Kill Me Tomorrow (32 page)

“They sent in the best-qualified man they could find for the job, an unusually intelligent hood whom you knew as the Reverend Stanley Archibald, but whose monicker or hoodlum nickname was Holyjoe because he had read the entire Bible and could even quote parts of it. Besides, he looked right and sounded right and had once taken a prison course in psychology, and for three years on the legit had sold vacuum cleaners.”

Well, I went on from there, and by the time I'd given them the whole thing, chapter and verse in clubs, diamonds, hearts and spades, they were charged up like cadmium-nickel batteries and went out into the town, among their fellow citizens, spreading the word; from door to door, on the phone, in one ear and out another mouth, it spread like the most-recently-invented Cambodian or Laotian flu, and in half an hour I was out there with them—and we were charging down the street.

Well, maybe not charging. Nearly all of my fellow chargers were past the half-century mark, some in the eighties and more, but most of them got along at a pretty good clip, and they were armed. Armed with bats and sticks and golf clubs, even canes and crutches. There were even a few handguns and rifles with a shotgun here and there. The first destination was the headquarters of the Sunrise Villas Security Guards.

From those of Lecci and Company still alive and conscious we'd learned that of the eighteen-man force five were Lecci's men. Strike Weeton. That left four. So the Sunrise Villans marched. At first I was leading the parade. At first.

You'd be surprised how fast some of those old boys could go along. It came upon me, too, that I wasn't the man I used to be. I wasn't the man I used to be last night, much less
two
nights ago. I sat on the curb and watched them go. It was quite exciting.

I'd pooped out a block from the Guards' headquarters. But I was able to see three uniformed men there, maybe tipped off or else attracted by the growling of the mob, and I guessed those three were three of the four because they all gave little jumps, then spun about and ran into the building.

Pursued. By the most motley crowd of vigilantes or avengers mine eyes had ever seen.

Well, it went on, and on. On most of the day. By mid-afternoon, if there was a crook left in town, he was seriously considering straightening out. A few were in the jug. Some had made it to the desert, and police helicopters were whirly-birding over the sands, spotting a fugitive now and then among the cacti.

I didn't wait to watch it all. When I figured Tony would be home again, I headed for Mimosa Lane.

I sort of staggered into the living room when Tony opened the door for me. Mrs. Brizante and Lucrezia came in, then Mrs. Brizante went back into the kitchen where she began either dancing a wild flamenco or making more raviolis.

I declined Tony's gracious, perhaps sacrificial, offer of a chair and did not sit down. I was afraid simply because of my standing here he might have to send his whole house to the cleaners.

After a litte talk I told him, “God knows what might have happened if you hadn't followed the guy you thought was Yarrow Tuesday morning. In strange and unfathomable ways our days are fashioned, what?” I was, at that point, mentally so dull I actually liked the sound of those words. So dull, in fact, that I said them again, or at least started to. “In strange … and unfath—”

“I still don't know exactly what the hell,” Tony interrupted. “You mean the man I talked to at the church wasn't Yarrow?”

“No, that was Henry Yarrow. But it was not the man you saw Tuesday morning, and followed—that guy was David Stephens. They pulled a switch on you. Having you meet Yarrow at the church was to make sure you
would
accept Yarrow as the man you'd seen—in dawn light from a distance of forty feet or more—Tuesday morning.” I paused. “Tony, to put it bluntly, the whole point of that confrontation was to con you, stick you with the convincer, and it worked. But, my friend, be damned glad of it, because if you hadn't accepted Yarrow as Stephens you simply wouldn't have come home from the church.” After a moment I added, “Either.”

He was silent, frowning. I looked at Lucrezia. “By the way, Paul Anson gave me your message, about seeing Henry Yarrow but not at the house Tony had tailed him to. Or, rather, tailed Stephens to. Including your telling Paul you knew
who
the guy in the other house was—which, of course, is why those hoods grabbed you. I take it you didn't actually mention Stephens' name to Paul on the phone, but did say you knew who he was, right?”

She nodded. “Yes, that's when I decided to drive in and talk to you myself, Shell. After Dad showed me the house where he'd seen the man go Tuesday morning, I found out David Stephens was staying there, and I already knew he was Kerwin's brother, so I was
sure
you'd want to know about that.”

