by Jack Lynch
“I want you to know, Bragg, I have new respect for you. That was one helluva punch,” Fudge conceded. “I’m still a little rocky from it. That’s why I’m going to keep the girl like this until we get what we came for and can get out of here, because I’m not sure I could hit anybody clear across the room right now, but I sure as hell could hit this kid, and I’ll blow her head off if anybody doesn’t do exactly as we say.”
Battersea’s friend, Jack, rose indignantly. “Unhand that girl, sir.”
“Sit down, asshole, before I blow her brains all over your shirt.”
“Please, Jack,” urged Battersea. “Sit down, man. Do as he says.”
Jack sat down, spluttering to himself.
“All you people move together over there,” said Elmo, pointing to the far side of the table.
We did as he said.
“Bragg, find something we can put the goods in,” said Elmo.
“There’s a small suitcase one of the lawyers here keeps in his office.”
“Excellent. Get it.”
I went into Morrisey’s office and got the bag, while Elmo watched from the doorway. I emptied out stuff that Morrisey kept in it for emergency overnight trips. I carried it out and got some towels from under the bar and began wrapping chess pieces up and putting them into the bag. Smock had moved across with the others, his face drained of color.
“How did you know?” I asked Elmo.
“All along we wondered what could make Buddy Polaski do what he did. We figured it had to be something big. We didn’t know what it was until late this afternoon, when you turned on the lights in here. We were watching the place from an office in the building across the street. If you’d pulled the blinds before turning on the lights we still wouldn’t know. We’d have been on our way back to New York with just the money. This is going to make up for a lot of the things that have gone wrong on this trip. This is going to make us large heroes, when we get back. We’ll get warm handshakes and big cigars.”
“Yeah,” said Fudge, “instead of a knife through one ear.”
“How did you get past the World men?” I asked.
“The same way we’ll get by them on the way out,” said Elmo. “Only we’re taking the girl part of the way. We won’t hurt her unless somebody tries to follow. We weren’t ready to bump into other people the first time we tried coming tonight. We didn’t know you’d be that smart. Fudge isn’t the only one who has respect for you, Bragg. And you didn’t even have to hit me.”
I snapped shut the case and Elmo took it from me then went to the door. Fudge followed, shoving Brandi ahead of him.
“Remember,” said Elmo. “Nobody comes after us or the girl dies.”
They went out and closed the door behind them. Everybody began babbling at once. I had to yell to get them to shut up.
“This is very important, everybody,” I told them. “They will do what they threatened. All of you are to stay right here. No wandering in the hall, no going into the reception room, even. Stay right here.”
“What are you going to do?” asked Battersea.
“What you people are paying me to do.”
I checked the sweep second hand on my watch. Judgment can err badly in times of high excitement. They had been gone fifteen seconds before I crouched low and slipped open the door for a quick look. They were gone.
I ran out and got Catlin’s rifle from behind the drapes. I crossed to the hallway door and crouched low again, then opened the door just wide enough for a quick look up and down the corridor. I didn’t see anybody. I slipped off my shoes and ran to the bend in the hallway from where I could see the elevators. The two World men were lounging against the wall. I whistled sharply and motioned them to come along. I ran silently back past the office and down to the stairway.
They had overpowered the single World man there. He was unconscious. I turned back and made a motion for the World men to stop. When they did I could hear the clatter of shoes overhead. They were going out onto the roof of the building. I motioned the World men on and sprinted up the stairs to the upper landing. The World men were behind me.
“Be careful,” I told them. “They have a girl hostage with them.”
I turned off the light and pushed open the fire door leading out onto the roof. Elmo, Fudge and Brandi were nearly to the far edge of the roof. There was a metal ladder attached to the outside of the balustrade there. It dropped twenty feet to the roof of the neighboring building. The only light I had was from the windows in nearby buildings. It was going to be risky, but I raised the rifle, set myself, then yelled at the top of my lungs.
“Brandi, get down!”
