The Staked Goat - Jeremiah Healy (29 page)

Oh, I had to push a few wires and hoses out of the
way. Also, I spent fifteen awkward minutes cutting a hole through the
engine side of the glove box and niggling into place a doubled-over
shirt to take the powder burns. Three of the Button's braces were
perfect, though, and the wire to the dead-man's switch was easy to
attach. I ran the wire down through the dash and mounted the switch
itself on the floor next to the headlights' dimmer switch. I armed
the switch with the shotgun empty and did a few trial runs. Then I
tossed my remainders into the trunk and folded one of the mailers
into the glove compartment. I reset the system and took the Pontiac
out for a bouncy test drive of about two miles. I came back in behind
the auto body shop and tried it again. I heard the satisfying click
from under the hood. I reset the switch and loaded the shotgun. Then
I paused a few minutes to think things through one more time. The
only flaws I could see were those of timing that I had already
anticipated and those of chance that I could not predict.

I started the Pontiac and headed toward Weston Hills.
I stopped at a pay phone in Newton and dialed Murphy's number.

"Lieutenant Murphy's line, Detective Cross
speaking."

I tried to disguise my voice. "Lieutenant
Murphy, please."

"I'm sorry but he's not available. Can I take a
message?"

"No," I said, "I can call him back."
I paused. "Just tell him Mr. Lazarus tried to reach him."

"All right."

I hung up. I walked several stores down and bought a
paper, a tuna sub, and two root beers. I walked back to the Pontiac
and killed nearly three hours before I drove on.

I got to Weston Hills about 3:30 P.M. I found a
parking space across the street and three doors down from the real
estate agency. It struck me that the Pontiac was the oldest,
cruddiest car on the street but I passed that worry and found another
pay phone just across from "Belker's" office.

I dialed the number and got the Mount Holyoke
receptionist again.

"Weston Hills Realty, may I help you?"

"Mr. Belker, p1ease."

"May I say who is calling?"

I had given the answer to that question a lot of
malice aforethought. It was luck that he was in, but as much as I
wanted to twist the knife in him, I couldn't let "Belker"
and Al's death, and therefore me, appear connected in any traceable
way.

"This is the Board of Registration of Real
Estate Brokers and Salesmen. A former customer of your agency has,
ah, expressed some concerns to us, and I wanted to speak with Mr.
Belker about them before the situation got out of hand."

"Yes, certainly. Hold on, please."

Nicely done, Cuddy. Too flustered to remember to ask
about your name again. There was an outside possibility that she
would monitor the rest of the conversation or that he would tape it,
but that was a risk I would have to run.

A click and then, "Hello, this is Clay Belker."

Another perfectly modulated voice.

"Hi, this is Al Sachs calling"

Silence from his end.

"Or would you prefer Sergeant Ricker?" I
continued.

"Who is this please?" he said gamely.

"Or maybe a heroin pusher named Bouvier?"

"I'm sorry to disappoint—"

"Listen, I really think we should talk."

"I don't know—"

"Today."

"I'm afraid I'm pretty well jammed for—"

"Two hours. In front of your house. I'll be in a
yellow Ford station wagon."

"I'm afraid that's—"

"Perfect for you? Excellent. See you then."
I hung up and walked over to an army/navy surplus store, keeping my
back to his building and watching his door in the store's reflecting
plate glass window.

The next five minutes must have been bad ones for
him. A few notches up from an annoying consumer complaint lodged with
the Real Estate Board. I was dead sure he had a stash of contingent
money and identification somewhere. Maybe at home, or in a safety
deposit box, or with an attomey. Perhaps some fail-safe combination
of all three. My gas-guzzling dinosaur was the ace in the hole there:
no matter where he ran, its engine was big enough to catch his car
and its body heavy enough to force him off the road.

I had just moved my window watching from the surplus
store to a video shop when my man slipped casually out the front
door, an attaché case swinging lightly at his side. He smiled and
waved to a couple of people as he made his way up the sidewalk. As he
crossed the street to my side, I checked my watch and strolled over
to the Pontiac. When he got a block ahead, I started up and slid into
the stop-and-go traffic, slowly trailing him.

There have been lectures given and volumes written
about methods of following subjects. Two-operative, three-operative,
street-zigzag, vehicle-parallel, etc. If you're alone, you can follow
almost anyone for a short time without help. However, you can follow
almost no one, even a complete boob, for a long time without a lot of
good, and not a speck of bad, luck. I wanted my man to be unaware of
me only until he had cleaned out his hidey-hole. After that, I
wou1dn't need to follow him anymore.

He weaved leisurely through the sidewalk throngs,
still nodding and waving like a candidate on the stump. The flow of
traffic cooperated nicely; only once did I nearly pull even with him.
About two and a half blocks down, he turned into a bank's main
doorway. I checked around for cops, then eased over into a yellow
loading zone. I waited. And worried.

Probability said he was going into the bank to take a
huge chunk of cash from a safety deposit box. Possibility said I had
caught him just before a scheduled real estate closing at the
lender's, and he was merely intending to collect his six percent
check. Nightmare said he was cleaning out his cache but would
smilingly prevail on the security guard to let him out a back
entrance.

I sweated for about seven minutes. Then he emerged
from the bank. A bit quick for a closing to have concluded, and the
attaché case seemed to swing a good deal less lightly at his side.

I put the Pontiac in gear. I pulled into the bank
driveway just as he was drawing even with the sidewalk.

"Mr. Belker," I called in an artificial,
Southwestern twang. "Yo, Mr. Be1ker."

