Lawrence Block - Even the Wicked

“I thought he looked sort of beleaguered.”

“Well,” he said, “that’s why.”

Cleveland’s airport is south and west of the city. Lakewood is situated on the lake, appropriately enough, and a little ways to the west of Cleveland, so we could get there without running into city traffic. Jason drove and kept up his end of the conversation, and I found myself comparing him with TJ. Jason was probably a year or two older, and looked on the surface to have had an easier time of it, blessed as he was with a white face and a middle-class upbringing. He’d had a good deal more in the way of formal education, although you could argue that TJ’s street sense was as valuable, with a tuition every bit as pricey. By the time we got to Lakewood I’d decided that the two of them weren’t as different as they seemed. They were both decent kids.

Lakewood turned out to be an older suburb, with big trees and prewar houses. Here and there you’d see a lot that the builders had originally passed up, with a little ranch house perched on it looking like the new kid on the block. We parked across the street from one of these and Jason killed the engine.

“You can’t see where the fire was,” he said. “When I drove off he was going at it with a broom. I guess he did a pretty good job of cleaning up.”

“He could have hired that same kid to scrub it for him.”

“That would be something, wouldn’t it? I don’t know if he’s home. With the garage door shut you can’t tell if his car’s there or not.”

“I don’t think I’ll have to set any fires to find out,” I said. “I’ll just ring his doorbell.”

“Do you want me to come with you?”

I considered it. “No,” I said. “I don’t think so.”

“Then I’ll wait here.”

“I’d appreciate that,” I said. “I don’t know how long I’ll be. It may be a while.”

“No problem,” he said. “I’ve still got that jar.”

I only had to ring the bell once. The eight-note chimes were still echoing when I heard his footsteps approaching. Then he opened the door a crack and saw me, and then he opened it the rest of the way.

The photos were a good likeness. He was a small and slender man, with some age showing in his pink face and some gray lightening his neatly combed hair. Close up, I could see his watery blue eyes behind his bifocal lenses.

He was wearing dark gabardine slacks and a plaid sportshirt. There were several pens in the breast pocket of the shirt. His shoes were brown oxfords, recently polished.

There was no fire raging on his stoop this time, just another middle-aged guy. But Havemeyer still sported his beleaguered expression, as if the world was just a little bit more than he could cope with. I knew the feeling.

I said, “Mr. Havemeyer?”

“Yes?”

“May I come in? I’d like to talk with you.”

“Are you a policeman?”

It’s often a temptation to say yes to that question, or to leave it artfully unanswered. This time, though, I didn’t feel the need.

“No,” I said. “My name is Scudder, Mr. Havemeyer. I’m a private investigator from New York.”

“From New York.”

“Yes.”

“How did you get here?”

“How did I...”

“Did you fly?”

“Yes.”

“Well,” he said, and his shoulders drooped. “I guess you’d better come in, hadn’t you?”

You’d have thought it was a social call. He led me to the front parlor, recommended a chair, and announced that he could do with a cup of tea. Would I have one? I said I would, and not just to be sociable. It sounded like a good idea.

I stayed there while he fussed in the kitchen, and it struck me that he might return brandishing a butcher knife, or holding the same gun he’d used to kill Byron Leopold. If he did, I wouldn’t stand a chance. I wasn’t wearing body armor, and the closest thing I had to a weapon was the nail clipper on my key ring.

Somehow, though, I knew I wasn’t in any danger. There was a greater risk that he’d seize the opportunity to turn the knife or gun on himself, and I figured he had the right. But he didn’t strike me as suicidal, either.

He came out carrying a silver-handled walnut tray bearing a china teapot flanked by a sugar bowl and a little milk pitcher. There were spoons and cups and saucers as well, and he set everything out on the coffee table. I drank my tea black, while he added milk and sugar to his. The tea was Lapsang souchong. I can’t ordinarily tell one kind of tea from another, but I recognized its smoky bouquet before I’d even taken a sip.

“There’s nothing like a cup of tea,” he said.

I’d brought a pocket tape recorder along, and I took it out and set it on the table. “I’d like to record this,” I said. “If it’s all right with you.”

“I suppose it’s all right,” he said. “Really, what difference does it make?”

I switched on the recorder. “This is a conversation between Matthew Scudder and William Havemeyer,” I stated, and mentioned the date and time. Then I sat back and gave him a chance to say something.

“I guess you know everything,” he said.

“I know most of it.”

“I knew you’d come. Well, not you, not specifically. But someone. I don’t know what made me think I could get away with it.” He raised his eyes to mine. “I must have been crazy,” he said.

“How did it happen?”

“That boat,” he said. “That awful, awful boat.”

“The ferry.”

“The Magnar Syversen. They had no business keeping the damnable boat in service, you know. It was manifestly unsafe. You wouldn’t believe how many violations they uncovered. And do you know how many people were needlessly killed?”

“Eighty-four.”

“That’s right.”

“And John Wilbur Settle was one of them.”

“Yes.”

“And you held a policy on his life,” I said. “You’d bought it through a broker in Texas who specializes in viatical transactions. You’d already been a party to one such transaction, involving a man named Phillips.”

“Harlan Phillips.”

“You made money on Phillips,” I said, “and invested it in Settle.”

“These were good investments,” he said.

“So I understand.”

“Good for all concerned. For the poor men who were horribly ill and had no money, and for those of us seeking a safe investment with a generous return. I’m sorry, you told me your name but I don’t remember it.”

“Matthew Scudder.”

“Yes, of course. Mr. Scudder, I’m a widower. My wife had multiple sclerosis, she was ill for most of the years of our marriage and died almost seven years ago.”

“That must have been hard.”

“It was, I suppose. You get used to it, just as you get used to being alone. I worked for over twenty years for the same corporation. Five years ago they offered me early retirement. ‘You’ve been such a good and faithful employee for so many years that we’ll pay you to quit.’ They didn’t use those words, obviously, but that’s what it amounted to. I accepted their offer. I didn’t really have much of a choice in the matter.”

“And that gave you money to invest.”

“It gave me money that I had to invest if I was going to have sufficient income to see me through. Savings bank interest wouldn’t be enough, and I’ve never been comfortable with risk. You flew here, didn’t you? I’ve never flown anywhere in my life. I’ve always been afraid to fly. Isn’t that ridiculous? I shot a man dead in the street, I murdered him in cold blood without turning a hair, but I’m afraid to get on an airplane. Did you ever hear anything so ridiculous in your life?”

I tried not to glance at the tape recorder. I just hoped it was getting all this.