by K R Hill
“Why did Mr. Devonshire need a secret warehouse? What’s he hiding?”
Dalton turned off the computer. “It’s time to find out. You up for a drive?”
“Well, yeah.” Nick typed something on his cell phone and looked up. “That’s where we set out to go, right?”
Dalton snatched Nick’s phone. “Tell me you didn’t just text about what we found to one of your computer buddies.”
Nick drew his head back. “No. No way. Boss. I would never say anything about the case.”
“Who did you text? Tell me or I’ll smash it.”
“Ah!” Nick walked away and came back quickly. “It’s just this girl. She wants to meet, okay?”
Dalton returned the cheap phone. “Don’t tell her about Bugsy.”
“That again?”
***
The house sat back from the street and was surrounded by a spongy, thick lawn of Bermuda grass. Close to the house, the half circle driveway passed a dry fountain filled with dead leaves. Sitting on a street of Spanish-style homes built in the forties, the fountain house looked more like a small library or museum.
Dalton parked beside the fountain, hopped up the front steps, and tried the brass door handle. It refused to move. He pushed several times, then gave up and leaned forward and peeked through the crack between curtain and door frame.
Nick thumped on the wall with a hand. “Is this stone? I don’t think I’ve ever seen a house built of stone in California.”
“They used to be everywhere,” said Dalton. “An earthquake in 1933 knocked down most of them.” He hurried around the side of the house, trying windows as he went. “Mrs. Devonshire said that there would be a key on this ledge.” Dalton reached over the side gate and found the key.
They pushed open the gate. It scraped the concrete walkway, and they walked around the back of the house to the rear door. Behind the house stood a massive oak tree with a dangling swing. The rear door was made of quarter-sawn oak, with beveled glass in the side windows and a speakeasy door at eye level. Dalton fiddled with the skeleton key for a few minutes and finally managed to get the lock to click open. The door was another matter. He pushed several times but it didn’t move. Then he put his shoulder against it and shoved.
When it gave way, it flew open and he barged into a spacious kitchen. Old maroon and yellow tile covered the countertops and floor. “Man,” he said, pulling the curtains away from the window. “I wonder how long it’s been since sunlight got in here.”
They moved from room to room, touching photographs of the Devonshire family at different times of the year. Each photo was in its own little frame, covered with dust. The bedroom contained images from the couple’s youth, where the couple looked like teenagers, and in the adjacent rooms the couple in the photos aged, as though each room contained part of their life.
Dalton searched books, opened the medicine cabinets, read old mail, and looked for the reason Mr. Devonshire had spent so much time here.
“Hey,” called Nick. “You better get in here.”
Dalton hurried out of the bedroom, down the creaking hallway, and into the living room. The dining table had been shoved against the wall, and the rug was bunched up beside it. A trap door in the floor stood open, and Nick was halfway down the stairs.
“Be careful. We don’t know what’s down there.”
Nick leaned over and looked beneath the floorboards, down into the basement. “It does look pretty creepy. You don’t think there’s spiders, do you?”
“It’s a basement. That’s spider world.”
“I hate you.” Nick climbed up.
“Maybe it’s what we’re looking for.”
Dalton took out his automatic and climbed down.
The basement looked like the vault room of a bank. The walls were concrete blocks painted a gloss mustard. The floor was coated with a clear epoxy that held black and white flecks beneath a surface that appeared wet. A carved teak desk sat against the back wall. And behind the desk, a cork bulletin board covered the wall. Pinned to the bulletin board with colored pins were newspaper clippings, maps and photographs, drawings of lands with biblical names.
Nick went to a heavy metal door in one of the walls and tried the lock. “Did she tell you where the key was for this?”
“I don’t think she’s ever been down here.”
Among the papers on the bulletin board, Dalton found an advertisement for the seminar in Germany and put his finger on it. “This is where it began. Look at this.”
Nick glanced at the ceiling and pulled his collar tight around his neck.
