Charles Williams - Go Home, Stranger

Griffin pushed the white cap back on his head and shrugged. “Somewhere around a quarter million dollars and/or enough high explosive to blow us all to hell and halfway back.”

Reno slowly expelled his breath. “Quarter million dollars worth of what?”

“Heroin. The pure McCoy. Uncut. And not grains, or ounces, but pounds of it. Sweet, huh?”

Reno leaned back against his seat. “So that’s why they never could find out what he did with the money? Counsel, I mean. When they court-martialed him.”

Griffin eyed him speculatively. “So you found out about that?” Then he went on. “That’s right. Robert was buying dope and stashing it away in a hiding place he had. Packed it in cans and evacuated the air. He had a vacuum pump. We weren’t sure how long it’d be before we could come back after it, or how much it deteriorated with age.”

“But why dope?”

Griffin shook his head, grinning. “Robert. You have to understand him. He was a genius, with a nasty sense of humor, and a flair for embroidering a theme. He took a dim view of any kind of authority, and resented being shoved into the military. So what could be better than stealing from the U.S. Army and using their money to buy dope to smuggle in? The Army was financing his operations against the Narcotics Bureau. And then there was the money, too. Tremendous profit this way.”

“But none of the rest of you knew where he had it hidden?”

“Yes. We did. But he moved it on us. The night before he was arrested. There’d been an argument with Morton and Devers, and. He thought they had squealed on him, or were about to.”

Reno nodded, his eyes harsh. “So when Counsel got out of prison and went back to Italy after the stuff, Morton and Devers went out to pick it up out of the channel but you didn’t go. Why?”

Griffin smiled. “Little matter of understanding friend Robert. I began to smell a rat. You see, we didn’t tell them. After all, why split it four ways? But the night the Silver Cape arrived off the bar, they showed up in my office down there on the dock. They’d found out all about it.

“At first they were going to rough me up for double-crossing them, but they cooled down after a while and I managed to find out now they’d got wind of it. That’s when I wised up. It seems Robert had run into an old girl friend of Carl Devers in Italy and had started shooting off his mouth, and she had written Carl all about it. And the funny thing was, he also ran into an old flame of Chappie Morton, and told her, too. Just chummy, you see.” Griffin broke off and grinned at them. “You begin to get it now?”

Reno felt a chill along his back. So that was the kind of mind they’d been up against. He nodded.

“Well, it was simple, then,” Griffin went on. “Just elementary stuff. I played it real yokel and let them throw down on me with that silly Italian gun they had. They tied me up and locked me in the office, and shoved off with the boat. And in just about an hour I heard it let go, like a refinery blowing up, and knew I’d been right. So I untied myself and called the Sheriff and Coast Guard and reported the boat stolen. Then I warmed up one of the tugs and pulled their car off into the channel.”

Reno glanced sidewise at Patricia. She was pale, and her eyes were sick with horror. He reached for her hand and held it. There was nothing else he could do.

Griffin smiled. “So now you see the enchanting prospect. There are two of these lead pigs, and either one of them is big enough to hold the stuff. Or isn’t it? Can’t you just hear the bastard laughing? He was going to get all three of us with that other one, but just in case he didn’t— Catch on, pal?”

“Right,” Reno said coldly. “But how do you think you’re going to make me open them?”

Griffin smiled again.. “That’s easy. Your lady friend here. You’ll have one of the pigs, and we’ll have one. If you don’t open yours within ten minutes, we’ll dig into the other. A quarter million’s a lot of money, and nobody lives forever.” He broke off and winked at “Patricia. “We’re not chicken, are we, honey?”

Nineteen

Griffin stopped talking. He picked up the gun from his lap and threw the cigarette overboard. “All right, Reno,” he said. “Hustle those two pigs up on the bank.”

Patricia Devers stood up. Her face was white, but she stood very tall and straight and her eyes were blazing. “No!” she said. “You can’t make him do it. You coldblooded murderer, if you’re so brave, we’ll open them. You and I—” Reno saw her sway a little. She was very near the breaking point.

Griffin smiled tightly. “Better keep your lady friend quiet, before she gets a mouthful of gun. He gestured with the Luger. “Now wrestle those pigs.”

It took ten minutes or more, hobbling on his sprained ankle. He lifted them onto the dock one at a time and rolled them to the bank. Near the ashes where the lodge had been stood a large oak, and beyond it lay the open field. A shallow foxhole had been scooped in the ground under the tree, the dirt thrown up at the end toward the field. Across the mound of earth lay a telescope on a short-legged tripod. Reno looked at it. Smart, he thought.

The two lead containers lay side by side near the foxhole. Reno knelt in front of them. Griffin stood ten feet away with the gun. Never any nearer, Reno observed coldly; he’s watching me every minute.

“That’s a thirty-power spotting scope,” Griffin said. “I went back and got it last night. It’s trained on that big stump out there in the field, the one straight ahead about fifty yards. Take your pig out there and put it on the stump, and open it, facing this way. I’ll be able to see every move you make, as if you were about five feet away. If it blows, I’ll know what not to do when I open this.”

“The heroic Mr. Griffin,” Patricia said contemptuously.

“Shut up,” Griffin said idly.

She’s trying to get him to swing at her with that gun, Reno thought, to give me a chance to take him. But he knows it.

Griffin went on, speaking to Reno. “You can’t run, with that ankle. If you try, I’ll shoot you. You’ll have ten minutes, from the time you get the pig on the stump. Ready?”

“You in a hurry?” Reno asked thinly.

“I said you could have your choice of pigs.” The redhead grinned, his eyes shining wickedly. “If you can tell one from the other, take a good, long look.”

Patricia was standing by the tree, silently watching. Reno stared down at the lead containers. Wasn’t it better to stand up and walk to Griffin, taking the whole clip if he had to in order to get his hands on him? Maybe he could live long enough to do it. Patricia would live. And Vickie could go free. Then he knew it wouldn’t work; Griffin was too cool for that. At least one of the shots would be through the head, or the heart, and he’d never reach him. He returned to his study of the containers. How did you understand Counsel? Could you? Could anybody? There were three ways it could be, and two of them meant instant death. There could be heroin in both of them; there could be heroin in one and explosive in the other; or there could be both in each one. The detonating triggers would be right under the surface, set to blow at the slightest disturbance of the lead sheath; only Counsel would know how to disarm it, and he was dead. He thought of Carl Devers and Morton, out there in the ship channel at night, holding a flashlight perhaps, slicing into the lead eagerly. . . .

It was deadly silent now. He thought of something that even Griffin did not know. All the time Counsel had been in San Francisco he had bought the Waynesport paper every day, watching it for something. Just for a notice about the dredge? Or had he been checking to be sure Griffin hadn’t found these things? If he had, it meant he’d know the instant they were found and opened; that they, were both loaded with explosive in addition to the dope.