The Dead Don’t Care

by Jonathan Latimer

  Crane was interested. “Saves what?” he asked.

  “Huh?”

  “Jesus saves what?”

  “Why,” said Slocum, “that’s all it said. Jesus saves.”

  “You didn’t ask the man what?”

  “Why no.”

  “So,” said Crane in a disapproving tone.

  Captain Enright shifted impatiently. “I don’t see that we are gettin’ anywhere,” he said. “Our job is to catch the guy sendin’ these notes, daffy or otherwise. We gotta protect the people in this house.” His bulging eyes sought Crane. “They been frightened enough.”

  “I’ll say,” agreed Miss Day. “When I saw that note on the pillow this morning I——”

  Crane halted his cup halfway to his mouth, blinked at her.

  Essex explained hurriedly, “She looked in to see if I’d go swimming with her this morning.”

  Miss Day giggled. “It did sound a little bit——”

  Crane said, “You better have another drink.”

  “What we gotta decide about is the ransom,” said Captain Enright. “We gotta …”

  Major Eastcomb pulled out a chair beside O’Malley. “Mind if I join the conference?” he asked. Two strips of adhesive tape crisscrossed the bridge of his nose, but otherwise his face, his head showed no sign of injury.

  “Glad to have you, Major,” said Captain Enright heartily. “I don’t believe you met Slocum, of the sheriff’s office. We were just speaking of the ransom.”

  “Pleased t’meet you, Major,” said Slocum. He eyed the tape. “Is that where they hit you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Quite a coincidence,” said Crane.

  “What do you mean?” asked the major.

  “To be hit on the same place on the same nose twice in the same evening.”

  The major put the palms of both hands on the “Are you intimating …?”

  “I merely said it was a coincidence.”

  “I don’t like your tone.”

  Miss Day said, “Aw, come on, Majie. It’s too early in the day to get mad.”

  Major Eastcomb spoke to Captain Enright. “I told you exactly what happened. I came out the door and walked over to the Bugatti. A fellow came up and said, ‘Have you a light?’ I reached in my pocket and the fellow hit me between the eyes. I came to in a clump of bushes by the drive.”

  “Impudent beggar,” said Crane.

  Miss Day said, “Shush.”

  Captain Enright looked at Crane with mild reproof. “We wouldn’t think of questioning your story, Major,” he said.

  The major’s face relaxed.

  “When you came up,” Captain Enright continued, “we were just speaking of the ransom. I was about to say that Mr Essex would be very foolish to pay it.”

  “That’s right.” As though he had palsy, Slocum’s head jerked up and down. His neck was dirty. “If this Eye’s a crank he’s gonna do what he’s gonna do to Miss Essex, money or no money.”

  Essex said, “Oh, my God!” Miss Day patted his arm.

  “Now, Mr Essex, don’t take it so hard,” said Captain Enright. “We’re handlin’ this … you can trust us. Like as not some of our men are on the trail at this very minute.”

  Slocum added, “They may even have got her.”

  “Unharmed,” said Captain Enright, falling into the spirit of optimism.

  “Except for the loss of a night’s sleep,” continued Slocum.

  Crane said, “Now that you got her back we don’t have to talk about a ransom.”

  Essex said, “What do you think, Major?” His eyes were bloodshot. “What are we to do when the directions for paying come?”

  There was phlegm in the major’s throat. “You know I care for Camelia as much as anybody in the world … as much as anybody.” He clenched his fist. “But what guarantee have we that she’ll be released after we pay the money?”

  Essex’ voice jangled in their ears. “But we can’t just sit here …”

  “But you won’t be sittin’ here,” Captain Enright said. “The whole world’ll be lookin’ for your sister. Every newspaper in the country’ll have her picture in it. The police everywhere’ll watch for her, Mr Essex. And they’ll find her.”

  O’Malley took the bottle of brandy, filled a tumbler halfway to the top. “They never found a snatch victim yet,” he said.

  Crane had forgotten about his brandy. “Mr Essex,” he asked, “is the fifty thousand available for a ransom?”

