1979 - A Can of Worms Read online

  Nick, his eyes bugging, took her from us and laid her across the back seat. Coldwell pushed in the suitcase, then stood back.

  “Let’s go,” I said as I dropped into the seat beside Nick.

  “Man! I saw it all!” he exclaimed as he gunned the engine. “I wouldn’t have missed it for the world!”

  I wasn’t listening. As the chopper lifted, I turned around to look at Nancy. Her face was white, her eyes closed.

  So far, fine, I thought. She hasn’t recognized me, but she surely must when she is out of shock. Play one card at the time. At least, you have established the fact that it was you who rescued her.

  It took less than ten minutes for Nick to land on the Spanish Bay hotel helicopter pad. As he switched on the landing lights, I could see Mel Palmer, a nurse and two white coated interns, waiting.

  As the chopper grounded, Nancy stirred, then sat up.

  “What’s happening?” she demanded shrilly. “Where am I?”

  I turned to face her. The light in the cabin was strong enough to light both our faces.

  “Mrs. Hamel, you are safe,” I said. “You’re at the Spanish Bay hotel and Mr. Palmer is waiting to take care of you.”

  She stared fixedly at me.

  “Who are you?”

  “The guy who rescued you,” I said, and gave her my boyish smile, but I was puzzled. It was hard to accept that she didn’t remember that time when we had sat facing each other on the terrace of the Country Club when I had tried to put the squeeze on her, but I could see she didn’t remember, and I began to relax. “You have nothing to worry about. You are now safe.”

  Nick opened the door of the chopper. I slid out. Nancy got unsteadily to her feet. Nick helped her descend and I took over. She leaned against me as Palmer came fussily up.

  The two interns took over. I stepped back to give Palmer room to go into his soothing act.

  For tonight, there was nothing more I could do. I watched her being led across the roof with Palmer murmuring. Then at the elevator that would take them down to the penthouse, she abruptly turned.

  “Where’s my bag?”

  The strident, urgent snap in her voice was a complete give away. Up to this moment, she had had me fooled, but that snap in her voice sent a cold prickle up my spine. That wasn’t the voice of a woman who had just lost her sister, just lost her husband, a woman everyone described as ‘nice.’ This was the voice of a dangerous, ruthless terrorist! For a long moment, I stood still, absorbing the shock.

  Then my brain moved into action. Here was the answer to the puzzle why this woman I had thought was Nancy hadn’t recognized me. Lucia Pofferi had never seen me! So how could she recognize me? Into my mind flashed the picture of the woman I had thought was Lucia, staggering out of the ranch house, screaming: Don’t shoot! Lucia had sacrificed her sister in a ruthless attempt to escape!

  She had strapped live grenades to Nancy’s hands, then kicked her out into the open, knowing when the grenades exploded, her sister’s body would be a mess of broken bones and flesh, obliterating her hands and her finger prints.

  But this gruesome escape plan had come apart at the seams. Lucia had made two fatal errors: she had failed to recognize me because she had never seen me, and the suitcase she had packed was so important to her, she had let her mask slip.

  I forced myself to call, “It’s all right, Mrs. Hamel. I’m bringing it.”

  The two interns closed around her. They and Palmer entered the elevator cage with her.

  Nick handed down the suitcase.

  “That’s it, Nick, and thanks. Don’t say a word to the press.”

  “It’s been a ball,” Nick said, grinning. “Man! This is something to tell my grandchildren.”

  I crossed over to the elevator, paused until he had taken off, then tried to open the suitcase. It was locked. Using the barrel of my gun, I forced open the locks: Among the clothes, I found a .38 revolver, two hand grenades and a chequebook. Squatting on my haunches, I examined the chequebook. Every cheque in the book carried Nancy Hamel’s signature. Staring at the book, I realized the book was worth millions of dollars. I put it in my jacket pocket, then I hid the revolver and the grenades in the gutter, surrounding the roof. I carefully re-fixed the locks, then I took the elevator down to the penthouse floor.

  I found Mel Palmer, looking miffed, standing outside a door in the corridor.

  “Mr. Anderson,” he said. “She wants her bag.”

  “I bet she does,” I said.

  “I don’t understand it” he went on, a plaintive whine in his voice. “She refuses medical care. She said she wanted to be alone. After all the trouble I have taken to arrange for her comfort! She actually pushed me out!”

  That I could understand.

  “I’ll give her the bag,” I said. “She has had a great shock. The best thing for her is to get some rest.”

  “It’s nearly dawn!” he exclaimed. “I also need rest! I have commitments today! I am going home.”

  “The best place, Mr. Palmer,” I said, giving him my sincere smile. “As soon as I have given Mrs. Hamel her bag, that’s where I’ll be heading.”

  I watched him walk to the elevator, then I loosened my gun in its holster, then tapped on the door.

  “Your bag, Mrs. Hamel,” I said.

