Carmody's Run

by Bill Pronzini

  “I... I won’t.”

  “Fine. Now where’s Zaanhof?”

  Words seemed to clog in her throat. Her lower jaw began to tremble; then her eyes filled and spilled over.

  Carmody put the Beretta away. He said tonelessly, “Tears don’t work on me, sweetheart. I want answers and I want them straight and fast, without any crap. Where’s Zaanhof?”

  She coughed, swallowed, got the words unstuck. “I...don’t know. I don’t know where he is.”

  “The two of you went where from Amsterdam?”

  “Here. Malaga.”

  “Then what?”

  “He left me at the airport. And I came... straight here. I had a place of my own but I gave it up last week. I was... I am going home to the States—”

  “Yes? Does Zaanhof live in Malaga?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “What’s his real name?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You’re lying.”

  “No, I swear, the only name I know him by is Zaanhof.”

  “What does he do for a living?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Who paid him to set me up with those fake diamonds?”

  “I don’t know”

  “What’s behind it all? Why did he want you to keep me occupied for two days in Amsterdam?”

  “It was only supposed to be one day.”

  “Why did it turn out to be two?”

  “Zaanhof didn’t tell me why.”

  “The purpose,” Carmody said. “What was it?”

  “I don’t know”

  “Bullshit”

  “It’s the truth!”

  “Is it? You don’t know anything about Zaanhof, who he is or who he works for, but you helped him set up this whole phony deal. Explain that.”

  “The money... he offered me money...”

  “How much money?”

  “Two thousand dollars. He knew I needed the money to get home, I ran out of money and I... it seemed like such a simple thing... he knew I’d had acting experience too, that I’d been in the south of France trying to get into foreign films...”

  There was a rising inflection in her voice, the stirrings of hysteria. Carmody went over and caught her arm and shook her a little, but that only added to her fright. She cringed away from him, as if she thought he was going to start beating on her. He released her arm, backed up a couple of paces.

  “Calm down, I’m not going to hurt you.” He gave her time to realize that he meant it, to get her breathing and her emotions under control. Then he said, “Nice and slow now. How did Zaanhof know you needed money, that you’re an actress?”

  He said he’d... he’d heard about me from a mutual friend.”

  “What mutual friend?”

  “He wouldn’t say. He insisted it didn’t matter”

  Carmody said, “So Zaanhof offered you two thousand dollars to play a part. That’s all?”

  “Yes.”

  “When did he make the offer?”

  “Last week... Thursday.”

  “What did he tell you it was all about?”

  “A harmless ruse, he said. It wouldn’t be dangerous and there wouldn’t be any trouble.”

  “He gave you all your lines, told you exactly what to do?”

  “Everything, yes. We rehearsed it several times to be sure I knew what to say, and he changed some things; he said you’d ask a lot of questions and the story had to be convincing. When you went through my things in the hotel and found out I hadn’t come from Spain I just... I ad-libbed about the industrialist being Spanish instead of French.”

  “Who made up Virgil Franklin, Zaanhof or you?”

  “He did.”

  “Los Alvarez is real.” Carmody said.

  “Yes, Zaanhof told me he was.”

  “But you don’t know him?”

  “No. I’ve never even been to Barcelona.”

  “Talk to him? Or did Zaanhof make all the arrangements with Alvarez?”

  “Zaanhof did.”

  “He give you the diamonds too?”

  Gillian nodded. “Just before I left for Majorca. I gave him one of my bras the night before and he had them sewn into it. I never saw the diamonds until you cut them out in Amsterdam.”

  “He tell you they were imitations?”

  “Only after we left you in that candy shop. I believed they were real before that—he wanted me to believe they were real so I’d be more convincing with you. That’s why I didn’t want you to keep them, why I... made a fuss. I didn’t want to be held responsible if anything happened to them.”

  “Did you know he was going to pull a gun on me in the shop? Lock me in the closet?”

  “No! That wasn’t part of the Script.”

  “What was supposed to happen?”

  “He’d give us the money in exchange for the diamonds and we’d leave. Then I was supposed to slip away from you at the airport, with the money, and return it to him later on.”

