Murder Is the Deal of the Day Page 17

  “Bond. I know, but it is scary sometimes ” Gil started to butter the toast. “Go ahead and call your little boy,” he said affectionately, “and tell him I said hi.”

  Chapter 44

  Whitey Belmont sat glaring at the TV. He’d been watching the Mall show for hours and Claire Hunt hadn’t appeared once, not even in a promo, the bitch.

  It had been three days since he’d killed Judy. Looking back at it now, he could see everything so clearly. It hadn’t been blind rage; no, Judy herself had forced him to react so violently—and Claire Hunt. Right from the beginning, the two had been coconspirators in a plot to break him financially.

  The police had been searching for Whitey ever since he escaped after calling 911. A nice touch, he thought, something to occupy the police who were sitting across the street. He hadn’t actually intended to confess on the phone, but the words—and threats against Claire—just came tumbling out.

  Now he was hiding out at his girlfriend’s apartment, the girlfriend Judy never knew about. He’d been seeing the waitress for over a year, and for most of that time she had been pushing him to get rid of that “fat pig of a wife” of his, so they could be together, forever. He always thought she meant divorce, but apparently she’d been through so many bad times, and bad men, in her life that she meant for him to do whatever it took. Because when Whitey had shown up at her place and told her what he’d done, he was shocked how she’d hugged him, cried out of happiness at the very thought of him doing such a thing for her—for them.

  For three days now he had been trying to think of a way to get to Claire Hunt while avoiding the police. He’d taken to pacing around the apartment with the gun tucked into his belt. It scared his girlfriend a bit, but it also excited her. She said she felt like they were Humphrey Bogart and Ida Lupino in High Sierra. Whitey didn’t think of himself as “Mad Dog” Earle, but then he didn’t think of himself as having gone off the deep end, either.

  He was holding the gun in his hand, watching the Mall show, about five seconds from firing the thing into the TV, a la Elvis, when there was a knock at the door. He got up and went to look through the peephole. The distorted face of a man wearing a brown cap and brown shirt looked back at him. Whitey had seen that uniform before, hundreds of times, whenever the UPS truck pulled up to his house to deliver packages to Judy. He yanked the door open, keeping the hand holding the gun concealed.

  “Yeah?”

  “Package for—”

  “What’s that?” Whitey suddenly shouted. He’d spotted the box under the man’s arm and saw the all-too-familiar Home Mall logo on the side.

  “It’s a delivery for—hey!”

  He didn’t get a chance to finish. Whitey grabbed the box, using both hands. The UPS man saw the gun and froze. He’d delivered packages to some crazies in his time, but nobody had ever come to the door with a gun before.

  Whitey frantically turned the box around so he could read the label. He thought maybe it was a mistake, just a sick cosmic joke, but there on the label was his girlfriend’s name and address. She had obviously ordered something from the Home Mall . . . from Claire.

  “Even you,” he said under his breath, and then again, louder, “Even you!”

  “Uh, look, you don’t have to sign . . .” the UPS man started to say, taking a step back.

  Whitey looked at him and a plan suddenly materialized. Dropping the box to the floor, he pointed the gun at the man. “Get in here.”

  “Hey, please mister, I’m just—”

  Whitey reached out, grabbed the front of the man’s shirt, and yanked him into the apartment. He slammed the door, then turned to face the man, who was holding his hands up in front of his face, sinking to his knees.

  “Hey, take it easy. . . . What are ya gonna do? . . . Aw, man . . .”

  “If you do exactly as I say,” Whitey said calmly, “you won’t get hurt.”

  Chapter 45

  “Why didn’t you tell me how dangerous things were getting?” Paul asked his mother over the phone. “I had to see it on CNN.”

  Claire got angry all over again, remembering how she had asked her old friend, the station manager at the news channel, to please hold off just a few days. But she was a hot news item now and they had run her story.

  “Sweetie, I didn’t want you to worry.”

  “Well, I’m coming there today,” Paul said. “I’m going to drive; it shouldn’t take me more than three and a half, maybe—”

  “Paul, honey, listen to me. Okay?”

  There was only the sound of his breathing on the other end.

  Claire could well appreciate her son’s frustration as she continued to explain. “I want you here; in fact, I was just going to call you. But now I think it wouldn’t be such a good idea.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because we have everything under control here.”

  “Is Gil there, Mom? Can I please talk to him?”

  “I am telling you the truth, Paul,” she said, a bit indignant. “And, no, Gil isn’t here; he’s at the store.”

  “He left you alone?”

  “The police are right outside,” Claire reassured him. “Gil has a business to run. We’re both trying desperately to have some sort of life here.”

  “The police are really there?”

  “They’ve been watching this building—day and night—for three days now.”

  “Jesus, Mom, why is this happening to you?” Suddenly, he sounded like a little boy, and she wanted to hug him.

  “Paul, it’ll be fine. Everybody gets a crazy person in their life sooner or later. What about that girl you dated last year?”

  He laughed. “You mean psycho Sandra?”

  “Yeah. Well, this one is mine. The police will catch him, put him away, and that will be the end of it.”

