I Come to Kill You

11

Carl’s shoulders were shaking uncontrollably. “My God.”

Shayne touched him from behind to make sure he had no other gun, and then put his own pistol away.

“Now you’re a real Sicilian.”

“Sick…” Carl said, bringing his hands to his face.

“Outside, outside,” Shayne said. “There’s already enough to clean up here.”

Carl stumbled to the rail. Shayne spun the wheel, bringing the bow back into the wind. He set the automatic pilot and throttled the engines down so they were barely turning over. After that he joined Carl at the rail, uncapped his flask, and held it out.

“Medicine.”

At first Carl shook his head miserably, then forced himself to take the flask and drink. Shayne had a drink himself before putting it away.

“I’m damn near sober. Nothing like a little gunfire to clear the head.”

Carl was holding the rail tightly. “Mike, would you…”

“Yeah, I’ll mop up. It won’t be for the first time. What did you tell him, that I was the one who was going to be hit?”

“He went for it.” Carl took a deep breath. “Do you know what he wanted to tell us, back at the house? That you’re working for Meister’s widow.”

“What am I supposed to be, insane?”

Carl turned toward him, his skin still yellowish under the tan. “He was selling us out! He was a stool pigeon, Mike!”

“Are you sure of that?”

“We’ve known for months we had a leak, and it was pretty high up. Musso’s phone number was in that stuff you found in Rourke’s desk.”

“What’s a phone number?”

“There was more than that. Rourke wrote a note to himself. A price. He was the one, all right. And with everything up in the air, we couldn’t postpone.”

“And you volunteered?”

“I didn’t exactly volunteer,” Carl said, biting off the words. “But it was time for me. Musso always treated me like a dumb kid. He wouldn’t be that trusting with somebody else.”

“I don’t suppose we’re really meeting anybody out here.”

“No, that was just for your sake.”

“What do we do with the body, dump it?”

Carl nodded. “There’s a tarp and some weights in the big stateroom.” He swallowed. “I know it’s asking a lot, but I’ve always had this stupid thing about blood.”

“I’ll do it,” Shayne said. “Just keep out from underfoot. If a Coast Guard cutter comes along, I don’t want them to start wondering what we’re doing. Break out a fishing rod and get a line over the side.”

“Yes.”

Shayne waited till Carl was installed in the fishing chair at the stern, and then went into the pilothouse to retrieve Carl’s automatic. He picked it up carefully by the front sight, slipped it into a plastic map case, and then took it up to the fly bridge and buttoned it inside Siracusa’s shirt. After that he went below for the tarp. It was stiff heavy-duty canvas, hard to manipulate on the narrow bridge. The bundle, when it was completed, was lumpy and awkward, but Shayne had lashed it securely, and he believed it would hold.

The weights, doughnut-shaped disks meant to be locked onto a weight-lifting bar, totaled three or four hundred pounds. Tied to the tarp, they would carry Siracusa’s body to the bottom, where it would disintegrate harmlessly, with nobody but those in his immediate circle aware that he was gone.

Shayne lined up the weights and lashed them together, but when he attached the new bundle to the larger one, he used a double slipknot that would pull apart the instant it hit the water.

Carl, having made his contribution by blowing Siracusa’s brains out, was looking astern. Shayne put together still another bundle, this one consisting of three life jackets. While collecting the life jackets, he had found a shipwreck kit containing vitamin tablets, shark repellent, flares, and a small tin of marking powder. He tucked the tin among the jackets.

When he had everything ready, he called Carl. “Get the binoculars. Let’s be damn sure there are no other boats around.”

Carl came into the pilothouse for the binoculars, and scanned the horizon from the side deck.

“Nothing,” he reported.

“O.K. I’m taking her off automatic pilot. Bring her about. When this rig goes overboard, I want to get the hell into some different part of the ocean.”

Carl went back into the wheelhouse and took over the dual controls. Shayne looked around carefully.

“Go!” he shouted.

The boat surged forward through the water, and Shayne tipped everything over the rail. The life jackets were yanked under by the tug of the weights, but bobbed to the surface again at once. Shayne dropped to the cockpit deck, to block Carl’s view. Behind them, a bright patch of yellow — the marking powder from the survival kit — blossomed on the surface and began to spread rapidly.

