Lady, Go Die! Page 17

  “So what?”

  “So I think there’s a cache of money somewhere in that mansion or anyway on that property. It might be as little as the last weekend’s take, which would still be plenty. But it might be more.”

  “More, huh?”

  “A lot more. If Sharron was skimming, for example. Planning to take a powder to a better life, maybe down where the mambo is a local dance. But the thing is, sooner or later, Johnny C is gonna come out Sidon way, looking for that dough.”

  A tiny sneer. “How does he even know there is any dough?”

  “Oh, he knows. I don’t know how, but he told me tonight, so he knows. And when the heat dies down, and there’s no chance of running into coppers crawling around the Wesley grounds, Johnny C will come after what he considers rightly his.”

  Dekkert slugged down the rest of the beer and pushed away the mug, then set his balled fists down like mallets. “Did he do it? Did Casanova kill her?”

  There was rage in that once-handsome, bandage-spotted face. He cared about Sharron Wesley. Was that why he’d gone ape on Poochie when she was missing? Not the money, or anyway not just the money... but love? Had our boy Dekkert been just another love-sick calf?

  “No, Johnny didn’t murder her,” I said. “And he didn’t have her bumped, either. Anyway, I don’t think so. That would be killing the golden goose before the egg got laid. He would have questioned her... you know what kind of questioning, Dekkert, old pal. The kind you subjected that little beachcomber to.”

  “But she wasn’t beaten,” he said hollowly.

  “No. She was strangled. And you don’t strangle somebody you’re trying to make talk.”

  He nodded slowly. “So what are you after, Hammer?”

  “I figure you know that property better than anybody. You worked out there. You knew Sharron. Maybe we could turn up that dough together.”

  He grunted a laugh. “What, a midnight snipe hunt? Forget it. I did work out there, sure, and I knew her a little. She was a nice broad. We had some fun, time to time. But I never saw any sign she was tied up with Johnny C. And I don’t believe she was stealing money. It was her own place, not his, as far as I know. She took the cash into the city and banked it, is the way I understand it. That’s the beginning and end of it, Hammer. Okay?”

  I shrugged. “Okay. It was worth a try.”

  He slid out of the booth. “Word of advice, Hammer?”

  “Always appreciated,” I said pleasantly.

  “Get the hell out of Sidon.” His upper lip curled all the way back over big front teeth and feral incisors “There’s nothing here for you. Not answers. Not money. Not even a good time. Nothing.”

  He stalked out of there. Didn’t bother to offer to pay for the beers, but then cops didn’t seem to pay for anything around Sidon.

  I sat there grinning. Well, he had taken the bait. I’d known damn well he wouldn’t go partners with me on the stashed cash, but he would want to beat Johnny C to the punch. So all I had to do was go out to Sharron Wesley’s and stake the place out and wait for Dekkert to lead me to the treasure.

  Who had grabbed Poochie, I couldn’t say. But it really didn’t feel like the cops were responsible, and I talked myself into the chief meaning it when he said he’d round up his troops and put on a search for the little guy.

  Right now the thread I was following was Dekkert, and it would lead to that cash. I wasn’t sure if finding Sharron Wesley’s getaway fund would lead me to her murderer, too, but I had a hunch it would.

  Anyway, I didn’t mind the idea of taking a twenty-five percent finder’s fee from Johnny C. No, not at all. I had no other client in this case, and Velda would smile, seeing that kind of fee heading into our bank account.

  Speaking of Velda, I tried her again on the house phone, got nothing, and decided to go up to my room to see if she’d left a note under my door or anything.

  Nothing.

  I was almost back out the door, to stake out the Wesley mansion, when the phone rang.

  “Mike?”

  It was Velda.

  “Finally!” I said. “I’ve been back since midnight, and do I have plenty to report.”

  “Tell me about it!” She sounded breathless; I could hear the rustle of wind in trees, so she must be calling from outside somewhere. “Mike, Mayor Rudy Holden has just been killed.”

  “What?”

  “You heard me. One shot behind the ear while he sat in his study. He—”

  Her voice broke off with a muffled sound as though someone had slapped a hand over her mouth.

