Dead Wrong About the Guy

by Frederick Zackel

  The Club Ilima lobby looked like Davey Jones' locker. Female ship figureheads, life preservers and fishing nets, stuffed marlin from long-forgotten charter trips, a glass case with model clipper ships. There were yacht pennants around the gilt bar mirror.

  I walked through and spotted Corky. He looked like he was looking for someone. Then, just two hours after his rendezvous with his mistress, Corky Collins spotted a middle-aged blonde chitchatting with friends at the end of the bar. He walked up behind her, embraced her, pecked a kiss on her cheek.

  I pegged her for his wife and ankled closer to hear what I could.

  I heard Corky as he spoke to his wife.

  He said, "Saundra honey, how you doing? Can I get you another drink? Do you want another?"

  Saundra looked at her husband as if he had too much to drink already.

  At first I was amused by Corky's public demonstration of affection and by his wife's obvious reluctance. Then I got annoyed.

  Corky moved through the crowd past me, his back to me. Feeling mischievous, I followed him across the lounge, then came up behind Corky, tapped the man on the shoulder, then let fly with a playful sucker punch to Corky's kidneys. Corky turned, found a sucker punch headed for his midriff. Caught off guard, he panicked and flinched.

  I stayed my punch. "Corky, how ya doing?"

  Corky was shaken. "God, don't do that ever again!"

  I was smiling. "Is that the old lady? Helluva charmer you are. Just like Judas himself."

  "Back off!" Corky growled. "What are you doing here?" he hissed.

  "I saw your name in lights."

  Corky got depressed. "I told them next month, and they thought I said next week."

  "Let's go talk in private."

  Corky held back. "The parking lot in five minutes."

  I agreed. We walked away from each other.

  I walked through the main lounge to the lobby. There I bumped into Ivy Lawson. Ivy's smile was only for me. Our lust drew us together and we kissed. Our kiss went on for a long while, like two magnets fusing together. Once we realized other people could be watching us, Ivy blushed and I got self-conscious. But no one seemed to have noticed us.

  We moved into a darker corner of the lobby.

  "Wanna go somewhere, sailor?" Ivy asked.

  I noticed Corky leaving. "Give me twenty minutes, okay?"

  Ivy only had eyes for me. "Sure, Michael."

  I gave her some money. "Buy yourself a drink."

  As Ivy disappeared down the hallway towards the ladies room, I followed Corky outside.

  I caught up with Corky in the parking lot of the Club Ilima, a swatch of gravel along the shoreline. White thundering surf and the black night along the ocean were beyond us. Next stop, Tokyo.

  I said, "When is Debra Lawson coming forward?"

  "How the hell--?"

  "She is your girlfriend, right?"

  "Leave her out of this!"

  I pushed harder. "I need to meet her face-to-face. She's your partner. I want to know how much she knows about all this. We get together soon, understand?

  "No way."

  "Does she know about it?"

  "She knows I'm having it done."

  "Did she ask you to do it for her?"

  "No!"

  "What does she get out of this? You and half of everything you own?"

  "Yes."

  "Love or money? Which one is it?"

  Corky bit the bullet. "Both."

  "When the shooting starts, you two gonna be holding hands together?"

  "We don't hold hands in public."

  "Never? Not even over in Waikiki? Or did you two meet in a church camp?"

  Corky was furious. "You son-of-a-bitch!"

  "Is she going to need an alibi, too? Something iron-clad and fool-proof?"

  "You've made your point," Corky said stiffly.

  I stepped back. "I'm forgetting my manners. Hey, we can postpone murdering your wife for a month, two months, five months, whatever. Don't you want to spend some time with your new old lady?"

  Corky was outraged. He took a sudden step towards me, threw his chest out, made a fist as if he would strike me, but he hesitated, because he was afraid.

  "Corky, once we get started, you won't be able to get together for a long time. At least until the body's cold and forgotten. And if your scheme goes bust, it's even a longer separation for you two lovebirds. You may never see it again, not at least before it's gone all gray and wrinkly with age, and it cracks like old leather because it hasn't been used in ages--"

  "Keep getting on my case, okay," Corky snarled, "and maybe you'll find yourself out of a job!"

