Down for the Count: A Toby Peters Mystery (Book Ten) (21 page)

It was the right place. I could tell by the black sedan in front of the cabin when I finally got to the top of the hill. Not only was it the right place, but the person I’d come for was here or the car wouldn’t be. The big problem was the clearing around the cabin. The cabin sat in the middle of that grassy clearing. Three metal garbage cans sat next to the house, the only possible cover. A raccoon was pawing at one of the cans, trying to figure a way to get it open.

There were windows on all four sides of the cabin. It wasn’t much of a house, but it was enough, two sections, real sanded log with an enclosed and covered patio on one side, a comfortable little cabin. Maybe I wouldn’t be seen. No reason to assume I’d be seen. I crouched, working my way around, and moved toward the cabin from behind. My sore foot made itself known. It had complained to me all the way up the hill, but I had taken that slowly. Now I was hurrying and my foot didn’t like it. The raccoon heard me coming, got scared, pushed against the garbage can, and knocked it over. I kept coming as I heard the cabin door open. I almost made it.

The killer came around the side of the house in a red flannel shirt and dark trousers, spotted the raccoon running for the trees and me slouching toward the rear of the house. He shot just as I pushed against the side of the cabin, out of sight. He shot again, even though he couldn’t see me anymore, and hit the cabin.

“I’ve got a gun,” I said.

“I’ve got a gun,” he said.

“What now?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” he said. “I suppose I have to try to kill you.”

The raccoon was rustling the brush as he ambled away, and I tried to think of another way of settling the situation.

“You could put down the gun and come back with me,” I tried. “Hell, you might wind up getting shot here and not me.”

“I think that would be better than going back,” he said. I tried to think of another argument, but I had to agree with him. In his place, I’d see it the same way. The difference was that I’d never be in his place.

Instead of talking, I moved as quietly as I could around the cabin, away from him. I rounded the building and moved to the front. I peeked around the corner. He wasn’t there. Beyond the sedan I could see the road leading up the hill. I tried to find a dry place on my clothes to wipe my sweating palm and get a better grip on my gun. My pants weren’t too bad.

With my gun in front of me, I stepped out in front of the cabin and shuffled across the front of the building to the side, where I could see him if he were still standing where he had been. He wasn’t there. My right foot was numb and my left was on its own. A shot hit the cabin above me, and a second broke the nearby window. I turned and fired in the direction I’d just come. He was standing there, and I thought for a second that I’d hit him, but he raised his gun and took two more shots. The first ran a dark fingerline in the gravel in front of me. The second raced into the woods.

I flattened myself against the wall, held my breath, and took aim while he shot again. His shot was so far off it pinged against the fender of the black sedan. My shot caught the outside of the shoe on his left foot. It made him jump back.

“We’re both god-awful at this,” I said. “But I think I’m a little better than you are. For chrissake, give it up.”

He dashed through the door into the cabin and I tried to follow him, but he threw the bolt on the door and took another shot through the maple. The shot missed me by an inch or two.

“Enough,” I shouted. “This is enough.” I aimed at where the bolt should have been and fired. “I’m tired. I’m sweating. My foot hurts. I’m getting too damn old for this, and I goddamn don’t want to kill you.”

The bolt gave and I threw my shoulder at the door. It swung open, and the killer stood there next to an overstuffed chair, his gun aimed at a door across the room and not at me. Mine was aimed at him. It didn’t seem like a stalemate to me.

“You know who’s in that closet?” he said feverishly. His hand was shaking.

“Parkman,” I guessed.

“Parkman,” he agreed.

“If you don’t put your gun down, I’ll shoot and keep shooting. The closet’s small and I don’t think there’s much chance even I would miss from here.”

“What makes you think I care if you shoot Parkman?” I said, holding my gun on a line with his chest.

“You care, Peters, for God’s sake,” came Parkman’s muffled voice from inside the closet. “Do what he wants.”

