“Murr — Murr—”
“Yeah. Murray Kane. What kind of song and dance did his wife give you, anyway? What did you think that body was for?”
“I–I really — please, I don’t—”
“Cut it out, Brock. The stiff’s name was Charles Brody. Burned face, no viewing.”
Brock was shaking his head, back and forth, back and forth, very monotonously.
Engel said, “Brody was buried today in a grave marked Murray Kane. Where did you think Murray was? He’s alive, you know.”
“No,” whispered Brock, still doing that metronome thing with his head, “no, he isn’t. He drowned.”
“Drowned? Oh, is that what she told you?” Engel laughed. “She’s good, Margo is. I can hear the spiel now. She’s killed Murray because she loves you, but his body’s at the bottom of the lake and there’s no way to prove he’s dead, so the inheritance will be tied up and all, so the thing to do is get another body and fix it so it’ll look like Murray and arrange for Murray to die all over again.”
“How did you—?”
“Because Murray’s alive. It was the insurance swindle. Margo double-crossed you.”
“No, she wouldn’t. She wouldn’t.”
“You’re running away to Hawaii together.”
“Yes!”
“She told me that’s what you thought.”
“Thought?” The truth, all at once, was beginning to seep into Brock. “Thought? She never meant to — She wasn’t going to—”
“Not for a minute.”
“Where—?”
“I don’t know exactly. The last I saw her, Murray was chasing her through a cemetery with a pick in his hands. But she’s pretty fast, she might get away from him. If she does, she might come here, but if I were you I wouldn’t let her in. Murray’s liable to come here too, looking for her, and it probably wouldn’t be smart to let him in either.”
“Murray...”
“Murray thinks his wife went a bit overboard getting your co-operation.”
Brock automatically glanced toward the zebra-stripe couch, and licked his lips nervously. “I got to get out of here,” he said. “I got to clear out before they get here.”
Engel stood blocking the door. “One small thing,” he said, “and then you can go.”
“No, really, I got to—”
“One question,” Engel told him. “Stand still a second and listen to me. One question, and then you can take off wherever you want.”
Brock controlled himself with an obvious effort. “What? I’ll tell you, anything you want, what is it?”
“The suit,” Engel said.
“Suit?”
“Brody was wearing a suit,” Engel said. “A blue suit.”
Brock shook his head. “No, he wasn’t.”
“What?”
“He was wearing a brown suit.”
“A brown suit.”
“Sure. I cremated it.”
“You did what?”
“Mr. Merriweather had his own crematorium out back, and I burned it up in there. It might have been evidence.”
“And it was a brown suit, not a blue suit. A brown suit, you’re sure of that.”
“Oh, yes. I noticed he had on a brown suit and black shoes. You’re not supposed to do that, you know.”
“Yeah, that’s right.”
“Can I go now?”
Engel grinned at him. “Yeah,” he said. “You can go.”
“I don’t know what you want with Brody’s suit,” Brock said earnestly, “but I can guarantee the suit he wore at Mr. Merriweather’s was brown.”
“I believe you,” Engel told him. “Oh, I believe you.”
Brock headed for the door, and Engel said, “One thing more.”
“Now what?”
“If anybody else ever asks you about that suit, you tell them it was the blue one and you burned it. You got that? The blue one, and you burned it. If you say that, you won’t get into any trouble.”
“Then I’ll say it,” Brock promised.
“Good,” said Engel, and laughed out loud.
He followed Brock downstairs to the street, chuckling and shaking his head.
23
Once again he went down the fire escape and through the window and across the black bedroom to the light switch, but this time when he turned on the light he remained alone.
He hadn’t expected to find her here, and he was right. She was gone, taking nothing with her. On the kitchen table, where he’d left his note, there was a new note in its place. It read:
Dear Mister Engel,
I don’t know if you will ever get this note but if you do I want you to know I appreciate everything you have done for me and the memory of my former husband Charles Brody.
I have gone away as I guess by now you know why and intend to begin a new life for myself somewhere very far away. A girl does not get any younger and I really did not feel it best for me to go back to work for Archie Freihofer after all.
I have ironed your underwear and left it for you on the living room sofa.
Very sincerely yours,
It was there all right, clean and glimmering and without a wrinkle. The socks were even rolled in a ball.
That girl, Engel reflected, was going to make some guy in some far-off clime a hell of a wife. Cook and wash and sew for him, take care of him just fine in the bedroom, devote herself to him day and night. And what a dowry: a quarter of a million bucks in uncut heroin!
“She deserves to keep it,” Engel told himself aloud, “and Nick Rovito, that faithless friend, deserves not to get it.”
He went over to the phone and dialed Nick Rovito’s home number, and pretty soon Nick Rovito himself came on the line, saying, “All You okay, boy?”
“I’m fine, Nick. You heard from Rose and the other guys?”
“They’ll pay, Al, I guarantee you they’ll pay.”
“Why? They were muscled into it. You can’t down a guy for doing something when he was muscled into it.”
“Al, boy, you got a heart as big as all outdoors, you know that, kid? To forgive like that, that’s a magnificent gesture.”
“Yeah, well...”
“Rose tells me I’ll get the rest of the story from you.”
“Yeah. A woman named Margo Kane hijacked Charlie’s body in order to...” And for the next five minutes Engel told the full story, leaving out only the final discovery about the blue suit. When he was done, Nick Rovito said, “Well, that’s the way it goes. Burned up, huh?”
“Cremated. Nothing left but ashes.”
“That disappoints me, but it could be worse. I could of not found out the truth about you, huh, kid? I could of gone on thinking you were disloyal and a bastard. I’m happy to have it straightened out, kid. It’s worth the loss of the snow to have you back.”
“What about the Menchik frame?”
“Squared. Done tonight, within the last hour. We worked hard, kid, believe me we did. And cost? An arm and a leg. You know, it cost just as much as if you’d been guilty!” And Nick Rovito laughed.
Engel said, “That’s good. So I’m in the clear.”
“Right. Take a week off, a couple weeks, then come in, we’ll—”
“No, Nick.”
“What’s that?”
“Not after what’s happened, Nick. I don’t work for you any more.”
“Kid, I squared it, it’s all square.”
“Not with me, Nick. We’re quits. No hard feelings, but I just don’t want to work for you any more.”
Suspicion in his voice, Nick Rovito said, “You got an offer from somebody else? Winocki in Chicago?”
“Nobody else, Nick.”
“Let me tell you something. You say you want to quit, okay, quit. But all the way, kid. If you quit, it means out of the organization all the way. I send your name down to the Committee, nobody should ever hire you. Nobody’s out for you, but nobody hires you.”