Operation Whiplash (6 page)

“Goddam right I didn’t. When you plannin’ on handin’ over the money?”

“When you deliver me to the main highway.”

“Suits me fine,” he said. “I want you off the grounds when the blowoff comes.”

“I’ll need clothes, shoes, and a hat. And the gun.”

“Okay,” he said. “It works out. When we’re set, I’ll leave the stuff in the john for you to dress. We’ll walk out the ward door here together. I’ll take you down to the side door that leads out to the parkin’ lot. From there I’ll drive you to the highway in my car.”

“Fine,” I pretended to agree. “I’ll be picking up the cash alongside the driveway between the hospital and the highway.” I stopped as though I’d said more than I intended.

I could see him changing gears while he thought that one over. The critical moment for me would be when Spider Kern thought I had the cash in my hands. I was sure he intended to gun me down as an escapee at that moment.

Kern was studying me. “You’re pretty sure of yourself? Pretty cool?”

“I’m just leaving everything up to you.”

He grunted and walked away from me.

And so the double-con continued.

All during the final week I paid close attention while Dr. Afzul rebandanged my head after each session in his office. There was less bandaging necessary each time. I would unbandage myself while he was making his preparations, and at night in bed I practiced unbandaging and rebandaging myself following Afzul’s pattern until I was sure I could do it alone.

I still hadn’t seen myself. There was no mirror in the doctor’s office, and all my practicing was done in the dark. If Dr. Afzul ever noticed anything different in the arrangement of the bandages in his office mornings, he never said anything.

“You’ll be getting a package in the mail one of these days with no return address on it,” I told him on the morning of what I intended to be my last day in the institution. “Don’t open it until you’re alone.”

He knew what I meant. It would be the balance of the twenty thousand I’d promised him for the face job. I said it casually, as though it were something a long way in the future. But the little man may have had his own radar. For the first time in our assocation he went out of his office and left me alone in it. I improved the shining hour by helping myself to gauze, tape, and a makeup kit the doctor had explained would improve my appearance during the healing process.

I would have liked to say goodbye to him when he came back, but I couldn’t trust him that far. He’d carried his share of the load. Now it was up to me. I’d already given Kern the word that tonight was the night. I’d watched Spider with his head together with his partner, Rafe James, and I knew that whatever Kern was planning for me, James had a part in it.

I’d had a long time for contingency planning. Kern had said he’d drive me in his car to the point between the hospital and the highway, at which I would presumably hand over the five thousand. Kern would want James along, so that when the moment came no mistakes would be made in disposing of me.

But James could hardly be waiting in Kern’s car. Even a supposed dimwit like me might reasonably be expected to balk at two-to-one odds at such a critical interval. That meant Rafe James in another car, following us.

And the more I thought about it, the better I liked the idea.

The final hour of waiting that night was the worst.

A half-hour before I expected Kern’s signal for me to go to the men’s room, I got out of bed, lifted the hospital bed, and worked free the steel casters in each front leg. I stretched out on the bed again with fists balled around a caster in each hand, a precaution against Kern’s accelerating his intended double-cross.

The signal finally came. I went into the men’s room and dressed in the clothing Kern had left for me. The jacket was too tight and the trousers too loose. I managed. I kept one hospital sock and put the two steel casters into it. I added a jumbo-sized bar of hospital soap and put the sock into a pocket.

When I left the washroom, Kern was outside the door. “All set?” he asked. His voice sounded tense.

I nodded. Kern led me to the ward door and unlocked it. We passed through. In the better light of the corridor I tried to locate a suspicious bulge on him that would pinpoint a weapon. I couldn’t see anything. It had to mean that Rafe James was carrying the armament.

I was keyed up so high that Kern had the outside door unlocked and we were outside almost before I realized it. The night air felt warm and moist. It was my first breath untainted by hospital antiseptics in almost two years.

Kern started to walk alongside the building, keeping on the grass. I knew he was headed for the parking lot where James would be waiting in another car. I took the loaded sock from my pocket. Before we reached the corner of the building, I smashed it as hard as I could behind Spider Kern’s right ear. He gave a kind of coughing grunt, stumbled, then pitched forward on his face.

