Ransom Game (21 page)

“Mrs. Jarman asked me to have a look in the barn for something. I guess you know Mrs. Jarman pretty well, Mr. Lyon? She speaks highly of you.”

“I knowed them all.” Here I thought he'd spit, but the weather was too dry for that, though he did lower the gun. “Her and her brother.” Now Gloria's name worked like laxative. “I knew the old gentleman and his lady too. I knowed them all one time and another. Her father came here the day afore he died. He'd had a warning, if you ask me. Came for his last look.”

“Oh yes? What did he do?”

“We had a smoke and a drink together like in the old days, he slipped me a few dollars to get my Quebec heater fixed, and went over the stable the way he always did. Then he sort of wandered around for a while, looking at the house, then idled over to the barn. There was still some light, so he went in. Not that he stayed long. He was in there less than ten minutes. Before I'd gone more than twenty rods up the lane, he was back out and angry as a cat in a tizzy, red in the face like he was fixing to die of apoplexy. He got straight in his car, the chauffeur shrugs at me and off he drives, and I never saw him again until I saw him laid out.”

“Did he bring anything out with him?”

“Nope.”

“Are you sure?”

“Just a suitcase, that's all.”

“And he took it into the car with him?”

“That's what I m telling you.”

“Did it look like it was full of something?”

“No, nothing. It was an empty suitcase.”

“I see. Did Mr. Warren come up to the farm often?”

“Three times a year, regular as clockwork. I could almost set a bet going on it, although he never planned it that way. He just drifted in off the road, you know, to see how the old place was doing. Going to hell in a bucket, I told him, and he just laughed his sad laugh and said he hoped to put some time into the place before too long. He said that every time, and every time he believed it until he was out of sight. He used to wander over the place, kicking up old cow flaps, or dusting the horsehead tops of the rails in the stable, not saying anything. Did it for years.”

“But this last time: was it the first time he went into the barn? Was it the first time you saw him get angry?”

“That's what I said, didn't I?”

“Well, if you don't mind, I'll have a look at the barn myself. Hope you don't mind, Mr. Lyon.”

“No. You suit yourself. I just wanted to see what your business was on the property. If you want me, I'll be in the shack. Nice to meet you.” He went off, holding the gun by its stock and letting the end of the barrel mark the badly plowed lane. He didn't look back.

The barn stood about fifty feet from the house and on the other side of the lane. It still looked solid, although two of the lightning rods had lost their china balls, and the line of the roof was no longer the shortest distance between two points. In the twilight it looked blueish and unpainted. I walked up the ramp leading to the huge double doors. Except for a few scraggly starlings, nothing was moving. I opened a door and let myself in. The empty barn was making a low moaning sound, like there was a high wind blowing outside. I guess that was only the sound a barn makes when you take away its pigs and cows. Inside, the boards of the walls were like wide black bars against the sky. I switched my flashlight on. The mows looked deserted even of mice and barn cats. The flashlight shifted the shadows so they leaned away from me, then crept up behind me. Halfway down the nave, or whatever you call the inside of a barn, I found a strawcovered stairway leading down. The moan of the barn was amplified under the floor. My eyes got used to the last remaining light that slanted in through knotholes and the few small windows. Hay dust fell from the ceiling every time I took a step from cow flap to horse manure. It was a big space down here, compressed by the space above the low ceiling and exaggerated by the vanished live-stock.

I made my way between the whitewashed pillars to the end below the big doors I'd come through. The wall, which was striped with droppings from a dozen generations of barn swallows, was made of wood. Pegs in it held a kerosene lantern, a few pieces of dead harness and a few coils of wire. Along the wall ran a workbench with a much-used vice at one end and a scattering of rusty tools, oily tools, bits of leather, pieces of tin at the other. A dusty gas mask grinned at me. I shone my flashlight on a calendar for the year 1945 which showed a girl in a women's auxiliary army uniform with her skirt caught in the door of a Jeep, leaving a lot of leg to be seen by the driver, an appreciative private.

