Nailed Page 33

  What was she supposed to do now? She hadn’t played things the way Didi had told her — to tell Ring there was someone he had to meet. She’d revised Didi’s scenario so she could play the femme fatale. What a dipshit mistake that had been. Now, if she told this pickled porker there was someone who wanted to see him, he’d be sure to smell a rat.

  Well, one thing was for certain, his place was out.

  “My place,” Gayle said with a smile she hoped wasn’t too transparently phony.

  As they rose to leave, she hoped to God that Didi had a way out of this for her.

  A reporter from The New York Times asked the first question. “Mayor Steadman, with the exception of a few people like Mr. Tilden, many people respond to questions concerning matters of race, religion or other sensitive subjects by saying what they think is publicly acceptable, while they privately hold views that are just the opposite. How do you know a majority of the people in your town don’t, in fact, believe that Mahalia Cardwell has cursed it, and resent her and other African Americans for what she’s done?”

  Clay studied the man, looking at him as if he were a specimen best examined under a microscope.

  The mayor began with a question of his own: “How do you know Mr. Tilden isn’t a hypocrite and a liar, too?”

  With his words, Clay did what many would have thought impossible: He made a reporter blush.

  “He … he simply struck me as credible,” the reporter said defensively.

  “But other people don’t? Mr. FitzHugh was quite blunt about his resentment. He doesn’t like to be blamed for other people’s problems, and I don’t know of anyone who does. Mr. Banneker is proud of himself and his family and doesn’t want people to stereotype him because of his skin color, and that’s perfectly natural. Ms. Blaine expresses a reverence for life greater than mine and perhaps your own. In fact, all of the people who have spoken here tonight have struck me as both sincere and vitally concerned about their town.

  “Still, your question is how do I know when people are not being honest. I’ll tell you how: I can smell deceit. It stinks. It has just about the same rank odor that cynicism has. But let’s put my nose to the test.” The mayor looked over to the phone monitor. “Do we have a call you can put on the speaker?”

  With the click of a button, a woman’s disembodied voice sounded in the room. She sounded middle-aged with no discernible accent. “Hello? Hello, am I talking to the town meeting?”

  “Yes, ma’am, you are,” the mayor said.

  “My na —”

  “Please, if you don’t mind,” the mayor interrupted, “would you withhold your name? We’d like you to remain anonymous so there will be no reason for you not to give bluntly honest answers to a few questions. Would that be all right with you?”

  “Oh … well, okay. Sure. I have something to tell you, but what do you want to know?”

  The audience listened with fascination to the drama Clay had constructed.

  The mayor said, “Let’s start at the beginning: How did you feel when you learned of Reverend Isaac Cardwell’s death?”

  “Awful. Just terrible … I wept.” The woman’s voice filled with emotion. “I looked at the picture of that poor man in the paper and I asked myself, ‘How could anyone do such a thing?’”

  “Did it matter to you that Reverend Cardwell was black?”

  “No!” There was a pause for reconsideration that nobody in the audience missed. “Well, yes it did. That image reminded me of pictures I’ve seen in books. History books, you know. Where blacks had been lynched or burned. I felt a deep sense of shame that something like that could happen in my town. I felt angry, too. It felt like the anger my husband describes to me when he hears about a man attacking a woman. He takes it personally when one of his own kind does something like that. I felt the same way.”

  “So you think the killer is white?” the mayor asked.

  “Yes.”

  “For what reason?”

  “Like I said, it’s happened a lot before. I just didn’t think it would happen here.”

  “How do you feel about Mahalia Cardwell and her so-called curse?”

  “I feel sorry for her. I know if I’m angry, she has every right to be in a rage … but she had no business saying what she said. If it’s not a curse, it’s at least very clear she hopes something bad will happen to Goldstrike, and that’s not fair. We didn’t want Reverend Cardwell to die. I believe most people in town would give anything we could to undo what’s happened. No, what she said wasn’t right.”

  “Do you think people lie to reporters?”

