“Don’t forget poor, decrepit, old, broken-down Granby.”
“That’s not far off the mark. Six months of the job would kill him. By then Stanley would be settled in some other job and where would we be?”
“Up the creek, all on account of my stupid pride.”
“Gevan, I know you’re being sarcastic. Actually, I’m trying to help. I’ve always liked you. I don’t like to see—so many things thrown away.”
The inference did not please me. I did not like what he was hinting at.
“Many things, Lester.”
He leaned closer, twisting his empty glass on the bar top, making wet smears. “You’d be hurting more than the company, Gevan. You’d be hurting Niki too. Hurting her terribly. You must see that. She’s in love with you. And this attitude of yours—it’s sabotaging her.”
Just a good old friend of the family. Sabotage. A lovely word. It gives you quite a mental picture: greasy little men scuttling through warehouses and tossing incendiary pencils into dark corners and molding gelignite to bridge trusses. But there are other kinds. Who can do the best job of sabotaging a school system? One grimy little boy—or the superintendent of schools?
“Are you listening to me, Gevan?”
“Sure. What were you saying?”
But I kept thinking while he rambled on. Suppose our grimy little boy wanted to do a thorough job of sabotage. If he was bright enough, he would lead such an exemplary life that he could become superintendent of schools without anyone every suspecting that his sole motivation was to eventually kick down all the school buildings.
“… Niki has her pride too, Gevan. She wants Ken’s plans to be carried out. And Ken’s plans included Stanley Mottling. Ken was able to forget his pride and hand the reins over to Stanley. You can prove that you’re just as big a man as Ken was.”
“That’s what’s spoiling our lives, Lester. All my foolish, stubborn pride.”
He edged closer. “I know you’re trying to make fun of me, Gevan. But remember, it was Niki who asked me to try to talk sense into you.” He lowered his voice and there was a thin coating of slime on his words. “But I’ll bet you if you do things her way at the Monday meeting, it shouldn’t be too hard to arrange to join her on a trip she’s taking. It could be handled in a discreet way. Join up in some other city, you know. I’m almost positive it could be worked.” He underlined the thought by giving me a little nudge with his elbow. A sly and lascivious little nudge.
I was suddenly very, very tired of Lester. I wondered what I was doing, sitting at the bar listening to him. I didn’t want him offering me the delights of Niki in return for being an obedient boy. There is a limit to the number of handsprings you can turn for the bonus of a fair white body.
I closed my fingers around his wrist. My hand and wrist are toughened by a lot of big tarpon, by makos and tuna in season off Bimini, by water skis behind fast boats. It was childish, schoolyard competition. I clenched my hand on his wrist, on the soft office-flesh, until my knuckles popped and I felt the strain in my shoulder—until his mouth twisted and loosened and I had turned him back to that Lester Fitch of Arland High School, fair game for kids half his size, loping along, blubbering with fear. I took all his masks from him and for a moment enjoyed just that, then felt self-disgust and released him quickly.
I made my voice flat, calm. “Now I’ll diagnose, Lester. Now I’ll tell you something. You’ve gotten into something that’s way over your head. You’re scared witless. Your nerves are shot. You’re in a mess you’d like to get out of and know damn well you can’t.”
He made a weak effort to put on a standard mask. Indignation. “I don’t know what you’re talking about!”
“I’m talking about you. I know you, Lester. The world hasn’t appreciated you. You haven’t been able to move fast enough. You’ll use any method. You’ll be crooked if you have to be, to get that power and appreciation faster. You’re mixed up with Dolson. Both of you are thieves. Neither of you are worth a damn. I don’t know how you were angled into it, but it’s too late for you to get out, Lester. You know it and I know it and Dolson knows it.”
He could not look at me. Perhaps any human being has a right to personal dignity. I had stripped Lester naked, yet it was not done in idle cruelty. It was an application of sudden, unexpected pressure—the kind that opens up a hidden fracture-line.
