Jimmy and Fay

by Michael Mayo

  Hobart looked to be delighted by the question. “Yes, the goat, the sacrificial goat. That’s actually why you’re here, Mr. Quinn. The goat was Junior’s idea.”

  I heard a metallic ring above me. The goat killer was up there on the iron gallery that ran around the library on the second level of shelves. He’d taken off the death’s-head mask and the plumed hat, but he still had the red silk cape wrapped around him. He looked down at me and said hello.

  Hobart said, “The goat showed Peter Wilcox the enormity of his crime. The sheer theatricality of it appealed to us. We needed something to make him understand that his secret was no longer safe. We knew that the offices of the foundation would be empty on Friday afternoon, and, of course, we couldn’t allow anyone else to be hurt. That was crucial to us from the moment we read the confession. If we brought harm to anyone except the guilty, then we would betray her memory. And we were successful. Miss Wray may have been inconvenienced and, perhaps, embarrassed, but none of this was her doing. She was merely a source of the money we needed to retain the services of Mr. Trodache and his nephew.”

  I thought there was a good chance that Peter Wilcox didn’t know anything about the goat, even assuming that anybody had found it. “But why a goat?”

  “What’s he talking about?” old Wilcox rasped. “Who is he?”

  Hobart went on. “We wanted an example, a statement of purely bestial carnality that would disturb Mr. Wilcox. Once we found the animal, getting him to the foundation was a simple matter. Junior went upstairs to make certain the offices were empty while the rest of us waited outside. Not long after he left, I saw you go into the building. It startled me. After all, how could you have been there? For a moment, I thought that somehow you were on to us but I knew that was impossible.”

  “Okay,” I said, “wait a minute. I know it was you who brought the book to the Pierre.”

  That stopped him like I’d smacked him with the knucks. “Then you waited outside the hotel and saw Miss Wray go to my place and you figured she talked to the RKO guys and they were going to use me as a go-between.”

  He nodded.

  “And you followed me that first night and decided to tighten the screws.”

  He nodded and shrugged, admitting it was a mistake.

  “When did you call Saxon Dunbar?”

  He smiled. “As soon as we left you. Junior said that if Dunbar came sniffing around for his column, the lawyers would capitulate.”

  “And you dropped by the speak to make sure he found me.”

  “Yes, we thought everything was falling into place until Friday afternoon. What brought you to the Foundation for Wayward Girls?”

  “I had an idea that was where they held auditions for the women in the stag pictures that Wilcox financed and I wanted to take a look at the place.”

  When I mentioned the women, Wilcox sat up and said, “Where’s the woman? The woman in the movie. I thought she was going to be here.”

  Hobart reassured him, “Oh, she will be, very soon now. Just for you.”

  He turned to me and said, “No matter, when I saw you walking away with that bemused look, I knew you wouldn’t get in our way.”

  “You knew I wouldn’t go to the cops.”

  “You? That was never a question. From the moment the actress went to Jimmy Quinn’s, I knew the plan was sound, and I had been dubious about Junior’s idea. I thought there had to be an easier way to raise the money in time. But once he saw the book, he said she would pay if she thought the pictures would be made public. It had something to do with her husband, but we also knew that the studio would have no trouble getting the cash quickly.”

  “So you just wanted the six grand? Why?”

  That’s when the guy in the gallery chimed in as loud as he could with his scratchy voice. “To bring the guilty parties back to the scene of the crime where they will face their accusers and justice will take its course.”

  Hobart laughed and said, “Christ, that’s melodramatic. Let me just put it this way. They killed her, and they’re going to answer for it.”

  “That’s right.” Junior was striding around on the gallery so he could look down and see every part of the floor. He had the Colt Woodsman in his right hand. It made me nervous as hell. Arch didn’t like it either. As Junior moved, Arch did the same against the opposite wall, trying to keep him in sight.

  Hobart refilled Learned Wilcox’s glass and said, “We knew all about the film tonight. It was our only chance to get the two of them away from the estate together. By now, Mr. Trodache has delivered Junior’s message to his father. They’ll be here soon.”

