Murder Takes a Break

by Bill Crider

  "Don't worry," she said when we got to the table. "I'm not the type to hold grudges. What happened last night was partly my fault, after all. Sometimes I think I should keep Henry J. on a tighter leash."

  She didn't know the half of it, or I didn't think she did. If Dino was right, however, she was way ahead of me. And she was also a damned good actress.

  "Willie won't bother you, either," she said. "In case you were wondering."

  Willie must have been the bartender. I glanced over in his direction, but he was ignoring us completely, polishing a spot on the bar with great concentration. It was probably the only spot on the bar that had been polished within the last quarter of a century.

  Dino sat down and said, "We weren't worried about Willie. We can handle him."

  Big Al looked pointedly at his arm and gave me the old up-and-down.

  "The two of you don't look like you could handle a three-year-old girl with the 'flu. You look like somebody dragged you through Offatt's Bayou about an inch off the bottom, Smith. What happened to you two, anyway?"

  "You should know," Dino said.

  It came out hard and flat, sort of like Jack Webb might have said it on Dragnet. I thought again that I should hire Dino. He was a lot better at this than I was. Of course, I was pretty sure that he was on the wrong track, but that didn't bother me. The thing was that he sounded as if he were absolutely right.

  I was still standing, and Big Al looked up at me quizzically.

  "Do you have any idea what he's talking about?" she asked.

  I nodded. "I'm afraid so."

  "I wish you'd let me in on it, then."

  I was about to, but in the pause between the end of "White Christmas" and the beginning of Tony Bennett's "I Left My Heart in San Francisco," I head the phone ring at the end of the bar. Willie went over to answer it, and I had a sudden premonition that I knew what the call was about.

  "Something's happened," I said. "Something that I think we need to talk over."

  "She knows what's happened," Dino said. "She's the one behind it."

  Willie was walking over to the table. He looked like a man who had just lost five grand at the dog track and didn't know how he was going to explain it to his wife.

  "The phone's for you," he told Big Al.

  She made no move to get up. "Who is it? Can't you take a message?"

  Willie looked at me and Dino. "You'd better just take it yourself," he said.

  Big Al pushed back her chair and got up. She knew better than to press Willie for details. You never knew who might be calling. It could be someone that she didn't want Dino and me to know about, like her snitch in the police department. I didn't doubt that she had one. I was just surprised that it had taken him this long to call, if that was who it was.

  While Big Al was walking toward the phone, Dino turned to me and said, "You're not playing this right. If you wanna do the 'good cop, bad cop' routine, that's OK, but you gotta work with me a little better."

  "I don't want to do any routine," I said. "I don't think Big Al has any idea about what's happened tonight. If I'm right, that's someone calling to tell her right now."

  "How could you know that?"

  "I don't know it. But judging from the way Willie the Bartender looked, it has to be bad news. Can you think of any other really bad news that Big Al might be getting right about now?"

  He couldn't, but he hated to admit it. We both looked at Big Al as she talked into the telephone receiver. After a while she hung it up and stood where she was, looking out over the room. I don't think she was seeing anything, however.

  After what seemed like quite a while, she reached out and grabbed the handle of a nearly empty beer mug that was sitting on the bar. She threw the mug as hard as she could at the Christmas tree, which exploded into a shower of needles and sparkly ornaments.

  The tree didn't do much to slow down the mug, which kept right on going past the end of the bar, crashing through the front of the juke box, and cutting off the Four Aces right in the middle of "Three Coins in the Fountain." By the time most of the lights in the juke box had blinked out, the clientele of the Hurricane Club had faded silently away. They might not have known what was going on, but they knew they didn't want to be a part of it. The only people left in the place were Dino, me, Big Al, and Willie, who was studiously ignoring the rest of us. He'd already lost his baseball bat, and he wasn't going to lose anything else.

