The Brass Monkey
Page 13
His eyes glazed over with hatred. “This man posed as the father of Ona Kalani. Because your wife hired him to. And why?” You could see the savage pleasure working in his face. “Because she wanted you out of the way while she went to visit her lover. Your best friend. Your wife. This, then, gives me more pleasure, Mister Patterson. This must hurt you more. And that is well with me.”
“I don’t know what you are talking about,” I said. “It was suicide, Mosani. I lied to you. The .38 slug I showed you was a phony. I threw the other .25 away.”
He just laughed angrily, and I knew it wasn’t going to work. “There was only one other .25 calibre slug, Mister Patterson. And I have it. And the second murder? Your wife argues with Ona because she has paid her five hundred dollars to do a job, and Ona wants more. They fight. The office is smashed. Your wife uses a bottle to beat Ona to death. It will be in all the papers, Mister Patterson. I will see that they get all of it — right now police are rounding up the last of the vice ring that your good friend operated — ”
A siren screamed up the mountain. You could hear the changing tones of its wailing as it hurtled around the uprising curves. Mosani stopped talking, frowning, and we all listened as the siren stopped screaming outside the door.
Troy turned to look at me. “I’m sorry,” she said.
Cari cried out in the hallway. A policeman hurried in, but before he could speak, he was followed by Lester Sakayama.
Sakayama’s middle was bright red. He was clutching at it with his blood soaked left hand. In his right, he held an envelope. His face was pinched with agony.
“Patterson — for you — ”
“We thought we better bring him, sir,” the cop said to Mosani.
Mosani nodded and snatched the letter from Sakayama’s hand. He tore it open. I could hear the sound of my heart in the silent room.
Suddenly, Mosani’s face twisted with rage. “It’s a lie!” he screamed. “Such a monstrous lie!”
“It is not a lie,” Sakayama said, his voice tortured. He looked at me. “I come to Lanai’s just after you are gone. She is standing as you left her — in nothing. I try to talk to her. I tell her that we must hurry. We must run. The whole thing has fallen apart. Alkao and Eddie Kole. They are in jail. Hattie Contona too. The photographer. All of them. The police are on the way. But she says no. Wherever she goes, she is lost. At that moment her husband Kam comes angrily in. When he sees me — and Lanai on the bed with nothing on, I’m standing over her talking as fast as I can to her deaf ears — he says he knows all along she has been deceiving him with me. He grabs up his gun. I turn around and tell him not to be a fool. But he shoots me. Lanai leaps at him. And in the struggle, she is shot. It is fatal. But she seems not to mind. She is smiling. I am in great agony. But she forces me to wait. And she writes this letter to you — and I say it is all true. All true.”
Mosani’s voice cracked in the room. He held the letter out before him, in deep contempt. His voice a sneer, he began to read it aloud, “Dear Jimmy: My old friend Lester will bring this to you. He will do it for me. For me he has done much. He has loved me long. And I have used him badly. This last thing he promises to do. To see that you are told the truth. Lester was with me when I shot Herbert Baldwin. Herbert was my husband, he was faithless, made bills, tried to leave me. I killed him. Lester saw it, tried to stop me. I have met you. I have fell in love. I go to your office. This girl Ona is there. We — are native girls. Of quick temper. We fight. Accidentally I kill her. My friends get rid of body, please believe this. And please do not forget Lanai.”
Mosani balled the letter in his fist. “Lies! Lies! I will not allow it!”
Sakayama drew himself tall. “You will have to. A dying woman wrote it. And I witness it. I swear it.”
“I’ll get you!” Mosani roared at him.
“You won’t get me,” Sakayama said. “Nobody will get me.”
One of the patrolmen grabbed him as he fell. “We got the husband Okazi in jail,” the cop told Mosani. “The dancer is dead.”
Mosani looked at me. The defeat in his face was a terrible thing to see. His mouth twisted. He looked again at the letter. Then, he turned on his heel. At the door, he stopped. “Do not attempt to leave the territory,” he said. “This is not over yet.”
But I knew he was wrong. It is ended. I knew that what was ahead was more terrible than even a trial for Troy would be. I knew Troy guilty. Mosani knew it. But Hooks Alkao and Eddie Kole might well believe Sakayama and Lanai had killed Ona. All they did was get her body and put it in my car. Mosani might prove Lanai did not murder either Herb or Ona, but it would take a long time. And it wasn’t likely. For that would have been the easier way. The most terrible way was for Troy and me to live with her guilt, that in the end wasn’t hers at all, but belonged to me and my selfishness. You can always bet that the worst thing in the world that can happen to you out of any situation is what will happen to you.
I thought first of running, still. Getting that boat Lanai had chartered. Getting Troy out of it. Getting her away and out of Mosani’s reach. But then I knew, we couldn’t run that way. Lanai and I might have. But nothing in Troy’s life had prepared her to live like that. Besides, she was ill, and it was going to take all the doctors her father’s money could buy to make her well. And all the patience that I could find.
We were through running. The rest of our lives was a slow walk. With Troy watching me for signs of hatred, any little sign. With her waiting for the accusation she expected to find in my eyes. And my seeing Troy, the things she had done. Trying not to, trying to forget because they were my crimes, but maybe not being able to forget.
And always in the background, Mosani. Watching, thinking, waiting. I knew that after I had gotten over Julie, finally, and woke up — I knew that I could have started to love Troy — as Troy — for herself. But now, I knew it was too late. I could only stare at myself like the poor little emasculated gibbon. Me, brass monkey.
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Copyright © 1951 by The Quinn Publishing Company, Inc.
Copyright Registration Renewed © 1979 by Harry Whittington
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This is a work of fiction.
Names, characters, corporations, institutions, organizations, events, or locales in this novel are either the product of the author’s imagination or, if real, used fictitiously. The resemblance of any character to actual persons (living or dead) is entirely coincidental.
ISBN 10: 1-4405-4659-2
ISBN 13: 978-1-4405-4659-4
eISBN 10: 1-4405-4492-1
eISBN 13: 978-1-4405-4492-7