by Ross Thomas
“He thinks he does.”
“So what’s on your mind?”
“How would you like to get Clyde Brattle off your back for good?”
Spivey didn’t answer immediately. When he did, it was with a cautious question: “Do a deal with him, you mean?”
“Something like that.”
“What kind of deal?”
“Not over the phone, Jake. But I think I’ve got an idea you two should sit down and talk about—just you, him, and me.”
“When?”
“Tomorrow night after you’re both through with the Senator.”
“Where?” Spivey said. “Where’s gonna be important, Pick. In a sitdown with Clyde, where’s gonna be almost as important as what we’re gonna talk about. So where’s where gonna be?”
“Just a second,” Dill said. He pressed the phone against his chest and looked at Anna Maude Singe, who was now lying on the bed, staring up at the ceiling. “Well?” Dill said.
She didn’t look at him. She was still staring at the ceiling when she said, “Okay. My place.”
Dill put the phone back to his ear. “I’m thinking of Anna Maude’s place in the Old Folks Home, but there’re still a couple of details to work out. Let me call you back in fifteen or twenty minutes.”
“I’ll be here,” Spivey said and hung up.
After Dill put down the phone, he turned to Singe and said, “Let’s go.”
She asked the ceiling, “I wonder why I said yes.”
Dill unlocked the door to the narrow stairway that led up to his dead sister’s apartment in the carriage house. The airless stairway was at least ten degrees hotter than the outside temperature, which seemed to be resting for the night at 91 degrees.
Followed by Anna Maude Singe, Dill went slowly up the stairs, unlocked the door on the small landing, went inside, and turned on the brass reading lamp. When Singe started to close the door, he said, “Leave it open.”
He went to the telephone, picked it up, and again called Jake Spivey. When Spivey himself answered, Dill said, “It’s me.”
“You get it worked out?”
“Well, I think it’s both neutral and reasonably secure.”
“Reasonably don’t cut it, Pick, but I’ve been thinking and, well, the Old Folks Home just might do. All we’d have to have is somebody on the stairs and at the elevator. My Mexicans can handle that. And I expect old Clyde’ll want Harley and Sid along, so what we’ll have is kind of a Mexican standoff, which’ll suit me just fine. What time you aiming for?”
“Ten tomorrow night.”
“When we gonna meet with the Senator?”
“He gets in at four tomorrow afternoon,” Dill said. “Why don’t you go out to the airport with me? I’m reserving them a suite at the Hawkins. We can all ride back together and talk in the car and then up in the suite.”
Spivey made a counterproposal. Dill had known he would. “Tell you what,” Spivey said. “Why don’t I come down at three and carry you out to the airport in my Rolls-Royce automobile? I’ve never known fancy to hurt none when you’re doing a deal like this.”
“Okay,” Dill said, “but no driver.”
“Boy, you sure like to explain things to us dumb ones, don’t you?” Spivey said and hung up.
Twenty-five minutes later they were in Anna Maude Singe’s living room, seated on the couch. She held a glass of Scotch and water and looked around the room as though seeing it for the very first time. “So,” she said, “this is where you’re going to do it—in the only home I’ve got.”
From the other end of the couch, Dill said, “Right here.”
“You still think those phone calls worked? What if neither of them were tapped? Where does that leave you?”
“I think my phone at the hotel is tapped,” Dill said. “And Jake’s is, I’m pretty sure. I’m positive—well, almost—that the phone in Felicity’s alley place is tapped. It must be by now. So whoever’s reading those taps will know Jake Spivey’s meeting here tomorrow night with Clyde Brattle. I don’t think they want that meeting to happen.”
“Why not?” she said.
“I think that’s what Corcoran found out. The why. I think that’s why he got killed.”
“But you’re not sure, are you?”
“No.”
She looked around the room again. “Something rotten’s going to happen, isn’t it?”
“Yes. Probably.”
“Here. I mean here in this room.”
“Yes.”
“What’re you going to do when it does?”
“I don’t know yet,” Dill said.
“Maybe you’d better start thinking about it.”
“Yes,” he said. “Maybe I’d better.”
