Dally had to say something. “Does your father…know about all this?”
“Of course.”
She went on in what I took to be disbelief. “And you did all this…just to make some business deal go down?”
Lenny looked back at her like it was the stupidest question he’d ever heard. “Haven’t you been listening? I started this as a business deal, but it’s obvious that I came to love my work.” He squinted; fixed his gaze like the high beams on a semi. “You can’t imagine how much fun it was.”
I nodded grimly. “So when you saw me in the alley this morning…”
“…I didn’t know how much you knew already. I certainly didn’t want you to see me. My blond wig and fat suit disguise are superb, but you might have recognized me. I thought better of confrontation in the daylight and just backed away…until I saw you wave. Then it occurred to me that you actually might have already recognized me. So I came home and accelerated my preparations to leave town, as you can see from the state of the house. I had no idea you’d rally such an impressive show here.” He looked around at our happy crew. “This has all been quite a treat for me. I never get to gloat like this in such auspicious company.” Graveyard smile.
Augusta looked at me then. I could tell she was pretty far gone. “I told you there was a demon after me.” And then she looked at Lenny very strangely.
Lenny smiled directly at her, and it was filled with poison. “Teeth believes in the demon. Ruby saw the demon. I think the girls might have said they’d seen it too. And of course there’s poor little Tegu. More coffee, anyone?”
I didn’t see Augusta get up. I didn’t really see her move. Just one minute she was sitting there, losing it on the sofa beside Dally — and the next minute she was up, stabbing Lenny in the chest with the knife from the coffee-table tray.
She had fallen forward on top of him, completely without sound, and was pushing the knife into his body with jerky little motions. For a second it looked like two kids playing around. Lenny didn’t make a peep.
Then, from out of the shadows again, bad cops zoomed in on Augusta and had her back against the fireplace in zero time flat. Lenny stood up. Dally’s mouth dropped open. I tried to think how I could bust Bertrand and Tommy at the same time and still keep from getting popped myself.
This was all over in about two seconds. Lenny was dabbing himself with one of the linen napkins from the coffee service and actually smiling bigger.
“How very thrilling.” He held out the napkin. “Look. Blood.”
Bertrand did not seem concerned, but he felt obligated to ask anyway, “Are you okay, Mr. Cascade?”
Lenny nodded. He was examining himself. “She cut my shoulder, but I believe she missed the…important items.” He looked up and wandered over to her. “You tried to get me in the heart? Wouldn’t you guess that’s where I’d be least vulnerable?”
She wasn’t struggling. In fact, except for her body, I don’t think she was even in the room anymore. She was just kind of staring off.
Tommy shook her. He shook her really hard, like she was a big floppy doll. “Whata ya wanna do with her?”
Lenny took the knife from her and held it too close to her face. “Now, if you really wanted to do some damage, I’d think something in the throat or neck area…”
And with a move too quick to see, he shoved the knife deep into Tommy’s throat. Blood shot out everywhere like a leaky old French fountain. He sliced a little, still with his eyes dead on Augusta’s face, then brought the dripping blade back between their gazes. Tommy dropped to the floor, twitching and gurgling. Bertrand was grinding his teeth hard.
Lenny looked at him and spoke very softly. “Don’t shake her the way Tommy did, all right, Bertrand?”
“All right.”
“I didn’t like that.”
“I gathered.”
“Augusta is in a very delicate condition.”
“I can see that.”
“We want to take her to a nice facility of some sort, I think. Not that GIMH. Let’s find the most expensive private-care place in the state, right?”
“Uh-huh.”
“I’d like it to seem like a bed-and-breakfast, maybe in the mountains. Do you think you could manage to do that?”
“Absolutely.”
Lenny backed off. “Good. Take her now. And on your way out, dispose of her brother.” He didn’t even look back as they left the room.
Dally’s pretty tough when it comes to it. “Say, Len, your boy’s makin’ a big mess on the floor over there.”
