The Falcon's Malteser db-1 Read online

  Then he looked at me. “Well, don’t just stand there,” he snapped.

  “What am I supposed to do?” I asked.

  “Well . . . say something.”

  “All right,” I said. “I didn’t think it was a very good idea to leave the package in your desk . . .”

  “It’s a fat lot of good telling me now,” Herbert whined. It looked as though he was going to cry.

  “I didn’t think it was a good idea,” I continued, “so I took it with me.” I pulled the envelope out of my jacket pocket, where it had been resting all evening.

  My brother seized it and gave it a big wet kiss. He didn’t even thank me.

  THE FAT MAN

  We didn’t get much sleep that night. First we had to make our beds—and I’m not just talking sheets and blankets. Whoever had wrecked our office had done the same for the rest of the apartment. It took about forty nails and two tubes of Super Glue before the beds were even recognizable, and then I found that Herbert had managed to stick himself to the door handle and had to spend another hour prying him free with a kitchen knife. By then it was morning and I was too tired to sleep. Herbert sent me out for a loaf of bread while he put on the teakettle. At least they hadn’t dismantled the kettle.

  There were three letters on the doormat and I brought them up with the bread. One was a bill. One was postmarked Sydney, Australia. And the third had been delivered by hand. Herbert filed the bill under W for “wastepaper basket” while I opened the Australian letter.

  Darling Herbert and Nicky [it read],

  Just a quick note as Daddy and I are about to go to a barbecue. They have lots of barbecues in Australia. The weather’s lovely. The sun never stops shining—even when it’s raining. You really ought to come out here.

  I hope you are well. We miss you both very, very much. Have you solved any crimes yet? It must be very cold in England, so make sure you bundle up well with a vest. I know they tickle, but pneumonia is no laughing matter. I’m enclosing a little check so you can go to Marks & Spencer.

  Must go now. Daddy’s at the door. He’s just bought a new one.

  I’ll write again soon.

  Love, Mumsy

  It was written on the back of a postcard showing a picture of the Sydney Opera House. There was a check attached with a paper clip: seventy-five dollars. It wasn’t a fortune, but at least it would pay for a few more tubes of Super Glue. Herbert pocketed the check. I kept the card.

  The third letter was the most interesting. It was typed on a single sheet of paper with no address at the top. It was a big sheet of paper, but it was a short letter.

  DIAMOND—

  TRAFALGAR SQUARE. 1:00 P.M .BE THERE.

  The Fat Man.

  “Who the hell is the Fat Man?” I asked.

  “The Fat Man . . .” Herbert muttered. His face had gone a sort of cheesy white and his mouth was hanging open. The last time I had seen him look like that had been when he found a spider in the bath.

  “Who is he?”

  Herbert was tugging at the letter. It tore in half. “The Fat Man is about the biggest criminal in England,” he croaked.

  “You mean . . . the fattest?”

  “No. The biggest. He’s involved in everything. Burglary, armed robbery, fraud, arson, armed burglary . . . You name it, he’s behind it.”

  “How do you know?” I asked.

  “From when I was a policeman,” Herbert explained. “Every crook has a file at New Scotland Yard. But the Fat Man has a whole library. He’s clever. Nobody’s ever been able to arrest him. Not once. A traffic cop once gave him a parking ticket. They found her a week later, embedded in concrete, part of the M6 highway. Nobody tangles with the Fat Man. He’s death.”

  Herbert pressed the two halves of the letter together as if he could magically restore them. Personally, I was more puzzled than afraid. Okay—so there was this master criminal called the Fat Man. But what could he want with a loser like Herbert? Obviously it had to be something to do with the dwarf’s mysterious package. Had the Fat Man been responsible for the destruction of the apartment? It seemed likely, and yet at the same time I doubted it. You don’t tear someone’s place apart and then casually invite them to meet you in Trafalgar Square. One or the other—but not both. On the other hand, if he hadn’t done it, who had?

  “What are we going to do?” I asked.

