Too Many Crooks (19 page)

He looked at Thurmond and shook his head. "Nothing under there but the street."

Thurmond turned to me, his face red. "I'm goddamn tired, Scott—"

"Wait a minute. I told you I tossed the camera under there. I did. Maybe somebody picked it up. The Red Cross is using that stand; must be a lot of people near there."

Mac said, "Lunch hour. Must have been a couple hundred people around there. All in front, though. Nobody'd have any business climbing under there. I think he's lying."

I wondered if the camera might have landed where people could later have seen it. But I remembered that it had gone past the cloth, probably halfway under the stand.

"I gave you a straight story, Thurmond." I thought a minute. "When I tossed the thing, it tore the cloth around the stand as it went through."

Mac said, "Yeah, the cloth was tore. Maybe somebody looked through there. It's tore in plain sight there."

The next hour or two was, oddly enough, almost pleasant. They left me pretty much alone for that length of time, during which they apparently were checking on what I'd told them about the camera and Betty. I hoped she was safe. I thought quite a bit about my own chances, which seemed nil. After the beating I'd absorbed, I wasn't in what might be called excellent physical condition, but neither was I helpless.

Most of the work on me had been handled by Carver swinging his hose, and so far I had a lot of aches and bruises, and it hurt to breathe, but no bones were broken. I was still capable of standing up and moving around, even running a little if necessary. Not very fast and not very far, but at least I wasn't flat on my back. If I gave them much more of a bad time, though, I might easily wind up with a broken arm or leg or skull, and I would run nowhere except down. So I decided to cooperate. Up to a point.

Finally all three of them came back inside. This time Carver, instead of Thurmond, did the talking. "The Lane girl wasn't at the Canyon Motel. And there's no Leica anyplace. And I'm awful tired of you, Scott. You start talking straight, or we'll kill you right here in"—he grinned—"Coney Island."

I had figured that Carver, a man of little patience to begin with, was about out of patience. This belief was bolstered by the fact that he'd traded his hose for a leather-wrapped sap that he held now in his right hand.

"I'm convinced," I said.

"Let's start with your confession, Scott."

"I'll sign it."

He seemed surprised. Also a little disappointed. But he got the typed pages from Mac and walked over to me again. I said, "Look, Carver, just among us buddies, we all know I didn't kill Dane, so there's no point in being cute about it. How do you expect to make this frame stick, even with a confession? My gun wasn't used on Dane, and—"

He interrupted. "Wrong, chum. We even got slugs we— well, dug out of Dane. Match your gun, too. Hadn't you guessed? You had all sorts of motives. Besides, we caught you running away right after you plugged him, remember?"

I remembered. And it wouldn't have been much trouble for them to fire bullets from my gun into a box of cotton—or even into Dane's dead body, for that matter—and later testify that ballistics tests proved my gun had been used for the kill. They had me for shooting Blake, but if they could clear up Dane's murder at the same time, all their worries would be over.

"You find my thirty-eight?" I asked.

"Yep. On the fire escape. Too bad you didn't fall off into the alley. Save us a lot of trouble. That way we could concentrate on your sweetie."

"Why don't you quit worrying about her? She can't hurt you."

"She's not as important as you are—or were—to us, but I'm afraid we got to worry about her. We'll find her."

He freed my wrists, handed me the confession and a pen. I signed the last page. I signed it "Sheldon Scott," with no tricks and no hesitation. I had already figured out that my signed confession was important to the cops—but it was no good to them, really, until I was dead. As long as I was alive, that signature on a fake confession could easily backfire, so my signing wasn't too important; on the other hand, once I was dead, I wouldn't give much of a damn about anything. So I signed with a flourish and handed pen and paper back to Carver.

"Get on your feet," he said.

I stood up. Carver slipped the bracelets on my wrists again, but I noticed he was manacling my hands in front of me. That made it easier for me to move them, even swing at somebody, and I wondered if he'd made a mistake. Just in case, I started talking to keep his mind occupied.

"This about does it, right, Carver? You're practically in the chips. Especially if you count in the foundation property. You boys got that under control yet?"

He frowned and blinked at me. "How the hell did you fall into that?"

