The Blind Pig (17 page)

At last he moved slowly and cautiously along the dock toward the hearse. He carried the flashlight in his left hand and slipped the .38 out of its holster with his right. The giant doors to the warehouse were pulled wide open, but it was so dark that he could not distinguish between the outside and the inside. At the edge of the door he waited and listened, holding his breath.

Not a sound, but for the creaking of the building. He strained his eyes, peering inside, but all he got was a sensation of space and emptiness, as of a great hall. He took a deep breath and switched on the flashlight.

He was blinded by the light at first, but quickly adjusted. What he was faced with was a great hall, a stockroom with twenty-foot ceilings. That was not what caught his eye, however. What did were the bodies. The minute he saw them he smelled them, as if the one sense had triggered the other.

There were three of them, lying in a tangle in the middle of the floor. By the flashlight he could see that they had been dead a day or more. They had been shot, and shot a lot. There was a lake of dried blood, and in it the footprints of small animals—rats. On closer examination, it appeared that parts of the fingers had been gnawed, and even parts of faces.

It looked to Mulheisen as if the three men had run into a sudden hailstorm of bullets. He supposed that someone had shot them with a Stoner rifle. Thinking of that, he flashed the light around. There was no sign of the stolen guns.

The three men were Cubans. He recognized them from the night at Brandywine's. Young ones, the laughing soldiers.

There was a metal stairway up one side of the room. He clambered up that and found the loft where they had all stayed. It was nicely provisioned: cots, a CB radio, a Coleman camp stove, Army-surplus mess kits, boxes of canned goods, even a case of Stroh's beer. There was also a table with benches, and sprawled on the floor next to it was Francisco Morazon, with a bayonet in his back.

Mulheisen went back out onto the loading dock. It was getting light now. Pretty soon he could start picking his way
out of the labyrinth. He felt as if he should have a ball of yarn, to tie one end to the doornail and roll it out so as to find his way back again.

He jumped down to the cracked paving of the courtyard and looked the hearse over. Mud had splashed and dried on the shiny finish, he noticed. And then he noticed something else: someone had traced a name in the dried dirt on the side of the hearse. The name was “MUL.”

Nineteen

Carl Lofgren was a tall, sandy-haired man with a ruddy complexion that came from working out of doors. He was yelling at the kid who worked for him in the boatyard.

“Nick! You got it?”

The kid did not answer. Carl waited patiently for several seconds, then yelled again. This time there was a muffled reply from the other side of the boat, a small cabin cruiser.

“Okay, I got it!” the kid yelled.

“ ‘Bout time,” Lofgren said under his breath. He started the power hoist. The boat rose slowly out of the water. It was completely out and on a dolly rolling toward the yard before Lofgren noticed the short, dark man who stood watching.

“Hi,” the man said, smiling.

“Hello,” Carl said noncommittally. “Help you?”

“I'm looking for Jerry Vanni's boat,” the man said.

Carl stopped the motorized dolly. “You a friend of Jerry's?”

“Not really. He said he was thinking about selling it, so I thought I'd take a look.”

“News to me,” Lofgren said. He shook out a Camel and lit it, without offering one to the stranger.

“Say, you're an old hand around boats,” the man said. “What do you think she's worth?”

“The
Seabitch?
Well . . .” Lofgren paused warily. “I better not say. What's Jerry asking?”

“He wouldn't put a price on her,” the man said. “He wants me to make an offer. I figure if I like her I'll have to get a marine appraiser in, anyway. Is she down this way, or did you pull her out already?”

Lofgren gestured down the wooden dock. About two-thirds of the boat wells were empty. “Number eighteen,” he told the man.

“Thanks.” The man walked off whistling with his hands in his windbreaker pockets.

A few minutes later the man was back. He waited while Lofgren and Nick lowered the cabin cruiser onto wooden trestles. “She's gone,” he said, when Lofgren looked up questioningly.

“Gone?” Lofgren said. Then he shrugged his shoulders. “Well, I guess Jerry or Lenny's taken her out. I didn't see her leave, though.”

“Was she here yesterday?” the man asked.

Lofgren's eyes narrowed. “I guess so,” he said. “Why?”

“No reason,” the man said. He smiled and walked away, then turned and came back. “Could I use your phone?” he asked.

Lofgren pointed to a pay booth near the office. “You can use that,” he said.

“I'm glad you called,” Fatman wheezed. “You didn't find anything, did you? I knew you didn't. The reason I know is, I just got a call from the kid.”

“Ah,” Joe said, “the romance is back on.”

Fatman chuckled. “You aren't doing too well, are you, Joey boy? What did he do, give you the slip?”

“Oh, I suppose I'd have found him in time,” Service replied. “So what's the deal?”

“The details are kind of sketchy,” Fatman said, “but it
looks like we're back in business. The kid wants to meet, work out a deal.”

“I thought you had a deal, once,” Joe said.

“We did, but since they weren't able to follow through like they were supposed to, a new deal is in order.”

“Is this your idea, or the kid's?” Joe asked. He stood in the telephone booth watching some gulls drift slowly along the docks. It was a sunny, brisk morning.

