1970 - There's a Hippie on the Highway (23 page)

‘I don’t understand, Sergeant. I – I . . .’

‘We’re wasting time,’ Lepski snapped. Where’s Mitchell’s cabin?’

‘What do you want him for?’ Solo asked.

‘What do you know about him, Solo?’

‘Me? Nothing . . . he’s a fine swimmer . . . a nice guy . . . I . . .’

‘How do you know he’s a nice guy?’

Solo licked his dry lips.

‘He - he acts nice . . . what is it?’

‘You didn’t make any inquiries about him before you hired him?’

Solo stiffened.

‘No. Inquiries? What inquiries?’

‘You mean you hired him as a lifeguard without checking on him?’ Lepski said, his face expressing amazement. ‘A lifeguard teaches swimming, doesn’t he?’

‘Sure . . . why not? Is there something wrong in teaching swimming?’

‘Mitchell gave swimming lessons, huh?’

‘Yes.’

‘Young girls, huh? Handling them in the sea, huh?’

‘He gave them swimming lessons.’ Solo’s voice was husky now.

‘If a guy’s right, then it’s okay, but if he isn’t right, it’s dangerous, isn’t it?’ Lepski said. ‘A kinky guy gets his hands where they shouldn’t go, Solo. I don’t have to tell you that. Girls can’t complain. It could be an accident, but the hands are there, aren’t they?’

‘But Harry isn’t like that!’

‘Isn’t he? How do you know? You didn’t make inquiries?’

Solo got to his feet. He looked like a bull with the pics in.

‘What are you telling me?’

Lepski took out his wallet, produced the Telex and dropped it on the desk.

‘Washington says Sergeant Harry Mitchell, 3rd Paratroop Regiment, 1st Company was killed in action on April 2nd 1967. Read it for yourself. That’s official: straight from Washington where they don’t make mistakes!’

Beigler coughed and hid a grin by lighting a cigarette.

With a shaking hand, Solo picked up the flimsy, read the message, then stared at Lepski.

‘How do you know your lifeguard is Mitchell?’

Solo flinched.

‘If he isn’t Mitchell . . . who is he?’

‘Now, Solo, you’re beginning to act intelligent.’ Lepski paused to light a cigarette while he stared at Solo with his hard, cop eyes. ‘Yeah . . . that’s a good question. Who is he? Maybe if you had made inquiries about him you wouldn’t be asking that question now. Have you ever heard of Dave Donahue?’

Solo shook his head. His face was bewildered.

‘You haven’t huh? You don’t read the newspapers? You’ve heard of the Boston Strangler?’

Solo gulped.

‘Yes . . . but . . .’

‘Well, Donahue is like him: a sex killer. He escaped from the Sherwin Institute for the Criminally Insane three weeks ago. It had a full coverage in the press, but then you’re too busy running this joint to read newspapers, aren’t you, Solo? The newspapers published a description. Donahue is a big man, blond, pale blue eyes, a badly set broken nose, around thirty years of age. One time he was a pro fighter. He was also a swimmer: won a bronze medal for diving.’

Solo’s legs collapsed under him. He groped for his chair and sank into it.

‘That’s Mitchell!’

‘No, it isn’t. Washington says Mitchell’s dead. That’s Dave Donahue, a dangerous, cunning sex maniac. He’s already killed three young girls. He’s as nutty as a fruit cake and when he gets a girl to himself he really gives her the treatment. When he’s through with her, he cuts her up.’

With sweat streaming off his face, Solo lumbered to his feet.

He started across the office to the door. Both Lepski and Beigler tried to stop him, but it was like trying to stop a charging bull. He swept them aside and rushed out into the open where four of Beigler’s biggest and toughest patrolmen were waiting.

They got him back into the office again but only after clubbing him half silly. They slammed him down in his chair and drew back, panting.

Lepski winked at Beigler, then took up his stand in front of Solo who was holding his head in his hands, moaning to himself.

‘What’s the fuss about, Solo?’ Lepski demanded. ‘What the hell do you think you’re playing at?’

Solo lifted his head and stared blearily at the four cops, then wrung his hands.

‘Let me go to my little girl, Mr. Lepski,’ he pleaded. ‘She’s with Mitchell . . . I was stupid to lie to you. Let me go to her.’

‘How are you getting to Sheldon, Solo . . . you swimming?’

‘I’ll get a boat . . . I’ll . . .’ Solo stopped, realising it would take some time to get a boat big enough to reach Sheldon.

‘We’ve got a boat, Solo,’ Lepski said. ‘You want a ride?’

Solo got unsteadily to his feet. His head felt as if it could burst at any second.

