Killed in Paradise Page 20

  “One whole thing?”

  “I did go to NYU, you know, and I did take a class with Schaeffer. I didn’t like him. That’s why I pretended not to know him on the ship.”

  “And that explains why he kept staring at you. So my people will find you somewhere in the old yearbooks and records.”

  “They might. I had a lot of puppy fat then. And I used a different name. Even if they did find me, it wouldn’t prove anything, would it? I mean, Schaeffer may have stared, but he never actually recognized me. And I preferred not to remind him.”

  She grinned at me. She was beginning to enjoy this. “Of course, in the hypothesis, it’s different.”

  “I’ll just bet.”

  So she made me a hypothesis, about a young girl from upstate New York who comes to the Big City to live in Greenwich Village and go to college. And the young girl meets a young man and thinks she loves him, but succumbs instead to the charms of a professor. The young man gets into trouble and gets kicked out of school, and the professor soon gets tired of her, and dumps her. Just before finals, at which time he gives her a D.

  The young woman takes the rejection badly—the young are such fools, don’t you think? She drops out of school, breaks contact with her parents. Becomes an airline flight attendant. Sees a lot of the world. Grows up. Sees life for what it really is. Learns that men are easy. Hates herself for what she let the professor do to her.

  “Don’t you agree men are easy?” she said.

  I told her I’d never thought about it.

  “Well, think about it now,” she said. “It’s your theory I’m this I terrible person. If that were true, which of course it’s not, I managed you the whole trip, knew everything you were doing, without even having to lower myself enough to sleep with you. How much easier can you get?”

  I smiled at her. “Go on with your hypothesis.”

  She went on. One day, the young man she had thought herself to be in love with turns up on one of her flights. They have dinner. He tells her he is into big money, and she could help him, if she wanted. She sees the young man now as a bastard in training, lacking only experience in rottenness to be just as bad as the professor had been, but she strings along because she is fascinated with the operation. She sees that the key to the whole thing is the number of that bank box on St. David’s Island. She knows she can be ruthless enough to get it, and convinces the young man he can be, too.

  She does the work while the young man stands there and cringes, but they get the number. But something goes wrong. They plan to get the—

  “What was it you said, diamonds?”

  “Don’t be too coy, Jan. I said diamonds back on the ship.”

  —to get the diamonds when the Mafia boss goes to jail, but he doesn’t go to jail. He sits, figuratively, on the doorstep of the bank, waiting for them to return. She could go and get the diamonds herself, but Janski calls her every night. He doesn’t trust her. He’s told her that if she’s ever not home, he will tell Gardeno who she is and the best places to find her.

  Stalemate. But things aren’t so bad. They can still raise half a million or so from the dope they haven’t delivered. So they do. This is split fairly amicably. The young woman opens a shop. The young man goes into radio, eventually working his way back to New York.

  But the diamonds sit there, on the island, winking in the darkness of the vault, mocking them. It’s frustrating, maddening.

  Then they get a break. The radio station the young man works for decides on a contest to send someone to St. David’s Island. The young man arranges that he’ll go with the winner.

  “And then,” I said, “he arranges for you to be the winner.”

  “Me?” she said in mock horror. “Matt, this is only a hypothesis.”

  “Sure it is,” I said agreeably. “I just like to use people’s names instead of ‘the young man,’ or ‘the young woman.’

  “It’s simple,” I went on. “Instead of a random phone call, he calls you. The real genius is the use of Kenni as a beard. It’s a mystery quiz, you have an acquaintance who’s a mystery nut, and you arrange for her to provide you with the answers. I remember being told about the ‘wrong number’ you got just before the contest came in. That was Janski checking to make sure Kenni was there.

  “And while I’m hypothesizing, I might as well add that I should have been on to you sooner.” Jan was in absolute heaven by now. I was good enough at this to make an enjoyable game of it, but there was no way I could touch her. She thought.

  “Oh?” she said. “Why is that?”

