To speak for the dead

by Paul Levine

  I said yes but she didn't ask what I wanted. She slid behind a bar, and I took a seat on a Lucite barstool that would throw your back into spasms if you stayed for more than two drinks. The designer obviously had not been in many bars where men sit and talk and drink. Melanie Corrigan bent down to get a bottle and let me see the tops of very white, very firm breasts.

  I would have liked a beer. She reached for tequila and orange juice and poured some of each in a glass you could have used to put out a three-alarm fire. She dropped in some ice cubes and shook a dash of bitters on top. I don't care for a drink that needs ice and fruit juice.

  "Tijuana Sunrise," she said.

  "Buenos cttas," I said.

  She poured herself one, and we each took a sip. She didn't seem to be in a hurry. Her russet hair was tumbling free today, lightly brushing her shoulders where the tiny silk straps did their best to slide downhill.

  "Roger is getting to be a problem," she said finally, touching her cheekbone where the bruise was already beginning to darken. She had long, graceful fingers, nails expensively done with lots of color. "He can't accept the fact that it's over."

  She tugged at one of the slippery straps. I kept quiet.

  "He apparently told you about us," she continued, fishing to find out what I knew.

  "Every dirty little detail, the twosomes, the threesomes."

  She didn't blink, just gave a little shrug that sent the strap slithering off one shoulder. The black silk fell open, exposing a cinnamon nipple that acted like it enjoyed being watched.

  "He thinks he still owns me, thinks I'm still a kid. You've got to keep him away from me or he's going to get hurt."

  "That sounds like a threat."

  "I could say things that wouldn't be good for his health."

  "Such as?"

  She studied me a moment, deciding how much to say. "He wanted to kill Philip, wanted me to do it. That's all he talked about for months. I refused, of course."

  "Of course," I said with just a dash of sarcasm like the bitters in the silly drink.

  "Screw you, Lassiter," she said. What happened to Jake?

  She gave me a look with a below-zero wind chill and said, "I might not have been the world's greatest wife by your standards, but I did a lot for Philip. Whatever he asked. We had an arrangement. He got what he wanted from me, and I got what I wanted from him."

  "His bank accounts and stock portfolio."

  She wouldn't let me rile her. "The freedom that came with those things. Philip didn't care if I saw other men, maybe even liked it. For me things were great. I didn't depend on men's handouts anymore. Why would I kill him? There was no reason to."

  "So why did you keep your mouth shut when your darling husband planned to go under the knife of the doctor who wanted him dead?"

  "I was scared to death when Philip went in the hospital, but I thought, with all the nurses and other doctors around, Roger just couldn't…"

  She let it hang there.

  "He didn't," I said. "The jury found that Roger wasn't even negligent, much less a killer. Your husband died of a spontaneous aneurysm."

  "He was poisoned," she said without a trace of emotion. "In his hospital room."

  I took a long hit on the drink to think that one over. This conversation sounded familiar.

  She kept going. "Roger had this liquid in a bottle, an anesthetic. He wanted me to use it on Philip. Get him drunk or stoned, then inject him in the buttocks. Said it couldn't be traced."

  "He gave you the bottle?"

  "No. I wouldn't take it then. After Philip died, I was at Roger's house. I was still seeing him until I filed the lawsuit. I knew he kept the bottle in a small refrigerator, so I took it. I wanted to turn it over to the authorities."

  "Did you?"

  She looked away. "No. I know I should have, but then everything would have come out in the newspapers. I've worked hard to earn respectability, and it would all be gone."

  "But you sued him for malpractice."

  "I didn't want to. I didn't want the attention. But I was afraid if I didn't sue Roger, it would raise suspicions. Philip's daughter, that tomboy bitch, would have thought Roger and I killed him."

  Lights were flashing like a pinball machine. Susan Corrigan may have been right about Roger Salisbury but wrong about Melanie Corrigan. Melanie had to be telling the truth,

  I thought. She couldn't risk telling me about the drug if she had been in on it.

  "What was Roger doing here today?"

  "I never really told him it was over. I didn't want to hurt him. When I filed the suit, I told him we'd get back together after the trial. Today I told him to stay away and he freaked."

