The Mourner p-4

by Richard Stark

  There was the briefest of pauses, and then Harrow replied, “That’s fine. One hour.”

  “I look forward to meeting you,” Menlo said, but Harrow had hung up. Menlo returned the receiver to its hook and smiled at it. Bringthe statue ? Did Harrow have some idea he could get the statue by trickery, and not pay for it?

  A depressing thought occurred to him. Thatmight be why the daughter had been so free with her charms. To lull his suspicions, to dull his wits.

  But would a father, even in the United States, use his daughter in such fashion?

  He wished he knew for sure what Bett Harrow saw in him. He was not young or handsome, he was only rich. But she was rich too.

  He couldn’t understand it. He was grateful for it and he would not refuse it, but he couldn’t understand it.

  He left the telephones and went through the blue entrance a slate walk flanked by cool green ponds full of tiny fish and screened on both sides by tall board fences painted blue and entered the rear of the hotel. There was a bank of three elevators here, for the convenience of the swimmers and sunbathers. Menlo rode up to the seventh floor, and then walked the endless corridors to his room.

  His black suit had been returned, beautifully cleaned and pressed. His freshly laundered shirts had come back, and the new socks and underwear he had bought in the hotel shop that morning along with the maroon bathing trunks were put away in the dresser drawer. He took a shower and dressed, checked the locked suitcase full of money in the closet, which had not been tampered with, and left the room. He went to the nearer bank of elevators, and when the elevator arrived, said, “Top floor.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  When he got off, he asked directions to suite D, and was told to bear to his right. He did so. The halls up here were done in pastel shades, much less violent than in the plebeian quarters below, much more restful. He walked a considerable distance before finally seeing a door of any kind, which was marked “C”. After a turning he came to suite D.

  A middle-aged gentleman who could have been nothing but an American businessman or perhaps a Swiss businessman, or a Scandinavian businessman, but at any rate a capitalist businessman opened the door to Menlo’s knock. “Mr Menlo?”

  “The name is Auguste, for the moment. John Auguste. You are Ralph Harrow?”

  “Yes. Come in.”

  The daughter, down on the twelfth floor, had a two-room suite. How many rooms this one contained was anyone’s guess. Harrow led the way down the foyer into a large sitting room. Directly ahead, through French doors, was a terrace. Doors in both side walls were open, leading into other parts of the suite.

  “Sit down,” said Harrow. “Drink?”

  “Perhaps Scotch. And plain water.”

  “Right you are.”

  The long sofa in the middle of the room was white leather. The marble-topped coffee table in front of it was covered by a number of American magazines, tastefully laid out in a diagonal row, so that the name of each magazine showed. Menlo sat down on the sofa, feeling the whoosh of air leaving the cushion, and looked around. He would have to get a suite like this for himself soon. Once everything has been straightened out.

  Harrow brought his Scotch and water, along with a drink for himself in his other hand. He sat down at the opposite end of the sofa. “My daughter tells me you took the statue away from Willis.”

  “In a manner of speaking.” Menlo smiled. “Actually he never did have possession of it.”

  “Then you’re an amazing man. Willis didn’t strike me as the kind of man you could take things from. Well. But that’s not why you’re here. You realize I paid for the statue once, don’t you?”

  “So I understand.”

  “Fifty thousand. Willis must have had that on him too. You mean to say you didn’t get it?”

  “No. I did not. An oversight, possibly.”

  “Bett tells me you have money. Quite a bit of it. In cash.”

  “From another source entirely, I assure you.”

  Harrow waved that aside. “The point is, I’ve already paid for the damn thing. I don’t like the idea of paying twice.”

  “Your daughter didn’t explain my terms?”

  “No, she didn’t.”

  Menlo outlined them quickly; a safe place for his money, the necessary papers to explain himself should it ever become necessary. “And one last thing,” he said. “One of my teeth is capped, and within the cap is a tiny capsule containing poison. I don’t believe”

  “Poison!”

