Jake said: “Would it be considered trying something if I ask for a drink for the lady and me? A couple of bottles of anything cold and wet?”
“Soda pop and beer,” Dobbs said. “But it’s all warm. Only get ice here when the delivery man feels like it.”
“Warm’ll do fine as long as it’s wet.”
Dobbs looked at Gela, who nodded. “And bring me one too.” He sat down beside Jake. “You know what to tell this Maniscalco?”
“Sure. That the case is washed up. The evidence shows Thoren was killed in an accident. The company better pay up right away. Only, where do they make payment, Gela? If you keep Mrs. Thoren stashed away—”
“She’s coming back to Daystar tonight, so don’t you worry none about that. And you better make it sound a lot more convincing to him than you just did to me. Like, for instance, if they try sitting on that payment any more and this goes to court, one of the things that’ll come out is about those bugs you planted over there. That’ll be nice to get in the papers, won’t it? A great big insurance company planting transmitters all over a widow’s house so they can screw her out of her money. Think that’ll make Maniscalco see the light quick?”
“It’ll help. But what he’ll want to know most of all is why I’m so sure all of a sudden that Thoren really did die in an accident. I’ve been telling him for ten days straight I knew it was suicide, so what made me change my mind overnight? Did your friend Katzman work out an answer to that one too?”
Gela said warningly: “Watch out the way you say people’s names, Dekker.”
“Then I take it he did. What did he come up with?”
“Something solid. There’s a doctor up in Palm Beach makes a million on the side taking care of rich dames who get themselves knocked up when they don’t want to. Guy name of Ahearn. He’ll say Thoren went to him a couple of times last year because he was worried about blacking out a lot lately. Even happened when he was driving once. He went to this Ahearn instead of his family doctor because he didn’t want the family to find out.”
Jake said: “And Ahearn has cooked up some records about this?”
“He’ll have ’em.”
“And he’ll stand up in court and swear to it?”
“He’ll do what he’s told. He better, if he wants to stay in business down here.”
Dobbs put the uncapped bottles of soda before them, the red stuff in them foaming over to puddle on the table. Elinor, her body rigid, Aiello’s gun prodding into the nape of her neck, made no motion toward hers. Gela took one mouthful of his and swallowed it with revulsion. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Any more questions?” he said. “Anything else to get straight before I put the call through?”
Jake shrugged. “Probably nothing Katzman hasn’t already thought of.”
Maniscalco’s voice over the phone was thickened by his head cold, but jubilant. “Jake, you back in town? You got the release? Remember, I owe you and your girl a dinner for it. Tonight we can—”
“No dinner, Manny. I’m calling from Florida. And it’s bad news.”
It took a few seconds for this to sink in. Then Maniscalco said hopefully: “Very funny. One of these days you’ll give me a heart attack with that sense of humor.”
Jake said: “I wish it was a joke,” and Gela took hold of his wrist and turned it so that the receiver was angled away from his ear. Gela’s head was almost against his. “I was on the wrong track all along, Manny. I was looking so hard at the blackmail angle that I didn’t go deep enough into the medical end.”
“Medical end? What the hell are you talking about? His doctor said he was in perfect shape. So did ours.”
“Because he may have been when they examined him. But for this past year he was having bad blackouts. He was even warned it would be dangerous to keep driving under those conditions. I heard all about it yesterday from the doctor he went to in private so the family wouldn’t know. Guy named Ahearn in Palm Beach. He’s got the records of the visits and the diagnosis right there. And Mrs. Thoren’s lawyers have copies of them ready to bring into court. It’s no use, Manny. All you can do is okay the payment as quick as possible. Maybe cool them off that way.”
There was a long silence at the other end of the line. Then Maniscalco said in a hoarse whisper: “As quick as possible. Are those your orders, Jake?”
“My advice. And don’t take that tone with me, God damn it. Do you think I’m any happier about this than you are?”