  “Why didn’t he work it that way?”

  “He said he couldn’t raise a hundred thousand dollars and he had no choice. But I didn’t believe him. I think the real reason is that he didn’t trust me to return the money to him.”

  “He should have trusted you,” Carmody said. “And he should have believed me when I told him he was going to be a sorry son of a bitch.”

  “He didn’t seem worried about you at all:’ Gillian said.”

  “That’s his second mistake.”

  Carmody was satisfied that she had no idea why the Dutchman and whoever he was working for had gone to such elaborate measures. She was a pawn, all right—young and foolish and gullible. Zaanhof was the one with the answers. It was Zaanhof he had to find, and the way it looked now, the easiest way to do that was to find José Alvarez first.

  Gillian asked in a small voice, “What are you going to do to me?”

  “Don’t be any dumber than you are,” Carmody told her. “What would I do to you? I don’t hurt little girls.”

  “I’m not a little girl–”

  “Unless” he said, “they lie to me. But you haven’t lied to me, right?”

  “No,” she said.

  “I hope not. For your sake.”

  Carmody backed over to the door, took off the chain. He said sardonically, “Don’t take any more acting jobs from strangers.” and opened the door and went out.

  Across the street from the apartment building was an open-air bar. Carmody paid a hundred pesetas for the use of their telephone. The savage midday heat sucked sweat out of him as he dialed a local number, spoke briefly to a man called Flores. He’d gotten Flores’ name and number from Moncada, his Madrid contact, who had assured him Flores could be trusted and would be available if he needed any help.

  Flores said it would take him twenty minutes to get to Calle Villalonga. Carmody rang off, sat at one of the interior tables that let him have an unobstructed view of the apartment complex. Two young women came out while he nursed a bottle of San Miguel; neither was Gillian Waltham.

  At the end of twenty minutes, a small Seat pulled up outside and a slick-haired Spaniard in chinos and a striped T-shirt got out and came into the bar. He showed Carmody his teeth. “I am Flores, señor;’ he said as he sat down.

  Carmody folded five thousand-peseta notes lengthwise. He said, “There’s a girl in that building across the street,” and described Gillian Waltham. “If she comes out, you follow her. If she heads for the airport, let her go but find out what flight she’s leaving on. If she goes somewhere else, follow her until she stays put and then leave a message for me at American Express Another thing watch who goes into the building, and if you see a short, fat man with woolly gray hair, wait until he comes out and follow him. You got all that?”

  “Si, I have it, señor.”

  “Read it back to me”

  Flores read it back, almost verbatim. Carmody slid the thousand-peseta notes across the table, got on his feet, and went out again into the vampiric heat
.

  TUESDAY, LATE MORNING SILVERA

  The blond Norwegian girl rolled over in bed, drew the sheet away from her nude body, and watched Silvera with half-lidded eyes. “Diego:’ she said sleepily, “come and make love to me again.”

  He had just stepped out of the bathroom, a hotel towel tied around his waist. He looked at the girl, whose name was Brita, and said, “You were not satisfied last night and this morning?”

  “Such a question!”

  “And still you want more?”

  “From you, Diego, oh yes.”

  Silvera laughed, went to where his carry-all rested on the luggage rack. He took out a fresh off-white gabardine suit, a dark blue shirt, a change of underwear and socks. Behind him, Brita said his name again, but he had forgotten her for the moment; he was thinking again of his telephone conversation with the patrón yesterday afternoon.

  He had altered the details of Fanning’s death to protect himself. But the patrón had gone into a rage anyway, shouting invectives like a child having a tantrum. He refused to listen to excuses, he wanted results, he wanted his diamonds! And so today he was flying to Majorca to take charge of matters personally.

  That was fine with Silvera. He was no detective, he was not being paid to think, he had no idea how to go about finding Jennifer Evans. He did not know what she looked like; Fanning had carried no photographs in his wallet. There were thousands of hotels and pensions inPalma and the other island towns, as well as a great many private dwellings available on short notice; he could not canvass all of them, it was an impossible task. No, he would bring the diamonds, he would kill Jennifer Evans if it was required, but let the patrón decide how they were to be found.

