the Hills Of Homicide (Ss) (1987) Page 4

  The dank, fetid odor that arose from the pit was strong in the close air of the darkened tent with all the flaps down. With every sense in me keyed to the highest pitch, I walked on by the pit and turned down the runway to the exit. He drew alongside me then, and there was a queer look in his eyes. He must have been tempted, all right. "You think I killed Bitner," he said. He had his feet wide apart and he was staring at me.

  Why I said it, I'll never know, but I did. "Yes," I said, "I think you killed him."

  There was a sneer in his eyes. "Why, you fool!" he said. "You damned fool! If I had, you couldn't prove it. You'd only make a fool of yourself "

  That, of course, was the crux of the problem. I had to have evidence, and I had so little. I knew now how the crime had been done. This day had provided that information, but I needed proof, and my best bet was to push him into some foolish action, into taking some step that would give me further evidence. He was, as all criminals are, overly egotistical and overly optimistic, so with the right words I might light a fuse that would start something. We had turned away from each other, but I could not resist the chance, for what it was worth. "Ati, ati," I said, "sobat bikin salah!"

  His spine went rigid, and he stopped so suddenly that one foot was almost in the air. He started to turn, but I was walking on, and walking fast. I had told him, "Be careful, you have made a mistake!" in Malayan . . . for the solution to this crime lay in the Far East.

  At the edge of the grounds I stopped to light a cigarette. He was nowhere in sight, but I noticed a canvasman I had seen nearby and the man walked up. "How's for a light, mister?"

  "Sure," I said: "Wasn't this show in Las Vegas a few days ago?"

  "Yeah," he said. "You from there?"

  "Been around there a good bit. Have a hard drive over?"

  "Not so bad. We stop ever' so often for a rest."

  Who starts you again Castro? I mean, after a rest stop?"

  "Yeah, an' he usually gives us a break once in a while. I mean, sometimes when we're movin' at night he lets us rest a while. Got to, or we'd run off the road."

  "Stop many times out of Las Vegas? That desert country must have been quiet enough to sleep."

  "We stopped three, maybe four times. Got a good rest out in the desert. Twice he stopped quite a while. Maybe an hour once, maybe thirty minutes again. Boy, we needed it!"

  Leaving him at a corner, I walked over to my car and got in. There were several cars parked along the street and in one of them I saw a cigarette glow. Lovers, I thought. And that took my mind back to Karen Bitner. A lot of my thinking had been centered around her these last few hours, and little of it had to do with crime.

  The car started easily and I swung out on the highway and headed west. It was a long road I had to drive, across a lonely stretch of desert and mountain road with few towns. When I had been driving for about an hour, a car passed me that looked familiar, but there was a girl and man in it. I grinned. Probably the two I'd seen back in town, I thought.

  Wheeling the car around a climbing turn, I made the crest and leveled off on a long drive across some rough, broken country. Rounding a curve among some boulders, I saw a car ahead of me and a man bending over a rear wheel. A jack and some tire tools lay on the pavement, and a girl, her coat collar turned up against the cool wind, waved at me to flag me down. Swinging to the opposite side of the road, I thrust my head out. "Anything I can do?" I asked.

  The girl lifted her hand and she held a gun. "Yes," she said, "you can get out."

  It was Toni. If the motor had been running, I'd have taken a chance, but I'd killed it when I stopped, believing they needed help. The man was coming toward us now, and with him was still another man who had unloaded from the car. The first was Nick Ries, Caronna's man, but the other I had never seen before. "Yeah," Nick said, you can get out."

  I got out.

  My gun was in my hand, and I could have taken a chance on a gun battle, but it was three to one, and they had a flashlight on my face. I'd have been cold turkey in a matter of seconds. With a flit of my right hand I shoved my gun off my lap and behind the cushion, covering the movement by opening the door with my left. I got out and stood there with my hands up while they frisked me. "No rod," the new man told Nick. "He's clean."

  "Okay, get him off the road. We've got work to do." They pushed me around behind some rocks off the road. I could have been no more than fifty yards from the road when we stopped, but I might as well have been as many miles. Nick stared at me, his eyes hard with enjoyment.

