One Minute Past Eight (19 page)

“Coming.”

Then the light glowed in the hall and Julio came scurrying in holding a glass which had a light-brown tint.

“There is a little brandy with the water,” he said. “Just a little. It will be good for you.”

Karen accepted the glass and whispered her thanks. She took a small sip and then another. She moistened her lips, flexing them slightly, and then she took a big swallow and sighed.

“Yes,” she said. “I needed that very much.”

Jeff told her to drink some more and when she had complied he could contain his curiosity no longer.

“Was it Miranda?” he asked.

“Miranda?” She looked at him and blinked. “Oh, no. Spencer.”

Jeff glanced at Cordovez. It took him a long moment to accept the statement and then, perhaps because he could not so easily throw off the nervous tension which had for so long held him in its grip, he felt strangely annoyed and spoke sharply.

“I told you not to follow him,” he said. “You promised.”

“I didn’t.”

“You said you’d phone.”

“I was going to but”—she paused to look down at the glass and her tone was apologetic—“I—I wanted to tell you myself. I didn’t know he had seen me. I was going to get a cab and drive right out to the apartment. I came out of the office and started up the street and Spencer came up alongside me—I didn’t know who it was then—and put what felt like a gun in my side.”

She went on hurriedly to explain what had happened and when she ran out of breath she took another and said, her tone rueful:

“It wasn’t even a gun. It was a pipe.”

“Where did he take you?”

“To his place. He locked me in a closet and I heard him talking on the telephone and pretty soon a man came. I don’t know who he was but he was big and he had a hard, twisted face. He scared me. They brought me out here. Spencer did not believe anyone would think to look for me here and—”

Jeff swore softly as rage kindled inside him. “We’ll take care of Spencer.”

“He didn’t hurt me. He said he was sorry but he had to do it.”

“He tied you up,” Jeff said hotly. “You might have been here for days.”

“No,” she protested. “Really, he said he would mail an anonymous letter to Ramon Zumeta telling him where to find me. He said I’d have to stay here tonight but the police would come in the morning to release me. By that time he would be in New York.”

“Not now, he won’t,” Jeff said.

“Yes,” Cordovez said. “It is time to go, I think. It is better if we are waiting at Maiquetia when Spencer arrives.”

Cordovez explained the procedure when they drew up at the edge of the well-lighted plaza in front of the terminal building.

“We will park here and watch,” he said as he stepped from the car. “He will probably come in a taxi, which will stop somewhere in this area. It will be good if we can take him before he can reach the building.” He opened his coat and his hand slipped inside, and though Jeff could not see it, he knew there was a gun tucked away somewhere. “If you will permit it,” Cordovez added, “I think I can handle this myself.”

“To hell with that,” Jeff said.

“Pardon.”

“You take care of the taxi driver. If you talk fast you can keep him quiet. Spencer is mine.”

He felt the girl’s hand on his arm. “Maybe Julio’s right,” she said.

“I don’t care if he’s right or not,” Jeff said. “This time old Jeff gets into the act.”

He moved up alongside Cordovez and as he did so the detective hissed softly and lifted one hand.

“I think he has arrived,” he said, pointing to a taxi that had stopped about fifty feet away. “Yes. Come,” he said and started moving fast.

Jeff stayed with him, seeing the driver step down and start for the trunk at the rear. On the opposite side, in the shadows, a man alighted and Jeff veered that way. For an instant the lights bothered him and then he was safely past them, certain now that the man was Dan Spencer. He had a blue flight bag in one hand and as he started to turn toward the rear where the driver was unlocking the trunk, Jeff called to him.

“Hey, Spence!”

The man wheeled, head slightly bent as he peered through the darkness. Jeff was still fifteen feet away but moving fast and now, as Spencer’s hand whipped back under his coattail, he closed with a rush.

He saw the hand come round, the metallic gleam of reflected light on a gun barrel but by that time he was close enough and he moved with confidence. This was what he wanted. This was what he had been waiting for, He grunted happily as he grabbed the gun barrel before it leveled off.

He heard Spencer’s muffled curse, heard the flight bag drop as the reporter swung at him. After that it was no contest. For Spencer was a powder-puff. Six feet tall and ill-conditioned, he would have weighed no more than a hundred and forty in a winter suit, and when Jeff, in close now, hooked his right against the bony chin, that was it.

