Amos Walker: The Complete Story Collection

by Loren D. Estleman

  Back at the convenience store in Argyle I’d placed a call to Judge Dunham, whose round courtroom-trained voice came on the line after two rings. I said I had car trouble and was stuck for the night. I didn’t say the trouble had to do with a stiff in the front seat.

  “No sweat,” he said. “Senator Sullivan won’t be here till morning and I never start without my worst poker player. Just steam on in come sunup.”

  I pulled my overnight case out of the car, then as an afterthought grabbed Seaton’s duffel and carried them both into the room. I was too keyed up to sleep. I broke my flat pint of J&B out of the case, stripped the cellophane off the plastic glass in the bathroom, and went out for ice. Under the lights in the parking lot the blood on my front seat looked black as I passed it. I wondered if I could charge the cleaning to the judge.

  I was about to plunge my plastic ice bucket into the machine when someone came strolling along the sidewalk on the other side of the lot. Most of the rooms were vacant—mine was one of only three cars parked inside the U—so he was worth watching. He was built along the lanky lines of Norm, but younger, and made no sound at all on sneakered feet. He had on a dark jacket and pants, but I couldn’t make out his features at that distance. He was carrying something.

  He paused in front of the door to my room and stood for a moment as if listening. Apparently satisfied, he stepped off the sidewalk and approached my car. A hand came out of one of his jacket pockets with something in it.

  A Slim Jim.

  He was nobody’s amateur. After casting a glance up and down the row of rooms, he tried the door on the driver’s side, then slid the flat hooked device between the closed window and the outside door panel and yanked it up decisively. I heard the click.

  My gun was in the overnight case in the room. I hardly ever needed it to get ice. I used the only other weapon I had.

  “Hey!”

  He was a pro down to the ground. The Slim Jim jangled to the pavement and he went into a crouch I knew too well. I let go of the ice bucket and wedged myself between the machine and the block wall. He fired twice, the shots so close together I saw the yellow flame as one continuous spurt. Much closer to home I heard a twang and a thud as the first bullet ricocheted off the concrete behind me and the second penetrated the ice machine’s steel skin. Then he took off running, his lanky legs eating up pavement two yards at a bite, back in the direction he’d come. He hadn’t waited to see if he’d hit anything. They never do, except in submarine pictures.

  I pried myself loose from cover. On the other side of the building an engine started, wound up, and faded down Highway 19, gear-changes hiccoughing. A pair of red tail-lamps flicked past the edge of the motel and on into darkness. I waited, but no lights came on behind any of the dark windows and nobody came out to investigate. Gunshots late at night were nothing unusual there in raccoon country.

  At my car I picked up the Slim Jim and wandered around with my head down until something tiny caught the light in a yellow glint. I picked it up and looked for its mate, but it must have rolled into the shadows. I didn’t need it. I’d been pretty sure because of the close spacing of the shots that the weapon was an automatic and that I’d find at least one of the spent shells it kicked out. I had to take it into the room to make out what had been stamped into the flanged end: .38 SUPER.

  I pocketed it, unpacked the Smith & Wesson in its form-fitted holster, checked the cylinder for cartridges, and clipped it to my belt. The fact that he’d come armed told me my visitor had been prepared to search the room if whatever he was after wasn’t in my car; a room he had every reason to believe was occupied by me. That kind of determination usually meant a return engagement.

  Why was another matter. I wasn’t the most promising robbery target around. The Mercury was the oldest car in the lot and a hell of a long way from the most flashy. My clothes wouldn’t get me past the door of the Detroit Yacht Club. My overnight case had been in my family since the last Kiwanis Rummage Sale. As far as I knew, the only person worth shooting in those parts was already dead. Shot with a .38.

  I dumped the contents of C. K. Seaton’s duffel out onto the bed and took inventory. One canteen, half full of something that smelled like water. Two cans of C rations. A knife and fork. One of those hinged camp pans divided into sections. Sailor’s blues, unrolling into sailor’s blues, nothing hidden there. And the crumpled sheaves of coarse paper to prevent the mess from banging around.

