As the car raced by Drum and me, two or three feet away, the wheels on its far side smacked something on the ground. The car lurched, and was gone. A form rolled over near us. It was Ragen. He’d been lying where I’d dropped him, and the car had run over him, over some part of him.
The engine whine got fainter, hushed by the low hiss of rain falling, as Drum and I pulled ourselves apart, sat up. We looked at each other. He had just kept me from being messily murdered, but I didn’t know how to thank him. Nobody has come up with the right words for that kind of thanks yet.
I put my hand on his shoulder, and the hand was wobbling a bit. “Drum,” I said shakily, “you can’t even save my neck without breaking my back. You’re a damn clumsy ox.”
He filled his big chest, let out air. “What in hell were you doing standing there? Admiring the scenery?”
I pointed toward the doorway. There were still sounds of movement and yelling in the area, but there weren’t any more gunshots. After the uprising we’d just been through, I figured just about everybody was out of ammunition.
Drum was looking at the sprawled figure in the hangar entrance. “Glasses,” he said.
“Yeah. He was drawing a bead on your navel or somewhere close to it when I popped him.”
He nodded, licked his raw lips. “That was a good idea of yours. Popping him.”
“Yeah. Seemed so at the time.” I paused. Not much was happening now out here, and it appeared quiet in the building where Drum had been. When I started to stand, pain knifed my side. Among all the other burns and aches and sprains I’d barely noticed the wound Candy’s slug had put in me. But I looked it over. The bullet had torn through flesh, and it was more than a scratch, but it wasn’t going to kill me.
I wadded a handkerchief and piece torn from my shirt over the gash, strapped it down with my belt. Then I said, “Chet, I’m bubbling with energy, of course. But I hope the really strenuous activity is finished.”
He glanced around. Bodies appeared to be strewn all over. Two men some distance away were crawling aimlessly.
“I get that impression,” he said. “Let’s take a look.”
Chester Drum
The first body we reached was Abbamonte’s. As we walked over to it Scott said, “For a minute there, you galloping at me like that, I thought we were going to start that fight routine all over again. Drum and Scott. Maybe we ought to make it a vaudeville act.”
Then he kneeled near Abbamonte. “What did you do,” he said, “use a steamroller on him?”
“He still alive?”
“Jaw’s broken. Nose is crushed. But he’s breathing.”
“How’d it go outside?”
“Like World War Three. And inside?”
“Same war. The small-fry are fleeing all over the landscape, but we’ve got Abba and Sand’s inside, wounded.” I thumped the briefcase. “And we’ve got this. Senator Hartsell’s going to have a cinch. Cockeyed plan. It worked.”
“It worked,” Scott said.
Shell Scott
I heard a scratching noise. Somebody moaned. A few feet from Drum and me, Ragen was wiggling a little.
“That one’s still moving,” I said.
“Who is it this time?” Drum asked me.
“Ragen.” I watched him wiggling. “Happy Jack.”
We went over and squatted by him. He groaned something at us. “Man, I sure thought this one was dead,” I said. “I hit him and choked him a long time. A long time. Then that car clobbered him. He must really be a tough one.”
Drum said, “He doesn’t look so tough.” He sure didn’t now. A front wheel and also a rear wheel of that car had run over his legs, and they were bent every which way. His trousers were torn and I could see a lot of redness with some white in it, like a chunk of bone accidentally ground up with the hamburger.
I looked at Ragen. And his crazy legs. Then I found my Colt Special where it had landed after Drum landed on me, loaded it and we walked around the tarmac counting the bodies and gathering guns. Then we went back to Ragen.
He was conscious, gritting his teeth in pain and moaning. But he was in shock now. The real pain would hit him in a little while. Now was the time to get him. I had to talk to him for a couple minutes before he started answering. He wanted help bad, attention, medical attention, and I told him he might get it if his conversation made me happy.
Ragen wanted to make me happy. He was ready to tell me anything at all. I asked him. “Where are Dr. Frost and Alexis?”
“In ... the plane.”
“Why in hell did you bring them here?”
“Didn’t mean to in the beginning—didn’t expect nobody to know about it in the first place. But who could of figured all that heat at Blue Jay? We couldn’t stick around or even slow down after that, and once we got started we couldn’t stop. Couldn’t leave them after that, either, and I had to get back here. Besides, I figured maybe I could use them here, way I had it planned.”
He paused. His voice wasn’t the tooth-chipping, ear-bruising sound it had formerly been, but he talked easily enough except for long pauses and occasional groans. “What happened here?” he asked me. “Why’d everybody jump us? What happened?”
I ignored the question. “Are Frost and Alexis all right?”
“Yeah, I didn’t damage the merchandise none. Figured they’d probably go along with me, not put up any squawk.”
“All you did was snatch them both, force them to come here, set yourself up for a federal kidnaping rap. Why wouldn’t they squawk?”
“Some tapes I got back from Frost. Account of them I had the doc and the Sand babe about ready to say they come along with me on their own. That way the feds got no case.”
Those tapes again. The ones Braun had stolen from Ragen, been killed for, the main thing that had sent Ragen to Blue Jay. I said to Ragen, “I know Braun busted into your safe for those tapes. What was so important about them?”
“I bugged Sand’s private phone calls, from a booth ... got every word he said for five weeks. Enough to hang him and plenty others.”
“What kind of words?”
“Phony strikes, shakedowns, arranging secondary boycotts to get a non-union joint in line. Once he sent some men to dump sugar in gas tanks, trucking company didn’t want no contract. They got it. Sand did a lot in five weeks.” He grunted. “Last call he made was the most important, though. About Frost.”
“What about Dr. Frost?”
“Sand found out he was going to be the head blabber for Hartsell. Called a torpedo in L.A. and passed on the word Frost was the surprise witness, told him to grab the old man. Hold him till after the Hearings ... but kill him if he had to—or if Sand gave him the word sooner.”
That explained a lot of things, including how Braun, from playing the recordings, had learned Dr. Frost was the surprise witness, and how Ragen had known Braun would almost surely go to see Frost. I asked Ragen, “So why didn’t that torpedo go ahead and grab the doctor?”
“He was supposed to hold off till Sand’s wife talked to her old man last Sunday night. Maybe she could convince him to lay off—account of being Sand’s wife—but if she couldn’t, the torpedo was to do the job.” He paused for several seconds. “But then the old man flew the coop.”
Understandably, I thought. With Sand’s torpedo after him, and Ragen’s hoodlums sweating for those tapes. I said, “Frost wasn’t on your side any more than on Sand’s. So how come he’s alive—if he is alive?”
“He’s in the pink. If I had to bump him, I wanted to do it near D.C. Let Sand take the rap for it.”
“Because Sand operates out of D.C.? That’s no proof of murder.”
“With them tapes I had it would be. Hell, it was Mike Sand’s own voice telling that torpedo to knock Frost off if he had to, and the trigger saying, ‘Leave it to me, Mike.’ Anybody hearing it would know Sand was the one who done it.”
He went on, “But I didn’t think I’d have to bump Frost. There was a good chance I could convinc
e him to testify against the top Truckers here, leave me out of it, pave the way for me to take over. I heard about the trouble between Sand and Abbamonte, and with those recordings over Sand’s head I could make him step down myself—even swing his weight to me. If the doc tossed some dirt over Abbamonte in the hearings, nobody could of stopped me from taking over. That’s what I was going to settle tonight.” He paused. “They must of got wind of it. That’s what happened.”
He still didn’t know. I didn’t tell him. Instead I asked, “Where are those tape recordings now, Ragen?”
“We refueled the plane in Missouri, private field some of my Trucker friends got an investment in, near Springfield. I left them there with a guy.”
He told us who and where the guy was. That meant the Hartsell Committee would have Sand’s interesting recordings by tomorrow. I said to Ragen, “When I climbed into my Cad after that brush with you at Blue Jay, Alexis Sand’s suitcase was gone. She’d hardly have had time to grab it. So?”
“I told Candy to check your heap, grab anything in it. Thought Alexis might have something in that suitcase worth grabbing before the meet tonight. Wasn’t nothing, though. Just some pants and invisible nightgown things. Yeah, and a checkbook.”
“Yeah, and a checkbook,” I echoed sarcastically. “That wasn’t anything?”
He rolled his head on the concrete. “Hell, no. It was the babe’s own, no dirt in it. I looked it over good.”
He would have. I hadn’t. I said, “How about that other book? The little leather-covered one?”
“What other little book? There was just that big checkbook and pants. Sure pretty pants, though.” I knew it couldn’t be, but Ragen sounded as if he were feeling better.
Drum, squatting on his heels next to us, said, “What book are you guys talking about?”
I told him of going through Alexis’ luggage in the Statler, the two items I’d found among the lingerie, visiting the John to make sure she hadn’t left the checkbook there.
Drum said, “Could it have been a diary?”
“Yeah. There was writing in it. I didn’t have time to read the thing, but it was some kind of journal. Why?”
“Half the hoods in the Truckers were after Nels Torgesen’s diary the day Holt got killed. It spelled out a lot of crooked Trucker operations. That’s why Holt went to Torgesen’s to get it.”
Ragen groaned. It was a loud groan this time. “Are you going to get me a doctor?” he said. “Starting to kill me. My legs...”
“When we mop up here,” I said.
He cleaned up a few odds and ends for me. The men who’d shot me outside the Truckers had been Mink and Candy—and they also had tossed my apartment late Thursday night. Ragen admitted Braun had stolen some damaging-to-Ragen stuff besides the tapes, but when he’d recovered it all from Frost he’d destroyed that part.
Then I said, “One last thing, Ragen. I haven’t heard it from you yet, and I want to. I want Drum to hear it. Who shot Braun Thorn in the back?”
He hesitated, licked his lips.
“Come on, Ragen. Mink spilled it before he kicked in at Blue Jay. But we don’t move an inch until I hear it from you. Even if it takes hours.”
I heard him sigh. “You know it anyway. I plugged him. He got up and was running ... I had to stop him.”
I looked at Drum. He nodded. “I heard him.”
I put the black thoughts out of my mind, grinned at Drum. “Now do you believe me?”
He grinned back. “A guy’ll say anything when you break his legs. But ... finally, I believe you.”
We stood up—except for Ragen, of course. Drum said, “Well, Alexis and Dr. Frost are still in that plane.”
“Let’s go wrap it up,” I said.
We reached the DC-3, climbed in through the hatch, carefully at first, in case one last hoodlum was standing guard inside. But no more hoodlums were standing guard any place, and very few were standing at all. Nobody was in the plane except Dr. Gideon Frost. And Alexis Frost—Mrs. Mike Sand. That was all. Just the two people who’d started all this.
They were bound, in adjacent seats at the rear of the Dakota’s cabin. As Drum and I came into view Alexis let out a happy cry and Dr. Frost said something I didn’t catch. “Thank heavens, thank heavens!” Alexis said after some babbling. “I didn’t know what ... I was afraid...” She let it trail off, slumped in the seat as though all the strength had gone out of her.
I started working on the knots of the ropes binding Dr. Frost’s wrists, and we told them what happened, briefly, and mainly for Frost’s benefit. I wound it up, speaking to the doctor, “So your testimony tomorrow will top it off—even help explain what happened here tonight. And it can stand some explaining.” I grinned at him. “And let me say now that I’m happy to meet you. Both Mr. Drum and I have had quite a time catching up with you.”
He smiled gently. It was the face I’d seen before in the portrait in his home and briefly at Blue Jay. Almost handsome, though heavy, with the shaggy eyebrows and bushy gray hair. It was a kind face. But he looked very tired. Alexis appeared tired, too, but she had never looked more beautiful.
I was having trouble with the rope, since my fingers felt like broken arms, but the knots were loosening. Drum started on the rope around Alexis, and I said to him, “Let’s leave her wrapped up a minute more, okay?”
“Sure.” He peered at me, then nodded slowly, as if something had just occurred to him. Probably it was the same something which had just occurred to me.
Then Dr. Frost said, “I cannot ever find words to tell you how much I appreciate all you’ve done. Both of you. But ... I have decided not to testify before the Hartsell Committee.”
