Dirty Harry 04 - The Mexico Kill (2 page)

It was their two guests.

“Anything we can do for you gentlemen?” the skipper asked, still looking out toward the sea rather than at them.

“Not a thing,” responded the bearded man. “Not one blessed thing.”

The first mate started to say something. But he sputtered his words, and they weren’t articulate enough for the skipper to adequately comprehend.

Nor did he have an opportunity to make himself understood.

Just then there was a terrific clatter and a burst of blazing light that for an instant outdid anything in the sky. Then the first mate tumbled over, his chest torn apart and becoming engulfed with blood. The skipper turned and beheld two AK47s confronting him. He did not know whether first to protest, appeal for mercy, or demand an explanation. In any case, he was not given a chance. Two Soviet-made machine guns were trained on him simultaneously. One took him to the port side, the other to the starboard. Bullets from one gun met and coupled with bullets from the other midway in his body. Spun into the air, a man twice, three times dead, he crashed into the sea that he’d sailed all of his life. The third crewman, immobilized by the fear, made a belated attempt to run. The problem was there was nowhere he could go, no escape. A single shell trapped in the base of his neck was sufficient to kill him. Others followed, but they were simply gratuitous.

All this commotion had predictably aroused the two crewmen below. The hijackers were prepared for them. As they raced up the stairs they were met by a withering fire that tore into both of them, sending them reeling back down into the cabin, their bodies gaping grotesquely with holes that rapidly filled with blood. For a few moments, an arm could be seen moving in the tangle of limbs and bodies, flailing this way and that. But the man was dead and simply hadn’t realized it yet.

The two assailants, their clothes spattered with the blood of the men they’d so easily killed, regarded their night’s work with satisfaction. “Two for the price of one,” the bearded man remarked.

“Never mind that,” the other muttered. “Time to dump them overboard. The sharks are waiting for their supper.”

C H A P T E R
O n e

H
arold Keepnews was not a man who liked to be kept waiting. He had not amassed forty million dollars by waiting. In fact one of the reasons he’d gone out of his way to make so much money was so that he wouldn’t have to endure long lines and endless delays. If someone told him that he would get right back to him, well, he assumed that he would. No one put off Harold Keepnews.

Maybe it was all that money that made him look as prosperous and as vital as he did, but you never knew. He had the sort of presence that commands respect. He sauntered into a room, and you knew right away that whatever he did it must be something truly important. Determined to fight back the encroachment of time, he exercised regularly in a gym he had built onto the back end of his house, ate vegetarian, drank herbal teas, and voted Republican. The Democrats he was sure would drive him and his friends into penury before long.

You had the feeling Harold Keepnews would live a long time no matter what party controlled the White House. His granddaddy had made it to the venerable age of ninety-one, his father had succumbed two months shy of eighty-nine. They had passed on to Keepnews a handsome genetic legacy.

Keepnews had friends everywhere, friends in the police, friends in the Coast Guard. Which was why he assumed that his problem would be very quickly, and smoothly, ironed out.

“My boat’s been hijacked,” he declared matter-of-factly to Captain Cornell Haines who was trim and handsome enough to have walked right out of a Police Benevolent Association poster. Keepnews didn’t like to sound alarmed even though the circumstances might be pressing.

Haines had met Keepnews on a variety of occasions, official ceremonies mostly at which San Francisco’s social and financial elite was expected to turn out. Keepnews was the sort of man who didn’t have to look into a mirror to remember what he looked like; his photograph was in the newspapers that often.

Haines respected Keepnews and listened carefully to what he was saying, taking notes. He didn’t have to take many notes though. Keepnews preferred to be succinct.

“When did this happen, sir?”

“Sometime between the 5th of July and yesterday. I couldn’t tell you exactly when.”

“How do you know that the
Hyacinth
wasn’t simply lost at sea? There’s always the possibility of an accident. I’m not suggesting that you’re wrong, sir, I just want to explore all the options.”

Haines looked up at Keepnews, fully expecting a reprimand for his presumption. He’d much rather have conducted this interview at the station than here in the lush airy setting of Keepnews’ house.

