by Ron Goulart
Ben added, "All of which we'll forget—for a fee."
"We're being very reasonable, too," said H.J., "considering the enormous amount of money you people pull in off the Chumley account."
"Yes, yes. That was the argument Barry Kathkart used when he persuaded us to help him cover up his impetuous crime."
"Why don't you let us go now?" suggested Ben, edging another step closer.
"As much as I dislike Leo and Chico, I have to admit they're efficient," said Moon. "Without any doubt they can make you talk. It might take time and be unpleasant, but it would save us $2,000,000, wouldn't it?"
"You aren't the sort," said H.J., "who'd condone torture."
"That's a flattering appraisal of my character, my dear. Until quite recently it might have been true, but in the past few days I've crossed several lines I never believed I'd cross."
"If you aren't going to turn us loose, maybe I'd better start rehearsing some farewell speeches," said Ben, taking another step. "You know, like 'It's a far, far better thing I do than I have ever done before." He waited a few seconds and then eyed his former wife.
She didn't immediately respond. "Oh, was that your Robert Colman voice?"
"Ronald Colman."
"I don't know why I didn't recognize it, darling, since it's always been one of . . ." She began to sway slightly. "That's funny, I'm feeling . . . What was l saying? Oh, yes. Don't you think it's absolutely wonderful how Ben can do so many . . . Jesus, it feels like one of my spells, Ben . . . I . . ." She bent, clutching at her midsection. Then her eyes went wide and started to roll. She straightened up, arms going straight out at her sides. She fell to her knees, flapped her aims, moaned, fell over on her side with her feet kicking convulsively. Moon was distracted, lowering his gun and staring at the fallen and apparently seriously stricken young woman.
Ben took advantage of his inattention and jumped. He chopped at the older man's thin right wrist. Moon let go of the gun and Ben caught it before it hit the floor. Swinging up with the gun barrel, he caught Moon in the chin. Then as he fell, Ben used the butt of the revolver against his temple, twice.
He slid his arm around the torso of the unconscious adman, dragged him over to the cot and let him fall atop it.
Outside the door Chico called out, "You okay in there, Mr. Moon?"
"Yes, yes," answered Ben in his Moon voice as, gun in hand, he moved over to station himself beside the door. "But I'm afraid something terrible has happened to the young lady. Come in here, Chico, quickly."
Chapter 26
"That was a very impressive swoon, by the way."
"You think perhaps I overdid it a bit?"
"Flapping your arms was maybe too much frosting, yeah."
"It sure worked, though, huh?"
"We distracted Moon good and proper."
The advertising executive was now stretched out on the cot, his arms tied behind him with his belt and his ankles bound with his paisley tie. For a gag they'd use his crisp display handkerchief.
Chico was face down on the floor, snarling. He was hogtied with strips of the brown blanket, since he wore neither a belt nor a tie.
While Ben stood over him with the .32 revolver in one hand and Chico's .45 automatic in the other, H.J. finished attaching a gag made of another strip of blanket.
Smiling, she knelt and patted the thug once on the backside. "That's a mighty cute little ass you've got there yourself," she said, standing up.
"What's that for?" asked Ben. "Part of some old Girl Scout ritual?"
"A personal touch," she answered. "I'll explain sometime."
Easing over to the door, Ben opened it a few inches.
"Apparently they can't hear what's going on down here from upstairs." He looked cautiously out into the hall.
"We really don't know how many of them there are left up there."
"Beyond the secretary, no."
"Possibly there could be more goons."
He handed her the revolver. "Possibly." He stepped out of their cell. The only sound down here was the rattling and humming of the big furnace.
"We make a pretty good team," she said quietly, taking hold of his hand.
"At times." They started along the dimly lit corridor. "On the way down I didn't notice any doors leading directly out of this basement. So we're going to have to go back up into the house and exit from there."
"It's interesting how money affects some people."
"With you as a prime example?"