He tumed, looked at me impatiently and turned back to
continue on his way.

I called a bit louder. "Yo, I do have that name
right, don't I? It is Clay Belker, from Vietnam, isn't it?"

He froze and looked around. He didn't think anybody
had heard me either time, but he was afraid my next decibel level
might call attention to us. I expect he decided then and there he'd
be having to kill me.

He turned toward me again, smiling and giving his
little wave. He walked up to the driver's side window, unbuttoning
his coat and glancing into the empty back seat. He leaned down a
little. "I'm sorry," he said pleasantly, "but I'm
afraid you have the better of me."

I smiled back. I said, softly but in my normal voice,

"Get in the car, Sergeant Crowley."

"I don't know—"

"If I intended to turn you over to the
authorities, I wouldn't have forewarned you. I'm talking private deal
here. Now get in the car."

"But I have to get some papers back to my—"

"I have a feeling those papers will figure
prominently in our negotiations. Now get in."

The wheels must have been spinning furiously in his
crew-cut brain. There were two alternatives. One, I was working for
the authorities, who had staked me out to lure him in. If so, they
were probably within sight and/or sound and could thwart any attempt
by him to run. If I were with the authorities, he couldn't risk
reaching into his unbuttoned coat and acing me, since I was probably
being filmed, recorded, or at least watched.
 
The
other alternative was that I wasn't working for the authorities. In
that case, there was at least a chance I was alone. If so, he could
play along with the blackmail until he could kill me. The Clay Belker
cover might be potentially too dangerous to resume, but he'd be free
and away with the contents of his briefcase.

"Well," he said, "at least you can
give me a lift to my office while you explain yourself."
Alternative Two.

"Come around. Front seat," I said,
depressing the switch with my left foot.

"All right." He walked around to the
passenger side and got in, case placed on the floor between his legs.
"My office is . . ."

I shifted to reverse. I backed out and headed down
Main Street in the eventual direction of Eddie's junkyard.

"My office is back the other way," said my
passenger evenly.

"We're taking the scenic route," I said and
glanced at him. He sat slightly sidesaddle, Walther PPK in his right
hand. He held it low, out of my reach, and angled up at my chest.

"Fine weapon, the Walther," I observed.

"Take the next right," he said.

"Of course, without a silencer, kind of noisy."
The next right slid by.

He advanced the weapon an inch or so toward me.

"I would take the next available fight if I were
you."

I smiled. "Take a look at my left foot."

He looked down and tensed. "You're wired. I knew
that .... "

"It's a wire, all right, but not to a tape
machine. My foot's depressing an armed switch. The switch is
connected to enough explosives in the front of the car to send both
of us back to Saigon."

He didn't offer any reply.

"Therefore," I continued, "if you
shoot me or don't cooperate, I let up on the dead-man's switch, and
we both blow."

"That's crazy," he said, still evenly.
"Either way you lose."

I tried to sound resigned. "I'm a down-and-out
private investigator, boy-o. I lost my wife to cancer and my best
army buddy to you. Al Sachs has a widow and infant son that I sure as
hell can't provide for. I don't see that anybody is so much worse off
if I lift my foot except you."

"You're bluffing," he said, still with no
emotion in his voice. He must have been a great real estate
bargainer. "Nobody is that suicidal."

I shrugged and ignored the next available right.

"Nobody," he repeated.

We drove on for a bit. Neither of us said anything.
“Where are we going," he finally said, not quite so
evenly as before.

I tried not to sound relieved. "To someplace
quiet where we can talk about Al's family. And their future."

We traveled in silence after that.

I drove past Eddie Shuba's gate on the right and
counted five blocks before turning in. It was 4:35 and already dark.

"I don't like this," said my boy.

"I don't much care about that," I replied.

My rental was still across the street. From a
windshield appraisal, it didn't look like anybody had stripped it. I
turned left into and behind the auto body shop. My passenger's head
whipped nervously left and right.

He said, "I hear a sound or see anybody, and
you're dead."

"Relax," I said. "There's just the two
of us." I turned off the engine. It was perfectly, almost
serenely, quiet in the derelict neighborhood. "Besides, if I'm
dead, so are you."

I watched him steadily for a minute or two. The car
was still warm from the heater, but he was perspiring a little more
than the temperature alone would have warranted. He was pale, like a
grunt from the bush during the rainy season in Vietnam.

His gun hand was steady, though. Quite steady.

"You wanted to talk," he said. "So
talk."

I shifted carefully to face him a little more
directly. He stared at my left stationary foot until I stopped
moving.

"I figure that by now you're convinced I'm not
working with the cops, the army, or anybody."

"I don't know what you're talking about,” he
said.

"O.K.," I said, "so you're not
convinced. Let me do the talking, then, till you get bored. Then feel
free to jump in."

He said nothing, so I continued.

"My guess is that you were up to your eyes in
something, probably black market. Covering for shortage
investigations, helping launder the skim, whatever. Anyway, you
sensed that somebody was on to the operation, but was still a few
turns or steps away from you. I figure it was like a chess game, and
you could see checkmate in maybe a few moves."

"I don't know—"

"So," I talked over him, "you had to
set up a safety valve for yourself. An out. But a big problem. You're
in Saigon, not the U. S. of A. If you want to get back to The World,
you've got to get out of the country and then back into this one.
Shipping out of 'Nam other than with Uncle Sam's blessings is touchy
and expensive. Slipping out with Uncle Sam focusing especially on you
is touchier and very expensive. So you set up a trap door as your
out."