The safe was in the workroom. One look at it and I felt much better. It was an antique, an old square-doored Culberson, probably pre-1940, which meant there was nothing modern about it. It was sturdy, all right, built of heavy steel, but it was intended principally to protect against fire, not burglary.
The safe was partially concealed behind a wall projection that was either a cosmetic enclosure of a building structural member or a section of the heating and airconditioning duct. I had to know which. Hollow ducting can carry sounds a considerable distance, especially sounds at night in a relatively quiet building.
I extracted the battery-amplified stethoscope from the vest and placed its diaphragm against the suspect wall. It was hollow, all right. The noises I heard going through it were more than forced air. Somewhere in the building a machine was working. The sound fluctuated in pitch and volume. It took a moment to realize that a heavy-duty vacuum sweeper was being used four or five floors above me. As long as it kept up, any noise I made would be much less noticeable.
There were three ways I could pop the safe. First, I could try to manipulate the combination. Second, I could drill and punch it. The third way was to burn it. All would take time, but I had time. Enough at any rate to try the cleanest method first.
Few safe combinations are truly random. Humans are creatures of habit. They rely on association to remember things. This cracker box was a three-number type, and if I knew the birthdates of the company officers I’d probably have better than an even chance of working out the combination. Month, day, and year often supply an easily remembered series of numbers suitable for a safe combination.
And people write them down, not trusting imperfect memories. Augmenting the office night lighting with the pencil-thin flashlight from the vest, I looked through unlocked desk drawers in the private offices. I looked at the underside of desk blotters and the underside of letterboxes. I thumbed through the last blank pages of desk calendar pads. I found a couple of telephone numbers and tried them as combinations, but with no luck. I was going to have to do it the hard way.
I inserted the stethoscope ends into my ears again. I turned the safe dial and listened to the discs and tumbler rotating. The sounds that came through to me indicated mechanism that was old, tired, and worn. Plates, cams, and wedges were all loose. The amplified clatter of the battered metal parts fitted together behind the steel plate made it impossible to determine when key slots were lining up. I gave up after twenty minutes of perspiring, frustrating effort.
I walked out to the office door to take a look at my wall mirror in the corridor. Nothing was moving, and I went back to the safe. I eliminated drilling because of the noise. I wasn’t about to try to move the heavy box away from the sound-carrying duct. The simplest way was to burn although it wasn’t the easiest.
I removed the asbestos pieces from the vest and grooved them together on the floor in front of the safe to make a platform. If globs of hot, molten metal fell from the front of the safe, the asbestos would prevent the igniting of an almost unquenchable fire.
The vest yielded a fire-resistant apron, which I drew on to protect my clothes. A pair of thick asbestos gloves followed, and then I pulled on the goggles. A flexible shield hung down over my nose and chin. There were three torch fittings in the vest. I selected the one that promised to deliver the most direct flame. I screwed the fitting onto the nozzle of the aerosol can.
It takes sophisticated equipment to fill an aerosol can, especially one with the dragon’s breath inside the can in my hand. No back room operator can do it. Even small manufacturers farm out much less lethal loadings. Locating a specialist with a large company who’s willing to collect overtime not paid by the company is the way it gets done.
I touched off the business end at arm’s length. What came out of the nozzle was not scented perfume. The four-inch flame glowed like a solar flare. It gave off occasional sparklers. Even when holding it almost at arm’s length the heat from the short stab of pure flame permeated my mask.
Where the flame touched the front of the safe, the metal simply disappeared. The tip of the almost invisible flame cut through the steel face plate so quickly the exterior paint didn’t have time to char or blister.
The clean four-by-six-inch hole I had cut in the door looked as though it had been snipped out with metal shears. The interior locking bar, held solidly in place by the disarray of the combination tumblers, was sliced in two with a single smooth downward sweep of the torch.
