Dead Wrong About the Guy Read online

  "Don't quote prices to me. I'm just the estimator."

  "I figured the price would be a straight-forward--"

  I was grinning, a gambler with a superior hand. "Oh, no, Mister Corky Collins. Whacking somebody you love is a serious thing. It's got to mean something to you." I poked Corky's chest with a stiff finger. "Just so you can appreciate what we're doing for you." I poked him harder. "And you will pay whatever the price is."

  "That's all I can afford!"

  "We'll be the judge of that."

  "Hey, you already got a grand!"

  I rejected that. "Expenses."

  "Okay. But if it's a deal, then that grand is part of the final price."

  I laughed, but didn't disagree.

  "So how soon will I know?"

  "I will look things over first. All that takes time." I faced the ocean again. "Some things I already don't like the looks of."

  Corky tried being bold. "Maybe I should get somebody else to do the job."

  I turned back, changed my tone of voice, got low and menacing. "As of now, we are the only bidders on the job. There are no others until after we make our decision."

  Corky made a rude noise.

  "You don't talk to any other outfits and you don't take matters into your own hands."

  Corky tried being cocky. "Or else--?"

  "Or else we whack you," I said.

  Corky backed down. "What else?"

  "I want a copy of every key on your key ring. We don't know which one we'll need, and we may need it in a hurry."

  "It's gotta be authentic--" Corky said nervously.

  "If we jimmy while she's alive, anything can happen. She can call the cops. She can protect herself with a kitchen knife. Once she's dead, we can go back and jimmy the locks to make them look right. By the way, you got a dog at home?"

  "Yeah," Corky said, mystified.

  "Get rid of him now. Before we need to have him gone. Before people notice him gone on the night we do it. And we need a map of your house. Every room and who's in it."

  "How soon?"

  "Go home and start now. Take your time at it. Let's do it right while we've got the time."

  I walked away, followed by Flea, leaving Corky Collins behind.

  Flea was impressed by the complimentary fruit basket in my room at the Beach Chalet. The hotel was on the beach at Kaanapali. It was as expensive as Las Vegas, but the room had more light and more fresh air. And of course the room had a view of the ocean.

  I ignored him, the basket and the view and kept paging through the newspaper I had bought earlier in Lahaina. One headline on page ten read "Senator Urges East Maui Nat'l Park."

  I said, "What's different between Maui and Vegas for you, Flea?"

  Flea was confused and defensive. "I like Maui because it's dark at night. In Vegas you never know if it's day or night. Ever notice they got no clocks in the casinos?"

  I stared at the headline. "I think that's my handle." I considered all the angles, liked how they connected, then said to Flea, "If anybody asks, I'm working with the National Park Service."

  Flea did not understand. "How come?"

  I set down my paper. "It just dawned on me. Flea, you're not even making expenses on this deal."

  "I'm getting those checks back."

  "What happens when it's over? What do you do next? Where do you go?"

  Flea didn't understand. "I don't go nowhere. I stay here and do the same things I did yesterday, last month, the same things I did before all this shit started."

  "Why stay here?"

  "There's no place else I want to be. Everybody's got a place like that. You got Vegas, don't you? It's the same thing with me."

  "How much were the checks for?"

  Flea tasted bile with each word. "Five bills."

  "For what? What did you spend the money on? Women? Dope? Are you back on the booze?" I remembered: "Horses!"

  Flea squirmed. "I thought I had one this time."

  I laughed. "Flea, you're always dead wrong on everything!"

  "The horse couldn't run, that's all."

  "One race or a bunch of races?"

  Flea was silent, condemning himself.

  "What else has he got on you?"

  "Just the checks, Mister Paoli."

  I disbelieved. "You were willing to escalate yourself up to Murder One just because some local yokel's got you for bad checks?"

  "I wanna stay here," Flea said. "I like it here. Back in Vegas a guy can end up dead for dumb reasons."

  "Better than risk getting busted for bad paper, you agree to solicit Murder One."

  Flea had nothing worth saying.

  "Didn't you never think that just maybe going to county jail for six, seven months for bad checks was smarter than committing Murder One for somebody else?"

