by Sam Roskoe
“You and about ten hundred other people, I’ll make sure to cross you off my Christmas card list,” I said.
“Let me pass, I won’t say it again, you let me pass,” Elsnick said, pushing against me.
“What was it on that script? What did she write that would pin you to all this?”
“I have no idea of what you’re saying, just let me pass!”
“You don’t have to tell me, Elsnick, I’ve got an idea already. She wrote it at the wrap party, didn’t she? She put it down on and old script that had been given the ‘Beneath a Bloodshot Moon’ title when everyone thought it was going to hit the skids. But it wasn’t for you, was it, the note. It was written for Charlie Jones.”
Elsnick looked like he’d been slapped in the face.
“You, I…I…” he said.
“It was a love note, wasn’t it? A love note to Jones, to your son, and if the police ever found that script they’d connect you to him and ask a few more hard questions. I’m guessing that note was about the life they were going to have together, about getting away from all this mess, at least that’s the only way I figure it. But you weren’t thinking about that at the wrap party, were you. All you could think about was losing Marla and that bastard son of yours cheating you out of what was yours. So you decided to kill her.”
“No,” he said, shaking his head.
“Maybe not right away. Maybe you followed her to that mansion of hers and you tried to talk with her, but she wasn’t going to budge. She was lost to you and then…”
I twisted the edge of the cane and pulled.
Three quarters of it came away in my hand. What was left was a dagger built into the silver-tipped head.
“It wasn’t a knife, like Tarquin thought he’d seen in Charlie Jones’ hand, it was this dagger. You killed her, Elsnick, there’s no doubt in my mind.”
He glared at the dagger and in his eyes was the same kind of lost anger I’d have wagered was there the night he killed Marla.
The rage soon transferred to me.
“I had to do it, don’t you understand? I couldn’t let that little…I couldn’t let that little…he didn’t deserve to get everything he wanted just because I was his father. I had to work, don’t you get that? I had to work for my fortune and he, what was he? I’ll tell you, he was nothing more than an accident that I couldn’t fix. A bad smell in the room. I had to, don’t you understand, I had to for him as much as me.”
I shifted my weight to my right foot, clasped the edge the cane ready to defend myself when Elsnick attacked.
“Killing the love of his life was good for him, was it, Elsnick?”
He waddled towards me, the dagger at a dangerous slant.
“Don’t you see? Without her, without some starlet on his arm, he would have to fend for himself. He would have to make his own way and I wouldn’t have to…I wouldn’t have to…”
Suddenly Elsnick’s eyes cleared up. He stepped backward and lowered the tip of the dagger-cane.
“You realize I can’t let you tell anybody about this, don’t you?”
“I don’t think you’re going to have a choice,” I said, reaching for the .38 in my pocket.
“I’m sorry to do this, Mr. Finch, but you must understand there I cannot be arrested. “Donovan! Donovan! Now!” he shouted.
Donovan?
Who was Donovan?
I didn’t have to ask that question twice. I knew who Donovan was, the only person he could be. The Chauffeur, the one waiting outside ready to go into action at a moment’s notice.
Action that meant sending a few slugs through the door and into me, I guessed.
I dove for the floor, but there was no gunfire, no splintering of wood. Just the flash of a heel as Kay Martin leaped over me and headed for the door, the little ballbuster in her hand.
Chapter 25
It didn’t take long for the bullets to arrive.
The first one crashed through without any of the roar I’d expected.
It was like I was watching the world with ear mufflers on, but that couldn’t be. Then a second and third bullet punched through the door and into Kay Martin’s body. Quiet, despite the cracking of wood.
A silencer.
Had to be.
Looked like Donovan wasn’t going to attract any attention. He knew what he was doing. At least he thought he knew. He couldn’t know that he’d plugged the wrong pigeon.
Kay Martin twisted on her heels. Her eyes wide, she swooned like some silent movie starlet falling into the arms of Valentino.
There were no arms to catch Kay Martin.
She crumpled on the floor, a slow trickle of blood leaking out from her chest to stain her silver dress.
I rolled under the desk and reached for my .38 as the door swung wide.
I would plug that goddamned Chauffeur in his knees as he came through that door. I would wait for him to double forward and then finish him off.
I never got to do any of those things.
The Chauffeur staggered into the room like he was at the end of a three day drunk. He flopped dead onto the floor in front of me with a nasty looking blade sticking out the back of his neck.
What the hell was going on here?
A pair of brogues came into view. Polished. One of the feet stuck into those shoes had a pronounced limp.
Johnny Jackson.
“Okay, you dirty double-crossing son of a bitch, you’re going to pay up and pay big,” he said.
Was he talking to me?
No, no, whatever I owed him it wasn’t money. He would take what I owed him in blood and he would take his time.
“You’re making a big mistake, Mr. Jackson,” Elsnick said, “you’re making a big—“
“Shut your yap, fat man. And hustle. You can drop that pigsticker too.”
Elsnick dropped the cane dagger to the floor. He shuffled forward.
“Now you’re going to be mousey for me aren’t you, Elsnick? Not a peep or this snake I’ve got at your back is going to bite. You don’t want to end up like this poor dame I plugged, do you?”
