The Wager

15

The MV Andropolis, her flags flying bravely and her white paint gleaming brightly, plowed steadily through the Narrows, its polished railing crowded with passengers wondering where the two weeks had flown, drinking in the breathless wonders of the Brooklyn waterfront on one side and Staten Island on the other, pointing out, one to the other, things the other had just finished pointing out to them. The Verrazano bridge had been passed and commented on with awe, quite as if they had not seen it two weeks before on their departure. To their left, the Statue of Liberty stood, looking a bit tired after the years and many disappointments; to the right the twin towers of the World Trade Center loomed larger and larger in the morning sun, dwarfing the older, more dignified skyline of downtown New York. In the broad harbor ships drifted at anchor, ferries plied; garbage floated gently on the tide. The day was hot and humid, promising passengers a muggy welcome at the ancient gloomy Customs shed that should have been used for firewood when everything above Thirty-fourth Street was farmland.

In the interior of the luxury liner the companionways were jammed with stewards staggering Quasimodolike under mounds of luggage, transferring it from corridors to the promenade deck, where members of the deck crew piled it in mountainous heaps with the most crushable objects, if possible, beneath. Stewardesses frantically dragged linens from beds and pushed them into the corridor, or tried to drag vacuum cleaners into staterooms through the mob that was hastily preparing for the next cruise — for the ship sailed for Philadelphia as soon as the passengers were disembarked, there to allow others to rumple beds and fill ashtrays. In the bars, barmen counted bottles behind closed grillworks; in the huge kitchen storeroom chefs checked stocks while hand trucks propelled by caterer-employees feverishly tried to overcome the shortages before the ship sailed. In the saloons, passengers ladened with island purchases considered too precious for the handling by shipboard personnel busily scribbled each other’s addresses on bits of paper, to be examined curiously the next time a wallet or purse was cleaned out, and then thrown away. Whistles blew for unexplained reasons, horns honked at irregular intervals, while an insistent voice on the loudspeakers advised everybody not to dawdle once their luggage was on the dock, as the ship was sailing at once.

Jamison, having seen Kek Huuygens on deck patiently waiting for the tugs to edge the Andropolis into her berth, nodded in satisfaction and went below. He found Rafferty where he had left him, standing stolidly in the purser’s square, tapped the large security officer on the arm, and motioned him to follow as he walked down the aft companionway, stepping on linens and squeezing past laden stewards. At Huuygens’ cabin he was pleased to note through the open door that the place was stewardess-free. He entered, pulling Rafferty behind him, and closed the door, twisting the latch. He dragged a chair to the wall and climbed up, tugged the grillwork free, and peered within. A smile crossed his horseface. As he had figured, the brightly colored package was gone.

“Bingo!” he said softly to himself, and got down again.

“Not there anymore?” Rafferty asked.

“Of course not. Take a look,” Jamison offered generously.

“What good would that do?” Rafferty asked, his tendency for logic once more functioning. “I never saw it there in the first place.”

For a moment Jamison’s face fell. He mentally kicked himself for not having used Rafferty to better advantage as a witness when the two of them were last in the cabin. It was true that in that case Rafferty would be of small use in court, but the evidence of the carving was actually all that a judge would need to put Huuygens behind bars where he belonged.

“It was there and now it’s gone. Take my word for it,” he said shortly, and then his face creased in a smile and he rubbed his hands. “Now to see how Mr. Huuygens tries to get it through Customs!”

Mr. Huuygens, edging his way down the gangplank and then walking in the direction of the huge H hanging from a dingy rafter, was not greatly surprised to see a uniformed Customs official standing beside his three bags, refusing the importuning of earlier arrivals. In fact, he was surprised to see that other officials were also not at work as yet. He looked about for André, but although the large man had preceded Kek down the gangplank, he was nowhere to be seen. In the other direction, Anita, for once unaccompanied by Billy Standish, waited patiently for the Customs ritual to begin.

Kek came up to his bags and nodded pleasantly to the man hovering over them. “Those are my bags beside you,” Kek said, and reached into a pocket, bringing out a declaration form and handing it over. “Would you care to examine them?”

“I believe we’d rather do it inside,” the Customs man answered with a faintly malicious smile, refusing the declaration form by simply ignoring it. Stories about Huuygens were legion in the Customs service. “You don’t mind?”

“Of course I mind,” Kek told him a bit crossly. “Wouldn’t you?” He shrugged helplessly. “Well, if I must, I must, I suppose. Would you want me to help you carry one of those bags for you?”