“I can’t do what he wants,” I shouted so Parkman could hear me. “If I put down my gun, he shoots you and me.”

“I haven’t killed him yet,” said the shaking killer.

“Let me guess why,” I said. “Could be a couple of things. You haven’t got the stomach for it. Shooting two killers and Lipparini is one thing, but an innocent man is another. On the other hand, maybe you’ve been toying with the idea of finding some way to get rid of Parkman and make it look like he killed himself, knowing he’d get caught for killing the two at the gym.”

“Thanks,” groaned Parkman inside the closet. “Thanks a lot. Give him ideas. I don’t have enough problems here without you coming in and giving him ideas.”

“Like I said outside, put it down and come down the hill with me. Either that or I’m going to have to shoot you.”

“Hey,” sobbed Parkman. “What about me?”

“There’s no reason to shoot Parkman,” I reasoned. “But if that’s the way you want to go out, go ahead.”

The shaking gun turned suddenly in my direction, or roughly in my direction, and kicked red, white, and loud three times. Inside the closet Parkman screamed. I didn’t shoot. The first two bullets he fired hit the ceiling. The last one took a piece of my right ear. A steady gun would have killed me. If he’d had another shot or two, that might have killed me too, but he was dry. I put my gun in my belt and tried to hide the exasperation in my voice as I said, “Is that enough? I can’t afford to keep this up till you get lucky. Look at my ear.”

He looked at me, dropped his gun, and hurtled himself in my direction with a “Damn you.” He fought about as well as he could shoot. I wasn’t worried about a broken hand. I was no pro like Joe Louis and I had a lot to be angry about. I caught him with a short right to the cheek as I stepped to the side and another to the kidney as he tried to straighten up. If Ruby Goldstein or some other honest ref had been there, I would have been disqualified.

“Enough?” I said, looking down at him.

He held his possibly broken jaw as he tried to stand, and said, with a tear in his voice, “Enough.”

“What’s going on out there?” shouted Parkman. “What the hell’s—”

“I won,” I shouted. “I’ll let you out in a minute.”

“A minute? A minute? I’ve been in here for days, goddamn it!”

“Shut up,” I shouted, and helped the killer to his wobbly legs and into the stuffed chair.

“Thanks,” he said. “You think my jaw is broken?”

“No,” I said helpfully. “I don’t think you’d be talking if it was, but I could be wrong.”

“I should have been more patient last night when you were taking that shower,” he said. “I’m not good at this.”

“You were bad at it,” I admitted, “but you did have a few lucky breaks. You want to tell me about it before we go down?”

Ralph Howard pushed back his white hair with a clean palm and told me his story.

10

“Y
ou’d better take care of your ear,” he said before he began. I thanked him, found a towel in the small bathroom, and clamped it against my head as I sat across from him in a wooden rocking chair and listened.

“I invested heavily in a stable of boxers,” he said, reaching up to adjust a tie that was usually there but wasn’t any longer. “I didn’t know it would be so damn expensive. I kept sinking more and more into it with less to show for my investment. There was always the chance of a big fight, a decent purse, but they never came. Instead of making money I found myself supporting the families of six boxers, none of whom proved to be particularly impressive. The advice of Mr. Parkman was greatly responsible for my situation.”

“I heard that,” Parkman shouted. “I was straight with you. I was straight with him, Peters. That’s the God’s—”

“Al,” I yelled. “Shut up.”

“Then Lipparini approached me at a restaurant,” Ralph went on.

I checked to see if the bleeding had stopped. The towel was soaked. My ear was still bleeding.

“Lipparini,” said Ralph, “was very sympathetic. He’d heard about my fighters, my situation, and said he wanted to help, that he could help with money but that he couldn’t get directly involved in ownership of fighters. It sounded good.”

“So you agreed,” I prompted.

“Obviously,” he said. “If I hadn’t, we wouldn’t be here now. Lipparini put up money and remained in the background for all of two weeks, at which time he made clear what his plan was. I was to use my social and business connections to arrange for fights between professional boxers in the Army and my fighters. Exhibitions would be fine.”

