Primed for Murder

by Jack Ewing

  Over the wire, Marta loosed a torrent of words. “She asks if the man wore anything unusual,” Mac said.

  “He had on a string tie. With a silver clasp shaped like a cat’s head.” Just like the ring in the toiletry kit.

  “El tigre,” he heard Marta say.

  “Like a tiger, with spots instead of stripes. You know this guy?”

  Mac and Marta went back and forth in her language for a minute, then fell silent. Mac drew breath that was half sigh. “We think he might be Hernan Revuelto.”

  “Who’s he?” With the stub of a pencil Toby wrote the name phonetically on the margin of a newspaper: ER-NAN REV-WEL-TO.

  “Lately, Director of Antiquities for Quintana Roo in Mexico, where Marta lived. Hernan was a sharp dresser, a familiar figure, known for his jaguar jewelry, a powerful symbol for the Mayans. He made the rounds, always asking questions about artifacts and scaring away tomb robbers. He was very zealous in his duties, Marta says. He was proud to help protect his ancient heritage. Hernan, like Marta, has—had—strong Mayan bloodlines. Lacandón and Quiché ancestry, particularly.”

  “You knew him, too?”

  “He was just a boy then, a teenager, acting as ticket-taker and tour guide at a small but unique ruined city near the border of British Honduras—now Belize—when I first met him, almost fifty years ago. Even then, he wore his hair tied up in back, like his ancestors, when in that time and place it was considered unmanly to wear one’s hair so long.” Mac sighed. “Ten years later, Hernan was managing the Cobá operation when I came through. Five years after that, he was curator of the museum in Tulum.”

  “Now he’s dead in Syracuse.”

  “It would appear so,” Mac said, twice. The static picked up again. “What will you do now, Toby?”

  “I’m not sure. But somehow I’ve got to get the cops on track, so we’ll all be safe from Giambi and his boys.”

  “Do you think I’ll be in trouble with the police?”

  “I doubt it. You didn’t know the manuscript was stolen. You never had it in your possession. You didn’t do anything wrong.”

  “The police may view it differently.”

  “It’s not the police we have to worry about right now, Mac.”

  “You’re right.” Mac loosed a noisy breath. “Well, for the time being, Marta and I will remain where we are. Perhaps we’ll return when this whole thing blows over or perhaps we’ll just stay here. I’d forgotten how pleasant it is where we are. I’ll give you our address in case you change your mind and want to join us.” He rattled off a number, spelled names of a street and a Mexican village. Toby promised to call again, through the intermediary, if anything came up. Mac said he’d call if he hadn’t heard from the painter in a week. They both rang off.

  “Lucky stiffs,” Toby mumbled, staring at the dark, blank television screen. “They get to be safe somewhere else, while I get to sit here and sweat.”

  For a fleeting moment, he thought of investing some of Mrs. Colangelo’s advance money in a plane ticket. He had no deep roots in Syracuse. Even without a passport, he could go anywhere he wanted in the U.S., start over again. Wherever he landed, people with more money than time would always need houses painted. He’d make out all right.

  No, that was stupid. Why should he be pushed out of town?

  Mac was an old man and Marta was a young woman, so he didn’t blame them for fleeing. But it wasn’t Toby’s way. If he’d picked up anything from Randy Rew, it was stubbornness. Why should he have to run with a warrant for fraud—or a contract on his head from her father—for taking money from Desdemona under false pretenses, added to his pile of troubles? Why should he be shoved around like a helpless pawn? He had a few moves left. Maybe he could still turn the tables.

  A crazy plan formed in his brain. Toby examined it from every angle, found no obvious flaws and stood with renewed resolve to carry out the scheme. He filled in the name blank on the car rental form, spelling in block letters: “ERNAN REVWELTO.” He wrote the name in cursive form on each map and on the flap of the packet of photos. Then he carefully wiped down all the dead man’s possessions. He put maps, rental receipt and photos in a pocket of the suitcase, and carried the closed bag by its hanky-wrapped handle to the truck.

