‘I’m sorry. Well, then –’ She held out her hand, and when he took it she gave him a single hearty handshake and then leaned forward to give him a fierce kiss full on the mouth. ‘Good-bye, Mr Monte. You are a perfectly sensational lover and a very good guy and I am hopelessly enamoured of you.’
He watched her as she walked quickstep in the direction of Fleet Street, never looking back at him but walking faster and faster until she broke into a run and disappeared from sight.
6
It was Michael who unlocked the door to the accompaniment of an ear-shattering roar of electric guitars from the transistor he was holding. He was at least in his middle twenties, Chris estimated, but emotionally he seemed to be bogged in a permanent adolescence.
‘Enjoy the scenery, chum?’ Michael asked. ‘Work up a bit of appetite by now?’
‘No. And when is this joke supposed to be called off?’
‘Joke?’
‘That’s right. Me being nailed down like this.’
‘Argh.’ The sound was midway between a snarl and a clearing of the throat. ‘It’s not my bloody joke. Ask the duchess about it.’
‘She wouldn’t even be able to hear me with that goddam thing making so much noise. Why don’t you turn it down?’
‘Not much.’ Michael was wearing the same orange-coloured velour shirt. With his jacket open, the edge of a shoulder-holster strap starkly showed against it. ‘Want to make me turn it down, chum?’ He held up the transistor, then raised his other hand. ‘No hands, see?’ he said in wicked challenge. ‘You’re yellow as a budgie’s belly if you don’t take me on now, chum. You’ll never get a better chance.’
Chris left him like that, hands still held high in his triumph, and limped up the stairs. The idea had been to demonstrate his ignorance of what was going on, and he felt he had done it neatly. The temptation to be baited into a premature showdown had to be resisted, even if it was getting harder to resist every time he and Michael confronted each other.
In Teodorescu’s room, he forced himself to stay awake long enough to peel off his clothing and fall headlong into bed. He could still hear the blaring of the transistor from some far-off part of the house as he dropped off to sleep.
He woke to silence and a lamp shining in his face. He opened his eyes and saw Baby standing there, a cup and saucer in her hand.
‘Come on, wake up, for Christ’s sake,’ she said. ‘You’ve been laying there like dead for ten hours. Here –’ she thrust the cup at him, ‘maybe this is what you need for an eye-opener.’
He sat up, realizing a coverlet had been modestly thrown over his nakedness, and took a tentative sip from the cup.
‘What is it?’ he asked, shuddering.
‘Tea. Only they got it like loose in a can, not in real tea-bags, so I had to throw some in a pot and boil it up. I hate this crummy town. They don’t know how to do anything the right way around here.’
He tried another shuddering mouthful and put the cup down on the night table. Baby placed the saucer on top of it, stirred, no doubt, by some vague domestic instinct to keep it warm, and sat down on the edge of the bed.
‘We’ve got to talk business, Monte,’ she said. ‘But hold the voice down.’
Her face was close to his. Along with an unmistakable smell of whisky, he scented the same heady perfume she had been wearing aboard Chirica II, even headier in this closed, dimly-lit room. He saw, as through an enlarging glass, the sapphire-blue eyes and ripe lips, the freckles somehow making childlike those flawlessly designed woman’s features, and was impelled to put a hand against her cheek to feel the smooth curve of it.
Baby knocked the hand aside.
‘Lay off. I’m not here for that. Neither are you.’
‘Seems like a waste, doesn’t it?’
‘Maybe to you. Not to me.’ Baby’s lip curled. ‘Somebody ought to wake up all you studs to that. You get the kicks from screwing. Not us.’
‘When’d you come to that conclusion?’
‘Right from the start. And any chick tells you she gets more than a big yawn from screwing, you let her know from me she’s a liar. So just keep your mind on business when you’re around me.’
‘How much you want to bet that’s not the way you talk to Mookerjee?’
‘Never mind the wisecracks. And he pays plenty for what he wants, so he gets plenty. So far, all I got from you is a bath in the ocean and a lot of trouble.’
