Carmody's Run

by Bill Pronzini

  She shifted again, and the bikini top pinched the skin along her back. Damn! She reached around and unfastened the catch, pulling the cloth away from her breasts. She didn’t need to wear the top, there was nobody around to see. It was so bloody hot!

  And this place... God, Allen had plunked them down in the middle of nowhere. This forsaken place was deep in the interior, miles and miles from Palma and civilization, where there were more farm animals than people. Santa Margarita, Alcudia, Arta... names that meant nothing, dusty villages no one in his right mind would want to visit, much less live in. The nearest one with a store—she couldn’t remember its name—was ten kilometers away, much too far to walk. Even in Puerto Pollensa there was nothing to do except eat awful food, drink gin-and tonics and have yourself a dip.

  Farmland and fig and almond trees, that was all there was to look at around here. And those ancient, crumbling rock walls that ran in all directions, climbing hillocks, disappearing into thick woods. Allen had told her they were constructed by the Moors centuries ago—as if she fucking cared.

  She looked at the farmhouse and yard with loathing. The stone-and-mortar house seemed to sag downward in the middle as if it would collapse any minute. It didn’t even have a door, just two dozen hanging strands of colored glass beads. Red earth... prickly pear cactus... a rotting wagon wheel and the remains of the cart it had come from... two stone outbuildings, two empty livestock corrals... and the well. You not only had to carry water inside in a wooden bucket, you had to work the windlass by hand. There was no electricity, and no indoor plumbing. The loo was an outhouse in back that stunk to high heaven.

  Allen had said they’d be safe here, that no one could possibly find them until they were ready to leave for the Caribbean. Well, he’d certainly been right about that. Not even God could find them in a bloody backwater like this.

  Abruptly Jennifer stood and went inside the house, where it was even hotter but at least not quite so ugly and depressing to look at. The owners had somewhere found a huge eagle-claw bathtub, and last night Allen had carried in several buckets of water from the well to fill it. The water was still in the tub—warm now, of course, and filmed with the red dust that seemed to cover everything in and out of the house, but at least wet. She went back there and took off the bikini briefs and got naked into the tub.

  She was a tall woman, with a model’s slender figure and a model’s clean, calculated movements. Her blond hair, the color and texture of corn silk, was clipped short, and together with round, wondering eyes, it gave her a young and innocent look. That too was calculated. She was still relatively young, at least in years, but she hadn’t been innocent in a long time.

  She had had her first sexual encounter at fifteen; and when she’d left school at eighteen she had become the mistress of the owner of a small modeling agency in London. Both men had been in their forties. She had always been attracted to older men. She had never known her father—he had left his family for a Cardiff bar girl when Jennifer was a baby and her mother had raised her alone, bitterly teaching her the untrustworthiness of men and the folly of love. Teaching her material gain as the key to happiness and security, because they were poor and she didn’t want her daughter to live the kind of life of privation that she had.

  The owner of the modeling agency had taught her, among other things, the love of fine clothing. But he wasn’t wealthy enough to give her all that she wanted, so she’d left him eventually with high hopes. With each passing year, the hopes had diminished. She wasn’t beautiful enough, nor educated nor clever enough, to link herself to the one man who could make her happy; she passed from hand to hand among the middle-aged, moderately well-off men of the fashion world, who gave her nothing more than minor material comforts and adequate modeling jobs in exchange for the enjoyment of her slender young body.

  She awoke one morning to the realization that she was twenty-seven years old, that there were tiny lines forming under her eyes, and that in another ten years, if she stayed in London under her present circumstances, she would be too old to be either a model or a mistress. The thought terrified her, the more so because it would mean she would one day die alone, bitter and unfulfilled, as her mother had died three years before.

  To the surprise of everyone, including herself, she had fled England and come to the Continent. She chose Spain because it was inexpensive, and Malaga because it was known as the Nice of the Spanish Riviera. She went with renewed hopes, but at the end of six months she had slept with four different men ranging in age from forty-six to fifty-eight, from four different countries, and each of them had been like the ones she had known in London—no wealthier, no more successful.

