The Luck Runs Out (3 page)

Once they’d made their selection, they naively expected the silverware would simply be wrapped up and handed over to them, but that wasn’t how things were done at the Carlovingian Crafters. The pieces must be taken back to the polishing room, given a final buffing, and packed into little flannel mittens impregnated with some mysterious attar alleged to retard tarnishing. The process would take half an hour or so. In the meantime, the gracious lady who’d been assisting them suggested they might care to join a guided tour of the workrooms.

“Guided tours!” Helen exclaimed. “Do you have them often?”

“Oh yes, all the time. Mr. Peaslee should be ready to start any minute now.”

Mr. Peaslee, a middle-aged man got up in what was presumably the costume of an eighteenth-century silversmith, was doing an admirable job of herding together thirty-one children from a sixth grade somewhere, one harassed teacher, three mothers who’d come along to help, and two men who were hovering along the fringes, no doubt wondering how they’d got into this. Altogether, Mr. Peaslee had quite a crowd.

However, the guide had his technique well in hand. He was brisk, informative, and expert at keeping the guests from pestering the artisans. All were sorry when the tour was over. As if to prolong the experience, the Shandys tagged along when Mr. Peaslee ushered the school group out of the building to their waiting bus. There was a good deal of tooting, waving, and screaming, then the Shandys were alone in the parking lot with Mr. Peaslee and, to their surprise, the two men who they’d thought belonged with the children.

“Now,” said one of the two, neither of whom had spoken a word until now, “I wonder if we could see that strong room where all the raw gold and silver are kept?”

Mr. Peaslee smiled apologetically. “I’m afraid security regulations don’t allow us to include the strong room in our tour.”

“Couldn’t you make an exception? My friend here and I are very much interested in the gold and silver.”

“Sorry, we—”

The guide stopped short, realizing that he was staring straight into the muzzle of a very large revolver. Helen saw it, too, and uttered a high-pitched yelp that was cut short by a hand across her mouth.

“Don’t scream, lady,” said the second man. “I also have a gun, and it’s pointed at the back of your head. Ask your husband if you don’t believe me.”

“Believe him, Helen,” Shandy choked.

“Okay,” said the gunman. “Now, if everybody behaves nice and quiet, nothing’s going to happen. If anybody tries to get smart, this lady will be shot, and that will be very bad for your corporate image, Mr. Peaslee. I think you’d better show us that strong room.”

“Couldn’t you take me hostage instead of my wife?” Shandy forced himself to speak quietly and make no move, although he ached to lunge at the man’s throat and tear it apart.

The gunman shook his head without letting the revolver waver. “Sorry, sir, I just happen to prefer women. You walk along in front of us very, very quietly and everything will be fine.”

“I don’t know what Mr. Birkenhead’s going to say,” wailed the guide.

“We’ll be out of here before Mr. Birkenhead knows what’s happening. Come on, move it!”

The robbery could not possibly have been any spur-of-the moment operation. The two men knew the strong room was in a separate little building at the far end of the complex, that it was well screened by that ubiquitous shrubbery, that it was protected by an elaborate electronic warning system, and that certain things could be done to disconnect the system before it went off.

They did those things. They blew the safe with a perfectly calculated charge of explosive. They forced Shandy and the hapless Mr. Peaslee to load the gold and silver into a tan Chevy pickup van that they’d parked close to the door but well away from the factory windows. There was a great deal of precious metal, but men being prodded at gunpoint can work fast. In perhaps ten minutes, the van was full and the strong room empty.

“Thanks, gentlemen,” said the man who’d done most of the talking. “Now, you two go back into the strong room and stay there for exactly fifteen minutes. After that, you can yell for the police, wet your pants, have a nervous breakdown, do anything you damn please. But for one quarter of an hour you do nothing, get it? We’re taking the woman with us, and if we see a police car chasing us, or if any attempt is made to interfere with us in any way, she’s dead. If we’re still clean fifteen minutes from now, we’ll put her out of the van safe and sound. Is it a deal?”

“It’s a deal,” said Helen, who appeared to be the calmest of the lot. “Try not to worry, Peter, and for goodness’ sake, stay right here so I’ll know where to reach you after they drop me off. Don’t forget to pick up the silver. I’m afraid we’re going to be awfully pressed for time.”

