Dead on the Island (14 page)

But I was curious, too. "What the hell," I
said.

"Good." His body seemed to relax a
trifle.

"Does Ray know?" I said.

"No. What Ray don't know, Ray can't tell.
I'm not taking any more chances."

"What about Evelyn? Does she . . . ?" I
didn't know exactly how to finish my question.

"She's gonna let me stay here.” He had the
grace to look a bit sheepish. Or maybe it was the pain. "I . . .
well, hell, I've been rotten to her and to the kid, but they say
it's never too late, don't they? Maybe even old Dino can get
domestic."

It would be hard for him to get any more
domestic than he was already, I thought. He was just considering
trading Ray for Evelyn. I wondered what she thought of the idea,
but I didn't ask.

"See if you can find the kid," he said. "I'd
like the chance to get to know her a little. And find out what the
hell is going on."

"I'll try," I said.

~ * ~

I talked to Evelyn in the living room before
I left. She was going to give Dino the sedative and let him
sleep.

"Did they try to follow you from the
airport?" I said.

"I don't know. I wasn't looking. But I don't
think so."

They could find out where she lived easily
enough, if they didn't know already. "Would you like for me to
stay?"

"That's all right. I've got a shotgun, and I
know how to use it. And I'm a light sleeper. If anyone tries to
bother us, he'd better be quieter than a cat."

I asked to see the shotgun. It was an old
double-barrel twelve gauge with a scarred wooden stock and flecks
of rust along both the blued barrels.

"It's been in the back of the closet," she
said when she saw me looking dubiously at the rust spots. "But I
cleaned it up, and the shells aren't but a year old."

I broke the gun and looked at the shiny
brass of the partially ejected casings. I could smell the gun oil.
"I don't think it'll blow up in your face," I said, snapping the
gun back together. It was a good weapon for her, since it would
almost certainly hit whoever she pointed it at; and if it didn't
hurt him, it would scare the hell out of him. And since it was a
twelve gauge, even one pellet was going to cause a good bit of
damage if it hit anyone. I handed the gun back to her.

"I'll come back by tomorrow," I said. "Are
you sure you want Dino here?"

She carried the gun over to the couch and
laid it down. "I think so. It seems funny, but I really think he's
as worried about Sharon as I am. I never pressed him about her; I
never even took any of his money. I think he was hurt by that.
Maybe he wanted to be involved with her and I cut him off because I
thought he looked at me as a cheap whore." She shook her head.
"Maybe we were both just stubborn. Anyway, I do want to help him,
to take care of him."

"You've already saved his life," I said.

"Maybe. Do you have any idea what's going
on?"

"Not a clue," I said.

~ * ~

I pushed it all around in my head when I got
to my car. It was about four o'clock and still dark, and I sat
there in the faint bluish glow of a street light, trying to make
some sense out of everything that had happened. First it had looked
like a simple runaway. Then it had turned into something that
probably involved a murder. Then came the kidnapping angle. And now
someone was trying to kill Dino without even collecting the
ransom.

That last bit was what bothered me more than
anything. No one had even asked Dino for the money. He was holding
the suitcase where it could be clearly seen, but no one even
appeared to have been interested. Someone had just started
shooting.

It was time to go back to Houston for a
little conversation with Chuck Ferguson. He was the only handle I
had on the case. I was convinced he'd lied to me, if the cop that I
thought was a cop was really a cop. And if the cop hadn't lied. I
didn't think he had. There was something about Ferguson's whole
manner that indicated to me that he was hiding something. I wanted
to find out what it was.

I started the car. The light was still on in
Evelyn Matthews' house. I could picture her sitting on the couch,
holding the shotgun in her lap. It was almost as big as she was,
but I wouldn't want to be the one to try walking through that front
door without permission.