I tried to pull one end of the bench away from the wall; nothing happened. I tried the other. The workbench glided back as I pulled, taking with it a portion of the wall behind. All I needed now was to catch the eyes behind the calendar moving. The bench stopped when it stood at right-angles to the wall. Behind it lay Pop's hole, a hole black enough for Calcutta. To get in I stepped through a doorway five feet high and three feet wide, and down one step to a packed earth floor. The beam of my flash pushed back the gloom to a wall of preserved jams about eight feet in front of me. On the other two walls I picked out shelves full of empty Gem jars, and in one corner I saw a few wooden cases which had held imported whisky. There were about a hundred neatly linedup bottles against the back wall, a few broken sticks of furniture and a couple of wooden soft-drink cases to sit on. An oil lamp hung from the right spot, creasing my forehead when I blundered by it.

What caught my eye then was an open suitcase. In my flashlight beam it seemed to move against the far wall as I came closer. It was empty, of course. On the front, I could read a nearly worn-away sticker from the Hotel Byblos, St. Tropez. A small leather and plastic tag carried the names of Mr. and Mrs. George Warren. I suspect that if I'd torn the thing apart, I would have recovered a police tracking device in need of repair.

Except for a pile of clothes in the far corner, that seemed to be it. I should have left it at that, but, like my mother says, I never let well-enough alone. I shone my beam on the old clothes, which, the closer I got to them looked less and less like just old clothes. In the heap I recognized a hand and a couple of dark ankles. I went closer. On one knee, I turned it over. It was solid and cold. The bearded face in the harsh light of my failing flashlight stared up at me, a look of surprise frozen on its dead features. It was nobody I knew. That made it a little easier. He had taken two bullets in the chest, by the look of him. He'd grabbed himself and had gone down on his face. Small calibre weapon, I figured. It didn't knock him across the room, or tear him apart. But when I unbuttoned his coat I found one that could have. It was a .38 police special, oiled, loaded and ready for action. Some other time. Before easing him back on his face again, I tried going through the rest of his pockets. I found some keys, some papers and a wallet, nearly brand new, with a driver's licence made out to Giovanni Paulo Rosa. I had done what Muriel had paid me to do. I had found Johnny Rosa.

TWENTY-FOUR

I pulled into Black Horse Corners and fed coins to the phone. It took them at least ten minutes to locate Savas. I was feeling cold and weak as I stood in the draughty booth.

“Hello?”

“Savas? It's Cooperman.”

“What have you got?”

“I've got Johnny Rosa. Cold.”

“Where are you?” He sounded interested. But he didn't climb through the wire.

“I'm at Black Horse Corners, near …”

“I know where Black Horse Corners is, Benny. Stay calm. Light a cigarette and tell me all about it. Rosa's with you?” I tried to get out my cigarettes, but I felt like I was wearing mitts: my hands had become flukes. I got a half-crushed Player's lit and felt better for it. “No. He's down the road a piece. He's in the barn at the Warren farm between Effingham and St. John's, the third line, Swayze Township. There's a room under the ramp leading to the double doors. You open it by pulling one end of the workbench away from the wall, downstairs in the corral where the animals are milked. Am I making sense? Should I go over it again?”

“No, I got it. Now would you mind telling how Rosa got it?”

“Looked like he took two small calibre slugs in front. But I didn't stick around. The place is cold and dark, and he isn't going to get much stiffer.”

“Okay, I'll get a couple of men on it right away. Is there anybody living on the place?”

“An old watchman named Lyon. The faithful family retainer with a twelve-gauge shotgun.”

“Okay, Benny, how the hell did you find him? And don't tell me it was some kind of hunch.”

“A frozen starling told me, Chris.”

“Come clean or your name goes on this.”

“Okay. I figured out that was the place where Johnny hid the ransom money after the kidnapping. He must have got shot when he went back to pick it up.”

“But why the Warren place?”

“Well, for one thing it wasn't the Warren place at the time of the kidnapping. It belonged to an uncle who wasn't working it because of a stroke. But the Warrens seem to be getting into this thing deeper and deeper. I'm going over to talk to a few of them when I hang up. I may try out a few theories on you later.”

