Operation Whiplash (8 page)

“Completely.” I thought of the slip that told me Robin didn’t know that Nate Pepperman’s office was on the second floor above the bank and therefore she had never been there with Hazel. “Although there’s still some angles I don’t follow.”

Jed didn’t reply. He rose again and forked one steak onto a platter, then left it to cool. Three minutes later he repeated the performance with the two remaining steaks and added a large baked potato to each. He brought the two platters with the baked potatoes to the circular table alongside our chairs, then gave Kaiser his platter. The shepherd tested the steak with his nose, wagged his tail twice, and began to eat with a curious delicacy.

Jed and I fell to with knife and fork while a wispy-looking half-moon rose slowly above the roof of the house. I leaned back finally with a repleted sigh. “Coffee?” Jed inquired.

“Not for me. Jed, when Hazel sold the Dixie Pig do you know if she sold it outright for cash, or was it on an installment basis?”

“Seems to me I did hear it was for cash,” he replied after a moment’s rumination. “Why?”

“I was hoping it wasn’t. If it was on a contract, she’d have a tendency to go by there and make sure the property was being kept up until the final payment was made. I talked to the bartender this afternoon, but he told me to see the owner.”

“Feller named Jim Willis bought it from Hazel,” Jed said. “I don’t b’lieve he’s doin’ nearly as well with it as she did.”

“Do you feel there’s any point in my going to see him?”

He shook his head slowly. “I don’t really know what it could be.”

“If Hazel stopped by to see Willis after she left the Lazy Susan, she might have let something drop about where she was going.”

“If she felt it necessary to leave, you can bet me she’d do no broadcastin’ about her new roost,” Jed answered.

“So I’m grabbing at straws. I still don’t—” I stopped. Jed had turned his head in a listening attitude. Then I heard it, too. A telephone was ringing inside the house. Jed hoisted himself to his feet reluctantly. “You should tell that girlfriend she’s lost her turn because she interrupted you during a meal,” I said.

Jed smiled and went into the house. I lit a cigarette and smoked two-thirds of it before he returned. I could sense something had happened even before he spoke. His attitude was one of tensed apprehension. “That was a guy I called yesterday for information about the Deakin Trucking Company,” he said. He spoke as though he were trying to hold himself down from bursting forth with his news.

“Yes?”

“He wanted to know if I’d heard that Casey had been brought to the local hospital this afternoon.” Jed said it somberly. “Worked over an’ in bad shape. Real bad.”

“Worked over? I don’t get it. Why?”

“You went to see him,” Jed pointed out. “Maybe someone thought Casey did some talkin’ out of school.”

“If the someone you’re thinking about is Colisimo, how did he even know I’d been there?”

Jed shrugged. “Who knows? Deakin is the only loose end Colisimo ever left around here. I used to wonder why until I realized Colisimo kept the Deakin name for the truckin’ company. Evidently too much paperwork would have been involved to change it in the light of Colisimo’s police record. There’s interstate licenses, bonds, and a bunch of other rigamarole. That’s prob’ly all that kept Deakin alive the first time.”

“And you think that now—”

“If Colisimo thought someone was backtrackin’ on him, he’d sure as hell close the door,” Jed interrupted me. He was silent for a moment. “After findin’ out from Casey who it was.”

“I never identified myself to Deakin.” I paused. I had just realized the cause of Jed’s apprehension. “But I did use your name,” I said slowly. “If Deakin told them that, Colisimo’s people could be developing an unhealthy interest in you.”

“I did think of that,” Jed admitted. His usual cheerful expression was missing, but then he tried to rally. “Prob’ly it didn’t make no impression on Casey when you told him, anyway.”

I wasn’t nearly so sure of that. Deakin had said almost nothing to me until I used Jed’s name. “Play it safe, Jed,” I said. “Stay out of sight for awhile. I don’t think anything will happen, but then I didn’t think it would to Deakin, either.”

“What do you think we should do?” Jed wanted to know.

“I’ve already told you what I think you should do. Keep a low profile for awhile until I can find out more about this.”

“How’re you gonna find out?”

“I think I’ll go to the hospital and pose as an insurance investigator for a company holding a policy on Deakin.”

“An investigator showin’ up so soon after Casey was brought in?” Jed said doubtfully.

