The Surfside Caper Page 5

  Moonlight picked out the hatred in Milo’s eyes. He sat down. I took a chair across a low table from him. I laid the gun on my knee. I said, “What’s this crap about me making a deal with Dolphin? And what business is it of yours?”

  “I’ve made it my business,” he said. The gun didn’t seem to bother him. His voice, his expression, were full of arrogance.

  I said, “I don’t think Dolphin’s here to corner the flower market. I know I’m not.”

  He didn’t say anything. He reached for something in his pocket. I let him reach. I didn’t think he was a two-gun man. He wasn’t. He wanted a cigaret.

  I said, “Okay, so you don’t want to talk about flowers. Let’s talk about trucks and truckdrivers.”

  He blew smoke at me. I thought I knew where his cockiness came from. He was the local bigshot. He was protected by the law in Rio Pollo.

  I said, “If you think Colton will do you any good, forget it. I’m working for Annette Lofgren. That gives me a right to be here. If your cop friend comes, I’ll start yelling that I caught you breaking and entering. I can yell pretty loud, too. All the way to the state capital in Sacramento. I’ve done it before when smalltown law has tried to stop me.”

  He blew more smoke. I said, “You’re big, Milo—in Rio Pollo. But you aren’t big anywhere else. You aren’t as big as Global Hotels, and Global is interested in this place. They’ve had trouble with your kind and Colton’s kind before. They know exactly what to do and how to do it.”

  He said, “Do they know how to handle a man who takes their money and then crosses them?”

  I said, “Crossed them how?” His cool arrogance was making my temper build. I fought it down. “Let’s hear what you’ve got to say in plain words, friend.”

  “You and Dolphin,” Milo answered. “You’re working for him. Global sent you down to check out Annette, but Dolphin outbid them.”

  I said, “Who sold you this bill of goods—Annette or Tibbetts?”

  “I have accurate sources of information,” he said. He sounded as if he was making a report at a stockholders meeting.

  I said, “Did your accurate sources tell you that I’m Annette’s friend? That I came here because she asked me to?”

  His expression called me a liar. He said, “You’re wasting your time, Flynn. I know all about you and about that girl Global sent down here. I saw her with Dolphin in the dining room. And I know she came to your cottage later.”

  I was beginning to see how his petty businessman’s mind worked. I said, “So you added it up and decided that Ingrid and I were working together to cross Global Hotels and help Dolphin. Help him do what?”

  Milo didn’t answer that directly. He said, “Annette Lofgren is my friend. I know what you’re trying to do to her Flynn. And I’m going to stop you.”

  I said, “Let me in on the secret. What am I trying to do to her?”

  He flipped his cigaret over the lanai wall. I said, “Is that why Samuels tried to run me over a cliff? Was that your way of stopping me?”

  He said, “I wouldn’t hire anybody for that kind of work. I’d do it myself.”

  I sat and took deep breaths to keep from using the gun barrel on him. It would be wasted energy. I had run into Milo’s type before. You start with a mediumweight mind. You put a one-way gate on it at about age six. Ideas can get in, but they can never get out. Once they’re in, they never change. Logical evidence has about as much impact on that type as it does on a hard-core communist.

  But I had to keep trying. I had the feeling that Milo was the lock on the file drawer I had to get into. He had a lot of false information. I had to know where he got it. I had to know who was trying to put the needle into me. If I didn’t learn that much, I was going to find myeslf charged with double-crossing my best account, Global Hotels, and working for a hood like Jacob Dolphin.

  And if Milo had his way I would be charged with the murder of Samuels, the truckdriver.

  I said, “Let’s go back over it. What am I trying to do to Annette?”

  Milo shifted his position in the chair. He said, “You’re wasting your time, Flynn. You can’t angle money out of me. I’ve got plenty but not enough to outbid Dolphin.”

  He had lost me completely. I said, “Outbid him for what, damn it?” My temper finally won. I yelled, “Start making sense, little man, or I’ll pitch you over that wall and use you for a beachball.”

