Something quiet. A .22 being fired might not be heard, or the sound misinterpreted. Knock a wooden chair over the right way and it makes more noise. But the killer might not have known that or possessed so small a gun. Most of the guys in this outfit never went with anything less that a .38.
Why not a knife, then? Plenty of them in the club"s kitchen and simple enough to boost one and walk out. Or bring your own.
They can take time to do the job, though. You have to know what you"re doing. Human skin is tougher than one would think, and dragging even a razor-sharp blade through a couple of inches of muscle and cartilage of a throat takes effort. The victim doesn"t die instantly. There can be messy thrashing around; the killer can get splashed with telltale blood.
But strangulation, it"s very intimate. That"s one way to feel the whole progression of things shutting down as the life goes out of the body. There"s no doubt about death. If you have the strength and speed and cut off the blood to the brain quick, a few moment"s effort will do it. After that, then only forty pounds of pressure to crush what needs to be crushed, and it"s over and done, make a quiet exit.
Freeing up one of my hands, I lifted one of Caine"s by the shirt cuff and checked his manicured fingernails. Small dark crescents were under those nails, but not dirt-bloodsmell. He"d managed to dig in deep in his last struggle and left marks someplace on his killer"s body. The wrists...
Looked the rest of the small room over. No cover, no place to hide. Just me and what Caine had left behind of himself.
Bobbi had also used this as a dressing room at one time. And Adelle Taylor. And lots of others I knew by name or in person. Their ghosts seemed to shift uneasily around me, disliking what had happened in their sanctuary. I stood and was dizzy from the shift, staggering a step. Waited, expecting another fit to sneak up from within, but it didn"t happen. It was the air here. The presence of death. I didn"t have to breathe to be overwhelmed.
I got on the other side of the door, met Derner"s and Strome"s gazes.
"Yeah," said Derner, apparently agreeing with whatever he saw on my face.
"Any ideas?" I asked.
" "Bout what?"
"Who did it."
He shrugged. "Try a phone book."
"Not good enough. Show me your hands, both of you. Push your sleeves up."
They were mystified. Good.
"We don"t shoot dope, Boss," said Strome, misinterpreting.
Derner was clean. Strome"s knuckles were banged up and raw, but that was from the fight last night with Hoyle.
His arms were free of nail gouging and scratches. I needed these two to be in the clear. On the other hand, they might have ordered someone else to strangle Caine, though the why of it was a mystery. I could settle such questions easy enough, but at the cost of collapsing in agony at their feet. Bosses weren"t supposed to do that in front of the hired help.
Until I knew better, I"d just have to keep shut. "Who knows about this? Who found him?"
"Stage manager, just a few minutes ago," said Strome.
"Did he see anyone else in or out?"
"Nope. I asked him special. He knocked on the door, it opened, and he saw, then locked up and went for me and Derner. He won"t say nothing."
"We gotta get Caine out of here," Derner advised, casting a glance up and down the hall. "The next show starts soon, there"s no backup act-"
"Where"s Jewel Caine?" I asked.
"What? His ex? She"s here?"
"She was when we opened. Came back here to talk with friends. See if she"s in with the dancers."
He did so, banging once on their dressing room door and barging in. No one screamed a protest, and I heard their negative replies to his question.
"She left just a little bit ago," someone within volunteered. "What"s the idea locking us up? Hey-"
He returned. "You think she did it?"
Strome nodded. "She was plenty burned with him last night."
"I don"t know," I said. "We"ll figure that later. Where"s the stage manager?"
Derner got him, explained that Alan Caine had come over sick and had to leave. The manager nodded slowly, rightly taking this to be the blanket explanation he would pa.s.s to others. After that, we did some fast shuffling to fill out the second show for the evening. An apologetic announcement was to be given to the house. One of the dancers also sang, so she"d have to change to a gown and do some solo numbers to keep things going. The other dancers had a hoofing routine already worked up that would pad the bill. The manager went off to fix things.
"What if the audience wants a refund?" Derner asked me.
"Give "em their money, we can afford it." We sure as h.e.l.l wouldn"t be paying the star. I turned to Strome. "Hoyle might have tried collecting markers again and got too rough. I want to see him before we call the cops." They were shocked. "The cops?"
"You heard."
"But we can"t," said Denier.
I almost demanded to know why not, then bit it off. The Nightcrawler was already a favorite target for easy headlines; a murder under its roof just couldn"t happen. Too many of the people here had records, and I wasn"t about to draw official attention to myself if I could help it.
The trump card against bringing in the law was Gordy. If I didn"t clean up this mess, he could get hauled off by the cops. He was in no shape to deal with even routine questions.
I debated over which course to go with, and not for the first time settled things by thinking, "What would Gordy do?"
"All right," I said. "We take care of it ourselves."
"Take care of what?"
None of us were virgins when it came to dealing with death firsthand, but the three of us gave a collective jump at that mildly put question from an outside party.
Kroun stood rather close to our group, and no one had heard his approach. "Take care of what, Fleming?" he repeated.
Now I knew how Derner and Strome felt when I"d turned up. "We got a problem."
"What problem?" Kroun"s tone indicated he would like a full and truthful answer.
I didn"t want to say it out loud, so I opened the dressing-room door. The light was still on. Kroun looked in, but did not go in.
"That"s a problem," he agreed. "What are you going to do about it?"
Strome said to me, "Boss, I can disappear him like the others and no one"s the wiser."
"No," I snapped.
"The others?" asked Kroun.