  In the lamplight I liked the paper. I liked it a lot.

  There were two bales, two feet by eighteen inches and two inches thick. I hefted one, rubbed individual sheets between thumb and forefinger. Not newsprint. Rag paper. I held a sheet up to the light and looked at the threads running through it.

  I sat in the room’s only chair and smoked a Winston down to the filter. The frayed end when I ground it out resembled my brain. I stood and put everything back into the duffel except the papers. Those I combined in one stack. From the shelf in the bottom of the telephone stand I removed the county directory and took it out of its heavy vinyl advertising cover. I doubled over the blank sheets, slid them inside the cover, and inspected the result. It looked bloated. I returned it to the shelf and put the heavy telephone book on top of it. Better.

  There is no place in a motel room you can hide something where someone hasn’t thought to look. But you can buy time.

  • • •

  I was dead in my shoes. If my friend came back for his burglar tool he would just have to wait until I woke up. I returned the camping equipment to the duffel, laid it lengthwise on the bed, drew the blanket over it, and stretched out in the chair with the lamp off and the revolver in my lap. Between the makeshift dummy and the time it would take my visitor’s pupils to adjust from the lighted parking lot, I might have the opportunity to teach him a lesson in target shooting.

  Three gentle raps on the door pulled me out of a dream in which Frank Sinatra, Gene Kelly, and another guy, dressed up in sailor suits in the big city, got themselves gunned down by someone with a .38 automatic. The third guy was me.

  The luminous dial of my watch read 2:11. Well, he might bother to knock. I got up, straightening the kinks, drew back the hammer on the Smith & Wesson, crab-walked to the door, and used the peephole. The fisheye glass made an avian caricature of the man standing alone under the light mounted over the door. He was a middle-aged number going to gravity in a porkpie hat and a powder-blue sport-coat on top of a shirt with a spread collar. His hands were empty. I unlocked the door and opened it a foot and leveled the muzzle at his belly. His liquid brown eyes took in the weapon and gave nothing back. “Mr. Walker?”

  “That’s half of it,” I said. “Let’s have the rest.”

  “My name’s Hugh Vennable. I have some fancy identification in my pocket if you’ll let me take it out.”

  I sucked a cheek. “What time is it?”

  He hesitated, then looked at his watch. “Two-fifteen, why?”

  It was strapped to his right wrist. “Take out your ID,” I said. “Use your right hand.”

  “How’d you know I’m a lefty? Oh.” His smile was shallow. “Pretty slick.” He fished out a leather folder and showed me his picture on a card bearing the seal of the United States Navy.

  “You’re with Naval Intelligence?”

  He was still smiling. “I avoid saying it. Sounds like something you learn sitting around admiring your belly-button. Can I come in?”

  I elevated the revolver’s barrel and let down the hammer, stepping away from the door. “By the way, your watch is two minutes fast.”

  “I doubt it.” He came in, a soft-looking heavy man, light on his feet. His hair was fair at the temples under a cocoa straw hat—his eyebrows were almost invisible against a light working tan—and he had a roll of fat under his chin. His quick graceful movements said it was all camouflage; I knew a street tiger when I saw one. He looked around the room and sat on the edge of the bed, exposing briefly the square checked butt of a nine-millimeter Bere
tta in a speed holster on his belt.

  I put away the Smith & Wesson. “I thought the navy issued Thirty-eight Supers.”

  “Phasing ‘em out. Some prefer the old pieces, but I’m not one of them. Is that J and B?” He was looking at the pint bottle standing on top of the dresser.

  “You’re not on duty?”

  “Sure, but I’m no fanatic.”

  I took the wrapper off another glass and poured two inches into it and the one I’d stripped earlier. I handed him one. “No ice, sorry. That trip’s longer than you’d think.”

  “Never touch it.” He made a silent toast and drank off the top inch. “The state police told me where to find you. You reported a dead man in Argyle?”

