Gail said coolly, "I can take care of myself, Mr. Callahan. I've been doing it for many years." He seated himself, chastened for the moment.
I sat across from her and said, "Jack Lenihan is not coming back and I can't do anything about that. But what I can do is finish the admirable job Jack started." For ten minutes I described in what seemed to me irresistibly gut-wrenching detail the horrors of Albany city government and how two and a half million dollars in the right hands might change all that.
Throughout my dissertation, Timmy and Kyle sat stiffly, gazing at the walls.
When I concluded my remarks, Timmy's stomach rumbled loudly and he said, "Sorry."
Gail peered at me solemnly across her tetrazzini and said, "You want me to get information from Joan, is that it? Sneak around, perhaps read her mail, browbeat her, threaten to leave her-do whatever it takes to find out what happened to all that money-and then pass the information on to you. Do I understand you correctly, Mr. Strachey?"
"No, not exactly. I just thought if you happened to break through the wall of secrecy Joan has built up around herself, you would be happier, she would be happier, and it could only strengthen your relationship and clear the tension out of it. And if in the process you managed to convince Joan to share her knowledge of the history of Jack's money with a trustworthy, well-meaning third-party-that would be me- then so much the better."
She looked at me as if her tetrazzini were not agreeing with her. She said,
"You are the most arrogant and smugly presumptuous man I have ever met."
"People have been saying that about me lately."
"Well, I'm not surprised." She tilted her head and gave it a quick shake, as if she'd been swimming and wanted to dislodge some water from her ear.
"You are something out of-I don't know what."
"Joseph Conrad? I sometimes fancy myself that way."
"No, Judith Krantz, I think."
"Oh."
"In any case, you won't be needing my help in your quest to alter history in the Hudson Valley."
"I won't?"
"No, you won't. Joan has agreed to speak with you."
"Well now-good for her!"
"Joan phoned me a while ago. She called in sick for her shift, and while she was at home some obnoxious policeman from Albany came to the apartment. She couldn't stand him. He reminded her of the type of man who had made her life miserable twenty years ago. She didn't tell him anything, but she realizes that someone has got to clear up the confusion and find Jack's killer if she is ever to have any peace of mind again, and she has decided to take a chance on you. Jack trusted you, she said, so Joan is going to risk trusting you too. I'm beginning to wonder, though, if Jack was in his right mind when he got mixed up with you."
On the way out of the hospital, Timmy said, "Mr. Charm strikes again."
Toot added, "Back east you must be considered the David Susskind of your profession."
I insisted on going off to see Joan Lenihan alone and dropped Timmy and Kyle off at the motel. But I was beginning to suspect that they might be on to something. Inept attempts at psychological torture were not among my usual bag of tricks. But then this situation was special, wasn't it? I had to drive the beasts from the city. I had a quest, a mission. Everybody thought I was nuts, but what I was was inspired.
Aflame, I drove over to Scotsmont Avenue, where I was certain Joan Lenihan would add fuel to the holy fire. But that is not what she did at all.
THIRTEEN
"I have returned the money to its rightful owners, Mr. Strachey. I hate to disappoint you, but I really had no choice in the matter."
I glanced into the dining room, where the five suitcases were no longer stacked up. "It was in those bags that were in there when I was here earlier, right?"
"No. The cash was in trash bags in our storage area in the basement of this building. Now it's in the suitcases and on its way back to the people it belongs to. I just returned from the Air Freight office a few minutes ago."
Air Freight. I briefly considered a grand heist but figured pantywaist Timmy would consider armed robbery going too far. I said, "Why?"
She lit a cigarette and stuck it up under her overbite. She was wearing a Yucatecan huapili white shift with fancy blue and green embroidery and she was barefooted. Her toenails were cracked and painted fuchsia. She said, "My son took something that didn't belong to him. He was killed because of it. I don't want anyone else to be hurt-you, or your friend-or Gail, or me. Or Corrine. Poor Corrine, she's so unsophisticated and innocent, and who knows what people might suspect. No, it's not worth it.
What Jack wanted to do-what you want to do with the money-I admire it.
Truly, I do. When Jack first told me about it, I had to laugh. I admit it, I laughed." Her eyes brightened at the thought of it, then went gray again.
"But you cannot- cannot — get away with something like that. Not when the people you are dealing with are savages."
"And who are these savages?"
"I think you must know."
"No."
She looked at me carefully and said, "Dope pushers. Surely in your line of work you must have heard the type of people they are."
"Which dope pushers?"
"The ones Jack was arrested with. Robert Milius and- I've forgotten the names of the others. Jake something, I think."
"They're still in prison, aren't they?"
"But they have friends on the outside. People who were protecting the money for them until their release. Jack somehow got hold of the money and came up with this crazy pipe dream of his. And they found out he had taken it."
"Precisely who was keeping the money in what place, and how did Jack manage to take possession of it?"
She coughed out some smoke and said, "Oh, I wouldn't know that. Jack never went into the details. He just said they could never prove he'd taken it, and he had all these alibis worked out, he said, and-I just don't know all the details."
"And you urged him to return the money?"
"Of course I did. Anyone who sees the six-o'clock news knows that you simply cannot cheat people of that type and expect to get away with it."
"Jack must have watched the six-o'clock news too, and he had firsthand knowledge of dealers and their ways as well. Why didn't he listen to you?"
A wan smile. "I'm his mother. When your mother offers you advice, do you accept it for what it's worth, or do you just think, oh, crazy old Ma, there she goes again?"
"My mother hasn't offered me advice for a number of years. She's a little confused about my life and how to approach it. Gail told me Ned Bowman had been here. I'm sure he had some motherly advice. What did you tell him?"
"Nothing."
"Why?"
"Because I don't want Jacks name brought up again in connection with drugs. I'm thinking of Corrine, and of Jack's memory. I told Officer Bowman I knew nothing. He didn't take it well, but that's his problem."
"He knows about Al Piatek. He'll learn soon enough that Piatek had no money to speak of and couldn't have left Jack the two and a half million in Piatek's will. He'll lean on you and on Kyle Toot, and possibly Gail. He won't let up. I think you should tell him everything you told me. Tomorrow, I mean-tell him tomorrow. Don't you want Jack's killer punished?"
A look of profound sadness settled across her face. "Yes," she said. "Yes, I do. So much, I do. But maybe that isn't possible without ruining other people's lives. Good lives that people have made out of-of nothing at all."
"I don't follow. Whose lives?"
She said nothing, just stubbed out the half-smoked cigarette in an ashtray full of half-smoked butts.