MICHAEL LISTER'S FIRST THREE SERIES NOVELS: POWER IN THE BLOOD, THE BIG GOODBYE, THUNDER BEACH

by Michael Lister

  I still couldn’t be sure if she were faking or not, so I decided to hit her with the death of her friend and see what happened.

  “Lauren,” I said. “Margie’s dead too.”

  “No,” she said. “Oh God, no.”

  “Beaten to death just like Freddy.”

  She began to cry harder. She seemed genuinely upset, but I still couldn’t be sure. After all, she had been convincing when she told me she’d love me for the rest of her life too.

  “Lauren, what’s going on?” I asked. “What are you involved in? It can’t just be one of your extramarital indiscretions.”

  Her head was bowed forward, her face in her hands, little moans escaping periodically.

  I pulled up in front of her house on Beach Drive overlooking the bay and parked next to the curb. The rain was only a light drizzle now, more mist than anything else, and the land and water, even the houses and cars, seemed clean and fresh.

  “Let me help you,” I said. “I can—”

  “You’re the last person who could help me,” she said, opening her door. “All you can do is make things worse. Please, if you ever loved me, stay away from me.”

  Chapter 19

  Too wound up after dropping Lauren off to even think about sleeping, I bought a bottle of Cobbs Creek and drove to the Dixie Sherman.

  When Jan Christie opened the door of the small wooden lookout shack on the roof and saw me standing there agitated and holding a brown paper bag, she shook her head.

  “Not tonight, soldier,” she said. “We got a live one.”

  One of nearly ninety volunteers known as spotters, Jan spent several hours each night watching the sky for enemy aircraft. Her station was a small wooden enclosure on top of the Dixie Sherman. Like the other volunteers, she had been trained to identify aircraft—both ours and theirs—by sight and sound.

  I wasn’t sure if the “live one” she had tonight was one of theirs or one of ours.

  The flyers of Tyndall Field were bad about buzzing the beaches and bridges, and our spotters spent most of their time “spotting” them instead of the Japs or Germans. Though the base had issued explicit orders that no planes were to be flown beneath 1,000 feet and north of Highway 98, there was still the occasional pilot who had to test his wings.

  “I brought your favorite,” I said, holding up the whiskey.

  “Every time she’s close enough to get her poison in you,” she said, “you show up here wantin’ me to cut the wound open and suck out the venom.”

  Not nearly as beautiful or regal as Lauren, there was something about Jan that made me think of her. It was in her attitude, her posture, the hunger beneath her plaid skirt and white blouse. She was right. I only used her, treating her the way Lauren had treated me, and finding temporary relief. Very temporary. And not just because I was so limited in what I could do. The next morning I would always feel far worse than Lauren ever made me feel, my self-inflicted sickness and inexcusable cruelty toward a girl whose only sin was letting me, making me hate myself more even than Lauren.

  “Can I just sit here and drink?” I asked.

  Before she could answer, her radio sounded and she stepped back inside her station.

  Folding up my raincoat, I spread it out on the top of two wet wooden steps, sat down, and leaned on the door she had just closed. Holding the bottle between my legs, I broke the seal and unscrewed the cap with my hand. Dropping the cap and pushing back the paper bag, I turned up the bottle and took a long swig, letting the alcohol tingle my mouth and burn my throat.

  Through the thin wooden door, I could hear the details of the situation they were dealing with. A flyer from Tyndall Field had already zoomed down beneath the Hathaway Bridge when it was open for boat traffic, and now that it was closed again, looked to be planning to fly beneath its span with vehicles on top of it.

  “Guy’s tryin’ to kill himself,” I said.

  She didn’t answer.

  “Must’ve fallen for the wrong woman.”

  I took a few more pulls on the bottle and thought about what I was doing. I couldn’t blame Lauren’s power over me or Jan’s weakness against me. I alone was responsible for the damage I was doing. I had become a carrier and was infecting her. I had to stop.

