Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 129, Nos. 3 & 4. Whole Nos. 787 & 788, March/April 2007 Read online

  Ov’s talk at the Beach-A-Doo slides back into my head and I roll my eyes. “Hey, I told him same thing I told you. I’m on vacation: rest, relaxation, no jobs. Got it? So thanks for thinking of me, but find yourself another boy. Now, if you don’t mind.”

  The tie looks at me with a cocked head. “You’re not getting this, are you? Nobody’s asking you if you want the job. What I’m saying is that you’re taking the job.”

  “Or what?”

  “Or Ovitz Marker gets whacked. How’s that for an or-what?”

  I nod my head and give him a dumb look like I’m impressed. “Pretty good or-what,” I say. “Thing you want to do on the way out is let me know where I should send flowers. Ov was a good client.”

  It takes a second, but eventually a smile works its way onto Tie’s face. “You’re okay,” he says. “I like that. Most guys I know, give a little heat, they fold. Not you. That’s pretty good. Hey, you know who I am? Marker tell you that? Who you’re dealing with, here?”

  “My guess would be Snow White and you left the other six dwarfs at home.”

  Again, he chuckles. “You got a good routine. Keep it up; I’ll get you a gig at the Sands. But just so you know, I’m Al Capon.” He says it so it sounds Italian. “And I run this town.”

  “And I thought you were dead. Figure that.”

  “You’re thinking of the other guy. Scarface. Big Al. Me, I’m still kicking.” He fishes a card from his pocket and flicks it to me and I see his name is spelled without the “e.” Capon, French for castrated chicken. While I’m thinking of some cute remark the birdless bird says, “Now, let’s cut the bullshit and get to it. I need my six mil back and Marker says you’re the guy to find it. What I’m talking here is five percent finder’s fee. How’s your vacation now?”

  I make good money; even so, the three hundred K catches my ear. “Nice number,” I say, “but I’m not into contingent work.”

  Tree has finished his tour of my estate and takes his proper place one step to the rear and left of Little Al. “Okay,” Capon says, “you get your fee with the five percent as a sweetener when you find the stash. Cecil, give him five K walking-around money.” Cecil pulls a wallet out and starts fingering through what look like hundreds.

  Sliced balls or not, the guy knows how to play his cards. “You’ve got my attention,” I say. Man’s in desperate trouble, even the best of us have to make sacrifices. “Tell me how this six mil walked out of your pocket.”

  Cecil hands me a pack of bills about a half-inch thick. They’re hundreds. Capon says, “Marker told you about Rhodo, right?”

  “Some.”

  “Well, I run some businesses here on the Beach. Mostly the pleasure kind. People come down here, they want to have a good time. I help them out. Natives, too. Anybody looking for a good time, they come to my people. Rhodo, he was my banker. By the way, I’m telling you this like you’re my lawyer. This is privileged stuff. Goes in one ear, stays there. You understand?”

  I shake my head. “I’m no lawyer, got no privilege.”

  “You’re not listening,” he says. “I’m telling you this is privileged. Talk in your sleep, I hear about it, your ticket gets canceled. After that you don’t talk to nobody except maybe worms. So anyway, Rhodo, he’s my banker, sort of. This business of mine, it’s profitable. Yeah, we got expenses, but there’s plenty left over. But regular banks, they got too many forms. Makes a guy nervous. Y’know what I mean? So, whenever I get some cash Rhodo converts my trading money into diamonds and what’s left into real estate. You’re asking why I’m telling you all this. Well, I send you on a hunt, you got to know what you’re looking for. So that’s it. The six mil is probably in cash, diamonds, or real estate. Rhodo, he’s not talking, so you’re the one who has to find it.”

  “This six mil,” I say, “tell me about it.”

  “What’s there to tell? It’s gone and I want it back. End of story.”

  “It go all at once or over time?”

  “Hey, pretty good. Now I see it. Over time. Last couple of years. I got this accountant and he gives me the high sign that what’s going out doesn’t add with what’s coming in. Six mil and change, he says. I figure the change is probably expenses, so I round it. Still, six mil is six mil. So I asks Rhodo about it and during our conversation he slips over the rail of his condo.” Capon gives Cecil a “you dumb motha” look and Cecil jukes his head as if his collar’s too tight. “Accident,” Capon says, “but I still want my six mil.”

