Spy and the Thief (27 page)

“You go near here?”

She nodded. “State University. It’s close enough so I can live at home with dad.”

After Nick had a second drink they drifted down the street to another place, a livelier one with a small combo and dancing. It was here that a burly man in a wrinkled gray suit approached Nick at the bar. “You’re Velvet, aren’t you?” he asked. “Didn’t I meet you once in New York?”

With the girl at his side Nick could hardly deny his identity. He hadn’t seen the need for an alias this far from his usual haunts, but now he was beginning to wish he’d used one. “That’s my name,” he answered, “but I don’t know you.”

The man bent closer, his eyes hazy with a familiar glint. He was high on something, probably pot. “Stay away from this territory, Velvet. There’s nothing for you up here.”

“Thanks for the tip.”

The man ambled off and Dot Defoe asked, “Who was that, a rival salesman?”

“I suppose so,” Nick shrugged.

“He looked like a gangster!”

“They often do.” But the encounter bothered him. “Come on, I should be getting you back home.”

They drove across the bridge in silence, and he wondered at the sudden coolness he detected in her manner. Had she built the whole thing into some wildly romantic fantasy that had failed to materialize? Sometimes he thought he’d never understand women.

Her father was due back at the carousel that night, so he headed the car for the park. “He’s there,” she said. “I see a light.”

But almost at once they both knew something was wrong. A car was standing with its door open, and there was no movement from the lighted merry-go-round. Nick had seen this sort of thing too many times before. He was out and running before the girl could panic.

“Hello!” he called out. “Anybody here?” One hand had gone to the little pistol under his arm.

There was a groan from somewhere close and he looked down. A white-haired man who could only have been Dorothy’s father was sprawled among some overturned boxes. He was bleeding from a cut along the side of his head.

“Can you talk?” Nick asked, dropping to his knees beside the man.

“I—yes—”

“Who did this?”

“Two men.” He pointed toward the merry-go-round. “I caught them stealing another horse.”

Nick followed the pointing finger. Defoe was right. Now there was a second gap in the circle of prancing wooden horses. The merry-go-round thieves had struck again.

They drove Dan Defoe to the emergency ward of the local hospital, where the cut in his battered head was stitched. He’d insisted on not calling the police, much against his daughter’s pleas, and Nick was in no position to want the police involved. He convinced Dot that since the carousel was closing for the season anyway, it would be best not to create a fuss with the local police.

“It’s probably some game the kids are playing,” Nick suggested as they drove away from the hospital.

Dan Defoe held his bandaged head. With his white hair covered he looked younger. “Those were no kids that slugged me!”

“If we don’t report it to the police,” Dot argued, “how can we get the insurance company to pay off?”

“We’ll worry about that later,” her father said. “That old merry-go-round’s on its last legs anyway. Maybe next year we should consider investing in a new one.” He turned to Nick. “You sell carousels, mister?”

“Nothing that large,” Nick mumbled.

“Daddy! How can we ever afford a new merry-go-round? We don’t make that much money on it!”

“It’s been more profitable than you’d imagine,” her father said quietly.

The lights of the merry-go-round were still burning, and Nick realized that in the excitement they’d gone off and left the building open. During the season it was open on all sides to attract youthful customers. Now, at the season’s end, the great wooden shutters had been locked in place on all but the river side. Here, though, the lights blazed like a sort of beacon, and for all they knew the robbers could have returned for the rest of the merry-go-round.

But all was as they’d left it, including the blue horse which would be Nick’s special prize. He knew now that he could wait no longer than another few hours. The man’s threat across the river, coupled with the theft of a second horse tonight, indicated that more than kids were involved. For whatever reason, others were after the “valueless” merry-go-round horse. When they discovered they’d stolen the wrong one again, they’d come back—and perhaps this time they would beat Nick to the blue one, either through knowledge or accident.

“You’ve helped a lot tonight,” Dot told him while her father straightened up the place. “You’ve earned yourself another ride.”

Nick smiled and mounted the blue steed, while Dot switched on the music and got astride the horse next to his. Her miniskirt rode up over perfect thighs. “Shall we try for the brass ring?” Nick asked.