"No, I was thinking of Arthur Moon. He is a respected advertising executive and a snappy dresser—but I got the feeling he was going to go ahead and let them torture us and then terminate us as well."
"I got that impression, too. Which is why I did my Ronald Colman signal to you."
"Ronald Colman. He was some kind of movie actor, right?"
"Skip it—and let's be quiet for the rest of our journey."
"It's cute the way you get ticked off over something trivial while were in the midst of a struggle for our very—"
"Quiet," he snapped.
The first shotgun blast missed them by a little less than six feet. Pellets spattered across a stretch of peach colored wall in the large oval foyer, chewing away sizeable bites of plaster and molding.
Ben had tumbled H.J. to the floor with him, getting off a shot at the chunky blonde secretary, who was standing on the staircase across the way.
His shot was wild, too, and it went smashing up into one of the dangling crystal chandeliers, producing a raucous wind-chimes sort of noise.
Rolling across the slick hardwood floor, Ben dragged his erstwhile wife through the first open doorway they came to. "That was the lady I was telling you about."
"The secretary with the shotgun."
"Her, yes." He got to his feet in what looked to be some sort of trophy room.
"She's not a crack shot." H.J. scrambled upright, slamming the door behind her.
"She may just be warming up." He pushed her clear of the doorway.
They were surrounded by My Man Chumley items, including a life-size cardboard cutout of Kathkart in the role, dozens of framed posters and magazine ads, and even a large fat Chumley beanbag that looked a good deal like the actor.
After getting H.J. to a safe spot, Ben shoved a black leather sofa in front of the door.
H.J. said, "French doors over yonder."
"We'll try them as a way out." He gathered her up and they hurried to the glass doors.
A tremendous wham sounded behind them and a sizeable portion of the door they'd just shut came exploding into the room in the form of splintery chunks of white-painted wood. The jagged scraps and the shotgun pellets ripped the head clean off the stand-up cardboard Chumley.
"Let's get going." Ben pushed one of the French doors open. He stepped out onto the flagstone terrace, scanned the immediate area and then helped H.J. out into the night with him.
"What next?" she asked.
"My car's out in front of the garages—at least that's where I left it. But they may've moved it or futzed with it."
"That leaves escape on foot."
"Across the back lawn here and up into the woods." He took hold of her arm and they started running across the acre of grass at the rear of the mansion. Less than thirty seconds later lights came to life on all sides of them. The estate had floodlights planted all around its borders.
They kept running and were soon high enough to see down across the top of the house and get a glimpse of the front drive. The Mercedes had just turned onto the grounds. "They're back." Ben was commencing to wheeze some. "We can outrun them."
"Miss Spaulding's out there, pointing up at us."
"Shit, they're going to drive the damn car up here after us."
The Mercedes, the beams of its headlights bouncing and making wild zigzags across the blackness, left the drive and was roaring up across the green.
Ben took a quick, appraising look around. "They'll cut us off before we can climb all the way into the woods
," he said. "Let's head for that big shed over there."
As they changed their course, she asked, "Can we hold them off?"
"For a while maybe, and once we start shooting it should attract attention." He slipped an arm around her waist and accelerated the pace. "Hopefully the shotgun blasts have already attracted attention."
They made it through the front door of the long low wooden shed just as the Mercedes came around the side of the big white mansion.
After slamming the door shut, Ben stationed himself at the small dusty window that faced the approaching car. "Holy Christ."
"What?"
"I don't think they're going to stop. Looks like they're going to slam into the shed."
H.J. went stumbling through the place, trying to avoid colliding with the scatter of sacks of peat moss and the assorted mowers, leaf blowers, wheelbarrows, and rakes. "There's another door in back," she said, catching his hand and pulling him after her.
"That's got to be Kathkart at the wheel. He's the only one goofy enough to think he's driving a tank."