  The door jerked open.

  The woman I was now sure was Lucia Pofferi stared at me. Her face had a boney, scraped look: her eyes were glittering.

  “Put it down,” she said, taking a step back.

  I moved forward and placed the bag just inside the room.

  “Thank you,” she said. “Now leave me.”

  With the heel of my shoe, I shoved the door shut. As I did so, I drew my gun and levelled it at her.

  “Take it easy, baby,” I said. “Don’t try anything tricky.”

  She cocked an eyebrow.

  “So, who are you?”

  “The name’s Bart Anderson.”

  Watching her, I saw her eyes narrow. The nickel had dropped. Diaz must have told her my name: possibly Nancy also.

  “Bart Anderson?” A thin, viperish smile touched her lips. “Of course, the blackmailer. How did you get on the scene?”

  “It’s my business. Let’s sit down, baby, we have much to talk about.”

  She shrugged, then walked over to a big settee and sat down. She crossed her legs and leaned back, regarding me.

  She looked as attractive as a coiled cobra. I took a chair well away from her and I kept the gun pointing at her.

  “How does it feel to murder your sister?” I asked.

  “That ninny? Why not? She was a useless birdbrain. Aldo agreed she should take my place. I am important to our movement. She was nothing.” Her eyes moved to the suitcase. “I see you’ve broken the locks. Did you get the chequebook?”

  “I have it.” I smiled at her. “The hardware is up on the roof.”

  She nodded.

  “So let’s not waste time,” she said. “How much do you want?”

  Still keeping her covered, I took out the chequebook and waved it at her.

  “I’ll settle for a million. That leaves you plenty. Let’s work it this way: I keep the cheques. You stay here. I’ll write four cheques for two hundred and fifty thousand. When the loot has been transferred to my bank, I’ll give you the book. It’ll take a week or so. Then I’ll help you get away. There’s the yacht, baby. I’ll find a crewman and one dark night, you take off for Cuba. Like the idea?”

  Her face remained a stony mask.

  “Yes, I like it,” she said finally, “but suppose after you have had your payoff, you drop out of sight?”

  “There’s that,” I said, giving her my boyish smile. “I guess you’ll have to trust me.”

  She shook her head.

  “I have a better idea. Take four of those cheques and give me the rest. I’ll stay here a week to give you time to get your share, then I’ll start cashing my cheques. Anything wrong in that?”

  I once again began
to dream of owning a million dollars, and when I begin to dream about money, I lose concentration.

  “Fine with me,” I said, and did a fatal thing. I was sitting well away from her, so I put my gun on the arm of my chair and began to count out four cheques. While doing this, I took my eyes off her: another fatal mistake.

  Then as she moved, I dropped the chequebook and grabbed for my gun, but I was much too late.

  She had a gun in her hand and was shooting before my fingers touched my gun. She must have had the gun hidden down the side of the settee.

  I felt a thud against my chest, then saw the gun flash, then heard the bang, and that’s all I did see and hear.

  My million dollar world exploded into darkness.

  * * *

  I wasn’t allowed to see any visitors for a week. I lay in a hospital bed, feeling sorry for myself and being attended to by a middle-aged nurse who was as sexy as a dead starfish. From time to time, the surgeon would come in and congratulate himself on saving my life. He had a laugh like a hyena: he looked like a hyena.

  While I lay in bed, I did some thinking. It looked as if I was back on square 1, and once I was up and about again, I would have to begin my dreary life, working for the Agency. I asked the nurse what had happened. She said she didn’t know: just looking at her, I wasn’t surprised. She was the type who worked in her small circle and let the world go by. So I just lay there and wondered until my first visitor arrived: Lu Coldwell.

  As he drew up a chair and sat down, he said, “You had a lucky escape, Bart. What happened?”

  “I gave her her suitcase,” I said. “Then as I was leaving, she pulled a gun and shot me.”

  “What the hell did she do that for?”

  “You ask her. Don’t ask me.”

  “The shot was heard. The hotel dick went up to investigate, and she shot him. Then she took the elevator down to the lobby and walked out, carrying the suitcase and the gun in her hand. You can imagine the commotion!

  A patrol car was passing, spotted her, carrying a gun, pulled up and she started shooting. They cut her down. She was dead on arrival.”

  “She must have gone berserk,” I said.

  “She was Lucia Pofferi. Nancy Hamel died at the ranch house.”

  So it is over, I thought. No million, back to the treadmill.

  “The way I figure it is this . . .” Coldwell said, and went on to tell me what I could have told him. I didn’t bother to listen.

  When he was through, the nurse came in and said I should rest. Coldwell said he hoped I’d be around again soon and took himself off.

  No one came near me for the next week. I led a lonely life. I hoped Bertha might at least send flowers: nothing from her. She was now probably married to her Fink and cruising somewhere in his yacht. I was sitting up in a chair by the time I had my second visitor. It was Chick Barley. He came in, carrying a bottle of Cutty Sark.

