When Old Men Die

by Bill Crider

  I had watched for him last night, but I'd never had the sense that I was being followed. Of course, it could have been Minor in the warehouse. He might have gotten there ahead of me. Ro-Jo's killer was big enough to be Minor, but for some reason I didn't think Minor was the man I'd fought.

  What really worried me was the question of whether Dino was being straight with me. Wouldn't he be the logical person to bring back gambling? Surely he must now and then feel a little stirring of memory and desire when he thought about what his uncles had meant to the Island. Was he the one who'd been backing Braddy Macklin?

  Added to all that there was the nagging feeling that somewhere in all of that there was something that I'd missed, some connection that would clear things up a little if I could just pin it down and look at it.

  Naturally, I couldn't.

  All that thinking made my head hurt even more. Even Elvis singing "Don't" wasn't helping. I turned off the CD player and went back into the kitchen. I hadn't read the comics yet. Maybe "Calvin and Hobbes" would inspire me.

  Or then again, maybe not.

  Twenty-One

  I decided to go in to work. I'd missed check-in day, which meant that there might not be too much to do. And maybe Zintner would know something about all the people I'd met and talked to, something that would help.

  Besides that, I wanted to use the computer.

  The office was already thick with smoke when I got there. I wondered if the Surgeon General was right about second-hand smoke. I hoped not.

  There were two clients talking to the clerks. One of the clients was actually smiling as he told Betsy about his troubles with the police. He probably wouldn't think it was so amusing when Zintner had finished with him.

  Nancy wasn't occupied, and she came over to my desk when I turned the computer on.

  "Looking for someone?" she asked.

  I admitted that I was.

  "I didn't know that anyone had skipped out," she said.

  I looked over my shoulder at Zintner's office and put my index finger to my lips.

  Nancy leaned down and whispered, "A little private snooping?"

  I nodded as I ran my fingers over the keyboard.

  "Anyone I know?" she asked.

  "Probably not," I said. "I'm just trying to find someone for the fun of it."

  The idea of looking for someone for fun didn't appeal to Nancy, and she went back over to her desk. Then I got to work in earnest.

  The big three credit bureaus have information on practically every adult in the country, and thanks to the fax modem we have an easy way to get in touch with them. I was curious about Laurel Lytle. If I could, I was going to find out if she was still alive. So I faxed my request to all three credit bureaus, explaining that I was a private investigator and assuring them that I wanted the file for legitimate purposes.

  It took a while, but I eventually found out that if Mrs. Lytle was alive, she didn't have a credit rating. That didn't really mean that she was dead, however. She could have remarried. She could have taken her maiden name back after leaving her husband. It could also mean that she'd never applied for credit.

  There were other things I could do, starting at the county courthouse down the street. I could check birth records there, along with Laurel's marriage license. And I could find out her Texas driver's license number with the computer. I could also check some bank records, and maybe that way I could get a Social Security number; with that, I would bet I could find her anywhere.

  I was about to leave and start on some of those things, but at that point Dale Becker came into the building.

  He was walking just a little gingerly, but that wasn't what gave him away. What gave him away was my sudden memory of the way the man in the warehouse had groaned when I clubbed him in the groin.

  He'd sounded a lot like Dale Becker.

  Becker probably hadn't expected to see me in the office. I'd told him and Zintner that I was going to be taking some time off to look for Harry. After a quick glance in my direction, Becker ignored me and headed straight for Zintner's office.

  I got up and put myself in front of him.

  "Get outta the way, Smith," he said.

  He put a big hand on my chest and pushed. He moved me, but he didn't move me far.

  "That's a pretty nasty bruise on your chin," I said. "Fall down in the bathtub?"

  He shoved me again. "I said get outta my way."

  "You son of a bitch," I said. "You killed Ro-Jo."

  He dropped his hand and backed up. "I didn't kill anybody. Now move it."

  "What the hell's going on in here?" Zintner said behind me.

  I turned my head and started to tell him, but I heard Nancy scream, and that's when Becker hit me.

  Or that's when he tried. Nancy's scream gave me enough warning to pull away, though Becker's fist scrapped my chin.

  I snapped my head back in time to see his follow-up punch. His fist looked as big as a wrecking ball, and I ducked under it, grabbing him around the waist, pushing my head into his stomach, and bulldozing him backward.

  Everyone was yelling by that time, and there seemed to be a lot of scrambling around, but I couldn't see anything but the floor.

  Becker backed into a desk, but I just kept shoving. I had on my rubber-soled running shoes, so I had plenty of traction. The desk started moving backward, and I heard a chair fall over. Then I heard a crash that could only have been the computer. A wave of regret washed through me, but it was gone almost at once. It wasn't my computer.

  By that time, Becker was getting his wits back, and he wrapped his arms around my chest and lifted.

  He was a strong guy, and he had my feet off the floor almost before I realized what was going on. I lost my grip on his waist, and suddenly I was dangling upside down. Then he tried to drive me into the floor like a nail, except that I was going head first.

  I got my hands down and broke the impact just as he released me. Before he could grab me again I somersaulted forward and turned toward him.

