The Dead Don’t Care

by Jonathan Latimer

  “No, he was sober,” said the first man.

  Skinner filled Crane’s glass. “Let me know when the five is used up,” Crane said. He was listening to the three men.

  “Yes sir,” said Skinner.

  “I know he was loaded,” the man with the spectacles said. “He tried to tell me he seen a man killin’ fish from a boat with a machine gun.”

  “He told me that too,” the first man was forced to admit.

  Outside it began to rain furiously. Water screened the open side of the bar, changed from gray to white as it struck the sidewalk. The air became cool.

  “Maybe he seen Ernest,” said the second man.

  “He said the man would hook a sailfish,” the man with the spectacles said. “Then, when the sail’d jump he’d shoot at it.”

  “Captain Luther said that?” said the second man.

  Williams went over to a slot machine and put a dime in it. A lemon showed. He put another dime in it. Another lemon showed. “Hell!” he said.

  “It must have been Ernest,” said the second man.

  The man behind the bar said, “No, it wasn’t.” His eyes were pale blue. “Ernest’ud never shoot at a sail.”

  Tony Lamphier said, “I wonder if they’ve heard anything at the house.”

  Crane was listening to the three men.

  “Ernest only uses the Tommy gun on sharks,” said the man behind the bar. “And besides, Captain Luther knows Ernest’s boat.”

  “I reckon you’re right, Captain Joe,” said the second man.

  “I know Goddam well I’m right,” said Captain Joe. “Besides, Ernest don’t keep his gun in this country.”

  Skinner, the colored man, poured another round of drinks. “Your five dollars is up, mister,” he said. His brow was damp with sweat.

  Crane handed him another five dollars.

  “All I know,” said the second man, “is that it’s too early for spawning.”

  “Then what’re they doin’ out in the Stream?” the first man wanted to know.

  “I wish we could get hold of something,” said Tony Lamphier.

  Crane said, “Huh?” He had been listening to the three men.

  The rain stopped and the sun came out. It was hot again. Skinner poured another round of drinks. Water running down drains made a gurgling noise.

  “Captain Luther was loaded,” said the man with spectacles.

  “I feel terrible about Camelia,” said Tony Lamphier.

  “So do I,” said Crane.

  “It’s too early for spawnin’,” said the second man.

  “Why don’t they bite then?” asked the first man.

  “Let’s start back,” said Tony Lamphier.

  “In a minute.” Crane held his glass out to Skinner.

  “What about lunch?” Williams asked.

  Crane raised the full glass to his mouth. “To hell with lunch.”

  Chapter XV

  MISS DAY CAME TO THE DOOR as Crane steered the convertible through the clutter of police cars in the driveway. She was wearing French-blue slacks, rope sandals and a gray sweater and her hair was the color of butter. Her lips and fingernails were the color of blood oranges.

  “Howdy,” she said.

  Crane halted the car in front of the marquee, shut off the engine and said, “Howdy.”

  “You will please help us into the house,” said Crane.

  “Not me,” Miss Day said. “This baby is a cripple.”

  “So I heard.”

  “Imagine a dope leaving a chair right in the middle of a passageway?” Miss Day pulled up her slacks to her thighs. “Look.” There were black-and-blue marks on both her shins, on her tanned left knee. “It’s a wonder I didn’t break something.”

  “I think you’re beautiful,” said Crane.

  Tony Lamphier got out of the car. “I’m going upstairs.” His face was pale; there were liver-colored smudges under his eyes; new wrinkles had aged him. “I’m tired.”

  Miss Day came and sat beside Crane. “He’s taking it hard,” she said. An aroma of My Sin surrounded her.

  “I don’t blame him.”

  “I didn’t know he was that goofy about Camelia.”

  “I feel bad about her myself,” Crane said.

  “Oh, you!”

  “Well, I do.”

  “You feel worse about Imago.”

  “I feel bad about her too.”

  “You went for her, didn’t you?”

  “I found her … interesting.”

