NINE
At three o’clock the four children of Papa Drovek were gathered in a small waiting room on the third floor of the Walterburg Memorial Hospital. Leo’s wife, Betty, was there too. She punctuated the stillness with a damp snuffle at readily predictable intervals. Joan’s eyes were red and swollen. Pete was restless. Chip had a look of somber, heavy, dreadful anger. The operating room was two hundred feet away. The furniture in the small waiting room was of expensively cheerless stainless steel, upholstered in aqua plastic. Jack Paris was out of town, playing in the State Amateur. Pete had been unable to find Sylvia.
“It sure takes a long time,” Pete said.
“You’ve got someplace to go?” Chip asked harshly.
“Please,” Joan said.
“I was just …” Pete said.
“I know,” Chip said. “I’m sorry.”
A wide solid man suddenly appeared in the doorway, wearing a light gray suit, a gray sports shirt, holding a straw hat in big freckled hands. He had cropped gray-red hair, and brows and lashes so colorless his face had a curiously blunt and naked look. They all looked at him.
“Mr. Charles Drovek?” he asked in a surprising tenor voice.
“I’m sorry but we have no statement to make to …”
“Police, Mr. Drovek. Could I talk to you, please?”
Chip got up and went out into the corridor. They moved a few feet down the corridor from the waiting-room door. “I’m Detective-Lieutenant Bill Sharry, Mr. Drovek. This is Sergeant Lew Gold.” Chip shook hands with them. Gold was young and lean with a smooth Byzantine face, quiet dark eyes. Chip took the measure of Sharry, liked him at once.
“I talked to Milt Quinn about this, Lieutenant.”
“I know. It’s my baby right now, with all the men on it I can use.”
“I thought you were more reporters. They’ve been giving me fits.”
“That can happen. What’s the word on your father?”
Chip shrugged and looked away. “They’re still working on him. He’s an old man. Depressed fracture, they said.”
“They can do wonderful things these days. I said this is my baby. I’m not clear on the jurisdictional thing here, whether the FBI can come in. I’m inclined to think they will. It happened in a bank. They interpret the law pretty broad. You don’t mind if I ask more questions?”
Chip smiled wryly. “It’s better than sitting and waiting.”
“You gave the Chief an estimate of how much money was involved.”
“That’s right. It has to be a guess. Between two hundred and three hundred thousand, I would say.”
“That’s the figure the papers got hold of. That’s what’s making them so eager. Now I don’t like to ask this, but I got to. About this money. It’s entirely clean?”
“What the hell do you mean?”
“I mean it’s not unreported income or anything like that?”
“Every damn dime of tax was paid on that money, Lieutenant. Call it an eccentricity to keep it in cash. Okay? And why did you ask?”
“Suppose you couldn’t report it missing. And the old … your father got a little tap on the head. Money you can’t report missing is the safest kind to steal. So maybe he was hit a little harder than he wanted. And if it was money you weren’t talking about, it would narrow it down to those people who had some way of finding out about it.”
“It wasn’t any secret. I guess a lot of people knew about it. It was … sort of a joke. Papa’s money. You know.”
“But people in your organization would be most likely to know about it?”
“Of course.”
“We’ve got a lead, maybe. That Packer woman isn’t what I’d call an ideal source. But here it is. On the second of July a man rented a box. Since then he’s visited the vaults ten times. Today was the eleventh. That’s pretty frequent. Stayed inside quite a while every time. Carried an oblong leather case, like a big briefcase with square corners. Dispatch case I guess you call them. Today he arrived before your father did, and left maybe eight to ten minutes after your father arrived. Big husky-looking fella about twenty-five. Tan, well dressed in a dark gray or dark brown suit, felt hat. Long sideburns. According to the vault records he was the only one who arrived before your father did and left after he arrived. Two other people arrived shortly after he did and left before your father was found, but we’ve checked them out. The one we want is six foot or a little more, probably about one ninety. Dark-brown hair. Clean-cut looking, except for the long hair style. We checked out the address he gave. It’s a phony. Now I want to ask you about the name he gave, see if it means anything to you. Mark Brodey.”
