Dead Letter

by Jonathan Valin

  Sarah looked up in confusion. “Where are you going?”

  “Where do you think? I heard what you wanted to say and I’m not interested.”

  “Just what are you interested in? Oh, but why ask?” She sat back in her chair and stared at me with fresh assurance. “You’re a fascinating type, Mr. Stoner, in a ghoulish way. A man without loyalty, without honor, without friendship. A man who lives like a parasite in the creases of society, feeding on age, disease, and unhappiness. I once told you that I thought you were intelligent. I know now how wrong I was. It’s all instinct with you, isn’t it? All smell.” She leaned forward and looked indifferently at the tabletop. “How much?” she said under her breath. “How much do you want?”

  I did a foolish thing. I got angry. “Twenty thousand,” I said.

  She started as if she’d been slapped. “You’re joking?”

  “Hell, no,” I said. “You understand my type and janissaries come high this year, Miss Lovingwell. I want twenty thousand dollars.”

  “I don’t know if I have that much,” she said nervously.

  “Sure you do. You’ve got all of Daddy’s money coming to you.”

  “I have money of my own,” she said quickly.

  “From where?”

  “That’s none of your business.”

  “You’re wrong, Sarah. If I work for you, everything about you is my business.” I sat back down at the table. “Why’d you do it, Sarah? Why’d you kill him? It wasn’t for money—that’s below your character. That’s more in my line, right? So why’d you do it? Revenge? To get back for Momma?”

  Sarah groaned as if I’d punched her squarely in the gut. “What do you know about Mother?” she said.

  “I know that you blamed your father for her death. Is that why you killed him?”

  “I didn’t kill him.”

  “Sure you did. The police have a witness who can place you on the scene at the time of the murder. And when I get through telling them why your father hired me, they’ll have a motive, too.”

  “Don’t tell them that!” she said shrilly. “I have to get out of here. If you tell them that, they’ll never let me go. I’ll give you the money you want.”

  I shook my head. “I don’t want to play any more, Sarah. Not for money or honor or fun.”

  “You’re going to tell them?”

  “I don’t have a choice. McMasters knows I lied to him about your alibi. He knows I’m withholding evidence about your father’s death. I’m just not going to risk my neck for you any longer. Because I think you are lying. I think you did kill your father.”

  “I swear I didn’t do it,” she whispered. All of the outrage and assurance had left her face.

  “For what it’s worth, I didn’t betray you,” I said. “Your friend O’Hara told the police that the alibi was a phoney. But before you start thinking up some category to stuff him into, you ought to know that he was beaten up before he confessed.”

  “I don’t believe you,” Sarah said.

  “It’s not in the dialectic, huh? Well, Marx notwithstanding, that’s the truth.”

  Sarah stared forlornly at the mirror behind me. “I need your help,” she said in a small, tired voice. “I’m in trouble and I need your help.”

  It was as if she had pulled a plug inside me. I felt all the anger drain away, and in its place a weak and dangerous pity was sloshing about. I looked away from her and down at the hard grooved rubber inlay of the table-top. “Talking to Grimes isn’t going to help you,” I said. “If he thinks I’m a cop, nothing I say is going to change his mind. He’ll kill me, Sarah. And why should I risk my neck for you? I heard all that crap about loyalty and friendship and honor. But you haven’t trusted me since we met. Why should I trust you? If I did what you asked me to, I’d just be playing another hunch, a sucker play, which is all I’ve been doing since your father hired me on Monday.” I shook my head. “I’m sorry. But I’m not going to play in the dark any more.”

  Sarah wiped her eyes and got up from her chair. “Then there’s nothing more to say.”

  She reached for the buzzer by the door, to signal the guard that our conversation was finished.

  And then I did another foolish thing. I called her back. “Hold it,” I said.

  She turned at the door and looked back at me with just the trace of a smile on her face. I nodded at her disgustedly.

  “So I’m not a janissary,” I said. “You don’t have to crow over it.”

  “I’m hardly crowing,” she said. But her smile broadened, and she looked at me with something like gratitude.

