Murder Pro Bono

by Don Porter

  Six clerks were lined up behind a mahogany counter, all of them studiously avoiding making eye contact with us. George accosted the least threatening one, and asked for Ms. Capriccio's room. She consulted a ledger the size of a New York phone book.

  “I'm sorry, sir, Ms. Capriccio checked out this morning.”

  “Did she leave a forwarding address?”

  “Just a moment.” The clerk was a big girl who struck me as being at least part Indian. She was attractive in a utilitarian sort of way, and if the need arose, she could have doubled as a bouncer. She riffled through some pigeonholes, but didn't appear to be terribly interested. I had the impression that she was just marking time until she could get back to the slots, but then, I think that about everyone that I see working in Vegas. She came back with a folded note. “Are either of you guys George or Dick?”

  “Both. I mean, I'm Dick, he's George.” She handed the note to George. It was on hotel notepaper, but not in Maggie's handwriting.

  “Hi guys, I'm calling from a truck stop in Cactus Springs. When the phone in Honolulu didn't answer, and then the cell phone didn't work, I figured that you are on an airplane. The clerk who answered the phone promised to give you this message, because I said you are big tippers. After this, I'll keep trying the cell phone. Those cell phones work everywhere, right? At least I hope so. I'll call again when I get the chance.”

  “The cell phone's in the car.” George turned around to run. The clerk looked scandalized, so I laid a ten-dollar bill on the counter and averted yet another Indian war. The kid in the monkey suit condescended to return our car, and traded the keys for another dollar bill. George pawed through his suitcase and came out with the cell phone, but it wasn't ringing.

  The kid obviously expected us to move, and a limo was pulling in behind us. George pulled out into the street. “Got a coin?” he asked.

  “You want to go back and play a slot?”

  “No, I want you to flip it. Heads we wait here for another message, tails we light out for Cactus Springs, wherever that is.”

  “Sorry, we're going to have to make the decision in a rational adult manner. I dumped all of my coins before we went through security at the Honolulu airport. All of my coins are in the ashtray in that rental car.”

  “Bummer. When was the last time you made a rational adult decision anyway?”

  “When I decided to join the Boy Scouts instead of the Girl Scouts. Let's just hope that Maggie is making some rational decisions.” I dug the Nevada map out of the glove compartment. The map of southern Nevada looks like the spokes on a wheel with Las Vegas as the hub. I found Cactus Springs in very small print fifty miles north of us. “Got it. There's a freeway interchange ahead. Look for Rancho Drive, and Highway 95.”

  When we left the strip it was a letdown, like going behind the scenes on a movie set. From one side, it looks like a city or a mountain range; from the other side it's just plywood and braces. We found Rancho Drive and were traversing suburbia that could have been Anywhere, USA. Then we hit the divided Highway 95 and were adrift in a desert. It wasn't the Sahara because we've seen pictures of that, and it's all sand. This was the way I picture the Gobi Desert because I've never seen pictures of that one so I can imagine it any way I want. We were passing plenty of sand, but lots of rocks, cactus, sage-brush, and even what looked like streambeds, but no water.

  “Where are we headed?” George asked.

  “As far as I can see, exactly nowhere, unless you count the Nevada test site and the Nellis Air Force bombing range, and the map says we'd better not. Keep a sharp lookout on the right. According to the symbol, there are less than a thousand souls in Cactus Springs.”

  The map was exaggerating, but we did find a truck stop with gas pumps, a coffee shop, and a pay phone in the parking lot. We did not find Maggie or the O'Malley family, so settled for apple pie and coffee.

  “Next clever move?” I asked.

  George was studying the map, although that particular area doesn't require much studying. “Let's keep going to Tonopah. This is the hard way to get to anyplace else, except maybe Death Valley, and I don't see anyplace where anyone would want to stop between here and there. Let's just hope that Maggie is right about the cell phone. We pay ten dollars a month for roaming privileges, so let's roam.”

  We paid for the pie and coffee, topped off the gas tank, and used the nice big clean restroom, which is probably the main reason that people stop in Cactus Springs.