Lenny shrugged and sat down again. “All right, I guess it’s not really our house anymore.” He sighed. I had to look really closely, but I swear to God I think there were tears in his eyes. “Flap, it truly was as if I’d written a list of my favorite things…she was everything perfect. She was the essence of the feminine. She actually was yin to my yang.”
I let that go for the moment, but I had to ask about Tony. “Lenny, you’re not really gonna ice Tony.”
“Very colorful, Flap: ice. We’ll see.” Softer. “We’ll see.”
I nodded. What I was thinking was how tough it was going to be for somebody to actually get rid of a guy like Tony the Boulder. My money was on the good guys, but I had it in the back of my mind to make certain.
Lenny went on. “With you — you understand it’s just business.” He shifted in his seat, looked Dally square in the face. “I think you and Flap will not be much trouble, so at the moment I’m deciding to let you be.”
Dally sat forward, shaking her head. “You think we won’t be much trouble because we can’t be. You think you’ve got it all sewn up. You got the free imports, you got the police, you got the dough. Who’s gonna believe us? And if they do, evidence against Flap or me or both of us comes to light somehow, and we’re nicely put away, or dead — or at least dead in the water.”
“Exactly. Why bother with you if I don’t have to? And I’m nearly late for my flight. I’ll be in Paris before you have dinner.”
I stood up. “Well, if I may speak for Ms. Oglethorpe as well as myself, we’ll be leaving now. If you actually mean we can go.”
Dally stood too. She could see I was just trying to get us out of there. Unanswered questions were the least of our worries. But she couldn’t resist pushing it.
“So, Mr. Cascade, I believe Mr. Tucker actually completed his assignment for you. He found the woman in question. So…will you be settling up in cash or by personal check?” That’s Dally — you’ve got to love her.
For a second he stared at her with the same face he used on Tommy just before he carved him up, then, completely out of the blue, he busted out laughing: big belly laughs that he really meant down to his socks.
The older woman who had brought us the coffee came in the room while he was still chattering and, without looking anywhere, made her announcement. “Your car is ready, Mr. Cascade.”
Still full of chuckles, he got himself up. “Fine, fine. Listen, would you get someone to clean up this mess?” He indicated Tommy, who by now was all over the floor. “And would you please bring me my traveler’s checks?”
“Of course, Mr. Cascade.”
Still without looking at anything, she left.
Lenny took in a deep breath. “If we call on her, she’ll say she saw you kill that policeman, Flap. Or she’ll say you stabbed him, Ms. Oglethorpe. I think I could get her to say her son had done it…if she has a son. But now she’s going to get you some money. A contract is a contract, after all, and you did fulfill your obligations.” He eyed me with a look that could chop down a tree. “One way or another, everyone takes the money. That’s something you and I understand, Flap. It’s just business — and everybody in the business takes their money.”
I shot a glance at Dally, but she shook her head. She had something else in mind besides the money, I could tell.
I moved toward her, took her arm, tried to edge her closer to the door. After Tommy, I wasn’t going to trust a minute cl
ose to Lenny.
I wanted to keep his mind busy. “So, Len — what happens to Teeth?”
“Oh, Bertrand will work out all the details. Maybe he’s another victim…”
“…maybe he fingers me, maybe he kills Dally…”
“The sky really is the limit. I’d stay on my guard for a while, Flap. Evil is abroad in the land.”
Dally was resisting my efforts to get her out the door and apparently her own better judgment against cracking wise. “I think evil’s a guy, not a broad — and it’s my personal belief that he’s right here among us.”
He didn’t care. “I’ll probably have a new name and a new family and a new life. I’m very rich, and I think my ‘acting’ career is finished. I think Lenny Cascade…is dead.”
Her voice was low. “I’ll buy that.”
“Perhaps even killed by the awful demon that swallowed up innocent girls just recently…in the city too busy to hate.”
