The Ace of Spades - Dell Shannon

by Dell Shannon

  "And wouldn't they," agreed Hackett. "But what in God's name could a burglar do with a thing like that? I mean, it'd be like stealing the Mona Lisa or— "

  "And I hear even that's been done once. Yes, of course, that was the first thing in the insurance company's collective mind. Nobody could sell such a thing to a fence. There are, I understand, about seven hundred-odd coins altogether, and separately they'd be worth something but not nearly so much as in a collection. And also, a thing like that, there's what you might call a pedigree attached, you know— anybody who'd be interested in buying it would want to be assured that it is the Lexourion collection. Well, the same thing leaped into my mind as the insurance company thought of, both of us having some experience of human nature— "

  "Fraud," said Hackett. "But Lexourion didn't know, if he died of the shock."

  "Ransom," said Mendoza. "Steal it and sell it back to the original owner. And the owner just might try— being understandably annoyed at having to pay for his own property— to figure out a way to hang onto some of the insurance money. Sure, a little awkward, but I suppose even today you'd have a few private collectors who might buy the thing secretly, if they were assured of the pedigree, and very possibly— if it was smuggled out of the country— the insurance company'd find it hard to follow the transaction or do anything about it. Now!" He regarded with pleasure the coffee Sergeant Lake had just brought in, and drank some. "This may be years getting settled legally— not our business— probate and so on. Lexourion died intestate, and therefore his legal next of kin comes in for whatever he had to leave. And who, Mr. Bones, do you suppose is his legal next of kin? One Madame Lydia Bouvardier, his only child. Lydia Bouvardier. Such a romantic— sounding name, isn't it?"

  "And isn't that nice to know," said Hackett. "But what's it got to do with Stevan Domokous dead of heroin in a Carson Street alley?"

  "Tengo paciencia, allá veremos— with time all will be clear. I hope. A little something I've tied up, at least. Driscoll, damn him, delayed us on this thing nearly a week— longer— he should have come in and laid the facts on the line the minute he landed here, and I'd take a small bet Goldberg will want his hide nailed to the door of his office for keeping it secret. Though you can also say the director of the museum was lax but I'd take another little bet that Driscoll let him think he was in touch with the police, so the director didn't do anything about it himself. These glory boys, out to play to the grandstand . . . About three weeks after the collection was stolen— in fact, Arturo, on the same Sunday afternoon that Alison attended that exhibition at the County Museum— the museum director had a very odd and mysterious visitor. About this I'd like to know more than Driscoll passed on secondhand, but I expect Lieutenant Goldberg will be even more passionately interested, and do the direct investigating. Now my curiosity's beginning to be satisfied, I'm rather liking this case, you know— it encroaches on other peoples' jobs, and they're doing so much of the work .... This visitor asked the director if he'd be interested in buying a collection of Greek coins, and even hinted at the Lexourion collection. The price mentioned was fifteen thousand dollars, which— not surprisingly— struck the director as a little suspicious, considering that if it was the Lexourion stuff, that was insured for two hundred thousand. By the sample the visitor produced to show him, he said, it might have been the Lexourion stuff. Naturally, since the museum had been interested, he was tolerably familiar with it. And from what he said to Driscoll, gather that the visitor didn't seem exactly the type to go in for collecting ancient Greek coins, and the director instantly put two and two together and wondered if he was, so to speak, being offered hot goods."

  "A sample," said Hackett. He got out the little box and looked at the silver stater O'Brien said was twenty·three hundred years old. The thunderbolt of Zeus . . . "Could be, just possibly, this little thing?"

  "Could be, very possibly," said Mendoza in dreamy satisfaction. "I can't say why he might have hopped Alison's car. Ridiculous sort of thing to do— but there it is. I think he did. After he left the director. The director thought it over, and then he made a little mistake. Instead of calling us, he called the insurance company. I deduce he was thinking of avoiding publicity. Handle the thing nice and quiet, just in case he was wrong and the visitor was a bona fide collector. Anyway, the insurance people shot Driscoll out pronto, of course— because why? Because Lexourion's daughter had come over from Paris— legal business, I suppose there's miles of red tape to untangle about the estate even though he wasn't a citizen— and this looked as if the thief was maybe getting bids on the collection."

