Primed for Murder

by Jack Ewing

  Outside, a door slammed. Footsteps sounded again, coming closer. There was a click and the trunk lid popped open. A little interior bulb, like a refrigerator’s, lit up, making Toby squint.

  A large, wide man wordlessly reached in to drag him out.

  Night had come, but light fell from a huge stone house twenty feet away. Toby, blinking in subdued illumination that seemed awfully bright after the absolute darkness of the car trunk, recognized the place: Giambi’s residence in Cazenovia. Its long driveway descended gently towards the darker bulk of the high wall fencing in the property.

  The large, silent man clamped a big hand on Toby’s left arm and propelled him towards a side door. Inside, Toby got a good look at the man with the vise-like grip. His close-cropped head, the size and shape of a bowling ball, seemed to sit directly on the massive shoulders of a barrel-like body. A single bushy eyebrow sheltered a pair of dark, piggish eyes above a lump of nose and fleshy lips. The man was 6′5″ and 350 pounds if he was an ounce. Toby felt small beside him.

  They passed an opening of a huge, tile-floored kitchen. Dezi, in tan slacks and white blouse, sat hunched at a breakfast bar, talking with a chunky, pleasant-faced, gray-haired woman wearing a flowered dress. Her mother? Preoccupied with their hushed conversation, the two women did not notice Toby and his escort glide by.

  The large man shouldered Toby through a couple turns. They marched along a wood-paneled hallway hung with matted watercolors and pen-and-ink drawings framed in brushed chrome. After thirty feet, the hallway opened into a vaulted-ceiling area with clusters of furniture spaced here and there. One whole wall was a fieldstone fireplace, the opening high enough for Toby’s guard to walk into without ducking his head. Two walls held arrangements of oil paintings: abstracts over here, flanking floor-to-ceiling bookcases, a couple nudes across the room. The fourth wall, facing the lake, was all glass.

  Artie, now dressed in a dark suit, and another man stood there, staring out at the night and conversing in low voices. A third man, small, and old, was just hanging up a phone beside a doorway in one wall. They all turned as Toby was steered to the middle of the room. The hulk backed off a few yards while Artie and the others drifted over.

  The man on the phone was a small, dapper fellow with a bulbous nose, protruding, pouched eyes, a face full of wrinkles and saggy jowls like a bloodhound. A liver spot showed at the edge of sparse, steel gray hair. Toby had seen him in Dezi’s wedding photos.

  The other stranger could model as a movie vampire. An inch or two shorter than Toby, he looked taller, thanks to a blade-thin nose on a narrow, long-jawed face, topped by a piled-high, swept-back haircut that emphasized a deep widow’s peak. The man’s slender neck and long, tapering fingers accentuated his slim figure.

  The three men formed a loose semicircle around Toby. The thin man studied Toby like a shark deciding where to bite. His black eyes were fathomless. “Artie says you’ve got something that doesn’t belong to you.” The dry, unemotional tone confirmed he was the man whom Toby had overheard talking to the Puterbaughs: Leo.

  “I could say the same,” Toby nodded at the old man, “about Mr. Giambi.”

  Leo’s bony fingers whipped out and cracked across Toby’s mouth. “Did anybody ask you to speak?”

  Giambi raised a hand. Leo moved back. The old man shuffled forward, squinting at Toby. “Do I know you?” His wheeze sounded as bad as Randy Rew’s at the end.

  Toby felt blood trickle from a cut lip and licked it. “We’ve never been introduced.”

  “How do you know my name?”

  “I’ve heard it around.”

  “Why do you want to cause trouble for an old man like me?” Giambi came within a few feet to peer up into Toby’s face. Close-up, he smelled like a pile of dead leaves despite subtle cologne. Nice suit, though. Toby felt underdressed in coveralls.

  “I’m not trying to cause trouble for anybody, especially you, Mr. Giambi. Things just happened. Like the murder I witnessed at the Puterbaughs.”

  The old man shot Artie a poisoned glance and the hit man cringed. “That was unfortunate. Unnecessary.”

  “Should have kept your beak out of our business,” Leo said. “But you had to call the cops.”

  “If I hadn’t gone to them, they’d have come to me.”