He yelled for more speed. As soon as the conspicuous iridescent stain had dropped out of sight, he returned to the flying bridge, where he again took the controls. He called to Carl to get back to his fishing chair, set the automatic pilot, and noted the bearing, the time, and the rpm readings.

Then he lowered a canvas bucket over the side and began dipping up bucket after bucket of seawater, which he sloshed around freely. The water flowing out the scuppers ran red for a time, then more and more clear. Finally Shayne stowed the bucket, made up the line, and called Carl into the pilothouse.

“I think I took care of the worst of it. When we get back, scrub it out with a good detergent, and rinse it with paint thinner. If you’re still feeling squeamish, get Nicola to do it.”

“I can’t help the way I am about blood. What did you do with the gun?”

“It’s overboard, with everything else.”

“Good, because it’s registered to me. You’re sure everything’s taken care of?”

“Go up and look.”

“I’ll take your word for it.” He shook his head when Shayne offered him the flask. “I can’t drink that brandy. I think there’s Scotch in the galley.”

He went below, and came back with a bottle and a glass. Shayne let him sit down and feel the bite of the Scotch before saying anything.

“So now I’m a co-conspirator,” Shayne said. “Nobody’s going to believe that when the gun went off I was the second most surprised man on this boat. That was part of the idea, wasn’t it? I’m part of the team now.”

Carl was looking better, nearly normal. “Mike, Dominick De Blasio is one of the facts of life. The sooner you learn that, the better.”

“Dominick De Blasio has just about had it,” Shayne said calmly.

“You think so, do you?”

Shayne shrugged. “I don’t give a goddamn, personally.”

“Just about had it,” Carl repeated. “Maybe that’s the way it seems to you. The cops make some noise, and everything closes down. But that’s temporary. Granted, the things he’s interested in are out of date. His methods are out of date. Now, don’t misunderstand me. I don’t mean what just happened. That had to be done, and done fast. I knew I’d have to hit somebody sooner or later, to get respect.”

“Next time it’ll be easy.”

“What are you talking, next time? This was it, as far as I’m concerned. I’ve made my bones, and now I can express my views without having all the old Moustache Petes like Siracusa put me down as a college boy. I never had to fight and struggle, but there’s no getting around the fact, my name’s De Blasio.”

The strong slug of undiluted Scotch was working. Carl put his feet up and his head back.

“I didn’t hesitate. I just didn’t expect all that stuff to spatter out on the windshield.”

“What courses did you take at college, Carl?”

Carl’s head came around. “Now, what does that have to do with what I was saying?”

“Your father’s knocked some of the corners off lately, but he used to be one of those Moustache Petes you were talking about. You’ve heard the stories. I’d say half of them are true. When he was getting started—”

“I know all about that.”

“I remember one that impressed me. A young fellow in a Teamsters local, Italian boy. He decided to run for business agent without clearing it with the organization. The day before the nominating meeting, they found his body in Coral Gables and his head in Bal Harbour. In those days Dom De Blasio was a rough man.”

“I don’t condone that kind of thing. It’s bad practice, in more ways than one.”

“What I meant about college — where’d you go, Alabama? The name De Blasio is well known. I suppose everybody asked you if you were related to what’s his name, the Mafia don.”

Carl said softly, “I never had a chance to be normal, you know, Mike? Some of those rednecks put a lot of time and effort into thinking up ways to humiliate me. What could I do, fight everybody? Or ask my father for a couple of strongarms to bodyguard me? I toughed it out for three years. But I really wanted that diploma. I always had a vague idea I’d like to be a psychiatrist.”

“The country needs doctors.”

“More than shylocks and bookmakers? Don’t be silly.”

He replenished his drink. If he had looked closely at Shayne’s expression, he might have seen something that would have started him shaking again, but he was absorbed in his own situation.

