Ken Kuhlken_Hickey Family Mystery 01 (15 page)

And what did all that honorable living make him, after thirty-seven years? A killer.

Leo came in and Hickey motioned to the smashed wall. “Funniest thing happened. Wall just caved in.”

“Uh huh,” Leo said. “Make you feel better?”

“Oh, yeah. I’m brightened up considerably. Now I want to hear how you figure some things. How all those creeps fit together. Like Zarp with the del Montes. You expect he was running the show?”

“No reason to think so. I figure the big guy would be a Mex. Anyway, nobody with sense is gonna get led by some witch doctor, and, sure, old Santiago’s lost his marbles, but there’s smarts in the family. Ruiz says the old fart went to university in Europe, way back, and his first couple wives were Russian countesses. He came up this way with Francisco Magón, during the revolution, and made a killing, with plunder and all. Ruiz says he’s got ships, fishers out of Mazatlan and Vera Cruz, a couple gold mines, ranchos here and there, who knows what else. Now, whoever runs all that’s gotta have sense. You know what they say about a fool and his money.”

“They say a lotta crap. You don’t need sense. It’s like in the movie, that old guy tells Orson Welles, ‘All you need to make money is to want it more than anything else.’”

“Aw, Tom, you got all the answers,” Leo scoffed. “You think Zarp’s the kingpin?”

“Is or was. Last night he was giving a speech, right at the head of the table.”

“Sure. In his own joint, with his drinks, his rosy-titted waitress. He puts out the loot, he gets to make the speech.”

“Yeah. His gold.”

“Huh?”

“You didn’t see maybe ten grand of gold, with the cups, the urn on the table, about two hundred buttons?”

“I figured it was real shiny brass.”

“You’re going blind, Dad.”

Leo harrumphed, got a toothpick from his desk and started chewing. “Other stuff was on my mind, Tom.” They locked eyes for a moment. Then Leo went to the hat rack, put his hat on the desk and started sailing cards into it. “So this coup—maybe it’s a silent kind. Hell, Tom, there could be Krauts landing in Ensenada right now. Or Japs. See, one night, the Krauts roll over the border while the Japs invade by air. Wouldn’t be much crazier than Pearl Harbor.”

“They could stop at the Rosarito Beach Casino and capture most of our brass and flyboys.”

“Jesus,” Leo groaned.

“You bet.” Hickey stepped to the window, looked out over hundreds of people crossing Broadway, waiting for the trolley, shouting at cabs, stalled in traffic though it was 10
p.m.
He wondered how many’d get snuffed the night the Japs finally showed.

The phone rang. Leo answered. “Yeah, Vi.…Whatta you mean she’s gone?”

Chapter Twenty

No one had seen Wendy leave. Vi was bathing, Magda had dozed. The bodyguards, McColgin on the boulevard side, his pal Nels on the seawalk, blamed each other. She’d disappeared about 11
p.m.
By midnight McColgin and Leo were searching on the boulevard and bayside, while Nels took the beach south toward the jetty and Hickey combed the beach northward.

Tide was low, going out, the moon half-full, giving the water and beach a greenish color. Sand flurried up in the gusty breeze. Waves, instead of rolling, rose against the breeze to their full height before they crashed. Their noise sounded distant and ghostly. Hickey tromped the wet sand at the tideline, sweeping his gaze out to sea, then back across the beach to the seawall. Every time he’d spot a body and look closer, it was either a hobo sleeping against the wall, out of the sandy breeze, or a lonely nightwalker. Only the miserable came here at night, or men with bad dreams and nothing to lose.

A few miles up, as Hickey neared La Jolla, the cliffs began and each house got larger than the last. Some had walled yards with tropical gardens and pools. Pathways and wooden steps led down the cliffs and the moon shined on
no trespassing
signs. Nobody except Hickey walked the beach here. Guard dogs pulled on the ends of their chains, sometimes halfway down the cliffs, and barked in frenzy or howled.