  “I’ve waited for two days, I don’t suppose another day will hurt. But understand, Sarah, you’ve got to convince me that you didn’t kill your father. You’ve got to convince me that he was, in fact, the man you’ve made him out to be. I don’t see any middle way. One of you has to be a liar. And remember, if I’m not convinced, I’ll tell the police what they want to know.”

  “I’ll convince you,” she said.

  11

  SID MCMASTERS was waiting in the anteroom with two burly desk sergeants when I walked back out the door.

  “Did you get everything settled, Harry?” he asked.

  “What’s the matter, Sid? Did the mirror fog up or did the microphone go dead?”

  “Sure. Make jokes. We heard what you said.”

  “That’s against the law!” I said to him.

  “Funny man,” one of the desk cops grumbled.

  “Let’s talk, Harry,” McMasters said. “Just the four of us.”

  “O.K.” I sat down on the waiting room bench.

  “Not here.” McMasters shook his head. “Downstairs.”

  “How far downstairs, Sid?” I asked him.

  “That depends, Harry. On how much you tell us.”

  “I want to talk to a lawyer.”

  “You’re not under arrest,” McMasters said innocently. “You’re just cooperating with the police, like every good citizen should.”

  “I’m not going down to the basement, Sid. If you want to talk, we can talk right here.”

  McMasters nodded to the other cops, and they walked over and hoisted me to my feet.

  “You can’t pull this shit. I’ve got a legal right to keep silent. What Sarah Lovingwell told me is privileged information.”

  McMasters pretended to chew it over. “Let’s talk about it downstairs,” he said agreeably.

  With the two desk sergeants propping me up, we took the service elevator down to the lobby. The floor numbers were printed in block letters at the verge of each floor, and I counted them off as nervously as if I were descending the levels of Hell. When ONE flashed by and the elevator didn’t slow down, I knew I was headed for the nth circle—the frozen one—and that McMasters was going to push this thing right over the edge of humor, of practical joking, into a place where kidding becomes a prelude to violence. If it came to that, I’d have to give him something; and I’d have to give it up after a struggle, to convince him that it had been worth waiting for. And that something couldn’t be Sarah.

  Out of sympathy or lunacy or plain old curiosity I’d given her a reprieve. Just how that was going to work I didn’t know. There was no reason to assume that she’d start telling me the truth once she’d gotten what she wanted—which was out of jail. She might go underground, like her friend Grimes; or she just might put a bullet through my head. Didn’t think of that one, did you, Harry? I said to myself. But I had thought of it; I just hadn’t thought much of it. I simply couldn’t believe she was a killer. And in spite of all the parables on appearances and all the hard practical lessons I’d learned in better than ten years of detective work, I’d never yet been that wrong about a client. Of course, I had to be wrong about one of them, father or daughter. But when it comes to a choice between the testimony of a man like Bidwell and that of a woman like Mrs. Weinberg, I always go with the Rose Weinbergs of this world. Perhaps because it’s flattering when someone takes detective work seriously, when some
one pauses to consider just how much detection goes into knowing anyone at all.

  So I couldn’t give McMasters Sarah or the document or the reason why her father had hired me. What I could give him was Grimes. Sarah wouldn’t like it; but it was the best way, maybe the only way, to keep both of us from ending up dead. Because I was no match for a psychotic ex-Marine with the instincts of a killer. I knew his type from domesticated versions—the men who wall their rooms with rifles, machine guns, and dummy grenades. Who, if you get on their good side, will take you out back and let you fire off a burst or two from an illegally operative Thompson. And who, invariably, when loaded or sentimental, will let you in on their secret plans, their maelstrom defenses. For they’re all Seventh Day Adventists, these gun nuts; they’re all millenarians, saving up for that day when apocalypse comes. They’re all prepared. They’ve got the fire lines worked out; they’ve calculated ammunition like a quartermaster. They’ve built redoubts and shelters and, secretly, they probably know who’s going to go first—which member of the family they’ll sacrifice in a pinch. It’s the most heartless brand of sentimentality you can run up against; and if you believe the shit put out by the gun lobby, it’s what makes America great.

