Hard Case Crime: Honey in His Mouth (16 page)

Before they could mix drinks, Miss Muirz appeared in the doorway. “I was on the telephone.” She poured the liquor for them. “Gentlemen, I offer you a toast.” She raised her glass to the level of her eyes. “A toast to the great and illustrious leader of our nation, the accumulator of certain funds cached abroad, who is on his way out. In other words, I had a talk with
El Presidente
this morning.”

Doctor Englaster nodded. “How did you catch his attention, disguise yourself as a high-school student?”

Mr. Hassam kept all expression off his face, but he wished he had said that to her, he wished he had had the guts. He did not like her. He did not like her smug way of knowing everything before anyone else knew it, which was her specialty. Also he did not like Doctor Englaster.

Miss Muirz sank lazily onto a chair. “Thank you, Doctor. You make it easier for me to spoil your day. As I have it, he has resigned.”

Mr. Hassam moistened his lips with the tip of his tongue. “But news like that is not out anywhere.”

“I don’t think he has resigned.” Doctor Englaster made liquor swirl around and around in his glass. “He lacks that much sense. What do you say, Achmed, does he have that much sense left?”

“Good God!” Mr. Hassam was feeling weak. “We do not have Harsh ready to take his place.”

“He has resigned.” Miss Muirz did not blink her eyes. “He told me so himself. This morning.”

“Goddamn!” Doctor Englaster began to look as if someone had shut off his wind. “You mean this is not a joke?”

Mr. Hassam looked at Doctor Englaster in surprise, realizing for the first time that the Doctor had been treating the whole thing as a joke because he actually thought it was one. Why, the overbearing fool, Mr. Hassam thought. How could he be so stupid?

“The clique who ousted him is keeping it quiet until they have full control over the government.” Miss Muirz was almost too calm to suit Mr. Hassam. “El
Presidente
is in hiding.”

Mr. Hassam put his glass down quickly. “You talked to him?”

“Yes.”

“In person?”

“Yes, this morning. This afternoon again, by telephone.”

“Where is he hiding?”

“I do not know.”

“But if you talked to him in person...”

“That was at the palace, before he resigned. He had his resignation in his hand, carrying it around with him as if it was a monstrous thing. The way he looked at the paper. I felt so sorry for him.”

“But where is he hiding now?”

“I do not know.”

“The situation is serious, anyway.” Mr. Hassam was watching Miss Muirz closely, for he was becoming puzzled by her calmness, or rather her appearance of calmness. He suddenly decided she was not calm at all. She was rigid with tension, that was what she was. She was far more affected than any of them.

Doctor Englaster gestured jerkily. “What is that rat bastard planning to do? Throw us out in the cold?” His right hand was wet with spilled liquor.

Miss Muirz’s eyes were strangely blank. “Doctor, you are spilling your liquor.”

“That dirty double-crossing rat.” Doctor Englaster clenched a fist. “He could not have put off going into exile until we were safely ready to kill the son of a bitch and put Harsh in his shoes.”

Mr. Hassam was watching Miss Muirz at the moment, and he learned something. When Doctor Hassam mentioned murdering
El Presidente,
there were signs of a suppressed inner convulsion apparent with Miss Muirz. Mr. Hassam was shocked. Good God, she still loves the scoundrel, he thought.

Miss Muirz addressed Doctor Englaster quietly. “Stop howling childlike remarks, Doctor. I called you two gentlemen here to tell you why
El Presidente
telephoned me. This is the reason. He wants us to take his personal possessions out of the country.”

Mr. Hassam was not deceived by her quiet voice. Inside she was very tense. When it comes time to kill
El Presidente,
Mr. Hassam reflected, we must arrange it so she is not in the vicinity and better still does not know about it until the slaying is an accomplished fact. He did not trust women with the temperament of Miss Muirz to withstand emotional shock in any predictable fashion.

“What property?” Mr. Hassam showed interest.

“Paintings and his late wife’s jewelry.”

Mr. Hassam nodded, for the oil paintings were very desirable items, several having been purchased from the late Hermann Goering collection at the time the Third Reich was a going concern and in need of
El Presidente’s
friendship, and bought at a terrific bargain, while the jewelry had been accumulated by
El Presidente’s
late wife prior to her death, and it too was fabulous for she had felt compelled to outdo all the family jewels in the nation.

