Murder for the Bride

by John D. MacDonald

  My chance of grabbing a cab was just as good as my chance of spreading my arms and flying. At the next bus stop a crowd was huddled under shelter, gleaming with pliofilm, staring at the world as though they wanted to trade it in on a new one.

  I walked beyond the bus stop and up to the next light. I watched the cars at the red light until I found my man. He was hunched over the wheel, staring at the miserable world through thick lenses. His chin was a halfhearted suggestion. I opened the sedan door and slid in as he gave me a wide startled look. I chunked the door shut and beamed at him. “Nice of you to give me a lift on a morning like this.”

  “You’re getting the seat all wet!” he said.

  “I guess the damage is all done. Say, you got a green light.”

  He licked his underlip, put the sedan into gear, and moved slowly on, muttering softly to himself. He was probably a very nice guy. Candy for the wife and presents for the kiddies. A pat on the shoulder from the boss. “Nice reports this month, George.” Maybe he had little daydreams where he repulsed rough strangers, cowed holdup men, and rescued blonde maidens. But he couldn’t quite bring himself up to the point of ordering me out of his car. Later he would tell himself that it was a public-spirited thing to pick up a sodden stranger on such a morning.

  He drove cautiously down Canal. I said, “Say, you can help me a lot if you make a left into the Quarter.”

  “I turn right on South Claiborne,” he said haughtily.

  “It’s just a few blocks over. Everybody’ll be late to the office this morning. Bet some of them won’t get there at all.”

  He kept on mumbling, but he did edge over toward the center island. He trundled the car across the tracks, paused for traffic, and went down a narrow street of the Quarter. Day had turned to dusk. The rain churned the deep water in the streets and bounced high off everything that was out of water. New Orleans, through strenuous effort, has managed to keep its feet dry most of the time. But the subsurface water is always there. There’s no good place for a heavy rain to go. It has to be pumped out of the drainage system over the levees and into the river. When it rains too fast for the pumps, you have a situation.

  “How far?” George asked crossly.

  “Oh, six more blocks.”

  “You’re making me very late,” he said.

  “You’ll never know how much I appreciate this.”

  He let me out a block from Jill’s place. He could have got closer, but with the one-way streets, this was quicker. I got out and thanked him and walked ahead. George gunned it and smacked me with a solid sheet of water. I couldn’t get sore at him. He had to get one inning.

  A blonde girl, student type, was walking in the rain in a thin dress. She walked slowly, as if in a trance. Her hair was plastered flat and the dress was like a heavy coat of paint. Rain was doing something to her. She looked at me with a sort of remote ecstasy, and mouthed something that I couldn’t understand because of the rain sounds. Maybe she thought I was a kindred spirit. I was moving slowly too, because I didn’t want to go barging up to Jill’s door without knowing who was around and about. I prayed that Jill had had the good sense to phone Barney Zeck before returning to the apartment.

  I walked on. I glanced back over my shoulder. Student Type was standing, looking after me, her hands on her hips, feet planted wide. Not today, honey. Not any day, honey. Go get some sleep.

  Nobody seemed to have any special interest in Jill’s door. I gave a long ring and turned my back to the door and waited. Student Type came and struck her pose in front of me.

  “God! The rain,” she said.

  “Go away, will you?”

  “You love it, too. I know you do.”

  “Beat it, Sis.”

  “This is a day for madness. For rain goddesses. For a dark splendor.”

  “You better go dry off. You’ve got a fever.” I turned and punched the bell button again.

  She moved closer to me. She said, “They’re watching you from across the way, Bryant. That’s why I’m standing in front of you, you damn fool.”

  I took a better look at her. There was a quick, sharp intelligence in her eyes.

  “Who’s across the way?”

  “Today we’re making a clean sweep, Bryant. I’m short-handed because the Townsend girl came here, and my partner had to cover her. Some of the cars have stalled out. It’s a mess. And that business last night was bad. You’re making us move too fast.”

