Dead Men Don’t Scare

Chapter Three A Monkey’s Uncle

Gria Baidee came late in the afternoon. She stood outside the cell. “Ryan, Ryan! Why didn’t you leave when Essta gave you the chance?”

“Just stupid, I guess. How did you get in here?”

“Bluff. They’re probably calling Sam now and he’ll tell them to get me out of here.”

He moved close to her. “Then how much can I trust you, Gria?”

“All the way, Ryan. All the way... forever.”

He studied her. She could be loyal. She could fight. “Listen hard then, and remember. Remember this address. XYZ Novelty Company. Box 1200. Washington, D. C. Repeat that. Again. Good. Get an airmail special off to that address. All you have to say is that Kestrick is being held here on false charges and requests assistance. You don’t even have to sign your name.”

“But—”

“Just do it, honey. That’s all you have to do. But I’ll tell you one thing. To be fair, I’ll tell you. It might turn out that when the dust dies down, one Sam Baidee could be the man on the inside, instead of me.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Would that be bad?”

“You’re the one to answer that.”

The turnkey called down the corridor, “You’re wanted on the phone, Miss Baidee. Right away.”

He folded his hand over hers and said, very softly, “Good girl...”

The young lawyer was casual, businesslike. “Well, we’ll have to get you out on bail, Mr. Kestrick. I’m positive that it won’t be set so high that your car won’t be ample security for the bond.”

“When am I going to be tried?”

“Four days from now.”

Ryan yawned. “I think I’ll stay right here.”

“But I think you should be released.”

“I like it here.”

“That’s a very strange attitude for you to take.”

“Isn’t it?”

“I must insist that you permit me to make arrangements to have you released.”

“Or you’ll refuse to handle the case?”

“Quite right.”

“Then refuse, lad. I feel that it is safer and healthier in here. Baidee has some reason for wanting me out. So I stay. You’re taking my money and working for him. Not exactly ethical, but I suppose if a young lawyer wants to eat in this town, he has to pick up some nasty habits.”

The lawyer flushed and then turned pale. “I don’t understand you. You’re in a very bad position. You refuse to plead guilty as I have advised you, and you refuse to let me look out for your interests. I can almost guarantee a suspended sentence and no more than one-year probation if you plead guilty.”

“You boys really have this thing sewed up, don’t you?”

The lawyer lowered his voice. “How stupid can a man get?”

“Everybody is giving me advice. What’s yours?”

“If you plead guilty maybe other evidence won’t be brought up.”

Ryan sat up on the bunk. “What other evidence, Greer?”

“The unlicensed automatic in your suitcase.”

“Unlicensed? How interesting?”

“You may think it was licensed. It may turn out that it isn’t.”

Ryan smiled. “You, Greer, are a blundering little punk. You’re playing bad man with all the other bad men. If you keep on this way, I’m going to have to laugh in your face and then your feelings will be hurt. Go away, please...”

The cell door was unlocked in midmorning of the next day. A florid, white-haired man with tiny bright blue eyes and thick shoulders came in, smiling.

“How do you do, Kestrick. I’m Sam Baidee. Things seem to have gotten a little out of hand while I was looking the other way.” Baidee sat down on the edge of the bunk and smiled. He looked like a shaven Santa. Ryan leaned against the concrete wall by the window, his hands in his pockets.

Baidee waited, then continued. “Rolph Essta becomes a bit too hasty sometimes.”

“He certainly is.”

“No hard feelings?”

Ryan shrugged. “I’m not mad.”

“Then we’ll forget the whole incident. Please consider yourself the guest of the hotel for the rest of your stay.”

“You’re a smart man, Baidee. Smarter than your little friends.”

Baidee smiled broadly. “I try to avoid trouble.”

“You didn’t try hard enough this time.”

The smile faded. “What does that mean?”

“You came down here because you checked with McCloud and Greer and decided I might be too much of a package to try to railroad. I might have important connections. Now I’m supposed to shrug it off and let you buy me a drink.”

Baidee’s face turned purple. “Watch your mouth, Kestrick.”

