Brass Rainbow

by Michael Collins

  “Do I have to say it?” I said. “Jonathan was dead before you left this apartment that morning.”

  “And the medical report?”

  “A hundred variables could throw the M.E. off by an hour either way with Jonathan not found for so long. Cold, for instance. Weiss said the study was cold.”

  Ames stood and went to the whisky. “All the windows were open. I closed them.”

  “It didn’t really matter that much, not with the body undiscovered until six o’clock. It was sure to remain hidden at least that long. Only you and Jonathan had keys, and you’re a man of routine.”

  “So I am. No, Jonathan couldn’t be found until I came home.”

  “Extra insurance,” I said. “What counted was that witnesses, including Weiss, would say that Jonathan was alive as late as one-fifteen or even one-thirty if anyone believed Weiss.” I finished my drink, set the glass away from me. “Weiss served two purposes, and maybe the frame-up wasn’t even the first idea. First there was Weiss as a witness to prove Jonathan was alive at one-fifteen. That way everyone in the family was ruled out. The frame was another, better idea.”

  Ames carried his drink to his chair, and lighted a cigarette. “You’re saying Jonathan was killed at eleven-thirty or so. Walter and I left. Paul Baron was called, and came here unseen. He then contacted Weiss, and also supplied an impostor to act as Jonathan. The impostor went to lunch with Deirdre, showed himself to the doorman, and was here to meet Weiss?”

  “The impostor wore a bathrobe because Jonathan’s right clothes were bloody. Baron had the impostor pick a brawl with Weiss. Weiss ran, Baron replaced the body and went out the back way with his faker. He got rid of the faker one way or another.”

  “One way or another? Yes, I see.”

  “Baron had removed the bloody rug and cleaned the floor.”

  Ames stared at me. “It strikes me as an involved scheme.” “No,”

  I said. “Under the circumstances it was simple, almost foolproof. Baron knew a hundred drifters he could get in minutes, and who’d do almost anything for a thousand dollars. He knew Jonathan. All he needed was a man the right age and size. A beard can be supplied in ten minutes in midtown Manhattan. Once you were gone, he had no one to worry about who really knew Jonathan.”

  “But on the spur of the moment?”

  “That’s what makes me so sure. No one could have planned it in advance that well. He’d wait a year for just the right circumstances. It had to be spur of the moment; it grew out of the circumstances. He had a murder to cover fast. He had a body with a beard but otherwise ordinary enough, an empty apartment, and $25,000 on hand. It was just about all he could have done to fit the needs, and he found an impostor as easily as he found Weiss to play the patsy.”

  “How did he know he could get Weiss so quickly?”

  “He didn’t. Any messenger would have done. Pure chance.”

  “Why would Paul Baron do all that? Take such a risk?” “Money, the big chance. He had a petty blackmail going, but once he had a murderer who let him cover and frame Weiss, he had a lifetime deal in his pocket. And he had the knife to back his play. That missing knife never sounded right. Now I know why it was missing. It had the killer’s prints on it, and Baron took it.”

  “You mentioned a telephone call that, presumably, told Baron of the murder. As far as I can see, everyone here was his enemy, his victim. Why call him for help, and then help him?”

  “Someone here was in with him. His partner all the way.”

  “Partner? Then you rule out Walter?”

  “No. He could have let himself be squeezed to bleed Jonathan.”

  He moved and set his glass down carefully on the table. I watched him. I had no way of knowing how he was taking it all.

  “You’re toying with me, Fortune. You’ve talked in generalities, no names. You’ve mentioned Walter and Deirdre, but we all know they were here, they admit it. If what you think is true, then they must be involved in it, but not necessarily as murderers, correct?” He waited, but I said nothing. He stood up abruptly and went to the liquor bar. He poured a straight shot and drank it. His back to me, he leaned with both hands on the bar. “The way you describe it, someone else could have been here with Walter and Deirdre. Anyone. Unseen and unknown.”

  “A third person would have to have gotten past the doorman earlier, but it could have happened, yes.”

  He faced me. “Then there’s me. I was here. It would all shield me, too.”

  “You were here,” I said.

