Carmody's Run

by Bill Pronzini

  She was nervous-eyed, her mouth pinched, her face pale. She looked at the gun as if it were a live cobra he was holding, with a mixture of fear and fascination.

  He put the Beretta away; he didn’t see the need to scare her any more than she already was. “All right:’ he said, “tell me what it is you want.”

  “I... it’s about... about Zaanhof”

  “What about Zaanhof?”

  “He... he’s dead”

  “Yes? How did he die? Did you kill him?”

  “No! I mean... I hit him, yes, with a wood statue. He tried to attack me and I defended myself and he fell and the back of his head hit a table...God, it was awful…”

  “Why didn’t you tell me this this morning? Why did you lie to me?”

  “I was afraid. And I couldn’t remember where his villa was, you have to believe that. It’s somewhere in Malaga but I–”

  “Why did you come to Majorca?” Carmody asked her. “Just to tell me you’d lied about Zaanhof?”

  “No. I lost my bracelet at the villa, I didn’t realize it until after you left Liane’s this morning. It has my name on it. If the police find it... or the man who paid Zaanhof... they’ll think I murdered him. They’ll come after me ... oh God, I need your help, that’s why I’m here.”

  “My help to do what?”

  “Get me out of Spain. I know it’s crazy but... that’s what you do, isn’t it? Help people in my kind of trouble? I don’t have any money but I can do something to pay you…anything...”

  “Two days ago you hated my guts, this morning you were petrified of me, and now you’re willing to sleep with me in exchange for my help. You’re a piece of work, you are. You go through feelings for people like a kid through a bag of candy.”

  “Please, you don’t understand—”

  “I understand just fine,” Carmody said. “You lost your bracelet and you’re worried about the police. It’s too bad you didn’t think to look through Zaanhof’s wallet. If you had, you’d have found the two thousand dollars he owed you and you could be on your way back to the States by now, free and clear.”

  She stared at him open-mouthed. “You...how did you—?”

  The telephone rang.

  Carmody turned away from her, went to answer the call. This was the one he’d been expecting—from a Ma1lorquina named Ibanez, who did some work for him now and then on the island. Ibanez said, “He is at the Hotel Mallorca Grande, Señor Carmody. The presidential suite.”

  “Staff with him? Bodyguards?”

  “No one. He came alone.”

  “Good. That makes things easier.”

  “But you should be careful anyway” Ibanez said. “Carlos Miralles is a dangerous man.”

  “Somebody should have told him the same thing about me,” Carmody said. He put the receiver down, turned to Gillian again. “I’ve got things to do. Your time’s up.”

  “Oh, but you can’t just...the money, my bracelet…”

  “Right, the money and your bracelet.”

  He took out his wallet, removed the two thousand dollars in fifties and hundreds, pressed the money into her hands. Then he dipped her silver bracelet from his jacket pocket and dropped it on top of the bills.

  She gaped at the pile in disbelief. All she managed to say was “Oh!”

  Carmody said, “You can stop worrying about the police now; they don’t even know you exist. Go the hell home where you belong.”

  “But...but I—”

  “I don’t have time to run a taxi service,” he said. “Call yourself a cab unless you want to walk back to Palma Nova. And make sure the door is locked when you leav.” He started out of the room, into the front hallway.

  “Wait!” Gillian called after him. “You can’t just go away without explaining–”

  He went through the door and shut it behind him, chopping off the rest of her words. He slid into the Porsche. By the time he’d driven halfway down the access road, he had forgotten about Gillian Waltham. He was thinking about Carlos Miralles.

  TUESDAY EVENING–GILLIAN

  Alone in the heavy silence, Gillian kept looking at the silver bracelet and the two thousand dollars cupped in her hands. She was still having difficulty believing it. The two things she’d wanted most and thought she’d never see again, just like that. Her safety, her life in her own hands again, just like that. The relief that surged through her was so intense it was almost sexual.

