Love Me and Die (11 page)

T
HE REDHEAD
braked her car hard. I could see into the Caddy now. I reached in and pulled Art Ditmer’s limp body off the horn. Blood ran from the back of his head. His face was a mass of purple bruises. Thin lines made by the point of a knife showed red against the skin of his neck.

I wished I hadn’t knocked Lerdo into the path of the Mercedes. I wanted to get my hands on him. I wanted to kill him myself.

I slid Art’s body gently away from the wheel. I called to the redhead, “Take Art to the nearest hospital. And call Farley. Tell him to burn his tail over here.”

She climbed out of the Mercedes. Her face was white in the bright glare of lights. She looked at Art and then at Lerdo’s motionless body.

She said thickly, as if she were drunk, “I wish I’d hit the sonofabitch harder.”

I didn’t answer. I could hear the sound of a motor gunning in the street at the far end of the alley. A car went across the headlights of the Mercedes. It was Toby’s Thunderbird. Her face flickered up briefly in profile. Her mouth was set hard and tight in the anguish of defeat.

I climbed into the Mercedes and gunned after her. The old coupe with the broken rear taillight was parked near the mouth of the alley, blocking the exit for a car as wide as the Caddy. I slowed down and squeezed the Mercedes through. I hit the end of the alley and started to make my turn after the Thunderbird.

The gutty sound of the MGA roared up. Healy shot his little car out of the night and cut across my bumper. He braked, pinning me half into the alley.

I jumped out. Healy came over the side of the MGA and ran for me. His thin face was twisted as he leaped on me. He was like a drowning man crazed with panic. His legs clamped around my waist. His arms clawed for a hold around my neck.

I plucked him off me as I would a spitting kitten. I held him out at the end of my arm. I yelled, “Where’s Bonita?”

He beat at my wrist with his fists. “She’s inside. Safe,” he gasped. His breath was sour with fear and anger. “Let Toby go, Coyle,” he begged. “She’ll never come back again. Please, let her go.”

I heard the Caddy backing up to the other end of the alley. I thought of the feel of Art Ditmer’s big, strong body limp in my hands. I thought of the bruises on his face, the cuts on his neck. I thought of his battered, bloody head.

I threw Healy aside like a piece of garbage. I got into the MGA and ran it out of the way of the alley mouth. I took the keys and put them in my pocket. I climbed back into the Mercedes. I drove after Toby Jessup.

I figured she would head for Ramiera—to get money and clothes before she ran in earnest. I swung onto the road that went by the Frontera Motel and led to the wetback crossing. I could see two large taillights bright red a good six blocks away. I let them stay that distance ahead until I reached the town limits. Then I shifted up another gear and hit the throttle. The red taillights began to grow larger. They dipped and rose as the Thunderbird started up the mountain. I reached the bottom a block behind. I shifted again and held my speed.

Toby tried taking the first curve wide open. Her car skidded and almost rolled off the edge of the road. She was a good driver, I thought, as I watched her whip the Thunderbird back under control.

After that her stoplights blinked as she came to the curves. I didn’t press her too hard. It wasn’t time yet. We weren’t far enough up the mountain.

I took the flat curves without braking without sliding. I saw the crest ahead and picked up distance. I went over the top ten feet behind her.

She started into the hairpin on the other side of the crest. She couldn’t miss me hanging on her tail. She got too eager. She hit the hairpin with too much speed. The rear end of her Thunderbird began to fishtail. Her stoplights flared and faded and flared again as she fanned the brakes.

I could see through her rear window now. She cut the wheel to turn into the skid. The maneuver brought her close to the edge of the drop-off to the river three hundred feet below.

My mind shouted,
“Now!”

I rammed the Mercedes forward, between her car and the inside rock wall of the road. I flicked my bumper against the right side end of her bumper and then spun the wheel away as the light shock flowed up into my hands. I braked and slowed to a stop on the loose rock.

Her face swiveled toward me. Her expression cried out that she knew what I had done. Her mouth came open in a wild helpless scream. It was still open as the Thunderbird’s rear end slid over the edge of the cliff and pulled Toby and the rest of the car with it.

