Too Sweet to Die

by Ron Goulart

  Easy, spread with mud and straw, rose up. He watched Neil run. The rolling hills beyond the field were thick with oaks and pines. “I know he’s got a hand gun,” said Easy. “He can tell me where the hideaway is, but it may take me an hour to outfox him in those trees.”

  The big Neil, running in zigzags, was nearly to the dark woods.

  Easy stood by the road a moment, letting the rain work on his mud. He collected the dropped rifle, a big-bore Winchester with a telescopic sight. Then he went to Neil’s car. The key was in the ignition, with a gold Spanish coin hanging from the ring.

  Easy opened the door, slid into the driver’s seat. It made a mess on the cream-colored upholstery.

  CHAPTER 17

  THE FIFTY-YEAR-OLD MAN IN the doorway had a bland boyish face, a bright pink at the moment, and a tumbler of Scotch in his right hand. “If I’ve ever seen anybody who needs a drink, it’s you,” he told Easy. “You look like you fell head first into an irrigation ditch. What happened to you?”

  “I fell head first into an irrigation ditch,” replied Easy. “You’re Cuidera?”

  “Who else would I be?” said the blond Cuidera. “I’m your host. Come in.” Behind him a large living room full of drinking guests showed. “You’re late, but there’s still plenty to drink.”

  Easy stepped into the big black stone Cuidera house. It was nearly 1 A.M. “My name is John Easy. I’m a …”

  “Glad to have you, Johnny,” said Cuidera. He patted Easy on his damp back. “We’ll get you a drink. I personally can’t stand our famous Cuidera Brothers fine wines, but a lot of people love the stuff. If that’s your bag, you’ll find plenty on hand. Or, if you’re like me, you’ll want a shot of J&B on the rocks. How about it, Johnny?”

  “I’m looking for Jillian Nordlin,” Easy told Cuidera.

  “Not here so far as I know,” said Cuidera. “Of course I don’t know half these deadbeats anyway, but I know little Jilly. Known her all my life. Or all her life rather. She must be nearly twenty-one now.”

  “Twenty-five,” said Easy. “She’s in danger, at the Nordlin place up here. Can you tell me how to get out there?”

  Cuidera was jostling Easy toward a bar which had been set up across the dim living room. “I thought you came to my party to hoist a few, Johnny? What’ll you have?”

  In front of the white-topped bar stood a thin brunet in a black cocktail dress. She frowned as Cuidera approached. “Bud,” she said to him, “what’s the trouble?”

  “There’s no trouble, Dianne,” answered Cuidera. “Every encounter I have with one of your deadbeat friends doesn’t end in trouble, you know. What in the hell are you going to drink, Johnny boy?”

  “Mrs. Cuidera?” Easy said to the thin thirty-five-year-old woman.

  “Yes, what’s the trouble?”

  “There’s no trouble, Dianne,” insisted Cuidera. He finished his Scotch, poured another.

  Easy put himself between Cuidera and his wife. “I’m John Easy, a private investigator. I think Jill Nordlin is being held against her will at the Nordlin hideaway. Can you tell me how to get to the place?”

  “Little Jilly?” said Mrs. Cuidera. She touched her plain face with one thin hand. Then she stepped back, looking at Easy’s damp muddy clothes. “What have they done to you?”

  “Shot my car off the road, to keep me from getting to Jill.”

  “My lord,” said Mrs. Cuidera. “Why?”

  “It’s mostly about money,” said Easy. “Where is the Nordlin house?”

  Bud Cuidera grabbed Easy’s arm, shoved a glass of Scotch into his hand. “Have a little J&B, Johnny. It’ll warm the cockles of your heart, whatever cockles are.”

  “Go away and be quiet, Bud,” said Mrs. Cuidera. She led Easy through the uncurious cluster of party guests and toward a closed door. “Do you have some sort of identification, Mr. Easy?”

  Easy showed her his ID card. “I want to get there now, Mrs. Cuidera.”

  The thin brunet opened the door, taking him down a corridor. “First door on your left.”

  Easy went through the open doorway. It led to a bedroom, done all in earth browns and forest greens. There were hunting prints on the walls, mounted pistols, and one sad stuffed squirrel on a shelf.