Mr. Hassam smiled. “Good. If he wants us to get the personal stuff out for him, it shows he intends to join us later.”

Doctor Englaster groaned. “Goddamn paintings and goddamn jewelry, chicken feed.”

Mr. Hassam glanced at him. “He paid two million for the paintings. She paid five times that for the jewelry. I happen to know the appraisal six months ago was nearly seventeen million. What chicken did you have in mind feeding, Doctor?”

Doctor Englaster belched. Mr. Hassam abruptly realized he was somewhat intoxicated.

“The oil paintings, the jewelry, will they be difficult to assemble?” Mr. Hassam looked inquiringly at Miss Muirz.

“No trouble. Actually it is all in a room in this house right now.
El Presidente
himself brought it here.”

Mr. Hassam went to the portable bar and began mixing another round of drinks. So that was what had gotten her worked up; the old lover had come running to her in his moment of need, arousing her mother complex or something. He wondered what would be aroused when they actually got ready to assassinate
El Presidente
. Suddenly he suppressed a shudder.

“I can supply transportation.”

“Very good, Mr. Hassam.”

“Where is
El Presidente
now?”

“I do not know. I told you that.”

“Oh, yes.” Mr. Hassam doubled the amount of liquor in each glass in the drinks he was making. “He may lie low. That would be the sensible procedure, go into sanctuary until the storm subsides.” He noticed that his own hand was shaking. “They will clamor for his blood, and he will know that.”

“Where would the rat hide?” Doctor Englaster’s voice was fuzzy.

“Well, there are the traditional sanctuaries, the monasteries and churches.” Miss Muirz accepted a drink with a hand which was very pale but also very steady. “However, there is also a Uruguayan gunboat in the harbor and
El Presidente
may seek sanctuary aboard her. He would be safest there. A mob might storm a church, or soldiers also. But a gunboat is diplomatically the home soil of its own nation, and no mob is going to tackle a gunboat, nor soldiers either.”

“Jesus! That is where he is now, then!” Doctor Englaster jerkily wiped his palms on a handkerchief. “Give me one of those drinks, Hassam. God, I need it. I was half drunk when I came over here, feeling something like this was going to fall on us.”

Mr. Hassam handed him one drink. “I suggest we get busy. I have a standby plane for an emergency, one I never use, and which nobody is aware I own.”

Doctor Englaster spilled some liquor on his chin. “How long do you think we have?”

Miss Muirz replied with the same unalterable calmness that was like an over-stretched still wire. “I doubt
El Presidente
can leave hiding in under two weeks. Particularly if he is aboard the Uruguayan gunboat, which I expect he is, it will require two weeks to unwind the diplomatic red tape surrounding such a thing.”

Mr. Hassam took a deep breath. “We may be able to get our plan in shape in two weeks.”

“I predict we have two weeks.” Miss Muirz’s breathing was very deep and regular. Too deep and regular, Mr. Hassam felt.

“God!” Doctor Englaster gulped down the last of his drink. “Why couldn’t the son of a bitch have waited a while to resign? He never did a decent thing for anybody in his whole life.”

On the morning of the third day after Mr. Hassam had departed in such haste for South America, Walter Harsh was awakened by someone banging on his bedroom door. The sun was not up and the room was in pale darkness. Harsh switched on the light and looked at the door to see if the two chairs he had wedged there were still in place. He had formed a habit of wedging chairs against the door when he retired in order to keep out anyone inclined to visit him while he was asleep, anyone who might be after the wall safe key. The knocking came from the door again. Harsh rolled out of bed, crossed silently to the wall safe, rested his cheek on the wall to get an eye as close to the surface as possible, and squinted to see if the match head was still in place between the oil painting and the wall. It was. The fist hammered the door. Harsh turned. “Who is it? What the hell, it’s the middle of the night!”

“It’s nearly daylight. Rise and shine, boy.” It was Mr. Hassam’s voice.

Harsh removed the chairs and opened the door. “Hiya, Hassam. You sure came back full of bubbles. Trip must have agreed with you.”

There were dark fatigue circles under Mr. Hassam’s eyes.

“You been running into a little trouble, Mr. Hassam?”

