Lone Wolf #12: Phoenix Inferno

by Barry, Mike

  Standing in the terminal building, feeling the thin air breathe fire into his lungs, Carlin thought of the pros and cons of calling Montez. On the one hand the man would be glad to hear from him, owed him one favor or twenty, would send a car to the airport, would in every way make Carlin’s trip easier. But then again Carlin had the vague feeling that calling Montez might not be the best thing to do, despite all that the man owed him, despite the certainty that Montez would fall over himself trying to accommodate Carlin. Call it suspicion, call it a vague instinctive feeling; the fact was that Montez might have picked up some news of the murder from some other source. It was unlikely, but these things happen, word spread around and there was something disquieting about the murders … Montez might even get the wrong idea about them. Of course, once Carlin had a chance to explain everything to him things would straighten out and there would be no problem in getting anything he wanted from the man in terms of sanctuary … but still it was the matter of approach, it was something that had to be considered.

  Still, Carlin was tired of decisions. Everything was a decision; how to deal with Wulff, what line to take with the knowledge of the man’s approach, whether to kill, how to kill, when to kill, what to do next … he had been poised on decision’s edge for days and days and he was no goddamned binary computer, the coding was overloading his nervous circuitry; in short he was getting close to being knocked out. Let chance decide, Carlin thought, the air burning his lungs more and more, really a bitch, and he was not even out of the heavy, air-conditioned terminal itself, it would be even worse in the mountains outside. Let chance decide and whatever be decided let it be done fast. It was all catching up with him. Fatigue dragged at him like a hand, he felt himself beginning to collapse over his baggage. That would make a hell of a picture, wouldn’t it? He would flop over those bags and the porters would come and take him to the infirmary where they would pull his identification from his pockets while he was undergoing treatment and they would run an investigation. Run an investigation. No, whatever else, that would not work out. He had to keep upright. He had to keep going.

  Carlin took a coin out of his pockets and tossed it in the air. Heads, he would call Montez and get picked up at the airport; tails, he would get a cab and go out himself. Heads. He looked at it and in the cheater’s way found himself instinctively wondering whether or not he ought to make it best out of three. Fuck it. One toss, one decision, that was what he had decided and there was no point in turning back now. He went over to one of the phones, his breath gasping and whistling in his ears now. Maybe he should not have come to Mexico City. Perhaps this was not as good as it looked at first.

  But again, the hell with it. You went forward. Carlin had no idea how to work with the receiver, the paybox, the writing in Spanish that apparently called for Mexican coins; he only bellowed into the receiver until the operator, sounding confused, came on. Carlin told her who he wanted and the address and the operator after going away for a while said in a bad accent that this was an unlisted number that could not be released and Carlin cursed her and said she had better get the damned call through and she said that procedure was procedure or at least that was what he thought she had said, there was no deducing Spanish any way at all and he said that if she didn’t get the goddamned call through he would order the President of the United States to drop bombs on Tijuana, he was an important turista with good contacts through the White House and since the President was bombing anywhere else on request he was sure that the President would be happy to oblige. This puzzled the operator—or perhaps it shamed her. In any case, the phone at the other end began to ring and a voice answered. The operator said something like a million pesetas and Carlin began to rave and curse again until the voice said that this was perfectly all right, he would be more than happy to accept this call collect on behalf of his friend.

  It was Montez all right. “Where are you?” Montez said.

  “I’m at the airport. I just flew in here.”

  “That is very good,” Montez said. “To what do we owe the exceptional pleasure of this visit?”

  “I had some important things come up,” Carlin said. “Some business that could be settled better perhaps face to face.”

  “You would like me to accommodate you? I will send a car directly to the airport.”

  “I’d appreciate that,” Carlin said.

  “Is there any length of time that you would like to stay with me? My house is your house, of course.”

  “It may be a little while. I don’t know exactly. More than a day or two.”

  “Well, that will be excellent,” Montez said. “It will give us an opportunity that we have never perhaps had before, which will be to simply talk with one another and to get to know one another exceptionally well. That will be a privilege. I will certainly look forward to that.”

  “Well, I’m sure I will, too.”

  “You just remain at the airport, my friend, and make yourself comfortable. If you wish, I could call one of the functionaries there and introduce you and arrange for you to wait in comfort. It will be about forty-five minutes. Perhaps a little less since I will tell my driver to hurry. I am very glad to hear from you and very anxious to see you.”

  “Well,” Carlin said, “well, that’s all right. You don’t have to call anyone. I’ll just sleep on a bench here or something. You can tell your driver how to find me, yes?”

  “Oh, indeed,” Montez said. “As a matter of fact there will be no need for my driver to have a description. I have changed my mind while speaking to you. I am so anxious to see you that I believe that I will also come. I will come with my driver and the two of us will pick you up together. That is how very anxious I am to see you.”

  “That’s not necessary.”

  “For a friend anything is necessary. Nothing is unnecessary.”

