Spiced To Death Part 35

"I doubt it. It's still very early anyway." I took a slice of the avocado too. "What's your experience of insurance companies paying on claims like this?"

"They pay out millions every year."

"Do you think their own investigations turn up anything that the police haven't?"

"Some things, I suppose, but nothing major."

A face behind me caught Eck's attention and he introduced me.

"Bengt Johannson, BJ Vitamins." He was a blond, blue-eyed st.u.r.dy Viking type and promptly launched into a discussion on the vitamin content of the foodstuffs on display, although I was trying to get away.

"You could eat here all day and not get enough vitamins," he stated solemnly. "Vitamin additives are essential-and don't be misled by people who tell you to avoid synthetic vitamins, they're just as good as ..."

I finally managed to break away and went in search of Hal Gaines or Gabriella. They had said they were undercover and at the moment they certainly were. I couldn't see them but seemed to have no trouble finding others. I saw Ayesha but got only a wave. At least that made up for the withering stare from Lennie Rifkin, who was close by her side. Mr. Koo was eating artichoke mousse on toasted Syrian bread and declaring his intention of giving it a Chinese twist. I thought I saw Salman Rushdie with Cher but it seemed unlikely. The vegan lady intercepted me and initiated a discussion on Buddha and whether or not he was a vegetarian.

I would have enjoyed that at any other time but I was desperately anxious to find Hal Gaines or Gabriella and tell them that I knew the ident.i.ty of the killer of Renshaw and Cartwright and the thief of the Ko Feng.

CHAPTER FORTY-THREE.

THE TWO OF THEM were hard to find. I was still searching when a waiter stopped me. "The lieutenant's looking for you," he said and pointed to the balcony. "The Atlantic Room up there."

I hurried up the stairs. The Atlantic Room was a large conference and lecture room, one of a dozen or so. I went in. The room was in near darkness and I stopped abruptly as the door was pulled out of my hand and closed behind me.

There was just enough light to make out Tom Eck.

"Was it something I said?" he asked softly.

It was a perfect time to come out with a Nick Charles quip but I missed my cue. Instead I found out what it means to have a sinking heart.

"You know, don't you?" he asked, in a voice that was still soft.

I hoped he couldn't hear my brain working-inside my head, it sounded like a demented chain-saw. Suddenly, I saw a glimmer of what might be a way out ...

"The buyer had to be you or Keyhoe or Gloria Branson," I said, though my voice wasn't as steady as I would have liked. "I had a second string of suspects but of them, Professor Willenbroek seemed too true-blue and it didn't seem like Dr. Li's style. But one of you five had to be the buyer-" I paused, not just for dramatic effect but because I was still ad-libbing.

"-and I know now that it's you."

My eyes were adjusting to the gloom. The lights were on at the far end only. At this end was a platform with a speaker's dais and microphone, and behind it a large screen. We stood inside the door, near the edge of the platform.

"When you're a food broker, people come to you," Eck was saying in a chatty tone. "Some want to sell, some want to buy. There's an awful lot of people who would love to get their hands on some Ko Feng. It's natural they should come to me."

I nodded, trying to look understanding and compa.s.sionate.

"So someone came and wanted to sell the Ko Feng to you?"

"Right."

"Why not directly to one of the research outfits?"

"I'm sure that was the initial idea. It was made more complicated and difficult due to your interference. None of the likely buyers wanted to risk being identified and the problem of authenticating the spice made it even trickier."

"So you were approached as a middle man?"

"Right again."

"And that one person was a murderer."

"Catching murderers is a job for the police," Eck said with a shrug. "I'm just a food broker."

"You're a buyer of stolen goods too," I said in a firm accusatory tone.

There were voices outside. They had to be loud as this room was surely sound-insulated. But we were near the door and though the words were unintelligible, it sounded like the staff disagreeing over some problem. The voices faded away.

"All right, let's get it over with," I said resignedly.

Eck regarded me with a noticeable lack of interest. "Get what over with?"

