The Maya Stone Murders

by Malcolm Shuman

  “I won’t tell your PO,” I said. “Cross my heart.”

  Harry wrinkled his nose. “It’ll be three hundred,” he said. “I got to pay my supplier.”

  “Sure. As soon as I get things straightened out.”

  “Cash,” Harry begged.

  “Is this the same man I alibied when his PO was trying to arrest him for consorting with thugs?”

  “But my story was true,” Harry whined. “I was with you.”

  “Sure. But I may not have such a good memory next time.” I held out my hand.

  Harry sighed and reached under his shirt. “Okay, okay.” He handed me something cold and hard. “I know you wanted a Colt, but a Smith was the best I could come up with on such short notice.”

  I looked down at his offering. It was a Chief’s Special: snub-nosed, just nineteen ounces, and easy to conceal, but only five shots, which put it at a disadvantage with a Colt in a firefight.

  “It’ll do,” I said, as he handed me a box of .38 ammunition.

  When he’d gone I checked the revolver. It was already loaded. The extra shot would have been nice, but it was always the first one or two that counted. I stuck the gun under my shirt and scooped a handful of shells into my pocket, knowing as I did that it was unlikely I’d have a chance to reload.

  Then I went back to the bar and waited for night.

  An electrical storm started outside and even inside I could feel the blasts of thunder shaking the building. The door opened and some men came in, swearing and laughing, rain dripping off their clothes onto the floor. The bartender greeted them by name and they took stools at the bar. They had Ninth Ward accents and from their conversation I guessed they were longshoremen. A little while later a kid came in and went to the pinball machine. I nursed my beer in the shadows and let the storm pass over, thinking of the rush-hour traffic snarled outside on the freeway, and the fender benders that would have cars lined up two miles from the bridge, all the way back to the Claiborne Street ramp.

  I thought of the man in the Trade Mart Building, looking down at it all, and I reflected on the psychology of the new tall buildings with their hermetically sealed glass, which took you up so far above the streets that everything below seemed like a painting, unreal and staged, so that if you did something, dropped a brick on some of the ants below, it was an act without significance.

  I thought about the people who had been killed, and why, and I thought about the odd little piece of jade, and about what Cora Thorpe had told me.

  When I went outside the rain had quit and wisps of steam clouded up from the pavement. The rich coffee smell of earlier in the day had been washed away by the pungent odor of wet tar mixed with exhaust fumes, as the humid air acted to trap the fumes of the buses and autos.

  I drove to another bar a few blocks away, where I could spend the rest of the time without attracting attention. This one was livelier, with a couple of Greek sailors arm-wrestling at one of the tables. I kept to myself in the back, though, and nobody bothered me.

  The Captain had taught me always to have a contingency plan ready, so he wouldn’t have approved of my situation now. But he had never explained what you were supposed to do when there were no contingency plans available. All I had was the advantage of knowing the battlefield and hoping that everyone else would do what I wanted when the time was right. If they didn’t, then both Sandy and I would probably die. The clincher was that we would probably die if nothing was done.

  When it was dark I went to a drugstore and bought a flashlight and a cheap digital watch. Then I drove toward the river, parking on Tchoupitoulas and walking across the tracks and up the little entrance drive past the marine-supply store. It was the proximity of people that I hoped would keep Ordaz and his people off balance; the knowledge that the wharf had people coming and going at all hours. But it could also work against me. If the gate had been closed, or a police car had been at the top of the entranceway, to discourage pedestrians, I would have had to pass through the marine-supply store. But for the first time, luck was with me: There was no police car and the gate was open.

  The wharf was oddly deserted and I made my way across it, to stand in the shadows, looking out across the river. I could see the lights of Harvey and Marrero, and in midstream was a tug, pushing doggedly upriver toward Baton Rouge, with a string of empty barges. The water level was low, but the surface was dark and menacing and I knew that beneath the swells were currents that could carry a body for miles before it washed up onto a mud bank. The Captain had always disdained rivers. He said the sea was clean and fought fair, while rivers carried man’s filth and resented it. I didn’t know about the validity of his philosophy, but for some reason even the hot breeze was making me shiver.

