Sylvie's Cowboy Page 9

  “What did you mean on the phone—’you get what you pay for’—what was that supposed to mean?”

  Harry picked up a length of two-by-four and whacked it at a short metal crosspiece bolted to an angle of steel framework. The bolts crumbled like ceramic pottery; the metal crosspiece fell—and fell, and fell—until a distant clang indicated it had hit bottom.

  “You pay for crooked inspectors and substandard building materials, you get a building that falls down—if you ever get it built in the first place.”

  “Why wouldn’t we get it built?” Leslye hung onto the nearest upright girder, careful not to rely on any short crosspieces for support.

  Harry’s smile was not comforting. “Because you won’t have the money to finish it, Les. Your money is disappearing, isn’t it? I mean, what little Danny hasn’t gambled away already. Disappearing. And so are your buyers. And if you can’t sell Pace Tower for a boatload of cash in a hurry, it’s doomed—and so are you.”

  Realization crossed Leslye’s face. “It was you! The wire transfers, the canceled insurance, someone breaking into my office! You’re behind all this! It was you all along!”

  Harry shrugged in an aw-shucks manner. “Surprised, Les? Well, imagine how surprised I was to find out my empire was gone. You were slick, weren’t you? You got me. I signed anything you put in front of me, until I figured out what was happening.

  “By the time I realized you had stolen most of what I had, and all that Sylvie would ever have, it was too late. You’d done it. Very clever, Les. Almost worked.”

  “It’s all legal,” Leslye said proudly. “You signed it over. You can sue, but you’ll never convince a court that a sophisticated businessman like you didn’t know exactly what he was signing.”

  Harry adopted a soothing demeanor. “I can’t sue you, Les. I’m dead, remember?”

  “Obviously, you’re not dead,” said Leslye.

  “Isn’t money wonderful? It can’t buy happiness or good health, but it can buy coroners’ clerks and funeral directors, and even the occasional policeman. I bought my own death. Dead men can’t sue, Les.”

  “You can’t have us arrested, either,” she snarled. “The paperwork is perfect. We made sure. Everything absolutely lawful. We won’t go to jail.”

  “You’re right,” said Harry. “You and Dan will not go to jail. Since I’m, dead, neither will I.”

  Leslye was so terrified by what she heard in his voice and saw in his face, she nearly lost her handhold.

  Harry began walking toward her across the girder. “Calm down, Les. You’re too drunk to be safe up here. You better let me help you down.”

  “Keep your hands off me!” she shouted. “All those years when I threw myself at you, worked with you, joined the polo club, the yacht club, any frigging club you might go to, just to be close to you! All those years—even after Helen died! And you never even saw me, never really knew who I was. And now, now when you’re dead and you hate me and it’s too late. Now! You follow me around, you want to ‘help’ me. But it’s too late. Too late! You’re dead, I’m dead. We’re all dead. Just leave me alone.”

  Harry’s brow furrowed in confusion. “Follow you aroun--? What the deuce are you talkin’ about, Leslye? Leslye! Wait!”

  Les dove for the elevator and pounded the “down” button before Harry could stop her. He could only stand and listen to the whine of the machinery and the clank-clank as the elevator reached the ground.

  Then he heard a woman’s scream. A gunshot. Silence.

  He was frozen for a second or two in disbelief. Then Harry began yelling, “Les! Leslye!” He pounded the elevator call button and listened to the machinery whine far below him, on its way up to him. Far below, an engine coughed to life and a vehicle drove away.

  When the elevator arrived at Harry’s level, Leslye Larrimore lay dead on its plywood floor. She had been shot cleanly in the forehead.

  …

  The next morning, at the McGurk ranch, Walt stood in the center of a fenced circle, exercising a horse by allowing it to trot around him on the end of a long halter rope. Harry’s vintage pink Mustang roared into the ranch yard, raising dust and spewing gravel, and lurched to an abrupt stop beside the corral fence. Harry was out of the car and climbing the fence in a split second.

  With his concentration on the moving horse, Walt knew that Harry was present but had not yet realized Harry was enraged. Calmly, he greeted Harry with, “Well, I declare. This is a surprise. Ain’t you afraid Sylvie’ll catch you out here?”

