The Surfside Caper (3 page)

I was still wishing when I heard the bushes off to my right crackle sharply. I sat up straight and squinted through the gloom toward the little gate. Jacob Dolphin came out of the forest. He was wearing dinner clothes. He walked through the little gate and onto my
lanai.

I
WENT
into the kitchen and brought out an extra glass. Dolphin lowered himself into the chair across the small table from me. I poured him some rye, and pushed the plate of cheese and crackers toward him. That was as far as my hospitality was going to go.

He didn’t look happy as he took the drink. His jowls were drooped down into a scowl. He said, “You been talking to the dame that runs this place. What reason did you give her for coming here?”

I said, “I told her that I’m on vacation. And that I came to see the place my old friend, Nils, built. What are you worried about? Think I’d advertise our meet?”

His scowl didn’t let up. He said, “Sure, you’re on vacation. And so is the blonde you had Global Hotels send down here.”

My drink went colder in my stomach than it felt in my hand. But I was ready with the answer. I said, “If you mean Ingrid Calhoun, she handled my reservation. She probably came down on her vacation to see me.” I leered at him and made my voice sound nasty.

Dolphin snorted at me. He said, “Come off it, Flynn. I saw the way you looked through her when she gave you the eye. And I saw the way she turned the heat on me when you cut her. She came here to see you, all right, but she wasn’t supposed to let on. Only she got a little excited when you showed up and forgot her job. I can always tell by the way dames breathe when the mug they want shows up.”

He shook his big head. “Tell Global to send a pro after me the next time.”

I said, “I think you’re full of crap about Ingrid. And even if you weren’t, why would Global send anyone after you?”

He took the time to find one of his long cigars. He lit it carefully. He inhaled solidly. He said, “Someone’s pushing me around. I’m giving odds it’s Global.”

I said, “How would Global even know you’re here?”

He said, “You knew four days ago.”

I said, “So I took your ten bills and then crossed you by telling Global Hotels you were coming here. Is that it?”

“You got a better answer?” he demanded.

I said, “I haven’t got any answers, damn it. Why should I bother to tell Global about our deal?”

Just having Dolphin on my
lanai
was enough to rub me the wrong way. To have him slap me around with his tongue was more than my temper could handle. I got out my wallet. I took his ten hundred-dollar bills and wadded them up. I tossed the wad into his lap. I said, “This deal can work in reverse, too. You knew I was coming here and when I was coming. So maybe you suddenly decided you didn’t want me around. And you hired a punk named Milo Craybaugh to push me down a cliff with his truck.”

He said, “You’re nuts, Flynn. I don’t pay mugs a grand and then bump them before I get my money’s worth.”

I said, “That makes us even. You believe me about as much as I believe you. Drop in again some time. Bring your own bottle.”

He stopped scowling. He picked up the wad of bills and fingered it. He began to look unhappy. He said reluctantly, “I could be off the track, Flynn. But damn it, that blonde dame….”

I said, “When did you find out she worked for Global Hotels?”

“Today, after you froze her. She wouldn’t even talk to me until then.” He sounded as if he’d had his ego bruised.

I said, “A great spy she is, telling you who she works for.” I laughed. I wasn’t laughing at him; I was feeling relief that Dolphin had a pretty good alibi as far as the truck incident was concerned. His suspecting that Ingrid and I were working on him together couldn’t be the reason Craybaugh tried to kill me. Dolphin hadn’t learned about Ingrid until well after that happened.

He said, “I said I might be off the track, didn’t I? What do you want, a signed affidavit?” He tossed the wad of bills back at me. I let them drop by my chair.

He said, “I still want to deal.”

I said, “What am I supposed to do, hear your troubles and give you a shoulder to cry on?”

He didn’t like that. He didn’t like being pushed around. He was too used to doing the pushing. But he took it. And that told me a lot about Jacob Dolphin. He was a deeply worried man.

He said, “I’ve been legit for five years now. I keep my nose clean. I pay my taxes. I pay my bills. I got a right to a vacation like any other slob. But what happens when I want to come here? I start getting the push. I don’t take that.”

I said, “Pushed around how?”

He said, “This way.” He pulled some folded papers out of his pocket and slid them across the table at me. There were three sheets of cheap notepaper. Each had some printing on it.

