Flyaway / Windfall (32 page)

Hardin took the elevator to the lobby and crossed the street to the Irish bar where, in the past, he had spent more time than was good for either his liver or his wallet. He sat on a stool and said brusquely, ‘Double bourbon.’

Over the drink he brooded on his fate. Damn Gunnarsson! It had never been Hardin’s style to complain that life was unfair; in his view life was what you made it. Yet now he thought that Gunnarsson had not only been unfair but vindictive. Canned and out on his ear after five minutes’ conversation—the bum’s rush.

He viewed the future glumly. What was a man aged fifty-five with no particular marketable skills to do? He could set up on his own, he supposed; find an office, put some ads in the paper, and sit back and wait for clients—a seedy Sam Spade. Likely he’d have to wait a long time and starve while waiting. More likely he’d end up carrying a gun for Brinks or become a bank guard and get corns on his feet from too much standing.

And his car, goddamn it! He and his car were separated by three thousand miles. He knew that if he went back to Gunnarsson and reminded him of the promise to bring the car back to New York Gunnarsson would laugh in his face.

He ordered another drink and went over the events of the last few weeks. Gunnarsson
had
promised him a bonus if he cracked the Hendrix case, so why had he reneged on the offer? It wasn’t as though Gunnarsson Associates were broke—the money was rolling in as though there was a pipeline from Fort Knox. There had to be a definite reason.

Come to think of it the Hendrix case had been a funny one right from the beginning. It was not Gunnarsson Associates’ style to send a man freelancing all over the country—not when they had all those regional offices. So why had Gunnarsson handled it that way? And the way he had been fired was too damned fast. Gunnarsson had deliberately needled him, forcing an argument and wanting Hardin to blow his top. Any boss was entitled to fire a man who called him a cheapskate.

Dim suspicions burgeoned in Hardin’s mind.

His musings were interrupted by a hand on his shoulder and a voice said, ‘Hi, Ben; I thought you were on the West Coast.’

Hardin turned his head and saw Jack Richardson. ‘I was,’ he said sourly. ‘But how did you know?’

‘I had to call the Los Angeles office this morning. Wainwright said you’d been around. What’s your poison?’

‘Make it bourbon.’ So Wainwright couldn’t keep his big mouth shut after all. Richardson ran the files at Gunnarsson Associates; the records were totally computerized and Richardson knew which buttons to push. Now Hardin regarded him with interest. ‘Jack, did you hear any of the guys in the office beefing about me? Complaining of how I do my work, for instance?’

Richardson looked surprised. ‘Not around me. No more than the usual anyway. Everyone beefs some, you know that.’

‘Yeah.’ Hardin sipped his whiskey. ‘Gunnarsson canned me this morning.’

Richardson whistled. ‘Just like that?’

Hardin snapped his fingers. ‘Just like that. Took him about thirty seconds.’

‘Why?’

‘I called him a cheapskate for one thing.’

‘I’d have liked to have seen his face,’ said Richardson. ‘No wonder he fired you.’

‘I don’t think it was the reason,’ said Hardin, ‘I think it was something else. Could you do me a favour?’

‘I might, depending on what it is. Don’t ask for dough, Ben. I’m broke.’

‘Who isn’t?’ said Hardin feelingly, ‘I’d like you to ask your metal friend across the street for the name and address of the British lawyer who started the Hendrix case.’

‘The Hendrix case,’ repeated Richardson, and frowned. ‘Gunnarsson seems to be keeping that one under wraps.
He says he’s handling it personally. I don’t have any information on it so far.’

Hardin found that interesting but he made no comment. ‘But the details of the original letter from England should be in the files.’

‘I guess so,’ said Richardson without enthusiasm. ‘But you know how Gunnarsson is about security. The computer logs every inquiry into any case and Gunnarsson checks the log.’

‘He can’t check every log; he’d be doing nothing else.’

‘Spot checks mostly,’ admitted Richardson. ‘But if he’s handling the Hendrix case personally that’s one log he might very well check. I can’t risk it, Ben. I don’t want to get fired, too.’

‘For Christ’s sake!’ said Hardin in disgust. ‘You know enough about the computer to gimmick a log. You wrote the goddamn programs for the data base.’

‘What’s your interest in this?’

‘I’m damned if I know; I’ve got to do some hard thinking. There’s something wrong somewhere. I feel it in my bones. But, for your information, Gunnarsson isn’t handling the Hendrix case. I’ve been handling it, and I cracked it. Then I get fired. I’d like to figure out why I was fired.’

