Kill Now, Pay Later (Hard Case Crime (Mass Market Paperback))
Page 17
“I see,” Pope said. “And out of habit, you blackmailed Dick?”
“I couldn’t let things just drag on and on! You promised me Mrs. Pope wouldn’t last six months, and if I hadn’t done something about it she would have buried us all. Gates is trying to make you think I’m some sort of a mastermind, but a lot of things happened I didn’t plan. I didn’t plan the robbery so Leo would be shot. That occurred to me at the very last minute, when I was fixing coffee for Davidson. I poured it out. I didn’t know Dick would leave his personal signature strewn around for the firemen to find. The way he did it, he stuffed cotton in the neck of a brandy bottle, set it on fire and threw it through a window. And then he was so excited that he left the cork and the rest of the cotton on the ground beside a cigarette lighter with his initials on it. Positively brilliant! I’d had a lot of promises from people, but very little actual money, and here was a chance to make ten thousand in cash. I didn’t know you wouldn’t give it to him. You’d never turned him down before.”
“Gates said four people died,” Pope said. “I only count three.”
Nobody wanted to answer him, including me. But I decided it was probably one of the things I was being paid for.
“Dick went into the fire to pull you out,” I said. “He’s still in there.”
“How can you blame me for—” Anna cried.
Pope’s eyes closed, and the lines of his face fell into a mask of such real suffering that Anna said softly, “I didn’t want it to be like this. Everything I touch seems to turn to—nastiness. There must be something wrong with me, terribly wrong.”
I saw no point in disagreeing with her. She took out her .25 automatic and looked down the barrel.
Pope’s eyes had opened, and they widened as he saw the gun. “Gates! Take it away from her.”
“She can’t shoot herself with it,” I said. “I took out the hammer spring last night.”
This seemed to be the worst shock Anna had had yet. “I don’t believe you!”
She could have made sure by putting it in her mouth, but she did it an easier way. She pushed it against my chest and pulled the trigger. Luckily I was telling the truth.
She yelled and threw the gun in my face. It whirled end over end and the base plate struck me between the eyes. For an instant I thought that I was going to be leaving in a stretcher, after all. She dived at me. Davidson dragged her off. She went on struggling until he lifted her clear of the ground.
There was silence for a moment. Pope said quietly, “Dick went into the fire after me?”
That seemed to make all the difference. By using my last strength, I managed to keep from saying that the only reason Dick had had the chance to try to rescue his father was that he had left him unconscious on the bedroom floor, and had then started the fire himself. Pope probably needed all the comfort he could get. But I was feeling rather put upon, and I picked through Anna’s purse till I found the $7500 check.
“Now I won’t have to send you a bill. Saves paperwork.”
When Davidson let Anna down she threw herself full-length on the grass beside the stretcher, sobbing. Most of the pins were out of her hair.
Pope turned on his elbow. After a moment he reached out to touch her loosened hair, but drew his hand back.
“Anna,” he said in a voice I hadn’t heard him use before. “How much of that will stand up in court? Very, very little. Listen to me! He tricked you into saying things you didn’t mean. Don’t worry about—”He rolled back. “Turn off that radio.”
When I nodded, Davidson snapped it off.
Anna was still sobbing, but she was also listening. So was I. I am always interested in the peculiarities of human behavior.
“Don’t worry about this clown, the fire chief,” Pope said. “I know him. If we can’t get out of it any other way, let him keep the ten thousand. We’ll get a good lawyer. What can they charge you with? Drugging one detective and not drugging another? Setting a fire? Dick set the fires. Knowing somebody had a bad heart and somebody else was shut up in a projection booth? All very flimsy. Blackmail? But am I complaining about being blackmailed?”
He wasn’t a bad salesman; at least he made her stop crying. She was still lying face down, and it should be remembered that I had worn her skirt into the fire. Pope patted her where he might have patted a high-strung horse.
