The Lock and the Key

Chapter Fourteen

Earl Faraday was still at the Safety Deposit window. He was saying: “That seems like a lot of money, but I’ll think it over and come back in a day or two.”

Tommy walked through the bank, aware that Earl Faraday was directly behind him.

He stepped out to the sidewalk and finding the lights green, started across the street. Midway across, he had to stop as Willis Trent’s coupe turned the corner in front of him. Trent braked to a stop a few yards away and Tommy quickened his steps. Earl Faraday, coming up close behind him, snatched the Boston bag from his hand.

Trent, leaning across the seat, opened the car door and Tommy ducked his head and slid into the seat. Faraday crowded him in and was barely seated before Trent was shifting into second and gunning his motor.

“Okay?” Trent asked tautly.

“Here’s the bag,” said Faraday grimly. He ripped it open and stared down at the contents of the Manila envelope. “What the hell!” he ejaculated.

“That’s what I said inside the bank,” Tommy offered. “If there’s two hundred thousand in that...”

The car suddenly slewed sidewards as Trent jerked the wheel spasmodically. “Open it,” he cried hoarsely.

Faraday tore the end off the envelope and, reaching in, pulled out a sheaf of bills, all fives and tens.

“Chicken feed,” he said, with a sudden catch in his throat.

They were on Hollywood Boulevard, only a couple of blocks from the bank but Trent pulled the car to a sudden stop in front of a fire plug and, with his foot on the brake to hold the car, reached sidewards and grabbed Tommy’s coat with both hands.

“What’re you trying to pull, Tommy?” he shouted.

“Not a damn thing,” Tommy snarled. “That’s all there was in the box, that measly envelope.”

Faraday was riffling the bills. “Two, maybe three hundred,” he said, in a tone of awe.

“You lost your nerve,” raged Trent. “You grabbed the first thing in the box and ran.”

“I did not,” retorted Tommy. “I took everything there was in the box — and that was all.” He added, glowering, “Whoever told you he kept two hundred thousand in that box, gave you a bum steer.”

“There wasn’t two hundred thousand this week,” put in Faraday, “but there was a hundred and sixty thousand. That I know.”

“She told you wrong.”

“She?”

“Flo Randall!”

“Who told you I got my information from Flo Randall?” Faraday cried.

Willis Trent groaned and grabbed the wheel again. “Let’s not go into that here on the street. There’s something about this stinks to high heaven and I’m going to get to the bottom of it — but not here.”

He slammed the gear lever into second and the car leaped forward so suddenly that both Tommy and Faraday were hurled back against the cushions.

The car shot across La Brea and roared down Hollywood Boulevard. Faraday, beside Tommy, folded his arms across his chest and scowled at the windshield. Between the two men, Tommy Dancer relaxed.

Trent drove past Fairfax to Laurel Canyon and turned right. He sent the car shrieking around the sharp turns, forward and upward into the hills. He reached Mulholland Drive in record time and there made a left turn.

“Where are we going?” Faraday asked, then.

“You’ll see,” Trent replied grimly.

He drove a half mile or so, then suddenly made a sharp right turn on a graveled road that led from Mulholland Drive up a thirty-five degree slope to the summit of a hill. After a few hundred yards on this road, the drive suddenly petered out in a graveled yard, which had a flat-roofed stucco house at the end of it.

Although a comparatively short distance from a well-traveled road the spot was as isolated as if it had been a hundred miles out in the desert. There was no other habitation within sight.

Trent braked the car to a stop and shut off the motor. He climbed out and waited for Faraday and Tommy to step to the ground. Faraday surveyed the house and the grounds.

“Whose place is this?”

“It belongs to a friend.”

“Who?”

“What difference does it make?”

Faraday frowned but followed Trent toward the back door of the stuccoed house. Tommy Dancer walked between the two men. When they reached the door, Trent took out a key.

“A friend, eh?” Faraday said pointedly.

“He lets me use the place.”