  Toby drove by the most direct route to the north side of town and crept past the tan sedan. It sat quiet and dark and empty, wearing its bouquet of tickets. He cruised the block, watching for people sitting in parked cars who might be policemen, but there were none he could spot. Turning the fourth corner, he drifted with lights off to the head of the alley behind the Puterbaugh place. No lights shone from the house.

  Leaving the truck cab unlocked, engine idling in neutral, he took the suitcase and locked it in the sedan’s trunk. He unlocked and eased open the car door and climbed into the driver’s seat. The car started right up, despite having sat for several days, unlike Toby’s truck, which sometimes balked in cold or wet weather. The engine ran smooth and strong. No rattles, no sputtering.

  Toby pulled away from the curb. He stopped in the middle of the street to get the feel of the car. The seat was too far forward for his long legs so his knees stuck up. But he didn’t readjust it or touch the rear-view mirror—he’d seen TV programs where such moves told investigating officers that someone other than the owner had driven the car. The steering wheel under his fingers was smaller, more responsive than his truck’s. The idle was set high, so when he shifted from PARK to DRIVE the car jerked forward and drifted along at a good three miles per hour even when the accelerator wasn’t pressed.

  Without using headlights, Toby drove onto Charbold. He turned the car into the Puterbaugh’s driveway, aimed at their garage. He threw it into NEUTRAL and jumped out, hastily wiping everything he’d touched. He hit the lights and, with the door open and his fist depressing the gas pedal to the floor, revving the engine, shifted into DRIVE. The car leaped forward with a screech of rubber, its door almost catching him when it swung shut. Toby raced the sedan up the driveway.

  After its initial burst of speed, the car slowed, but was still moving at a fair clip when it hit the garage doors with a tremendous crash. By then, Toby was at the alley. He took a sharp right past the fence behind the garage and chugged for his truck. The tan car plowed through the garage doors as though they were made of paper, charged through empty space and rammed out the back wall, narrowly missing Toby sprinting by. The runaway stalled, halfway into the alley, one unbroken headlight tilted towards the sky.

  Lights winked on here and there along Charbold Street. A sleepy voice carried on still night air: “What was that?”

  Toby made it panting to his truck, jumped into the cab, yanked the shift into gear and drove sedately away towards home. “I couldn’t bring the body back to the Puterbaughs.” He chuckled to himself over his cleverness, heart still hammering. “So next best thing is to return the dead man’s car. This’ll shake things up.”

  He had no idea.

  Chapter 18

  The next morning, Toby rose early to get a jump on the Colangelo job. He called Dezi to confirm she’d be there, and was finishing his breakfast of precooked, heat-and-enjoy waffles and sausage, when the phone rang.

  “You think you’re smart, don’t you?” The voice rasped into his ear. Electronically disguised and impersonal, it was impossible to tell if the caller was man or woman—it sounded like a visitor from another planet.

  “Who is this?”

  The caller didn’t bother to answer. “Dumping the body. Planting evidence. Wrecking the car so identity could be ascertained. Connecting him to the Puterbaughs.”

  How did this person know so much? Toby wondered. How’d he or she get this number? Had somebody been shadowing him? There could have been an army of pursuers in monkey suits chasing him on stilts, and he would never have thought to look for a follower until this minute.

  “You’re a busy bee, Rew.” There was something in the caller’s delivery, something familiar but too faint to jog Toby’s memor
y.

  He played along. “What’s the buzz? Why are you calling?”

  “To warn you: keep bugging certain people, you’ll get stomped on.”

  “What people? What are you talking about?”

  “Never mind details.” The caller changed metaphors in mid-stream. “Just take my word for it: you’re in a deep hole.”

  The alien-sounding voice, combined with the emotionless way the words were said, gave Toby a chill. “How do I dig myself out?”

  “Drop everything. Get out of town now and don’t come back. Lose yourself. Keep your mouth shut.”

  “Why should I?” Toby didn’t feel as defiant as his words.

  “Because if you don’t, you’re a dead man.”

  There, the threat was finally out in the open, naked and real. “And if I do go someplace else, what then? Will someone still come after me?”

  “Not if you stay quiet. You’re pretty small fry in the scheme of things. Go be a nobody in another city if you want to live.”

