Amos Walker: The Complete Story Collection (31 page)

“Security job up in Harbor Beach.”

“Judge Dunham’s poker game.” I must have reacted, because he showed me his bridgework. “Shoot, everybody in these parts knows about the judge’s annual game. You don’t shove a couple of hundred thousand back and forth across a table one weekend every spring and expect not to get talked about around here. That’s why he needs security. Well, I’ll check it out. This guy never introduced himself?”

I shook my head. “He said he had family in Port Austin.”

“We’ll send a man up there with a morgue shot. Any luggage?”

“No.”

“Most hitchers have something. A backpack or something.”

“This one didn’t.”

He tapped the gold pencil against his bridgework. Just then a county wagon pulled in and two attendants in uniform got out. He put away the pencil and notebook. “You heading straight up to Harbor Beach tonight?”

“Not this late. I thought I’d get a room and make a fresh jump in the morning. Any place you’d recommend?”

“The roaches all look alike up here. I got your address and number if we need you, or I can call the judge if we need you quick. We won’t. I figure our boy got robbed and put up a fuss. Fact he didn’t tell you he was wounded makes me think a dope deal went bad, something on that order. We get that, even here.”

I said, “I guess there aren’t any Mayberrys any more.”

“There never were, except on television.” He thanked me and walked back to take charge of the body. Norm, watching, was on his second pack of Marlboros. I noticed he’d opened this one on top.

The motel I fell into a mile up 19 was a concrete bunker built in a square
U
with the office in the base. The manager, fat and hairless except for a gray tuft coiling over the
V
in his Hawaiian shirt, took my cash and registration card and handed me a key wired to the anchor from the
Edmund Fitzgerald.
My room, second from the end in the north leg of the
U,
stood across from an ice machine illuminated like an icon under a twenty-watt bulb. I had a double bed, a TV, and a shower stall with a dispenser full of pink soap that smelled like Madame Ling’s Secrets of the East Massage Parlor on Gratiot. The TV worked like my plans for the evening.

Back at the convenience store in Argyle I’d placed a call to Judge Dunham, whose round courtroom-trained voice came on the line after two rings. I said I had car trouble and was stuck for the night. I didn’t say the trouble had to do with a stiff in the front seat.

“No sweat,” he said. “Senator Sullivan won’t be here till morning and I never start without my worst poker player. Just steam on in come sunup.”

I pulled my overnight case out of the car, then as an afterthought grabbed Seaton’s duffel and carried them both into the room. I was too keyed up to sleep. I broke my flat pint of J&B out of the case, stripped the cellophane off the plastic glass in the bathroom, and went out for ice. Under the lights in the parking lot the blood on my front seat looked black as I passed it. I wondered if I could charge the cleaning to the judge.

I was about to plunge my plastic ice bucket into the machine when someone came strolling along the sidewalk on the other side of the lot. Most of the rooms were vacant—mine was one of only
three cars parked inside the U—so he was worth watching. He was built along the lanky lines of Norm, but younger, and made no sound at all on sneakered feet. He had on a dark jacket and pants, but I couldn’t make out his features at that distance. He was carrying something.

He paused in front of the door to my room and stood for a moment as if listening. Apparently satisfied, he stepped off the sidewalk and approached my car. A hand came out of one of his jacket pockets with something in it.

A Slim Jim.

He was nobody’s amateur. After casting a glance up and down the row of rooms, he tried the door on the driver’s side, then slid the flat hooked device between the closed window and the outside door panel and yanked it up decisively. I heard the click.

My gun was in the overnight case in the room. I hardly ever needed it to get ice. I used the only other weapon I had.

“Hey!”

He was a pro down to the ground. The Slim Jim jangled to the pavement and he went into a crouch I knew too well. I let go of the ice bucket and wedged myself between the machine and the block wall. He fired twice, the shots so close together I saw the yellow flame as one continuous spurt. Much closer to home I heard a twang and a thud as the first bullet ricocheted off the concrete behind me and the second penetrated the ice machine’s steel skin. Then he took off running, his lanky legs eating up pavement two yards at a bite, back in the direction he’d come. He hadn’t waited to see if he’d hit anything. They never do, except in submarine pictures.

