Severed Key (18 page)

“You’re Simon Drake, the lawyer,” he said. “Somebody told me who you are after you helped Trav and Sunny and me get away from that cop on the highway.”

Simon remembered. “The psychedelic van,” he said. “Which one are you?”

“Bob—Bobby. I’m called both ways. Mr Drake, does a good lawyer like you cost a lot of money?”

“That depends on what I’m hired for.”

“Well, like advice. Yeah, that’s what I need now. Advice.”

“What kind of advice?”

The boy ran a handful of nervous fingers through his mop of long hair. “Well, suppose somebody was walking on the beach. Not looking for anything—just walking. And suppose he found something in a pile of seaweed. Something that fell off a yacht, maybe, and was washed up on the beach in a storm.”

“What did you find?” Simon asked.

“I didn’t say that I found anything. I just said suppose
somebody
found a suitcase under all that seaweed. Would that be what they call a treasure trove? Would it belong to the fellow that found it?”

“Was there any identification?”

“No, no sir! Well, there was the initials on the bag. That’s all the identification.”

“What are the initials?”

The boy seemed suddenly aware that he wasn’t wearing a shirt. He hastily pulled up the zipper of the jacket to the collar line. “S and T,” he said. “But that’s no identification. A lot of people could have initials S and T.”

Simon took hold of the boy’s arm and tightened his grip on the young muscles under the cotton. “What colour is the bag?” he demanded.

“Blue. A kind of faded blue. Mister Drake, I asked you—”

“Have you opened the bag?”

“Travis said it was legally ours because it was treasure trove.”

“Forget Travis! Did you open the bag?”

“Yes, sir.”

“What’s in it?”

“A lot of money. Travis said maybe a million dollars. I got to know where we stand with the law because Travis just took off—”

“Did he take the bag?”

“No. It’s still where we hid it. He took some of the money.”

Simon, still clutching the boy’s arm, hustled him back across the street and pushed him inside the Jaguar. He slammed the door and then went around to the driver’s side and got in behind the steering wheel. “Now,” he said, “tell me where you’ve got that bag hidden.”

An hour later, after having sworn Bob to silence on the threat of having the entire legal structure of the state of California thrown at him, Simon drove back to The Mansion with the blue suitcase on the seat beside him. He took it into the house and found Hannah, surrounded by the new luggage, playing Sigrid Thorsen for Chester’s critical eye. He walked into the room and placed the battered bag on the floor beside the new luggage.

“There’s been a substitution in the choice of props,” he said.

THE IDEA WAS wild enough to work. Hannah was delighted. While Simon detailed the plan, Chester began to transfer the money from the sea-battered suitcase to its new counterpart. He didn’t take time to count it, but because Travis had taken some of the packets it was necessary to build up the bottom layer with cut paper.

“It seems a shame to leave all this cash in the suitcase,” he said. “We could fill in everything but the top layer with cut paper—”

“And risk blowing the whole scheme,” Simon protested. “It’s not our money, remember. It isn’t as if we were going out to pay a ransom. This is pay-off money and if we’re going to find out what it’s being used for, we have to let go of the real stuff. It not only has to look good, it has to be good.”

“I’ve got some soul brothers hustling baggage at LAX,” Chester said. “I’ll get fresh tags made out to look as if Hannah just stepped off the morning plane from New York. But what about the lock on the money bag? Somebody has the key for the old one. It probably won’t fit the replacement. Shall I leave it unlocked?”

“Too risky,” Simon said. “Haven’t you ever had a suitcase lock stick—especially when the bag’s too full? Go ahead and lock the new bag. By this time the one it’s intended for is anxious enough not to get hung up over a lock. He’ll break it open just the way the kids on the beach did when they found the original. The baggage-tag idea is great. After you’ve taken care of that get over to the room I’m reserving for you at the hotel and sit tight. Hannah will contact you as soon as she checks in.”

“Where will you be, Simon?” Hannah asked.

“Following you—all the way. If the plan works and the contact is a Red Arrow driver he should take you directly to the hotel. If he makes one wrong turn I’ll call the police on the telephone in my car and stop him if I have to cut him off at the pass myself. That’s one car I don’t intend to let out of my sight.”

They went over every detail before retiring. In the morning the real work began.

Immediately after the arrival of the New York plane at Los Angeles International Hannah, wearing the blonde wig, large round sunglasses, a trim travelling suit and carrying one of her walking sticks, appeared at the counter of the Red Arrow Auto Rentals and explained in a heavy accent that she desired to rent a car and a driver.

“I haf injured my ankle—see?” she said. “I must now use the valking stick. A taxi cab is too bumpy. I vant a car and a driver, please.”

The application was prepared. She signed it and produced the fee. The girl asked if she had a preference in automobiles and Hannah replied that she wanted a red Camaro. She smiled. “It is my lucky colour. It is vat my astrologer says.”

The girl, shaking her head over the idiosyncrasies of customers, telephoned the garage and relayed the request. The response seemed to surprise her. “What message?” she asked. “Oh, all right. I’ll wait until you get George.” She looked up at Hannah, smiling. “We’re trying to find your car,” she explained.

Hannah nodded. “I vait. The porter is coming now. He has my luggage.”

The girl returned to the telephone and became engaged in serious conversation. “Yes, I know it’s a peculiar request. Of course she looks all right. She’s very attractive, in fact. Blonde. Swedish, I think. Her name? It’s here on the application: Sigrid Thorsen, New York City. Listen, George, do you have the car or don’t you?” She paused a few moments, listening, and then put down the telephone.

“I’m sorry to keep you waiting, Miss Thorsen,” she said. “There’s some kind of confusion in the garage. I’m not sure we can get you a red Camaro, but as long as you’re hiring a chauffeur—”

“I take vat I can get,” Hannah smiled. “I don’t vant trouble because I hav a lucky colour.”

“Besides, you’re wearing blue,” the girl said, icily.

“That is also my lucky colour,” Hannah retorted.

The important thing was that she had used the words on the key and caused some consternation. The rest had to be played by ear. Her body, responding to her mind, betrayed only the slightest limp as she followed the porter to the street. Within a few minutes a black chauffeur-driven sedan pulled up to the kerb and the driver stepped out. He glanced at the array of blue luggage stacked at the kerb and unlocked the trunk.

“I’ll put the bags in,” he told the porter.

Hannah gave the porter a bill. When he was gone the chauffeur studied her carefully.

“One of your bags is unlocked,” he said. “Do you have the key?”

She opened her purse. This was the moment that would tell if anything would come of the performance. Silently, she handed him the severed key with the tag attached. He looked at it and slipped it into his pocket.

“You’re six days late,” he said.

She tapped the cane. “I hurt my ankle. I missed the plane.”

“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.