Michael Collins - Silent Scream

He was building it, flogging himself, suffering. Maybe because he’d turned to Emily Green so fast. He would settle for what he could have. Most of us do. But we don’t like to face that.

“Who saw you up there?” I said.

Emily Green said, “A lot of people did! In the village!”

“At two A.M.?”

“We were in bed then! Both of us!” the girl said, blushed.

Hal smiled at her. “He has to ask, Em.”

“I’m sorry, Miss Green,” I said. It couldn’t have been easy for her, in Hal’s bed. “All right, what were you doing the last four weeks, Hal?”

He leaned forward, intense. Wallowing in it, the tragic love. Well, why not, if it helped in the end? Purge it, get it out.

“She moved out two days after you saw us last. Pappas could do anything, I guess-get an apartment, furnish it, in two days. He got her a lawyer, too. She filed for the divorce. Mental cruelty, or whatever. I wouldn’t fight her, you know? I took your advice, started seeing Emily. It helped.”

Emily Green touched him, mothering. Albano came back.

“Pappas filed for divorce, too?” I asked.

“I wouldn’t know,” Hal said, hard against Pappas.

Albano said, “In Nevada. He’s got residence there, power. Stella didn’t fight him, either.”

“Not that way anyway,” I said. “What else, Hal?”

“That’s all,” he said. “Worked, saw Emily, drank a little.”

I knew he was lying, had to be. Not because it showed, but because I’d been down the same road more than once.

“Damn it, Hal, tell it! You followed her again, watched her, couldn’t keep away. Doorways across the street from that apartment, in the shadows when they went out, phone calls at midnight. Tell me, Hal, I’ve got to know what Max Bagnio thinks he wants!”

He nodded, miserable. “You know how it is, Dan.”

I knew. “You hung around, watched. What did you see?”

“Nothing, Dan, I swear. I didn’t even know she’d gone to Miami until three days after she went!”

“There has to be something. Bagnio is looking for something, Hal. What he thinks you have or thinks you know.”

John Albano said, “Maybe the girl knew something, Dan. Diana. Maybe Max thinks she told Wood, talked too much.”

“She never talked about Pappas,” Hal said. “Not even his name until after that night Dan was here.”

“There has to be something,” I said. “Think, Hal.”

He shook his head. His mind would have been on Diana.

“There was this older woman at her office,” Hal said. “They had lunch. Diana didn’t talk much. Small woman, dressed up, fat.”

“Stella?” I said to Albano. “She met Diana, went to her?”

Albano said, “She’d try. Andy had girl friends before.”

“Did this woman go to Diana’s new apartment, Hal?” I said.

“No. Some men did, when… Pappas was there. A short, paunchy guy with bad skin and a lot of rings. I remember the rings. Dunlap, too. I guess Dunlap’s her friend, he lied for her.”

Irving Kezar, but I knew he knew Pappas, and Lawrence Dunlap was her friend and boss. I was pretty sure Dunlap had known Andy was her man. They’d probably met at one of his business parties.

“There was a tall guy,” Hal said. “Real tall, and skinny, and ugly. He was hanging around outside a few times.”

John Albano said, “Mia probably visited Andy there. Stern might have waited outside for her.”

“Yeh,” I said. “You didn’t see Max Bagnio with Andy, Hal?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t notice the guys with him much.”

“Something,” I said. I paced. “Small, insignificant. Did you find anything, Hal? Maybe Diana left something.”

“No,” he said, and bitter, “nothing except me.”

Captain Gazzo steps lightly. He was in the apartment before I heard him. Two of his men were behind him. He looked at the wreck, and at all of us. I told him what had happened.

“You all right?” he said to Hal.

“I’m all right. I just wish I knew what Bagnio wanted.”

Gazzo nodded to his men. They began to search the rooms.

“You think Bagnio’s been following you?” Gazzo said.

“I think someone has. I’m not sure it was him.”

“You want protection? I can assign one man.”

“I can’t hide. If he wanted me dead, he could have done it.”

I said, “He’s just after something he thinks Hal has.”

“Or thinks someone has,” Gazzo said. “Maybe Max doesn’t know who has whatever it is. Trying everyone.”

It was a possible new angle, and while his men searched the debris of the apartment, Gazzo asked Hal all the same questions I had. He got the same result, nothing, except that he thought maybe Bagnio was trying to learn if Hal knew something.

“Why tail Wood otherwise?” Gazzo said.

After an hour, his two men found nothing connected to Pappas.

“We’ll keep looking for Bagnio,” Gazzo said. “Mr. Albano, I’d like to talk to you downtown, get a statement.”

Albano left with Gazzo and his men. I sat down, lit a cigarette. Emily Green sat close to Hal. He watched me.

“Why, Dan?” he said. “Because they have to kill each other?”

I smoked. “Gang war or purge. Probably. But the police don’t seem to think so this time.”

“What do they think? What do you think?”

“I don’t know what the police think,” I said. “If it’s not the gang, it’s one of three things. Private murder for hate, or ambition, or maybe fear. Family honor, the divorce an insult. Or some big business scheme, the thieves fell out. Maybe a deal Sid Meyer was involved in.”

“Nothing to do with Diana? Killed for nothing?”

“She was the cause of what Andy did, or maybe she was mixed in the deal,” I said. “Or she just picked the wrong man.”

“Great,” Hal said. “That’s just great!”

Emily Green said, “She didn’t care what she did to you. It’s awful, and I’m sorry, but she did it to herself!”

On the cot she held his arm, possessive. An awful thing, but her eyes shined. Diana’s tragedy, and her chance.

I got up, walked to the studio window. The back yards below were dark and still in the cold February night. Over a month since Mia Morgan had hired me, and I felt forces down there in the shadows. Forces that had killed Diana Wood.

“I’m going to find out, Dan,” Hal said behind me. “After this tonight I want to know what killed her and who.”

“Don’t be stupid,” I said. I turned. “What the hell could you do? Stumble around, not even know where to start.”

“I want to know, Dan. I want to hurt the bastard!”

I turned back to the window. “I’ll find him.”

“With me along. I’ve got time coming to me.”

“Maybe, we’ll see,” I said. He could be useful. Bait.

I left them together in the studio. Emily Green touched his face, not sorry to see me go.

On the cold street I stood for a time just breathing the sharp air. Fresh air to clear the stifling weight of Hal’s thick wallowing in an unfair universe. He was playing it for high tragedy, the star-crossed lovers. He’d been a soldier, in combat, he’d seen death before. But, then, maybe not this close. That’s one of the few gains we’ve made-today most people can reach forty without ever seeing anyone close to them die. Maybe it helped him to forget that he’d already lost Diana.

I turned toward First Avenue and a taxi, and stopped. The gun was in my back. I never saw him, didn’t hear him. He was just there, behind me, so small I couldn’t see even a vague shape over my shoulder. Only the hard muzzle of the gun at my spine.

“Turn around, walk easy down to Avenue A,” Max Bagnio said.

I walked to Avenue A. Hunched against the cold, no one looked at us. He must have had the gun in his pocket. I didn’t try to find out. If I’d had my old cannon, I might have tried to use it. I’d lose. Which is why I don’t carry it much.