Mystery

“I said it would feel like two thousand,” von Heilitz called from the next aisle.

Tom rounded the top of the aisle and saw him swoop down on a loaf of bread, a bag of potato chips, a wrapped pound of cheddar cheese, a container of margarine, a long salami, a box of crackers, cans, bottles, bags—half of these things he tossed to Tom, and the rest he piled in his arms.

“What’s all this food for?”

“Sustenance,” the old man said. “What is food usually for?”

When both of them were carrying so much that the stacks of containers threatened to fall out of their arms, von Heilitz came around the last aisle and unceremoniously dumped everything he was carrying on a scarred wooden counter. A small bald man with toffee-colored skin beamed at him from the other side of the counter.

“Hobart, my dear old friend,” von Heilitz said, “this is a close friend of mine, Tom Pasmore.”

Tom put down his groceries, and the little man grabbed his hand. “Lamont, he looks like you! I declare it! I think he must be your nephew!”

“We use the same tailor.” He gave a twinkling glance toward Tom. “Do you think I could use your back room tonight?”

“Tonight, tomorrow, any time.” The shopkeeper snatched at von Heilitz’s hand and pumped it.

Hobart added up the total on a scrap of paper and began putting their goods into bags while von Heilitz counted out bills on the counter. “Someone else will be joining you, Lamont?”

“One other man. Athletic-looking, with dark hair. In his late thirties.”

“What time?” He gave a heavy bag to Tom with a conspirator’s wink.

“Ten-thirty, eleven o’clock, around then.”

Hobart filled the second bag and handed it to von Heilitz. “The lights will be off.”

Von Heilitz marched off through the door, saying, “Thank you.”

Hobart said, “He is a very great man,” and Tom, following the detective, said, “I know!” He came out into the shower of blinding light. Von Heilitz had already carried his shopping bag halfway across the street. Tom stepped down from the curb into the shadow of the St. Alwyn Hotel. The two young women in bathrobes were sitting in the police car with the policemen who had been in the bar.

“Hurry along,” von Heilitz said, holding open the door of Sinbad’s Cavern. “We have notes to write, if we want to make today’s delivery.”

“Can you remember the exact words she used?” von Heilitz asked him. “For a second anyhow, we want him to see Jeanine Thielman standing right in front of him, pointing her finger at him.”

On the other side of the table with its scratched-in initials, Tom sat with the old man’s pen poised over a clean sheet of paper. I KNOW WHAT YOU ARE, he wrote. “That was on the first one, and then there was another phrase.”

“Didn’t the second note have two phrases too?”

Tom nodded.

“Then write down all four phrases, in any order, as well as you can remember them, and we’ll put them together the right way.”

“Okay,” Tom said. Beneath the first, he wrote, THIS HAS GONE ON TOO LONG. Beneath that, he wrote, YOU MUST BE STOPPED; beneath that, YOU MUST PAY FOR YOUR SINS. He looked at the list of phrases. “That’s pretty much right. Hold on.” He crossed out the second MUST and wrote WILL above it. “That’s better.”

“The first one said ‘I know what you are,’ and …?”

“ ‘… and you have to be stopped.’ That’s right.” Tom drew a line between the first and third phrases. “So the second note said, ‘This has gone on too long’ and ‘You will pay for your sins.’ ” He connected these two with a line.

“Try it like that, and see how it looks,” von Heilitz said.

On the same sheet of paper, Tom wrote:

I KNOW WHAT YOU ARE     YOU MUST BE STOPPED

THIS HAS GONE ON TOO LONG     YOU WILL PAY FOR

      YOUR SINS

“Does that look right?”

“I think so.” Tom stared down at the page, trying to remember the words in rusty ink on the stiff yellow paper.

“I know what you are, and you have to be stopped,” von Heilitz said.

“ ‘I know what you are, and …’ ” Tom looked up at von Heilitz’s face, frowned, and added a comma and the word and to the first note. Then crossed out must and wrote have to above it.

I KNOW WHAT YOU ARE, AND YOU HAVE TO BE STOPPED.

“That’s it,” Tom said. “How did you know that?”

“You told me,” von Heilitz said. “You said exactly those words, just now.” He smiled. “Try to remember if there was anything special about the printing, and write out four or five separate copies. I have to make a couple of phone calls.”

He stood up and left the room, closing the connecting door behind him. Tom tore another page off the pad and stared at it for a moment, then stood up and leaned on the window with his elbows, looking down at the curved necks of the saxophones and the intricate black shapes of the sewing machines in the pawnshop window. Tom closed his eyes and saw two yellow pieces of paper on the bottom of the inlaid wooden box.