“If they question it, I’ll say someone on the hospital clerical staff is paid to tip us off.”

“That’ll throw up a smoke screen,” Jed agreed. He appeared to be recovering his normal high spirits. “Let’s stop in at my office first. I save callin’ cards of the people who call on me there. Realtors, brokers, insurance men, mortgagors, an’ the like. Maybe I’ve got a card you can use. Somethin’s always better than nothin’.”

“Let’s go, then.”

We left without even scraping a plate. I loaded Kaiser into the back seat and drove directly to Jed’s office. Jed followed in his Porsche. Upstairs, Jed opened a drawer in his desk and took out an elastic-banded stack of calling cards. He removed the rubber band and began dealing the cards into piles. “Insurance,” he said, pointing to the smallest pile.

I riffled through the cards. Two of them said
hospitalization
, and I separated them from the others. While I was trying to decide between them, Jed held out another card. It was gold, thick-feeling, and heavily embossed. It said
eureka indemnity company
. “They’re a bondin’ outfit, but it’s a pretty-lookin’ card,” Jed said.

I looked at the card again. It didn’t say bonding on it anywhere. Just the name, and a home office address in Illinois. And as Jed said, it was an impressive-looking card. I slipped it into my wallet.

“Say, why don’t I run over to the hospital first an’ scout the territory?” Jed said eagerly. He sounded not only as though his usual ebullience had been restored but that he was reluctant to miss out on the action.

I hesitated. It really could help considerably if I knew in advance what I was going up against in the attempt to bluff my way in to see Deakin. “You’ve got less business over there than I have,” I said at last.

“No sweat,” he said earnestly. “It just so happens a small-bosomed galfriend of mine is in the hospital recoverin’ from a silicone transplant. I could say I’d dropped in for a preview of the results. Nobody’d think there was anything strange about
that.”

I had to smile, and Jed grinned sheepishly. “Go ahead, then,” I said. “But make it fast. I’ll wait here.”

I paced the floor after Jed departed, slowly at first and then more rapidly. Hazel’s continued absence in the light of recent developments was becoming a matter of steadily increasing concern. Suppose she hadn’t left town at all, but was being held somewhere by Rubelli? I couldn’t think of a reason why, but I didn’t want to think of one. I didn’t want to think of the possibility at all.

I made myself sit down in Jed’s high-backed swivel chair until I heard him loping up the outside stairs. He was shaking his head in a prolonged negative when he entered the office. “You’ll never make it,” he predicted. “There’s a deppity sittin’ on a chair outside Casey’s door, shooin’ everyone away. The sheriff’s there, an’ another deppity with a stenotype machine, an’ the local D.A., an’ the hospital’s resident.”

“They’re going to try to get a statement from Deakin.” I visualized the scene. I rose from the chair. “I might be able to crash it.”

“They’ll never let you in,” Jed protested. “The D.A.’s a real hardnose.”

“It’s worth a try,” I said. “Nobody knows me. Sit tight till I get back.”

I retraced Jed’s route to the hospital, which was only a block away from the main square on a tree-lined side street. “Deakin,” I said to the woman at the information desk.

“I don’t think visitors are per—”

“Which room number is it, please?”

“Three forty-four,” she said reluctantly.

The hospital was a one-story affair, so the “three” had to designate a wing. I followed wall-arrows until I came to rooms in the three-hundred series. A plaque above an arched entranceway said
maternity
. Beneath it was another which said
intensive care.

I almost passed Room 344 without seeing it. It was in a small alcove abutting the main corridor. Another plaque saying
intensive care
was on the door. A uniformed deputy in a cocked-back chair was leaning against the wall beside the closed door.

I approached him with a confident stride. “I’m Ross McGuire of the Eureka Indemnity Company,” I said to the deputy. “I’m hear to speak to Mr. Deakin.”

“You cain’t go in there,” the deputy said with a glance at the closed door. “They’re takin’ a statement.”

I removed the embossed calling card from my wallet. “I think you’d better let your boss know that I’m here,” I said as though there wasn’t anything else the deputy could do.

