Over Her Dear Body (26 page)

“Why did Belden have to be knocked off at all?”

“He was in on some land deal with Silverman and Goss. But nobody ever told me what it was.”

“I know what it was.”

Navarro still lay on his back in the road, his eyes shut. But he was breathing normally again, and his face—under the smeared blood—had better color. He was in pretty good shape—except that he thought he was dying.

I said, “What's this ‘business' you mentioned, that Silverman and Goss are in?”

“I don't know much about it. Goss just told me what to arrange, or do, and when to do it. I wasn't in on all their plans, just the heavy stuff.” He licked his lips. “How about that doctor? I don't feel like I can—”

“After you spit it all out, Joe. So keep spitting. Who did the job on Belden?”

“The two guys with me tonight.” He grimaced, remembering.

“They're not with you any more, Joe. They were almost on top of that dynamite when it blew.”

“Where in hell did you get anything like that so all of a sudden?”

“I thought maybe you wired it under the Cad's hood earlier tonight, at the General Hospital. Somebody did.”

“So that's it. Wasn't me—Arty done it. He's the noise shark. He'd been tryin' to catch up with you since the party started.” Navarro lay silently a moment, then groaned a little. “You got no idea the hell you stirred up. Must've been ten men tryin' to poop you. Includin' Arty.”

“That I can believe. How did this Arty get on my tail? I wasn't in the hospital more than fifteen minutes.”

“When Moe and Geats blasted Lime outside Luigi's, we knew there was a chance Lime wouldn't slam off right then and there. They always take them bleeders to the Receiving, so one of the boys was already hangin' around there to ride the Erie a little and make out if he croaked. He seen you leave, tailed you and give me a call. I got on the phone to Arty and he dusted over to the County barely in time.” He paused. “When nothin' happened, I thought Arty loused it up.” He opened his eyes and looked at me sorrowfully, then closed them again. “Scott ... doctor. I'm gettin' weaker—”

“This Moe and Geats. I guess we haven't met yet.”

“Yeah, you met outside Mitchell's. That's where you got the pill in you. Moe put it in you, and you put Moe in the morgue. Geats is the one took off with Mitchell.”

I knew Navarro was the man who put out all or most of the orders to his and Brandt's hoodlums, but I wondered how come he seemed to know every little thing that had happened. I asked him, and he said, “Man, all the boys knows. I told you, you got no idea the hell you stirred up. The phones have been ringin' like there wasn't going to be no end. You been on everything but television.”

He opened his eyes again and looked heavy-lidded at me. “Scott,” he said slowly, “I'm tellin' you everything. I ain't leavin'
nothing
out. So how about that—doctor? I got—to have a doctor.”

“Okay, Joe. I'll get you a doctor. I'll get you Doctor Fischer.”

He opened his eyes wide and blinked at me. Those eyes were fairly alert now. “Doctor—Fischer?”

“Yeah. He's popped up three times I know about. With Kupp, Lime, and me. The first two are dead, and I was supposed to join them, right?”

Navarro looked puzzled. After a second or two he gingerly moved his right hand up onto his chest, began moving it around and poking himself gently, apparently feeling for the gaping wounds which ought to be there.

“Answer the questions, Joe.”

He swallowed. “Fischer's an old friend of Silverman's. He's picked pills out of the boys a time or two when they couldn't check into a hospital. That's what he tried to do for Kupp, but that boy was coolin' off too fast. Lime was just the opposite. Fischer made sure he cooled off.”

“Why? You just told me all the boys know what I've been up to.”

“Yeah, but they don't know why. Except for me, only Goss and Silverman know—now. But Lime was aboard the
Srinagar
with me when Belden met with Silverman; he knew about that. Didn't make no difference at first, but when Belden got chilled and you didn't, and then all that heat got on Lime, he plainly had to go.”

“That figures. But I'm still puzzled about how the ‘operation' on Lime was set up so soon after he got hit.”

“It wasn't. I told you, if Lime didn't slam off on the street we knew he'd go to the Receiving. They just do emergencies there. With a want on Lime, they was sure to run him over to the County bone-factory where the jail ward is at. So Fischer was ready for him, in case he got that far. It was all set up way ahead.”

