Wild (14 page)

V
INE
T
REE
. The words were painted in white on an un-barked slab of oak. The small sign was mounted on a brass post.

I stopped the car. It was one of the oldest and wealthiest residential sections in the city. This particular lot must have encompassed ten acres. A fifteen-foot-high whitewashed cement wall, covered with shocks of green vine, slanted from partially opened mahogany gates. The gates had large black wrought-iron hinges and locks. It had probably been a beautiful estate back around twenty-five or six. It was pretty well run down.

I reached back and patted the hound, told him to stay put. He cracked a couple of yaks, wrinkled his snout, and went back to snoozing. I got out of the car and walked to the gate.

Beyond a meandering drive inside, I saw the house, rising through trees against a gray witch’s sky. It was like something off an old Gothic postcard.

Fresh tire marks showed in the worn gravel drive.

Probably this was the old Crafford estate. Elk had gone through the family inheritance, held on to this but had been unable to keep it up.

I moved fast, walking through the gate. I passed ancient gardens and marble pools, rock gardens, sundials, and tall urns containing sear, withered ferns. Oak, fresh saplings, straight hickorys, and uncared-for fruit trees; orange, key lime, grapefruit and wild cherry grew thickly. Willows leaned like pale dead hands above empty pools. Rain drove with winds across the treetops.

I heard the scream. It lifted, roofing the afternoon.

I ran toward the house.

Again the scream sliced through the chill rain. It hurt to hear it. It was a woman in pain.

I was still some distance from the house. It was surrounded by a thick clotting of shrubs and trees. It gutted toward the raining sky in a thrust of cupolas, windows, spires, and furious gingerbread. It was graced with two-foot black beams and the long, graceful galleries of the southland. Guest houses were set away from the main house. It was winged and multiroomed, immense and once-grand.

The scream again, more a throbbing yell of terror.

Then silence. I reached the house, swung up on a gallery railing and went to the house wall beside a tall window. I felt dwarfed. The windows were draped.

Feet pounded from up above. There was the sound of a falling body, and a short feminine cry.

I moved fast. Toward the rear, a door swung to and fro in the steady wind. I went inside, hearing the sound of my own breathing. The house was darkly shadowed, heavy with gleaming sienna woodwork.

I moved past back stairs. I heard voices and walked as softly as I could through large rooms of gloom, past ghostly furniture covered with dusty sheets.

“Don’t try it again,” a man said.

I stopped, my heart yammering. The voice went on speaking. It echoed from distance. I had a crazed sensation of not being where I was. I had no gun. I knew this was the end of the road. I knew the answers now—always too late. Yet even with what she had done, I was frightened for her. I couldn’t help myself.

“You’d better tell us now,” the man said. “You know you’ll tell us.”

I had never heard that voice.

A woman laughed, said, “Let Stewart,” and I heard the sound of flesh striking flesh.

A stairway led upward. I took it. It sloped in a steep spiral. Gold-framed mirrors clung to an octagonal wall. The stairwell ascended straight up like a vertical tunnel. It was a vicious climb leading to a skylight where rain slashed thick water-green glass. The light down the stairwell was ghastly, my hands and clothes a sickly green.

The man grunted. He said, “Now.” There was something bright and mean in the voice. The scream was short and sharp. It pealed through the house. I came onto a landing, moved toward a partially open doorway and stood against the wall.

“She’s got to tell us, Carl,” Asa Crafford said. “She’ll tell us if you’ll just hurt her enough. She never could stand to be hurt much. We can’t hang around here forever.”

I saw them. I began to go nuts.

“I’ll tell you nothing,” Ivor Hendrix said. The words were bitter and painful. There was pain in the sound of her voice, but there was strength, too. “You can all go to hell. You can kill me, I won’t tell you.” She breathed heavily as she spoke.

She was stretched over the rail at the foot of a large bedstead in a grotesque, bone-wrenching position. Her arms were tied with rope to the rail. Her body hung of its own weight to the floor, knees bent, her head flung back. She watched them dreamily through the slanted eyes. Her red mouth was touched with disdain. She was completely naked.

A man I had never seen hulked above her.

