He Was Her Man (27 page)

“And Speed?” asked Jack.

Mickey shrugged. “I don’t know. I mean, like I said,
anybody’d
want to kill him, they hung around him long enough, but—I don’t know. Maybe you’re right, Jack, about your being the real reason he’s here, some kind of vendetta.…” She trailed off, waiting for Jack to fill in the gap, to explain what the thing was between the two of them. Jack let it hang, and Mickey went on. “I mean it could have been a
really
big score, if we’d hit that million, but now that I think about it, it was when I said the deal was going down in Hot Springs that Doc’s eyes really lit up. Hey, what do I know? I used to sell psychology books for a living, but I never read what was inside.”

Yeah, thought Sam, then a lot must have seeped through the covers.

Mickey continued. “There’s always been something strange about Doc. He’s half gypsy, did you know that? He doesn’t talk about it very much, but his mother was one of those real old-timey fortune-tellers who traveled from place to place wearing the big skirts, her life savings in gold coin necklaces. He still uses some of her tricks.”

“You don’t say,” said Jack.

“Yep. Has lots of her ways.
Including
he carries his nest egg with him. Just like his mother with those gold coins, Doc doesn’t believe in banks.”

“The man carries around a bunch of gold?” Early perked up.

“No.” Mickey smiled. “In Doc’s case it’s not gold. It’s one perfect diamond. A
huge
sucker. Flawless. Doc says it’s worth half a million, easy. Maybe more. It should be in a museum.”

“He
wears
it?” Early was aghast.

“Oh, no. It’s unset. To tell you the truth, I don’t know where he keeps it. He’s pulled it out a couple of times when he was drunk, playing with it, showing off. He talks about it like it’s his baby. He calls it Little Doc.”

Jack laughed. “Little Doc? The guy’s crazier than I thought.”

“But you don’t know where he keeps it?” Early really wanted to know.

“No, and don’t think I haven’t sniffed around. But Doc hasn’t stayed in the game as long as he has without a few tricks up his sleeve. He’s a master of the sleight of hand. He’s so good, sometimes
I
think it’s magic. Boom, you see it. Boom, you don’t.”

“And where is our Doc now?” asked Jack.

“In the house up on the lake. Locked in a closet, with a
big
old heavy chest of drawers in front of it.”

“Dead or alive?” asked Early.

“Alive when I last saw him. I was just trying to give myself a little time to split. Of course you all put a crimp in that plan.” Mickey drained her coffee cup. Jack poured her some more. “But let me tell you all one thing. If you think that there’s any way in hell I’m ever going before a court of law and testifying to any of this business with Olive or Speed, you’re dead wrong. And don’t start with me about plea bargains. Don’t start with me about anything. Because here are the choices.” She ticked them off. “One, I testify against Doc, and the son of a bitch walks, I’m dead.” She raised a hand before anybody else could talk. “It happens all the time. Some technicality, some little screwup, they spell Doc’s middle name wrong, they forget to tell him he has the right to lie to his lawyer, whatever, the next thing you know, he’s out, and I’m dead. Two, let’s say he actually serves some time. But there’s not enough time in the world that he’s going to forget, so when he gets out, I’m dead again. Three. They fry him. Now, what do you think the chances are of that really happening? And even if they do, even if they do…” She dropped her voice. She’d have made a hell of a trial lawyer, thought Sam. She’d have the jury over on its back, legs up. “I’m still going to spend the rest of my life watching my rear, because I
know
that silver-tongued son of a bitch, and he’s good. He’s very very good, and he’ll convince some poor sick bastard he’s jailing with that the way to salvation, the way to redemption, hell, the way to five hundred bucks, is to hold me down and carve his initials in my boobs and pour Drano down my throat. So, I’m not singing, lady, gentlemen.” She nodded at each of them in turn. “I’m not saying one official word. And, furthermore, you guys have obviously stepped in some kind of doo-doo, or you wouldn’t be here talking to me. Now, I’ve told you what you wanted to know. Beyond that, forget it.” And with that, Mickey leaned back in her chair and crossed her arms across that pretty bosom that she thought Doc had evil designs on.