  Big Al came back over to the table, reached out one big hand, and grabbed Dino's shoulder. His face turned red, and his eyes bugged out, but he didn't fall out of the chair. She squeezed a little harder. Dino listed sharply to the right, but he still didn't make a sound.

  Big Al wasn't looking at Dino while she squeezed. She was looking at me, and not with affection.

  "You sons of bitches," she said. "I ought to kill both of you right here."

  "We didn't do anything to Henry J.," I said. "We're just the ones who found him."

  "That's not what I heard."

  "Well, you heard wrong. Let go of Dino's shoulder, and I'll tell you what happened."

  She didn't move her hand, but she let up on the pressure a bit. Dino sagged in the chair and took a deep, shuddering breath.

  "Why should I believe a damn word you say?" Big Al asked.

  "Because it'll be the truth. Would we have come here if we'd killed Henry J.? We may be stupid, but we're not entirely crazy."

  "Maybe not." Big Al didn't sound completely convinced, though she took her hand away from Dino. "But if I ever find out that you had anything to do with killing Henry J., you'll be feeding the crabs in about ten minutes."

  I didn't much like the idea of becoming crab fodder, but I said, "Fair enough. Now do you want to hear what really happened, or not?"

  She wanted to hear. She sat down across from Dino, who was still in no condition to join in the conversation. I sat beside her and told her about Sharon and about what had happened when we got to Henry J.'s place.

  "And you think he'd shoot at her because of some little thing like that GHB?" Big Al said when I was finished.

  "Why not?" I said. "Henry J. wasn't exactly shy about hurting people, and Sharon knew something that could get him in big trouble if she told it."

  "In the first place, who's she gonna tell? The cops? They wouldn't believe her, and if they did, they couldn't prove anything."

  "What if she told you?"

  "I already knew. I found out about it months ago, and I straightened Henry J. out, believe me. He and I understood each other, and all it took was a little discussion."

  Big Al paused and her eyes misted up, and she squeezed them shut. I couldn't believe what I was seeing. Tears started to run down her cheeks beside her nose.

  "Henry J. was the only friend I ever had," she said, opening her eyes and wiping her face with the back of her hand. "He was the only man I ever trusted. And you think I killed him? You're crazy, all right."

  I would have told her that it was all Dino's idea, but this didn't seem to be the right time for that. Dino might have spoken up himself, but he still wasn't talking.

  "I'm sorry," I said. "I'm going to find whoever did it, though. You can count on it."

  Big Al sniffed and pulled a paper napkin from the black metal holder that sat on the table. She dried her eyes and tossed the wadded napkin on the table.

  "Maybe you're going to find him, and maybe you're not," she said.

  Her eyes were still sparkling, but they were hard as the head of a railroad spike.

  "Why do you say that?"

  "Maybe I'll find him first. If I do, there won't be anything left for you to find."

  I could tell she wasn't joking, but I wasn't too worried. I didn't think she was going to find anyone.

  I turned to Dino. "Are you about ready to leave, or would you like a beer?"

  "Uh," Dino said.

  I didn't think this would be a good time to remind him that he'd told me he could take anything Big Al could dish out. I put a hand und
er his elbow and helped him to his feet. We looked like two very old men as we hobbled toward the door.

  I looked over at Willie, but he wasn't interested in trying anything, which was just as well. I don't think Dino and I could have handled him. For that matter, I don't think we could have handled Minnie Mouse.

  "You two'd better go home and go to bed," Big Al said to our backs.

  I didn't see any point in arguing with her. It was probably the best idea I'd heard all night.

  32

  Dino had a little more trouble getting in the truck this time, but after a little maneuvering, I got him into a sitting position and fastened the seat belt around him.

  I was about to shut the door when he said, "You took your pistol in there, didn't you?"

  I admitted that I had.

  "Why didn't you shoot her, then?"

  "What would I have told Lattner? That Big Al squeezed you a little too hard?"

  "I wish I had a pistol," Dino said. "I'd use it to shoot you."