  "Looks like it's my turn now. Tough guy, huh? All right, you tell us what we want to know, or we'll give you a chance to show us how tough you are." He waved the gun at me. "Did you see Castro? What. Did you tell him?" "Sure I saw him. I told him he was the guy who murdered Bitner. I asked him what Caronna wanted from him, and when Caronna got in touch with him last. It struck me," I added, and this was for Toni's benefit, "that he was a pretty smart joe. I think you guys are backing the wrong horse. Anyway," I continued, "I'm riding with him." "You?" Toni snapped. "What do you mean?"

  "Hell," I said, offhand, "figure it out for yourself. I was ready to do business with Blacky, but he wouldn't offer enough dough. Castro's a gentleman. He'll play ball with you. That's what you guys should be doing, getting on his side!"

  -Shut up!" Nick snapped. Then he sneered, "You know what happens to guys that double-cross Blacky Caronna? I do. An I don't want any part of it."

  -That's if he's alive," I said. "You guys do what I tell you. You go to Castro."

  The line I was using wasn't doing me any good with Nick, I could tell, but I wasn't aiming it at him. I was pretty sure that Toni had her own little game, and that she was playing both ends against the middle. If I could convince her I was playing ball with Castro there was a chance she would lend a hand. A mighty slim chance, but I was in no mood or position to bargain with any kind of a chance.

  Of one thing I was sure. When they stopped that car they had no idea of ever letting me get away from this place alive. I had to talk fast. "I never expected," I said, flashing a look at Toni, "to find you out here. If we're going to get anything done, it will have to be done in Ranagat."

  "Shut up!" Nick snarled.

  "Hold it up a minute, Nick," Toni said. "Let the guy talk. Maybe we'll learn something."

  "What I was going to say was this. I'm in this for the dough, like you are. Caronna fires me, so I tie on with Loftus, figuring if I stay where the big dough is, I'll latch onto some of it. So what do I find out? That Loftus and some others have a beautiful case built against Blacky. He's got a bad rep, and the owners are figuring on getting rid of him over this highgrade deal. So they have all gone in together the mine owners, Loftus, Holben, an' all the rest. They are going to swear Caronna right into the death penalty. By the time that case goes to trial Caronna will be framed so tight he can't wiggle a toe.

  "Why do you suppose he wanted me up here? Because he knows they're out to get him. Because he's hotter than a firecracker right now and he can't afford to go on trial. "What I'm getting at is, why tie yourself to a sinking ship? Caronna's through. You guys can go down with him, or you can swing over to Castro and make more money than you ever will from Caronna."

  "But," Ries objected, "the will Castro has leaves the money to him. Why should he give us a split?"

  "He's leery of Caronna. Also, I said, grinning, "I've got my own angle, but I'll need help. I know how Castro killed the old man."

  "How?" Ries said shrewdly.

  I chuckled. In the last few minutes I'd been lying faster than I ever had in my life, but this I really knew. "Don't ask me how. You guys play ball' with me, and I'll play ball with you."

  "No," Nick said. "We got orders to bump you, and that's what we do."

  "Wait, Nick." Toni waved a hand at him. "I've got an idea. Suppose we take this lug back to town. We can cache him in the basement at the cafT, and nobody'll know. Then we can study this thing over a little. After all, why should Blacky get all the g
ravy?"

  "How do we know this guy is leveling with us?" Nick said. "He gives us a fast line of chatter, an' "

  "Wait!" Toni turned to me. "If you know Castro, and if you're working that close to him, you know about the will. Tell us."

  Cold sweat broke out all over me. Here it was, and if I gave the wrong answer they'd never listen to me again. Hell. I wouldn't have time to talk! I'd be too dead.

  Still, I had an idea, if no more. "Hell," I said carelessly, "I don't know what anybody else knows, but I know that Johnny Leader wrote that will, and I know that Castro stashed it away when he killed Bitner."

  "That's what Caronna figured," Toni said. "This guy is right!"

  They didn't see me gulp and swallow. It was lucky I had seen that sign over the small concession on the midway, a sign that said, JOHNNY LEADER, WORLD'S GREATEST PENMAN.

  And I remembered the comments Caronna had made to Toni about Leader. When I'd glimpsed that sign, it had all come back to me.