  I smacked Corky with the back of my hand hard enough to send the older man to the sand. "It's my ass on the line if you or her screw up!" I growled.

  Corky realized his mistake. "Okay, okay--"

  "Nobody gets whacked until I'm satisfied! You got that?"

  "Okay. Okay."

  I could be very cold. "If it looks like a set-up, or a frame-up, or a screw-up, anything other than an easy hit ... " I waited a heartbeat. "I hit you."

  Corky was stunned. "What?"

  I made a menacing hiss. "And if something happens to me, the word goes down. Somebody will get paid to hit you. You and your girlfriend both."

  "Let me explain--!"

  But I was already stalking away, heading back to the Club Ilima.

  Corky stayed behind, afraid.

  Inside the club, I ordered a drink for myself. I turned and saw Ivy talking with Saundra Collins. The two women were staring at me.

  Then I saw Saundra Collins shoot from her stool and come straight at me. She spoke loudly, very belligerently. "Mister Bishop, my name is Saundra Collins, and I represent a lot of the local property owners and residents. We bought this land and built homes here, and our families and our future is here, and none of us is going to be thrown off our land!"

  Very quickly, everyone around us stopped whatever else they were doing to eavesdrop upon this one-sided argument.

  I was confused. "Who wants to throw you off?"

  "You and Uncle Sam." She turned to the rest of the drinkers and spoke loudly. "The Federal government is planning to get rid of all the East Maui people!"

  I backed away from the battle. "Lady, I just got here ... "

  Over her shoulder, I saw Corky came into the Club Ilima. He saw his wife's outburst, was horrified but powerless to move. I wanted to leave myself.

  Saundra pressed her attack onward. "If you turn this coast into a national park, we'll get more tourists, more traffic, more congestion, and that means more crime and higher taxes and more problems."

  I was desperate. "I have to leave now--"

  Saundra spoke up very loudly. "Washington should just leave us alone!"

  Ivy and I left in a hurry.

  I started the Mustang. "Where did she come from?"

  "Michael, I'm sorry," Ivy said. "That was my fault. I told her you worked for the National Park Service."

  "You sicced her on me? Jesus, Ivy!"

  "I know how I'll make it up to you." She snuggled up against me. "I'm going to bite your face, rip your hair, and fuck you as hard as I can."

  I was surprised. "Oh! Okay."

  I slipped the Mustang into gear.

  I wasn't happy.

  We were still awake at sunrise, naked in my bed at the Beach Chalet. She had asked for forgiveness, and I had really given it to her. But the hours had passed, and now I was as close as I can ever come to confession.

  I told her, "I think about wretched places, about empty, dreary towns. About a job that at best is trash. A way of life without a wife, a family, close friends. I'm tired of always being alone."

  Ivy was loving me. "I'll go anywhere with you." She kissed me. "I'll go where you go."

  I wasn't surprised, but I knew not to show it.

  I took a last toke, burned my fingertips, then flicked away the joint. The joint sailed through the dimly lit room, smacked against the window.
Sparks ricocheted off, then disappeared. Outside the window was a full moon bathing in the sunrise.

  Then we made love again.

  On our way to breakfast we drove past the Paradise Bowling Alley.

  I said, "Are you any relation to Debra Lawson?"

  Ivy was deliberate. "She's my stepmother. She murdered my father."

  "No wonder you no longer live at home," I joked.

  Ivy sloughed it off. "Do you want to see the house I was born in, where I spent my life in, until the day he married her? It's her home now. That's what the lawyers tell me."

  "When did your father die?"

  "Two years ago. They say it was a car accident."

  "And you say it was murder."

  "She murdered him. His neck was slashed in the accident. He died from loss of blood. He bled to death."

  "Your wicked stepmother. Got any stepsisters, Cinderella?"

  Ivy was hurt by my teasing. "You're laughing at me."

