by Jack Lynch
“Anybody care for a drink?” asked Bowman.
The women declined. Battersea asked for some coffee. I told him I wouldn’t mind some bourbon. “Or anything else you might have around.”
Erica crossed to murmur in my ear. “Whatever have you been up to with that child?”
“It’s sort of a plan,” I said quietly. “I’ll tell you about it later.”
Bowman brought a mug of coffee for Battersea and some bourbon over ice for me. When Brandi came back into the room the gray man asked me to tell them the day’s developments.
“Probably the most important thing I found out was that this chess set is worth maybe even more than you’d been led to believe. I showed one of the pieces to a gem expert. He authenticated it.”
“Wait a minute,” said Bowman. “Where did you get the piece you showed him?”
“I came up with the ones Buddy Polaski was bringing in with him. Don’t worry about it, so far as I’m concerned they belong to his sister here, Erica. The important thing is my stone man saw it, checked it against a reference work and did some poking and testing on it and said it was worth a bundle. He told me the complete set would be worth maybe double what you people had been hoping for.”
“That’s something nobody has gotten around to telling me,” said Battersea. “Edward said I’d easily get enough to pay my air fare from home and back so I could come visit Brandi girl, and that was good enough for me. But how much are we talking about?”
“He cleaned up the one pawn I showed him,” I said. “He looked it over pretty good. And he figured you could get thirty thousand dollars for it, no problem. All by itself. Even if the rest of the set didn’t exist.”
Bowman straightened and looked around. Erica had returned to the sofa and now was digging for something in her purse.
“You don’t all have to run for pencil and paper. My man knew approximately the sort of stones and metals involved. He assumed the value of the individual pieces would be commensurate with the assigned power of the pieces, pawns to king and queen. He estimated that if the set were scattered and purchased individually today by thirty-two different buyers, the collective sum paid would be more than three million dollars. And he said if the set were a complete entity, its proper value would be two to three times that. From six to ten million dollars. Those were his figures, not mine.”
The only sound came from the fireplace. Everybody else in the room was doing some classic dreaming.
“That means, if we can bring Catlin around to agreeing on equal shares, each of the four principals involved, Mrs. Shank, Mr. Battersea, Mr. Bowman and Mr. Catlin, stand to get at least a million and a half dollars. Less my commission, of course.”
“Eh, what?” asked Battersea.
“My commission. It’s a proposal I kicked around with the others last night. They seemed to think it was fair.”
“Oh yes, Dad, I sort of shook hands to it on your behalf,” said Brandi. “I hope it was all right.”
“I’m sure it was, dear, I’d just like to hear about it is all. Here I’m hardly finished blinking over standing to get so much money and already some chap is nicking away at it. Only want to hear about it, is all.”
“Sure. I originally was brought into this by Harry Shank. After he died, I continued on in the employment of Mrs. Shank. But I’ve suggested that since what I’ve been doing really has been in the interest of all of you that you should share the cost of me. I tracked down Catlin up in the state of Washington. I found the pieces Buddy Polaski owned. I recovered the money Polaski had stolen from the mob. I’ve been in a couple of shooting scrapes over this and I got knocked around some last night. Now I’ve established the value of the set and I’ve gotten nearly everybody to agree to return the mob money to get those people out of our hair. I think Catlin will come around in time as well. I’ve also offered to complete the deal and deliver the goods to the buyer and clean up any other problems that might come along.”
“I appreciate all that,” said Battersea. “But your price, man. What is it you figure to walk off with?”
“One percent of what each of you realizes from the sale. If we sold at a low figure, say four million dollars, I would get ten thousand from each of you. If we sold high, say ten million dollars, I’d get twenty-five thousand from each of you.”
The little man stared back in dismay. “A hundred thousand all told, for just a few days’ work?”
“It’s still just one percent of what the rest of you get. Not really a very high commission. And there’s been some dirty work involved in all this.”
“I know, but a hundred thousand…that’s many years’ wages back home.”