  “I know exactly where Sylvie is, don’t think I don’t. I ain’t the idjit you take me for, mister!” Harry started down the inside of the corral fence as quickly as he had come up the outside of it. “Took me a couple hours to stop shakin’ so’s I could drive, or I’d ‘a’ been here sooner!” Harry’s boots slapped the ground hard as he came off the fence charging toward Walt.

  The horse passed between them, nearly running Harry down, but Harry dodged it and—as Walt turned his back, following the progress of the animal—Harry tackled Walt from behind and whacked him face down into the dirt.

  The horse whinnied and jigged away from the commotion, as far as the fence. Walt’s rope dragged loose behind the horse. Walt and Harry rolled on the ground, narrowly missing the panicky horse’s hooves.

  Walt elbowed Harry, breaking his stranglehold, and somersaulted to his feet. He stood against the fence, ready for a fight. Harry rose more slowly in the center of the ring.

  Walt spat dust, spared a glance at the nervous horse, and tried to speak calmly for the animal’s sake. “You got somethin’ on your mind, or did you just wake up in the mood to break my back and lame my horse? And if you ain’t got a real good answer, mister, I’m fixing to transplant your organ while you’re still playin’ it!”

  Harry bent over and braced his hands on his knees, panting. “Why were you following her?” he asked when he could breath again. “I know it was you.”

  “Heck yes, I followed her,” said Walt. “How else could I know where the deuce she was going? I was just doing what you wanted, you old buzzard!”

  Harry stepped closer. “I didn’t want her dead!” He delivered a punch that spun Walt around and left him holding himself upright against the top rail of the fence.

  Walt’s breathing became ragged. His eyes watered. Sylvie? Dead!

  “Maybe I can’t bring her back, and maybe—things being what they are—I can’t call the law, but I can sure as blazes make you pay!” cried Harry.

  Walt’s nostrils flared as rage replaced grief. He turned to face Harry. “You! You caused all this with your phony funeral and your lies on top of lies!”

  “It’s no lie this time!” Harry yelled. “This funeral will be real!”

  “And you’re gonna pay for it outta your infernal hide!” Walt shouted, and he knocked Harry backward into the frightened horse that was cowering against the far side of the ring.

  Harry wiped a bleeding lip and lunged at Walt, murder in his eyes.

  They fought back and forth across the ring, the horse always a factor and always in the wrong place. Walt kicked the wind out of Harry. Then, while Harry was pulling himself together, Walt leaped to a corral gate, opened it, and shooed the hysterical horse into a pasture. Walt latched the gate and pulled his pistol from his boot. He pointed it at Harry.

  For a moment, no one moved.

  Then Walt lowered the gun. He looked at Harry through a volcanic haze of anger and grief, and he threw the pistol over the gate into the pasture. He drew the knife from his belt and thwacked it deep into the top rail of the fence where Harry had climbed over.

  “I took care of her, didn’t I,” Walt said angrily. “Oh, yeah! I took great friggin’ care of her!”

  Harry stood looking at Walt, at the distant pistol, and at the knife just across the corral. He made his decision. Harry bolted for the knife with Walt only two steps behind.

  At the fence Harry tried to wrench the knife from the wood, but it was embedded
deep. Walt tackled him before he could loosen it. Both men fell to the ground and rolled under the fence, past Harry’s Mustang, and into the ranch yard. They writhed on the ground, neither able to get the upper hand.

  A shadow with wide-spreading, sharp-pointed horns glided across the ground and covered them like eagle’s wings. The two men froze, looked up, and then made a unison roll away from the shadow. In a flash they were up and running toward the corral, with Old Beauregard hard on their heels.

  The Mustang parked between them and the fence posed no obstacle. They leaped onto the fender, the hood, the roof, and from there to the fence and safety beyond. Beauregard slammed hard into the front quarter panel of the Mustang, then came around the car to stand, pawing and blowing, looking through the fence at the two men.

  Their fight forgotten in the face of a mutual enemy, they sat stunned and panting on their backsides in the dirt.

  “What the Sam Hill’s got into him?” asked Harry. “Somebody been parkin’ under his tree?”

