The Good Old Stuff
Page 17
I didn’t waste time looking around. I hobbled toward the high wall. It was at a level with the top of my head and made with broken glass set into the cement on top of it. I tore off my jacket and threw it over the glass. Then I caught the edge and drew myself up. I missed the extra leverage of the fingers I had lost. The glass bit through the jacket and into the flesh of my hands. I dropped over the wall and snatched the jacket. In front of me was a wide field with a house on the far side of it. To the right across another small field was the familiar road. I ran toward it as fast as I could. My bad ankle seemed to be getting more painful by the second.
I pulled the jacket on and hurried away from the club. I stood on the corner until an idling rickshaw coolie sauntered along. He speeded up when I shouted. A few seconds later he was running with me toward the Galle Face Hotel. I sat on the black leather seat, breathing heavily and inspecting the cuts on my hands. I made the promise that Mr. O’Dell would be paid back in the same coin with exorbitant interest.
My jacket was ragged and my hands were bloody when I walked through the lobby of the hotel. I went on up to my room and phoned Kaymark. After I told him two sentences, he told me that he’d come over immediately. I bandaged my hands clumsily and had the boy get me a deep basin of cold water in which I could soak my ankle.
Peter arrived in five minutes. After I finished the story, he sat, looking shaken, and said, “We’ll have to get back over there, Garry. Right away.”
“How about picking up a bunch of your people? I can charge them with enough to sew them up for years.”
He shook his head. “Not necessary. You don’t realize how the British Army rates out here. They wouldn’t dare try anything with me. Besides, I have this.” He slid the butt of a heavy automatic partway out of his tunic pocket and then let it drop back. “Any time you feel well enough to go.…”
We were in a taxi headed for the January Club within a matter of minutes. As we pulled up in front, he said, “Now let me handle it. Don’t talk.”
We walked in, and again the boy was expressionless. Peter asked for O’Dell and was told that he could be found in the cocktail room. Peter walked ahead and I limped after him. I hadn’t seen the cocktail room before. It was in the rear of the building, beyond the dining room. It opened out into the garden. O’Dell was sitting hunched at a table near the open doors. He looked up with a wry smile when we walked in.
There were three extra chairs at his table. We were far enough from the bar so that low voices couldn’t be heard by the bartender.
“You’re off games, O’Dell,” Peter said as we sat down.
“Just a little joke, Peter. Afraid this American beggar might take it too seriously.”
“It’s more than that. You’re going to have to do a lot of talking. You’re all tied together. You and Van Hosen, Conny, Wend. Conny’s death and the death of the boy who used to be on the door. It’s all got to be explained.”
“Not by me, son. I’m just a bystander. Don’t know a thing.”
I interrupted. “One thing you should have known, O’Deil, is that I’m too stubborn to talk, no matter what you tried to do. You should have seen that.”
O’Deil looked at Peter, his mouth sullen. “Then what’s the bloody use of bringing—” I was looking at him. I saw his eyes widen. I turned toward Peter just as the heavy automatic banged. The noise of the shot was deafening in the still room. There was a crash of glassware from the direction of the bar.
I looked back at O’Deil. The slug had caught him flush in the center of his upper lip, turning his mouth into a bloody hole. I could see bits of his shattered teeth. He seemed to clutch the edge of the table for a second, then his eyes seemed to look far beyond us. He bent slowly over to the left and his huge body thumped onto the floor, overturning both his chair and the table. We got up. Peter looked older and very tired.
He turned to me and saw the question in my eyes. “Couldn’t take a chance, Garry. Saw him tighten up and knew he was going to try something.” I recalled the immense size and vitality of the man. Once under way, he would have been hard to stop. When the table had gone over, O’Dell’s drink had crashed to the floor. The spattering liquid had spotted Peter’s trousers. He slid the automatic back into the side pocket of his tunic and took out his handkerchief. He bent over and carefully blotted the spots. Attracted by the noise of the shot, half a dozen servants had hurried into the cocktail lounge. They stood ten feet away and gazed with wide eyes at the dead hulk of the retired planter.
