Джо Горес - Cases

Drinker wound electrical tape around the four sticks of dynamite to form a compact bundle, then put it aside for a cheap twelve-hour alarm clock from Woolworth’s. He set the clock but did not wind it, then removed the back to expose the alarm bell and clapper. Around the alarm bell he wound the stripped end of one blasting cap wire; around the alarm clapper he wound the stripped end of a free length of insulated wire.

To arm his bomb, Drinker needed only to fasten the free end of the wire from the clapper to one of the two terminals of an ordinary dry-cell battery, and attach to the other terminal the remaining wilt from the blasting cap. Wind the alarm clock and leave. When the alarm went off, the clapper would hit the bell and close the electrical power circuit.

Mr. David finished his twentieth lap in the Flamingo’s outdoor pool at 7:30 A.M. and whooshed up out of the water sleek as a seal. In a profession where many died young, often violently, he intended to live forever. Dripping water, he lay back on his lounge chair and shut his eyes. He came down from San Francisco often to enjoy this perfect time of the year in Vegas, winter’s chill gone and summer’s intense heat not yet arrived.

“Mr. David?”

He opened his eyes. A Flamingo Hotel bellhop stood there holding a tray with a letter on it. Mr. David sat up, furious.

“Get out of here! I’m not to be disturbed for any reason.”

The bellhop just looked at him. A husky kid with close-cropped black hair, a wide neck, shoulders and arms too thick for his jacket. A new angry red scar above his left eyebrow ran up into his hairline. Jesus Christ, this was no bellhop!

And he without his bodyguards! But this was the Flamingo, for Chrissake, neutral ground. Who would have the balls to...

The kid sat down on the adjacent chair, still holding his tray. The fear drained out of Mr. David but left him too shaky for renewed rage. Dunc was shaky, too, but he had ice inside.

“I’m Pierce Duncan. I found two people for you. Kata Koltai and Jack Falkoner. Jack murdered Kata, you had Jack murdered in turn.”

Mr. David struggled for sangfroid. “You’re Cope’s man.”

“Two Saturdays ago, my girlfriend, Penny, and I got married.”

He found himself getting intrigued. This was the damnedest pitch he’d ever heard. He said, “Congratulations.”

“On that Monday, Penny was murdered. One of your men wanted me dead, and she happened to be in the way.”

Mr. David was actually shocked. “You think that I—”

“No.” He extended the tray with its envelope. “I’ve always wanted to be a writer, so I wrote a story. You’re in it, and Kata, and Jack Falkoner, and Pepe the piano player...”

Mr. David read the pages. When he had finished, he sat with them in his hand for almost a minute, looking at the blue water and green grass and waving palm trees blooming here in the desert — and not really seeing any of it.

“Instead of Pepe, what’s to keep me from—”

“That’s a carbon,” Dunc pointed out.

“And the original—”

“Is in the hands of a man even you can’t touch.”

“I see.” Mr. David met his gaze. “I think I know what you want. No problem of course, but if you could spell it out...”

The cold inside Dunc was now glacial. “You said it yourself. You know who and you know why. Eye for eye.”

Mr. David nearly smiled. “You’re a careful, clever man.”

They leaned back against the headboard of Drinker’s bed, naked, sated, sharing a cigarette. April giggled.

“On Friday evening we dine à la chinoise with Lee Fong, then go to the Alcazar Theater. Eight P.M. curtain. They plan to sleep on board the Doubloon, but it will be unguarded from six P.M. Friday until midnight at least.”

“Does murder always make you so happy?” Drinker growled.

“Only Harry’s. When will you go in? When will it go off?”

“Go in, nine-thirty. Go off, ten sharp Saturday morning.”

“Then I’ll have him call me on the ship-to-shore phone at nine-fifty-five for a big surprise. Harry loves surprises.” She sobered. “But you won’t love this very much, darling. This is the last time we can see each other until we open those lockboxes and get all that lovely money a week from Monday.”

“No, goddammit!” said Drinker in an angry voice.

“You of all people should understand. Your military record shows you’re a demolitions man, I may have been seen going in and out of this apartment. If someone sees Harry’s boat blow up...”

“Good answer,” he agreed reluctantly. “It makes sense.”

“For that,” she said, sliding down in the bed while Drinker remained where he was, “you deserve a special treat.”

It was after 3:00 A.M. Saturday when Pepe finished his gig at the Roundup and drove back to his luxury hotel in downtown Reno. The snow was gone, spring was on its way.

He let himself into his room, clicked the light switch. Nothing happened. Light filtering through the curtains showed him two shadowy waiting figures.

“You’re late, sweets,” said a soft voice Falkoner would have known. Pepe just had time to make the sign of the cross.

Ferris Besner had spent the night with April in Harry Wham’s outsize bed, but was still worried about Drinker.

“April, don’t forget — mean and tricky and smart...”

“Sweetheart, when the banks open Monday morning you will do your exquisite forgeries of Harry’s signature, we will empty the boxes, and we will be gone. Free, free, free!”

“But Drinker Cope is a detective, darling.”

“He’s been well paid. Also, he’s a murderer, or soon will be. We just make an anonymous call to the police once we’re out of their reach.”

At 9:55 they were waiting at the special wireless phone Harry had installed for direct connections with the Doubloon. The Piper-Heidsieck was in the silver bucket with two paper-thin crystal champagne flutes waiting beside it.

The phone rang at 9:58.

“Hi, darling! What’s this big surprise I’m going to love?”

Sixty seconds. Fifty-five. His life was passing before her eyes. “I know all about your Spanish gold, Harry. Only it’s Mexican and it doesn’t come from any galleons.”

Harry’s voice carried respect. “So you found out.”

Fifteen. Fourteen. Thirteen...

“On Monday Ferris and I are clearing out all your safe-deposit boxes and going away together. I hate you. I hope—” The receiver erupted with a brutal, massive noise that made her hold it away from her ear. “I hope you’re in hell, darling.”

Ferris was twisting the wire off the champagne’s cork.

“Exit Harry Wham,” she said to him, hanging up the phone.

“Exit Harry Wham,” said the big tousle-haired man. “Not a bad last line. Harry Wham will certainly have to be dead.”

Lee Fong was at the wheel; the Doubloon was in blue water. Harry scaled the phonograph record labeled Side I EXPLOSIONS AND DETONATIONS ( Exterior Reverberations ) over the side into the blue-gray chop. It sank instantly.

“Where’d you get it?” he asked.

Drinker Cope said, “That little theatrical supply house near the Curran Theater. What happens now?”

He nudged Drinker’s large canvas bag with his toe. “A fishing boat will carry you and your twenty-five percent of the loot to Monterey. A car will bring you back up here.”

“And you?”

He swung an arm to indicate the breadth of the world.

“No bullshit now, Drinker. Why cl you tell me about it?”

When Cope moved the canvas bag with the toe of his shoe in turn, Wham shook his head.

“No, it had to have been more than just money. You couldn’t have been getting tired of April, and don’t tell me any crap about lives getting saved on Iwo Jima. Just for the record, I never was a marine captain on Iwo. Not anywhere, not ever.”