Dill was up by seven the next morning, boiling water for instant coffee in Anna Maude Singe’s kitchen. He carried two mugs of it into her bedroom. She opened her eyes and sat up in bed, bare-breasted. Dill sat down on the edge of the bed, handed her one of the mugs, bent down, and kissed her right breast. She jerked the sheet up to her neck, sipped the coffee, and stared at a still life print on the far wall. Then she said, “I wonder what I’ll do when I’m disbarred.”
“You can come live in Washington for a while and when you get tired of that, we can go live somewhere else.”
She stared at him with amazement. “Why do you think I’d want to do that?”
“Because you’re my sweetie.”
“Don’t bank on it, Dill.”
At 7:49 on that morning of August 8, a Monday, Dill got stuck in the traffic near the intersection of Our Jack and Broadway. As he waited, he watched the digital time and temperature sign on the First National Bank go from 7:49 and 91 degrees to 7:50 and 92 degrees. The radio newsreader in a tired voice was predicting 106 degrees by 3 P.M.
After parking the Ford in the basement, Dill rode the elevator up to the lobby and stopped by the desk to see whether he had any mail or messages. He didn’t. The elderly woman he had taken for a permanent hotel guest was also at the desk. As she turned, she looked at him, hesitated, and then spoke.
“You’re Henry Dill’s boy, aren’t you?” she said in a soft voice.
“Yes, I am. Did you know him?”
“A long time ago,” she said. “I’m Joan Chambers.” She studied Dill for a moment or two. “You look like your father, you know. The same nose. The same eyes. He and I had a summer together once. It was 1940—the next to last summer before the war. I sometimes think it was the last good summer ever.” She paused and then added, “I read about your sister. Felicity. I’m very sorry.”
“Thank you,” Dill said.
“Excuse me, ma’am,” a man’s voice said. The Chambers woman stepped back. Dill turned. The voice belonged to Captain Gene Colder. He was no longer wearing his blue jogging suit or his Nike running shoes. Instead, he wore a nicely pressed tan mohair suit, a foulard tie, and a blue shirt whose tab collar was held together by a gold pin. Colder was also freshly shaven, but there were circles under his eyes, and the expression around his mouth was grim.
“I’ve been waiting for you,” he said, apparently indifferent to the still-listening woman.
“Why?” Dill said.
“We know who killed your sister,” Colder said.
“And high time, too,” said the woman who had spent her last good summer with Dill’s father. Then she turned and walked away.
CHAPTER 32
At a corner table in the coffee shop of the Hawkins Hotel, Colder explained how it wasn’t his idea to inform Dill of the department’s findings. He had come, he said, only at the insistence of the chief of detectives, John Strucker. “I’ve been here since seven,” he added.
“Who killed her?” Dill said.
The waitress arrived at that moment and Colder ordered coffee, orange juice, and rye toast. Dill said he wanted only coffee. When the waitress left, Colder brought out a small flipback notebook and began to talk, not quite reading from his notes.
“A warrant was o
btained from District Judge F. X. Mahoney at 11:57 P.M., Sunday, August 7. The warrant was served and a complete search was made of the premises at 3212 Texas Avenue, which are owned by Felicity Dill, deceased, and occupied by Harold Snow, deceased, the tenant, and by Lucinda McCabe, also a tenant and the deceased Snow’s common-law wife. The search was conducted by Detective Sergeant Edwin Meek and Detective Kenneth Lowe under the supervision of Captain Eugene Colder. Chief of Detectives John Strucker was also present.”
“Who killed her?” Dill said.
Colder didn’t reply. Instead, he started to read from the notebook again, but was interrupted by the waitress, who placed coffee in front of Dill and coffee and juice in front of Colder, informing him the toast would be along in a jiffy. Colder picked up the glass of orange juice and drank it down. Then he went back to the notebook.
“At approximately 12:41 A.M., a gray steel locked toolbox was discovered. The toolbox was hidden under and behind two bedspreads and three suitcases in the closet of the bedroom occupied by the deceased Snow and his common-law wife, McCabe. Upon questioning, McCabe insisted she had no idea how the toolbox had got in the closet.”
