Kaleidoscope (12 page)

He said, “I came to tell you that your friend Georges Verlag is not quite the respectable man you remember from your European past.”

She smiled. “I expected to hear this from you. You've heard from Europe?”

“Expected? You
knew
?”

She said quietly, seating herself on the couch opposite his, “I've been remembering him as he was in Antwerp: a large young man, a little stooped, and very shy. He liked my cooking but hardly spoke to me. I fear that I found him boring and looked no closer. . . . I was a nonpracticing psychic in those days, and there had been difficulties in my marriage.”

Pruden, thoroughly puzzled, said, “I'm not following this.”

She hesitated and then said, “I think you could be trusted, as a friend, not a policeman . . . I'd like you to see the letter I received from Georges Verlag yesterday, but only if you pledge silence.”

Aghast, he said, “Letter? from
Verlag
? and silence when all the police in Europe are looking for him?”

“Too
many
people looking for him,” and her gaze at him was so serious and stern that Pruden found himself saying, “All right, I can forget I'm a policeman
unless
—”

“Read it,” she said, and handed the envelope to him.

With a glance at the postmark he said, “
République
Algérienne,
I see . . . he's in Algeria, then?” Opening it he read, “ ‘My dear Marina, I was very touched that you remembered and recognized me in Trafton. You rescued me at a very, very dangerous moment and I owe you a life that I expect to be losing soon; in fact when you receive this I may already be dead. I want you to know that you did not rescue a dishonorable man on the subway that day; my work has been so highly confidential that only a very few in Europe know that I have been working undercover. To identify and report on the horrors perpetuated by greedy men in Kasengo. It would comfort me at the death I sense is waiting for me to know that you of all people not think ill of me. . . . Humbly, Georges V.' ”

Pruden placed the letter back on the table. “ ‘Humbly,' ” he repeated. “So all the accusations made of him have been deliberate, to protect him?”

She nodded. “It would seem so, yes. His letter has made me very sad for him, it touched me deeply.”

Pruden frowned. “It affected me as well, and if this is true,” he said, “and I feel it true, there will be two people who don't think ill of him.”

“But only two,” she reminded him sternly.

“Only we two,” he agreed. “Do you think he's still alive?”

“I don't think I'll ever know, do you? I certainly didn't ‘read' him very well in Antwerp, did I . . . too many difficulties, and my husband making reckless investments . . .” Her voice faded; she shook herself of regrets and firmly returned her attention to Pruden. “But my impressions are not blocked today, or in Trafton, and I think, my friend, that you have had a very angry day.”

He sighed. “It shows?” He told her of his contacting Joe Witkowski and of their visit to the Guardians of Eden that morning. “I'm angry, yes,” he admitted. “I'm angry because I'm very suspicious, and helpless because there's nothing that can be done without proof.” He shook his head. “I'm really quite fond of Faber-Jones and he's going to make himself sick with worry, and the chief rightly points out that nothing can be done without proof. Search warrants need proof.”

Madame Karitska looked thoughtful. “What sort of proof might be needed?”

“I wish I knew. Give me a search warrant— somehow—and I'd look for drugs, I'm sure they're there. Look for names, documents, records . . .”

“But they wouldn't dare keep records, would they?” she asked.

“Not if they're smart. Aside from sneaking in an undercover agent . . .” He shook his head. “They're too smart for that, too, I'm sure. Anyway, Joe's due to go back on Friday to wire the last room and I'm determined to go with him, with or without the chief's permission.” He glanced at his watch and gave a start. “Got to go, I'm meeting Jan for dinner.” He leaped from the couch and hurried to the door, where he suddenly stopped and turned to look at her. “We've still got a ‘Wanted' out on the man following Verlag that day when he tossed his attaché case to you.
That
remains Trafton's business, and a police matter, but we'll keep Verlag's name out of it.”

“Very sensible”—Madame Karitska nodded— “since I'm reasonably certain that he'd have killed Georges for those diamonds.” She added thoughtfully, “You might try Amos Herzog. When I described the man to Amos he thought it sounded like a man called Frankie the Ferret.”

Pr uden looked shocked. “You know Amos Her zog?”

She laughed at the expression on his face. “Yes, we're old friends.”

“Amos Herzog?”

“Good-bye, Pruden,” she told him firmly. “Say hello to Jan, and give her my love.”

11

Pruden managed the next day to corner the chief alone, which was no easy task since most of the building seemed to have been taken over by the FBI men who had poured into Trafton this week. Actually he found the chief in the men's room, where he asked if he might take Friday morning off from duty.

“A hell of a place to ask,” the chief told him indignantly.

“How else?” pointed out Pruden.

The chief sighed. “Okay, what is it that needs a morning off ?”

“No comment.”

He was looked at with suspicion. “Meaning that it's not a family emergency, nobody's died, but whatever you plan my answer would be no?”

Pruden grinned. “Exactly.”

The chief sighed. “Well, I'm going slightly crazy with this Brinks investigation, we all are, but you've done your share, so take the damn morning off. Give you a rest from checking every pickpocket and ex-criminal in the city, but be back by noon.”