  I looked down at my wrist. It was almost eight-thirty. If Ordaz was the careful man I thought he was, he would be marshaling his forces now and sending them into position. Then I saw what I was looking for: A tug was moored just a few yards away and it seemed to be unattended. I checked both ends of the wharf for guards and then stepped across quickly, jumping onto the tug and feeling a slight lurch from my weight. My stomach did a small flip-flop, and then I regained my balance. I stole around to the other side of the wheelhouse and crouched down.

  Five minutes passed. Ten. A diesel engine huffed its way past along the tracks on the other side of the warehouses.

  Ordaz and his men would be off balance, because the wharf was not home territory. They would have to worry about watchmen, late-working longshoremen, and transients hanging around the shadows. So they would be nervous and that would count for something, I hoped.

  I closed my eyes. The tug tossed up and down on the waves of a passing oil tanker. Soon now, I thought.

  Then I heard it and my blood froze: a chuff-chuffing from downriver that told of a boat battling upstream, close in to the shore. I crawled into the wheelhouse, shielding my body from the river, and waited. It came into view against the glare of the city, and my blood went cold. It was a launch, moving purposefully along the shoreline, without lights. A launch, damn it! Why hadn’t I thought about the possibility, given Ordaz credit? He was no fool. For just the reasons I’d chosen the waterfront, he wasn’t about to come down here at night, to unfamiliar ground. So he had brought a boat, for easy entrance and escape, and I was the fool, stranded like a beached fish.

  The launch slid alongside the wharf like a shadowy shark and I squinted out alongside the bulkhead of the tug as it moved past, but the most I could make out were a few dark shapes.

  It nosed against the dock then, crushing into the old tires that served as shock absorbers, and someone jumped onto the wharf. A rope followed and the man on the wharf looped one end around a post. Then he went aft and caught another line and the launch hugged the dock, its engine idling. It was, I grudgingly realized, a good plan. Ordaz’s men would go over the wharf and at the first hint of danger Ordaz would have somebody cut the lines and the launch would be gone.

  The first man was moving through the darkness toward the tug now, something angular in his hand. Another body landed, catlike, on the pier, and I flattened myself in the darkness. I heard the footsteps coming along the wharf, toward me, and I edged up the ladder into the wheelhouse, where I could see what was happening. Then something hit the deck below and the boat gave a little lurch. I reached down and brought out the pistol. I could take him out, of course, but if I did, I would have lost, because with the first shot the launch would be gone. I turned my head to look out over the wheel. The second man was at the far end, a black form gliding through the shadows like a phantom. As I watched, he turned to the launch and made a thumbs-up sign.

  Then the planks below me creaked. The first man was moving along the deck to the wheelhouse. An instant later his form filled the space at the bottom of the ladder and I knew he was coming up.

  This time I got a good look at the weapon in his hands. It was a shotgun, with both barrels chopped and the stocks sawed off to a pistol grip. Within ten feet it would
make a hole big enough for a freight train to run through, but right now he was having to hold it in one hand and grab the rungs with the other.

  He was wearing a black stocking cap, enough to cushion any blow from above, so I waited. Maybe, I thought, he would get disgusted and stop halfway up. Or maybe somebody on the launch would call him back. Maybe …

  And then his head appeared through the hatch and we were looking at each other.

  20

  For an instant I saw shock and surprise. Then he started to raise the shotgun, but he froze when he saw the .38 two inches from his forehead.

  “Make a sound and you’re dead,” I said, and he gave a weak little nod. His eyes fixed on the barrel of the pistol and I knew he was thinking of what would happen once my finger started the hammer forward, and how the 158-grain slug would be out of the chamber and plowing into his brain before he even heard the shot. I moved the gun slightly and his eyes followed, hypnotized, as I flicked the cap off his head and then brought the gun down as hard as I could on his skull.

  He gave a little grunt and went limp, rattling down the ladder to collapse in a heap at the bottom. I followed quickly, wondering if they’d heard the clatter.