  Essex turned imploringly to the major.

  “I talked with Mr Hastings on the long-distance phone this morning.” Major Eastcomb tilted his head toward Captain Enright. He’s president of the Union Trust. He said the money will be deposited immediately in the First National at Miami. There now, I suppose.”

  So tight were Essex’ fingers on the table that the skin turned white. “But you’re not going to refuse …?” There was terror in his eyes.

  “I think we ought to delay payment—at least for a while.”

  Captain Enright nodded approval. “That’s right. Give us a chance maybe to save you fifty thousand dollars, Mr Essex.”

  “Sure. Leave it to us,” said Slocum.

  Crane pushed the coffee cup out of his way. He was genuinely angry. “Do you want my opinion?”

  Nobody did, apparently. At least nobody spoke.

  “I’ll give it to you, anyway. First you ought to ask the Department of Justice for help.”

  Major Eastcomb said dryly, “We have.”

  “Good. That’s something sensible for a change. The second thing is to have the bank get that fifty grand ready for you.” Crane was talking directly to Essex. “Then put an ad in the papers. Say: ‘Money is ready. Please select contact man.’ And sign your own name to the ad.”

  The major was aghast. “But that’d throw us right in the swine’s hands!”

  “You’re right in his hands now.” Crane spoke passionately. “What do these cops care about Camelia Essex? What do they care what she’s going through right now? How frightened she is? All they want is a chance to catch the kidnapers. Look at the publicity they’d get if they did.”

  “How much cut you gettin’ out of the ransom?” asked Slocum.

  Crane ignored him. “Then when the directions come, pay the money exactly as they direct.”

  Slocum sneered, “And what if they don’t let her go?”

  “You’re no worse off than you were before.”

  “You think throwin’ fifty grand away puts you no worse off?”

  “What’s fifty thousand to the Essex estate?” Crane pushed the cup further away. “Possibly one tenth of a year’s income.”

  “That’s a lot of sugar,” said Captain Enright.

  Now high in the sky, the sun toasted their backs. Wind rustled the palm leaves. Fresh water gurgled into the pool.

  “It’s her money, isn’t it?” demanded Crane.

  Major Eastcomb cleared his throat. “I shouldn’t care to pay out fifty thousand dollars needlessly,” he said stiffly. “How can we know she will be returned?”

  “Oh, God!” Crane’s hands, palms upward, rose in a huckster’s gesture. “Do you think you can sign a contract with them?”

  “Penny, I think he’s right,” said Miss Day. “If they had me I’d want to be freed. I wouldn’t want you to hold back the money.” When she leaned forward her breasts rested on the table.

  Essex looked bewildered. “I want to do what’s right.…”

  “Then you’ll pay the money,” said Crane.

  Chapter VII

  THE ROAD to the Gulf of Mexico was rough and crowded with trucks carrying supplies for the Key West bridge. On the convertible’s right was the old track of the Florida East Coast. In places there were stretches of warped rail, rusted a reddish brown, but mostly there were only bare piles. Debris, blocks of stone, uprooted trees, boards, broken furniture, rags littered the flat landscape.

  “This where all them veterans were killed?” asked O’Malley.
r />   “It looks as though something had happened,” Crane said.

  The sea, dotted with keys, was milky green.

  “Williams is looking up Tortoni and the guy with no lobe to his ear,” Crane said. “We’ll see Di Gregario.”

  “I wonder how he picked out a phony name like that,” O’Malley said.

  They passed some ruined stucco houses, swung the convertible around a forest of bent palm trees and came to the end of the road. There were two fishing boats in a canal on their right. Some people were looking at a black sedan.

  As they walked up to it a man in boots, khaki trousers and a brown flannel shirt turned toward them. “Got a cigarette, buddy?” He had a pistol in a holster over his right hip.

  O’Malley gave him one.

  He lighted it, blew out the match, said, “Come to look at the car?”

  “We were just driving down this way,” said Crane.

  “You might as well give her a look,” said the man.

  O’Malley said, “You mean that’s the car they took Miss Essex in?”

