“It’s possible, but then who was shooting at me in the alley, and why?”
“One mystery at a time, if you please, Harry,” she scolded.
“The only thing we can do now is find Bartlett.”
“What good would that do?”
“Well, for one thing, it’ll prove that I didn’t kill him.”
“Sure, but like you said, the police might just think you missed him and still charge you with those other murders.”
“True, but at least it would get the FBI off my neck for destroying federal evidence—as they refer to Bartlett. Besides, remember Henry told the police Bartlett had said that he knew who the killer was just a few minutes before the explosion. If we can find Bartlett he can tell us who it is. Then we can turn Bartlett and the killer to the FBI and then they can get the other organization man who wanted to turn state’s evidence with Bartlett.”
“I wonder who the other one was?”
“The other what?”
“The other guy who was going to turn state’s evidence.”
I shrugged. “It doesn’t matter, probably Farrow or Putnam or some other punk we never even heard of.”
“How do you plan to go about finding Bartlett?”
“I don’t know,” I said.
We sat at the table a while longer, chins resting on palms in the classic position of contemplation.
“Maybe he has another apartment like this one someplace,” Heather suggested.
“But how do we go about finding it?”
She made a face at me and resumed her thinking position.
“Well,” I said finally, standing up and stretching, “we might as well search this apartment. Maybe there’s an address, or a name, or a phone number written somewhere. It’s better than nothing.”
Heather yawned as if to say maybe it wasn’t better than nothing, but rose dutifully and helped me search. I took us a few hours before we could again resume our chins-in-palms attitude. Our booty (three pennies, a cigarette lighter and a torn joker) lay between us on the kitchen table. We had searched everywhere but Melinda’s room.
“We’d better search her room, too,” I said.
“All right, but let’s try not to wake her up.”
We tiptoed around the room, opening drawers and closets as noiselessly as possible. I was sweeping my arm back and forth under the bed when I was rewarded with the discovery of a black bra bordered with pink lace, the size of which dared me to try and imagine the woman to whom it belonged. I was up to the challenge.
“Psst,” Heather hissed. “Put down your water wings a second and come here.”
I slid across the room and looked into the drawer she held open for me to inspect. Resting lazily on a pile of handkerchiefs was a pistol. I removed it slowly, examining it as if it were a dead body, and ushered Heather out of the room, the gun still in my hand.
“Is this all you found?” I asked her.
“Well, I admit it’s not exactly up to what you uncovered, but it’s the best I can do.”
“She might have had a name tag in it, which could have been the lead we were looking for.”
“It’s big enough to have had the Gettysburg Address in it, let alone her name.”
“Well, it has neither, so all we’re left with is this gun.”
“What good’s that going to do?”
“None right now, but I intend to keep it handy from now on just in case.” I stopped myself from twirling the gun around my finger.
“Do you know anything about how to use it?” she asked skeptically.
“I know how to shoot it if that’s what you mean.”
She cocked her head and frowned at me. I dropped the gun into my jacket pocket, but its weight made me feel off-balance, so I transferred it into my belt; but having that pistol barrel pointing down my pants leg made me a little too nervous.
“All right,” I said, handing it to her. “Keep it in your purse. If I need it, I’ll ask. But don’t bury it in there, keep it ready.”
“Okay, Scarface,” she said, hunching her shoulders and flexing her teeth like Bogart. We laughed as best we could under the circumstances, but were soon back to worrying.
“Are you sure you don’t remember some other apartment address he might have given you at the office? Something?”
She shook her head. “No. Nothing.”
“Where in hell could he have gone?” I asked myself aloud.
“If you mean my father, I know where he is,” Melinda said as she entered the room, her face scrubbed and pretty.
“You do?” I jumped up. “Where?”
“He’s got a beach house out in Malibu he rents under the name of Morrison. He told me last night that that’s where he’d be staying in case he needed anything from me.”
“Melinda, you’re wonderful,” I exclaimed joyfully.
