Читать книгу Take a Step to Murder - Day Keene - Страница 5

IN THE BEGINNING God created heaven and earth. In the beginning there were no Sputniks or Explorers. In the beginning Kurt Renner had no intention of killing Kelcey Anders. The thought never entered his mind. He merely intended to use him.

As such schemes go, it was clever; basic, elemental, earthy. All men like pretty girls. With Kelcey they were a disease. And along with being inflicted with satyriasis, the youthful heir to the Anders’ fortune was a self-admitted snob. Tamara was young and very pretty. She was also a genuine countess.

A big man, not unhandsome, tastefully tailored in gray flannel, Renner sat drumming his fingers on the bar, forcing a smile he didn’t feel. He was naturally high-strung. But now with so much at stake, despite his outer composure, the endless babble of voices, the constant blare of the jukebox, and the waiting—especially the waiting—were beginning to get on his nerves. At midnight he got down from the chrome and red leather bar stool and walked out of the dimly lighted cocktail lounge onto the concrete apron of the adjoining filling station.

Old man Manners was hosing the concrete. He turned the nozzle of the hose so the water wouldn’t splash on the cuffs of Renner’s trousers.

“Another slow night, eh.” It was a statement, not a question.

Renner asked how much gasoline he’d pumped.

The old man shrugged. “The usual. Forty, fifty, gallons.” He added, as if it was an accomplishment, “But I did have one oil change.”

“Fine,” Renner said wryly.

He walked on across the wet apron to the highway. He’d only rented one unit, that to a pair of elderly tourists who had somehow got past the barricades and DETOUR signs blocking off the new super-highway. That meant a profit of eight dollars. The bar business wasn’t much better. Most of it was local beer and Coke and sandwich trade, young punks stealing feels in the half-light, having a big time for six bits.

The night, for southern California, was cool. A pale moon hung low in the sky. There was a clean, fresh smell of the not too distant sea. Out here the only sounds were the shrill of the cicadas and the tree frogs and the wind whispering through the branches of the trees.

Renner walked on up the highway to a small knoll a hundred yards beyond the still-green concrete culvert that marked his property line. As far as he could see in both directions triple lanes of concrete separated by a wide divider strip of grass, six lanes in all, wound over and through the rugged coastal hills like so many bands of white ribbon. It was a beautiful piece of engineering, a highway to end all highways. There was only one flaw. There were no cars on it. There would be no cars on it for six, possibly nine, months. All because someone had bobbled.

Leaving him holding the bag—the bag consisting of a two hundred thousand dollar investment.

He turned and looked back at his combination tourist court, cocktail lounge and filling station. The eighteen-unit court was built in the shape of a U, well-built of cut field stone and hewn timbers. The grounds were professionally landscaped. The big tile swimming pool looked blue and inviting in the floodlights. The one-stop filling station and cocktail lounge and restaurant were in keeping with the court.

A big neon sign spelled out the name:

ELDORADO COURT

Kurt Renner, Proprietor

There it was—his—everything so new that it glistened, the one truly beautiful thing he’d ever owned.

He could rent a couple a bed. He could feed them or get them drunk. He could fill their car with gasoline or grease or wash it. He could even tow them in if they ran off the road. Whatever the traveling public needed or wanted, he had it. Now because of one stupid mistake, he stood to lose everything.

Renner tried to find fault with his business acumen. He couldn’t. He’d timed the building and the opening of the court to coincide with the scheduled opening of the highway. He’d checked and double-checked. And now because one or more engineers had miscalculated on estimating the length of time and amount of fill it would take to extend the south end of the highway through a particularly bad stretch of terrain, the State Road Department informed him it might be as long as nine months before the highway was opened to through traffic.

And in nine months he’d be financially dead. He owned a luxury tourist court and cocktail lounge and filling station on a ghost highway—a ghost highway shut off by barricades and DETOUR signs. Meanwhile his payroll and payments went on.

All told, counting construction costs and furnishings and equipment, the court had cost two hundred thousand dollars. Of the total, forty thousand had been cash, every dollar he’d been able to save and scrounge and chisel in ten years of being a bell captain in luxury hotels from Miami to Los Angeles to Las Vegas. For ten years he’d done without. He’d done things foreign to his nature and his pride, deliberately, for a purpose. There was more than money involved. He’d wanted to prove that old man Renner’s son, the son of an immigrant celery farmer, could amount to something.

Despite the cool of the night perspiration beaded on Renner’s cheeks. One way or another he had to hang on to the court. He meant to. If this little bit of business he was planning with Kelcey Anders went as scheduled, he could still pull through. Anders Senior would do anything to keep “My Boy” out of prison. And Anders Senior had all the money in the world. As far as Renner could see, the setup couldn’t miss.

A pair of headlights brightened one of the south-bound lanes. For a moment Renner was hopeful it was the battered local bus that was Mission Bay’s only commercial link with the outside world until the new highway opened.