  I wrestled him out of his black sweater and slipped into it. It was a little snug, but it would have to do. Next I donned his stocking cap. I stuck the pistol in my waistband, under the sweater, picked up the shotgun, and stepped out onto the deck and jumped to the wharf.

  “Oye, Carlos, qué pasa?” someone whispered from the launch.

  “Okay, hombre,” I said, using the universal word and hoping my voice would pass.

  I caught movement from the corner of my eye and saw the man ahead of me on the wharf, near the bow of the boat. I took a deep breath and then I leapt, landing on the deck beside the man who had called to me.

  It was just my luck that it had to be the Hulk’s playmate.

  The darkness saved me. Before he could react I had the barrel of the shotgun in his face. “Easy,” I told him, pointing to the big automatic in his hand. “Drop it on the deck.”

  He looked around and then slowly leaned over and placed the pistol at his feet.

  “Quién es?” a voice called from forward. I decided it was time for me to end the masquerade and answer.

  “Ordaz,” I called. “Come up and show yourself. I have what you want and I’m still willing to deal.”

  There was movement forward and I saw the Hulk, a MAC-10 submachine gun cradled in his arms.

  “Tell him to drop it,” I ordered the man in front of me. “If he fires, you’ll be the first one to go.”

  My prisoner turned around slowly. “Cuidado, hombre. Bota la ametralladora,” he rasped.

  I’d had a feeling my luck was too good to last. The Hulk’s pea-sized brain made a few crude calculations and instead of dropping his weapon he swung it up suddenly and a spatter of bullets whizzed past my head. I lifted the shotgun and fired once.

  The blast hit him in the middle and he went over backward, into the water. The man in front of me lunged and I started to club him with the gun barrel. Then I realized it didn’t matter, because he was dead.

  The man on the wharf was crouching behind a post now and his shotgun tore a chunk out of the launch’s hull, a foot from my face. I fired my other barrel at him and threw the empty shotgun away. He was too far away and too well covered for me to feel confident with a pistol, so I hunched down, trying to make my body as small as possible. Then the hatch opened ten feet away and a shaft of light shot out into the light.

  “Mr. Dunn, hold your fire.” It was Ordaz’s voice.

  “Tell your man to back off,” I called.

  “Oye, esperame,” Ordaz called in Spanish. “No dispara.”

  The light from the hatch shifted and I saw a raised hand coming up, followed by a head. Ordaz.

  I aimed the pistol at the center of his body. He came the rest of the way out of the hatch and let go the rail, raising his other hand. He was wearing a white guayabera and light-colored pants and he looked stockier than I remembered.

  “I should have known you’d bring an army,” I said.

  He shrugged. “The wharves are dangerous, Mr. Dunn.” He nodded at the body on the deck, in front of me. “Poor Jorge. I suppose I overrated him.”

  “Where’s Sandy?” I asked. “If this is a trick, you die here and now.”

  “If there is a trick, Mr. Dunn, we both die.” He nodded over his shoulder at the man on the wharf, and I knew the shotgun was unlikely to miss again.

  “No trick,” I said. “I have what you want. But I want to see Sandy.”

  “Cómo no?” He shrugged and stepped out onto the deck. “Bring her up,” he called down the hatchway.

  I tried to keep my hand steady, but my muscles had been tensed so long it was difficult. All I had to do was stall; the shots would be bringing people. Then a rumbling crept into my consciousness and I cursed myself for my stupidity. Another train. It would have drowned out the sound of the explosions and blocked any help from reaching me. Sandy and I were as alone as ever.

  Then I saw her, coming slowly up through the hatch—first her head, then her face, and finally the rest of her body. She saw me and her face opened in relief.

  “Micah …”

  “Hold on, Sandy. It’ll be okay.”

  But I didn’t know if I sounded convincing. Because she stopped halfway up and I knew somebody else was down there, holding her.

  “I want her all the way out,” I said.

  “Very well. Let her come up,” Ordaz ordered.

