When I gave the operator my request, she said, “Is this an emergency, sir?”
“It could be. Does it matter?”
“We generally don’t like to try the line this way unless it’s an emergency. The teenagers ruined it for all of us. The girls, especially. They talk to each other for hours and their boyfriends can’t get through. So the boyfriends start calling us to check on the line.”
“I’d really appreciate it if you’d do this for me. It really could be an emergency.”
“Well, I appreciate you being so courteous with me. You should hear some of those teenage boys.”
There was a busy signal and then she said, “Please give me a minute. I have to check this now another way.”
A busy signal for ten, fifteen seconds, then no sound at all.
“I can report this if you want me to.”
“So the phone is off the hook?”
“That’s what it appears. Would you like me to report it?”
“No, thanks. I appreciate your help.”
The traffic was heavy tonight on the route I took to Will Neville’s place. When I got there, I parked halfway down the block. A red ragtop is pretty easy to spot.
I walked between a sandwich shop and a vacuum cleaner repair shop to reach the alley. I wanted to come up the back way. If Will Neville had anything to hide, he’d hide it the moment he saw me coming up his sidewalk.
His car was there but the windows were dark on the second floor of the stucco house. Not even the moonlight could cast any magic on the debris that littered the backyard, including a tricycle without a front wheel, torn clothes, and pages of newspapers and magazines. Home sweet home.
I reached the stairs and started climbing. With each step, I knew I was drawing closer to something I didn’t want to see.
26
Will Neville lay facedown in the middle of his living room. There was enough moonlight through the nearest window to see that he was bleeding badly from a wound on the back of his head and I could see his back expand ever so subtly with each breath.
The place wasn’t much messier than it had been when I’d visited here the other day. But still I could see, here and there, where it had been ransacked in a desperate search for something. And of course I knew what that something was.
I righted a floor lamp that had been knocked over, clipped on the light. In the bathroom I ran water into a grimy glass, grabbed a dirty bath towel, and went out to see what I could do for Neville.
I didn’t try to get him to his feet. I just eased him up enough so that his back would rest against the front of the couch. I asked him a few questions. He answered only in moans. I put the glass to his lips. He didn’t seem to understand the implications of it all. I said “Drink” and he said “Huh?”
As he drank, I dragged the floor lamp over for a closer look at his wound. The size of it startled me. Probably about that of a silver dollar.
I poured a slug of water onto the towel and started to dab the wound. He let go with an uninterrupted thirty seconds of dirty words.
He spoke coherently for the first time: “Son of a bitch thinks he can get away with it because he’s some big shot in Washington.”
“Senator Williams?”
“You damn right Senator Williams. Big-shot asshole.”
“He wanted those negatives?”
“Yeah.” He grimaced and grabbed the towel from me. He was his old shitty self again. “But he didn’t get ’em.
“How do you know? He knocked you out.”
“Because I hid ’em where he’ll never find ’em. Where nobody ever will. And they ain’t just negatives. I got a set of photos of them too.”
I stood up.
“Somebody killed your brother James about an hour ago.”
He brought his head up too fast. He grabbed his head, the pain was so bad.
“In his hospital room. Somebody snuck in there and killed him.”
“They couldn’t have. Cliffie put a guard on that room. I seen them guards for myself. They rotated them around the clock.”
“This guard went to the john and somebody got inside long enough to do the job. They cut his throat.”
“Williams. That son of a bitch Williams. I bet it was him.”
“Why would he kill James?”
“Because he musta thought James would tell him where them negatives were. He probably thought I was too dumb to be in on it with Richie and James. But I been workin’ with ’em three years.”
“Three years? You three haven’t been here three years.”
“Different places.”
I said, carefully, “I need to know where those photos are.”
He looked like a giant baby sitting on the floor that way. He smiled up at me with that malicious homely face and said, “Well, I ain’t telling ya.”
“It’s all over, Will. For all of you. You’ve got two brothers dead and you’re headed for prison.”
“Not with what I got, I ain’t headin’ to no prison.” He smirked then grimaced again. “Senator Williams is gonna keep me out of prison.”
“He can’t. Not even a senator has that kind of power.”
“Yeah, well, you ain’t seen these pictures.”
I suppose I could have given him a few more minutes. But I was tired of him and tired of the kind of game he and his brothers ran and so, almost without realizing what I was doing, I slipped my .45 from the pocket of my windbreaker.
He started to say something, but I brought my hand down so quickly that he didn’t have time to get three words out.
I made sure that the barrel of the gun struck him right on the wound. And for good measure, I kicked him in the chest. And when he reared up, looking capable suddenly of pushing on through his pain, I kicked him in the chest again.
He fell back against the couch and started crying. I think it was more frustration and hurt pride than pain. All his life he had been able to deal with problems by a force few could equal. But he’d been injured tonight and now I’d only made that injury worse. And for a humiliating moment here, a much smaller man was able to contain his wrath and his power.
His massive hand reached out to grab my leg and spill me, but his hand came in low and so I was able to stomp it to the floor with my heel. Bone cracked. This time his cry was more pain than wounded pride.
“I need to know where the photos are, Will. You might get lucky and grab me, but before that happens I’m going to keep on breaking your bones.”
I whipped the gun barrel into his head wound again. For a time there he sounded inconsolable, just moaning, sobbing, moaning. Then he vomited all over his lap.
The smell didn’t make his hovel any pleasanter.
I went over and sat on the edge of a chair across from him and said, “If you try to get up, I’ll shoot you. I won’t kill you but I’ll put a bullet in your knee so you’ll never walk right again. You understand me, Will?”
His head came up. His eyes and nose were gleaming messes and he had a chunk of vomit hanging from his chin.
I stood up and walked over to the phone and dialed the police station.
“Police station. Patrolman Emmett Billings.”
Jane had improved the phone etiquette, too.
“Emmett, this is Sam McCain. I’m going to give you an address. I need a car here as fast as possible. I have a prisoner for you. Jane Sykes will explain this later.”
He wouldn’t have done it for me. But for the new district attorney, you bet.
I gave him the address. “Right away, Emmett. Please.”
After I hung up, I walked back to Will Neville.
He was quiet now. He didn’t smell any better. There was a dumb animal sorrow about him I couldn’t enjoy anymore.
“I’m sorry I got so rough, Will.”