Джордж Хиггинс - The New Black Mask (No 4)

“Someone caught it on a bad day,” I said.

“How much to go on with the investigation, Mr. Walker?”

“Nothing, Mrs. Corcoran. I just wanted to hear you say it.”

She smiled then, a little.

“What progress have you made?” asked Millie.

“I’m chasing a lead now. If it gets any slimmer it won’t be a lead at all. But it beats reading bumps.” I got the package of prints out of my coat pocket, separated the original of Corcoran and Tommy from the others, and gave it back to Mrs. Corcoran. “I’ve got twenty-five more now, and at least that many places to show them. When I run out I’ll try something else.”

She looked at the picture. Seeing only one person in it. Then she put it in her robe pocket. “I think you’re a good man, Mr. Walker.”

Millie Arnold saw me to the door. “She’s right, you know,” she said, when I had it open. “You are good.”

Attractive, too.

There was a gymnasium right around the corner on Greenfield. No one I talked to there recognized either of the faces in the picture, but I left it with the manager anyway along with my card and tried the next place on my list. I had them grouped by area with Southfield at the top. I hit two places in Birmingham, one in Clawson, then swung west and worked my way home in a loop through Farmington and Livonia. A jock in Redford Township with muscles on his T-shirt thought Corcoran looked familiar but couldn’t finger him.

“There’s fifty dollars in it for you when you do,” I said. He flexed his trapezius and said he’d work on it.

I’d missed lunch, so I stopped in Detroit for an early supper, hit a few more places downtown, and went back to the office to read my mail and call my service for messages. I had none, and the mail was all bills and junk. I locked up and went home. That night I dreamed I was Johnny Appleseed, but instead of trees every seed I threw sprang up grinning Monroe Boyds and hulking Delbert Riddles.

My fat photographer neighbor greeted me in the foyer of my building the next morning. He was chewing on what looked like the same Marlboro butt, and he hadn’t been standing any closer to his razor than usual. “Some noise yesterday,” he said. “Starting a range up there or what?”

“No, I shot a shutterbug for asking too many questions.” I passed him on the stairs, no small feat.

I entered my office with my gun drawn, felt stupid when I found it empty, then saw the shattered glass from the poster frame and felt a little better. I swept it up and called my service. I had a message.

“Walker?” asked a male voice at the number left for me. “Tunk Herman, remember?”

“The guy in Redford,” I said.

“Yeah. That fifty still good?”

“What’ve you got?”

“I couldn’t stop thinking about that dude in the picture, so I went through the records of members. Thought maybe his name would jump out at me if I heard it, you know? Well, it did. James Muldoon. He’s a weekender. I don’t see him usually because I don’t work weekends, except that one time. I got an address for him.”

I drew a pencil out of the cup on my desk. It shook a little.

It was spring now and no argument. The air had a fresh damp smell and the sun felt warm on my back as I leaned on the open-air telephone booth, or maybe it was my disposition coming through from inside. Charlotte Corcoran answered on the eighth ring. Her voice sounded foggy.

“Walker, Mrs. Corcoran,” I said. “Come get your son.”

“What did you say? I took a pill a little while ago. It sounded—”

“It wasn’t the pill. I’m looking at him now. Blond and blue, about four feet—”

The questions came fast, tumbling all over one another, too tangled to pull apart. I held the receiver away from my ear and waited. Down the block, on the other side of Pembroke, a little boy in blue overalls with a bright yellow mop was bouncing a ball off the wall of a two-story white frame house that went back forever. While I was watching, the front door came open and a dark-haired man beckoned him inside. Corcoran’s physique was less impressive in street clothes.

“Tommy’s fine,” I said, when his mother wound down. “Meet me here.” I gave her the address. “Put Millie on and I’ll give her directions.”

“Millie’s out shopping. I don’t have a car.”

“Take a cab.”

“Cab?”

“Forget it. You’ve got too much of that stuff in your pipes to come out alone. I’ll pick you up in twenty minutes.”

It was all of that. The road crews were at work, and everyone who had a car and no job was out enjoying the season. I left the engine running in front of the brick complex and bounced up the wrought-iron steps to where Millie’s door stood open. I rapped and went inside. Charlotte Corcoran was sitting on the sofa in her robe and nightgown.

“That’s out of style for the street this year,” I said. “Get into something motherly.”

“Plenty of time for that.”

I felt my face get tired at the sound of the voice behind me. I turned around slowly. Millie Arnold was standing on the blind side of the door in a white summer dress with a red belt around her trim waist and a brown .32 Colt automatic in her right hand pointing at me.

“You don’t look surprised.” She nudged the door shut with the toe of a red pump.

“It was there,” I said, raising my hands. “It just needed a kick. I had to wonder how Boyd and Riddle got on to me so fast. They couldn’t have been following Mrs. Corcoran without Stendahl and LeJohn knowing. Someone had to tell them.”

“It goes back farther than that. I made two calls to Texas after spotting Frank at the mall. The first was to his old partners. I can’t tell you how much they appreciated it. If I did, I’d be in trouble with the IRS. Then I called Charlotte. Throw the gun down on the rug, Mr. Walker. It made an ugly dent in my sofa when you were here yesterday.”

I unholstered the .38 slowly. It hit the shag half-way between us with a thump. “Then, when Mrs. Corcoran arrived, you talked her into hiring the biggest investigative firm you knew. You figured to let them do the work of finding Corcoran. It probably meant a discount on Boyd and Riddle’s fee.”

“It also guaranteed me a bonus when Frank got dead,” she said. “Krell giving the case to you threw me, but it worked out just fine. When I got back from shopping and Charlotte gave me the good news, I just couldn’t wait to call our mutual friends and share it.”

“My cousin,” said Mrs. Corcoran.

Millie showed her teeth. Very white and a little sharp. “You married a hundred-thou-a-year executive. I’d have settled for that. But if it wasn’t enough for him, why should what I make be enough for me? I met his little playmates that time I visited you in Austin. I had a hunch there was money to be made. When I called, they told me just how and why.”

“What happens to us?” I asked.

“You’ll both stay here with me until that phone rings. It’ll be Boyd giving me thumbs up. I’ll have to lock you in the bathroom when I leave, but you’ll find a way out soon enough. You can have the condo, Charlotte. It isn’t paid for.”

“The boy had nothing to do with Corcoran’s scam,” I said. “You’re putting him in front of the guns too.”

“Rich kid. What do I owe him?”

“They won’t hurt Tommy.” Mrs. Corcoran got up.

“Sit down.” The gun jerked.

But she was moving. I threw my arm in front of her. She knocked it aside and charged. Millie squeezed the trigger. It clicked. Her cousin was all over her then, kicking and shrieking and clawing at her eyes. It was interesting to see. Millie was healthier, but she was standing between a mother and her child. When the gun came up to slap the side of Mrs. Corcoran’s head, I tipped the odds, reversing ends on the Smith & Wesson I’d scooped up from the rug and tapping Millie behind the ear. Her knees gave then and she trickled through her cousin’s grasp and puddled on the floor.