The Last Coin (34 page)

On a sudden hunch, Andrew counted back on his fingers, calculating the date on which he’d tracked Pennyman to Moneywort’s shop. Sure enough, there’d been a check paid out—to a man with an Asian name, on The Toledo. Andrew couldn’t quite make out the spelling of the name, beyond the fact that it was short and started with a
K
. It was substantial, too—nearly a thousand dollars. That would be for the elixir. Pennyman had walked away in that direction carrying a live carp in a bag, and had appeared at home two hours later carrying a vial of the elixir. It stood to reason. Andrew pulled the pen off the checkbook and wrote the information on the palm of his hand, just as a precaution against forgetting it, then idly flipped to the next check stub. It had been written out to Edward Fitzpatrick.

Ken-or-Ed. Right across the street. Andrew was flabbergasted. What did it mean? Pennyman had paid the man off. All that business about the planning commission—that was all a charade, a hoax. Pennyman had set it up. It had cost him two hundred dollars. Jack Dilton! He was probably some drunk they’d found slumped on the counter down at Wimpy’s.

For a moment Andrew was tempted to fly into a rage, to turn Pennyman’s room upside down, the lying, stinking … Kissing Rose’s hand! The whole incident rushed back in upon him, and it took an effort of will not to rip the checkbook in half. He counted to ten, very slowly. He heard Pickett whistle just as he was telling himself to put the checkbook back. He could
use
the information. If he tore it up, Pennyman would know all. Andrew would have played his hand, and a damned poor one at that.

“Look at this,” Pickett said. Andrew slid the checkbook back into the drawer, closed it, and stepped across to help Pickett, who kneeled in front of the lower, right-hand drawer beneath the bed. In it, spread open, was a leather bag of silver dimes—thousands of them. “What in the world …”

“All silver?” asked Andrew.

Pickett slid his hand through them, letting them run through his fingers as if he were an adventurer in a pirate’s cavern. He nodded.

“Looks like.”

“Do you think he just
keeps
them? I keep pennies, for heaven’s sake. They’re not evidence of anything.”

“You’re not going around town sawing people in half, either. Lord knows what they’re for, though. They don’t do us any good, do they?”

Andrew shook his head. “What’s that wrapped in paper there? Looks like books, doesn’t it?”

Pickett hauled it out—an almost-square parcel wrapped in butcher paper and with the ends folded and taped like the ends of a Christmas present. “Tape is pretty new,” Pickett said, worrying up a corner of it. “It hasn’t stuck tight yet. Should we chance it?”

“Of
course
we’ll chance it. Let’s steal them and replace them with
Reader’s Digest
condensed.”

“None of that,” said Pickett. The tape pulled back without ripping a bit of the paper. It would stick down again well enough. Andrew bent in over Pickett’s shoulder, watching his friend unfold the package carefully. The sight of the top volume staggered him:
Hula Moons
, by Don Blanding, the poet—one of the five books that had been stolen from Andrew’s bedroom. It hadn’t been the Atlantean after all. It had been Pennyman all along.

“The son of a bitch …” Andrew said. They were all there: the Walt Kelly, the Gerhardi,
Liverpool Jorge
—all five of them. Andrew plucked the pile out of Pickett’s hands.

“Hey, watch it!” his friend said. “Don’t mess them up.”

“What do you mean ‘mess them up’? They’re my books. I’m taking them back, right now. Pennyman’s a common thief! I had him pegged for a world-class criminal, and he stoops to stealing another man’s books!”

“We’ve got to put them back.”

“
Got
to? We’ve got to do nothing but expose him. I’ll show these to Rose, wrapped up just like this. Evidence is what I call it, and so will she. She’ll know they’re my books. We’ll give Pennyman the bum’s rush. Him and his processed hair.”

Pickett shook his head meaningfully. “I believe Pennyman to be one of the most powerful and dangerous men in the world. Don’t even think about tackling him this way.”

“If he were such a man, then why
steal
books? These aren’t
rare
, for God’s sake. He could find copies just by driving around town. He could buy copies at Acres of Books. That’s where I got most of these. Aside from the Pogo, there aren’t ten bucks worth of books here. The most powerful man in the world doesn’t
need to
steal books.”

