“I would, too, in your shoes.”
“You’ve got to understand that she wasn’t promiscuous in the usual sense, Mr. Rivers. She didn’t want to be. She hated herself for her weaknesses. But when the pressures built inside of her, she had to find excitement, forgetfulness of herself.”
The old lady took a deep breath. “You must understand further, Mr. Rivers, that Giles Newell is an extremely handsome man. He affects an air of breeding and culture. It’s real enough to fool a lot of people. He was eaten with the desire to put something real and substantial behind that veneer.”
“You’re going to get around to telling me that he and Stephanie had an affair.”
“Yes, Mr. Rivers.”
“You know,” I said, “that you may be telling me the reason Giles Newell lied at the trial of Wallace Tulman.”
Her face darkened. “Newell did not lie, Mr. Rivers. Contrary to what you think, in regard to Stephanie, Giles Newell had every reason to lie the other way. To lie Wallace Tulman to freedom.”
“You’re not getting home to me.”
“Only because you won’t let me tell this in my own way,” she said shortly. “You think that because Giles and Stephanie had an affair Giles might have lied. Flimsy as all hell in the first place, Mr. Rivers! In the second, before the affair was over Stephanie despised Newell and he knew it. If he’d had a motive for lying that would have been it and such a motive would have led him to lie for Wallace Tulman, to strike back at Stephanie. Is that clear?”
“The mud’s settling,” I said. “Let’s get back to the start of this affair. It wasn’t her first?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “Perhaps it wasn’t. She at least was careful and discreet. And she wasn’t completely to blame.”
“Milt Collins not a very good husband?”
“An excellent husband, except that he didn’t understand Stephanie. Milt is cut out of more basic material. He likes to see ground break and buildings come up. He likes the feel of fresh-poured concrete under his feet. His music is the ringing of steel as a spike is being driven.”
“A man’s man.”
“Yes. Or so he was. Now he isn’t a hell of a lot of anything.” She leaned back, closed her eyes. There was a fine sweat in the heavy caking of white powder on her forehead. She took a short breath. “Milt worked to amass money and retire young. He succeeded. In succeeding he failed, because he didn’t know how to retire. He didn’t know what to do with himself. So he drank. He might have gone back to work, but he’d convinced himself that he’d worked only to retire and that it was right that he retire. It was up to him now to make a success of retiring—but it’s a battle he hasn’t won.
“Stephanie could never become a part of such a man, Mr. Rivers. She loved the strength he’d possessed when they met. She felt a sense of duty toward him. She loved her children, more deeply than most women. She and Milt got along all right while he was working, building, planning. Perhaps it was because they didn’t see much of each other, never got a chance really to know each other. He was the energetic, strong protector. Then they got to know each other, and he became just a man. A man deteriorating and going to waste. A restless man drowning his restlessness in drink. A man beginning to miss his own strength, seeing in her what he thought were weaknesses to be despised.
“Is it any wonder she was despairing and lonely?”
“I guess not,” I said.
“Into this picture paint another figure, Mr. Rivers. Giles Newell. Debonair, understanding. He has some of the qualities of a chameleon. He adapts well. He senses the course of action, the tone of conversation he should take with a new acquaintance to be well liked.
“I think he believed he could wreck my daughter’s marriage.”
“And step in himself.”
“Yes.”
“But it didn’t work,” I said.
“She had a sense of duty, a loyalty. She could feel guilty quite easily. And she was not stupid, Mr. Rivers. She began to see that the water was getting deep. There was a last party. In Giles Newell’s apartment. She was drinking—too much. He got the pictures then. I suppose he felt it was the last way he would ever get anything out of her.”
“Maybe it was Giles who called you and posed as Mr. Bloxton.”
“No. He didn’t keep the pictures long. He tried to get some money from me, not long before that thing happened to little Ruthie and Wallace Tulman went to trial. I went to Newell’s apartment to buy the pictures. They were gone. His regret and ire were genuine, Mr. Rivers. So real that he actually shed tears and accused Stephanie of slipping into the place and stealing them.”
“So you didn’t give him any money.”
“Of course not. I left his apartment thinking he would never enter our lives again. But he did, of course—at the trial.”
“You must have worried about the pictures.”
“Certainly.”
“Did you make an effort to find them?”
“I thought, until today, that Stephanie had them. I agreed with Newell’s certainty of that.”
“What did Stephanie say?”
“She didn’t say anything, because I didn’t ask her,” the old lady said. She speared me with her eyes. “How do you go about asking a daughter if she had destroyed vulgar pictures she had stolen from the man who had taken them?”
“I see what you mean,” I said.
“Then find those pictures!”
“I’ll do what I can.”
“Only Tulman comes first, Mr. Rivers?”
“Something like that.”
“Tulman,” she said. “Is there no end to the misery the vile little baby-face can bring into our lives?”
CHAPTER
13
MAX THE GIANT drove me home. The old goddess he served might have edged toward my side of the fence, but Max still didn’t like me. It was in his manner.
And the feeling was mutual.
I thanked him curtly, got out of the car and went up to my apartment.
I opened the door.
“Hi, Ed,” Evie Grove called from the kitchen.
