Brett Halliday - Violence Is Golden

“We were seen leaving the Sans Souci, and they have an exact time. That’s bad, because the M.E. says LeFevre died about two hours earlier. There are jimmy marks on the door but only one set, and you know who put them there-I did. The big new thing is that LeFevre wasn’t unconscious when he was slugged. There was blood in several different places. They think he was sapped a couple of times before he started to fight. They found skin under his fingernails. I know Petey wants to find out if anybody’s scratched you lately.”

“They have. They’ve also been hitting me with two-by-fours.”

“Foolish of them,” Rourke said without much sympathy. “You wanted to know about the hotel safe. There was nothing in it in LeFevre’s name-no dossier or photographs. I don’t mean somebody took them out later. LeFevre didn’t put them in. George Savage. No police record, but a girl at the paper has come up with something. Apparently he was working the Dead Sea Scrolls con in the Middle East last summer. You’ve heard of that-the mark buys some tightly rolled scrolls that an Arab has found in a cave. And, of course, when they’re unrolled, they turn out to be a map of downtown Tel Aviv. Now the captain, Joe Lassiter. Women, horses, liquor. But everybody says Pan Am gave him a wrong deal. Jimmy Moss. This boy is a red-hot. A pilot. He’s flown all over, including the Congo. He ferried planes to the Algerians. And this is interesting. It’s just a whiff, but one of my raffish friends says Jimmy may have had something to do with the big gold theft in LaGuardia Airport in New York last year. For that do you raise my salary?”

“I’ll double it. Here’s what I want now, Tim. I saw George Savage having supper by himself in the Calypso Room. I think it’s still open. He’s been through here a number of times so the girls would know him by name. Find out who served him and what he ate, and if anybody was with him at any time. He’s being sick to his stomach, and it doesn’t seem to be a simple case of too much booze. I’d like to find out if anybody fed him anything. After that, charter a small plane so you can get to Caracas ahead of us. We’re leaving at eight. You’d better be on your way by five. Alert the airport people down there. Don’t say anything about gold, but it’s all right to drop a few hints. Can you do that?”

“Easily,” Rourke said bitterly. “Five o’clock is three hours from now. By the time I talk to waitresses and persuade the charter people that my credit is good, I won’t have any time to make friends with Christa. Good planning, Mike. She wants to talk to you again.”

“Mike?” Shayne heard her say. “Shouldn’t I know what’s going on? When will I see you?”

Shayne hung up gently without answering.

“Take these,” Ward said when he dropped him. “You may need them.”

He slid the forty-five and a tiny pencil flashlight into Shayne’s hand. Shayne stuck the weapon inside his belt and stepped out of the cab.

“Thanks.”

But at this point he trusted nobody, and after Ward had driven off, he took out the gun and checked the clip. There were four rounds in it, as well as one more in the chamber.

The taillights of the Checker disappeared. Shayne was in the shopping district in the old part of town. He waited exactly fifteen minutes, then pulled a fire alarm.

A siren blew at once. The engine came careening along the high-crowned cobblestone street less than six minutes later, good time for what must have been a volunteer company. The engine was a big LaFrance pumper, probably a castoff from some fire department in the States. It was beautifully painted and polished.

Shayne leaped on the running board. “The airfield!”

The airfield was on flat ground two miles east of town. In a moment they could see the flames. Ward had started a blaze against the outer wall of a small-plane hangar, and it was burning nicely. The fire truck shot through the main gate, its bell clanging. Arriving at the fire, Shayne helped himself to one of the rubber coats and helmets on the side of the truck, picked a fire ax out of the rack, and, leaving the firemen to look after the fire, set off at a run toward the main hangar area.

Passing a guard, he shouted, “Telephone!”

The chartered DC-8 had been taxied into the first of the big hangars. Shayne found a padlocked side door and broke off the padlock with the fire ax. Inside, using the pencil flash, he found a tool closet and ditched his fireman’s gear.

Then he picked his way across the oil-spotted floor to the big plane. He maneuvered a mobile flight of stairs into place and entered by the forward door.

The tail cone was at the rear of the galley, entered through a sliding panel beneath the ovens. The space looked small and uncomfortable. Shayne crawled inside and found that he was able to slide the door shut after him. There was nothing between him and the skin of the airplane but a double layer of control wires in their fiber sheaves. Having proved that the cone would hold him, he wriggled back out to the galley. He found two or three pillows in the stewardess’s closet and stuffed them into the cone to make the ride easier. Then he opened a midget bottle of cognac, which he carried to the last seat in the passenger cabin. In a matter of minutes after finishing his drink, he had fallen asleep.

He was awakened by the sound of the hangar door opening.

He checked his watch. Unless it had stopped again, the time was 4:25. Looking down, he saw a thin flashlight beam moving toward the plane.

He dropped his empty glass into the drying rack in the galley and slid feet first into the cone, leaving the sliding door open a half inch. A moment later someone climbed the steps and entered the plane. Putting his eye to the crack, he saw the moving flashlight, behind it a pair of woman’s legs. The skirt seemed to be part of the light blue stewardess uniform. She seemed to be looking for something in the aisle. Stooping with her back to Shayne, she stripped back a section of carpet and pulled up a hatch cover. It blocked her from view.

Shayne hesitated. He could hear metallic noises in the plane’s belly. He opened the door all the way. But before he could make up his mind to move, the woman climbed out.

Startled by something, she turned off her light. The hatch cover dropped back in place. Shayne began to work his way out into the galley. A dark shadow was moving up the aisle away from him. Then high heels rang on the metal steps. He reached a window in time to see the flashlight glide across the hangar to the outer door.

He waited several minutes to be sure he was alone. Then he found the break in the carpet and lifted the aisle hatch.

The thin pencil of light showed a narrow luggage compartment running the width of the airplane. He stepped onto the top of a long metal container. It shifted beneath his weight. Apparently it rested on rollers. He lifted the hinged lid and pulled up one of the bags, a heavy fabric two-suiter. He forced the lock.

Inside, carefully swaddled in cotton waste, he found a standard four-hundred-ounce gold bar.

After thinking about it for a moment, he handed it up to the cabin and relocked the bag. Then he set to work. Twenty minutes later all the gold had been removed from the luggage and was stacked neatly in the aisle. He closed the luggage container, lowered the hatch, and replaced the carpet. There were twenty-five golden loaves. He arranged them in stacks in the tail cone.

The work had made him hungry. He had an early breakfast of croissants and cognac in the galley and then slid into the cone, arranging himself carefully amid the stacks of gold.

He was very tired. With the help of the strategically placed pillows, he was soon asleep.

The big front doors of the hangar went up with a clang, awakening Shayne. A thin sliver of daylight came into the dark cone through the crack in the door. When he heard movement aboard the plane, he closed the door the rest of the way and rearranged his cramped body so it wouldn’t interfere with the free movement of the control wires. If the plane kept to schedule, it would be leaving in ninety minutes.