Killer in the Street (9 page)

“You must be a dancer,” he said.

She was pleased. “I can’t be—yet,” she explained. “I’m still in high school. I have to finish my senior year after we get settled.”

“You look more mature than that,” Donaldson said, “and you have feet like a dancer. I know. I see a lot of them. I own a club over in Vegas.”

He was only having fun with her. He couldn’t touch her. He could never do anything like that on a job; it was too dangerous. Five years ago he wouldn’t have allowed himself this much pleasure, but he had more confidence now. He was the best in his field and he knew it, and he had to do something to burn up the time while the eye doctor was fixing his glasses. When Veronica drained her drink, he suggested another round. She was a little starry-eyed by that time. Her cheeks were flushed. She affected an aloof coolness and said that she really must get back to her room in time to shower and dress for dinner.

“Then why don’t I ring you about seven and we’ll have our second before eating?” Donaldson said. “They put on a fancy chuck-wagon deal on the patio every night. I read about it on a display board in the lobby.”

“I usually have dinner in the room with my brothers,” she said.

“Then tonight will be different.”

She liked that. She liked being dominated. He watched her saunter across the patio with the exaggerated nonchalance of feigned sophistication, and then leaned back in his chair, smiling. No harm done. Just a little fun and no harm at all. A lazy warmth began to steal over him. He closed his eyes and waited for sleep, but the warmth grew hotter to the point of intense discomfort. He opened his eyes and looked down at his much admired stomach. It was turning a bright lobster red. He left the poolside chair and went inside the lobby to the drugstore, where he could get a generous supply of the lotion Veronica had been absorbing all day. As he turned to leave, he found himself facing a fully stocked newspaper rack.

“Do you have any New York papers?” he asked.

“On the top row,” the clerk answered. “There—to your left.”

“That doesn’t help me much,” Donaldson said. “With these glasses I can’t read.”

The clerk got the paper for him. It was lighter outside the drugstore, but he still couldn’t read past the headline. He began to turn the pages loosely—and then stopped. Some things could be recognized even without his bifocals. He stared at the photograph on the page before him for several seconds, and then called to one of Veronica’s brothers as he crawled out of the pool.

“Hey, boy,” he said. “I broke my glasses this morning—remember? Come over here and tell me what’s printed under this news photo.”

The boy approached and grabbed a corner of the paper with a damp hand. Focusing intense interest on the caption, he read aloud: “Jake Berendo, held by the police in their investigation of a five-year-old gangland murder, goes before the grand jury tomorrow …”

Donaldson yanked the paper from the boy’s hand. “That’s good enough,” he said.

“Do you know that hood?”

The note of hallowed awe in the boy’s voice brought a quick response. “No,” Donaldson said curtly. “I thought I knew that man, but it was a mistake.”

As soon as the boy returned to the pool, Donaldson went to his room. He opened the sample case where he kept the gun and silencer and took out a small magnifying glass that he used in cleaning the weapon. Using the glass in lieu of his bifocals, he carefully read every line of the fine newsprint story on Jake Berendo. It was all familiar to him, but it had broken to the public too soon. It was a month since the police had nabbed Jake. Within an hour of the day he began to talk, the word leaked out to the grapevine. Berendo had named Rick Drasco as the killer of Bernie Chapman. But the law wanted many more revelations from the loosened tongue of Jake Berendo, and Donaldson expected he would have at least another week before the story hit the papers. A five-year-old murder. The grapevine didn’t lie.

Donaldson checked the dateline on the paper. It was an airmail edition printed that morning. The chances were that Kyle Walker didn’t take a New York newspaper. A man who ran as fast and as far as Walker had run after that night in the Cecil Arms garage didn’t want to be reminded of what he had left behind. And the story on Jake Berendo wasn’t important enough locally to be given space in a Tucson paper. Donaldson felt certain that Walker knew nothing of his presence in the city, but it was still too soon for the story to have broken even in faraway New York. What was now public knowledge might reach Walker through other channels and complicate a timetable already torpedoed by a high casualty rate in eyeglasses.

