Dig A Dead Doll Page 6

  Outside it was dark now, and I had to turn on the headlights of my convertible. Suddenly Rafael snapped his fingers. “Uno momento. I forgot my hat.”

  He jumped from the car and ran inside. This gave me just enough time to open the envelope and read the scrawled message under the dash light.

  The letter read:

  Dear Honey: No matter what happens Sunday, meet me Tuesday morning at Slip 19, Landon’s Dock, Shelter Island, San Diego. Make it around 10:30 so I can bring myself back from the dead l Love, Pete.

  Rafael came out of La Tita still smiling, waving his hat in the glow of the headlights.

  I tucked the message inside my blouse again.

  After he climbed into the car, he patted my shoulder warmly and laughed. “Quite a show, eh?”

  “Since I was part of it, I’m hardly a good judge,” I said. “What actually happened, Rafael?”

  I backed the car out and swung onto the highway, into a blaze of other headlights.

  “Well, you fell off your stool—”

  “That I remember.”

  “They tried to remove your clothes, but you got up again.”

  “You mean I fought my way out, isn’t that about it?”

  “They liked that,” he said, sucking on a cigarette. “They are very masochistic.”

  “That I can believe. Then what?”

  “You fainted. That is all.”

  “You sure, that’s all?”

  “Yes.”

  I squinted at him in the dim light of passing automobiles. “Those girls are all too pretty to be involved in a lewd, indecent show like that. Why do they do it?”

  “Parne.”

  “Parne? What’s that?”

  “It’s a gypsy slang expression for money. They make more than any other entertainers in all of Tijuana.”

  “Why?”

  “Zingo.”

  “You mean—?”

  “He owns La Tita,” Rafael said. “It is operated by one of his men, a greasy little pig by the name of Punta Punta. Zingo pays those girls plenty. Of course, as you probably noticed, they enjoy their work.”

  I nodded. I was thinking about Maria and the note. And about Zingo and Punta Punta. Punta Punta had been the man with Zingo the night they strung me from that tree. I wondered if the message could be a fake. I’d learn that tomorrow. Rafael had a few ideas of his own for tonight.

  “How about stopping at my place for a nightcap?” he said, exhaling smoke through his nostrils.

  “Maybe.”

  “No maybe about it.” He spoke in a hard dry tone. “I have a proposition to make to you.”

  “What sort of proposition?”

  “One that I am sure you’ll enjoy.”

  “Oh?” There was something strange about this boyish-looking man. Something I couldn’t quite put my finger on. “Where do you live?”

  “On the east side of town. You’ll like my house.”

  “I’ll bet I will.”

  Rafael resided in an ultra-spectacular home, on a sloping hillside, amid a grove of poplars and wild flowers. The heavy shingle roof nearly touched the ground in some places, at one point jutting down toward a small stream which curved around the house. He had a Z-shaped swimming pool that zigzagged from a corner of his bedroom, under a wall, and into his master bath. Outdoors, beyond sliding glass doors in the spacious living room, could be seen an oval shaped pool, surrounded by colorful mosaic tiles. The structure of the rambling one-story building was a striking combination of hand-rubbed woods in an ash-gray finish and satiny steel, both conveying artistic beauty as well as a cool, clean look.

  He poured two martinis and then joined me on a divan big enough to accommodate a dozen people at a casual party. He wasn’t casual though. Not a bit. He squatted next to me and grasped my hands.

  “I notice you do not wear a brassiere,” he said.

  “So?”

  “So that shows you are healthy, natural, unrestricted.”

  ‘That also shows me what you’re after.”

  His full-lipped mouth twisted into a smile. “You remind me of a good bull, Honey. Always cutting across at the right angles, never deviating.”

  “And you remind me of a good bullfighter. Never taking a backward step, always holding firm and steady.” Rafael couldn’t have been more than a year or two older than my middle-late twenties. He was very handsome, almost pretty, and his curly black hair glistened in the dim light. I got up and walked to a huge block fireplace built in the middle of the living room.