  She returned to the living room, sat on the heavy sofa. Carmody must have found Zaanhof’s villa somehow, gotten there before anyone else. Found Zaanhof, dead, and her bracelet, and realized what had happened. But what she couldn’t understand was why he’d taken the bracelet and the money and given them to her without asking anything in return. A man like him, a hard man who didn’t seem to care about anybody except himself... why?

  Then she thought: What difference does it make why he did it? He did it, that’s what matters. And now I’m free of him and men like him, I never have to set eyes on him again. Just call a cab, take it all the way into Palma, spend the night at a pension, and make airline reservations in the morning. Palma to Madrid, Madrid to New York, New York to Cleveland, Cleveland to Canton... I’ll be home in two days.

  But she didn’t get up and go to the phone; she kept on sitting there Thinking about Carmody, thinking that it did make a difference why he’d done it You go through feelings for people like a kid through a bag of candy. Well, maybe so where he was concerned. Right now what she felt for him was a bewildered gratitude— she really did want to know why he’d helped her. Should she stay until he got back, ask him why, try to thank him? Another crazy idea, Gil. The one that had brought her to Majorca had worked out fine, but one crazy idea ought to be anybody’s limit. He hadn’t said when he would be back; he might be away all night, or days. And if she was here when he returned, he’d probably mistake her intentions. He’d probably expect her to show him how grateful she was by going to bed with him, and she wasn’t going to do that. No way was she going to do that.

  She wondered what it would be like.

  The thought both repulsed and excited her. She wasn’t going to do it, she was ashamed of herself for even thinking about it, but she couldn’t get the curiosity out of her mind. Would he be a rough lover, caring only about himself and his pleasure? Or would he be surprisingly gentle and considerate A hard exterior didn’t necessarily mean—

  “No,” she said aloud. “Don’t be a damn fool. Haven’t you been a damn fool enough times already in the past year?”

  She put the money in her purse, the bracelet on her left wrist. When she stood her gaze fell on the portable bar across the room. She could use a drink, she thought; the emotional roller coaster she’d spent the day riding was taking its toll. Would Carmody mind? A small cognac? No, he wouldn’t mind; then she’d call for a taxi. She started over to the bar.

  From outside, below and to one side of the balcony, something made a sharp scraping sound.

  Gillian stopped, listening. The scraping sound came again, and again; then there was the clicking of dislodged pebbles rolling down an incline. An animal, she told herself, some kind of animal—but now there was a coldness on the back of her neck.

  Hesitantly she went to the balcony doors and peered out and saw nothing. But more rocks tumbled, it sounded as though they were rolling directly beneath the balcony, and on impulse she opened the doors and stepped out cautiously until she was almost to the far railing. She craned her neck forward to look down at the rocky slope below.

  Somebody was down there—a man, picking his way along the fall with his body hunched and eyes searching the ground.

  Gillian stood motionless, watching as the man straightened and began to make his way laterally across the incline. The setting sun hung in a purple-streaked sky now, its light golden, and where the light filtered through and above the pines it touched portions of the slanting ground. When the man stepped out of shadow into one of those golden patches, his face was clearly distinguishab
le in three-quarter profile.

  The breath she’d been holding exploded out of Gillian no less violently than if she’d been punched in the stomach. For the second time in half an hour she felt stunned and incredulous—because she knew him. She knew him as intimately as any woman can know any man.

  He was the lover she’d thought she loved, the lover whose love had been a lie.

  He was Fernando Marl.

  TUESDAY EVENING–SILVERA

  There was nothing on the slope, as Silvera had known would be the case. But he moved back and forth across it, as he had yesterday morning, until he reached the spot where the pines took over. Then he paused to look to where he had buried Allen Fanning in the shallow grave.

  No. He would not uncover the corpse. There was nothing left in the clothing, he had emptied all the pockets; he could not possibly have missed an item as large as a leatherbound notebook. Digging up the body would be a waste of time. And time was a factor now, because he didn’t know how soon Carmody would return and he wanted to be finished with this fool’s errand quickly.