  After the call, he had driven Fanning’s 600 Seat to a parking lot on the Borne and then taken a taxi out to the Calvia-Capdella Road. From there he had walked up the lane to Carmody’s villa and retrieved his 1200 sedan. Back in Palma, in his room at the Melia Mallorca, he had bathed and changed clothes with a growing restlessness. He knew the restlessness for what it was-the need for a woman, desire awakened by the death of Fanning and the sight of Fanning’s blood. So he had gone to El Terreno, made the rounds of the nightclubs and discotheques. He had found Brita almost immediately, in Tito’s, and they had eaten langusta and drunk good Majorcan champagne, and before eleven they were in bed in his room.

  Now, this morning, he felt sated—but until the diamonds were recovered, and the patrón was satisfied, he would not be able to fully relax and enjoy himself and Brita’s fine young body. Still, there was no work to be done until the patrón arrived later in the day. Brita and her hungry flesh would serve to keep him occupied.

  He closed the carry-all, then locked it because all of Allen Fanning’s personal effects were inside. The patrón wanted to see them, even though Silvera had assured him there was nothing to offer a lead to Jennifer Evans or the diamonds. Then he turned to look at Brita again.

  She had been watching him, and now she stretched languidly without taking her eyes from his face, parting long legs, drawing one knee up. She began to stroke her sides, belly, thighs with the palm of one long-fingered hand. The other hand beckoned to him. “Kjaere,” she murmured. “Kjaere, come to me.”

  Silvera moved to the bed, sat down beside her. Immediately she sat up and rubbed her breasts catlike against his chest. Her right hand unfastened the towel at his waist; her lips were warm and wet, nibbling at his ear.

  He took her quickly the first time, lingeringly the second, and in his mind were pictures that would have filled the girl with revulsion if she had known what they were.

  TUESDAY NOON–GILLIAN

  After Carmody was gone, she sat on the couch and lighted a cigarette with unsteady hands. She felt strange, lightheaded. Fear was a dull thing now, moving sluggishly across the surface of her mind.

  She shouldn’t have lied to him. She should have told him the truth about Zaanhof, what had happened last night at Zaanhof’s villa. But she had been afraid he would become angry, take out his frustration on her; he wanted Zaanhof alive. And she couldn’t remember where the villa was. She hadn’t paid any attention to the route they’d taken from the airport; and after she had killed... after Zaanhof died she had run blindly. She couldn’t even remember leaving the villa or finding a taxi. All she remembered was getting out of a cab here at Liane’s, with both of her bags in hand. Thank God some part of her had been aware enough to make her pick them up before her flight. Everything about last night was murky, unreal. Except the image of Zaanhof lying there dead, his staring eyes, the blood around his head; that was painfully sharp. It had robbed her of sleep most of the night.

  What would happen when Carmody found out about Zaanhof? And he would, sooner or later; he was relentless. Would he come looking for her again? Would he know she’d been responsible and would he believe her if she told him the truth?

  His eyes... those flat hard eyes! At first she’d thought they were cruel, that he was a cruel man. He was capable of violence, she was sure of that, but not in cold blood, not without a purpose. And not against a woman, unless he had greater provocation than she’d given him; he hadn’t hurt her today, had he? He was full of menace but it was a kind of righteous menace—like a hanging judge. She’d seen a photograph once of Judge Roy Bean and that was how Carmody’s eyes looked, just like the Old West magistrate’s.

  If only she could get out of Spain, go home where she’d be safe and she could forget about him and about Zaanhof. But she didn’t have the two thousand dollars—she’d been too sick and terrified to remember the money until she was here at Liane’s —and Liane didn’t have the price of plane fare to the States, even if she’d known her well enough to borrow that much. Liane was just a girl who had come to Europe to play in the sun and who worked evenings as a hostess in one of Malaga’s better restaurants. That was where they’d met, at the restaurant. Fernando had taken her there–

  Fernando.

