Walk a Black Wind

by Michael Collins

  I found the Mayor’s office on the second floor where he waited for me alone now. It was a big, austere office, and Martin Crawford seemed smaller behind his desk. He also seemed tired. Maybe it was too much civic-minded meeting.

  “You have some news, Mr. Fortune?” he asked.

  He was the first one in Dresden who’d asked that, who hadn’t been more concerned with who my client was.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “We don’t have much to work with.”

  He nodded. “The New York police sent a man here. But where do you look for what killed a girl out in a jungle?”

  “She’d left home before. Four years in college, even the summers away. She knew how to be alone on her own.”

  “College, even a big California farm, is a lot different from New York, Fortune.”

  “It is,” I agreed. “Have you heard from Felicia?”

  “Felicia?” he said, exactly as his wife had. They say people grow like each other in a long marriage. “What should I have heard from her? She’s not mixed in this!”

  I told him what I’d told Mrs. Crawford. “Whatever it is she knows, or thinks she does, she’s scared enough to carry a gun and trust no one.”

  “But what? Something about Francesca?”

  “I’d say so,” I said. “Something Francesca told Felicia she wouldn’t tell you or your wife. Your wife admits she was apart from the twins. Were you apart from them too?”

  His blue eyes seemed to lose light, and his polished public face wentloose like a man who is unsure. There was something about the way it happened that said it had happened before, often. A private face now that hinted at confusion, weakness, ineffectuality. As if his public manner was a façade, a front of confidence, and under it he was hollow and accustomed to having someone else make the real decisions that he carried out with his public smile and lawyer’s eyes.

  “I was busy, up in Albany so much,” he said. “I left them to Katje. Then, later, it seemed too late. At least for Francesca. I leaned over backwards to get to know her. She never helped. Yet I think I loved the older girls best, in a way.”

  “Felicia could be in danger,” I said bluntly. “Francesca was killed for a reason, and the killer won’t take a chance on Felicia whether she knows anything or not as long as she’s running around acting as if she does.”

  “What can I tell you?” Crawford said. “What do I know?”

  “About Abram Zaremba and the Black Mountain Lake development,” I said.

  His manner changed as if a steel rod had gone up his spine. The impression of softness, indecision, vanished. Whatever gave him that aura of ineffectuality wasn’t in his official work. The lawyer faced me now.

  “What concern is that to you?” he snapped.

  “It concerned Francesca, right? She fought it?”

  “Conservationists! A bunch of juveniles and old women who don’t have any idea of reality. A mayor has many things to consider, Fortune. It was my opinion that the benefits to the city, the desperate need for housing, out-weighed the ecological factors. That was my decision, and it stands unless the people throw me out, which is their right.”

  Before he finished his speech, a door to the left opened, and Anthony Sasser stepped quietly into the room. The businessman got around. I wondered if he’d been listening all along in an adjacent office? He moved with ease, a man in his own backyard. He sat down to my left, silent and alert. I ignored him, faced Crawford.

  “Who else objected to the project besides conservationists?” I said. “Maybe the taxpayers? Or maybe they would object if they knew how the deal was arranged? You built a dike at public expense, maybe paid Zaremba even for the land you built the dike on? You put a nice road into Zaremba’s lodge. You created a drainage district so the taxpayers can buy bonds, the taxpayer foot the whole drainage bill? Drainage that will make useless land a goldmine?”

  “It’s a proper arrangement under our conditions,” Crawford said. “Land is limited here. Zaremba’s land, when reclaimed, will benefit the whole community.”

  “But first it benefits Abram Zaremba—a lot,” I said.

  Anthony Sasser spoke from my left. “Abram Zaremba is a businessman, he made a smart investment. It’s all legal.”

  “You in on the project?” I asked Sasser.

  “I wish I was,” Sasser said. “It’s a good deal for everyone. Marty there is right.”

  “Mark Leland didn’t think it was a good deal for everyone, did he?” I said.