“Sometimes people are big shots too long. They get careless. When you let me out of here, Baidee, I’m going to pull your little castle right down around your ears.”

“You’re big enough to do that?”

“I think so. I came down here for a rest. I’ve been working hard for a long time. You’ve annoyed me.”

“The little man can talk big.”

“And back it up.”

Baidee stared at the floor for a long time. His lips were pursed. He spoke at last, in a reasonable tone. “I admit, Kestrick, that you have every right to be unhappy about this. It’s been handled clumsily. And you’re right when you assume that I’m not anxious to find out just how far we can go with you. Rolph is sometimes a fool. It’s only fair to give you some return for this... ah... indignity. Give me the receipt for your personal possessions. I’ll have it corrected at the desk. They counted your cash wrong. You had a thousand dollars more than you thought you had.”

“Would you go for five?”

“That’s a lot of money.”

“One slot machine, quarter variety, will return that in a year in a good spot.”

“Since you put it that way, Kestrick, I might be able to—”

“Thank you, no. Not for five or ten or fifty. I just wanted to see how uneasy you are about this stew of Rolph Essta.”

Baidee sighed. “I find idealists pretty dull, frankly.”

“So I guess I stay right here, eh?”

Baidee stood up. “I guess you do. I have to protect myself, in any way that I can. If I have to have you killed, I can arrange that, too. I’m not being melodramatic.”

“I’ll give you that much.”

Baidee stepped outside the cell. He frowned as he turned and looked at Ryan. “My daughter gave me some interesting information, Kestrick. I’ve been wondering ever since just what the XYZ Novelty Company might be.”

He walked away. For the first time Ryan felt disturbed. He felt uneasy. No one knew where he was. It began to look as though Baidee might be able to arrange it. The wrong guess about Gria shook him. He was seldom as wrong about a person. The instability had outweighed her loyalty to him. Or else her loyalty to her father had been stronger than he had imagined.

It all required a revision of plan. The Baidee Comic Opera Association was no longer quite as comic as in the beginning. He had no doubt that he would come to trial and be convicted. And he had no doubt of his ability to escape after the conviction. He had, through his training, evolved three good methods of escape from this particular cell. It was most odd to find this little citadel of amateur fascism in his own country.

And it was at that moment that he decided his future. He decided to accept the offer of that peculiar and particular agency in Washington that had informed him, through devious channels, that they could put to use his experience in war and post-war espionage. Ryan Kestrick had felt, in the beginning, when the offer had first been received, that domestic police work would be dull. Now he began to realize that it could not only be exciting, but quite constructive.

The high desk of the judge was at the end of the narrow courtroom. The spectators were behind a semi-circular railing at the judge’s right, the jury behind a smaller railing at his left. The witness chair, with no railing in front of it, was on a small raised dais between judge and jury. The long table in the center of the court room accommodated both defense and prosecution.

Ryan was amused at the tactic which had prevented his shaving for the past three days. He imagined that he looked thoroughly desperate.

Greer doodled idly. There was no real defense. The trial was a farce. The witnesses for the prosecution were the bartender, Earl Riverside, Rolph Essta. Lieutenant Parish appeared as the arresting officer. Parish and DuBrie testified as to taking the exhibit, Essta’s initialed bill clip, from the person of the defendant. Jurors yawned.

Greer was cross-examining the bartender with no show of enthusiasm. He finished, and McCloud stood up among the spectators.

“If it please the court,” he said in a strained voice, “I wish to appear as a witness for the defence.”

There was a buzz of conversation. The judge rapped on his desk and said, “Do you have anything to add to the evidence in this case, Lieutenant McCloud.”

“I have, Your Honor.”

“Take the stand. Will the attorney for the defence question this witness?”

Greer was pale. He licked his lips. “Your Honor, this is highly irregular. I had no knowledge that the lieutenant had any—”

“The court will decide what constitutes irregularity. I might add that the defence thus far has been conducted with a note-able lack of enthusiasm. You have been sworn in, Lieutenant. Now please tell us, in your own words, what you have to offer the court.”

