Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine 01/01/11

by Dell Magazines

  Karin had driven to meet Pacho in Golden Gate Park last night. He checked the merchandise; she counted the money. Then they had locked both in the trunk and took the Mercury to the Sorrento Motor Inn. They’d stayed there before. Not thinking about any risk, they left everything in the trunk and hurried up to the room, where they smoked some jujus, drank some wine, and made love.

  In the morning, the car was gone. Pacho flew into a rage. Not only was his jacket and ID in the trunk with the illegal merchandise, he figured the Maldaus had set him up to make off with his stake and keep the dope. He slapped Karin around until he finally started to believe her that it hadn’t been a setup. Then he brought her downtown to the Rose Building and forced her to wait for me.

  “How did you pick me?”

  She just shrugged. “Pacho found your name in the phone book. I think he wanted to go somewhere no one would see us. You seemed right.” I made a mental note to cancel my ad in the Yellow Pages for next year.

  “After you agreed to the job, we took a streetcar out Geary. Pacho picked up his car in the park and told me to call him in Oakland when I heard from you. I rode out further and walked home.”

  “Did you call him?”

  “Yes, tonight at ten, after you called me. But he doesn’t know yet that you are here or that you recovered the money and the goods.

  “When I came home this morning, Agustin was here. I told him I had left the car at my girlfriend’s because it wouldn’t start, that I would get it this afternoon. But he didn’t believe me. He beat me until I told him the truth. Then, when he knew I’d spent the night with Pacho and lost the money and the car, he beat me some more. I passed out, Mr. Swiver. When I came to, he was gone. Bao-yu, my maid, helped me upstairs and into bed. She told me Agustin had gone to Half Moon. That is where he brings in most of his merchandise. Then I slept.”

  “Did you tell Agustin you hired me?”

  “Yes. I am sorry.”

  “That doesn’t matter.” I might have to look over my shoulder for a week or so, but I was betting Agustin Maldau would forget about me when he saw he had his car and his money back.

  Karin put on a robe and came out to the Mercury with me. I opened the trunk. She picked up the bag of jack. I picked up the sack of weed. “Leave it,” she said. “And the jacket. I must meet Pacho and deliver his goods. Only then will I be safe.” She took the money and started back in.

  “Listen,” I said, “I’d better get going.”

  “I will give you the other two hundred.” She opened the black satchel. I told her she already paid me enough for one day’s work. “Then wait while I put something on. I will give you a ride.” It was eleven-fifteen.

  “I don’t want to be any trouble to you. I’ll walk down to Geary and get a streetcar. See you, Mrs. Maldau.”

  “Don’t be silly. I must go out anyhow to meet Pacho. Where can I drop you?”

  I told her Lafayette Square.

  ---9---

  Karin Maldau had a box of license plates in her garage. She selected a fresh one and gave it to me to put on the Mercury in place of mine. I offered to drive, but she insisted she could see through both eyes. She sat erect in the seat, well back from the wheel, her gams spread enough to work the gas and clutch, and her skirt up above the knees. She handled the wheel and gearshift like a farm girl might help a pregnant horse deliver a colt, with care, but with the firmness needed to do the job right. She smoked, and I asked for one. She tossed the Old Gold pack into my lap.

  “What about the drugs, Mr. Swiver? Will you be going to the police?”

  “You hired me to find your car. I did. If I went to the police, there’s nothing I could tell them without violating your confidence. That would be bad for business.” I looked back over my shoulder for a tail. Carrying that sack of weed in the trunk made me edgy. “What about the maid? She’s quite the hot little number.”

  She smiled, for the first time, and exhaled a long cloud of smoke. I lit up. I hadn’t had Old Golds for some time; this one tasted fresh.

  “Really? I never noticed.”

  “Any boyfriends?” I asked.

  “No. I always thought of Bao-yu as rather asexual.”

  “How far can you trust her?”

  “Oh, completely. Agustin hired her for me when we got married. She does everything for me. She knows Agustin’s business, but she’s completely loyal. I’m sure we have nothing to fear from her.”

  I wasn’t so confident. “I’ll give you some advice.”

