“Welcome to my humble abode,” said Hoerner, watching Caster with some amusement while lighting a cigarette from the scarred bedside table.
“I tried to call,” Harry repeated.
“Don’t tell me,” Hoerner said. “That stupid broad at the answering service gave you my address. I’ll have her ass out on the street first thing in the morning.”
“It won’t do any good. She’s leaving next week. Says she’s getting married.”
“Well, bad luck to some poor bastard.” Hoerner changed his tone. “You found me, so what’s happened?”
“I called home,” Harry said, still standing and feeling nailed to the spot by the naked light of the hanging light bulb. “Rizzo was at my house this afternoon asking my wife questions. About our family—the girls. Admiring the house. I think he meant it as a warning to me.”
“No doubt,” said Hoerner, leaning back on one elbow and letting a thin wisp of smoke flow to the ceiling.
“What shall I do?”
“I can’t tell you, Mr. Caster. Only you can make that decision. But have a seat.” He indicated a rickety, straight-back chair in the corner. “Throw my robe onto the bed.”
Harry sat down and was silent for a long moment. Then he said quietly: “I’ll do it.”
“Are you sure?” asked Hoerner, keeping his eyes on Harry’s face.
“Yes,” said Harry with a firmness he didn’t feel. “As sure as I am of anything right now. I’ve got to do something. What happens next?”
Hoerner was completely changed. Gone was the languid, joking manner. He grabbed up the black silk robe and slipped it over his naked body as he got out of bed. Knotting the belt, he turned to Harry and he was all business.
“Mr. Caster, do you know any place you could send your wife and children for a short while, perhaps a week or two? Someplace that only you know about?”
Harry couldn’t think of a single place. But then it came to him. Hildy’s uncle had a cabin in a remote area a couple of hours’ drive up the river. It would be empty this late in the year, and he knew where the key was kept. He told Hoerner about it.
“That sounds all right. Now, does your wife go shopping on Wednesday mornings?”
“Sometimes. Why?”
“She’s going to go tomorrow at just about mid-morning. Have her and the children leave the house as if they’re going on a normal shopping trip. They’re to take nothing unusual with them—no suitcases, no extra clothes—to indicate that it’s anything but a routine visit to the shops. Have her go to the usual stores and buy enough groceries for two weeks. But not enough to raise suspicion. Then I want her to drive around town for at least half an hour, making various stops. Just about noon, your wife is to drive onto the Expressway and go directly to the cabin.”
“Hildy’s not going to like that,” Harry said.
“That’s too bad. It’s what she has to do. You see that she does it. One more thing: If she suspects that she’s being followed, she’s to try to lose the follower. If she fails, she’s to return home. But once she gets to the cabin, she stays there until you contact her. Is there a telephone in the cabin?”
“There wasn’t the last time I was there.”
“Then she’ll have to stay there until you come to get her. Make sure she understands that. Have you got all that?”
Harry asked a few questions, but soon they had it all worked out.
“Okay,” Hoerner said, “go home now and get some sleep. In the morning go to your bar and wait for me to call. If Rizzo gets in touch, or there are signs of him or his friends getting active, call my answering service. I’ll get back to you fast. If Rizzo calls or comes in, stall him.”
“How am I going to do that?”
“I don’t know. Tell him anything, but stall him. Play dumb. Don’t raise his suspicions. If he gets really tough, agree in principle to the deal but put him off as long as you can. Give us some time to get moving, and we’ll keep Rizzo so busy he won’t have time to bother you.”
“How?”
“Leave that to us,” Hoerner said. “Now, go home, and I’m going back to bed. Get all the rest you can tonight. You’re going to need it.”
All the way back to Parker’s Landing, Harry mulled over the consequences of what he had just done, but he couldn’t see them clearly. Nervous as he was, he felt relieved that at least he had some help. He had taken action of some kind. Harry still didn’t know what to think of Alec Hoerner.
7
It was past 2 a.m. when Harry got home. Letting himself in the front door, he stood in the darkened hallway listening to the silence of the house. Despite the late hour, he wasn’t sleepy. His mind was too busy trying to sort out the jumbled events of the last two days and wondering what was to come. Instead of climbing the stairs, he walked through the narrow passageway into the kitchen at the back of the house. Without switching on the light, he sat down at the big round table and tried to think.
