Dig A Dead Doll Read online

  The water gave me a wonderful refreshing surge of life as I plunged into the waves. Jay Hook followed me in, but a huge breaker caught him off-guard and whirled him up onto the sand.

  While I swam I kept thinking about Luis and the cab driver with the duck-tail haircut. They seemed to vanish into thin air at the slaughter house. Perhaps they had been killed by the two men who left me hanging from that barren tree. Luis had mentioned a man called Zingo. One of my captors had addressed the other by that name. I pushed through the waves, swimming farther out into the sea. My mind zeroed in on Pete Freckle. Was he really dead? That question had to be answered before I could leave Mexico.

  About a hundred yards out, I suddenly bumped into something in the water. My arm grazed against it, and when I raised by head and dog-paddled I saw a small float lying almost level in the sea. I lifted myself up onto the canvas-covered block and glanced toward shore. Jay Hook was waving.

  I waved back.

  He kept waving. It was the way he waved that first disturbed me. Then I heard the sound. The rattle of a fast boat coming fast in the choppy ocean. I whirled and came to a kneeling position on the float. In the next second I saw the barrel of a machine gun poked over the side of the boat.

  Then it began to speak.

  And I understood the language perfectly.

  It was chattering: D-E-A-T-H!

  FIVE

  Bullets ripped into the canvas-covered float inches from my knees. They made noises like pebbles being thrown in the water as they cut into the surface. I fell backward into the sea, pretending to be hit and dove as deeply as my arms and legs could power me. Bubbles whirled past my head as I circled in the water, trying to outmaneuver the boat which sliced viciously nearby, its prow cleaving the dark green.

  When my lungs were bursting for air, I surfaced, keeping my head as low as possible in the waves. The boat had swung away from shore and was heading out to sea again, its propellers kicking up a huge spray. Through the mist the words JOY and PORT stood out on the stern. That was all. I couldn’t make out any people, or even tell the boat’s design. It had come out of nowhere so quickly.

  Halfway to shore I ran into Jay. He was as wide-eyed as a night owl and trembling to beat the band.

  “Honey, for God’s sake what was that?” he demanded, swimming to my side.

  “It wasn’t any Boy Scout troop, I’ll tell you that,” I said. “These people really cut up their touches big down here.”

  “You think this has anything to do with what happened last night?”

  “If it hasn’t,” I said, “I’m running for the position of Most Unpopular Girl In Town”

  We swam in to shore, heavy breakers pushing us all the way. Once on the sand, I crawled beyond the waterline and sagged forward, breathing heavily from the sudden exertion it had taken to escape the attack. Jay sat down beside me, heads of water running down his muscular face and chest. He dug his hands in the sand and swore.

  “They really want you bad, don’t they,” he said.

  “Yeah, I guess so,” I whispered.

  ‘Why, Honey?”

  “I wish I knew, Jay.” I rolled over.

  A grin spread on his wet mouth. “Looks like my makeshift suit didn’t work out so well.”

  ‘What do you mean?”

  “You lost half of it.”

  I jumped to my feet. ‘Tine time to tell a lady.”

  “I would have told you sooner, except—”

  I ran for the trailer, arms wrapped around my upper torso. “Except what?”

  “You were lying on the wrong side.”

  Bass arrived with clothes about noon. I was wrapped in a towel—sarong-style—when he entered the trailer and Jay was opening a can of beer. We were both perspiring and our faces were red from the heat. Bass got the wrong idea entirely. A knowing smile curved into his mouth, hut it didn’t last long. His eyeballs lit up like lights on a pinball machine when we described the boat’s attack.

  “Honey, I told you you’d better get out of Mexico,” he said. “You’re going to look like a piece of Swiss cheese if you keep this up.”

  “Maybe,” I answered. “What’d you find?”

  He handed me a pink box. “Like you asked. Lipstick and comb. Blouse and skirt. I gave the clerk your measurements.”

