Lady, Go Die! (23 page)

But what if Dekkert was the maniac who had killed all those girls and he really did have Velda hidden away somewhere awaiting his sick pleasure, but like so many psychopaths was a dissembler of Satanic proportions? Had he just sold me a convincing bill of goods? Should I beat him half to death to find out, the way he had that dimwit in the alley? Was that how I could find out if he was a mad dog? To viciously tear him apart until I foamed at the mouth and he told me what I wanted to hear, whether it was true or not? Who was the mad dog now?

Then the point became moot because a crack of thunder split the night and I jumped, only it wasn’t thunder but a gunshot and a bullet splintered Dekkert’s skull, entering his forehead at an angle, between bandages, spraying blood and bone and brain matter on the latticework where it dripped like wet paint. He fell back almost lazily against the framework and one last breath gushed out of him before he went limp, as if sleep had overtaken him, and in a way it had.

“Pitch that rod over on the sand,” Johnny Casanova said, in his smooth baritone, “nice and gentle, Hammer.”

The .45 was still hanging at my side. There were three of them—the boss plus the two I’d battered outside El Borracho, back on their feet already but with faces bulging with swollen patches, like they’d run into a hive of bees and had a bad allergic reaction. They could have Dekkert’s bandages if they liked—he was through with them. They wore sports shirts and slacks now with car coats. Sharp-looking boys out for some fun on the Island.

Three city boys come to the beach for a party, all with guns pointed at me.

Johnny C—still in his tuxedo but with a camel’s hair coat slung around his shoulders, in deference to the wind—pointed a long-barreled .38 my way, probably the gun that had killed Mayor Holden. The other two had automatics, the tiny-eyed, hook-nosed one a nine millimeter, a Browning I thought, and the dimpled-chin character a .38 automatic, probably a Colt. Actually, any one of those weapons could have killed the mayor.

I was damn good with that rod of mine—like I told the late Deputy Dekkert a few days ago, I practiced with it.

But I was facing three guns aimed right at me, and my .45 was hanging in my hand pointing to the gazebo’s cement floor. They were maybe ten feet away. I could dive off this thing, and shoot as I did. That might do it. Lousy odds, but odds. Then another idea occurred to me.

So I pitched the gun down to the bottom of the stairs, where it landed soft as silk in the sand. Raised my hands for a moment, Mr. Cooperation, then put them down again and gave the gambling boss a friendly grin.

I said, “We don’t have any argument, do we, Johnny? I’m working for you, right? And I found your money, didn’t I? How’s that for service?”

“And I expected nothing less of you,” Johnny said, moving a little closer. The ivory moonlight caught the Roman curls and glittered off the moisture there. “I figured you’d lead us to it. And you have. My thanks.”

“You’re welcome. Mind if I go?”

He ignored that, saying, “But as far as you finding it and keeping twenty-five percent for the fee, I wasn’t so sure you were serious.”

“My reputation is good. I wouldn’t have stiffed you.”

“Your rep is
too
good. You might not want to work for a syndicate type like me. You are known to have an aversion to my kind of people.”

Did he mean gangsters or nancies?

“Still, you’re right, Hammer, I have nothing against you. But you
do
find yourself in an unfortunate, severely precarious position.”

I let my grin go sly. “You mean, you need somebody to pin the mayor’s murder on, and Dekkert’s. And I’m handy.”

A smile blossomed, moving his black beauty mark an inch farther from gleaming teeth. “That’s another aspect of your reputation, Hammer, that I must say is not undeserved. I have heard that you’re as smart as you are tough, and that would seem to be the case.”

Clouds moving over the moon threw weird shadows, then moments later would wash everything ivory. We were like pale statues oblivious to a world moving quickly around us.

“Why,” I said, “because I know you bumped the mayor and now Dekkert? They must have been the only two locals in the know about your connection to this casino. Or is Chief Beales next on the docket?”

“I never dealt with Beales. I’m told he’s a fool.”

“But
you
aren’t a fool, are you, Johnny? You dealt only with those two Sidon officials, the mayor and the former New York crooked copper who you probably already knew. And you had Sharron Wesley fronting for you. Like all good syndicate bosses, you make
sure you are well-insulated from any legal responsibility.”