McCloud’s face was a greasy gray. He said in an almost inaudible voice. “I have known the defendant for eight years. He served in army intelligence during the war, on loan to OSS and after the war transferred to another agency. I—”

“Is it your intention to appear here solely as a character witness, McCloud?”

“No, Your Honor. The defendant made the mistake of becoming friendly with Miss Baidee while he was at the hotel. Essta thought he was just another wise guy. So Essta attacked Kestrick in the bar—”

“Objection,” the prosecuting attorney said. “The witness was in no position to know who attacked who. I—”

“Under normal conditions I would sustain the objection. But this case has aroused a certain odd curiosity in the mind of the court. Continue, McCloud.”

“I know all these things, Your Honor, because Lieutenant Parish and Sergeant DuBrie told me. Kestrick was framed because he had annoyed Rolph Essta. Essta didn’t know he was picking on the wrong man. They’ve done it to a lot of other guys. This is a dirty mess of a town. Baidee owns everything and Essta is his boy. I can tell you name after name of people who were framed by Parish and DuBrie.

“I’m hanging myself when I pop off like this, and I know it. Greer has his orders not to be too sharp defending Kestrick. Earl Riverside and Hymie, the bartender, they have to play ball or lose their jobs. Ryan Kestrick was nice to Baidee’s daughter and that’s what burned Essta. Trials like this are a big farce. This town is rotten through and through...” McCloud’s voice died away and he stared down at his knuckles.

There was silence in the court. A heavy, enduring silence.

The judge stared at Kestrick. “Do you have anything to say?”

“I want to apologize to McCloud. I’d thought he’d forgotten how to be a man. What he says is true. But how far would I have gotten alone trying to tell that to the court? Sam Baidee was so worried about me he was willing to buy me off for five thousand dollars. He thought Rolph Essta had pulled a boner this time. Apparently he has.”

The judge looked at Earl Riverside. The man shifted uncomfortably in his chair. Ryan smiled, inside himself. The judge was going to hammer at the weakest spot.

The judge said, “So long as we have deviated this far from procedure, let me say that I am going to make it my business to see that there is a complete Grand Jury investigation of this affair.” He glanced at Greer. “There may be a few disbarments.”

He looked again at Riverside. “There may be a few perjury convictions. That is, unless someone is willing to reverse his testimony at this time.”

Riverside jumped up. “I had to say what they told me to say! I had to say that I saw Charlie Parish take the bill clip away from Kestrick. Actually I saw Rolph Essta hand the bill clip to Charlie. Kestrick never had it. They made Hymie lie too. I was lying to keep my job. But if I go to jail for it, I’d better start telling the truth.”

The reporter, who had expected to cover a routine morning, dashed for a phone.

The judge said, “The case against the defendant is dismissed. The court compliments Lieutenant McCloud on his actions.”

The prosecuting attorney said, “I assure the court that I had no knowledge of what was transpiring here. I believe I can speak for the District Attorney when I say that the most positive action will be taken against all parties to the conspiracy...”

Ryan was shaving before going up to the hotel for lunch when he heard the cabana door open. He looked into the other room and saw Gria standing there. Her eyes were puffy and reddened.

“Oh, Ryan,” she said. “He... he...”

He turned back to the mirror. “Close the door gently on leaving, honey.”

“What’s the matter with you?”

“Nothing. Nothing at all. I’m affectionate toward all double-crossing women.”

“Ryan, I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He looked at her again. She spoke as though her lips were stiff. “I came here because they told me you’d moved back in here and I didn’t know where else I could go. Rolph Essta went right to dad. He — he died. They say it was his heart. I—”

He smiled at her. “Congratulations, honey. Now you own a couple of hotels.”

She gave him a long incredulous look. Her eyes flooded with tears. She turned blindly toward the door.

Ryan looked back toward the mirror. She pulled the door open. He heard her gasp, heard her stumble. He turned quickly, to see her fall awkwardly. DuBrie stood tall in the doorway.

