George Ruiz Vasquez, aka Juan Bizarro, aka the Pope of Dope, hadn’t been in a car accident, but he was hardly in any better shape than the Elleger girl, though he did have the use of one arm.
Since he and Ron had made each other’s acquaintance in the past, the detective took a more informal tone. “The professor has a few questions to ask you, Bizarro.”
“No speeka Eengliss.” Vasquez, where he showed through the bandages, looked handsome and intelligent. He made a lot of money, and lived well. And whatever his injuries, one thing that wasn’t on his medical report was needle marks. He was no fool.
“Try again, George. Your older brother tells me in the store you wouldn’t have been such a bum if you hadn’t forgotten how to speak Spanish—you might have heard sense from your uncles.”
“Poor me,” Vasquez mocked.
“I disagree,” Benedetti put in. “He would have been a bum in any case.
“But I have no interest in you, Vasquez, except insofar as you can tell me about the Hog case, particularly Leslie Bickell and Terry Wilbur.”
“Why should I?” Vasquez sneered.
“Because if you don’t, I’m going to circulate a rumor that the reason all those people got sick, and the girl died,” Ron said, “was the fact you cut that horse with Drano. I’m sure the guy who beat you up will be back for seconds.”
“I’m not worried about him,” Vasquez said, but he flicked his tongue quickly across his lips.
“Sixteen OD’s, your Holiness,” Ron said. “I’ll bet every one has fathers, brothers, friends—”
Vasquez shut him off with hissing obscenity. “All right, what do you want to know?”
“Did you know the heroin was going to be extraordinarily powerful when you sold it?”
“I don’t admit I sold it.”
“The police have you cold for the cocaine, George. The rap is the same. They don’t have to know about the heroin. Come on.” This was the one area in which Ron felt he was superior to the professor—Benedetti had no talent for dealing with the professional criminal.
“No, of course I didn’t,” Vasquez said. “If I’d known it had such a jolt, I would have cut it more, made some more money. And I cut it with lactose, same as always.” A pusher lives by his reputation; Vasquez was affirming his integrity.
The professor resumed his questioning. “Leslie Bickell bought a large quantity of it from you, is that correct?”
He smiled at the memory. “Five grand, in small, unmarked bills. Beautiful. I sold her what I had left. Rich kids are the best customers, I swear. That’s how I worked my way through college, you know. Making too much money to quit when I graduated, though. Still, it adds class to the operation.”
“How did you meet Miss Bickell?” Benedetti asked.
“Old Terry Wilbur introduced us.” Vasquez laughed. “Ran into him one time, she was with him. He said hello, old school chums and like that, introduced us, and let it slip he was going away on a gardening job for a couple of weeks.
“Leslie had the look, you know? The I-am-high-class, I-can-handle-anything, I-am-curious look. My meat. So when old Terry left town, old friend Georgie looked up Leslie. I think she enjoyed the contrast between somebody with a college education and a stupid dropout like Terry, you know? So I gave her the usual bullshit, and she took to the stuff like mother’s milk.”
“When did, this happen?”
“A couple of months ago, I guess. I guess Terry found out, that’s why he started this Hog thing.”
“You believe Wilbur is Hog?”
“Sure, I do. The boy is crazy, always has been. He wiped out a few zeros, then Leslie, then that kid. He thought he’d get you confused, you know?”
“Why did he disappear?”
Vasquez laughed again. “Because he’d crack under questioning. He knew he’d be tempted to confess, to prove he was smart.”
“You seem to know him very well.”
“Look, one morning I got on a plane in San Juan at nine-thirty A.M. I was five years old. Eleven o’clock, we land in New York. By twelve-thirty, I had moved in with my uncles here in Sparta. By one o’clock I had met Terry Wilbur. He’s the only one who still calls me ‘whore-hay.’ And he was always crazy.
“Look, one time in high school, there was a book report due, and Terry didn’t hand one in, said he didn’t do it because he was too busy, and that old queen Mr. Timmons said he didn’t do it because he was too stupid, and Terry screamed and cried, and beat that old guy to a pulp, man. It took four gym teachers to pull him off. And that was the end of Terry Wilbur’s academic career.” Vasquez’s laughter fell on the backs of his audience as they walked through the door and left him.
