The quiet-looking stone home to the right, behind fastidious dark green Florida poppy hedge, seemed uninhabited. Vincenti had the salesman’s antennae about matters like that.
Anyway, it was now – not later.
He lit still another joint, left the car, and walked rapidly along the outside poppy hedge that bordered a blue-gravel drive. He glanced neither right nor left. He held smoke in his lungs and the afternoon was a cinema screen, flickering impossible paradise.
The large homes on either side were set distantly.
He approached a yellow-stone wall. The cottage where Lucelli had stopped took up, in grounds, obviously most of the block. The place with the hedges was a cheapie.
He flicked the roach away, touched the wall, and with a smooth leap elbowed the rim.
He clung there, taking it in – a kidney-shaped swimming pool under silk oaks, the water like green ice. Walls. Footpaths. Flowers in bloom. A mocking blue jay.
Glass doors open on glitter and shadow.
Nobody. No sound other than the blue jay.
Then . . . soft music. Bartok. Vincenti prided himself on a secret vice. Lucelli the Slaughterhouse, attending Bartok?
He sniffed – sniffed again. Musk. Incense. Lucelli. Avanti. Nemo Lucelli!
A white shape moved through velvet-red shadows inside the cottage.
Vincenti went up the wall, and down into a horseshoe flowerbed of yellow roses. He barely landed here before he was running lightly, silently, around the pool, past canvas deck chairs, luxuriously padded chaises, across a broad flagged patio with a half-finished drink on a redwood table, and over to the glass doors.
He could feel his heart astounding his chest. He was sweating now, as he let the Luger fit into his palm, and gripped the cool butt, fingering cold steel.
“Who is it?” The voice was fat, hoarse, and deep, from inside the cottage.
Vincenti whapped the Luger’s sliding blue-steeled breech open with an oily click, and leaped between the glass doors.
Everything happened at once. The music. The jay screaming. Nemo Lucelli standing there like an elephant in a white terrycloth robe, belted around the enormous girth, a fat, manicured hand with a square-cut diamond, holding a martini glass, a woman’s voice:
“What is it – Nemo?”
Vincenti said, “Hello.”
Nemo Lucelli backed through an alcove into a sprawling, shadowed living room with huge hassocks and a fireplace. He paused against a glass cocktail table, his mouth working around unspoken words.
“They said you broke word,” Vincenti told Lucelli. “They said to waste you.”
“Wait—” Lucelli said.
His drink spilled on the thick gold rug.
Vincenti emptied the Luger. It made gasping sounds. Crimson blossoms appeared across Lucelli’s chest. He gave a tremendous leap backwards and crashed down on the glass-topped cocktail table, shattering the plate.
He was dead. His eyes were open.
The jay screamed. The music softly curtained the diminishing afternoon as Vincenti released the spent clip from the Luger and slapped a fresh one in its place.
“Nemo?”
The woman’s voice again, up and to the left, coming near.
She burst into the room, saw the hulk covered by terry cloth amid the jagged shards of broken glass, the blood. She put one hand to her mouth and bit knuckle. Then she flung coppery red hair out of one eye and stared at Vincenti.
“Hello and good-bye,” Vincenti said.
He lifted the Luger.
“You fool!” the girl who was more than mere woman said. She whirled and spat on the bloody body of Nemo Lucelli. “I wanted him dead! Don’t kill me – think, you fool!”
Vincenti frowned, staring at this girl.
She was beautiful, with long, flowing red hair. She wore a black swimsuit – a bikini – that was revealing enough to make a man hold his breath. Tall, she was, firm-breasted, long-thighed, with broad red lips, large blue eyes – a wish, a promise.
“Who are you?” Vincenti said.
“Not now – not here.” She spoke rapidly. “There’s no time. They’re coming back, don’t you see? Nemo sent them for some brandy.” She paused, put both hands to her cheeks. “You kill me, you’ll never get away – they’ll know somebody else did this. I know what to do – let me do it. I hated him! I was bought and paid for. Everybody knows it. They’ll think I did this. They know it’s been coming. Don’t you see – here – they’re here now!”
