Ken Douglas - Ragged Man

“ Someone killed my dad. They tied him to a post and cut his head off. There was tons of blood. Rick, you gotta help me. I’m really scared. I saw the man. It’s him, I know it is. And I bet he has the knife. You gotta come. You gotta come now. I’m so scared.”

“ Calm down, J.P. Talk slower. Tell me slow.”

“ It’s hard. I don’t wanna cry, but I can’t help it.”

“ Are you okay?”

“ I’m across the street from the Record Meet in Pasadena, at Jumpin’ Jimmy’s. I couldn’t hide in the bushes anymore. I had to go to the bathroom and I was real hungry. I saw the man.”

“ What man?” Rick said.

“ It was the man from the bait shop the day those beggars were murdered. I saw him. At first I didn’t recognize him, but I remembered. He killed my dad.”

“ Do you have any money?”

“ Yeah, I got sixty dollars. My dad gave it to me to buy stuff, but when I remembered where I saw the man, I went back to tell my dad about how that guy was up in Tampico when you had to kill those bums and he was dead. Sylvia’s dead, too.”

“ Who’s Sylvia?”

“ My dad’s new wife.”

“ I’m sorry, J.P. I’ll be down there on the first flight.”

“ What should I do till you get here?”

“ You stay in the restaurant. Sit at the counter, talk to the cook, talk to the waitress, and don’t talk to anyone else. I’m going to call Christina and have her come get you. Remember her?”

“ Yeah, her and Torry and Swell.”

“ That’s right. Don’t leave the restaurant. And be very careful.”

“ So he doesn’t get me, too?”

“ Yes, so he doesn’t get you, too.”

He hung up and started dialing.

“ Hello,” Rick heard her voice coming down the wire.

“ Hi, Chris.”

“ How come you didn’t call like you said you would?” She was angry.

“ Please don’t talk, just listen.”

His voice must have conveyed the urgency he felt because she said, “Okay.”

“ Susan just called. Evan and Danny are dead. Murdered. Sherry’s dead, too. It looks like it might have been the same man. Susan thinks the killer may come after you and the girls. She’s gone to Mexico.”

“ Oh, no,” she said.

“ Sorry to break it to you this way, but it can’t be helped. Do you know the Pasadena Meet?”

“ Yes. I don’t go, but I’ve been once or twice, just to look around.”

“ Tom and his new wife were murdered yesterday at the meet. J.P. has been hiding out there since yesterday. Right now he’s sitting at the counter in Jumpin’ Jimmy’s. Do you know it?”

“ Yes.”

“ He thinks he saw the man who killed his father. I want you and the girls to go and get him and then go check in to the Beach Inn on Ocean. Tell no one.”

“ But it’s so close to here.”

“ Exactly, the best place to hide is where nobody would look. Nobody’s going to look for you in a motel across the street.”

“ Gotcha, I’m leaving now. See you when you get here.”

“ Be careful.”

“ You got it. I’m out the door.”

“ No questions?”

“ None.”

“ Good girl, and Christina?”

“ Yeah?”

“ I love you,” he said.

“ You always did a little,” she said.

“ See ya, take care.”

“ See ya,” she said back. Then she hung up.

Christina Page started dialing as soon as Rick hung up. It took her three calls to find out the twins had gone to the movies with friends and wouldn’t be back for a couple of hours. She couldn’t find out which movie and she couldn’t spend all night calling movie theaters. They were with a group of girls, in a crowded cinema, they’d be okay till she returned with J.P.

He must be so frightened, she thought. Sitting in that restaurant all alone. His father dead. It was all so hard to believe.

She thought about leaving a note for the girls, but she was only going to be gone a short time. They wouldn’t worry and besides, she’d be back before they knew she had been gone.

She left the house and made her way to her car with her mind in a whirl. Rick’s call, telling her that her friends were dead, tore at her heart, and the thought of J.P., afraid and alone, ripped at her mother’s instincts. She fought to hold her feelings halfway between sorrow and rage.

She started the car and drove, mentally stabbing herself for agreeing to do what Rick asked. She should have called the police straightaway. She made up her mind to do so as soon as she picked up J.P. If he saw the man who killed his father, he should be telling the cops. They were the ones who should be handling this, not her.

Then she thought that whoever is doing this has been able to find some people who are very good at covering their tracks. There isn’t exactly a who’s who of bootleggers available in the local library. Danny, Evan and Tom had been living a sort of underground existence for the last twenty years. Like her, they had no credit cards, no bank accounts, no jobs, no listings in the phone book. They would be damned hard to find, unless you were a friend.

But someone found them, she thought.

Twenty minutes later she exited at Colorado. She’d made good time. Within an hour of Rick’s phone call she was parking her car in the same parking lot where Tom Donovan’s new wife had been murdered.

She looked both ways, then ran across the street against the light. J.P. saw her the second she came through the door and in an instant he was off his stool and into her arms, crying.

“ It’s going to be okay now, J.P.,” she said, knowing it would never be okay for him again. Danny, Evan and Tom, she thought, what had they gone and gotten themselves into? Who did they piss off?

“ I’m glad you came.” He had his arms wrapped around her, clutching as only a frightened child can.

“ Come on, J.P. I’ll take you home.”

“ Can we stop by the Holiday Inn and pick up my bird, cuz I gotta have Dark Dancer.” He wiped the tears from his eyes.

“ Sure we can, but you’ll have to be careful when we get it home, the girls have a new kitten and we wouldn’t want it to eat your bird.”

“ Oh, it wouldn’t do that,” he said. “Dancer’s a tough pigeon. And besides, he’s got a good cage.”

Thirty minutes later Christina turned into the parking garage, ducking her head as she went down the circular ramp.

“ That’s silly,” J.P. said. “You got lotsa room, besides you’re in the car.”

“ It’s an old habit, hard to break,” she said.

“ Wow, full up,” J.P. said as they circled the first floor on their way down.

“ There must be a convention in town.”

“ Lots of the record meet people stay here,” J.P. said.

“ This is a big hotel. I doubt that would fill it. There must be something else going on,” she said as she passed through the second floor, heading on down to the third.

“ Stop,” J.P. yelled.

Christina slammed her foot on the brake.

“ Sorry, ma’am,” one of the men she’d almost run down said. “We should have used the stairs.”

“ What’s going on?” she asked. Two of the men had open beer cans in their hands.

“ Homicide convention,” one of them said. “Homicide detectives from all over the world, swapping lies upstairs. Right now this hotel is probably the safest place on the planet, must be over three thousand cops milling around.”

“ Not so safe for you three, I almost ran you over,” she said. They laughed and waved as she drove on to search out a parking place on the lower level. The only parking spaces left were on the far side of the garage, away from the elevators.

“ We’re way out in left field,” J.P. said.