Free Fall in Crimson

by John D. MacDonald

  “Are there any suspects?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t think so. After the funeral yesterday, we—Alan and me—we talked to a fellow Alan went to school with. He has something to do with the law. He said it could have something to do with all that trouble over at Rosedale Station, but of course Joya left there before anything happened. Everybody thinks it was just some bum, some vagrant, some kind of drifter. There’s so much crazy violence around these days. Well … I’m here trying to pack up her things. What is your name again? McGee. Oh, God, I was about to say that I’d tell Joya you called. I’ve got to hang up now. I’m going to cry again.”

  I talked to Meyer again in the evening, aboard my houseboat.

  I explained to him my reservations about the professionalism of one Forgan. “From the conversation I had with Kesner after Forgan left, I know that Forgan told Kesner that Mrs. Murphy-Wheeler had put in a complaint about their making the dirty tapes on location. A citizen who complains to the authorities should be protected, unless he or she is willing to make sworn statements.”

  “Maybe she was. Or maybe Mr. Forgan didn’t take it all that seriously. Maybe he thought he was dealing with somebody who’d been released or fired, trying to get even.”

  “Okay. But I was the idiot who told Grizzel about it when I sat with him and with Jean Norman later.”

  “If you hadn’t mentioned it to him, certainly Kesner would have, Travis. And probably long before you saw Grizzel. Kesner would have wanted to warn him about Forgan and his partner looking around the area. You pick up imaginary guilt the way serge picks up lint.”

  “Joya was a very able and happy lady. She was outraged about how they had turned Jean Norman around. She wanted people punished. And I think it got her killed.”

  “But you didn’t get her killed.”

  “Okay, Meyer. All right. I didn’t.”

  The midnight news told us that the nude battered body of Jean Norman had been taken out of the Missouri River by a police launch after having been reported by a tug captain. It said that authorities believed there was a possible connection between the murder of Miss Norman on Sunday night and the brutal rape murder of Mrs. Murphy-Wheeler near Ottumwa the previous Thursday morning. Law enforcement units all over the Midwest were on the alert for any information as to the whereabouts of Desmin Grizzel. Bikers in nine states were being stopped and interrogated.

  “And that is the one way he would not travel,” Meyer said.

  “I don’t see how he can risk any kind of traveling, not with that well-known face.”

  “He’s found something that works,” Meyer said. “Think about Jean Norman. Would she have walked over to a wall to talk across it to Desmin Grizzel? To talk to something out of her nightmares? I’ll bet she had no idea until he grabbed her and yanked her across and took her into the bushes. Would Joya, dressed for running, let Grizzel catch up with her?”

  “He can’t disguise his dimensions. He’s the size of an offensive guard. Six two, two sixty or seventy, great big gut.”

  After I thought about it a while, I phoned Lysa Dean. It was a little after ten in the evening her time.

  “You again?” she said. “Look, I’ve got guests.”

  “I can hear them. I won’t take up much time, okay?”

  “What is it?”

  “Dirty Bob managed to get very close to two people who had every reason to be very wary of him.”

  “The woman in Omaha and the one in Iowa?”

  “You’ve been keeping track. Good. I’m trying not to be boring about this, Lee. I don’t know if there’s any chance of him coming after you. I don’t know if he wants to get to me that much. I don’t know how much risk he’s willing to accept, how crazy he is. But you know the dimensions of him.”

  “Big big old boy.”

  “Just don’t put any trust at all in any stranger who comes in that size, man or woman. He can disguise everything but his size.”

  “I shall consider myself warned.”

  “I could come out there. A live-in guard.”

  “Well, you do tempt me, but no, thanks.”

  Twenty

  The Thursday newspapers carried diagrams of the floor plan of the Lysa Dean house, with those Germanic-looking crosses newspapers use to indicate where bodies are found.

  A person or persons unknown had snapped the gardener’s neck and flung him into the pool. The slender Korean woman who had served us the salad and tea had been chopped across the nape of the neck with a kitchen cleaver wielded with such force it was clear that she had been dead before her body hit the kitchen floor. Lysa Dean had evidently been caught a few feet from the panic button of her alarm system, in the corner of her bedroom near the bed.

  It had happened, as near as could be judged, at eleven in the morning on Wednesday, the twenty-fourth. Miss Dean had not been on call that day. The dotted line showed that the intruder had been admitted to the grounds by the gardener, through the front gate. He, or they, had killed the gardener near the rear entrance to the kitchen area. He or they had then slain the maid, who had been fixing Miss Dean’s breakfast of tomato juice, dry toast, and tea, and gone through the house to find Miss Dean just leaving her dressing room. There she had been chased, caught, taken to her custom bed, and brutalized. Broken fingers, chipped teeth, and bruises, which were said to have happened at least an hour before death, indicated that she had been kept alive for a considerable amount of time before she was finally smothered by being jammed face down into her pillows.

  There were the inevitable references to the Manson murders, to which they bore no resemblance at all. There was editorial comment in the newspapers and on television about drugs, terrorism, pornography, the ineffectuality of the law, the vulnerability of prominent persons, the decay of morality, the decline of values.