He dropped the newspaper down on the dresser and went to the closet. He dug his wallet out of a pocket of the beige suit and found Ollie Madsen’s business card. He then went to the bedside table and picked up the telephone. He asked the operator on the motel switchboard to call the number on the card.

Madsen answered.

“Mr. Madsen,” Donaldson said, “this is R. R. Donaldson at the Apache Inn Motel. I was in your shop early this morning. I left a pair of glasses with a broken lens.”

Madsen remembered. “I sent them to the lab on the ten o’clock pickup,” he said. “They’ll be here day after tomorrow.”

“That’s not soon enough,” Donaldson said. “Something’s come up that has to be handled right away. I’ve got to have them tomorrow.”

“But that’s not possible!” Madsen protested. “I told you. I sent them to the lab—”

“Tomorrow morning as soon as your shop opens!” Donaldson said, “and that’s with no excuses! Now you get on the telephone and call that lab. You tell them to work all night if necessary. I’m about to close a contract that makes it worth anything the job costs. Understand? Anything it costs!”

He slammed the telephone down in the cradle before Madsen could come back with any more excuses. He waited. Minutes passed but there was no return call. That was a good sign. If the optometrist had run into any trouble with the lab operation, he would be sure to call back. Donaldson relaxed. He peeled off the new trunks and showered. He shaved with his new cordless shaver and then took a dark blue suit from the closet. He dressed for his date with Veronica with meticulous care. A hand-tailored shirt imported from Hong Kong, a silk tie—narrow and dark blue. He buffed his black oxfords and brushed nonexistent lint from his suit. Finally, when he was ready, he donned the dark glasses and inspected his image in the mirror. Satisfied, he called the desk and had them transfer the call to Veronica’s room.

She was waiting—excitement in her voice.

“I’m almost ready, Mr. Donaldson,” she said.

That meant, of course, that she had been sitting beside the telephone—groomed, gowned and eager for it to ring.

“I’ll meet you at the downstairs bar in five minutes,” Donaldson said. “Watch for me. I’ll be wearing a light Scotch.”

He listened to Veronica’s nervous laughter and then broke the connection. She would be exciting to look at—that’s all he wanted of her for the evening. Diversion. A little harmless diversion. Relaxation was essential for good craftsmanship.

He was ready to go now except for one thing. He inspected the gun with the silencer again and slipped it back into the sample case. He wouldn’t need the holster tonight. Tomorrow was the day for action, and that all but empty office building made a perfect trap for a lone target. He was glad the wife and child had gone to Uncle Sam’s cabin. Sam Stevens’ cabin on the Mount Lemon road. It was all written down in the little book that now rested safely in the inner pocket of the blue suit coat. There was too much of importance in that book to risk leaving it in the room again. R. R. Donaldson was a very cool executive, but Rick Drasco had been around too long to trust luck. It came in two varieties.

He locked the attaché case and set it inside the wardrobe closet. Turning, he faced the sliding glass doors that led out to the balcony. It was dark now. Across the wide pool area another wing of the building paralleled his own. Some of the doors were lighted; some of the draperies were drawn. But Donaldson had been too intent on the news story to remember to draw the draperies at his window, and he now stood exposed under the bright ceiling light like a display in a showcase. He crossed the room quickly and found the drapery cord. It was at least one hundred feet across to the opposite wing, and the one suite directly facing his own was still dark. It was all right, he decided, but he couldn’t afford to get careless like that again. The gun in the sample case wasn’t for public inspection. He tugged the cord and watched the draperies slowly close….

From the dark suite across the pool, Kyle watched the draperies blot out Donaldson’s room. He lowered the binoculars he had taken from the rear of the station wagon and waited. Moments later the light in Donaldson’s room went out. Kyle slid open the glass doors of his own room and stepped out onto the balcony. It was cool enough now to endure without air conditioning. Half an hour earlier he had checked in at the desk in the lobby. Fortunately, the Apache Inn was the newest motel in the city. Nobody knew Kyle Walker. He checked the room diagram and located 227. The room directly opposite was 228. Was it vacant? Yes, it was. Good. Kyle signed the registration card “Kenneth Wayne” and went upstairs. He peeled off his coat and adjusted the binoculars, and then he sat there in the air-cooled silence watching that window across the pool. R. R. Donaldson of Baemer Air Conditioning, who didn’t know a thermostat from a swizzle stick.

