Lee Falk - [Story of the Phantom 10]

by The Goggle-Eyed Pirates (v0. 9) (epub)

  “That’s Brian Folkestone. Or rather, that was.” Lumbard asked, “What now?”

  The Phantom smiled at him. “I wouldn’t advise you to follow me again to find out,” he said. “I don’t think you can do it a second time without my being aware of it.”

  “Okay,” said Lumbard. “You prefer to be a loner, so be it. You figuring maybe to get a retrieval fee out of my insurance company?”

  “We’re not competitors,” the masked man assured him.

  “I can understand a money motive,” said the insurance man. “Which is why I can even identify with these pirates. If you’re not interested in a reward though, what are you in this for?”

  “I don’t like pirates.”

  CHAPTER 11

  The pudgy pink man who had been Harlan Brupp rotated the brandy in the huge glass he held in his palm. “Not so good,” he said. He was sitting in an enormous black-leather chair, his tiny, puffy eyes half closed. His feet did not quite reach the thick white carpeting. “Nope, not so very good at all.”

  The man who had been Brian Folkestone said, “Spare me the gloom and doom act.” He was leaning against one of the pale wood-panel walls of the large windowless room. “No one has done anything seriously wrong.”

  “Correction.” Brupp aimed a pudgy forefinger at the other man. “You fouled up somewhere, buster.” Folkestone shrugged his narrow shoulders. “As j

  Brian Folkestone perhaps,” he admitted. “But poor old Brian passed on earlier this evening and is no more.”

  “You know,” said the pudgy man, “because of my looks I usually play the rube, but I’m really quite a sophisticated man. I’m extremely well-read and

  possess a wide-ranging taste for the good things of life. However, buster, when you start getting flippant with me, I get to feeling just like I would if I really were Harlan Brupp. I want to slug you.”

  “Do, by all means,” suggested Brian. “Perhaps it’ll clear the air.”

  Holding the brandy glass immediately beneath his nose, Brupp watched the younger man. “What I want to hear first is ... how in the hell did this Walker guy tumble to you at all?”

  “There’s nothing to show he did,” replied Brian. He walked over to the solid liquor cabinet and began poking at the array of bottles on top of it. “No one who’s anyone in London society drinks Lord Kolb Gin any more, by the way. Your pretensions are one season behind.”

  “You’re the one who’s on the hook, buster.”

  “It’s quite possible this Walker chappy followed me simply because I made a play for his lady love.”

  Brupp snorted, causing his brandy to ripple. “And he just happened to come out in the police launch because he’s a big contributor to the policemen’s welfare fund,” he said. “I tell you, the guy’s some kind of cop. Maybe InterPol, something fancy like that.”

  “His papers don’t indicate that.”

  “InterPol isn’t like the Brownies, they don’t give you a membership card to carry around.”

  “All right, let’s say he’s a cop,” said Brian. “What difference does it make? I set him up so Weiner could take him off my trail, with one quick phone call from the pier. Friend Walker is now either dozing down at the waterfront or he’s waking up with one hell of a headache. The point is, he is never going to see me again.”

  “You planning to enter a convent?”

  “I’m planning, as we do after each of these jobs, to alter my identity.”

  Brupp shook his head. “That dame . . . you looted her cabin, didn’t you?”

  “Diana Palmer, yes, but—”

  “You gave yourself away.”

  “Not possible, preposterous.”

  “And she told Walker,” said Brupp. “Okay, so you’re off the next caper.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean on our next little cruise you are going to be a landlubber.”

  “Like hell,” the lanky young man protested. “I want a good piece of the next take. I’ve already got its spending nicely planned out.”

  “You’ll still get, like all the members of our group, a one percent cut of the job. But you’re not going to get the bigger participant share on the next one,” Brupp told him. “Think about your cut on tonight’s loot. We should be able to realize a cool million at least.”

  “Yes, that’s splendid, but I've already got that,” said Brian. “It’s anticipating the next big bit of boodle which gives one the real thrill.”

  “Well, we’ll maybe be doing one more job beyond the next one.”

  “I thought the next one was to be the last.”

