Honey in His Mouth hcc-60

by Lester Dent

  “In United States money, one million three hundred and ninety-four thousand dollars.”

  Doctor Englaster’s eyes glistened. “The take is dropping off.”

  “Yes.” Mr. Hassam shrugged. “Hardly worth getting hung for.”

  “That is not a very good joke.” Doctor Englaster spoke soberly. “We must be careful. Brother is periodically a paranoiac, not a dependable sort. But he is no idiot. He may indeed have found a double for El Presidente. Shall we drink to the possibility?”

  Mr. Hassam ignored the vermouth and picked up his glass of water for the toast.

  EIGHT

  Instead of airliner-style seats, the plane boasted four private staterooms and a lounge furnished with deep chairs, a cocktail bar, and an office equipped with desk and dictating machines and chairs for conferences in midair. The pilot and co-pilot/steward wore puce-colored twill uniforms with every crease an edge and every button fastened, each cap peak set at an acute angle. The two crewmen looked efficient and close-mouthed. The color motif inside the airplane was all in tans and puce. There was a strip of the brown along the outside of the airplane and the interior upholstery was out of the same pot, custom stuff. The puce and tan was touched here and there with gold, a gold edging around the television screen, a gold filigree on the door latches.

  The two crewmen helped Walter Harsh up the steps into the plane. He was very weak, but he could walk. Moving about had made him feel better, or at least feel more like he was going to live. He noticed the wrist watch the pilot was wearing had a tan dial with puce hands and gold figures. Jesus, he thought. They lowered him into a comfortable chair and buckled the safety belt about his middle. From the windows he could see the wingtips and parts of the engines. The engines puzzled him, because he saw no propellers. Jet? he wondered. The airplane was some buggy.

  Brother came in and sat in an upholstered seat near him and fastened the safety belt. He then waited for the plane to take off, sitting there with his mouth open slightly, tips of teeth showing, waiting almost visibly. Harsh decided the man was uneasy about flying.

  A taxicab arrived outside. The co-pilot/steward left the plane and soon returned with a large tan canvas bag from the taxi. Harsh eyed the bag. “That’s mine. Is my camera and clothes and stuff in there?”

  “Yes, Mr. Harsh.”

  Harsh leaned back, trying to relax. This was one hell of a thing, he thought, the whole thing from beginning to end. They had sold his car for nineteen hundred dollars, which was a roast, because Harsh had paid four hundred for the iron a year ago and gotten a skinning at that. He was amazed when he signed the assignment form on the back of the certificate of title of the car, and Brother counted nineteen hundred dollars into his hand. He knew nobody had been fool enough to pay nineteen for the old iron, so they were just keeping him happy. He could feel a bulb of sweat move down his spinal column under his shirt, and he knew what was making him sweat. Money. The way money was coming at him, he thought, it would make an iceberg sweat. He looked down at his right arm, realizing he had suddenly formed the habit of keeping it across his chest, the hand pressed where the middle vest button would be, if he wore a vest. Like Napoleon. He tried to recall whether Napoleon kept his right or his left hand tucked in his waistcoat front. He wondered if Napoleon carried fifty thousand dollars taped to the skin of his belly under the hand.

  What they were waiting on turned out to be Vera Sue Crosby. A taxicab arrived and Vera Sue got out wearing her new hat, a tight skirt, and a bushy fur stole which was also new and emphasized her round little bottom. The stole was mink-dyed muskrat, her skirt was yellow, her slippers gold-colored with very high heels. She looked like she was headed for the Yukon gold rush, Harsh thought.

  He swung around in his chair. “Hey, I don’t want that dame around me. She double-crossed me and I don’t want any part of her.”

  “Harsh, you take orders, not give them.”

  Harsh saw the glazed expression in Brother’s eyes, and did not press the matter. The man was afraid of the airplane and was forcing himself to take the flight. The fact that Brother owned such an elaborate private plane and was so nervous about using it indicated what was probably a long-standing psychological battle between the man and the airplane. Let him sweat his own troubles out, Harsh decided.

