Kill Me Tomorrow (11 page)

He joined me in less than three minutes, however. I actually saw him whisper in Janelle's delicate ear, then take a key from his pocket and slip it to her. She slid off the stool and bounced smiling out of the bar.

Paul sat down, swallowed a third of his highball, and said, “Tell me everything. Was it Lucrezia Brizante?”

I told him as little as possible about Lucrezia. But over our drinks I did tell him the rest of it—Lecci, Jimmy Ryan, coming within a hair of getting killed.

“You mean you haven't even kissed her yet?” he asked when I'd finished.

“Paul, can't you think of the finer things in life? Cleanliness, goodness, exercise, like that? This girl is a shining star, a girl who honors her father and mother and … well, honors a little too much, maybe.” I paused. “I shook hands with her.”

“That's the stuff,” he said, as Vera walked by. He caught her eye, and when he said, “Couple more bourbon highs, dear?” with his face lit up like a lighthouse lamp, she smiled and buzzed off and zipped back with two more highballs.

By the time we finished them Paul had told me about his last few days in L.A., and much of his day here, including the first lectures of the convention. He'd been in the convention hall from eight
P
.
M
. till ten—but hadn't wasted a lot of time after that, apparently.

“Damndest thing,” he said. “The first medical papers and demonstrations won't be presented till tomorrow, and that's mainly what I came up here for. But I'm glad I didn't miss the show tonight. Nearly the entire program was on applications of the laser.” He paused, swallowed some of his drink, and eyed me. “You know what lasers are?”

“No,” I said stuffily. “Not lasers, or masers, or atoms, or molecules, or flashlights—”

He raised an eyebrow, then the other one. “You may think you know what a laser is, but you do not, you simply do not, my ignorant friend. You may know that laser is an acronym for light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation, which describes a concentrated source of coherent light all of the same wavelength, and you may realize that with lasers men can drill holes through little jewels and also bounce signals off the moon and make holograms, and you may be vaguely aware that men even now perform delicate retinoneural surgery—weld eyeballs, to you—and even more delicate microsurgery on single cells, and do other exciting things such as etching halftone plates and fixing decayed teeth. But you do not know what a laser is.”

“I'll bet I'm going to find out.”

“It is your great good fortune. Soon lasers will be all over the place, coming out of your ears. They'll be used for swift bloodless surgery, for invisible death rays that slice open the enemy, knock down satellites, carve legs of lamb. They'll carry thousands of phone calls on one beam of light, zillions of television sets on one laser beam—”

“Sets?”

“—stations. Channels, signals. What do you care?”

“I don't.”

“But I haven't told you the greatest thing,” he said.

“Can I stop you?”

“During the demonstration earlier tonight, Dr. Fretsindler—that's Fretsindler of M.I.T.—had a big hunk of granite on the stage. He banged it with a hammer, smacked it with a chisel, and naturally nothing happened.”

“Then why are you telling me all this?”

“Nothing was
supposed
to happen, Sheldon,” he said cheerfully. “That was the point. But then Fretsindler aimed some new kind of infrared laser—already had it on stage—at the damned boulder. Just aimed it and turned it on. Couldn't see the light, of course, but it was on, the beam hitting that old rock.”

Paul raised his glass. “Cheers.”

“Yeah, cheers.”

“Well,” he went on, “the doctor told us lasers would soon be used for drilling tunnels, slicing off parts of mountains, leveling rough terrain, because even now they can make solid granite rocks as weak and porous and crumbly as glued-together sand. Only talked a minute or so. Then he turned off the laser and walked over to that old rock and gave it a kick, and a big hunk of it simply flew off and hit the stage and crumbled into little pieces, would you believe it?”

“No.”

“Shell, the damn rock just crumbled apart, I saw it with my own eyes. Would I lie to you?”

“Sure.”

“It happened, all right,” Paul said. “Damndest thing I ever saw. There was old Dr. Fretsindler chopping away at what was left of that solid-granite boulder with a screwdriver, and giving it another kick, and in a minute the thing was all over the stage in a billion pieces.”

“I don't believe that, either. Not that many.”