  “That’s very gracious of you.”

  “No more gracious than our friendship,” Montez said, “which I am sure will go on to even greater and higher levels of true communication.” Then he waited courteously, saying no more until Carlin realized that Montez, polite to the last, wanted Carlin to hang up, would not be the one to first terminate the conversation. It was the kind of strange courtesy that had always been there in Montez; the courtesy of European royalty or some ruined Spanish prince. He had never trusted it but then again it hurt no one and was kind of gratifying. Besides, Montez owed him this kind of deference. He had made Montez everything he was.

  “I’ll see you, then,” he said. “I’ll be right here waiting,” and hung up, walked away from the booth quickly. The phone started to ring back at once, the operator probably, like American operators, wanting some identifying information, but the hell with her. The hell with all of them. Carlin walked away, half-staggering, and took a gleaming bench to himself, folded himself over his valise, drew it into his stomach, half-dozed. The air still hurt his lungs but he seemed to be getting used to it. He would be all right if he concentrated on slow, careful, shallow breaths for a while. He was all set now. Everything was coming together. Montez had seemed perhaps just a little bit strange over the phone, a little bit peculiar in the way he had decided to pick Carlin up at the airport himself … but then Montez was a strange man. Give him the benefit of the doubt. Just once, Carlin thought, give everyone the benefit of the doubt.

  He dozed.

  XV

  Wulff made his first real reconnoiter of the estate within three hours of his check-in at the furnished room. Loaded up only with light gear, a belt, a couple of hand grenades, a.357 magnum, and a small-bore rifle, as well as the dependable.45, Wulff took the Fleetwood into the canyons surrounding the estate again and found that the police cars had disappeared from the access road, that there seemed to be no police cars in the vicinity at all. If the first pass of Carlin’s property had indicated furious activity on behalf of enforcement, the second showed none at all … which probably meant that nothing had changed objectively, merely that at upper levels it had been decided
that enough of a show of involvement had been made and that patrols could be safely withdrawn. Whatever had happened had happened; events, from the police standpoint, were not to be dealt with but merely reacted to, their levels of reality manipulated in a way that would best protect the interests of the department. That was cynical, perhaps, but it was pretty much the way the situation was.

  The access road was a tight, winding little creation nearly obliterated by hanging trees and foliage, which came sprouting off from the sides obscuring it. All carefully calculated of course. Carlin had wanted his privacy. Wulff shrugged, put the car into low gear, and went up the road carefully. If there were patrol cars on site, if there were sentries of any sort at the property, then he was now in severe trouble; he would have a problem to solve … but you could not worry about such things. You took the situation as it developed, opening before you one step at a time. To think too deeply was to risk the negation of all action. He was pretty sure that the man he wanted to kill was no longer there but that did not excuse him from the obligation of checking it out first hand.

  Wulff went up the road, the engine groaning and threatening to overheat, the ordnance bouncing away in the back. At the top there was a sharp fork right, and he had to maneuver the big car to make it, coming halfway onto that second road before he lost rear adhesion, backing then for a better angle, coming in slowly, and here the road was barely one car wide; the going was really perilous. Hunched over the wheel, concentrating on that road, Wulff really did not see the house until it sprung up at him, three vaulting stories around another curve in the road, just a little bit of vegetation and open space around it, the house using most of the available space provided on the plot … there was a gothic feeling to Carlin’s home, it might have been a castle surrounded by a moat, a castle in which dreadful things occurred. Of course, that was probably exactly the case … but it was a strange thing to see in Phoenix.

  Abandoned. There was no one here at all. No car parked, no indication of movement on the property. They had simply closed it up and gone away. Whoever had been in the house was there no more; whoever had been assigned to do surveillance had been pulled away. Idling the engine, Wulff crept up closer, leaned the nose of the car against the bleak bronze gate that had sealed off the property. Carlin had believed in security, all right.

  Wulff knew that he should go. There was nothing more to be done here; he had come on a cold trail. Dead or alive, probably alive and in flight, Carlin had abandoned his estate, and a man like this did not abandon a place of this sort lightly; it could only mean that he had no intention of ever returning. Wulff was merely setting himself up with the authorities by staying here. If on some casual sweep, some routine check, a patrol car should find him here, it was going to be very difficult, very bad. Of course, he could probably explain his presence here, but the Phoenix police would not want to listen. They would have him in jail on other counts. While local police could hardly be said to be enthusiastic about chasing down all-points bulletins, they would not mind taking a little painless credit.

  He thought of throwing a few grenades into the estate, just for spite, just for satisfaction, but there was no point to that either. What would it serve? It would only bring the cops in on the trail again and would hardly inconvenience Carlin. Carlin was never going to come back here again.

  Wulff shook his head in disgust, put the car into reverse and started to back it slowly down the access road. Then, in a corner of the rear view mirror he saw the car coming up fast behind him, a big, black Fleetwood much newer than his own, making the trail with that kind of proficiency that showed either great skill or familiarity with the terrain. The car was coming up behind him, swallowing up the road on both sides, no way to get past it, no way to move.