“Where now?” Janet asked wearily, back in the car.
“Home,” the professor said around his cigar. He puffed at it heavily for a while then said, “Terry Wilbur must be found! Or this case is meaningless!” The Italian rumbling started again.
“I want to stop at my office first, Maestro. Mrs. Goralsky is probably getting ready to sue you for alienation of affection.” When the professor had agreed, Ron turned to Janet and asked, “What did you think of Mr. Elleger?”
“I think,” she said, “that he seems to be jealous of his daughter’s lover.”
Ron shook his head. “Doesn’t it get depressing knowing that kind of thing about people? Carrying around that kind of knowledge in your head?”
“I wouldn’t think it would be any more depressing than making a living dealing with the likes of Vasquez. We both do that.”
Ron smiled. “Touché.” He dropped Janet at her apartment, and drove up to his office just as the snow was stopping.
There was trouble in the Bixby building. As he walked with the professor down the gray corridor, Ron heard angry voices yelling in his office. The high-pitched, indignant voice belonged to Mrs. Goralsky. The rasping roar, Ron was astonished to realize, belonged to that pillar of commerce, Mr. Harold Atler.
“Don’t give me that, you—you munchkin!” the former client screamed. “I demand to see him immediately!”
“I am not accustomed to being called a liar, sir!” Mrs. Goralsky yelled back. “I will tell you one more time—Mr. Gentry is not in!” The tiny woman’s inflection implied Atler was in danger of being thrashed within an inch of his worthless life.
There was an inarticulate growl from Atler. Mrs. Goralsky yelled, “Stop! You stop that! You can’t go in there!”
“This is the way out, Mr. Atler.”
The broker jumped, and turned to face him. “I—I was just looking.”
“I can see that. Do you want to consult me about something? I can always find time for a former client.”
The broker looked relieved.
Ron said, “Now, after you apologize to Mrs. Goral-sky, we can have a little talk.”
Atler didn’t apologize often in the normal course of his life; he didn’t have to. Ron thought the experience would be good for him. The broker licked his lips, faced Mrs. Goralsky, and said, “I—I’m sorry I lost my temper.”
“And you’re sorry you called her a liar,” Ron said.
“Ah, yes ... I’m sorry I called you a liar.”
Benedetti spoke for the first time. “The munchkin remark was in questionable taste as well.”
Atler winced, but he said it. “I’m sorry I called you a munchkin.”
“I accept your apology,” Mrs. Goralsky told him gravely. “Now don’t let it happen again.”
Atler had never been so humiliated in his life. To apologize to a private detective’s secretary. A midget! Still, he had to do what he came to do.
Gentry introduced the strange-looking old man as Professor Benedetti. That would make the problem more difficult, but it couldn’t be helped. He got down to business. “Mr. Gentry, today’s newspapers have said you—and the professor of course (he smiled)—are working with the police to find the person who killed poor Leslie.”
“The papers were right, Mr. Atler. You sent me stum
bling right into the case, and I’ve been retained to aid the professor. I did return your retainer, didn’t I?”
“You didn’t bill me.” Atler wanted to be strictly accurate on matters of business. “But that’s not the point. I want to hire you to protect me. At ... shall we say a fee you may name yourself?”
“Protect you from whom?”
“My enemies. I have ... enemies.” And that’s the truth, Atler thought righteously. The boys in the green suits.
“What did the police say?”
“I, uh, I haven’t been to the police.”
“What are the names of these enemies, Mr. Atler?”
The upstart was offensive in tone and manner. Why, he wasn’t even looking at him! He was polishing his spectacles, looking at the desk.
“I’ll tell you that when you have agreed to the offer.”
“I believe you are your own worst enemy, Signore.”
Now the sinister foreigner was getting into the act. “Your proposition is open to many unflattering interpretations, eh? Don’t try to be subtle, Mr. Atler, you are not equipped for it. You wish to buy Mr. Gentry off the investigation of these murders. Why?”
