High Crimes

by William Deverell

  O’Doull urged a smile.

  “Any black belt — it matters not how high a dan — can make the kills that are trained in commando schools. The two deaths that you described do not involve any extreme level of expertise, although admittedly one was more subtly engineered than the other.”

  “Okay, start with a man by the door, with his face smashed,” O’Doull said. “There were some broken face bones.”

  “A basic commando kill,” Mitsui said. “It is done with either a middle knuckle fist or with a palm heel, up and in and twisting, so the nasal bones will rip the brain tissue.” He demonstrated with his arms and hands. The movement was sharp, snapping, so fast that O’Doull almost missed it. Mitsui repeated. His arm shot forward like a steel coil suddenly released, his fingers bent at the middle knuckles, his hand twisting.

  “If you have control over your energy field, there is much more power, of course. The other fellow, as I say, his case involved some more technique, but it is in the repertoire. The knuckle of the middle finger is extended so, straight in line with the forearm, and all the strength and energy of the arm muscles is focused there, and passes through it into the body, into the heart.” Mitsui demonstrated a hard jab, his arm reaching full extension, the middle knuckle of his middle finger protruding like a stubby dagger.

  “With the right motion, the arm is like a battering ram, and you can transmit as much force as if you are swinging a hammer over your head. Such is the power of what we call the ghost hand, a focusing of energy beyond the physical limitations of the fist. The contact with the body may last only one thousandth of a second, and will leave no bruise mark. It is speculated that Bruce Lee was killed in this way — no evidence was ever found of an injury. Directed perfectly, such a blow will stop a man’s heart, destroy it. Directed imperfectly, the blow might, as in this case, cause superfluous damage. Such as a collapsed lung.” Mitsui sighed. “Commando karate is a black art, Sergeant O’Doull. No one who believes in the teachings would practice it.”

  “But there are those who do not believe in the teachings,” O’Doull said. “Who, Mr. Mitsui? Who is an expert?”

  “There is a man named Hernandez in Tampa. He teaches commando karate. Also, a Simon Hawthorne in Key West, an Englishman. Here, in Miami, there is Rudy Meyers. He is a black belt.”

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  O’Doull didn’t return immediately to his motel, but went to the Budget car-rental office. They had picked up the Dodge Dart he and Larochelle had abandoned at the gas station. Her bag was still in it. He drove west through the city, past the Palmetto Expressway to the Kroger Executive Center and the Drug Enforcement Administration offices.

  Flaherty asked her secretary to leave and closed the office door so they were alone. She gave him a big smile, as if they were old fiends.

  “Nice to see you,” she said. “You look frazzled.”

  “I want you to tell me about Meyers.”

  “He’s a prick, for starters.” She folded her arms, still smiling. “Why?”

  “I think he may be involved in these murders.”

  Flaherty didn’t blink. “Wouldn’t surprise me.”

  “What about him?”

  “He’s good. That you know. He gives value. I don’t think he’s psychopathic, but he’s close to it. He has a morality of sorts, the kind you find all wrapped up in the flag. He’s a Spartan. He could afford to get fat; but he doesn’t.”

  “What about his little Cuban army? All these people he’s training?”

  “The CIA folks are quite content. Reagan’s people at best turn a blind eye, at worst give the wink and the nod. It’s not just the Cuban votes down here. They’d like an incident. The whole thing scares me. I don’t want some turkey who’s got it in his mind he’s some modern-day warlord out to restore America’s greatness dragging me into an international scenario involving Fidel and some nervous nuke-fingers in Russia.”

  “He’s serious?”

  “Sure. This time they’re going to try to avoid going in by the Bay of Pigs, but they’re going in just the same. Castro may be sorry some day that he’s emptied the prisons and sent all these people up here. Meyers’s staff of so-called private investigators and security guards, they’re all tinpot ex-soldiers and gangsters who didn’t fit into Castro’s plan for a socialist state. Meyers has another four or five hundred regulars that he trains just south of here near the Homestead Air Force Base, and I don’t know how many reserves he can call up. He’s out there every evening. They call the group the dsa. After diez y siete de abril. They remember April 17, 1961, the Bay of Pigs. They had an anniversary wake not long ago.”

