Dead Men Don’t Scare

Chapter Two Trained Seal

The dumpy bartender filled his tall glass to the brim, shaking the last few drops from the black container. Then he twisted the strand of lemon peel expertly.

“Hello,” a soft voice said at his side.

He turned. She wore a pale yellow blouse and a peasant skirt. “Die-hard?” he said.

She looked at him, then touched the back of his hand. Her fingertips were cool. “I walked and walked,” she said. “And while I walked I thought about you. Ryan, I don’t care what it was. But whatever it was, it’s done horrible things to you. Ryan, I really want to help you.”

“Should I understand what you’re talking about?”

She smiled. “You can’t push me away like that. Not any more, Ryan.”

He held the tension within him for long seconds and then slowly let it drift away. He smiled. “I give up. Completely.”

“Then buy me a sidecar.”

He ordered it for her. As she sipped it, he studied her with the care he had learned. A man learns care when he is staking his life. The black hair and the high cheekbones spoke of a trace of Latin blood. The mouth was too young and too soft, but the jaw had a firm line to it. Unstable, emotional, feminine. But with a capacity for intense loyalty. Idealism, probably. And a lot of warmth.

“Did you love her very much?” she asked.

“Huh? Who?”

“The fifteen-year old, of course.”

He threw his head back and laughed. He could not remember the last time he had laughed as thoroughly. “Love her? Lord, no!” He gasped. She was staring at him with hurt eyes. “Please don’t take me off guard like that again, Gria.”

“Is it so absurd to be in love with someone?”

He sobered. “Why, not at all! I’ve been desperately in love. She ignored me. I brought her flowers. Still she flunked me in arithmetic. That was in the sixth grade.”

“You fool!” she said.

He saw her eyes change as she looked beyond him. He flicked his glance at the bar mirror. Out of old habit, he moved his weight inconspicuously onto the balls of his feet. Rolph was moving toward them. Ryan turned casually.

Rolph said, “Didn’t I tell you once?”

“Isn’t this script a little tired, mate?”

Ryan looked beyond Rolph and saw the worried expression on the bartender’s face. But the man made no move toward them.

Rolph hunched his shoulders and stabbed with a very competent left toward Ryan’s eyes, following it with a blasting right. Ryan caught the left hand in both of his, his thumbs pressing against the back of it, his fingers across the heel of the palm. He pivoted it quickly enough to twist the right hand blow wild. The back of the hand was toward him after the pivot, Rolph’s spread fingers pointing toward the ceiling. Ryan bent the hand back quickly. Rolph grunted with pain and dropped to his knees.

Ryan kicked him precisely in the solar plexus. Rolph’s face whitened and his eyes rolled up almost out of sight. Ryan said loudly, “You must have tripped, old man. Here, let me help you.” He lifted Rolph, turned him toward the bar, brushed him off in a friendly fashion. Rolph sagged against the bar, barely man-aging to hold himself upright.

Ryan clapped his shoulder, said jovially, “See you here and about, old man.”

He took Gria’s arm. “Let’s have a drink out at a table on the terrace.”

She didn’t say a word. He sat opposite her and was amazed at the pallor of her face, the frightened look in her eyes.

“You... you...”

“I guess I did. He’ll be all right when he gets his wind back. A little shaky, of course.”

“I wasn’t worried about Rolph. You’ll have to get out of here, Ryan.”

“Don’t talk nonsense.”

“I’m not. Please, Ryan. There are other places along the coast. Why don’t you leave tonight and drive over into Florida?”

He ordered their drinks. “You baffle me, Gria.”

“I can’t explain. It just wasn’t a good thing to do. At least not to Rolph Essta. Not in this place, in this town.”

He studied her. “You are frightened, aren’t you?”

“Please, Ryan.”

“What on earth can be so ominous about anything or anybody in this little seacoast town? I’ve done a lot of running in my life. I’m not going to run from something that doesn’t make sense.”

She leaned across the table and spoke through almost bloodless lips. “They’ll take your fingerprints, you know, when they take you to jail.”

“What! Wait a minute! A light begins to dawn. Ryan Kestrick, famous criminal. Is that it?”

“They’ll hurt you,” she said sullenly.

“Darling,” he said, “I have been in a great many jails. I have been hurt quite badly a great many times. But I am not a criminal. At least not in the common definition of the word.”

“You’ll go away?”

“Don’t be silly!”

She stood up, leaving her drink untouched. She walked away rapidly. He smiled and added another facet to his analysis. A great yen for drama. Probably the product of boredom.

He was on his way toward the dining room a half hour later when they stopped him. Two of them. One was small and neat and gray, the spokesman. The other was hulking and dull-looking.

“Kestrick?”

“Come along.”

“Not quite so fast. What seems to be the trouble?”

“We’ll do our talking in the manager’s office, Kestrick.”

“Let’s make it Mr. Kestrick, shall we?”

