Too Many Crooks (18 page)

The thought of Petey made me think of Betty. At least the sun would be coming up in less than an hour. She had told me she'd leave the cabin at sunup.

Carver drove, and his partner sat in back with me. He headed down Main and one of the other cars fell in behind. Nobody said anything.

At the station, after I'd been booked at the desk, Sergeant Carver took me to the "Blue Room," the police examination room. It was a small, brightly lighted room with one heavy chair just past the room's center, and two other straight-backed wooden chairs inside the door. There weren't any windows. There never are windows in these places. Carver and the other officer spoke softly, then Carver made me sit in the heavy chair while he unlocked the handcuffs, then fastened them again around my wrists, which were thrust past two thick slats of the chair's back.

The other officer had been standing aside, covering me with his gun while Carver got me fixed to his satisfaction. Now he left. Carver chuckled every once in a while, evidently enjoying his work.

Then he started swearing at me, filthily, expertly. He talked for a little while about how he'd felt about Blake, how he felt about me, and what he was going to do to me, and he swore at me some more. I should have let the words bounce off, not let them affect me, but I couldn't keep the anger from growing inside me.

Finally, he said, "You know where you are, Scott? This is Coney Island, chum." He chuckled again.

"I'd guessed. I wouldn't have expected anything else from you, Carver. Even though I'm not used to slimy cops like you."

It didn't make any difference whether I was polite or not. No matter what I said, it wouldn't make my treatment any worse or better; they'd still take me on all the Coney Island rides.

The door opened and the sergeant who had left a minute earlier came back in; Chief Thurmond was with him. He pulled one of the straight-backed chairs over and sat down a yard from me, his bloodless, heavy face sober, his fog-gray eyes hostile. And there was nothing friendly in the cold, contemptuous tone of his voice when he said, "Guess you wonder why we brought you here, huh?"

I said, "A little. There's nothing you need from me. Unless Carver just hasn't had his kicks for a few days."

Thurmond pursed his lips. "Wrong. We know you killed Dane, but you haven't actually confessed yet. So all you got to do is sign a confession we got all ready for you. Save yourself lots of trouble. Save Carver lots of work."

"Sure, I believe you, Thurmond. I shot Lincoln, too."

He went right on. "Then you also got to tell us what you been doing the last couple days. Who you maybe talked to and where this Lane girl is. And right now you can start with what you were doing in Gordon's office. Peterson—well, he can't tell us. Now, you cooperate. It'll make it a lot easier for you in court."

"You really expect me to believe I'll get to court?"

"Look, Scott. You can make this real easy, or you can do it the hard way. Either way, it'll all come out the same. So why don't you do it easy?"

I didn't say anything. They didn't really need my signed confession, or even the information the chief had asked for. Without it, they'd still get rid of me with a bullet, either here in the jail or someplace else. A confession and the rest would just make their frame and my murder tighter, more convincing. I didn't feel like helping them.

"Well," said Carver pleasantly, "looks like I got to turn the hose on you."

The hose he meant to turn on me was a foot-and-a-half length of thick rubber tubing. He stepped toward me and brought his hand up hard from his side, the hose bending back and then snapping forward like a whip just before it thudded against the side of my face. Probably the blow made only a dull thudding sound in the room, but to me it was a cannon going off.

Pain mushroomed along my face and inside my skull, the impact whipping my head around. And Carver was ready with the hose again, slashing it backhand at me. I saw it coming and tried to duck, the rubber striking my forehead and scraping down over my nose. I felt blood gush from my nostril and slide thick and warm over my lips as I jerked away, tried to lean back. The searing ache spread from my neck up behind my ear and gripped my skull, the knotting muscles resisting movement.

"Hold it," Thurmond said. "Get that blood. And watch it."

Carver jerked a dirty handkerchief from his hip pocket and wiped it over my nose and mouth, mopping up the blood. They didn't want me found with blood all over my shirt, the evidence of a brutal beating.

