John D. MacDonald

Dead Men Don’t Scare

Chapter One

Sculduggery

Each morning he would sleep until he could not close his eyes again. Then he would roll out of bed, pull on the yellow swimming trunks, push the bedroom door open. Down across the soft hot sand he would walk, to the hard damp packed sand, until the surf was pulling at him, waking him up. He would swim past the line of breakers and float out there for a time on his back, his eyes squinting against the sun glare.

He knew that he was watched from the hotel because, each morning as he started to swim back in, he saw the white-coated waiter bringing his breakfast down to the cabana. Each morning he showered quickly in fresh cold water, rubbed himself glowing with a coarse towel. He breakfasted alone on the tiny private patio built in the corner of the L of the cabana, an opened book at his elbow from which he glanced up from time to time to watch the sea.

Every day was exactly the same and that was the way he wanted it, because coming back to life is a slow thing and a delicate one.

After breakfast he oiled his body and lay in the sun, swimming when the heat grew too strong. In mid-afternoon he walked far down the beach and bought a sandwich at the public beach pavilion. And, as the sun began to dip toward the horizon, he showered again, dressed carefully in one of the brand new lightweight suits, and climbed the stone steps to the hotel.

He took exactly twenty minutes for each martini, and each night he drank four before dinner. He drank alone at the end of the bar, watching the reflection of the customers in the back bar mirror. When he saw his own reflection he found that it had long ago lost the faculty of disturbing him. He saw a smooth, expressionless, thirtyish face, too bland, too good-looking in a stylized way, a spare body with more breadth than thickness.

The eyes, of course, were dead. Eight years. Four years slowly dying and four years quite dead.

Each night he had dinner at seven, one benedictine and brandy at the bar, and then went back to the cabana. He would sit alone on the small patio, unthinking in the soft night. Later he would read in bed for a time, and then go to sleep. Sometimes he awakened drenched in cold sweat, his pulses pounding, his eyes open so wide that the lids hurt. But it was happening less often.

Coming back to life is slow. Sometimes it is impossible.

Behind the dead eyes there was a hardness that he could feel and taste. It was a hardness that had been acquired, had been built up in tiny layers. Once there had been room in him for love and pity and joy. Once upon a time he had been able to feel the sting of tears at just the right bars of music, or right lines of a poem, or the look in the eyes of a woman. He had to find out if it was gone forever.

Part of trying to live again was the strange sound of his own name on his lips. Ryan Kestrick. Who was Ryan Kestrick? There was a small boy of that name, running and whooping across the red brick playground of a coaltown school. There was another Ryan Kestrick, a glib college kid with a tongue too fast, belligerence balanced too precariously on a strong shoulder.

But they were dead, and all the other incarnations of that name were dead and now it was time to take up that name again in a new, forgotten way.

Each day the endless sea thrummed softly against the shore. The stars were low each night. Between the swells there was the sound of the music from the hotel where they danced out on the terrace high over the sea.

He had come down from the hotel and he sat with his chair turned so that he could look up the pale beach, silver-touched with moonlight. He had loosened his tie and he sat there, his body pleasantly tired with the swimming, glowing with the heat of the sun that had been gone for four hours.

He saw her come down the stone steps, alone, slowly, holding up the hem of the white evening dress. He watched her in the way that one watches any creature that moves in a neat, balanced fashion, taking pleasure from the integration of movement. When she reached the bottom, she took off her high-heeled slippers and put them neatly side by side on the bottom step. He knew how the sand, still faintly warm from the departed sun, would feel against the soles of her feet.

She looked tall, but he had no point of comparison. Her tanned shoulders were dark against the white dress, the moonlit sand. She was forty feet from him. She seemed to look in his direction, but he knew that she could not see him where he sat in the angled shadow of the roof edge. Her hair was a black hole in the night.

She walked to the very edge of the water, to where each wave sent tongues of foam up the slanting sand. She stood and looked out across the black sea. She stood with her shoulders back. Ryan thought that she looked a bit like those figureheads they had once used on ships.

He frowned as she walked forward three steps and stopped again. The sea soaked the hem of the dress, splashing dampness up to her knees. Drunken fool, he thought. None of my business. She took another step.

It seemed to be a waste. He sighed, reluctant at this destruction of the evening, and walked across the sand. The water smashed across her, driving her back a step.

“You!” he called sharply over the sound of the sea.

She turned quickly. Against the pale oval of her face the brows were vivid black. “You spoiled it!” she said. Her voice was low but he heard it. She walked back up out of the water and stood in front of him. He looked down into her face. She was tall.

“Go ahead, if you want to. I thought you were drunk.”

“That’s psychology, isn’t it? Like telling the child to go ahead and break the window.” There was an angry edge in her voice.

He smiled. He said placidly, “Psychology? That’s beyond me. It’s simpler than that. As long as you aren’t drunk I don’t care what you do or why.” He turned back toward his chair.

“I don’t want to be treated like a child,” she said, following him.

He turned. “Please go drown yourself, honey.”

“You don’t think I have a good reason, do you?”

“Sure you have a good reason. Your man done let you down. Or your beloved is snuffling at the wrong front door. Or you lost the money for your poor sick old mother’s operation. You dropped it on that crooked wheel in the hotel basement. I don’t care what your reasons are. I told you that.”

She bit her lip as she swung hard at his mouth. He caught her wrist, stared at her for a moment. Her eyes glowed with her fury. “Mind your own business,” she said.

“I will,” he answered gently. He released her wrist and backhanded her solidly across the cheek. It knocked her down into the sand.

She lay where she fell, her hand against her cheek, her eyes wide. “You aren’t even mad!” she said in an awed tone.

“Should I be?” He walked back to his chair and sat down. She was on her knees, sitting on her heels, her shoulders slumped, her face in her hands. Her shoulders shook, but the sea muffled any sound of weeping.

Ryan watched her for a long time. “If you need a drink,” he said, “there’s a bottle inside.”

She made no sign that she had heard. He didn’t repeat it. After a long time she stood up and walked toward him. “Where is it?”

“On the shelf by the kitchen sink. Glasses in the cupboard. The light’s on your left as you go in.”

The living room light clicked on. It shone out the windows onto the sand, dimming the moon. After a long time she spoke at his elbow. “I fixed you one too. Here.”