  “My stepson’s room,” explained Mrs. Cuidera. “He’s away at school, UC at Davis. I’d say he was about your size. Pick yourself some dry, clean clothes. His tastes aren’t as bizarre as some young people.”

  Easy went to the closet the plain woman had pointed at and selected a gray pullover sweater and a pair of tan khakis. He added a navy blue windbreaker and a pair of high-top desert boots. “You know Senator Nordlin is dead?”

  “Yes, we heard it on the news,” Mr. Cuidera had seated herself at her stepson’s desk and was drawing something on the top sheet of a yellow legal-size pad. “Poor Jilly. Does this trouble have anything to do with Leonard Nordlin’s death?”

  “In a way.” Easy went to another door and found a bathroom beyond it. He stepped in, leaving the door half-open and began to change.

  “Poor Jilly,” repeated Mrs. Cuidera. “I’m drawing you a map of how to get to the Nordlin lodge. You’re only ten minutes away, but it can be tricky to find. The last couple miles are on a private road, called Laurel Lane. Who is it that’s trying to hurt poor Jilly?”

  “A varied lot,” said Easy, pulling up his new trousers.

  Footsteps sounded out in the hall. “Are you up to some kind of hanky-panky with that big bozo?” Bud Cuidera called into the bedroom.

  “No, Bud,” answered his wife.

  “Oh, okay,” said Cuidera.

  “Go back to the party.”

  “Does Johnny want another drink?”

  “No, he’s fine, Bud. Go away now, please.”

  Cuidera’s footsteps went away.

  Dressed, Easy transferred his wallet, money, and gun. He stepped back into the room with his wet clothes bundled under one arm.

  “My husband,” said Mrs. Cuidera, “sometimes gets the notion I have a much more profound effect on men than I actually do. That seems like a reasonably good fit.” She stood up, held the map she’d drawn out to Easy.

  Easy took the drawing and studied it, nodding “Okay.” She’d included a rough sketch of the Nordlin lodge. “What are the X’s for on the house?”

  “I’ve indicated the three alternate ways to get into the house.” The thin Mrs. Cuidera walked back into the corridor. “It occurs to me you may not wish to enter by the front door. There’s a back entrance, plus an entrance by way of the garage. And a way to get up through the wine cellar. It’s a two-story lodge, with all the living space on the upper floor.” She was at a hall closet now. She opened it, frowned at a large peg board mounted on the wall. There were thirty hooks on the board, each holding a ring of keys, and each labeled with a small strip of white tape. “There are a lot of doors to open and close at a winery. Here you are.” She selected a set of five keys and gave it to Easy. “We always kept a spare set in case Leonard asked us to do something to the lodge for him.”

  “Which is the Nordlin wine cellar?”

  “The gold one with the wobbly W scratched on it.”

  While Easy held the keys in his open palm Mrs. Cuidera explained what each one opened. “Okay, thanks,” Easy said.

  “What about the police?” asked the thin brunet as she led Easy to a back exit.

  “Wait an hour,” said Easy. “Then call them.”

  “Very well.” She opened the door onto the rainy night.

  Easy started down the wooden steps. Behind him Mrs. Cuidera said something he didn’t hear. He turned, asking, “What?”

  “Nothing,” she answered. “I just said, ‘Poor Jilly.’ ”

  CHAPTER 18

  A MILE ALONG LAUREL Lane Easy heard the shooting. The road was a muddy corridor cutting through a forest of high shaggy laurel trees. The silver-gray car sliced through sheets of windy rain as it moved toward the Nordlin hideaway.

  Easy had his
.38 revolver tucked in the waistband of his borrowed trousers. He ticked a thumbnail against the pistol grip.

  He heard another shot above the splash of the rain. “More rifles,” he said.

  A giant ice-blue Cadillac blocked the end of the private road a hundred yards ahead. It was this year’s model, gleaming through the gray rain.

  “A very high-class shootout,” said Easy. He drove to within ten feet of the bright hulking Cadillac, leaving his high beams on.

  In the woods to the right of the Cad a thin silhouette showed against the knobby trunks of the high laurels. It was Cullen Montez, holding a rifle. He turned to look at the oar and gave an angry stop-that flat of his left hand.

  Easy grinned and hit the horn with his fist.

