Dirty Harry 04 - The Mexico Kill

by Dane Hartman

  Harold did not seem to be listening to him. “You tried,” he said, practically inaudibly, “I suppose that’s what counts.” He did not sound the least bit convinced. Then, abruptly, he threw his head back, and tears sprang to his eyes. “She’s gone!” he cried out in such pain that Harry winced and turned away. “She’s gone,” he repeated. “For good.”

  “Wendy?” It was the first time he dared mention her name.

  “Wendy, yes.” He rubbed his eyes with a handkerchief, suddenly embarrassed at this uncustomary display of emotion. He breathed hard in an effort to compose himself. “What is maddening, what is absolutely infuriating, is that we had just had a reconciliation. Only a week ago. Less than a week actually—six days. She’d moved out, but then, Sunday night, she called me and said she wanted to see if we could make a go of it again.” He was talking as though he were in a trance—his recitation had a practiced, lifeless ring to it.

  Six days ago, Harry reckoned, he was on his way out of Carangas. He wondered at how close and how far away Carangas and Sunday were to him.

  “And then?” Harry prodded him.

  “And then when I woke up Thursday morning I found her gone. All her belongings, what she hadn’t taken before, all were gone. There was no note, nothing. It would appear she doesn’t even want the house anymore.”

  It was on Thursday that the Confrontation had been attacked. Harry had gone underground for a day, hoping to recuperate sufficiently so that he could finally face Keepnews. He began to think that possibly Wendy’s timing and the fate of the Confrontation might be somehow linked, but he decided to say nothing.

  “Harry, I don’t believe there’s any chance of seeing her again. I am enough of a realist to know that. But with her gone, I no longer have any ambition. I sit here, I have been sitting here since she left, except for going to the bathroom. I have sent all the staff away. Their presence was a humiliation for me. I never realized that one person could exert such a hold over another. Does this sound melodramatic to you? It must, coming from me.” He let out a bitter laugh. “But I swear to you it is the truth. I would never have believed that she would leave me finally. That she would take on other lovers, like that Max—” He spat out the name in contempt. “Well, I could tolerate that. I didn’t like it but I could tolerate it so long as she stayed with me, came back to me in the end. But this!” He shook his head in bewilderment.

  “Tell me,” Harry put in gently, “have you any idea where she went?”

  Slowly, almost grudgingly, Keepnews answered. “Yes, yes, I have an idea. I am not without resources. She is right now in Sausalito. I have the address.”

  “A house she rented? Friends she moved in with?”

  “Not friends. Friend, singular.”

  “A man?”

  “A man I think you know. A man who Wendy knew represented all I despised, all I have spent my life fighting against. She chose him deliberately. He has a rather high-spirited life-style. It was not difficult for her to arrange an ‘accidental’ encounter. Wendy seldom exhibits any ambition. Only when something, or rather someone, interests her enough will she bring her full talents to bear on the situation. Generally she gets who and what she wants.”

  Thinking of her ardent pursuit of him, Harry could do nothing but agree with her demoralized husband.

  “And the name of the man?” Harry had a feeling he already knew but wanted the confirmation.

  “The name of the man is Nicholas Cimentini.”

  Harry spent all of Saturday afternoon, following his interview with Keepnews, wandering through downtown Sausalito, surveying the docks where yachts less endangered than the Confrontation and the Hyacinth were coming into berth, lingering in the restaurants and cafés on Main Street, strolling into the boutiques, galleries, and antique stores where he thought it likely Wendy might come, but there was no sign of her or of Father Nick. Presumably, they remained secluded in Father Nick’s house nestled farther up on the wooded hillside.

