An Ace Up My Sleeve (12 page)

She finally came to the conclusion that she must cling to her position even if it meant accepting Archer as a partner. 

But did she have to accept him?

I would rather be safe than murdered
, he had said. 

She shook her head.

No! This was stupid and untidy thinking. She knew she could never take a life: even the life of a creature like Archer.

So what was the solution ... if any?

She thought about this for some time. For her, she finally decided, the ideal solution would be if her husband dropped dead. Men of his age – he must be nearly seventy – were always dropping dead. What a marvellous and fantastic solution to her problem it would be if the telephone bell rang at this moment and Hinkle broke the news to her that Herman had suffered a heart attack. By dying, Herman would free her from this blackmail threat. She would automatically inherit the estate: no doubt, he would leave his daughter something, but if he didn't, she could afford to be generous with all that money. But that wasn't the real magic of Herman's death. The magic of his death would mean she would have Archer in her power as he now had her in his power. She imagined letting him wait until three o'clock the following day, then she would ask him to come to the villa. "Something I want to discuss with you, Jack," she would say. "No, not over an open line. Besides, you want the stock sheets, don't you?" He would come, cautiously perhaps, but triumphant, knowing she had surrendered. She would play with him as a cat plays with a mouse until it would dawn on him he was not going to get the stock list. Then she would listen to his threats and bluster and she would laugh at him.

She paused in her thinking, her eyes narrowing. 
I would rather be safe than murdered.

Archer had said that and Archer was also dangerous.

No, before she had her showdown with him, she would have to alert Spencer, Grove & Manly. She had already met Edwin Grove, a tall, dried up looking man at a cocktail party in Lausanne. She would telephone him before Archer arrived, telling him the facts and asking him to take all the necessary action; that Archer would be at her villa in two or three hours, and would he alert the police?

Then when she had finished her tongue-lashing, the police would arrive and take him away.

All this ... but only if Herman dropped dead.

She stubbed out her cigarette and stared up at the ceiling. She knew instinctively that Herman was going to live for at least another ten years. He had a daily visit from his doctor. He took the greatest care of himself. She remembered the doctor telling her that Herman had a heart of a young man. She moved restlessly under the sheet. Dreams!

She forced her mind to become realistic. She was trapped and she might as well admit it. At any rate she would make that fat swine sweat until three o'clock tomorrow, then she would tell him to come to the villa and she would hand him the initialled stock list.

She had been asking for trouble these past four years and now it had arrived. Accept the inevitable, the Dean of the School of Law had once said in one of his dry lectures.

She would have to do that, but that wouldn't stop her hating Archer and hoping something horrible would happen to him ... but he mustn't the. She reached for her sleeping pills, took three of them, swallowing them without water with practised ease, then with a little shiver of self-disgust, she1 reached up and turned off the light.

At 10.00 the following morning, Helga telephoned down to the concierge's desk.

"Is Mr. Archer still in the hotel?"

"No, madame: he left about twenty minutes ago."

"Thank you ... it's not important."

She felt sure Archer would have gone out by now, but she wanted to check. She couldn't have borne running into him in the lobby to see his smirking, fat face and his questioning eyes.

She slipped on her mink coat, glanced in the mirror, adjusted her hat, then picking up the briefcase holding the stock list, she left her suite.

She had the stock lists for the previous month at the villa and she wanted to check the prices against the prices Archer had given her. She wanted to be certain just how much money he had stolen. He had said glibly two million dollars, but she wanted to know the exact sum.

The doorman opened her car door with a flourish. She nodded to him, started the engine, then joined the traffic crawl along the lake.

Drugged by the pills, she had slept heavily and she still felt heavy headed and irritable. The day after tomorrow, she thought, she would have to drive to Agno to meet Herman's plane. She wondered in what mood she would find him. Usually, after a plane trip, he was testy and difficult. She would have to get something out of the deep freeze ready for Hinkle to cook. Herman was faddy about his food. One of his favourite dishes was breaded veal with spaghetti: this Helga never ate. She had the middle-aged woman's horror of getting fat. There would be filets of veal in the freezer. She would get them out tomorrow.