  He continued to stare at me. Then he turned again, poured another shot, and downed it. He was holding himself rigid now. “What do you want me to do, Fortune?”

  “Take a drive with me,” I said. “It isn’t just Jonathan anymore, Ames. Not even Jonathan and Baron. Two more bodies are on the list. One of them doesn’t matter much, but the other was a stupid, scared little girl who never really started living. Now she’s dead because she was just a possible threat to someone, and that someone is still running loose.”

  His back was a ramrod. “North Chester?”

  “Yes. I have a car.”

  He turned. “All right.”

  He got his coat and hat and we went down to my car. I told him to drive. Even a man with two arms is pretty helpless when driving. I didn’t think he had killed anyone, but that was theory and guesswork. I could be all wrong.

  25

  WE WENT ACROSS to the West Side Highway, passed the George Washington Bridge that was an endless moving stream of lights, and drove on through Riverdale to the north. Outside the city the snow was an unbroken expanse of white that reflected the lights of the rows of suburban houses and the colored neon of the shops and taverns.

  Ames drove fast, skillfully, and in silence. The rigidity had not left him. He was a man with a lot on his mind, the effete aristocrat just about gone. He was offstage now, as much as any actor can ever be. I couldn’t tell what he had on his mind, and he wasn’t going to tell me. He was waiting, maybe only to find out what I really knew or had guessed, before he did anything. I didn’t know what he knew, or had guessed, or how he felt about it. I didn’t know how he would act when the time came to stop me or help me. Maybe Ames didn’t know either.

  We entered Westchester, and the houses were fewer. Only the traffic never lessened. The lights came on at me in a mass. I felt as if I were plunging through a dark tunnel with a million eyes watching me, alone with nothing but enemies. I was sure, now, that I knew what had happened on Monday morning, but I could never prove it unless I made someone panic. Panic can be dangerous, two-edged, but I had no other weapon.

  By now Gazzo would be looking for me. Witnesses would have described the one-armed man who had been with Leo Zar when he died. Leo, and the death of Carla Devine, would give Gazzo some doubts about Weiss. He would want to talk to me. I didn’t have a lot of time. Weiss had less time if I didn’t produce a killer, with evidence, soon.

  The D.A. would not have doubts. To the D.A., or some tenth assistant D.A. for Weiss, Carla Devine would have died by accident or suicide from depression over Baron’s death, and Leo Zar would be the victim of a gang rumble. Sure, both deaths might be a result of Baron’s death, but that didn’t change Weiss’s obvious guilt. Not a bit. The tenth assistant D.A. would get a good night’s sleep. Chief McGuire would think about it longer, he would even instruct his men to keep their eyes open, but he had a whole giant city to police. McGuire’s detectives wouldn’t try too hard. Weiss probably belonged in jail anyway, and even Gazzo had too much work to do.

  We passed through North Chester just after midnight. Five minutes later Ames turned the car into the long drive up to the fine old house with its two cottages behind. There were lights in the downstairs windows. Ames parked at the front door.

  The butler, MacLeod, let us in. Mrs. Radford was in the library. Ames walked behind me as if his legs were heavy and his feet were mired in mud, his flamboyance noticeably missing. Gertrude Radford was alone. She closed her book
, put it carefully aside, and acknowledged us:

  “You came, George. I’m pleased. Mr. Fortune. Sit down.”

  I sat. Ames went to stand in a corner near an obvious liquor cabinet. Mrs. Radford’s pale eyes watched Ames. She wore a gray lounging robe, and her white hair was immaculate. Her rings were on her fingers. A coffee cup stood on a crystal coaster on the table beside her. The library was neat, solid, orderly, with everything in its proper place. The ashtrays looked as if they had not been moved, or used, for a century.

  “Could Walter and Miss Fallon join us?” I asked.

  Her frail hands made a gesture, but her youthful face was smooth, and her fragile body was relaxed. I could have been a cousin she saw every week. There was a crease between her eyes that might have been worry, but didn’t have to be.

