Грэм Мастертон - Famine

She smiled in the darkness. ‘I don’t have time for that tonight. I’m afraid. I need your help.’

‘Help? What kind of help?’

‘Shearson and Peter Kaiser have been forced to clear out the Blight Crisis Appeal faster than they wanted to. That’s why you haven’t seen them around today. They’ve been diverting as much money as possible into false-bottomed trusts and phoney accounts.’

‘Well? What do you expect me to do about it?’

‘Ed – all the telexes and the memos and the accounts are still downstairs in Shearson’s office. All the documentary evidence I’m going to need to bring him before a Grand Jury. But if I leave it until tomorrow, Peter Kaiser’s going to have time to spirit them all away, and file them where they can’t be traced.’

‘You’re going to break into Shearson’s office and steal his papers?’ asked Ed, incredulous.

‘It’s the only way. I can’t get through to the FBI office in Wichita and order up a search warrant. Shearson’s keeping a check on every single telephone call. But I can get in there and take the paperwork I need.’

‘What’s Shearson going to do if he catches you at it?’ Ed wanted to know.

‘I think I know the answer to that better than anyone,’ Della replied. ‘Shearson Jones is suspected by the FBI of implication in at least five killings, and probably more.’

Ed frowned, thinking of Season and Sally, and Peter Kaiser’s threat to kill them. ‘Do you mean that?’ he asked. ‘Of course I mean it. He’s a very wanted man.’

‘Somebody in the FBI actually has proof?’

Della sat up straight. ‘What do you want, Ed? One minute you’re publicly tearing the man apart, and now you’re doubting he’s a potential killer. Do you want to see blood?’

‘Not my own, thanks. And not yours, either.’

‘Well, in that case, why don’t you give me some help? The sooner I can lay my hands on some incriminating paperwork, the sooner Shearson Jones is going to find himself in the federal penitentiary. That’s if they can find him a cell large enough.’

‘This is crazy,’ said Ed. ‘I’m a farmer, not a burglar.’

‘You used to be an actuary, though, didn’t you? There’ll be scores of accounts and bank drafts to sort out down there, and if I’m going to get it done quickly. I’m going to need some expert assistance.’

‘How the hell are you going to break in there?’

‘Just leave that to me. I’ve been trained. All you have to do is keep quiet and do what I tell you.’

Ed ran his hand through his scruffy hair. ‘This is a heck of a way to spend the night,’ he said, but he climbed out of bed, and reached for his pants and his red sweatshirt, the one with South Burlington Farm emblazoned on the front.

As he was pulling the sweatshirt over his head, Della asked him, ‘Did you manage to call your wife?’

Ed’s head appeared through the circular neck-hole. ‘Not yet. Why?’

‘No reason. I wondered if they were still giving you that busy switchboard routine.’

‘I haven’t tried since seven o’clock last night.’

Della stood up, and tightened the silk tie around her waist. ‘I guess Shearson’s trying to keep us all out of public circulation until his money’s been safely salted away.’

Ed said, ‘The truth is that Peter Kaiser said I could call Season if I wanted to.’

Della looked up. ‘He did? And you didn’t? Don’t tell me you didn’t want to.’

Ed stooped down and picked up his sneakers. When he stood straight again, he simply gave Della an unhappy smile.

‘It’s not because of me, is it?’ asked Della. ‘You mustn’t ever think of abandoning your wife because of me.’

‘No,’ said Ed, quietly. ‘Peter Kaiser says there’s a private detective following Season and Sally around. Well – I don’t have any way of telling whether he’s bluffing or not. But the twist is that unless I suffer severe loss of memory whenever anybody asks me about Shearson Jones and the Blight Crisis Appeal, that private detective is going to get orders to kill both of them, right away. I’d like to call them, but I think it’s safer if I don’t. Not just yet, anyway.’

Della came slowly over to Ed and laid her hands on his shoulders. Her hair gleamed coppery-gold in the faint light from the open windows. ‘So that’s why you wanted to know if the FBI had any proof that Shearson was really a killer.’

‘Yes,’ said Ed, quietly. He hesitated, and then he said, ‘I know that things haven’t been too good between me and Season lately… We’ve bickered over the farm, and we’ve argued over living in Kansas, and we’ve had enough rows about my mother to send up the Goodyear blimp. But I don’t want anything like this to happen… not in a thousand years.’

Della kissed him, gently and lingeringly, on the lips. It was a kiss of affection and understanding, rather than a kiss of passion. ‘Do you want to back out of this break-in?’ she asked him. ‘I’ll understand if you do. Your wife and child are far more important to you than Shearson Jones.’

Ed shook his head. ‘If we can find something to lock Shearson Jones up in the pen, then I’m ready to help.’

‘You’re sure?’ she said.

‘Just tell me what to do,’ he replied, ‘and make sure that the FBI send me a case of bourbon at Christmas for the next twenty years.’

Della checked her watch. ‘Let’s go, then. The Muldoons are usually awake at the crack, and it’s going to take us at least a half-hour to get what we need.’

The upper landing outside Ed’s bedroom was silent, and illuminated only by a low-voltage bracket lamp. Della paused for a moment, and looked carefully along the landing towards the double doors of Shearson’s personal bedroom suite. They were closed, as usual, and probably locked. One of the Muldoon brothers had told Ed that Shearson had once been attacked in a hotel in New York by a prowler, and ever since then he had been neurotic about the idea of being surprised in his sleep.

‘Don’t they have anybody patrolling the house during the night?’ whispered Ed.

Della shook her head. ‘The Muldoons check on all the doors and windows before they go to bed, and switch on an outside alarm; and there are a couple of Dobermanns loose in the grounds. For tonight, they’ve closed down the switchboard, too. The only telephone that works is Shearson’s private line. Maybe Peter has a phone, too. But that’s all. They don’t need much else in the way of security, out here in the wilds.’

She gripped Ed’s sleeve, and led him swiftly along the length of the landing to the angled cedarwood staircase. The stairs were so well constructed that not one of them creaked as they padded down to the main living area. They waited for just a second, listening, to make sure that they hadn’t been heard; and then they crossed the wide living-room floor, and approached the passage to Shearson’s study.

A portrait of a sour-faced trooper by George Caleb Bingham observed them from the passage wall; and a little further along, they were stared at fiercely by a Kwakiutl Indian mask in green and scarlet, fringed with real human hair. The cold magnetic light of the moon fell across the passage from a triangular wood-framed window, and pointed to the door of Shearson’s study as if it were a mystic sign.

Della said, ‘Keep an eye open, will you? This shouldn’t take long.’ And while Ed loitered at the corner of the passage, wishing that he’d thought of going to the bathroom before he ventured out on this bag job with Della, she reached into the pocket of her emerald green bathrobe and took out a plastic envelope, which, by the clinking sound it made, probably contained lock-picks.

‘They teach you to burglarise people’s houses?’ asked Ed, in a breathy whisper.