  “They wouldn’t have known about it at all without you telling them.” Leo crossed his arms. “The problem would have been taken care of clean as a whistle otherwise.”

  “Bull!” Toby said. Leo glared, ready to lash out again, but a glance at Giambi stayed his hand. “The cover-up was as clumsy as the murder. Couldn’t you find a better place to park a body than my truck?”

  “Your truck?” Giambi rounded on Leo. “Is this true, Tombs? You involved an outsider in our business?”

  Leo shrugged. “The boys I sent to handle the cleanup didn’t follow orders. They ad-libbed. I have to work with idiots.”

  “So do I, it seems,” Giambi muttered.

  “Do you blame me for getting pissed about being saddled with a dead man?” Toby said to the old man.

  “No. I completely understand the concept of revenge.”

  Giambi’s eyes darted to the slab of beef hovering in the background. “Give me your knife.” The hulk instantly handed over a lock-back with a four-inch blade snapped open. Toby tensed as the old man slipped behind him, then relaxed when he realized Giambi was only cutting the ropes binding his unfeeling wrists. Giambi handed the knife back to its owner, who folded the blade and dropped the weapon into a pocket. “Gino, bring a wet cloth so Mr. Rew can clean himself.”

  Gino trotted away and hurried back, handing Toby a warm, soaking washcloth. He swabbed his face, gingerly washing a cut over his ear. The cloth came away streaked with blood and he gave it to Gino, who ran away to dispose of it.

  “Then it turns out the dead man is a Mexican government bigwig,” Toby said.

  “Yes,” Leo said, “a man named Revuelto.”

  How did he know? Toby wondered. “Then,” he said to Giambi, “your daughter’s brought into the picture.”

  “You know my daughter? From what Artie tells me, Desdemona knows lots of men, the slut!”

  Giambi reached into a suit pocket and flung a handful of postcard-sized color photos to the floor. This one showed Dezi and Mark grappling naked in the tub. In that one they’d been discovered. Mark’s face was blank, while Dezi’s was contorted, mouth open in the beginning of a scream or curse.

  At one side of the group staring down at the pictures, Artie couldn’t hide a smirk.

  “I don’t know her that way.” Toby glanced sidewise at the runty hit man. “She hired me to paint her house.”

  Giambi fingered his sagging jowls. “How’d she know about you?”

  “The Puterbaugh woman could have told Dezi, Mr. G.” Artie got in another dig at his wife. “They’re pals.”

  Giambi shook his head emphatically. “She would have said so when we talked. She and hubby told us everything else.”

  “I recommended Mr. Rew to her.” Leo smoothed an eyebrow with his pinky. “I figured it would be good to keep tabs on this guy, find out how much he knew.”

  “Except the cops got to him first and through him they kept tabs on us.” Giambi’s voice was a soft growl, like a dog’s warning. He crooked a finger at Artie, who reached into a pocket, brought out a folded piece of paper, opened it and displayed on his palm the telephone bugs Toby had planted. Each had been hammered flat. “You brought a scorpion into the house, Leo,” the old man said.

  Leo’s forehead gleamed with perspiration. He opened his mouth to offer excuses but Toby fired off another round first.

  “That’s not all he did. Leo also arranged to have my apartment firebombed. He got an innocent person killed and made the police really sit up and pay attention.” Toby was fighting for his life, so there was no reason to hold back, no reason to stop shooting just because the enemy was wounded.

  “Was that your work, too?” Giambi’s voice was ominous
ly quiet. “You did that without consulting me first? And you bungled the job?”

  Leo tried to speak but the old man didn’t give him a chance. “I’m very disappointed. Get out of my sight. You go, too, Artie. Wait for me in the conference room. I’ll deal with you both later.” The thin man and the squat man slouched away, looking nervous. Toby didn’t blame them.

  Giambi said, “Let’s talk.” He walked Toby to a nearby seating group. They sank into comfortable adjacent armchairs. Gino waited nearby, out of earshot. “Tell me about this evidence you claim to have.”

  “I have a copy of Puterbaugh’s dissertation about the codex tucked safely away,” Toby opened, rubbing his wrists where rope had chafed.