  Standing up slowly, I placed the bottle down on the step I had been sitting on and walked away. When I reached the exit door, I told her I was sorry and that I wouldn’t be back, but I wasn’t sure she heard it.

  When the elevator door opened in the lobby, I saw Ray standing there. He held up his hands in a defensive gesture.

  “Don’t hit me,” he said. “Don’t hit me.”

  I smiled. “Who knew Ray Parker had a sense of humor?” I said. “What are you doing here?”

  “Meeting with Harry Lewis,” he said.

  “You two got a room?” I said.

  “Don’t judge, Jimmy,” he said. “We might just turn out to be very happy together.”

  “Again with the humor,” I said. “What gives?”

  “Good day in court,” he said.

  I nodded.

  “Any progress on finding Mrs. Lewis?”

  I nodded again. “She’s home.”

  His eyebrows shot up and he gave me a small nod.

  “Impressive,” he said. “You must have had a hell of a teacher. Where was she?”

  “Sanatorium on Eleventh Street,” I said. “Run by a quack named Rainer.”

  “Good work. As far as meeting with Harry,” he said, “he thinks Frank Howell is playing dirty and may even be using his wife to do it.”

  “Lauren?”

  “Don’t jump to any conclusions,” he said. “Wouldn’t be the first time a husband was wrong about his wife.”

  I thought about what he had said and how Lauren had been acting.

  “Whatta you think?” he asked.

  “That Harry doesn’t know his wife,” I said. “She might cheat on him, but she’d never betray him.”

  “You headed home?” he asked.

  I nodded.

  “I’ll swing by after I talk with Lewis,” he said. “Let’s see if we can’t find a handle on this thing.”

  Chapter 20

  When I got out of my car in front of the Cove Hotel and started toward my room, Pete and Butch stepped out of the shadows of a large shrub and walked toward me.

  “Arms up,” Butch said. “Well, arm.”

  I did as he said.

  He walked up to me cautiously and patted me down, hitting me hard with his large hands.

  “Where is it?” Butch asked.

  “Where’s what?”

  It had stopped raining, but the air was still heavy with moisture, and the raindrop-covered surfaces all around us glistened in the lamplights.

  Pete said, “Where have you been, Jimmy?”

  “Where’s what?” I asked.

  “The piece you used,” Butch said.

  “For what?”

  “Where you been, Jimmy?” Pete asked again.

  “Around,” I said. “Why?”

  “It’s awfully late,” he said.

  “It is,” I said. “What are you boys doing up?”

  “About to take you down, smart guy,” Butch said.

  “For what?”

  “Come on, Jimmy,” Pete said. “You gotta level with us. Why’re you acting like this?”

  “’Cause I don’t trust your new partner,” I said. “I haven’t done anything, but he won’t believe that. He’s gonna keep on until he nails me for something and he doesn’t care what or if I even did it.”

  “Nobody’s looking to—”

  “Why’d you kill him?” Butch asked.

  “See?” I said to Pete, then turning to Butch, “Who?”

  “Don’t give me that,” he said. “You know good and goddam well who.”

  I assumed he was talking about Mountain, but I wasn’t about to say it. I wondered how they had tied me to his death so quickly. The night nurse? Did they have Clip? Would they go after Lauren?<
br />
  “Pete,” I said. “You gotta help me out here. At least tell me who I’m being framed for killing.”

  “Let’s take a ride,” he said.

  “Do I have a choice?” I asked.

  “No,” Butch said.

  “Come on, Jimmy,” Pete said. “It’s me. Don’t make us your enemies. You know I’ll help you out no matter what you’ve done.”

  He actually thought I might have done it, too.

  “I think you mean if I’ve done anything,” I said.

  “If you took him out,” he said, “you did us a favor, and we’ll look out for you. Just don’t play us for saps. That’s all I’m saying.”

  The little gray gunsel the big guy had called Cab had been killed like the others. He had been beaten to death. He was sitting at the base of an oak tree in an empty lot just a few blocks from Rainer’s sanatorium, his upper body slumped forward. His hat was missing and his wet hair hung down in front. The closest house was half a mile away.

