I motioned with a jerk of my head. "We're going into the garage together. Put your arm around me and lean in real tight when we start walking, like you can't keep your hands off me."
"In your dreams."
"Just do it. You know about the gun, you can feel it. Any sudden moves, any stupidness—you risk paying a steep price."
I was counting on the part of the parking garage where we would enter to be as deserted as the street. From the times I'd used it before, I knew the attendants hung out mostly on the adjacent side around the main entrance/exit off the busier avenue.
I pushed my captive up two flights of echoey concrete stairs to get us off ground level. I walked her to a far corner, threading between moderately filled rows of parking slots, distancing us from the stairwell. I wanted adequate warning in case anybody headed our way.
"All right," I said when we'd reached a satisfactorily isolated spot. "Now let's get down to it."
She pulled away and backed against a massive concrete pillar. "So that's what this is after all—just a cheap rape attempt?"
"In your dreams, sweetheart," I said, mimicking her earlier words. "You know damn well what this is. You've been tailing me for the past two days. I want to know why. I want to know who sicced you on me."
She looked incredulous. "Me ... tailing you?"
"As somebody who's been at the game awhile, let me give you a little free advice: You got a lot of work to do on being more inconspicuous. Especially when it's a man you're shadowing. Any guy with the right set of hormones is going to notice—and remember—a looker like you."
"Are you complementing me, or threatening me?"
"Take it any way you want. Just so I get some answers."
"You aren't going to believe me anyway."
"Not if you keep trying to play dumb and innocent."
She put her hands on her hips. "You know, you might get more cooperation out of a person if you didn't come on like some oversized Humphrey Bogart—the gun, the tough talk, dragging and shoving a girl all over the place."
I showed her a shark's smile. "Will you pretty please tell me why the fuck you're following me and who set you up to it?"
"Oh, yes. That's much better." She eyes me sullenly. "Okay, let's try it another way. But first will you answer me one question? A minute ago you said you were 'somebody who's been at the game awhile'. Does that mean you're some sort of cop? Fed? What?"
I gritted my teeth. "There's that dumb and innocent shit again. The way you've had yourself glued to me I'm supposed to believe you don't even know who I am?"
"Humor me."
"The name's Hannibal. Joe Hannibal. PI out of Rockford, Illinois. There. Now what? Are we supposed to exchange 'Pleased to meetchas'?"
Something that could almost pass for an amused glint suddenly twinkled in her eyes. "Very well, Joe Hannibal, PI ... I admit it. You're absolutely correct, I have been following someone. And that someone is even from your fair city." She reached very slowly, very carefully into a pocket of her vest and withdrew a flat piece of paper that, when she held it out to me, I could see was a photograph. "But this is the Rockford citizen I have been keeping an eye on ... not you."
I took in the features of the person in the photo with a couple quick eye flicks. When recognition hit, I may have goggled a little more than I wanted to show. The subject of the snapshot was none other than Clyde Grammercy's strawberry blonde playmate.
"Her name is Sharon Wyeth. She works as a file clerk in the office complex of a large corporation back in your town. She's here at the expense and in the company of a co-worker—a fellow named Grammercy. He works at the same corporation, in some menial capacity. He must have hit the lottery
or something, however, judging by the way he's throwing money around on gushingly appreciative little Sharon."
"So now we know all the players in the game except for one," I said. "Whoever you're tailing, you must have a name."
She considered a moment. Then, less grudgingly than I expected, she said, "Dakota Kiley. I'm not a licensed PI or anything but I do bodyguard work, bounty hunting, some related stuff. I operate out of Milwaukee. Off times, I run a gym there."
I rubbed the side of my jaw. "Let me try to get this straight. You're following this Wyeth girl, not me. I'm on the guy she's with—Grammercy. That's why I kept seeing you in all the same places."
"And apparently being equal parts pompous and paranoid, you automatically assumed it was you I had my eye on."
