1970 - There's a Hippie on the Highway (13 page)

Lepski gaped at him,

‘How the hell did you know that?’

‘She’s well known as Baldy’s girl. I keep tabs on girls like her.’

Beigler looked insufferably smug. ‘That’s why I’m a sergeant, Lepski.’

The telephone hell rang stopping Lepski’s frustrated retort.

Terrell scooped up the receiver.

‘Frank?’ Terrell recognised the voice of Chief of Police, Miami. ‘I thought I’d save you the run out. The lab report’s just come through.’

Terrell listened for some minutes while the other three officers watched him.

Then Terrell said, ‘Fine . . . thanks, Phil. I’ll get my boys moving. No, thanks . . . I can manage. Tell your boys from me they’ve done a good job and I appreciate it.’ He hung up. ‘That was Franklin. The Mustang is clean of prints. Someone has gone over it very carefully: not one print, but the Lab boys have identified the sand found in the tyre treads. It’s from Hetterling Cove: that out of the way bay outside Miami.’

‘I know it,’ Beigler said, getting to his feet. ‘It’s a good place for a burial.’

‘That’s right, Joe. So we get a dozen men with spades and we’ll take a look.’

Beigler left the office, went to his desk and picked up the telephone receiver.

‘Fred, when the gang’s ready, you take charge,’ Terrell went on. He turned to Lepski. ‘I want Mai Langley. Find her car number and put out an alert for her.’

Lepski went tearing out of the office to his desk.

‘That guy sure works at it,’ Hess said sourly.

‘When I eventually promote him,’ Terrell said, shaking his head, ‘he probably won’t work at all.’

* * *

By 17.00 that evening, Baldy Riccard’s tortured body had been lifted out of the sand dune.

The group of policemen who had dug him out, sweat streaming off them from their labours in the sweltering sun, stood back, some with handkerchiefs to their noses while Dr. Lowis, the Medical Officer, with two Interns, had the unenviable task of examining the bloated, half-cooked body.

By 22.00 Terrell was reading the M.O’s report while Beigler, a carton of coffee in his hand, sat opposite him and while Hess stared out of the dusty window at the ribbon of traffic moving along Main Street.

Finally, Terrell sat back and laid down the report.

Looks like you’re right, Fred,’ he said. ‘It smells of a hijack. His left foot was held in a fire until his heart gave out. He had three minor stab wounds, not enough to cause death, but he bled a lot. There are no bloodstains in the Mustang so he wasn’t carried to the Cove in the Mustang, but in some other vehicle.’ He paused to think, then went on, ‘Fred, check along Highway 1. See if you can find anyone who saw the Mustang. Check every bar, cafe, gasoline station . . . I don’t have to tell you . . . check.’

Hess grunted and moved his short, heavily built body with surprising swiftness from the small office.

Terrell leaned back in his chair and reached for his pipe.

‘Any ideas, Joe?’

‘A few.’ Beigler sipped some of the half-cold coffee. ‘This Commie angle . . . the Cuban angle . . . the fact Baldy wanted a boat. If you want to go to Cuba these days, it’s dead easy to hijack a plane . . . so why didn’t he do it? Danny says he had stuff with him . . . too heavy to take on a plane. So I’m asking myself what did he steal that was too big and too heavy to take on a plane and something Castro would want?’

‘You think he was working for Castro?’

‘It adds up, doesn’t it?’

‘Yes.’ Terrell looked worried. We’ll give it a couple more days, then if we don’t come up with something, we’ll have to hand it over to the C.I.A.’

Beigler grimaced.

‘So let’s come up with something in a couple of days, Chief,’ he said.

* * *

The guidebook tells us that Vero Beach is a citrus shipping port, extending across Indian River to the open sea. It is also a small, busy town with streets bordered with coconut trees, date palms and flowering shrubs.

Lepski arrived at the waterfront around 18.00. He had driven fast with his siren blasting, taking a delight in scaring the traffic the hell out of his way: Lepski still had something of the little boy in him.

During his years as police officer, he had made it his business to develop contacts in every town within two hundred miles of Paradise City. His contact in Vero Beach was Do-Do Hammerstein who ran a waterfront restaurant called The Lobster & The Crab which was a meeting place for the big and little crooks, the drug pushers, and the hot boys who stopped off at Vero Beach to find a motorboat that would take them out of reach of the long arm of the F.B.I, and the C.I.A.