  He knew Carmody had come back to Majorca because he had seen him only a few minutes ago. He had been on foot, making his way upward through the trees that bordered the access road, when he heard the roar of the Porsche’s engine. A few seconds later the car had sped by dustily. The driver was Carmody. Silvera had seen the American once, years ago in Madrid; there was no mistaking that lean, hard face.

  He had thought then, as he did again now, that a confrontation with a man such as Carmody was to be avoided if at all possible. The patrón was an old fool if he thought otherwise. Silvera was not afraid of Carmody, but a wise man did not kill those with power and influence except as a last resort; it was likely to bring the wrath of others down upon his head. This was why he had swallowed his anger at the patrón’s insults and threats. If a lesser man had dared to speak to him that way, Silvera would have cut his throat; he was no peasant, no son of a whore. It would be a pleasure to spill the patrón’s bright red blood... but it would be just as much a pleasure to continue spending his bright green money. And much, much safer.

  Silvera climbed the slope again, pulled himself onto the stone wall at the top, climbed up onto the balcony. There would be nothing here either—hadn’t he cleaned up all traces before leaving yesterday morning? But he would satisfy himself and the patrón that Fanning’s secretary had not been overlooked.

  He crossed first to the glass doors, looked inside briefly, then began to prowl the balcony. Its floor, its railings were empty. All that was left was the stone barbecue; he turned to that, poked among the stones, lifted the grate, used a pair of tongs to sift through the ashes.

  One of the tongs struck something that was not a piece of charcoal. Silvera prodded it up to where he could see it. Rectangular, made of leather— a notebook.

  He lifted it out with the tongs, blew away the fine gray ash that coated it. There was surprise in him, that he had been wrong and the patron had been right, but nothing more; it was not in his makeup to be self-critical. Carefully he opened the secretary. Inside were several folded slips of paper, a memo calendar with events and reminders in a precise hand, and an alphabetized index of names, addresses, telephone numbers.

  Silvera flipped through the names first. There was no listing for Jennifer Evans. The folded slips of paper next—and the third one he opened was a rental receipt from a Palma immobilia. It was made out to Jennifer Evans, for a week’s rental of a Farm Xorrigo in the interior of the island, with the village of Santa Margarita as its postal address; and it was dated six days ago.

  A smile formed on Silvera’s mouth as he closed the notebook, slipped it into his pocket. If she was still waiting at this farm, Fanning’s Jennifer Evans, if she had the diamonds or could be made to tell him where they were, this would be a good day after all for Diego Silvera. The best kind of day—one filled with bright green money and bright red blood.

  TUESDAY EVENING JENNIFER

  In the master bedroom, she stood at one of the shuttered windows overlooking the balcony, peering through the louvers, watching Fernando Marl take something from inside the barbecue. She couldn’t tell what it was, or what he was doing with it; his back was to her and his head was tilted downward over the object. What was it and why had it been in the barbecue? Why was he here? What connection did Fernando have with Carmody?

  The questions, along with a dozen others, tumbled through her mind. Fernando...he had told her he was a businessman, an importer-exporter who did a lot of traveling, but that must have been a lie, too, like his other lies...Zaanhof saying he’d heard about her, about her acting abilities, from “a mutual friend”–of course, she should have realized it must be Fernando...Zaanhof, Fernando, Carmody, all mixed up together… that was why Fernando was here, something to do with the trick against Carmody and the man who had ordered it, Fernando’s boss as well as Zaanhof’s?

  What if he came inside? What if he found her here? Carmody hadn’t hurt her, but Fernando—would he hurt her?

  So tender when they’d made love, except for that last time, when he’d put his hands on her throat and squeezed so hard while he was climaxing. She’d had to fight free and he’d apologized, but his face...that look on his face while he was squeezing her throat . .

  The memory made her shudder. God, what kind of man was underneath that handsome charm? Not just a shallow, self-indulgent one. And not a harmless one. Dangerous. Even more dangerous than Carmody.

