Find Her a Grave

by Collin Wilcox

  “No.” It was an amused response. “No, Mr. Bernhardt. I’m not with the Mafia. That much I’ll tell you.”

  “You killed Fabrese at Fowler’s Landing. Then you left. You didn’t go for the jewels. You left.”

  “I prefer to operate in my own territory.”

  “San Francisco …”

  “Yes, San Francisco.” The speaker allowed a silence to pass. Then, in an aloof, supercilious voice he said, “You’re beginning to think, I can see that—put things together, make connections. Good. I prefer to deal with intelligent people. And you, obviously, are intelligent.”

  “And you’re an Oriental—an educated Oriental. Chinese, I think. And you’ve obviously got an organization. That makes you a local Chinese gangster.”

  “Ah …” The voice projected pleasure. “Ah, yes, that’s good. Very good. You have an educated ear, I can see.”

  “I’m an actor. My business is voices.”

  “An actor …” A moment’s silence. Then, plainly pleased, titillated: “San Francisco—there’s such a variety here. Don’t you agree?” It was a benevolent question.

  Suddenly overwhelmed by the incredible irony of a fortune in jewels lying at his feet while he made small talk with Paula’s kidnapper, Bernhardt began to slowly, helplessly shake his head. Was it denial? Desperation? Was it fatigue compounded by fear and shock and the terrible helplessness of abject indecision?

  Once more, the voice began: “You have a trained ear, Mr. Bernhardt. And I also have a trained ear. I can hear indecision in your voice, and weariness, too. You’ve had a very long night, and you’ve had a nasty shock, too. Therefore, I am going to hang up now. I’ll give you a few hours, so that you and Louise can make your decision. Then I’ll call you back, and we will make the arrangements. Perhaps you should try to get a few hours’ sleep. It’ll clear the mind.”

  “My mind’s clear. And I—”

  “There are two things to remember. First, don’t call the police, try to involve them. This goes without saying, especially since you would be in a very awkward position, trying to explain how you came into possession of a fortune that belongs to the Mafia. Don’t you agree?”

  Bernhardt made no response. Remarkably, standing close to the broken-out window, with a breeze blowing through the flat from the back door, he was unaffected by the gas. He put his hand over the phone, spoke to Tate: “Crusher’s in the back bedroom, out cold. Carry him in here, where there’s more air. See if you can help him get on his feet.”

  Tate blinked. “Crusher?”

  Suddenly furious, another irrational cheap shot directed at Tate, he came back angrily: “Crusher, goddammit.”

  Tate shrugged, laid the shotgun on the desk. After making sure that Bernhardt was aware of the sawed-off lying there, Tate left the room. He moved smoothly, alertly, as if he were integral to the whole: a jungle predator, gliding through the forest. Yes, this was Tate’s natural element: danger everywhere. Danger, and death.

  On the phone, the voice was saying, “The other point is, don’t try putting the jewels in a safe-deposit box, as you plan. That, I would consider a hostile act. Paula and Angela would suffer accordingly.”

  “You goddam—”

  “I should make it clear before I hang up,” the voice was saying, “that, whatever happens, I don’t plan to kill the women. That would be counterproductive. However—”

  “You son of a bitch, you’d—”

  “However,” the caller interrupted smoothly, “I’ll certainly disfigure them. As you’ve guessed, I have an organization. Which is, in this case, fortunate. Because I myself would be incapable of, let us say, chopping off a finger or two, and perhaps cutting off a nose. But I can assure you that I have people who—”

  Breathing hard, aware that he was trembling now, beginning to lose it, Bernhardt banged down the phone. Then, instantly, he realized that now he could not talk to Paula; he’d ruined his chances of talking to her. At the thought, he felt himself racked by a sudden sob.

  They were still in darkness; the entire flat was dark. The front door was closed now, and bolted. But the back door was open for ventilation. Now, carrying Crusher, Tate appeared in the doorway of the office. The dog’s head lolled, his legs flopped uselessly below Tate’s arms. Tate held the dog tenderly, gently.

  “There.” Bernhardt pointed to the floor close to the windows. “Put him there. And open the other two windows. Leave the drapes drawn, though.” As Tate obeyed, Bernhardt knelt beside Crusher. Was the dog still breathing? Yes: short, shallow breathing. Would there be brain damage, after being unconscious so long? Irrationally, Bernhardt wished he’d asked the caller how long ago they’d attacked. The vet would want to know.

