The Scarlet Ruse

by John D. MacDonald

  "She'd have no trouble selling them?"

  "Why should she? It's like they say, I guess. People start taking a little bit and then more and then a lot. Like a disease. If it was like that with her, Trav, then it wouldn't make any difference about her in-laws having money, would it?"

  "Every big city has rich shoplifters. Kleptos. But the shrinks say they do it to get caught and punished."

  "Don't you see? If something hadn't happened to her, she would have been caught. You would have found out."

  "I would?"

  "Hirsh said to me that Meyer told him that you have a kind of weird instinct for these things, that you have your own way of finding out who took what. I guess he's right.

  Look what's happened."

  "Part of it has happened. Where did the Sprenger collection go? Who has it? Did somebody take it from her house or take the money she got for it? And are the other investment accounts okay?"

  She stared and swallowed and put her hand to her throat.

  "Oh God, I hope so. I hope Mr. Benedict's collection is okay. If anything ever happened to those, it would kill both those old guys, I think." She hesitated, tilted her head.

  "No, maybe Jane was pretty shifty, but she wasn't stupid. You just couldn't sell those nineteen things anywhere. They're all famous.

  They've all been written up."

  "If somebody wanted to get caught, though?"

  "Maybe it wasn't like that with her."

  "What do you mean?"

  She got up from the edge of the desk and hung her arms around my neck.

  "I'm getting so I'm imagining things, maybe. I guess it could have been a year ago. Jane got real strange. Jumpy and nervous. She told me confidentially not to tell Hirsh, but she might quit and move away.

  She got some phone calls here she didn't want to talk about.

  They left her real quiet and shaky. And then after a couple of weeks she was herself again. But not really like before.

  She seemed... resigned and bitter. I was wondering... "

  "Wondering what?"

  "There are an awful lot of ways somebody could threaten a couple of young girls. She was always terribly concerned about them. If somebody wanted her to steal from the shop... I guess it's a dumb idea."

  "We need all the ideas we can... "

  Her fingers dug into my wrists. Her face changed.

  "Shh!

  Listen!" she whispered. She tiptoed to the doorway to Hirsh's cubicle office and looked stealthily around the door frame toward the front door.

  "I thought I heard somebody," she said in a normal tone.

  "Speak of being jumpy."

  "Don't make fun, huh? I have this sixth sense pretty well developed after five years. I've had the idea the last few days that Mcdermit is having somebody make the usual check on me. It's about that time. Are you getting that boat ready like you promised?"

  "Progress is being made." "Like what?" she demanded, cool-eyed and skeptical.

  "There are blocks that bolt to the deck just forward of the side deck, close to the pilot house. There are ring bolts outside, bolted through the pilot house bulkhead. Two fifty-five gallon "

  "I just wanted to make sure "

  "Two fifty-five gallon drums fit behind those blocks on the port and two on the starboard. A friend named Johnny Dow is bolting the blocks down where they belong. He'll put four clean empty drums in place "

  "Darling, please!"

  " clean empty drums in place and use braided steel cable with turnbuckles to make them secure, using the eye bolts. Meyer, who has the keys and knows the security systems aboard, will open up the Flush this afternoon, and Johnny will move it to the gas dock and get the drums filled with diesel fuel and get my tanks topped off and bring it back to the slip. Meyer has the list of provisions and maintenance supplies and will see that they are brought aboard and stowed today. I have a hand pump that starts a siphon action to transfer the fuel from the drums to the regular tanks."

  "Please, dear."

  "At the most economical speed, the additional two hundred and twenty gallons builds the maximum range, without safety factor, up to eleven hundred miles. I have not told Meyer why I wanted him to do me these favors, and I imagine he thinks it is busy work I have invented to keep him out of Miami."

  "I'm sorry."

  "I was damned reluctant to make that promise to you, MA. But you wanted it made, and I have made it. Having made it, i would not dog it." "If I ever say "Like what?" to you again, the way I said it that time, wash out my big mouth with yellow soap."

  "I promise you that too."

  "Brutal male chauvinist pig?"

  "Well, if you put up a fight, I'm not sure I can manage the soap part."

  She grinned, assumed the stance, jabbed with a long left, and then hooked off the jab, a respectable whistler missing by a calculated inch.

  "My very best punch," she said.

  "You keep impressing me in new ways, Mary Alice."

  "Darling, what are you going to do? Stay in the same place again tonight?"

  "Join me?"

  "Too many eyes are watching me. At least, I have the feeling they are.

  I think somebody saw me get home this morning. I tried to be sly, but it turned out stupid. I left my car home and took a cab. And so, of course, arriving home at eight something in a cab looks worse than if I'd had my car. No, honey, much as I need you, I'd be too jumpy. Where are you going to be the rest of today?"

