Operation Whiplash Page 3

  He thought it over, then backed away from the door after a moment and let me in. He was wary, though. By the time I got inside, he had the waist-high office counter between us. I knew he kept a hand gun within reach, like everyone else in the South.

  He still had a thin face which was usually decorated with a slow grin. His hair was a cross between reddish and sandy, his fair skin was lightly freckled, and he was so skinny every female over the age of fifteen automatically wanted to mother him. Jed Raymond was an unlikely-looking Casanova, but no careful-thinking man on the west coast of Florida turned his women loose and unhobbled in Jed’s vicinity. Which still had never hampered Jed greatly.

  He was looking me over again in the better light inside. Then he shook his head negatively. “I’m sorry if I seem a little slow,” he apologized.

  “Does the real estate business still require you to date the daughters of land developers, Jed?” I asked.

  His grin appeared. “I reckon I really should know you,” he said puzzledly. “Must be my head’s so fuzzed up with figures—” he glanced at his desk which was covered with yellow-paper scrawled notes and neatly typed forms, “—that I just can’t place you.”

  “Still doing your drinking at the Dixie Pig?” I continued. Jed had introduced me to Hazel at the Dixie Pig, a tavern she had inherited from her second husband, Lou Espada.

  Jed frowned. “That’s all changed now.” His head was cocked in a listening attitude while he tried to catalog my voice. “I just don’t recall—”

  A shadow stirred in the farthest corner of the office. It materialized into a huge brown-black German shepherd which stretched itself slowly. The big dog nosed the air, sniffed loudly, then padded toward the counter, its toenails clicking on the wooden floor. The shepherd raised himself on his hind legs, stretched across the counter, and put his front paws on my chest.

  “Kaiser!” Jed exclaimed in a scandalized tone. “I’m sorry,” he said to me for the second time. “Kaiser doesn’t usually have anything to do with strangers.” He paused as if he realized what he was saying. The dog lowered his wedge-shaped head onto my shoulder while his bushy tail wagged busily. “Say!” Jed exclaimed in a shocked tone. He couldn’t have looked more startled if he’d been struck by lightning.

  “That’s right,” I said, ruffling the shepherd’s shaggy fur. “Kaiser doesn’t need to recognize a face to know me, Jed.”

  The shepherd had been my dog before he was Jed’s. I’d rescued him from a roadside ditch after a hit-and-run driver had deliberately knocked the dog into it. During my stay in Hudson, Kaiser and I had been inseparable. When I had to leave hurriedly, I’d arranged for Jed to take over.

  It was fortunate for Jed that I had. Kaiser was the principal reason Jed was alive today. The dog might even be the reason I was alive, too. Jed, as a part-time deputy sheriff, had been point man on a roadblock set up to stop me. Jed didn’t know it was me in the oncoming car, but I could see him plainly in my headlights as I roared up on the two deputies, cruisers drawn across the highway with Jed standing in the gap between them, waving me down.

  I intended to try to smash my way through the space between the back-to-back cruisers whose snouts extended out onto the shoulders of the road, barring escape via that route. Jed was a good friend, but if he stood his ground he was going to have to take his chances, like I was taking mine.

  But then Kaiser had stepped out onto the road in front of Jed, head high, tail wagging. Somebody else will have to explain it to you, because I can’t, but I spun the wheel hard left. The car shot into a field where it hit a ditch. I catapulted out and broke a leg when I landed. I crawled back under the car and shot it out, handgun against rifles, until a deputy’s bullet exploded the gas tank in my face. After that it was the prison hospital for me, and a long, painful facial reconstruction.

  Mingled emotions flooded Jed’s expressive features as he recalled the situation, too. Disapproval was counterbalanced in his face by—what? Lingering friendliness? Grudging admiration? “Man, I never thought I’d see you in this town again!” he blurted.

  “Neither did I,” I returned.

  “Not that you didn’t do the town a favor by gettin’ rid of Blaze Franklin an’ a couple of his crooked friends,” he went on.

  “My pleasure,” I said. Franklin had starved my partner to death, trying to get him to reveal the hiding place of a sack of money my partner and I’d liberated from a bank in Arizona. I wanted to move the conversation onto safer ground before Jed’s emotions crystalized adversely. “Have you seen Hazel?” I asked.

