Find This Woman (20 page)

He didn't yell or push it too far, and maybe that's what did it. Or maybe it was because he actually stepped toward me while my cocked .38 was pointed straight at him. But he looked happy and confident, and there was a flashing fraction of a second in which I thought that this was the oldest gag in the world, and that it was old because it was good, and even while I knew damn well that nobody was there behind my back I still remembered that I hadn't bolted the door behind me when I'd hurried in here. I knew there was nobody behind me, but I also knew that if anybody
were
there I was dead sure as hell this time, and without looking around or turning I hunched my shoulders involuntarily and jumped a step to my right as the smile on Dante's face went away and he whirled and slammed his left hand into the drawer.

He was fast now that he'd started, and he had the gun in his hand and was dropping to his knees behind the desk as I got my feet planted solidly and pulled my gun back to bear on him.

Before I even squeezed down on the trigger he fired twice. Two shots that were almost one and that he couldn't have aimed, but just snapped at me in his haste, and while they slammed past me and the roar still filled the room I pulled the trigger of my gun once and started to squeeze it again, but that first shot sent a 158-grain lead slug crashing through the bone of his forehead and into his brain.

He fell back away from the desk and the gun slipped from his hand onto the carpet. He sprawled on his back and slowly, like a man relaxing instead of dying, his arms went limp and fell to the floor, and his legs, still bent at the knees, swayed apart in opposite directions, away from the center of his body. His heels slid downward a few inches along the carpet and stopped, and he lay there, awkwardly, with his eyes staring and blood just now bubbling from the hole in his forehead.

I looked down at him with my brain almost blank for those few seconds, and my teeth ground together till the muscles in my jaws ached, then I snapped out of it and jumped to the door. I slammed the bolt home moments before footsteps pounded down the hall.

I ran across the room to the phone, scooped it up, and broke records getting through to the sheriff's office. Somebody yelled outside the door and I said into the phone, hardly caring who I was talking to, "I'm at the Inferno. Dante's office. Victor Dante's been shot and killed, and get the hell out here fast."

A comparatively calm voice at the other end of the line asked me who I was and what was happening, and I said into the phone, "This is Shell Scott. I'm at Dante's Inferno, in Dante's office. Dante is dead; I just shot him. Tell Hawkins and get out here fast before somebody else gets killed."

I didn't wait for an answer. I hung up the phone, went around behind the desk, and waited with my gun in my hand, as there was a muffled shout in the hallway and something heavy slammed into the door of the office.

Chapter Twenty

THAT goddamned door was going to give. There was a regular hubbub out there now. Shoulders slammed into the door and each time I could see it spring inward and the bolt quiver, getting ready to bust loose. Somebody crashed into the door again and it sprang half an inch inward, the wood splintering, and I knew the next one would do it.

In the comparative silence as whoever it was outside got ready to ram a shoulder into the door again, I yelled, "Hold it right there. I'll shoot hell out of the first man through."

Nobody slammed into the door. I realized then that the men outside couldn't know who or what was in here. All they could know was that there'd been shots, and then nobody had answered their shouts. They were out there thinking now, and I hoped to heaven they were slow thinkers. Because it wouldn't be long, unless whoever I'd called at the sheriff's office thought I was mad, till a couple of cars full of deputies came blasting out here.

Then it came, the biggest crash yet, and the door splintered as it gave all the way and swung around on its bent hinges to slam into the wall, and I dropped to one knee behind the desk, thinking, This is how Dante got it. I caught a confused blur of men outside in the hall and one man falling forward as he stumbled through the door and another man hunched over inside the room. I saw the gun in the hand of at least one man, but he didn't fire it and I didn't shoot, because then, as if the slamming of the door had set it off, we heard the shriek of the siren getting louder and closer, slurring down and then swinging up again in the horrid noise that was heavenly music. And then it was shrilling through the walls and dinning into our ears as another siren whined a counterpoint behind it and, at least for now, the shooting was over.

I was going to compliment the Clark County sheriff's department on its efficiency even if the deputies beat a tattoo on my skull, each and every one of them. And they might.

