Body Rides (57 page)

‘Holy smoke. Let’s go and visit.’

‘He won’t be there,’ Neal said.

‘Let’s go anyhow!’

‘Might be a waste of time,’ Marta said. ‘Let’s call first and see what happens.’ She hunched over the book for a few moments, then put it on the table, stood up and walked over to her telephone. After tapping in the number, she said, ‘We’ll just see who answers.’

Sue whispered at Neal, ‘Told ya she’s smart.’

Marta, raising a hand for silence, said, ‘Hello. This is Doctor Irma Klein, calling from the emergency room of Westside Medical Center. We have a Mr Leslie Glitt who was just brought in for treatment following a motor vehicle accident.’ She listened briefly, then said, ‘Leslie Glitt.’ She listened again, this time nodding and frowning. ‘No, he didn’t have any identification. He told me . . . I really can’t describe him very well – he was heavily bandaged. But I would say that he’s approximately six feet tall, very thin, with black hair . . . Hard to say. Just from his voice, I’d guess maybe thirty, forty? . . . Uh, huh . . . No, I looked it up in the phone directory . . . In surgery . . . Why do you say that?’

A few seconds later, Marta made a face as if she’d just sat down in something wet and sticky.

‘I see,’ she said. ‘You’re sure about that? . . . Uh-huh. Well, then this
must
be someone else.’ She shook her head. ‘I have no idea why he might be using your brother’s name . . . I will. I’ll look into it . . . Really? Why the police?’

She listened for a long time, nodding and saying very little, often shaking her head, glancing from Neal to Sue.

Finally, she said, ‘Don’t worry about anything, Lois. I’m sure this can’t be your brother. But I will notify the police, and have them look into the matter.’ Marta made a frustrated face. ‘Let me just ask you one thing. I did notice something else about this man. Did your brother have webbed feet? . . . Webbed feet . . . No, it’s a somewhat rare anomaly – what we used to call a birth defect. I happened to notice because this patient was brought in barefoot. He has a cutaneous membrane between the toes of both feet . . . He didn’t?’

Marta beamed a smile at Neal and Sue.

‘Well, then the man we have here is obviously not your brother. This really does confirm it. All I can figure is that the name must be a coincidence . . . It
is
a very unusual name, but there’s no way that your brother could’ve developed webbed feet later in life. A person is either born with the condition, or not . . . Right, still dead.
I’m sorry for disturbing you over this situation. I didn’t mean to ruin your day . . . Well, thank you. And thanks so much for your help, Lois. Bye, now.’

Marta hung up, tilted back her head, took a deep breath, and blew air at the ceiling from her pursed lips.

‘Wow,’ Sue said.

‘You ought to be a detective,’ Neal said.

Marta returned to the sofa, flopped on it, and swung her feet up onto the coffee table. ‘I feel like a jerk for lying to the poor woman. Not to mention, I scared the crap out of her.’

‘She’s Leslie’s sister?’ Neal asked.

‘Yeah. Lois. According to her, Leslie’s dead. And she wants him to stay that way.’

Neal had guessed as much from Marta’s side of the telephone conversation. He could hardly believe it, though. ‘His sister thinks he’s
dead
?’

‘He is officially among the deceased. He shot it out with the cops in San Francisco seven years ago.’

‘Then how could this guy be him?’

‘They lost his body. Apparently, he was struck by gunfire as he was climbing over the rail of the Golden Gate Bridge. And down he went.’

‘Off the
Golden Gate
?’

‘Yeah. And into San Francisco Bay, where he was never seen again.’

‘Maybe this
isn’t
the same guy,’ Neal said.

‘Name’s the same. And her brother had the same build.’

‘Did her brother have the web feet?’ Sue asked.

Marta stared at her, eyebrows rising. ‘No,’ she said.

‘Well, then . . .’

‘I made it up about the webbed feet.’

‘Did ya?’