She stopped at the Migros store at Cassarate and bought onions, a tin of peeled tomatoes and a tin of tomato puree. She knew there would be packets of spaghetti in the store cupboard. She bought a dozen eggs and a litre of milk. Hinkle was a genius at making an omelette which she could always eat. She paused for a moment thinking, but could think of nothing else to buy. With her purchases in a paper bag, she got into the car and drove up the twisting road to Castagnola. She stopped at the Post Office and collected some dozen letters. The girl behind the counter gave her a friendly smile. "Will you be staying long, madame?"

"Till the end of the month. Please have the letters delivered tomorrow."

She drove up to the villa. The snow plough had been at work and the road was clear but there were high banks of snow either side of the road and once when she pressed too hard on the gas pedal, the back wheels of the car slipped, a slip she quickly corrected. The private drive to the villa had also been cleared and the roadman had put down grit. The fifty francs she gave him each February was an investment that produced dividends when snow and ice made the drive difficult.

The garage doors, controlled by an electronic beam swung up and she drove in, parking beside Hinkle's 1500 Volkswagen. Collecting the mail, her briefcase and the paper bag, she walked along the underground passage to the villa. She remembered she had left the door from the cellar to the villa unlocked and she frowned at her carelessness. Shrugging, she opened the door, shut and locked it, then walked up the stairs and into the big entrance hall. She put the mail on the table and took off her coat and hat which she left in a recess. She carried her purchases to the kitchen, then she looked at her watch. The time was now n. 15. Time for a drink, she told herself, then she must get down to work. It would take her an hour or more to check through all the stock lists ... but first a drink.

She walked briskly into the big living-room and then came to an abrupt standstill, her heart missing a beat.

Standing awkwardly by the big picture window, his peak cap in his hand, was Larry.

For a long moment, she stood staring at this big, blond boy aware only of the faint sound of the central heating motor below and the violent beating of her heart.

During that moment, her mind was paralysed by shock, then her resilience absorbed the shock and fury gripped her, sending blood to her face, making the veins in her neck throb and giving her face an expression of vicious rage. "How dare you come back!" she screamed at him. "Get out! Do you hear me! Get out!"

He flinched, then rubbed the side of his mouth with the back of his hand. "Excuse me, ma'am ... I had to see you."

She strode to the door and threw it open. "Get out or I'll call the police!"

The moment she had said it, she knew she had lost control of herself. Police? The last thing she would want was a curious Swiss policeman here. She forced down her rage and her mind began to function. What was he doing here ... more blackmail! He wouldn't dare! He was an Army deserter ... and yet Archer was a thief and a forger and he hadn't hesitated to blackmail her. Could this lout of a boy realize what she stood to lose if he gave her away? But she was determined to intimidate him. "Get out!" she screamed at him.

"Ma'am ... please ... won't you listen to me? I want to say I'm sorry." He twisted his cap, his face in despair. "Honestly, ma'am ... I want you to believe me ... I'm sorry."

She drew in a deep breath, controlling her fury.

"Rather late, isn't it?" she said bitterly. "Sorry? After what you have done? After the way I treated you? You have the impudence to come here and tell me you're sorry. Oh, go away! The sight of you sickens me!"

"Yeah ... I guess you have reason." He shuffled his feet. "Ma'am, I want to help you. When I told Ron, he said I was a dirty sonofabitch. He said if I didn't do something about this, he'd never speak to me again." Helga stiffened. "You told Ron?"

"Yes, ma'am. I told him last night on the phone. You see, ma'am, I owe him money. This fat guy gave me fifteen hundred dollars. I guess I was a little excited. I haven't had so much money in one lump before. I told Ron I was buying a second-hand car and then he wanted to know how I got the money ... so I told him."

