I Come to Kill You

15

Skeets was surprised to be told of the change in assignment, and even more surprised to learn that he would be carrying it out with Shayne, who had been part of the operation for less than a day. He was called into the game room to have it explained by the De Blasios. Shayne, outside on the terrace, could hear his protests.

He was still full of his grievance when he came out. “I need the key to that apartment. I’ve got to get something.”

Shayne went with him.

“I don’t like to do it fast like this,” Skeets said. “I like to get up for it. Prepare.”

“Don’t be a showboat. It’s all worked out for you. All you have to do is pull a trigger.”

“And I’d just as soon do it alone. Less can go wrong that way. If I have to have coverage, I can think of any number of guys I could count on. Maybe you’re O.K.,” he admitted, “I just don’t know.”

“They want to have a hit they can hang on me, to keep me in line.”

“All right, so long as you understand they put me in charge. When I say frog, you say how far do you want me to jump? Or there’s going to be more than one dead soldier.”

“I wouldn’t want it any other way,” Shayne said.

Skeets kept pushing. “And lay off the booze. There’s close timing involved. I have to get over to the Beach and look at the guy, see where the elevators are, all that. Don’t lush it up while I’m gone.”

“Whatever you say, Skeets. I need the bread.”

At the garages, Skeets held out his hand for the key, but Shayne went upstairs with him and unlocked the door himself.

“What do you think I’ll do to the babe, for Jesus’ sake?” Skeets complained. “Give her a fast feel on the way through?”

“She told me you made a couple of remarks.”

“Remarks! But did I lay one finger on her?”

Shayne glanced into the bedroom where he had left Sarah. She hadn’t moved, and her lips still curved in the same small smile.

Using a different key, Skeets was unlocking a second bedroom. This room was dark, but as the door opened, Shayne had a glimpse of a double gun rack against the opposite wall. Skeets came out with two handguns, one of which, a Smith and Wesson.38, he gave to Shayne.

“Don’t take your own piece. These are cool.”

“Yeah.”

“What a fantastic collection we’ve got here. Talk about firepower. Man, you name it. If we ever have to hole up on the island, I mean all the regimes, they’d have to use flame to get us out.”

“I don’t like the idea of being out in the water here.”

“Now, don’t you think the Don thought of those possibilities? We’ve got mines in there! There are floodlights. Dogs. We’ve all got our stations. This New Jersey jerk thinks he found a soft touch. The kid’ll learn. Our father is fierce. Don’t let that belly of his fool you. Underneath, he’s oak. Now, remember what I said about the booze.”

He put the handgun into the glove compartment of one of the Cadillacs, and then, deciding to use a less showy car, went off in a Chevy. Shayne waited till the car was out of sight, and then took out the gun and field-stripped it quickly. He snapped out the hammer spring, put the gun back together, reloaded it, and returned it to the glove compartment.

He went back to the house and refilled his flask while De Blasio counted out ten thousand dollars in hundred-dollar bills. De Blasio seemed annoyed when Shayne reminded him that he was owed an additional seven hundred and fifty dollars for his part in the disposal of Siracusa. De Blasio added the seven-fifty, but with poor grace.

As soon as Shayne had a phone to himself, he called Liz O’Donnell. Without giving his name, he told her to drive his Buick to a parking garage on Collins Avenue and leave the key at the office.

With nothing else to do after that, he shot craps with Carl in the game room, and won four hundred dollars in the space of twenty minutes.

“Didn’t I tell you?” he said happily. “No losing streak lasts forever.”

He went to the kitchen to fix himself a sandwich. Nicola, Carl’s plump and pretty wife, her face pleasantly flushed, was taking long loaves of fresh bread out of the oven. She insisted that he sit down at the kitchen table, and scrambled some eggs to go with the bread and a bottle of red wine. She was drinking Campari herself, and when she refilled her glass, Shayne noticed that she added a splash of gin. While Shayne ate, she rattled on about all she had read about him, how he had been pointed out to her once at a football game, and how surprising it was to meet him, after all, here at her father-in-law’s house.

“You’ll see a lot of me,” he told her. “He’s going to throw me some business. How do you like it in Miami?”

