He nodded wearily: an old, fat man, shrunken and defeated.
On the desk was a tape recorder.
‘Mr. Brannigan, I want the truth from you,’ I said, ‘No more lies. I am going to take a recording of what we say to each other.’
‘Don’t do that, son,’ he said. ‘You’re telling me I’m at the end of my road.’
‘That’s what I am telling you,’ and I pressed the start button of the recorder. ‘You told me Glenda was your daughter. That was a lie?’
‘Yes, son, that was a lie. She’s my mistress. She has a fatal attraction. Let me tell you, Larry, she’s made a lot of money out of me.’
‘She told me she was married to Alex Marsh... right or wrong?’
‘She was never married to him... he was her pimp. He was blackmailing me. He had photographs of Glenda with me... photographs that were so damning that Merle would have divorced me if she had seen them. Without Merle’s money, I am in financial trouble. I paid heavy blackmail to Marsh. Sooner or later, I knew Merle would question me about this steady drain from her fortune. I had to do something to stop Marsh.’ Brannigan eased his bulk back in his chair, then went on, ‘Marsh was infatuated with Glenda as I was, but he was greedy. Glenda knew he was blackmailing me, but Marsh, like the pimp he was, never gave her a cent of the money he was getting from me.
‘Marsh suspected that I could be dangerous. He knew I would try to get the photos, and then have him murdered. A few weeks ago, he came to me. ‘Mr. Brannigan,’ he said, ‘don’t get ideas about getting those photos and having me knocked off. Those photos are in a safe deposit box in the safest bank in the world,’ and he grinned at me. ‘My lawyer holds the key of the box. If anything happens to me, the box will be opened, and you can then explain the photographs to your wife.’ I realized there was nothing I could do about this. Marsh had played it very smart.’ Brannigan paused to wipe his sweating face with the back of his hand. ‘There was no way, even for the President of the bank, to get at Marsh’s deposit box.’ He stared at me, his eyes dull. You made that impossible.’ There was a pause, then he said, ‘I could do with a drink, son.’
I got up, went to the liquor cabinet and built him a powerful whisky and soda. He took the glass with a shaky hand, drank, sighed, then put the glass down.
‘So my future life,’ he went on, ‘was locked up in the vault you built, Larry. I desperately wanted to be financially independent, instead of relying on my wife’s money. There was a big deal pending, and this could be my chance. By using Merle’s credit, I could get in on the ground floor. Then just when I was fixing this deal, Marsh reappeared. He said he had decided to leave the States. He demanded two million dollars as final blackmail payment, and he would give me the photographs and the negatives. He said he would give me two weeks to raise the money, then, if I didn’t pay him, he would go to Merle who, he was sure, would pay up to avoid a scandal. She wouldn’t have paid up. She would have divorced me and my future would be ended.’ He sat forward, his big hands turning into fists. ‘Then I realized there was only one possible solution out of this mess. I had to find some criminal who would break into the bank, get me those photographs and murder Marsh. This was my only solution.’
He paused to sip his drink. ‘I had no contacts with the criminal world. In my position, I couldn’t go around trying to find a bank robber, then I remembered Klaus. Now, Klaus...’
‘You can skip that,’ I interrupted. ‘I have it already on tape. Years ago, you and he worked together, you found he had embezzled, and you got him a five-year sentence...right?’
He looked down at his tightly clenched fists.
‘That’s what happened. At that time, I believed anyone working in a bank must be honest. When there is no pressure, it is easy to be honest.’
‘So you found Klaus, and you asked him to break into the bank?’
‘There was no one else I could go to.’ He finished his drink. ‘You must understand, Larry, I was now desperate. My whole life depended on getting Marsh off my back... to get those photographs. After I had talked to Klaus, I realized he was a mental case. Maybe the years he had spent in jail had eroded his mind. He hated me. I could see his hatred oozing out of him while we talked. He had read all the media about my safest bank in the world. It delighted him that he would break into the bank and make a sham of me. “I’ll get your photographs,” he said, “but remember, every banker in the world will be laughing at you! I’ll cut you down to size!” That was how his sick mind worked.’ Brannigan pushed his empty glass towards me. ‘I would like another, son.’
I got up and built him another drink, and gave it to him.
‘Thanks.’ He sipped the drink, then went on, ‘I didn’t give a damn about the bank. That’s where Klaus made a mistake. He imagined he was punishing me. I had to get those photographs. If there was one man in the world who could break into the bank, it was Klaus. The deal we agreed to was for the men he employed to have the contents of the deposit boxes, for me to get the photographs, and for Klaus to satisfy his pathological hatred of me to prove to the world I didn’t own the safest bank in the world.’ He lifted his heavy hands and let them drop with a thud on the desk. ‘That’s the sordid story, Larry. I’ve levelled with you. Can you get me out of this mess?’
I thought back to the time when we had first met, when I had fixed his putting and his hook. I thought of his influence that had made me an important citizen in Sharnville. Then, to me, He had been a great man, but not now. Looking at him, seated in the chair, sweat running down his heavy face, Farrell Brannigan ceased to be the god I thought he was.
‘You haven’t levelled with me,’ I said. ‘You know as well as I do Klaus could never have broken into the bank. You knew I was the only man in the world to do that! So you set me up.’
He moved restlessly.
‘Now, look, son...’
‘Don’t give me this son routine! Didn’t you tell Klaus I was the sucker who could get him into the bank?’
He rubbed his sweating face.
‘I guess.’ He tried to drag a shred of dignity over himself. ‘I did mention...’
‘You did more than that! Now, I’ll tell you what you did! You knew Klaus hadn’t a hope in hell to break into the bank, so you set me up. I was to be the sucker! You and your son routine! You didn’t give a damn about me. All you thought of was to hang on to your image. You planted Glenda on me! That crap about Joe going to your place and putting water in your gas tank was just another lie I was fed with. You gambled that I would fall for Glenda, and I did. Her supposed reportage on Sharnville paid off. She not only threw a hook into me, she also alerted Klaus that the Sheriff was dangerous, and Manson was incorruptible. So what happened? The Sheriff was murdered. Don’t tell me you didn’t know what was happening! Don’t tell me you didn’t know Klaus was pinning Marsh’s murder on me! You once said to me you liked to play God... what a god!’
He waved his big hands as if trying to push away the truth.
‘I swear to you, Larry! I left everything to Klaus!’
I looked at him in disgust.
‘You would swear to anything to save your rotten image.’
I stopped the tape recorder and pressed the rewind button.
‘At least, I have a chance, but you haven’t. I am now going to the police. With this tape, and the other tapes I have I stand a chance. I lifted the spool off the sprocket and dropped the spool into my pocket. ‘This is the end of your road. I’ll leave you the gun.’
‘Wait, Larry!’ There was a desperate urgency in his voice. ‘We can still fix this. All I ask you is to hold everything until tomorrow. We two, together, can work a way out of this mess.’