He sat for what seemed like a long time, with his pale hands motionless on the edge of the bar. He turned toward me. I’ve never seen so much hate.
His voice was barely audible. “You’ve always had every damn thing, haven’t you? All the things I’ve wanted. All right. Keep prying. Keep shoving people around. Keep acting smarter and bigger than everybody, because that’s what I want you to do. I want you to keep your goddamn nose in business that doesn’t concern you, because if you get too annoying, they’ll smash you the way they’d smash a bug on a wall. Without even thinking about it. And I want that to happen to you, Mr. Gevan Dean.”
“The way they smashed Ken?” I asked softly.
Hate and pressure had opened the fracture-line. He realized he had said too much. The fracture closed slowly. His eyes became remote again behind optical lenses. He got up from the stool, moving carefully, like a man ill or drunk. He walked away and he did not look like the brisk young man on his way up, the young man to watch. He looked like a toy with a spring that had almost run down.
I had another drink. Perry was right. There was something big and formless in the darkness. I could almost make out the shape of it. Almost.
I paid and left. I went to the lobby and picked up a newspaper. The headlines reflected a world in a tension of conflicting ideologies so familiar to us, we accept it with a glance, yet do not dare think deeply about it. I scanned the front page and saw a box near the bottom of the page. I stopped so quickly on my way to the elevators that the man behind me ran into me, grunted, showed his teeth, and hurried on.
The body of a young girl, recovered from the river eleven miles south of the city at noon had been identified at press time as Alma Brady, civil-service employee at Dean Products. Death was caused by drowning, and the penciled suicide note in the pocket of her red coat confirmed the police theory that she had jumped from one of the Arland bridges some time Thursday night. The note indicated she had been depressed over a love affair.
Poor little chippy, tumbling down the river in her red coat. I could not see her as a suicide type. She was too much on the make, too hungry for life, too tough-minded. With Dolson out of the picture she had started thinking about the next man, not about the river.
There had been a vulnerability about her, but not of the sort that causes suicides. I was making a snap judgment, based on being with her for a half-hour, yet I felt certain she had not killed herself.
Ken had taken his gamble and lost. I mourned him, yet, since I had learned his death had perhaps not been as pointless as I had first thought, I had lost that feeling of resentment a needless death creates. Alma’s death was different. I was positive the fluffy blonde had been murdered. And my anger was strong—stronger than the anger I felt at Ken’s death, because it was more impersonal. There was a callousness about her death. Smashed, Lester had said, like a bug on a wall. Smashed in a professional way which I knew Fitch and Dolson were incapable of.
I turned away from the elevators and hurried to a phone booth in the lobby, found Perry’s home phone number, and dialed. Her mother told me Joan had called earlier to say she was working late and would get her dinner across the street from the offices. I thanked her hurriedly and phoned the plant. The switchboard was closed. The night plug on the number I dialed was into a line to the engineering offices. A man with a weary voice gave me the night number for Granby’s office.
I did not completely realize the extent of my own tension until the sound of Perry’s voice came over the line. I sighed from my heels.
“This is Gevan. Perry. Did you hear about it?”
“I’m sick over it. I
wish I’d known it hit her so hard. I thought she was mad at him but not hurt that bad. If I’d known, I could have—stayed with her or something.”
“Did it hit her that hard?”
“What do you mean?”
“Perry, I don’t want to go into it, not over the phone, but I don’t believe it was suicide.”
She made a thin attempt at laughter. “But, good Lord, Colonel Dolson couldn’t possible have—”
“It’s more than Dolson. Have you eaten?”
“I just got back five minutes ago.”
“What time will you be through?”
“Eight-thirty, Gevan.”
“I’ll be parked as close to the main entrance as I can get. I’ll feel better if you lock your office door.”
“You’re frightening me, Gevan.”
“I think it’s time to be frightened.”
