“You know me, Shawn, I believe in running away so I can run another day.”
“A man after my own heart. Hey, I need to get to the police station and see they aren’t using a rubber hose on Wizard. I’ll see you around.” He stood up, said something to Ron, and left.
I drank another cup of coffee, but still had a couple of hours before I could go back and get what Lucky had left with Tracy.
Light rain wet one side of Caroline Street as I rode my bike toward Simonton Street, where I turned, and then turned again on Fleming Street, going against the one-way traffic. The rain stayed at the waterfront. I locked my bike in front of Island Books.
Books, shelved and in stacks, filled the narrow store. Books about Key West, its history, and its characters ran along the right wall, and there were signed books by Key West authors on a display as you first came into the shop. New books, used books, picture books filled the store. In the next room, the condition was the same, books and more books.
I saw Mitch’s head through the open door to his small office in the back; he was working at his computer. There was no one at the register and two customers wandered through the store.
“You’re here early,” Mitch said. He must have had eyes in the back of his head.
“Have you heard about the two murders?”
He turned in his book-cramped office and stared at me. “In Key West?” Classical music played lightly from his computer speakers.
“Yeah, in Key West.”
“Tell me.” He pushed his glasses up on his nose and waited.
I told him and he listened quietly.
“Any suspects? I mean, besides you.”
“Thanks,” I said. “I don’t know what they’ve done in the last few hours, maybe they do, maybe they don’t.”
“Are you hiding out?” He twisted in his chair.
“When they call me to come in for questioning I’ll go in.”
“Really? Take an attorney.”
“I don’t need one.”
“Famous last words. Look, if they’ve got no one else, then it has to be you. I beg your pardon, but that’s how it works.”
“I don’t think so, Mitch. I have witnesses, there’s no physical evidence…”
“Coincidence, Mick.” He pushed his glasses back in place and stood up. “Take my advice and don’t go to the police station without legal representation, coincidence has put others in jail.”
Outside, I lit another cigar and decided to walk along Duval Street toward the Hog’s Breath. I could see the rain clouds hovering at Lower Duval. Cars and scooters rushed in both directions and the sidewalks were busy with tourists. Outside Jimmy Buffett’s Margaritaville Restaurant, people were lined up for lunch seating. At Fat Tuesday’s early revelers enjoyed the toxic frozen drinks they served and across Caroline Street Fogerty’s had its first lunch group seated. The island was busy for mid-week. Rain was a block away.
The two-hundred block of Duval was the party area, be it spring break or Fantasy Fest or any day of the week with a D in it. The Tree Bar, Angelina’s Pizza, and Rick’s were open and busy. Across the street, the Lazy Gecko, Sloppy Joe’s Bar, and Irish Kevin’s were just as busy. This block of Key West sold a good time by the glass and there was no shortage of takers. Rain drizzled across Greene Street like a beaded curtain.
The bank’s parking lot was full and the afternoon entertainment had begun at the Hog’s Breath. Joel Nelson sat on the rain-protected stage and played for a half-full bar. We nodded at each other as I walked in. The bloodstains on the broken cement floor had been washed away and all the barstools were upright. Kevin tended the raw bar and Irish Bob was alone behind the big bar.
“Interesting morning,” Irish Bob said as I passed.
“How long have you been open?”
“About an hour.” He smiled. “You gonna tell me about it?”
“Later, I need to go to the office,” I said, and kept walking.
Tracy was alone.
“You owe me.” She smiled, and put down what she was working on. “Hold on.”
I closed the door as she walked into the back room. She came back holding a manila envelope, which she handed to me. “What’s in it?”
I opened the envelope and six audiotapes and a note from Tony slid out. I put them back.
“Thanks, Tracy. I’ll let you know as soon as I listen to them. You okay?”
“Are you okay?” She sat down. “Morales had a lot of questions about you. I told him what I did, called you, and that was it. The son of a bitch doesn’t believe me.”
“His job is to be suspicious. Don’t let him get to you.”
