Severed Key

by Nielsen, Helen

  “You’re one lucky lady.”

  He closed the boot and helped her into the back seat of the sedan, and Simon, who had been watching from his car parked in the passenger loading zone, put the Jaguar in gear.

  The drive to the hotel was uneventful. Not for an instant did Simon lose sight of the black sedan; not for an instant did Hannah drop her pose of Sigrid Thorsen. When the sedan reached the hotel it was the chauffeur who unloaded the luggage for the doorman—two pieces, not three, leaving the largest bag inside the boot.

  “You won’t be needing me again, Miss Thorsen,” he said. “Have a nice day.”

  He drove away and Hannah strode into the hotel to claim her reservation from a startled management.

  Simon followed the black sedan. It made no stops. It returned to the freeway and headed south, ignored the airport off-ramp and continued south to the harbour freeway. The manoeuvre was beginning to make sense. The driver of the sedan seemed to have no fear of being followed and only when the car left the freeway and began to thread through the heavy traffic at the port area did Simon have trouble keeping it in sight. There were too many trucks, too much heavy rolling stock and too many small streets cutting off at sharp angles. When Simon finally realized that he had lost the black sedan he pulled off on to a side-street and telephoned the number Keith had given him.

  A woman answered. “Yes?”

  “I want to speak to Jack Keith,” Simon said. “Is he there?”

  “Who is this?”

  “Simon Drake and don’t waste time—there’s not enough of it.”

  Within seconds Keith was on the phone.

  “Where is that rental agency you told me about—the one that handles heavy equipment?” Simon demanded.

  “Where are you?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “I can’t hear you. It sounds like you’re in a truck convoy.”

  Simon repeated his request at a shout. After a few minutes of further shouting he promised to meet the detective at a restaurant-bar near the small boat-landing where Cerva had put out to sea and not returned. It was a five-minute drive. The old blue sedan was nowhere in sight when Simon arrived and so he parked in the public lot and watched the small private boats glide in and out of the harbour, the sightseeing launches, decks crowded with camera-carrying passengers, and even an occasional freighter bellied deep in the water from heavy cargoes bound for distant ports. A commercial helicopter made regular circles overhead and sea smells mingled with the tantalizing scent of charcoal-broiled meat. Half an hour passed before Keith’s old sedan nosed its way across the lot and came to a stop beside the Jaguar.

  Keith got out of the car and climbed in beside Simon.

  “Why are you looking for that truck garage?” he asked.

  “I lost the man who picked up Sigrid Thorsen at the airport a couple of hours ago. I think that’s where he was heading.”

  “You lost what?”

  Simon filled in Keith with the details of Hannah’s impersonation including the discovery of what Bob and Sunny had uncovered on a seaweed-strewn beach. Keith scratched at the new beard on his jaw and interpolated oaths of surprise as the story unfolded.

  “Do you mean to tell me that some hippies have been keeping a suitcase full of money for the last five days?”

  “That’s exactly what I mean to tell you.”

  “Then the man who drove Hannah to the hotel has that money now.”

  “He didn’t take the bag out of the boot when they reached the hotel. Hannah, bless her, played it cool just as if she knew the scene was to play that way.”

  “And she’s still at the hotel—alone?”

  “Chester’s watching her.”

  “I hope so. No wonder Sigrid didn’t let Lundberg know she was flying in a week early! Simon, that’s it! Whatever Sandovar was going to transact with Cerva had to take place within that week. Sigrid had to remain incommunicado at the hotel because she might have mentioned the extra luggage she’d carried in from New York and roused suspicion.”

  “That’s the way I see it,” Simon said. “And the week is up tomorrow. Where is that garage?”

  “I’ll take you there if you’ll let me drive your car,” Keith said. “We might have to leave in a hurry.”