I turned the car around on the narrow
street, and as I passed under the street light I checked my digital
watch. It was 4:09. I decided to pay Ferguson a visit before
breakfast. One of the first things I wanted to talk to him about
was where he had gotten the money to pay for The Sidepocket. He
might not want to tell me, but I thought it could have something to
do with the ransom, though I wasn't sure what, considering that the
ransom hadn't been collected.

I zipped down Broadway, across the bridge,
and onto the Gulf Freeway very quickly. There was a smattering of
traffic, even at that ungodly hour, but not as much as there would
be in thirty minutes or so when the morning rush would begin in
earnest. Traffic would slow almost to a standstill around
Almeda-Genoa Road. I was glad I was missing it.

I made good time all the way to the club,
pushing the little Subaru for all it was worth. The nearby
peepshows and motels still had their lights blinking on and off,
advertising their wares, but there were few other cars on the
street.

There were no cars at all in The
Sidepocket's lot. The portable sign was still lighted, but there
were no lights anywhere else. I was hoping that Ferguson lived in
the room above the club. I wanted to catch him off guard, and a
sleeping man is generally about as off guard as a man can get.

I stopped the car in front of the club and
turned off my lights. Before I got out I reached down under the
seat and pulled out the towel-wrapped pistol. I unwrapped the
Mauser and hefted it, tossing the towel into the back seat. The
gun's weight was reassuring, and I decided to take it with me just
in case I met the three refugees from the Pro Bowl again. I stepped
out of the car and stuck the pistol into my waistband. The
sweatshirt covered it nicely.

I walked around to the back of the club. I
was hoping there was a back entrance, not wanting to have to force
my way into the front. The fewer chances I took, the better.
Someone was sure to drive by, even this early.

It was darker in the back, without the
benefit of all the lights from the various enterprises along the
street. I didn't have any trouble finding the door, however.

Neither had someone else. The door was
slightly ajar.

That bothered me. A lot. It was possible
that Ferguson wasn't there, that he had gone elsewhere and that
since he lived in such a posh, crime-free neighborhood he hadn't
bothered to lock the door behind him. He was so sure he wouldn't be
robbed that he hadn't even bothered to
shut
the door.

Somehow, I didn't think that was what had
happened.

What I thought was that someone had been
here before me. Maybe someone was still here.

I felt for the butt of the pistol through
the thick cotton of the sweatshirt, but I didn't pull it from my
belt. I'm a good range shooter, but I haven't had much practice
using the pistol against someone who was shooting back. I didn't
want to have to learn, either, unless it was absolutely
necessary.

I stepped to one side and pushed the door
gently with my right hand. It opened slowly and quietly. There was
no other sound, except for the shushing of a car passing on
Telephone Road. After a second or two I stepped inside.

There was a small open space not large
enough to be called a foyer. That's where I was standing. It was
very quiet, a far cry from the thundering of Amyl Nitrate's bass.
In front of me was a staircase leading up to the second floor. The
door I had pushed open did not lead into the main area of the
club.

There was barely enough light for me to see
the staircase. I looked up, but I couldn't make out anything at the
top except deeper blackness. There was probably a closed door up
there. I started up to see.

The steps were plain bare wood, but they
didn't creak as I went up. Some carpenter had done a good job of
nailing down the boards. I tested each step, putting my weight down
on it completely before actually stepping up, but there was no
problem.

It was very dark at the top. I felt for the
door handle, and when I felt it under my fingers I turned it
slowly. Again there was no sound. Someone kept it oiled.

I opened the door ever so slightly. There
was no light in the upstairs area, but then I hadn't expected there
to be. I hadn't seen any from the parking lot when I drove in.

There were lots of things I could do at this
point. I could close the door and go on my merry way. Or I could
open it all the way and walk right in. I could drag out my Mauser
and go in like the cops always do in TV shows, crouched down with
the pistol extended in front of me in a two-hand grip.

I decided to go in but to leave the pistol
where it was. My thinking was that anyone who had been there must
be gone by now. Otherwise there would have been a light. If
Ferguson was there, he was probably asleep. I hoped.