  “Well … I have to admit I think that’s true. At least some of the time. But mostly I think that’s because reporters don’t respect anybody’s privacy. Having somebody stick a camera and a microphone in your face and put you on television, it’s like having the whole country drop in when the house isn’t picked up. You just get rid of them as fast as you can.”

  The audience laughed at the analogy.

  “But it’s not always funny,” the caller cautioned. “I mean, look at what happened here. This poor man dies a terrible death, nailed to a tree, and instead of trying to show his family some respect or compassion, a pack of those people rush right up to them and want to know how they feel. They feel like hell! Any idiot would know that. The way I’d feel, I’d want to bean as many of those reporters with my frying pan as I could!”

  The unnamed caller received a rousing ovation.

  The mayor addressed the Times reporter. “To me, sir, that smells like truth.”

  “Of course, it’s the truth,” the caller responded. “But, Mr. Mayor, there really is something I have to tell you.”

  “Go right ahead. You’ve been very patient.”

  “Well, it’s about the killing. Reverend Cardwell’s, I mean. At least, I think so.”

  “What is it?” Clay wanted to know.

  “Well, just a little while ago, in the trees behind my house, my son found a hammer. It has blood all over it. I thought you should know.”

  Chapter 45

  The lousy Brit groped Gayle almost all the way home. He kept up the rough stuff, too. He was one of those creeps who thought women enjoyed being hurt. That or he just enjoyed doing the hurting. One time he squeezed so hard, Gayle feared he’d ruptured her right implant. The sonofabitch! Gayle thought what she ought to do was get him home, get him hard, and do a Lorena Bobbitt on him. If she could find the nerve. As it was, the only way she could finally defend herself from the driver’s seat was to nearly let the car run off the road a couple times. The second time she did that it calmed him down for the duration.

  When Gayle pulled the Porsche into the garage beneath her house, she bolted from the car like Secretariat leaving the starting gate. Even so, she felt the breeze from a grab that just missed.

  “The game’s afoot,” Ring said with a laugh.

  Gayle’s heart turned to ice. She immediately abandoned any thought of dealing with this bastard on her own. If Didi was anywhere but right inside waiting for her, she was going to wet herself.

  She ran up the stairs to the first floor, and she heard heavy footsteps pounding along behind her. Oh, God, she thought, he was chasing her. She cried out, “Didi … Didi!”

  Gayle skidded on the polished hardwood floor of the foyer and stumbled into the living room, snapping a three inch Ferragamo heel. She lurched, twisted, and was about to do a header into the fireplace when two strong hands plucked her deftly out of the air. She looked over her left shoulder and there behind her, holding her close and smiling, was Didi.

  “Baby, you gotta call Arthur Murray,” he said. “Or you can forget about goin’ to the prom with me.”

  Gayle fell in love with Didi that very moment.

  “Who the bloody hell are you, mate?” Colin Ring demanded.

  He stood in the entrance to the room breathing heavily from his dash up the stairs. His face was crimson with anger. His fists were bunched, and the forward tilt of his body said he
meant to use them.

  Didi didn’t answer immediately. He took Gayle’s earlobe, gently, between his teeth and pulled on it, all the while looking defiantly at Colin Ring. Gayle, feeling safe once again, couldn’t help but smile maliciously at her former tormentor.

  Ring’s face tightened. He realized by now that he’d been set up in some way, but he really didn’t mind. He’d come here with the bint for a good hard shag, and that’s just what he meant to have. If he had to break some little wog’s neck to get it, well, that would just be the bloody foreplay, wouldn’t it? He uttered a martial sounding grunt and slid into a much practiced karate stance.

  Didi opened his jaws and whispered in Gayle’s ear, “You remember ol’ Brett and the Colonel from your movie? Watch how it’s really done.”

  Ring had just started his charge when Didi picked Gayle up and threw her at the Brit. High and hard. Shrieking all the way. Give the man credit, Didi thought, he didn’t try to catch Gayle or otherwise cushion her fall. He just batted her aside with an efficient little forearm sweep

  Then he kept right on coming. Only by this time Didi had a silenced gun in his hand, and he shot Colin Ring squarely in his belly.