  He pointedly ignored the tentative smile Vera Sue flashed in his direction as she moved to a seat. He had a pretty good idea how she felt. The fancy puce uniforms and the plane had knocked her for a loop and she probably felt as out of place as a blowfly in a perfume bottle. He grinned at the thought, liking the comparison.

  The plane now moved quietly out to the runway and took off. It made much less commotion than any plane Harsh had flown in. There was none of the roaring and shaking that characterized airplanes with propellers. The takeoff was smooth as grease.

  Harsh watched Brother sit there and hate it. Brother gripped the armrests of his chair and the tendons looked like chalk marks down the backs of his hands. The guy will never be a bird by choice, Harsh reflected.

  No one had told Harsh they were going to New York, but he had supposed they were because he recalled the O-Negative Blood Group Foundation having a New York address. However the plane flew three or four hours and when it came down Harsh saw palm trees, the sea in the distance edged with a white sand beach and what seemed to be large estates. The plane taxied directly into a large private hangar, where a brown limousine was parked. Brother got into the limousine holding a handkerchief to his mouth. He had bitten his lip badly during the mental strain of riding through the landing.

  The limousine carried them quietly for about half an hour with the afternoon sun mostly against its back windows. The uniformed pilot drove. The co-pilot had loaded the luggage in the trunk. Harsh decided the two served double duty as household staff.

  The limousine came to a stop before impressive iron gates, and the co-pilot got out and unlocked the gates with a key, waited for the limousine to pass through, then locked the gates, got back in the car, and gave Brother the gate key.

  Sunlight splintered like diamonds off immaculate marble and the sparkling glass windows of the mansion before them. The place should be a library in a small city park, Harsh thought. The limousine turned left and right between rows of neatly whitened palm trunks and came to a halt before a leaded glass marquee. Back of the marquee a stained glass door was surrounded by a filigree of ironwork.

  They unloaded from the limousine and Harsh found himself able to walk, although he was inclined to be dizzy. The downstairs hall had the faint odor of hyacinth, was floored with mother-of-pearl. The woodwork was Honduran mahogany.

  Brother gestured to the co-pilot up a stairway with Harsh’s bag. “Your room is that way, Harsh.”

  There was enough space in the bedroom to turn a small automobile. The bed was all of nine feet wide, one room wall was all glass with the ocean beyond it a crinkling aquamarine panorama to the horizon.

  Harsh grinned at Brother, who’d followed him up. “As the fellow says, this ain’t exactly what I’m used to.”

  Brother showed his teeth, which Harsh saw bore a brownish scum from the blood that had come into the man’s mouth from biting his lip during the plane’s landing. “Your taste does not interest me.” He turned to the copilot, who had put the bag down by the bed. “Get out.”

  The man bent his head in an almost imperceptible bow, his eyes lowered and expressionless, then turned and left them.

  Harsh glanced at the bed. The bed looked good to him. He was tired, and his broken arm was a bag of pain attached to his shoulder. He went over and gave the bed an experimental poke with his fist. A very good bed.

  “The money.”

  Harsh straightened. Brother had moved silently to his side, stood at his elbow. “Huh?”

  “Give the money to me.”

  Harsh moved his tongue over his lips. He could feel the fifty thousand resting against his solar plexus where he had attached it, along with the nineteen hundred he had rec
eived for his car, by the use of hospital adhesive tape. “I thought the money you paid me for my car was mine, and I was to keep it.”

  Brother tightened his lips over his stained teeth. “Is it necessary you be childish as well as stupid, Harsh?”

  “Say now, buddy. Let’s not be so free with insults.”

  “Give me the money.”

  “Well, now, that needs some talking about. The way I figure, the dough is mine if I do a job, and since I’m doing the job now, why don’t we compromise and me keep—”

  Brother’s neck arched so tensely that his head trembled and his eyes protruded.

  Harsh became alarmed. “Keep away from me, you son of a bitch.” He knew he did not have the physical strength to put up much of a fight.