  "Now wait a minute," said Hackett. "You're not telling me that anybody— even the dumbest pro in business— would think he could sell it under the counter to the County Museum?"

  "Just look back over your career, chico. Only nine years you've been in, compared to my seventeen, but you've met them— you know them. One of the reasons the paperback detective thrillers are so damn fantastic, to anybody who's had a little contact with the real thing. How often have you said to yourself, Nobody can be that stupid! Nobody but a pro— never mind what lay he's on, never mind whether he's a juvenile just starting out hopping shorts, swiping little stuff oif dime store counters, or a very much ex-con just out from a twenty-year stretch for armed robbery and assault. They don't come any dumber, when it comes to— mmh— both the ordinary sort of knowledge almost anybody in any crowd has, or what you might call the nuances of ordinary human give-and-take. One of the reasons they're pros, Art— you know as well as I do— they haven't got even the rudimentary empathy, the little imagination about other people, that most people have .... The simplest things, the smallest things, they just don't know."

  "That's so, God knows. But you'd think anybody— still, of course, that is so."

  "Most of the reason we're kept busy," said Mendoza. "Well, as I say, Driscoll's sent out but quick to look into this. It would be Driscoll, of course. Water under the bridge— let it go— we know now, anyway. Driscoll pokes around, asking questions of the director, of our Lydia, and he reads what the papers had to say at the time about the robbery— damn fool way to investigate, half the time they get details wrong or some officious editor cuts out the relevant facts— and he comes to some conclusions. Your guess is as good as mine as to whether the conclusions were born of whiskey or solid deduction. One of his methods seems to be trying to make any female involved in a case, possibly on the theory that women always speak the truth in bed— which, de paso, graphically illustrates his appalling lack of experience?

  "And what conclusions did he come to?"

  "He thinks that our Lydia is up to something. I agree. She is," said Mendoza, "a widow. A romantic, young, beautiful widow. Her late husband was upwards of sixty when she married him, and an extremely wealthy man— land-rich and munitions-rich— and she was a tender innocent young thing of seventeen. I don't think. A young lady with her head screwed on very tight— take the cash and let the romance go.

  Very sensible, ¿no es verdad?"

  "Oh, absolutamente," said Hackett with a grin.

  "He also thinks— and again I agree— that Mr. Andreas Skyros is not merely a social acquaintance of our Lydia. He doesn't know whether or not she's been approached about buying back the collection, but he thinks she will be if she hasn't been, and that she would probably be willing to dicker about the— mmh— ransom. One thing that emerges, by the information he has from his company, is that our Lydia disapproved of the intention to sell the collection in the United States, would prefer to see it, say, in the Louvre or somewhere like that, if they'd be interested. At any rate, Driscoll says, and quite reasonably too, that if Mr. Skyros was a purely social acquaintance— maybe someone she had a letter of introduction to— she'd be going to his house, entertained by his wife, whereas it looks rather like a business relationship."

  "So it does. Where do you figure Skyros comes in? And still all this doesn't say any one thing about Domokous."

  "I don't know," said
Mendoza. "It's easy to build up stories about it— as Mr. Skyros would say, isn't it? I'm hoping Goldberg can add a few details to pin down which of the stories might be the right one."

  * * *

  Lieutenant Saul Goldberg sneezed, groped blindly for more Kleenex in his breast pocket, and said thickly through it, "Id's the whiskey, I'b allergic to id."

  "Then why drink it'?"

  "What, turn down a free drink?" Goldberg, his sinus passages temporarily clear, sat back in the booth and sipped cautiously. "I'm allergic to so damn many things," he said gloomily, "that I've just given up doing anything about it. Life's too short, and the allergy specialist too free with my money. Everything in the house non-allergenic, yet— I'm surprised they don't tell me to get rid of my wife and kids as well as feather pillows and all the rugs. Have all the more money to hand them. And I've still got the allergies, so I say the hell with it, I just buy Kleenex. And besides the cat found her way home, and we hadn't the heart to give her away again after that. You want a kitten, by the way, Mendoza? She seems to've stopped somewhere on the way. Four cute little gray and white fellows, one black."

