Florida Firefight (10 page)

He sprinted down Bayside Drive, gravel grinding beneath his shoes. There was a hedge and a chain-link fence. He hurdled them both, running hard through the shadows.

In the distance he could see lights on at her cottage.

Hawker pounded across the boulevard, shoulders low, thighs driving.

There were dim shapes in the yard. A man was bent over the figure of a woman. The woman lay still as death. A streetlight swung in the wind, painting the ground with light. Every two strides the light swung, and he could see the woman's face. It was coated in a black mask, like tar. Or blood. Something protruded from the face. Hawker wondered grimly how anyone could put a knife in those haunting, earthen eyes.

“
You—freeze!
” Hawker heard a strange, hoarse yell. It was a moment before he realized the words were his own. He held the Ingram ready, hoping the man would make a move so he could cut him in two.

“Mr. Hawker? James?” The man was huge, with a beard. He moved out of the shadows. Hawker recognized the face and the voice. It was the chef from the Tarpon Inn.

“Logan! Is she dead? What the hell are you doing here?”

The man made a helpless motion, like a bear. “It's like you told us—that neighborhood-watch-program thing. Every night one of us—Graeme or Sandy or me—would walk past Dr. Tiger's house after we got off work from the lodge. You know, to make sure everything was okay.” Logan's voice thickened. Even the Vietnam vet had been shaken by the sight on the ground. He made the helpless motion again. “Tonight I got here too late.”

The woman lay on the ground, her hands clawed out as if to stop a fall.

But there was no stopping this fall.

The knife had been plunged in to the hilt. The waitress uniform had been ripped away. The material was black splotched from the wound. Her breasts were heavy and pale, flattened against her rib cage by their own weight. Her dress had been pulled over meaty thighs, the legs crossed in final defiance.

It took Hawker a long, confused moment before he realized what he was seeing.

“Christ,” he whispered. “This isn't Winnie. It's Sandy.”

Sandy Rand had been the waitress at the Tarpon Inn. She was a garrulous blonde who chewed gum, read scandal sheets, flirted scandalously and did the work of three people. Hawker had liked her.

“Logan—where's Winnie?”

The huge man seemed not to hear. He stood over the corpse, head bowed, arms long and slack. “It was my night to take the watch,” he recited softly. “But she said, ‘Logan, honey, you got more work to do, so I'll just go by that pretty Indian girl's place.' She told me to come by her apartment later. She … she was the only one I ever told how I didn't like being alone since … since Nam, and she would hold me sometimes—”

“Logan!”

“And then I go and let this happen to her …”

Hawker took the man by the shoulders and shook him softly. “Logan, listen to me! It's not your fault. Do you hear? Where's Winnie? Do they still have Winnie?”

A screen door slammed. “No. They don't have Winnie. Winnie was safe and sound inside. She was listening to pretty music on the stereo while this poor girl was fighting for her life,” Dr. Winnie Tiger said as she came across the lawn, arms folded across her white nightgown.

The orange eye of a cigarette glowed in her right hand. Hawker remembered her telling him she loathed smoking. She took an uncomfortable drag from the cigarette and threw it to the ground.

He expected her to race to his arms. Or collapse into tears. She did neither. Her mahogany face was like an Aztec mask. She reached out and took his hand in hers, squeezing it. “I called Chief Simps,” she said.

“You're sure you're okay?”

She nodded. She noticed that little submachine gun for the first time. “How did you know, Hawker? I tried to call, but there was no answer.”

Hawker asked, “Who did it, Winnie? Did you get a look?”

“Too close of a look. You didn't see him?”

His expression was puzzled.

She nodded toward the chef. “Logan didn't show you the other corpse? He didn't show you Sandy Rand's killer?”

“Other corpse?”

“On the other side of the rock wall. Near the road. I'd rather not see it twice.”

“Logan killed him?”

“He says not. You decide for yourself. He's in shock, you know. Keep an eye on him. He was in love with Sandy, and she had a thing for him.” For the first time she seemed near tears. “I feel so … so damn bad about it all, Hawk. She must have seen the son of a bitch snooping outside my cottage, and maybe questioned him or something. She—she was trying to protect me.”