The gun came free in his hand as Spencer sagged against him, Jeff held him that way, pocketing the gun and then reaching for the flight bag. When he had it, he turned the reporter about, half supporting him, half leading him as he moved on wobbly legs. What happened between Cordovez and the driver, Jeff never knew, but as usual the little man handled his assignment with dispatch. By the time Jeff had pushed Spencer into the front seat, Cordovez appeared, lugging the heavy suitcase. Seconds later he was behind the wheel and gunning the motor, with Spencer beside him, while Jeff sat in back with Karen.

Once on the highway, Jeff reached down and opened the zipper on the flight bag. His fingers found the Manila envelope at once and when he began to probe the contents he could feel the packets of bills inside. He glanced ahead at Spencer, who was sitting up now, his gaze fixed on the windshield.

“This wraps you up, Spencer,” he said.

“How does it?” the reporter said glumly.

“Harry Baker was killed for this money. You’ve got it.”

“I didn’t take it from Baker.”

“Who did?”

“Luis Miranda.”

“But you knew Miranda had it.”

“Sure I knew it.”

“Somehow Grayson also knew Miranda had it,” Jeff said, trying to sort out the things he knew and the things he had heard. “He made Miranda return it yesterday afternoon. You knew that too.” When there was no reply, he said: “You’d better make it good, Spencer; you haven’t got much time.”

There was still no answer and now Jeff tried to fit this new information into the bits and pieces already in mind. The guess he finally made was well considered and proved to be accurate.

“You’re the one who made that phone call.”

“What phone call?”

“Someone called from Harry Baker’s room the night he was killed at seven minutes after eight. The police assumed Baker had made the call until they discovered his spine had been shattered, which made a call like that impossible. You said Miranda took the money.”

“He did.”

“But he didn’t make the call. I saw him out in front of the hotel,” Jeff said. “He stopped to speak to my driver. When I got to the desk it was eight minutes after eight, so Miranda couldn’t have been in Baker’s room a minute earlier.”

“Aye!” The word came from Cordovez accompanied by a slapping sound. The detective had clapped his palm to his forehead.

“What’s the matter?”

“Julio Cordovez is an imbecile,” the little man said. “Aye, to be so stupid… I have seen Luis Miranda come out,” he said. “I told you I was waiting there at Señor Baker’s instruction. I saw you arrive, and Miranda. But I also saw Miranda come from the hotel a minute earlier and put an envelope in his car. I never think this can be big enough to hold all that money. I do not think at all.”

“You hear that, Lane?” Spencer said. “Satisfied?”

“That Miranda took the money, yes. But you made the call. You were in his room.”

“All right,” Spencer said resentfully, “I’ll tell you,… Sure I was in the room. I knew about the payoff. Grayson had a lot of fun telling me. He said I’d been on his back for a weekly payment and now he was getting clean with Vegas and clearing out and he hoped I starved to death.

“I asked for the assignment at the hotel so I could see what happened. I saw Grayson give the envelope to Baker. I was waiting when Baker came down later and left the key at the desk before he went into the bar, so I stepped up and palmed it. I went upstairs and started looking for the envelope and I hadn’t hardly started when I heard somebody at the door. I just had time to duck into the closet when in walks Miranda. I can’t figure why he wants the money but that’s the way it is.”

“Never mind,” Jeff said as he remembered the reason Muriel Miranda had given him. “What’s the rest of it?”

“He starts going through the drawers and comes up with this gun. He has it in his hand and is trying to pick the lock on the suitcase and Baker walks in on him.”

“He’d come back to get his wallet,” Jeff said.

“I guess so. Anyway, Miranda starts to apologize. He says he’s in the wrong room, but Baker won’t go for it. He don’t know Miranda. To Baker the guy’s a thief and he moves up and makes a grab for the gun and it goes off. Miranda takes his keys. He opens the suitcase and takes off with the envelope and I don’t dare make a move because I know he’ll plug me too.”