“Of course, we should have asked her before,” Heather nodded with sage insight.
Melinda hid her slight smile, lowering her head. “Look, Mr. Gould, I’m really sorry about what happened.”
“Come on, Melinda, I’m still Harry to you. And we’ll forget about it for now, but only on the condition that you revive your memory for my trial.”
“It’s a deal,” she said, this time displaying a bright smile.
“Then let’s all eat,” I suggested. “I’ve got some questions to ask tonight, and I don’t want to do it on an empty stomach.”
We all hurried about the small kitchen, happily bumping into each other as we scrambled up some eggs and potatoes, our options being somewhat limited.
I had just finished mopping my mouth with a napkin when I announced my intention of leaving for a visit with Bartlett.
“It could be dangerous,” Heather warned.
“I don’t think so. The way I figure it, he’s probably just as scared now as I am. He’s running from the police, the FBI and whoever tried to kill him.”
“I’m going with you,” Heather proclaimed suddenly.
“You can’t go,” I said.
“I’m going too,” Melinda added.
“Now look neither of you is going.”
“Yes we are,” they argued.
“Nobody’s going nowhere,” a voice growled from behind me.
“You heard him, girls, nobody’s go . . .” I stopped as it suddenly occurred to me that a fourth party had joined in our little squabble. I turned slowly toward the voice but my eyes were distracted by the gun he was pointing at us.
“All right, where’s the money?” he demanded impatiently.
“Are you sure you’ve got the right apartment?” I asked.
“What are you trying to be, funny?”
“Not at all. It’s just that we don’t have any money so I thought you may have stumbled accidentally into the wrong apartment.”
He smiled. “See this, fella?” he said raising his gun. “This says I got the right apartment, so the only stumbling that’s going to be done around here is when my fist starts stumbling into your mouth.” He chuckled to himself.
I was neither in the mood nor the position to disagree with him. I flashed a look at Heather and Melinda to stay calm, to play along and follow my lead. My lead was to sit still with my mouth shut.
The man with the gun moved cautiously about the apartment checking rooms and closets until he was satisfied we were alone, then he began a methodical under-the-carpet search. He was tall and slim, with a jacket that hung too broad and pants that fell too short. He worked a toothpick back and forth in his mouth until it became soggy and needed replacing, which he did immediately. His eyes were a washed-out blue, so washed-out in fact, that at a distance it sometimes seemed that they had no pupils at all.
I casually scanned the apartment for Heather’s pocketbook with the gun, but it was at least ten feet away. He continued searching the apartment with a professional’s efficiency, constantly glancing back to us and pointing his gun. He said nothing, only occasionally swearing to himself. I decided at least to try and g
et some answers from him.
“Maybe it would be easier if we all helped you look,” I suggested.
He grinned and shook his head, but said nothing.
“I must have a word with the doorman. He knows he’s supposed to announce all guests. But then you’ve been here before, haven’t you, Mr . . . Mr . . .”
He looked at me half in amusement and half in annoyance, as if he wasn’t sure whether to split a beer with me or split my skull.
“Sarris is the name, buddy, Carroll Sarris. And I don’t want no wisecracks about my first name being a girl’s. I want you to know there’ve been lots of famous men named Carroll. Now, I want you all to go into the bedroom so I can keep an eye on you while I search it. You know, you’d save us all a lot of time if you just told me where the money is. Believe me, no matter how much he paid you, it ain’t gonna be worth it.”
“Just who is supposed to be paying us?” Heather asked as we trooped off into the bedroom.
“Come off it lady. I know who you all are. You were his secretary, she was his daughter, and laughing boy here was his bodyguard. By the way, nice work, fella.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that was nice the way you knocked him off. A little sloppy, but effective.”
“Now wait a minute Carroll . . .”
“You making some kind of crack?”
“No, I was just . . .”