  “Why do you think she killed herself?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “They say inside”—Miss Day jerked her bright head toward the house—“she was mixed up with The Eye.”

  “Maybe she was.” Crane gave Miss Day a cigarette, pushed the electric lighter on the roadster’s dashboard. “I’d like to know what she was doing in this house … why Essex invited her.” He lighted her cigarette, then his own. “Where is Essex?”

  “He and the cops are working up a plan.”

  “A plan?”

  “To catch The Eye when he collects the ransom.”

  Crane let smoke run through his nostrils. “Why don’t they wait until they know how The Eye’s going to try to collect it?”

  “But they do know.” She stared at him in surprise. “Haven’t you heard?”

  “Heard what?”

  “Penn got a ransom note.”

  “The hell he did!”

  “Sure. That’s what the confab’s about.”

  “So.” Crane shoved the wheel with his hands, pushed himself against the leather cushion. “What did the note say?”

  “I’ll show you.” She twisted her body into an S, drew a piece of paper from her hip pocket. “Here’s a copy of it.”

  He took the paper from her. “How come you got the copy?”

  “Penn had me make it. He thought maybe the cops would take the real note away.”

  Crane unfolded the paper. Sunshine, reflecting from the white surface, made his eyes blink. Miss Day had evidently tried to make an exact copy of the note. On the paper was printed:

  ESSEX—

  Directions … Wrap the fifty thousand in oil skin … Put in a box … Take box at 10 A.M. tomorrow to cement bridge 12.3 miles south of Homestead on Key Largo road … Leave box on canal bank under exact center of bridge … Drive away.

  Camelia will die if you fail … No one must ride with you … No one must follow you … No one must be near bridge.

  Camelia is well but unhappy … She says please save her … She says remember Froggy.

  THE EYE

  Crane gave the paper to Miss Day. “Who the hell’s Froggy?”

  “You got me.”

  “How’d the note come?”

  “Penn found it in with some mail on the breakfast table.”

  It hadn’t been mailed, just put there, Miss Day told him. The servants had been questioned, she said, but they denied all knowledge of it. Craig had put the mail on the table himself, and he was sure it hadn’t been there then. For about half an hour before Essex had sat down there had been no one near the table and the police thought, she said, that The Eye, or an aid, had put it there then.

  “What are they going to do about it?” Crane asked her.

  “They’re figuring out a way they can hide a party of men around the bridge, but Penn’s been fighting them. He thinks it would risk Camelia’s life.” She turned and looked at him curiously through her big blue eyes. “What are you going to do?”

  Crane opened the convertible’s door. “Get us a drink,” he said.

  Crane told O’Malley all about Di Gregario and the ransom note, the interview with Miss Langley. They were having sandwiches and Holland beer at the table by the swimming pool. A yellow-and-blue umbrella gave them shade. “What luck did you have?” he asked.

  “Plenty.” O’Malley poured beer into his glass. “In the first place there is no check.”

  “No?”

  “And there never was.”


  Crane was interested. “How do you figure that?”

  “Imago was Tortoni’s girl friend.”

  Crane put his beer glass down. “I never thought of that.”

  O’Malley was pleased with himself. “I got the dope from a guy I used to know at Saratoga, a guy named Dan Grady. He works for Bradley’s up to Palm Beach.”

  “A croupier?”

  “Yeah. I thought he might know some gossip so I drove up there. He’d heard from a guy working in Tortoni’s joint that Imago was his doll. They been going together for a year.”

  Crane frowned. “That doesn’t seem to make things easier.”

  “It looks as though Imago and Tortoni had something to do with the snatching after all.”

  “It doesn’t have to.” Crane put mustard on his sandwich. “Maybe the same guys that killed Tortoni killed her.”

  “If she was killed,” O’Malley said. “But why?”

  “Maybe she knew too much. Maybe she knew who killed Tortoni.”

  “That could be. But what was she doing staying here?”

  “That’s what gets me. I’ll have to ask Essex.”

  “Maybe she was watching Essex for Tortoni—to see what he was doing about the gambling debt.”

  “She could have been.”