  Sasser tilted his chair back and rocked in the quiet office. I had a feeling that I had just started walking on eggshells. Mayor Crawford’s voice was low and smooth. The lawyer addressing a jury he wanted to impress with his gravity, but firmly set straight at the same time.

  “How do you know that, Fortune?” the big Mayor said. “The police here don’t know what Leland was doing in Dresden. We found no documents, and his lone partner doesn’t even know what Leland was really doing. If you have information about Leland, you should tell our police and Crime Commission.”

  “You don’t know he was investigating the Black Mountain Lake project?” I said.

  “No,” Crawford said, “we don’t. Why would he, there’s nothing to investigate. How do you think you know?”

  “Leland talked to Francesca about it. Didn’t she tell you?”

  “No, she didn’t,” Crawford said, “not a word.”

  “She told Felicia.”

  Sasser said, “Hearsay. Maybe Felicia got it wrong. My Crime Commission found no evidence of what Leland was doing, and nothing wrong with the project. I’m not in the project, but I’ve worked a lot with Commissioner Zaremba, and I’d be careful about accusing him or the city government.”

  His voice was matter-of-fact, but I heard the warning in it. So did Martin Crawford. His lawyer manner slipped into a smile, man-to-man, smoothing the ruffled waters.

  “There are always nuts who think every public deal has to be crooked, Fortune,” he said, friendly. “They smell a shady deal when there isn’t one. It’s a way to get a reputation with the public. You get used to that in government.”

  “This nut was dangerous enough to someone to be killed,” I said. “Someone thought there was trouble around.”

  Anthony Sasser said, “No one knows why Leland got killed. Maybe he got in trouble someplace else.”

  “A coincidence he was killed here, and that Francesca saw the killer, and now she’s dead?”

  Crawford said, “The police, and Tony there, questioned her carefully, showed her every mug book. All she saw was a man running, her identification was useless.”

  “Maybe she saw more than she said, or someone thought she had,” I said. “You seem pretty anxious to think Francesca wasn’t mixed up in the project.”

  Crawford let a silence stretch for a time as if he were thinking about Francesca and the project—a daughter and an important political situation.

  “I back the project, Fortune,” he said slowly. “We need the housing, that land is the best we can get. I must follow my judgment. It’s a normal, legal business arrangement.”

  “Maybe that’s what’s wrong with it—it’s legal, but not exactly ethical or moral,” I said.

  “If you can find anything legally unethical,” Crawford snapped, “I’ll kill the project myself.”

  “You’re a good lawyer, and Abram Zaremba probably has better lawyers,” I said. “It’ll be legal as hell, but there are legal deals that aren’t so moral. Favors, collusion, private arrangements that never show, little tricks of dealing. I’ve known legal deals that sent citizens for their guns when they figured out how they were getting fleeced. That drainage district, for instance. I’ll bet the only land in it is that swamp of Zaremba’s. A neat way of making the public foot the bill for draining one man’s land.”

  Crawford said, “The city, in my judgment, needs the project. Inducements are often necessary to entice a private businessman to help the city.”

  Sasser said, “Every public project
benefits someone in our country, Fortune. You can’t build a sandbox without using someone’s land and paying him for it. A man has a right to make money on his property.”

  “It looks like Mark Leland didn’t think so.”

  Sasser said, “Maybe Leland was a crook out for himself. Blackmail to get cut in. A guy like that could ruin a good project, and that could make some people awful mad.”

  “That justifies murder, Sasser?” I said.

  “No, but maybe it explains it,” Sasser said softly.

  They both sat like impassive Buddhas in the quiet office. Were they telling me something? Had Mark Leland been out to make a nuisance of himself, stir up doubts, in the hope of being bought off? It had happened before.

  I said, “Tell me about Joel Pender. He works for you?”

  “Pender?” Crawford said, surprised. “He’s a minor employee, useful for small jobs, yes.”

  “He’s worked for the city quite a while?”