I shook a caster out of the sock and placed it in my hand with the long steel pin protruding between my fingers. I made a deep circle around the parking lot and came up behind the little cluster of employees’ automobiles. I moved along the row until I saw a head silhouetted against the night sky.

Noiselessly I approached the open window on the driver’s side. Rafe James was watching the corner of the building around which Spider Kern and I were supposed to appear. There was something bulky resting on James’s lap.

I reached inside the window and jabbed the steel pin of the caster into the back of James’ neck, hard. “Don’t move!” I whispered. “Or I’ll shoot!”

He stiffened, then froze.

I reached down with my free hand and removed the bulky object from his lap. It was a sawed-off double-barreled shotgun. It was no longer and not much heavier than an old-time dueling pistol, but fifty times as lethal. I walked around the car and got in on the passenger’s side.

“Drive out to the highway,” I directed James. He complied numbly. He was in a state of shock.

I knew it was a mile to the highway. “Stop here,” I said when I judged we were nearly there. “Get out,” I said to James when he stopped the car. He started to whimper. “Out,” I repeated. He climbed out slowly while I matched his movements on the other side. James looked at the shotgun in my hands and started to run. He knew what he intended doing to me, and he expected the same treatment. He started zigzagging as he picked up speed. I couldn’t let him go to spread the alarm. I was already taking a chance upon how long Spider Kern would remain unconscious.

I couldn’t wait. I didn’t know the load in the shotgun. At twenty yards I touched off the front trigger.
Kerblamm-m-m!
The shotgun charge picked up Rafe James bodily and rolled him down into the ditch. I looked up and down the road for headlights. There were none.

I climbed down into the ditch for a look at James. Even with the unchoked, sawed-off barrel, he must have caught half the charge, and from the look of him the charge must have been buckshot. Rafe James was no longer a part of the problem.

I went back to the car, removed my head bandages, then took a tube of facial makeup and squeezed a gob onto my palm. I rubbed it into my face and scalp. I had seen in the hospital how the paste dulled the gloss of pink new skin. I put the wide-brimmed hat on. It shadowed my face nicely.

Before starting off I checked the glove compartment. There were half a dozen loose shotgun shells in it. I examined one in the dash light. All were number 0 buckshot. Each pellet was the equivalent in size of a.32-caliber bullet. The condition of Rafe James’s body was explained.

I reloaded the shotgun and drove to the highway where I turned toward Hudson. My goal was the isolated cabin there where my dead partner, Bunny, had buried the loot from the Phoenix job. With that in my hands, my horizon was unlimited.

The drive to Hudson was without incident. I took a seven-mile detour so I didn’t have to drive through the downtown area. I parked Rafe James’s car when I was a mile away from the cabin. I picked up the shotgun and started down the dusty road on foot. Wisps of swamp fog were curling upward from the damp ground. My unbandaged head felt hot and uncomfortable under the wide-brimmed hat.

A break in the trees lining the road announced that I was at the cabin. I started to take off my shoes, then stopped. All I needed was to put my foot down on a cottonmouth. I edged in from the roadside a careful step at a time. If Spider Kern had recovered consciousness in time to make a telephone call….

A chill dawn breeze rustled the bushes, reminding me that daylight was too close. The blacker outline of the cabin came into view. While I studied it, there was the sound of a slap from inside. “Damn mosquitoes!” a hoarse voice muttered.

“Shut up!” Blaze Franklin’s voice said instantly.

“Don’t get narky,” the first speaker complained. “We’ll see his headlights comin’. How ‘bout a cigarette, Blaze?”

“I told you no cigarettes, Moody! This bastard is smart and dangerous!”

“At least you could tell me who this dangerous bastard is,” Moody returned sulkily. “An’ why you dragged me out here to wait for him.”

“Because a friend phoned me,” Franklin replied. “You just stick with me and you’ll be wearing diamonds.”

“Like yours?” Moody inquired slyly. “The boys been wonderin’ where you’re gettin’ your money.”

“We should be listening instead of talking,” Franklin said.

I moved stealthily away from the cabin. I didn’t like what I’d heard. If Franklin had money, it almost had to be the Phoenix loot. It had never occurred to me that he might find it. I looked up at the star-dotted sky and moved straight north from the cabin’s front door. Even in the dark I noticed that there was a lack of brush. Someone had cleaned it out. The ground was soft and shifting under foot. Someone had patiently dug it up. Franklin had dug it up, and he had found the loot.