Ice clinked against the side of the glass. She pulled the other chair away from the shadows into the moonlight and sat down.

She sipped her drink. “My face hurts,” she said.

“Does it?”

“Who are you?” she demanded. “What sort of man are you?”

“The sort of man who wishes I’d let you alone when I first saw you.”

“Why does your voice sound so tired?”

“I am tired. You’ve had your drink. Now go put your shoes on.”

He saw the broad-shouldered man in the white dinner jacket reach the bottom of the steps. The man bent over and picked up the shoes. The girl was plainly visible in the moonlight. He came slowly across the sand toward them.

“What do you want, Rolph?” she snapped.

“Sam is ready to leave, Gria. It makes him nervous to be held up. I’ve been looking for you for a half hour.”

“Suppose I don’t want to leave,” she said.

The stranger had a wide, heavy-boned face, a small black mustache. His voice was metallic, as though it came through an amplifier. He threw the shoes at her feet. “Put those on, Gria.”

“I’m not going. I’ve met this nice man and he wants me to stay here with him.”

Rolph moved two slow steps closer to Ryan’s chair. “You aren’t very smart, friend,” he said.

Ryan looked up at him and yawned. “Please go away and take the silly little girl with you, Rolph. You’re both tiresome.”

“I ought to drag you out of that chair and punch your mouth.”

“Go ahead!” Gria said eagerly. “Do it, Rolph.”

Ryan felt the first stirring of legitimate anger. He said, “Let me promise you something, Rolph. And listen carefully, because you’ll never hear it any straighter. I would like to have you start something. I would enjoy it. You wouldn’t enjoy any part of it. That, I promise.”

“Pretty boy,” Rolph said sullenly.

He stood and stared down at Ryan for the space of five waves breaking on the beach. Then he turned and took Gria’s wrist and pulled her out of the chair, picked up her shoes with his other hand. Halfway to the stone steps he turned and said, “I don’t want to find her down here again.”

“Then put a ring in her nose. I’m irresistible,” Ryan called.

“Good night, darling,” Gria called.

Later he tried to go to bed. It was no good. Something had made him restless. He thought of the shape of her mouth. He swam out, far and hard and fast. He thought of the process of learning to live again. Maybe a woman would hasten that process. The right woman. A wild, crazy kid like Gria. Odd name. Maybe some of the adolescent anguish would rub off on him.

After he had showered and toweled himself dry he found it easy to drop into the measureless chasm of sleep.

He lay on his back with the sun burning into him, his forearm across his eyes. Gulls dipped at the surf, croaking their complaints, their endless disappointments.

“Good morning, Ryan,” she said.

He sat up abruptly. Gria knelt beside him. She wore a pale green two-piece suit. She was taut and brown, yet modeled with the clean and perfect lines that sculptors seek for. In the sunlight her hair picked up odd bluish, greenish glints.

“Oh. You got the name from the desk.”

“Ryan Kestrick. I like the name. I’m Gria Baidee.”

He looked at her dark eyes. “You’re older than I thought.”

“I wouldn’t call that flattering. I’m twenty-four.”

“You acted about eighteen.”

“I suppose I did,” she said in a matter-of-fact tone. He liked her better for it. “Rolph was furious. At himself, mostly, I think.”

“Because he backed down?”

“Yes. I told Sam about it and Sam laughed. You see, Rolph used to be a fighter. He keeps himself in good shape. He could have licked you, you know.”

“Did Rolph send you down here to build up his reputation?”

“Damn you, Ryan! You make me mad with everything you say.”

He lay back and covered his eyes. “Then go away.”

“I wish he had licked you.”

Ryan propped himself up on one elbow and smiled at her. “You are a nice kid. You live in a nice world where everybody fights with rules. I had one leg crossed over the other, with my ankle on my knee. If your ridiculous friend had taken one more step toward me I would have smashed his kneecap with my heel. They’d have had to carry him up those steps. I don’t play any games according to the rule book.”

The deep blush altered first her throat and then her face. “I was a little crazy last night.”

“Go play your games with people who know your rules.”

She laughed. It had a sound of heartbreak in it. It didn’t go with the sun, sand and sea. “Oh, Ryan. If I could tell you. If I could only tell you.”

“We now raise the curtain on scene three, act two. What do I have to do to convince you that I want to be left alone? You’re a very pretty and obviously healthy young girl with all the normal impulses of your position, background and education. Your experience has taught you that your combination of talents is irresistable to males of your own station. But, lambie, I don’t want any.

“I once knew a very homely young woman who was older, at fifteen, than you’ll ever be. She died at fifteen and she was worth uncounted dozens of you. I’m sorry to be blunt, but I’ve got to chase you away somehow. Whatever you are faced with, I know that I would find it more than dull. Now go away and try to grow up. It might become you.”

She jumped to her feet. Her face was contorted. “You... you pig!” she shouted. Scooping up a handful of sand, Gria flung it at him. She turned and walked down the beach. She walked with her head up, but with damp sand incongruously clinging to her. She walked with all the dignity of a spanked child. He blinked the last grains of sand out of his eyes. He laughed when she was out of earshot. The laugh wasn’t very satisfying.

It hadn’t been good to tell her of Paulette, because it made him remember Paulette. Poor little Paulette of the stringy blonde hair and the face like a dumpling. A century old at fifteen, with sadness that would never leave her colorless eyes.

At the border they found the packet on her. If someone hadn’t tipped them, it wouldn’t have been found. The group had heard later how she died, defiance in her eyes, the mouth tightly shut in the ruined face...

He waited and tried to feel something for the dead Paulette. But there was nothing. No warmth, no pity. Just a black, bitter-hard numbness.

Chapter Two

Trained Seal

The dumpy bartender filled his tall glass to the brim, shaking the last few drops from the black container. Then he twisted the strand of lemon peel expertly.

“Hello,” a soft voice said at his side.

He turned. She wore a pale yellow blouse and a peasant skirt. “Die-hard?” he said.

She looked at him, then touched the back of his hand. Her fingertips were cool. “I walked and walked,” she said. “And while I walked I thought about you. Ryan, I don’t care what it was. But whatever it was, it’s done horrible things to you. Ryan, I really want to help you.”

“Should I understand what you’re talking about?”

She smiled. “You can’t push me away like that. Not any more, Ryan.”

