Dead-Bang (23 page)

I tried to ignore the worry. I couldn't be dithering about supersexy tomatoes when there was a job—an important job—to be done. But that was the nub of the trouble, those gals
were
supersexy, and whenever that thought crossed my mind it was double-crossed by another thought, of the hate and fear of sex and sexiness, and above all supersexiness, which possessed Festus Lemming and his joyless, juiceless, loveless flock.

But I pushed that out of my mind, or at least over to its edge, took the Colt from its holster and moved away from the silk oak tree. I was out in the open for only a few seconds while walking rapidly alongside the fence on my right, then left at the rear of the house to the back door. I turned the knob, pushed. The door was unlocked. I felt my pulse pick up a few beats, because to me that meant Dave Cassiday was, very likely, home.

His den was empty. The smell of pipe smoke was strong. I found him in the living room, sitting alone on the big curved divan recently warmed by ten splendid derrieres. He was on its far side, opposite the five- or six-foot opening that allowed entrance to the inside of the circle, seated facing me, pencil in his hand and a pad of yellow paper on his lap. His eyes were on a big color television set in the corner on my right, but they flicked to me as soon as I stepped into view. And I went into the living room with the Colt .38 in front of me.

Cassiday stared as I walked toward him. “What the hell is this, Scott? What in hell's the gun for?”

“For you, Dave.” I stopped between the two ends of the divan. “Sit on your hands, pal. Lace your fingers together, and sit on them.”

“Is this some kind of joke? I'll be goddamned if—”

“Sit
on them.”

He hesitated, then put his arms behind him, leaned forward, sat down with his hands pinned under his hips. I moved around the little table, noticing that the carnations in their colorful vase were already beginning to wilt, frisked Cassiday for a gun. He was clean. When I stepped back and sat on one edge of the divan, he was a good eight feet away—it was a big hunk of furniture.

“O.K.,” I said. “You can relax.”

He shifted his weight, let both hands drop into his lap, scowling. “I hope you know what you're doing.”

I grinned. “That was the wrong thing to say, Dave. You should hope I
don't
know what I'm doing. But I do, finally. Didn't really take so long at that, though, did it? Hell, it hasn't even been twenty-four hours since you snatched Bruno, drained the blood out of André—incidentally, what was it you pumped into Strang?”

“You're not only getting paranoid, you've got a damned short memory, Scott. You forget
I
was grabbed along with Doc, tied up and gagged—”

“Yeah, tied. Not very carefully. Bruno was really wrapped up, separate ropes for his wrists and ankles, and they were
tight
. So tight it was several minutes before he could walk at all. Not Dave Cassiday though. In about five seconds you were moving around like a ballet dancer—making sure Monk was dead, by the way—because there was only one rope around your arms and legs, and even it was pretty loose. I imagine if I'd started to work on those knots I'd have wondered why they unraveled so easily compared to the dandies holding Bruno. Fortunately—for you, Dave—I didn't untie them but cut you free instead. Using your handy knife, at that.”

“You're talking nonsense. Maybe I wasn't strapped down like Doc, maybe I was. How would I know? After all,
he
was the important man, not me. And is it some kind of crime to carry a pocket knife? It's just lucky I had it in my pocket—”

“Not so lucky. Pretty careless kidnappers to leave a knife in your pants. I suppose if you'd had a pistol, or a bazooka, they'd have let you keep it, too. But that's a small item. Let's take a look at the big picture, from your point of view, Dave. You were taking a swing at a tricky multimillion, maybe billion, dollar operation. If you were quote kidnapped unquote along with Bruno, you could keep an eye on the whole operation,
and
on those three hard boys you hired, could protect your interests—the Erovite formula, essentially—but at the same time appear not to be the villain but one of the victims if anything went wrong. Which it did, of course.”

“You're going to feel damned silly—”

“Hold it a minute. You just said a chunk of it yourself, Dave. That Bruno was the important man, not you. It makes sense that our bruisers might force André to phone the Doc, get him down to the church—good sense, because considering the time, and the nature of recent events, very few people
other
than André could have got Bruno to a spot where he could be snatched. Or beaten, or killed. Lots of people around these days who'd at least like to pound on the Apostle of Sin, and Bruno knew it. So André was the right man to lean on, the perfect lever for moving Bruno when they wanted him moved. Naturally, after that they'd have to kill him. But how did our bruisers know about André, Dave?”