No problem. I moved back toward the cabin. Franklin would tell me where the money was. I crouched outside the door. I could hear the murmur of voices but I couldn’t make out what they were saying now. There was no window on this side of the cabin. I wondered if Franklin had bolted the door. I doubted it. It would restrict mobility they might need. If the door was bolted we were in for a prolonged shootout. Otherwise I hoped to surprise them.

I positioned myself in front of the door, then slammed my heel into it with all the force in my leg muscles. The door flew open. I went across the threshhold in a sliding skid, then crouched with the shotgun extended in front of me. Franklin and Moody were standing in grotesque attitudes of surprise.

“Freeze!” I demanded, leveling the shotgun halfway between them. Moody reacted fast and first. His right hand dipped toward the holster gun on his hip. I shifted my aim slightly and once again touched off the forward trigger. In the confined space the shotgun’s roar shook the cabin. Moody was still standing upright while half his head and all his brains were plastered on the wall behind him. Then he fell forward on what was left of his face.

“Hold it!” I ordered Franklin, swinging the sawed-off toward him. Him I wanted alive. For awhile. But his gun was already halfway out of his shoulder holster. There was no time for any conversation. I squeezed the second trigger and gut-shot him. He went backward in a stutter step until he smashed into the stove, doubled up, and hit the deck. The blast had almost cut him in two. He crawled in circles on the floor like a huge wingless beetle.

One look was indication enough he was never going to tell me where the money was, or anything else. I crossed the cabin and put a foot on him to stop the crawling. I took his wallet, car keys, and.38, wiped the blood off my hands on his trouser legs, then backed toward the door. The crawling started up again, but more slowly.

I found Franklin’s car where he’d half-hidden it in bushes. Dawn was painting the eastern sky flame-red. I drove as rapidly as I dared to the rooming house Franklin had been living in, after separating from his wife, when Lucille Grimes had been his girlfriend. The streetlights were still on but a dirty gray daylight was infiltrating the area when I reached the rooming house.

The mailbox slot said, “Franklin: 2-C.” I went up the stairs boldly. In this place people were used to all-hours coming and going. I picked the lock on Franklin’s door, went in, and tore the place up, down, and sideways looking for the Phoenix money.

I found ten fifty-dollar bills in a bureau drawer, and that was all. Franklin had cached the bulk of the loot somewhere else, and he was never going to tell me where. The sun was above the horizon when I closed the rooming house door and walked across the street to Franklin’s car.

I didn’t have the money, but I had freedom plus a new, unknown face.

And the combination was as good as a license to resume my interrupted life.

• • •

I woke dripping with perspiration.

It’s not my favorite dream.

I went into the bathroom and showered, then dressed in the new, nondescript clothing I’d bought. I scrambled four eggs and split the panful with Kaiser. I couldn’t get the dream out of my mind. It was the first time in months I’d had it with such intensity. And, of course,
dream
wasn’t the correct word for it.

Reenactment was more like it.

The sun was a lot lower in the afternoon sky when I loaded Kaiser into the Ford and set out for Jed Raymond’s real estate office.

“Lou Espada?” Jed repeated when I brought him up to date on my talk with Casey Deakin. “I don’t get it. Casey said that Lou gave him the money to expand?” “It doesn’t strike a chord?”

“Not even a note. I don’t see—” Jed hesitated.

“Course, nobody knew Lou’s business. He was a guy who really played it close to his vest.”

“Nobody?” I said.

“Well, Hazel,” Jed admitted. “Since she was married to him.”

“She told me more than once that Espada carefully avoided letting her find out where his money came from, Jed. She had no idea.”

“She an’ everyone else in town.” Jed’s tone was light but a frown crinkled his forehead. He patted Kaiser’s head absentmindedly as the big dog nuzzled Jed’s thigh, demanding attention. “I wonder—”

Again he didn’t complete his thought. “You must have someone in town you use to check out the pay-or-no-pay tendencies of your real estate prospects, don’t you, Jed?” I prodded him.

