Killer, Come Back to Me Page 10

  “I don’t want to leave Sherry.”

  “Look, boss, you’re hit bad. You don’t feel well.”

  “Later, Hank,” he sighed.

  “Yeah,” I said feeling cold, but understanding. “Later. Okay.”

  Downstairs, Mark looked white as new snow. His hands shook as he sucked deeply on a cigarette he’d found on Finlay’s body.

  “Where were you when the shooting started?” I asked.

  “Down at the boathouse on the beach, walking around. I ran up as quick as I could.”

  “You must be getting old,” I said. “What sort of deal did you make on the phone with Finlay?”

  Mark jerked, blew out smoke, drew his shaking hand across his unshaven cheek, and looked at his cigarette, then straight at me.

  “The fog got me. The waiting got me. My guts got like that.” He showed a tightened fist to me. “The boss upstairs, talking to her—like water dripping and dripping on my head. So I figured it out neat. You listening?”

  “Talk.”

  “I called Finlay, told him I was double-crossing you guys, that I wanted a cut, that they could have Sherry. I knew Finlay’d come down and we’d get him and his gang and let them take the rap.”

  “You knew that, did you?”

  “You calling me a liar!”

  “You were sure quiet about it. We mighta got shot. It mighta worked both ways. We won, you stick with us. If Finlay’d won, you’d be with him, huh? Maybe.”

  “Hell, no! It was a chance, that’s all. Either the cops found us here with Sherry and we got the gas chamber, or we had it out with Finlay. I couldn’t tell you or the boss because if he knew he’d have shot me. I got nervous waiting. I wanted a fall guy. Finlay was it. I just didn’t think he’d get here when he did; that’s why I was down on the beach when things popped. I hoped that Finlay would swipe Sherry, even, and then we’d have to get out!”

  “Okay,” I said, nodding. “But there’s still one thing gimmixed up. The boss won’t move. After all your trouble fixing a frame, he won’t move. So what’ll you do now, junior?”

  Mark swore. “How long’ll we stay here? God, next week, next month?”

  I pushed him away. “It smells in here. Go open the window.”

  I was dead tired. I checked the ropes on the three men to be sure they were tied tight, then I stretched out on the couch. Mark went upstairs. I could hear the boss up there, too, talking to somebody now, grunting with pain.

  I slept deep, dreaming I walked under green water into that little church off the point, where fish swam with me in a congregation, and the underwater bronze bell rang, and a large squid draped itself like a soiled altar cloth across the pulpit…

  I woke about four in the morning to the ticking of my watch. I had a feeling something was wrong. It was so wrong that I didn’t have time to do anything about it. Someone hit me over the head. I fell, face forward, on the floor. That was all for a while.

  I had a terrific headache when I came to. I blinked around in the dark, found my hands tied. It took five minutes to work out of the rope. I switched on a light.

  Two of Finlay’s men were gone!

  I cursed myself out of the ropes tying my feet and raced upstairs.

  Hamphill lay exhausted, in deep sleep. He didn’t stir, even when I called his name. I shut the door softly and went to Sherry’s room.

  The couch where Sherry Bourne had lain was empty. Sherry was gone.…

  * * *

  The ocean came and dropped itself on the sand and slid out with a foaming sigh as my feet crunched the sand down.

  Squinting out, I saw the rowboat—a gray rowboat, barely visible in the moonlight just breaking through the fog.

  A large man stood in the boat, with long thick arms and a big head. Willie.

  Mark stood on the beach where the waves didn’t quite touch his small dark shoes. He turned as I walked up. I looked at Willie in the boat. Mark looked as if he hadn’t expected me to show up.

  “Where’s Willie going?” I said.

  Mark looked out at Willie too. “He’s got a load.”

  “A load of what?”

  “Canvas with chains around it and bricks inside.”

  “What’s he doing with that at four in the morning?”

  “Dumping it. It’s Finlay.”

  “Finlay!”

  “I couldn’t sleep downstairs with him there. And if you didn’t like my plan, I wanted to get him out of the way. One corpse less, if the cops came.” He looked at my head. “Somebody hit you?”