I stepped back from the safe hurriedly. The entire face of the door radiated intense heat. I had time to take off my protective gear and repack it while I waited for the metal to cool. I pulled apart the asbestos platform and repacked it, too.
I took the CO2 cylinder from the vest before I went back to the safe. I pried aside the severed locking bar that controlled the four two-inch cylindrical pins, which mated with recesses in the door frame. When I pulled the door open, a wave of residual heat flowed over me. Papers don’t burn inside a safe when it gets hot because there’s not enough oxygen. Loose papers often burst into flame when the door is opened afterward, though. I used the CO2 cylinder for rapid cooling.
I pawed aside office stationery, business forms, and a box containing cash and stamps. Several cardboard containers drew my attention. The first one I picked up had ANDREWS marked on its large covering flap. The gusseted accordionlike sides were spread wide due to the nearly overflow contents.
I picked up the other cardboard containers. My money alone wasn’t enough. It lacked $63,000 of being enough to make up the ransom money. The names penned on the other containers were American Mortgage Association, Montgomery Realty, and Dr. Donald Gerrity.
All contained beautiful green cash. Together it totaled $77,000. I even took the $60 I found in the petty cash box. The job had to look like a wholesale rip-off, not one that singled out a particular target. I stowed the cash in the space I’d provided in my makeup kit.
I scattered the empty cardboard containers on the floor. The first charwoman inside the office would spread the alarm. When Cottonmouth saw the morning newspaper headlines, I wouldn’t have to convince him I had the ransom money. This was one job for which I could use some after-the-fact publicity.
I checked each pocket in the canvas vest to reassure myself that everything was back in place. The only thing missing was the suction-cupped wall mirror. I pulled on my jacket and left the office. I detached the mirror from the corridor wall and added it to everything else in the vest.
I didn’t bother with the elevator. I walked down the fire stairs and emerged from the building via the fire door exit. It led into an alley. The night air felt both chill and humid after the accumulated heat build-up inside the Davis, Dodds, and Badger brokerage office.
I moved out to the sidewalk after reconnoitering the quiet street, then headed for the parking garage where I’d left the rental car.
SIX
I MADE ONLY ONE STOP BETWEEN THE ARMSTRONG Building in Pasadena and Sparky’s in Los Angeles, where I was to return the burglar-tool vest and retrieve half my deposit. I stopped on a side street and got out of the vest, folding it until it once again became an under-the-arm bundle. Then I changed my facial appearance with the help of my makeup kit. If the girl who rented me the vest and whoever would be on hand to take it back were ever asked to describe me, the variance in their stories would cause a lot of confusion.
The frozen food locker plant was dark. I had to ring the bell three times before someone answered. I was inspected through a one-way glass porthole in the outside door before it was opened. A slender, stoop-shouldered man with graying hair admitted me after satisfying himself that I wasn’t the law.
There was no conversation. I handed over the kit. I was still wearing the surgical rubber gloves. The slender man checked the vest, pocket by pocket, to make sure all the tools had been returned. He then took an envelope from the desk and counted out $1,250, which he handed to me. I was outside and on my way again in three minutes.
The vest would be rewrapped and returned to the food locker to await its next rental. The business was run efficiently. One of the principal things included in the rental fee was a lack of curiosity about the employment of the equipment.
I made one further stop during my return trip to the Miramar Motel. I again chose an unlighted side street. I restored my face to its Miramar appearance, and I peeled off the gloves and dropped them into a storm sewer. There was nothing now to connect me with the Davis, Dodds, and Badger office safe break-in.
Except the cash, and that wouldn’t be in my hands for long.
Not after Cottonmouth and Company got a look at the morning paper.
I stopped at the motel front desk to check with the night telephone operator about messages. There had been one. I was to call George Foley at Northeastern University in Boston at any hour, person-to-person.