“Make yourself at home,” I said.
“Thanks.”
“Janitor let you in?”
“That’s right. Do you like bacon and eggs?”
“I can eat them.” I went into the kitchenette. She was cooking bacon on the gas burner. I opened the ice box, got out a cold beer, put a hole in the top of the can and drank half of it.
Her blond hair was loose about her face. Her cheeks were flushed from the heat. She gave me a smile. “I got tired of artificiality, Ed.”
“Is that right?”
“So I came to see you.”
“That’s nice. Been here long?”
“Oh, not long.”
“You’re lying, Evie.”
She gave me a quick look. “Why do you say that, you darling bear?”
“You made a call from my phone.”
“Well, really …”
“I don’t like for people to use my phone for that kind of call, Evie.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about!”
“You called Mrs. Wherry. You muffled your voice and said you were a Mr. Bloxton. Where’d you ask her to leave the money and pick up the pictures?”
Evie stood with the spatula in her hand. She put it down. She moved to me and slipped her arms about my waist. Face tilted back, she smiled at me.
“What a delightful little tale, darling!”
I could feel the sleek, warm length of her body against mine. She could feel it too. Her eyes got embers in their depths.
“It’s no dice, Evie.”
“No?” she said softly.
“No.”
She whispered a laugh and kissed me. Then her lips grew cool. She pulled her face back and now her eyes were angry.
“Something wrong with me, Ed?”
“Nope.”
“Then—it’s somebody else. Who, big bear?”
“Quit try
ing to sidetrack the issue.”
“Your client? The elegant and proper Laura Tulman?” Her feminine instinct ran deep. Predatory. Sharp. Her eyes glinted. “So help me, that’s it! Do you know, many men would have liked to make a pass at her?”
“Stow it, Evie.” I disengaged her arms and pushed her back. She stood on a precipice for a moment. Then her face cooled and she smiled as if finding humor in the thought of Laura Tulman. I was glad she’d decided to laugh it off.
“You won’t get to first base, dear bear,” she said.
“We were talking about pictures,” I said.
“I don’t know anything more than I did a moment ago.” She turned back to the bacon.
I gripped her arm and turned her toward me. “Calling from here might have seemed a brilliant trick to you, Evie. But actually it was dumb. The old lady had the call traced. She looked it up in a yellow numerical phone book. My phone. So the call had to come from here. See?”
“Let me go!”
I let her go. She stood holding her arm. The bacon was beginning to scorch.
“Old lady Wherry reached the obvious conclusion. That Mr. Bloxton was me. She didn’t go for this rendezvous stuff. She’s more direct. She had Max the Giant pick me up.”
Evie’s eyes went wide.
“She wants those pictures, Evie,” I said. “Bad. She offered to pay me for them.”
“So that’s it!”
“No, that isn’t it,” I said shortly. “Tulman comes first. I told her that. But I also told her that I’d hand over the pictures if they turned up.”
“Then you could split with me, Ed, if the money doesn’t mean anything to you.”
“I didn’t say it didn’t mean anything. I only said that a first client remains first, regardless of how much more money somebody else can pay.”
“Well, I haven’t got the pictures!”
“Oh, hell, Evie, let’s cut out the ring-around-a-rosy.”
The bacon was burning, but good. I reached out and flipped the flame off.
Evie’s face shadowed with self-pity. “You just ride roughshod over everything! Why shouldn’t the old lady pay? She’s got more than plenty.”
“That still isn’t the point. The guy with a dime may think the guy with ten bucks has got more than plenty, but the guy with the tenner might not agree.”
“You try to mix me up, Ed! But I still think I ought to have something. I have to live by the skin of my teeth and those damn Wherrys and Collinses have got everything.”
“Yeah,” I said, “a dead little girl, a young woman in the crazy house.”
“Oh, that”—Evie shrugged—”that could happen to anybody. They’ve still got all the money in the world.” She sank down in a chair, a rickety old chair at the rickety old table, and for a moment I thought she was going to cry. “Please, Ed. Don’t just take the pictures from me. They’re all I got left to raise a few bucks on.”
“You must have accumulated some clothes and jewels the last few years.”
“I have to have my clothes, Ed, and I couldn’t bear to part with my jewels.”
“Okay, Evie,” I said, “I’ll be very unkind to you. I’ll take a day’s pay and you can keep the rest.”
Her eyes lighted. “Why, thanks, darling bear!” She jumped to her feet, put her arms around me and kissed me on the lips.
She drew back her face, her eyes cautious suddenly. “What do you mean by saying you’re being unkind to me?”
“You’ll understand in due time.”
“That sounds a little like an insult, Ed.”
“No, just a word of prophecy. The longer you skin through the tougher it will be when there’s no more skinning to do. Don’t ever look down, Evie. It’s a deep, dark hole on either side of that tightrope—and one of these days the rope is bound to break.”
Her face was deeply troubled for a moment. Then she forced some humor in her eyes. “Puritan,” she said. “Just a plain old Puritan.”
“That’s right, feeling sorry for you.”
“You don’t have to do that, Ed! I don’t like pity.”
“Let’s skip it. Where are the pictures?”
