A well-circulated rumor around town claimed that many years earlier a man in the Indian Territories had attempted to face down Cyrus Dinkle, the dispute involving a promised case of whiskey for three dollars versus three dollars and fifty cents. Dinkle had allegedly shot and killed the man, afterward hanging the body from a tree in front of his trading post as a lesson to those who valued fifty cents more than their lives. It was Trader Dinkle who now leveled rattlesnake eyes on Everson Dexter.
“I’m not making a request,” he said. “You follow?”
Once again Dexter surprised me. With the viper about to strike, he didn’t blink.
“When you threaten me, Mister Dinkle,” Dexter said, his words issued with grave deliberation, “you threaten the Allegheny Chemicals Corporation and its president, Mister J. Piedmont Bell. Perhaps you’ve heard of him by his nickname…Bootleg Bell? He’s rather well known in certain circles…colorful past and all that…Prohibition, don’t you know…friends in places both high and low. You two would get along. He doesn’t make requests either.”
This time it was Dinkle who surprised me. The threat of J. Piedmont Bell was imaginary and three thousand miles away, yet the old man’s discomfiture was apparent as he attempted to disguise squirming about in his chair as mere repositioning to give his figuratively squeezed testicles more air. It was a good lesson for me, one I carried with me throughout my life: Bullies like Dinkle need not be confronted by a bigger bully. They just have to be confronted.
Suddenly, Dinkle threw back the rest of his wine in a swallow, afterward refilling his glass. He drained it and then stood, glancing in my direction. I pulled back, praying he’d not seen my reflection in the glass.
“Good evening to you, Mister Dexter,” I heard him say, followed by the sound of the old man’s footsteps as he left the dining room, leaving Everson Dexter at the table and me still hiding behind the drape.
Chapter Twenty-three:
I steal a letter opener
Dexter remained in the dining room for nearly a full minute and I wondered if his host’s abrupt exit from the dining room had put a crack in our actor’s carefully crafted pretense. After all, despite his money and affectations Dinkle was a thug, his veneer of civility no thicker than his shaving balm, a dense layer of menace just beneath it. Given his profession, it’s more likely that Dexter awaited the thunderous applause he believed was his after a masterful performance.
I heard Dexter sigh loudly, undoubtedly as much disappointed as relieved, followed by the abrasive protest of a chair sliding away from the dining table and then the click of footsteps, the sounds quickly fading into echoes and then silence. Next came the growl of an automobile engine and the crunch of tires against the driveway stones. I waited until the rumble of the Duesenberg’s engine had faded to a hum before peeking out from behind the drape. The dining room remained lit but was deserted other than the statue of the naked, bearded man. Dishes remained on the table, waiting to be cleared. Dinkle’s wine glass was empty, while Dexter’s was nearly full.
It was time for me to make good my escape. My mission had been accomplished. I could report to the Ambergrisians that Dexter had not given us away. Further risk was foolhardy. Still, I hesitated. Somewhere in the cavernous mausoleum Dinkle called “home” were papers the Boops had collected. I was a child and won’t pretend that I comprehended lines of credit or balances owed or foreclosures in the same way the adult Ambergrisians did. But I knew those papers were the trapdoors my friends and neighbors in Tesoro were about to fall through. I decided to steal them.
I padded softly across the dining room and then into the outer corridor. It was harshly lit, as turned out to be true for the entire house. As I noiselessly stole down the hallway, a series of rooms were revealed in which every light switch had been flipped on. Eventually I reached a grand circular foyer illuminated by a huge chandelier comprised of dozens of faux candles. It was suspended from four long gilded chains gloriously ascending through three open stories into a cupola whose underside boasted a reproduction of Michelangelo’s The Fall of Man. On one side of the foyer a wide, majestic staircase swirled upward to a second-floor mezzanine that was the most blindingly lit of all. I paused beneath the chandelier and looked up, squinting against the brilliant glow, for a moment taken by the irony of so much effort to avoid the night. Despite Dinkle’s intimidating demeanor and reputation, he was apparently afraid of the dark.