  “Velda!... Velda, what’s wrong? Where are you, honey? Answer me!”

  The only response I got was the click of the receiver being slung back in its cradle.

  I dialed the operator and barked an order at her. “I just had a call. I need to know where it came from. Hurry!”

  “I’m sorry, sir,” she said with whiny high-pitched indifference. “We can’t give out that in-for-may-shun.” I was boiling. Velda in trouble, and some little snip wouldn’t get me the lead I needed.

  “Damn it,” I yelled, “you’ll give that me right now, or I’ll come down where you work and slap the goddamn hell out of you. Get me that number and its location! This is detective Mike Hammer speaking, and I don’t want any crap out of you.”

  It was a booth three blocks away.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  The receiver dangled on its cord, swaying just a little, the violence of the interrupted conversation leaving behind a pendulum that, in the several minutes after the cut-off call, had dissipated to a gentle swing. Like a hanged man after the impact of that sudden fall had worn off.

  The phone booth was on the northern edge of the business district, and just around the corner, two blocks down, was the nicest house in town, the red-brick dwelling of the late Mayor Rudolph Holden. Two Sidon police cars with their red lights flashing were parked down there, and even at this distance I could see figures in blue moving in and out of the Holden home.

  Velda had said His Honor had “just been killed.” Had she been at the murder scene? Maybe discovered the body? In any case, she had been one of the first to know and rushed to call me.

  Had the murderer seen her at the scene, and followed her to that phone booth, and put a muffling hand over her mouth to haul her away to... what? Silence her? Nowhere around the booth was there an alley or doorway to lay down an unconscious body with even the most minimal concealment. I looked at every possibility half a block in either direction.

  Why had she been taken? Who had taken her? Probably the mayor’s murderer, but... why? To kill her, assault her, use her as a hostage? What?

  The night was even colder now and the wind picking up. I cut through it like a blade as I ran down to where those red lights flashed, holding my hat onto my head, my open suit coat flapping like wings and if I could have flown, I would. First the beachcomber, now Velda—why? Who?

  The two cops who’d backed up Dekkert in that alley at the start were standing on the open, poured-cement porch—that former high school athlete and his skinny pal. They started to say something as they tried to bar the door but I shoved them aside with either hand, hard enough that the skinny one tumbled off in a pile.

  Stairs yawned ahead, and off to the right was a living room where on a Victorian sofa an older female relative or maybe family friend sat holding onto one of the new widow’s hands with both of hers. Mrs. Holden was weeping into a hanky. Whatever that husband of hers had been, I understood her grief. It was what my rage would turn into if I couldn’t get Velda back.

  Another cop yelled, “Hey! There’s no entry here!”

  But I brushed by him into the study where the mayor and I had once eaten sugar cookies.

  Chief Beales saw me enter as two cops caught up with me and took me by the arms and I was getting ready to do something about that when Beales said, “It’s all right! It’s all right. Let go of him. Let him go!”

  They did, and moved off growling, not knowing how
lucky they were, and I went over to Beales, who was hovering over the corpse slumped in its chair by the cold fireplace. The mayor was in a purple silk robe with pajamas and slippers, the picture of casual comfort but for the black hole behind his left ear. The hole at the right side of the top of his skull was larger, ragged and red, like an angry whore’s mouth.

  This wasn’t the work of any Jack the Ripper maniac like the one Pat pictured for the kills of the coeds, the Wilson girl and Sharron Wesley. This was an execution, syndicate style. Professional killing hung in the air with the smell of cordite.

  Chief Beales looked at me and for once that fat face wasn’t flushed, but pale as a blister. His eyes were terrified and his forehead was a bas relief map of pulsing veins.

  “What do you think, Mr. Hammer?”

  “I think he’s dead. What do you think? Who called this in?”

  “Mrs. Holden. She and her husband were in bed, reading, and someone rang the doorbell, maybe twenty minutes ago. Her husband went down to answer it, and a few minutes later, she heard the gunshot and went down to check. The front door was open.”

