Mourner (7 page)

It was seven-thirty Friday night, and already dark. The occasional major streets they crossed were full of slow-moving traffic, people heading downtown for a night out or uptown for a weekend out of town. The side streets were quiet, with few moving cars and only an occasional pedestrian.

They'd been looking for twenty minutes, and finally Parker said, "There it is."

Handy saw it too. He stopped the car.

Parker got out and closed the door, and Handy drove the Pontiac away. Parker crossed the street and strolled down towards the car.

It was a Cadillac, gleaming black, four or five years old. Being in this neighbourhood, it had to be on its second owner by now, or maybe third. Still, whoever owned it kept it clean. It wouldn't look out of place turning into Kapor's driveway.

The street was empty. There were no faces in any of the house windows that Parker could see. He stopped next to the Cadillac and tried both doors. He was in luck; the rear one was unlocked. It was the rear door that people forgot most often. He hadn't needed the luck. He could have got into the Cadillac in thirty seconds even if it had been locked, but this way he didn't have to break the side vent. He opened the rear door slightly, reached around and pulled the front lock button by the front window. Then he shut the rear door, opened the front, and got in.

He lay down on the seat and took out a pencil flash. He studied the underpart of the dashboard and found he would have to remove a small, flat plate. He put the flash away, got out a small screwdriver and, working by feel, removed the three screws that held the plate in place. Then he used the flash again, for ten seconds, and that was it. He sat up, slid over behind the wheel, and took a jumper wire out of his pocket, with sticky electric tape at both ends. He unpeeled part of the tape and then, working by feel once more, reached down under the dashboard and put the jumper on. The starter caught, and slipped, and caught again, and then the engine was purring. He put the automatic transmission in Drive, and pulled away.

On Wisconsin Avenue there was a movie theatre, and there was a supermarket, and a blacktop parking lot between them. In the daytime the supermarket customers used the lot, and at night the movie customers used it. Parker drove there, parked the Cadillac so there was a space on his left, stalled the car, and removed the jumper wire. Then he got out and opened the hood. He stood looking down for a minute, and then went to work. It was now twenty minutes to eight.

Handy and Menlo showed up in the Pontiac on schedule, at ten minutes to eight. They parked in the slot next to the Cadillac, and got out. Parker was just finishing. He closed the hood and said, "All ready."

"Once again," Menlo said, looking at the Cadillac with distrust, "I can only reassure myself with the knowledge that you are professionals in this type of activity. The idea of driving to a robbery in an automobile just recently stolen would never have occurred to me. Having occurred to me, it would terrify me so completely I would reject it."

"This car won't be hot for a couple of hours. By then we'll be done with it," Handy said.

"I trust your judgment implicitly," Menlo assured him, "having seen you in action against those poor specimens supplied me by the Outfit. I have every confidence in you."

"That's good. Get in the car," Parker said.

"Most certainly."

Menlo got in the back again, and Parker and Handy up front. There was now a set of wires by the steering shaft, ending in a small oblong fixture with a push-button. This was the new starter. Parker tested it out, and it worked fine. He backed the Cadillac out of its parking slot and drove it slowly out on to Wisconsin Avenue.

Kapor's house, when they got there, was in darkness, the way it was supposed to be. Parker spun the wheel and the Cadillac entered the driveway. The tyres crunched on the gravel. The Cadillac looked right at home here as Parker tooled it around behind the house and left it in front of the garage, hidden from the street by the house.

It was eight-thirty. They were right on schedule.

There were two back doors to choose from and they picked the one that Clara had reported led to the kitchen. Handy went to work on it. He was very good with doors. It opened almost immediately.

They went in, and Parker turned on the pencil flash. From Clara, through Menlo, they now had a good ground plan of the house. His voice soft, Parker asked, "All right, Menlo. What room do we want?"

"We'll get your statuette first," Menlo said. "I have a desire to see it. This bit of romanticism you will not deprive me of."

Parker shrugged. It didn't make any difference. He crossed the kitchen and opened the door on the other side, which led to the rear staircase, the servants' stairs.

