Nevertheless, I took no chances. I judged the approximate number of steps to the top and went up, walking as close to the bannister as I could, to avoid letting any telltale squeaks announce my presence.
The top landing was covered by a Chinese rug thick enough to muffle any sound. The corridor led to one main room that occupied half the entire upper floor-a ballroom. A stage that could have accommodated Glenn Miller’s band took up the far end, and a fully functioning bar ran along one wall, while a sea of little round tables with chairs surrounded a waxed and polished beach of hardwood, a dance floor larger than the usual night club variety.
The other rooms were bedrooms. No one lived in them-they seemed to be designed to provide couples with a comfy trysting option; or maybe high-end prostitution was part of the party fare Sharron Wesley offered. At one end of the hall was a three-room apartment. This was the first place that looked well used. A glamorous, silver-framed portrait of Sharron was displayed on a baby grand. Around it were a dozen smaller framed photos, all of men.
These had been Sharron’s quarters, all right.
It was beginning to dawn on me how she operated. She lived here, but she lived alone. And while this apartment was nice enough, it was bizarre to think that the wealthy widow of E.J. Wesley existed in only three fairly small rooms in her own lavish mansion. This was how the help lived, at least they did if their rich boss wasn’t a bastard.
Nowhere in the well-appointed but relatively small apartment could I find evidence of male occupation, which wasn’t like her at all. None of those guys with their pictures on the baby grand had toothbrush and pajama privileges. Nor could I find any servant’s quarters. Whenever Mrs. Wesley gave a shindig, she must have imported a full staff of servants from the city to do the arranging and the cleaning up.
The guest list must have been a carefully selected bunch. If they weren’t, news of this joint most certainly would have found its way to county or state officials and there would have been hell to pay. Admittance then, would be by invitation only, a swell way to attract the suckers and snobs. Very hush hush or you were kicked out on your well-off fanny, maybe worse. If they did squawk, they’d only leave themselves open for a gambling charge.
Neat.
I opened a few drawers and poked around a bit, but there was nothing of unusual interest. After completing a tour of the rooms, I walked downstairs and around to the new kitchen to complete the circuit. I had my eyes open all the way and I know where to look, but I never found what I wanted.
In that whole damn house there wasn’t one sign of a safe.
I had looked in all the usual places and unusual, as well, behind pictures, under desks, checking for loose carpet. No safe.
If Sharron Wesley didn’t have one in the house, she must have buried it somewhere on the property. One thing was certain, money wasn’t being banked or stored where a check could be kept and income tax dragged out of it. An illegal den like this didn’t dare operate that way. There was the likelihood that she had a partner in the venture, and he hauled the dough back to the city. But the parties were probably Friday/Saturday affairs. And I doubted a bank run would happen daily, eighty miles out on Long Island like this. A Nassau County bank, perhaps, but that was still a drive. Any operation like this needed a safe for overnight purposes, at least, and I could not find one.
It was past eight-thirty and I still had to see Poochie-a guy like him could be in the rack already. Living as close to the Wesley mansion as he did, it was highly probable that he had witnessed plenty of the goings-on out here that the townspeople didn’t know about… and I wanted to see him before the cops tried to question him again, in the wake of Sharron Wesley’s Godiva act.
Now that they had something besides a disappearance to go on, the Sidon PD had a legitimate reason to drag Poochie in to answer a few questions, and knowing their interrogation techniques, I wanted the little guy left strictly alone.
I went out a side door. The same flagstone path that I had seen from the shore took me past the gazebo to the beach and I hit the sand for the walk to the shack.
In the moonlight, the little structure was just a dark blot on the beach. No light was on. The water lapped softly on the sand, and at regular intervals the hooting of some night bird broke the oppressive stillness. Overhead the moon skidded behind a cloud, but a few stars winked off and on like a street sign.