The Lobster & The Crab was a shabby three-storey wooden building sandwiched between a Bottled Gas Suppliers and a Deep Sea Fishing Tackle Emporium. Even as Lepski approached it, he could smell lobsters grilling and the whiff of garlic that Do-Do used in all her sauces. His stomach rumbled with appreciation, but he knew he would have no time for a free meal.

He shoved open the double swing doors and entered the big room, crowded with tables at which sat an assortment of Do-Do’s regular clients: flashily dressed men, most of them dark skinned, small with flat gangster eyes and their raucous women, most of them wearing stretch pants and minute bras which squeezed their soft breasts into gross balloons.

There was an immediate hush as Lepski made his way to the bar. Four men, sitting near the entrance, abruptly got up and slid out into the fading sunshine. The rest, their faces sudden blank masks continued to pick at their lobsters. Even the women, compulsive talkers as they were, lowered their voices so the roaring sound that Lepski had first encountered as he had entered was like a bellowing transistor abruptly tinned down.

Do-Do regarded him with a furious how-could-you-do-this-tome expression as Lepski came to rest at the bar. She was a big woman with an enormous, floppy bosom, dyed red hair and an uninteresting face that could have been carved out of hard pig fat. Only her eyes showed that behind the facade of fat and floppiness, she was as hard as teak and as unreliable as a greased pole.

‘Scotch,’ Lepski said, resting his elbows on the counter. ‘How are tricks, Do-Do? You look good enough to be stuffed and put in an oven.’

Do-Do poured the drink.

‘Do you have to come in here?’ she asked, keeping her voice low. ‘Haven’t you enough brains to see you are ruining my business?’

‘I want to talk to you. I’ll go around the back in a moment. Be there.’

Do-Do scowled at him and moved away.

Lepski took a little time with his drink, then when he had finished it, he dropped a dollar on the counter and made for the door. As the door’s swung after him, the noise of voices started up again.

Five minutes later, he was sitting in Do-Do’s private living room on the first floor nursing another Scotch while she stood by the window, looking down at the busy harbour where the sponge fishing boats were unloading.

‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’ she said, keeping her broad back turned to him. ‘You scared away four good customers. You’ve fouled up my restaurant. Don’t you understand a cop is as welcome here as a skunk?’ She swung around; her eyes flashing furiously. ‘Another visit like this, Lepski, and you and me don’t work together.’

Lepski sipped his Scotch.

‘Put that big fanny of yours in a chair, Do-Do,’ he said. ‘You and me will always work together until I say so.’ He paused and stared at her with his cop eyes, then grinned. ‘Come on, you great, fat baby, sit down and don’t talk rough to me.’

‘One of these days I hope someone with sense will put a slug into you,’ Do-Do said, but she lowered her great body into a chair. ‘I’ll send flowers, but I won’t cry. What is it?’

‘I’m looking for Mai Langley,’ Lepski said.

Do-Do sighed and shook her head with grudging admiration.

‘You’re a clever bastard. I can’t think why you haven’t been upgraded.’

‘Jealousy,’ Lepski said bitterly. ‘You mean she’s here?’

‘Yes, she’s here. Is she hot? I wouldn’t have taken her in if I’d known she was hot.’

Lepski sneered.

‘Oh, yeah? I want to talk to her . . . she isn’t hot yet, but she could be. When did she arrive?’

‘A couple of days ago.’

‘Alone?’

‘Of course. This is a respectable house!’

‘I knew there was something about it I didn’t like,’ Lepski said, grinning. ‘Is she in now?’

‘In? She hasn’t moved from her room for two days. She’s acting like a fugitive from a Hitchcock movie.’

Lepski finished his drink and stood up.

‘What room?’

Do-Do held out her big white hand. With a resigned shake of his head, Lepski produced his wallet and handed her a $10 bill.

‘Don’t ruin yourself,’ Do-Do said with disgust. She put the bill down into her cleavage.

‘You keep that there long enough and it will hatch out,’ Lepski said. ‘What room?’

‘Twenty-three.’ As Lepski started for the door, she went on, ‘Next time you call come around the back.’

‘Sure. So long, Do-Do. Watch out you don’t catch your dairy in a revolving door.’

He made his way up the stairs to the next floor. He paused outside Room 23, put his ear against the door panel and listened. He could hear a radio playing swing softly. He put his hand on his gun butt and the other on the door handle, then walked in.