  “Put the desk lamp on,” he ordered. When Tate obeyed, Bernhardt rolled back the dog’s eyelid. It was a useless gesture; he had no idea how the pupil should look. He lifted the limp head an inch from the floor and let it fall as he watched for a reaction. Had there been a blink? He lifted the head again, let it thump down again.

  Yes. Certainly it was a blink, an involuntary response to pain. Frantically, Bernhardt began slapping the dog on the head, the body, the rump. With every blow, there was a blink. And now, a miracle, there was a small whine, a protest. The Airedale’s eyes fluttered, finally came open.

  “Hey,” Bernhardt chortled. “Hey, it’s okay. He’ll be okay.”

  “Jesus.” In mock despair, Tate shook his head. Repeating: “Jesus. Dog lovers. You—”

  Struggling for self-control, choking on her sobs, Louise demanded, “What’re we going to do? Who was it on the phone? What’d they say? What’d they want?”

  Massaging the dog now, Bernhardt spoke over his shoulder: “They want the jewels. They’ve got Paula and Angela. And they want the jewels. Ransom, in other words.”

  “Chinese?” Tate asked. “Did you say Chinese?”

  Looking down at Crusher, who sighed once, contentedly, and then closed his eyes again, Bernhardt nodded. “Chinese gangsters. I’m almost sure.”

  “So what’ll we do?” Tate asked mildly. “What’s the plan?”

  “The plan,” Bernhardt said, shifting his gaze to the satchel. “The plan is to find out what’s in that canister.”

  3:15 A.M., PDT

  “MY GOD,” TATE BREATHED, “there they are.” An awed moment of somber silence passed. Then he murmured, “It’s like getting religion, something like that. Only better.”

  They stood staring down at Bernhardt’s desktop. The cut-open white plastic canister and the hacksaw Bernhardt had finally found in the basement lay together on one corner of the desk. Bernhardt’s papers and memos and mail had been stacked on another corner. Countless multicolored facets of hundreds of gems reflected light from the desk lamp, a foot-long swath scattered across the center of the desk. A dozen-odd gold coins were mixed with the jewels.

  “My God,” Tate whispered again, his voice still hushed. “Look at that, would you?”

  As if he were reacting to the tension that suddenly filled the room, Crusher lifted his head, blinked, tried to get to his feet. The forepaws were manageable, but the back legs were failing. With a sigh, the dog shook his head, let his front legs splay as he went back to sleep.

  “My God,” Louise echoed. “My God, look at them.” Hesitantly, she stepped forward until, with timid fingertips, she touched the jewels, finally using a forefinger to describe a small furrow from one end of the swatch to the other. Then, as if to give the others their turn, she politely stepped back.

  “You’d better put them away,” Tate said, “get them out of sight.”

  The words jolted Bernhardt back to reality, back to the terrible tyranny of the truth: the vision of Paula, a kidnap victim, held hostage by a smooth-talking Chinese who, most certainly, was capable of ordering her disfigured and then dumped out on the street, dazed and bleeding, marked for life—ruined for life.

  Carrying the .357, with the .38 still thrust in his belt, Bernhardt strode quickly down the long, narrow hall
way to the kitchen. He tested the strength of the chair that propped the back door closed. Then he opened an overhead cupboard and took out a brown paper sack and, an afterthought, a clear plastic grocer’s bag. He would order Louise to put the jewels in the plastic bag, which they would slip into the brown paper bag. Then, together, they would decide on a place of concealment, a place Louise could keep constantly in sight.

  4:20 A.M., PDT

  “LOUISE …” VEHEMENTLY, BERNHARDT SHOOK his head. “Forget it. I’m not going to call the police, just pick up the phone and call. Not until I’ve had a chance to talk to a friend of mine—a lieutenant, in Homicide.”

  “But—” She, too, was shaking her head, a blind denial of an impossible choice: a fortune that would keep her for life, in exchange for her only child, held hostage. “But we can’t just do nothing. We can’t—”

  “We’ve got to assume,” Bernhardt said, measuring every word for maximum impact, “that Mafia money bought that treasure. God knows, that’s what the police’ll assume. And the first thing that’ll happen, believe me, is that the police’ll confiscate the jewels. Then, sure as hell, while they’re conducting their investigation, they’ll pull my license. Then they’ll—”

  “If you won’t go to the police, then I will. I’ve got nothing to hide. Nothing.”