When I was still fifty feet away, an ominous snarling came from Poochie’s hut, then a higher-pitched growl, almost trying for harmony. His cats. They lived outside the shack, huddled like feline watchdogs. They spit repeatedly at the night, then a lantern flared up within the hovel and there was a banging as the occupant shut his door. Then the metal clank of a bolt shot into place.
“It’s me, Poochie,” I called out as I approached. “It’s Mike!”
No answer. I went up to the door and knocked.
“Who… who is it?” His voice was high and frightened. He lacked the confidence of his cats.
I was about to respond when a furry body flung itself at my legs and nails ripped through my pant leg into the flesh. I let out a curse and detached the cat from my leg and yelled, “ Ow! ”
The bolt went back and the handmade door opened. “Mike! Gee, I thought it was you, but I wasn’t sure. Here, let me take the naughty kitty cats off your hands.”
“They’re not on my hands, pal, they’re on my legs!”
Poochie bent down and took one animal from around my feet and called for the other. When he spoke to the creatures, telling them I was a guest and to be nice, their tails went down and they treated me like an old friend, rubbing against my legs and purring. That was well and good, but my trousers were still ripped.
Poochie had the remnants of a bathrobe flung over his shoulders and one hand held his pants up. The table was still littered with shell carvings and the remains of a fish supper. He brought the lamp over and set it on the table.
He bit his lower lip, and looked at me like a scared child. “The cops, Mike? Will they come back?”
“They might.”
“Oh, Mike. Why do they wanna hit me all the time for? Don’t let ’em drag me down that alley again, please…”
“They won’t. Don’t worry.” I tried to be reassuring, even if I knew he really did still have those bastards to contend with. I would do my best to protect him, and intimidate them into leaving him alone, but he remained at risk.
“Gee, Mike, that’s swell to hear. You’re good to me. You’re the only guy around here that is. Just one other guy that ever does nice things for me, you know who?”
“No, who?”
“Big Steve. He gives me meat for my cats. Plenty of meat.”
“Big Steve is all right.”
“Oh, you know Big Steve!” Poochie grinned. “He says they’re leftovers, but they ain’t, and he gives me so much food, the cats won’t eat it all and I end up eating most of it. I like Big Steve, too… but not as much as I like you, Mike.”
The over-age kid was so damn frank he made me sweat.
“How long you lived around here, Poochie?”
“Gosh, Mike, a long time.”
“Yeah, but how long?”
He looked pained and squirmed in his seat. Twice he squinted at me, but said nothing.
“Can’t you remember?” I asked him.
He shook his head sadly. “I can’t hardly remember nothing sometimes. Only when my head hurts do I remember things. Mike, what’s the matter with my head? I heard a man say once I was crazy. Am I crazy? The guy that sells bait on the barge is crazy, but I ain’t like him. He spits on himself and don’t even know where he lives sometimes, but I ain’t that bad. I just can’t remember things hardly. Only when my head hurts.”
“When your head hurts, what do you remember?”
He shrugged and gave me a tight grin as though he thought the idea of it was pretty funny himself. “I dunno. I just remember stuff… when my head hurts.”
“You remember your name? Not ‘
Poochie,’ but your real name?”
“Uh-huh. Stanley Cootz. Stanley Cootz. Stanley Cootz. I say it over and over, ’cause I can’t always remember it. You asked me fast-like, and I told you. I ain’t crazy, am I, Mike?”
“Naw, any guy that tells you that is nuts himself. Lots of people can’t remember things. Hell, sometimes I have nights where the next day I can’t remember a goddamn thing.”
“You shouldn’t say bad words, Mike.”
“I know I shouldn’t, Pooch. I’m sorry. Tell me something. You don’t need your head to hurt to remember that lady with the yellow hair, do you?”
“Oh, no! I remember her all right. That wasn’t long enough ago not to remember. I didn’t like her. She was not a nice lady and-”
“She’s dead, Poochie,” I cut in.
He stopped short and his head jerked around. “Dead?” It was like the word had no meaning to him.
I nodded. “Somebody killed her. Murdered her.”