Below Kyle, the light-bathed pool made a glittering blue hole in the patio. At the far end—near the entrance to the dining room—a pair of appropriately costumed chefs were officiating at the chuck wagon. A few early diners had drifted out from the bar. Kyle ignored them. His attention was fixed on the entrance to the upper-level stairway. When Donaldson appeared, he came briskly into view. He was confident and secure. He nodded to the chefs and walked directly to the patio entrance to the bar. When he went inside, Kyle knew he would be occupied now for some time.

He stepped back inside his own room and tossed the binoculars onto the bed. He didn’t need a light—the reflection from the patio was sufficient. He fingered through his pockets for the cigarette he hadn’t dared to smoke until now. Now—with Donaldson out of the room across the pool—he could risk the flame of a match and the glow of the ash. He dropped down in a low-slung chair facing the dark window across the patio, and quick little schemes began to dart through his mind. There was a telephone on the table beside him. He could pick it up and call Jimmy Jameson. He could tell Jimmy that the salesman from Baemer Air Conditioning who was registered at the Apache Inn kept a very businesslike gun and silencer in his sample case. Jimmy would come out and see for himself. But what would he do then? Even if the call was made anonymously, Jimmy would do his own advanced mathematics and put the call on Kyle Walker’s doorstep. He would pick up Donaldson and question him, and Kyle would lose his advantage over the killer who didn’t know he was being watched and expected like an overdue bill. At best, Jimmy Jameson would merely postpone what Kyle might not be so fortunate to anticipate on the second try. The important thing now wasn’t to have Donaldson apprehended. The important thing was to learn what he had been so intently reading through a magnifying glass. It might explain why he had come so far after so many years.

Because that was the rub. If he had to die for that inadvertent audience participation in a gangland slaying, why be so long about it? Did it really take five years for the syndicate to locate a man it wanted to kill? Or was it something more than his death they wanted? Kyle reflected. He wasn’t a rich man. He couldn’t pay a large sum of money for his freedom. He didn’t work on an important government project with access to classified material. He was close to Sam Stevens, who was close to everybody, but Sam was clean. Sam had made his fortune the straight way.

Kyle smoked nervously. When one cigarette was gone, he lit another. His mind was still stuck on the same thought: Sam was clean. Sam the financier, who met the right people and influenced the right people … people Kyle never saw. If he was so sure of Sam, why not pick up the phone and call for help?
Sam, I’m in trouble. Somebody has to kill me
. Sam wouldn’t ask questions. He wouldn’t waste time. He would come.

But Kyle didn’t pick up the phone.

He glanced at his watch. The illuminated dial told him that Van Bryson should be home from the lab now. He might even still be sober. Van Bryson, the man with a skin so thin he picked up vibrations across a continent and suffered labor pains for an age about to be stillborn. Van, whose imagination could conceive a planet reduced to atomic ash, would have no trouble believing in a killer in the streets. The organization mind needed graphs and charts and logic. The creative mind needed only a seed.

But Van, who would believe in the killer, couldn’t protect Dee and Mike. And it always came back to that. The syndicate had found Kyle Walker, and neither he nor his family would be free until an old score was settled. And so Kyle sat silently while the cigarette burned to ash between his fingers, and he thought of Dee and their first encounter with a Western motel at the end of that sudden migration five years ago. It would have been a second honeymoon except for the fear that had set him running, and now, so much later, when the running should have been finished and forgotten, he sat alone in the darkness and eliminated all the alternative responses until only one was left.

The second time Kyle stepped out on the balcony, R. R. Donaldson and a lovely young girl in a soft pink dress were giving full attention to the array of the chuck-wagon table. He watched them decide in favor of a return to the bar and then, when they were out of sight, made his move. He stepped back into the room and checked his gun, pocketed it and went into the hall. Both wings of the building were constructed the same. He knew where to find a stairway out of range of Donaldson’s vision, and he knew how to reach the registration desk in the lobby without crossing the patio. At the desk he caught the attention of the room clerk.