Summer Cool - A Jack Paine Mystery (Jack Paine Mysteries) (16 page)

At La Guardia, he told the ticket seller that his name was Jimmy Plunkett and paid in cash. He smiled a lot. People smiled back, and soon he was on a flight with his headset on, thinking about the fed he had seen hanging around outside his apartment building in Yonkers. He knew the disguise was all right, and the makeup covering the bruises, because he had gone up to the fed and asked him the time, smiling, and the fed had not smiled but had given him the time and then put his dead eyes back on the front of the building.

"Thanks, man," he had said.

The fed had answered, "Get lost."

The flight was long, and he slept a little, but Bobby Petty didn't haunt his dreams any longer. When he didn't sleep he listened to the headset and stared at the flat earth below and enjoyed the stale air-conditioned atmosphere of the plane until it landed in Tucson, where it was still 100 degrees with no help in sight.

He rented a car, paying cash and showing his Jimmy Plunkett driver's license. He kept smiling, and everyone smiled. When you pay cash, he thought, it didn't matter if you looked like a landscaper's assistant from Yonkers, everyone returned your smile.

He wondered how long it would be before the fed outside his building, and Bryers, and Sims and Martin, found out he was not in Yonkers.

He figured he had twenty-four hours.

He drove past the hotel he had stayed in before, thought of going up to room 419 to see if Martin and Sims were still there and ask them the time. He kept driving.

He drove a long while.

He was almost where he wanted to go when he knew for sure that he was being followed. A tan Datsun had made all of his turns, and he didn't know how long it had been back there but he knew it had gotten closer. He tried to make it get closer still, to see the driver, but it hung back, refusing to bite.

He made a few more turns, getting fancy with the wheel, but the Datsun stayed with him.

Finally, he picked a wide street with lots of light on it and pulled over to the curb.

The Datsun, a half block behind, pulled over and stopped.

Paine got out of his car and began to walk toward the Datsun. The sun was in the windshield, and he still couldn't see the driver. And then, as Paine approached the car, the driver's door opened, and the driver got out.

"Paine," Philly Ramos said, smiling. "What a lousy disguise."

As Paine got close, Philly held out his right hand in greet
ing. In it was a small can, the top of which he depressed. A small cloud came out of the can, up into Paine's face. "Sorry, man," Philly Ramos said, affectionately.

Paine began to choke
_;
his eyes watered and he could not see. He threw out his arms and backed away from Philly Ramos.

But then Philly said, "Sorry," again, with gentleness, and something came down hard on the back of Paine's skull and he met blackness.

P
aine awoke in a room somewhere, sitting up on a chair, handcuffed behind. Paine's throat was parched with the taste of chemicals and dry heat.

Philly came into the room and smiled. He wore a long silk paisley robe. His feet were bare. The toenails shone as if they had been covered with clear lacquer. Philly had loosened his ponytail
_;
his straight, ink black hair hung loosely down, framing his beautiful face.

"Good morning, Paine." He smiled. He went to a window in the room, threw open the curtains, and opened the blinds. Hot morning sunlight slatted the room.

"What the hell did you spray me with, Philly?"

Philly's face brightened. "The Israeli army developed it for dealing with Palestinians. You like the bouquet?"

"The shit works."

"Let me get you a cup of coffee to wash that taste out of your mouth." Philly turned and went to another room.

"Where are we?" Paine called after him.

Philly laughed. "A place outside of Tucson. I have friends in the Indian community."

"Are we on a reservation?"

Philly appeared in the doorway with a steaming cup of coffee in one hand. "Yes, Paine, we're on a reservation."

"What the hell is going on, Philly?"

"Don't talk," Philly said, crossing the room to stand before Paine. He leaned down, putting the lip of the coffee cup to Paine's mouth. "Drink."

Paine sipped
_;
his eyes rose and locked on Philly's, studying
his face. Philly's eyes were wise, brown, beautiful pools. Philly's face pulled back slightly, the eyes still studying.

"I meant what I said about being good to you," he said. "Why did you lie about killing yourself?"

The eyes stayed solemn above the smile. The mouth matched the eyes. "I knew you had a weakness for suicides."

"Not anymore."

Philly abruptly stood up, putting the coffee away. A splash of it spilled on Paine. A sharpness entered Philly's voice. "It would have been too late now, anyway."

"You're the South American connection, aren't you, Philly?"

"That's me," Philly said. "I have the connections in Central and South America. I have family, I have friends."

"You told me you were finished with drugs."

"I don't take them anymore," he said. "But when you want nice things in your life, when you want things to be nice for the one you love, that takes money, and. . ." He looked at Paine, brown eyes large. "You find a way to make money."

"What about Roberto?"

The eyes stayed large, liquid. "Roberto betrayed me."

"With the boy?"

Philly laughed. "There were other boys. They were toys for Roberto. I wanted things to be nice for Roberto, I wanted him to have anything he wanted. As long as he let me take care of him, I didn't care what he did. But he wanted to leave me, and threatened to tell Petty about me, and that would have ruined everything."

"Then why were Kwan's boys so upset about Roberto's murder?"

Philly laughed harshly. "I told you, Roberto used everybody. He had Kwan thinking he was the connection to South America, that without him nothing could happen." His large eyes looked sad. "And that's why I followed you from New York to catch you, Paine. Kwan doesn't like people who
interfere. You're going to help me make him forget about
Roberto."

"How?"

