Even the Butler Was Poor (18 page)

"Hidden," she whispered.

Nodding, he said, "Then maybe we can still get out of this."

"You think so?"

"Yeah." He leaned closer, kissing her on the cheek. Next to her ear he said, "If I can get one of them in here alone, faint when I do my Ronald Colman voice."

"Who is—"

There was a knock on the door.

Moon came into their cell, alone. Shutting the door, he leaned against it. He was holding his revolver in his right hand, with his left cupped under the handle.

"I thought," he told them, "we might have a sensible talk before the others return."

Ben stood up. "Somebody around here had better turn sensible," he said. "You folks might be able to get away with one or two murders, but three or four is going to be much trickier."

"Perhaps we can avoid any further killing," said the agency head.

"Your stooges haven't been especially bright," Ben said. "It should have been obvious, after H.J. sent her first message to Beaujack, that we're not in this to expose anybody."

"You and the young lady are partners, is that it?"

"What else would we be?" said H.J., picking up on Ben's bluffing.

"She's been wavering on this," said Ben, "but now that I'm here we are definitely going ahead with it."

"Interesting how you can work together even after a divorce."

"For fifty percent of a million dollars," said Ben, "I'd work with a lot worse people than her."

"Same here." Smiling sweetly, she rose slowly from the cot.

"That's your price, is it, one million?"

Ben answered, "Actually it's the down payment."

"A million now," explained H.J., wandering over to the opposite side of the room from Ben, "and another million when we turn the pictures over to you."

"As I understand it, my dear, we already have the photos. The negatives are what we—"

"You have one set of prints," corrected Ben. "There are two others. One safely hidden and one with an attorney in a sealed envelope. That'll go directly to a friend of mine who's a cop if H.J. and I stay missing too long."

"Then there are the negatives," said H.J. "Those are also hidden away, but not in the same place as the prints. Considering all you're getting, Mr. Moon, $2,000,000 is a bargain price.'

"There's one other thing that's essential," he said, glancing from one to the other. "That, of course, is your silence."

"We'll throw that in for nothing," Ben assured him, taking two steps in his direction. "As soon as we have the money, we guarantee we won't talk."

"There's a much cheaper way," said Moon, smiling. "A more economical method of assuring that you remain silent."

"The more people you kill, the greater the chances of your being caught," H.J. pointed out. "Keep in mind, too, that if we don't contact our lawyer by tomorrow—early—he's going to rush a full set of pictures to the police. Nice shots of you and your cronies getting rid of Mr. Zepperman."

"You know his name, I see."

"Sure, we know just about everything."

Ben added, "All of which we'll forget—for a fee."

"We're being very reasonable, too," said H.J., "considering the enormous amount of money you people pull in off the Chumley account."

"Yes, yes. That was the argument Barry Kathkart used when he persuaded us to help him cover up his impetuous crime."

"Why don't you let us go now?" suggested Ben, edging another step closer.

"As much as I dislike Leo and Chico, I have to admit they're efficient," said Moon. "Without any doubt they can make you talk. It might take time and be unpleasant, but it would save us $2,000,000, wouldn't it?"

"You aren't the sort," said H.J., "who'd condone torture."

"That's a flattering appraisal of my character, my dear. Until quite recently it might have been true, but in the past few days I've crossed several lines I never believed I'd cross."

"If you aren't going to turn us loose, maybe I'd better start rehearsing some farewell speeches," said Ben, taking another step. "You know, like 'It's a far, far better thing I do than I have ever done before." He waited a few seconds and then eyed his former wife.

She didn't immediately respond. "Oh, was that your Robert Colman voice?"

"Ronald Colman."

"I don't know why I didn't recognize it, darling, since it's always been one of . . ." She began to sway slightly. "That's funny, I'm feeling . . . What was l saying? Oh, yes. Don't you think it's absolutely wonderful how Ben can do so many . . . Jesus, it feels like one of my spells, Ben . . . I . . ." She bent, clutching at her midsection. Then her eyes went wide and started to roll. She straightened up, arms going straight out at her sides. She fell to her knees, flapped her aims, moaned, fell over on her side with her feet kicking convulsively. Moon was distracted, lowering his gun and staring at the fallen and apparently seriously stricken young woman.

Ben took advantage of his inattention and jumped. He chopped at the older man's thin right wrist. Moon let go of the gun and Ben caught it before it hit the floor. Swinging up with the gun barrel, he caught Moon in the chin. Then as he fell, Ben used the butt of the revolver against his temple, twice.

He slid his arm around the torso of the unconscious adman, dragged him over to the cot and let him fall atop it.

Outside the door Chico called out, "You okay in there, Mr. Moon?"

"Yes, yes," answered Ben in his Moon voice as, gun in hand, he moved over to station himself beside the door. "But I'm afraid something terrible has happened to the young lady. Come in here, Chico, quickly."

"T
hat was a very impressive swoon, by the way."

"You think perhaps I overdid it a bit?"

"Flapping your arms was maybe too much frosting, yeah."

"It sure worked, though, huh?"

"We distracted Moon good and proper."

The advertising executive was now stretched out on the cot, his arms tied behind him with his belt and his ankles bound with his paisley tie. For a gag they'd use his crisp display handkerchief.

Chico was face down on the floor, snarling. He was hogtied with strips of the brown blanket, since he wore neither a belt nor a tie.