  He wasn’t poor, he might loan her enough money to... no. No. She couldn’t go crawling to him, not after he’d used and discarded her the way he had. She couldn’t stand to see him again. He wouldn’t loan her a thousand dollars anyway, not that much. Why should he? Besides, he probably wasn’t even in Malaga; he traveled a lot on business.

  No, the only way she could get the money was to wire her folks in Canton. They weren’t well off; her dad might have to get a loan and that would take time and she hated the thought of asking them. But it was the only way. She could stay here with Liane until the money arrived. And hope Carmody didn’t find Zaanhof and come back before it did.

  Sweat oiled her face; under the collar of her blouse, the skin on her neck prickled with heat rash. She crushed out her cigarette, went into the tiny bathroom, ran cool water into the basin -not looking at herself in the mirror. She splashed water on her face and neck, took the rough towel off its wall hook.

  It was while she was drying her bare wrists that she remembered the bracelet.

  Sudden panic flared in her. Her bracelet, her silver bracelet! She dropped the towel and ran into the living room, into the bedroom, into the little kitchenette; it wasn’t in any of them, it wasn’t here.

  “No!” she said aloud. “Oh God, no!”

  She had been wearing the bracelet in Amsterdam, she had been wearing it on the plane with Zaanhof, she had been wearing it at his villa... he had grabbed her arms, her wrists, held them tightly while his fat body thrust against hers... she might have lost it afterward, it might have dropped off while she was running...he had been holding onto her left arm when she first hit him with the statuette, she could feel again the pain of his fingers pulling at her as he staggered away, and the bracelet, the bracelet being torn loose...

  It was at his villa. No question, at his villa, lying on the floor somewhere near the dead thing that had once been Peter Zaanhof.

  She could see the inscription on its back. Clearly in her mind, with a feeling of sick, warm horror.

  To Gillian With All My Love—
Grandmother Waltham.

  TUESDAY AFTERNOON–CARMODY

  The American Express office was just closing for the customary three-hour afternoon siesta when Carmody arrived. He talked his way inside, to find out if he had any messages. No messages, but there was a telegram. He claimed it with his passport, went out and read it in the shade of a palm tree.

  It was from Van Hagen, and it said:

  YOUR PARTY NAMED JORGE RIUYKEN. FORMER DIAMOND MERCHANT HERE BLACKLISTED 1959 FOR QUESTIONABLE DEALINGS. NOW UNLICENSED INDEPENDENT ENGAGED SAME BUSINESS PRIVATE COLLECTORS. SAID TO BE LIVING MALAGA BUT ADDRESS UNAVAILABLE YET. ONE KNOWN MALAGA ACQUAINTENCE THEO HUYMANS YACHT DIKKERT MALAGA YACHT CLUB. HUYMANS RETIRED BUSINESSMAN WELL REGARDED HERE. BUSINESS DEALINGS WITH RIUYKEN PRIOR 1959 BUT EVIDENTLY NONE SINCE. SOLD HUGE PRIVATE DIAMOND COLLECTION HERE BEFORE RETIRING TO SPAIN.

  Carmody took another taxi, this one to the Avenida del Generalissimo Franco; he picked up his rental Mercedes and then drove to the harbor. The yacht Dikkeit turned out to be a 56-foot, broad-beamed, ocean-going vessel fifteen or twenty years old; its brass fittings gleamed, its hull was freshly painted, oil and varnish had been recently applied to its decks and superstructure. On the rear deck, ringed with planter boxes of bright red geraniums, an elderly couple sat under an umbrella playing cards.

  The man was Theo Huymans -slender, gray-maned, friendly, English-speaking. Carmody told him his name was Johnson, that he was trying to locate a friend of Huymans’; he was invited aboard. Huymans shook his hand, introduced him to his wife, offered a drink that Carmody declined. He sensed no recognition in the man, nothing hidden, no threat to himself. Huymans wasn’t the man behind Zaanhof/Riuyken; he was as sure of that as he ever was of anything in his business.

  Huymans said, “The name of the friend you are looking for, Herr Johnson?”

  “Jorge Riuyken.”

  “Ah, of course.”

  “It has to do with some gems—a business matter.”