Three To Get Deadly (24 page)

"Mr. Lassiter," she purred on the phone.

"Mrs. Corrigan," I said.

"You have something I would like very much."

"You want my 1954 Willie Mays baseball card?"

"Don't toy with me, Jake," she said, impatiently.

"So sorry, that's what I thought you wanted me to do."

"And don't flatter yourself."

"Okay, a business call, you want an appointment?"

"I want to tell you things that you will want to hear."

"Let me guess. My eyes remind you of the Mediterranean at sunset." My witty repartee will never get me a table at the Algonquin or a guest shot on Johnny Carson.

She was quiet a moment, probably deciding whether to tell me to screw off. But she was after something, so she kept going. "If you'd stop being such a smartass and listen, you'd know I'm trying to help your client."

"Like you helped him by planting the drug in his house."

"Maybe I was just returning it to the place I found it. I'll tell you everything. Just bring me the videotape."

"What if I've made copies? A year from now I could blackmail you."

She laughed softly. "You're not the type. Besides, we'll sign a contract. You draw it up, that you've turned over the only copy. If you're lying, you could be disbarred, right?"

Right. She'd thought of everything.

"Tell me," I said, giving it my best Cary Grant, "how does a girl like you get to be a girl like you?"

"Practice," she said.

And all this time I thought that's how you got to Carnegie Hall. "Okay," I said, "I'll bring the cassette. There's only one. You'll make a statement exonerating Stanton. I'll call Socolow. We'll need him and a court reporter to take your statement."

"No! Just you. Bring a tape recorder if you want."

I thought about it. Socolow might muck it up, talk her out of it, delay until morning. She was giving me the case on a silver platter. Either that or handing me my head. "Okay, I'll be there in twenty minutes."

"Not here. I don't want you in the house. Sergio might come by. Someplace else. You know where Shark Valley is?"

"What, the Everglades? I'm not in the mood for mosquitoes. Besides, it'll be nearly dark by the time we get there."

"You're not afraid of me in the dark, are you?"

I didn't trust her at dawn, dusk, midnight, or any time in between. And she might bring friends. "It's just a strange place to execute a contract, that's all," I said.

"There'll be tourists around, just no one we'll know. Meet me there in two hours. You'll have to prepare the contract and get going. I'll be on top of the observation tower."

I said okay, but I didn't mean okay. It made no sense, a meeting at Shark Valley. And by the time we got there, the tourists would be back at their hotels sipping six-dollar piña coladas. But if she gave me a statement, admitted planting the evidence, Roger's case was over.

I was dusting off a briefcase when Cindy buzzed. "Hey boss, now the other Corrigan babe wants you."

"Say what?"

"Mizz Corrigan," Cindy said, dragging out the name.

"What line?"

"No line. Here. The waiting room. Just dropping by, in a sweatsuit and black Reeboks, so says our sharp-eyed receptionist."

"Bring her back," I commanded.

"Black Reeboks," Cindy repeated. "Bet they're hightops, too."

When the oak door closed behind her, Susan gave me a peck on the cheek. I grabbed her by both shoulders and brought her close. The kiss was straight on, slow and soft, and Susan half gasped and half sighed at the end of it.

"You charge by the hour for that?" she whispered.

"For you, a straight contingency fee."

She feigned anger. "You only want a third of my kisses?"

"No, I only want to spend a third of our time kissing."

"The rest talking?"

"That, too. It's good to see you, but I'm on my way out." I told her about the call from Melanie Corrigan, and she leaned against the windowsill frowning. Then she paced back and forth, her sneakers silent on the thick carpeting. Cindy was right. Hightops.

Finally she turned. "Don't go, Jake. It's a set-up."

"Maybe. And maybe I'll get a statement that will exonerate my client. I really don't have a choice."

"Then at least take the police along."

"The police work for Socolow."

"You're not going to give her the videotape." It was both a question and a plea.

"Tell me more about the tape."

"You've seen it," she said. "Nothing more to tell."

"When was it shot?"

"I don't know exactly. About two years before Dad died."