  "Show me the drug," I said, already knowing the response.

  She gave me a helpless look that I hadn't seen on her before. "I can't," she said. "It's gone, stolen."

  I decided there was nothing to be gained in telling Melanie Corrigan that her beloved stepdaughter had been poking around in her underwear drawer. "What do you want me to do?" I asked.

  She half smiled and half sighed. Her eyes seemed to widen, to change from business to bedroom, a neat trick. Outside the floor-to-ceiling windows, the sun was setting, and inside, the room was bathed in pink. Melanie Corrigan's skin took on a soft glow, and it hadn't looked bad in the light. She glided around the bar to where I was planted on the hard-as-granite barstool. She pulled up the silky strap one more time and now her perky nipples poked at the flimsy fabric. Maybe they were standing at attention because of the cool evening air or maybe it had something to do with the full moon coming up over the bay. Or maybe it was the proximity of me. Or maybe, just maybe, I should have my head examined. Ready to drink that pretty poison, as big a fool as Roger Salisbury.

  At that moment what I wanted most was knowledge of self. I would have liked to figure out that urge that started halfway between my knees and chest and threatened to spread northward until it flooded whatever brain cells still worked without a jump start. I would have liked to, but I didn't have time because she looked me right in the eyes, smiled, and then slapped me.

  There are slaps that ring your ears and slaps that bring tears to your eyes. This one could do neither. Less sting than my aftershave. I smiled at her and stood up. She had on a funny look, watching me with pouting lips. She had a good pout.

  Then she slapped me again. Harder. Not enough to take an eight-count, but probably enough to bring some color to my cheeks, as well as to hers. Especially hers. She was enjoying this, warming up around the eyes. A hot little smile now. And crack, another slap. I was getting used to it.

  She threw her arms around my neck, pressed herself up against me, then rocked up and down on her tiptoes as if stretching her calves. What she was doing was rubbing parts of her against parts of me like a very friendly, very slinky cat. My hands slid down her back to her round, tight bottom. She was firm where a woman ought to be firm and soft where a woman ought to be soft.

  I looked at her close up. She had tiny golden freckles across the bridge of her nose, and little smile lines creased the corners of her mouth. A look of innocence and mirth. But the eyes were something else, wet and wild. And her neck was fragrant with the sweetness of the tropical night. A provocative blend of the pure and the wanton.

  "When your face gets red, your eyes are even bluer," she said.

  "Wait'll I start bleeding. I'll be another Paul Newman." 145

  "You like being slapped," she said. Telling me, not asking me.

  "Not as much as some other things," I said.

  "You could learn." She pulled me toward her, looking into my eyes from under long lashes, still standing on her toes, straining against me. "You're a big man," she said, running her hands across my back. "More man than Roger or Philip."

  Then she decided to see if I could swallow her tongue.

  I could.

  Just then an ugly noise from outside filled the room. A shout in Japanese split the air like a police siren. It could have awakened the dead at Gu
adalcanal, and it nearly cost Melanie Corrigan the tip of her slippery tongue. I let her go, and she straightened her sliding strap and brushed a hand through her hair.

  "Must be Sergio," she said, as if there was nothing unusual in a banzai yell interrupting a perfectly fine kiss. We retraced the path to the foyer without pausing for food or water. Then another bellow from outside, and the front door shuddered as if hit by a wrecking ball. "He probably saw your car outside. He's insanely jealous."

  Yet another Oriental war whoop and again the door groaned in pain.

  "Sergio?" I asked.

  "Sergio Machado-Alvarez," she said, serenely. "My chauffeur, boat captain, and… friend. We'd better open the door or he'll just break it down."

  She punched the code into the digital alarm and unleashed the deadbolt. The huge door swung open to reveal a swarthy, moustachioed block of concrete. Sneakers, sweat pants, and a sleeveless muscle shirt, a tattoo of a lightning bolt on his tricep. He had plenty of beef to show, huge shoulders and chest, a fireplug of muscle and malice. Recently, I'd seen even more of him on videotape.

