The Luck Runs Out (24 page)

Here, all was in readiness. The eight magnificent Balaclava Blacks were lined up outside their stalls, their coats a-glisten, their manes and tails exquisitely coiffed, their hooves polished, their eyes steadfast and resolute.

The eight bareback riders, smartly togged out in clean dungarees and their best J. C. Penney flannel shirts, were ready to mount. The harness had been loaded into the minibus, behind whose steering wheel sat the once lackluster Henry Purvis, the cynosure of all eyes and the envy of a good many hearts.

Thorkjeld Svenson was stomping up and down the line giving last-minute instructions. Jim Feldster was much in evidence, carrying a huge checklist, looking solemn and responsible. He appeared to be doing a fairly good impersonation of Stott, already savoring the position of head man in charge at the animal husbandry department. Shandy eyed him reflectively for a moment, then got into the minibus and stuck his satchel under the seat behind Purvis.

As if that had been the signal they were waiting for, although in fact it was not, the eight riders swung up on their mounts and took the reins in hand. The Balaclava Boosters’ Drum and Bugle Band, lined up in full uniform, began a campus favorite, and the vast crowd took up the strain:

“When the farmer comes to town, with his wagon broken down,

“Oh, the farmer is the man that beats ’em all!”

Thorkjeld Svenson stepped to the head of the line, clucked softly into Odin’s ear, and the greatest of all those great horses put his best foot forward. Henry Purvis started idling his engine. Shandy looked out at the cheering crowd and went back to sleep.

When he woke, Thorkjeld Svenson was beside him and they were bumping over that dirt road he’d got to know so well during the past couple of days. “Almost there,” he grunted.

“Hope Flackley’s ready for us,” Svenson grunted back. “He damn well better be.”

He was. Flackley had rigged a floodlight outside the smithy, and they could see the wagon standing there, looking rugged and sturdy as ever. Svenson and Shandy checked it over, tested everything testable, and could see no cause for worry.

“I screwed them barrels in as tight as I could,” said the farrier, “and I’m sure that glue’ll be set by morning. Just go easy on ’em tonight. Them guys on the horses ain’t ridin’ with you, are they?”

“No,” Shandy assured him. “They’re just going to help us harness up, then go back in the bus with our man Purvis, there. It’ll be just President Svenson and myself in the wagon tonight, unless you’d care to join us for the ride.”

Flackley grinned. “Not me, thanks. I’m gonna catch up on a little sack time right here, where it’s nice an’ comfortable. I’ll be over to the fairgrounds at daybreak tomorrow, though, in case there’s any last-minute problem.”

Svenson engulfed the farrier’s hand in a mighty paw.

“Damned grateful. Give you an honorary degree, maybe.”

“Thanks, I’ll settle for cash. You folks want me to help harness up? If not, I think I’ll get me some grub. Can’t remember when I et last.”

“Go ahead. We’ll manage.”

Svenson and his crew began dragging out the harness and hitching the horses in tandem: Odin and Thor leading with battery lanterns hung about their necks, then Freya and Balder, then Hoenir and Heimdallr, with Loki and Tyr bringing up the rear. When the team was ready to roll, the riders got into the minibus, each with a personal handshake and a word of commendation from the President which he or she would treasure forever.

Henry Purvis came in for well-deserved encomiums. He was all for seeing the wagon safely out to the fairgrounds, but Svenson pointed out in a fatherly tone that his first obligation was to his passengers, that they’d be late enough getting to bed as it was, and that Balaclava expected every bus driver to do his duty. With those words ringing in his ears, Purvis saluted smartly, turned the bus with the ease of Nureyev doing a pirouette, and in a moment the red taillight went bobbing down the rutted lane.

That left Svenson and Shandy alone with the team. As they began their long, lonely ride, they could observe Flackley through the lighted kitchen window, opening a can of chili.

Neither of the two on the wagon seat felt like talking. Shandy wasn’t sleepy anymore, though. He had an odd feeling that he wasn’t even there, that he was somewhere outside, watching to see what was going to happen to that balding little chap in the torn work pants and the giant who hulked beside him.

Well, he’d done all he could to get ready. Now there was nothing to do but wait. He expected he and Svenson would be waiting quite a while, and he was right.

