Текст книги "Snowball in Hell"

Автор книги: Josh lanyon

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«I know.»

«Seems to me like that kind of-«

«I know,» Nathan said again, and this time he couldn't keep the irritation out of his voice.

When, at last, they began to fuck it was very good and Nathan bit back his desire to ask for more-this was all new for Matt and Nathan didn't want to shock him or scare him off. It would be easy to do. It was clear to him that Matt had more enthusiasm than experience. It didn't matter. He was willing to trade a lot for the pleasure of sleeping in Matt's arms again, and when they had finished, pleasure echoing through him like the last vibrating note of a choir of angels, he turned to Matt and folded close.

Matt's lips pressed against his forehead; Nathan could feel he was smiling.

He'd never slept as well as he had in the past two nights.

On Sunday morning they were driven down to Indian Falls in the hotel station wagon, and they caught the first available train back to Los Angeles. There was no chance for further intimate discussion, so they talked trivialities, and somehow those seemed newly significant.

As the mountains flattened out, and the pine trees gave way to cactus and desert and then houses and gardens, Nathan began to dread the swift approach of Los Angeles.

He could feel Mathew's withdrawal, although each time their eyes met, Mathew smiled fleetingly, and the knowledge of what they had shared was in his eyes.

In Union Station, things happened very quickly, and they were out front on the pavement while the never-ending flood of passengers and friends and family parted around them.

Nathan said, «Can I drop you somewhere?»

«There's a car coming for me,» Matt said.

Nathan nodded. He knew he shouldn't ask, already knew what the answer had to be, but he asked anyway. «Will I see you again?»

Matt said brusquely, «I'm not leaving town.»

And that pretty much answered Nathan's question. He nodded, turning away, and Matt caught his arm. He immediately let him go, and said quietly, painfully, «It's not that I don't-I'm a cop, Nathan. It's … too dangerous.»

Nathan nodded. Smiled suddenly. «I know. Nice to have had a taste of … what it could be like. That's more than I ever thought I'd have.»

Matt's face twisted as though Nathan had said something terrible, and Nathan wanted to reach out and reassure him that he meant it, meant every word. That he was truly grateful for these few hours, that it was the best Christmas ever. He had no regrets at all, despite the fact that he wished he hadn't woken up this morning, that perfect happiness would have been to have gone to sleep in Matt's arms and

never opened his eyes again. But of course he couldn't say that, and he couldn't reach out. He could never touch Matt again.

Instead he said softly, «Take care of yourself, Mathew.»

Chapter Eight

«How'd you make out?» Jonesy asked, as Matt climbed into the car.

Matt grunted. In his mind's eye he was watching Nathan's long-legged stride across the Union Station parking lot, hat dipped at a rakish angle, apparently not a care in the world. Nathan was fine-so why was Matt's gut knotting in anxiety?

«How's Mr. Doyle?»

«Good as new,» Matt replied. «He just needed a couple hours sleep.»

«Didn't do you any harm either,» Jonesy said.

«Who are you, my mother?» But Matt grinned. Jonesy had known him since he was in short pants. Then the flicker of curiosity in the older man's eyes caught his attention. «What?»

Jonesy shook his head. «Were you able to get anything out of him?»

«He's not our man.»

«No? He's sure as hell hiding something.»

«Everybody's hiding something, Jonesy. «Even you, I guess.»

Jonesy chuckled. «Mebbe so, mebbe so.»

«Still no sign of the Jarvis woman?»

«Near as anyone can tell she stepped onto that train and vanished into thin air.»

«Swell,» Matt said gloomily. «You're watching her place and the Las Palmas Club?»

«Yep, and we're watching Sid Szabo's apartment, but I don't think she'd be dumb enough to go back there.» Jonesy turned south on Alameda, pausing for two jaywalking ladies laden with Christmas parcels. He gave a low whistle, and Matt shook off his preoccupation long enough to notice the women.

Nice looking women. He realized with something like shock that he was missing Nathan-it was like a pain you couldn't quite put a name to. Maybe it wasn't so strange after spending almost forty-eight hours in each other's company, but he missed the sound of Nathan's voice, and his quiet laugh. He even missed the smell of him.

He shook off the feeling, and said crisply, «Tell me about the dough you found at Claire Arlen's.»

Jonesy put the car in motion. «The five hundred dollars she claims she didn't know anything about?» He smiled. «Well, sorry to disappoint you, Loot, but that money didn't match up with the serial numbers on the ransom money.»

«So where'd the money come from? Old man Arlen cut the kid off, and I didn't get the feeling Arlen's wife was the thrifty kind.»

«She stuck to her story. Said she didn't know anything about the money. Had no idea how it got in her handbag.»