“Well, Harsh, we do not really know how serious it is. We cannot tell. But it is trouble, yes.”

“Is there anything I can do to help you out, Mr. Hassam?”

“Yes, there is, Harsh. You see, we do not have as much time as we thought we would have. I was wondering if you would mind helping speed it up?”

“I don’t mind anything reasonable. What did you have in mind?”

“If you will work very hard, Harsh, I can cram the necessary Spanish into you in a few days, I believe. Would you try it with me?”

“Sure, why not? Anything to break the monotony around here. You know it’s kind of dull, with Vera Sue down on me, the servants afraid to talk to me, and me afraid to talk to Brother.”

“I’m sure you can do it, Harsh.”

“Like I say, anything for a change. All I been able to find to do is sit on the beach and watch the airplanes go past overhead and the boats fool around on the ocean.”

Mr. Hassam glanced at his watch. “Let’s go down to breakfast. The morning news will be on the radio in a few minutes. I want you to listen to it with me.”

“Yeah? Something special on the radio?”

“There might be.”

They had breakfast on the dining terrace. It consisted of ham prepared with maple syrup and sausages so highly spiced they made Harsh’s tongue tingle. Mr. Hassam sent the servant for a radio and had it plugged in and placed on the table at his elbow. Mr. Hassam tuned in a station where the weather was on.

Harsh listened to the exaggerated version of the northern weather the Florida station was giving. Sleet, ice, snow, blizzards in New York, blizzards in Buffalo, worst cold wave of the year in Boston, St. Louis, and Los Angeles. Two deaths from freezing in Alturas, California.

“Hey, did you hear that, Hassam? In California—”

Mr. Hassam lifted a finger for silence.

The regular newscast had begun. They’d missed the beginning.

“
—throughout South America today is one of tight lips and mystery, but there is no doubt of it, the most controversial political figure of the hemisphere has fallen. Known by his people as
El Presidente,
the dictator is believed to have fled for safety to a Uruguayan gunboat now at anchor in the harbor of the capitol he has ruled with an iron hand—many say a corrupt hand —for two decades. A provisionary government guided by a junta of the military has taken over. Censorship is limiting all news, but the pattern of events is clear. If
El Presidente
is on the gunboat, as rumor has it, his enemies will surely demand that he be turned over to them for trial. Representatives of the Uruguayan government have so far refused to comment on the matter, but if the history of close relations between the countries’ leaders is a guide, any demand to turn over the man under their protection will be refused. Predictions are that the gunboat will remain in harbor for as much as two weeks while diplomatic discussions are pursued, but sources say
El Presidente
is as safe within its bulkhead as he would be in a foreign country. As one former government official told us earlier this morning,
‘El Presidente
has always been a man who could look after his own welfare
.’ ”

Harsh watched Mr. Hassam take in a deep breath and let it out. “Well, Hassam? Is it bad news or good news?”

“If we could be sure he is on that gunboat, it would be just fair news.”

“He is on the gunboat, Mr. Hassam. The man just said he was.”

“He said it was rumored that he was. It does not mean a thing.”

“They sounded pretty certain to me.”

“Well, I do hope you are right.”

“Where do you think he might be, if he ain’t on the gunboat?”

“I wish I knew. Your guess would be as good as mine, Harsh. He is a clever devil, in spite of the mess he is in now. He might be anywhere, Switzerland, Spain, Panama. He might be right here in Florida keeping his eye on us.”

“Yeah? Watching us, huh? Why would he do that?”

“El Presidente
has hidden a sizeable fortune in various foreign countries. We did the hiding for him, Harsh. We and
El Presidente
are the only ones who know where the money is. At a time like this, he might feel it well to watch us.”

“Yeah. I guess that’s what I would do if I was in his shoes, if I had been sucker enough to trust you people in the first place.”

Mr. Hassam smiled without much humor. “We spent years on it, Harsh. Building his confidence in us. Years, during which we never swindled him out of a cent.”

“I figured you had done something like that.”

“The reason I wanted you to hear the broadcast, Harsh, I wanted you to know we have no more than two weeks— if we even have that long.”

“Sure, I see that.”

“In no more than two weeks, you have to look, speak, think, act like
El Presidente.
You have to be him.”