Cannon’s Mouth
A Rafferty P.I. Mystery
W. Glenn Duncan
Contents
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Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 1 - Fatal Sisters
Chapter 2 - Fatal Sisters
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Then a soldier,
Full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard,
Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the cannon’s mouth.
— William Shakespeare, As You Like It
Prologue
Excerpt from COMBAT ACTION MAGAZINE, pg 79 …
Chapter 1
It was stinking hot in Dallas the week I followed a tobacco and candy delivery truck around town. The truck driver was a guy named Bartelles. He was either crooked or a born loser.
“Goddamnedest thing you ever saw,” Shanahan had growled. “Three times so far, and he’s due again, I’m telling you. Any day now that son of a bitch is gonna come in here with some song and dance about how he was mugged, or kids swiped product from the truck, or a pickpocket must have lifted the big wallet with the company cash. It’ll be bullshit, every word of it, but if I fire him, I’ll be up to my ass in union troubles. Unless I can prove he’s shitting me.” Shanahan leered at me over his Manager—Transport desk sign. “Go prove Bartelles is shitting me.”
I quoted Shanahan a flat price for a week-long tail, with a bonus for hard evidence. By three o’clock on the Tuesday afternoon I knew I’d screwed up. There should have been another zero on the end of that weekly rate.
We were downtown then, Bartelles and I, deep in the broiling bowels of the inner city. The sun was still high. And hot. There was no breeze. Rush hour loomed large on the automotive horizon. The Mustang’s air-conditioner was broken again. I had a soggy shirt-back, a knifing headache, and a helluva thirst, but nothing on Bartelles.
It was the kind of day they should videotape in living color and Sweat-O-Vision, and show it to anyone tempted to answer one of those BE A PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR! ads.
And what the day lacked in comfort, it more than made up for in boring. So far I’d watched Bartelles lug cartons of smokes and candy bars into maybe fifty grocery stores and newsstands and bars and bowling alleys and … you name it, we stopped there. The damnedest thing was, Bartelles was doing all the work, not me, but the heat didn’t seem to bother him. He was a short, jaunty guy who trotted everywhere.
Just one more day of this, I decided, or another three degrees. Either one, and I could learn to hate this guy.
On the fifty-first, or maybe it was the eighty-first, stop, I slipped into a loading zone half a block back from the parked tobacco truck. Up ahead bouncy little Bartelles rattled up the truck’s roller door and grabbed another box. He walked toward a hotel service entrance, moving first through a shimmer of heat haze, then out of sight. Abracadabra! And for my next trick …
I leaned forward slowly; my shirt came away from the vinyl seat-back with that slimy, cool pull that feels like it should make a loud noise. I creaked and grunted and levered myself out of the Mustang and trudged across the sidewalk to a postage stamp-size park wedged between two buildings.
Good move, Rafferty. A light breeze somehow meandered through the surrounding buildings and drifted through a shadow just my size. It was a good ten degrees cooler than the Mustang. Ahh, bliss.
I was not alone in the little oasis. There was also a man in a short-sleeved white shirt. He stayed out in the sun, the dummy, where he paced around in tight circles and glanced warily at me every five or six seconds. He had a rolled-up magazine in one hand. He alternated whacking the magazine against his leg and waving it around like he wanted me to notice it. Or notice him. He smiled at me. It was a nervous, hopeful smile.
I do not need this, I thought. Of all the things I definitely do not need, this is a biggie.
The man paced. I ignored him. I thought about cold beer and dinner that night with Hilda Gardner and how wonderful she looked whenever she—
“Great magazine, huh?” The man finally stopped pacing. He stood a careful six feet from me and held up his magazine like a talisman. Or a shield. It was one of those quasi-military magazines. They’re aimed at ex-soldiers, I guess, but I’ve always wondered how many of their readers are wannabees, guys who think they, too, could be a gen-u-ine hairy-chested mercenary soldier if only they could figure out which end of the gun goes bang.
“What do you think?” the man said. “Good ads, right? I think so.” He was forty-five, give or take, with a comfortable roll of fat around his middle and pale indoor-worker skin. He had thinning dark hair and a round chin. His hands shook; the magazine fluttered. He was sweating as much as I was, but I thought he had a different reason.
I glared at him. Okay, so it wasn’t my very best glare. I was tired and hot; it had already been a long day.
“Look, I’m sorry I’m late,” he said. His voice rose sharply at the end; he caught it, swallowed and started again. “I’m sorry. I was … detained. I’m not used to this.”