‘Yeah, but when the trouble’s over you’ll wind up with a lot more than that because of me, won’t you? Half a million, it says in the contract. You know, I’ve been wondering about it. Maybe you have, too.’
‘About what?’ Baby said warily.
‘About us. About you and me getting together and really making the scene big with the whole million, instead of cutting Mookerjee in for half.’
Baby gave him a long, slightly glassy-eyed stare.
‘Well, if you aren’t the cute little double-crossing bastard,’ she said at last, but, Chris took notice, there was no resentment in the way she said it.
He closed in quickly.
‘Go on, don’t tell me you haven’t at least thought about it. You know Mookerjee’s gimmick to get that dough. So why not use it yourself and team up with me?’
‘Because, like how long do you think we’d be alive if somebody didn’t take care of the others? Mookerjee’s the one to take care of them too. He don’t look like much, but except maybe for The Man, he’s the toughest one of the whole bunch.’
‘The man? Teodorescu?’
‘No, The Man,’ Baby said impatiently. ‘You know. The guy who got Valentine the money to start the whole operation with.’
‘You mean Valentine himself was in on it?’ It took an effort to see the crabbed, Puritan image of Clive Valentine in this new light. ‘Then that’s where he made all his dough. Not from selling books.’
‘Sure. Only he kept most of it for himself because he was Number One until he kicked off. Now The Man is Number One.’
‘Who is he?’ Chris asked. He was on to something very big here, he knew with excitement, something vital to bring back to Warburton about that mysterious joker who had suddenly showed up in Miami, but it was desperately important he sound casual about it. As partner to partner, Baby in her cups was willing to confide this much to him, but the least edge of excitement in his voice, the least display of real interest, he was sure, would cut the line of communication between them instantly. ‘Do I know him?’
‘The Man?’ Baby seemed taken aback by the mere idea. ‘Nobody knows him. Nobody even knows who he is, not even Teodorescu, and Teodorescu’s the one he contacts now that Valentine is dead. You ought to be glad about that, too. He’s the reason all those kinky agents are on your tail. Mookerjee says they figure you to lead them right up to The Man, and then they’ve got him. This way, you’re leading them nowhere.’
‘I led them here to Teodorescu’s house,’ Chris pointed out.
‘You don’t understand. They’re not worried about anybody except The Man, because he’s the only one that can start the racket going again and know how to keep it going. That’s what scares them, that he might start it up again. They mean business, too. They’re not looking to do anything to him the newspapers can play up. What they want is to gun him down just like they did with the Wheeler brothers. This is big-time, top secret stuff, Monte. Not cops and robbers.’
‘That doesn’t change anything for me. How do you think your top secret, number one man’ll take it when we wind up with Valentine’s money, not him and Teodorescu and Prendergast?’
‘With that kind of money, Monte, who needs to hang around and find out? Here today, Rio tomorrow. I dig Rio. So does Mookerjee. And after he puts away Teodorescu and Joe Prendergast, The Man won’t even have anybody left to use against us.’
‘I’ll have to admit,’ Chris said, ‘you make it sound as easy as a ride on the merry-go-round.’
‘With a brass ring every time around,’ Baby assured him seriou
sly. ‘The tough part is you and me getting away from here together, with that Michael creep hanging around to see we don’t.’
‘He has to go to sleep sometimes, doesn’t he?’
‘So what? From midnight until whenever he wakes up in the morning, we’re locked in here. I mean locked in, but good. I already looked the place over. Bars on all the ground-floor windows, and the doors fixed up like Sing Sing. And Michael’s got the only key, because there is only one to the house. He made sure I knew about that, all right.’
‘What happens if Teodorescu wants to come home here late at night? He stands outside and yells up at the window?’
‘You’re a million laughs, aren’t you, Monte? No, there’s a buzzer in Michael’s room, and that button next to the doorbell outside is connected to it. There’s some kind of special bippety-bip signal Teodorescu and the rest of the top brass use, so whoever’s taking care of the house knows it’s all right to let them in. Anyhow, we don’t have to worry about getting in, just getting out. It means you’ll have to take care of Michael so we can do it.’