  “Your eyes,” I said, cautiously, “were more on the men sitting around than on the cavorting threesome at La Tita. Are you a member of the maricon crowd?”

  He didn’t move for an instant, then lifted his martini in a quiet, one-man toast and said, “Perhaps.”

  “Why play for me, then?”

  “You don’t understand, Honey.”

  “What are you, Rafael, ambidexterous?”

  “No.” He said it so simply I believed him.

  “What then?”

  “I guess everyone is interested to some degree in sex deviation. Like tonight. The men there at La Tita wallowed in that show.”

  “Why?”

  “Because it was a group of women. Had it been men they would have walked out, just as you wanted to when you saw Maria, Rachel and Juanita together.”

  “It was raw, Rafael.”

  He laughed lowly. “That was primeval lust. A ritual. A throwback to the Roman era.”

  I sipped at my martini. “Sometimes you talk as if you were educated in the states.”

  He shook his head. “Most of my education was in Spain, where I saw rituals that would burn the eyes out of your head. In Europe convention means nothing. Especially in the dirty sections of major cities.”

  “Rafael, were you ever gored by a bull?”

  “Not seriously. A scratch here and there. I have always acted as my own doctor.”

  “Why?”

  “You saw what happened to Pete Freckle. He took the horns. Full. You don’t live long that way. But you can live.”

  “How?”

  “You must have great knowledge of the body, Honey. Where the blood supply flows, how best to close off the veins and arteries.”

  “Do you suppose, Pete might possibly—”

  “That’s what I want to know, too.” He patted my shoulder tenderly. “That is what my proposition is about.”

  “What do you mean?”

  A hurt look came into his eyes. He dropped his hands at his sides and grimaced. “Find Pete Freckle!”

  “But that’s what I’ve been trying to do.”

  He crossed to a desk and scribbled something with a pen, then brought it back to me. My eyes widened. It was a check for five hundred dollars to be drawn against a bank in San Diego, and it was made out in my name. ‘What’s this for?” I demanded.

  “You are a private detective. You will need money.” ■But—”

  “I want you to remain here in Mexico until Pete is found. I am hiring you to locate him, dead or alive.”

  “But—”

  “Don’t ask me any other questions. There will be five hundred more for you if you bring him to me alive.” A bitter look of grief seized him and he turned away.

  “Rafael—”

  “Please go now,” he stammered, head bent, shoulders trembling slightly.

  I thought about the message tucked in my blouse, thinking too about Maria and-those girls sprawled on that dirty floor. Somehow nothing made sense. Not Pete’s disappear-once. Nor the note. Nor Rafael’s sudden interest in the missing matador.

  I stared at the torero’s back for a moment, then turned and walked down a corridor leading to the front door, my heels clattering on slabs of grayish-blue slate. Outside stars shone in a savagely black sky. I crossed a narrow bridge to my car and climbed inside.

  EIGHT

  There was a boat waiting for me at Shelter Island the next morning, a sleek-looking cabin cruiser with a white hull an
d a husky, bare-chested skipper named Link Rafferty.

  “Hi, there,” he called, as I came down off Langdon’s Dock onto Slip 19. “You Honey West?”

  I nodded. He introduced himself and said, “I’ve been waiting all morning, what’s kept you?”

  “My message said ten-thirty.”

  “Oh.” His forehead ridged. “They didn’t give me the exact time you were expected. I sort of figured you’d want to get started early.”

  “Started?” I said. ‘Tor where?”

  “Catalina Island. Those were my instructions.”

  “From whom?”

  He cocked his sailing cap back and said, “The Langdons. They’re my agents. When any charter jobs come in they usually steer them my way if I’m available.” He gave me a once-over run with his eyes and added, “I’m sure glad I was available this trip.”

  “Do you have any idea who hired you?”

  “Nope.”

  He climbed into the stern of the boat and began loosening one of the lines. “You check with Mr. Langdon. He’s in the main office. My orders are to take you to the Isthmus at Catalina. You’re supposed to meet someone there and then be returned to Shelter Island. If we don’t get moving soon this’ll be an all-night trip.”

