Lady, Go Die! (21 page)

But I had a different idea about how to handle this son of a bitch.

“Listen,” I said. “Let’s let Big Steve close up the joint for the night. We can go over to the hotel bar, find a quiet booth, and have a friendly talk.”

His scowl made his bandages shift. “Why the hell would I want to do that?”

“Because you used to be a cop in New York City. You’re not just another one of these hicks. You know what’s really going on around Sidon, which interests me. And I think
you
might be interested in hearing about what I’ve turned up lately.”

He thought about that.

Finally, he nodded at me, and left his own dirty dishes behind but tossed a quarter on the counter next to the buck I’d left.
Whether that was a tip or his idea of payment, I couldn’t hazard a guess. Big Steve didn’t look thrilled either way.

Outside, I stuffed a smoke in my face and fired it up. I offered him a Lucky and he accepted it. Unlike the chief, he wore no cap, and within that butch cut didn’t have enough hair for the breeze to riffle it. The wind would have taken my hat if I hadn’t really snugged it down, and it snatched the smoke away from both our cigarettes, making vapor trails as we walked down the middle of a street in a town that would bustle in a few weeks. Right now it was deader than Sharron Wesley.

I said, “I was over in Wilcox the other day.”

“Yeah?”

“You know a guy named Dave Miles?”

“Naw.”

“Head of security at the brick factory.”

“Don’t know him.”

“I also talked to Sheriff Jackson.”

“Him I know.”

“Talked to Chief Chasen.”

“Him I know, too.”

“There’s a theory we three kicked around that the Wesley murder might be the work of the same maniac who killed those two college girls in Wilcox. And also that other young gal found strangled on the beach between Sidon and there.”

We were outside the hotel now. Wind whipped at his dark-blue blouse and my suit coat, flapping them like flags.

“Those college girls,” he said. “They were killed with a knife. Not choked, right?”

“Right.”

“And that other one, the girl on the beach? Wasn’t she strangled with a nylon?”

“Right again.”

Dekkert shrugged his big shoulders. “Sharron was strangled with powerful hands, not a stocking. And I don’t see what those girls in that barn have to do with anything.”

“There are similarities. All three cases, including the Wesley dame, involved young women—good-looking ones—murdered and left naked, their clothes never found.”

The deputy seemed to be mulling that as he sucked up smoke, then exhaled and let the wind whip it away. “Sharron wasn’t that young, though.”

I grinned. “Yeah, but she wasn’t old. She was under forty and still a beauty. You knew her, right?”

He shrugged again. “I don’t know anything about those other cases, Hammer, if that’s why you brung it up. Out of our jurisdiction.”

“Yeah, each kill in a different jurisdiction. Confuses the issue, muddies the waters, don’t you think? Somebody’s smart. Or knows enough about how law enforcement works to think of spreading his hobby around.”

Dekkert was frowning. It made the half-dozen bandages crinkle and bulge. “Is that an accusation?”

I raised my hands in a peace-keeping fashion. “No, just an observation. Buy you a drink?”

He was still frowning.

I made myself smile at him. Not nasty at all. “Come on. Bury
the hatchet. Two old ex-New York PD coppers having a nightcap. Couple other points we should discuss... about your friend Sharron.”

“What?”

“You don’t call her Mrs. Wesley or the Wesley woman or the Wesley dame, I notice. You call her Sharron. You said you knew her. Let’s talk about that.”

He sneered at me. His fists were bunched. He was getting tired of this. So was I, but I needed to keep this thing friendly. “Why the hell should I, Hammer?”

“Because,” I said, and pitched the butt sparking into the night, “I think you might like to know what
I
know.”

That he thought about, too, but not for long. He just nodded, and gestured for me to go inside first. I shook my head and gestured for him to do that. I might be playing nice with him but I wasn’t going to turn my back, not on this bastard.

“Give me a second,” I said, in the lobby.

He stood impatiently while I tried Velda on the house phone. Still no answer. I hung up and nodded toward the bar, and we walked over there.

Soon, in a back booth, with beers in front of both us, and fresh cigs going, we started our friendly chat.

“I was in New York this evening,” I said, “and ran into Johnny C. You know, Johnny Casanova?”