  “Sylvie,” said Walt, before he choked and had to clear his throat. “But she’ll never do it again.”

  He was shocked when Harry laughed at that. “Reckon you put the fear of God into her, eh?” Harry quipped.

  “Don’t seem important now.”

  Harry began dusting himself off and gradually lifting himself up from the ground. “Well, you’ll have to do it again before long, I expect.”

  “What?”

  Harry reached down to give Walt a hand up. Walt took the hand without hesitation.

  “Just when you think she’s come around to your way of thinkin’,” Harry said, “she goes off on one of her toots again, and you’re right back where you started. If you can break her of doing everything her own way, you’re a better man than I was.”

  Walt looks at Harry, puzzling through what he just heard. “Harry,” he said, “you said Sylvie’s dead.”

  “Leslye!” Harry responded, amazed that he and Walt had been dealing at cross purposes. “Leslye Larrimore’s dead. That’s what all this was about.”

  “I thought all this was about Sylvie! I dang near killed you for lettin’ it happen!”

  It was Harry’s turn to look puzzled. “You mean you wasn’t the one following Les?”

  “Heck no! Only person I ever followed was Sylvie.”

  Harry began looking around him as if for something he’d forgotten. “Dang!” He looked at Walt. “I gotta get back to town! I been on the wrong track all along about this!”

  They started toward the Mustang, but Beauregard still stood his ground. They looked for an alternative. Walt decided and pointed across another fence. “You work your way around through there to the truck shed and take the pickup. After Beauregard cools off, I’ll see about fixin’ that fender. Tune her up, too, while I’m, at it.”

  “Right. I’ll be in touch.” Harry climbed across the far fence. Walt set about retrieving his knife and his pistol as if nothing had happened. Almost nothing. Walt wiped his eyes with his sleeve.

  …

  That night at the Polo Club restaurant, valets parked fancy cars out front while fancy people partied inside. Music and festive light spilled from the doors and windows. Dan Stern, with confetti in his hair and an open bottle of champagne in one hand, was table hopping, greeting the guests. People were exceedingly jolly. The room rang with laughter and congratulatory wishes. The polo set was celebrating the afternoon’s victory.

  Dan Stern wobbled into the men’s room, where he passed a teammate and swapped high fives. Both men yelled, “Aw-right!” The teammate left and Dan settled down to aim carefully into a urinal. He heard the door open but paid no attention until a large hand gripped his chin.

  “Don’t move,” Hugo’s deep voice rumbled.

  Scampi’s hand came alongside Dan’s head. Something cold and metallic touched Dan’s ear. Dan tried to turn his head, but Hugo gripped his chin even harder.

  “Don’t!” snapped Hugo.

  “What is that? What are you doing?” whined Dan, trying to see over his shoulder by moving only his eyes. It wasn’t working.

  “That’s an ice pick,” said Hugo. “Scampi’s favorite. Very versatile. Very portable. Very clean. Very. Effective.”

  Dan was definitely not moving now. Scampi smiled. Hugo released Dan’s chin and washed his hands at the nearest sink.

  While drying his hands, Hugo said, “You won big today, Danny Boy. Looks good on your record here at the club, huh? Unfortunately, it’s only a drop in the bucket toward what you owe us. So here’s the thing. Two days. Forty-eight hours, Danny Boy. We need to see the cash in forty-eight hours, or you don’t owe nobody nothin’, now or ever again. Okay? Don’t nod. I know you understand.”

  Hugo and Scampi left as silently as they had come. Dan stood perfectly still until the door closed. Then he bent forward and vomited into the urinal.

  …

  It was almost dawn when Dan slumped in through his front door to the ringing of his phone. He was tired but almost calm. He ignored the ringing phone and began to take off his clothes as he walked through the living room to the bedroom.

  The phone rang again, and this time the answering machine in the bedroom clicked on. Dan continued undressing. He moved into the adjoining bathroom and tossed his Ostrich boots out onto the bedroom floor. He heard his own voice on the answering machine. “This is Dan Stern. I’m not here or I don’t want to talk. So you either do your thing at the beep or hang up. Ciao.”

  The answering machine emitted its high-pitched tone. A surprising voice came through the small speaker. “Stern, this is Harry Pace. I have to talk to you about Les Larrimore.”

