Murder is Not an Odd Job

by Ralph Dennis

  “No way they could get through that entrance now?”

  “Any tampering with the trade door sets off a silent alarm in the control room. And even if they got past the rear door, they would not be able to use the trade elevator or enter the lobby.” He raised an eyebrow. “Would you like to inspect that entrance?”

  I shook my head. “It’s like Fort Knox.”

  He led the way back to the elevator. Before he inserted the key, he put his back to the doors. “I think it’s time you explained what this is all about.”

  “That’s fair.” I told him about the attempts on the life of Edward Templeton. He listened, without interrupting me, his eyes hard on me. At the end he grunted and said, “Mr. Templeton pays for and expects the best. The problem is that this security system wasn’t designed to handle that kind of try.”

  “It looks pretty tight to me.”

  “It’s designed to handle pests and to protect an old lady from being mugged in the elevator by someone who just walked in off the street. It’s not geared to handle a professional try.”

  There was no use lying about it. He was right. “Two weaknesses I see. The master keys the guards use.”

  “I can’t do anything about that now,” Cleland said.

  “The other one is the two guards at the main entrance. If someone has to be escorted to one of the floors that leaves only one man in the lobby.”

  “I can add another man within the hour. The expense, of course, will have to …”

  “Bill Mr. Templeton for that.”

  Cleland inserted the key and the elevator doors opened. “A real hard try with automatic weapons might get past the lobby.”

  “Not if you tell the men what to expect.”

  “I don’t like this at all.”

  I said I couldn’t say that I was in love with it either.

  He dropped me off at the twelfth floor and checked me past the guard in the foyer.

  The room they’d furnished us was in the suite furnished to Edward. His room was next to ours. There were twin beds and Hump, fully clothed, was stretched out on one.

  There was a table and I sat there for an hour and went through Cleland’s files. You could say this for him. The background checks he did would have rated pretty well with the F.B.I. When I’d put the last file aside, I still hadn’t found a flaw. I’d looked for any man who’d been hired recently, but that was a dead end. All the men on the job had been employed for six months or longer.

  I tapped the files together until they were in a neat stack. “How’s Edward?”

  “Sleeping like a baby, the last time I looked.”

  “Keep an eye open. We’ll set up watches later.”

  I carried the files through the halls and out to the foyer. I had the desk guard call down for Cleland and then I waited until he came up. I returned the files to him. He said he was leaving now that the extra guard was on duty down in the lobby.

  I left him and went looking for a drink.

  I found a bar in a small library near Beth Fanzia’s living quarters. One thing you could say for the rich. They kept the liquor store cash registers ringing, especially the high dollar keys. I looked over the bar and passed up the Glenlivet this time in favor of the bourbon. Lord, it was good. Smoother than Jack Daniels Black and aged a few years longer than Wild Turkey. I couldn’t tell from the decanter what it was, unless it was some kind of private stock. Sipping it straight, seated in a soft chair, I decided when the job was over, I’d try to find some way of making off with a bottle or two of it.

  “Is this the way you protect Edward?”

  Beth Fanzia was in the doorway. There was a book in one hand. The other hand held together the neck of a no-nonsense robe, a practical robe, no see-through, made out of a soft wool.

  “He’s protected right now.” I held up the glass. “I’m protecting myself from the chill.”

  It hadn’t been an accusation anyway, just her way of starting a conversation. Maybe the very rich have a hard time of just saying hello.

  “I feel the chill myself.” She passed me, holding the book out like she’d like to shelve it. She couldn’t decide where it belonged, so she dropped it on a table. “What are you drinking?”

  “The bourbon.”

  “Daddy’s special reserve. I’ll have some too.”

  I stood up. “Ice or water?”

  “Are you drinking it straight?”

  “Water’s a sin in this,” I said.

  “Your way then,” she said.

  I brought over the decanter and a glass. She sat down in a chair across from mine. Now both of her hands were busy, one clutching the robe at the throat and the other holding the bottom edge closed across her knees. I grinned to myself and poured her a couple of knuckles of bourbon in the glass. I held the glass out to her. When she hesitated, not sure which part of the robe to let fall open, I laughed.

  “Like they say at the Chicken Shack—breast or leg?”

  That got her pride up. “Which do you prefer, Mr. Hardman?”

  “Jim,” I said. “Both or either or neither.”

  She released the top of the robe and I got my look at her breasts then, right down to the nipples. I was still having trouble putting it together, the guess I had of her age and the way she’d held the body together. It might be will but it was also a matter of a hell of a lot of exercise.

  “See enough?” She took the drink.

  “For now.” I backed away and sat down.

  “You’re no gentleman.” The first few sips of bourbon put a flush of color in her face.

  “That’s the second time I’ve heard that this week. The other time it was from your father.”

  “From him,” she said, “that’s a high compliment.”

  “And from you?”

  “Half and half.”

  “You like sitting on fences?”

  “Not as much as I like men,” she said.

  “How many have there been?”

  “Husbands? Or do we count lovers as well?”

  “We could start with husbands and go on from there.”

  “Three,” she said.

  “Run them down for me.”

