Dangerous Legacy

by George Harmon Coxe

  Lynn Kane went directly to him, the excitement still in her as she took his arm and turned to present Rankin. Then she began to talk, rapidly, the words tumbling out, and that gave Rankin a chance to study Pascual Sanchez.

  It was difficult here, with only table and floor lamps about and the living-room light at the man’s back, to assess Sanchez’s age, but Rankin put it in the late forties, a darkly complected man with a strong squarish face that looked heavy but not fat. His shoulders were bulky, his neck short, and in his white suit and black string tie there was an over-all thickness about him that seemed hard and fit rather than flabby. Unable from where he stood to see the eyes, Rankin took the drink Howard Austin had made for him and moved to one side.

  “That’s all I know,” Lynn was saying, “and Mr. Rankin will have to tell us the rest of it, but isn’t it wonderful, Packy?” She turned to Rankin. “And will he come here soon?”

  “Any day now,” Rankin said.

  Pascual Sanchez patted the girl’s shoulder and was appropriately surprised. In a low, somewhat hoarse voice that made up in vigor what it lacked in quality, he said it was almost too good to be true.

  “I’m happy for you, my dear,” he said. “I’ve heard of such things happening but—” He paused, eying Rankin closely but revealing no suspicion, and resumed his seat. “Yes, indeed. It’s grand news you’ve brought us, Mr. Rankin.”

  Oh, you liar! Rankin thought, and settled back, knowing he had to keep the bitterness from his voice and getting ready for the questions that were to come.

  Careful to make his voice right, he told a neatly edited story of his meeting with Ulio. He explained again how it happened that Ulio was listed as killed in action and repeated the details of the trip to the States as a casualty and the months spent in the hospital.

  “Then he does not know Lynn is alive?” Sanchez asked.

  “He told me she was dead.” Rankin explained about the bodies Ulio had found and the bracelet and Lynn said:

  “The Japs installed some White Russian women there. They wore my things. When I went there that day to see if anything was left the house was still smoldering and I didn’t even look inside.”

  “Ulio must have come along after that and took it for granted that one of the girls was you,” Howard Austin said.

  “You say he’s been out of the hospital a couple of months,” Sanchez said. “What’s he been doing? Why didn’t he come home?”

  Rankin had made up his mind about Pascual Sanchez. Heretofore the picture had never been quite clear, nor had he known quite what to expect. According to Ulio the man was a collaborator of the worst sort, yet clever enough to play for big stakes and cover his activities. Having survived three years of Jap occupation he was suddenly a power in the city; in addition he had so completely acted the role of friend and benefactor that there was apparently no question in Lynn Kane’s mind as to his character and honesty.

  There was, Rankin admitted, nothing evil in his appearance, no sinister overtones in his manner. He looked instead like any successful businessman and thinking back at the way he had received Lynn’s news, Rankin knew that this man was shrewd, intelligent, and nobody’s fool.

  Sanchez knew, for instance, that Ulio was alive and had known it for some time. He had not told Lynn. Whether he had discovered this through his own agents or through Ulio’s inquiries for credit, did not matter. It was enough that he knew, and Rankin was convinced not only that Sanchez had hired private detectives to report to him on Ulio’s movement but that he had very likely sent a guy named De Borja to help out. He might, in fact, know that Ulio was in town at this moment while he, Rankin, pretended that he wasn’t.

  “I’m not sure,” he said, deciding to play part of it straight and see what happened. “I think he was trying to get some machinery to work some mine the family had. A gold mine, I believe.”

  “Oh, but—” Lynn brushed her hair back and seemed about to answer Rankin. Then, addressing Sanchez, she said, “Then he doesn’t know that Dad sold you the mine.”

  “Apparently not.”

  “Couldn’t we phone him, Packy? Or send a cable—Do you know where we could reach him?” she asked Rankin.

  “He was staying at the Blake Hotel.” Rankin hesitated, tired of his lie and discouraged by the futility of what the girl wanted to do. “But I don’t think he’s there now,” be added. “He said something about staying with friends in Berkeley.”