  His face brightened. “Had dinner with her Tuesday,” he said promptly. His boyish grin returned. “I still can’t get her to go to bed with me.” He stopped, the grin fading. “I feel like I’m sayin’ things to a stranger when I look at you now, instead of jokin’ about ‘em like in the old days.”

  “Have you seen her since Tuesday?”

  “No. Matter of fact, she was supposed to call me last night if she was free for dinner. I didn’t hear anything from her. Why? Is somethin’ wrong?”

  “What do you imagine it would take to bring me back to Hudson, Jed?” I countered. “Considering how I left it.”

  He nodded slowly. “Trouble for Hazel,” he said. “But what? She didn’t say anything Tuesday night. Everything seemed fine. I didn’t ask her directly about you—” he smiled apologetically “—but she gave me the feelin’ you were together.”

  “You didn’t ask because you had a duty to perform if you knew I was on the scene?”

  He shook his head emphatically. “No duty. I resigned from the department more’n a year ago. I got tired of bein’ assigned to keep the kids out of the back seats of their cars in Locust Park. I really didn’t have the time to give to it, anyway.”

  I had the answer I needed. Jed was his own man, and that man I was almost sure I had no need to fear. “Hazel sent a messenger to get me,” I explained.

  “Get you?” he echoed puzzledly.

  I ran through the situation for him. “Naturally I went to Nate’s office as soon as I got into town,” I continued. “Which was ten minutes ago.” I paused for emphasis, and Jed looked at me expectantly. “Nate Pepperman’s street door and office door are unlocked, and he’s sitting in his swivel chair with his throat looking like a shaved pussy.”

  Jed’s hazel eyes dilated as his quick mind translated the image. “You mean—” He drew a stiffened forefinger across his throat.

  “That’s what I mean. There’s dried blood a quarter-inch thick on the top of his desk.”

  “Christ! Ol’ Nate dead?” Jed drew a quick breath. “Holy cow! Who’d—”

  “He’s been dead at least a day, maybe longer,” I cut in. “Why wouldn’t his body have been found?”

  “Nobody to report him missin’. Nate’s a bachelor. Was a bachelor,” Jed corrected himself. “An’ he always did work crazy hours. Like me. I remember now he was supposed to be at a cookout last night. People wondered where he was.” He shook his sandy head in mute wonderment. “Ol’ Nate never bothered anyone.”

  “Jed, you don’t get your throat cut if you haven’t bothered anyone.”

  “Yeah, I s’pose so.” He was staring blankly at the counter top. His tone sharpened as he looked up at me suddenly. “An’ you don’t know where Hazel is now?”

  “Correct. I was hoping you’d know.”

  “Sure wish I did. I don’t like the sound of this at all, you know?”

  “I know.”

  “I sure wish there’s somethin’ I could do.”

  “Maybe there is, Jed. I know you always keep an ear to the ground about what’s going on in town. Think back about anything you may have heard about Nate Pepper-man’s business dealings in the last couple of months. Maybe the last couple of weeks. Whatever came up, it seems to have come up in a hurry.”

  “I’ll sure try,” Jed said, but his tone was doubtful. “Nate never did much talkin’. Damn, I still can’t b’lieve he’s dead. We never had nothin’ l
ike that here.” He stopped. “Except—”

  “Except when I was here before,” I supplied.

  “Well, yeah.” He looked uneasy. “What’re you gonna do?”

  Kaiser was rubbing his cold, wet nose against my neck. I disengaged myself and eased the big dog down behind the counter before I answered. “Call the sheriff’s office about Nate for a starter. Unless—”

  Jed shook his head at the implied question. “I’d rather you did. Save me tryin’ to explain how I knew.”

  “I’ll take care of it. Then I’ve got one place that I’m hopeful about to look for Hazel. Can I reach you here in the morning?”

  “I’ll make damn sure you can. Even though it’ll be Sunday.” Jed looked at his watch. “Is Sunday.” He ran a hand through his already tousled hair. His eyes were upon the tail-wagging Kaiser who had backed away from the counter until he could see me. “Why don’t you take the dog? He might help. He almost turned himself inside out when Hazel walked into my office.”