He held the tension within him for long seconds and then slowly let it drift away. He smiled. “I give up. Completely.”

“Then buy me a sidecar.”

He ordered it for her. As she sipped it, he studied her with the care he had learned. A man learns care when he is staking his life. The black hair and the high cheekbones spoke of a trace of Latin blood. The mouth was too young and too soft, but the jaw had a firm line to it. Unstable, emotional, feminine. But with a capacity for intense loyalty. Idealism, probably. And a lot of warmth.

“Did you love her very much?” she asked.

“Huh? Who?”

“The fifteen-year old, of course.”

He threw his head back and laughed. He could not remember the last time he had laughed as thoroughly. “Love her? Lord, no!” He gasped. She was staring at him with hurt eyes. “Please don’t take me off guard like that again, Gria.”

“Is it so absurd to be in love with someone?”

He sobered. “Why, not at all! I’ve been desperately in love. She ignored me. I brought her flowers. Still she flunked me in arithmetic. That was in the sixth grade.”

“You fool!” she said.

He saw her eyes change as she looked beyond him. He flicked his glance at the bar mirror. Out of old habit, he moved his weight inconspicuously onto the balls of his feet. Rolph was moving toward them. Ryan turned casually.

Rolph said, “Didn’t I tell you once?”

“Isn’t this script a little tired, mate?”

Ryan looked beyond Rolph and saw the worried expression on the bartender’s face. But the man made no move toward them.

Rolph hunched his shoulders and stabbed with a very competent left toward Ryan’s eyes, following it with a blasting right. Ryan caught the left hand in both of his, his thumbs pressing against the back of it, his fingers across the heel of the palm. He pivoted it quickly enough to twist the right hand blow wild. The back of the hand was toward him after the pivot, Rolph’s spread fingers pointing toward the ceiling. Ryan bent the hand back quickly. Rolph grunted with pain and dropped to his knees.

Ryan kicked him precisely in the solar plexus. Rolph’s face whitened and his eyes rolled up almost out of sight. Ryan said loudly, “You must have tripped, old man. Here, let me help you.” He lifted Rolph, turned him toward the bar, brushed him off in a friendly fashion. Rolph sagged against the bar, barely man-aging to hold himself upright.

Ryan clapped his shoulder, said jovially, “See you here and about, old man.”

He took Gria’s arm. “Let’s have a drink out at a table on the terrace.”

She didn’t say a word. He sat opposite her and was amazed at the pallor of her face, the frightened look in her eyes.

“You... you...”

“I guess I did. He’ll be all right when he gets his wind back. A little shaky, of course.”

“I wasn’t worried about Rolph. You’ll have to get out of here, Ryan.”

“Don’t talk nonsense.”

“I’m not. Please, Ryan. There are other places along the coast. Why don’t you leave tonight and drive over into Florida?”

He ordered their drinks. “You baffle me, Gria.”

“I can’t explain. It just wasn’t a good thing to do. At least not to Rolph Essta. Not in this place, in this town.”

He studied her. “You are frightened, aren’t you?”

“Please, Ryan.”

“What on earth can be so ominous about anything or anybody in this little seacoast town? I’ve done a lot of running in my life. I’m not going to run from something that doesn’t make sense.”

She leaned across the table and spoke through almost bloodless lips. “They’ll take your fingerprints, you know, when they take you to jail.”

“What! Wait a minute! A light begins to dawn. Ryan Kestrick, famous criminal. Is that it?”

“They’ll hurt you,” she said sullenly.

“Darling,” he said, “I have been in a great many jails. I have been hurt quite badly a great many times. But I am not a criminal. At least not in the common definition of the word.”

“You’ll go away?”

“Don’t be silly!”

She stood up, leaving her drink untouched. She walked away rapidly. He smiled and added another facet to his analysis. A great yen for drama. Probably the product of boredom.

He was on his way toward the dining room a half hour later when they stopped him. Two of them. One was small and neat and gray, the spokesman. The other was hulking and dull-looking.

“Kestrick?”

“Come along.”

“Not quite so fast. What seems to be the trouble?”

“We’ll do our talking in the manager’s office, Kestrick.”

“Let’s make it Mr. Kestrick, shall we?”

The neat little gray man smiled without humor. “Mr. Kestrick. Please come and chat with us if you please.”

The hotel manager, a nervous and myopic type named Mr. Riverside, sat behind his pale gray desk. Rolph Essta sat beside the desk, scowling.

“Sit over there, Kestrick,” the gray man said.

Ryan shrugged, crossed to the chair and sat down, crossing his knees. The gray man took the only vacant chair. The hulking one leaned against the closed door. The office was small.

“You have some sort of authority, I assume?” Ryan asked politely.

“Lieutenant on the police force here. We’re asking the questions. You answer them.”

“I might and I might not. Just what is Essta’s capacity here? Patrolman?”

“Mr. Essta is representing the owner of this hotel,” Riverside said in a fussy tone. “I have heard that—”

“Shut up, Earl,” Rolph Essta said harshly. Riverside swallowed and closed his mouth. “Go ahead, Charlie,” Rolph said to the gray man.

“First, what is your business, Kestrick. How do you make a living?”

“Just say I’m retired.”

“That isn’t good enough, Kestrick.”

“It happens to be the truth. I don’t care how good you think it is, Charlie.”

“I love ’em wise,” the hulk by the door said. He picked his teeth with his thumbnail and grinned.

“What are you doing here?”

“Resting.”

“What’s your home address?”

“Go look at the register.”

“I did. It just says New York City.”

“Then that must be my home address.”

“Everything you own is brand new. Car, clothes, everything.”

“Are you asking me where I stole them?”

“You admit it, eh?” Charlie said triumphantly.

“You’re turning me sick to my stomach,” Ryan said. “What kind of a schoolgirl game is this? So Essta is a big shot. He thinks I’m bothering his girl. He gets rough and I quiet him in the bar without any fuss. Now I’m a criminal.”

Charlie sighed as though he were a man of great patience. “We don’t like your type around here, Kestrick. This town caters to a good tourist trade.” He glanced at his watch and said, “So we’re giving you one hour to pack, get in your car and get the hell out of here. Anything over a hundred miles is far enough.”

“And if I don’t?”