About 2
a.m.
, Hickey found a trail up the cliff, through a vacant lot to the residential street that wound past walled villas up to the coast highway, where he knew of an all-night gas station. The attendant, a bearded guy who smelled like fish, took a quarter and gave him the phone. He called Vi.

“You got her?”

Leo had checked with Vi and gone out again, driving the bayside alleys. McColgin and his pal, deciding the Mexicans had nabbed her, had given up and were dozing on the couch. Hickey told Vi to wake the bums. He got McColgin on the line. “Hear this, Palooka. Nobody rests until she’s safe.” He slammed down the phone and hustled back to the cliffs, kicking rocks on the way.

The tide began rising, the sandy beach narrowed, and rocky points jutted out from the cliffs. Where the points met the breakers, sea lions lay barking softly in their sleep and pelicans napped on the highest rocks. Crossing the mossy boulders, Hickey stumbled and slipped. The third time he cussed out loud, somebody yelped, “Who goes there?”

On the cliff stood a tower, long and triangular, like a life guard station, with a large air raid siren on top that blasted a rehearsal at noon every day. The man stood in the moonshadow of the tower.

“What’s your business?” he shouted.

It was too dark and far to notice much about the guy except that he held a rifle, aimed. “Say, buddy,” Hickey shouted. “You seen a girl pass by? Last couple hours?”

“Maybe. What’s she to you?”

“My kid. Help me out, pal. She’s in trouble.”

“Okay. Sure. A blonde, in white. Didn’t seem to hear me shouting. Got about twenty minutes on you.”

Hickey yelled thanks, jumped to the next rock, racked his feet trying to jog across a hundred yards of beach covered with baseball-sized stones. He ran and walked another hour, knee deep around the point at Bird Rock, down Wind and Sea’s mile-long sandy beach where the rollers curled under and out again without touching shore. He finally had to rest before climbing across the next point and wading through the inlet just south of La Jolla Cove. The tide had turned. It roared in close, slapped and thundered against the thirty-foot cliffs, began flooding the rock ledges where tidepools had been. It swept around huge boulders that partitioned the beach, invaded grottos and caves. The tide rolled a foot deep into the narrow, dark gorge between the cliff and boulders, where Hickey needed to pass to reach the next sandy beach. Where he stumbled over Wendy Rose.

She sat as though wedged into the tunnel-like gorge, lying back against the cliff, arms to her sides, eyes blindly open. The ebb tide covered her legs and waist, touched her ribs. She hadn’t moved, until Hickey tried to pick her up, to drag her out of there. Then as quick as though she’d been poised to sprint, she bolted out the far side of the gorge.

It was so narrow, Hickey had to squeeze through sideways, which cost him a half-minute. He came out on a beach the locals called “Boomer,” where the steep drop from shore doubled the breakers’ force. Wendy was already caught in a wave. It flipped her over backwards, shot her up again.

Throwing off his coat, kicking off his shoes, Hickey raced into the water. But the girl had disappeared. An hour ago, wet and exhausted, he’d lost the feeling of cold and thought he’d gone numb. Now he learned better. The water burned. In some places it felt like a razor slashing him. He dove through a wave, surfaced and tried to hold still, treading water. Finally he spotted her hair floating about ten feet away.

When he grabbed her, she writhed for a moment, then went limp. He got her head above the water, holding her by the waist and under one arm, and towed her in. About halfway to shore he heard her breathing. He slung her gently over his shoulder, carried her south a hundred feet to a trail and lugged her up the cliffside. He laid her on grass in front of a tearoom.

He took her pulse, waited until her breathing got steady, then left her and crossed the road to the nearest house, where an ancient fellow who’d been fetching his newspaper let him use a telephone.