Several doors, all closed, marked rooms off the foyer and the sound of footsteps from the mezzanine sent me running for one of them. I reached it and slipped inside, discovering what looked to be a library with bookshelves lining three of the four walls from floor to ceiling. Like the other spaces I’d thus far seen, this one was well lit with six large glass-shaded pendants, a few wall sconces, and lamps on both the refectory table and a huge desk. The desk boasted a swivel chair with its high back given to the room’s distinctive bay window, allowing Dinkle to simply rotate to look out. I recognized the window. Alex and I had once hidden just beneath it, plastered against the foundation of the house, secretly listening to Dinkle conduct business on the telephone just a few feet above our heads. I was now in the old man’s study on the west side of the mansion, the lawn I’d dashed across and the safety of the vineyard where I’d waited and watched just three hours earlier now on the opposite side of the house.
The footsteps I’d heard were Dinkle’s and they grew louder as he descended the stairway to the foyer. Unlike the town meeting, when he’d glided to the podium, Dinkle, the homebody, walked on his heels, causing the entire house to shudder very slightly with each step. He reached the main floor and the sounds grew louder. Then the doorknob across the room turned and I ran for the desk, instinctively grabbing Dinkle’s letter opener from a leather cup before diving into the chair opening.
I squeezed behind the swivel chair—an oak piece with a curved back, four wheels, and a sour smelling pad—careful to avoid moving it lest the casters squeak. From there I heard Dinkle cross the room, followed by the swish and thud of books moved about or knocked to the floor. The next sound was unmistakable—the whir and click of a combination lock being spun.
A hidden safe!
I cautiously peeked out and saw Dinkle from behind. He was on his knees in front of the nearest bookcase, wearing pajamas and a bathrobe, the safe blocked from view by his generous frame. The whir and click sounds stopped and then I saw the motion of his arm as he turned the safe’s handle. Suddenly, he cocked his head as if listening, at the same time glancing over his shoulder. I ducked back under the desk. A second passed, then another and another. Now, the room was as silent as a held breath and I imagined the more graceful Dinkle from the town meeting, floating across the room to the recess where I now hid. I tightened my grip around the handle of the letter opener—a deadly looking thing six inches long with a pointed tip, its metal haft depicting a snake curled around a tree branch. More silence ensued. And then I heard a soft squeak as the safe door was opened, followed by the sound of papers being shuffled.
The contracts!
I chanced another look. Dinkle once again had his back to me. He held a sheaf of papers that were hurriedly perused and then set aside on the floor. He resumed rummaging about in the safe and extracted another set of papers. This time he stood to read them, the effort to regain his feet attended by tiny grunts and a bit of wheezing. For the next several minutes he walked about, whispering aloud as he reviewed the documents. When he moved behind his desk, I retreated as deeply into my mouse-hole as possible, eyeing the spot on his shin where I could bury the tip of the letter opener before making a run for it. He didn’t sit, instead standing to read, his legs mere inches from my face. His robe was purple velvet, his pajamas silk, his slippers creased leather. I could smell him—old shoes, new farts.
After a few minutes the old man moved to the bay window and threw back the drapes, giving me a view that extended from heel to chin with only the
back of his bald head blocked by the top edge of the desk. I burrowed more deeply into my hiding place, accidentally bumping the chair. It moved slightly, and yet as impossible as it might seem, Dinkle did not notice. He remained motionless and I imagined his round, porcine eyes searching the darkness outside his window. It was nearly eleven o’clock by then, the glow of twilight long past, the nearby ocean a sheet of black. Nevertheless, he peered into the night as if the pixie-like, phosphorescent sparkles on the water were overhead stars, remaining at his post for what seemed a very long time. Then, the slanted glare of a car’s headlamps bathed the ground outside the window in white-yellow light and he stepped away.
The Duesenberg…Dinkle’s man!
Dinkle left the drapes open and moved out of view. Once again I heard the rustle of papers, a soft thud as the safe door was shut, a single buzzing whir as he spun the combination dial. He had nearly finished re-shelving the books that hid his safe when a knock on the door sounded.
“Enter,” Dinkle called out. I heard the door open and then close, followed by a thickly accented voice.