  At last they let me put my hands doWn, and we started back to the cars. I wasn't out of the woods by a long way, but I had a prayer now. "Toni," Nick said, "you come with me in this mug's car. Peppy can drive ours. We'll head for Ranagat."

  It couldn't have worked out better unless Ries had let Toni and me drive in alone. Nick had Toni get behind the wheel and he put me in alongside of her, then he got in behind. That guy wouldn't trust his grandmother. Still, it couldn't have been much better. My .45 was tucked into the crack behind the seat cushion right where I sat.

  As we drove, I tried to figure my next play. One thing I knew, I wasn't taking any chance on being tied up in that basement, even if it meant a shoot-out in the streets of Ranagat. Then I heard something that cinched it.

  "Blacky's figurin' on an out," Nick said to Toni. "He don't know about this frame they're springin' on him. He's all set to bump the babe and make it look like suicide, with a note for her to leave behind, confessin' she killed Bitner."

  A match struck behind me as Nick lit a cigarette. "He's got the babe, too. We put the snatch on her tonight after he found them tracks she left."

  "Tracks?" I tried to keep my voice casual. My right hand had worked behind me as I half turned away from Toni toward Nick, and I had the gun in my hand, under the skirt of my coat.

  "Yeah," Nick chuckled. "She got into his place through the garage window an' stepped in some grease on a tool bench. She left tracks."

  Toni glared sidewise at me. "Weren't you kind of sweet on her?"

  "Me?" I shrugged, and glanced at her with a lot of promissory notes in my eyes. "I like a smart damel"

  She took it big. I'm no Clark Gable or anything, but alongside of Caronna I'd look like Galahad beside a gorilla. THE FIGHT

  We rolled into the streets of Ranagat at about daybreak, and then I saw the sight that thrilled me more than any I could have seen unless it was Karen herself. It was Jerry Loftus. He was standing in the door of his office, and he saw us roll into town. This was a sheriff's office car, and he would know I wouldn't be letting anyone else drive for fun, not with Nick Ries in the back seat, whom he had seen me bash the night before.

  Something made me glance around then, and I saw two things. I saw a gray convertible, the one I had seen standing back of Castro's tent, turning into Caronna's drive, and I saw Nick Ries leaning over on his right elbow, fishing in his left-hand pants pocket for matches.

  My own right hand held the gun, and when I saw Ries way over on his elbow, I shoved down with my elbow on the door handle. The door swung open, and at the same instant I grabbed at the wheel with my left.

  The car swung and smashed into the curb and then over it. We weren't rolling fast, but I hit the pavement gun in hand and backing up, and saw Loftus coming toward us as Peppy rolled down the hill in the following car. "Get that guy!" I yelled.

  Nick was screaming mad. "It's a double cross! It's a " His gun swung up, and I let him have it right through the chest, squeezing the two shots off as fast as I could pull the trigger of my gun.

  Nick screamed again and his mouth dropped open, and then he spilled out of the car and landed on his face in the dust and dirt of the gutter.

  Another shot boomed behind the car, and I knew it was Loftus cutting loose with his six-shooter. He only shot once.

  For once Toni had been caught flat-footed. My twist of the wheel and leap from the car had caught her unawares, and now she stared, for one fatal instant, as though struck dumb. Then her face twisted into a grimace of hate and female fury, and she grabbed at her purse. Knowing where her gun was, I went into action a split second sooner and knocked it from her hand. She sprang at me, screaming and clawing, but Loftus and a couple of passing miners pulled her off me.

  "Hold her," I said. "She's in it, too."

  "Karen Bitner's disappeared," Loftus told me. "Have you seen her?"

  "Caronna's got her."

  Diving around the sheriff's car, I sprang for the seat of Peppy's convertible, which had been stopped alongside the street. I kicked her wide open and went up the winding road to Caronna's house with all the stops out. Skidding to a halt in front of the gate, I hit the ground on both feet, and this time I wasn't caring if there was a warning signal on the gate or not. I jerked it open, heard the bell clang somewhere in the interior, and then I was inside the gate and running for the steps.

  As I went through the gate I heard something crash, and then a scream as of an animal in pain a hoarse, gasping cry that died away in a sobbing gasp. I took the steps in a bound and went through the door.

