Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine 01/01/11

by Dell Magazines

  “I should go. Get away from here.”

  “Nix. Here. Have one of Miss Karin’s cigarettes. Let’s talk.” I took out the pack of Old Golds. There were a couple of cigarettes left in it, and I shook them partway out in offering.

  “Silly man. Those smokes loaded.”

  I smiled at her, took one between my lips, and put the deck back in my pocket. She was letting the barrel of the Luger droop down and slightly away from my chest. “So, how did Pacho know I was out here last night with the Mercury?”

  “Mr. Maldau call him.”

  “Maldau was in Half Moon, Bao-yu. How would he know? Do you think Karin called and told him?”

  “How I know? You ask her?”

  “Didn’t have to. I know who called him. You were the only other party here last night, Bao-yu. You weren’t Karin’s maid. You were her keeper. You watched her for Maldau. You were his partner. This is good reefer, Bao-yu. Where’s it from?”

  “Indochine.” She said it the French way. The Luger came up, but while we were chinning, I had moved into position. I sidearmed a cushion off the couch at her with my left. She tracked it with the tip of the Luger as if it was a clay pigeon, and she blasted it. I sprang at Bao-yu and I was on target, too. She went down on her back hard and her head bounced on the wooden floor.

  I pinned her arms and straddled her, sitting on her stomach. My right arm was still weak, but I had good control of her gun hand with my left. She wiggled like a snake in a sauté pan of hot oil under my spread legs.

  “Overby,” I yelled out, “are you still on? This is Frank Swiver.”

  His voice came over the line like an old recording on a weak radio station. “Swiver. I thought I recognized that voice. Yeah, I stayed on.”

  I yelled out the address. “I’ve got three homicides here. Mr. and Mrs. Agustin Maldau. They’re the owners of the house. Mr. Maldau was bringing in marijuana and selling it wholesale. Pacho Valdes of Oakland, one of his big customers, killed them both. Yan Bao-yu, Mrs. Maldau’s maid, shot Pacho.”

  “You holding the maid?”

  “She got away.”

  “I’ll be there in fifteen minutes,” said Overby, and I could hear him hang up.

  I took the gun from her hand and sat up on my heels.

  “You shoot Bao-yu now?”

  “No. Too many have died.” It wasn’t my line; it was Hammett’s, but I liked it. “Besides, you saved my life.” I hung up the phone, went out to the living room and got the keys to the Merc off Maldau, and walked out to get it. Some fog was rolling in, but the wind had abated a bit. When I got back, there was no sign of Bao-yu. Maldau’s Jaguar was gone.

  I carried Karin in and laid her beautiful cold body out at the foot of the stairs, which seemed to be as good a place as any. If they looked closely, they’d know she was killed somewhere else, no matter where I put the stiff. I was counting on them not looking too closely. I wiped the luger off and dropped it in the sand out back off the deck.

  The weed was good. I took a brick of it from Pacho’s trunk and covered it with sand. I could come back and dig it up later. For now, I sat on the deck in the fog and listened to the Pacific Ocean wash in. There’d been a jug of Sardinian wine on the kitchen counter. I waited for the buzzers, drank from the bottle, and thought about the tall blonde who’d come to me about the hot boiler.

  Copyright © 2010 by Harley Mazuk. Black Mask Magazine title, logo and mask device copyright 2010 by Keith Alan Deutsch. Licensed by written permission.