Brass Go-Between

by Ross Thomas

  “I’ll catch a cab,” I said.

  “Oh, by the way, Mr. St. Ives,” Mbwato said.

  “What?”

  “I have something else that might be of interest to you.”

  “What?”

  “I have the two thieves.”

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  IT WAS A THREE-STORY row house on Corcoran Place, a narrow, one-way street running east. More properly, I suppose, it should have been called a town house because someone had gone to a lot of expense to remodel it. The brick veneer was painted an antique white and the woodwork was trimmed in flat black. One of those stagey-looking gas lamps burned outside. I paid the cab driver, walked up seven steps, and pushed a button. Nothing happened for almost a minute and then a light went on in what I assumed to be the hall. The door opened a crack while an eye peered out at me and then it opened wide. It was the slim, dark Mr. Ulado, looking almost naked in shirt sleeves.

  “Come in, Mr. St. Ives,” he said. “I’m sorry I was so long in opening the door, but we’re up on the third floor.”

  I went in and found myself in a hall that had a floor of random width pine planking that was polished to high gleam. There were a few paintings on the wall, a couple of pieces of good furniture that someone with money and taste might place in a hall, and some stairs. Mr. Ulado headed for the stairs. I followed him.

  “This house,” he said, “belongs to an American friend of Mr. Mbwato’s who sympathizes with our cause. He and his wife are on holiday in Europe this summer and he has let us use his house as our Washington headquarters. It’s a most convenient location, don’t you think?”

  I told him that I thought it was fine.

  The carpeting on the stairs ran out on the third flight. The remodeling apparently had not risen above the second floor. There was a small landing and a door at the top of the third flight. Mr. Ulado pushed the door open and then stood to one side to let me enter. I went in and found myself in a large room that was illuminated by a single, naked bulb that hung by a cord from a fixture in the ceiling. Underneath the bulb were two straight wooden chairs and in the chairs, their backs to me, were a man and a woman. Their hands were tied to the backs of the chairs with what looked to be clothesline. Mbwato, down to shirt sleeves, stood in front of the man and the woman, staring at them as he rocked back and forth a little on his toes, his hands on his hips. He looked up when I came in.

  “Mr. St. Ives, how nice,” he said, and managed to make it sound as if I were the late but honored guest at the Embassy reception. “You made good time.”

  “I had an incentive,” I said. “Two hundred and fifty thousand dollars’ worth.”

  “Oh, yes, the money.” He looked around the room vaguely. “It’s over there, I believe,” and he pointed to the left side of the room. The suitcase sat under a window, casually, as if someone who had just come back from a trip had placed it there because he wanted to rest a moment before unpacking.

  “Thank you,” I said. It was without doubt the most inadequate phrase I’d ever uttered.

  Mbwato waved a huge hand, dismissing my thanks. “Think nothing of it. Come meet our two thieves. My word, but they’re being most uncooperative.”

  I walked over to Mbwato, stood at his side, and looked down at the pair. The man was about thirty, I guessed, black-haired with long sideburns. He wore a navy turtleneck shirt with long sleeves, black slacks, and black shoes. He stared up at me with hazel eyes that had an oriental cast to them, made even more pronounced by his high cheekbones. Thin, almost colorless lips made a line underneath a sharply pointed nose. There was nothing in his face that I could see other than a kind of animal awareness that can be found in a hustling shoe clerk or a crafty checker-outer at a supermarket.

  The woman, or girl, I suppose, was not much over twenty-two, if that. She wore dark slacks and a turtleneck shirt that matched her friend’s. Her hair was long and straight and either brown or blond, depending on which streak you looked at. Blue eyes, an ordinary nose, and a sullen mouth did nothing to set her off from the run-of-the-mill, the not pretty, not plain girls for whom the word average was invented.

  “This,” Mbwato said, indicating the man, “is Jack. And this is Jill. That’s all they’ve told us thus far, but I’m sure they’ll become more cooperative as time passes.”

  “How’d you get them?” I said.

