The Brass Go-Between

Chapter twenty-two

At 4:36 that morning, alone in my hotel room, it had been a much better scene. Spencer had blanched, confounded by the inescapable logic of my accusation. A few drops of perspiration had formed on his upper lip. A tiny vein had started to throb in his temple. Afraid that his hands would develop a telltale tremor, he had thrust them deep into his pockets. Guilt had seeped from every pore and its odor lay heavy in the room. That was at 4:36 A.M. At 11:47 A.M. he did nothing of the kind. For a moment he looked a trifle disappointed, but politely managed to cover that up. His eyes moved away from mine, as if embarrassed. Not for him, but for me.

“I see,” he murmured, and then looked around the room as though he hoped to find something else to talk about, something that would help us both pretend that I wasn’t an utter fool.

It occurred to me then that I would have never made a good cop. There was something lacking. My concept of crime and punishment was skewed. Vengeance was not mine. I was cheerleader for the crooks and a cynic when it came to law and order. And finally, somewhere along the unimproved secondary road that was my life, I had discarded proper veneration for The Job at Hand, a veneration shared in common by all good crooks, cops, and, for that matter, county agents. As a go-between I was an economic grasshopper, a social cipher who in one breath had just accused a billion dollars of being a thief and was about to apologize in the next.

“It all works out,” I said lamely.

“Really,” Spencer said, not at all interested, gazing out the window at the Capitol and frowning slightly as if he thought it could use a new coat of paint.

“First,” the Relentless Inquisitor continued, “you were one of the few persons who knew that George Wingo was an addict. You also knew that he was desperate for money to feed his habit.”

“Mmm,” Spencer said, getting really interested now.

“Second,” I said, “you had enough money to feed it. I don’t know who suggested that he get the guard hooked. I don’t think it matters. At least not to me. But in Wingo you had your engineer and in Sackett your inside man. Through a man named Spellacy in New York Wingo found the thieves. And your go-between.

“Third motive,” I said.

This time Spencer smiled slightly. “Ah, yes, Mr. St. Ives. Motive. I did have one, didn’t I?”

“Yes.”

“Let me guess,” he said. “I suddenly became totally captivated by the shield, by this crude, tawdry piece of brass. I had to possess it at all costs. It was an obsession. That seems to be in keeping with the rest of your rather fanciful ramblings.”

“No,” I said. “It was Eldorado.”

“Ah,” he said. “Eldorado.”

“Eldorado Oil and Gas. It’s one of your companies.”

“Yes.”

“Before the revolution in Jandola broke out it was negotiating for mineral rights. Oil. A lot of it and most of it is under what some call Komporeen. The Library of Congress was most helpful.”

“I see.”

“Now the real villain enters. Your villain anyway. It’s a Dutch-British combine. It was after the oil rights, too, and it offered the Jandolaean government a far better deal. You matched it. The combine topped your offer and the Jandolaeans sat back content to let you fight it out. In the midst of the negotiations, the revolution broke out and because the oil reserves or whatever you call them are in Komporeen, the negotiations for the rights came to a standstill. I am correct so far?”

“In a crude way,” Spencer said.

“For a while it looked as if the Jandolaeans would finish the fight in a week. But it dragged on. The Komporeeneans fought better than was expected. Some help started coming in dribbles from France and Germany. If the Komporeeneans could hold on another two months or so, they might even win independence. Or at least, with recognition from France and Germany, keep the fighting going for years, and if they did, then you would have to negotiate with their government. If they lost, you’d be back where you started, bidding against the Dutch-British combine. You needed an edge. And the shield was it. You knew its importance to both Komporeen and Jandola. You would arrange for its theft, and then at the appropriate time, use it as a bribe to secure the oil reserves from whoever won.”

“And how would I explain that it came into my possession?” Spencer asked.

“Simple,” I said. “You bought it from the thieves, using your own money.”

“I see,” Spencer said again, and stared out the window some more.

“I don’t think you had anything to do with the four deaths,” I said.

“Thank you.”

“They just got greedy and after the deal was set up, they followed it because they didn’t know what else to do. None of them was too imaginative. They stole the shield, dumped it into the back seat of a car, and it was whisked away to you. None of them knew that you were involved. No one but Wingo knew that.”

“But you think that you do?”

“I know you are.”

“And your next move?”

