Donald Westlake - The Busy Body

That much Engel believed, that she hadn’t known she was putting a death sentence on him with her little frame. As for the rest, it would wash a lot of hogs. In order to set things straight, therefore, he took a couple minutes out to explain to her just why the frame had been so lethal, and then he took a couple minutes more to explain that the Menchik murder was an additional frame growing out of the first one. “That’s what you did to me,” he said.

“Well, good heavens,” she said. “Good heavens. I’m terribly sorry, I really am. I don’t know what I can do about the murder, but I can surely set things right with your boss. I’ll call Herbert Rose and the others right this minute and tell them to go to your boss and tell him the truth.”

Engel pointed. “There’s the phone,” he said.

“You doubt me?” She got to her feet and went over to the phone and dialed. “Herbert, please,” she said, and then a minute later, “Herbert? This is Mrs. Kane.” Her voice had noticeably harshened. “I’m changing my mind about Mr. Engel. I want you to go back and tell the truth, admit that you lied about Mr. Engel.”

Engel went over and took the phone out of her hand and listened. “—beat me up or some such—” It was the voice of Herbert Rose all right. He handed the phone back to her.

She gave him a look that said “smarty pants,” and into the phone said, “I don’t care about that, Herbert. You tell them the whole truth, except for my name. Don’t tell them my name, just say Mr. Engel will explain that part of it. But tell them you were forced to do it and you’re sorry. And I’ll call the others and tell them the same thing. Yes, I will. You do that right now, Herbert. Yes, Herbert. Good-bye, Herbert.”

She made four more phone calls, all of a same order, all equally legitimate, and when she was done she said, “There! All fixed.”

“Except for the murder rap.”

“Well, your bosses started that, so let them stop it.”

“Yeah, sure.”

“I’ve done what I can,” she said. She seemed to be pouting now, as though she’d expected him to be more pleased.

“There’s still more,” Engel said.

“What more could there be?”

“Why’d you steal Charlie Brody? Where is he now? Why’d you kill Merriweather?”

“Steal — kill — what?”

“No,” said Engel. “ You didn’t do it all, that isn’t your style. You send other people to do it for you. Like you sent Rose to take care of me, because he could do it and you couldn’t. So I suppose you had Kurt Brock get the—”

“I never heard that name in my—”

“I saw you go in his apartment yesterday afternoon, when he told you I’d been there. That’s why you called me to have dinner with you, so you could find out what I was up to.”

She seemed really angry now. “I have no idea,” she said, “what you’re talking about.”

“I’d just left him before you got there,” Engel said. “I was still out front.”

“That’s impossible. I would have seen you!”

“You were in too much of a hurry to see Brock!”

“Kurt Brock is nothing to me, nothing. He consoled me in my grief, that’s all, I have no connection with him, I don’t even know why you bring him up.” Now she was distraught, a lace handkerchief being rummaged in her hands. “Why be jealous of him?” she cried. “In comparison with you he’s—”

“Stop that!”

“Don’t shout at me!”

Engel opened his mouth, then shut it and inhaled instead. Then, softly, he said, “All right. I won’t shout. I’ll just tell you what I know, and when I’m done you tell me the rest.”

“I’m beginning,” she said, “to get tired of—”

“If you keep interrupting,” he said, “I’ll have to shout.”

She closed her mouth with a snap, and turned her head to glare toward the pier glass.

Engel said, “Your style is send somebody else to do the job. Send Rose to take care of me. Send Kurt to get Charlie Brady’s body. Did you kill Merriweather yourself, or did you send somebody else to do that, too? And will you tell me for Christ’s sake what you wanted with Charlie Brady’s body?”

She jumped to her feet. “What about you?” she shrieked. “Charlie Brady’s body, Charlie Brady’s body, can’t you think of anything else? You’ve been driving me crazy, you never stop, what’s the use of it? The man’s dead, what do you want with his body?”

“What do you want with it?”

“Nothing, I don’t have it, I don’t know what you’re—”

“You’ve got it!” Engel snapped at her. “You didn’t get it yourself, you sent somebody else to get it for you, but you got it! What do you—?” And he stopped, open-mouthed.

She looked at him. “What?” she said.

“Uh huh,” he said. He was looking into the middle distance, but his expression was more as though he were looking inward, watching a movie being screened on the inside of his skull. “Yeah,” he said, and nodded. “That’d do it,” he said.

“Do what?” She came closer to him, dropping the handkerchief in her distraction. “What are you thinking now?”

“Things going bad,” he said. “Spending faster than you earn, you’d do it, that’s your style. And stealing from the business, that’d fit in. And probably owe the government back taxes. Everything closing in all at once.” He spread his arms around. “You’ve got a place like this—”

“We rent the top two floors,” she said quickly. “That helps with taxes and upkeep. Murray and I just live here and downstairs.”

“A Mercedes,” he said, “That’d be your car, your husband would have a car of his own, a Cadillac...”

“Lincoln,” she said. “Continental. Cadillac is common.”

He nodded. “That’s right. Everything goes together nice.”

“I wish,” she said, “I really wish I knew what you were talking about.”

He looked around, and there was another set of closed double doors at the far end of the room. He moved toward them, slowly, saying, “It’s easy when you look at it right, put everything together the right way. Like a jigsaw puzzle. Like you always send somebody else to do what you can’t do, you do that all the time. So the only question is, what did you send Charlie Brody to do that you couldn’t do yourself?”

“You are completely out of your mind. Come away from there.”

“And the answer,” he said, his hands touching the doors, “is that you sent Charlie Brody to take the place of” — he slid the doors open — “you,” he said to the heavy-set glint-eyed man standing there in the darkness.

The heavy-set man smiled, and took a gun from his pocket, and aimed the gun at Engel.

“Murray Kane,” said Engel. “You’re Murray Kane.”

“How do you do, Mr. Engel,” said Murray Kane.

Behind Engel, the woman said, “Now see what you’ve done? You’ve just made things impossible for yourself.”

“My wife is correct, Mr. Engel,” said Kane. “You have made things impossible for yourself.”

“Insurance,” said Engel. He didn’t have time yet to think about the mess he was in; he’d just figured things out and he was still involved with fitting all the pieces in place. “You’ll be insured to the hilt, and your wife collects. Your debts die with you, and your wife can sell the business. The two of you take off for anywhere, Brazil, Europe—”

“The Caribbean,” said Kane.

“And you’re set for life.”

Kane smiled again. “For death,” he said softly. “Set for death.”

“So,” said Engel, “your wife got close to Kurt Brock—”

Kane’s smile soured a trifle. “Perhaps a bit too close,” he said, and directed his sour smile past Engel to his wife.