“You’re a smart dame, figuring out where I’d stashed those two nuisances,” he said studying me. “You’ve been nothing but trouble since we crossed paths. Sticking your nose in. Figuring things out. It would be a waste getting rid of someone with your skills when you could put them to work for me instead. Earn three, four times what you make in that rathole office of yours. What do you say?”
“Doesn’t look to me like you’re in any position to hire right now, Beale.”
He chuckled.
“Lyle and I have no differences now, do we, Lyle?” He redirected his smoothness to the man with the gun. “In fact you may have been right, telling me Al was losing his edge. Otherwise you’d be the one with a hole in you, wouldn’t you, Lyle? Oh, his gun moved the second he saw you, but it was too late. But Al’s out of the way now. Benny’s out of the way. That gullible chump who drove Al around will be out of the way as soon as the fire that should be starting soon hits the cellar. There’s no one wise now but us, Lyle – and Miss Sullivan, sitting here gift wrapped.”
He was good. The words. The soothing tone. Houseman for all his cockiness was starting to waver.
“Too bad there’s an envelope I’m supposed to pick up tomorrow,” I said. “If I don’t, the guy I left it with will open it.” Actually Jenkins would open the envelope I’d sent by Flora the minute he saw it. “He’ll see those drawings Houseman made for disabling the burglar alarms and he’ll have a good idea what those model numbers and addresses where they’re installed all mean.”
It broke the spell.
Houseman’s gaze swivelled back and forth between us.
“She’s bluffing,” Beale said flatly.
“The drawings are on a florist’s receipt for roses Beale ordered. I put a note in saying someone could decipher them at Montgomery Security.”
Beale’s eyes narrowed. He sat very still.
“You’ve ruined me, you bastard!” Houseman’s rage made him hoarse. “The Keystone Cops could have pulled this off better than you and your outfit!”
I began to take inventory. If what Mrs. Salmon had told me there in her kitchen still held, Beale kept a gun in an ankle holster. Probably one in his desk as well. The bodyguard’s automatic lay only inches away from his splayed, nerveless fingers. But I’d be dead before I reached it, even if my hands were free.
The gun which Houseman had trained on me waved erratically. He rammed the nose of its mate into Beale’s ear.
“You told me this would be easy–”
“Shut up and calm down.” For the first time Beale spoke sharply. “Shoot me and how are you going to get any money?”
While they snarled I chanced a look and spotted the gun apparently forgotten by both of them. Al’s. It lay almost under his body, his left shoulder hiding it from the men at the desk. He’d fallen with the arm he’d swung up to fire angled under him. The gun had slipped from his hand. But my hands were tied.
“That’s what you stormed in here demanding, isn’t it? Money?” Beale was saying. “Fine. I’ll give you enough to get out of the country. Live in style for a couple of years. Buy a business somewhere.”
My racing mind retrieved a memory: Al cleaning his nails. With a knife that sprang open. I swayed woozily and inched back closer to him.
Houseman laughed, nervous but cocky. “Think I can’t put a couple of holes through the dial in that safe and open it?” He jerked his head toward the back wall where two large paintings showed flashy racing cars on country roads. “If you’re smart you’re going to shut up and give me every dollar that’s in there.”
He thought he was in charge. I had a feeling he was wrong. I swayed again, repositioning slightly. Beale had glanced at me from time to time, but his attention was mostly on Houseman.
“Better hope it’s a lot of loot,” I said. “Bank robbery brings the federal boys in. You’ll need to go pretty far to outrun them.”
“Bank robbery?” Houseman’s voice veered to soprano. “What the hell are you talking about?”
My fingers found the chain that led to the knife in Al’s pocket. I slid it out slowly ... slowly ... praying my body hid it from view. I wasn’t entirely sure yet what I meant to do.
“Didn’t he tell you, Lyle? I didn’t think so.” If I caused Houseman to panic, there was no predicting consequences but I needed time. The rope that bound my wrists had made my fingers half numb. “That’s his real plan. The reason he wanted dope on working those burglar alarms.” My exploring fingers found the spot and pressed and there was a click. I ducked my head pretending a cough. “The others–” I coughed again, arching my back and forcing my wrists apart enough to ease the knife beneath the rope and began to saw. “A bank’s his real target. The break-ins at the other places have been–”
“Is she telling the truth? She is, isn’t she? Get up and open the safe you son-of-a-bitch!”
I saw the danger. “No! Don’t let–”
Too late.