  And then she had met Allen.

  She was tired then, even more anxious; the last thing she’d wanted was an affair with a man who was even poorer than her usual conquests. But he was so gentle, so kind, so understanding... she’d given in in a moment of weakness. A few days later she’d broken it off. He’d begged her, desperately, not to; she’d been adamant. And in a rare moment of candor, she’d told him why.

  The next night he’d told her about the diamonds.

  She hadn’t felt shock or fear or any moral misgivings. Relief, at first, and then gratitude, and then exhilaration. If he did this thing for her, stole for her, would she come with him to some other part of the world, the Caribbean perhaps, and marry him? Oh yes, Allen, she’d said, yes—thinking about what the diamonds would buy, all the gowns and furs and security and happiness that would finally be hers.

  Lying in the dusty water of the tub, her eyes squeezed tightly shut, Jennifer thought of the diamonds again now. Allen had shown them to her the night he’d taken them twenty-five cut and polished, blue and yellow diamonds ranging in size from four to ten carats, valued on the open market at something more than two hundred thousand British pounds sterling.

  Her fingers tingled at the remembered touch of them. Cool, like ice —like glittering ice. Where had Allen put them? She wondered. He hadn’t told her and she hadn’t thought to ask. Well, he hadn’t taken them with him, she was certain of that. It would have been foolish to carry them around, and Allen was never -foolish. They were somewhere close by, here in the house. Not hidden; he wouldn’t have hidden them from her. They should be easy to find.

  Jennifer lifted herself out of the tub, not bothering to towel herself dry, and padded naked into the bedroom. She would find them, she thought, those beautiful diamonds, and then she would hold their coolness against her body, rub them over her breasts, let the icy feel of them soothe away the heat while she waited for Allen to come back...

  MONDAY AFTERNOON CARMODY

  The address the Dutch fence, Zaanhof, had given him on the phone surprised Carmody a little when he got there. It was a storefront on a middle-class neighborhood shopping street not far from the Oosterpark. A confectioner’s shop with a sign in the front window that said its specialty was hopjes coffee candy.

  He paid the taxi driver, stood with Gillian on one of the rijwielpads that ran alongside the motor lanes on most of Amsterdam’s streets: bicycles here outnumbered cars, trucks, and buses. At their backs, a glass-domed tourist boat drifted past on the sunlit Singelgracht Canal and there were people and geese under the sycamores on the canal banks.

  Gillian said, “What are we waiting for?”

  Carmody didn’t answer. He was peering across at the confectioner’s shop. After a couple of minutes he said, “You don’t know anything about this man Zaanhof?”

  “No, I told you, only that Virgil recommended him as being completely trustworthy. Why, what’s the matter?”

  “Maybe nothing. But hot-diamond merchants don’t usually operate out of candy stores in neighborhoods like this one”

  “Well, so what?” She toyed nervously with the silver bracelet on her left wrist. “You called somebody about Zaanhof, didn’t you?”

  “My contact never heard of him.”

  “That doesn’t mean anything, you said so yourself”
/>   “I said it didn’t have to mean anything. There’s a difference.”

  “Oh for God’s sake, can’t we just get this over with? If I’m not worried, why should you be?”

  “It’s one of the things you’re paying me for.”

  But there wasn’t any good reason to hold off. It was true that Van Hagen, his Dutch contact, had never heard of Zaanhof and had been unable to find out anything about him on short notice; and it was true that diamond fences didn’t usually work out of neighborhoods or businesses like the ones here. But neither fact was cause for alarm. Van Hagen didn’t know everybody operating in the Amsterdam underworld, particularly the small-timers and part-timers; Zaanhof might also be new at the trade, or working under deep cover for reasons of his own. Hell, it was a simple cash-for-merchandise transaction, wasn’t it? Why make something sinister out of it?

