Ruby Red Death

Sixteen

Carter stood at the window. Outside, he watched the Amsterdam street come alive with whores, pickpockets, hippies, and good, honest foreign businessmen out to get laid.

“He was a good man.”

Carter turned. The beautiful Oriental girl sat at the desk, her brother standing beside her, his hand on her shoulder.

“I wouldn’t think about it if I were you,” Carter said. “Mortimer always had a will, even when he didn’t have anything to leave anyone.”

“It was nice service, yes?” the girl said.

“Yes, a very nice service,” Carter replied, forcing his face to remain stone.

Otto had got them out by boat, down the long river. Then there had been a charter to the Canary Islands and a commercial jet to Frankfurt.

At the castle they had found Mortimer Potts with his neck broken, crucified to some timbers in the basement.

Fabian Huzel didn’t just kill. He took gleeful delight in the killing.

Otto knew a doctor. The cause of death was listed as a heart attack. Mortimer had been cremated and his ashes brought back to the Yum-Yum Club.

“We were so poor,” the girl said, “and now we are so rich.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Carter said. “If Mortimer hadn’t wanted you to have everything, he wouldn’t have given you everything in his will. Live, enjoy... that’s what Mortimer did.”

Carter headed for the door.

“Mr. Carter,” the girl said, “if there is ever anything...”

Carter smiled. “There might be... and if you did it, you’d just be carrying on Mortimer’s tradition.”

He left the Yum-Yum Club. A block away he crawled into the front seat of a black Mercedes. Otto was behind the wheel.

“How did you do?” Carter asked.

“Very well, actually,” came the stoic reply. “A little over a million and a half, American, for the diamonds. The two emeralds brought forty thousand per.”

“That should take care of you... and her,” Carter said.

Otto smiled. “Leave it to me, Nick. I’ll have her back on her feet in a year.”

It was the way he said it that made Carter smile. “Otto, if I didn’t know better, I’d say you were in love.”

“Well,” Otto shrugged, “it is about time for me to act my age. Shall we get on with it?”

“Yes,” Carter nodded, “let’s. You’re sure everything the baroness has is traceable?”

“Oh, God, yes.”

It was early morning, the dead hour, the hour of the ultimate thief.

The Mercedes barely paused as the darkly clad figure rolled from the door. In seconds he was over the fence.

The whole operation took less than seven minutes. Break in, go up to the attic — past the master bedroom, the nursery, the empty guest room, the maid’s room where the au pair girl dreamed of warmth and sunshine and lemon trees — up to the deserted attic, a little of toys, books, discarded furniture, the squeak of a rusty window hinge, and Carter was on the roof, moving velvet-pawed across the leaded guttering to the attic window in the house.

He used a diamond with four neat strokes, waited for the glass to fall — a tiny brittle whisper of noise — then put his hand into the hole he had made, opened the window, and lowered himself into the house.

In the comfortable darkness he moved through the house. The stairs were carpeted and the noise he made was less than a sigh; he went down to the drawing room.

He already knew the location of the safe. Finding it in the darkness took two minutes, opening it another five.

The Baroness Erica von Steinholtz wouldn’t realize for a full twenty-four hours that two million dollars’ worth of her family’s fabulous fortune in jewels was gone.

Nadia Grinzel had a chubby face. It was the sort of face one sees on Scandinavian dolls in shop windows at Christmastime: cream and pink porcelain with sculptured lips and eyebrows, a pointed little nose, ears, barely visible at the lobes, that peeked out beneath yellow, spun-candy hair that fitted on top of her head like an elegant bathing cap. Her eyes were magnified by a large pair of heavy-rimmed, tortoiseshell glasses that usually hung from a gold chain looped around the back of her neck.

Nadia Grinzel’s I.Q. matched her vision: 40–40.

When the phone rang that night, she was dressing for an evening out. The reason for the evening out was a young banker, rich, handsome, and almost as dumb as Nadia.

She fully expected him to ask for her hand.

That would be nice.

She had worked for Fabian Huzel for two years. It was better than being a whore in the Damrak — which she had briefly been — but not as good as trapping a banker. The phone rang.

“Yes?”

“Fräulein Grinzel?”

“Yes.”

“This is Horst. I have the merchandise.”

“Oh, God, not tonight.”

“Yes, tonight.”

“But I’m...”

“Fräulein Grinzel, this is business. I have just obtained the merchandise. Needless to say, I can’t wait forever to get a price.”

“Damn,” she muttered under her breath, and then sighed. “All right. How long before you can get here?”

“I am on the corner, two minutes.”

“Fine.”

She killed the connection and dialed. When the old crone who always answered came on, Nadia was brief and to the point.

“I have a very large one. I must have a figure by noon tomorrow.”

“Ja, very well. I will tell him.”

Though it was not yet nine in the morning, a raw and rainy day looked in the windows of the old police central building overlooking the river.

A green-shaded lamp was burning above the desk of Chief Inspector Otis Konig Sev of the Metropolitan Amsterdam Police. He had been in his office since seven that morning, when the package had arrived. It contained papers that solved practically every major jewel robbery in the country for the past ten years.

Konig Sev examined the last of it, leaned back at ease, and smoked a cigarette with an air of doing so cynically. He was a long, stringy man whose thick and wrinkled eyelids gave him a sardonic look that was thoroughly deserved. Though he was not bald, his white hair had begun to recede from the skull as though in sympathy with the close cropping of his gray mustache. His eyes were bright, and right now they were amused.

The phone call had awakened him just before dawn that morning.

“Inspector Konig Sev?”

“Yes, yes, who is this?”

“Never mind. I understand you are very close to retirement, Herr Inspector.”

“I don’t enjoy being awakened from a sound sleep to be told what I already know.”

