A Body for McHugh

by Jay Flynn

  He twisted then, rolling across the slippery deck. He heard his bound feet thump against it, but he could feel nothing. The cords bit deeper into his flesh; it felt like his arms and legs were on fire. Another half roll and his body collided with Girolamo’s legs.

  The gun in Girolamo’s hand exploded. The bullet bit into the steel rim of a porthole and whined viciously in a ricochet. Girolamo kicked at McHugh, trying to keep his balance, to bring the gun up and point it out the door. Someone was running on the deck, coming for them. There was a clatter and a sharp curse.

  McHugh reared up on his left shoulder. Girolamo’s leg was against his chest. He opened his mouth and bit, feeling his teeth sink into the hard muscles of the Sicilian’s calf. Girolamo swore and kicked away. His boot grazed McHugh’s swollen right eye. McHugh yelled and rolled against him again.

  Girolamo was trying to slide the door shut again. McHugh heard a crash, and the door snapped from its runners and skidded across the deckhouse. A big form hurtled through the opening.

  He saw the vague shape of Girolamo duck, crouch low, then vault through the door. He skidded, caught at the rail, balanced himself and ran toward the ster.

  “McHugh—you in here?”

  “Yeah. On the floor, Bill.”

  “Right back. Go get that bastard.” Bill Palme lunged through the door again. The boat rocked as he ran after Girolamo.

  McHugh heard the outboard start up, revving high. There was a brief scraping sound, and he heard Palme swear. The big man was back in a moment, moving soundlessly now.

  “Where are you, Mac? I don’t dare flash a light.”

  “Over here. I’m tied up.”

  The big man found him and used a knife on the cords. McHugh sat up, gingerly feeling the welts and the torn skin.

  “Good to see you. They get away?”

  “Yeah. I tossed the two over the side. Guess they climbed into their boat and got it started about the time the big boy took out.”

  McHugh managed to stand. He felt weak, and his feet and hands were nests of needles. It was like standing barefoot on cactus. “What brought you out?”

  “Just happened to see Girolamo drive past the bar not too long after you left. And a guy who was there when you came in left right after you did. I figured he was following you and maybe I should come along.”

  “Good you did Let’s get moving—I want to find Girolamo fast.”

  “You walk okay?”

  “I think so.” McHugh moved toward the doorway, stumbled and fell against the bulkhead. Palme caught him and slid a big arm around his waist. He half carried McHugh to the stem, where the skiff McHugh had borrowed was still tied up. Palme pulled it alongside and held it steadily while McHugh eased himself into it. Palme dropped into the center seat and picked up the oars as a siren moaned and a brightly lighted boat headed out from the wharf.

  “Cops,” Palme said. He bent to the oars and pulled to the dark pilings of the pier.

  McHugh had only a vague awareness of motion as the coupe labored up the hill and stopped in front of a small house in New Monterey. When Palme came around and opened the door, McHugh held back, muttering, “What’s this...?”

  “I’m taking you to a doctor, you damn fool.”

  “No doctors. I’ll be okay.”

  “This one you don’t worry about. He’s from the station hospital at the fort, and he takes care of the G-2 lads when they get clobbered.” Palme hoisted McHugh from the car. He helped him through a gate in a picket fence and along a narrow path to the rear of a darkened bungalow. He sat McHugh on a small porch and pushed the doorbell button. No lights came on, but McHugh heard footsteps, and then the door opened.

  It was an ordinary bedroom. The medic was young, with a brush cut and horn-rimmed glasses. He worked under the glow of a reading lamp, swabbing the raw flesh, taking a few stitches and sponging away the crusted blood that held McHugh’s right eye shut. Then he applied dressing and fitted a black patch.

  “What you need is a couple of days in bed.” He examined the older bruises. “You’ve been hit a lot lately, and the results could be serious.”

  McHugh grinned with thickened, distorted lips. He touched the eye patch. “I’ll get a job modeling Hathaway shirts. Can I go now?”

  “You can try.” The doctor put his instruments away.