They went into the house, through a kitchen that gleamed with white-enameled fixtures, through a butler’s pantry into a long, pine-beamed living room. Wide plate glass windows looked out over the mountainside to Hollywood far below. A man with a rifle could shoot down into the city from here... and nobody would know from where the bullet came.

The room was furnished with red mohair-covered furniture, but it was completely lacking in personal effects.

“Sit down,” Trent said curtly and went to a telephone at the far side of the room. He picked it up and dialed a number.

“Trent talking,” he said into the phone. “I want you to come up to the Mulholland Drive place. Right away, understand?” He hung up, waited a moment and dialed again. When he got an answer he repeated his order.

Finished, he put down the phone and faced Faraday and Tommy Dancer. “Give me that money,” he said to Faraday.

Faraday crossed and handed him the Manila envelope in which he had replaced the sheaf of bills. Trent slipped the money out into his hand and counted it, carefully.

“An even two hundred and fifty — in five and ten dollar bills.”

“Small change for a man like deCamp,” Faraday said.

Trent nodded. “He wouldn’t bother to put a sum like this in a safety deposit box.”

“Look,” said Tommy Dancer, “that’s all there was in the box. If you talk yourself blue in the face, I can’t make it more. And if you think I’ve got some stashed in my pockets, you’re welcome to search me.”

“That won’t be necessary... just yet,” Trent replied.

“No? Well, then I’m leaving. I’ve got things to do and—”

“And what?”

Trent reached into his coat and brought out a snub-nosed .32 caliber revolver. “You’ll leave when I tell you to leave.”

“Where’d you get the rod?” exclaimed Faraday. “I thought we’d agreed—”

“Sure,” said Trent, “we agreed. But I brought one along anyway. Just in case. And this is the case.”

He gestured to Tommy with the gun. “You can sit down. This is going to take awhile.”

Tommy knew that defiance would be fruitless at the moment. He crossed to the red sofa and sat down. Trent seated himself across the room in an armchair. Faraday elected to remain standing, to one side, where he could watch both Trent and Dancer.

“I don’t give a damn what you say, Willis,” he said, “but I’ll bet everything I’ve got that deCamp had that money in his box this week.”

“Oh, I don’t doubt you, Faraday,” Trent replied. “That’s not the question. I know deCamp has that kind of money. I know that he’s got to have it in his business. The question is, what became of the money? Where is it now?” He paused significantly. “In short, who pulled the double cross?”

“What double cross is there?” snapped Tommy. “The money wasn’t in the box, that’s all.”

“The money was in the box,” Faraday insisted. “At least it was there two days ago.”

“Exactly,” said Trent.

Tommy reached into his pocket and drew out the two safety deposit keys. He threw them to the floor. “There are the keys. Go back to the bank. Look for yourself.”

“On that,” Trent said, “I take your word. I’m quite sure the box is empty — just as sure as I am that deCamp had a lot more money than this in the box.”

Angrily, Tommy pointed at Faraday. “You had your eye on me from the moment I stepped out of the vault. You followed me out of the bank and you grabbed the bag from me before we got into the car.”

“That’s right, Willis,” Faraday said, his forehead creasing. “He couldn’t have slipped anything to... to a confederate.”

“Confederate!” snorted Trent. “There are no damn confederates in this. I didn’t cut anyone in and with the amount of money involved, I doubt if either of you two would. But there’s been a double cross somewhere and that’s what we’re going to find out before any of us leaves this place.” He pointed to Faraday with the gun. “Let’s take a look at you first, Earl.”

“All right,” snarled Faraday, “look at me. Without my contribution there wouldn’t have been any caper in the first place. Now, how do you figure me for a double cross?”

“You might have done a very good sales job on Flo Randall,” Trent said, “so good that you didn’t figure you needed to split with anyone else.”

“You’re crazy! Even if I’d been able to get deCamp’s key from Flo what good would that do me? I couldn’t go down to the bank and ask them to let me into deCamp’s box.”

“The box could be in the names of both deCamp and Randall,” Trent suggested.

