Carmody's Run

by Bill Pronzini

  He opened the wallet. Four thousand-peseta notes, six hundred-peseta notes, and the five hundred-gulden notes she’d gotten at the Schiphol Aerodrome here. In the card section were a snapshot of two middle-aged people standing in front of a frame house with lots of trees around it; a posed portrait of Gillian in a black sweater and a string of pearls that was probably a high-school graduation photo; and an expired American driver’s license made out to Gillian Waltham of Canton, Ohio, with her picture on it.

  The address book was a third full. Most of the entries were for men and women living in or around Canton. There was one listing in Spain–for a Liane Butler, on Calle Villalonga in Malaga. There were two listings in Nice and one in Biarritz, but none in Cannes and none for Virgil Franklin or Jacques Amateaux.

  The sound of the shower spray stopped. Carmody put the wallet and address book into the handbag, scooped the rest of the stuff inside, brushed flakes of tobacco from the quilt. He put the purse back where he’d found it. Then he sat on the bed again and lit another of his cigars. He was half finished with it when she came out of the bathroom.

  Her hair was down now, combed out; it made her look even younger. He could see the outline of her nipples, hardened by the shower, under the thin cotton pajamas she wore. She had the top buttoned to her throat, the tails tucked into the bottom. She looked about eighteen.

  Carmody said, “Where’s your bra?”

  She blinked at him. “What?”

  “Your bra. Where is it?”

  “In the bathroom.”

  “Get it. I want to see those diamonds.”

  Gillian didn’t argue. She got the brassiere, threw it on the bed beside him. “The right cup,” she said. “Along the top.”

  He felt where the stones-five of them—were sewn into the band seam. With his knife he cut the stitching, then popped the diamonds out into the palm of his left hand. He studied them for a time, moving them around with the tip of his right index finger. Then he held one up to the light. He was no expert but the gems seemed genuine baguette cut, several carats each, with a brilliant surface luster.

  Gillian said, “Now who’s going to sew them back in?”

  “Nobody. I’ll keep them until we see Zaanhof.”

  “Now wait a minute–”

  “Shut up” he said flatly.

  “Why should I? They’re my diamonds—”

  “Yes? I told you before, I don’t care how you got them or who you got them from, but I don’t like to be lied to. You came from somewhere in Spain—Malaga probably—a hell of a lot sooner than you came from Cannes. If there are any more lies in your story, like about Virgil Franklin and Zaanhof and how much you’re getting for the stones, you’d better tell me now. It’ll cost you double if I find out about them later on.”

  She stared at him with her mouth coming open. “You went through my things! Damn you, you had no right to do that!”

  “Sure I did. Your lies gave me the right.”

  “I only lied to you about Cannes; I didn’t know if I could trust you. I still don’t know. You searched my things and now you want to keep the diamonds.”

  “You think I’m going to steal them from you?”

  “For all I know you might be planning to.”

  “Well I’m not,” Carmody said. “I don’t steal from my clients. I don’t lie to them either.”

  “All right. I shouldn’t have lied, I’m Sorry.”

  “Just about Cannes?”

  “I told you, yes.”

  “Where does Virgil Franklin live?”

  “In Malaga.”

  “Yes? You don’t have his name in your address book.”

  “Why should I? I know where he lives and I don’t need to write down his telephone number.”

  “What about this retired industrialist of yours? Malaga too?”

  “Yes. He’s Spanish, not French.”

  “And all you’re getting for the diamonds is a hundred thousand dollars, cash?”

  “That’s all.”

  “I hope ,” Carmody said, “for your sake. But I’ll still keep the diamonds until we see Zaanhof.”

  From his suitcase he took out a small chamois neck pouch with a rawhide band. The diamonds went inside and the pouch went around his neck. Then he began taking off his shirt.

  Gillian moved to the other bed, got into it, pulled the covers up around her neck. “Don’t you use the bathroom to get undressed, for God’s sake?”

  “What for?” he said.