‘I didn’t want Lois to know her brother’s still alive. She’s terrified of him. She didn’t tell me what, but I got the impression that he used to do some pretty horrible things to her. On top of which, the cops thought he was this guy called “The Beast of Belvedere.”’

‘My God,’ Neal muttered. ‘You’re kidding. The Beast of Belvedere?’

‘You’ve heard of him?’

‘Sure. He was breaking into homes on Belvedere Island . . . It’s one of those very exclusive neighborhoods . . . Up in Marin County, just across the bridge from San Francisco. Woodsy hills, narrow little streets, a lagoon, houses that cost a small fortune . . . This guy got into four or five of these places and murdered anyone he found in them. Whole families, in a few cases. Tortured the people. Mutilated them. Raped them. Never left any survivors. The press started calling him the Beast of Belvedere. I knew all about it at the time, but . . . it
was
seven or eight years ago, I guess. From what I remember, they never had a suspect. And I don’t recall anything about a police shootout on the Golden Gate. The killings just ended, suddenly.’

‘Apparently when Leslie got shot off the Golden Gate.’

‘I can’t believe anyone could survive a thing like that,’ Neal said.

Sue met his eyes. ‘Yer the guy that calls him Rasputin.’

‘It’s about four-thirty now,’ Marta said after a glance at the clock on her VCR. ‘The money pick-up isn’t till two tonight, so we’ve got plenty of time to figure things out.’

‘You
do
have tonight off?’ Neal asked.

‘Right. Thursdays and Fridays.’

‘I guess we could go on over to my place any time,’ Neal said. ‘Glitt probably won’t show up till sometime after dark, but the earlier we get there, the better.’

‘Is that what you have in mind?’ Marta asked. ‘We wait for him to show up at your apartment?’

‘I guess so.’

‘Then what?’

Neal shrugged. ‘We grab him.’

‘Make him tell us where to go for the money,’ Sue explained.

‘Or I’ll get into his mind with the bracelet,’ Neal said, ‘and find out that way.’

‘Okay.’ Marta nodded her understanding. ‘We learn whatever we need to know. Then what?’

‘Go and get it,’ Sue said.

‘What about Glitt?’ She looked at Neal. ‘You’re saying we grab him inside your apartment, make him talk . . . whatever. Then do we leave him there? Take him with us?’

Neal realized he hadn’t actually given much thought to the matter. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘I guess that depends. Would all three of us be going to the pick-up?’

‘We don’t wanta leave
any
body behind to stand guard on
him
,’ Sue said. ‘I wouldn’t do it, not even if we had him hogtied ’n blinded.’

‘It’d be too dangerous,’ Marta agreed. ‘And we can’t exactly let him go.’ Eyes on Neal, she asked, ‘Would you want to kill him?’

‘Maybe. I mean, yeah. He has to be killed, I think. I’ve always figured I would kill him. But not in my apartment. If I
did
do it there, we’d have to haul out the body. We couldn’t just
leave
him. And somebody might see us.’

‘Dead or alive,’ Sue said, ‘we can’t just let him stay in yer rooms.’

Neal shook his head. ‘No. And either way, it’ll be a major problem.’

‘Not to mention,’ Marta said, ‘the whole idea of trying to “grab” him in your apartment when he shows up to kill you tonight. How do you plan to manage that?’

‘Stick my gun in his face.’

‘What if he puts up a fight? If you have to shoot him, we’ll never find out where to go for the money.’

‘I’ll try to just wound him.’

‘He can’t get killed anyhow,’ Sue pointed out. A single side of her mouth lifted. ‘Right?’

‘It almost looks that way,’ Neal admitted.

‘But even if you only wound him,’ Marta said, ‘your neighbors will hear the shot. One of them might phone the cops.’

‘Nobody in L.A. calls in about gunfire,’ Neal said.

‘I bet they do when the shots come from their own building. Or if not call the cops, they might do some checking around on their own. Which they might do if there’s
any
sort of major disturbance – shouts, a struggle . . .’

‘I gotta hunch y’ain’t keen on the big plan.’

‘It seems to have some big problems.’