  “Yes, I don’t be”

  “What on earth for?”

  “In my former job it was thought I might find it necessary to take my own life under certain conditions. I somehow do not believe that will ever be necessary now.”

  “Good God, man, poison! What happens when you eat?”

  “In normal activity of the jaw, the capsule cannot be broken. But what I would like, if possible, is to have some dental surgeon remove it. If you could obtain for me a dentist who would not ask a lot of questions, I would be grateful, most grateful.”

  “I think that could be arranged,” Harrow said, nodding. “I’ll speak to my own dentist about it. He’s a good man; I’ve known him for years.”

  “Excellent. And the other items?”

  “No problem at all. We’ll get you the papers first, and then dispose of the funds. Some you’ll want to invest, no doubt, and the balance you’ll want handy for living expenses. No problem.”

  “Very good.”

  “But now,” Harrow said, “I have my terms.”

  “Ah?”

  Harrow’s eyes, all at once, were shining. He leaned forward. “Before we go any farther,” he said, “I want to hear the details. I want to know exactly how you managed to get the statue away from Willis, and I want to know what on earth your job was that you had to go around with a capsule full of poison in your mouth.”

  Menlo smiled. “I see.” He had forgotten this essential fact about Ralph Harrow; the man was a romantic. It was the first thing that he had learned about Harrow, from hearing Parker and Bett talk about him back in Washington. On business matters Harrow was a total realist, but within was a strong streak of romanticism. It was the romantic, not the businessman, who had paid fifty thousand dollars for the mourner. “I will be most happy to tell all,” Menlo said.

  “Let me refresh that drink first.”

  “Thank you so much.”

  Menlo told it all then, from the time he had first received the assignment until he had arrived in Miami, deleting from the story only the sexual encounters with Bett Harrow and the murderous encounter with the old policeman. He talked also about his role as Inspector in Klastrava, and this led Harrow to question him about various high points in his fifteen-year career, and about his life as a guerrilla in the latter stages of the Second World War. Nearly an hour went by, and Harrow was still asking questions, Menlo still talking. Harrow seemed fascinated, and Menlo like most people, enjoyed having a good audience.

  But finally it was finished. Harrow, thanked him for spending so much of his time in telling the story, assuring him again that everything he’d asked for would be supplied. “Now, Mr Menlo or should I say Inspector Menlo, eh? now I do want to see the mourner. The statuette. Could you bring it?”

  Menlo considered briefly, but he no longer had any doubts. Harrow could be trusted. He finished his drink, got to his feet. “I shall get it at once.”

  “Thank you. I’ll be waiting.”

  Menlo rode the elevator back down to the seventh floor, and got the mourner out of his other suitcase. He wrapped the little statuette in one of the white bath towels from the bathroom, and brought it back upstairs under his arm. The elevator operator looked at it oddly, but didn’t say anything.

  He knocked again, and once again Harrow came to the door. “You were very quick. Is that it?”

  “Yes, this is it,” Menlo said, and bowed.

  Harrow took the bundle and immediately began to unwrap it. “Go on in,” he
said. “Go on in.” He pushed the door closed behind Menlo, and continued to stand there in the foyer, unwrapping the statue.

  Menlo walked past him into the sitting-room and there was Parker sitting on the white leather sofa, a gun in his hand. Menlo took one shocked look at Parker’s face and acted without hesitation; he twisted his jaw hard to the right, and bit down.

  PART FOUR

  1

  MENLO had been too excited, back there in Kapor’s house, too excited to think about checking the bodies and making sure the two of them were dead. And a derringer with .22 rim-fire cartridges isn’t very much of a gun

  Parker awoke to darkness, and something burning his side. He was lying on his back on a lot of rocks with an invisible flame searing his side. He moved, and the rocks made noises under him, scraping together, and then memory imploded into his mind.

  They’d underestimated the fat bastard. They’d figured him to wait till they were clear of the house, maybe even clear of the city, and he’d second-guessed them. He’d dragged that crazy little gun out from somewhere, and now he was gone with the money and the mourner, and here Parker was lying on broken pieces of statues with a burning in his side.