Chip stared at him. “Mark Brodey! He worked for us five years. Bartender. We fired him this year. Maybe three months ago. He had his hand in the till.”
“Fit the description?”
“No. Brodey is about forty, a smallish wiry man. Black hair. Narrow face. Pale. Heavy black eyebrows.”
“Know where he is now?”
“Somebody saw him a few weeks ago. I forget who mentioned him. I remember it surprised me he was still in the area.”
Gold spoke for the first time. “Somebody who didn’t like Brodey, Bill. Or wanted to smoke-screen the deal and knew he’d been fired.”
“Did many people know why Brodey was fired?”
“We didn’t keep it a secret, exactly.”
“So we go on the basis somebody used Brodey’s name. And we’ve got the handwriting. Next step is to have our expert check the handwriting against the handwriting of all your employees out there, including any who, like Brodey, have left you recently. Who do we see?”
“Myra Miles, in my office.”
“I won’t bother you any more right now, Mr. Drovek. I have a hunch we’ll be able to unwind this ball of yarn.”
They left. Chip went back into the waiting room. Ten minutes later the neurosurgeon, a Dr. Towsey, came in still in his green operating uniform, the green mask pulled down around his throat, a cigarette in the corner of his mouth and a look of exhaustion on his face.
He sat on the arm of an unused chair and said, “We’ve just sent him to the recovery room. If you want any odds right now, I’d say fifty-fifty. Two hours ago I’d have said eighty-twenty. He’s an old man. But he’s got a heart like a rock. Now we just wait.”
“Just what did you have to do … in simple language?” Joan asked.
“Incision in the scalp, from here around to here. Lay the flap back. Saw out a piece of skull this big around. Lift it out. Lift a clot. Dig bone splinters out of the brain tissue. Suture small blood vessels. Repair the dura. Fix a plate over the hole and sew the scalp back over the plate. Somebody hammered on him like a man driving stakes, with a sledge.”
“Will there be … mental effects if he recovers?” Leo asked solemnly.
“You mean will he be an idiot? The brain is a remarkable thing, to coin a tired phrase. Other parts, in an amazingly short time, pick up the functions of injured portions. The splinters were in the left prefrontal lobe. If he comes out of it he’ll be confused. Memory may be in bits and pieces. He may be incontinent for a little while. But he’ll fit himself back together again.”
“When will we know?” Chip asked.
The surgeon stood up. “By ten tonight I can have a better estimate of his chances.”
“Can we see him?” Joan asked.
“No. I’ve given orders for him to be kept in recovery until I can check him at ten. If it looks okay, he can be moved into a private room then. I’ve set you up for nurses around the clock.”
Every employee of the Crossroads Corporation knew about it long before the afternoon papers arrived. There were quick conversations in the corners of the kitchens, in the motel offices, beside the grease racks, on green lawns where the maintenance crew worked. A few, a very few, felt a sneaking delight. One of those Droveks had gotten it, but good. And somebody had grabbed some Drovek money. But most of the staff were upset and indignant. Slugging an old man that
way. Chip had established profit-sharing plans that reached down through the organization to the lowliest dishwasher. So most of the Crossroads people felt they were a part of the organization. And they wanted to express, to the Droveks, their concern and their willingness to do anything possible to help.
At six o’clock that evening, Chip and Nancy were sitting in the kitchen of Chip’s house when Joan came in. Nancy poured her a cup of coffee.
“I keep feeling we should be at the hospital,” Joan said.
“Nothing we can do there. They’ll phone here if there’s any change. We’ll all go in at ten. Hear from Jack?”
“Twenty minutes ago.” She made a small face. “He won his match. Tomorrow morning the quarter finals. He said it was a terrible thing and he said he was all upset about it. And he said that of course he would leave right away and drive back and be with the family. I knew just what he wanted me to say, so I said it. There’s nothing he can do here, really. He said he was having trouble with his wedge. And a tough match coming up tomorrow. I wished him luck.” She sipped her coffee. “How did Clara react?”
Chip shrugged. “I don’t know if I got through to her.”