He said, “Look, Ivor,” with a kind of tight patience. “You think I enjoy this? Can’t you understand you’ve got to tell me? You will sooner or later. There’s no choice.”

She cursed him tiredly.

“Oh, for Christ’s sake,” Asa Crafford said.
“Make
her talk. You’re too easy on her. Let Stewart….”

“You just close your flap,” the man said. “You have too much to say.” The man was Carl Hendrix. I remembered him from the snapshots. The slightly popped eyes, the sober expression. He was stockier than I recalled from the photos. He wore a pale blue tropical worsted suit, a white shirt open at the collar, and no tie. He looked at Ivor, gnawed his lower lip, then rubbed his eyes as if in mental pain. He seemed undecisive.

Asa Crafford said in a whisper that was harsh and intense, “Let Stewart!”

Another man spoke. I couldn’t see him. It was watermelon-puss, all right. “Quit saying that,” he said. “I’m hired to work for you. I haven’t been paid as yet. You’re crazy,” he said. “Both of you. You’re gone too far and you know it.” He said more quietly, “Jesus Christ—do something, but get it over with.”

Asa Crafford said, “He wants his money, but he has a weak stomach. Isn’t that comical? A killer—a paid killer, with a weak stomach?”

Carl Hendrix turned fast and struck Asa Crafford across the face. It was a hard blow. She stumbled back out of sight.

“You crazy bitch!” Carl Hendrix said. He turned back to Ivor, and stared down at her. “Look,” he said. “We know you got onto this thing. I know you swiped the money. You think I’m stupid?”

“Yes,” Ivor Hendrix said. “I think you’re stupid.”

He held his patience with obvious effort. Nobody said anything for a moment. The house was silent with only the sound of distant rain.

“What did you tell that fool dick?” Hendrix said.

Ivor said nothing. Her clothes were in a pile beside the bed.

Hendrix said, “Honey, you’re in this just as much as we are. You’ve done it all yourself. It’s a lot of money. Enough for everybody.” He leaned down and shouted at her, “Why don’t you tell me where it is!”

He took hold of her, shaking her. She stared at him. He slammed his hand back and forth across her face. She held her head up and spat at him. She spat again. He looked shocked. His face choked with rage. He cursed her, and struck her savagely in the belly with his fist.

I lost my head.

As I headed into the room, he swung again, striking his fist against the girl’s unprotected middle. He grunted and she yelled, then gasped beathlessly.

“Tell me!” he shouted.

Asa Crafford saw me. I shoved her out of the way and dove at Carl Hendrix. He turned, his eyes a little gone with what he was doing. I hit him with everything I had. He yelled something. I caught the front of his shirt and yanked so hard it shredded in my hand. I smashed him, and felt the bone of my fist against the bone of his face. My cracked knuckle bled white pain to my elbow. I wanted to kill him. He kicked for my groin. I grabbed his foot, put my shoulder into it, and whipped him to the floor. I leaped on him. He rolled and grabbed for my face, his fingers raking my jaw.

I got my hands on his throat, knelt on his shoulders, and slammed his head against the floor. I wanted to smash his skull on the flowered carpet.

A gun exploded. The carpet spat dust close to Hendrix’s head.

“You fool!” Asa Crafford said.

“Get off him,” the man called Stewart said.

I rolled off and looked up.

The ugly face looked down at me. He was pale and grim, with the .45 in his fist.

“Take it slow,” he said. “Get on your feet.”

I stood up. Ivor Hendrix moaned from the bed.

I heard a telephone ring downstairs.

“Never mind that,” Asa Crafford said.

I looked over at Ivor Hendrix. She stared at me as if she had never seen me before. A thin hair of blood appeared at the corner of her mouth. She lowered her eyes.

C
ARL
H
ENDRIX
sat up on the floor. He touched his fingers to his nose. They came away painted bright red. He brought out a handkerchief and gently blew his nose, dabbing at the blood. He stood up and faced me.

His eyes were dull above the red handkerchief.

“What now?” the man with the gun said.

Carl Hendrix took the handkerchief away from his nose.

He said, “What do you suppose? It’s obvious, isn’t it? We’ll continue just as we were doing.” He looked at me and frowned, then looked at Stewart. “I told you to watch Baron every minute. You didn’t do much of a job. You haven’t done much of a job from the beginning.”