Matt's eyes rested on the Christmas garland stretched across the street. Funny how bedraggled Christmas decorations looked the day after Christmas. «Let's bring Carl Winters in again,» he said. «In fact, bring Claire in too. Let's have a brother and sister act.»

Nathan went home to his apartment, collected the gift he'd bought weeks ago for his mother, and headed over to Glendale and the house he'd grown up in.

His mother must have had a lonely Christmas on her own, although he didn't see how that would be possible what with her church dinners and all her church friends and her church activities, but she hugged him as though she'd never expected to see him again, and there were tears in her eyes when she finally let him go.

There were more tears when she opened his gift: a fuzzy pink cardigan. He felt foolish at the impulse that had prompted him to buy it. She didn't wear fuzzy things or even pink.

«Oh, Ma,» he said uncomfortably. She was not an emotional woman and this sudden display of sentiment made him uncomfortable.

She wiped her eyes. «When you didn't come yesterday I thought maybe … maybe something had happened to you.»

«Like what?» He felt vaguely alarmed at the way she wasn't meeting his eyes.

But she brushed that quickly aside, insisting that he stay long enough to eat a sandwich and drink a glass of milk. «We had real turkey at the parish Christmas dinner,» she told him proudly.

«Good,» he said, swallowing a lump of dry bread and dry turkey. She had never been much of a cook-or even much of a sandwich maker, but then neither of those things was required to get into heaven.

He thought of the turkey and stuffing and mashed potatoes at Little Fawn Lodge. It all seemed like a dream now. His eyes fell on the nativity meticulously arranged on the long table behind the sofa. The only time she'd ever slapped him was when she once found him once playing with the nativity-he'd had a couple of those handsome hand-carved archangels holding some earnest discussion with a couple of the tin reindeer requisitioned from the Christmas tree.

She chattered on about midnight mass and Father Brennan's sermon, and then she jumped up and brought him a small gift from beneath the fake miniature Christmas tree perched on the dining room table and decorated with tattered ornaments he'd made through his school years.

He put the sandwich aside and took the parcel. She stroked his back as he opened it, and he felt another flare of nervousness. He couldn't remember her ever being so demonstrative since he had been a very small boy.

The present was a pen, a very nice, expensive pen. One of those Parker Blue Diamonds.

«For the novels you're going to write one day,» she told him, and she swallowed hard as though she were ready to start weeping again. And, as he stared at her red-rimmed eyes, he realized she had been afraid that he had killed himself.

«Thanks, Ma,» Nathan managed. He stared at the pen, and then he hurried through the rest of his sandwich, telling her that he had to get over to the paper right away.

They were still celebrating at the Tribune-Herald. There were several bottles of homemade hooch-mulled wine and that sort of thing-circulating with a couple of trays of Christmas goodies-everything a little less sweet than it had used to be because of sugar rationing.

Nathan had a couple of drinks-fortifying himself after the visit to his mother-and spent the next few hours doing a little research and dodging his editor.

«Sid Szabo,» he asked at large, remembering that overnight bag Szabo had toted away from Pearl's rooming house. «He any relation to the Szabo Alligator Farm out in Lincoln Heights?»

There was a bit of debate on this point-a few people holding out for the theory that Sid was more likely to be related to a snake farm if there was one available-and in the end Nathan took his coat and hat and left them still debating.

Supposedly the Szabo Alligator Farm had only been around since the early 1900s, but it could have been from the Stone Age. Nathan parked beneath low hanging trees in the empty parking lot, and entered the park through a long white stucco building with a slim, two-story columned portico. The gift shop-offering baby alligators for sale-and ticket booth were closed, but he climbed over the turnstile and walked along the shaded path, crossing a small wooden bridge over a large dank pond filled with sleeping alligators.

According to the sign out front there was supposed to be over one thousand alligators and crocodiles, some more than two hundred years old, inhabiting over twenty miniature lakes.

He wondered if the alligators ever climbed out of their swimming holes, and if they were able to scale the slopes leading to the deeply shaded pathways. Stepping on one of those three hundred pound babies would be an unpleasant surprise for everyone involved. Glancing over the side of the bridge at the slithering tangle of reptiles, he decided they looked pretty tired; it was probably a little cold for them this time of year. Cold for him too. He missed the warmth of North Africa.

Over the murky smells of wet earth and slimy water, he could smell wood smoke. And through the dense foliage of weeping willows, he saw the twinkle of lights: a farmhouse in the back of the park. He picked up his pace, footsteps sounding dully on yet another little wooden bridge.

It was a creepy place, no doubt about it and it was hard to picture Pearl Jarvis in her high heels and faux furs trotting along these rustic bridges and uneven dirt trails. But she was hiding somewhere, and, Nathan had to admit, this was a pretty good hideout. Especially off-season.

