Dangerous Legacy

by George Harmon Coxe

  “Got it from a friend of mine,” Charlie said. “Went back to the States and we made a deal and I fixed her up so she runs pretty good now. Where to?”

  Rankin said he wasn’t sure of the address but he knew the street. Charlie Love said whatever it was Rankin wanted they’d find and started off with a jerk and a twist of the wheel.

  They had no difficulty locating the building where Marie Dizon had entered and as he crossed the walk Rankin found that the entrance gave on an arcadelike arrangement of shops that occupied the ground floor. The stairs were halfway back and the signs there told him that Howard Austin, Attorney, had an office on the third floor.

  It was a large corner room and looked discouragingly bare with its two desks, three chairs, and one filing-cabinet. Marie Dizon was working on a typewriter on the smaller desk and Austin got up from behind the other one.

  “Hello,” he said and summoned his toothy smile. He moved the extra chair a little closer to the desk and read Rankin’s mind accurately. “Not much like in the States, is it? But I’m lucky to have a sound floor under me and a decent roof. Sit down.”

  Rankin put his hands on the chair back and glanced at Marie Dizon. “Do you know about Ulio’s will?”

  “Marie told me,” Austin said.

  “You haven’t seen Lynn Kane in the past hour, have you? We had a little talk,” he added. “You want another client?”

  “You?”

  “Me.”

  “I think I do. Would you like to talk it over?”

  Rankin nodded and signaled silently toward the girl. Austin knew what he meant. He asked Marie if she had a little shopping she wanted to do.

  The girl’s head came up and her elongated eyes examined Rankin impassively and moved on to Austin. She pushed back her chair, took a bright straw bag from a drawer, and stood up. She did not say anything and as Rankin watched her leave the room it occurred to him that she hardly ever said anything.

  He sat down and showed Austin the will but not the note. He told him how Ulio had given him the envelope and why. “Ulio figured Sanchez’s bill of sale was a phony, and that’s good enough for me. I don’t think Sanchez owns that mine and—”

  “Neither do I.”

  “—I’m going to try to prove it,” Rankin said, and then Austin’s reply registered. His eyes came up, speculating. “What was that?”

  “I said I didn’t think Sanchez owned the mine either.”

  “Why?”

  Austin inspected his nails on one hand and considered the question. “I don’t know, frankly. But I knew John Kane and I don’t think he’d sell that mine, not until everything else was gone.”

  “Lynn thinks so.”

  “I found that out,” Austin said dryly. “Oh, there’s no question about how she got out of Santo Tomas. That’s where I really got to know her of course, and Sanchez did get her out about six months before the First Cavalry got there. He has a couple of cellar rooms in that house the Japs didn’t know about and she was pretty comfortable there. For a so-called patriot,” he added morosely, “Pascual Sanchez had a lot of influence during those three years of occupation.”

  He sighed and said, “Anyway, he took good care of her and she’s grateful for it. They say nobody is all black and maybe Lynn makes the white in Sanchez. Maybe he has a real affection for her, maybe he’s playing a game—though if he is I don’t know what it could be—but he’s done a damn fine job of it. She’s sold on him completely and she won’t listen when you try to tell her differently.”

  “I guess you tried.”

  “Once. I told her I didn’t think her father would sell the mine. I told her that the whole thing smelled and I didn’t even believe that Sanchez paid over that fifty thousand pesos to any guerrillas in addition to getting her out.” He made a gesture of annoyance. “He’s got a receipt but the leader who signed it is dead and he never had to produce any witnesses. I might as well have saved my breath,” he said stonily. “She froze up. She said she had no interest in the mine; she’d seen her father’s signature on the deed and it was genuine and that was good enough for her. Besides, Sanchez would never stoop to such a thing.”

  He stood up and moved to the window, big and blond, his hands clasped behind him and distance in his bespectacled gray-blue eyes.

  “After that,” he said, “I let it alone. It wasn’t my business anyway—except it made me sore to see her staying there and thinking he was such a great guy—but when you’re in love with a girl you get to recognize certain stop signs and that one had a red light on it.”