‘What are we waiting for? That sonofabitch could have killed her by now! What are we waiting for?’

‘You don’t get a ride until you sing, Solo,’ Lepski said, and smiled his evil smile. ‘I mean that. I want the whole Baldy story. I want to know why Mitchell is on Sheldon with Nina. I want to know where Cortez is and how he figures in this setup.’

Solo glared at him.

‘I don’t know anything about Baldy! I told you!’

‘That’s too bad.’ Beigler turned to Lepski. ‘How about some coffee? This is a restaurant isn’t it?’

‘Good idea.’ Lepski turned to one of the cops. ‘Get some coffee organised. We could be here all the morning.’

‘We’re wasting time!’ Solo shouted frantically. ‘He could be killing her!’

‘Well, if he does, you have only yourself to blame,’ Lepski said. ‘You don’t leave here until you sing, Solo, so make up your goddamn mind!’

Solo writhed with impotent rage.

‘You’re bluffing!’ he shouted, smashing his huge fists down on his desk. ‘I don’t believe Mitchell is Donahue! You’re lying!’

‘Washington says Mitchell died in 1967,’ Lepski said in a bored voice. ‘Maybe your barman reads the papers.’ He turned to one of the patrolmen. ‘Get the barman, Alec.’

A few moments later, Joe came in, sweating, his eyes rolling.

‘What’s your name?’ Lepski asked.

‘Joe Small, boss.’

‘Okay, Joe, have you ever heard of Dave Donahue?’

Joe gaped at him.

‘Have you or haven’t you?’ Lepski barked.

‘Ain’t he the guy who killed all those girls?’

Lepski smiled, reached forward and patted Joe’s shoulder.

‘That’s right. You read about him in the papers. You remember he was a big blond guy, huh?’

‘Yeah boss. A fighter.’

‘That’s it. Okay, Joe, beat it.’

When Joe had gone, Lepski stared at Solo who was now looking ten years older. His face was the colour of cold mutton fat.

‘Satisfied, Solo? You want to make up your mind. This guy does it slow, but they’ve been out there some time now. There’s still a chance if you hurry.’

‘I’ll tell you about it on the boat,’ Solo said huskily and got to his feet.

‘Okay,’ Lepski said, ‘Come on, boys, let’s go.’

While the police launch raced towards Sheldon Island, Solo sat in the cabin and talked.

‘Mr. Carlos wanted to get a big consignment of cigars out of Cuba,’ he told the two detectives. ‘They were his property but there was this ban on Havana cigars - there’s big money in cigars, you understand: everyone wants them - so he planned to smuggle them in. He hired Baldy Riccard who was a Castro fan to fix the deal and gave him money to pay off Castro s boys and bring the cigars back. There was three hundred thousand dollars involved. Cortez who works for Mrs. Carlos, overheard Carlos and Baldy talking. He came to me because I have a boat. Now,

I’m no Commie, Mr. Lepski, so I thought it would be in the National interest to hijack Baldy’s boat as it took off for Cuba. I was planning to hand the money over to the Customs authorities as soon as I got it.’

‘Yeah? I can imagine,’ Lepski said with his evil grin. ‘So what happened?’

‘Cortez and me intercepted Baldy’s boat off Sheldon. It was pretty dark and instead of stopping, Baldy tried to run for it. Cortez got kind of annoyed. He had a sub machine gun and there was some shooting.’ Solo looked hopefully at Beigler who was taking all this down in his notebook. ‘I didn’t want any shooting, you understand? I thought Baldy would heave to and there would be no unpleasantness. In the darkness he got away, but the boat was pretty hard hit, and after we had wasted a lot of time searching for it, we decided it was sunk and that was our bad luck.’ Solo licked his lips, hesitated, then went on, ‘A couple of months later, Baldy walks into the restaurant. Seeing him shook me because I thought he was drowned. He tells me he wants to hire my boat. I could tell by the way he talked he had no idea it was me who had tried to hijack him. Well, I wasn’t going to lend him my boat, but I told him he might get one at Vero Beach. As soon as he had gone, I called Cortez and told him to meet me at Vero Beach and Nina and I drove out there in my car and found Baldy. Cortez turned up in Mrs. Carlos’s car as his wasn’t running so good.’ Again Solo hesitated. ‘Well, Cortez played rough. He persuaded Baldy to tell us what happened to his boat.’

‘You mean Cortez stuck Baldy’s foot in a fire and kept it there?’

Solo wiped his sweating face with the back of his hand.

‘That’s what he did. I want you to understand, Mr. Lepski, I didn’t like it.’