“Midnight,” he’d told Tamara. “Or as close to midnight as you can make it.”

It wasn’t the bus. It was merely a local car whose driver had ignored the battery of signs the State Road Department had erected at both ends of the highway and at the farm roads leading down from the hills.

The car turned onto the apron of the station and stopped beside one of the pumps. A boy and a girl got out. The boy said something to Manners. Then the girl waggled the hips of the too-tight blue jeans she was wearing toward the door of the cocktail lounge and the boy walked after her. When they were out of the glare of the overhead lights of the station, they kissed, pressing and straining against each other, rocking back and forth in a spasmodic orgiastic aftermath.

Renner watched them, mildly amused. It would be nice to be young again, that young. They were probably fresh from the hills, still filled with the wonder of it all, finding out what it was like closer to heaven in the back seat of the car or on a blanket spread on the ground.

Now the boy would buy the girl a Coke or a beer and a hamburger and probably jump her again on the way home. Both of them very well satisfied with the arrangement. Renner knew. He’d been born in Mission Bay. He lit a cigarette and walked back to the pumps.

Old man Manners was mumbling in his stubble of grizzled beard. “Fifty cents, by God. Fifty cents worth of gas. And will I please check his radiator and be sure and clean the windshield as the bugs are bad up in the hills tonight.”

Renner laughed and looked up the highway again.

“Why you all the time looking up the highway?” the old man asked. “You expecting someone on the bus?”

“No,” Renner lied. “Just wondering why Angel is so late tonight.”

The old man shook his head. “Angel. Now that’s a hell of a name for a man.” He was concerned. He had reason to be. Along with the day mechanic and the cooks and the barman and the maids and waitresses and handyman, the tenure of his job depended on Renner being able to keep the court open. He asked, “How did you make out with that banker in Los Angeles, Kurt? The one you were going to ask about a loan.”

“No dice,” Renner told him.

He used the men’s washroom in the station before returning to the cocktail lounge. Some punk had dropped a wadded paper towel on the floor. Renner picked it up and put it in the container, then studied his face in the mirror over the bowl as he washed his hands.

The strain was beginning to tell. He was thirty-three years old. He looked it. His face was beginning to line. There were traces of gray in his hair. He had to hold on to the court. If and when he lost the Eldorado it meant going back to wearing a monkey suit, saying “Yes, sir” and “No, sir,” not even a captain this time, none of the cream off the top, but starting in at the bottom again, hopping bells, catering to the venality of the traveling public.

The great traveling American public, with money. Misunderstood husbands and balding businessmen trying to cling to the ephemeral illusion of youth, from Atlanta and Cleveland and Boston; pillars of the church and their home-town chamber of commerce, men with more money than sense, most of them with only two things on their minds—liquor and sex.

Ditto their opposite feminine numbers, frustrated wives and willing widows, trying to look coy and attractive at forty, calling the switchboard for a bell man.

And when you knocked on their doors, there they were, their breasts bulging out of sheer nightgowns, their fat thighs quivering, a hopeful gleam in their eyes and an erroneous conception of room service.

Renner scowled at his reflection in the mirror. So? So bring the guy his Scotch. Phone for a fifty dollar call girl and take your cut like a good little pimp. Hand the old bag a line. And if the old bag gets so sore you think she won’t tip then squeeze her tits a little. Run your hand between her legs. If you have to, jump her. What’s a little flesh between friends? You can always wash your hands or take a bath. Ten here, ten there counts up. You want to own a tourist court, don’t you?

Renner dried his hands on a paper towel and went back to the cocktail lounge. No miracles had sprouted. The jukebox was still blaring rock and roll, with a little progressive mixed in. The lounge still smelled like all cocktail lounges, of cigarette smoke and beer and amorous males and used and about to be used female flesh. No fault of his. Male and female created he them.

Renner climbed back on his stool and lit a cigarette as he studied Kelcey Anders’ face. It was a good face, but weak. Kelcey was as big a man as he was, a few years younger, black-haired, dark-complected. He looked like he had money. He did. His family had been in the chips for years. Anders Senior owned the bank in Mission Bay, several business properties in town and only he and the tax collector knew how many thousands of acres of ranch and farm and timber land.

When Kelcey was sober he liked to boast there had been a Spanish Don in the family tree. But right now he wasn’t interested in lineage. He was much more concerned with getting drunk, secure in the knowledge that no matter how drunk he got the local sheriff wouldn’t dare arrest him. Bill Prichard thought too much of his job.

Tony, the barman, asked Renner if he wanted anything. He shook his head and turned his mental attention to Anders Senior. It was said that in his younger days the old man had been almost as much of a bastard as Kelcey. But now that he was semi-retired, he’d mellowed. As far as Renner was concerned, outside of his foul mouth and his flatly refusing to make him a bank loan large enough to tide the Eldorado over until the highway opened, Mr. Anders had only one serious flaw. That was his opinion of Kelcey.