  “About half an hour ago, and tied me up. While you were down here fussing around, two of the Finlay boys got free and whacked me.” I smiled a little, too, to be friendly. “Then they took Sherry and drove off, just a few minutes ago. What do you think of that story?”

  “They stole Sherry!” Mark’s eyes widened, his jaw dropped.

  “You’re a damn good actor,” I said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, why didn’t they shoot me and the boss? We shot Finlay, didn’t we? So why’d they hit me over the head when a shot in the guts would be better? It doesn’t click. It’s too damn convenient, you being down here, twice now, when everything begins to pop. Too damn neat you being down here with Finlay’s body, giving them a chance to lam.”

  “I don’t get what you’re squawking at,” snapped Mark. “If you ask me, you should be glad Sherry’s gone. Now we won’t have to stay here nursemaiding Hamphill!”

  “You’re just a little too glad,” I said.

  Willie was way out in the night now, looking back, waving at us.

  Mark and I watched as Willie lifted the canvas thing and dropped it over the boat side. It made a big splash with ripples.

  “Oh, God,” I said. I took Mark quietly by his lapels, holding him close so I breathed in his face. “Know what I think?” I breathed. I gripped him. “I think you wanted to get out of here, bad. So you hit me on the head, tied me up, then you took Finlay’s men, toted them out to their car, pushed them inside, drove the car down the road, parked it off behind some shrubs, lights out, left them, and came back. A good setup. You tell the boss they slipped their ropes, swiped Sherry and escaped.” I looked at Willie in the boat. “All while you were dropping a body in the ocean—only, not Finlay’s body!”

  “Yes, it is!” He struggled, but I held him.

  “You can’t prove anything. I don’t know anything about Sherry!”

  “You should’ve shot me, Mark, it would have been more convincing.” I released him. “You got the cards stacked. I can’t prove that was Sherry inside the canvas with the chains and weights. Getting rid of Sherry was the most important thing in your life, wasn’t it? No evidence. Gone for good. And that meant we could move on. We’d have to move on. The boss’d chase after the escaped Finlay gang to get Sherry back, only it’d be a wild goose chase, because Sherry isn’t anywhere but out there, about forty feet under, where that little cathedral is!”

  Willie turned the boat around and started rowing clumsily back with slow strokes. I started a cigarette and let the wind whip away the smoke.

  “Funny you thought of putting her out there. There’s not a better place. If the boss knew, I think he’d like her being there with the bronze bell in the tower and all. It’s just your motive for putting her there that spoils it, Mark. You made something dirty out of something that could’ve been—well—beautiful.”

  “You aren’t going to tell Hamphill!”

  “I don’t know. In a way I guess it might be best for us to move on. I don’t know.”

  Willie beached his rowboat, grinning.

  I said, “Hi, Willie.”

  “Hello, Hank. That takes care of Mr. Finlay, don’t it?”

  “It sure does, Willie. It sure does.”

  “He wasn’t very heavy,” said Willie, puzzled.

  There was a crunching of feet on the sandy concrete stairway coming down the cliff. I heard Hamphill coming down, sobbing with pain and moaning somet
hing that sounded like “Sherry’s gone. Sherry’s gone!” He burst toward us from the base of the steps. “Sherry’s gone!”

  “Gone?” said Mark, playing it. “Gone!” said Willie.

  I said nothing.

  “Finlay’s car’s gone too. Hank, get our car, we’ve got to go after them. They can’t take Sherry—” He saw the rowboat. “What’s that for?”

  Mark laughed. “I got Willie to give me a hand with Finlay.”

  “Yeah,” said Willie. “Plunk—overboard. He wasn’t heavy at all. Light as a feather.”

  Mark’s cheek twitched. “You’re just bragging, Willie. Oh, Hank, you better go get the car ready.”

  Maybe I showed something in my eyes. Hamphill glanced first at me, then at Mark, then at Willie, then at the boat.

  “Where—where were you, Hank? Did you help load Finlay and drop him?”

  “No. I was asleep. Somebody hit me on the head.”

  Hamphill shambled forward in the sand.

  “What’s wrong?” cried Mark.

  “Hold still!” commanded Hamphill. He plunged his hand into one of Mark’s coat pockets, then the other. He drew something out into the moonlight.

  Sherry’s bracelet and ring.