Colder stopped his recitation because the waitress arrived with the rye toast. He put the notebook down to butter the toast. He ate one piece, drank some coffee, and picked up the notebook again. Dill watched him silently and wondered what had taken place between Colder and Strucker, and how nasty the argument had been.
Colder again read from the notebook. “The toolbox lock was forced by Sergeant Meek, who then opened the toolbox in the presence of Chief Strucker, Captain Colder, Detective Lowe, and Lucinda McCabe.” Colder looked up at Dill. “Then there’s a whole list of things we found in the top tray, but I’m not going to read those.”
Dill nodded.
“In the lower compartment of the tray, the following items were found, removed, and tagged by Sergeant Meek:
“One—Ten thousand two hundred dollars in one-hundred-dollar bills.
“Two—four fulminate of mercury blasting caps.
“Three—a .25-caliber Llama automatic pistol, serial number—” Colder broke off and looked up at Dill again. “You want the serial number?”
Dill shook his head no.
Colder closed the notebook. “Well, that’s it. The Spanish piece is at ballistics. They’re checking whether it’s the one that killed Clay Corcoran. If it is, then it means Snow wired up Felicity’s car for a price, and then killed Corcoran, who must have been on to him. Your next question is going to be, who killed Harold Snow? We don’t know yet. And that’s why I argued against telling you what we’d come up with. You’ve got a loose mouth, Dill, and you move around in pretty funny circles. I told Strucker I didn’t think you’d keep your mouth shut about this, but he told me to tell you anyway. Maybe he figures you can swing him a few votes when he runs for mayor. But that’s none of my business either. So. Any questions?”
Several seconds went by before Dill shook his head and said, “I don’t think so.”
“I don’t know if knowing who killed Felicity makes you feel any better or not. I hope it does.”
“I guess I feel about the same.”
“So do 1. Snow was just hired help. Nailing the bastard who hired him is the only thing that’ll make me feel any better.”
“Harold Snow,” Dill said thoughtfully.
“Harold Snow,” Colder agreed.
“Ten thousand bucks.”
“Ten thousand two hundred.”
“Somehow,” Dill said, “I thought killing Felicity would’ve cost a whole lot more.”
Dill rode up to his room in the elevator alone. Just as he passed the sixth floor he smiled a wry, almost sad smile and said aloud, “Well, Inspector, I guess that wraps this case up.”
In his room, he showered and shaved. Wearing only his shorts, he lay on the bed, his hands folded behind his head, and stared up at the ceiling. At ten o’clock, he ordered a pot of coffee. At one, he had them send up a ham sandwich and a glass of milk. When he finished his lunch, he put the tray out in the hall, sat down at the desk, and outlined the facts as he knew them. When he was done he tossed the ballpoint pen onto the desk, almost certain he would never know who had actually had the bomb wired to his dead sister’s car.
At 2:30 P.M. he picked up the phone and called information for the number of the police department. He then dialed the number and asked for Chief of Detectives John Strucker. Dill had to identify himself to two officers, one male and one female, before he was put through.
After Strucker said hello, Dill said, “It wasn’t Harold Snow, was it?”
“Wasn’t it?”
“No,” Dill said. “Harold was from Kansas City.”
“Kansas City,” Strucker said.
“It hadn’t occurred to you—Kansas City?”
Strucker produced one of his sighs—a long mournful one that seemed to go on forever. “It occurred to me.”
“When?”
“About eighteen months ago.”
“You’re away ahead of me, aren’t you?”
“It’s what I do, Dill. It’s what I’m good at.” Strucker sighed again, wearily this time. “Don’t fuck it up for everybody, Dill,” he said, and hung up.
Dill rose from the desk, took his blue funeral suit from the closet and laid it on the bed. From the bureau drawer he took his next to last clean white shirt. He dressed quickly, mixed himself a Scotch and water with no ice, and drank it standing by the window, staring down at Broadway and Our Jack Street. When he finished the drink it was five minutes till three. He turned and started for the door. He passed the bureau, stopped, and went back. After a moment’s hesitation, he opened the bureau drawer and from beneath the wad of soiled shirts took out the .38 revolver that had once belonged to Harold Snow. Dill stared at the revolver for several seconds. You don’t need it, he told himself. You wouldn’t use it even if you did need it. He put the pistol back beneath the soiled shirts, closed the drawer, stood there for a second or two, opened the drawer again, took out the pistol, and shoved it down into his right hip pocket. There was a full-length mirror on the door that led out into the corridor. Dill noticed the pistol made almost no bulge at all.