It was seven by the clock in the lobby. The storm-lull was over. All the phony words had been said, all the untimed gestures made. Lester had talked his hate, and he would report that no persuasion would work on me. Now the storm could ride down the line of the wind, while the sky changed from brass to ink.
Chapter 15
The hotel made me restless. I wished I had asked her to quit. My raincoat was in my room. I went to the elevators. One came up from the basement level, the Copper Lounge level. The starter motioned me toward it. The door opened and I got in. Colonel Dolson was in there. A husky bellhop and a waiter were supporting him, one holding each arm. His cropped gray hair still had an authoritative bristle, but the face was sagging and lost, the eyes dull. The front of his beautifully tailored uniform jacket was smeared, and his smell was nauseous.
“You shouldn’t have stopped for anybody,” the waiter said to the operator.
“You shoulda took him up in the freight cage,” the operator said.
“Just run your elevator, sonny,” the waiter said.
Dolson stared at the elevator floor. He mumbled and breathed wetly through his mouth. He didn’t recognize me, and I couldn’t understand what he was saying.
They got off at six. When the door slid shut, I asked the operator if they had to take him very far.
“Just to six-eleven, around the first corner. Imagine a guy like that! He wants to get stinking, he ought to wear civvies. He don’t have to wear the uniform all the time.”
“Does it happen often?”
“I never see him that bad before. Now they got to strip him and drop him in the sack. Special service. Courtesy of the hotel.”
I got off at my floor and got my coat. The telephone rang. When I answered it, there was no one there. I smoked a cigarette, wondering about the call, feeling uneasy about it, and then heard the cautious rattle of fingernails against my door. I opened it. Hildy was standing there, brown eyes wide. She came in quickly and closed the door and leaned against it. She was wearing a yellow dress, one obviously styled for the lounge. Over it she wore a polo coat, too large for her, unbuttoned, the sleeves turned up above her wrists.
“Something,” she said, “depth-bombed the good Colonel.”
“I saw him in the elevator.”
“Then you know the condition. Messy, wasn’t he? You’ve been interested in him, so I thought you ought to know this. Tonight was the night. He leaned pretty hard on me. Just pack a little bag, dear. We’ll start in my car. Acapulco, Rio, the Argentine. He couldn’t believe my no was final. He offered one other inducement, Gevan. A sheaf of bills—of large, coarse, crude money. Honest to God, I never saw so much money all at one time since I was a little kid and my daddy took me through the Mint with all the other tourists. Maybe there’s larceny in my heart. For five seconds I was thinking about going along for the ride and the off-chance of rolling him.”
“Do you think he actually intends to take off, Hildy?”
“Yes. He can’t act that good. When the money didn’t work, he started drinking too fast and he told me that somebody had told him everything was set, whatever that means. And he said that, by God, he was no fool and he wasn’t going to wait around and be a clay pigeon for anybody, by God. He knew when the sign said the end of the road, and this was it.”
“Now he’s too drunk to go any place,” I said.
“Maybe some of that load is my fault. He kept insisting I, give him some reason why I wouldn’t go with him. I finally gave him the reason. I told him every time he put his hand on me it made me feel like the time I was a little kid and Buddy Higgins from across the street put an angleworm in my bathing suit.”
“God!”
“I know. Maybe it was too rough. Something was fracturing him and that finished him. He wasn’t lucid very long after I told him that. I guess it’s best that he got so he couldn’t talk at all. I think he could spout some stuff that would make his little pal sore at him.”
“What little pal?”
She gave me a quick glance and pulled the folded-back sleeve up so she could look at her watch. “I’ve got to go sing. Could you take a look at the Colonel, Gevan, just to make sure he doesn’t fly out any windows?”
“How do I get into his room?”
She handed me a key. “With this. He forced it on me during one of his relatively sober moments. Be a good guy, Gevan. I’ve got to run.”
“Do you want a report?”
“Please.”