  I checked with Mr. Langdon in the office. He said a man had made the charter over the telephone the day before, refusing to give any name except Honey West. A special messenger had arrived shortly afterward with money covering the trip. On my way back to Slip 19, I argued with myself over the possibility that this was a trick. It wasn’t possible Pete Freckle could go to such lengths to effect a meeting with me if he were so badly injured. Then again if Carlos Ortega was the liar Rafael claimed there might not have been a bullet. And maybe Pete’s injuries weren’t as severe as they appeared from a box high in the stadium. In any event someone was awfully anxious to meet me at the Isthmus at Catalina. If it were Pete Freckle, or one of his friends, I’d be making a big mistake if I didn’t go.

  We shoved off from Slip 19 by eleven o’clock. The sun was brilliant in a cloudless sky and a warm breeze blew in off the water. We nosed out of the harbor, put the city of San Diego at our stem and cut around Point Loma into the open sea.

  Earlier I’d cashed Rafael’s check and purchased a new Hi-standard .22 revolver in National City on my way up from Tijuana. I had also bought a bathing suit, a small handbag and a brassiere. The bra and revolver I tucked into the bag. It was such a beautiful day I decided to wear the swim suit under my skirt and blouse.

  After we cleared the harbor I stripped off my outer clothing and relaxed near the stem. I wasn’t down five minutes before a loud whistle erupted above the roar of the boat’s engine. I sat up quickly. Link Rafferty was bent over the wheel, head turned toward me, a knowing smile on his broad lips.

  “Hey,” he shouted. “How about giving me a hand.”

  “With what?”

  “Steering this tub. It’s a long way to Catalina.”

  “Okay.”

  I joined him in the wheelhouse. He was a big brute, about six-foot-six, two hundred and fifty pounds. Corn-colored hair slanted from under his cap and beads of perspiration stood out on a well-tanned face and chest.

  When I took the wheel, he lit a cigarette and stuck it in my mouth, then lit one for himself.

  ‘What’s the mystery all about?” he asked, rubbing his chin.

  “What mystery?”

  “Well, you seem surprised to be going to Catalina. You apparently don’t know who you’re meeting there. And you don’t seem to know who made this charter for you.”

  “That’s the way my life goes.”

  “What are you, somebody’s long-lost heiress or something?”

  “No. I’m a private investigator.”

  ‘You’re kidding?”

  “Sometimes I wish I were. My father was killed in this business. Ever hear of Hank West?”

  Link snapped his fingers. “Sure. I remember reading about him in a Sunday supplement one time. He was one of the real old-timers. Used to pack a rod in the handle of his cane.”

  “That’s right.”

  “He solved over a thousand cases, didn’t he?”

  “Almost,” I said, remembering the fatal night somebody caught Hank West from behind. “There was one he didn’t solve. His own murder.”

  “Yeah, I read about that, too. In an alley, wasn’t it?”

  I nodded dismally. “Behind a theater in downtown Los Angeles. It was raining that night. He fell in the gutter—”

  “So you’ve taken over the business?”

  “Sort of.” I rubbed my eyes. “I started out looking for dad’s murderer. I’ve spent five years without any luck. Maybe one of these days though—”

  “Perhaps today is the day,” Link said, inhaling smoke. “A mysterious charter to Catalina. What could be better?”

  I patted his arm and grinned. “Now don’t go amateur detective on me, skipper. You’re the pilot of this cruise and let’s not forget it.”

  He saluted and said, “Aye, aye sir. Any further orders, sir?”

  “Yes, tell rite where you got the name Link?”

  He smiled broadly, the corners of his eyes crinkling. ‘Well, you see us Raffertys are as Irish as kidney stew. In fact, until I came along there wasn’t a blonde or darkhaired one in the bunch. No sir, they were all as red as an Irish sunset. Well, then up popped old Number Six. That’s me. And lo and behold, he had blond hair and blue eyes. Well, my father, Joseph O’Leary Murphy Rafferty the Fourth said to his good wife, ‘It must be the missing link.’ And so it was until this day, Link Rafferty. Of course, my real name is Joseph O’Leary Murphy Rafferty the Fifth.”