I sat sweating. I thought I heard her scream, but it was only the sound of wind whistling past the plummeting car. I heard the faint splash of a heavy object striking the water of the river.

I drove to where I could turn around. Then I headed slowly back for Lozano. As I reached the town limits, I could hear sirens wailing.

• • •

It was nearly three in the morning before the redhead and I finally convinced Farley we hadn’t broken any of his laws. The Mexican authorities weren’t quite so tolerant. They let us know we would have to pay fines for such sundry offenses as hauling corpses without a license and crossing borders without complying with the formalities. They finally released us on Bonita’s recognizance.

She and Healy had been let go earlier. But only after Healy explained that he hadn’t juggled company funds to gain control from Bonita, but to protect her. He pointed out that he intended to sign her stock back to her tomorrow, and that with the profits they should make during the rest of the crop season, Jessup would be sound again before the year was out.

Bonita went away, clinging to his arm and looking happy. Healy made the redhead happy too when he explained that she wasn’t liable for paying the insurance claims. That money would come out of Toby’s estate since she had been the one to commit the sabotage on the trucks.

Bonita had told the redhead and me to come to her home for coffee and a final talk as soon as Farley finished with us. The redhead looked as fresh as ever but I was staggering a little as I punched Bonita’s doorbell.

Healy let us in. He had a glass of brandy in one hand. He said to me in an anxious voice, “I’m sorry about Ditmer. I really didn’t know. I didn’t know about Toby’s part either until you and I talked at lunch. Then I began to see where the whole pattern led.”

He was trying to sound offhand, but the misery deep in his eyes gave him away. He said anxiously, “How is Ditmer now?”

I said, “He has a concussion. But he’ll be making passes at his nurse in a day or two. He’s tough.”

We followed the redhead into Bonita’s living room. Coffee and brandy were set on a table in front of the couch. Bonita was leaning back on it wearily. Her eyes were dark-circled and tired.

She said, “Help yourself. I’m beat.”

Healy wouldn’t let go of the subject. He said to me, “When I did find out about Toby, I couldn’t hink of anything to do but try to protect her as much as possible. I tried to keep her with me when we left the office, but she got away.”

He sat on the other end of the couch from Bonita and poured himself another brandy. “I followed her to Carlotta’s. When I saw Bonita drive up, I knew what was in the air. I managed to get Bonita into Carlotta’s and out of the way. Then before I could do any more, you came and everything blew apart.”

He seemed relieved to have finished saying his piece. I took a cup of coffee from the redhead and sat down. I said, “I had a perfectly good theory worked out earlier. Only I had it backwards. Everything I credited to you, Healy, Toby did. And the protection I credited her with trying to give you, you were giving to her.”

I settled in my chair and summed up for them what the redhead and I had learned from Lerdo’s deathbed confession. Farley had let us see it after we made out our own statements.

Lerdo had done the carving job on Art’s neck. But Toby herself had put the knives into Turk and Rod Gorman. At first she only wanted to strip Bonita of everything and gain control of Jessup Trucking—and, of course, fire Thorne and Gorman. She hated Bonita for taking Turk away from her and she hated Turk for going to Bonita. And strangely enough, she hated Gorman because he had never shown anything but indifference toward her. But she didn’t intend to kill them.

Then Art showed up. Because she had Bonita’s office bugged, Toby learned who he was. She wasn’t too surprised because she had had Lerdo make that anonymous phone call to the redhead. It was just another piece of cleverness that backfired on her. She was worried when she heard nothing about Bonita putting in claims for losses on the refrigerator trucks. She thought she could frighten Bonita by stirring up what she expected to be no more than a token investigation by the insurance company. And, of course, that was part of the reason she brought me into the caseto keep the pressure on Bonita.

She finally realized that Art Ditmer was really working at his job. She became a little frightened when Lerdo reported Art and Healy were in Lozano having a long confab together. So she trapped Art by sending him a message to meet her. That’s why he left his rooming house right after Healy delivered him there Sunday night. He went back to Lozano—to Lerdo’s office this time—expecting to get some valuable information.