The old dame brought in the traveler’s checks, and two other guys I’d never seen before took Tommy away. Standing, Lenny wrote out five of the checks to me and handed them over. I barely glanced down. They were all ten-thousand-dollar checks. I never knew they made them that big. And the signature on them was something I couldn’t even begin to read, but they were made out to me — even had my social security number on them. Nice touch for many reasons. For one it said, I know everything about you and I keep it in my head.
Some other people came to the entrance carrying luggage, lots of it. And Bertrand and Augusta and Tony were nowhere to be seen.
Did I ever mention I thought Dally had guts? She stuck out her hand and shook Lenny’s like she was the hostess at a dinner party. “Thank you, Mr. Cascade. I hope you have a pleasant flight. Paris is wonderful at Christmas. Maybe you’ll catch a mass at Notre Dame.”
They were walking briskly together toward the door. I was following, still thinking that maybe somebody was going to jump out from somewhere and dice us with a butcher knife or pop us with a slug.
But we made it to the door. Out front the big gray Lincoln Town Car, parked right behind my crummy little auto. Dally had walked, I guess. Her apartment wasn’t far — her car wasn’t there. I hastened her along; skipped down the steps.
“I’ll just get my heap outta the way, there, Len. Have a nice trip.” And we were in my car without another word.
I cranked it, but this time I couldn’t resist looking back, pillar of salt or no. Lenny was directing baggage; giving last-minute instructions to the housekeeping staff. Morning sun was up, slanted hard and clear like it does in late autumn. He didn’t give us a second look. He’d forgotten all about us. He was already in Paris.
Chapter 22: The Easy Life
I spent the next couple of days over at Dally’s. Neither of us wanted to be alone. The more we talked about the events of our day at Lenny’s house, the less real they seemed. Still, we kept hearing killer-noises outside. And every knock on the door was the cops showing up to haul one of us in for murder.
We went to cash the traveler’s checks. What Dally had decided when she’d been standing there in Lenny’s house was that we could use them to track Lenny. We could follow him into what he supposed would be his anonymous life in France. After some pretty elaborate deciphering, the kid at American Express got us the name, all right: Edmond Dantès. I couldn’t stop laughing.
Dally isn’t quite as well-read in dashing fiction as I am — she’s got a real job. She didn’t get the reference.
“What? Is that a made-up name or something? What’s the joke?”
“It’s the Count of Monte Cristo.”
“What?”
“Dantès. He was the guy who took on, like, a new identity and wreaked his revenge on the world because he got a huge treasure from some geezer he met in the joint. Edmond Dantès became the Count of Monte Cristo.”
“So he beat us. Lenny got away.”
The kid at the American Express counter was busy whispering to his supervisor about the size of the checks. I pulled Dally away.
“Maybe not. Lenny didn’t bat an eye when you asked him for the money. I think he’d already planned on it. I think these checks are one more clue he dropped to get us further into his little play.”
“No.”
“Okay, but I’m checkin’ a map anyway.”
Sure enough, if you get a really detailed map of France, there it is, just a little north of Nice, right on the Italian border: the Mountain of Christ — not called Monte Cristo, but you get the idea. There was talk of using the money American Express was going to give us to go to France and find this mountain and get Lenny somehow. That was if they ever verified the checks, and the signature against the one of the person who had originally signed for the checks in the first place, and the amount of the payment, and about ten or twelve hundred other details. We were also talking about using it to get Teeth a really hot team of lawyers, maybe track down Tony, maybe even find Augusta — again.
Of course, no amount of badgering got us one dink into the door at Cascade Art Imports in Boston. Mr. Charles Cascade? He never heard of us and he was much too busy. And that letter he’d supposedly written Dally? Not even remotely his signature — probably Lenny’s handwriting, if I had to guess.
So how about Davidson, Peters, and Conner? They never heard of Cascade Art Imports. No such client. Never had. Wasn’t good enough for me. I had other ideas about them. I had to have a little chat with Mr. Davidson face to face. It took some doing, but in the end we just showed up at the offices and Dally’s smile got us a pretty long way.
