The Code (13 page)

The car was traveling along an open stretch of pavement without a curve on it. Hoyle had chosen the spot carefully. If things had worked out the way he'd planned, he would have killed me with one quick shot and would have been able to keep the car from leaving the road. But his plan hadn't worked.

The driverless car careened to the left and streaked across the road. It hit a ditch as I tried to reach the steering wheel and I was thrown against Hoyle's body. Bucking out of the ditch, the car forged through underbrush and finally came to a halt. I was amazed that it hadn't turned over.

I straightened up and pushed Hoyle back against the seat and felt for his pulse. He didn't have one. He was dead. There had been no choice but to shoot him. Still, I was bitter at the development. I hadn't wanted him dead. I wanted Moose.

I put the Luger away and pulled Hoyle's body out of the car. I got the motor started again and ground out of the brush. The car bounced over the ditch and onto the pavement again. I drove back to the house.

I had to get Penny to tell me Moose's whereabouts or I was back where I had started.

Lights were still on inside the house. I circled it and found an open bedroom window. I couldn't see Penny but I heard her. She was taking a shower. I could hear the water going.

I sat down on the back steps and removed my shoes, then picked the lock on the door. I moved quietly through a kitchen and a living room and into the bedroom.

Penny was singing in the shower. I didn't recognize the tune. Penny was no Barbra Streisand. My cigarette lighter was on the chest. I dropped it into my pocket and sat down to wait for her to finish.

When she came out of the bathroom, she was wearing a shower cap, a pair of slippers, and nothing else. We eyed each other. The surprise was mutual. She hadn't expected to find a stranger seated in her bedroom and I hadn't expected to see her in her birthday suit.

The note Moose had made about her breasts had been accurate. They were exceptional. Everything about her body was exceptional She made Raquel Welch look like a teen-age boy.

"Hey, how did you get in?" she said.

"By the back door. I picked the lock."

"You aren't a burglar, are you?"

"I'm Ned Harper. The man you didn't want to see."

"The one who talked to Liz on the telephone?" She plucked off the shower cap and shook out her hair. "You must be some kind of operator if you got her to tell you how to find me."

"We happened to hit it off."

"You know the reason I didn't want to see you. Hoyle told me you were prying into things that are none of your business. He said if you showed up, I was to avoid you and get the word to him."

"And you handled it rather neatly."

"Not neatly enough. That's obvious." She opened a closet and took out a dressing robe. "Okay if I put this on? I hate to talk business while I'm naked. Later on, if you want, I'll take it off again."

"I doubt that we'll get that friendly."

"You never know. Did you happen to run into Hoyle by any chance?"

"Yeah," I said.

"I was afraid of that. What happened to him? Nothing good, I'll bet."

"He won't be coming back."

She took the news without flinching. "He said he could take care of you by himself. I didn't believe him. They tried to kill you once and you came through it. You handled Rondo. I'd say you're pretty tough."

I wondered if I was supposed to be flattered. I said, "You know quite a lot about me."

"All that Hoyle knew. He was a big talker." She had belted the robe and was standing in front of my chair. "You're pretty talkative yourself."

"I always talk a lot when I'm scared," she confessed, "I'm afraid you'll kill me too."

I said, "I rarely kill women."

"You want a drink? I've got some liquor in the other room."

"No, thanks."

She stepped closer to my chair and opened the robe. When I didn't move, she caught my hand and placed it on her body. Apparently she believed the best defense was a good offense.

"Let's bargain," she said softly.

"What are we bargaining for?"

"My life, and anything else I can get."

"I want to know where Moose is."

Pouting a little, she pulled the robe together again. "Hoyle came to San Francisco alone. Moose is on the road somewhere."

"That isn't what Hoyle said. He said Moose was here."

"He lied to you. Moose didn't come. He let Hoyle come alone. That was a mistake. They underestimated you."

Hoyle had obviously made up the story about taking me to meet Moose. He had been stalling for time, waiting for an opportunity to go for his gun.