“But you’ll never have to work again, Mr. Battersea, unless you’re foolish. As for me, life will go on pretty much the same. But if you don’t agree I guess I can just back out now and leave you all to finish things on your own.”
“Oh, Dad, don’t gum up things now,” his daughter pleaded.
Bowman struggled to his feet. “I say there, Malcolm, you can’t mean this. The man’s been an absolute jewel. Knocked sense into us, he did. Made us all a team again. Done wonders.”
“Now don’t get upset, everybody,” said Battersea. “It’s just that I think it’s too much money.”
“I don’t believe this,” said the Duchess, coming over to stand beside Bowman. “You distinctly said, you little latecomer, not five minutes ago, that the air fare to get your frail body here from Australia so you could see your daughter was adequate for you. Now you find yourself on the verge of becoming a millionaire and you’re guarding the common vault like you owned it.”
“Mum always said he was a bit tight,” Brandi murmured.
Battersea turned. “Did she?”
“He’s already been in physical confrontations the rest of us couldn’t have stood up to,” Bowman told him.
“Oh, I don’t know about that,” said Battersea. “I’ve always been adequate in a fracas. And don’t forget there’s Jack down the hall there. Sober him up and turn him serious and he’s hard as nails under it all.”
Gretchen Zane made a sound of exasperation and returned to her seat.
“He’s a rumpot, Dad,” said Brandi quietly. “You can tell from the veins in his face.”
“Mr. Battersea,” said Erica, “I don’t believe you’ve thought things through quite.”
“Eh, how’s that?”
Erica kept her voice deliberately calm and silken. But the steel in her came through plainly. Even Battersea caught it.
“You’ve forgotten about Mr. Catlin. He’s the one with the most pieces, you recall. I saw him just this afternoon. I think that Peter is the only one of us he truly trusts. He barely knows me. It was Harry who was his pal. But Catlin and Peter fought off some vicious people together up north a few days ago. Mr. Catlin told me Peter shot one of them, allowing Catlin to make his escape. That is the sort of thing that counts to a man like that. And while he might not yet want to share the proceeds evenly, he did agree to Mr. Bragg’s commission. I think if we just drop Mr. Bragg, Catlin might well just take his pieces and go away from here.”
Battersea thought about it while his friend’s voice rose and fell in song from down the hall. Then it sounded as if he’d toppled out of his chair, and the singing stopped.
“Another thing I don’t think you realize,” Erica purred on. “There is the money my brother stole back east, and brought out here. And the two mobsters who are out here looking for that. If you ruin the deal for Mr. Bragg here, I don’t see what’s to prevent him from still returning the money they came after and at the same time telling them about this treasure the rest of us are holding. I’d bet, Mr. Battersea, that they’d have a dozen more like themselves out here overnight, looking for us. They are not gentle men, Mr. Battersea. You and old battling Jack down the hall there might be hilariously successful in a barroom fracas, but they killed my brother. My brother was a very tough man, Mr. Battersea. And they killed him,” she said with a sna
p of her fingers, “like that.”
Battersea’s face had turned grave. He blew a little air through his nostrils, looked around and caved in.
“If it means all that much to everybody I suppose I could go along this once. But I want you to know, it goes against my principles.”
“Oh, shut up about your principles,” snapped the Duchess. “You’d still be back in that miserable barren country swilling beer and dreaming of next week’s pay packet if it weren’t for the rest of us here, Mr. Bragg included.”
“Okay, everybody, that’s settled,” I told them. “Let’s move along. I’ll see if I can’t get the money back to those two tomorrow and get them out of town. I think now we should take an inventory of the pieces everybody has. Does anybody know how many Catlin owns?”
“Fifteen,” said Erica. “He told me today.”
“And how many did Harry have?”
“Three.”
“And you have those now?”
“Yes.”
“What about the four your brother had? Do you want those or do you want me to hold them?”
“You keep them, please.”
“All right, that makes twenty-two. Mr. Bowman and Duchess?”