S
ITTING STILL IN THAT
rifled strong room was the hardest thing Shandy had ever done in his life. He’d known almost from the start that he loved Helen, but he had not fully realized how his entire being had become a unity with hers during the absurdly short period since they’d met at that same airport toward which they ought to be heading right now. Where in God’s name had those two hoods taken her? Would they keep their word about letting her go? What if a police car happened along and they got the notion it was after them?

He forced himself not to stir, knowing that if he once began moving about, he’d be unable to prevent himself from dashing for a telephone. Mr. Peaslee, on the other hand, seemed paralyzed by shock, staring at the empty corners of the room, muttering over and over in a despairing litany, “I don’t know what Mr. Birkenhead is going to say.”

Shandy asked the guide once, “Won’t they miss you in the factory and come looking for you?”

Peaslee only shook his head and went on brooding about what Mr. Birkenhead was going to say. At fourteen minutes and thirty-one seconds after he’d started to count, Shandy’s endurance broke.

“Come on,” he barked, and headed for the main showroom.

Mr. Birkenhead was there. What he said was, “Well, I daresay it was bound to happen sometime. Mrs. Pomfret, would you oblige us by phoning the police and the insurance company? Professor Shandy, I believe Mr. Williams has your parcel ready at the pickup counter.”

Numbly, Shandy collected their silver and locked it in the trunk of his car wondering if Helen would ever get to use it. A couple of minutes later a police cruiser whirled up with its siren whooping and he had to explain how he had helped two gunmen steal a roomful of bullion.

A description of Mrs. Shandy, the two men who had taken her hostage, and the van they’d gone off in was broadcast over the police radio. Mr. Birkenhead had somebody bring the professor a cup of coffee, which he drank gratefully, and a plate of homemade cookies Mrs. Birkenhead had sent in for the staff. They looked delicious, but he couldn’t touch them. He sat on a chair somebody had pushed under him, fists clenched, eyes on the telephone.

He didn’t want to be here, he wanted to be out tearing up roads, beating the woods, howling out Helen’s name, doing anything but this dreadful sitting. Still, he didn’t dare budge. This was where she’d expect to find him and here he must remain. The whole police force was out searching now; surely they’d pick her up any minute.

Why were they taking so long? What if they never found her? What if she’d been—he blocked out the idea. She had to come back to him because life without her would be unthinkable. But what if she didn’t?

Shandy was well on the way toward suicide when a cruiser drove into the lot and Helen rushed toward him.

“Oh, Peter!”

She was in his arms. One of them was sobbing, the other laughing, or maybe both were doing both. After a while they got themselves sorted out and Helen was able to tell her story.

“I don’t know where they took me. They blindfolded me and tied me up when they got me into the van, and soon transferred me to another car. We drove around for a while; then they put me out, and I got myself untied. I was in a little dirt lane in the woods. I followed it down to a road. Finally I found a house. The woman wouldn’t let me in, but she did call the police for me, and I just sat on her front steps till they came. She must have thought I was either drunk or crazy.”

“Are you hurt?” Shandy asked anxiously. “Did they rough you up?”

“No, not at all. The knots weren’t terribly tight. I think the tying up was simply to gain time, so I wouldn’t get the blindfold off too soon and see who was driving that second car.”

“Then it wasn’t one of the two men we saw?”

“I don’t know, but I think not. I suppose the idea was to take me in one direction while the van went off in another, so I wouldn’t be able to put the police on its trail. It can’t possibly get far, though. There are roadblocks everywhere. It really was a stupid sort of crime. We can identify those men who held us up, and now they’re stuck with that big van full of bulky metal. They’re sure to be caught, and I for one shall take delight in testifying against them. Peter, do you see what time it is? Iduna’s plane will be landing before we even get there!”

As graciously as though she were leaving a tea party, Helen said good-bye to Mr. Birkenhead and his artisans, thanked the police officers who had brought her back, and hustled her still dithering husband out to their car.

They didn’t talk much on the way to the airport. Helen, now that her ordeal was over, had a sudden reaction of exhaustion. She put her head back against the seat and closed her eyes. Shandy, driving faster than he generally cared to and in none too good shape emotionally himself, had to give his full concentration to what he was doing. They made it with not a minute to spare.