  “How do they raise their money?” O’Doull asked.

  “There’s some they get from the Somoza estate, I think, and maybe a bit comes from the odd contributor in Texas, but mostly it’s from the Cuban colony. Little Havana and Cuban groups upstate and in the North. Every refugee with a job is expected to donate. It smells of a protection racket. There’s a big Colombian dope connection, too. You guys, the Canadian government, you’re contributing to the cause, through the deal Meyers made with your man Mitchell. Meyers wrangled a good one there.”

  “How do you mean?” O’Doull had not heard about this.

  “Half a million dollars. You didn’t know? Half a million. If Meyers gets the ship, contents, and culprits to Canada with a case for conviction. Nothing if he doesn’t.”

  O’Doull just stared.

  “Why have we got Meyers on contract, Jessica?” he asked. “You recommended him. Why?”

  “The inspector wanted the best. Price didn’t matter. I’ve got no love for Meyers, but he’s a good one. Mind you, if he’s left some bodies lying around, Mitchell may find that his precious little Operation Potship is a game that isn’t worth the candle.”

  “Did you have any other reason for suggesting Meyers to us?”

  She smiled. “Naw. Keeps him out of trouble as much as possible. I’d rather have him working for you guys than for the Colombian Mafia.” She looked at the clock on her desk. “I’ve got a lunch date. I can talk to you later. I’m wishing you good luck on your theory.”

  “Kelly used to be a friend of mine.”

  “I heard, I heard. Is that what is keeping you overtime down here? You’re not out on some little self-serving mission of vengeance, are you? I hear you’ve been stirring up a few red ants, and got a few people upset. Watch your step. This can be a dangerous town.”

  They got up to go.

  “It’s funny,” she said, giving him a sharp sideways look. “Talking to Mitchell, I had a different picture of you. Some absent-minded police misfit who couldn’t tie his own shoelaces. He was lots of laughs about you.” She smiled. “I suppose he expected you to bumble around for a couple of days, get in everyone’s way, and come back with a piece of bullshit that will keep Operation Potship on line. I wonder if he suspects something deep down in his gut about Meyers and refuses to accept it as truth. He assumes you’re not going to destroy his illusions, Theo.”

  ***

  “I’ve got a pal I went to medical school with,” Dr. Benitez said. “He’s a kung fu fanatic, green belt. He’s told me all about this ghost hand, this energy transfer stuff.”

  “And?” said O’Doull. He was at a pay phone in downtown Miami.

  “None of this martial arts stuff is part of the med school curriculum, Sergeant,” Benitez said. “But they don’t teach acupuncture, either, and we’re being forced to accept that there’s a lot to it. My friend’s a heart specialist, and he tells me an expert can arrest a guy’s heart without visible contusion. But if you think you’ve got a kung fu killer out there, you better have something more than medical speculation. I wouldn’t want to go to court on it and stake my reputation. All I could say in court is, sure, it’s possible. But what isn’t? Only a fool believes medicine is a complete science.”

  ***r />
  At Miami police headquarters, O’Doull went straight to the identification section, hoping at all costs to avoid Braithwaite.

  “You’ve got Rudy Meyers’s prints?” O’Doull asked. “With his application for a private investigator’s license?”

  The clerk went to look for them.

  O’Doull spent the rest of the day in the electronics laboratory of the audio tape company.

  Then he drove west, to the training camp of Diez y Siete de Abril.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  “Well, O’Doull, you were brilliant. You have caught me in a tissue of lies, as they say, a tissue of lies. You have proof that I was at the hotel. Who have you talked about it with, this evidence you have?”

  “No one.” O’Doull wondered if Meyers would make a move. If he did, that would ice the cake. He knew he had been a fool not to have brought bullets for Marianne’s snub-nosed Smith and Wesson .32. He would have to be cool, and bluff.

  “I killed them,” Meyers said. “It doesn’t matter that you know because in thirty seconds you will be dead. Faster, if you try to reach for the gun. Enjoy the last few seconds of your life.”