He hesitated, fingering the raised lettering on the card, but then he turned and knocked once on the door. It was opened by a nurse. When the deputy went inside, I followed right behind him. There were four men in the room in addition to the nurse, the deputy, myself, and the stertorously-breathing man on the bed. Two of the men were in khaki: the sheriff and the stenotype operator who was set up at a table beside the bed. One was in a sharp-looking business suit, and that would be the D.A. The fourth was in spotless white and had to be the hospital resident.

There were tubes trailing from the pasty-faced Casey Deakin’s nostrils, and an oxygen tent stood on the far side of the bed. “Sheriff,” the deputy who had entered the hospital room said tentatively.

The bulky-looking sheriff in his trooper’s hat turned impatiently from the bed. “I’m Ross McGuire from the Eureka Indemnity Company, and we have a policy on Mr. Deakin,” I said to the sheriff before the deputy could continue. “I want to hear what he has to say.”

“Outside,” the sheriff said to me brusquely. “You can get filled in at the office later.”

“Don’t make a mistake, sheriff,” I said in a warning tone. “We all know this is no ordinary case.” I took the embossed card from the deputy and handed it to the sheriff. He ran his thumb over it as his deputy had in the corridor. “Your cooperation now will save me from making a phone call,” I added.

The best thing I had going for me was that there were three of them. Any one of them—sheriff, D.A., or hospital resident—would have excluded me without even thinking about it if the decision had been his alone. Another factor was that two of them were elected officials and the other was appointed. All were used to having telephones ring after the wrong snap judgments.

The sheriff glanced at the D.A. “What do you say, John?” he asked.

The man in the business suit shrugged. “It’s your show, Jake,” he said suavely.

The sheriff looked at the resident. “Dr. Corbin?”

“What difference does one more make?” the resident answered impatiently. He sounded angry. I wondered if he had been pressured into permitting the statement-taking, are perhaps against his better judgment.

Since no one would assume the responsibility for throwing me out, the sheriff turned back to the bed as if I were no longer in the room. “Repeat that last question, Harry,” he told the stenotypist.

“ ‘Did you recognize any of your assailants?’ “ the deputy read from the spool of paper tape.

Casey Deakin’s glazed eyes were open but unfocused. I couldn’t tell if he was able to see or not. A bubble of sound from him only gradually became semi-intelligible words. “—oddam right,” he got out in a thin, reedy voice. “—astard Rubelli an’ his girl. An’ ‘nother man.” Helpless tears ran down his wan-looking cheeks. “Men held me—while girl squeezed my balls.”

The sheriff had glanced at the man in the business suit at the mention of Rubelli’s name. The D.A.’s features remained a smooth-faced blank. “Doc?” the sheriff said in a questioning tone.

“Yes,” the resident said. “His testicles were crushed to a point that his right leg is paralyzed. That’s what he would recall most vividly, but his internal injuries are more severe.”

“Do you know why you were attacked?” the sheriff asked Deakin.

The man on the bed didn’t answer. The sheriff repeated the question, and Deakin mumbled something. “What’d he say?” the stenotype operator asked.

“He said they wanted to know who he’d been talking to,” the sheriff translated accurately. “Wonder why they didn’t kill him outright instead of leavin’ him to talk about it.”

“Maybe they didn’t realize how far they’d gone,” the D.A. speculated.

“Or how weakened this man’s system was by his previous experience,” the doctor said. He stepped forward and peered at a machine at bedside which was hooked up to Deakin’s arm. “That’s enough,” he said at once. “The life-sign electric monitor shows failing respiration and heartbeat.”

“Just a few—” the sheriff began.

“I said that’s enough!” the resident cut him off sharply.

After a glance at me, the sheriff and the D.A. retired to a corner where they conferred together in low voices. The deputy at the stenotype was putting his machine back in its carrying case. The nurse and the doctor were swiftly putting the oxygen tent over Casey Deakin again.

No one was paying any attention to me.

I walked to the door and let myself out.

I wanted to be out of sight before anyone started having second thoughts about my presence.

But as I threaded my way through the maze of corridors to the front entrance I could hear Robin Ford’s giggly voice: “I like to hurt men.”

And Hazel might be in the hands of these animals.

Mario Rubelli and I were due for a second meeting very, very soon.

My thoughts during the walk back to Jed’s office were not pleasant.