  “I’m listening, Mr. Swiver.”

  “Drop these guys, Mrs. Maldau. They play rough. You’re lucky you’re still walking around. And you’re talking like Lauren Bacall.”

  She put a hand to her throat. “I was throttled,” she said.

  “It’s only going to get worse. Drugs is a bad business. It looks like gravy for a while, but it’s poison underneath. You don’t belong in this.” I took a drag on the Old Gold. Trying times? Try a smooth Old Gold.

  “Will you come with me to Oakland, to deliver the goods to Pacho? I would feel safer.”

  “That would make me a knowing accessory in a crime, Mrs. Maldau.” I checked behind us one more time. Then I looked again at her knees. Her skirt had slid up another inch or so.

  “I would pay you to be my bodyguard.” She held her cigarette between her lips, steered with her left hand, and dropped her right hand down onto my leg and rubbed lightly. When we came to a red light, she took her cigarette in her left hand and leaned across for a lingering kiss. That was a surprise, but it was nothing compared to what she did next. She exhaled a long drag of smoke down my gullet.

  The light turned green. I coughed. “Say, these aren’t regular Old Golds.”

  “They’re Old Gold Kings,” she said, and giggled.

  I found that funny too. “Old Gold Kings. Ha, ha.”

  “Ha, ha, ha.” We had a good laugh together. I tried another drag on my cigarette.

  “I empty the tobacco out, combine with marijuana, and pack the blend back in. Good, no?”

  “Good, yes,” I said. At the next red light, we leaned together for more kissing. Her right hand moved into my crotch and I slid a paw up her right leg, which she held muscled down on the brake pedal. In a couple of blocks, she turned left at Presidio Avenue and pulled to a stop in front of the Casa Rosa Inn. This dame knew all the classy flops between the ocean and Oakland.

  “Get us a room, Frank.” It took willpower to break the clinch, but I went into the office. I signed us in as Mr. and Mrs. Francis Kennedy, paid four and a half bucks in advance, and got the key for room 24. I saw a small bodega open across California Street, gave Mrs. Kennedy-Maldau the room key, and went across to get us a bottle of wine. I must have been getting high, because I nearly stepped out in front of a chopped and lowered sled. I should have been able to see it coming—there were flames painted on the side.

  ---10---

  You can imagine what happened. We smoked a couple sticks of tea and drank that bottle of wine, an Italian Swiss Colony red, if anybody asks. The next thing I recall was coming out of a dream, but in the instant of waking, I forgot the dream. I opened my eyes to the sun coming in on my face through the Venetian blinds. I turned over, and found myself naked and alone. Water ran in the bathroom. Karin’s rags were draped over a chair. It was just after six-thirty.

  I got myself upright and realized I felt good. The bathroom door was open, so I popped in, and stood at the toilet. “Karin, how you feeling this morning?” There was no answer. When I was finished at the bowl, I smiled and stuck my head inside the shower curtain. The tub was empty. I blinked but it was still empty. I turned off the water and got dressed.

  My first thought was that when I got downstairs, I’d find the Mercury gone, like it had been last night. But it was out front on Presidio where we’d parked it. Some small detail looked wrong, though. It was the key, sticking out of the trunk lock.

  It was very bright out, and I took my sunglasses out of my sport coat pocket and p
ut them on. I looked up and down Presidio. I was the only one out on the street. A bakery truck was double-parked by the bodega, making a delivery, and a couple of cars were at the gas station on the far corner.

  I weaved across the white pavement, like a nervous spider. I lifted the trunk lid. The still-wet, naked body of Karin Maldau lay folded in the trunk. The head and neck were at an unnatural angle. I put two fingers on her pulse, hoping for a beat, but it was nothing doing. The canvas bag of dope was gone. I closed the trunk lid quietly and pocketed the keys.

  Now I was in that dream I couldn’t remember dreaming a few minutes ago, back upstairs. It was a bad dream, and I couldn’t wake up. It was so bright out, I felt a need to get out of the sunlight.