“Dammit, I don’t want your pity!”
“All right,” I shouted. “So the hell with you.”
“Don’t be so mean to me, Ed. I like you a lot. Can’t you see the feeling I want from you?”
“And I want those pictures. “
She jerked away from me and flounced into the bed-sitting room. “The lousy pictures are in my cottage. If that’s all you can think about, we’ll go get them.”
“That’s better,” I said.
The cottage was a love nest, but not the sticky kind. It held an air of comfort, of perfumed privacy. The thick rugs and heavy drapes softened all sound. The living-room bar held a collection of crystal and amber bottles. The world seemed a long way off.
“Like my place?” Evie asked.
“Yeah. Where you got the pictures?”
“Can’t you get your mind off work for a minute?” She swished into the bedroom, adding over her shoulder, “Help yourself to a drink.”
I didn’t want one.
She wasn’t in the bedroom long. She came back carrying a five-by-seven manila envelope.
I opened the envelope and slid the pictures out. There were half a dozen of them. All of Stephanie Collins. Not nice.
Backing the prints were the negatives.
Evie watched me with her head tilted to one side. “That’s it, the whole package. Okay?”
“Unless there are other prints drifting around.”
“If there are, Giles made them.”
“Before you snitched the package?”
“That’s right. But I’m sure he made only the one set of prints before I got the package from his apartment.”
“He isn’t going to like this,” I said.
“Oh, I can handle Giles—if we ever catch up with him.”
The door buzzer sounded, discreet and subdued. I slid the package inside my coat pocket. A caller would give me a good chance to get away and return the package to old lady Wherry.
Evie clicked the latch on the door. Somebody outside hit the house with a bulldozer. The door flew open and knocked her sprawling against me. She grabbed me to keep from falling.
Over her shoulder I saw Garcia.
He was flanked by two hefty plain-clothes cops.
Garcia looked at me and licked his lips. I saw a caged panther lick his lips like that once.
CHAPTER
14
“PLEASE, Rivers,” Garcia said softly, “just make one phony move.”
“No, thanks,” I said.
Evie disentangled herself from me. She pushed her mane of blond hair from her face. Her eyes were wide. I couldn’t tell whether it was from fear or excitement. Garcia and his pals formed a half-moon around me. “I thought you were taking a forced vacation,” I said. “I got tired of loafing.” “You got tired mighty fast,” I said.
“It just goes to show you how quick the heat can cool in this town. You’re a pretty dumb boy, Ed. You been around long enough to know the ropes.” “Yeah,” I said.
“Search him,” Garcia told his boys.
“Now wait a minute …” Evie said.
“We’ll get to you, sister. Or you want to spend ninety days in jail?”
Evie backed away until the edge of a heavy divan struck the backs of her legs.
“You can’t do this,” she said. “I have friends.”
“You had friends,” Garcia said, “until you started chumming with this cluck.”
The two cops on either side of me reached to search me.
“You got a warrant?” I asked Garcia.
He laughed.
One of the cops got my knee in his groin. The other rushed to meet my right fist with his nose. He grabbed his nose, howled and went back.
Garcia stepped in. His fists gleamed dully. The brass knucks cracked against my temple.
The room expa
nded with sudden speed. I saw the carpet coming.
I heard Garcia laugh again.
He kicked me in the belly.
“Search him, boys,” he said quietly.
In the distance, I could hear Evie weeping. She was begging them to lay off. She hadn’t done a thing. I was just a guy she’d met and invited in for a drink.
Garcia told her to shut up and the quietness of his voice had a smothering effect on her.
Garcia emptied my pockets. I pulled myself to a chair and crawled into it. My head hurt and my stomach was jerking as I watched him examine my stuff.
He sucked in his breath when he saw the pictures of Stephanie Collins.
He shifted his gaze from the pictures to me, his eyes dancing with pleasure.
“Extortion,” he said.
“Nope,” I said, holding my stomach, “just doing a chore.” “We’ll see who believes that, Rivers. You were pretty big and smart, weren’t you? Thought you’d dumped me, didn’t you? Now we’ll see. Brother, we’ll really see.”
I kept my mouth shut and at Garcia’s gesture I got to my feet.
Evie stood with her hands clasped tight in front of her. She couldn’t take her eyes off those pictures, which Garcia was holding. She watched as he slipped them into the side pocket of his tropical-weight coat. She bit her lip and I thought she was going to break out crying. She had to look away when Garcia patted the pictures snug in his pocket.
Garcia gave her a glance. “You stick around, sister. We might want to talk to you.”
Her shoulders shivered faintly. She kept her back to Garcia. She was really taking the loss of those pictures hard.
Garcia gave me a shove. “Get going, smart boy.”
Julian Patrick was in his office when we reached headquarters. I figured he’d been summoned from his home by telephone.
Julie rocked gently in the swivel chair behind his desk as Garcia followed me into the office and heeled the door closed.
“This had better be good,” Julie said.
“It is, chief,” Garcia said. “My idea panned out with a real nice surprise.” He gave me a sidelong look and grin of unholy pleasure as he moved around and dropped the manila envelope on Patrick’s desk.
The Killer Is Mine Page 9
