by Howard Engel
“I’ll try to remember that.” I took a breath, then thought of something totally irrelevant: “Jake, do you write poetry?” Jake grinned.
“No. Why?”
“What about Vicky or the kids?”
“I don’t think so. What’s this leading up to?”
“Well, I found a scrap of poetry in your apartment. If you didn’t write it, who did? Do you have friends who leave their writing lying about?”
“Thomas Lanier scribbles a little.”
“He tutored the kids for a time, didn’t he?” I was glad to find that my memory was functioning for once.
“Sure. He tried to teach them Latin, of all things. And he certainly left things lying about. All of his friends have some of his belongings. Again, why?”
“The beginning of an idea, that’s all.”
There was a pause. I seemed to have dropped the ball. Then Clay put me back to work: “Benny, you haven’t told us who the dudes are who were the perps. Do we know them?”
“Well, I think the fact that Beverley Taylor’s gone underground strongly suggests that she was Ranken’s underwater partner. When he was killed, she might have thought that she would be next.” A forgotten thought popped back into my head. It was a non sequitur, but I had to deal with things when I thought of them or they’d disappear. Turning to Clay, I said, “Remember when we went to his apartment?”
“Yeah. We’d been doing some running. I remember.”
“Well, when we buzzed up to Ranken’s place, we got an answer. Somebody was there. It couldn’t have been Ranken—he was already dead. Somebody else found the body before we got there. Who was it? We’re looking both for the killer and for the man who discovered the body. Two people. May I ask you, Jake, were you the voice on the intercom when Clay and I rang the apartment?”
“Me?”
“Come on! We don’t have time for little secrets if we want to get to the big one.”
“Okay, okay! Yes, it was me. I was following a hunch that Ranken was at the center of all this, so I paid him a visit. I guess you know what I found.”
“Then you weren’t there very long?”
“No! You came along before I could go through his papers. I took to the stairs as soon as I hung up the phone. Is that a big part of the puzzle?”
“Don’t ask me. I can join up the dots, but I don’t read minds. I met a young diver the other day who used to be broke, but, according to his pals, he’s now pretty well off. Do you know …” Here I had to consult my Memory Book. “George, from Stuttgart? Anyone know him?”
“I know him.” The policeman grinned. “Some passport irregularities, but he’s not a very interesting figure, he’s no mastermind.”
“Maybe he was recruited for just that reason. And who might recruit a none-too-bright young fellow with a German background?”
“Another German?”
“The lawyer!”
“Bernhardt Hubermann!” Clay and the policeman spoke together. Jake lagged behind.
“Hubermann? But he’s my lawyer! What’s going on here?” Jake asked.
“I wouldn’t be surprised to find out that your lawyer has been playing a hand in all this,” the colonel said. “I would be shocked to find that he’s only playing two hands.”
“You mean he’s behind it all?” Clay demanded. “He’s Mr Big, huh?”
“As big as we’ve got so far.”
“Ha! Stay tuned! Maybe we should see if he has any input to add,” suggested the policeman.
“Do I have a seconder?”
TWENTY-FIVE
ON THE STAIRS, I wondered about the expression on the lawyer’s face when he’d see the four of us. He’d surely know the game was up. What could he do but sputter and try to lie his way out? As we were going through the door, the policeman held it open for a slight young woman, whom I recognized as Hubermann’s secretary. When I said “Hello” she blinked, then smiled at me, as though she was surprised at the size of our delegation. She let us file into the empty waiting room.
After a moment or two at her desk, she rang through to the inner office. “I was sure he was here,” she said, in her careful English. She got up and went through the door while I tried my hand at a Time magazine so old its age showed in the cover photograph. It was the picture of an American senator who had briefly shone in the firmament then vanished from sight like a meteor.
I heard a scream, a groan, then a bump from the other room. We rushed through the connecting door to see the secretary on the floor as though hit by lightning.
“She’s alive!” said the policeman. “Just fainted or had a spell,” he added.
“She looked fit when she came in with us. I wonder …” Jake backed away from the woman on the floor. He could see that there was already too much help on the scene.
“Let her be!” said the policeman. His voice was strained, as though he had a bad cold. “She’s just fainted from shock.”
I looked around and up at him. “Shock? How do you know?”
“The desk. Look behind the desk.”
I looked. The lawyer was in his office, all right. He was on the floor, with a few file folders and papers under and around him. He was dead. His skull had been crushed by the lead statuette that used to stand on his secretary’s desk. It didn’t look as though its use as a murder weapon had damaged it in any way. The blood, of course, would come off.
I am no expert at judging time of death, but between gagging and trying to maintain my balance, I could see that the body was still warm and the blood was fresh. There was a groan from the other side of the desk. The secretary was coming around.
“Ohhh!” She made a sound difficult to record, when she realized where she was and what she had just found on the floor.
“It’s all right,” the policeman said, and repeated it often enough to get me to nearly believe it.
