The Big Score

by Kilian, Michael;

  “So what do we do?”

  “If you want, we go out there and try to get her. I don’t mind breaking regulations. I’m not exactly planning on a career with the county sheriff’s department.”

  “I do want, very much.”

  “We’ll need a boat.”

  “There’s mine.”

  “A sailboat? That’ll be a first in police work. It’ll take half the night to get out there.”

  “I don’t know what else we could get at this hour. I have an auxiliary engine and a full tank of gas.”

  Rawlings pondered this. “Maybe we should go after Poe.”

  “He has all sorts of bodyguards. And doing that wouldn’t help Diandra.”

  Zany rubbed his beard. “I guess that’s what’s at the top of the agenda, then.” He rose. “You ever fire a weapon?”

  “Yes. I was in the army.”

  “In the army? An artist?”

  “Family tradition, military service. It was only two years. R.O.T.C. I was a lieutenant. I qualified with an automatic pistol.”

  Rawlings went to his bag and took out two revolvers, sticking the larger one in his belt and handing the smaller one to Matthias. “Was your brother in the service, too?

  “No. But I taught him to shoot. He’s good. He seemed to enjoy it. Sense of power, I suppose. He never had much of that in my family.”

  “For the sake of my brother officers, let’s hope he’s as drunk as you say.”

  Christian could now add armed robbery to his crimes, at least technically. The night attendant at the gas station on LaSalle Street where he stopped refused to sell him the cans of gasoline he asked for, arguing that Christian was drunk. So he’d pulled his revolver on the youth, and within minutes he had four gallon cans in his trunk. He gave the fellow a hundred-dollar bill before he left. If this was robbery, the attendant seemed happy about it.

  Train had paid Christian his final fee before he was killed. Christian hadn’t counted the money, but he guessed he had many, many thousands of dollars in his pockets. It could take him out of the country, take him far. But it was too late, too late.

  There were a number of black youths on the street near the museum. When Christian parked the Jaguar, hitting a lamp post in the process, they started walking toward him. He took out the revolver and fired a shot in the air. They scattered. When Christian had the gasoline inside, he locked the museum door. If they were brave enough to go back and fool with the Jaguar, they were welcome to it.

  He went into the office and turned on the lights. He still had the vodka with him. He drank some, then went to the main desk and sat, staring stupidly at the table where Jill had customarily worked.

  Foolish, foolish girl. Imbecilic Matthias. After Sally had ditched him for the wealthy lout, he’d spent the rest of his life looking for the perfect woman, and there she’d been all the time. If he had married her instead of the selfish Hillary—if he’d welcomed Jill to France when she’d ask to come—they all would have lived happily ever after.

  Instead, she died. Everybody died. What difference did anything make, once you were dead?

  Immortality was such conceit. How many artists had there been in Paris at the time of Delacroix, or Degas? Thousands. What remained of their work now? Those ancient Japanese screens in the Art Institute. Who even knew the names of their makers? All the wall texts said were “Circa 1600,” or “Daimyo Culture.” Immortality. Ha-ha-ha.

  Christian got up and turned on the lights in the exhibition rooms, wandering through them, looking at the paintings. He paused by a still life—peeled fruit, a dead fish, a dead fowl, a human skull. Sixteenth-century German, done in the Dutch manner. Always the same message. Mortality. Always. Even in the midst of plenty.

  He was feeling woozy and wobbly. Barely able to stand. Had to hurry. Much to do. Couldn’t pass out. That would ruin everything.

  Christian grinned back at the skull and gave it a small salute.

  He splashed the gasoline against the walls and along the floors. It didn’t go as far as he thought, but he supposed it would do. The structure was stone, but the walls were plaster and wood, covered with ancient wallpaper. The paintings would burn wonderfully.

  When he was done, he stood a moment. Should he go back to the office? Sit there and keep drinking until the end? Wouldn’t do. Had to hurry. How fast did gasoline evaporate?

