The Last Stand Read online

  “Be my guest. But make it a small caliber.”

  “Why’s that, Mr. Dexter?”

  “It won’t hurt him so much when I shove it up his ass.”

  I nodded to them, got up and split.

  Next time they would play it tougher and smarter. There would be no rules—I wasn’t a cop anymore. I was playing in their league now. I would have to outsmart them, and set them up for the kill.

  And it was going to be a pleasure.

  * * *

  I slept hard that night, and didn’t wake up till almost noon. After a shower and shave, I went out for the paper. I picked it up along with a box the mailman had left. I tossed the paper on the couch and tore into the package.

  There it was.

  Just like old times—Fred had done what he said he would. I gripped the handle of the Police Positive .38 and it felt good, a part of me that had grown back.

  I reached into a desk drawer for a holster I’d kept, and slid the gun in. When I snapped it onto my belt I felt almost normal again. I had been a cop just too long, I guess. Without that .38 on my hip, I felt naked.

  I was about to reach over for the paper when the phone rang.

  “Rod—it’s Larry. There’s a doll in here who looks real hot. Like she walked out of a men’s magazine. She came in with some of those boys we were talking about. You know the ones. She’s still here, drinking. Interested?”

  “You bet. Don’t let her leave.”

  I hung up and made tracks for downtown.

  Larry’s had a little kitchen in back and the place had a modest lunch crowd munching on burgers and the like. I was hoping she’d still be there, and I wasn’t disappointed—she was sitting alone at a little table and Larry nodded from behind the counter in her direction.

  She was drinking a cocktail and blowing a kiss on a cigarette. She didn’t seem to notice me edge over to her table. I was going to use what little charm I had stored up on her, and maybe it would work.

  “Mind a little company?” I asked. “You look lonely.”

  She removed the cigarette from her red-lipsticked lips and they smiled a little, like she was expecting me—she nodded to the chair across from her.

  “Lonely isn’t the word for it,” she said, when I got situated. “There’s another word—sick.”

  “You look well enough to me.”

  And she did. She was a brunette who made magic out of a white silk blouse and black pencil skirt, aided and abetted by nylons and black pumps.

  “Rod Dexter.” If it meant anything to her, she didn’t show it.

  “Jean Banner.”

  Jean Banner. The name echoed in my mind—the woman who’d almost ruined Mayes Rogers’ marriage!

  I stayed cool, outwardly at least. “I always liked the name ‘Jean’—simple, pretty.” I waited for a reply but all I got was a smile. “You on your lunch break?”

  Her eyebrows lifted. “If so, I’m drinking it.”

  “No offense meant. A smoke and a drink, that’s one of my favorite lunches. Where do you work, Jean?”

  “I’m at Morgan’s. Sometimes I hostess, most times I sit at the bar or with certain customers, and look pretty.”

  “You’re good at it.”

  She laughed and finished her drink. “What do you do, Rod?”

  “Unemployed. They laid me off at the office—they tell me I’m insubordinate.”

  “Sounds like my job.” She took the last draw from her cig and buried it in an ashtray. “Did you have to jump when somebody snapped their fingers? That’s what makes me sick.” She frowned at me. “What was your last name again?”

  “Dexter.”

  “Dexter…Dexter…I’ve heard that name somewhere lately. Sorry. I don’t have a great memory.”

  “Let’s go someplace that’s real quiet, and I’ll jog it.”

  She wet her lips, made an unladylike gesture with her tongue, which was followed by a nodding yes.

  “I know a quiet spot by the lake,” I said. “Kind of secluded. It’s a bit of a drive, but I have wheels. There’s a place where we can rent suits for a swim. Okay?”

  “Sounds nice.”

  If she was for real, that made me a heel. And if she wasn’t, I was a sucker. But either way, it might be fun.

  * * *

  The breeze off the water wafted against our faces. Jean and I were stretched out on a blanket by the lake and for a moment I forgot all about what I was really after.