  So the mayor knew the killer. Invited him or her in to the study for a friendly chat that had prematurely concluded with a gunshot of considerable caliber. .38 anyway, judging by that gaping exit wound.

  I said tightly, “What are you going to do about this?”

  He was shaking his head in wide-eyed confusion; he didn’t look much better than the mayor, who at least seemed to be resting.

  “I don’t know, Mr. Hammer. I honestly don’t know. I may have to ask the state police for help. Things are really getting out of hand.”

  “Where’s your deputy? Dekkert’s got real big-city police training. Why isn’t he here?”

  “He doesn’t answer his phone at home and I can’t raise him on his radio.”

  That was because the bastard was already on his way out to the Wesley mansion, if he wasn’t there already. Had Dekkert done this? A mob-style hit was something I wouldn’t put past him. Had he grabbed Poochie, because the little guy saw something? What? Had Dekkert strangled Sharron on the beach and Poochie witnessed it? Had that sadistic son of a bitch Dekkert thrill-killed all those girls, too? Had he grabbed Velda because she had put the puzzle pieces together before I could, or maybe he snatched her just to gain control over me!

  “Hammer!” Beales said. “I’m talking to you. What do you think this killing means?”

  “It means you better call Sergeant Price,” I said, recalling the name of the state cop Pat had vouched for. “And tell the state boys my secretary Velda is missing. And Stanley Cootz.”

  “Your secretary? Is she the woman staying at the hotel with you?”

  “Yes. She’s also a licensed private detective. She was doing some investigating here in Sidon while I was following up leads in the city.”

  “What kind of investigating?”

  “Well, she went out to the Hideaway tonight, and if you can spare one of your stalwart law enforcers to go out there and ask around, I’d be grateful.”

  He nodded. “I’ll send two men out. There’s only so much for us to do here, goddamnit.” A jagged vein in his nose was throbbing. “What are you going to do?”

  “I’m going to find Velda.”

  “Your secretary? How?”

  I didn’t bother answering that, just blew out of there and ran through the increasingly chilly night back to the hotel parking lot, where I fired up the heap and headed out to the casino. Never had the champion engine in that loser of a jalopy ever served me better, hitting eighty in seconds with the body shaking as if it shared the fear and rage I felt. The front windows were down and cold air churned, bringing in ocean smells.

  Ninety.

  Clouds were gliding like ghosts over a full moon whose beauty seemed mocking as glimpsed through the eerily waving trees, leaves shimmering, trunks bending, terrible monstrous shapes doing a pagan sacrificial dance.

  One hundred.

  Then I eased off because the cutoff leading to the Wesley house was up ahead, and I didn’t want to overshoot. I took the curve at forty and the rubber whined and the buggy leaned, but then we were there.

  The iron gate stood open and the plantation-like mansion loomed on its man-made hillock, catching the moon’s ivory rays and holding onto them, until shifting cloud cover turned it temporarily into a silhouette, before an almost phosphorescent glow returned. Again, I drove only halfway up the drive before pulling over to park in the bushes off to the right. Up the driveway, blocking the way, was a police car.

  Unlike the two Sidon squads parked outside the mayor’s place, this cruiser did not have its red light flashing. This was Dekkert’s ride, and it was no surprise he’d brought a city vehicle out here, and not his personal car, because this way his presence at the mansion could be explained by his official status.

  Only I knew damn well this was an unofficial visit.

  I felt confident I knew where he was headed. No lights were on in the mansion, not even the shifting beam of a flashlight. No, Dekkert was not inside. I’d gone over that place stem to stern already, with no safe to be found.

  Then I saw movement over by the house, and wondered if I’d misjudged. But at that moment the moon came out from behind clouds to drench the mansion in a pale glow that revealed the movement to be a few scrawny cats checking out empty, overturned garbage cans.

  No. Nobody in the house.

  The rod was in my right hand, a round chambered, safety off, as I pushed through the bushes and stayed low, crossing the open ground that led to the row of trees that served as a high fence discouraging neighbors and beach worshipers. The trees began on solid ground that got progressively sandy until their roots were reaching under the beach in search of soil, and I was near the edge of the water. My ears were filled with the sibilant sound of ocean swells stirred by wind to rush the shore.