  “None other.” The man pushed aside some of the spectators, opened the rear door of the sedan. “Look at the blood.”

  On the seat there were brownish stains.

  “Somebody winged one of them,” the man repeated. “Look.”

  Under his finger, in the rear window, was a hole.

  “Musta got his head,” the man said.

  “I hope it killed him,” said a tanned man with bare feet, blue denim trousers and a torn white shirt.

  The man with the bare feet was captain of the fishing boat Sally. The man with the gun was a deputy sheriff. Both agreed there was little chance of discovering the kidnapers’ boat. The fisherman said it would be simple to hide by any one of a hundred keys between Port Everglades and Key West.

  “Pile brush over the boat and nobody’d see it,” he said.

  They went to the convertible and started back for the Essex house.

  “I think that’s the right dope,” said O’Malley.

  “They certainly could hide on a key.”

  “No. I mean about one of them torpedoes being wounded.”

  “Why shouldn’t he be wounded?” Crane stared at O’Malley. “You sound as though you were sorry about it.”

  “Well, I hate to hit a guy on the head when I’m shooting at his tires. That’s pretty wild.”

  “Wild, hell!” said Crane.

  He knew O’Malley was lying. This was one of the times he could put his finger on what O’Malley was. What O’Malley was he kept hidden most of the time. So did Doc Williams. And Eddie Burns. They were all alike. You learned about them only in an inverse manner. They boasted about how frightened they were at certain times, and you knew they had been brave. He remembered Doc Williams’ account of his capture of Blackfoot Joe Staltz in a New York speak-easy before repeal. Joe had covered him with a pistol and Doc, in telling the story, said, “I am so damned scared that when I start to raise my hands the glass of beer slips out and hits Joe in the face. While he is wiping his eyes I slug him with a bottle.”

  If you were in on the secret you knew Doc had risked his life to capture Joe Staltz and was proud of it. In the same way O’Malley had made a very good shot and was proud of that. That was why he pretended he had been shooting at the sedan’s tires.

  “This is funny country,” observed O’Malley.

  Even to Crane, who had been on the edge of the Everglades before, it appeared unusual. On either side of the road were canals, filled with brackish water and overgrown with coarse brown grass. In places there were large areas of grass, but mostly on the opposite sides of the canals there was brush, very dense and as tall as a man’s head. Near at hand it was brown and dull green; farther away it became gray. Once they saw a tarpon roll in the left canal.

  “I’ll bet there’re plenty of snakes in there,” O’Malley said.

  “I hope I never find out,” said Crane.

  It was five minutes before noon when they reached the Essex estate. The clean palms, with their bright green leaves, the fresh grass, the flowers were pleasing after the drab scenery. Far over to the right, surrounded by glowing hibiscus, was an “en tout cas” tennis court; beside it were the two flamingos. The court and the flamingos and the hibiscus blossoms were almost the same shade of pink.

  “We’ll see what’s happened,” said Crane, “and then beat it for Miami.” He slammed the convertible’s door. “Better tell them we’re going in to do some errands.”

  They found the two policemen, aided by a Mr Peters from the county attorney’s office, questioning the servants. This promised to be a full day’s job, as there were eleven in all and Mr Peters, a tall man with a thin nose and a large Adam’s apple, was being very thorough. He talked with a lisp and he wrote everything down just as it was said.

  Captain Enright asked Crane where they had been and Crane told him. He said he hadn’t been able to learn anything from the sedan. The captain said it had been reported stolen three days ago. It had been owned by a doctor.

  Mr Peters was laboriously questioning a pretty French maid named Celeste and O’Malley would have liked to stay, but Crane said, “You can question her later, in private.”

  They went out to the patio.

  “You can ask better questions in private, anyway,” Crane said.

  “You got me all wrong,” O’Malley said.

  “I suppose you didn’t even see they were questioning a lady?”

  “Was that a lady?”

  Toward them across the patio came Imago Paraguay. She was wearing a dress of dark blue silk, high waisted and printed with a flowered design in lighter blue. She moved in an effortless, gliding walk, turning her flat hips only slightly. Her lips were scarlet against the smooth cream of her skin.