  Flea was consumed by anguish. "I don't want to do any more time."

  I was sour. "No, Flea, you wanted to get us involved instead." I became somber. "You know, Flea, there is going to be an accounting."

  But Flea had given up. "What choice did I have?"

  Twilight brought a calming of the sea, and most boats returned to their harbor. I showed up at the Pier Inn, where that skinny young waitress was busied herself busing tables. I took a table near her. I let her wait on me.

  "Could I have some coffee?" I said. "Black."

  She brought my coffee and set it in front of me.

  My hand swept out over the chair on the other side of the table. "How 'bout joining me?"

  She was wistfully smiling. "I couldn't." She glanced at the clock above the jukebox. "I got customers."

  I spoke with my sexiest voice: "Please."

  Slowly, she slid in across from me.

  "Michael Bishop."

  "Ivy Lawson."

  "Ivy's a pretty name," I said. "How’d you get it?"

  Ivy sloughed it off. "I was born two months premature. My mom and dad said I was hardly a handful. He named me Ivy because of how I was clinging to life, after the doctors had given up on me. Where are you from?"

  "Las Vegas."

  "What do you do for a living?"

  "I work for the National Parks Service.

  Ivy started laughing. "Smokey the Bear!"

  "Hey, somebody’s gotta. How do you like living here?"

  Ivy fell into a black mood again. "I hate it. The only thing to do here is sit around and watch night fall."

  I was smiling. "So why not leave?"

  Ivy appraised me. "D'you want to take me away from all this?"

  I shook my head. Ivy pouted.

  She took a chance. "So, are you married?"

  "No," I said. "So, are you married?"

  "No," Ivy said.

  "You still live with your folks?"

  "Not since my dad died two years ago. Now I have my own place." She gestured down the highway. "My uncle lives in Lihue. He looks in on me now and then, sees if I'm doing okay."

  "Are you doing okay?"

  She had a sour pout. No, she wasn't doing okay.

  "So what keeps you here?"

  "This crummy job, for one thing," Ivy said. "Not enough money yet to leave." She became more upbeat. "Someday I'm gonna leave. First chance I get."

  "You might check Vegas out. There's something going on twenty-four hours a day every day. You could get a job there easily."

  "I like dancing," Ivy said.

  I was smiling. "Topless?"

  Ivy blushed. "Not with what I got."

  She pissed me off. "It's not what you got, Ivy, but how you carry yourself. Remember that. You parade, everybody notices you, and nobody notices what you got."

  She was skeptical. "Not with what I got."

  The silence stretched like a lazy cat, and we became uncomfortable with each other. But we didn't stop looking at each other.

  I started grinning again. "How about if I drive you home after work?"

  Ivy thought it over. "I don't want to go home after work." She slid out of the booth. "I gotta get back to wo
rk."

  I stayed and watched her work.

  She came back to me and said, "I feel like I'm on trial."

  "I’ll read my newspaper instead."

  "You can look now and then."

  The Pier Inn closed at nine. When we left, I helped Ivy into the passenger side. I walked around, got in behind the driver's wheel. I started the car and was ready to drive off, but the skinny young waitress stopped me from turning the ignition key.

  "All night, okay?" she said wistfully. "I mean, I don't want to have to get up and leave in the middle of the night."

  I was taken aback. "You stay all night with me."

  Ivy was relieved. Me, I got to thinking about that.

  Man, this town had treated her shabby.

  At my Beach Chalet room we made love with a full moon from an open window lighting up our naked sweatiness. If there’s one thing I’m good at, it’s taking a woman to her limit and beyond. I didn’t come by that talent naturally. A lot of hungry women in Vegas taught me how.

  Ivy clutched the mattress with both hands as I brought her to orgasm. Her eyes were closed in rapture. She cried out sharply.

  I felt like bragging about it to someone, too.

  When she was sated, Ivy still lay on top of me, nearly asleep on me. I caressed her forearms, then nudged her shoulders to move. She didn't respond, so I nudged her again.

  "Bathroom--" I murmured.