“Forget about the spiders. Look. He has the names of all the speakers at that seminar.” Dalton moved his hand down the list. “Every one of them has died, and Mr. Devonshire was keeping track.”
“Oh, here we go.” Dalton removed a photograph of a dead man. A paper clipped to it was a newspaper article that mentioned a Special Forces unit attached to the Vatican.
“Oh, look who gets mentioned.”
“The Vatican?”
“Yes. Rossi and his men are tracking the artifact, working their way down the list of attendees.”
Nick shook his head. “Why would they be killing people?”
“They want the map and the treasure.” Dalton stuck the photo back on the board and moved through the basement. “Look at this place. Everything has been modernized:
electrical conduit new and shiny, bright new lights everywhere, new paint. But look at the desk. That thing must have been built in the 1920s. The rug, the desk lamp, the chair beside the desk, they’re all old.” He touched the desk.
“He loved old things but liked to be comfortable, too.”
“Yeah, that’s what I’m thinking.” Dalton sat at the desk.
“So, what do we do now?”
“There’s always something that doesn’t fit. That’s what you have to look for. What do you see in this room that doesn’t fit?”
“That door,” said Nick, pointing at the thick metal door. “It should be on some castle in Scotland.”
“It has to be this chair. We know the guy came here alone. He has a chair at the desk for himself, but why is the other chair here.” Dalton stood up and tilted the chair back. He reached down and touched a metal ornament that protruded from the front of each leg. Across the room, he noticed two marks scratched in the metal door. Then he turned the chair over. Stuck to the bottom on a metal brace was a magnetic key box. He smiled. “It’s good you have a master detective with you.”
“How’d you know?”
“It doesn’t fit. This was the last place he wanted a visitor, right? If the warehouse is hidden here, I’m guessing that a man who dealt in antiquities has some pretty nice pieces stashed away.”
Dalton removed the box, slid open the top, and removed the key.
“Now that’s a key,” laughed Nick.
Dalton walked to the metal door.
“Are you sure we want to go in there? With a door like that, it’s got to be major creepy in there.”
Dalton turned the key in the lock. The door opened with a long creak. He took out his flashlight cell phone, and looked around inside the door. It didn’t take them long to find the light switch.
“Oh my God,” said Dalton.
The old warehouse was about 300 square feet. In one corner stood three Greek statues, a sofa between them. In the center of the room stood a wall of plywood six feet tall. On it hung two paintings.
“That’s a Van Gogh. That can’t be authentic.” Nick walked to the paintings and took out his cell and started searching for the painting. “This was lost during World War II.” He swiped and read: “Painter on the Road to Tarascon, it is called.”
“What about Degas?” Dalton leaned forward and wiped a finger across a brass plaque on the frame of the other painting.
“Don’t touch!” Nick hurried over. “That’s Five Dancing Women. That was my art teacher’s favorite painting.”
“These two paintings alone mus
t be worth millions. Crap. Don’t touch anything! This just turned into a sand trap.”
Nick shoved his phone into a pocket. “What are you talking about?”
“Look around. This wasn’t one eccentric collector. Two world-class paintings stashed away has to mean an organization. To find these paintings, to move them without the authorities finding out, in and out of countries, moving payments around without alerting the tax authorities, that takes major power.”
“Okay, so what’s–”
“Did you touch anything? Anything at all?” Dalton pulled his shirt from his waistband, and wiped the plaque on the painting that he’d touched. “What’s the big deal? We have to get out of here. Come on.” They backed up a few steps, turned and headed to the door. “Think it through, Nick. A group with that kind of power can’t leave two paintings like that lying around. They’ll be exposed. We don’t want to be around when they send in the clean-up crew.”
“What about the Solomon’s Key?”
“I think it’s here. There’s something bugging me. I’m not seeing something.”
“Then keep looking.”
“This isn’t a place to hang around. We could die here. Don’t mention this basement or the paintings to anyone; not Ted, not your mom, not even that girl you’re texting with.”