She pointed towards a front window. Beyond the sound of the music was the sound of a car’s wheels on gravel, and Vincenti saw gleams and glitters out there in the silky shade from the limo’s paint job.
The girl snatched up a red robe from a chair.
“Where’s your car, you idiot – hurry!”
Thinking how it had to be the weed, Vincenti grabbed her hand and turned running, dragging her – because truly it was good in this direction, too – this girl was his alibi.
If he made it.
“Where?” she gasped.
He said nothing, holstered the Luger, thinking how they would believe she had killed Lucelli. He grabbed the Luger from its holster again, thinking, You forgot, you fool! It’s that damned Acapulco Gold.
He flung the Luger into the pool with a splash that shattered the icy green, and they ran through the flower beds to the yellow-stone wall.
“Hey!”
It was a shout from back in the cottage.
“It’s them,” the girl whispered, cringing against Vincenti.
Vincenti did not hesitate. He grasped her around the smooth, plump thighs and lifted her quickly to the top of the wall.
“Drop down,” he said, scrambling after her.
There were shouts from inside the cottage.
Vincenti slipped over the wall just as somebody fired in his direction. Chips of shattered stone flew in the afternoon.
“Run for the street – my car,” he told the girl, thrusting her ahead.
“They climbed the wall!” a man shouted from behind.
They made the Continental.
“Let me drive,” the girl said. “There’s only one place to go – my plane at the St Petersburg-Clearwater Airport. This area’ll be crawling. It’s our only chance.”
“Get in,” Vincenti told her. “I’m driving.” He was also thinking fast. She was right. Word would go out. Soldatos would be everywhere, watching for her and whoever was with her. They would be at every entrance to the city, every highway would soon be covered. There was only the one chance: with her.
They were away fast, with the girl directing him on back routes. It was all Vincenti could do to hold the speed down, and there was a snarl of discouragement in his chest, but it began to lessen with each mile. This girl – this girl was something to consider – a beauty – and with quick brains, too.
Lucelli was dead. He would have plenty of money. This girl would have plenty, too – it was a fast deal and a good one.
Soon they were out of Tampa on the Courtney-Campbell Causeway, headed for Route 19. Vincenti began to relax a touch, but he did not let up on the accelerator. He knew anything could happen. Lucelli’s web could reach out . . .
“What’s your name?” he asked the girl, trying to think about more comforting things.
“Anette,” she said.
“Okay, Anette. Looks as if we’ll be together for a time. But where’ll we go?” He hesitated, then took a shot at it. “I’m from LA.”
“My money’s in Vero Beach – that’s where I live. I was just visiting Nemo at one of his castles, see? We’ll fly my Cessna to Vero – agreed?”
“Then where?”
“There’s only one where. Europe. We’ll head for Miami, and fly to England first. It’s the only way, and it can be damned thin. Nemo rules – ruled this state.” She slid closer to Vincenti. “What’s your name?”
He told her.
“But what’s your first name?”
“Harry.”
“Gee, I
dig that – Harry.”
He allowed himself to comfort her somewhat by placing one hand on her knee, while visions danced in his head.
Sugar plums, he thought. Sweet sugar plums.
Presently they reached the St Pete-Clearwater Airport. In less than fifteen minutes they were seated in Anette’s four-seat Cessna; a beautiful ship, colored red, white, and yellow – sleek in the early twilight.
They came down the runway with Anette at the controls. She had asked him if he could fly.
“I leave that up to pilots.”
“Vero, here we come,” she said, and they were airborne.
Vincenti took his first clean breath of freedom. There was little chance of being caught now. He had done his job. Lucelli was dead. He would collect payment by cable in London. He had his passport with him. He was always ready for anything.
They winged above Tampa Bay. The waters, in the last of the sunlight, looked as if studded with diamonds. He saw the vast span of the Howard Frankland Bridge up ahead, cars like ants speeding along the whiteway.
He lit two joints and passed her one.
She smiled at him and took a big toke.
“Hey,” he said suddenly. “You’re going down – we’re flying pretty damned low.”