  “Did you know him?”

  “His name was Charles Seaton, U.S.N. I’ve been tracking him since Cleveland.”

  “Tracking him for what?” I sipped scotch.

  “Federal robbery. You didn’t tell the law about the duffel he was carrying.”

  “Was he?”

  Vennable shook his head. “I’m not here to blow the whistle on you, son. I’d like a look in that bag.”

  “What would you expect to find?”

  “A couple of reams of paper. Not just any paper. The kind they print currency on.”

  “What’s a seaman doing with treasury paper?”

  “Not U.S. currency; navy scrip. Negotiable tender on any naval base in the world. We change the design and ink color from time to time to screw the counterfeiters, but never the paper. It’s a special rag bond, can’t be duplicated. The amount Seaton stole is worth maybe a couple of million on the European black market. Last week he and a partner ripped off an armored car on its way to Washington from the mill in Cleveland where the paper’s made. Earlier tonight we pulled the partner out of Lake Huron near Lexington. I guess they both got their licks in.”

  “That’s not far from where I picked him up.” I replaced the liquor he’d drunk.

  “Thank you kindly. I figure they shot it out over the booty and Seaton won, sort of. Which means he’d have had the paper with him when you linked up.”

  “He could’ve ditched it somewhere.”

  “He wouldn’t throw it away and he was hurt too bad to waste time looking for a good hiding place. He’s got people in Port Austin. He’d have gone that way for his doctoring.”

  “What about the third partner?”

  A pair of transparent eyebrows got lifted. “Our scuttlebutt says he was twins. Not triplets.”

  “Someone tried breaking into my car a couple of hours ago. When I yelled he shot at me.” I took the shell out of my pocket and handed it to him.

  “Super.” He sniffed at the open end and gave it back. “One of the stick-up men used a thirty-eight auto. You get a look at him?”

  “Not good enough for a court of law. But I’d know him.”

  “Another player? Well, maybe.” He drained his glass and set it on the floor. “Where’s the duffel?”

  “Under the blanket.”

  He started, looked at the lump in the bed. “Thought you used pillows.” He got up to pull back the covers and grope inside the sack. When he looked at me again I was pointing the Smith & Wesson at him.

  “Hold on, son.”

  “That’s just what I’m doing,” I said. “You didn’t find the paper because it isn’t there. You killed Seaton rather than deal with him. Now you can deal with me.”

  Four

  He stood with his hands away from his body. “Son, you’re shouting down the wrong vent.”

  “Yeah, yeah, Popeye,” I said. “It was a good hand, but you overplayed it. The state police didn’t tell you where to find me. They didn’t know I’d be putting in at this motel. Neither did I when I left them. You had to have followed me, just like the guy you sent to break into my car.”

  “You saw my bona fides.”

  “I saw them. They might even be genuine. Who better to make off with navy valuables than someone in Naval Intelligence? What happened, you get double-crossed by Seaton?”

  “Seaton wouldn’t know how to double-cross anyone. He was straighter than the Equator.”

  This was a new player. I’d inspected the bathroom window and decided it was too narrow to admit anything human, but I hadn’t reckoned on the skimpy proportions of the gent I thought of as Slim Jim, after his calling card. He’d shed his jacket, and his rucked-up shirt told me it had been a snug fit, but here he was walking out of the bathroom with a nickel-plated .38 Super automatic in his right hand. He had a yellow complexion and a military buzz cut that helped his general resemblance to a skull.

  Vennable didn’t look at him. “I didn’t make up much,” he told me, “just changed the names around. We stuck up that armored car. Seaton was one of the couriers we locked inside. He got out somehow, caught a ride, and jumped us down the road. Nick here shot him when he was picking up the paper we dropped. He lost his weapon, but he got into the car with the paper and the driver took off. We caught up with the car in Toledo. The driver said he’d stopped and refused to go any farther, so Seaton left on foot carrying the paper. That driver was full of talk when Nick did the asking.”