  Desert is beautiful. The mountains are a lovely variety of pastel colors; sagebrush adds an exciting tang to the air. Tumbleweeds in the hollows require some examination, and the ones on the road require dodging. Wild burros seem to be grazing where there is nothing to eat but rocks. I was fascinated for twenty minutes before I went to sleep.

  I woke up because George was punching my shoulder. It was dark. Very, very dark. The tunnel in the darkness from our headlights was the only visible thing in the universe.

  “Are we there yet?”

  “No, we aren't anywhere. It's your turn to drive.”

  “Why? Are you sleepy already?”

  “No, I can't stand to listen to you snoring anymore.”

  We traded places, and I had been right about the Nevada air. It was colder than a walk-in freezer. When I stepped behind the car, I could see the stars, and they were much too close. I knew we were on a high desert, but compared to what I'm used to seeing in Hawaii, we seemed to be halfway to the stars.

  In five minutes, George was snoring, and I was reflecting on the feeling of being alone in the universe. I suppose that desert dwellers and astronauts are used to that feeling, but it is intimidating to a city boy. My rational mind was telling me that all of the real dangers that humans face come from other humans, but with the world shrunk to the beam of the headlights, and the stars twice as bright as they ought to be, it was easy to imagine alien abductions. How do we know that there aren't creatures living in the desert that have never been seen, except by the people they eat? My psyche was relieved to see a bubble of light growing up ahead of us.

  I passed the sign that read, Tonopah, Pop., then several bullet holes, and a reassuring couple of zeros. I spotted an open truck stop ahead, and across the street a Motel 6 sign with a “vacancy” flag under it. I was just drifting into the parking lot at the truck stop, thinking how good a bed in that motel would feel, when the phone rang. George had left it on the dashboard, and I answered from habit. “Payne and Clark, detective agency. Richard Payne speaking.” I parked in front of the restaurant door, and I could see a pay phone hanging on the wall just inside. A little old desert rat with a long gray beard, a mustache, and tumbleweed hair, was on the phone.

  “Hi, Dick? I'm in the middle of the desert in a town called To -nopah. My friends are asleep in a Motel 6 across the highway. What shall I do?”

  “Have your friends spotted you?”

  “Not a chance, I'm disguised as a little old man, and I've been really careful.”

  I reached over and punched George's shoulder. “Where are you calling from?”

  “I'm at a pay phone in an all-night diner where I can see their car in the lot across the street.”

  “Okay,” I said. “You're doing fine. Now listen closely, this is very important. Hang up the phone and go out the door. There's a black Dodge Dart parked in the first space on the left. Pay no attention to the gangsters in the car, just walk over and climb in the back.”

  The old man screamed and dropped the phone. Maggie was out the door and climbing in while I was still looking for the “end” button on the cell phone. Her beard had slipped loose and was hanging by one ear, so she pulled it off, but was still wearing a desert-rat-style mustache.

  George was struggling to wake up, and, as usual, thinking only of himself. “I'm starved,” he said. “Is there food inside?”

  “Oh golly, yes. I'm ravished. I haven't eaten since yesterday morning.”

  “Ravished?” George looked shocked, so I translated. I've had some
previous painful experiences with Maggie-speak.

  “Halfway between ravenous and famished, which means she's hungry in your two-syllable world.” Naturally, I volunteered to be the hero. “You kids go right ahead and stuff yourselves. Which car are we watching?”

  “It's the blue Honda on the right. You know, Dick, for a couple of old farts, you guys aren't so bad.” Maggie was climbing out. George followed her with the stiff mechanical walk suitable for an old fart who has been sitting in a car too long. I settled down to watch the Honda and tried not to think about food.

  A semi drifted off the highway and parked next to the road, blocking my view. A tough looking old guy dressed for work climbed out of the driver's side. A woman, definitely not a girl, climbed down from the passenger side. The guy wandered toward the restaurant, the woman smoothed down a very short skirt, made some adjustments to her blouse, and walked across the highway.

