Prescott Wilks offered me a beautiful imitation of a baffled smile. “I confess I don’t follow you, young man,” he said. He turned the smile to Senator Dunbar, saying, “Should I, Earl?”
Karen, looking troubled, touched my arm and said, “Fred? Are you all right?”
“This young man’s been under a severe strain,” the Senator said. “You’ve heard of the Coppo brothers.”
Wilks nodded. “Of course.”
“It’s all a con,” I told Karen. “The whole thing was a huge con.”
The Senator went blithely along, explaining things to Wilks. “They’ve been making life difficult for Mr. Fitch,” he said. “I don’t think we could really blame him if he starts imagining things.”
Gertie came over on my other side and said. “Fred, what’s happened to you? You snap a cable or something?”
“I trusted you, Gertie,” I said. “And you’re in it with them.”
The Senator said, “Bob, perhaps it would be best if you called a doctor.”
“Doctor Osbertson,” I said. “Let’s get the whole gang here.”
Bob didn’t go anywhere. The room got quieter and quieter. Everyone was looking at me, and behind their worried, amiable, puzzled countenances I could see the beginnings of wariness.
Karen sensed it, too. Her hand tightened on my arm as she faced them, and the lines had been drawn: we two against the rest of them.
I said, “Prescott Wilks wrote a letter to my uncle. I’ve got it. I suppose the word for that is coincidence.”
Gertie said, “Fred, you flipped. All of a sudden you don’t trust nobody.”
“And you weren’t kidnapped,” I told her. “That was just part of the buildup.”
“Fred, believe me, I know whether I was kidnapped or not.”
“You do, do you?” I looked around at the concerned false faces. “I’m going to find out what’s behind all this,” I said. “Walter Cosgrove has something to do with it, and I’m going to find out what.”
“Bob,” said the Senator, somewhat grimly, “I believe that doctor should be called at once.”
“Yes, sir,” he said, and backed hurriedly out the door.
“He won’t call any doctors,” I said. “He knows when the boat’s going down. You take a look out there, you’ll see him running for the elevators.”
The Senator’s smile was a little crooked. “I think not,” he said. “Bob is a trusted assistant.”
“Trusted?” I backed away, holding Karen’s arm. “We’re leaving here,” I said. “Don’t try to stop us.”
The Senator said, “Are you sure the Coppos aren’t after you? Before you go out on that street, before you expose yourself to the world, you had better be sure. You were shot at, you know. You were harassed, hounded.”
For just a second I felt my grip on reality weakening, but I steeled myself and said, “That was you people. You were the ones shot at me. Professional mobsters don’t miss three times, I should have thought of that long ago. You weren’t trying to hit me, you just wanted to scare me. And it took three shots to attract my attention.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” said the Senator. “As for me, I’ve been on the West Coast the last three weeks, and can produce any number of responsible citizens to bear me out.”
“Then it was Wilks,” I said. “He ran the whole thing. He took the shots at me, played Professor Kilroy, followed me in the car, called me at Karen’s place—”
“That’s the most fantastic thing I ever heard of,” said Wilks. “I’m an attorney, not an—an—acrobat.”
“I’ll bet you seventeen dollars,” I told him, “you were in your senior class play in college. In the drama society. I’ll bet you’ve always had a yen for the stage. I bet you invest in shows. I bet you’ve been in amateur theater.”
I could see my bets hitting home. Wilks turned to the Senator for help, and the Senator said to me, “Fortunately, young man, we’re all friends in here, or these incredible charges of yours might have some serious results.”
“Serious results? How’s this for a serious result—it was Wilks that killed Uncle Matt!”
“Now, that’s too much!” cried Wilks. “I have never raised a hand against a human being in my life!”
The Senator turned to Gertie, saying, “Miss Divine, this young man is your friend, isn’t there anything you can do with him?”
But Gertie laughed and shook her head and said, “Forget it, Senator, the kid tumbled. You’re not gonna get him back on the track now.”
I said to her, “You admit it?”
“Sure,” she said. “Why not?”
“You’ll go to jail,” I said. “That’s why not.”
“Not on your life,” she said. “You got to have a lot of proof first, and you don’t have a thing.”
“You weren’t kidnapped,” I said.
“No kidding,” she said. “And it wasn’t always Wilks in the Caddy, sometimes it was me. You like me in my driver’s hat?”
The thought of that Cadillac, so menacing, being driven by Gertie in a chauffeur’s cap, with the curtained back seat as empty as the inside of my head, filled me with humiliation and rage. “What about murder?” I demanded. “You think there’s no proof there? Wilks’ll pay for that, and so will the rest of you. Accessories!”
“Come off it, Fred,” Gertie said. “Wilks didn’t kill anybody. Look at him, he ain’t the type. If this crowd was gonna kill Matt, they’d of done it years ago. He held them up five years, you know.”
The Senator suddenly burst out, “I’ve heard enough! You people come in here with a story of harassment, we offer you our assistance, and suddenly you start making these wild accusations—If you don’t leave at once, I’ll call the police!”
