1970 - There's a Hippie on the Highway

by James Hadley Chase

  Again Harry felt the prickle of danger.

  I am an adult, he had said to Solo. Was this true? Was this blatant sexual offering something a thinking adult could possibly accept? Wasn’t he really acting like one of those goddamn adolescents like Randy?

  She moved to the bed and lowered herself onto it, looking at him.

  ‘Come to me.’

  He longed to throw off his clothes and join her, but there was this warning bell ringing in his mind. He must not let any woman dominate him: even a woman who apparently was demanding nothing in return.

  He remained by the door.

  ‘Put on your swimsuit, Nina,’ he said, his voice unsteady. ‘Let’s swim.’

  ‘Later . . . come to me.’

  She leaned back on her elbows, her knees slightly apart: there was naked desire in her eyes that hammered at his determination.

  ‘I’ll wait,’ he said and went from the room. He walked slowly back to the kitchen and poured himself another cup of coffee. He saw his hands were shaking. He spooned sugar into the cup, spilling sugar on the floor. He sipped the coffee, staring out of the window at the lightening sky. He heard her come down the passage and he turned, his heart thumping.

  She was wearing a scarlet bikini, a towel in her hand. She smiled at him.

  ‘So let’s swim.’

  He stopped at his cabin to put on his wet swim trunks while she walked on slowly across the sand. When he reached the beach, she was swimming well and strongly, and with a racing dive, he went after her. When he caught up with her, she trod water and smiled at him.

  ‘You are an odd ball, Harry. Couldn’t you have given me a little pleasure?’ She flicked water into his face and then dropped on her back, still smiling at him.

  ‘I had been talking to Solo,’ Harry said. ‘He was too close. I keep remembering he is your father.’

  ‘Phooey! In another hour, everyone will be up. Let’s swim back. You can’t be this stupid! I want to be loved!’

  ‘It’s too dangerous. Even this is dangerous. Do you want me to have trouble with your father?’

  ‘Are you frightened of him?’

  ‘No, but I am frightened of what could happen. I could kill him . . . I might have to kill him.’ He peered at her in the half-light. ‘Would you want that?’

  She grimaced. ‘You are so serious. Can’t you take what I’m offering without all this fuss?’

  Harry started back. After a moment, she joined him, saying nothing until they reached the shore. As they walked up the slope that led to dry sand, she said, ‘So when do we make love again?’

  ‘Is there any chance of me going with you to Sheldon Island on Sunday?’

  She stopped abruptly.

  ‘Who told you about Sheldon Island?’

  ‘Randy . . . he said you went there to be alone.’

  She smiled.

  ‘That’s a marvellous idea . . . there we can be alone for hours and hours. My father sleeps most of Sunday. The restaurant is closed. He lets me have the boat. Yes . . . then Sunday.’

  ‘Okay. The day after tomorrow. Keep away from me until then, Nina. I’ll meet you at the boat station at six o’clock.’

  ‘Yes . . . I’ll bring food.’

  He left her and reentered the sea, swimming with swift strong strokes towards the coral reef where he planned to build the high dive board.

  * * *

  Lieutenant Alan Lacey of the Miami Homicide Squad was a little man with a hatchet-shaped face, thin lips and small eyes that were as animated as sea washed pebbles. He was a man disliked by the Force, by criminals and even by his wife. He liked being disliked. He felt he was achieving something by making people afraid of him. He was a man of cunning rather than brains. At the age of fifty-seven, he was very conscious that he now would remain a Lieutenant and further promotion was out of his reach. This soured him. Any smart cop, any ambitious, eager young recruit was immediately submitted to his sadistic, razor-sharp tongue. If there was anything Lieutenant Lacey hated more than anything else, it was an ambitious cop.

  He arrived outside The Lobster & Crab in his immaculate Jaguar, bought with his wife’s money, accompanied by Sergeant Pete Weidman: fat, fast and stupid who only held his position as Sergeant because he was Lacey’s stooge, whipping boy and yes-man.

  As these two police officers arrived, an ambulance came to rest outside the restaurant and two interns hurried in. There were four mobile cops standing around with bored expressions and Lepski was standing near them, looking hot and uncomfortable.

  Lepski knew he shouldn’t be here: that he was off his territory. He also knew all about Lieutenant Lacey and what to expect. There was a good chance now that Lacey would file a report against him that could blow his ambitions to become Detective 1st Grade sky high.