  “And on the other hand she could have been watching Camelia, ready to put the finger on her.”

  “You’re certainly a big help.”

  “Well, you have to look at the angles.”

  Crane took a long drink of the cold beer. “I’d rather look at the curves.”

  “Meaning Miss Day?”

  “She’ll do.”

  “How’s her ankle?”

  “It’s all right. A fall over a chair doesn’t stop her.”

  O’Malley seemed pleased at this information. “What’s next on the program?”

  “I don’t know. The cops won’t let me in on their conference.”

  “Big secret stuff?”

  “Yeah. They even got a G-man in there.”

  “What are they doing?”

  “Miss Day tells me they’re figuring out how to nab The Eye after he gets the ransom money.”

  O’Malley said, “Let’s take a gander at the bridge where Essex has to leave the dough. It’s not far.”

  “O.K.” Crane tilted all four of the beer bottles over his glass, but they were empty. “Let’s go.”

  They drove all the way into Homestead and at the intersection of the town’s two streets they set the roadster’s speedometer at zero. Then they turned back to Key Largo. It was late afternoon and part of the way they drove with the sun directly in front of them. The yellow light made their eyes smart. There was almost no wind and it was still very hot.

  O’Malley watched the speedometer. “Ten miles.”

  The country was absolutely flat. On the left, a mile distant, was the sea. Marshes led to the blue water. On the right gray tundra stretched until it merged with the horizon, broken only by clumps of palmettos and scrub pine. In places brown grass grew almost waist high. Along the asphalt road the ground was pin-pointed by small yellow flowers.

  “That’s it ahead,” O’Malley said.

  A sickle-shaped bay, filled with pale green water and coarse marsh grass, pressed its back against the left side of the road. From a point near the middle of the bay a thirty-foot canal drained water, and over the canal was a cement bridge. Crane brought the roadster to a stop just short of the bridge and glanced at the speedometer. It read 12.2.

  They got out of the convertible and walked up to the peak of the bridge’s arch. Tar oozed from cracks in the cement. The tide was ebbing and the dark blue water in the canal was running out to sea, carrying brown grass, foam and twigs, moving very rapidly.

  O’Malley leaned on the rail and said, “‘Oh, yellow’s forsaken, and green is forsworn, but blue is the sweetest color that’s worn.’”

  “Oh, God!” Crane said. “I thought you threw that book of quotations away.”

  “Threw it away?” O’Malley pretended to be horrified. “A man of my culture wouldn’t do a thing like that.”

  “Look,” Crane said. “I’ll give you two-fifty for the book. That’s what it cost.”

  “I wouldn’t part with it for ten dollars.”

  “I’ll give you three bucks for it.”

  “Ten.”

  “All right. Ten. But you’ve got to promise me you won’t spout another one of those things.”

  “Sold for ten dollars.”

  “O.K.” Crane drew some bills out of his watch pocket, handed O’Malley one. “Now shut up.”

  O’Malley put the bill in his wallet. “Where’ve you got that nine grand?” He put the wallet in his hip pocket. “You didn’t leave it in your room?”

  “Right here.” Crane patted his inside coat pocket. “I got it pinned in.”

  “Anyway,” O’Malley said, “that quotation fitted. The water is blue as hell.”

  “That’s because the canal is deep. I guess it’d be over a guy’s head.”

  On the side where they had left the car the water ran against the cement base of the bridge. On the opposite side there was an earth bank which sloped from the bridge’s base to the water. They crossed the bridge and walked down this slope and went under the bridge. The earth was soft under their feet.

  “This must be the spot,” Crane said.

  By bending a little a man could walk under the bridge on the canal bank. Moisture had turned the cement of the arch yellow and mold grew where the base touched the earth. Damp, dank air clogged their noses.

  “How the hell’s The Eye going to pick the money up here?” O’Malley demanded.

  “It does seem odd.”

  “In broad daylight too.”

