Kiss and Kill (20 page)
Authors: Ellery Queen
During the long week Claire had been jumpy and cross with Barney. He decided it was a reaction to the shooting, and frustration at being shut up. He was gentle with her.
When they were free, Ed and Liz prepared to take the bus to Monterey, from which they would catch a plane home.
“How much do I owe you?” asked Ed, pulling out his checkbook.
“Five thousand will cover it.”
“I've got eight. As far as I'm concerned, you can have it all.”
“Don't be so generous. You two can use it on a vacation. This time stick together.”
Liz was holding on to Ed's hand for dear life. “We'll never be parted again, Mr. Burgess.”
They said their goodbyes and Barney went to Claire's room. She was just shutting her suitcase.
“Easy come, easy go,” Barney said, waving the check. “Where shall we spend it, baby? Acapulco?”
“No, Barney.”
“I don't blame you. I've had enough of Mexico for a while myself. How about Barbados?”
She had her back to him, fumbling with the clasp on her suitcase. “Barney, I don't think I want to ⦔
She's still partially in shock, he thought. “You're right,” he said. “Let's get away from people. There are a few islands in the West Indies that are pretty much unvisited. We'll swim, fish, live out in the open ⦔
She turned to face him then. Her cameo features were set. “Barney, let me take a rain check.”
“Oh?”
“I've got to be alone for a while. For a few days, anyway. I have a lot of thinking to do. Especially about you and me. If I decide it wasn't a one-night stand, I'll phone you.”
It's all over, Barney thought. The old female stall. But she's already made up her mind. He looked at Ed Tollman's check, scowled, and put it in his pocket. “Where you going, Claire?”
“I think it would be better if you don't know. Why don't you go on to Acapulco and wait for me? Say, three days. I'll wire you at American Express.”
Barney smiled. “Trust a woman to load the dice. You'll know where I am, but I won't know where you are.”
“Barney, you'll have to be patient with me.”
Barney went over to her and kissed her on the cheek and turned and walked out. He heard the suitcase snick with finality as he shut her door.
He wandered down the hill and across the river to the archeological site. A dozen cars were there, and three chartered buses. Tourists scampered everywhere. Barney recognized the captain of police posing for photographers, pointing at the chip on the
Chac-mool
where Barney's bullet had struck. White-jacketed men sold ice cream from little carts; old women peddled pork skins; flags fluttered from a stand serving cold beer and soda pop. A group of men, women and children clustered curiously around the roped-off area where Green had died. The stain was bigger than he remembered. Barney decided that it had been enlarged; no doubt they would renew it after every rain.
He turned away. Where could the money be? Not here, he was sureâhe had searched the ruins carefully. Some day it would be found, rotten with mold and falling apart, in some freak of accidental discovery, by a little old lady from Dubuque.
A grubby boy in a torn shirt held up a clay statuette.
“¿Quieres comprar un mono
?”
“No.” Barney walked on. Even the kids here were on the pitch.
The boy followed.
“¿Mono? Como los grandotes
â”
Mono
â¦
Barney stopped as though he had been shot. The boy recoiled, but then as Barney gave him a handful of silver
pesos
, he grinned and ran off as if he expected Barney to snatch them back. The statue was a miniature of the big warrior figures on the pyramid. Barney dropped it in his pocket and ran back to the hotel. Claire had gone. At the cab stand across the street, he asked a driver:
“The woman who was here. Did she take a cab?”
“Sà señor
.”
“Where did she go?”
The man shrugged. “
No estoy seguro. A Mexico, yo creo
.”
To Mexico City.
Barney jumped in the man's cab and told him to try to overtake the other taxi. They had been out a quarter of an hour when the driver pointed ahead. “I think that is the one. Yes.”
Barney crouched down in the seat. “Drive closer and make sure the woman is in it.”
The driver did so. He said: “Yes. She is in the back seat.”
“Okay, drop back. But keep them in sight.”
Four hours later Claire's cab stopped before the Estrella de Oro bus station. She jumped out and ran inside. From his position across the street Barney watched her go to a row of lockers, take a key from her purse, and open a locker. She took out a suitcase and started toward the door. A redcap came forward to help, but she waved him away. Her cab driver wanted to stow it in the trunk, but she shook her head and hauled it into the front seat beside her. The cab pulled away, Barney's following. It stopped at a medium-rate hotel, and Claire went in carrying her suitcase.
He waited five minutes, then went in after her. He told the desk clerk that the woman had forgotten her change. “Which room did she take?”
“Twenty-two,
señor
.”
Barney went upstairs and knocked on the door. There was a moment of silence, then Claire's voice said: “Who is it?”
Barney imitated the clerk's singsong accent. “I half your towels, señorita.”
“Oh. One minute.”
She opened the door. She gasped, recovered, then lunged for the door. Barney pushed her aside and went to the strange suitcase lying on the bed. He opened it. A man's shirt was carelessly folded on top. He tossed it aside. Under it lay row upon row of crisp U.S. currency.
Barney turned around. Claire was standing before the door with her little gun pointed at his chest.
