by Jack Batten
Well, damn, I thought, Lex! This idiot must be the guy who had the briefcase on the night of the murder. It made sense. He had plenty of access to the briefcase. He could have carried it with him across town to see the Reverend on a Carnale errand. He got in a disagreement with the Reverend, and impulsively whacked him with the briefcase.
“Lex?” I said to Carnale.
“I gave Lex, as you call him, more properly Anin, I gave him an assignment,” Carnale said. “The Reverend phoned me on the Monday to say he wasn’t going through with our agreement about him pretending to blackmail Flame. I told him I’d pay him fifteen thousand dollars in cash right away if he’d rethink his decision to cancel our arrangement. When I hung up, I had the impression he might be coming around to what I said. I gave Anin the fifteen thousand dollars to deliver Tuesday night. I said I’d deal with the Reverend as soon as I got back from Atlantic City on Wednesday.”
I looked at Lex.
“I didn’t kill anybody,” he said. His lips were quivering. I couldn’t tell whether it was from fear or rage.
“Did you deliver the fifteen thousand dollars to the Reverend?” I asked Lex.
“He wouldn’t take it, but that doesn’t mean I hit the guy.”
“Were you carrying the briefcase at the time?”
“That’s what the fucking money was in.”
Carnale said to me, “Later on Wednesday, when I heard about the Reverend’s death, I asked Anin for his version. He told me it must’ve been somebody else who came into the Reverend’s office after Anin left. He insisted it was this other person who killed the Reverend. Obviously, now that we all know about the briefcase being the murder weapon, Anin’s story has to be a lie.”
“Why doesn’t anybody believe me?” Lex said, his voice shooting up the register. “I didn’t kill the man!”
Carnale, sounding cool and confident, said to Lex, “You’ve placed yourself in the Reverend’s office with the briefcase that killed him. What else are we to think? You must have struck him dead.”
“On the surface, Lex,” I said, “it doesn’t look good.”
I was going to add that Lex might have an innocent explanation for everything that happened in the Reverend’s office, but I didn’t get a chance to finish what I wanted to say.
Lex had moved from behind Carnale’s chair. He was standing closer to the centre of the room, halfway between the sofas and chairs where we were sitting and the arrangement of leather furniture by the fireplace. As Lex stood there, his right hand was going into the belt under the back of his shirt. When he brought his hand out, it was holding a large-sized gun.
“Oh, Jesus, Lex,” I said. “The gun’s a mistake.”
“Nobody believes me!” Lex said in a kind of shriek, waving the gun as he spoke, not focusing it in any particular direction. “I didn’t kill that guy!”
“POLICE! PUT THE GUN DOWN!”
Everybody turned to the doorway. Wally Crawford was crouched in it. In his left hand, he held out a police ID card. His right hand was pulling a gun out of a holster on his right hip, but the gun got tangled in the lining of his jacket. The gun came out in a lurching motion.
The room filled with a roar. It was a noise that didn’t come from Wally’s gun. It came from Lex’s. When I looked in his direction, Lex was staring at his gun as if it were a strange object he had nothing to do with.
“I didn’t mean to shoot!” he said in a small voice. He was looking at me as he spoke.
I turned back in Wally’s direction. He was falling to his left. His gun fired as he fell. It made a sound much more muted than what came out of Lex’s gun. The bullet from Wally’s gun zipped past me and into a corner of the Graham Coughtry painting. Glass from the framed painting flew into the air.
Alice rushed to Wally’s side. “I’m a nurse,” she said. She got Wally on his back and opened the left side of his jacket. Wally’s gun had fallen from his hand. I got the impression Wally hadn’t meant to fire any more than Lex had.
“Fuck, that hurts,” Wally said.
“Now isn’t that fortunate,” Alice said, as she pulled back Wally’s jacket. “You’re wearing a bulletproof vest.”
I thought about telling her the term was bullet-resistant, but didn’t bother. Whatever it was called, the vest had done its job. I could see the bullet from Lex’s gun mashed into the part of the vest where it covered Wally’s shoulder. The bullet was almost unrecognizable as a bullet, now flattened in the shape of a tiny plate.
“Where the hell’s the other car?” Wally said to Alice.
“Lie back now,” Alice said. “What other car?”
“Emergency Task Force guys. They were supposed to help me make the arrest.”
I looked around for Lex.
“He went out the front door,” Kingsmill said from behind me. “My advice is you should leave Anin to the police. He’s still got the gun, Crang.”
“I can’t believe how sore the damn bullet makes my shoulder feel,” Wally said, trying to sit up.
Alice pressed him gently back to the floor. “Give the soreness a few minutes and it’ll be manageable,” she said to Wally. She eased the suit jacket off his left side.
I hustled across the living room and out to the entrance hall. I was carrying the briefcase. It was a piece of evidence I intended to hang on to until the case was done. I opened the front door.
“You’re a fool if you’re going after Anin,” Kingsmill said, still behind me. “That man’s a proven killer, and he’s armed.”
“So you keep telling me.”
“Why are you ignoring my advice?”