‘Okay, Ben; I’ll see what I can do,’ said Richardson. ‘But you don’t talk about this. You keep your mouth zipped.’

‘Who would I talk to? When can I have it?’

‘I’ll see what I can do tomorrow. I’ll meet you in here at midday.’

‘That’s fine,’ said Hardin and drained his glass. ‘This one’s on me. Then I’ll go clean out my desk like a good boy.’ He signalled the bartender, ‘I wonder what Gunnarsson’s idea of severance pay is.’

Gunnarsson’s idea of severance pay made Hardin madder than ever. He tried to complain but could not get past the acidulated spinster who guarded Gunnarsson’s office, and neither could he get through on the phone. Gunnarsson’s castle was impregnable.

But Richardson came up with the information he needed next day. He gave Hardin an envelope and said, ‘You don’t know where you got it.’

‘Okay.’ Hardin opened the envelope and took out a single piece of paper. ‘This isn’t a computer print-out.’

‘You’re damned right it isn’t,’ said Richardson, if Gunnarsson found a printout with that information floating loose he’d head straight for me. Is it what you want?’

Hardin scanned it. A London inquiry agency, Peacemore, Willis and Franks, requested Gunnarsson Associates to search for any living relatives of Jan-Willem Hendrykxx—Hardin blinked at the spelling—and to pass the word back. Hendrykxx was reputed to have married in South Africa and to have had two sons, one of whom was believed to have emigrated to the United States in the 1930s. There was also the address and telephone number of a lawyer in Jersey.

It told Hardin nothing he did not know already except for the unusual spelling of Hendrix, and the Jersey address
confused him until he realized that it referred to the original Jersey in the Channel Islands and not the state of New Jersey. He nodded. ‘This is it.’ There was something more. Peacemore, Willis and Franks was the British end of Gunnarsson Associates, a fact not generally known. It meant that Gunnarsson had been in it right from the start, whatever ‘it’ was. ‘Thanks. It’s worth a drink, Jack.’

If Hardin was mad at Gunnarsson he was also broke. He moved out of his apartment on the East Side and into a rooming house in the Bronx. It cost more in subway and bus fares to get into Manhattan but it was still cheaper. He wired instructions to San Francisco to sell his car and wire the money. He did not expect much but he needed the cash, and a car was a needless luxury in the city.

He carefully maintained his pipelines into the offices of Gunnarsson Associates, mainly through Jack Richardson, although there were a couple of secretaries whom he took to frugal lunches and pumped carefully, trying to get a line on what Gunnarsson was doing in the matter of Hank Hendrix. The answer, apparently, was nothing at all. Worse still, Hendrix had vanished.

‘Maybe Gunnarsson sent him to England,’ Richardson said one day.

‘You can check that,’ said Hardin thoughtfully. ‘There’ll be an expense account for the air fare. Do me a favour.’

‘Goddamn it!’ said Richardson heatedly. ‘You’ll get me fired.’ But he checked and found no record of transatlantic flights since Hendrix had arrived in New York. On his own initiative he checked for any record of medical expenses paid out for the treatment of Hendrix’s wound and, again, found nothing. He was a good friend to Hardin.

‘Gunnarsson is playing this one close,’ commented Hardin. ‘He’s usually damned hot on record keeping. I’m more and more convinced that the bastard’s up to no good. But what the hell is it?’

Richardson had no suggestions.

Probably Hardin would not have pressed on but for a genuine stroke of luck. Nearly a month had passed and he knew he had to get a job. His resentment at Gunnarsson had fuelled him thus far but an eroding bank account was a stronger argument. He had set aside enough for Annette’s next payment and that he would not touch, but his own reserves were melting.

Then he got a wire from Annette. ‘
GOT MARRIED THIS MORNING STOP NOW MRS KREISS STOP WISH ME LUCK ANNETTE
.’

‘Thank God!’ he said to Richardson. ‘Now some other guy can maintain her.’ Briefly he wondered what sort of a man this stranger, Kreiss, was then put the matter out of his mind. For he was now the master of unexpected wealth and his heart was filled with jubilation. ‘Now I can do it,’ he said.

‘Do what?’ asked Richardson.

‘I’m flying to England.’

‘You’re nuts!’ Richardson protested. ‘Ben, this obsession is doing you no good. What can you do in England?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Hardin cheerfully. ‘But I’ll find out when I get there. I haven’t had a vacation in years.’

Before leaving for England he flew to Washington on the shuttle where he renewed acquaintance with some of his old buddies in the Company and armed himself with some British addresses, and he visited the British Embassy where he ran into problems. No one knew much about Jersey.