“Yes, sir,” and Pruden left before he could change his mind.

And so, once again, but on Friday this time, Pruden made the trip to Joe's Electric, pondering this obsession that had overtaken him in regard to the Guardians of Eden. He simply couldn't rid himself of an uneasy feeling that he could only call instinct, and this was something that had served him well in the past. It was true that he'd found the place claustrophobic, if not downright spooky, but there was nothing he could pin down except for the fact that no one appeared to leave the Guardians of Eden . . . enter but not leave. He thought there had to be a
few
members among the many converts who became disillusioned or rebellious and who wanted to get out; the question was, did they discover they couldn't?

It was this that bothered him, because if this was true there had to be drugs to pacify the recalcitrant and tame any troublemakers. In his estimation the place ought to be raided if he could find proof of this.

Joe greeted him cheerfully, handed him a mug of coffee and said, “I'm impressed. You're a stubborn man.”

Pruden nodded. “And probably a damn fool, but let's go.”

On this day as they entered the house, led by the same young man in a brown robe, Pruden thought he must be wrong, after all, because through the window beyond the staircase he could see a dozen men of varying ages doing calisthenics on the rear lawn, a voice shouting, “one two three, one two three . . .”

“Not so quiet,” murmured Joe, grinning.

“No,” said Pruden.

The room on the top floor was next to the one that Joe had wired two days ago; it smelled of fresh paint, a desk had been brought in, and a stepladder leaned against one wall. Their escort nodded without speaking, and Joe began unpacking his tools while Pruden set up the ladder. Climbing the ladder Joe told him briskly, “Hand me the drill, will you?”

Pruden, somewhat more knowledgeable now, was able to identify and hand up tools to Joe, and take them down, and after forty-five minutes of this—his eyes on his watch—decided it was time to do some reconnoitering. “Off to the lavatory,” he told Joe, and Joe nodded, understanding.

Once in the hallway, Pruden passed three closed doors on his left and entered the lavatory on the right, where he flushed the toilet in case the walls had ears, and wondered which of the three doors opposite him in the hall he would dare to open.

Making his exit he confronted those doors, moved toward them, hesitated, and then as he stood there in his bright blue overalls emblazoned with JOE'S ELECTRIC, one of the three doors opened and a man in a brown robe and sandals walked out, gave Pruden's uniform a vague glance and headed for the staircase, but not before Pruden had clearly seen his face. Pruden watched him go in a state of shock, feeling literally stunned. He had hoped to glimpse Faber-Jones's daughter, he had hoped to find some hint of drugs, but he'd not expected
this
. He had to be wrong, had to be, but he knew he wasn't; he had just seen a man the police and the FBI had been hunting for nearly a week, and whose face was already appearing all over the country with the word
Wanted
on it.

It was the Brinks robber, John Mayfield.

And
here
, of all places?
This
was how he had so miraculously vanished?

Pruden stood rooted, his thoughts spinning in circles as he tried to puzzle this out. . . . Did Brother Robin know he was harboring a criminal? Surely he couldn't know that, yet there had to have been a car— something or some
one
—waiting near the Coronado Café to whisk Mayfield away, and that meant an accomplice . . . could that accomplice have been Brother Robin? Who
was
Brother Robin? Surely Mayfield couldn't be here at the Guardians of Eden without his cooperation. Had the two of them plotted the Brinks robbery together, or had Mayfield simply come to him as a disciple, offering a fortune?

Pruden found himself cynically recalling the list of Mayfield's friends whom they'd been interviewing, all their queries horribly wrong, always about a waitress or Mayfield's past, when they should have asked if Mayfield had ever mentioned the Guardians of Eden.

But who would have thought of
this
?

Hastily he returned to Joe, who gave him an odd glance and said, “You look like you've seen a ghost.”

“I have,” Pruden said grimly. “Nearly finished? We've got to get the hell out of here.”

“Okay with me,” Joe said, and packed up his tools and they quietly left.

Once in his own car Pruden turned on the siren and drove beyond the speed limit in his haste to reach headquarters. Leaving his car parked next to a No Parking sign he dashed into the building, and too impatient to wait for an elevator, took the stairs two at a time to the chief's office, where he told the fiercelooking secretary who guarded him, “Got to see him.”

She looked at him pityingly. “You know you can't, he's in conference with a man from the FBI, and why didn't you take the elevator; you look terrible, Lieutenant.”

“Sorry,” he said, and deaf to her protests, he strode past her and into the chief's office, startling the two occupants of the room.

His chief said sharply, “I gave strict orders—”

“I've found him,” blurted out Pruden.

The chief glanced at his companion apologetically, and to Pruden, with a sigh, said patiently, “Found who?”

“John Mayfield.”

If he had produced one reproachful glance and one furious glance, he was now rewarded by seeing one man jump to his feet and his chief's mouth drop open.

“What do you mean, you've found him?” demanded the chief.

“He's at the Guardians of Eden wearing a long brown robe and sandals.”

The FBI man said, “Guardians of
what
?” and turning to the chief, “What the hell is he talking about?”

