by Cain, Paul
The Old Man called and I told him I had a fair lead. He said what makes you think so and I told him for one thing Lina Ornitz had been murdered the day after she got back from London, and for another thing the sleeve of my practically new suit had been ripped by a bullet and I’d need another.
He said: “That’s fine. Now we’re getting somewhere.”
When I finished talking to the Old Man the telephone girl called and said a man named Dekker had called while my line was busy, said he’d call again in a few minutes. I couldn’t place the name.
I was too tired. I took a shower and put on some clean clothes and went down to the bar, told the telephone girl to page me if Mister Dekker called again.
* * *
I was getting a running start on my Planter’s Punch when a man sat down on the next stool, smiled sidewise and said:
“I am Hans Dekker. I hope you will forgive my dropping in so informally.”
He was short and round. His head was too big for his body and his round face was like a cake with pink icing, his round China-blue eyes popped in an almost perpetual stare. He moved his fat hands nervously on the bar, said softly:
“I have reason to believe that you are interested in recovering some stolen emeralds.”
His voice was very low, velvety; his accent very precise.
I took a long drink. “We can help each other a great deal,” he went on.
“I know where they are. You, most certainly, will never find them without my help.”
I waited, but he stared at his hands and was silent.
“In the first place,” I said, “who are you, and in the second place, what makes you think I’m interested in stolen emeralds?”
He shrugged slightly, smiled slightly. “I have been so informed.” He took a thick green cigar out of his vest pocket, bit off the end and lighted it.
I said: “And what about the first place?”
“I am Hans Dekker. I am in the jewelry business.” His smile widened. “If you are wondering whether I have been in England lately, I have not. I came to this country from Amsterdam three years ago and I have not been back.”
I said: “Drink?”
He shook his head.
I looked at him for a minute and then said: “I don’t suppose you might, by some strange coincidence, know a woman named Lina Ornitz?”
His eyes were thoughtful, opaque. He shook his head slowly.
“Or drive a blue Buick coupé?” I went on.
“No.” He turned squarely toward me and his head moved slowly, negatively from side to side.
I said: “What’s your proposition?”
“What is yours?” He smiled again.
“You get a third of the reward money.” I told the bartender to whip me up another Planter’s Punch. “That will amount to about thirty-three thousand, three-hundred dollars.”
“That is not enough.”
I said: “I work for a living. That’s all I can offer. If you want more I’ll have to talk to my boss.”
He shrugged. “I want half.”
I sipped my fresh drink, took a chance. “Why don’t you get ’em by yourself? Then you’ll get the whole twenty thousand pounds.”
He shrugged again, very elaborately, slid off the stool.
I said, “Wait a minute,” and went to the phone and called the Old Man and told him about it. He said to offer him half and my right eye, as long as we got the stones. I didn’t tell him the Dutchman had fallen into my lap; it was just as well for him to think I’d ferreted it all out. He asked where he could meet us and I said I didn’t know yet, I’d call him back.
I went back to the bar and said: “You’ve made a deal.”
Dekker grinned so broadly it looked like his throat was cut and bellowed: “Good! Now we have a drink.”
We had two. I stuck to rum and he drank straight gin. I tried to get him to talk but he would only smile and shake his head and say: “Wait.”’
He insisted upon paying for his round. I walked outside with him and he said he’d meet me at the corner of Eighth Street and Tenth Avenue at a little after eleven and got into a cab. I went in to the desk and wrote down the number of the cab so I could get a line on him in case he didn’t show, then I looked up Wister’s home telephone number, called.
A woman answered, said: “Mister Wister is not in. This is Mrs Wister—may I take a message?” You could cut her English accent with a can opener.
I told her who I was and she asked me to wait a minute, then Wister came on, snapped:
“Hello, Mister Keenan—what can I do for you?”
I said I’d like to see him for a few minutes if it wasn’t too much trouble.
He said: “Certainly! Come right on over.”
The Wisters lived in a big apartment house on East Sixty-third. Mrs Wister opened the door; she was one of those sleek, shiny-eyed, unmistakably London gals with a mouthful of broad a’s. She asked me to sit down and disappeared.
Wister came in in a minute, shook hands. He said: “Well, Mister Keenan—any news?”
I nodded. “Uh-huh. Quite a lot. Have you heard about Lina Ornitz?”
He hesitated a split second too long, wrinkled his forehead and stared at me thoughtfully.
“Ornitz? I don’t believe I remember the name.”
I said: “That’s funny. They found your telephone number in her flat.”
He did a beautiful job of trying to remember, blurted suddenly: “Oh, yes—that’s the woman who rang me up this afternoon, wanted some additional information about the reward.” He smiled easily. “Had never heard of her before.”
It was half hunch, half wild guess; I took a long jump in the dark.
I said: “I’m afraid you’ll hear a lot more of her. The police are on their way to arrest you for her murder.”
It was entirely still for about ten seconds; neither of us moved nor spoke. Then Mrs Wister came in through the doorway that led to the rear of the apartment. She was holding a small blue automatic very steadily, waist high in front of her. Wister stood up.