  He shifted his position again. I yelled louder. “Does Annette know that you’re messing in her affairs? Is that why she looked so happy at dinner with you tonight?”

  He didn’t answer. Instead I discovered why he had shifted his position in the chair. To get his legs under the low table. It suddenly wasn’t low at all. It was in the air. The hard flat surface of it rose up and cracked me across both knees.

  My chair went over. I went with it. I lost the gun. I came to my feet. Milo was charging me. He had one hand wrapped around a big ashtray that had been on the table.

  I wasn’t ready for him. I threw up my left arm as he swung the ashtray. The edge of it caught me just below the elbow. My arm died from the fingertips up.

  I still had one arm left and I still had six inches and sixty pounds on him. I moved in. I clamped my right hand over his wrist as he lifted his arm for another swing. I lifted, stretching his arm as high as I could reach.

  He leaned away from me and pulled. I found that my fingers weren’t clamped on just any old wrist. Milo was as hard as a blacksmith’s sledge. And as easy to grip as a piece of whipping wire.

  Then the tension went out of him. He turned into a balloon with a big slit ripped in the case. The ashtray fell from his hand. I was still trying to use my weight on him. His maneuver came too fast for me to make an adjustment. His body fell soggily against me. I tried to bring his arm down where I could work on him better.

  He lost his limpness. He came alive like a strong, fighting fish. He made a turn that threw his small buttock into my hip. He reached up with his free hand and got a clamp on my wrist. He grunted and bent over.

  He had all the leverage he needed now. My weight advantage meant nothing. I found myself grabbing for air. It went by too fast for me to keep a grip. I saw the lanai wall moving under me. I reached for it and missed.

  The beach sand below the lanai was white and fine. It looked quietly beautiful in the moonlight. But it wasn’t quiet at all. It was jumping at me. It hit me across the back of the neck.

  6

  I SAT up and spit sand. The slant of moonlight in my eyes made them hurt. I rolled and put my back to it. I got to my hands and knees and sucked in deep breaths.

  I looked for Milo Craybaugh. I expected to see him coming down the steps after me. The steps were empty. The beach was empty. The whole bright silvery night was empty.

  I stared at the shadows made by the trees on the edge of the bluff against the sand. I swung my head and looked at the waterline. Both had moved a fair distance. I realized that I had been asleep for a half-hour at least.

  I got to my feet. I walked to the foot of Dolphins steps. I started up them slowly. I might be lucky. Milo could still be up above, prowling Dolphin’s luggage. Or he might be waiting on the lanai, sure that I would come after him as soon as I woke up.

  My second guess was right. He was on the lanai. I was surprised that he wasn’t holding his gun. Both small hands rested on his knees. He was in the chair I had used before. He looked pleasantly relaxed.

  Until I saw his eyes. They were wide open. They weren’t blinking the way eyes have to blink to keep the right amount of moisture coating the eyeballs. They didn’t have to blink. Those eyes were never going to see anything again.

  Milo was dead. I touched his hand. The flesh was warm, not yet stiff. I went around behind the chair. I looked at the neat hole just above Milo’s collar.

  I walked quietly away. I looked into Dolphin’s living room. It was still empty. I thought of going inside to do the job I had come here for, but rejected the idea. Right now, I should be
anywhere but here with Milo.

  I thought of walking away and leaving Milo for Dolphin to worry about. I rejected that idea too. This was my potato. It was up to me to juggle it until it cooled off For Milo to be found here would only bring Dolphin’s identity into the open. I couldn’t think of a quicker way to stir up scandal that would hurt Annette and the Surfside.

  And walking out wouldn’t keep Colton off my neck. His police mind would remember my attitude toward Milo. He wouldn’t be human if he didn’t jump to the conclusion that I was finishing the job he thought I might have started earlier by breaking Samuel’s neck.

  The newspapers would love it. An eager reporter would turn my friendship for Annette into something stronger. He could add in her relationship to Craybaugh. He could find Ingrid and tie her in too.

  I put my imagination back where it belonged and tried to do some real thinking.

