Lady, Go Die! (22 page)

This wasn’t the work of any Jack the Ripper maniac like the one Pat pictured for the kills of the coeds, the Wilson girl and Sharron Wesley. This was an execution, syndicate style. Professional killing hung in the air with the smell of cordite.

Chief Beales looked at me and for once that fat face wasn’t flushed, but pale as a blister. His eyes were terrified and his forehead was a bas relief map of pulsing veins.

“What do you think, Mr. Hammer?”

“I think he’s dead. What do you think? Who called this in?”

“Mrs. Holden. She and her husband were in bed, reading, and someone rang the doorbell, maybe twenty minutes ago. Her husband went down to answer it, and a few minutes later, she heard the gunshot and went down to check. The front door was open.”

So the mayor knew the killer. Invited him or her in to the study for a friendly chat that had prematurely concluded with a gunshot of considerable caliber. .38 anyway, judging by that gaping exit wound.

I said tightly, “What are you going to do about this?”

He was shaking his head in wide-eyed confusion; he didn’t look much better than the mayor, who at least seemed to be resting.

“I don’t know, Mr. Hammer. I honestly don’t know. I may have to
ask the state police for help. Things are really getting out of hand.”

“Where’s your deputy? Dekkert’s got real big-city police training. Why isn’t he here?”

“He doesn’t answer his phone at home and I can’t raise him on his radio.”

That was because the bastard was already on his way out to the Wesley mansion, if he wasn’t there already. Had
Dekkert
done this? A mob-style hit was something I wouldn’t put past him. Had he grabbed Poochie, because the little guy saw something?
What?
Had Dekkert strangled Sharron on the beach and Poochie witnessed it? Had that sadistic son of a bitch Dekkert thrill-killed all those girls, too? Had he grabbed Velda because she had put the puzzle pieces together before I could, or maybe he snatched her just to gain control over me!

“Hammer!” Beales said. “I’m
talking
to you. What do you think this killing means?”

“It means you better call Sergeant Price,” I said, recalling the name of the state cop Pat had vouched for. “And tell the state boys my secretary Velda is missing. And Stanley Cootz.”

“Your secretary? Is she the woman staying at the hotel with you?”

“Yes. She’s also a licensed private detective. She was doing some investigating here in Sidon while I was following up leads in the city.”

“What kind of investigating?”

“Well, she went out to the Hideaway tonight, and if you can spare one of your stalwart law enforcers to go out there and ask around, I’d be grateful.”

He nodded. “I’ll send two men out. There’s only so much for us to do here, goddamnit.” A jagged vein in his nose was throbbing.
“What are
you
going to do?”

“I’m going to find Velda.”

“Your secretary? How?”

I didn’t bother answering that, just blew out of there and ran through the increasingly chilly night back to the hotel parking lot, where I fired up the heap and headed out to the casino. Never had the champion engine in that loser of a jalopy ever served me better, hitting eighty in seconds with the body shaking as if it shared the fear and rage I felt. The front windows were down and cold air churned, bringing in ocean smells.

Ninety.

Clouds were gliding like ghosts over a full moon whose beauty seemed mocking as glimpsed through the eerily waving trees, leaves shimmering, trunks bending, terrible monstrous shapes doing a pagan sacrificial dance.

One hundred.

Then I eased off because the cutoff leading to the Wesley house was up ahead, and I didn’t want to overshoot. I took the curve at forty and the rubber whined and the buggy leaned, but then we were there.

The iron gate stood open and the plantation-like mansion loomed on its man-made hillock, catching the moon’s ivory rays and holding onto them, until shifting cloud cover turned it temporarily into a silhouette, before an almost phosphorescent glow returned. Again, I drove only halfway up the drive before pulling over to park in the bushes off to the right. Up the driveway, blocking the way, was a police car.

Unlike the two Sidon squads parked outside the mayor’s place,
this cruiser did not have its red light flashing. This was Dekkert’s ride, and it was no surprise he’d brought a city vehicle out here, and not his personal car, because this way his presence at the mansion could be explained by his official status.

Only I knew damn well this was an unofficial visit.