  “That’s not a bad idea.” I raised my hand to attract Kaiser’s attention, then snapped my fingers. The dog shuffled forward, close to the floor. He launched himself effortlessly and soared over the counter-top, landing at my feet. “See you tomorrow, Jed,” I went on. “My name’s Earl Drake now.” For a while, anyway, I thought to myself. I turned toward the door, Kaiser at my side.

  “You let me know if you find Hazel, y’hear?” Jed called.

  “Find her or don’t, you’ll hear,” I promised.

  I left him standing at the counter. Kaiser and I went down the stairs, the dog in the lead. He pranced across the street, ears cocked alertly. I liked Jed’s idea better every moment. The dog would make the best point man in the country on any search missions. I opened the car door for him on the passenger’s side, and he flowed into the front seat. Evidently the big dog still loved to ride in an automobile. I resumed my interrupted trip south of town.

  I made one more stop before reaching the Lazy Susan. I stopped the car again beside a lighted roadside telephone booth. “Sit,” I told Kaiser. He gave me a canine grin. He had a ferocious-looking mouthful of teeth, and I knew they weren’t for show. The dog was absolutely fearless. Like his newly reacquired master, Kaiser had accumulated a few extra lumps because he hadn’t backed up when discretion called for backing up.

  I dialed the emergency number for the sheriff’s department after looking it up. “Nate Pepperman is dead in his office above the bank,” I said to the official-sounding growl at the other end of the line. I changed my speaking voice when I said it. We’re supposed to be living in a democracy, but some sheriff’s departments haven’t got the message. They tape-record incoming phone calls.

  “Whaaaaat?” the receiver barked in my ear. “What’d you say? Who is this? What—”

  I repeated what I’d said before, then hung up.

  I opened the trunk of the Ford before getting under the wheel again. I changed wigs, back to the one in which Robin had seen me previously. I’d even slept in it that night at the motel. Vanity, thy name is Earl Drake.

  Hindsight being flawless, I wished now I’d stayed with Robin when she returned to the Lazy Susan. A couple always attracts less attention than a single of either sex. Of course Robin had been a single before, so a husband this time around might have attracted a little attention, too. Except that no matter where she went or how she registered, Robin wasn’t going to remain a single long.

  I parked a block from the motel. “Watch the car,” I told Kaiser. His brown eyes regarded me steadily. I knew I wasn’t overburdening the dog. Anyone trying to get into the Ford without my permission was due to get hung up in a wolfish set of incisors.

  I walked on the grass at the edge of the sidewalk to muffle my footsteps. This far out of town there were no pedestrians abroad. The last time I’d been at the motel I’d driven into a waiting semicircle of lights-out police cruisers. That had been the start of the chase that ended disastrously for me fifteen miles east of town.

  I didn’t know Robin’s room number, but I didn’t anticipate any difficulty in locating her. She didn’t have a car, and an empty slot in front of a motel room door would be a good indicator. The long, low building was dark as I approached it except for its neon-lit sign and a dim night-light in the office. Through slitted venetian blinds, I could see the night clerk asleep in his chair behind the front desk. A smaller sign beneath the elaborately neon-scrolled LAZY SUSAN MOTEL said NO VACANCY.

  There were two units with no cars in front of them. I drifted down the line of motel room doors until I could put my ear against the first one without a car. When my hearing adjusted, I could hear a rasping masculine snore. I wouldn’t have made book that Robin hadn’t acquired masculine company, but, having sampled her sexual appetite, I felt it unlikely a male companion would be permitted that sound a sleep. I moved on, almost to the end of the building, to try the second carless door.

  When I couldn’t hear anything. I picked the lock. The chain latch wasn’t on, and I stepped inside into darkness. I could hear Robin’s even breathing. I closed the door, then advanced to the bed and shook a bare shoulder. “Mario?” Robin’s voice mumbled sleepily after a second shaking.

  “It’s Drake,” I said.

  She slid from the bed and turned on a lamp practically in the same movement. The effect was spectacular. Bent over as she was, a shorty nightgown covered only the upper third of her sleekly handsome bare ass. “What do—how—how did you get in?” she demanded shakily when she turned around.

