“They’ve got no use for someone who has bad luck. It’s too risky.”
Jeff nodded. He watched her a moment, head tipped quizzically to the side. “Now, something else.” He smiled. “Why are you pretending you want to help me?”
“I do want to help you.” Brooke frowned. “After all, how likely is it you’d have come across the cash if I hadn’t told you?”
“Then what do you figure on getting out of it?”
“You’re to take me to Mexico with you.”
“You’re out of your mind!” Jeff was honestly startled. “From what you’ve been telling me, you have it made here.”
“You think so.” Brooke turned to the suitcase. “There’s something you haven’t seen yet.”
“Hold it right there,” Jeff said. “What’s that something?”
“You can keep your gun pointed at me while I’m getting it out,” she told him, half scornfully. “I picked up more than money at the Brownlee place.”
He made no further move to check her then but kept close watch as she opened a side section of the suitcase and brought out a small leather bag. She loosened the bag’s drawstrings and shook its contents out on the table. “What do you think of those?” she demanded.
Jeff looked at the tumbled, shining little pile and moistened his lips. “Nice stuff—if it’s genuine.”
“If it’s genuine!” Brooke’s eyes flashed. She reached for a string of pearls, swung it back and forth before his face. “If you knew pearls, you wouldn’t be calling that just nice stuff! You need someone like me, Jeff! For one thing, I do know pearls. They were in the safe with the money, and there was a very good reason for that.”
She dropped the pearls back on the other jewelry. “But you know what would have happened if you hadn’t come along today? The meeting at the house tonight was supposed to be about me. A quorum of the active side of the family was going to review the Brownlee job and decide if I was maybe good enough to go on to something a little bigger than I’ve been allowed to do so far. The job wasn’t much for sure—I just went in and did what I was supposed to do—but I did everything right; there’s nothing they can fault me on.
“So probably I’d pass. And then?” She waved her hand at the table. “I wouldn’t see any of that again! Oh, sure, a third of what the haul’s worth would be credited to my family account. When I’m twenty-one, I’ll finally have a little something to say about that account. The rings and the watch and those lovely pearls and the rest of it would leave the house with Ricardo Achtel—he runs a jewelry firm for the family, imports, exports, manufacture. And they’d decide I could move up a notch. You know what that would mean?” She laughed. “I’d be working out with a lousy circus for a couple of years at least!”
Jeff blinked. “A circus?”
Brooke nodded. “Right! We’ve got one in Europe. It’s a small circus, but putting in a hitch there while you’re young is family tradition for active members. It goes back for generations.” She grimaced. “There’re all kinds of things you can learn at the circus that will be useful later on, they tell you!”
Jeff grinned warily. “Well, there might be.”
Brooke tossed her head. “I don’t need all that discipline.
I don’t want to be thinking about the family in everything I do. They’re so cautious! Now, you’re somebody who doesn’t mind cutting comers fast when it’s necessary. We’d be a team, Jeff!”
Jeff felt a touch of amazed merriment. “What about Tracy?” he asked.
“What about her? She takes us there; we ditch her. I sort of like Tracy, but she’s sold on the family. She won’t make trouble for us afterward, and neither will the others. They’re too careful for that. They know the kind of trouble I could make for them. You have a place to go to down there?”
Jeff nodded. “Uh-huh. Friendly old pot rancher, fifty miles from the border. Nice quiet place. You know, I’ve been thinking, Brooke.”
“Yes?” she said eagerly.
“You’ve got these cute miniaturized gadgets. A cigarette case that isn’t really one, and a watch that’s something else besides.” Jeff picked up the pencil flash he’d discovered in Brooke’s cape. “This looks custom-built, too.”
Her eyes might have flickered for an instant. “It is,” she said. “It’s the best.”
“The best what, aside from being a light?”
“Well—nothing. I want a light I can rely on, naturally.”
