The Empty Trap (16 page)

At the end of ten days Haglund had him come to his small littered office. He put a bottle of the best bonded bourbon, two glasses and a silver ice bucket on his desk top.

“Fix yourself one, Robert.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“The name is Jack.”

“Then thank you, Jack.”

Haglund made a drink. “What do you think of the operation?”

Lloyd shrugged.

“You know this business. You know the score. What do you think of the operation?”

“It stinks.”

“The whole house stinks. It loses money. And nobody gives a damn because the Casino makes enough to take care of the owners. Over here in the house we take care of ourselves. The customers are too tight to give a damn if we poison them or charge them double. There’s no repeat business anyway. What I want to know is this. Will you ride with it?”

“For how much?”

“Good question. You’re smart, Robert Rose. And I’ve seen you someplace before, damn it.”

“I don’t think so.”

“Skip that. You got any ideas?”

Lloyd knew what he meant. Ideas that would improve Haglund’s particular operation. “The bar control is still good, and the check totals on drinks are accurate. You’ve got space out back to set up a service bar for the dining room. Then your waiters would know which tables they could pad for an extra round. And you could go short on the drinks.”

“We don’t get too much drink trade in the dining room.”

“It’ll add up to more than you think, Jack.”

“Maybe I’ll give it a try. What do you want?”

“Something on the side. Whatever you want to make it. And I want to live in.”

Jack gave him fifty dollars, five tens. “You’re working out fine, Robert. You’re using your head.”

“Thank you.”

“I’ll get you fixed up with a room over in the wing. You can live a little better on the inside.”

“I know.”

“It’s easier to line up something.”

As Lloyd got up to leave, Haglund said foggily, “Just don’t think it was always this way or I was always this way. We had a good house here in the beginning. We
had a hell of a good manager. Wescott. You maybe heard of him.”

“Yes, I have.”

“I ought to get out of here, I guess. Most of the others left. The good ones. This operation is falling apart.” He looked up, frowning. “But there’s no harm getting it while you can, is there?”

“No.”

“So I’m living good. That’s the angle. Live good. Wescott was almost as tall as you are.”

“I’ve got to get back.”

“You’re doing a good job.”

The next day he was given a room with private bath in the wing where staff members lived. He moved his gear in. Haglund made an adjustment in his working hours. From his windows he could see the heavy screen of plantings in front of Harry’s cottage and office. It was on the third day he was in his room, at four in the afternoon, just before he had to go back on duty, that he saw Harry Danton. Two years had made no change in him. He came walking from the cottage with a tall blonde girl. They were obviously arguing. The girl was making angry gestures. She wore a dark red sheath bikini of some shiny material that looked metallic. He saw her wince when Harry took her arm, and saw the anger go out of her. She turned and went back toward the cottage. Harry watched her go, and then walked slowly toward the hotel and was soon out of sight of the window. Lloyd realized his hands had become fists. His nails had made dents in the palms of his hands. His fingers were cramped. He rubbed the tension out of them.

Two days later Benny and Tulsa came into the kitchens a little after ten at night. Lloyd was sitting at a table checking master copies of menus. They sat fifteen feet away and began talking to one of the chefs. Lloyd gathered from the conversation they had just come back from a trip to New York. Tulsa was as big and powerful as before. He looked slightly heavier, and his hair had receded further. Benny had gained more weight around the middle.

He heard Tulsa say, “Who’s the beard over there?”

“New assistant to Haglund.”

“Has he got a name?”

“Robert Rose.”

It seemed normal to look over when he heard his name. “You, with the beard,” Tulsa said. “You ever work in Detroit?”

“No. Why?”

“I thought maybe you just worked in Detroit once. How come the spinach?”

“My beard? I’m scarred up.”

Tulsa got up and came over and stood looking down at him.

“You always had the beard?”

“Since I was twenty-two. Who are you?”

“I’m Tulsa. I work for Harry. So does Benny over there. Benny, you ever see this joker before?”

Benny studied him. “Never did.”

“And who is Harry?” Lloyd asked.

“Hey, Benny! He wants to know who Harry is.”

“Harry is Harry Danton who owns the joint,” Benny said.