“I can handle them quite nicely,” said the official, and picked them up. He led the way across the shed to offices there, while the other passengers looked after them curiously, certain a bribe of some kind had assured this passenger special treatment. They should know! Kek thought with an inward smile, and closed the door behind him. The Customs man set the bags down on a bench-cum-deck. Kek turned. His eyebrows raised in surprise.

“Mr. Jamison! You poor man, do they suspect you of something improper, too?”

“It’s time to end the masquerade,” Jamison said, and drew himself up, speaking in his most official manner. “Mr. Huuygens, you might as well know that I am with the Treasury Department — with the Customs Service, to be exact — and that we have strong reason to suspect you are carrying contraband. I’ve had my eye on you from the beginning; it was, in fact, my reason for being on the cruise. I’m afraid I must ask you—”

“No!” Kek said, absolutely astonished. “You mean—”

“I’m afraid it’s true. And I’m also afraid we must ask you to submit to a thorough search of your person and your belongings.”

“I’m amazed!” Kek looked it. “I must compliment you on a masterful performance. Are you sure you never had stage training?” He shrugged and got back to the matter in hand. “But the truth is, I’m afraid you’ve had all your trouble for nothing. Here’s my declaration form.”

“Ah, yes, your declaration form.” Jamison took it and scanned it calmly, smiled, and looked up. “Nothing to declare?”

“That’s right. So you see,” Kek said earnestly, “you’ve been mistaken.”

“I doubt it,” Jamison told him, in command every inch of the way. “What about that — ah, candy dish I saw you with in Barbados?”

Kek looked puzzled. “Candy dish?”

“The package under your arm at the shed in Barbados.” Jamison was the soul of patience. He hoped that Blazak, the other official, would watch and learn. “While you were listening to that steel-drum band. You said you’d found some waiter using it for an ashtray.”

“Oh, that? I’d forgotten about that. I don’t remember what I did with it, as a matter of fact. I probably forgot it and left it on the ship. I certainly don’t recall packing it.”

“Well.” Jamison smiled in friendly fashion. “Let’s see if we can help you find it. We’d never want you to lose a candy dish.”

“Is it that important, really?” Kek asked, exasperated.

“Yes,” Jamison said simply and gestured toward the cases. “Would you unlock them, please?”

“They’re not locked.” Kek’s tone clearly indicated that only those without clear consciences needed to lock cases.

“Good,” Jamison said, unimpressed by the playacting. “Blazak?”

“Yes, sir!” The uniformed Customs man sprang to attention.

With Jamison’s gesture, the search began. Blazak started with the small overnight case, while Jamison alternated his gaze from the case to Huuygens’ face. It was amazing how often people gave away their guilt, or a hiding place, by a quirk of the eyebrows or a tightening of the nostrils. Kek merely yawned, however, and leaned against one corner of the bench as Blazak went through the items there one by one. Shaving paraphernalia joined toothbrush and toothpaste, and in turn was joined by aspirin, mouthwash, spare razorblades, and deodorant. It was plain to Blazak that if an object the size of a pin failed to escape his search, certainly nothing the size of the carving he had been told they were searching for could, or would. When the overnight case had been emptied, the case’s sides, top, bottom, and ends were rapped and checked for thickness. Only when both Jamison and Blazak were certain the case was innocent of any wrongdoing, were the items replaced. Blazak snapped the lock shut and moved to the smaller of the remaining cases.

Here the drill was repeated, with Jamison still watching and still not perturbed by the lack of evidence so far. He was sure that Huuygens had the carving — either Huuygens or his confederate — and the confederate was going through the same type of search in the adjoining room.

The second case was emptied and studied. Then Blazak began replacing the socks, shoes, ties, and other apparel. Kek was pleased to note that Blazak, in addition to being thorough, was also neat, a trait he most probably learned at his mother’s knee, rather than in the Department.

The second case was latched and the third case was opened, when Blazak found himself pushed aside as Jamison, in his eagerness, would not wait. “I’ll take this one myself,” he announced, and began dragging jackets and trousers precipitously from the case.

“Hold it!” Huuygens said, annoyed. “You’ll wrinkle them!”

“Will I, now!” Jamison said, and began pressing each garment between his hands.

“Yes, you will, damn it!” Huuygens said, his voice taut. “Leave them alone! You’ll ruin them!”