  He mustn’t know she was in the house. Thank God she’d had enough sense not to call out to him from the balcony; to step back inside and quietly shut the balcony doors and come in here. There was no telling what he might do if he found her here.

  She watched him turn away from the railing, put the object he’d found into his coat pocket—something that looked like a leather book of some kind. He was smiling now, a smile Gillian had never seen on him before: ugly, primitive. Obscene.

  I gave myself to him, I let him inside my body, I loved him.

  She took an involuntary step back from the window, feeling suddenly unclean. The heel of her shoe caught on something, and when she twisted away from it reflexively she saw—too late—that it was an electrical cord attached to a lamp on the bedside table.

  The lamp seemed to come flying toward her. She clutched frantically at it but she couldn’t hold it; it hit the floor, rolled against the wall. The sound it made was not loud, but it was too loud just the same. In her ears it was like a thunderclap.

  She ran across to the door, flung it open -and he was just coming through the balcony doors. There was a gun in his hand, a gun! A scream tore out of her throat; she tried to run away from him into the front hallway. He caught her before she’d taken more than a few steps, spun her around, and she cried, “Fernando!” in a pleading voice. She had no time to say anything else. He didn’t hesitate for even a second.

  The last thing she saw was the gun barrel coming toward her face in a vicious arc.

  TUESDAY, LATE EVENING CARMODY

  When the lean, gray-haired man opened the door and looked out at him irritably, Carmody showed him the Beretta and said, “Back up, Miralles, and don’t do anything to make me kill you before we talk.”

  Carlos Miralles stared at the gun, his face impassive, his body rigid. Then, slowly, his eyes lifted to Carmody’s face—bright eyes that contained fury but no fear. “What do you want here with your gun, eh?”

  “Back up, like I told you,” Carmody said. “Do it!”

  Miralles obeyed, in stiff, slow movements. When he was five feet from the door Carmody stepped inside and shut it behind him. “Keep going.” he said, and Miralles continued to back up until he was standing in the middle of his lavishly furnished suite, the best the Hotel Mallorca Grande had to offer.

  “You know my name;” Miralles said. “Do you know who I am?”

  “I know, all right. You’re a stupid son of a bitch who thinks everybody falls on his knees when you point your finger. But I do
n’t fall, Miralles. And I don’t scare. You know who I am?”

  Hot blood had darkened the old man’s face. He said, “Carmody.”

  “That’s right, Carmody. I know some other things, too. All about the diamonds Allen Fanning stole from you, and how you set me up to get them back.”

  “How do you know?”

  “That’s nothing for you.”

  Miralles’ teeth were bared now, like an animal showing its fangs. “You have cojones, Señor Carmody, to come here with your gun, to talk to me as you have. I respect men with cojones—but I do not like being threatened”

  “No? Well, I don’t like being played for a sucker, or having my home used for a death trap. The hell with your reasons; they don’t matter to me. You owe me now, Miralles, that’s what matters. If I don’t collect one way or another I don’t stay in business. So I intend to collect.”

  “Leave here with your gun, now, and you will be well paid. This I promise you.”

  “How well paid?”

  “Another five thousand dollars.”

  “Not enough. Not even close to being enough.”

  “Then what is your price?”

  “Another twenty-five thousand.”

  “Hah!” The sound was a bullish snort, not a laugh.

  Miralles was making a visible effort to control himself. “No man’s trouble is worth that much money to me. You will take another five thousand, and we will forget this invasion of my privacy, we will forget your insolent threats; we will not bother each other again.”

  “You think it’s as simple as that?” Carmody said. “Not hardly. The more you fuck around, Miralles, the more it’s going to cost you.”

  “I will not be intimidated! I have killed men with my own hands for milder words than you speak.”

  “Yes? Well, I’m the one with the gun.”

  “Your gun means nothing to me,” Miralles said. “Are you such an oaf to think you can kill me in this room, this fine hotel, and expect to walk away a free man?”