  “Nice not to work,” she said, extending her legs full length and raising her arms toward the sky.

  I told her I thought the same.

  “I hate my work,” she said. “Did you hate your work?”

  “Not really. Tell me about yours. Anything good about it?

  Exciting maybe?”

  “Well…you meet all kinds of people. That might be exciting to some, not to me.”

  I rolled over on my side, facing her, and she came to me without giving me the time to make the first move. I felt her lips press hot and sticky against my mouth and her tongue went exploring and in that one second I knew how Mayes Rogers has fallen.

  I pulled gently back away from her, not saying anything, just looking down at her lovely form. Some girls look like hell in a bathing suit. This one had all the extra flesh in the right places and the curve of her hips swept down to a pair of legs that belonged on a calendar.

  “Rod…would you think less of me if…if I asked you to love me?”

  Like I needed any encouragement.

  I bent down and drew her to me. She fell back on the blanket and I kissed her, then pulled back.

  “It’s all right,” she said softly. “Go ahead.”

  But I shook my head. I knew that if I didn’t stop now, I never could. So I gave her a look that let her know it was over for now. She sat up, leaning her elbows.

  “What?” she asked.

  “Who exactly is Shark?”

  A look of abhorrent shock came over her, then her face turned a deep, burning red, her brown eyes wide with sudden hate.

  “You bastard!” she screamed. “You’re the man they want! You used me to…”

  “It’s not like that,” I said, but it was.

  She came off her blanket at me and dug her nails into my shoulder and I covered her face with a hand and shoved her back on the blanket. She leaned back, the pale imprint of my fingers stark against the red of her face, and said, “Dirty bastard…”

  “Cool it. No one’s going to hurt you. And I could have had you, right? But I didn’t. A ‘dirty bastard’ would have.”

  “You…you could get me beaten. Or killed!”

  “No one knows you’re with me.”

  She’d cooled down some, but the distaste was still clearly written on her face.

  “They’ll kill me,” she said, with terrible calmness. “They’ve killed before and they’ll kill again.”

  “Like Mayes Rogers?”

  She sucked in breath; let it out. “I don’t know. They don’t discuss business with me. They use me. Like you did.”

  “Almost did. What was Shark’s relationship to Rogers?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t know. They had something going. This Rogers was a real big shot, you know. Shark wanted power, and Rogers wanted something in return. They got together and talked. That’s all I know. I swear it is.”

  “Any idea if it worked out?”

  Jean shook her head once again, the brunette hair tousled now. “I don’t know. I do know they became enemies over something, and any terms they’d come to…unraveled.”

  “What about Frank Graham?”

  Her upper lip curled in a sneer of a smile. “Our esteemed District Attorney? I know him. He’s Shark’s best buddy.”

  I studied her. “How would you like to get out of this mess?”

  An eyebrow arched. “Would people in hell like to get out?”

  I took one of her hands and squeezed gently. She looked at me and found a smile.

  “Not necessarily,�
�� I said. “Some like the heat, and the company. But we can get out, if we play our cards right. You see, I’m going to nail Shark. He’s already tried to mess me up once, and he likely made the call that got me fired. So—what can you tell me about him?”

  She considered that. “No one knows much about him. He’s from South America—Brazil, I think. His father was a big man down there, in their version of the Syndicate. Shark came to the U.S. and started high up in the Chicago branch.”

  It was a takeover of a town, all right. Superficially, Gantsville would thrive, new schools, freshly paved streets, even churches. But crooked wide-open casinos and whores and drugs and loansharking would flourish unchallenged.

  She sat up and leaned in, a hand finding the bare skin of my arm. “I was once somebody, Rod. Society page. Beauty contents, talent searches, movie offers. Not anymore. Mayes Rogers ruined me.” She covered her face with her hands.

  “Go ahead,” I said. “Get it out.”

  I meant for her to cry, and she did, but she was also talking: “I had a baby. Mayes Rogers’ baby. I…I put it up for adoption. He gave me money but wanted nothing more to do with me.”