He swore softly and took a breath. “There I am, maybe going to get mixed up in murder, and I haven’t even got the dough. I don’t know Baker couldn’t make a call, so I take a chance. I dial Grayson’s place and luckily I get him. I pretend I’m Baker. I say, ‘Miranda’s got the money,’ and hang up.”

Jeff believed this much as he recalled the session in Pedro Vidal’s private office. Grayson had called Miranda before he came to
Segurnal.
But later the lawyer had walked out on him in spite of Grayson’s annoyance.

“You figured Grayson would force Miranda to return the money,” he said.

“I knew he would. He had to have the cash with this hotshot from Vegas in town. But I wouldn’t stand a chance of getting that envelope from Miranda. I had to stir up some trouble and hope. I followed Miranda all the next day,” he said. “And at that you nearly loused it up for me.”

“How?”

“You were there, across the street. Miranda had to park a couple of blocks away, but I had a cab. I knew where he must be going so I was ahead of him. Remember when I asked you to have a beer, how I swung you round so your back was to the street? Well, if I hadn’t, you’d have seen Miranda go into the building. Boy, was that a break when you turned down that beer?

“The minute you started down the street I went up there. I hoped there’d be trouble that might give me a chance, and there was. I inched the outer door open and Miranda was beating the hell out of Grayson. I ducked behind the door when he came out and when I went in again there was Grayson dead on the floor and there was the envelope on the desk.”

“Miranda didn’t have any further use for it,” Jeff said.

“I don’t know about that,” Spencer said. “All I know is, it was there and I grabbed it and got out. I hotfooted it to the office and shoved it under some papers in my desk drawer.”

Jeff snapped on the dome light and examined the envelope. The return address of Grayson Enterprises had been printed in one corner. The top had been sealed and three strips of Scotch tape had been added for security. A hole had been torn in one side, but this had also been taped shut.

Jeff began to work on the tape. It took him quite a while before he had the envelope open but when he looked inside he could see the packets of orange-colored bills neatly contained by paper bill straps. There were eight of these and he picked up one of them, noting the figure on the bill strap and the five-hundred-bolivar bills on top and bottom.

He riffled through that packet, stared, did it again. He sat back, dropping the bills back into the envelope. After a moment he swore softly and Karen Holmes stirred beside him and touched his arm.

“What is it, Jeff?” she asked. “It’s the money, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” he said. “It’s money all right.”

“We are nearly there,” Cordovez said. “We go to Miranda’s?”

“We go to Grayson’s.”

Cordovez started to turn his head, thought better of it, and resumed his driving, swinging uphill a minute or two later and coming to a stop in the front of the familiar low-slung ranch house.

“You will want me?” Cordovez said.

“We’ll all go,” Jeff said, and led the way, with Spencer in front of him and Karen by his side.

He did not pay any attention to Cordovez, knowing that he was bringing up the rear. He did not bother to investigate the odd sound that came from behind as the door opened and Dudley Fiske registered his surprise. He saw Fiske move out of the way as Spencer advanced. Karen entered and so did he. Only then did he notice that Fiske had stepped back, that his bespectacled eyes held a startled look. By the time he turned to look behind him Carl Webb had the situation well in hand.

“Into the living-room,” he said. “All of you.”

Julio Cordovez had stopped just across the threshold. His chin had sagged and his expression was sheepish and embarrassed. His raised hands testified to the gun in his back, and as Jeff watched, Webb reached under the detective’s coat and removed the revolver. He gave Cordovez a forward push and shouldered the door shut.

“O. K, little man,” he said, “Find a chair somewhere and behave yourself.”

DIANA GRAYSON had been sitting on the divan and she remained that way as her startled gaze assessed her callers and she began to understand what had happened. Fiske, still watching Webb, backed up and eased down beside her. Karen Holmes took a near-by chair and Jeff stood beside it, conscious now of the gun in his pocket and the envelope in his hand. Only Cordovez seemed utterly disconsolate as he watched Webb empty the shells from his revolver, snap the cylinder in place, and put it down on the table. When he put the shells beside it his hard-jawed face twisted in a grin.

“That makes us even, little man,” he said. “You can collect it later.”

Cordovez remained crushed. “I do not see him,” he said to Jeff. “He must be in the bushes by the door. All I know”—he snapped his fingers—“I have this gun in my back.”