Kill Me Tomorrow (6 page)

“Shorts?”

He nodded.

“Like—Bermudas? Or the things gals play tennis in? Those little … short things?”

“Yeah. Shorts.” He paused. “And she was barefoot.”

“That's … interesting.” I got to my feet. “Well, I'll let you know the results of my careful, scientific investigation.”

“Goddammit,” he said, “I never claimed to be a goddamn scientific—”

“Whoa, Tony. I was merely—jesting. Truth is, you've done as well as could be expected so far, considering the peculiar circumstances. Hell, I'll probably do much worse.”

For a moment I stood there wishing I hadn't said that. Idle words loosed into the ether sometimes spring back upon you. But then I put such negative ideas out of my head, as Tony and I walked into the front room.

Tony went into the kitchen, from which were wafted to my nostrils the scents of cheeses, garlic and other spices and seasonings—and, of course, wine—and as I moved toward the door Lucrezia entered the softly lighted living room, rubbing her hands on a pink apron tied around her waist. When she walked up to me I noticed one white smudge of flour on her cheek, another on the back of her right hand.

“I came out to thank you, Shell,” she said sweetly.

“I haven't
done
anything yet. Ah, don't flip—all I meant was, the case has only begun—”

“I know what you meant. I think. But I was talking to Mom while you were in the den. Dad's a lot more worried than he lets on. He's been acting … strange. I
do
hope you can help him, Shell.”

“I'll give it my best shot, Lu—Miss Brizante. But I've a hunch there's no real reason for your dad to be so wound up.”

“I hope you're right. Where are you going now?”

“Believe it or not, I'm on my way to see a Reverend.”

She shook her head. “Well, phone me if you learn anything important, Shell.”

“Sure. I may phone you even if I don't.”

She held out her hand—for a friendly shake, of course—but as I bent forward, and lightly kissed the back of her hand, I got a little flour on my mouth. I got more than that. As my lips brushed her skin, Lucrezia squeezed my fingers gently twice; and that pulsing tightening and relaxation of her fingers against mine, which with most women might have been interesting or even stimulating, was, with Lucrezia, a
hell
of a thing to happen to me on my way to church.

CHAPTER FOUR

The Universalist Communion Church, plus its large parking lot at the left of the building, occupied half of an attractively landscaped city block on Palos Verde Drive. The sun was setting when I parked the Cad, walked from the lot back a hundred feet to the strip of pebbled cement leading to the massive double doors of the entrance. They were closed against the heat, but unlocked, and I walked on into the cool dim interior of the church, then down a slanting and thickly carpeted aisle between rows of polished benches on my left and right.

A door in the wall ahead of me and on my left opened, and Reverend Stanley Archibald appeared in it, light behind him spilling out onto the carpeted floor. “Mr. Scott?” he called.

“Yeah, just got here, Reverend.”

“Come in, please.”

He moved back as I walked past him, closed the door, stepped across the small room to a black curving desk and sat behind it, indicating a black leather chair nearby. “How may I help you, Mr. Scott?”

I told him I was a licensed private investigator—licensed in California—acting as a friend of the Brizantes, and hoping to trace Gil Reyes' movements. “Mr. Brizante has already told me about his conversation with you Tuesday night, Reverend, but I'd appreciate it if you'd give me your version. Could be you'll remember something he forgot or left out.”

He nodded, elbows on the desk before him, fingers pressed together and forming a steeple. “Do you mean Mr. Reyes hasn't returned home
yet?”

“That's right. The last place Mr. Brizante and I have been able to place him is at this church, Tuesday night. Which is why I'm starting here.”

“My word,” he said. “I had no idea. I assumed Mr. Reyes had surely returned home by this time. I was expecting to see Gil and Anna on Sunday.…”

He let it trail off, clasped his hands and lowered them to the desk's top. “This is extremely disturbing to me, Mr. Scott. I have come to know Mr. and Mrs. Reyes well in the months they have been attending services here, and this is unquestionably a grave matter if Anna has not seen him since Tuesday evening. Gil is not the kind of man—well, someone else might have become enmeshed in the snares of the flesh, or succumbed to the poison of alcohol, but not Gil, sir.”