“How are you on busted noses?” I said. Talking to him was a mistake, I knew that, but I figured if I came on strong, he’d get the idea and take a hike. Then it suddenly occurred to me that he might grin and offer me money to beat him up. Uh-oh.
Neither of those things happened.
“Good,” he said. “You were right. In your ad, I mean. Aggressive. And look, never mind what I said; it’s all right about the price. I’ll pay it. I’m here, aren’t I?” His face clouded briefly, and he said, “You’re sure there won’t be any problems? I mean, for that much money, there shouldn’t be, but …”
Down the block the delivery truck wavered in the heat. There was no sign of Bartelles.
“No problems,” I said to the nervous man. I reached across my chest to peel the clammy shirt away from my left side. He jumped back a half step, then seemed to realize I wasn’t practicing my quick-draw techniq
ue. He sighed and came a little closer.
He dropped his voice to a hoarse whisper. “Okay, then. Thursday night. The day after tomorrow, if that’s all right with you. Make it look like a robbery. He’ll be alone. And for goodness sake, don’t do it if there are customers in the—oh, yeah, you wouldn’t want any witnesses, would you?”
I shook my head slowly and scowled. That felt good; the guy winced a little. Okay, the glare is out; the scowl is definitely in. I felt vaguely disassociated and tried to remember when I had last had anything to drink.
The man shuddered and turned his head away. “I just wish there was another way,” he said. “But like I said on the phone, I can’t think of anything. It’s gone too far. We’re about to go under. Without the cash from the keyman policy, I—” He braced himself and said harshly, “Just do it, all right? Do it.”
Then he turned and slowly walked in a circle until he was back where he’d started, facing me. “Only, uh, can you do it without hurting him? Well, I know killing him is … but … do you know what I mean?”
I showed him another scowl.
He sighed. “All right,” he said; then, “Oh, I almost forgot.” He reached into his shirt pocket, tugged at something, couldn’t get it free, dropped the magazine, picked up the magazine, and finally came up with a three-by-five index card. He handed it to me. His hand shook quite a bit now.
The card had an address written in pencil and a brief description of someone. Five nine, balding, long ears, bushy eyebrows.
“I wrote down what Max looks like,” the man said. “So you wouldn’t make a mistake.” Then he seemed to think about that and blurted, “Not mistake! I didn’t mean mistake. I just meant so … so you’d be … um, to help! I wrote it down to help you, that’s all.”
I scowled a third time. Hey, if something works, I stick with it. To go with the scowl, I tried for a voice somewhere between Jack Palance and Lee Marvin. “How do I reach you?” I said. My voice came out at least four tones too high; more like Jack Lemmon and Lee Remick.
“At the same number,” he said. “At least until Thursday morning. Uh, should we go now? Before someone sees us together?”
Oh, damn. Down the block Bartelles had returned. He was closing the truck door.
“Well, yeah, but …”
Bartelles sauntered around the truck and hopped into the cab. Why right now, for god’s sake?
“I’ll leave first,” the nervous man said. He peered around the corner, then scurried away. He kept close to the buildings and darted rapid glances over his shoulder every five or six steps. He blended in with the other pedestrians about like Dolly Parton in the Cowboys’ locker room.
But let’s face it, I wasn’t exactly Mr Cool myself. I followed the man for a few steps, then stood in the middle of the sidewalk with my head flopping back and forth. I didn’t know whether to stick with the man who wanted Max murdered or continue my tail on Bartelles.
Down the block, the truck wheeled into traffic with a blurt of diesel smoke.
In the other direction the nervous man scuttled around the corner.
Make up your mind, Rafferty.
Well, hell, I didn’t know who the nervous man was, but I knew where and when the hit was supposed to be. Whoever Max was, he’d be okay until Thursday night. The cops could take it from here.
Besides, I had a lot of sweat invested in the tobacco caper.
So I followed Bartelles.
When I screw up, I screw up big.
Chapter 2
Two cigarette deliveries later, Bartelles began to work his way out of the central business district. Way to go! We were going to beat the rush hour. Bartelles might be crooked, I decided, but he was no dummy.
We went up McKinney toward Lemmon. When we went past Gardner’s Antiques, I looked for Hilda. Too much sun glare; I couldn’t see anything through the shop windows.
The air coming through the Mustang’s lowered windows was warm and soupy, but it moved and that was a big improvement. So was a quart of orange juice I bought at a mom-and-pop grocery while my little buddy dropped off smokes at their competitor’s across the street.