“Well, I’m just making sure. I don’t like people making fun of my name. A guy made a crack once and I had the name tattooed across his forehead.”
“It wasn’t a crack. It’s just that I didn’t . . .”
“But you made one mistake,” he went on. It was like talking to a blender. “You kept the money. Now you shouldn’t’ve done that. You must’ve known they’d send someone around to get it back. I mean, it ain’t just the money, it’s the principle,” he orated, striking an Abraham Lincoln pose by grabbing his coat lapels—though somewhat awkwardly with the gun in his hand.
“Nothing in here,” he said, guiding us by gunpoint to the other bedroom where he continued searching. “I don’t know what got into him but he must’ve really flipped out to think he could get away with embezzling a million bucks from his own organization. He must’ve known we’d find out sooner or later. It’s too bad, though, they said he was a real genius. But that’s the trouble with geniuses, they think everybody else is stupid. I guess that’s what made him think he could get away with it.”
The three of us sat quietly on the bed while Carroll rambled and rummaged on. As long as he thought I had killed Bartlett he would talk about things he assumed I already knew. It appeared from the way he talked, that Carroll was not the one who had set the bomb off, nor was he the one who had tried to kill me in the alley. But then again, regardless of the way he talked now, he was still a professional on a job and he knew how to act dumb if the occasion called for it.
“Well, that about does it,” he announced as he came out of the connecting bathroom. He stood over us with a cold silent stare, his toothpick motionless. “Now I’ve been real straight with all of you, and what do I get in return? Nothing. But I’m going to give you one more chance to tell me where the money is. After that, I go to work on you the hard way. And believe you me it’ll be hard on you, not me. I’ve got this special technique. The boys in the trade call it ‘the slave maker.’ Ten minutes with me and you’re my slave for life. Well, where’s the money?”
Melinda and Heather looked at me and I looked at Carroll and wondered if his parents had known what an injustice they had done to society by naming him Carroll.
“It’s in the kitchen,” I blurted out.
“Where in the kitchen,” he asked suspiciously, his eyes seemed to lose even more color until all I could make out was a black iris floating about like a fly in clam chowder soup.
“In the garbage disposal. I disconnected it and hid the money down the drain.”
He smiled triumphantly. “Well now, that little bit of information is going to save you all a lot of pain,” he said, suddenly switching into a Gary Cooper drawl. “Unless of course it isn’t there. ’Cause if it isn’t, well, I don’t think you even want to hear what’s going to happen to you then. Come on let’s go.” He motioned with the gun toward the kitchen and we marched slowly out. I worked my way out front in the hopes that I could grab Heather’s pocketbook on the way into the kitchen, while Heather and Melinda obstructed his vision behind me.
The purse was still wedged between the cushions of the couch. As I approached the couch I could feel my blood actually chill in my veins. My throat was dry but my hands were sweaty. I had to make a dive for it, grabbing it as I flipped over the couch. Hopefully the surprise would give me a few seconds to get the gun out and start shooting. Hopefully I’d attract all the shooting and Heather and Melinda could get away. Hopefully somebody would hear the shots and call the police. Hopefully I wouldn’t pass out before I reached the couch.
I began estimating the distance between myself and the purse. Fifteen steps. Each one seemed to take an hour. I thought I was forgetting how to walk. I had to concentrate on bringing one foot ahead of the other. Just a few more steps and I’d be ready. Suddenly the whole idea seemed crazy. After all, maybe he was bluffing, just trying to scare us. Even so, he might torture us, but he probably wouldn’t kill us. Or we might be able to convince him we really didn’t know anything about any money.
Five steps. My blood was now warm and I felt light, almost as if I would float away if I didn’t concentrate. Why the hell not, I decided and started what felt like a slow motion lunge toward the couch.
“If you’re thinking of trying for that purse, it ain’t gonna be much help without this gun,” he said, removing the pistol I’d given to Heather from his belt. “A nice little gun, but kind of old for any serious shooting. I picked it up when I searched the couch.”