The head boy stepped forward and said, “Kaymark master wishes me to call the police?”
“No, Ratmani. I’ll do it.” He turned to me. “Better stay by the body while I use the telephone. The boys might take his money if we both stayed away long enough.”
I upended the fallen chair as he strolled out. I pulled it over to one side and sat where I could see the corpse without having to turn my head. The room was very still. The man was dead, and yet there were small movements from the corpse—the crackle of starched whites as the body settled, the rumble of gases in the abdomen. Fresh corpses will sometimes give the impression of life, but after a few minutes they seem to settle more flatly against the floor, they take on that distinctive “sack of wheat” look which is unmistakable. Then they become substances instead of persons. A few dollars’ worth of chemicals that the clothes no longer fit. One by one the other servants backed out until only the head boy and the bartender were left. I ordered a double scotch. I felt uneasy. How many deaths? Christoff, Constance, the doorboy, O’Dell. It began to look as though there would be no one left to give me the proof of Christoff’s innocence. Wend and Van Hosen and the men who had been playing bridge.
Kaymark, the familiar man with the long white face, and three uniformed policemen came in as I was watching the door.
Peter was in the middle of a sentence. “… and I’ll turn my report in to my colonel. He’ll authorize a true copy to be sent to you. Purely a technicality, covered by our existing operating regulations. You understand.”
They stood by the body of O’Dell. I stood up. The white-faced man rubbed his chin. He turned to me. “And you were also sitting at the table? Can you give me a report?”
Peter interrupted. “Just a minute, Saxon. Let me send his in with mine with a copy to you later. Army business, you know.”
Saxon sighed. “Nothing else to do, I guess. You and your friend can go any time, lieutenant.”
“Wait a minute there,” I interrupted. “How about a charge of abduction or something? How about those other men that—”
“Hold it, Garry,” Peter demanded, his voice loud and sharp. “We’ll take care of that also.”
Saxon raised his thin black eyebrows. “Suppose you let me know about it now, Mr. Garry.”
“You don’t have to answer him, Garry,” Peter said quietly.
I looked from one to the other. Peter had a faint smile hidden around the corners of his mouth.
“I’d better follow the lieutenant’s advice. I’ll put it in the report.” Again the police official sighed. I looked back as we walked out and saw him stooping over the body.
As soon as we were far enough away, Peter said plaintively, “Damn it, Garry, you don’t want those beggars in on it. They’d foul it up for you. You’d never find out the truth once they got their heavy hands on it.”
I stopped walking and fished out a cigarette. He paused and waited for me. “Look, Peter. While you were phoning I was sitting in there thinking. I’ve got enough now so that I’m convinced in my own mind that Dan wasn’t out of line. And I think I’ve got enough to convince his wife and his people. What more do I need? Maybe I ought to give the whole thing up and go back to the States. Come on over to my hotel and let’s talk it over.”
He agreed, but added, “We’ll have to make it short. I’ve got to get that report in.”
I didn’t have much to say to him as we rode back to the Galle Face in the taxi. I was too busy with my own plans and problems.
“You’ve thought over what I said, Peter.”
“Yes, but I thought you wanted to stay around and prove that Christoff wasn’t to blame. I thought you wanted it to go on the records.”
“I did, but what are the odds? I’m more certain, yes, but what proof have I got? How do I know I’m going to get any more proof? How do I know I won’t be killed in the process myself? That crack O’Dell made about a Co-Prosperity Sphere sort of got me. I’m tangling with something big. It’s like an iceberg—I’ve only seen the little part that’s out of water.”
He sipped his drink and looked thoughtful. I marveled again at the long curled lashes. At last he said, “Maybe you’re right. At least I could carry on here, and once we break it up, I could arrange to have Christoff cleared officially. I’m sure we’ll break it up in time, whatever it is.”
“Let me show you something, Peter. It’s a letter that Dan’s wife got from the U.S. colonel out here. It’s what you’ve got to counteract.”
