The stiffness was gone now, replaced by the other thing. The obvious affection of the strongwilled daughter for the iron-willed father. Probably the only thing capable of breaking said daughter down.
"You and your brother are your father's only family?"
"Yes. Mother died about seven years ago, in an auto accident. She and Dad were driving home from Denver one night and a car swerved across the median from the opposite side into their lane. Dad pulled the wheel just in time to miss it. Nobody in the other car was hurt apparently. In fact, they kept right on going...they were never even heard from! The highway was practically deserted that late at night and they just pulled back onto their side and kept going."
"And your parents?"
"They hit a tree. My mother was killed instantly and my father...he suffered in other ways. In worse ways, probably. It wasn't right, of course, what happened, but it changed my father's whole outlook. About how unfair life was. What a cruel, horrible joke the thing was. He went through about three years of unbelievable depression. And then, to find out lie had cancer, that there was no chance... It was a terrible thing to see, Mr. Dugan. Especially in a man who had always been so full of life."
"But you just said—"
"That my father was living robustly? A full life? I know what I said, and that is the image he's trying to convey. And I think sometimes he almost convinces himself. But not way deep down. He's a man who's worked for everything he ever had, just like his father and his grandfather. The history of the Court family is the American ethic personified. Work and ye shall be rewarded. And my father was rewarded, with everything he could have asked for and more. Until seven years ago. Then my mother died and he found out that he had cancer, and now he's been told he's going to die. I guess a person like my father would find that hard to understand, and deep down I'm sure he doesn't. He does feel cheated. Again, as if the whole thing were some bizarre joke."
The elder Court sounded like quite a guy, but I'd pushed that line about as far as I needed or wanted to, and there were other things I had to know if I was going to take on a job for the young lady.
I said, "What caused your father to change his mind regarding the will?"
She smiled. "Well, when I was working this summer I got mentioned in a review in the Post. A good review, even though the play was a bad play. And sometimes those are the best reviews you can get. Anyhow, Dad read the review and apparently decided that I wasn't the headstrong hussy he'd thought I was, and that maybe I could make a go of it in the theater after all. I guess I sort of redeemed myself in his eyes, and this just happened to coincide with his finding out about some of Tommy's escapades around town which had been kept from him by one means or another. There was talk of a stabbing outside of Zucco's one night last month, and some mistress Tommy was keeping. I'm not really sure about all the details. I didn't care, and I still don't."
"So why did you hire Hochman?"
The line of her mouth tightened. "I couldn't care less about Tommy's drunken brawls or his cheap women," she repeated. "I hate to say it, but my brother's a no good drunken little sot, spoiled to high heaven, and I left him and all the rest of it far behind when I moved to Denver." She leaned forward earnestly then and her blue eyes caught mine and locked them in place. She wanted to make her point and she wanted to make it good. "But I do care about my father," she said, "and I don't know what Tommy might try to pull, considering the fact that he's got Murray Zucco breathing down his neck for fifteen thousand dollars. He's known for a few years now that Dad was planning to change his will. Dad told him Wednesday that he was going to think about it, and Tommy's shrewd enough to know what the decision would be."
"He also told you Wednesday that he was thinking about it?"
"Yes, and while I didn't say anything, I started worrying about him immediately. Tommy is...totally without morals. Dad would never have accepted a bodyguard, of course, but I thought that if I...if I could get a rundown on Tommy, on just what kind of trouble he was in, and if I could get copies of his I.O.U.'s to Zucco, then I could show them to Tommy and say, listen, I know! I know what's been going on, and if anything happens to Dad these are going straight to the police to show them your motives. I...was pretty sure that would keep him in line. I know it was kind of like blackmail, but—"
I waved a hand. "Forget the crap," I told her. "You've already justified your motives to me, and you can consider me hired." I took a deep breath and did some quick thinking. "Hochman must have gotten careless. Zucco or your brother found out, phoned ahead and had some strongarms they knew waiting when we pulled in."
"Do you think there's any chance of locating the two men at the terminal?"
I shook my head. "None at all," I said frankly. 'They were hired muscle and there's nothing they did to break the law anyway. They just chased a guy. But I would like to nail the parties responsible. It's bad advertising when someone in the business gets wasted." I gave her a little grin. "People watch TV. Private eyes are supposed to be indestructible!"
She was beaming, arid I felt good. "I'm so glad, Mr. Dugan. You seem so...well, like you'll be able to take care of yourself. Should I write you a check right away?"
I shrugged. "If you'd like." And as she got up and moved toward a small writing desk against one wall, "What's first on the agenda?"
She spoke as she wrote in her checkbook. "My father's having a group of friends over tonight and...I'd feel better if we were there. After what happened to Mr. Hochman, I don't think there's any doubt that Dad's in danger. You could sort of bodyguard him tonight, and then tomorrow you could...see what you could do about Tommy and Murray Zucco."
The way she said it, all rushed together like that, it didn't seem like the big order I was pretty sure it was going to turn out to be. But the hell with it. I liked the girl and her story had done something to me. Or maybe it was the girl herself.