Stewart was a mountain of a man. The head and face seemed much more grotesque than the night I’d first met him. He wore a belted trench coat that was soaking wet, and a soft felt hat. He looked strangely sad. It was not an expression of the moment.

Stewart said, “This isn’t a job. It’s a fouled-up mess, Hendrix. I’ve stuck because I need the money. I’m going to get the money if I have to operate on that one—” he nodded toward Ivor—“myself. I mean it.”

“Where were you before you came in?” Hendrix said to Stewart.

“I went to the house, looking for Elk. He wasn’t there. Then I tried the boat. The
Carol’s
gone. I think I saw it out in the bay. Looked like him hanging over the rail out there.”

Asa Crafford was watching me. She had on a pair of skin-tight black toreador pants, drawn with white thread at the calves. She wore a white blouse and a thin off-red cashmere sweater. She had yellow moccasins on her feet. Her black hair was heavy on the left side. She didn’t seem to fit into this gathering. I knew she belonged solidly.

“Poor Elk,” she said. “He’s such a fool.”

Steward said, “So I came back here.”

I said, “He should have been at the
Carol
before I was. I talked with Elk at the pier. I saw Stewart leave the house. Maybe he’s crossing you, Hendrix.”

Stewart said, “I beat you here, didn’t I? I stopped for a drink.” He looked at me. “You’re loaded with ideas, aren’t you,” he said.

“How did you get into the house before I did?”

“I came the front way. You must’ve taken the back.” He paused, looking around the room, holding the gun loosely. “I’m sick of you people. You make me want to vomit. But I still want my money.”

The phone rang again downstairs.

“Ten to one it’s Elk,” Asa said. “When he’s drunk on his boat, he keeps calling ship-to-shore through the Tampa marine operator. He takes the
Carol
out into the Gulf, then keeps phoning, checking on me. It’s rich.”

I said, “The law is on the phone. You think I’d come here, knowing what I know, without posting them?”

“He’s lying,” Stewart said. “The law would enjoy slitting his throat.”

“Baron?” Carl Hendrix said through the red handkerchief. “How much of this do you know about?”

“Everything,” I said. I went over and began unfastening the ropes on Ivor Hendrix’s arms. She did not look at me.

“Let him untie her,” Carl Hendrix said. “I think maybe we’d better get out of here, anyway. Go someplace in the country.”

I finished untying Ivor’s arms. She slumped to the floor, looked up at me. She did not smile. Maybe she wanted to smile. She was badly hurt. The pain was in her eyes. She came to one knee and said, “Thanks, Lee.”

“Get dressed,” I said. “Hurry up.”

“He’s giving orders, now,” Stewart said.

“Don’t you like looking at her?” Asa said. “I think she has a beautiful body. A little top-heavy, but aside from that—” She stepped over by me. Ivor Hendrix went to her clothes and began dressing. She moved painfully, her lower lip between her teeth. Asa Crafford said, “How much do you really know, Lee?”

I looked at her. She smiled with her teeth. There was nothing in her eyes at all. A strange woman.

I said, “Everything I need to know.”

Stewart was watching Ivor dress. There was small lust in his eyes. He watched her closely, his eyes moving up and down her body in a kind of deliberate caress. I didn’t like the way he looked at her. I couldn’t get how I felt about her out of my head.

Stewart would kill me. I knew that. They would kill me first, probably. They might kill me before they left here, because there was no reason for my going along with them. If they went.

Asa Crafford said, “Would you like a crack at that, Stewart? Why don’t you go ahead?”

Hendrix grunted. He threw the handkerchief to the floor. His nose had ceased bleeding, but the upper lip and the area around his nose was covered with blood. He went over to Ivor. She had the sheath dress on, and was trying to button it up across her breasts. He tore her hands away, grabbed her by the hair, and struck her four times across the face. He grunted with each slap.

He shouted, “Where’s the money!”

She lay back on the bed and said. “Go to hell.” She wasn’t crying, but there were tears in her eyes.

There was only one way out. That might not work. It probably wouldn’t help any. But it might stop them.

“Stewart?” Hendrix said, stepping back from where Ivor lay on the bed. “It’s up to you. I want to know where she’s got the money. Find out.”

