Hard Case Crime: Honey in His Mouth (10 page)

“I think so.”

“Repeat the combination aloud to me to be sure.”

Harsh muttered the numbers, and the directions the dial was turned each time.

Brother nodded. “Now watch closely.”

The inner door was a flat sheet of steel with two openings for keys. It was similar, Harsh recalled, to safety deposit boxes in some banks. Brother drew two keys from his pocket. They were fastened together by a string. He inserted each key in a lock, swung open the door.

“It takes both keys to open the inner door. You understand, Harsh?”

“I get it.”

Brother placed the money in the safe and locked both inner and outer door. He swung the painting back in place. It covered the safe completely. He tore the two keys apart, breaking the string. He put one key in his pocket.

“You get to keep the other key, Harsh.”

He handed Harsh the second key.

“Goddamn it, my nineteen hundred is in there too!”

Brother ignored him. “Only these two keys will open the inner door. I keep one. You keep one. When you have earned your pay, I will give you my key. The money is safe. You know where it is.”

“What about my nineteen hundred?”

Brother turned and walked to the door, went out, closing the door after him.

Harsh went over and lay on the bed, taking care not to jar the cast that enclosed his left arm. He held the key tightly in his right hand.

Harsh slept nine hours. He awakened with the notion he had been trying to cry out in frustration and had been grinding his teeth together. His throat felt dry and his jaws hurt. It was dark in the bedroom, no light at all coming from the big window, and he decided someone had come in while he was asleep and closed the drapes over the window.

He again recalled the grinding sensation with his teeth, and he was alarmed. He inserted an exploratory finger in his mouth, finding the key to the wall safe was secure. His teeth must have been crunching on the key as he slept. He had placed the key in his mouth before he went to sleep, not worrying about swallowing it because he often went to sleep with chewing gum in his mouth and he had never swallowed that. He realized, however, he must find a more practical hiding place for the key.

He did not like so much darkness in the room, it made him uneasy. He pushed up to a sitting position on the bed, found the edge, and lowered his feet to the floor. The ringing that had been in his ears when he went to sleep was no longer there. He decided his eardrums had not been ruptured. Shuffling barefoot to the window, he parted the drapes, and a flood of moonlight spilled over him. Beyond the window the moonlight covered a wide sweep of cucumber-green lawn and a rope of lime-colored driveway lined by palm trees that were as motionless as upclenched fists. The moonlight made everything very clear. On the beach, night birds were chasing along a squirming yarn of white surf and beyond to the horizon the sea was a blue-black bedspread with a pattern of crinkling waves.

Harsh rubbed his jaw with his right hand. The place looked peaceful, he thought, but there was something to be said for packing up and getting the hell out. The manhandling he had taken at the hands of Brother had undermined his confidence. He had underestimated Brother. The man had a tough, sadistic streak. His right hand and arm still ached where Brother had worked on him with that judo trick. He was sure Brother had inflicted most of the pain just for the twisted satisfaction of hurting him. He would be goddamned if he was going to stay around here and be handled like raw meat...

But he was also damned if he’d leave before getting that wall safe open. He tried to recall what he knew about wall safes. It was very little. Could a man wedge something into the inner crack of the safe door, he wondered, and get it open?

Suddenly excited, determined to tackle the safe, he went to his suitcase and found the package of blades for his safety razor. He took one blade from the package and went to the painting and swung it back, exposing the safe dial. He blew on his right hand for luck and tackled the dial, turning it carefully to the numbers as he remembered them. It would not open! He grabbed it, shook it. It would not open. The son of a bitch changed the combination on him, he thought, and his stomach felt tight. He rubbed his forehead with his right hand briskly, trying to recollect the combination. He was sure it was the way he had just worked it. He tried it again, exactly the same way.

The safe’s outer door opened. He leaned against the wall, sweating with relief. Done some damn little thing wrong, he thought. He wiped his nose on his sleeve before continuing, then gripped the safety razor blade by the edge and attacked the crack. The crack was wide enough to admit the blade, but it struck bottom after penetrating about half an inch, and he could feel nothing like a lock or a bolt. He tried forcing the blade to bend and find its way to the bolt. The blade broke. The hinges were constructed so that he could not get at them. He tried another blade, but this one broke as well, cutting his finger. He gave up and stood there leaning his forehead against the cool metal of the safe.

The thing now, did he leave here without the money, or did he stick around for a break? By God, he would stay, that was what he would do. He would lick the thing yet. He closed the safe and got in bed and pulled the sheet up around his neck.

There was an enormous amount of sunshine in the room when he awakened and felt in his mouth for the key. He wondered what would happen if he sneezed or something in his sleep and swallowed the key. How did one get a key out of one’s stomach? How about a magnet? He examined the key and saw it was brass, which was nonmagnetic. He had better find a place for the key, that was what he had better do.

A knock sounded on the door. Throwing the door open, Brother rolled in a small metal cart bearing breakfast, an omelet, coffee, and toast. Brother glanced at Harsh with an expression of dislike, and he did not speak. He left without having said a word.

Have to go back to the device of securing the key to his body somewhere with adhesive tape, Harsh reflected, since he was too damn dumb to think of another disposition for it. He couldn’t go around with the thing in his mouth. He went into the adjoining bathroom, which had a step-down tub, separate shower, ultra-violet light cabinet, and an electric massage device. He searched for adhesive tape, but was unable to find any. He wondered what you were supposed to do around here if you barked a shin, call a servant or something?

He went back and peered at the breakfast Brother had brought him. The omelet had bits of green herbage in it and he peered at this suspiciously, wondering if it was edible. He would not be a bit surprised to have Brother try to poison him, the way the bastard looked at him every time he came around.