How many more were going to know what a reckless, mad fool she had been? she thought. This boy, that awful little queer, Archer and now this man, Ron.

She went over to the bar, poured a large slug of vodka into a glass and without bothering to add ice, she gulped it down. The neat spirit made her eyes water, but it knitted her together so she ceased to tremble. She sat down, opened her bag and took out her cigarettes. She lit one, then she pointed to a chair away from her. "Sit down!" "Yes, ma'am."

Awkwardly and sheepishly, he sat on the edge of the chair and looked down at his hands.

"Ron was real wild with me, ma'am," he said. "He said a blackmailer is the dirtiest thing on earth. He said I was a stinking creep to have done such a thing. I – I told him I wasn't a blackmailer. I was paid to do a job and I did it. I wouldn't blackmail anyone." He looked up, staring miserably at her. "He said what I had done was blackmail and he'd never speak to me again unless I came to you and explained."

"Did you tell him who I was?" Helga asked.

He nodded.

"I guess I did. I told him everything: how you got my passport for me and about this fat guy. He said I had to help you ... so I'm here, ma'am. I've been waiting for hours here hoping you would come. I'm going to help you, ma'am."

Helga made an impatient movement, sending her cigarette ash on the carpet.

"Help me? You? What do you think you can do? It's now much too late for anyone to help me! Now, get out! The sight of you sickens me!" "He's got photos of us, hasn't he?" "You know he has and he's now blackmailing me!"

"I'll get them from him, ma'am, and I'll give them to you!"

"You're talking like the fool you are! They are now out of reach. He's mailed them to his bank!"

There was a pause, then Larry said quietly, "Is he out of reach, ma'am?"

There was this deadly note in his voice she had heard before when he had said to Friedlander: What would it cost you if you got your hands crushed in a door?

She regarded him, her body suddenly tense. "What do you mean?"

He put his cap down on the floor beside him and took out a pack of chewing gum. As he stripped off the wrapper, he said, "If I could get hold of him, ma'am, I could persuade him to get the photos from the bank and then you could have them."

She pressed her hands to her face.

"You don't know what you're talking about. These photos are far too important for him to be persuaded to part with them. Just go away and leave this to me ... you're talking nonsense."

He fed a strip of gum in his mouth and began to chew.

"Ma'am ... do you want me to help you?" There was an edge to his voice: a male edge which told her he was getting bored with her hysterics.

"How can you help me?" She was shrewd enough to soften her voice. "Nothing would persuade him to part with those photographs."

He regarded her, his Slav features without expression. "I don't know about nothing, ma'am ... but I could."

Again there was this note in his voice and she looked closely at him and she felt as if an icy draught had brushed over her, leaving her cold. "But how?"

"With these." And he held up his huge hands. "He's soft and fat ... there would be no trouble."

Her eyes opened wide as a flicker of hope came to her. Her heart began to pound.

"But the photos are in the bank by now."

He shrugged.

"All he has to do is to write to the bank and tell them to send the photos here ... they'd do that, wouldn't they?"

She got up, her legs unsteady, and went to the bar.

"You'd better have a drink, Larry."

"Not for me, ma'am ... unless you have a beer."

She took a beer out of the refrigerator, poured it, then gave herself another vodka, adding ice and martini. While she was preparing the drinks, she was thinking.

Could this boy force Archer to sign a letter to the bank? She thought of Archer, massive, but soft and fat. She looked at Larry: built like a fighter and she could see his lumpy muscles straining against his jacket. She handed him the beer and sat down.

"If the bank got a letter from him, they would act on his instructions," she said, "but he wouldn't sign."

"He'll sign, ma'am. That's no problem."

The way he spoke gave her hope and suddenly she felt as if a burdensome, crushing weight had been lifted off her.

"You mink you can make him sign?

He nodded. "Yes, ma'am."

She sipped her drink, put down the glass and lit another cigarette. "Let me mink about this, Larry."