  “What do we do now?”

  “Keep moving a bit, but not enough to get out in the clear. I don’t know what they have in mind, but they might risk a shot if you stand still enough. I think they want to grab you, not shoot you. As long as I’m here, I’m fouling the works.”

  “How about walking up the street arm in arm?”

  “I’ve watched the corner. There’s a car I don’t like parked up there, and another one I’m more certain of right down there. Don’t stare. Sixty yards or so down the block.”

  “Who is rounding up whom?” I asked politely.

  “Oh, the city is a bottle with a cork in it.”

  “That’s nice to know.”

  “We’ve talked a long time. They’ll be wondering. They picked up the Townsend girl.”

  “How nice!” I said. “That little document everybody’s been so hot about is in her possession.”

  The sharp eyes grew wide and her lips parted. “Oh, no!” she said.

  “Oh, yes!”

  “Where would she get it? You didn’t have it. We checked that.”

  “I had it and didn’t know it.”

  She glanced up the street and tensed a bit. “We’re going to have company, Bryant.”

  I looked up the street. Two men were walking down the street. They were moving too slowly for men walking in that kind of rain. I took the revolver out of my shirt. She glanced at it and grabbed it.

  “You might have mentioned it,” she said. She moved to the side, put the muzzle an inch from the lock, and blasted it. It packed the brass lock with lead. I worked the catch and took a dive at the door with my shoulder. It swung open and we went in fast. The last glance at the two men showed me that they had broken into a run.

  I slammed the door. The lock was no good. There was a sliding bolt set into the frame. My thumb slipped off it the first time. I clicked it over just as a weight struck the door on the other side.

  Student Type was already at the phone. She sat on the floor beside the phone table, the phone at her ear, waiting. She glanced at me and through me.

  “Statch? This is Baker. You left me in a hell of a spot. Bryant showed. No. I haven’t had a chance to ask him yet. We’re in a state of siege in the Townsend apartment. But look. The hottest thing. You know, we let them take the girl, as per instructions. Did they take her where we hoped? Good! Statch, she has it. Yes. Just when we thought it didn’t exist, she has to have it on her. Sure. I understand. ’By.”

  She hung up and winked at me, held out her hand. I pulled her to her feet. “We were hoping Widdmar would have to come out in the open on this one. He still thinks he’s going to be able to make a run for it. His guard is down a little, so Jill Townsend was taken out there. This damn rain! I hate rain! No roundup has ever been so completely fouled up as this one, but on the other hand I guess they never had quite as much at stake before.” She sighed and ran her fingers through her soaking blonde hair.

  “Why did you let Jill be taken like that?” I demanded angrily.

  “Look. It’s hard to get something definite on a man like Widdmar. We had a job getting his house wired. We had to find Sammy a girl friend who would lure him out of the way while we planted the microphones. Then we gently guided you out there. It didn’t work. It didn’t give us a thing. You talked on that patio affair, out of range. We had a tap on his phone, and didn’t catch the number that was dialed. The sounds of violence sent us scrambling in all directions. But you moved too fast, and got away from us. There’s a lot I don’t know. I’m just a little cog. I do know that
they moved in on Sipe’s place just about ten minutes after you left, and we’ve been hunting for you and the girl ever since. We were worried until we found they were watching this place. That meant Jill Townsend got away, and you probably got her away.”

  “What put you onto Widdmar?”

  “Ancient history. A dossier. A big file. Then a couple of years of legwork. The whole local organization was pretty well documented when the Renner woman came in here and gave them a reason for going into action. Since then things have been confusing as hell, and you haven’t made them any simpler. You should have been snared and put in a box as soon as you got back here from Mexico.”

  “Who killed the Morin girl?”

  She ran her fingers through her hair again. “I got scared out there on the sidewalk. When I get scared, I talk too much. I’ve been talking too much. No more answers from me, Bryant. My people ought to be here by now.”