  “Do?” Herbert looked at me as though I were mad. “We’re going! When the Fat Man invites you to jump in front of a subway train, you don’t argue. You just do it. And you’re grateful he wasn’t in a bad mood!”

  So later that morning we took the number 14 bus into the West End. This time I left the package—carefully hidden—back at the flat. It had been ransacked once and I figured that nobody would think of looking for it there a second time.

  “How will we recognize the Fat Man?” I asked.

  “I’ve seen mug shots,” Herbert said.

  “You mean—you even had pictures of him on your mugs?”

  Herbert didn’t laugh. You could have tickled the soles of his feet with an ostrich feather and he wouldn’t have laughed. He was so scared, he could barely talk. And he ate the bus tickets.

  The bus dropped us in Piccadilly Circus and we walked across to Trafalgar Square. It was another cold day with a bite in the air that bit all the way through. The tourist season had ended weeks before, but there were still a few of them around, taking photographs of one another against the gray December sky. The Christmas decorations had gone up in Regent Street—it seemed that they’d been up since July—and the stores were wrapped in tinsel and holly. Somewhere, a Salvation Army band was playing “Away in a Manger.” I felt a funeral march would have been more appropriate.

  Trafalgar Square is a big place and the Fat Man hadn’t been too specific about the meeting point, so we positioned ourselves right in the middle, under Nelson’s Column. There were a few tourists feeding the pigeons. I felt sorry for them. Who’d be a pigeon in London . . . or for that matter a tourist? I had a candy bar, so I pulled out a couple of peanuts and fed them myself. I ate the rest of it. It was already ten minutes to one and in all the excitement I’d missed out on breakfast. Taxis, buses, cars, and trucks rumbled all around us, streaming down to the Houses of Parliament and across to Buck ingham Palace. I leaned against a lion, looking out for anyone with a fifty-inch waist. A pigeon landed on my shoulder and I gave it another peanut.

  Big Ben struck one. According to my watch, it was five minutes fast.

  “There he is,” Herbert said.

  I didn’t see him at first. At least, I saw him but I didn’t see him. A pink Rolls-Royce had pulled up at the curb, ignoring the blasts of the cars trapped behind it. A chauffeur got out, strolled round to the back, and opened the door for one of the thinnest men I had ever seen. He was so thin that, as he moved toward us, he was like a living skeleton. His clothes—an expensive Italian suit and fur-lined coat—hung off him like they were trying to get away. Even his rings were too big for his pencil fingers. As he walked, he kept adjusting them to stop them from sliding off.

  I looked from him to Herbert and back again. “That’s the Fat Man?” I asked.

  Herbert nodded. “He’s lost weight.”

  He reached us and stopped, swaying slightly as if the wind was going to blow him away. Close up, he was even more peculiar than far away. Hollow cheeks, hollow eyes, hollow gut. The man was a drum with skin stretched so tight over bones you could probably see right through him when the light was behind him.

  “Mr. Diamond?” he said.

  “Yes,” Herbert admitted.

  “I’m the Fat Man.”

  There was a long silence. Herbert was too afraid to talk, but I don’t like long silences. They make me nervous. “You don’t look fat to me,” I said.

  The Fat Man chuckled unpleasantly. Even his laughter was hollow. “Who are you?” he demanded.

  “Nick Diamond,” I told him, adopting my brother’s name. “I’m his kid brother.”
>
  “Well, my dear boy, might I suggest that you keep your young mouth closed? I have business with your brother.”

  I kept my young mouth closed. The Fat Man didn’t bother me, but I was interested to know what his business was. Meanwhile, the chauffeur had followed him from the Rolls, carrying a folding chair and a tub of corn. The chauffeur was wearing glasses that were so dark they didn’t show his eyes, but rather two reflections of yourself. He unfolded the chair and handed his master the corn.

  “Thank you, Lawrence,” the Fat Man said. “You can wait in the car.”

  The chauffeur grunted and walked away. The Fat Man sat down, then dug a hand into the tub and threw a spray of kernels across the concrete. The pigeons came at us in a rush. He smiled briefly.