I pried myself loose from cover. On the other side of the building an engine started, wound up, and faded down Highway 19, gear-changes hiccoughing. A pair of red tail-lamps flicked past the edge of
the motel and on into darkness. I waited, but no lights came on behind any of the dark windows and nobody came out to investigate. Gunshots late at night were nothing unusual there in raccoon country.

At my car I picked up the Slim Jim and wandered around with my head down until something tiny caught the light in a yellow glint. I picked it up and looked for its mate, but it must have rolled into the shadows. I didn’t need it. I’d been pretty sure because of the close spacing of the shots that the weapon was an automatic and that I’d find at least one of the spent shells it kicked out. I had to take it into the room to make out what had been stamped into the flanged end: .38 SUPER.

I pocketed it, unpacked the Smith & Wesson in its form-fitted holster, checked the cylinder for cartridges, and clipped it to my belt. The fact that he’d come armed told me my visitor had been prepared to search the room if whatever he was after wasn’t in my car; a room he had every reason to believe was occupied by me. That kind of determination usually meant a return engagement.

Why was another matter. I wasn’t the most promising robbery target around. The Mercury was the oldest car in the lot and a hell of a long way from the most flashy. My clothes wouldn’t get me past the door of the Detroit Yacht Club. My overnight case had been in my family since the last Kiwanis Rummage Sale. As far as I knew, the only person worth shooting in those parts was already dead. Shot with a .38.

I dumped the contents of C. K. Seaton’s duffel out onto the bed and took inventory. One canteen, half full of something that smelled like water. Two cans of C rations. A knife and fork. One of those hinged camp pans divided into sections. Sailor’s blues, unrolling into sailor’s blues, nothing hidden there. And the crumpled sheaves of coarse paper to prevent the mess from banging around.

In the lamplight I liked the paper. I liked it a lot.

There were two bales, two feet by eighteen inches and two inches thick. I hefted one, rubbed individual sheets between thumb and forefinger. Not newsprint. Rag paper. I held a sheet up to the light and looked at the threads running through it.

I sat in the room’s only chair and smoked a Winston down to the filter. The frayed end when I ground it out resembled my brain. I stood and put everything back into the duffel except the papers. Those I combined in one stack. From the shelf in the bottom of the telephone stand I removed the county directory and took it out of its heavy vinyl advertising cover. I doubled over the blank sheets, slid them inside the cover, and inspected the result. It looked bloated. I returned it to the shelf and put the heavy telephone book on top of it. Better.

There is no place in a motel room you can hide something where someone hasn’t thought to look. But you can buy time.

• • •

I was dead in my shoes. If my friend came back for his burglar tool he would just have to wait until I woke up. I returned the camping equipment to the duffel, laid it lengthwise on the bed, drew the blanket over it, and stretched out in the chair with the lamp off and the revolver in my lap. Between the makeshift dummy and the time it would take my visitor’s pupils to adjust from the lighted parking lot, I might have the opportunity to teach him a lesson in target shooting.

Three gentle raps on the door pulled me out of a dream in which Frank Sinatra, Gene Kelly, and another guy, dressed up in sailor suits in the big city, got themselves gunned down by someone with a .38 automatic. The third guy was me.

The luminous dial of my watch read 2:11. Well, he
might
bother to knock. I got up, straightening the kinks, drew back the hammer on the Smith & Wesson, crab-walked to the door, and used the peephole.
The fisheye glass made an avian caricature of the man standing alone under the light mounted over the door. He was a middle-aged number going to gravity in a porkpie hat and a powder-blue sport-coat on top of a shirt with a spread collar. His hands were empty. I unlocked the door and opened it a foot and leveled the muzzle at his belly. His liquid brown eyes took in the weapon and gave nothing back. “Mr. Walker?”

“That’s half of it,” I said. “Let’s have the rest.”

“My name’s Hugh Vennable. I have some fancy identification in my pocket if you’ll let me take it out.”

I sucked a cheek. “What time is it?”

He hesitated, then looked at his watch. “Two-fifteen, why?”

It was strapped to his right wrist. “Take out your ID,” I said. “Use your right hand.”

“How’d you know I’m a lefty? Oh.” His smile was shallow. “Pretty slick.” He fished out a leather folder and showed me his picture on a card bearing the seal of the United States Navy.