  Ulado was bending behind the man, making sure that the knots were tight, I suppose. When he was satisfied, he checked the girl’s ropes and then stood behind them, his arms folded over his chest.

  “You seldom look behind you, do you, Mr. St. Ives?” Mbwato said.

  “No, I suppose I don’t.”

  “We’ve kept you under constant surveillance for the past several days—up until today, in fact. One of my associates followed you into the Nickerson Building where the man Spellacy was murdered.”

  “He didn’t go up the elevator with me.”

  “No, he didn’t. He watched you as you read the building directory. Then he watched what floors the elevator stopped at. You were reading the M’s and the elevator stopped on the sixth and eleventh floors. The only listing for a firm beginning with M on the sixth and eleventh floors was Mesa Verde Estates. When you came down, another of my associates picked you up and the other man rode up to the eleventh floor, popped his head into Mesa Verde Estates, and saw that Mr. Spellacy was quite dead.”

  “Just how many associates do you have?” I said.

  Mbwato turned on his glow-in-the-dark smile. “Oh, a dozen, I think, here and in New York. Most of them are students.”

  “What about them?” I said, indicating the man and the girl.

  “Quite by accident, I’m afraid. We were on the train that you took down from New York, in a coach, regrettably. Most uncomfortable. We followed you to the Madison and were waiting in the lobby. At least, Mr. Ulado was. He recognized the New York detective when he came in because he had already called on you at your New York hotel twice. So naturally Mr. Ulado kept his eyes on him. Our young couple here suddenly materialized in the lobby—I suppose we all took the train down from New York—and proceeded to stab Mr. Ogden, I believe his name was. So Mr. Ulado, displaying sound judgment, I should add, followed our young couple, still hoping that they would lead us to the shield. We kept them under observation all day, and followed them this evening. When they parked their car tonight at the far edge of the driving range we simply waited. When they came back, rather hurriedly, carrying the suitcase, we decided it was time to take matters in hand. And here we are.”

  “And they’ve said nothing?”

  “Not yet,” Mbwato said. “But our methods have been most gentle.” He sighed. “I’m really disturbed that we may be forced to turn to more persuasive means.”

  “Such as?”

  “Torture, Mr. St. Ives,” he said. “The West African variety, which is, I should add for the benefit of our young friends here, most excruciating. Mr. Ulado is an expert, aren’t you, Mr. Ulado?”

  Mr. Ulado smiled faintly and managed to look a little embarrassed.

  “Why don’t you just turn them over to the police?” I said.

  “The shield, Mr. St. Ives, you forget the shield. We intend to obtain it from wherever it now is.”

  I moved over to the man. “Your name’s Jack, right?”

  He said nothing, but only stared at me with his hazel eyes that seemed curiously empty, containing no fear or alarm or even regret.

  “I think you’d better tell the man where the shield is, Jack.”

  He looked at me some more and then, quite conversationally, said, “Fuck you.”

  I nodded and moved over to the girl. “The man is really serious,” I said. “About the torture, I mean. You’d better tell him.”

  Her blue eyes were empty of thought and probably of emotion, except the lustier ones like rage and hate. She smiled a little, repeated what her friend had said, and then giggled. I had heard that giggle before.

  I turned to Mbwato. “They’r
e all yours. What do you have in mind?”

  Mbwato sighed. “It’s really not my field, you know. I suppose we should ask Mr. Ulado. Would you care to describe your methods to our guests, Mr. Ulado?”

  “Certainly,” he said, walked over to the window ledge, and picked up a package about twelve inches long. He then walked back and stood before the pair. “Unfortunately, we do not have all the equipment that is normally used in such instances, so we have been forced to improvise. The American drugstore is full of items that are most satisfactory substitutes. This one for instance,” he said, and indicated the box. “It contains what is called a curling iron. Operating on electricity, it becomes extremely hot. And when inserted into a man’s rectum or a woman’s vagina, it should produce considerable pain as I will shortly demonstrate.”

  He took the curling iron from its box which he dropped to the floor. The girl stared at him and then, quite suddenly, giggled. The man just looked. Ulado reached up and plugged the curling iron into the double socket that held the light. Holding the iron in his right hand, he turned to Mbwato.

