“Collectors?”
Her hand became still among the half-gathered cards. She uncrossed and recrossed her legs. “He runs a collection agency.”
“With a gun?”
“Leo always carried large sums. The gun was for protection. I didn’t realize he was dangerous until he tried to use it on that musician. The doctor in Detroit said he was in a hopeless state, he wouldn’t live long. I saw I had to get him out of Michigan. I wasn’t going to have my brother committed.”
“Again.”
“Again, God damn you, if you know so much.”
“So you hired a couple of nurses and moved to California. No doubt reasoning that Californians were expendable, in case he tried to shoot somebody else.”
She turned from the card-table to look at my face, try to assess my meaning. “California was her idea. Anyway, I don’t see why you go on about killing. I keep him under close guard. The idea that Leo did these murders is ridiculous.”
“You didn’t take it so lightly when I brought it up. You’ve worked like a dog since I got here to build up his alibi. On top of that you’ve outlined his defense on a plea of not guilty by reason of insanity, complete with medical witnesses.”
“I’ve been showing you that Leo can’t be tried for murder, let alone convicted.”
“Why go to all that trouble if the idea is ridiculous?”
She bent forward stiffly in her chair, planting her feet on the floor: “You wouldn’t want to harass a poor sick guy. What happens if you tip the cops in? They’ll pin a bum rap on him, with his record, or if that doesn’t work they’ll send him away.”
“There are worse places than a state hospital.” I was sitting in one.
“I can’t face it,” she said. “He was in before and I saw how they treated him. He’s got a right to spend his last days with somebody that loves him.”
Though she said them with great intensity, the words fell flat. I studied her head, slanting square and hard out of the gold coat. On the window side the sun cast her face in rosy relief. Its other side was in shadow so deep by contrast that she looked like half a woman. Or a woman composed half of flesh and half of darkness.
“How long do the doctors give him?”
“Not more than a year. You can ask them at the clinic. Two years at the outside.”
“Anywhere from one hundred to three hundred grand.”
“What the hell do you mean by that?”
“My information is that Leo draws two to three grand a week from a numbers ring in Michigan. That adds up to a possible total of three hundred grand in two years, before taxes if you pay taxes.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Money,” I said. “Don’t tell me you’re not handling Leo’s money. I wouldn’t believe it.”
An irrepressible faint smile appeared on her mouth, as if I had flattered her subtly. “I have big expenses, very big expenses.”
“Sure you have. Mink, diamonds, an ocean-front estate. They all cost money.”
“Medical expenses,” she said, “you wouldn’t believe.”
“Sure. You’ve got to keep him alive. The income lasts as long as he does. As long as you keep him under wraps, he’s a boss racketeer on Sabbatical leave drawing his weekly take. But when he dies, or the cops lock him up, or news of his condition gets back to Michigan, it’s finished for you. You’re a pretty hard type but I don’t see you going back to Michigan and fighting a war of succession with his mob. If you could do that, you wouldn’t have to come to me in the first place.”
She sat in silence, shivering a little inside the metal coat. Then she took up the gathered half of the deck and flung it down at random on the table. Brushed by her sleeve, a glass fell to the floor and broke.
“You didn’t figure this out for yourself,” she said in cold still anger. “It was Bess Wionowski put you onto it.”
“She may have helped.”
“That’s Wionowski’s gratitude.” A hard pulse kicked like a tiny animal tangled in the veins of her left temple. “She was on her uppers, last year when Leo took her back. We ransomed her out of a cell in Detroit city jail and treated her like a queen. When we came out here to Cal, we even let her choose the town to live in. I might of known she had a reason for picking this place.”
“Singleton,” I said.
The name acted on Una like an electric shock. She jumped to her feet, kicking out at the shards of glass on the floor as if she hated everything actual. “The filthy disloyal filly. Where is she now? Where is she? If you got her hid out waiting for her cut, you can go back and tell her I don’t pay off to squealers.”
She stood above me in a spiteful rage, less than half a woman now, a mean little mannish doll raving ventriloquially.
“Come down to earth,” I said. “You’ll give yourself a migraine. Neither of us wants your dirty money.”
“If my money’s so dirty, what are you sucking around for?”
“Just the truth, sweetheart. You know what happened to Singleton, if anybody does. You’re going to tell me.”
“And if I don’t?”
“You tell the cops. I’ll have them here before dark.”
She sat on the edge of her chair and looked out at the setting sun. Half down on the horizon, its red hemisphere was like a bird’s giant eye on which the inflamed blue underlid was shutting slowly.
“How did it happen?” I said.
“Give me a chance to think–”
“You’ve had two weeks. Now talk.”
“It was all Bess Wionowski’s fault. The big estate and the high living weren’t good enough for that Chicago chippie. Way last spring she started dating this guy from the Hill, this Singleton scion. I figured she knew him from when she lived here during the war. Before long she was spending nights with him. I tried to keep it from Leo but he found out about it some way. He has his lucid times, anyway he had until two weeks ago. It was a Saturday night, and Bess was up the mountain with her highfalutin boy friend, set to make beautiful music. Leo found out where she was, from Lucy Champion, I guess. Lucy was supposed to be looking after him that night. When he blew off, she couldn’t handle him. Lucy called a taxi and went up the hill to warn the – lovers.” The word had an obscene sound in Una’s mouth.
“Where were you?”
“Downtown. When I got back Leo was waiting for me with a gun. He’d taken the springs off his bed and broken the door down and found the gun in my room. He made me drive him up to Singleton’s studio, forced me at gunpoint to do it. Singleton came out of the door, and Leo shot him in the guts. I grabbed Leo from behind as soon as he turned that gun away from me. It took all four of us to tie him.”
“All four?”
“Me and Bess and Lucy. Lucy was there. And Singleton.”
“Singleton was shot, you said.”
“He could still navigate, the last I saw of him. I left right away when we got Leo under control. I had to get Leo home.”
“So you don’t know what happened to Singleton?”
“No. They all three dropped out of sight. I hired Max Heiss to find out if Singleton was alive or dead. He watched the Singleton house all last week. On Thursday Lucy turned up there, sniffing around for the reward I guess. Heiss rode the bus back to Bella City with her and found out more than he ever turned in to me. Friday night he reported to me and claimed he lost Lucy in Bella City. I knew he was crossing me because he dropped a hint about the shooting. He was going to let me buy him off and then collect the Singleton reward besides.”
“So you killed him for being greedy.”
“Think again.”
“You were the one with everything to lose. Lucy and Heiss were the ones to lose it for you.”
“I still have everything to lose. Would I hand you all this on a silver platter if I wasn’t clear?”