  He took out a lighter, one he’d bought to light Mango’s endless cigarettes. He probably should have found a way to kill her, too. She was as much at fault as Jill Langley. Bloody Lady Macbeth. It would have been a wonderful irony if she were to perish with all the rest of them. He should have an irony.

  Looking around at all the paintings, he thought of something marvelously ironic. Their grandfather had made his great decision. All the pretty things were to be kept on permanent display. The ugly paintings—the Expressionist and Modernist—to be locked away forever in the vault.

  But the vault was fireproof. Art as beauty would perish. Art as truth would survive. Better than that, all those pieces would be given to the Art Institute, for all to see.

  At long last, he was defying his grandfather, defeating him, subverting his grand design.

  He took another drink, a long swallow, then dropped the bottle. He was perfectly calm, his nerves all numb, his brain barely working. He needed some paper. Where to get paper? But, of course, he had pocketsful—wads of green, useless paper.

  Christian pulled forth a hundred-dollar bill, crumpled it up, then set it on fire with the lighter, holding the edge gingerly. When it was fully aflame, he staggered to a wall and neatly dropped it onto a still moist pool.

  The suddenness of the ignition startled him, its heat and force sending him reeling. He caught his balance, standing in the center of the room, watching the bright flames dance all about him.

  Now. No use waiting. Here at last was the end of time. Matthias always said that one’s last thoughts ought to be of someone you loved. Christian could think of no one. No one at all.

  Good-bye then. He put the barrel of his gun to his temple and pulled the trigger.

  Matthias had used his auxiliary engine to get out of the harbor, but, once clear of the breakwater, had killed it and hoisted sail, taking a heading to the southeast. The sky was hazy and the moon low. There were dots of lights here and there in the murk ahead, anyone of which could be Poe’s boat. The wind was from the north, a steady breeze around ten knots, fine for a leisurely Sunday afternoon sail but frustratingly weak for their present task.

  “Hot pursuit,” said Zany. “At least Poe’s boat isn’t going anywhere. We hope.”

  “I want to save the engine for when we might need it most.”

  “Fair enough. I just wonder if it might be faster swimming.”

  “Jill made it across the lake in a single night.”

  “Yeah. Dead.”

  Matthias lighted his pipe. He rubbed at his eyes, but not because of the smoke.

  “Maybe we should have taken someone else’s boat,” Zany said. “Like cops do with people’s cars in the movies.”

  “I wish we weren’t on this one.”

  “Just be careful how you handle it when we get near them, or you may get your wish.”

  “We could be making a big mistake.”

  “All part of making decisions.”

  “I’m not talking about whether she’s on that yacht. I’m sure she’s there. They wouldn’t have it sitting out there for any other reason. I was just wondering … I hate to say it. I hate to even think of it, but what if she’s there willingly, sitting there watching television or reading, going along with this just because Poe asked her to?”

  “If you can’t trust the love of your life, Matt, then where are you?”

  “The love of my life, Zane, washed up on your breakwater in this boat.”

  Matthias had chosen some twinkling riding lights on the southeastern horizon as a bearing, but, as they neared them, they discovered they belonged to a smaller, different cabi
n cruiser. Matthias fell away, steering the Hillary in a wide circle, changing tack as they crossed the wind.

  “Sky’s beginning to get light in the east,” Zany said. “We may have a big problem.”

  “Keep looking.”

  They made another slow circle, each man searching a different quarter of the horizon as the boat moved. As they came about again, Zany ducked under the boom, peering aft.

  “There! That’s it. Gotta be it. Looks as big as a ship.”

  “Perhaps it is a ship, an ore carrier or something.”

  “What? Lying off Michigan City? Its running lights are off. No ship’s captain would do that.” Zany settled back in his seat. “At the least, we can get them for a marine violation. Does this sailboat of yours have a radio? I’d like to check on my boys on the boat out of St. Joe.”

  “I did have a radio, but it was stolen, I think while you had the boat impounded.”

  “Well, you know Grand Pier. Hotbed of crime.”

  Matthias centered the steering, gazing due south. “She’s a couple miles or so off. I wonder if they see us.”

