Whisper Death (17 page)

“You want to go back, don't you?”

They were on the flowered quilt, McGuire on his back, his hands behind his head, Glynnis Vargas on her side watching him.

“Back where?”

“Back to Palm Springs. You want to know all about Lafaro and about the man in the desert.”

“I've been thinking about it.”

“That's all you've been thinking about . . .”

“Not all.” He turned and cupped her breast in his hand.

“Except for the last fifteen minutes, I mean.”

“But who's counting, right?”

“I think you should. Go back and tell Bonnar. Do your homicide detective act with him.”

“It can wait.”

She rose from the bed and began searching through her luggage for a robe. “I don't want it to wait. I want it to be over. Besides, there's another reason.”

McGuire watched, waiting for her to continue.

“I'll be in meetings with my lawyers for the next two days. There are a number of decisions to be made about Getti's estate.” She removed the robe and began shaking out the wrinkles. “Decisions have to be made about some substantial funds destined for charities and art groups. I take the responsibility very seriously. And there's something else.”

Again, McGuire waited without prompting, playing the experienced interrogator, letting her continue at her own pace.

She stood fastening the robe around her waist, avoiding his eyes. “Getti was not a jealous man. But he was, after all, a Brazilian. There is a codicil in his will which states that if I should remarry or enter a long-term relationship with a man, I must share the management of the estate with the lawyers. It was put in for my protection. At least, that's how the lawyers explain it. To keep me from being exploited by some greedy man with a waxed moustache and black top hat, I suppose. And I don't want to share this responsibility with anybody. Especially with a team of high-powered Beverly Hills lawyers who would dearly love to exercise the codicil and become co-executors.”

“So you don't want them to see me here,” McGuire offered.

“That's right.” She leaned across the bed to him. “You understand, don't you?”

“Just how much money do you have?”

She smiled at him, either deciding whether to tell him or in anticipation of his response. “Cash? Property? Securities?”

“The whole ball of wax.”

She said it slowly as though measuring it for him. “Two hundred and thirty million dollars.”

McGuire dropped back on the bed in shock. “What the hell . . .” he began, and looked away.

“I did it, Joe,” she said without trying to hide her amusement. “I became as rich as I wanted to be.”

She gave him the keys to the Palm Springs house and explained how to disarm the security system when entering. Then, with only the briefest of smiles and a lowering of her eyelids, she excused herself and walked to the bathroom. “I want to relax in a long bath and enjoy a good night's sleep,” she explained. “I'll call you in the morning.” Pausing at the door, she looked back at him. “Be careful, Joseph,” she said before closing it behind her.

En route back to Palm Springs, McGuire became lost in the maze of Los Angeles freeways, finding himself heading south on the Santa Ana Freeway before abruptly swinging left across two lanes of screeching traffic to take the Riverside Freeway west.

He arrived back at Las Palmas at ten o'clock and entered the darkened house, knowing what he had to do. And who he had to call.

“You got any idea what time it is?” Ollie Schantz demanded over his speaker telephone when McGuire identified himself. “It's after one o'clock, you toad's ass!”

McGuire chuckled and took another sip of Glynnis Vargas's Scotch from a Baccarat crystal tumbler. He was sitting back in the living room love seat, looking out at the darkness beyond the window. “Come on, Ollie,” he said, soothing the other man's anger. “I didn't wake you up. You were probably listening to the scanner, eavesdropping on all the calls out of Berkeley Street.”

“Not the point. You've got Ronnie all upset, thinking you're hanging by your thumbs in some CIA hospitality suite or something.” His wife's voice sounded in the background, asking if McGuire was all right.

“Tell Ronnie I'm fine,” McGuire offered. “I'm in a rich widow's house with a glass of Scotch and a lot of good memories.”

He heard Ollie convey the message before asking McGuire, in a warmer voice, “What's up? Hear anything about the guy who got Ralph and your prisoner?”

McGuire told his former partner about the body of the young man found naked in the desert with two bullets in his brain fired from the same gun used to shoot Ralph Innes and Bunker Crawford.

“Was it done there or was it a drop?” Ollie asked.

“There. Execution style. He was on his knees naked. Tracks were wiped out.” McGuire listened to several seconds of dead air on the line between Palm Springs and Boston. “Ideas?” he asked finally.

“Not yet, Joseph,” Ollie Schantz replied. “Nothing yet.”

“I need some information on a couple of people,” McGuire said. “Guy named Getti Vargas, Brazilian citizen, jewellery dealer. Had some connections up here, lived in Rio. Also his wife, Glynnis. Don't know her maiden name, but she was born in Barstow forty-odd years ago, still has a US passport. Also, do a cross-check on this Amos character. So far, everything's been traced through police and federal files. Can you do a local search? Municipality records, that kind of thing?”

“What are you looking for?” Ollie Schantz asked.

“I don't know. I'm fishing. See if FBI, CIA, immigration, anybody has something on either of the Vargas people.”

There was another pause. Then: “No clothes around?” Ollie asked. “He's jaybird naked and there are no clothes? Nothing?”