  While waiting for Lacey to arrive, Lepski decided, when Lacey interrogated him, to say as little as possible and to act as dumb as possible, then if the going got too hot, to pass the buck to Captain Terrell who most certainly would handle Lieutenant Lacey whereas Lepski as Detective 2nd Grade was in a hopeless tactical position.

  Lepski, sweating, watched Lacey, followed by Weidman, get out of the Jaguar Lacey surveyed the crowd surrounding the entrance to the restaurant with cold, stony eyes. He told the four mobile cops to get them moving. He walked by Lepski as if he didn’t see him and went to view the bodies. He surveyed Do-Do’s mountainous body with a disgusted curl of his lip. He climbed the stairs and surveyed Mai Langley’s body with considerably more interest. He was glad that her head had been damaged and not her body. He allowed his eyes to dwell on her half nakedness until he became aware that Weidman too was staring with fascinated interest.

  Lacey snarled: ‘What the hell are you staring at?’

  Weidman blinked, dragged his eyes away and looked stupidly at the Lieutenant.

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘Haven’t you seen a dead woman before?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Well, stop behaving like a goddamn tourist!’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  Lacey took off his hat, smoothed down his hair and replaced his hat.

  ‘Did I see a creep from Paradise City’s headquarters out there?’

  Weidman blinked. ‘I didn’t see anyone, sir.’

  ‘But then you never see anything, do you?’ Lacey looked around, saw a chair that looked reasonably comfortable and went over and sat in it. He took a sealskin cigar case from his pocket which his wife had given him for a Christmas present, selected a cigar and put it between his small, sharp teeth. ‘Bring him up!’

  Weidman lumbered away. Five minutes later, he returned with Lepski. Knowing he was in dead trouble, Lepski stood at attention, his eyes fixed on the wall above the Lieutenant’s head.

  ‘Who is this man, Sergeant?’ Lacey asked as he lit his cigar.

  ‘Detective 2nd Grade Lepski, Paradise,’ Weidman said. He had checked as he had come up the stairs with Lepski.

  Lacey shook his head.

  ‘I don’t believe it. No detective from Paradise would dream of coming onto my territory without permission.’ His bleak eyes surveyed Lepski who moved uneasily. ‘Or would he?’

  ‘Lieutenant, I was following up a tip,’ Lepski said, his expression wooden. ‘It was nothing important otherwise I would have reported to you first.’

  ‘Nothing important . . . just two stiffs. What do you call important . . . a goddamn massacre?’

  ‘It developed into this, Lieutenant. I was talking to this woman.’ Lepski paused to nod to Mai Langley’s body, then went on, ‘A man burst in and killed her.’

  ‘A man? Where is he?’ Lacey regarded his cigar to make sure it was burning evenly.

  ‘He got away.’

  ‘In my territory, a second grade Detective always calls a Lieutenant sir.’

  ‘He got away, sir.’

  ‘He got away?’ The exaggerated amazement in Lacey’s voice made Lepski wince. Lacey turned to Weidman. ‘Did you hear that, Sergeant? A vicious gunman cam
e here, killed this woman and then killed another woman and then walked out while one of Paradise City’s so-called officers was right here on the spot.’

  Weidman contorted his face to express outrage, but succeeded only in looking like a sow in labour.

  Lacey turned back to Lepski.

  ‘How did he get away?’

  ‘In a car, sir.’

  Lacey smiled: a frosty smile, but a smile.

  ‘Well, at least, that is something. Give Sergeant Weidman the number of the car and we will trace it. Weidman write down the number.’

  Lepski controlled the urge to shuffle his feet.

  ‘I didn’t get the number, sir. By the time . . .’

  ‘Okay, okay, you don’t have to paint a picture. Wonderful! This gunman walks in here, kills two women and you let him drive away and don’t even take the number of the car. That’s really something. That’s really something for the record. Did you say you were Third or Second Grade, Lepski?’

  ‘Second Grade, sir.’

  ‘Still more wonderful. I always suspected that Paradise City had the worst cops on the coast, now I’m sure of it. Maybe you can give me a description of the man?’

  ‘He was around five foot five, squat, heavily built, around 160 lbs., masked. He was wearing a peppermint stripe suit, panama hat and carrying a Walther 7.65 automatic,’ Lepski said a little breathlessly. ‘He was wearing a handkerchief as a mask.’