  “Because you’re short. You’re strong, but you’re short. When you think about it, swinging up at the back of someone’s head is an inefficient way to cool him. That’s why you got into the habit of flattening heads afterwards, or of shoving people overboard after you’d stunned them. You simply couldn’t reach high enough to make sure of putting a man out with one shot. You made up for it with persistence.”

  “Interesting point,” she said. There was a hint of a grin on her lips. “May I go on?”

  I nodded, and she talked some more. Assume, she said, that my hypothesizing was correct (and she congratulated me for having an imagination that fit in so well with hers) what happened next?

  She could imagine, she said, the young woman, once her passage had been assured, getting rid of the weak and potentially treacherous young man once and for all, and preparing for the trip. She was unknown—it would be a simple matter for her to elude her guest and her Network companion long enough to hit the bank and retrieve the diamonds.

  But just before it’s time to leave, she learns the professor, now a writer, will be on the trip. The man who had seduced and abandoned her in her innocent youth. A man who knew she’d been acquainted with Janski.

  She considers canceling out on the trip, but she’s waited so long, and done so much work. She hates to think she killed Janski and lugged his loathsome carcass through Riverside Park in the dead of night for nothing. Besides, she will likely never have another chance as good as this.

  So she decides to risk it. The ship is fairly large; perhaps she can avoid Schaeffer. She didn’t realize how clubby these game-players would be—that they would eat together, be together all the time. She didn’t reckon on the efficiency of Network Publicity, who threw them together before the ship even left port.

  She doesn’t really look the same, but sometime during that first day, Schaeffer recognizes her. Secretly, after the boat drill, he passes her a note.

  “Signed ‘Lee,’ ” I said. “Only women he slept with called him Lee.”

  “We must hypothesize together more often,” she said.

  So Lee will have to be dealt with. She keeps the note, in case it might come in handy for future mystification. Then she turns her attention to Lee. Men are easy, especially men with egos the size of Lee’s. Lee has developed a feud with the Network representative, a young man he hates at first sight. The young woman meets with Lee in secret later that afternoon, and tells him she will be his spy in the enemy camp. She’ll have to pretend to hate him. Lee grins, says he understands. She can slap his face if she wants to. Just help him show this Cobb his place.

  Jan says of course, but she has another idea. Lee has mentioned that he’s retained the Acting Chief Dining Room Steward to harass you at mealtime. The young woman suggests that he bribe the man to steal some serious cutlery from the galley. When Lee asks why, she tells him it will be a surprise. Her surprises in the old days had always been worthwhile, and so he agrees.

  Late that night, she sneaks to his cabin. This is ostensibly to be a sympathy screw for his having lost the Ping-Pong game, but Jan has other games in mind.

  It is essential that she know whether Lee has told anyone on or off the ship about her. She had been the man’s lover; she knows denials from him are worthless—he’ll tell her what he thinks she ought to hear, which rarely has any relation to the truth.

  So she gets behind him and hits him with his complimentary bott
le of champagne. She strips him and ties him up, and is about to drag him to the bathroom and put the knives to work as truth insurance, when she sees the hair dryer and decides that will be much easier, less messy. She breaks off the protective plastic nose by closing the porthole on it. She plugs the dryer in, lets it get hot, and waits for Lee to regain consciousness.

  Lee’s cabin is directly below the disco—chances are no screams would be heard. Still, she takes no chances, gagging him while she applies the hot metal to his flesh, removing the gag to let him make his whimpered denials. The rug gets a little scorched, so she leaves his feet alone after that.

  She takes her time, does a thorough job. She knows her roommate plans to be occupied in the bed of the triumphant Ping-Pong warrior. The stars in her eyes and lust in her loins will keep her busy well past dawn.