I felt confident I knew where he was headed. No lights were on in the mansion, not even the shifting beam of a flashlight. No, Dekkert was not inside. I’d gone over that place stem to stern already, with no safe to be found.

Then I saw movement over by the house, and wondered if I’d misjudged. But at that moment the moon came out from behind clouds to drench the mansion in a pale glow that revealed the movement to be a few scrawny cats checking out empty, overturned garbage cans.

No. Nobody in the house.

The rod was in my right hand, a round chambered, safety off, as I pushed through the bushes and stayed low, crossing the open ground that led to the row of trees that served as a high fence discouraging neighbors and beach worshipers. The trees began on solid ground that got progressively sandy until their roots were reaching under the beach in search of soil, and I was near the edge of the water. My ears were filled with the sibilant sound of ocean swells stirred by wind to rush the shore.

But I heard something else, too.

A metallic click and then the screechy whine of wood on cement.

I moved between the last few trees and saw the white-painted Victorian structure, sort of a miniature band shell big enough only to house the padded bench within, the view facing the house
not the ocean—the quaintly baroque gazebo where I figured Sharron Wesley must have hidden her horde of cash.

And Dekkert was proving me right.

Still in his police blues, he hunkered his burly frame over as he moved the bench whose hidden latch he’d thrown, swinging it out and over to reveal the safe with combination lock set into the green-painted cement floor. His back was to me as I moved silently on the sand up behind him, stopping at the bottom of the three wooden steps up to the cozy little nook.

Despite the rush of surf, the sounds of him turning that dial, not just the grinding whirr but even the tiny clicks, were easy enough to discern. Much more easy to hear was that final clunk of the handle as he unlatched, then lifted the door open.

Though his back was still angled to me, I could tell he was smiling down into the sunken compartment, like Ali Baba regarding a treasure chest of glittering gold and jewels.

“Thanks, Dekkert,” I said.

He whipped that bullet head my way and those hard dark eyes damn near popped out of their sockets in a face still patchworked with bandages. His left hand remained on the handle of the swung-open floor safe. His other hand was outstretched, ready to dip into the stash of cash, but frozen mid-air before it could take the trip.

“Safe-cracking isn’t a specialty of mine,” I said, starting up the steps, “and you saved me calling in an expert.”

That lady killer mug of his, already betrayed by this blobby nose, crinkled now into an ugly mask of hate, buckling the bandages. He jammed his hand down into the safe and I knew at once that
a gun was down there—always a smart move keeping a gun in a money-filled save, you know—and my right foot hit the final step while my left foot came down hard on that little iron door and smashed it into his wrist. His shrill scream floated out over the ocean and then I was up there with him, where I stomped on the door again and again until I heard bones shatter and crack.

He blurted hoarse profanities as with the arm attached to the damaged wrist he shoved the safe’s door back to where it rested on its hinges, its contents there for the world to see, or anyway for me to see, as I moved closer and gazed down at riches that weren’t gold and jewels exactly, but were a damn good second place.

Stacks and stacks of cash: twenties, fifties, hundreds, with identifying bands... and resting on top, a Colt .38 revolver.

“That was optimistic,” I said, sitting on the bench, swung to one side.

Dekkert was sitting on the floor of the gazebo in the moonlight, leaning back against some latticework, his hand with its shattered wrist in his lap, cradled by his other hand. He was crying, wrenching sobs coming up out of his big chest in a rhythm that fit perfectly with the wind-driven tide.

“Optimistic,” I clarified, “because I already had a gun in my hand, and you had to reach down for that .38 in the safe. I mean, hell’s bells—I let you go for your gun back at the station house and
still
out-drew you.”

The sobbing was easing. He was either realizing how undignified that cry baby crap was for a tough guy like him, or maybe shock was settling in. Whatever the case, he had recovered his poise enough to start calling me every dirty name in the book.

I let him get that out of his system, then said, “You were Sharron’s
real
silent partner. Oh, not in the casino business, no... but in the skim racket. She always had a man in her life, Sharron, needed a broad shoulder to lean on, and maybe somebody with at least half a brain to help her think. But in her bedroom, I saw no sign of male cohabitation. So I figured she had a boyfriend in either Manhattan or maybe even Sidon, possibly somebody married. Anyway, somebody that required discretion. But when you and I had our friendly talk earlier tonight, Dekkert, I saw it in your face, heard it in your voice. You
loved
the dame, didn’t you?”