  “Karate chop that, motherfucker,” Didi said.

  The slug knocked the Englishman off his feet and sent him skidding backwards across the hardwood floor. He came to rest in a seated position against a built-in bookcase. Ring wasn’t dead, however. His eyes were open, and he looked madder than ever.

  Didi stepped over to Gayle and helped her up. “Nothin’ personal, baby,” he said. “But a man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do.”

  Gayle looked like she didn’t know whether to scream or jump out a window, but she still managed to tell Didi, “That’s the first time I ever heard you use a cliché.”

  Didi laughed. No doubt about it, the woman was single-minded. “I’ll try to do better. Now, I know you’re upset. You might get a whole lot more upset. And I know you got two questions to ask me. So why don’t you tell me those questions?”

  Gayle couldn’t find her voice. But she managed to glance fearfully over at Colin Ring.

  “Don’t worry about him,” Didi said. “He ain’t goin nowhere. This real life: the gutshot don’t foxtrot.”

  Didi smiled at Gayle. “See, I still got my stuff. You liked that one, didn’t you?”

  Gayle asked the first question Didi wanted to hear. “Are you going to kill him?”

  “Yes,” Didi said.

  Gayle proceeded immediately to the second question. “Are you going to kill me?”

  “Not if you’re a good girl,” he said.

  Didi didn’t have the time to instruct her in the details of polite behavior because Colin Ring parted with a groan that said he wouldn’t be keeping them company much longer.

  “I got to talk to this man,” Didi said, taking Gayle’s hand to bring her with him. She tried to hold her ground. Rather than simply yank her along, Didi explained patiently but quickly, “Look, I know you’re a little shaky, this being your first time and all, but this is your big chance. I mean, all sorts of writers do ride-alongs with cops. But how many get to do a shoot-along with a stone killer?”

  Despite the terror that was devouring her every vital organ, the question had resonance for Gayle. If she got out of this alive, she’d be able to sell her story for millions. Better yet, she’d be able to write and direct the project. She let Didi lead her forward.

  “Look at the man’s eyes,” Didi told Gayle, nodding at Ring. “Still got some fire in them. He’s not ready to check out just yet. We got a little time here.” He turned to Ring and answered the man’s original question. “My name is Didier DuPree. You are Colin Ring, I hope.”

  “Bugger you, you wog bastard.”

  Didi said, “Now, I ain’t even a lawyer, but I still know that’s non-responsive.”

  He shot Ring in his right foot. The Brit cried out, but his diaphragm wasn’t up to producing much in the way of volume anymore. There was still hatred in his eyes for Didi, but those fires had been banked a little, too.

  “Okay,” Didi allowed, “you’re sure not American, and you look just like Junior Cardwell described, so we’ll take it on faith who you are. That means all you really gotta tell me is your room number at the hotel where you’re staying.”

  Then Didi thought of something else.

  “Oh, yeah. If you write on one a them laptops, you better give me any password I might need.”

  The look on Ring’s face, while still pain-wracked, turned incredulous. “This is about my bloody work?”

  “Oh, yeah. See, I know all about your book on Jimmy Thunder. I just happened to be in the right place at the right time and overheard Junior Cardwell tell him all about it. I was so tickled, I decided I had to be the first one — and the only one — to read it. You want to look at it this way, I’m your biggest fan.”

  “Sod all,” Ring lamented

  “Yeah, I can sympathize. Sometimes the price of fame comes awful high. And it’s about to go right on up, if you don’t tell me what I want to know.”

  Didi aimed his gun at Colin Ring’s crotch.

  “Funny thing, ain’t it, baby?” Didi asked the mesmerized Gayle. “Man knows he’s dyin’ … but he wants to go with his johnson still on him. Never can tell. Might be some pussy on the other side.”