“Sensational,” she said too quickly. “The people might be friendlier, but Carlo says that’s because everything’s so stratified here. And all those old stories about the De Blasios. Racketeers. Gangsters. Don’t people exaggerate? I wanted to say — I had a nice long chat with Sarah, and I adore the way she looks. I’ve thought of becoming a blonde. If you’re going to be living on the island, why don’t you move in with us? That apartment isn’t exactly the greatest. We’ve got a guest suite with its own bathroom, right on the water. She says she plays tennis, but I know she’s better than I am, I can usually tell. The way she moves.”

Skeets found him as she was making still another gin-and-Campari. She started to drink it as they left. Her lips looked sticky.

They used the Imperial, with a driver. When they turned onto the causeway, Shayne explained about the stop he had to make on Collins. Skeets was very erect in his corner of the back seat, getting himself ready psychologically. He turned slowly.

“A garage? What for? This is all worked out. There aren’t supposed to be any departures.”

“I’m carrying too much cash. If anything goes wrong, I’ll need it for a lawyer.”

“What can go wrong? Did the Don say it was O.K.?” Shayne had the money in his side pocket in a folded-over envelope. He snapped off the rubber band and let Skeets see the denominations.

“All hundreds. If we’re picked up for anything, the cops get it. I’m not feeling that charitable.”

Skeets exclaimed in irritation, but gave the driver new orders. They went north to Arthur Godfrey Road before crossing the creek to Collins. At the garage, Shayne exchanged a word with the man in the office and was permitted to go in and find his Buick. He kept out several of the bills for expenses, and locked the remainder in the strongbox welded to the floor of the back seat. Then he unlocked another compartment and armed himself with a tiny Japanese camera, no bigger than a matchbox. He loaded it with film and checked the light meter and lens setting.

Skeets had gone into semi-rigor. “That took long enough,” he said through set teeth. “You threw off the schedule.”

“As a matter of fact, we’re early,” Shayne said easily.

Skeets looked at his watch. “We’re a little early,” he admitted. “Have you got that flask on you? I’ve got a case of the butterflies.”

Shayne uncapped his flask and held it out. “Go easy on it, Skeets,” he said, grinning. “When the time comes, I want to know you’re sober.”

“You son of a bitch.”

He drank deeply, checked the time again, and told the driver to move slowly along Collins with the traffic. After a few blocks, they turned into the curving approach to one of the big hotels. They dismounted under the canopy, and the driver took the car to one of the waiting zones.

Inside the lobby, Skeets’s manner became elaborately casual. He bought a magazine at a newsstand and studied the listing of events on the lobby board. They were joined here by a middle-aged man Shayne hadn’t seen before.

“If you’re looking for our friend,” this man said, “he went up ten minutes ago.”

Skeets wet his lips, and his nostrils flared. “Then what are we waiting for?” he said to Shayne.

Marcello Marti, who aspired to take over the shy-locking in this stretch of hotels, had been carefully scouted. Every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at this time he visited a woman in an eighth-floor suite. She was the wife of a public-relations man for the hotel association, who could be counted on to be away during the day.

Alone in an elevator with Shayne, Skeets relaxed. “They tell me you handled two broads at a time in St. Albans. How does that work out?”

“All right if you keep an open mind.”

Skeets chuckled, and he was still chuckling as they left the elevator on the eighth floor. Outside the woman’s door he became serious again.

“Don’t offer any help unless I ask for it, baby. The important thing is precision.”

He looked both ways. The corridor was empty. He pulled out two rolled-up stocking masks and gave one to Shayne. They pulled them on. Then he slid a key into the lock, turned it carefully, and eased the door open.

They went in fast, guns out.

Leaving Shayne to close the door, Skeets headed for the bedroom. Shayne was a step behind as he went through.

The two people in the room were both in their late thirties. The woman was naked, but the man on the bed wore an undershirt and over-the-calf socks. On the beach or at poolside, the woman was a bikini wearer. She was in fair shape. Shayne corrected that at once to better than fair. Marcello Marti, on the other hand, had skin of a uniform color, like light shoe polish. He was soft, paunchy, and hairy.

Their entrance was well timed. The woman, on her knees on the floor, was preparing Marti. He jerked away from her mouth and banged against the headboard, both hands raised.

“Don’t, don’t!”