“I’ll do it for you,” I said. “Come on, Karen.”
We backed cautiously out to the reception room. Beside me, Karen seemed as tense as an overwound watch. Her face was very white, except for two small circles of high color on her cheeks. She gazed at each speaker in turn, and when no one was speaking she looked at the Senator, much the way I suspect the bird looks at the snake.
The reception room was empty, the receptionist having abandoned her post. Bob didn’t seem to be around anywhere, either. I moved toward the desk and the phone.
The Senator had followed me. “I would prefer it,” he said coldly, “if you would not make your personal calls on my telephone.”
“There’s other phones,” I said. “Gertie? Are you coming with us?”
She grinned at me and shook her head. “Naw, I better stick here with these birds and get our story straight. See you later, Fred.”
When Karen and I backed out, Gertie was still grinning at me, standing there flanked by Wilks and the Senator, both of whom were looking very grim.
I had the funny feeling Gertie was proud of me.
45
“GERTIE’S NOTE from Uncle Matt,” I told Karen as we waited for the elevator, “was a fake. They had to get her close to me so she could set me up for the con. She’s the one told me about Professor Kilroy and about kak.”
“I’m lost, Fred,” Karen said. She looked dazed. “All of a sudden, everything is something else.”
“I’ve gone through my life that way,” I said. I began counting, saying, “How many parts did Wilks play? He took the shots at me. Then he was the rabbi. Then he—”
“The rabbi? Fred, do you feel all right?”
I said, “The day I got the call at your place, a rabbi came around to the door. Old man with a heavy beard, mumbling. They knew I was in the building, but they didn’t know which apartment. So Wilks got out the makeup kit and kept knocking on doors till he found me.”
“How did they know you were in the building?”
“Followed me from my place.”
She said, “And you thought it was Jack, you thought he betrayed you. You owe him an apology, Fred.”
“I know it. Back to Wilks. After the rabbi, he was Professor Kil
roy. They couldn’t take a chance on Gertie giving me the whole con, it might not ring true, so they filled in with Professor Kilroy, Then Gertie drove the car and Wilks was the man in the cap. And this morning it was Wilks in the Cadillac again.”
The elevator door slid open. The operator and a half-dozen passengers looked at me in absolute astonishment. For just a second I couldn’t think why anybody would look at me like that, but when I glanced down to see if my fly was shut and saw that I was still barefoot and wearing the laboratory smock, I understood. I felt my face light up like an exit sign. Looking as dignified and unconcerned as I could manage, I took Karen’s arm and we boarded the elevator.
On the way down Karen said, “What do we do now?”
“Call the police,” I said. “First thing.”
But I didn’t have to call the police. The second my bare foot hit the sidewalk of Fifth Avenue, I was arrested.
46
THAT EVENING Reilly brought me some clothing and the news I was no longer to be kept in jail. I’d had a long session already with Steve and Ralph, about which the less said is believe me the better, and now they were done with me.
The meeting with Reilly was very awkward at first, with me apologizing and being defensive all at once, and he simultaneously understanding and swallowing rage.
“Fred,” he said, “all I ask is you find the happy medium. First, you trust everybody. Then, you trust nobody. Can’t you get in the middle someplace?”
“I’ll try,” I said. “I really will.”
“All right, enough of that,” he said. “That’s behind us, that isn’t what I came here for. I thought you’d like to know what else I found out.”
“I’d love to know it,” I said.
“I got most of it from Goodkind,” he said. “He swears he would’ve told you if you’d given him a chance, but I don’t believe it. I think he had another song and dance for you, something to cover the facts without giving the facts.”
“Like Senator Dunbar and company,” I said.
“Same style. Anyway, what Goodkind says, that money never did belong to your uncle. He didn’t steal it or make it or win it or anything. You were right about Walter Cosgrove being involved in this; it was his money.”
“He had to be involved,” I said. “Dr. Osbertson knew him. Wilks obviously knew him, from the way he acted when I said the name to him while he was being Professor Kilroy.”
“The way Goodkind got the story,” Reilly said, “Matt was down and out in Brazil when Cosgrove found him. Matt was dying of cancer and he knew it. Cosgrove had to get half a million dollars into the States and into the hands of Earl Dunbar. Dunbar has influence, he could wangle some sort of pardon or amnesty for Cosgrove, so Cosgrove could come back to this country. Half a million was Dunbar’s price, in advance.”
“This is too complicated,” I said.
“Not really,” he said. “Not when you get down to the core of it. Anyway, Dunbar had this Citizens Against Crime gimmick, he’s had it for years, a safe front for any money he wanted to collect without soiling his hands. The sort of cash a lesser politician would call campaign contributions. But Dunbar was smarter than that; money never went directly to him. CAC got it, and then he siphoned it off, leaving just enough to maintain the organization. That office you saw is the extent of it.”
“But what about Cosgrove and the money?”
“Cosgrove gave it t? Matt,” Reilly said, “because Matt was supposed to die in less than a year, and he was supposed to leave a will in which he repented his evil life and left all his money to CAC to continue its good work.”
