The Caesar Clue (The Micah Dunn Mysteries)

by Malcolm Shuman

  I slumped into the easy chair by the window and let my head sag back against the leather.

  “You lucked out, Cox. Your plan worked in spite of everything. And all it cost you was one man.” I exhaled. “They’ll probably give you a medal. It’ll be on Stokley’s recommendation, of course. What do they put on spook medals? For national security services rendered? And nobody but you and Stokley will ever have to know.”

  “You’re burnt out, Dunn. You aren’t making sense.”

  “Probably not. But I’m making a lot more sense than that man of yours you sent outside after me. He’s in the swimming pool now. And he’s not practicing for the Olympics.”

  I thought I heard his breath rush out but it may just have been the wind.

  “You killed one of my men?” His voice was icy.

  “Well, it was only luck,” I said. “He had a bigger gun. But for the record, I guess I have to say yes, I did.”

  “You son of a bitch.”

  “I was wondering what would get to you. But what’s one man more or less? There’s still you, and you’ve got the situation in hand, right?”

  “What are you saying?”

  “Figure it out.” The lamplight danced on the walls, seeming to stir the curtains. I got up and went over to a framed picture of Stokley with the president of the United States. The president was signing a bill, and over his shoulder Stokley was smiling like the Cheshire cat. He was a handsome man, the kind cut out for television, with the good looks that attracted the female vote and yet the ruggedness that made men think of a good hunting buddy. His wife was beautiful, too, and in the picture beside it I saw her caught by the flash as she danced with the secretary of state. I moved over to the picture of a groundbreaking for a river diversion project. Stokley was wearing the obligatory hard hat, and the governor and a colonel from the Corps of Engineers were at his elbow, all grins, as he bore down on his gold shovel. Behind him was another face I recognized, that of Benedict. He wasn’t smiling. Probably the strain of orchestrating the event, the fear that someone would be late, that the ceremony would flop. Being the ever-present staff man was a job I would never have wanted. It suddenly came to me that digging up dirt was a bad habit for a politician to get into. The fatigue must have been getting to me, because for some reason I thought of Lavelle’s monkey paws and how they would be best off buried in the hole Stokley was excavating.

  “I like that one,” Cox said from behind me, his voice suddenly silky. I looked up and saw a framed citation from the White House, commending the congressman for his efforts against drugs.

  “Yeah, drugs are always good press,” I said.

  The next photo showed him in a schoolroom, handing a plaque to a student.

  “I wonder if they still make them read Julius Caesar,” I said.

  “What?”

  I looked around the room, vaguely realizing there were bookshelves and I ran my eyes over the volumes.

  “Do you think there’s a Shakespeare here?” I asked. “I see a Dickens, and a Tolstoy.”

  “Dunn, you really have lost it.”

  The books were part of a set, the kind people buy to impress others, but I knew if I pulled down a volume at random I would find some of the pages uncut.

  “No Shakespeare,” I said. “Well, I guess it doesn’t matter.”

  I looked back at the picture of the classroom.

  “You know, when I was in the eleventh grade I had to stand up in front of the whole class and recite Antony’s speech. I thought I’d never forget it, but somewhere over the years I lost the last lines. Whenever I get to ‘Caesar was ambitious,’ I start to bog down.”

  “‘If so it was a grievous fault,’” said Benedict’s voice from behind us. “‘And grievously hath Caesar answered it.’”

  “Right,” I said. I looked back up at the man with the golden shovel and all of a sudden it came to me and I started laughing. I tried to stop, but I couldn’t.

  “What’s wrong? What are you laughing at?” Benedict demanded. “Those are the words. I didn’t misquote.…”

  “Mr. Dunn’s had a hard day,” Cox said. “I think you ought to show him upstairs. Maybe he’ll feel better in the morning.”

  “That’s right,” I said. “I will. But why do I have the feeling that if I close my eyes before then, morning won’t come?”

  “Delusions,” Cox said.