  He rolled over to the right because the pain was on the left side, and got his knees under him, then stabbed out with his hands till they hit a pedestal. Slowly he climbed up the pedestal till he was standing on his feet. He was weak and dizzy, and when he took a step it was bad footing because of all the broken pieces of statue everywhere on the carpet. He made it to a wall, and then felt his way along the wall to the end and made the turn, bumping into the bookcase. Now he knew where he was. He kept going around the wall till he got to the door and found the light switch. He flicked the light on.

  Everything was a mess. The room was a mess, broken statues and tipped-over pedestals everywhere, the mourner and the suitcases both gone. His side was a mess, shirt and trousers cold and sticky with blood. And Handy sprawled over there like a dummy dumped off a cliff, was an even worse mess. From the look of the blood on him, and his dead-white face, he was gut-shot.

  Parker went over, still very shaky on his feet, and dropped to his knees beside him. Handy was still breathing, very slow and shallow. Both guns were still there, the .380 and the Terrier, lying on the floor among the broken statues. The fat bastard had been in a big hurry.

  It was a good thing. If he’d taken his time, he might have done the job right.

  Never underestimate the power of a smooth-talking amateur.

  Parker gathered up the Terrier, got back to his feet, and lurched over to the door. He opened it, and saw light. Down at the far end of the hall there was a staircase the front staircase, not the one they’d come up and light was coming up from there. And, dimly, party noises.

  Parker looked at his watch. Twenty to twelve. He’d been out for over three hours. Kapor was home, the party was going on.

  He thought it out, came to a decision, and sat down on the floor next to the door. He kept the door slightly open, so he could hear when the party ended, be warned if anybody came upstairs.

  When he pulled his shirt out of his trousers, so he could look at the wound, the pain suddenly intensified, almost blacking him out again. A kind of green darkness closed in all around him, like a camera lens closing. He leaned his back against the wall and breathed deeply until the green darkness went away. Then he looked at the wound.

  The bullet had ploughed a deep furrow in the flesh along his side, just above the belt. His whole side was discoloured, grey and purplish and black, and sensitive to the touch, like a Charley horse. The furrowed flesh was ragged, and smeared with dried blood. Fresh blood still oozed sluggishly from the wound. As far as he could tell, the bullet wasn’t in him, but had scored his side and kept on going.

  So he’d come out of it better than Handy. All he had was a pain in the side. It wouldn’t even disable him badly, once a doctor had seen to it.

  He looked at his watch again. Ten to twelve. The party was still going on. To his right he could hear the shallow, laboured breathing of Handy. If the party lasted too long, Handy wouldn’t make it.

  His left arm was stiffening up. The fingers wouldn’t work right. He transferred the Terrier to his left hand, so he could get out a cigarette, and the hand wouldn’t hold on to the gun. It fell to the carpet, Parker cursed under his breath, and left it there. He lit a cigarette, and leaned his head back against the wall, and sat there with the cigarette in his mouth, listening to the party noises and Handy’s uneven breathing. His feet were out in front of him, and his arms were hanging at his sides, the hands resting palm up on the floor. A pins-and-needles feeling kept running up and down his left side and down his left arm. His fingers on that side felt like sausages, thick and unresponsive.

  The seconds limped by, dragging sacks, forming into long lines. Every line took for ever to form, and then was only one more minute. Parker lit a fresh cigarette off the butt of the old one. Then that cigarette was smoked down, and he lit another fresh one. And again.

  They were happy as hell downstairs.

  This was six. Six times in his life he’d been shot. And this was the second time he’d been left for dead. The first time, it had been a heavier slug, and well aimed, but it had hit his belt buckle instead of his stomach, and he’d managed to crawl away from that one with only the loss of appetite for a while. In England, in forty-four, an MP had winged him when he’d taken a truckful of stolen tyres through a roadblock. And three other times it had happened. He was almost as shot up as Tom Mix.