"Something Baron let slip started me thinking," I lied. "Then it tied in with all the rest of the mess here."

He shook his head, then said, "Well, we got voting control, chum. Will have in a few days, anyway."

"Uh-huh, when somebody takes over Dane's membership. I guess you figure that strip of beach is practically yours, huh?"

He grinned. "Not exactly, chum, not like the stuff we bought ourselves, but we'll have control of it—legally. City may get it back eventually, but we'll make some bucks on the deal."

He stepped back from me and moved my hands forward and up a little, only they didn't move very far. He'd slipped the handcuffs under my belt. He said, "Nope, it can't miss. We got no worries at all now. Come on, Scott."

"Where we going?"

He grinned again. "Let's say we're taking you to the county seat. Feeling's running high against you here, chum. Gonna transfer you."

"Sure. So the howling mob doesn't break in and lynch me."

We went out of the room, Mac and the chief ahead of me, and Carver right behind. The main entrance to the jail was on our left, but we turned right and walked down the hall. There was a door at the hall's end, which opened on the side street, Elm.

Mac went out first and walked ahead of us to the black police sedan parked at the curb, opened both side doors, and stood by them like a chauffeur as we walked briskly down the sidewalk toward the car. For a moment I considered trying to run for it, but I pushed that thought out of my mind even before Carver said softly behind me, "Now, you just take off, Scott. Run a little way down the street so it looks good. Lots better if we got witnesses."

I swallowed. That would make it nice. The innocent bystanders could testify that I'd been brought down by Dead-eye Carver when I was attempting to escape. There were a few men and women in sight, walking on the sidewalks. Half a dozen cars were parked nearby. There was something strange about one brown coupé parked across the street, but just as I started to take a good look at it we reached the police sedan and Carver pushed me inside and across to the far edge of the back seat. Mac crawled in behind me, and Carver slammed the door.

I glanced at the brown coupé again. Hanging out the door on the driver's side was an object that was not standard equipment on brown Fords. It was a leather camera case, the straps held in a white hand. I wasn't able to see the driver's face, but there couldn't be much doubt, under the circumstances, that the case was the one that had been around my Leica. And I was suddenly sure that the car was Betty's brown Ford, and that her hand held the case's straps. As I looked, the leather case was pulled inside the car. I made myself face the front of the police car, kept my head turned away from the Ford. Carver slid inside the sedan up in front and Chief Thurmond walked around toward the driver's seat.

Carver was looking back at me, and I was afraid he might look past me, see the car across the street. He might even recognize it as Betty's car. I tried to keep him looking at my face, kept talking to him. I said the first thing that popped into my mind, just to be saying words. "Carver, you know I'm onto the whole deal, or I wouldn't be taking this ride. I just want to know one thing more. Who killed Dane? I know Baron ordered it, but I mean who pulled the trigger?"

He chuckled. "A dead man, Scott. He's dead now."

"Zimmerman?"

"Zimmerman. You'll get to meet him later today." He grinned at me. "Too bad we don't have your girlfriend along to keep you company."

I had to swallow in the middle of my answer, but I got it out. "She's probably in Frisco by now."

I heard the starter of the Ford across the street grinding, then the motor caught. Chief Thurmond started the police car and we pulled out from the curb. Three blocks ahead, he turned left. Up till that moment I had forced myself to keep my eyes front, but I glanced quickly back down the street as we turned. The brown Ford was back there, about half a block behind us.

That settled it. I knew for sure that it was Betty. I got a kind of panicky feeling and my heart kicked up inside my chest. There wasn't a thing she could do except get herself killed. Why the hell had she stuck around? Why hadn't she run while she had a chance?

I let my manacled hands rest against my stomach, over my belt. I could feel the small metal buckle against my index finger. Mac leaned against the side of the car on my right, his gun pointed at my chest.

Hairs wiggled at the back of my neck. I had assumed they'd planned to stop in some deserted spot, take me out of the car and put a bullet or two into my skull. But looking at Mac's gun, and at his face, I wondered now why I'd thought it would have to be like that.

There wasn't really any reason for them to wait till I was out of the car.

Chapter Seventeen

Suddenly chief Thurmond spoke. "Looks pretty good along here, huh?"