  “Forgive me, Mr. Fortune,” she said, smiled. “I’m sure you want to get to your mission, whatever it is, but we always talk over a cup of coffee in the family. I find it a civilized custom, and feel lost without it. You prefer percolator, don’t you?”

  “That’s fine,” I said.

  She nodded. “Three percolator, please, MacLeod.”

  “Two, Gertrude,” Ames said. He opened the liquor cabinet and found the whisky.

  Mrs. Radford said, “I think coffee would be better, George.”

  Ames poured a drink without answering her. She sighed, as if she would never understand men who needed the crutch of liquor.

  “Two cups then, MacLeod,” she said.

  She folded her thin hands in her lap and sat smiling at me politely. She ignored Ames now. He stood in the corner, drinking. It was clear we were not going to discuss anything until the coffee came. We would not have discussed an imminent invasion before the coffee came. She held to her routines, to all the external realities of her life, no matter what. Her rock in an unpredictable sea.

  MacLeod returned, and I accepted my cup. The coffee was still good. She sipped twice, and then set her cup down.

  “Now, you wanted to see Walter and Deirdre?” she said.

  “All of you,” I said.

  Her voice was neither warm nor cold, ordinary. “Deirdre has been out for some hours. She went alone, I don’t know where. Walter should be in the house. MacLeod, find Mr. Walter and bring him here, would you, please?”

  MacLeod left. Mrs. Radford sipped some more of the coffee, and her pale eyes studied me over the cup.

  “You want to talk about Jonathan’s murder again, of course,” she said. “Have you learned something important?”

  The tone of her quiet voice was normal, conversational, politely interested. So normal it was abnormal. We were not about to discuss some charity bazaar.

  “Two more people have been murdered, Mrs. Radford. One was just a girl, a child who’d done nothing to anyone.”

  “That’s awful, Mr. Fortune. Did I know her?”

  “She was one of the girls your son worked with.”

  “It’s a violent world,” she said. “I am sorry.”

  “Sammy Weiss was in jail, Mrs. Radford.”

  “As he should be.”

  “Weiss couldn’t have killed the girl and the other man.”

  “Obviously, of course,” she said, and smiled. It was a gentle, pleasant smile. “What has all this to do with any of us here?”

  “They were killed because of Paul Baron. And Baron was killed, at least in part, because he knew who really murdered Jonathan.”

  “Are you here to accuse someone?”

  Her frail face still smiled politely, and her voice was matter-of-fact. She really wanted to know if I was there to make an accusation.

  “I think you know damn well why I’m here,” I said. “Your trip to New York on Monday says you know.”

  “Oh, get to the point. You’ve come to say you’ve found out that my son killed his uncle? You’ve come to accuse Walter?”

  “I figured you knew,” I said. “Yes, Walter killed Jonathan.”

  Ames put his glass down with a bang that echoed in the small library. “Damn it, Fortune, how can you be sure of such a thing? Walter had no motive. You agreed anyone could have been there!”

  “What happened after Monday tells me, Ames,” I said.

  “After Monday?” Ames looked at me, and then at Mrs. Radford. He picked up his glass, drank.

  “Mrs. Radford made a deal, Ames,” I said. “A payoff to protect the killer. She wouldn’t have done that for anyone but Walter. Only Walter makes sense out of the rest of it.”

  Ames squeezed his glass, said, “Gertrude?”

  “Be quiet, George, for goodness’ sake,” Mrs. Radford said, and said to me, “What do you intend doing, Mr. Fortune?”

  “My God, Gertrude!” Ames’s theatrical face was ten years older. “You really knew, and …” He drank. Whisky dribbled down his shirt front. “Do you know what they did? Walter and this Baron? Tell her, Fortune! The whole fantastic story!”

  “Please, George,” she said. “I’m not the least interested.”

  I watched her smooth and youthful face that had never asked herself a question she could not answer, and I believed her. She didn’t know how Weiss had been framed, and she didn’t care. How Weiss took the fall for Walter didn’t concern her, only that he did take it. Weiss was nothing, a zero, a convenience to be used for Radford-Ames survival. She did not care how Jonathan had died, or even that he was dead once it had happened. Jonathan, dead, did not matter. The family went on: a unit, a whole more than any single member.