“It was no accident. If it were an accident I’d be talking to my insurance agent now and not you. We are talking about piracy and murder.”

Haines didn’t like the sound of the word piracy. It had a vaguely anachronistic ring to it. On the other hand, it wasn’t such a farfetched allegation. People were crazy if they didn’t take a 30-30 or a shotgun with them when they set out on sea journeys of any significant distance. It had gotten that bad. But Haines was strictly a city boy. What happened in the water—unless that water was the bathtub water somebody drowned in—was none of his concern. Still, when a man like Keepnews talked you listened.

“You must admit, Mr. Keepnews, that if your charges are true, and they may well be . . .”

“There should be no doubt in your mind,” Keepnews broke in.

“It’s not my mind that counts here. It’s a matter of gathering evidence. You maintain no radio contact with your boat, then it disappears with all on board.”

“The crew disappeared, not the boat.”

Haines looked puzzled. “I’m afraid I don’t understand.”

Part of the problem in this exchange was that Keepnews had the habit of starting at the middle and working back to the beginning of his story, all the while expecting his listener to follow his train of thought.

“My boat’s here. Right in San Francisco. Moored at the Marina Yacht Harbor.”

“You saw it, you saw the
Hyacinth
?” Haines suddenly had the hope that this case might be surprisingly easy to solve.

“Of course, the pirates have changed the name. It’s called
The Sojourner
now. They’ve done a painting job on it. Sails are all a mess of colors. Me, I only had white sails. These bastards have no taste.”

“You are positive it is the same boat?”

“Positive. It’s a Mariner, same design. You investigate you’ll find a Perkins 62-horsepower diesel, skeg-mounted rudder, all the rigging’s three-eights-inch stainless 304.”

Haines wasn’t sure he cared for all the technical details and he held up his hand to stop Keepnews from getting carried away.

“Now you said that you’ve spoken to Coast Guard officials.”

“Joe Morse himself, you know him?”

“Afraid I don’t, sir.”

“Fine fellow, Joe: Known him for years. Useless though. He advised me to speak to you folks.”

Haines nodded gravely. “You saw your boat when, yesterday?”

“Two-thirty in the afternoon. I’ve been down at the marina every day since Friday waiting for the
Hyacinth.”

“You see anyone on the boat?”

“Let’s say there were some suspicious-looking fellows in the vicinity but I can’t say as whether they were with the boat or not.”

“No one you recognized?”

“No, no one. Whoever they are, we travel in entirely different circles.”

Haines rose, preparing to say his goodbyes. He wanted to assure Keepnews that the police would do everything within their power to bring the matter to a successful conclusion.

Keepnews frowned. “Captain,” he said, “I expect immediate action. Tomorrow morning I would like a call from you to give me the latest report.”

“These things take time, sir. We can’t just invade a private yacht without reasonable grounds of suspicion.”

“I gave you all the reasonable grounds you need, Captain.”

This last remark Haines missed completely. His attention was diverted by the woman who’d just appeared in the doorway of the study. She was clad in a blue denim robe loosely gathered over a lustrous black tank bathing suit. Her long brandy-colored hair was dripping water down into her face but she didn’t appear to notice. Her eyes were child-like, brimming with mirth and innocence; she looked like an updated version of Orphelia, taken out of the lake before she had a chance to sink to the bottom of it.

Keepnews observed Haines’ reaction with amusement.

“Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t know you had company,” the woman said.

“That’s all right, dear. Captain Haines, meet my wife, Wendy.”

Haines nodded in acknowledgment, wondering if you needed forty million dollars before a woman like this was a possibility.

Her smile, he thought, was enchanting.

“You’ll excuse me, won’t you? I have to run and change.”

With that she was gone.

Keepnews’ voice brought Haines back from the reverie Wendy Keepnews had just induced. “So you will phone me like you said, sometime tomorrow morning?”

“Absolutely,” Haines said. But his mind was far from pirated yachts. All he could think about was the aphrodisiacal powers of vast amounts of money.