  “You think I did this?” I asked.

  “You’ll do just fine for it,” Butch said.

  “And you thought I was being paranoid,” I said to Pete.

  “He didn’t mean it, Jimmy,” he said. “Just tell us you didn’t do it. Tell us where you were.”

  As Butch stared at the body, he rubbed his boxer’s nose with his index finger.

  The ground was soft and damp, wet blades of grass and bits of sand clinging to our shoes. Raindrops falling from oak leaves hit the earth with a dull thud and the nearby street with a wet slap.

  “Why don’t you two tell me a few things first,” I said. “How did I get the drop on him? He’s obviously a guy who carries a gun.”

  “Maybe you had a gun of your own,” Butch said.

  “Okay, so I’ve got a gun,” I said. “I get the drop on him, take his gun, then—what?”

  They had both reacted to something I said, their faces twitching before quickly recovering.

  Pete reached down and pulled open Cab’s soggy coat to reveal the butt of his gun still snugly in his shoulder holster.

  “You just said that part about taking his gun ’cause you knew his gun was still holstered under his coat,” Butch said.

  I laughed and shook my head. “Hear that Pete? Things change that much since I left the force? It’s not find who did it, but find someone you can pin it on.”

  “It ain’t like that, Jimmy,” Pete said. “I ain’t gonna let anybody set you up for something you didn’t do. Go ahead with what you were saying.”

  “So I’ve got a gun on him and his is in his coat,” I said. “And since I can’t hold a gun on him with one arm and hit him with another, he’s kind enough to let me put my gun up, then begin to beat him to death with my left hand—all the while not fighting back or taking out his gun to convince me to stop hitting him.”

  Pete looked at Butch.

  “How’d you know he had a gun?”

  “His kind always do,” I said.

  He didn’t say anything.

  Butch pulled out a pack of Fleetwoods, tapped one out, put it in his mouth, and returned the pack to his coat pocket. He then tried to light it with a match, cupping his hands around the flickering flame. It took him a while, but he stuck with it and finally got it lit.

  “The other thing that would bother me, this were my case,” I said, “is why.”

  “Why what?” Butch asked.

  “Why this guy?” I said. “What’s my motive?”

  “I’m sure it has something to do with a case you’re working,” Butch said.

  “Butch,” Pete said. “Come on. He’s right. He didn’t do this.”

  “If he didn’t, he knows who did,” he said.

  I thought about Clip. Why didn’t he just shoot him? I had never known him to beat a man to death when he had a perfectly good gun in his hand.

  “Come on, Jimmy, I’ll give you a ride home.”

  I turned to see Ray walking up behind us.

  “He ain’t goin’ anywhere,” Butch said. “We’re just getting started.”

  “Hey Ray,” Pete said.

  “Pete,” Ray said.

  Everyone respected Ray. Even the cops.

  “Who the hell you think you are?” Butch asked.

  Well, the smart cops. Ray was not just another PI, but a legend—both as a cop and as a Pinkerton.

  “Ask your boss,” Ray said. “He and the DA will be here any minute.”

  “Sorry, Ray,” Pete said. “He’s new.”

  “Yeah?” Ray said. “What’s your excuse?”

  Ray turned and started walking away, and I followed.

  Butch came up behind Ray. “Who the fuck do you think you are?” he said.

  Ray kept walking.

  “You hungry?” he said to me.

  “I’m talking to you, asshole,” Butch said, but Ray kept walking as if he weren’t.

  Butch made a few more comments before finally shoving Ray in the back with both his big hands. Ray didn’t go forward far, which let me know he had been expecting it. He spun around and hit the big cop with a right hook that landed squarely on his left cheek, jerking his head around. He then snapped out a couple of hard left jabs and finished with a straight overhand right that put the large man on the ground. He turned as if nothing had happened and we continued walking toward his car.

  Chapter 21

  “Thanks,” I said.

  Ray didn’t say anything.

  “Butch’s gonna retaliate,” I said. “And he’s not the kind that’ll come at you from the front.”