  "Coals to Newcastle, I think I'm going to have some of my own .... So it doesn't show yet, very funny, now forget your sinuses and tell me what you know about that job at Shanrahan and MacReady's, where that collection of Greek coins was part of the loot."

  "Hey, you got something on that?" asked Goldberg, looking interested.

  "Maybe. You tell me what you know first .... Damn it, Shanrahan mentioned it too, but how was I to know?"

  "You're welcome to what I've got. Sometimes you got to sit on these things awhile— that's what I'm doing now. That was a damn funny job, in some ways— "

  "Stop a minute. One little thing that struck me funny: what was a collection of Greek coins doing in the safe of a fashionable jeweler?" Goldberg grinned. "That's one of the funny things. And ordinarily I've got no sympathy for pro burglars, but you know, I did kind of feel for the guy who pulled the job— it must've been quite a little shock, not to say disappointment, when he found out what he'd got away with. I'll tell you how it happened. This Greek, Lexourion, who owned the stuff— "

  "Yes, I know about him."

  "He'd just landed here. He'd never been here before, it was on account of the possible deal with the County Museum he came, but it like any of these hobbies— you know— there're specialty magazines, clubs, societies, and so on— and he did know somebody here: MacReady. MacReady is an amateur numismatist too. It seems they'd been corresponding, all enthusiastic and friendly, for some time, and so MacReady was all set to entertain the old boy when he got here, and of course to see his famous collection. Well, Lexourion got in by plane one afternoon, MacReady met him, and they go straight up to MacReady's house and spend a couple of hours looking at the collection. You know how these fanatic hobbyists are. And after awhile, when they're thinking about going out for dinner, all of a sudden Lexourion realizes it's too late to stash the stuff away in a bank vault as he'd meant to do, pending his interview at the County Museum. So MacReady, naturally, says there's no trouble about that, they'll just put it it away safe in the store vault for the night— good as a bank any time, burglar alarm and so on."

  Mendoza sat back and laughed. "I see— I see. How very embarrassed Mr. MacReady must have been."

  "That's an understatement," said Goldberg. "Especially when the poor old fellow dropped dead, hearing about it. Because of course that was the very night somebody picked to knock over Shanrahan and MacReady. It was a pro job, kind of routine. I wouldn't say it was a really slick job, but it was pro all right. And I'm pretty sure just one man. He came in through the skylight in the back room, and of course he had to be damn quick. These burglar alarm systems," and Goldberg looked rueful, "they're just dandy if you've got old-fashioned cops walking a beat, and in a place where the precinct station isn't ten miles away. He had about ten-twelve minutes after he tripped the alarm, and that he knew, and he used it. He set a charge of Dinah on the safe door and blew her, and he scooped up what was on top, probably all he could carry, and got clean away before the patrol car got there. Didn't leave any prints, of course. It was a neat enough little job. And when I think how he must have felt, when he got home with the loot and looked it over— " Goldberg laughed. "That's the reason I say one man; what was gone would just about make a one-man load, say in a ditty bag or something like that. This collection was on top of everything else in the safe, naturally, and I guess it must have looked impressive to him, way it was described to me. It was in an even dozen big square leather— covered boxes, each one about the size of a desk tray only thicker, because there are three tiers in each one, trays, you know. The trays are covered with velvet and have indented beds for each coin. And there was a manila folder in the lid of the top box with a complete list and description of every coin in the collection. You know, I'd love to've seen his face when he opened that first box and saw a lot of dirty old foreign coins instead of a handful of sparklers."

  "Crime doesn't pay," agreed Mendoza amusedly. "Did he get much else?"

  "About ten grand worth of the real stuff, but he wouldn't get much for it, you know. Matter of fact I think I know what he did get for it, a little over thirty-five hundred bucks."

  Goldberg finished his drink and got out a cigarette.

  "Ah, now we get to it. You had a line on him?"