“What?”

I didn't say anything. I waited, watching him, while his brow crinkled and a corner of his mouth started to twitch slightly.

“Yeah,” I went on softly, “how did they know about André? He was cooperating with you and Bruno, undercover in the Church, passing news of Lemming's plans to you and Bruno. Nobody else was supposed to know about that. Sure wasn't common knowledge. Bruno wouldn't have told the boys. Dru wouldn't have. Sort of points the finger at you, Dave. Right?”

This time he didn't say anything.

“Maybe you knew it would tag you—if there was a hitch, that is, and if anybody ever learned these little details—which possibility might have helped you decide to be a covictim with Bruno. But you should have stayed home in bed, that was
another
mistake.”

“What?”

He was in a rut. Both times the word had just popped out. “If our boys knew as much as we now realize they must have, they also knew they didn't need Dave Cassiday, not if they had Bruno. No reason to pull you down to the church and snatch you, too, Dave. No reason at all. Except your reasons.”

He smiled oddly. “You make a pretty good case with nothing to go on but half-witted guesses. I'd almost turn myself in if I didn't know you were full of—”

“I wasn't quite finished. And I'm not guessing, not any more. Once I realized you
had
to be it, the rest was easy. For example, if André had phoned Bruno and you about the same time, Bruno should have arrived at the church well before you, since he lived much closer to Weilton. He didn't. You admitted to me yourself that you waited several minutes for the Doc. Besides, both calls from Weilton would have been long-distance, and thus recorded. So on my way here I checked with a contact in the phone company. You know what I found out. There was a call to Bruno from André's phone—same number as Lemming's, by the way—in the church. But none to you, Dave. Not near seven
P
.
M
., or at any other time yesterday. How do you explain that half-witted guess?”

He was silent for a good half-minute. Then he smiled that very engaging crooked smile of his and said, “I don't suppose that's all you've got?”

“No, that's not all.”

Still smiling, he sighed. “Well, it wasn't supposed to get this screwed up, Scott. It was arranged so Lemming would be in the squeeze, not me. It was beautiful. It was supposed to
work
. And if it hadn't been for you, you sonofabitch, it would have.”

18

Cassiday relaxed, crossed one leg over the other, folded his arms, and went on, “If it had worked, none of these questions would have been asked—there wouldn't have been anybody to ask them. Even if Dru refused to deliver the Erovite envelope, Doc would never have suspected me for a minute. I could even have tried it again, maybe a different way, made it work. I suppose you know I'm the only man who
could
have made it work.”

I nodded. “That's what brought me here. Anyone who squeezed the formula out of Bruno would then have to kill the Doc of course. But as soon as he tried to market Erovite, even if he called it something else, he would automatically tag himself as the guy who'd killed Bruno to get the formula. Unless—unless he was a man who already knew the formula, or could
claim
he'd known it all along, because he was the very lad who'd been producing and marketing Erovite. Someone like you, Dave. More accurately,
only
you.”

“You mind if I smoke? I can't shoot you with my pipe.”

“Go ahead. I'd hate to put two or three into your gut, but I will if you get cute. I suppose you remember what these pills did to Monk.”

He pulled his pipe and a tobacco pouch from his coat pocket. “I remember,” he said. After tamping tobacco into the pipe's bowl he added, “You said you had more, Scott. That all there is?”

“Not quite. Last night on Fifty-eighth Street, Bruno and André were brought into that back room first so you could be alone with at least one of your kidnappers long enough—besides getting that part-of-the-convincer tap on your eye—to give last-minute instructions. Such as ordering the murder of a lovely gal, who'd seen one of your men and probably Strang as well in the church parking lot, and might even have recognized you in the front seat of the car. Just as Strang wasn't killed merely to make Bruno write his note to Dru, or even because he could identify your two heavy-men, but because he knew you were behind the snatch from the beginning, since he hadn't phoned you at all but instead had been forced to call Bruno
by
you.”