It happened exactly where he’d thought it would, almost at the end of the old road, in the little dip where the abandoned tannery stood. They, came without a sound, three of them, bandannas masking their faces. One rushed out from the shadows and grabbed Odin’s traces. The other two jumped into the wagon from the roof of the low deserted building.

They didn’t have guns; Shandy hadn’t thought they would. They’d have been crazy to risk shots so close to the main highway, with a police blockade stationed at the crossroad. They were carrying blackjacks. They might as well have relied on peashooters.

Thorkjeld Svenson took a mighty blow to the back of his skull without even wincing, turned on the man who’d delivered it, grabbed him by the feet, swung him around a few times, and whacked his head against the wagon seat. At the same moment Shandy, who’d been crouching behind one of the band seats, leaped on the other man, brought him down, ripped off his bandanna, and used it to tie his hands behind his back, almost in one motion.

The man on the ground, seeing what was happening, let go of Odin and tried to run for it. Shandy yelled, “Stop!” Svenson didn’t say anything. He simply reached for one of the beer kegs, wrenched it from the floor, flange and all, and heaved the missile at the moving figure. The barrel fell short, scattering hoops and staves in all directions, but one of those flying hoops neatly lassoed the quarry and brought him crashing.

“Yesus, that thing was heavy,” the President panted. “What did Flackley do, fill ’em with concrete?”

“Not concrete, President,” said Shandy, who was now tying up the man Svenson had knocked cold. “It was probably gold, and it belongs to the Carlovingian Crafters. And these are the bastards who took it. Stay here and bop either one who moves a finger. I’ll go hobble that third crook before he manages to untangle himself. I don’t know what in hell’s keeping our escort.”

At that moment a police car hauled up behind them. Lieutenant Corbin and Sergeant Lubbock rushed toward the wagon, guns drawn.

“Sorry, gentlemen,” said Shandy, “I’m afraid you’re too late for the entertainment, but you’re welcome to the leftovers. Here’s one festooned with a barrel hoop, and two more tied up in the wagon.”

“But we were right behind you,” stammered young Lubbock.

“Yes, well—er—sorry, things happened rather fast. They were counting on catching us by surprise, of course, and they were under the further handicap of never having seen President Svenson when he’s—er—annoyed.”

“Damned disappointing,” said Svenson morosely. “Bunch of pantywaists. I was looking forward to a little workout to relieve the monotony. Well, let’s get this goddamn gold and silver out of the wagon and move on before Odin’s legs stiffen up. I suppose all the kegs are full.”

“Oh yes,” Shandy replied. “I’m sure they are. He and his accomplices must have got to work as soon as you and I left Forgery Point yesterday. That’s why he killed Miss Flackley, of course, so that he could get the use of the old forge. He vandalized our wagon so that he could maneuver us into letting him keep it at the smithy long enough to melt down the metal and fill those thirty-six beer kegs. He must have thought he’d found a foolproof way to run your very efficient roadblock, Lieutenant.”

Shandy put out a boot and rolled over the man whom Svenson had knocked on the head. The face thus revealed was not unhandsome, but the words that came out of Frank Flackley’s mouth as he regained consciousness were very, very ugly.

C
ORBIN’S RADIOED REQUEST FOR
a paddy wagon and an armored truck were received with skepticism at police headquarters until he explained why he needed them. Then he got action fast. Within an hour, the three prisoners were booked and the thirty-six beer kegs full of gold and silver started on the journey that would ultimately take them back to the Carlovingian Crafters’ strong room.

The Balaclava Blacks were on the move again, but Peter Shandy was not with them. In his place, Thorkjeld had an escort of two strapping state policemen whom he entertained by singing “I’m an Old Cowhand” in Swedish. They reached the fairgrounds without further incident. Sometime later, the
Balaclava County Weekly Fane and Pennon
published a curious bit of rural folklore about a demon wagoneer who is alleged to go rushing along the old county road howling an uncouth melody no human throat could produce, driving a team of eight coal-black horses, each of them, as the oldest Svenson girl’s husband would doubtless have put it, bigger than all the rest.

Having formally identified Flackley’s two assistant hooligans as the men who held his wife hostage at gunpoint and forced him and Mr. Peaslee to loot the strong room, Shandy hitched a ride with Sergeant Lubbock back to the Crescent. Helen must have been wakeful, for she heard him come in, and called down.