“That’s what I’m wondering. Like if the lady knew she couldn’t collect a dime from us because you could prove a motive for suicide, she might go to you with a real interesting offer. Maybe fifty thousand for her, and all the rest for you. Maybe even less than that for her, as long as it’s something. That couldn’t possibly have happened, could it, Jake?”
“No, it couldn’t. Because any motive I proved wouldn’t stand up for one second against that doctor’s report. Manny, if anybody else said something like this to me, he’d wind up with a busted jaw. I’m not holding it against you only because I can imagine how you feel right now.”
“No, you can’t. You had this case wrapped up already. You as much as told me that. All of a sudden you’re completely licked. But did you put in any time checking out that doctor? Do you know for a fact nobody reached him?”
“Manny, I did what had to be done.”
“I don’t believe it. You’re not kissing off any hundred grand because some doctor that’s nowhere on our records pulls a report out of his hat to show you. Not you, Jake. You’d want to put in plenty of time on him and his report before you signed off for good. You’d have the guy checked out from here to medical school before you bought that kind of goods. And you didn’t even have time so far to start back-checking him, did you?”
“Manny—”
“Don’t try to oil me. I’m saying there’s something smelly going on down there, and I’m not okaying any payment until I know different. You hear me? You stay where you are, because I’ll be down there in a few hours. I’m taking the next plane out of here. I want to see you and that woman and that doctor. The one who can do card tricks with medical records. If I’m wrong thinking what I do, I’ll write all three of you an apology.”
Gela’s lips were compressed into a bloodless, angry line. He suddenly clamped his hand over the mouthpiece of the phone. “The bugs,” he whispered. “Start selling, Dekker. Make it good.” He removed his hand from the mouthpiece, and Jake said into it: “Save yourself the trip, Manny. And the letters. She found out about those bugs I planted there. Step on her toes now, and she’ll go looking for a court case just to get even. The only way out is to make that payment. And fast.”
“You mean that was the deal? She doesn’t prosecute for those bugs you planted, and you pay off by buying her a doctor’s report that can cost Guaranty two hundred thousand? Or was it your pal Magnes who did the buying? The hell with that. I’ll still be down there this afternoon. And with a couple of lawyers along.”
That was the end of it. Jake sat there with the dial tone buzzing in his ear and Gela gripping his wrist. When Gela slowly released his grip, Jake dropped the receiver on the hook. “It looks like the gentleman doesn’t want to cooperate,” he said. “Now what?”
Gela savagely gnawed at a fingernail. “The guinea son of a bitch. You’d think it was his own money he was hanging on to.”
Jake said: “He doesn’t hang on to his own money that hard. And I’ve seen him in action. When he gets nose to nose with Mrs. Thoren and that doctor, they might not hold up very long.”
Aiello said to Gela with concern: “This is no good, Pooch. Maybe you should talk it over with the capo.”
Gela glared at him. “Shut up and stay out of this.” He looked at Jake. “So what’s your idea?”
“Let the girl and me go, so I can work on him. I never double-crossed him yet. I think I can convince him I’m not doing it now.”
“Maybe you. Not the girl.”
“Both of us.”<
br />
Gela slowly shook his head. “Not her. I keep her until that dough is in my hand. Every dime of it.”
He started from his chair at the blast of a shotgun outside. One barrel, then, an instant later, the other. He stood momentarily poised for trouble, but relaxed in the silence that followed. “The crazy bastard. He’s supposed to keep them away, not blow them away.” He motioned at Dobbs, who was standing at the counter. “Go on, tell him that.”
“Yes, sir. He is sure one gun-happy old man,” Dobbs said, but before he could move, the door swung open and Dinty stepped into the room, shotgun in hand, a large, foolish grin of embarrassment on his face. He stood like that for a moment, then, with the grin still fixed on his face, dropped to his knees, sagged forward, and went down full-length on the floor.