  They drove back through the truck route and prowled through the narrow side-streets until Keith found an old two-storey building surrounded by a six-foot wire mesh fence. On the side of the building the faded paint read ACME TRUCKING and superimposed over the letters, in fresh black paint, were the words GERARD RENTALS. The gates were locked but through them they glimpsed the blunt noses of a pair of diesel trucks parked alongside a fuel depot. Several workmen in overalls moved in and out of a one-storey building at the rear of the lot and a huge black in a leather jacket occupied an inspection booth just inside the gates. Keith drove slowly and parked at the far end of the block.

  “I didn’t see the black sedan,” he said.

  “It’s probably inside the garage.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “Get inside and see.”

  “Just like that?”

  “I can try. The sign says that they rent things, doesn’t it? Maybe I want to rent a truck.”

  “I’ll go with you.”

  “No you won’t. If I get inside and can’t get out one of us has to know the score.”

  “I know that all right. It’s Cerva, two—us, zero. Do you want my gun?”

  Simon got out of the car and took his briefcase from the passenger seat. “I’m a lawyer,” he said. “We talk our way out of trouble.”

  He walked back to the big gate and rattled the heavy chain that was padlocked on the inside until the man in the booth became annoyed enough to come out and see who was causing so much disturbance. He had a German Shepherd with him that looked as if it had been trained in the Canine Corps, and the dog was the friendlier of the two.

  “What do you want?” the black growled.

  “I want to lease a truck,” Simon said.

  “We don’t have any trucks to lease.”

  “I see two of them inside.”

  “They’re reserved, mister.”

  “I don’t need them today. I want to see the boss.”

  “At this gate I’m the boss, mister. I say we don’t have no trucks.”

  “This is a rental agency, isn’t it?”

  “It’s a depot. You want to rent something you got to go to the agency.”

  “And where is that?”

  “I can’t tell you, mister. I only work here at the gate.”

  “I see that you have a phone in the booth. Maybe I could find the agency in the phone book.”

  The guard and the dog snarled in unison. “No way. This depot’s closed for the day.”

  Simon tucked the briefcase under his arm and walked across the street. He took out his cigarettes and lit up. From an angle of distance he could see more of the fenced lot behind the gates. A wide door opened into the one-storey building and one of the workers in overalls was spraying paint on something inside. He was working hard for a man on a day off. When the cigarette burned down to the filter Simon opened the briefcase and pretended to search for something inside. He was still searching when a laundry truck turned into the street and stopped at the locked gate. He heard a shouted greeting and saw the guard come out of the booth with a ringful of keys in his hand. The truck was between him and the gate. He ran forward and tried the handle of the rear door. It opened. He leapt inside and pulled the door shut as the gates opened and the truck rolled into the yard. Behind the stacks of packaged linens was a rod hung with filled clothes bags. He ducked behind the bags and remained hidden while the truck crossed the yard and came to a halt. The driver left the cab, shouted a greeting to someone in the yard, and opened the rear doors. Peering between the clothes bags Simon could see the driver transfeiring packages into the arms of a man in a white cotton jacket.

  “I hope you got everything clean this time,” he said. “M
y boss likes things done right!”

  “I only deliver ‘em, I don’t wash ‘em,” the driver said.

  “What about the uniforms?”

  “Right here on the rod—”

  Simon slid out of the way as the driver took down four of the clothes bags and followed the white coat into the two-storey building. Through the cellophane clothes bags he could see some freshly-done white waiters’ jackets. He whipped off his coat and got into one of them. He folded his coat over his arm, slapped a package of wrapped laundry over it and stepped out of the truck. Across the yard the workmen were still busy in the low building. The dog was back in the booth with the gateman and the service door stood open at the main building. He hurried inside. The first floor was a huge garage that was totally empty except for the black sedan he had followed from the airport. Near the doorway, a metal stairway led to the floor above. Hearing voices, he stepped behind the sedan and waited until the laundry man came back down the stairs and returned to his truck. Moments later, the motor started and the truck drove away. Simon was alone in the garage. He waited. After a few minutes the man in the white jacket came back down the stairs, took a bottle of soft drink from a dispenser at the bottom of the stairs and stood drinking it in the open doorway leading into the yard. From across the yard a man’s voice shouted a greeting. White coat laughed and stepped out into the sunlight. As soon as he was out of sight Simon tossed the laundry and his jacket into the sedan and hurried up the stairway.