Lloyd shrugged and went back to work. Tulsa went back to the table. They talked in a low tone. Lloyd could not hear them. That night, back in his room, he sat in his underwear shorts on the side of the bed. He took the knife Roberto had given him, the knife he had carried out of Mexico strapped to his body. He tested its sharpness again by shaving a small place on the outside of his thigh. He thought of the motel room in Talascatan, of the sounds that had come through the closed door. He remembered the zopilotes and the cairn of stones. He recalled vividly the white smashing explosions of pain and the stink of his own chest.

He could not sleep that night. The time had come for the specific plans. He made his selection. The first one would be Benny. And Benny Bernholz had a fear of heights. He had wanted Valerez to be first, but he had not seen Valerez and could not ask about him. It was probable that Valerez was still in Mexico. The first step
would be to acquire Benny’s confidence and trust. That would not be easy. It would never be given to anyone in full measure. He needed to win that confidence, because death was not enough. There had to be the awareness, the comprehension of the identity of the executioner, and there was a breaking point that had to come before death.

Now that Benny and Tulsa were back, Benny was often in the kitchens, getting in the way, demanding special service. The original prop was very simple. Lloyd searched the news stands of Oasis Springs and acquired a thick stack of fantasy and science fiction comic books. He read them. He left them in his room, in plain sight. The next time he saw Benny reading one of his comic books, he moved to where he could look over Benny’s shoulder. He stood there until Benny turned and glared up in annoyance. “What the hell you doing?”

“Let me see it a minute,” Lloyd said calmly and picked it up, looked at the cover. “This is a pretty good one.”

Benny’s annoyance disappeared. “Hey! You go for this stuff too? How about in here where they get this injection that turns you into a plant like?”

“That’s pretty good. I’ve got a bunch of them in my room.”

“You have? How about the lend of them, Rosie?”

“Go on up and read them any time. I don’t like to loan them out. Go on up now if you want. Here’s the key.”

He knew that would be disarming. Benny could find nothing in the room out of character. The knife was safely hidden. And there was a chance Benny would look at the balance in his checking account. The check book was in the top drawer of the bureau.

“Bring me back the key when you’re through. I get off in about an hour and a half.”

When he went up to the room Benny was sprawled on his bed, reading. He grinned at Lloyd when he came in and closed the door. “You got some good stuff here. You want to sleep or something, I’ll clear out.”

“Stick around.”

Benny read, and then he wanted to talk. He wanted to tell the best plots he could remember. He wanted to tell them in considerable detail. Then they played some gin. Lloyd played as poorly as he could. Benny won readily. When Lloyd said he was ready to quit, Benny was disappointed.

“You seem to be a quiet type guy, Rosie.”

“That’s the best way.”

“I like to live it up some.”

“I used to.”

“So what happened?”

“You ask a hell of a lot of questions.”

“Don’t get sore. Me and Tulsa were talking about you.”

“So?”

“He says you act like you’re carrying a little heat.”

“Could be.”

“So you’re keeping your head down. Is that it?”

“Could be.”

“This your regular kind of work?”

“It used to be.”

“It’s a handy thing to have a trade. A job is a good place to go cool off, like. You’re among friends, Rosie. What kind of a deal was it?”

“You still ask too many questions.”

“So you don’t answer them, I go tell Harry you’re hot. It makes him nervous.”

“I’d tell you to go to hell, Benny. But I’ve got a problem.”

“So?”

“I don’t want everybody and his brother in on it. I don’t want Tulsa and Harry in on it. I’ve got to have one contact. That’s all I need. I was working a deal in Miami. A hotel deal. I was on the desk. So I case the guests. When they’re loaded, I get the name and home town. I was working with two friends. They would call the guests and say that so and so in the home town had asked them to have the guests out to a dinner party while they were in Miami. You can take the front name right out of Dun and Bradstreet. If the guests won’t
play, then my friend would say it was probably the wrong Joneses or Andersons or whatever. But if they fall for it—and you only use people with their own car—they get directions that take them about fifteen miles out of Miami. To a dark place. There they get jumped and stripped of everything. The car is disabled. My friends come back fast and I give them a room key and they work the room over.”

Benny had been listening eagerly. “Nice!” he said.

“We worked it a dozen times and then the cops got too close and grabbed my friends. I picked up the stuff and left.”