‘They’re autonomous,’ he was told. ‘They have their own way of doing things. You say you want to know about a will?’

‘That’s right.’

‘In London a copy would be kept in Somerset House,’ said the attaché. ‘But I don’t think that applies to Jersey wills.’ He thought for a moment then his face lightened.
‘I do believe we have someone who would know.’ He picked up a telephone and dialled, then said, ‘Pearson here. Mark, you’re a Jerseyman, aren’t you? Yes I thought so. Would you mind popping in here for a moment?’ Pearson put down the telephone. ‘Mark le Tissier should know about it.’

And Mark le Tissier did. ‘Wills are kept in the Greffe,’ he said.

‘The
what
?’

‘The Greffe.’ Le Tissier smiled. ‘The Public Records Office. I had the same problem a couple of years ago. They’ll give you a copy.’

‘All I have to do is to go to this place, the Greffe, and ask?’

‘Oh you don’t have
to go.
Just drop a line to the Greffier. We’ll go into the library and dig out his address.’

So Hardin went back to New York and wrote to Jersey, giving as return address
poste restante
at the London office of American Express. A few days later he flew and the day he left from Kennedy Airport the rooming house in the Bronx in which he lived burned to the ground though he did not know about it until long after. Still, it could have been chance; there are, after all, whole blocks burned out in the Bronx.

In the employment of Gunnarsson Associates Hardin had learned how to travel light. He freshened up before landing at Heathrow in the early morning and cleared Customs quickly while the rest of the passengers were waiting for their baggage, then took the Underground into London where he registered at an inexpensive hotel near Victora Station. He then walked through St James’s Park towards the Haymarket where he picked up his mail.

He enjoyed the walk. The sun was shining and he felt oddly contented and in a holiday mood as he strolled by the
lake. It was true that it had been some years since he had taken a real vacation. Perhaps he had been getting in a rut and the split with Gunnarsson was to be good for him in the long run. He had little money and no prospects but he was happy.

After leaving the American Express office Hardin bought a street plan of London from a news vendor because, although he was no stranger to London, it was many years since he had been there. Then he went into a pub to inspect the single letter he had received. The envelope was bulky and bore Jersey stamps. He ordered a half pint of beer at the bar and took it to a corner table, then opened the envelope.

The will was seven pages long. Jan-Willem Hendrykxx had left £10,000 to Dr Morton, his physician, as a token of esteem for keeping him alive so long, £20,000 to Mr and Mrs Adams, his butler and housekeeper, and various sums of between £1,000 and £4,000 to various members of his staff, which appeared to be large.

Detailed instructions were given for the sale of his real property of which he had a plenitude; a house in Jersey, another in the South of France, yet another in Belgium, and a whole island in the Caribbean. The sums arising from these sales and from the sale of his other possessions were to be added to the main part of his estate. Hendrykxx had evidently been a careful man because the will was up-to-date and he had estimated the current market values of his properties. Thenceforth the terms were expressed in percentages; 85 per cent of his estate was to go to the Ol Njorowa Foundation of Kenya, and 15 per cent to be divided equally among his living descendants.

The name of the executor was given as Harold Farrar of the firm of Farrar, Windsor and Markham, a Jersey law firm. Hardin made a note of the address and the telephone
number. His hand trembled a little as he noted the size of the estate.

It was estimated at forty million pounds sterling.

Hardin drank his beer, ordered another, and contemplated what he had discovered. Hank Hendrix and Dirk Hendriks, if he was still around, stood to split £6 million between them. He translated it into more familiar terms. The rate of the dollar to the pound sterling had been volatile of late but had settled at about two to one. That made twelve million bucks to split between two if there were no other heirs and he knew of none, unless Dirk Hendriks had children. That dope-smuggling drop-out, Hank Hendrix, was a multi-millionaire. The main bulk of the fortune might be going to the foundation with the funny name but the residue was not peanuts.

Hardin smiled to himself. No wonder Gunnarsson had been so interested. He always knew the value of a dollar and would not resist the temptation to put himself alongside six million of them in the hope of cutting himself a slice. He had isolated Hendrix and that young man would be no match for Gunnarsson who could charm birds from a tree when he wanted to. Gunnarsson would cook up some kind of deal to guarantee that some of those dollars would stick to his fingers.

So what was the next step? Hardin walked to the corner of the bar where there was a telephone and checked the directory which lay on a shelf next to it. He turned to ‘H’ and found the Hendriks’s; there were more than he expected of that spelling, perhaps fifteen. He ran his fingers down the column and found ‘Hendriks, D.’ On impulse he checked the variant spelling of ‘Hendrykxx’ but found no entry.