“Peter, is that you?”

“Yes, my love. Arise and meet the joyous morn.”

“It isn’t morn, it’s only a quarter to two. What’s the matter? Did the wagon break down?”

“Au contraire,
as we say at the Sûreté. Come on, wake up Iduna and tell her to take out her curl papers.”

“Peter, are you by any chance drunk?”

“Not by chance, but I may be on purpose before long. Hurry up, put some clothes on.”

“What sort of clothes?”

“Any sort. We shan’t be going far.”

“Where are we going, for goodness’ sake?”

“Yonder. If you two ladies would get a move on, I should be able to fill you in on recent events before he gets here.”

“He who?”

“Guess.”

“Peter, you are exasperating!”

Exasperation served its purpose. The two women were soon downstairs, Helen in slacks and pullover, Iduna wearing an embroidered dirndl that made her look not only immense but also immensely adorable. Her first words to Peter were, “Want me to put the coffee on?”

“By all means,” said Shandy. “Make plenty. Better trot out some doughnuts, too.”

“How many?”

“Oh, just open the crock.”

“Peter,” gasped Helen, “you don’t mean—”

“I am rife with meaning.”

“But how?”

“All will be revealed. Haul up and set, ladies. I would a tale unfold.”

And unfold he did. After a brief rundown of the night’s action, he proceeded to elucidate.

“As you know, the puzzler about that Carlovingian Crafters robbery was, what happened to all that gold and silver? It made, as we have painful cause to know, a large and heavy load. Ergo, a large and heavy vehicle was required to transport it. The two men who committed the crime were seen and described to a fare-thee-well. Within fifteen minutes the police were throwing up roadblocks from hell to breakfast, stopping and searching all possibly suspect vehicles. Yet they found nothing, and the reason was that the men who stole it didn’t try to get away with it.

“Frank Flackley was waiting nearby in a car driven by yet a fourth person. They were concealed on one of those disused logging roads, but not a cul-de-sac like the one you were found on, Helen. There used to be a whole network of such roads around the area, and the criminals had taken great pains to scout out a few that were still viable.

“You and one of the two men were transferred to the other car, which drove off, dropped you where you’d have a reasonably difficult time finding help, and proceeded boldly down the highway to some point or other where the second man was dropped off. Since nobody had seen the second car in connection with the robbers, there was no need for its driver to hide.

“In the meantime, Flackley and the first man drove the van to Forgery Point via those old roads, reached the smithy without being seen, and unloaded the loot. They didn’t have to hurry. Flackley had seen his aunt’s schedule for the day and knew how long she’d be away. He also knew it was perfectly safe, to hide the gold and silver close to the forge because she’d never get to see it. She was going out to dinner and she wasn’t coming back.

“The first man, having changed clothes at Flackley’s, drove the van to where Matilda Gables found it and torched it to destroy any possible fingerprints or other clues. He then departed on foot, probably disguised as a hiker or jogger so he wouldn’t look out of place trotting along the highway. Anyway, he didn’t go far away. Flackley, of course, stayed put. When Aunt Martha came home, she no doubt found him parked in front of the TV swilling beer and gassing about how much he’d enjoyed a restful day after his long bus ride the day before.”

“Then which of them killed Miss Flackley?” Helen demanded.

“Flackley, of course. After he’d complimented his aunt on her gown and whatnot, I expect he strolled out ostensibly to wave bye-bye and yell, ‘Have fun,’ or whatever, then pretended to go back to the house. In fact, he swung himself inside the back of the van and stayed there all the time she was with us. After she’d said good night to Stott and was leaving the parking lot, Flackley simply reached from behind, slit her throat right through that mohair stole she was wearing, then took the wheel. He no doubt gave the stole an extra turn or two around her neck so that the blood wouldn’t spurt all over the cab, and drove up to the college barns, where he dumped her into the mash hopper.”

“And then he stole Belinda,” cried Iduna. “But where did he take her? How did he get her in and out of that van all by himself?”

“I’ll get to that shortly. As you must already have gathered, stealing the pig and all that folderol with pork chops and pigs’ feet and sunflower seeds strewn around the van was camouflage, to make the whole business look like a student prank that had gone wrong and throw us off the track. Which I have to admit it did, for a while.”