I got up and walked over to the bureau. He had to move his arm to give me room. I fumbled in the top drawer and cursed about not being able to find it. I looked in the bureau mirror and waited until I could see his head tilt back as he drained the last of the drink. I spun and chopped down hard with my right fist, swinging it like a hammer. It had to be good. It was. It hit him flush on the side of the jaw. My follow-through knocked the empty glass across the room. He was stunned but not completely out. I dropped my right fist and swung it up in an uppercut that straightened him out in the chair. He sagged back into it, completely limp.
I ran over to the door and locked it. Then I stripped the cover off my bed and took a sheet. I ripped it down the middle, the long way. Then I yanked him off the chair and tossed him on the floor, half in and half out of the bathroom. There was a transom over the high bathroom door. I tied one end of the half sheet firmly around his wrist and then lifted him up so that I could throw the other end over the transom. I caught it and pulled down with all my weight. It lifted him until his toes barely touched the floor. I knotted the sheet. Then I did the same with the other wrist. His head sagged forward.
Then I had to wait for him to regain consciousness. I had hit him a little harder than I had intended. I grew impatient. Finally I drew a glass of water and threw it into his face. He tried to lift his head. The second glass brought him around.
He stared at me, and then he craned his neck and looked up at the knots and the transom. He looked back at me, his eyes wide and startled. “Now look here, Garry, this better not be some kind of a joke.”
“It isn’t a joke. It’s the first smart thing I’ve done on this island.”
He smiled. He looked tender and forgiving. “I say, old man, this heat here is pretty grim. Now be a good chap and cut me down. This arrangement hurts my wrists. We’ll go see a doctor, right now.”
“You’re clever, Kaymark, but I can add two and two. You’ve made a few slips, you know.”
“Come on now, this is silly. Cut me down and I’ll forgive you the whole thing.”
“Wait a minute, Peter. You like mirrors, so you can watch that pretty face of yours. I think you ought to get a look at it now.”
I grabbed the heavy bureau and twisted it around so that it stood about eight feet away from him. I tilted the mirror until it was at the right angle. Then I walked forward and slugged him. I hit him high on the cheekbone, turning my fist as it hit so that I could be certain of splitting the skin.
Then I stepped back and waved at the mirror. “Take a look, Pretty Boy.”
His eyes widened and then narrowed. “That was cheap, Garry.”
“Sure! Cut-rate Garry. Cheap and practical. The working man’s thug. Now comes a little something that I happened to think of back in the January Club. I tell you this little something and, if you act dumb about it, I tap you again, in a new spot. Then I tell you something else. You understand?”
“I understand what you mean, but it’s senseless!”
“Maybe to you. You haven’t heard all. I’ll do work on that pretty face that no plastic surgery’ll ever fix. I’ll tell you when I come to the last point. If you don’t start talking then, I put my heart into one dilly that ought to spread your nose wide enough to touch the doorframes. Okay?”
“Please cut me down.” His composure was gone. His voice was getting high and thin. I knew that it wasn’t helping him any to be able to see the quick swelling of the spot on the cheek where I had nailed him.
“Now for point number one. Remember when I told you that I thought Constance had been drowned by someone? Your normal reaction would have been to go back out and check the body again to look for any signs of violence. You didn’t.”
“That’s absurd. I’d already checked the body.”
“But you claimed that you checked it thinking that it was an accidental drowning. Where’d you like the next one, sonny?” I didn’t give him a chance to answer. It made me feel faintly sick to hit a man who couldn’t hit back, but it had to be done. I swung hard and hit the other cheek. I made a better cut across the cheekbone. It began to bleed immediately. He tried to shake his head to clear it, but the sheets held his upper arms too tightly against his ears.
“Point number two is minor. If you don’t work with the police, how did you know Conny had drowned? Who’d inform you? Why would you be out there if swimming isn’t recommended this time of year? You popped up too quick. Ready to talk a little?”
“This is mad, Garry. Stop it now before you go too far.”
I had to mark him up badly and save the delicate nose for last. I planted a short choppy right on the corner of his mouth. It smacked hard enough to swing him back a little. He shut his eyes and groaned.