  Sergio Machado-Alvarez stepped into the foyer and shot me a sideways smile, a mean little smile under the drooping moustache. He had big gray teeth like a double row of gravestones. He needed a shave and always would.

  There was only one thing that detracted from his overall appearance as a menace to society. He was short. Like a lot of little guys he probably was working hard on the compensation factor. Building huge muscles, getting tough with karate, having something to show off. Stand at any gas station and study men and their cars in relation to their size. Check out how many short guys drive Sedan de Villes and Lincoln Town Cars. They need pillows to see over the steering wheel. Then come the big guys. They have to unfold a section at a time to get out of their Alfa Romeos and Corvettes.

  "Do you know who I am?" he asked. A voice of practiced toughness, a faint Cuban accent.

  "Something that escaped from the zoo."

  "Hijo de puta," he snarled, "I'll dig you another asshole."

  "Why not spare yourself the trouble and just lend me one of yours?" Even I didn't know what that meant, the mouth being quicker than the mind.

  He took a few seconds to think it over, then dropped into the half-moon stance with legs spread, left foot forward, hands on hips. I needed this like I needed to be in traction, which I might be if either of us found it necessary to show off for the lady of the house. I had been hitting the heavy bag at home. But the heavy bag doesn't know karate. And this guy looked like he intended to scatter my teeth.

  "Hombre, you think you're tough?"

  "No, I'm a pansy. You're tough."

  He was trying to figure out if I was pulling his chain. He was the kind of guy who needed to take a thought and spread it on the kitchen table with the comics page. "I got cojones grandes, balls the size of grapefruit," he said slowly, as if he had memorized the phrase.

  "You can take penicillin for that," I suggested.

  His throat released a growl that a Doberman would be proud to own. Melanie shook a long fingernail and said, "Sergio, Mr. Lassiter is my guest. Please mind your manners. And don't you have a class to teach?"

  The sinister little hulk looked at his watch, his lips moving slowly.

  "Little hand on the six, big hand on the eleven," I said, helpfully. "You can figure it out."

  His eyes flicked toward Melanie. "I got to train housewives to kick their husbands in the balls." Then he looked at me and made his face even uglier. He seemed to be all forehead and whiskers. "I'll see you another time, cagado cabron asshole," he said.

  "How's Wednesday for lunch? Have your girl call my girl."

  This time the growl became a shriek. He bolted through the open doorway and bounded down the steps as fast as his chunky legs could move. "Ushiro-keomi!" His yell nearly drowned out the sound of the electric-powered waterfall tumbling over the landscaping. Then, in the driveway, he spun sideways and put out the left headlight on my 442 with a back-thrust kick. Glass scattered on the cobblestones. What kind of a man hurts an innocent old car?

  "Shuto!" He brought his hand down like a sword across the hood, the sickening sound of metal giving way, caving in. Next, I figured, he would bite the tires and give me four flats. Instead, he jumped on his motorcycle, a loud Kawasaki, did a wheelie, and screamed off into the night, shouting unheard insults over his shoulder.

  I surveyed the damage to the 442, then sat down on the front steps.

  "Do you want to come back in?" Melanie Corrigan said, with a promise as large as a king-size waterbed. But the moment had passed. My brains had taken over. I didn't want her tequila and orange juice and didn't want any part of her. She was too available, too free with herself, but too expensive for her men. Look at the price Philip Corrigan paid, and Roger Salisbury, tangled up with lust and maybe murder. And Sergio, the muscle-bound half-wit, martial arts fueled by jealousy.

  I wanted to see Susan Corrigan, wanted to tell her about Melanie's charges against Roger. I wanted some help in figuring it all out. But first, I wanted to go home and pound out the vicious dent in my wounded chariot.

  13

  GRAVEYARD SHIFT

  A great piece of luck, Charlie Riggs was saying. Philip Corrigan entombed in a crypt aboveground, an ornate mausoleum with the design of Palmland, his largest shopping center, molded into the concrete.

  "A great piece of luck," he said again, "especially with Corrigan dead two years. In Florida the ground is so damp, the tissues break down fast. I hate to tell you what corpses look like when you dig them up, mold on the outside, parasites and larvae on the inside. Mausoleum tombs are so rare these days, so expensive. But I guess he could afford it."