While my body considered whether to have a heart attack or a nervous breakdown, I looked helplessly at Heather and Melinda. I had wanted to help, but I had failed, almost getting myself and them killed in the process. I had to learn to stop trying to con pros at their own game.
He shook his head in an exaggerated expression of disappointment. “I sure hope this don’t mean you were lying about the money. Christ, I sure hope not.” He herded us around the kitchen table while he peered and poked at the garbage disposal. When he finished he came over to the table appraising each of us in turn. “Well, who wants to go first? Any volunteers? I’ll give you one last chance. Where’s the money?”
It didn’t take long, maybe five seconds, for him to sneak through the front door and take aim on Carroll’s exposed back. I covered any possible noise with a violent coughing attack.
“Okay, drop it, Sarris,” Lt. Bower ordered.
There was a flicker of indecision in Carroll’s eyes as to whether he should drop it or take a chance on dropping the Lieutenant. He laid the gun on the table.
“He has another one in his belt,” I reported quickly in the best tradition of a class monitor.
“Come on, Sarris, take it out.”
He did so, but not without glaring menacingly at me, his toothpick threatening to leap from his mouth and into my heart.
“All right, all of you in here. Move!”
We filed into the living room, Carroll in smirking defiance and the rest of us in exhausted relief.
“How in the world did you ever get here, Lieutenant?” I asked.
“I had you followed from the station after I let you escape.”
“After you . . . you mean . . .”
He smiled benevolently. “You don’t think that all you have to do is walk out of a police station? I admit that your little act wasn’t too bad, and that those two rookies almost spoiled our setup by holding you, but we’ve been on you every minute since you left the station and hopped that bus. I told my boys to keep me informed, so when they saw Sarris here entering the building, they gave me a call and I came over. Our experience with him ha
s been such that whenever he pays our city a visit, there’s a sudden population decrease.”
“We all do our small bit for ecology,” Carroll quipped.
“And I’m going to do my bit by dumping you in the garbage, Sarris. So be a good little girl and come along, Carroll.”
“Why you . . .” Sarris shouted, putting his fists up.
“Unless you think you’re ready to start boxing with bullets, I suggest you shut up and come along. Come on, all of you. You’re all under arrest.”
“What for?” Heather and Melinda joined in.
“You two for harboring a fugitive and obstructing justice. Sarris here for assault with a deadly weapon, conspiracy to commit murder and for not brushing after every meal. And, of course, Gould here for four counts of murder and a few hundred other things we’ve managed to come up with.”
“Wait a minute, Lieutenant,” I explained. “You’re making a mistake. Just give me twenty-four hours to clear myself.”
Lt. Bower laughed. “What do you think this is, Gould, ‘Gunsmoke’? From now on you’re not going to have twenty-four seconds to yourself.”
“Let’s go,” he commanded and we all moved sluggishly toward the door.
Suddenly Melinda leaped up in the air like a crazed jack-in-the-box. “Run!” she cried, wrapping her arms and legs around the startled Lt. Bower.
Chapter Sixteen
Running wasn’t the half of it.
There was also a lot of tripping, grabbing, shoving and even some name-calling, most of which took place in the apartment when Carroll and I both dove for the two guns he’d left on the table. Fortunately, I was a little closer and managed to grab my original gun, trip Carroll and shove Heather out of the apartment while Lt. Bower tried awkwardly to unpry the clinging Melinda. (That’s where the name-calling came in.)
Carroll, having recovered his gun, was only a few steps behind us when we turned the corner and started down the stairs marked FOR EMERGENCY USE ONLY. The clattering we made as we stampeded down each flight echoed through the stairwell like a machine gun, making our footsteps indistinguishable from our pursuer’s. Having already descended half a dozen flights, I stopped and, leaning over the railing with Orpheuslike curiosity, peered up to see how far behind us Carroll was; or if he was even there at all.
The Goulden Fleece Page 11
