1975 - The Joker in the Pack (7 page)

“Yes, Mrs. Rolfe?” The bow was in the voice.

“I want a pocket-sized tape recorder with a microphone,” she said. “The microphone must be very sensitive. I want it within an hour.”

There was a slight pause, then the gears slipped into mesh.

“It will be arranged immediately, Mrs. Rolfe.”

“Thank you,” and she hung up.

She went to her closet and selected a white linen handbag. With a pair of scissors, she cut away the lining. If the microphone was sensitive enough the recorder could record while out of sight in the bag.

For the moment, there was nothing else she could do. If Jackson sent the letter to Winborn, she could nail him as a blackmailer. She would have to be careful how she handled the transaction he would propose. She would have to direct the conversation so that he incriminated himself. She knew about voiceprints. The police would be able to identify him as the blackmailer.

Forty minutes crawled by, then the assistant manager, a tall, willowy, blond man tapped on the door.

“I understand, Mrs. Rolfe, you require a tape recorder. I have a selection,” and he set four tiny recorders down on the table.

“Which is the most sensitive?” she asked.

“I believe this one.” He pointed to a recorder slightly larger than the other three.

“Thank you . . . leave them.” She smiled at him. “I will play with them.”

“You understand how they operate, Mrs. Rolfe?”

“I am familiar with recorders.”

When he had gone, she experimented with the recorders, putting each in turn in her handbag and talking. It was while she was testing the last recorder that the telephone bell buzzed.

“Mr. Winborn calling, Mrs. Rolfe.”

She glanced at her watch: exactly one hour.

“I will speak to him.”

Jackson came on the line.

“Listen, baby, I don’t like being told to wait.” His voice sounded hard. “Is that understood?”

“I was under the impression, Mr. Jackson,” Helga said, “that salesmen, no matter how inefficient, are trained at least, to be courteous. You seem to have lost your manners . . . if you ever had any. You will not call me baby. Is that understood?”

A pause, then Jackson laughed.

“Beautiful, brainy and tough. Okay, Mrs. Rolfe, forget it. Do you feel like a swim tonight? The same place?”

Her mind worked swiftly. It would be too dangerous to meet him n that lonely spot. No, she would face him on ground of her own choosing.

“Come to my suite, Mr. Jackson. We can talk on the terrace.”

He laughed again.

“Not such a hot idea. I have your reputation to think of and mine too. How’s about the Pearl in the Oyster restaurant? We could have coffee?”

“In half an hour,” Helga said and hung up.

She played back the recordings. The recorder the assistant manager had recommended gave a remarkably clear playback. She put it in her bag, added cigarettes, a lighter, her purse, her compact and a handkerchief, then slipping on a light wrap, she went down to the lobby.

She intended to be the first to arrive at the restaurant. The Cadillac taxi pulled up outside the Pearl in the Oyster, one of Nassau’s popular nightspots. The Maître d’hôtel immediately recognized her.

“Why, Mrs. Rolfe, this is a great pleasure,” he said, his black face lighting up.

“I am meeting a Mr. Jackson,” Helga said. “We will only have coffee. Could you let me have a quiet table please?”

“Of course, Mrs. Rolfe, if you wouldn’t mind being upstairs. We have alcoves there.” The Maître hotel’s face went blank telling Helga how startled he was.

He led the way up the stairs and to an alcove that overlooked the main dining room.

“Would this do?”

She paused to survey the crowd below, aware of the noise of voices, the clatter of plates and cutlery. The noise could wreck the recording.

“I would prefer somewhere quieter,” she said.

“Then may I suggest the after-casino balcony? No one is there at present, Mrs. Rolfe. Perhaps you would prefer that?”

“Let me see it.”

He took her along a corridor to a broad balcony overlooking the beach and sea. Apart from four or five colored waiters, the place was deserted.

“This will do, and thank you.” She slid a ten-dollar bill into his hand. “Will you please bring Mr. Jackson to me when he arrives? The coffee and brandy of course.”

Jackson arrived ten minutes later. She had put her handbag on the table and as she saw him coming along the corridor, she quickly switched on the recorder. It would run for thirty minutes and that, she thought, would be long enough to incriminate him.

Jackson was wearing a freshly pressed white suit, a blue and white checkered shirt and a red tie. He looked handsome and presentable. At any other time, he would have set Helga’s blood on fire.