"If the party's tonight, I guess we'd better get going," I said. "Uh, my car is in the garage—"
She Came over, handed me the check. "I'll drive," she said. "I'm already packed. I was planning to go anyway, as soon as I heard from...Mr. Hochman." Mention of the dead man sobered her, but only for a moment. Then the good cheer was back and she reached over and touched my arm with feather-light fingers and said, just as gently, "I am glad you're going to help me, Mr. Dugan. You seem like an awfully good guy. Please, take care of my father...and yourself."
And then the fingers left and she turned and whisked herself off into the bedroom to get her suitcase.
Leaving me to wonder about all sorts of things.
CHAPTER THREE
Home is what they used to call a "bachelor apartment" located in a fairly modern apartment house out on the west side of town, in Lakewood. The place isn't much but it does offer me enough room to sleep, eat and entertain, which is all I've ever asked of an apartment. I've lived there for three years now. Most of my neighbors are young marrieds, and even a few affluent hippies, who move in and out faster than I or the manager can keep track. The rent isn't much, which helps keep a low overhead in the business, and the bedroom window looks out over the eastern foothills of the Rockies, which makes me feel like I'm communing with nature or something every morning when I wake up. A nice feeling to have.
Susan Court and I left her apartment, then made a quick stop for me to pick up some things. While my new client waited downstairs in her Toyota, I hustled up to get ready for another trip. I dumped out the old clothes from my suitcase and repacked a clean pair of everything. Then I went under the socks in the bottom drawer and brought out and packed the item I'd been thinking about and mulling over ever since I'd been offered the case: my .44 Magnum with the six-and-a-half-inch barrel and its leather clip holster.
Normally I don't like to carry heat on a case. When you're wearing a gun you're always aware that it's there. That you can use it. And sometime you might use it, but at the wrong time. When words or thoughts might have done just as well and saved a life. I saw enough dead bodies in
Nam.
But it is nice to have sometimes. Especially on a job like this where one man had already dropped dead. The last man who had my job.
So I packed the gun.
Then I took another few seconds to make a phone call. I called Abe (that's for Abelardo) Morales at Central Division Homicide. Abe is an intense, serious minded, serious faced Spanish American who I've called friend for some time. Unlike my brethren in the books and on TV, I don't run into that many murder investigations. But on those that I have worked, Abe has always played fair with me and I've tried to return the same consideration to him.
"Welcome back," he said when he came on the wire. We'd had dinner together the night before and I'd told him about the Langdon Springs job.
I grunted. "Yeah, hello, I must be going, in the immortal words of Groucho Marx." And, when that brought nothing but puzzled silence, I added, "I've got to hustle, buddy, but I've got something to pass along."
"So pass."
"That thing down at Continental Trailways this morning—"
"The guy who got dusted? Yeah, he was one of your boys, wasn't he? Stanley Hochman. Vehicular manslaughter."
"Something like that."
Now it was his turn to grunt. "What's that supposed to mean? The guy was knocked over by a taxicab. It was the driver's first day on the job."
That sounded like something. I felt my fingers tighten on the receiver. "Oh, yeah?"
"Yeah. The driver's a she—a twenty year old sophomore at Metro College trying to earn enough money for next year's tuition. She was shaking so bad after it happened they had to give her a lift home and get a doctor to treat her for shock."
"Oh—"
I could almost see the sour grin spread itself across his face. "Doesn't really sound like the M.O. of a Mafia torpedo, does it?"
"I guess not," I admitted, "but there is something you ought to know about," and I told him about the two guys who had been chasing Hochman that morning. I left out the Langdon Springs angle. There was nothing he could have done about that.
When I was done, he said, "You ever tab either of these dudes before?"
"No."
"You should have stuck around and turned it in at the time, Rock."
"Abe, I've got to run. I just wanted to pass it along. I know it's probably a cold trail by now, but—" I let the sentence drop and he was a good enough friend not to push it.
"Okay," he said, his voice a few degrees cooler than when he'd come on, "thanks. Later." And he hung up on me.
I slipped the phone back, grabbed my suitcase and went down to the Toyota. Susan Court was waiting for me with a smile as bright as the western sun and my spirits improved immediately. "Ready ?" she asked cheerfully.
"Ready," I said. I tossed my bag into the back with hers, climbed in next to her and we were on our way.
The air was crisp and clean and the sky was of that endless, flawless china blue that I've only seen west of the Mississippi. She handled the car well and in no time at all we were back on Interstate 76 and moving east again.
It was a pleasant drive. She was a pleasant young woman and the liking that I had developed for her back at her apartment grew steadily as the miles shot by beneath us. I'm a pretty fair judge of people—in my job you have to be—and I could sense the warmth and liking being returned. I hadn't been in love with anyone for two years but, as the conversation wandered idly over this social topic and that, I couldn't help suspecting that it was about to happen again.