“Uh-huh. But it’s thicker at this end than it really needs to be, isn’t it? As if something might be built in there.” Jeff fingered the pencil flash. “And this little hole, you’ll notice, points wherever you point the light. I don’t see how the thing can be opened either.”
“Opening it is a little tricky,” Brooke said. “If you’ll let—”
“No, don’t bother.” Jeff smiled. “Here’s where you switch on the light—fine! So it is a flashlight. What does this ring do?” He turned the flash up, pointing it at Brooke’s face.
“Twist it to the left, and it dims the beam,” Brooke said, watching him.
“To the right?”
“That brightens it, of course. And—” Her breath caught. “Don’t twist it too far, Jeff.”
“Why not?”
“Well, don’t point it at me then.” She smiled quickly. “I’ll explain.”
“Sure, explain.” Jeff lowered the flashlight.
Brooke was still smiling. “I didn’t really know about you. You can see that.”
“Uh-huh. I understand.”
“So I didn’t want to tell you about it yet. It’s a tranquilizer gun.”
Jeff raised his brows. “Doesn’t look much like one.”
“Family specialty. You couldn’t buy that kind of tranquilizer anywhere. I don’t know what it is, of course, but we might be able to have it analyzed.”
“Maybe we could,” Jeff said. “What’s its range?”
“You’re not supposed to try to use it over thirty feet. Indoors, that’s likely to be as much range as you’ll want.”
“You’ve used it?”
“No,” Brooke said. “I saw it used once, but it’s only for a real emergency. The family doesn’t want it to get out that someone makes a gun like that.”
“What was the effect?”
Brooke grimaced. “Worked so fast it scared me! The man didn’t even know he’d been hit, and he didn’t move for another two hours. But it won’t kill anyone, and there isn’t supposed to be much aftereffect. It’s a little hollow needle.”
Jeff nodded thoughtfully. “Very interesting. It seems we now have the explanation for your generous offer to finance me.”
Brooke looked startled. “I told you—”
“You told me a lot of things. I’ll even believe some of them—that this is a gun, for example. It’s what you were working to get your hand on right from the start, wasn’t it?”
Brooke said reluctantly, “I would have felt better if I’d had it. You see—”
“I know. You just weren’t sure you could trust me. All right, obviously I can’t be sure I can trust you either.” Jeff raised the pencil flash, pointing it at her. “So why don’t I see for myself what that little hollow needle does after it hits?”
Brooke shook her head. “You don’t want to do that, Jeff.”
“Why not?”
“Tracy’s sort of slippery. If I’m awake and in the plane with you two, she’ll be a lot easier to handle. I can keep her conned. Whether you believe it or not, I do want to go to Mexico with you.”
Jeff grinned and dropped the pencil flash into a coat pocket.
“And you’re getting your wish!” he told her. “Go sit down in your chair.”
He tied Brooke’s hands behind the chair back, secured the rope to a rung, testing all knots carefully. Then he checked the time and said, “Keep your mouth shut from now on unless I ask you something.”
Brooke nodded silently. Her expression indicated she might be frightened at last, and she might have reason for it. Jeff went to the window, studied the valley road. Nothing to be seen there yet. Rain clouds drifted over the lower countryside though the sky remained clear above the house. There was a distant roll of thunder. Jeff left the room, returned with a silk scarf. He laid the scarf on the table, restored the bundled bills, the jewelry and Brooke’s burglary equipment to the suitcase, except for the pencil flash, which stayed in his pocket along with the two-way watch. He covered the assortment in the suitcase with Brooke’s cape, thinking there still might be stuff concealed in it that he hadn’t discovered. If so, it could wait. He closed and locked the suitcase, pocketed the key. The clothes and boots he’d been wearing went into the closet from which he’d taken Uncle Jason’s suit and shoes.