  Sandy moved the rest of the way up, swaying as she came, and I realized that hands below were shoving her upward, because her own hands were tied behind her. When she stood in the faint light from the hatchway I scanned her face for signs of abuse. There was a dark welt on her left cheekbone and her eye was swollen.

  “If you’ve hurt her …” I warned Ordaz.

  He made a face as if the very thought was distasteful.

  “Micah, I’m okay,” she called and I nodded.

  “Untie her,” I said.

  Ordaz shook his head. “First things first, as you say in English. There is the matter of the item that belongs to me.”

  “Turn around,” I said. “I’ll get it.”

  He frowned slightly and then understanding dawned. He gave me a half-smile and turned his back. I crouched lower to give the man on the dock as little as possible and fished in my pants pocket, holding my pistol in my fingers, and drawing the cloth of the pocket up inch by inch until my free fingers touched the object. I palmed it and resumed my crouch.

  “All right,” I said. “You can turn around now.”

  I made my way slowly across the deck and laid the artifact on the gunwale. Ordaz took a step toward it but I cocked the revolver.

  “I want Sandy untied and out of here,” I barked.

  “Mr. Dunn, I have held to my part. You see the girl. Now surely I have a right to examine the artifact.”

  “Untie her,” I said. Ordaz shrugged and complied.

  All along I had known it would come down to this. I turned my head slightly so that Sandy could see my lips in the half-light from the open hatch.

  “Sandy, listen to me: I want you to walk very slowly across the deck to the side of the boat. I want you to put one foot up and when I tell you to jump, I want you to jump onto the pier. When you land, get up and run for the tracks. Do you understand?”

  She nodded. “You got it,” she said, her voice wavering.

  I turned back to the Cuban. “All right, Ordaz, come ahead.”

  He took two halting steps toward the side of the ship, his eyes wavering between the barrel of the pistol and the little object I had placed on the gunwale. His hand reached out, as if to stay the jade from any movement away from him. I counted the seconds, waiting for the moment, but he must have sensed my muscles tensing, because at the last instant he wheeled around toward me, anger in his dark eyes.

  I knew that I would not
get another chance. “Jump, Sandy!” I yelled and at the same time squeezed off three quick rounds at the shadowy figure with the shotgun.

  Everything seemed to happen at once. The shotgun thundered and a wind whipped at my sleeve. Ordaz dived for the deck and something metallic flashed in his hand. There was motion to my right and I could see that Sandy was down, but there was no way to tell if she had been hit. A tongue of fire licked out from Ordaz’s position and something branded my cheek. I fired once in his direction and then the shotgun roared again. A fine spray peppered my arm. As in a dream, I saw my hand rise and I pulled the trigger. The figure on the dock gasped and the shotgun fell to the ground. I pivoted toward Ordaz, aware of a small chrome automatic in his hand. I squeezed the trigger of my own weapon and the hammer snapped down on an empty chamber. Ordaz stood up slowly, his pistol leveled at my midsection.

  “Mr. Dunn, you really should not have done that,” he declared. Mentally, I swore at myself and I swore at Harry, for giving me the Smith. Ordaz took another step toward me. “Now,” Ordaz said, “I have to kill you both.”

  He raised the pistol and I had an instant of regret at coming so close. Then the gun spit fire, but the shot, instead of hitting me, dug into the deck at my feet. There was a second shot, more like a pop than an explosion, and Ordaz stared at me as if he could not believe what had happened. The chrome-plated pistol fell from his hand and he stumbled forward and then collapsed face downward onto the deck.

  I lifted my head. A bulky form moved out of the hatchway and stood staring down at the fallen man.

  “He was going to kill you,” Jason Cobbett said, shaking his head. “Mr. Dunn, I think I just saved your life.”

  I looked from his smug expression to the tiny four-barreled pepperbox revolver in his right hand and for some reason I did not feel an urge to thank him.

  “Cobbett …” I rasped.

  “You didn’t really expect to see me here, did you?” he asked, edging toward the far side of the boat. “But how else was Señor Ordaz going to determine that what he was getting was genuine?” He stepped over the fallen man.