When he got back to Wendy, she was shivering wildly. Her eyes seemed all white, as if the blue in them had frozen. He tried to hold her but she pushed him away. The man from across the road came hobbling, carrying a blanket for her. Hickey laid it across her shoulders. She thrashed it off. Her mouth kept opening, but only a few words and sounds came out. She wailed, “Clifford?” Any second, Hickey thought, she was going to die or dream off too far, out wherever it is that crazy people go and never return from. When Leo’s Packard pulled to the curb she was saying, “Fish. Come here fish. Over here, please.”

It took some muscle to get her into the Packard. Hickey climbed in back with her. She slid to the far side, pressed against the door, braced her arms against the front seat and stayed that way the whole three miles.

At the motel, Vi and Magda got her into a hot bath. After a few minutes the girl asked for Hickey. Vi stopped him at the bathroom door. “God sake, Tom, don’t look at her. It’s not decent.”

“Yeah.” He stepped around Vi and sat on the edge of the tub. For a couple minutes, he managed not to look. Then he gave up and turned her way. Her graceful arms and long fingers floated on the water. One of her nipples kept surfacing. Every time heat rushed through him, he winced in shame, especially when Vi stepped in, gave him a glare and doused the water with bubblebath. She ran the tap and swished suds around until they covered the girl.

For an hour, Hickey sat there, staring at her face. Every few minutes, Hickey ran the tap, heating the water. It was all he could think of to do. He was digging for ideas that might fix her, cursing himself because he never found a good one. After she stopped shivering, Wendy lay as if she were asleep except that her eyes stayed open, looking at the ceiling.

Finally Vi came in, chased Hickey off, and coaxed the girl out of the tub and into pajamas. Vi led her to the bedroom, tucked her into bed and turned off the overhead light, leaving on a dim lamp in the corner. Wendy tossed a little, then closed her eyes. From a chair by the lamp, Hickey watched her.

It looked as if she’d fallen asleep, but suddenly she raised herself onto one elbow. Her eyes, which since yesterday had seemed not to fix on anything real, widened and settled on Hickey.

“Sit here,” she whispered, and patted the bed beside her.

He moved over there. She took his hand. In a minute she’d fallen asleep. Hickey leaned back against the headboard, determined not to move, not if she slept ten hours. He wouldn’t risk letting her dream off any further without trying to coax her back. Anyway, he was happy there. Like a hiker in a thunderstorm who’d discovered a cave to hide in. Dozing on and off for a couple hours, every time he woke he felt warm and content.

Early the next afternoon, Hickey pocketed Leo’s snub nosed .45 and led Wendy out to the beach. She’d talked a little over breakfast, to ask Vi what the jam was made of. He wanted to keep her talking. He needed to learn more about her. For both their sakes, he told himself, he should know everything—before he figured the next move. The more he knew, the better chance he’d have to think of a right answer. For her. Or himself.

If the Metzgers weren’t lying, some folks in TJ ought to be disabled, by him or somebody, before Sunday. Folks who had plenty of gold.

He decided to risk a question, see how she acted. “Down there in Hell,” he said gently, “besides dancing, what’d those guys make you do?”

Wendy seized her head in both hands, she could hardly breathe, and she stumbled but held her legs stiff, the way she’d learned from dancing, and made herself talk, because Tom Hickey wanted to hear.

“At church—when they are
penitentes
—they go to the altar so I will anoint them.”

“Yeah. I guess I saw that.” He noticed her legs trembling, led her back across the beach, thirty yards to the seawall. They sat down. “You don’t have to tell me any more. Not now.”

“Not about George?” she whispered.

“George—he’s the guy that brought you to Tijuana, right? And George is dead?”

She kept nodding harder. “I saw him burning.”

She moaned long and deep. Tom Hickey didn’t know that she was bad. When he knew he’d lock her in a tiny dark room, she feared. But if she lied to him, even God would hate her. With a moan as though she’d been kicked in her belly, she confessed, “I stabbed George, Tom Hickey. It’s why the Devil—made me stay in Hell. Two years, he said, and you know—if I ran away with my Clifford, the Devil would bring me back forever. Oh,” she cried, “it’s not two years. He will take me back there now.”