I went to Val Cooper’s—Catherine Vernon’s—room to place the call. I sat on the bed, pushing my makeup kit with the stolen cash in it around on the floor with a toe while I waited for the connection to be made. With the slowdown of previously pumped-up adrenalin in my system, I felt tired. And hungry. And sticky from the heat I had absorbed from the safe.
I heard George Foley’s young voice assert that he would take Dewey Elliott’s phone call. “Hello, Mr. Elliott!” he said eagerly.
“When do you do your sleeping, George?” I asked. It was nearly midnight in Pasadena and three hours later than that in Boston.
“I thought you’d want to hear right away what I found out about Stan Kirkman,” he answered.
“You could be right about that,” I humored him.
“It’s quite a bit. Or at least I hope you think so. First, I asked a girl I know to pull Kirkman’s card at the records office. He was quite a good student during his first three years in school, but that changed this year. He—”
“Changed? How?”
“He must have started goofing off. His marks are so bad right now he’s on the verge of being put on probation for scholastic deficiency.”
Could his scholastic problems be a motive for Kirkman’s move against Melissa, assuming he had made one? It seemed too drastic a rebuttal.
“What else, George?”
“Part of his problem could be that he’s carrying a load of student activities. Debating team, drama society, student theatrical group, forensics society. He had the lead in the spring play. He’s …”
I lost the thread of what George Foley was saying. Stanley Kirkman a member of the student theatrical group and the drama society? I thought of Blind Tom Walker’s characterization of Cottonmouth’s Southern accent as artificial. Could it actually be Stan Kirkman, Melissa’s boyfriend, who was acting as spokesman for the kidnappers?
“Sorry, George,” I interrupted. “I was distracted for a second. What about Stan Kirkman and Melissa? Did you learn anything about that pairing?”
“Well …” He hesitated. “It’s about what you’d expect, I guess. She’s practically been living in his room lately. Everyone I mention it to says she’s overboard in love with him. But he—well, he doesn’t talk too nicely about her.”
“Like what?” I prodded him.
“He tells the guys he’s only balling her for what he can get out of her. Cash, I mean.” George Foley said it reluctantly. It evidently hurt him to admit that his goddess-admired-from-afar could be so vulnerable.
“What does this Kirkman look like, George?”
“Well, he’s tall and good-looking. At least the girls think so. Dark hair and kind of piercing dark eyes. One girl said he has a Barrymore nose. But he’s a little fat. Not an athletic type at all.”
“Except in bed,” I said before I thought.
“Yeah,” George agreed, but I could almost feel him wincing at the thought.
Neither of the half-remembered types from the airport parking lot had impressed me as being youthful, tall, dark, and handsome. But even if Stan Kirkman had had a part in Melissa’s kidnapping, he could hardly have been a participant in the snatch itself. There would have been too great a chance of the girl’s recognizing him and greeting him joyfully.
“That’s about it, Mr. Elliott,” George’s voice was saying. “I hope it’s been a help. Can I ask you a question?” He asked it without waiting for my response. “Is Melissa all right?”
“Yes,” I said. I made myself say it positively.
“That’s good,” he answered.
“Call me again if you learn anything more,” I urged him before concluding the conversation.
I sat on the bed and thought it over.
Did it really make sense?
Or were a few stray but seemingly appropriate facts causing me to jump to wrong conclusions?
I found myself yawning.
A few hours’ sleep wouldn’t hurt, but first I had to take on some protein. My stomach was really growling. Before I left the motel I counted $200 from my wallet, wrapped it securely, and addressed it to George Foley, care of Northeastern University’s student switchboard office. I affixed stamps to the package from Hazel’s wallet.
I drove to an all-night restaurant where I had a porterhouse and two dishes of creamed spinach. I finished with three cups of black coffee. On the way back to the motel I mailed the package to George Foley. I also stopped in at a late-night flea-market pawnbroker’s and bought a briefcase. It was a cheap type with flimsy latches and lock, but it would do to carry the ransom money. I had a feeling that the next time I heard from Cottonmouth I wasn’t going to have time to do much except exactly what he said.