Stewart came slowly across the room. Handing his gun to Hendrix, he said, “Hold them.” He went over to Ivor Hendrix and looked at her and grinned. It was the god-damndest grin I’d ever seen; the misshapen face and the enormous hulk of man. He said, “Honey, you want to tell them? Or you want me to do something to you. I can make you talk, you know? Which is it?”

She stared up at him. She seemed to cringe faintly on the bed, her lips parted.

“All right,” he said. He didn’t move. “Take your pants off again, honey. I’m going to do something to you. Come on, hurry up.”

She didn’t move. She seemed frozen in her position on the bed. She didn’t blink. She didn’t even seem to breathe.

“All right,” Stewart said. He reached down and pulled her dress up to her waist. She wore tight black briefs. He leaned above her and something queer crossed his face; an expression of sad and breathless patience. He ran one hand up her thigh, staring. The hand was trembling and I knew the reasons he’d given for not pursuing his medical career were figments of a wild imagination. His lips seemed to bubble faintly, and he reached out, snarled his fingers in the waist of the briefs and began peeling them down.

“Wait,” I heard myself say. “Hold on. I think I can help you—if you’ll tell me a couple of things.”

Stewart didn’t seem to hear me. He went on slowly drawing Ivor Hendrix’s pants off.

‘Wait, God damn it” I said. I looked at Carl Hendrix. Hendrix looked fascinated. I moved fast and grabbed Stewart’s shoulder, whirled him around. He breathed heavily. His eyes were glazed, unseeing. Then they slowly cleared.

“Why did you stop me?” he said. He spoke softly.

“You slimy bastard,” I said.

He stared at me. Ivor Hendrix pulled her dress down and lay silently on the bed.

Hendrix said, “If you know something, Baron, let’s hear it. Otherwise—” He left the sentence unfinished.

“Yes,” Asa Crafford said. “How can you help, Lee?” She said it to me, but she was watching Stewart with round, wide eyes. Then she looked at me.

I said, “I know where the money is.” I jerked my head at Ivor. “She may
think
she knows. But she doesn’t. I do know.”

Asa’s voice was excited. “He’s telling the truth. I can tell.”

I said, “But I’m bargaining. It won’t do you any good to try and make me tell you. I’ve stood up against worse than you’ve got here, including the big boy, and I do mean boy. I want to know a few things first.”

Hendrix frowned. “You’re in no position to bargain. What good will it do?”

“What harm will it do?” I said.

I watched them all. Time was the one element I had to have. I was playing for it. My shirt was plastered to my body with sweat.

I said, “I’m curious. I’ve been working hard. I’d like to know some answers.”

“I thought you knew everything,” Asa said.

Ivor Hendrix stared at me, puzzled. A dim light of greed showed in her eyes.

“All right,” Carl Hendrix said. “What you want to know?”

I went over to Ivor. “Yonkers was the man who came to see your husband. He had already killed his partner, Horace Ailings. Right?” She nodded, watching me, still puzzled. I said, “How did you learn about the robbery—the money? Go ahead,” I said. “Tell me. Believe me, it doesn’t make any difference any more.”

She half sat up, then sat up all the way. Her eyes were startled. “I heard them,” she said. “That’s what they were fighting about. Carl found out Yonkers had the money and Yonkers hid it. I saw him hide it—he buried it. He was afraid Carl would take it from him, because he was very sick.”

“You bitch,” Carl Hendrix said.

She didn’t bother looking his way. “Carl kept asking me to take a trip—go away. He finally got me to agree to visit his aunt in Orlando. He figured with me away, he could
make
Yonkers talk. He knew the man was dying. Yonkers had told him he’d give him some of the money, but Carl wanted it all.” She shrugged. “I was sick of it. Sick of how he’d let Elk take all our money and shoot it away. Sick of how he sat around! I dug up the money and went away. The fool.” She looked at her husband. “He starved Yonkers—tortured him. Yonkers told him the truth, where he’d hidden the money. But Carl only found the empty suitcase. He didn’t believe Yonkers was telling him the truth. The operation Yonkers had was infected, so he just died. It must have sent Carl crazy.”

“Where’s the money now!” Hendrix said.