  Brupp chuckled. “Things are going so well. We should be able to risk a couple more capers.” His pudgy face clouded. “But the damn bug in the cream jug is this guy Walker.”

  “Forget Walker.”

  “Easier said than done,” Brupp said to him. “I want to find out more about him. Who he is, what he’s up to, what his angle is.”

  “Okay, the easiest way to do that is to have some-

  body watch Diana Palmer,” said Brian. “Because at this point in the game, we don’t even know where the gent lives.”

  “Has to be someplace that allows pets,” said Brupp, chuckling again. “Okay, we’ll get Truex on it and let him pick his own help.” With a slight struggle, he got himself up out of the enormous chair. “Now let’s get back to the festivities.”

  Brian followed him across the room. “I hope you’ll reconsider your ultimatum about the next job.

  “Not a chance, buster.” He touched a button on the paneling and a section of wall slid away.

  In the large, windowless room beyond, a party was in full swing. A few hours earlier, these men and women had been the goggled pirates.

  As the wall closed behind him, Brupp held his glass high. “Ladies and gentlemen,” he announced, “a toast.” He paused. “To piracy.”

  CHAPTER 12

  The street was only three blocks long, very narrow, a lane really. It began near the sea, not near the waterfront part of the sea but near a thin strip of private beach which belonged to the imposing Mawitaan Beach Club.

  A slender black girl in pale-yellow shorts was walking her gold-colored ten-speed bicycle up the gentle incline of the street. She glanced in the windows of the smart shops which lined the lane, narrow white-fronted .shops for the most part with sedate awnings of striped canvas.

  A large, fluffy woman in a candy-striped pants suit came hurrying out of one of the shops, a meticulously trimmed poodle leading her.

  The Phantom, again in trenchcoat and dark glasses, waited until the woman had hurried uphill. Then he reached for the gold handle of the door to the shop. In gold letters on the upper half of the glass door was the name “Napoleon.”

  The room the Phantom entered was empty. It had gray walls, gray carpeting, and gray drapes over the arched doorway in the far comer. On a white pedestal to his left, under a single pale spotlight, was a bolt of fabric, fabric of bright native color and design. A yard of it had been unfurled from the bolt and wound round the column.

  Through the archway came a thin blonde girl. Her face was powdered with a faintly silvery powder and her hair, pulled back in a bun, was almost platinum in color. “May Napoleon’s serve you, sir?”

  “Is Napoleon himself in?”

  “Napoleon rarely sees anyone, sir,” the girl told him. “My name is Loris. I assure you I’m perfectly qualified to serve you.”

  “I’m certain you are.”

  “You wish to make an appointment for ... your wife perhaps?”

  “I want to ask if I can commission Napoleon to make me up two dozen robes,” he said. “Robes of a somewhat special kind.” Although whoever had knocked him out last night had searched him, they hadn’t found the concealed pocket in his coat. Nor the Napoleon label in it. The Phantom held the label in his fist as he spoke to the silvery blonde girl. “I believe he should be able to undertake such a job.” “Napoleon is a couturier, sir. I doubt—”

  �
��But I know as a fact that he made a set of robes recently for another of his clients,” the Phantom said. “As a matter of fact, that may cause a problem. You see these robes are to be for a costume affair of sorts and I wouldn’t want them to be exactly like the last ones he made, of course. Could you tell me perhaps who—”

  “Uzima said the very fat black man who stopped, beaming, through the curtains. He wore a scarlet-and-green dashiki and crisp white-duck trousers. There were gold sandals on his feet. “Enda,” he told the girl.

  “Yes, sir.” After bowing quickly toward the Phantom, she left the room.

  “I am honored by a visit of one so distinguished looking as yourself, sir,” he said. “Your name is—-?” “Walker.”

  “A pleasure, Mr. Walker. I am, as you no doubt know from having viewed my photo in countless editions of the popular press and in numerous slick-paper fashion journals, Napoleon himself.”