Hawker held her close for a moment, then disentangled himself. Logan still stood over the body of Sandy Rand, his head bowed reverently. He had taken off his jacket and covered her. Hawker walked past him and stopped at the rock wall.

A siren wailed in the distance.

The streetlight still rocked in the wind. Palm fronds rattled.

Pedro Cartagena lay on his back in the damp grass. His face was frozen in a grotesque snarl, the Fu Manchu mustache spread across his face, teeth bared. His arms were locked in close to his body, fingers splayed toward his shoulders, as if fighting the device that had killed him.

He had not died easily. Or prettily.

A black line, as clean—but not as deep—as a razor's slice encircled his neck. The Colombian's eyes bulged.

He had been garroted. Strangled with a wire.

Three blocks away a police car skidded through the turn, blue light pulsing.

Hawker hurried. With his foot he turned the dead man on his side. There was a gurgling noise and a sudden fecal stench mixed with the sheared-metal stink of blood. Hawker found the billfold and slid it into his own pocket.

He felt someone beside him. It was Winnie. She had watched him, and her face was filled with worry and suspicion.

“Who are you, James Hawker?” She seemed to be asking some person beyond his own eyes. “I want to know who you are. Why won't you trust me?”

Hawker turned away and took the Gerber Mark II from the ankle sheath. He wiped the blade and black handle clean and forced the dead man's right fist closed around it.

The police car skidded to a halt in the drive. The dome light blinked on as a squat, heavyset man got out.

Hawker went to Logan and squeezed his arm, hard. “I've got to make this quick, Logan. Listen good. I don't care if you killed that bastard or not. In fact, I hope you did—”

“I didn't kill him.”

“
I don't care, understand?
But they're going to figure you did it. And if you decide you want to admit it, remember: He came at you with a knife. Not the knife that killed Sandy. Another knife, a knife like a dagger.”

“I didn't see any other knife.”

“It's in his right hand. I put it there.”

The huge head turned as if on a turret. The shock-glazed eyes cleared momentarily. He nodded his understanding. “Thanks, James. But I didn't kill him.”

A baritone voice with a hint of drawl came from over Hawker's shoulder. “Well, somebody sure as hell has been doing some killing around here. You boys wouldn't be trying to put together some bullshit story for me, now, would you?”

Chief Ben Simps, head of Mahogany Key's one-man police force, came across the lawn adjusting his gun belt. He was a wide, military-looking man carrying too much fat. The leather holster creaked as he walked.

Hawker had yet to meet him. He had hoped to get together, individually, with both Simps and Boggs McKay when he and the townspeople were ready to strike the Colombians.

He had hoped that would be in about another month.

Now he knew it would be sooner. Much sooner.

“The killer is dead, Chief Simps. He's over by the rock wall.”

Simps looked at him sharply. “Are you an eyewitness?”

“No.”

“Did you kill the man who you say is the killer?”

“No.”

“Then who appointed you spokesman? When I want something out of you, Mr.—”

“Hawker. James Hawker. I bought the Tarpon Inn from Buck Hamilton.”

“When I want something out of you, Mr. Hawker, I'll ask. Until then, just keep quiet, hear?”

“Spare me the Marshal Dillion bit, Simps,” Hawker said softly. “I know a bit too much about you to let it slide.”

The cop whirled, as if he welcomed the confrontation. But then he caught the look in Hawker's eyes. It stopped him. He backed up a step, nervous under Hawker's gaze. He noticed the weapon in Hawker's hands and seemed thankful for the chance to be on the offensive again.

“Where in the hell did you get that?”

Hawker toyed with the idea of saying he had found it on the lawn. He had been damn stupid to bring the Ingram submachine gun.

“It's mine,” Hawker said. “With all the killing going on in this peaceful little town, I thought it was appropriate.”

Simps held out his hand. “I'll take it. Uncle Sam has a thing about private citizens carrying automatic weapons.”

Hawker made no effort to give him the Ingram. “That's right. I guess that's why they make people in my occupation carry them.”