“And Fischer was supposed to let his knife slip tonight in me, or something like that?”

“Yeah. Goss got the word to me about your run-in at Mitchell's, that you was in Martin's. They'd got in touch with Fischer already. If he couldn't find a natural way for it to happen, like under the anesthetic or something, we was supposed to handle it. You just got no right to be alive.”

“You were supposed to kill Elaine Emerson too, weren't you?”

“That word's been out ever since Belden got it and the story on a woman running from the place hit the sheets. Only we didn't know where she was till we spotted her with you tonight.”

I kept after him for another couple of minutes, during which time he poked himself in about every place he could poke, his face becoming more and more puzzled. He'd already told me most of what he knew, but there was one more item, an important one.

“Where are Goss and Silverman now? What's the next move?”

“All I know is Goss told me, when he called about me and the boys going to Martin's, that as soon as it was over to get in touch with him at Silverman's. If they weren't there, they'd be on the boat. He didn't spell it out, but it sounded like they were going to take a cruise outside the States for a while.”

With that, he gave himself a regular whack on the stomach, then banged his chest. His face had a tortured look on it, and he pushed himself up from the ground. “Where am I bleedin'?”

He looked so painfully perplexed that I had to chuckle. “You had a nosebleed,” I said.

He looked from my face to his red and gory front, at the stained coat and shirt, and then slowly back to my face. “I didn't know a nose could bleed so much.”

About that time he must have figured it out. At least he realized he wasn't cut in half and hanging by a mere thread of skin. His face darkened, and suddenly he leaned toward me, reaching for the gun in my hand.

Just as suddenly, I popped him on the head with it.

He flopped over, letting out garbled sounds, tried to get up again. I let him sit up, then got to my feet. I'd been recovering a little, while sitting quietly on the ground, but standing sent everything whirling for a few seconds.

Joe held his head and swore at me. I let him swear. The words didn't bother me a bit. Not now.

Half an hour later we were in Navarro's car, and Elaine was turning off Bel Air Road and starting up Strada Vecchia. While she'd driven in, I'd sat quietly beside her, eyes closed, breathing deeply and trying to build my meager vitality up a little higher than zero. Navarro was in the car's trunk with a second lump on his head, sleeping. His .45 automatic was in my—or rather Dr. Fischer's—coat pocket.

As we passed the entrance to Robert Silverman's two-story stone pile I saw a new black Continental alongside the house—that would be Silverman's—a maroon Lincoln, and a black Fleetwood. The Fleetwood looked like Mitchell's, so it appeared that the whole gang was here, mapping strategy while awaiting news of my death. Or maybe even getting ready to run.

Elaine turned at the road's end, stopped, and I got out. She said, “Shell, come with me to the police—”

“We went through that. Just tell them what I told you and send them here in a hurry. I might get a few things from these guys they wouldn't say in official company. They won't know the law's coming and might think they've only me to worry about.” I paused. “Besides, honey, you know of only about half the hell these bums have tossed at me. I'm kind of looking forward to seeing them again.”

She bit hard on her lip. “Shell, I'll die if—”

I interrupted her. “One other thing. Have the police send an ambulance out here.”

“You aren't going to shoot anybody else—”

“Baby, the ambulance is for me.”

She shook her head, lips pressed tightly together, put the car into gear and drove furiously down the hill.

I waited until she was out of sight, then walked back to Silverman's driveway, hand on the cocked automatic in my pocket. I hesitated a moment, my throat as dry as a bone left days in the sun, then walked toward the house.

Chapter Twenty

My legs were weak. In fact, I felt weak all over, but my mind was clear. That is, as clear as it gets. I pulled Navarro's gun from my pocket, held it ready as I tried the door. It wasn't locked, and I eased it open, stepped inside.

The curving stairway ahead of me and on my right was empty. Nobody was in sight, but I could hear voices. They came from the library in which I'd previously talked to Silverman. The potted palm inside the front door brushed my arm as I walked forward. At the open library door I paused and listened.

“...how many times do I have to tell you, Bob? I
swear
I wasn't going to use that stuff against you. It's just—stuff I had around to keep the records straight. You know how complicated it's become.”