She was good. She bolted sideways and dropped to the roof. I fired several rounds at the two men. One of them staggered and went down on one knee. It looked like Elmo. He dropped Morrisey’s bag. Fudge had turned and was shooting blindly back at us. The two World men spread out and returned the fire.
Fudge dove forward toward Elmo, and helped his partner back to his feet, then over to the edge of the roof. While they were doing that Brandi popped up, darted over and scooped up the bag and ran hell-bent back toward us. I cursed under my breath and began running toward her. If Fudge looked back and saw her she’d be in my line of fire. Elmo was over the balustrade and on the ladder by now. He started down as Fudge looked back and saw Brandi. He began loping after her. I ran off to my right, to get an angle on him, dropped to one knee and put several shots onto the roof in front of him. I didn’t want those people dead. I just wanted them out of there. Fudge faltered, fired once in my direction, then trotted heavily back to the edge of the roof and clambered over the balustrade. Brandi was safely back by the World men. Then I made a mistake. I trotted on over near the far balustrade. That’s what Fudge had wanted. His head and one arm reappeared an instant. He fired twice at me, then dropped back out of sight. It was another few seconds before I realized one of the bullets had gone through my arm. There was blood dripping down into my hand. I started back across the roof. One of the World men came out to meet me. I gave him the rifle and shrugged out of my jacket. If Fudge’s bullet had been a half inch in another direction it would have shattered bone. I was lucky, but I had a big hole in my arm and I was losing blood. The World men helped me fashion a pad and bandage out of our handkerchiefs.
“Brandi, you’re a brave girl,” I told her, “only you were foolish to go after the bag. You could have been killed.”
“That’s what I’d been thinking ever since that terrible person grabbed me below. Then I told myself to get a grip. I tried to think of what you’d do, Peter. I decided you’d be a cool customer. I even fancied trying to disarm the one with his face all smashed. Could have done it too, if I’d gotten a chance from his blind side. Anyways, when I heard you shout I had myself all pepped up to do something heroic. It seemed most natural to go after the chess pieces. Couldn’t let those two have them. Does your arm hurt?”
“It aches some. Don’t tell the others. Let’s get out of here.”
I struggled back into the jacket and we went back below. One of the World men stopped to help the man who’d been knocked unconscious when Elmo and Fudge had sneaked down from the roof. He was just starting to come around. I sent the other back to resume his vigil at the elevators. There was something else to be done, I knew, but I couldn’t think of it. I was beginning to fall apart inside but I didn’t realize it then.
I tugged my shoes on and Brandi and I went back to the conference room. She had a wide grin on her face when she hiked over to the cherry wood table, put down the bag and opened it up so everybody could see she’d brought the chess set back. I told everyone most of what had happened on the roof. They made a nice fuss over Brandi. I think she’d done a little growing up on the roof. Smock resumed his inspection of the set. I was starting to feel a little drifty. I went over to sit on the arm of an overstuffed chair.
Smock was finished about ten minutes later. He consulted with Lansberry and then the attorney asked to use a phon
e. I told him to use Morrisey’s office. My clients were chattering nervously. Those across the room from me were becoming ragged blurs. I wanted it all over with. I didn’t know how much longer I’d be around to take part in things. And there still was something I had to remember, a thought that had occurred to me before Elmo and Fudge came busting in the second time.
Lansberry came to the doorway of Morrisey’s office. He was smiling.
“My client is prepared to offer you five million dollars for the Mediterranean Chess Set,” he announced.
There were exclamations of surprise and nervous laughter. I think I heard Erica say something about taking the money and running. I forced myself up onto my feet. I couldn’t remember the first important thing, but this was big enough for me to take part in.
“Wait a minute.” I said it louder than I meant to. It was a part of having been shot. There were a lot of things I couldn’t gauge quite right then. But everybody shut up and turned to look at me.