  Zany looked up. “We’re making it kind of easy for them, aren’t we?”

  “Let’s attend to that.” Matthias went forward, and began to lower sail.

  The auxiliary engine on the Hillary was thirty-five horsepower, and they closed with the motionless motor yacht with surprising speed. When they were near enough to see the clear outlines of the Queen P’s superstructure, Matthias cut the motor back to near idle.

  “We’ll approach from the stern,” he said. “I think the only people at all alert at this hour will be forward on the bridge. I think there’s a swimming ladder at the back. It will make things easier.”

  Zany checked the load in his revolver. “God only knows what weaponry they have on board.”

  “Take the tiller,” Matthias said. “I’m going below.”

  He emerged from the cabin hatch carrying what looked to be pistol-size cannons.

  “Back up,” he said. “Flare guns. You wouldn’t want to get hit by one.”

  Matthias worked his way astern of the big yacht, then headed slowly toward its fantail, inching closer and closer. Nothing moved on the deck, though they could see cabin lights.

  As they neared the big boat, its bulk looming above them, the swimming ladder visible against the white breadth of the stern, Matthias cut the engine and let the Hillary drift the rest of the way on its own momentum. Zany went forward, taking bow line in hand, and leapt to the little diving platform next to the ladder, making the bow line fast to the metalwork.

  “Let’s go,” he said softly.

  Creeping along the main deck, they heard voices and a clatter of noise coming from a porthole just below them. From the sounds and smells, they judged it to be the galley.

  They reached the stairs leading up to the bridge deck without encountering a single crew member, but shrank back against the bulkhead at a sudden swath of light appearing above.

  Footsteps on the metal. Someone was coming down.

  Zany pressed back flat against the wall, then raised his pistol. As the man, small but very sturdy looking, came by, Zany stepped out behind him and brought the butt of the gun down sharply on his head. He gave a grunt and toppled forward.

  “Come on,” Zany said, his revolver in his other hand, and started up the stairs.

  They burst through the door to the bridge one after the other, guns to the fore. A man standing by the steering whirled around, startled and frightened. Another man sitting in a chair by the opposite windows had been drinking coffee. He froze, cup midway to his lips, and stared at them, stupified.

  “Which one of you is the captain?” Zany asked.

  “He’s in the head,” the man with the coffee cup said. He gestured at a door.

  Zany glanced at Matthias to make sure he was being serious about the way he held his weapon, then went to the door, turning the knob and shoving. From the toilet seat, the skipper looked up.

  “What the hell is this?”

  Zany held up his deputy sheriff’s badge. “Police,” he said. “Where’s Mrs. Poe?”

  “In the main cabin, below. Directly aft. You’re really police?”

  “Really am.”

  “Well, look. I don’t know what’s going on here. I think Mr. Poe’s having a fight or something with his wife. Locked her up down there. Told us to take the vessel out here and heave to until further notice. We’re just crew, just following orders. We don’t know anything about trouble with the police.”

  “Nowadays husbands don’t get to lock up their wives,” Zany said. “Get your pants on and get out here.”

  They got the captain’s keys from him and put him and his two mates in an adjoining chart room. Just as Zany was about to close and lock the door, the captain said, “Poe’s got two men aboard. I think they’re armed. Mean-looking bastards. One should be sitting by her cabin. I don’t know where the other one is.”

  “Thanks for being so informative. Where’s the rest of the crew?”

  “Off watch, asleep. Except for the guys in the galley.”

  “Okay, see you later.” He turned the latch. At the main stairs leading to the cabins below, Zany paused to look back at Matthias. “Okay, Matt, here’s where it gets to be like the movies.”

  There was only one man to be seen, in a chair by a door at the end of the main corridor. He was awake, but not very alert. Zany and Matthias were within a dozen feet of him before he realized they weren’t part of the crew—and saw their guns. He went for his belt.

  Zany didn’t want to do this again. “Hold it!” he said.