  "Here and there."

  "But what is there you can possibly do?"

  "Once in Vegas I saw an old lady in the Golden Nugget, absolutely totally broke. The slots had cleaned her. So she was sidling around pulling at the handles on the off chance some idiot left a coin. in one of them. I saw her find a handle that she could pull, and she hit three somethings and got about twelve dimes down the chute. She got a half hour out of those dunes before she was broke again and started to pull at the handles on the idle machines. That's my mysterious system, MA. I go around pulling handles in case some idiot forgot he left a dime in the machinery."

  "What if I have to get word to you?"

  "Leave a message at the Contessa for room 1802. This shop is letter A.

  Your place is B. If you are coming to the Contessa, it is C. If you are going to Lauderdale to wait for me, it's D. Use a last name that fits.

  Miss. Adams, Miss. Brown, Miss. Carter, Miss. Dean. So I'll check in for messages now and then.

  "Miss. Carter called and will call again' means I'll head for the hotel and see you there.

  Clear?"

  "Sure. You do that pretty damned fast, you know. You must have had a hell of a lot of messages from girls in your day."

  "In my day? Thanks. I had the feeling these were my days, somehow."

  "If I let you live through them, maybe. I've got more work to do here.

  What'll I do with this funny box?"

  "Put it in the safe for now."

  "Should I tell Hirsh? I don't want to."

  "Save it for now."

  "Okay, dear. Please take care of yourself."

  "I came here to take you to lunch."

  "I don't want to be seen with you. And I'm not hungry.

  And you don't know how unusual that is. I'm always hungry."

  Harmony Towers had all the exterior charm of a women's prison. But inside the colors were bright and cheerful, and the people at the main desk were helpful. Miss. Moojah was expecting me, and I could find her in Community Room 7, down that corridor to the end, through the fire door, and up the stairs one flight, and I couldn't miss it.

  Fifteen old people were sitting in a circle in Community Room 7 and a swarthy young lady was saying, "Weeth the irregular ver ps Mr. Lewis, you muss memorize, eh?

  Traer. To breeng. Breeng me a drink. Imperative. Traigame una co pita Eh?"

  They all stared at me, and a woman hopped up, excused herself, and walked briskly to the doorway, motioning me back out into the hall. She was medium tall, erect, stick
thin, with penciled brows and hair dyed mahogany pink. She had a massive, jutting, macro cephalic jaw. Out in the hall she looked me over with great care, and then said in a deep, metallic contralto, "Around here one gets so accustomed to seeing withered little crickety old men or fat wheezing sloppy old men, one tends to forget how they must have once appeared, Mr. Mcgee."

  "I could have come later, after your class."

  "I would rather you took me away from it. It is a matter of duty and conscience to attend. There are seven dolts holding the rest of us back.

  I have petitioned to have the class split in twain. I am so far ahead of the lesson schedule right now, it is pitiful. Come along. We can talk in here.

  A waiting room. There are dozens in the building. Waiting for what?

  An absolute waste. Please sit down. Hirsh told me you are a friend of Meyer, and you are trying to help him. He was reluctant to tell me why he needs help. But with a bit of urging he gave me the whole story."

  "Did you really bash two holdup-people with a toy baseball bat?"

  She looked astonished.

  "What's that got to do with any thing? There were three. I didn't have to hit the third one.

  I told him that I would, and he believed me and left. Why do you ask?"

  "I was curious. It seems to be just about the most stupid kind of behavior possible."

  "You certainly say what you think."

  "I'm trying to figure out how much weight I should give to anything you tell me."

  "It was stupid behavior. The bat was a gift for my grand-nephew. Still wrapped. I snatched it up out of terror, certain the man was going to kill me. I hit him, and he fell down, and I became notorious. I was interviewed. My picture was in the paper. So I bought another bat for the little boy. When the second holdup attempt occurred, I felt I was in a dream. I had to retain my reputation as a character. I hit him in slow motion. His eyes rolled up out of sight, and he still stood there until I hit him again. More publicity. On the third attempt I told him I would hit him.

  He left. After he left, I looked for the bat. It was gone.

  Hirsh had disposed of it. I fainted dead away. Stupid, Mr. Mcgee? No.

  Not stupid. Silly. Very very silly."

  "I had to know. Sorry."

  "I understand. My mind is quite clear."

  "Do you think Hirsh is right? Is the Sprenger stuff gone?"

  "Yes."

  "Have you wondered about how it could have been done?"

  "Young man, we are all fascinated by larceny. Fortunately for civilization, most of us merely think about it.

  Obviously the entire album was taken and another substituted. It is equally obvious that Mr. Sprenger managed it by devising some diversion, some alternate focus of attention. Had I still been employed by Mr. Fedderman, he would never have taken on the Sprenger account."