“My stone man’s an expert in the field,” I told them. “He said the Mediterranean set, if it got all put back together again, should bring in anywhere from six to ten million dollars. No problem. He has a friend living in Berne who could put us in touch with people who would be willing to pay that. Otto Kessel. He said not five million. He said six to ten million. No problem, he said.”
Nobody said a word. Lansberry was staring coldly with his cold eyes. He didn’t like me. I didn’t mind that. He turned and went back into Morrisey’s office. A moment later he returned to the doorway.
“My client is prepared to offer you six million dollars for the Mediterranean Chess Set.” He was a little more subdued this time.
I nodded, to let everybody know that should be acceptable, and sat down again. And then I knew the other thing, the important thing I’d thought about earlier. Everything was in place now. I should have seen it earlier. At least earlier that day. I was a really dumb private detective. My clients were pretty smart people by and large. They deserved better than a dumb private detective. At the very least I should have had one of my guns out. I carried two of them, but I couldn’t get to either one of them. My right hand was useless by now. Even if I could manage to wrench the .45 out of its holster with my left hand without blowing a hole in my chest I wouldn’t be able to shoot it left-handed. The revolver, the Combat Special the Marines in Korea had given me, was way over on the other side of my body somewhere. And then I thought about Brandi. If I told her she’d think of something to do. She was a good girl, Brandi. It occurred to me my eyes were closed. I think I had drifted off. It took a little effort to get them open again.
I was too late. Bryan Gilkerson was holding Brandi the way he’d seen Fudge do it. He had a little revolver pointing at the back of her head. He told somebody to put the chess set back into Morrisey’s bag again.
TWENTY
I managed to stand up again. I weaved a bit and Bryan thought I was going to be foolish.
“Don’t do anything rash, old man. I would hate terribly to hurt you or the girl here. But I intend to take along the chess set. I’ve intended that for a very long time indeed.”
I shook my head some to clear it, and spoke to the others.
“This is just like before. Do what the man says.”
People stood around dumbly. Brandi was angry. There was something else in her expression too, but I couldn’t make it out. Lansberry stood mouth ajar in Morrisey’s doorway. The pieces were back in the bag.
“Now close it up and bring it along, will you, dear?” Bryan asked the girl.
She did what he said, but now she looked across at me long enough to give me a wink. She wanted to be heroic again. She thought it was fun.
“Brandi,” I called to her. “Do exactly what he says now. Trust me in this.”
She didn’t reply. As out of it as I was, I thought I’d set things up well enough to save the situation if only Brandi didn’t mess up on me. It was then Erica found her tongue. She was on her feet, one astonished lady.
“Bryan? What ever are you doing?”
“As they say at your cinema, dear, I’m trying most desperately to make good my getaway. There were times these past few days when I feared I would never bring it off. But things are going to work out after all.”
Gilkerson, prodding Brandi before him, made his way up to my end of the room. He looked at me strangely. “You’ve been hurt, old man.”
“Yeah, up on the roof. But don’t worry about it.”
“Oh, I shan’t, I promise you that. No time for regrets now. Can you manage to tag along, you suppose?”
“I suppose.” I was holding the wounded arm close to me with my other hand now. It didn’t hurt quite as much that way. I went along out to the reception area. Erica was right behind me.
“Bryan, tell me this is some joke. You can’t mean this.”
“Sorry, old girl,” he told her. “Going on from here alone, I’m afraid.”
“You can’t go alone. You said you loved me.”
“I know, that was a ruse, I’m afraid. It was the only way I could stay current with what old Harry was doing about the bloody chess set.”
Erica held one hand to her throat. “You were planning to take it all along?”
“Of course, dear. I’m the one who stumbled onto what it was that you all had in the first place.”
“I’ve got to rest a moment,” I told him, sitting on a corner of Ceejay’s desk. “So you were the traveling man.”
“The what?”
“You’re the one who swapped a money clip for the chessman the abo had.”