“Could I have some tea?” she asked, as soon as she could sit up. Jake attended to that, while I tried to examine the papers under and near the body. They appeared to be loose pages: general correspondence, prepared by the secretary and ready for signing. But, behind the wastepaper basket, I found a draft letter that had not yet been typed. Near it were some legal papers in a clump. I poked them at the secretary, partly to take her mind off the dear departed.
“What’s this?”
She didn’t need much time. “I typed them yesterday. They’re copies of a lease on a property in France: it’s in a hamlet called Labadie, near Bouniagues, not far south of Bergerac.” She went on to tell me that the place was being rented to an F. Lamont Walker, of this city. It’s funny, I thought, how important random facts are at a moment of shock or surprise. I wrote these facts in my Memory Book, just to keep me calm. Writing my own name and address would have done as well. I tried to get back on my feet in order to do something useful.
She was sitting up now without my help, and a cushion from a couch had been put behind her.
“Are you up to this?” I asked after she had a sip of tea. She nodded feebly.
“I know you are his secretary, Miss …?”
“Robb. Mrs Ursula Robb. I am fine, now, just a shock, you understand.”
“Was he alone when you went for lunch?”
“Oh yes, quite alone.”
“And you were out, how long?” She tried to find a time that would clear her of any lingering suspicion: “Maybe twenty minutes. Maybe more. I had some typing—”
I let her finish another sip before going after her again. “And no one was expected at that hour?”
“Oh no. Never sees clients at lunch.”
“Do you know Mr Walker? F. Lamont Walker?”
“Oh yes. Mr Walker is a client from France. I write letters to him. But he is in Takot now for short time.” I began to see Walker as a figment of my shock and not as a lively prospect.
“So he’s not part of Mr Hubermann’s local business?”
“Oh no. Mr Hubermann has many clients who live abroad.”
I sto
pped quizzing the poor woman and helped Jake lift her to a couch. When I finished with this, I looked to the colonel for the next step. He shrugged and began pulling at his right ear, as though answers would begin pouring out when he got it just right.
“She will call the cops if we don’t. What should we do?”
“I’ll send for what you call back-up. They are people I work with.”
“What about Jake? How much interest is there in him?”
“I think it will be fine. There’s always a risk. But I think that if we let him leave now, our friend here will make it look suspicious. As it is, we all arrived at the office together. We give her an alibi and she alibis us.”
“Okay, let’s send for the cops.”
He did that and we waited until they came.
TWENTY-SIX
THE POLICE IN TAKOT behaved like the cops I knew from home. Some of them did the work, others leaned against the wall and watched. Men dusted black powder on everything but one another to find latent prints. There was no medical examiner available, so an ambulance team removed the body to a morgue where an autopsy might or might not be conducted.
Meanwhile, we were questioned lightly, our home addresses and local ones were taken, and we were asked if we had known the deceased well. I said that I had met him once a few days ago. That seemed to cover it. I think if I’d said that I was Ferdinand the King of the Pampas, he would have written that down too.
Anyway, it was good to get out of there. We regrouped in a hole-in-the-wall bistro nearby, not far from where I’d seen the colonel going to have lunch the other day. Was he meeting the dead man or was it a coincidence? I thought it best to take that matter up with him when there wasn’t such a crowd on hand.
“Was that as easy as you expected?” I asked Prasit instead.
“I think we have used up our portion of luck for the remainder of the year, my friends.”
“What now?” I asked.
“Yeah, the lawyer was our link to the rest of the operation. He was bashed on the head. What was Ranken killed with?” Clay was patting his pockets for the cigarettes he had given up. We all forget sometimes.
“Another head wound. But that doesn’t necessarily mean the same killer.” I was thinking out loud.
“How do you see that?” Jake asked.
“Ranken was killed in anger and panic. Somebody had sabotaged the dope-for-money exchange. Bingo, they lashed out at the first possible suspect to hand. But the lawyer was different. He knew too much as well, but there was no panic this time. He was killed because of what he might say and not because of something he did.”
“I think we owe our present liberty to the colonel here.” Jake made a tidy bow toward the policeman, who bowed back. “We were there under his auspices. Thank you, Prasit.”
“You’re right, of course,” Prasit said, nodding. “We were also helped by the fact that we all arrived together. We were able to give the secretary, Mrs Robb, an alibi and she supplied the same for us.” Had I heard this before or was it something I had thought myself? I checked the name on my wallet to make sure I was still myself.
“Don’t open the champagne yet.” Jake had put on a serious face. “The reports the boys are now writing will be reviewed. There are names on those reports that appear in other files. I suggest that all of us use caution.”
“Jake,” I said, “let me ask you two questions: Have you ever heard the name F. Lamont Walker?”
“No. Next question?”
“How well do you know young Thomas Lanier?”
“He’s been part of the expatriate community ever since I got here. Why?”
“I’m just tidying loose ends. Keeping my mind in gear.”
“He’s always been a decent fellow,” Jake added, “even though he’s a bit of a drunk. He helped us find that apartment in the city. He seems to know a lot of people.”
“Would you be surprised to learn that I think he’s behind this mess?”
“You mean that he killed Hubermann? Why would he?” Jake wondered.
“I think he is behind most of what’s been happening.”