“Found out he was Stephens? How?”

“Oh, that was easy. When Dad showed me the house where he thought Mr. Yarrow lived, I noticed a mailbox next door with the name ‘Murphy' on it. When we got home I looked up Mr. Yarrow in the phone book, and his address was the same as where Dad and I had just seen him—same as the one in the Sunrise Villas
News
story about you, for that matter. So I looked up the only Murphy on Palma Drive and called that number. It was easy.”

“It was, huh?”

“Mrs. Murphy answered the phone and we had a nice little talk. I asked her who lived in the house next door, and she said it was empty for a couple of months but that David Stephens had been staying there for the last week or so.”

“Just like that, huh?”

“Well, it's no secret about Mr. Stephens being here at the Villas. He's just doing his job—that's what everybody thought, anyway. The only
secret
was that Dad followed him and saw him go into
that
house.”

“Yeah. You realize those bad men were listening to you talking to Mrs. Murphy, and telling Paul about all this snooping you were doing.”

“Well, I know that now, but I didn't know it
then
. How could I? Nobody
told
me they were listening.” She paused. “And it wasn't snooping. I was just trying to—help. Everyone
else
was being a detective, so I did it, too. There wasn't anything very difficult about it. Actually, it was kind of fun.”

“Kind of … fun?”

I thought about Lucky frolicking around the tree outside the nice new church … Ace and The Nailer playing “Hit” in front of Henry Yarrow's home … the fun and games on Willow Lane … Bludgett, Bludgett, and Bludgett … the gang crowding excitedly into my suite at lovely Mountain Shadows for that swinging party … running bareheaded through the rain … and the kicks at the old King place with all the kids from Cosa Nostra.…

“I suppose it is,” I said. “Kind of …”

I gazed, dully, at the wall. I don't know how long I gazed. But somehow I got the impression Lucrezia had left the room. She hadn't, of course, because if she had, then I couldn't have put my foot in it, and naturally I put my foot in it. One simply should not become as tired as I had become. When one becomes that tired, one's brain fails to function like a well-oiled machine.

“Well, Tony,” I said. “I've got to go. Have to see a gal, and then hit the sack.”

“Gal?”

“Yeah, though I could probably think of a better word if my brain were functioning like a well-oiled machine. This one is an incendiary babe who should not be allowed within six feet of anything inflammable. Looking into her eyes is like watching two little stag movies. And built? Gotta go. Gotta go see Mary—”

“Who?” said Lucrezia, putting a lot into the one word.

“Well,” I said, “where did you come from?”

“Who?”
she said, putting even more into it.

“Ah, Mary—Mary Blessing. Mrs. Blessing. The widow. She's an old gray-headed … Well, no—I'll tell you about it some other time.”

I knew it was time to go. The shape I was in, if I didn't leave right away I'd get in trouble.

So I walked to the door and out, passing close to Lucrezia on my way. And maybe I imagined it, but I thought I detected an odd expression in Lucrezia's lovely eyes.…

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Mrs. Blessing opened the door.

I couldn't hear any music from behind her, and she wasn't doing her little dance, or making the little fun movements. But anyone could tell they were still in her, just waiting to break out.

She gave me a strange look. Everybody had been doing that, but hers was a stranger strange than any of the rest. I'd known it would be. She invited me inside anyhow. I remained standing. She sat, in that way she had. I admired her thigh. Why not? It was an admirable thigh. And she was quite a girl.

But then I got down to business. Real business. My business. “Mrs. Blessing,” I said, “it took me longer than it should have—until almost precisely six minutes past eight
P
.
M
. last night, to be … precise—but I finally figured it out.”

“Figured what out?”

“You know. When Gilberto Reyes came by here with Tony Brizante early Tuesday morning. And looking from the car saw, so the carefully contrived story went, Joe Civano. And, in some excitement, cried, you should pardon the expression, ‘Jesus Christ. Mary, Mother of God! Stop the car,' and so on. He said it in Spanish, since he often lapsed into Spanish when excited, but also—and this is important—the punctuation should be different. Like, ‘
Jesús Cristo. María. Madre de Dios
!”