  It seemed clear to Harry, as clear as things ever got anyway, that Wendy had stage-managed the reconciliation at Father Nick’s behest so that she could ascertain what was happening to the Confrontation in its journey back to the States. How she had obtained her information, by spying on her husband or simply turning an attentive ear to him when he confided the facts in the warmth of post-coital affection, was of secondary importance. The point was it wouldn’t have been difficult for her to learn what she wanted. It was possible, even likely, that she’d been the one responsible for betraying them in Carangas. She always seemed to know every detail of her husband’s business—there was no reason she wouldn’t have learned of Harry’s radio transmission. Just the fact that he had survived was evidence enough that the plot conceived in Carangas had failed to materialize. By mentioning that three crewmen had been lost, Harry had unwittingly provided further confirmation that Booth and Vincent were dead and that the heroin they were taking back with them was destroyed. That was sufficient information to set Father Nick’s plan in motion to blow the Confrontation—and with it Harry and Max—out of the water.

  It was Wendy’s motives that Harry could not quite fathom. Was her hatred of her husband so pronounced that she was willing to go to such lengths simply to humiliate and finally destroy him? Was she seeking revenge against Harry, in addition, because she felt he had run out on her? Did she harbor some unarticulated grievance against Max as well that could only be assuaged by having him killed? Or had she, improbably, truly fallen in love with Father Nick—such things did happen, after all—and in the blindness that that love had induced had followed his instructions unthinkingly, mindless of the cost?

  Harry might never know. He might not even want to know. But there was no question in his mind that she had long ago overstepped those bounds of forgiveness.

  At dusk, when the sky had turned from a faint amber to a smudged gray-blue, Harry got into his car and headed on the winding road that led up into the hillside. He stopped only when he came to the house whose address Keepnews had provided him with.

  “It’ll be well guarded,” Keepnews had told him, and from the looks of it, he’d been right.

  The house was set into the hill, propped up over the reach by stilts. A wall of pink stucco fronted on the road and except for four shuttered windows on the second floor, the wall was unbroken, in keeping with the need for security. To gain access it was necessary to go around to the side and there, casually positioned in the shadows, Harry could make out the form of a man. He was leaning indolently against the door, from time to time exchanging remarks with another guard who could not be detected from the street.

  In the surrounding bushes, all of which were beautifully manicured and shaped, Harry guessed that there would be other men, armed and awaiting any threat to Father Nick.

  Now that Harry was here, he had really no idea what he could do. No plan presented itself to him. He decided that he would merely watch and see what, if anything, happened inside the house or out. Maybe an inspiration would come to him, maybe this whole enterprise was futile and he’d be sensible enough to turn around and go home and forget it. Though the one thing he couldn’t see himself doing was forgetting.

  Past eleven o’clock, after hours of inaction, a gray Mercedes appeared in Harry’s rearview mirror. Instead of passing him it pulled off the road and stopped. If Harry had had any doubts about the car there was no question about the identity of its owner. It was Harold Keepnews.

  He must have noticed Harry’s car parked ahead of his but if he did he gave no indication of it. Harry had a good notion of what Keepnews was up to, and he didn’t like it at all. Keepnews had decided to employ the same strategy with Father Nick that he had with the burglar who’d once invaded his house. He was going to meet the challenger head on and if necessary, kill him or else die himself. In his state of mind, it probably made very little difference. Love can kill a man more easily than hatred.

  That he had given Harry the address of Father Nick’s Sausalito hideaway,
however, implied that he hadn’t lost all reason. It might just be that he wanted back-up, that he expected Harry to be around when he arrived. More than that, he was undoubtedly shrewd enough to realize that Harry was the sort of man who would be unable to stay out of something like this, no matter what his reservations.

  Harry cursed Keepnews silently. He did not like others choosing his battleground for him. But it seemed that people were always doing that regardless.

  Now he could not imagine Keepnews simply going up to the door and demanding admission. On the other hand, he couldn’t imagine him creeping silently among the shadows and ambushing his foes either. But, as he watched with growing shock, that was exactly what Keepnews appeared to have in mind.

  As soon as he got within sight of the house he slipped out a .45-caliber combat pistol with a Teflon finish, equipped with a silencer. It was possible that he had already reconnoitered the site, for he seemed to know exactly where to find the guards—the first few at least.