  I knew they had to be talking about Mary Wilcox, but that didn’t clear things up. “So the money was to hire Trodache?”

  Hobart nodded and topped off the old guy’s tumbler. “He knew about the stag film and the operation behind it, but he didn’t help us as much as he claimed he would. Still, he has his uses, the boy, too. They’re . . .” He stopped and turned his head like he was listening for something. “Yes, that’s the Rolls. They’re here. Get set, Junior.”

  “No,” he croaked, sounding scared up there. “I’m not ready.”

  “Yes, you are. You know what to do. Steel yourself. Think about her.”

  Above us, Junior took a couple of steps toward the circular stairs, then stopped and went the other way, making a hell of a racket on the metal gallery. The old guy looked up for the first time and got a wild-eyed look until Hobart came over and said something that settled him down.

  Arch backed into the far corner of the room where he could cover the door and nobody could get behind him. The big wooden globe also gave him some cover. I took another corner with a clear line to the foot of the staircase. From there, I could see Junior, but I couldn’t tell what he was doing.

  Then we heard the front door swing open and a voice said, “Dad? Junior?”

  Junior started to say something but hesitated and looked down at Hobart. Hobart made a sharp angry gesture and the kid yelled, “In here!”

  We heard footsteps getting louder on the marble floor, and two men came into the library. The first was Peter Wilcox, still in his tuxedo with the domino mask pushed up on his head. He saw his father in the chair and went straight for him. The second man scanned the room like a bodyguard. He was a big guy in a dark suit, and as soon as he saw Arch and me in the corners, he opened his coat and reached for a pistol.

  Trodache appeared behind him and slugged him behind the ear with a sap. It made a sickening crunch and the big guy toppled. I thumbed back the hammer on the .38 and aimed it at the middle of Trodache’s chest. Everybody in the room was looking at the fallen man. He shook like he was having a seizure, and blood was running out of his nose and spit foamed on his lips. His coat was rucked up over a pistol, an automatic, half out of its holster. Trodache was going for the gun but stopped when he saw me.

  Peter Wilcox said, “My God, what is the meaning of this? What have you done to Summers?” He was talking about the guy on the floor and I knew the man was in trouble, bad trouble. You nail a guy that hard with a sap, you don’t just knock him out, you cave in his skull. It looked to me like Summers might die if a doctor didn’t look after him soon, and even if it wasn’t my job to take care of him, hell, somebody had to and that made me pissed off and impatient.

  Hobart said, “We have business to attend to and Summers would have interfered. I never liked him anyway.”

  “Hobart? What are you doing here?” I guess it was taking the brilliant banker a while to figure out what was happening. It was his house. I guess he still thought he was in charge. That didn’t last.

  Hobart said, “I’m going to explain something, something important. It involves you and your father and your son and your wife.”

  This was the first time I saw Peter Wilcox in person. Medium build. The square jaw, short mustache, and glasses reminded you of Teddy Roosevelt, but, hell, he was a banker not a Rough Rider.

  He said, “I was told that Father was
here. We were . . . attending a function and—”

  “We know everything about the ‘function,’ but, don’t worry, that is the least of our concerns. Your indulgences are your own—”

  “Dammit, Hobart”—Wilcox was getting red in the face—“I will not be lectured to by you or anyone—”

  “STOP IT!” Hobart stepped right up in Wilcox’s face and yelled at him. “This is important.”

  Wilcox looked around wildly. He noticed Arch and me with a .38 trained on a scroungy-looking guy. He saw his man still flat on the ground, and he understood he was in trouble.

  Then Junior said from above, “That’s right. You’ve got to listen to us now.”

  Wilcox staggered back a step and collapsed into the other club chair.

  Hobart stood in front of him. “I swore to myself that if we succeeded at this, I would tell the truth. I’m not going to keep silent any longer. I will speak the truth as I know it. It’s too late for anything else.”

  And I’ve got to say that from everybody else I’ve talked to and everything I’ve learned since, that’s exactly what he did. If the man lied or exaggerated, you can’t prove it by me.

