“Whoever finds the Maltese Elephant can pay the bills,” she said.
“If we find the Elephant, we shall be able to pay the attorney’s fees to keep us from the clutches of the intrepid San Francisco police, as well,” Gideon Schlechtman said. He pointed to Hugo and to Nicholas Alexandria in turn. “Put up your weapons. We are all colleagues in this matter. And, as the saying has it, if we do not hang together, we shall hang separately.”
“You’re the boss,” Hugo said. He put the gun back in his pocket. His muddy eyes raked Bowman once more. Nicholas Alexandria bit his lip. Purple and yellow bruises still discolored his cheek. He had taken off the sticking plaster that covered the dried-blood scab on the cut Bowman’s pistol had made there. At last, the little chromed automatic disappeared.
Schlechtman smiled. The stretch of lips was broader and more fulsome than his rather pinched features could comfortably support. “Shall we be off, Mr. Bowman?” he said.
Bowman got to his feet, went to the window, pulled aside the curtain. He looked at the night, than at his watch. “Give it another half hour,” he said. “I want it good and dark, and the fog’s starting to roll in, too.”
“How fitting,” Schlechtman remarked. “This whole business of the Elephant has been dark and foggy.”
At the hour Bowman had chosen, they left suite 1453 and rode down to the Clift’s elegant lobby. Outside, the fog had thickened. It left the taste of the ocean on the lips. Defeated street-lamps cast small reddish-yellow puddles of light at the foot of their standards. Automobile headlamps appeared out of the mist, then were swallowed up once more. Walking in the fog was like pushing through soaked cotton gauze.
Hugo looked around nervously. His hand went to the pocket where the revolver nested. “I don’t like this,” he muttered.
“We’ve got three guns with us—at least three,” Bowman amended, glancing from Schlechtman to Gina Tellini. “You don’t like those odds, go home and play with dolls.”
“You’re pushing it, Bowman. Shut your stinking mouth or—”
“After the Elephant is in our hands, these quarrels will seem trivial,” Gideon Schlechtman said. “Let us consider them so now.”
They walked four blocks down Taylor to Eddy, then turned right onto Eddy. “It’s a mile from here, maybe a little more,” Bowman said. He lit a cigarette. Fog swallowed the smoke he blew out.
As they passed Gough, shops and hotels and apartments fell away on their left. The mist swirled thickly, as if it sprang from the grass in the open area there. A few trees grew near enough streetlamps to be seen. “What is this place?” Hugo said.
Bowman rested a hand on his pistol. “It’s Jefferson Square,” he answered. “In the daytime, people get up on soapboxes and make speeches here. Nights like this, the punks come out.” He peered warily into the fog until they left the square behind. Then, more happily, he said, “All right, three-four blocks to go.”
He turned right on Fillmore, then left into an alley in back of buildings that fronted on Eddy. The alley had no lights. Gravel scrunched under the soles of his shoes.
“I don’t trust him,” Nicholas Alexandria said suddenly. “This is a place for treachery.”
“Shut up, dammit,” Bowman said. “You make me mess up and you’ll get all the treachery you ever wanted.” He walked with his left hand extended. Like a blind man, he brushed the bricks of the buildings with his fingertips to guide himself. “Stinking fog. Hell of a lot easier to find this place this afternoon,” he muttered, but grunted a moment later. “Here we are. These are stairs. Come on, everybody up.”
The stairway and handrail were made of wood. They led to a second-floor landing. The door there wore a stout lock. Gideon Schlechtman felt of it. “I presume you have some way to surmount this difficulty?” he asked Bowman.
“Nah, we’re all going to stand around here and wait for the Sun to come up.” Bowman pulled a small leather case from his inside jacket pocket. “Move. I’ve got picks.” He worked for a few minutes, whistling softly and tunelessly between his teeth. The lock clicked. He pulled it from the hasp and laid it on the boards of the landing. He opened the door. “Let’s go.”
Bowman waited for his comrades to enter first. When he went in, he closed the door. It was no darker inside than out. The air was different, though: drier, warmer, charged with a thick odor not far from that of horse droppings. Again, he ran his hand along the wall. His fingers found a light switch. He flicked it.
Several bare bulbs strung on a wire across the warehouse ceiling sprang to life. He pointed from the walkway on which he and the others stood down to the immense gray-brown beast occupying the floor of the warehouse proper. Its huge ears twitched at the light. Its trunk curled. It made a complaining noise: the sound of a trumpet whose spit valve has not worked for years. “There it is, right off la Tórtola.” Bowman stood tall. “The Maltese Elephant.”
Gina Tellini, Schlechtman, Nicholas Alexandria, and Hugo stared down at the elephant. Then their eyes swung to Bowman. The same expression filled all their faces. Hugo drew his pistol. He pointed it at the detective. “He’s mine now,” he said happily.
“No, mine.” The chromium-plated automatic was in Nicholas Alexandria’s right hand.
Gina Tellini fumbled in her handbag. “No, he’s mine.” She, too, proved to carry a small automatic, though hers was not chromed.
“I am sorry, but I must insist on the privilege.” Gideon Schlechtman had worn a .357 magnum in a shoulder holster. His stance was like an army gunnery sergeant’s, left hand supporting right wrist. The pistol was pointed at a spot an inch and a half above the bridge of Bowman’s nose.
Bowman stared down the barrel of the gun. His eyes crossed slightly. His right hand stayed well away from the gun at his belt. “What the hell is the matter with you people?” he demanded. “I find your damned elephant, and this is the thanks I get?”
“Let’s all fill him full of holes, boss,” Hugo said. His fingered tightened on the trigger.
“No, wait,” Schlechtman said. “I want him to die knowing what an ignorant idiot he is. Otherwise he would not understand how richly he deserves it.”
“This stupid ox? It is a waste of time,” Nicholas Alexandria said.
“Possibly, but we have time to waste,” Gideon Schlechtman replied. “Mr. Bowman, that great lumpish creature down there—in that it bears a remarkable resemblance to you, eh?—is an elephant, but not a Maltese Elephant, not the Maltese Elephant we have sought so long and hard.”
“How do you know?” Bowman said. “An elephant is an elephant, right?”
“An elephant is an elephant—wrong,” Schlechtman answered. “A Maltese Elephant is easily distinguished from that gross specimen by the simple fact that a grown bull is slightly smaller than a Shetland pony.”
“Yeah, and rain makes applesauce,” Bowman said with a scornful laugh. “Go peddle your papers.”
“The old saw about he who laughs last would seem not to apply in your case, Mr. Bowman,” Schlechtman said. “I spoke nothing but the truth. For time immemorial, Malta has been the home of a rare race of dwarf elephants. And why not? Before man came, the island knew no large predators. An elephant there had no need to be huge to protect itself. Natural selection would also have favored small size because the forage on Malta has always been less than abundant; smaller beasts need smaller amounts of food. The Maltese and their later conquerors preserved the race down to the present as an emblem of their uniqueness—and you tried to fob off this great, ugly creature on us? Fool!”
The elephant trumpeted. The noise was deafening. The beast took a couple of steps. The walkway trembled, as if at an earthquake. Nicholas Alexandria nearly lost his balance. Almost involuntarily, Gina Tellini and Hugo glanced toward the elephant for an instant. Even Gideon Schlechtman’s expression of supreme concentration wavered for a moment.