Shayne, behind Skeets, had already made three pictures. He was shooting without concealment, knowing that Skeets was giving the man on the bed his full attention. The woman sat back, confused, her red hair flying. Shayne took her picture over Skeets’s shoulder.

“Go in the bathroom,” Skeets snarled at her. “Up, fast.”

But she was frozen. Shayne pulled her to her feet. Before she was completely erect, her knees folded, and she collapsed against him.

“You don’t want to watch this,” he told her, and hauled her into the bathroom, where he dumped her without ceremony. He turned on the shower to muffle the sound of the shots, and went back to the bedroom, the little camera out of sight in his palm.

Skeets was giving orders with little movements of his gun. Marti scrambled out of bed. He had lost his readiness for sex.

“Turn around,” Skeets told him. “Assume the position. Both hands against the wall. That’s right, baby. Hold it.”

“I’ll pay you—” Marti said frantically. “How much? We can—”

Shayne shot another picture as Skeets touched his gun to the half-naked man’s head. Marti in terror voided his bladder against the wall.

“You creep,” Skeets said, and pulled the trigger.

Shayne shot two more pictures as Skeets shook the gun and tried to get it to fire.

“Hell, here’s mine,” Shayne said.

Skeets’s head swung, and Shayne brought the butt of his reversed pistol down in a hard slanting blow. Skeets fell.

Marti had fainted.

Shayne pulled them side by side. There wasn’t enough blood for his final picture, so he opened his pocketknife, made a deep cut in Skeets’s arm, and let him bleed over the back of Marti’s undershirt. When the undershirt was sufficiently soggy, he moved Marti’s unconscious body so his head was out of sight beneath the bed, and shot another picture.

Then he went to the bathroom. The woman shrank back, and made a desperate attempt to smile.

“I won’t say anything. I don’t care that much about him.”

“You shouldn’t be having matinees with people you don’t like,” he said. “Fix your hair. You look like a witch.”

The only first-aid equipment in the medicine cabinet was a box of flesh-colored band-aids. Two of these on Skeets’s forearm stopped the bleeding. Then Shayne opened his box of hypodermic syringes. Skeets twitched as the needle went in.

Marti, returning to consciousness, lifted his head, knocking it on the bed rail. He came out talking.

“I’ll pay anything you want, anything, but don’t kill me. Don’t tell me you can’t use a little extra money.”

“How much have you got with you?”

“Not much in cash, but I can get more. Give me a break, Jack. Harriet’s got some diamonds.”

“Who’s Harriet — in the bathroom?”

“A bracelet, some nice rings…”

“I need cash. Get up and see how much you can find. I hope for your sake it’s enough to make this worthwhile.”

Marti scrambled up. He winced and touched the back of his neck, then looked at the blood on his fingers.

“That’s not your blood,” Shayne told him. “I’m setting up a little con here, because I’m not sure De Blasio still has the clout to protect anybody on a homicide rap. But I can always change my mind. Get me some money. That’s the kind of argument I can listen to.”

Marti went through his wallet and the woman’s pocketbook. She had a little over a hundred; he had six hundred. The sum didn’t impress Shayne.

“Take the bracelet,” Marti offered. “You can fence it for a couple of grand.”

“Don’t be dumb. What terms are you on here, Marcello? Would she mind if you got killed?”

“Sure she’d mind! She’s crazy about me! She’ll write a check like a shot.”

“And how do I cash it?”

“Go down to the desk with her. They know her. They’ll cash up to five G’s.”

“Marcello, use your head. I want to stay anonymous. Sit down, let me think about it.”

Marti collapsed into a chair. “Did you kill him?”

“I gave him some dope. He’ll be out four hours. Shut up and don’t bother me. Maybe there’s a way I can work this.”

Marti watched him. Shayne stuck a cigarette in the mouth hole of the mask.

“How the hell did you get yourself in a position like this?” he said after a time. “Didn’t you know the Don would have to knock over the first guy who tried to shylock in these hotels?”

“Bobby said there was coverage from inside. I had his assurance.”

Shayne lit the cigarette. “What kind of coverage?”

Marti said desperately, “I took his word! I didn’t push him for details, that’s his business. Do you think I’d try to break into a new town unless I was convinced it was an open market? The way they explained it to me, the cops are on top of Mr. D. every minute, so I could get established.”