At which point, Sam and Jack excused themselves for another trip to the dining room, and this time there was no cozy Jack-tent.

“You heard what she said, Sam. Mickey’s not going to testify, so what’s the point of going to the cops?”

“Do you believe her story?”

“Sure. Don’t you?”

“Yes. So what you want to do is ignore the fact that we know for sure Doc murdered Olive?”

“Not ignore. I just don’t see any point in involving the authorities if they can’t make the case without Mickey.”

“That’s nuts, Jack. Nuts.”

They went back and forth until finally they were each leaning against the back of a chair, facing one another, panting, and Jack played his trump card. “You forgot about Bobby, Sammy.”

“What?”

“It doesn’t matter what we do, doesn’t matter if Mickey sings or keeps her mouth shut, if Archie Blackshears wants to frame Bobby, he’ll frame Bobby.”

“I don’t believe that.”

Jack drawled, “You’ve been in the big city too long, darlin’, you forgot what small-town Southern justice is like.”

“Jesus Christ, Jack, this is the United States of America at the end of the twentieth century.”

He gave her a long look. She knew he was right.

“So? What?” She raised her arms to the heavens.

“Let’s go ask Miss Mickey Steele if
she
has any ideas.”

Mickey did, of course. She had the beginning of a plan. And then they all four pitched in and played with it for a while, and when they finished, it had more than one rough spot, but it just might work.

29

DOC
WAS WIPED.
The damned closet was too deep for him to lean back against the wall, get some purchase for his feet. But too short for him to get any kind of running start. And whatever Mickey had pushed up to the door was jammed against it, so it was like he was trying to kick through the door
and
through the chest, trunk, whatever the hell it was, all at once.

Now he was sitting on the floor, sweating, a bunch of wire hangers poking him in the butt. He was too old for this shit.

Maybe Mickey was right. Maybe this was what came from making things too complicated.

Maybe he should never have gotten into this Speed rigamarole in the first place, just cruised into town, popped Jack Graham a couple of times, bebop bebeep, moved on down the road.

That’s what his ma had told him when he was a kid: Part of it’s knowing what to do, the other part’s knowing how to skidoo.

Part A, she’d let him sit behind the curtain in the
ofisa
and listen when she was working a
bajour.
Her favorite was the one with the egg. It worked every time with the kind of lonely sour middle-aged woman who’d already given up on life, was now on the lookout for which brand of cancer was going to eat her. Pearsa would find proof of the cancer in a devil’s head she’d plant in an egg the woman had brought from her own kitchen. The source of the cancer would be the woman’s money, which was cursed, of course. She’d bring the money to Pearsa to have the curse removed, and that is when Pearsa would do the switch.

Part B. “And then you
move,
little one,” said Pearsa. “You grab your bedroll, your tapestries, your zodiac, your candles, your hot plates, and you haul your sweet little ass down the road quick.”

See, he hadn’t done that. Things had gotten too complicated. The kidnapping, that scam was screwed from the beginning, he should have known better than to kick in with anything Speed McKay had his pudgy little fingers on. And that fat old broad pulling that gun, the car, then the car disappearing. He was still worried about that Sunliner. His prints were all over it. And there was the body in the trunk.

Just then, he heard somebody coming down the stairs.

Halleluiah! Mickey had changed her mind, come back to spring him. Now, what was he going to do about her? He wasn’t real thrilled, her knowing about the car, say things got sticky.…

“Hello? Hello? Anybody down here?”

Hell, that wasn’t Mickey. That was a black man, sounded like a big bass drum.

“Hel-loa? Looking for the folks own a gold-and-black Sunliner? Is that y’all?”

Shit. It was the cops. They’d found the car. Now they were looking to find him. Well, maybe they wouldn’t. Chances were they wouldn’t. He’d be perfectly still.

“Well, hell,” the big black voice was drawing closer. “I guess they ain’t here. Serves me right.” The man was talking to himself. “Taking that old Sunliner in the first place. I knew I shouldn’t of. I knew it. Took it home, my baby made me feel so bad, I was bringing it back, when—God, how am I gonna tell them that?”