  Ring concurred. He told Didi his room number and his computer password

  Didi had watched closely for any sign that the Englishman was lying. When he was sure he hadn’t seen one, he finished Colin Ring off neatly with a shot in the forehead.

  Gayle gasped. Didi slipped an arm around her waist and said, “That’s how you do it in real life, baby.”

  He walked her over to a sofa and sat down with her to explain a few things.

  “The important thing for you to remember here is you are my accomplice. You brought the man here into your house. You’re as guilty as I am … and that’s where I get my peace of mind about lettin’ you live.”

  “But … but I … I didn’t know …” Gayle ran out of gas when she heard how lame her explanation sounded. Even if it was the truth, she’d have to rewrite it, and she didn’t think Didi would help her with the phrasing.

  “See, baby, it sounds bad even to you. So, here are a few other facts you best remember. Nobody in the whole wide world knows I’ve been here. And that dead body over there, and a shitload of physical evidence in your house, it’s all on you.”

  For the first time, Gayle noticed that Didi was wearing surgical gloves. She’d done enough rewrites on thrillers to know what that meant. Didi hadn’t left any fingerprints on the murder weapon, and there’d be no gunpowder residue on his hands.

  Didi added, “Could also be some sharp-eyed sonofabitch even noticed you picking up that poor fellow.”

  And though she’d ducked her head at the bar, Gayle knew the waitress who brought that goddamn stout to their table must have seen her with Ring. She was trapped, and she knew it.

  “What do you want me to do?” she asked quietly.

  “Just play along, baby. You ’n’ me, we’ve had some good times. No reason why we can’t part friends.”

  “You’re really not going to kill me?”

  “Not unless you lose your head and start screaming to the first cop you see. Hell, maybe not even then. Because I believe you really understand you’re in too deep to ever get out clean.”

  Gayle nodded involuntarily. Fatalistically.

  Didi smiled and instructed her, “Now, go on over there and take the man’s wallet out of his coat. Find the card key to his hotel room. Leave as many fingerprints on it as you can.”

  She did as she was told, too stunned by how her life was completely under Didi’s control. Colin Ring’s eyes were still open as she bent over him, trembling. He seemed to watch her with lethal disapproval. If she’d written this scene, he’d jump up and crush the life out of her just as she took his wallet. But she lifted it from the inside pocket of his coat without
any trouble, other than struggling to keep her stomach down.

  But when she turned around and saw Didi closing all the windows, that scared her as much as Ring coming back from the dead would have.

  “Why are you doing that?” she asked in a plaintive squeak.

  “Shit draws flies, baby, and you got a two hundred pound sack of it just layin’ there.”

  A wave of relief passed through Gayle that left her weak. He wasn’t going to kill her — yet. But what Didi had said made her ask. “You mean we’re going to leave him here? In my house?”

  “Can’t think of a better place,” he said, stepping over and taking her arm. “Just one more reason for you not to talk to any cops. And for me not to ace you. Come on now, you got to break into the man’s hotel room. And then we’ll go see Reverend Thunder, maybe ask him to pray God forgives us our wicked ways.”

  He led Gayle down to her car and soon they were on the road.

  Didi had no intention of letting Gayle live, of course. But, as a business practice, he’d come to believe in just-in-time dying. That was, never kill your mark a minute before he had exhausted every last ounce of usefulness.

  He’d gotten the idea from the time he’d been given the job of taking out a big shot from the auto business. The guy had thought he was so famous he could hump and dump the daughter of a Mob wise guy and get away with it. Well, that old boy had learned better.

  But before he had, Didi’d been obliged to sit and listen to his target talk to a group of his colleagues at a convention. The man had about bored Didi to death. But then he let loose with this one little nugget about the just-in-time delivery of auto parts. Said it saved the modern businessman all sorts of grief. Didi had embraced the idea and made it his own.

  Paid to keep your ears open.

  So, ol’ Gayle’s number wasn’t up just yet, but the countdown had definitely commenced.

  Chapter 46

  The bloody hammer lay beneath the thick branches of a Douglas fir, right where the caller had said it would be.