  “Thanks. Now if you gentlemen will be so kind as to clear out of here for a second—^”

  Jay groaned. “Honey, you take all the fun out of things.” I smiled. “And you want to take all the things that are fun. Now, if you’ll excuse me—”

  They backed out, laughing and shaking their heads. I slipped into the blouse and skirt. They were a lovely soft blue, but apparently Bass liked women’s clothes on the sexy side. The neckline of the blouse could more accurately have been described as a waistline. It was a halter top and plunged to hell and gone. The skirt fit like a second skin from waist to hip, where it flounced out rather gaudily. Oh, well, this was modest compared to what I’d worn since last night.

  When they came in again Bass gave a low whistle. Jay just stared for a minute, then said, “You’d better go back to the^ blanket, you were ahead of the game.”

  “Honey,” Bass murmured, “no wonder these guys don’t have any trouble finding you. You’d stand out in a convention hall.”

  “Okay,” I said, my cheeks coloring, ‘let’s cut the electioneering and get going.”

  We walked outside and climbed into their car. On the way into Tijuana I asked Jay more about the boat. He said he’d only managed a bare glimpse of the craft.

  “It was a power launch about thirty feet long.”

  “Did you see any people?”

  “No. Only that machine gun.”

  I brushed a lock of blonde hair out of my eyes and said, “I got a peek at the stem from a distance. The first or last part of the name must be Joy. Like Oh, Joy or Joy Boy. The origin is port something or other. Maybe Newport Harbor.”

  Jay nodded. “I didn’t see it. I was too busy trying to reach the spot where you went down. I thought sure you caught a bullet.”

  We stopped at a little roadside stand near the bullfight stadium for sandwiches. While we were there I noticed an old man sitting at a corner table. He was the same one who had left Pete’s room just after the goring. I excused myself from Jay and Bass and joined him.

  “Pardon me, senor, but aren’t you Don Mano?”

  “Si.” His face was very old and wrinkled and there was a wart on the tip of his nose. “Si, senorita.”

  “You were Pete Freckle’s instructor, were you not?”

  His watery brown eyes smiled thinly. “I teach him many things, si.”

  “Don Mano, didn’t I see you come out of Pete’s room the day he—he died?”

  The smiling eyes narrowed. His mouth fell open as if he suddenly recognized me, and his lips began to Butter. “No—no, senorita.”

  “I was standing outside Pete’s room with Senor Vicaro, you remember.”

  DIG A DEAD DOLL “No—no, senorita, I do not.”

  “But you must,” I insisted. “This is very important, Don Mano. Pete Freckle has disappeared. You were in his room when they brought him in from the ring. You must have some idea what happened to him.”

  His swarthy face became ashen and his hands trembled. He got up from the table and touched the brim of his sombrero. “No, senorita. It must have been some other hombre. You are mistaken. Adios!

  He left the cafe quickly, shuffling along the dusty road, head bent low, one hand to his forehead. I returned to where Jay and Bass sat. They stared at me curiously.

  “Now is that nice?” Jay asked. “Accosting an old man when you have two dashing young doctors drooling at your feet.”

  I bit my lips with the edge of my teeth. “Strangest darned thing,” I said, almost to myself. “Nobody wants to talk about it, except me. And every time I open my mouth somebody runs or takes a pot shot at me.”

  “You speaking about your friend, this matador Pete Freckle?” Bass aske
d, munching at his sandwich.

  I nodded.

  “Take my advice, Honey—”

  “I know, forget it.”

  ‘You’ll live longer.”

  I sighed. “Private eyes have short life spans anyway.” We drove into downtown Tijuana. My car was still parked across from Las Tunas Hotel. Fortunately, I had a spare key taped under the right rear fender.

  “We’ll follow you to the border,” Jay said. “Be sure you’re safely on your way.”

  Since the electrifying incident with the speedboat and the machine gun, I’d decided to take their advice. At least part of it. I was going to leave Mexico for a short time. Long enough to think over my next move. Then I planned to return and find Pete Freckle if it took a month of Sundays.

  Near the border stations, Jay pulled alongside my convertible and yelled, “We’ll call you at your office when we get home. Take good care of yourself. And don’t take any wooden machine gun bullets.” He threw me a kiss and then turned off toward Rosarito Beach.