Rolph answered. “Mr. Riverside and I witnessed these two police officers when they took from your possession the bill clip containing forty dollars that you lifted out of the side pocket of my jacket after kicking me in the stomach in the bar. I don’t want trouble. I’d just as soon forget it all.” He shrugged. “But, on the other hand, if you want to make an issue of it...”

Ryan slouched in the chair. He frowned. “You’re a great little bunch. You ought to put this act on the road.”

“The bartender saw you take the money,” Rolph said. “He called my attention to it.”

Ryan rubbed his chin. “I wonder if you could make a thing like this stick.”

Rolph’s smile was wolfish. “Want to try us? We like people who go overboard for the principle of the thing.”

“That’s the only thing you shouldn’t have said,” Ryan said softly. “I was about to take a trip. All right, Charlie. Let’s go look at the inside of your jail.”

Charlie glanced at Rolph. Rolph nodded his permission.

“Don’t you think this guy is resisting arrest?” the hulk said.

“Not in here he isn’t,” Earl Riverside said firmly.

“Maybe he’ll resist arrest when you get him downtown,” Rolph said.

“He might, at that,” Charlie said.

Ryan grinned. “No dice, gentlemen. I’m still insisting that you take me downtown.”

They drove down in silence, with the hulking one at the wheel of the police sedan. They drove through a stone arch into the courtyard of a gray stone, U-shaped building.

The car stopped. “You’re not smart,” Charlie said.

“Agreed.”

The hulk hauled Ryan out of the back seat, held him by the front of his suit coat and slapped him, backhand and forehand. Ryan smiled placidly.

The man slapped him again. “Come on! You’re tough enough to take Essta. Don’t you want to try me?”

“Not quite yet, friend.”

He was booked, relieved of his possessions, shoved into a small dark cell midway down the single cell block...

The turnkey had taken the breakfast tray away when Ryan Kestrick looked up — and saw the big man outside the cell staring incredulously at him.

“Lord, Ryan,” he said. “You’ve — they killed you years ago. I saw the name and...”

Ryan stood up. “McCloud,” he said softly. “Major McCloud! What are you doing here?”

McCloud, a slow-moving man with a mobile pendulous face and enormous hands, unlocked the cell and came in. They shook hands as though it were the most solemn of ceremonies. They sat side by side on the bunk.

“What am I doing here?” McCloud said. “I guess you never did know my home town. This is it. I got out in — let me see — early ’46. I tried to make a go of a private investigation business but there wasn’t enough call for it. So I went on the cops here. The medals impressed ’em, I guess. I’m a lieutenant.” He sighed. “It isn’t a bad life I guess.” He shook off the mild depression and his voice hardened. “But you, in here. What the hell is this all about?”

“I can ask you that. I finally got out a month ago. The last operation was a daisy. Out of touch for fourteen months. I came down here to get my blood pressure down and figure out some good thing to do with my life.”

McCloud stared at him. “You’ve been... hell, eight years of it. No man can take that!”

“I learned to stop thinking.”

McCloud laced his thick fingers and stared down at his knuckles, white with pressure. “I had four operations and even now I get nightmares. Remember Stevenson and Lowery?”

Ryan laughed flatly. “It’s funny, McCloud. Real funny. I can’t even remember their names any more.”

“You’re booked for assault and battery, plus a little pocket-picking, Ryan. I don’t get it.”

Ryan gave him the story.

McCloud listened soberly. “I can fix it,” he said. “I’ll have you out of here in a half hour. But you got to promise me to get in that car of yours and get away from this town.”

Ryan stood up. His voice was harsh. “No dice, McCloud. I had my face slapped. These local comics need some enlightening. I want to go right back to the hotel and stay there just as long as I want to.”

McCloud stood up too. His voice was pleading. “What difference does it make to you, Ryan? Forget this town. It isn’t something you can clean up.”

“How do you- mean?”

“I’ll give you the picture. This whole town was laid out by a man named Sam Baidee, back in the middle twenties. Sam was in his late thirties then. A smart, honest guy. He put every dime into construction of the two big hotels. He owned the town. The depression wiped him out and he didn’t have a dime. His wife died right about then and the daughter, that crazy Gria, was a little bit of a kid. Sam lived in a shack down the coast and did commercial fishing. Brutal work.

“The girl got old enough to go away to school and I guess Sam got the money by doing a little smuggling. The girl didn’t know anything about it. While she was away, he began to pyramid the smuggling money. He got into the gambling business, first in a small way. Slots in the back rooms of local bars. There was an army camp near here and he did well. He put the profits into plush establishments. The army took over the two hotels. When the army auctioned off the hotels Sam had the money to buy them back at the auctions. He’d owned them in the first place.

“Ever since the war he’s been getting more powerful. He owns the town again, but it isn’t the Sam Baidee who owned it back before the depression. He managed to keep the girl in the dark. She’s been back here two years and now she knows just what her pop is. She’s been taking it hard because she thought the old man could do no evil. Essta is the old man’s right hand. Essta controls a pretty rough bunch of boys. The rumor is that the old man wants the girl to marry Essta and keep the empire intact. That’s the combination you walked into.”

“He owns the town?”

“That’s right.”

“And the police?”

“City and county.”

Ryan lowered his voice. “And he owns you, McCloud?”

McCloud glanced at him and looked away. “I sort of wish you hadn’t asked that, Ryan.”

“I’d like to hear you say it.”

McCloud’s tone was angry. “What the hell am I going to do? You know what I learned to do. Parachute in from three hundred feet at night. Kill a man before he can make a sound. What kind of talent is that to put on the market? I got a wife and two kids, Ryan. Little kids.”

“The violins will now play Hearts and Flowers.”

“I should have remembered how much heart you’ve got.”

“Who is Lieutenant Charlie?”

“Charlie Parish. Errand boy for Essta.”

“And the big one with the yellow teeth and the dumb look?”

“Sergeant DuBrie.”

“What’s their usual procedure?”

“In a case like this? If you keep trying to beat your head on the wall, Kestrick, they’ll convict you and give you a year. In this state that means a year working on the county roads.”

“Have they done that to other people when they didn’t like the hair style?”

“Quite a few.”

“Have you helped them convict any of those people, McCloud?”

McCloud stared at him. “I don’t know why I have to answer that. You stopped giving me orders four years ago, Kestrick.”

Ryan smiled warmly. With those who knew him best, it was the danger signal. “And do you know why I stopped giving you orders?”

