Steeled for Murder (36 page)

“What would be in the box?” I asked.

Radman narrowed his eyes. “I don’t see that’s any of your affair. Just pack it up and send it. You’ll be reimbursed for your trouble.”

“It’s my affair if I’m taking risks to pack it,” I said.

“I’m not asking you to do this.” Radman stood in front of the lift. “I’m telling you to do it.”

“It might be illegal,” I said. “You know I’m on parole; if I get caught with drugs or something, I’m gonna go back to prison. Probably for the rest of my life.”

Radman laughed. “Drugs. I wouldn’t get involved in shipping drugs. That’s high risk, with limited reward. All it would take is a drug dog to sniff it out. Drugs were Mitch’s idea. And a stupid idea at that. Look at what it did to him.”

“What did it do to him?”

“Whatever he was taking—methamphetamine, I think—made him paranoid. He got to the point where he thought everybody was out to get him.”

“Somebody was out to get him. Somebody killed him.” I leaned forward on the steering wheel.

“You do have a point.” Radman turned and set the box on the pallet next to the stack of root baskets. “But it never would have happened if he’d stuck to my business. We’d still be making money hand over fist. Now you can do that.”

“I don’t want to make money hand over fist. I just want my freedom. And my life.”

Mr. Radman stepped back from the lift. “Do you call that living? You make what, a few hundred a week? You don’t even have a car. Believe me, I’ve had someone look into what it takes to make you tick. And it’s not much.”

I just sat there.

“I was going to cut you in on this deal. Make you a lot of money. If you won’t cooperate, I’ll see that you lose this job.”

A grim thought. “I can go back to running the plater,” I said with more confidence than I felt.

“No, you won’t. If you’re not driving this lift, you’re not working here. You think I can’t arrange for you to be fired?”

My stomach was knotting up. Of course he could. “I’ll get another job.”

“In this economy? With your record and the reference from here I’ll make sure you get? I seriously doubt you’ll be able to get a job as a street sweeper.”

I didn’t see what was so bad about street sweeping, but I didn’t think it would help to point that out.

Radman continued, “If you won’t cooperate, you leave me no choice.”

I felt my palms start to sweat. “No choice as to what?”

Radman’s eyes narrowed. “I let you come back to work when they thought you’d killed Mitch. Everybody else said you ought to get fired.”

“You knew I didn’t kill Mitch.”

He smirked. “That may be true. But no one else knows that. I arranged for you to be the lift driver. You ought to be grateful, or at least do what I tell you to. Without arguing. You’ll be well paid.”

“The cops are keeping a pretty close eye on me. I don’t think I could get away with spitting on the sidewalk.” I sat motionless.

“This has worked well for months. Over a year. It’ll work until I get this finished up. Then, if you want a new ID, I’ll get it for you. You can start out somewhere else, fresh. You’ll have money in your pocket. No one will know about your criminal record. Or that you’re supposed to be on parole.”

“And you?”

“That’s what I’m planning to do. Take the money, change my name, and leave.”

“How about your wife?”

He snorted. “She seems to have already left me. She hasn’t been home in days. I’m supposed return a call to her lawyer. She hasn’t been going to work.”

“Mandy don’t deserve what you been doing to her.”

“What’s it to you?” Radman sneered at me. “I have it from the best of sources that you’ve been seeing her. Have you? I also heard you’re some kind of a sex pervert. What does she like? I haven’t bothered to find out.”

I didn’t rise to that bait.

Radman said, “I don’t care. Do whatever you want with the stuck-up bitch. It was a mistake to stick around so long. I should have cleared out her accounts and left. In this economy, I’m not likely to be able to get much of a mortgage on that house of hers, anyhow.”

“I’m not going back to prison over stupid stuff like this,” I said.

“You worry too much. You’ll be long gone before anyone figures anything out.”

“So what happens if I just report all this to my parole officer?” I asked. Like I’d really do that.

Radman laughed. “You think anyone would believe you? Especially anyone in law enforcement? I’ve talked to that Detective Belkins. I told him I thought you were up to something. That’s why you wanted the forklift job. Begged me for it. Pick up where Mitch left off.”

That sounded too believable for comfort. But I said, “I didn’t ask for this job. Everyone knows that.”

He raised his eyebrows. “That’s not exactly true. Everyone knows you
said
you didn’t want this job. If it comes down to your word against mine, who will everyone think is lying? Not me. Did you ever hear the expression, he protests too much? That’s what people will say is happening.”

“Never heard of that.” The lady doth protest too much, methinks.
Hamlet
. Act Three, I thought. Funny where the mind turned in tense moments.

“You can still change your mind,” he said.

“What are you gonna do if I don’t?” There was no doubt in my mind now that Radman had killed Mitch. But would I ever be able to convince anyone else of that? Maybe they’d believe it after he killed me, which I was sure he was willing to do, but that would be a little late for me. “You gonna beat me to death like you did Mitch?” Despite the chilly air in the warehouse, sweat was beginning to soak my shirt.

His laugh sounded bitter. “Mitch lost any sense he had. He’d become a real liability. Still, I didn’t mean for it to happen like that.”

“And how about Gustavus? How are you going to deal with him?”

Radman shook his head. “Gustavus is an idiot. He’ll do anything as long as the pay is good enough.”

He had a pretty good handle on Gustavus, I thought. “And if someone else offers him more than you do?”

“Who could do that?” he asked.

“Well, maybe not more, but do you really think he’s above collecting two payments for the same information?”

Radman looked a little less certain. “And who else would be interested in buying what he had to sell?”

“He thought I might be,” I said. “And I’m sure the cops can come up with some kind of payment.”

“He’d just be implicating himself.”