  Hobart stood in front of Peter Wilcox’s chair and said everything to him. He never looked away. All the while, Junior walked back and forth on the gallery. Arch was watching him and had his Luger ready. I heard everything Hobart and Wilcox said, and I could watch them well enough, but I didn’t look away from Trodache. He didn’t try to hide how much he wanted to get me, and he didn’t move away from the man on the floor. If I gave him half a second, he’d go for the pistol and shoot me.

  Hobart said, “There should be some way to couch this in more official or legal terms, but I don’t know them, so I’ll state it plainly, Mr. Wilcox. Some time in June of 1917, your father assaulted your wife. The first time he did it was in this library. There were others. You were in England at the time. Nine months later Peter Wilcox Jr. was born.”

  Wilcox shook his head and tried to sound sad. “All these years later, even after her death, these lies live on.”

  “No, they’re not lies. She told you the truth when you came home. You refused to believe her.”

  “I admit that perhaps she was not ready for the marriage. She was too young and immature, and that’s what caused her to make up the fantastic stories.”

  When Wilcox said that, I remembered Polly’s story about Kitty and her mother. How everything for Kitty started when her mother kicked her out of their Chicago house for “seducing” her stepfather, and how Kitty and her mother wound up working at Polly’s. Looking at that old man slugging back his scotch, I knew Hobart was telling an ugly evil truth.

  Peter Wilcox still denied it. Hobart went on, “Yes, she was too young. At fifteen she was easily manipulated by your father and her father and you. Remember, I knew her better than any of you. I had been driving her and her mother for years. I brought the midwife to our house the night she was born. She refused to go to your home unless I came along as her driver.”

  “So you are hardly an objective judge of her mental or physical condition.”

  “I don’t expect you to admit it,” Hobart said. “You can’t. If I were in your position, I wouldn’t admit it to myself either. And that’s the worst part of all this. I knew. All the household staff knew. I heard their whispers and I knew something had happened that disturbed her deeply, but it wasn’t my place to ask questions about it or pry, and, to my shame, I did not. I told myself it was nothing, and then when she became so sad, when she was carrying Junior and afterward, I convinced myself it was her mother’s melancholia.”

  “Yes, that’s precisely what it was, melancholia, you knew that. We tried every treatment. Nothing worked.” Wilcox sat up straight and made his voice forceful. “It’s the same melancholia that drove her to all those acts of madness and finally to kill herself. She was sensitive, she was frail, she was not able to face the ugly realities of life.”

  “Nonsense! She faced the ugly reality of an assault right here in this room and later in her bedroom. Repeatedly.”

  “Stop saying that. You know it isn’t true. It cannot be true.”

  Until then, I thought maybe Wilcox really did not believe the other man, but then you could tell that he did. When he said “It cannot be true,” you knew it was. But he wasn’t giving up. “And when did she tell you this story? Was it in the car?”

  “No, think back. Remember the reading of her will.”

  When Hobart said that, Wilcox collapsed back into the chair, and Hobart bore down on him. “She left me a ‘small personal remembrance.’ It was a letter, in her hand, telling me exactly what happened. I drove up to New Haven and shared it with Junior. He left Yale that very day and together we came up with a plan.”

  “So she set you on this insane . . . what, vengeance?”

  “No!” Junior came clattering down the stairs. He didn’t even glance at the man on the floor as he ran past. “She didn’t want anything like that. She said she wanted someone to know the truth and that we should forgive you because you never did anything without his permission.” He pointed the Woodsman at his grandfather, or, I guess, his father.

  Hobart said, “She told us to forgive you, but I can’t. It’s enough that you hear the truth. I can’t make you accept it, and what purpose would that serve? None. You see, the only person who is blameless here is Junior. He did nothing wrong, but now he has to live with the knowledge that he is the result of a terrible crime. You and I, we are the guilty parties. We could have helped her but we did not. And then . . . there is him.”

  Everybody turned to look at the old guy.

  “So,” Hobart said, “I have taken it upon myself to punish us all for our parts in Miss Mary’s sad life.” He pulled out the flask, unscrewed the top, and drank deep. He coughed and his eyes watered. “The man who sold it to me was right. You can hardly taste it this way.”

