“The specialness of that,” Velda said, “means even bigger coverage. Anyway, he’s poised to go on to bigger things. As the producer, and husband of the star, of a new Broadway musical, he’ll be a celebrity himself.”
I nodded. “And he couldn’t risk Billy seeing any of that splashed all over the papers and other media.”
I took out three more photos and handed them to her. Each was an angle on a man slumped over a desktop with a hole in his right temple. His right arm was flung on the desk, his hand palm up, and nearby was a little automatic.
“Smith and Wesson Escort,” Velda said. “A .22.”
“Small but it did the job. The dead guy is Martin Foster.”
“I figured as much. Is that his gun?”
I nodded again. “Registered to him, yes. I’m going to guess he carried it with him for protection in the theater district. He was a well-known, successful man, and a strong personality who wouldn’t put up with a mugging or robbery without a fight.”
“A strong personality,” Velda said, “who killed himself.”
“He had lung cancer, and he knew it.”
“Leave any note?”
“No.”
“No note to his daughter?”
“No. You see any red flags?”
She looked from photo to photo. “I don’t think so. Do you, Mike?”
“Not a red flag maybe, but... the fatal wound is side to side, entry wound in one temple, with the expected powder burns and stippling, exit wound through the other temple. To do that, Foster would have to sit down, raise his arm straight, with the elbow out, and fire. A ninety-degree angle.”
“That’s not impossible.”
“Not impossible,” I granted. “It might reflect a kind of firing squad mentality. But it’s more common, when a suicide sits at a table or desk, for the arm to be at a forty-five degree angle, with the exit wound out the top of the head on the opposite side. Some lean on their elbow and do it.”
She shook her head, just a little. “That’s not enough to make anything out of, Mike. Nothing says a man like Foster, taking his own life, might not hold his arm straight out. And with his arm on the desk, on its elbow, if he leaned his head against the snout, you’d get the same temple-to-temple effect.”
“I know. But it might still be enough to get Pat to look into this deeper. You notice Foster was in his pajamas, and his body wasn’t found till the next morning, when Gwen showed up at their beach house.”
“I’m not sure I see the significance.”
“Well, did he wake up in the middle of the night and kill himself?”
“I’m sure it happens.”
“Velda, most depressed types who resort to the Dutch act are well-dressed, almost anticipating their next stop is an open coffin. And Foster doted on his daughter. Would he do this, knowing that she almost had to be the one who found him? Would he do that leaving no farewell message? Particularly if the act was due to ill health, not standard despondence.”
Velda’s narrow-eyed expression said she was buying in. She shook the photos. “So this is Borensen’s work?”
“Yes. Dick Blazen let Martin Foster know all about Borensen’s seedy side, and Foster confronted Borensen. The result is a faked suicide, and a hit-and-run death for Blazen... with the need to get rid of Billy as the only witness capable of identifying him.”
“You think Borensen hired that hit-and-run?”
“No. That was Leif himself, all right.”
“But, Mike — if our scary friend on the phone the other night was the driver of that hit-and-run vehicle, he could be the one who needed Billy dead. After all, he, or one of his people, threw those slugs at Billy tonight, right?”
“Right. But I think Borensen didn’t go the hitman route until he figured that I needed to be handled. That would take a pro. No more do-it-yourself murder. In fact, I’d bet you a marriage license to a buck that this ‘suicide’ is the work of a professional. The professional who’s been sending his minions my way, and who either shot at Billy tonight or had it done.”
“No bet,” Velda said. “I think you’re right. I think Borensen handled Blazen himself, then the fallout was something he couldn’t handle. Possibly his mob friends stepped in and ordered him to go with a professional, here on out.”
I grinned at my smart cookie of a partner. “Velda, that’s a very good read. I should have thought of that.”
Her expression melted and she reached out and touched my unshaven face. “Mike... you look beat, darling. You have to get some sleep. You want to camp out in Billy’s room? We’ll have a rollaway sent up.”
I stretched. “No, I better get back to the city. I’ll grab some sleep and get back at it.”
I looked in on Billy and he was still off in a drug-induced Happy Land.
“You call me when he’s had a look at those crime scene photos,” I whispered, as I walked her back to the recliner. “With Billy’s ID, Pat may be able to move on Borensen.”
“What’s your next move?”
“Getting to Borensen before Pat does.”
She shook her head. “And what? Kill him?”
“No,” I said. “At least not until I beat the name of his hitman out of him.”
“Leif’s a big guy, Mike.”
“Bigger they are, the harder—”
“They fall, yes,” she said with a smirk, “I know, everybody knows.”
Half-way out the door I said, “I was going to say, the harder I kick their teeth in.”
The rain got out of the sun’s way and by the time I got back to Manhattan, dawn was clawing its way up and around the towering glass-and-steel tombstones. I left the Ford in the parking garage, but walking to the elevator, I felt an uneasiness settle in over me like a flu-driven chill. So many cars, and no one but me around. Even the attendant off duty. My footsteps were hollow little things, tiny signs of life in a dead cavernous space.
Fear is an old friend to me. I embrace it. I grin at it. I know how to turn it into energy, into alertness, into big goddamn trouble for the other guy.
But right now the emptiness around me as I walked spooked me bad. Was it fear? Not really. But a guy as good at killing as my phone caller claimed to be could pop up out of anywhere and plunk me into the next life...
...leaving Velda alone, to fend for herself.
I knew if any woman could do that, really could fend for her own self, Velda was that woman. But the idea of danger, of death, hovering over her without me there to stop it, was fueling the fearful uneasiness that was giving me chill-like shakes.
That hospital, Valley Vista, was a citadel not easily stormed, but it could be done. Any fort can be breached, any soldier can go down under another soldier’s gun. And if something happened to me, wouldn’t Velda leave Billy behind and go out on some crazy-ass revenge trip like... like I would?
But nobody popped out from behind a parked car to pop me, and I rode the elevator alone up to the third floor and my apartment at the end of the hall, went in with the .45 ready, and found the place empty.
You’re paranoid, a voice in my head said derisively. Then another voice said, You’re not paranoid when they’re really out to get you, Hammer.
“But what are you,” I asked the room, “if you’re hearing voices?”
The .45 went on my nightstand and I got out of my suit and tie, but that was as far as I made it before collapsing onto the bed into something deep and mercifully dreamless.