He was giving me an opening and I took it. “It’s north of here, on Arch Street,” I said.
“North, south, what do I know from directions,” said Morris. “Thank you, sir, but north might as well be up for all I can tell.” He continued fumbling with his map.
“Come along inside,” I said. “I’ll draw it on the map for you.”
“That won’t be necessary,” said Wayman, his voice deep and precise now, the voice of a college lecturer. “It’s very simple. Go out this little street. Take a right, that’s north, and go down four blocks, until you hit Arch Street. Then take a left. It is a little brick house with a small courtyard on the far side of Arch Street, between Second and Third. There is a colonial flag out front, you can’t miss it.”
I looked at Wayman, flabbergasted by his new voice. He smiled a dangerous smile at me and suddenly, with Wayman having fled from even the shallowest pretense of my comprehension, I was absolutely terrified.
“Aah, thank you, sir, thank you,” continued Morris. “I should write that down but already it is gone from mine head. Mine memory is like a sieve with a hole in the middle, that bad. If you could just show me on the map, if you could just…”
He continued to fumble with the map, struggling to open it, and then, with a sudden, frustrated jerk, his elbows flared and the paper ripped with a quick rasping tear and there were now two confused and jumbled pieces of map where before there had been only one.
“Accht, this is just like me,” said Morris, staring forlornly at the pieces in his hand. “Now I must to get another one inside. And then, if it is not asking too much to help a visitor, then if one of you gentlemen can draw the way on the map, that would maybe let me get there without going first through Pittsburgh.”
“Sure,” I said, grabbing hold of his arm. “Let’s go.”
“That would be just peaches, yes,” said Morris.
“We’re not finished here, Victor Carl,” said Wayman.
“I’ll be right back, Wayman,” I said as I headed for the entrance. “Just wait.”
Morris maneuvered so that he was between Wayman and me as we headed for the doors. In the glass’s reflection I could see Wayman reaching over Morris’s shoulder for me, and then I could feel his hand grabbing the collar of my shirt, could feel the cloth tighten around my neck. My throat let out a surprised little squeak.
Just then a doorman passed us on his way out from the lobby and seemed to accidentally knock Wayman’s arm away. The doorman had huge shoulders, he was dressed in green, he stepped in front of Wayman and said, “Can I help you, sir?” The doorman’s voice was startlingly familiar and even as Morris pushed me inside ahead of him I turned and saw the broad back of the doorman and the yarmulke on his head. The doorman placed his hand on Wayman’s chest. “Is there anything I can do for you, sir?” said Sheldon Kapustin to Wayman as Wayman jerked his head in frustration while Morris and I escaped to inside the lobby.
“Don’t run now,” said Morris. “Like a hawk he is watching.”
“It would have been nice if you had told me Sheldon was inside,” I said. “Sweat stains are so hard to clean. And even so you took your time.”
“Was there a rush?” Morris pointed to the right, where the front desk sat, out of the view of the doors. We scooted around the lobby furniture, wrought-iron tables and thick couches, and headed straight for the desk. “I will be feeling in mine pocket for a pen until we are out of sight from the door,” said Morris as we walked. “And when we are where he can’t see us anymore, then we will run.”
Which is exactly what we did.
“Who was he?” asked Morris on the elevator to the fourth floor.
“He’s an enforcer for a drug dealer.”
“So this drug dealer then has the missing money?”
“Evidently, and he killed a man already to keep me from finding out about it.”
“Ahhh, now this is worse than your original telling.”
“But he shouldn’t know Veronica was here.”
“So how did he learn?” asked Morris as the elevator doors slid open at the fourth floor.
“I don’t know,” I said.
“Careful now,” said Morris, and I followed him down the empty carpeted hallway. At Room 4016 he pointed at me. I shook my head. He knocked lightly on the door.
“Yes?” said the voice from inside.
“I’m sorry, miss,” said Morris, “but I need to be checking on the heat inside your room.”
“One minute,” she said and one minute later the door opened and a loosely draped Veronica, still wet from the shower, peered out. Before she could slam the door in my face I stuck one Florsheim wing tip in the opening. What they don’t tell you in vacuum cleaner salesman school is that sticking your foot in the door can hurt like hell, but pain or no pain it worked.
“You’ve been subpoenaed to appear in court today to testify,” I said when Morris and I were inside her room, the door locked and chained behind us.
“Who’s he?” she said, motioning with her head at Morris. She was wrapped in a light silk robe, her arms were crossed on her chest. Her hair fell flat and clean against her beautiful shoulders. I could barely stop myself from dropping to my knees before her, she was that beautiful.
“He’s a friend who is here to protect you,” I said.
“How comforting,” she said.
“Thank you, miss,” said Morris, ignoring her sarcasm.
“Who is he protecting me from, Victor? From you?”
“From Goodwin. His men are outside. He doesn’t want you to testify.”
“Fuck,” she said in a desperate voice. “Dammit, Victor. See what you’re doing to me.” She walked back into the room and sat on the far bed.
I followed her, like I seemed always to be following her, and stood beside the bed. Morris stayed by the door, listening to the outside, so we were talking in private. “He is probably going to kill you whether you testify or not,” I said quietly. “At least that is what it sounded like. How much do you owe him, Veronica?”
She shrugged her shoulders even as she hugged her chest and wouldn’t look at me. “Not too much,” she said unconvincingly.
“Is there ever too much for you?” I said.
She said nothing, her gaze still on the floor.
“Tell me something else, Veronica. How did Goodwin end up with the missing quarter of a million?”
“Is that who has it?”
“You didn’t know?”
She shook her head. “I was just holding it for Jimmy in the account.”
“The one with Chester’s name on it?”
“Right, but then he asked for it back, said he needed it all.”
“But first he wanted it in an account with Chester’s name on it. Setting Concannon up for the fall from the start, just in case.”
“I never knew what Jimmy did with the money,” she said.
“How would Goodwin have gotten it?”
“He must have stolen it somehow,” she said with a shrug.
“No,” I said. “I don’t think so.” I looked around her fancy hotel room: two king-size beds, color TV, easy chairs, and velour curtains, and began wondering. “You’ve been here a couple days now. Have you been buying any crap from Goodwin?”
“No, not from him, Jesus. One of the reasons I decided to leave was to get away from him and his damn dead animals.”
“So only Jimmy knows you’re here.”
“And you.”
“Yes, and me. But I wasn’t the guy who told Goodwin.”
She looked up at me questioningly. I shrugged. Her eyes opened wide and she shook her head. I nodded my head sadly. She screwed up her face in incomprehension, but then it started working, like the surface of an old computer, lights flashing, tapes winding, as the logic of it all unfolded for her, one syllogism after another, leading ultimately to a look of shock. Jimmy Moore had set her up, her face said, the bastard had put her in this hotel so that Goodwin could take care of both their troubles. Her head shook no, it couldn’t be. But she knew it could be, she knew it was. She turned from me quickly and began to cry. It was that moment, for the first time really, that I knew Veronica Ashland would tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth on the witness stand.