“Murder…”
“Choked her, then threw her in the ocean.”
Poochie frowned and his chin crinkled, his eyes growing damp. “Ooooh. That’s too bad. She wasn’t a nice lady, but nobody should have done that to her. Who done it, Mike?”
“I don’t know, Poochie. But maybe you can tell me.”
His eyes widened, terror replacing sorrow. “But I didn’t do it, Mike! I don’t kill people.” Tears flowed down his stubbly cheeks and his mouth quivered.
“I know you didn’t. Now stop that.”
He nodded, swallowed, rubbing his eyes with the tattered sleeve of his robe and sniffling.
“It’s just that you may have seen something important. Something that could lead me to the yellow-haired lady’s killer. Now think back, Poochie. Think back about a week ago. Did you see the lady then?”
“A week ago?”
“A week ago.”
“I… I think I saw her.”
“Think you saw her?”
“I saw her… but I didn’t do nothing!”
“Who was she with?”
“Her dog.”
“Nobody else?”
“Nope. Just her dog. It’s a big boxer dog. Bothers my cats sometimes.”
“Okay. What was she doing?”
“Just walking with the dog. Then she saw me and said some bad words. Worse words than you said, Mike. Then she was throwing clam shells and sticks at me, so I ran away and ran inside my house and shut the door so she couldn’t come in. I took my cats in so that mean dog wouldn’t bother them, either. She was right outside there.” He pointed past me to his door. “She said some more bad words, and went away.”
“And that was the last time you saw her?”
His head bobbed on his skinny neck, assenting.
“Poochie, did you ever see the parties at the house?”
“Oh, sure. They threw away lots of good stuff that I found. Look.” He pulled a cardboard box of chipped crockery from under the table. “I’m saving them for when I have company. Ain’t they nice, Mike?”
“Swell. Tell me about the parties. Can you remember those pretty well?”
He was nodding, smiling. This was a memory he liked. “Yeah, I remember them because I got so much to eat. Lots of cars come in there, and when you stand up close to the house, you can hear the music. Sometimes when the door opens, the music gets real loud.”
From that I took it that the house must be partially soundproofed.
I asked, “Were there many lights on?”
“Naw, not so many. It was hard to see on account of them shutters that was closed all the time. Guys used to give me dimes for helping ’em push out cars what was stuck in the sand. Sometimes I was too weak and they would let me sit behind the wheel and they would push.” His eyes brightened. “One give a dollar once!”
Big shots. Spend a fortune gambling and throw peanuts to the little moron. But Poochie didn’t care. He thought they were doing him a favor.
“Did you ever see any fights on the grounds? Maybe down on the beach?”
“No, not really. I saw a lady slap a guy once, though. They were in the bushes by the little house. They was wrestling, I think.”
That was a new name for it. I had to stop and think what to ask him next. Getting information out of this character was like trying to hold onto a wet eel.
“How often did the yellow-haired lady have parties, Poochie?”
“Oh, lots of times. Always on the same days.”
“When was that?”
“Oh, that was the days when the red bus goes past. I can tell that way.”
The red bus he mentioned was the area transit company’s weekend morning runs to Wilcox, the nearest town of any large size. It went by every Friday and Saturday morning about nine o’clock. I’d made the trip once myself, the last time I’d visited Sidon.
“Now think real hard, Poochie. Did you ever see anyone around there that really sticks in your memory? Somebody you might have seen before?”
A quick flash of fear passed over his face and he shrank back a little.
I pressed him. “Tell me, Poochie-did you?”
His head shook nervously. “No, Mike, don’t make me tell you things like that. I don’t want to get hit again.”
Again.
“Was it Dekkert you saw?”
He chewed on his lip and fell silent. He shrugged. Maybe he had forgotten the guy’s name.
“You know,” I insisted, “Dekkert-the deputy chief?”
“Yes, yes, Mike, I did see him there… but you won’t tell on me, will you? He’ll hit me again. I know he will.”