  “You look well,” Herbert muttered.

  “Thank you . . . Timothy, if I may so call you.” The Fat Man was genuinely pleased. “My doctor advised me to lose weight.” He shrugged. “One must bow to the voice of reason—although some might say I have taken it a touch far. For the past year I have eaten nothing but yogurt and have shed two hundred and ninety-five pounds. I have, however, retained my old nickname for professional purposes.” The hand dug again, scattering more corn for the pigeons. “On the subject of which,” the Fat Man continued, “I will be brief. You were visited yesterday by an old friend of mine. A small friend. I am led to understand that he might have entrusted you with something, something that I want. Something that I’m willing to pay for.”

  Herbert said nothing, so I chipped in. “How much?”

  The Fat Man smiled at me a second time. He had dreadful teeth. In fact he was pretty dreadful all over.

  “You seem a bright lad,” he said. “I’m sure the nurses will just adore you in the emergency room.”

  I shrugged. “We don’t have it,” I said.

  “You don’t?” His eyebrows lifted themselves toward his bald head. At the same time, he fed the pigeons.

  “Our place was turned over last night,” I explained. “Perhaps you know about that already. Whoever did it took what you’re looking for.”

  “That’s right!” Herbert agreed. “That’s what happened.”

  The Fat Man looked at us suspiciously. He was pretty sure that we were lying. But he couldn’t be certain. A pigeon landed on his head with a flutter of gray feathers. He punched it off, then threw corn at it. At last he spoke. “Taken?” he murmured.

  “Absolutely,” Herbert said. “When we got back from the movies, it wasn’t there. Otherwise we’d love to give it to you. Really we would.”

  I groaned silently. We’d have been all right if only Herbert had kept his mouth shut. But he couldn’t have convinced a six-year-old and I could tell that the Fat Man had seen right through him. I glanced nervously at the chauffeur, who was watching us from the front seat of the Rolls. Was he armed? Almost certainly. But would he try anything in the middle of Trafalgar Square?

  “Very well,” the Fat Man said, and suddenly his voice was colder than the winter wind. “We shall play the game your way, my friends. If you want to find out what the bottom of the Thames looks like on a December night, that’s your affair.” He stood up and now his face was ugly. Actually, it had been ugly before he had even started, but now it was even worse. “I want the key,” he growled. “Perhaps, soon, you will find it again. Should such a happy event take place, I’m confident you won’t be foolish enough to keep it from me.” He dipped two fingers into his top pocket. When he pulled them out again, he was holding a card, which he gave to Herbert.

  “My number,” he went on. “I am a patient man, Timothy. I can wait all of forty-eight hours. But if I haven’t heard from you in two days, I think you may wake up to find that something very unpleasant has happened to you. Like you no longer have any feet.”

  “Why do you want this . . . key so badly?” I demanded.

  The Fat Man didn’t answer me. We’d hit it off—him and me. The way he was looking at my head, I figured he’d like to hit that off, too. But then his eyes wandered. He jerked his hand, sending the rest of the corn flying. The pigeons were all around him, bowing their heads at his feet.

  “I hate pigeons,” he said in a faraway voice. “Flying rats! London is infested with them. I hate the noise they make, day and night, the filth that they leave behind them. The government ought to make them illegal. And yet they’re encouraged! It makes me sick to think of them scuttling across the pavements, infesting the trees, carrying their germs and diseases—”

  “So why do you feed them?” I shouldn’t have asked, but I had to know.

  The Fat Man laughed briefly, mirthlessly. Then he spun the empty carton in my direction. “Poisoned corn,” he said.

  He walked back to the car and got in. A few feet away, a pigeon suddenly gurgled and keeled over on its side. A moment later, two more joined it, their feet sticking up in the air. By the time the Rolls-Royce had reached the corner of Trafalgar Square and turned off toward Hyde Park, we were surrounded by corpses.

  “Do you think he’s trying to tell us something?” I said.

  Herbert didn’t answer. He wasn’t looking much better than the pigeons.