  “You might not have anything to hide,” Tate said, “but you’ve sure as hell got lots to lose.”

  Louise turned to stare at the big black man who still stood guard at the windows of the office, shotgun ready. “I’ve got a lot to lose either way,” she said bitterly. “Either I lose my daughter or I lose a million dollars.”

  Stoically, Tate refused to answer. Instead he looked away toward the street, slightly shrugging. For this kind of dilemma, these negotiations, Tate had no gift, no patience.

  “If you want Angela back,” Bernhardt said, “if that’s all that matters, then you’ve got to give up the jewels. There’s no other way.”

  Fixed on him, her eyes went blank, gave no indication that she’d heard.

  “If that’s what you want,” he said, “then that’s what we’ll do.” He let a beat pass, for emphasis. “We’ll do it. They’re going to call back, I don’t know exactly when. But when they do call, I’ll tell them we’re ready to do business. It’s up to you.”

  There was utter silence as both men watched the woman’s face, searching for a sign. When her face remained expressionless, a frozen mask of despair, Tate spoke softly: “How about you fudge a little, Louise?” As he spoke he looked pointedly at the paper bag filled with treasure. Louise was sitting on one of Bernhardt’s visitor’s chairs. The paper bag was on the floor beside her chair.

  Frowning, puzzled, Louise focused on the black man. Looking down at her, Tate smiled. It was a cheerful coconspirator’s smile, Tate’s particular gift. “You skim off a handful, give these bad guys what’s left. You take a handful, give Alan a few diamonds, who’s to know?”

  For a moment, their eyes fixed on Tate, Bernhardt and Louise speculated in silence. Then Bernhardt said, “There might be another way.” As he said it, he looked at his watch. The time was almost five o’clock.

  “Another way?” Louise’s voice was timid as she searched Bernhardt’s face for some faint sign of hope.

  Bernhardt spoke to Tate: “I’m sure this guy is Chinese. He practically admitted he was Chinese. And he spoke like an educated man. He’s obviously got an organization, and it’s odds-on he’s based in San Francisco.”

  “Yeah …” Plainly, Tate was intrigued, his thoughts racing ahead. But then he frowned, shook his head. “Those Chinese guys, though, they play for keeps. They’re smart, too. And they’re tight. Very, very tight. Your skin is the wrong color, you don’t get within miles of those guys. Which is why I never take a warrant on them. They just go to Chinatown, and they disappear. And nobody—nobody—can find them, not unless you’re Chinese. Believe me.” Tate shook his head. “Believe me, I know what I’m talking about.”

  “My point, though, is that there can’t be many guys in the Chinese underworld who answer this guy’s description. Maybe there’s only one.”

  “Yeah, well—” Tate shrugged. “Well, okay, you know somebody on the Chinatown detail, I suppose you could come up with a short list of names. But then what? You might get a name, and maybe you even get an address. But then what’d we do? Blast our way in, rescue Paula and Angela?” Grimly smiling, Tate shook his head. “I don’t think so.”

  “Still,” Bernhardt mused, “if we had a name, that’d be a start.”

  “When’s this guy going to call back?”

  “I’ve no idea. He said he’d give us time. He even said I should get some sleep. I don’t think he’s going to rush it. I get the impression he thinks time is on his side.”

  Tate glanced at his watch. “Four more hours and the banks’ll be open.”

  Grimly, Bernhardt shook his head. “No. If we do that—put the stuff in a safe-deposit box—then that’s the end. They’d start cutting on Paula and Angela. He said if we—”

  “They’re watching us, aren’t they? They’re out there somewhere right now, aren’t they?” Louise’s voice was cowed, trembling on the ragged edge of hysteria. Wide-eyed, blinking spasmodically, she was staring at the drawn drapes. A breeze was blowing through the broken window: a ghostly hand behind the drapes.

  When Bernhardt answered her, he spoke with grave deliberation, an attempt to steady her, force her to face facts. “They probably are out there, Louise. I’d be surprised if they weren’t. I’d also be surprised if your place isn’t bugged.”

  “But—” She frowned, a denial. “But one of us—either Angela or me—we’ve been home almost all the time, since Tony Bacardo came. No one could’ve gotten in to plant a bug.”