  I arrived at the only possible answer: move Milo. Not just away from Dolphin’s, but away from the Surfside entirely. To as logical a place as possible. Back home in Rio Pollo. Appropriately back among his flowers.

  I went to the chair and lifted Milo out of it. I carried him as far as the gate. I stopped and laid him down gently. I realized suddenly that I was handling a dead body. Not much of a body, but still a very dead one.

  I was handling something that had been breathing recently. So he had thrown me over a twelve foot wall and nearly broken my neck. He had still been a man who lived and breathed and loved, had his good days and bad days, paid his taxes, voted his party, did all the things a man does, and maybe a few of the things only some men do.

  I stood and looked down at Milo and wondered if I could finish the job. I heard footsteps, hearty, heavy ones. A key scraped in the lock of the front door. Jacob Dolphin was coming home.

  I stopped thinking. I reacted. I picked up Milo. I held him over the edge of the wall and let go. I didn’t wait for the thud of his body against the sand. I climbed the gate and started down the steps.

  Milo had landed on his face, his limbs sprawled. He looked like an untidy clothing store dummy in the moonlight. I said, “Sorry, fellow. I’ll try to do better.”

  I picked him up again.

  Taking a stroll in soft, dry sand is one thing; carrying one hundred and twenty pounds of dead weight through it is something else. It is sore muscles, shoes filled with grit, short breath, sourness in the throat, nausea in the belly.

  I wanted to crawl before I reached my own lanai. But I couldn’t crawl and carry Milo. I made my legs lift and rise, drop and thrust. I pulled my weight and his step by step up from the beach. And I finally came to the gate. I went through it. I eased him down into a chair.

  I arranged Milo to look as if he might be asleep. There was no reason for my actions. The lanai was as private a place as I could find at this time of night. But I felt better when I was done.

  I emptied my shoes over the wall. I made a futile effort to brush down my clothes. I found a cigaret and lit it. I sucked deeply and thought about a way to carry Milo back home.

  I heard footsteps, light ones. And I heard the same sound I had from Dolphin’s lanai of the scrape of a key in the front door lock. I had a crazy moment of wondering if I had gone too far down the beach, got onto the wrong lanai. I looked through the French door at the living room. It was mine, had my junk in it.

  I went into the living room. The front door opened. Annette Lofgren stood and blinked at the soft lamplight. I reached behind me and shut the doors. I pulled the drapery over them.

  I said, “Social or professional visit?”

  She was staring at me as if she had got into the wrong cottage. I couldn’t blame her. I was a mess.

  I said, “I thought I heard someone under my lanai. I leaned out too far and lost my balance. You know how it is.”

  She was still wearing the evening gown. She had added a fur evening wrap. She was carrying it so that it draped over her forearm and hand. She tossed the wrap to the divan and uncovered the hand. It was gripping the neck of a brandy bottle.

  She came toward me with a slow, carefully articulated walk. “You need a drink,” she said.

  I took the bottle. It was a fifth of high-class, high-proof brandy. It was about half full. Her breath told me where the other half had gone.

  I helped myself to a deep swallow out of the bottle and handed it back. I said, “How was your date with Dolphin?”

  She was walking toward the divan, still with the careful movements of someone not sure of his balance. She stopped and turned her head in my direction. Her wide-eyed expression told me how she planned to handle any problems I might toss her way.

  “What date?” Her voice had no drunken fuzziness around the edge. Each word came out clearly, but without her usual briskness.

  I said, “I haven’t time to horse around. I saw Dolphin pick you up by the service alley.” I glanced at my watch. The slowness of time passing surprised me. “A little over an hour ago.”

  She finished her walk to the divan. She sat down. She said, “If Dolphin picked up someone by the service alley, it wasn’t me. I spent the evening with Milo Craybaugh.”

  I said, “Unless Milo has a twin brother, you’re a bad liar, Annette. Because I spent most of the last hour with someone who looked like Milo, talked like Milo, and acted like Milo.”

  She was drunk enough not to be perturbed. She said, “Oh? Milo came here?”

  I said, “He was on his way, but he stopped off at Dolphin’s.”