  He was coming straight at me, and as he tried to hit me I got in a couple of quick punches to his bruised chin. As far as I could tell, his head didn't even move backward. Maybe I hurt the bruise. It was the best I could hope for.

  He did a lot better, from his point of view anyway. He hit me squarely in the sternum, and all at once I was sailing backward, unable to catch my breath.

  I hit one of the office's flimsy walls and felt it give behind me with a loud crack. At least I hoped it was the wall that cracked. It might have been my spine.

  Becker came at me hard, so I did the only thing I could.

  I kicked him in the face.

  That got his attention. It also broke his nose. There was bright red blood streaming down his face, and he put up a hand to stop it.

  I got to my feet and caught a breath, the first one I'd had in what seemed like a long time.

  Becker looked at the blood on his hand and then at me. Yelling something I couldn't make out, he picked up a chair and threw it at me.

  I ducked, but the chair hit me in the head, hard, and knocked me back into the wall. I slid down to the floor and closed my eyes, waiting for Becker to come and finish me off.

  He didn't come, however. The next thing I knew, Nancy was fanning my face and asking me if I was all right.

  I shook my head, an error of major proportions. For a short while there was a very interesting fireworks display behind my eyelids.

  The next thing I heard was Zintner's tender voice yelling in my ear.

  "Goddamn you, Smith, you've done ten thousand dollars' worth of damage in here in ten seconds. I'm calling the cops."

  I tried to tell him I thought that calling the cops was a great idea, and that the entire building wasn't worth ten thousand dollars, but I'm not sure he got the message. I couldn't blame him. What I heard coming out of my mouth was more like "Thassa goo'dee."

  "What's he saying?" Zintner asked Nancy.

  She couldn't tell him, but that didn't matte
r. I tried to tell them my real concern.

  "Get Becker," I said, or tried to say. I think it came out, "Gee'ber."

  This time, however, Zintner got it. "That son of a bitch's long gone. You're gonna pay for this, Smith."

  "My ass," I said. Or "M'sss."

  "You'll have to talk better than that," Zintner told me.

  "You leave him alone," Nancy said. "Can't you see he's hurt?"

  Zintner let her know that he didn't give much of a damn whether I lived or died, much less whether I was hurt, and I thought that was pretty small of him, especially considering what I knew. Or thought I knew.

  Whatever that was, it would have to wait a while. I was fading in and out, and I wasn't going to be able to talk about it right then.

  I tried to say something to Nancy, but I didn't get it out. I went to sleep instead.

  I seemed to be doing a lot of that lately.

  Twenty-Two

  I woke up in a hospital room, which, if nothing else, proved that my hospitalization was as good as the agent who sold it to me had said it was.

  My head wasn't hurting anymore, but then nothing was hurting. I wondered what they had given me.

  I didn't wonder long. I just went back to sleep.

  The next time I woke up, a nurse was in the room. She looked tough and practical and efficient. When she noticed I was awake, she asked how we were doing.

  I told her that we were just fine.

  She was glad to hear it and told me that Doctor would be in to see me later.

  I explained that I didn't want to see Doctor. I wanted to get out of there.

  She shook her head and told me there was no way I was leaving before Doctor saw me. I would have argued with her, but I didn't have the energy.

  This time I didn't go back to sleep, which I hoped meant that whatever they'd given me was beginning to wear off. I started to turn on the TV set that was hanging from some kind of attachment on the wall, but I was afraid that one of Dino's favorite talk shows would be on. I wasn't in the mood for macho bikers who had been kidnapped by space aliens and forced into sensitivity training. So I just lay in the bed and thought about things.

  The more I thought, the more certain I was that I was right about Becker. I reached for the telephone and called Dino.

  When he answered, I could hear a talk show in the background, but I couldn't identify the host. As I told Dino what had happened, the sound from the TV disappeared, and I knew he'd hit the mute button.

  "That bastard Becker," Dino said when I'd finished. "Are you gonna be all right?"

  I said that I thought I was going to be fine, as long as I didn't get into any more fights.

  "What're you gonna do about Becker, then?"

  It would never have entered Dino's mind to call the police and report Becker. It had, however, entered mine, not that I was going to make the call. If Barnes had sent Minor to my house, Barnes wasn't my friend and I felt no obligation to him.

  "I'll have to think about Becker," I told Dino. "Right now, there's something you can do for me."

  "I'm not going after Becker for you, if that's what it is."

  "I don't want you to go after anyone. I want you to call that real estate broker and find out if any locals are trying to make a deal for The Island Retreat."

  "Why?"

  "Because I want to know. It's important."

  He said that he would make the call.

  "Good. And there's one other thing."

  "What's that?"

  "I want you to tell me the truth right now. Are you trying to make a deal for the Retreat?"

  "No." His tone showed that his feelings were hurt. "I thought I told you that."

  "I just wanted to make sure."

  "Well, you can be sure. I didn't have anything to do with anything. All I wanted you to do was find Harry. I didn't know that any of this other stuff was going to happen." He paused. "If you want out, I don't blame you. But I want you to know I was telling you the truth."

  I thought that I believed him. "I don't want out. I just wanted to be sure. Call me back as soon as you know something." I gave him the room number. "If you have to threaten to kill somebody, go ahead and do it. I've got to know."