This whole damn affair was turning out so much worse than ever seemed possible originally that I had to question my own judgment in becoming an accessory to the slippage.

Hindsight, at least, said I should certainly have acted to prevent the drift to the situation we had now.

Jed was on the phone again when I entered his office. Since my return to Hudson and reintroducing myself to Jed, he had probably spent half his waking hours on the telephone. He cradled the receiver and looked at me expectantly.

“Get ready to go ahead and say ‘I told you so,’ “ I said. “It was Robin Ford herself who worked Deakin over. Unpleasantly.”

Jed nodded grimly but didn’t say anything.

“You’re showing marvelous restraint,” I told him.

He leaned back in his chair and folded his hands behind his head. His eyes avoided mine until I could see him force himself to look directly at me. I didn’t see any reason for beating around the bush. “I’m afraid I don’t have very good news, Jed,” I said. “And I’m not talking about Casey Deakin.”

He nodded quietly. “If Casey talked—”

“From the look of him, he talked,” I cut in.

“If Casey talked,” Jed repeated, “Colisimo’s going to think I was nosing around his business.”

I waited a moment but Jed appeared to have nothing more to say. “An apology for getting you into this would be poor consolation, I guess,” I said.

“What do you think I should do?” Jed asked somberly. “Leave town for awhile?”

“I’d advise it. Recommend it, even.”

He came to life then. “I’ll be damned if I will!” he blurted. “They’re not going to run me out of my territory!”

“Then don’t go anywhere alone.”

His slim body had slumped again after momentarily stiffening. There were worry-lines in his young face. He wouldn’t have been human if there weren’t. Syndicate goons aren’t known for the niceties with which they exact penalties for what they feel are trespasses.

Jed sighed deeply, then slapped his palms together briskly as he tried to rally himself. “I located Nate Pepperman’s lawyer finally,” he said. “But he wouldn’t tell me much.”

“The lawyer-client relationship,” I nodded. “I really only wanted to know one thing, and he probably wouldn’t have told you if you’d known what to ask. I wanted to know if Hazel changed her will recently.”

“What the hell difference would that make?” Jed demanded.

“I’m not sure. After her stepfather died, though, she hadn’t kith nor kin. The will she had drawn up for her by a lawyer in Ely split her estate fifty-fifty between a children’s hospital and a conservation group. No problems there, but if she changed it—”

“You think she might have made you her beneficiary?” Jed asked in a sudden rush of recognition.

“She’s been picking losers all her life, hasn’t she?”

“Espada certainly qualifies,” Jed mumbled. He was still trying to adjust to the idea. “I don’t see—wait a minute, though. It would explain why Rubelli sent Robin Ford to bring you here.”

“It sure as hell would, and not much of anything else does.”

“I don’t get it, though,” Jed argued. “Even if you—” He paused, trying to puzzle it out.

“Wouldn’t you say that Colisimo wants to be Hazel’s heir?” I said. “To get back the money Espada was handling for him that Colisimo can’t get back in any other way?”

“Okay, but how—”

“He forces her to sign a new will in his favor before he disposes of her. But if she added a codicil making me her heir, and there’s a copy in Nate Pepperman’s safe and another in Pepperman’s lawyer’s office—”

Jed was nodding his head rapidly. “Yeah. Yeah. Colisimo has to kill you first.”

“Or the pair of us together. Until Robin put it together for him via the dog in the motel room bit, Rubelli didn’t know who he was looking for as far as I’m concerned.”

“He sure does, now, though,” Jed observed. “I’ll bet they’re tearin’ up the town lookin’ for you.”

“No,” I disagreed. “After what they did to Deakin, they had to leave town in a hurry.”

“You said Casey’s in bad shape?”

“I don’t think the resident thought too well of it.”

“So what happens now?”

“I can tell you what happens. Whether they’re holding Hazel or not, if my hunch is right about her will, Colisimo’s crowd has to try to set me up so they can get at me. I think Robin was trying something like that this afternoon. She was insistent that I call her at the motel tomorrow. And after what they learned from Deakin, all systems will be go.”

“You mean when you call the motel tomorrow—”

“There’ll be a message for me to meet Robin at a time and place that will be convenient for Rubelli.” I thought of something. “Since they had to leave town, the message is probably waiting for me at the Lazy Susan right now.”