  McHugh swung his legs to the floor, impatiently waving the doctor back. He stood, found that he could walk and move his arms. Catching sight of his reflection in a mirror, he thought that the patch and the discolored, swollen areas of his face added a pleasantly revolting touch.

  The doctor took a bottle of white pills from a cabinet, shook some into a smaller bottle and gave it to him. “Take these if the pain gets too bad. No more than two every four horns.”

  McHugh slipped them into his pocket “Thanks. I know a painkiller that works pretty good most of the time.”

  The doctor looked doubtful as they left. In the car, Palme looked at him questioningly.

  “I’ve had enough for one night. I’m checked in at the Mission Inn.”

  The Inn was one of the early, authentic Monterey adobes, three stories high with balconies on each floor and a small, tree-shrouded patio in the rear. McHugh used the single phone booth wedged in under the creaking staircase leading up from the lobby, then went into the bar to wait.

  The bar was dark, empty of customers. The walls were covered with antique woodcuts and some bullfight posters. The bartender, a balding man with a comfortable paunch, hummed to himself as he wiped dust from bottles and replaced them on the back bar.

  An eyebrow raised slightly when McHugh came in. “Looks like you’ve been in a debate, Mac.”

  “You might say that.” McHugh hoisted himself to one end of the high, wicker-covered stools. “Double Scotch and kiss it with soda, Smitty.”

  The drink came. McHugh rolled dice and paid double. Tom Hudson came and settled on the next stool. The FBI man studied McHugh’s face and the bandages on his wrists. He smiled.

  “Drink?” McHugh sipped his Scotch.

  “Not while I’m on duty. That’s what the rules are.”

  “You can be off duty for the moment.”

  “With you around? Ha!” Hudson unwrapped a cigar and struck a match. “What is it this time?”

  McHugh sighed. “Were not chasing anybody at the moment. I couldn’t catch a snail, and if I did I couldn’t whip him. Have a drink.”

  Hudson consented to have a short beer. “Let’s hear it.”

  “All I want is to be brought up to date on the Artellan woman.”

  Hudson chewed his cigar. “I’ll have to check with the Special Agent in Charge.”

  “Then check, damn it all. I turned her up, and I got the picture of her from Mexico City.”

  Hudson left the bar to use the lobby phone. When he came back he said, “Whereabouts still unknown. She’s been positively identified from the picture as the woman at the bank and the one who visited Dant at his motel. End of report.”

  “I’ll give you something. Just because you’re so nice to me.” McHugh touched the eye patch and the new bruises on his face. “Gino Girolamo gave me these. He also admitted he and Pastori and Leoni and Bomarito knifed Dant. And that they brought him in from Mexico—they picked him up at Acapulco the day after the heist.”

  Hudson examined the tip of his cigar. “Interesting. Also useless as far as the Bureau is concerned. As a matter of fact, the killing didn’t violate any Federal law, so we aren’t officially involved in that respect. Inspector Kline would no doubt be delighted—if you could give him some way to make a case stick in court. We can work on the smuggling angle. You get anything to back it up?”

  “Not a thing.” McHugh finished his drink and nodded at Smitty for a refill.

  “And now what’s Girolamo going to do? Skip out? Stay around and wait to get thrown in the can?”

  “I think he’ll stay. I kind of conned him into thinking I’m as big a crook as he is.”

  “The
way you operate, he might have something there.” Hudson yawned. “And now, if you don’t have any more gems of information, I think I’ll hit the sack.

  “Nitey-night.” McHugh studied the grain of the oaken bar as the FBI agent went out. He felt a foul mood coming on. The tangle with Girolamo had turned out as a highly painful waste of effort. He knew little more than he had surmised earlier. He had learned that Girolamo knew even less about what was going on than he did himself.

  He had one more drink, twisting the case in his mind, trying to find a new angle. He was inclined to believe Girolamo’s claim that he hadn’t known about the money until long after Dant had managed to get it off the boat.

  And the man called Phil had said the suitcases were not on board when Dant slipped ashore at Monterey....

