with These Hands (Ss) (2002) (21 page)

Surprisingly, the break came quickly. Noonan called in.

Frost remembered him as a boyish-looking officer who looked like a college halfback. A man answering the description took a call in a public booth at three minutes after ten. He paid for his drinks and went out.

Why so sure of the time? The bartender's girl was late.

She usually came in at quarter to ten, so he was watching the clock and expecting a call.

"This guy didn't talk," Noonan said. "He nursed one drink for more than an hour, had just ordered the second.

The bartender heard him say on the phone, 'Yes, this is Tommy Hart.'"

They ran a check on Hart . . . nothing. Noonan called back. "A guy in that bar, he says that guy Hart, if that was his name, used to hang out at a bar on Sixth Street. The Shadow Club."

It fit. A lot of hoods came and went around there. A lot of good people, too. Frost had Hart figured as small time-working through a woman-but even the smalltime boys have big ideas, delusions of grandeur. And he might be afraid to turn Sixte loose.

At noon Frost went out for a sandwich. He drank two cups of coffee, taking a lot of time. He covered the ground again, step by step. The bank, the liquor stores, Hart, the airlines. The Shadow Club.

Shortly after one, he walked back to the desk. Sixte had been missing almost fifteen hours. By now he might be buried in the floor of a cellar or a vacant lot.

Tom Sixte . . . friendly, quiet, hard worker. Read a lot.

Spoke French and German, studying Spanish. Expert in industrial planning ... an unlikely man to be mixed up in anything. Mike Frost knew all about him now. Had reports on his desk from the government, from businessmen with whom he had talked . . . Sixte was top drawer. He was dark-haired, good-looking, smiled easily.

If the tickets were used, they would have their man. But Tom Sixte would be dead, a good man murdered.

Frost started thinking. Tickets to Bolivia were worth dough in the right place. So was a passport and visa . . . who wanted to get out of town? Who that they knew about? Who that was missing?

Tony Shapiro . . . from Brooklyn. A mobster. Big time.

Wanted by the Feds. Something clicked in the brain of Mike Frost. Shapiro had been reported seen in Tucson . . . in Palm Springs.

Local connections? Vince Montesori, Rubio Turchi.

Frost picked up the phone.... Shapiro had connections in the Argentine. If he could get to South America, he might be safe.

Frost got up and put on his hat. He went down into the street, squinting his eyes against the sunlight. He walked west, then north. After a while he stopped for a shine.

The shine boy was a short, thickset man with a flat face and there was nobody around. He had never heard of Tommy Hart or anybody like him. Montesori was working his club, same as always. Rubio? The shine boy bent further over the detective's shoes. Nothing...

It all added up to nothing.

Back at the desk, Frost checked the file on Rubio. He had kept his nose clean since coming out of Q. He ... Mike Frost picked up the telephone and began checking on Rubio and San Quentin ... his cell mate had been in for larceny. Twenty-one years old, tall, dark hair, name . . .

Kurt Eberhardt. He hung up the phone.

Kurt Eberhardt . . . Tommy Hart. It could be. It was close enough, and the description was right.

He had something to go on now. Check the Shadow Club on Eberhardt... check with the stoolies, his contacts on the criminal side. It might be a blind alley, but it could fit. There was nothing substantial, anywhere. A bottle of Madeira ... he dropped in at a liquor store. Three principal varieties of Madeira sold here. Sercial, a dry wine, Boal was on the sweet side. Malmsey was a dessert wine, and sweeter. It was Malmsey that Sixte fancied.

At four o'clock, he was sitting at the scarred desk, thinking about Sixte. If the guy was alive, he was sweating about now. Time was drawing the strings into a tight knot around his throat.

All over town the wheels were meshing, the department was working ... and they had nothing. Nothing at all.

Rubio Turchi could not be found. He had been around until shortly after midnight the previous night, and he dropped out of sight. . . the time tied in ... which might be an accident. Mike Frost swore softly and irritably at the loose ends, the flimsy angles on which he must work.