Under guise of complying, Beale rammed his rolling chair back into Houseman. There was a cry of rage, a shot. The two men spun like dancers with arms locked overhead. Another shot. A yelp so filled with agony my hair stood up. One figure crumpled. I scarcely had time to recognize that it was Beale turning toward me. I flinched, anticipating the shot that marked my own demise.
Forty-five
Beale waggled the gun in his hand.
“Don’t even think of it, Miss Sullivan.”
His eyes flicked to the weapon by the dead bodyguard. With his heel he hitched it back and kicked it into the room’s far corner. Stepping behind his chair he did the same to the other gun Houseman had held, the one not currently in his own hand.
“And you might as well give up trying to work your hands free. I’m sure Al took extra care when he tied you up.”
I thanked several saints he didn’t know why I really was wiggling. An animal keening issued from Houseman. He lay on his back a few feet beyond the bodyguard. He was clutching his belly, his hands oozing red.
“A girl’s got to do what a girl’s got to do,” I said dry mouthed.
Beale chuckled. “Suit yourself.”
With vicious swiftness he turned and planted a kick in Houseman’s ribs. I closed my eyes. But I resumed sawing away at the rope.
“And you, you gutless sissy.” He kicked Houseman’s leg this time. “Did you really think I’d let you walk out of here after you killed three of my men? How’d you get the one outside without anybody hearing?”
“Drugged. Just drugged,” Houseman whimpered. “You ... tricked me....”
“You tricked yourself thinking I’d take the chances I have for the piddling amount you paid me to settle a score with a boss who didn’t think you farted gold.”
Beale kicked him a third time, this one close to his injured belly. The howl was excruciating. I thought I felt an easing of the rope at my wrists.
“Think you’re smart, don’t you? Smarter than everyone.”
Apart from the door Al had pushed me through, the only way out of the room was through two windows high in the wall on the side where Beale was standing. His guarantee no one could shoot him from outside. Too high to jump through, even if I could outrun a bullet and didn’t mind hurling myself through glass.
“Those places we’ve been knocking over aren’t worth peanuts,” Beale was saying. “But you didn’t even have spine enough for that – for your own plan – once it got started.”
Beale was circling Houseman now, the gun hanging casually at his side. Its barrel jeered at the man on the floor.
“There I am dealing with real problems. A Cincinnati outfit trying to muscle in on my territory. And right in the midst of it you come bellyaching how Al sent Benny Norris to give you a message and now he can recognize you – a two-bit sad sack I kept on the payroll because he didn’t ask questions and couldn’t add two and two on his fingers!”
Houseman writhed, probably terrified he’d be shot again. Which he would.
“When that page you’d scribble on fo
r Al went missing, you panicked. Whined like the spoiled little mama’s boy you are. Started telling me how I should run things. How Al had botched things with the paperclip salesman and I put up with too many mistakes. I got news for you, pal. The only mistake I made was thinking you had guts enough to see this through.”
“You made another one, Beale.” His head jerked up and we locked gazes. “Benny Norris wasn’t as dumb as you thought.” The rope around my wrists was down to a thread. I needed a breather to let blood return to my fingers and figure out how to keep the ends of the rope from flopping into view when I severed it. “It was Benny who found the page with the drawings on it – or took it – when it went missing. All the time you were roughing up Peter Stowe and sending Benny to threaten me trying to find it, the sleazy jerk didn’t even know that’s what you were hunting. Because he was just your errand boy and occasional bruiser, not privy to anything.
“Thing is, Beale, he liked his job. It made him feel important. He probably had no idea why Houseman was making a stink over him, just that he was. He was worried you’d fire him to pacify Houseman. Didn’t even know Houseman’s name, just that he had dough, and that guys with dough usually get their way. However he came by the list, he kept it as insurance you wouldn’t give him the sack.” I sat stock still severing the final threads of the rope and catching them before they could fall. “Guess Benny didn’t figure on getting a slug in the back of the head for all those years of not asking questions. Not that the world isn’t better without him.”
“He got a slug in the head for not getting anything out of you,” Beale snapped. “Benny knew how to throw a scare into people. Dames especially. He claimed you wouldn’t talk. I thought he was holding out.” He aimed another kick at Houseman, ever careful his shoe didn’t get so much as a speck of blood. “Because of you. Because you kept whining he knew too much and pissing yourself thinking he was a risk.”
This time Houseman’s cry was barely a whimper. His breath had begun to sound raspy. I swayed, pretending dizziness. It allowed me to tuck the cut rope under my fanny and inch a bit closer to Al’s gun. But not close enough.
