Lee Falk - [Story of the Phantom 10]
Page 11
“Don’t hear him,” said Brian after a while. “Maybe, keep your fingers crossed, I’ve lost him.”
Off to his right three bright scarlet-and-green birds went flapping up through the vines.
“They got the wind up about something,” said Brian to himself. “Maybe Walker’s stalking me from that direction.” He raised his pistol to chest level.
The Phantom grabbed both his arms from behind.
The pressure was such that Brian dropped his revolver. “I was expecting you from over there,” he said, wincing.
Twisting one of the lanky man’s arms up behind his
back, the masked man said, “We’ll go back to the house now to wait.”
“Wait for what?”
“The police van should be driving up in another few minutes. I asked them to give me a half-hour head start.”
“Very heroic, into the jaws of death single-handed and all that. Is the costume part of the show?”
“Back to the house,” repeated the Phantom as he gave Brian a gentle shove.
Starting to walk, Brian asked, “How’d you get onto me here anyhow? Somebody peached, eh?”
“Yes, one of your pirate friends who Lieutenant Kiwanda picked up gave us this location.”
“What a bloody world,” sighed Brian. “One can’t even trust one’s nearest and dearest friends.”
They moved along in silence for a few minutes. Brian asked, “Why the personal touch, Walker, if I may ask? Why’d you come after me solo like this?”
“I wanted to make sure you were caught.”
“Think I’m that dangerous to the world if I remain at large?”
“I didn’t like what you did to Diana,” the Phantom told him.
CHAPTER 34
Lieutenant Kiwanda gestured toward the boats in the yacht harbor beyond the stretch of beach they were walking along. Several bright sailboats were berthed there, bobbing gently in the blue water. “I’d like to own one of those someday,” he said. “A nice thirty-foot racing yacht like that one right there. But on a policeman’s income . . . besides people would think I came by it dishonestly.”
“You should get a promotion or a salary boost after rounding up our gang of buccaneers,” said the Phantom. He was wearing dark glasses and a trenchcoat, Devil following at his heels.
The black policeman shrugged. “We shall see.” “What’s the latest count on pirates caught and brought in?”
“As of this morning, we have arrested seventy-three of them,” answered Kiwanda. “That includes Brian Folkestone and his young lady you brought in yesterday.”
‘It pretty much finishes them,” said the Phantom, nodding his head.
“Yes, thanks to your help, the goggle-eyed pirates are no more.” He took a turn, stepping from the gritty stretch of beach onto the new planking of the boat dock. “And now, where will you be going next?”
“I promised Diana Palmer we’d take a few days of vacation. That’s about as far ahead as I have things planned.”
“Back to the Deep Woods after that perhaps?”
The Phantom grinned. ‘You never can tell, Lieutenant, where I’m liable to turn up next.”
They reached the end of the pier. Lieutenant Kiwanda rested an elbow on a piling, looking out at the calm waters of Mawitaan Bay. “Well, my friend, good luck to you wherever you go.” He held out his hand.
Shaking hands, the Phantom said, “Next time we meet, maybe I can sail on your yacht.” He and Devil left the lieutenant standing there, watching the ocean.
“I can tell by the feel of it,” Lumbard said. “And there’s one for you, too, Bock.”
Bockman was peering into a brown paper bag. “Probably more forms to fill out in triplicate.”
“We’ve been making five copies of everything, not three.”
“I forgot the word for five copies. Here it is.” He found an orange in his snack bag. “You really think those might be some kind of bonus checks?”
The envelopes had just now popped through the mail slot in their door along with a dozen other letters. Lumbard was holding one in each hand up near his ears. “I get very strong check vibrations, at least from mine. And they are from the central office.”
Bockman began carefully peeling his orange. “Open yours first.”