  Ivy roused herself. "Hmmm?"

  As we broke apart, her grip on my arm tightened, and she kept me from moving away.

  Ivy blurted out: "Oh, god, I love you!"

  I caught the passion in her voice. "Oh yeah?"

  Ivy was struck silent. She looked self-conscious and embarrassed. I figured she hadn’t been with many men, and all of them had been selfish. Then I started feeling something special for her.

  When I came back to bed, I said, "Let me do you again."

  Her eyes widened. When I started on her, her eyes slowly closed.

  I was feeling good, too. This was Paradise, I realized.

  How was I to know she was telling the truth?

  A blood-red sunrise came over the Pacific Ocean. Inside my hotel room we lay in bed, my arm around her, her head on my shoulder. We were exhausted, but awake.

  "Just a week and then you're gone?"

  I nodded. "I gotta work for a living, Ivy."

  Ivy had sad eyes. "I don't want to lose you."

  "We got no choice, Ivy."

  "Do me again," she pleaded.

  I teased her. "I don't know if I ought to. I might be ruining you for the next guy who comes along."

  She was in no mood for my teasing.

  She punched me. "Do me again!"

  We cruised along the highway in my Mustang.

  I looked around at the Maui landscape, marveling. I was surprised how much I was enjoying Hawaii. I looked out at the view. "It is beautiful!"

  Ivy was frowning, annoyed. "If it's beautiful, there's no work. No work means no money. No money and nothing to spend it on is no fun. Maui is no fun." She crossed her arms in protest. "All I want to do is get outa here, go have some fun somewhere."

  "The bright lights of Vegas maybe."

  "Maybe."

  "You willing to dance topless?"

  "Maybe."

  I took my time speaking. "I could see me living here."

  Ivy was amazed.

  "I like the idea of an island. A place where I can just get away from it all."

  Ivy scoffed at that. "There's no here anywhere here!"

  "It's true enough. Maybe I've just seen too much of the real world."

  Ivy understood. "You must travel a lot."

  "Yeah. Mostly the East Coast, though. I don't get much chance to work Out West. Even then it's only LA or San Francisco."

  "Out West," she said, then giggled. She caught my puzzlement. Then she felt uncomfortable and felt she had to explain herself. "Maui people don't think about Hawaii being Out West. Out West is ... " She gestured toward the Mainland. "Back East from here."

  I was amused. "I guess Out West is Back East from here."

  We parked in front of her apartment building. We sat in the Mustang, both of us unready to make a move.

  She was timid. "If I went to Vegas ... ?"

  I nodded. "I'd help you out. Help you find a job, a place to live."

  "D'you think I'd like it there?"

  I wasn’t sure. "Maybe. It's like an escalator. You just step on the escalator and you get whisked along. The floor you stop at is a matter of luck, of course. How long you stay there is up to how good you are at playing the game." I thought of all the years I had been a player. Too many years. Too many games.

  Ivy stopped me. "I just want to be free. Really free. I want to have fun. I don't want to end up a slut."

  "Nobody with me is a slut," I said, and I meant it.

  We made eye contact. I could see she wanted to believe me.

  "I'll see you for lunch, Ivy." I kissed her.

  "I got the whole day off," she told me.

  I shook my head, pained. "I gotta go work for a living."

  We kissed again. Then I left.

  On Front Street in beautiful Lahaina, the tradewinds were rustling the leaves of the palm trees. Tourists meandered in aloha shirts, shorts and sandals. Most never saw a weather-beaten two-story wooden building at the far end of the commercial strip. "The Shell Shoppe," a commercial business dealing in seashells for the tourists, was the storefront on the ground floor. Upstairs, a placard in a window said: "Income Tax."

  I stopped in front of the Shell Shoppe. Flea Nichols came down the outside staircase and climbed inside. Then we drove off.

  "You got dinner okay last night?" Flea asked.

  I nodded, watched a sheriff's patrol car pass us.

  "Where'd you eat at? The Pier Inn? Pretty good food, right?" Flea had a long pause. "D'you see Ivy Lawson there?"

