“No, not if you put it that way.”
“No sign of business stress, or personal trouble?”
“Not that I saw, but he could have been …”
“Yes?”
“I was going to say that he could have hidden it. But that wouldn’t be Chester. Chester couldn’t dissemble. It was beyond him. A bad poker player was Chester.”
“You knew that he was one of Zekerman’s regulars too?” Harrington’s eyes widened. If I’d crowned him with one of his testimonials, gilt-frame and all, his reaction would have been less telling.
“The poor bugger,” he said simply.
“Zekerman bite?”
“That goddamned blackmailer could have driven him to suicide. God knows I’ve thought about it often enough myself.” I tried not to let my delight show in my face. “Zekerman didn’t have patients, he only had suckers he bled. I’ve been on his hook for four years. Jeeze, I didn’t know Chester was on the end of his gaff too. Slimy son of a bitch.”
“How do you know that he only treated suckers? What makes you so sure there were others?”
“I didn’t need to read it in a book. He made me crawl to see him with my money every month. We’d go through the motions of sitting in his big leather chairs and he would ask me questions about myself, and about how I felt about paying him the money, and how that by paying I was atoning in a measure for … for what he knew about what I’d done. I didn’t think for a minute that I was his only sucker. He had to have others, and he knew just how hard to squeeze them.”
“He must have squeezed too hard a few days ago.”
“Blackmail’s a dirty game. If you’re going into Zekerman’s practice, you’ll never know when you’re squeezing your last sucker. It’s over that fast.”
“You seem to know a lot about it.”
“You have no idea how glad I am that that … filth is dead. If I had more nerve, I’d have done it myself.”
“Did Zekerman ever ask you about Chester?”
“Zekerman made me stay and talk the full fifty minutes. He asked about city politics.”
“Did he know about C2?”
“Core Two? Yes he knew about that. But I didn’t tell him about it.”
“Who else would know about Core Two?”
“It’s a short list: me, the mayor, and, of course, Bill Ward.”
“Of course.” I had most of my ten minutes’ worth, but before I left, I thought I’d better try one more shot. “Tell me a little more about Core Two.” He looked a little surprised, as though I was skipping the hard questions and giving him another easy one.
“Well, it’s common knowledge that we have been examining plans for a satellite business centre and city hall branch on the other side of the creek someplace. The actual location, and the details of the project are still highly confidential, for reasons that are obvious.”
“Chester was in on it?”
“Certainly not. He was in a position to make a pile. It would have been most improper for him to have known anything about it.”
“I see. Can you imagine how Zekerman found out?”
“Nothing that man did would surprise me. He was the incarnation of evil, that man.”
“You mentioned it.” Harrington was holding on hard to the edge of his desk, like he was at a political rally. I had to bring him down from the heights somehow. “Look, Mr. Harrington, I know that Zekerman had you in his vise. I think I know how tight he could turn it. But I don’t care about that. I’m only concerned with finding out who killed Chester. I’m not trying to solve the problems of the world, I just want to find one murderer. That’s all.” That said it plain. I was still interested in what Zekerman had on him, but he didn’t need to know that. And I knew that when I found it, it might only be sensational and not important. When I left Harrington standing there, it looked like he was trying to see whether he could hold his breath for a full minute. It didn’t look as though he was going to make it.
As I started walking down Church Street, I saw my face reflected in a store window. There was a big grin on my kisser, and I felt as good about life as someone opening up a new bar of soap for a hot bath.
EIGHTEEN
The day was putting up an effort to help out the tourist trade, but there wasn’t much heart in it, and the “Tourist Homes” along the Queenston Road would have to wait for later in the spring to make their killing. This was the time to get out into the yard and get rid of the crud that grows under the snow drifts through the winter. It was still too early for there to be much green about, except in places like City Hall where it was all laid on like gezundheit follows a sneeze. I went into a pay-phone booth, one of the ones with the wrap-around plastic window, and put in a call to Pete Staziak. I had to wait about three minutes until they found him.
“Yeah?”
“Pete, have they taken the phone out of your office?”
“Oh, it’s you. The Cat Bandit.”
“Right, and I’m going to cut you in. It’s not fair that you shouldn’t get your share. You do the thinking and I’ll take the risks. Anything new on Zekerman?”
“I’ll put you through to Harrow.”
“Pete! I take it back. What do you hear? Come on, you know I don’t want to go to work searching titles at my age.”
“You just don’t want to go to work.”
“You played that card. Come on, think up a new one. You tell me something and I’ll tell you something.”
“Big deal. Zekerman’s not mine. Why don’t you sleuth a little for your old pal?”
“You can look pretty good in the Department if you know that Zekerman was blackmailing everybody and his brother. You can drop that in their laps.”
“Sure, and how do I answer their question, ‘Who told me?’”
“Look, would I steer you wrong? You, a friend? I’d cut off my right lapel for you. Pete, believe me, I’ve got good goods. I had it straight from one of his so-called patients. He tells me that Zekerman was getting manna from the beaks of some of the cleanest birds in town. You brought back some of his files. Tell Harrow to start reading them in the light of a blackmail scam.”
“Okay, I’ll try it out on them and let you know if I come up with any crumbs to drop on your picnic. Benny, I hate to tell you, but manna just fell on the desert, it wasn’t dropped by ravens. Maybe you’re thinking of Elijah?”
“Since when am I a biblical scholar? And, while we’re on the subject, since when are you?”
“I’ll call you at your office in two hours, if I’ve found anything. See you in church. Bye.”
I had another dime, so I thought I’d see if Martha Tracy was in her office. She was.
“M’yeah?”
“Martha?”
“Who wants her?”
“Cooperman.”
“Just a shake ’til I get to another phone.” I heard a click in my ear, the sound of the swallows landing on the wires outside the Caddell Building, then she was back. “M’yeah. Cooperman; how are you doing you little devil? Uncover any secret plots?”
“How’s everything?”
“Well, they finally cleared out Chester’s office and it’s sitting there empty waiting to see which of the two people fighting over it finally inherit the space. Honestly, you’d think grown men would have better things to do than fight over where they park their desks. Would you care where they put you to do the job?”
“It’s just magic, Martha. They don’t make decisions unless they can wear the proper hats and wave the right wands. Who is going to be in charge, anyway?”
“Oh, that’ll take years to settle. Meanwhile, there’s an administrator looking after the day-to-day stuff, and a board of directors with Chester’s wife on it making the policy decisions. I’ve still got my job, that’s all I care about.”
“What time will you be at home? I want to look at those things Elizabeth Tilford left behind when she disappeared.”
“Elizabeth? You worried about her? She’ll lay you out, Cooperman.”
“Just doing my job.”
“Well, I’ll be home after six. Give me an hour or so to eat and you can have some coffee.”’