Keepnews had no faith in either Haines or the police force he represented; they would only claim that the matter was not in their purview and pass the buck to another ineffectual agency. No, Keepnews decided, unless Haines produced a miracle by tomorrow, he would have to seek another source of help. Very likely somebody who didn’t mind resorting to unconventional, and possibly illegal, methods. Somebody who didn’t mind getting his hands dirty doing it. Somebody like his old friend Harry Callahan.

C H A P T E R
T w o

J
ust off Union Street, on Fillmore, a new discotheque called Dorthaan’s had opened. With a five-hundred-dollar annual membership fee, the clientele was bound to be well heeled, the kind of fabulous-looking people who photographers kill one another to capture on film. The kind of people you never see until very late at night; what happens to them during the day is anyone’s guess. Just like vampires in that respect.

Dorthaan’s was not the sort of place that would appeal to Harry Callahan. It wasn’t the sort of place he could afford either. He was drinking at a bar across the street, which was why he happened to be near the place. The bar afforded a nice vantage point from which to watch the parade of guests, the tuxedoed men and the silken women, proceeding up to the top of the stairs and standing underneath the canopied entrance while they produced their credentials to obtain entrance. The two men who stood guard, in uniforms bright with brass buttons, were not giants exactly, but two pygmies placed one on top the other still wouldn’t reach their height.

Being off-duty, and with nothing in particular to do this sizzling July night, Harry entertained himself with the spectacle across the street. He noticed that the men were almost invariably older than the women, rich, established, and balding. About the only thing they had in common with the women was a deep healthy tan.

Harry had no reason to believe he’d recognize any of these people. But one, a man about fifty years of age, stuck out of the gathering crowd and not just because he lacked a tan. (It was hard to acquire a tan while you were doing five-to-ten in a federal penitentiary, after all.) He stuck out because Harry had been trying to run him down for the last six months or so. His name was Nicholas Cimentini, though his friends and his enemies—and they were more numerous by far—simply called him Father Nick. A shadowy figure in a shadowy world, he was heavily involved in the heroin trade, though he wouldn’t take any of the drug himself, obeying the dealer’s ancient law: Never do what you push.

Technically speaking, Father Nick was on probation and subject to such a long imprisonment that by the time he got out he’d be collecting Social Security. But Father Nick had not allowed that prospect to deter him. Couldn’t stay away from temptation, Father Nick. Even the lowliest of low lifes on Mission knew that Father Nick had gone back in operation.

Now it seemed to Harry, watching Father Nick and his date who looked like she could be a starlet, a model, a high-priced call girl, or maybe all three, that this was a very rich and rare opportunity for him. It would have seemed this way if he hadn’t had a few brews, but no doubt the alcohol heightened his resolve.

Harry was certain Father Nick was carrying. Maybe a handgun, maybe some coke he was saving for his girlfriend. But he was convinced that the man was too complacent to expect an arrest for a probation violation. And obviously an establishment like Dorthaan’s was the last place he would expect to confront a police officer.

As soon as Father Nick was inside the club, Harry left the bar and strode across the street, mounting the stairs that led to the canopied entranceway like he’d been doing this for years.

The two uniformed guards held him with their eyes; they did not care for Harry’s looks nor for the way he dressed. Clearly they didn’t care for his presumption that he had any business here.

“Can we help you, sir?” Spoken in the patronizing manner of men who delighted in helping people by tossing them back down the stairs.

“Police officer,” Harry said, flashing his identification in their faces. They weren’t remotely impressed.

“You may well be a police officer,” one agreed, “but that does not entitle you to free entrance to the club. Unless, of course, you are a guest of one of our members.”

Harry owned that he was no one’s guest.

“Then would you mind leaving, sir? This is a private club.”

The guard’s voice carried utter conviction; he evidently assumed that Harry would turn right around and walk away. But Harry had not been this close to Father Nick since he had testified against him in court six years before, and he desperately wanted him back in the slammer. An opportunity like this might never come again. Father Nick had a habit of fading back into obscurity. Following his trail was like following a man through the Sahara during a sandstorm.