  We went to the front door, avoiding the view hole, and listened. There was a brisk knock. “Who is it?” she demanded.

  “Harley. Open up, Baker.” She nodded to me. I snapped the bolt over and pulled the door open. It was the elder, bulkier of the two Jones boys.

  “Hello again,” I said.

  He ignored me. The two men who had come running down the sidewalk were climbing into the back of a sedan. Two cars had converged on the car parked up the street. Two men and a woman were coming out of a doorway across the street, their fingers laced at the backs of their necks.

  “So soon?” Baker said.

  “The time has been moved up,” Harley said. “Come on.” We followed him up to a black sedan. A stranger sat behind the wheel. Baker and I got in the back, soaking the upholstery. Harley took his hand mike off the hook and reported in, stating that I had been taken into custody, adding that seven strangers had been pulled in. I didn’t like being grouped with the strangers. Harley’s words had a cool sound.

  “Where are we going?” I asked.

  “We’re dropping you at the Federal Office Building, Bryant.” He turned in the seat as the car moved slowly to the corner.

  I made my voice as patient as I could. “Look. I have had what might be called a bad time. I have had my ribs busted. I have had shotguns go off in my face. I have had a knife held on me. I have found out that a guy I considered my best friend is no good. My wife was killed, and another girl was killed, and Haussmann was killed, and Siddman died, and Sipe was shot, and Straw Hat had his throat chewed out. I’ve killed a dog, for which I am sorry, and a man in a dark suit, for which I am not very sorry. All in all, I am beginning to lose my patience, Harley. You’re heading for Widdmar’s house. I would dearly like to go along with you. Maybe I’ve made you a lot of trouble, but where did you get the tip that Jill has that paper or document you want? How about it? If you say no, I’m going to open this door and get out, no matter how fast you happen to be going at the moment.”

  Harley looked at Baker. “Of all the china-shop bulls I ever saw …”

  “We’ll get there after the windup, anyway,” Baker said convincingly.

  “Five thousand guys in this town the Renner woman could have married,” he said.

  “Who found Haussmann?” I asked him.

  “That one you call Straw Hat—we knew him as Smith—he could have answered a lot of questions.”

  “I didn’t get him. The dog did. Besides, my next wife is going to be a newspaperwoman. Don’t you want attractive coverage in the press for your noble efforts?”

  “This may surprise you, Bryant. There’s going to be no coverage at all. Just enough to clear you of three murders, and put Smith in your shoes, and have him killed avoiding capture. For the rest of it, nobody knows a thing.”

  “Let him come along, Harley,” Baker said. “And give me your coat or something. I can’t stop shivering.”

  Harley muttered something to the driver. We began to make better time. We hit the water hard enough to send solid sheets over onto infuriated pedestrians. The siren began to growl, to work its way up through the octaves. I glanced behind us and noticed that we were the lead car of a caravan.

  By the time we straightened out on Airline Highway, the siren was a high-pitched, constant scream.

  I yelled in Baker’s ear, “How many are you rounding up?”

  She gave me a wide-eyed shrug.

  I could see that from now on I was going to be told less than nothing. I kept telling myself to relax. I kept telling myself that they wouldn’t take any silly chances with Jill’s life. I tried to lean back in the seat, but I kept hunching forward as though I could make the car go faster.

  As we slewed hard and hit Tram’s drive, the siren off, Baker said, “I told you so. All over but the stenographic reports.”

  I had underestimated the number of people involved. There were five cars already in Tram’s drive. We made three more. Harley and Baker got out. The driver stayed where he was. They seemed to have forgotten me. I followed them in. The front door was wide open.

  As we went down the hallway, I heard Tram’s booming voice. “Now, look! All this is completely ridiculous! Those two men brought Miss Townsend here. I didn’t send for her. They forced their way in here, waving a gun in my face.”