  “But he’d leave a forwarding address,” Lynn said. She jumped up, her young face radiant in the lamplight. “Let’s try it anyway,” she said. “Give me a pencil, Howard.”

  A Chinese maid with skin like old parchment came to announce dinner. Sanchez rose. He had a habit, Rankin was to discover, of running his tongue around the inside of his mouth, a nervous mannerism that occurred when he was thinking and had nothing to do with cleaning his teeth. He did this now as he considered the girl’s request.

  “Suppose we eat first, Lynn. All we have to do is cable the Blake and ask for his address. I’ve got to go back to the office later. I can take care of it from there.”

  He spoke with an easy confidence, the girl accepting his solution instantly, but his eyes were on Rankin, giving the impression that the words were indirectly for his benefit, as though he said, “You and I know this is only a gag; but let’s humor her.”

  Then he was turning away, leading them down the length of the living-room to the dinner table at the far end which stood on a dais two steps above the main floor.

  Here the light was better and Rankin noted the thinning gray-black hair, the dark eyes, deep-set under thick brows—quick eyes that seemed always to be watching him whenever he glanced up. Howard Austin, on the other hand, gave most of his attention to Lynn Kane and for a little while Rankin forgot about Sanchez and watched covertly until Lynn smiled and said:

  “Oh, I almost forgot, Packy. Mr. Rankin wants a job flying. He was going to look you up anyway.”

  “Is that so?” Sanchez stuffed the end of a roll in his mouth. When he ground it down so he could talk again he said, “A lot of young men want to get into commercial aviation these days.” He took a moment to study Rankin openly, nodded. “But I’ll be glad to talk with you. Stop in at my office any time.”

  Rankin had trouble holding up his end of the conversation after that. He avoided looking at Sanchez—Packy, she calls him, he thought furiously—because his anger was beginning to smolder and he was afraid he’d lose his temper. Wanting very much to lean over and plant a hard one on the heavy nose and tell Lynn the truth, he concentrated on his food and waited for the meal to end.

  A telephone gave testimony to Sanchez’s importance by ringing somewhere in the house as they left the table; presently a Filipino youth with close-cropped bushy hair came and whispered something to his master.

  “Excuse me,” he said and went into a center room, one of three that opened from either side of the living-room.

  He did not bother to close the door and Rankin, passing it with the others, saw that the room was a book-lined study. He wanted to linger, to hear if possible what Sanchez was saying, but there was no chance for this so he had to continue with Lynn and Austin. As they reached the porch Sanchez reappeared.

  “I’ve got to run,” he said and ran his tongue around the inside of his mouth.

  Lynn said not to forget the cable and he said he wouldn’t. He waved to Austin and looked right at Rankin before he went down the steps, the smile still there and something Rankin had not seen before gleaming in his eyes, not shrewdness nor guile this time but something like mockery.

  Howard Austin said he had to make a phone call and when he came out of the study he said, “I’ve got to buzz off too. I have a client coming in at eight thirty. You’re not planning to go out, are you?” he said to Lynn.

  “No.”

  “Good.” Austin smiled. He had nice teeth. He seemed to have more of them than anyone else, though this was only an illusion, due probably to some quirk of facial struc
ture so that he seemed always to show them however he opened his mouth. “Because,” he said, “I’ve made a date for us at ten.”

  “Oh?” Lynn brightened. “Where?”

  “It’s a surprise.”

  “But can’t you—”

  “Nope.” He shook his head, teeth still prominent. “You’ll see when the time comes. Will you be ready around a quarter of?”

  “But”—she hesitated—“what about Mr. Rankin?”

  “He can come too.” Austin turned the smile on Rankin. “I think he might enjoy it.”

  She walked to the steps with him and stood until his car started. When she came back she told Rankin to sit down. He chose the divan and watched while she brought ash trays and a cigarette box to the coffee table in front of him.