  She said softly, to herself, “Damn him!” She bent forward and picked up the brandy bottle with her right hand. Her left hand rammed behind her, between the divan back and the seat cushions. The brandy bottle stayed in her right hand, waving like a club all the time she tried to get her balance back.

  It stopped waving. She leaned forward, carefully this time, and replaced it on the floor. She straightened her body and twisted it so she could look down at her left hand.

  She pulled the hand free of the divan cushion. Her fingers were wrapped around the barrel of a gun.

  She said slowly, distinctly, “Where did you get this? It belongs to Milo Craybaugh.”

  There are two ways to handle any rough situation. You either try to bluff it through or try to turn it to your own advantage. Bluffing would be a waste of time. I had already told Annette I had been with Milo. I had no choice except to try to use the problem she’d created against her.

  I said, “He must have lost it. He’s out on the lanai now.” I took a cigaret out of my jacket and lit it. The casual touch. Blowing smoke at the eager breath of the law.

  Annette got to her feet with no difficulty. She said questioningly, “Milo?” She wasn’t talking to me. She wasn’t talking to anyone in particular.

  She kept the gun in her left hand. She walked to the French doors and opened them. I got up and followed her. She stopped in the doorway and looked toward the chair where Milo was sitting.

  The moon had moved a little more. It shone on his face, on his quietly resting hands. She said again, “Milo?” and walked toward the chair.

  I didn’t stop to worry that what I was doing might be a cruel way to treat Annette. I was fighting an obvious but very neatly handled frame. Any weapons I could use, I would.

  And I wanted her reaction when she found out what had happened to Milo. I was hoping it would split her shell and let some of the truth I needed ooze out through the crack.

  She stopped a few feet from Milo. She didn’t repeat his name again. She leaned forward, her right hand extended. The fingers touched his cheek, carefully, gently. Her breath sucked in with a sharp sound. She straightened. She lifted the gun muzzle to her nose and sniffed.

  She turned toward me. She said, “Why did you have to kill him?”

  There was no emotion in her voice. There was nothing. Too much nothing. I stepped forward and took the gun out of her hand. I touched her elbow, starting her back toward the living room.

  She walked quietly to the divan. I closed the doors
. She sat down. I sat down. I put the gun on the floor by my chair.

  She said, “Why did you kill him?”

  I said, “Im a flower lover. I didn’t like the way he hybridized his roses.”

  She wasn’t in the mood for fun and games. She said, “I want to know what happened. I have a right to know about it.”

  I said, “And I have a right to know about a lot of things. But nobody’s going out of his way to help.”

  My cigaret had gone out in the ashtray. I lit another. I said, “Things like why was Milo so anxious to get me away from here? What was his interest in the Surfside? In Dolphin? In you?”

  Her eyes were as dull as her voice. “Why did you kill him?”

  I was getting tired of the question. I said, “I didn’t kill him. We met at Dolphin’s. We had a little talk. Then we had a jujitsu exhibition. Milo won. He pitched me over the lanai wall. When I got myself in one piece again, I went back to the lanai. I found him like he is now.”

  “On this lanai? Here?”

  I said, “No. On Dolphin’s lanai. Where I left him. I brought him here.”

  “Why?”

  I said, “This is the first station on the underground railroad. I’m trying to smuggle him to Rio Pollo. To get him away from here.”

  “Why?” she said again. “To keep from implicating Dolphin? Or to help Global Hotels?”

  I said, “How would my compounding a felony by removing a body from the scene of the crime help Global Hotels? And I wouldn’t protect Dolphin because he’s Dolphin. Milo had that same idea. Did you feed it to him?”

  She didn’t say anything. I said, “I’m moving him to keep everyone from finding out who Dolphin is, sure. And I’m moving him to try to help you. And myself.”

  She still didn’t say anything. She just looked her disbelief. I yelled, “And I didn’t kill Milo. Why should I? He was trying to help you too, I guess. He was going about it in the wrong way. But that’s why he was messing around Dolphin’s—for you. And now he’s dead. And that’s why he’s dead.”