  There was a small vestibule at the top of the stairs and a door, open, leading into a thickly-carpeted entry hall. The walls of the hall were panelled in walnut and hung with elegantly framed prints of Spanish villas, seascapes and cathedrals. The abrupt change from the almost empty garage to carefully executed luxury was unexpected and intriguing. Simon moved forward cautiously. Several doors opened off the hall. The first opened into a large, well-equipped kitchen, one led to a bedroom with a huge bed and a tall, carved-wood headboard, the third, standing open, disclosed a formal dining room with tapestry-hung walls and, beyond it, through a pair of carved-oak double doors, a study where a huge desk and a massive leather swivel chair were placed before wide windows that looked out over the truck yard below. A pair of leather divans, separated by a long coffee table, framed the fireplace on one panelled wall. Above the mantel hung an oil portrait of a darkly handsome man posed arrogantly in a magnificently braided uniform complete with sash and sword. There was the smell of newness in the room: the carpets, the uncreased leather, the freshly oiled wood. Only the portrait was tinged with time. On the desk were three telephones. Simon lifted the receiver of one: it was connected. Near the desk was a metal filing cabinet, locked, a typewriter table and a duplicating machine. It was a study; it was an office. And it was new. Also, except for Simon, it was unoccupied.

  Screened by the half-drawn velvet drapes, he stood at the window and watched the activity in the yard below. From this angle he could look directly into the one-storey building where the labourers were at work. He could see the outlines of two huge truck trailers where the newly-sprayed paint was being dried by electric heat-lamps. The activity was hurried but orderly. A timetable was being followed with precision. Simon watched the man in the white jacket come out of the building, the soft drink bottle still in his hand, and walk back towards the garage. Halfway across the yard he stopped to take note of the dog barking at the gate. Simon shifted position so that he could see what was happening. The gateman silenced the dog with a curt command and unlocked the gates. A black sedan drove into the yard and stopped just under the window. The driver—the same driver who had taken Hannah from the airport to the hotel—got out of the front seat and opened the rear door.

  A man emerged from the back seat and looked about the truckyard as if trying to get his bearings. He wore black tortoise-rimmed glasses and a small black beard, and the nuisance wind that whipped in from the sea flapped the tails of a short raincoat about the narrow legs of his trousers. He was too close for mistaken identification. He was the man named Pridoux and the way his eyes sought the gateway behind him made it seem that only the guard dog restrained him from running back to the street. The gate was still open. Shifting his position at the window, Simon could see the reason. A second car was turning into the truckyard.

  With a staccato burst of the exhaust, a topless silver Ferrari roared through the gateway and came to a brake-screeching stop behind the black sedan. Sandovar was at the wheel. He climbed out of the car and hurried towards Pridoux extending a black-gloved hand in greeting. The window was closed and Simon couldn’t risk discovery by opening it, but he watched the silent tableau as the driver of the sedan unlocked the boot and removed the third piece of blue luggage. Sandovar examined it excitedly. Resting the bag on the open car boot, he removed a set of keys from his pocket and tried to unlock the bag. Failing, he turned to the driver, who quickly broke the lock with a tool taken from the boot. The upraised lid partially shielded the transaction, but several packages of unwrapped bills were handed to Pridoux who, with no effort to count the sum, plunged the packages deep into the pockets of his raincoat. When the lid of the boot was closed again it was Sandovar who carried the blue suitcase. He spoke briefly to Pridoux. The man handed him a sheaf of folded paper and got back into the sedan. The driver closed the door, returned to his place behind the wheel and then, executing a wide U-turn in the truckyard, drove back through the gate and into the street. The black man locked the gate behind him.