  “Which do you think we should begin with, sir?”

  Mbwato seemed to give the question serious consideration. “I’m not sure, Mr. Ulado. What do you think, Mr. St. Ives, the gentleman or the lady?”

  I shrugged. “The girl, I think.”

  “Very well, Mr. Ulado, the young lady.”

  Mr. Ulado nodded, spat on his finger, and touched it to the curling iron. The spit sizzled. “If you will just hold this for me, sir, while I prepare the woman.” He handed the curling iron to Mbwato and turned to the girl.

  “You’re not going to stick that in me!” she screamed.

  “Not if you tell us the whereabouts of the shield,” Mbwato said in a genial voice. “Otherwise,” and he made a slight gesture with the iron.

  The girl turned her head toward the man. “I’m going to tell him.”

  “Shut up,” the man said. “They’re not going to do anything. They’re just bluffing.” I noticed that there was a sheen of moisture on his forehead.

  “Continue, Mr. Ulado,” Mbwato said.

  “I will have to remove her slacks first,” he said.

  “Get on with it then.”

  “It would be better if we had a table.”

  “Improvise, man, improvise,” Mbwato said.

  “First the slacks,” Ulado said, and approached the girl.

  “Get away from me, you black bastard!” she yelled. “Get him away.” She started to sob, deep, harsh sobs that seemed almost like coughs. “We don’t have it,” she screamed, “we don’t have the goddamned shield.”

  Mbwato reached up to the light fixture, unplugged the curling iron, glanced at it distastefully, and then looked around for someplace to put it. He decided on the floor.

  “Where is the shield?” Mbwato said to the girl, spacing his words carefully.

  “We don’t know,” she said, her voice almost a moan, “we haven’t got it.”

  “But you stole it from the museum?” Mbwato said.

  “Yes, the nigger guard got it out for us. But we haven’t got it. We only had it for a few minutes anyway.”

  Mbwato turned to the man. The thin coating of moisture that I’d seen on his forehead had turned into drops of sweat that ran down into his eyes. He tried to blink them dry.

  “From the first, Jack,” Mbwato said softly. “From the very first.”

  “Fuck you,” Jack said again.

  Mbwato’s open palm landed against the man’s cheek with a loud, wet smack. The man’s stiff features seemed to crumple, and I realized that he was crying. “All right,” he said, “all right.” He snuffled some more and turned to look at the girl. “Dumb ones,” he said bitterly. “I always get dumb ones.”

  “From the very first,” Mbwato said.

  “Spellacy,” the man who claimed that his name was Jack said. “He got me onto it. He knew a guy in Washington who had a real sweet one. Just walk up to a back door and somebody would hand us something worth ten thousand bucks.”

  “Ten thousand?” I said.

  “That was our cut at first, in the beginning. Spellacy got us in touch with this guy in Washington. Wingo. A real junkie. He told us the deal. He had the guard all set up by then and the four of us met here in Washington. Those two were so junkie that you couldn’t tell how they’d fly. And then Wingo started talking about two hundred and fifty thousand bucks. The ransom. So I called Spellacy and said what kind of a deal is this where my cut is ten grand out of two-fifty. So we talked it over and decided to get rid of Wingo. We just gave him an extra dose one night and let him roll down the side of the road. But then we had a problem. Wingo had been supplying the guard with H and now we had to supply him. Spellacy bought it in New York and we kept him going. The guard, I mean.”

  “Where was Wingo getting his stuff?” I said. “From what I hear he needed five hundred bucks a day to keep him, Sackett and Sackett’s wife happy.”

  “I don’t know where he got it,” the man said. “I asked him once but he just laughed and said he had a private supply. A very private supply, he said and then laughed some more like he was crazy.”

  “Continue, please,” Mbwato said.

  “Well, shit, you know the rest. We got the shield and then we got rid of the guard. It was down to a three-way split then, me, Spellacy, and dumbie here. But what’s Spellacy done? Nothing.”

  “So you got rid of him,” I said.