‘Take care of him how?’
‘Kill him or cripple him, who the hell cares as long as you give us a good head start? But it won’t be easy. He’s like a snake, the little bastard, the way he can move when you don’t expect it. He took a feel of me in the kitchen last night so I started to swing at him, but before I could land one he had that knife poking right in my belly. He’s edgy anyhow, because he’s expecting trouble from you. You make one little wrong move with him, Monte, it’ll be the last one you’ll ever make. You’ll really blow the works.’
‘All right, let’s say I don’t blow the works. What comes after that? We go to Mookerjee’s lawyer and sign the papers?’
‘Yes, day after tomorrow. Friday. This lawyer is Mookerjee’s cousin, and he’s taking care of everything for us. He’s already got the papers made out, but tomorrow he’s getting us rooms out of town so we’ll have a place to stay until things are settled in court. Then Friday we’ll sign the papers. This lawyer doesn’t know about Valentine, and isn’t the kind to ask questions either.’
‘But aren’t you supposed to be here to rig up some kind of fatal accident for me to have?’ Chris said. ‘Michael’s suspicious of you to start with. Do you think you can stall him off until Friday?’
‘I’ll stall him off. What’s the matter, Monte. Starting to chicken out?’
‘Not me.’ Chris considered how to put it. The toughest-move of this conversational game was coming up now, the one on which so much rode, and every word he spoke had to be the right one. ‘Only it looks to me like you’re doing all this the hard way.’
‘Yeah?’ Baby was already on guard. ‘And what’s the easy way?’
‘I just walk out and don’t come back here to the house, that’s all. I meet you at the lawyer’s instead. You let on to Michael you’re as sore about it as he is, and fake turning the cops loose on me. That’s all there is to it.’
‘No.’
‘Look, Baby –’
‘No. What you’ll get that way is a trial back home for first degree murder, and me with my freckled little angel face telling the jury how I saw you do it. You don’t have one witness to say different either. Not one. And if you blow off about the Valentine deal, you’ll sound like an acid-head on a bad trip. You better remember that any time you walk out of this house, because if I start worrying you’re not coming back, that’s what’s in the cards for you, Monte.’
‘All right.’ Even though the game was lost, he warned himself, he had to keep playing it cool. The one thing he might salvage from it was time. ‘If that’s how you want it, we’ll take care of Michael the hard way. When’s it set for?’
‘Friday morning at breakfast is best. He’s always concentrating on me when we’re in the kitchen together, so that’s when you can lay him out. There’s a box in the pantry with all kinds of tools in it, hammers and such, so just pick the right one. And don’t feel sorry for the bastard when you swing it at him. Just feel sorry for yourself if you don’t swing hard enough.’
‘I’ll remember that.’
‘You better,’ Baby stood up. ‘That’s it until breakfast, Friday,’ she said. She paused at the door. ‘You can stay up all night now, the way you’re slept out, but I’m getting into bed. You want something to eat, the kitchen’s loaded with stuff. You want something to read, there’s a million cornball books in that library room downstairs. You want to make time over the phone with that blonde you picked up on the plane, forget it. The phones are all dead here.’
She left him with that, and he lay there, trying to see the events of the next two days in some kind of reassuring, logical sequence, but there were too many ifs and maybes about them for that. Finally he dressed and went down to the kitchen. In the deathly silence of the house, every step of the creaking staircase was better than an alarm system, he saw, for telling Michael where he was and what direction he was heading in.
While he was washing down a cheese sandwich with a bottle of warm beer he reflected that what Teodorescu was practising on him was, in effect, those ultra-modern penological methods where the prisoner is allowed everything but real freedom. All the comforts of home, the privilege of walking out the gate whenever you want to, even the services of a beautiful red-head, if the red-head herself was willing. But comes nighttime, and they lead you back into your cell and lock its doors behind you to let you know that this is the real thing after all. In a way, it was even more frustrating than the old-fashioned method. It was a constant invitation to make the wrong move, to get away and start running as hard as you could until you crashed headlong into the stone wall waiting at the end of any turn you took.