“What do you take me for, sir!” Atler was on his feet.
“I am trying to decide,” Benedetti said softly.
The nerve. “How dare you suggest I would do anything in the interests of that monster! I want him caught, and caught fast!”
Gentry replaced his glasses and stared rudely at Atler. “Then why the bribe?”
“That remark is actionable!” Atler was shrill, screaming. With an effort, he regained some control. “However, we won’t pursue that. Gentry, you have a duty to withdraw from the Hog case immediately!”
“Oh?”
Atler leaned across Ron’s desk, now frankly begging. “Look, Gentry, if you are involved with the capture of Hog, there will be great publicity. You will be a focus of interest; the newspapers will want to publish all the details of the case, including how you came to be involved.
“It cannot become public that I left five thousand dollars in cash unguarded in a desk drawer! I won’t allow it! It would do untold damage to my career!”
Atler could not imagine a colder or grayer gaze than the one he was getting from Ron Gentry at the moment. He could feel its contempt. He should have known better than to expect understanding from any of that generation. They never believed they could get old, be forced to give up what they’d built, just hand it over to the green suits.
“Get out of here, Mr. Atler,” Gentry said.
In desperation, the broker appealed to the older man. “Professor,” he began, “surely you can—”
“Get out of my office, Mr. Atler,” Gentry repeated, “before I do untold damage to your face. Five murders, Mr. Atler. Five. Three young girls. An old man. A little boy. Just look me in the eye and tell me, Mr. Atler, how your career stacks up against that.”
Atler stood up and tried to bolt from the office. No one would ever see him cry; but he waited on a word from Gentry.
“A question, Mr. Atler. That money came from trading in coffee beans and what?” No answer. “Meat byproducts, right? What particular kind of meat byproduct?”
Atler’s reply was a whispering, sobbing, “Oh my God!” Then he ran from the office as though he was running for his life.
The door slammed so hard behind him, Ron was afraid the glass was going to break. He heard the professor offer a heavy sigh.
“So, amico,” the old man said. “This is how you use the training I have given you? Dealing with pazzi like Atler?”
“He’s a frightened man. I wonder, though.”
“What do you wonder?”
“What the average man on the street might say if you asked him to stack his life’s work against the lives of five total strangers.”
“Be quiet. You are a detective, not a philosopher. I also wonder.”
Ron smiled. “What do you wonder, Maestro?”
“Whether Atler is such a pazzo after all. He is the only one, so far, to see the significance of your little questions, eh? He may surprise us yet.”
ELEVEN
IF IT WERE POSSIBLE for someone to share Hog’s thoughts that evening, he could never believe Hog had taken the lives of five helpless human beings. The thoughts were thoughts of nervousness, doubt, uncertainty.
Hog tried to achieve calm by composing the next note. That was a first. It had always been better to wait until after the deaths to prepare the taunting messages. But things were slightly different, tonight.
It was a clear night, no moon. The blizzard had moved eastward, leaving a dry, cold night in its wake. Hog noted with satisfaction that the sharp-edged wind was strong enough to blow snow over any footprints as soon as they were made.
Hog could see the light in the motel window. Hog could see, in silhouette, the man who would soon be dead. The motel was a rambling, one-storey structure; the victim had been careful to take a room far away from the office, or any of his fellow guests. Access would be no problem.
Still, Hog hesitated. It had to be tonight. It had to be now. Still ... As had happened after every death so far, Hog toyed with the idea of stopping this madness, even agonized over it, but had come to the realization that one couldn’t start something like this and just stop it. Events wouldn’t bend to a human will; their outcome was in the hands of God.
But I must be careful! Hog’s thought was a self-directed whip-lash. Another mistake, like the one in the case of the Bickell girl, would be fatal. It couldn’t be allowed. Hog was almost at the end of the task—there could be no failure now. Benedetti was too smart to be trifled with. Did he have a whiff of the truth even now?
But Hog felt secure that there was nothing to fear. Benedetti, and all of the rest of them, would all go on searching for the wrong thing. The wrong thing.