Paul looked quite sober. And I figured he
was
sober, as long as he was able to pronounce Fretsindler. But he stole a surreptitious peek at his watch. Then he commenced yawning. He yawned prodigiously. He put on a splendid act, even made real water come out of his eyes.

“Been a long day.” He stifled another yawn. “Driving all the way here from L.A., and then—”

“You fool me not.”

“What? Shell, old friend—”

“Don't old friend me, old friend. You're
wide
awake.”

“Shell, I really
do
have to say good night. Up at the crack of dawn, you know. More lectures tomorrow, big day, got to hit that old sack, pound the old pillow—”

“Hit the sack—hah. Pound the pillow—hah. Old—hah.” I leaned over the table toward him and pinned him with a glance. “Don't try to key me, I saw you slip the kid to her.”

He started to laugh.

“Missed it that time, didn't I?”

I shook my head. I'd only had two or three drinks, but my glands had been given quite a workout today and I was pretty well pooped. About time to hit the sack myself. It was just as well, because Paul, still chuckling, got up and—without even saying good-bye—left the bar.

At which point, Vera stopped by the table and handed me the check. I looked at it. “What's this?” I said.

“That's the check,” Vera said.

“Oh, for—I know
what
it is. But … thirty-eight dollars and forty cents?”

“Dr. Anson said you wanted to pay for all the drinks he ordered. He told me you said—”

“Uh-huh. All the drinks, huh?”

“He bought drinks for quite a lot of people.”

“I can see that. Vera,” I said, “you know Dr. Anson is a doctor, don't you?”

“What kind of question is that?”

“Well … he usually drinks bourbon-and-water, but that's not what he
really
likes. If you'll let me whisper in your ear, I'll tell you what he really likes. And you'll make sure he gets it next time he comes in, won't you?”

She leaned over. She straightened up quite suddenly. “Well,” she said, “I guess … there's no accounting for tastes.”

I put my wallet into my jacket again, and watched Vera as she walked away with my money. The thing that hurt most was I'd just paid for
Janelle's
drinks. And Paul,
wide
awake—

But then I smiled. There was one thing I had done that Paul had not done. And, by God, if I had anything to do with it, he never would: I had shaken Lucrezia Brizante's hand.

Ten minutes later, that was the thought in my mind as I fell asleep.

And two hours after that, it was Lucrezia's voice—her frightened voice—that woke me up.

CHAPTER EIGHT

I fumbled for the phone, got it near my head.

“Mbwaa,” I mumbled. “Waitaminute. Hello, just a minute.”

“Shell? Shell, is that you?”

“Yeah, what—”

“Shell, this is Lucrezia. It's Dad—he's hurt. Can you come out here?”

That jarred me awake. Her voice was tight, frightened, the words tumbling over each other.

“Slow down,” I said. “He's hurt? What happened?”

“He's in the hospital—he was beaten, somebody beat him up! But I guess he's … all right, the hospital's releasing him. Please, Shell, will you come?”

“I'm on my way. Who beat him up? When did it happen?”

“I don't know. Shell, I have to go to him.”

“Hold it. There are strange things going on at the Villas. Wait till I—”

She'd hung up.

I skidded to a stop in front of the Brizantes' home on Mimosa Lane. The door opened just before I reached it, and I simply ran inside, past Lucrezia, who had heard—and seen—me arrive.

In the first few seconds of babble I figured out she'd picked up her father at the hospital and got back to the house less than a minute before. She seemed bewildered I'd been able to get here so fast. Which didn't surprise me in the least.

“How's Tony?” I asked her.

“I'm all right.”

The voice came from the couch on my left. Brizante was sitting there, bent forward with his elbows on his knees, and he—even his handlebar moustache, for that matter—looked alert enough, but not exactly all right. A white patch was on the side of his head, there was a ruddy abrasion on his left cheek and the eye above it was puffed, discolored. That eye was going to be completely shut in a few more minutes if I was any judge. And I am practically the Supreme Court when it comes to that particular kind of judgment.

I looked at him for a second or two and said, “Excuse the expression, but you should really excuse your expression. You sure don't look like the winner. How's he?”