The neat little gray man smiled without humor. “Mr. Kestrick. Please come and chat with us if you please.”

The hotel manager, a nervous and myopic type named Mr. Riverside, sat behind his pale gray desk. Rolph Essta sat beside the desk, scowling.

“Sit over there, Kestrick,” the gray man said.

Ryan shrugged, crossed to the chair and sat down, crossing his knees. The gray man took the only vacant chair. The hulking one leaned against the closed door. The office was small.

“You have some sort of authority, I assume?” Ryan asked politely.

“Lieutenant on the police force here. We’re asking the questions. You answer them.”

“I might and I might not. Just what is Essta’s capacity here? Patrolman?”

“Mr. Essta is representing the owner of this hotel,” Riverside said in a fussy tone. “I have heard that—”

“Shut up, Earl,” Rolph Essta said harshly. Riverside swallowed and closed his mouth. “Go ahead, Charlie,” Rolph said to the gray man.

“First, what is your business, Kestrick. How do you make a living?”

“Just say I’m retired.”

“That isn’t good enough, Kestrick.”

“It happens to be the truth. I don’t care how good you think it is, Charlie.”

“I love ’em wise,” the hulk by the door said. He picked his teeth with his thumbnail and grinned.

“What are you doing here?”

“Resting.”

“What’s your home address?”

“Go look at the register.”

“I did. It just says New York City.”

“Then that must be my home address.”

“Everything you own is brand new. Car, clothes, everything.”

“Are you asking me where I stole them?”

“You admit it, eh?” Charlie said triumphantly.

“You’re turning me sick to my stomach,” Ryan said. “What kind of a schoolgirl game is this? So Essta is a big shot. He thinks I’m bothering his girl. He gets rough and I quiet him in the bar without any fuss. Now I’m a criminal.”

Charlie sighed as though he were a man of great patience. “We don’t like your type around here, Kestrick. This town caters to a good tourist trade.” He glanced at his watch and said, “So we’re giving you one hour to pack, get in your car and get the hell out of here. Anything over a hundred miles is far enough.”

“And if I don’t?”

Rolph answered. “Mr. Riverside and I witnessed these two police officers when they took from your possession the bill clip containing forty dollars that you lifted out of the side pocket of my jacket after kicking me in the stomach in the bar. I don’t want trouble. I’d just as soon forget it all.” He shrugged. “But, on the other hand, if you want to make an issue of it...”

Ryan slouched in the chair. He frowned. “You’re a great little bunch. You ought to put this act on the road.”

“The bartender saw you take the money,” Rolph said. “He called my attention to it.”

Ryan rubbed his chin. “I wonder if you could make a thing like this stick.”

Rolph’s smile was wolfish. “Want to try us? We like people who go overboard for the principle of the thing.”

“That’s the only thing you shouldn’t have said,” Ryan said softly. “I was about to take a trip. All right, Charlie. Let’s go look at the inside of your jail.”

Charlie glanced at Rolph. Rolph nodded his permission.

“Don’t you think this guy is resisting arrest?” the hulk said.

“Not in here he isn’t,” Earl Riverside said firmly.

“Maybe he’ll resist arrest when you get him downtown,” Rolph said.

“He might, at that,” Charlie said.

Ryan grinned. “No dice, gentlemen. I’m still insisting that you take me downtown.”

They drove down in silence, with the hulking one at the wheel of the police sedan. They drove through a stone arch into the courtyard of a gray stone, U-shaped building.

The car stopped. “You’re not smart,” Charlie said.

“Agreed.”

The hulk hauled Ryan out of the back seat, held him by the front of his suit coat and slapped him, backhand and forehand. Ryan smiled placidly.

The man slapped him again. “Come on! You’re tough enough to take Essta. Don’t you want to try me?”

“Not quite yet, friend.”

He was booked, relieved of his possessions, shoved into a small dark cell midway down the single cell block...

The turnkey had taken the breakfast tray away when Ryan Kestrick looked up — and saw the big man outside the cell staring incredulously at him.

“Lord, Ryan,” he said. “You’ve — they killed you years ago. I saw the name and...”

Ryan stood up. “McCloud,” he said softly. “Major McCloud! What are you doing here?”

McCloud, a slow-moving man with a mobile pendulous face and enormous hands, unlocked the cell and came in. They shook hands as though it were the most solemn of ceremonies. They sat side by side on the bunk.

“What am I doing here?” McCloud said. “I guess you never did know my home town. This is it. I got out in — let me see — early ’46. I tried to make a go of a private investigation business but there wasn’t enough call for it. So I went on the cops here. The medals impressed ’em, I guess. I’m a lieutenant.” He sighed. “It isn’t a bad life I guess.” He shook off the mild depression and his voice hardened. “But you, in here. What the hell is this all about?”

