“What?”
“I might fall in love with you — and I’d probably get into some kind of trouble I don’t want to get into. Being in love with you — well, I could handle that. At least I think I could. The other, I don’t know.”
“What other?”
“The trouble.”
“You mean like this afternoon with Harold Snow?” She nodded. “You liked that,” Dill said, “I could tell.”
“You’re right,” she said. “I did. I never thought I’d like something like that before. I thought I liked safe, polite things.” She shook her head as if in wonder. “Even tonight I liked it, when we were only talking to that old man, to Laffter, and he didn’t just lie down and take it. He gave as good as he got. In fact, he was better than you were — than we were — most of the time anyway and, well, I liked that, too. At least, until he keeled over. That shook me. Even Clay getting shot didn’t hit me that hard. And poor dumb Harold Snow, well, that was just kicks. But I was involved with that old man. I helped make it happen. And that got to me because I finally realized it’s not just let’s pretend, is it?”
“No,” Dill said.
“You remember my asking if you weren’t just all act?”
“Yes.”
“You’re no act.”
“I suppose not.”
“It makes me afraid and I don’t want to be afraid. And I don’t want to be in love with you either. And I don’t want to be your friend.”
“Just my lawyer.”
“If that.”
Dill wasn’t at all sure what he should say. So he said nothing. Instead, he reached over and drew her to him. She went unwillingly at first, but then all resistance ceased and their mouths were again mashed together in one of their long, almost angry kisses.
When it was over she half lay on the car seat with her head on his shoulder. “I wanted that,” she said. “I wanted to see if I could taste old death.”
“Did you?”
“If it tastes like Scope, I did.”
He kissed her again, gently this time, almost lovingly, and said, “You don’t really want to be just my lawyer, do you?”
She sighed. “I reckon not.”
“You can be both my lawyer and my sweetie.”
“Your sweetie? Good Lord.”
“What’s wrong with that?”
She raised up to look at him. “I don’t want any more trouble.”
Dill grinned. “You like it. Trouble. You said so yourself.”
She put her head back down on his shoulder. “Sweetie,” she said unbelievingly. “My God. Sweetie.”
As he drove down Our Jack Street on his way back to the Hawkins Hotel, Dill saw that the First National Bank was proclaiming 88 degree weather at 10:31 P.M. He automatically looked for Clyde Brattle’s blue Dodge van as he drove into the basement parking garage, but didn’t see it. Dill got out of the Ford and hurried to the elevator, skirting carefully around the big square concrete posts. He rode the elevator all the way up to the ninth floor without bothering to stop by the desk for any messages.
Dill unlocked the door to 981 and shoved it open, but didn’t go in. The only sound he heard was that of the air-conditioning. He went in quickly, closed the door, and looked in the bathroom, but found only a faucet dripping into the sink. He turned it off.
Back in the room, Dill crossed to the phone and called information. He asked for and was given the number of St. Anthony’s Hospital. He called the hospital and after going through four different departments was at last connected with a Mr. Wade who sounded very young and very casual.
“I’d like to know how an intensive-care patient of yours is doing,” Dill said. “Laffter. Fred Y.”
“Laughter like in ha-ha?” Mr. Wade asked.
“Like in L-a-f-f-t-e-r.”
“Lemme check. Laffter… Laffter. Oh, yeah, well he died. About twenty minutes ago. You a relative?”
“No.”
“There’s no relative listed in his admission. Who d’you think I oughta call?”
Dill thought for a moment and then told Mr. Wade to call Harry the Waiter at the Press Club.
Later, Dill telephoned room service and asked them to send him up a bottle of J&B Scotch, some ice, and a steak sandwich. When it came he ignored the sandwich and mixed a drink. He drank that one quickly, standing up, and then mixed a second one.
He carried the second one over to the window and stood there, sipping it, and staring down at Our Jack Street on Saturday night. There were few cars to be seen and even fewer pedestrians. Once, people had come downtown on Saturday night, but they didn’t anymore, and he wondered where they went — or if they went anywhere. He thought about Clay Corcoran then, the dead football player turned private detective who had loved Dill’s dead sister. The two deaths were connected somehow, Dill knew, but he soon tired of trying to understand what the connection was. He thought about the sheep-faced Harold Snow after that, but only briefly, and then his thoughts went in a direction he didn’t want them to go and he thought about the irascible old police reporter who had died alone in the hospital, possibly of apoplexy. He thought about Laffter for a long time and stopped only because he noticed that his drink was empty. He looked at the First National Bank’s time and temperature sign. It said it was two minutes past midnight on Sunday, August 7. It also claimed that the temperature was still 88 degrees.
Dill turned from his vigil at the window, went to the phone, and called Anna Maude Singe. She answered on the seventh ring with an almost inaudible hello.
“He died about two hours ago,” Dill said.
She was silent for several moments and then said, “I’m sorry.” She paused. “Is there anything I can do?”
“No.”
“You’re blaming yourself, aren’t you?”
“Some, I guess. I made him pretty mad.”
“Well, it’s done now. It’s over. There’s nothing you can do unless you want to grieve for him.”
“I didn’t know him all that well.”
“I’ll give you some legal advice then.”
“All right.”
“Forget it, sweetie,” she said and hung up.
Chapter 27
At shortly after nine on Sunday morning the telephone rang in Dill’s hotel room. He had been asleep when it began to ring and he was still half asleep when he answered it with a scratchy hello and heard Senator Ramirez say, “This is Joe Ramirez, Ben. You awake?”
“I’m awake.”
“We’ll be coming in tomorrow around four o’clock. Could you rent a car and meet us at the airport by any chance?”
“Us?”
“Dolan and me. He’ll be coming in from Washington. I’m still in Santa Fe.”
“Around four,” Dill said. “Tomorrow.”
“If it’s no bother, of course.”
“I’ll be there. Can you hold a second?”
“Of course.”
Dill put the phone down, went into the bathroom, splashed cold water on his face, came back into the room, noticed the bottle of whisky, paused, tilted it up, took a quick swallow, and got back on the phone with a question: “Did Dolan tell you about Clyde Brattle?”
“Yes, he did, and it presents a problem, doesn’t it?”
“I told Dolan you can have either Brattle or Jake Spivey — but not both.”
“I’m not quite sure I agree, Ben. I think I’ll need to talk to them both. Can you arrange it?”
“Spivey’s no problem. I’m seeing him today. But I’ll have to wait for Brattle to call me, although I’m pretty sure he will — unless the FBI’s got him.”
“You didn’t tell them he’s there, did you?” The Senator’s baritone rose in what sounded very much to Dill like alarm.