He wasn’t cursing me now, but he was crying again. I didn’t figure this crying had anything to do with the busted-up wrist, either. Nor was there whimpering. Just sorrow leaking out of those dark eyes, which didn’t seem so hard all of a sudden. When a teardrop hit a bandage, it would skid to a stop, then pearl and plunk to the floor.

“You were who Sharron was planning to run off with, Dekkert. You worked for her out here, under the guise of doing security on your off-duty hours, but it was much more than that. I even know how you rigged the skim. Johnny C almost certainly had employees on staff, keeping an eye on Sharron, making sure she played it straight. I wouldn’t be surprised if you weren’t the one who came up with the scam, Dekkert.”

His eyes tightened, the tears ebbing. He was listening. He wanted to see if I really had it figured out.

“I saw a big box of poker chips in the trunk of Sharron’s Caddy,” I said. “She didn’t have to rig any books, or work any kind of accounting magic. She didn’t need to skim any money from
the till, not with you playing the shill, cashing in chips at cashier windows and carrying off the cash... for storage later under your little love seat. Wow. How you planned and schemed and dreamed, you crazy kids, like any two lovebirds. And then what happened? What went finally wrong? Did Johnny get wise?”

Dekkert swallowed thickly. “No... no, he never did. But Sharron, after the last party, she... she just disappeared.”

“And you went bughouse, beating up that little beachcomber, right? Or did something
else
happen? Did she find another broad shoulder to lean on, another,
better
prospect to run off with, and you killed her in a jealous rage? Strangled the life out of her. And then what—did Poochie see it?... What did you do with him, Dekkert? Where
is
he? Is he dead, too?”

He shook his head. “No. No. No.”

I went over and shook him. “No
what
?”

“I... I didn’t kill her... I didn’t kill Sharron. You’re right, you lousy bastard. I loved her. End of the season, we would have been out of here. Gone. There’s a quarter of a million in that safe, Hammer. And by season’s end, we’d have had another hundred grand, easy. But she disappeared. She really just... disappeared.”

I grabbed him by his shirt front, police blue bunching through my fingers. “And Poochie?”

He shrugged and it took effort. “I really just wanted to know if he’d seen anything. He was always hanging around the beach, picking up junk, scrounging in the garbage. He might have seen something.”

“So you beat him half to death. Just in case he
saw
something?”

He swallowed again; his eyes were glazing—shock
was
setting
in. “I... I... guess I went... went overboard.”

“So did your girl Sharron. She was taken out there...” I pointed to the ocean, “...and dumped. But she came back, didn’t she? She came back, maybe on a tide like tonight. What do you know about
that
, Dekkert?”

He squinted and tears squirted out. His face was flushed against the white of the bandages. “Nothing... it was awful... awful seeing her like that... draped over that goddamn statue... little holes eaten out of her, bloated and blue, and oh my God, what a nightmare. What a goddamn nightmare.”

I stuck the .45 in his throat. “You’re saying you
don’t
have Poochie.”

“No!”

I cocked the .45 and the click made a small sharp but very distinct sound against the surf-tossed night. “What about Velda?”

His red teary eyes were wild now. “Wh-who...?”

“My secretary!”

“The dame... the dame you’re with... at the hotel?”

I shook him like a disobedient child. “Yes! Yes! Where the hell
is
she? What have you done with her?”

“Nothing! Nothing! Everything was going to Hell in a handbasket, and with you stirring things up, I decided the best thing was to just... just come out here and grab my money and get the hell out. Cut my damn losses.”

I let loose of the slumped figure, and he rocked back against the latticework as I took a step back, straightened. I let down the hammer gently on the .45, and lowered it, the weapon hanging at my side, a useless appendage.

My every instinct told me Dekkert was telling the truth. And if he was, I had just reached the worst kind of dead-end, with Velda gone and no other trail to follow.