Lady Yesterday (19 page)

Mozo called out to his cousin again, sharply this time.

“Stay cool,” I told Felipe. “Pardon the expression. You’re clear. Neither of you killed Charm, just like you said. Why bother, for a list that even if it had Mozo’s plate on it wouldn’t be considered suspicious, because he owned the place? He certainly wouldn’t kill him on account of the blackmail, because if Charm was smart enough to run his own little peephole racket without the boss’s knowledge and accidentally videotape the boss killing Jackie Acardo in the privacy of his own motel, he must also have been smart enough to take precautions. He would see to it that the tape would be delivered to the authorities in case of his death or disappearance. Or at least he would tell the man he was blackmailing that he had seen to it. And yet all the time the tape was in the safe in his office. It was a dumb bluff, sure. After all, he was dumb enough to undersell himself. Five thousand wasn’t that much more than he soaked any of his married victims who couldn’t keep it in their pants.”

“What you saying, chamaco?”

“It’s a stall.” Lester’s tufted chin was out. “He ain’t got no tape.”

I looked at Mozo. My eyes were watering in the wind. “Killing Jackie Acardo and smuggling out his body brought down a lot of heat, from the cops and the Acardos. You didn’t want to kill anyone else until things simmered down. So you went on paying Charm and even when your ex-wife came back to town, the ex-wife who could testify that she married you only so you could stay in the country, you didn’t try to kill her, although there were plenty of opportunities. You tried scaring her, but she doesn’t spook easy. Threatening notes didn’t do it. Bulletholes in her car didn’t do it. I’m not sure what you had in mind when you stole her unicorn pin right out of her room at Mary M’s. Maybe you were going to send it to her by way of showing how easy she was to get to.”

“Listen to the man talk.” But he didn’t stop me.

“A thing like that would appeal to you. I know from experience you like to give demonstrations. Whatever the gimmick was, Charm’s murder gave you a better one. Leaving the pin at the scene wouldn’t lead the cops to Iris. It wouldn’t be traceable. If it was you wouldn’t have done it, because leading the cops to her would be the last thing you wanted. But it might get written up and broadcast, and she’d find out about it and know you play hardball. It might have been enough to send her back to the island.”

“You Anglos always talking yourself into corners. You just said I don’ kill Charm.”

“That’s right, you didn’t. Lester did.”

L
ESTER SHIFTED HIS WEIGHT
again. He looked at Mozo, then at me, and that order said more than he was ever likely to. “Crazy,” he said. “I got nothing against Charm.”

I said, “The ground’s full of people nobody had anything against. They didn’t all die from natural causes. You told Mozo later that I’d been in the office ahead of him, and you took a beating for not telling him earlier. That took guts, because it was a lie. I found Iris’ pin next to the body and Mozo had to have left it. There was no reason you’d have it. It’s a good bet he’d have it on him, having gotten it from her room just that day while Iris was in my office telling me about the threats against her. You probably told him I jimmied the safe and took out the tape while you were busy calling the cops from the lobby.”

Mozo’s head turned on Lester. The big hat shadowed the Colombian’s face and I couldn’t read his expression. I continued.

“The way I figure it, Charm told Mozo the tape was with his lawyer or something. Mozo believed him—hell, it makes sense—or he’d have torn the office apart looking for it when he had the chance. You knew about the tape, Lester, or at least you knew about Charm’s blackmail operation. All you had to do was blunder into any linen closet in the building and see the setup. It must have looked like a sweet spot to a guy who wrote down license plate numbers for a living. You were an employee, he had no reason not to let you get close enough to stick a knife in his heart.”

“You said yourself it was a pro done it. All I ever done was boost some wheels.” He had put some distance between himself and Mozo.

“And got arrested for it. The slam’s full of killers turned teachers. I’d forgotten that. You didn’t, though. You remembered your lessons. Safe-cracking would have been one of them. Office safes usually aren’t much anyway, and anyone who’s found his way around an automobile lock has a foundation to work from. Maybe there was just the one tape inside; probably there were several. You took them all out and stashed them somewhere to gloat over later. Then you called the boss. Not Andrew Gordenier, who was fronting for Mozo, because motel scuttlebutt would have seen through that a long time ago. You played dumb when he came, which couldn’t have been easy. A potato with one eye is smarter than Mozo.”