  “Nice to meet you. Now ”

  “Alas, I am filled with huzuni, with sadness, Mr. Walker, sir,” sighed Napoleon. “Unfortunately all my efforts for the next few weeks, as well as the efforts of my trusted and valuable staff, must be given over to preparing the wedding ensemble and attendant fripperies for a most important and hugely posh wedding, alas.”

  Nodding, the Phantom said, “I’ll have to go somewhere else regrettably. Could you tell me who you made those last robes for, so that I won t run the—” “Alas, no,” interrupted the fat designer. “I must al- j ways think of myself like a doctor, Mr. Walker, sir.

  My records must be sacred from prying eyes, you see.”

  “Well, thank you for your time.”

  “Kivaheri, Kwaheri,” Napoleon said as the Phantom left r

  Outside the Phantom stood rubbing the small label across his chin. I’ll have to take a look at those sacred records of his, he thought.

  Another clouded night. The vast glass windows of the beach club glowed in the fuzzy dark like huge paintings of the good life. The Phantom, wearing a dark pullover and slacks, turned his back on the beach and went sprinting up the twisting alley behind the row of fancy shops. He stopped suddenly, diving into a shadowy doorway.

  A police car was passing along the cross street up ahead. When it was gone, he emerged and continued rapidly on his way.

  The Napoleon shop was dark.

  Moving up to the back door, the Phantom investigated the alarm system. A simple one, which could be incapacitated by merely cutting off the electricity.

  Turning, he scaled a telephone pole. A powerful leap next took him to the roof of the shop.

  Flat out, he reached over the edge, a small pair of wire cutters in his gloved hands.

  When the two-pronged electric feed wire was cut, he crossed to the skylight. He pried it open, then dropped straight down into darkness.

  He landed near the pedestal and its bolt of cloth.

  Napoleon’s file cabinets were in a small sweetsmelling room beyond the curtained doorway.

  The information he wanted was still there.

  “Meaning Napoleon is either incredibly stupid,” the Phantom said to himself, “or he’s got nothing directly to do with the pirates.”

  Napoleon had completed the twenty-five robes three weeks earlier and sent them to a customer in Mawitaan.

  A customer with a very fashionable name and address, the Phantom thought.

  The Phantom quickly memorized all the pertinent information. He closed the file drawer and turned toward the doorway.

  The silvery blonde, Loris, was standing there. “Please do not move, Mr. Walker,” she suggested. In her left hand, she held a silver-plated .32 revolver.

  CHAPTER 13

  Lumbard opened the snack bag over his desk and shook it. “Bran muffin, dried banana, raw carrot,” he said as the contents fell, “cashew nuts, chapatis and ... what’s this?” He poked a tiny plastic pouch. “Soy sauce. What are you going to put the soy sauce on?” Bockman was watching the street. When twilight turned to dark, he closed the blinds. “Guy watching our office,” he said.

  “Guy with goggles and a painted-on grin?”

  “Nothing so obvious.” Bockman came over to rescue some of his snacks. “Didn’t you ever put soy sauce on chapatis?”

  “Lord, no,” answered Lumbard. His phone rang and he picked it up. “MultiWorld Insurance, Lumbard here.” He listened for a few seconds, said, “Hello?” and hung up. “Some guy wanted me to hear him breathe. You going to eat that muffin?”

  Bockman had it in his hand. “I’m supposed to get a lot of bran,” he explained. “It’s a good source of iron.”

  “Is it now?” Lumbard made a hushing motion at his partner and began to walk cautiously toward the door. “Well, none of us can have too much iron I always say. I know my sainted grandmother was full of

  the stuff and she lived to be ” He yanked the door open.

  “Ah, good evening then,” said the frail swarthy man in the rumpled dark-blue suit. He made a hopping sort of entrance. "I wanted to make sure you were alone here.” He was very pale, with a day’s speckling of whiskers on his sunken cheeks. Somewhere over forty, with a perennially sad, small smile pulling at his thin mouth. “I want to avoid...He substituted a twist of his hand for the word.

  “Cops?”

  The frail man said, still smiling faintly, “I must admit that I have a criminal record of sorts. But there is no reason why you cannot trust me.”

  “What are we going to trust you about?” asked Lumbard.