  “My first was an All-America tackle from Tennessee. He made love like he played football, mean and hard.” She smiled at the thought. “It was fine if you didn’t mind the bruises the next day.”

  “A tackle is a fullback with his brains kicked out,” I said.

  “Does that mean anything?”

  “No.”

  “My second was Count Fanzia. It seemed the thing to do at the time. He had a name and no money and I had money and not much left of a name.”

  “Too much high living?”

  “You should have known me in London and Paris.”

  “And what happened with the Count?”

  “He was a lot of man, but after Rudolph was born he lost interest in me. He had, situated all over Italy, a number of other interests.”

  “The continental view of life,” I said. “So you got your feelings hurt and moved on to number three.”

  “A charming man. A man who could do everything well but make a living. Do you know he could order a whole meal in Chinese?”

  “That must have been pretty impressive, at least once a month.”

  “He was, to be sure, a few years younger than I was.”

  “How few?”

  “Eight, I think. The problem was that he seemed confused about our relationship at times. It was as if he thought I was his mother. Can you believe that?”

  “He was a mixed-up boy,” I said.

  “Wasn’t he, though?” She’d finished the couple of knuckles of bourbon. Either the bourbon or the talk about husbands had softened her. Something had happened. And I liked it enough not to question it.

  I picked up the decanter from the rug at my feet and stood up. I leaned over her and poured a splash more into her glass. I put the decanter aside and waited. The temptation was in me. And while she drank, she watched me ov
er the rim of the glass, a trace of a smile on her lips.

  As soon as she lowered the glass, I took it out of her hand. She didn’t protest. Either she’d read my mind or she’d played the same scene so many times she knew all the lines.

  I put the glass next to the decanter and reached out and grabbed the top of the robe. She closed her eyes then and the eyelids flickered when I put out my hands and caught her breasts in my palms. Firm, good weight, with the nipples rubbing against my hands.

  “You surprise me, Mr. Hardman.” It was a soft, faraway voice.

  “Jim,” I said.

  “Jim.” Her hand fumbled at me. After it touched my belt it moved down and stroked the front of my fly. She didn’t have any trouble finding me. I leaned closer and I was just kissing her when the light went out. I might not have noticed that. There wasn’t any way to ignore the blast of a shotgun and the burb-burp-burp of an automatic weapon.

  CHAPTER SIX

  I said, “Down on the floor, Beth.” I took my hands away from her breasts and caught her by the shoulders. “Stay flat on the floor and don’t move until I come back.”

  “Jim …”

  I jerked her out of the chair and dumped her on the floor. So much for tenderness. I turned and ran for the door, where I thought the door was. I hit the frame with a shoulder and kept going. It staggered me some but I got the .38 out and put the hammer back on cock. I was moving as fast as I could, with one hand sliding down the hallway wall, feeling for a doorway. I found the doorway and turned left. I was trying to run a film through the back of my mind, trying to see the halls and the rooms as I ran. In the film the hall was longer than it really was. I hit a closed and locked door before I realized it was there. I hit it hard enough to bounce back. It was luck for me that I did.

  A round slammed into the door, off to the side. It was a pistol shot, not the shotgun or the automatic weapon.

  “Goddamit, Hump …”

  “Jim?”

  “Shit, yes.”

  I heard movement and the lock sliding open.

  “Jim, look, I’m sorry …”

  I pushed past him. “Where’s Edward?”

  The raspy voice answered me. “Over here.”

  “Good.” I reached out and caught Hump by the arm. “You know how to load the piece?”

  “Sure.”

  I dug into my jacket pocket and brought out a few shells. “Here. Replace the round you just fired.” I dumped the shells into his hand.

  “Where you going?”

  “I’ve got to see what’s going on. It sounds like a shotgun and a grease gun.”

  “Watch yourself.”

  “You and Edward stay on the floor. Heads down.”

  I backed out of the door. Hump followed me that far. Before he closed the door between us, I said, “Don’t open the door for anybody but me.”

  “Luck.”

  Then the lock slid into place and off in the distance I heard the next burst of gunfire. This time it was a shotgun, three bursts so fast the echoes overlapped. I stopped in the hall, listening. No more gunfire. I waited until I was fairly certain that I had the layout clear in my mind. I’d just left Beth’s suite and nobody’d reached Edward’s yet. That left the old man’s living quarters and the living room and the foyer where the desk guard was.

  I took it slow. I didn’t want to blunder into a shotgun or a Sten gun. And if those shotgun blasts or the burp blasts had hit anyone, they weren’t going to be any deader if I got there a few minutes later.

  When I reached the end of the hall that led to the old man’s suite, I stopped long enough to untie my shoes and step out of them. I carried them with me. It was quieter going but the floor had been waxed and buffed recently and I knew I was going to have tired arches from trying to grip the slippery surface.

  I was a few feet from the outer living room door of the old man’s suite when it was briefly outlined by a flash of light. The light also revealed a white figure sprawled in the hall just ahead of me. Then the light was gone. I moved forward, ticking off the distance in my mind. I reached the figure and bent over it. One touch and I knew that it was the huge nurse I’d seen on my first visit to the old man’s hospital-like room. I could tell that from the starchy feel of the cloth. I found her head and moved my hand down to her neck. No pulse. She was dead. I stepped over her and felt my right sock get wet. I’d stepped into her blood.