“I got two of them pretty damn good, busted out a tooth for somebody. But the other—”

“Dad! How many
were
there? You've
got
to tell me what—”

“Lucrezia!”

Man, the word cracked in the room like a bundle of dry sticks breaking. Lucrezia stopped speaking in mid-sentence. She didn't start again, either. Tony continued, “This I will not discuss. We will not even discuss … discussing it. This is not for women. Go to your room.”

She turned and started to leave. Her lovely face was a picture of concern and frustration, but there wasn't a peep out of her. The man had spoken. The man of the house. The guy who wore the pants. And she—the obedient woman—obeyed instantly. That was a bit of all right, I thought; wonder how he does it? Be worth learning, that was for sure.

Tony spoke again, his voice more gentle. “No, it's all right to stay, Lu. Shell and I, we will go.”

He got to his feet, features twisting slightly as pain hit him somewhere. He motioned to me, and I followed him into the den. We sat where we'd been on the previous afternoon, and he started right in talking a blue streak.

“Glad Lu called you, Shell. If she hadn't, I would have. Gil's dead. Don't have to guess any more. Fred phoned me”—he pulled out an old round pocket watch and looked at it—“only an hour and a quarter ago. At two-fifteen. Hard to believe it could all happen so quick. Fred was excited, sounded scared, said he'd got it on one of his tapes—talk about them killing Gil. Fred said they'd found out what he was doing, but he had what we were after and wanted me to meet him. I ran down, three blocks away got there on the corner of Mimosa and Yucca Drive—didn't want to meet him too near the house here—right after Fred did. I saw him pull over and park. He jumped out holding the reel of tape and had time to tell me maybe three, four sentences, and then those ruffians come at us—”

“Tony, let me catch up, OK?”

He stopped, sighed. “Little excited myself,” he said.

“Fred—that's Fred Jenkins? The guy you told me was going to try bugging Henry Yarrow's place?” He nodded. “You mean … Are you trying to tell me he actually
did
it? He taped some talk about Gil Reyes' death? His murder?”

“That's what Fred told me. On the phone, it was. Didn't have time after I met him. Only a few seconds—fifteen, twenty. I don't know, I got the hell beat out of me. Those—” He started ripping off a bunch of impassioned Italian.

“Wait a minute. You say some men jumped you. How many?”

“Three.”

“How'd they know where you were? How come they showed up just as Jenkins was meeting you?”

“Damned if I know how. They just did. We were there on the corner and they come up in two cars, jumped out and ran at us. Knocked me cold for maybe ten minutes. When I come to, I waved at a car and a lady in it took me to the hospital.”

“I'm trying to figure how they knew where you and Fred were. Think your phone could be tapped?”

He opened his eyes wider—his right eye, at least. The left one hardly moved. “Hadn't even thought of it.”

“Well, just in case, don't use it for any important calls from now on. Where did Jenkins phone from?”

He shook his head.

“These three guys, did you recognize any of them?”

“No, it was too dark. But one guy, I
know
I busted a tooth for him.” He fingered a cut knuckle on his right hand. “But I wouldn't recognize any of the three if I saw them again.”

“Tony, you said Fred had a reel of tape. What happened to it?”

“It was gone when I come to. So was Fred.” Tony looked at me solemnly for a while. “I don't know what happened to him. Probably dead. Like Gil.” He muttered in Italian. “Just before those guys jumped us, Fred said there was another tape. He had two, but got rid of one.”

I'd lit a cigarette, and stopped moving with it halfway to my mouth. “Another?”

Tony nodded. “I'm giving this to you a little scrambled, everything happened so fast, then I was out cold for a while.” He stopped, scowled, reached up and pulled on one handle of his moustache. “Fred only had a few seconds to tell me about it. But he thought somebody was chasing him in a car. He had two reels of tape with him. One he'd recorded over the last couple days, and the one he took off the machine just before he phoned and came to meet me. Well, he was damned scared, but if anybody caught up with him, he didn't want them to find that last reel, especially not on him … Must have been the one Fred was taping when he heard the talk about Gil's being killed.”