“Will I, now!” There was sudden triumph in Jamison’s voice; his horseface was aglow with success. He shoved a hand deep inside the inner pocket of a sport jacket. The lining had been torn and the object he had located was in back, down by the hem. A more casual examination might well have missed it. “You need a tailor,” Jamison told him with an attempt at humor, and withdrew a brightly colored package. It was the same one he had seen under Huuygens’ arm on the pier in Bridgetown, the one first seen and then removed from the duct in the other’s stateroom. “Well, well!” Jamison said, smiling. “I do believe we may have found that candy dish you lost!”

Kek tried to look relieved. “Well. I certainly hope so. So that’s where it went, eh? I’ll have to get that lining fixed.” He put out his hand. “Let me have my declaration back and I’ll mark it down. ‘One candy dish, fifteen dollars, Wedgwood.’”

“All my life,” Jamison said smugly, “I’ve wanted to see what a fifteen-dollar Wedgwood candy dish looked like.” He started unwrapping the package with hands that, despite himself, began to tremble with anticipation.

“Hey!” Kek said in alarm but it was too late. The package was open.

But Jamison did not hear him. He was staring down at the object in his hands. His lifelong ambition had finally been realized; he was seeing what a fifteen-dollar Wedgwood candy dish looked like.

That was the day that became known in shipping circles as the Day of the Big Search, and probably made more passengers swear they would never take a ship again than the beggars in Haiti, or Hatteras at its worst. A stentorian blast on the loudspeakers advised all Customs officials to report to the office Jamison had commandeered for Operation Huuygens, and when they returned to duty it was to go through each passenger’s luggage and person with a thoroughness unequaled in the history of a department dedicated to thorough searching. Female agents were called in from adjoining piers to handle the women passengers; the Customs man nearest Anita apologized profusely as he handed her over to a large, matronly agent, but Anita was searched as thoroughly as the others. Offices were taken over for the more delicate aspects of the search. Every possible place an object the size of the carving could have been hidden was probed, poked, patted, or squeezed. And when it was finished late that afternoon, and the last fuming passenger finally released, together with Huuygens and Martins, Jamison sat alone in the little office, his aching head in his hands, considering the day from its hopeful inception to its horrible conclusion. His biggest problem — other than fruitless wonder as to how the devil Huuygens had accomplished it — was what to say to his superior when he called in to report. It was, however, the one worry he did not have to contend with, for the telephone at his elbow rang before he could formulate his thoughts, let alone place a call to Washington. It was, as he feared, his superior.

“Jamison!”

“Sir?”

The icy voice was withering in its anger.

“What in the name of God have you been doing all day? I’ve had sixteen calls in the past two hours! Did you know there was a tour of Justice Department wives on that cruise?”

“There was?” The truth was that at that point Jamison just didn’t care.

“And one of them just finished having hysterics over the telephone in my ear, and for fifteen minutes! What do you mean, body-searching the wife of an Assistant Attorney General?”

“Did they do that? I personally didn’t touch a—”

“Keep quiet! And did you know the press is saying we’re dictatorial, and that Congress should investigate your idiotic directions today? The Daily News is asking for a special committee!”

“They are?”

“Keep quiet! And did you know,” the man in Washington went on cuttingly, “that the president of that steamship line happens to be an old golfing friend of the Secretary of the Treasury? Your boss, and — more important — mine?”

“He is?”

“He is! Now, start talking, Jamison, and make it good!”

Jamison sighed. He was past fear; now all he felt was weariness and the residual soreness of his nose and jaw.

“I don’t know how he did it,” he said, biting back a yawn, “but he brought it in. He didn’t have it with him, nor did his confederate, either — nor anyone else, for that matter, because we searched them, but still he brought it in. Under our noses. It was a candy dish.”

“Stop driveling! What do you mean, it was a candy dish?”

“Wrapped in colored paper,” Jamison added, and allowed the yawn to win.

“What are you talking about? Jamison, are you sober?”

“He had it wrapped to look like a candy dish, only when we opened it, it was a candy dish. Like I just said,” Jamison went on, unable to fathom why his superior, normally a fairly intelligent man, seemed unable to follow the discussion.

There was a long pause at the other end of the line. Then, “Jamison, go home and take a cold bath. And then take a glass of tomato juice with some Worcestershire sauce and two aspirin—”

“He had aspirin—”

“—and then sleep if off. When you feel better, report to the office. Better bring a bag with you.”

“I’m going somewhere, sir?”

“Yes. I intend to have papers cut, transferring you to Point Barrow.”

“Point Barrow, sir? Isn’t that in Alaska?”

“It is.”

