“Very cute, M’sieu Huuygens,” he said. His face was expressionless other than his eyes; they were alive with malevolence. “I wish you luck in getting your suitcase through customs.”
“Thank you,” Kek said in the same tone. He held up a hand. “One thing, Herr Schneller. You say you have an interest in the suitcase getting to Barcelona; you can help by seeing to it that I am not constantly followed. I have trouble enough getting myself and my luggage through customs without having to explain a watchdog to the officials.”
There was a moment of silence.
“We all have troubles,” Schneller said at last. His tone was wooden. He twisted the lock and pulled the door open. “Good-bye, m’sieu.” He nodded abruptly, his face stiff, and walked heavily down the hallway, not bothering to close the door.
Kek walked to the door. He watched the large, bulky man punch the elevator button viciously and then closed the door softly. He locked it and walked over to tap on the door of the adjoining room. It opened and André appeared. He was grinning widely.
“It’s a pity Anita wasn’t here. If ever I heard a demonstration aimed at curing the smoking habit! However...” He looked down at the suitcase. “So that’s it, eh? And our friend wanted to know how you intended to get it past Spanish customs, eh?” He shook his head in mock sadness. “If there’s one thing I can’t stand, it’s a nosey guy.”
Kek looked at him without smiling. “You heard?”
“Of course I heard,” André said disdainfully. “I’ve got ears like a beagle and your friend didn’t exactly whisper. Besides, you wanted me to hear.” André’s grin faded. “He asked a good question, though. Just how do you expect to get it in?”
Kek looked at him solemnly. “If you were listening,” he said seriously, “you know that’s by far the least of the problems. The proper question is, how do we open the damn suitcase?”
11
In the oversized hands of the man from Perpignan the suitcase took on the proportions of an attaché case. It came to Kek Huuygens that in all the years he had known André he had never before seen him properly dressed and with his hair properly trimmed; the Parisian tailor who had outfitted him had done a good job, and with the suitcase in his hand he looked like a prosperous businessman ready for the office, blown up from life-size. Like a businessman on a billboard, Kek thought and watched.
André began by shaking the case sideways, his ear pressed against it. As far as Kek could tell, there was no sound from the interior. André nodded and came to his feet. He carried the suitcase to the bed where he could examine it in greater comfort, sat down, and took it in his lap. He studied the latches carefully and turned it over to consider the pin hinges at the bottom. To his eye they all appeared normal, although the workmanship was far better than the normal manufacturer provided. He put the case aside momentarily, came to his feet, and went into his own room to return with a magnifying glass and a stethoscope. First he repeated his examination of the outside of the case, using the lens to restudy the hinges, latches, and lock. This done, he picked up the stethoscope, plugged it into his ears, and held the listening mouthpiece against the combination lock.
“Turn the dial,” he said. “Slowly.” He smiled into the gray eyes watching him intently. “Very slowly, my friend. And let us hope he’s either a liar or as good a locksmith as he claims.”
“There’s a bell—”
“I know. I heard it.” André closed his eyes to concentrate better. “I prefer those at Notre Dame.”
He pressed the stethoscope tightly against the combination lock as Kek turned the dial slowly. André’s eyes opened for a brief second at something, then closed again; his forehead wrinkled in concentration. Kek continued to inch the dial around steadily; he completed one turn and started on another. There was a frown on André’s rugged face, difficult to interpret. He opened his eyes, noted the position of the dial, and shook his head.
“Other way now.” He closed his eyes again, his huge hand dwarfing both the mouthpiece of the stethoscope and the lock, pressing the two together with surprising gentleness.
Kek reversed directions. André suddenly opened his eyes.
“Go back again...”
Kek went back slowly, watching André. André listened some more, watching the dial, and then shook his head in disgust. “I’m hearing things. Keep going.”
Kek went on until the dial pointed to zero again. André sighed, removed the stethoscope, and slid it into his jacket pocket. He added the magnifying glass and stared at the suitcase somberly.
“Either he’s bluffing or it’s a lovely job. Actually,” he added, a touch of professional envy in his voice, “it’s a lovely job whether he’s got it rigged to blow up or not. You can’t hear a thing.”
“If it’s any use,” Kek said, “when he spun the dial to shut off the bell, he turned it counterclockwise.”
André shrugged. “His story was that the case blows up if anyone hits the right number after the bell. Which means the last number is reached going clockwise.” He looked up. “All that gives us is the original direction to start. In a four-number combination you’d start by going counterclockwise.”
“Isn’t that some help?”
“Well,” André said, “if you want to look on the bright side, it brings the chances of finding the right combination by accident — or trial and error, as far as that goes — from about two million to one down to about one million to one.” He sighed and stared at the case. “A really lovely job. If the lock is built with ball bearings under springs, they’d just roll up into their proper socket in turn and there’d be no sound at all. And with the springs, you couldn’t shake them out of place or sequence or into any particular socket. Beautiful...”
“If you call that beautiful.”
“Well,” André said, “there’s always the chance your friend Schneller just rigged a bell and no dynamite at all.”
Kek shook his head. “He wasn’t bluffing. You just heard him; you didn’t see him.”
“I don’t think he was bluffing either. Why should he?” André put the suitcase on the floor. He leaned back against the pillows, dwarfing them, his feet sprawled out half on the bed, half on the floor. “Anyone capable of building that neat a job could rig a booby trap in it easily enough. And for that much cocaine?” He turned his head, staring down at the suitcase almost with admiration. “No. I’d say the thing is one large, economy-sized grenade.”
“And you can’t open it.” It was a flat statement, not a question.
“Not without blowing up the hotel,” André said and smiled ruefully. “And considering what they charge for rooms in this place, you can imagine the cost of wrecking fifteen or twenty of them.”
“Not to mention us,” Kek said. It was a poor attempt at humor to lighten his disappointment.
“True.” André shifted position, settling down. “So where do we go from here? Wait until we’re somewhere over the ocean and gently drop it in?”
Kek shook his head. “No. I deliver it, contents and all...”
André’s eyebrows rose in surprise. He hitched himself up on his elbows. “After all you’ve said about never handling narcotics? And after Sanchez tried to make a pincushion out of Anita?”
“One thing has nothing to do with the other,” Kek said and frowned. “I thought I’d deliver him a slightly different cargo than he shipped, and let him and Schneller argue about where the original went, but I never considered not delivering at all. It’s my own fault for taking on the job, but I did and I’ve never failed to deliver yet.” He smiled faintly, an unhumorous smile. “Anyway, airlines frown on people opening doors at thirty thousand feet up.”