  “Eighteen years, yes. He’s useful, sort of an errand boy. He’s good at that kind of thing, reliable.”

  “Would he like to be part of your family?”

  “My family? How the devil—”

  Sasser said, “He means Francesca and Frank Keefer. You know, Marty, Keefer was making a big play for Fran.”

  Crawford watched me. “You think Keefer, or Joel Pender, might have killed her? That’s crazy, no.”

  “Keefer was in New York when it happened, she’d dropped him just before she vanished. Pender had a fight with her. I’ll bet she could make people pretty mad, right?”

  “She had a sharp tongue,” Crawford admitted. “But if Keefer wanted her, why would he—”

  “Men lose their heads over women. Or maybe make mistakes.”

  “Then find out, Fortune!” Crawford said.

  Sasser said, “What makes you think the motive has to be up here, Fortune? She was gone three months. A wild kid.”

  “She was excited by something here before she left, and she’d been involved with Mark Leland and the housing project.”

  Martin Crawford leaned across his desk at me. “Listen, Fortune. We don’t know why Mark Leland was killed, but it’s clear that whatever the reason was it ended with Leland. Three months have passed with no trace of the killer. Leland had a partner, George Tabor. No one has touched Tabor. If Francesca or Tabor had known anything, do you think the killer would have waited three months, let them walk around to talk to almost anyone in that time? No. Do you think I’d cover anything that had led to the murder of my daughter? Do you?”

  I said, “I don’t know what you’d do.”

  They both just looked at me.

  10.

  I checked into a motel not far from Black Mountain Lake. George Tabor was listed in the telephone book. I called from my room, late as it was, and he answered. I told him my name, and that I wanted to talk to him about Mark Leland. He had a flat, colorless voice.

  “There’s nothing I know,” he said. “I told the police.”

  “It’s two murders now, Tabor,” I said. “Your partner had talked to Francesca Crawford, now she’s dead. I want to know what he was doing with her.”

  “Using her,” Tabor’s blank voice said. “The way he used everyone else.”

  “I still want to talk to you,” I said.

  He breathed slowly on the other end. “All right. Come over,” and he gave me the address.

  I got my old pistol from my bag. Tabor had been close to Mark Leland. I drove to the address. It was a large park of garden apartments in a new suburb. A place for professional men, junior executives on the way up, and middle-aged businessmen who were as high as they would go. Tabor lived in the second building, third floor. He met me at his door.

  He was a tall, thin man with the unsure eyes of a door-to-door salesman who wasn’t doing well. He walked me inside without speaking. The television set was on to a football game. A can of beer stood on a table beside an easy chair. Tabor sat down in the easy chair, his eyes fixed toward the TV set. He waved me to a seat. I sat down.

  “The Jets are ahead,” Tabor said. “Fourth quarter.”

  On the TV the quarterback completed a long pass. Tabor sipped his beer, leaned forward to watch the dark-shirted defenders swarm down the white-shirted receiver.

  I said, “You worked with Leland on the Black Mountain Lake project? Investigating it?”

  “I don’t know what Mark was working on,” he said. “Damn!”

  The damn was for an interception on the TV. The Jets had been stopped. Tabor watched the teams change.

  “His partner?” I said. “And you don’t know his work?”

  “We need linebackers,” Tabor said as the enemy gained five yards up center on the TV. “Mark wanted publicity, had ideas of running for office. He was working on his own.”

  “Not working for any client? Any group?”

  There was time out on the screen, but Tabor continued to watch. “No,” he said.

  “You know that much? Negative, but nothing positive?”

  “Mark didn’t tell me what he was doing, or what he’d found if anything,” Tabor said, drank his beer, watched the TV screen where the Jets had the ball now.

  “Why did he go to Francesca Crawford?”

  “I don’t know he did,” Tabor said, moved forward in his chair as the Jets acted. “Look at that? What a catch! Go, go, go! He’s loose! He … damn! It’s okay, we’ll score soon.”