  “So he hitched another ride north and you tailed him and here you are,” I said. “What about the dead man near Lexington?”

  “A little invention to explain Seaton’s wound.” Vennable was smiling. “Shoot him, Nick. That paper’s got to be in this room.”

  I’d been through the Detroit Police training course, and the situation’s covered: Go for your primary target and worry about the others later. The navy must have had a similar policy, because Vennable crouched and charged me, clawing for the Beretta on his belt, and that’s why I shot him in the groin instead of the chest where I’d been aiming. He reeled in front of Nick. Nick changed positions to get a clear field. I shot him twice, once through his partner. Somehow he was still standing when the door splintered and Commander Torrance of the state police put a third one in him before he knew about the first. I don’t know if he’d have fallen even then if he hadn’t tripped over Vennable. These wiry boys are hell for stamina.

  Five

  “This one’s still flopping.” Straightening, the blocky commander jerked the Beretta from Vennable’s holster and leathered his own Police Special. Blood was pumping between the navy man’s fingers where he lay moaning and clutching his crotch with both hands. The second bullet had passed through his left arm. “Tell ‘em not to bother about any sirens for the other one.”

  I finished giving the information to the 911 operator and hung up. “What brought you, the shots in the parking lot?”

  “Folks up here get involved, they make calls. When I heard the name of the motel I thought you might’ve checked in here. What’s the skinny?”

  Sliding the telephone book cover from under the directory, I opened it and held up the thick sheaf of paper. “This is what they killed my hitchhiker to get their hands on,” I said.

  “What the hell is it?”

  “The dreams that stuff is made of.” I told him the rest. By the time he had it all, the first ambulance had arrived. The room was full of state troopers and paramedics now.

  Torrance’s wolf eyes never left my face. “Why didn’t you just turn the duffel over to me to begin with?”

  “Old habit. When I pick someone up on the road I’m offering him protection, even if he was beyond it when I met him, and way beyond anyone’s when we parted company. That included finding out who killed him and why.”

  “Boy, that’s the worst lie I ever heard.”

  “I’ve told worse.” I breathed some air. “Maybe I just wanted to see how this one ended. It was a long dull trip otherwise.”

  “Better. Was it worth it?”

  “Put it this way. Before I leave here in the morning I’m buying a pack of cigarettes off the manager so I won’t have to make any more stops. That’s how I fell into this mess.”

  “Better make it a carton,” Torrance said.

  Deadly
Force

  One

  When I heard Redline Records had banned smoking everywhere in the renovated warehouse where it conducted business on Riopelle, I knew I’d find Ansel Albany sneaking a butt back in the stacks. He saw me coming between racks of inflammable 78 and 45 rpm records and squashed out a Camel under one of his size fifteens. At fifty he was white-haired and his complexion had faded from plum blue to medium gray, but he still looked like an old athlete. Following a disappointing season with the Pistons, the six-foot-nine Kettering graduate had joined the Detroit Police Department, where he served twelve years until he shot three suspects to death during an attempted liquor store robbery on Woodward. The first two passed at the inquiry, but an eyewitness testified that Albany had given the third man a ten-second head start, then drew and shot him in the back through the glass door. Albany got the boot.

  Whether the report was true or not—Ansel swore it wasn’t— there was nothing false about the sixteen-inch Colt Python he wore strapped to his ribs under his old plaid jacket. I caught a glimpse of it when he reached out to accept the mailer I’d brought. He slid out the videotape and examined both sides.

  “Did you play it?”

  “That’s why the meet was in a video store,” I said. “There might be copies, but I don’t think you’ll be hearing from them again.”

  “Rough ‘em around, did you? Wish I could’ve been there to help.”

  “I told them next time you would be. It was easier on my knuckles.”

  He laughed once, a short deep bark, and slipped the tape back into the mailer and the mailer into his side pocket. “Management should’ve canned the little asshole when they found out he was into payola. But he’s the front man and they’re convinced he’s another Barry Gordy.”