  “Puterbaugh said he didn’t make a copy.”

  So Toby explained about the second sheets and how he’d brought the type back to life. He gave enough facts about the manuscript to prove he was telling the truth. He embellished the tale by hinting he’d found Artie’s fingerprints on the papers. “That ties Artie to the codex and a dead man, and he’s tied to you.” Giambi tugged on a lower lip that already drooped from gravity. “I’ve seen photos of the codex, too,” Toby added. “I know where they are.”

  “I’m sure Professor McFarland still has them, wherever he may be.” Giambi started a chuckle that degenerated into a hacking cough. Gino rushed over to thump him on the back but the old man waved him away.

  “Puterbaugh told us about McFarland, of course. But the professor had left for parts unknown by the time someone was sent to his home. It was thoroughly searched, but nothing was found. Somehow, the house burned down.” Giambi plucked a speck of lint from his pants leg. “Probably faulty wiring.”

  Toby felt sick, thinking about that old home, salvaged once from demolition, now a pile of charcoal.

  “I’m debating whether or not it’s worth the time and cost to find him.” Giambi glanced at Toby. “You know where he is?”

  To avoid lying, Toby countered the question with one of his own: “What did you do with the Puterbaughs?”

  “You should worry more about your own skin, young man.”

  Giambi’s protruding brown eyes fixed on Toby’s face and the harshness of his words cancelled his earlier solicitousness. “I have people who can make you talk. You might lose an eye, an ear, toenails, teeth or something else you value before you open up—I don’t know how tough you are. Sooner or later, you’d tell us what we want to know. You’d tell us everything you ever knew.” The words were frightening because they were said so matter-of-factly. “And when you’re wrung dry, I can make you disappear.”

  Giambi snapped dry fingers. “Like that.”

  “I don’t doubt it. But that won’t solve your problem.” He locked gazes with the old man. “I made arrangements with the police after my apartment burned.”

  Giambi shook his head. “I’d have heard from cops on my payroll.”

  So that was how he knew so much! “This was secret. The police know right where to find Puterbaugh’s manuscript, so it doesn’t matter what you do to me.”

  Giambi reached into a coat pocket, produced Toby’s keys and selected a small one. “You have it in a safe deposit box. I have several, too, so I recognize the keys. It’ll take some work but we’ll find it. Maybe after a little persuasion, you’ll help us.”

  “If I go missing, if anything happens to me, the cops will still trace robbery and murder back to you.” Desperation filtered into his voice. “I’ll laugh at you from my grave when they sentence you to life in prison.” It was all a bluff. Toby hoped Giambi wouldn’t call him on it.

  After a long moment, the old man caved in first. He re-pocketed the keys, leaned back in the chair, his eyes lidded. “It used to be simpler in the old days, when I ran the business.” He sighed. “Now I have to rely on other people to do the job.”

  “And they’re not so reliable.” Toby relaxed a notch.

  The two men shared a wry smile. “Let’s not trade threats any more, okay?” Giambi said. “Mine’s bigger than yours.”

  Giambi climbed brusquely out of the chair. “Come, let us talk and walk.” He slid part of a glass wall aside, letting night air in. Shadowed by Gino, Toby followed the old man outside. The three men trooped across a broad wooden deck, clomped down a long flight of stairs and reentered the house through a rear ground-floor door. They went down a dozen concrete steps into a basement utility room, a virtual power plant with gas and coal fired furnaces, and huge gas-engine compressors to provide electricity in case of an outage. Through another couple doors and they were into a room running the width and two-thirds the length of the house. It contained gray leather seating groups, glass-and-chrome tables, Art Deco lamps, large potted plants and Oriental carpets over a polished black granite floor. At a discreet distance from the conversation pits, a full-size pool table glowed under Tiffany-style hanging lamps. A bar dominated one mirrored wall. On the opposite wall, ten-foot-long salt-water aquariums filled with colorful and exotic-looking fish flanked a big-screen television-stereo setup.

  Giambi took a remote control device from the top of a tall speaker beside the TV and thumbed the ON button. The screen lit up and a larger than life-sized woman was pitching a brand of noodles. The old man punched 888 on the buttons. The screen went blank. Across the room, a mirrored panel swung open, revealing a small, square space.