Jed stared, then motioned toward his telephone. He looked up the number for me, and I dialed. “I’d like to speak to Robin Ford,” I told the same honey-and-molasses drawl I’d heard in Arkansas.

“Miss Ford checked out more than an hour ago, sir,” the voice informed me.

“Did she leave a message for Earl Drake?”

“Yes, sir, she did.” The voice sounded agreeably surprised. “It’s in a sealed envelope.”

“Open it up and read it to me, please.”

There was a crackling of paper and then a silence. “The handwriting—” the voice said doubtfully.

“Take a stab at it.”

“All right. It says, ‘Meet me without fail Monday
night at eight
P.M
. at the—at the Barbarossa
Restaurant near Alvarez’ and—and—” there was a
pause. “I’ll try spelling it, sir. It looks like
e-s-c-o-n-d-i-d-a
—message
continues ‘Streets in Tampa’s Old Town. I have good news about
Hazel. Signed, Robin.’”

I repeated the entire message, spelling out the street as he had and also the name of the restaurant. When he confirmed it, I thanked him and hung up.

“The Barbarossa at Alvarez and Escondida in Tampa,” Jed said excitedly. “I know the place. Good Spanish food, but a tough neighborhood.” The excitement drained from his voice. “But you can’t go there.”

“The hell I can’t.”

“You know the message is a setup!” Jed protested.

“I’ve been pussyfooting around the edges of this damn thing long enough. I’ll talk to Robin, find out what she knows, and if I get a chance I’ll sicken Rubelli of the whole idea.”

“They’ll drop a ton on you,” Jed insisted. “You’ll never have a chance at Rubelli. You’ll never even get to talk to Robin.”

“I think I will. They don’t know how much I know, and before they do anything they’ll want to learn what it is.”

“You’re crazy if you go there alone,” Jed said emphatically. “They’ll turn you every way but loose. You should—”

“I’ll drive down tomorrow afternoon, and I’ll see you here Tuesday morning,” I cut him off. “If I don’t, you turn the police loose on finding Hazel.”

“But you won’t stand the chance of a—” Jed stopped when I stood up. “Okay, go ahead and be a mulehead,” he said gloomily.

I dropped a hand on his shoulder. “One more time,” I said. “Don’t go anywhere alone. No matter how enticing a prospect sounds on the telephone.

I went downstairs to the car.

Kaiser roused himself from slumber on the front seat, then greeted me with repeated head bumpings and a widely-swishing tail.

We drove out to Hazel’s cabin and went to bed.

• • •

I slept late purposely in the morning because I knew it was going to be a long day of waiting around, and with every prospect of it being a long night as well.

Kaiser put me in motion around ten-thirty by demanding to be let out. I put on the coffee water, fried some bacon, and then made some French toast. As an afterthought I melted a little cheese into it. Kaiser showed approval of my culinary efforts by eating his half with relish. If the dog drank coffee, beer, and whiskey, his diet would have been almost human.

I took a chair outside and lazed around in the shade for the balance of the morning and the early part of the afternoon. Then I made a few preparations before taking off

for Tampa. I checked the action of my Smith & Wesson automatic and slipped an extra ammo clip into my pocket. The day before I had improved the shin-holster for the derringer by cutting down a spectacles-case of Hazel’s I’d found in the cabin and attaching it to my shin with medical adhesive tape.

I debated about taking Kaiser with me, and finally decided against it. If I didn’t come back, I didn’t want the shepherd imprisoned in the car until someone happened to notice it. For the same reason I didn’t close him up in the cabin. When I was ready to leave, I put a pan of water outside and pointed to it. “Stay,” I said. Kaiser eyed me mournfully while I walked to the car, but he made no move to follow me. He was still sitting dolefully beside the cabin when I drove off.

I was leaving early for the rendezvous because I wanted to get a look at the entrances and exits of the Barbarossa Restaurant in daylight. I headed south on U.S. 19 at an easy pace. I had spent a week once at Indian Rocks Beach on Gulf Boulevard between Clearwater and St. Petersburg Beach, so I had a rough idea of the area.