  “Sure.” I was still laughing, because it all made sense, the Caesar clue, what the coroner had told me, and what I’d seen inside this house. There were other loose ends to tie up, but now I knew where to go. I turned to Benedict. “You’ve got him in a hell of a spot, Nelson, old friend. He can’t kill me in front of you without killing you, and then Elias, too. You see, it would’ve been so much simpler if the storm hadn’t interrupted. Then maybe I could’ve killed Rivas or vice versa, and one of Cox’s people could have killed the one that was left in the crossfire. But your call threw him off and now he’s left with his own dirty work.”

  “He’s insane,” Cox protested. “I’m not running Murder Incorporated.”

  “Of course not,” I said. “Linda Marconi died accidently, jumping out of your car. The bruises and fragments of concrete and tar from the pavement prove that. And the water in her lungs shows she was alive when she fell into the bayou. You people are guilty of kidnapping her, not killing her. Except that her death was the outcome of a felony. So maybe murder is the right name.”

  “It was Rivas!” he cried, advancing on me as Benedict cowered to the side. “Rivas kidnapped her and killed her, not us. And when they catch him, he’ll admit it.”

  “That’s a pretty safe threat,” I said. “But it’s never been in the cards for Rivas to be taken alive. He knows too much. Rivas is history.”

  “Rivas is in the city,” Cox said from gritted teeth. “He’s a dangerous man and …”

  I shook my head. “Rivas is harmless,” I told him.

  “What are you talking about?” he demanded. “How can you say that?”

  “Because,” I said, “I just left him. He was in the pump house next to the swimming pool, face down in the water. Somebody put a slug through his chest. So you see, Cox, you luck out again: Rivas is dead. There’s just me.”

  23

  For a long time he just stared at me and then he shrugged. “Did you kill him?”

  “Does it matter?”

  “No. He’s dead. That’s all that matters.” He took out another cigarillo. He was trying to be nonchalant, but I could tell it bothered him to think that somebody else might be out there.

  “You know, I’ve put most of it together,” I told him. “There’re one or two things left, though. Julia Morvant wasn’t smuggling dope, for instance.”

  “You’re in left field, Dunn.”

  “Am I? Then try this on for size: Dope wasn’t involved at all. That whole story was cooked up by you as a way out.”

  I heard a squeal from Benedict. “Christ, he knows.”

  “Shut up!” Cox commanded. “He’s imagining things.”

  I turned to the aide. “I’m not imagining murder,” I said. “Sixty-seven people died in that crash just to get to one person. Then her roommate was killed. And there’re a couple of bodies outside. Do you think you’ll go to Angola, or to some federal joint like Marion? I haven’t heard good things about either. Too bad.” I shook my head. “Somehow I don’t think you’ll have a very easy time wherever you go.”

  Benedict swayed slightly and put a hand out to touch the wall, as if to reassure himself that it was there.

  “I …”

  “Benedict, don’t be an idiot,” Cox warned. “He’s talking bullshit.”

  “Then the scandal,” I said. “Every newspaper in the country, every wire service, all the networks. You’ll be glad to get to prison before all the hearings are over.”

  “No!”

  The rug had become spongy and I realized belatedly that as we’d talked, water had been creeping across the floor. The door burst ope
n and Elias held up a lamp.

  “Water coming in from the back,” he said. “We got to go up.”

  “What?” Cox gave me a twisted smile. “Do you mean the great mystery is rained out?”

  “Not for long,” I said.

  Cox smiled at the other two men. “Go on up. Mr. Dunn and I have some more things to discuss down here. Don’t we Mr. Dunn?”

  “You call it, Cox.”

  The others retreated and I heard their steps on the stairs. Cox dragged the door closed against the bloated rug and stood with his back to it.

  “Now maybe you want to tell me all your theories,” he said.

  “Let’s start with Rivas,” I said. “He’s not the most wanted terrorist since Carlos the Jackal.”

  A muscle flickered in his jaw and he turned, as if to leave, but then he spun back around, gun in hand.

  “What else do you know, Dunn? Start from the beginning.”

  “Well, I guess I thought a lot about how a woman could fake her own death, and why she would. That stumped me for a long time. I knew Julia was melodramatic and pretty damned clever, but to kill nearly seventy people just for a stunt?”