Dave had gotten his pipe lit and was drawing on it. After a couple of puffs he said, “You're pretty good.”

“I don't have to be good when a guy makes as many mistakes as you did.” I paused. “Tell me something, Dave. A minute ago you mentioned setting things up so Lemming would be in the squeeze. Lemming, not you. Mind explaining that?”

He was quiet for a few seconds, squinting at me. Then he said slowly, “Matter of fact, I'd kind of like for somebody to know just how good it … was. But what difference does it make to you?”

“You're going to tell it sooner or later. Besides, maybe the only thing that kept me from tagging you before now was the idea, damn near a fixation I guess, that of Earth's entire population the man most likely to kill or ruin Bruno—and Erovite along with him—was Festus Lemming. If Festus wasn't such a weirdo and so obviously out to get the Doc, you'd have been number one sooner.”

“Very natural assumptions, Scott—for you and a hundred million other people. That's what made it so sweet.” He paused for a while, then went on easily, “If half the country was ready to believe Lemming
could
kill Emmanuel Bruno, or have him killed, why not help them to believe he
did?”

“Come again?”

“Use your imagination. Say it had worked my way—Bruno's dead, nobody knows for sure who killed him, half the country thinks
maybe
Lemming had something to do with it. A gun, knife, that wouldn't be the Pastor's style. But an unknown rot in artery and vein? Something creepy in the
blood?
More like it, huh? No worry about ballistics, either, no fingerprints, just—the Antichrist is dead! Praise the Lord!”

Cassiday smiled broadly. “If I can brag a little, I took
that
angle into consideration, too. I learned from André on Thursday that Lemming was going to make his Bruno's-the-Archfiend announcement two days later, on Saturday night. Made things a little tight for me, and I knew I'd have to get a move on, but the toughest part then was conning André so he wouldn't spill the same thing to Doc. Because that angle was like the answer to a prayer. Not only would most of those hundred million start spinning their fingers around near their heads when they spoke of Festus, but his motive, already bigger than Texas, would look the size of—well, the planet? The solar system? The universe?” He smiled again, apparently enjoying himself a lot.

“Not bad,” I said grudgingly. “Except Festus arranged all that help for you himself. Besides which, a solid motive—even means and opportunity on top of motive—isn't necessarily enough. There'd have to be some kind of evidence, something solid to point—”

“Do you think I'm a half-wit? If Lemming was suspected of lacing Bruno's blood with poison, and a vial of the specific and previously
unknown
poison—in a kit with hypodermic syringe and some needles, say—was found taped under the little altar in Lemming's private office at the church, that would be something solid, right? And naturally—here's the frosting on the cake, Scott—since Festus is the biggest mouth sounding off against Erovite, and I'd have a lock
on
Erovite, every bit of trouble for Festus would be money in the bank for me.”

“You don't mean you were going to plant a kit and some of that crud you shot into Strang—”

“Not
going
to. I told you it was beautiful, didn't I? I talked André into letting me visit Lemming's office for a couple minutes Thursday night—in the Pastor's absence, of course. So, it's already there, it's done. Just waiting to be discovered at the appropriate moment, preferably by the police. And if they should need a little help, an anonymous tip maybe?”

I shook my head. “Well, there's another reason dear old André had to go. I suppose Festus killed him, too?”

“Naturally. Friction between them. Doctrinal disagreements. Strang was about to leave the L.A. Eden. And—the big one—Lemming discovered André was spilling all the Church beans to the … well, I won't say it again. Just say to Emmanuel Bruno.”

“In a way, I've got to hand it to you, Dave. I really think you could have made it work. If you hadn't made so many mistakes.”

“This is the second time you've said that, Scott. And it's not fair. It's not even right. True, I had to improvise, and it got a little hairy—
after
you showed up. But if you hadn't blundered into the picture I'd have been in the clear. And there's still not a damned thing to tie me in—except you. If you were dead, I wouldn't have a thing to worry about. Even now. Right?”