While Ben stood over him with the .32 revolver in one hand and Chico's .45 automatic in the other, H.J. finished attaching a gag made of another strip of blanket.

Smiling, she knelt and patted the thug once on the backside. "That's a mighty cute little ass you've got there yourself," she said, standing up.

"What's that for?" asked Ben. "Part of some old Girl Scout ritual?"

"A personal touch," she answered. "I'll explain sometime."

Easing over to the door, Ben opened it a few inches.

"Apparently they can't hear what's going on down here from upstairs." He looked cautiously out into the hall.

"We really don't know how many of them there are left up there."

"Beyond the secretary, no."

"Possibly there could be more goons."

He handed her the revolver. "Possibly." He stepped out of their cell. The only sound down here was the rattling and humming of the big furnace.

"We make a pretty good team," she said quietly, taking hold of his hand.

"At times." They started along the dimly lit corridor. "On the way down I didn't notice any doors leading directly out of this basement. So we're going to have to go back up into the house and exit from there."

"It's interesting how money affects some people."

"With you as a prime example?"

"No, I was thinking of Arthur Moon. He is a respected advertising executive and a snappy dresser—but I got the feeling he was going to go ahead and let them torture us and then terminate us as well."

"I got that impression, too. Which is why I did my Ronald Colman signal to you."

"Ronald Colman. He was some kind of movie actor, right?"

"Skip it—and let's be quiet for the rest of our journey."

"It's cute the way you get ticked off over something trivial while were in the midst of a struggle for our very—"

"Quiet," he snapped.

T
he first shotgun blast missed them by a little less than six feet. Pellets spattered across a stretch of peach colored wall in the large oval foyer, chewing away sizeable bites of plaster and molding.

Ben had tumbled H.J. to the floor with him, getting off a shot at the chunky blonde secretary, who was standing on the staircase across the way.

His shot was wild, too, and it went smashing up into one of the dangling crystal chandeliers, producing a raucous wind-chimes sort of noise.

Rolling across the slick hardwood floor, Ben dragged his erstwhile wife through the first open doorway they came to. "That was the lady I was telling you about."

"The secretary with the shotgun."

"Her, yes." He got to his feet in what looked to be some sort of trophy room.

"She's not a crack shot." H.J. scrambled upright, slamming the door behind her.

"She may just be warming up." He pushed her clear of the doorway.

They were surrounded by My Man Chumley items, including a life-size cardboard cutout of Kathkart in the role, dozens of framed posters and magazine ads, and even a large fat Chumley beanbag that looked a good deal like the actor.

After getting H.J. to a safe spot, Ben shoved a black leather sofa in front of the door.

H.J. said, "French doors over yonder."

"We'll try them as a way out." He gathered her up and they hurried to the glass doors.

A tremendous wham sounded behind them and a sizeable portion of the door they'd just shut came exploding into the room in the form of splintery chunks of white-painted wood. The jagged scraps and the shotgun pellets ripped the head clean off the stand-up cardboard Chumley.

"Let's get going." Ben pushed one of the French doors open. He stepped out onto the flagstone terrace, scanned the immediate area and then helped H.J. out into the night with him.

"What next?" she asked.

"My car's out in front of the garages—at least that's where I left it. But they may've moved it or futzed with it."

"That leaves escape on foot."

"Across the back lawn here and up into the woods." He took hold of her arm and they started running across the acre of grass at the rear of the mansion. Less than thirty seconds later lights came to life on all sides of them. The estate had floodlights planted all around its borders.

They kept running and were soon high enough to see down across the top of the house and get a glimpse of the front drive. The Mercedes had just turned onto the grounds. "They're back." Ben was commencing to wheeze some. "We can outrun them."

"Miss Spaulding's out there, pointing up at us."

"Shit, they're going to drive the damn car up here after us."

The Mercedes, the beams of its headlights bouncing and making wild zigzags across the blackness, left the drive and was roaring up across the green.

Ben took a quick, appraising look around. "They'll cut us off before we can climb all the way into the woods," he said. "Let's head for that big shed over there."

As they changed their course, she asked, "Can we hold them off?"

"For a while maybe, and once we start shooting it should attract attention." He slipped an arm around her waist and accelerated the pace. "Hopefully the shotgun blasts have already attracted attention."

They made it through the front door of the long low wooden shed just as the Mercedes came around the side of the big white mansion.

After slamming the door shut, Ben stationed himself at the small dusty window that faced the approaching car. "Holy Christ."

"What?"

"I don't think they're going to stop. Looks like they're going to slam into the shed."

H.J. went stumbling through the place, trying to avoid colliding with the scatter of sacks of peat moss and the assorted mowers, leaf blowers, wheelbarrows, and rakes. "There's another door in back," she said, catching his hand and pulling him after her.

"That's got to be Kathkart at the wheel. He's the only one goofy enough to think he's driving a tank."

The nose of the Mercedes came ripping into the front door. The door and the entire front wall broke in huge pieces and the pieces came spinning back into the tangle of equipment. Metal buckled and shrieked, sacks exploded, rakes and hoes pinwheeled up into the air. Glass broke and one of the car's front tires popped with a stuttering blast.

Ben and H.J. dived out the back way and went rolling and tumbling across the wet grass.

"You all right?" he asked.

She didn't answer. She was lying on the lawn, sprawled, the revolver fallen from her hand and lying several feet from her slack fingers.

"H.J." He knelt close to her, noticing now the bloody streak across her forehead and the deep gash in her cheek.