“The next pernt, dearie, is the charming way you decided that all my plans concerning the January Club were no good. Even I could see that the smart thing to do would be to gather up all those jokers and sweat something out of them.”
“But you can’t handle these people that way. They never talk. Damn you, stop all this, you’re cutting me.”
“Sure, I’m cutting you. And sure it’s a bloody shame it is, me fine bhoy.”
I slammed another one into his mouth. I felt teeth give under my knuckles and the blood spurted across the back of my hand. I saw him glance beyond me into the mirror. He was twisted around the eyes like a small boy trying not to cry.
“The next point, Peter. Who knew about my bribing the boy at the door? Only you. Certainly that boy looked too smart to let anybody else know. And he got it the same night. Very very peculiar.”
“Wait!” he screamed. “They must have found out some other way. They had to find out some other way.”
I ignored him. It made me ill, but it had to be done. I hit him hard over the right eye, hard enough to split the cartilage. I had to plan on his being too inexperienced to know that the marks I was making would be gone in a few months, leaving possibly a few tiny white scars.
“Another point. I don’t think that the American consulate employs any local help until their honesty and loyalty has been pretty well checked. O’Dell said that an employee of the consulate tipped him off about my note. Nuts! I told you about it, and you told O’Dell. Talking yet?”
He surprised me. He pulled himself up a little straighter and looked squarely into my eyes. His face was as firm as it could be in its mangled condition. A moment before I had thought he was going to crack. I leaned on the next one a little more. The meaty smack of my fist against his face was loud in the room. It jolted his head back. When he straightened up, the other eyebrow was streaming.
“Another little fact. I was watching O’Dell. He wasn’t going to try anything. He was completely relaxed. You gave it to him because he was going t
o say too much. He never stood a chance. Cold-blooded murder, and not the first one.”
His eyes widened as I pulled my fist back. He was too busy being brave to do any talking. I grinned as I let it go. I smacked it into the least damaged portion of his mouth.
“Another point. You didn’t want me to talk to the police. That Saxon looks smart. Maybe, if he got enough dope, he might see through you.”
Again on the mouth. He started to curse me. He cursed through swelling battered lips that distorted his words. I stood back and let him finish. His voice got hoarse and indistinct and finally faded away completely. The blood was dripping onto his tunic.
“Also, chum, when I brought up the point of my leaving this place and going back to the States, you didn’t do much discouraging. You wanted me to go. You put up no argument at all. Just gave me a song and dance about cleaning it up later. And look, I have one more point coming up, a conclusive point, old boy. We are now ready for the master stroke, the slam on the schnoz. Take a peek in the mirror. Take a look at that nose.”
He looked. The pointed delicate nose stood out in the midst of the carnage, shining like that good deed in a naughty world. I saw his face quiver as he looked and realized what would happen when I hit it. He was trying to brace himself.
I needed more psychology. I didn’t have any conclusive point. I’d made my last point. So I smacked my lips loudly and wound up like a bush league pitcher. “You don’t know how much I’m enjoying this, Pete. Guess I’m a sadist. Maybe I better take a couple of swings at it to make sure I get it hammered down nice and flat.”
That got him. He came apart at the seams. Every ounce of guts ran out of him and he sobbed as he talked. “No, Garry! No! I’ll tell you about it. All of it. Cut me down.”
“Not till you get through talking. I’m aching for a shot at that nose.”
“Van Hosen. He’s in charge. Subversive group. Money from Japs in Java. Gold and jewels they took from the Dutch. War’s over, but Van Hosen ordered to establish Jap-type sphere of influence down here. I’ve been working for him for three years. I’m perfect cover for them. Can direct suspicion away from them. Van Hosen in charge. O’Dell used to be second, but he’s resented Van Hosen for a long time. I had replaced O’Dell. O’Dell was the one who gave instructions to kill Christoff. Christoff stumbled on card code by accident one night. He came to British headquarters to report it as something suspicious. By luck, he came to me. The January Club has been the base.”