  Rankin dwelt a moment on the inference Austin made to love and it cooled him off like a soggy blanket. He took time to think about the big man and the way he had acted toward Lynn. He remembered how she had run to him in Jerry Walsh’s office, her easy acceptance of his little familiarities and he knew that these two had known each other a long time and seemed well satisfied with the arrangement. A current of jealousy twisted through his thoughts, widening its channel.

  He said, “How do you two stand?” and the words sounded stilted and foreign. He laughed to show he was only kidding—though he wasn’t—and tried to keep it light. “Are your intentions honorable?”

  Austin found no humor in the question. He showed his teeth and said, “I’m going to marry her if she’ll have me—if that’s what you mean. And I think she will.”

  Boom! Rankin thought. Like that.

  “How’s she going to like your working for me?” he said.

  “She won’t probably.” Austin sat down again and removed his glasses. “She doesn’t have to know until we’re ready to act and after that”—he shrugged—“it’s a chance I’ll have to take. If together we can chase Sanchez out into the open it will be worth it. Once we can show her just what he is and what he’s done, I’ll be better off than I am now.”

  “Okay,” Rankin said and was satisfied. “I wanted to get it straight. With me in the picture I’m cutting down your potential dowry about fifty percent. I thought you might resent it.”

  This time Austin grinned as he polished his glasses. “Sure I resent it,” he said. “Or I would if it wasn’t for the mine. I’d rather have fifty percent of that than the rest of the stuff put together.”

  Rankin digested this while he offered cigarettes and a light. He rumpled his hair and wrinkles dug in around his eyes when he realized that he and Ulio had done a lot of talking about a mine, about which he knew very little. A ripple of excitement uncoiled within him as his mind probed ahead and conjured up new possibilities. He asked what else made up John Kane’s estate.

  “There was some copra land in Mindanao,” Austin said. “Lynn decided to sell this and on my advice formed a sort of holding company as a depositary. There’s sixty thousand pesos in that account now. Also there’s a coconut oil plant near Zamboanga and that should be in operation shortly. It might be worth two hundred thousand pesos though I wouldn’t sell if it were mine. Then there were two apartment buildings worth maybe a quarter of a million.”

  “Dollars?”

  “Pesos. Only that’s a reparation matter and I don’t know when it will be settled.”

  “That leaves the mine,” Rankin said. “Tell me about it.”

  Howard Austin stretched his long legs and planted his heels on the desk top. “In the Baguio district,” he said. “Ever been up that way? Well, they started opening that in 1905 and since then some of the world’s richest lodes have been discovered there. Just before the war the district produced around fifty million in gold alone. Dollars, mind you, and not counting copper and chromite. In 1940 the Benguet Consolidated Mining Company dug out seventy-five million pesos worth and at Balatoc the bar lode assayed seven hundred and fifty thousand pesos per ton.”

  “Brother,” said Rankin.

  “Yeah.” Austin tucked the cigarette in the corner of his mouth and clasped his hands behind his neck, no longer looking at Rankin. “I don’t say the Kane mine will do any such thing, but if it did one tenth as well it would be
worth plenty. They didn’t start operating until ’41, and John Kane was pretty hush-hush about what the stuff assayed and that alone suggests that he had a bonanza. Also it’s not too far from the Balatoc holdings and young Julian Kane, Ulio’s brother, was a pretty capable mining man and old John was nobody’s fool. If it was good enough for him to buy and sink all that dough into developing it—well, what the hell.”

  He removed the cigarette and flipped it out of the window. “If Sanchez wanted it bad enough to take the chances he has, it’s plenty good enough for me. He knew what he was doing. He figured everybody was dead but Lynn and he had her where he wanted her. He could be her fairy godfather and with her in his vest pocket who was going to say his story and the bill of sale were phony?”

  Rankin sat quietly, his lids half-closed, absorbed by some nuance in Austin’s manner that made him wonder if there wasn’t something else that had not yet been disclosed. Following the feeble beam of his mental antenna, he said:

  “Ulio thought he could prove that claim was a phony. Can you?”