“So it’s going to be all right,” he said cheerfully.
“I probably shouldn’t butt in,” I said. “What makes you think you can trust her?”
He looked at me, and he really seemed to be giving it some thought. “But I don’t intend to marry her.”
Anna raised her head and the oddly assorted pair looked at each other. I don’t know what passed between them, but it seemed to be satisfactory.
I stood up, not without difficulty. The intern came forward cautiously.
“Can I put him in now, officer?”
“Yeah, take him away.”
He called another attendant and they lifted Pope into the ambulance. Anna dropped her useless automatic into her purse and took out a comb and lipstick, to put herself back together. She smoothed the nylon over her hips. Her tongue appeared briefly as she looked at me.
In a low voice, so Pope wouldn’t hear, she said, “Do you want your raincoat?”
“Mail it,” I said.
She looked surprised. “I thought you might—”
“I might what?”
She bit her lip, and though she had combed less than half of her hair, she turned and climbed into the ambulance.
Davidson picked up the radio. We started toward the fire, which was still burning hard.
“This isn’t the Ben Gates I thought I knew,” he said. “Pope’s going to spend a few days in the hospital. You could pick up that raincoat in person.”
I was feeling very tired and second-hand. “Irving, I don’t think the law will bother with that girl at all. They might have had a case on Pattberg, but the only witness was Dick, and he’s no longer around. So what the hell? I have to punish her some way.”
Shelley came out of the station wagon as we approached. “Do you want to drive in now and get the money?”
“I’m sending Elmer with you,” I said. “Give it to him.”
I walked on. She fell in beside me, going sideways.
“We could have dinner together. I’m not busy. There’s still some bourbon.”
“Ask Elmer,” I said, “but I doubt if he’ll be interested. He doesn’t go out much.”
“I didn’t do anything so awful, did I? I’m giving it back!”
“You’re giving it back because you have to give it back.”
She stood still and Davidson and I went on walking. Davidson said, “You’re getting to be a moralist, Ben. Where are we going?”
“I’m looking for a girl named Hilda Faltermeier, who hasn’t done anything to be ashamed of except give me a bad cup of coffee, and she didn’t know it was loaded. She also used to admire my eyebrows.”
If I hadn’t been feeling bad enough already, a small man with a mustache seized my hand. This was Hamilton, the insurance man who had been so lofty with me when I was waking up in the Popes’ library.
“Ben, this was absolutely tops. I always said you were the number-one man in New York.”
“That’s what you always said?”
“Now don’t disappoint me, Ben. I was mistaken. I’ll admit it freely. From now on I’ll be singing your praises. I was with Lieutenant Minturn at the other end of the two-way. I heard the whole thing.”
“So I get the retainers back?”
“You get more than the retainers. This fire isn’t going to cost us a penny. Thanks to you we have a stenographic record of the policy-holder admitting it was set by his son. We’ll get a reimbursement on the recreation building, and I can promise you fifteen percent of that. This was detective work at its best.”
In his enthusiasm at saving his company some money, he made the mistake of slapping me on the back. It set me c
oughing again. I brushed at him feebly while he went on clapping me between the shoulderblades. Tears were streaming down my face.
Then Al was beside me, holding out an open pint. “We had another emergency bottle, Gates. Go easy on this one.”
After I stopped coughing, I joined the Prosper volunteers and we watched the fire. When our emergency supply of whiskey was exhausted, we sent for more, in case other firemen should be overcome.
Just after dark it began to rain. That helped the firefighters, but I was the only man there without a raincoat. Something, I couldn’t remember what, had happened to mine. A thoughtful member of the ladies’ auxiliary let me get in the back of the station wagon. I thought it was Hilda, though the fire had died down and I couldn’t be positive in the dark. It bothered me. The next morning, one of the first things I did after I woke up in a strange bed in an unfamiliar room was to look at the girl beside me.
And sure enough, it was Hilda.
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