  Beyond the blocking Cadillac the ground sloped down sharply to what must be the small lake Mrs. Cuidera had indicated on her map. Through the rain and dark Easy could make out the slanting shingle roof of the lodge. He heard someone else shooting somewhere down there.

  Cullen Montez waved at Easy again, angry.

  Easy tooted the horn once more. “He’s recognized the car and figures I’m Neil.” Easy opened his door a fraction, not enough to make the interior lights go on.

  His head shaking, Montez backed toward Easy and the Dodge. He was careful to keep the trees between himself and the Nordlin lodge as long as he could. He waved the rifle. “What in the name of God has gotten into you, Neil?” he said. “We ran into a real mess here. It’s bad enough you’re late …”

  When Montez was in front of the car, caught in the beam of the headlights, Easy slammed the lights and the windshield wipers off. “There’s trouble in Carmel,” he called in a raspy voice out a two-inch opening in the window.

  “Can’t you get it through your thick skull, Neil, that we have one hell of a problem here? That little creep Ingraham is inside there, with guns. Now will you …”

  Montez was bending toward Easy’s door, trying to look inside the now dark car. Easy gave the door an enormous two-handed push.

  The thrust of the heavy door slapped Montez over backwards into the mud. “Jesus!”

  Easy came out of the Dodge to straddle the fallen man. He chopped the rifle completely out of Montez’s grasp. Then he grabbed the private secretary up by his cable-stitch ski sweater.

  Montez’s poodle-colored wig had fallen off and he touched at his empty head before he tried to throw a punch.

  Easy caught Montez’s arm and levered him around. He tossed the hairless private secretary across the front seat of the car. Then he whipped Montez’s belt out of its loops and tied his hands behind his back.

  “You’ll be repaid in full for this nastiness,” warned Montez, his thin face against the passenger seat’s cream-colored upholstery.

  “Who have you got with you?”

  “Piss on you,” replied Montez.

  “How long have you been shooting up the lodge?”

  “A half hour or more,” said Montez. “That creep Dr. Ingraham is in there. I recognized his sanitarium station wagon. He’s being very unreasonable. Won’t let us get near enough to negotiate.”

  “He’s got Jill with him,” Easy said.

  The prone Montez shrugged. “That’s a matter of supreme indifference to me, Mr. Easy. Now the old man is dead I don’t give a damn for that little bitch. What we came up here for was to gather together some of the senator’s personal papers.”

  “Which include several hundred thousand dollars in cash.”

  Montez stayed silent for a few seconds. “Yes, there is a small amount of cash kept in the lodge.”

  “Big enough to attract Ingraham.”

  “That little creep,” repeated Montez. “He’s fouling up everything. It was the senator’s last wish that I take charge of the money and use it as I see fit.”

  “Uh huh.” Easy closed the private secretary in the car.

  Easy circled the ice-blue Cadillac, then headed in among the burl-trunked laurels. He got two kinds of rain in among the high thick trees. Rain falling directly down and rain the wind kept shaking from the branches.

  The lodge was two stories high. The lower level was finished in stone, the upper was redwood planking. A wooden porch ran all around the house at the second-floor level, with wide rough steps leading up to it from the ground level. The land for several hundred yards surrounding the lodge was cleared, a sandy stretch of earth. The front of the hideaway faced the road and almost immediately behind it was a small dark lake.

  Ducked behind the last of the trees at the summit of the hillside slope, Easy noticed five floodlights had been mounted around the front and side of the house. Four of them were smashed out now. As he watched, the fifth light exploded into sharp fragments.

  The shot had come from a rifle off to the far right. That must be Montez’s other man, concealed in the woods on the far side of the road.

  A rifle barrel was poked out of a second-floor window and a shot was sent in the general direction of Montez’s sidekick.

  “There’s Ingraham,” said Easy.

  There was a high red brick fireplace on that side of the house. Easy guessed the doctor was in the living room of the lodge, probably moving from the front to the side windows. That would allow him to cover the end of the road and a good part of the laurel forest which faced the house.

  With all his floodlights gone Ingraham wouldn’t do as well.

  Easy moved quietly to his left. In his pocket he carried the ring of keys Mrs. Cuidera had given him. “The front door might be a little risky,” he said. “But the wine cellar looks possible.”

