Mecca for Murder Read online

  After we had eaten, I stood outside and watched the sun go down. I still had the Magnum. Lasitter was in no condition for guard duty. He had gone back to the car and sprawled out on the rear seat, proclaiming in falsetto that he had been born on a mountaintop in Tennessee. After a while something sailed out of the rolled-down rear window of the car and landed off in the rhododendrons. It was the bottle of rye, now empty. I shrugged and went back inside the cabin.

  Limerock and Fawzia were sitting on the edge of one of the webbing beds. They were holding hands like a couple of kids and Limerock was saying, “And what happens after the ceremonial ablution at the sacred well, Zem Zem?”

  “Why don’t you wait?” Fawzia suggested. “Why don’t you wait and see when we get there?”

  I sat down on the other webbing bed and smoked a cigarette. Something was tickling Limerock’s funny bone. He looked at me and grinned. I grinned back at him and he started to laugh.

  “Getting to like it here?” I said.

  “Oh, never mind,” Limerock said. He was laughing so hard he could hardly talk. I looked at Fawzia suddenly, but it wasn’t contagious. Limerock’s mirth surprised her, too.

  Outside, Lasitter was still singing. A singing fool and a laughing fool. Or maybe I was the biggest fool of all, because I wasn’t going to get any sleep tonight.

  The thunderheads were piling up in the west before the sun went down. They did funny things with the sunset. They made the whole sky look like the inside of a cathedral with stained glass windows, and you could hear them rumbling a long way off. After the sun set, lightning began to dance and leap along the tops of the distant hills. The wind keened through the pines and rustled the thick leathery leaves of the rhododendron. I stood outside and watched the night and the storm engulf us. At the last moment before the storm hit, the wind stopped altogether and you could smell the wet rain on the still air. When the wind started again it was cold and brought the first drenching gusts of rain.

  I ran over to the car. Lasitter was sprawled out on the back seat, making wet noises with his lips as he breathed. The wind drove the rain in through the window at him, but Lasitter didn’t seem to mind. I opened the door, rolled the window up almost all the way and slammed the door. Then I went back to the cabin.

  Limerock and Fawzia stood on the porch, watching the rain. The porch faced east, so the rain wasn’t driving in at them. They watched it slant down like a silver wall in the black night, slashing through the pines and beating against the rhododendron and giving birth on the ground to racing muddy rivulets. I climbed up on the porch. I was drenched. Limerock was not laughing now. He had a bleak look on his face.

  “Why, you’re drenched,” Fawzia said. She herded me inside and produced a towel from Willy Harker’s linen horde. I stripped off my shirt and Fawzia rubbed the towel against my shoulders and chest briskly. A motherly exbelly dancer, I thought.

  Then she said, “Your shoulders are very hard. They’re like rocks.”

  I didn’t say anything.

  “Your chest, too. You must be strong.”

  I felt the towel slide off my shoulder. Fawzia’s lips brushed against me, then found the spot they wanted and clung warmly. She got her arms around me and leaned against my back, squeezing herself against me. She made a little noise in her throat, like a whimper. Then she said, “It’s working, Chet. Allah knows how much I want it. It’s working.”

  “What’s working?”

  “The way I feel. Chet, don’t you understand? You’re not Limerock. You’re not Limerock, but it’s working. You have me all churned up inside.”

  “Me?” I said. She had herself churned up.

  “The rain,” she said. “Like that night after Toano. The rain does something to me. In Jordan it doesn’t rain much. Rain is like a secret dream come true in the Near East. I’ve seen grown men lie in the mud, the rain beating down on them, and laugh and cry. The rain does things.” Her words came out with a lot of breath, softly but fiercely against my back. “Turn around,” she whispered. “Oh, Chet. Chet, please. Turn around.”

  Limerock was pacing on the porch outside. I could hear him, and I could hear the rain beating down. I could have Fawzia, right here, right now, and to hell with Limerock and the rain and Lasitter dreaming his liquor dreams outside in the car.

  It was some conquest. She’d take me on a spoon like medicine.

  “What’s the matter? What is it, Chet? Please, Chet.”