  ‘You truly amaze me,’ Lacey sneered. ‘Where were you when you observed all this . . . lying on the floor?’

  ‘Yes, sir. He came in . . .’

  ‘When I want you to flap with your mouth I’ll ask you,’ Lacey snarled. He paused to draw on his cigar, savoured the smoke that rolled out of his mean little mouth, then he pointed the cigar at Mai Langley’s body. ‘What was she to you?’

  ‘I’m working on the Baldy Riccard case, sir. She was his girlfriend.’

  Lacey flicked ash onto the threadbare carpet.

  ‘Who the hell cares about Baldy Riccard?’

  ‘There’s a report that he’s been knocked off. Captain Terrell ordered me to check,’ Lepski said, hoping he was playing a King to a Queen. By the sudden flicker that crossed Lacey’s face, he decided he had.

  ‘How is Captain Terrell?’ Lacey asked. He remembered that Terrell was a close friend of his own Chief. He also remembered his Chief had said only a week or so ago that Lacey was dragging his feet, and when his Chief passed a remark like that, red lights began flashing. Maybe, he thought, he had better go easy with this slob or there might be a boomerang in it. Lacey never placed himself in the path of any boomerang: one of the reasons why he still survived as Lieutenant Homicide.

  ‘He’s fine, sir.’

  ‘I’m surprised he could be fine with a poop like you working for him.’

  Lepski swallowed the insult and said nothing.

  ‘So what did this woman have to tell you. Detective 2nd Grade Lepski?’ Lacey asked, rolling smoke around in his mouth before releasing it in Lepski’s direction.

  This was something Lepski was determined not to impart.

  Had Lacey been cooperative, Lepski would have given him all the information he had, but he was now determined to give him nothing after this treatment.

  ‘I was just asking her, sir, where Baldy could be when this gunman arrived and killed her,’

  ‘So you learned nothing?’

  Lepski shuffled his feet, looked hangdog and said nothing. He wasn’t going to be caught in a deliberate lie.

  Lacey regarded him with distaste.

  ‘Go away, you horrible creep,’ he said. ‘If ever I find you on my territory without permission again, I’ll put you through my special wringer. I am going to put in a report about you, Lepski. It is my urgent hope and prayer that it will break you and one of these days when I visit your City, I will come across you, pounding a beat. Get the hell out of my sight!’

  Lepski left. He went down the stairs, shoved his way through the crowd that still surged around the entrance to the restaurant, muttering profanities under his breath. He finally reached his car, got in and slammed the door. He sat for several minutes, trying to control his surging rage. Then as he started the engine, a dirty, ragged little boy with long, black hair and almond shaped eyes stuck his head through the open car window.

  ‘You Lepski?’ the boy asked, his worldly eyes searching Lepski’s face.

  ‘So I’m Lepski! So, what?’

  ‘She said you’d give me a buck when I gave you her message.’ The boy squinted at Lepski thoughtfully. ‘Do you have a buck?’

  Lepski’s fingers like claws tapped on the steering wheel as he fought to control his temper. ‘Who said?’

  ‘You gotta buck?’

  ‘What the hell do you think I am . . . a goddamn vagrant?’

  ‘You’re a cop, aren’t you?’ The boy allowed a sneer to run over his dirty face. ‘Cops never have any money.’

  Lepski was so struck by this home truth that he hastily took out his wallet to make sure he had a dollar. When he found he had thirty dollars, his rage made his head swim.

  ‘I’ve got a dollar, you little sonofabitch! Who said and what message?’

  The boy had already noted the contents of the wallet. He now appeared to be more relaxed in mind.

  ‘Goldie White wants to talk to you. Gimme a buck and I’ll give you her address.’

  ‘What makes you think I want to walk to Goldie White whoever the hell she is?’ Lepski demanded.

  The boy became bored. He sank one dirty finger into his right nostril and began to explore.

  ‘She’s Mai Langley’s buddy,’ he said while exploring. ‘Are you giving me the buck or aren’t you?’

  Lepski looked hurriedly over to the Lobster & Crab. There was no sign yet of Lacey. He plucked a dollar bill from his wallet, then holding onto the bill, he regarded the boy suspiciously.