  He was going about this operation with a military flourish. Obviously, the consequences of what he was doing were of little significance to him; he had probably not thought this through. Once he got Wendy back, if he got Wendy back, he would worry about everything else.

  Harry quietly slid out of his car and darted to the other side of the street, keeping as low as possible for fear of being spied from the house.

  Keepnews was less cautious. He slipped up to the door so silently that the man there was caught by surprise. “What do you want?” he managed to say before Keepnews fired his .45 into his face. The guard crumpled against the door and flopped down on the doormat, blotting out the WELCOME printed on it with the blood and brain tissue that rushed out of the jagged wound where his nose had been.

  But though he made very little noise in his dying it was still enough to alert the man’s colleague, who appeared from around back. Keepnews as soon as he glimpsed him shot him. This guard, however, did not relinquish his hold on life so easily. He shrieked in torment and gripping the wound that lay just under his heart, ran around to the side, seeking another door into the house where he might find help.

  His cries drew two more men who materialized out of the high bushes, both carrying automatics. Keepnews crouched and brought the first down, sending him tumbling back into the bushes where he struggled for several moments against the entangling branches, an activity that hastened the flow of arterial blood out of his body that much faster.

  The second, with no time to aim, lay down a barrage of automatic fire that carved out an ugly trail in the oaken door over Keepnews’ head. Before he could lower his sight, Harry appeared and fired his Magnum into the man’s arm, forcing the automatic from his hands. Keepnews unconcernedly put another bullet in him, which eliminated his opposition—and life—immediately.

  At that point the door flew open and a burst of fire spewed forth. Whoever was doing the shooting had not taken the trouble to determine where it was he was directing his fire. Harold was just about underfoot, a location he was quick to take advantage of by wheeling about and discharging his .45 into the defender’s chest.

  Very suddenly there was silence. Keepnews drew himself up and, in a gesture that seemed completely incongruous, dusted off his pants. He raised his eyes toward Harry. He smiled but said nothing. To Harry he looked hypnotized, only marginally conscious of his circumstances. The man had become so obsessed, so exhilarated by the momentum of the battle that he seemed incapable of reacting in any normal manner. Harry wanted to stop him, but no sooner had he uttered Keepnews’ name than he’d vanished, rushing up a set of stairs into the darkness. Harry was in no hurry, having no idea what was waiting for him in the dark. It was just possible that Father Nick and Wendy were not at home, that only the security guards were present—or had been until their untimely ends. The problem was that from the exterior you could not tell whether any lights were on inside.

  Ahead of him, as he ascended the stairs, Harry heard the rattle of gunfire. There was a cry, then more fire. Harry clung to the walls and reaching the summit, dropped to his knees. A light flashed on, momentarily blinding him. When he could see again, he saw Keepnews sprawled out on the carpeted floor.

  He moved, then picked himself up slowly. Beyond him were two additional bodies, both in plainclothes; no telling who they were. Keepnews, inattentive to the possibility of further gunfire, drew fully erect. Seeing Harry, he shrugged apologetically. Blood soaked his shirtfront. When he moved, he moved with difficulty. Harry realized he’d been badly injured, but this evidently wasn’t sufficient to stop him.

  “All right,” he mumbled, “I’m all right, don’t you worry.” He gestured into what might have been the dining room, which was only partially visible in the dimness. “Must find Wendy, must find her.”

  Harry thought of a new tack. He clasped Keepnews by the shoulders and urged him to be seated on the couch. “I’ll find her for you,” he said.

  Keepnews shook his head vehemently and got up again, brushing Harry aside. “My business, my business,” he kept saying as he lurched forward into the next room.

  Then another light came on—from a chandelier, which provided. for elegant illumination as its crystals shimmered with a thousand irridescent colors that glimmered in turn on the smooth rosewood surface of the diningroom table below it. The table was laid out for a dinner of twelve. Where the other eleven diners had gone to, whether they would appear at all for what was obviously supposed to be a late-night supper, was a question Harry would never know the answer to. But the twelfth diner wasn’t afraid of showing himself.

