Vulture Is a Patient Bird

by James Hadley Chase

  “She died Saturday night,” Goodyard told him in his flat, cop voice. “Suicide.”

  Shalik flinched. He had a horror of death. For some moments he remained motionless, then his quick, callous mind became alive. Who was he going to find to replace her? Who was now going to look after him? The fact that she was dead meant nothing to him. The fact that he had relied on her for the past three years to arrange his social and business life meant a lot.

  “I’m sorry to hear that.” He reached for a cigar and paused to clip the end. Was there any reason?”

  What a bastard! Goodyard thought, but his cop face revealed none of his disgust.

  “That is why I am here, sir. I hoped you could tell me.”

  Shalik lit the cigar and let the rich smelling smoke roll out of his

  mouth. He shook his head.

  “I’m sorry, but I know nothing about Miss Norman… nothing at all. I have always found her an efficient worker. She has been with me for three years.” He leaned back in his executive chair and looked directly at Goodyard. “I am a busy man, Sergeant. It is impossible for me to take much — if any — interest in the people who work for me.”

  Goodyard felt in his overcoat pocket and produced a small object which he laid in front of Shalik on the white blotter. “Would you know what that is, sir?”

  Shalik frowned at the thick paper clip: the kind that is used to clip together heavy legal documents.

  “Obviously a paper clip,” he said, curtly. “I hope you have reason for asking me such a question, Sergeant. You are taking up my valuable time.”

  “Oh, yes, I have a reason,” Goodyard was unperturbed by Shalik’s sharp note. “I understand, Mr. Shalik, that you are engaged in many transactions about which rival companies could be interested.”

  Shalik’s face hardened. “Surely that is no business of yours?”

  “No, sir, but it could explain this object here,” and Goodyard tapped the paper clip.

  “Just what do you mean?”

  “This apparent paper clip is a highly sensitive microphone which is illegal to possess and which is used only by authorized bodies. In other words, sir, this gadget is only used in espionage work.”

  Shalik stared at the paper clip, feeling a sudden rush of cold blood up his spine.

  “I don’t understand,” he said.

  “This paper clip was found in Miss Norman’s flat,” Goodyard explained. “Fortunately the district detective investigating her death was smart enough to recognize what it was. It was passed to the special branch. That is why I am here.”

  Shalik licked his dry lips as he said, “I know nothing about it.”

  “Have you seen it before?”

  “I don’t think so… how can I tell?” Controlling a feeling of panic, Shalik waved to a pile of documents on his desk, each held together with big paper clips, but none quite as big as the clip lying on his blotter. “It is possible… I don’t know.”

  “To use this microphone successfully,” Goodyard said, picking up the microphone and putting it in his pocket, “a special taperecorder is required. Could I examine Miss Norman’s desk?”

  “Of course.” Shalik got to his feet and led the way into Natalie’s office. “That is her desk.”

  Goodyard’s search was quick and thorough. He also looked into the many filing cabinets and into the closet where Natalie used to hang her coat.

  “No…” He turned to Shalik. “Have you any reason to believe that Miss Norman was spying on you?”

  “Certainly not.”

  “You know nothing about her private life? I understand she had a young man living with her. Several people in her building have seen him entering her flat. Would you know who he is?”

  Shalik’s face showed his astonishment.

  “I can scarcely believe that… still, if you say so. No, I know nothing about her.”

  “Further inquiries will be made, sir. I shall want to see you again.”

  “I am usually here.”

  Goodyard made for the door, then paused.

  “I don’t know if you are aware that your servant is George Sherborn who has served six years for forgery.”

  Shalik’s face was expressionless.

  “Yes, I know. Sherborn is a reformed character. I am very satisfied with him.”

  Goodyard’s bleak, cop eyes stared at him.

  “Do they ever reform?” he asked and left.

  Shalik sat down at his desk. He took out his handkerchief and wiped his damp hands while he thought.

  Had the microphone ever been on his desk?