  “Any idea where I should start looking?”

  He gives me the same look he just gave Cecil and says, “If I gotta do the work, what’m I paying you for?”

  As it was, Capon popped for two names: Rhodo’s lady friend, Lulu, and a local real-estate agent who Rhodo used to buy property. They seemed a good place to start.

  Lulu was somewhere between twenty and forty. With all the Botox and lifts going around, it’s getting harder to peg an age. She was a model type with all her bones in the right place and just enough padding to make looking easy. If the sun hadn’t bleached her hair, her dresser deserved an Oscar. I’m a sucker for a pretty face, so one look and she had me. Classic straight nose, ripe lips, high cheeks, brown eyes that had never been red. Face like that, some part of it had to have been paid for.

  I introduce myself, including Jaxon with an X, then start to work around to business. Ten seconds into this spiel I made up, she says, “You working for Little Al?”

  “Yeah,” I said.

  “He got you chasing that six mil he thinks Rhodo snatched?”

  So much for privileged info. “Anything you can tell me about it?” I said, trying to stay cool. She gave me a head chuck and pulled the door for me to come in.

  Her place was nice. Bigger than mine and better furnished, sort of contemporary, which you don’t see a lot of on the beach. Not one seashell or picture of sand in sight. The furniture seemed to be all leather and chrome, neither of which does real well in the salt air. Enough money, though, it doesn’t matter how often you trade in the old for the new. “Drink?” she asked and I gave her the usual.

  After we were settled on this blue leather sectional — me on one end, her on the other — she says, “So, I suppose Little Al told you Rhodo scammed the six mil: cash, diamonds, or dirt.”

  “Something like that,” I said.

  “Give you five-percent finder’s?”

  I gave her a right-on cock of my head. “Five percent.”

  She laughed. It was a pretty laugh with a cynical undertow. “Pretty dumb, huh? Guy thinks someone finds six million, tax-free, no strings, untraceable, they’re going to turn ninety-five percent of it over.”

  “Depends, I guess, on whether you do this as a business or a hobby. You think Rhodo took it, or what?”

  Again she laughed. She was one of those women who, almost anything she said started with a little laugh or at least a smile. You know, the kind that win all the beauty contests. “It’s gone, Rhodo took it. Man had glue on his fingers.”

  “Word is, you were his girl. That fit?”

  The laugh. “Yeah, he gave me a lavaliere. We had it all planned, ten years from now we were going to get engaged.”

  “You two travel much? Business? Pleasure?”

  The smile. “You don’t believe I’m going to say, ‘Yeah we went to Capetown once a month to buy diamonds or Zurich to check if they had the numbers right,’ do you? Let me save you time, Mr. Jaxon with an X. Yeah, Rhodo and I traveled, but most of his business he did over secure lines. Yeah, we had a wide circle on the Beach and over in Naples and Bonita, but I can’t think of any one of them who would help you. Most of them had no idea of the business. Most of them wouldn’t have cared. No, I have no idea how he went over the rail. He wasn’t the kind that likes high dives. You think maybe he was helped, go ahead and think it, I can’t give you any help there. Do I know where the money is? No. Do I know if he converted it to diamonds or land? No. Do I know anything that can help you? No. Would I share
it if I did? No. So there it is. Nothing I can do for you.” And the smile never left her face.

  “You mind, I finish the drink?” I asked. Of course, she laughed. I took a big one, but left a little in the glass for a chaser. “You meet his mom when she was down for Thanksgiving?”

  If you were really paying attention, you would have caught the hesitation in her eyes before the smile and the little laugh. “What mom?” she asked.

  Dimples, whose name turns out to be Suzy, was once again tending as Ov and I checked in for happy hour and the sunset. Ov looked a little nervous, as he should, considering how he set me up. We ordered the usuals and Suzy slid a bowl of giant olives next to Ov’s glass. She was too smart to look as young as she was. “So, you knew about this?”

  He gave me the bashful look, saying, “I’m into Little Al for ten gees.”

