“Probably not.”
“Phil was probably doing a little cheating,” I went on, “and that’s probably what he did two weeks ago, and nobody spotted him. But he evidently crossed someone else somewhere along the line. Maybe he pulled the same tricks in a bigger game, or maybe he was just sleeping in the wrong bed, but someone knew he was coming here, turned up after the game was going, and rang the bell. He would have come in and called Phil out, but he didn’t have to, because Phil answered the door.”
“And the guy had a knife.”
“Right,” I said. “That’s how it was, but it’s another way an investigating officer might get confused. How did the guy know Phil was going to come to the door? Most times the host opens the door, and the rest of the time it’s only one chance in five it’ll be Phil. Would the guy be ready, knife in hand? And would Phil just open up without making sure who it was?”
I held up a hand. “I know, that’s how it happened. But I think it might be worth your while to stage a more plausible scenario, something a lot easier for the cops to come to terms with. Suppose we forget the intruder. Suppose the story we tell is that Phil was cheating at cards and someone called him on it. Maybe some strong words were said and threats were exchanged. Phil went into his pocket and came out with a knife.”
“That’s…”
“You’re going to say it’s far-fetched,” I said, “but he’d probably have some sort of weapon on him, something to intimidate anyone who did catch him cheating. He pulls the knife and you react. Say you turn the table over on him. The whole thing goes crashing to the floor and he winds up sticking his own knife in his chest.”
I walked across the room. “We’ll have to move the table,” I went on. “There’s not really room for that sort of struggle where you’ve got it set up, but suppose it was right in the middle of the room, under the light fixture? Actually that would be a logical place for it.” I bent down, picked up the throw rug, tossed it aside. “You’d move the rug if you had the table here.” I bent down, poked at a stain. “Looks like somebody had a nosebleed, and fairly recently, or you’d have had the carpet cleaned by now. That can fit right in, come to think of it. Phil wouldn’t have bled much from a stab wound to the heart, but there’d have been a little blood loss, and I didn’t spot any blood at all where the body’s lying now. If we put him in the right spot, they’ll most likely assume it’s his blood, and it might even turn out to be the same blood type. I mean, there are only so many blood types, right?”
I looked at them one by one. “I think it’ll work,” I said. “To sweeten it, we’ll tell them you’re friends of mine. I play in this game now and then, although I wasn’t here when Phil was. And when the accident happened the first thing you thought of was to call me, and that’s why there was a delay reporting the incident. You’d reported it to me, and I was on my way here, and you figured that was enough.” I stopped for breath, took a moment to look each of them in the eye. “We’ll want things arranged just right,” I went on, “and it’ll be a good idea to spread a little cash around. But I think this one’ll go into the books as accidental death.”
“They must have thought you were a genius,” Elaine said.
“Or an idiot savant,” I said. “Here I was, telling them to fake exactly what had in fact happened. At the beginning I think they may have thought I was blundering into an unwitting reconstruction of the incident, but by the end they probably figured out that I knew where I was going.”
“But you never spelled it out.”
“No, we maintained the fiction that some intruder stuck the knife in Ryman, and we were tampering with the evidence.”
“When actually you were restoring it. What tipped you off?”
“The body blocking the door. The lividity pattern was wrong, but I was suspicious even before I confirmed that. It’s just too cute, a body positioned where it’ll keep a door from opening. And the table was in the wrong place, and the little rug had to be covering something, or why else would it be where it was? So I pictured the room the right way, and then everything sort of filled in. But it didn’t take a genius. Any cop would have seen some wrong things, and he’d have asked a few hard questions, and the four of them would have caved in.”
“And then what? Murder indictments?”
“Most likely, but they’re respectable businessmen and the deceased was a scumbag, so they’d have been up on manslaughter charges and probably would have pleaded to a lesser charge. Still, a verdict of accidental death saves them a lot of aggravation.”
“And that’s what really happened?”