  “It is a nice morning, no?” she said.

  Her face was really lovely. Through some trick of make-up she had removed its Asiatic aspect, made it more Latin than Chinese. It was patrician in an exotic way, with almond-shaped eyes, faintly arched eyebrows, slight hollows under the high cheekbones. It reminded Crane of the painted death mask of an Egyptian princess he had once seen in a Berlin museum. He had gone into the museum thinking it was his hotel.

  “Swell,” said O’Malley, “and time you were up.”

  “Oh, I ha-ave been up for some time.” Her voice was flat, without inflection. “I ha-ave been watching for you.”

  O’Malley said, “If we’d known that we’d have hurried back.”

  Her jet eyes fastened on Crane’s. “Sit down,” she said. “I ha-ave a thing I wish to speak of.”

  They sat down at the breakfast table.

  “I am so surprised to hear you are detectives,” she said.

  Crane said they were sorry to have deceived her.

  “That is nothing,” she said.

  When she looked at Crane the pit of his stomach tingled. She was seductive in a very strange way. She had not the animal appeal of Miss Day, but her slender body, her immobile face, her feline voice promised perverse delights, at once attractive and terrifying, of which she herself was contemptuous.

  “I think perhaps I will help you,” she said. “You wish to find Miss Essex?”

  “Very much,” said Crane.

  “Do you think Paul di Gregario may ha-ave her?”

  “It is likely.”

  “Do you know where he is?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good. If you like I will go with you to see him. I ha-ave an influence with him.”

  “That would be nice, but I believe O’Malley and I could obtain more from him. Alone we can ask questions in a very direct manner.”

  “You do not know Paul,” she said. “He is afraid of no one … but me.”

  Crane remembered the count’s expression when he had encountered the dancer at the Essex table in the Blue Castle. The man had been frightened.

  “Maybe you can help us,” he said.

  “I can, señor,” she said. “When …?”
>
  “Imago dear!”

  Sybil Langley, the actress, was approaching them from the other side of the patio. Her long, horsey face was set, as though she were concentrating on the job of walking; her violet eyes were glazed. She moved cautiously, making a great circle around a deck chair and then barely avoiding a palm on her way back to the line of progress.

  “Holy smoke!” whispered O’Malley.

  Completely black, Miss Langley’s clothes hung from her as they would from a wire hanger, taking no shape except that caused by the action of gravity on them. Heavy powder whitened her face. She halted abruptly by their table. They stood up.

  “Talking to the nice men?” she said.

  “Yes,” said Imago.

  “Such a terrible thing to happen.” Miss Langley’s mellow voice cracked a little. “A terrible thing.” Abruptly she sat down, almost missing the chair Crane held for her.

  “Mr Cra-ane and Mr O’Malley have asked me to go to Miami with them,” said Imago.

  “You are going to leave me?” Miss Langley put her hand on Imago’s arm. “Alone in this house?” Her face was alarmed.

  Imago shrugged off the hand. “Yes. It is necessary.”

  “The house is full of police, Miss Langley,” said Crane. “You won’t be alone.”

  “Men!” Miss Langley’s eyes closed. She was tired, tired. She whispered, “You will come back to me, Imago.”

  Imago rose from the table. “Yes, I will come back.” Her face was cold. “Shall we go, Mr Cra-ane?”

  They stood up. Crane said, “Sure.”

  “Must you go, Imago?” pleaded Miss Langley.

  The dancer ignored her, walked away. They followed. Miss Langley stared after them through her wide violet eyes.

  “She likes you a lot,” said Crane, coming up behind the dancer. He was a little angry.

  “You think so?” she said.

  As they were getting into the convertible they met Miss Day. They told her they were going to Miami. She had on a tight black silk dress.

  “Take me,” she said.

  “Where’s Essex?” Crane asked.

  “He and Tony Lamphier and the major have gone into Miami to see about an airplane.”

  “To look for Camelia?”

  “Yeah. They think she’s being held in a boat. Tony’s idea is they can spot it from the air.”