Bart let the car roll out of sight and sound of the Kiely mansion before starting the engine. Set up. The fall guy. He didn’t even know who had been in the mansion. And it had almost worked.
He parked the car in the Haight and hiked up the hill to the house above the Haight that he shared with his lady. Corinne Jones. Rosenkrantz and Guildenstern might know about it — although it was in Connne’s name — but they probably wouldn’t check it tonight. They’d either think he’d have a room somewhere in the Loin and be looking for that. or they’d believe he really was in Detroit and have Detroit P.D. looking for him in the Motor City. Still, he’d decided to leave his DKA company car a half-mile away just in case.
He’d hole in here, and wish Corinne were with him tonight, instead of in Detroit. As he fell into bed, how he wanted her to be holding him in her arms — and telling him he hadn’t been as stupid as he knew he had been.
Chapter Thirty-three
On Saturday morning, O’B sent a rhymed fax to Kearny concerning a certain eighteen truck tires that he hoped would singe the Great White Father’s ears and maybe make the rest of his hair fall out. Then, because he planned to coast through the day, he had a Grand Slam at Denny’s. When Tony showed, he’d return John Little’s longbed to Cal-Cit’s storage lot. He drove leisurely to the Furniture Ranch to drop off John Little’s living room set.
That’s when his day went all to hell.
The ringing phone caught Bart Heslip in the shower. He was feeling a lot better about himself this morning, after a good night’s sleep, in his own bed, in his own house...
He’d eluded the trap they’d set for him in St. Francis Woods, hadn’t he? They’d made sure their target was home, then had reported the shooting before they did it, planning to set up Heslip for it. But he’d slipped the frame, leaving nothing to connect him with the murder. That’s when the phone rang.
A towel half-wrapped around him so he wouldn’t drip too badly on the floor, he went into the bedroom and picked up.
Maybelle Pernod’s voice said anxiously, “Bart?”
“Yes, Maybelle, I’m here. What—”
“Oh, thank the Lord!” Her rich contralto made it “Lawd” and made it hum with power. “I been tried you at the office, then thought to try there. Sleepy Ray called me an’ said to tell you don’t go anywhere near that hotel down to the ’Loin. The cops all over your room, he stood in the hall an’ axed dumb questions an’ got tole a big politician was murdered with a shotgun last night, an’ that they found a sawed-off twelve-bore scattergun hid under the mattress in your room.”
Heart plummeting, he said, “Who was it, Maybelle?”
“That Irishman in the Assembly — Rick Kiely.”
He sat down on the bed, and to hell with a wet spread. The heat over this killing would make the heat over the Petrock killing look like a match flame. Dumb? Dumber than dumb. Idiotic. After thanking Maybelle, he just sat there, slumped.
He’d thought he was the big smooth private eye, worming his way into the heart of whatever conspiracy had gotten Petrock killed. Meanwhile, the bad guys had thought he was a stupid thug willing to do anything for big enough bucks. So they’d set up this stupid thug for the Kiely kill, and the smooth private eye had reacted exactly as if he had been that stupid thug.
The lone, sole thing in his favor was that they wouldn’t have his prints on the shotgun. But they’d sure have them all over the room where the gun had been planted. Forensics would chemically match barrel residue with the type of shells used in the killing, and any jury would convict without leaving the box.
No way out.
He sat up straighter on the bed. To hell with that. There was always a way out, until you were dead.
He punched out a number on the phone, and when Ballard growled into it, said, “This’s Bart. Is Dan still there?”
Ballard’s voice was waking up. “No. He’s probably helping guard the boy wonder until all those papers are signed.”
Heslip told him all about last night and this morning and Ballard listened, stunned, as his preconceptions came crashing down around his ears. Rick Kiely hadn’t been the villain. He’d been another one of the good guys, along with Petrock and Danny.
Now Petrock and Kiely were dead... maybe Danny, too.
“What the hell are we going to do, Bart?”
“Make coffee.” said Heslip. and hung up.
Danny Marenne had been up before dawn, had made coffee and toast with some bread he’d found in the fridge, keeping an eye out all the while for the Chronicle delivery. No TV, no radio out here at Kiely’s weekend cabin. So when he finally saw. through the beach fog. the paper being tossed on the porch of a cabin fifty yards away, he gimped over and stole it.
The headline smeared across page 1 confirmed his fears:
There were the usual meaningless photos and a straightforward account of the shooting that was continued on page A-11. Most of that back page was given over to Kiely’s life and meteoric career, stuff that had obviously already been in the paper’s computer.
When he had read the account twice, Danny sat in the living room listening to the thud of the breakers on the sand and watching the few early walkers out on the beach.
With Kiely and Petrock gone, all of his clout was gone, too. He had to get out of here. Family, or estate lawyers, would soon be out to look around, assess value... And cops would check out the place — not urgently, because Kiely hadn’t been killed here.
But they’d come eventually. Let them find him? No. Sure as hell, some corrupt cop would drop dime and the guys who’d done Petrock and Kiely would find a way to do Danny, too. He had nothing concrete to give the cops, didn’t know who had done the murders, only believed he knew who had ordered them.
So, get out of here. But he had broken ribs, a concussion, and a twisted ankle that he could just barely walk on. No car. No bicycle, even.
Only one way out of here now. He called Larry Ballard. No answer. He’d keep trying. He’d have to keep trying.
O’B tried the front door. Unlocked. He pushed it open. The room beyond was totally devoid of furniture, not a stick, not a chair, no rug, nothing. Bare walls. He sighed and walked down the hallway past the bathroom to the open bedroom door.
From inside came the creak of springs as a heavy body shifted in a bed, then a pause, a long heartfelt “Ahhh,” and the clunk of thick glass against a hardwood floor. After a few more moments, a guitar was softly strummed. A voice sang:
O’B stepped into the room and leaned his back against the wall beside the door. He blended his mournful tenor with John Little’s deep sad bass on the next verse:
When they’d finished, the song hung on the air. John Little swung his bare feet around to the floor and sat looking at O’B with his hound-dog eyes.