“Don’t tell him,” I said. “He agreed to a bargain. Besides,” I said. “You don’t know where it is now, Ivor.” I turned to Hendrix. “You weren’t working alone,” I said. “You and Asa were together on the thing, weren’t you?”

Asa Crafford shrugged. “I did all I could to keep you tied up, honey—didn’t you like it?”

Stewart interrupted. “This is getting us noplace. What the hell you bothering with him for?”

“Just shut up,” Hendrix said.

I said, “Only all the time there was a guy named Vince Gamba. He’d been snooping around and he knew plenty. He was scared for Ivor. There was no greed in him. He was in love with her. He didn’t know where she was. He was going through hell. He found Yonkers’ body, hacked up like that.”

Hendrix said, “It was her idea,” looking at Asa. “She wanted to cut him up and distribute the pieces. We couldn’t do it. We eliminated the fingerprint angle, his face—” He ceased talking, remembering and not liking what he remembered.

“You’ll never get that dough now, Hendrix,” I said.

“You know where it is?”

“Yeah.”

“We’ll get it.”

“You’re God-damned right we’ll get it,” Stewart said. He went over and took his gun from Hendrix and faced me. “You ever been shot in the kneecaps?” he said. He was healthy again. A real hot shot. I ignored him.

I looked at Ivor. “You killed Vince Gamba,” I said. “Too bad. A mistake. I should never have told you he called me, saying he wanted to tell me where the money was. He only thought he knew. He buried Yonkers’ body, hiding it so you wouldn’t be hurt. He was right when he figured the cops would eventually get to you and you would break. You went to his place, planning to kill him—maybe with that .32 automatic. You must have got that from around the trailer, where Yonkers left it. Gamba was passed out drunk. You fixed him in the oven, turned on the gas and left the gun to implicate him. You planted that letter on him so it’d look like suicide for love. You must have seen the letter he started writing to you. That could be misinterpreted, too. But not if you thought about it. He was referring to the money and what he knew you’d done—not to his love.”

Hendrix said, “I knew she was laying for him.” He looked at her. “How long, bitch?”

“Weeks and weeks,” she said. “So what?”

I said, “Then you beat it in Gamba’s station wagon, got a bottle and soused yourself up, and came back and found me there. You knew I’d be there. It would be perfect. It nearly was.”

“I never thought she had it in her,” Asa said.

“Gamba had discovered where the arms were buried, and he buried the body with them. He went around carefully destroying evidence. That fouled me up with the police.” I stared at Ivor. “He did all that to help you, honey. And you killed him for it. Nice, isn’t it?”

She turned her face away.

I looked at Hendrix. “You knew when I began to move in. You’d already hired Stewart to keep watch on the trailer, for your wife. He saw me. You know why she hired me? So I could find you before you found her. The cops would believe she was straight, maybe. Even if they didn’t, she would still have the money after it was all over. She’d done nothing wrong, if she kept shut—until she murdered Gamba.” I paused. “But if you could find her first, you figured you’d make her talk. Like now. You’ve found how hard that is. I don’t think happy boy here could either.”

“We’re wasting time,” Hendrix said.

“She doesn’t know where the money is any more,” I said. I looked at her. “Poor Gamba,” I said. “He’s the guy who answered the phone at the trailer when I called the first time. All he was thinking about was you.”

“Shut up!” she yelled. “Can’t you shut up!”

“The dick’s lying,” Stewart said. “He just wanted to make sure of things. He doesn’t know where the money is. I’m going to find out.”

He moved fast over to Ivor and looked down at her. “This time, honey,” he said. “You get it—whether you like it or not.” He reached for her.

She grabbed his wrist and sank her teeth into it. Blood spurted. He bellowed and drew back his arm to strike her with the gun in his fist. I knew he might kill her.

“Wait!” I shouted.

He paused, his eyes wild.

I took the bank books out of my pocket and threw them on the floor. They bounced.

“There’s the money,” I said. “Fight over it.”

Ivor Hendrix’s eyes were large and full of fright. She leaped off the bed. She knew what was going to happen. She ran hard for the bedroom door.

Stewart’s expression was still touched with the anger of a moment before. He lifted the .45 and shot her in the back as she ran into the hall.