The gambling czar shrugged and his smile traveled to one side of his face. “Being fully ‘insulated,’ as you so colorfully put it, Hammer, is difficult if not impossible. The investigation into Sharron Wesley’s death could well lead back to me... so it’s prudent to clean things up, tie off loose ends, and go back to the city.”

I grunted a laugh. “Why, won’t the Sharron Wesley estate show you as the true owner of that mansion over there—you know, the one with the Vegas-level gambling layout?”

The pretty boy boss was shaking his head, his expression patronizing. “No. My name will not turn up in that fashion. Oh, I do own the Wesley place, but a dummy company I set up is listed as the owner, and plenty of legal paperwork and red tape has been designed to accomplish two things—
hide
my ownership and
retain
my ownership.”

“Then at some point you’ll re-open.”

He nodded. “But not this season. Maybe not even the next. Only when the dust has fully settled. Now, Mr. Hammer, if you’ll excuse me, and with my apologies...” He turned to his boys, one on either side. “Joe... Tony... you should probably use
my
gun.”

So Johnny had personally killed Mayor Holden. That explained why Rudy had let him into his study as if for just another business meeting.

“Johnny!” I said.

He flashed his gaze back at me with a frown, as if he’d forgotten I was still there—or still alive. As if I were already dead with the mayoral murder gun pressed in my palm. “What is it, Hammer?”

“Did
you
take Velda? Do
you
have her?”

He frowned. “Who in the bloody hell is Velda?”

“My secretary. She’s missing.”

“Well, isn’t that a shame.”

He turned toward Tony, apparently about to pass him the murder weapon.

I called out: “And Poochie—what about
him
?”

Now the dapper gangster seemed truly exasperated. Why was he having to answer these questions from an about-to-be corpse?

“Who the hell is Poochie?” he asked irritably.

I smiled. “Sorry, Giovanni. Didn’t mean to be a nuisance. Don’t you want your money?” I was beside the open safe, and knelt there. “Two hundred-fifty grand down in here, easy. Come on, be fair about it. I found it for you, didn’t I? Isn’t that worth something?”

Johnny C looked truly annoyed with my still being conversant, let alone alive, and handed the murder gun toward Tony to take care of that, and I reached into the safe, found the .38 and thumbed the safety and brought it up over the open safe door to fire three times in succession, three whip cracks in the night that did nothing at all to silence the surging tide.

But it did a fine job on Johnny C and his boys.

The funny thing was how all three just stood there for a moment, tottering, as if they were wondering why they were still standing, only they weren’t wondering anything at all because they were dead, with holes in their foreheads that had exited in a fine spray that left behind little clouds of scarlet to get caught by the ocean breeze and drift away.

I gave the four dead men no further thought. I didn’t even bother with the money—that could wait. I just retrieved my .45
and ran into the night, following the only lead, the only hunch I had, and if I was wrong, I knew Velda didn’t have a prayer. That she would wash up on this beach some day like Sharron Wesley, if the fish didn’t get her first.

The waves growled as I moved down the beach, the ocean flicking my face, as if trying to cool me off, as if the chill breeze weren’t enough, and maybe it wasn’t, because my brain was burning. I moved quickly under a moon displayed by the night sky like a pearl in its navel, winking, then disappearing as the belly dancer’s veils of traveling clouds briefly blotted it out. Even the sand didn’t slow me, and my vision was keen, I could see every goddamn grain on the ivory-washed beach. But my mind was a blur of rage, hate and frustration.

I had the puzzle pieces, all of them, and the part of the puzzle that concerned Johnny C and Dekkert was complete, off to one side, forming half the picture, finished as far as it went.

But Sharron Wesley remained part of the rest of the puzzle, and the only way I could make those pieces fit was to cut a jigsaw shape to
make
it fit, to force it into a picture-revealing slot even while knowing that another gaping hole would show up all too soon.

