Vanishing Ladies

by Ed McBain

  I got sick inside.

  I stood there for several moments, and I couldn’t say anything or think anything. I finally knelt and touched the sack. The blood was cold. I got up and played the flash over the rest of the truck. Something metallic flashed in the beam of light. I stooped again.

  It was a shovel with a broken handle.

  There was fresh earth on the blade. There was dried blood on the splintered wooden shaft. I went to the back of the truck, doused the light, and jumped to the ground. I handed the dead flash to Simms.

  “Better leave it out,” I said.

  “Why?” He studied me in the darkness. “What’d you find?”

  “Blood.”

  “What?”

  “And a shovel that was recently used. Somebody’s dead, Johnny, and somebody was buried.”

  “Who?” he asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Buried … where?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Here?”

  “I doubt it. Probably some place away from here.”

  “It couldn’t be Lois,” he said. “She went to Davistown. She …”

  “No,” I said. “It couldn’t be Lois.”

  “Then—” He cut himself off. He stuck the flashlight into his back pocket. We walked up the road in silence. The voice came as a complete surprise.

  “Don’t use them guns,” it said.

  I stopped dead, automatically bringing up the .38.

  “I said don’t! My finger’s on the trigger. All I got to do is tighten it.”

  He stood in the middle of the road, a giant in a red plaid shirt and earth-stained dungarees. Hezekiah. He held a shotgun in his hands. As he’d said, one finger was making love to the trigger.

  “Drop it, Colby,” he said. “You, too, Simms.”

  I dropped the .38. I heard Simms’ .45 thud to the ground beside me.

  “Kick them over here.”

  I kicked my gun toward him, and then the .45. Hezekiah stooped to pick them up. He put the .38 in one trouser pocket and the .45 in the other.

  “Get together,” he said. “Both of you. I want to see you both.”

  Simms stepped closer to me. His hands were on his hips, the thumbs cradling his hip bones, the fingers spreading around behind his back.

  “You found the truck, huh?” Hezekiah said.

  “Yes.”

  “You find what was in it?”

  “What’d you have in mind, Hez?”

  “The sack we carried her in. The shovel we used to dig her grave.” I couldn’t see his face, but it sounded as if he were grinning.

  “We found them,” I said.

  “They told me to get you. I figured you’d come back here to look for your detective friend. I figured right, huh?”

  The news that they’d tipped to Mitchell wasn’t exactly heartening. “You figured right,” I said disconsolately.

  “Sure,” he agreed. “I’m no dope.”

  “Are you smart enough not to get mixed up in murder?”

  “I’m mixed up in it already,” Hez said.

  “You can still get out.”

  “Can I? With the girl dead and buried?”

  “But you didn’t kill her, Hez.”

  “I know I didn’t.”

  “So why be a sucker?”

  I honestly wasn’t trying to attract Hez’s attention away from Simms by talking. That was the farthest thing from my mind. I was trying to find out as much as I could from a guy I thought was plain dumb. I forgot all about Johnny Simms and the flashlight in his back pocket, and his fingers spread close to that flash. I forgot all about the fact that he’d once been a Marine, and I forgot what he’d done to Planett and his deputies when he hadn’t even been angry. I forgot, too, how much he loved Lois.

  I should have remembered those things.

  “I ain’t no sucker,” Hez said. “The girl’s dead and gone. Ain’t nobody ever gonna know we done it.”

  “Who?” I said. “What girl?”

  “Why, the prosty-tute,” Hez said. “Lois. Who’d you think?”

  There was a sudden gasp beside me, and then a deadly cold silence. I remembered Simms then, but I remembered too late.

  The flashlight went on suddenly, throwing harsh blinding light onto Hez’s face. And then Simms leaped and the shotgun went off. The flashlight spilled to the ground, rolling in a crazy pattern of uncontrolled light. Hez swore and tried to fire again, but Simms had his hands on his throat. I dropped to the ground, trying to get at Hez, trying to help Simms, and Hez kicked out suddenly, catching me in the groin. I yelled and rolled over, and I heard Simms say, “You son of a bitch, you lousy son of a bitch!” and all the while his hands were tightening on Hez’s throat.