  He kept working his way away from the Nordlin lodge. Dr. Ingraham and Montez’s man were still exchanging occasional shots. A side window suddenly smashed to shards.

  Easy left the cover of the laurels and side-footed down the hillside. He stopped at the lake and looked back toward the lodge. Beside him the hard rain was chopping at the water of the lake.

  The wine-cellar door was whitewashed and it glowed faintly through the rain. Keeping low to the ground, Easy jogged toward it.

  At the door he was sheltered by the overhang of the porch. Rain thumped on it. Easy got out the keys in a cupped hand and located the correct one.

  He inserted the gold-colored key in the lock, twisted it slowly. Then he gently spun the brass doorknob.

  The white door opened outward. The cellar radiated blackness and chill. The smell of grapes and dust came out at Easy. He dropped the keys back in his trousers, slid out a pencil flashlight.

  Easy crossed the threshold and stood in darkness. He reached back, pulled the door shut on himself. He took a careful step ahead, then another, still not using his flash. A spider web, complete with a live spider and an assortment of dry dead flies, tangled in his shaggy hair.

  Up above Easy heard the little doctor clogging heavily back and forth. There was another rifle shot.

  Easy took five more steps and felt racks of side-lying wine bottles beside him. He halted to listen again.

  The wine-cellar door opened outward. A big electric lantern came on and spotted Easy.

  “Why, Mr. Easy. How nice to run into you again.”

  CHAPTER 19

  EASY RECOGNIZED THE VOICE. It was Montez’s other sidekick, the one who’d been sniping at Ingraham from the woods. “You’re the one who isn’t Neil,” said Easy. “We seem to have picked the same time to make a try for Ingraham.”

  “Name is Tommy,” said the big man, speaking softly. The side glow from his lantern illuminated the .45 automatic in his right hand. “I haven’t got time for further talk. You’re an unexpected annoyance, Mr. Easy.”

  “I can help you take Ingraham.”

  Part of Tommy’s smile showed behind and above the bright lantern. “Afraid not, Mr. Easy. Now then, raise your hands up and keep them there while I come over and take that gun you’ve got decorating your belly.”

  Easy lifted his hands, holding them wide apart. “Neil isn’t going to get here, Tommy. Montez is trussed
up in my car. You can’t handle the doctor by yourself.”

  “Of course I can,” replied Tommy. “After I handle you. That little …”

  Easy grasped a head-level wine bottle by its neck. He jerked it from its nest in the wine rack behind him and sent it flying straight at Tommy, dropping to the dark floor as he did.

  The bottle cracked against the knuckles of Tommy’s gun hand. “Hey!” He dropped the automatic.

  Easy rolled, came up beside Tommy. He threw two jabs, connecting with the man’s prominent jaw.

  Tommy tottered backward, bumped into a standing barrel. His lantern dropped into the empty barrel and its light was nearly smothered.

  Easy found him in the dark. He hit him twice more.

  The big man grunted and sighed. Then he gave Easy a sharp blow in the ribs.

  Easy fell back. A half-dozen bottles of wine were rocked out of their cubbyholes and fell on the two men.

  Glass cracked and wine slushed across the stone floor as Tommy charged for Easy.

  Side-stepping, Easy kicked a foot between Tommy’s legs. The panting man fell, slamming down onto the floor.

  Tommy was soon up.

  Easy could see him faintly, weaving toward him.

  Then Tommy stopped, brought his hands up to his face. “Oh, dear God,” he said. “Dear God, I’m all cut to pieces. What have you done to my face, you rotten bastard.”

  Easy circled Tommy. He swung out with his flat hand and knocked him out with three chops to the neck.

  When Tommy was stretched out on the floor Easy fetched the light out of the barrel to shine on the man’s face. There was one long bleeding gash across his forehead.

  After finding the .45 and putting it in his hip pocket, Easy quickly tied up Montez’s man with his belt and necktie.

  There was no sound of movement upstairs. Ingraham must certainly have heard the rumpus down here. Easy left Tommy and swept the man’s lantern around the cellar. Beyond the three parallel rows of man-high wine racks was a wooden stairway which should lead up into the lodge. The open wood steps came down at a 45-degree angle and to their right and partially beneath them hulked a black oil furnace. At the other end of the room a fuse box was mounted on the wall.