“Huh? No.”

“Because I watched you for a long time. In some ways, McCloud, you’re a nice guy. In our work you were making a good impression. But there are little tip-offs. I had to make a decision. I know now I was right. Under that competent look, McCloud, there’s a streak of mush. You’re an angle boy, whether you admit it to yourself or not. If you’d been taken on any of those missions we went on, you’d have spilled your guts as soon as they started to pry on your fingernails.

“You picture yourself as a big rugged man. In the war you were making like a hero because the pressure was never really on you. Now you’re getting pot-bellied and that softness is beginning to show in your face. You’re going to give those two kids of yours a dandy heritage. My daddy’s a crooked cop. What’re you going to tell them when they’re old enough to find out about you?”

All expression left McCloud’s face. “All right, Kestrick. I was going to go along with you for old time’s sake. I hope you stay in until you rot.”

Ryan laughed sardonically. “The truth comes out.”

McCloud balled a heavy fist.

Ryan lifted his chin. “Okay. I’ll give you a clean shot at me. Then you can go home to lunch and tell how daddy hit the nasty criminal.”

McCloud left, banging the cell door behind him.

Chapter Three

A Monkey’s Uncle

Gria Baidee came late in the afternoon. She stood outside the cell. “Ryan, Ryan! Why didn’t you leave when Essta gave you the chance?”

“Just stupid, I guess. How did you get in here?”

“Bluff. They’re probably calling Sam now and he’ll tell them to get me out of here.”

He moved close to her. “Then how much can I trust you, Gria?”

“All the way, Ryan. All the way... forever.”

He studied her. She could be loyal. She could fight. “Listen hard then, and remember. Remember this address. XYZ Novelty Company. Box 1200. Washington, D. C. Repeat that. Again. Good. Get an airmail special off to that address. All you have to say is that Kestrick is being held here on false charges and requests assistance. You don’t even have to sign your name.”

“But—”

“Just do it, honey. That’s all you have to do. But I’ll tell you one thing. To be fair, I’ll tell you. It might turn out that when the dust dies down, one Sam Baidee could be the man on the inside, instead of me.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Would that be bad?”

“You’re the one to answer that.”

The turnkey called down the corridor, “You’re wanted on the phone, Miss Baidee. Right away.”

He folded his hand over hers and said, very softly, “Good girl...”

The young lawyer was casual, businesslike. “Well, we’ll have to get you out on bail, Mr. Kestrick. I’m positive that it won’t be set so high that your car won’t be ample security for the bond.”

“When am I going to be tried?”

“Four days from now.”

Ryan yawned. “I think I’ll stay right here.”

“But I think you should be released.”

“I like it here.”

“That’s a very strange attitude for you to take.”

“Isn’t it?”

“I must insist that you permit me to make arrangements to have you released.”

“Or you’ll refuse to handle the case?”

“Quite right.”

“Then refuse, lad. I feel that it is safer and healthier in here. Baidee has some reason for wanting me out. So I stay. You’re taking my money and working for him. Not exactly ethical, but I suppose if a young lawyer wants to eat in this town, he has to pick up some nasty habits.”

The lawyer flushed and then turned pale. “I don’t understand you. You’re in a very bad position. You refuse to plead guilty as I have advised you, and you refuse to let me look out for your interests. I can almost guarantee a suspended sentence and no more than one-year probation if you plead guilty.”

“You boys really have this thing sewed up, don’t you?”

The lawyer lowered his voice. “How stupid can a man get?”

“Everybody is giving me advice. What’s yours?”

“If you plead guilty maybe other evidence won’t be brought up.”

Ryan sat up on the bunk. “What other evidence, Greer?”

“The unlicensed automatic in your suitcase.”

“Unlicensed? How interesting?”

“You may think it was licensed. It may turn out that it isn’t.”

Ryan smiled. “You, Greer, are a blundering little punk. You’re playing bad man with all the other bad men. If you keep on this way, I’m going to have to laugh in your face and then your feelings will be hurt. Go away, please...”

The cell door was unlocked in midmorning of the next day. A florid, white-haired man with tiny bright blue eyes and thick shoulders came in, smiling.

“How do you do, Kestrick. I’m Sam Baidee. Things seem to have gotten a little out of hand while I was looking the other way.” Baidee sat down on the edge of the bunk and smiled. He looked like a shaven Santa. Ryan leaned against the concrete wall by the window, his hands in his pockets.

Baidee waited, then continued. “Rolph Essta becomes a bit too hasty sometimes.”

“He certainly is.”

“No hard feelings?”

Ryan shrugged. “I’m not mad.”

“Then we’ll forget the whole incident. Please consider yourself the guest of the hotel for the rest of your stay.”

“You’re a smart man, Baidee. Smarter than your little friends.”

Baidee smiled broadly. “I try to avoid trouble.”

“You didn’t try hard enough this time.”

The smile faded. “What does that mean?”

“You came down here because you checked with McCloud and Greer and decided I might be too much of a package to try to railroad. I might have important connections. Now I’m supposed to shrug it off and let you buy me a drink.”

Baidee’s face turned purple. “Watch your mouth, Kestrick.”

“Sometimes people are big shots too long. They get careless. When you let me out of here, Baidee, I’m going to pull your little castle right down around your ears.”

“You’re big enough to do that?”

“I think so. I came down here for a rest. I’ve been working hard for a long time. You’ve annoyed me.”

“The little man can talk big.”

“And back it up.”

Baidee stared at the floor for a long time. His lips were pursed. He spoke at last, in a reasonable tone. “I admit, Kestrick, that you have every right to be unhappy about this. It’s been handled clumsily. And you’re right when you assume that I’m not anxious to find out just how far we can go with you. Rolph is sometimes a fool. It’s only fair to give you some return for this... ah... indignity. Give me the receipt for your personal possessions. I’ll have it corrected at the desk. They counted your cash wrong. You had a thousand dollars more than you thought you had.”

“Would you go for five?”

“That’s a lot of money.”

“One slot machine, quarter variety, will return that in a year in a good spot.”

“Since you put it that way, Kestrick, I might be able to—”

“Thank you, no. Not for five or ten or fifty. I just wanted to see how uneasy you are about this stew of Rolph Essta.”

Baidee sighed. “I find idealists pretty dull, frankly.”

“So I guess I stay right here, eh?”