  Caronna, his eyes blazing, his shirt ripped half off, was standing in the middle of the room, his powerful, trunk-like legs wide spread, his big hands knotted into fists. In the corner of the room Castro was lying, and I needed only a glance to see that Richard Henry Castro had tackled a different kind of jungle beast, and had come out on the short end. I could surmise what had happened. Castro must have jumped him, and Caronna had torn the man loose and hurled him into that corner and then jumped right in the middle of him with both feet. If Castro wasn't ready for the hospital I never saw a man who was, and unless I was mistaken, he was a candidate for the morgue. One chair was knocked over, and the broken body ofCastro lay on the floor, blood trickling from a corner of his mouth, blood staining the front of his white shirt and slowly turning it to a wide crimson blotch. Yet his eyes were alive as they had never been, and they blazed up to us like those of a trapped and desperate animal brought to its last moment and backing away from the trapper with bared teeth.

  Caronna was the thing that centered on my mind and gripped every sense in my being. Somehow, from the first I had known I would fight that man. Perhaps it began when Shanks had told me I wasn't man enough for him. That had rankled.

  I stood there looking at Blacky Caronna, a solid block of bone and muscle mounted on a couple of powerful and thick legs, a massive chest and shoulders, and a bull neck that held his blunt, short-haired head thrust forward. He saw me and lunged.

  Did I shoot him? Hell, what man who fights with his hands can think of a gun at such a moment? I dropped mine as Caronna lunged for me, and as I dropped it I hooked short and hard with both hands.

  My feet were firmly anchored. I was set just right and he was coming in. My left smashed a bit high, slicing a deep cut in his cheekbone, and then my right smacked on his chin. I might as well have hit a wall. He grabbed at my coat, thinking perhaps to jerk it down over my shoulders, but I whipped up a right uppercut that clipped him on the chin, and as all my weight was driving toward him, I jerked my chin down on my chest and butted him in the face, blocking his arms with my elbows.

  He grabbed my forearms and hurled me away from him so hard that I hit a chair and it splintered under me. He came in with a rush, ready to give me the boots as he had Castro, but that was an old story for me from lumber camps and waterfronts, and just as he started to jump, I hurled my body at his legs. He tottered and fell over me, kicking out blindly for my face, and one boot grazed my head, but then I roll
ed over and came up. He was up with me, and we rushed together like a couple of berserk cavemen.

  It was wicked, brutal battling. Through a kind of smoky haze in my mind, caused by crashing punches to my head and chin, I drove into him, swinging with both hands, and he met me halfway. It was fist and thumb, gouging, biting, kneeing. Using elbows and shoulders, butting and kicking. It was barroom, backroom, waterfront style, where anything goes and the man who goes down and doesn't get up fast enough is through . . . and he rarely gets up. .

  Somebody had said that Caronna had once been a puddler in a steel mill, and he had lost none of his strength. A rocklike fist smashed against my chin, bursting a million lights in my brain. A thumb stabbed at my eye in a clinch, and I butted and gouged my way out of it and then clipped him with a right to the chin as he came in. I struck at his throat with my elbow in close, and then grabbing him by the belt, heaved him from the floor and hurled him back on a table. He kicked me in the chest as I came in, and knocked me into the wall.

  Castro was staring at us from the floor, and as well as if it had been my own mind, I knew what went on in his. He had seen no jungle beasts fighting as we fought then, for no jungle beast has ever achieved the refinements of cruelty that man has learned to inject into his fighting. A beast fights to win, and men fight and hate while they fight.

  My coat and shirt were gone. Blood streaked my body. I could feel a stiffness in the side of my face, and I knew my eye was swelling shut. There was no time to rest, no rounds, no stopping. I stepped in on the balls of my feet and hooked hard to his chin. He blinked and slammed a right at me that I ducked but I caught a sweeping left that rocked me. Weaving to escape his bludgeoning-fists, I got in close and whipped both hands to the body, and then a hard right. I forced him back against the desk and jamming my left forearm against his throat, I slammed three right hands into his body before he threw me off and charged at me like a mad bull. I stabbed a left at his face and he took it coming in as though I'd hit him with a feather duster. My right missed and he hit me in the belly with one that knocked every bit of wind out of me.