Snowjob (24 page)

I finished my beer and went to the telephone in the lobby. The detectives were out but I left the information with the deskman and went back to my car, keeping my eyes open. Grant had proved that this was a good spot for an ambush and I didn’t want to fall into the same trap again, even now that I had a gun with me.

I heard Sam keening from thirty yards away. As always I had left him in the car, with the window down, but I hadn’t set him to keep the area. It wasn’t possible when the innocent owners of cars each side of mine might have wanted to get in and drive away while I was inside and now he was letting me know something was amiss.

I whistled and he squeezed through the window and bounded to me. “Seek,” I ordered and he checked in mid-stride and began casting between the parked cars, looking for anyone who might be hiding. He didn’t turn up anybody immediately around my car so I went to it and looked around it carefully. The rear tire was flat. And from Sam’s antics, I knew it had been slashed.

I waited until he had rousted the whole parking lot. It’s not part of his training, there’s no way you can convey such an abstract message to him, but I knew he would also be remembering the scent of the man who had approached the car and if the guy was in a car somewhere, he would bark when he found him, but he didn’t. The guy had gone.

I walked around the car before I touched anything, checking for other damage. There wasn’t any, but there was a slip of paper folded under the driver’s side windshield wiper. I pulled it out and looked at it, holding it in my gloved hand. The message was in a childish handwriting. It was short and simple. “Next time it’s your throat. Go home,” it said.

FOURTEEN

I set Sam to keep watch while I changed the tire. Then I took a couple of minutes looking under tike car, making sure there was nothing there that would go boom when I started up. There didn’t seem to be and I went back to Doug’s place. It was just after seven when I got there and he greeted me at the door. “Good timing. I’ve got supper on the stove. D’you find anything?”

“Two things. First, I had my tire slashed and found this on the windshield.”

He took the note and frowned over it. “Looks like it was written by a fifth grader,” he said. “Or some goon. I guess it could be that soldier of Manatelli’s.”

“Might be, although I’ve got a feeling if the guy had been armed he would have shot Sam. He could have done it through the open window. Maybe this was just some local, could be one of Grant’s buddies, getting even for what happened last night.”

He cocked his head. “You’re probably right at that.”

“Anyway, like I said, there were two things. The second was I identified the signature on the IOUs.”

“How in hell did you do that?”

I told him about the signed photograph and he nodded carefully. “Even if Huckmeyer signed those papers, it proves nothing. I’m still charged with the homicide.”

“That’s going to change. You’re in the clear, Doug.”

“Sure,” he said shortly. “Let’s eat.”

While he served, I pulled the blinds down all around. The note had set my nerves on edge. I didn’t want to be a target for some guy outside with a rifle.

It was a bachelor meal, franks and beans, a memory of Marine chow. But it went down well and we talked as we ate, working out how we would tackle the investigation if we were working together. Obviously the trick was to lean on Huckmeyer. We already knew he was in the middle of the money scheme and he had some heavy work to do explaining his IOUs from Grant.

Captain Schmidt phoned later, asking what I had meant by my message. He didn’t seem pleased with the news but said a grudging thanks and that he would follow up on it.

His attitude was a downer. Doug and I sat and talked about it for a while, then gave up. We turned the TV on and sat in front of it, unseeing, each of us silently churning through the facts we had. Around ten-thirty Doug stood up and yawned. “I’m bushed. I’m going to bed. How about you?”

“I was thinking about that note. I wonder if the guy who wrote it might try something through the night?”

“Figure we should post a watch?” Doug asked carefully.

“Couldn’t hurt. I figure I’ll sleep down here. Sam’ll be outside. He’s our perimeter. If he wakes me up I’ll take a look.”

“I’ll spell you out,” Doug said, but I shook my head. “No. I’ve got your gun. If you used it there’d be one hell of a commotion and you’d be back inside by morning. They won’t do that to me.”

Doug reached out and clicked off the set. “Makes sense,” he said, then grinned. “Hell, this is like Nam all over again.”