  Austin waited, not moving, for three or four seconds. He swung his feet down. He slid his forearms across the desk and leaned over them; then he smiled, his eyes wise.

  “I think I can.”

  “How?”

  Austin shook his head with deliberate slowness. “I’d rather not say—until we’re ready to go to bat. Have you got, or can you get, anything with John Kane’s signature on it?”

  Rankin said yes, remembering the metal box in the Kane garage.

  “Good,” Austin said. “With Ulio’s will you can demand the right to look over the bill of sale Sanchez has. When you get that far I’ll move in with you.”

  “Okay,” Rankin said. He stood up and shook hands. He said he was glad Austin would work with him and turned to leave and then he thought of something else and stopped. “Did you ever hear any rumors that John Kane might be alive?”

  “No,” said Austin, taking it casually. “And neither did anyone else. If John Kane was alive he’d be right here raising hell with Sanchez.”

  “Would he?” Rankin kicked the leg of the chair gently and let his words sink in. “Sanchez killed Ulio. He could do the same—or have it done—to someone else, couldn’t he?”

  “Easily.”

  “Would he lose any sleep over it?”

  “No,” Austin said, no longer casual. “What’re you getting at?”

  “Sanchez is riding high. He’s got power and influence and a lot of John Kane’s friends are dead. Who’d carry the most weight as of today, Kane or Sanchez?”

  “Well—if you put it that way—”

  “I’m putting it that way. Sanchez, and you know it. So what if Kane was sick and maybe hiding in the hills because he knew the moment he stuck his nose in town somebody’d put a couple of slugs in him.”

  The sounds of the city drifted up from the street and filtered through the windows, the imperious warning of a low-pitched automobile horn rising above the traffic noises. Down the block a pneumatic hammer chattered away and overhead a transport droned by and was gone. It all seemed very clear and distinct to Rankin as he waited for the big man’s answer, seeing his mouth close and the slow narrowing of the naturally serious eyes.

  “Has anyone said he’s alive?” he asked finally.

  “No,” Rankin said. “It was just a thought. You get wondering about things sometimes and I wanted to ask. So long,” he said and went over to the door. When he glanced back Howard Austin was still standing there and from the way he looked he did not hear Rankin go out.

  10

  THEY BURIED ULIO KANE the next morning and Charlie Love came to stand with Spence Rankin who would otherwise have stood alone. Apparently the word had gotten around, for there were more at the cemetery than Rankin had expected and there was no common denominator by which to class them. Some were richly dressed and others wore what they had but all were clean and most of them were Filipinos.

  Lynn Kane came with Pascual Sanchez and Howard Austin. They did not see him, for he stood well back on the fringe of the gathering and left quickly. But Marie Dizon, pale and fragile-looking in black, passed close to him and he saw that there were others to care for her and was grateful.

  Afterward he had lunch alone and when he came back to the car he asked Charlie Love if he knew where Pascual had his offices. Charlie said sure and they started off, stopping a few minutes later in front of a five-story structure, one of the better preserved office buildings, which stood not far from Jerry Walsh’s American Press office. As he started to get out, Charlie turned on the front seat and cleared his throat.

  “I wouldn’t fool with Sanchez much, Mr. Rankin,” he said. “I don’t know your business and it ain’t none of mine but—” He finished weakly and looked embarrassed.

  “Okay, Charlie,” Rankin said. “And thanks for the tip. But you see, Ulio Kane was a friend of mine and he isn’t around any more and so I’ve got to step up and take his place. If I’m lucky maybe I can finish what he started.”

  Charlie felt his skinny neck. He pinched the leathery skin there and pulled a loose fold out and massaged it gently between thumb and forefinger.

  “Do you think Sanchez knows something about how Mr. Kane got killed?” He watched Rankin nod, considered things a moment, and shoved over on the seat. “Maybe I ought to go up with you,” he said softly.

  Rankin put his hand on Charlie’s shoulder and held him on the seat and all of a sudden he felt fine. His grin came from inside where the other’s simple offer had hit him. It moved him strangely and he was grateful.

  “Not this time, Charlie,” he said. “But I won’t forget it.”