  “Better keep the chain latch on if you’re fussy about what gets inside your drawers, Robin,” I advised. “Who’s Mario?”

  “A man who took me to dinner when I was here before,” she answered.

  “And for dinner he gets a key to your room?”

  She shook the implication off with no difficulty. “What are you doing here?” she wanted to know. She still looked sleepy but she no longer sounded befuddled. “I thought the idea was we weren’t going to be seen together.”

  “Unless there’s someone in the bathroom, nobody is seeing us now,” I returned. Then I got serious. “There’s been a change in the game plan, Robin.” I sat down in an armchair, and after a moment’s hesitation she seated herself on the edge of the bed. Her nightgown crept upward, and she saw my attention fixed upon the furry juncture of white, firm thighs. She made no effort to conceal the target of my gaze. I wrenched myself back to reality. “Nate Pepperman’s dead, Robin.”

  She stared at me blankly. “Dead?”

  “Very. His face is slashed and his throat is cut. You do remember who Nate Pepperman is?”

  She tried to rally from the state of rigid shock into which my information had thrust her. She swallowed hard.

  “The—the little man,” she said in a half-whisper. “But I don’t—I don’t believe you. You’re just—just trying to scare me.”

  “Why the hell should I try to scare you?” I demanded impatiently. “Pull yourself together, Robin, because I’ve got a few questions to ask.”

  She didn’t seem to hear me. Her face was chalky-looking, and the tip of her pink tongue flicked nervously at her pale lips. “?-he’s really dead?” she stammered.

  “Positively. Now get with it, Robin. I want to know where to start to find Hazel. Was anything at all said last Wednesday morning in Pepperman’s office that would give you the least idea where she might have gone?”

  She was staring across the motel room unseeingly. “Dead,” she said in a dull voice.

  “Robin!” I said sharply.

  Her eyes came into focus again. “Yes?” she answered, but it was obvious I didn’t have her full attention.

  I went over to the bed and took her by the arm. “I’ve got to find Hazel, Robin,” I repeated, spacing my words. “Where did you expect her to be when you came back to Hudson?”

  “Right here.” Her words came more strongly. She seemed to have shaken off part of her shock. “I thought she’d be right here at the Lazy Susan.�
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  I tried to recall if I’d said anything to Robin in the Stuttgart tavern about Hazel having checked out of the motel. I decided that I hadn’t. For one thing, it’s never my practice to volunteer information. “Nothing she said gave you any feeling she wouldn’t be here?” I tried it another way.

  “No.” Robin’s tongue circled her lips again. “Wh-what do you think happened?”

  “I’ll be happy to let you know when I find out.” I couldn’t keep the irritation from my voice. “What was said in Nate’s office?”

  Her eyes roved the room. Then she shook her head. “I don’t really remember.” She drew a slow breath. “H-Hazel did the talking. Find you. I should find you.”

  I was wasting time if she couldn’t remember anything.

  “I’ll come back in the morning, Robin. You may remember something by then.” I released my hold on her arm and started to turn away from the bed.

  Her hand flew up and seized my arm, halting me in my tracks. “Don’t go!” she begged. There was a note of panic in her voice. “S-stay till daylight, please! I’m—I’m afraid!”

  “Just lock the door behind me, Robin,” I said patiently, trying to free my arm. “And put on the chain latch.” Her hand-strength as she gripped my arm would have astounded me if I hadn’t witnessed the judo exhibition in Stuttgart. “Let go, Robin. Robin!”

  “Take me with you!” she said feverishly.

  I wasn’t about to take her with me. “I have to leave now, Robin,” I said. I could no longer hide my annoyance at her clinging-vine tactics. “Let go my goddam arm!”

  Instead, she pulled me down on top of her on the bed. Since her shorty nightgown was somewhere up around her ears, this created an acreage of bare flesh into which I plunged my hands in an effort to keep my balance. “Damn it, Robin!” I rasped, but the girl held on like a boa constrictor.

  Ungallantly, I punched her in her bare belly. I was able to get away from her then, but only by unprying her fingers one at a time. The nightgown had sagged from one smooth, shining-ivory shoulder, disclosing a plump, grape-nippled breast. “Shape up, Velvet-Ass,” I told her, starting toward the door.