  I turned. Thunder boomed over the roof of the cabin. Her eyes were a deep violet now, almost black. There were tears in them and there were tears on her cheeks.

  I was going to push her away but I didn’t. Her lips were wet and parted. Her teeth gleamed. She swayed toward me, and our lips clung. It was sweet and bitter and burning. If it was the same for Fawzia as it was for me, it was everything she wanted in a kiss from someone other than Limerock.

  The green dress with, the white lace trimming was a two-piece dress. I had the bottom of the blouse in my hands and Fawzia’s arms went up over her head. She stood that way, very still, while I took the blouse off her. She looked like a pagan rain worshipper praying to her god. Under the blouse she was wearing exactly what you would expect a pagan rain worshipper praying to her god to be wearing.

  It was the damned blouse. I had the blouse in my hands. I didn’t know what to do with it. And it was Fawzia saying through clenched teeth, “Outside. I wish we could do it outside in the rain.” It was the blouse and those words, or maybe it was the ounce of sense I had left in my head.

  I tossed the blouse at her. I stalked outside. There was a noise out there, not thunder. I hit the porch on the run. A car door closed in the night.

  “Hey, Lasitter!” I called.

  There wasn’t even an echo.

  “Lasitter, is that you?”

  Something moved beyond the silver wall of the rain. The Magnum’s harness was strapped around my bare chest. I got my fingers on the butt of it and a voice said:

  “Don’t. Put your hands down, Drum. At your sides. Hold them there. Freeze like that.”

  I knew that voice. The bucket went down the well of memory and came up with a name. It had not gone down very far. The voice belonged to a big guy with a battered mug and a seersucker suit. His name was Lew Lash and he earned his money the same way I did.

  I dropped my hands to my side. Behind me, through the open door, candlelight flickered. I was a big fat bull’s-eye silhouetted against it, but suddenly I didn’t think he would shoot at all. What the hell for? So Limerock and Fawzia could go on their Hajj? It was important to him because they were paying him a few bucks to be delivered from my clutches, but it wasn’t important enough to shoot me.

  I let my knees go loose and dropped abruptly to the wet wood planking of the porch. I rolled over on my shoulder and clawed at the Magnum. A bright orange flash seared the blackness beyond the silver wall of rain. The sounds of the gun going off and the slug ripping into the split logs behind me were simultaneous. I slithered quickly across the wet porch on elbows, knees and belly. I could reach the two steps going down in a matter of seconds, but that would put me in line between Lash and the candlelight again. I came to a stop and waited. The planking was very cold against my bare chest.

  “Lash?” I said.

  He fired again. This time I didn’t hear the slug ripping into the logs. It must have gone through the open doorway.

  “Listen, you dumb bastard,” Lash said. “I can see you. You can’t see me. You’re about a foot to the right of the steps. I can see your head clearly. We’ve got the law on our side—it’s kidnaping if we want to press charges, and we’ll do it if you make us. If I have to wound you or kill you, we’ll press charges. Now, heave your gun down the steps and stand up.”

  I waited. I didn’t move. I doubted if he could see me. I didn’t think it mattered if he could. He fired a third time, and blew my theory sky high. It was close. It was so close I ate splinters.

  “I don’t know if I can do that twice,”
he shouted. He was shouting so that I could hear him over the steady drumming of the rain. “Get rid of the gun,” he called. “So I can tell you got rid of it.”

  Just then Fawzia came out on the porch. She was wearing both parts of the green dress now. “What is it?” she said. “What’s happening out here?”

  “Get back in there, miss!” Lash hollered. “Get back out of the way.”

  “Go back inside the cabin, Fawzia,” Limerock yelled.

  “Sure,” I said. “Go on back. They’re liable to splash some of my blood on you.”

  “Chet, I didn’t know about this. As Allah is my witness. Is that the other private detective? Limerock talked to me about him, but I didn’t know he was coming here. Is that he? How did he know where we were?”

  “Go back inside the cabin, Fawzia,” Limerock yelled again.

