If Dying Was All (13 page)

Perry said, “I see. Here all the rest of us were lying our asses off and pretending Jackie was dead and we’d never heard of Booth Graither. It all just helped Ned. If there hadn’t been a forest fire here, no one might ever have known anything.”

“And if you and your husband hadn’t tried to con McCleary,” said Easy.

“Wait a minute,” said Burley, wincing. “Are you trying to imply this Segal bastard is going to try to kill us as well? He’s waiting out there someplace to do that?”

“There’s a good possibility,” said Easy. “Segal shot Stammsky to keep him quiet.”

“But what did Mitch know?”

“Stammsky hung around the beaches and the harbor towns,” said Easy. “I imagine he picked up the information someplace that Ned Segal had come out here to San Obito with Booth or that it was Segal who returned the motor launch and not Booth and Jackie. Stammsky wanted money, too. He figured to get some out of me. He must have decided to hit Segal for some.” Easy reached out and picked up Burley’s Remington carbine rifle. “Do you know how to use this, Perry?”

“Yes.”

Easy handed her the rifle. “Get around behind the bandstand and try a couple shots out the door. Segal should still be back there, waiting for us.”

“I’m not likely to hit him.”

“You should distract him.” Easy placed a pushing hand on the crouched girl’s buttocks. “Go on.”

“That screwy kike will shoot her, too,” said Burley.

Easy told him, “Concentrate on your wound.” He waited until Perry was around the stand and then ran, bent low, across the chill pavilion. He stopped behind the tile wall near the far door. This one hung half-opened, and Easy studied the night outside. He flattened and edged outside.

Cold moonlight was touching everything. There were cypresses to his right, bordering the cliff edge. Directly in front of him a great, wide courtyard stretched, all tile and ruined fountains, empty plant urns and cracked stone benches. Across the court stood a resort hotel, a three-story, white stucco building with red tile roofing.

Easy stayed close to the pavilion wall and moved cautiously back into the woods. On the other side of the dome a rifle cracked, and then a pistol was fired and more glass rattled.

In among oaks and pines now, Easy began a slow approach to Segal. The night wind was colder and he felt it more.

Easy came up some twenty feet behind Segal. The bald, young man was on his stomach on a rise about twenty-five yards to the rear of the pavilion, masked by dark trees. Easy lowered himself to a crouch as Perry fired off the rifle once more.

“Okay, Segal,” said Easy when he was ten feet from him. “Put the pistol down and stand up.”

Segal didn’t reply. His shoulders had hunched in around his neck when he heard Easy’s voice. After several long seconds he held up his right hand and let the pistol fall to the ground. He backed on his hands and knees and then stood, facing Easy with his hands half-raised. “Nice to see you again,” said the bald, advertising man.

“Turn around and walk down toward the dance pavilion,” ordered Easy.

Segal said, “Glad to oblige, Easy.” He turned and took two steps. He flung himself to the ground, grabbed up the pistol and fired it at Easy.

Easy threw himself to the side and the slug passed him. He lost his balance and fell, banging against a tree trunk.

Segal ran, through the woods and then alongside the glass pavilion.

Easy got himself upright and followed at a run.

When he reached the courtyard, he saw Segal skirt the edge of an empty swimming pool and then go sprinting through the main entrance to the abandoned hotel.

Easy stayed in the woods until he was alongside the big, stucco building. He followed its walls and came to another courtyard, this one guarded by a wide wrought iron gate. He got a grip on the twisted iron bars and climbed over. This courtyard was filled with weeds and cold moonlight. A fountain in its center was topped by a naked stone boy tipping over a stone dolphin. Dead cactus and palm trees bordered the courtyard.

Easy made a rush toward the rear windows of the building. He picked one and tried to open it. The window resisted for a moment, then opened. Easy raised it gradually, keeping it from creaking too much.

He climbed over the sill into a pale white room: a long, narrow room, which held only one white table and a giant, white enamel stove. Across the room were white swing doors, each with a porthole window.

From the windows Easy saw a vast dining room with a floor of mosaic tiles. Only three tables remained in the room. Easy pushed the doors open and entered. The darker tiles formed tridents, and leaping dolphins. Easy noticed a door marked
Office
/
Private
and went to it. He opened it and listened, went in. The office’s high windows were shuttered, and only thin strips of moonlight showed.