As I walked along, lost in thought, I almost stumbled over the thing—the puffy, ravaged body of a dog there on the shore, the waves lapping at it like an eager puppy. A boxer, a big one.
Kneeling, holding my breath to avoid the smell of putrefaction, I could see that the animal’s neck had been broken.

Sharron Wesley’s dog?

I walked on. Had another puzzle piece washed to shore, or just the remains of a red herring?

Something in me knew that the answer lay in a dilapidated shack just down the beach from the Wesley mansion. A hovel put together with washed-up wood, chunks of dead boats, and rusted-out tin advertising. A place where Dekkert had shot at me through a window and a brave little guy had taken a bullet meant for me, almost certainly saving my life.

No lights were on in the shanty, but in the moonlight you could see everything, the barrel of fish heads, the fishing poles leaning there like Huck and Tom just abandoned them, the ancient wheelbarrow—all forming a picturesque ivory-washed still life perfect for an artist inclined toward the rustic.

But something was missing.

What?

I circled the shack and on the other side saw a rumpled oil-stained tarp covering something. An awful chill went up my spine as my fingers grabbed the stiff fabric, and pulled it back, not knowing what the hell might be under there, expecting maybe little Poochie or, God help me, Velda.

A rowboat.

An old wooden wreck that had been salvaged but patched enough to most likely float, with a couple of ragged but usable oars.

I covered it up again.

The .45 was in my hand when I went through the unlocked
makeshift door into the darkness of the shack. Enough moonlight came in to guide me around the homemade table and crates for chairs and over to the wall-mounted oil lamp, which I set a match to and flooded the room in an eerie orange glow.

No one here.

What had I expected to find? What answer did I think was waiting in this goddamn hovel? What nagging half-formed thought had sent me on this desperate, hopeless wild goose chase?

I prowled the little space, checking the single bunk and finding only the threadbare quilt and a couple skimpy, dirty blankets and a mattress with the thickness and consistency of a slice of burnt toast. The iron pipes of the stove were cold, though if someone had been here, it was cold enough tonight to have lit it. I went over everything, from the fireplace bin to the basin of scavenged utensils, and finally toured the collection of beautifully carved shells on the two-by-four shelving slung midway around three of the four leaning walls.

I sat on a crate at the little table and cursed myself. This was my fault, sending Velda out on her own, knowing a maniac was out there targeting beautiful women. I’d been in the city playing footsie with that minx Marion Ruston while Velda had been out there in the sticks in harm’s way, and I would never forgive myself if anything happened to her, and if she
died
, if somebody
killed
her...

My eyes filled with tears and I wiped them away with my suit coat sleeve and as I blinked into focus, my vision fixed itself on the battered old cabinets beneath the shelving.

What was it Poochie had said about those fancy carved shells of his?

I got lots more. Down here is my private collection.

I went over and bent down. The cabinets were unlocked. Anybody could have strolled into that shack and cracked open those cabinets and seen what I saw. But no one ever had. Not that anyone would have believed it.

There on little pedestals carved out of driftwood was an array of intricately carved shells, the craftsmanship remarkable, the artistry incredible, like nothing I’d ever seen. And the subject matter, too, was like nothing I’d ever seen...

...two beautiful girls hanging by their heels from rafters with their bodies slashed, delicate paint-brush red touching each wound...

...a lovely girl spread-eagled in pornographic detail as she lay with wide eyes and bulging tongue and a nylon knotted around her throat...

...a lovely blonde similarly arrayed but on the edge of the beach, with the carving catching the curl of the waves half covering her body as she too stared upward with wide dead eyes...

...and that same blonde, Sharron Wesley again, the only subject who had rated two miniature masterpieces, slung over that statue of a horse with hair hanging like Lady Godiva and her once lush bottom in the air with pin pricks of the carver’s artistry to indicate the decay.

And there were seven more scenes, seven other tableaus of murder, victims from somewhere, from who knew where, but all lovely young naked women, dead by murder, strangulation or the knife, in assorted grisly artistic variations.

On a bottom shelf was a sketchbook. I reached for it with a trembling hand. The cover was black and hard, like a library book, and it did not look new. This belonged to an artist who had used it for a while.