  I sobered. "Tell me about his death."

  "His car was in a ditch along the side of the road. They said he had been drinking, that he fell asleep at the wheel and went off the road. But his throat was cut. You can check the death certificate."

  "You must have been very close to him."

  "We should have been. But when he came back from the sea, I was already four years old." She sounded wistful. "We never clicked." She frowned. "He died too soon. Before we had a chance to click."

  "How did he meet her?"

  "She was playing the dollar slots next to him in Las Vegas. Dad married her there. The same weekend. One of those twenty-four-hour wedding cottages. Eight months later she killed him."

  "Married only eight months?"

  "She only lived with him for three months of that. That last five months he wasn't even in the same house with her. They had an argument about money, he got mad and stomped out and wouldn't move back in." She hesitated. "The Tuesday before he died, he told me he wanted a divorce.

  "Did he say why?"

  "Because she only married him for his money."

  I perked up. "Did your father have a lot?"

  "Well, no. But he was in the Merchant Marines, and he made good enough money to buy her that bowling alley and let her live in the house I was born in."

  I slumped. "Merchant Marines."

  "Can you help me pin it on her? Look, I'll give you half of whatever I recover from his estate, and all you gotta do is help me prove she murdered my father."

  "What about the cops? What do they say?"

  Ivy gave up on getting any help from me.

  Corky and I walked along the beach.

  "When are you going to kill my wife?

  "You fascinate me. You're willing to pay a stranger good money to whack somebody you've lived with for twenty-five years. Somebody who still trusts you after all those years." I furrowed my forehead at the conceit. "The betrayal ... "

  "What of it? Haven't you ever betrayed anybody?"

  I was taken aback. "Never been that close to anybody."

  "Yeah, you gotta know them long enough so they can trust you well enough for you to betray them," Corky said.

  But I didn't like thinking about myself.

  "Why don't you just divorce her? All you gotta do is give up half of everything you got, and she walks with her life."

  Corky looked away. He looked like he had bit down on the icy truth inside his heart for the first time. "I know that."

  "Half of everything you got still leaves you with half of everything you got. Instead you take a chance on getting busted. You get busted, you don't get a dime."

  "If I give her half, there wouldn't be enough for me. I want it all." He looked at me as if daring me to challenge him.

  But I was grinning. "You are a nasty man."

  Debra met up with us. She looked me up and down and didn't like what she saw. "You're the hitman," she said. The disgust dripped from every word.

  "So you know about it," I said. I found that very interesting. "Are you against it?"

  Debra was sassy and bold. "No." Again, a challenge.

  "Just what do you get out of this? Him? Is that all? How are you going to react if, halfway through this scheme, he falls apart on you and turns you in?"

  Debra flinched. "He won't."

  "But what if? What would you do?"

  Debra came right back at my jugular. "Where did you learn to kill? In the military?"

  I said, "Watching TV. Same place everybody learns it."

  She loathed me. "How many people have you killed?"

  "How about you? How many have you killed? Corky's wife ... how many does she make for you?"

  "Tell him to fuck off, Corky!"

  Caught between us, Corky found speech impossible.

  I was disgusted. "You make a great pair. Which one of you will crumble first?"

  "Neither of us will," Debra vowed.

  "I don't do it if I think either of you will crumble," I pledged.

  "How do I know you're not a cop?" Debra snapped.

  I was fed up. "You make it easy." I turned to Corky. "That grand is mine, pal. You don't get a dime back." I walked away.

  Corky came after me. "Wait!"

  "Let him go, Corky!" Debra called.

  I walked away from them. In my mind I had already erased the hit. I was busy thinking how palm trees looked better in Hawaii than in Las Vegas. That discovery surprised me. I looked out at the waves and wondered how much money it would cost to live in Paradise for the rest of my days. There were other islands, too. I wondered ...

  Corky grabbed my arm and stopped me. "We need you, please!"

  Debra was alongside. She was brutally pragmatic. "Let's talk about killing his wife," she said.

  "What do you want done?" I asked her.