The staircase ended on a squarish room, with a large table along one wall. On the other side was a doorless entranceway, leading to an L-shaped hall. Parker opened the third door on the left, and because this room faced the rear of the house, he switched on the light.

It was a long and narrow room, with a dark-red paper covering the walls. The lighting was soft, furnished by fluorescent tubes in troughs spaced along the upper walls, and a rich green carpet covered the entire floor.

It resembled a room in a museum. Glass-topped cases contained coins, resting on green velvet, and on squarish pedestals of varying height were statues of varying styles of plaster, bronze, terra cotta, alabaster, wood none over three feet tall. Around the walls fancy swords were hung, and a tall, narrow, glass-doored book-case at one end of the room was half full of ancient-looking volumes. Most of them were thick and squat, with peeling bindings.

"It is all garbage," Menlo said, with something like contempt in his voice. "Kapor is indiscriminate in his artistic affections. He buys because a particular item is for sale, not because it adds anything artistically. Look at this gibberish! What a confusion of styles and periods. What would Kapor do with a hundred thousand dollars, if he were allowed to retain it? Create an entire house of monstrosities such as this? Such tastelessness deserves no hundred thousand dollars!"

He moved deeper into the room, frowning. "There are good pieces here," he said. "A few, but only a few. There's a Gardner over there, one of the better moderns. But in such surroundings, how can anything reveal its true value? Ah! Here is your mourner!"

It stood in a corner, near the bookcase, on a low pedestal nearly hidden from view. White, small, alone, bent by grief, the mourner stood, his face turned away. A young monk, soft-faced, his cowl back to reveal his clipped hair, his hands slender and long-fingered, the toes of his right foot peeking out from under his rough white robe. His eyes stared at the floor, large, full of sorrow. His left arm was bent, the hand up alongside his cheek, palm outward and shielding his face. His right hand, the fingers straight, almost taut, cupped his left elbow, the forearm across his midsection. The broad sleeve had slipped down his left forearm, showing a thin and delicate wrist. His whole body was twisted to the left, and bent slightly forward, as though grief had instantaneously aged him. It was as if he grieved for every mournful thing that had ever happened in the world, from one end of time to the other.

"I see," said Menlo softly, gazing at the mourner. He reached out gently and picked the statue up, turning it in his hands carefully. "Yes, I see. I understand your Mr Harrow's craving. Yes, I do understand."

"Now the dough," said Parker. To him the statue was merely sixteen inches of alabaster, for the delivery of which he had already been paid in full.

"Of course. Most certainly." Menlo's old smile popped back into place. He walked over and handed the statuette to Parker. "As you so ably expressed it, now the dough."

He turned, looking around the room and murmuring to himself, "Apollo, Apollo" Then he snapped his fingers. "Ah! There!" He moved through the clutter of statues, a fat man weaving lithely, and stopped at a grey figure of a nude young man seated on a tree stump.

Parker and Handy followed him, Handy carrying the suitcase. Menlo patted the statue's shoulder with pudgy fingers and smiled happily at Parker. "You see? A most ingenious solution. You have a figure of speech for this, I believe. One cannot see the forest for the trees. In this case, one cannot see the tree for the forest."

"In there? In the statue?" Parker asked.

"Most certainly! Watch." Menlo put his hands on the statue's head, and twisted. There was a grating sound, and the head came off in his hands. "Hollow," he said. "The young Apollo and his tree trunk packed with money."

He stuck his hand down inside and brought out a batch of greenbacks. "You see?"

"All right. Let's pack it," Parker said. Handy opened the suitcase and as Menlo brought forth handful after handful of bills, Parker and Handy stowed it all inside.

The bills were all loose. There were hundreds and fifties and twenties, handful after handful, and gradually they filled the suitcase. They made no attempt to count, just stowed it away, quickly and silently.

When the suitcase was full, there were still some bills left over. "Alas, I misjudged," said Menlo, smiling at the double handful of bills he held. "Who would have thought a small statue could have held so much?"