Dekkert couldn’t have cut it at that table in the Waldorf suite—his was anything but a poker face, eyes tightening and even twitching at the mention of the gambling chieftain.

“Seems he was Sharron Wesley’s silent partner,” I went on. “Actually more than silent partner—he owns the place. She was
a front. Apparently he has something on her, and bled her out of her fortune and even her mansion. He was just letting her live there in a few meager rooms in return for playing hostess. Also, bag woman. But still just another employee.”

“I don’t know anything about that.”

I figured he was lying, but I wouldn’t press it—not just yet.

“Dekkert, what was your role out there at the casino? I’ve heard it said you were a bouncer, but I can’t imagine a guy of your gifts would be satisfied with a crummy menial job like that.”

His eyes were hard and dark and barely blinking. “Well, Hammer, you’re wrong. That’s all I did out there—just some security. When I was off-duty. Like cops do.”

Then he drank about half his beer in one gulp.

“Okay,” I said, “but I’ve known you for a long time, Deputy Dekkert. You are nothing if not shrewd. Johnny C’s role out there, you’d pick up on that. Sharron Wesley’s unhappiness, her resentment against Casanova, you’d pick up on that, too.”

“So what?”

“So I think there’s a cache of money somewhere in that mansion or anyway on that property. It might be as little as the last weekend’s take, which would still be plenty. But it might be more.”

“More, huh?”

“A lot more. If Sharron was skimming, for example. Planning to take a powder to a better life, maybe down where the mambo is a local dance. But the thing is, sooner or later, Johnny C is gonna come out Sidon way, looking for that dough.”

A tiny sneer. “How does he even know there
is
any dough?”

“Oh, he knows. I don’t know how, but he told me tonight, so he knows. And when the heat dies down, and there’s no chance of running into coppers crawling around the Wesley grounds, Johnny C will come after what he considers rightly his.”

Dekkert slugged down the rest of the beer and pushed away the mug, then set his balled fists down like mallets. “Did
he
do it? Did Casanova kill her?”

There was rage in that once-handsome, bandage-spotted face. He cared about Sharron Wesley. Was that why he’d gone ape on Poochie when she was missing? Not the money, or anyway not just the money... but love? Had our boy Dekkert been just another love-sick calf?

“No, Johnny didn’t murder her,” I said. “And he didn’t have her bumped, either. Anyway, I don’t think so. That would be killing the golden goose before the egg got laid. He would have questioned her... you know what
kind
of questioning, Dekkert, old pal. The kind you subjected that little beachcomber to.”

“But she wasn’t beaten,” he said hollowly.

“No. She was strangled. And you don’t strangle somebody you’re trying to make talk.”

He nodded slowly. “So what are
you
after, Hammer?”

“I figure you know that property better than anybody. You worked out there. You knew Sharron. Maybe we could turn up that dough together.”

He grunted a laugh. “What, a midnight snipe hunt? Forget it. I did work out there, sure, and I knew her a little. She was a nice broad. We had some fun, time to time. But I never saw any sign she was tied up with Johnny C. And I don’t believe she was stealing money. It was her own place, not his, as far as I know. She
took the cash into the city and banked it, is the way I understand it. That’s the beginning and end of it, Hammer. Okay?”

I shrugged. “Okay. It was worth a try.”

He slid out of the booth. “Word of advice, Hammer?”

“Always appreciated,” I said pleasantly.

“Get the hell out of Sidon.” His upper lip curled all the way back over big front teeth and feral incisors “There’s nothing here for you. Not answers. Not money. Not even a good time.
Nothing.
”

He stalked out of there. Didn’t bother to offer to pay for the beers, but then cops didn’t seem to pay for anything around Sidon.

I sat there grinning. Well, he had taken the bait. I’d known damn well he wouldn’t go partners with me on the stashed cash, but he would want to beat Johnny C to the punch. So all I had to do was go out to Sharron Wesley’s and stake the place out and wait for Dekkert to lead me to the treasure.

Who had grabbed Poochie, I couldn’t say. But it really didn’t feel like the cops were responsible, and I talked myself into the chief meaning it when he said he’d round up his troops and put on a search for the little guy.

Right now the thread I was following was Dekkert, and it would lead to that cash. I wasn’t sure if finding Sharron Wesley’s getaway fund would lead me to her murderer, too, but I had a hunch it would.