“Okay, okay,” I’m moving.
I watched them head toward the door, the .38 aimed low at Johnny Jackson’s legs.
Sweat trickled down my nose and onto my lip. I tasted salt. My breathing was shallow.
If I got off a good enough shot I would bring Johnny down and then a second shot would finish the job. But it wasn’t a sure thing. The man was walking around with a one day old leg wound, who knew what he was capable of doing.
None of it would be predictable, I knew at least that much.
But I couldn’t just let him get away. I couldn’t let him wipe out Elsnick, and there was no doubt in my mind that Johnny Jackson would do the deed once he had his money. Without Elsnick there would be no way to clear Tarquin’s name.
Slow, I rolled out from under the desk and crept toward the door.
Johnny Jackson, in full tuxedo, walked with one arm behind Elsnick toward a door at the rear marked ‘EXIT’. They were close enough for an itchy trigger finger to end it all in a moment.
I gritted my teeth.
Once they were out of that door it would be over, I knew it. Here, were there were crowds to disturb and witnesses, Johnny Jackson wouldn’t make any sudden moves. Outside, away from the crowds, he would have nothing to lose by plugging Elsnick.
And everything to gain.
With Elsnick dead, there would be no connection to the killing of Charlie Jones, and I was in no doubt now that Johnny Jackson had been the killer. I was beginning to realize just why he’d killed the kid.
Plain and simple revenge.
He knew the kid was Elsnick’s and somewhere along the line Elsnick had stiffed him on whatever money he owed. That killing look I’d seen in Johnny Jackson’s eyes had become the most real thing in Hollywood I’d seen since arriving.
I stood up and stepped out behind them. I lowered the .38 to my side.
It was a big risk, I knew it, but I wasn�
�t good enough of a shot to hit Johnny Jackson and miss Elsnick on the way. I had to do something crazy and do it quick.
My legs threatened to go on strike and my mouth as dried up like the bottom of a Texas well as I gathered what words I could.
Every man is guaranteed free speech under the constitution. That is with one exception. That exception seemed fitting right about then.
You never shout ‘fire!’ in a crowded theater.
So I did just that.
“FIRE!”
All eyes were on us, all attention shifted in our direction.
Johnny Jackson stopped, but he did not turn.
“That voice really gets my goat,” he said, still facing away from me. “I mean it really boils my blood.”
“I’ll buy you a new goat as soon as I’m flush, Jackson.”
“Hee-larious.”
“I do requests too.”
Slow, his grip still as tight as ever on Elsnick, Johnny Jackson faced me. He glanced at the gathering, muttering crowd behind me. They didn’t seem to bother him as much as I thought they might.
“I’ve got a request for you. Drop dead,” he said.
“Can you hum it?”
“I’ll do better,” he said. “I’ll give you a rendition.”
For a moment he did nothing much at all. His hands were moving where I couldn’t see them, doing something I couldn’t quite see.
Then I knew what he’d done.
He pushed Elsnick forward and leveled the .45 in my direction. The silencer was gone.
Elsnick’s weight tipped him forward into a heap, what was left was Johnny Jackson.
He smiled a razor blade of a smile, and then squeezed the trigger of the .45.
Right about then the world filled with noise and confusion.
Chapter 26
I dropped and brought the .38 up in Johnny Jackson’s direction.
He was a quicker man than he should have been. Already he was on his heels and heading for the exit.
This time I had more of a chance. A clearer shot.
I leveled the .38 and closed one eye.
This is for Charlie Jones, I thought as I squeezed off one, then two, then a third shot.
The bullets struck Johnny Jackson in the back and sent him careening toward the exit door. He hit it at speed and tumbled out into the night, his gun arm limp at his side.
I was on my feet and running before the smoke had cleared on my third shot.
There was no way I would let Johnny Jackson get away this time. No second chances for this killer, not this night.
At the door my brain took over before my body got me killed.
He’ll be waiting, I thought. He’ll be stood by the side of the door, his gun in the other hand ready to take a headshot as I come out. He’s not going to waste this opportunity, Finch, you wouldn’t either.
I flattened beside the door, the .38 up and ready for use, but it was like someone had glued me to the wall. I couldn’t move in one direction or the other for thinking of what might be just beyond that exit door.
If anything.
I’d put three slugs into Jackson, there was no way he could pick himself up from that. No way.
Yeah and people with a slug in their leg couldn’t be up and around waving guns in the air either. That’s just not what happened when you had a bullet wound. I knew first hand that a real bullet wound put pain into parts of the body that you didn’t think could exist.
I bit at my lip.
I blew air through my nose.
It was a risk going out through that door, I knew it, and I knew that if I’d hit Jackson the way I thought I’d hit him, then he wouldn’t be going far. I could just leave the jackass out there to curl up and die like the dog he was.
Or not.
I chewed at my lip a little more. The crowd that were watching probably thought I was some kind of indecisive jerk, but when it comes to living and not living, I’ll always take a little more time to think things through.
Screw it, I told myself as I inched toward the exit.