"Who is Moose's connection in the Mob?" I asked Penny.

"He never told anybody that. There is a man, sure, a big wheel he's had dealings with. The Organization as a whole frowns on Moose because they think he's crazy and uncontrollable. But there was one man high up who financed some heists for Moose, as a private deal between the two of them. Moose said they did each other some favors."

"You know something, Penny? You're saying a lot, but you're telling me very little."

She bit her lip. "I'm doing my best to help you. I want to save my skin." She pawed through her hair. "Let me think. They've been backtracking, trying to follow Sheila Brant's trail. They're trying to find the money she stole. But I swear to you, Hoyle didn't tell me where Moose and Craddock are now."

"Craddock," I repeated. "Tell me about Craddock."

"Sid Craddock is the third man who was in on some of Moose's heists. He took part in the Abruze kill. He's a slender man with curly hair and a baby face. That's all I can remember about him."

She had provided one piece of information of some use. I encouraged her. "Hoyle must have confided in you a lot."

"He was boasting — trying to impress me. He had the hots for me even back when I was Moose's favorite pastime," she said. "He showed good taste, Harper. I'm sensational in the sack."

"I believe it."

"Can I make you a proposition?"

I grinned at her. "I thought you already had."

"There's a big bundle of money around somewhere. Two hundred thousand dollars. That's how much they got when they hit Abruze." She pursed her lips. "It gives me the hots to think about that. I'd like to have it all changed into ones and wallow in it naked. Two hundred thousand one-dollar bills. Would you like to lay on me on a two-hundred-thousand-dollar mattress, lover?"

"I don't have your kind of imagination."

"They left it with Sheila. They split up after the Florida job and entrusted it to her. Hoyle told me that."

"Moose and his friends were wrong about Sheila. She didn't make off with the money."

"Then what happened to it?"

"She never had a chance to tell me. My guess is that it was taken from her. She was afraid to face Moose, so she ran."

Apparently I had learned everything from Penny that I was going to. I got out of my chair. She followed me to the back steps, where I put on my shoes.

She hadn't asked me any more questions about Hoyle. She wasn't exactly grieving for him, I thought.

"Hey, listen, Harper. Suppose you happen to find the money while you're trying to run Moose down. What do you do with it?"

"I haven't given it any thought."

"Two hundred thousand. It boggles the mind."

I laced my shoes. "Are you about to suggest I give it to you?"

"Well, we could share it anyway. It's Mafia money. Listen, I know about that book of Moose's that you have. You've been looking up the girls whose names were in it. I could help you out. I know my way around whorehouses real good."

"You said you were afraid of me."

"For two hundred grand. I'll walk a bed of coals, dance naked on the White House lawn, and lay the First Cavalry Division. Take me along. Harper, and let's look for the money. We could do a lot with it, and I could give you sex like you've never had before."

"No, thanks," I told her. "You forgot Hoyle much too easily."

I was back to the little black book and to the list of names, now narrowed to four. They were Janice, Eve, Barbara, and Cora, I decided to drive up to Portland and look for Janice first. If I drew a blank there, I would swing back down to Reno, to Denver, and to Las Vegas, where the other girls were supposed to be.

Moose knew I had his address book. He knew I was running through the list of girls, hoping to get a lead to his whereabouts. When he learned that I had killed his pal Hoyle, he wouldn't sit still, I thought. Somewhere along the way, in one of those four cities, I would find Moose or he would find me.

The bordello in Portland was an old house located in a fading residential block near the meatpacking district. I knocked on the door early in the morning and asked for Janice. A yawning girl with tousled hair waved me in.

A cathouse early in the morning is not as fragrant as a rose garden. It smells of the night before, of bodies and sex and sometimes booze, and if the maids are already cleaning up, the scent is like that of an army latrine.

The girl with the tousled hair weaved through the maids, her shorty nightgown swinging with the motion of her hips. The maids looked me over, apparently wondering why I couldn't postpone my lust until the nighttime hours.