I was starting to feel a little silly, standing there with the .45 still trained on her. But, stubbornly, I said, "Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get you, kid."
She said, "Don't forget, I kept seeing you in all those places, too. I didn't jump to the conclusion you were some kind of mad stalker. I imagined you for just another tourist, perhaps a lonely businessman on layover or something."
"I try not to take anything for granted—especially when I'm working a job."
"So what's the job involving Grammercy? What is he up to?"
I shrugged. "Insurance claim fraud. He's trying to sue for big bucks on false pretenses. I'm guessing that's the money he's throwing around so loosely, counting his chickens way before they hatch. He doesn't know it yet, but the very thing he's being so extravagant on—gushingly appreciative little Sharon, as you called her—is exactly what's going to blow the whole works for him. No pun intended. With his alleged injuries, see, he's supposed to be a limp noodle from the waist down. You've seen them together—you think that's the case?"
"Maybe Sharon has miracle healing powers."
"Uh-huh. What's her story? Why the tail on her?"
"It's not her so much as who I'm counting on her bringing out of the woodwork." From her other vest pocket, Dakota took a second item—this one a folded eight by eleven sheet of paper, a photocopy of a legal wanted poster. "The charmer you're looking at there is named Horace Taxer. He's on the lam for armed robbery, criminal assault, and a whole list of good deeds that make him a low rung badass, but a badass all the same. He's big as a house, highly proficient in a variety of martial arts yet not above reaching for a knife or gun if the mood strikes him. He's originally from the Milwaukee area, that's where I first drew a bead on him. He skipped bail there and—as I only recently found out—spent some time hiding out in your neck of the woods before things started closing in and he had to flee again to parts as yet unknown. While in Rockford, he took up with Sharon Wyeth, became her big, cuddly, ultra devoted boyfriend. The insanely jealous type, as demonstrated by the series of broken noses and shattered teeth he handed out as forget-me-nots to a whole parade of unlucky slobs he caught daring to respond to Sharon's flirtatious ways."
"And now here she is carrying on a big-time fling with unsuspecting ol' Clyde."
"Indeed."
"Any reason to think Taxer's insanely jealous nature has abated in his new hideaway spot?"
"Absolutely none."
"So if word should happen to leak to him, wherever he's at, that his sweetie is going at it hot and heavy with some new guy on an out-of-town rendezvous, Horace might be inclined to allow his jealousy to overcome his instinct for self preservation and come storming in to break things up."
"Could happen. You never know."
"Then again," I said, "who would be unscrupulous enough to leak word about Sharon's little hot-sheet weekend in such a way that it might reach Taxer and risk him going ballistic like that?"
Dakota Kiley grinned impishly. "Who, indeed?"
I grinned back at her and finally got around to putting away the .45. Her story had me convinced. Why else would she just happen to be carrying the photo of Sharon Wyeth and the wanted paper on Horace Taxer? It made a lot more sense than the oddly-patterned way in which I thought she'd been tailing me. "I like your style, kid," I told her. "Sorry I misread things and got in your face like I did."
She shrugged. "No harm done, I suppose. There is one thing though ..."
"What's that?"
<
br /> "As someone who's been at the game awhile, let me give you a little free advice." Her right hand streaked behind her and from a rig that must have been at the small of her back, concealed under the fall of the vest, she drew with blinding speed a gleaming .357 Magnum revolver. The snout of this she jabbed immediately and painfully into my ribs. "You got a lot of work to do on being more thorough when you get the drop on a subject. Always take the time to frisk them for weapons and disarm them ... no matter how macho and in-control you feel just because you're some kind of old war horse who's trotted across the battlefield a few more times than the next person."
I stayed real still and cast a careful glance down at the .357 burrowing into my side. "Point well taken," I said.
I lifted my gaze and our eyes met. I was hoping to see that amused glint still in hers, but I couldn't be sure. After a long count, she pulled the gun back, twirled it like Dale Evans, reholstered it. "And quit calling me kid," she added somewhat petulantly.