“We’re just going to have coffee.” Nick shook his head.
Dalton stopped at a steamer trunk with a rounded top and shiny brass hinges, like a pirate’s treasure chest. He tried the latch and made a noise of surprise inside his throat when he found it was not locked. The top opened unevenly and got stuck, until Nick came over and they both pulled it open.
“Holy shit,” said Nick, and jumped back.
Stacks of crisp hundred-dollar bills, Swiss francs, and Euros filled the trunk. Each currency was wrapped in plastic into individual blocks, each the size of a small suitcase.
Nick gasped and reached out a hand. “Can I take one home, or touch it? Can I touch it? Let me just talk to it.”
“Here, let’s take them to show Mrs. Devonshire. Don’t touch the trunk.”
Nick lifted the blocks.
Dalton closed the trunk and pulled off his shirt and wiped their fingerprints from the lid. “Someone has to know about that money. Stacks of cash and the owner died. That’s an invitation to get the money.”
Nick looked around the warehouse. “If this trunk has cash in it, what do you suppose is in that trunk?” He pointed at another trunk, four feet away.
“I’m almost afraid to look.”
Dalton opened the second trunk. Wrapped in plastic was the body of a man. Areas of his face had liquefied, as though they had melted, exposing the skull. One eye ball hung from the socket, and the lips had long since turned to a brown liquid, exposing fillings in his teeth.
“Oh, fuck.” Nick jumped away and turned his back.
“Come on, let’s get out of here.”
Dalton wiped everything they’d touched. Back upstairs, they went through every room, wiping every photograph, every doorknob, each light switch. Before they stepped outside, Dalton covered the blocks of cash with his shirt.
Chapter 16
Dalton climbed into the car and looked around. “Man, what is it with you and old cars? You’ve been driving around in junk cars ever since high school.”
“What do you mean, junk cars? This is a 1967 Chevy Malibu. It’s a classic. Thank you very much.”
Dalton flipped down the sun visor and bounced up and down on the black seat. “Why don’t you walk into a dealership like a normal person and buy a new car? I’ll bet that if I opened the trunk right now, I’d find a toolbox full of tools you need to keep this thing on the road.”
“Oh.” Ted nodded several times and grabbed the steering wheel with both hands. “I got tools, okay? Things happen. It’s a classic car. I like driving cars from the sixties. If you don’t like it, you can get out and catch a bus.”
“I’m just saying, first it was that old Pontiac. You had to grab the windows and pull them up with your hands to roll them up. And then you had the Monte Carlo. It burned so much oil that people were always throwing things and telling you to get off the road.”
“Did you call and want to meet so you could insult my automobiles?”
Dalton laughed. “No, I just needed to talk. We really fell into it at the San Pedro house.”
“Is anyone following you?” Ted reached under his coat for his weapon while checking the mirrors.
“No, we stayed a step ahead of them. I think Mr. Devonshire was a big-time player in black market art.”
“Why? What’d you find?”
“A body. He had a trunk with a body stuffed in it. And get this: twin trunks, one with a body, and the other filled with currency wrapped and stacked like in a bank vault.”
Ted looked over. “No! Money like that means big-time bad people. That amount of green don’t sit around without people knowing about it. And now with the big dawg gone, they’re gunna come sniffing.”
“Exactly.”
“We get out, right?”
“I can’t leave Sophie like that.”
“Yes, you can. Money like that means a ruthless organization. We just move along before they put bullet holes in us.”
“She needs our help.”
“And that’s Dalton in a nut shell: always trying to help some woman.”
Ted checked his mirrors, and shifted into first gear and rolled out on Gaffey street, heading toward the bridge over the harbor, back into Long Beach.
As they drove, Dalton remembered the old down town around city hall, the park, the brass cannon, and the old library with its creaky floor. He preferred his childhood memories of the area to what he saw now: abandoned crack houses, restaurants all crammed onto a few streets like covered wagons grouping together.