I'd heard Mitchell's voice only once, when I'd been leaning into his car here to talk to Arline, but it sounded like him.

The next words were in Silverman's calm, clipped, icy tones. “That is not quite good enough, Ralph. It's fortunate that Geats forced you to come here with this stuff. We'll say no more about it.”

There was a finality to the words that made Ralph's future look very dim, as if it might extend barely beyond the present. Then I heard Goss' rumbling tones as he said, “I wish to hell we'd hear from Joe.”

It seemed like a good moment for me to put in an appearance. The library door was open and I stepped in front of it, automatic ready. I could see Silverman and Goss seated by that mosaic-topped chest. The blue folder was on the chest's top, some papers scattered near it. Mitchell and another man, apparently Geats, were farther to my left, their backs to a wall of books. Only the four men were here. I stepped forward and was clear inside the room before anybody noticed me.

I said, “You're not going to hear from Joe.”

Goss jumped to his feet, his mouth falling open. He started to reach beneath his coat but stopped and let his hand fall to his side, eyes on my gun. His mouth was puffed and ugly from that solid right I'd landed on him aboard the
Srinagar
.

I moved to my left, kicking the door shut with a bang. Silverman hadn't reacted with sudden movement as Goss had. His hands gave one quick jerk, and then he was still all over. Except for his face. If a man ever saw a ghost of somebody he'd killed—a ghost with a real gun in his hand—he might look about the way Silverman did. It was as if the flesh of his face was suddenly drained of blood, as if chalk had been thrown on his face, as if the flesh in one second had decayed a little.

On my left, both Mitchell and Geats whirled toward me. “Don't do it,” I said. “Turn around and grab a handful of books. Both of you.”

They didn't waste any time doing it.

Words dropped from Silverman's slack mouth. “How can you possibly...”

I finished it for him. “Be alive? I guess my time hadn't come, Silverman. But yours sure as hell has.”

He was recovering swiftly. Even now, stunned with shock at seeing me, maybe knowing he might really be washed up this time, he came back nearly to normal between one sentence and the next. “You can't pull that trigger. You surely have more sense than to commit murder.”

“I've had most of the sense knocked out of me.”

Goss slid his feet on the carpet, moved farther to my right. I flipped the gun toward him and said, “That's the last time you'd better move, Goss. I don't feel a bit friendlier toward you than I did the last time we met.”

He stopped moving. Both he and Silverman were staring at me, looking from my gun to my face and clothes. I guess I must have looked like something dredged up from the La Brea Tar Pits. Fischer's clothes, which hadn't been a stunning fit in the first place, were ripped and dirt smeared. Blood stained the shirt's white front. And there was probably little to choose from between my face and an old vanilla cookie.

There wasn't much time left before the law would arrive in force—at least, if nothing had gone wrong—and I had a couple of questions for the two Bobs. I said, “There's a chance one of you can get a head start. The one who spills. Maybe you can cop a plea right here.”

Silverman looked at Goss. “Don't listen to this idiot. There's blood on his shirt. You can see he's almost unconscious on his feet.”

“You don't have to tell me much,” I said. “I know ninety percent of it now. There's Ralph to thank for some of it. And plenty more from Navarro a little while ago.” I went over the high points of what he'd told me, fast, and ended it, speaking to Silverman. “I looked through that blue folder. It's obvious you've given Goss piles of dough, and he spent at least half of it in the name of Atlas Development Company. The trail of those checks, and the fact that you're one of the state's highway commissioners, plus a red-penciled map on that table in front of you, should be enough all by itself to send you away, friend. Even I could figure it out, but an expert with that stuff won't have any trouble proving the connection between Robert Goss and Atlas Development, and also between you and Goss. You're both cooked on the freeway grab, not to mention murder and some other interesting things.”

Neither of them spoke.

I tried talking to Goss the next time. “I know the commissioner here must have supplied the dope on where the freeways would go; you supplied the front—and the muscle, through Navarro. Belden, until he got scared of the mess he was in and wanted out, handled the actual mechanics of purchasing the land. There must be a lot I don't know about.” I paused. “Just for the record, which one of you two slobs was really the top man all along?”