“Don’t you worry,” I assured him. “If Dekkert tries anything, I’ll knock his block off. Whatever you tell me is just between us pals, Poochie.”
The beachcomber was really jumpy now. He only knew that someone was dead, and that nobody around here liked him, and that he was liable to get throttled if he said too much.
Gently I said, “Now, just tell me when you saw him.”
The little guy was shaking his head, almost frantically. “He’s there all the time, Mike. At that place. When lots of people come, he always comes too. He caught me at the garbage cans one time, when I was looking for meat for my cats. He hit me, a bunch of times, and he woulda hit me more, only some lady yelled at him from a car and he just told me to get the heh… to get out of there.”
“At the yellow-haired lady’s place, Pooch… was he always outside?”
I figured Dekkert for doing security and helping cars get parked.
“ Not just outside. I watched out for him, ’cause I didn’t wanna get hit, but I guess he was inside most of the time. I stayed in the bushes so he wouldn’t see me, but I always saw him, coming out the door where the garbage cans are. He came out sometimes and went down to the little place with some men.”
“Little place?”
“By the trees. That little house.”
The gazebo.
I asked, “Did you follow him? Did you ever hear what they spoke about?”
Poochie shook his head slowly. “No sir, not me. I never went near ’em.”
Well, that was that. The gist of it seemed to be that Dekkert was there strictly as a strong-arm. He’d be good at that. I wondered if those little sojourns to the gazebo were to put the squeeze on a welcher. Nice out-of-the-way place for it.
And it was no wonder that the cops had started beating the bushes for Sharron Wesley a week after her vanishing act-without her around, there’d be no regular weekend “party” out at that ocean-side casino. Maybe Dekkert was interested in Sharron’s sudden departure because, as his employer, she owed him some cash.
It was later than I thought. I slapped my hat back on and was about to say good night to Poochie, but I never got that far. His mouth was open and his tongue fell loosely over his bottom lip. But his eyes were as glassy as beads and focusing over my shoulder.
“ Mike! ” he blurted.
Poochie’s skinny frame hit me before I could move.
<
br /> There was a smashing roar in the room and the acrid fumes of cordite blasted at me.
CHAPTER FIVE
We hit the floor together.
My head connected hard with the edge of a crate on the way down and I could feel my eyes film. For a few seconds tiny particles of fire burned my cheek, then the whole side of my face felt as if it were lying in a brazier of hot coals. I pushed Poochie’s limp form from me and fought my way to my feet.
The shot had come through the pane-less window. I yanked the. 45 from under my shoulder, thumbed off the safety, kicked the slide back. I threw the shack’s crude door open and dashed outside.
The beach was deserted.
No overt sounds interrupted a silence that wasn’t really silence at all, wind whispering over sand, waves lapping, trees rustling, my watch ticking. A motorboat, not close enough to have carried away the assailant, put-putted along, no telling how far out, the way wind carried sound on the water.
The moon showed me footprints in the sand by the window, but they led to the line of trees up and back, behind the shack. Where the sand gave way to grassy land, I bent down and laid my ear to the ground. Somebody was running, running hard. Very faintly, I picked up the footsteps, but they grew steadily fainter and died out altogether.
He was gone.
The bastard.
Holstering the. 45, I ran back to the shack. Poochie was prostrate on the floor, blood seeping through his shabby robe. I ripped away the t-shirt beneath and examined the wound. It was high up against his neck. The bullet had gone through cleanly, not touching the bone, missing the jugular vein by a hair.
I pulled a handkerchief from my hip pocket and tore it in half, then made a compress of each section and pressed it to the openings of the hole. I tore off the tail of my shirt and tied it around his neck to hold the compresses in place.
Poochie’s eyes flickered once. He smiled, and passed out again. The little dope had tried to take that bullet for me. He had deliberately thrown himself in front of me to save my life. By God, from now on he was going to stay under my wing.
Lady, go die (mike hammer) Page 6