  Hez dropped the shotgun, and his fist dug into the dungaree pocket, and I knew he was reaching for the Smith and Wesson, and then the gun barged into sight and it took Hez about four seconds to figure out how to release the safety, and then there was an explosion and Johnny Simms bucked with the shocking power of it, but he did not release Hez’s throat.

  Hez brought the gun up, trying for a shot at Simms’ head. But Simms clutched his throat and slammed Hez’s head back against the ground and the gun left Hez’s hands, and Simms tightened his fingers on the leathery throat, his thumbs on the big man’s Adam’s apple.

  They teach Marines to kill, and Johnny Simms wasn’t playing. Johnny Simms was carrying a .38 caliber slug in his abdomen, but he’d just learned that his girl had been murdered. And maybe he’d attacked enemy soldiers with such ferocity, but I doubted it.

  Hez tried to roll over. His eyes were beginning to bulge out of their sockets, and there was a prayer on his mouth, or a gasp, or a curse. He never got it out. His eyes rolled upward, and he tried a last stand effort to free his throat from Simms’ hands, but Simms would not let go. Hez rattled, a deep rattle that started down in his bowels and shuddered up the length of his body and then trembled from between his lips like a cold wind. And then he suddenly relaxed, and he was still, and I said, “That’s enough, Johnny.”

  Johnny Simms didn’t answer me.

  Johnny’s hands were still tight around Hez’s throat, and the blood spilled from Johnny’s belly where the revolver had ripped him open at close range. I felt for his heart. He was dead.

  I picked up the .38 from where it had fallen from Hez’s hand. He had said the dead girl was Lois.

  Then the girl who’d been put on that train this morning was Ann Grafton, and she’d been taken to Davistown.

  Where in Davistown?

  There was a man who might know.

  17

  I put the .38 into my jacket pocket, and started up for the car. There was a cold wind blowing in off the lake, a wind which would speed the rain’s coming. I slammed into the convertible, started the engine, and backed out of the court. I took the bumping medieval road doing sixty all the way. I turned left into Sullivan’s Corners and then raced through the town, past the traffic circle, past the blinking yellow caution light. The stars had deserted the sky long ago. The clouds were rolling in, in bunches, piling up like hordes of black sheep. In the distance, I heard the solemn roll of thunder, saw the answering feeble spit of lightning.

  I pushed the gas pedal down to the floorboards when I hit the highway. The speedometer climbed to eighty. The thunder and lightning were moving closer now, coming in with the sudden fury of a summer storm. You could smell dust in the air, whirling dust, and the heavy pregnancy that comes before water bursts from the womb of the sky. It was going to rain like hell. It was going to wash the town of Sullivan’s Corners clean of blood.

  The lone headlight appeared magically behind me, like a Cyclops’ eye in a black-masked face. I heard the wail of the siren, and I kept my foot pressed to the accelerator because now I knew that Ann was in serious trouble and nothing was going to stop me, not Planett and his flunkies, not the state cops, not the militia.

  He pulled alongside on his motorcycle.

  �
��Pull over!” he shouted.

  “Screw you!” I shouted back.

  The state academy had trained him well. He pulled his gun from its holster, and he rested his right hand on his left forearm, the left hand holding the bike on the road in a speeding, unswerving straight line.

  “I’ll fire in three seconds,” he yelled.

  I jammed on the brakes, and the car screeched to a skidding halt. The motorcycle pulled in beside me. By the time Fred got off the seat, I’d rolled over, yanked the .38 from my pocket, and pointed it straight at his head. He looked up into the muzzle of the Smith and Wesson. His own gun was in his hand, ready. We faced each other across the narrow blued barrels.

  “Have you had to fire that since you’ve been a cop?” I asked.

  “What?”

  “Have you had to fire that gun?” I shouted.

  “No.”

  “Neither have I. One of us’ll have to in the next few minutes, Fred. I’m not going to jail again, and I’m not being stopped. Now how about it?”