  Brother leaned toward him. Hit him in the belly, Harsh thought, would be the best move, but hand him a good one so it would settle things. He brought his right fist up toward Brother’s middle, but Brother pushed the fist aside easily. Brother lifted his cupped hands and clapped them together against Harsh’s ears. The effect on Harsh’s eardrums and brain was agonizing. He was sure he had been given a mild concussion. Brother seized Harsh’s right arm and turned with the arm so that his back was to Harsh, the thumb and wrist in a trap-hold which was the most painful thing Harsh had ever had anyone put on him. His wrist and thumb filled with splintering pain, until he thought fire would come out of his ears. He toppled backwards onto the bed when Brother released him. He felt Brother tear open his shirt and begin pulling the taped-on money loose from the skin. Brother’s eyes shone insanely and he drew the tape loose slowly and agonizingly, panting with pleasure as the tape brought the coarse belly hair out by the roots. When Brother arose, the packet of money was in his hands, all of it, Harsh’s nineteen hundred as well as the fifty thousand.

  “Mr. Harsh, I give an order only once. I state only fact. I do not threaten, bicker, chisel, or bargain. If any time you hear me make a statement which you wish to construe as a threat, stop. Stop. If I have said it, it is fact, not a threat. A fact beyond recall, unalterable, unassailable, unchangeable, a fact.”

  “You got my nineteen hundred there!” Harsh was half blinded with pain.

  “Get up.”

  “Damn you!”

  “Get to your feet.”

  Harsh’s ears felt as if steam was escaping through them and he wondered if the eardrums were ruptured. When he saw Brother take a step toward him, he hastily rolled off the bed and stood shakily erect. This crazy fool would kill him, like as not.

  “Come. I wish to show you something.” Brother turned and walked to a framed painting on the east wall of the bedroom. The painting was an oil copy of Titian’s Woman on a Couch, a very bold and sexy-looking piece. Brother swung the painting outward like a small door. It was hinged to the wall. This disclosed a wall safe with a combination dial.

  “Watch, Harsh. Watch closely. Memorize the combination.” Brother turned the safe dial slowly to four different numbers, reciting each number aloud. He did this again. “Have you got it, Harsh?”

  “I think so.”

  “Repeat the combination aloud to me to be sure.”

  Harsh muttered the numbers, and the directions the dial was turned each time.

  Brother nodded. “Now watch closely.”

  The inner door was a flat sheet of steel with two openings for keys. It was similar, Harsh recalled, to safety deposit boxes in some banks. Brother drew two keys from his pocket. They were fastened together by a string. He inserted each key in a lock, swung open the door.

  “It takes both keys to open the inner door. You understand, Harsh?”

  “I get it.”

  Brother placed the money in the safe and locked both inner and outer door. He swung the painting back in place. It covered the safe completely. He tore the two keys apart, breaking the string. He put one key in his pocket.

  “You get to keep the other key, Harsh.”

  He handed Harsh the second key.

  “Goddamn it, my nineteen hundred is in there too!”

  Brother ignored him. “Only these two keys will open the inner door. I keep one. You keep one. When you have earned your pay, I will give you my key. The money is safe. You know where it is.”

  “What about my nineteen hundred?”

  Brother turned and walked to the door, went out, closing the door after him.

  Harsh went over and lay on the bed, taking care not to jar the cast that enclosed his left arm. He held the key tightly in his right hand.

  NINE

  Harsh slept nine hours. He awakened with the notion he had been trying to cry out in frustration and had been grinding his teeth together. His throat felt dry and his jaws hurt. It was dark in the bedroom, no light at all coming from the big window, and he decided someone had come in while he was asleep and closed the drapes over the window.

  He again recalled the grinding sensation with his teeth, and he was alarmed. He inserted an exploratory finger in his mouth, finding the key to the wall safe was secure. His teeth must have been crunching on the key as he slept. He had placed the key in his mouth before he went to sleep, not worrying about swallowing it because he often went to sleep with chewing gum in his mouth and he had never swallowed that. He realized, however, he must find a more practical hiding place for the key.