  She folded her frail hands. “Walter had a tragic accident. He acted foolishly afterward, yes, but he was frightened, and he knew that the authorities would not consider it the simple mistake it was. They would have persecuted him. He made a stupid arrangement, it seems, but I managed to correct that. Now, is this what you came to tell me, Mr. Fortune?”

  “Among other things,” I said.

  “Then you’ve told me. I see no reason to bother anyone else. Walter has been disturbed quite enough.”

  “Is that all you have to tell me, Mrs. Radford?”

  “Certainly. My late husband showed me how business functions. If you have some proof against Walter, tell me and we can discuss money and terms. If you have no proof, you can leave before I call our Chief of Police and have you arrested. You have no legal right to be here, I’ve investigated that. Do you have proof?”

  “Jonathan’s death may have been an accident, I think it was,” I said. “The other three murders weren’t accidents.”

  “Do you have proof, Mr. Fortune?”

  Her pale eyes studied me, and what could I say? I had no proof yet. Ames came to my rescue for the moment. He set his third empty glass down, rubbed his pink, barbered face:

  “Walter couldn’t have killed Baron, Fortune. That much I know.”

  Mrs. Radford said, “Please tell him nothing, George.”

  Ames ignored her. “Walter really was with me at the apartment on Wednesday night. He never left.”

  “Did he make any telephone calls?” I asked.

  “No, none. I remember because Deirdre made quite a few, and Walter was disturbed by that. He became angry at her calls.”

  “George!” Mrs. Radford said. “You’re a fool!”

  I finished my coffee, sat back in the chair. “Walter didn’t kill Baron or the other two, Mrs. Radford. You did.”

  “Oh, don’t be ridiculous! If you try to prove that …”

  “Not by pulling a trigger,” I said, “by making the deal you made on Monday night. You killed them as sure as if you had gone out and done it yourself. Your deal made it all happen.”

  I heard Ames pouring another drink. I didn’t look at him. I was looking at Mrs. Radford. She didn’t even blink at me. She shook her head:

  “When a man buys something, he is not concerned with what others do to deliver it to him,” she said firmly. “My late husband taught me that, too. I entered into an arrangement, I kept my side of the contract. I am in no way responsible for how others arranged
to deliver their side. That is not my affair.”

  Ames said, croaked, “What arrangement?”

  I could tell by his voice that he had at least guessed. Before I could do anything else, the butler, MacLeod, appeared in the doorway. Walter was not with him, but Morgana Radford was. She looked like she had not changed her clothes since I had last seen her, but there was an odd gleam in her eyes.

  “Where’s Walter?” I said to MacLeod.

  Mrs. Radford waved me away. “Call the police, MacLeod. I have asked Mr. Fortune to leave; he has refused. Tell the Chief that I believe Mr. Fortune is armed.”

  MacLeod looked at me, and left. I stood up. Mrs. Radford knew damn well I’d never use the pistol. Morgana Radford looked at her mother, but she spoke to me:

  “Walter went out to find Deirdre. I told him.”

  “Told him what, dear?” Mrs. Radford said.

  “Where did he go?” I said.

  Morgana didn’t seem to hear either of us. She told it her own way. “I know Walter’s been watching her. When Deirdre went out tonight, Walter wasn’t here, so I followed her. To that gambling house! She’s gone there alone before. I told Walter. An hour ago. He ran out. Now he’ll see her for what she is!”

  The righteous, fanatical girl trembled where she stood with the rest of us watching her. There was something pitiful about her. She was going to save her golden little boy, destroy the evil witch, open Walter’s spellbound eyes.

  “Don’t be juvenile, Morgana!” Mrs. Radford said. “I’m sure Deirdre knows just what she is doing. Walter is being foolish again.”

  In a way Mrs. Radford was a lot like Sammy Weiss. For Weiss it would all work out fine as long as he did nothing; his luck would change. For Gertrude Radford all one had to do was pay for something, buy someone, and everything was accomplished as she wanted it.

  I walked to the door.

  “Mr. Fortune!” Mrs. Radford snapped. “You will not bother Walter or Deirdre.”