Sheriff's deputies came pouring in and people milled around in the hall and gasped in the casino, and it was as if I had another parade. Only this one wasn't going anywhere; it was standing in one spot and jumping up and down with a red face, jumping up and down on one spot, and that was the spot I was on. This was a big one, for sure.

But the deputies got things under control quickly and efficiently. They knew their jobs and they did them in a hurry. And pretty soon I was looking at Hawkins, and Hawkins was looking at me, and it occurred to me in a flash that I was not the fair-haired boy.

Time passed excruciatingly. We were still in Dante's office. And so were three other arms of the law. I'd been talking to Lieutenant Hawkins for forty-five minutes, but only about what had happened in this room. Now I said, "Believe me, Hawkins, I told Dante before this thing exploded that I was phoning the sheriff's department and turning him over to you."

He sucked on his teeth. "And for what was it again?"

"For murder."

"Seems like the smart thing would have been to call us before you came here."

"Maybe it would have. But you'll understand why I didn't when I—explain the rest of it."

"The rest?" The deep creases alongside his nose got deeper as he frowned.

I looked at my watch: twelve-fifty a.m. This conversation was taking time, too much time. I knew that there was a plane due to land here in twenty minutes or less, and that J. Harrison Bing would be on it, headed for Dante's desert home. This damned thing could still blow up in my face, and I might learn all about the state prison at Carson City. From the inside.

"Hawkins," I said, "we've spent a lot of time jawing about this, but it's only covered the last hour or so. There's more, but I'd have to go back over three days to get it all in." I stopped and thought about what I'd say next, thought about it for fifteen dragging seconds while Hawkins stared at me, then I said, "This is one hell of a story you're going to hear. One hell of a story. And this may sound silly, but I don't have time to tell every bit of it this minute." He opened his mouth, but I hurried on. "I'll
tell
it; I'll tell it all, and I'll tell it any way you want. But my way you'll like it a lot better." I went on after what I hoped was a significant pause. "About this here in the office. I told you down at the court house that Dante was trying to kill me. Well, he tried it himself and I shot him."

He yawned, but that didn't fool me into thinking he was sleepy. He said, "A man could tell me that so he could shoot a guy and then claim self-defense."

"A man could if he was nuts," I said. "I shot Dante after he tossed two slugs at me, and if I
hadn't
shot him you'd be out here looking at holes in my face." I paused a moment and then said, "I take that back. I meant holes in my face and my back, and you'd be looking at me in the desert if you found me at all. Like William Carter. Because ever since right after I hit this town Dante's been trying to kill me."

Hawkins said, "Two shots he took at you? First? Any witnesses?"

"Yeah. No people, but two bullets in the wall that was behind me when he shot at me, nitrate particles in Dante's left hand that will show up in a paraffin test and prove he
did
fire a gun, and a hole in his brain. He didn't do any shooting at me after he grew that hole; he did it before."

Hawkins stuck his tongue in his cheek, let it rove around a little, and sighed.

I said, "There's one more act in this business. If you'll let me go—take me—to Dante's home in the desert, I can explain a whole lot of things that have happened in the last three days and more: Carter in the desert; Freddy Powell at the airport in my Cadillac; a couple of bruised muscle men at McCarran Field, a couple of Dante's men at the Desert Inn—one, named Lloyd, with a knife in him, and the other one dead. And there's more. But we've got to get out to Dante's home before the next plane lands at the airport. Dante's not going to do any explaining."

Hawkins' eyes just kept getting wider and wider and wider. It was eight to five he thought one of Dante's bullets had gone in my ear and was rattling around inside there. But I told him we had to get going fast, and that it was all his case, he could have it, and I'd give him enough so maybe he could hang me. I screamed at the top of my lungs that otherwise I'd clam up instanter or just fall down on the floor and die and he could guess what I'd been talking about, and that we had to hurry, there wasn't time for an advance blow-by-blow account now. So we went. Three uniformed deputies and Hawkins. And the prisoner: me.