  When she is quite sure Lee has told no one, she picks up the champagne bottle and finishes the job. She tries to throw him overboard, but makes a distressing discovery—his shoulders are too wide to fit through the porthole. Or maybe she’s planned it this way all along. The bathroom and the butcher’s tools become useful after all. Lee (wrapped in plastic), the cutlery, and the hair dryer all go out the porthole, where the Atlantic will keep her secrets. The champagne bottle, wiped of fingerprints, goes back in the bucket. After that, she has an amusing couple of days feigning seasickness, as everyone, especially this oh-so-impressive young man from the Network, tries to figure out what’s happened to Lee.

  But then the young man goes to work on Burkehart, and Burkehart has promised to tell him “everything.” Chances are, “everything” is simply that he stole the knives for the missing Mr. Schaeffer. These people liked games; the young woman was obliging them by leading them in a game. And it would have been an amusing play to let Burkehart talk, if that were all he really had to say.

  Unfortunately, she couldn’t take that chance. She had to isolate Burkehart, then dispose of him; to do that, she had to confront him. Once she’d done that, there was no choice but to kill him.

  She takes a chance. She gets a message to him, and meets him on deck late at night. She could kill him right there, but the night is too nice—someone might take a walk on deck and see them together. She decides to wait. She gives him a thousand dollars to jump ship outside the harbor, promising more when they meet on the island next day. Burkehart tells her about the isolated beach.

  The poisoned coffee has already assured that she’ll be alone to keep the rendezvous. Which she does. On the way back to the ship, wearing a blond wig, she stops at the bank and gets the diamonds.

  She should be home free. She is home free. No one can convict her, no one can touch her.

  But the young woman wants more than that. She doesn’t want to be bothered. She has worked hard for the money, and she wants to be left to spend it in peace. And then, the night of the tropical storm, the young man from the Network talks of digging up the past. He will find the young woman’s connection with Janski and with Schaeffer. She doesn’t want that to happen; she doesn’t want him to get back to New York and start that process in motion. She’ll take care of him somehow. Men are easy.

  She isn’t seasick, she never is. Her roommate has taken Dramamine, and is asleep. The young woman can always say she went out for air—no one suspects her, no one ever will. She watches the Network man’s cabin, trying to think of a way to get him to let her inside. He might fit through the porthole, but there’s the dog to deal with. The dog likes her, but will he stand still while she kills his master? Can she kill the dog without getting herself marked up?

  The problem solves itself when the cabin door opens, and a seasick young man lurches upstairs and out on deck. She has armed herself with her own champagne bottle. There will be no casual strollers on deck tonight. She follows him, unseen, and attacks. It doesn’t quite go according to plan, though. She almost winds up over the rail. She runs away while her man is still dazed and wiping rain from his eyes. Maybe the wind will sweep him over the side. She’s back in her cabin and under the shower in five minutes. This is both to calm her, and to explain to her roommate, should she awaken, why she’s wet. But the matter never comes up. The roommate sleeps like the dead; too much sex, lately, the young woman supposes.

  The next day they reach New York. The diamonds are stowed safely away. The young man from the Network may make a nuisance of himself, but there is nothing he can do.

  “Is there?” Jan said, smiling sweetly.

  “Is there what?”

  “If our hypothesis were true, instead of the pure fantasy it is, there isn’t a single thing you could do about it, could you?”

  “Sure there is,” I said. “I could torture you and make you tell me where the diamonds are.”

  “All that would get you is a prison term. You’d need me to get the diamonds, and you wouldn’t dare trust me out of your sight. Just as Janski wouldn’t. Besides, even if by some miracle you could get these”—she smiled—“hypothetical diamonds, you wouldn’t. Why, Kenni tells me even Martin Gardeno spotted you for an honest man.”

  “No,” I said. “You’re right. I wouldn’t do that.”

  “Then will you please let me get to work? I’m very tired of your mystery games, Mr. Cobb.” She stood up. Spot sprang to his feet and barked and snarled and showed his teeth. Jan turned white and backed against the wall.

  I permitted myself a small smile. “Back, Spot, back,” I said. Spot turned into a friendly house pet again. I looked at my watch. “Yes, I guess I’d better go. Kenni is waiting for me.”

