William Haggard - The New Black Mask (No 5)

“I told him I loved her. That we were almost engaged. Fleming wouldn’t believe me. I told him to wait outside, last night, I could prove it easily. He thought that if I were right, she could help us.

“I walked down to his car. This was after the accident. There was lightning on the horizon, like a bad movie. I told him they’d been recording everything I said. He laughed and said he knew it. I asked to see his gun. I didn’t tell him about Sue. When I shot, there was all this light. I thought lightning had struck by us. Then it smelled like blood and toilets. I wiped off the gun. I wrote it all down. You just have to read it.”

Ralston asked gently, “I don’t understand. Why did you shoot Fleming?”

“He would have known right off I killed her. He said she was working for Piggott.”

His head shook blindly, and he jerked forward in his seat.

“He would have been sorry for me. I couldn’t have faced him if he had known. Isn’t that a dumb reason? It doesn’t even make sense. But she told me she wouldn’t have given the cassettes to Piggott. She told me. She loved me. We were almost engaged.

“You and I,” he said, “would have been brothers-in-law.”

He lifted his head.

“Are you corrupt, Mr. Ralston?”

“Not always,” Ed said at last. He glanced again at his watch, and his heart pulsed. “Will you come with me and make a formal statement?”

“I wrote it down.”

“We still need a statement.”

“OK.”

He rose slowly, a sleepwalker awake in his dream. He looked slowly around the room. “This is real, isn’t it? I keep thinking that I’m going to wake up, but I am awake.”

Ralston said, “You better hurry. I think Piggott knows you were there last night. He knows Sue… had an accident. He’ll want to ask you about it.”

“I pushed her away from me and she fell.”

“He doesn’t know that.”

“It’s just that simple. I pushed her away and she fell.”

“We have got to get moving.”

He followed the boy into the bedroom, watched him find a coat, pick up wallet, keys, money from the dresser.

“Not that.” He took a fat pocketknife from Tommy’s fingers.

“Dad gave me that.”

“You’ll get it back. Better give me the cassettes, too.”

“Sure.”

They left the apartment. Driving rain lashed their faces. As they came into the parking lot, a black sedan jerked to a stop before them. Its doors opened, like an insect spreading its wings, and Buddy and Elmer bobbed out.

Ralston whispered urgently, “You left the house early. Nothing happened.”

“But that’s a lie,” Tommy said.

The two men splashed toward them. Buddy’s mouth was opened. He stopped before Ralston, hunching in the rain, hands jammed into his pockets. “Goin’ somewhere, Champ?”

Elmer said, “Hello, Tommy. I think we met once at Sue’s. Mr. Piggott would appreciate it if you could stop by and see him.”

Tommy nodded gravely. “I’d like to see him. I have a lot to say.”

Elmer looked respectfully at Ralston. “Mind if we borrow him, Ed?”

Ralston looked at Buddy’s weighted pocket. He said, “I was just going that way, myself. Might as well join you.”

They sat in the rear seat of the rain-whipped car. Elmer drove. Buddy, in the front seat, sat turned, looking at them.

Tommy lay back on the brown leather upholstery, his unshaven face wan in the pale light. His eyes were closed. His lips twitched and jerked with internal dialogue.

When they had driven for a quarter of an hour, he said unexpectedly, “Mr. Ralston?”

“Yes?”

“It feels — it’s rather complicated to describe. It’s as if I had been walking along someplace high and it fell apart under my feet. I feel as if I am in the act of falling. I’m suspended. I haven’t started to fall yet. But I will. I don’t understand how I feel. Is that guilt?”

“It’s lack of sleep.”

“I think it is the perception of guilt.”

“Get some sleep if you can. Keep quiet and get some sleep.”

Buddy said sharply, “Nobody asked you, Ralston. Let the kid talk. What’d you do, kid?”

Tommy’s unkempt head threshed right and left.

Ralston jerked hands from pockets as he said, “Tommy, keep quiet,” in a savage voice.

“Can it, Ralston,” Buddy said.

“Screw you.”

Buddy’s arm flashed across the seat. He hit Ralston on the side of the head with a revolver. Ralston grunted and, trying to turn, was struck twice more.

He let himself fall loosely into Tommy’s lap. To his surprise, he felt himself rising very swiftly up a shimmering incline. As he rose, he thrust the knife he had taken from his pocket into Tommy’s hand. Light turned about him in an expanding spiral, and his speed became infinite.

He awoke almost at once. His nose and cheek were pressed against Tommy’s coat. Elmer was snarling at Buddy with soft violence. Tommy was saying, “Mr. Ralston, Mr. Ralston,” his voice horrified. The blows, Ralston decided, had not been hard. He reasoned methodically that the angle for striking was wrong, and therefore insufficient leverage existed for a forceful blow. This conclusion amused him. Tommy’s coat faded away.

When it returned, he heard Tommy saying: “You're bleeding.”

“Let it bleed,” he muttered.

He levered himself erect. His stomach pitched with the movement of the automobile and, when he moved his head, pain flared, stabbed hot channels down his neck. He closed his eyes and laid his head back against the seat and bled on Piggott’s upholstery until the car stopped. He felt triumphant, in an obscure way.

The door opened. Ralston worked his legs from the car, gingerly hauled himself out. Rain flew against his face. Pain hammered his skull, and nausea still worked in him. He stood swaying, both hands clamped on the car door until his footing steadied.

Buddy stood smirking by the open door.

Ralston hit him on the side of the jaw. The effort threw white fire through his head. He fell to his knees. Buddy tumbled back against the side of the car, striking his head on the fender. He lay in the rain, eyes blinking.

Ralston staggered up, got his hand in Buddy’s pocket, removed a heavy .38 with a walnut handle, a beautiful weapon. He stood swaying as Elmer glided around the side of the car.

Looking down at Buddy, Elmer said, “He never got past the third round, anytime.”

“Let him lay,” Ralston said, with effort.

“Gotta take him in,” Elmer said. He and Tommy hoisted Buddy between them, hauled him loose-legged, foul-mouthed, into the white hall. They flopped him into a chair, walked toward Piggott’s office. The ham-faced youngster bumbled up from his chair, stared round-eyed at them.

“Mr. Piggott’s busy,” he said.

“Go back to sleep,” Ralston said, and pushed the door open.

Piggott was working at his table, shuffling papers with two other men. He looked sharply up as Ralston came in, then began to chuckle. “Ed, it must have been a strenuous morning.” He glanced at the two men. “Boys, let’s chase this around again in half an hour, OK?”

They left silently, not looking around, their arms full of paper.

Tommy, at the table now, looking down on Piggott, asked, “Mr. Piggott, why did you feel it necessary to involve Sue?” His voice was formal and mildly curious. “I mean — I should say, in your efforts to entrap me.”

Glee illuminated Piggott’s face. “Lordy, Tommy, there wasn’t a thing personal. You’re a real nice boy. Sue just completely enjoyed it.”

Amusement shook his shoulders. He added, “Now, don’t you take it too hard. Women just fool men all the time. It’s their way.”

Tommy said in a clipped voice, shoving hands into his pockets, “I blamed her at first. I made a serious mistake. I should have realized that you were responsible. I was most certainly warned. But she would never have turned those cassettes over to you. She loved me, and she wouldn’t have countenanced blackmail.”