“Lex says he didn’t mean to shoot Wally,” I said. “The odds are he isn’t going to shoot two guys he didn’t mean to shoot on the same night. He won’t even think about pointing his gun at me.”
“Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
“It’s a deal, Arthur.”
“What?”
“Next time I see you, I won’t say you didn’t warn me.”
Chapter Forty-Nine
Lex hadn’t gone far. He was still on Carnale’s street, just a half block up the hill. He was sitting on a low brick wall across the front yard of a neighbouring mansion. He looked despondent, his hands anchored beside him on the brick wall, his head hanging almost to his knees.
“Where’s the gun, Lex?” I said.
“In the back of my belt.” He was practically whimpering.
I fiddled the gun out of Lex’s belt and stuck it in the briefcase.
“We need to move, Lex,” I said. “Emergency Task Force guys’ll be here any minute.”
“Emergency Task Force?”
“First thing they do if they think you’re armed, they’ll blast you to smithereens.”
That got Lex in motion. Together we walked briskly up the street. My Mercedes was in sight a short block away.
“Is this some kind of trick, Crang, you being all friendly?” Lex said. “You messing with me on purpose?”
“You think I might be somehow getting payback for your attempted sexual damage to my friend, Sal?”
“Her damage? What about her friend kicking me in the crotch? That’s what I call real damage! My balls are still so big and sore I have to wear extra-large underwear.”
“At the moment, Lex, none of that is a motivator with me.”
“Just answer me this,” Lex said, “how come you haven’t dragged me straight back to the cop I shot by mistake?”
“I don’t think you killed the Reverend, Lex. But I think you know who did the deed.”
Lex had no answer to that. We got in the Mercedes, but before we pulled away from the curb, a cop van came down the street in a rush, stopping in front of Carnale’s house. Five people piled out of the vehicle. All five were dressed in black gear, helmets, bullet-resistant vests in the super deluxe size, loose pants,
and heavy boots. They carried guns with what looked like enough ammunition to start a Mid East war. They trotted into Carnale’s house, shouting all the way.
“Jesus,” Lex said. “I wouldn’t have stood a chance.”
“A real possibility, Lex.”
I drove down to Queen, heading west to Woodbine Avenue, then south on Woodbine to the roadhouse-style restaurant with the big parking lot on Lake Shore Boulevard. I parked in the lot.
“Are you nuts, Crang?” Lex said. “I don’t feel like eating.”
“The parking lot’s a good place for a private chat.”
“What about?”
“Somebody must have been with you when you called on the Reverend,” I said. “Who was it?”
“I went by myself.”
“Somebody else was already in the room with the Reverend?”
“He was alone.”
“Don’t make this so hard, Lex,” I said. “With the first two possibilities eliminated, I’m saying somebody came in while you and the Reverend were talking.”
Lex stretched out the time it took him to answer. “You’re right,” he said in something close to a whisper.
“This was somebody known to you?”
Lex shook his head. “Never saw him before this one time in the Reverend’s office.”
“The Reverend knew him?”
“Yeah, but I could tell he didn’t like the guy.”
“Now we’re getting somewhere,” I said.
“I’d like to know where it’s getting me.”
“Here’s the big question, Lex. This guy’s name, you catch that?”
“Robert.”
“No last name?”
“Robert’s all the Reverend called him.”
“Describe Robert.”
“Big guy. A lot older than me, but still built like a horse. He wasn’t a guy I’d want to tangle with, which is something I definitely did not do this one time I met him.”
“Speaking generally, Lex, were you aware what went on day-to-day in the building where you got together with the Reverend and this Robert?”
“I knew from Mr. Carnale the place was a front for different criminal stuff.”
“Did Robert appear to be one of the people doing the criminal stuff?”
“How am I supposed to know that?”
“Here’s one way, Lex. When Robert came into the Reverend’s office was he deferential or did he act as if he owned the place?”
“He was like a bully. Very rude and demanding.”
“You’re doing wonders, my man.”
I got out my cellphone and scrolled through it until I found the photos I took at Heaven’s Philosophers. I put on screen the shot that included Squeaky Fallis with two other guys.
“Recognize anybody, Lex?” I said, handing him the phone.
“The guy in the middle, that’s Robert.”
“Robert Fallis, nicknamed Squeaky behind his back.”
“Oh yeah, the high-pitched voice,” Lex said, pleased with himself. He handed the cellphone back to me.
“What business did Squeaky have with the Reverend on the night we’re talking about?” I said.
“The eight million dollars, what else?” Lex said. “I got the point right away, the Squeaky guy wanted in on the money the Reverend was supposed to be getting out of the Flame people.”
“Did Squeaky know about the song lyrics that were at the basis of the blackmail?
“No,” Lex said. “But I told him.”
“You told Squeaky? Right there in the Reverend’s office, you told him all about the song lyrics?”
“He started yelling and screaming at me. I never heard anything like it in my life. This big guy saying he’s gonna put my head in a vise if I didn’t tell him right away what he needed to know about how the blackmail thing was supposed to go down. All he’d heard up till then was basically that somebody could score eight million bucks. He said I should tell him the rest or he’d do the thing with my head.”