  I said, “You can’t help me at all?”

  “There! Off-tackle, right, right—” Eager in his chair, battling through the line with the ball carrier. “I’m in all private practice now. Corporation stuff. No politics.”

  “Leland’s work dropped? That was fast.”

  “Touchdown!” Tabor cried, turned to me with glittering eyes. I didn’t even look at the screen. His eyes looked away. “I’m no hero, Mr. Fortune. Mark is dead, buried.”

  “Dead and forgotten?”

  Tabor watched the kickoff on the screen. Behind us the outer door opened. Tabor didn’t turn. I had heard no key in the door lock, it had been left open. I turned. Abram Zaremba stood in the room, the door shut behind him. He was alone.

  “Out,” Abram Zaremba said.

  He wasn’t talking to me. George Tabor went to a closet, got a coat, and walked out of his apartment. Zaremba went to the TV set and turned it off.

  “Jets win by two touchdowns,” he said, sat down facing me. “Who are you working for, Fortune?”

  “So you got to Tabor? Gave him some business work?”

  “I got to Tabor,” he said. “Now I get to you. How much?”

  “For what?”

  “For your client’s name, and for walking away.”

  “I don’t have a client. I liked Francesca Crawford.”

  “You never met the girl until a morgue slab.”

  “If you know that, you know what she was doing in New York. You knew who she was, all about her. You were watching her.”

  “I watch what concerns my business.”

  “Like Mark Leland, Zaremba?”

  “Commissioner to you,” he said. “Don’t talk too much.”

  He leaned, and slapped me across the mouth. I jumped up, my one fist balled, ready to hit him. An automatic response. But I didn’t hit him. I just stood there. He was smiling.

  “You want to hit me, Fortune?” he said. “Go ahead. Look, I don’t carry a weapon,” and he opened his elegant suit coat to show me. “I’m alone, right? Sure, I am. Go ahead.”

  I didn’t move. Suddenly, there seemed to be doors all around me, open windows, other rooms where his men could be hidden and watching. My neck crawled. He almost purred, he was so pleased with himself, with his power.

  “I’m no match for you, even with that one arm. You’ve got a gun in your pocket, right? What’s stopping you? Go on, take a chance, maybe I’m really alone. No one around.”

  I was sure he was alone, but could I take the chance? No. His men could be behind any door, at
any window. It’s how men like him win—the fear of what they might do, can do.

  I said, “You don’t want me dead. Not yet.”

  “That would be stupid,” he nodded. “But better silent and dead, than silent and alive to talk to someone else.”

  “A warning, Zaremba?” I said, my throat very dry.

  “I don’t warn,” he said, disgusted with me. “If one means business, a warning simply alerts the enemy. If one doesn’t mean business, the warning rarely has the desired effect. Men who are dangerous enough to need a warning rather than just a suggestion are usually much too intent on what they want to heed a warning. No, action counts, warnings dissipate force. If I intend to strike, Fortune, I don’t warn. I’m not warning you, I’m simply offering to pay for information. What I’ll do if you refuse, I haven’t considered yet. It would depend on what you really know, and that’s hard to assess.”

  There was just enough cold calculation in the speech to make me shiver inside. Menace without threat—the possible dangers left for me to consider. Up to me to decide where the balance lay. Was he stating his case openly, or bluffing me?

  “You won’t hurt me, not when I might know something,” I said. “That’s logical.”

  He sighed at me. “Logical? Rational? I make my living because people are rarely rational, Fortune, or logical. What people think is rational is only making what they need to do and be seem right and true. Ever see the man who is furious at the way the Commies send writers to jail when the writers do what the Commies don’t like, turn around and favor, censoring all writers who don’t agree with him, picket un-American movies? Are you any better? Am I? No. Maybe I know what’s logical, but maybe my private irrationality makes me act against logic.”

  “You should have gone into politics.”

  “It’s easier to buy politicians. Do I get the name?”