“I can ask you that. I finally got out a month ago. The last operation was a daisy. Out of touch for fourteen months. I came down here to get my blood pressure down and figure out some good thing to do with my life.”

McCloud stared at him. “You’ve been... hell, eight years of it. No man can take that!”

“I learned to stop thinking.”

McCloud laced his thick fingers and stared down at his knuckles, white with pressure. “I had four operations and even now I get nightmares. Remember Stevenson and Lowery?”

Ryan laughed flatly. “It’s funny, McCloud. Real funny. I can’t even remember their names any more.”

“You’re booked for assault and battery, plus a little pocket-picking, Ryan. I don’t get it.”

Ryan gave him the story.

McCloud listened soberly. “I can fix it,” he said. “I’ll have you out of here in a half hour. But you got to promise me to get in that car of yours and get away from this town.”

Ryan stood up. His voice was harsh. “No dice, McCloud. I had my face slapped. These local comics need some enlightening. I want to go right back to the hotel and stay there just as long as I want to.”

McCloud stood up too. His voice was pleading. “What difference does it make to you, Ryan? Forget this town. It isn’t something you can clean up.”

“How do you- mean?”

“I’ll give you the picture. This whole town was laid out by a man named Sam Baidee, back in the middle twenties. Sam was in his late thirties then. A smart, honest guy. He put every dime into construction of the two big hotels. He owned the town. The depression wiped him out and he didn’t have a dime. His wife died right about then and the daughter, that crazy Gria, was a little bit of a kid. Sam lived in a shack down the coast and did commercial fishing. Brutal work.

“The girl got old enough to go away to school and I guess Sam got the money by doing a little smuggling. The girl didn’t know anything about it. While she was away, he began to pyramid the smuggling money. He got into the gambling business, first in a small way. Slots in the back rooms of local bars. There was an army camp near here and he did well. He put the profits into plush establishments. The army took over the two hotels. When the army auctioned off the hotels Sam had the money to buy them back at the auctions. He’d owned them in the first place.

“Ever since the war he’s been getting more powerful. He owns the town again, but it isn’t the Sam Baidee who owned it back before the depression. He managed to keep the girl in the dark. She’s been back here two years and now she knows just what her pop is. She’s been taking it hard because she thought the old man could do no evil. Essta is the old man’s right hand. Essta controls a pretty rough bunch of boys. The rumor is that the old man wants the girl to marry Essta and keep the empire intact. That’s the combination you walked into.”

“He owns the town?”

“That’s right.”

“And the police?”

“City and county.”

Ryan lowered his voice. “And he owns you, McCloud?”

McCloud glanced at him and looked away. “I sort of wish you hadn’t asked that, Ryan.”

“I’d like to hear you say it.”

McCloud’s tone was angry. “What the hell am I going to do? You know what I learned to do. Parachute in from three hundred feet at night. Kill a man before he can make a sound. What kind of talent is that to put on the market? I got a wife and two kids, Ryan. Little kids.”

“The violins will now play Hearts and Flowers.”

“I should have remembered how much heart you’ve got.”

“Who is Lieutenant Charlie?”

“Charlie Parish. Errand boy for Essta.”

“And the big one with the yellow teeth and the dumb look?”

“Sergeant DuBrie.”

“What’s their usual procedure?”

“In a case like this? If you keep trying to beat your head on the wall, Kestrick, they’ll convict you and give you a year. In this state that means a year working on the county roads.”

“Have they done that to other people when they didn’t like the hair style?”

“Quite a few.”

“Have you helped them convict any of those people, McCloud?”

McCloud stared at him. “I don’t know why I have to answer that. You stopped giving me orders four years ago, Kestrick.”

Ryan smiled warmly. With those who knew him best, it was the danger signal. “And do you know why I stopped giving you orders?”

“Huh? No.”

“Because I watched you for a long time. In some ways, McCloud, you’re a nice guy. In our work you were making a good impression. But there are little tip-offs. I had to make a decision. I know now I was right. Under that competent look, McCloud, there’s a streak of mush. You’re an angle boy, whether you admit it to yourself or not. If you’d been taken on any of those missions we went on, you’d have spilled your guts as soon as they started to pry on your fingernails.

“You picture yourself as a big rugged man. In the war you were making like a hero because the pressure was never really on you. Now you’re getting pot-bellied and that softness is beginning to show in your face. You’re going to give those two kids of yours a dandy heritage. My daddy’s a crooked cop. What’re you going to tell them when they’re old enough to find out about you?”

All expression left McCloud’s face. “All right, Kestrick. I was going to go along with you for old time’s sake. I hope you stay in until you rot.”

Ryan laughed sardonically. “The truth comes out.”

McCloud balled a heavy fist.

Ryan lifted his chin. “Okay. I’ll give you a clean shot at me. Then you can go home to lunch and tell how daddy hit the nasty criminal.”

McCloud left, banging the cell door behind him.