Delaguerra said: «That’s swell. What happened to the big boy? The bruiser?»
«They sent him away. I — I don’t think they meant to kill you, Delaguerra.»
Delaguerra nodded a little. His face began to soften, the rigid lines began to go out of it. The side that was not a bloodstained mask began to look human again. He sopped at his face with a handkerchief. It came away bright red with blood. He threw it away and lightly fingered his matted hair into place. Some of it was caught in the dried blood.
«The hell they didn’t,» he said.
The house was very still. There was no noise outside. Drew listened, sniffed, went to the front door and looked out. The street outside was dark, silent. He came back close to Delaguerra. Very slowly a smile worked itself on to his face.
«It’s a hell of a note,» he said, «when a commissioner of police has to be his own undercover man — and a square cop had to be framed off the force to help him.»
Delaguerra looked at him without expression. «You want to play it that way?»
Drew spoke calmly now. The pink was back in his face. «For the good of the department, man, and the city — and ourselves, it’s the only way to play it.»
Delaguerra looked him straight in the eyes.
«I like it that way too,» he said in a dead voice. «If it gets played — exactly that way.»
THIRTEEN
Marcus braked the car to a stop and grinned admiringly at the big tree-shaded house.
«Pretty nice,» he said. «I could go for a long rest there myself.»
Delaguerra got out of the car slowly, as if he was stiff and very tired. He was hatless, carried his straw under his arm. Part of the left side of his head was shaved and the shaved part covered by a thick pad of gauze and tape, over the stitches. A wick of wiry black hair stuck up over one edge of the bandage, with a ludicrous effect.
He said: «Yeah — but I’m not staying here, sap. Wait for me.»
He went along the path of stones that wound through the grass. Trees speared long shadows across the lawn, through the morning sunlight. The house was very still, with drawn blinds, a dark wreath on the brass knocker. Delaguerra didn’t go up to the door. He turned off along another path under the windows and went along the side of the house past the gladioli beds.
There were more trees at the back, more lawn, more flowers, more sun and shadow. There was a pond with water lilies in it and a big stone bullfrog. Beyond was a half-circle of lawn chairs around an iron table with a tile top. In one of the chairs Belle Marr sat.
She wore a black-and-white dress, loose and casual, and there was a wide-brimmed garden hat on her chestnut hair. She sat very still, looking into the distance across the lawn. Her face was white. The make-up glared on it.
She turned her head slowly, smiled a dull smile, motioned to a chair beside her. Delaguerra didn’t sit down. He took his straw from under his arm, snapped a finger at the brim, said: «The case is closed. There’ll be inquests, investigations, threats, a lot of people shouting their mouths off to horn in on the publicity, that sort of thing. The papers will play it big for a while. But underneath, on the record, it’s closed. You can begin to try to forget it.»
The girl looked at him suddenly, widened her vivid blue eyes, looked away again, over the grass.
«Is your head very bad, Sam?» she asked softly.
Delaguerra said: «No. It’s fine … What I mean is the La Motte girl shot Masters — and she shot Donny. Aage shot her. I shot Aage. All dead, ring around the rosy. Just how Imlay got killed we’ll not know ever, I guess. I can’t see that it matters now.»
Without looking up at him Belle Marr said quietly: «But how did you know it was Imlay up at the cabin? The paper said —» She broke off, shuddered suddenly.
He stared woodenly at the hat he was holding. «I didn’t. I thought a woman shot Donny. It looked like a good hunch that was Imlay up at the lake. It fitted his description.»
«How did you know it was a woman … that killed Donny?» Her voice had a lingering, half-whispered stillness.
«I just knew.»
He walked away a few steps, stood looking at the trees. He turned slowly, came back, stood beside her chair again. His face was very weary.
«We had great times together — the three of us. You and Donny and I. Life seems to do nasty things to people. It’s all gone now — all the good part.»
Her voice was still a whisper saying: «Maybe not all gone, Sam. We must see a lot of each other, from now on.»
A vague smile moved the corners of his lips, went away again. «It’s my first frame-up,» he said quietly. «I hope it will be my last.»
Belle Marr’s head jerked a little. Her hands took hold of the arms of the chair, looked white against the varnished wood. Her whole body seemed to get rigid.
After a moment Delaguerra reached in his pocket and something gold glittered in his hand. He looked down at it dully.
«Got the badge back,» he said. «It’s not quite as clean as it was. Clean as most, I suppose. I’ll try to keep it that way.» He put it back in his pocket.
Very slowly the girl stood up in front of him. She lifted her chin, stared at him with a long level stare. Her face was a mask of white plaster behind the rouge.
She said: «My God, Sam — I begin to understand.»
Delaguerra didn’t look at her face. He looked past her shoulder at some vague spot in the distance. He spoke vaguely, distantly.
«Sure … I thought it was a woman because it was a small gun such as a woman would use. But not only on that account. After I went up to the cabin I knew Donny was primed for trouble and it wouldn’t be that easy for a man to get the drop on him. But it was a perfect set-up for Imlay to have done it. Masters and Aage assumed he’d done it and had a lawyer phone in admitting he did it and promising to surrender him in the morning. So it was natural for anyone who didn’t know Imlay was dead to fall in line. Besides, no cop would expect a woman to pick up her shells.
«After I got Joey Chill’s story I thought it might be the La Motte girl. But I didn’t think so when I said it in front of her. That was dirty. It got her killed, in a way. Though I wouldn’t give much for her chances anyway, with that bunch.»
Belle Marr was still staring at him. The breeze blew a wisp of her hair and that was the only thing about her that moved.
He brought his eyes back from the distance, looked at her gravely for a brief moment, looked away again. He took a small bunch of keys out of his pocket, tossed them down on the table.
«Three things were tough to figure until I got completely wise. The writing on the pad, the gun in Donny’s hand, the missing shells. Then I tumbled to it. He didn’t die right away. He had guts and he used them to the last flicker — to protect somebody. The writing on the pad was a bit shaky. He wrote it afterwards, when he was alone, dying. He had been thinking of Imlay and writing the name helped mess the trail. Then he got the gun out of his desk to die with it in his hand. That left the shells. I got that too, after a while.
«The shots were fired close, across the desk, and there were books on one end of the desk. The shells fell there, stayed on the desk where he could get them. He couldn’t have got them off the floor. There’s a key to the office on your ring. I went there last night, late. I found the shells in a humidor with his cigars. Nobody looked for them there. You only find what you expect to find, after all.»
He stopped talking and rubbed the side of his face. After a moment he added: «Donny did the best he could — and then he died. It was a swell job — and I’m letting him get away with it.»
Belle Marr opened her mouth slowly. A kind of babble came out of it first, then words, clear words.