  “Melodramatic, no?” Giambi stepped towards the little room. “A holdover from speakeasy days. Something my father taught me.”

  Toby, urged by a prod from Gino, followed. It wasn’t a room but an elevator large enough for a half-dozen normal-sized people. The space seemed crowded with Gino, who had to duck his head to enter. The big man pulled the steel-reinforced mirrored panel closed and soft lights came on in the ceiling. Giambi punched a code on a numbered box set into a wall and the open portal of the elevator began to descend smoothly past featureless concrete.

  “You should feel privileged,” Giambi said. “You’re about to see something few other outsiders have glimpsed.”

  Toby wondered if he’d live to tell about it.

  The lower the car sank, the more agitated the old man became. By the time the elevator eased to a halt, his foot tapping had become a jig and his fingers twitched as though he had hold of the wrong end of a stun gun. The door opened onto a small wood-paneled enclosure. Giambi rushed out to attack a combination dial on a brushed-steel door that took up most of the opposite wall. “This setup cost a fortune to build, back when a dollar was worth one hundred cents,” he said over a shoulder. He clicked the last number into place and tugged on a handle. The door, nearly a foot thick, easily swung open. At a ninety-degree angle from the opening, it locked into place.

  Giambi patted the steel slab. “This will withstand almost anything short of a direct hit with a nuclear warhead.” The old man flipped a switch, illuminating a bank of dials and gauges, and revealing a second steel door nearly as tall and wide as the first.

  “Climate-controlled.” He peered at a meter. “Accurate to a tenth of a degree between minus 30 degrees and 180 degrees Fahrenheit, and to one-half percent of humidity.” Satisfied the readings were correct, he pulled a large chrome key from a pants pocket and inserted it into a slot in the middle of the door. The door sighed open. The three men entered a circular room with a fifty-foot diameter and a high domed ceiling decorated with a gilded sun-symbol. The walls were of dark-gray polished granite interrupted by a yard-wide band of flush-mounted lighted glass cases around the circumference of the room. The floor was polished black granite. In the center of the room was a raised, carpeted platform on which rested a number of well-padded chairs where visitors could view displays in comfort. It was cool in the room and the air was dry.

  Toby started when the heavy door began to swing shut of its own accord. “Relax.” Giambi chuckled. “It’s necessary to keep the door closed to maintain the integrity of the atmosphere. We can always get out.” The old man hooked a small hand about Toby’s elbow and together they strolled ar
ound the room’s perimeter.

  Gino camped by the door. He wore the expression of a man who had seen it all before and wasn’t that impressed the first time around.

  Giambi gave a running commentary as they passed displays, each arranged in a tableau evocative of the period.

  “This is a real prize,” the old man said as they approached a window. Behind the glass sat a slab of black rock with figures incised on its smooth, dark side, half-buried in sand beside a set of human-headed canopic jars. “You’ve heard of the Rosetta Stone Napoleon found when he invaded Egypt? The single most important object in helping translate hieroglyphics?” It didn’t mean anything to Toby, but he nodded nonetheless. “This is a duplicate he didn’t find, completely intact, in much better shape than the one in the British Museum. That rock cost me four hundred and fifty grand, not including shipping, and would be worth fifty times that, if I wanted to sell—which I don’t. I call it the Giambi Stone.”

  The next niche held a scroll swaddled on crimson velvet between an ancient stylus and inkwell. The brittle papyrus had been partially unrolled to reveal lines of Greek text and hand-drawn illustrations of plants. One edge of the fiber looked scorched.

  “Ever heard of the Library at Alexandria?” Giambi asked. Toby shook his head. “Two thousand years ago, it was the repository of all the world’s knowledge. Then one day, it burned to the ground.” He nodded at the scroll. “This is one of a handful of books known to have survived the fire. A book about medicine, hired experts tell me, unknown to the world. Maybe the cure for cancer or the common cold is in there. Cost three-quarters of a mil.”

  They made a slow circuit of the entire room.

  There was an early proof of the Gutenburg Bible with handwritten marginal notes by the maker showing where corrections should be made—price tag: two million dollars.