“Then why did you take it so hard, Mark?”
“Because I killed her, of course. Sound a little irrational, don’t I? Felice decided that Dennison is going to win. She wanted to gamble on it. She wanted to trade immunity for me for information that would assure Dennison’s winning. I was afraid, Morrow. We fought it out until the small hours of Monday morning. And she won. So I told Raval what information she was going to give you. I wanted her stopped. I didn’t think Dennison would lend himself to such a trade. So Raval… stopped her. You see, if I could keep forcing myself to believe that you killed her, Morrow, then I would be guiltless.”
Teed leaned forward. “What was the information, Mark? Tell me.”
Carboy shook his head, almost sadly. “I won’t tell you. It is something I have, maybe the only weapon I have left, and I shall use it as I see fit.”
“Tell me one thing. Is it conclusive? Will it hurt Raval?”
Carboy grunted to his feet. “It will very likely kill him, Mr. Morrow.”
He walked heavily to the door and Teed followed him. At the door, Carboy turned. His eyes were clouded.
“You know. I have been thinking, wondering, just when and where my life changed. It is an odd thing when a man can’t remember the exact moment a choice was made. Possibly the choice is never clear-cut. I have been thinking a great deal.”
“The moralists talk about right and wrong, Mark.”
“It isn’t that simple. A man enters public life and he tells himself that he will do good. He will be effective and the people will benefit. It is idealism of a respectable variety. And then he discovers that he must make certain compromises in order to achieve good. Like a man who builds a house. To afford the roof, he must order cheaper windows. To afford a fireplace, he must skimp the foundation. The house no longer satisfies him as much as it did, but he tells himself that without the short cuts there would be no house at all.
“But in public life, each compromise makes the next compromise easier, and each move toward good makes the next move more difficult. It is a miserable equation to live with. Yet the man goes on, and he tells himself that if you take the total good, and subtract the total evil, the net result is good. He drifts along, clutching the illusion, until one day he adds it up and he discovers that evil outbalances good. And he never knows the precise point where the balance changed, nor does he know which specific compromise was the wrong one.”
He drew himself up for a moment, and in that moment looked as noble as the retouched election photographs. “I think slowly, Morrow. I am not quick in my mind. But I do not believe that I am stupid, or that I am consciously evil.”
“I do not believe that either, Mark,” Teed said softly.
“It is time to change the balance of the scales.” Carboy left. Teed stood at the window and watched the black Buick drive away, Carboy huddled in the back seat.
Chapter Ten
The moment Carboy had been driven away in the city sedan, Teed got on the phone. Powell had left the office and was not yet home. He phoned police headquarters, found that Captain Leighton was not on duty, was given Leighton’s home phone number.
A child answered and Teed heard him call his father. “Captain Leighton, this is Teed Morrow.”
“What’s on your mind? Going to confess?”
“I want to thank you for helping Rogale find where I was.”
“It was worth it to watch you give Pilcher the works by the desk there. What gives? You got some new murders on your mind?”
“This may be for the wild geese. I don’t know. I just had a visit from Mayor Carboy, here at my apartment. This call goes through the switchboard here at the apartments. I wonder if you could come over, understanding that it may be nothing.”
“Most of my life has been spent tracking down nothing. Give me a half hour.”
Leighton arrived in twenty minutes in his rusty black suit looking, with hollow chest, stooped thin shoulders, like a sleepy scavenger bird.
He interposed no questions as Teed told him of the visit. “And that crack about balancing the scales, Morrow. You think he’s gone off with that cannon and a fixed idea of making holes in somebody?”
“I can’t think of anything else he would have meant.”
“Mark Carboy has always gone around being dramatic. He’s an expert sufferer, Morrow.”
“Maybe this is the one time when he’s been pushed beyond the edge.”
“It would surprise the hell out of me, frankly. Long as I’m here, Morrow, I want to ask you something. I heard a rumor yesterday. Heard they’re taking the clamps off you because there’s a good chance of fitting them onto your boss. I don’t know the method. Anything in his past that he wouldn’t want dredged up?”
“Absolutely nothing, Captain. You are always hearing about people’s lives being open books. In this case, it happens to fit.”
“Either of those daughters of his ever been in a bad jam?”
“I’m sure I would have heard of it if they had. Jake is just a kid. Marcia is a pretty prim sort of girl. Quiet.”
“Sometimes those quiet ones will give you a real surprise. Anyway, it was just a rumor, and it sort of fits with the way they turned off the heat under you.”
“They had no case.”
“Don’t kid yourself. They could bring in ten witnesses who would swear to seeing you strangle her in the lobby of the Hotel Deron at high noon, and three guys to testify that you made them help you carry the body out to the dump. But figure it this way. All they can do through you is discredit Dennison. That isn’t enough. There are still too many decent people in town behind him, and his reputation in Albany is good enough so that he might bring the Attorney General down on the city with enough ammunition this time to make a difference, no matter what happens to you, even if they managed to fry you at dawn. Dennison is the better target. Muzzling him would change the picture a lot more definitely than ruining you.”
“What will you do about Mayor Carboy?”