“Several of your bodily parts have come under serious siege in recent times, Lex,” I said. “From your skull to your testicles.”
“You can understand why I gave him the answers he wanted. All about the song lyrics, the whole story as far as I knew it.”
“Then what happened?”
“Oh shit, man,” Lex began. “It was the worst.”
“Under duress, the Reverend offered to show Squeaky a copy of the lyrics?”
“How’d you know?”
“Informed guess,” I said. “What came after that?”
“The Reverend was as scared as me. He unlocked the drawer in his desk, and shuffled through a bunch of papers in there. He got very frustrated. Said he couldn’t find the pages with the song lyrics. He kept saying he was certain he put the lyrics in that particular drawer.”
“That didn’t please Squeaky?”
“He went bats.”
“Be more exact if you don’t mind, Lex.”
“First he pulled all the pieces of paper out of the Reverend’s drawer. They were blank, every one of them. That really pissed the guy off. He threw the papers all over the place.”
“Then he turned violent?”
“Not yet. He made the Reverend open all the other drawers in his desk.”
“Came up empty again?”
Lex nodded vigourously.
“After it was abundantly clear the Reverend didn’t have the song lyrics,” I said, “how did Squeaky react?”
“The briefcase was sitting on the Reverend’s desk,” Lex said. “Squeaky kind of swept it up with his hand, and all in one motion he bashed it into the Reverend’s head.”
“Just one blow?”
“The thing that amazed me, there was hardly any blood. But I knew the Reverend was dead anyway. The briefcase hit him, and he dropped to the floor. He just lay there, nothing moving. He was totally gone.”
“What about Squeaky?” I said.
“He got even madder. It was like the Reverend had personally offended him by falling down dead.”
“So Squeaky threw up his hands and walked away?”
“First he told me if I said anything about what happened in the Reverend’s office, he’d personally rip my head off at the neck. I was scared shitless. I’d just seen this guy murder someone. I figured I was lucky he didn’t whack me out too. What I did then, I picked up the briefcase with the money in it, and went home. I’ve kept my mouth shut until this minute.”
“That might work in your favour, Lex,” I said. “Or maybe not.”
Taking a chance that Gloria would be reachable somewhere, I punched in her number on my cellphone.
Ha, she picked up.
“What’s up, Crang?” she said.
“In the file you put together on Squeaky Fallis,” I said, “you got a home address?”
“No time for the little social amenities?”
“The file handy to you right now?”
“Oh, we’re in a rush, are we?” Gloria said. I could hear the sound of clicking on a computer keyboard. Neither Gloria nor I spoke.
“Here we go,” Gloria said. “It’s a house in the Playter Estates. The man appears to live there alone. Anything else?”
Playter Estates was the name of an older upscale neighbourhood east of the Don River and north of Danforth Avenue. It was only about fifteen minutes away from where Lex and I were parked. Gloria gave me the number on Playter Boulevard.
“If you’re about to do something completely idiotic,” she said, “then hang up right now. I don’t want to be walking around with information that Annie might need to dig out of me one day.”
“Thanks, kid,” I said. I clicked off the phone, turned on the Mercedes’s ignition, and pulled out of the parking lot and back on to Lake Shore Boulevard. I wasn’t
wasting any time.
Chapter Fifty
I drove across town to my office. Lex went silent the whole way, no doubt wrapped up in thoughts about his own fate. My phone beeped twice on the drive, but I didn’t answer either. I parked on Robert Street around the corner from the office.
“Be right back,” I said to Lex.
“What crime can the cops charge me with?” Lex said, coming out of his trance.
“Accessory after the fact to murder.”
“That’s because I didn’t go to the police right away and tell them what Squeaky Fallis did to the Reverend?”
I nodded. “But if you agree to testify in court for the Crown when they prosecute Squeaky, the cops’ll likely give you a break.”
“That’s what I was thinking.”
“You might get an even bigger break if you help me seal the case against Squeaky.”
“That’s what you’re planning right now?”
“And I can’t do it without a strong hand from someone else. You’re elected, Lex.”
Lex thought about what I’d said. “One thing I don’t get,” he said, “why are you going to all the trouble?”
“I owe it to the Reverend.”
Taking the Carnale briefcase with me, I went up to my office. First thing, I checked the two phone messages. One was from Wally Crawford. He wanted to know where I raced off to. And was I, by any chance, in Lex’s company? Wally sounded sarcastic and impatient. I’d phone him later. The second message was from Archie Brewster’s wife, Ruth. She had the results from the other tests on the briefcase. Number one, the blood on the metal corner of the briefcase matched the deceased Reverend’s blood. And, second, the lab had found fingerprints from six different people on the briefcase’s handle. None of the six matched any other prints they had on file of people who were even remotely connected to the case. The lack of a match wasn’t surprising since the Brewster lab, unlike the cop facilities, had a limited store of prints. They didn’t have Lex’s prints or Carnale’s in their records, and those two guys would definitely be among the six. I was betting that one remaining set of prints would belong to Squeaky. If all went according to my plan that night, Archie Brewster’s lab could make a comparison next day, and prove that Squeaky at some point handled the briefcase.