  "Hey, I don't do stuff like that."

  "There's always a first time," I said.

  I hung up the phone and leaned back against the pillows. It was hard to be certain about what someone told you over the phone; it was better to be able to look people in the eye if you were trying to detect a lie. Nevertheless, Dino had sounded completely sincere. I hoped that he was. And I hoped that he would call me back soon.

  He didn't. An hour dragged by, and then another, and I was about to call him again when Doctor showed up.

  His name was Rodriguez. He was young and brisk and he told me that I had a concussion. He also said that they were going to keep me overnight for observation.

  I didn't want to stay overnight, but that didn't bother Doctor a bit. He gave me any number of reasons why I shouldn't even consider getting out of the bed.

  I told him that I knew all the reasons but that I was leaving anyway. And that I would be glad to sign a release, relieving the hospital of all responsibility.

  After about fifteen minutes of wrangling, he gave in and went to see about setting things up.

  I was pulling on my pants when the phone rang. I held up the pants with one hand and answered the phone with the other. It was Dino.

  "I bet you suspected this already," he said.

  "Maybe I do, but I don't want to stand here all day while you confirm my suspicions."

  "OK. There's a sort of syndicate of local investors looking into buying the Retreat. One of them happens to be your boss, and Dale Becker's. Wally Zintner."

  That was exactly what I'd suspected. I wondered why Wally hadn't just had Becker finish me off when they had the chance, while I was lying there in the floor of the bail bond office. Maybe there had been too many witnesses.

  "Thanks, Dino. I'll talk to you later."

  I started to hang up, but I could hear Dino yelling at me through the receiver.

  "Don't hang up," he was yelling as I put the phone back to my ear.

  "You don't have to yell," I said. "I can hear you."

  "I want to know what you're gonna do now."

  "Zip my pants," I said, and hung up.

  After I'd signed all their forms, the hospital staff reluctantly released me on an unsuspecting world. I realized only after I was outside that I didn't have the Jeep. It was probably still at Zintner's building.

  I went back inside the hospital and called AAA Bail Bonds. Nancy answered. When I told her who was calling, she asked how I felt.

  "I'm fine," I said. "Would you mind coming to pick me up?"

  "I suppose I could," she said. "It's nearly closing time."

  "Is Wally still there?"

  "He's here. He's not too happy with you right now."

  "I'll bet. Tell him to wait there. I want to talk to him."

  While Nancy was driving me back to AAA, I asked about Becker.

  "He ran out after you went down. He hasn't been back."

  "Has he called Wally?"

  She told me that she didn't monitor Wally's calls. And she asked me what the fight had been about.

  "Nothing much," I said.

  "You men are all alike, so tough and macho. It wasn't nothing."

  I admitted that maybe it was a little more than that.

  "I heard you say Dale killed Ro-Jo. Who's Ro-Jo?"

  "He was someone I knew."

  "And you think Dale killed him?"

  "Yes."

  Nancy shook her head. "I don't think so," she said.

  "Why not?"

  "Dale likes to talk big, and maybe he even likes to get a little rough, but I don't think he would ever kill someone."

  I told her she felt that way because she sat in the same building with Dale all the time and didn't like to think a man who shared the same office space could be a killer.


  "That's not it," she said. "Dale's really a gentle sort, deep down."

  I laughed. "He was certainly gentle with me, all right. That chair was a really delicate touch."

  "He only hit you because you were accusing him of doing something terrible."

  I caught on then.

  "You haven't been going out with Dale, have you?"

  She blushed. "Once or twice."

  "Case closed," I said.

  She tried to get me to talk more about Dale and what he'd done, but I didn't have anything more to say on the topic, not until I'd talked to Wally Zintner.

  Nancy let me out in front of the building. Everyone else except Wally had already gone home, and she said she wasn't going to come inside.

  "But you're wrong about Dale," she told me before she drove away.

  I didn't think so. I thought Dale was a killer, even if I couldn't prove it. I went into the building, smelling the stale smoke as soon as I entered. The place didn't look much worse than usual, though the computer was a wreck. The monitor screen was gone and the case was cracked. I walked back to Zintner's little office.

  He was sitting in his chair, his feet up on his desk. I could see that he was wearing his Tony Lama boots.

  "You're a real troublemaker, Smith," he said, swinging his feet to the floor. "Old Dale's gonna be mighty pissed off at you."

  "That's too bad," I said. "I guess you've already called the cops."

  "Nope. Why would I do that?"

  "Because Becker assaulted me. Right here in your building."

  "You gonna press charges?"

  "Oh, I'm going to do more than that."

  Zintner looked up at me. He looked skinny and mean and dangerous.

  "Damn," he said. "You're a real bastard, Smith. You know that?"

  "I've been told before."

  "I bet. Sit down, will you? I don't like looking up all the time. Hurts my neck."

  As much as I disliked his visitors' chair, I sat. I was still a little weak in the knees.

  "That's better," he said. "Tell me something. What you got against old Dale."

  "He killed Ro-Jo," I said. "And he beat the hell out of me twice. And he's been shooting at me besides."