“I had to sign my statement.”
“Consider yourself lucky. I have to go to the station to give mine.”
I stuffed the envelope against my back and walked out into the rain.
Tony’s note echoed what Shawn had said about the book having better prospects of being a mystery novel than a memoir. The afternoon rain pounded the deck on my sailboat, the Fenian Bastard, as I pulled my small tape recorder from storage and played the tapes. I poured some Jameson over ice and sipped the drink as I listened.
The three treasure hunters had sat with Tony and told their stories, each cutting in on the other to make corrections, because they never seemed to agree. The most interesting parts were about smuggling marijuana and who had financed their frequent trips. They even named some of the Mexican boaters on the mother ship, as well as local backers, but again, they argued about that. Much of the information had been rumored for years around the island, so there was little new in the tapes.
It was almost humorous when they talked about discovering the treasure. They were diving, illegally, for local lobsters when they discovered the first few artifacts. It took them weeks of scraping the bottom by hand to find more, and then they took it to Shawn. They all respected Shawn for his years of support and always considered him their business partner.
I put a blank tape in my recorder, put my Glock, with a round in the chamber, in the pocket of my foul-weather jacket with the recorder, and called Chief Dowley. I told him where to meet me and left as the rain turned to drizzle. I had a good idea of who the killer was, but it didn’t make any sense. Then again, murder rarely does.
Lightning flashed and thunder boomed as I walked into the plush empty outer office. The inside door was open and classical music played from hidden speakers. I unzipped my jacket and turned the tape recorder on as I walked through the open office door and closed it. Shawn sat at his clear glass-topped desk; a coke spoon in his hand came down empty from his nose. A small bag of white powder and a revolver sat on the desk.
“Do you want some?” His eyes stared hard at me, but he smiled.
“No, Shawn, I have a hard enough time being a drunk.”
“This is better than booze.” He filled the small coke spoon and inhaled it through one nostril. “You have the tapes?”
“Yeah, I have them.”
“The crazy bastards,” he growled. “I didn’t think they’d turn on me.”
“They didn’t.”
He looked puzzled for a moment and then smiled again. “What do you mean?”
“You were right, Shawn.” I moved away from the desk. “Mostly they argued on the tapes. Talked about their smuggling and joked about finding the treasure.”
“They lied about me and my family, I know they did.” He was becoming agitated.
“No, they didn’t, Shawn,” I tried to say calmly. “There are more rumors out on the street about how Key West families got their money from square groupers than are on the tapes.”
“That’s what Tony said. I didn’t believe him, either.”
“He told you that before you killed him?”
“Yeah,” he growled again. “Now you’re saying he told me the truth?”
“He wasn’t going to write the memoir, he wanted to use the information for a mystery novel.” I moved another step back.
“That’s good news,
but it’s a little late.” His laugh sounded like an animal’s howl. “Of course, it’s not good news for you, is it? You know the truth.” He inhaled another spoonful of cocaine. “I have to kill you, and then this will go away.”
“Are you going to run me through with a pirate sword, too?” I stood still and put my hand on the Glock.
“No, the swords are gone.” He smiled. “Wizard had two of them and Tony made me so angry I just picked one up and drove it through him as he went to sit down.”
“You took the other one with you to kill Lucky?” I wanted it all on tape.
“Tony told me Lucky was taking the tapes to you, so I went after him,” he said quietly. “I didn’t realize I had the other sword with me until I got to my car. I drove around and saw Lucky walk into the Hog and I parked around on Front Street.” His hand was shaking so much he couldn’t hold the coke spoon. “I waited for him by the parking lot and when he came downstairs, I confronted him, and I still had the sword. He wouldn’t go back for the tapes. Damn fool, he didn’t think I’d do it, even after I stabbed him a few times.”
“Shawn, it has to stop. You’re connected enough to cop a manslaughter plea,” I said for the tape recorder. “Turn yourself in.”
He howled again and stood up, the revolver in his quivering hand. “It stops when you disappear, no sword, no body.”