“Sure,” he agreed. “Tony Atkins at the Suncoast Trust Company will usually give me a pretty straight answer about a prospect’s net worth. Not in dollars an’ cents, which seems to violate a banker’s ethics, but I never have any trouble gettin’ the message. But if you’re thinkin’ about my askin’ for a line on the late Señor Espada’s credit ratin’ and bankin’ habits, forget it. He didn’t bank in town. I remember Tony gettin’ juiced up at a party one night an’ tellin’ me Espada didn’t bank here. Tony was kind of aggrieved about it.”

“We’re not interested in his former line of credit, Jed,” I pointed out. “Just where his money came from.” Jed shrugged, and I tried a new tack. “What did you think of Lou Espada personally?”

“I hardly knew him,” Jed responded. “I didn’t really get to know Hazel, for that matter, until Lou died an’ she took to runnin’ the Dixie Pig to have somethin’ to do.” He frowned again as though trying to reassess his reaction to Hazel’s second husband. “As I recall Lou was what you’d call a real personable type. Seemed to get along with everyone, although he wasn’t what you’d call a real mixer. Not in Hudson, anyway.”

“What does it add up to as far as you’re concerned, Jed, when you consider that Espada produced the cash for Deakin to expand his trucking business, and then Colisimo and his people came along and jerked the business out from under Deakin?”

“I don’t like how it adds up,” Jed returned. “If Lou Espada was really the front man for Bolts Colisimo—” He paused. “It can’t be, though,” he argued with himself. “When Lou died, why didn’t Colisimo come along an’ bunt Hazel right off the nest egg? Assumin’ the bankroll was his?”

“Because he was in jail? Because he had no legal handle on the money he’d turned over to Espada? Especially if it was syndicate money he was trying to launder by investing it in a legitimate business? There could be a lot of reasons, Jed. What you want to do is put out your dragline and rake up everything you can about a connection between Espada and Colisimo.”

Jed nodded. “I can do that, all right. It’ll take a little time, but usually somethin’ turns up that was never in the newspapers.”

“While you’re doing that, I’m going back to the Lazy Susan and shake a few answers out of Robin Ford,” I said.

“Now hold on a minute,” Jed said immediately. “What makes you think that’s a good move?”

“If she’s as close to Rubelli as you seem to think, she’s smart enough to be able to supply some answers.”

“That dame’s got no smarts,” Jed said emphatically. “I’ll guarantee you she can’t wipe her ass without gettin’ shit all over her thumb.”

“She’s shrewd, Jed. I’ve seen her at closer range than you have.”

“Yeah?” He eyed me speculatively. “Maybe you have at that. You wanna tell your ol’ Uncle Jed all about it?” He grinned when I remained silent. “All I’m trying to say is that even if you’re right, all you’re gonna do by goin’ over there is tip Colisimo’s crowd off that their periscope’s broke water. Just because Robin Ford is underneath Rubelli when he’s doin’ his mattress-poundin’, doesn’t mean she knows Rubelli’s business.”

“Five minutes’ conversation will tell me whether she does or not. I’m always in favor of shortcuts, Jed.”

He was shaking his sandy head slowly. “Tell me some-thin’,” he proposed. “How do you figure all this ties in with what happened to Nate Pepperman?”

“I don’t know,” I admitted. I’d damn near forgotten about Pepperman. Hazel’s business manager had faded into the far reaches of my mind. There had to be a connection, of course. When I found out why Hazel had sent Robin Ford to find me, I’d probably learn about Pepperman’s connection, too.

“Doesn’t the way Pepperman was murdered remind you of syndicate-style, now that you think about it?” Jed pressed me.

“It could be.”

“Then why go over to that motel an’ invite Colisimo to put your balls in the meat grinder?” Jed argued. “Why not wait until we find out a little more? By tomorrow, even, I might—”

“Jed,” I interrupted him. “Hazel’s missing, remember? By now Robin Ford might know where she is. But try this for a real wild pitch. Suppose instead of Hazel sending Robin to find me, Robin came on her own?”

“Her own, hell,” Jed corrected me. “She’d have been sent. But why? You think Colisimo wanted you right here in town?”

“I don’t know why. I said it was a wild pitch.”