“Where do you come from?”

“Brooklyn. But I’m not a complete stranger, I used to peddle smack here, years ago. I can refer you to people who can vouch for me.”

“Who staked you?”

“It all came through Bobby. Goddamn it, he told me time and again I had nothing to worry about!”

“He was lying to you, Marcello. Do you ever watch the Late Show? You’ve seen it happen — the Indians have the wagon train surrounded. The hero puts his hat around the corner. If he pulls it back with an arrow in it, that tells him something.”

“An arrow?”

“If you made it through the week without being shot, Bobby’d know it was safe to turn the rest of his guys loose. If not, tough. Then he’d have to go for the Don himself, or show his strength and try for a deal. How many guns has he got?”

“Twenty. But they’re under wraps. Like you say, he’s taking it step by step.”

“What kind of people?”

“The best.” Marcello clapped his heart with his fist. “To the death.”

“If I make a mistake on this,” Shayne said doubtfully, “it’s my ass. We’ve got you outnumbered eight to one, but I don’t know about the Don — he’s ninety percent flab. Carl — well, the less said about Carl…”

“I heard he’s flitty.”

“He’s married, if that means anything, and in Carl’s case I doubt if it does. Siracusa’s been scratched.”

He considered for another minute before pronouncing judgment. “Marcello, when they gave me the assignment, you got lucky. I’m going to take a chance with Bobby. You’re sure he has financing?”

“Heavy! This is no fly-by-night thing. I’ll sponsor you, I can get you in.”

“I’ll get myself in. Now I’m going to explain something.” He picked up the harmless.38 and demonstrated the trigger action. “I took out the hammer spring. That was a sincere thing for me to do, and you know you’re grateful.”

“I am!”

“And now you’re going to do exactly what I say.”

“Exactly what you say. Anything at all.”

“How about the chick’s husband? When’s he due?”

“He’s in Vegas for two days. No problem.”

“I want to talk to her. Get her out here.”

Marti ran to the bathroom. She had knotted a towel around herself, and improved her appearance by combing her hair and repairing her lipstick, but she was still frightened. Her eyes flickered from Marti’s blood-soaked undershirt to the man on the floor.

“It’s O.K.,” Marti told her. “He’s being reasonable.”

“Don’t count on it,” Shayne said. “Did you notice I took some photographs?”

“No,” she said faintly.

Shayne took out his tiny camera, told them to join hands, and made one more shot, which finished the roll.

“All right, Harriet. What shape is your marriage in?”

“Please,” she said faintly.

“Did Marcello tell you what he does for a living? He’s an outside shylock who’s been loaning money in the hotel without an O.K. He’s the wrong kind of playmate. I had the feeling you were blowing him when we walked in. Maybe not, but the camera knows. This is a great lens — very good definition in eight-by-ten enlargements.”

“Do you want money?” she said.

“Damn right I want money.” He took out his flask, which was warm to the touch, opened it, and drank. “And on top of that, I don’t want to end up on the losing side. Marcello, I want you out of Miami inside an hour. You’d be making a big mistake to say good-bye to anybody but Harriet. When you get to wherever you’re going, stay out of sight. Don’t use the phone. You’re dead, and I’ve got pictures to prove it.”

Marti was nodding quickly.

“Maybe you think you can get away with one phone call to Burns—”

“No! I promise.”

“You’ve been marked by De Blasio, and you know he has a million connections. Stay dead until we can work this out. Just remember, you have no options at all.”

“My God, after you have a gun at the back of your head like that, you need a vacation.”

Shayne took out another hypodermic syringe. “Skeets will need another one in the ass four hours from now. That’s going to be your job, Harriet. Do you know how to give an injection?”

She gave a terrified shake of the head.

“Baby, you do, too,” Marti said. “Unless you want Jerry to see those pictures.”

Shayne showed her how the plunger worked. “I don’t care what you do so long as you’re here to give him his shot. Then you can leave him and let him wake up by himself.”

“Wouldn’t it be safer,” Marti said, “if we, you know…”

“Stop trying to use your head. It’s too late for that. I’ll leave you now. I always hate to interrupt people when they’re having sex, so if you want to finish…”

Harriet said coldly, “What a revolting idea.”

“Sweetie…” Marti complained.