Baidee stood up. “I guess you do. I have to protect myself, in any way that I can. If I have to have you killed, I can arrange that, too. I’m not being melodramatic.”

“I’ll give you that much.”

Baidee stepped outside the cell. He frowned as he turned and looked at Ryan. “My daughter gave me some interesting information, Kestrick. I’ve been wondering ever since just what the XYZ Novelty Company might be.”

He walked away. For the first time Ryan felt disturbed. He felt uneasy. No one knew where he was. It began to look as though Baidee might be able to arrange it. The wrong guess about Gria shook him. He was seldom as wrong about a person. The instability had outweighed her loyalty to him. Or else her loyalty to her father had been stronger than he had imagined.

It all required a revision of plan. The Baidee Comic Opera Association was no longer quite as comic as in the beginning. He had no doubt that he would come to trial and be convicted. And he had no doubt of his ability to escape after the conviction. He had, through his training, evolved three good methods of escape from this particular cell. It was most odd to find this little citadel of amateur fascism in his own country.

And it was at that moment that he decided his future. He decided to accept the offer of that peculiar and particular agency in Washington that had informed him, through devious channels, that they could put to use his experience in war and post-war espionage. Ryan Kestrick had felt, in the beginning, when the offer had first been received, that domestic police work would be dull. Now he began to realize that it could not only be exciting, but quite constructive.

The high desk of the judge was at the end of the narrow courtroom. The spectators were behind a semi-circular railing at the judge’s right, the jury behind a smaller railing at his left. The witness chair, with no railing in front of it, was on a small raised dais between judge and jury. The long table in the center of the court room accommodated both defense and prosecution.

Ryan was amused at the tactic which had prevented his shaving for the past three days. He imagined that he looked thoroughly desperate.

Greer doodled idly. There was no real defense. The trial was a farce. The witnesses for the prosecution were the bartender, Earl Riverside, Rolph Essta. Lieutenant Parish appeared as the arresting officer. Parish and DuBrie testified as to taking the exhibit, Essta’s initialed bill clip, from the person of the defendant. Jurors yawned.

Greer was cross-examining the bartender with no show of enthusiasm. He finished, and McCloud stood up among the spectators.

“If it please the court,” he said in a strained voice, “I wish to appear as a witness for the defence.”

There was a buzz of conversation. The judge rapped on his desk and said, “Do you have anything to add to the evidence in this case, Lieutenant McCloud.”

“I have, Your Honor.”

“Take the stand. Will the attorney for the defence question this witness?”

Greer was pale. He licked his lips. “Your Honor, this is highly irregular. I had no knowledge that the lieutenant had any—”

“The court will decide what constitutes irregularity. I might add that the defence thus far has been conducted with a note-able lack of enthusiasm. You have been sworn in, Lieutenant. Now please tell us, in your own words, what you have to offer the court.”

McCloud’s face was a greasy gray. He said in an almost inaudible voice. “I have known the defendant for eight years. He served in army intelligence during the war, on loan to OSS and after the war transferred to another agency. I—”

“Is it your intention to appear here solely as a character witness, McCloud?”

“No, Your Honor. The defendant made the mistake of becoming friendly with Miss Baidee while he was at the hotel. Essta thought he was just another wise guy. So Essta attacked Kestrick in the bar—”

“Objection,” the prosecuting attorney said. “The witness was in no position to know who attacked who. I—”

“Under normal conditions I would sustain the objection. But this case has aroused a certain odd curiosity in the mind of the court. Continue, McCloud.”

“I know all these things, Your Honor, because Lieutenant Parish and Sergeant DuBrie told me. Kestrick was framed because he had annoyed Rolph Essta. Essta didn’t know he was picking on the wrong man. They’ve done it to a lot of other guys. This is a dirty mess of a town. Baidee owns everything and Essta is his boy. I can tell you name after name of people who were framed by Parish and DuBrie.

“I’m hanging myself when I pop off like this, and I know it. Greer has his orders not to be too sharp defending Kestrick. Earl Riverside and Hymie, the bartender, they have to play ball or lose their jobs. Ryan Kestrick was nice to Baidee’s daughter and that’s what burned Essta. Trials like this are a big farce. This town is rotten through and through...” McCloud’s voice died away and he stared down at his knuckles.

There was silence in the court. A heavy, enduring silence.

The judge stared at Kestrick. “Do you have anything to say?”

“I want to apologize to McCloud. I’d thought he’d forgotten how to be a man. What he says is true. But how far would I have gotten alone trying to tell that to the court? Sam Baidee was so worried about me he was willing to buy me off for five thousand dollars. He thought Rolph Essta had pulled a boner this time. Apparently he has.”

The judge looked at Earl Riverside. The man shifted uncomfortably in his chair. Ryan smiled, inside himself. The judge was going to hammer at the weakest spot.

The judge said, “So long as we have deviated this far from procedure, let me say that I am going to make it my business to see that there is a complete Grand Jury investigation of this affair.” He glanced at Greer. “There may be a few disbarments.”

He looked again at Riverside. “There may be a few perjury convictions. That is, unless someone is willing to reverse his testimony at this time.”

Riverside jumped up. “I had to say what they told me to say! I had to say that I saw Charlie Parish take the bill clip away from Kestrick. Actually I saw Rolph Essta hand the bill clip to Charlie. Kestrick never had it. They made Hymie lie too. I was lying to keep my job. But if I go to jail for it, I’d better start telling the truth.”

The reporter, who had expected to cover a routine morning, dashed for a phone.

The judge said, “The case against the defendant is dismissed. The court compliments Lieutenant McCloud on his actions.”

The prosecuting attorney said, “I assure the court that I had no knowledge of what was transpiring here. I believe I can speak for the District Attorney when I say that the most positive action will be taken against all parties to the conspiracy...”

Ryan was shaving before going up to the hotel for lunch when he heard the cabana door open. He looked into the other room and saw Gria standing there. Her eyes were puffy and reddened.

“Oh, Ryan,” she said. “He... he...”

He turned back to the mirror. “Close the door gently on leaving, honey.”

“What’s the matter with you?”

“Nothing. Nothing at all. I’m affectionate toward all double-crossing women.”