“Maybe he succumbed to something else.”

The Reverend nodded, then his eyes came to rest on a single rose in a narrow vase on the corner of his desk. He pursed his lips, as if gathering his thoughts. Then he started talking, and I was rather impressed with the way he lined up the facts and delivered them. Maybe he gave a pretty good sermon at that.

“Mr. Reyes came to the church and spoke to me at about this hour last Tuesday evening. I'm not certain of the time—I wasn't expecting him, he hadn't phoned, but it was near sundown. He didn't appear inordinately upset, but he was definitely troubled by a belief that he had seen a man whom he thought dead. Whom, in fact, he believed to have been killed in his presence.”

I nodded. “In Tucson last Sunday.”

“Yes. He spoke of a Joe Civano. The name meant nothing to me then. I elicited all the details I could, learned that Gil had not seen the man under discussion for something like sixteen years—in the city where both then lived—and that for two days prior to his apparent recognition of this person here he had been thinking much of Mr. Civano.”

Reverend Archie pulled his eyes from the rose and looked at me. “Though at that moment I could only guess, it seemed quite clear to me that Gil's continued thinking of Mr. Civano's shocking death in Tucson, and therefore of Mr. Civano, was the immediate cause of his error in mistaking a man who only slightly resembled him as Joe Civano. Unaccountably alive—and at Sunrise Villas.”

“Makes sense,” I said. “When you put it like that.”

“Mr. Reyes told me the man to whom he referred claimed to be Mr. Henry Yarrow.”

“Did you know who he meant? I mean, did you know Yarrow?”

“The name was familiar to me, but I had not met the man. I therefore hesitated to phone him. However, Mr. Reyes had also informed me of the location on Claridge Street where the confrontation occurred, thus I knew the house of which he spoke must be one of at most two or three near the corner at Roadrunner Drive. I know many people on that block, and from Gil's description of the lady I felt reasonably sure she was Mrs. Blessing, a charming widow who has long been a member of this church. I phoned her, explained the situation, and her comments—somewhat to my surprise, Mr. Scott—corroborated what Gil had told me in every detail.”

“Why to your surprise?”

“Simply because Mr. Reyes' story seemed quite incredible. A dead man, a gangster, this unusual confrontation at dawn, Gil's manner and concern—surely you understand, Mr. Scott. Quite simply, I found it all very difficult to believe.”

“Yeah. It is a bit queer, isn't it?”

He sighed. “At any rate, I asked Mrs. Blessing if she would communicate with Mr. Yarrow, and if possible come to the church in his company. She agreed, and they both arrived within ten or fifteen minutes.”

The Reverend appeared to hesitate in his recital for the first time. After a few moments he went on, “It is true, as I have already said, Mr. Reyes did not seem to me excessively upset, but he was without question extremely tense and nervous. Especially during the time when we were awaiting the arrival of Mr. Yarrow and Mrs. Blessing.”

“That's understandable enough if he really thought the guy about to drop in for a visit might be Joe Civano. I'd have been nervous myself.”

“That is the salient point, Mr. Scott. It was almost as though Gil was in the grip of delusion, had become possessed by a completely irrational thought, an
idée fixe
.”

“Are you saying he acted like a guy cracking up?”

“Oh, no, no. Of course not. I'm merely thinking back—it was a rather incredible situation, really. That Gil should mistake a resident of Sunrise Villas for a totally corrupt gangster. I believe he said Civano was a member of what is called the Mafia.”

“Gil was right as rain about that. OK, Yarrow and Mrs. Blessing came to the church, talked to Gil, and Gil left—left, convinced of his error.”

“That is correct.”

“How come? In the morning Gil thought this guy was—maybe—Civano. What big deal happened to change his mind?”

The Reverend frowned slightly. I don't think he was crazy about my manner. Or maybe I hadn't made a grand impression on him when we'd met. As his face smoothed he said, “Mr. Yarrow has been a rather prominent businessman here for several years. In addition he produced abundant evidence of his identity. Gil seemed quite convinced of his error after the four of us had engaged in several minutes of discussion. But, further, to be certain Gil was completely convinced that this Joe Civano was indeed deceased, I phoned the police in Tucson and investigated the remote possibility that the victim, because of the nature of the crime, might have beeen someone other than Mr. Civano.” The Reverend shook his head vigorously. “There was, and is, no such possibility.”