  “Where is the shield?” Mbwato asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  “What did you do with it?”

  “It was part of the deal, the one that Wingo set up. We got it, drove about six blocks, and put it in the back seat of a car. That’s the last I ever saw of it.”

  “The shield of Komporeen,” the girl said, and giggled.

  “Whose car?” Mbwato demanded.

  “Christ, I don’t know whose car. It was a car that was supposed to be parked at a certain place and was. I just put it in the back seat.”

  “I see,” Mbwato said, and sighed. He turned to me. “We seem to have solved a few murders and a theft, Mr. St. Ives. But we are no closer to the shield.”

  “I’m not so sure,” I said. “As long as he’s in a talkative mood, I’d like to clear up something. What about Lieutenant Ogden, Jack? How’d he get on to you?”

  “Spellacy,” he said dully. “Ogden found out about you being interested in Spellacy and he figured that Spellacy was in on the deal. And if he knew Spellacy was in, he knew I was in. Spellacy and me worked together a lot. And Ogden knew me, too. Christ, he should have. I paid him off enough times because of dumb broads like her.”

  “Did he get in touch with you?”

  “He tried to; he got the word around that he was looking for me. Ah, to hell with him. He’s dead.” He looked up and smiled at me. “We sure had you on the run though, buster, didn’t we?”

  “That’s right,” I said, “you sure did.”

  “All on account of some goddamned shield.”

  “The shield of Komporeen,” the girl said, and gave us the pleasure of listening to another one of her giggles.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  MBWATO AND I LEFT Mr. Ulado to look after his two charges while we went downstairs to sample the town-house owner’s Scotch. I carried the suitcase in my right hand. It didn’t seem to weigh as much as it once had and I wondered whether I should count the money, but decided not to because there wasn’t much I could do about it if some were missing—certainly not replace it.

  Mbwato mixed two drinks and we sat in the comfortable living room that contained some more pictures, some better than average furniture, and a large number of books. I sat on the couch, Mbwato in the largest chair he could find, which still seemed too small for his bulk.

  “So, Mr. St. Ives, what shall I do with our two young friends upstairs?”

  “Turn them over to the cops.”

  “Do you think they’re sane?”

  “The man
is, I think. I don’t know about the girl. She seems a little kinky, but maybe it’s like he said, she’s just dumb.”

  “Rather coarse, too,” Mr. Mbwato murmured.

  “Well, not quite as coarse as a hot curling iron. Tell me something, is Ulado really your torture expert?”

  Mbwato chuckled. “Good heavens no, man. Couldn’t you see that he was absolutely petrified? He got the idea from one of your more lurid magazines, I think. Still, it proved quite effective, didn’t it?”

  “Suppose they hadn’t talked. Suppose they were stubborn. Would you have used it?”

  Mbwato gave me a long, speculative look. “Let me reply in this fashion: would you have tried to stop me?”

  I nodded. “I guess so.”

  “And you would have succeeded.” He sighed deeply. “The threat was all that was really needed. Their lives have conditioned them to accept quite readily the notion that two black African savages would think nothing of torturing them for hours on end. They have been indoctrinated by their culture to accept this.”

  “Too many Tarzan films, huh?” I said.

  “I’m not so sure about that. It’s just that if the roles were reversed, neither of them would have had any compunction about using the iron on me or Mr. Ulado. So they quite readily accepted the fact that we would torture them.” He sighed again. “But what to do with them?”

  “The cops,” I said.

  “Really, Mr. St. Ives.”

  “Why not?”

  “Could it be done—say—anonymously?”

  “Well, you can’t just mail them downtown in a plain wrapper.”

  “Could you possibly …”

  “Possibly,” I said.

  “I would be most grateful.”

  “Not as grateful as I am for getting the money back. I haven’t thanked you adequately.”

  Mbwato put his drink down on a table and leaned forward, resting his arms on his knees. He studied the carpet. “The money is more important to you than the shield, isn’t it?”

  “I suppose so. If I return the money to the museum, then they’re right back where they started. I can bow out and that’s the end of it.”