  Just then, the buzzer by the door sounded, a signal from the doorman.

  “Hold on, Paul, I have to get the intercom.”

  She walked to the door, taking the cordless phone with her. “Yes?” she said into the white box.

  “Uh, Mrs. Hunt? There’s uh, a UPS man here with a, uh, package for you.”

  “All right, Harry,” she said, “send him up.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  She thought Harry sounded a little strange, but how could you tell when the intercom cracked with so much static?

  “Paul, I’ve got to go. The doorman is sending up the UPS man.”

  “Mom—”

  “Don’t worry, I’ll call you soon.” She pressed the off button on the phone.

  “Mom, don’t let anybody—”

  Detective Myra Longfellow watched from the unmarked van across the street as the UPS man double-parked his truck and went to the door of the building. He held a brief conversation with the doorman, who then admitted him. From that point on, she couldn’t see either one of them. She moved away from the window and looked at the man in the back of the van.

  He was the technician for the surveillance equipment, Detective Al Marino. Marino was in his thirties and not what Longfellow considered a “real cop.” He had been educated and hired to play with electronic toys. As far as she was concerned, that did not make him a cop of any kind.

  “I wish I could hear what was going on inside the apartment,” she said aloud.

  “Hey, I could have wired it, if you’d wanted,” Marino said.

  “We needed Mr. and Mrs. Hunt’s okay for that, and they said no.”

  Marino shrugged. “People want their privacy, even when they’re in danger.”

  She looked at him, wondering what experience he could possibly be speaking from.

  She turned to watch the TV monitor, noticing how the UPS truck was blocking their view of the building’s front door. She didn’t like it and said so.

  “He’ll make his delivery and move,” Marino said. “Hey, you wanna get something to eat?”

  “I just had breakfast an hour ago.”

  “I know. Me, too. So, do you wanna?”

>   “No,” she said, “you go.”

  “You sure? Coffee?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Okay, then. I’ll be right back.” He slid open the van door, which was on the sidewalk side, stepped out, and closed it.

  She stared at the truck on the TV screen. UPS deliveries were not unusual. There had been others since they’d been on stakeout here. But she didn’t remember the driver parking like that before. Maybe it wasn’t the regular guy making this delivery.

  After about ten minutes, she started to get impatient with Marino. She wanted him to come back so she could go across the street to check things out. The UPS guy had been inside too long. True, he could have had more than one delivery, but when he got out of the truck, she’d seen him carrying only one small box under his arm. Over the past few days, they had recorded every UPS delivery, and it was not unusual for the driver to be inside for a long period of time. A ten-story building, with twelve condos per floor, got deliveries every day— but this man had only one box, so why was he inside for so long?

  She went to the driver’s side window again, where she had a better view of the front door. From time to time, she’d been able to see the doorman moving inside, but there was no movement now.

  “Shhhit,” she hissed, “shitshitshit!”

  She opened the door hurriedly, jumped out of the van, and sent Marino’s lunch flying from his hands.

  “Hey!” he said, staggering back from the collision. “What gives?”

  “Come on,” she shouted. “Something’s wrong.”

  She ran across the street, directly to the UPS truck. She climbed inside. When she saw the trussed-up man in the back, clad only in his T-shirt and boxers, she shouted, “Shit!”

  Chapter 46

  He answered the phone on the first ring. “Old Delmar Bookstore.”

  “Gil, I just talked to Mom,” Paul said.

  “Your mother’s doing fine.”

  “She hung up on me,” Paul interrupted. “She said the doorman was sending up a UPS man.”

  “Paul, we get deliveries in that building every day.”

  “She shouldn’t be opening the door to anyone. Didn’t you tell her that?”

  “The police are right in front of the building, Paul.”

  “But she’s still alone inside the apartment. I’m surprised you went to work, Gil.”

  “Paul,” Gil said defensively, “we still have to make a living. . . .” but even as he said it, he felt guilty. It was Claire who had insisted he go to the store and leave her alone.

  “I love you dearly,” she had said, “but I need some time to myself. I’m feeling smothered by all this.”

  He’d finally relented and agreed to go to the store. This was the second day he’d done so, and he’d spent most of it the way he’d spent the first, worrying about his wife.

  “Paul—”

  “I called back, Gil,” Paul said, “I called back right away, and there was no answer.”

  At that moment, a second call made its presence known through a call-waiting beep.

  “Hold on, Paul,” Gil said, “I have another call. It’s probably your mother. Hello?”

  “Gil?” It was Holliday.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “We screwed up . . . royally.”

  Gil hurried home after assuring Paul—lying to him—that everything was fine. He parked in front, illegally, near a double-parked UPS truck with a policeman standing near it. The cop tried to stop him, but he rushed for the front door of the building. When he reached it, he saw that the glass of the door had been shattered. The doorman, Harry Wales, was not on duty, but there was a uniformed policeman behind his desk. The other came rushing in behind him. They made Gil produce identification before allowing him into the elevator, but the procedure smacked of closing the barn door after the horse had already cleared the fence.

  When Gil reached his apartment, the door was open and several people were inside.