  He stripped to his shorts, then got his Beretta from the false bottom of the suitcase and put the gun under his pillow. Gillian watched him without speaking, her eyes on his face the whole time. He shut off the lights, slid into bed. He didn’t say anything and neither did she. His mind kept working for a while, and he could tell from the irregular sound of the woman’s breathing that she was wide awake. He wasn’t amused. If she wanted to spend the night lying there waiting for something to happen, that was her business.

  Carmody rolled onto his side and went to sleep.

  SUNDAY, LATE AFTERNOON SILVERA

  Diego Silvera arrived in Palma on the afternoon plane from Malaga. As he walked through the airport concourse, he smiled with pleasure. Palma was a beautiful city, Majorca a beautiful island; nearly two years away from them was much too long.

  Familiar images flicked across his mind like colored slides: the harbor, Old Town, the Borne, the cathedral and Almudaina Palace, the beaches at Ca’n Pastilla and Calamayor, the nightclubs around Plaza Gomilla in El Terreno... ah, Palma was a fine city indeed. When he had completed his work for the patrón he would spend a week, perhaps two, at one of the luxury hotels on the Paseo Maritimo. Women were plentiful here; he would have no trouble finding one with the blood of a gypsy to share his holiday.

  He was aware of the women who watched him with unconcealed interest as he passed through the lobby and out into the late-afternoon heat. Their approval deepened his pleasure. He was a tall man, handsome, with thick black hair and teeth as white as sun-bleached bones. There was a sensual grace in the way he moved. A great many women found him exciting, intriguing. Men liked him, too, because he did not flaunt his masculinity and they found they could deal with him as an equal even if they were ugly as toads. He laughed often, as a man does when he enjoys life. And he enjoyed life more than most.

  He enjoyed it because inside him there was death, and death was as pleasing to him as life.

  In the past ten years he had in cold blood and mostly for money killed seventeen men and three women. He had used a knife on seven of the men, beaten six to death with his fist and a variety of blunt instruments, and shot the other four with his good friend the Browning automatic. He had strangled each of the three women, slowly, while he was having sex with them. Soon he would kill again. And many more times after that. The knowledge was as heady to him as strong, sweet wine.

  Truly, Diego Silvera was a happy man.

  A taxi took him from the airport to one of the car rental agencies on Calle Aragon in the city proper. There he rented a Spanish Seat 1200 sedan, paying a week in advance from a thick roll of thousand-peseta notes. By way of the Autopista and the Paseo Martimo he drove out of Palma to the west.

  After eighteen kilometers on the main Andraitx road, just outside Palma Nova, he spied the secondary road that led toward the villages of Calvia and Capdella. He turned there, drove another three kilometers. On his right, then, an unpaved lane branched upward through pine and uncultivated almond trees. He followed that until it dead-ended at the crest of a hill, in a flat stony clearing.

  At the clearing’s far end, set at the edge of a steep fall, was a villa constructed of unpainted stone-and-mortar and heavy dark wood. Green louvered shutters were fastened over the windows. A stone-floor patio fronted the villa, set inside knee-high retaining walls.

  Silvera brought the Seat to a stop, took the Browning automatic from his carry-all and put it inside his jacket, and left the car. It was quiet here; a feathery breeze playing in t
he trees was the only sound. Over the tops of the pines he could see the Bahia de Palma at Palma Nova; and behind him, across rolling fields and green valleys, the resort community of Santa Ponsa and more of the Mediterranean; and on his left, inland, the high pine-studded slopes of the mountain range which ran across the island’s western peninsula. Silvera smiled. Such a fine view, he thought. Someday he would own a villa with a view equally as impressive. His smile widened; he laughed aloud. Perhaps this very one!

  He stepped over the retaining wall, crossed the patio under a huge algarroba tree. The front entrance, of course, was secure. He moved to the rear wall. It was built at the edge of the slope, forming a low extension of the villa’s back wall.

  Silvera took off his sports jacket, folded it and laid it carefully aside, then climbed onto the stones. A pillar-supported balcony ran the full width of the villa, extending out over the fall by some twenty feet. He caught onto its side railing, stretched his left foot so that it was braced on the nearest support beam, swung himself off the wall and up and over the railing onto the balcony—all in one quick, fluid movement.