The kitchen light was switched on.
“What!” Harry cried with fright. Then he saw Hildy in her ragged terrycloth robe.
“What indeed,” she said. “What are you doing sitting down here in the dark?”
“Nothing much,” said Harry. “I thought I was hungry, but I’m not.”
“Well, I am,” she said, opening the big refrigerator and peering into it. “And while I’m getting something to eat, do you think you could tell me what is going on?” She began to pull small plates of leftovers and covered plastic bowls out of the refrigerator. “It’s obvious,” Hildy continued, “that something very strange is happening. And it’s very likely connected with that nice Mr. Rice who came visiting today.”
She settled herself with her food across the table from Harry. “What sort of a protection policy is he trying to sell you? Don’t you think it’s about time you told me all of the pertinent details? Like exactly how soon we can expect to get blown up like your car?” Hildy had figured out so much that Harry found it fairly easy to tell her the rest. To his surprise, she didn’t seem very frightened. “It’s exactly like Shadow of the Mob,” she said, “except you ought to be a restaurant owner, and I ought to be a young and beautiful redhead. I could dye my hair if that would help any.”
“There’s nothing funny about this, Hildy,” Harry said. “If Rizzo finds out I’ve hired Hoerner, you and the girls will never get out of town in the morning.” He quickly told her Hoerner’s plan.
“Do you mean to say that you’re going to send me off to that rat-trap while you have all the fun here?”
“That’s exactly what I mean to say. You and the girls. Now, let’s get to bed.”
* * *
As soon as the last light went out in the Caster house, the curtain of a darkened window of a neat house across from their backyard was closed, and a little woman verging on old age nervously dialed a telephone number.
“Hello, Mr. Rice?” she said. “It’s Mrs. Costello. You asked me to call.”
“Yes, Mrs. Costello,” Rizzo said, sitting in his small office in pajamas and robe. “Thank you very much.”
“I’m sorry to call so late, but they just went to bed a minute ago. I thought they were going to sit in the kitchen talking all night.”
“That’s okay, Mrs. Costello. I understand. Thank you very much for staying up so late to call me.”
“It’s nothing, believe me. After all you done for my Stanley, it’s the least I can do. I’d have stayed up all night if need be.”
“I appreciate that, Mrs. Costello.” Rizzo fought a yawn and looked at his watch.
“I almost called an hour ago when Mr. Caster got home. I thought he’d gone right up to bed, and I was just about to call you when the light went on in the kitchen and I saw him and Mrs. Caster talking.”
“What time was that?”
“I wrote it down here. It was just 2:05 a.m.”
“Could you see anything else?”
“Well, Mrs. Caster was eating something. I can’t be sure what it was exactl
y, but—”
“Never mind, Mrs. Costello, you’ve been very helpful.”
“I try to be, Mr. Rice, especially after all you did—”
“I only wish it could have been more, Mrs. Costello,” Rizzo said shortly. “It’s late, and I think—”
“Mr. Rice? I don’t mean to be nosy, but the Casters…” Her voice trailed off.
“Yes?” said Rizzo a little impatiently.
“You see, they’re very nice people and good neighbors, and I hope—I just hope there’s nothing wrong. I mean, because of my calling you like this.”
“Don’t worry, Mrs. Costello,” Rizzo said in a warm, sincere voice, “it’s just a business matter. You know how business is.”
“I suppose so,” she said, although she didn’t know.
“There you are,” said Rizzo. “You just go to bed and forget all about this. And one of these days soon I’ll see if there’s something else I can do for Stanley. He’s a nice boy. Would you like that, Mrs. Costello?”
“Oh, yes.”
“Well then, we’ll just see. I’ll say good night, Mrs. Costello, and thank you again.”
After hanging up, Rizzo sat for a while smoking. He picked up the phone again, made a call, and then went to bed.
“Carlo,” Angela said as he climbed into bed, “is something wrong? It’s not like you to sit up late.”