Back at the motel I restored my automatic to its belt holster. The familiar weight felt comforting. I went over to Val’s room, pulled up a chair beside the telephone, and played back the Cottonmouth segments I had on the recorder. The Southern-sounding voice still seemed authentic to me. If it was an act, it was a good one.
I shut off the recorder, reset it to take incoming calls, took off my shoes, and stretched out on the bed fully clothed.
I tried to focus my mind on Stan Kirkman.
How could a college boy lay on a complicated deal like this?
Was I blinding myself to the true circumstances by trying to convince myself that he could have?
The answer to that, for the moment at least, was that the circumstances pointed toward no one else.
Stan Kirkman.
A good-looking young college-boy actor in scholastic trouble.
It was a long way from that situation to the scenario I was building up for him in my mind….
Every once in a while I have a dream, which I know is a dream while I’m having it, but I don’t seem to wake up. I was back at the ranch in Ely, Nevada, the ranch that Hazel had sold.
Hazel was still asleep when I eased out of bed. I dressed quietly and went downstairs to the ranch-house kitchen, where I heated up the remains of last night’s coffee in the percolator on the big gas range. Hazel doesn’t like instant coffee. I downed half a cup of the resultant steaming brew. Ambrosia it wasn’t, but it shocked me wide awake.
I walked down the gravel path from the kitchen to the barn, an added-onto, weathered structure behind which were split-rail corrals. The early morning sunlight seared my eyeballs, which had gazed upon a few too many before-the-fireplace brandies the night before. Overhead, the hard, bright blue of the mountain-valley sky formed a brilliant canopy for the ranch and its backdrop of hills.
Inside the barn I took three boxes of 9mm. Parabellum ammunition from an oak chest. It’s a useful cartridge because it’s interchangeable among a number of weapons, including my Smith & Wesson 9mm. automatic and several European handguns. I always like to be sure that the ammo I’m using is dependable and does what I expect it to do.
A battered Jeep was parked in front of the barn. I backed it inside and hitched up to a low-sided trailer loaded with old tires. Then I drove the Jeep and trailer along the pine-bordered, deeply rutted route to the ranch’s gravel pit. Its aggregate was used to repair the constant ravages of
rain, frost, snow, and wind erosion to the ranch road that led out to the highway a mile beyond.
I drove around the pit to its unworked side, away from the ranch house. The hillside serves as a sound baffle. Hazel never likes to hear my target practice. She always equates it with my taking a trip without her. I put the Jeep in four-wheel drive and aimed it up a steep hillside trail I’d slashed through juniper and scrub oak with an ax and quarts of perspiration.
At the top of the hill a long, wooden, inclined chute tilted downward over the craggy, brush-filled terrain below. I loaded tires Indian-file into the chute after I’d stuffed their centers with roughly rounded-off cardboard sections. These were my targets. At the bottom of the hill there was a dangling rope that operated a bar gate at the end of the chute, allowing me to release one tire at a time to go bouncing Wildly down the uneven slope.
I took the Jeep back down the bumpy trail and parked, then walked to the release rope. I removed my automatic from its Bianchi belt holster, sighted once, and pulled the rope. High above me a tire dribbled from the chute, bounced high; then started its freewheeling, careening descent of the hillside.
I had self-imposed shooting limits for these cavorting targets. When they reached it, I never knew whether the tires would be high or low, right or left, or heading right at me. It was wing shooting at its least predictable, but an eighteen-month session of daily handgun practice in an Oregon lumber camp, while I was avoiding the attention of irritated police departments, had left me capable of shooting results equaled only by trick-shot artists.
The first tire ran low through brush and rocks until it hit a boulder and soared in a graceful arc. It swerved at a sharp angle before hitting another and zooming skyward again. It was high and to the left when it reached the shooting area. I fired twice before it crossed the road and disappeared into the woods.
Operation Deathmaker Page 8