Ed McBain (36 page)

"Who's got it?" Williston asked. "You?"

"Maybe," David said.

Williston scratched the side of his jaw. Behind him, Wanda held up the folded piece of stationery so that David could see it. Then she tucked the folded page into one of the cubbyholes at the rear of the writing desk and crossed the lobby.

"What would you say it's worth?" Williston asked.

"Plenty," David said. She was walking out into the rain now, a slim figure in sweater and skirt, crossing the gravel parking lot, her skirt whipping around her bare legs, the ponytail sweeping back over her shoulders. She stood near the concrete oval surrounding a young palm tree. The rain was lashing down in sheets.

"How much is that?" Williston asked.

Wanda raised her arm and a taxi pulled to a stop beside the palm. The rear door opened. She climbed in, and the door closed. The cab sped off.

David sighed. "Not for sale," he said. "And there's nothing more to say."

"There's a lot to say. We're willing to be sensible, so long as your price is right. Why spill any more blood?"

David pulled away from Williston and went across the lobby. Williston stared after him, puzzled, considering. David reached in and removed the note from the cubbyhole. She had a clear, firm hand. The note read:

Get my typewriter. Meet me Passe-A-Grille on beach at 26th Street, eight o'clock tonight. Please be careful.

I didn't do it.

The note was unsigned.

David glanced at his watch. Three thirty. That left a lot of hours to kill. He smiled at Williston, waved, walked past the bellhop at the cigar counter, and stepped through the glass door and out into the rain. He saw the Sun City squad car too late. The policemen had already seen him, and there was no place to run. >

Maurow was in an ugly mood.

"All right, Coe," he said. "I'm listening."

"What do you want me to say?"

"I want it all. Every bit of it. Right from the beginning. And you'd better give it to me straight."

"If I knew anything, I'd tell it to you," David said. "All I know is that a couple of people wanted to charter my boat. I called Sam Friedman, and he told me they didn't have any law trouble. So I took them aboard. The next thing I know, Sam is dead."

"These people," Maurow interrupted. "Grew and Meadows?"

"Yes," David said.

"What about them?"

"That's all I know. Except that a rough character named Harry Williston is throwing his weight around. He runs a pool parlor someplace."

"Where?"

"I don't know. There's somebody named George in this, too, but he's dead. Williston is after something, I don't know what it is, but he wants it badly enough to pay for it—or possibly to kill for it."

"George who?"

"I don't know. I saw his name in a typewriter." Maurow went to his desk and opened a drawer. He took out a sheet of paper that had once been crumpled, but which had been pressed smooth. He handed the sheet to David.

"What do you make of this?" he asked.

"What am I supposed to make of it? It's shorthand, isn't it?"

"Yes. But it's not Gregg and it's not Pitman, and it's not Speedwriting. Our experts don't know what the hell it is."

David stared at the jumble of letters on the sheet. There was something familiar about the handwriting, and it took him several seconds to realize it was Wanda's. He said nothing.

"We figure it's some kind of personal shorthand," Maurow said.

"Where'd you find it?"

"In the trash basket aboard your boat. We also got a sheet of paper from the typewriter, probably transcribed from some other notes. We tried cracking this with what we had in English, but it doesn't match up. Is that where you got the George stuff?"

"Yes," David said.

"Where did Grew and Meadows want you to take them?"

"They didn't care."

"Why'd they contact you?"

"Sam recommended me."

"How'd they know him?"

"I don't know. He was a newspaperman. I guess he got to meet a lot of people."

"And he suggested they try you, huh?"

"Yes."

"And that's your stake in this, that right? That's why you've been sticking your neck out right from when this started, huh? You know something, Coe? I think you're full of shit."

"I've told you all I know," David said.

"You haven't told me where Leslie Grew is."

David blinked.

"What?"

"You heard me. For all I know, you're in this, too. Until you prove otherwise to me, you're in it. Right up to your navel. What were you doing with a .45, Coe?"

"It's an Army souvenir."

"That doesn't answer my question. Do you own a Luger, too?"

"No," David mumbled.

"Does Grew?"

"I don't know."

"You
do
know because the teletype we got said Grew was carrying a Luger. Now how about that?"