  “ . . . had let me install sound equipment this might not have happened,” a man was saying.

  “I told you,” Myra Longfellow said, “we needed an okay for that and—”

  “Myra,” Holliday cut her off as Gil entered.

  “How did this happen?” Gil demanded. “Weren’t you right outside the door?”

  “Across the street, Gil,” Holliday said. “Detectives Marino and Longfellow were in the van across the street. When the UPS truck pulled up, they thought nothing of it. The truck has been here every day since we started surveillance. Sometimes more than once a day.”

  “And when did you realize something was wrong?”

  “The man entered with only one package,” Longfellow said, “and he was inside for longer than seemed necessary. I got a bad feeling, so I went to check out the truck. The real UPS guy was tied up in the back. He’d been hit on the head with something, probably a gun.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” Gil said, “I feel real bad for him, but where the hell is my wife?”

  “We don’t know,” Holliday said. “It’s obvious she opened the door to Belmont. He must have grabbed her. We checked your underground garage and her car is gone, so he had to have taken her out that way.”

  “You didn’t see her car pull out?” Gil demanded of Longfellow and Marino.

  Longfellow opened her mouth to say something, but nothing came out.

  “Hey,” Marino said, “I just watch the equipment.”

  Enraged, Gil shouted, “You’re supposed to be watching my wife!”

  “Not my job, man.”

  Gil went for him. They would have had to arrest him for assaulting a police officer if Holliday hadn’t grabbed him.

  “Get out of here!” Holliday shouted at Marino.

  Marino held both hands in front of him, palms out, shrugged, and left the apartment.

  “You, too, Myra.”

  Again, she looked as if she wanted to say something, but she turned and left. At that point, Holliday released Gil.

  All he’d been feeling during the drive over from the store was a cold panic in the pit of his stomach. This rage was something he had never experienced before—ever—in his life. Claire had been in his life only a few short years, and she had brought him nothing but happiness. If he lost her now, so soon after they’d found each other . . .

  “Where is she, Holliday?” he said weakly, sinking down onto the couch; his legs would no longer support him. “Where is she?”

  “We’ll find her, Gill,” Holliday said. “I swear we’ll find her.”

  “How?” Gill looked up imploringly at the detective. “How?”

  Holliday didn’t have an answer, yet.

  Chapter 47

  Claire had been surprised that she didn’t feel more fear. From the moment she opened the door and the UPS man had

  pointed the gun at her, she had known she could die. So why hadn’t there been more fear?

  “Finally!” the man had said, pushing her into the apartment and slamming the door.

  “Who are you? What do you want?” Even as she’d asked these questions, she’d felt as if she were in a bad TV show, reading lines from a hackneyed script.

  “It doesn’t matter,” the man had said.

  “You’re Belmont . . . Whitey Belmont. Your wife was Judy.”

  “My wife,” he’d said, shaking his head. “You spoke to her every day.”

  “I didn’t—”

  “Oh, maybe you weren’t properly introduced, but you knew her all right. And you spoke to her, every day, through the television. You made her buy things, spend money; you preyed on her weaknesses—”

  “And that’s why you killed her? And those other women?”

  Would he react like they did in those bad TV programs? she wondered. Would he tell her?

  “Shut up! Just shut up.”

  “Why should I?” she’d demanded. “I have questions, and if you’re going to . . . to kill me, I have a right—”

  A red flush had started creeping down his forehe
ad. “The only rights you have are the ones I give you!” he’d shouted into her face. She’d watched his knuckles turn white as he held the gun on her. Just for that moment, she had flinched, waiting for the shot but still not feeling the degree of fear she had expected.

  Whitey had apparently not planned very well. Once he was inside the apartment, he didn’t seem to know what to do.

  “The police are across the street,” she’d said, suddenly seeing a way to distract him. “If you fire your gun in here, they’ll be all over you.”

  “I knew they’d be here,” he’d said, “like they were outside my house, but I outsmarted them then and I’m doing it now.”

  “So what’s going to happen?”

  “You’re going to shut up, and let me think.”

  She had considered not shutting up, thinking maybe she could rattle him, make him nervous. On the other hand, that might only agitate him more, causing him to pull the trigger. She’d decided to keep quiet and see what he came up with.

  “You have a car?” he’d asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Where is it?”

  “In the parking lot.”

  “Outside?”

  She’d shaken her head. “Under the building.”

  “Okay,” he’d said, “okay, let’s go.”

  “Where?”

  “To your car.”

  “But I mean . . . after that. Where do we go?”

  “Stop asking so many questions!”

  She had felt some panic, but still not fear. At least, she didn’t think she felt afraid. She was thinking clearly, and people who were afraid didn’t do that, did they?

  “We’ll get your car. Once we’re away from here, I can decide what to do with you.”

  He’d taken her to the basement garage then, refusing to let her take her purse, which she had reached for out of habit.

  “You won’t need it,” he’d said.

  They got in the car and she used her remote to open the gate. As they drove out, she saw the UPS truck, and the police van across the street. She considered ramming the police vehicle with her car.