“You fenced it?” Lloyd knew from that question that Benny had seen the bank balance.

“No.”

“What have you got? Furs? Ice? Stuff like that?”

“That’s right.”

“Not here, for God’s sake?”

“I’m not that stupid.”

“Harry wouldn’t want stuff like that around. We keep this place clean. Give them half a chance and they lift your licenses and then you’re dead. Where is it?”

“In a safe place. I want to unload it.”

“Do you have any idea how much it’s worth, say at retail?”

“Maybe a hundred and fifty thousand. There’s five mink coats, and a couple of sable wraps. Diamond clips. One small string of matched pearls. One emerald ring that looks good. And a lot of junk. Watches, things like that.”

“What do you want out of it, Rosie?”

“What kind of a deal can you make?”

“I got a couple of contacts. But if they come this far and it’s no sale, then they get sore at me, see? I’d want to see the stuff first. What kind of an end do I get?”

“If you make all the arrangements and get me the money in nothing over a fifty, you can have twenty-five percent.”

He saw the flush of greed on Benny’s face, the new brightness of his eyes. “What if the offer my friend makes is low?”

“I’m tired of sitting on the stuff. Make this just you and me, though. Don’t bring anybody else in.”

“Harry don’t like for us to have anything working on the side.”

“This is different. This is just a business arrangement. I’d be paying you for a service.”

“That’s right. But Harry would be sore anyway.”

“He doesn’t find out from me. Unless you try to cross me. Then he finds out.”

Benny thought it over. “My friend will take his expenses off.”

“That’s all right. How do you get hold of him?”

“I can make a call from down in town. First I got to see the stuff, Rosie. Where is it?”

“I can take you to it.”

“Where is it? In storage?”

“I’ll take you to it. We can drive to where it is. It will take an hour and a half to get there and back. We shouldn’t be seen taking off together. How about five o’clock tomorrow morning? All right with you?”

“Okay.”

“See you in the parking lot.”

Lloyd had located the place a week previously, had purchased what he needed and had left it there, well hidden. It was not in an area of big mountains. The road that led to the spot was a mere trace, winding between rocks. The actual drop was steep, one hundred feet he estimated, to the bed of the dry arroyo. It was an area of baked rock, the shimmer of mirage and the quickness of lizards. The featurelessness of the land dwarfed the drop. A single tough and stunted tree, close to death, grew at the brink of the drop, roots reaching down into the cracks in the rock for traces of moisture that had sustained it.

They had driven toward the sunrise, and no car was in sight when Lloyd turned off the highway. The car jounced and rocked as he followed the trace, and Benny said, “What the hell, Rosie?”

“The stuff is in a good safe place. I’ll show you. It’s not far from here.”

He came to a relatively smooth place where he could go a bit faster. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Benny leaning forward, looking ahead. He stamped the brake pedal hard. Benny’s head thudded the windshield so hard it made radial cracks. He sagged back, not quite unconscious, making slow movements like a man under water. An automatic appeared in his hand, flat and blue. Lloyd drove his right fist against the corner of the jaw twice, and twisted the gun out of Benny’s hand. Benny still stirred weakly and subsided when Lloyd hit him across the side of the head with the barrel of the weapon. He drove another two hundred feet, parked and pulled Benny out of the car. He carried him to the edge of the drop, then went and got the heavy length of rope from the place where he had hidden it. He tied it firmly around Benny’s chest, under the armpits, and ran a single loop under the crotch and fastened it in back. He tossed the free end of the line over a thick limb that stuck out over the dropoff at about a forty-five degree angle. He retrieved the dangling end with a long stick. A secondary limb kept the rope from sliding back to the trunk. He walked the rope back and made it fast to a stout outcropping of rock that slanted away from the brink. He pushed Benny over the edge. Benny jolted hard at the end of the rope, swung out, swung back and hit the face of the drop-off lightly and then continued to swing, face down, arms and legs dangling. He hung too low. Lloyd braced himself and pulled him higher, looping the line around the outcropping each time he had enough slack. When Benny hung four feet below the limb, he stopped. He was breathing hard with the exertion. He sat and leaned his back against the tree. Benny swung gently back and forth and finally came to rest.