“Where was it?” Beale asked, eyes glittering at me. “Where had he stashed that damned list of addresses?”
“Doesn’t matter.” I needed to get closer to the gun. Spin it so the grip was toward me.
Beale lifted his own gun demanding my answer.
“If you – oh, Jesus!” I played my other tidbit from Mrs. Salmon the madam. “What are you doing with a rat in here? That your idea of a pet?” I stared fixedly at the floor beneath a stand that held a fancy radio.
Flesh contracted around Beale’s eyes, but he didn’t fall for it.
“Go on and shoot me before that thing gets me!”
I pushed myself back, cringing. My voice went higher. “Come on, Beale. Shoot me and let’s get it over. I had a rat bite me once when I was a kid.”
His gaze jigged. I swiveled and scooted.
“There aren’t any rats in this house.” All the silk had gone from his voice. A muscle in his top lip twitched. “You’re right, though, I am going to shoot you. Between Lyle’s rashness and your tale of having that list, I’ll have to speed up the bank job. Tonight’s too late, but tomorrow should still work fine. Better than originally planned, in fact. Lyle doesn’t show up for work. His car’s abandoned down in Cincinnati near the train station. What a pity you’re found in the trunk, tied up and killed by the gun they find in his car.
“All the pieces will fall into place. How he planned everything and took off with the loot. You started to figure it out but got too close.” He laughed. “Even if that list gets to your cop pals and they work out what it means, there’s nothing on it that will alert them to a bank robbery. When the bank gets hit I’ll make sure to have a good alibi. Didn’t Benny warn you going up against me was no game for a dame?”
The carpet around where Houseman lay was soaked now. One way or the other, he wasn’t going to make it.
My fingertips brushed Al’s gun. The wrong end. It shifted away. Then I felt the merest nudge of the butt. Keeping my eyes on the nonexistent rat I sucked in breath and drew up my knees. Beale’s eyes flicked just long enough for the first joint of my middle finger to snag the gun and give it a small tug.
“You won’t get away with it, Beale.”
“Oh no?”
Almost lazily the gun in his hand began to rise. There was no time left for stealth. I dove and yanked Al’s pistol grip into still-clumsy fingers. My shot went wide as I rolled and fired. Beale’s own shot hit air where I’d sat a second earlier. Clamping both hands on the gun I held, I fired at his heart.
His arms jerked out. He went back like someone who’d slipped on the ice. The door to the hall burst open as a figure in blue somersaulted in low, his shotgun delivering a blast that would have torn Beale half in two if he’d still been standing.
For several long seconds the shotgun’s echo blotted out all other sound. Images swirled. I remained crouched, too drained to rise. Aware of cops rushing in. Aware of one hunting a pulse in Houseman, then shaking his head. Aware of Connelly, still on his knees and leaning against the shotgun, his breathing visibly ragged as he looked at me.
“Jaysus, lad! Where’d you learn a stunt like that?” someone asked clapping him on the shoulder.
He didn’t respond.
Later I would absorb what voices around me were trying to tell me: Ed Viner had found my note on the door and guessed what it meant. Concerned for my safety, he’d gone to the cops. Flora was already there, pressing them to find Peter and Thelma. Their intersecting stories spurred the police to look for my car. The cops who found it also spotted a building on fire, and Thelma and Peter stumbling to safety.
Right then those bits and pieces were lost in the nightmare of what had occurred here tonight. My exhausted mind grasped only two things. One was that I’d killed a man. In his entire career my dad had never killed anyone. The other was that Connelly had just risked his neck to save me.
I met his eyes. They were pinched at the edges.
“You okay?” he asked.
I nodded.
Handing the shotgun to a passing cop he finally rose. His gaze swept the scene: Al dead by the door. The bodyguard. Houseman. Beale. And me – the only one left alive.
He started to speak and cleared his throat and tried again.
“Looks like you were at one hell of a party.”
He offered a hand to help me up.
I held on tight.
The End
Thanks to Jessica and Chris, without whose help this book would never have come to fruition; to Suzanne Clauser for her insightful editorial comments; to William J. (Bill) MacMillan for sharing boyhood vignettes of life in downtown Dayton and of music and restaurant hot spots during Maggie’s era.
Lastly, thanks to Henry, who has patiently and lovingly endured the ups and downs of a writer wife for lo these many years.
To the Reader: If you enjoyed No Game for a Dame, please watch for the next Maggie Sullivan mystery, Tough Cookie, in 2012. Visit www.mruthmyers.com for information about other books by this author.
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