  “Chet. You’re thinking what happened in there was—”

  “What the hell do you care what I’m thinking? It’s a thousand bucks, lady. It’s only a thousand bucks. I’m not rich but I’ve seen more in one place and at one time, and all of it belonged to me. It isn’t my neck. It’s your neck if you go to Saudi Arabia. I tried to stop you. Did you think I came out here risking a kidnaping charge just to earn Limerock’s old lady’s thousand bucks?”

  “You don’t have to worry about a kidnaping charge,” Fawzia told me. “Limerock said so. There would be an investigation and a delay and we’d never get to go on the Hajj.”

  “Well, that’s something,” I said.

  “You cured me, Chet. I know you did. You cured me of Limerock. I owe you something for that. Anything you want.”

  “Yeah? Say the magic words and make your boy friend out there disappear. The one with the gun.”

  “Are you throwing the gun out?” Lash called. “Are you throwing the gun out or do I come up there after you?”

  “Look out, Fawzia,” Limerock called.

  I said, “Here it comes.” I got up on my knees and heaved the Magnum over the porch railing. I didn’t have to. I wondered if Lash knew that. I could have got up and run back inside the cabin and he couldn’t have risked a shot because Fawzia was standing there. Then I could have gone out the window in the rear room and we’d have been on even terms, Lash and I, with a lot of rain and a lot of night between us.

  Lash laughed, somewhere. I couldn’t hate the guy. I might have used the same laugh on him if the situation had been reversed. It was a hard, triumphant laugh with a faint suggestion of relief in it. He was laughing because now he knew he would not have to come up on the porch after me, both of us armed and ready to fire.

  I heard Lash’s slow footsteps, the mud sucking at his shoes. He was a dark shadow in the silver rain. Once lightning flashed and I could see him clearly, vividly, stalking through the rain. He came up on the porch with a snub-nosed .38 Colt in his big right fist. It looked like it was growing there.

  “Hello, sap,” he said.

  He frisked me swiftly and expertly. “It could have been two C-notes for you and no sweat,” he said. “Boy, did you get suckered.”

  I looked at Fawzia. She bit her lip. There were tears in her eyes again.

  “Lasitter?” I said.

  “What do you think, pal?” Lash sneered. “Your little boy Lasitter is a brother rat who knows all about the fraternity. He figures Sammy Green would give him the can, he tells me, but he says Mr. Tyler told him I’d have a job for him with my agency. Plus the two hundred bucks you could have earned, pal. Well, he’ll get the two C-notes, but there’s no job. I’m a loner. Naturally, I didn’t get to tell him that when he called me from Luray this morning.”

  Limerock came up on the porch. He was beaming from ear to ear and he thumped Lash on the back with a big hand. “Lew,” he said, “you don’t know what this means to me. You getting in touch with me last week was the best thing that ever happened to me. You know it?”

  Lash mumbled something, then said, “Give me the keys to your jalopy, Drum.” I gave them to him and he added: “There wouldn’t be another set in the car, would there?” He answered his own question. “Like hell there would be, with you trying to keep those folks from walking out on you. Go inside and get the rest of your gear, Drum. I’ll be watching you.”

  I got my shirt and jacket and returned to the porch. “Turn all your pockets inside out,” Lash said. I did so. There were no other keys. Lash tossed the ring of keys I had given him out into the rain. “Maybe you’ll be able to find them in the morning,” he said. “Hell, you can always walk down the mountain.”

  “You’re lucky,” Limerock told me. “You kidnaped us. You took us across the state line into Virginia.”

  “The Feds are touchy about a thing like that,” Lash chimed in.

  “It’s your lucky day,” Limerock said. “We’re in a hurry. We can’t call the authorities.”

  “Say thank you to the man,” Lash suggested.

  “Thank you to the man,” I said.

  The man didn’t say you’re welcome. The man took a step which placed him squarely in front of me. I saw his right shoulder go down a few inches and I could have ducked out of the way. I didn’t. I stood there and he hit me in the face with his right fist. I went sprawling through the open doorway of the cabin.

  Fawzia sobbed. The toe of Limerock’s shoe caught me just below the left kidney. It hurt plenty. I cursed and started to get up. Fawzia was cursing in Arabic again. Not for me, for Limerock.