  I drove through the first stop on the Mexican side, after an officer in a khaki suit waved me on. The situation was not the same at the American station. A grinning, red-nosed face stuck itself in my window and said, “Where were you born?”

  “California,” I answered, disliking the look in his thick-lidded eyes.

  He cast a quick glance down the front of my blouse and barked, “How long you been in Mexico?”

  “Overnight.”

  “Buy anything?”

  “Nope. Oh, yes, a pair of—” I stopped.

  “A pair of what?”

  My face reddened. “Lace panties.”

  Another border officer joined the grinning, red-nosed fellow. He was also grinning.

  “Get out of your car,” the new man ordered.

  “Why?” I asked,* not liking his tone or looks, either.

  “Because I said so,” the border officer snapped.

  “Okay.” I climbed out.

  “Lift the hood,” the new man directed his partner.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Did I hear you say you bought something in Mexico?” The new man had big eyes and a thin mustache.

  “A pair of lace panties,” I said curtly. “Is there any crime in that?”

  “Where are they?” The mustache twitched.

  “I have them on.”

  It twitched again. “Let’s see them.”

  “Now wait a minute,” I argued.

  He gestured. “Step into the office and remove them. Now!”

  “What—what’s the matter with you people?” I demanded. “All I want to do is cross the border into the United States. I don’t intend putting on a show.”

  The first man lifted my car’s hood and stuck his head underneath. He shouted suddenly, “It’s okay, Art, I found the stuff.”

  The second man laughed slyly. ‘Tor a minute there I thought she might be carrying it under her—”

  “What are you talking about?” I asked, moving around so I could see under my convertible’s hood.

  There, taped to the metal, was a little envelope made of clear plastic, and inside was a quantity of white crystalline powder.

  “You on the needle, baby?” the one with the mustache barked. “You look like you’d be real hot with this junk boiling around in your veins. Real hot.”

  “I don’t know what you mean,” I said.

  The first man tore the plastic package loose from its holding and waved it under my nose.

  “H, baby. Heroin. There must be enough here to blast the top off six cats your size!”

  SIX

  About three hours later, a tall, heavy-jawed man came sauntering into the U.S. Border Station where I was being held. He took one look at me inside the cramped cell and swore. Right out loud.

  “Watch your language,” I said.

  Lieutenant Mark Storm pushed his blue felt hat back with the flat of his hand and said, “What for, there ain’t no ladies present?”

  “Ain’t isn’t a proper word.”

  “Neither is heroin.”

  “I was framed, Mark,” I said.

  “So was Hitler. He didn’t mean to blow up the world. It was a mistake.”

  “Somebody planted that stuff under my hood.”

  He surveyed my low-cut blouse. “You can say that again.”

  “Don’t he wise.”

  “Don’t you ever wear a brassiere?”

  “Mine was stolen.”

  “That figures.” He squatted in a chair near the cell and mopped sweat from his forehead. “Honey, do you have any idea how busy I am?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m in charge of a very large division of homicide in Los Angeles County.”

  “Bravo.”

  “You have heard of the Sheriff’s office?” His voice was leadened with sarcasm.

  “Unfortunately.”

  “People are committing mayhem right and left in my communities.”

  “Goody for you.”

  “I’m not kidding. I can’t come running every time you holler for help.”

  “I didn’t holler. I screamed.”

  He winced. “I heard you the first time.”

  “Mark, somebody is trying to put me out of business.”

  “You ought to be put out of business! I told you that a long time ago.”

  “A guy named Zingo wants to ventilate me for the summer.”

  “You’re already ventilated. You’ve got holes in your head.” He lifted his six-foot-five-inch frame off the chair and swore again. “When are you going to quit wearing lead garters and start folding diapers?”

  “I folded a diaper this morning,” I said, half smiling at the grim look on his face. “The only trouble is—it was for me.”

  “I wouldn’t doubt it a bit!”

  “Mark, have a heart!”