We were a couple of miles from Seacliff, on a two-lane highway bordered by trees and grass. It was pretty country, and it looked cool in among the trees.

Carver was partly twisted around in the front seat, and now he looked out the rear window. "Good enough," he said. "Road's clear, too, except for one car. Let him pass."

I looked behind us as if in natural response to Carver's words. Mac, on my right, glanced out the window too, then fixed his eyes on me again. The brown Ford was still about half a block behind, but even as I watched, it seemed to draw closer.

There wasn't a trace of saliva in my mouth or throat. In the hope that I could keep attention centered on me, and not on the Ford, I said, "Carver, it looks like the party's almost over. It would be a little satisfaction, at least, to know I was right all the way. Where does Norris fit in? Just muscle?"

Carver laughed, as if my question were silly. "Your party's over, all right, chum." He pursed his lips. "Yeah, you figured it all pretty good. But you had to be lucky to figure out the boss was Baron. Hell of a lot of good it's gonna do you. You're curious about Norris, huh? Well, chum, that's what you're supposed to be, see? Norris works for Baron, and if anybody tumbles to part of the play, then naturally they think Norris is responsible for everything, Norris and his pro boys, some syndicate men. Of course, Norris put up plenty of the dough for the operation, and he'll get a lot of the profits. But Baron? It costs him a little money, but he's clean as a hound's tooth. Smart, huh?"

"Yeah, smart." I was dying to look again at the road behind us but I kept my eyes on Carver's face. I wondered what the hell Betty was planning to do, if anything. If she just kept tagging along behind, these guys would tumble.

I turned to Mac and said, "Do you have to point that thing at me?"

That almost broke him up, it was so funny, but it gave me an excuse to turn my head just a little farther to my right. I glanced out the back window. The Ford was only about thirty yards away now, going much faster than we were. My pulse quickened and I pressed my hand against my belt, feeling for the buckle again, hoping Mac's finger wasn't too tight on that trigger. Because she wasn't swinging out to pass us, not an inch; and I suddenly knew what she must be going to do. She was going to ram us.

I spoke to Carver, but at the same time I tried to count off the seconds, estimate the moment of impact.

"Carver," I said, "I know Dorothy Craig got hot with the
Star
's publisher, then later with Baron. And Josephson never lets anything be printed that might foul up Baron's operation here. Is that Miss Craig's contribution?"

I had mentally counted off five seconds. I pulled my feet back against the seat, tensed the muscles in my legs, and looped a finger through my belt buckle.

Carver said, "She had some letters from the old guy. Real hot stuff, chum. Baron's got them now."

I saw the chief looking into the rearview mirror. He shouted something and his hands tightened on the wheel. I dug for the buckle on my belt, felt it slide free. My hands jerked up in front of me as Mac yelled, "Hey!" and snapped his gun toward my face.

I jerked my head aside, eyes fixed on the bore of Mac's revolver, but I could still see his lips pulled apart and his teeth pressed together behind them as he started to squeeze the trigger. From the corner of my eye I saw the brown blur of the Ford right upon us—and then it hit.

Mac's gun went off almost in my face, heat from the explosion searing my skin and fiery flecks of powder digging into my cheek. But the impact as Betty's Ford slammed into the sedan shoved us all against the seats and Mac's bullet zipped past my head and crashed through the side window.

The car swerved in the road. All of us were off balance, but the others more than I, because I'd been prepared for the impact. And before Mac could straighten up, bring his gun around to bear on me again, I swung both manacled wrists toward his face, driving them toward him with all my strength, and he slumped when the heavy steel bands struck his forehead. The gun dropped from his hands and fell to the floor.

Somebody shouted in the front of the car but I didn't even look up. I slid forward, letting my knees drop to the floor, and grabbed with both hands for the gun. I got one hand around it and thrust a finger through the trigger guard.

I didn't wait. I didn't give a damn if Carver had a gun in his hand. Even before I looked up, as soon as the gun was in my fist, I angled it toward the back of the seat before me and started pulling the trigger. I fired three times through the seat, letting the natural kick of the gun bring its barrel higher each time, and only when I fired the fourth shot did I see Carver's face, see the gun in his hand.