“Wise,” he whispered, like an incantation. “Wise, wise.”

He shut the door gently. He reached out and, with a flip of his big hand, sent the table lamp by the door spinning toward Ryan’s head. Ryan ducked and heard it smash into the shower stall.

“Use your head!” Ryan snapped. “This isn’t going to do you any good.”

“You neither.” He moved slowly toward Ryan, his big hands low, his fingers opening and closing. “You used tricks on Essta, I heard. I got tricks too, Kestrick.”

He was big and the brutality in his face was clear and purposeful. The brown hair was tufted and curled on the backs of his hands. Ryan felt ridiculous, his face half-lathered. He hurled the razor at DuBrie’s face. The big man ducked, but not enough. The metal edge of the guard cut him over the eyebrow.

DuBrie grinned. “Come on. Throw something else.”

Ryan let him move close enough, let the big arms reach for him. He was standing in the bathroom doorway. He snapped his hands down onto the wrists, let himself fall backward, pulling the man toward him. DuBrie grunted as Ryan got his feet against DuBrie. Swiftly, Ryan tried to roll backward and throw DuBrie over his head.

DuBrie thrust himself to one side against the door frame. He twisted his right wrist free, drove the big fist down at Ryan’s face. Ryan blocked it with his arm, thrust hard with his feet and drove DuBrie back a few steps. It gave him time to scramble to his feet as DuBrie dived at him. He met DuBrie with a knee in the face. He felt the nose gristle give under the impact.

Then DuBrie got his heavy arms around Ryan and yanked him down. He moved up, locking his arms around Ryan, nestling his face under Ryan’s neck, grunting and adjusting himself before applying the pressure. When the big arms tightened down, the blood rushed to Ryan’s head, half blinding him. His ribs creaked alarmingly. DuBrie had all the blind purposefulness of any creature trying to kill.

Ryan got his hand under his throat, slid it across DuBrie’s face, found the eye with his thumb and tried to slip it up under the bone of the brow. DuBrie grunted and twisted his head violently. His teeth clamped the loose skin at the edge of Ryan’s hand. Ryan tore his hand free, went for the eye again. As he got the eyeball firmly under his thumb, DuBrie broke his hold and lunged up onto his feet.

He stamped down at Ryan with a heavy heel. Ryan writhed so that the heel grazed his hip painfully. He caught the pipe under the sink and yanked himself away from DuBrie. DuBrie, the lower half of his face masked in blood, moved over to try to kick down again. Ryan hooked his left foot around the back of DuBrie’s ankle, kicked hard at the knee.

DuBrie grunted in pain and fell onto his hands and knees. His eyes were small and dulled. Ryan rolled up onto his knees and hit the man in the mouth with his right fist, twice, as hard as he could swing. DuBrie shook off the blows. He slid back onto his haunches, his back against the door frame, and his big hand came out of the front of his coat with the police revolver in it. He could not miss at that range.

Gria, standing outside the bathroom, swung the metal base of the bedside lamp with both hands. It hit DuBrie on the crown of his head. He gave Ryan a puzzled look, the look of a man who has forgotten something. Gria, sobbing aloud, hit him again. DuBrie sighed wearily and toppled over onto his side, his cheek against the tile floor. Ryan reached out and took the revolver out of the slack hand. He broke it, ejected the shells onto the floor.

“Thanks,” he said.

She was close to hysteria. “I win your stupid fights and mail your stupid letters. All you do is—”

“Did you say mail my letters?”

“Of course!”

“Your father told me you went directly to him with the information.”

Her eyes widened. “But I... I wrote it right away. I gave Richardson the money to send it airmail special!”

“And Richardson, whoever he might be, gave it to your father.” Ryan held his torn hand under the cold water. “I’m sorry, Gria,” he said. “I should have realized that your father was lying.”

Her voice had a far-away sound. “He wanted too much, you know. They took it all away from him once and he decided that this time nobody would take it away from him. Nobody did. He died before they could.”

“Sit down,” he said. “I still have half a face to shave.”