Nodding, Neal said, ‘Maybe we need to jump him outside, huh? Right after he leaves his car. Before he gets to the building.’

‘And then what’ll we do, interrogate him on the sidewalk?’

‘Well . . .’

‘Ya want my plan?’ Sue asked.

They both looked at her and nodded.

‘Here’s what I think,’ Sue said. ‘I think Marta’s already figured out how to get the job done and we oughta do it her way.’

Marta grinned. ‘How did you know?’

‘Oh, I know more than I think.’

Neal turned to Marta. ‘Let’s hear it.’

She grinned. ‘We don’t wait for Glitt to show up at your place tonight. Instead, we make a pre-emptive strike.’

‘A
who
?’ Sue asked.

‘Means we beat him to the punch,’ Neal explained. ‘We go out and nail him before he comes for us.’ To Marta, he said, ‘Only one problem with that. We don’t know where to find him. That house last night, I haven’t got the slightest idea . . .’

‘We don’t know where to find Glitt, Rasputin, the Beast of Belvedere. But I’ll bet we can find Vince Conrad.’

Neal stared at her. He suddenly felt a little shaky. ‘Pay
him
a visit?’

Marta nodded. ‘He’s the guy with the money. If he’s planning to hand over half a million bucks to Glitt tonight, he probably has it in his house right this very minute.’

‘You’re probably right.’

‘When’ll we go?’ Sue asked.

Marta grinned and said, ‘Now?’

‘Haw! That’s the ticket!’

‘I don’t know,’ Neal said.

‘It’s perfect,’ Marta said. ‘This way, we find out whether he really did hire Glitt to kill Elise. If he’s got the payoff money, we find out where it is. That’s where your bracelet should come in handy. You get inside him and find out whatever we need to know. If we’re lucky, maybe we can take it from him.’

‘Yeah!’ Sue blurted. ‘We swipe the bundle right out from under his nose!’

Neal moaned.

Still grinning, Marta said, ‘Then here’s poor old Vince minus
the half a million bucks he owes Glitt. Comes two o’clock in the morning, what’s he going to do?’

Sue gleefully threw in, ‘What’s
Glitt
gonna do?’

‘Not the sort of chap I’d like to have mad at
me
,’ Marta said.

Neal took a deep breath. He felt trembly and sick, but excited by the plan. ‘In other words,’ he said, ‘we steal the money from Vince. He can’t make tonight’s payoff. Glitt gets pissed off at him and all hell breaks loose.’

‘Beautiful?’ Marta asked.

‘Brilliant,’ Neal said. Wrinkling his nose, he added, ‘Now if we could just hire someone to do it
for
us.’

‘
You
got no reason to be scared,’ Sue told him. ‘Yer gonna be all safe and sound in the bastard’s head. Anybody gets hurt, it’s gonna be me or Marta.’

‘Maybe that’s
why
I’m scared.’

‘We’ll be safe,’ Marta said. ‘Vince didn’t have the guts to kill Elise – had to
hire
someone else to do it. So he’s not about to try anything with a couple of friendly babes like us.’

‘Anyhow, yer gonna be in his head. If he takes on any funny ideas, just get back in yer own self and come to the rescue.’

‘You’re kidding,’ Neal said when they returned to the living room. They both wore suntan oil that made their skin glisten, swimsuits that showed most of it, and nothing else.

Neal had seen Marta’s suit before. A skimpy, two-piece affair the color of butter, its imitation leather was cut in a shaggy style that made her look like some sort of Hollywood jungle woman – Tarzan’s Jane or Raquel Welch in
One Million Years B.C
.

Sue wore a shiny black bikini. Smiling, she raised her arms and twirled around, modeling it for Neal.

‘You’re not wearing that over to Vince’s, are you?’

‘Sure am.’

‘We’re going there to
distract
the guy,’ Marta pointed out.

‘Well, you’ll distract him all right. Both of you will. If your naked breasts don’t . . .’

‘They are not naked,’ Marta said.

‘As good as.’