“His,” Fatman said. “But we have no objections. I think we're in a better position now. I notice in the
Free Press
this morning, they collared the Cubans in Chicago.”

“Not all of them,” Joe said.

“True. Well, I'll leave the details to you, Joe. Carmine says you haven't earned your fee yet. The kid is going to call back in a half-hour. What he wants is two hundred and fifty grand. He says the guns are in a safe place, and he'll let us know where as soon as the money is paid. He said he'd be happy to meet with you, Joe.”

“All right,” Joe said. “Where?”

“They'll call in half an hour,” Fatman said. “So you call me in forty minutes. I know I don't have to explain things, Joe, but just so you don't get confused, we must know if they really got the guns, what the whole deal was—”

“Just exactly how fucked up it is, eh?” Joe said. “I know, Fat. Don't worry. Do I make an offer if it sounds like they can deliver?”

“Yeah, but no quarter of a million. Their ass is in a sling. Offer a hundred big ones. Be firm. If he bitches too much, go to one-twenty-five, but that's tops. After that, tell him he can shove the guns some comfortable place. We don't need the hassle. The heat in this town is something terrific.”

“You're telling me,” Joe said. “If I didn't know better, I'd think I was in Miami. I've been dodging that cop, Mulheisen, all night.”

Two hours later Joe Service ambled along the Civic Center waterfront, between Cobo Hall and the Henry and Edsel
Ford Auditorium. The huge new towers of the Renaissance Center loomed to the east. It was late morning and a chilly wind ruffled his hair. Only a few cars were parked on the drive and a handful of citizens were staring into the Detroit River. When he reached Cobo Hall, he turned and walked back upriver. Out in the channel, an ore boat was down-bound and an ocean freighter was upbound. There were a few barges, but no pleasure boats that he could see. It wasn't the weather for pleasure-boating.

He was nearing the end of the promenade when a thirty-foot cabin cruiser slipped out from behind the ore boat and came alongside rapidly. Joe stopped and smiled. It was a pretty clever maneuver, the cruiser coming downstream in the shelter of the ore boat.

A stout man of thirty, badly in need of a shave, stepped out of the bridge area and waved Joe aboard. Joe jumped down into the boat. The man had one hand in his wind-breaker pocket and he withdrew it slightly, to show Joe that he held a small automatic pistol.

“In here,” the man said, gesturing with his free hand toward the bridge. When they were inside, the man said, “Unzip your jacket.”

Joe unzipped his jacket. “What for?” he asked.

“I want to see if you're packing a rod,” the man said.

“You mean this?” Joe said. Suddenly he had a snub-nosed .38 Smith & Wesson in his hand, almost in the guy's face.

The man paled. He had never seen anything so fast. His own pistol was still in his pocket.

“Now what?” the man said.

“We going to talk here?” Joe said. He smiled and slipped the .38 back into the pancake holster over his right kidney.

The man relaxed and managed a faint smile. “No,” he said. He stepped to the wheel and gunned the engine. The boat swung out and away, headed upstream. They came up to Belle Isle and ran along the Detroit shore without talking. The man cut the engine to idle as they passed under the MacArthur Bridge and came out into the old Gold Cup
unlimited powerboat race course, between the island and Detroit. Joe could see the Detroit Boat Club and the deserted municipal beach.

“You must be DenBoer,” he said.

“That's right, and you're Service. I see you didn't bring the money,” DenBoer said.

“All in good time, my man,” Joe said. “We need to get a few things straightened out first.”

“Like what?”

“Like, where's the guns?” Joe said.

DenBoer was a jowly man, somewhat taller than Joe, but out of shape. He had lank black hair and brown eyes. He was a nondescript-looking man at first glance, but he had a firm jaw and an intelligent alertness. “The guns are in a good place,” he said. “You bring the money and I'll call Fatman. He can send someone to look at the guns if he wants. The guy calls me, you give me the money. Safe enough?”

“Not bad,” Joe said. “Fatman is worried about heat. We want to know how it all worked out. For all we know, the guns aren't yours to sell.”

“They're mine,” DenBoer said. “You don't have to worry about that.”

“What about the Cubans?” Joe said. “We don't want a bunch of crazy revolutionaries screwing up the works.”

“The Cubans are all taken care of,” DenBoer said with a grim smile.

“I don't think you've even got the guns,” Joe said.

“Look behind you.”

There was a long boxlike thing on the deck with a couple of yellow slickers draped over it. Joe lifted the slickers and saw a wooden box stamped with the words “Cadillac Gage Company.” He stooped and lifted the lid. Inside were the Stoner rifles, resting in racks.

“Well, you've got one box, anyway,” Joe said, letting the lid drop and rearranging the slickers. “How much do you want for it?”

“I've got all the boxes,” DenBoer said.

“What happened to the Cubans?” Joe asked.

DenBoer laughed—a rough, almost hysterical bark. “Those boobs! They're all over the place by now.”

“How are you going to work it out with them?” Joe persisted.

“I'm not. What do you care?”

Joe shook his head. “No good. I don't think we can deal with you. It's too fucked up.”