  The rain started. The thunder blasted the sky, and the lightning crackled in yellow-white luminescence. The drops were huge and heavy. They poured down in buckets, and we stood facing each other over the guns.

  “You’re a crazy bastard,” Fred shouted over the roar of the thunder. “Why didn’t you get out of this when you still could?”

  “I still can,” I said. “No more bullshit, Fred. Either you turn your bike around and head in the other direction, or I start blasting.”

  “You wouldn’t shoot,” he said. “You’ve got nothing to gain by—”

  “NO MORE BULLSHIT!” I shouted. “Get on that bike and take off!”

  “You crazy bastard! Do you think you can buck all of us? Do you think—?”

  I fired.

  I caught him in the shoulder, and the slug spun him around, and then his own gun went off into the air, and he crumpled to the pavement alongside his bike, the headlight still peering wakefully into the darkness. I didn’t even look at him. I slid over behind the wheel. I didn’t put the top up. I threw the car into gear and started off again. My hands were shaking. My foot was trembling on the gas pedal. The rain whipped the windshield, poured steadily into the car. I almost missed Handy’s log cabin. My foot leaped to the brake pedal, and the wheels screeched and skidded, and I held the wheel tightly until the car side-whipped to a stop. I backed up and climbed out, leaving the motor running. I was drenched. I went to the door of Handy’s cabin. This time, all the lights were out. I banged on the door with the butt of the .38.

  “Who is it?” Handy called from inside.

  “Colby! Open this goddamn door!”

  “Just a minute, just a minute.”

  I waited. I rapped again to hurry him up. I was ready to shoot the door off its hinges when it opened. Handy was in pajamas and robe. I didn’t bother with polite cordialities.

  “Where’s Ann Grafton?” I said, and then I shoved the gun into his belly.

  “Are you out of your mind?” Handy said. “Banging on the door at this hour of the morning! Waving a gun around as if …”

  I eased him into the room and slammed the door behind me.

  “Where’s Ann?” I said.

  “I don’t know where the hell she—”

  “Two men had been shot with this gun, Handy. One is dead, and the other’s lying wounded in the middle of the highway. Do you want to be number three?”

  “Don’t threaten me, Colby,” Handy said calmly. “Guns don’t scare me.”

  “What does, Handy? Look, I’m nervous. I’m overwrought. I’m tense. I’m soaking wet. This is liable to explode with no effort at all. Where’s Ann?”

  “I don’t know,” and he started to turn his back on me.

  I spun him around. “You do know, you spineless bastard! You’ve known from the beginning. Where is she?”

  Indignation flared in Handy’s eyes. “Don’t say that again, Colby.”

  “Say what, Handy? I said a lot of things.”

  “You know what I mean.”

  “The spineless part? Is that what troubles you?”

  “I warned you not to …”

  “What the hell are you, if not spineless? When’s the last time you stood up straight? When’s the last time …?”

  “Don’t go bucking a machine, Colby! Only a fool bucks a machine.”

  “What machine? A sheriff and a couple of deputies? A hick state trooper on a motor bike? A couple who run a whorehouse? Is this your big machine?”

  “What difference does it make how big the machine is, if it runs the town?”

  “Are they what you’re afraid of? Somebody told me you used to have spunk. Said you used to be a fighter. What the hell happened to you? Did you get too interested in the big payoff?”

  “It’s not that. I don’t need the money. I—”

  “All right, Handy, listen to me. I know a girl named Lois was killed. I know she was buried by Barter and Hezekiah. I know Ann was taken on a train to Davistown this morning, and I’m pretty damn sure I know why.”

  “They’ll let her go,” Handy said. “They said they’d let her go.”

  “Will they? A cop friend of mine went out to that motel early tonight. From what Hezekiah said, they tumbled to him. They’re probably holding him, too. Do you really think they’ll let him and Ann go? Damnit, Handy, they’re trying to cover a murder!”

  “I … I don’t know what to think.”

  “Where is she?”

  “I don’t know.” He paused. “You saw Hezekiah tonight?”

  “For the last time. He’s dead. A man named Johnny Simms killed him. He killed him because he found out about Lois. He was going to marry that girl, Handy.”