It was hard to focus my eyes and there was a roaring sound in my head, rising and falling like the beating of faraway surf. I heard Carver say, "Scott. Hey, Scott, you wouldn't think I could work you over for an hour and nobody could tell it by looking at you, would you? Fact, though. Amazing, huh? Don't mark you up at all, hardly. Great invention. You about ready to cooperate?"

I could taste the blood on my lips as I told him, in the time-honored words of soldiers and sailors and ex-marines, what he could do to himself. He dropped the hose to the cement floor and stepped toward me with his fists balled, right hand swinging. I felt the first blow, I really felt that one, but the second one seemed like a wad of rags pushed against my face, and if there was a third, I didn't feel it at all.

The first sensation as consciousness returned was in my wrists. The handcuffs were biting into them as I slumped in the chair, my head hanging forward, chin pressed against my chest.

There was no way of knowing how long I'd been out, but I still had enough sense left to hold myself motionless, keep my eyes closed, and try to keep my breathing regular and slow. There was the rumble of a voice, then I heard Carver speaking, apparently answering the chief.

"Ah, stow it," he said. "You want me to tap him with a pillow? You forget what he did to Blake?"

"I don't want him marked up when we bring him in. No worse than he already is. Damn, you split his cheek."

"So what? We can say he put up a fight first. Why don't we get it over with? You still want that goddamn paper signed?"

"I want it. You shut up and let me handle this."

The only thing that wasn't clear to me was where they meant to kill me. That "when we bring him in" made it sound as if they were going to take care of me away from the jail. Guys shot to death in jail are bound to cause talk.

A third voice said, "Maybe he's fakin'. Maybe he's listenin'."

"So what?" Carver said. "Who's he gonna talk to?" I heard his feet scrape on the cement floor as he said, "I'll find out," and I tried to make myself stay limp. The hose whistled slightly as it whipped through the air, then it jarred against the side of my face. I bit the inside of my lip to keep from yelling, let my chin flop back against my chest.

His feet scraped as he moved away again. "Well, the hell with it," he said. "We're gonna be at this a while. Come on, Chief, Mac. Let's go get coffee."

Just like that. Time for the coffee break. I heard the door open and close but I played it clever and held still for another few minutes. When I looked up they all grinned at me. Boy, I was clever.

Carver thought this was very humorous. He laughed for quite a while. Then the chief said something to the guy called Mac, and Mac went out. He came back with some typed sheets of paper. Chief Thurmond brought them over and said, "You ready to sign this?"

When I spoke, I could feel the crust of dried blood on my lip. "I don't get it. Why don't you forge it, like you did Emmett Dane's signature. Why go to all this trouble?"

"You don't have to get it. You just sign it. You ready?"

"Sure. I'm as ready as I'll ever be."

The chief wasn't sure if that meant yes or no. My brain had been addled just enough so that I figured maybe I could do something once my hands were free.

Mac went around behind me and unlocked the handcuffs. I thought: This is it. Then I thought: Oh, boy; funny. They say that while there's life there's hope, but there was a lot more life than hope in me, and very little life, at that. Carver had nothing in his hand except that goddamned hose, but when I glanced over my shoulder, I saw the revolver in Mac's hand. When I'd pulled my hands out from between the slats of the chair and wiggled them a little, the chief handed me the papers, clipped to a board, then gave me a fountain pen. Now I was armed; I could squirt ink at them.

I held the "confession" in my left hand and then looked at the chief. "I believe you've made a few small mistakes. It says here that the confession was given voluntarily and without duress, and it says I killed—" I hadn't seen Carver move toward me, but I saw the hose swinging from his fist, and I ducked just in time to let it whip over my head. The force of Carver's swing bent him over right in front of me, his beefy face close enough so I could reach it, and the hate and pain boiled up in me all at once, and I crossed my right arm in front of my chest, the pen flying out of my hand and across the floor.

I snapped my arm sideways and upward from my chest, hand stretched open and its edge driving for the middle of his face, but he swung around fast and my hand caught his shoulder. I started to come out of the chair after him, get him right the next time, but it was really little more than an idea, and I couldn't have got more than an inch out of the chair. Exactly what happened, I don't know, but something solid hit the back of my head and everything blurred like 3D without glasses, and then there was a noise like a tire blowing out, and when everything stopped spinning around I deduced that Carver had walloped me with his favorite hose again.