“It will be messy in here, Shawn, blood and noise.”
“Let me worry about that,” he said and stepped away from the desk. “Where are the tapes?”
“On my boat. You gonna go get them?” I watched his gun hand tremble.
“Unless you want to take me there,” he laughed cruelly, his eyes wide.
I backed up; I wanted distance between us. “You were wrong to worry about the book, Shawn, and wrong about me, too.”
“Wrong about you, how?” He moved back toward a file cabinet, but held the gun aimed at me.
“I can kill, Shawn,” I said calmly. “I can’t run a sword through an innocent man, like you did, but I can kill to protect myself.”
“Yeah? But I have the gun.”
“Wrong again, Shawn.” I kept calm and smiled. “I have a gun in my pocket and it’s aimed at you.”
“Show it to me,” he challenged me angrily. “I don’t believe you.”
“Put the gun down, Shawn, and we’ll both be alive when the police arrive.”
“I still don’t believe you,” and he fired one shot that went past my left shoulder, his hand trembled so. “Damn you!” He fired again and missed.
The two shots echoed and the room smelled of burnt cordite.
I fired the Glock and hit him square in the chest. The cocaine rush kept him standing, but he looked down at the growing bloodstain on his flowery shirt and then back at me. He raised his arm up, ready to fire again. I had the gun out of my pocket and pointed at him. I shook my head.
“No, Shawn, drop it.” He didn’t, and I shot him again, and my ears rang from the noise.
He fell against the file cabinet and slid to the floor. The door behind me crashed against the office wall as Chief Dowley rushed in, gun in hand. He looked at me and then at Shawn, who died with a cocaine smile.
“Damn, Mick, I hope you’re right,” he said softly. “You just killed an important guy.”
I pulled the tape recorder out of my pocket and handed it to him. I heard sirens from outside. “Yeah, in self-defense and I solved two murders for you.”
He took my Glock, put it on a chair, and then rewound the tape. Two uniformed officers came in, guns drawn.
“Call the paramedics,” he told them and led me into the outer office. “He confesses on this?”
“And fired first, it’s all there.”
He placed the recorder next to his ear and played the tape. He smiled. “Why didn’t you wait for me?”
“I hoped I was wrong.”
“So why call me to meet you here?”
“If I was wrong I was gonna buy you a beer.”
He put the recorder in his pocket and talked to the uniformed officer at the door. Then he waved me over and led me outside.
“Let me buy you a drink. After all, this is Key West, not Miami, and you ain’t goin’ anywhere. Hell, Mick, it’s been one long day—” He put his arm around my shoulder — “and I can use a beer. Then we have to go see Luis for your statement.”
“The guy hates me, Chief.” I allowed him to tug me toward the street.
“Yeah, but I still love you.”
“What about my gun?”
“It’s in an evidence bag,” he said and we walked away in the rain.
Wheeze
by Michael Z. Lewin
Copyright © 2007 by Michael Z. Lewin
Probably best known in the U.S. for his P.I. Albert Samson books, of which the most recent was Eye Opener (Five Star/’04), Michael Z. Lewin has pursued many other writing projects over the years. He’s a regular contributor of dramas to BBC radio, an author of children’s books, and someone who has toured throughout the U.S. with presentations on writing.
What happens when three very different authors are inspired by the same idea for a short story? Take “Wheeze” and the two stories that follow it in this issue, “Say That Again” and “The Old Story”; they’re proof that from a common seed distinctive fictional creations will grow. The article that set all three of these stories’ authors going appeared in the newspaper The Week (Hagen, Germany): “Pensioner gang on trial: Three geriatric criminals have gone on trial accused of carrying out a string of armed robberies across western Germany. Rudi Richter, 74, Wilfried Ackerman, 73, and Lotha Ackerman, 64, have admitted taking part in 14 robberies that earned them a total of 1.3m euros. They began robbing banks in 1988, but were forced to stop the next year when Wilfried was arrested and sent to prison for ten years. In 2000, they reformed, and reached their peak 3 years later, scooping a quarter of a million euros in five heists. Age, however, eventually caught up with them. ‘Rudi couldn’t really get up the stairs anymore and we constantly had to stop so he could go to the toilet,’ said Wilfried. At first, police assumed they were looking for younger men; they realized their mistake when a witness reported hearing the thieves wheezing.”