Anyway, I didn’t mind the idea of taking a twenty-five percent finder’s fee from Johnny C. No, not at all. I had no other client in this case, and Velda would smile, seeing that kind of fee heading into our bank account.

Speaking of Velda, I tried her again on the house phone, got nothing, and decided to go up to my room to see if she’d left a note under my door or anything.

Nothing.

I was almost back out the door, to stake out the Wesley mansion, when the phone rang.

“Mike?”

It was Velda.

“Finally!” I said. “I’ve been back since midnight, and do I have plenty to report.”

“Tell me about it!” She sounded breathless; I could hear the rustle of wind in trees, so she must be calling from outside somewhere. “Mike, Mayor Rudy Holden has just been killed.”

“
What?
”

“You heard me. One shot behind the ear while he sat in his study. He—”

Her voice broke off with a muffled sound as though someone had slapped a hand over her mouth.

“Velda!... Velda, what’s wrong? Where
are
you, honey? Answer me!”

The only response I got was the click of the receiver being slung back in its cradle.

I dialed the operator and barked an order at her. “I just had a call. I need to know where it came from. Hurry!”

“I’m sorry, sir,” she said with whiny high-pitched indifference. “We can’t give out that in-for-
may
-shun.” I was boiling. Velda in trouble, and some little snip wouldn’t get me the lead I needed.

“Damn it,” I yelled, “you’ll give that me
right now
, or I’ll come
down where you work and slap the goddamn hell out of you. Get me that number and its location! This is detective Mike Hammer speaking, and I don’t want any crap out of you.”

It was a booth three blocks away.

The receiver dangled on its cord, swaying just a little, the violence of the interrupted conversation leaving behind a pendulum that, in the several minutes after the cut-off call, had dissipated to a gentle swing. Like a hanged man after the impact of that sudden fall had worn off.

The phone booth was on the northern edge of the business district, and just around the corner, two blocks down, was the nicest house in town, the red-brick dwelling of the late Mayor Rudolph Holden. Two Sidon police cars with their red lights flashing were parked down there, and even at this distance I could see figures in blue moving in and out of the Holden home.

Velda had said His Honor had “just been killed.” Had she been at the murder scene? Maybe discovered the body? In any case, she had been one of the first to know and rushed to call me.

Had the murderer seen her at the scene, and followed her to that phone booth, and put a muffling hand over her mouth to haul her away to... what? Silence her? Nowhere around the booth was there an alley or doorway to lay down an unconscious body with even the most minimal concealment. I looked at every
possibility half a block in either direction.

Why had she been taken? Who had taken her? Probably the mayor’s murderer, but...
why?
To kill her, assault her, use her as a hostage?
What?

The night was even colder now and the wind picking up. I cut through it like a blade as I ran down to where those red lights flashed, holding my hat onto my head, my open suit coat flapping like wings and if I could have flown, I would. First the beachcomber, now Velda—why?
Who?

The two cops who’d backed up Dekkert in that alley at the start were standing on the open, poured-cement porch—that former high school athlete and his skinny pal. They started to say something as they tried to bar the door but I shoved them aside with either hand, hard enough that the skinny one tumbled off in a pile.

Stairs yawned ahead, and off to the right was a living room where on a Victorian sofa an older female relative or maybe family friend sat holding onto one of the new widow’s hands with both of hers. Mrs. Holden was weeping into a hanky. Whatever that husband of hers had been, I understood her grief. It was what my rage would turn into if I couldn’t get Velda back.

Another cop yelled, “Hey! There’s no entry here!”

But I brushed by him into the study where the mayor and I had once eaten sugar cookies.

Chief Beales saw me enter as two cops caught up with me and took me by the arms and I was getting ready to do something about that when Beales said, “It’s all right! It’s all right. Let go of him. Let him go!”

They did, and moved off growling, not knowing how lucky they were, and I went over to Beales, who was hovering over the corpse slumped in its chair by the cold fireplace. The mayor was in a purple silk robe with pajamas and slippers, the picture of casual comfort but for the black hole behind his left ear. The hole at the right side of the top of his skull was larger, ragged and red, like an angry whore’s mouth.