  “Hey, take it easy,” Limerock said.

  “I hate you. I hate you!” She slapped his face. When she tried it again, he caught her wrist and forced her arm behind her back, drawing her against him. Lash turned away. Fawzia’s head jerked back and forth but Limerock finally got her still and held her that way, kissing her on the mouth. You could see the muscles on the side of her neck go rigid with rage. Then, slowly, the muscles relaxed. Her entire body relaxed against him and he sensed it and let go of her hands and her arms went up around his neck and she clung there.

  After a while they went down the two steps into the rain with Lash. Fawzia looked back at me with a sad expression on her face. They opened the rear door of the Chevvy and I could hear Lasitter mumbling as they dragged him out. Then they climbed into Lash’s car. The headlights sent two yellow tunnels through the rain. The engine coughed and growled and went into business. The car moved slowly through the mud down the hill. You could hear it for a long time, rolling through the rain.

  There was no mirror inside the cabin. I was glad. I didn’t want to look at myself. I had fumbled the ball on the enemy goal line. The opposition safety man had scooped it up and was running for a touchdown.

  Which didn’t matter. Except for Davisa’s long-distance telephone call, and a girl named Fawzia Totah. And an unknown assassin who was waiting for her somewhere in the Near East.

  It was still dark out and the rain had not yet stopped when I went into the rhododendrons to find my car keys.

  Chapter Thirteen

  The wire services, the Washington papers and the New York Times sent reporters and photographers to Washington National Airport early on Tuesday afternoon to see the first contingent of the Mecca-bound pilgrims off. The Saudi Arabian ambassador made a little speech about cooperation between our countries. He was a small, rotund man with a sharp-featured face. He spoke badly, but he was the king’s cousin and no one seemed to care.

  I watched it all from the airport observation deck. After the speech, two dozen people filed into the silver belly of the DC-7. I know because I counted them while waiting for Fawzia to make her appearance. I had spent the morning in a futile attempt to reach her by telephone, at the Lancaster Arms and at the Islamic Center. She wasn’t taking any chances. Wherever she had stayed, it was a place Chester Drum couldn’t find her. I felt hung over from lack of sleep. I felt mean. I was spoiling for a fight.

  Limerock and Fawzia were the last to board the plane. When the newspaper photographers spotted her in the fawn-colored suit she had worn out to Toano last
week, they smiled and got their graphics ready. Limerock and the Saudi Arabian ambassador beamed while the photographers arranged Fawzia the way they wanted her on the flight steps. Fawzia said cheese. Flashbulbs popped, aiding the sun. They took another, to make sure. Then the plane had Limerock and Fawzia for dessert and the flight steps were wheeled away.

  The pilot kicked his engines over one at a time and they spit out puffs of dark exhaust smoke. The traffic man snapped a smart salute in the direction of the pilot cabin and the ship rolled away toward its take-off runway. It was airborne a couple of minutes after that, winging away to the east.

  I went down to the parking lot and picked up the Chevvy. I drove the ten miles back to Washington listening to a play-by-play of the home team taking their daily thumping. I parked near my office in a one-hour parking zone and put down the sunshade with the detective gizmo on it, which might fool any cop who didn’t take a second look. And then I went upstairs to the office and sat at the desk and got drunk on gin.

  A while later, in a vagrant moment of clarity, I called down for coffee. After what seemed like a long time the colored boy from the luncheonette on the street level of the building came up with four containers of it, strong, black and hot, on a cardboard carton cover he used for a tray. I gave him a dollar and he looked at me and went away. I opened the first container and drank it as hot as I could take it. My head began to clear on the second container. I was more sleepy than drunk. I needed about twenty-four hours in bed with nothing but a foam-rubber mattress for company.

  The four empty containers were lined up in front of me. I knocked the first one over and a trickle of coffee spilled out on the desk. I had sobered up. I had sobered up so much it hurt. It left an emptiness.

  “Hello? Mr. Morley, please.” The phone was in my hand. Must have dialed it. “Jack? Chet.”

  “Do you want it?”

  “Why so glum?”

  “Because if you still want it I got it, but I remember what happened last time.”