I shook my head. “No. And let’s not kid around. That wasn’t Valdez who was shot. That was a ringer. A decoy used for that very purpose — so someone would kill him! So you could spread the word that Valdez was dead and take off the heat.”
Trevelyn nodded. “So you know that, eh? I thought you might. I never did have much faith in the plan. Or in Valdez for that matter.”
That caught me a little off balance, but there was no time for puzzles. I made a nasty little movement with the Tommy gun. “So the real Valdez is alive and well and working for you under duress? So come on — let’s go find him. It’s the last time I’ll tell you.” I loaded my voice with menace and let my finger tighten on the trigger.
He was a stick-legged and paunched old sphinx in a dark blue dressing gown. He didn’t move. His eyes taunted me behind the dark glasses. When he spoke his voice was casual and unafraid and I began to sweat a little. Maybe this wasn’t going to be so easy.
“You don’t make a very good zombie,” he said “Too intelligent. But still not intelligent enough. Or your information is faulty. You haven’t got me, son. I’ve got you! I’m the spider and you’re in my web. What do you say to that?”
I had memorized the precis Hawk gave me in Key West Every word flashed through my mind now.
The croaking old voice went on. “You can’t very well intimidate a dying man, Mr. Bennett. I am dying. Of throat cancer. I have had three operations already and there isn’t anything left to cut out. I might live another two months, they say. They are the best specialists in the world and I believe them.”
I accepted that as truth. Accepted it and began trying to find a way around it.
Before I could say anything the girl got into the act. This time I placed the voice tone and inflection. Under stress she reverted back to Hell’s Kitchen.
“Why don’t you take off, Junior, and go back where you belong. You do that, and don’t cause no more trouble, and maybe my sweet old P.P. will let you live.”
The black man chuckled. Laughed. Turned over and buried his face in the pillow, his well muscled shoulders shaking.
Still trying to figure a way around this block, I gave the girl a sad smile. “You disappoint me, honey. I thought I was saving you from a life of shame and degradation. I intended to take you back to your mother, and rehabilitate you. You know — back to school, serving milk and cookies at the local Sunday school, the whole wholesome bit. You would turn that down?”
She stared at me and bit her lip with white perfect teeth. As lovely a moron as I had ever seen. I knew what I had to do and I regretted it some. Not too much.
“You’re a crazy son of a bitch,” the girl said. “Coming in here like this and trying to spoil everything for me.” Her voice raised in pitch as she glared. “P.P. is gonna make me a movie star. He promised and my P.P. keeps his word. Now why don’t you just do what I said and take off!”
The White Rabbit was already with us. I expected the Mad Hatter any moment.
The black man was laughing. He couldn’t stop. He grabbed a corner of a pillow case and stuffed it in his mouth and he still couldn’t stop. He kept his head buried in the pillow and went— "huhhhh — huh — ahhhh — huhhhh—”
P.P., the kind ole uncle, spoke in reproof to the girl. Avuncular tones dipped in slime. “Now, Betty, honey. That’s no way to talk to the CIA. Try to be calm. Everything is going to be all right. I promise that—”
I clicked the stiletto down into my hand. The weapon glittered in the mirrors as I raised and threw it in the time of a heart beat. “You’re so goddamned right about that, Dad. Everything is going to be all right.”
The stiletto clung to her like a scarlet decoration for bravery. The cruel needle loved tanned skin beneath her left breast. Worms of blood writhed down to her navel. She stared down, poor girl, and did not believe and when at last she did believe she made a move to pluck out the steel and it was too late and she died with her red mouth open and still doubting.
Silence in the mirror room. I moved the muzzle of the Tommy gun back and forth between the black and the old man.
“Shock of recognition,” I said. “Nature of reality, P.P. Not so gentle hint. Shall we get on with it now? Or don’t you really care about those two months you’ve got left? Think of all the dirty pictures you can take in two months, P.P.”
The black man rolled away from the lovely corpse. His eyes wide, he stared and his throat was a dry well without sound. He did not yet believe it.
P.P. did. The dark glasses flashed at me. He folded his hands over his paunch and his whisper was a husk of conviction and slowly rising fear.
“You murdered her, Mr. Bennett. By God, sir, you murdered her in the presence of two witnesses! I, ah, I saw it. With my own eyes I saw it I had heard that you people were ruthless, but this — this is beyond belief.”
“You had better believe it,” I said curtly. “Now get out of that chair and take me to Valdez. Quickly and quietly with no fuss. You’re my hostage and I’ll have this Tommy gun up yours every step of the way.”
“Crude,” he said. “So crude and vulgar, you people.”
“It’s a little different,” I admitted, “when you do your own killing. Not the same as paying to have it done. Now move, you old bastard. I’m fresh out of patience.”
He shook his head. “No. I think not. I think you will just have to kill me, Mr. Bennett.”
If he wanted to play bluff it was all right with me. I could see the sweat on his bald dome. He was cracking.
I wiggled the Tommy gun at the black, who was still staring in fascination at dead Betty girl. “Pull out that stiletto,” I commanded. “Wipe it on the sheet.”
He hesitated. I cracked my voice at him. “Do it!”
He did it. He lay there with the stiletto in his hand, glancing from it to me.
I nodded to P.P. and said mildly, “You love this old bag of guts?”
The black man stared at me, his mouth working. P.P. shifted nervously in his chair. He pulled his dressing gown tighter over his ridiculous legs. He had an inkling of what was coming.
I snapped at the black man. “Do you? Love him? Lie and I’ll kill you.”
“N — no, sir. I don’t love him.”
I grinned at the black man. “Does he love you?”
Wide eyes. Lots of white showing. “I–I don’t know what you mean, sir. I don’t think—”
“That’s it,” I said. “Don’t think. Feel. Just feel. You know P.P. doesn’t love you. You know he doesn’t respect you. You know he despises you, considers you an inferior black animal. Calls you nigger, doesn’t he?”
He took a deep breath and looked at P.P. Something flickered in his eyes and I knew I had him.
“Yes, sir. He calls me nigger.”
“Okay,” I said blandly. “I know how you must feel about that. No real man would take it. And you’re a real man. I can see that. You’re a handsome and educated man and you’ve been doing dirty shows for this old pervert. You must feel dirty. I know you do. So 111 give you a chance to wash yourself — in his blood. Take that stiletto and go to work on him. Easy at first, though. Save his balls for last.” I watched P.P. from a corner of my eye. He sat unmoving. Sweat ran off his smooth skull and trickled down behind his ears.
The black man looked at the stiletto. He looked at P.P. and his mouth curved in a smile that was not pleasant. What a door into dreams I had opened for him.
Yet he was a sensible man. He hesitated. “I don’t want to die.”
I smiled at him. “We all have to die sometime. Think of what you can do to him before you die. And at least you’ll die like a man. Not like an animal, bought and paid for, screwing in public for money and for the pleasure of this horrible stinking old money bag!”