“I could do several things,” I said. “First of all, I could tell the cops. They might laugh at me at the beginning, but they’d check it out. It might take a while, but they’d get around to it and even if they never proved it, it would be a considerable nuisance to you. But that’s just one thing that I might do. The other would be to let the Jandolaean Embassy in on my speculations. That would really tear it for you. You could never use the shield as a bribe then. They’d know you’d stolen it — or had had it stolen.”

Spencer rose from his chair and crossed to the window. He stood there in his 1939 suit and his bowl haircut, a billion dollars on the hoof, and looked out at the Capitol. “How much do you want, St. Ives?” he said.

“Not how much, but what.”

“All right then. What?”

“The shield. I want it today.”

There was perhaps fifteen seconds of silence. I assumed that he was rapidly weighing it all, totting up the costs, figuring the losses, poking at the loopholes. He turned from the window. “What do you intend to do with it?” he said.

“That’s no longer your concern.”

“I can, of course, beat any price.”

“I’m sure.”

“So it’s not price?”

“No.”

“Then I don’t understand it.”

“No,” I said. “I didn’t think you would.”

“What assurance do I have that you will continue your silence?”

“None.”

“Yes,” he said. “I did expect that.” He thought some more, for all of five seconds. “Eight o’clock tonight.”

“All right,” I said. “Where?”

“My home in Virginia. It’s not far from Warrenton.” He spent thirty seconds giving me directions. I wrote them down.

“You will come alone, of course?” he said.

“No.”

Spencer didn’t like that. He frowned his frown, pursed his lips, and jutted his chin. “I must be assured some measure of privacy, Mr. St. Ives.”

“Four, maybe five persons have died because of the $250,000 ransom for that shield, Mr. Spencer. According to the financial and oil and gas journals that I went through at the Library of Congress, the oil underneath Komporeen is worth maybe $200 billion or more. I guarantee that the person that I’ll bring with me won’t violate what you call your privacy. He will, however, make me feel a little more secure.”

“He’s not of the police, is he?”

“No, he’s not a cop. He’s just insurance as far as I’m concerned.”

“And you really think you need it — this insurance?”

“Yes,” I said. “I really think I do.”

I was back in my hotel room by twelve-fifteen dialing the phone. A voice, a deep familiar one, answered on the first ring with a bass hello.

“Mbwato?”

“Mr. St. Ives. How good of you to call.”

“You’ll get your shield at eight o’clock tonight.”

There was a long silence. “You are positive?”

“I’m not even positive that the earth isn’t flat.”

His deep laugh rolled over the phone. “According to our legends, it is a cube.”

“Stick with them,” I said.

“Yes,” he said, and there was another pause. “There is a saying in your country about a gift horse.”

“It’s no gift,” I said. “I’ve got a price.”

“You restore my faith in human nature.”

“I thought I would.”

“And your price?”

“Six hundred and eighty-five dollars. Those are my out-of-pocket expenses.”

“You are joking, of course.”

“No, I’m not joking.”

“No,” he said slowly, “I don’t think you are.”

“There’s one more thing.”

“Yes.”

“How soon can you get yourself and the shield out of the country?”

“Tonight,” he said. “We have several contingency plans.”

“Have you got one for Virginia?” I said.

“I beg your pardon?”

“Virginia. That’s where we pick up the shield. Near Warrenton.”

“And you think we may be in a hurry?”

“Yes.”

“A great hurry?”

“Yes.”

“To use your country’s parlance, might it even be called a getaway?”

God, he likes to talk, I thought. “It could be called that.”

“Then give me the exact location and I’ll get Mr. Ulado on to it. He’s our getaway expert. Quite good at it really.”

I read him the directions that Spencer had given me. “I have a rented car in the garage here,” I said. “We’ll use that.”

“Shall I meet you there?”

“Yes. At seven.”

“Anything else?” Mbwato asked.

“Nothing.”

“There are a couple of details I should attend to.”

“All right,” I said.

There was another pause and I was wishing he would say good-by, but he didn’t. “I’m sorry, Mr. St. Ives, but my curiosity is overwhelming. Just why are you doing this when you were so adamant previously?”

“I changed my mind.”

“But why?”

“Cotton candy,” I said.

“I beg your pardon.”

“I’m a sucker for cotton candy. Spun sugar. Just like I’m a sucker for stories about hungry, kids and lost puppies and sick kittens. But after a while you get tired of listening to the stories, just like you get tired of eating cotton candy. I’m tired of your stories so I’m going to do something about it.”

Then I hung up before he could tell me any more of them.