It was fifteen minutes after one in the morning by the time we got to the desert house and walked up to the front door. The house was dark, and my heart was flapping against my lips while Hawkins rang the bell. If the place was empty I could kiss Los Angeles good-by, because I'd be in Nevada a long, long time. I hadn't been kidding Hawkins when I told him there wasn't time for a blow-by-blow account, but I'd had another reason for not spilling all I knew back there at the Inferno.

Then lights went on inside and I saw little Blondie coming to the door with more on than when I'd last seen her, and I almost flipped with relief. Because even if I wasn't out of the woods yet, I could see the prairies ahead. And
now
I could fire my ammunition at Hawkins. If J. Harrison Bing had arrived ahead of us and Blondie had taken a powder, then I could have chattered at Hawkins till my tongue came loose and flew away like a bird, and it might not have done any good; he'd have been devilish hard to convince. Now, though, I had a chance. And Bing was due any minute, because by now his plane was in.

She opened the door and we walked inside. I waited till we were all in and she was still sputtering, half asleep and shocked and surprised, then I said to Hawkins, "Now I can talk for hours. And I will."

Then I turned to her and I said, "Hello, Isabel. I've been looking all over hell for you." And while she stared at me coldly I said to Hawkins, "Here's the tomato who put three little holes in William Carter's back."

Isabel gasped and Hawkins stepped toward her. Looking through the window behind his back, I could see headlights tearing up the road from Highway 91, almost to the house now.

I turned back to Isabel. "I phoned your father earlier," I said. "There's been a lot of hell because of you and he's got a right to be here. Besides, I wanted it this way."

There was a trace of panic in her blue eyes, but she was pretty much under control. She said, "I didn't kill anyone. I don't understand. My name isn't even Isabel."

She looked cute as hell, still, but I didn't like her very well. Those were the first words she'd ever spoken to me, and she'd told me three lies. And she understood, all right. I understood something, too: The way this was shaping up, she was one of the most cold-blooded bitches I'd ever run across.

Then the car pulled to a stop outside and her father came running up on the porch and inside, and I took a very good look at him as he came in.

Because I'd never seen this fat old pappy before.

Chapter Twenty-One

J. HARRISON BING pulled two hundred and twenty pounds to a stop inside the door, and panting, said, "Who called me? Which of you? What—" He stopped and frowned, looking around him. "What is this? Why all these men?" He looked at Blondie and said, "Isabel, what's going on?"

It was getting to her, piling up on her, and that was partly what I was counting on: Bust out of the night with no warning and throw it at her fast, one thing after another, a little like Dante had tried to throw conversation at me a while back. Only I'd stacked everything I could in my favor. This was a rough way to do it, but it's worse lying in a desert, with blood on your mouth, or having part of a Cadillac blown through your chest.

I said, "Mr. Bing, this is Lieutenant Hawkins. He's out here to arrest your daughter for murder."

I didn't like what that did to his face, but I liked what happened to hers. Because maybe I was brutal, but I had my back against the wall, too. This one was for keeps, and some of it had to spill out of Isabel's pretty mouth.

She spoke rapidly, in a voice that was a little shrill. "You're insane! I haven't killed anyone. I'm Mrs. Victor Dante. None of this makes sense, not any of it."

"Your father's right here to help make a liar out of you," I said.

Mr. Bing broke in. "See here, what's this all about? There must be some mistake." He was still shocked and his fleshy red face was pained. He looked at me. "Are you the one who called me? I don't know you."

"We've never met. Your son-in-law hired me, pretending to be you, and gave me one of your business cards. That's how I reached you tonight. I'm sorry about this, sir, but there isn't any mistake." I paused momentarily, then asked him, "You
can
prove you're J. Harrison Bing, can't you?"

"Of course I can prove it. What—"

"This is your daughter, isn't it? It's important."

He sighed, looked at the uniformed deputies, and answered, "Yes, she's my daughter."

"She and Harvey Ellis were never divorced, were they?"

"Why, no. I don't understand. Why ask me that?"

I glanced at Hawkins and back to Bing, and hesitated. After a moment Hawkins spoke softly to one of the deputies, who came over to Bing and took him outside.