“You are done with me for tonight, yes?” Dinkle’s man asked.
“Yes,” Dinkle answered. “No…wait. There is something. Did you use my letter opener? It’s not on my desk.”
Dinkle’s man didn’t answer.
“No…Of course, you didn’t,” Dinkle muttered. “Goddamned housekeepers. They’re a bunch of gypsies.”
Suddenly, my head was flooded with images of the compost pile Tuck Garwood had described. In my mind it was just as Tuck claimed: a rotting mound filled with the body parts of boys—body parts that could well include mine before the end of the evening. I began to tremble, praying my shudders would not cause the desk chair to move and squeak, praying even harder for my crime to be pinned on the housekeepers. My prayer, as with most prayers, was self-serving. To save my own skin I was more than happy to throw his maids over the cliff. I understood what might happen. It would not go well for them. Dinkle was a harsh master. He would lay into the women for stealing his letter opener, maybe fire one of them. Maybe all of them. I didn’t care. It was unfortunate, but their lives weren’t at stake. Mine was. Then Dinkle’s man spoke and the housekeepers were saved, just as surely and suddenly as my fate was sealed.
“You look under desk, yes?” Dinkle’s man said.
“Why would it be…?” Dinkle growled, then, “Oh, what the hell.”
I heard the old man’s footsteps even though my ears were suddenly filled with a pounding sound. He drew closer and my skin began to tingle, the imagined heat and stench of his wolf’s breath rendering me light-headed and dizzy. I now wonder if Alex felt such fear just before crashing into the China Sea. I hope not. I hope he enjoyed, in his last moments, the freedom of just not giving a damn. It’s been suggested by poets that soldiers faced with the inevitability of death have such feelings and I suspect it may be true for others, as well, particularly a fellow at my advanced age. However, cowering under the desk with Death near enough to touch, it was not true for me.
And then it was.
As amazing and unbelievable as it might sound, when Dinkle appeared in the chair opening—less than an arm’s length from where I hid—my head suddenly cleared, my eyes sharpened, the wolf’s breath grew distant, and my heart settled into a steady rhythm. I remember the frayed cuffs of his pajamas, the pale ankles above his slippers, the dangling tails of the belt on his bathrobe. He pulled back the chair and I more tightly gripped the letter opener. I was calm and no longer afraid. My mission had changed and I was ready to strike. There would be no need to steal the contracts in his safe, I told myself; instead, I would kill their author with his own letter opener. Then it would all be over. I would face the hangman’s noose, but the town would be saved. Hip, hip, hooray.
Dinkle began to kneel and his chest appeared, followed by his soft neck. My heartbeat further slowed as his chin came into view, then his lower lip. I gripped the letter opener more tightly. I was ready, my body a coiled spring, the pointed letter opener as lethal as the artful snake curled around its handle. Suddenly, Dinkle straightened and stood as the unmistakable sound of a car horn pierced the night. It was loud and continuous.
“What the hell?” he snarled. I heard one of the desk drawers squawk in protest as it was jerked open, followed by a clatter as Dinkle rummaged about inside. He found whatever he was looking for and made for the study door, first ramming into the chair. It careened back into my hiding place beneath the desk, spinning on its column. One corner of the seat caught my cheek where it left a small bruise that I would later explain away to Ma as coming from a stray elbow Webb Garwood had thrown my way during a wrestling match. I remained motionless, listening first to the muffled, dissipating thud of footsteps in the foyer followed by a whoosh of air as I released the breath I’d held for nearly a minute.
I scrambled out from beneath the desk and made for the bay window where I fumbled open one of the casements and went through it. Seconds later, I had made my way to the other side of the mansion, breached the lawn, and slipped into the safety of the vineyard. I threw myself to the ground, then just as quickly leapt up, a tiny gasp of shock and fear exiting my lips. I was not alone. A figure crouched between the rows, someone small. A whisper followed.
“Lái ba.” The figure stood. “Lái ba.”
It was Mei Ling. She put a finger to her lips to keep me silent, then pivoted and disappeared into the wall of grapevines at her elbow. A moment later, her head reappeared among the leaves.