  The balcony was empty except for a large stone barbecue. The heavy doors into the house were locked; thick drapes kept him from seeing inside through the glass. He went to work with a set of picks. The lock was a good one. It took him nearly fifteen minutes to open it. He went inside, found the pullstring for the drapes, drew them wide.

  Waning sunlight brightened a Spartanly furnished room with a fireplace at one end. On a side wall, beneath an oil painting of a sad-eyed Majorcan peasant in a grove of stunted olive trees, stood a portable bar. Silvera went to the bar, spent a few seconds admiring the painting.

  Then he looked through the bar stock, chose a bottle of Johnnie Walker Black Label, poured himself a generous drink. Tasting it, he glanced at his wristwatch. It was almost six-thirty.

  He found the telephone and called the patrón collect, to let him know everything was proceeding according to plan.

  MONDAY MORNING–FANNING

  Standing at the balcony railing, the sun hot and nourishing on his face, Allen Fanning felt as if he owned the world.

  He had handled things nicely here, he thought, quite professionally, as he had handled dozens of other business transactions over the years. Crisp, efficient, revealing only what was necessary and nothing more, coming to terms without difficulty. Jennifer would be pleased when he told her, proud of him. He savored the image of her face and how radiant it was when she was happy.

  Jennifer, dear Jennifer. He thought again, with the same sense of wonder, that until he’d met and fallen in love with her, nothing of significance had happened in his fifty-one years of living. His childless, loveless marriage to Irene... his clerk’s jobs in London... the decision, after his position with Benson & Sons had ended abruptly through no fault of his own, to take the secretarial job with the retired British colonel in Lisbon... the move to Spain and another secretarial job after the colonel’s death in 1962. All dull interludes in an uneventful life. All preludes. The ironic thing was that he hadn’t even realized how empty his life was. He had a niche, a profession which served him well and saw to his modest needs, and it had made him blind and complacent.

  That had all changed six weeks ago in Malaga, on a hot morning just like this one. Fate, kismet, or simple coincidence that he and Jennifer had both decided to take a stroll through the Plaza del General Quiepo de Llano? Not that it mattered. She had come into his world that morning and turned it upside down—dizzyingly, wonderfully. And he had been reborn.

  With her in his arms, he was a man for the first time in his life: virile, powerful, dominant. With her at his side he could do and be anything. The twenty-four-year difference in their ages meant nothing. He loved her as deeply as any man could love any woman; and after their first night together, he knew that he would do whatever it took—whatever it took—to keep her ...

  Fanning took a sip of his gin-and-tonic, looking out over the tops of the pines on the slope below. In the distance, the Bahia de Palma shimmered under the bright sun. Nearly noon. If he left soon and the island traffic cooperated, he would be with Jenny again at the farmhouse by tea-time.

  Smiling, he turned from the railing to face the darkly handsome man standing next to him. “Lovely view from up here”

  “Yes,” Diego Silvera said, and returned the smile. “A lovely view, Mr. Fanning.”

  “Comparable ones in the British West Indies, though, I should think. Homes like yours, too. I can’t decide between St. Croix and St. Kitts. Have you been to either?”

  “No.”

  “Well. I’m sure I’ll like it there. We, I should say. My wife and I. I don’t anticipate any problems.”

  “Nor do I,” Silvera said, smiling.

  Fanning finished his drink, deciding as he did so that he liked this man, liked his smile and his straightforward manner. Handsome devil, too handsome, but one felt at ease with him, secure in his hands. Oh, everything was progressing nicely. In another few days

  Silvera said, “Do you have the diamonds with you, Mr. Fanning?”

  Fanning was startled; he almost dropped his glass. He hadn’t said a word to the man about the diamonds. The phrase he’d used was “precious commodity”.

  “It would be best if I kept them, don’t you think?” Silvera said. He was rotating a heavy quartz ring on the third finger of his right hand.

  “How... how did you know I–”

  “I know many things, Mr. Fanning.”

  “Yes, but —”

  “It really would be best if you gave me the diamonds.”

  “No,” Fanning said. “No, I’m sorry, no.”