  O’Doull kept his eyes on Meyers’s hands. He would have time for one block, a hard Rising Block against the striking arm. He might have time to get away a knife-hand to the throat. But it had been years since O’Doull had won his belt.

  The heel of Meyers’s right hand came slashing through the air, towards O’Doull’s nose. . . .

  O’Doull blinked away the fictions of his mind, sat with the engine idling, and stared up at the wooden sign suspended above the driveway of the old Army camp. The sign bore the words Diez y Siete de Abril, and below, in English: “Remember the Seventeenth of April.”

  O’Doull wondered whether he should confront Meyers directly in the hope he would blurt some statement — either an admission of guilt or some obvious lie. O’Doull was wired, and had a receiver-recorder hidden in his car.

  He understood that one of the main weapons in the arsenal of a detective was surprise. He had not attempted to alert Meyers of his coming.

  He stopped the car near a large barracks, with an office at the side. Nearby was a hangar large enough to serve as a gymnasium, and beside it was a track and playing field with goal posts at either end.

  O’Doull stood for a while and watched Meyers, whose back was to him, working with about twelve men. Another forty men at the other end of the field were paired off and sparring.

  “Varques,” Meyers shouted. A man came forward and picked up what looked like a bayonet. He took up a stance. “Varques,” Meyers said. “Kill me.”

  Varques circled, then darted at Meyers. Suddenly the knife was flipping harmlessly through the air, followed by Varques. Meyers seemed not to have moved. “Kill me, Varques.” The trainee picked up the bayonet and charged Meyers once more. Meyers blocked the thrust with one arm and slammed his other elbow into Varques’s midriff, doubling him up.

  Meyers told the men to spar, and turned and walked towards O’Doull.

  “That last little demonstration was intended for your enjoyment, Theo. I assure you, they are not all as bad as that fellow made them look.”

  He took O’Doull by the elbow and gently directed him towards the barracks office.

  “In six weeks, he will be able to kill me. At that time, I will not be attempting that type of exercise with him.” He laughed. He was looking at O’Doull carefully as he opened the office door.

  “I hope this is important, Theo, because I really dislike being interrupted when we are doing exercises. These men give up most of their free evenings to come here. They are all fervent anti-Communists. They want to learn. The Defense Department sold us this land. It was used to train reserves. It’s not much, but it’s a start.” He stared out the window. “There will be an army of freedom soon. I will have three thousand men, each worth twenty of Castro’s.”

  He plugged in a hot plate. “Tea?”

  “No, thanks.”

  Meyers put a kettle on. “I keep a stock of herbal teas, I avoid caffeine. It’s as poisonous as any drug. You seem nervous.”

  There was sweat rolling down the sides of Meyers’s face. His tunic and sweat pants showed patches of damp.

  “Watch the kettle, will you, Theo, while I clean myself up.” He pulled off his tunic and stepped through a door. O’Doull heard the sound of water running. For a few seconds he just sat there, feeling his advantage falling away fast. Then he looked around for Meyers’s pager, found it hanging from his belt, quickly took it apart, slipped into it the small transmitter he had originally designed for Kerrivan, and closed it again.

  Meyers came out, naked, whipping a towel across the back of his shoulders. He was huge across the chest, bull-like but with muscles that seemed loose, not rigid. O’Doull watched as Meyers, with the towel tied at his waist, removed the kettle and picked a few pinches of tea from a jar, put them in a teapot, and poured the steaming water into it.

  “Peabody, the night manager of the Mangrove Arms Hotel, saw you walking out of the lobby about two in the morning, the night before last. So did a woman who was there. Cherrie.”

  “The one is a pimp, the other an incompetent whore. What else is worrying you, O’Doull?”

  “Marianne Larochelle also saw you at the hotel. She saw blood on your sleeve. You have had your men following her. And for a time they were following me as well.”

  There was no expression on Meyers’s face. “Go on.”

  O’Doull opened his briefcase, took out his portable Uher tape recorder, and plugged it into a wall socket. He played the tape of the ship-to-shore telephone call between Kelly and Kerrivan.