“You’re with Naval Intelligence?”

He was still smiling. “I avoid saying it. Sounds like something you learn sitting around admiring your belly-button. Can I come in?”

I elevated the revolver’s barrel and let down the hammer, stepping away from the door. “By the way, your watch is two minutes fast.”

“I doubt it.” He came in, a soft-looking heavy man, light on his feet. His hair was fair at the temples under a cocoa straw hat—his eyebrows were almost invisible against a light working tan—and he had a roll of fat under his chin. His quick graceful movements said it was all camouflage; I knew a street tiger when I saw one. He looked around the room and sat on the edge of the bed, exposing briefly the square checked butt of a nine-millimeter Beretta in a speed holster on his belt.

I put away the Smith & Wesson. “I thought the navy issued Thirty-eight Supers.”

“Phasing ‘em out. Some prefer the old pieces, but I’m not one of them. Is that J and B?” He was looking at the pint bottle standing on top of the dresser.

“You’re not on duty?”

“Sure, but I’m no fanatic.”

I took the wrapper off another glass and poured two inches into it and the one I’d stripped earlier. I handed him one. “No ice, sorry. That trip’s longer than you’d think.”

“Never touch it.” He made a silent toast and drank off the top inch. “The state police told me where to find you. You reported a dead man in Argyle?”

“Did you know him?”

“His name was Charles Seaton, U.S.N. I’ve been tracking him since Cleveland.”

“Tracking him for what?” I sipped scotch.

“Federal robbery. You didn’t tell the law about the duffel he was carrying.”

“Was he?”

Vennable shook his head. “I’m not here to blow the whistle on you, son. I’d like a look in that bag.”

“What would you expect to find?”

“A couple of reams of paper. Not just any paper. The kind they print currency on.”

“What’s a seaman doing with treasury paper?”

“Not U.S. currency; navy scrip. Negotiable tender on any naval base in the world. We change the design and ink color from time to time to screw the counterfeiters, but never the paper. It’s a special rag bond, can’t be duplicated. The amount Seaton stole is worth
maybe a couple of million on the European black market. Last week he and a partner ripped off an armored car on its way to Washington from the mill in Cleveland where the paper’s made. Earlier tonight we pulled the partner out of Lake Huron near Lexington. I guess they both got their licks in.”

“That’s not far from where I picked him up.” I replaced the liquor he’d drunk.

“Thank you kindly. I figure they shot it out over the booty and Seaton won, sort of. Which means he’d have had the paper with him when you linked up.”

“He could’ve ditched it somewhere.”

“He wouldn’t throw it away and he was hurt too bad to waste time looking for a good hiding place. He’s got people in Port Austin. He’d have gone that way for his doctoring.”

“What about the third partner?”

A pair of transparent eyebrows got lifted. “Our scuttlebutt says he was twins. Not triplets.”

“Someone tried breaking into my car a couple of hours ago. When I yelled he shot at me.” I took the shell out of my pocket and handed it to him.

“Super.” He sniffed at the open end and gave it back. “One of the stick-up men used a thirty-eight auto. You get a look at him?”

“Not good enough for a court of law. But I’d know him.”

“Another player? Well, maybe.” He drained his glass and set it on the floor. “Where’s the duffel?”

“Under the blanket.”

He started, looked at the lump in the bed. “Thought you used pillows.” He got up to pull back the covers and grope inside the sack. When he looked at me again I was pointing the Smith & Wesson at him.

“Hold on, son.”

“That’s just what I’m doing,” I said. “You didn’t find the paper because it isn’t there. You killed Seaton rather than deal with him. Now you can deal with me.”

He stood with his hands away from his body. “Son, you’re shouting down the wrong vent.”

“Yeah, yeah, Popeye,” I said. “It was a good hand, but you overplayed it. The state police didn’t tell you where to find me. They didn’t know I’d be putting in at this motel. Neither did I when I left them. You had to have followed me, just like the guy you sent to break into my car.”

“You saw my bona fides.”

“I saw them. They might even be genuine. Who better to make off with navy valuables than someone in Naval Intelligence? What happened, you get double-crossed by Seaton?”