“Sure, as long as you're picking up the tab this time, Sherlock. Talk to you later.” He was gone, and a woman with gold teeth at the ends of her smile was waiting to use the phone.

I was running late, so I drove grimly toward the Warren mansion. I had the radio turned up high to put a roof over my vagrant thoughts. I'd never approached the house from this direction, but the architect had been expecting me: it looked just as big from any angle. The leafless trees moved aside as I drove off the main road and up the lane. I drove under the
porte cochère
and parked the car around at the back, next to Helen's Volvo. An antique Rolls Royce was sitting on the pavement in front of a multiple-car garage. Like a trainer giving a rub-down to a prize racehorse, the chauffeur was adding a little spit and polish to the gleaming front end. I was late, but this was too good to miss. I walked around, admiring.

“Nice piece of work that,” I observed. The chauffeur stared at me from under his peak-cap, his matching livery stiffening.

“Takes a lot of upkeep, a car like this. You let it stand a few hours, and you can see the difference,” I admired some more and fought down an instinct to kick the nearest tire.

“What sort of mileage do you get on her?”

“If you have to ask that, you can't afford to run her.” He looked at a point near the silver lady radiator cap, and rubbed it with a chamois. He inspected the effect, and tried another caress. This time he seemed to approve the work and went on to repeat the process. I watched fascinated. In less than three minutes, the chauffeur had me wanting to take the chamois away from him to give the Rolls a few perfect rubs myself.

He was a small, neatly-put-together man, like a jockey's older brother. He wore shining leather greaves over his shins, and a yellow cigarette stub was held in his teeth with some skill when he talked.

“The day before he died, you drove George Warren to the farm, didn't you?” He stopped rubbing the car and straightened up; looking at me with not exactly suspicion, more like the sudden appearance of opportunity.

“Name's Cooperman. I'm working for Mrs. Jarman. You did drive him up there. Old Mr. Lyon told me.”

“Why's that important? Mr. Warren's dead and buried.”

“Maybe it isn't, but I won't know until I've got some answers.” He took the cigarette butt from his teeth and flicked it away.

“I get paid for driving, not talking. You want information bad like you say, you must be willing to pay for it.”

“Okay, I won't see you go short. Start talking.” He bent over while lighting a new smoke, but kept his eyes on me. I thought I'd prime the pump. “Mr. Warren went to the farm a few times a year, didn't he, just to wander around, look the place over?”

“That's right. I took him up there maybe every four months or so.”

“Tell me about the last trip.”

“It started like all the others. This time he was telling me about his father. The old gentleman was an alcoholic, he said, used to be a secret drinker. He asked me if I took a drink, and I told him I could take it or leave it alone. He got out, wandered around with his hands in his pockets, looked at a broken piece of machinery, walked up to the stable, and then went into the barn.”

“Was he still wandering, or do you think he'd thought of something?”

“Don't know. I wasn't following all that close, if you know what I mean. I just saw him go up the ramp and disappear from view. He was gone maybe eight to ten minutes, and I was looking at the racing sheet, and then all of a sudden he comes running out of there like a bull's chasing him. I'd been with the family for quite a few years and I never saw him run before. He was holding an open suitcase, and he came running down to the car, looking like he was going to backfire. He didn't have to tell me that he wanted to leave pronto. He threw that suitcase in the back seat, and was on the car phone talking a mile a minute before we were back on the highway.”

“Do you remember who he called?”

“Maybe if tried real hard.” I reached into my back pocket and brought my wallet into view.

“Try real hardy,” I suggested. He shot me a wolfish grin.

“It was Mr. Avery at the office. Thomas James Avery, his executive assistant at the head office of Archon. He was asking him to check up on some finances in a hurry. He said he wanted a report by nine that evening, which, I remember thinking, was hard on Mr. Avery, since it was past five when he called.” I peeled two five-dollar bills from the three I had left in my wallet and let him have them. I had to get to the bank in the morning, I reminded myself, and at the same time I thought that I could legitimately think of Mrs. Jarman as my client from now on.