“Yeah.” I could see the thought gave him a kind of comfort so I didn’t argue. “You go up and crash, I’ll put Sam in my car. He’ll take care of anybody who comes through the gate.”

I put my boots back on and went out of the back door into the unshoveled snow. It was two feet deep and I struggled through it, leading Sam all around the house so he’d know what territory he had to cover. I took a careful look into the street before coming out to where a sniper could have nailed me. There didn’t seem to be anyone out there. The only cars on the street looked as if their windows were closed. I gave Sam his instruction to “keep,” put him in the car and went back in.

Doug had brought down a couple of blankets and a pillow and I left my boots beside me and settled on the couch, still dressed. I didn’t sleep for a long time but eventually the quiet calmed me down enough that I sank away into the deep velvet.

Sam’s bark woke me and I was alert instantly. It was still pitch dark. I slipped into my boots, picked up Doug’s pistol from the floor beside me and went out of the front door. Sam was on the driveway, struggling with a man holding a gun.

Sam had his arm tight so I took a moment to check up and down the street in a quick glance. I couldn’t see anybody else out there so I turned to help Sam, grabbing the man’s gun, twisting it easily out of the hand that Sam was gripping. Then I told Sam, “easy, boy,” and tripped the guy so he sprawled on the ground. “Don’t move or he’ll have your face off,” I told him and he lay still.

Behind me the door clattered and Doug ran out. He was fully dressed and I guessed he’d been sleeping in his clothes, like me.

“Get up,” I told the guy. It wasn’t Lord or his buddy and that surprised me. This man was rougher-looking. And then, as he struggled to his feet, I recognized him. It was Kelly, the drug dealer from the mobile home outside of town.

A couple of doors had opened along the street and I could see shadowy people on their porches watching us. The cold didn’t seem to bother them. This was too exciting.

We didn’t need an audience so I said, “Get inside,” and prodded Kelly with the muzzle of his gun. It was a heavy automatic, the standard U.S. Army .45 Colt.

“You can’t take me anywhere,” he protested but I prodded him again and hissed at Sam who growled. Kelly stiffened, then said, “Call the dog off, okay?”

“Easy,” I told Sam. He fell silent and Kelly got up and moved past him up the steps to the front door with Doug after him. Behind me, faintly, I heard the sound of a car. I gestured to Doug to go inside and waited for a little while, hoping that the car had Kelly’s partner in it and would come back past the house so I could get the number. But it didn’t. The sound faded and I gave up and went in, taking Sam with me, fussing him with one hand. “Good boy,” I told him.

Kelly was spread-eagled against the wall with Doug frisking him. As I came in Doug tapped him on the back and told him to straighten up. He did, and turned around fearfully. “I made a mistake, is all,” he said. “I figured this was Jeannie Cole’s house.”

“And you brought her a gun instead of flowers. Sweet,” Doug said. “Cut the bullshit, Kelly. You got a sheet as long as my arm. I know you.”

Kelly was a longtime rounder. He knew how to play innocent. “I just happened to have the gun with me.”

“Who sent you?” I asked him as I checked the pistol. It was fully loaded with the safety off and a round in the chamber. I slipped out the magazine and ejected the round, then tossed the gun onto the couch. The magazine I put in my pocket.

“Nobody. Like I told you, I was out to get laid,” Kelly said.

“Yeah, sure.” Doug sneered. “Now lemme bring you up to speed, punk. I’m not a cop anymore. Nor’s this gennleman. We’re two guys who woke up and found you sticking a gun in our faces. We had a big fight, which is how you got your teeth knocked out and your nose broken, and we took the gun off you.”

“You can’t beat me up,” Kelly blustered but he was scared.

Doug reached out and gripped his ear, like an old-style schoolmarm. “I didn’t hear what you said. Wanna try again?”

“Okay. Okay.” Kelly held up his hands. “I talk to you an’ you let me go, that okay?”

“You talk, you keep your teeth, that’s the deal,” Doug said.

Kelly wasn’t bright but you could see his street-smart mind ticking over as he started. “This guy came to see me last night. He said he wanted a favor.’