  “The world is a big, dirty place, doll.”

  Jean caught her breath, between sobs, and asked, “You…you’re going to kill Shark?”

  “Him, at least.”

  “Forget…about them. Take me somewhere. We’ll start over.”

  “It’s a little soon, isn’t it?’

  “Not with what we’re facing. We can start out together. If it doesn’t work out, we’ll each have new lives without the Sharks of the world in it.”

  “There are sharks everywhere, baby.”

  The night swept down on us, a crying girl who had been dirtied and had nothing to live for, and me, a man who had only one thing to live for—the deaths of others.

  I pulled Jean down on the blanket and we picked up where we left off, passion and animal instinct and tenderness and urgency combining to wash everything away in a moonlight that made us both pure again, for those moments anyway.

  * * *

  The night made a switch with morning. I’d just dropped Jean off at her apartment, and—since I didn’t get any sleep last night—I thought several hours of shut-eye might do me some good.

  It took me a half an hour to drive to my apartment and when I left the car in the parking garage, I was tempted to use the front seat of my car to sack out. But finally I went on up, picking the paper up from outside my door, then sticking the key in the lock.

  When I opened the door, I saw him. I made a fast play for my gun and he’d have been dead if he hadn’t groaned, “Rod… buddy—it’s me!”

  Some things the eye can see that the mind can’t take in immediately—things you can’t possibly picture even though you’re standing face to face with them.

  He was sprawled in my easy chair, his head bent back. His face was a bloody mess, mouth open but the only thing coming out were garbled words and a trickle of blood.

  “Fred!” I ran to him. “What the hell happened?”

  He shook his head slowly and closed his eyes. But he got it out. “They…were pros…worked me over…good.” He stopped there, closed his eyes, and kept them shut.

  Someone had beaten the hell out of my old partner, and like he said, the beating was thoroughly professional, the kind that does just enough damage to make you feel like you’re dead, or make you wish you were.

  I rushed to the bathroom and returned with a wet washcloth. Fred was trying to move when I got back.

  “Take it easy, kid! You aren’t shot, are you?”

  He shook his head and groaned again and I touched the wet cloth gently to his face, soaking up some of the blood that had already dried.

  “Keep still and don’t move,” I said.

  Then I went into another room and put a call in to his wife, telling her not to worry. She insisted on coming over but I talked her out of it. Right now Fred wasn’t a very pretty sight.

  I came back and he said, “Thanks for calling her.”

  “She’s phoning a medic. He’ll fix you up. Can you talk?”

  Fred managed a nod. “I was…driving over here…almost here…when all of a sudden…a car ran into the back of me. I got out, mad as hell, and…they jumped me. One had something… smashed my arm with it. I reached for my gun… couldn’t get it before something hit me across the back. Probably a…a tire chain. They worked me over until…till I blacked out. When I woke up…somehow…somehow I crawled the rest of the way… made it over here.”

  “You’ve been working the Rogers case.”

  “Started where…you left off.”

  The doctor took his time getting there. But once he did, he gave Fred one look and said, “We better get an ambulance over here. This man needs to be in a hospital. Where’s the phone?”

  I showed him and he made the call. Then I called Fred’s wife back and told her he was being admitted. She could thank heaven she wasn’t a widow, or her children orphans.

  * * *

  Around noon the next day, I went to the Mayes house to see Ginger, just to let her know I was still alive, if nothing else. I admit I felt like a louse, having been with Jean. The lovely blonde was watering flowers when I pulled my car up the drive.

  “Rod! I thought you might be dead!”

  I got out of my Ford. “How’s Doris doing?”

  “Better,” she said. “Able to discuss things now, a little.”

  Doris was sitting on the couch when we entered the living room.

  “Morning, Mrs. Rogers. Good to see you up.”

  “Thank you,” she said. She was still in a dressing gown. “Why not call me Doris from now on? I’d imagine we’ll be seeing a lot of each other, till this matter’s resolved.”

  Ginger and I took chairs opposite the couch.