“He double-crossed them,” I said.
“He double-crossed them six ways from Sunday. First, by staying alive five years instead of six months. And second, by leaving his money to you.”
“That’s why Wilks killed him then.” I said. “Because Matt fired him, and he suspected a double-cross.”
Reilly shook his head. “No. In the first place, Wilks desperately didn’t want Matt to die until he found out what the cross was. In the second place, Wilks has a rock-solid alibi for the time of the murder.”
“It wasn’t Wilks?”
“Definitely not.”
“Well, it wasn’t the Coppo brothers,” I said. “If there are any Coppo brothers.”
“Oh, there are,” Reilly said. “But they don’t come from Brazil, they come from Canarsie. And they never had anything to do with you or your uncle or anybody else in this mess.”
“But they’re real,” I said. “Just in case I should happen to look them up in the newspaper files, I suppose.”
“Something like that.”
“But all that complicated machinery they had working around me,” I said. “Why go through all that?”
“They couldn’t just go to you and say your uncle made a mistake, the money’s supposed to be theirs. Dunbar was putting pressure on Wilks from one side, and I suppose Cosgrove was putting pressure on him from the other side. You had a reputation for gullibility, so they started setting this thing up, making it up as they went along, hustling you around as best they could. Also, I think Wilks enjoyed it. You were right about him, he’s a frustrated ham.”
“If I hadn’t seen that letter from him in Uncle Matt’s desk,” I said, “I might never have tipped. I’d have signed the papers, and it would have been all over.”
“It was close,” Reilly agreed. “You’re a born sucker, Fred, and a born sucker’s worst enemy is himself.”
“I’m getting better,” I said. “I think I’ve learned something these last few days.”
“Maybe so,” he said, but he didn’t sound convinced.
I said, “The only question is, which one of them killed Uncle Matt? And Gus Ricovic? If Wilks didn’t, which one did?”
“None of them,” Reilly said. “They’re all clean. Besides, it wouldn’t make sense for them to wait five years and then kill Matt. And besides that, they suspected he was up to something, and they hoped he wouldn’t die until they found out what it was.”
“Then who killed Uncle Matt?”
“I have no idea,” he said.
I said, “I’ve been figuring it was all tied together, the con and the murder. But that was what they wanted me to think, wasn’t it? Tying everything together.”
“As best as we can tell,” said Reilly, “there’s no tie-in at all. Wilks and Gertie Divine simply used the fact of the murder to hang their con on.”
“Oh, for Pete’s sake,” I said, feeling sudden relief. “In that case, I know who did it.”
Reilly looked at me dubiously. “You do?”
“The elevator operator.”
“The what?”
“At his apartment house,” I said. “The night elevator operator.”
“Fred, do you feel all right?”
“I feel fine. Listen to me. Matt used to play cards with the elevator operator, and you know Matt had to be cheating him, just naturally, not even thinking about it. But he was getting sloppy. Gertie and Gus Ricovic both used to catch him all the time, but they let him get away with it.”
“You’re sure of this?” Reilly asked me. He was looking less dubious and more interested.
“Positive,” I said. “And that elevator operator is nowhere near as sharp as Gertie, so he never knew Matt was cheating him until the last night they played. Then when he caught him Matt must have gotten sore, maybe threatened to tell the management, and the management would fire anybody who socialized with the tenants, the elevator man told me so himself. He got frantic when Matt headed for the phone, and killed him. Hit him with a bottle, maybe, and took the bottle away with him.”
“You’re sure he and Matt played cards?”
“Positive. Gertie told me, for one. And the elevator man himself told me so.”
“I don’t think our people knew about that,” Reilly said thoughtfully.
“Everybody was covering for him, because they didn’t want him to get in trouble for socializing.”
“The MO was the same,” Reilly said. “Both hit over the head with blunt instruments.”
“Elevator operator,” I said. “I’d have seen it long ago if I hadn’t convinced myself all this other stuff was tied in with the killing.”
“I’ll be right back,” said Reilly. “I’ve got to make a call.”
I spent the time while he was gone getting dressed, setting aside the laboratory smock with something less than reluctance.
When Reilly returned he said, “The boys are checking it.”
I said, “What about Wilks and Dunbar and the rest? What happens to them now?”
“Nothing, unfortunately,” he said. “There’s no real proof of anything they did, no way to successfully bring them into court. Earl Dunbar won’t be doing much to help Walter Cosgrove get back into the country, but that’s about the best you can say for the whole affair.”
“And Gertie? What about her fake kidnapping?”
“You’re the only one reported her kidnapped, Fred. She says no, she was out of town is all. She never claimed to be kidnapped.”
“So everybody’s scot-free,” I said.
“Including you, Fred,” Reilly pointed out. “Try looking at it that way, why don’t you?” I tried looking at it that way.
47
TWO DAYS LATER, on Saturday, I was in Gertie’s apartment. She was making us a quick lunch before we went for a ride in my new car—she would be driving until I got my license—and when the phone rang she said, “You git it, honey, will you?”
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