South of Tarpon Springs I turned east on Gulf-to-Bay Boulevard and crossed Old Tampa Bay on the Courtney Campbell Causeway. Beyond Tampa International Airport the road became Columbus Drive, and I followed it to Nebraska Avenue where I turned off into Old Town, the Spanish-speaking sector of Tampa.

The streets became narrower and more cluttered. The upper stories of the blank-faced buildings leaned out over the sidewalks. The gutters were littered with paper and other debris. I found Alvarez Street and followed it until it crossed Escondida. I drove past the Barbarossa Restaurant, an unprepossessing two-story structure with a grimy-looking neon sign. I parked the car two blocks away and walked back.

It was only 4:00
P.M
., the tail-end of siesta-time, and few people were on the street. I glanced in at the Barbarossa’s open door as I passed. No one was sitting in the wire-framed chairs at the restaurant tables, and I could see only a solitary drinker at the bar. I couldn’t see into the booths lining the far side of the cavernous-looking room.

A narrow alley separated the building housing the restaurant from its next-door neighbor. I strolled down the alley until I came to a slatted wooden gate. Beyond the gate I could see the garbage cans and other detritus of a restaurant’s dirty backside. In one corner I could see the rear entrance which led through the kitchen. Behind the garbage cans was a high brick wall. If the wooden gate was locked, the rear entrance of the Barbarossa became a dead end. I was sure that Mario Rubelli hadn’t selected such a location for our rendezvous by accident.

The setup didn’t change my mind about keeping the assignation. The one thing I needed to know now was whether Hazel was in Colisimo’s hands. If I once learned that from Robin, I’d know what course of action to follow. It could vary radically depending upon what she told me. And she would tell me, willing or not. I’d already made up my mind about that. Robin Ford was not high on my current list of personality people.

Rubelli & Company would be set up inside the Barbarossa at 8:00
P.M
., waiting for me to act the fly to their spider’s web. I’d be there, too, but I didn’t plan for it to turn out the way Rubelli expected. He was used to having his victims roll over and play dead. One that met him on his own terms was due to be a surprise to him.

I retreated from the alley and walked back to the car. I had better than three and a half hours to kill before the blowoff. I unlocked the car, removed my briefcase from the front seat, and locked the car again. Then I continued along the street until I came to a movie theater garishly advertising two U.S. westerns. I paid a dollar admission and went inside. In that neighborhood a dollar seemed like a lot of money for a movie.

I waited at the back of the theater until my eyes adjusted to the dark. There were no ushers. What seemed like acres of empty seats stretched before me. I selected one on the aisle near the fire-door exit.

The two pictures turned out to have dubbed-in Spanish dialogue. The Indians didn’t do any better in Spanish than they ever do in English. I sat and watched the courageous Apaches lose badly in the second film, then left my seat at seven-thirty and went to the men’s room, carrying my briefcase.

The men’s room was so small I could keep anyone from entering by placing my back against the door. I worked the combination on the briefcase and took out my makeup kit. It took me seven minutes to alter my facial appearance completely and don a different wig. No one interrupted the transformation. Neither Robin Ford nor Mario Rubelli was going to identify me, even with a close second look, when I walked into the Barbarossa Restaurant at 8:00
P.M
. That was the edge I’d depend upon to outsmart them.

I left the theater, went back to the car, and redeposited the briefcase. I lit a cigarette and set out at a leisurely pace for the meeting place. The Barbarossa was much more active when I approached it this time. Its neon sign glowed dully under its encrusted dirt, and a noisy jukebox pushed a strident melody out into the darkening street.

I went inside and stood at the street-end of the bar. When the bartender looked my way, I pointed at the tap. He brought me a draft beer. I let it stand in front of me while I looked over the room.

It contained no surprises. Robin Ford sat in a booth across the room, approximately in its center. Rubelli and a mean-looking confederate sat at a table near the front entrance. It took only an additional moment’s eye-search to pick out two more goons at a table near the rear exit. Once I sat down in Robin’s booth, I was going to be the meat in the sandwich.

Some meat has been known to disagree with people, though.

I carried my beer across the floor and slid into Robin’s booth across the table from her. “Hi, kid,” I said. She looked up and didn’t know me. She opened her mouth to tell me to get lost, but I beat her to the punch. “Are you turning two-dollar tricks or five-dollar tricks tonight, dear?”