A low chuckle from the other end of the line. “Early this morning, a package will be delivered to your office by courier. The package will contain records of the buying and selling of vast amounts of stolen gems.”

“Damn you say.” Konig Sev was upright in his bed now, alert.

“The records alone are only circumstantial. They alone probably won’t convict the man. I’ll give you something else that will.”

Konig Sev was a cynical and rational man. “This is beginning to sound like a joke.”

“No joke, Inspector, I assure you. Just before dawn yesterday morning, the house of Baron and Baroness von Steinholtz was burgled. All of the family jewels were stolen.”

“My God, man, if such a robbery had occurred, it would have been reported!”

“Not really. The baron has been out of the city on business. The baroness has been confined to her bed with a cold.”

Konig Sev was incredulous. “You mean...?”

“Exactly, Inspector. Baroness von Steinholtz doesn’t even know she’s been robbed. I suggest you check it. I will call you later this morning in your office.”

The caller had hung up and Konig Sev had rushed into his clothes. A call to his office had brought a car with two patrol officers to his house in minutes.

He couldn’t suppress a laugh when he remembered the look on the face of Baroness von Steinholtz, and her comment, “Brilliant! Absolutely brilliant police work!”

The phone on his desk buzzed. “Yes?”

It was the central operator. “I think this is the call you’ve been waiting for, Inspector.”

“Put him through.” There was a series of clicks and he spoke again. “This is Inspector Konig Sev.”

“I trust you’ve had an enlightening morning, Inspector?”

“Dammit, man, this is serious business. What do you know about the von Steinholtz robbery?”

“A great deal, but, more importantly, I know where the jewels will be between nine o’clock and noon today.”

“I’m listening.”

“Number Twelve Herengracht. The flat is Four-A. It is owned by a young lady named Nadia Grinzel. But she is only a drop. The man you want is Fabian Huzel.”

“Huzel,” Konig Sev whispered.

“Yes, Inspector. You can retire with honors.”

The phone went dead, but Konig Sev kept holding it to his ear, staring off into space.

“Fabian Huzel,” he muttered, “at last.”

Nadia Grinzel checked through the peephole and unlocked the door. Fabian Huzel entered the flat shaking the water from his head and shoulders like a shaggy dog.

“Terrible day,” he mumbled.

It was a comparatively small flat, one main room with a bedroom alcove, an open kitchen area, and a door to a bathroom. It was in a corner of the building, so there were windows on two sides.

Nadia had obviously been preparing breakfast. There was a table near the window, half set, and there were cooking sounds coming from the kitchen.

“Do you want coffee?”

“No, I don’t have time. Where are they?”

“I’ll get them,” Nadia said. “I have to turn my stove down.”

She fiddled with the stove and then stepped up on a low, three-step ladder. She moved aside a square section of the false ceiling and raised to her toes as she felt along the indentation of the neighboring section.

Behind her, Huzel shook his head. If the police ever searched the place, he thought, that would be the first place they would look.

Nadia stepped from the ladder and brought two heavy chamois bags to the table where Huzel sat.

“It’s funny,” he said as he untied the drawstring on the first bag. “I thought Horst Eberson was in prison in France.”

The girl shrugged and sipped her coffee. “I’ve never had him before, but his name was on the list you gave me.”

Huzel’s eyes grew wide and saliva gathered at the corners of his mouth as he emptied the contents of the first bag.

He was examining the third piece through the loop in his eye socket when it struck him.

“Idiot!” he cried. “That damn idiot!”

“What’s the matter?” Nadia almost spilled her coffee.

“A first-year clerk in any watch shop would recognize—”

It was at that moment the door shattered from its hinges and the flat filled with uniforms.

The Differt, a traditional Amsterdam broodjeswinkel, or café, was located at 15 Herengracht. Through its spotlessly clean front windows there was an excellent view of number 12.

Otto von Krumm pushed his plate away with a sigh and patted his belly. “A fine meal.”

Carter sipped his second cup of coffee and nodded. “Every new day should be started with a good meal.”

Suddenly a fierce light shone in Otto von Krumm’s eyes and his lips parted in a leering grin.

“My, oh my.”

“Something?”

“The time for joy has come, my friend. Just take a quick glance over your left shoulder.”

Casually Carter turned his head.

The woman was taken down the steps of number 12 first. Her face was white with fear, and even at such a distance the Killmaster could see her lips tremble. A uniformed police officer was on each side of her, and her wrists were manacled together in front of her body.

Seconds later Fabian Huzel appeared, also with an officer on each side of him. The second party moved a little more slowly than the first. This was because Huzel’s ankles, as well as his wrists, were cuffed.

His clothes were torn and in disarray. Thunder as well as a large, purplish bruise was on his glowering face.

“Looks like our boy gave them a bit of a tussle,” Otto smirked.

“It would appear so,” Carter agreed. “Hope they got some good licks in before he gave up.”

“I do think they did,” Otto replied. “From the looks of his face I’d say he’ll have a great deal of trouble chewing his food for quite some time.”

“I’d say that.”

“Pity.”

They watched until the pair were placed in separate cars and were driven away. In only a few minutes the curious dispersed and the quiet neighborhood returned to normal.

The two then took their time finishing their coffee. Carter paid, leaving a large tip, and they walked the two blocks to the waiting Mercedes.

The Killmaster checked his watch as he slid into the passenger side seat.

“I should just make the one-ten flight to Vienna without too boring a wait.”

Otto pulled from the curb into the light noonday traffic. He was whistling softly. “How long do you think he’ll get?”

Carter frowned in concentration. “I’d say thirty years, give or take.”

Otto laughed. “With the thieves he’ll take with him I’ll give you ten to one he won’t last five years.”

Carter leaned back in the seat with a broad smile on his face. “I don’t take sucker bets, you know that, Otto.”