“The fourth,” Dill said, suddenly remembering. “Number four-two-eight.”
Spivey nodded. “Believe you’re right.” He held up the wet trenchcoat. “What d’you want me to do with this?”
Dill took the coat and said he would hang it up behind the bathroom door. When he came back, Spivey was seated on the couch staring at the Parrish print. Dill asked him if he wanted a drink. Spivey shook his head and said, “Liquor and Clyde Brattle don’t mix.” He turned from the print to Dill. “Clyde sound like he’s willing to cut a deal?”
“He might — depending on what you’ve got to offer.”
“I’ve been thinking about that, Pick, and I haven’t got a whole hell of a lot. What I’ve got might get Clyde twenty-five years, but, shit, what’s twenty-five years when you’re looking a hundred in the face?”
Dill took the King Brothers ice-cream sack from the top of the old record player and handed it to Spivey, who asked, “What’s this?” Both his tone and expression were totally suspicious.
“Fudge ripple.”
Spivey stared at Dill for several seconds, and then opened the sack, much as if it might have contained either a bomb or a snake. He brought out the small Sony player-recorder. “I always did like Sony fudge ripple.” He again looked at Dill. “Want me to go ahead and play it?”
“That’s right.”
Spivey studied the controls briefly, put the player-recorder on the coffee table, and pushed the play button. The sound this time came from the machine’s small one-inch speaker. The voices were clear but tinny. Dill watched Spivey listen. And Spivey listened with total absorption and concentration, asking only two one-word questions and they were, “Ramirez?” and “Dolan?” when the voices of the Senator and the minority counsel were heard for the first time. There’s no surprise on his face, Dill noted. No surprise, no elation, no appreciation. Nothing but that curiously blank and neutral look that comes when the mind is absolutely concentrated.
But when it was over the smile came — the Spivey smile: full of villainy and cheer, malice and humor. A rogue’s smile, Dill thought.
With the smile still beaming, and an expression of mild wistfulness added, Spivey said, “You wouldn’t wanta sell me that little old tape there, would you, Pick?”
“I might.”
“How much you asking?”
“How much’re you willing to pay, Jake?”
“About every dime I’ve got — and I’ll throw in Daffy and the pickup, too.”
“With that tape,” Dill said, “you won’t have to go to jail.”
“You don’t know what that tape really is, do you, Pick?”
“What?”
“Why it’s the ultimate briarpatch, that’s what. Shit, with that, I won’t even have to think about going to jail.” The smile appeared. “C’mon, Pick, how much you really asking?”
“My don’t-fuck-around-anymore price?”
“Just name it, I’ll pay it.”
Dill felt the tension come then. It started in his shoulders, shot up to his neck, and fastened around his mouth. His lips felt stiff; the inside of his mouth dry. Go ahead, he told himself. Spit it out, and if you’re too dry to spit, write it down.
“What I want, Jake,” Dill said slowly, surprised at how calm and reasonable he sounded. “What I want is whoever it was who killed Felicity.”
The Spivey smile went away. A grimace took its place. It was a grimace of regret. Spivey looked to his left at the Parrish print. He studied it for several moments, then looked down at the tape recorder and chewed on his lower lip at least three or four times. Finally, he looked back up at Dill. The grimace was gone. The smile was back and the eyes were brimming with what Dill took to be both guile and good will.
“Well?” Dill said.
“No problem,” Jake Spivey said.
Chapter 37
An almost ebullient Jake Spivey changed his mind about having a drink. Dill went into the kitchen and poked around until he found Anna Maude Singe’s limited liquor supply. He poured two glasses of vodka on the rocks and carried them back into the living room. He handed one of the glasses to the seated Spivey and said, “Let’s hear it.”
Spivey took a big gulp of the drink, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, shook his head and — smiling all the while — said, “You just sit back and let me handle this, Pick.”
“Trust you.” Dill didn’t make it a question.
Spivey nodded. “Trust me.”
“I don’t trust anybody, Jake.”
“Must be lonesome,” Spivey said and started to say something else, but broke off at the sound of the knock at the living-room door. Dill looked at his watch. It was exactly 10 P.M. Spivey rose and said, “Why don’t you let old Clyde in?”
Dill went to the door and opened it. Standing in the corridor, wearing a slight bemused smile, an oyster-white raincoat, a matching rain hat, and carrying a wet umbrella, was Clyde Brattle. Dill thought Brattle resembled some long-vanished Roman consul more than ever. Perhaps it was the way he wore the raincoat draped carelessly over his shoulders. Few men could wear a coat like that and not look silly. Dill didn’t think Brattle looked at all silly. If anything, he looked a bit like some patrician forced by fate to the moneylenders and determined to make the best of it.
“Come in,” Dill said.
Brattle came into the room then, and just as he entered, Spivey stepped from behind the open door and jammed an automatic pistol into the small of Brattle’s back. Brattle smiled and stopped. “Well, Jake, how nice to hear from you again.”
“Over there next to that pretty picture, Clyde,” Spivey said.
Brattle glanced around. “The Parrish, you mean?”
“The one with the two fags.”
“I think they’re girls, actually,” Brattle said, moved to the wall, and leaned against it with both hands, the umbrella still clasped in his right one.
“Take the coat and the hat and the umbrella, Pick,” Spivey said. “Slow and careful. When you’ve got ’em, put ’em all in the closet over there.” Dill did as instructed, returned to Spivey’s side, and asked, “Now what?”
“Now pat him down real good. Ankles, crotch, everywhere. We might even make him open his mouth and take a look in there.”
Brattle shook his head and sighed. “Sometimes you’re such a boor, Jake.”
“Bad manners make for a long life, Clyde.”
“An aphorism, by God. Well, almost anyway.”
Dill found the small Walther automatic when his search reached Brattle’s waist. The pistol was in a leather holster clipped to the waistband of Brattle’s beltless trousers. He’d never wear a belt, Dill thought, as he examined the weapon. Braces, perhaps, with a three-piece suit, but never a belt.
“I’ll take that,” Spivey said. Dill handed him the Walther. Spivey dropped it into his left jacket pocket.
“You can straighten up and turn around now, Clyde,” Spivey said. “Take a chair. That one over there looks comfortable. Pick here’ll even get you a drink. I know there’s vodka, but I don’t know what else he’s got.”
“Vodka will do nicely,” Brattle said as he straightened, moved over to the armchair, and sat down. Spivey resumed his seat on the couch. He put his own automatic down on the coffee table next to the Sony tape player. Dill noticed the automatic was a.38 Colt.
“On the rocks?” Dill asked Brattle.
Brattle smiled. “Perfect.”
As he poured the drink in the kitchen, Dill could hear no voices coming from the living room. When he came back with Brattle’s drink, he thought the silence seemed like that between two old, old friends who long ago had exhausted all topics of mutual interest and whose only bond now was a numbing familiarity.