“Hi there,” he said, waving away the Maître d’hôtel. “Have I kept you waiting?” The wide, friendly smile was in evidence as he sat down.

She looked beyond him at the Maître d’hôtel.

“We will have coffee now, please.”

“Certainly, Mrs. Rolfe.”

When he had gone, Helga looked directly at Jackson. He was completely relaxed, his big hands on the table, very confident. Her eyes swept over him. How deceptive men could be, she thought. Who would imagine this frame of muscle and flesh and good looks housed the mind of a blackmailer?

“How’s Mr. Rolfe?” Jackson asked. “Any improvement?”

“How is the peeping Tom agency, Mr. Jackson?” Helga asked politely. “Better prospects?”

He gave her a sharp look, then laughed.

“I’ll say!”

A waiter brought coffee and two brandies in balloon glasses.

They waited until he had gone, then Helga said, “It is just possible you might imagine that this meeting is distasteful to me. Would you please tell me why you arranged it?”

“I was under the impression, Mrs. Rolfe, that you set it up,” Jackson said, smiling at her. “You need not have come.”

A point to him, Helga thought. She mustn’t waste time.

“You said you have something I wanted, what is it?” She dropped sugar into her coffee.

“A good question.” He sipped his coffee, crossed one long leg over the other and continued to smile at her. She longed to slap his handsome face. “When you gave me the brushoff this afternoon, Mrs. Rolfe, I was ready to call it quits. You were in an ironclad position. I had nothing in writing from Mr. Rolfe. I wasn’t going to tangle with Winborn, I steer clear of tough cookies. So I was all set to kiss my retainer goodbye.” He picked up his glass of brandy and sniffed it. “So you have the complete photo, Mrs. Rolfe, let me tell you how I operate. I don’t have a regular staff. I have contacts. As an investigator it is a must to have a contact in every luxury hotel. I regard these contacts as invisible people . . . the staff. People who can go in and out of rooms, walk down corridors, clean the baths and still remain invisible to the guests. It costs me five hundred dollars and that’s money to me, Mrs. Rolfe, to buy the services of the fink who cleans your room, cleans your bath and makes your bed. Now this fink is a half-caste West Indian who wants nothing in life except a Harley-Davidson Electra Glide motorcycle. These bikes cost. He has been saving and saving, but he was well short of the target. Then this week a model arrived out here: just one, you understand, Mrs. Rolfe. He knew if he didn’t grab it, he would have to wait maybe another six months. Well, you know how it is . . . people these days can’t wait, so I gave him the money and he bought the bike. In return, he did this favor. You know, you do something nice, the other guy repays you . . . quid pro quo . . . does that surprise you . . . me talking like this . . . quid pro quo? I’ve had some kind of education: not much more than quid quid prod quo, but some.” He sipped the brandy, then held up the glass to stare at it. “Pretty good, but then that’s how the cards fall for you, Mrs. Rolfe. You say brandy and you get the best. I say brandy and I get hogwash.”

Helga wanted a cigarette, but she couldn’t touch her bag while the recorder was working. She controlled the urge and looked out at the deserted beach, at the moonlit sea and she listened.

“So this fink who cleans your room took a look around. The system is, Mrs. Rolfe, that as soon as a guest leaves the room, the fink moves in and puts it straight. He is an intelligent fink and he is anxious to please. I tell him: ‘Look around. If there is anything that looks important, I want it.’ So he stared at me with his intelligent black eyes and asks: ‘What’s important?” I tell him: ‘I want to nail this baby. Love letters would fine.’” Jackson laughed. “You know Mrs. Rolfe, this was a shot at the moon. I hadn’t any hope he would land a fish, but he did. When he gave me this letter from your husband to Winborn, I hit the roof.” He paused to sip more brandy. “Am I reaching you, Mrs. Rolfe?”

So that was how it was done, Helga thought. Go on talking, snake, you’re cutting your own throat.

“I’m listening,” she said.

“I bet you are.” Jackson laughed. “So I have the letter. Pretty strong stuff, isn’t it? If this Winborn character gets it, it seems to me you will be out in the cold.”

Thinking of the revolving tape, Helga hurried the conversation along.

“You could be right,” she said. “This is blackmail, of course. How much, Mr. Jackson?”

“But didn’t you tell me you never paid blackmail?” Jackson asked, his smiling jeering.