She'd told me enough about herself when she hired me, she said. Now it was my turn. So I gave her a brief rundown on the life and times of one Rock Dugan. I told her first how I'd picked up my nickname, working as a stuntman out in Hollywood. My specialty had been tricks that would've racked up most people, but I always managed to walk away in one piece so the tag stuck.
"I know it sounds like exciting work," I said, "but as a business it was lousy. Hollywood began dying out around the early seventies. Hell, the signs were everywhere. So when I came to Colorado for some location work in '73, I liked what I saw and decided it was time for a change. I'd served in Intelligence in Vietnam and that kind of work never leaves your blood, and that's why I picked up what I'm doing now." I wound up the speech with a little shrug. "I applied for a license, took my exams and here I am...the business was five years old this June."
"Well, happy belated birthday," she said, and because it's the kind of thing two people will laugh at when they're alone, we laughed. And her laughter—full-throated, genuine and contagious—made me feel even better than I had before. It made me feel good, just like everything else about her.
Yeah, be careful, Dugan, I told myself. You're slipping...
We pulled into Langdon Springs at six-thirty. The girl glided the car easily down the exit ramp and drove the two mile stretch past the sugar plant and into town going at least fifteen miles over the speed limit. She was getting antsy, I could tell. The periods of silence had begun to lengthen about ten minutes earlier.
We crossed the bridge over the Platte and took a left onto Main. From my previous visits I knew that we were heading toward the better part of town where the company biggies and the retired rich like Mr. Court kept their homes and estates. Before long the houses got further back from the street and the street itself became a winding country road.
Fall was all around us. Mother Nature had done a good job with her paintbrush. The tall oaks that lined the road and met overhead were alive with a rainbow of reds, yellows, oranges and greens.
Yes, it was Fall and I was alone with a lovely lady and Young Love looked like it might be ready to strike once again.
Except that Young Love and all the rest of it was only a prelude.
A prelude to harsh, cold, impersonal death.
A prelude to murder, and a corpse who flew through the air with the greatest of ease...
And much, much more.
CHAPTER FOUR
We pulled off the road, began a gradual climb through more trees, and a few moments later I got my first view of Carlander Court's home, perched in a clearing of the woods like some glass monument to the sun.
When I think of the older rich I tend to think of pillared mansions and fountains and the like, but Carlander Court was having none of that. The house was modern all the way; almost surreal in design. Panes of tinted glass clung and curved around long beams of rich, dark timber. There were two levels to the place, more or less, sprouting porches, walkways and French doors wherever they seemed to be needed. It was the kind of place only spare money can buy— sprawling, elegant and modern. And one case, I had to admit, where modern didn't seem synonymous with uncomfortable.
A number of late model expensive cars were parked in the gravel area alongside the house and the girl pulled in among them. She cut the motor and I hopped out and circled around to get her door.
"Well, what do you think?" she asked, getting to her feet. "Ain't money wonderful?"
I gave another look around as we climbed the stone pathway to what seemed like the front door.
"It's really something," I agreed. "Not what I'd expected."
"It's Dad's own design," she said proudly. "That's how we got all this in the first place. He was an architect, and a damned good one!"
We reached the front stoop and she stretched out a hand for the door handle...but never made it. As if by some prearranged signal the opaque glass slab opened before us, drawing inward, and we were suddenly standing face to face with a red-haired Amazon, somehow magically transported from the jungles of South America to Langdon springs, Colorado.
She was in her late thirties, this Amazon, or maybe it was early forties. It was hard to tell because her age didn't show the way it does in most women. She stood a fraction over my own five-ten and everything—unbelievably upturned breasts and smooth rolling hips tapering into long, beautiful legs—was right in place. She wore a casual summer outfit and her long hair tumbled in freeform abandon onto her slightly freckled shoulders.
As she stepped out to greet us I noticed that she was happily stewed.
"Susan, honey...what a nice surprise!" One gently curved Amazonian hand held a highball glass. With the other she reached out and gave Susan's arm a squeeze. "Now the party's complete! The merr the morrier, right?"
Susan started to correct her, thought better of it and turned to me.
"Rock," she said, suppressing a giggle, "this is Helen Bishop. Helen's husband is Dad's attorney. Helen, Rock Dugan...a friend of mine."
The Amazon's attention moved from the girl to me and she stretched out a hand. I like a woman who'll shake hands and this one's grip was firm and warm.
"Welcome to Langdon Springs, Mr. Dugan," she said, her voice only slightly slurred. "Beautiful, luxurious, thoroughly boring Langdon Springs." She moved toward me and her free arm snaked through mine as she began steering me with her through the open doorway. "Well, come on, come on. Let's be good guests. The drinks are free, you know!"
I looked over her shoulder at Susan. The girl's blue eyes laughed back at me.
"Go on," she urged. "I've got to see Dad and let him know we're here. Have fun..."
That last sounded a bit facetious to me, but by then Helen Bishop had me over the threshold and we were making our way through the airy, well-lighted house to the area in back.
The first impression I got when we stepped out into the sunlight again was that of a typical suburban backyard patio. But this wasn't the suburbs, and any similarity ended this side of the low brick wall that ran around the patio perimeter.
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