  “You mean those first five were all girls?” I asked.

  “I’m afraid so. Can you imagine growing up with five red-headed sisters, and being the baby of the family.”

  I scanned his huge frame. “Some baby you wound up being.”

  He leaned against the bulkhead, brushing against my shoulder. “I’d better warn you, Honey, I’ve been spoiled rotten. Got everything I’ve ever wanted.”

  “Everything?”

  “Everything.”

  Suddenly the engine began missing below us. It popped, sputtered, popped again and then quit completely.

  “What the devil?” Link said, lifting up twin floor panels to reveal the motor. “This thing has been running nothing but smooth for the last month and a half. I just had it overhauled.”

  I didn’t suspect sabotage until Link finished his examination, then it struck home hard.

  “Some dirty louse poured sand into our gas tank, Honey. It’s fouled up the whole works. We’re stuck.”

  “You mean you can’t make it-work at all?”

  “That’s right. I’ll have to radio for. help.”

  He climbed down into the main cabin to his ship-to-shore receiver and began calling, “Mayday. Hello. Mayday to anyone! Come in, please.”

  Then Link swore. ‘Why that dirty son of a—”

  “What’s the matter?”

  “My radio’s busted. Somebody’s yanked out a whole bunch of wires.”

  “Don’t you keep your cabin locked?”

  “Sure. But this morning I found the lock jimmied. Nothing was missing, so I didn’t think any more about it. I didn’t bother to check the radio. What is this, Honey? What’s going on?”

  “I don’t know, Link. I honestly don’t know.”

  I moved to the stern of the boat and surveyed the water. The land had disappeared behind us and we were in open sea. Nothing moved anywhere, except the rising and dropping waves. Link joined me after a minute.

  “Looks like we’re going to have to sit this one out,” he said, disgruntedly. “You play gin.”

  “No, but I drink it.”

  “So do I. You want a shot?”

  “Not right now. I’m worried, Link. Really worried.”

  “What about?”

  I told him about the episode at Rosarito Beach when the po
wer launch came out of nowhere spitting machine gun bullets. I told him, too, about Pete Freckle, and the Tijuana bull ring, and the night I was left hanging from a tree.”

  Link shook his head. “Holy smokes, you mean to tell me you’re mixed up with a Mexican bullfight syndicate?”

  “Something like that.”

  His eyes searched the barren sea. “You don’t think they’ll—?”

  “I don’t think anything, Link,” I said, abruptly. “They went to a lot of trouble to sabotage your boat and get me out here. So what do you think?”

  The muscles in his jaws rippled. “You got a gun?”

  “Yes. How about you?”

  He nodded. “An old Daisy air rifle. It won’t do much, except maybe scare somebody.”

  “These people don’t seem to scare easily, Link.”

  “So I gather.”

  He stood up slowly, walked to the cabin and returned with a pair of field glasses. “It might be someone else will come along before—”

  He placed the glasses to his eyes and made a sweeping arc, covering the water from stem to bow on both sides of the boat. “Nothing in sight as yet. At least, we should have some warning.”

  “I’m sorry you had to become mixed up in this, Link.”

  He grinned out of the side of his mouth. He was itching for a fair fight. Of course, we both realized if a fight came it wasn’t going to be anywhere near fair. These people didn’t play that way.

  We waited two hours. The sun blazed down and the boat rocked gently in a calm sea. A slight breeze came up and began blowing us in a northwesterly direction. We had taken to the deck, huddled in one corner where We were afforded good vision on all sides. Link brought out his air rifle, one of those pump handle B-B guns, and I removed my .22 revolver from die handbag. He poured us each a shot of gin.

  “Thank you kindly, sir,” I said. “This is better than playing it. Maybe this’ll relax my nerves.”

  He lifted his glass. “Cheers.”

  The afternoon began to wear on. So did the bottle of gin. The wind became more intense, blowing us farther out to sea.

  After about our eighth round, Link mumbled, “Hey, Honey, maybe that was just a prowler, the one who poured the sand in our gas tank.”