He returned to the window, stood looking out. He felt a little tense, just enough to keep him keyed up, which he didn’t mind. He was always at his best when keyed up. He knew exactly what he was going to do, and it was unlikely that anything could go wrong. Even if Brooke happened to have lied about Tracy’s ability to fly a plane, it wouldn’t affect his plans seriously. He’d leave the two of them here, dead and stowed away where they shouldn’t be found at once, and go off in Tracy’s car. A few hours’ start was all he needed now. The plane would be preferable, of course. If the two disappeared with him, he could work out a way to put heat on their precious family.
He’d been tempted to wait, to let that crew of cautious wealthy practitioners of crime start drifting in during the afternoon, nail them down as they arrived, and then see what he could make out of the overall situation, but that might be crowding his luck. He’d got a great deal more than he’d expected to get at the house, and he liked the way the setup looked now.
He inquired presently, “What color is Tracy’s car?”
Brooke’s tongue tip moistened her lips. “Red,” she said. “Cherry red. Sports car. Is she coming?”
“In sight,” Jeff said. “Still a few minutes away.” He went to the table, picked up the silk scarf. “Let’s make sure everything stays very quiet in here when she shows up!” He wrapped the scarf tightly around Brooke’s mouth and jaw, knotted it behind her head and came back to the window.
He stood away from it a little, though there was no real chance the sharpest of eyes could have spotted him from the road. Tracy, he decided, did drive fast—and expertly. The little red car was flicked around curves, accelerated again on the straight stretches. By the time the sound of the engine grew audible on the breeze, he could make out a few details about the driver: a woman, all right—goggled, bright green scarf covering her head, strands of blonde hair whipping out back of the scarf. She was coming to the house because there was nowhere else to go; the road stopped here. Satisfied, Jeff left the room, went unhurriedly downstairs.
He’d made up his mind a while ago about the place where he’d wait for Tracy, and he was there a minute later. A side door opened on the garden near the angle formed by the house with the garage. The angle was landscaped with thick dark-green bushes, providing perfect cover. For the moment, he remained near the door. The chances were that Tracy would come directly to the garage; and if she did, he’d have the gun on her as soon as she stepped out of the car. If, instead, she drove around to the fr
ont entrance of the building, he’d slip back into the house through the side door and catch her inside. The rest would be simple. It shouldn’t take long to make her realize what she had to do for her own sake and Brooke’s, that Jeff didn’t really need either of them, and that if she didn’t follow his orders exactly, he’d shoot them both and leave with her car.
From his point of concealment, he watched the car turn up the driveway from the road. The section of driveway leading to the garage curved out of sight behind a stand of ornamental pines sixty yards away. The car swung into it, vanished behind the trees. There was a momentary squeal of brakes.
Jeff frowned, listening, Uncle George’s .38 in his hand. He heard the purring throb of the engine, but the car obviously had stopped. It shouldn’t make much difference if Tracy left it there; she still had to come to the house. But it wasn’t the way Jeff had planned it, and he didn’t like that.
He gauged the distance to the pines. He could reach them in a quick sprint and find out what she was doing. However, he didn’t favor that idea either. If she had the car in motion again before he got there and caught sight of him in the open, he could have a real problem. Undecided, Jeff began to edge through the bushes toward the front of the garage.
He heard a sound then, a slight creaking, which he might have missed if his ears hadn’t been straining for indications of what was delaying Tracy. He turned his head, and something stung the side of his neck. He swung around, startled, felt himself stumbling oddly as his gaze swept up along the side of the house.
A window screen in a second-floor room above him was being quietly closed. Jeff jerked up the revolver. He was falling backward by then, and he fired two shots, wildly, spitefully, at the blurring blue of the sky before he was lying on the ground, the gun somehow no longer in his hand.
He had a stunned thought: that Brooke couldn’t possibly have done it, that he had her tranquilizing gadget in his coat. And besides—
He didn’t finish the second thought. Tracy was standing next to him, holding a gun of her own, when Brooke came out through the side door.
“Well!” Tracy said. “So now I know why you were giving me the high sign from the window.” She glanced down at Jeff’s face, back at Brooke. “Tranquilizer?”
Complete Short Fiction (Jerry eBooks) Page 257