“We've come the full circle, baby. The only difference between now and our first meeting is that this time you've got clothes on.”
She smoothed her skirt with her free hand; a sheen of sweat covered her face. But the gun remained unwavering.
“There's another difference, Barney. We both know I can shoot.”
Barney shook his head. “You've got the money sickness bad. How long have you known?”
“Since San Blas,” Claire said. “While Garner talked, I went over in my mind all that Johnny Talbot had told me. That last word he spoke, Mona.⦠I thought it must have something to do with the money. Knowing now that he'd known Spanish, I got out my Mexican dictionary and looked up the word.
Mona
, or
mono
, was a doll. I remembered that miniature Toltec warrior I'd picked up on the street. I still had it with me. In the car next morning I examined it and found a tiny
x
scratched near the base. Then I remembered that the figure was a model of those giant warriors on the pyramid at Tula. I realized he must have hidden the key there, the one he mentioned to the Mexican. I didn't find it the first day, or the second. But on the last morning, as I checked the statues for the twentieth time, I saw where a sliver of stone had been hammered between two joints of rock. I pried it out, and there were the keys to the suitcase and locker, and a ticket stub showing which bus station it was in.”
“That's why you were anxious to reach Tula. You didn't care a damn about Liz.”
“She's all right, isn't she? What difference does it make now?”
“None, except to Garner. You did push him out?”
She nodded. Her face was very wet.
“And that shot you fired at Brown. Did you really think he was going for a gun?”
“I saw the matches.” Her lips were a pale line.
“But you wanted them all dead, and you didn't care if Liz and I were killed in the process. You knew if they were captured they'd tell about the money, and then you'd never get it.” Barney shrugged. “Now you've got it. And you've got me. What happens?”
She moistened her lips with her tongue. “I was planning to call you in Acapulco. We can have a good life togetherâ”
Barney grinned. “You knew in Tula. You could have told me then, and we could have searched together. All the time you were with me, you kept the dirty little secret to yourself. And peddled yourself to distract me, like a whore.”
“Barney, it wasn't like that. I reallyâ”
“I feel worse about it than you do. I'll never be able to think about sleeping with you without throwing up.”
He saw pink wherever her skin was exposed. But the .32 remained steady.
“Well?” Barney said. “Where do we go from here?”
“We could still go away together,” Claire said in a low voice.
“You mean you want to get me out of the hotel without a fuss. Remember, Claire, I watched you butcher Brown in cold blood. You'd kill me just as soon as you thought it was safe. It's your move.”
She showed her teeth then. “All right! You forced your way into my room, threatened me. I have a rightâ”
“To defend your honor?” Barney laughed. “Do it. Kill me, here and now.”
She raised the .32. A nerve quivered in her jaw.
“Oh, go ahead,” Barney said. “Shoot.”
She squeezed the trigger spasmodically. She looked aghast. She squeezed again and again. But nothing happened.
Barney shook his head. “Poor Claire. Amateurs always flub it somewhere. Remember when the fuzz returned our stuff? They gave the guns to me, since I was the only one of us authorized to carry them in Mexico. That's when I filed off your firing pin. Oh, not because I knew anything then. It was just that I'd seen you slaughter Brown, and I didn't think you were one of those people who can be trusted with guns. I congratulate myself.”
She uttered a moan of rage and hurled the .32 at his head. Barney ducked and jumped. She clawed at his face. He punched her on the hinge of the jaw. She fell, rolled over once, and lay there, her skirt twisted around her brown thighs.
Beautiful legs, thought Barney. What a waste. But the sight made him sad. The money sickness spoiled even the best of them for the purposes for which God had made them.
He went to the phone and started to dial. But then he stopped, staring at the sparkling money in the suitcase. He could close this case and walk out of here with it, and who could stop him? Claire would never send up a howl. Only those with clean hands could howl.
Then there was the problem of having to face himself in the mirror at least once a day.
And his license. He liked his license. It was worth a lot of money to him. Far more than was in the suitcase.
So that was that.
He began dialing the police again.
But then he stopped again. What was her crime? The man she had killed was a murderer, armed and shooting. And who would claim the money? It belonged to the estates of the late Green and the late Brown, no doubt; but how could their heirs prove it? Would their heirs even want to prove it, considering what the money had been intended to buy?
No. The police would release Claire, and the money would lie in the files for a while, and one day it wouldn't be there any longer. It would be tucked away in the safe deposit box of some light-fingered
politico
or
official de policÃa
.
Barney hung up and walked out of the hotel room, leaving Claire English sprawled on the floor and the caseful of money lying on the bed.
She had earned it, he decided. She would be earning it for the rest of her life.
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 © 1969 by Ellery Queen
Copyright renewed by Ellery Queen
Cover design by Kat Lee
ISBN: 978-1-5040-1912-5
This 2015 edition published by
MysteriousPress.com
/Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.
345 Hudson Street
New York, NY 10014
EBOOKS BY ELLERY QUEEN
FROM
MYSTERIOUSPRESS.COM
AND OPEN ROAD MEDIA