“We have four,” she replied.
“Twenty-six,” I continued. “So, Mr. Battersea, you have six?”
The little man was beginning to fidget. Brandi stepped forward.
“He sent them on to me,” she said quietly. “There are only five.”
“Yes, well,” said Battersea. “I did have six, but I gave off one of them. That was long before I knew their value, of course. Years ago. Odd thing was, it didn’t seem to bother Harry that much when I told him about it.”
“You spoke to Harry Shank?” asked the Duchess. “When was that?”
“A week, maybe ten days ago. He called me on the telephone. From here all the way to Australia. Must have cost a small fortune, that.”
“Get on with it man,” fumed Bowman.
“He was doing about the same as Mr. Bragg here is doing. Getting a tally of things. I told Harry I tried to recover the piece I gave away, but it was no good. The chap didn’t have it any longer.”
“Why don’t you tell the rest of us about it?” I suggested. “Who did you give it to? And when?”
“It was a very long time ago. Right after the war, in fact. When we all went back home, and I had to deliver old Kwalli back to the government settlement he came from in the first place.”
“Kwalli?” asked Bowman slowly.
“Yes, you remember him, our scout. The abo. Saved our feathers more than once, you’ll bloody well remember. I gave him one of the pieces as a keepsake. He was terribly grateful for it. Set him apart from the rest of his people, you know.”
“That savage?” said Bowman incredulously. “You gave one of the chess pieces to him?”
“Well, look here, Edward, I didn’t have any better idea what was beneath the muck on the outside than the rest of you. Took Harry thirty-five years to dope it out, you know. Seemed like a pitiful little bauble to part with considering the bloodletting the little primitive did on behalf of the rest of us.”
Bowman sank back into his chair. If possible he was grayer than usual.
“Anyway,” continued Battersea, “I went looking for old Kwalli when Harry wrote me what this was all about. Took a bit of doing, that did. The settlements are pretty much gone now. The abos, the lucky ones that is, are working the ranches. The others gravitated to the cities. Kwalli, having spent the time he did with us, was a relatively cosmopolitan man, compared with the rest. No hard ranch work would satisfy him, you can be sure. He went to town, he did, but of course he didn’t have the skills to do much there. You can find his sort easily, if you know where to look. Much the same over here, I imagine. Where those down and out gather. I found him finally, drunk, sleeping under a bridge in Perth one afternoon. I rented a room, got him a new pair of trousers, a shirt and pair of socks, talked him into cleaning himself up so I could take him somewhere for a proper meal. Had him sobered up by nightfall. Asked about the little keepsake I’d left him. Seems the begger had kept it all these years. Treasured it, he did. It’d been a part of the best years of his life, he told me.”
The little man shook his head and stared at the floor a moment. “All that sweaty thrashing through the jungle and killing—his best years.” He sniffed once and raised his head. “No matter, I suppose. Unfortunately the coating on his piece had started to unravel some time back. A stringy adhesive, you know, and of course Kwalli found a dozen uses for it. The primitives are like that. And he was drinking one night in God knows what sort of spot with a chap he called the traveling man, when his bloody bootlace broke.
“As near as I could make out—we always spoke sort of a pidgin lingo, you know—the lace was old and just shot through with knots where it had snapped before. That night, in a fit of impatience, he just sliced off the whole end and replaced it with a section of the stringy adhesive wrapped around the keepsake. Worked wonderfully, he told me, only when he was unraveling it the traveling man stranger took a sudden interest. Wanted to unravel the lot of it, turned out, but old Kwalli was nobody’s fool. No sir, wouldn’t hear of that, so the stranger, who must have known a bit about the abo people, offered to trade for it. Had a shiny little bauble of his own that appealed to Kwalli, and he even told Kwalli he could keep the rest of the wrapping as well. That of course was too good a bargain for Kwalli to pass up. So they made the swap. Kwalli got the string and the bauble, the stranger made off with the chess piece.”