The nose of the Mercedes came ripping into the front door. The door and the entire front wall broke in huge pieces and the pieces came spinning back into the tangle of equipment. Metal buckled and shrieked, sacks exploded, rakes and hoes pinwheeled up into the air. Glass broke and one of the car's front tires popped with a stuttering blast.
Ben and H.J. dived out the back way and went rolling and tumbling across the wet grass.
"You all right?" he asked.
She didn't answer. She was lying on the lawn, sprawled, the revolver fallen from her hand and lying several feet from her slack fingers.
"H.J." He knelt close to her, noticing now the bloody streak across her forehead and the deep gash in her cheek.
He took her hand, rubbing at it. He had no idea why he was doing that.
She moaned faintly.
Then from downhill came the hooting of a siren. A patrol car had turned into the Kathkart driveway. Close behind it came a civilian car.
"That's Detective Ryerson bringing up the rear I think," murmured Ben. "H.J., you've got to wake up."
"Oh boy," she said faintly, sucking in a breath of air.
"Anything broken?"
"Don't think so. Something whacked me on the side of the head as we were taking our leave of the shed. Knocked me out for a minute I guess."
Very gently, he helped her into a sitting position. "The police seem to have arrived. Those shotgun blasts must've annoyed the neighbors sufficiently to—"
"You shits! You god damn assholes." Kathkart, his Chumley costume in disarray, staggered into view from around the shattered shed with a .38 revolver waving in his fist. "Look at all the frigging trouble you've caused me."
"Toss away the gun." Ben had his borrowed .45 pointed straight at the charging actor.
"Like hell, like bloody hell, Spanner," he said advancing. "Everything was going fine . . . that blackmailing bastard Zepperman had been taken care of and everybody was believing the old fart had been mugged and not strangled by . . . then her snooping boyfriend pops up. . . and then we get rid of him okay . . . and she . . . she gets her hands on the pictures and it starts all over again . . . she tries to blackmail me . . . I'm going to fix both of you so—"
"Mr. Kathkart, sir." The tall, blond Detective Ryerson was climbing up across the brightly lit lawn. He had a .38 revolver in his hand. "If you'd drop that gun now—drop yours, too, Ben—then we can have a nice, calm talk and get everything sorted out."
Kathkart didn't comply. Instead he gave an angry growl and spun around to face the policeman.
"Put the gun down, sir."
Kathkart fired it instead.
Dodging, Ryerson fired back.
Kathkart missed, but the detective's slug took the actor square in the chest.
He roared once, both his arms went out wide. He let go his gun and it went bouncing away. He danced backward across the grass, flatfooted, for a half dozen steps. The tails of his black coat flapped and swirled. Then he stopped suddenly still, started teetering, lurched to his right, dropped to the ground, toppled over on his face and was dead.
H.J. squeezed Ben's arm. "Even the butler was poor," she said.
It was exactly midnight when they came into Fagin's diner. The proprietor was sitting at his own counter, smoking a cigarette and reading a newspaper that a customer had abandoned in one of the booths. "Been slapping her around again, huh, Spanner?" he inquired when he noticed the bandages on H.J.'s forehead and cheek.
"You're looking especially dapper tonight," returned Ben. "Are you shaving every three days now?"
"I love comedy." Fagin returned to the paper, after flicking ashes on the floor.
When they were seated in a remote booth, H.J. said, "I think I was a little groggy there at Kathkart's. Fill me in, Ben."
"Let's see. Joe Sankowitz got worried when he didn't hear from me by nine." He caught the attention of the blonde waitress and pantomimed an order of two cups of coffee. "Joe took his copies of the photos to—"
"I didn't know he kept any."
"Just two blowups. That's how he identified Zepperman."
"I'm still not clear how Zepperman—"
"Later. Anyway, Joe showed the photos to Ryerson and told him—cleaning up the details considerably—what was going on. Ryerson decided, without alerting the Westport police, to drop by Kathkart's and see why you and I were lingering there."
"But as he arrived, the Westport cops got there, too."