“Don’t try to reason it out,” said Pickett. “There’s presidents and priests cutting the most amazing capers right now. Depend on it. They arrested that judge up in Bellflower just last week for going out naked except for a hat. He didn’t
need
to go out naked, did he? God almighty, man, he sure as hell didn’t need the
hat
. I drove a thousand miles to buy contraband breakfast cereal for you. What would Rose say if she knew it? Forget any of this business about what people need. Also, if you tell Rose that Pennyman stole these books from you, wrapped them in paper, and then hid them in his drawer, she’s going to wonder, isn’t she? She knows you’ve got it in for him.”

“I’ll show her the checkbook.”

Pickett squinted. “What checkbook?”

“Pennyman’s checkbook,” said Andrew, tossing his head toward the dresser. “There’s evidence that he paid off the fat man across the street. Sent him over to cause trouble. Rose witnessed the whole thing.”

“Maybe,” said Pickett, looking doubtful. “What will you tell her when she asks you what you were doing going through Pennyman’s things?”

“I don’t know.”

“In fact, what if she
does
believe it and wants to take action, to confront him? He’s a dangerous man, like I said. We don’t want to start him up over some damned petty thing like this.”

“Petty!”

“Yes,” said Pickett. “Petty. Compared to what he did to Pfennig, this is petty as hell. A couple of books … Even you say they aren’t
worth
anything much. Wait and watch, that’s my advice. Don’t involve Rose. Trust me. She doesn’t want to be involved.” He took the books away from Andrew again and folded them up laboriously, rubbing a finger across the tape to heat the glue and slipping the package back into the drawer. “One more box. Looks like opaque Plexiglas sealed with a neoprene gasket. Maybe some sort of waterproof … Let’s have a look.”

Andrew was silent, fuming about the books. He’d get them back; that was for sure. And he’d confront Pennyman with them, too. He’d make him sweat before he was through, he’d … “Damn it!” cried Andrew, reeling back. “What the … Close it up!”

A putrid, decaying stench filled the room. Andrew gagged and staggered toward the windows, throwing them open and leaning against the screens, sucking in air. He heard Pickett scrabbling around behind him. Gasping a lungful he turned and stepped back to where his friend wrestled with the box, trying desperately to shut the lid clean and tight enough so that the spring latch would compress the top of the box down into the neoprene. Pickett half-threw the box at Andrew, leaped up, and raced out, starting to retch, barely pausing at the door. Steeling himself, Andrew fitted the lid carefully, set the corner of the box against his knee and leaned into it, snapping the latch into place. Then he put it back into the drawer before jumping away toward the window again.

There was a heavy onshore breeze, thank heaven, angling in up the alley, straight through the window. In minutes it would have flushed out most of the reek. Andrew knew that he wasn’t in any risk of being sick anymore. But that first whiff … Pickett had barely made it.

Again, why? Why a box full of decayed—what? Andrew had seen just a bit of it, and it made no sense at all. What he thought he’d seen was a scrap of the snout and eye of a dead ‘possum—a severed head, probably. But that couldn’t be, could it? It was too bizarre to believe. And there was more than that in the box—unbelievable filth. There leaped into his mind the memory of Pennyman and the cat box. It was incredible, preposterous. There could be only one explanation—it was a joke. A sick joke. Pennyman had anticipated them, and he’d had a sealed box built
just so that they’d find it
. He had probably laughed himself sick over it. Rodent Control hadn’t gotten the ‘possum out of the trash can at all. Pennyman had. Andrew could imagine him cutting it up, just like the squid on the beach, just like Pfennig, and then going upstairs to strain the sand in the cat box. The man was a living horror.

Andrew shut the windows, took a look around to see that nothing was out of place, and went out. The idea of setting more traps of his own hardly appealed to him. He’d lost his appetite for that sort of gag.

“I can’t imagine why,” Mr. Pennyman said, sitting on the stool in the kitchen. Rose worked at the sink. It was evening. Andrew was out in the cafe chopping vegetables.

“Was anything gone? Stolen?” The information clearly bothered Rose. This wasn’t good—someone sneaking into Mr. Pennyman’s room. News of it would do nothing but ruin their chances of making a go of the inn.

