Эд Горман - Fools Rush In

I gave him a few minutes to do what he could with the handkerchief. “This really hurts, man.”

I wondered how many innocents had said that to him over the years after he pounded on them.

“What about Phelps?”

“He busted Charlie Eagle for grass.”

“Yeah, I heard about that. So what? He was just doing his job.”

“Bullshit, he was doing his job, man. He caught two of us smoking grass one night sittin’ on our bikes downtown and you know what he did? Took our grass and smoked it himself. Never charged us.”

He tried to shake his head but misery cragged his face instantly. “We knew Phelps was seein’ this Mexican chick over by the rail yards. Her old man is a switchman, works nights. We had Neville take some pictures of Phelps goin’ in the door at her place. We were gonna use them against Phelps, see if he’d tell the DA that maybe he made a mistake, you know, with Charlie Eagle.”

I was amazed at his ignorance. “The trial’s already been scheduled. If Phelps backed out now, the DA would know that somebody got to him.”

He angled his head up. Between the blood and the bruises he was one sorry biker.

“So that’s why I was at Neville’s, but him and that colored boy were dead when I got there.”

“You find the pictures?”

“Too scared, man. Somebody sees me there, they’ll nail me for them bein’ dead for sure.” He snorted. “I knew somebody’d get to Neville someday.”

“Why?”

“Why? He took pictures of people all the time. Secret shit, I mean. He’d hang out in different spots at night and see things and hear things and then he’d start following somebody, see if the rumors was true. And if they was, he’d start takin’ pictures.”

Good old Neville. I’d congratulated myself on him staying out of trouble, thinking that he’d learned his lesson just the way young men do every night on TV. Crime Doesn’t Pay and all that. Maybe burglary or car theft or armed robbery didn’t pay because you could get caught so easily.

But blackmail was a more subtle crime, one infinitely more difficult to prove — because the blackmail-ee had a vested interest in protecting the blackmailer.

“And that’s the truth, man. Everything I just said. Now, was you telling the truth, McCain? About not tellin’ my parole officer?”

“Far as I’m concerned, we’re even up.”

“I got the worst of it.”

“Good.” I didn’t smile. “Now get your ass up. I want to get out of here.”

“Good thing you work for the judge, McCain. Otherwise I’d get up right now and beat your ass bloody.”

“Jeez, man, and here I thought we were friends.”

I stopped by my office to see if any money had come in. My body was a universe of pain, large and small. While I was going through the mail, Dink called.

He said, “It wasn’t as much fun as I figured it would be.”

“Well, I’m sorry you didn’t get to commit a felony, Dink.”

“I got to work early just like you told me so I could get one of the maids to let me in his room, see—”

That had been my plan. Get Dink into James Neville’s room and see what he could find.

“But you know what?”

“What?”

“I didn’t even have to find a maid to con into it.”

“No?”

“Rosemary — the one with the lazy eye? — she was in there when I got there.”

“Good old Rosemary. So what did you find?”

“He’s got a lot of dirty magazines.”

“Uh-huh.”

“And a lot of socks. He must have twenty pairs.”

“Good for him.”

“I know the kind of thing you wanted me to find. And I only found one thing. It’s this brochure.”

“Brochure?”

“Yeah. It’s pretty chintzy-lookin’. It’s for a photography studio. The Neville Brothers Studio, it says.”

It had been well worth the trip. “Dink, that’s great.”

“I wanted to steal it — you know, I wanted to get a little something out of it. But then I remembered you said only go in when a maid lets you in and don’t take nothin’ out of it.”

“I appreciate it, Dink.”

“The wife thinks I’m goin’ to prison.”

“I’ll do my best for you, Dink. I just wish we didn’t have to go up against the same judge.”

He paused. “Listen, anytime you want me to sneak in someplace for you, just give me a call. I don’t think you appreciate the full range of my talents yet, McCain.”

Lord God Almighty.

“I’m sure I don’t, Dink. I’m sure I don’t.”

Thanks to the new procedures that Jane Sykes had forced Cliffie to follow, the entire area around Neville’s cabin was now set off as a crime scene. Nobody was allowed past the sawhorses that formed a square around the area.

The day was closing as I got out of my ragtop. The birdsong and the long shadows and the purpling clouds were as lonesome as a Hank Williams song. I brought along the outsized flashlight I’d bought a year ago at Western Auto.

I started inside the cabin. The darkroom looked even worse than it had the night of the murders, everything busted up in a frantic search. And now I knew for what.

The whole idea of blackmail had a big-city feel to it. Every other episode of Perry Mason used it as a device and every once in a while the Chicago Trib would run a crime story that involved it, though it was usually described as extortion.

I worked till near dark. I pretty much knew I wouldn’t find anything. Richie Neville had been a smart young man. The sort of crime he was committing meant that he had to be careful where he hid the photographs he used. And that meant that he probably didn’t leave them in his cabin. But it had to be checked.

Weariness from being dragged all over the parking lot had begun to sneak up on me. I needed a drink and a shower, and then a meal.

I was just leaving the cabin when I saw a stack of business envelopes on an overstuffed chair, one of the few pieces not to be knocked over. My first thought was that one of the police officers had probably gone through the envelopes. But then I remembered Cliffie was in charge. I sat down with my flashlight and went to work and came away with one interesting fact. I extricated a monthly statement from one of the six bank envelopes and got back to my ragtop.

The meal turned out to be a fried egg sandwich, a glass of V8, and a slice of birthday cake I’d brought home about a week ago and kept in the refrigerator.

I kept wanting to give Jane Sykes a call. Officially, I had business to discuss with her. Unofficially, I just wanted to hear her laugh. I enjoyed sitting in my apartment with the cats all over me, watching an inane situation comedy and not thinking about Mary and would she ever change her mind and come back to me.

I was thinking about Jane Sykes and wondering if there was any kind of future there.

The shower had been nice — I had a lot more bruises than I’d realized from the dragging — but it hadn’t revived me. Sitting there in my boxers with the cats, I was starting to give in to sleep.

In fact, I was dozing when the phone rang.

Good news — possibly Mary or Jane calling.

Bad news — my dad had had another heart attack.

All these thoughts before I was truly awake. Automatic thoughts.

“Hello.”

“Did I wake you up?”

“No, uh-uh, I was just going over some work.”

“Gee, I hope I get you on the witness stand sometime. You’re a terrible liar. You’d be so easy to break.”

“Thank you for that and all the other compliments.”

“I heard a rumor you had kind of a rough time this afternoon.”

“That’s all it is, Jane. A rumor.”

“So you don’t want anything legal done about it?”