  Just get it done, he thought, and then hustle her back to the Beatrix to wait for Van Hagen’s man to deliver her new passport. If he brought it by six tonight, as promised, they’d be on the eight o’clock KLM plane for Dublin. On the flight up from Palma she’d told him she didn’t much care where she started her new life; he’d suggested Ireland and she said that was fine. Once he got her safely to Dublin, his job was finished and he could head back to Majorca. With any luck he’d be home two days from now. And shut of Gillian Waltham for good.

  Waiting with her at the hotel had been a trial for both of them. At his insistence they’d left their room only once, to take Sunday dinner in the Beatrix’s dining room; he’d had breakfast and lunch sent up both days. They rarely spoke to each other, and Gillian kept well apart from him whenever she could. The whole thing was pretty goddamned silly, as far as he was concerned. She was like a naive young bride pouting after her, first big marital row... an attitude that was in direct contradiction to the diamond run she’d made. He couldn’t figure her out and it bothered him. Being close to her, in private like that, bothered him too. In spite of what he’d told her, he wanted her body. She was a damned attractive woman for all her screwy ways...

  “Well?” she said irritably. “Are we going or not?”

  “We’re going.”

  Carmody took her arm, steered her across the street. At the door to Zaanhof’s shop he said, “I’ll do all the talking” and then led her inside.

  The place was well-stocked with chocolates and fruit drops and wafers, as well as hopjes candy; the combined smells reminded Carmody of a store in the San Francisco neighborhood where he’d grown up. There was nobody behind any of the glass-fronted cases, but a bell had gone off when they entered and it brought a round, pink, smiling little man out through a rear doorway.

  “Hello, hello,” he said, “welcome.”

  Carmody said, “Are you Zaanhof?”

  “I am.”

  “I’m Carmody. This is Gillian Waltham.”

  “A pleasure, mijnheer” He bowed to Gillian; his fat blue eyes caressed her body with approval. “Dear lady, a pleasure.”

  Gillian said nothing. Now that they were here she seemed nervous, tense.

  Zaanhof consulted a platinum watch on one wrist. “Exactly on time. Very good. I admire punctuality”

  “Yes? This is some place you’ve got here.”

  “Do you like it? I have a great fondness for candies of all types” He laughed and patted his round belly. “As you no doubt see for yourself.”

  “You don’t dress like a candy butcher.”

  “Butcher? Ah, you mean seller. Candy seller, yes. It is my assistant who sells the candy, you see. I have sent him away. He is not aware of my other, ah, interests.”

  Zaanhof laughed again, he liked himself a lot, this Dutchman He was in his fifties, with a face as smooth and innocent as a baby’s and graying hair barbered so short it was like a wool skullcap Oversized panda bear, Carmody thought, dressed in a dove-gray silk suit, pale yellow shirt, black bow tie. Cool, affluent, convivial—the trust-me image. Honorable dishonesty, served up with a smile. Carmody didn’t like him. He hadn’t liked the soft oily voice on the telephone, and Zaanhof in person was even less appealing.

  “You going to do business out here?” Carmody asked.

  “No, no. In my private office.”

  “Somebody else back there?”

  “No one. We are alone here.”

  “What if a customer comes in?”

  “Not to worry;’ the Dutchman said cheerfully. He went to the front door, locked it, then hung a placard in the window that told passersby the shop was closed. “Shall we, Herr Carmody? Dear lady?”

  The office he showed them into was small, dark, cluttered. Zaanhof sat down behind the desk, gestured for them to occupy the room’s other two chairs. Gillian took one of them; Carmody remained standing.

  “Now then” Zaanhof said. “To business. May I see the diamonds please, dear lady?”

  “Yes, certainly,” she said and looked at Carmody. He said to Zaanhof, “Have you got the money?”

  “But of course, Mijnheer.”

  “We’ll see that first. Then the diamonds.”

  “As you wish.”

  Zaanhof opened a bottom drawer, removed a cloth satchel, set the satchel on the desktop, and opened it.

  Carmody saw packets of U.S. currency, the top bill on each a hundred. Gillian, too, leaned forward to glance inside. Then she nodded and again looked at Carmody.

  “Count it out;” he told the Dutchman.