  They were gathered in the big lounge. Tram looked brown and rubbery and innocently worried. Two men stood against the wall, their hands at the backs of their necks. Jill sat in a deep chair, her face green pale. Tram was pacing and waving his arms.

  A man with crisp white hair, a lean, distinguished face, and an air of authority said mildly, “Come now, Widdmar. This merely delays things. I assure you that we have enough.”

  One of the men standing by the wall said in a heavy accent, “He is right. We forced our way in here. He protested.”

  Jill met my glance and smiled weakly. She looked at the man who could have been cast as a society lawyer by Metro. “Mr. Widdmar knew I was being brought here,” she said firmly.

  “Is that any way to treat an old friend, Jill?” Tram complained.

  She turned her smile on him. “I’m the old friend who first smelled something odd about you, Tram, and turned your name in nearly three years ago. Something odd about you and about your habits and—when you’re off guard—your way of thinking.”

  Tram still looked like a cupid with a faint leer, but his eyes changed. His eyes changed to the eyes of a man who could do murder. And I remembered something. A funny thing. When it happened, it had gone right over the surface of my mind. But it had left a faint trace.

  I went up behind the gray-haired man, pulling away from Baker’s restraining hand. I said, “If you want to clip him with something, would murder be all right?”

  The man turned sharply. His eyes widened. Then he grew angry. “Who brought this man here?” he demanded. He glared at Harley.

  “Hi, Dil,” Tram said softly, smiling.

  “Please let me talk to you alone,” I said to the man.

  He shrugged. I followed him into Tram’s bedroom. “What’s on your mind, Bryant?”

  “What will happen to Widdmar? I mean with what you have on him?”

  “He’s a citizen. A treason trial is a pretty delicate thing. He has money. It’s very hard to say, Bryant.”

  “Look. When I was here, before I suspected Tram, we talked about Laura. I talked too much. I think he put something in my drink. Anyway, he said that maybe pliers and a wire coat hanger wasn’t a very merciful way to die. Zeck knew pliers had been used. Zeck told me. It wasn’t in the paper. So how would Tram know?”

  He shook his head slowly. “That isn’t enough. It’s a pleasant idea to pin that on him, but it isn’t enough to go on. Besides, maybe the one who did it told him exactly how it was done. Smith was the assassin. We know he killed the Morin girl.”

  “Do those boys change their methods? Why didn’t he use the same method on Laura?”

  “That’s a pretty feeble point, Bryant. I can’t waste any more time on this.”

  There was a brisk knock at the do
or. The society lawyer opened it and he was handed something. He examined it closely, his back to me. Then he turned toward me. He was hard-eyed and exultant. His hands were shaking. I saw that he held the rabbit, a tiny metal capsule, and a long thin strip of onionskin paper inscribed with tiny printing.

  “The first real break,” he said softly. “The first genuine break in far too many years. See this? A nice list. Names and cities. About fifty of our cities, and the name of the kingpin in each one. The co-ordinator. The nice respectable citizen trying to put his knife in our back.”

  “Is Tram’s name there?”

  He squinted at the list. “Yes.”

  “Will that help you jail him?”

  He gave me a sad smile. “Who is going to testify to the authenticity of this list? It doesn’t give us a list of people to jail. It gives us a list of people to watch. A lot of them will have gone underground by now. A lot of these names are familiar. And a lot of them will prove to be people considered above suspicion. You can see why it was worth making an effort, Bryant. This little piece of paper explodes a system that took probably fifteen years to twenty-five years to build.”

  “Then why not run a bluff on Tram Widdmar? He’s probably pretty rattled by now. Does he know Smith is dead?”

  The society lawyer stared at the far wall and pursed his lips. He shrugged. “Nothing to lose, I guess. But he’s too clever. It won’t work.”

  We went back in. Busy little men were going through every page of every one of Tram’s books. He was watching them with ill-concealed contempt.