  “But you finally figured it all out,” he said.

  “Just about.” I lifted my hand a few inches and his eyes went down to the little pepperbox.

  “I keep underestimating you,” he said with a nervous chuckle. “But do you really want to go up against a .380 with that toy?”

  “It’s the best I have,” I said, knowing how desperate the bluff was, that I couldn’t even coax a .22 bullet out of the empty barrels.

  Cox leaned back against the door and tried to laugh. “Dunn, you’ve got balls.” He started toward me. “You know, this is crazy—”

  “Don’t take another step,” I warned.

  “Listen, for Christ’s sake, man. There’s no reason for us to kill each other. I was telling the truth when I said the offer still stands. Why not work together?”

  “Because I’d always have to be watching my back,” I said.

  He walked away from the door like a dog circling another, looking for a vulnerable spot. I was playing for time, but I didn’t know how long it could go on. I was no match for him physically.

  “You know,” he said, back to the curtain, “I’m beginning to wonder if that popgun of yours is really loaded.”

  “Find out,” I said.

  “What the hell is it with Julia Morvant?” he demanded, irritated. “Christ, you never even met the cunt.”

  “I don’t know,” I said truthfully. “Maybe it’s just because she wanted my help.”

  “Well, you’re crazy,” he said. He was getting ready to say something else when the shutters outside slammed against the window, sending one of the framed photos to the floor, where the glass shattered. Cox spun, taken by surprise, and I kicked out at his gun hand.

  It was a desperation move and it didn’t work.

  His arm went upward, the gun discharged at the ceiling, but he held it, and he started to lower it again toward my body. I hit him then with my shoulder, driving him backward, off balance. He crashed into the curtain, bringing it down on us as he fell and I heard him curse as the folds fell over us. I punched wildly but we were at equal disadvantage, neither able to see or effectively grab the other. The barrel of the pistol caught me in the head but, cushioned by the cloth, it did little damage. Suddenly I sensed him sliding away and realized he had freed himself. I flung my arm up, throwing the curtain off my head. As Cox rose to his feet I kicked hard at his kneecap, and he dropped the gun.

  His mistake was reaching to retrieve it. My leg came back and then snapped forward, toward his head.

  A quarter of a second and I would have finished him. But he managed to raise his left arm and deflect my kick, and I realized with a sick feeling that he wouldn’t make the same mistake again.

  He didn’t. He rolled away from me, forgetting the gun, and then came back from a crouch, springing like an animal. He landed on my good arm, smothering my block, and I tried futilely to roll away from him. Water soaked into my clothes from the rug and I coughed as some of it splashed into my mouth. A fist crashed against my face and I thrashed out, but he brushed away my hand and brought down his fist again. My head slammed back, into the wet rug. Something flashed in the lamplight and I saw a stiletto, which must have been under his shirt. My hand reached out for a hold on something, anything, to pull me away, and touched something cold and hard. Instinctively, my fingers closed around it and I brought it up as his own hand came down. He gave a yelp as the jagged piece of glass from the broken photograph dug into his arm. My own fingers had been cut, but I shut out the pain, slashing upward at his face. He fended with his hand and I opened a gash across the backs of his fingers.

  “Bastard,” he spit, as I kicked sideways with a leg and knocked him off my body.

  He fell onto the wet matting and I rolled forward, the glass shard poised to finish the job.

  But this time he had found the pistol and I froze as the black hole of the barrel stared at me with the emptiness of death.

  He pulled the trigger and the gun jerked in his hand as an explosion shattered the room. Cox stared at me, unbelieving, and then the room exploded again. He went limp and the pistol fell onto the rug.

  Stunned, moving on instinct, I scooped up the PPK and rolled onto my belly, eyes searching the shadows.

  “When are you gonna learn to take care of yourself, young ‘un.”

  I relaxed. It was Solly’s voice.

  He was standing just inside the door, a big automatic in his hand and a grim smile on his face.

  “Better get away from him,” Solly said. “You’ll get bloody.”

  There was something in his voice beyond tiredness. I scrambled to my feet and went over to where he stood.

