Part 2 (1/2)
”You could get them without trouble, I haven't the slightest doubt.””Hm-m-m.”
”I will want two large planes, and pilots. I want the planes equipped with bomb racks, and I'll have to have expert bombers. Preferably men who had experience in Spain or China.”
”How much are you willing to pay for this?”
”That's also where you come in.”
”I come in?”
”You pay for it. In return, you get cut in for twenty-five percent.”
Herman Locatella leaned back and opened his mouth; it was obvious that he was going to rip out a derisive laugh. But he changed his mind. He leaned forward and stared at Spad Ames intently.
”You know, Spad, I never liked you, but I did have respect for your judgment. You always had a good sense of values. So I'm not going to laugh. Instead, I'm going to ask what in the h.e.l.l you plan on doing?”
”You said you read about the Border Patrol plane chasing me a couple of months ago.”
”Yes.”
”Well, it chased me out over the Grand Canyon badlands before we got away, then we ran out of fuel and crashed. We cracked up in . . . What do you know about that Grand Canyon country?”
”It's pretty wild, I've heard,” Locatella admitted. ”Personally, I wouldn't know, because I don't go in for roughing it.”
”Some of that country,” Spad Ames said, ”is practically unexplored. Oh, I know that a boat or two has floated through the Grand Canyon, and planes have flown over some of the country. But there is a h.e.l.l of a lot of it that white man never set eyes on. We landed in some of that unexplored country and we found-well, it's what I'm going back after that we found.”
”You found-”
”For two reasons, I wouldn't tell you.”
”Why not?”
”Too fantastic,” Spad Ames said levelly. ”I'm not crazy, but you might think so if I told you what I located. I'm the only white man who ever got in there, and out again. And I'm going back-with planes, at least twenty men, and the most modern bombs and poison gas.”
”Twenty men,” Locatella muttered, ”is practically an army.”
”We'll need an army. That black arrowhead may help-” He stopped the sentence in the middle.
”Black arrowhead?” prompted Locatella curiously. ”What black arrowhead?”
SPAD AMES made no answer, and the two men sat looking at each other. They understood each other.
Spad was not going to reveal more information, and Locatella knew it. Locatella also knew that he was being offered something big here. Spad Ames had a bad record with the law, but he had never been one to go off half-c.o.c.ked. If anything, his fault was underestimating and using too much caution.”Fifty percent,” Locatella said suddenly.
”Twenty-five.”
”You're crazy. Since when did bankrolls start taking twenty-five percent cuts?”
Spad Ames stood up and pounded the desk with his fist and began yelling. ”The h.e.l.l with you, then!” he shouted. ”I'll go out and knock off an armored truck or a bank messenger and get the dough myself.”
Herman Locatella knew now that he was being offered a good thing. He was being presented with a pig in a poke, but he knew other men who had accepted blind propositions from Spad Ames, and they had found it profitable.
”Sit down,” he said. ”How soon do you have to have the men and planes and stuff?”
”Quicker the better.”
”Tomorrow morning be soon enough?” Locatella asked, and grinned.
He was proud of his ability to get such things as this done; he was even more proud of having kept underworld connections while pretending to be a Park Avenue barrister whose main love was fancy clothes.
Spad Ames nodded, and they shook hands. ”Could you get some of the men together tonight?” Spad asked.
”Tonight?”
”I've got to s.n.a.t.c.h two-well-students.”
”Kidnap them, you mean?”
”You might call it that. But don't get excited. They're not ordinary students, exactly.”
”You mean that they're Indians?” Locatella asked, guessing.
Spad Ames shook his head queerly.
”I'm not going to launch into a lot of explaining about two-ah-strange people.” Spad growled. ”The whole thing is fantastic. I told you that.”
”Do these two have names?”
”Mark Colorado, and his sister, Ruth-that is what they call themselves.”
”Are they Americans?”
Again, Spad shook his head queerly. ”I don't think,” he said thoughtfully, ”that you could say they had any nationality. They're from-well, never mind.”
Locatella chuckled. ”You're not hinting around that they're from Mars, or the moon or somewhere?”
”You'd be d.a.m.n surprised if you knew,” Spad Ames advised grimly. ”That's all I can say.”
Locatella was consumed by curiosity, but he restrained himself.”Let's go out and see people,” Locatella suggested. ”We'll collect some of the right people if we can, then come back here to talk over details. This room is soundproof.”
Spad Ames looked around approvingly. ”No chance of anybody hearing us in here, eh?”
”Not a chance,” Locatella a.s.sured him.
Chapter IV. HANDS OUT OF DARKNESS.
HERMAN LOCATELLA was in slight error concerning the privacy of conversations in his sanctum. It was true that the room was of soundproof construction, as well as being, with its wood-paneled walls, sufficiently expensive looking to impress the Park Avenue set.