"Kwan can use you as bait."

"For what?"

"To catch Bobby Petty."

The day went along. Philly left the house, and Paine was left alone in the room in his chair, feeling the dry heat, watching the bands of hot light on the wall moving down as the sun moved up. Philly had gagged his mouth, and the hot air Paine pulled in through his nose was uncomfortable. Outside, he heard a desert bird call to another desert bird
_;
the second bird didn't want to answer, peeping without enthusiasm, but the first bird kept at it. The cuffs were tight, and Philly was good with knots and Paine could not loosen his feet. His hands went to sleep for awhile, and he shook them back awake. In late afternoon he heard two boys walk by the house playing ball, the ball making hard smacking sounds near the window, the boys occluding the bars of light, but the boys kept walking and everything became silent and hot again. In late afternoon, as the slats reached the floor and then faded as the sun moved up over the house, the desert bird called again to his mate, and this time there was an enthusiastic answer and they flew off together, peeping amiably.

Philly returned near nightfall. He entered the house whistling, and when he came into the room he smiled at Paine. He turned on a floor lamp in one corner. He was cradling a long paper bag. He wore an open-necked silk shirt and loose khaki trousers. A single thin silver chain circled his neck, and he wore a tiny silver earring. His hair was pulled back in a ponytail once more.

"Good news, Paine," he said. He came to Paine, put down his paper sack, and untied the gag
_;
Paine felt how soft his fingers were.

"For you or me?"

Philly laughed, picked up the paper bag, and removed a bottle of wine from it. "You must be thirsty."

He left the room, returning soon with two wineglasses
with ice in them. He opened the bottle, and half filled both glasses. He sat down in front of Paine, crossing his legs, and
held up one glass in toast.

"To you, Paine."

"What are you toasting?"

"They'll be here in an hour!"

"And you?"

Philly rose, lifted the other wineglass, and tilted it so Paine could sip from it. "I go back to Yonkers."

"And work for Kwan?"

"Kwan will have to be quiet in Yonkers for a while, but things will settle down. Everything is set up for him. When he wishes, when the police realize that they must start from
the beginning, then he will begin."

"Will he let you retire?"

"He already has." He let Paine finish the wine, put the
glass on the floor. He walked to the doorway, stopped, but
didn't turn."

"Just so you know," he said, "Roberto didn't suffer."

"You cut his balls off, Philly."

"That was after. I loved him, Paine."

Then he walked out and was gone.

An hour passed, perhaps a little more. Paine heard what sounded like a jeep pass the house, go on, come back. Car doors slammed. The front door of the house was opened, pushed in, hard. Two figures came to the doorway of Paine's room, looked, a third pushed past them into it.

The figure came close to Paine, the black man from the alley next to Paine's office building He studied Paine closely, put his fingers on Paine's false mustache and tore it off. He turned to his two companions.

"Yes," he said curtly, and they came into the room and lifted Paine from his chair, holding him under the arms, and followed their leader out into the night.

I
t was a jeep, like Paine had thought. He had hoped the night air would be cooler, but the desert hadn't given up its heat yet and he continued to sweat. They put him in the back. Paine saw that they were just
off
the highway in a little settlement of modest houses, dusty yards, chicken wire enclosures, rusted vehicles on blocks. They pulled out on the highway and now Paine knew where they were: between Tucson and Kitt Peak. The stars were out, brushing the sky with tiny lights. Somewhere behind him the domes would be open, searching.

The jeep went fast. When they got nearer to Tucson's glow one of the two followers, at their leader's order, threw a blanket over Paine and the stars went away. It was a wool blanket, and made him sweat more. They rode for what Paine estimated to be another twenty minutes.

Finally, they slowed, curled into a short stretch of road, stopped.

The blanket was lifted
_;
a black face hovered over him. "Nothing personal, man," the face said, and then the butt end of an AK-47 clubbed him to unconsciousness.

Literally, a padded room. Paine felt himself underground, a dampness ordinarily missing from the desert. It was still hot. He was stripped down to his boxer shorts. He had been thrown on an old mattress in one corner. A single light bulb in the middle of the beamed, insulated ceiling illuminated the blue-padded walls, the white-painted concrete floor. The
room was about twenty by twenty feet. There was no staircase. Except for his mattress, and two dog bowls next to it, one containing water, the other empty, there was nothing in the room.

Paine's head hurt. He drank water from one bowl, urinated into the other. An exchange of liquids. There were no basement windows in the room.

Paine was used to waiting, and he waited. His stomach began to ache for food, but none came. His head ached and there was nothing to help that except a month of fishing.

Sometime during the wait he napped
_;
when he awoke it was hotter in the room. Midday. He could almost feel the sun moving overhead, turning the desert into heat haze. Paine sweated freely, watched the sweat take part of his weight away. He finished the water in the bowl, felt no urge to urinate again, wanted more water.

He napped again, fainting, actually, and sometime in the middle of it he was awakened by a sound. A corner of the room opened up, insulated ceiling pulled up and hinged back. A long metal ladder was lowered, rubber feet angling to hard purchase against the painted floor.

One of the black men scampered down the ladder, stopped halfway, waited for a burden that was lowered to him. Another of the black men came down behind him, and they brought down into the room something long and heavy in a canvas duck sack. They carried it to the far wall and dropped it on the floor. Paine sat up on his mattress but they ignored him, walking back to the ladder and climbing up. The ladder stayed.