A Deadly Shade of Gold (42 page)

"I'll keep the yellow cat eyes, darling. But I'll throw the devils out. I will be the sweet, humble, adoring girl porpoise."

"I'll be the show-off. Big leaps. A great fishcatcher."

She blinked rapidly and said, "Until then, darling. Take care."

And she started up so fast she gave me a good rap on the elbow with the edge of the window frame.

There was no reason why I should not use the same name and the same hotel in New York. I came up with the golden goodies packed into two sturdy suitcases. I put them into a coin locker in the East Side Terminal. By three o'clock on that hot and sticky afternoon, I was settled into the Wharton as Sam Taggart. I used a pay phone to call Borlika Galleries. They said they expected Mrs. Anton Borlika back in about twenty minutes.

I had difficulty visualizing her until I heard that flat Boston accent, then I saw all of her, the Irish shine of the black hair, the whiteness and plumpness and softness of all the rest of her.

"It's Sam Taggart, Betty," I said.

There was a long silence.

"I never expected to hear from you again."

"What gave you that idea?"

"Let's say because you left so abruptly."

"It couldn't be helped."

"It's been months. What did you expect me to think?"

"Do you need those pictures back?"

"The negatives were on file. Keep them as souvenirs. What do you want?"

"I thought we had a deal lined up."

"That was a long time ago."

"Maybe they're more valuable now, Betty."

After a silence she said, "Maybe there's more risk."

"How?"

"You bastard, I'm not that stupid. You took the pictures. You lined up the outlet first, and then you went after the merchandise. And it took you this long to get it. How do I know the whole thing won't backfire?"

"Betty I had them all along. I was just busy on other things."

"I can imagine."

"But I did manage to pick up a few more."

"Of the same sort of thing?"

"To the layman's eye, yes. Six more. Thirty-four total. So it will come to more money. And I'm ready to deal. I told you I'd be in touch. There's only one small change. I've lined up another outlet, just in case. But because we had an agreement, it's only fair to give you the chance first. If you're nervous, all you have to do is say no."

It was one of those big pale banks on Fifth, in the lower forties, one of those which manage to elevate money to the status of religious symbolism. I arrived by cab at eleven, and toted my bloody spoils inside.

She got up from a chair in the lounge area and came over to me. She looked thinner than I remembered. There were smudges under her eyes. She wore a hot-weather suit, severely tailored and slightly wrinkled.

"Back this way please," she said.

We went through a gate and down a broad corridor. An armed guard stood outside a paneled door. When he saw her coming, he turned and unlocked the door, swung it open, tipped his cap and bowed us in. It was a twelve by twelve room without windows. When the door closed she smiled in an uncertain way and said, "Hello, Sam."

"How are you, Betty?"

"All right, I guess. I feel a little strange about... the last time I saw you. It wasn't... standard practice for me."

"I didn't think it was."

She lifted her chin. "I'm engaged to be married."

"Best wishes."

"I'm going to marry the old man."

"Best wishes."

"He's really very fond of me, Sam. And he is a very kind man."

"I hope you will be very happy."

She stared at me for a long moment and then said, "Well, shall we get at it?"

There was a long steel table in the room with a linoleum top. There were four chairs around the table. There was a blue canvas flight bag in one of the chairs. I put a suitcase on the table, opened it and began taking out the pieces. She hefted and inspected each one and set it aside.

She did not make a sound. Her lips were compressed, her nostrils dilated, her blue eyes narrow.

Finally all thirty-four were on the table. A little army of ancient spooks.

"Which six were not in the Menterez collection?"

"I have no idea."

"Where did you get the extra ones?"

"From a cave at the bottom of the sea."

"Damn you, I can't take the chance of...."

"You will have to take a chance on my word that nobody misses them, nobody wants them back."

She said she would take the whole works for her original offer. I immediately started packing them away again. She asked what I wanted. I said two hundred. She laughed at me. She made a phone call. She offered one fifty. I came down a little. After two long hours of dispute, we settled at a hundred and sixty-two five. She had a hundred and forty in the canvas bag, fifties and hundreds, bank wrapped. She went out into the bank and drew another twenty-two five, while I packed the heavy little figures of ancient evil back into the suitcases.

There was room for the extra money in the canvas bag, after I had completed my count. She put her hand out and when I took it she laughed aloud, that exultant little chortle of someone who is happy with the deal just made.

"I'll use a porter and a guard to take these away." she said. "Perhaps you would like to leave first.

I could arrange a guard if you like."

"No thanks."

"I didn't think so. Sam? Once you have this in a safe place, perhaps we could... celebrate the deal tonight?"

"And celebrate your pending marriage, Betty?"

"Don't be such a bastard, please."

I smiled at her. "Honey, I'm sorry. You just don't look to me like the kind to forgive and forget.

I think you are itching to set me up somehow."

There was just enough flicker in the blue eyes for me to know it had been a good guess. "That's a silly idea," she said. "Really!"

"If I'm going to be free, I'll give you a ring at the apartment."

"Do that. Please."

A side door of the bank opened into the lobby of the office building overhead. I had marked it on my way in, so I went through in a hurry, got into an elevator and rode up with a back-from-lunch herd of perfumed office girls and narrow-faced boys. I rode up to twelve, found a locked men's room and loitered until somebody came out. I caught the door before it closed, and shut myself into a cubicle. The blue canvas bag was just a little too blue and conspicuous. I had the string and the big folded sheet of wrapping paper in an inside pocket.