After locating a chrome letter opener, Lumbard slit his envelope. “Aha, it is,” he said, laughing. “ 'Dear Mr. Lumbard: We are highly pleased, in view of your excellent work and personal bravery in the handling of the recent case ... and so on and so on ... to send along this token of ... and so on.’ ” He took a breath and then looked directly at the pale green check. “Five hundred dollars? That’s it? For excellent work and bravery to boot, a paltry five hundred bucks?”
“Five hundred is pretty good.”
“I could have blown up out there on the Hermosa ” said Lumbard, waving the check in the air. “It would cost more than this to bury me.”
“If you’d blown up at sea you would have had a free ocean burial tossed in.” He placed the peeled orange on his desk blotter, rubbed his hands on the legs of his rumpled slacks. “Might as well open mine.” “Save them a million dollars and they send me a little token,” said Lumbard as he handed his partner the other envelope.
Bockman pried one end open with his thumb. He read over the letter, mumbling. “Same letter as yours, except it starts ‘Dear Mr. Bockman.’ And then there’s the check here. Same as—oh.”
“What?”
“Well, don’t get mad. It’s probably a mistake.” Lumbard moved closer to him. “How much is yours for?”
‘Well,” said Bockman, “it says a thousand. It’s probably a mistake. You know, they have computers doing this stuff and-—”
“A thousand. While I was risking my neck, you were drifting along on the S.S. Bonita playing shuf-fleboard with a gaggle of old dowagers. And they give you twice as much as me?”
“I’ve been with the company longer, Lum. That could be it.”
Lumbard folded his bonus check in half and then in four. He put it in a pocket of his shirt and sat down behind his desk. “Maybe I’ll quit the insurance game and become a free lance like Walker.”
Putting down his check, Bockman picked up his orange. “By the way, Lum, did you ask him?”
“The opportunity never came up,” said Lumbard. “We were too busy on the Hermosa fighting pirates and searching for bombs to have much time for casual chitchat.”
"What do you think, though, having seen him in action? Is he the Phantom?”
“The Phantom,” said Lumbard, resting his chin on his steepled fingers, “is probably only a myth concocted by superstitious savages. But if there really is a Phantom ... yeah, Walker is it.”
“This sure hasn’t been a run-of-the-mill case,” said Bockman.
“There is that about it, yes.” Lumbard got up and went to the door. “I’m going for a stroll . . . five hundred dollars.” He went out.
Bangalla’s newest and widest highway ran parallel to the sea for nearly fifty miles along the coast before it curved briefly inland. The, after a swooping dip, it began running alongside the ocean once again.
As the Phantom guided his rented Alfa Romeo back into sight of the water, Diana said, “A splendid view. And completely devoid of ships.”
Meaning there can’t be any pirates around?”
“Exactly, Kit. Nobody to interfere with our vacation!”
“I don’t think we’ll be bothered by pirates for a while.”
The breeze generated by the swiftly moving car caused the girl’s hair to flutter out behind her. “I suppose, to look on the bright side, the goggle-eyed ones enlivened my trip out,” she said. “If I were the kind who wrote letters to the girls back home, I’d sure have something to say.”
“Your Uncle Dave will enjoy the account.”
Diana’s uncle was a former police commissioner, now retired. “Yes, I did write to him. I also told him you took considerable chances to make sure that second liner d
idn’t blow up.”
“It wasn’t that much of a risk, Diana. I was sure Brupp would break down,” he said. “But let’s have a moratorium on pirates.”
“Fine.” She reached out to click on the car radio.
"... one of the most daring jewel robberies ever attempted say police officials,” a nasal-voiced newscaster intoned.
“What’s that?” The Phantom turned up the volume. “All Paris was stunned by the brilliant audacity of the thieves,” continued the announcer.
“Kit,” said the girl.
“Yes?”
She turned the radio off. “Let this one pass. Okay?”
“It sounds intriguing. ” He frowned for a second,
then smiled. “Okay, it’s forgotten. What were we talking about?”
Diana laughed. “Anything but pirates ... and jewel thieves.”