“Mr. Tucker…Ms. Oglethorpe…you realize that we have no connection with Cascade Art Imports whatsoever.”
I nodded. “Then it won’t be necessary for me to tell you that unless I hear from Tony and Augusta Donne within twenty-four hours, everything that’s happened to us over the course of the past couple of days is going to find its way into every news broadcast, tabloid paper, billboard, and web site I can get to.”
He tried to stay calm. “You have absolutely no proof of anything.”
Dally leaned forward. “Oh, really? How about two eyewitnesses? How about files at the GIMH? How about anything we can scrape up off the floor over at One St. Dominic? Just for instance.” Had to love her.
He consulted the top of his desk, cleared his throat, blinked. “I can’t tell you that Mr. Donne will call you…at your home? In, say, six hours? Do you understand what I’m saying?”
Dally gave him the number.
I wasn’t finished. “By the way, did I tell you I bought some stock in Cascade Art Imports? I’m very interested in their progress.” I smiled. “Do you understand what I’m saying?”
As we were leaving I was thinking of five or six good lawyer jokes I’d heard. The first one starts,
“What’s the difference between a dead weasel in a drainpipe and a lawyer?”
But sure enough, just after dinner that very night the phone rang.
“Flap?”
“Tony?”
“Can’t talk. Everything’s cool. An’ I understand I have you and Dally to thank for my not bein’ a stiff…at this juncture.”
“Think nothing of it. Where are you?”
He lowered his voice. “No time. Me an’ Aggie’s gettin’ out.”
“Out?”
“Of the country. When it’s all settled down you’ll hear — promise.”
And before I could get another word out, there was nothing but a buzz on the other end. I looked over at Dally.
She’s always one for knowing when to throw in the towel. “Yeah, well…that’s that.”
And for a while we both thought so. Teeth was still in jail, pending further investigation, but it looked pretty much like the case against him was petering out, as they sometimes say. Especially since a new girl had been killed at the Tip Top when he was in custody. Aside from hating the city’s food, he was doing okay. He’d be out by New Year’s Eve.
Still, Dally put in a call to
a pal of hers on the force — one for the home team. “Sil? Dally. Thought you’d like a kick, not that it’s gonna do anybody any good. The two dancers in the car trunk in Buckhead? They were creamed by a guy used to hang out around the Majestic area. Called Looney Lenny. Yeah, that guy. I know. I know. But he skipped the country. I thought you’d be interested.” Beat. “Naw. No proof whatsoever.” Beat. “Right. Tell the wife that Dally says hey.”
I stopped in at the Golden Potala one day. The place was kind of quiet. Linda was there; her father wasn’t. She said he’d come down with something, but I got the impression he just needed a little rest. She thanked me over and over again for chasing away the demon-man. But when I ordered spring rolls they weren’t on the house.
I asked her about Uncle Tegu. She told me he’d left town for points unknown. I’m pretty sure she really didn’t know where he’d gone, or why, or very much at all about the real truth of the matter. She seemed kind of sad. I didn’t have the heart to tell her the whole story, especially about how her uncle had more or less ratted out her whole family. And I think I had in the back of my mind the happy thought that maybe, just by making Tegu think I’d chased away the shark car, I’d halted the flood of family heirlooms from Tibet, made things a little tougher in the importing game. And even though he’d gotten away with murder, maybe Lenny hadn’t gotten away with the treasures of Buddha.
When I left I asked Linda if she’d give my regards to her father. She said she would, but I don’t know if she did or not.
Then, a couple of days later over at Dally’s for a late-night dinner, out of the blue, as they also say, this guy Paul called.
“Flap. Sorry it took so long. I called your place. Your machine said call you at this number. Where are you?”
“Paul? You got something?”
“Yeah, actually.”
“So?”
“Bracelets belonged to the girls with the hair you gave me. No doubt.”
“Yeah. I was pretty sure.”
Easy (A Flap Tucker Mystery Book 1) Page 21
