Believed Violent (6 page)

He hesitated, then walked to the door and rang the bell. The door was opened by a small, bird-like woman with cold, unfriendly eyes, a tight mouth and her thinning hair done up in a bun on the top. of her head. She wore a black, shapeless dress that had seen a lot of wear, and in spite of the heat, a grubby white shawl over her shoulders. She regarded Sherman without interest. In a waspish voice, she asked, “Well, young man . . . what do you want?”

“I’ve just been up to Miss Jacey’s apartment,” Sherman said. “We had a date for seven-thirty. She isn’t in.”

“I can’t help that, can I?” Mrs. Watson said. “If she isn’t in, she isn’t in.”

“I was wondering if you had heard if she had been delayed.”

Mrs. Watson screwed up her bitter mouth.

“No one tells me anything.”

Sherman realized he was wasting time. The next move would be to telephone the Research Station. It was more than possible Nona had had to work late.

“Thanks . . . sorry to have troubled you,” he said and walked across the lobby, opened the front door and ran down the steps. He slid under the driving wheel of the Pontiac. As he was about to press down on the starter, Keegan, hiding on the floor of the back of the car, rose up and hit him behind his right ear with a sand-filled cosh.

Sherman fell forward, unconscious. Keegan knew just how hard it was necessary to hit a man to render him unconscious and just how hard to kill him. He rolled Sherman’s inert body away from the driving seat so that his body slumped half on the passenger’s seat, half on the car’s floor. Then he climbed over the seat, slid under the driving wheel and set the car in motion.

Silk started the Thunderbird, following the Pontiac that moved at a leisurely speed to the main street. It turned right, the Thunderbird following. It drove down a narrow street and slowed as it came to a vacant building site, high with weeds and coarse grass. The two cars stopped. Silk looked up and down the deserted street, then got out of the Thunderbird to help Keegan drag Sherman’s unconscious body out of the Pontiac. Swiftly, they half carried, half dragged him into the thick, high growing weeds.

“Watch it . . . don’t kill him,” Silk said. “Just bust him up for a nice two week stay in hospital.”

“Sure, I know,” Keegan said, and as Silk returned to the Thunderbird, he swung his foot back and kicked Sherman viciously in the face.

Silk got into the car. He glanced at his watch, saw the time was a few minutes to eight o’clock. He tilted his hat over his nose and closed his eye.

Some minutes later, Keegan came through the weeds, pausing every now and then to wipe his shoes on the rough grass, then he slid under the driving wheel.

“He’s fine,” he said as he started the engine. “He’ll be as troublesome as an ant for the next two weeks. Where now?”

Silk knew and admired Keegan’s expertise. Keegan could kick a man to within a heartbeat of death, and yet the man could still survive although he would be nothing to get worked up about after the beating.

“Where now?” he repeated, pushing his hat to the back of his head. “The City Court. You leave me there. No need for both of us to check this. The Magistrate sits at nine o’clock. I’ll get a taxi back.”

“Anything you say,” Keegan said and sent the Thunderbird shooting down the dark street.

At ten o’clock, Silk walked into the Belevedere Hotel, entered the elevator and was whisked up to the penthouse suite. Here, he found Lindsey on the terrace, looking down at the bright lights far below and at the young people still bathing in the warm, moonlit sea.

Lindsey turned as he heard Silk come across the red and white tiles.

“Well?”

“Just the way you wanted it,” Silk said. “Very smooth: no trouble. She drew a week in the Pen and a twenty-five dollar fine. The Magistrate was a fat old queer who hates girls. He took one look at her and threw the book at her.”

“Sherman?”

“He didn’t know what hit him. Right now, he’s in the State Hospital: fractured jaw, four broken ribs and a beautiful concussion. He’ll survive but it will take time.”

Lindsey winced. He hated violence, but when working for Radnitz, he had found he had to live with it.

“You’ve done well.” He looked down at the screaming, happy crowd on the beach. He envied them. How uncomplicated were their lives! “This girl . . . find out when she’ll be released and pick her up. Get someone to go to her apartment, pack her things and settle her rent . . . use a woman.”

“I’ll take care of it,” Silk said and looked expectantly at Lindsey. “Anything else?”

“Not right now.”

Lindsey took a roll of $50 bills from his hip pocket and handed it to Silk.