It was still hot, but the sun had begun to lose some of its bite. And I wasn’t as dopey as I had been. The nervous man who wanted me to kill his employee or his boss or his business partner—whichever category Max fit into—seemed a trifle out of focus now. I decided I hadn’t played that encounter as well as I might have. At the time I was more strung out than I’d realized.
Dehydration, probably. Maybe I should carry a water jug on these summer stakeouts. And a bucket of ice to keep the water—or, hey, juice—cool. Better yet, an ice chest in the backseat, with a couple of six-packs—
And then we were on the move again, trundling up Lemmon Avenue toward Love Field.
Two more stops on Lemmon, then Bartelles turned left into a sparse industrial area. We made a series of turns that didn’t seem to be taking us anywhere logical. The truck slowed, sped up, then slowed again. I dropped way back now; this was no time to spook him.
Eventually the truck braked sharply and slewed to a sloppy stop, half-on and half-off the wrong side of the road. Bartelles got out, stood by the truck with his hands on his hips, and slowly looked around.
He had picked a good spot. A dozen scrub trees blocked the view from the north and west. The road ran south for fifty yards through open land, then turned east. The only structure with a view of Bartelles and the truck was a long, low, metal building eighty yards back.
That building faced away from Bartelles, and besides, it looked empty, possibly deserted. There were no windows in the back wall, only a stretch of corrugated iron with a single padlocked door. Empty asphalt, a loose jumble of rusty pipes, a stack of rotting pallets, and a big ABCO trash container.
The Mustang and I were hidden behind the trash container.
I had already taken two pictures of Bartelles by then, both of them reasonably tight and clear once the long lens of my dented old Minolta had dragged him up close to me. I snapped him again as he nodded his head twice and turned to stride briskly toward the stand of trees.
When I took the camera away from my eye, I couldn’t see him. There was too much contrast between the bright sun and the dark tree shadows. But he was still visible through the Minolta, and I clicked away steadily as he used his pocketknife to saw through his belt and free the chain connected to the large leather wallet that held the company money.
Bartelles put the cash in a plastic bag he took from his pants pocket, then threw away the wallet with an artistic flip of his wrist. Then he took off his shoes, walked gingerly to the far end of the small forest, and buried the bag of cash under loose dirt at the base of a tree.
When he’d walked just as carefully back to where he’d dumped the wallet, he ripped the front of his shirt and threw himself down on the ground. He rolled around in the dirt for a minute, scrunching his back against the ground like a dog. I fought ’em, boss. Like a tiger, I swear. But they were just too strong for me.
Bartelles got up, looked around, and found something on the ground, probably a rock. Whatever it was, he dragged it sharply across his forehead three times. He winced noticeably each time.
Finally he stood still for a moment, apparently thinking; then he let his shoulders sag, and he staggered out into the sunlight again.
It was quite a performance, well worth the full roll of thirty-six exposures I’d run through the camera.
By the time I’d followed the road around to the parked truck, Bartelles was standing in the middle of the road. When I stopped, he developed a bad limp and waved his arms feebly.
“Help,” he cawed. “I’ve been robbed.”
I leaned over and opened the passenger door. “Get in, Camille.”
He threw himself in, babbling about his ordeal, saying take me to the cops and oh, my Gawd and things like that. During all that he mopped at his gashed forehead with a handkerchief and made sure I noticed his grievous wound.
After fi
ve minutes, though, when I hadn’t said anything and had driven past two patrol cars, Bartelles pursed his lips and said calmly, “You wanna tell me what the fuck is going on here?”
“You’ve been a ba-a-a-d boy.”
“What are you, pal, a cop or something?”
“Private,” I said. “Shanahan will tell you all about it.”
“Shanahan! That bastard. Hired you to catch me, huh?”
“Yup.” Power repartee à la Gary Cooper.
Bartelles said, “You oughta know, pal, my brother-in-law is very big down at the local. Very big.”
“Yup.”
“You a union man, pal?”
“Federated Guild of Thugs and Leg-breakers,” I said. “I’m on the committee negotiating our new contract.”
“Get fucked,” he said.
“Good idea for a contract provision. It beats the hell out of overtime and sick pay. You think your brother-in-law could give us a hand with that?”
Our relationship soured after that. He didn’t call me pal again, for one thing. And he tried to kick me on the shin when I trotted him into Shanahan’s office.
Grinning, Shanahan offered him a quick way out with a hastily typed letter of resignation and confidential confession. Bartelles spit on Shanahan’s desk, so we did it the hard way.
Cannon's Mouth_A Rafferty P.I. Mystery Page 1