Michael Collins - Silent Scream

“Irving?” Jenny Kezar said. “I told you. The schemes.”

The acne scars stood out purple on his heavy face. He held onto a chair back, couldn’t seem to think of anything to say now, any way out. Jenny watched him.

“We’ve got the motive, and your gun,” I said, hammered at him and hoped he didn’t make me show the gun. “Motive enough for a lot of murders-that Andy Pappas might suspect your F.B.I. connection. When you’ve killed once, it’s easy to kill again for the same motive.”

His voice cracked. “Again? You mean… No!”

“Yes,” I said, “and Jenny’ll talk now. Why shouldn’t she, the life you gave her? Why should she go down with you?” I looked at the woman old long before her time. “Jenny, it all happened the way I said, didn’t it?”

Kezar held to his chair back, seemed to want to say something, but it wouldn’t come out. Plead with her, but too aware of how he’d treated her all the years? Gazzo watched us all, waited. Jenny Kezar sat down, looked at her still-young hands.

“Yes, it all happened just like you said. All of it,” she said. She looked up. “Except it was me. I killed Sid.”

Sometimes a silence can feel like the whole world is pushing down. A weight, no air anywhere. And sometimes you can be so sure of what you’ve seen and know, that when it turns out to be not at all the way you thought, it’s a slap, the bottom drops away. Gazzo stared at her. Kezar gripped the chair he leaned on. As surprised as we were, or worried for her? Wrong there, too?

“I killed Sid,” Jenny Kezar said. “I didn’t mean to.”

I had seen a louse who treated her like a bug, sneered at her, cheated on her in every way, beat her. She had to be miserable with him, hate him. But she wasn’t miserable, I saw that now. She was happy with him, and she loved him. Maybe because she was ugly, unsure, needed someone. Her man, no matter what else he was. Or maybe I was wrong again, judging from my own feelings. Maybe she just liked him, liked everything about him I hated. You can never be sure what people have inside.

“Sid said he knew about the F.B.I., would tell Pappas,” she said. “Irving had his gun. Sid grabbed at it, tore the button. They wrestled, the gun fell on the floor. I picked it up. Sid grabbed a poker, was going to hit Irving. I shot him. I didn’t mean to hit him, I just shot, and he fell. He was dead. The rest was like Fortune told.”

Gazzo said, “We’ve got the gun, Mrs. Kezar. It’ll show-”

“Irving held it, too. It’ll have both our prints on it,” Jenny Kezar said. “An accident, you know? My own brother, but he was going to tell on Irving, maybe get him killed.”

True or not, if she stuck to it there wasn’t any way I could disprove it-not even with the gun, but certainly not without it. Kezar thought as fast as I did, probably faster. He analyzed the situation in a second, moved into action. He went to Jenny, put his hand on her shoulder, and his voice was soothing.

“It’s all right, Jenny, don’t say any more. We’ll fight it. Sid scared you, threatened us,” Kezar said. “Read her the rights, Captain, then I’ll talk to my client alone.”

Gazzo read Jenny her rights, and Kezar took her into another room. Gazzo made sure there was no other way out.

“She’s lying,” I said to Gazzo. “Kezar shot him.”

“You won’t prove it. Your evidence is good, Dan. It’ll convict, and it’d be harder on Kezar. I think she knows that. She figures to protect him. Where’s the gun?”

I had to tell him. He looked stunned-even suspicious.

“Tricks, Dan? A sellout, all this an act? Who would want that gun besides Kezar or Jenny?”

“I don’t know, and I didn’t sell it, Captain.”

“Christ,” Gazzo swore. “Will it stand up without the gun?”

“We know how it happened.”

“You know, I know, and Jenny confessed. But when Kezar finds out we don’t have the gun, he’ll deny the confession. The rest might get us a guilty plea to low manslaughter.”

“I’ll try to get the gun back,” I said. “Right now, I want some time with Kezar. Can I have it?”

“Why?”

“I don’t think Sid Meyer was the only one Kezar got killed. Maybe I can sweat it out of him before he knows we don’t have the gun. I can try.”

“I can keep him here, but I can’t make him talk to you.”

“That I’ll handle,” I said.

Gazzo went for Jenny. He told Kezar that the lawyer couldn’t go downtown with his wife.

“I don’t owe you free transportation. She’s being held for questioning right now. You can be there when we charge her.”

“I’ve got friends, Gazzo!” Kezar said. “Judges.”

“You better talk to them then,” Gazzo said.

We went out leaving Kezar alone. Gazzo took Jenny down. I waited a moment, then stepped quietly back to the door of 6-C. I could hear Kezar dialing inside. I used my keys again, slipped inside, closed the door behind me. Kezar put down the phone.

“What do you want now?” he said. “Get out of here!”

“No,” I said.

I walked toward him. It was night outside the windows now, and the room was lost in shadows with only the small telephone stand light on.

“She saved you for one murder,” I said. “She won’t save you for the others.”

“No you don’t,” Kezar said, came away from the telephone. “You don’t accuse me of any more. We’ve got laws, Fortune!”

“You had the motive,” I said. “Pappas must have been suspicious. Only a little, maybe, but enough to look into you.”

“Pappas knew nothing! Sid never got to him!”

There was something ghostly about the shadowed room, the open window where Sid Meyer had gone out. We didn’t believe in ghosts, Irving Kezar and I, but I felt more behind me now than my own anger at a moral pimp like Kezar, and his hands shook as he tried to face me down.

“No, Sid never got to him,” I said. “Because you killed Sid. I know you did it. Okay, Jenny’ll take the fall for you. Maybe she loves you, who knows? Maybe she’s just smart, and knows she’ll look better in court, get off easier. Her own brother, a tragic mistake. Or maybe she just figures you can’t make money in jail, so she’ll take a few years so you can build the cash. But she can’t help you for Pappas and Diana Wood.”

“I told you to get out!”

I bored in. Kezar was one man I could handle physically, keep pounding. “You killed Sid because he knew about the F.B.I., could tell Pappas or Charley Albano. He’d already tried to get to Pappas through Mia. A play to scare you, sure, but Pappas heard about it, didn’t he? He began to wonder. That would be more than enough for murder-even the thought that Andy was suspicious of you.”

“You’re crazy, Fortune! A nut!”

“It all works out,” I said. “You knew Max Bagnio, you were close to Charley Albano. Who else could get that memo about Max Bagnio and show it to him, give it to him?”

“Jesus Christ, stop it!” His acne scars were like livid holes in his pasty face. “Please, Fortune. Lay off, you hear?”

“No,” I said. “You’ll let Jenny take the punishment for Sid Meyer, but no one’s going to let you rest. Never. You got that memo from Andy to Charley, gave it to Bagnio, so Bagnio would kill Andy for you!”

“You bastard! Leave me alone!”

“I’ll hound you forever, Kezar. Until you tell the truth. That you tricked Bagnio with that memo into killing Pappas and Diana Wood.”

He was pouring sweat in the dim room, cornered. Off balance from all that had happened, or maybe feeling a little dirty about Jenny. Maybe afraid people might believe me, especially the Mafia. Whatever, he broke the primary rule-he talked: