Darling, It's Death

by Richard S. Prather

  I reached the porch and eased across it, then pushed open the front door. It swung wide slowly with a tiny squeal from the hinges. And then the smell hit me. It was still there, still strong, and my stomach jumped a little, then settled down again. I stepped through the door into blackness and felt my way toward the farther door leading into the bedroom. I paused there a minute, my hand gripping the sharp corner of the doorframe, then I went on in. I was nearly sick and my aching muscles were stretched tight all over my body as I skirted the spot where I knew the foot of the bed was, and her unrecognizable feet and legs, if she were still there. I couldn't see anything, not even the bed. My leg brushed the side of the bed and I stepped along it, then reached slowly with my hand toward its center. I touched her, somewhere on her cold body, and I jerked my hand away involuntarily.

  I forced myself to touch her again. I ran my hand along the chill curve of her shoulder and up her left arm to her hand, still bound to the head of the bed. I took the ring from my pocket and forced it on the finger from which I'd taken it.

  Then I turned away, and I heard the sounds. I froze there, and then I heard a voice, a man's voice, and I understood that the sounds had come from the front of the house, out at the drive there. Torelli's men had come for Eve; they were entering the house now. I had barely beaten them here. I hadn't heard their car, if they'd come in a car, and there had certainly been no lights. But they were here and I heard a soft footstep and a muttered curse as the men came closer.

  I did the only thing I could do; I lay down on the floor and eased my body as fast and as quietly as I could under the bed.

  Almost immediately I heard a footstep inside the room, and then a voice said softly, "That front door closed?"

  Another answered, "Yeah. Turn on that light. This gives me the creeps."

  A faint glow suffused the room. "What a godawful mess," one of the men muttered.

  They came alongside the bed and I held my breath. Dimly I could see two pairs of legs a foot from my face. So there were two men in here; maybe there were more outside.

  "Gimme that knife. Let's get this over with."

  The bed springs creaked and I let out my breath softly, filled my lungs, and held my breath again. The bed springs creaked some more and a man grunted. Finally one said, "Help me wrap her in this." Then he swore filthily. In another few seconds I heard the grunts as the men lifted the body, the springs creaked for the last time as they were relieved of Eve's weight, and then the heavy footsteps went out of the room.

  I waited for five minutes after I heard the sound of a car engine being started nearby. Then I crawled from under the bed and got out of there.

  Just past Caleta Beach I parked the Chevy in the darkness and climbed up the drive to the Caleta Hotel. From talking to Gloria I knew that the Joker was staying there, but I didn't know in which room, or even if he was now in that room. I wasn't at all anxious, either, to let people see me walking around.

  I waited till a little Mexican kid came along, gave him a peso, and asked him to scoot into the hotel and have a bellboy bring me a highball. Five minutes later a bellhop came with the drink and I paid for it with a hundred-peso note, a little over eleven dollars U.S. When he seemed curious I explained what those hundred pesos, and a forthcoming hundred, were for, and he nodded and took off to knock on Abel "Joker" Samuels' door with a bottle of whisky, courtesy of a feminine admirer who would, if it was all right, come wiggling up to his door and knock. And would he be alone?

  A few minutes later the bellboy was back and said the Joker was already brushing his teeth. For no extra charge he showed me where the Joker was staying. His room was in what the Caleta management refers to as the "Bungalow," where the poor people live. It was set a little apart from the main hotel building, a few feet from the open-air dining room, and was on the edge of the inevitable cliff, with the inevitable beautiful view. My man was on the top or second floor, in a corner room.

  I walked down the dark, slanting drive, brought my Chevy to the Bungalow, and parked. I climbed the stairs to the second floor and walked around the terrace to the corner room.

  I took the heavy revolver out of my pants. I tapped lightly on the door with my pinkie, and the building seemed to shake as 330 pounds of Joker rushed to greet me. He swung the door open wide, showing me infected tonsils in a big smile as he started to speak. I jabbed the muzzle of the revolver into the center of his forehead hard enough to start a large swelling.

  I thought he was going to come at me, big gun in my fist and all, but I said as nastily as I could, "Get back in there, Joker, or I'll splash your brains on the veranda."

  He stepped back a few feet, glowering at me, and I moved inside and slammed the door shut. I stepped up to within three feet of him and said, "Turn around."

  He frowned. "What—"

  "Turn around!"

  He turned slowly and I moved in a hurry, raising the heavy gun. He saw the movement from the corner of his eye and started to jerk around, roaring, but I slammed the revolver hard against the side of his head and it rocked him. He stumbled, going down, but he grabbed at my legs and wrapped his corded arms around them, and I took more care this time, picking my spot as I reversed the gun in my hand, then plunked him good with the gun butt on the back of his big head. He slid down to the carpet and stopped moving.

  I went back to the door, locked it, then looked around the room to make sure we were alone and that nobody outside could see in. The Joker's gun, another .45 automatic, was in the top drawer of the dresser, right alongside my sweet .38 Colt Special. I took both guns and went back to the Joker, a regular walking arsenal. He was beginning to stir. He raised his hands underneath him on the carpet, but he wasn't about to get up.

  I said, "How do you feel, Joker? Isn't this fun?"

  "What . . ." He shook his head and got a couple of inches away from the floor. "What's this for? What's comin' off?"

  "Your head, Joker."

  I stepped up beside him, the revolver backward in my fist again so I'd have the butt handy.

  "What you hit me for?"

  I said, "Up in El Peñasco, remember? Somebody threw a woman at me and I fell down. Hit my head, Joker. That's what the lump on your head is for. Tit for tat. Then I think you came on the stage and bounced my head—so this is for that."

  I clobbered his head again and he stopped moving again.

  I turned on the overhead electric fan, then got some water and threw it on him, and he started coming around. I waited till he was clear out of it, and only a little groggy. He'd be a little groggy for quite a while.

  I said, "We're going places, Joker. Tonight we're a team. You're my partner."

  He was sitting on the floor now, and he scooted back to lean against an easy chair. He put one immense hand on the back of his head and the hand came away bloody. He looked at it wonderingly, then glared at me and said, "Why, you stinking, gawdamn—"

  I was going to have to hit him again. I had to walk around behind him and lean clear over the chair, but I managed it.

  There is no point in describing the rest of it, but when I left the Joker came along meekly enough with his old buddy Shell. It was brutal, sure, but it was one of those thin threads my life was hanging by. We got to my borrowed car, and we climbed in, and I sapped the Joker. Then I drove downtown to the alley behind my hotel and dumped him in my room through the window. It wasn't as simple as that; you try dumping three bags of cement through a window all at once. I thought for a while I'd have to use the car to bump him through, but I made it, then drove a few blocks away, left the car on Calle Dominquillo, and walked back. I climbed through the window, getting rather expert at it by now, then closed and locked the window, pulling the shade and thick curtains across it, and looked at the Joker, still sleeping like a baby.

  Oh, he'd probably be OK in time, with a little rest—that is, if he lived. And there was a chance, a slight chance, that he'd live. That part wasn't up to me, though. It was up to Vincente Torelli after the Joker phoned him
. And it was about time the Joker phoned Torelli and told him where he was, where the black box was. I might have to sap the Joker a few more times, and I had to coach him in what to say, but he would cooperate.

  21

  IT HAD BEEN A BIT COMPLICATED, but now it was all set. The stage was set, at least; the play was about to start. I was still rehearsing the Joker, though.

  He already talked quite freely to me, telling me of his movements after our brawl at El Encantado, anything I'd need to reduce the chances of a slip. I knew now that he'd phoned Torelli after our beef in the afternoon and Torelli had told him to keep checking my room at Las Américas, and to keep an eye peeled for me. That word had gone out to most of the boys. The Joker had heard that I might have the papers on me, or know where they were. So it appeared the goon had watched me through his field glasses and jumped to the obvious conclusion.

  But until the Joker phoned Torelli from the Del Mar, which call he'd just completed, I hadn't known for sure if the boys were still digging up the islands. Now I knew that they had been until the call from the Joker; whether they were still hunting, I didn't know. If they were—and they probably would be until Torelli had the black box in his hands—I'd be wasting a lot of time and energy if one of the hoods stumbled onto the real stuff before I finished conning Torelli.

  The Joker had started the con with his call to Torelli. Essentially, without the frills, the Joker had done this: He had, following my instructions to the letter, not even understanding what was going on, explained to Torelli that he had seen me coming ashore from a white motorboat on a strip of deserted beach with a pretty girl. The Joker had raced to the beach, beat the hell out of me, taken the black box I'd been carrying. The Joker was now in town and he'd like to sell the papers to Torelli for a measly million dollars. Torelli said he'd think about it. The Joker, naturally, didn't tell Torelli where he was. The Joker said instead that he'd get in touch with Torelli again in an hour, and if Torelli was ready with the thousand Gs, the box would be delivered.

  Then I played a dirty trick on the Joker. I waited five minutes, then called Torelli myself and corroborated everything the Joker had said, telling it from my point of view, of course. I added angrily that I'd tailed the Joker, and I told Torelli exactly where the Joker was now hiding out. Street, hotel, room number, alley, and all. I threw in a lot of other stuff, stating that I had only this afternoon learned from the Joker who the boss was, who really was after the papers, and that once I knew it was the great Vincente Torelli, I wanted no more to do with the black box. I was tipping him off not only where the Joker was, but where the papers were, and in return I hoped we'd be able to call a truce. There was quite a bit in that vein, and Torelli said that if I was giving him the straight copy, he and I would have no more trouble. I wanted to believe him.

  Now I made the final arrangements. I put the black box in the middle of the bed, where anybody coming in the door would spot it right away, then pulled my one wooden, straight-backed chair over in front of the window with its back toward the alley. I pulled up the shade but left the heavy cloth curtains drawn before the opening, then opened the window, climbed out into the alley, and looked into the room. The curtains were just thick enough so I could see the chair's outline without being able to distinguish anything else clearly. I climbed back into the room, pulled the window down, and locked it, then fixed the curtains again, leaving the shade up.

  I looked around the room. The small closet was in the right-hand corner as I faced the door; the door would open toward it. I walked over and opened the closet door, making sure it didn't squeak. I didn't want it to squeak when I stepped inside the closet and pulled the door shut.

  The Joker was sitting up on the floor. I'd had to sap him again. His head was a little bloody. "Get in the chair, Joker," I said.

  He obediently struggled to his feet and plopped down in the chair with his back to the window. I said in a hard voice, "Now listen carefully, Joker."

  He swung his head around and stared stupidly at me. He didn't say anything. "When I snap my fingers," I told him, "you get up and walk over to the door there, then go back and sit down in the chair."

  He licked his lips. He didn't know what was going on and he was still dazed. But I let it sink in, then snapped my fingers. He got up, walked over to the door, wobbling a little, then came back and sat down in the chair. I had the .38 on him all the time, but I didn't need it.

  It made me sick to watch him. And I felt sick because of the part I'd had in beating him down to what he was at the moment. It was easy to look at the subdued Joker now and forget that, if he got the chance, in another week or month he'd be knocking off a competitor or muscling somebody into line, taking care of another Art Fly or witness. And, too, I wanted to keep on living; that old, primary instinct for self-preservation is as strong in me as in anybody else. The Joker himself had chosen his life, a violent, brutal life that he must have expected might end violently; I hadn't made him get a gun. Besides, the louse should never have tossed me into the ocean.

  We waited. The Joker started coming around a little more, and he also started getting nervous. He wasn't anywhere near as nervous as I was. Particularly now, because I was going to give him back his gun. I didn't think he'd try to use it, not for a while, but I wasn't sure which way the guys would come, door or window, and I wanted to be ready for either way. If it was the door, I wanted the Joker to have a gun in his hand. I caught his attention and tossed him the .45 automatic. I kept my .38 on him all the time.

  "What's this for?"

  "Just hold it, Joker. And keep quiet."

  He looked blankly at me, at the muzzle of my .38, then rested the automatic on his thigh. I took the other revolver out of my pants and held it in my left hand. We waited some more.

  The Joker licked his lips, frowned, looked around him. "Hey," he said. "What you—"

  "Shut up!" I hissed at him. He shut up.

  Another minute went by and I strained my ears with a physical effort, trying to sharpen them to every sound. I could hear the Joker's breathing and my own, and the creak of the wooden chair as he shifted his weight in it. I heard a car going by on the street outside, and a toilet flushing somewhere in the hotel. That was all.

  Then I heard the sound I'd been waiting for. Or thought I did. A little scraping, slithering sound outside in the alley. It was just a whisper of sound, and I couldn't be sure it was what I thought it was, but I snapped my fingers, staring at the Joker. It looked as if it were going to be the window.

  He stared at me, unmoving, just gazing stupidly at me. I snapped my fingers again and jerked my head toward the door of the room. He sighed, frowned, hesitated, then stood up and walked to the door and started back. It was just as well I'd worked him over good. He went back and sat down in the chair. The outline of his big head fell on the heavy curtains.

  I didn't hear a sound. Not even the pfft of the silenced .22 that must have been used. But I was watching the curtain and saw the little hole appear in it like magic, and heard the tinkle of glass from the window, and even without looking I knew, as the Joker fell forward, that there was another little hole in the back of the Joker's head.

  Well, he'd had a chance, but it hadn't worked out for him. He'd died after all. He fell forward to the floor and his heavy body jarred the wood beneath my feet. That's what he got for trying to put one over on Torelli.

  I stepped back into the closet and pulled the door shut carefully, leaving it open just enough so I could see an edge of the black box on the bed. I pulled the hammers of both revolvers back on full cock and waited for the men to come in. I didn't know how many there'd be or who they'd be, but I knew they'd be coming in. I just hoped nobody took a peek inside this closet, because then the hot war would start.

  I heard the footsteps coming, heard the door open. Then there was silence for a moment.

  A man's voice said softly, "There it is."

  Footsteps whispered across the floor. I saw a hand reach out and a body blocked my v
ision. Then the body moved away, and the black box was gone. Footsteps again, the lights were switched out, I heard the door close, and that was all. Not another word or sound.

  I stayed where I was for five minutes, hardly breathing.

  Then I pushed the door open. There was faint light spilling in from the alley. The room was empty, except for the Joker. The box was no longer on the bed. Every bit of it seemed to have gone like clockwork.

  Of course, I had to get out of there without being seen, and I still had to get the real black box. I hadn't liked Gull Islands very much during the daytime; I doubted that I'd be mad about them at night. Particularly if Torelli's men were still there. I checked my guns, stepped out of the closet, and headed for the window.

  It was different approaching Gull Islands at night.

  The sea was rougher, and everything was black except the cockpit of the motorboat. Blackness pressed in all around me, relieved only a little by the faint moon, and I felt very much alone, although I had company—Jim, the guy in the yachting cap who'd piloted María and me this afternoon. She'd told me, during our afternoon ride, where he lived, and I'd driven out to see him when I picked up the Chevy.

  I'd had no trouble getting away from the hotel, though I'd held my breath going through the window and out the alley. But I'd reached Calle Dominquillo and the car ten minutes after I had left the room. I'd wanted Jim mainly because he owned a good private boat, and he could find Gull Islands at night; I might have gone right out to sea. We'd spent an hour together at his place, killing time. I hoped that was long enough.

  "Close now," Jim said. He switched off the cockpit lights. The blackness wrapped itself around us.

  There was a dark blob looming up ahead of us. I asked, "This it? The same one?"

  "Yes. The big one." He cut the motor.

  The bow glided up on the shore, scraping gently. I swallowed. There was no great sound of shrieking tonight, though there was life out there, rustling movement, and the occasional cry of a gull. I got out and walked through ankle-deep water and onto Gull Island.