  Meyers’s expression remained bland throughout. The tape ended: “I am sorry. Your party does not answer.”

  Meyers sipped tea.

  “This is a duplicate,” O’Doull said. “The original is secure, with instructions. What you heard is virgin. In about fifteen seconds, you will hear it from the beginning, only this time most of the high-frequency wavelengths will have been filtered out.”

  Kelly’s voice was clear: “Just a minute. Stay with me. Hang on. I’ll be back to you.”

  There had been some muffled, distant sounds on the original tape. Now they assumed the form of voices, still distant, still unclear.

  “I isolated that eight-second gap,” O’Doull said. “Quite frankly, I was surprised at the pickup, but I knew that eight seconds of pure static was impossible. There had to be voices. The machinery is voice-activated. Everything clicks on when human voice frequencies come through the radio. I worked around with loudness variables, tried different frequency filters, and managed to clean it up pretty nicely, if I do say so. This, coming up, is the gap, with lots of volume.”

  The spool of tape slowly turned. Meyers’s eyes were fixed on it.

  The voice’s pitch was a little high and slightly flat, blurred, and wavering. But it was unmistakably the voice of Rudy Meyers.

  “I’m sorry, I was . . . Augustin. Who are you phoning? I don’t want you using the phone.”

  There was a strong note of anger.

  O’Doull said, “A few words are missing still. ‘I was coming to meet Augustin’? The point is, it’s your voice. You were there. In the room. Kelly was trying to warn Kerrivan. He was telling him to dump the cargo.” O’Doull rewound the tape and replaced the machine in his briefcase. “What do you say?”

  “Is that everything?” Meyers asked. His pager beeped. “My office is calling. I’m very busy. You’ll have to go.”

  “Somebody hung up the phone after the killings. The tip of your left index finger shows up on the receiver. At least eight points of similarity, enough points to qualify for court.”

  “I don’t understand what the problem is, Theo.”

  “Come on.”

  “Of course I had been in the room. I
told you that, didn’t I? I had popped in to look for Escarlata. Kelly told me he wasn’t there. I left.”

  O’Doull looked at him with disbelief. “You told me you were asleep. Midnight to six a.m. ‘A precise order of habit patterns,’ I believe you said.”

  “I certainly did not tell you I was asleep at midnight that night. I was working. I was to meet with Augustin. Where do you get these ideas? Of course my fingerprint would appear on the phone. I used it that day. As for Marianne, she is lying to save her own skin. Blood on my sleeve — that’s a little too much, Theo, a little too much. Congratulations on finding her. She’s the murderess, of course. Excellent work in that regard, Theo. Where do you have her? She must have been hiding in the bedroom when I came to the door.”

  The scene was not being played as O’Doull had scripted it.

  Meyers began to walk towards him. O’Doull stiffened, but Meyers walked past, into the shower room. He emerged, slipping on a jockstrap and a clean pair of sweat pants. “I think I need to work out some more.”

  O’Doull was guarded, ready to pull out his gun if necessary.

  “Mitchell warned me that you were a dreamer, Theo. I really don’t like you.” He walked past O’Doull again, picked up the phone, and gave a credit card reference and a long distance number to the operator. “I suppose your reveries have Rudy Meyers, his black deeds bared, becoming a desperate man at this juncture. He is about to deliver a killing blow to your spine, and you, anticipating this, suddenly pull out the firearm that weighs so heavily in your pocket. Perhaps you would find the strength to shoot me. I don’t like you, Theo. You are a romantic, and you are absurd, and you are so neurotic that you are dangerous to yourself and others.”

  He spoke into the phone. “Inspector Mitchell, please. It’s Twenty-Nine G-K in Miami. Harold? Sorry to bother you.”

  O’Doull, wearied by a long night and a long day, felt his energy slowly seeping from his pores.

  “I have your man O’Doull with me,” Meyers said. “He is compromising the operation. Get him out of Miami. I don’t care if you have to send an armed escort, get him out. Get him out before I send him away myself, on the end of my foot.”