Eddie didn’t even bother to answer that. He picked up the phone and dialed a number. I started to go, and he gave me a black look and said, “Stick around.”
“Why? What are you doing?”
“I’m calling the cops.”
I stared at him, feeling my face go wide open and foolish. “You’re what?”
“Calling the cops. They’re looking for you — didn’t you know that? I got the word just a few minutes ago.”
I stopped holding my belly. I turned and went out of there, paying no attention to Eddie’s shouts. I burned rubber going away.
So the cops were after me. This was a switch. This I had not looked for. I thought now that that was why the musclemen had been withdrawn. Justinian liked to keep his right hand and his left from getting tangled up. But I couldn’t figure what possible charge they could have against me.
Of course, under the present setup, they didn’t really need one...
I thought it was about time somebody did something about cleaning up this town.
I decided to go across the line into Pennsylvania for the rest of the day, until it was time to meet Prioletti. From Fordstown, Pennsylvania is less than thirty miles. I had a lot of time to kill, and nothing to do but hug my bruises and think. I thought of Marjorie, and of young Harding. I thought of the way Justinian’s corporation was set up. Two main branches, gambling and prostitution, under separate heads, with separate organizations. Gambling subdivided into three — regular layouts like the Roman Garden, horse rooms, and the bug. The bug, day in and day out, probably brought in more money than all the rest put together. I thought of Eddie Sego, who was almost boss of all the gambling rackets, next under Justinian himself.
When it was time, I went back over the state line, using the farm roads, dusty and quiet in the heat of the afternoon. At three o’clock I was in Mill Creek Park, in a grove of trees north of the little lake with the swans on it. Prioletti was already there.
“I didn’t know if you’d make it,” he said. He looked haggard and excited. “You know I’m supposed to be looking for you?”
“Yeah,” I said. “But what for?”
“Investigation. That’s a big word. It can cover a lot of things. It can keep you out of circulation for a while, and it can demand answers to questions.”
He peered around nervously. “I got a look at that report.”
“Any luck?”
“Minor contused area on the scalp, minor abrasions at the mouth corners and cuts on the inside of the lips. There were also bruises and other minor abrasions on both wrists. No explanation.”
“What would you say, Carmen?”
“Coupled with your other evidence, I would say it indicates that the girl was hit on the head, gagged and bound to prevent any outcry, and then driven to the logging cut, where her car was rigged for the fake suicide.”
I felt a qualm of sickness. I had known that was how it must have been, but put into words that way it sounded so much more brutal.
“Poor kid,” I said. “I hope she never came to.”
“Yeah,” said Carmen. “But we’ve almost got it, Greg. Brian Ingraham is the key. If he knew that Justinian—”
He broke off, looking over my shoulder. “I was afraid of that,” he said. He reached out and grabbed me fiercely. “Hit me. Hit me hard and then run. Hickey’s cops.”
He said that as though it was a dirty word, and it was. I hit him, and he let go, and I ran. Hickey’s cops ran after me, but they were still a long way back, and I knew the park intimately from boyhood days. They shouted and one of them fired a shot, but it was in the air. I guess the order hadn’t come yet. Anyway, I shook them and got back to my car. For the second time that day I burned rubber, going away.
I headed for the Country Club section, and Brian Ingraham’s home.
What Carmen had started to say was that if Brian, believing his wife a suicide, were to find out that Justinian had had her killed, he could be expected to turn on Justinian.
What Carmen had not said was that if Brian already knew it, and was co-operating with Justinian, his reaction would be quite different.
I went in the long drive to the house, set far back among trees. I rang the bell, and Brian opened the door, and I walked in after him down the hall.
Brian looked like a ghost. He seemed neither pleased nor displeased to see me. He didn’t even ask me why I had come. He led me into the living room and then just stood there, as though he had already forgotten me.
“Brian, I’ve come about Marjorie.”
He looked at me, in the same queer, twisted, other-dimensional way he had in Hickey’s office that day.
“You didn’t have to,” he said. “I know.”
And I thought, Well, here it is, and I’m finished, and so is the case. But something about his face made me ask him, “What do you know?”
“Why she killed herself. It was me.” He said it simply, honestly, almost as though I was his conscience and he was trying to get straight with me. “I said she was happy, but she wasn’t. For a long time she wanted me to quit and go back into regular practice, but I wouldn’t. I laughed at her. Kindly, Greg. Kindly, as you would laugh at a child. But she wasn’t a child. She could see me quite clearly. As I have been seeing myself since Sunday morning.”
He paused. Then, still in that heartbreakingly simple way, he said, “I loved her. And I killed her.”
He couldn’t be lying. Not with that face and manner. It wasn’t possible. I felt weak in the knees with relief.
“You had nothing to do with it,” I said. “Justinian killed her, to save his neck.”
He stood still, and his eyes became very wide and strange. “Justinian? Killed her?”
“Sit down,” I said, “and I’ll tell you how it was done.”
We sat in the quiet house, with the hot afternoon outside the French windows, and I talked. And Brian listened.
When I was all through he said, “I see.” Then he was silent a long time. His face had altered, becoming stony and hard, and there was a dim, cold spark at the back of his eyes.
“I remember Sheila Harding. I didn’t know about her brother. That side of Justinian’s business is in Eddie Sego’s hands, and Eddie is not talkative.”
“No,” I said. “But Eddie was in the hospital then. Justinian had to attend to that emergency himself. And somehow Marjorie found out.”
“Marjorie was my wife,” said Brian softly. “He had no right to touch her.” He stood up, and his voice became suddenly very loud. “He had no right. Marjorie. My wife.”
I thought I heard a car, coming up the long drive and coming fast, but Brian was shouting so I couldn’t be sure. I tried to shut him up, but he was coming apart at the seams in a way that couldn’t be stopped. I couldn’t blame him, but I wished he would make sense. I put my hands on his shoulders and shook him.
“For God’s sake, Brian! We don’t have all year—”
We didn’t even have the rest of the afternoon. Two big men came in through the French windows, with guns in their hands. My old friends of the alley. Between them came a third man, with no gun. He never carried a gun. He didn’t need one. He was Justinian, the Emperor of Fordstown.
Brian saw him. Instantly he became silent, poised, his eyes shining like the eyes of an animal I once saw, mangled by dogs and dying. He sprang at Justinian.
It was Eddie Sego, entering through the door behind us, who slugged Brian on the back of the head and put him down.
Chapter Six
The long, full draperies were drawn across the French windows. The doors were locked. The cars, mine and Justinian’s, had been taken around to the back, out of sight of any chance caller. The house itself stood in the middle of two wooded acres, and so did the houses on either side. In this section you paid for seclusion, and you got it.