"Apparently even in liberal, fun-loving Westport you can't shoot off a shotgun without annoying at least some of your neighbors," said Ben. "In fact, I think I have an idea who it was who phoned the police to complain about the noise."
The waitress brought their coffee, whispering to Ben, "I'll try to sneak you free refills if I can."
"Don't risk your life for us, Evie."
H.J. stirred half a spoonful of sugar into her coffee. "Where do I stand in all this?"
"The Westport police want a statement from you sometime tomorrow, but apparently nobody's going to charge you with anything," he told her. "The version of reality that Joe sold Ryerson—and that I expanded on while the paramedic was patching you up—is that Rick Dell gave you the photographs to look after. When people started ransacking your house, you got frightened and came to me. I, of course, advised you to go to the police, but instead you decided to go away for a few days and hide."
"But Chico and the other one trailed me, kidnapped me and brought me to Kathkart's."
"Exactly, and I suspected as much and followed you there. You were never a blackmailer, you and I never practiced grave robbing on Long Island." He took a sip of his coffee. "God, this is awful."
"We could go to my place for coffee—or yours."
Ben looked directly at her. "I wanted to have this talk on neutral ground," he said. "Before we get together again I'd like a few days alone to brood."
"I can understand that," she said, trying the coffee and wincing. "What exactly are you going to be brooding about? Whether or not to ever let me cross your threshold again?"
"Not exactly." He sipped his coffee. "I'm going to have a doughnut. Want one?"
"I suppose I ought to eat something. I don't recall eating since early this morning."
He pantomimed two doughnuts. "During the past few days my life has been somewhat more action packed than usual. Also been more fun, though. That's all due to you, but I'm not yet sure I can handle it all the time."
"I'm not likely to get us involved with murder again soon," she pointed out. "Furthermore, swear to God, I'm not ever going to try blackmail. It's too painful and too risky."
"Have you thought about the possibility of our getting together again?" he asked. "I know the other night, when you were trying to con me so you could swipe the pictures, you implied that—"
"I wasn't conning you," she insisted. "Well, not about that anyway. I truly have missed you. Compared to men like Rick Dell, you're a shining�
��"
"Compared to Rick Dell the Boston Strangler would look like a good deal."
Reaching across the table, smiling, she took his hand. "I haven't made any wise choices in men lately," she admitted. "But I still think that when I agreed to marry you way back when, that was a smart move. So, if you come around to deciding you'd like to try again—marriage, living together or whatever, let me know."
"Okay, that's fine. I will." He paused as the waitress delivered their doughnuts. "What's that atop mine, Evie?"
"Coconut."
"It's green."
"Fagin thought it would be festive if he dyed the coconut." H.J. took a bite of her doughnut. Chewing, she said, "While you're brooding, I'll be moping around my studio finishing up my latest lousy romance cover."
"You're going to have to get rid of the notion that your paintings aren't any good."
"Let's not," she suggested, "end the evening with an argument."
Chapter 27
The phone call came the following Monday. Ben had slept, still alone, until almost ten. The day was grey and a thin misty rain was falling.
He rose out of bed, somewhat reluctantly, and found his way into the bathroom. "Let's see who I am this morning," he said, risking a look in the mirror. "A puffy Ben Spanner. That's not as bad as it might be."
He hadn't talked to H.J. since they'd sat around in Fagin's the night of the kidnapping. He thought about her a lot and he was about ready to come to a decision.
As he felt around on the counter for his electric razor, the phone rang.
He ran back into the bedroom, grabbed up the bedside receiver. "Hello?"
"It's Elsie," announced his agent.
"You shouldn't have tipped me off, that's the very name I was going to guess. What's happening?"
"This is somewhat odd, Ben."
"Odder than the usual job offers I get?"
"Let me know how this strikes you, okay? The Forman & McCay agency is getting ready a major pitch for a new account. You may not want to touch this, but considering all the publicity you and Helen have been getting these past few days it might be terrific for you."