“What guy?” Doug hissed it out like a coiled snake.

“Shit. I dunno. Some guy. He said he wanted to pay some guys back. Said they’d ripped him off. Said to take the gun an’ come in an’ mess the place up.”

“You needed a gun to trash a house?” Doug sneered.

“He said to take it. Gave it to me. You seen it. Hell, I don’ own no cannon. I got a shotgun home for security, you know. But I don’ have no pistol.”

“Tell me about this guy,” I said. “What did he look like?”

“Just a guy.”

“How big? How old? What was he wearing?”

You could see the cogs turning. “’Bout my size, older. Good coat.”

“We’ll get back to that,” Doug said with soft menace. “What did he say to you? I want the actual words, Kelly. Got that?”

“Sure.” Kelly nodded quickly. “Sure. I remember. He said, ‘How’d you feel about earning some big bread?’ An’ I said, sounds interesting. So he said, ‘There’s a guy in town ripped me off for fifty grand.’ He said, ‘I want him taught a lesson. Go in there, take this gun. If you get any trouble, knock ’im on the head, shut him up. Then trash the place an’ see if you can find my fifty grand. If you can, half of it’s yours.’”

Doug laughed scornfully. “Does this look like a place where you’d find fifty grand lying around?”

“This guy said you’d took it off some lady. Said the p’lice on’y got half back what was taken. They got fifty, you kept fifty.”

“Tell me what this guy looked like,” Doug said. “And I want all the details, right down to his shoe size and the color of his underwear.”

“I told you,” Kelly whined. “like it was late. I was asleep an’ I didn’t take much notice of what he looked like.”

“If anybody had woken me up and handed me a .45 and told me to go kill somebody, I’d know what he looked like to my dying day,” Doug said. “Now I’m starting to lose my patience, felly. You’ve got ten seconds. Ten. Nine.

“Kelly held up his hands. “I never seen this guy before. I told you what he was like. Big’s me, maybe fifty-five. Dark hair, fedora, Italian I figured. Round face. He had on a black coat an’ a pair o’ good shoes. No overshoes, nothin’.”

Doug suddenly seemed to lose interest in Kelly. He walked away into the kitchen. Kelly watched him go, then flicked a glance at me, anxiously. I didn’t move and Doug came back with a pen and a pad. “Here. Write what I tell you. You can write, can’t you?”

“Of course I can goddamn write.” Kelly grabbed the pen and paper and Doug started reading out a list of words. They sounded random but I recognized the words of the note I’d found, mixed in with others.

When he had finished Doug took the paper off him and handed it to me. One glance was enough to see that the writing was different from the note but I just nodded to Doug and Kelly asked, “What’s goin’ on? What’s all this about?”

“How much did this mysterious guy give you?” Doug asked. “Or are you a Boy Scout? You figured you’d kill me just to do your good deed for the day?”

“He gave me a grand. Said there’d be four more if the job got wet. Plus I could keep some o’ the money I found.’

“Five grand your usual charge for a killing? You gotta be rich, all the killing there’s been in town this last week,” Doug said.

Kelly opened his mouth to argue but I cut him off. “Did this guy come with you?”

“No. I come on my own,” he protested, waving his arms.

“Sure. You walked all the way from your place, right?”

“I come in my truck.” He looked around at us. “It’s the God’s truth.”

“Where’s the truck now?” Doug asked him.

“At the lot in town.”

“That’s half a mile. You figured you’d walk back there with my TV and video and alia this money you were gonna take home?”

“I wasn’t gonna take nothin’,” Kelly said, “’cept the money if I found it.”

There was the sound of a car outside, then footsteps on the porch. Then the doorbell rang. Doug opened the door and Pat Hinton stepped in. “Hi, Doug. A neighbor called that you’d caught a prowler.”

“Yeah. This asshole, carryin’ a .45,” Doug said.

Hinton came in, with the same partner I’d met the day before a pace behind him. “Well, Kelly. You got yourself into a whole heap of trouble now, boy.”