  Suppose it had? Had that white faced bitch been recording his transactions? He thought of the dangerous currency deals. Then there was the information given him by the P.A. to the Chancellor of the Exchequer which had netted four of his clients fortunes. There was the merger leak he had got from a typist frantic for money. The list was endless. If she had planted the microphone on his desk, how many of his deals had been taped? There was also the Kahlenberg affair. Had she recorded that? He screwed his handkerchief into a ball, his face vicious. Where was the tape-recorder? Maybe, he thought, someone had got at her and she had only been halfconvinced. Maybe, he thought, she had taken the microphone and had second thoughts about taking the tape-recorder. She could have felt soiled. She was a neurotic type. Maybe she had decided to kill herself rather than to betray him. But, suppose she had recorded the conversation he had had with the four who were going after the Borgia ring? Suppose the tapes were already on their way to Kahlenberg?

  He leaned back in his chair, staring at the opposite wall while his mind worked swiftly.

  Should he warn them?

  He considered the risk. The three men were expendable. He would be sorry to lose Gaye Desmond. He had taken a lot of trouble to find her, but, after all, he told himself, Gaye wasn’t the only woman in the world. If he did warn them that the operation might already be blown, wouldn’t they back out? His fee for regaining the ring was to be $500,000 plus expenses. He grimaced. It was too large a sum to give up because of four people. In a situation like this, he told himself, he must keep his nerve and gamble that this dead bitch hadn’t recorded what was said.

  After more thought, he decided to say nothing and to wait.

  He reached for his mail and because he had a trained mind, a few minutes later, he had completely dismissed Goodyard’s visit and had dismissed the thought that Kahlenberg could know that he was to lose the Borgia ring.

  Charles Burnett sailed majestically into his office. He had lunched well on smoked salmon and duck in orange sauce and was feeling well fed and satisfied with himself.

  His secretary handed him a coded cable, telling. him it had arrived a few minutes ago.

  “Thank you, Miss Morris,” Burnett said, stifling a small belch. “I’ll attend to it.”

  He sat down at his desk and unlocked a drawer. From it he took Kahlenberg’s code book. A few minutes later, he was reading:

  Pleased. Visitors will receive exceptionally warm welcome. Have bought 20,000 Honeywell for your Swiss account. K.

  Burnett asked Miss Morris to give him the day’s quotation on Honeywell. She told him the share had moved up three points.

  Burnett was feeling extremely satisfied when ex-Inspector Parkins came on the line.

  “I thought you should know, sir, that Mr. Shalik’s secretary, Natalie Norman, was found dead in her flat this morning… suicide.”

  Burnett was unable to speak for some seconds.

  “Are you there, sir?”

  He pulled himself together. So he had been right: she had looked mental: he had been sure of it.

  “Why should you imagine, Parkins, that I could be interested?” he asked, trying to keep the quaver out of his voice.

  “Well, sir, this young tearaway, Daz Jackson was seeing a lot of her. I thought possibly you should be told, but if I have made a mistake, then I apologize.”

  Burnett drew in a deep, slow breath.

  “So Jackson vis
ited her… very odd. Will he be involved?”

  “I doubt it. Jackson left for Dublin on Saturday night. The police do have his description. Still, Dublin is a good place for him to be.”

  “Yes. Well, thank you, Parkins… interesting.” Burnett could almost see Parkins’ foxy face and the expectant hope in his little eyes. “There will be an additional credit in your account,” and he hung up.

  He sat for a long moment, thinking. He remembered the expensive microphone left in Natalie’s flat. For some seconds, he worried about it, then he assured himself no one would recognize it and it would be thrown away with her other rubbish.

  Parkins’ call, however, had spoilt his afternoon.

  The lobby of the Rand International hotel was crowded with large, noisy American tourists who had just arrived off a bus from which assorted luggage was already spewing.

  Wrapped in transparent raincovers, they milled around, shouting to each other, completely oblivious to the uproar they were creating. The lobby was shattered by cries of: “Joe… you seen my bag?” “Goddamn this rain… where’s the sun?” “For God’s sake, Martha, you’re only exciting yourself. The luggage isn’t all out yet.” “Hey, Momma… the guy wants our passports!” and so on and so on. America had taken over the Rand International for some ear splitting moments while the white and the coloured staff coped with the invasion.