I figured I might as well go the limit, went on: “And they picked Dekker up a little while ago. He squawked bloody murder—he’s still talking.”
Wister yelped suddenly: “Dekker killed the Ornitz woman. She was going to bring the stones in and then backed out at the last minute! Dekker was afraid she’d squeal!”
Mrs Wister was staring at me expressionlessly. She snapped, “Shut up, John,” out of the side of her mouth and then went on as if she were talking to herself: “I think this bastard is lying… .”
I grinned. I said: “You said it, sister—I was guessing. The Law doesn’t know anything about it yet, but they’ll have to before long. I don’t think you had anything to do with Lina’s murder. I came here to give you a head start. There’s nothing in my contract that says anything about pinching anybody. All I want are the emeralds and the hundred grand Burke-Reynolds will pay for them.”
Wister was a very pale green. He stammered: “You mean—you mean you won’t turn us in?”
I said: “No, I don’t mean that. I’ll turn in everything I know as soon as I get the stones but I don’t want a lot of coppers in my hair until I do get them. That’s a break for you.”
Mrs Wister was smiling unpleasantly. She said: “What’s to prevent my shooting you, now—and saying you forced your way in here and threatened us?”
She meant it.
I had to press my luck. “The principal thing,” I said, “to prevent you is that my boss is waiting downstairs and he knows the whole setup.”
They looked at each other and I thought it was a good time for me to get up and mosey to the door. Then I turned and said to Wister:
“If there’s anything you want to tell me that’ll help prove Dekker murdered Lina Ornitz, now would be a good time.”
I think he wanted to talk, but he looked at the lady and then looked down at the floor. I opened the door.
“One last thing,” I said, “you two won’t get very far. If you want to do the smart thing you’ll show up at our office in the morning and we’ll talk it all over and see what we can do.”
Then I went out and closed the door and took a deep breath. The sweat was thick on my forehead; Mrs Wister had a cold eye.
It was ten minutes of eleven. I called the Old Man because I wanted him to cover me when I met Dekker but his line was busy. I waited a minute and tried again but no go, so I jumped into a cab and told the driver if he could get me to Eighth Street and Eleventh in nine minutes flat I’d buy him a new hat.
He made swell time; I got out at a saloon about a block and a half above where I was supposed to meet Dekker and gave the driver his hat money and called the Old Man again. The line was still busy. I walked on down to Eighth Street.
Dekker rolled up in a cab in about five minutes. He got out and paid the driver and crossed the street to me, yipped heartily: “Well, well—we are both on time.”
I nodded. We started down Eleventh Avenue. It was deserted except for a couple of passing trucks. Dekker glanced behind us several times, seemed satisfied that we weren’t being followed.
I had taken my gun out of the shoulder holster, tucked it into a thin hip holster under the waistband of my trousers, against my stomach. My coat covered it fairly well.
I said: “They just arrested Wister for the murder of Lina Ornitz.”
Dekker stopped as if he’d suddenly run into a stone wall, turned, croaked: “What do you know about Wister?”
I stopped and faced him. “Not much. That’s what I want to check—with you. I want to know all about Wister.”
He came very close and put one hand on my arm. “Listen,” he said. “I will tell you about this thing. It will not change our agreement—our deal?”
I told him it wouldn’t change our deal as long as we got the emeralds. I wondered what he’d do with fifty thousand dollars when he was sitting in the electric chair for the murder of Lina Ornitz but I didn’t mention it.
He said: “Wister and his brother David who works in the London office of Burke-Reynolds were behind it. David was the brains—he has been doing it for two years with other branches of the company, all over the world.”
I turned and he turned with me; we walked on, slowly.
“There were five of us in it this time,” he went on, “David and John Wister; Jolas, the man who actually stole the stones—we will meet him in a little while; and Lina Ornitz and myself. David Wister could make it very easy for Jolas to get things that were heavily insured by the company. He knew where they were kept and all about the burglar alarm and other measures that were taken to safeguard them—that was his job with the company.”
Dekker paused a moment, went on:
“It was all a very fine scheme. Jolas would turn the stones over to Lina Ornitz and she would bring them to New York. She’s slick at this game and has had several girls working for her, smuggling smaller stuff, for several years. Then, she would bring them to me to re-cut and I would call the police. She would ostensibly escape just before the police arrived and I would give them a wrong description of her and turn the stones over to the insurance company and collect the reward.”
I said: “And it’d split five ways—twenty thousand dollars apiece—yourself and Lina, Jolas and the Wisters?”
He nodded. “But Lina was scared at the last minute—there was too much fuss in the papers, and she would not go through with it, so Jolas brought them.”
We turned down a dark alleyway leading to one of the disused North River wharves; Dekker was a little in front of me, on my left.
“That is where we are going now,” he finished. “Jolas came in tonight on a Dutch tramp that is anchored out in the stream.”
I said: “What the hell makes you think he’ll turn the stuff over to us? And why didn’t you go out by yourself?”