He came out of the woods, and there was an old house behind a new and sturdy-looking chain link fence-probably to keep the alligators and crocodiles from paying a social call. Several yards behind the house was a large empty field. Two men stood beside a pick-up truck, and they appeared to be digging a deep hole.

Nathan watched them for a moment, then he reached over the substantial-looking gate, lifted the bar, and let himself in. He closed the gate firmly behind him.

He went up the paved path to the house and knocked.

Nothing happened.

He knocked again. After a moment or two, the door swung open and Pearl Jarvis, in dungarees and a man's sweater, stared back at him. She was holding an old Webley revolver, and it was pointed at his chest.

* * * *

«You can't hold me,» Claire Arlen was protesting for the nth time. «I'm an Arlen. I'm Philip Arlen's wife!»

«Well, you were,» Matt replied. «Now you're his widow. We're trying to figure out if that was by accident or design.»

The door opened and Carl Winters was ushered in-none too happily-by Jonesy. Jonesy raised his eyebrows at Matt, and Matt said, «Sorry for the inconvenience, Mr. Winters-«

«This is harassment,» Winters interrupted furiously. «How many times am I to be subjected to police interrogation? I've answered all your questions. Again and again! I didn't kill my brother-in-law, and the fact that you would drag my sister– his widow-out, when she's ill-«

«It's all right, Carl,» Claire said, although she'd been saying pretty much the same thing herself since she had arrived.

«I didn't realize you were ill, Mrs. Arlen,» Matt said. She didn't look particularly well, but there could be a number of reasons for that-including guilt.

She said coldly, «I'm expecting a baby. And when Benedict Arlen hears the way you've treated me, and endangered the life of his grandson-«

There was what might be appropriately called a pregnant pause.

Matt fixed his gaze on Claire Arlen with the sensation of having been sucker-punched. He could feel Jonesy's eyes, but he didn't dare look at him. This was a bad oversight on their part. He knew how Jonesy felt, but that couldn't be helped now.

«Congratulations,» he said. «Did Phil know about the baby?»

«Of course he knew!»

There was something odd about the way she said that. Matt couldn't put his finger on it. Had Phil known and not been happy about the pregnancy?

But a baby would have improved things with old man Arlen, of that Matt was sure. The first grandkid? The first child of his favorite son? Yeah, that would have softened old Benedict up, probably convinced him to reinstate the black sheep's allowance-or maybe even increase it.

«I guess the family was pretty happy about the news?» he tried.

«I suppose so,» she said stiffly.

Huh.

«Why are we here?» Winters demanded. «I can't believe that I and my sister are your only suspects! What about organized crime? The mob? What about that reporter, Doyle? He was there that night. Perhaps he's your kidnapper. Reporters have all kinds of unsavory underworld contacts.»

«What would his motive be, Mr. Winters?»

«Phil must have been-well, how should I know? I'm sure Doyle needs money. He's been around asking all kinds of strange questions. Why aren't you questioning him?»

«We have questioned him,» Matt said. «Now we're questioning you.» He turned to Claire. «Speaking of money, have you had time to remember where you got that five hundred dollars we found in your purse?»

«How is that your business?»

«I gave her that money!» Carl Winters was white with fury. «I put that money in her handbag on Saturday night. You mean, that's why you dragged us down here?»

«If that's the case, why didn't you say so?» Matt asked Claire evenly. He was starting to get mad. Why hadn't this obvious explanation been explored? What the hell kind of background checking had Jonesy and his men done that they hadn't uncovered Claire Arlen's pregnancy or the fact that her brother was occasionally financing her household? This was supposed to be Jonesy's case, and Jonesy had as much or more experience as anyone on the squad. Some bad mistakes had been made with this investigation, obvious things had been overlooked.

«I didn't know!» Claire was raging. «I never left the house or looked inside my purse until your apes pointed that money out to me.»

«Claire, honey.» Winters patted her shoulder awkwardly. «You mustn't get so upset. It's bad for the baby.» He turned to Matt. «I slipped that money inside her purse because they were broke, and Phil wasn't capable of taking care of her. He couldn't take care of himself!»

Something wasn't adding up.

«Why didn't your husband's family … if they knew you were going to have a baby?» It was like feeling his way in the

dark. All at once he was very much aware of how delicate this situation was, and that his own career might be riding on how he handled the next thirty minutes.

Claire flushed, and said, «They didn't know about the baby until Sunday night. I told Phil first, of course. I was hoping … I was giving him a little time to adjust to the idea … before I told Dad. But then when they told me he'd been kidnapped-«

«Wait a minute,» Matt said. «Are you telling me the kidnappers didn't call you?»