"Two years! What was it, a honeymoon cruise?"

"Actually it was right before Dad married her. Mom had just died. Dad took the
Cory
to the islands with Sergio as the captain, Roger and Melanie the guests."

"So much for a decent interval of mourning."

She turned away, an old memory dragging up the pain. "It's hard for me to be objective about Dad. He always cheated on Mom, and that last year or so, when she was sick and he took up with Melanie, it was very hard for her … how cruel he was at the end. I can never forgive him for that. Never."

I didn't expect that tone, the bitterness toward her father. But something else interrupted the thought, something that wasn't making sense. "Roger told me he first met your father after he married Melanie."

"No. Stanton treated both Mom and Dad. He definitely knew Dad before he married that slut."

"Strange he would lie about that." I stored the knowledge for later use. My mind is a warehouse of information like that, bushels of scrap paper filled with notes.

I told Susan it was time to grab the mosquito spray and head for the Glades. She drifted toward the door, blocking my path like a linebacker filling the hole. "What about the tape?" she asked.

I looked around on my shelves and grabbed a small cardboard box. "Maybe Melanie would like to watch
Cross-Examining the Expert in a Product Liability Case
."

"And you think that when she discovers what you've given her she'll consider it a big joke? She's dangerous, totally amoral, and capable of anything. She could seduce you or kill you. To her, it wouldn't make the slightest difference."

"Melanie? She wouldn't hurt a fly."

"Maybe not one that's zipped up. Jake, don't be foolish. You could get hurt, or worse."

"Would a hearse horse snicker hauling this lawyer away?"

"Tell me you won't go," she pleaded.

I didn't want to go. But I couldn't not go. I put some cowboy in my voice. "A man's gotta do what a man's gotta do."

"Don't be a jerk. And that self-mockery doesn't sell with me. You really believe that tough-guy stuff."

"Just locker room bravado. Inside I'm quaking."

"There you go again. What do I have to say to you?"

"You could tell me how much you'd miss me if I end up sleeping with the alligators."

"I would miss you. I … I care for you."

"Care for me?"

Still blocking my path, she moved closer and gave me a wistful up-from-under look. I had to fight the urge to grab her. "I think I love you," she whispered. "Satisfied?"

"You bet."

She took a half step backwards. "Somehow I expected a more eloquent response."

"Haven't we had this conversation before? Haven't I already professed my … my you know."

"Jake Lassiter, how can a man be so articulate in a crowded courtroom and such a bungler one-on-one? Is it so hard to say you love me?"

"Well, I do."

"Do what?"

"Do what you said."

"Jake!"

I threw up my arms. "Do love you, okay already?"

"Not okay. I forced you into it. You still can't express your feelings, and you treat me like some bimbo whose opinions aren't worth listening to."

Now it was my turn. I moved back a yard. "Did I say something wrong? I thought we were engaging in sweet talk, and all of a sudden, I'm not listening. What is it you want me to do?"

"It's what I don't want. I don't want you to prove how tough you are. And I don't want you to walk into a trap."

"Sorry. I have a duty to Roger."

"Why don't you respect me on this?"

"Hey Susan, I appreciate your opinion, but I can take care of myself. I've been around this town a long time before I ever met you, and nobody's stolen my marbles yet."

Some color had crept into her dark complexion. "Maybe you ought to keep traveling solo, you're so good at it." She turned away, looked out the window over the Atlantic. The
S. S. Norway
was lugging its way out Government Cut, a thousand tourists headed to the Virgin Islands. "You don't take me seriously, Jake. You're a big, dumb jock like all the rest of them. I don't know what I ever saw in you."

With that, she pivoted on her black hightops and stormed out of the office, muttering "macho jerk" two or three times. Through my open door, I saw loyal Cindy shrug, as if to say, "What else is new?"

There are no sharks in Shark Valley. No valley either. Just miles of sawgrass and countless animals living in their natural habitat. Bull alligators rule the Everglades, eating turtles, white-tailed deer, and any birds that venture too close to the reptiles' muddy homes. There are wood storks and egrets and great white herons that would now be extinct if women still wore feathery hats.