  The man’s hand kept moving. There was a sudden bark of a sound, followed by a whizzing phhhhhht. The man’s upper chest exploded in sputtering, multicolored flame and he fell back, screaming, writhing on the floor.

  Zany jerked his head back. Matthias was looking at the smoking flare gun in his hand, his expression mournful.

  A door behind him opened. Another man emerged, a pistol in hand. He took in Zany and Matthias and his pitiful comrade in a second’s glance. Zany had a gun on him. He dropped his pistol.

  They all stood watching as the stricken man died, helpless to do anything about it. Zany made a strange sound. Turning away, he threw up. Stepping back finally, he wiped his mouth with his handkerchief and took the empty flare pistol from Matthias.

  “Save problems later,” Zany said. “I did it, okay? Having three of these guys on my sheet’s the same as two.”

  “The keys,” Matthias said.

  Diandra was standing in the center of the cabin, her eyes wide with fear. She had a bed sheet wrapped around her, bare feet and shoulders showing. Matthias glanced about the cabin. The wretches had taken her clothes.

  She came into his arms and clung to him tightly, the sheet dropping slightly, the bare skin of her back clammy and cold.

  She spoke his name over and over.

  If you can’t trust the love of your life, Zany had said.

  Matthias told her he loved her.

  CHAPTER 25

  Lieutenant Baldessari brought his breakfast to work in a paper bag—two chocolate doughnuts, a large coffee black. He had two packs of Marlboros in his pockets.

  Mulroney was in Baldessari’s office, in one of the side chairs, looking through a file folder. He stood up. “You’re in early, boss.”

  “Meeting with the fucking brass on this Poe thing. Is that the morning report?”

  “You want the good news or the bad news first?”

  Baldessari sighed. Why did people still do this? “Give me the bad.”

  “Someone clocked Laurence Train. In his townhouse. Looks like a fag job, but you never know, especially with him being under investigation and all.”

  “He isn’t—wasn’t—under investigation yet. Not officially. What else you got?”

  “You heard about that four-eleven alarm at the German Museum?”

  Baldessari nodded. “WGN radio had it.”

 
“Everybody has it. But now we got a positive ID on the crisp one they recovered. From his watch. Engraved. Christian Curland. Firearm recovered, too. Thirty-eight special. Gunshot. Big hole in the skull. Probably self-inflicted.”

  “Never take that for granted, Mulroney.” The lieutenant took a big bite out of his doughnut. They’d want him to know all about this at the meeting in the state’s attorney’s office.

  “The museum doors were locked, boss.”

  “Let’s just leave it up to the medical examiner. Is there good news? Or are you just yanking my chain?”

  “Got a report back from the Atlantic City P.D. Rose Scalzetti? She changed her name and left the life. Went legit. Singer, something like that. She got a job in a lounge at a casino out there. New name’s Mango Bellini.”

  It was familiar, but Baldessari couldn’t remember why.

  “The casino was owned by Peter Poe,” Mulroney said. “The lady still works for him, here in Chicago. Executive assistant or something. Hooker days behind her.”

  Baldessari pushed away the doughnuts and took a burning swig of coffee, then lighted a Marlboro, thinking. “This is the same broad? You’re sure?”

  “We rechecked the fingerprint match,” Mulroney said. “It’s exact.”

  “Okay,” said Baldessari. “Pick her up.”

  “Is this going to screw up the O’Rourke case?”

  “Not if I can help it. But don’t charge her with that. Make it the killing of that blond hooker for now.”

  “We’ll need a warrant.”

  “Judge Cohen’s over in the coffeeshop. Let’s go ruin his breakfast.”

  Poe hesitated before getting into his limousine, turning to look up at the windows of City Hall.

  “Come on, Peter,” said Mango. “What are you afraid of, he’s going to change his mind?”

  “He just seemed so uneasy about everything.”

  “Look, he gave you the go-ahead, okay? Now let’s get over to the cardinal’s house and turn over the deed, as promised. Everything else will take care of itself.”

  “He asked me if I knew anything about what happened to Train and Christian Curland.”