Gela leaped toward the door, Aiello pivoted toward it. Jake already had his hand around his bottle of soda. It made one turn in the air, spraying soda, before it struck the side of Aiello’s head, butt first, with the sound of a melon being struck by a hammer. Aiello went back and down, the gun skittering across the floor, and Jake landed on it full-length the same instant that Gela kicked the door shut and leveled the automatic at him. He saw the automatic buck in Gela’s hand, felt the white-hot spike drive through his thigh, and it took all his strength to squeeze the trigger of Aiello’s gun. Gela doubled over, his hands clutching his belly as if he were nursing a bad cramp. He was still standing like that when the door flew open and three men burst in, carbines at the ready. Only then did he finally go down in a huddle on the floor.
The men were cut along the same lines as Dobbs and Dinty, and, while not in uniform, they all wore similar ten-gallon hats made of straw, the brims turned up high on the sides. They looked around the room, and the oldest of them, white-haired and potbellied, said with awe: “God almighty.” He squinted at Dobbs, who stood back against the counter, hands held high in the air. “That you, Earl?” he said unbelievingly. “You mixed up in this here kidnaping mess, too?”
“Yes, sir, Sheriff. But right on the bottom of the pile, you might say. I don’t even know how it come about. It started off different, but it just got out of hand.”
“It sure as hell looks like it did,” the sheriff said.
61
Up to now, Crosscut had seemingly been a deserted settlement. Now, suddenly, there was a gathering of ten or twelve male inhabitants on the porch, a silent and stony-faced audience, while the sheriff bound Jake’s thigh tight enough to cut off all feeling in the leg and Dobbs made chatty identifications for him. From among the gathering, the sheriff commandeered a pickup truck and driver. A couple of mattresses were stacked on top of each other in back of the truck, and Jake was tenderly laid on them. A doubled-over mattress was placed on the other side of the truck as a seat for Elinor. The youngest of the deputies, a lanky, freckled boy who looked a year or two shy of voting age, was assigned to see them back to town and make sure of their comfort and well-being along the way.
He hovered over Jake and called warnings now and then to the driver when the truck bounced in the rutted track leading to Route 94 and then over washouts in 94 itself, but when it reached the smoother surface of the Tamiami Trail he perched himself on the tailgate. “Won’t be so bad the rest of the way,” he told Jake. “Ain’t like an ambulance, but it takes a godawful time to get an ambulance out to these parts. And you don’t rightly rate a ’copter for that kind of hurt. Clean hole, and just enough bleeding. They’ll fix you up in the hospital without no trouble at all.”
“Maybe,” Jake said. He looked at Elinor, who was sitting against the side of the truck as she had against the wall of the cabin on Dobbs Hammock, knees drawn up and arms clasped around them. “There’s a big empty yard in back of the brownstone,” he said. “It could be fixed up into a great playground for the kid.”
“No,” Elinor said. She turned her head away from him and kept her eyes fixed on the emptiness they were traveling through.
After a while she started to cry. Almost soundlessly at first, then, with teeth clenched and nostrils flaring, in long, shuddering sobs. It went on until the boy sitting there on the tailgate glanced worriedly at Jake to see what he was going to do about it, and finally undertook to do something about it himself, assuring Elinor in that gentle drawl that there really weren’t no call to take on like that, ma’am, because you couldn’t rightly call that bullet hole anything more than a flesh wound, that’s all it was, a flesh wound, and it would heal quick and clean, that was for sure.
Patiently telling it to her over and over as if he were comforting a heartbroken child, and it didn’t do any good at all.
About the Author
Stanley Ellin (1916–1986) was an American mystery writer known primarily for his short stories. After working a series of odd jobs including dairy farmer, salesman, steel worker, and teacher, and serving in the US Army, Ellin began writing full time in 1946. Two years later, his story “The Specialty of the House” won the Ellery Queen Award for Best First Story. He went on to win three Edgar Awards—two for short stories and one for his novel The Eighth Circle. In 1981, Ellin was honored with the Mystery Writers of America’s Grand Master Award. He died of a heart attack in Brooklyn in 1986.
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 1970 by Stanley Ellin
Cover design by Drew Padrutt
ISBN: 978-1-5040-4265-9
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