He returned to his table and consulted the street map. The address was near Sloane Square and the map of the London Underground gave his route. He patted his jacket
over his breast pocket where he had put the will. Then he finished his drink and went on his way.

Coming up from the subway at Sloane Square he discovered himself in what was obviously an upper class section of London comparable to the 70s and 80s of Manhattan’s East Side. He found the street he was looking for, and then the house, and gave a low whistle. If Dirk Hendriks lived in this style he was in no particular need of a few extra millions.

Hardin hesitated, feeling a bit of a fool. He had found what he wanted to know—why Gunnarsson had been so secretive—and there was nothing in it for him. He shrugged and thought that perhaps Hank was in there with his cousin; the place looked big enough to hold an army of Hendrixes. He would like to see the kid again. After saving his life and ministering to his wounds he felt a proprietary interest. He walked up the short flight of steps to the front door and put his finger on the bellpush.

The door was opened by a young woman in a nurse’s uniform. Someone sick? ‘I’d like to see Mr Hendriks—Dirk Hendriks,’ he said.

The young woman looked doubtful. ‘Er…I don’t think he’s here,’ she said. ‘You see, I’m new. I haven’t been here long.’

Hardin said, ‘What about Henry Hendrix?’

She shook her head. ‘There’s no one of the name here,’ she said. ‘I’d know that. Would you like to see Mrs Hendriks? She’s been resting but she’s up now.’

‘Is she sick? I wouldn’t want to disturb her.’

The nurse laughed. ‘She’s just had a baby, Mr…er…’

‘Sorry. Hardin, Ben Hardin.’

She opened the door wider. if you come in I’ll tell her you’re here, Mr Hardin.’

Hardin waited in a spacious hall which showed all the evidences of casual wealth. Presently the nurse came back. ‘Come this way, Mr Hardin.’ She led him up the wide stairs
and into a room which had large windows overlooking a small park. ‘Mrs Hendriks; this is Mr Hardin.’ The nurse withdrew.

Mrs Hendriks was a woman in her mid-thirties. She was short and dark, not particularly beautiful but not unattractive, either. She used make-up well. As they shook hands she said, ‘I’m sorry my husband isn’t here, Mr Hardin. You’ve missed him by twenty-four hours. He went to South Africa yesterday. Do you know my husband?’

‘Not personally,’ said Hardin.

‘Then you may not know that he’s a South African.’ She gestured. ‘Please sit down.’

Hardin sat in the easy chair. ‘It’s not your husband I really want to see,’ said Hardin, ‘It’s Han…Henry Hendrix I’d like to visit with.’

‘Henry?’ she said doubtfully.

‘Your husband’s cousin.’

She shook her head, ‘I think you’re mistaken. My husband has no cousin.’

Hardin smiled. ‘You may not know of him. He’s an American and they’ve never met. Least, that’s what Hank told me. That’s how he’s known back home. Hank Hendrix; only the name is spelled different with an “X” at the end.’

‘I see. But I still think you’re mistaken, Mr Hardin. I’m sure my husband would have told me.’

‘They’ve never met. A few letters is all, and those some years ago.’ Hardin was vaguely troubled. ‘Then Hank hasn’t been here?’

‘Of course not.’ She paused. ‘He might have come when I was in confinement. I’ve just had a baby, Mr Hardin, and modern doctors prefer maternity wards.’

‘The nurse told me,’ said Hardin. ‘Congratulations! Boy or girl?’

‘I have a son,’ she said proudly. ‘Thank you, Mr Hardin.’ She reverted to the problem. ‘But Dirk would have told me, I’m sure, if a long-lost cousin had arrived out of the blue.’

‘I’m sure he would have,’ said Hardin sincerely, and his sense of trouble deepened. If Hank had come to England he would have certainly looked Dirk up; all it took was a phone book. Damn it, the Jersey lawyer would have certainly introduced them. Jack Richardson had checked that flight tickets had not been bought, so where in hell was Hank and what game was Gunnarsson playing?

His worry must have shown on his face because Mrs Hendriks said gently, ‘You look troubled, Mr Hardin. Is there anything I can do to help?’

Hardin felt the copy of the will in his pocket. At least that was real. He said, ‘Has Mr Hendriks heard from a lawyer about his grandfather’s will?’

Mrs Hendriks was astonished. ‘His grandfather! My husband’s grandfather died years ago in South Africa. Or, at least, I’ve always assumed so. Dirk has never mentioned him.’