“The big operation gets going when we have the girl,” he said. “I’ll go over the details with you at the end of the week.”

“Okay.” Silk examined the roll of bills, nodded his satisfaction, then left the penthouse suite.

Lindsey wandered to the terrace balcony and looked down at the young people, splashing in the sea. He watched them for several minutes, then leaving the terrace, he entered Radnitz’s study. He sat down at the desk and began to re-read the notes Radnitz had left him. When Lindsey had an operation in his lap, he concentrated his whole mind on it. This was the trickiest operation he had been given. It involved a madman and four million dollars. For the first time since he had worked for Radnitz, he wondered, uneasily if he would succeed.

Sheila Latimer was Keegan’s slave.

The previous summer, she had been the runner up for a Miss Florida competition, and would have won it had she been willing to have slept with two or three of the judges.

Chet Keegan was fond of young, well built girls. When he wasn’t working with Silk, he was roaming around, looking for likely material to corrupt.

Any local beauty competition was his happy hunting ground. He had regarded Sheila Latimer with approval. She was tall, beautifully built, blonde with big blue eyes and full curved, red lips. What he didn’t realize was that she was not only a virgin, but frightened of sex.

He found her drinking a Coke in a small bar that was at the moment empty except for the girl and the bartender. She was trying to console herself that she really could have been Miss Florida had the other creature who had won the title been less corrupt.

Keegan joined her. He had a very easy and deceptive manner with women. His handsomeness, his smooth manner, his confidence intrigued her. When he told her that she was his pick of all the girls who had been on parade, she naturally warmed to him. For the first ten minutes, they got along well together, but Keegan was always impatient. He didn’t believe that a woman should be wooed. The dreary, slow business of breaking the ice, manoeuvring, spending money on a woman bored him. A girl either wanted it or she didn’t. It was as simple as that.

Sheila was wearing a white bra and tight fitting red, cotton slacks. It was while she was leaning over the bar to help herself to another olive that Keegan pulled back the elastic of her slacks and slid down his hand, his fingers closing around her bare buttocks.

For a brief moment, Sheila remained motionless. Her flesh crawled with horror as she felt the smooth, soft fingers outraging her privacy. Then she swung around, jerking his hand away and slammed her handbag against his face. The metal clasp of the handbag struck his nose. As he reeled back, his face suddenly a mask of blood, she ran frantically out of the bar.

The bartender who had witnessed what had happened, offered a towel.

“A good try, Buster,” he said admiringly. “You got more nerve than me. How did it feel?”

Keegan used the towel to mop up the blood, then he tossed the towel back to the bartender. He put three one dollar bills on the counter. His small, green eyes gleamed as he said, “Thanks, Joe. You never know with women, do you?” and holding his handkerchief to his still bleeding nose, he left the bar.

Hitting Keegan was as dangerous as slapping at a black mamba. Sheila Latimer had no idea what she had started. She was furious, ashamed and revolted by what this man had done to her. She rushed back to her rented room and took a shower, vigorously scrubbing herself to get rid of the creepy feeling of the fingers that had touched her.

Out of the shower, suddenly lonely, not knowing what her future would be, sickened by this blond, baby-faced man’s behaviour, she threw herself on the bed and wept.

Sheila had no one to turn to. She had quarrelled with her parents, small minded, disapproving people who lived on a Mid-West farm and from where Sheila had escaped to Miami where she worked as a hotel receptioness. Hoping for something more exciting than coping with half drunk, idiotic tourists, she had entered for the Beauty competition. She knew no one in Paradise City where the competition had been held. As a runner up, she had been promptly dropped. The fat, bored agent who had arranged everything for her immediately lost interest when she failed to win the competition. Now, she would have to return to Miami and hope to get her hotel job back.

She spent a miserable, restless night. Every so often she woke, still feeling in her imagination the groping soft fingers on her body. A little after seven o’clock, as she was turning uneasily in her bed, wondering if she shouldn’t get up and make herself a cup of coffee, she heard the front doorbell ring. She sat up. It could be a telegram! There might be an offer from her agent! Struggling into a wrap, she ran across the room and opened the door.

Chet Keegan pushed his way in. Before she could scream, his clenched fist struck her on the side of her jaw and she fell forward at his feet. He closed the door, dragged her to the bed and threw her on it.