  She said with nervous anger, “Damn you, why do you have to make trouble now? I’m sure the money’s all there.”

  Carmody wasn’t. Any good fence would have had the cash ready in time for his customer’s arrival; Zaanhof hadn’t even had it yesterday, had made them wait until this afternoon. Things like that made Carmody suspicious. “Well, Zaanhof?”

  The Dutchman shrugged and said again, “As you wish.”

  He got to his feet, so casually and unhurriedly, his attention apparently on the satchel, that the sudden appearance of the gun in his hand took Carmody by surprise. Zaanhof must have had the small-caliber automatic in the desk drawer with the satchel, must have taken it out at the same time. Carmody’s hand went reflexively to his belt, even though it was too late by then; but he didn’t draw the Beretta. Zaanhof’s soft, oily voice stopped him.

  “No, no, Mr. Carmody. I wouldn’t like to shoot you but I will if you make it necessary. Believe me, I will.” Gillian said, “Oh, God,” moaning the words.

  Carmody said thinly, “What’s the idea, Zaanhof?”

  “The idea,” the Dutchman told him, “is that the satchel contains quite a bit less than one hundred thousand American dollars. You left me no choice.”

  “What happens now?”

  “First Miss Waltham will remove your weapon and give it to me. Dear lady, if you please.”

  Gillian was pale, frightened—but there didn’t seem to be much surprise in her. Nor any outrage. She got to her feet without looking at Carmody, used two fingers to lift the Beretta out of its holster. She handed the gun to Zaanhof and he made it disappear.

  “Does Mr. Carmody have the diamonds or do you?”

  “He does.”

  “Mijnheer, if you please”

  Carmody opened the top buttons of his shirt, pulled the chamois pouch over his head. Instead of handing over the pouch, he opened it and spilled the diamonds into his palm. Zaanhof didn’t object when he did that, or when he slapped them down on the desktop. The Dutchman scooped the gems up with his free hand, made them disappear too. He didn’t seem to notice that there were only four, not five, because Carmody had palmed the fifth. Gillian didn’t seem to notice either.

  “Behind you, to your left,” Zaanhof said then, “is a door. You will turn around, please, open the door, and step inside.”

  Carmody didn’t move. “You know who I am, Zaanhof?”

  “Naturally”

  “Then you also know my reputation. Nobody double-crosses me and gets away with it. Nobody. If you know what’s good for you, you’ll put
that gun away and start apologizing before it’s too late.”

  “Or use it on you, eh? Another alternative?”

  “Or use it on me,” Carmody said. “One or the other. If you lock me up and walk out of here with the money and the diamonds, you’re going to have to worry about me for the rest of your life. I won’t be far behind you no matter where you go, and when I find you—and I will, sooner or later—you’ll be one sorry son of a bitch.”

  Gillian made another moaning sound. But Zaanhof only shrugged. “The door behind you, Mr. Carmody. Now.”

  The door opened on a supply closet not much larger than a coffin and so cluttered there was barely enough room for Carmody to squeeze inside. The door was made of heavy wood. The latch was the old-fashioned kind that locked with a key; the key was in it.

  Zaanhof told Gillian to shut and lock the door. She came over and took hold of it, again without meeting Carmody’s eyes. In a voice so low he could barely hear her she said, “I’m sorry,” and then she shut him into darkness.

  It took Carmody more than an hour to get out of the closet. He’d have been in there a lot longer than that—he couldn’t get enough leverage in the cramped space to kick or batter the door down with his shoulder—if he hadn’t had his Swiss Army knife with him. At that, working blind in the dark, gouging out wood on the door and jamb so he could reach the latch bolt, he was lucky to escape as fast as he did.

  Zaanhof and the woman were long gone. Streaming sweat, Carmody quick-searched the office and the rest of the shop. He found nothing that gave him a lead to where Zaanhof lived or might have gone —if Zaanhof was the Dutchman’s real name, which wasn’t likely. One thing was certain: he didn’t own this confectioner’s shop. The owner was a man named Hubert Ten Eyck; there were papers to that effect in the desk.