  "Don't you have any ideas of your own?" she asked.

  "Fake a traffic accident," I said. "A routine traffic accident out along the Hana Highway."

  "You could cut her brake line," Corky said.

  I shook my head. "First thing they check." Thoughtfully, "I can remove one of her motor mounts."

  Corky was surprised. "You think that works?"

  Debra interrupted us. "What are you talking about?"

  "Inside your car," I told Debra, "your engine's held in a metal cradle. When a motor mount goes, your engine twists sharply from the torque. The linkage from the carb gets twisted, too, wrenched out of shape. Your gas pedal goes straight to the floorboards, and your engine's suddenly going full throttle. If you're in gear at the time, you're suddenly moving like a bat outa hell!"

  She could visualize that. "I like that, Cork!"

  I had a caveat. "That's okay on the freeway, but on something like the Hana Highway, with all its twists and turns and switchbacks, you're out of control at high speed."

  Corky scoffed at that. "And all she's gotta do is turn off the ignition and coast to a stop."

  I turned to Corky. "Have you ever lost a motor mount? Would you--instantly--know what to do? How many motor mounts has your wife lost?"

  Corky gave up. "What if she doesn't die immediately?"

  "She'll die fast," I promised.

  Debra faced me. "Make it look like an accident," she said, "but make sure she's dead."

  I was already grinning. "She'll be dead enough even for you."

  Debra smirked back. "You think you're something special, don't you?"

  I stood up to Debra. "Are you going to be with Corky when the shooting starts?"

  Debra was somber. "That may be too much to ask for."

  "I know how we can be together," Corky told her. "I'll be having a drink at the bar. You'll be working behind the bar, pouring the drinks. Sure. That's a legitimate excuse for us to be together."

  Debra blinked at that logic. But before she could frame any answer, she heard my laughter mocking them.

  Ollie Salazar and I sat in the bank president's office.

  He was trying hard to be blank-faced. "Well, yes, Mrs. Debra Lawson was m
arried, but her husband died suddenly two years ago. They'd only been married a short time. There was some talk--still is, in fact--that his death was not ... accidental, which, of course, it was--"

  "How did he die?"

  "Auto accident. His was the only vehicle involved, actually. He'd been drinking, it seems, and the car slid through a turn and flipped over into a ditch. Could've happened to anyone."

  "How much money was involved?"

  "More than I expected from a sailor," Ollie said incautiously.

  Then I went to the County Coroner's Office. I talked with Timothy, a beautiful young man who worked there. Timothy had gone out of his way to wait on me.

  Timothy had a syrupy voice. "My name is Timothy. How can I help you?"

  I ignored Timothy's syrupy manner. "I'd like to see the death certificate and the coroner's report in the death of Roscoe Lawson." I read my notes. "April 14th--"

  Timothy already knew. "Two years ago."

  He turned on his heels and went off for the file. A moment later he returned with a file in his hand. I took it, but didn't immediately open it.

  "You knew right where it was," I said.

  "His daughter keeps coming in here, having people look it over."

  "And what do they find?

  Timothy shrugged. "A drunk who fell asleep at the wheel. His car was found upside down in an irrigation ditch beyond the third bend past the sixth bridge on the Hana Highway."

  I still hadn't opened the file. "Cause of death?"

  "Respiratory failure due to aspiration of blood and fracture of the larynx due to the auto accident."

  "Was his throat cut?"

  Timothy shook his head. "It was smashed, not slashed. The pathologist said his jaw was broken twice. His tongue clogged his air passage."

  "How bad was he boozed?"

  "His blood alcohol was point-forty-two."

  I was surprised. "The boy was pickled!"

  Timothy grew confidential. "That isn't an unusually high count. Most Medical Examiners will tell you winos in doorways need a point-three-five or a point four-oh just to feel good." He shrugged. "You get a DB with a history of heavy drinking, somebody who can hold his liquor--. The rest is natural causes. If there had been foul play, don't you think the sheriff himself would have pulled out all the stops to find his murderer?"