That was when the telephone rang.
4
‘Mr Crockett,’ the familiar, accentless voice said.
‘Straker, isn’t it?’
‘Indeed.’
‘I was just thinkin’ about you. Maybe I’m psychic.’
‘How very amusing, Mr Crockett. I need a service, please.’
‘I thought you might.’
‘You will procure a truck, please. A big one. A rental truck, perhaps. Have it at the Portland docks tonight at seven sharp. Custom House Wharf. Two movers will be sufficient, I think.’
‘Okay.’ Larry drew a pad over by his right hand, and scrawled:
‘There are a dozen boxes to be picked up. All save one go to the shop. The other is an extremely valuable sideboard-a Hepplewhite. Your movers will know it by its size. It is to be taken to the house. You understand?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Have them put it down cellar. Your men can enter through the outside bulkhead below the kitchen windows. You understand?’
‘Yeah. Now, this sideboard-’
‘One other service, please. You will procure five stout Yale padlocks. You are familiar with the brand Yale?’
‘Everybody is. What-’
‘Your movers will lock the shop’s back door when they leave. At the house, they will leave the keys to all five locks on the basement table. When they leave the house, they will padlock the bulkhead door, the front and back doors, and the shed-garage. You understand?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Thank you, Mr Crockett. Follow all directions explicitly. Good-by.’
‘Now, wait just a minute-’
Dead line.
5
It was two minutes of seven when the big orange-and-white truck with ‘Henry’s U-Haul’ printed on the sides and back pulled up to the corrugated-steel shack at the end of Custom House Wharf at the Portland docks. The tide was on the turn and the gulls were restless with it, wheeling and crying overhead against the sunset crimson sky.
‘Christ, there’s nobody here,’ Royal Snow said, swigging the last of his Pepsi and dropping the empty to the floor of the cab. ‘We’ll get arrested for burglars.’
‘There’s somebody,’ Hank Peters said. ‘Cop.’
It wasn’t precisely a cop; it was a night watchman. He shone his light in at them. ‘Either of you guys Lawrence Crewcut?’
‘Crockett,’ Royal said. ‘We’re from him. Come to pick up some boxes.’
‘Good,’ the night watchman said. ‘Come on in the office. I got an invoice for you to sign.’ He gestured to Peters, who was behind the wheel. ‘Back up right over there. Those double doors with the light burning. See?’
‘Yeah.’ He put the truck in reverse.
Royal Snow followed the night watchman into the office where a coffee maker was burbling. The clock over the pin-up calendar said 7:04. The night watchman scrabbled through some papers on the desk and came up with a clipboard. ‘Sign there.’
Royal signed his name.
‘You want to watch out when you go in there. Turn on the lights. There’s rats.’
‘I’ve never seen a rat that wouldn’t run from one of these,’ Royal said, and swung his work-booted foot in an arc.
‘These are wharf rats, sonny,’ the watchman said dryly. ‘They’ve run off with bigger men than you.’
Royal went back out and walked over to the warehouse door. The night watchman stood in the doorway of the shack, watching him, ‘Look out,’ Royal said to Peters. ‘The old guy said there was rats.’
‘Okay.’ He sniggered. ‘Good ole Larry Crewcut.’
Royal found the light switch inside the door and turned them on. There was something about the atmosphere, heavy with the mixed aromas of salt and wood rot and wetness, that stifled hilarity. That, and the thought of rats.
The boxes were stacked in the middle of the wide warehouse floor. The place was otherwise empty, and the
