“Just the same, you talk too damn much, Vanderhoff,” said Kirk, who had been shifting restively in place, his expression a sneer of impatience. “We have work to do. Let’s get on with it.” Kirk seemed younger than Vanderhoff. Tall and slender, he had a long, stone-quiet face and frozen, lusterless dark eyes. His hair was midnight black, his complexion swarthy and finely pocked.
Dwight shrugged and said, “This is our mastermind, Kirk Pardo, who used to supply me with happy pills back east. When he came out to L.A. and looked me up, I confided my secret, told him I was hungry for quick gold, and didn’t care how I got it. Kirk found my setup perfect for his larcenous talents, and we joined forces. He brought along Nita, Kirk’s little playmate.”
“Oh thanks, thanks a bunch, Dwight,” Nita said sourly. She was a tiny brunette with sharp little features and an awesome figure. She looked coarse beside Claire.
Ignoring Nita, Dwight said, “Kirk was a surgeon in another state before he was deposed for certain malpractices. But his knowledge of anatomy comes in handy for producing the most unendurable pain. Let me warn you, Kirk can be very persuasive when people are uncooperative.”
Kirk said, “You boil it down and what he means is, if you don’t do precisely as I tell you, why then I’m going to bend your pretty bones until you scream.”
“I think you would,” said Andrea. “You have the eyes of a reptile.”
“Now, Andrea,” Kirk continued without a twitch of expression, “we are going to put you on the phone to your husband tomorrow.” He took her hand in his and held it out for inspection. “And if he doesn’t come up with the money, or if he calls the cops, then we’ll have to amputate this little fellow and mail it to him, rings and all. Remember that, Andrea. And when you talk to old Stan, make it very convincing. Otherwise, you’ll keep losing bits and pieces of yourself, you see?”
Andrea read in his gaze the twisted craving of the sadist in search of a victim, and the last, brave little flame of her resistance flickered out.
“All right,” she answered, “I’ll convince him.”
In what must have been morning, Claire Vanderhoff brought her breakfast and went away quickly, not once looking Andrea in the eye. Well, at least Claire had some sense of guilt. Or did she?
Nita brought her a sandwich and a glass of milk for lunch, looking not at all like the timid maid who had served Andrea when she came to dinner with Stan. She was now brazen, mocking.
Several hours later they all entered her cell, Kirk bearing a portable extension phone which he plugged into a jack in the wall beneath the table.
Kirk warned her that the penalty for any attempt to blurt the information that she was being held next door at the Vanderhoffs was instant death — and backed the threat with a knife poised at her throat. Then he dialed their number and began talking to Stan in that crooning voice with just the barest trace of an accent. It was so marvelously underplayed and so totally real that she asked about it after she had that wretched excuse for a conversation with poor, dear Stan, and was disconnected in midsentence. She realized that every scrap of knowledge gleaned might aid the police later.
Kirk told her quite proudly that he had spent some time in Mexico, where he was running dope across the border to the U.S. He had been working with a Mexican who spoke flawless English, but for that subtle overtone of inflection, and he had made a study of his odd patterns of speech.
That one-sided exchange with Stan completed, they took the phone away and left her with the aftereffects, a smothering depression. Shortly, Nita came again with dinner, but Andrea had no appetite and could get down only a few morsels.
A very long time had passed and now it was probably well into the next day. The million must have been delivered by Stan and she should have been released hours ago but, on the contrary, they had not even brought her breakfast.
Now she was frightened, overcome by the first real doubt that she would ever see Stan again.
Kirk had flown back from San Francisco with the suitcase, arriving at the house shortly before dawn. Dwight Vanderhoff had not gone to the office but had phoned in sick. The million had been counted and divided and now the quartet were discussing their triumph.
“It’s fantastic,” Dwight was saying as he leaned toward them across the desk, his eyes feverish with excitement. “To the last piece, it all falls right into place — a work of genius.”
“I thank you,” Kirk said with a little bow, for he had conceived the plan and wanted full credit.
“What I mean,” said Dwight, “is the beauty of the way it all follows through, like a ball launched with perfect form and timing and placement. Your common criminal, if he could, in his wildest dreams, pull one like this, would be at a loss to know what to do with the money. He couldn’t spend it freely because he would be the immediate object of suspicion. On the other hand, if a Vanderhoff lives in the most lavish style, it’s only what’s expected of him. Don’t you see?”
“I see very well,” said Kirk. “But it’s not quite so simple. You must go on for some time in the ridiculous role of the Vanderhoff shipping magnate, and we must play the much less delightful parts of being your servants. Though I assure you, when the time is right, we’ll be gone in a hurry. Right, Nita?”
“Betcha life,” said Nita. “I wasn’t born to be a flunky.”
“You all sound so jolly,” said Claire Vanderhoff. “I love money, too. Oh yes, dearly; but we still have to dispose of Andrea and I’m in no mood for celebration just now. Kirk, are you positive there isn’t another way?”
“Sure, we’ll let her go home and spill the beans to daddy,” he sneered. “Or maybe you believe we actually could hide out somewhere, some splendid place where we’d never be found. Like with the natives in the jungles of Africa.”
“I think we should reconsider my plan to keep her walled up in that room,” Dwight said.
“Nonsense!” Kirk shook his head. “For how long? Fifty, sixty years, until she dies of old age? Besides, the area will soon be swarming with cops, and there’s always a slim chance that they might uncover the trail. If the least clue sent them here, Tillman would push with all his money and power until they tore this place apart. Sure, it’s a seemingly foolproof hiding place, but they have all sorts of technical skill and equipment to uncover a secret room, once they’ve got the scent.”
“C’mon now, Kirk,” Dwight said. “Do you honestly believe they’d ever be able to figure this one in a hundred years?”
“No,” Kirk said, “I don’t think so. But if there’s one chance in a thousand, I’m not gonna take it. Listen, it’s all set up with my boy at the crematory, and it can’t go wrong. He thinks I’m still running dope and have to get rid of a female fink. Tonight I slip him five grand and a body wrapped in a blanket. He doesn’t look at the body and he burns it facedown. That’s the agreement. No questions.
“While I stand by to see that the job is done, he puts in a little overtime and — presto! — what’s left of Andrea you could stick in your pocket. Then we restore her little prison to its former innocence, just another room. Now, that’s the way we planned it, and that’s the way it’s going to be, kiddies.”
There was a heavy silence. Then Dwight said, “All right, I suppose it has to be done. You handle it, Kirk — and spare us the details.”
“Nothing to it,” Kirk said. “Nita will take the condemned a hearty last meal. I’ll lace the coffee with a nice little potion for permanent sleep. Andrea will doze off quietly and she’ll never feel the heat.”
Just after midnight, Kirk carried the blanket-shrouded body out of the house to the Vanderhoff garage and deposited it inside the trunk of the black limousine. Then he wheeled off silently, drifting far below the Tillman place before cutting in his lights. Down on Sunset, he picked up the freeway and drove south carefully, his speed moderate. Even at so late an hour there was considerable traffic and a few patrol cars were cruising about.