  I frowned. "Magenta-haired chick, right?"

  "Pretty, isn't she?"

  I was curious. "You know her?

  Flea was distant. "She's wonderful."

  I noticed this. "You getting any of that?"

  Flea was wistful. "I wish I could. But she's too good for me."

  "Yeah. When you're right, you're right."

  Flea was confused. He wondered what he had missed.

  Flea and I watched the boats in Lahaina Bay. Behind us, Corky Collins parked his truck and then walked over to us, covertly looking to see if anyone was watching them. Any fool would have recognized what he was doing.

  "Go set it up," I said to Flea.

  Flea left us, walked to his car and drove off. Corky and I walked off together.

  "Now we can get down to business," Corky said.

  "Why should we even talk with you?" I wondered.

  Corky didn't know what to say to this.

  "We don't need you. We have our own ways to make money, and we make a good living at it. What you would pay is ... that's nothing."

  "I guess that's right," Corky said.

  "Another point, too," I said. "An ex-alkie contacts us. He's got a business deal for us. Murder For Hire. Now, don't you think that's a little strange?"

  "How would I know?"

  "This is a very strange deal. Somebody like Flea Nichols ballsy enough to contact us. Also, knowing how to contact us. And behind him, living out here somebody like you. We don't know you from Adam, and maybe we should. So what do you want with us, pal? Are you a cop?"

  "No!"

  "Maybe you're a plant trying to infiltrate us. Maybe this is entrapment. Maybe you're trying to bust me."

  "I'm not," Corky said.

  "Maybe you're for real, and playing straight with us. Maybe you're not and you're just conning us."

  "Oh, no!"

  I looked around the harbor, but I indicated all of Maui. "Not too many unsolved murders here, are there? Which means, if we whack your old lady, the only way we do it is so you got an air-tight, iron-clad alibi."

&nb
sp; "I have to have that!"

  "And maybe our guy don't make a clean getaway, gets killed or caught during the commission of a crime, or killed while trying to escape."

  Corky was adamant: "You people make your own escape."

  "Oh, we know that, Corky. That's normal. The cost of doing business. But this is a delicate situation. It can ricochet in many different directions. D'you see how fast this could become a frame-up or a set-up or a fuck-up?"

  "It's none of those," Corky said.

  "See, you're the one coming out of this with the alibi. I mean, that's the whole idea. That's why we gotta know all the answers."

  "Go ahead. Ask your questions."

  "How do you get along with your wife? D'you two still sleep together?"

  "Of course we do."

  "Ever fight?"

  "We haven't had a fight in years," Corky said.

  "Ever fought in public?"

  "Never. We get along fine."

  "When was the last time you fucked her?"

  "Last night," Corky said.

  "Were you any good?"

  "Last night I was very good," Corky said.

  "Good for you!" I marveled at the man. "You are a cold-hearted man."

  Corky was angered. "Get on with it!"

  "Does she fear for her life?"

  Corky was grim. "She should. No. She has no idea I want her dead."

  "Does she want a divorce?"

  Corky shook his head. "She thinks we're happily married."

  "Any other women in your life?"

  Corky started swaggering. "Once this is all over--"

  I gave him no time out. "Does your wife know you're horny for other women?"

  "I'm forty-six years old," Corky said. "If I stop looking at other women, I might as well be dead." He felt vehemently about this. "She thinks it's just male ego, male pride. After all, I am almost fifty years old! She thinks it's a good thing. She thinks it's cute."

  "How do you feel?"

  "My wife's gotten old. Sure, she's a year younger than me, but I feel twenty-five inside, and she looks forty-five." Corky was aware what he was saying was bullshit. He lowered his voice. "It's immoral. It's degrading. Here I am feeling twenty-five, and yet I'm sleeping with a forty-five year old woman."

  "Have you ever been arrested?"

  "Never." Then Corky hesitated, remembering. "I was arrested for drunk driving seven years ago."

  "And that's all?" I asked.

  Corky nodded. "Why?"

  "When your wife turns up murdered, if the cops got their suspicions about you already, that's the end of both of us.