“What?”
"You what?"
That was Drum, and then me. I stared at the doctor. “But that’s—senseless. You’ve got to testify. Especially ... now.” I felt horribly empty, as if I’d digested my stomach. “We just set off a war. And this whole damned mess started because you—”
He broke in, still gently. “Please. I have made my decision. Last Sunday I was faced with that decision, the most serious, the most weighty of my life. Whether or not to testify against my daughter’s husband.” He was choosing his words carefully. “The problem, vital enough then, became complicated, which is why it was necessary for me to go secretly to Blue Jay. I had to be alone, make my decision. You won’t understand the complication...”
“Perhaps I do. Was it those tape recordings Braun Thorn gave you? With Sand’s phone calls on them?”
He was startled. “Yes.” He blinked. After a silence he continued, “I learned that Mr. Sand was willing to do violence to me in order to prevent my appearance in Washington. In my shock, I even ... thought my daughter might have been aware of his intentions. But now that Alexis and I have been able to talk, I know how wrong I was. It was merely part of that emotional crisis.” He looked at Alexis, and she smiled sweetly at him.
The rope finally came loose and Dr. Frost rubbed his wrists. I asked him, “What made you think your daughter could have been in on Sand’s plans for you? Besides the fact that she was married to him?”
“The idea was preposterous, of course. But in one phone call Mr. Sand made he told this ... this hoodlum that I was to be the surprise witness before the Committee. I had divulged that fact only to my daughter, and in the strictest confidence. My first thought was that she must nonetheless have informed her husband. I realize now that Mr. Sand must have gotten his information From members of the Committee, or even other sources.”
I had a hunch Dr. Frost had been right the first time. We still needed his testimony, too, but he wasn’t going to testify—maybe. But maybe he would.
As if paralleling my thought, Drum said to me, “It’s about wrapped up now, Shell—Sand, Abbamonte, Ragen. You’ve almost got your hands on those tape recordings, and they’ll take care of Sand and a lot of others. So the only thing we need now is the diary.”
“Right,” I said. “And I keep wondering and wondering
about that little book I saw in Mrs. Sand’s luggage.”
“What book? What are you fools talking about?”
That was Alexis. She wasn’t smiling sweetly any longer. She wasn’t smiling at all.
Drum ignored her and said to me, “You mean the little leather-covered book you described for me when I was telling you about Nels Torgesen’s diary, right?”
“Precisely. So for now, let’s just call the little leather-covered book a diary.”
He grinned. “Didn’t you say it was in her luggage at the Statler?”
“I did indeed.” There was something I had to do before we went on with this, so I held up a hand. “Allow me?” I asked Drum.
He bowed about an inch, nodding. Whatever mental alchemy had occurred earlier, we were clicking the same way again.
I turned to Alexis. “Mrs. Sand, you hired me to find your father. Dr. Gideon Frost. Here he is. I’ve found him.”
Drum grinned again. Alexis’ eyes were as cold as the top of Mount Baldy. I said to her, “So we are now all finished, done, the relationship is ended.”
I turned to Drum, nodded about an inch, and said, “After you.”
He repeated, “Didn’t you say the little leather-covered book—we’ll call it a diary—was in her luggage at the Statler?”
“I did. But I failed to pay any attention to it. I felt sure the checkbook was a clue, though. Real crackerjack deduction, that.”
“Crackerjack.”
“She didn’t leave the checkbook in the john. I checked that very carefully. So carefully I’m sure she also did not leave the—the diary there.”
“And Ragen said it was not in her luggage.”
“That’s what he said. I believe him.”
“And you were with her all the time...”
“From the Statler to Blue Jay, almost constantly, yes.”
“Ragen grabbed her immediately at Blue Jay. So, if he didn’t get it—”
I finished it slowly, “She must still have it on her.”
We were both looking at Alexis by this time. Her face didn’t appear smooth and creamy white any longer. It looked pasty, sick, “You’re mad,” she said. “You idiots—”
Double in Trouble (The Shell Scott Mysteries) Page 29