“Watch that mouth, chamaco. You still on the hook.”

Lester had all my attention. His hands were out of his pockets now and balled at his sides. He had the river at his back and no place to run. Iris took her hair out of her face to look at him.

“Mozo had removed one body from that building already,” I said, “and anyway it wasn’t his murder. He left the pin on an inspiration and told you to give him time to get clear and establish an alibi. He probably thought one of Charm’s other victims was the murderer.

“Maybe you were hoping he’d cover it up. You had to know Mozo was into something other than the motel business. In any case you didn’t waste time moping over it, because you had an ace. Me. Did I make you nervous, Lester? Did you kill him when you did because I’d been snooping around and you were afraid I’d take the lid off the midnight movie factory before you could move in on it?”

“It’s your story.” I barely heard him.

“If you were afraid, you got over it. Now you were glad I was there to sic the cops on in case they leaned too hard on you because of your record. So you tore off that list of numbers I was after and got rid of it and called me. It would look like whoever killed Charm did it to get the list and cover up his part in the break-in in Iris’ room. I didn’t tell you that part, but motel gossip is always looking for fresh material, and the desk clerk had seen me going head-to-head with Charm. You’d have heard about it. That fifty I paid you to keep me and my client out of it must have handed you a laugh. If the cops came back on you, you could always tell them about that and make the whole thing so complicated they’d run out of taxpayers’ money before they got it untangled. Time and money, that’s what keeps most cases from being solved.

“You couldn’t lose. If Mozo killed me over a tape I didn’t have, it would be worth every bruise you took from Ang to have the heat off you. Then when everything cooled down you could start tapping the boss for real money. By then you’d looked at the tapes and knew what you had.

“You shouldn’t have taken the list, Lester,” I said. “That was one nail too many. But then you couldn’t know that Mozo was the burglar, and that he wouldn’t cross the street to get that list because he owned the place and he had every right to park his car there. As soon as I found out the motel was his I knew you were the killer. You were the only one who knew I was interested in the list.”

My face felt stiff. Everyone’s ears were red, but no one was paying attention to the cold now. Lester turned slightly, obscuring his right fist with his body. Mozo didn’t see it. He was turning his face back to me.

“Chamaco, he got the tape, what you got in the bag?”

Lester’s fist came around then and the sun caught something bright in it. He lunged across Iris, straight at Mozo. But the little Colombian was faster than he looked and the knife snatched only alpaca as Mozo backpedaled. He set himself and unlimbered a shiny pistol as long as his thigh from his own deep pocket. While all this was happening, something exploded not far from my right ear and Lester, who had spun to flee Mozo’s weapon, turned the rest of the way around and fell, almost knocking Iris down.

I was moving too, tearing the Smith & Wesson out of the paper sack and swinging into firing position just as Felipe brought the smoking Colt around in my direction. He hesitated, then made up his mind. He was too late. I shot him in the chest. He jerked, looked down at the wound, looked at me, looked sad, and dropped onto his face. He was still holding the gun.

Two out.

Iris screamed—rage, not fear—and I whirled and saw her grappling with Mozo across Lester’s body. He had his free hand on her throat, defending himself really, and she was clawing at his face with both hands, her knee in his groin. The big shiny gun came up. I took aim at him—and didn’t fire. They were too close together for a revolver shot. I lowered it and started sprinting.

It was no good. My coat hobbled my legs. I unbuttoned it as I ran. I could hear my feet pounding the earth but I couldn’t feel the impacts. If I stumbled. My heart was banging. Bile burned in my throat. To hell with if I stumbled; there was no chance either way. At 180 feet I was going to be out at home plate.

Sam Mozo snapped board straight suddenly. I was close enough to hear the air roaring out of his lungs and I saw him go back on his heels with a hole in the front of his coat. He went on toppling backward, his eyes and mouth comic circles in his pie-tin face, the big gun cartwheeling and flashing in the sun. Then I heard the shot, a deep heavy bark that echoed off both banks of the river and died somewhere in Canada with a noise like waves slapping a wooden hull. Mozo squirmed on the ground, then relaxed slowly. Iris stood looking down at him. Her claws were still out. She lowered her arms.

