Brattle raised his glass to his lips, sipped almost delicately, lowered it, and said, “Well, the rain was certainly welcome, wasn’t it?”
“Clyde,” Spivey said.
Brattle turned his head fractionally to look at Spivey. “Yes?”
“We’re gonna do a deal here tonight, you and me, but first I want you to listen to something.”
“Something interesting?”
“I think so,” Spivey said, and pushed the tape recorder’s play button. Dill watched Brattle listen — just as he had watched Spivey. At first, a slight brief frown crossed Brattle’s face, but then it vanished and his expression relaxed as though he had just identified and was listening to a piece of music, perhaps a sonata, certainly an old favorite, that he had last heard long ago. Brattle leaned his head back against the chair. He closed his eyes. He smiled slightly. He listened to every word.
When it was over, Brattle opened his eyes, looked at Dill, and asked, “Your work?”
“Yes.”
“Ingenious.” Brattle turned his gaze on Spivey. “Well, Jake, congratulations. Now let’s see what kind of deal we can work out. What’re you asking?”
“Couple of things,” Spivey said. “First, we’re gonna have to forget all about me and what I might or might not’ve done during those years you and me messed around together.”
“Of course. That’s obvious. What else — money?”
“By God, I didn’t even think of that. But no, not money. I got enough money.”
Brattle’s left eyebrow moved up to form a delicate arc. “You know something, Jake? I don’t believe I’ve ever heard anyone say that before in my life. Not and mean it anyway. But all right. I accept that. Now what is it you do want?”
“I want the name of the dumb fuck who went and killed Pick here’s sister.”
Both of Brattle’s eyebrows went up this time. He looked genuinely puzzled as he turned his head to inspect Dill. “Your sister?”
“Felicity Dill. Homicide detective second grade.”
“As I told you. I read about it. Then there was that large funeral. Someone killed at it. But aside from that, I’m totally ignorant.” He paused. “Sorry. But I am.”
“What you are, Clyde,” Spivey said, “is the best fucking liar who ever breathed.”
“You want somebody for it, Jake? Is that it? Do you need somebody? If so, you can have Harley. Or Sid. Or both. They didn’t do it, of course, but take them with my blessing. Maybe they could even leave a joint suicide note confessing all. You used to be fairly good at suicide notes, Jake.”
Spivey shook his head and smiled. “By God, you’re something, Clyde, you really are. Now lemme tell you what I think. You sent somebody after me about — oh, I’d say a year and a half back. How do I know? I know just the same way you’d know if somebody came after you. You can feel it. Smell it. Sense it. Taste it almost. Whoever you sent was taking their time, not hurrying none, waiting for the perfect spot, the right moment and all that. I kind of sensed that, too. But then Pick here’s sister stumbles on to it somehow, and she gets blown up in her car. So tell me who you hired to whack me out, Clyde, and I can tell Pick here who killed his sister.”
Brattle took another small delicate sip of his drink. As he lowered the glass, he shook his head regretfully. “I don’t know quite what to say, Jake, other than to simply deny—”
The hard knock at the apartment door interrupted Brattle. No one moved. Spivey and Brattle stared suspiciously at each other for a brief second and then, almost in unison, shifted their twin suspicious stares to Dill. The knock came again, although it was more than a knock this time, it was a loud pounding and over the pounding came a harsh voice that cried, “Police! Open up!”
It was Dill who went to the door and opened it. Gene Colder, the homicide captain, rushed through the door, his gun drawn. “Nobody moves!” he snapped. “Everybody freezes.”
No one moved. Colder was in a half crouch, both hands wrapped around the revolver. He wore a short rain jacket and brown gabardine slacks that Dill thought looked expensive. The rain jacket was damp and so were the slacks, but not wet. On Colder’s feet were lace-up brown shoes. They were partially covered by half-rubbers. Dill couldn’t remember when he had last seen someone wear rubbers in a summer rain.
Colder glanced at Dill. “Back up against that wall,” he ordered.
“Want me to put my hands up?” Dill said.
“Just keep ’em in sight.” Colder looked briefly at Jake Spivey, who was still seated on the couch. “And you, fats, you just keep sitting there. Spivey, isn’t it?”
Spivey nodded. “Jake Spivey.”
Still in his crouch, still holding his pistol with both hands, Colder turned his attention and his body toward Clyde Brattle. “And just who the hell are you?” he demanded.
Brattle was still seated in the chair, his legs crossed. He smiled and put down his drink. His left hand moved toward the inside breast pocket of his jacket as he said, “If you’ll permit me to show you some ident—”
He stopped talking when Captain Gene Colder shot him through the forehead, just above the left eye. The impact of the round slammed Brattle back against the chair. As he started to sag, Colder shot him again, this time in the chest.
No one moved for a second or two. No one said anything. Slowly Captain Colder straightened up from his crouch and put the revolver back in its belt holster under the rain jacket. He turned to Dill. “I didn’t have any choice,” he explained. “He was going for his piece.”
“Sure,” Dill said. “Absolutely.”
Spivey rose and slowly moved over to the dead Clyde Brattle. He stood looking down at him for several moments, then shook his head, and said, “Well, shit, Clyde, what’d you expect?”
He knelt down beside the body and looked from the dead Brattle to the standing Captain Colder, as if measuring distance and angle. Spivey then reached into the left-hand pocket of his jacket. He brought out the Walther automatic that had been Brattle’s. He pointed the automatic at Colder and shot him an inch or so above where the short rain jacket ended.
Colder staggered back one step, then two, pressing both hands against the wound. He sank to his knees and stared down at the blood seeping through his fingers. Slowly, he lifted his head to look at the expressionless Jake Spivey. He seemed to be searching Spivey’s face for an answer to an important question, but finding none, turned his head as far left as it would go and screamed a name. The name he screamed was Strucker.
Chief of Detectives John Strucker, looking neat and dry, strolled through the apartment’s still-open door a second later. He had a lighted cigar in his left hand. He was dressed in a gray silk suit that Dill, for some reason, put an eight-hundred-dollar price tag on. Strucker turned, closed the door, nodded at Dill, and walked over to the still-kneeling Captain Colder.
Colder stared up at him. “Spivey… it was Spivey,” he whispered.
Strucker shook his head sadly. “You know what you are, Gene? You’re a fucking disgrace.”
Strucker turned, moved over to Spivey and held out his hand. Spivey put the Walther automatic in it. Strucker removed his display handkerchief and carefully wiped off the pistol.
“This was Brattle’s?” he said to Spivey.
Spivey nodded.
“Was he right- or left-handed?”
“Right,” Spivey said.
The still-kneeling Colder groaned and muttered, “Goddamn you, Strucker, do something.”
“I’m fixing to,” Strucker said, sighed one of his heavier sighs, stuck the cigar between his teeth, and bent over the dead Clyde Brattle. He wrapped Brattle’s right hand around the Walther and inserted Brattle’s right forefinger through the trigger guard and around the trigger. He looked from the Walther automatic to the still-kneeling, staring Captain Colder. Strucker fired the automatic with the dead man’s finger and shot Captain Gene Colder through the chest, just about where the heart would be. Colder jerked back with the impact, then came forward, and fell over onto his left side. A tremor ran through his body. Then he was still.