Nothing really ...

A report from the Shadow Club. They remembered Eberhardt. A free spender when he had it. Some figured he had been rolling drunks for his pocket money. Always with a girl... a brunette. Her name was Lola, a Spanish girl, or Mexican.

Find Lola.

More wheels started to mesh. No rumble from the bank.

Nothing on the wine. Nothing on Turchi, nothing on anybody.

At ten o'clock, Mike Frost went home and crawled into bed. At 2:00 a. M., he awoke with a start. He sat up and lit a cigarette.

He called Headquarters. They had Lola. He swore, then got into his clothes. Sleepy, unshaven, and irritable, he walked into his office. Lola was there, with Noonan.

Frost lit a cigarette for her. "You're not in trouble," his tone was conversational, "you'll walk out of here in a few minutes and Noonan can drive you home.

"All we want to know is about a guy named Eberhardt, Kurt Eberhardt."

She turned on Frost and broke into a torrent of vindictive Spanish. Sorting it out, he learned she knew nothing about him, nor did she want to, he was a rat, a pig, a-she quieted down.

A few more questions elicited the information that she had not seen him in three months. He had left her ... a blonde, a girl named Phyllis Edsall.

Lola talked and talked fast. Kurt Eberhardt thought he was a big shot, smart. That was because he had been in prison with Rubio Turchi. He had driven a car for Turchi a few times, but he bragged too much; Turchi dropped him.

She had not seen him in three months.

Now they had another name, Phyllis Edsall. No record.

A check on Edsalls in the telephone book brought nothing.

They did not know her. Reports began to come in from contacts in the underworld. . . . Eberhardt probably had stuck up a few filling stations, but usually he had his girl get drunks out where he could roll them. Sometimes it was the badger game, sometimes plain muscle.

Nobody knew where he lived. Nobody knew where the girl lived.

Nothing more from the Shadow Club. Nothing from the bank. Nobody in the morgue that fitted. Rubio Turchi still missing.

Mike Frost and Noonan went out for coffee together.

They stopped by the liquor store where Sixte had been buying his Madeira. The fat little proprietor looked up and smiled. "Say, you were asking about Madeira. I sold a bottle yesterday afternoon. I started to call, but the line was busy, and..."

Frost found his hands were shaking. Noonan looked white. "Who bought it? Who?" Frost's voice was hoarse.

"Oh," the little man waved his hand, "just some girl. A little blonde. I told her-"

"You told her what?"

The little man looked from Frost to Noonan. His face was flabby. "Why . . . why I just said that was good wine, even the police were interested, and-"

Mike Frost felt his fist knot and he restrained himself with an effort. "You damned fool!" he said hoarsely. "You simpleminded fool!"

"Here!" The little man was indignant. "You can't talk to me like-"

"That girl. Did she wear a suede coat?" Noonan asked.

The little man backed off. "Yes, yes, I think so. You can't-"

It had been there. They had had it right in their grasp and then it was gone. The little man had not called.

She looked, he said, like a nice girl. She was no criminal.

He could tell. She was- "Oh, shut up!" Frost was coldly furious.

One fat, gabby little man had finished it. Now they knew. They knew the police were looking for Sixte, that they were watching the sales of Madeira, they knew....

"S'pose he's still alive?" Noonan was worried. He had been really working on this case.

Frost shrugged. "Not now. They know they are hot, now. They probably won't go near a bank. That blew it up.

Right in our faces."

"Yeah," Noonan agreed, "if he's alive, he's lucky."

Tom Sixte lay on the floor of the cellar of the old-fashioned house with his face bloody and his hands tied as well as his feet. Right at that moment he would not have agreed that it was better to be alive. When Phyllis came in with the wine, she was white and scared. She had babbled the story and Kurt had turned vicious.

''Smart guy, huh?" he had said, and then he hit Sixte.