“Want to show you how pretty it can be. Then, after, we’ll get to know each other. There’s an automatic pilot, see? Nemo had it installed for me. I’m setting it now.”
They were flying at tremendous speed towards the looming bridge span.
Vincenti did not want to show his tight fright to this girl. She was truly something.
She pushed the throttle up all the way, and turned to smile at him again.
“This grass is good stuff,” she said.
He said, just to make words, “You didn’t tell me your last name.”
She stood up, stepped over, and slipped beside him. But she seemed somehow stiff and sober.
“Well, honey,” she said. “My last name’s Lucelli.” She looked straight into his eyes and ruffled the back of his hair. “I’m Nemo Lucelli’s daughter. You see, now? And you’re one of us. You know how it is, avenging a death in the family.” Excitement was in her eyes. “That’s how it is, honey – Harry Vincenti!”
He stared at her as the words registered. Fear stabbed him. He hurled her aside. She sprawled to the deck.
“Lucelli,” he heard himself say.
Tears rushed into the girl’s eyes. “I loved my father. But you wouldn’t dig that, you pig!” She screamed it. “He was a great, kind man. I loved him. You killed him. I’ll die for him!”
He struck her across the mouth, then whirled to look through the windshield. The bridge loomed dead ahead. He dove for the controls.
The plane smashed into the bridge and exploded with a shattering roar of flame.
Harry Vincenti crashed headlong through the windshield. He arced through the air like a limber rag doll and sprawled sliding in a bloody path in the far second lane of traffic.
He was dead before the big semi ran over him, but it didn’t really matter.
PREVIEW OF MURDER
Robert Leslie Bellem
1. Date with a Recluse
It was a cheap, frowsy hotel in a cheap shoddy neighborhood a good distance south of Hollywood Boulevard. It was standing like a tired harridan on the east side of the street so that the setting sun in the west painted its shabby brick facade the color of old blood that nobody wanted any more.
Over the entrance faded gilt lettering said “Chaple Arms,” which could have been a misspelling of “Chapel” or might be the proprietor’s name. The cars parked along the curb in front were old, worn-out models in need of polish they would never get, with dented fenders and recap tires any self-respecting junk dealer would have sneered at.
Drifting past in second gear, I watched a mangy alley cat in the doorway, licking its chops and working on a bird it had killed. That was the only visible movement, the only sign of life. It was just as much a sign of death, if you thought about it from the bird’s viewpoint: only the bird was beyond caring. The Chaple Arms didn’t seem to care, either. It was that kind of hotel. One more stain on the steps couldn’t possibly matter.
The voice on the phone that afternoon hadn’t matched any of this. Asking me to come here at six sharp, it had sounded austere and dignified, with culture and education back of it. And money. It had sounded like a lot of money.
In the private detective business you develop a sort of extra sense which reacts to subtle nuances like that. So I was disappointed when I copped a glimpse of the Chaple Arms. It wasn’t a place where money lived. Maybe it had been, once, a long time ago. Could be. But now it was a fleabag.
I looked at my strap-watch. Five of six. I drove my jalopy to the next corner and made a U-turn, wheeled back and found a berth almost directly across the street from the tawdry brick building. At three of six I ankled past the alley cat, noticed that the bird was all gone except a few wing feathers, and barged into a dingy lobby that smelled as unclean as it looked.
The linoleum on the floor was worn through in spots by the feet of trudging years, showing that it had been laid on an original installation of white tiles. There were two overstuffed chairs against the right-hand wall, as wrinkled and sagging as the bags under a sick man’s eyes, and on the left there was a short, stained marble-top counter with a desk clerk behind it, pigeonholing folded circulars into a rectangular wooden tier of square open-front letterboxes.
His black alpaca coat was shiny with age, freckled with small gray flakes the exact shade of his hair. His back was toward me and he didn’t look around when I spoke to him.
So I spoke again, louder. “Hey, you with the dandruff on your shoulders,” I said.