«Why would they call me? I don't have any money. Phil didn't have any money. They called Dad.»

The kidnappers had known for a fact that Claire Arlen would be unable to meet their ransom demand. Knew the Arlen family's domestic arrangements so intimately that they had gone straight to the old man right off the bat.

«So you never heard the voice of the woman who called with the ransom demand?»

She shook her head.

The office was silent.

«You think I would have recognized her voice,» she said slowly.

Carl Winters was looking from Matt to Claire bewilderedly.

«Let me ask you something,» Matt said. «Say your husband wasn't really kidnapped. Say the kidnapping was just an excuse to bump him off. Who would you say had the strongest motive for getting rid of Phil?»

«You can't ask her to answer a question like that!»

«I am asking her,» Matt said.

Claire said slowly, «Phil's brother, Bob. I guess Bob had plenty of reasons to wish Phil was dead.»

* * * *

Having barely recovered from the last time he was filled full of lead, Nathan was keen not to repeat the experience. And he didn't trust the way Pearl Jarvis held that Colt. Her hand shook, and she had a wild-eyed look he didn't like.

He said-not moving his gaze from the dead eye of the revolver aimed at his chest, «And here I was afraid it was you they were burying out back.»

Amazingly, she laughed. Her voice wobbled a little as she replied, «They're burying Big Al. He was the granddaddy of a lot of these gators. He was two-hundred and fifty years old.»

«That's a good long life.»

«His hide is so tough they can't use it for anything. But they're keeping his head. And his claws.»

«Is that so?»

She nodded tightly.

You found yourself a great little hideout,» Nathan said. «That's for sure.»

«Hideout? You make me sound like a criminal!» Her eyes narrowed. «I didn't do anything wrong.»

«Well, I know you didn't kill Phil,» Nathan said, «because you're frightened to death of whoever did. You've been running scared since it happened.»

The gun wavered, and he reached out and gently redirected her aim away from himself. After a moment she lowered her arm, finally taking a step back, letting Nathan

into the house. «You're that reporter, Doyle. Sid told me about you. He said you were trying to find me. You followed me to Little Fawn Lodge.»

«And Sid's boys followed me.»

Her gaze slid away from his. «Sid's just trying to look out for me.»

«Who's he trying to protect you from?»

She swallowed hard. «Want a drink?»

«Sure.» He followed her into an old-fashioned parlor, pausing for a moment on the room's threshold. There were lamps made from alligator feet, stools and chairs upholstered in alligator and crocodile skin, and a mounted alligator head on the wall.

Reading his expression correctly, Pearl said, «Yeah, and you should hear them bellowing at night. The alligators, I mean, not Sid's folks. B flat, I think.» She dropped the revolver on the wine cart with a clatter that did nothing for Nathan's nerves, and poured two thimblefuls of sherry from a small decanter. She offered a fragile amber glass to Nathan and made a face. «It's all they have here. Funny Sid coming from a family like this!» She swallowed the sherry in a gulp.

Nathan took a mouthful of sweet sherry, and controlled a shudder. «You know,» he said, «the safest thing for you to do is tell me exactly what you know. Once you've spilled your story there's no incentive for anyone to hurt you.»

«You don't think so? You think that wife of his wouldn't like me to pay for stealing Phil from her?»

«Is that what happened?»

She nodded, tears filling her eyes. «We were going away together. We were going to Buenos Aires.»

«After Phil's dad paid the ransom.»

She stared at him, and Nathan almost laughed.

«Well, nobody can find any trace of these kidnappers before or since Phil was nabbed. You and Phil set it all up, didn't you? So you'd have money to run away together?»

She nodded.

«What happened?»

She gnawed her lip. «Everything went fine. Phil picked up the money at the Observatory. They must have followed our instructions just like we'd planned. He was supposed to meet me in the back of the park. I was waiting in the car. He came hurrying along the path holding a bag, and I remember I turned the engine on, turned the headlights on so he could see. It was so dark and muddy. But a few feet away he stopped and turned around like he heard someone following him. Like someone called his name. And a man came running up the path behind him, and Phil stood there, and he shot him.» She stopped and covered her face. «Just like that. Shot him dead.»

«What did the man look like?»

She looked up out of her hands, and her face was horror-stricken. «I couldn't tell. Tall, thin. He was wearing a black rain coat and a black hat pulled low. I didn't recognize him; his face was just a pale blur. He fired at me-at the car-and I threw it into reverse and drove away. I should have run him over! But I panicked and I drove away.»

Personally, Nathan thought retreat had been Pearl's best bet. Phil's killer had been cold and steady as steel. «You're sure you didn't recognize this man?»

«I didn't get a clear look at him. First Phil was standing between us, and then-she gulped-all I saw was the gun.»