“That drunk? What sort of proof do you have? And why him and not another?”
“First of all, he’s very clever. He has created a character for himself: the happy young drunk who is always around, but whom nobody takes too seriously. He is notoriously unreliable, and yet he finds apartments for people in this jammed city. He has bolt holes all over town with various friends. He’s a piece of work, is what he is.”
“Ben, you must be joking,” Jake said with some heat.
“Yeah, that dude’s breath is over-proof,” Clay was quick to join in.
“Well, I could be wrong. And I don’t have hard evidence. But I have a feeling and a feeling is sometimes as good as proof at this stage.” My lips were going dry; I tried to ignore it. “Jake, can I ask you a tough question?”
“I guess.”
“Where did you get the things I found in your safety deposit box?”
“What do you mean?”
“In your apartment I found a key. The key opened a box at the Inland and International Bank. Do you know what was there?”
“Sorry, Ben, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You don’t have a box at the bank?”
“Vicky and I have had one from time to time, but I don’t know of one in my name at present. Is it important?”
“I thought so right up to now. Now I’m not so sure. Now tell me this: When you lost your business, Vicky told me that you got into another line, something shady, she suggested.”
“What she meant was I got involved with a bunch of fellows who were sending medical supplies to the Kurds. It was run by some doctors. Vicky thought I was making money on it but it wasn’t that kind of deal. I handled a lot of cash, but none of it rubbed off on me. I let Vicky think that we were still cleaning up.”
“What will you do now, Jake?”
“Hell, I’m heading home. I’ve got my way paid from Singapore to Toronto. All I have to do is find a boat that will take me to Singapore, and I think I know where I can find one. I may be home before you, Benny. See you at Diana Sweets.” I didn’t tell him that it had closed down. He needed all the luck and wind for his sails he could muster.
As a critical mass, we were almost bound together. Shock did it. We were like an audience after a great performance, still under a spell and reluctant to disappear into the night, never to be reassembled. Prasit was the first to go. After all, he was a cop and that gave him the emotional calluses needed in his work. A good cop can get through anything and turn up for work on Monday. Clay offered to drop me at my hotel and I accepted.
“Well, Ben, how do you think it went?” Clay was driving his little car over the potholes along the main streets. It was the very hottest part of the day. Nothing was moving. People who couldn’t get indoors found shelter where they could, under awnings and close to walls. Street peddlers were taking their mid-afternoon naps on their parked barrows and bicycles at the edge of the road. Women made shade for their babies with their own cast-off draperies. The sun bore down on us. Hardly anything stirred that didn’t have to.
Back in my room, I got rid of my clothes and braced myself for another bout in the shower down the hall. When I came out, I found the bed first and then a deep, dark, troubled sleep.
The dream was about looking for a key in a room full of keys. Maybe I saw it in a movie once. I don’t remember. I do recall that everything depended upon finding the right key. I can remember trying to figure out the workings of several locks, some of them as big as I was. There was music, too. It seemed to suggest the mechanism of a clockwork contrivance of some sort. In the end, I locked all of the keys and locks away and threw the key down the hole in the floor that passed for a toilet. Now, of course, the toilet began backing up and the waters began rising, coming up above my shoes. I tried to get out the door so I could slam it on the deluge bubbling up behind me, but the door was locked. The
re was no key on my side of the door. And the water was now up to my knees.
“Get up!” I knew the voice, even though it came from miles away. “I let you sleep for twenty minutes. Nobody needs more than twenty minutes’ sleep at a time. Get up.” He tore the curtains open across from my bed, letting in light I wasn’t prepared for. Even through closed eyelids, I winced. The voice was closer now, and something was prodding me in the ribs. I rolled over, trying to banish both the voice and the pain in my side.
“Go away, Thomas. I just got to sleep.”
“Get up! I mean it, you idiot!”
“Come back later. Stop jabbing me. Go away.”
“There’s a ten-inch blade in my hand. Get up, or I’ll use it!”
I rolled over and opened my eyes. It was Thomas, all right, and the thing in his hand did have a long blade.
“What do you want?”
“You know God-damned well what I want. And I haven’t time for more of your whimsy. Just hand it over.” I shook my head: to clear it, not to show defiance. Gradually, I tried putting my feet on the carpet.
“What time is it?”
“Too late for any of your tricks. I need the key to that safety deposit box now!”
“Bank isn’t open yet. Or is my watch still misbehaving? Why don’t you get us some coffee while I put my pants on?”
“So you can escape having this conversation? Not a hope.”
My toes found their slippers and I reached for the robe at the end of the bed. I was still not focusing very well. “This would be better with coffee.”
“Cooperman, you don’t seem to grasp the seriousness of the situation. You’re nearly naked and unarmed; I have a lethal blade and I know how to use it.”
“It takes a while for me to wake up and get properly frightened. What key?”
“Don’t irritate me, Cooperman, or I’ll flay you alive.”
“‘Flay’ is a good honest word. I can live with ‘flay.’ I never liked ‘ream.’ Do you like ‘ream,’ Thomas? You like words. ‘Ream’ has a nasty, grudging sound to it.”