  Sidebar stories detailed her long career in cinema and television, her marriages and divorces, her awards, her life-style. Others gathered comment from people she had worked with and worked for.

  “It is a sad and sickening loss. I hope whoever did this terrible thing will be brought to justice.”

  “She had a lively style, a quick and earthy wit. Television will be the poorer for her loss.”

  “Lysa Dean was an unashamedly sensuous woman who very much enjoyed her life and enjoyed being Lysa Dean.”

  “Everybody I know is out buying more locks and chains and alarm systems. You wouldn’t believe the panic that has hit this town. It’s like we’re back to the Charlie Manson days all over again.”

  An editorial expressed bafflement at how any suspicious person or persons could have avoided detection by any of the public and private patrols. But it did say that it was a lot easier to invade the area during broad daylight than at night. Deliveries were made during the daylight hours, and unlike some of the newer secure communities, there was no central checkpoint through which all traffic had to pass.

  I had a feeling of loss, but in some strange way it was diluted by the many faces of Lysa Dean. There was so much artifice involved, so much playing of games, so much posing, I could not identify the single specific person who was gone. And indeed it was that bewildering variety which had made me uncharacteristically less than eager to bed her down both times she had made her availability unmistakable. There is a curious reluctance to play that ultimate game with a composite of strangers, with all the faces of one particular Eve. She was lively, fun to be with, but I did not know her. Perhaps the closest I had come to comprehending the real Lysa Dean was when I had been in her little projection room and seen her collection of X-rated tapes and her little drawer containing the massager. Maybe at the very heart of her there was an icy and unbelievable loneliness.

  I looked up the number for Ted Blaylock’s Oasis. Mits answered.

  “Who? Wait a sec, I got to shut the door there’s so much noise out back.… Okay. Who’d you say? … Oh, McGee! Hey, how is it going?”

  “How is it going with you?”

  “Pretty much okay
, I guess. I tell you, it is very damn noisy here, with a lot of big yellow machines churning around out in back.”

  “What are they doing?”

  “Lots of things at once. A fence and a wall and an airstrip and some kind of generator plant. They don’t tell me anything hardly. We’re getting a lot of business from those guys working here, though, and the motorsickle business is holding up okay. Did you get your dividend? No? I got mine. Monday. Five hundred cash, and then there was a check for salary on account of I’m sort of being a manager while they’re looking for one. Somebody will probably bring you your dividend. Preach told me, he said, ‘Don’t declare it, kid. It’s for spending.’ ”

  “I want to know how I can get hold of Preach. I tried the number for Karma Imports in Miami and they told me they never heard of anybody named Preach or anybody named Amos Wilson. Then I tried Daviss Grudd and he said that he never gets in touch with Preach; Preach is the one who makes contact.”

  “Well … I have this number to call in case some kind of county or state inspectors show up out here asking lots of questions. If it wasn’t any emergency, he might get sore at me.”

  “It’s an emergency, Mits. Really.”

  Though reluctant, she gave me the number.

  It was a Miami number. I phoned, a man answered, I asked for Preach, and he came on the line.

  “I met you out at Blaylock’s,” I said. “You and the fellow with you talked to me out by the cabins in back.”

  “How far are you from a pay phone, timewise?”

  “Ten minutes.”

  “Go look at the number, come back and phone this number, and give the pay phone number to whoever answers. Then get back there and expect a call at half past on the button. What time you got?”

  “Eleven before three.”

  “You’re two minutes fast.” Click.

  I did as instructed and went back to the pay phone affixed to a marine wall in its plastic shell.

  It rang on schedule. “McGee here,” I said.

  “My hard-nose hero buddy. You better be very entertaining, because I am taking time off from something worth more money than you’ll ever make in your life. Also, McGiggle, I am going to have somebody bouncing some little Indian piece off some walls for giving out a number.”

  “I conned her out of it, Preach. Don’t be hard on her.”

  “So what is this emergency situation you have to take me out of a meeting?”

  “Remember we talked about Dirty Bob and the Senator.”

  “They have come up in the news now and then. The Senator crashed.”

  “With, I think, some help. On the right kind of road, with no traffic in sight, all Dirty Bob would have to do is lean into the Senator, give him a little shoulder.”

  “That cat’s right name was in the paper. Desmin Grizzel.”

  “I convinced myself he’s the one that beat the old man to death. I told you about that.”

  “What has that got to do with the price of anything?”

  “Chalk up also one pot-head girl named Jean Norman, one balloonist-type lady named Joya, and one movie-queen quizshow-type person named Lysa Dean, along with her Korean servants.”

  “Busy old bastard, ain’t he? They think he totaled the movie lady. If he did, I take it on the unkindly side. I always thought I might get a chance to get so famous I could run out there and boff that lady a couple dozen times. But again, pal, so what?”

  “It’s a reasonable assumption he is going to come to Lauderdale and take care of me next.”

  “If he does, I suppose I will read about that in the papers too.”

  “You and Magoo are supposed to be the top brass of the Fantasies. You remember the pin I was wearing that day? Doesn’t that give me the right to call upon the brotherhood for assistance? I am a genuine affiliated, associated sort of member.”