  Hamphill’s face was like nothing I’d ever seen before in my life. He stared blindly at the boat and his voice was far away as he said, “So Finlay was light as a feather, was he, Willie?”

  “Yes, sir,” said Willie.

  Hamphill said slowly, “What were you going to do, Mark, use the bracelet and ring on your own time, to get the money?” He jerked a hand at Willie. “Willie, grab him!”

  Willie grabbed. Mark yelled. Willie coiled him in like a boa constrictor enfolding a boar.

  Hamphill said, “Walk out into the water with him, Willie.”

  “Yes, boss.”

  “And come back alone.”

  “Yes, boss.”

  “Boss, cut it out. Cut it, boss!” Mark screamed, thrashing wildly.

  Willie began walking. The first shell of water poured over his big feet. A second skin of water slid in, foaming soft. Mark shouted and a wave thundered, roared around the shout, folding it as Willie folded Mark. Willie stopped.

  “Keep going,” said Hamphill.

  Willie went in to his knees, then up, inch by inch, over his big stomach, to his chest. Mark’s yelling was farther away now because the night wind covered it over.

  Hamphill stood watching like a frozen god. A wave broke over Willie into custard foam, leveled out, as Willie plunged ahead with Mark and vanished. Six waves came in, broke.

  Then a huge water wall rushed in, casting Willie, alone, at our feet. He stood up, shaking water off his thick arms. “Yes, boss.”

  “Go up to the car and wait there, Willie,” said Hamphill. Willie lumbered off.

  Hamphill looked out at the point, listening. “Now what in hell are you up to?” I said.

  “None of your damn business.”

  He began walking toward the water. I put out my hands. He pulled away from me and there was a gun in one hand. “Get going. Go on up to the car with Willie. I got a date for a high mass,” he said. “And I don’t want to be late. Now, Hank.”

  He walked out into the cold water, straight ahead. I stood watching him as long as I could see his tall striding figure. Then one big wave came and spread everything into a salt solitude.…

  I climbed back up to the car, opened the door, and slid in beside Willie.

  “Where’s the boss?” asked Willie.

  “I’ll tell you all about it in the morning,” I said. I sat there and Willie dripped water.

  “Listen,” I said and held my breath.

  We heard the waves go in and out, in and out, like mighty organ music. “Hear ’em, Willie? That’s Sherry taking the soprano and the boss on the baritone. They’re in the choir loft, Willie, sending way up high after that gloria. That is real singing, Willie—listen to it while you can. You’ll never hear anything like it again.”

  “I don’t hear nothing,” said Willie.

  “You poor guy,” I said, started the car, and drove away.…

  Where Everything Ends

  In the old days a circus had dumped its ancient red wagons and yellow-painted cages into the canal. It looked as if a long parade had rolled and rumbled off the rim to pile up and rust brown under the grey motionless waters. There were about ten cages, wheels turned up, the paint of old years flaking like leaves from a calendar.

  Steve Michaels stood on the edge of it, looking down and seeing it through a red mist.

  Thirty years ago this was called Venice by the Sea, California. Like Italy. Gondolas had skimmed brightly, with green lanterns in the night, up and down, people singing, everything clean and new. That was all gone. Now it was a dump for empty cages.

  Steve didn’t know it was five in the afternoon. He didn’t seem to notice the winter sun hung on a misty grey sky. The silence held onto him and wouldn’t let him breathe.

  All of a sudden Lisa was beside him. She made the winter air warm and sweet. Her voice was low,

  “Steve, you can’t stand here forever.”

  His grey eyes didn’t look up.

  “I can try.”

  “Come home to the L.A. office, Steve. You can come out again tomorrow.”

  “Yeah. After the funeral,” Steve said, “I can come down and look at Charlie’s bloodstains on the sidewalk. If it rains I can watch the rain wash them away.” He stared at the concrete beneath his feet with its funny color. “I wish it could rain in my head and do the same.”

  Lisa waited. “All right,” she sighed. “What do we do?”

  His shoulders came up. He threw away a dead cigarette he’d forgotten to use.

  “Walk. Come on, Lisa. We’re looking for a murderer who lives in a house on the canal.”

  They walked south.