“No, nothing stolen. Not that I could discover. I haven’t much, really, that’s worth anything. What is there to steal in an old man’s room? Not even a pocket watch. It’s the idea of it though—having one’s sanctum sanctorum, as they say, invaded by garden-variety thieves. Thank God I was out. They probably came in through the window—rather like the crowd Andrew chased off the other night. I’m half-surprised that Andrew didn’t hear them. He was probably busy with his cafe, clanking glasses and such. You wouldn’t think a sleepy neighborhood like this was such a hotbed of garret thieves, would you?”

Rose shook her head, saying nothing for a moment, but looking as if she were collecting her thoughts. Finally she said, “Should we call the police?”

Now it was Pennyman’s turn to pause. He shrugged and gave his head a little noncommittal jerk. “I suppose not. No need to drag the police in, is there? Nothing stolen after all. There’s always the chance that suspicion is cast in the wrong direction when the police meddle in these sorts of affairs. They can be inventive. And then there’s your troublesome neighbor across the street. If he came around yammering about Andrew’s having been up in the tree …”

“Well,” said Rose, “I’ll take your advice here. I’d rather this got no further, actually. If Andrew could be spared …”

“Say no more.” Pennyman held his hand up. “This is a stressful business, opening an inn. Andrew’s eccentricities can be explained. Even justified. How is he feeling, better?”

Rose looked at him. “I don’t know how you mean, but to finish my sentence, if Andrew could be spared knowing about the break-in, I’d appreciate it. It would only work him up.”

“Of course, of course. I knew just what you meant. After the business with the planning commission the other day … I’m not a practicing psychologist, Rose, but Andrew seemed to me to be rather dangerously close to the edge there. Far be it from me to butt in, though. That’s his affair—and yours, of course. I’m afraid he’s already conceived a dislike for me. I rather wish he hadn’t. I admire him, men like him …”

“I’m sure you exaggerate. He’s determined, is what he is, and I wish sometimes that he weren’t. I wish he’d put on his bedroom slippers and relax. But he can’t. He’s always got to be up to something, meddling around with half-finished projects, trying to make sense of things that maybe can’t be made sense of. I’m pretty sure, though, knowing him like I do, that if he got rid of all his demons, what was left afterward wouldn’t be worth as much as it should be. I rather like him the way he is, and I can tell you that you don’t have to worry about him. I’ll tell him half the truth. I’ll tell him that you were afraid that someone had been in your room, but that nothing had been stolen and so it must have been Mrs. Gummidge straightening up. It might have been, I suppose?”

Pennyman nodded and widened his eyes. “We’ll suppose so, won’t we? She was out, though, wasn’t she? I admire the hell out of your loyalty, do you know that? If I were a younger man, and you weren’t attached … Well … You’d have to be curt with me.” He smiled and winked. “Hold onto that husband of yours. He can use a bit of your energy and strength.” Pennyman strolled away, out of the kitchen, out the front door. Rose stood without moving, staring through the kitchen table.

Out in the cafe kitchen Andrew chopped vegetables on his cutting board. Every now and then he stopped and looked around him, satisfied. Tomorrow night would tell the tale. There were two reservations so far, but he expected more. The cable station was coming around to do a piece of filler on the chef-hat gimmick. He was damned lucky that they had called around to suggest it. It beat a simple photograph in the
Herald.

Everything would have to roll out smooth and easy. Timing was the key in the cooking business—that and advance preparation. He hated cutting up onions. Somehow he always lost track of what he was doing and ended up with his face six inches away from the damned things, crying all over them. How many had he chopped?—eight? That ought to do it. There was no use making ten gallons of gumbo to feed a dozen people. He wouldn’t be cheap with it, though.

He raked a heap of chopped bell peppers into one of the cutting board bowls, then dumped peppercorns into a mortise and ground them to dust. He’d already mashed garlic and cut up a picnic ham and three pounds of sausages. He’d peeled the shells off a mountain of shrimp, but had left the heads attached for style, and he had a flotilla of crab legs soaking in fresh water in order to leach out some of the salt.