He had tried to rise, and Kurt, coldly brutal, had proceeded to knock him down and kick him in the kidneys, the belly, the head. Finally, he had bound his hands and rolled him down the cellar steps to where he lay. The door had been closed and locked.

Sixte lay very still, breathing painfully. His face was stiff with drying blood, his head throbbed with a dull, heavy ache, his body was sore, and his hands were bound with cruel tightness.

They dared not take him to the bank looking like this.

They dared not put him on a plane now. Phyllis was sure she had not been followed. She had taken over an hour to come back, making sure. But there was no way out now.

They would kill him. Unless he could somehow get free.

Desperation lent him strength. He began to struggle, to chafe the clothesline that bound him against the edge of the wooden step. It was a new board, and sharp-edged.

Upstairs, he heard a door slam and heavy feet went down the front steps. The floor creaked up above. Phyllis was still there ... no use to ask her help, she was the one who killed the man on Redondo.

He began to sweat. Sweat and dust got into the cuts on his face. They smarted. His head throbbed. He worked, bitterly, desperately, his muscles aching.

Kurt Eberhardt was frightened. He got out of the house because he was scared. Despite what Phyl said, they might have followed her. He walked swiftly north, stopped there on a corner, and watched the house. Nobody around, no cars parked. After ten minutes, he decided she had not been followed and walked on, slower.

He had to see Rubio. Rubio would know what to do. He went to his car, got in, and drove downtown. He tried to call Rubio ... no answer. He called two or three places, no luck. At the last one, he asked, "When is he leavin'?"

"You nuts?" The man's voice was scoffing. "He ain't goin' noplace. He can't. He's tied up here, wit' big dough."

Then, maybe Rubio would not use the tickets, either. He wouldn't want the visa and passport.

His stomach empty and sick, Kurt Eberhardt started up the street. On the corner, he stopped and looked back, seeing the sign. The Shadow Club ... it was early yet. It might not be open. He stood there, trying to think, looking for an out.

He had never killed a man. He had bragged about it, but he never had. When Phyllis told him she had, he was scared, but he dared not show it. The fear had made him beat Sixte.

That had been foolish. With that beat-up face . . . still, the guy was scared now, bound to be. They could say he had been in an accident. Sixte wouldn't talk out of turn.

He could draw out the money ... not a bad deal. He could even take it and the tickets and scram. No, they would stop him . .. unless he killed Sixte.

It was better to play it straight with the guy.

Phyl... she made the trouble. She got him into this. Too rattle-brained. Lola now, she never made a wrong move.

Killing that guy, Lola wouldn't have done it. Lola ... no use thinking about that. It was over.

He would get Rubio. He would wait at his place until he came.

Mike Frost sat at his desk. It was 4:00 p. M. The plane for Bolivia left at 9:45. The banks were closed now, but there were a few places around town where a check might be cashed ... they were covered.

No more chance on the liquor stores. The men checking up on those were pulled off. They were still worrying over the bone of Kurt Eberhardt and that of Phyllis Edsall. No luck on either of them. Nobody seemed to know either of them beyond what they had learned.

At 4:17 p. M., a call came in. Rubio Turchi's green sedan had been spotted coming out of the hills at Arroyo and the Coast Road. It would be picked up by an unmarked police car.

At 4:23 p. M. another call. A dark sedan with a darkhaired young man had been parked in front of Rubio's apartment for more than an hour. The fellow seemed to have fallen asleep in the car, apparently waiting. It was the first time the man covering Rubio's apartment had been able to get to a phone. He gave them the car's number.

The license had been issued to one Phyllis Hart, but she had moved from the old address, left no forwarding address.

Mike Frost rubbed the stubble on his face and swore softly. He walked to the door of an adjoining office and stuck his head in. "Joe? You got that electric razor here? I feel like hell."

He carried the razor back, loosened his tie, and took off his coat. He plugged in the razor and started to shave.