Michael Collins - Act of Fear

‘Yeh,’ Swede said. ‘I figured something like that.’

I nodded slowly. They were all looking away from me. They were studying the walls or the floor, examining their hands.

‘Why did he kill Tani, Swede?’

Magda Olsen answered for Swede. ‘Jake don’t kill no one.’

I watched her. Her face was a rock. Unbreakable and impassive.

‘You know better,’ I said.

‘We don’t know nothing,’ Magda Olsen said.

‘Yeh,’ Swede said quickly. ‘We don’t know nothing. Jake he don’t kill no one.’

As usual, Swede talked too much. He did not see the ridiculous contradiction of his words. None of them did. Or they did, but they did not care. They had given me the official communique. That was their story: they knew Roth had killed no one, and they also knew nothing. But what about Jo-Jo? He had run.

I felt uneasy. Something was odd. They knew nothing, that was their story. They were behind Jake Roth — and yet Jo-Jo had run. Why?

‘You figured that Roth wanted that ticket, and Jo-Jo had it,’ I said. ‘How come Jo-Jo didn’t give it to Jake?’

Swede seemed to find something very interesting on the floor. ‘We don’t know Jake needs it so bad.’

I considered Swede, and thought about the time sequence. Jo-Jo took the ticket. Swede recognized the licence number. Swede guessed that Roth had been driving the car. Swede had heard about Stettin. Okay. But at that point, Thursday night, they did not know about the murder of Tani Jones. Her body had not been found until early Friday morning when the maid arrived.

‘You found out by Friday morning,’ I said.

Alert, they would have known about Tani Jones almost as soon as the police. They were behind Roth. By all the facts and rules of the Olsens’ lives the affair should have ended with Jo-Jo giving the ticket to Roth, the Olsens remaining silent, and a sigh of relief from Roth. Omerta, the code of silence.

Or in this case, because the dead woman had been the woman of Andy Pappas, they could have gone to Pappas. Not the cops, no, that was not done, that was Omerta. But why not Pappas? That ticket, the story, given to Pappas might have got all the Olsens a medal — especially Jo-Jo. But Jo-Jo had run instead.

‘Jo-Jo ran,’ I said. ‘Jo-Jo didn’t give that ticket to Roth, or to Pappas. Why?’

It was one of the boys who could not remain silent.

‘He don’t like Mr Roth!’ the boy snarled. ‘He’s a big deal, yeh! Sure, Jo-Jo he’s too good for us.’

‘A big race driver he’s gonna be,’ the other boy said.

Magda Olsen was purple. ‘Shut up! Shut up!’

Jo-Jo did not like Jake Roth. Jo-Jo did not recognize a car of Andy Pappas’ when his father, Swede, worked for Pappas. You remember that I said that it isn’t the facts, the events, the overt happenings that tell a story? No, not the simple facts and events. Something else, and I could smell the something else in that room. The something else was the character of Jo-Jo Olsen. The character I had sensed all along — the difference of Jo-Jo. The reason why it had not all ended as it should have was that Jo-Jo did not share his family’s way of life.

More. Jo-Jo did not only not share their ways, he opposed their way of life. To the point of not helping Roth and also to the point of not helping Andy Pappas. Jo-Jo Olsen was not regular. I could see it all there in the faces of the Olsens. The boys with anger on their animal faces not for Roth but for Jo-Jo. Magda Olsen — hard, cold, like a rock.

Swede himself must have been thinking all that I was. The big man shook his head slowly back and forth.

‘Crazy dumb kid,’ Swede said. ‘Always a stupid, dumb kid.’

A crazy dumb kid. I saw it — and Jake Roth had seen it. Jo-Jo was not regular. How could Roth feel safe with a man who was not regular? Roth was a man who had to be sure. He was facing the cops, and he was facing the anger of Andy Pappas. If I had been facing the revenge of Andy Pappas I would have wanted to be sure — very sure. I would want that ticket, and I would want the man who had it. I would have wanted it fast. Especially if it was in the hands of a boy who was not regular, who could not be trusted to follow the code.

Only… and the uneasiness came again. The sense of something very odd. Because I realized that Jake Roth could not have known on Thursday night who had the ticket. If he had known, he would have been at the Olsens’ in five seconds flat. He could not have known, because Jo-Jo had not run until Friday morning! Jo-Jo had remained at home, with the ticket, all Thursday night and into Friday morning. Which left a lot of hours between Roth learning about the ticket and Jo-Jo’s rabbit act. Hours I did not think Roth would have let pass in peace if he had known who had the original ticket. And hours in which Jo-Jo should have already been running, if he was going to run at all, instead of waiting until Friday morning — if Roth had known it was Jo-Jo who had the ticket.

Then it hit me — hard. Jo-Jo had not run until the murder of Tani Jones had been discovered. Jo-Jo had not run until the Olsens must have known just how bad the trouble was that Roth was in. That was all that had happened between Thursday night and Friday morning that changed the situation. That and the fact that, apparently, Roth had learned who had the ticket. But how…

‘How did Jake learn that Jo-Jo had the ticket?’ I said. ‘He didn’t see Jo-Jo take the ticket, or even push the car. If he had, he would have been after Jo-Jo Thursday night.’

They were silent. I looked from stone face to stone face. I felt that uneasiness again. I felt something lurking there in the room just under the surface. I looked at Magda Olsen. She would be the one to say it, if anyone did. She said it.

‘His name it ain’t Roth,’ Magda Olsen said. ‘It’s Lindroth. He changed it. Jake Lindroth. He’s Norwegian.’

Swede explained. ‘Jake, he got me in with Mr Pappas.’

‘Norwegian,’ Magda Olsen said, ‘He’s Lars’s cousin.’

‘My cousin, see?’ Swede said. ‘I owes him.’

‘Lars he works for Jake, not for Pappas,’ Magda Olsen said.

‘Jake, he got me in,’ Swede said.

I heard it. I got it. And I got something else. If I was afraid of Jake Roth, I’d want to be sure, too. I mean, if I knew something about Jake Roth that could get Roth a quick trip to the morgue or the bottom of the river or a shallow grave in the Jersey marshes, I would want to be very sure that Roth knew I was safe and regular and very silent. Especially if I worked for Roth, or with Roth. Jake Roth would not feel good about a cousin, a protege, who held out on him.

‘Jake got plans for Lars,’ Magda Olsen said.

In my spine I felt a monster in the gaudy room. A monster that stirred, assumed a shape. Like something that looms up out of a swamp on a dark night. The silence of the room had a stink like the breath of the monster. Swede Olsen and his boys were not looking at me. Only the old woman looked at me. She was a tough old bird. She did not flinch. Nothing in this world is simple, easy. Courage and honesty and strength are not qualities that always serve the good. Many killers are brave. Magda Olsen was not a woman who flinched from the truth.

‘All this what we got,’ Magda Olsen said, ‘is by Jake Roth. We owe Jake. All this, and more we’re gonna get.’

She waved her bony hand to indicate the whole grotesque apartment. They owed Jake Roth the big-fish home in the small-pond world where they lived. They lived on Jake Roth, and on the more they hoped he would get for them. The old woman waved her arm to show me what they owed Roth. She gave me her Gibraltar face. A rock of granite, the face of Magda Olsen.

After a moment I said the words. ‘You told Roth. Friday morning, after you heard about the murder of Tani Jones, you told Roth that it was Jo-Jo who had the ticket.’