  “My name is Serafim. May I sit down please?”

  “Sure.” Bockman pulled a desk chair over. “Like a carrot or a dried banana?”

  “No, thank you. Despite my appearance, I have recently dined.” Seating himself, he steepled one hand on each knee and began smoothing the many wrinkles in the thin blue cloth. “Information ... I have some information.”

  Lumbard perched on the edge of his desk, leaning toward Serafim. “About the pirate raid of the Paradiso?”

  Serafim bobbed his head. “Ah, you can read minds,” he said. “Exactly. It is my understanding that your company, this MultiWorld Insurance Company, would be most interested in finding that which was taken from the ship.”

  “The loot?” Lumbard leaned even closer. “You know where the loot is?”

  “A portion of it at least.”

  Bockman said, “It would be worth something to us to know that.”

  “I assumed as much. How much precisely?”

  “Five hundred bucks,” said Lumbard.

  The frail man laughed a laugh which sounded more like a dying cough. “I am, despite the unfortunate circumstances under which I live at the moment, not a fool. Five thousand dollars is closer to what my information is worth.”

  “That’s expensive information,” Lumbard told him. “What are you going to telf us for five thousand bucks, Serafim?”

  “These pirates of yours removed their plunder from the S.S. Paradiso in a helicopter.” He smiled his sad smile first at Bockman, then at Lumbard. ‘1 know where the helicopter landed.”

  “That’s more than the cops know.”

  “Which is why my information is worth something.” “Is the copter still where it set down?” asked Bockman.

  “To the best of my knowledge.”

  “And what about the stuff they stole?” asked Lumbard.

  Serafim gave them another of his rattling laughs. “I have told you all I can tell you for nothing.”

  Lumbard dropped from the desk. “So what do you have in mind? We give you five thousand and you tell us the plane’s parked next to the third palm tree from the left in the Deep Woods and then vanish from our ken?”

  “I will lead you to where the pirates’ helicopter landed,” said Serafim. “You can give me my fee then. I would appreciate, as they say it in American films, a little money in front, please.”

  Bookman said, “You can take us there now, right now?”

  ‘It is a distance of some three hours by automobile,” replied Serafim. “
It would be better if we left early in the morning tomorrow. Besides, I have some important family business still to transact this evening.”

  “Does that include trying to peddle what you know to somebody else?” asked Lumbard.

  “No,” replied Serafim, “Who else would buy? Surely not the police ... well, do we have a deal?”

  From his flat wallet Lumbard took five twenty-dollar bills. “Here’s a hundred bucks in front. When do we meet you tomorrow and where'?”

  ‘1 am staying at the Oceanside Hotel. You can meet me there at seven tomorrow with a car.” He took the bills. “The usual advance is ten percent, is it not? Which should be, as I quickly calculate in my head, five hundred dollars and not one hundred dollars.”

  “In case you’re not at the Oceanside tomorrow morning, I don’t want to be out more than a hundred.”

  “Ah, I will be there, I assure you.” Serafim carefully tucked the folded money into an inner pocket of his rumpled coat. “This adventure will put a feather in all our caps, believe me.” He backed carefully out of the office.

  After a minute had passed, Lumbard said, “I’m going to tail him.” He slipped out.

  Bockman had finished his raw carrot and was

  reaching for the dried banana when his partner returned ten minutes later. “Back already?”

  “He shook me.”

  “Good-bye hundred dollars.”

  “I wonder.”

  CHAPTER 14

  In her right hand, the pale-blonde, Loris, held a pencil-size flashlight. She clicked it on, raked its tiny beam over the figure of the Phantom, and stopped finally on his face. “I suppose those dark glasses take the place of the more conventional burglar s mask.” “And they’re more comfortable than goggles.”

  The girl took one further step into the dark office. “I don’t quite understand your reference, Mr. Walker, if that’s indeed your name.”

  “It’s the name I use, much like Brian Folkestone.” The flashlight beam continued to illuminate his face. “I find you somewhat cryptic,” she told him. “Perhaps being caught in the act of stealing has unsettled you a bit.”