Bill Pronzini - Deadfall

“Snuff bottles, too,” Washburn said. “And humidors, cigarette boxes-anything rare and valuable connected with tobacco.”

I made a note on the pad in front of me; I had been making notes right along. While I was doing that Eberhardt burst in. He doesn’t just walk into a room, like most people; he barrels in as if he’s one of the vanguards in a raiding party. Washburn, looking startled, swung around on his chair. I got up, saying, “Just my partner,” and introduced them.

Eberhardt wanted to know if he was intruding; I said no, Washburn’s and my business was about finished. He nodded, muttered something about it being like an icebox in here, poured himself some coffee, and went to his desk and picked up his phone.

I said to Washburn, “So your theory is both Kenneth and Leonard were killed by the same person-Leonard so he wouldn’t expose the truth about his brother’s death.”

Washburn nodded. He seemed a little ill at ease now that someone else was in the room.

“But why didn’t Leonard expose the truth? Why contact the murderer instead of the police? Why let him or her know that the crime against Kenneth had been found out?”

“Leonard might have been trying to make him admit something incriminating, just so he could be sure. He had to’ve known the person; he must not have believed his own life was in danger.”

Plausible answers-up to a point. But it still didn’t quite add up for me. I said as much to Washburn. I also pointed out to him that Leonard’s murderer didn’t have to be the same person who had pushed Kenneth to his death- if Kenneth had been pushed. It could just as easily have been the man on the telephone.

“But what motive would he have? Leonard must have paid him the two thousand dollars; the police didn’t find it in his office and it certainly isn’t in the house.”

“Maybe he didn’t give Leonard the name once he had the payoff,” I said. “Maybe he didn’t have a name; it could have been a straight extortion ploy, no truth to it at all. And maybe he demanded another payoff and went to the house to collect it. Leonard refused, the man threatened him with a gun, something happened to make him use it…”

“Yes, I see what you mean. But I don’t really care who it was, or why; I just want him caught and put in the gas chamber.” He folded his pale, delicate hands together again. “You know, it’s funny,” he said. “I never believed in capital punishment until now. Now I want to go to San Quentin when the time comes and watch that motherfucker die. ”

I didn’t say anything. There was nothing to say to that.

“You will work for me?” he said. “Do what you can to find him?”

I kept silent a while longer. The thing was, I felt sorry for him. He was so small and alone, sitting there, so empty; and I kept seeing him the way he’d been last Thursday night, after he had looked into the dining room and seen what was left of his lover. I couldn’t turn him down. How could I turn him down?

“If the police have no objections,” I said finally, “yes, I’ll investigate what you’ve told me. But you have to understand that if they don’t think Kenneth was murdered, or that there’s any connection between his death and Leonard’s, chances are they’re right and I won’t find out anything.”

“I understand. But they’re not right, I know they’re not.”

“Also I don’t come cheap,” I said. “I get two hundred and fifty dollars a day plus expenses.”

“That doesn’t matter. Money doesn’t matter. I have enough.”

“All right then.” I got one of the agency contracts out of the desk and filled it in and had him sign it. Then I asked, “Where can I reach you? You’re not staying at the house?”

“No. I couldn’t spend a night there, not any more. It was all I could do to make myself go back last Friday to take inventory for the police. I’m staying with a friend.” He gave me a name and an address on upper Market, on the fringe of the Castro district, and said that he would be there days as well as nights, at least until next Monday: he had taken a leave of absence from his job at Bank of America. He also gave me a check for a thousand dollars and insisted I let him know when I wanted more.

When all of that was done I went with him to the door, and shook his hand, and watched him walk away to the stairs. And I thought: It’s not just for him. It’s for Leonard, no matter what kind of man he was-and for me, too. Because I saw Leonard crawling in his own blood in that dining room; because I was there with my hand on him when he died.

My second visitor of the morning showed up fifteen minutes after Tom Washburn left. And if I had been surprised to see Washburn, I was literally struck dumb by the appearance of this one.

I might have been gone when he came in-I had plenty of things to do, now, outside the office-but Eberhardt insisted on telling me a couple of jokes he’d heard at some party in Noe Valley the night before. Eb is a social animal, a party-goer, whereas I prefer Kerry’s company whenever possible, or a pulp magazine’s if I can’t have hers. He was forever trying to drag me to this or that shindig, large and small, stag and co-ed. The first time I’d weakened and given in, I had been bored and uncomfortable. The second and last time, I had gotten sick on somebody’s lousy fish canapes that turned out to be loaded with salmonella. Eberhardt’s circle of friends does not include any gourmet cooks.

Anyhow, he’d heard these two jokes and thought they were hilarious. The first one had to do with a beautiful blonde, a well-endowed Texan, a copy of the Kama Sutra, and a billy goat; it was long and involved and had a punchline that was not worth waiting for and that I promptly forgot, along with the rest of the joke. The second story was much shorter and somewhat funnier, not that it was exactly a tickler of ribs or a splitter of sides.

“So this guy goes into a drugstore one night. He’s just been married, it’s his wedding night, and he’s kind of nervous. He tells this to the druggist and then he says his new wife doesn’t want to get pregnant on their honeymoon so she sent him in to buy some protection. He doesn’t know much about stuff like that, he says — he’s still a virgin, see-so could the druggist show him what to buy.”

“Uh-huh,” I said.

“So the druggist shows him a rack of condoms, right? The guy looks ‘em over, picks a brand, and asks how much. The druggist say,???????????????????‘Two dollars plus tax.’ The guy turns pale. ‘Tacks?’ he says. ‘Jeez, I thought those things were supposed to stay on by themselves.’ ”

Eberhardt was laughing uproariously, and I was chuckling a little, when the door opened and the second visitor walked in. I had never seen him before and as it turned out, neither had Eberhardt; but one look at him and both of us quit laughing. He was that kind of guy. Mid-forties, six-two or so, lank brown hair, handsome in a saturnine sort of way; stiff-backed and solemn-eyed and pinch-mouthed. Wearing a three-piece charcoal-gray suit, a slender blue-checked tie, and black shoes polished to a high gloss. He reminded me of an undertaker. You just knew, looking at him, that there wasn’t a funny bone in his body. If he’d come in in time to hear either of Eberhardt’s jokes he wouldn’t have cracked a smile. He might not even know how to crack a smile.

He stood just inside the door, looking around in a disapproving way, like an investigator for the Board of Health. He studied Eberhardt; he studied me. Then he nodded once, strictly to himself, and came my way and stopped in front of my desk.

I said, “May I help you?”

He said, “Fornication is a sin, sayeth the Lord.”