A sign outside a small house read JAMES BLEDSOE, PROP. The porch was apparently the office, and the living quarters were behind it. I knocked and waited patiently until an old guy munching on an apple came hobbling out, his knobby knees sticking out of stained khaki shorts. "You don't look like boat people," he said.
"We're not." It didn't surprise him at all. He sat down on a box and laced his fingers behind his head. "You don't want to rent a boat, do you?"
"Not today."
"Didn't think so."
"Mr. Bledsoe, did you know Marcos Dooley?"
His eyes brightened and he took his hands down, leaning on his knees. "Sure did. We had a lot of good times together. Haven't seen him for a few years."
"He's dead, Mr. Bledsoe."
"Damn," he said, frowning. "What happened?"
"He was murdered, but that's kind of an old story now. I understand he had a boat here."
"It's still here," he said. "She's all dried out and needs a lot of work on her, but if you got a few months and some money, it can be done."
"I'd just like to see it."
"Pretty dirty out there."
"That's OK."
And he was right. The old barn held three antique boats with open seams, glass falling out of the frames and rust stains leaking from all the exposed metal parts. Chocks held Dooley's boat upright, streamers of cobwebs and layers of dust making it look like the Flying Dutchman. The hatch cover was off and candy wrappers were scattered around.
"Kids," Bledsoe explained. "They come in and play. I can't keep them out."
I pointed to a ladder that ran up the side. "Mind if I look around?"
"Be my guest."
The ladder was handmade but sturdy enough. I went up slowly, threw a leg over the rail and got on the deck, brushing the cobwebs out of my face. The kids had broken into the small cabin and pulled out anything that would come loose. Light fixtures had been smashed, and dried turds made a mess in the ceramic head. The wheel in the cabin was intact, but behind it were only holes where instruments had been screwed into the mahogany. Old Dooley would have turned green if he could see his boat now.
I shook my head in disgust and looked over the mahogany dashboard where the kids had scratched their names. I had almost turned away when I saw something. Not a scrawl or a scratch, but eight numbers carefully inscribed with an awl so they couldn't be rubbed out.
They were the same eight numbers as on Dooley's urn, his serial number. Damn, those weren't ID digits, they were latitude and longitude markers.
I climbed down, brushed myself off and told Bledsoe there wasn't much we could do but we'd let him know.
When we got to Albany I stopped at a survey outfit.
The guy was young and friendly, glad to see somebody from the Big Apple. When I showed him the numbers he looked up something in a book, then waved us to a wall map. "That wasn't hard," he said.
"You know the place?"
"Sure. Everybody does. There was an old bootlegger ran an operation out there during Prohibition. Not much left up there now. The big house rotted out a long time ago and some old caretaker lives in an outbuilding. Once in a while he cuts some choice slate out of there. You looking to buy the place?"
"It's possible."
Driving there wasn't that simple. After four wrong turns we found the narrow, single-lane dirt road that twisted and turned through the trees toward the rise of the Catskills that marked the area.
We went around a turn and there were no more trees, just a big, empty field on the edge of an overpowering mountainside with three old buildings nestling in the shadows. Small mounds of gray slag dotted the acreage, insolently decorated with purple thistles. The single roadway branched out in five different directions, all but one in total disrepair, so I stayed on the passable road. It brought us to a weather-worn building that had been patched and repatched but still looked livable. There was a brick chimney running up the side, and a shimmer of heat distortion against the clouds, so I knew someone was there.
Rather than take a chance on stirring some irritable old mountaineer waving a shotgun, I beeped the horn and waited. The screen door with paint so thick you couldn't see through it whipped open and the mountaineer was there, all right, old, but not at all irritable. "Y'all step down and come right in," he yelled. His voice was crackly but happy. "Saw you comin' a mile away and put on coffee."
Velda slid out and introduced herself. "You sure a looker," the old man said. "I'm just Slateman. Got a real name, but nobody calls me that." He took my hand too, shook it and squinted up at me.
"What we want to do is see the old bootleg operation."
"Better get your cameras then."
For a minute I felt stupid, but Velda winked at me and went back to the car. She came back with a small 35mm Minolta with a flash attachment. Slateman got an oversize flashlight with a strap that slung over one shoulder, and he led us through the house to the back door.