  “Look, you don’t scare me—”

  A note of pleading crept into the eerie voice. “Take the advice. Stick around and keep meddling, nobody can save you.” The caller hung up.

  Toby threw on coveralls over a fresh T-shirt and briefs, donned work boots and left the house. He thought about the call all during his visit to the paint store and beyond. The person on the phone, he decided, posed no direct threat, just a messenger from other, more sinister forces.

  But they knew where he was now. He’d better move again, and quick. He was ready. There was money in his pocket, more in the bank. The new clothes, canned goods and packaged food, restored copy of Puterbaugh’s dissertation, and other portable items were in bags and boxes beside him on the seat. His working gear was all loaded in the truck bed beside the new buckets of paint for the Colangelo project.

  It was a shame to lose that nice house and the money he’d forked over for it, but it couldn’t be helped. He’d be a sitting duck out in the sticks. Better to seek the company of other people. If the bad guys ever got off his back, he could return to the Buckley Road house and use up the rest of the month’s rent.

  He drove first to Charbold Street. Boy, would he be glad if he never had to visit this neighborhood again!

  Mrs. Cratty’s big Buick was parked in her driveway. The old lady herself was just clambering out. His timing was perfect for once. Toby parked, blocking her exit. Let the old bat try to escape paying him now!

  Getting out, he glanced across the street. The blue house seemed the same, still and empty. The smashed Puterbaugh garage looked violated: he could see clear through it to the alley. His handiwork. The runaway car was gone—towed away where the police could go over it thoroughly, Toby hoped. Once they tied the car to the body they had on ice, learned who the man was and why he was dead in Syracuse, the cops should be able to follow the lead to the Puterbaughs, and from there to Giambi & Co. If the lawmen were too dense, Toby would figure something else to give them a nudge in the right direction.

  Mrs. Cratty stood her ground, glowering as Toby approached. “Morning.” He smiled. “What do you think of the paint job?” He waved up at the house.

  “I just got home this very minute and haven’t had time to inspect your work. Got to get these groceries inside.” She nodded at a back seat awash with plastic-bagged goods, arching an eyebrow at Toby.

  “Let me give you a hand.” Toby hooked bags over his forearms and dangled others from his fingers. Laden with fifty or sixty pounds of groceries, he followed Mrs. Cratty as she clumped towards the front door clutching a carton of eggs. Toby had never been invited, never been allowed inside before—when nature called, he’d watered bushes out back, and once he’d gone to a public restroom at a nearby park. By the looks of the place, he hadn’t missed much.

  Mrs. Cratty led him through a dark-wallpapered parlor crowded with spindly antique tables, tarnished brass lamps, and plastic-covered couches and armchairs. They entered a kitchen in desperate need of modernization. The fake-marble linoleum floor was worn through to bare wood at the doorway and in other spots where foot traffic was heaviest. A clunky cast-iron wood-burning stove and a black pot holding split kindling stood away from a back wall made dingy by years of grease and smoke. Under the only window sat an old-fashioned porcelain double washbasin, chipped and stained with age, bordered by warped vinyl counters of indeterminate color.

  Toby set his burdens down on the scarred top of a wooden kitchen table and sat in a cushioned straight-backed chair to catch breath. The house reeked of lilac. No wonder: doily-decorated sachets hung everywhere, pumping out scent.

  Mrs. Cratty bustled about. She stood on tiptoe to cram cans into banks of tall cabinets. She bent with a groan to shelve perishables in the kitchen’s only new appliance, a refrigerator-freezer large enough to hold a month’s supply of food.

  “How was your trip to Oswego?” Toby inquired politely.

  “Not so good.” She stored gallons of chocolate ice cream beside whole chickens stacked like cordwood in the freezer compartment. “My daughter’s got big problems.”

  Toby didn’t want to hear about it—he had troubles of his own. But before he could deflect her onto another subject, Mrs. Cratty launched into a monologue. Toby learned more than he ever wanted to know about forty-seven-year-old Doris’ operations, her delinquent children, Al and Bea, and her good-for-nothing husband, Ed.