He stuffed the bills into his own pockets, and suddenly his right hand emerged holding a derringer, a Hi Standard twin-tubed.22. It packed hardly any power at all, but at this close range it could do the job as well as anything.

Menlo's smile was now broad and cherubic. "And now, my dear professionals," he said, "I am most afraid we must part company. You have been of such excellent assistance to me, I truly wish I could at least repay you with your lives. But you have already demonstrated once your ability in tracking your quarry, and I should prefer not to spend the rest of my life looking over my shoulder. I hope you appreciate that."

Parker and Handy both moved, each in opposite directions, but Menlo in his own way was also a professional. His face tightened as he fired twice, and both were hits. Handy slammed into the wall, and collapsed in a crumpled heap. Parker flailed backward, arms pinwheeling, scattering statues, as he crashed into a pedestal.

Menlo paused a moment, but both bodies lay still, and the derringer was empty. He gathered up the suitcase and statuette and hurried from the room, a round lithe fat man in a black suit, the suitcase hanging at the end of one short arm, the small white statuette tucked under the other.

The last thing he did before he left was switch off the lights.

1

An underground movement is primarily a destructive social force, and only secondarily a constructive political force. Whatever political ideology is present invariably reflects the political ideology of whichever outside nation supplies its materiel. Because of Klastrava's geographical location, that outside nation was the Soviet Union. The support originally came, for the most part, from the United States through Lend-Lease, but this was never mentioned by the Russians, who were not born yesterday.

Klastravian soil was liberated from the Nazis by the Red Army. The collaborationist puppet government of wartime, having been summarily done away with, was replaced by men from the wartime resistance movement, and their political orientation was reinforced by the presence of the Red Army. Klastrava was quietly and efficiently absorbed, and shortly became one of the Soviet Union's smallest but least troublesome satellites.

Before the war, Auguste Menlo had had no particular trade, being a young man content to be supported by his doctor father. During the war, and particularly during the last fifteen months of it, he had learned a trade, though this trade at first glance seemed to have no peacetime application. Then, in early 1947, through resistance comrades, he received an appointment to the National Police. At last Auguste Menlo had found his true vocation. He did his work well, and with enthusiasm, and his promotions came rapidly.

In any religion, it is the priest who is likely to ask the most pertinent questions; and if there are flaws in the religious structure, it is the priest, being closest to it and most learned in it, who is most likely to discover them. And Auguste Menlo became, in a way, a priest of Communism. In a quite literal way, he became a confessor; in the silent and private rooms of stone beneath the ground he listened to the halting confessions of the wrong in heart. Over the years, Auguste Menlo came upon the flaws that bothered no one else, and patched them as best he could, and efficiently went on about his business.

Till someone waved a hundred thousand dollars in front of his face. One hundred thousand dollars American.

Auguste knew instantly what he was going to do, the very second he was informed of his assignment. He knew it as though he had known it all his life, as though his entire career had been only a preparation for this great moment when he would come into one hundred thousand dollars American. The circumstances were too perfectly joined for there to be any alternative.

Auguste Menlo had been chosen for the job in the first place because he had such a perfect record, without a blemish of any kind. He had been married, since 1949, to a plump, practical woman, a good housekeeper and an efficient mother to his two teen-age daughters. So far as the record showed and the record was exhaustive he had never once been unfaithful to his wife, any more than he had ever been derelict in his duty to the state. He was the logical and inevitable choice.

There is a kind of man who is perfectly honest so long as the plunder is small. This kind of man has chosen his life and finds it rewarding, so he will not risk it for anything less rewarding. And while Menlo had long since lost interest in his Anna, the occasional woman who became available seemed to him hardly much of an improvement, certainly not worth the risk of losing his comfortable home. Nor were the financial temptations that cropped up along his official path worth the comfort and security he already enjoyed. As time went by, his reputation grew and so did the trust it inspired. Who better to trust with one hundred thousand dollars, four thousand miles from home?

There is no way for officialdom to protect itself from such a man. Can a man be mistrusted for being toohonest?