Dan Defoe glanced up at the wooden hopper with its outstretched arm. “The thing’s empty,” he said. “No brass rings any more this year.”

Nick nodded, his eyes on the spot where the two stolen horses had been. Perhaps, for Dan Defoe, there would be no brass rings any more, ever. Here, like his namesake’s famous character, Robinson Crusoe, he’d been cast ashore by the sea of life. And here he might end his days without rescue. Because whatever game was being played out at the Cartier Park merry-go-round deeply involved Dan Defoe and his one-time friend Peter Fowles.

It was a game growing more dangerous every minute.

Nick went back to his hotel room about 1:00 a.m., but he had no intention of going to bed. He checked first the assortment of tools he carried in his car trunk—far more effective than the saws the previous horse thieves had resorted to. The tools were in a carefully hidden false bottom of his trunk—safe from the eyes of customs inspectors when the trunk had crossed the bridge earlier that evening—and Nick had other treasures stored there too.

Right now he was interested in some small pets that lived in a shoe box. They were not used to the chill temperature of northern New York in November, and he hoped they hadn’t been harmed. He’d brought them along in the event the merry-go-round was in constant operation and needed to be cleared in a hurry. That was not the case, but they still might come in handy. He lifted the lid an inch and dropped in an open packet of dried insects—their food for another day.

When he returned to the merry-go-round it was almost two o’clock and there was no sign of anyone around. But he witnessed a strange sight beneath the clouded autumn moon. The side of the building facing the river was still open, and the carousel lights still glowed brightly. No wonder, Nick thought, no wonder they steal the fool’s horses when he leaves the place open like that!

Nick parked his car under a tree and put out the lights. He could see the blue horse waiting, but it would have to wait a little longer. The merry-go-round’s open side was like a lighthouse beacon, and he wanted to see what that beacon might attract.

He’d been waiting almost an hour when he heard the muffled sounds of a motorboat moving toward shore. The river was in darkness, and the park was lit only by the carousel. For a time he could see nothing. And then, quite suddenly, a single figure broke from the darkness at the river’s edge. It was a man Nick couldn’t recognize and he was running toward the lighted side of the carousel.

Nick tensed to intercept, him, and then he saw the other shadows break from the trees. Two men, running fast after the first one. In the lead was the bulky man in the wrinkled suit who had approached Nick earlier across the river. He moved quickly for his size and reached the lighted doorway of the merry-go-round only a few steps behind the first man.

Nick heard the scream, and knew he was too late to help.

By the time he reached the wooden building, the bulky man and his companion were both inside, kneeling by the body of their victim. Nick ducked behind a convenient trash barrel, his hand once more on the little gun he always carried.

“It’s not on him,” the smaller of the two men whined. He was rat-faced, with long dark hair. “Morris, it’s not here! You said he’d have it with him!”

The bulky man cursed and sat back on his heels. In that instant Nick remembered him—Morris Rainey, a small-time New York fence who specialized in stolen jewelry. Now he was branching out—into murder.

“He’s got to have it on him,” Rainey insisted. “He was only in here a second before I got him.” As he spoke he drew the bloodied knife from the dead man’s back and wiped it on his handkerchief.

“He musta hid it somewhere on the merry-go-round.”

“He never reached it, I tell you. I stabbed him just inside the door. Besides, we’ve already taken apart two of the horses without finding any of the stuff.”

“So what do we do, Morris?”

The bulky man thought about it. “Let’s take the body with us. The stuff has to be on him somewhere. We’ll check his shoes and his clothes. Come on, give me a hand.”

Nick glued himself to the ground and waited. It was not his job to capture murderers, so he merely watched as they carried their victim to the hidden car. His job was the blue horse, and he could not delay any longer.

He gave them five minutes to make certain their car would not return. Then he set to work. He doused the lights in the merry-go-round and set up a small battery-operated lamp that he carried with his tools. Then he quickly unbolted the brass pole which ran up through the center of the blue horse, attaching it to the carousel proper and giving life to its galloping motion. A merry-go-round is a complex piece of machinery, and yet so simple. There was no need to saw through the wooden horse and thus destroy it. Peter Fowles was paying Nick for one horse and he would have it, all in a single piece.