Before I could think of a reply, we heard the scream. It split the night, coming from somewhere outside, a long, ragged, terrified wail. It sliced into the parking garage and reverberated back and forth through the different levels like it would never end.
Dakota's eyes went huge. Maybe mine did, too. We were both probably thinking the same thing. Together we bolted for the stairwell, the slap of our hurried footfalls generating a fresh round of echoes that finally drowned out the last of the chilling scream.
We exited at ground level onto the previously quiet side street. It wasn't so quiet any more. The scream had obviously been heard by several people in the vicinity.
On the other side of the street, a handful of hotel employees had emerged from various side doors to see what was going on. Several curious bypassers from the busy main drag at the end of the block came spilling down, some more eagerly than others. Faces were turning this way and that, eyes were darting in various directions, many looking up. A gaggle of voices mingled and grew excitedly louder.
"Did anybody see anything?"
"Who was it?"
"Hell, I don't know—what was it?"
"Wow, man, what a blood-curdling scream. You always hear that expression: blood-curdling. That's what this really was, you know?"
"Whatever it was, it was awful."
"Did somebody get attacked, or what?"
"It had a kind of fading-away quality ... like somebody falling."
It took a car, probably attracted by the trickle of people rapidly turning into a stream, to swing down the street and literally shed some light on the subject. The headlight beams carved a path through the knot of bodies and then came to rest on one that didn't get out of the way. This body was done moving anywhere on its own. Forever. It was the form of a nude male, lying in a kind of flattened sprawl in the middle of the street. The shape was as still and stark as a freeze frame, except for the blackish red puddle spreading in an uneven halo around the head.
The car braked to a sharp halt, causing its headlight beams to flick up and down and cast the body in a kind of strobe effect. As one, the crowd coming down the street ceased its forward motion and re-coiled two or three steps. There were several audible intakes of breath, some low groans.
Only Dakota and I moved toward the corpse then. I got close enough to verify the sickening hunch that had started forming in the pit of my stomach right from the first .... Damn it all, the pitifully battered ruin of a person was none other than Clyde Grammercy.
I locked eyes with Dakota over the dead man for a hard second, then we turned our heads and together looked up at the luxury suite balconies jutting out high overhead. One of them seemed to loom more ominously than the rest. There was movement up there, and voices drifting down faintly; one frightened and pleading, the other loud and angry.
"Taxer!" Dakota spat the name. "The bastard is here. He did this. All the time I was watching for him—he must have shown up right after you dragged me into that damned garage."
"If that's the case, he sure as hell didn't waste much time."
"He wouldn't. That's Taxer's way."
I brought my gaze back down to ground level and looked around us. The crowd up the street was starting to edge in closer again.
I said, "We don't have time to stick around and explain this to the cops. Not right now—not if we mean to try and wrap up Taxer before he gets away again."
"I don't mean to just try." Dakota thrust an unwavering finger, pointing down at what was left of Clyde Grammercy. "We're responsible for this—you and I, equally. I saw to it word got leaked to Taxer, luring him here out of hiding to find his lover in a cheating situation. You pulled me off the trap I had set for him at a crucial moment. Our high-handedness cost a man his life. I'd say the very least we owe this poor bastard is to bring down the animal who threw him to his death."
I tossed another glance up at the balcony. "What goes up has gotta come down," I muttered. "Yeah, let's bring Taxer down hard."
* * *
We hit the main lobby of the hotel running.
I liked the sensation of Dakota beside me, moving with the sleek grace of a jungle cat, a tigress on the hunt. I'd made up my mind about her under sudden and extreme circumstances, to be sure. A snap judgment that—given we had together now crossed a line marked by violent death and drawn guns and escalating threat—carried a high risk factor if I was very far off the mark. But any doubts were strictly academic; in my gut I felt confident she had my back as solidly as I would have hers.