  McHugh went to his room. He lay in the dark, the drapes drawn back from the balcony windows. He opened the attaché case, took the flask of Scotch from it, put it on the bedside table and from time to time he raised it to his mouth and sipped. He tried to put himself in the dead man’s place.

  International finances are my profession. I learn a large amount of dubious foreign currency is available at a bargain price. I look into the possibilities of making a deal. I see that, rather than buying this money, I can steal it, because the people who have it are in an illegal position themselves. In fact, this is pointed out to me by my one-time wife, who has, in most competent fashion, figured out ways and means of doing it. It is a thoroughly workable plan, and Gino Girolamo is available with his boat. I can slip out of the country that way, hide the money in a safe place, return to Mexico and continue with the business I am establishing there. But, once it is done, I can see that Girolamo is a man who will want more than he agreed to take—that he will take what he wants and possibly kill me in order to do it, or to keep me quiet later.

  But there is no way to get off the boat, until the engines give trouble and he puts into San Pedro, at Barney’s. I am able to slip ashore there and dispose of the suitcases. But it will not do to disappear there; I am well-known in Los Angeles, and Girolamo will have people who can find me. I have to take a chance and go North, where I can make contact with the flier and slip into Mexico again. And I have to see Carlotta; I cannot afford to double-cross her. But the time runs out. Girolamo knows about the robbery; he knows soon after I have left the Rosa that I represent a great deal of money.

  And I still have the package. I have not made contact with Carlotta yet. I am afraid to put it in a parcel locker or check it at a hotel. I know no one between San Francisco and Los Angeles, but there is that woman down in Monterey County, the one who did the statues for Mr. Gilbert. She might do a favor for a valued customer; she does not know me. I will find her and decide whether it is worth taking a chance.

  McHugh yawned and capped the flask. He got up, went into the small bathroom and gingerly held a wet, cold towel to the wreckage of his face.

  The thing was full of holes. And there was that damn package. Why couldn’t Dant have stashed it with the suitcases? What had made it so important to him?

  McHugh eased his aching head onto the pillow and slipped into a restless sleep.

  CHAPTER 12

  THE FOG BANK HUNG offshore, but the sky over Carmel was a cloudless blue. McHugh rode in the front seat of the cab, silently watching the pedestrians scamper through the crawling traffic on Ocean Avenue. The cabbie seemed nervous; he glanced frequently from the corner of his eye at McHugh’s face. It looked worse, if anything, than it had the previous night; the bruises were a brilliant combination of yellow and black flesh. There was an audible sigh of relief when McHugh paid him off at the corner of Delores.

  A silver-haired matron with a mink stole and poodle to match blocked the entry to El Fumador. McHugh eased past her with a muttered apology. She raised her eyes from the rack of newspapers, saw his face and drew back, sniffing through a nose that might have been aristocratic once. The poodle barked and retreated as far as its rhinestone-studded leash and collar would permit.

  The boy called H was behind the bar, feeding hot dogs to a cooking machine. The only customer was Tony. He sat at the far end with the guitar across his lap, a half-finished mug of beer in front of him.

  “My God,” H said “Every time I see you you look worse.”

  “Getting beat about the head and shoulders is a hobby.” McHugh climbed on a stool. “Cece around?”

  Tony put the guitar in its case, brought his beer and took the stool beside McHugh. He glanced at the wall clock and said, “Maybe in a half hour or so. She’s shook.”

  “Oh? H, draw a beer. No, make it a pitcher.” He turned back to Tony. “Why’s she shook?”

  “Somebody clouted her cabin here and did the same thing to her studio down the coast. Really dismembered them, dad.”

  “When? Any idea why?”

  Tony shrugged. “Sometime last night, I guess. She went to a concert in San Jose last night and drove down the coast when it was over. From what she said on the phone she didn’t notice right away that somebody’d been through her pad. She called me about an hour ago here, and I checked her pad in Carmel. Pretty well taken apart.”

  McHugh whistled softly through his teeth. H slid a pitcher of beer in front of him. McHugh filled a mug, then motioned for Tony to help himself. “You call the cops?”