We followed a path to a ridge of bushes, then around them to where the ground soared up like an overturned teacup and melted into the mountain behind it. When Slateman pointed, we saw the cleft in the side of the hill. He pulled a rack of bushes aside and there was an opening a man on horseback could go through. "Used to have a big, wooden barn door here," Slateman explained. "Couldn't see it, of course. Always kept it covered with real growth. A truck could go in and out easy."
He led the way, flicking on his torch, and we stayed close behind. It was a great natural cave, cool and dry. The dirt under our feet was packed. The cave was so big that we could see only one wall to our left.
Velda's voice had a quaver to it. "Any bats?"
"No bats," Slateman reassured her. "Some caves have 'em, but this one don't. Can't figure it out."
We walked until we reached the perimeter of the space and followed the curve of the walls around it. Even after all these years you could tell what had been there. Old tools and the remains of a truck seat were like artifacts in an antique shop. At the back side we had to circle around a heap of boulders Slateman said had come down from the wall and overhead years ago. He flashed the light above us to make sure we were still safe. Velda kept popping pictures until she ran out of film, but by then we had completed the tour and were back at the entrance.
"Too bad Prohibition went out of style," I remarked.
Slateman chuckled, and Velda and I looked at each other. It was just a big, empty cave of dust and memories and a little old guy glad to have some city slickers visit him. Velda reloaded the camera and shot some footage around the property. We told Slateman so long, and started down the single-lane road.
...
We turned south on the main highway and stopped at the first diner we came to, went in and ordered up sausages and pancakes with plenty of real maple syrup and mugs of steaming coffee.
Halfway through the pancakes Velda said, "What did we miss, Mike?"
I shook my head in annoyance. "Dooley went through a lot of trouble to plant those numbers. He wanted me to find them and locate the spot. OK, I did both."
Velda sat there pensively a minute or so, idly tapping her teeth with a thumbnail. "Mike... Don Ponti is a pretty hotheaded guy, isn't he?"
"Yeah, when he was young."
"Then how come he's lying low? How come he hasn't sent anybody out to put a hit on you? You challenged Ugo, he knows your connection with Dooley - yet he lets you alone."
"Damn, Velda, you talk just like a street cop."
"I carry a gun, too. Now tell me, Mike."
"He's waiting to see how far I get." When we got back to the thruway, I pulled into the left lane and turned onto the ramp heading north. Velda's head jerked around, surprised. "Where are you going, Mike?"
"Back to Slateman's place."
Velda said, "What's the matter?"
"Remember Slateman telling us he spotted the car a mile away?"
"So?"
"The bootlegger probably cut a seethrough opening in the trees."
"What di
fference does that make?"
"I don't like gimmicks, kitten."
We hadn't gone an eighth of a mile when she held out her hand and said, "Stop!" I hit the brakes quickly, then, with the engine running, got out of the car and walked around the front of it. Velda had spotted it just in time. Running straight as an arrow up the side of the mountain was a path through the tree line. The brush had grown headhigh, but the line of sight was perfect. Anybody up there could spot movement on the road below. A car driving past would never notice that strip of emptiness, and a beautiful ambush would be waiting for him above unless he had a prearranged signal set up.
Very slowly I drove past the opening. It would be movement that attracted the eyes, and at my pace nobody was going to notice. We passed the wreckage of an old chain-drive Mack truck, carefully followed the ruts in the road and finally came out on the edge of the estate.
We got to the door of Slateman's house and stopped. Nothing happened. The only sounds were those of the wind whistling through the trees. Over to the west was a rumble of faraway thunder.
I got out of the car and made Velda walk behind me. There was something left in the old wood and fieldstone that seemed to radiate trouble.
The door was latched, the fire was out and the place was deserted. There were no dirty dishes, the garbage can was empty and everything seemed to be in place. There was just a feeling of aloneness that shouldn't have been there.
Velda had taken it in too. She said, "He must have gone to town, Mike. He didn't leave the stove going."
"That's a long walk, kid. Come on, let's go see the cave."
Slateman had left his heavy-duty torch on the table. I took it and gave Velda the one out of the car.
Finding the entrance was easy this time. Velda balked a moment until I said, "No bats, remember?"
She took a deep breath and walked in behind me. We followed the wall, stepping over the junk on the floor, kicking away things that made small tinkling sounds and avoiding the broken remnants of whiskey bottles that had been sampled, drained and dropped by workers getting a few perks for their labors.
