Dave Zeltserman: Fast Lane

Max was about as easy to understand. He must have figured I was stringing him along. He wanted to get back at me any way he could. It didn’t have to make any sense-he’d find a way of believing it. That was all of it.

The drinks helped clear my head. I paid the bartender and headed out. I drove to the hospital and parked a block away.

* * * * *

When I got to Mary’s room, I opened the door and peered in. It was dark, but I could make out her outline. She was hooked up to about a half-dozen machines, all of them blinking and humming along. I stepped into the room, closing the door quickly behind me. I left the lights off.

Seeing her lying there did something to me. It brought back all those memories I’d had as a child when I was in the hospital. About being safe. And I knew right then I couldn’t hurt her. I don’t know why they had to say I was going to smother her, because I wasn’t. I was just going to kiss her, and I guess my hands must’ve slipped and maybe it looked like I was grabbing that pillow, but all I was doing was reaching down to kiss her goodbye when the lights turned on.

I froze. There was no one in the bed. What I thought was Mary was only some pillows stuck under a blanket. I spun around and saw Max Roth and Bill Haggerty standing by the doorway. Max was grinning like a cat, and Bill had his service revolver out, pointed at me.

Max said, “Hello, Johnny. I don’t know if you’ve met Bill Haggerty. He’s been working out of homicide.”

Bill shook his head grimly. “That’s all right, we know each other.”

“It looks like you’re too late, Johnny,” Max said. “She’s already dead. She died after you blew her brains out. When she hired me she told me about Jerry Bry.”

All I could do was stare.

“When the police found Mary,” he explained, “they found my business card in her pocketbook. After they talked with me, I went straight to Eddie Braggs. I told him everything. About how you told Mary that Jerry Bry was her father, about how he tried raping her, and how you blackmail your clients-”

“That’s a damn lie!”

“Maybe it is.” He stroked his chin, thinking. “In any case, how you blackmail their spouses.”

“I have to disagree with you-”

“Okay.” He shrugged. “It doesn’t matter. What does matter is when I was talking with Eddie, he got a story over the wire about Jerry Bry. About how the gun was the same one that killed Mary. At first I thought maybe it was a murder-suicide. Maybe she tried seeing Bry again and things got out of hand. But Mary wouldn’t have done that. She had her head screwed on straighter than any kid I ever met. She knew Bry wasn’t her father and she didn’t care about him. She wouldn’t have gone to see him. And there was no reason for her to have a gun.”

He waited for me to say something, but I couldn’t. There had to be an explanation. I just had to think hard enough . . . .

He got tired of waiting. “Eddie got on the phone and called Joyce Bry and guess what? Joyce was a regular client of yours. Always hiring you to find out if her husband was cheating on her. And he never did, did he, Johnny?”

I shook my head slowly. I couldn’t keep from doing it.

“If you ask me,” he continued, “it sounded funny, you thinking Bry was her father, but you always telling Joyce Bry that her husband was clean as a whistle. Eddie Braggs found it all pretty funny too. He agreed to hold the stories for a few days. I guess you don’t read any other paper except the Examiner. If you did you’d know Mary was dead. You wouldn’t have come here, would you? Bill, would you mind if I use the phone?”

Bill shook his head. Max got on the phone and he looked happier than a kid locked in a candy store. “That’s right, happened just as we planned . . . .Yep, he’s right here, looking pretty sick if you ask me . . . . So you’re going to run the headline? . . . . Mind if I show it to him? . . . . Talk to you later, Eddie.”

He hung up the phone. He reached into his jacket pocket and unfolded part of a newspaper. “I’ve got an advance copy of tomorrow’s Examiner,” he said. “You might like to see it.”

He handed me the paper, and on the front page was my picture alongside one of Mary and one of Bry. The headline was ‘JOHNNY LANE CAUGHT RED-HANDED IN DOUBLE MURDER’. Everything Max had told me was in it. They didn’t know how I did it, though. Nor was there any evidence, no real evidence that is. Just a bunch of wild guesses. I handed the paper back to Max, smiling as I did. They didn’t have a damn thing. Nothing they could prove.

“It really is better for you that you came here, Johnny,” Max said, hesitating a little. “This way it will be faster for you. If you hadn’t come, the Examiner would have started running stories about you blackmailing your clients, and-”

I cut him off. “Max.” I shook my head like I was talking to a child. “You don’t really believe any of this, do you?”

“Every word of it.” But there was a flicker of doubt in his eyes.

Bill was standing quietly, soaking everything in. I guess he’d had enough. “Alright, Max,” he said softly. “Move aside. Sorry, Johnny, but I’m going to have to put the cuffs on. Would you mind facing the wall?”

“Bill,” I tried explaining, “they don’t have anything. Just hearsay and wild stories. There’s not one damn bit of evidence. I’m going to sue the hell out of the Examiner. They’ll be paying for my retirement. He”-I jerked a thumb towards Max-”doesn’t have a damn thing to lose. But you got a pension coming up. You don’t want to lose that, do you? Not over something this crazy?”

“I guess we’ll just have to see what happens.” He spun me around and pushed me against the wall. “Anyway, it just don’t seem all that crazy to me, not after you coming here the way you did. Sneaking in the dark and picking up the pillow like you were going to smother someone. Be a nice fellow and put your hands behind your back.”

I had to get him to understand the mistake he was making. “I didn’t turn on the lights because Roth told me Mary was lying here sick and I didn’t want the bright lights to disturb her. I was just reaching down to feel her forehead, you know, see if she was okay. I-I g-guess I slipped, and maybe it looked like I was grabbing the pillow. But I wasn’t. You don’t believe any of this nonsense, do you?”

“I’ve got to tell you, Johnny.” He slapped the cuffs shut. They bit into my wrists worse than barbed wire. “When Mr. Braggs and Max came to me with this story, I thought they were nuts. I always thought you were one of the good guys. But I’ll tell you, right now it sure looks like you did it.”

I was speechless. Why in the world would I come here to kill someone who was already dead? They should’ve been able to see how crazy it all was, instead of just standing there staring at me like I was a . . . .

Max interrupted. “By the way, your flowers didn’t come yet.”

“What?”

“Bill and I were both listening in when you called trying to get Mary’s room number. You wanted to get here without anyone knowing about it.”

I guess I broke out laughing, because what the hell was that going to prove? “The flowers should be here any minute. Why don’t we wait for them?” I did send flowers to Mary’s room. Why wouldn’t I? “Bill, give me one piece of real evidence that you have against me.”

“Yeah, okay.” He sounded almost as if he were ashamed of himself. “We did find footprints outside the victim’s car.”

“They were probably made by you cops!”

“Maybe, but anyway-”

“Look,” I cut in. “Get it through your thick skull that if you arrest me, you’re going to be in for it just like Roth and Braggs! You don’t have a damn single thing!”