There was another door across the room. Easy inched it open. He was looking out into the lobby. A half-circle registration desk was between him and the two story high lobby.

Segal, his bald-head blue in the moonlight, had moved a fat floral-patterned chair over against the one windowless wall of the tile lobby and was in a position to watch the front entrance and most of the windows. Circling the room over his head was the iron-railed mezzanine floor, some ten feet wide.

Easy closed the door and glanced around the office. To his left there was one final door and it said
Mezzanine Stairs.
Beyond this door rose a twisting, black spiral staircase. Slipping his .38 under his waistband again, Easy climbed silently and emerged on the half floor. He stepped through an arched entranceway and passed a dusty, empty glass case.

He had to walk twenty-five feet to get directly above Segal. Easy did and then jumped facing out.

His right foot hit Segal’s gun hand and knocked his .32 caliber revolver away to smack on the hard tiles. Easy’s other foot dug into the seated man’s groin.

Segal yelled and tried to rise.

Easy fell clear, pivoted on the mosaic stones and grabbed the bald ad man up by his shoulders. He let go and jabbed his fist against Segal’s chin.

Segal sat down hard. He said, “Okay, okay. I give. Leave me alone.”

Drawing his revolver, Easy backed and retrieved Segal’s fallen .32. “Jackie McCleary’s gun?”

“You stepped right on my balls,” complained Segal. “I don’t feel very much like chatting.”

Easy let him sit for a moment. He said, “Let’s go.
”

“I’m not certain I can walk yet.”

“Try,” suggested Easy.

E
ASY WAS SITTING IN
an off-white room drawing maps for deputy sheriffs. The two fresh-faced young deputies kept nodding their heads, and the youngest, whose name tag read Lopino, repeated, “I see, sir.”

Marking an “x” on the map he’d just sketched, Easy said, “You’ll find the body there. You won’t have to do any digging. Segal took care of that.”

The other young sheriff’s department man, his tag said he was Moore, rubbed at the little California bear in the center of his six-pointed, blue and gold star. “We’ll get on this right away, sir.”

“Thank you for your cooperation, sir,” added Lopino. He put his visored cap back on, took the rough maps from Easy.

“We’ll be talking to you again, sir,” said Moore, shaking hands.

“Nice meeting you, sir,” said Lopino. They smiled at him, touched their caps to Perry Burley and left the hospital waiting room.

A fat, bullish nurse walked by the doorless room, trailing a scent of medicine and rubbing alcohol.

Perry Burley lit a cigarette and turned away from watching the new day commence on the other side of the Venetian blinds. “You haven’t told anyone why Bud and I were out on the island yet,” she said to Easy.

Easy said, “You’ll have to think up a reason.”

“You mean you aren’t going to turn us in?”

“The sheriff’s department may want to charge you with trespassing,” he said. “Or illegal treasure hunting.”

Perry sucked in smoke, frowning across at him. “What about what we did to McCleary?”

“We’ll see what he says.”

“Don’t you want to see us put into jail for breaking into Jackie’s cottage?”

“It doesn’t make much difference to me.”

Perry left the plastic and metal tube chair she’d been sitting in. “You’re not doing this because you like us,” she said, approaching him. “I don’t get the feeling you’re too fond of us.”

Easy didn’t reply.

The blonde, her face white and puffy from sleeplessness, reached out and touched his arm. “You’ve got us put down as losers, isn’t that it? You think we’ll come off on the short end of things no matter what happens.”

The yellow light over the waiting room wall phone flashed and Easy picked up the receiver. “Yes?”

“Is Mrs. Burley there?”

Easy gave her the phone.

After listening for a moment, she smiled briefly and hung up. “I can go in and see Bud now.” She hesitated, watching Easy. “Maybe you’re wrong. Maybe we’ll strike it rich on our own someday soon and things’ll improve.”

“Maybe.” After the blonde left the small, off-white room, he sat in one of the narrow, uncomfortable chairs and closed his eyes. His chin rested on his locked fists.

“I understand you’re giving away free maps,” said a burred voice.

Opening his eyes, Easy saw a fifty-year-old man in a ten-year-old sharkskin suit. “Lt. Frimac?”

“Am I too early for our talk?”

Easy gestured at the chair next to him. “Join me.”