  Jan gave me the smuggest smile yet. “I’m sure you’ll be very good for each other. Come on, I’ll let you out.”

  We went back into the shop. As we crossed the floor, Jan said, “You know, Matt, if that resourceful young woman we fantasized about really existed, you would have offended her terribly. She’d probably want revenge. You’d have to be very careful never to offend her again.”

  I looked out the shop window to Columbus Avenue.

  “Oh, good,” I said. “One of them’s here.”

  Jan unlocked the door. “One of what?” she said.

  “Well,” I said. “Let me hypothesize for a while. Suppose a different young man met a young woman—a vicious, conscienceless psychopath who had committed crimes the law could never touch her for, unless she confessed and led them to the evidence herself. And suppose the young man had been part of her plan, unwittingly. And let’s further hypothesize that while the young man is honest, and a good-natured enough sort, he grew up on the streets of New York—where he acquired a code that never left him. Mess with me, and regret it. What would he do?”

  Jan shrugged prettily “Come to the young woman? Try his caveman act? Maybe bring along an animal with teeth in an attempt to scare her?”

  I looked out the window. “Oh. There’s another one.”

  “Another what?” she demanded. There was anger in her voice.

  “Another big black sedan. The one closest to the door will probably have first crack.” I turned to Jan. “Caveman act? Nah. If he did that at all, it would merely be to kill time until the real plan took effect.

  “You see, what he would do would be to make a few phone calls. One would be to the Drug Enforcement Agency officer back on the island. Another would be to Inspector Buxton, of the Royal St. David’s Island Constabulary, who would ask the NYPD to send an unmarked car and hold the suspect until he could arrive in New York and question her.”

  Jan’s eyes were wide. I gave her my biggest smile. “And the third call—”

  “You wouldn’t.”

  “Mess with me, and regret it,” I said cheerfully. “The third would go to the man whose beloved nephew you tortured to death. The man who has astonished his doctors by living on, inspired solely by the desire to get his hands on you. Even before he knew who you were.”

  “But—but—”

  “I called him last,” I said. “That’s more consideration than you deserve.”

  “It’s
...it’s murder. You wouldn’t dare!”

  “What’s the matter? You the only one who gets to murder people? You’ve got a better chance than you gave anyone else. Besides, you’re too dangerous to let run around loose.”

  I grabbed the door handle. “The deal was, as soon as I leave, the people outside can move in. So let’s hypothesize about what happens next. If they’re both from the Mafia, you’ve had it.”

  Jan’s head was shaking involuntarily from side to side, no, no, no.

  “I don’t think they will be. Gardeno’s organization is efficient, but I told him the cops had a head start. If it’s Mafia people out there, they’re just to watch.

  “So if it’s cops, you go and talk to them. Buxton tells me the penalty for murder is only twenty-five years on St. David’s Island. You can work on your tan, maybe as you harvest guano for the fertilizer plant, I don’t know. Or you can talk to the DEA and go to a federal women’s prison. You should be reasonably safe—I don’t know that I’ve ever heard of the Mafia ordering a hit inside a women’s prison. Of course, there’s always a first time.

  “Of course, as we’ve said over and over, only you can provide the proof to convict you. If you tough it out, the cops will have to let you go.

  “And Gardeno’s people will be waiting. How do you like the game now, Jan?”

  She kept staring at me in disbelief. Psychopaths believe that they alone are exempt from the rules. It offends them deeply when someone else puts a dent in what they consider proper. “Of course, there’s one more possibility. You lied to me, and there is another way out of here, or you manage to hop out of the police or DEA car on the way downtown, or you convince them to let you go before Gardeno’s New York people can cover you.

  “In a way, I like that one the best. The banks are closed now—no diamonds. You wouldn’t dare go home. You wouldn’t dare come back here. You’d have to split, today, now, with the clothes on your back and the money in your pocket—the cops will take away your purse—and elude the Mafia the rest of your life. It would be just like before. Except now Gardeno will know who you are and what you look like. And federal and New York cops would be after you, too.”