Despite the lousy turn things had taken, we still had a little bit of luck riding on our side. My time as a guest of the hotel had given me a good feel for its layout. I knew that it was a refurbished version of the original structure that dated back to the early 1920s. Its historic significance and popular riverfront location had warranted the face-lift but there had been limited opportunity for expansion as part of the process. Therefore it remained rather modest in size, only ten stories high. The top four floors housed the newer rooms and the so-called luxury suites and were serviced by a single express elevator that accessed strictly those floors. The other half dozen floors were serviced by the original elevator system, two cars located in the center of the wide lobby. That meant that Taxer, when exiting Clyde Grammercy's suite on the tenth floor, had no choice but to come down the express elevator or use stairs for at least the first four stories of his descent.
If Dakota and I moved fast enough, we could effectively cover all his escape route options. When I pointed this out to her, she said, "You take the express, I'll go the other way. I run stadium steps three times a week—I'm in better shape to handle those stairs."
The assessment stung, but there was no arguing the validity of it. With more lives potentially at stake I couldn't afford to get my hackles up about it.
"What about the girl?" I wanted to know. "You figure he's killed her, too?"
"Hard to say. He never harmed her in the past. But those other times were only cases of flirtation. What Taxer walked in on here was considerably more than that—he never killed any of the other guys before, either."
"What if he tries bringing her out as a hostage?"
Dakota's eyes flashed. "Don't even think about bargaining with this asshole. No deals! If he has the notion to kill her, he'll go ahead and do it regardless—and try with all his might to take us out in the bargain. Cut him no slack—he's stone cold dangerous."
"Got it," I assured her.
I swung out the .45 again. Several other patrons in the lobby scurried bug-eyed at the sight of the hardware.
"Watch your ass, kid."
"Watch your own ass, you old war horse ... and quit calling me kid!" Dakota snapped over her shoulder as she broke into a trot for the central elevator bank.
* * *
The express car came down empty. I went in SWAT team style, sweeping the .45 ahead of me in a two-handed grip, covering right, left, up, down. Nothing. Nobody. I hit the button for the tenth floor and the car whooshed upward.
&
nbsp; The express lift was one of the showpieces of the hotel's refurbishment. It was the external type, its car a brightly illuminated glass bubble sliding up and down on an outside cornice of the building. From inside the bubble, passengers were treated to a panoramic view of the riverfront and downtown.
At the moment I didn't give a damn about the view. The only scene I was interested in was trying to get a focus on Horace Taxer. There was no way of knowing for sure what state of mind he was in. Given his penchant for violence, he might have snapped completely and now be on the brink of an all-out killing frenzy. On the other hand, his murderous assault on Grammercy might have had a mollifying effect and he could be ready to slink back into the defensive, evasive mode that had put him in hiding before.
Either way, if he was a calculating man he'd likely figure he had several minutes before he had to make his next move. He had no way of knowing about Dakota and I being present under the circumstances we were. Remove us from the equation, he'd reason that motel security and police arriving on the scene would eat up a fair amount of time piecing together what had happened before ever starting to zero in on the tenth floor suite where Grammercy had been thrown from.
Fine, I told myself. Let the fucker think he had all the time in the world. Dakota and I would have him in a box before he knew what hit him.
The car bonged to a halt on Ten.
I eased out cautiously, holding the .45 at the ready.
The hallway was empty and appeared calm and undisturbed. The room I wanted—1008—was four doors down, on the right. Two doors beyond that, on the left, I spotted the door marked for access to the stairs, the point where Dakota would be arriving.
I proceeded down the hall. In one of the rooms I passed, I could hear a TV program playing with bursts of an irritating laugh track. In another, I could hear a woman talking faintly, pausing every now and then the way you do when you're speaking on the phone. Whatever happened in room 1008 preceding Clyde Grammercy's fatal flight from its balcony had apparently been contained strictly therein and had not disturbed or alarmed anyone else on the floor.
BEAT to a PULP: Hardboiled 2 Page 3