So Auguste Menlo was informed of his mission and given his round-trip jetliner ticket to the United States. Outwardly, it was the same sober and industrious Auguste Menlo who walked out of the Ministry that day, was driven home, packed his suitcase, and kissed the leathery cheek of his wife good-bye. But inside he was a totally different man. On the train to Budapest, where he would make connections with the plane for the West, he allowed himself, concealed by a newspaper, the first outward indication of his feelings. A broad and delighted smile, as infectious as a giggle, spread over his face. It made him look like a depraved and ageing cherub.

The first plane took him from Budapest to Frankfurt am Main, that foggy valley in the middle of Germany so ill-suited to the landing and taking off of airplanes. But they landed without incident, and an hour later he boarded the jet that would take him in six hours non-stop to Washington National Airport, an ocean and a continent away. A world away.

The stewardess was slender, in Western fashion, with pale-blue skirt taut over pert and girdled rump. Menlo feasted upon her, his eyes bright, almost feverish, his mouth frozen in a delighted smile. It was a foolish and dangerous way to behave. Had the Ministry chosen to keep him under surveillance But the Ministry's trust was complete, and only the stewardess noticed the funny, happy fat man with the glazed eyes. She merely thought he was full of vodka, and hoped he wouldn't be sick. He wasn't.

In Washington, sanity returned to him. He boarded the airport bus and rode to the G Street terminal, and in the course of that ride he regained control of himself. Until he actually had the money, he must be circumspect. He must be cautious.

His hotel reservation had already been made for him. He checked in, bathed luxuriously in steaming hot water and rose from the tub a bright pink, round and flushed and happy. He donned fresh clothing, and paid his courtesy call to Spannick.

Spannick, of course, did not know the fat man's mission. No one knew what it was, save for Menlo himself and three men back home, all in the Ministry. But Spannick did know Menlo, and was cordial and deferential to the point of nausea, for who knew what the Inspector's quest might be? Spannick tried to pump him, to find out at least that it was not to liquidate himself that Inspector Menlo had travelled all this distance. But Menlo evaded his questions. The meeting was brief; Spannick offered whatever assistance Menlo desired, and Menlo declined the offer with expressions of gratitude. Once this was over he was on his own.

His orders had been specific. His primary mission was to deal with Kapor; remove him, and in such a way that there would be no troublesome questions from local police. The secondary task was to recover, if possible, all or part of the misappropriated funds. If they could not be located, too bad; the important thing was to deal with Kapor.

Those were his orders, but for Menlo the emphasis was all wrong. He didn't particularly care what happened to Kapor; let him live to a ripe old age if he wished. But as to the money that was the primary mission.

Had he intended to follow orders, he could have done so single-handed, with little or no difficulty. But he recognized his limitations. He knew that to get his hands on Kapor's money he was going to need experienced and professional help. Like policemen everywhere he had often diverted himself by reading American detective novels, and so had a fairly clear picture of American crime, at least as it was described in fiction. It was all organized together, like an American corporation. So Menlo began by looking for some place to gamble.

Four taxi drivers and two doormen responded to his questions with blank looks, but the fifth cabby admitted to knowing such a place, and was willing to take Menlo there for ten dollars. Menlo paid. He was driven across the Arlington Memorial Bridge and down into Virginia, and deposited at a place that called itself Long Ridge Inn. It seemed to be an old colonial house. Menlo entered, armed with the cab driver's instructions, and found himself in what seemed a perfectly legitimate restaurant, with a softly lit bar beyond an archway to the right.

The cab driver was gone, with Menlo's ten dollars. Menlo was suddenly convinced that he had been played for a sucker. He very nearly turned around and left without saying a word to anyone, but the headwaiter was already there, armed with a stack of outsize menus. Feeling like an idiot, Menlo repeated what the cab driver had told him: "I'm looking for the action."

The headwaiter, without a flicker of expression, replied, "Up the stairway at the end of the bar, sir. And good luck to you."

So that was how he made his contact with the Outfit. The people he talked to at Long Ridge Inn were not of the sort he needed, but he told a circumlocutious story and they assured him he would be contacted once his story had been "checked out". He left his name, and the name of the hotel where he was staying, and went on back to Washington.