  Wulff put the car into park, shut off the engine, took out the.357 magnum and waited for the car to come up behind him. There was simply nothing else to do.

  XVI

  As Dick had expected, the cops booked him in downtown. Whether or not they were going to go for formal arraignment, they had more than a few questions to ask him. For a while, at least, it was a very bad situation.

  They told him that he was the logical suspect; it looked like murder one for sure. All they wanted to know was where the hell was Carlin? Had Dick murdered him first and dumped the body into a separate place, or had he panicked after the first two murders, waited for Carlin to show up, shot him and hidden the body for the same reason, to make it look like a crime of passion? Dick said that they didn’t have that quite straight. He had merely found the bodies. He had no idea where Carlin was. As a matter of fact, he suspected that Carlin had done it himself and had set Dick up for the discovery. Dick was innocent. He hadn’t had a thing to do with it except to report the crimes, which was more than a lot of people in his position would have; most of them would have turned tail and run, making things only worse for them in the long run, to be sure.

  The cops weren’t having much of that. The cops were extremely unhappy. With Dick in hand and with a confession they could wrap this one up quickly, get an arraignment and close the case. They had two corpses and reasonable suspicion, and as long as Carlin didn’t show up for a good long time, which was highly likely, they had a terrific case. That was the way the cops wanted to play it, of course. They were looking for a closed case, not an open one, and the involvement of Carlin made it very unpleasant. Carlin had been a rich man and a great problem to the Phoenix police. He could be even more of a problem unless they could close up the case.

  Carlin was running drugs. The police were pretty sure of this, but on the other hand it was not the kind of thing that was easy to prove and they did not have the muscle to even get started. If there had been federal help in the case they might have been more energetic, but the feds weren’t interested in the Southwest at all; in fact the feds weren’t interested in anything except Operation Intercept, which had been an incredible if backhanded bonus for the drug industry. That had left the Phoenix cops on their own, and they did not know what to do, even though all the indications were there on the record if they had wanted to research it. The best thing to do was to leave Carlin completely alone and hope that he got involved in a drug war or something, one of those upheavals in the industry that were fairly common and that redistributed power by eliminating some of it, consolidating the rest. But Carlin had an amazing survival capacity. He also lived quietly, and nothing much appeared to happen for so long that the murders looked good to headquarters. If they could only get a confession they could have the case cold. Without a confession it would be awkward, though. Dick was right;

  he really had no motive after working for Carlin for five years, and he certainly would not have phoned in the report himself. The cops had to admit that. Even they could see this logic.

  “Listen here,” the interrogating lieutenant said to Dick in the back room, a rather plush room, actually—all greens and blues and little streaks of padding on the walls into which he hit his fist occasionally. Originally the headquarters building probably was supposed to be a mental asylum, but they had run out of funding and given it to the cops, which was just about where they ranked in the schedule of American priorities; lower than lunatics but just a shade above schoolkids who otherwise might have had a building in greens and blues. “You’re just making it hard for yourself. Now this is a crime of passion, we can say that you were interrupted in the act of fornication with Carlin’s mistress with whom you had been having an affair for some time and you lost your head and killed her and the other because you got panicky and were afraid that Carlin would kill you. Then in a state of insanity you waited for him to return and you shot him too, disposing of the body in a different place so that it would superficially appear that he had committed the crimes. You were still insane, you were not functioning in your right mind. Then you thought you could defer suspicion by reporting the murders yourself, but you were completely insane from the moment you were surprised in flagrante delicto and that explains eve
rything,” the lieutenant said. He sighed, scratched his head, walked nearer Dick. “Now you’re insane and you can’t say that your employer was exactly the most desirable element in the community, right? I figure you could be institutionalized; they would decide that you needed help rather than punishment, and in just five to ten years, even a little bit less with these wonderful modern scientific practices, they could probably cure you completely and get you back into the world. Maybe you’d have a little bit of difficulty in getting a job or with your social life, with the murder rap hanging over you, I mean, but then again we’re living in progressive times and everyone will know that you were insane when you did it and besides that you’ve been cured now. You aren’t the same person.” The lieutenant rubbed his palms together slowly, looked at them with a surprised, distracted expression as if their color or shape had been somehow changed before he had last considered them and said, “Why don’t you make a little statement?”

  “I have no statement to make.”

  “I can get a stenographer in and you can spill your guts out. We won’t change a word of it; we’ll let you go over and make corrections, as a matter of fact, if there’s anything you don’t like in it. All we really want is the basic stuff—times, identities, methods, like that.” The lieutenant gave a long sigh, shrugged, leaned against a wall. “Don’t be stubborn,” he said, “everybody knew that Carlin was into running smack. He wasn’t what you’d call the most desirable kind of person.”