  He was still impressed and tried to estimate her age from things Ulio had said. About twenty-four, he thought, and taller than most, though not as tall as Claire, not slim or boyish but slenderly rounded, with a way of carrying herself that in some might have indicated haughtiness. Her legs, brown and bare, were straight and exciting and everything she did seemed natural, which made it all the harder to understand this thing that had happened to her.

  When she sat down after offering him a cigarette, he wanted immediately to come to the point and tell her just the sort of man Sanchez was. But before he could even think of a proper approach she began to talk about Ulio.

  Leaning back, relaxed and content, she spoke of the last time she had seen him. She wanted to know how he looked and was he well. Presently her tone grew reminiscent and she recalled some things he had done in college and had written her about.

  “He spoke often of you,” she said, “and I never could quite understand how you could have been such friends. I mean, you seemed to have so little in common. Ulio was so small and frail and you were, well—” She groped for a word and Rankin said:

  “Such a bruiser.”

  “Hardly that,” she laughed. “But I mean you’re the kind who could always take care of himself…. And wasn’t there another boy? Weren’t there three of you?”

  “Neal Osborne,” Rankin said, his thoughts a long way off. “A big blond. Six foot three and weighed two ten. He was aboard a destroyer that went down off Leyte.” He hesitated, erasing the thought by thinking of earlier years.

  “He played tackle and I was at half and Ulio—” He chuckled. “Ulio weighed a hundred and thirty with a rock in each hand and he went out for football. I guess that’s how it started. He knew he’d never make the team but he was in there battling every chance he got and he was so little. I don’t know, we just sort of got to like each other as freshmen and it stayed that way.”

  He glanced at her and she was quiet, her head still back, the sweet smooth line of her throat softly burnished by the shaded lamp beyond. Then, with the longing to touch her growing inside him, he thought again of Pascual Sanchez and his heart sank.

  He knew there must be some explanation for her apparent regard for the man and now it seemed important that he understand this, that he show her quickly how wrong she was. It was not enough that Ulio tell her the truth tomorrow; it was something she should know now. For until she did there would be somehow this barrier that stymied him, preventing his meeting her with a naturalness that matched her own. Aware that he could make no direct attack, he approached the matter obliquely by asking if Sanchez was an old friend of the family.

  “You were in the States the summer I was here with Ulio,” he said.

  “With Mother.”

  “And I was trying to remember whether I’d met him before.”

  “Probably not,” she said. “As a matter of fact he wasn’t a friend then. I hardly knew him until he got me out of Santo Tomas and took care of me here until after the city was liberated. No, it was Father’s doing.”

  “Oh?”

  “It was more like a business proposition. I know it sounds odd but it was that way, really. Father paid him in a way. You see, in the last six months there wasn’t much food. It wasn’t the Japs’ fault particularly; they didn’t have much themselves. It was pretty horrible and Father knew he couldn’t get out, being a man and so well-known, but he worried about me. I didn’t know what he planned to do actually until it happened.” She glanced up, smiling, her small teeth bright against the red mouth. “I was smuggled out as a corpse,” she said.

  Rankin had to smile back and it was a hard thing to do because he was so twisted up inside from liking this girl and so baffled by her attitude. He told her what Ulio had said about his father selling the automobile agency to Sanchez for money to be paid to the guerrillas and she bobbed her head.

  “Yes. Father was like that. He felt it was his country now and if there was any way he could help he wanted to. That was the only way he could do it.”

  “Was that why he sold the mine?”

  “For that and the chance Packy took in smuggling me out of Santo Tomas.”

  A glimmer of understanding fought its way into the disturbed recesses of Rankin’s brain. Watching him now, seeing perhaps in his face some of the things he was thinking, she said:

  “You could hardly expect him to risk his life for what few pesos Father might be able to give him. He wanted the mine and Father wanted to get me out of Santo Tomas. Packy was to give fifty thousand pesos to the guerrillas—and he did because I’ve seen the receipt—and get me out of internment and guarantee my safety until Manila was free.”

  “Did your father tell you this?”

  She shook her head, her smile polite now rather than friendly. “He didn’t have to,” she said. “I saw the bill of sale and I think I know my father’s signature.”