“You go on in and meet her,” said Shandy. “I’ll find a place to park and join you if I can, but it looks pretty full. If you don’t see me inside the terminal, come back out here to the main doors. They’ll let me stop long enough to pick you up. Don’t try to carry anything. You’re worn out already. Let her lug her own bags or get a porter.”

“Yes, darling.”

Helen gave him a fast kiss and sprinted through the big glass doors. He hated letting her out of his sight, but there wasn’t much else he could do. Already an airport policeman was moving toward him with a no-baloney expression. He moved on, found, as he’d expected, that parking was impossible, and had to make two tortuous circuits of the ramp before his wife appeared at the appointed spot, looking smaller and daintier than ever beside a woman in a rose-colored coat and hat, whose contours were reminiscent of the Goodyear Blimp’s. Behind them was a porter, his hand truck loaded to capacity and beyond. Iduna Bjorklund had obviously come to stay.

Spent and beleaguered as he was, Shandy felt a surge of fury. How dared this human zeppelin inflict herself and all her folderols on them after the ordeal they’d been through? His lips formed a terse word. Before he could utter it, Iduna moved toward him, smiling, and he had to smile back.

It would have been impossible not to. To begin with, Iduna didn’t move, she floated, buoyant and merry as a pink balloon in the hand of a child at a Fourth of July parade. Nor did she merely smile, she glowed with inner goodness that made him think of the vast iron cookstove in his grandmother’s kitchen back on the farm. Here, he knew by certain instinct, was a woman who made wonderful cookies and would give you some.

How had the buggy whip heiress escaped matrimony for so many years? How could any red-blooded South Dakota bachelor sit home on a Saturday night watching Lawrence Welk when he might be camping on Iduna Bjorklund’s doorstep with a box of drugstore chocolates in one hand and his heart in the other?

Perhaps she’d been holding out for Mister Right. Shandy felt a stirring of unease. Could Timothy Ames be anybody’s knight in shining armor? Fond as he was of his old friend, Shandy couldn’t help realizing that Iduna would be an awful lot of woman for Tim to handle. Well, no doubt they could get around that somehow. She was certainly a vast improvement over Lorene McSpee.

Vast in every sense of the word. Somehow Shandy managed to cram Iduna and her luggage into the car, got Helen perched in the only vacant corner with her feet on the one suitcase that simply would not go anywhere else, and they were off.

Rush-hour traffic was starting to build up. Back in Balaclava Junction, or wherever she lived, Miss Flackley was no doubt primping for her debut in local society. Professor Stort would be sharpening his appetite. Helen must be concerned about her dinner, but she wasn’t showing it.

In fact, she was chattering away nineteen to a dozen with Iduna, catching up on everything that had happened since she left South Dakota, which seemed to be a surprising lot. The robbery, so important such a short time ago, was now relegated to a mildly amusing anecdote squeezed in between somebody’s divorce and a truly remarkable incident involving two fried eggs and a slide trombone. Shandy didn’t try to make head or tail of the conversation, but attended to his driving and rejoiced to hear Helen laugh again.

Though he made the best time he could, they didn’t reach the Crescent until almost a quarter to six. He dropped the women off at the brick house, wrestled the luggage into the hallway, and went to put the car away down at Charlie’s, a garage on Main Street The house he’d lived in ever since accepting his appointment to the faculty had no driveway. To make one now would mean sacrificing one of the magnificent blue spruces in the yard, which both he and Helen would rather die than do.

Anyway, it was only a few minutes’ walk. Shandy hurried to get the luggage out of the hall before the guests arrived. He found it already gone and Helen and Iduna in the kitchen, still laughing and talking while they worked with the speed of light.

Ten minutes later they had the dining table set with the exquisite new silver, hors d’oeuvres laid out in the living room, and good things happening on the stove. They left Peter to put out the drinks and rushed upstairs to fix each other’s hair. By the time Professor Stott came up the front steps like a slow roll of thunder, the ladies were at the door to greet him, Helen in the new lavender evening skirt she’d bought to celebrate Portulaca Purple Passion’s debut, and Iduna in a confection of pink and yellow ruffles approximately six yards in circumference.