Killer in the Street (16 page)

The front seat wasn’t as easy on the spine as Charley’s sofa, but Kyle didn’t dare get too relaxed. He had an early morning appointment with a party who was going to restore that advantage he had lost over Donaldson when the atmosphere got too warm at the Apache Inn. Tucked safely inside Kyle’s wallet was the business card of the one man in the city who was certain to see R. R. Donaldson soon: O. D. Madsen—Optometrist.

There were several things Kyle knew nothing about as he sat out the night in the station wagon, and one of them was how R. R. Donaldson spent his evening after the Apache Inn became too crowded for comfort.

He departed in an angry frame of mind. Rick Drasco was in the habit of setting up a job the way he liked it and making his move whenever he was ready. Now, temporarily, he had lost the initiative and it was both inconvenient and humiliating. He was annoyed to see Dee Walker and the law invade the motel, but he wasn’t frightened. He was clean in Tucson. He had never set foot in the city until that morning. He had contacted no one on the inside and made no suspicious moves. He had avoided direct contact with Kyle Walker. The call at his office had been a preliminary for the appointment he hoped to set up later. If the secretary had said Walker was in, he would have left his card and begged a previous appointment. If Walker had been in the reception room when he called, he would have had the opportunity to watch his reaction while he made a hasty exit on the pretext of calling at the wrong office. Wearing dark glasses, there was little chance Walker would have recognized him. He hadn’t read about Jake Berendo’s indictment for the Cecil Arms murder. Drasco was a man so perfect in his trade that he literally lived without fear. The hunt and the kill was his way of life. He was always at his best under pressure, and this job provided an extra thrill because the life he saved when Kyle Walker died was his own.

The problem of what to do with Veronica was more important than the surprise visitors at the motel. He shouldn’t have taken her with him. He hadn’t driven one mile down the highway before he was certain of that. She was a pretty, pampered little thing, and she belonged to people who would scream up a federal charge if she didn’t get back unscathed. A genuine R. R. Donaldson could explain that he hadn’t kidnapped the girl, but Rick Drasco couldn’t explain anything to anyone. He was in trouble and had to think fast.

The hasty departure had silenced her for a few seconds. Now she asked, “Where are we going to eat?”

“What kind of food do you like?” Donaldson parried.

“You said that you knew a special place.”

She still wasn’t afraid. The rum punches or just the natural buoyancy of youth could account for that.

“I know several special places,” Donaldson said. “Why don’t you turn on the radio and get some music?”

She didn’t answer right away. They had left the twin rows of elegant motels behind them and were heading rapidly into the desert. She must have noticed.

“I think I’d rather go back and have dinner at the motel after all,” she said.

Donaldson tried to sound lighthearted. “You eat there all the time,” he said. “You’re in a rut. How about some Chinese food? I saw a neat-looking place uptown today. Maybe I can find it.”

“But you’re driving in the wrong direction. The city is back that way—” She turned toward him as she gestured. The light from the instrument panel reflected on his face and the grimness of it finished off the last of her gaiety. Quietly, she asked, “Why do you carry a gun?”

He had been waiting for that question. He reached over and switched on the radio. It was a strong set. The music came up almost immediately, and he was lucky. It was the go-go beat the kids loved: electric guitars, mournful balladeers and a background of ecstatic squeals to give it that old audience-participation kick. Donaldson tried to smile.

“Say, they’re all right, aren’t they? Help me catch the name of the group when the record stops. I’d like to get them for my club in Vegas.”

It was no good. She asked again: “Why do you carry a gun?”

“Why?” Donaldson echoed. “Why not? I’m on the road a lot—like tonight. Suppose we stopped at some real first-class place to eat, and some bar-stool bum saw us come in—you dressed up like a movie star and me flashing a bankroll at the waiter. We might come back to the car and find somebody waiting for us in the back seat with an idea he could take the money—and you—and do what he pleased. Sure, I carry a gun. I’ve been robbed before and it’s no comic strip, Veronica. No comic strip at all.”

“But your gun has a silencer on it,” Veronica said. “That’s illegal.”

Donaldson ran his tongue over his lips. The sun must have burned them: they were dry. He was pushing the Chrysler close to sixty-five miles an hour when he saw the high neon up ahead. He took his foot from the accelerator and lowered it on the brake pedal. The ribbon of road the wheels were swallowing disappeared at a slower pace and the neon came up clear: “Pandora’s Box.” It was a restaurant and the parking lot was crowded enough to give good advertising. Donaldson pulled off the road and coasted into the main drive. It was a park-yourself deal and he found an empty slot about thirty feet from the entrance. He switched off the ignition and the radio.

“Get out,” he said.

“I’d still rather eat back at the motel,” Veronica said.

She was afraid now. In a way, he liked that. She was giving him trouble and for that she should be afraid, but he had to talk her out of it so she wouldn’t make a scene.

“By this time there’s nothing left on that chuck wagon but the wheels,” he told her. “Do you like steak? I’ll buy you the best steak in the place and then we’ll go straight back to the motel so we can both get some sleep. I’ve got a big day tomorrow.”