I said, "You sonofabitch," and he laughed, and I noticed that I had dropped the confession. The chief picked it up and handed it to me, and I signed it "Clyde Baron," and the chief hit me and Carver walloped me and even Mac got in a few licks, and I passed out. Later, what must have been a long time later, they asked me questions and I was quite happy to answer them. By this time, my wrists were behind me again, with the handcuffs tight around them. Most of the questions I answered straight, but a few times I gave them phony replies. Eventually, maybe they'd figure out the phony answers, but that didn't worry me.

Thurmond said, "Now, where's the Lane girl?"

It was a little painful to talk because my lip was split. The men had decided it didn't make a great deal of difference if I were marked up. "We ducked out of Lanny's and went to the Canyon Motel on Westerley Drive. I left her there, but she'll be gone by now. I told her what would happen if you caught up with her. You won't find her."

"We'll find her."

I looked at the chief. "It won't work, Thurmond. There can't be many more guys in town as crooked as you."

"Shut your mouth, Scott, if you want to keep it."

I said, "Are all the Seacliff cops in this as deep as you three?"

Carver said, "Just us three, Scott. Ain't that enough for you?"

The chief said, "Scott. Listen good. Where's the camera?"

"What camera?"

He pressed his lips together. "Don't play dumb." He turned to Carver and said, "He cracks wise again, I'll leave you in here alone with him for a half hour. OK?"

That was OK with Carver. Thurmond said to me, "While you were out, a guy called up from the
Star
. Wanted to know what stuff you had on you when we brought you in, and if you had a camera. Now, why the hell would he ask that?"

That was a question I wished I could answer. Betty was the only person who knew I was going to use the Leica. Thurmond had said a
guy
called; but he might have said that to cross me up.

"You've got me," I said. "I had a camera, all right, but I thought I was the only person who knew about it."

"What was it for? And what were you doing in Gordon's office?"

"I took a Leica up there and made copies of that fake will you guys and Baron dreamed up. Also copied the shots of the Craig dame."

"Where's the camera?"

"When Carver was shooting everything in sight except me, I tossed it under the Red Cross stand. Right there on Main where I was picked up."

The chief wiggled a finger at Mac. Mac went out. When Thurmond leaned toward me again, I happened to get a look at his wristwatch. It was nearly one o'clock. I had been aware, in a vague way, that a lot of time had passed, but I hadn't realized it was after noon. If they took me from the clink, whatever they did now they'd have to do in broad daylight. Unless they waited till night. I hoped they waited.

Twenty minutes and a dozen question later things calmed down momentarily and I tried a question of my own. "You've been having a lot of fun," I said, "and since you're in such a jolly mood, how about telling me something? The only way the whole mess here makes sense is that Baron is top man. But was the whole idea his? Did he dream it up alone, or did he have help?"

Carver squatted in front of me, glanced at the chief, then grinned at me. "You know what it means if I tell you, don't you?"

I knew, all right. He meant that whatever he might tell me would never be repeated by me, because you know what they say about dead men. Carver was enjoying this moment, getting a kick out of watching my face, looking for some sign of sickness or fear at the thought of sudden death.

I said, "Yeah, I know. But it's no sudden shock, Carver. Well?"

"Sure," he said, grinning, "Baron's the whole cheese, chum. The whole idea was his from the beginning." He paused and the grin widened. "Well, chum, you heard me say it. Guess that marks your grave, huh?"

"Yeah. You just now decided. Only one thing still puzzles me. Ed Whist. What good did killing him do?"

He frowned at me. "Whist? Hell, I'd forgot about the old guy. He wasn't supposed to be killed in the first place, chum. Zimmerman worked him over a little to sort of persuade him, but he got carried away. Whist wasn't as strong as he looked." Carver stood up and grinned down at me. "Sure funny what a few good licks alongside a man's head can do to him. You as strong as you look?"

I didn't answer him, and he was still telling me how a guy could get killed by being slugged a little too hard when the door opened and Mac came in again.