“Nothing,” McGuire assured him, knowing the other man would lie awake for hours sifting through the implications. “I'll call you in the morning,” he said before hanging up. “Before noon. Say goodnight to Ronnie for me.”

“Say it yourself,” Ollie said in a distracted tone. “She's been standing here listening to everything,” and McGuire heard Ronnie Schantz call “Good night, Joe,” across the distance between them.

McGuire allowed himself a moment or two of wistful memories of his life in Boston and the two people who were the closest thing to a family he had. Then, sweeping his thoughts aside and pulling the business card from his wallet, he made a second telephone call, this one more abrupt and carefully planned.

The woman's voice answered by repeating the last four digits of the telephone number. Hello, sweetheart, McGuire greeted her silently before delivering his rehearsed message. “This is Joe McGuire and I've got something for Baldy and Goggles, your two Mormon buddies. Tell them to check out a cave high in Tecopa Canyon near Shoshone, California. There might be evidence of Lafaro there. Then again, there might not. It's the best I can do.” And he hung up.

He finished his drink, thinking of the reaction his message would generate. His voice had been recorded, he was certain of that. It would probably be subjected to audio stress analyses to determine if he were telling the truth. But would they make the effort to inspect a cave for evidence? He thought they would. And if they found anything of substance, they would find him next. And they would insist on knowing his source. Well, he'd handle that when he came to it.

He drained his glass, walked into the kitchen and returned with a table knife.

It took him only a few minutes to pry the lock on the door, one of three leading off the hall from the living room to Glynnis's bedroom, and he pushed it open to reveal an empty room. Thick carpeting covered the floor. In the dim light from the hallway he could discern pale rectangular shapes on the walls marking the location of paintings or pictures since removed. Otherwise, the room was barren.

McGuire poured himself another drink, finished it and tackled the doors on the other rooms. They were all as empty as the first.

It was almost midnight when he entered the master bedroom, kicked off his shoes and stretched full-length on the bed. Out of pure curiosity, he reached across to pull open the drawer of the nearest night table and sifted through headache tablets, combs, a pocket novel, a remote control for the television set and several credit-card receipts. He closed the drawer and lay back for a moment before rolling across the bed to open the drawer of the other night table.

Inside a gun, small and black and almost alive, seemed to be waiting for McGuire to discover it. He examined it carefully. A .25-calibre Beretta automatic, safety-catch on, fully loaded. Glynnis Vargas, McGuire now knew, did not rely entirely on her security system for protection.

He slipped the gun in his jacket pocket, hung the jacket on a corner of the headboard, stretched out again and tried to rest.

Through the fog that enveloped him on the edge of sleep, he heard the telephone ring.

“Rise from your slumber, Mozart,” the voice cackled in McGuire's ear before he could speak. “There is work to be done, demons to exorcise, angels to inspire.”

“Jesus,” McGuire muttered.

“Heard of him. Only man in history whose only reason for being born was so he could die. How's that for a pocket description of Christianity, Mozart?”

“How did you know I was here?” McGuire demanded, sitting up.

“A balcony view. You on the stage, me popping peanut shells.”

McGuire rubbed his head. “You were on the hill?”

“Snuggled there, Mozart. Lafaro and I, lip-smacking over your taste from the virgin queen's jar. Glenfiddich was it? Nectar of the kilts, I understand . . .”

“Lafaro? Let me talk to him.”

Another cackle. “Oh hardly, Mozart. Not your type. Not your type at all. Tell me, where is the fairy princess this evening? Hmmm? Not curving her body into yours, I perceive. Not raising your pulse or other more erectile portions of your physique.”

“None of your business,” McGuire growled. He lay back on the bed, trying to think of a response that would provoke the caller into revealing his identity. “I called your friends tonight,” he said suddenly.

“Friends, Mozart?” The voice had lost its maniacal edge and become almost casual. “We have no mutual friends, you and I . . .”

“Goggles and Baldy,” McGuire interrupted. “The guys you put me on to in Las Vegas. I called them tonight.”

“Goggles and Baldy?” The caller laughed. “Well, yes, hardly original, but distinctive enough. So you called them. A social conversation, no doubt. Planning a get-together perhaps? An evening of thrusting slivers under the fingernails of the usual suspects?”

“I told them about a cave where Lafaro used to live. High in a canyon near Shoshone.” He waited for a response. “You still there?” he demanded.

There was a new tone in the caller's voice: thoughtful, confused. “Cave? Shoshone? Whatever will they discover there?”

“You don't know?” McGuire demanded.

Another long pause. When the voice returned, it had acquired yet another tone, urgent and more direct. “McGuire,” the voice said. “I believe it is time for you and I to meet.”

“Hell of an idea,” McGuire said.