"If you say so."

"Where's Grew now?"

"Where do you think? Who the hell are you trying to kid?"

"You'd better get out of here before I do something we'll both regret, Coe. I'm still itching to tie you in to this. I'm itching so much, I can't stand still. So you'd better get out. Now! While you can still walk."

David got out.

He did not go back to the boat. He did not go back for one reason alone, and that reason was a simple one. He did not believe Maurow knew there was a dead man in the cabin. It sounded crazy as hell, he knew, especially since Maurow had reeled off every other object in the cabin, down to Wanda's panties and the page of shorthand that had been in the trash basket. But from the line of Maurow's questioning, David assumed the Sun City Police did not know about Grew's murder.

Now he stood in the grass where the sidewalk ended at the beach's edge. There was no moon, and no stars, and the rain swept the gutter and the sidewalk and the tall grass. On his left, a gray weather-beaten beach house faced the Gulf. On his right, the white-studded walls of a small hotel peered bleakly through the rain. He could hear the sullen rush of the surf, could feel the rain's sharp silvery needles on his face. The beach was usually moon-drenched, the water placid. Tonight, there was only the rain and an angry surf. He pulled his collar high and cut through the grass, walking on the narrow path.

He heard the grass swishing, and he dropped to his knees in the sand. The footsteps were light. She came onto the beach, and looked quickly right and left.

"Wanda," he whispered.

"David?"

She ran across the beach, and he held out his arms to her, surprising himself when he did, and somehow not surprised when she came into them. She put her head against his shoulder, dropping the heavy valise to the sand.

"I'm so damned tired," she said.

He held her close. Her clothes were soaked through. He pulled off his windbreaker and wrapped it around her shoulders.

"What happened?" he asked.

"When you left the boat ... to go to the police, remember? You told us to stay out of sight in the cabin, so we did. Then—it couldn't have been more than twenty minutes after you left—we heard footsteps above us. I guess we panicked."

"Who was it?"

"We didn't know at first. We stopped working, and I slammed the suitcase shut, and then I went to stand near the steps coming down into the cabin, out of sight. I had the Luger in my hand. I still have the gun. It's in the valise."

"Go ahead."

"A man came down into the cabin. He didn't see me. He saw ... only..."

She could not continue for a moment and then her eyes flooded with the memory of the thin, bespectacled man with whom she had worked.

"He was very brave. He stood there and said, What do you want? Who are you?' The man didn't say anything. He just brought up his gun and fired."

"Was it a Luger?"

"No. No, I don't think so. I don't remember. Everything happened so quickly, David, it was difficult to..."

"What happened then?"

"I stood there frozen. I had a gun in my hand. The man turned to me, and I ... I just fired. I hit him in the right shoulder, and ran for the steps. He was an ugly man, David, with a scar on his face. He reached for me, and he caught my ankle, and I gripped the railings on both sides and kicked back at him. I know I kicked him in the face but I didn't turn to look. That's when my shoe came off—when I kicked him. I didn't look back. I just ran off the boat." She shook her head. "So much trouble," she said. "So much trouble, David."

"Maybe you ought to tell me about this trouble," he said. "What are they after?"

"They want the notes in this valise," Wanda said. "All in shorthand—my own personal shorthand."

"I don't understand," David said. "What kind of notes? Why would anyone want to kill—"

"It's a book manuscript," Wanda said. "It's set for magazine serialization, too."

"Fiction?"

Wanda gave a short laugh. "Hell, no!"

"And Leslie Grew wrote this book?"

"Yes," she said. "Leslie Grew wrote it. David, there's something you—"

"Shh!" he said.

She stopped talking, and they listened together. From the sidewalk came the sound of heavy footsteps.

"They've seen us," David said. "Run!"

She was off instantly, one hand tight around the handle of the valise.

"Through the grass," he yelled. "Go on!"

She didn't look back at him. She slithered into the grass and then broke into a fast run as the men came onto the beach.

There were three of them.

Williston and two others.

"Hold it!" Williston shouted, and then a gun was in his hand. One of the men with him was wearing his right arm in a sling. A gun was in his left hand, and he was pointing it at David.

