Джо Горес - Cases

For once in his life, Drinker was almost speechless.

“But... but... the photos, the medals...”

“Fakes. During the war I flew supplies into China over the hump from Burma. A lot of us got moderately rich on that run. Jewels, jade, carved ivory — once all the struts and aileron wires of my plane were made of almost pure gold.”

“Some detective,” said Drinker sheepishly. The two big men were silent for a time, each with his own thoughts. Then Drinker said, “I put a mike in your bedroom and a listening post in the basement. April and Besner talked a lot, made a lot of plans.”

Harry nodded in acknowledgment. Drinker gestured.

“We’d better throw the bomb overboard. It isn’t connected to the dry-cell, but dynamite is dynamite, after all.”

“It’s not on board, it’s under my bed, or it was.” Harry looked at his watch. “It was set to go off twenty seconds ago.”

Drinker jerked upright, his eyes shocked, even frightened. “Jesus Christ! April and Besner would have been just...”

“Exit April Wham,” said Harry, stone-faced. “Besner is just a bonus. I didn’t mind her trying to blow me away, Drinker — there was money involved. But” — he motioned toward the slight, silent man at the wheel — “she hardly knew Lee Fong.”

Drinker retrieved his car from the St. Francis Yacht Club lot where he’d left it at nine that morning, after listening to April’s final bedroom session with Besner. Compared to April, Sherry would be Cream of Wheat to the rarest, bloodiest steak imaginable, but she had one huge advantage: she was still alive.

Then he laughed aloud. He had real money. He’d never have to kiss a client’s ass again, never have to sleep with Sherry again. He’d thought what he’d gotten from Kiely’s safe-deposit box in Kansas City had been a lot of money, and he’d killed two men to get it — Earl with his .45, Emmy with his Plymouth when he’d found the man comatose in the parking lot near the Barbary Coast Hotel. But this was a hell of a lot more money, and he hadn’t had to kill anyone at all to get it.

He found parking around the corner on Green, walked down Gough to his apartment with a satchel in each hand. He didn’t want to leave the bomb-making stuff in the trunk overnight.

Dunc was sitting on the front steps in a tan-colored overcoat, a dark blue navy watch cap pulled down over his ears.

Drinker unlocked the door. “You look like a fucking bum.”

“I’ve been on the road, I sort of ran out of money.”

Drinker started up the stairs, Dunc tagging along behind. Opening his apartment door, he’d half expected April’s perfume to waft out at him, but the place was cold and dreary. He tossed the satchels in a corner, turned on lights, lit the wall heater. Dunc stood looking around; it was his first time there.

“I’m making coffee, you want some? I ain’t got any tea.”

A head shake. Drinker busied himself in the kitchen; there was a strange look in the kid’s eyes, half-mad, half-sad. The scar from the crash was very vivid above his left eye.

“You okay after the concussion and all?”

“Yeah, sure, fine.”

Drinker leaned back against the counter, his arms folded.

“Are you coming back to work for me again? You’re a damned good investigator and—”

“That’s what you told me in L.A. at the Labor Day picnic, wasn’t it? If we hadn’t gotten into the shooting contest you’d have hooked me some other way.” Drinker felt a stab of unease. “Pepe the piano player hired you to keep an eye on me.”

“Pepe... Jesus Christ, kid, I met him for the first time at that Reno steakhouse. I think you ought to—”

“I’d told him I was coming up here. I’d also told him about busting up a wetback smuggling ring. You praised me for that at the picnic, but my name hadn’t turned up anywhere, not once.”

Drinker poured himself coffee. “Sure you don’t want—”

“No, I’m fine.”

He carried his steaming mug into the living room and sat in the leather easy chair, had a momentary vivid image of April in this same chair, opening her legs... He made a decision.

“All right, yeah, I was down in L.A. on other business and I got hired by the piano player to get a line on you. But...”

Dunc was sitting on the straight-back chair across the room. He took off the navy watch cap.

“You played me like a fisherman plays a trout, played me up here, gave me a job so you could keep an eye on me for Pepe.” His face tightened. “Pepe got Penny killed, Drinker.”

“What are you talking about? She ran off the road—”

“I saw the cut line and sawed steering linkage myself.”

“Aw, Jesus Christ, Dunc! Tin so fucking sorry...” He took a gulp of coffee. “Listen, we can go after him! We—”

“I’ve already gone after him — through Mr. David.” Dunc was on his feet, striding up and down the room, ignoring Drinker’s reaction to what he had said. “When I told you we were getting married in Reno, you called Pepe to alert him. He told you to steer me his way, he’d decided I was dangerous because of Las Vegas, so—”

Drinker had to ask it. “You never suspected him at all?”

“Not until Penny was dead — and then it was too late.” He shook his head. “Just a fucking dumb naive punk kid, Drinker.”

Drinker sighed and slumped lower in his chair, knees apart, hands hanging down between them. Dunc kept on pacing.

“But Pepe didn’t fuck up the Grey Ghost’s brakes and steering. He hired the man on the scene to do that for him.”

“Hey, just a minute! You’re not saying that I—”

“Of course I am, Drinker. Who else could have done it? That was the call you got — there was no office break-in.”

Drinker slumped lower so his right hand was now touching the inside of his left calf. Dunc had stopped pacing.

“You’re dead wrong,” Drinker said in a weary voice.

Now he was touching the butt of the little .25-caliber backup piece he always carried strapped inside his left ankle.

Dunc went right on. “And then on Monday morning you called to send us flying down the mountain as fast as we could...”

Drinker said abruptly, “Did you come here to kill me, kid?”

“I don’t know, Drinker. I just—”

Drinker jerked the six-inch .25-caliber revolver from its ankle holster and shot Dunc from six feet away.

The little slug tugged the sleeve of Dunc’s overcoat, but by then he was spinning to his left, moving fast, his gloved left hand jerking out Drinker’s office gun, a Colt .38 revolver, firing it while on the move.

The slug entered Drinker’s right temple from nine inches away, bulging his eyes and slapping his head to one side as its force drove him over against the left arm of the leather chair.

Dunc stared wide-eyed, shocked, at the corpse he had made. If he hadn’t meant to kill Drinker, why had he brought Drinker’s office gun with him?

Larkie straightened up, holding his bloody prize above his head; then he threw it far out into the swamp.

Suddenly Dunc knew, with a blinding clarity, that this was what the Las Vegas priest had been talking about. Not what he thought he had been talking about, but what he had been. Because the weight of guilt over Penny’s death had shifted, just a little, inside Dunc. Not the feeling of loss, but the guilt. What had Penny said in the dream? Now you can go on.

What said the Old Testament? Eye for eye. Simple justice.

He said to the corpse, “I’m still a better fucking shot than you are, Drinker.”

No one was ringing the bell, no one was pounding on the door. The killing could have happened in a vacuum. So go on. Think it through. Blow-back particles on Drinker’s right hand. Powder-scorching around the bullet hole in his temple — a bullet from his own gun... Suicide.