  I had to get out because my view was blocked, so I did a tinwoodsman walk and leaned against the grill of the semi. It was warm, and felt good in the frigid night air. The woman was standing beside the road and seemed to be adjusting garters, although I had the impression she wasn't wearing hose. A big rig that was headed south clamped on his brakes and skidded to a stop with a hiss of compressed air. A door slammed, and almost immediately, the truck rolled out and started shifting up again. The woman was gone.

  Chapter 14

  George and Maggie had been inside for twenty minutes when the lights came on in the room beyond the blue Honda. Two minutes later, a hulk that had to be Bruno carried some suitcases out and stuffed them into the trunk. When he went back inside, I ran back and banged on the window next to the table where George and Maggie were stuffing pancakes and bacon into their faces. Maggie had removed her gray wig, but still wore the mustache, and it was sort of cute.

  They came straggling out, George carrying a pancake in his hand. I grabbed it, said, “Thanks a lot,” and stuffed it in my mouth before he could object.

  “Which is your car?” George was asking Maggie. She had her mouth full, but she pointed to a red Thunderbird convertible. George held out a hand, Maggie handed him the keys. I couldn't talk either; that pancake was stuck to the roof of my mouth, but I pointed Maggie toward the passenger side of the Dodge. She climbed in, I slid into the driver's seat, George was trying to move the seat in the Thunderbird back so that he could squeeze behind the wheel.

  I recognized the O'Malley family by their shapes, we were too far away to see faces, but Bruno's shape was unmistakable. The two guys who came out with him were probably O'Malley, and Willie, the family crime reporter. They were followed by two women. The lights went out in the room, car lights came on. The Honda backed out and turned onto the highway, heading north. Maybe it was cowardly not to stop them, but going up against Bruno without a weapon didn't seem wise, and maybe Dallas still had her pipe. I let them go two hundred yards and pulled out behind them.

  By that time, Maggie and I were both able to talk.

  “How did you spot the family?” I asked.

  “Oh, golly, you won't believe this, but they were on the same tour I was, only a day or two ahead of me. I didn't see them until after I checked in, but when I came out of my room, there was Dallas going into the room next door. She already had the door open and didn't look around, or we would have met face to face. That's when I got the idea of a disguise, so I went right out and bought it at a theater supply store.”

  “It was really very effective,” I said. “I particularly like the mustache, you should consider growing one.”

  “Damn!” Maggie ripped off the hirsute adornment. “George didn't say a word. I wonder what the waitress thought?”

  “Don't worry about it,” I advised. “All of Nevada is like Waikiki after dark, anything goes here.” We were leaving town, and I let O'Malley get half a mile ahead of me before I started pacing him. I suspected that the family had an idea they might have a tail, and that was the reason for the early morning departure, but they would have been looking for the red convertible, and George was another half mile behind me in the Thunderbird.

  “When did you pick up the car?” I asked.

  “Oh, I rented that at the airport when I got here. The company always reimburses expenses when we're on a case, right?”

  “Right.” I hoped that George was enjoying the convertible. I wondered if he had figured out that we were paying for it. “How did you manage to get behind them?”

  “After I called George, I was hearing a lot of scuffling from the next room, so I watched the hall through that little fisheye peek hole in the door. A really big guy came out, carrying suitcases. You told me that Bruno was the same size as a door, so I figured that was him. I'd never seen him before, and anyhow, I had my disguise on, so I went out and rode down the elevator with him.” Maggie stopped for a couple of very serious yawns and a couple of stretches. “He took the suitcases toward the valet parking area, so I ran and checked out, and asked for my car. They brought my car up, and then the blue Honda right behind it, and Bruno put the suitcases in that one … yawn. I waited at the end of the block and followed them.”

  “Have you had any sleep since you got here?”

  “Not one minute. You guys never sleep when you're on a case, do you? I mean, you sat up all night in the car outside my apartment.”

  “Well, we sleep when we get the chance, and this is yours. Why don't you climb in the back seat and take a nap?”

  “Goodnight.” She slithered over the seat and disappeared.