  "Judging from his house, the tomb will have a wine cellar, an elevator, and a butler," I said.

  "Just so it's airtight, that's the ticket."

  Riggs was nearly smacking his lips at the prospect of popping the top on Philip Corrigan's last resting place. I had pulled the funeral bills from the case file. In a wrongful death case the estate recovers funeral expenses, and I remembered a fifty-thousand-dollar number. Sure enough, there it was, a bill from Eternal Memories Mortuary and Mausoleum. When the first Mrs. Corrigan had died, her husband bought the choicest acre plot and ordered a mausoleum built for two, and not the compact efficiency model either. The perfect touch from the loving husband, a promise that his bones would one day rest beside hers. Just not so soon, Philip Corrigan would have hoped.

  Eighty-five thousand for construction and services related to Mrs. Corrigan. Another fifty grand two years later for finishing Philip Corrigan's crypt put the whole shebang into six figures for the condo-like mausoleum. According to the specifications on the bill, it had a sitting room with a concrete bench so mourners could be shielded from the midday sun, a main room with matching concrete crypts on raised platforms of coral rock, and a foyer with the inscription, "Death Pays All Debts," a fitting eulogy for a guy who leveraged construction loans into his fortune.

  Charlie Riggs and I were in my Olds 442, which sported a new headlight and pounded-out hood, and responded with a happy roar coming east on Tamiami Trail. I had told Riggs about the conversation with Melanie Corrigan, leaving out the details of the slinky body and lingering kiss. Her allegations against Salisbury fascinated him.

  "Fits a little too nicely," he said, chewing on a cold pipe. His forehead was furrowed in thought, and the lights were on behind his straw-colored eyes.

  "How's that?"

  "First the daughter tells you the doctor used the drug to kill Corrigan. Then the widow tells you the doctor wanted her to do it with the drug. You don't even know if the liquid the daughter showed you is succinylcholine."

  "What are you saying?"

  "That the two women could be framing the good doctor."

  "I can't buy it. Every crime needs a motive, as you constantly remind me. Melanie Corrigan might have one, just to get rid of Salisbury. He's a pest to her. But Susan Corrigan, what could
she have against Salisbury?"

  Riggs tried to light his pipe, no easy task with the top down and the 442 howling at seventy-five. "Maybe nothing, except they needed a fall guy for the murder of Philip Corrigan."

  "What?" I nearly lost control, swerving to avoid a dead armadillo.

  "How was the estate split?"

  "Melanie got the house, the yacht, and thirty percent of the gross assets. Susan got the rest after estate taxes. Neither one's going hungry."

  "So they each had a motive, hypothetically at least, for wanting Philip Corrigan dead."

  "Hey Doc, we're talking about a girl and her father."

  "As Plautus said, lupus est homo homini. Man is a wolf to man. It applies to women, too. Inhumanity is often at its worst inside the family. Men beat their wives or commit incest. Wives kill their husbands, sometimes in the most bizarre manner. And daughters sometimes kill their fathers."

  "That's sick, Charlie."

  "So it is," he said, giving up on the pipe and blinking into the wind.

  We followed the stone path around the house and founc Susan Corrigan just getting out of the saltwater pool. She wore a dark blue, no-nonsense Lycra competition suit. It clung to every curve and crevice of her athletic body. She put on her tortoiseshell glasses, which immediately steamec up.

  "Finished with two hundred yards of butterfly," she said pufling a little. "Gets the blood flowing."

  I introduced her to Charlie Riggs, and she gave him respectful hello and asked why the distinguished former cor oner would hang around with a second-string ex-jock turnec shyster. On the off chance that was a joke, I laughed like good sport. Then I handed her a towel, but she neglected to ask me to dry her back so I didn't. Plowing common ground I said I had read her game story from LA. The Dolphin receivers dropped everything but their paychecks Sunday.

  "Eight dropped passes," she said, "two in the end zone they lose by three points. And the defense played great. Die you see Tyrone Washington? Four sacks."