“It’s nothing,” Rizzo said, sliding his arm under his wife’s shoulders and pulling her to him. He kissed her worried mouth, and Angela’s doubts disappeared in a warming response.
* * *
At mid-morning the next day, the Caster family shopping expedition was about to begin. Hildy had assembled eleven-year-old Lizzie and the baby in the front hallway and was checking to see that everything was ready.
“Lizzie,” she said, “you may carry the laundry bag, and I’ll bring Sophie in her carrycot.”
“The laundry bag is too heavy,” said Lizzie, a thick-bodied girl with a lively face and light-brown pigtails. “I can’t carry it.”
“You will carry it,” said Hildy, “or I’ll cut your head off.”
“I might be able to carry it.”
“Do your best,” said Hildy. “Get going.”
“What’s with the laundry bag?” asked Harry, coming down the stairs. “Hoerner didn’t say anything about doing the laundry.”
“It’s not laundry. It’s diapers and clothes and silly things like that which people like you and Hoerner don’t think about. If you think we’re going to sit in that cabin for a week or two in the clothes we’re wearing, you’re crazy. Don’t worry. It just looks like we’re going to the launderette, a perfectly normal thing to do. Millions of decent people do it every day.”
“Do what every day?” Lizzie asked, returning from Hildy’s battered old car.
“Beat their daughters named Elizabeth until their ears whistle.”
“They do not,” said Lizzie.
“Wait and see,” Hildy said menacingly. “Go wait in the car.”
“I want to kiss Daddy goodbye,” Lizzie whined.
“Go.” Lizzie trudged out the door as if going before a firing squad. “All right,” said Hildy, “we’re off. I’ll call you at the Lamplighter from the service station just before we turn off on the dirt road to the cabin. Then we’ll wait at the cabin until you come and get us. Or the gangsters do.”
“Don’t talk like that,” Harry said.
“Don’t worry. Uncle Herman has a shotgun in the cabin. If anyone but you comes around, I’ll give them both barrels—whatever that means.”
“For God’s sake, just go out there and wait. Read books, eat until you burst, but don’t start getting heroic. I’ve got enough to worry about.”
“Okay,” said Hildy, “no heroics. And that goes for you, too. You’re not much, but you’re all we’ve got.”
From the front room, Harry watched Hildy drive her old car down Elgin Street and then turn right toward the shopping district. The last thing he saw was Lizzie hanging out of the window blowing him kisses. What he didn’t see as he walked upstairs to dress was a gray Ford sedan pull away from the curb a hundred yards up the block and follow Hildy’s car at a discreet distance.
Unaware that she was being followed, Hildy drove directly to the Sav-O-Mart and parked in the large, half-empty parking lot. Leaving Lizzie to mind the baby, she went into the market to shop for their enforced stay at the cabin.
By then the gray car was also in the parking lot and had come to a stop about fifty yards away. The driver, a slender youth with a wispy blond moustache and mottled blue eyes, got out of his car and leaned carelessly against a front fender for a moment. Then he remembered that he was supposed to telephone Rizzo at Mrs. Caster’s first stop. He looked around for a telephone booth and saw one just about twenty feet from Hildy’s car where Lizzie was reading a comic book and jiggling Sophie’s carrycot with her foot.
Casually, the boy walked past Hildy’s car and stepped into the booth. “Hello,” he said, “Mr. Rice? It’s me, Joey. I’m in the Sav- O-Mart parking lot on Bouton Avenue. Mrs. Caster went in about a minute ago.”
“Is there anybody with her?”
“Yeah. A little girl and a baby in her car.”
“Did you see Caster this morning?”
“No, just Mrs. Caster, the girl and the baby. About ten minutes ago the girl came out of their house with a big blue bag and—”
“What sort of bag?”
“Could be a laundry bag,” said Joey.
“Maybe,” said Rizzo. “Joey, you keep an eye on them until they get back home, you understand? Even if it takes all day. Don’t let them out of your sight. And call me if anything unusual happens. You got that?”
“I’ve got it,” Joey said.