  He had a big one, but he didn’t want to admit it. If it hadn’t been for Mark Storm I would have been in the soup long ago. He’d pulled me out of a dozen tight spots by the seat of my panties. He had a particular yen for me. And it was far horn Chinese.

  “Honey, I’m going to let you burn this time,” he grunted, crossing his arms like a big ponderous bear. In his ill-fitting, blue sharkskin suit he tipped the scales at twice my weight, which was a hundred and twenty pounds.

  “Mark, I came down to Mexico to see a bullfight—”

  “That’s a lot of bull, Honey!”

  “I’m not kidding. Pete Freckle, an old, old friend of mine, took a horn. Twice.”

  Mark said, “I read about the goring. Tough luck. The papers said he died.”

  “I don’t care what they said. He vanished into thin air right after he was carried down to his dressing room. No one hides a dead man unless there’s foul play involved— or—”

  “Or what?”

  “Or he’s still alive.”

  Mark gripped the bars, squinting down at me. “You in love with this guy?”

  “Once. A long time ago. We almost got married.”

  “Don’t tell me.”

  “Believe me, Lieutenant, under this blouse of cloth there is a heart.”

  “What, no bullet proof vest?”

  “Okay, make jokes.”

  Mark wiped a pleased expression off his face and said, “You’re in serious trouble, Honey.”

  “I told you, that heroin was a plant.”

  “Convince the border authorities. They take a dim view of contraband carriers, especially when it involves narcotics.”

  “Somebody taped that stuff under my hood and then phoned them I was coming through.”

  Mark lit a cigarette. “That’s obvious.”

  “You believe me?”

  “Of course.”

  “Then why don’t you do something about it?” I roared. “Instead of letting me languish here in this cell.”

  He grinned through the bars. ‘Your eyes turn sort of green when you get mad.”

  One of the border patrol officers came into the buil
ding, wiping his forehead, clanking a fist full of keys. He opened my cell door and said, ‘You’re free to go. The Lieutenant, here, has vouched for you. He explained the circumstances behind the contraband.”

  I stared at the big deputy as I left the cell, a chagrined expression etching my mouth. “What color are my eyes now? Thanks, Lieutenant.”

  “Don’t thank me,” he said. “Just do me three favors. Stop making investigations. Stay out of Mexico. And buy a brassiere.”

  “I’ll do my best to fill one of those promises,” I said, winking.

  I left Mark at the border and drove back into Mexico. The heroin plant infuriated me. I’d spent three hours in a dingy little cell. It could have been more. Much more. Something like ten to twenty years if they’d proved I was actually smuggling dope across the border.

  Once and for all I had to find Pete Freckle. There seemed to be only one strong lead. Carlos Ortega, Pete’s protege. Senor Vicaro said Pete lived with Carlos on the edge of town. Furthermore, Carlos was another of the men who had seen the American matador shortly after he was felled in the arena.

  There must have been fifty Carlos Ortegas living in Tijuana. The name was about as common as Joe Smith in the U.S. But I was lucky, for a change. I ran onto a Carlos Ortega who lived in a small house North along the Rio Grande. He was described as a great bullfight aficionado who never missed a match.

  The house nestled along a hill above the river, a squat wooden structure with a corral and horses. I drove up a dusty road to the gate and got out. I hadn’t walked more than a dozen yards toward the house when I heard somebody call my name.

  “Honey!”

  I turned, scanning the hillside, but nothing stirred. Low lying brush suddenly rustled from wind blown across the shallow-banked Rio Grande. The sky was a dusky blue and it was filled with late afternoon heat. I wiped at my forehead.

  “Hello!” I called.

  I was standing completely in the open, nothing to cover me for at least a hundred or more yards. Recalling the machine gun episode, my blood ran cold. I studied the rutted brown hills. There were a million places where a man might hide with a high-powered ride.

  I resumed walking, slowly, head slightly bent, ready to break into a run if necessary. Being without a gun had distinct disadvantages. I was a sitting duck. The sun blazed on the back of my neck, sending beads of perspiration slithering down my spine.