“Lái ba,” she whispered, “Lái ba…Come on.”
We exchanged no more words, together stumbling between the rows of grapevines until we reached the open road. Once there, we ran all the way back to town. I left Mei Ling behind at Miss Lizzie’s without breaking stride. There were no goodbyes and I didn’t realize until long after climbing through the window of my bedroom that I had stolen Dinkle’s letter opener. I still have it.
Chapter Twenty-four:
The potato softens
Yurievsky’s ability to follow orders and keep secrets had encouraged Grand Duke Pavlovich to snatch him from the ranks during the second Russo-Japanese War in 1904, using the Imperial Army sergeant as an aide, a courier, a bodyguard, and an assassin. The Duke quickly learned, also, to trust the tall soldier’s native intuition. “The man is a veritable barometer for things suspicious,” he boasted to his fellow officers, and it was true. In the years that followed—with the Duke’s Tsarist political enemies far outnumbering his foreign military ones—Yurievsky more than once pointed the impulsive Pavlovich in a right direction when a wrong one might have proven fatal.
Now, the former aide’s barometer was reading low—a storm was brewing—and this premonition kept him in the doorway after Dinkle bolted from the study, giving him a good look at me as I darted out from beneath the desk. He watched me escape and then moved to the window. The boy from the town meeting, he thought, as he watched me dash along the west side of the house, illuminated by gauzy moonlight. I didn’t see him and had no idea I’d been spotted until much later. How did I find out? Be patient. I will explain in due time. For now, just accept that the spy had been espied.
As for Yurievsky, the tall Russian was accustomed to town boys sneaking onto the estate; indeed, he intentionally left windows unlocked in the guesthouse and servants’ quarters to make their adventures more interesting. None had ever stolen inside the main house and another soft spot had now formed on the potato the villagers were harvesting.
Dinkle called out and Yurievsky tracked the old man’s impatient snarl to the front entry of the mansion. The ex-gunrunner had made it only as far as the foyer and waited just inside the front door, unwilling to venture alone into the night despite the pistol he had retrieved from his desk drawer. The car horn continued to sound, a parrot’s squawk intruding upon the distant sound of waves.
“Get out there,” Dinkle growle
d.
He followed Yurievsky outside, but remained within the safe halo of light provided by the porch fixture, watching his tall manservant approach the garage. Inside, Yurievsky found a tire iron jammed between the seat and steering wheel of the Duesenberg. He removed it, replacing the harsh blare of the horn with the usual chirps and rustlings of the night. He then searched the garage for intruders. Dinkle would expect it done and would verify it had been accomplished with a slit-eyed interrogation. The old man needn’t worry, his man thought. I am a soldier. I follow orders, even the pointless ones. At the end of the war, when mud and cold and the Bolsheviks had thrown the once grand Imperial Army into chaos, other soldiers had stopped following orders. Such men probably would ignore Dinkle now, Yurievsky mused; they’d lean against the painstakingly polished fender of the Duesenberg and enjoy a cigarette for a few minutes, assuming the prowlers were on their way to the village, the garage empty. Yurievsky would not succumb to such insubordination. He had never lied to Dinkle, to Grand Duke Pavlovich, or to any of the men who had engaged his services over the years. He had, on more than one occasion, omitted the truth. Omissions of truth were acceptable, he reasoned, if the truth had not been solicited. Lies, however, were the way of dishonorable men and Yurievsky saw himself as a man of honor, even though he knew most people, if apprised of the things he’d done at the behest of others, would see him as an amoral monster—an enforcer, a torturer, a murderer. He had been those things, but never a liar. When asked for the truth he had always provided it.
When asked.
Yurievsky thoroughly searched the garage even though he knew it was a waste of time. The person who had jerry-rigged the horn—likely the boy’s brother—was by now halfway to the village along with his older sibling. Moreover, their intrusion on its own was of no interest to him—the two boys had snuck onto the estate several times in the past. However, neither had ever entered the main house. This was a bit of derring-do that would require further investigation. Later, Yurievsky thought. Let the rabbits run for now. I know where the hutch is.
Treasure of the Blue Whale Page 17