I flicked on my cigarette lighter and held the flame near the first note. It read: “There are healthier places for you than the Surfside Lodge, Dolphin.”

He said, “I made my reservation about two weeks ago. That came a few days later.”

I picked up the second note. He said, “That one was waiting when I got here yesterday.” It read: “Get smart and take your business somewhere else.”

I picked up the third note. It was more blunt than the other two: “Check out, Dolphin, or be checked out the hard way.”

I said, “When did you get this one?” I pushed the notes back at him.

“This morning,” he said. “It was in my box. In a plain envelope. All three came that way. Two in my box here; the first one at my apartment in town.”

I said, “With your own name on them?”

He glowered into his glass. “All three had the name I used to make my reservation here. Jonathan Dorffmann. Spelled right too,” he added. “Two
f’s and two n’s.”

I thought that those two
f’s
in the name showed a nice touch of imagination. I said, “Who could know you were using that name?”

“Nobody,” he said. “I made it up. That’s why I wanted you.”

I said, “Why pick on me to protect you? You can hire a dozen oldtime hoods for a job like that.”

He said sourly, “Can you see an oldtime hood getting to stay in a joint like this? I’m in a bind, Flynn. If I could hire any of the old bunch, I would. But I’m legit, like I said. So I got to work through guys like you. I don’t like that, but I haven’t got any choice. So I’m paying five grand if you keep the punk that wrote those notes off my back.”

I said, “No, I won’t take the job. I can’t work on your terms.”

“I haven’t made any terms,” he yelled.

I said, “You haven’t leveled with me either. You wouldn’t come to a place like this without a good reason. And you aren’t about to tell me that reason. That means I have to work blind. On those terms the answer is no.”

I picked up the wad of bills and got to my feet. I tossed the money into his lap. “It’s no deal.”

My turning him down was a good maneuver. It should have got him to open up to me. But his face said he was remembering the other time we tangled, and remembering that I had won.

He just got up and left.

• • •

The crackers and the rye hadn’t hurt my appetite. Neither had Dolphin. I headed through the living room to get some dinner. I got as far as the foot of the porch when I was stopped.

A man who looked like a high-paid croupier and another one who might have been a jockey were coming up the path. They might have passed for guests, or for visiting tourists come to gape. But not to me. I could see cop written all over the croupier type.

I said, “The name is Flynn and this is Cottage Eleven. Come in and loosen your uniform buttons.”

The croupier looked hurt. He was wearing expensive gray flannel. He didn’t seem to think I should recognize him as the law. He said sulkily, “I’m Colton, Lieutenant, Rio Pollo Police Department.” He stepped back slightly. “This is Mr. Milo Craybaugh.”

He had won that round. I stood and gaped at Craybaugh’s small wiry hand. Then I came unkinked and shook it. I said, “Who was the joker in the truck then?”

Milo Craybaugh was about thirty-five. He had grown just enough to fit comfortably into Jacob Dolphin’s pocket. It was a surprise when he opened his mouth and talked in basso. He said, “That was an employee of mine, a man named Samuels. He took the truck without authorization.”

I turned and led them inside. I turned on a few lights. I took an easy chair. They sat on the divan. Colton leaned back and crossed his legs. He was very careful with the crease in his flannels. He got a notebook out of his pocket.

He said formally, as if Surfside guests had to be handled carefully, “I’d like your version of what happened, Mr. Flynn.”

I gave him my version. I told it as it happened, but with minor changes. I didn’t think either Colton or Craybaugh would be interested in the trap I’d set for the driver on that last curve.

Colton made scribbles in his notebook. He said, “The traffic report shows substantially the same pattern. The truck was going too fast and couldn’t make the curve. Then you went down the mountainside to help. Is that correct?”

I said, “That’s right. I couldn’t move him. So I came here and called in. It was faster than going to Rio Pollo.”

“And the man was alive when you left?”

“He was breathing,” I said. “He wasn’t conscious.”

“Did you touch him?”

I said, “What is this? I told you I tried to pull him loose. Why all the questions?”

Colton said, “When the prowl car arrived, he was dead, Flynn.”

“I’m sorry to hear that, even if he was a damn fool driver.”