  Back of them was the canal. It disappeared two hundred yards away in a jungle of palmettos, sugar cane and tall brush. They were unable to see how much further it went. Ahead was the bay, pale green, and further the Atlantic. It was very bright outside the shadow of the bridge.

  “He must be going to use a boat,” Crane said.

  “Which way would he go?”

  “Out to sea, I’d say.” Crane was feeling the cement undersurface of the bridge with his palms. “They could trap him if he went up the canal.” The cement was cool, damp.

  “He’d have to have a fast boat to get away by sea.”

  “Maybe he has a plane.”

  “You mean, land in the bay with it? Here?”

  “Sure.” Crane moved along the bank, still palming the cement. “He could land here, jump ashore, grab the money and scram, all in a minute.”

  “Where would he go?”

  “There must be lots of places. In the Everglades. Or on a deserted key. Or over on one of the British islands.”

  “What the hell are you doing?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Feeling around.”

  “Oh.” Crane reached the sea end of the bridge, wiped his hands on a handkerchief. “I wanted to see if the cement was solid.”

  “Why?”

  “I thought maybe The Eye had a hiding place in the bridge.”

  A gull started to come through the bridge, wheeled at sight of them, uttered a shrill cry and flew away.

  “That’s not a bad idea,” O’Malley said.

  “Not good, either. Of course, he could sneak out and get the dough, but how would he ever get out of his hiding place within the bridge?”

  “Wait until night, maybe.”

  “There’d be cops around.”

  “He could wait a couple of days.”

  Crane sighed. “He’d starve to death. He might have another way out, though.”

  “It sounds phony,” said O’Malley.

  Crane led the way out from under the bridge. “It is phony.” He slid on the bank, smeared mud over the knees of his linen trousers. “It’s either a boat or a plane.”

  “Or a submarine,” said O’Malley.

  Chapter XVI

  SWI
MMING IN THE POOL at dusk, with the air quiet and tangerine clouds rising over the sea, Crane found himself watching for Imago Paraguay. Momentarily he expected to see her come gliding across the patio, to hear her mocking drawl. It was almost impossible to believe she was dead. There had been something hard, impervious, assured about her; something that seemed beyond the reach of such a commonplace as death. He wondered if she really had been of priestly Mayan stock. What an end, if she had, for so ancient a blood line! He was sorry.…

  O’Malley interrupted his thought. “They really hand you a sunset down here, don’t they?” he said.

  The clouds were splendid. They towered high above the horizon, giving the effect of a city on fire. Heliotrope smudged their bases, but the towerlike peaks were bright with scarlets, roses, salmons and oranges. Above, the sky was sapphire.

  “Pretty gaudy,” Crane said. “It looks like Sam Goldwyn had a hand in it.”

  Slowly, using a quiet side stroke, they swam the length of the pool. The water felt cool against their skin, made them feel fresh and clean. Out of the corner of their eyes they watched a servingman put bacardi, lime juice, powdered sugar and ice on the table by the pool.

  “We got a friend in the house,” O’Malley observed.

  “I told Craig to send the makings out,” Crane said, “when I got through my little chat with him.”

  “Did he admit getting a cut on the groceries?”

  “Yeah. He even offered me a slice.”

  “He was scared then?”

  They began to paddle toward the side of the pool nearest the drinks.

  “Plenty. But he said all good butlers got commissions on stuff they bought. He said it made no difference in the price the estate paid.”

  “Did you tell him what Brown said?”

  “I didn’t have to.” Crane clung to the side of the pool. “He told me Brown tried to muscle in on the buying racket.”

  O’Malley put his hands on the edge of the pool, pulled himself out of the water, put his feet on the edge, stood up. “What about Craig and the snatching?” He leaned over, pulled Crane out of the water.

  “I think he’s clear.” Crane seized the bottle of bacardi, filled a glass with the brown liquid. “He’s been working as a servant nearly all his life.” He filled another glass one sixth of the way up with lime juice, added a tablespoon of sugar. “He’s got a house all paid for outside of Jersey City and he showed me his savings-deposit book.” He began pouring the lime juice and the bacardi from one glass to the other.