  Grimes—who probably sat in his rented rooms with a rifle in his lap, trailing straggling school kids and strange Negroes with the barrel propped out the bedroom window, squeezing off imaginary rounds in lightening-like bursts—was a wilder and less predictable case. But he’d have that same sentimental streak—killing is kindness—and a helluva lot more expertise. I’d have to do some research on him. Talk to some ex-Marines like Larry Soldi, Bullet’s hired man, who could fill me in on just how to defend against a man still fighting wars. Armed with that kind of knowledge and with Sid’s help, Grimes could be handled. And handling Grimes would please Sid. Dropping a cop-killer was just about the richest pleasure in his world.

  As the elevator pulled to a stop, I tried to calculate exactly how much abuse I ought to take before handing McMasters what he wanted. I half wished I’d had the chance to stop in a john, so I could have stuffed a cushion of toilet tissue in my nose and around my gums. But that would have taken half the fun out of it for Sid, and all of the surprise.

  When we got out of the elevator, we walked down a dim hallway into a large empty cellroom. The whole basement had once been used as a keep; now the cells were used as storerooms. Except for the one in which we were standing. The room was absolutely bare—no chairs, no furniture. Just stone walls, gas and water pipes overhead, and a single lamp dangling down like the big white-light lamps hung above the lawn of pool tables. While I was looking around, Sid took off his coat and rolled up his shirt sleeves. The other cops drifted into the shadows outside the pale of the overhead light. There was a stack of phone books in one corner of the room. And one of the desk sergeants walked very deliberately over to them and leaned up against that section of the wall. It was all a little like No drama—each gesture calculated to produce its incremental effect. A ritualistic first act, like the unsheathing and wiping of a sacrificial blade. The phone books were a nice touch. No phone, just the books.

  That was the way they did it nowadays. Leaded saps and rubber hoses were out. They left marks and, in the heat of the moment, they could do mortal injury. The phone books were an antic compromise. Every criminal knows that he’s allowed one phone call and, under the guise of allowing the criminal his rights, the cops kept the phone books on the floor of the interrogation room. If I pushed McMasters hard enough, I’d get a chance to see what they were really used for.

  The two desk sergeants would pin my arms back, and Sid would take a phone book and slam me over the head with it until blood ran out of my ears. After ten good shots, my spine would compress and every nerve center would start signaling pain. My legs would throb, my arms would burn. My back would feel as if the vertebrae were cracked. I’d lose control of my bladder, of my bowels. The cops would make me strip, unless Sid was in a really vicious mood, unless he wanted to make me stand ankle-deep in my own waste. I’d seen it happen. Sid knew I’d seen it happen. And he watched me with the cold assurance that I was getting the point. In the white light he looked black-Irish tough—a big, barrel-chested man with red hair, a pasty complexion, and heartless blue eyes. He was enjoying it. I’ve never known a cop who didn’t enjoy making his mark squirm.

  “It’s working, Sid,” I said to him. “I’m scared.”

  He shrugged. “I would be, too, Harry. You’re in a tough spot. It doesn’t have to get tougher. You know that. All you have to do is tell me what I want to know.”

  I swallowed hard. This was the point of departure. After I said “no” once, it was all up to Sid. There were other cops in the room and that made it even harder for him. They knew we were friends, and they’d be watching him.

  “I can’t do that,” I told him. “I have a legal obligation to my client to keep my mouth shut.”

  McMasters shook his head slightly. He was warning me off.

  “I don’t want to do this, Stoner,” he said. “But you’re not giving me any choice.”

  McMasters reached down to the floor with his left hand, as if he’d dropped something beside him. I followed him with my eyes. He straightened suddenly and brought the back of his right hand up across the bottom of my jaw with a force that made my teeth snap. I rocked backward on my feet and watched the shooters fill my eyes.