Ted turned off the freeway and picked up Ocean Boulevard where formula 1 cars in the Grand Prix had left burned tire marks here and there. A few blocks east of Alamitos Boulevard, the city disappeared on the ocean side. A cliff dropped to the sand where a bike path followed the beach. Along the path strolled couples, joggers, and business-men and women talking into headsets. And past it all was the Pacific Ocean, glimmering in the setting sun. On the horizon sat Catalina Island, a dark spot in the distance, a few clouds hovering above.
Ted turned on to Redondo and tapped Dalton on the arm. “Hey, I think we got a tail. That Lexus back there has been with me since I got off the freeway.”
“Okay, let’s see what they got. Take a right.” Dalton pointed and glanced over his shoulder.
One block before Broadway, Ted turned onto a residential street. An Army truck that was coming toward them crossed into their lane and blocked the street. The Lexus skidded to a halt behind them. The doors burst open, and the woman from the diner jumped out with several associates.
Dalton turned. Uri Dent climbed out of the Lexus, along with two men.
Uri walked over and tapped on Ted’s window.
But the woman from the diner shouted to her squad, and they ran to the Malibu.
“Step away from the vehicle,” shouted the woman. “These are my prisoners. I will not say it again.” She shouted something in Hebrew, and her associates aimed automatic weapons.
“Relax,” said Uri Dent, holding his hands in the air and walking backward, away from the Malibu.
One of Uri Dent’s men shouted and dropped behind Dalton’s car and fired three shots. The first shot knocked one of the Israeli men off his feet.
“Oh, fuck this, I ain’t getting killed!” Ted shoved the gear-shift into reverse, turned and looked over the seat as he stomped on the gas. He smashed into the Lexus and kept going, pushing the vehicle along the street.
“Come on!” shouted Ted. The rear wheels of the Malibu were smoking as they spun; the engine screamed as it pushed the Lexus up the curb. The moment the Lexus hopped up the curb, Ted shoved the gear-shift into first. The Malibu had just begun to roll forward when several shots tore i
nto the fender, and the tire exploded.
As the escaping air made a whining sound, Dalton shouted and pulled the door handle. But his door didn’t open. He shouted again and threw his shoulder against the door several times. The fourth time he hit the door, it opened and he jumped out.
“We don’t have anything,” he shouted, holding his hands over his head and jumping about in the street. “Stop shooting! Whatever it is you’re looking for, we don’t have it. What the fuck! We just need to go on our way, all right? I’m trying to earn a living. I’m an investigator. I don’t have what you’re looking for, so get the fuck out of the street and stop shooting.”
“You don’t have the artifact?” asked one of the Italian agents. He raised up on his elbows where he lay in the grass.
“And you, you crazy bitch.” Dalton ran at the Israeli truck, took out his weapon, swung it like a hammer, and shattered the passenger window.
“Hell no.” Ted grabbed his arm and pulled him backward. “Put your weapon away! Are you out of your mind? You’re going to get us killed. You got shooters on both sides, you idiot.”
Dalton tripped on Ted’s foot, and they fell to the warm asphalt.
“Okay,” shouted one of the Italians. “We are putting down our weapons.”
The Israeli woman shouted, and the short, heavyset man, who was kneeling behind a tree, set down his weapon and sprinted to Dalton and Ted; he quickly frisked them. After he had searched their pockets and patted them down, he threw his hands into the air and stood up. “I got nothing,” he said.
Before the Israeli had finished searching, one of the Italians ran to the Malibu and rifled through it. He dumped the contents of the glovebox on the floor, dug fast-food wrappers from beneath the seat, and emptied a cloth shopping bag into the street. “Nothing here, either,” he shouted.
“My car! Those fuckers shot my car!” After he had circled the Malibu a couple of times and whimpered every time he touched a dent or bullet hole, Ted opened the trunk. “Now I’m going to take my toolbox out and change the tire! Because I have a toolbox, I can at least change my tire.”