  But I heard something else, too.

  A metallic click and then the screechy whine of wood on cement.

  I moved between the last few trees and saw the white-painted Victorian structure, sort of a miniature band shell big enough only to house the padded bench within, the view facing the house not the ocean—the quaintly baroque gazebo where I figured Sharron Wesley must have hidden her horde of cash.

  And Dekkert was proving me right.

  Still in his police blues, he hunkered his burly frame over as he moved the bench whose hidden latch he’d thrown, swinging it out and over to reveal the safe with combination lock set into the green-painted cement floor. His back was to me as I moved silently on the sand up behind him, stopping at the bottom of the three wooden steps up to the cozy little nook.

  Despite the rush of surf, the sounds of him turning that dial, not just the grinding whirr but even the tiny clicks, were easy enough to discern. Much more easy to hear was that final clunk of the handle as he unlatched, then lifted the door open.

  Though his back was still angled to me, I could tell he was smiling down into the sunken compartment, like Ali Baba regarding a treasure chest of glittering gold and jewels.

  “Thanks, Dekkert,” I said.

  He whipped that bullet head my way and those hard dark eyes damn near popped out of their sockets in a face still patchworked with bandages. His left hand remained on the handle of the swung-open floor safe. His other hand was outstretched, ready to dip into the stash of cash, but frozen mid-air before it could take the trip.

  “Safe-cracking isn’t a specialty of mine,” I said, starting up the steps, “and you saved me calling in an expert.”

  That lady killer mug of his, already betrayed by this blobby nose, crinkled now into an ugly mask of hate, buckling the bandages. He jammed his hand down into the safe and I knew at once that a gun was down there—always a smart move keeping a gun in a money-filled save, you know—and my right foot hit the final step while my left foot came down hard on that little iron door and smashed it into his wrist. His shrill scream floated out over the ocean and then I was up
there with him, where I stomped on the door again and again until I heard bones shatter and crack.

  He blurted hoarse profanities as with the arm attached to the damaged wrist he shoved the safe’s door back to where it rested on its hinges, its contents there for the world to see, or anyway for me to see, as I moved closer and gazed down at riches that weren’t gold and jewels exactly, but were a damn good second place.

  Stacks and stacks of cash: twenties, fifties, hundreds, with identifying bands... and resting on top, a Colt .38 revolver.

  “That was optimistic,” I said, sitting on the bench, swung to one side.

  Dekkert was sitting on the floor of the gazebo in the moonlight, leaning back against some latticework, his hand with its shattered wrist in his lap, cradled by his other hand. He was crying, wrenching sobs coming up out of his big chest in a rhythm that fit perfectly with the wind-driven tide.

  “Optimistic,” I clarified, “because I already had a gun in my hand, and you had to reach down for that .38 in the safe. I mean, hell’s bells—I let you go for your gun back at the station house and still out-drew you.”

  The sobbing was easing. He was either realizing how undignified that cry baby crap was for a tough guy like him, or maybe shock was settling in. Whatever the case, he had recovered his poise enough to start calling me every dirty name in the book.

  I let him get that out of his system, then said, “You were Sharron’s real silent partner. Oh, not in the casino business, no... but in the skim racket. She always had a man in her life, Sharron, needed a broad shoulder to lean on, and maybe somebody with at least half a brain to help her think. But in her bedroom, I saw no sign of male cohabitation. So I figured she had a boyfriend in either Manhattan or maybe even Sidon, possibly somebody married. Anyway, somebody that required discretion. But when you and I had our friendly talk earlier tonight, Dekkert, I saw it in your face, heard it in your voice. You loved the dame, didn’t you?”

  He wasn’t cursing me now, but he was crying again. I didn’t figure this crying had anything to do with the busted-up wrist, either. Nor was there whimpering. Just sorrow leaking out of those dark eyes, which didn’t seem so hard all of a sudden. When a teardrop hit a bandage, it would skid to a stop, then pearl and plunk to the floor.