The blocks of money stacked nicely and made a neat package. I left the blue bag right there, walked down the stairs to ten, took an elevator back down.

A trim little gal with chestnut hair, wide eyes, a pocked face and not enough chin was just ahead of me. I caught up with her and took her arm and said quickly, as she gave a leap of fright,

"Please help me for thirty seconds. Just out the door and head uptown talking like old friends."

I felt some of the tension go out of her slender arm.

"What do old friends talk about?" she said.

"Well, they talk about a man who'll leave me the hell alone if he sees me come out with a date."

"Big date. Thirty seconds. This must be my lucky day."

We smiled at each other. I did not look around trying to spot anybody. She came along almost in a trot to keep up with long strides. At Forty-fifth we had the light, and there was a cab right there waiting, so I patted her shoulder and said, "You're a good kid. Thanks."

As I got into the cab, she called, "I'm a good kid, tenth floor, Yates Brothers, name of Betty Rassmussen, anytime for thirty-second dates, you're welcome."

At nine o'clock on an evening in late July, Shaja Dobrak invited me into the cottage she had shared with Nora Gardino. Her grey-blue eyes were the same, her straight hair that wood-ash color, her manner quiet and polite. She was a big girl, and slender. She had been working at a gold and grey desk in the living room. The two cats gave me the same searching stare of appraisal.

"Please to sit," she said. "You drink somesink maybe?" She smiled. "There is still the Amstel, you liked last time."

"Fine."

She went to get it. She wore coral cotton pants, calf length, gold sandals, a checked beach coat.

When she brought it to me, she stared frankly at me. "In the eyes I think you are older. Terrible thinks?"

"Yes."

She went to the couch, pulled her legs under her, grave and waiting. "You wish to say them?"

"I don't think so. You went up to the funeral?"

"Yes. So sad. Less than one year I am knowing her, Travis, but I loved her."

"I loved her too."

An eyebrow arched in question.

"Yes. It started sort of by accident. It was very good. It surprised both of us. It pleased us both.

It could have lasted."

"Then I am so glad of her having that, to be happy that way a little time. Was it a hard dying for her?"

"No. It was over in an instant, Shaja."

"She was thinking she would die down there I think. There is this think of the will she made out. I have this fine house from her. Her family was given the store. But the way it is, I am in charge.

The shares, they are in escrow. The bank, it is helping me run the store, and as I make money I pay it to her family and each time a little of the store is more mine, until finally all, if I have the luck and work very very hard. By the time my hoosband can come, everything will be safe and nice here for us two."

I had improvised my lie. "Shaj, she was so happy that she was certain something might go wrong. We talked about you. She was very fond of you. As you know, we had a chance to come out of this with a profit. She said that if anything happened to her, you should have her share for a special purpose. I have it in a safe place for you."

"A special purpose?"

"Something to do with a mild little man, getting bald on his head in the middle, a teacher of history, one year married to the ice princess before he threw the little bottles of fire at the tanks."

She leaned toward me, eyes staring, "What you say?" she whispered. "What you say to me?"

"These things can be arranged for money, can't they?"

"Ah, yes. Political things. Yes. A case of being very careful, of going to the right persons. I think it is done nicely with English pounds or Swiss francs or American dollars. About needing the exchange, I think. But it has to be much much money, and time to work so carefully."

"How much?"

She made a mouth of distaste. "They are greedy. An impossible amount. A hoondred thousand of dollars, maybe."

"Then that will leave you an extra twenty-five thousand for expenses, Shaja."

She did not move. Tears filled, spilled, rolled, fell. She turned and flung herself face down on the couch, sobbing. I went over and knelt beside her, patted her shoulder awkwardly.

When at last she raised her tear-stained face, I have never seen such a look in all my life, such a glow, such a lambent joy. "We will not be too late for children," she cried. "Ah, we will not be too late for them."

She pulled herself together. She tried to ask polite questions about Nora, but her heart was not in it. I knew I should leave her with her happiness. She went to the door with me. Her last question had an old testament ring about it. "The guilty have all been punished, Travis?"

"Yes. Along with the innocent."

She put her hands on my shoulders and kissed me on the mouth. "Do not have sick eyes, my good friend. My hoosband is once telling me this strange thing. We are all guilty. Also, we are all innocent, every one. God bless you."

I went back to the Busted Flush. I wanted to get very very drunk. I wanted to hallucinate, and bring back the women, one at a time, where I could see them, and tell each one of them how things had gone wrong, and how sorry I was.

But instead I got hold of Meyer and he came over with my backgammon board and we played until three in the morning. I took forty-four dollars away from him. He said, upon leaving, that he didn't know where I'd been or what I'd been doing, but it had certainly given me a nice rest and improved my concentration.

As I was going to sleep I decided I would look up Branks and tell him that Sam Taggart had been killed by Miguel Alconedo, now deceased. And, indeed, he had been, just as surely as if he'd driven the knife into Sam instead of into the woman whose arms Sam had held as it was done.

And I wondered if Shaja would want help on her mission. It would be nice to see one splendid thing come of this, without accident. Good old Cal Tomberlin and good old Carlos Menterez had each chipped in, to bring back the history teacher. And there was some money to send down to Felicia... as Sam had promised her....

The End

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