“I’m a part of it now,” he said, drinking. “I don’t know why you brought up college. The one way I could have made it, the only way, was if I’d gone out to the Coast, and signed up under a different name. I love Nicola — she’s a terrific kid, even though she does have a slight drinking problem — but the big reason we got married — you think I’m going to say she was pregnant, but not at all, it was so I’d have an excuse to drop out of college. It was getting impossible. We had a big old-timey ceremony. Well, make the best of it.”

Looking at Shayne with every sign of sincerity, he said, “We could work together, Mike. I think we complement each other. We could really click.”

“You don’t want to trust me, Carlo. I could surprise you.”

“You’re as much a part of it as I am. Not officially, how could you be, you’re not Italian — that old story. But to all intents and purposes. And you’re what the thing needs. I’ve had a few ideas. Siracusa was the stumbling block. He was the adviser, you know, and his advice was to stay in the same grooves.”

“As long as they make money…”

“Sometime I’ll tell you how much it costs in fees and protection to run a handbook in one hotel. You’ve got to do it — gambling holds the whole thing together. Everybody wants to gamble, and so we get protection on other things, but some years we barely break even. My father believes in taking care of his people. That’s the boss’s job. At least half the regular payroll is a drain. You can’t run a modern business that way. Here’s what I want to do, what I’m pushing for. We’ve got a political nucleus. We’ve got good leverage, and what do we use it for? To protect our policy runners. To fix traffic tickets. Mike, with a little grass-roots work we could elect two congressmen and — it’s not impossible — a senator. Just by collecting on all the favors we’ve thrown at people all those years. We could put together one of the tightest political machines in the country if we bothered. The real money isn’t in shylocking. It’s in Washington.”

He was becoming excited. “The kind of thing I’ve been investigating, a couple of shipyards over on the Gulf are up for grabs. I don’t object to the use of muscle — it’s a matter of how and where. I never could make Siracusa see the point, that we’re wasting our power on loan-shark collections and so on and so forth. Throw it into a proxy fight. What’s that, he wanted to know.” He laughed scornfully. “Those stockholders would be delighted to vote for a management that could get them some contracts. For that you need people in Congress. What I’m trying to say is, I want to pull the family into the twentieth century. The numbers on one of those shipping deals would stupefy you. You put up a hundred thousand, turn around, and six months later you’ve got a million. But you can’t buy senators like judges. They have to be yours before they take the oath of office. That means you have to plan ahead.”

“It’s a long way from peddling football pools.”

“And safer, for the very good reason that it’s legal. People say we’re moving in on legitimate business, but you know that’s a lot of crap, Mike. Laundromats. Bottling franchises. Car hauls. Nickle and dime stuff.”

“And if you took over—”

“Did I say anything about taking over? Persuasion’s the thing.”

He continued to smoke and drink and talk about his plans until the strangely shaped Beach hotels began to rise out of the mist. Shayne corrected his heading.

“Mike,” Carl said suddenly, “thanks a million for — you know, and if there’s anything I can ever do for you…”

“I’m getting paid for it. But not very well.”

“When you tell my father about it, if you could sort of gloss over a few things, how I didn’t help afterward…”

“Yeah, yeah.” He started to drink, but made a wry face and put the flask back in his pocket. “I’m getting the wrong kind of jolt out of this. I’m going to pull into Pier Park for a minute and hit a drugstore.”

Carl said with interest, “What are you into?”

“Nothing heavy. I’m behind on my sleep.”

“Somebody laid some cocaine on me the other day,” Carl said. “Really smoothed me out. But Jesus,” he added, “don’t say anything about that to my father, either.”

Shayne cut around the breakwater at the tip of the Beach and came in past the Kennel Club. “Take over.”

Carl took the wheel. “You’re not trying to be cute or anything, are you, Mike? You’ll be back?”

“Damn right I’ll be back. You people owe me some money.”

He swung over the rail and caught the ladder at the end of the recreation pier, kicking the boat away before it scraped. Leaving the park, he dodged across Ocean Drive without waiting for the light.

There was a pharmacy a few blocks away on Euclid, run by an old man who was known to be a soft touch for prescription junkies. He had been in difficulty only once, and then it was Shayne who by some fast footwork had saved his license. He greeted Shayne cordially, peering over the top of his half-moon glasses.