“Listen to me carefully. Tomorrow afternoon, drive toward Las Vegas as you did before. But this time, bypass that hellish burg at Baker, a sorry town in the desert. Take the highway to Shoshone and beyond, to Death Valley Junction and north across the border to Nevada. Turn left and head for Beatty, a sad, sad gathering of losers and losers-to-be. At Beatty, turn west again to Death Valley through a ghost town named Rhyolite. It's all on the map, McGuire. No need to make notes, no need to burden your brain cells with names and directions. Two miles beyond Rhyolite you'll find a red wooden gate at the end of a long lane leading from the highway. Wait there, McGuire. Fence-sit for me. Wait and watch. Be there in the afternoon. Late in the afternoon. Watch for the two suns.”

And he was gone.

McGuire burst from the bedroom, his hand on the Beretta, and entered the garage. In the glove compartment of the Mercedes he found a California road map and traced the route from Palm Springs toward Las Vegas. He followed the line marking the road that curved north at Baker, noting the towns and junctions the caller had listed.

In the living room, he closed the blinds, poured himself another glass of Scotch and carried it to the bedroom with him, the other hand still clutching the Beretta, safety-catch off.

It took much longer for him to fall asleep again.

She phoned him in the morning. “Joe?”

He calmed himself before replying, disturbed at his own reaction to the sound of her voice. A hesitancy, a sadness. A longing. “Yeah,” he answered. “Yeah, it's me.”

Her soft laugh. “Sounds like you were still asleep.”

“I was.” He raised his arm over his head and looked at his watch. It was after nine o'clock. “I had a few glasses of your Scotch last night.”

“Good . . .” she began.

“And I was being watched.”

A sharp intake of breath. “By whom?”

“The same little creep who sat up in the hill watching you. The guy who calls me Mozart and broke the neck of your Mona Lisa sculpture.”

“He's harmless, Joe. Forget him.”

“You know who he is.”

“Yes,” she said after a heartbeat's pause. “You're right. I know who he is.”

“Are you going to tell me?”

“When I see you next. When I return.”

“Well, I'm not waiting that long,” McGuire said. “Because I'm meeting him today. You know a place called Rhyolite? In Nevada, near Beatty?”

“Are you going there?”

“Yes,” he said firmly. “I'm going there.”

“Be careful, Joe. You don't know what you're getting into.”

“The way it looks to me, I'm already in it.”

“Yes,” she replied. “You are.” Her voice became more urgent. Something echoed in the background. “I'm sorry, Joe. See? I said it again, didn't I? Apologizing all over the place. Anyway, I think you're wonderful and you're not as tough as you try to be.”

“What the hell's going on?” McGuire demanded.

There was another moment of sound, of amplified voices in a large hollow space, before he heard the telephone receiver gently replaced on the other end of the line.

He rose, showered and dressed, all the while playing her words over and over in his mind.

“Been waiting for you all morning.”

Ollie Schantz's voice scratched over the speaker phone to McGuire, who sat in Glynnis Vargas's kitchen praying for the coffee fairy to bring him a mug of Maxwell House.

“Had a late night.” He told Ollie about the call directing him to Rhyolite.

“You gonna go?” Ollie asked. “Alone?”

“I've got a Beretta with me. Found it in her night-table drawer.”

“Woman's gun,” Ollie Schantz snorted. “They get 'em 'cause they look good in their hand. Choose a gun same way they choose nail polish.”

“Better than a slingshot. Anyway, it'll be daylight, and that's something in my favour.”

“Be careful, Joseph.”

“I've already been told that this morning,” McGuire said. “By somebody who's a hell of a lot prettier than you are. Which reminds me. Did you learn anything about Getti and Glynnis Vargas?”

“Oh sure, sure,” Ollie Schantz replied in mock seriousness. “Got yourself a regular Bonnie and Clyde there, Joe. Let's see. . . . The guy, he was a director of the International Gem Merchants Society and chairman of their World Welfare Committee. Seems all them jewel dealers felt a little guilty about owning more money than Texas so they gave away a few million every year and trusted Vargas to do it. . . .”

“And he embezzled it,” McGuire interrupted.

“Nice try. Guy was honest as the pope. Not a penny missing. He was a patron of the Rio Arts Festival, sat on some United Nations committees for preservation of the arts and got a couple of citations from good old Uncle Sam for working to improve US and Latin-American relations. Reception at the White House, all that stuff.”

“Somebody's covering up,” McGuire suggested.

“Could be. But they're doing the best damn job I've seen. No, Joseph, I'd say you've been playing pinch and giggle with the widow of a saint. And a rich one at that.”

McGuire's shoulders sagged. “How'd he die?” he asked.

“Plane crash. Brazilian Airlines DC9 out of Sao Paulo. Him and sixty-three other passengers.”

“Sabotage?”

“Pilot error. Confirmed with cockpit tapes and black box recorder. Dumb carioca forgot to extend the wing-flaps. They got a hundred feet up in the air, then dropped in a lake.”

“Anything on his wife?”

“Not much. Served on a bunch of do-gooder committees in Rio. Kept her US passport. It's still valid, but she's got dual citizenship through her marriage. Immigration's got nothing on her. She's made the international Who's Who for the last ten years. Nothing in here about her measurements. Figured you'd have all that by now anyway. . . .”