  He was only kidding, though. I think.

  We were almost to his house before he said anything else, and it wasn't anything that I'd expected.

  "Was Big Al really crying?" he asked.

  "I think so. It surprised me, too."

  "Yeah. I would have bet she couldn't do it. She really must have liked old Henry J."

  "Two hearts beating as one," I said.

  "I don't think that was it, exactly," Dino said. "I think they understood each other, but that's about all."

  I stopped the S-10 in front of his house and walked around to help him out.

  "I can make it just fine," he said, pushing away the hand that I offered.

  "I know that. I was just making sure."

  "Yeah. I believe that like I believe Big Al didn't really want to hurt me."

  He got out without my help, but it took him a while. When he had both feet planted on the ground, I said, "You don't still think Big Al shot Henry J., do you?"

  "Hell, no. That was no act we saw back there. I thought she was going to kill me, but there was nothing personal in it. I was just there for her to take it out on."

  "And you don't hold it against her?"

  "If it hadn't been for me," he said, "we wouldn't have been at the Hurricane Club. Besides, I don't blame her. I was handy, and she needed to hurt somebody. I might have done the same thing in her place."

  "No, you wouldn't. Your uncles, maybe, but not you."

  "Yeah, well, you never know."

  That was true. You never really know about anyone, no matter how well you might think you know them.

  We started slowly up the walk to Dino's front door. He was walking a lot better now than he'd been back at Big Al's place. So was I, for that matter. In a week or so, we'd be as good as new. Or so I liked to tell myself.

  Dino opened his door and said, "If Big Al didn't kill Henry J. and take a shot at Sharon, who did? Lattner?"

  "I wouldn't put it past him. He's mixed up in things some way or another. But I have some other ideas, too."

  "Are you going to tell me what they are?"

  "I may have done too much of that already."

  "Now what the hell does that mean?" Dino asked.

  "Do you feel like hearing it?"

  "Not out here. Come on in."

  We went inside. Dino sat on his couch and reached for his remote control. I beat him to it and pushed it aside.

  "If I'm going to talk, I'm not going to compete with some screaming cretin on that TV set."

  "Cretin?"

  "You could look it up."

  "Right. And then I have to use it in a sentence. Like flippant."

  "You did real well with that one."

  "Yeah. Now tell me about those ideas of yours. Or better yet, don't tell me. Not yet. I'm going to take a bunch of aspirin right now."

  He got off the couch under his own power and shuffled off to find the aspirin. I sat in a chair near the coffee table and waited for him to come back. When he did, he didn't look any better, but then it takes a while for aspirin to do any good. He sat back on the couch and looked at me.

  "About those ideas of yours," he said.

  "I don't have a lot of ideas," I told him, "but I do have a couple of questions."

  "Questions? What about?"

  "About your old college pal Tack Kirbo."

  "Tack? What about him?"

  "Is he still in town?" I asked.

  It was something I should have thought of sooner, but it hadn't really occurred to me. When I look for people these days, I don't give formal reports to my clients, and I'd simply assumed that the Kirbos had gone back home to wait for some word on what I'd found out. Dino had guaranteed my fee, and there was no reason for the Kirbos to stick around.

  But, as it turned out, they had.

  "Sure they're here," Dino told me. "They're right there at the Galvez."

  "I had a feeling you were going to say that. And because you did, I have another question. Have you been talking to them?"

  "Them?"

  "Don't get legalistic on me Dino. You know what I mean."

  "Yeah, I guess I do."

  He looked hopefully at the remote control. I picked it up and held it in my hand.

  "I'll let you have this just as soon as you answer the question."

  "OK, OK. I've talked to Tack a couple of times. He's an old friend, after all."

  "So what did you talk about?"

  "Nothing much. Just about how we were looking into things and that we'd run down a couple of leads."

  "'We,'" I said. "You told him 'we.'"

  Dino tried to look innocent. He wasn't very good at it, however.

