I picked up the telephone on the desk and called the county police. They had routines for handling this sort of thing. I wanted it out of my hands.
Bassett leaned forward as I laid the receiver down. “Look here, old fellow,” he said civilly, “you promised me a drink. I could use a drink in the worst way.”
I went to the portable bar at the other end of the desk and got a bottle out. But Bassett received a more powerful sedative. Tony Torres came in through the open door. He slouched and shuffled forward, carrying his heavy Colt revolver. His eyes were dusty black. The flame from his gun was pale and brief, but its roar was very loud. Bassett’s head was jerked to one side. It remained in that position, resting on his shoulder.
Isobel Graff looked at him in dull surprise. She rose and hooked her fingers in the neck of her denim blouse. Tore the blouse apart and offered her breast to the gun. “Kill me. Kill me, too.”
Tony shook his head solemnly. “Mr. Graff said Mr. Bassett was the one.”
He thrust the revolver into its holster. Graff entered behind him, diffidently. Stepping softly like an undertaker, Graff crossed the room to the desk where Bassett sat. His hand reached out and touched the dead man’s shoulder. The body toppled, letting out a sound as it struck the floor. It was a mewling sound, like the faint and distant cry of a child for its mother.
Graff jumped back in alarm, as if his electric touch had knocked the life out of Bassett. In a sense, it had.
“Why drag Tony into this?” I said.
“It seemed the best way. The results are the same in the long run. I was doing Bassett a favor.”
“You weren’t doing Tony one.”
“Don’t worry about me,” Tony said. “Two years now, two years in March, this is all I been living for, to get the guy that done it to her. I don’t care if I never get back to Fresno or not.” He wiped his wet forehead with the back of his hand, and shook the sweat off his hand. He said politely: “Is it okay with you gentlemen I step outside? It’s hot in here. I’ll stick around.”
“It’s all right with me,” I told him.
Graff watched him go out, and turned to me with renewed assurance: “I noticed that you didn’t try to stop him. You had a gun, you could have prevented that shooting.”
“Could I?”
“At least we can keep the worst of it out of the papers now.”
“You mean the fact that you seduced a teen-aged girl and ran out on her in the clutch?”
He shushed me and looked around nervously, but Tony was out of hearing.
“I’m not thinking of myself only.”
He glanced significantly toward his wife. She was sitting on the floor in the darkest corner of the room. Her knees were drawn up to her chin. Her eyes were shut, and she was as still and silent as Bassett was.
“It’s a little late to be thinking about Isobel.”
“No, you are wrong. She has great recuperative powers. I have seen her in worse condition than this. But you could not force her to face a public courtroom, you are not so inhuman.”
“She won’t have to. Psychiatric Court can be held in a private hospital room. You’re the one who has to face the public rap.”
“Why? Why should I have to suffer more? I have been victimized by an Iago. You don’t know what I have endured in this marriage. I am a creative personality, I needed a little sweetness and gentleness in my life. I made love to a young woman, that is my only crime.”
“You lit the match that set the whole thing off. Lighting a match can be a crime if it sets fire to a building.”
“But I did nothing wrong, nothing out of the ordinary. A few tumbles in the hay, what do they amount to? You wouldn’t ruin me for such a little thing? Is it fair to make me a public scapegoat, wreck my career? Is it just?”
His earnest eloquence lacked conviction. Graff had lived too long among actors. He was a citizen of the unreal city, a false front leaning on scantlings.
“Don’t tack to me about justice, Graff. You’ve been covering up murder for nearly two years.”
“I have suffered terribly for those two years. I have suffered enough, and paid enough. It has cost me tremendous sums.”
“I wonder. You used your name to pay off Stern. You used your corporation to pay off Leonard and the Campbell girl. It’s a nice trick if you can work it, letting Internal Revenue help you pay your blackmail.”
My guess must have been accurate. Graff wouldn’t try to argue with it. He looked down at the valuable gun in my hand. It was the single piece of physical evidence that would force his name into the case. He said urgently: “Give me my gun.”
“So you can put me down with it?’
Somewhere on the highway, above the rooftop, a siren whooped.
“Hurry up,” he said.”The police are coming. Remove the shells and give me the gun. Take the money in the safe.”
“Sorry, Graff, I have a use for the gun. It’s Tony’s justifiable-homicide plea.”
He looked at me as if I was a fool. I don’t know how I looked at Graff, but it made him drop his eyes and turn away. I closed the safe and spun the dials and rehung the photograph of the three young divers. Caught in unchanging flight, the two girls and the boy soared between the sea and the sky’s bright desolation.
The siren’s whoop was nearer and louder, like an animal on the roof. Before the sheriff’s men walked in, I laid the Walther pistol on the floor near Bassett’s outflung hand. Their ballistics experts would do the rest.
The End