“He wants you to give him the key to the poker room.”
“I know.”
“If you don’t give it to him,” Adair said, “he’ll kill you.”
“Understood.”
“If you give it to him, he’ll also kill you.”
“That’s not altogether certain.”
“Ever play poker?”
“Yes.”
“Well, put your best poker face on because you’re going to need it. I’m going to ask you a question that I don’t expect you to answer. What I expect you to do is say good-bye, hang up the phone and do whatever you think best. Is that clear?”
“Yes.”
“Here’s the question,” Adair said. “If you were to die today, who would inherit your estate?”
There was silence. Adair counted to six before he heard Parvis Mansur gently hang up the phone. After Adair recradled the poker room phone he turned to Vines and said, “What else could I say?”
“Nothing.”
“You think they’ll let Dannie go?”
“I doubt it,” said Kelly Vines.
Mansur rose from the child’s desk and said, “I think my wisest course is to hand you the key without further ado.”
“That’s very wise, Parvie.”
“But to give you the key I must reach into the right pocket of my jacket. In the event you think this is a trick or a subterfuge, you’re welcome to reach into the pocket yourself.”
“Tell you what,” Contraire said. “You go stand over there in front of the safe.”
“Very well,” Mansur said and crossed to the spot Contraire had indicated with a wave of the M-16.
“I’m not gonna reach into your pocket, Parvie,” Contraire said. “The reason I’m not is because I figure that when you were with Savak you learned all sorts of cute and dirty stuff.”
“I was never with Savak,” Mansur said with stiff dignity.
“None of you rich towelheads ever were-just like none of the krauts were ever with the SS either. I don’t blame you. I’d say the same thing myself. But I’m still not gonna walk over there and reach into your pocket because you’re gonna turn around, take the key out of your pocket and put it on top of the safe.”
“Now?”
“Now.”
Mansur turned around, facing the safe. His right hand, neither fast nor slow, dipped into his bush jacket pocket. He spun around, firing through the pocket at Contraire. The round, which sounded like a small caliber, missed Contraire and instead hit one of the two wingback chairs. Contraire shot Mansur in the left thigh and, taking his time, shot him again in the left shoulder. Mansur groaned, staggered and crumpled to the floor.
Contraire bent down and took a nickel-plated.25-caliber Sterling automatic, the old 300 model, from Mansur’s pocket. A purse gun, Contraire thought as he stuck the weapon into one of his own pockets. The same hand went back into Mansur’s pocket again and came out with a key.
“Can you crawl?” Contraire asked.
“Yes,” Mansur whispered. “I don’t know.”
“I think you better make up your mind that you can crawl into the safe there.”
“No.”
Contraire made his voice sound patient and reasonable. “You gotta understand something, Parvie. I don’t mind you taking a shot at me. I’d’ve done the same thing. So I’m giving you a chance. You crawl into the safe and it’ll be the first place Sid and B. D.’ll look for the money. Maybe you won’t even be dead by then, if you take real tiny little breaths. But if you don’t crawl in there, I’m gonna have to put a round through your head.”
It took Mansur nearly five minutes to fit himself into the safe. His knees were up to his chin. His face was a mask of bewilderment and pain.
Contraire squatted down in front of him. “You okay?”
“Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why did she do it?”
“Dixie?” Contraire said. “Because she’s nuts about me and has been ever since she was twelve.”
“But why?” Mansur whispered.
“Must be my looks,” Contraire said, rose, slowly closed the safe and, after it was closed and locked, gave the combination dial a couple of spins.
Chapter 43
When the black Cadillac sedan was almost halfway up the narrow twisting road with no shoulders that led to the Altoid Sanitarium, Danielle Adair Vines turned to Dixie Mansur and said, “I’ve had such a wonderful time, Betty, I don’t want to go back.”
Dixie, concentrating on a sharp curve, didn’t look at her. “That’s nice.”
“I don’t think you understand, Betty. Or maybe I didn’t make myself clear-although I’m much better at that than I used to be.”
Dixie gave her a brief glance. “Understand what?”
“That I’m not going back to Dr. Pease. I think I’ll go visit Mr. Vines and that nice Mr. Adair instead.”
“After I drop you off at the entrance, you can do what you want.”
“But if I go back there, Dr. Pease won’t let me leave. So why don’t we just return to that nice motel and I’ll call Mr. Adair? Or you can call him for me. Then I’ll wait for him in the motel.”
“Sorry,” Dixie said.
“You mean you won’t?”
“That’s right. I won’t.”
“Oh dear,” Danielle Vines said, grabbed the steering wheel with both hands and wrenched it to the left just as the Cadillac entered a sharp right-hand curve. Dixie Mansur fought for control of the wheel but the wife of Kelly Vines had either too much strength or too much desperation. Dixie instinctively slammed on the brakes as the Cadillac veered toward the guardrail.
The brakes and the guardrail together slowed the Cadillac but failed to stop it. The heavy car flattened the rail and plunged down the forty-five-degree slope, bursting its two front tires. Neither woman had time to scream or cry out before the car smashed into a large old oak at thirty-four miles per hour.
The old tree, growing on the steep slope, had low spreading branches. Some almost touched the ground. And one of them, a dead branch, shattered the Cadillac’s windshield on the driver’s side. It also penetrated Dixie Mansur’s throat near the base of her neck, killing her almost instantly.
Danielle Vines, shaken, bruised and bleeding from a deep cut on her right cheek and a bad scrape on her left hand, managed to force open the passenger door and scramble out of the car. She was on her hands and knees, still dazed, when she heard the man’s voice call, “You okay, lady?”
She looked up to see the man standing by the flattened guardrail, staring down at her. She noticed he wore a grayish-green uniform of some kind.
“I-I think so,” she said. “But I don’t think poor Betty is.”
Karl Seemant looked at his watch. It was 3:35 P.M. Seemant was an exterminator for the Agoura Pest and Varmint Control Co. and had been responding to a frantic call from the Altoid Sanitarium when, two dozen yards or so behind the Cadillac, he had watched it crash through the guardrail. The sanitarium had placed the frantic call after discovering its patients were afflicted with a mysterious plague of fleas.
Since it was the fourth of July and Seemant was being paid holiday double time, he decided the best thing to do