  "You made the decisions?"

  "Of course not! I would have let Hirsh know I did not approve. Then he would know that if he went ahead with it, I would make his life totally miserable, and he would have decided it wasn't worth it. A man like Sprenger would find it amusing to steal his own property and then make Mr. Fedderman reimburse him for his investment."

  "I see. Then there is no connection, you feel, between the theft and the death of Jane Lawson?"

  "Did I say that? Did I even imply it? Then how do you infer I would believe that? Last Thursday morning those two young women learned what had happened. Jane Lawson had a lot of time to try to work out the puzzle. You were all trying, were you not? I imagine she devised a theory of how it was done and felt compelled to test it before reporting it. She had a very good mind, you know.

  Quite logical."

  "Could she have been involved, on her own or as an accomplice?"

  "Jane Lawson? The question is grotesque. It is... fifteen years ago he employed her. She seemed very pleasant and plausible. We had to teach her everything about the business. She learned quickly. A good memory. I am a very skeptical old woman. I set some traps which looked like the most innocent of accidents, where she could profit without any possibility of detection. She did not hesitate a moment.

  She is the sort of person who, if she were using a pay phone and found a quarter in the coin drop, would feel very uncomfortable about keeping it. With some people, with too many people, conscience is the still small voice that says maybe someone is looking."

  "What if somebody put heavy pressure on her, like threatening her kids?"

  "I think she'd pack them up and go to her in-laws and ask for help. And get it."

  "She told you about the general?"

  "Privately, in confidence. We worked together there for ten years, remember. I tend to pry a bit. Of course, I'm going to go back now and fill in until he can find someone.

  I let her know I did not think her decision was entirely rational, but I respected her for it. She should have married again, of course."

  "Did you help train Mary Alice too?"

  "Are you asking about her in the same way? Maybe not exactly in the same way? A personal relationship exists? I stayed on for two weeks after he hired her. She was, and is, a very troubled person, I think.

  She was quite depressed when she first came to work. She never discusses her background. I had thought her a fugitive in the legal sense. Now I think she is a fugitive from emotion. She has visited me here many many times. She brings little problems to me. Problems of identification. She hated to ask Jane or Mr. Fedderman to help her.

  She is not really highly intelligent. She has a high order of native animal shrewdness perhaps. In time she became fascinated by the high-value rarities. There is something touching and childish about her enthusiasms. I do not believe in fact, I am quite positive Mary Alice could not plan anything very complicated and carry it out." I thanked her for her time. I said I would probably see her in the store. She said Hirsh was going to open up again on Wednesday, the day after tomorrow. She went back to her class, and I phoned the hotel from the downstairs lobby. I had checked at two-thirty. Now it was quarter to four.

  A Miss. Dunn had phoned at five after three and left word she would phone again. She did not leave a number.

  I phoned Meyer, caught him aboard his boat. It was too soon for Mary Alice to arrive. I told Meyer she was on the way, ETA unknown. Keep an eye out for her. Put her aboard the Flush. Lock her in. Then wait for me aboard his boat. I taxied back to the hotel, packed in fifteen seconds, and tried to pay my bill. But it was courtesy of Mr. Nucci, who isn't in the house at the moment.

  I walked to the lot, repurchased my old pickup and took the fastest route through a light rain toward the Sunshine Turnpike, swallowing the little bits of acid that kept collecting in the back of my throat.

  Fifteen.

  I jumped down onto the cockpit deck of the Keynes and went below into the very cramped quarters where Meyer lived like a bear in a cave.

  A very clean bear in a very littered cave.

  "She's aboard," he said.

  "With three suitcases, a hat box, and a tram case. Your enchanted barge is all fueled, furbished, and provisioned, May I offer my best wishes for a happy voya "

  "Knock it off!"

  I do not talk to Meyer like that. It shocked and annoyed him. Then he got a closer look at my expression.

  "She gave me the keys to her car," he said.

  "When she parked, she backed it in to hide the plate. She asked me to drive it away from here and leave it in an airport lot.

  Miami, if I want to be very obliging."

  "Leave it right where it is for now."

  "Okay."

  "I want to ask you to do something without giving you any of the reasons or background. But there's a risk."

  "A big risk?"

  "I don't know how big. Maybe there's none at all. To morrow morning I want you to go to this address and see Frank Sprenger.

  Use my name to get to see him. Play it this way. You are very angry at me. I let you believe we were going to make a very nice scor
e out of Fedderman's problems, share and share alike. In fact, I told you that we'd stay healthier if we got out of Sprenger's area until things quiet down, and at Mcgee's request you got The Busted Flush all ready for a long cruise, maybe over to the Islands, so bring your passport.