  The office building had an elevator and Sanchez’s rooms were on the fourth floor. There was a door here with a frosted glass panel and on it were listed the names of five companies, all apparently owned by Sanchez. Rankin did not read the list but stepped inside and found himself in an outer office that, save for the bare floor, might have been at home.

  The wicker chairs and tables had a cheerful look. The two desks were yellow oak and newly-varnished, and behind one, a small inter-office communicator at her elbow, sat a mascaraed blonde with a Chinese-red mouth. She stopped chewing gum long enough to listen to Rankin, and when she spoke into the voice-box he examined the room’s other occupant.

  He sat in the corner, a newspaper in front of his face. The paper did not move as Rankin inspected it and all he could see was the top of a Panama hat, off-white cotton trousers, and shoes that were open-spaced and thatched like the chairs. He was still waiting for the paper to move when the blonde said he could go in.

  The inner office was even better. There was no rug but the mahogany floor held a bright finish and the chairs were upholstered in red leather and the desk was massive and ornately carved. There was a water-cooler in one corner, a leather divan, and two doors in the far wall, one of which seemed to be closing as Rankin entered.

  “Well, Rankin,” Sanchez said from behind the desk. He leaned against the leather-backed chair that was higher than his head and folded his hands across his belly. “Still think I killed Ulio Kane?”

  “I know you did.”

  Rankin put his fists on his hips and examined his surroundings. He made up his mind not to overplay this one. He tucked in one small corner of his mind the hate and rancor the man aroused and put on his breezy manner like he used to do when things were tough and he didn’t want to show how he’d been hit.

  “You sent De Borja to the States after Ulio and hired a private dick called Estes to hound him. You had a guy waiting ahead of time in Ulio’s bedroom the other night to make sure you got him and to make a nice spot for me. The trouble is I can’t prove it.” He shrugged. “But that’s not why I came.”

  “Oh?” Sanchez ran his tongue around the inside of his mouth and his thick brows tilted.

  “No,” Rankin said, as though it was of no importance. “I just wanted to tell you I won’t need that flying job. I’ve got a small i
nheritance now.”

  “Lynn told me. She’s very upset.”

  “She thinks you own the Kane mine. I don’t.” He hesitated, trying to read the droop-lidded dark eyes and getting nowhere. “And now that I’ve got something to say about it, I’ll want to see that bill of sale—my lawyer and I. I’ll want to see the one that says you bought the Kane Auto agency too. I’m not so sure about that either.”

  Pascual Sanchez moved one hand on the desk and his smile was only a reflex. “Certainly,” he said. “Whenever you’re ready.”

  “I’ll let you know.”

  “You’ll bring a copy of the will of course.”

  “You know I will. When I’m ready. Meanwhile,” he said as he stopped at the door, “give my love to Lynn.”

  He saw the flush creep into the other’s hard-jawed face and felt the fixed and smoldering gaze upon him. Then, as he turned away, Sanchez said:

  “You know, Rankin, that could be a very dangerous legacy.”

  Rankin stopped at the door. “Dangerous for whom?” he said, and went out, none too pleased with his remarks, which sounded slightly sophomoric as he remembered them, but knowing he had gotten under the man’s skin.

  In the anteroom the blonde looked bored and the fellow with the thatched shoes was still hiding behind his newspaper. On impulse, not slowing down but merely swerving, Rankin walked up and looked over the newspaper. Under the Panama hat was a brown wedge-shaped face he had never seen before, and he openly studied the crooked nose and mean little eyes.

  “Just so I’ll know you next time,” he said, and went away.

  Charlie Love was nowhere in sight when Rankin reached the street, and neither was the bullet-scarred car, so he waited in the shade of the entrance and smoked cigarettes for forty minutes before he gave up and walked over to the building where Jerry Walsh had his office.

  Jerry wasn’t in; neither was Lynn Kane. Rankin went downstairs, the frustration growing in him and his opinion of Charlie Love highly uncomplimentary. It was then four thirty and more for something to do than anything else, he got a carromata and directed the driver to the address Claire Maynard had given him.