"Like Bristow," I said, to explain. "We"re not dumping this guy in pieces for fish food. He can"t just mysteriously disappear, or we"d never hear the end of it. He"s too famous."
Kroun gave me a long look and nodded in thoughtful agreement. "What, then?"
"We smuggle him out after closing. Put him in his own place without anyone seeing. He can"t be found in the club.
We just say he walked away and stick to that and not know anything else. The cops will come by and ask questions, but it won"t be on the same level as it might if they knew he"d died here. Strome, you pick some guys who can keep their yaps shut, and I mean b.u.t.toned tight. They do the job, then forget they ever did it."
"Right, Boss."
"He was killed with something off his smoking jacket, make sure the jacket is taken to his place along with anything else he might normally have along with him. Make sure his wallet, keys, and stuff like that is on him. Take his hat and overcoat, and don"t touch the tie around his neck. Don"t just dump everything, make it look like he went home, and that"s where he bought it. Everyone wears gloves."
"Right, Boss." He went inside the dressing room, shut the door, and from the sound of it, was preparing things for departure. He would have to work quick before the body stiffened up.
"Derner, find out where Caine hung his hat and case it. Figure the best time to get him inside. Arrange for a closed truck, something that won"t stand out. No speeding, no busted lights, or whoever screws up will take the fall. Anyone too stupid or too nervous is on their own."
"Right, Boss."
"I want to know who was where from the moment Caine walked off the stage-wait-was Evie Montana in the dancers" dressing room?"
"I didn"t notice."
"Find out. I saw her follow Caine when his act was over. Where is she now?" Derner cut away to bang on the chorus dancer"s door again and looked inside. He traded words, then withdrew, shaking his head at me. "None of the girls have seen her since the end of the first show. They said Jewel came by to shoot the breeze. She stepped outside to have a smoke. Not allowed to smoke backstage."
"See if she"s still outside, then."
He tapped on Caine"s door, and Strome emerged. If I expected him to be pale and shaken from his grim work, I was disappointed. This wasn"t anything disturbing to him. Derner explained what was wanted, but Strome paused.
"Boss-there"s something gone from there." He gestured back toward the room.
"Yeah?"
"I looked, but Caine"s overcoat"s gone."
I digested this a few seconds. "Maybe the killer took it."
"Ya think?" Kroun put in. "You"re sure it"s gone?"
Strome nodded. "Not that big a place, and it"s a hard-to-miss coat. Tan-colored vicuna. Real flashy, expensive.
Someone could get some money hocking or selling it."
"It"d be too hot an item. Why else would they take it?"
" "Cause it"s cold?"
Kroun look at me. I shrugged. "As good a reason as any. It"ll make a search easier. Strome, go check the alley for Jewel Caine and see if you spot anyone dumb enough to have that coat."
Strome shot off, moving casual, but not wasting time.
With this kind of distraction I"d forgotten about my internal cold. It flooded its way back, and I had to fight to keep from visibly shivering. Evie Montana and Jewel Caine were gone, and the man between them thoroughly dead. I didn"t think either or even both working together would be strong enough to strangle him like that, so quickly. As for motive... well, Jewel had none to speak of; Caine alive meant money to her. Unless my loan of forty bucks had taken the pressure off, and she"d come back to have a gloat and one thing had led to another. If so, then why had Caine turned his back on her? He liked baiting people face-to-face to enjoy their reaction. Of course, he could have watched the reflection in the big mirror, but then he might have seen the attack coming and put up more of a fight.
Where had Evie gotten to, anyway? The way she dogged him, she might as well have been on a leash. Had she seen him killed and run? That was my main worry. If either of them saw something she shouldn"t, she was dead, too.
Derner went off to arrange details, leaving me and Kroun in the hall.
"You handled that," he said, "like you had it written out on a chalkboard."
I shrugged. "Just trying to antic.i.p.ate. If I left anything out, I wanna know."
We looked at each other a minute. I knew for sure that Kroun hadn"t personally done it since he"d been in my sight all during the break in the show. But Mitch.e.l.l could have managed, and he"d been missing for a long time.
"Where"s your boy?" I asked.
"You think Mitch.e.l.l pulled this?" Kroun didn"t seem angered by the implied accusation, only curious.
"He and Caine had a history, what was it?"
"d.a.m.ned if I know." The deadpan look moved back in. He should charge it rent.
"How can you not know?"
"Mitch.e.l.l"s job is to watch my back and run errands, I don"t need his life story for that."
"He was throwing looks at Caine."
"He does that for everyone. You, too, I noticed."
"Yeah, but I"m not strangled yet."
Kroun pushed the dressing-room door open. "Is that how it happened? He was strangled?"
"Yeah. Quiet."
"Knives are quiet, too." "No knife, or I"d have sme-seen the blood."
He backed out. "Look, Fleming, you got a half-a.s.sed reason against Mitch.e.l.l, and I"ll admit it"s a possibility. Who else is on your s.h.i.t list?"
"A guy named Hoyle. We"ll find him before the night"s out."
"There must be others. From what you"ve said there could be a hundred people all wanting Caine dead. You said he owed markers?"
"To this club, maybe others. The money was coming out of his pay. He was more valuable alive."
"Not to one person." From where he stood Kroun took another look at the room, a long one, then shut the door.
"That"s all it takes."
"Figure the cops are going to go in big on this," I said. "Caine was popular. Catch his killer fast, and they get approving headlines. We gotta hand them someone. Preferably the right someone."