The stewardess offered to put Mr. Hassam’s large suitcase with the other passenger baggage.
“No, no, Miss.” Mr. Hassam shook his head firmly. “No, thank you.” He smiled at the stewardess and told her his little joke. “I have my life preserver with me in the suitcase, you know.”
Later the airliner skirted the east coast of Florida. It flew at high altitude but the day had crystal clarity, and Mr. Hassam was able to distinguish Brother’s mansion among the string of elaborate estates facing the sea near Palm Beach. He was very curious. What was the story down there, he wondered. Had Brother found their man, really?
The arrival in New York was uneventful. Mr. Hassam, never letting the suitcase out of hand, crossed New York City in a succession of taxicabs, entering a cab and riding thirty blocks or so and suddenly dismissing that cab to take another in a different direction, arriving eventually at Teterboro Airport across the Hudson River in New Jersey. Here he chartered a small fast plane to Pittsburgh, from which point he chartered another small plane to Palm Beach.
At Palm Beach, he took another taxicab. The suitcase rode in the seat beside him. He had not deposited the money in the New York bank. That would come later, after the matter of the fingerprints was settled. If they were going to add forged fingerprints to the forged signatures, then this shipment was as good a place as any to start.
Before leaving South America, Doctor Englaster, Miss Muirz, and Mr. Hassam had set up a pre-arranged meeting place. The Indian River Palms, a motel.
Mr. Hassam found Miss Muirz and Doctor Englaster at the Indian River Palms registered in different cottages. He did not ask them by what route they had arrived, and they did not question him.
“Have you contacted Brother?”
Doctor Englaster nodded. “By telephone, yes. We are to come out. He has the man here, he says.”
“How did he sound? I mean his mental health? Stable? You do not suppose this is all a delusion?”
“I do not know a better way to find out than to go out there.” Doctor Englaster was wearing his superior manner.
Brother himself unlocked the iron gate for them, running to them with outstretched hand. “Ah, my friends! My wonderful friends!”
Mr. Hassam watched him closely, for he halfway expected to find Brother as crazy as a loon. Brother hailing them as his wonderful friends did not bolster Mr. Hassam’s confidence, since Brother was notoriously unfond of Miss Muirz. But it developed Brother had not at first noticed Miss Muirz in the car. He brought up at sight of her, controlling himself with obvious effort.
Brother shook hands with Mr. Hassam and Doctor Englaster, but not Miss Muirz. “How are things at home?”
Doctor Englaster opened the car door for Brother to get in with them for the short ride to the house. “Getting ready to blow up with a bang from indications.”
“I gathered as much from the newspapers here. How much time do we have?”
“Who knows. The fuse is lit, that is sure. A few weeks at the outside, I would say, maybe less.”
“Time enough.” Brother waved them under the marquee at the house. “This man I have found, this Harsh, he is perfect. You shall see.”
“Does he know what he is to do? Have you told him?”
“Not yet. I wanted you to inspect him first.”
“Is Harsh cooperative?”
Brother gave a mirthless laugh. “I am making a cooperator out of the fellow. I gave him fifty thousand dollars to show him his pay, then took it away from him and locked it in the wall safe in his room. He has been lying there on the bed in his room for two days watching the safe like a mongrel dog trying to figure how to dig up a buried bone.”
Mr. Hassam exchanged glances with Doctor Englaster and Miss Muirz. Brother’s sanity might be questionable after all. Mr. Hassam felt a strong wish to meet this Harsh person. It might be that Brother’s method was exactly the one to work on Harsh, in which case it was sensible.
They encountered Vera Sue Crosby on the terrace. Brother had not planned the meeting. Beside the lounge chair on which Vera Sue lay was a Benedictine bottle and a glass, both in use. Vera Sue wore a dab of yellow sun-suit, and she was glad to see them, for she was lonesome. She was only a slight bit tipsy. She got up and shook their hands warmly when Brother introduced them as Señor Tomas, Señor Ricardo, and Señorita Maria, friends of his. Vera Sue was ignorant of Spanish and did not know he had presented them as Tom, Dick, and Mary, and she asked them to have a drink with her, which they declined.
“Oh, have a pick-up after your trip. I’m sure glad to see a new face around here. This place has been like a damn morgue.”
Brother declined for them, got Vera Sue back in the lounge chair with a glass in her hand, and they moved on. “She is Harsh’s sillero.” Brother’s lips curled with contempt. “A nothing.”
Benedictine at ten o’clock in the morning, my God, Mr. Hassam was thinking. But a well-stacked little trollop.
Doctor Englaster smiled with superior amusement. “Why did you bring her here, may I ask?”
“She knew a little, and I was not sure when a little might become too much.”
Doctor Englaster suddenly looked appalled. “Do we have to cut her in on the loot?”
“Are you mad?”
Miss Muirz had said nothing, just looked Vera Sue over speculatively. “Having seen this Harsh’s taste in girlfriends, I have a suggestion. I believe he is susceptible. Suppose I see him first.”
An exchange of glances passed among the three men. It was a hell of a good idea, Mr. Hassam thought. One encounter with Miss Muirz and Harsh would have difficulty knowing whether he was coming or going.
Miss Muirz left them to visit Harsh.
Mr. Hassam heard Brother cursing softly in Spanish, his eyes closed, his voice low and furious. He was calling Miss Muirz all the Spanish words that even remotely meant bitch.
Except to serve him breakfast, no one had visited Harsh that morning, not that he cared. He was watching the wall safe with the dull malevolent fury of a lion in a trap. He had been able to think of no way into the safe. Repeated efforts to pick the lock had failed. Now he was lying back glowering in what amounted to a self-induced trance.
When the door opened and someone came in, he did not look around. He thought it was Brother until a whiff of excellent perfume touched his nostrils, when he concluded it was Vera Sue. The greedy little slut!
“Listen, Vera Sue, get the hell out of here—”
His visitor laughed, and he turned his head. He sat erect as if he had been lifted by the eyeballs.
“Gee, I’m sorry, Miss.”
“Good morning, Mr. Harsh. You are Mr. Harsh, I presume.”
“Uh-huh. I thought you were somebody else.”
“I am Flor Muirz.”
“Well, I’m Walter Harsh, Miss Muirz, the pieces that are left of him. And say now, I can see where the pieces might grow back together in a hurry now you’re here.”
He was taking Miss Muirz in from head to toe. She was a long graceful girl with a big roll of hair on the top of her head that was so blonde that it had a neon light quality.