Three quarters of the way around we came to the place I had wanted to see again. It was the rubble from the roof that had come crashing down many years ago and had been pushed out of the way against the back wall. I ran the light up at the ceiling and saw some scars in the stone, then lowered it to cover the angled pile to my left. Dirt and dust were thick on everything. I reached down, picked up a handful and let it sift through my fingers.
Odd, I thought. The dust wasn't dusty. It had an abrasiveness like fine sand. Velda's light hit me right in the eyes.
When she realized it was blinding me, she turned it down to the ground and said, "What are you looking for, Mike?"
I was just about to answer her when another voice said, "Yeah, Mike, tell her what you're looking for."
There was the faintest metallic click and I knew the hammer had gone back on a gun.
Velda sucked in her breath with an audible gasp.
The voice was young and hard, the kind that had death right behind it and wouldn't wait long at all to spring into a killing frenzy.
I said, "It's about time you got here, Ugo."
My tone slowed him down an instant. Ugo Ponti wasn't a fast thinker.
"And why do you suppose that, Hammer?"
"You were chasing us."
"Sure I was. I'm not so dumb."
My legs were starting to cramp up, but I had to keep him talking. "And now you're in a big, empty cave, Ugo."
"Yeah, but I got you and your woman here and you know where the stuff is."
"You don't see it, do you? What makes you think I can get to it?"
"Don't give me that crap, Hammer. Your buddy Dooley told you."
Velda's light was still pointing at the floor. Both of us were in the glow of our own torches and Ugo was in total darkness. Any movement either one of us made would lay us out. There was no telling by that click whether he had a small arm or a shotgun, but if it was a shotgun he could get us both with the first blast.
Without asking, I uncrouched from the floor very slowly, my mind racing, trying to line up the best odds.
Ugo said, "That's right, Mike. Nice and easy. Now, once more, what were you looking for?"
Now if Velda would only get the drift of my thoughts. It had to happen all at once and happen right or we were both dead. There was no way I could flash a sign to her, so she had to work on reflexes and that state of mind that exists between partners who have been together so long they can act in total unison.
I said, "I'm not looking, Ugo. I already found it."
And as I kicked off the torch on the ground, she flipped her switch and we both hit the dirt. Ugo pumped four shotgun rounds in our direction before he knew he hadn't hit either of us. But by then I had my.45 out, the safety off and the hammer back, and I aimed right where I had last seen the muzzle flash and let the deafening roar of the old Colt automatic thunder in the cave. The single bullet smashed into something that clattered but didn't kill, and when I flashed the torch light on, it caught Ugo scrabbling in the dirt for the mangled shotgun my slug had smashed into useless junk. When he saw what it was like, he let out a wild scream and raised the shotgun like a shield. I triggered the.45 again and the slug smashed into the metal breach of his weapon, which crashed into his chin. He went down with his eyes bugging out and his breathing hoarse with pain.
I walked up to the slob and let the torch wash him over. Blood ran from the cut on his chin, and his body made a few involuntary jerks before realization came into his eyes. He didn't know what was coming next, but the hatred that oozed from his pupils was filled with a violent venom that nothing could diminish. His eyes finally dropped to the gun in my hand, and when I started to raise it, his lips drew back with the fierceness of his crazy desire to kill me one way or another while knowing that once I had him looking down that.45, it would be the last thing he would see.
...
The dogs found Slateman. His body had been dumped in an old stone-lined cistern not far from the main house. The weathered wooden cover had been dragged back over the hole and loose dirt and rocks had been piled on top of it. There was a huge contusion on the side of his head and blood matted his hair. His body was hung up on an old oil drum that floated down there too.
It was a good, safe place to hide a body if nobody was going to look for it. And it would be much better if the body were dead.
Slateman hadn't reached that point. The club that Ugo had laid on him had almost but not quite killed him. There was hairline fracturing of his skull, but the prognosis was good. He could still live out his years.
There wouldn't be much use for a commercial outfit to go in and demolish the old buildings. The power of big government went to work and ripped everything apart looking for clues to those billions of dollars. Any standing structure was flattened, every rock pried loose and inspected, the grounds were raked clean and gone over with metal detectors, and for all that work, all they got was a trash pile of rusted cans, old chains from Mack trucks and debris.
A fortune was spent looking for a fortune they didn't find.
But did they ever try. A nice word, try. It meant they failed. I hadn't.
The End
Mickey Spillane - Black Alley Page 3