"You want me to authenticate the Ko Feng for you. Well, where is it?"

He shook his head with an amused tolerance. "I don't want you to do anything of the kind."

"But-" I stammered, "you're surely not going to buy the Ko Feng without establis.h.i.+ng that it's genuine."

"That's all been done," Eck said dismissively.

I had the nasty feeling that the situation was slipping away from me.

"So your role in all this is finished," he added.

His words had a ring of finality that I didn't like at all but I put as much joviality as I could into it as I said, "Then I'd better see when the next flight to London leaves."

Eck didn't move. "Not just yet," he said, "let's settle a few details first."

"What details?"

He kept looking at me. There was something he wasn't certain about-something he had to know. Finally he said it. Again.

"You know, don't you?"

CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR.

IT WAS QUIET. NO voices could be heard from the balcony. The gloom in the partly lit conference room made the silence all the more foreboding. Eck had put one hand into his pocket. At least there couldn't be a Tokharev automatic there, I thought. But where were Lieutenant Gaines and Gabriella? Why weren't they keeping an eye on me? Didn't they know yet about the fake message that had brought me up here?

"Tell me," urged Eck and his hand moved in his pocket.

"All right," I said quickly. "It's Marvell, isn't it?" I said. "He got Cartwright to help him steal the Ko Feng. Renshaw saw the similarity with the earlier theft of the birds' nests and one or the other killed him. Then Cartwright tried to double-cross Marvell-who killed him. Marvell's background had led him to believe that he could easily sell Ko Feng to someone in the restaurant business but he miscalculated. It was Cartwright who had gotten him to switch to the research lab people as a much more lucrative market. Even that was tricky because, as you said, they couldn't get the Ko Feng authenticated and sell it while still concealing their ident.i.ty."

I paused on a how'm-I-doing note. Eck said nothing so I went on.

"The point I'm not clear on is to what extent that insurance woman is mixed up in this. Maybe she knows, maybe she doesn't, maybe she only suspects. Regardless, Marvell having disposed of Cartwright decided to sell the Ko Feng and collect on the insurance as well. You were an ideal choice to sell it to-you know everybody in the business, you could find the highest bidder."

We were standing near the edge of the speaker's platform. It was about a foot high and now that my vision was adjusted to the gloom, I had seen the cord from the microphone. It ran from the bottom of the speaker's dais and pa.s.sed within about three feet of where I was standing.

While I was talking, I was edging closer to it. I did some hand gesturing and waving to emphasize my words-not nearly as much as an average New Yorker but more than I usually do. I hoped it would distract Eck enough. I thought he was frowning but I couldn't tell if it was because he was thinking about what I was saying or if he was puzzled at my untypical ebullience.

"I thought for a while the Ko Feng might be s.h.i.+pped out of the country but I'm sure that meant too many risks."

"The thief had to be someone right here," agreed Eck.

"You say 'the thief' but if you bought the Ko Feng from him, you must know it's Marvell."

He looked at me strangely.

"Neither the thief nor the buyer wanted to be seen," he said. "Bringing another authenticator into it too made it even more complicated."

A bell rang in my head. "Another authenticator! You brought in someone from the Mecklenburg Inst.i.tute ..."

"Actually you did."

"Me? How could I-ah, I see. You used my name, pretended to be me."

I edged another couple of inches nearer to the cord.

"Yes." He took his hand out of his pocket. It held a gray automatic pistol that looked as if it was made of plastic.

He waved it menacingly. "It's real-don't be fooled by its appearance. It's high-impact ABS plastic with a t.i.tanium tube barrel. Up to ten feet, it's as dangerous as any other weapon but it doesn't set off metal detecting devices."

He must have spotted a change in my expression. "Yes," he said, "I was just about to walk in here today when I saw the woman at the desk looking down at something so I waited a while. She did it every time a guest came in. I figured she had a metal detector there so I went back to the car where I keep this." He waved it again. "You can't be too careful on the highway."