  He nodded. “I’ll try not to live in constant fear.”

  I smiled.

  We rode along in silence for a few moments. The rain had moved out, but the world was still wet, a million tiny raindrops refracting Ray’s headlights in the darkness.

  “How’d you know where to find me?” I asked.

  “Got a call from a friend of ours at the station,” he said.

  “Thanks for coming.”

  “Don’t mention it, partner,” he said.

  That hurt. I hadn’t been acting like a partner to him.

  “Would you mind taking Eleventh Street?” I asked. “There’s something I want to see.”

  “Sure,” he said.

  He cut over on one of the side streets, which enabled me to see both the front and the back of Rainer’s sanatorium. It was dark and quiet. No disturbance. No cops. No nothing. Maybe they weren’t going to call the police. Maybe they didn’t want them involved any more than we did. If so, Rainer was far more crooked and Lauren in far more danger than I realized.

  “You gonna tell me what’s going on?” Ray asked.

  I did. Most of it, anyway. I had been feeling guilty for keeping so much from him and he deserved to know—especially when his partner’s picture was spending time on the front page of the paper under headlines that included the words “questioned in connection with a homicide investigation.”

  “How can I help?” he asked.

  No rebuke. No reprimand. No Lauren lecture. Just the offer of assistance.

  “I’m not sure,” I said.

  “What’s your next move?”

  “I’m not sure,” I said again.

  “Any idea who’s behind the murders?”

  I shook my head, though it was too dark for him to see it. “None,” I said. “I was thinking maybe Rainer’s men when I thought they were looking for Lauren, but he already had her—and that wouldn’t explain who killed Cab.”

  “You don’t think Clipper killed Cab?”

  “You could swing by Shine Town and we could ask him.”

  Located in the easternmost section of St. Andrews and originally known as East End, Shine Town was the Negro community named after a big moonshiner named Shine who moved in after the mill closed and made and sold rum. Before him, back when it was East End, a man named Thompson ran a saw mill. Lumber from the head of East Bay was floated down to the head of Massalina Bayou, and the mill workers lived in homes
built by the mill owner known as the quarters.

  Clip lived in a small shack with a bunch of other Negroes. I didn’t think all of them were part of his family, but I wasn’t sure.

  I banged on the sagging wooden door and waited. When it opened, I was staring down the serious end of a double-barrel shotgun, the only thing beside it I could see was the whites of one wide eye.

  “Name's Jimmy Riley,” I said. “I’m a friend of Clip’s. He in?”

  “Put your popgun down, Pookie,” Clip said from somewhere in the small dark structure. “Cracker owes me money. Don’t shoot him ’fore I collect.”

  The shotgun was lowered and I took a few steps back into the muddy front yard. When I looked back at Ray who was sitting in the car, he shook his head. In a moment, a shirtless Clipper Jones joined me.

  “Good way to git your ass shot,” he said. “Be a shame to lose that other arm.”

  “If you had a phone, I’d call first,” I said.

  “If you paid me better, I’d have a phone.”

  “That’s why I’m here,” I said. “We’re gonna give you a bonus for what you did to the little gray man.”

  He looked confused.

  I waited.

  “You mean what I’ll do to him when I find him?” he asked.

  “I thought you had.”

  He shook his head.

  “Somebody did.”

  “Who?” he said. “Who the cracker that took money out my pocket and how much I git, I take him out?”

  “So if it wasn’t Clipper or Rainer’s goons,” Ray said, “who was it?”

  We were back in his car nearing downtown.

  “No idea.”

  “You don’t think the girl could have—

  “No,” I said. “No way.”

  “Okay, partner,” he said. “I just thought somebody should ask.”

  “What about her husband?”

  “Harry?”

  “Or someone he hired.”

  “He hired me.”

  “And you have no idea what Mrs. Lewis is hiding?” he asked.

  I shook my head. “No,” I said, “but it probably involves a man her husband doesn’t know about.”

  He pulled up in front of the Cove Hotel and parked at the curb but didn’t kill his engine.