After feeling to see if his dime had come back, Joey opened the accordion door of the booth and stepped out. Humming a tune that had been bugging him all morning, he walked past the car where Lizzie sat, without a glance in that direction.
“Hey!” Lizzie said, but Joey kept walking.
“Hey, you!” Lizzie yelled again in her husky-shrill voice. “You! Boy in the black jacket.”
Joey now knew that she meant him, but he still pretended not to hear. Lizzie leaned far out of the car window and screamed: “Yoo boo, yoohoo! You there in the black jacket and white pants.” All eyes were now turned their way, and Joey could hardly keep pretending not to hear.
“I think she’s yellin’ at you, bud,” said a fat old farmer.
“Me?”
“Nobody else.”
Joey turned toward the car where Lizzie still leaned awkwardly out of the window. “What do you want?” he demanded, keeping his distance.
“Come here.”
“What for?”
“I want to talk to you.”
“What about?” Now Joey saw that a small, amused crowd was forming to listen to this long-distance conversation, so he walked over to the car. “What do you want?” he asked in a cross whisper.
“I want to ask you something,” said Lizzie as the other people moved away.
“What is it?”
“You live on Elgin Street, don’t you?”
“Nah.”
“You don’t? But I saw you there this morning.”
“You didn’t.”
“I did!” insisted Lizzie. “You were parked in front of the Hokansons’ house in a light-gray Ford, license plate CAY 090. I noticed because I just learned what a cay is. Do you know what a cay is?” Joey was embarrassed that he’d been spotted.
“It’s a very small island, and very low,” said Lizzie, “also known as a key. I looked it up in my dictionary. Do you have a dictionary?”
“No. Look, I got to—”
“If you don’t live on our block,” Lizzie interrupted, “what were you doing there?”
“I was—oh—visiting a friend of mine. A friend of mine who lives there.”
“What’s his name?”
“You wouldn’t kno
w him. He doesn’t talk to little girls. Goodbye, I got—”
“It isn’t that awful Wayne Bastable, is it?” exclaimed Lizzie. “Ugh. He’s horrible, always covered with dirt and oil from that crazy motorcycle of his and—”
“Yes, that’s the one.”
“But—” Lizzie began.
At that moment, Joey glanced up and saw Hildy Caster coming out of the supermarket pushing a loaded shopping cart. “Look,” he said urgently, “I have to go.” He hurried away from the car. “Wait,” Lizzie called, but then she saw her mother coming.
“How was Sophie?” Hildy asked.
“Fine,” Lizzie said. “She didn’t make a peep.”
Hildy loaded the groceries into the trunk and pushed the empty cart to a collection point.
“Did you get anything I like?”
Hildy got into the car. “Yes, five pounds of frozen pig’s noses and a jar of chocolate-covered ants.”
“Ugh,” said Lizzie.
Hildy then began the series of local stops suggested by Hoerner. With each move, Joey was carefully behind. At the launderette, Hildy washed some clean underwear and packed it, Lizzie, and the baby into the car.
“Just one more stop,” Hildy said aloud to herself as she pulled away from the curb, “and then—”
“Mom,” said Lizzie, “did you know we were being followed?”
“Followed?” asked Hildy, fighting an urge to freeze. “Just what do you mean by that, child of my heart?”
“A boy in a gray Ford. He’s been following us since we left home. He said he wasn’t when I talked to him at the supermarket, but I know he is.”
“Why don’t you tell Mommy this kind of thing?” Hildy searched the rear-view mirror. She saw no gray Ford.
“I forgot,” said Lizzie. “Besides, he wasn’t very nice, really. He says he’s a friend of Wayne Bastable’s, but—”
Hildy saw that a gray Ford had pulled behind them at a distance. “Don’t let him see you turn around, Lizzie, but sneak a look and tell me if you see your friend in the gray car.”
“Yes,” said Lizzie positively.
“That’s wonderful,” Hildy said. “For that you get a prize.” But she was thinking: What do I do now? What did Barbara Fane do in Masked Vengeance?
The Triple Shot Box (Goodey's Last Stand, Not Sleeping Just Dead & Fighting Back): Three Gritty Crime Novels Page 45