“It sounds closer to the plate than over the backstop, though,” Jed said in a musing tone of voice. “Although I don’t see—what could the connection be—” He struggled with it for a moment before giving up. “I just don’t know. Listen, I know I’m not gonna keep you from goin’ over there if you’ve made up your mind, but be goddam careful, okay?”

“Okay.” I snapped my fingers at Kaiser and the big dog rose from his haunches, eyeing me expectantly. “Just put your vacuum cleaner to work and dig up everything you can on Espada’s local operations,” I advised Jed. “I’ll call you if I learn anything that helps.” I paused near the office’s exit. “What does Rubelli look like?”

“Big,” Jed answered. “Flashy dresser. Dark-faced. He’s a good-lookin’ bastard. Mean-talkin’. Hates the world.”

“What about Colisimo?”

“Short and squatty. Moonface. Long gray sideburns. He’s always got a fresh white carnation in his buttonhole. Not that I’ve seen him that often. Rubelli handles his action around here.”

I waved to Jed and went out the door. Kaiser bounded down the steps ahead of me. I loaded him into the car and set out for the Lazy Susan. En route I tried to make sense of the day’s store of imformation, and failed. I’d leave the puzzle-solution to Jed, anyway. A little direct action could be more beneficial than hours of inquiry. Now that Colismo’s footprints were near the scene, Hazel’s absence had taken on a critical urgency.

Shimmering heat waves were rising from the motel’s low roof when I reached the Lazy Susan. The swimming pool was in the rear, not visible from the highway. I could hear playful shouts and splashing sounds as I exited from the car. Kaiser followed me out the driver’s side before I could close the door. I started to put him back in the car, then changed my mind. The dog might supply a bit of necessary camouflage. I crossed the lawn and approached Robin Ford’s room. In daylight, boldness often pays off better than attempted stealth.

I knocked on the door firmly. Nothing happened. I knocked again, although I sensed the room was empty. This might be an opportunity difficult to duplicate. I had searched Robin Ford’s bag in Stuttgart, but I’d found nothing of note except the exotic underwear which Robin had later personally demonstrated as a merit badge. I might have better luck searching her room in her absence.

I was still wearing Rudy Hernandez’s thin-steel lock-pick equipment as collar stays. A glance around disclosed that I was alone on the narrow cement walk in front of the room doors. I pulled the steel-strips from my collar and inserted the Z-shaped torque wrench into the bottom of the keyway of the simple Yale-type lock. I turned it a bit to put tension on the sides of the pins where a binding is made. If made properly, the torque wrench doesn’t block the keyway.

I took the wavy-ended steel pick in my other hand and ran it rapidly in and out of the lock, bouncing the tumblers into place. The tension caused by the torque wrench kept the pins from falling back. A quarter-turn of my wrist and the door opened. I stepped inside, Kaiser crowding in behind me. I closed the door after reinserting the lockpick equipment in my collar.

I hand-motioned Kaiser to a corner of the room, out of the way. He moved obediently, then sat and watched me, tongue lolling. I went to work. The bed had obviously been used by two people. I lifted the pillows, then raised the mattress and explored underneath without finding anything. I didn’t know what I was looking for: anything that would tell me something I didn’t know. I shook down the bureau, tumbling Robin’s familiar underwear ruthlessly. Nothing. I tried the closet. Hanging clothes and three pairs of neatly arranged shoes. That was all.

There was a bag on a luggage rack, but it was the same bag I had already searched in Arkansas. I bypassed it and went into the bathroom. A man’s clothing was neatly arranged on a chair, jacket across the back, trousers across the seat. I picked up the trousers and started going through the pockets. I had a black, leather, slim-feeling wallet in my hand when I heard the click of a key in the entrance doorlock.

I replaced the wallet in the trousers and the trousers on the chair. I walked out into the bedroom, hoping to see the maid. Instead, there was a dark-faced, burly-looking type in wet swim trunks. If a man in such a costume can be said to be a flashy dresser, I was looking at a flashy dresser. Besides, there was the evidence of the suit in the bathroom. I knew I was looking at Mario Rubelli.

“Sorry,” I said easily, “My key seems to have opened the wrong door.”

“That’s the trouble with these cheap fleabags!” he snapped. Then he saw the open bureau drawers and the tossed-aside clothing. His eyes narrowed. “Oh-oh,” he said gently. “A creeper, eh? A motel creeper. Well, well. You picked the wrong room, cousin.” He began to sidle toward me on the balls of his feet.