  ‘Where is she?’

  ‘Gimme the buck.’

  ‘You’ll get it. Where is she?’

  The boy stopped exploring his right nostril and transferred his attention to his left nostril.

  ‘My dad warned me never to trust a cop. Gimme the buck or the deal’s off.’

  In his present state of mind, Lepski longed to strangle this dirty brat, but he controlled himself. He handed over the dollar, but as the boy’s fingers closed on the bill, Lepski’s fingers closed on the boy’s wrist.

  ‘Where is she?’ Lepski snarled, ‘or do I tear your goddamn arm off?’

  ‘23a, Turtle Crawl: third floor,’ the boy told him, wrenching his wrist free. He paused long enough to make a fantastically loud and rude noise with his lips, then he was gone. Lepski had no idea where Turtle Crawl Street was. He could have been sold a pup. He became aware that the four mobile cops were now watching him suspiciously. He started the car and drove along the crowded waterfront. When he was far enough out of sight, he stopped by a woman selling turtles and asked where he could find the street.

  ‘Second left,’ she told him. ‘How about taking your kids home a turtle, mister?’

  ‘Who the hell wants a turtle and who the hell would want a kid?’ Lepski snarled and drove on.

  He parked his car among the trucks collecting lobsters from a boat that had just docked and walked down the narrow street until he found 23a. He realised if Lieutenant Lacey discovered he was still investigating he was in for a lapful of trouble, but by now Lepski was in such a belligerent mood he didn’t care.

  He climbed to the third floor of the building that gave off smells of perfume and rich cooking. As he climbed, he decided he was in one of those blocks given up exclusively to prostitution and which, Lepski decided, must have police protection.

  He finally arrived before a door which carried a card, reading: Goldie White, Business hours: 11.00 -13.00 & 20.00 - 23.00.

  Lepski blew out his cheeks, shaking his head. The nerve of it, he thought. He rang the bell. There was a little delay, then the door swung open.

  Blocki
ng the entrance was a tall, thin man, his face narrow, his chin receding, his black dyed hair also receding, his mouth thin and his eyes shifty. He wore an immaculate cream lightweight suit, a pale blue shirt and a black tie. He looked as prosperous as only a successful pimp can look, and he smelt as gorgeous as only a successful pimp can smell.

  He regarded Lepski, then revealed plastic teeth in a welcoming smile.

  ‘Come in, Mr. Lepski,’ he said, standing aside. ‘Goldie was hoping you would drop in. I’m Jack Thomas, her business manager.’

  Lepski moved into the room, comfortably furnished with four lounging chairs, a TV set, a white wool rug and girlie prints of disturbing frankness on the walls.

  ‘Where is she?’ he demanded. The sight of any pimp sent his blood pressure up, and as his blood pressure had already risen alarmingly after his interview with Lacey, he was now close to flash point.

  ‘She’ll be along,’ Thomas said airily. He was so occupied with his own charm that he failed to register Lepski’s homicidal state of mind. ‘Sit down, Mr. Lepski. What’ll you drink?’

  Lepski breathed heavily, his fingers curling.

  ‘Where is she?’

  ‘No drink?’ Thomas sank languidly into a chair. ‘Of course . . . line of duty. I understand. Take a chair, Mr. Lepski. She wanted me to talk to you. I . . .’

  ‘Get out of that goddamn chair!’ Lepski bellowed. ‘No pimp sits when I’m standing!’

  His tone of voice and his expression made Thomas leave the chair as if he had been kicked out of it. He gaped at Lepski, his face paling and he backed away.

  ‘Get your whore!’ Lepski snarled, ‘and then get out! One more minute of your stinking company will make me throw up!’

  As Thomas turned wildly to the door of an inner room, the door opened and a girl came out. She paused in the doorway while she looked at Lepski and then at Thomas.

  ‘Okay, Jack, beat it. I’ll handle it,’ she said.

  Goldie White was a nicely stacked blonde with cold good looks that would attract most men if they were drunk enough to be reckless. She was certainly corrupt and looked confident enough to handle anything in trousers from a man to an ape. She was wearing an orange coloured sweater that revealed her medically inflated mammary equipment and a mini skirt that showed off her thighs. Her eyes were interesting: they could grow hot, cold, steely, greedy, seductive and dumb with the acrobatic agility of a kaleidoscope.