Three days in the hotel room. He was still living on the Ministry's miserly expense budget, and so could have distracted himself with nothing more exciting than a motion picture. But he didn't even go out for that, afraid he would miss the contact. He stayed in his room, ordering his meals from room service, and stared forlornly at the telephone. Finally, at one o'clock in the morning of the fourth day, it rang and a voice told him to leave the hotel and walk slowly west.

He was met by a Cadillac with gland trouble, huge and rounded and with drawn curtains at the side windows. It rolled along beside him for a few seconds as he walked, and then a voice from its black interior called him by name. He entered the Cadillac, feeling a moment of irrational fright, and for the next two hours was driven hither and yon about the city, while he talked with the two men in the back seat.

He intended, of course, to ask for help in getting the money, then to pull a double cross. He didn't want any percentage of one hundred thousand dollars, he wanted it all one hundred thousand dollars. But the two men in the Cadillac seemed so confident, so competent, and so sinister, that he was no longer sure his original plan would work. He told them the story, and they agreed to join him in the venture, offering him 10 per cent of the take for supplying the information. He smiled, in mock surprise and mock bashfulness, and told them he had been planning to offer them10 per cent for performing the physical labour. They ordered the chauffeur to stop the Cadillac, and ordered Menlo to get out.

Menlo opened the car door, and then paused to remind them he had told them everything except the name of the man who now possessed the hundred thousand dollars. He told them that if he must handle the whole thing himself he would, though he had hoped for a more sensible and businesslike attitude from any American organization, whichever side of the law it happened to be on. They said they just might be able to see their way clear to letting him have a quarter of the loot, so he shut the door, sat back, and smiled. Then the bargaining got under way in earnest.

Because he found them so impressive that he was no longer sure he would be able to get away with the whole boodle, he bargained tenaciously and well, and when he emerged from the car he had the fat end of a sixty-forty split. He also had the uneasy conviction that the Outfit really intended to try for 100 per cent. Ah, well. Though the members of the Outfit were impressive in their grim stolidity, Menlo was the product of fifteen years of Communist bureaucratic intrigue, and he thought he might be able to handle himself adequately in this situation.

His assistants came to see him the following day, and slowly the operation took shape. He revealed Kapor's name, no longer having any choice, and it turned out the Outfit had an indirect connection with a maid in Kapor's home named Clara Stoper. The connection was made more direct, and when Clara was offered a 10 per cent cut she would never receive she became a willing and eager member of the group. Events progressed without a ripple until the unexpected and somewhat frightening appearance of Handy McKay, who began playing up to Clara in a manner that was definitely suspicious.

Could someone else be after the money? Could there have been a leak among the higher echelon of the Outfit? There was too much uncertainty here and that was dangerous. Menlo gave the order that Handy be taken and questioned, and from that point events barrelled onward like a plane in a tailspin. Menlo had shifted this way and that, always retaining his balance by the narrowest margin, and when the dust settled, there had been a total realignment. The Outfit was no longer a part of the scheme. Spannick was dead, and Menlo's bridges were burned; he could no longer change his plans and go home now, even if he wanted to. So Menlo found himself in an uneasy alliance with the two newcomers, Parker and McKay.

Menlo had much to be thankful to Parker and McKay for. They had, initially, saved his life. They had additionally simplified the actual mechanics of the robbery, far more so than the Outfit's plan. And also they had, indirectly, reintroduced the fat man to sex.

Bett Harrow. So long, so lean, so firm! So active and eager a participant! This was what he had been looking forward to while gaping at the airline stewardess, this was what he had been thinking of whenever the hundred thousand dollars recrossed his mind. Bett Harrow.

He had waited that night till he was sure that Parker and McKay were asleep, and then he had risen from his bed on the floor. He carried his shoes and his jacket and necktie out to the hall, and there donned them, smoothing his somewhat oily black hair into place with his fingers and running thumb and forefinger down his trouser crease.