Lawrence Block - Even the Wicked

“Maybe.”

“Or he could be tired of the game. Or for all we know he could have stepped in front of a bus.”

“Or he could have been sitting on a park bench,” I said, “and somebody could have shot him by mistake.”

“Somebody who didn’t even know who he was.”

“Why not?”

“Why not indeed? You’re not thinking about that friend of a friend you mentioned, guy got gunned down on Horatio Street.”

“Well, that’s probably where the park bench came from,” I admitted, “but I think we can safely rule out Byron Leopold. It was a full day’s work for him to walk across the street and pick out a bench to sit on.”

“So you’ve made a little progress, my friend. You’ve ruled one man out.”

“I’ve ruled you out, too.”

“Decent of you.”

“And myself,” I said, “because if I was Will I’d remember. And Elaine, because if she’d done anything like that I’m sure she would have told me.”

“Because the two of you have an open and honest relationship.”

“Absolutely,” I said. “And Marty McGraw.”

“What kind of a relationship have you got with him?”

“None,” I said, “but I ruled him out. He was addressing a dinner of Police Athletic League supporters while Will was taking out Patsy Salerno up in the Bronx, and he was right here in New York when Roswell Berry got his in Omaha.”

“Aborted in the fourth trimester,” Ray said. “He mention this in a column? I must have missed it.”

“I checked him out myself.”

“Seriously?”

“Adrian said something about Marty wanting an exclusive interview,” I said, “and in the next breath explained he’d wanted to do it over the phone, not face to face. But that put the idea in my head. I figured the police would have checked him out six different ways, but I couldn’t see how it would hurt to see for myself.”

“The whole business has been good for McGraw, hasn’t it? I can see how he’d want to keep the pot bubbling. But he didn’t do it.”

“I’m afraid not.”

“And neither did you or I or Elaine, or all the guys recovering from bypass surgery. Or your friend who got shot, but it could have been somebody else who got shot or stabbed or fell off a building. Will, the world’s foremost anonymous killer, could have been iced by somebody who didn’t even know who he was.”

“There’s irony for you.”

“He could have died some kind of anonymous death, and we’ll never know who he was. Be a hell of a thing for Adrian, wouldn’t it?”

“How do you figure that? He’d be off the hook.”

“Think about it.”

“Oh.”

“You’re only off the hook if you know you’re off the hook,” he said. “How long before you let the bodyguards go? How much longer before you can really relax?”

I thought about Whitfield, and after dinner I gave him a call. I left a message on his machine. It was nothing urgent, I said, and evidently he took me at my word, because I didn’t hear from him.

I saw him on the late news, though. There’d been no developments, but that wouldn’t stop them from pressing him for comments. It was the same principle that kept Will’s name on the front page of the Post.

He was on the news again the following evening, but this time there was a story to go with it. His trial, due to go to the jury in a week to ten days, had been abruptly settled, with his client agreeing to plead to a lesser charge.

I went to a meeting at St. Paul’s. I was still carrying the little elephant around with me, and Ginnie showed up so I gave it to her. I was going to leave on the break but I’d been doing that a lot lately, so I made myself stay to the bitter end. It must have been around ten-thirty when I got home, and I was pouring a cup of coffee when the phone rang.

“Matthew Scudder,” he said. “Adrian Whitfield.”

“I’m glad you called,” I said. “I saw you a couple of hours ago on the news.”

“Which channel?”

“I don’t know, I was watching two or three of them at once.”

“Channel surfing, eh? A popular indoor sport. Well, I think we’d have won if it went to the jury, but I couldn’t advise my client to roll the dice. He’s essentially getting off with time served, and suppose the jury should wind up seeing it the wrong way?”

“And there’s always that chance.”

“Always. You never know what they’re going to do. You may think you know, but you can never be sure. I thought they were going to convict Richie Vollmer.”

“How could they? The judge’s instructions ruled that out.”

“Yes, but he stopped short of a directed verdict of acquittal. They wanted to convict, and more often than not a jury will do what it wants to do.”

“A conviction wouldn’t have stood up.”

“Oh, no way. Judge Yancey could very easily have thrown it out on the spot. If he’d let it stand I’d have knocked it out on appeal.”

“So Richie was going free no matter what they did.”

“Well, not right away. What I thought would happen — do you want to hear all this?”

“Why not?”

“I thought Yancey would let it stand, knowing the appeals court would reverse it. That way he wouldn’t be the man who put Richie on the street. And I thought Richie’d go off to prison, where some public-spirited psychopath would kill him before his appeal could go through. Like the fellow in Wisconsin. Well, it amounts to about the same thing, doesn’t it? Except the psychopath who actually did kill Richie isn’t a convict, and it turns out he’s a serial killer himself.”

“How are you holding up, Adrian?”

“Oh, I’m all right,” he said. “It takes some of the pressure off to know I don’t have to go to court tomorrow. At the same time there’s the bittersweet feeling you get whenever something ends. A trial, a love affair, even a bad marriage. You may be glad it’s over, but at the same time you’re a little bit sorry.” His voice trailed off. Then he said, “Well, nothing lasts forever, right? What goes up comes down, what starts stops. That’s the way it’s supposed to be.”

“You sound a little blue.”

“Do I? I think it’s just that I’m running out of gas. The trial was keeping me going. Now that it’s over I feel like a puppet with the strings cut.”

“You just need some rest.”

“I hope you’re right. I have this superstitious sense that the trial was holding Will at bay, that he couldn’t take me out as long as I had work that had to be done. Now all of a sudden I’ve got a bad feeling about the whole situation that I never had before.”

“You just didn’t allow yourself to feel it before.”

“Maybe. And maybe I’ll feel better after a good night’s sleep. I know goddam well I’ll feel better after a drink.”

“Most people do,” I said. “That’s why they put the stuff in bottles.”

“Well, I’m going to uncap the bottle and let the genie out. It’ll be the first one today. If you were here I’d pour you a club soda.”

“I’ll have one here,” I said, “and think of you.”

“Have a Coke. Make it a real celebration.”

“I’ll do that.”

There was a pause, and then he said, “I wish I knew you better.”

“Oh?”

“I wish there were more time. Forget I said that, all right? I’m too tired to make sense. Maybe I’ll skip that drink and just go to bed.”

But he didn’t skip the drink.

Instead he went into the front room, where one of his bodyguards was posted. “I’m going to have a drink,” he announced. “I don’t suppose I can talk you into joining me.”

They’d gone through this ritual before. “Mean my job if I did, Mr. Whitfield.”

“I wouldn’t tell anybody,” Whitfield said. “On the other hand, I want you razor-sharp if our boy Will comes through that door, so I shouldn’t be pushing drinks at you. How about a soft drink? Or some coffee?”