  When she finally paused for breath, Toby inserted, “That’s real interesting, Mrs. Cratty. But I’m kind of in a hurry.” He plucked at his paint-spattered coveralls. “I’ve got another job to get started on, so could we finish our business?”

  Mrs. Cratty’s seamed lips pinched together with displeasure at having her story interrupted. “I suppose so.” She stashed a huge jar of strawberry preserves and briskly brushed palms together. “Let’s look at your work.”

  With Toby at her elbow, she made a slow, silent circuit of the house exterior. Then they went back inside. Mrs. Cratty fetched a shopping bag-sized beaded purse from a gigantic walnut cabinet with dozens of compartments and drawers, and sat in a high-backed wing chair that engulfed her. Toby sank onto a striped velvet couch facing her. Its clear plastic cover made rude sounds beneath him.

  Mrs. Cratty fumbled with the catch of the purse on her lap. The bulging bag looked full and heavy. “Two thousand, wasn’t it?”

  “Three thousand.”

  “Three thousand?” She lasered Toby with a glare. “You wouldn’t try to take advantage of a helpless, forgetful old lady, would you?”

  Toby felt sweat gather on his upper lip. Damn it, he shouldn’t have listened when she’d said not to bother with a written estimate or a formal job contract. Why did people have to make it so hard for him to earn a living?

  “Don’t you remember?” he said, louder than necessary. “We talked about it before I started. You agreed to three grand for my work, a bargain at the price, if you ask me.”

  “Who’s asking?” She drew herself up primly. “You don’t have to shout, I have perfect hearing. My memory is excellent.” Her lips were a bloodless slash. “You seriously feel your work is worth that much?”

  “Look, Mrs. Cratty, I did the job just as you said, and—”

  “I shouldn’t have to pay for your mistakes, should I?”

  “What mistakes?”

  “That splash of paint on my front window, for example.” She pointed with a gnarled finger. Through gauzy curtains, Toby saw a pale streak on the glass. It looked like bird droppings. “I’ll have to hire someone to clean it off,” she said.

  It would take him five minutes to have the window sparkling again, but he was tired of Mrs. Cratty and her house and wanted to move on. Toby stifled a sigh, “I’ll knock off fifty.”

  “And there’s an unpainted spot under the kitchen window.”

  There was no such spot, he knew, because he took pride in his work. But he didn’t feel like arguing. “A hundred.”

  “And in back, where you were slopp
y painting trim.”

  The trim was perfect! The sigh slipped out. “Okay, twenty-seven-fifty. Final offer.” He’d be damned if he’d let himself be whittled away by this old lady.

  She thought about it while Toby squirmed on the crackling plastic. “That sounds more reasonable.”

  Mrs. Cratty opened the purse, removed crumpled wads of currency from the bag and painstakingly counted it. Though she dug deep, there was only about $1,700 in wrinkled ones, twos, fives, tens and twenties. She held out the mass of bills so Toby had to get up, walk over and take them. “I thought I had more in here.” She looked up with moist eyes. “I won’t receive my government check until the end of the month. I’ll need something to live on until then.” The old lady took back some larger bills, leaving $1,500 even, a wad of cash the size of a robin’s nest.

  “What about the rest of it? When do I get that?” Toby stood, staring her down. It was important he not blink first.

  “I can pay you in installments, perhaps fifty a month. Or—” She reached into the bag again. “Would you take these?” She held up two rolls of coins.

  “What are they?”

  “One hundred 1905 Indian head pennies in mint condition. They’re probably worth five dollars each, to collectors.”

  Toby accepted the pennies. “You’re still seven-fifty short.”

  “There’s this.” She opened a small manila envelope, tilted its contents into her palm. “A five-dollar gold piece. You could easily get three hundred dollars.”

  Toby took it. He also acquired other items as Mrs. Cratty produced them one by one, with appropriate flourishes, like a magician:

  • Four oversized $1 silver certificates patched with browned cellophane tape

  • A half-dozen fractional currency bills—holed, ripped, all with corners missing

  • Thirty dollars, in allegedly genuine Confederate money that looked suspiciously new

  • A handful of aluminum and brass foreign coins, and ten Liberty Head silver dollars

  • A thin silver ring set with what was purported to be an amethyst