  Car lights were coming up fast behind me, then another set of lights in the other lane, both of them doing at least a hundred miles an hour. It looked like the one behind me was going to run right over us, but at the last second he swerved behind the car in the left lane, and their taillights shrank like the last piece of a macadamia nut crème pie. I recognized the syndrome; it's the same the world over. They were a couple of young servicemen, assured of their immortality. Probably drunk, definitely racing, without enough imagination between them to realize that when the inevitable crash comes, they'll take out some innocent civilians.

  In this case, I was glad to see them, because with cars passing, it was less likely that O'Malley would spot us following. Highway 95 jogged west for a while, then turned north again. When lights from Hawthorne lit the horizon, George moved up and passed me, then I passed him again and moved up on O'Malley, but he kept going. A big diesel rig roared up behind us and passed. I stayed behind him until he passed O'Malley. Walker Lake went by on the right, and even in the dark, I could tell something different was happening, but then we crossed the Walker River and were back in the desert. The sun came up and put all those pastel colors into the desert, but nothing else had changed much. Maybe it was a bit less arid, but Nevada has a lot of miles of nothing but miles.

  At Fallon, O'Malley pulled into a service station and stopped at the pumps. I drove on by and turned in at the end of the parking lot. George stopped a block behind. O'Malley got out and started pumping gas. The rest of the family climbed out, yawning and stretching, and went into the diner.

  I hollered at Maggie to wake up, whipped the car around, and roared back to park in front of O'Malley. He spotted me and froze, like a deer caught in headlights, eyes and mouth wide open. When I reached for the door handle, he dropped the hose and started to run, but George grabbed him from behind. Maggie jumped out and held the back door; George shoved O'Malley in and climbed in beside him. Maggie slid into the front seat, and I took off, around O'Malley's car, and back a block to duck into a side street. I parked, and we all turned to face O'Malley.

  “Good morning,” I said, “fancy meeting you here.”

  “I didn't kill him.” Hadn't O'Malley said that before?

  “Really? Who didn't you kill this time?”

  “I didn't kill that lobbyist guy from the gambling industry.”

  “Then how do you know he's dead?” George wasn't actually threatening O'Malley, but he was looming, and lo
oked like he might get physical.

  I figured if we put some cards on the table, it would help him get started, and save some time. “Look, O'Malley, here's where we stand. We know that you stole a money belt off the corpse in the creek. We know that you recognized the killer and conned us into giving you his name and address. We know that you went to the house, probably planning to blackmail him, but something went wrong and you beat him to death with the same pipe that Dallas used on me.”

  O'Malley was staring wide-eyed. I had his full attention, so I continued. “The corpse that you stole the money belt from was an FBI agent, so the Feds want to talk to you about that. At that point, they just wanted you to identify the lobbyist as a killer, because they're trying to gather evidence. Now, Lt. Cochran would like to talk to you about the pipe murder. It was your idea to get us involved, so now the Feds and Cochran are both threatening us with lifetimes in stir, unless we turn you over. Naturally, we're going to do that. Any questions?”

  O'Malley had turned even grayer than the all-night drive had made him, and he was shaking his head, like maybe he wanted it to fall off.

  “Okay, okay, you got it mostly right, but I didn't kill that guy. Like you said, I went to his house to blackmail him. Opportunities like that don't come around very often, and you have to grab them. Only when I got to his house, the door was open and he was lying on the floor inside with blood and brains puddled all around his head. I ran, because I knew that no one would believe me.”

  “You got that right,” George was in his threatening mode. “Where is the money?”

  “Bruno has it.”

  “O'Malley, for a cheap crook, you are one terrible liar.” George pulled O'Malley's shirt out of his belt and hiked it up. The money belt was around his waist. George jerked that off, none too gently, and handed it across the seat. I unzipped the belt and it was loaded with hundred-dollar bills.

  “Give me the car keys.” I was trying to growl, but I'm never as convincing as George is. O'Malley pulled the keys out of his pocket and handed them over. I counted two thousand dollars from the money belt, took that and the car keys, and got out. George handed me the keys to the convertible. I walked back to the service station.