  “I am giving up all that motorcycle shit and that one-for-all-and-all-for-one shit and that childish brotherhood shit. If you need protection, call the cops.”

  “You are probably a little less interested in doing business with the cops than I am. But not a hell of a lot less, Preach. I don’t need that kind of exposure. I need some people as near like Grizzel as I can get. Fight fire with fire.”

  “Forget it. Solve your own problems.”

  “When I tried to get hold of you, I tried Daviss Grudd. He couldn’t help me. But he did say that within a short time I’ll be a half owner of that business out there, and I’ll be able to do anything with my stock that I want.”

  “If you’ve got any idea of trying to push me around, I’d better tell you we’re willing and able and ready to do your elbows any time. You’ll have to hire somebody to pick your nose.”

  “Who said anything about pushing you around? I really don’t need any part of any motorcycle emporium and tattoo parlor, Preach.”

  “Even if it spins off five hundred tax-free a month?”

  “I thought I might sign my interest over to the Gold Coast League of Retired Executives with the stipulation that they can’t sell that half interest. If they try, they have to give it back to me.”

  “What kind of an outfit is that?”

  “Just what it says. Retired executives from big industry who have banded together to run small business and do consulting work. They know all about corporations and overhead and voting rights and all that stuff. They run things as a hobby.”

  “Jesus Christ, dozens of old silver-tips crawling all over the place? That’s a rotten idea.”

  “Not so. They’d turn it into a real profit out there.”

  He was silent for a time. “I certainly wouldn’t want my brothers in the Fantasies to think I had turned down a legitimate plea for help from a genuine affiliated associated kind of member.”

  “And on the other hand, Mits might like to own the whole place.”

  “I think we can always get along, McGee. We’re so much alike.”

  “What I want are two very hard people, one little wiry one and one big one with muscles. A couple of years back I would have tried to hero this thing myself. But with this one, I want to be totally sure.”

  “Should they be carrying?”

  “If licensed, okay. If not, I can supply.”

  “One more time, friend. I had you checked out after our talk. You came on so hard-nose, it got my curiosity up. So I know where you live and how you live, and it is more smalltime than I would have guessed. Okay, I can send you a couple of the best. So this Dismal Gristle comes calling and has a sudden heart attack. Whether or not cops move in at that point is something I need to know before I pick the two people.”

  “I will go over it with them, and if they think it can be handled so quietly there will be no police, then they stay and help. Otherwise, they’re free to go.”

  “Fair enough. You want an inconspicuous arrival.”

  “And soon. Slip F-Eighteen.”

  “The old houseboat with the sunken tub. I know.”

  “This isn’t like you,” Meyer said, after I explained it.

  “I know. What I had last year was enough incredible luck to last me the rest of my life. So I am counting on not having any at all, or having it turn up all bad. Look, I have sat at table with this cat. He is something impressive.”

  “Like Boone Waxwell?”

  “Yes. Except bigger and stronger and quicker and, I think, even more warped in the head than Waxwell was. There is a kind of surface plausibility about him that Waxwell didn’t have. More shrewd, I think. Look, I went over it. They have a police guard on Josephine Laurant on the far-off chance he might have her on his crazy list. I talked Annie Renzetti into hiding out with good friends and not leaving word at the hotel where she went, just in case he might know about her from talking to Kesner. I thought of being bait and using you as backup, but I just don’t have the confidence that I could protect myself and you too.”

  “You think I would be just standing there maybe?”

  “Don’t get sore. A man who can do the
unthinkable without a half-second hesitation has a lead over you and me. And more over you than over me. Don’t think of it as a criticism. Nine out of ten adult males would find it impossible, thank God, to shove a knife into the belly of a fellow human, even if their own life seemed in danger.”

  “You’re setting him up to kill him?”

  “If I have to. If I can’t take him, I want somebody there who will, because I do not want him loose in the world.”

  My assistants arrived just after dusk, an hour after Meyer had gone back to his cruiser. I checked them out before I opened up.

  “Preach sent us,” the small one said. “I’m Gavin. This here is Donnie.”

  “How did you come?”

  “Car. Parked way down and walked in.”

  After I had closed the lounge draperies, I turned on more lights and took a better look at them. Gavin was pallid, sandy, compact as a jockey or a good flyweight. There was a flavor of Australia in his diction. He was in his thirties. His blond sideburns came down to the corners of his mouth. He wore a white guayabera, dark red slacks, Mexican sandals. Donnie was younger, tall, lazy-looking, with dark hair modeled in a wave across his forehead, with a heavy drooping mustache. He wore a work shirt, khaki shorts, and running shoes. His legs, though very tanned, looked thick and soft.

  “You know what this is about?”

  “Somebody wants to blow you away, Preach said. You want us to make sure it doesn’t happen,” Gavin said.

  “Are you people armed?”

  “Donnie’s got nothing. I got a knife.” He wore it between his shoulder blades, with the blade up for grasping, for quick grasp and quicker throw, with a full snap of the arm. It’s a French fashion, deadly when the man has years of practice.