  “Hi, Bart! How are they hanging?”

  I dredged up a brave smile and accepted the bottle.

  “I’m making progress,” I said. “Good of you to come. No one else has bothered.”

  “Yeah.” He began to wander around the room, and I could see he had something on his mind.

  “Any news of Bertha?” I asked, hopefully.

  “She got married. She’s gone off to Europe for the honeymoon. The guy she married is loaded with the green.”

  I felt even more depressed. I watched Chick move around the room, hands in his pockets, a frown on his face.

  I felt sure he was full of bad news.

  “What’s biting you, Chick?” I said. “Something on your mind?”

  “Robertson’s Law Index,” he said, pausing in his prowling. “You have a copy . . . right?”

  I gaped at him.

  “Yeah. God knows why I bought it. I’ve never looked..”

  “The Colonel left his copy at home, and started yelling for one. I remembered you had a copy, so I dug it out of your Scotch drawer and gave it to him.”

  “Okay, so you gave it to him. So what?”

  Then my heart gave a bound and I felt cold. I remembered I had put a copy of my blackmailing statement about Pofferi, the pirates’ island and the Alameda which I had hoped would screw a hundred thousand dollars out of Nancy Hamel in that book. The statement hadn’t been in an envelope! The Colonel would have read it! The Colonel was nobody’s fool. He would know I had been on the scene at the beginning, and why.

  I saw Chick was regarding me.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “How was I to know? Glenda told me to tell you. Jesus, Bart! How could you have done such a goddamn thing?”

  “Yeah.” Cold sweat was running down my back, “I am a dope. It looked good, Chick.”

  He grimaced.

  “Blackmail never looks good. Now, listen, the Colonel isn’t taking police action. He told Glenda if he did, the stink would smear the Agency’s image.”

  I began to brighten.

  “The Colonel’s smart.”

  “Yeah, he’s smart, but Bart, he’s cancelled your licence, and he has put out the word. No one’s going to touch you. I’m sorry, but that’s the way it is.” He stuck out his hand.

  “So long, Bart, and the best of luck.”

  When he had gone, I sat staring out of the window, down at the busy Paradise Avenue. I felt scared. Without a licence, I would now be way out on the unemployment limb.

  Man! Was I depressed!

  Later, the surgeon came in, grinning like a hyena. He said I could go home in a couple of days. I would have to take it easy, but in a month, I would be as good as new.

  That I knew I wouldn’t be. Left alone, my mind was like a frightened squirrel in a cage. I had about two thousand dollars between me and the bread line. I had the hospital charges to meet. I would have to hunt for a job.

  I stewed for two days and two nights, scarcely sleeping.

  I found no solution as to how I could earn the money I needed to live up to my standards.

  Chick, my loyal pal, had sent over a suitcase of my clothes from my apartment, and he had parked the Maser outside the hospital. He also enclosed an envelope containing a fifty dollar bill with a note: For the last time. I’ll miss financing you, old pal.

  I drove back to my apartment, feeling lower than a snake’s belly. I opened the front door, then paused. The big living room looked like a florist’s shop: flowers everywhere. There was a small banner stretched across the overmantel that read: WELCOME BACK HOME, YOU

  HEEL.

  I crossed the room and threw open my bedroom door.

  There was Bertha, naked as the back of my hand, lying seductively on my bed.

  “You were shot, huh?” she said.

  Was I glad to see her!

  “I was shot.” I closed the door.

  “Where?”

  I grinned at her.

  “Not where you think,” and I began to toss off my clothes.

  Twenty minutes later, we lay side by side. Bertha kept running her fingers through my hair, making soft moaning noises. If that was her afterplay, I went along with it, but already my mind was nibbling at my future.

  “Bart, darling,” she said. “I am now sure I can’t go along with Theo.”

  I patted her bare bottom.

  “Theo?”

  “My husband.”

  “For God’s sake! Is that his name?”

  “Theo Danrimpel: the fink with the millions.”

  I sat up.

  “You mean you married that guy! He’s as rich as Ford!”

  She pushed me back, leaned over me and began to nibble my ear.

  “I married him, honey, but you can’t imagine! I know you are a heel, but what a lovely heel! I need you. I can’t live with a fink who just sits and watches. A girl must have her own, intimate life.”

  “That I can understand, but how would I fit in?”

  “How would you like to live in Palm Springs, honey?

  Theo has a big estate. There is a gorgeous little co
ttage for you. Theo knows I need a boyfriend. He’s marvellously understanding. How about it?”

  Suddenly the clouds lifted, the sky was blue again and the sun shone.

  As a status symbol, a gigolo was way ahead of a blackmailer.

  Me, Bertha and Theo were about to begin a beautiful, lush-plush partnership.

  If I played my cards right (and Man! I was certainly going to play them right!) I was now not going to starve.

  The End