The side was retired.

Passing the pitcher’s mound, I slowed to a lope. I felt warm now—overheated, in fact. Sensation was tingling back into my extremities. My throat was raw. Sweat stung the stitches on my forehead. Iris became aware of me then and glanced down at the Smith & Wesson in my hand. I shook my head; I had no wind left for talking.

Her gaze went beyond me then. When I turned, John Alderdyce was walking out of left field from the ring of trees, carrying his deer rifle. The scope glinted.

H
E BENT DOWN
over Felipe, holding his own head upright as he did so as if to keep fluid from spilling out. Then he straightened, and now he was moving a little faster. He was still in no hurry. He had on regular shoes and a lined raincoat that couldn’t have been warm enough in that wind, but as he approached the batter’s box he was sweating. He hadn’t been near a razor in days.

“That one has a pulse.” He rested the rifle’s walnut stock on his shoulder with a hand on the barrel. “What about these two?”

Mozo was lying on his back with his coat buttoned and his arms spread slightly at his sides. His hat had slid down over his face and the front of the coat was stained. I lifted the hat. There was no meeting that gaze. I wasn’t so sure about Lester, sprawled on his chest with legs tangled and his head turned to one side with the cap still jammed on it. I pried the jackknife out of his fingers, tossed it aside, and felt for the big artery on his neck. I couldn’t find it. I plucked some fibers from my coat and held them under his nostrils, shielding them from the wind with my body. They seemed to stir. I told John.

He dangled his keys. “There’s a radio in my heap. It’s parked next to the Lincoln. Get a wagon here—no, make it two, I forgot about the corpse—and take the lady home. I’ll catch a ride.”

After a second I took the keys. “How much did you hear?”

“Just enough, with the statement you’re going to give me later. If one of these lives we may not need it. Either way we’ll find out where this Lester flopped and maybe turn that tape.”

“His last name’s Hamilton. Someone at the motel should know his address.” I breathed some air. “You sound like a cop.”

“Vacation’s over, I guess.”

“I never spotted you.”

“That was the idea.”

I touched Iris’ arm and she collapsed against me; it was all catching up. I got an arm around her. She was heavier than she looked. “Hell of a shot.”

John grinned. It hurt him and he stopped. “I never could’ve made it stone sober. Who was it said he saw two balls coming at him and just swung between them?”

“Mickey Mantle,” I said. “He hit a home run.”

We shook hands. The Japanese car was easy to figure out, once I’d identified the pictures on the dash. I strapped Iris in to keep her from sliding to the floor and radioed EMS. With her hair undone and her make-up streaked she looked like a little girl who had fallen asleep at her mother’s dressing table. I took off her cork-soled shoes and spent some time rubbing circulation back into her feet. They were as cold as marble. Then I shook the snow out of my own shoes and put them back on. I turned on the heater and let it blow at our feet.

Halfway across the bridge she started to revive. “Take me back to Mary M’s,” she said. “Wake me up at Easter.”

“We’ll pick up your clothes there and go back to my place.”

That brought her alert. “I’m getting married.”

“Shucks. I was hoping you wouldn’t remember that until I’d torn your clothes off and outraged you. When this story breaks you could fall down at Mary M’s and break your head just like Jonesy. You’re a witness.”

“To what? There’s nobody left to be a witness against.”

“Wrong.”

We were turning onto Jefferson. Two ambulances passed us and slowed for the turn, strobes flashing, sirens moaning. Iris looked at me, then at the street ahead. She asked no questions.

After a minute she took over the rearview mirror and used a fistful of Kleenexes from the box in the glove compartment to remove what she could of her smeared makeup. Then she borrowed my comb and took the tangles out of her hair. Finally she knotted it behind her neck. She looked like Nefertiti in the monsoon season. I asked her where she spent last night.

“At Felipe’s house in Sterling Heights. His wife was there, and two little kids. None of them spoke English. The kids bunked on the living room floor and I got to sleep in a bed with Miami Vice sheets.”

“Anything else?”

“Well, I got raped, but that was about it.”

I turned onto Woodward and waited for a streetcar to cross in front of us.