  “They don’t have to get inside. All it takes is a little luck.”

  “But—but I thought it was Profaci. I thought—” Suddenly she sharply shook her head. “Fabrese. Whatever his name is, I thought he told them what we were doing. I thought they were in it together, Fabrese and this other one. The Chinese.”

  “They probably were in it together,” Tate said. “Then, when the Chinese guy saw he didn’t need Fabrese anymore, he killed him.” He shrugged. “It’s called trimming the overhead.”

  Louise fixed her stricken stare on Tate. Accusing him: “You act like this is a joke, the way you talk.”

  Tate made no reply, gave no sign that he’d heard. Instead, cradling the shotgun, he turned again toward the street, listening. From outside came the sound of an engine: a car, going down the hill. In the silence that followed, Bernhardt leaned back in his desk chair, let his eyes close. Instantly the images began: Paula, bound to a chair, with one arm free. They would be in a damp, musty brick basement in Chinatown. She would be seated beside a small wooden table. Overhead, a single bare light bulb hung from a cord cast a cone of light on Paula and the table, leaving the rest of the room in shadow. Now her tormentor—the man on the phone—stepped out of the shadows to stand close to the table, looking down on Paula. Then two other figures materialized out of the gloom: two men, both Chinese. One of the men held a hatchet. Impassively, he advanced on the helpless woman, grasped her free arm. He began—

  “—got to give it to them,” Louise was saying. “Angela—I can’t risk it, having Angela hurt. I’ve got to give it to them.”

  Bernhardt looked at Tate, a long, searching moment. Then, in unison, both men turned to face Louise. Under their scrutiny, she drew herself up, squared her shoulders, brought her knees together, clasped her hands in her lap, lifted her chin a defiant half-inch. Saying again, firmly: “I’ve got to give it to them. Angela—I’ve got to do it for Angela. If they hurt her, ruin her looks, I could never live with myself. Angela’s only twenty. She—she’s got her whole life to live. She—” As if she were confused, Louise broke off, dropped her eyes, let herself go slack in the chair. Then, in a dull, defeated monotone, as if she were confessing to something shameful, she said, �
��All my life, I heard Carlo Venezzio. That’s all I heard. But only in whispers. My father—” She said it as if it were an obscenity. “God, what is it, being a father? A couple of times a year, without even telling us he’s coming, he drives up to the house in a Cadillac. He tells the driver and another guy riding in front to stay put. Then he gets out of the car, all smiles, carrying a goddam stuffed animal. Is that being a father? A million dollars’ worth of jewels and gold stuffed into a sewer pipe—is that all there is?”

  “Well,” Tate said, “it all depends on where you’re sitting, Louise. My neighborhood, where I grew up, they’d think they were in heaven, living your life.”

  Once more she stared at Tate, her face unreadable. Then, exhausted, she dropped her eyes. Muttering: “I’ve got to get some sleep. Whatever happens, I’ve got to get some sleep.” She looked down at the paper sack, on the floor beside her chair. She seemed to study it for a moment. Then, as if she were deeply reluctant, she picked up the sack, folded it over, and rose to her feet. “I want to go to the bathroom,” she said. “Then I’ve got to go to sleep.”

  “Sure.” Bernhardt stepped out into the hallway, pointed out the bathroom and the guest room. “That’s where Angela was sleeping when—” Angry with himself, he broke off, waited for her to use the bathroom. When she reentered the hallway he smiled, took her into the bedroom. The pattern of the blankets clearly showed where Angela had lain. Even though the bedroom window was closed, there was almost no odor of tear gas.

  “Shall I open the window?” he asked. “For ventilation?” Then, reading her hesitation, he said, “There’re stops, so it’s impossible to open the window more than six inches at the top and bottom. Also, it’s on an airshaft.” When she nodded hesitantly, he opened the window, wished her well, and closed the door. He went into the office, stood for a moment looking down at Crusher, who still slept. Bernhardt bent down, lifted the dog in his arms as he spoke softly to Tate: “Let’s go back to the dining room.”

  “Right.” Tate switched off the light in the office, checked the chair jammed against the front door, and followed Bernhardt down the hallway. Once in the dining room, Bernhardt bent down again, put Crusher on his feet, tried to hold the dog steady, standing on all four paws. The dog sagged; his legs began to splay. His eyes were glazed, half open.