“You don't have to worry about the Cubans,” DenBoer repeated.

“I don't understand,” Joe said. “Tell me about it. I take it they weren't in for the money; they wanted the guns.”

“That's it,” DenBoer said. “They had some cockamamie plan to smuggle them out of the country. I went along with it. They were going to pay me for my help, but I don't think they planned to pay me with money. Only, I paid them first.”

“What was their plan?”

“Oh, just bullshit,” DenBoer said impatiently. “Like, they're going to take the guns out to a freighter in the middle of Lake St. Clair at night! They had a deal all set up, they said. I mean, imagine! All those guns in a boat! What boat? You couldn't load that many guns in this boat. It'd take a week to transport them. Well, they had a contingency plan, too, they said. They were going to set up a kind of pipe line, with cars, to drive the guns, a box at a time, down south. I didn't believe any of that shit.

“The fact is, they weren't too clear on what they were going to do with guns, once we got them. I don't think they figured on me and Jerry being around, then. So they just told us any kind of crap.”

They were coming up to the Roostertail Restaurant. DenBoer gave the throttle a shove and headed away, back toward the channel, then cut to idle again.

“What about the girl?” Joe said.

DenBoer looked at him sharply. “What girl?”

“The ATF agent. Where is she?”

DenBoer shrugged. “Search me,” he said.

“I intend to,” Joe said. He flicked the .38 out again, grinning at DenBoer's amazement. He gestured toward the cabin door. There was a padlock on it. “Open up,” he said.

DenBoer glowered, then fished a key out of his pants pocket. He unlocked the master lock and stepped back at Joe's gesture.

Joe opened the door and peered in. Mandy Cecil was lying on the large forward bunk. She was completely naked and her wrists and ankles were bound with surgical tape. Another strip of tape covered her mouth. Her hair was wild and her eyes were pleading. Apparently, a blanket had been thrown over her but it had slipped to the deck. Joe looked at her for a moment, then winked. He closed the door and DenBoer snapped the lock back on the hasp.

Joe put the .38 away. “What happened to her clothes?”

“I ripped them off her,” DenBoer said. “They were in the way. Besides, it keeps her from thinking about escape.”

“Very smart,” Joe said.

“Thanks, I thought of it myself.”

Joe nodded toward the cabin and grinned conspiratorially. “How was it?”

DenBoer caught his meaning. He grinned back. “Not bad. I had better. Had worse.”

“What happens to her now?” Joe asked.

“None of your business,” DenBoer said.

“Oh yes, it is. We want to know what your plans are. She knows a lot about this whole deal.”

“I'll take care of her,” DenBoer said.

Joe was persistent. “Does that mean you're going to kill her?”

DenBoer did not respond. He tended the wheel. They turned idly in the Scott Middle Ground, between Belle Isle and the mainland.

“Are you going to shoot her?” Joe asked. “Then what? Dump the body?”

DenBoer was clearly annoyed. “I haven't thought about it. I didn't think of shooting her.”

“Maybe you'll chop her up,” Joe suggested, “or weigh her down with cement blocks and toss her in the lake. Remember, you have to use at least as much as her own weight. Decaying bodies are very buoyant, from the gas caused by the bacteria. You should use a couple hundred pounds of weight, probably, say three or four cement blocks, and tie it with wire.”

“That's enough of that!” DenBoer snapped.

“What's the matter?” Joe raised his eyebrows in surprise.

“I know what I'll do, and it won't be that,” DenBoer said.

“You just don't like to think about it,” Joe said. “I can understand that. But somebody has to think about it. Anyway, what are you going to do after you get the money? You've blown your life here. You see that, don't you?”

“Nobody has anything on me,” DenBoer said.

“I do,” Joe said. “And Vanni does. And the Cubans do. Of course, Vanni might come out of it, all right. He seems to have played his cards pretty neatly. He might have to weather a lot of suspicion, and maybe even an indictment, but it'll come to nothing, I suspect. Funny how that worked out. He'll have this boat, too, won't he? I know it belongs to both of you, but you won't be here to use it. You'll be on the run.”

“All right, knock it off,” DenBoer snarled.

“It was a pretty snazzy operation, though. I really had to admire it. Who planned it? DeJesus?”

“DeJesus!” DenBoer snorted derisively. He yanked on the wheel again and turned them back toward the head of Belle Isle.

“You?” Joe seemed surprised. “Just you? Vanni didn't mastermind this?”

“It was mostly my plan, and my organization of things,” DenBoer said in a travesty of modesty.

“Well, I'm impressed,” Joe said. “I thought maybe Morazon, at least . . .”

“He helped,” DenBoer said.

“And where is he now?” Joe said.

“Read the papers,” DenBoer said.

“I don't have to,” Joe said, but DenBoer didn't seem to hear him. They were crossing toward the channel now, at the head of Belle Isle. Before them lay a low, partially wooded island.

“This is Peche Island,” DenBoer shouted over the roar of the engine. “It's Canadian. I was thinking we might meet here this evening. Lots of lagoons and inlets on the other side. I'll show you.” They swung at full speed around the head of the island.