“Come on across the street and I’ll buy you coffee,” said the rumpled, San Amaro policeman.

Easy followed the lieutenant out of the hospital. “The sheriff’s department has been in touch with you?”

“Yes, we have a close and warm relationship.”

The small, San Amaro hospital fronted on the ocean and Lt. Frimac led Easy across into a long shack-like coffee shop, which hung out over the quiet beach a hundred feet below. The Pacific was a thin blue, and a shaggy black cocker spaniel was romping along at the edge of the surf.

“Hello, lieutenant,” said the black woman behind the counter.

“Velma,” said the policeman. “Two coffees. And a maple donut. Want a donut, Easy?”

“No.”

They took a booth facing the ocean. “Now,” said Lt. Frimac, “tell me all about the cute stuff which has been going on around here.”

“Ned Segal killed Mitch Stammsky.”

Lt. Frimac stirred two spoonfuls of sugar into his coffee. “I read an article the other day suggesting cane sugar is a major cause of violent crime. My wife is always tearing things like that out of magazines and saving them for me,” he said. “The .32 caliber revolver Segal had with him is going to turn out to be the one used on Stammsky?”

“Yeah” said Easy, trying his coffee.

“Okay. What was his cute reason for killing that beatnik?”

“You still call them beatniks around here?”

“Stammsky was from that era. Why’d Segal kill him?”

“To keep him quiet. I think Segal’s going to talk about this, going to confess. So you’ll get the exact details from him.”

“How the hell do you know he’s going to confess? You get an occult flash?”

“He was crying on the trip back from San Obito.”

“A lot of them cry when you catch them. Later on they get tough again.”

Easy said, “Mitch Stammsky knew something. Knew Segal had been out on the island when Booth Graither and Jackie McCleary were killed.”

“Segal killed them so he could get hold of the alleged $100,000?”

“He probably decided it was one of the few chances he’d ever get for that kind of money.”

Lt. Frimac took a bite out of the sticky maple donut and swallowed it. “I don’t know if maple sugar causes violent crime or only cane,” he said. “Now just exactly why was Jackie McCleary on San Obito at all and not dead by her own hand and floating around in the ocean?”

“They faked a suicide for her. So she could get away from her father for good.”

“Shit,” said the policeman, after swallowing another two bites of donut. “A cute plan, a cute plan with frills on it and the bastards got away with it.”

“Until now.”

“We ought to rack their asses, all of them,” said Lt. Frimac. “Who are they, the ones who helped set this cute plan up?”

“You can look that up.”

Frimac took a gulp of coffee. “Don’t you think these cute bastards ought to get their cute asses racked?”

Easy looked out at the brightening ocean. “I’ve talked to most of them,” he said finally. “None of them got any good out of what they did.”

“That’s not exactly a strict legal definition of crime and punishment.”

E
ASY CAME AWAKE, SAT
up on his office couch and said, “Doorknobs.” He yawned once and went out the rear door of his office.

The small parking lot was hot in the late afternoon sun. Easy treaded his way among the highly polished sports cars and found his dusty, black Volkswagen. He opened the door and tilted the driver’s seat forward, reaching into the back of the car. The bushel basket of old doorknobs Marina had entrusted to him was gone.

Easy closed the door, laughed to himself, rested against his car. He rolled up his shirtsleeves and folded his arms.

A bicycle fell over nearby.

“Hagopian?” Easy trotted over to the entrance drive.

The dark Hagopian was rising off the gray asphalt, disentangling himself from a crimson, 3-speed English bike, “I’ve discovered a terrific new way to get around, John.”

“What is it?”

“Well, by bicycle.” Hagopian smiled and pleased wrinkles formed around his eyes. “I made it all the way here from
TV Look
with only three slight mishaps.” He had a reddish abrasion on his high forehead, and the knees of his tan slacks were smudged and frayed. “Why are you prowling your parking lot, by the way?”

“I remembered Marina’s doorknobs,” said Easy. “The ones she gave me to protect against the impending holocaust. I’ve been carrying them around in my car for safe keeping.”

“What happened to them?”

Easy laughed again. “Somebody must have swiped them.”

Nodding, Hagopian said, “That’s the kind of town this is, John. Nothing is safe. I was telling Kim what a wacky town this is only an hour ago.”