He ate the toast and drank the coffee, then took a tentative bite of omelet. It tasted fine. It was better than any omelet he had ever eaten, in fact, as well as different.

He lay back, feeling stronger for having eaten, more relaxed, and sure he wasn’t licked yet on the safe problem. He would figure something. One way or another, he would get into that safe. And until he got the job done, he was not going to allow the safe out of sight if he could help it.

He wondered if he just lay there in bed and stared at the wall safe, how long it would be before something came into his head that would get the inner door of the thing open.

He watched the safe all that day.

He watched it most of the next night, tossing sleep-lessly.

The airliner from South America put down for its scheduled Caribbean refueling stop, taking on 100 octane gas, giving the passengers a few minutes to stretch legs and buy souvenirs. Mr. Hassam gained confidence he was not being trailed, watching the fellow travelers. But he would, he decided, stay with a policy of caution, not getting off at Miami, which was the short route to Brother’s home in Palm Beach, but going on to New York and doubling back. You never knew. Also Miami was dangerous. Many exiles, unfriendly to
El Presidente
, were in Miami, and since it was more or less known that he was a private courier for
El Presidente,
an embittered expatriate might take a shot at him just for the satisfaction. They were a bitter lot, those exiles, and they would like nothing better than to pot a treasury courier.

The stewardess offered to put Mr. Hassam’s large suitcase with the other passenger baggage.

“No, no, Miss.” Mr. Hassam shook his head firmly. “No, thank you.” He smiled at the stewardess and told her his little joke. “I have my life preserver with me in the suitcase, you know.”

Later the airliner skirted the east coast of Florida. It flew at high altitude but the day had crystal clarity, and Mr. Hassam was able to distinguish Brother’s mansion among the string of elaborate estates facing the sea near Palm Beach. He was very curious. What was the story down there, he wondered. Had Brother found their man, really?

The arrival in New York was uneventful. Mr. Hassam, never letting the suitcase out of hand, crossed New York City in a succession of taxicabs, entering a cab and riding thirty blocks or so and suddenly dismissing that cab to take another in a different direction, arriving eventually at Teterboro Airport across the Hudson River in New Jersey. Here he chartered a small fast plane to Pittsburgh, from which point he chartered another small plane to Palm Beach.

At Palm Beach, he took another taxicab. The suitcase rode in the seat beside him. He had not deposited the money in the New York bank. That would come later, after the matter of the fingerprints was settled. If they were going to add forged fingerprints to the forged signatures, then this shipment was as good a place as any to start.

Before leaving South America, Doctor Englaster, Miss Muirz, and Mr. Hassam had set up a pre-arranged meeting place. The Indian River Palms, a motel.

Mr. Hassam found Miss Muirz and Doctor Englaster at the Indian River Palms registered in different cottages. He did not ask them by what route they had arrived, and they did not question him.

“Have you contacted Brother?”

Doctor Englaster nodded. “By telephone, yes. We are to come out. He has the man here, he says.”

“How did he sound? I mean his mental health? Stable? You do not suppose this is all a delusion?”

“I do not know a better way to find out than to go out there.” Doctor Englaster was wearing his superior manner.

Brother himself unlocked the iron gate for them, running to them with outstretched hand. “Ah, my friends! My wonderful friends!”

Mr. Hassam watched him closely, for he halfway expected to find Brother as crazy as a loon. Brother hailing them as his wonderful friends did not bolster Mr. Hassam’s confidence, since Brother was notoriously unfond of Miss Muirz. But it developed Brother had not at first noticed Miss Muirz in the car. He brought up at sight of her, controlling himself with obvious effort.

Brother shook hands with Mr. Hassam and Doctor Englaster, but not Miss Muirz. “How are things at home?”

Doctor Englaster opened the car door for Brother to get in with them for the short ride to the house. “Getting ready to blow up with a bang from indications.”

“I gathered as much from the newspapers here. How much time do we have?”

“Who knows. The fuse is lit, that is sure. A few weeks at the outside, I would say, maybe less.”

“Time enough.” Brother waved them under the marquee at the house. “This man I have found, this Harsh, he is perfect. You shall see.”

“Does he know what he is to do? Have you told him?”

“Not yet. I wanted you to inspect him first.”

“Is Harsh cooperative?”

Brother gave a mirthless laugh. “I am making a cooperator out of the fellow. I gave him fifty thousand dollars to show him his pay, then took it away from him and locked it in the wall safe in his room. He has been lying there on the bed in his room for two days watching the safe like a mongrel dog trying to figure how to dig up a buried bone.”

Mr. Hassam exchanged glances with Doctor Englaster and Miss Muirz. Brother’s sanity might be questionable after all. Mr. Hassam felt a strong wish to meet this Harsh person. It might be that Brother’s method was exactly the one to work on Harsh, in which case it was sensible.

They encountered Vera Sue Crosby on the terrace. Brother had not planned the meeting. Beside the lounge chair on which Vera Sue lay was a Benedictine bottle and a glass, both in use. Vera Sue wore a dab of yellow sun-suit, and she was glad to see them, for she was lonesome. She was only a slight bit tipsy. She got up and shook their hands warmly when Brother introduced them as Señor Tomas, Señor Ricardo, and Señorita Maria, friends of his. Vera Sue was ignorant of Spanish and did not know he had presented them as Tom, Dick, and Mary, and she asked them to have a drink with her, which they declined.

“Oh, have a pick-up after your trip. I’m sure glad to see a new face around here. This place has been like a damn morgue.”

Brother declined for them, got Vera Sue back in the lounge chair with a glass in her hand, and they moved on. “She is Harsh’s
sillero.”
Brother’s lips curled with contempt. “A nothing.”