“Before I left the house I got hold of one of the few guys I can trust on the force and told him to get on the Mayor’s tail and stay there.”
“I didn’t tell you anything over the phone.”
“You sounded shaky enough so that it seemed like a good idea.”
“Do you have any idea, Captain, what it was that his wife was planning to tell me?”
“If I had a good idea, I’d either be dead or be Chief of Police.”
“You sound as though you might have a hunch.”
“I do. Luke Koalwitz has used the edge of his tongue on Lonnie Raval more than seldom. That is something that just isn’t done. But the ax never falls. Commissioner Koalwitz trots around, fat, smug and happy. Men have been killed in this town for less. The word is that Koalwitz gets more than his fair cut of the gravy. It spells one thing to me, Morrow, and I’ve been thinking about it a long time. Lonnie and Luke grew up in the same neighborhood. I think something happened, maybe a long time ago, maybe just a few years ago. Luke Koalwitz has some kind of evidence on Lonnie that could really put him on the spot. Not a local spot. Maybe a federal spot. He’s got it hidden away somewhere and it is his immunity. Luke is a bragging sort of man. He and Felice Carboy got chummy well over a year ago. Do you see how it figures?”
“Yes, I do.”
The phone rang. Teed got it, turned and said, “For you, Captain.”
Leighton grunted several times into the phone, then hung up. “That was my boy. Carboy went home, went right through the house and drove away in that Pontiac convertible. My boy lost him.”
After Leighton had left, Teed went out for a late lunch, came back and stretched out on his bed. He meant to take a short nap before going over the folder he had brought from Dennison’s office.
The harsh recurrent jangle of the phone awoke him. It was dark. The daytime sleep had left an evil taste in his mouth. He felt sour and discouraged and dull.
He snapped on a floor lamp at the end of the couch, went into the alco
ve and snatched up the phone.
“Yes?”
“Teed, is that you? Have you just come in? I’ve been calling and calling.”
“Hello, Marcia. What’s up?”
“Teed, Jake is with you, isn’t she?” She seemed upset.
“Jake? No. I haven’t seen her all day. I must have been too sound asleep to hear the phone before. What time is it? My watch has stopped.”
“A few minutes after midnight, Teed. I’m… worried, so worried. This isn’t like her. She’s never thoughtless.”
“Where’s Powell?”
“Out looking for her, with the car. I’ve been calling her friends. Teed, could you come over? Please?”
“Of course. As soon as I can.”
He stripped off his clothes, stepped into the shower. He turned it slowly from warm to cold, letting the shock awaken him completely. All of the bruises had turned to an ugly dirty yellow, a few of the more severe ones blotched with purple.
He dressed quickly, paused in the hall, took his topcoat from a hanger and shouldered into it. The night had turned cold, and his breath was visible. He did not want to think, as yet, of what might have happened to Jake.
From Rogale’s uncertainty, and from the rumor that Leighton had heard, it seemed entirely possible that Raval’s people had picked her up. And yet even Raval shouldn’t wish to take that sort of risk. Kidnaping, and it could be nothing else, was a federal offense.
He had to use the defrosters to remove the mist from the windshield as he drove across town to the Dennison house. The porch lights and all the downstairs lights were on. He parked in front and hurried up the steps.
Marcia opened the door before he could knock. Her face looked oddly shrunken. “I saw you drive up, Teed. It was silly to have you come over. I’m sorry.”
“Then she’s all right?”
“I’m sure she’s all right. She’ll turn up. You better go back to bed, Teed.”
He pushed by her, pulling the door shut behind him. “What goes on here? Is Powell back?”
“Not yet.”
“I’ll wait until he comes back.” He walked into the living room, sat down without taking his coat off. He took out his cigarettes and Marcia came over with a table lighter, took a cigarette, lit his and hers. He watched her. Her hand trembled. “Have you informed the police?”
“And checked the hospitals. Teed, you’d better go home.”
“Dammit, I’m not a stranger. This is close to being the only home I have.”
She would not look at him. “Don’t ask questions, Teed. Just go.”
He stood up impatiently and took hold of her shoulders. “Look at me! What happened since you called me?”
Marcia made her eyes too bland. “Nothing happened.”
Teed shook her so roughly that her head wobbled loosely on her neck and her eyes went out of focus. “Don’t lie to me! Tell me what happened.”
“I can’t tell you.”
“Then someone came or someone called. Who was it? What did they say? What did they want?”
“I won’t tell you, Teed. You can’t make me tell you.”
He released her, sat down. “You’ll tell your father.”
“When he comes, I’ll tell him.”
She sat stiffly across the room from him. She had changed in a way that he could not identify until he noticed that she no longer looked controlled, enigmatic. There was a cold, steady anger in her gray eyes.
They did not speak. She was the first to hear Powell’s heavy footsteps on the back porch. She hurried into the kitchen, through the dining room, and swung the door shut.
Teed pushed it open. Powell was slowly unbuttoning his coat. He looked ten years older. “I… couldn’t find her,” he said. “Hello, Teed. Good of you to rally ’round.”
“Daddy, I want to talk to you alone.”
He grasped her arm. “Do you know something that…”
“Alone,” she said firmly.