Then I guess whoever decides such things figured I’d had enough luck for one night. Dekker was laughing suddenly. I did not hear him but I could see his round pink face in the faint glow of a distant arc-light, and that is the last I remember for a little while. Something hit the back of my head very hard and I fell forward into darkness.
I opened my eyes and looked up into yellow fog. I was lying on my back in the bottom of a small motor launch and the muffled engine was beating a few inches from my head. I guess I slid back into the dark for a little while because the next I remember I was being carried up a short gangway and dumped on a slippery steel deck. My hands and feet were tied and my head felt lopsided.
There wasn’t very much light but I could hear the launch going away and Dekker’s voice jabbering softly in Dutch for a moment, then lapsing into his stilted, precise English. I turned my head and tried hard to listen.
I knew enough Dutch and could catch enough of the English to know he was propositioning the skipper. The point seemed to be that the skipper didn’t know what Jolas—evidently his only passenger—was carrying, and Dekker was telling him all about the emeralds, with lots of adjectives and gestures, and trying to sell him the idea of upping anchor and shoving off for St Thomas or Kingston or Halifax, anywhere out of the States where they could cash in on the stones.
I found out later that Dekker had brought a case of instruments along and was all set to go to work at his trade. I didn’t understand what he proposed doing with Jolas but I found out about that in a little while.
I guess he made it sound pretty good to the Captain because I heard him give some orders in Dutch and in a little while I heard the winch puffing and the anchor chain rattling up. I couldn’t move and it wasn’t a lot of fun lying there and thinking what a damned idiot I’d been and wondering what was going to happen to me.
Then I heard two shots aft a little ways. I tried to sit up but someone came up behind me and kicked me in the head and I went bye-bye again. When I came to that time I was lying in the scupper and the deck was shaking under me; we were underway. The thing that interested me most, though, was that someone was crawling toward me along the scupper; I could see the outline of a man’s head and shoulders very faintly against an afterdeck light.
Then the man’s head was near mine and he was whispering. It was Jolas. I found out later he had a slug in his belly and one high in the right side of his chest. Dekker had left him for dead and he’d managed to crawl over about forty feet of littered, slippery deck.
He gasped something unintelligible, the only recognizable word of which was revolver, and I suddenly felt my hands slip free. I heard a knife click on the deck as it slid from his hand and he slumped forward, down; I twisted around and groped in the darkness, found the knife and cut the line around my ankles.
It is certain that Jolas had no idea who I was; he knew only that I was tied up and was very evidently opposed to Dekker. He raised his head a little and tried to speak again; I leaned very close to him and above the shriek of the wind and the roar of the engines made out the words:
“Revolver … in coat … cabin… .”
He succeeded in raising one arm a little, pointing aft.
It probably took me ten minutes to crawl forty feet. A seaman passed twice and someone who looked like a Chinese mess-boy. I flattened myself against the deck in the shadow of the bulkhead and they went by without noticing me.
The door of a cabin was open, swinging in the wind; I waited until the deck was clear, jumped up and ran across to it. I hadn’t realized how groggy I was until I stood up; I barely made the cabin, stumbled and fell inside. It was very dark. I guess I must have been pretty nutty. I didn’t think anything about whose cabin this might be—I just took it for granted it must be Jolas’. I got up as soon as my head stopped spinning, found the clothes press in one corner and groped for a coat.
Anyway I found a revolver. It was an old-fashioned eight-shot Krupp and loaded. I stuck it into my pocket and felt my way along the bulkhead toward the door; bumped into the washbasin. That was one of the swellest breaks of the evening; I filled the basin with cold water, doused my head, and felt like three or four new men.
The next five minutes were something like a three-ring circus, something like a shooting gallery. It’s surprising how much hell one man with a gun and a grudge and nothing to lose can raise on a ship. Especially when he isn’t expected.
I went forward, up to the bridge without running into anybody. Dekker and the skipper were bent over the chart-table; there was one man at the wheel and another with his nose pressed against the glass of one of the wheelhouse ports.
I shot Dekker. I didn’t think about it at all. I just shot him where it would hold him for a while, and his knees got soft and went outward, and he sank down to the deck. The Captain whirled around and jerked at one of the drawers in the chart table. I only had seven cartridges and I had to make all of them work; I squeezed the Krupp again and I’ll be damned if I didn’t miss him—at about ten feet. I guess I was about three-quarters slug-nutty. I got him, second shot, and the other two men put up their hands.
A guy started up the bridge ladder behind me and I got him first shot, too. That was all. I told the man at the wheel to put the ship about, and I held the revolver so that it was plenty conspicuous and told the other man—he turned out to be the Mate—to tell the radio man to call the police radio boats and tell them to stand by.
The Mate seemed to think everything I asked him to do was very reasonable. He was a very bright guy. That was about all, except for about a million cops and a lot of noise.
Jolas was dead. Dekker was tried in New York and was stuck, among other things, for Lina’s murder. He’d been scared of Lina turning them in ever since she’d backed out on bringing the stones over.