  Sitting near the breakfast-room with a view of all this commotion, Lew Fennel watched sourly.

  Rain fell steadily. The Bantus, sheltering under umbrellas, paused to stare through the glass doors of the hotel at the confusion going on in the lobby. Having stared, they grinned and moved on, splay footed, the men in shabby European dress, the women wearing bright scarves over their heads and bright dresses that set off their colour.

  Fennel sucked at his cigarette and watched the last of the American party, still screaming to each other, whisked away in the lifts. He had been in Johannesburg now for thirty-six hours. He had had a nervous half day in Paris before catching the plane to South Africa. Now, for the first time for over a month, he felt relaxed and safe. Moroni and the police were far away.

  He looked at his watch, then shifted his heavy body more comfortably in the chair.

  A black Cadillac drew up outside the hotel and Fennel got to his feet as he saw Gaye’s tawny head emerge as she ran under the cover of the hotel’s canopy.

  Ten minutes later, the three were with him in the small sitting- room of his suite on the eighth floor of the hotel.

  Fennel was in an amiable and expansive mood.

  “I guess you all want to rest,” he said as he served drinks from the refrigerator, “but before you go, I’d like to fill you in with what we can expect… okay?”

  Garry eased his heavy shoulders. The fourteen hour flight had cramped his muscles. He looked at Gaye.

  “Do you want to listen or do we take a bath first?”

  “We listen,” Gaye said, leaning back on the settee. She took a sip of the gin and tonic Fennel had given her. “I’m not all that dead.”

  Fennel’s eyes narrowed. So Edwards was already taking a proprietory interest in the woman he had mentally reserved for himself.

  “Well, make up your minds!” he said, his temper rising. “Do you or don’t you want to hear?”

  “I said yes,” Gaye said, her cool eyes surveying him. “What is it?”

  “Those invoices Shalik gave me. It puts us right in the photo.” Fennel drank a little of his whisky and water. “I now know the museum must be underground. A lift complete with all the works was delivered to Kahlenberg’s place and as the house is on one floor, the answer to the lift is the museum is under the house. Get it?”

  “Keep going,” Garry said.

  “Listed in the invoices are six television close-circuit sets and one monitor. That tells me there are six rooms in the museum and there is one guard watching the monitor, probably somewhere in the house. By pressing buttons, the guard can survey each of the six rooms, but only one at the time.” Fennel lit a cigarette, then went on, “I know this system. The weakness is that the guard could fall asleep, he could read a book without watching the monitor or he could leave to go to the toilet. But we must find out if he does all or any of these things and if he is on duty at night. That’s your job to find out,” and Fennel pointed his stubby finger at Garry.

  Garry nodded.

  “The door to the museum is listed on the invoice. It is of massive steel. I worked for Bahlstrom so I know about their equipment. The door has a time lock on it. You set it at a certain time and set the counter dial at another time and no one on earth except Bahlstroms can open the door between these two times.” Fennel grinned. “Except me. I know how to handle that time lock. I helped to build it.

  Now we come to something you will have to take care of.” He was talking directly at Garry.

  “The lift… this is a tricky one. We will do the job at night. What I want to know is if the lift is out of action during the night. By that, I mean is the electricity cut. If the lift doesn’t work at night I don’t see how the hell we are getting to the museum.”

  “Let’s be pessimistic,” Garry said. “Suppose the juice is cut off?”

  “It’s up to you to turn it on or we’re sunk.”

  Garry grimaced.

  “There’s always the chance there could be stairs as well as the lift.”

  “Could be.” Fennel nodded. “That too you have to find out. It’s your job to find out as much as you can once you’re in. Another thing you will have to tell me is how I get in… door or window? Again this is up to you. All the dope you collect you give to me over the two-way radio so I’ll know what to be ready for.”

  “If the dope can be got, I’ll get it.”

  Fennel finished his drink.

  “If you don’t get it, we don’t do the job… it’s as simple as that.”