“And you couldn’t do it?”

“I tried to explain to him that I could not use the connections I had made through Trans World. Using our government contacts to make such connections would almost certainly fail and might result in my losing my job and reputation.”

“And Lipparini wouldn’t listen,” I said.

“He wouldn’t listen. He gave me deadlines, told me I had to pay back the money he had put up, even sent someone to try to frighten me. Almost ran me down on the street. Anne was with me.”

“I know,” I said. “And you …”

“… decided there was nothing to do but die,” he said. “I’d made contact with those two …”

“Silvio and Mush,” I supplied. “The ones you shot at Reed’s.”

“They seemed willing enough to listen to my plan,” Ralph said, running his hand against his jaw. “And I thought it would be safe. They wouldn’t help me and then tell Lipparini. They were as frightened of him as I was.”

“So,” I cut in, checking my ear again, which seemed to have stopped bleeding, “you put up the last of your cash to pay them to beat some poor bum to death who happened to look like you. They gave him your clothes, shaved and showered him, and then smashed his face in and dumped him on the beach. The only problem was that they ran into Joe Louis doing some late roadwork on the shore, and he saw them.”

“And you came along,” Ralph added.

“And I came along,” I agreed. “Ralph, putting aside the fact that you paid to have some innocent jerk killed, didn’t you think about fingerprints, teeth?”

“No,” he admitted. “I didn’t think anyone would doubt it was me if the body was found on my beach, in my clothes. And I’d let Anne know that I was worried.”

“You were right,” I said, throwing the towel in the corner. “No one even thought about it, but Mush and Silvio told you that Louis had seen them. And they probably called you the morning after Lipparini talked to me and let you know that the pressure was on them. Did they want more money?”

“Yes.” Ralph nodded. “I didn’t have any more to give them. Not enough to make a difference. I told them I’d give them five thousand each if they killed you. Then I followed you and made my way to Parkman’s office.”

“You waited long enough for them to kill me,” I reminded him.

“At that point,” he said, “I wouldn’t have minded. I’m being truthful.”

“That doesn’t make you a nice person,” I reminded him. “When I went out in the gym with Louis, you stepped in, shot the two of them on the floor, and went out the window with Parkman.”

“Speaking of whom,” Parkman moaned from the closet, “I would appreciate getting—”

“Why did you try to kill me?” I asked. “I wasn’t getting close to you.”

“But you were getting close to Anne,” he said, looking directly at me. “It was you she sent for when she thought she needed help. It was you who spent the night with her two days after I was dead.”

“You aren’t dead,” I reminded him.

“But she thought I was. And then she gave you my clothes. I threw my life away so she could have the insurance, and she lets you through the door before my … the body is fully cold.”

“And that’s why you tried to kill me at the Ocean Breeze, why you tore up my clothes?”

“My clothes,” Ralph countered. “Not your clothes. My wife, not your wife. Your ex-wife.”

“And you want me to give a little grudging admiration at this point,” I said. “All your sacrifices, for wife and empire, that kind of crap? You killed some poor bum and ran to keep Lipparini from getting your skin or the police from throwing the key away and your friends from knowing what you were mixed up in. You dumped Anne and went off to start clean, but it was too dirty.”

“I left her with more than you did when you were divorced,” he said. “This is getting us nowhere. Let Parkman out and we’ll go. I really have nothing more to say to you.”

“Not that easy,” I said, getting out of the rocker and moving to the closet. “You show up now and Anne loses the money, you, and her self-respect. She has to live with all the crap you’ve spread around.”

I turned the key and opened the closet door. Parkman blinked in the sudden light like a rat with a flashlight in his face. His face was dirty, his flashy green suit jacket on the floor, and his shirt open. He twitched and stepped forward. “What the hell,” he grumbled, and when he spotted Ralph, “I’m going to sue you, you bastard.”