  He did not like so much darkness in the room, it made him uneasy. He pushed up to a sitting position on the bed, found the edge, and lowered his feet to the floor. The ringing that had been in his ears when he went to sleep was no longer there. He decided his eardrums had not been ruptured. Shuffling barefoot to the window, he parted the drapes, and a flood of moonlight spilled over him. Beyond the window the moonlight covered a wide sweep of cucumber-green lawn and a rope of lime-colored driveway lined by palm trees that were as motionless as upclenched fists. The moonlight made everything very clear. On the beach, night birds were chasing along a squirming yarn of white surf and beyond to the horizon the sea was a blue-black bedspread with a pattern of crinkling waves.

  Harsh rubbed his jaw with his right hand. The place looked peaceful, he thought, but there was something to be said for packing up and getting the hell out. The manhandling he had taken at the hands of Brother had undermined his confidence. He had underestimated Brother. The man had a tough, sadistic streak. His right hand and arm still ached where Brother had worked on him with that judo trick. He was sure Brother had inflicted most of the pain just for the twisted satisfaction of hurting him. He would be goddamned if he was going to stay around here and be handled like raw meat...

  But he was also damned if he’d leave before getting that wall safe open. He tried to recall what he knew about wall safes. It was very little. Could a man wedge something into the inner crack of the safe door, he wondered, and get it open?

  Suddenly excited, determined to tackle the safe, he went to his suitcase and found the package of blades for his safety razor. He took one blade from the package and went to the painting and swung it back, exposing the safe dial. He blew on his right hand for luck and tackled the dial, turning it carefully to the numbers as he remembered them. It would not open! He grabbed it, shook it. It would not open. The son of a bitch changed the combination on him, he thought, and his stomach felt tight. He rubbed his forehead with his right hand briskly, trying to recollect the combination. He was sure it was the way he had just worked it. He tried it again, exactly the same way.

  The safe’s outer door opened. He leaned against the wall, sweating with relief. Done some damn little thing wrong, he thought. He wiped his nose on his sleeve before continuing, then gripped the safety razor blade by the edge and attacked the crack. The crack was wide enough to admit the blade, but it struck bottom after penetrating about half an inch, and he could feel nothing like a lock or a bolt. He tried forcing the blade to bend and find its way to the bolt. The blade broke. The hinges were constructed so that he could not get at them. He tried another blade, but this one broke as well, cutting his finger. He gave up a
nd stood there leaning his forehead against the cool metal of the safe.

  The thing now, did he leave here without the money, or did he stick around for a break? By God, he would stay, that was what he would do. He would lick the thing yet. He closed the safe and got in bed and pulled the sheet up around his neck.

  There was an enormous amount of sunshine in the room when he awakened and felt in his mouth for the key. He wondered what would happen if he sneezed or something in his sleep and swallowed the key. How did one get a key out of one’s stomach? How about a magnet? He examined the key and saw it was brass, which was nonmagnetic. He had better find a place for the key, that was what he had better do.

  A knock sounded on the door. Throwing the door open, Brother rolled in a small metal cart bearing breakfast, an omelet, coffee, and toast. Brother glanced at Harsh with an expression of dislike, and he did not speak. He left without having said a word.

  Have to go back to the device of securing the key to his body somewhere with adhesive tape, Harsh reflected, since he was too damn dumb to think of another disposition for it. He couldn’t go around with the thing in his mouth. He went into the adjoining bathroom, which had a step-down tub, separate shower, ultra-violet light cabinet, and an electric massage device. He searched for adhesive tape, but was unable to find any. He wondered what you were supposed to do around here if you barked a shin, call a servant or something?

  He went back and peered at the breakfast Brother had brought him. The omelet had bits of green herbage in it and he peered at this suspiciously, wondering if it was edible. He would not be a bit surprised to have Brother try to poison him, the way the bastard looked at him every time he came around.

  He ate the toast and drank the coffee, then took a tentative bite of omelet. It tasted fine. It was better than any omelet he had ever eaten, in fact, as well as different.