Hickey stood up and walked out across the sand. “Nobody’s taking you,” he growled. He turned and stared, with his head cocked and his body twisted sideways, as if he’d yell at her, but the next words came softly. “Why’d you stab him?”

Already she’d fallen off the seawall to her knees, and now she crawled to him across the hot sand and burrowed her knees into the sand at his feet with her head bowed.

“In church. The Devil—he says George will die. Because George tries to stab Mofeto. The Devil says when a body dies he has to save the blood—for anointing the
penitentes
.”

She glanced up. Tom Hickey was a big shadow across the sky. Frantically, she said, “He was the meanest person in the world—George—meaner than Mofeto or Franz. Or the Devil. And he didn’t feel. He didn’t. I stabbed him fast like Mr. Meyers killed the horse. Honest…” She started pounding her thighs with her fists, hard as though trying to drive her feet into the sand. “If I lie, Tom Hickey, God will hate me—but if I tell you, truly, you will take me back to Hell.”

She thrashed her head violently. Hair fell over her eyes, and she had to throw an arm down to brace herself, to keep her from tumbling onto Hickey’s feet. He kneeled in front of her. “Nobody’s taking you back to Hell.”

“Promise,” she whispered.

“Promise.”

“I thought you were an angel. I’m silly.”

“No, you’re…” Hickey couldn’t think of a word.

She threw her hands up, gripped her shoulders, squeezed her elbows and forearms tight in front of her breasts. “I stabbed and stabbed,” she whispered. “He bled on me. Like a—fountain. In my mouth. My hair got full of blood.”

Hickey started to reach for her hands but drew back, worried he’d spook her—it looked like she only wanted to touch somebody she thought was an angel. Now she knew he was a man like the rest, like George, like the Devil, all those guys who pawed her at the Paris Club. Or maybe he was worse, the guy who got her brother killed. He couldn’t figure anything to do except curse himself for making her talk. She rocked to both sides, stiffly, and her lips started trembling. He couldn’t just watch. Maybe, he thought, if he kept her talking until she spilled everything—maybe she could go through hell and come out the other side.

He asked, “George was on the altar? You were gonna anoint him?”

“No. It weren’t time for anointing. It was time to eat the green balls. The red light. The captains got so big and red, when they stepped the building shook—we were in the sky. Please—the Devil told me—and promised—George was already gone, from his body.”

“Peyote,” Hickey said. “The green balls. They taste awful?”

“Oh yes. Awful weeds.”

“And Zarp, the devil, he told you to stab George, right?”

She nodded, and then she was tugging her hair. “I’m sorry,” she whispered, again and again, until finally she sprang up and walked, dragging her toes in the sand. Hickey followed. Fifty yards down the beach, three Mexicans sat, facing the sea but glancing at him and the girl. They wore khaki trousers, sport shirts and hats. Hickey reached into his pocket, gripped Leo’s .45, and kept one eye on the Mexicans until they strolled off beyond the seawall.

Wendy looked calmer now. She tossed her hair in the wind, walking more loosely, before she turned and stopped square in front of Hickey, nailing him to the spot with her eyes. “I was good to the Devil,” she cried. “He whipped me. And he anointed me—every day—I anointed him too.”

She grimaced ferociously, then turned and marched along the tideline, swinging her rigid arms. Hickey stood a moment reeling from the image of her smeared with blood beneath that bloody monster. He looked around for the Mexicans and then caught up with her, socking his fist into his other palm and aching to go back over the line. This time he’d kill the devil.

“You know where he lives? The Devil.”

“In Hell,” she murmured.

“No place else?”

“Oh yes. In the gold room.”

“What gold room? Where?”

“Oh, after you go through the great room, and the dining room, where the pretty ladies—they ate ducks and fish eggs. They wouldn’t give me any. I asked but they hate me, Tom Hickey.”