After she left for the elevators, I went in the opposite direction, toward the stairs. I went down to the sixth and found six-eleven. I knocked and listened with my ear against the door panel, then let myself in. They’d taken off his jacket, tie, and shoes and put him on the bed. He didn’t stir when I turned the lights on. I made a careful search. I found a .45 Colt in the bureau, complete with web belt, holster, and extra clips. I thumbed his eyelid up. He was too far gone to twitch. He blew bubbles in the corner of his mouth. The Colonel was a careful man. There was nothing in the room to incriminate him. So I took a look through his pockets. All Army officers come equipped with little black notebooks for their shirt pockets. I stood over him and thumbed through his little black notebook.
Most of the pages were full of unimportant stuff. Memos about appointments. Shopping lists. There were two pages of names in the back. Josie, Annabelle, Alma, Judy, Moira, and so on. The names had one, two, or three stars. Alma had four stars. The colonel’s code. I replaced this notebook, pulled the blanket down, and levered him over onto his stomach. I pried his wallet out of his hip pocket. He had sixty-three dollars, and enough membership cards to prove he was a joiner. I put the wallet back. I had just covered him up again when I heard a key in the door. Joe Gardland came in. The husky bellhop was behind him. Joe registered acute surprise.
“What the hell are you doing in here, Gevvy?”
“A friend of the Colonel’s asked me to take a look at him and see if he was all right.”
“How did you get in?”
“The friend gave me a key. Here. You want it?”
Joe took it and handed it to the bellhop. “Here you go, Willy. Leave it off at the desk.” The bellhop looked nervous. He took the key and nodded and left.
Joe shut the door. “Is he okay?”
“Except for the head he’s going to have.”
Joe stared at the unconscious officer. He took a handkerchief out of his pocket and wiped his forehead. “Once in a long while,” he said, “a hotel owner gets a break. Not often. Just once in a while. Willy is a good boy. He decided the Colonel would like his jacket cleaned. On the way down, Willy finds a fat envelope in the inside pocket. He takes a look in the envelope and sees money. So he does the right thing. He brings it to me. Thank God he didn’t count it. If he had, I’d never have seen him again. Even a nice boy like Willy has a price. I take the envelope into my office. I start counting. Pretty soon I start sweating. I can’t get it into the safe fast enough, and I don’t even like having it there. I come to wake him up and tell him the dough is safe. What are they paying colonels lately, anyway?”
“Not that much, Joe.”
“Yes. I knew her. Was Dolson mentioned in her suicide note?”
“No. The way I understand it, they’d been seen around. Not lately, though. They were seen in clubs and so on.”
“How did Dolson make out with the police?”
“I got a report. I have to keep in touch when there’s a chance I might get some bad publicity for the hotel. He was very manly with them. Straight-from-the-shoulder stuff. ‘Yes, men, I knew the little girl. Yes, indeed. Like a daughter to me. Lonely, you know. Took her around a bit until she got better acquainted here. Helped her morale.’ ”
“Did they buy that?”
“I guess they had to. Anyway, even if they figured he’d been jumping her, they wouldn’t want to smear up his career. I don’t like the son of a bitch, but he is decorative around here. Until tonight. It doesn’t look like he’ll wake up in a hurry, does it?”
“Not for hours.”
“I usually get along good with the military, Gevvy. Most of the brass is okay. Once in a while you get one of these. Eagles on his shoulders, and he thinks he’s the Second Coming. I’ll bet you in his home town they’d blackball him at the Lion’s Club. Then all of a sudden he’s back in uniform and he’s a social lion. Knows every headwaiter in town.”
“Will you do me a favor, Joe? He’s going to wake up and find the money missing and come yelling to you. I want you to stall him.”
“How, for God’s sake? He’ll run to the cops.”
“He might not. He might be very easy to stall. Think up some excuse. Maybe you took it to the bank for safekeeping.”
Area of Suspicion Page 20