I opened the door slowly and ran my hand
down the wall, searching blindly for a light switch. My fingers ran
across it, and I flipped it up. The hall was suddenly bright with
light. All the doors were closed. I could see the one Ferguson and
I had entered the night before. There was a second door, closer to
me and a third on the opposite side of the hall.

I looked into the office first, but it was
empty. The other room on that side of the hall was also deserted, a
combination kitchen/dining room area furnished with a cheap dinette
set. That left the door on the other side.

I opened the door carefully. There was no
one inside there, either.

No one alive, that is.

It was a bedroom, with a dresser, a padded
rocking chair, and a double bed. Ferguson was in the bed. I could
see him in the light from the hall. He wouldn't be getting up
anytime soon, not under his own power.

He lay on top of the spread, dressed exactly
as he had been the last time I saw him. Maybe the shirt was
different; it was hard to tell in the dim light that came in from
the hall and the graying sky that I could see through the
window.

There didn't seem to be much blood, but
Ferguson hadn't died like Terry Shelton. He'd been shot. There were
two holes in the front of his Western shirt, one of them located
right about in the center of his chest. There was blood around both
holes, though not enough to stain the entire shirt. I walked over
to the bed, reached out a finger, and touched one of the stains. It
was still a little wet.

Ferguson lay there as if he'd been arranged,
hands at his sides, legs straight out. His glasses were still on
his face, but they looked slightly askew. Maybe he'd been shot
somewhere else and placed on the bed. Maybe he'd been told to lie
down and then he'd been shot. I didn't know, and I couldn't ask
him.

Well, I could ask, but I didn't think he'd
be able to come up with much in the way of an answer.

I looked at him for maybe a minute, and then
I was out of there, using the tail of the sweatshirt to wipe the
light switch and doorknobs I'd touched. I wiped the wall and the
surface of the doors, too.

A minute later I was back in the Subaru, on
the way to Galveston.

As the Subaru rolled down the Freeway to
Galveston, there was plenty of traffic headed in the opposite
direction, all of it going toward the big city. It was not very
long after sunrise, or what would have been sunrise if the day had
been clear, but anyone who wanted to beat the really big crush had
already started out, beginning a smaller crush of their own. Very
few drivers were going toward Galveston, however, and my headlights
played along the gray road in front of me without reflecting from
the bumpers of any other cars.

I had a lot to think about. I turned on the
car radio to see if it would help me. I found a station playing
Smiley Lewis, who was singing the only really good version of "I
Hear You Knockin'," but he didn't have any clues for me.

A confusing situation had now become even
more confusing, not to mention more serious. It was bad enough to
have one dead body in the case. Two were almost more than I cared
to think about, especially since I still hadn't figured out how the
first one fit in. I wondered if the undercover cop I'd talked to in
The Sidepocket would remember me well enough to describe me.
Probably. So would the bartender. But it didn't really matter as
long as they never saw me again. A man like Ferguson was bound to
have plenty of enemies to select the suspects from.

Of course if the cop recalled that I had
mentioned Terry Shelton, and if someone in Houston had heard about
the murder in Galveston, then things could get pretty interesting
around my house. The odds of that happening, however, were
small.

My greatest problem at the moment seemed to
be that no matter what the Houston police were able to come up with
I
no longer had any suspects, except possibly for Sharon
Matthews, and no one knew where she could be found. I certainly
didn't.

Hank Ballard and the Midnighters came on the
radio singing "Let's Go, Let's Go, Let's Go." Great idea, Hank, but
where the hell am I supposed to go? I thought about Sharon, going
back over everything that had happened so far. There must have been
something I'd overlooked, something that I hadn't thought about
enough, something that would give me a crack to start poking around
in.

I was sure there was something, but I
couldn't figure out what it was.

Terry Shelton was dead.