“Where’s Pete?” Joan asked.
“Still hunting for Sylvia, I guess.”
At that moment Pete came into the kitchen. He had such a strange expression on his face that both Joan and Nancy said, simultaneously, “What’s the matter?”
He moistened his lips. “The damnedest thing. I figured I might feel better if I showered and shaved. I … this was in the medicine cabinet.”
He started to give Chip the note, then turned and handed it to Joan. Nancy went over to read over her shoulder. Joan gasped audibly, and Nancy said, “Golly!”
“What is it?” Chip demanded. Joan handed him the brief note.
“She’s acted funny lately,” Pete said. “Not like herself. I don’t feel mad, exactly. I don’t know how the hell I feel. Confused, I guess. Sort of a swing and a miss feeling. I didn’t have any idea she was lining up something like this.”
“You gave her every chance in the world,” Chip said harshly.
“Now wait a minute!”
“You’ve had your own special blueprint for togetherness. You dealt her out of about half your life, Pete.”
“Maybe you can remember I didn’t give the marriage a hell of a lot of thought,” Pete said sullenly.
“So you felt a little trapped, and you took it out on her. Another evasion of responsibility, Pete. Typical. So she took off.”
Pete smiled suddenly. “Okay. So she took off,” he said blithely. But the smile he wore was not a very good fit. It faded. “So who’s the clown who seduced my bride?”
“I know who he is,” Joan said.
They all stared at her. “What?” Chip said, astonished.
Joan told them about the phone call she had overheard. She spoke in a low, controlled voice, her face quite pale. She tried to explain why she had told no one, why she had made no determined attempt to talk to Sylvia.
“With Lawrenz?” Pete said insistently, incredulously. “She went away with that Lawrenz type? My God!”
Chip said in an odd voice, “Joan, is he the one I think he is? Describe him.”
“Oh, he’s a tall, husky animal. Dark-brown hair. One of those intricate hairdos. A big, wholesome, clean-cut smile, but …” And quite suddenly her voice trailed away as she realized what Chip was thinking. She looked at Pete and saw from his expression that he had realized it too.
“Oh, no!” Pete said softly, shaking his head. “Not Sylvia. No!”
“What’s going on?” Nancy asked plaintively. “What’s happening?”
Chip stood up suddenly. “They’re still working over there in the office. Phone me there if the hospital calls.” He walked out, his expression wooden.
Nancy looked at Joan, her eyes wide and round. “Do you mean that maybe, before they left …”
Joan looked at her with compassion. “I hope not, darling. It’s nasty enough as it is. I hope it isn’t that nasty. I hope it isn’t that … horrible. Where are you going, Pete?”
He turned in the doorway. “They’ll want the description of her car and the license number, I think.”
The handwriting expert was a stooped old man with an audible wheeze in his breathing, sunken eyes and an air of inexhaustible patience. It seemed to exasperate him to have Chip upset his orderly inspection of handwriting and take one of the personnel forms out of order. Myra took out Lawrenz’ form and placed it on the desk. The old man studied it with an oblong reading glass, examining the form and the vault card alternately.
“Umm. Seems to be it. No particular attempt to disguise it. Uh … characteristic ‘a.’ Same terminal loop. A blowup would make it positive. Guess this does it.” He seemed regretful that the careful search had ended.
“See if you can get hold of Lieutenant Sharry, Myra,” Chip ordered. “I’ll talk to him.”
Fifteen minutes after Chip had given Sergeant Gold the information over the phone about Glenn Lawrenz, Lieutenant Sharry arrived at the office. Chip gave him Sylvia’s note and explained what had happened. Sharry said men were already checking out the address on Lawrenz’ personnel form. He said that through a court order they had been able to open the box Lawrenz had rented. It was empty. They had raised two clear prints off the metal of the box. With only two prints and no other data, identification through central records was impossible, but now they would run the name through and see what came back from Washington. He said they had not yet located Brodey, but it began to look as though he would not be able to add anything when they did find him. The FBI would probably enter the case tomorrow. By now the description of the pair and of the two cars were on the teletype. They would not get far, he said. When he left he took with him a smiling photograph of Sylvia Drovek for duplication. No picture of Lawrenz was available. He explained apologetically that he could not guarantee to keep this latest development off the front pages. In fact, complete coverage in such cases often did a lot of good. People would come forward with information, once they realized it might be significant. He said he knew it was tough on the family, especially on the woman’s husband, but that’s the way it was. Chip said that if newspaper coverage helped, then by all means go ahead with it. Sharry said that the addition to the case of a female who looked like this and was a runaway wife, would, with the newspapers and wire services, be like throwing steak to the lions.