The layers of paint made the brass pole stick, and it took Nick a quarter of an hour to free the blue horse. But there it was at last—a hole down its middle, otherwise intact. Nick took one more look around the place, then put out his lamp. The horse was a bit heavier than he’d expected, but he got it out to his car without much difficulty. The trunk lid would not close with the horse inside, so he tied it the best he could after placing a burlap bag over the jutting legs. It was the beginning of hunting season in the area, so the horse could easily be the carcass of a small deer. Besides, he’d be far away by morning.

He stopped once on the drive south, pulling off the road to examine his prize with, a flashlight and penknife. After a half hour’s careful study he convinced himself that the blue merry-go-round horse was just that and no more. It contained no secret drawers or hidden crevices, no place where the dead man could have hidden his treasure. It was just a solid wooden horse, with a hole for the brass pole, worn leather stirrups nailed into place, a set of leather reins, and nothing more.

His mind was troubled during the rest of the drive. It had all seemed so simple when he thought the horse contained the treasure that Morris Rainey and his accomplice were seeking. Now he didn’t know. Had the girl fooled him somehow and repainted the horses with different colors since Peter Fowles took his photograph? No, the paint on all the horses was too worn to be of recent vintage.

Well, he sighed, Fowles was paying him $20,000 and that was all that really mattered. Let him figure out what to do with a valueless wooden horse.

It was nearly noon that day when he stood in a garage in upper Westchester County and delivered the horse to Peter Fowles. The green-eyed man examined it with interest. “That’s the one, all right. And ahead of schedule! You do good work, Velvet.”

Nick smiled. “I should tell you, though, that your Canadian courier was murdered last night by Morris Rainey.”

Fowles scowled and said nothing for a moment. He seemed to be considering Nick through the haze of smoke from his cigarette. Finally he asked, “How much do you know?”

“I know the diamonds aren’t in this horse, because I looked for them.” It was a shot in the dark, but it hit home.

“Who said anything about diamonds?” Fowles demanded.

“Morris Rainey is a fence who specializes in jewelry. Something is being smuggled across from Canada and left at the merry-go-round—something quite small, because I didn’t notice your man carrying, anything before he was killed. Diamonds seemed to be as good a guess, as any. Narcotics would have been bulkier.”

“All right,” the green-eyed man admitted. “What else do you know?”

“That you set up Defoe with the merry-go-round a few years ago, right there on the shore of the St. Lawrence, facing Canada. At night sometimes, even after he’s closed for the season, Defoe, leaves a doorway lit on the Canadian side—an easy target for a smuggler crossing by boat from Canada. The smuggler leaves the diamonds in the merry-go-round, and Defoe brings them the rest of the way down to you. It’s more complicated than crossing the border by car, but the customs inspectors might have become Suspicious of Defoe or the Canadian if they crossed too often, and there was always the danger of a really effective search. I gather this is a regular big-scale operation. You didn’t want to chance a slip-up.”

“That’s close enough, Velvet. You catch on fast”

“Does Defoe’s daughter know about it?”

“I doubt that. She just helps him around the place.”

“And Rainey?”

“A punk trying to cut himself in.”

“He did pretty well with the cutting last night.”

“You saw him kill Burke?”

“If Burke was your Canadian man, yes. I also saw that they didn’t find the diamonds on him.”

“He needed only a second to hide them,” Fowles said.”

“He had that long.”

“Then they’re still at the carousel.”

Nick frowned. “Where could he hide a packet of diamonds in one or two seconds and yet not leave it in plain sight? Did he slide them under the merry-go-round?”

“Too obvious a place to be safe.”

“And if they’re not in the horse why are you paying twenty thousand for it?”

Peter Fowles smiled and said nothing. From inside his house there came the ringing of a telephone. “Excuse me,” he said, and went off to answer it.

Nick patted the smooth flanks of the blue horse, remembering all the merry-go-rounds of his youth, and waited. Peter Fowles’s home was large and plush, situated on a hillside road that gave him a rolling view of the Hudson Valley countryside. It was an expensive view, but men like Fowles could always afford the best.