He kept right on stuffing circulars into pigeonholes. Then I lamped two little twisted black wires running down along his collar, and I leaned over the counter and nudged him on the spine with my forefinger. Leaning over the counter made me feel pretty sure no laundry would ever be able to take the grease stains from the front of my clothes. Touching the clerk with my finger made me feel as if I would never wash my hands clean again, no matter how much soap and water I used.
He jumped slightly and turned around, and the little twisted wires ran from a button in his ear to a black plastic box hooked heavily to his breast pocket. He had a face like crinkled parchment and eyes as sadly apologetic as a cocker spaniel’s. He jiggled something on the plastic box, a switch that clicked audibly.
“Wear a hearing aid,” he said in a powdery voice. “Generally keep it turned off to save the batteries. You scared me a rifle, poking me like that.”
“Sorry, old-timer,” I said. “Although I should think you’d be used to it if you keep your back to the customers all the time.”
“Got me a little mirror on the wall.” He jerked a thumb. “Usually watch it so’s nobody sneaks up on me, but I guess I kind of forgot this time. Preoccupied.” He let a small sigh dribble past lips as loose as dangling rubber bands. “Something I could do for you?”
“I want to see a guy that lives here – name of Fullerton. Joseph T. Fullerton.”
“Nobody sees Joseph T. Fullerton, mister. Nobody ain’t seen Joseph T. Fullerton in nine, ten years to my knowledge. Not even the maids which brush up his rooms. You prolly think I’m kidding you, but I ain’t.”
“I’ve got an appointment,” I said.
For all that meant to him he might as well have had his hearing aid switched off. “For six o’clock,” I added. “It’s six now, even up.”
“No offense, mister, but I just plain don’t believe you.”
“About it being six o’clock?”
“About you having no appointment to see Mr Fullerton. Like I said, nobody sees him. Nobody at all. He don’t allow it.”
“I’m Nick Ransom,” I said patiently, and took a card out of my wallet to prove it. I put the card on the counter. “Somebody calling himself Joseph T. Fullerton phoned me at my office this afternoon and aske
d me to be here at six sharp. Maybe it was a rib, but that voice didn’t sound like a practical joker’s. You might give Fullerton a jingle and check on it. That is, if there really is a Joseph T. Fullerton registered here.”
“Orders is never to disturb him under no circumstances.” With mild curiosity he read my card, his rubber-band lips moving as he spelled out the words. “Nick Ransom. Confidential Investigations. That’s be kind of a cop, wouldn’t it?”
“Private.”
He made with another dribbling sigh.
“Nothing like this ain’t never happened before since I been working here.” He moved to a small old-fashioned switchboard and peered at it, picked up a fragment of pale blue paper that had scribbling on it. “Well, I be danged. Day man must of left this for me and I never seen it when I come on duty at five. Says somebody named Nick Ransom is to be tooken straight up to Mr Fullerton.”
“Yeah,” I said. I set fire to a gasper.
* * *
He shook his head wearily. More dandruff snowed down on the alpaca coat’s shoulders.
“Reason I never noticed it, they ain’t been no calls go through the board since I come on shift. Danged day man shouldn’t of left it tucked behind the keys that way. He ought to of told me.”
“So now you know,” I said. “And it’s two minutes past six. I don’t like to keep a client waiting.”
“Course not. Dumb me, making you stand around.”
He hit a tap-bell under the counter. It had a clean, tinkly sound that broke across the lobby and lost itself, discouraged, against musty velour draperies on the opposite wall. There followed a whirring hiccuppy noise from somewhere in the rear, and an antique elevator creaked jerkily down an open grillwork shaft. Its wrought iron gate slid open, rattling on worn grooves, and a kid in his early twenties stepped out smartly.
“Pete,” the clerk said, “show this here gent up to Three-seventeen.”
Pete’s glimmers widened. He was a tall punk, not quite up to my six feet plus but slender and lithe and broad of shoulder in a nondescript uniform a size too small for his build. He probably had inherited it from a whole series of predecessors, but he wore it with a nice jauntiness that certainly didn’t belong in a joint like the Chaple Arms.
The New Mammoth Book of Pulp Fiction Page 24