  The territory was familiar. Steve explained. “The houses start here, thick, and peter out four miles down the coast. You find oil wells there, pumping, and the canal waters get dirty black with it. It—smells like old blood.”

  The cold light made Steve’s face whiter, the skin of it boned tight on his cheeks, his eyes lonelier and colorless, and his hair blacker in contrast.

  “While you were in El Monte yesterday, Lisa, someone phoned the office. An old man named Gerbelow who works an oil well on the Venice flatlands, said he was being blackmailed. Blackmailer’s alias is Markham. Funny things were happening.”

  “What things?”

  “Accidents at night, to oil equipment. Someone slipping around in the dark doing it. Charlie figured whoever was responsible lived nearby the canal system, I guess. So many nights, funny hours. I stuck in the office. Charlie interviewed Gerbelow, first, then strolled along the whole canal system, looking for some clue to the setup—”

  Lisa’s hand tightened on his arm. “The papers said it was accidental. Charlie Brandon walked off the pavement in the dark, struck his head and drowned in six feet of water…”

  Steve’s jaw muscles tightened. “I let the cops think it was accidental, too. Didn’t want them plowing around. This is my case, mine and Charlie’s.” He looked at all the mouse-colored houses, each a grey replica of its brother. One-story flats with mist to tuck them in at twilight, and a salt wind blowing fury at morning. “Charlie must’ve figured some theory, walking around. I wish I knew what it was.”

  “Have you seen old man Gerbelow yet?”

  “I phoned him and told him we’d be down. He said he’d only seen Markham once, a couple months ago when Markham first started his game. Gerbelow’s got bad eyes. The only thing he said was that Markham had a young voice; young and cocky.”

  Steve walked faster.

  “Is that where we’re going, Steve? To Gerbelow’s?”

  “Yeah. It’s a four-mile walk. We can look for things on the way down.”

  Lisa shivered and half turned as they walked. It was almost completely dark now.

  “Funny how you thin
k someone’s following you—and it’s only the wind.”

  * * *

  Four miles down, the canal begins to veer toward the sea. The beat of the ocean comes in a kind of salt anger upon piers, rocks and sand flats. There, the oil wells knit land and sea together with pumping black fingers. You hear them groaning, creaking over their work. You can’t see what they’re doing in the dark, but you hear them complaining all the while.

  A wind raked away the fog-clouds for a moment, like pale leaves on a big dark lawn, to let stars come through like funny far away flowers coming in bud. Steve whistled through his teeth.

  Lisa went with him toward this one particular oil well that was set back from the canal about a hundred yards among a dozen others that climbed up and up and didn’t want to stop. An oil well looks like the kind of thing the Guy uses to take down stars every night and shine them with a rag; a regular ladder up.

  There was a light shining in a small shack. The teeter-totter of the oil pump moved up and down, up and down with a sighing, creaking, blowing; like a nervous finger.

  “Hey, Pop!”

  No answer. Steve heard Lisa whimper and a moment later she held onto him and said, “There he is, Steve. Up there, with his head under the power-shaft.”

  It was no place for a head. Steve gagged as he climbed the ladder up and stood atop the machinery shed where old man Gerbelow lay like a man sleeping, his head stuck under a shaft that went up and down, up and down. Steve’s eyes followed it, up, down, up, down, until they blurred it out, wet, sick. He couldn’t see. He could only kneel and a moment later say,

  “Did it rain today, Lisa?”

  “No.”

  “That’s funny. The top of the shed’s wet, and it’s not blood. The fog’s only been in a short while, no time for condensation there. Funny,” he said, turning away. He came down into the raw wind and shadows, looking at the canal. Nothing moved anywhere for a moment. Then there was a shadow. Steve saw it running, far off, maybe a hundred yards away.

  Steve had his gun out before he’d run four steps, but by that time the shadow was gone, and when Steve reached the canal there was nothing, only the sound of Lisa running on high heels after him. He looked upward at the towers with their platforms and ladders and webs of metal. Good hiding place, those, scuttle up in the shadows and lie watching and waiting over people below. So many towers. Too many. So many platforms and ladders and places to hide. Steve sighed. “Let’s go back to Gerbelow’s. There’s been another accident. An old man tinkered with his machinery and got his head under the wrong dingus.”