  OPENING TIME

  Before the bus had even arrived to take us back to Fulham, we both knew that we were going to have to open the dwarf’s package. We hadn’t had it twenty-four hours, but already our apartment had been ransacked and we’d attracted the poisonous attention of the biggest crook in the country. Okay—so Johnny Naples had paid us five hundred dollars. He made us promise not to open the envelope. But promises are easily broken. So are necks. I knew which I wanted to see get broken first.

  There was a woman waiting at the door when the bus dropped us off. What with the dwarf and the Fat Man, I figured I’d already seen enough weird people for one day, but it seemed that today, like buses and musketeers, they were coming in threes.

  She was an old woman with gray, curling hair that stuck out like someone had just electrocuted her. Her lipstick, a vivid shade of crimson, was pretty electrifying, too. Her skin was a mass of wrinkles, hanging on her like an old coat. An old coat hung on her, too, a sort of seaweed green color with artificial fur trimmings. She had a hat like a tea cozy on her head and a bulging carpetbag in her hand. Although this was a main street in the middle of Fulham, her feet were lost in blue fluffy slippers.

  We assumed that she had drifted out of the local lunatic asylum and let ourselves into the apartment, ignoring her. It was only when we got into the office and found her still behind us that we realized that she had been waiting to see us. Now she took one look at the wreckage and whistled, smacking her lips together afterward as if she’d just swallowed a gumball.

  “Cor blimey!” she exclaimed. “Luv-a-duck! What a blooming mess!”

  “Who are you?” Herbert demanded.

  “Charlady,” she replied. She gave us a big, crimson smile. “I saw your ad in the newspaper.”

  With everything that had happened, we’d quite forgotten about our advertisement for a cleaning lady. But here a cleaning lady was.

  “Oh yes,” Herbert muttered. “What’s your name?”

  “Charlady.”

  “Yes. I know.” He frowned. I shrugged. Maybe she didn’t understand English. Maybe somebody had dropped her when she was a baby. Herbert tried again, more slowly. “What—is—your—name?”

  “Charlady!” she said for a third time. “Betty Charlady. That’s my name. But you can call me Betty.”

  Without waiting for an invitation, she stepped farther into the room, waving a feather duster that she had produced out of nowhere, like a demented magician. Herbert and I looked at each other as she brushed it lightly across the remains of a shelf. The shelf fell off the wall. The cleaning lady scowled. “Crikey!” she said. “Wot a disaster. You don’t need a blooming cleaner ’ere, luv. You need a master carpenter!”

  “Wait a minute—” Herbert began.

  “Don’t you worry!” she interrupted. The duster had vanished and no
w she was holding a hammer. “It won’t take me a minute. I’ll soon ’ave this place looking like new.”

  I didn’t doubt her. The carpetbag was so bulky it could have had a box of nails, a screwdriver, and even a stepladder concealed in it, too. But Herbert had managed to hold her down long enough to get her attention.

  “I . . . we . . . well . . .” He’d gotten her attention, but he didn’t know what to do with it.

  “How much do you charge?” I asked.

  “Twenny a day,” she chirped, then, seeing the look of dismay on our faces: “Well . . . a tenner for you. You look nice-enough lads to me. And a private detective, too! I love detective stories. Ten dollars a day and I’ll bring me own tea bags. What do you say?”

  I could see Herbert was about to send her on her way, so I moved quickly. We’d spent the five hundred dollars, but we still had the check that Mum had sent us that morning. If Betty Charlady could rebuild the flat and then clean it, too—and all for ten dollars a day—it seemed too good a bargain to miss.

  “You can start on Monday,” I said.

  “Nick . . .” Herbert protested.

  “Do you really want to live in this?” I asked, pointing at the room.

  “ ’E’s right,” Betty chipped in. “’E’s a lovely boy, ineee! Wot is ’e? Your bruvver?” Herbert nodded. “ ’E’s a real knockout.” She curtsied at me. “A proper little gentleman. Monday, you say? Well, I’d still like to start now if it’s all the same with you. Strike while the iron is ’ot, as I always say.”