Instead he got a clobbering from Lerdo. Then they tried to force him to tell what he had learned, especially from his talk with Healy. But Art took all that Lerdo could give and kept his mouth shut. So Toby followed Thorne to Tucson to see what she could learn. She messed up the office and doped my liquor. She was hiding in the office when I brought Thorne into it. She followed him when he left, saw him make a phone call and then go to the redhead’s office. She tailed him on to Art’s motel room in Lozano.

She pretended to make love to him. When he was all hot, she stuck the knife in his belly. Then to cover herself she drove back to Tucson and pretended she thought I was Art. She rattled off a lot of information to find out if I knew anything. I obviously didn’t, but to further insure herself she had Lerdo buy that old car and fake shooting her. And she had him lead me to Gorman’s apartment.

She originally planned to frame Gorman. She hinted to Bonita that he was her lover. She gave me a line about a fight he had with Turk. She figured his being dropped by Bonita, together with his past record, would be enough to pin the blame on him.

All was going fine until Art escaped. Then she went a little wild with fear because he was the one man who could put the finger on her. So she started coppering her bets. She swiped Healy’s carving knife and one of his cigars. She was switching her frame to Healy, to confuse matters more. Then Gorman caught her moving the receiver from her desk to Healy’s. She lured him to Lozano on the pretense she would pay him to keep quiet. There, Lerdo jumped him and she stuck the knife in him. Lerdo blew smoke from Healy’s cigar around and they took off to finish setting their trap for me.

I was tired of talking. I stopped. Bonita said, “Why didn’t Lerdo just shoot you when he had the chance?”

I said, “She was afraid of Healy. So she planned to frame him by sending Art and me over a cliff in Art’s car. Lerdo had it hidden at his place, by the way. The cops found it an hour or so ago. Toby planned to leave clues pointing to Healy and let the cops do the rest.”

Healy poured himself another brandy and gulped it down. He said unhappily, “I didn’t realize she could hate so hard. Was she using Carlotta’s as a forwarding address for mail another plant to get me into trouble?”

I said, “No,” that was genuine. She and Lerdo had been using Carlotta’s as a meeting place for some time—according to Lerdo, Toby really loved him—and naturally Carlotta wouldn’t think anything of their receiving mail. A lot of her customers got letters there.”

“It’s a wonder Chester didn’t run into Toby and Lerdo at that place,” Bonita said with acid dripping from her voice. “From what Carlotta told me, he goes there often enough.”

She sounded furious, but I could see that familiar speculative look in her eyes as she studied Healy. “Carlotta said that sometimes he went there every night in the week!”

Healy chuckled fatly, “What gripes you so, Bonita? That I’m a better man than your big-chested boy friends were?”

I said quickly, placatingly, “Getting back to Lerdo, he claimed that he helped Toby because he loved her and because she promised him a slice of the company after she got control of it. Everything that happened was her idea, he insisted. That includes the trap she set for me when she pretended to be Bonita talking to Art in the back of the Caddy. Lerdo just couldn’t understand how she failed. He didn’t think she had missed a single bet.”

Healy said, “There’s one thing she overlooked—that while she was busy having Lerdo sabotage those refrigerator trucks, I was buying back control of the company from those San Francisco loan sharks.”

Bonita said suddenly, “Chester, I’m sick of worrying about who controls what part of the company. Why don’t we just settle the whole affair and make everything community property?”

Healy turned my way and dropped one eyelid in a lascivious wink. I got up and signaled to the redhead. As we tiptoed out, I heard Bonita murmur in an awed voice, “Sometimes seven times a week, Carlotta said!”

• • •

The redhead drove the Mercedes into downtown Ramiera. I was yawning again. She said suddenly, “They made you feel kind of romantic there at the last, didn’t they, Jojo?”

I couldn’t answer her. I was too busy yawning.

She glared at me and swung the car to the curb in front of a brightly lighted all night grocery. “Oh, no, not again!” she exclaimed.

Before I could ask her what she was talking about, she was out of the car and trotting briskly into the grocery store. She came back carrying a paper sack. She plunked it into my lap. It was heavy.

She said, “There! And eat every one. I’m not going to spend another night in that lovely motel room listening to you complain about how tired you are.”

I opened the sack and pulled out a wide, squat jar. The label read:
GUARANTEED BEST QUALITY OYSTERS.