“Ryan, I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He looked at her again. She spoke as though her lips were stiff. “I came here because they told me you’d moved back in here and I didn’t know where else I could go. Rolph Essta went right to dad. He — he died. They say it was his heart. I—”

He smiled at her. “Congratulations, honey. Now you own a couple of hotels.”

She gave him a long incredulous look. Her eyes flooded with tears. She turned blindly toward the door.

Ryan looked back toward the mirror. She pulled the door open. He heard her gasp, heard her stumble. He turned quickly, to see her fall awkwardly. DuBrie stood tall in the doorway.

“Wise,” he whispered, like an incantation. “Wise, wise.”

He shut the door gently. He reached out and, with a flip of his big hand, sent the table lamp by the door spinning toward Ryan’s head. Ryan ducked and heard it smash into the shower stall.

“Use your head!” Ryan snapped. “This isn’t going to do you any good.”

“You neither.” He moved slowly toward Ryan, his big hands low, his fingers opening and closing. “You used tricks on Essta, I heard. I got tricks too, Kestrick.”

He was big and the brutality in his face was clear and purposeful. The brown hair was tufted and curled on the backs of his hands. Ryan felt ridiculous, his face half-lathered. He hurled the razor at DuBrie’s face. The big man ducked, but not enough. The metal edge of the guard cut him over the eyebrow.

DuBrie grinned. “Come on. Throw something else.”

Ryan let him move close enough, let the big arms reach for him. He was standing in the bathroom doorway. He snapped his hands down onto the wrists, let himself fall backward, pulling the man toward him. DuBrie grunted as Ryan got his feet against DuBrie. Swiftly, Ryan tried to roll backward and throw DuBrie over his head.

DuBrie thrust himself to one side against the door frame. He twisted his right wrist free, drove the big fist down at Ryan’s face. Ryan blocked it with his arm, thrust hard with his feet and drove DuBrie back a few steps. It gave him time to scramble to his feet as DuBrie dived at him. He met DuBrie with a knee in the face. He felt the nose gristle give under the impact.

Then DuBrie got his heavy arms around Ryan and yanked him down. He moved up, locking his arms around Ryan, nestling his face under Ryan’s neck, grunting and adjusting himself before applying the pressure. When the big arms tightened down, the blood rushed to Ryan’s head, half blinding him. His ribs creaked alarmingly. DuBrie had all the blind purposefulness of any creature trying to kill.

Ryan got his hand under his throat, slid it across DuBrie’s face, found the eye with his thumb and tried to slip it up under the bone of the brow. DuBrie grunted and twisted his head violently. His teeth clamped the loose skin at the edge of Ryan’s hand. Ryan tore his hand free, went for the eye again. As he got the eyeball firmly under his thumb, DuBrie broke his hold and lunged up onto his feet.

He stamped down at Ryan with a heavy heel. Ryan writhed so that the heel grazed his hip painfully. He caught the pipe under the sink and yanked himself away from DuBrie. DuBrie, the lower half of his face masked in blood, moved over to try to kick down again. Ryan hooked his left foot around the back of DuBrie’s ankle, kicked hard at the knee.

DuBrie grunted in pain and fell onto his hands and knees. His eyes were small and dulled. Ryan rolled up onto his knees and hit the man in the mouth with his right fist, twice, as hard as he could swing. DuBrie shook off the blows. He slid back onto his haunches, his back against the door frame, and his big hand came out of the front of his coat with the police revolver in it. He could not miss at that range.

Gria, standing outside the bathroom, swung the metal base of the bedside lamp with both hands. It hit DuBrie on the crown of his head. He gave Ryan a puzzled look, the look of a man who has forgotten something. Gria, sobbing aloud, hit him again. DuBrie sighed wearily and toppled over onto his side, his cheek against the tile floor. Ryan reached out and took the revolver out of the slack hand. He broke it, ejected the shells onto the floor.

“Thanks,” he said.

She was close to hysteria. “I win your stupid fights and mail your stupid letters. All you do is—”

“Did you say mail my letters?”

“Of course!”

“Your father told me you went directly to him with the information.”

Her eyes widened. “But I... I wrote it right away. I gave Richardson the money to send it airmail special!”

“And Richardson, whoever he might be, gave it to your father.” Ryan held his torn hand under the cold water. “I’m sorry, Gria,” he said. “I should have realized that your father was lying.”

Her voice had a far-away sound. “He wanted too much, you know. They took it all away from him once and he decided that this time nobody would take it away from him. Nobody did. He died before they could.”

“Sit down,” he said. “I still have half a face to shave.”

He pushed DuBrie out of the way with his foot so that he could stand in front of the sink. He shaved quickly. When he went out, she turned toward the window. He put his fingertips under her chin, gently turned her face up, then bent and kissed her. Her lips were delicately warm, unresisting.

“I’m sorry that I had to be the one to blow your world up in your face, Gria.”

“Except for you, I might not have been around to see it blow up.”

“Come on. We’ll have to send somebody down for that unconscious animal.”

He ordered food for her and made her eat it. Then he walked her for long miles up and down the beach. He was inwardly amused at the tenderness he felt toward her. She was a misguided and wounded child. Nothing more. But, he could not forget, a child who had had the nerve to put DuBrie out of action.

Dusk was blue and the sea was black and the sunset was an impossible cerise. The wind came up.

“Better now?”

She held his hand. “A lot better, Ryan. A lot.”

He took her up to the hotel. A uniformed policeman stopped him in the lobby. “You’re not to leave the hotel, sir.”

“Isn’t this getting a little tiresome?”

“I can’t help that, sir. Lieutenant McCloud was shot and killed an hour ago. Mr. Riverside was killed on his way here.”

Gria’s fingernails bit into Ryan’s wrist. “Not... not—”

The patrolman shuffled his feet and blushed. “Yes, Miss Baidee. It was Essta all right. Mrs. McCloud saw him. He shot McCloud three times in the back as McCloud was walking up his own front steps.”

Gria swayed and Ryan caught her. She pushed his hands away. “No. Let me go. I’m all right,” she protested loudly.

“Do you know if Essta is alone?” Ryan asked.

The patrolman nodded. “He sure is. He’s flipped his wig. Everything blowing up in his face did it, I guess. Old Baidee kicking off that way and... Oh, I’m sorry, Miss Baidee. I didn’t...”

“Go ahead, please,” she said.