"The broad shot Freddie this afternoon," Williston said. "Be careful, his temper ain't exactly even."

There was a third man, and a third gun. The third gun was a Luger. The man behind it was short and squat.

"This the one who shot Sam?" David asked.

"Yep," Williston said pleasantly, and smiled. "Meet Ralphie. Come on, let's find that broad."

They walked through the grass almost leisurely. On Pass-A-Grille Way, they stopped beside a black Cadillac. Freddie and Ralphie climbed into the front seat, Williston into the back beside David.

"Cruise, Ralphie."

Ralphie nodded, started the car.

"Why'd you kill Sam?" David asked him.

He didn't turn from the wheel. He drove hunched over it, peering through the windshield. "He wouldn't tell me what I wanted to know," he said.

"So you emptied a Luger into him?"

"He was helping them," Williston said. "That's good enough for me." He leaned forward. "You see her, Ralphie?"

"Not yet."

"Helping them to do what?" David asked.

"Helping them get away."

"From what?"

"From us!" Williston said sharply. "There's a town a little ways north of here, Coe. A nice town. A real nice town. It's our town. You know what I mean?
Our
town. Put it this way. We got it sewed up real tight. There ain't nothing goes on in that town, we ain't got our finger in it. It's wide open in a quiet way. That means you can get any kind of action you want there, without having the cops crawling all over you, because the cops is in our pocket, too. You can cool off in our town, you can do anything you want in our town because we control it, and we like the way it's run. Put it this way, Coe. We don't like anybody coming in and fouling up the china closet."

"So?"

"So okay, we're doing what we always do. We're respectable businessmen. I run a pool parlor. Ralphie here owns a candy store. Freddie's a tailor. All respectable. The rest of the boys, too. We learned all that from Georgie Phelps, who was one of the best guys alive. Some jerk from Kansas City come down with a grudge, though, and cooled Georgie. We took care of him, all right. But what I'm saying, when Georgie was alive, and even now, we do things right. Put it this way. The local cops get paid plenty to look the other way. What the state cops don't know ain't gonna hurt them. Right?"

"I'm still listening."

"Sure, listen hard. So there's maybe a little gambling, and maybe a little dope, and maybe a little woman business, and maybe the poor slob ain't getting a fair shake, but we're making dough, and that's the way we want it. So we get a tip from New York. From New York, a guy we know makes a phone call. He tells us we're sittin', we're sittin' on a volcano and the lid is about to blow off. You see her yet, Ralphie?"

"No. This damn rain..."

"Keep lookin'. She couldn't of vanished. This guy in New York tells us there's a big-shot writer in our town. Tells us the writer's been snooping for close to six months, and has enough stuff to blow the town wide open. That's no good, Coe. In six months, you can learn a lot of dangerous things. So we ask our New York friend what the writer's name is, and he tells us Leslie Grew. And he tells us Grew is in our town with a secretary, writing this book, which is gonna break in a national magazine."

"So you started looking for Grew?"

"Sure. Our town ain't exactly a chicken coop, Coe. It took us a while to find what we were looking for. Only trouble is, Grew took off first. Carrying enough notes to fill ten books. Enough notes to bring in not only the state cops, but the Feds as well. That ain't good, Coe. Put it this way. Grew and friend had to go."

"And that's why you came here."

"Why else? But when we come down, there was a few things we didn't know. We didn't know, first of all, that Grew knew a newspaperman named Sam Friedman. We found that out later. By that time, our cops were getting to work, too. We figured if we could get those two back to our town on some phony charge, the rest would be easy. Our cops teletyped the Sun City Police. I sent Ralphie over to see Mr. Friedman. But their wire told me something else, too. All the while we was looking for Grew, we thought—"

"There she is!" Ralphie yelled.

The Cadillac was a more powerful car than the taxi Wanda was in. But the cabdriver knew the roads well, and Ralphie didn't. The cab kept a comfortable lead as they sped out of Pass-A-Grille and through Don Ce-Sar Place, and Belle Vista Beach, and Blind Pass, and Sunset Beach, and Treasure Island, and Sunshine Beach. The big Caddy went over the bridge at John's Pass, made the turn, and then squealed into Madeira Beach.