“I don't understand—”

“Sure you do. Should be a period after Maria. What a difference a dot makes, what? He wasn't talking about the
Virgin
Mary, was he, Mary?”

“I won't sit here—”

“Sure you will. Gilberto didn't see Joe Civano, didn't even
think
he saw Joe Civano. He saw you. He saw
Maria
Civano.” I smiled at Mrs. Blessing, born Maria Civano. “Right, Maria?”

She protested, and denied, and showed me lots of thigh, but somehow it had lost its enchantment.

“Let's go way back,” I said. “Start with The Letch. He married and fathered Antonio, who got shot by a cop in an alley, and Angelica. Angelica married Massero Civano and they had four children, Pete Lecci's four grandchildren: first, Giuseppe—or the late Joe Civano—born nearly forty-seven years ago; two years later Andrea came along; a bit more than three years after that, Felicca; and in another two years Maria Civano was born. Which means you're over the hill, you're forty-one years old, Maria.”

“
I'm thirty-nine.…”

I smiled. “Of course. How could I have made a stupid mistake like that?”

She pulled her skirt down with a jerk. She'd known the jig was up long before her little goof. So had I, of course. But a guy has to keep in practice.

“All the Civanos,” I went on, “lived for several years in Gardena, California. For some of those same years—in the same block, even—so did Gilberto Reyes. He knew Joe. He knew Joe's little sister Maria, too. Pretty well, if I may hazard a guess. Gil hadn't seen Maria Civano in sixteen years, but I doubt he had a lot of difficulty recognizing her Tuesday morning.” I paused. “I'll give you that, Mrs. Blessing. Men would remember you. Hell, once in a while I may think of you myself … while you're away.”

She sat primly, as primly as she could sit, the wide red lips pressed more tightly together than when we'd chatted before, arms folded beneath what I had at first sight thought of as astonishingly protuberant jugs, the huge dark eyes with their long, long lashes glaring at me from under the black brows—she was quite a girl—and remained silent as I continued.

“Anyhow, Gil naturally walked up to your door, and, probably not yet at all sure if the lovely lady was indeed Maria, spoke, first to you, then to the guy you were with. Now, that was a remarkable moment, worth examining closely. Coloring everything else, motivating virtually all which followed that moment is the money, the grants all set to start pouring in from AGING, and—you know about that. Add the Cosa Nostra, black hand itching for great gobs of those great gobs of federal loot and this brief moment becomes one which, should its full implications become widely known, almost surely would prove disastrous—primarily to the
mafiosi
, that is—even catastrophic, everything wrecked, blooey. Are you following me, Maria?”

“I stayed with you up to wrecked, blooey,” she said.

She was taking this surprisingly well so far, I thought. “Fine,” I said, “because now it gets fascinating. Here is Gil Reyes standing there asking you if you're Maria Civano. That's bad. Can't have him going around blabbing that sort of thing. The possibility others might learn Maria Civano—Crazy Joe's sister, member of a Mafia-connected family, granddaughter of Pete “The Letch” Lecci—was very early in the
A
.
M
. meeting with David Stephens—the AGING Commission chairman's brother, personal representative and official right-hand man to the dispenser of the goodies—therein lay not merely the seed but the entire flower of catastrophe.”

I asked her if she minded if I smoked. She told me she didn't care if I burned. It wasn't an original comment, but at least she was still talking to me—and, though it had been light so far, I had a hunch she soon would not be speaking to me at all. I found an ashtray, lit a smoke.

“Naturally, you told Gil he was mistaken, insisted as convincingly as possible you were
not
Maria Civano, all this undoubtedly with some help from Stephens. You put some doubt into Gil's mind, some but not enough. So when he left he was still wondering if you were really Maria, and if so
why
you'd denied it. He knew the Civanos were a crime-connected, actually Cosa Nostra-connected, family—even in Gardena he'd known Crazy Joe was a crook. And still very fresh in his mind was the horribly impressive hit of Joe he'd witnessed only two mornings before. Maybe he even wondered about the increasingly visible mess here at the Villas. Certainly he was concerned, worried, confused, so what did he do? Why, just what many good, religious, confused or worried people do, he decided to talk to his spiritual advisor, the Reverend, to partake of his wisdom, seek his aid and comfort and advice, and he did, and he died.”