The By-Pass Control (25 page)

“Then why are you scared?” I asked deliberately.

Vincent Small didn’t answer at first. He took a long time before he said, “I called some of the other real estate people. He was there too.”

“You’re not saying it all, Vince.”

I heard his swallow audibly, then he blurted out, “The first one told him we had been asking the same thing too. He didn’t mean anything. He just said it and ...”

“Did you call Boster?”

“Yes.” His voice turned tinny as he said, “He ... didn’t answer. It may not mean anything....”

As quietly as I could, trying not to scare him, I said, “You call in those cops and have them sit there beside you. Don’t you let anyone else in unless you know they’re from the police.
You sit tight, understand?”

“Yes, I understand.”

He was still talking when I held the button down long enough to break the connection, then dialed Claude Boster’s home.

Nobody answered the ring.

She came out as I put the phone back, saw my face and said,

“What is it, Tiger?”

“It’s breaking.” I looked at her, debated the advisability of leaving her alone, realizing she could be used as a lever against me if it became necessary, then said, “Let’s go, kid. You stay with me.”

She didn’t argue and didn’t ask questions. She went out and got in the car, her eyes following me all the way as I went around and got in under the wheel.

I looked up at the sky and somehow I could feel the
thing
again. It was out there waiting. I cut by the spot where two men were still sprawled in the brush with sightless eyes open to the rain, bodies stiff in the penalty of death, waiting to be found and remembered, then angled up the drive and took the highway back to town.

The gas gauge was almost on empty, so I stopped at the nearest service station and told the attendant to fill up the tank. While he did I went inside to the pay phone and dropped a dime in the slot, then dialed Captain Hardecker’s number.

When the desk sergeant put me through I said, “Mann, Captain. I need a favor.”

“Naturally.” There was something funny about the. way he said it.

“Okay, do I ask or not?”

“You’re sharp, Tiger.” I heard a pencil rap against the phone and he added, “They’ve removed your cooperation factor.”

“Nice of them.”

“My information on you gets wilder all the time. Nobody tells me anything except about you.”

“I’m available.”

“To me, but not to them. They’d like very much to have you out of the picture.”

“Sure, I know.”

“And what’s the favor?”

“Do I get it?”

“Why not? I have the feeling that if you’re forced to you could trade goodies with me.”

“If I have to,” I said.

“So ask.”

“Call your men outside of Claude Boster’s place. I want to see him.”

“Consider it done. You’re on the hot sheet and they’ve been given some pertinent instructions over my authority to nail you, old feller, but in this district I still pull a little weight. I may need some excuse to explain the move if the roof comes in though.”

“You have it then. Will you hold it?”

“Shoot.”

“Two dead men in the palms beside my hotel. I killed them both. The bullet hole in the room will fit the picture so use it as a diversion. I’ll give you the details later.”

It stopped him a second, then he told me, “That comes under county business.”

“The sheriff will be glad to have your help, Captain. Inform the boys pushing you of what happened and you’ll see some jumping after they identify the characters. It’ll make you look good.” I glanced at my watch. “Give me an hour first.”

“No more. If I had any sense I’d play this by the book and roll all over you.”

“There’s no job security in being dead,” I told him and put the receiver back.

The attendant had filled the tank, checked the oil and took the bill from my hand. He gave me back the change wishing I had never stopped there in the first place because he was soaking wet and tired of bothering with outsiders who didn’t know enough to stay out of the rain.

I got in the car and turned the key.

Camille laid her hand on top of mine. “Tiger?” she said tentatively.

“I’m scared, kid,” I told her.

The two cops in the prowl car had discreetly pulled up fifty feet away from Claude Boster’s drive to avoid seeing me in case they had to answer questions later, but both of them made a careful check through the rear window and satisfied it was me, went back to their conversation. Footprints in the wet lawn made a continuous path around the house, evidence of constant patrolling, an occasional rain drenched butt flipped here and there.