  I got in the Mercury and fired it up. I pulled out on Presidio Avenue and drove north to California Street, taking it easy. Let’s see, it wasn’t my car, the plates were phony or stolen, and there was a dead blonde in the trunk. If a copper nailed me now for running a stop sign, I was looking at two life terms if the jury liked me. I decided to go back to the Casa Rosa and pick up Karin’s clothes, and see what traces I’d left in the room. Maybe I’d even find a clue.

  I pulled into the alley east of Presidio. Up in room 24, I wiped down anything I thought might have my prints on it, packed Karin’s clothes in a pillow case, and picked up the unfinished pack of Old Golds.

  There were a few hairs on the bedding, some blond, some of mine. I picked up the ones I could see. I gathered some more blond hair from the shower drain, and flushed it all down the toilet.

  As I walked out from the bathroom to the door, something caught my eye on the floor near the radiator. It was a pair of dark glasses, men’s. Someone had been here who wore shades in the early morning. Karin had struggled enough to knock them off, and after he’d killed her and put her in the trunk, he thought it was too risky to come back for the sunglasses.

  I picked up the shades and went down the back steps into the alley. Whoever snatched Karin probably went this way too, or the kid on the desk might have noticed someone abducting a naked five-foot ten-inch blonde through his lobby. But there was nothing to find out back in the alley, so I drove the Mercury out to the Maldaus’.

  ---11---

  At nine o’clock, I parked on a side street off Lincoln Boulevard and made my way along the beach towards the Maldau place. I found a footpath that led up to 25th Avenue North, and hustled up it. The house was quiet. There was a new Jaguar roadster in the driveway, and a low-slung modified car with flames painted on the side parked in the street out front. I think it had once been a Chevy. I slipped into a service alley wide enough for a man on the west side of the house, and made my way back to the beach side, where there was a big redwood deck across the rear. I found some French doors, slipped my knife between them, forced the lock, and slipped into the Maldau kitchen.

  I went through the dining room to the front parlor, where I saw two men. One, in a sharkskin suit, had grey hair and his back was to me. The other wore a zoot suit. He faced me, but now he had no sunglasses. I was backlit by the sun in the east windows of the dining room. I took out an Old Gold King from Karin’s pack and lit up. The zoot-suit kid said, “What are you doing here?” Then the other gent turned around.

  “Ah, you must be Mr. Swiver,” he said, with equanimity.

  “And you’re Agustin Maldau,” I said with what self-possession I could muster. “I brought your Mercury back. Nice ride.” I tossed the keys at his face, but he snagged them with the grace of Joe DiMaggio pulling in a liner to center. “Pardon me for not knocking, Maldau. I haven’t had my morning coffee and thought I’d see if you had any on in the kitchen. Why don’t you introduce me to your friend in the Sleepy Lagoon getup?” The kid had reached in his pants and pulled out a nickel-plated Colt revolver. It was pointing my way and it was a dangerous gun, but I was twelve or fifteen feet away, and I thought he was having trouble looking into the sun.

  “Ha, ha, ha. Sure. This is Pacho Valdes. Pacho, meet Frank Swiver. He’s the gentleman who recovered your goods. He’s a shamus.”

  “Do we need bean-shooters, Maldau?”

  “I should hope not. Pacho, put up your gun.”

  “No hasta que tiro este maricón.” Pacho was being disingenuous; I figured he had first-hand knowledge of my sexual bent.

  Maldau’s eyes hardened and he pulled a blue automatic out of his jacket pocket. “Put it away, Pacho. Now. I don’t want you to shoot him in my house.” That registered, and the kid lost the revolver somewhere in the pleats of his trousers. “Now go see if he’s rodded.”

  “I’m not, but if I was, it would take more than this greaseball to take it from me.”

  “Skip the tough-guy stuff, Swiver. I’m not letting you get the drop on us. Pacho.” Maldau nodded in my direction, and the zoot-suit kid swaggered over. I let him search me with what he thought was a rough flourish. I’ve had worse.

  “He’s clean,” he told Maldau. Maldau put his heater back in his pocket.

  “By the way, how is Mrs. Maldau today?” I said. “Or haven’t you seen her?”

  “I don’t want to see her.” He spit on the carpet.