When Jake Spivey’s gray Rolls-Royce Silver Spur sedan pulled up in front of the Hawkins Hotel, it was, according to the First National Bank’s sign, 3:01 P.M. and 105 degrees.
Dill got into the air-conditioned car and waited until Spivey had pulled out into the traffic before he said, “How long’ve we known each other, Jake?”
Spivey thought about it. “Thirty years, I reckon. Why?”
“In all those thirty years, did you ever imagine that one day you’d be picking me up in front of the Hawkins in a Rolls-Royce?”
“Wasn’t ever a Rolls,” Spivey said. “Back then I always thought it’d be a Cadillac.”
They drove west on Forrest, which had been named after the Confederate general Nathan Bedford Forrest. Some old-timers, mostly from the deep South, had once called it “Fustest Street” in honor of the general’s strategy—or tactics—which had been to get there fustest with the mostest. Dill had heard the story from his father, although he himself had never heard anyone call it Fustest Street. When he asked Spivey about it, Spivey said his granddaddy had called it that, but his granddaddy had been a real old geezer who’d been born in 1895 or thereabouts.
As they drove through the rebuilt downtown area they tried to remember what had once stood on the sites of the new buildings that had gone up—or were still going up. Sometimes they could remember; sometimes they couldn’t. Spivey said it made him feel old when he couldn’t.
“Why’d you come back here, Jake—really? It wasn’t just to grow yourself a briarpatch. You could’ve done that anywhere.”
Spivey thought about it for a while. “Well, hell, I guess I came back for the same reason Felicity never left. It’s home. Now you, Pick, you always hated it. I never did. I remember that summer you were eleven and your old man took y
ou up to Chicago and you saw the first body of water you couldn’t see all the way across. I thought I’d never hear the end of it. Chicago. Jesus, you made it sound like a fuckin’ paradise. But I got up there when I was seventeen or eighteen and all I saw was one big horseshit town that some folks who talked funny’d built on a big old dirty lake.”
“I still like Chicago.”
“And I still like it here because I understand the sons of bitches here and, like the fella says, that means it’s home. And I guess home is where I wanted to grow my briarpatch and show off how rich poor little old Jake Spivey done went and got.” He grinned. “That’s part of it. Showing the sons of bitches how rich you got.”
“Revenge,” Dill said.
“Don’t knock it.”
“I don’t,” Dill said. “I don’t knock it at all.”
When they were halfway to Gatty International Airport, Dill asked a question whose answer he thought he already knew. It was the first of a series of questions whose answers might decide who lived, who died, and who wound up in jail.
Dill made the first question as casual as he could. “When’d you say you saw Brattle last?”
“About a year and a half ago—in Kansas City.”
“You said you went up there just to sign some papers.”
“Well,” Spivey said, drawing the word out, “it might’ve been just a little more’n that, Pick.”
“How?”
“Clyde was pretty pissed off at me. He thought I owed him—owed him enough to lie for him to the Feds. I had to tell him I didn’t owe anybody that much. Well, we’d had a few drinks and he started rantin’ and ravin’ about how if I wouldn’t testify for him, I sure as hell wouldn’t ever testify against him. So I told him to take his best shot. And he told me I could count on it. So I popped him one, and he popped me back, and about that time Sid and Harley rushed in and broke it up before we both had heart attacks. And then old Clyde looked at Harley and Sid and pointed at me and said, ‘See him?’ And they said, yeah, they saw me all right. Then Clyde gets all dramatic and says, ‘Well, take a good look at him because he’s a dead man, you understand what I’m saying?’ Then it was either Harley or Sid, I don’t remember which now, who said something like Sure, Clyde, we understand all right. I guess it must’ve been Harley who said it. Well, our business was all done, the papers all signed, so I got out of there and flew back home and hired me a mess of Mexicans.”