  “Are you all right?”

  “Sure, kid. I seen a lot rougher people than these.”

  The gun in his hand was a Colt, government issue, and I thought about Rivas, with the big hole in his chest, and the even bigger one in his back.

  “You killed Rivas,” I said.

  He nodded wearily. “I shot him. But it was close. He got off one of his own. Christ, I’m slowing down. It’s the second time the bastard nailed me.”

  I saw a streak of red on his shirt and knew.

  “You’re hit,” I told him.

  “I’m scratched, for Christ’s sake. There’s a big difference.”

  “Let me see.…”

  But he shook me off.

  “Stand aside. Let me put another bullet into him to make sure.”

  I looked over at the man by the window, whose body now turned in the dark water like a grotesque piece of flotsam.

  “No need,” I told him.

  He stared for a second, then nodded. “No. I guess not.” He slid slowly down to a sitting position in the water. “God, I’m getting old.”

  “Damn it, Solly, you’ll never be old. Look, we’ve got to get out of here. This whole place is flooding.”

  “I’ll be okay. Just let me rest. Stay here and talk to me.”

  “Sure, Solly. I won’t leave.”

  He nodded. “Good. We go a long ways.”

  “Saigon, Solly. We got back to Saigon. Remember the bomb in the bar?”

  He nodded slowly. “Got a lot of mileage outa that one. Everybody in the whole fucking place thought I did it to save their ass.” He coughed. “But I did it to save my own ass. Ain’t that a laugh?”

  “It’s real funny, Solly, just like the man you brought back from patrol, shot to pieces, but you wouldn’t leave him. You sent the patrol back but you stayed and dragged him back yourself.…”

  “Hell, you fell for that? It was for me, kid, it always was. You save a man one day, he saves you the next. Nothing simpler. I wasn’t being no damn hero. Heroes get killed. I wanted to stay alive.”

  I looked down at the red spot on his shirt and saw it was bigger now.

  “What happened, Solly? What happene
d between you and Cox?”

  “That son of a bitch,” he snorted. “He used me. He used both of us. You got in by accident, because she called you, but when I saw your name, I thought if I built you up there might be something in it for you, but he never meant for you to be anything but a target.”

  The wind was stronger now, beating the shutters, and another picture tore off the wall and hit the water with a splash.

  “I didn’t know about the killings, Micah. You’ve got to believe me. I bought their story about Rivas.”

  “I know,” I said gently.

  “It was just the old days, that’s all, Saigon and Pleiku and all the rest. The good guys had another chance and I didn’t want to muff it this time.”

  “You never muffed it, Solly.”

  “They were holding the girl,” he went on. “They told me it was for her own good, she was a druggie, Rivas was after her. When she broke out I thought it was Rivas. Then I saw it was you. I couldn’t let ’em do anything to you, Micah. I knew if you did it there was a reason.”

  “The girl knows the whole thing, doesn’t she?”

  “Far as I can tell. She was the last one. The last …” The lamp toppled from the shelf and crashed into the water, where it died in a hiss of steam.

  “The last?”

  “The pump house,” he mumbled and I moved my ear down to hear him better against the storm. “Out by the pool.”

  “The pool? What about it?”

  He stretched his hand toward the floating lump that had once been Cox and then his hand dropped to his side.

  The memory of the dead man in the little tin shack flashed into my mind and I tried to make sense of what he was saying.

  “She’d be the last one they killed?” I asked.

  He nodded. “Wasn’t, though.” He started to point to Cox again but gave up.

  “Afterwards, Cox jumped my case,” he gasped. “Said I didn’t know what side I was on. Told him he was full of shit, whatever side you were on was good enough for me. Asked did I want to be relieved then and there. Told him he couldn’t relieve shit. I left.” His breathing was labored now. “Spent a lot of the day looking after a bottle of Ezra Brooks. Then I figured they’d probably try to use you again, so I went to wait for you. When you came out, I followed.” I sensed his smile. “Dumb bastard. Driving right into a flood. I found your car.” He tried to chuckle. “Guess mine’s under water now, too.”