But no sharks and no valley. Misnamed though it is, Shark Valley is nature unrestrained. It is a vast flat slough, a slow-moving river of shallow water that has not changed in appearance for centuries. If Philip Corrigan had ever seen the place, he would have licked his chops and dreamed of draining and filling, building on stilts, and calling it "Heron Creek." Of course, then there would be no more herons and no more creek.

* * *

Black thunderheads were forming over the Glades, mountainous clouds picking up the moisture from the fifty-mile-wide river. Nearly dusk and the world was gray. It was seven miles down a narrow asphalt road to the observation tower. No cars allowed. I rented a bicycle from the chickee hut run by the Park Service and got a second look from the ranger who warned me about the weather and the closing time. He probably doesn't get many bird watchers wearing blue suits and burgundy ties. I put my suitcoat in the car, peeled off my tie, and felt only half as stupid. I went into the restroom, tossed some cold water on my face, and stared at the mirror. I hadn't gotten any better looking. I practiced my cocky look, worked up a crooked grin, and said to the mirror, "Sure I have the tape, but first I'll take your statement." Behind me, a toilet flushed, the stall door opened, and a middle-aged tourist wearing a Mickey Mouse T-shirt gave me a sideways look, then backed away, never stopping to wash his hands. I checked my gear—the videotape, the contract, and a portable tape recorder—all safe in a thin briefcase. Then I headed into the open air, hunched over the saddle of my government-issue, dollar-fifty-an-hour bicycle that was the right size for Pee Wee Herman.

The dark clouds were growing nearer and the wind kicking hard from the west as I pedaled south into the Glades, my knees under my chin. Some serious bird watchers were hurrying back on the path, their binoculars swinging, tripods in hand. One white-haired man with knobby knees sticking out of safari shorts was carrying on about having spotted "two crested caracaras, not one, but two …"

Blackish-green alligators slid into the water from the side of the road. Some were babies, two feet in length, looking like rubberized gags from a hotel gift shop. The bulls, ten or twelve feet, launched themselves into the water with powerful haunches. Some dug into the mud, forming gator holes to trap the water and keep cool. Stop to look, they hiss at you, blowing air out their nostrils. Keep going, they watch until you're gone.

One of the big bulls grabbed a tourist last year. A stockbroker from Cleveland had wandered into shallow water to get video footage of a blue heron feeding. Just like an Abbott and Costello movie, the log he stepped on opened its mouth. The alligator dragged him into deeper water, then with powerful jaws, crushed the man's chest and pierced his lungs. Official cause of death: drowning. Like saying the victims of Hiroshima died of sunburn.

It took only twenty minutes to pedal to the observation tower, a sleek concrete structure with a long, elevated ramp leading to a circular deck sixty feet above the sawgrass. Deserted except for the animals. Birds fed along the banks of a pond below, keeping a watch for the gators that dozed nearby. I leaned the bike against a strangler fig, grabbed the briefcase, and slowly walked up the ramp, listening for human sounds.

Bird chirps and little splashes came from the pond below. Nothing more.

At the top, I caught the glint of the sun, hidden by the clouds, preparing to drop into the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Naples. A hawk kite flew by, carrying an apple snail. A small unseen animal rustled the sawgrass below. Then a scraping sound from above. A dozen white terns bolted from a Caribbean pine and veered away from the tower.

Another scraping sound.

I was standing on a round concrete slab, maybe thirty feet across. Above me, the roof of the tower was another slab, the same size. I looked up into solid concrete.

A voice, just a whisper, then another.

He swung down from the slab above, landing six feet in front of me, blocking the path down the ramp. Behind me, another one dropped onto the concrete. The one behind me was short, muscular, moustachioed, and mean. Sergio Machado-Alvarez. The one by the ramp was bigger, not as many ripples, but maybe six-two, two-twenty, a gut beginning to give way. He wanted to play baseball. At least he was holding a baseball bat. One of the aluminum models. They make a funny
clonk
when they hit the ball. I don't know the sound when they crush a skull.