  It was Father Nick himself, a Baretta 7 in his hand: an ironic touch as Baretta 7s were favored by off-duty police officers.

  Harry hung well in back, out of Father Nick’s sight. Keepnews demonstrated no such compunction. He must have believed he was already dying because he didn’t do anything to protect himself.

  Father Nick, however, was somewhat more wary. He had not moved from behind the partition that separated the dining room from what lay beyond it. Only part of his face could be discerned. And the protrusion of the Baretta.

  Keepnews seemed unaware of the risk he was taking as he walked—tottered was more like it—in Father Nick’s direction. Father Nick, not being one for wasting words, raised his gun to better sight it on Keepnews.

  At that moment Harry made his presence known. “Harold!” he shouted. Keepnews turned, but so did Father Nick who fired at Harry. Keepnews in turn fired at Father Nick.

  He did not succeed in hitting him, but he did cause him to expose himself just enough for Harry to risk his final round.

  The .44 bullet entered Father Nick’s skull at a point just above his left eyebrow. When it exited, it flung against the back wall a thick spattering of his brains to which bone chips adhered tenaciously.

  Father Nick’s left eye filled up with blood, but his right still seemed to apprehend his situation with clarity. He collapsed at Harold Keepnews’ feet, his arms outstretched like a supplicant.

  Keepnews regarded him with a disdainful eye. He then turned to Harry, scowling. “You should have saved him for me,” he said in a low voice.

  “You couldn’t have gotten him, Harold, he would have killed you.”

  Keepnews wasn’t listening. “Water under the bridge,” he mumbled, his breathing becoming more difficult now; he was nearly in shock.

  “We need to get you to a hospital.”

  “No, no, must find Wendy,” he said. This objective mobilized him so much that he was already racing away from Harry, leaving a sad trail of blood in his wake.

  Harry caught up with him without much problem. If he wasn’t going to quit this madness, he thought, he’d just have to help him. Taking his arm he guided Keepnews up the stairs. Keepnews seemed to know where he was going; Harry certainly didn’t.

  Where he was going, it appeared, was the bedroom. Father Nick’s bedroom. A nicely appointed place. A fine blue bedspread over the large double bed with a canopy overhead and
a mirror on the underside of the canopy so that you could see how you were progressing with your lady or gentleman friend, depending on your sex and your proclivities. And on the bed, clad in a nightgown that precisely matched the bedspread and that had been hiked up almost to her waist to exhibit those beautiful tan legs of hers, was Wendy Keepnews. She was crying and that, more than anything else this night, astounded Harry, who had never thought he would see her like this. She was crying softly into a crumpled Kleenex. Her eyes were red, when you could see them—mostly she kept her face hidden by the damp strands of her hair. Her whole body shook with sobbing.

  “Wendy, Wendy, Wendy,” Keepnews said, throwing himself on the bed, reaching out his hands for hers. “Forgive me, sweetheart, forgive.me!” he pleaded though Harry wasn’t sure it shouldn’t have been the other way around. She didn’t look at him.

  He repeated her name twice, three times more, like a litany. Then he couldn’t any longer. He ran out of strength for words. He took her hand in his. She didn’t resist and clutched it fervently. But not so fervently. He’d run out of strength, he’d run out of life. His life was in the blood and it was all over the blue bedspread. Wendy didn’t react, might not have realized he was gone, she couldn’t stop her crying.

  Harry found the phone. It was blue too, matching precisely as well.

  He dialed his department and asked for Bob Togan.

  Togan was at his desk. “Harry? Is that you? I’ve been trying to get ahold of you for days. What happened to you?” He didn’t wait for an answer, rushing headlong into the next sentence. “I’ve got good news. The Internal Affairs committee met on your case, and the word is it looks good for you. Pending your personal testimony, they felt you should be restored to the department with no problem. Maybe collect all your back pay. This Father Nick business seems to be all over and done with.”