  Second time I’d heard Capon called “Little Al” and here I thought I’d made it up. Go figure. “And,” I said, taking the first sip of Jack, “the stuff about Rhodo, how much of that was the setup and how much God’s truth?”

  Eyes bigger than Suzy’s boobs, he plays the innocent. “What I said? Yesterday? God’s truth.”

  “Including him taking a voluntary dive?”

  “Well,” he says, stretching it longer than the seventh inning. “Some things better to be left unsaid.”

  “And you and Rhodo, most you ever said was a how-ja-do as you were getting on the elevator?”

  Another “Well…”

  “And you met his mom?”

  This time he’s shaking his head so hard the hair flap falls across his forehead. “No, no. Never said I met her, just that she was there. What Rhodo told me.”

  “He say where she lived, this mom of his?”

  Another shake so the flap drops to his eyes and he has to brush it back, but it doesn’t quite get to the right place so he looks like Dagwood. “No, no. Just what I told you.”

  “This mom wouldn’t be named Lulu, would she?” And he looks at me like the gears in his head are slipping but still making time. “Forget it,” I say because his look has told me everything I need. “You know a real-estate guy named Dan Brown?”

  “Dan Brown? Sure. Who doesn’t? Everybody calls him Crapper Dan, ’cause he’s got this stomach problem, but he’s the biggest sand peddler on the island.”

  “What say you and I go talk to Crapper Dan, see if he wants to show us Rhodo’s condo, like I want to buy it.”

  He looks at me funny, like I’m not getting it. “He can’t do that. The place is sealed.”

  “What sealed?”

  “Sealed like by the cops. Y’know. They found some stuff in Rhodo’s pocket. Coke, maybe. So they threw the freeze on it.”

  “So nobody’s been up there since the dive?”

  “Just the cops.”

  “And part of what Little Al does on the island is peddle powder?”

  “I ain’t saying that.”

  I look at him and, from the scared on his face, he doesn’t have to mouth the words to make them so. But, one thing I learned about Ov, long time ago, when I was just getting started, is that he’s got enough street smarts to be a sewer rat. “What’s your guess, where Rhodo put the take,” I ask, “stones, coin, or sand?”

  “No-brainer,” he says, “same thing everybody else thinks. Got to be stones. Property, too complicated with all the paperwork, deeds and such. Cash, too much bulk. You ever figure how many suitcases it would take for six mil? Book a passage on the Queen Mary, that much luggage. What’s left is stones. Put six mil in your pocket, and he’s got the connections at the rock farm.”

  He’s right, I’m thinking. Only thing that makes sense. The little stash Cecil dropped on me, the lousy five gees, didn’t take much space, but put together, what, twelve hundred of those stacks, adds up. And then I start doing the math trying to figure just how much space twelve hundred of those little five-grand packs would actually take.

  I threw a twenty on the bar for Suzy and said, “Let’s go.”

  “Where?” Ov says, as if missing the sunset would put him in purgatory for half of eternity.

  “Find a preacher,” I say, “maybe a six-pack of them.”

  It took most of the evening to find a half-dozen flock tenders willing to play the game. Not that we found any that weren’t, but the beach is a small place and there aren’t that many white collars floating around. We laid out the plan, set out the timetable, then left it in their hands. Each would go in in turn, do his bit, and exit. No overlap, no witnesses except Jehovah.

  Ov and I made a trip to his place, where I had him make a mark on the wall where the door had been. The outline was thirty inches wide and six foot six high, a tad over nine thousand cubic inches in the cavity. We left the latch open and then went out to see if we could catch the sunrise at the Beach-A-Doo. Next morning, after a good breakfast, we check his place and call the police to report the vandalism. Party or parties unknown had broken into Ov’s apartment and had ripped out a section of wall. Damnedest thing. There was almost no mess. The vandals were very neat; they’d even put the carved-up plasterboard in a little box ready for the trashman. Other than that, no damage, nothing missing. Gendarmes shook their heads, but wrote it up so Ov could file the insurance claim. I went out to catch some rays, figuring I’d only a few days left to do some serious skin damage.