He jabbed the gun in my direction. I hate guns and refuse to carry one even when an investigation in the food business seems to be turning dangerous. This one of Eck's might be plastic but it was just as terrifying. I noticed something else-it had what looked like a small cork on the end of the barrel, probably a silencer.

I slid one foot under the microphone cord.

"You can cut out the play-acting" he said, and his voice had hardened. "We had enough of that with that cute trick you pulled at Martha's. Now, I'm only going to say it one last time. You know, don't you? But how do you know?"

So that was what was worrying him. It may have been why he hadn't shot me already. He had to know how I knew-and more important, it wasn't ego or curiosity. He had to know if anyone else could know.

I was determined to drag this out a little longer. He wasn't going to shoot me until I had answered his question and anyway, that confounded cord was slack. I pulled it a little more, trying to get it tight.

"All right," I agreed. "I did think that a partners.h.i.+p of Marvell and Cartwright was responsible-until now. But I tried something. I shook everybody's hand and when I shook yours I knew it was you and Cartwright. You killed Renshaw and then Cartwright. One of you was trying to double-cross the other and take the sack of Ko Feng."

"I'm not going to ask you again." His voice was bleak and if I had thought of him as a nuclear sub commander, he was now ready to push the red b.u.t.ton.

"Your hand smelled of Ko Feng," I told him.

His square jaw no longer appeared determined, now it was threatening. The eyes that had been cool and gray before were now metallic and menacing. I fancied I could see his knuckle tightening on the trigger.

"Nonsense."

"It's the truth. Besides its unique taste, Ko Feng has a powerful and extremely pervasive aroma. I noticed it on my hands the day after the theft-they still smelled of it. I went round this afternoon shaking hands with everyone-as soon as I shook yours, I knew."

He was eyeing me uncertainly but it didn't make him any less threatening.

"You had to have handled it," I said, still twisting one foot but trying to keep his gaze locked with mine. "No one could resist-a legendary spice, lost for centuries-how could you have the sack in your possession and not open it, feel it, smell it..."

It was an involuntary reaction. Without deviating his aim, he raised the weapon so as to sniff the back of his hand. Our eyes met and I tried to suppress a smile of satisfaction. We both knew he had given himself away.

He lowered the gun to realign it at my stomach and the mild nausea that immediately resulted had nothing to do with the avocado or the mayonnaise or the crab cakes. I gave one more twist of my foot, heedless now as to whether he saw me.

The microphone cord tightened and I kicked frantically sideways. The cord yanked the microphone clear off the dais and Eck's head spun in that direction, but instead of the dais cras.h.i.+ng too, it stayed there, unmoving. It was only the microphone that came clattering onto the wooden platform. It bounced twice and the two of us watched it come to rest.

An interruption startled us both. A loud voice shouted something and the lights came on, all of them together. It was dazzling after the semidarkness. I groped for the microphone and threw it in Eck's general direction, then I bolted to the nearest door. As I crashed through it, there was a pop from Eck's silenced automatic and a bullet crunched into the wall.

Out in the corridor, I raced for the nearest stairway, took the stairs three at a time and rammed my way through swinging doors. The large entrance ahead of me was marked as being the Vespucci Room and "safety in numbers" came into my mind. I knew it wasn't always true but my pounding pulse wouldn't allow me time to think of a more appropriate proverb. I went storming in.

An enormous room, crowded with people, noisy, jostling, the din of conversation, the rattle of plates and gla.s.ses ...

No.

Oh, the people were there but all were still and silent as statues. As I made my noisy entrance, over a thousand eyes turned in my direction.

CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE.

I STARED BACK, NOT out of insolence but bewilderment. Why was the room so still and quiet? Then, over the heads of all the others, I saw Alexander Marvell. He was at a front table. On one side of him was a large lady in a Marie Antoinette coiffure and a lot of jewelry, and there was an immaculately dressed elderly man on the other.