He pushed DuBrie out of the way with his foot so that he could stand in front of the sink. He shaved quickly. When he went out, she turned toward the window. He put his fingertips under her chin, gently turned her face up, then bent and kissed her. Her lips were delicately warm, unresisting.

“I’m sorry that I had to be the one to blow your world up in your face, Gria.”

“Except for you, I might not have been around to see it blow up.”

“Come on. We’ll have to send somebody down for that unconscious animal.”

He ordered food for her and made her eat it. Then he walked her for long miles up and down the beach. He was inwardly amused at the tenderness he felt toward her. She was a misguided and wounded child. Nothing more. But, he could not forget, a child who had had the nerve to put DuBrie out of action.

Dusk was blue and the sea was black and the sunset was an impossible cerise. The wind came up.

“Better now?”

She held his hand. “A lot better, Ryan. A lot.”

He took her up to the hotel. A uniformed policeman stopped him in the lobby. “You’re not to leave the hotel, sir.”

“Isn’t this getting a little tiresome?”

“I can’t help that, sir. Lieutenant McCloud was shot and killed an hour ago. Mr. Riverside was killed on his way here.”

Gria’s fingernails bit into Ryan’s wrist. “Not... not—”

The patrolman shuffled his feet and blushed. “Yes, Miss Baidee. It was Essta all right. Mrs. McCloud saw him. He shot McCloud three times in the back as McCloud was walking up his own front steps.”

Gria swayed and Ryan caught her. She pushed his hands away. “No. Let me go. I’m all right,” she protested loudly.

“Do you know if Essta is alone?” Ryan asked.

The patrolman nodded. “He sure is. He’s flipped his wig. Everything blowing up in his face did it, I guess. Old Baidee kicking off that way and... Oh, I’m sorry, Miss Baidee. I didn’t...”

“Go ahead, please,” she said.

“Well, there were a bunch of us who never were on the inside. We’ve rounded up most of Essta’s boys. They say he’s gone crazy. They’re glad to be rounded up before he picks one of them. Every car is out hunting for him. They thought he might try to get you, Mr. Kestrick, or even Miss Baidee. You can’t tell what they’ll do once they get trigger-happy.”

Gria said in a low tone, “That was the only thing dad never liked about Rolph. That horrible temper of his. It... it’s close to madness when it gets into him.”

“You can’t go home, now,” Ryan said.

She shuddered. “I didn’t want to, anyway. I was going to get a room here. I don’t ever want to go back to that house.”

“Come on. You need a drink.”

The patrolman said reassuringly, “You don’t have to worry. We’ve got everything blocked off. He can’t get anywhere near the hotel. They’ll let me know just as soon as they grab him.”

They had drinks at the bar. They went out to the terrace dining room, overlooking the sea. The lights were soft. A small group played dinner music. The candle between them flickered in the wind. She shivered and her smile was a grimace.

“I’m not supposed to be out in public, I guess.”

He frowned. “I’ve been stupid. It would have been better to take a room and have dinner served there. We can have the rest of the meal served in the room.”

“No. No, please. I’m all right. I think I like having people around me.”

The music played and the breeze died down, and the surf, far below, was a soft murmuring. In candlelight she looked very young and very lovely.

He said, “You’ll have a great deal of money, Gria.”

“Why do you say that?”

“I was thinking of Mrs. McCloud. There are two children. You have no legal responsibility, of course, but—”

Her eyes had a stricken look. “Thinking about myself. Like a fool. How awful she must feel! Ryan, darling, I’ll see that she never wants for anything as long as I have a penny left.”

“You are a child! You just don’t do that for people. You make a job for her and give her the feeling of earning the money. I rather imagine, without ever having met her, that she’d throw any present right back in your face.”

“But—”

Their table was a dozen feet from the rough wall of the terrace. A slow movement caught his eye. He saw a hand reach up over the wall, grasp the inside edge. Even as his racing mind realized, from memory of the cliff face, that it was dangerous but surmountable, the other hand appeared with the automatic in it and Rolph Essta’s mad eyes, wide and staring, appeared over the edge of the wall, turning slowly toward them.