  “How’d this get so complicated?” Handy asked.

  I didn’t answer.

  “How’d it get so complicated?” he asked again. “It was simple. It was … well, what harm were we doing? Who were we hurting?” He looked into my eyes. “Who was I hurting, Colby?”

  “Yourself,” I answered.

  Handy lowered his head and his eyes.

  “Where is she, Handy?” I asked.

  Handy heaved a great sigh. “At Joe Carlisle’s place,” he said. “In Davistown.”

  “Where?”

  He hesitated for a long time, and then he stood erect, with his shoulders back and he said, “I’ll take you there. Let me dress.”

  “Throw on a coat,” I said. “There may not be time for you to—”

  “All right,” he answered.

  “Get a blanket, too,” I said. “My front seat is a little damp.”

  Handy went into the other room. When he returned, he had taken off the robe and put on an English-cut raincoat. He was carrying a plaid blanket over his arm. We went outside. The rain had let up a little. I put up the top, spread the blanket over the soaked leather seat, and then pulled away from the cabin.

  “A man’s got to do the right thing eventually,” Handy said.

  “If he’s a man,” I answered. “Which way?”

  “Straight through Sullivan’s Corners. I’ll show you from there.”

  “Is it along drive?”

  “About a half-hour. Be careful in Sullivan’s Corners. We wouldn’t want to run into Planett.”

  “Planett is out of commission. So’s Fred. The machine is breaking down, Handy.”

  “I didn’t know that,” he said. He paused. “I offered to take you to Davistown before I knew that, Colby.”

  “Yes.”

  “I was only reminding myself,” he said.

  We drove through Sullivan’s Corners.

  “Straight ahead,” Handy said, “to the next stop light. Then make a right. That road leads into Davistown.”

  The stop light was red when we got to it. We didn’t stop. I made the right turn, and then pushed down on the accelerator.

  “What happened at the motel?” I asked.

  “It’s complicated.”

  “We’ve got a half-hour.” />
  “All right. You know it’s a brothel?”

  “Yes.”

  “It’s a good business. It was good even before Stephanie married Barter. I mean, it was steady. Nothing high-tone, you understand. Then Stephanie imported quality. Quality meant higher prices. A $500,000 business is nothing to laugh at.”

  “No, it isn’t.”

  “A business like that needs protection. You know. You’re a cop.”

  “Yes.”

  “We’ve got a State’s Attorney who’s a crusader. If you want to keep something like this away from state law, you make sure the local law is in your pocket. Stephanie made sure of that. I don’t know which of us she reached first. Probably Fred, probably on a small scale. Planett must have been an easy mark, too. Me … I don’t suppose I gave her much trouble, either.”

  “Go on.”

  “You have to understand Stephanie. She’s a strange girl. She wants things. She wants luxury. Prostitution is all she knows, and she’s built it into a tremendous operation. She’d have succeeded in any business, do you know that? Anything she went into. She happened to choose prostitution. Or, actually, from what I gather about her background, it chose her. She needed capital, she got it. She married Barter who’s pretty well-off, owns a good deal of property at the Point. And, of course, he had the business already and she had ideas about what she could do to that business, how she could make it really pay. She succeeded, too. You have to hand it to her.”

  “I want to know what happened on the night of June 3rd,” I said.

  “I’m getting to that. It doesn’t make sense, unless you know Stephanie. She’s a strange girl, I told you. I’ve never known her not to keep her word, not to stick to a bargain. She married Barter, and she was damn good-looking when she did, you can believe me. Life hadn’t been exactly gentle with her, but a beautiful girl doesn’t take the hard knocks as badly. She was a beauty. Still is, for that matter, but there was this freshness about her then. Mike Barter had got himself a prize. Of course, Stephanie had got what she wanted, too. That was their bargain. No love involved, you understand. But a bargain. Stephanie keeps a bargain. And she expects the other person to keep it too. She was Barter’s wife. She performed the way a wife should. She entertained, she went to bed with him, she was true to him. She was a wife. And maybe that’s love, too, I don’t know. Maybe that’s what love adds up to.”