“Oh, that. Yes. Stroke of luck, that was. I was on vacation a year or so back. Spent some time in Australia. Fascinating land. Took a tour of the seamier side of Perth and stumbled on the abo in a scummy little pub. I’d heard about the Med set during my peripatetic life with Reuters. Recognized what the abo had for what it was, got it away from him then used to spend restless nights wondering what could have become of the rest of it. But enough of that. You, Peter, will escort me and the girl now past your bodyguards outside.”
“Not just yet, Bryan. You owe me. I took a bullet to get those things back for you.” I turned to Erica. She stood ashen-faced beside me. “How much did you know about this?”
“I didn’t know any of it, not this,” she said in a tight little voice. “I knew that he knew about the set of course. Said he used to talk to Harry about it. Did you, Bryan? Did you talk to Harry about it?” She was fighting back tears now.
“No, dear, not until the end. Not until late on the day your brother was killed.”
Erica turned to me. She tried to smile. It didn’t work. “He said that he loved me desperately, Peter. I’ve been all mixed up over the two of you these past few days. But he had me convinced that he loved me. Even before Harry died, he said we could go away together.”
“Then the two of you had been seeing each other. Even before Harry was killed.”
Brandi rolled her eyes again. She was good at that.
Erica nodded her head. “Yes. We were quite close. At least I thought we were. I’ve never had anybody do this to me before.”
“Sorry, pet,” said Gilkerson. “But you were just a small part of the scheme of things. Ever since that party at your place last Fourth of July. That’s when Harry mentioned these odd sticky things he’d brought back from the war. I almost dropped my whiskey glass when I realized what he was talking about. The excruciating thing was, Harry still didn’t know, although Reuters had carried a story about the set months before. He must have missed it.”
Gilkerson shook his head and turned to me. “So I slipped into the Chronicle building one night a few weeks later and planted the story again. Only I added a paragraph about the black tape the pieces were wrapped in. Was like having to hit a mule with a brick to get Harry’s attention, but this time it worked. He knew what he had. About the same time, I was displaying a great fondness for Erica. In the course of our rather torrid affair she was good enou
gh to mention the chess set. Hinted that a great deal of money could be had. Said the two of us could run off somewhere together after the money came in. I told her I was all for that, naturally.”
“Why did you kill Harry?” I asked him.
Erica looked stunned. She hadn’t realized that he had to be the killer. “Bryan, how could you? He was just a burned-out old man. He couldn’t hurt you. And you already had me.”
“Never wanted you, pet. Not permanently, leastways. And Harry finally figured it all out. At least enough of it. He went back in his thought processes and recalled the chat we’d had about his little war souvenirs. He finally tied that to the repeated Reuters story. And he was quite certain you and I were seeing each other. That day your brother was killed, he later called me into his office. Asked if I was the fellow who’d gotten the piece away from the abo. He was nice enough about it. He just told me not to be so greedy, that there would be enough in it for all of us. Only he was wrong there. I meant to have it for myself. I’m not seeking sympathy, dear, but I’ve lived a wretched life by and large. Seen a bit of the world but I’ve never been paid enough money. Leastways I can’t seem to hold on to it for long. No, there’s enough just for me, I’m afraid. And maybe old Harry would be too stupid to see what I was doing, but if he ever mentioned my part in it to Peter here, it would be all over for me. You would have figured it out in a minute, wouldn’t you, Peter?”
“Maybe not quite that quickly. But it would occur to me. In time.”
“The rub of it was,” continued Gilkerson, “Harry had me in a corner of sorts. He invited me out to his place for dinner the same night he asked you, Peter. I had to do something and it had to be very quick. So we drove out of town together. I know the road well enough and got ahead of him. It was a dirty night out. Not much traffic. So at a proper spot along the cliff I pulled over at a turnout and lifted the bonnet on my car. Good old Harry stopped to see what was wrong. I shot him and rolled his little car over the side. Didn’t take but a matter of seconds. I had decided by then I had to take my chances through Erica. And you, Peter.”