He got out of the car and started around to her side to open the door. Usually women opened doors for themselves when they went out with Rick Drasco, but R. R. Donaldson would play the full bit for the princess. But when he passed in front of the Chrysler, he noticed some action at the entrance to the restaurant. A state highway police car had pulled in and the driver was leaning on the front fender while he talked to the doorman. There was no way to get into the place without passing him. Donaldson turned around and went back to his side of the car.

“What’s the matter?” Veronica asked.

“I remember this place,” he said. “The chef would make a good fireman. He likes to see things burn.”

Donaldson slid in behind the steering wheel. He had slipped the key back into the ignition when Veronica saw the policeman at the entrance.

“No!” she said. “I’m going in!”

He tried to stop her without getting rough, but she already had the door halfway open. He grabbed her by the arm and pulled her back inside. When she screamed he slapped his free hand over her mouth and pushed her head back against the seat.

“Shut up!” he said. “Nobody’s going to hurt you!”

Keeping one hand hard over her mouth, he pushed her face down against his shoulder and loosened the grip on her arm long enough to reach behind her and close the door. He had great strength in his hands. Her slender body wriggled against the seat like an eel on a hook, but she couldn’t free herself from that grip. She bit his hand. He could feel her hard little teeth sinking into the flesh of his palm. He slid his hand down until his fingers found her throat and cut off the second cry somewhere between a whimper and a sob. A light flashed in his face and he ducked his head down against hers and began to plead with her just as if he didn’t know the light was from the policeman’s flash and the door beside him was being opened from without.

“Honey, you’ve got to get hold of yourself,” he said. “It’s been three months now. You’ve got to get it out of your mind.”

“What’s going on here?” the state trooper demanded. “I heard somebody cry out.”

Donaldson looked up with his very best imitation of surprise. “Officer, please drop that light a little,” he said. “Don’t make a scene out of this. My daughter’s upset, that’s all. I thought it would be a good idea to take her out for dinner and try to have a little fun, but I was wrong. She saw those uniforms and it got to her.”

“What got to her?” the trooper demanded.

“The uniforms. She was engaged to a young man in the Air Force. He got it in Vietnam for a few months ago.”

The flashlight went out.

“I’m sorry,” the officer said. “Is there anything I can do?”

“There sure is. Just let me drive out of here and take her home. It’s all my fault. I thought it would do her good. Baby, Veronica, baby, get hold of yourself—”

Donaldson leaned over her and kept talking softly until the officer stepped back out of the way. Then, still holding her face against his shoulder, he switched on the ignition and backed out slowly. There was no more trouble. He drove the length of the parking lot and then turned into the highway with the nose of the Chrysler turned back toward the city. He watched the neon getting smaller in the rear-view mirror and kept a wary eye open for a turnoff into a new subdivision that he had spotted on the way out from the Apache Inn. He reached it and swung off into the comfortable black of a neighborhood that wouldn’t be having the lights turned on for a few more months. He set the brakes but left the lights on and the motor running, and then he took his hand away from the girl’s throat. There was blood on his palm. She had dug in deep and that was a mistake. Rick Drasco had a reflex action to attack of any kind. He pushed her away from him and watched her slump into a limp heap beside him. He didn’t have to look at her to know she was dead. His sensitive fingers could remember the exact moment when he was talking to that nosy policeman that the life pulse had stopped.

He was angry. Completing a contract never bothered him. There was even a lift to it—the kind any craftsman gets when he’s earned his pay. But Veronica’s death wasn’t what he had come to accomplish. It wasn’t orderly and neat. It wasn’t clean. It wasn’t even in the Drasco style. And it was very dangerous.

“It was your fault!” he told her. “It was your idea to get in my car and ask all those questions about my gun. It was your idea—you spoiled little brat!”

The lights burned all night in Captain Jimmy Jameson’s office. Geary came back with four cartons of coffee and a bag of hamburgers and fries, and it was as cozy as it could be under the circumstances when all concerned were bone weary and at nerve ends about something that became more illusive the longer they talked about it. The question Jameson had asked Dee Walker remained unanswered. She had talked too much. She could offer no reason why Kyle’s desire to leave the Cecil Arms coincided with the Chapman murder.

“Were you questioned by the police after the body was found?” Jameson asked.

She had no difficulty answering. The news story about Bernie Chapman’s suspected killer flushed out the past in a torrent of memory.

“Yes, we were. All of the occupants of the building were questioned, naturally. But Kyle couldn’t help the police. He had a class at the university that night. It was raining and he had to drive across town, so he left early.”

“Wait a minute,” Jameson said. “I want to get a clear picture. I believe that newspaper story said that Chapman was the attendant in the hotel garage.”

“He was.”

“And Kyle kept his car in that garage?”

“Yes. But Bernie wasn’t always on duty. There was no relief man at night, you see. If he wanted coffee or a sandwich he had to go out for it. That’s why Kyle wasn’t concerned when he didn’t see Bernie after class. He heard his radio playing and thought he’d stepped out for a few minutes. At least, that’s what he told the police the next morning.”

Jimmy Jameson was becoming very analytical. He rocked back in his chair and cupped his hands behind his head. It helped relax the tension in his long body.

“Is that what you heard Kyle tell the police?” he asked.

“No,” she said. “That’s what he
told
me that he told the police. I was so excited after all that talk about moving to Tucson, I couldn’t get to sleep. Kyle gave me some sleeping powders and all I knew was that there was someone at the door the first time the police came to the apartment.”