The girl who was lying on the divan in bra and panties cowered against the wall at the sight of him, her large eyes opening wide, her mouth turning slack with terror. She was around

twenty-five years of age, vapidly pretty, with long blonde hair and a fringe.

Lepski could see in a moment she would begin screaming. He said sharply, ‘Police . . . relax. Take a look.’ He tossed his shield which fell by her side, then he closed the door.

She stared at the shield, then grabbed up a wrap and covered herself. She stared at him, her eyes still dark with terror.

Lepski pulled up a chair, sat astride it, pushed his hat to the back of his head and produced a pack of cigarettes. He fed one into his mouth, set fire to it with a kitchen match which he ignited with his thumbnail then satisfied he was giving her a movie image of a tough cop, he suddenly smiled at her.

‘Hi, Mai . . . what’s scaring you?’

‘What do you want?’ she said huskily. ‘You can’t come busting in like this . . . get out!’

‘I’m looking for Riccard,’ Lepski said. ‘You and he left Paradise three days ago. Where is he?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Try and do better than that, baby. Who is he running away from?’

She flinched and shook her head.

‘I don’t know.’

Lepski stabbed a forefinger in her direction.

‘If this is all I’m going to get out of you, you and me will have to take a ride back to headquarters when you will be shut up in a smelly cell and you won’t get your fix. You wouldn’t like that, would you?’

Her eyes burned with sudden hate.

‘I tell you I don’t know!’ she said shrilly. ‘You can’t take me in! You’ve got nothing on me! Get out!’

Lepski shook his head sadly.

‘When I call on junkies who I think won’t cooperate, baby, I bring along some of the white stuff. I tell my Chief I found it in her purse. Invariably he believes me, invariably he puts her in the tank. That’s the way it is, baby. Sorry . . . it’s a rotten way to live, but we all have our jobs to do. Where’s Baldy?’

‘I don’t know.’ She hesitated, then seeing Lepski was losing his smile, she went on hurriedly, ‘Someone was after him. He came to me and asked me to drive him here. I did. He was trying to hire a boat, but after the first time, no one would rent him one. He was in a terrible state. He told me to stay with Do-Do and he hired a car and went back to Paradise City. He said he was going to leave his bag at the airport. He said he had friends in Paradise and he could raise some money. He left me here and I haven’t seen him since.’

Lepski turned this over in his mind. He decided that most of it was true, but not all of it.

‘What do you mean . . . he was trying to hire a boat, but after the last time, no one would rent him one?’

‘He was here a couple of months ago. He hired a motor boat and ran into trouble. The boat was sunk.’

Lepski squinted at her.

‘Sunk? How?’

‘Someone shot holes in it. Don’t ask me. I don’t know. He didn’t tell me. All I know is the boat was sunk.’

‘Who rented the boat to him?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Who were his friends in Paradise?’

Mai hesitated, then said sullenly, ‘Solo Dominico and Danny O’Brien.’

Well, that checked, Lepski thought. At least she seemed to be telling the truth.

‘So he left you here and took his bag back to Paradise City’s airport. Why did he do that?’

‘He wanted a safe place to leave the bag.’

‘Why?’

‘There was something in it he wanted to guard.’’

‘What?’

She clenched her fists.

‘I don’t know. Why don’t you leave me alone?’

‘Did he say he wanted to guard something in the bag?’

‘Yes.’

‘But he didn’t say what?’

‘No.’

‘And you didn’t ask him?’

‘No.’

‘How big was the bag, Mai?’

‘An ordinary suitcase . . . white plastic with a red band around it . . . an ordinary suitcase.’

Lepski stiffened. He had a feeling he was walking over someone’s grave.

‘Let’s have that again.’

She stared at him. The tip of her tongue passed over her lips.

‘It was just an ordinary suitcase.’

‘Go on . . . describe it.’

‘Oh, for God’s sake. It was old and shabby and white, made of plastic with a red band painted around it.’

Lepski decided fate was taking a hand in getting him his promotion.

It was only with difficulty that he kept his face deadpan.

‘Now tell me who he was afraid of.’

She shifted further back on the divan, her eyes suddenly scared.

‘I told you . . . I don’t know.’

Lepski got to his feet. He picked up his shield and put it in his wallet. He was now sure she did know who was after Baldy and this could come out only under an official interrogation. He was wasting time trying to get anything further out of her.