He stared at Teed, and in that moment Teed felt himself to be an outsider. Teed nodded and left the room, let the door swing shut behind him. He walked into the living room. Powell’s heavy voice was a low vibration in the back of the house.
And then Marcia’s voice rose in anger so shrill that Teed could almost distinguish the words, Powell’s voice roared out, drowning hers. Then he called, “Teed! Come here!”
Teed hurried out to the kitchen. Marcia sat at the table, her face cradled on her arm, her shoulders shaking. Teed looked at Powell Dennison standing, feet planted strongly, his face wearing the most terrible expression Teed had ever seen on a human face.
“This concerns you too, Teed, even though Marcia claims it doesn’t.”
Marcia lifted a tear-burned face. “You’ll let them…”
“Be still!” Powell roared. Teed had never heard him speak to either daughter in that tone of voice.
“Before you arrived, Teed, and after she had called you, Marcia received a phone call from Jacqueline. My youngest daughter reports that she is not being held against her will, and we must make no more attempts to find her. We must tell the police that she is safe. She says that she will not return home until I have complied with a certain request. Someone will come here within the next hour to make the request. Marcia seems disturbed that I will not permit myself to be bullied in this fashion.”
“How did she sound, Marcia?” Teed asked.
“Frightened. Dreadfully frightened. She said that Daddy had to do whatever he was asked.”
“I wouldn’t think anything in the world could frighten Jake,” Powell said softly, wonderingly. He walked out of the kitchen. A few moments later they heard the heavy slam of the study doors.
Marcia said, “You’ve got to make him do whatever they want, Teed. You’ve got to.”
Teed sat down across from her. “He’s a stubborn man.”
“But not a heartless man. Nothing is more important than Jake.”
“You’ve got to understand him better, Marcia. He’s never been bought. That’s what they’re trying to do. Buy him.”
“Then it would be stupid pride to refuse. Pride valued higher than… my sister. And you want to back him up, don’t you?”
“No. I do not want to back him up. But I do know that it’s his decision to make,”
“I don’t even see how there’s a decision, Teed. I don’t see how he can… even hesitate… not knowing where she is or what… they’re doing to her.”
“When did you miss her?”
“After the dinner dishes were done, she said she was going down to the corner to pick up a magazine that was supposed to be in yesterday. She never came back. The street is dark… she never even got to the store.”
“What was she wearing?”
“Jeans, a red-and-white-striped basque shirt, a short polo coat and a white scarf. Go talk to him, Teed. Make him see what he might be doing to her.”
He stood up slowly. “I’ll try it.”
When he knocked at the study door, Powell told him to come in. Powell sat at the desk, his elbows on the green blotter, his face in his hands. The desk light glared on the stacks of papers, left his head in darkness.
“It’s a pretty foul way to try to get at you, sir.”
Powell’s voice was remote. “Now that it has happened, I know that I have been expecting it for some time. Children, they say, are hostages to fortune.”
“Don’t you think you’d better do whatever they ask?”
“I am two people. Teed. I am a father. I am also a public servant. In my role as a father I cannot avoid doing whatever they ask. In my official position, I cannot be intimidated. It’s an odd feeling to feel yourself being torn in half.”
“This is more important than the job, Powell.”
“Too many people have found too many things more important than their jobs.”
“That smacks of fanaticism.”
“Before I make up my mind, I shall listen to the request. If it is something that I can repudiate later,
I shall agree. If it leaves me no opening, I shall call their bluff. They can’t really mean to harm her.”
“How sure can you be of that? These aren’t human beings, Powell. These are animals we’re dealing with.”
“They won’t dare harm her. I must believe that.”
“And if they do? What if they do?”
“I can’t think of that.”
“If they harm her, you will lose both daughters.”
“And where do you stand, Teed?”
Teed did not raise his eyes from Dennison’s strong white fist which rested on the green blotter in the full glare of the light. “If they harm her, I shall not think the same of you again. I’m sorry. That’s the way it is.”
“Is there no decency in the world?” Powell asked, as though he were pleading.
“Now I think you’re dramatizing yourself. At least call off the police, Powell, and we’ll see who’ll come and what the request will be.”
Powell phoned obediently. Teed sat in the study and thought of Jake, of the absurd heaviness of the perfume in the night, of her vividness, so unlike Marcia, of the long sweet slant of back with the small, taut, clever muscles webbed under the milk and silk of her skin, of the way her breath had fluttered in her throat as hands like ice grasped hard in panic and need.
While Powell phoned, Marcia came into the study. She braced sturdy haunches against the desk edge, her arms folded across her breasts, shoulders hunched. He reached up and found her hand and it clasped his tightly.
She said softly, “You think the world is such a safe place, and then…”
“I know. We go around taking too much for granted. You know, Marse, in Germany they told me how it was in the thirties. A knock on the door in the middle of the night. A knock with a pistol butt. And no one to appeal to. No one at all. No court that wasn’t a rubber stamp for the bully boys. I used to wonder how I’d react in that sort of environment.”
She squeezed his hand. “I think I’d compromise until there was nothing left of me, Teed, just out of fear.”
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