“I can’t see any of those men packing a switch knife, or pulling it at a card table. Nor does it seem likely they could have taken it away from Ryman and killed him with it. I think he went ass over teakettle with the table coming down on top of him and maybe one or two of the guys falling on top of the table. And he was still holding the knife, and he stuck it in his own chest.”
“And the cops who responded—”
“Well, I called it in for them, so I more or less selected the responding officers. I picked guys you can work with.”
“And worked with them.”
“Everybody came out okay,” I said. “I collected a few dollars from the four players, and I laid off some of it where it would do the most good.”
“Just to smooth things out.”
“That’s right.”
“But you didn’t lay off all of it.”
“No,” I said, “not quite all of it. Give me your hand. Here.”
“What’s this?”
“A finder’s fee.”
“Three hundred dollars?”
“Ten percent,” I said.
“Gee,” she said. “I didn’t expect anything.”
“What do you do when somebody gives you money?”
“I say thank you,” she said, “and I put it someplace safe. This is great. You get them to tell the truth, and everybody gets paid. Do you have to go back to Syosset right away? Because Chet Baker’s at Mikell’s tonight.”
“We could go hear him,” I said, “and then we could come back here. I told Anita I’d probably have to stay over.”
“Oh, goodie,” she said. “Do you suppose he’ll sing ‘Let’s Get Lost’?”
“I wouldn’t be surprised,” I said. “Not if you ask him nice.”
I don’t remember if he sang it or not, but I heard it again just the other day on the radio. He’d ended abruptly, that aging boy with the sweet voice and sweeter horn. He went out a hotel room window somewhere in Europe, and most people figured he’d had help. He’d crossed up a lot of people along the way and always got away with it, but then that’s usually the way it works. You dodge all the bullets but the last one.
“Let’s Get Lost.” I heard the song, and not twenty-four hours later I picked up the Times and read an obit for a commodities trader named P. Gordon Fawcett, who’d succumbed to prostate cancer. The name rang a bell, but it took me hours to place it. He was the guy in the blazer, the man in whose apartment Phil Ryman stabbed himself.
Funny how things work out. It wasn’t too long after that poker game that another incident precipitated my departure from the NYPD, and from my marriage. Elaine and I lost track of each other, and caught up with each other some years down the line, by which time I’d found a way to live without drinking. So we got lost and found—and now we’re married. Who’d have guessed?
My life’s vastly different these days, but I can imagine being called in on just that sort of emergency—a man dead on the carpet, a knife in his chest, in the company of four poker players who only wish he’d disappear. As I said, my life’s different, and I suppose I’m different myself. So I’d almost certainly handle it differently now, and what I’d probably do is call it in immediately and let the cops deal with it.
Still, I always liked the way that one worked out. I walked in on a cover-up, and what I did was cover up the cover-up. And in the process I wound up with the truth. Or an appro
ximation of it, at least, and isn’t that as much as you can expect to get? Isn’t that enough?
About the Author
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Lawrence Block published his first novel in 1958. He has been designated a Grand Master by the Mystery Writers of America, and has received Lifetime Achievement awards from the Crime Writers’ Association (UK), the Private Eye Writers of America, and the Short Mystery Fiction Society. He has won the Nero, Philip Marlowe, Societe 813, and Anthony awards, and is a multiple recipient of the Edgar, the Shamus, and the Japanese Maltese Falcon awards. He and his wife, Lynne, are devout New Yorkers and relentless world travelers.
Email: [email protected]
Twitter: @LawrenceBlock
Blog: LB’s Blog
Facebook: lawrence.block
Website: lawrenceblock.com
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The Matthew Scudder Stories
Available on Amazon
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For a list of all my available fiction, with my series novels listed in chronological order, go to About LB’s Fiction.
And if you LOVE any of these stories, I’d really appreciate it if you’d tell your friends—including the friends you haven’t met, by blogging, posting an online review, or otherwise spreading the word.
Thanks!
Lawrence Block
Let's Get Lost (A Matthew Scudder Story Book 8) Page 2