Tell him what? What was the man talking about? Doc wanted to ask him, but he didn’t want to blow his cover. Not yet.

“Laronda says that it was the Lord put that hound in the road. Said it was my test, seeing if I was truly sorry that I’d done so wrong, stealing that car. Swerving like to miss that hound, me flying right off in the lake like I was driving one of God’s chariots, thought I was about to come face to face with the heavenly host. But God saved me to make amends. Yes, He did. Let me roll down that window, struggle on up out of that Sunliner done stuck itself in the bottom of that lake. Coming to the surface, I felt like I’d been baptized again, bathed in the holy waters. Now, is there anybody heah? Anybody heah? Anybody within the sound of my voice?”

Doc couldn’t believe it. The Sunliner was sunk to the bottom of a lake? God, he was one lucky sucker. “Over here,” he hollered.

*

Jinx had moved back to the Palace minisuite she’d occupied since she’d blown into Hot Springs for the races six weeks earlier, staying with her mother not being an option. When Sam and Mickey knocked on her door, she was giving herself a fresh manicure.

“I couldn’t just go around wearing that gold polish,” she said, waving nails that were now carmine. “People would think I was trash. And I’ve had just about enough humiliation for one weekend, thank you, without that. How do you do?” She nodded at Mickey, whom Sam had introduced as a friend of a friend she’d happened to run into in the lobby, she just happened to be a private eye. “Y’all just throw those clothes on the floor, make yourselves comfortable on the bed. A
private eye
?
Sam!”

Sam said, “Now, Jinx, I’ve thought about it, and I know you’re right, everything you did was right, but wouldn’t you like to see those guys who were putting the muscle on you squirm just a little? I think it was so lucky, my running into Mickey. I told her how stressful this had been for you.…
”

“You can say that again. I’ll tell you, it’s
awful,
you’ve got a whole town full of guests for your engagement party, and then you have to say
something
about why your fiancé just disappeared right in the middle of it. You can’t very well tell them he was kidnapped, if the kidnappers told you not to. Of course, things are different now, but…
”

“Why, I think that’s just
terrible,
your having to face this alone,” said Mickey, sliding right into junior high school pajama party mode. Oh, she was good, thought Sam. Very good. “So what
did
you tell them?”

“I said he died,” said Jinx, not missing a stroke with her nail polish.

Sam slid Mickey a look. “He died? Don’t you think you might have to explain that later?”

“Well, the way I figure it, those kidnappers aren’t just going to turn him loose. It’s not like he’s going to show up in the next five minutes. They’ll probably try again to get some money from me, wouldn’t you think? And by that time, all the guests’ll be gone back home. Most of ’em are already gone anyway, the weekend being over and all.” She held her left hand out, appraising her work. “I’ve been getting calls of condolence ever since I got back from lunch. Which reminds me, Sam, what happened to you? I thought you were going to meet us back here,
I
had to drive Kitty to the airport.” She let that sink in for a minute. “I’m surprised you didn’t go with her, to tell you the truth. Can’t imagine that you’d hang around here. It couldn’t be because you gave two hoots what happened to me.”

“Well, I did find a thing or two that grabbed my interest. Which brings me to the—”

“Jinx,” Mickey jumped in. “Sam was telling me about you, and she mentioned your winning that million dollars with your lottery altar. And I couldn’t believe it! I mean, I
saw
you on TV! And here you are!”

“Did you? Really? Well, isn’t that nice?” Jinx was showing those dimples that came with the smug little grin that drove Sam wild.

“I would just
love
to hear how you got into making your altars.” Mickey’s voice was all breathy as if she’d just graduated from a crash course in Southern Belle Stupid. She shot a look at Sam that said, Let me do this.

Have at it, Sam shrugged.

Jinx settled importantly back into her chair as if she were a research scientist about to explain a new cure for cancer. “Well, right after my first divorce, I didn’t know what I was going to do, and I was visiting this girl in Houston who’d been a Miss Texas, and she got me a job modeling with Neiman’s. It wasn’t quite six months before I met Harlan, and we got married and moved to San Antonio. We moved into his family castle in the historic part of town, and I started remodeling.” Jinx’s scarlet lips began to tremble.