  He tried to lift his left arm so he could look at his watch, but the arm felt as though it had been injected full of lead. He reached over with his right hand and grabbed his left wrist and lifted. It was a quarter after one. The sweep-second hand was in no hurry; the other two hands were just painted on.

  They were too happy down there. Why the hell didn’t they go home?

  What if Kapor decided to show somebody all his pretty statues?

  Parker grimaced, and reached over with his right hand to pick up the Terrier. He held it in his lap, and smoked, and waited. Whenever he finished a cigarette, he butted it against the wall board. There weren’t any ashtrays handy.

  Handy sounded like he was snoring. Blood in his throat, probably. So maybe he wouldn’t make it, and the fat bastard would be batting five hundred.

  It was getting quieter downstairs. He lifted his hand again to look at his watch, and it was twenty to two. He felt as though he’d been sitting here for days. The burning had lessened in his side, and so had the pins and needles. Now there was a dull numbness, with a low throbbing pain behind it.

  Quieter and quieter. He reached up and, grabbing the doorknob, pulled himself upright. The green darkness closed in again, and he waited, leaning against the wall next to the doorway, until slowly it faded away again. The cigarettes hadn’t helped; they’d just made him more lightheaded.

  When he could take a chance on walking, he went through the doorway and lurched across to the opposite wall, so he could lean his right side against it. He moved along, more slowly than he wanted, until he got to the head of the stairs. He peered around the edge of the wall, and he was looking down at the big front hall, with a parquet floor. The front door was open, and people were leaving. Kapor was smiling and nodding, and telling them all good-bye. They were speaking a lot of different languages, French, and German and some others. Nobody was speaking English.

  It took them a long while to clear out. Two or three loudmouthed women in furs took the longest. Then the front door closed at last, and only Kapor and his butler-bodyguard were left standing in the hall.

  Kapor said something, and the bodyguard bowed and went away. They were both wearing formal dress, like waiters. Kapor yawned, patted his mouth with the back of his hand. Then he took out a flat gold cigarette case and took his time lighting a cigarette. When he finally had it going, he turned around and started up the stairs.

  He was short and slender and a dandy, with a h
awk face and ferret eyes. His hands and face were so pale they looked as though they’d been dusted with flour. He didn’t see Parker until he was all the way to the top of the stairs. When he saw Parker, and the gun, he opened his mouth wide without making any sound.

  Parker said, “Keep it soft. Walk ahead of me to the trophy room.”

  “The what?”

  “The statues,” Parker said.

  Sudden alarm showed on Kapor’s face, and then was wiped away again. “What are you doing here?”

  “We’ll talk. In the trophy room.”

  “Shall I shout for help?”

  “You won’t shout twice. Move.”

  Kapor hesitated, thinking it over, but his eyes kept flicking past Parker towards the room where the statues were. He wanted to know if the money was still in the Apollo. He shrugged and walked past Parker down the hall.

  “Move slow.”

  Kapor glanced back at him. “I see you’ve been wounded.”

  “Just move slow and steady.”

  Parker braced himself, and then staggered over to the opposite wall. He wanted to keep his right side as a support.

  Kapor walked into the room first, and stopped short in the doorway, staring at the wreckage. Then he saw the Apollo, with its head off. “What has hap”

  “That’s right,” Parker told him. “It’s gone.”

  Parker followed him in, and closed the door. He leaned his back against it. He would have liked to sit down on the floor again, but it would have been wrong psychologically.

  Then Kapor saw Handy lying there, breath still bubbling faintly in and out of him. “Is he the one who shot you?”

  “No. You ever hear of Menlo?”

  “Auguste Menlo?” Kapor looked surprised, and then frightened, and then artificially surprised. “What would the Inspector have to do with this?”

  “We’re going to make a deal, Kapor.”

  “We are? I don’t yet know what you’re talking about.”

  “The hundred grand is gone. Go take a look in the statue. It’s gone.”

  “I can see that.”