Kelcey was his boy. And “My Boy” could do no wrong.

It was an interesting subject. Renner pursued it. Like the time that Pete Gonzales had caught Kelcey raping his fifteen-year-old daughter in the fish house on the beach. Were Gina’s clothes torn off her forcibly? Was she screaming in pain and praying for help when Gonzales managed to break down the door? Had she been brutally violated? Don’t be foolish. In court, Kelcey had claimed it was all her fault, that Gina wanted to do it. And by the time that Anders Senior and the Anders’ lawyers had completed twisting the facts, Kelcey had really gone to the fish house to buy a can of tuna and Gina had been lucky not to go to jail charged with lewd and indecent exposure and contributing to the delinquency of a minor.

Some day, however, Kelcey was going to force himself on the wrong girl. When that happened it was going to cost his father a small fortune to keep him from going to prison—say thirty or forty thousand dollars, enough to meet the payroll and the payments on an eighteen-unit tourist court for the length of time it took a highway to be born.

Afraid that Kelcey might get bored and pick up his change and walk out before the bus arrived, Renner crossed the lounge and sat in the booth with Kelcey.

“How about a drink on the house?”

Kelcey was alcoholically suspicious. “What’s the idea?”

Renner simulated surprise. “Just trying to be friendly. After all, you spend quite a bit in here.”

Kelcey was amused. “I get it now. You’re afraid.”

“Afraid of what?”

“Of losing your court.”

Renner motioned to Tony to bring two drinks. “Don’t be silly. I’m doing fine.”

Kelcey laughed harshly. “Hah. Don’t give me that crap.”

Bus or not, it was time to get the show on the road. Renner raised his voice to make certain what he had to say would be heard above the music. “If you don’t mind, Kelcey, please watch your language.”

Kelcey continued drunkenly. “You know you can’t possibly hold on for nine more months. You tried to borrow money from my father and he turned you down. Now you think maybe I’ll lend you some.” He grew even more belligerent. “Well, I won’t. I hope you do lose the court. Imagine a stinking punk like you, an ex-bell captain, a god-damn Hunkie celery farmer’s son, thinking you could swing a high-class place like this.”

It was the opening Renner wanted. He caught the other man by the lapels of his coat and pulled him across the table. “I warned you,” he said, coldly. “I warned you in a nice way to watch your language. Now stop talking like that or get out and don’t come back. I run a respectable place. And I won’t have a drunk talk the way you’ve been talking in front of decent girls.”

The speech had the effect he’d expected it to have. The girl scrunched down with the boy in the booth at the far end of the lounge pushed the boy’s hand away from where it was and both of them sat up. Several of the girls in the lounge patted their back hair self-consciously. Even the little brunette in the too-tight blue jeans looked smug. The youth with her was equally virtuous.

“That’s telling him, Mr. Renner,” he said. “You ought to paste him one. Him and his old man think they can get away with anything. Just because they have money.”

Renner pushed Kelcey back to his own side of the booth. “Just because they have money.”

Tony came out from behind the bar and asked Renner if he needed any help. Renner shook his head as he studied Kelcey’s face. For a moment he thought he’d over-played his hand. He was afraid Kelcey was going to walk out. He didn’t. He’d had him figured right. Kelcey’s pride wouldn’t let him walk out. He had to stay and figure out some way to get even.

“How about it, Kelcey?” he asked.

Kelcey mumbled something that might pass for an apology and Renner let it go at that. He had what he wanted. He was on record.

By morning the young couples in the lounge would have spread the story all over Murietta County.

Kurt Renner runs a respectable place. He doesn’t want or need any money. He’s doing fine. And he won’t stand for any nonsense. Why, be almost threw Kelcey Anders out just for talking dirty.

The class-conscious townspeople would love it.

Just a small piece of insurance.

Proof of where he stood if and when Kelcey was ever arrested for assaulting Tamara. Not that Anders Senior would let the matter go that far. To save “My Boy” embarrassment and a possible prison term, he would be happy to settle out of court.

“Any hard feelings?” he asked.

“No,” Kelcey said. “No hard feelings.”

Renner realized he’d spilled their drinks when he’d pulled Kelcey over the table. He started to tell Tony to bring them two more when old man Manners hustled into the lounge and came up to the table.

“The sheriff wants to see you right away,” the old man said.

Renner stood up. “About what?”

The old man ran his hand under his nose. “The way I get it some drunk drove off a cliff. Some drunk and a girl, Bill said. And she’s half nekid and bleeding and both of them still in the car.”

“Who is she?” Kelcey asked.

The old man shook his head. “The sheriff didn’t say.” He took off his hat and scratched his head. “I suppose when they do open the highway we’ll get a lot of that sort of business.” He added dubiouly, “If we’re still here.”

“We’ll be here,” Renner assured him.