  “I brought her home. She’s dead. I figure Pacho knows about that.” Pacho slugged me on the button with a short right hand. I rolled my head back with it, and kept my feet planted.

  “Cabrón,” he muttered through clenched teeth. My lip started to bleed. I spit on the carpet.

  “Yeah, I figured it was like that. See, Mr. Maldau, Karin was in bed with me.”

  “And for that she died. You were one too many, smart guy. I told Pacho to kill her. Pacho was business, but her skating with you was ... well, she should have known I couldn’t allow that.”

  “You told Pacho?”

  “That’s right. When you brought the car back, I called him. I told him to get out here, follow you two, and pick up his goods. I said if he blipped Karin off too, he could come back this morning and I’d give him his money back in payment.”

  “Yeah,” said Pacho. “Let’s get on with that, man. I want to get out of here.”

  “Certainly, my friend,” said Maldau. “Your money is in the desk in the library. It’s still in your bag. Please go ahead. Second drawer on the right.” Maldau pointed at another set of doors across the room. Pacho rolled across the room as if he was walking underwater. “And Mr. Swiver, we must decide what to do with you. Get in here and sit down.” Maldau’s gun came out of his pocket again. I stepped down to the living room and found a leather chair. He sidled across to the front window, keeping me covered. He moved the curtain for a quick look, then did a double take.

  “Where is the Mercury?”

  “Parked nearby. How did you know I was out here last night with the car?”

  “I’m not ready to tell that yet. Where did you park? Where is the body?”

  “I’m not ready to tell that yet.” I said. He was across the room in two steps and tried to pistol-whip me. I ducked enough so he just got my shoulder. I don’t think it cracked the clavicle, but pain shot down my right arm.

  About then, Pacho Valdes returned from the library with the same black leather bag I’d found in the trunk. He held it in front of himself by one handle, and his right hand dug around inside the satchel. Maldau turned to face him. “Pacho, we’ve got to find the Mercury.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I found it last night. I don’t want to look for it again. It’s your problem.”

  Maldau stretched his lips thin with hatred. “You little punk. He’s got the body in the trunk. Don’t screw with me. You killed her. You need my protection.”

  “I don’t think so. I got my money.”

  Maldau started to raise his gun at Pacho. A hole ripped through the end of the black bag. There was a muffled boom, and Maldau clutched his gut. Two more booms, and shreds of money and leather flew out of the bag. Maldau went down. Pacho withdrew his right hand and the smoking revolver from the satchel
, and snapped the sides shut.

  “Now I can shoot you anyplace I want, maricón.”

  “Maybe you can’t see me so good without your shades, Pacho.” I stood up and backed towards the dining room and the eastern light.

  “Maybe I come a little closer, smart guy.”

  When Pacho reached the middle of the living room, there was a roar from behind him, and he lurched forward as if he’d been poleaxed. Another explosion and he dropped his pistol and clutched the red blossom on the front of his suit. His eyes rolled up into his head and he fell on his face. Behind him stood Yan Bao-yu with a Luger in her hand.

  “I hear everything. He kill Missy Karin.”

  I finished the Old Gold and put the butt in an ashtray. I was pretty stoned.

  ---12---.

  I stepped into the library where Pacho had just been and found a phone on the desk. I had it in my hand and had already dialed the number for the cops when Bao-yu came in.

  “Who you call?”

  “Police,” I said. It was a delicate moment. She seemed to be a good shot.

  “Put phone down. No want police.”

  “Put Luger down, Bao-yu. I’m Miss Karin’s friend. You saved me from Pacho.” The cops picked up. I heard, “Homicide, Overby,” come over the wire.

  “Ha! Maybe that mistake. I let Pacho shoot you, I no have to.” She wore a natural-colored raw silk tunic and black silk pajama pants. She looked just as arousing in that getup with a gun in her hand as she had last night in the kimono.

  “You don’t have to shoot me, Bao-yu.” I put the receiver down easy on the desk, but didn’t break the connection. I stepped to my left and held my hands out to the sides. “Here’s what we can do. We’ll have some law out here. This morning, Pacho broke Karin’s neck. Then he shot Maldau. Now Pacho’s dead. The law’s not going to waste time on him.”