He collected a brief-case he had brought with him. From it, he took four short lengths of cord. He tied her ankles and wrists to the bed. Then he took from the brief-case a hypodermic syringe and a rubber topped bottle.

It took five nightmare days and nights to turn Sheila Latimer into a craven, broken heroin addict. When Keegan was satisfied that she was broken, he left her, leaving her his telephone number, sure she would call him. Two days later, she was babbling over the telephone line, hysterically begging him to help her. He went to her apartment with the necessary fix. Before giving her the fix, he used and abused her. Whatever he demanded, whatever he did to her, meant nothing to her. The needle that sank into her vein was the overwhelming need in her life.

So now, she was Keegan’s slave.

Two days after Nona Jacey’s arrest, Sheila pulled up outside Mrs. Watson’s apartment house. She got out of the Opel Kadett that Keegan had given her and walked up the steps to the front door.

She was feeling pretty good. Keegan had given her a fix an hour or so ago, and she was relaxed and more than willing to do what she had been told to do.

She rang the bell and waited. There was some delay, then the door opened. Mrs. Watson regarded her with disapproval and suspicion.

“What is it?” she demanded, hugging her grubby shawl to her.

“I am Sheila Mason,” Sheila said, repeating the dialogue Keegan had made her memorize. “I am Nona Jacey’s cousin. As you know, Nona is in trouble. She won’t be coming back. I am here to pay her rent and to take her things.”

“That little thief!” Mrs. Watson’s face turned sour. “To think of it! Shop-lifting! Well, she deserves what she got! You don’t take her things until the rent has been paid . . . she owes me a month. That’ll be a hundred dollars!”

Pay her what she asks, Keegan had said. She is certain to rob you, but pay her.

Sheila opened her bag and took the money Keegan had given her from it. She gave Mrs. Watson two fifty dollar bills. “May I have the key, please? I want to pack her things.”

Mrs. Watson studied the two bills, then nodded. She stared at the blonde, white-faced girl curiously.

“I didn’t know she had a cousin,” she said. “She never mentioned you.”

“I’m from Texas,” Sheila said, following Keegan’s dialogue. “She will be returning with me when she is released.”

Mrs. Watson snorted.

“I wouldn’t have her back here,” she said. “Take her things and let me have the room.” She slammed the door.

Sheila mounted the stairs. Chet, she thought, would be pleased. It was really very simple. If he was really pleased, he might leave her alone tonight and he might give her a stronger fix.

She felt almost light-hearted as she unlocked the door on the third floor and entered Nona’s deserted apartment.

Lindsey decided he would have to handle personally the next phase of the operation. Neither Silk nor Keegan had the know-how to cope successfully with Dr. Alex Kuntz.

He dialled the doctor’s number and after three attempts, finally got past the busy signal. A woman’s voice, cool and impersonal, answered.

“I would like an appointment with Dr. Kuntz,” Lindsey said. “Either this afternoon or tomorrow morning.”

“I am sorry . . . Dr. Kuntz has no free time until the end of next week. Could I suggest Friday week at three?”

Expecting such an answer, Lindsey said, “No, I’m also sorry. Please consider this as an emergency. It must be this afternoon or at the latest tomorrow morning.”

“Who did you say was calling?” Her voice now was cautious.

“This is Jonathan Lindsey. Would you be kind enough to tell Dr. Kuntz that I am acting on behalf of Mr. Herman Radnitz? I believe he knows him.”

There was a pause, then the woman said, “Please hold on.”

Lindsey reached for a boiled sweet from a jar he kept on the desk. Although he didn’t smoke nor drink, he was an addict to sucking boiled sweets. There was a long delay, then the woman said, “Dr. Kuntz will see you this evening at six o’clock.”

Lindsey smiled to himself.

“Thank you . . . I’ll be there,” and he hung up.

Two minutes after six o’clock, Lindsey left his Cadillac Fleetwood, parked outside Dr. Kuntz’s impressive mansion that overlooked the yacht harbour in Greater Miami, and walked up the seven marble steps. He rang the doorbell.

A nurse came to the door: a faded, elderly experienced looking woman who gave him a hard stare and a brief impersonal smile as she led him into a big, ornately furnished waiting-room.