❖
Georgina Bladen was up-stairs ironing. Usually she ironed downstairs when she had the house to herself, in front of the big television. But today there was a chance — just a chance — that Barry would stop home after lunch before he headed for Fraserton. His meeting with Jim Pinney was important, and Barry liked to look right when a meeting was important.
Mind you, it really depended on how long he spent lunching at Maxie’s. As well as looking right, Barry liked to feel good about himself before a meeting, and Maxie’s flattery would do that trick. Georgina had long since given up worrying about whether Barry was having a thing with Maxie. In a town the size of Roseville surely someone would have seen them and shared the observation. And, knowing the way Barry thought and operated, Georgina would only begin to worry if he stopped lunching at Maxie’s little cafe, dirty as the place was.
Georgina sighed.
With Barry’s shirts done, she thought about taking a break before going on to his undershirts and boxers. Maybe a cup of the chamomile tea that Floella brought back from her last trip out of state would be calming. Not that Georgina felt she needed calming, but it was good to experience new things. She could make the tea and then call Flo to report how she’d liked it. Yes, that would work. Downstairs making tea, she could easily hear Barry’s car if it did pull in. She could be upstairs again before he got into the house. Not as fast as he used to be, Barry.
Not that he minded her having a break or being downstairs. It was having her ironing equipment clutter up the living room in front of his High Definition that bothered him. It made no sense to Georgina but it wasn’t worth rowing about again. She switched the bedroom TV off and turned to the door.
And she heard something.
Her first, shocked, reaction was that it wa
s Barry. But it couldn’t be, not yet. Could it? She looked at the alarm clock. No, no. So maybe it was one of those creepy creaky house sounds.
But then she heard the sound again and it was human. A wheeze.
Barry might not be as young as he liked to think he was, but he didn’t wheeze. Especially not since he’d lost weight and started going to the gym.
Still, Georgina doubted herself. How could she be hearing a wheeze? If Barry were here, in the bedroom with her, and she asked him to go downstairs, he’d tell her not to be stupid.
Was she being stupid?
And then she heard the wheeze again.
Who could it be? The house was always unlocked, as they mostly were in Roseville, but no one popped in without calling out a greeting as they came through the door.
And no one Georgina knew wheezed. It was a real puzzle. Surely it couldn’t be a burglar or anything big-city like that. And if it was, what did one do?
She picked up the iron. She went toward the bedroom door, but the iron jerked, and almost fell out of her hand. Silly Georgina. It had to be unplugged before she could hit somebody with it.
At the bottom of the stairs, iron in hand, Georgina heard more sounds, from her dining room. Or maybe they came from beyond it, in her kitchen.
“Hello?” she called. “Who’s there?”
Her grip on the iron grew tighter. It was absurd to think she was in danger — not in Roseville — but you never knew. Look at all those murders they covered on those CSIs. Sometimes more than one in a show. She shivered.
“Hello?” she called again.
In the doorway between kitchen and dining room Georgina found an old woman.
The old woman wore a brown fabric coat. A little blue hat sat on her gray head. As Georgina saw the woman, the woman saw her.
“Fredericka?” the woman said.
“Who?” Georgina said.
“Fredericka? Is that you? You look so different.” Some foam appeared at the corner of the old woman’s mouth.
Georgina felt a moment of panic.
“Fredericka,” the old woman said again, but this time there was hostility in her voice, anger. “What have you done with Connie? She’s only three, you know.” And the woman began to move forward, waving the hand that wasn’t holding her floppy cloth shoulder bag.
Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 129, Nos. 3 & 4. Whole Nos. 787 & 788, March/April 2007 Page 23