I turned until my left shoulder was extended toward him so if I drew my automatic from its belt holster it would be lined up on Rubelli as I did so. Nobody gets close enough to me for any punchouts. My reconstructed face can’t stand it. If Rubelli kept coming, he was in a hell of a lot more trouble than I was.

But Rubelli had seen my reaction and interpreted it correctly. He stopped coming. “Get your ass out of here, man, before I call the fuzz!” he barked. Patently he was far too careful to challenge a gun bare-handed.

But he was still blocking my route to the door. “Kaiser,” I said quietly. “Move him.”

The shepherd rose from his haunches and padded toward Rubelli. The dark-faced man glanced down at the dog, plainly disconcerted. He took a backward step, and then another. Kaiser
rrrrrrrr’
d deep in his throat, and Rubelli moved hurriedly to one side. “Get that goddam mutt out’ve here!” he exclaimed, his voice higher pitched. Some people have an unreasoning fear of dogs, and Rubelli appeared to be in that category.

I moved past him to the door. Rubelli was still staring at Kaiser’s bared teeth, but he rallied somewhat when I opened the door. “I’ll wring you out, jerk, if I catch you mousin’ around here again,” he snarled. The effectiveness of his threat was diminished by a slight quaver in his voice.

I snapped my fingers, and Kaiser backed away from the man he held at bay. I kneed the dog out the door while keeping an eye on Rubelli. With the dog outside, Rubelli might try something. I was almost wishing for it. Rubelli was an easy man to dislike.

But now that Kaiser’s menacing presence had been removed, something else occurred to Robin’s boyfriend. “Hey!” he exclaimed. He trotted into the bathroom, and I knew he was checking his wallet. By the time he reappeared in the bedroom, wallet in hand, he had had time for second thoughts. “Do I know you?” he said to me. “Are you from Miami? I know damn well you’re not from Tampa.”

I didn’t say anything, and he decided it was safe to get mad again. “Blow!” he rasped, raising a hand in a threatening gesture. “Lucky for you there’s nothin’ missin’ from my poke or I’d pull your teeth one at a time. Blow!”

I couldn’t resist the temptation. I drew my automatic and began to sidle toward Rubelli as he had toward me previously. I didn’t say a word. “Hey,” he said again, disconcerted. He began to shuffle backward, eye on the gun. “What’re you, anyways, a goddam ps-psychopath?” His voice was a high-pitched whine.

I stopped four feet away from him with the 9mm. lined up on his belt buckle. I made my voice as tough-sounding as I could. “Anyone ever tell you that you talk too much, man?” I rapped at him.

Despite the gun, his ego couldn’t stand the hassling. “Listen, you know who I am?” he blustered. “I’m Mario Rubelli, you goddam jerk, an’ I’ll take that thing away from you an’ stuff it up your ass.”

“You’re not Rubelli,” I needled him. “Rubelli’s a big shot, not a loose-bladder type afraid of a dog.”

It struck a nerve. “I’ll kill you, you bastard!” Rubelli screamed, his dark face turning almost purple with rage.

“I want to hear you say that with three holes in your belly,” I told him. I extended the automatic and simulated squeezing the trigger.

He believed me, because he was the type to do it himself. He went down on his knees. “No, no, no!” he begged. “You—you got me all wrong, man! Here!” He tossed me his wallet. I caught it in my left hand. “Take fifty. Take a hundred. No hard feelin’s, man. Help yourself.”

I took the wallet in my right hand and changed the automatic to my left. Then I threw it in his face. It doesn’t take any courage to badger an unarmed man, but Rubelli was so used to operating that way I couldn’t refuse the chance to turn the tables. He was still on his knees, blinking, a hand pressed to his face where the wallet had struck him, when I let myself out the door. I didn’t turn my back on him. I knew he had a gun stashed somewhere in that motel room.

That was all that could help him, though.

He wasn’t clean enough to call the motel manager or the police, despite his bravado.

Kaiser and I hustled away from there in the Ford. I had lost my temper for nothing. The mission had been worse than aborted; Rubelli knew me now, if not by name at least in the context of my present wig-and-facial appearance.