Rapping on a door, the girl said, "Janice. It's the man who called."

Janice responded sleepily. "All right." The girl who had brought me to the door smiled and patted my cheek and swung on down the hallway.

A long-legged brunette wearing yellow pajamas opened the door and rubbed a knotted fist in one eye. She hadn't bothered to button the pajama top. "You're looking for Moose, you say?"

"That's right."

She tugged the door wider. "Come in."

My reflection moved in full-length mirrors as I stepped into the room. Another mirror was set in the ceiling above the round double bed. In the bed lay a naked blonde, who turned on her side to look at me, the silk sheet gliding down her white body.

"My friend Delia."

I nodded and the blonde nodded back.

"Moose hired us to put on a couple of shows for him and his friends. He wasn't exactly my cup of tea," Janice said.

"How long since you heard from him?"

"January," said the blonde. "It was back in January."

"He brought a man with him that he wanted to impress." Janice smiled. "I think we impressed him, don't you, Delia?"

"You bet."

"Who was the man?" I asked.

"Mr. Smith," Janice said. "The well-known Mr. Smith. We've put on shows for a lot of his relatives."

Delia giggled. "He didn't want his real name used."

"What did he look like?"

"Tall and thin. He wore glasses. If he hadn't been with Moose, I'd have thought he was an accountant."

"Since he was with Moose, what did you think?"

The blonde propped her chin on her hand. "Come on, now. If you're looking for Moose, you know the kind of business associates he has."

"Mr. Smith was an Organization Man. An important one," Janice said. She sat down on the bed near the blonde. They would have made a great pair of bookends.

Unlike some of the people I'd questioned about Moose, they were willing to help me, but I found out they had no further information of value. I thanked them and they invited me to come back sometime.

"Ask for me or for Delia," said Janice. "We like to work as a team."

Thirty minutes after I left Portland, the Lincoln roared up behind me on the open road. The driver swung into the passing lane and sped up alongside my Ford.

I saw a face and then a shotgun barrel. I spun the steering wheel and slammed the Ford into the heavier car and ducked at the same time.

The shotgun blast ripped through the window, but it missed me.

The Lincoln was too bulky to be thrown into a skid by my light car. Its driver held it in the road and yanked his own wheel. Fender ground against fender and then the Ford left the pavement, skidded on the shoulder, and plunged into a picnic area just off the highway.

I used the brake as much as I dared and jerked the gear into second as the car's rear end whipped around and struck a litter barrel. I gritted my teeth, fighting to control the skid. The car spun again and hit a wooden picnic table, then flipped over on its side.

I must have been living right. I pushed open the door and climbed out unhurt.

The Lincoln had kept going. I saw it dart out of sight over a hill. There had been two people in the front seat, the driver and the gunman. The face I'd glimpsed just before the shotgun bucked was one I'd never seen clearly before today, but I knew that it belonged to Moose. He had been grinning as he pulled the trigger.

The Ford was a casualty. I had to leave it in a garage. I rented another car and set out for Reno, stopping along the way only to eat and place a call to Hawk.

"I'm getting close to Moose. He can feel me breathing on his neck and he doesn't like it. He tried to kill me today."

"Nick, be careful."

"I won't be checking in with you so often from now on. I've got a feeling I'm going to be very busy."

"Do you want the information we gathered on Jake Hoyle?"

"No," I said. "He s dead."

I had no trouble finding Eve in Reno. The dingy trailer camp was on the outskirts of town. There were three girls and a madam, each with her own trailer. Eve was entertaining a client and I had to wait with the madam, trading small talk of mutual disinterest. The office was hot and stuffy and the madam was an old woman trying to pretend otherwise. Her blonde wig didn't fit and her red nails were ragged.

When I worked the conversation around to Moose, her remarks became more animated. She remembered the big goon; she couldn't recommend him as a customer Or as a decent human being. He had beaten up one of her girls because he liked a little violence mixed with his sex. The madam was broadminded, but she couldn't condone that kind of behavior.