I nodded. “I'll buy that. Did Gil say anything about where he was going after leaving the church?”

“No. I naturally assumed he intended to return home.”

I asked the Reverend to cover his meeting a little later that evening with Tony Brizante, Yarrow's coming to the church again; but there was nothing new for me there. While speaking, the Reverend made a few notes on a pad before him.

I stood up. “Well, I guess that's it. Thanks for your help, Reverend. By the way, could you give me the addresses of Mrs. Blessing and Mr. Yarrow?”

He let his lips smile sweetly, ripped the top sheet from the pad on his desk and handed it to me. “I assumed you would wish those addresses, Mr. Scott.”

He had a neat mind, this guy. “Ask and ye shall receive,” I said. “New Testament. How about that? It really works.”

“Indeed it does, indeed it does.”

I had almost begun to like old Archie. But then he had to spoil it. Just as I was going out the door, he said from behind me: “John: Sixteen, Twenty-six.”

The church was dark now, except for softly glowing lights near and around the altar and two similar small lights halfway up each of the outer aisles. I walked up the aisle on my right, and in the glow from the small lamp checked those addresses the Reverend had given me. Mrs. Blessing lived at 2430 East Claridge Street. Mr. Henry Yarrow's address was 1694 North Palma Drive. I decided I would call first on Mrs. Blessing. The lamp was above an exit door, so rather than go out the main entrance I opened the little door and went through it instead.

From the side exit a path led between masses of green bushes to the darkened parking lot. A hedge of oleander paralleled the near edge of the lot, a six-foot-wide space cut into it. When I stepped through the opening I turned left, started to step toward my car which was parked ten yards away, near the street.

The man's back was to me.

He stood close to a eucalyptus tree, his body in the faint light appearing to merge with its trunk, the lowest branches spreading out seven or eight feet above the ground forming a cover above him and dropping more shadow on and around him.

He could have been merely a guy overly fond of eucalyptus, but in my business a man standing in shadow, silently, is Trouble. Or even patient death. I reached under my coat, eased the .38 from its holster and moved, very slowly, toward him.

The man was midway between me and my Cadillac, but he wasn't looking at the car. His gaze was fixed on the street, or on the strip of sidewalk beyond the oleander hedge where anybody walking from the church entrance to the parking lot would appear. I took four slow, careful steps and was no more than a couple of yards from him when he heard me.

It was a stone or pebble that grated beneath the sole of my shoe. The sound wasn't loud. But he heard it.

He didn't swing suddenly around. I could see his whole body jerk slightly, though. And with a quick but almost instantly checked movement he started to turn his head. Maybe part of the reason he stopped was because a fraction of a second after the stone grated beneath my shoe I thumbed back the hammer of my revolver. If he was the kind of night cat I assumed him to be, he knew what that sound was, and what it meant.

His head was angled to his right and I could see part of his face in profile. I took one more step toward him.

I made him then, and a cool breeze brushed over my skin. At least that's what it felt like. It was still hot, though; it wasn't a real breeze.

“Hello, Lucky,” I said. “Where do you want it, pal?”

CHAPTER FIVE

His reaction surprised me.

In a gruff and almost jolly voice he said, “Shell? Am I right? That you, Shell Scott, you old bastard?”

“Turn around, Lucky. Slow or fast, it's your hide.”

He moved with hardly any speed at all, and even as he started turning, his arms were rising to point over his head. But when he'd swung around enough so I could see, again, that square milk-white face I'd last seen behind a cocked .45 automatic aimed at my gut, his right hand and much of his arm were still hidden by the tree.

So I kept the Colt centered high on his breastbone and said, “One step left, out in the open. And do me a favor, Lucky. Just wiggle a little the wrong way. I don't need much of an excuse, but I need a small one.”

He stepped sideways, slowly, moving almost gracefully for such a chunky man. He was grinning, or trying to. At least his lips were pulled apart and the faint light gleamed on his teeth. There was enough light so I could see now that both his hands were empty, fingers splayed.