  I flattened myself against the wall and waited. I could hear voices.

  “Shit, Ernie, we got the wrong man. This is some old fucker.”

  “No, shit, no, this was the right room.”

  “Look, you dumb-ass …”

  I grabbed the molding on the door frame, ducked low and swung myself into the living room. I could see the hospital bedroom straight ahead, illuminated by the strong beam of a flashlight.

  “If this is the wrong guy, then where the fuck is …?”

  I moved to the left, clearing the doorway. I couldn’t see where I was going. I put out a hand and touched something. It moved away from me. I grabbed for it but it rolled out of my reach. And then I realized I’d set a wheelchair in motion. It was rolling toward the bedroom. I got on my knees and crawled. I wanted to get out of the line of fire if the two men were jumpy. I got a few feet away from the doorway before the wheelchair struck a table. A lamp fell and shattered. I flattened out and dug my toes into the rug.

  The flashlight swept across the living room and the grease gun stitched its way across the wall above me, showering me with plaster and wood debris.

  “Jumpy, Ernie?”

  “Up you.”

  The light reflected off the wall enough for me to see that I’d positioned myself behind a brocaded sofa. I took my breaths in small bites of air, nothing they could hear.

  “Where’s Walk? He’s supposed to be here.”

  “It’s gone bad,” the other one said.

  The two men moved toward the doorway that led to the hall. I still couldn’t see them. The light was pointed down now, wagging its way across the carpet. I could have fired and I might have got one or both of them. I let them go. A pistol wasn’t much against a pump shotgun and a grease gun. The odds weren’t right. As they neared the doorway, the light cut toward the right and they moved off in that direction. I didn’t like it. That meant they were going toward the suite where Hump and Edward Templeton were. The only thing Hump and Edward had going for them that I didn’t was that they were behind a thick door and they’d been warned to stay low on the floor. They might weather it.

  I got to my knees. I reached for the curled armrest at the end of the sofa and I was pulling myself up when another light cut through the darkness. The beam was directed toward the bedroom. “Ernie? You in here?” A man followed the light into the living room. The light was steady on the mess in the bedroom for a long count and then the hand shifted and the light began a slow sweep of the room.

  Just enough time. I took the careful stance, with my left hand locked over my right wrist to steady it. I still couldn’t see him. I had to guess. I sucked in a slow breath and shot him three times as fast as I could drag the trigger.

  He yelled when the first one hit him. And at least one of the other two hit him about heart high. The flashlight jerked out of his hand, hit the carpet, and bounced and rolled. Something else, something heavier, dropped out of his other hand and struck the floor about the time his body did.

  I scooped up the flashlight and turned it on him. He was dead and for a moment I thought it had gone wrong. The man with the hole torn in his chest was wearing a policeman’s uniform. But the panic passed. I remembered that he’d called for Ernie. That meant he wasn’t a cop. I could breathe again then.

  I switched off the light and grabbed him by one leg and tumbled him out of the doorway. When he was off to one side I felt around the carpet until I found the weapon he’d been carrying, a wicked-looking double-barreled shotgun with the barrels cut down. I had to use the light again. I pointed it away from the door and held t
he shotgun in the beam. I broke the shotgun and checked the shells. Both unfired. I replaced the shells and put the shotgun on the floor at my feet. While I waited, I replaced the three rounds I’d fired from the .38. I switched off the flashlight. I was ready.

  I put it together this way: the one I’d shot was probably the guy, Walk, the other two had mentioned. He’d been stationed out in the foyer. By the timetable he’d been scheduled to join them and hadn’t. And when he’d arrived, the other two had already left to try to do the real job the contract called for. They were pros. Anyone else would have seen that the job had gone rank and would have pulled out. Not these. They were trying to salvage it.

  They must be nervous now, with second thoughts. They’d heard the three rounds I’d fired. It meant somebody was behind them, between them and the way out. If they didn’t like it, neither did I. What had given me the edge on Walk had been surprise. That wasn’t with me anymore. When they came back down that hallway they’d be wary. Watchful.

  So I waited. I didn’t like the smells, what death really smelled like. Blood and crap and piss.

  Off in the distance the pump gun bit first, three or four rounds as fast as he could pump it. And it was joined and overlapped by the rupt, rupt, rupt of the grease gun. I held my breath. I didn’t have to hold it back long. As the echoes died down, I heard the lower bite of Hump’s .38. The pump gun answered Hump and the grease gun added in a fifteen- or twenty-round burst. Silence. I counted. I reached twenty-five before I heard them running. The footfall getting louder as they came toward me. One of them was gagging for breath. The beam of their light wagging from wall to wall.

  I placed the flashlight on the floor, angling it so that it would point down the hall that led to the living room behind the foyer. I’d be leading them with the light. The timing had to be perfect. There was only about twenty-five feet of hallway left after they passed the doorway where I’d be. After that there was an elbow breaking to the right.

  As they passed the doorway I reached down and found the button on the flashlight. When I switched it on, it froze them.

  “Walk …” one began.