Faraday snorted. “Paul deCamp wouldn’t trust any woman with two hundred thousand cents.”

Trent hesitated a moment, then nodded. “I think you’re right.”

He suddenly shifted to Tommy Dancer. “That leaves you, Tommy.”

“Oh, does it?”

Outside, a motor, laboring, could be heard. Then it stopped and a car door slammed. Trent, his eyes narrowing, said to Tommy: “Sit tight.”

A door opened and closed and feet pounded in the kitchen. Louie, Tommy’s late shadow, plunged into the room. He came to an abrupt halt when he saw Trent in command of the situation.

“Oh, hello, boss,” he said. “I was afraid from the way you sounded—”

“It’s all right,” Trent said. “I just wanted to ask you some questions.”

“Now see here, Trent,” Faraday interrupted. “If you’re going to let him in on this—”

“Shut up, Faraday!” Trent snapped. “I’m running this show.”

“Who said you were?” Faraday blustered. But a glance from Trent’s steely eyes silenced him.

“Louis,” Trent said softly, “when did I put you on Tommy Dancer’s tail?”

“Day before yesterday. In the morning.”

“All right, give us a report on his movements — like you gave me last night.”

Louie took a notebook from his pocket and turning a page translated from his notes: “Left the Melrose Lock and Key Shop at eleven-thirty; drove to Melrose and Highland Avenue and started to make a right turn. I pulled up behind him and he suddenly went off to the left, in front of cars in the left lane. I couldn’t make the turn and—” looked up and scowled at Tommy — “I lost him.”

“That was when you spotted him, wasn’t it, Tommy?” Trent asked, pleasantly.

Tommy shook his head. “No. I remember the incident. I meant to make a left turn and was daydreaming and then all of a sudden I found myself in the right-turn lane.” He shrugged. “So I made a left turn.”

Trent nodded. “Skip yesterday’s, Louie. Just tell about last night.”

“You mean from before I followed him to your place?”

“No, after he left.”

“Okay. Like you know, he got me into the building and called you on the telephone. Said you were going to pull me off — only you didn’t — so I followed...”

Tommy cursed under his breath.

“...He picked up this babe in Beverly Hills, right at the end of the Strip, then went back into Beverly Hills and headed out over Coldwater Canyon. I had a hard time following them because that Cadillac sure covered the ground—”

“You were out with Betty Targ!” snarled Earl Faraday. He took a step forward, but Trent waved him back with the gun.

“Go ahead, Louie.”

“Sure. They stopped in a restaurant on Ventura, just off Coldwater. They had dinner there, for about an hour or so, then they came out and went to Pete Moy’s Place and from there to Mickey Cobbler’s Supper Club and then to the Black Chrysanthemum and then they headed back to town and hit a couple of places on the Strip. The Bull Dog and Whistle, and the Aurora Club and then they went home.” He coughed. “I mean the babe took him up to the Strip where he’d left his car. And then they... well, after awhile she went off in her own car — the Cadillac — and he got into his heap and went back to his place on Las Palmas. It was after two o’clock then and when he went inside I figured he was calling it a night so I went home myself.”

Louie closed his little book and smirked at Tommy Dancer. “No hard feelings, pal?”

“No,” said Tommy, “none that a good punch in the nose can’t cure.”

“Dinner,” Willis Trent said, “in an expensive restaurant and six night clubs afterwards. Pretty steep for a man who makes about fifty dollars a week.”

“I saved my money.”

“And blew it all in one night?” Trent fingered the stack of bills in his hand. “Where’d you get this two-fifty?”

“I told you. From Paul deCamp’s—”

“Shut up!” cried Earl Faraday, leaping to his feet. “You want to tell one more and then another and pretty soon everybody in town’ll know.”

“Louie’s all right,” said Trent. “He works for me.”

“So you told him,” snarled Faraday. “Who else?”

A door buzzer whirred so suddenly and unexpectedly that Faraday gave a violent start. But Trent merely nodded to Louie. “Let him in.”