  Simon didn’t watch any longer. He had found the entrance to Sandovar’s headquarters; what he needed now was an exit. The kitchen seemed the likeliest place. He hurried back through the carpeted hall and entered the kitchen as the first footfalls sounded on the iron staircase. At the far side of the kitchen a service door opened on to a narrow stairway going upwards. Closing the door behind him he ascended the steps to a steel door which opened on to the roof. Temporarily blinded after the darkness of the stairway, he squinted across the sun-drenched asphalt, blinked at the glare of the metal fireplace flu and turned about slowly searching for a fire escape ladder. Luckily it was on the side of the building opposite the truckyard. He started towards it, glimpsed a moving shadow that wasn’t his own and whirled about in time to see the sunlight glint on the barrel of an upraised gun that was rapidly descending towards his skull. He shot out a fist and felt it sink into a bellyful of flesh slightly softer than a concrete wall. The gun clattered to the asphalt but the flesh kept on coming. Ducking his head to save his one good eye, he flailed at the attacker again but now he was off balance and backing towards the ladder at the edge of the roof. The ham-like fist that had held the gun was almost as lethal without it. The first blow caught his shoulder. The second spun him about so that the sky and the sea and the yard two storeys below whirled like a psychedelic light-show and then blacked out in the crusty oblivion of the asphalt roof.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  SOMEBODY HAD LEFT the water running. Steady. Hard. A fine needle spray. It splashed against the tile and made an effervescent bubbling sound. Simon opened his good eye and turned his head painfully. The spray splashed one last time and stopped. The hissing bubbles continued for an instant and flattened to silence. He saw Sandovar’s hand, no longer gloved, place the siphon bottle on the top of the coffee table and then extend the aromatic glass towards him.

  “Take it,” Sandovar said. “It’s as fine a Scotch as you’ll ever drink.”

  Simon edged upwards against the back of the leather divan. He could tell that his head was still attached to his body by the pulsating pain that accompanied movement. He accepted the Scotch and drank it all without speaking. When he had finished the room was in focus and Sandovar was seated on the opposite divan with the blue suitcase beside him. Seeing that he had Simon’s attention, he took an object from his pocket and placed it on the coffee table. It was the half of the severed key with the tag attached.

  “This was placed inside the small case you and your detective friend fished out of t
he sea last Saturday,” he said. “It was not in the case when it was taken from the marina depot later that night. What do you know about it?”

  “Less than you do,” Simon answered.

  “That is true—but not a good enough answer. I’ll try another tack. Where did you find Sigrid Thorsen?”

  “I didn’t. I couldn’t. She’s dead.”

  “That’s a lie! She delivered this half of a key to her contact at the rental garage. He saw her. He spoke with her. He drove her to the hotel.”

  “Then why don’t you ask her?”

  Sandovar smiled thinly. “It’s not likely I’ll get the opportunity. You’re a disappointment, Mr Drake. You have the reputation of being a clever man, but today’s bit of business won’t work. Obviously this suitcase was delivered so that you could follow the driver to this place. If that idiot in the rental garage had telephoned me when the call came through for a red Camaro I would have told him to ignore the bait. Unfortunately, he called a man who isn’t above liquidating a lovely young lady if she’s playing games with his profit.”

  “Angelo Cerva?” Simon asked. “No, I don’t suppose he has a romantic side.”

  “You seem to know a great deal, Mr Drake.”

  “I’m clever. You said that yourself.”

  “You know too much,” Sandovar added soberly, “to get out of this place alive.”

  “Pridoux made it.”

  “Pridoux? So you saw us together in the yard below.”

  “I saw money passed.”

  “That was merely a down payment. Pridoux is useful. As long as he’s useful he lives.”

  “Every man has his price—is that it?”

  “Not quite every man. Pridoux is a special case. His lovely young wife has a serious disease which is curable with proper treatment. The twenty thousand I paid him for information about truck routes will take care of the first six months. After that—well, he may be useful on another project.”

  “Hijacking shipments of fissionable material,” Simon said. “Where are you taking them? To San Isobel?”