Ryan hooked his foot around her chair leg, pulled it violently toward him. Even in that moment of fear, he almost laughed at the look on her face as she dropped abruptly below the surface of the table.

He reached down, found a slim ankle, pulled her toward him as he tipped the round table over toward Essta.

The dishes made a loud crash. On the heels of the crash came the whip-crack sound that an automatic makes in the open air. Wood slivers from the table stung Ryan’s cheek. Two guests sat transfixed at a neighboring table. Ryan scrambled over, keeping low. He snatched the water pitcher from the serving table, whirled and threw it.

Rolph Essta, just climbing over the wall, saw it coming. He straightened up and the pitcher thudded against his chest. It dropped and shattered on the wall. Rolph tried to lift the automatic to fire at Ryan. But the instinctive desire to save himself carried his arm high in a struggle for balance.

He toppled over backwards in slow motion fashion. His hoarse cry diminished as he fell away from them. The sea covered the sound of his body striking the rocks below.

A shrill voice carried clearly across the terrace dining room. “I must say that if this is some childish attempt at entertainment on the part of the management of this hotel...”

At that, Gria, crosslegged on the floor by the overturned table, went into one of the most profound demonstrations of hysteria that Ryan Kestrick had ever witnessed.

Ryan drove with the top down. He hummed softly to himself. The Grand Jury had taken his testimony in secret session and the indictments had been issued in satisfactory fashion. His plans were clear. Drive along the coast in leisurely fashion and then head up to Washington for all the necessary interviews.

It was good to think that Gria had gotten hold of herself. She had made Ryan sit in when she had interviewed applicants for the manager’s job so abruptly vacated by Earl Riverside. The businesslike mannerisms she had begun to pick up were cute. He grinned. In a year or so it might be interesting to take a vacation.

The town was forty miles behind him. A big blue bus was approaching when the warm lips lightly touched him under the left ear.

The new car swerved wildly, tires screaming. He fought it back under control, steered it over onto the shoulder and cut the engine, his mouth dry and his knees shaking. Just one more coat of paint on that bus and—

“How do I look?” Gria said gayly. “What a dusty old blanket I had to hide under!”

He regarded her somberly. There were spots of high color in her cheeks. The suit was light, the blouse frilly, the hat silly.

“You look as welcome as a traffic ticket.”

“How do you think up all those nice things to say to me? Well, am I going to get to sit up there beside you?”

“You are. For the forty fastest miles you ever traveled. Right back to where you started from.”

She pouted. “But, Ryan, darling.”

He imitated her tone. “Ryan, darling. Ryan, darling.”

He opened the door on the far side, slid across the front seat, got out and tilted the seat back. She started to slide into the front seat.

“Now I have a new idea,” he said. “A very satisfying idea.” He pulled her away from the car, turned and sat on the edge of the seat with his feet on the concealed running board. “You will now please drape yourself, face down, over these knees. You need disciplining.”

She backed away, her eyes wide. “No. Hey, no!”

“I can chase you and catch you. You might as well do it the easy way.”

She moved forward shyly. “Like... uh... like this?”

He pulled his right sleeve up a little. “That does seem to be fine. Still, I... uh...”

She craned her head around and looked up at him. “I’m waiting, darling. What’s the matter?”

“Well... I... uh...” And somehow she was still across his knees, but not face down, and her arms were tight around his neck and her lips were a deep steady flame that somehow managed to drive far down into his mind, softening and relaxing those dry, forgotten places, awakening emotions that had been too long dead.

It is a slow thing, coming back to life again.

She looked up at him, shifting in his misted vision.

“Why, Ryan! You...”

The passengers of a passing car hooted at them.

“High noon on route 81,” he said. “Not the place for it.” He got behind the wheel. She sat primly and quite smugly beside him.

“You can’t make a U turn here, you know,” she said.

“There’ll be a place up the road where I can make a U turn.”

“Oh.”

“Just a ways up this road. Don’t think it’s more than two days from here.”

“Drive carefully, dear,” she said.