  End of the third day after the vandalism Capon calls and asks how I’m doing on the case. Not good, I tell him, no leads and the trail’s cold. I offer to give him back thirty-eight hundred of the retainer, because this thing’s not going anywhere. He says, “Keep working on it,” so I say, “Okay,” but I’m not planning to break a sweat. Yeah, a thousand went to pay the deductible on Ov’s insurance and I figured we’d spent another two hundred on drinks at the Beach-A-Doo, so the thirty-eight was all that was left in the kitty. That I dropped off in a church box on my way to the airport.

  In the cab to Southwest Regional, I read in the little Island paper, comes out once a week, about all these new drug prevention and rehab centers starting up on the island. Things the churches are doing, seems about a half-dozen of them got together, and I think it’s good that the people in paradise take care of their own. I’ll have to come back again next year; sure beats the snow in Detroit.

  Dead Gray

  by Keith Snyder

  Copyright © 2007 by Keith Snyder

  Art by Laurie Harden

  Novelist, filmmaker, and musician Keith Snyder makes his debut as a short-story writer with the following haunting tale. He is, however, not new to the crime genre. In 2002 his novel The Night Men (Walker) was published to rave reviews. For the past few years he’s been concentrating on film projects, including the 9-minute screen opera Credo, which has been in 15 festivals and won 5 awards.

  ❖

  Wearing a dark bulky coat and a hat, carrying a small suitcase, Mr. Burke steps onto the porch. It’s early evening and the clouds are moving.

  The slip of paper in his hand says 1247 Maple Street. So do the gold letters on a black mailbox near the front window, and through its curlicue cutout gleams the white of an envelope.

  The key is on a blue plastic tag. The door unsticks when he opens it: snick!

  The living room is dusty and silent. Mr. Burke likes this.

  He takes his hat off. Per a photocopied instruction sheet, he snaps breakers on, ignites the water-heater pilot, plugs in the fridge, phones the recommended pizza joint, the only one in town.

  Unpacks his shaving kit, makes himself glance at the mirror.

  Old.

  He turns the light off.

  Takes a pretty lace tablecloth from his small suitcase, spreads it on the dining-room table.

  Mr. Burke has come to Long Island.

  Half a pizza goes in the fridge. Mr. Burke brushes crumbs into his hand, roams the kitchen until he finds the wastebasket under the sink.

  Straightens the dining-room chairs, sits.

  Brushes more crumbs off the lace. />
  Feels the white envelope gleam in the mailbox.

  Looks toward the front of the house. Dark now.

  Brushes more crumbs. Still in his coat.

  Stars in the cold Atlantic sky. Mr. Burke stands on the porch. Here he is; here he’s come. He looks out and up.

  Hands in pockets, he shivers, turns to go in.

  Nabs the envelope from the mailbox.

  BURKE it says, typed. 1247 MAPLE STREET.

  A black day planner, the day-per-page kind. Clipped to the inside front cover, a low-res printout: the face of a man in his late thirties, dark hair, clean-cut. Kind of a goofy smile. Underneath, the name JJ Barnett in an old draftsman’s hand. Letter stems at identical angles like banner poles. Bowls and swashes precise. A curve-fitter’s art, now extinct.

  Mr. Burke sits on the edge of the bed, smells musty bedclothes.

  He flips to today, Wednesday, March 16. In the draftsman’s hand is the word Arrival.

  With a diagonal stroke he crosses out the 16. One day down, all tasks complete.

  He leafs ahead to Saturday the 19th, where the same hand has written Contact.

  Puts the day planner on the dresser, stands to remove the old pistol from his coat pocket, sets it on the day planner so it won’t scar the wood. Takes off his coat, his shoes.

  The envelope gleams on the bed.

  He washes his face, avoids the eyes of the slight old man in the mirror. Collarbone sticking out. White hair gone thin.

  The envelope gleams on the bed.

  He watches the old man brush his teeth.

  Sits on the bed. Looks at the wall.

  Sets his alarm.

  Breathes out once. Opens the envelope.

  Four words on the first sheet, centered, typed:

  PLEASE DON’T KILL ME.

  Glances at the second sheet, doesn’t read the single typed paragraph centered there. Already knows what it’ll say.