‘And I bet Baldy didn’t like it either.’

‘No, I guess he didn’t. In fact, Mr. Lepski, he had a heart attack or something. Anyway, he died on us.’ Solo looked hopefully at Lepski. ‘You understand I had no idea he would do a thing like that.’

Lepski wagged his head.

‘Tough on you.’

‘That’s right, Mr. Lepski. It upsets me a lot. He was an old friend. It upset me.’

‘But you did persuade him to tell you what happened to the boat before he had a heart attack?’

‘Oh, sure. He told us that. When Cortez started blasting off with his machine gun, Baldy’s crew got killed and Baldy took the wheel. He headed for Sheldon. It was dark so we didn’t see him. Somehow he got through the Funnel and into the blue grotto. The tide was right. Once he was in the grotto, he decided to hole up there until we got tired of looking for him. But he didn’t know about the tide and when he got ready to leave, he found he was trapped. Well, he stayed there for three weeks until the food began to run out and then he got desperate. He put on a lifejacket and towing a rubber raft, he got swept through the tunnel and back to the mainland. He went to Carlos and told him what had happened. Carlos knew about the Funnel and knew the tide would be right on the 27th of this month. He told Baldy to get another boat and go to the Funnel on 27th and get the money off the other boat that was trapped. Well, when we knew Carlos was expecting to get the money by 27th we had to act fast. Right when we were wondering how to get into the grotto before the 27th, Randy Roache telephoned and told us about this guy Mitchell or whatever his name is. He said he was an Olympic swimmer. Nina figured a real top swimmer could get into the grotto and get the money out. If he was that good, he could help her through the tunnel so she could make sure he didn’t double-cross us. So we hit on the idea of planting Baldy’s body on this guy so we could have a hold on him if he didn’t cooperate. We borrowed a caravan, Nina used Baldy’s car and the plan went off without a hitch.’ Solo turned and looked anxiously at the island that was now in sight. ‘Can’t this goddamn boat go faster?’

Beigler handed his notebook to Solo.

‘Initial each page and sign the last page, Solo,’ he said. We’re going as fast as we can.’

Without even bothering to read what Beigler had written, Solo did as he was told.

Lepski made a sign to one of the patrolmen who quietly drew his Billy and balanced it in his hand.

‘You can relax, Solo,’ Lepski said. ‘Harry Mitchell’s come back to life.’ He took the second Telex from his wallet and handed it to Solo.

Solo read it, crumpled it in his great fist and glared with vicious fury at Lepski who grinned.

‘You hit me, Solo, so I hit you. Never hit a cop; it’s bad medicine.’

With a roar of rage, Solo launched himself at Lepski but the club, wielded with scientific precision smashed down on his skull and he spread out on the floor of the cabin.

* * *

‘Passenger? I don’t know what you mean,’ Nina said and backed away.

‘I had an idea either Solo or Cortez was in the locked cabin,’ Harry returned.

‘No one was in the cabin! We’re wasting time! Let’s get these boxes on deck!’

Harry regarded her, then shrugged. He carried the boxes, one by one, out of the cabin and laid them in a row on the deck. Nina came up with the four lifejackets. In a few moments they had strapped the jackets around the boxes. Then Harry found a length of rope and roped the boxes together.

He helped Nina adjust her aqualung, then adjusted his own.

He shoved the boxes overboard. They landed with a splash in the water, the jackets giving them enough buoyancy to float. He looked at Nina who nodded and they both dived off the boat. Harry picked up the floating rope and began towing the four boxes towards the mouth of the tunnel.

Nina swam beside him. They reached and entered the tunnel.

The strong current swept them forward. Nina caught hold of one of the boxes and hung on as she was buffeted and bustled through the darkness.

The first indication that warned Fernando Cortez that the operation had been completed was the sight of the four wooden boxes in life jackets as they floated out of the mouth of the tunnel. He was lying behind a rock on the platform where Harry had left his bag. He held the .22 target rifle in his fat, sweating hands, the butt dug hard into his shoulder. He levelled the rifle sight on the boxes, his finger taking in the slack of the trigger and he waited.

He, Solo and Nina had agreed that as soon as Harry appeared from the tunnel, Cortez was to kill him. Harry would have served his purpose, and a rifle bullet was all that was necessary to put period to his usefulness. The plan was for Nina to swim the boxes to where Cortez was hiding, return to the boat and bring it around the island to the lagoon. Cortez would load the boxes onto the boat and they would return to the mainland. Cortez would receive his share, give Solo the value of his boat and sail for Yucatan: a long trip, but in Solo’s boat and at this tune of year, a safe one.