It took only fractions of a second to cross the motel’s snow-covered lawn. Hog tapped lightly on the sliding glass door of the patio. The man inside took a look, smiled, opened the door.
“About time you got here,” he said. He was a medium-sized, stocky man, with slicked down hair that was too wavy to stay slicked down, ending up in a pattern of shiny ridges. He smiled a lot, showing gleaming white teeth, but he never looked sincerely happy. It was a synthetic smile, like a used-car salesman’s.
“Let me in, Jastrow,” Hog said. “It’s cold.”
“Sure, sure. We going to do business?”
Hog looked defeated. “Just write it up. I’ll sign it.”
Jastrow beamed his phony smile. “That’s what I like to hear.” He sat at the writing desk, took out some stationery, and began to write. “When I finish,” he said over his shoulder, “I want you to copy this in your own handwriting. It’s more legal that way, okay?”
“Anything you say.”
Jastrow went back to writing. Jastrow considered himself an expert at sizing up people. The first few times he met the person who was in his room tonight he had taken pains to make sure there was no danger to himself. He had himself convinced he would never have to worry. He was wrong.
From an overcoat pocket, Hog produced a .32 caliber revolver. Almost absently, Hog crossed the room to stand to the right of the seated Jastrow.
Jastrow looked up. “Yes?”
“I just want to see what I’m going to be signing.”
“You’ll see it soon enough. People reading over my shoulder make me nervous.”
“Oh,” Hog said. “Sorry.” Hog brought the pistol to within an inch of Jastrow’s temple, and pulled the trigger. It made less of a noise, and more of a mess, than Hog had expected.
Hog raised Jastrow’s still bleeding head an inch off the desk, and slid the paper out from underneath. Tenderly, almost lovingly, the pen was removed from the dead fingers, the wiped gun put in its place. Being careful to leave no fingerprints, Hog took a few seconds to look around the room. The search paid off. Hog put the bloody papers in a plastic bag, the object of the search in a poc
ket. For the second time, Hog was taking souvenirs from the scene of violent death. Only Jastrow’s dead eyes saw Hog leave the room. Outside, soft snow filled Hog’s footprints.
Ron heard the professor’s pleasant baritone crooning “Non dimenticar” through the door of the spare bedroom. Benedetti had picked that room, he said, because it had the best light, which Ron found rather amusing, since the old man never painted in the daytime anyway.
He knocked on the door and walked in. Cigar smoke tinted the air inside a faint gray. The professor was seated at his easel, painting a picture that, to Ron’s uneducated eye, looked remarkably medieval, like an old hunting tapestry. It depicted a knight (who had a definite facial resemblance to Niccolo Benedetti) riding a white stallion, thrusting a silver lance through the body of a very nasty looking wild boar. The painting was practically finished—the professor worked in acrylics, quick-drying paints; and his hand moved across the canvas almost in a blur.
Ron had learned to gauge the state of the professor’s progress on a case, from his canvases. The closer the old man felt to a solution, the more abstract his painting became, until he was painting what he called “pure thought.”
Ron said hello, the professor grunted a greeting in return. Ron studied the painting without enthusiasm ... it still looked too much like something to mean anything important. He looked closely at the tusked boar, trying to spot a resemblance to someone in the case, with no success.
After a while, Ron said, “É una pittura molto interessante.”
The professor jabbed a thumb at the canvas. “Questa?” He grunted. “Questa é una pezza di porcheria.”
Ron thought it over for a second. “Is that a pun, Maestro?”
The old man smiled. “I suppose it is, though I didn’t intend it that way. It is true that a literal translation of porcheria is that which is given to pigs,’ but in idiomatic English, the most accurate translation I can think of is ‘shit.’ ”
That dampened Ron’s enthusiasm for philological inquiry. He changed the subject. “Are we going to that little get-together Buell Tatham’s fiancée is planning for tomorrow?”
“I think so,” the professor said. He picked up a finer brush, for detail work. “It will be a fine opportunity for you to expound on your observations. It will be interesting to note reactions.”
Hog Murders Page 10