“He tailors his information to the buyer. I bet he’s not even above making stuff up.”

“Gustavus isn’t smart enough to do that.”

I was pretty sure Radman was underestimating Gustavus. People like him and Mandy knew they were smarter than most people. They might be, but that didn’t mean they could discount what people like Gustavus might say or do. Or me.

“How did Mitch mess up?” I asked, trying to buy time. Maybe John or Kelly would come looking to see what was holding me up.

Radman grimaced. “I had a shipment to go out. He got it mixed up with one of crystal meth he was sending somewhere. Can you imagine how my customers reacted to getting a shipment of crystal meth instead of documents?”

I smiled at the thought. “Probably not happy.”

He nodded. “For one thing, they thought they had a handle on the crystal meth production and distribution in the area.”

“Nobody can keep that under control. Too easy to make it.”

“I know that now. And I also realize I should have stepped in when I first realized Mitch was piggy-backing on my methods and sending his merchandise to purchasers in the middle of what looked like legitimate shipments of root baskets.”

I took a deep breath. “So you killed him.”

“I had to. I came in to talk some sense into him. It was pretty obvious his thought process was too far gone for that to do any good. I heard about what he’d said to you before the shift began.”

“And you thought I’d end up taking the rap.”

Radman frowned. “I was hoping. In fact, I still think you may take the blame ultimately. Especially if you’re not around.”

“Why would I not be around?”

“Because you’d come to your senses and took the ID I’ll give you. And disappeared.”

I shook my head. “They’ll catch up with me eventually. I’m sure I’d have a fugitive warrant on me.”

Radman looked at me in disgust. “They’d have to find you before they could serve it.”

“They would, sooner or later. Nobody lives so they’re never picked up for anything.”

Radman laughed. “I do. I’ve never been picked up for anything in my life.”

“Not even a traffic violation?”

“With the kind of money I’m talking about, I’ll hire a chauffeur.”

“Well, I don’t know nobody else who’s never been stopped for something. And I bet I can’t live like that. So why would I do anything to help you?”

Radman looked crafty. “You could move away. Live somewhere like New York City, where you wouldn’t need a car.”

Even if he didn’t drive, I wondered if Radman had given any thought to what it would be like to live the rest of his life looking over his shoulder and worried that they’d run his ID for something. It looked like he planned to spend his life like that. Of course, he might not have his fingerprints on record the way I did. Maybe he could get away with it.

“And if I won’t do it?” I asked.

Radman reached his hand into his breast pocket. “Then I guess I’ll have to take care of you, too.”

“I won’t go so easy as Mitch did.” I shifted uncomfortably in the seat. “For one thing, I’m not high, so I can think straight. For another, it’s too late to sneak up on me.”

“Very true.” He drew a small black automatic pistol from his pocket and pointed it at me. “If they didn’t lock you up for Mitch’s murder, I was probably going to have to have you killed, anyhow. But far away from here.”

I took a guess. “I don’t think Gustavus has got the guts.”

Radman’s eyes narrowed. “You may be right. So I’ll just plan to take care of this myself. They say the first killing’s the hardest. You ought to know. I’ll find out.”

He flicked the safety off the gun. “I’d hoped you’d cooperate. But of course I didn’t want to be unprepared if you didn’t.” He pointed it at my face.

I felt my gut freeze. Wasn’t the first time I’d ever had a gun pointed at me. But it was the kind of thing that doesn’t get less scary with repetition. I tried to keep my voice steady. “And you don’t expect anyone to come see what’s going on when you fire a shot?”

“Pretty loud out on the shop floor and in the plating room. I don’t think anyone will hear.”

“This time, nobody can think it was me. You don’t think they’re going to look at you?”

Radman smiled. “They think I left just after the shift started. Gustavus is waiting out in my car. I’ll make sure he shows up on the security tapes.”

“Why should he go along with that?” I was still stalling for time. I didn’t want to die. Maybe I could think of something.

Right. My mind was frozen. Only my mouth seemed to work, almost on automatic pilot. “Gustavus’ll roll over on you.”

“I’ll pay him. Then I’ll give him the gun and tell him to get rid of it. But I know him. He’ll think he can sell it. So he’ll probably still have it when they start really looking at him.”

“Gustavus’ll tell them he got it from you.”

He raised the pistol a few more inches. “Why should they believe him?”

“He tells Belkins what he wants to hear. Belkins thinks he’s a reliable snitch.” I wasn’t so sure about that, but how would Radman know?

“Double-crossing bastard.” Radman straightened his arm and supported his elbow with his other hand. He knew how to shoot.

Forklifts pivot on a dime. I wondered wildly if I could swing it around and knock him off his feet before he got a shot off. Doubtful, but I moved my hand toward the gear shift, hoping he was concentrating on his aim so much that he wouldn’t notice.

“So you just gonna shoot me?” I said. “You don’t think you’ll go down for that?”

“I don’t think so. Even if they discover I did it.”

Seemed to me his thinking was getting more and more muddled, too. Stress does that. “I thought you were gonna blame it on Gustavus.”

“I will if I can. But even if they figure out it was me who shot you, they have to catch me before I leave town. You’re a convicted murderer—one I gave a break to, no less—who tried to run me down with the forklift. I was armed—I do have a concealed weapons permit—and I shot you. Unfortunate, but what other recourse did I have? Completely unnerved me. I went into a panic. Didn’t have enough sense tell anybody at the time. Went straight to my lawyer.”

“Yeah? Then how you gonna explain shooting me in the back?” I swung myself around as far as I could without leaving the seat. My back was toward him. I kept my head turned away from him. I closed my eyes and waited for the shot.

“Damn it. Face me,” he said.