  “It would be safer.”

  “They’re quite safe now.”

  “Then you don’t have them with you?”

  “No, I do not.”

  “Where are they?”

  “Now really, that’s not your concern.”

  “Ah, but it is.”

  “Well, I don’t agree. Now if you don’t mind—”

  “Where are they, Mr. Fanning?”

  “Listen here:” Fanning said, irritated now. “I don’t believe I care for your…”

  …and Silvera, still smiling, struck him in the mouth with his right hand, the one that had the quartz ring on the third finger.

  The blow sent Fanning staggering backward against the stone barbecue, almost twisting him inside it. The glass he’d been holding sprayed him with ice, slipped free of his fingers and shattered on the floor. Blood ran from a gash across his upper lip.

  “The diamonds:” Silvera said, still smiling.

  Fanning touched his lip as he straightened, looked at the blood shining on his fingertips. He said disbelievingly, “Why? Why did you do that?”

  “The diamonds,” Silvera said again.

  “What kind of man are you? I came to you in good faith—”

  “The diamonds. Tell me where they are.”

  “Go to hell!”

  Silvera moved quickly without seeming to, struck Fanning again. With the flat of his palm this time, only then he brought the hand back and dragged the quartz ring so that it opened a long bleeding cut in Fanning’s cheek. “The diamonds:’ he said in the same pleasant voice, but he was no longer smiling. His eyes were unnaturally bright. “Where are they? Tell me where they are”

  “You bloody bastard!”

  Fanning lowered his head and charged the other man, making angry, frightened sounds in his throat. Silvera stepped sideways and cuffed him with the right hand again, knuckles up, the quartz ring gleaming in the sunlight. A jagged flap of skin tore loose under Fanning’s chin. He spun away, almost fell, regained his balance by catching hold of the balcony railing. He stood with tears leaking out of his eyes, blood leaking out of the cuts on his face, trembling violently, trying to understand what was happening here, failing because the attack had been so sudden and unprovoked, he had liked this man, trusted him, it had all been going so beautifully . .

 
“This is the last time I will ask you, Mr. Fanning” Silvera said. “Where are the diamonds?”

  This isn’t right, it isn’t fair, Fanning thought, you have no right to them, I took them for Jennifer., you have no right! He stumbled forward with a quickness that surprised Silvera, swinging his right hand up blindly, and even though he’d never been in a fight in his life he managed to catch Silvera on the cheekbone, solidly, his knuckles scraping skin away.

  The blow unleashed a savage fury in Silvera. He began hitting Fanning with both hands—broke his nose, made him shriek in pain, kept hitting him and hitting him, harder each time, a look on Silvera’s face now of something close to ecstasy, and then another crunching blow that almost tore his ear off, pitched him around and hard against the railing.

  Fanning felt his feet go out from under him, his body lift up horizontally; felt himself tilting backward over the railing, Silvera’s hands clawing at him but failing to catch hold; felt himself falling, everything spinning crazily.

  His last thought was: It isn’t fair I love you Jenny you brought me alive and now—“

  MONDAY AFTERNOON -JENNIFER

  Under the grape arbor in front of the farmhouse, Jennifer Evans sat staring at the pine wood and wondering what was keeping Allen.

  She wore a white bikini, and perspiration glistened on the smooth tan of her legs and belly and shoulders. She sat with her legs splayed out in front of her because the sweat had gotten down between her legs and begun to chafe. She wished she had a gin-and-tonic with plenty of ice; but there were no refrigeration facilities at the farm, and no gin and tonic either. If only Allen would hurry up. He’d promised to take her to Puerto Pollensa tonight for a swim and dinner. He was already more than two hours late. Where was he, for heaven’s sake?

  Jennifer shifted slightly, drawing her legs open wider; the rusted springs of the swing made protesting noises. She was suffocating here, didn’t he realize that? He was so damned methodical, that was the trouble. Anyone else would have been able to arrange things quite as well in half the time. Oh come on, Allen, she thought, I’m hungry and I’d like that swim and I want some gin. I mean it, pet, you’d better hurry up.