Джордж Хиггинс - The New Black Mask (No 4)

I nodded. “I’ll check with you tomorrow. It’s been better than two weeks. The double might be getting ready to show himself again.”

James Trapper shook my hand at the car. “It’s been a pleasure, Mr. Darlan.”

“Please call me Al.”

“I know my son is in good hands, Al.”

“I hope so.”

The next morning I met with Isaac Rath in the executive suite of Winton’s company. He was a balding man in his sixties, with brown spots on the backs of his hands. He frowned at me and said, “I don’t quite understand the reason for this meeting, Mr. Darlan.”

“Craig Winton has hired me about a personal matter. I’d be interested in anything you could tell me about him.”

Isaac Rath touched the tips of his fingers together. “Craig is one of the finest executives. He runs our investments division and has full authority over a good share of company funds.”

“I know that much already. I guess what I’m getting at is this. Would it be possible for someone impersonating Winton to get his hands on any large amount of company money?”

“Impersonating—? I don’t understand.”

I tried to make it simple. “Could Craig Winton, or someone pretending to be Craig Winton, steal any money from this company?”

“Well, of course! He could divert investments into phoney accounts. He could—”

“Thank you, Mr. Rath. That’s all I wanted to know.”

I went back to the office and waited for the kid to call in. I waited all afternoon and never heard from him. Finally I went home to my apartment, hoping nothing was wrong. It was after dark, around ten o’clock, when the phone finally rang.

“Al?”

“Mike! Where in hell are you?”

“At the Expressway Motel.” His voice sounded awful. “Al, could you get out here fast? Craig Winton’s dead. Somebody shot him in the parking lot.”

“OK, kid. Are the cops there?”

“I just called them.”

“I’ll be along.”

I had to drive through downtown anyway, so I went up to the office for just a minute. I got my revolver out of the old iron safe.

A ring of police cars had their spotlights trained on the body as I walked up. The police photographer was snapping pictures and Sergeant O’Keefe was standing off to one side. I got near enough to see that Winton had been shot at least once in the center of the chest. Then I went over to O’Keefe.

“That was your client?” he asked, looking up from his notebook. “His wife’s driving down to make an official identification.”

“Yeah. Where’s the kid?”

“Trapper? Inside with one of my boys. His story is that he was waiting in his car for Winton to leave the meeting. Apparently Winton decided to leave early, before the meeting broke up. Trapper didn’t see him, but he heard a shot. He found Winton dead between a couple of parked cars, with no one else around.”

“I want to see him,” I said. “Now.”

O’Keefe led me into the motel. Mike was seated in a corner of the lobby with one of the detectives. He looked terrible. O’Keefe motioned his man away and let me have a few words alone with the kid.

“Look,” I said, “first of all, it’s not your fault. There’s nothing you could have done.”

He looked like he was going to cry. “I bungled it, Al. And now he’s dead!”

“Tell me everything that happened, right from the beginning. When’s the last time you saw him alive?”

“When he drove his car up to the motel and went inside.”

“How come you didn’t check in with me this afternoon?”

He looked edgy. “I was out at Winton’s house for a while, seeing if his wife had any new information.”

“All right,” I said with a sigh. “What happened tonight?”

“I scouted the area before Winton drove up. There was no sign of a double or anything else out of whack. He parked the car and went into his meeting. I already knew it wouldn’t be over till ten o’clock so I sat in the car playing the radio. Once the meeting started I didn’t notice anyone else in the parking lot at all. Winton had gone in the motel’s front entrance and I figured he’d come out the same way. But he came out the side door instead. The first thing I knew, I heard a shot. I got out of the car and ran over and found him lying out there between the cars.”

“There was no sign of anyone else?”

He shook his head. “I called the police, and then I phoned you. I didn’t know what to do.”

I had an empty feeling in the pit of my stomach. “Kid,” I said quietly, “let me have your gun.”

“What?”

“If you didn’t see Winton before he was shot, how’d you know he came out the side door?”

“I—”

“Come on, give me your gun.”

He froze then, staring at me with that terrible expression on his face, and I wondered what I would do if he resisted. My fingers were only inches from my gun, but I knew I couldn’t shoot him any more than I could have shot my own son.

His shoulders slumped and he pulled the revolver from its belt holster. I took it and opened the cylinder. All five chambers were loaded but I could catch the unmistakable scent of gunpowder in the barrel. It had been fired recently. “You killed him, didn’t you, kid?” He couldn’t meet my eyes. “Yeah,” he said huskily, close to tears. “I killed him.”

I put my hand on his shoulder. “Was it that wife of his, Mike?”

He raised his head then. “Is that what you think? She had nothing to do with it! I was watching for the double and Winton came out the wrong door, a half hour early. I called to him and he acted funny, started going the other way. When I went after him he pulled out something that looked like a gun. I panicked and shot him.”

“Why didn’t you tell the police that?”

“Because I was scared when I saw that I’d killed the real Winton. The police didn’t find any weapon by the body and I knew I’d made a terrible mistake. Don’t you realize that?”

I realized it. I realized I’d have to phone his dad and tell him what had happened. He’d been too fast to pull a trigger, and we were both going to pay for it.

I walked over and handed the gun to O’Keefe. “Here’s your murder weapon,” I said. “The kid’s ready to tell the truth now. For God’s sake, go easy on him.”

I didn’t go home that night. Instead I went back to the office and sat in my swivel chair staring out at the city. I wanted to go down to Headquarters just to be near him, but I knew there was nothing I could do for him now. After a long time I fell asleep in my chair, and when I woke up it was morning.

I drove through the streets only beginning to come awake, not knowing at first just where I was headed. I passed out of downtown, away from the jail where they’d be holding Mike until his dad came up with the bail money. I just drove.

After a while it came to me where I was headed. Maybe I’d known all along. The suburban traffic was all headed into the city as the morning rush hour began, and I made good time going against the stream. It was just eight o’clock when I pulled into the driveway of the Winton ranch home. Craig Winton’s car was in the garage.

It took me five minutes of ringing the doorbell before she’d answer. When she finally came she was wearing a rumpled T-shirt and faded jeans, looking like she was dead instead of her husband.

“God, what is it? What do you want? Haven’t you done enough to us already?”

“I’d like to come in, Mrs. Winton. It’s very important.”

She seemed ready to bar my way, but finally she stepped aside. “You’ll have to forgive me,” she said, passing a hand over her eyes. “I took a sleeping pill and I just woke up.”

“I’m sorry about what happened to your husband.”