“Well, there were a bunch of us who never were on the inside. We’ve rounded up most of Essta’s boys. They say he’s gone crazy. They’re glad to be rounded up before he picks one of them. Every car is out hunting for him. They thought he might try to get you, Mr. Kestrick, or even Miss Baidee. You can’t tell what they’ll do once they get trigger-happy.”

Gria said in a low tone, “That was the only thing dad never liked about Rolph. That horrible temper of his. It... it’s close to madness when it gets into him.”

“You can’t go home, now,” Ryan said.

She shuddered. “I didn’t want to, anyway. I was going to get a room here. I don’t ever want to go back to that house.”

“Come on. You need a drink.”

The patrolman said reassuringly, “You don’t have to worry. We’ve got everything blocked off. He can’t get anywhere near the hotel. They’ll let me know just as soon as they grab him.”

They had drinks at the bar. They went out to the terrace dining room, overlooking the sea. The lights were soft. A small group played dinner music. The candle between them flickered in the wind. She shivered and her smile was a grimace.

“I’m not supposed to be out in public, I guess.”

He frowned. “I’ve been stupid. It would have been better to take a room and have dinner served there. We can have the rest of the meal served in the room.”

“No. No, please. I’m all right. I think I like having people around me.”

The music played and the breeze died down, and the surf, far below, was a soft murmuring. In candlelight she looked very young and very lovely.

He said, “You’ll have a great deal of money, Gria.”

“Why do you say that?”

“I was thinking of Mrs. McCloud. There are two children. You have no legal responsibility, of course, but—”

Her eyes had a stricken look. “Thinking about myself. Like a fool. How awful she must feel! Ryan, darling, I’ll see that she never wants for anything as long as I have a penny left.”

“You are a child! You just don’t do that for people. You make a job for her and give her the feeling of earning the money. I rather imagine, without ever having met her, that she’d throw any present right back in your face.”

“But—”

Their table was a dozen feet from the rough wall of the terrace. A slow movement caught his eye. He saw a hand reach up over the wall, grasp the inside edge. Even as his racing mind realized, from memory of the cliff face, that it was dangerous but surmountable, the other hand appeared with the automatic in it and Rolph Essta’s mad eyes, wide and staring, appeared over the edge of the wall, turning slowly toward them.

Ryan hooked his foot around her chair leg, pulled it violently toward him. Even in that moment of fear, he almost laughed at the look on her face as she dropped abruptly below the surface of the table.

He reached down, found a slim ankle, pulled her toward him as he tipped the round table over toward Essta.

The dishes made a loud crash. On the heels of the crash came the whip-crack sound that an automatic makes in the open air. Wood slivers from the table stung Ryan’s cheek. Two guests sat transfixed at a neighboring table. Ryan scrambled over, keeping low. He snatched the water pitcher from the serving table, whirled and threw it.

Rolph Essta, just climbing over the wall, saw it coming. He straightened up and the pitcher thudded against his chest. It dropped and shattered on the wall. Rolph tried to lift the automatic to fire at Ryan. But the instinctive desire to save himself carried his arm high in a struggle for balance.

He toppled over backwards in slow motion fashion. His hoarse cry diminished as he fell away from them. The sea covered the sound of his body striking the rocks below.

A shrill voice carried clearly across the terrace dining room. “I must say that if this is some childish attempt at entertainment on the part of the management of this hotel...”

At that, Gria, crosslegged on the floor by the overturned table, went into one of the most profound demonstrations of hysteria that Ryan Kestrick had ever witnessed.

Ryan drove with the top down. He hummed softly to himself. The Grand Jury had taken his testimony in secret session and the indictments had been issued in satisfactory fashion. His plans were clear. Drive along the coast in leisurely fashion and then head up to Washington for all the necessary interviews.

It was good to think that Gria had gotten hold of herself. She had made Ryan sit in when she had interviewed applicants for the manager’s job so abruptly vacated by Earl Riverside. The businesslike mannerisms she had begun to pick up were cute. He grinned. In a year or so it might be interesting to take a vacation.

The town was forty miles behind him. A big blue bus was approaching when the warm lips lightly touched him under the left ear.

The new car swerved wildly, tires screaming. He fought it back under control, steered it over onto the shoulder and cut the engine, his mouth dry and his knees shaking. Just one more coat of paint on that bus and—

“How do I look?” Gria said gayly. “What a dusty old blanket I had to hide under!”

He regarded her somberly. There were spots of high color in her cheeks. The suit was light, the blouse frilly, the hat silly.

“You look as welcome as a traffic ticket.”

“How do you think up all those nice things to say to me? Well, am I going to get to sit up there beside you?”

“You are. For the forty fastest miles you ever traveled. Right back to where you started from.”

She pouted. “But, Ryan, darling.”

He imitated her tone. “Ryan, darling. Ryan, darling.”

He opened the door on the far side, slid across the front seat, got out and tilted the seat back. She started to slide into the front seat.

“Now I have a new idea,” he said. “A very satisfying idea.” He pulled her away from the car, turned and sat on the edge of the seat with his feet on the concealed running board. “You will now please drape yourself, face down, over these knees. You need disciplining.”

She backed away, her eyes wide. “No. Hey, no!”

“I can chase you and catch you. You might as well do it the easy way.”

She moved forward shyly. “Like... uh... like this?”

He pulled his right sleeve up a little. “That does seem to be fine. Still, I... uh...”

She craned her head around and looked up at him. “I’m waiting, darling. What’s the matter?”

“Well... I... uh...” And somehow she was still across his knees, but not face down, and her arms were tight around his neck and her lips were a deep steady flame that somehow managed to drive far down into his mind, softening and relaxing those dry, forgotten places, awakening emotions that had been too long dead.

It is a slow thing, coming back to life again.

She looked up at him, shifting in his misted vision.

“Why, Ryan! You...”

The passengers of a passing car hooted at them.

“High noon on route 81,” he said. “Not the place for it.” He got behind the wheel. She sat primly and quite smugly beside him.

“You can’t make a U turn here, you know,” she said.

“There’ll be a place up the road where I can make a U turn.”

“Oh.”

“Just a ways up this road. Don’t think it’s more than two days from here.”

“Drive carefully, dear,” she said.

Content

John D. MacDonald
Dead Men Don’t Scare

Chapter One Sculduggery

Chapter Two Trained Seal

Chapter Three A Monkey’s Uncle