My opportunity to settle the account did not present itself for more
than twenty-four hours. Early the following morning, Myrtle was kicked
out and crept upstairs. Winnie slammed the door and snored like a hog
until ten o'clock--at which time he stamped downstairs and roared for
breakfast.
After he had eaten, he went to his room again, shutting me outside,
and dressed himself carefully in the manly tweeds he had been wearing
on that first day in the Pond Club. He drove to the station--I
assumed--leaving me behind at Pook's Hill with two unhappy women.
He did not return that evening at all and it wasn't until late the
following morning--that would be Saturday I figured, although I was
already losing my human preoccupation with time--that I recognized the
crunch of the Packard's tires on the graveled drive. I was standing
just inside the door as I heard his key fumbling in the lock.
It was Winnie and he was drunk.
"Oh, hullo, Ponto," he remarked thickly. "So you're the welcoming
committee. Come on up with me, boy, and hear the dirt."
I followed his uncertain steps upstairs and into the bedroom. It would
not be long now.
"Ponto!" he announced. "Good old Ponto, Ponto! I'm going to tell you a
great secret. You won't tell anybody about it, will you? You can't."
I lay on the rug and panted at him.
"Yes, Ponto, if you're going to play ball with me you got to be one
tough dog. Took a run into New York today and is that one mad-house?
Saw Virginia. You know, red-head. She knows her stuff. Had me right
back on my five-yard line before I rallied and scored that touchdown.
It was terrific. Called my office. We're rich, boy, rich as hell."
"Thissa tough game, dog. That Briggs gal says the F.B.I.'s still
worrying about me. Is that a laugh, hey, Ponto? Is that a laugh! She
says they wanna know do I remember the week before Easter. Hell! could
I forget it? Maybe it's lucky for me I drew that blank. Might of had
tough job ducking the G-men.
"Aw, they're nuts! I agree, Ponto, I must respectfully agree with you.
Didja hear me contradict anybody? It's a lead-pipe cinch, fooling those
babies. Where was I the week before Easter? And sure I was tucked away
in a Catholic Retreat at the Seminary of the Sacred Heart, doing the
Stations of the Cross in St. Michael's Church. Great institution--the
Stations of the Cross. Wonderful institution. You can meet anyone and
no questions asked. I gave the instructions that sent the Alaska to
the bottom of the North Pacific and slipped the black spot to that sap
Jacklin between the Scourging and the Crown of Thorns. Lucky thing I
knew all about him. Helped. It was easy, Ponto, easy. Who's to question
a man doing Stations of the Cross if somebody else does 'em at the same
time?"
He paused and poured a brandy.
"Tha' red-head's a wonder, Ponto," he told me. "She deals 'em straight
and plays 'em close to her chest. For three weeks she followed my
lead without a peep. I was out like a light. Can't remember a thing
but she never let on. I always said the way to _act_ innocent was to
_be_ innocent. Not that she knows what it is all about. She thinks
I'm playing the Black Market. She's a racketeer at heart, she is, the
tramp. That North Pacific job was no cinch, Ponto. All I had to do was
to kidnap that guy Chalmis and substitute a ringer. Old Chalmis? We
dropped him in the High Rockies on the flight to Seattle. The Navy was
a bunch of saps, letting my men take that plane. Sure, we dropped the
Navy boys too, along with Chalmis."
I sat, ears pricked up, watching him. I could see the throb of the
artery in his throat that marked the place for my teeth to meet.
"Virginia told me the G-men are looking for Von Bieberstein," Tompkins
said. "Hell, Ponto, even she doesn't know what happened back in '35.
Sure I was broke. Sure fifty thousand would bail me out. Sure Hitler
put up the fifty thousand. He saved my hide. I made a killing all
right. So I'm Von Bieberstein? So what, Ponto, so what! Want to make
anything of it? Sure I lived up to my end of the bargain. Roosevelt
had ruined me. What did I owe Roosevelt? Sure I took the job. And was
_that_ a laugh! The F.B.I. chasing all over the place for Kurt Von
Bieberstein, and all the time it's little old Winnie Tompkins, Harvard
1920 and good old one thousand per cent American stock. The poor boobs
think they've licked Hitler, Ponto, but he's really licked them. You
wait'n see. I'll still be Gauleiter of Westchester County, so help me!"
The moment had come. He was lolling back on his bed, his arms behind
his head, his neck exposed. I gathered my muscles and leaped for his
throat.
THE END