  Gaye got to her feet. She looked sensationally lovely in the sky blue cotton dress she was wearing: a dress that clung to her figure. The three men watched her.

  “Well, I’ll leave you and take a tub. I want some sleep. I didn’t sleep a wink on the plane.”

  She nodded to them and left the room. Garry stretched and yawned.

  “Me too… unless you want me for anything else?”

  “No.” Fennel looked at Ken. “How about the equipment? Have you got that lined up?”

  “I think so. I’ll take a bath and go check. A friend of mine is organizing it for me. I sent him a cable from London telling him what we want. I’ll go over there and see how far he’s got. Do you want to come with me?”

  “Why not? Okay, I’ll wait here for you.”

  Garry and Ken went along the corridor to their rooms. They were all on the eighth floor: each had a small suite with an air conditioner and a view of the city.

  “Well, see you,” Garry said, pausing at his door. “This could be a tricky one.”

  Ken grinned. Garry had now learned that Ken was an incurable optimist.

  “You never know… could work out fine. Me for the tub,” and he went off whistling to his room.

  An hour later, he returned to Fennel’s room. Fennel had been punishing the whisky and looked a little flushed.

  “Shall we go?” Ken asked, leaning against the doorway.

  “Yeah.” Fennel got to his feet and the two men walked along the corridor to the lifts.

  “This pal of mine runs a garage on Plein Street,” Ken said as the lift descended. “It’s just across the way. We can walk.”

  They pushed their way through another consignment of American tourists who had just arrived. The noise they were making made both men wince.

  “What makes an American so noisy?” Ken asked good humouredly. “Do they imagine everyone around is stone deaf?” Fennel grunted.

  “I wouldn’t know. Maybe they weren’t taught as kids to keep their goddamn traps shut.”

  They paused under the canopy of the hotel and surveyed the rain sweeping Bree Street.
>
  “If it’s going to rain like this in the Drakensberg Range we’re in for a hell of a time,” Ken said, turning up his jacket collar. “Come on… may as well start getting wet… it’ll be good practice.”

  Their heads bent against the driving rain, the two men walked briskly across to Plein Street.

  Sam Jefferson, the owner of the garage, a tall, thin elderly man with a pleasant, freckled face greeted them.

  “Hi Ken! Had a good trip?”

  Ken said the trip was fine and introduced Fennel. Jefferson lost some of his sunny smile as he shook hands. He was obviously a little startled at the cold, hard expression on Fennel’s face. Fennel wasn’t his kind of people.

  “I got all the stuff and it’s there laid out for you,” he went on turning to Ken. “Take a look. If there’s anything I’ve forgotten, let me know. Excuse me now. I’ve got a gear box in my hair.” Nodding, he went off across the big garage to where two Bantus were staring vacantly at a jacked up Pontiac.

  Ken led the way to a small, inner garage where a Land Rover was parked. A Bantu, sitting on his haunches and scratching his ankle got slowly to his feet and gave Ken a wide, white toothy grin.

  “All okay, boss,” he said, and Ken shook hands with him. “This is Joe,” he said to Fennel. “Sam and he have collected all the stuff we need.”

  Fennel had no time for coloured people. He glowered at the smiling Bantu, grunted and turned away. There was an awkward pause, then Ken said, “Well, Joe, let’s see what you’ve got.”

  The Bantu crossed to the Land Rover and pulled off the tarpaulin that covered the bonnet. “I got it fixed like you said, boss.”

  Welded to the front of the radiator was a drum between two steel supports. Around the drum was wound a long length of thin

  steel cable. Ken examined it, then nodded his satisfaction.

  “What the hell’s that for?” Fennel demanded, regarding the drum.

  “It’s a winch,” Ken explained. “We’re going over some very sticky roads and we could easily get bogged down. When there’s heavy rain, the roads over the Drakensberg can be hell. This winch will drag us out without us breaking our backs.” He found a small yacht anchor lying on the floor of the Land Rover. “See this? We get stuck, and all we have to do is to slam this anchor into a tree root and winch ourselves out.”