Hawker had no permit. But he had given Simps the proper impression. He wanted him to think he was a federal cop. Hawker watched his reaction closely. Ben Simps didn't seem the kind of man to be intimidated easily. But he was intimidated now.

The meaty face swung around, checking to make sure the other two couldn't hear them. Simps said, “What did you mean, you know too much about me?”

Hawker strung together the list of facts he had gotten from his computer check on Ben Simps. It was an impressive list. Simps had once been a cop in Miami, a crooked cop who knew how to play the game. He had won some commendations. Hawker named the commendations. Unexpectedly, Simps had resigned from the force. Hawker guessed at the reason why, and he could see in Simps's face that he was right.

“You got caught taking payoff money, Simps. Until then your record had been pretty clean—but only because they'd never caught you before, never caught you shaking down whores and bar owners and pimps. So they gave you a choice: Quit the force, or hang around and be indicted. So you stuck your tail between your legs and ran—ran right here to Mahogany Key.”

“And I've been trying to do a good job,” Simps said quickly. “But Christ, this place has gone crazy in the last year. You know where the county seat is? Key West! The damn county seat is a hundred miles by water or two hundred miles by car, so I'm stuck out here in the damn 'Glades without any help—”

“The Colombians are helping you, aren't they? The people in this town aren't dumb. You drive a big new car and own a big new houseboat. They can put two and two together. So can we, Simps. Maybe some friends of mine at the IRS should get down here and do a net-worth investigation—”

“Shit, not that, Hawker—or whoever you are.” Simps had grabbed his arm. He was pleading. “Look, they forced me. They threatened me and my wife. I'll do anything. I'll turn state's evidence. You just name it, and I'll do it.”

Hawker pulled away from him. “You've got a murder to investigate, Chief Simps. Hadn't you better get started? Or do you just sort of turn your head when one of your Colombian friends kills an innocent woman?”

“Anything,” Simps whispered feverishly. “I'll do anything. Christ, I've got grandkids. Don't send me to jail.”

“That woman with the knife in her eye had more courage in her little finger than a dozen of your kind, Simps,” Hawker said coldly. The hook was in, and Hawker set it. “Unfortunately, I'm going to be needing you. I'll tell you when, where and what. Until then, investigate your murder.”

Simps turned away, grateful. His face was shiny with sweat. But then his cop instincts made him look at Hawker again. “You didn't show me any identification. How do I know you're who you say you are?”

“I don't remember telling you I was anything but owner of the Tarpon Inn.” There was a metallic edge to Hawker's voice. “And that's the way it's going to stay. Personally I'd like to see you trucked off with the others when we finally clean this place out. It's up to you.”

“I'll help,” Chief Ben Simps said quickly. “I'll help and I won't ask any more questions.”

Simps adjusted his gun belt. He hurried away toward the corpse.

thirteen

“Did you learn anything about explosives in the Marines?”

Hawker and Logan walked beneath trees down the boulevard toward the Tarpon Inn.

It was 3
A.M.

“I was a cook.”

Hawker knew he was lying. His computer check had told him Logan had been a Marine sergeant, twice winner of the Bronze Star. On his last tour in Nam, he had been placed with a squad of Navy SEALS. He was a demolitions expert. From the gaps in his record, Hawker guessed he had also done some work for I-Corps, military intelligence. Hawker now began to suspect he worked for the FBI—or the CIA.

Someone else had been monitoring the activities of the South Americans. Hawker wondered if it was Logan.

“What kind of cook?”

“A very good one.”

“And you didn't kill the Colombian?”

Logan gave him a warning look. He had already answered his share of questions. Chief Ben Simps had done a professional and complete preliminary investigation, probably to impress Hawker. Through an arrangement with Monroe County, Mahogany Key's county, Collier County had sent a coroner's wagon for the bodies. Simps had questioned Winnie Tiger and Logan individually. He had asked them the same things over and over.

Their answers were always the same. Winnie had been in bed, listening to the stereo. She had had no idea what had happened until Logan pounded on the door. Logan said he had been on the way to Sandy Rand's apartment when he heard a scream. He couldn't tell if it was a man screaming or a woman. Both Sandy and the Colombian were dead when he got there.