  "Sure I did. We were working together part of the time, weren't we?"

  "And so you told him about Big Al and Henry J."

  "Why not? You don't think Tack had anything to do with all this, do you?"

  "It's not impossible. You couldn't have told him about Sharon, though, since we didn't know anything about that part of things."

  "Well, . . . ."

  "Well, what? Oh, hell." I'd forgotten for a second that he'd known all along that Sharon had been at the party. "You don't mean you told him that she was at the beach house."

  "It might have come up while we were talking."

  "Either you told him or you didn't. Which is it?"

  "OK, I told him. I didn't see any reason not to."

  I couldn't really blame him. I don't think I would have seen any reason not to, either.

  "Kirbo might know more than we think he does about the whole mess," I said. "He might even have had someone else working on this, for all we know. And he might even have a reason for blaming Sharon for what happened to his son, now that he knows she was at the party."

  Dino rubbed his face. He looked a little ragged around the edges, and whatever good the shot had done him at first, Big Al's grip on his shoulder had canceled it out.

  "You don't really believe that, do you? That Tack would try to kill Sharon, I mean."

  "You know him better than I do," I said. "He's your old pal."

  He thought about it for a minute and came to a conclusion he didn't really want to put into words. He finally made himself do it, however.

  "I think he might have done it if he was mad enough," he said.

  33

  It was nearly eleven o'clock by the time I got to the Galvez. The Christmas tree was still in the lobby, but the bell ringers were gone, back to wherever they'd come from with happy memories of the holiday season in festive Galveston.

  I wasn't feeling festive at all, and I was afraid that the Kirbos wouldn't be going home with pleasant memories. When I called their room on the house phone, Janey Kirbo answered on the first ring.

  I asked her if I could talk to her and her husband, but she said that might not be a good idea. She asked if she could meet me in the lobby.

  "Sure," I told her. "I'll be on one of those couches in the front hall, looking out at the Gulf."

  I c
ouldn't really see the Gulf, but I sat on the couch anyway. She arrived in about five minutes, which surprised me a little. I thought people in Lubbock were the early-to-bed type, so I'd assumed she'd need a little time to get dressed.

  She looked tired. There were circles under her eyes, and her make-up could have used a refresher. She sank to the couch and sighed.

  "Trouble?" I said.

  "No more than usual. What did you want to talk to us about?"

  "I really wanted to talk to your husband," I said. "I had a few questions to ask him."

  "Anything you could ask him, you can ask me. I'm sure I can answer for him."

  "I don't doubt that. Where is he, by the way?"

  "Do you really want to know?"

  I told her that I really did.

  "All right. I hate to burden you with dirty little family secrets, but he's up in the room, passed out on the bed. Fully clothed, of course, and snoring very loudly."

  "He had a hard day, I take it," I said, thinking that all that shooting and running away had tired him out.

  "It was no harder than any other day that he has. He's not asleep, Mr. Smith. He's passed out drunk."

  I didn't know what to say to that, since it didn't exactly fit with my expectations. So I didn't say anything at all, a tactic that's often proved useful in the past. Sometimes other people will talk just to fill the vacuum. That's what Janey Kirbo did.

  "When you met us the other day," she said, "you must have noticed how much Tack liked his liquor."

  I nodded. "Lots of people do."

  "With him, it's more than just liking. It's an illness. He's an alcoholic, but of course he won't admit it. I've tried talking to him, but he insists that his drinking isn't a problem. He says he has it under control."

  "That's what he said about Randall, too."

  "Well, he's wrong. About himself, and about our son. Randall was well on his way to becoming an alcoholic, too, if he wasn't one already."

  "That's not what —"

  She didn't give me a chance to finish the sentence.

  "I know that's not what Tack said the other day. But it's the truth. Tack has been lying to himself for so long, he almost believes he's telling the truth. But I know better. So does he, somewhere deep down. That just makes it harder, for both of us."