“There are times when even the best generals lose a battle,” Helga said. “How much?”

“You surprise me.” Jackson studied her thoughtfully. “I thought you would try to wriggle.”

“I am not interested in your thinking,” Helga said, her voice steely. “How much?”

The jeering smile slipped a little.

“Frankly, if it was only between you and me, Mrs. Rolfe, I would give you this letter for nothing. I would expect you to give me my retainer of ten thousand dollars . . . my out of pocket expenses. That would be fair, wouldn’t it?”

Helga said nothing. She sipped her brandy, longed for a cigarette, her face wooden.

“But this fink has ambitions,” Jackson went on. “Can you imagine what he did? He took two photocopies of the letter, gave me one and here’s one for you.” He took from his wallet a folded paper and pushed it across the table to Helga who took it, glanced at it and saw it was a copy of Herman’s letter. “Frankly, Mrs. Rolfe, I didn’t imagine a half-caste fink would have had the brains to set up a thing like this. He is more ambitious than I am. As I’ve said, I’d be happy to get my retainer, but he has other ideas.”

Helga turned her cold look on him.

“So?”

“This fink tells me that the letter is a gold mine. Now when a half-caste boy talks about a gold mine, I don’t pay a lot of attention, but when he started to elaborate, I took notice.” Jackson shook his head, finished his brandy and smiled at her. “I guess he has bigger ideas than I have.”

This almost too good to be true, Helga thought. As he sits there, shooting off his mouth, he is cutting his throat.

She could imagine the police descending on him. She imagined them picking up this hotel servant. To hell with Herman’s money! To see this smart alec snake and his fink in court would repay even the loss of sixty million dollars . . . stupid, angry thinking, but that was how she felt at this moment.

“He has?” she said quietly. “How bit? Couldn’t you stop this yakking, Mr. Jackson and tell me what it will cost to get this letter back?”

Just for a moment, Jackson looked uneasy, then the confident grin returned.

“Yeah, I do run on. Well, for me, I want ten thousand dollars by tomorrow, not later than midday. I want it in cash. That will take care of my expenses which will be fine with me. Leave the money in an envelope with the hall porter.” He looked at her. “Okay?”

Helga inclined her head.

“Now the fink, this is more tricky. As I’ve explained, Mrs. Rolfe, I hadn’t an idea how his mind would work. Anyway, he has talked around and he’s learned what a big shot you have married. He knows now that your husband is loaded. He won’t part with the letter for less than five hundred thousand. Could anything be more crazy? I tried to talk sense into him, but he won’t listen. I’m sorry, Mrs. Rolfe, but that’s the way it is. If you want the letter, it’ll cost you five hundred thousand, plus my ten thousand.”

Helga kept her face expressionless, but the shock was severe.

After a pause, she said, “I find it hard to believe a colored servant should think in such big terms.”

Jackson nodded.

“That makes two of us, Mrs. Rolfe. I was knocked for a loop, but that’s how the cookie crumbles.”

“And this colored boy gets all this money? Aren’t you being very modest, Mr. Jackson?”

He laughed.

“Yeah: you could say that, but I only want my expenses. I like my job. I’m not ambitious. Frankly, I’m sorry I’ve got snarled up with this fink. Between us we could have settled this thing for ten thousand. If you had agreed last night instead of getting on your high horse, I wouldn’t have told him to search your room.”

Helga regarded him.

“Aren’t you talking too much, Mr. Jackson? You are letting your tongue run away. It was while we were talking on the beach that this fink, as you call him, was searching my room. That tells me you and he were working together and I am quite sure you and he will share whatever I pay.”

Again the confident smile slipped. He looked away from her, thought for a long moment, then the smile switched on again.

“As I’ve already said, Mrs. Rolfe, you have brains. Okay, I’ll put it on the line. It was the fink’s idea. I wouldn’t have thought of it, but when he said you would pay, I did think about it. With all this money coming to you when your husband kicks off, I saw the fink had an idea. He couldn’t handle you. I saw that, so after thinking, I told him I would set up the deal and he and I would go fifty-fifty. So, Mrs. Rolfe, if you want the letter you give us ten thousand tomorrow and five hundred thousand in bearer bonds in ten days’ time.”

“And I get the letter?”

“Sure . . . no fooling. You get the letter.”

Helga drew in a deep breath.

She had him now! If she had to lose Herman’s money, at least this snake would land in jail!