“Mike, I’m so far out in the woods you don’t ever come to see me? Somebody was telling me you had bad luck in the market. Believe me, you look it.”

“The luck’s been bad all around,” Shayne said, “but I think it’s about to turn.”

He motioned toward the back of the store. The pharmacist followed him.

“What can I give you?”

Shayne explained what he needed, while the old man looked more and more unhappy. “This is without a prescription?”

“Naturally. Would I come over here if I had a prescription? I’ll get one to you by the end of the week.”

“Mike, only for you. And don’t recommend me to your friends, all right?”

“Let me use your phone.”

“That I can let you do without breaking the law.”

As soon as Shayne had a dial tone, he dialed the New Orleans area code, following it with another number he found on a slip of paper in his wallet. A man’s voice answered.

“Star Investigations. Wellington speaking.”

“This is Michael Shayne. My operator says you called me. Does that mean you found him?”

“No sweat, Mike. You said a faggot, and he’s flaming. He hustles out of a Bourbon Street bar, but not with just anybody. I mentioned your name, and I mentioned five hundred dollars, inasmuch as it’s out of town. He looked receptive. Do I go ahead with it?”

“How soon can you put him on a plane?”

“I advanced him fifty, and he promised to stay available. I don’t want to make you nervous, but he’s looking forward to meeting you. Mike Shayne, wow.”

Shayne laughed. “I’ll be careful.”

“I told him you didn’t swing that way, but I’m wondering if he believed me. There’s a flight that gets to Miami at seven, and if everything goes nicely, that’s the one he’ll be on.”

“Tell him to wear a carnation so I’ll recognize him. If he can’t make that one, I’ll give you a number to call.”

He dictated a Miami number, and after breaking the connection with New Orleans, he dialed the same number himself. Hugh MacDougall answered from the almost empty apartment in northeast Miami.

“Mike, any news?”

“Things seem to be moving,” Shayne said briefly. “You offered to help, and here’s something. Do you know Will Gentry?”

“Chief of Police. Yes, I’ve met him.”

“O.K. I hope you’re feeling persuasive, because this won’t be easy. I borrowed some money he was going to use to buy his wife a birthday present, and I dropped it at the dog races. But he’s the only one we can trust.”

“He’ll talk to me,” MacDougall said confidently.

“And don’t do it on the phone, because he has a leak in his office. You’ll have to tell him a piece of this, but try not to mention my name. Tell him if he wants to find a dead man who’s been shot in the head with a.45, the body is anchored in the Atlantic about seven miles out.”

“Seven miles, Mike — how are we going to find it?”

“I’m coming to that. What you have to do is talk him into going alone, just the two of you. Take a bearing of forty-one degrees northeast from the Oceanfront Auditorium in Lummus Park. I can’t give you the exact distance. Seven miles is a very rough guess. Somewhere around there you should see a large yellow stain in the water. If you don’t find it right away, you’ll have to call in a Coast Guard helicopter. The body’s tied to a bundle of life jackets. Now, here’s the important thing, and it’s goddamn important. You have to get out there before that stain dissolves, but I want this kept absolutely quiet until I say to open it up. If anybody knows Gentry was out in that general area, tell him he’ll never find out how it happened, because your informant will be dead.”

“Couldn’t I do this alone, Mike?”

“No, we need somebody with a badge. He won’t recognize the corpse, because there isn’t much face left, but you can tell him it’s a big one.”

“Mike, if he asks how long I want him to sit on it…”

“Maybe twenty-four hours. Everything’s breaking much too fast. I hope I can control it, but I already see that this isn’t a long-range operation. I’ve got to be ready to jump.”

“All right, Mike. I’ll get back here to the phone as fast as I can.”

The pharmacist had five ampules ready, small disposable hypodermic syringes, with their needle ends protected by small cardboard collars. He packed them carefully in a cotton-lined box.

“In the buttock would be the best place. Allow about ten minutes. I’m giving you five because you can’t be sure how long each shot will last, depending on body size and alcohol intake and God knows what. To be comfortable, come back with another shot every four hours. It’s safe, supposedly, just an extra strong sedative. Don’t forget to get me that prescription.”