Colton said, “His neck was broken.”

I said, “If it was, he broke it after I left.”

Colton nodded. “That’s the point exactly. Only he didn’t break it himself. Someone broke it for him. With their hands.”

Both men were watching me with cold, accusing quiet. I thought, “The stupid jerks think I crawled down the mountain to kill the poor guy.” Then I realized they weren’t being stupid. They were either damned clever or someone else had been clever enough to make them think this way.

Milo Craybaugh said in his deep voice, “Why did you
go
down the mountain in the first place? You could have saved time by driving directly to the police?”

I didn’t like Milo very much. I didn’t like his logic either. It had holes. I said, “I don’t know the customs around here, but where I come from a man tries to help another man caught in a bind.”

Craybaugh flushed along his jawline. Colton looked a little hurt again. But he didn’t say anything. And I knew why. He was just here to throw a few official blocks. Milo Craybaugh was going to carry the ball. I had seen smalltown cops work with prominent citizens before. And I didn’t doubt that Milo was probably the town’s heavy-spender. He had the look of a man who controls his surroundings.

I said, “As long as you’re tossing accusations, let me have my turn. It was your truck, Mr. Craybaugh, and your employee.”

He wasn’t perturbed. He said, “Samuels was an itinerant laborer. I hire a number of them at various seasons of the year. As I already informed the police, I know almost nothing about him. He came to work for me two days ago. He and the truck both disappeared sometime during the afternoon.”

Colton said, “And we aren’t tossing accusations, as you put it, Mr. Flynn. I was just stating facts.”

I said, “Crap. I know a cop squeeze when I’m in the middle of it. You came here with your evidence all lined up. As soon as I admitted going down to the truck, you moved in.”

The more I talked the more my temper started jumping. I’d had about all I could take in one day—Samuels, Annette, Dolphin, and now this pair of smalltown bigshots.

I said, “If I had wanted to kill the guy, I wouldn’t have bothered to break his neck. I’d have walked away and told nobody.”

They just looked at me. I got to my feet. “I may not own a two-bit town like Rio Pollo but I’m a bona fide guest at its fanciest hotel. I’m also a citizen of this state. I know its laws. I’m not forgetting that it was your workman, Craybaugh, and your truck. And that makes both your responsibility.”

Craybaugh lifted his lip and sneered. I said, “Maybe I’ll bring suit. Negligance on the part of the truck owner, allowing an irresponsible character like Samuels to use his equipment. Said negligence causing Samuels’ death, and also causing a nervous condition in me.”

I held out my hands, the joints stiff. I made my hands shake like an old man attacked by palsy. I jerked up one side of my face.

Craybaugh said coldly, “Do something to this fool, Colton!”

Colton sounded worried. He said, “I’ve seen screwier cases in court, Mr. Craybaugh. If it doesn’t do anything else, a suit can make a lot of people wonder. And make a lot of them laugh.”

I twitched and hitched my way to the door. I was tired of the act. It made my muscles ache. I dropped it and opened the door.

I said, “I’m paying sixty bucks a day for this cottage. I’m not getting sixty bucks worth of pleasure out of it. If you want to press a charge against me to cover Craybaugh’s negligence, then go ahead. Otherwise, let me have the privacy I’m paying for.”

I wasn’t making a friend of either of them. Colton climbed to his feet. I thought for a minute he was going to forget he was dressed like an Ivy League cop and take a swing at me. But he just gave a growl and said, “I can find a charge if I look hard enough, Flynn.”

I opened the door wider. He moved toward it. Craybaugh stood up. He hated me with his eyes. Colton stepped aside as Craybaugh plowed out the door. He looked after Craybaugh and then back at me. He said, “Mr. Craybaugh throws a lot of weight in Rio Pollo, Flynn. And the Lodge is in the city limits. Don’t forget that.”

He didn’t sound sore; he just sounded unhappy. I felt a little sorry for him. He probably wasn’t too bad a guy. And if he took guff from the Craybaughs of this world, that didn’t make him so much different from the rest of us. We all take one kind of guff or another.

I said, “Tell Craybaugh he can throw all the weight he wants. Tell him about jujitsu too. It’s the kind of game where the more weight you throw around, the harder you land.”

I walked into the cottage and shut the door.