“What was the bauble the stranger gave him, Dad?” asked Brandi.
“A cheap bloody money clip,” said Battersea. “Little more than pot metal glazed over with gold coloring and inscribed. It was the glitter and the inscription that turned old Kwalli’s head.”
“What did the inscription say?” asked Bowman.
“Easy Come, Easy Go.”
The room was still. Battersea was staring at the rug again.
“What were you able to find out about the stranger?” I asked him.
“Not much. He was a white man and he traveled. That’s about all old Kwalli could remember. The traveling man had been buying him drinks and old Kwalli was soaked to the eyeballs by the time the swap was made.”
“Had you seen Kwalli by the time you last spoke to Harry Shank?”
“Yes. Harry said it didn’t surprise him. In fact, Harry said he would have been astonished if Kwalli still did have the piece.”
Bowman shifted positions in his chair. “And Harry told me he knew where all the pieces were.”
“When did he tell you that?” I asked.
“The last time I talked to him. The day before Buddy Polaski was to arrive. We made the arrangements to meet at that restaurant where I saw you. Harry thought we’d be able to exchange our chessmen then for the money Polaski was bringing in.”
I looked at Erica. She shook her head. “If Harry knew about this traveling person he never told me who it was.”
Bowman sighed and banged one hand against his knee. “What do you think, Bragg?”
I shrugged. “Harry Shank was a shrewd man. If he told you he knew where all the pieces were, then I think he knew.” I turned to Gretchen Zane. “Who’s the buyer you have lined up, Duchess?”
“He is an acquaintance from the old days. I prefer not to mention his name. He is not American. He has great wealth but enjoys the freedom of movement offered by remaining quietly in the background of things. He is very discreet.”
“But he really has the money, huh?”
She smiled. “Yes, Mr. Bragg, he really has the money.”
“You said he mentioned paying four million dollars. In light of what my stone man told me that might be a little short of what you should be getting.”
“He mentioned that figure as his best guess. He said either he personally or an appraiser he approved of would have to inspect the set first, to ascertain its quality. Nobody has seen it
for a very long time, of course. But he assured me he would be generous, Mr. Bragg, if it is authentic.”
“Okay. Does anybody have anything more to offer?”
Bowman was clearly vexed. “But what do we do now?”
“Sit tight, Mr. Bowman. Like all problems, this one has several parts. We take them up one at a time. I’d like to get back out to the beach and have another chat with Henry Catlin if he’s around. Tomorrow I’ll try to get the men from New York out of here. Once that’s done we can begin to worry about the missing piece. And something else. I think we should get the goo cleaned off all the pieces.”
“How do we do that?” Bowman asked.
“We could let my stone man in the city do it. He’s eminently respectable and, like your buyer, discreet. He already knows the set exists and has cleaned off one of the pieces. He has the stuff to do it with. Duchess, you and Edward could come to my office some time after noon. I’ll have it set up and give you directions to his shop. You can wait there while he’s doing it, if you want. Or you could let Brandi run that errand for you.”
“All right,” said the Duchess. “After noon. Do you think Catlin will know anything about this traveling man?”
“I don’t know, but it’s worth asking him. And I also want to talk to him again about sharing the proceeds equally. I think I know a way to lean on him some.”
FIFTEEN
Erica was in a subdued mood on the way back. She was content to lean back and stare out the window. That was fine with me. I wanted to concentrate on the winding road until we hooked back up with the freeway. And I didn’t really want to think about the chess set anymore right then. Earlier in the day I’d felt pretty smug about coming up with the Polaski pieces. Now there was another one missing and I really didn’t have any idea where to go looking for that one, despite the assurances I’d given the clients in Port Costa.
I opened the window a couple of inches to let in some fresh air and tried to put it all out of my mind. I tuned the radio to KJAZ and listened to the late Gil Evans hold school. Erica turned her head once and smiled, then went back to her own reverie. She didn’t stir again until we were crossing the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge to Marin County.