  Dan, in his underwear, walked toward the answering machine. The voice continued, “What happened to Leslye didn’t have to happen. We can work something out before anybody else gets hurt.”

  Dan punched the Speaker Phone button and snarled at the phone. “Well, ain’t this a miracle. Where’s the money, Harry?”

  “Why did you have to kill her, Danny?”

  “She was having conversations with dead guys, Harry. Freaking out. I needed a partner with a cool head and a closed mouth.”

  “So now she’s dead.”

  “Yeah, yeah, so are you. So am I, if I don’t come up with some cash real quick. What did you do with the money, Harry?”

  “I transferred most of it. What I didn’t use.”

  Dan walked toward the dresser and swiped a cigarette lighter from it. He shouted toward the phone while digging in his discarded slacks for a cigarette pack. “Transferred ... to Sylvie, naturally. Listen, hot shot. I need that money, and I need it fast.”

  Flame erupted from the lighter in his hand, his lit his cigarette and stuffed it into his mouth. He tossed his slacks on the floor.

  Harry said, “Okay. If you promise to stay away from Sylvie. In fact, it would be best if you went away somewhere.”

  “My thoughts exactly,” said Dan, watching the glow at the end of his cigarette.

  “I need time to put your deal together, and I need some sleep,” said Harry. “Let’s meet tomorrow, midnight, at the penthouse.”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN - ICE WATER

  A few hours later, the sun was well above the horizon, and Walt was tuning up Harry’s Mustang. The hood was open, parts and tools littered the ground, an oily rag hung from the car’s bumper. Butch and Maude lay together on the grass, watching the work in progress.

  Walt was talking to the dogs as he worked. “Danged pea-brained idea all along. You know what I am?”

  He looked at the dogs. He got only blank looks in return. He ducked back under the hood of the car. “What I am is a fool caught between two crazy people. I shoulda said ‘No’ right off. ‘Don’t send her to me,’ I shoulda said. ‘I got work to do, I can’t be babysitting no gold-digging female that don’t know a ranch from a hole in the ground. Not me. I don’t owe you that much, Harry Pace. I don’t owe you so much that I gotta lie and pretend and be something I’m not while you go on som
e tomfool crusade for justice.”

  He stood and shook his wrench at the dogs to emphasize his words. “Ain’t no justice in this life, Harry Pace, and if there was, you wouldn’t get it by lyin’ and cheatin’. That’s what I shoulda told him.” He stooped under the hood again. “Why the heck didn’t I tell him? She’s drivin’ me nuts. It’s gone too far.”

  From inside the house a phone rang. Walt stood, put down his wrench, and wiped his greasy hands. The phone rang again. Walt stomped toward the house. The dogs watched him as he passed them, still fuming. “It’s gone too danged far.”

  Walt entered the house and lifted the receiver of the ringing phone. “McGurk.”

  The caller was Dan Stern, who was sitting in his car in the parking garage of Sylvie’s erstwhile penthouse. A sack of groceries occupied the passenger seat beside him. “Is Harry there?”

  “Harry doesn’t live here.”

  “Yes, I know, Harry supposedly doesn’t live anywhere, but I’ll bet you can get a message to him for me.”

  “Sorry, I don’t know what you’re talkin’ about.”

  “Listen, Dogpatch. Harry called me and set up a meeting for tonight at the penthouse. You tell him for me that I’ll be there—but Sylvie will be with me. Tell Harry the only thing I want him to say when he gets there is ‘The money’s in your account in Geneva. Have a nice trip.’ Got that?”

  “Leave Sylvie out of it!”

  “Impossible now, I’m afraid. See that Harry gets my message.” Dan hung up.

  Walt slammed the phone down. Then he yanked it up again and punched in a number from memory. Cradling the phone between his ear and shoulder, he carried it to the kitchen sink and began scrubbing the auto grease off his hands. While the distant phone could be heard ringing, he muttered, “Come on! Answer the gol-danged phone! Come on!”

  He rinsed his soapy hands and dried them on a kitchen towel. He laid the phone on the counter long enough to pull off his shirt, then he pressed the receiver to his ear again.