  He found no answer to this and tried again. “Where would Sanchez get the money? He paid out fifty thousand pesos for the automobile agency and fifty thousand more later—with the country occupied and only Mickey-Mouse money around.”

  “I never asked him,” she said with some exasperation. “Perhaps he had buried it before. Many people did, you know.” She leaned forward to get another cigarette and let him light it. “But why are we arguing about that? Does it concern you so much?”

  Rankin knew what he should do. Common sense told him to make some crack, to laugh it off and let Ulio take over when he got the chance. But something he could not understand kept him stubbornly insistent on convincing her now.

  “It concerned Ulio,” he said evenly. “Not about you because he thought you were dead. But it must have occurred even to you that a man with that money and influence during wartime must have collaborated.”

  He knew from her quick hostile glance that he was now in up to his neck but he was not ready for her icy answer.

  “Certainly he collaborated,” she said. “Someone always has to work with the enemy if the people are to exist. Many who collaborated had more courage and patriotism than those who did nothing. The point is he helped his own side more. The fact that he is alive now should prove it. If he had worked only for the Japs the Filipinos would have shot him long ago.”

  “Not if he was clever.”

  “Oh!” The words were like an expletive and she mashed her half-smoked cigarette in the ash tray. “Let’s skip it.”

  “Okay. But Ulio knew about Sanchez and the mine. He doesn’t think his father sold it. He thinks the bill of sale is a phony and he’s going to try to prove it.”

  He glanced at his watch and realized it was time to go. He stood up, his resentment in hand, wondering why it was that he must always be so damned frank and direct about things that were important to him. What he had needed tonight was finesse—and that was a laugh, Spence Rankin having finesse—and charm and the light touch, even if it was phony. Yet even now he had no feeling for such things and was able only to utter what sounded like a small chuckle, to pretend that what he said was of no importance.

  “Sometimes I talk too much,” he said. “But you asked me why I was arguing and I might as well tell you. I was trying to understand how Ulio’s sister could be
taken in by anyone like Sanchez. Now I think I do.”

  He started for the steps, stopped to face her, looking very lean and straight in his well-cut tan suit, a fixed smile on his lips and none at all in his steady blue eyes.

  “It’s really very simple. You think he’s a great guy. I think he’s a rat and so does Ulio. Good night, Lynn,” he said. “And thanks for the dinner. I’ll try to do better next time.”

  She stood up but did not go to the steps with him. As he started down them she watched him, her head high, her face unsmiling and aloof.

  6

  NOT UNTIL HE WAS HALFWAY down the driveway did Spence Rankin realize that he had no transportation. By that time he was too proud to go back and telephone so he walked on, a perverse anger growing in him as he turned down the boulevard, then slowly dissipating into a feeling of hopelessness and defeat as he loped along in the darkness.

  He could not get the picture of the girl from his mind nor forget her first friendly acceptance of him. She had liked him and he had loused it up by his obtuse persistence, and he muttered inward imprecations until he turned into the Kane driveway at nine twenty-eight.

  It was a relief to think now of the immediate moment and when he saw no light from the house in back he moved quietly along the grassy strip beside the drive, identifying the yawning door of the garage and finally the outside stairs. Hesitating here, he saw a shadow stir. A voice called to him.

  “Spence?”

  He answered softly and said, “What’s the pitch?” as Ulio emerged from the darkness.

  “I’m meeting Sanchez here. Come, we haven’t much time,” he said and led the way up the stairs.

  “I just left his place,” Rankin said when the oil lamp was lit. “I had dinner with him. Do you know your sister is alive?”

  “I have thanked God for it many times since this afternoon. I have learned also that Marie Dizon, my fiancée, is all right too.”

  “Learned?” Rankin peered at him. “Haven’t you seen her?”

  Ulio shook his head miserably. “I have been half crazy, Spence, knowing these two who mean so much to me are right here in town and having to postpone our meeting. I had these things that had to be done, and I learned that Lynn is staying with Sanchez—”