“Jackson, hey, Jackson if you’re out there throw down your gun. I’ll get you some help if you throw down your weapon! You hear me!”
He heard.
He was still alive and from some unexplainable and unfathomable part of himself he had gathered enough energy to make a play.
The door burst open and sent me and the .38 reeling backwards.
Johnny Jackson, the front of his tux bloodied and getting bloodier, barreled past me and into the crowd waiting at the foyer.
There were screams and yells as Jackson hammered his way deeper into the crowd and then, a massive gasp from those flanking the side of the red carpet. Whoever was out there taking pictures for the papers would be having a field day come tomorrow.
I jumped up on my feet and snatched the .38 from the floor. It was then that I realized it wasn’t only Johnny Jackson who had fled. Elsnick was missing too.
“Goddamn,” I said through gritted teeth then took off into the crowds.
I had the awful notion that I’d lost Elsnick forever. That the next I’d hear about him would be of his setting up in Brazil or Argentina and living a life unreachable by any law, private or otherwise. Money could buy you all kinds of privilege, that included getting away with murder.
But I wasn’t about to give up. No way, sir. I’d come that far, and I was willing to go just a little further.
Out past the foyer crowds I could spot Johnny Jackson’s trail easy enough.
Fresh blood spots darkened the red carpet where he’d passed.
I followed.
Until I reached the sidewalk.
There was no sign of Johnny Jackson in either direction, the blood trail ended abruptly where the carpet ended. No sign of Elsnick either. It was like they’d both vanished into thin air.
I turned to the crowd on my left.
“Anybody see where he went? The big guy? Covered in blood?”
All I received for my troubles were shrugs and fingers pointing in all directions, none of those fingers agreeing with each other.
I turned to the crowd on my right.
“Any of you see where…ah forget it.”
The crowd to the right was no better than on the left. A lot of them were whispering now, getting over the momentary shock and excitement and enjoying that ‘I’m alive and breathing’ bit that came after every potentially life-threatening experience.
I brought the side of the gun up to my head and pressed it against where a new headache was negotiating a schedule for hurting me.
How could I have come so close and then lost it all like this? I knew life wasn’t fair most of the time, but this was downright cruel. Like someone wanted to play a big joke on me. I almost expected to hear laughter.
And then I did.
“Tarquin?”
“It is I, old boy, here to assist in your apprehension of this foul killer of…this…”
Tarquin was wrapped in a cloud of Bourbon and bad ideas as he stumbled toward me from the edge of the crowd. He had on a tuxedo one stitch shy of being a dishrag. He was only one step away from falling down.
I hooked in an arm under his arm and kept him standing.
“Didn’t I tell you stay put?” I said.
“But, my boy, this is the night of the Premiere. This is a night we should all…” his train of thought stopped at some unknown station. Tarquin looked to the ground at his unsteady feet. “Now, I’m sure that little…where might he have gone do you think?”
“Listen,” I said, “you’ve got to get out of here before anybody recognizes you? Don’t you understand what kind of risk you’re taking here?”
He didn’t understand a Goddamn thing, and he wasn’t listening to me.
“Now I was sure he was by my side only moments ago. We were getting along like a house on fire he and I. Talking, laughing, if I do say so myself and he was being ever so accommodating to my, shall we say, whims.”
I turned Tarqui
n around so that his wanted mug was away from anybody who might be looking.
“You and I are going to go back to the Motel and we’re going to—“
“No! He was here only one moment ago. Not time enough for him to…he was here.”
“Who?”
“You know who. The little fellow. Your friend, what is his name?”
Confusion wrinkled the parts of my forehead that the headache hadn’t reached yet. “Steinbeck?”
“Yes, that’s the fellow. Likes to have his tummy rubbed. Likes to…well, he doesn’t like liquor that’s for sure. It made him sneeze.”
“You gave him liquor?”
Tarquin measured his misdemeanor with a pinch of his thumb and forefinger. Or at least he tried to do so, but he couldn’t focus on both fingers long enough to make any measurement that was near to accurate.
“A tot, less than a tot, maybe even a quart of a tot if I do say so myself. But the fellow didn’t take to it at all. What have you got there, Finch, is your dog off the wagon, or is it on the wagon? Does your little fellow even know if there is a wagon?”
I wanted a wagon around about then. One I could strap Tarquin Meriwether onto and then send him and it over a cliff.
“Are you telling me you lost my dog? After all the other madness that’s gone on tonight, you’re telling me you lost—“
“I had no part in his abdication. He absconded without my knowledge believe you me. He was here and then he was not here and now…”
“Now?”
Tarquin shrugged. A drunken shrug that he held for long for it to lose any meaning it might have had to begin with.
“When did you last see him?”
“I told you. Just moments before I saw you standing there waving your gun around like some Mexican bandito. What happened here, Finch? What kind of drama unfolds before us that I have no grasp upon?”
“Are you telling me you didn’t see anyone come down the red carpet? A someone who was bleeding? A someone you might already know?”
“I saw naught but the back of some very excited heads and your little fellow, of course. Now, where did he get to?”
Tarquin searched the ground at his feet again.
“He’s gone, remember?” I said.