I rang the bell, waited, looked back at Camille who was peering through the dripping windshield anxiously, then rang again. When nobody answered I told her to wait, then went around and tried the back door. That brought no response either.

The only other place he could be was in the workshop and if he had the phone cut off it would explain his silence.

My feet slipping on the wet grass, I cut diagonally across to the gravel path, reached the door, and hammered on it. I called to him, the heavy air muting my voice. I kicked at the bottom of it, then put my ear against its solid bulk and listened.

Inside there was the faintest tinkling sound, that of glass breaking against concrete. I said, “Damn it!” softly. I tried the knob of the door again, but knew it would be no use. Even the .45 couldn’t tear those locks loose in time. I hugged the side of the building, edged around the side under one of the windows, hoisted myself up enough to see part of the unlit gray interior of the building, then figured the odds and swore again.

Someone cornered there could take me apart with no trouble at all. A shot fired from the inside wouldn’t be heard at all, an escape would be quick and easy with the cops pulled off their beat. He could even have watched the entire action, realizing why it had happened, and could have waited for me knowing it would be worth while.

But I couldn’t take the chance.

I swung the nose of the .45 against the window, smashed it, broke out the jagged shards left in the frame, then tore the meta! blinds out and threw them down behind me. It wasn’t time to think or consider the consequences. It had to be done
now
.

My hands grabbed the sill, I lunged in and over with one motion and fell hands out to the top of a bench, the gun almost going out of my fingers. I didn’t stop ... I kept on rolling, got to my hands and knees and skittered beneath a bench to a packing crate and crouched behind it.

For five seconds I had been exposed. An expert marksman would have had the time.

I crawled out, stood up, and saw the glint of light from a broken flask on the floor. Next to the pieces legs lay sprawled limply, half hidden by the top of a metal lathe bench. I found the light switch, flicked it on and twisted the gooseneck down to one side.

Claude Boster lay there almost unrecognizable, his face bloodied and swollen beyond belief, fingers disjointed and broken back, jutting out at odd angles. A wide piece of surgical tape still hung from one cheek where it had been used to muffle him while the job was done.

But he was still alive. There was a flutter to his eyelids and somehow he had managed to knock over that flask when he heard me at the door.

I said, “Claude?”

His mouth moved and blood spilled over his lips. I saw his apron front then, torn and powder-burned directly over the heart. Gently, I felt the area, probed the heavy canvas and picked out the flattened lead slug that had smashed into him from a .22 Magnum.

Someday Claude Boster would realize how lucky he had been. In the top pocket of the apron he had dropped three small steel crescent wrenches that had absorbed the murderous impact that would otherwise have torn his chest inside out. They lay in my hand, bent and split, but lifesaving armor against a shot fired to silence him permanently.

“Can you hear me?”

A small nod indicated that he could.

“I know you’re hurting, but you’ll be all right. Now even no matter what it takes, don’t pass out. I have to talk to you.”

Boster nodded again and said weakly, “Yes ... but ... hurry. I can’t ... stand it.”

“What happened?”

For a second he closed his eyes and I thought he had drifted off, then he opened them and looked at me, pain showing through the slits. “There ... was a knock ... on the door. I thought it ... was a policeman. He ... came in ... hit me.”

“Who, Boster?”

“Thin. He was ... tall. Face was ...”

“What? Come on, snap out of it!”

Boster spat out blood from his crushed mouth, eyes pleading with me to stop, but I couldn’t. He said, “Right side ... scarred. Glass eye. He had a ... funny gun.”

“What was he after?”

The pain receded then, horror taking its place as he remembered. His jaw came open, trembled, and he moaned and tried to turn his head.

He rolled his head back slowly. “I ... told him,” he said, his voice accusing nobody but himself. I waited, knowing there would be more. Finally he moved his mouth again. “I had remembered ... a place Louis ... mentioned. Leesville. He beat me ... did things to me ... and I told him.” His eyes squinted shut and a tremor went through his body. One hand twitched with the terrible agony in it. “I ... couldn’t help myself.”