  No. She said to just take a look and if anything was funny to wait for her.”

  “She’s on her way now?”

  “So she said.”

  McHugh swore softly. He damned the memory of Deane Dant. Dant had been smart enough in covering himself part of the way. Only he’d left a trail straight to the girl. A trail that had ended there because he had died so soon. The Artellan woman had found her first. And she was the only starting point that Girolamo had now, too....

  If Girolamo got to her, he would not believe she knew nothing about the suitcases full of money. He would work her over until she talked or she died. And Girolamo had to get to her. The big men in Palmero would be into it now; the only way he could appease them would be to come up with the money.

  If he failed, there would be the ritual of execution that the Order of the Brotherhood reserves for its honored Dons. The interminable waiting. Then the final meal with four or five men who had been his friends and Brothers. The rich food and the sour red wine. The muttered excuses as they left the table. Then the loop of piano wire snaring his neck, or the slash of a knife deep into the throat, or the thunder of gunfire that he would never hear.

  McHugh looked at his big hands grimly and felt the hard bulge of the gun on his hip. He was pouring a second glass of beer when Cece walked in. She came through the rear door, off a small courtyard lined with little shops. She hesitated when she saw him, the dark, soft eyes going wide.

  “It’s okay.” He indicated a vacant stool. “Sit down and tell me about it. Did you call the police?”

  She wore slacks and a sweater that molded her young breasts. She climbed on the stool, got a cigarette from her purse and lit it.

  “No. I didn’t call. And I think I was followed. All the way from Big Sur.”

  McHugh took a mug from the row by the beer taps, filled it and put it in front of her. “Tony said they hit your place here, too. We’ll go look at it in a while. Tell me about it, Cece.”

  “There isn’t much I can tell.” She sipped the beer, and he could see the trembling in her hands, the white lines of tension at the corners of her mouth. “It was late, maybe three in the morning, when I got to Big Sur. I was very tired, so I just turned on one small light when I got ready for bed. I didn’t notice anything then, but when I got up—around eight o’clock—I could see some things had been moved. Pieces I’m working on weren’t just where they had been. Pictures were wrong on the walls. The throw mgs were out of place. What little I have in the way of files and records had been gone through.”

  “Neatly done, or all torn up?”

  “Oh, it was a neat job, Mr. McHugh. It took me a while to realize
what had happened.”

  “Why didn’t you call the sheriff?”

  “What could he do? After what happened before, I thought the thing to do was to get you, or the FBI.”

  “Yeah. Good idea,” McHugh conceded. “Now what about being followed?”

  “I think I was. I’m not sure. There was one car, a two-tone blue, that seemed to stay with me. If I went fast, it went fast. If I slowed, it did. Never close, but I’m sure it was still behind me in town here.”

  “You couldn’t see the number in your mirror?”

  “No. It was never that close.”

  McHugh grimaced. “How many people were in it? Any idea?”

  “No. There was someone sitting beside the driver, I know that much.”

  He drummed his fingers on the bar. “Well, if you were being followed, whoever did it is probably standing around keeping an eye on your car now. It shouldn’t be too hard to flush them out.”

  “What—”

  “It should be safe enough. If they wanted to take you, they would have done it on the road, not waited until you got to town. Where are you parked?”

  “In the middle of the block, in front of the market on the other side of Dolores.”

  “Fine. Finish your beer, Cece. Give me a couple of minutes to get down there and find a good place to lurk. Then come out, get in your car and drive around the block. Slowly. Got it?”

  “Just a second, McHugh,” Tony said. “I’ll go with her.”

  “It won’t be necessary. They could figure something’s up.”

  “Why? They probably know we go around together. I’ll carry the guitar.”

  “Suit yourself. But, if anything starts to pop, the two of you get out of the way. Hit the ground and don’t stop to think about skinning your noses.”

  “But I thought you said—” Cece began.

  “I said there’s no danger for you,” McHugh interrupted. “If they wanted you, they’d have grabbed you on the way up. But if I spot them I’ll try to take them. And they’ll know me. It could get noisily unhealthy. Watch yourselves.”