  He drank again. Wilcox shifted nervously and then jumped up from the chair when he figured out what Hobart meant. He knocked the tumbler out of the old man’s hands.

  As it shattered in the fireplace, Trodache yanked the pistol out of the holster, and pointed it at me.

  I shot him twice in the chest. He looked surprised as he collapsed on his haunches and, a second later, fell over. The echoing blast of the gunshots in the closed room made everybody stop what they were doing. Everybody but Arch. He hurried right over. The rest of them stared at the body on the floor. I heard fast footsteps in the hall, and the kid, his nephew, ran into the library. He stopped in the doorway and stared openmouthed at Trodache’s body. Then he looked at me and flinched at the pistol in my hand.

  I jerked my head toward the front door and said, “Go. Nothing’s keeping you here.” He did. I hope he had whatever was left of the six thousand.

  I guess we should have stayed around to find out exactly how things worked out with Hobart and the three Wilcoxes, but it seemed to me that the most useful thing Arch and I could do was to get that poor bastard on the floor to a doctor.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  It was all Arch and I could do to get the guy out to the coupe and jam the three of us into the seat. I got it turned around and we headed downtown to Bellevue Hospital as fast as the Ford would go. That was pretty fast, and there was nobody else on the streets. The guy’s breathing was shallow. His eyes were half open sometimes, and the foam at his mouth was gone. What was his name? Wilcox called him Summers. Arch said he’d seen men survive worse, but with that kind of wound to the head, you couldn’t be certain.

  “What did you think about what he said?” I asked as we sailed down First Avenue. “Hobart.”

  “I believe every word. It doesn’t contradict anything I’ve learned about Learned Wilcox. I just hope that whatever he was pouring down the evil old bastard’s throat was effective, painful, and slow. How are you? Any regrets about Trodache?”

  Truth is that was the first moment I was able to think about him. Everything since had been pure
reaction. Until Arch brought it up. Then the sight of the man sprawled on the floor caught up with me, and I felt a quick sick wave, like I was going to throw up, but worse. For all my reputation as a gangster and gunman, I haven’t shot that many guys, and it’s never been something I wanted to do. But, hell, Trodache bothers me less than any of them. In his way, he was as bad as Learned Wilcox. Somebody should’ve shot him a long time before I did.

  When we got close to Bellevue, I pulled in where I saw an ambulance. We got a couple of orderlies to take Summers. I told them that he’d been hit on the head and he worked for Peter Wilcox. Before they could ask anything else, Arch and I made ourselves scarce.

  We drove back uptown and stopped at the first telephone booth we saw. I dropped a nickel in and dialed Ellis’s precinct. I was surprised that he was there. When he heard my voice, he said, “What in the hell is going on? Captain Boatwright came in an hour ago looking like he’s been poleaxed and asked me who you were. Come clean. What gives?”

  “Shut up, I’ll explain later. I’m about to do you the biggest favor of your career if you handle it right.” If he didn’t handle it right, he’d be in the crapper, but I didn’t mention that. “Tell Boatwright that Peter Wilcox needs his help. He’s at the place he used to live, 900 Fifth Avenue at Seventy-First. There’s a body there. Maybe three. He’s gonna want to keep it quiet.”

  Ellis was asking if it had anything to do with the actress when I hung up. I never learned exactly how he managed, but Ellis did his job that night and made sure that nobody was embarrassed.

  They kept everything out of the papers until Wednesday, and then the story said that Mr. Peter Wilcox’s driver, Stanley Summers, had been attacked in Mr. Wilcox’s Fifth Avenue home by a man thought to be living in the nearby Hooverville in Central Park. Mr. Summers shot and killed the intruder and was being treated at a private hospital. They didn’t say anything about Hobart and Learned Wilcox, but a week later, it was announced that the surviving founder of the Ashton-Wilcox Bank had succumbed following a brief illness. It was funny, really, the way people reacted, what with him having been such a big cheese. But the funeral barely made the front page, and what I heard from most people in the speak was that they were surprised to learn he was still alive.