  I asked, “Have the police been to talk with you?”

  “Only once, but I wasn’t well enough to answer any questions.”

  “Homicide department? Fred Jenkins maybe?”

  She shook her head. “No, uniformed.”

  “I doubt if they’ll ask any more questions.”

  “I’m sorry about you losing your job, Mr. Dexter.”

  “Make it Rod. I should’ve seen it coming. Kind of begged for it, actually.”

  The room had an air of thick silence about it. Doris sat straight and firm, hands folded in her lap, never showing expression. Good-looking though she was, the black hair lustrous and long, something about her made you feel uneasy. Even figuring in what she’d been through, she seemed humorless and solemn, compared to Ginger.

  “Our best suspect is an out-of-town gangster they call Shark,” I said. “Fred Jenkins, a friend of mine at Homicide, was badly beaten last night. Doris, I’m sorry, but we need to go over this again: did your husband seem troubled or apprehensive about anything before his death?”

  “No. If anything was bothering him, he never showed it or told me.”

  “Are you familiar with this Shark person?”

  “Only what with what Ginger has told me.”

  “Then you know enough. Shark is going to sit back and see if I get anywhere. At some point, probably sooner than later, he’ll try to have me killed. He’s already tried to scare me off.”

  Shaking her head, eyes narrowed, Ginger said, “All this violence…I’m worried about you, Rod.”

  I didn’t respond to that, instead asking Doris, “What about Arnold Moore?”

  That name had been stored in the back of my mind for Doris, when she was up to it.

  A sickening look came over Ginger’s sister’s face. “He’s a very tough man. His brother was supposed to run against Mayes, who somehow convinced him not to, and for some reason Arnold felt his brother had been given a raw deal. He went as far as to threaten Mayes physically. But nothing ever came of it.”

  “I don’t think he’s connected with this, but again, who knows?” I stood. “I’ll see you later, Doris. Maybe Moore will put up wi
th an ex-cop asking him questions.”

  * * *

  Everybody was at work at Anderson’s Garage, except a tall, frail-looking guy standing beside a Coke machine doing nothing. I walked up to him and said, “Looking for Arnold Moore.”

  He scratched his head stupidly and pointed over to a black Ford from under which a man’s legs stuck out. I told him thanks and waited around the car until the man rolled himself out.

  He was a large, stocky guy with a crew cut and a bulldog mug.

  “Rod Dexter,” I said, looking down at him. “Spare a couple minutes to answer some questions?”

  His face lit up and he dropped his wrench to the floor, got to his feet, and with his right hand wiped dirty sweat from his unshaven face.

  “Why not?” he rasped. “I could use a break.” He took a half-smoked cigar from an ashtray on a nearby workbench, used a kitchen match to relight it. He pretended the cigar was his focus, but he was looking me over. “Ain’t you the one who got bounced from the cops?”

  “I’m the one. Mind answering some questions about Mayes Rogers?”

  His round face took on a nasty smile. “Now, there’s a guy who got what he deserved.”

  “That bad, huh?”

  “Badder than that. He was a certified louse who hid behind other people when the going got tough. Maybe it’s against the law to kill, but exterminating rats is legal, so I think it’s okay to get rid of some of the vermin that make up this crummy world. Mayes Rogers, for one.”

  “I heard your brother almost ran against him for the nomination.”

  The mechanic raised both eyebrows and sent dark spit to the floor. He followed that up with some choice obscenities, finally saying, “The bum didn’t give him a chance to run! I don’t know what that bastard did, but he changed my brother completely.” He shook his head. “And, hell—my brother coulda beat him! And Mayes Rogers knew that.”

  “Rogers have any enemies?”

  “Besides me, you mean? Hell yes! Plenty.”

  “Name a few.”

  The question drew a blank stare that made him look silly. “Well, I don’t know offhand. But he had ’em, all right. My brother’s a bookkeeper at City Hall, and a damn good one, too. Maybe you can get more out of him on this subject than I ever could.”