“Are you sure?” asked the chief. “So that's where you went this morning! Did he see you?”

“He saw only my blue overalls, Joe's Electric,” he told him. “Uniforms are remarkably anonymous.”

“You'd better sit down,” suggested the chief, and with a nod to his companion, “This is Frank Johnson . . . Johnson, Lieutenant Pruden.”

The chief ordered coffee, and a serious discussion began.

Johnson said, “I'll want to see the house—a drive-by sighting—but give me a rough sketch of it now.”

“Right,” said Pruden, and with a sheet of paper and a pencil began to block out the shape and size of it. “According to my friend Joe, the electrician,” he explained, “it was once the Governor Stuyvesant mansion before someone eccentric bought it and jazzed it up. Joe was intrigued enough to look up its history in the library's Historical Room. There's a book there with pictures of it, inside and out.”

The chief nodded. “We can use that.”

Pruden had sketched while he talked and now handed it over, saying, “Here you are.”

“Hmmm,” murmured Johnson. “We could storm that place easily enough.”

Pruden said, “I wouldn't advise that.”

He received a cold glance. “May I ask why not?”

“That six-foot-high fence has an electric gate with an intercom. They'd be warned. I've seen Brother Robin and it's my belief . . .” He hesitated. “It's my belief that he's not one to give up easily, he's more likely to set the place on fire or blow it up, and the house is full of perfectly innocent converts who don't deserve to die—in fact by this time half of them may wish they'd never fallen for his propaganda of peace, community, love, and whatever he promised them.” He added politely, “And of course you'd never retrieve the Brinks money.”

The chief said, “That's quite a speech from Pruden, Johnson, I suggest you hear him.”

Johnson nodded. “I'm listening, and he has a point there.” To Pruden he added, “But it's John Mayfield we want, that's why we're here.”

Always the money,
Pruden sighed, and said dryly, “Your man can't afford to leave, you know that. I'd say he's there for a long, long time.”

“He could change his appearance and disappear in a week.”

“Do you really think Brother Robin would
let
him go?” asked Pruden. “There's a lot at stake here, and a lot of money involved, and Mayfield's hiding there with nearly a million in untraceable cash. . . . Given time, it's my guess Brother Robin will slip Mayfield an overdose of drugs and do away with him . . . kill him . . . unless Mayfield gets desperate and beats him to it. We're assuming the two are partners in a crime, and partners in crime usually move from triumph to greed; we've seen it happen.”

“True enough,” agreed Johnson. “One wonders if Mayfield knew what he was getting into, not to mention how they met . . . Brinks very thoroughly investigates their men.”

The chief wasn't interested in this. He said thoughtfully, “Aside from the gate, the house itself could have an interior alarm system; I'll have several of my men check every company in Trafton that installs interior alarms.” Pressing a button on his intercom he said, “Suzy, get me Swope and Margolies, and after that order me a plain car from the garage.” To Pruden and Johnson he said, “Margolies for the library, to photocopy all he can find on the layout of the mansion, and Swope to collect men to interview every company in the book that installs alarms . . .” He smiled one of his rare smiles. “Shall I order sandwiches and more coffee, gentlemen, while we wait?”

When they met again it was Saturday morning and they had accumulated more information. The hunt for Mayfield remained in place; Pruden agreed with the chief it was a waste of men, but word might somehow reach the Guardians of Eden if it became known the search had been called off. Swope and his men had found no sign of any central alarm systems having been installed. “They must depend on the fences,” he told the chief. The book from the library was far more helpful than expected; besides photos there was an actual diagram of the first floor, the rooms labeled maid's room, changing room, library, front parlor, back parlor, kitchen and pantry, mudroom, butler's pantry.

Johnson, his mind relentlessly on the Brinks money, studied the diagram with interest. “I'd guess this smaller room at the back is where you'd find the safe. It's human nature, safes being as heavy as they are, to establish them on the first floor rather than to use pulleys and five or six men to haul them upstairs. At least we can hope that's where it is.”

This did not noticeably cheer up the chief, who said sardonically, “So all we need is a safecracker.”

Johnson nodded. “And a real pro. I know of a firstrate man for the job but unfortunately he's on assignment in San Francisco. I can think of one or two others but it needs a real gift, this job, and we can't take any chances. Have anyone in your police force?”

The chief sighed. “Only gifted amateurs, but for a job like this . . . Of course we have in Trafton the famous—or infamous—Amos Herzog. He did some lecturing for you some years back, didn't he?”

Johnson said dryly, “A relic from the days when jewel thieves were actually considered heroes if they outwitted the police and didn't carry guns. Yes, I believe he gave a lecture or two some time ago, and then I gather he felt he'd done enough to amuse us and retired.
Really
retired.”

Pruden heard this with fresh interest, still reeling from Madame Karitska's calm announcement that he was a friend of hers. He said politely, “I've read some of his books.”

“He'd be the one if we could get him,” said the chief. “Would a little blackmail bring him out of retirement? or a few subtle threats?”

“Maybe, just maybe,” said Pruden, “how about a
friend
of his?”

“Such as?” countered the chief.