  "I didn't," said Goldberg, "until I got hold of an excuse to search old Benny Hess's place. You might think we could've stopped worrying about Benny— he was over eighty and all crippled up with arthritis, and he had a nice little estate built up from the proceeds of a misspent life— a lot of it cannily transferred into his daughter's name, too— but they don't change, do they? I— oh, hell," and he began to sneeze again, groped for the Kleenex. "Damn cigarettes. Doctor says I shouldn't smoke at all. The hell with him. Benny was a fence, and a big one. He got inside for it just once— he was a pretty smart boy. Kept a junk secondhand store out on Pico Boulevard. Well, about ten days, two weeks ago, Benny's number came up and they hauled him off to the General, and seeing as he wasn't coming back to complain about the officious cops persecuting an innocent citizen who'd paid his debt to society, I got a warrant and went through his place but very thorough. There were a couple of other little things we were looking for at the time, of course. And we found Benny had a very pretty setup, just like in the stories, you know: dugout room under his living quarters, with a safe in it yet, and being a businesslike old guy, he'd kept records too— there was a ledger. Very abbreviated entries, but I could read between the lines— some of 'em. In the safe was about half the Shanrahan and MacReady stuff— the real stuff— he hadn't got rid of yet. And in the ledger, among other things, I came across this entry of thirty-five hundred and some-odd bucks, listed under Donovan, and that added up awful easy in my mind."

  "Donovan," said Mendoza fondly. "¡Venga más!— the thing is clear— y mas vale tarde que nunca, better late than never! Oh, very pretty. You knew the name?"

  "Sure I knew the name," said Goldberg, catching the waiter's eye and beckoning. "I owe you a drink— I'll be sorry for this, those damn sinuses, but what the hell— same again. Sure I did. And it kind of made a little sense too, because the Donovans always stuck pretty close together— — "

  "More than one?"

  "Three. One down, two to go. There was— "

  "Francis Joseph," said Mendoza, smiling at his new drink. "Poor fellow, executed without benefit of a trial, just because a high school kid paid attention to a lecture for once."

  Goldberg looked at him. "And what's Homicide's interest now? You've gone into the Donovans?"

  "He just showed on the edge of something. About the others I don't know. Tell me— tell me all, amigo."

  "Well— the Donovans," said Goldberg. "Pros from a pro family. The dad was a stick-up specialist. Died in San Quentin doing his third stretch, when the boys were in their teens, I'd guess— before my time. There's Jackie, and Denny, and
Frank. All of 'em did time in reformatory for hopping cars, petty theft, and so on. Typical record sheets."

  "I've seen Frank's."

  "Then you've seen Denny's, except for the last line. Jackie— this is some fancy deduction of my own, he was one of my first arrests when I was a tender young rookie— Jackie was always the boss. Jackie was the one with a little more on the ball, as much as that kind of pro ever has. There was a time Jackie Donovan was on the F.B.I. list of Most Wanted. Back there about twenty years, eighteen years ago, there was a little gang— reading between the lines, and by what a couple of desk men in Records and my own office tell me, men who were around then and remember. The three Donovan brothers, and a little Italian fellow named Angelo Forti. Stick-ups, a few, but mostly burglary. After they all got through being minors and getting slapped on the wrist for being naughty boys, we got Jackie twice— a one-to-three and a three-to-five— both times for burglary. Denny, a one-to-three— same first count as Jackie. On that one, the little Italian was the driver, and he was only just past eighteen and he said he didn't know what they were up to, didn't know nothing about nothing, and the judge listened to him and put him on probation. He's never done any time at all— I don't know where he is or what he is doing now. And— "

  "Angelo," said Mendoza. "Angie? Oh, yes— very nice. Maybe I can give you a hint. Yes, go on."

  "The third time Jackie was picked up, he was either alone or the others got clean away. Pay your money and take your choice. I made that pinch, my first job after I ranked sergeant it was. Damn, the time goes .... Third count for him, they gave him the book and he got a taxi, fifteen years. He did the whole stretch too, because the parole chief we've got in now is a tough one, which is all to the good and more power to him .... Reason I saw a little kind of logic in it, and hooked up the Shanrahan— MacReady job with that Donovan entry in Benny's ledger, it's because Jackie Donovan was just due to come out. About