“That’s above the Arctic Circle, isn’t it, sir?”

“It is.”

“Do we have an office there, sir?”

“If we don’t, we’ll open one,” said the man in Washington with finality, and hung up.

“Yes, sir,” Jamison said obediently to the dial tone, and yawned. “I’ll do that, sir. And thank you, sir...”

André Martins, having seen their luggage properly stowed in the front seat of the taxi, climbed in beside Huuygens while the other man gave the driver directions. He looked sideways and with admiration at Huuygens as the taxi started up and swung into 57th Street, heading for the East Side.

“How did you do it, Kek?”

“How did I do what?”

“You know damn well what I mean! How did you—” He paused abruptly, glancing at the driver, then lowered his voice, even though they were speaking French. “You know!”

“Oh, that?” Kek laughed. “It’s a long story. I’ll tell you over a drink at the apartment.” He looked at André, a twinkle in his eye. “How did you enjoy the search?”

“I was going to object. Strenuously,” André reported honestly, “but I figured they’d take away my visa—”

“For breaking an inspector’s back? Or even his arm? Very likely,” Kek said dryly.

André considered his friend with respect. “You go through that all the time? And keep your temper?”

Kek shrugged. “It’s part of the game. Usually I’m the only one to suffer, but this time, because of that damned bodyguard of Girard’s and his big mouth — and because Jamison, for all his faults, was smart enough to figure out that if I had a confederate, it could well be whoever joined the ship in Barbados, and you were the only one who did — you and the rest had to suffer with me. I’ll try to be more careful in the future and not make verbal deals before third parties.”

He leaned forward, directing the driver. The cab swung in an illegal U-turn, coming to rest before a large apartment. Kek paid the man and climbed down after André. The large man picked up the four suitcases with ease, refusing help, and followed Huuygens into the building. In the elevator, the doorman behind him, André looked around, smiled at the luxury, and said, “Tomorrow I’ll get the rest of my money from Girard and find myself a small hotel for a few months.”

“You’ll pick up the money and then come right back to the apartment,” Kek said firmly. “Anita would never let me hear the end of it if you ever stayed anywhere else. And, after all, I have to live with the woman.”

André grinned. “In that case—”

The elevator door slid back silently. Kek led the way down the hall, dug out his apartment key, opened the door, and ushered André inside. “Put down the bags and let’s have that drink.” He raised his voice. “Anita?”

“Yes?” The voice was faint, coming from a bedroom.

“Come in here and have a drink with us. What are you doing?”

Anita poked her head around the sill of the hall entrance. “I’m unpacking, darling.”

Kek looked at her in surprise. “Unpacking?”

“That’s what people usually do when they come back from a cruise,” Anita answered reasonably, and came into the room.

“Ah!” Kek saw her point at last, and also her mistake. “But I promised you cruises, not a single cruise, don’t you remember? And this time we’ll have adjoining staterooms, and a flaming shipboard romance, and everything that goes with it, to make up for the last one.” He moved behind the bar and started to set out glasses while André and Anita stared at him. Kek reached for a bottle of brandy. “We leave at seven o’clock this evening, sweet. For Philadelphia, by train. The Andropolis sails from there at midnight.”

Anita settled on a barstool with an unbelieving look on her pretty face. André sat down beside her, staring at Huuygens.

“You’re going to take another cruise? On the same ship?”

“Of course,” Kek said, and poured. He slid glasses over the countertop, retaining one for himself. “I have to. The carving is there on board.”

“What?”

“Yes — behind a dresser drawer in my stateroom. I figured Jamison wouldn’t look there again, not after he found that lovely-wrapped package missing from the air-conditioning duct.” He laughed. “That was the carving, at the time. The candy dish was where it belonged, on the vanity, full of caramels. One thing I’m pleased about — I won’t have to keep wrapping and rewrapping anymore.”

There was a lot about this that André didn’t understand, but one thing was quite clear.

“Yes, but when you come back this time, they’ll be twice as suspicious!”

Kek smiled. “Not quite. As the young lady at the travel agency said, this one is just a Cruise to Nowhere, three or four days on the ocean for people who just like the sight and sound of the sea, and — although she failed to mention it — each other’s company.” He smiled genially at the two people staring at him. “And they don’t even open the ship’s shop, because, you see, passengers on a Cruise to Nowhere aren’t bothered by the nasty Customs when they return...”

He smiled more widely, winked, and raised his glass.

“And if nobody else does it this time, I’ll do it myself. To a bon voyage.”