At ten o’clock Chip drove to the hospital with Leo, Joan, Pete and Nancy. Betty had to stay home with her children. Papa had been moved to his private room. The doctor had checked him and left. The nurse said they could come in one at a time and look at him for a few moments. She said he was beginning to have brief periods of semi-consciousness. She said the doctor was quite pleased.
Chip went in last. It was difficult to see the old man in the faint glow of the hooded light. His face was a patch of swarthiness in contrast to the white dressing that started just above his eyebrows. Chip stood a few feet from the bed and saw a sudden gleam as old eyes were opened.
“Charlie?” The voice was frail and vague.
“I’m right here, Papa.”
“Don’t tear house down, Charlie. Is better move it up on hill, I tink.”
“That’s a good idea, Papa. We’ll do that.”
“Is pooty good …” His voice faded and his eyes closed again.
“Nurse!”
She bent over him, turned and straightened up, smiling. “He’s just resting again,” she whispered. “That’s the first time he’s spoken.” She moved with him to the doorway. “Did what he said make any sense?”
“Yes. But it was about something that happened a long time ago.”
“He’s really doing very well.”
Chip walked toward the others who were waiting for him. He grinned at them. Tears were standing in his eyes. “That tough old son of a gun,” he said. “That wonderful old Polack. Let’s go home and have a drink.”
On the way home they listened to the eleven o’clock news on the car radio. After covering international and national news, the reporter said, “While Anton Drovek, prominent local businessman, hovers between life and death in Walterburg Memorial Hospital with extensive brain injuries received this morning in the daring robbery in the safety deposit vault of the Walterburg Bank and Trust Company, police are searching for Glenn Lawrenz, employed until today at one of the gas stations owned by the Drovek family corporation. It is believed that Lawrenz is accompanied by Sylvia Drovek, beautiful brunette model and wife of Peter Drovek, the youngest of Anton Drovek’s three sons. Sylvia Drovek fled from her home today leaving a note for her husband indicating that she was running away with Lawrenz. The couple is wanted for questioning in regard to the bludgeoning and robbery of Anton Drovek of three hundred thousand dollars in cash. Lawrenz is described as …”
Chip turned the radio off. “A big circus,” he said. “Raw meat for the public. The reporters will be leaning on us tomorrow. Nancy, you stay home from work tomorrow.”
“But, Dad, I can …”
“It’s an order, Nance. Stay with your mother. Keep people from pestering her and upsetting her.”
“Oh, okay.”
“I guess we all ought to lay low,” Joan said.
Pete said hesitantly, “Chipper, if Papa checks out okay in the morning, I mean he’s out of danger and all, maybe I could go off on a little trip.”
After a few seconds of silence Chip said in a perfectly level voice, “If the police don’t want you to stay around, I can’t imagine any of the rest of us caring particularly. I don’t think I care where you go or what you do or when I see you again. You’re dead weight, Pete.”
“That’s pretty rough,” Leo said.
“Why keep on pretending? I don’t see why, even in front of Nancy, I should keep up the Pete Drovek myth. If you’d had the faintest desire to keep Sylvia contented, maybe this thing wouldn’t have happened.”
“I don’t think that’s fair, Chip,” Joan said.
“Maybe it isn’t. I don’t much care. I’ve leaned over backward too long. I’m writing you off, Pete. You’re off the payroll right now. You can live well enough on your dividends. Get your personal stuff out of the house. I’m going to lease it to John Clear. You can make a career out of being a charming house guest for all your friends.”
The Crossroads Page 16