After he stacked his dishes into a sink already piled high with dirty kitchenware, he prowled around downstairs, checking the doors and windows and getting first-hand evidence that Baby hadn’t exaggerated about the way the place was sealed up at Michael’s bedtime. Then he climbed to the floor above, pushed open the door nearest at hand and found he was in a dining-room. When he tried the door across the hall a strong smell of leather immediately greeted him.
He switched on the light and looked around. Four solid walls of books from floor to ceiling, and even at a distance it was easy to see from the glimmer of gold leaf on glossy leather that, no matter the talents of the authors, this had to be high-priced literature.
One section of the wall shelves appeared to contain a uniform edition of encyclopedia-sized volumes. He walked over to take a close look at them and saw this was the case. On the spine of each volume, below the title and author’s name was inscribed The Valentine Society.
Which meant, he realized, that here were the products of Clive Valentine’s fake book club, the front for his real operation. It brought back with unpleasant clarity the image of the big, ruddy, silvery-haired, utterly persuasive Englishman, done up in his Savile Row clothes, sitting in the air-conditioning of a Miami restaurant and solemnly explaining how Clive Valentine’s fortune had been made. Twelve hundred copies of these books a year at two to three hundred pounds a copy. And avid collectors all around the world itching to lay out that kind of money for them.
A nice story, except there wasn’t a word of truth in it. But the Valentine Society had been smart. Tally up what it really took in from its racket, and the figures would probably match that imaginary income to the penny. ‘If the books balanced, tax collectors, government accountants, and other busybodies would be kept happy.
For that matter, what could make a better front for a racket than a high class book club with the imprimatur of Literature and Art stamped on it? The array of titles before him made the joke even more ironic. Collections of sermons, of religious poetry, of Bible studies, editions of The Pilgrim’s Progress, The Swiss Family Robinson, of John Milton’s works – everywhere was the odour of high moral purpose.
One of the titles struck a chord. Blasts of the Trumpet &c read the gilt lettering, and Chris lifted the book down. This was the o
ne the joker had smilingly referred to as an illustration of Clive Valentine’s Puritan tastes.
The book was enclosed in a stiff leather slipcase, and the dead weight of the volume in his hand was surprising until Chris drew it out of the case and saw the cushiony thickness of the binding, felt the texture of the pages which had almost no pliancy at all, their paper was that heavy. The binding was of dark-blue morocco, elaborately ornamented with designs etched in gold, and credit for the ornamentation was presented inside the front cover. ‘Designed by Henry Gardenhire for The Valentine Society in the mode of Roger Payne, fl. 1766. Two hundred copies of this edition have been printed and bound. This is copy Number 3.’
But there was something about the book, Chris found, something apart from its make-up, which nagged him. What the hell was it? It was there deep down in his mind but refused to be dragged to the surface.
He turned to the title page. Blasts of the Trumpet Against the Monstrous Regiment of Women by Jno. Knox. A Valentine Society Edition. He read it over several times, wondering why it should ring any bell in his mind when the only time in his life he had even heard mention of it was when that joker in Miami had brought it up. Valentine’s sidekick.
But it wasn’t the only time.
Blasts of the Trumpet. BOTT. Prendergast’s index cards!
He closed the book, ran a hand over the binding, digging a thumb into the solid thickness of it. Who, he thought with awe, could ask for a better package than this in which to smuggle dangerous papers across unfriendly borders? Seal them inside this binding, stitch the binding down, and what an artistic, highly moral package you had. BOTT. Copy Number 3. There had been numbers on Prendergast’s cards, too, as well as the names of the cities the real merchandise was destined for. Find your number, rip open the binding, and there was the goods.
He thrust the book back into its slipcase, returned it to its proper place and looked along the shelves. What other initials had been marked on those cards? SFR, he was sure of. Swiss Family Robinson. He had seen it only a few minutes ago, it had to be on one of these shelves.
The Valentine Estate Page 21