  “That’s just to show you, Harry,” he said as I wobbled in front of him. “This isn’t a joke. I’ve got a man in the hospital with a bullet in his spine. So you are going to tell me what I want to know. You’re going to tell me about Lovingwell and about what he hired you to find out. Or things are going to get very rough very fast. No more song-and-dance. No more confidentiality crap. No more buddy-buddies.’’

  “I can’t tell you that.”

  “The hell,” he said.

  Sid motioned to the two desk sergeants and both of them ambled out of the shadows. McMasters pushed me back toward the rear wall. It’s now or never, Harry, I said to myself.

  “Wait a minute McMasters,” I said.

  He kept shoving.

  “Wait. Goddamn it!”

  “What?” he said.

  “Maybe we can do some business.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “You want Grimes, right? I can give him to you.”

  McMasters knitted his brow and looked at me with shrewd reserve. He hadn’t bitten yet. Maybe I should have taken a few shots in the head before making the offer. But my damn skull was still aching from that run-in with the mugger, and I figured that even a couple of blows might put me in the hospital for a week. Or there was always the chance that, after a couple more punches, I might lose my temper, throw a few punches of my own, and end up in much deeper trouble. There was nothing to do but go ahead with it and try to make it as convincing as I could.

  “Listen to me, Sid. I can deliver Grimes to you. The Lovingwell girl is going to try to patch things up with him. Right now he thinks she betrayed him and that means he’s going to try to kill her. She thinks she can arrange a meeting and get back in his good graces. I’m supposed to be at the meeting, too. I’m supposed to tell Grimes that Sarah had nothing to do with the bust.”

  McMasters snorted. “You aren’t that stupid, Stoner. The son-of-a-bitch would kill you before you opened your mouth.”

  “Not if you shoot him first.”

  McMasters thought it over. “Just when’s this meeting supposed to take place?”

  “In the next day or two. Grimes has gone underground, but Sarah or one of her friends can get in touch with him.” I studied McMaster’s face and knew I had him. “It’ll pay to let her go, Sid. It’s the only way you’re going to get Grimes.”

  “And what’s to keep her from going underground, too?” he said.

  “Me. I’ll keep her in sight.”

  “She ain’t going to like you betraying her again, Harry.”

  “Well,” I said. “A lot of
us have to live with things we don’t like.”

  12

  I WASN’T sure where I stood when McMasters said, “You can go, Harry.” So I decided to get some advice.

  After cleaning up in the main floor washroom, I walked across the lobby to a phone booth and called Jim Dugan, a lawyer in the Riorley for whom I’d once done a considerable favor. At the time I’d worked for him, Dugan was only a name on an office door. No secretary, no dictaphone. Just plump, baby-faced Jim, sitting behind a steel desk and gazing up at you with an invincible optimism—as if yours was the case he’d been waiting for all day, all month, all his years as a practicing attorney. He didn’t smile at anybody, now. He didn’t have to. He had always been a lip-chewer, a mama’s boy, and a bit of a liar; his success had only given him the excuse to become himself. But he was a crafty son-of-a-bitch, expert at remembering odd statutes and at fashioning tax loopholes, which made him valuable to the congressman from his district. Jim owed me one; and if I had ever needed an acquaintance with political clout, now was the time.

  “I’m in a real fix,” I said to him after I’d spent five minutes convincing his secretary that I was a friend. “One of my clients is a suspected felon, and the cops are leaning on me. How far can I push the confidentiality line?”

  “Have they sent the case to a grand jury yet?”

  “I don’t think so. They don’t have enough hard evidence. That’s why they’re leaning on me.”

  “No grand jury, no summons, Harry,” Jim said cheerfully. “It’s as simple as that. You don’t have anything to worry about until you’re called to appear before a panel.”

  “There are other ways they can screw me. Review boards. Erroneous vag warrants. Parking tickets. You name it.”

  “How the hell did you get involved in something like this? I thought you catered to a quieter trade. Paternity cases, missing persons, minor thefts?”

  “So did I, Jim,” I said. “This whole business has gone haywire.”

  “Well, I’m not sure what I can do for you, buddy,” he said.