I tried to keep my voice quiet. “When, Boster? How long ago?”

“Right ... after daylight.”

That gave Niger Hoppes a few hours’ start!

“Leesville ... where is it?”

He tried to talk but wasn’t going to make it. One hand reached out feebly as if it were pointing. A glassy stare was coming into his eyes again. He made one final attempt and got out, “Map ... pinhole,” then relapsed into total unconsciousness.

Like that the pain was gone into the darkness the body reserves for such moments and there was nothing I could do for him that couldn’t wait. I straightened up, shoved the gun back and scoured the room for a map. I tore the place apart, throwing drawers on the floor, slamming papers and blueprints from the shelves, looking for the thing and finding nothing. Boster had tried to point, but where?

I went back to the inert form wanting to yell at him, make him tell me, then I saw the bulge in the lower pocket of his bench apron. It was just a standard East Coast roadmap issued by a big gasoline company, but it covered the area from Florida to Maine, and in the southlands there could be hundreds of Leesvilles that were no more than intersections of county roads. I spread the map out, checked the important cities listed in the corner without finding any reference to a Leesville.

I stretched the map face down on a bench and ran my hand over the surface, feeling for any raised edge from a perforation. When my fingers came away empty I held it up to the light, let my eyes roam over the area inch by inch, concentrating in the lower quarter.

It took five minutes, but I found it, buried in the crease of a fold, just the tiniest pinprick as if someone had looked at the map once and absently touched the spot with a pin. That’s what Louis Agrounsky had done, and Boster had seen him do it.

Alongside the minute hole in fine blue letters identifying a blue dot near the coastline was the legend,
Leesville
.

I shoved the map in my pocket and picked up the phone, waiting impatiently for Charlie Corbinet to answer. I heard the phone connection open and the hum of voices in the background before he said, “Yes?”

“Tiger, Charlie. Can I talk?”

He recognized the urgency in my voice and kept his friendly and disarming in case anyone else was listening. “Certainly,” he said cheerfully.

“I have the spot located.”

Then his tone was forced and his breathing was hard. “Yes, yes, go on. I’ll be glad to help.”

“No thanks. We haven’t got time. I don’t want anybody moving in or we’ll scare our boy off. You get the information firsthand the way I did. Niger Hoppes reached Claude Boster somehow. It wouldn’t have been much trouble to do ... the grounds were patrolled and he came when the cop was on the other side of the building. Boster needs help and fast.”

“Fine ... I understand.” He knew it was useless to argue at that point and didn’t try. But he could try a different approach just to keep me there and said, “Your ... friend has been trying to call you.”

“Dave?”

“That’s the one. You’re to call your ... fiancée. Apparently it’s important.”

“You trying to keep me here, buddy?”

“It’s for your own good.” he said, but he didn’t mean it at all. They wanted me out of the way.

I grinned at the phone mirthlessly and said, “I’ll leave the name of the place on the workbench. Let’s see you find it ahead of me. You’ll have the same chance as Hoppes, only he’s got a bigger start.”

I hung up, scribbled
Leesville
on the desk pad for him to find and went over to the door. The chain hung there, but the other two automatic locks were still in place, pulled shut from the outside. Niger Hoppes had had it too damn easy.

Not now though. Right then he was activating every source at his command to locate the possible sites of Leesville along the route Louis Agrounsky took and the faceless underground was going to find it for him.

I ran to the car, got in, and backed out of the drive. By the time I reached the corner, went down a block and reversed my path I heard the moaning wail of the police car’s siren in front of Boster’s house as they got the call to intercept me.

There wasn’t time for explanations. Camille could see it on my face and stared straight ahead. I took the back roads, picking my direction carefully, heading continuously toward the airport on the other side of town. They’d be out in full force now, knowing I knew the actual location of the place, ready to tear it from me any way they could. I couldn’t blame them. Their concern was as great as my own, but I had been there at the beginning and I was going to be there at the end. I was closer than they were and at this point better prepared.