Эд Горман - Fools Rush In

In his graying crew cut, huge red bow tie, and tan summer-weight suit with enough patriotic pins on it to start a war, Walter was now a grown-up version of a hall monitor.

He was vice president of loans at First Trust Bank. His desk sat in front of the vault, and it was to him that supplicants came to plead their cases. I’d always thought he should have a kneeler in front of his desk, the way you do in confessionals. Because from what I’d been told, you had to show Walter a great deal of deference and piety before he would even consider your loan.

He looked up and gave me the hall monitor’s smirk he’d perfected by the time we were in fourth grade.

“Well, well, well, I knew you’d be in here someday, McCain. Destitute and in dire need of help.” The smirk got smirkier. “Do you remember seventh grade?”

“Barely. I was drunk for most of it.”

“Very funny, McCain. I seem to remember a certain juvenile delinquent who dropped a water balloon on my head from the third floor.”

“I was framed, Walter.”

“And now,” he said with great satisfaction, leaning back in his executive chair, “you’ve come here to see if I’ll be decent enough to forget how you humiliated me and give you a loan.”

I tossed the envelope on his desk. “That’s court permission to open Richie Neville’s safe-deposit box.”

He leaned forward. “That’s not going to happen. Only the person designated as his closest family member can open that now.”

“Open it up and read it.”

“You don’t seem to understand, McCain — but then you were never real bright, anyway — that court orders don’t matter. We have our own rules of procedure here.”

“If you say so, Walter.”

I snatched back the envelope and headed straight for the large corner office where the bank president resided when he wasn’t attending vital banking conferences in the Bahamas or playing nine rounds at the country club.

I got what I wanted.

“Here, Sam, let me take care of that for you. We can open that safe-deposit box right now.”

There was a tremor in his voice that attracted a few glances and he came upon me so fast he almost bumped into me.

But he did lead me to the large solemn room in which the safe-deposit boxes were kept.

There was more than three thousand dollars in cash and four manila envelopes with familiar last names written in ink on them. I took a quick glance inside and found photographic negatives. I didn’t look at any of them.

The new black Cadillac didn’t belong in one of the three parking slots that came with my office. Neither did the man sitting behind the wheel.

He got out of his car as soon as I got out of mine.

“I suppose you’ll grow up someday, Sam, and get an adult car instead of that convertible.”

“And I suppose you’ll grow up someday, Anderson, and stop bleeding poor people dry.”

“Nobody else will loan them money. I have to charge the rates I do. And I don’t intend to defend myself to somebody like you.”

“You just did. Now what the hell do you want?”

“I want you to leave my son alone. Because if you don’t, you’ll be damned sorry.”

Rob Anderson’s father was tall, slim, sour, and a professional nag. He owned four loan companies throughout the state that were the last resort for debt-ridden people. I’d seen it calculated that his loan rate ended up being in the fifty-five percent area by the time a loan was paid off. The money he made, and it was as much as anybody made in our town, automatically made him respectable, never mind that he traded on human misery. He was an elder in his Lutheran church, he frequently wrote guest editorials for the newspaper, and he even ran radio spots that were long enough to promote his usurious business and give him forty-five seconds to expound on how America was in the process of losing its moral compass. Whatever the hell that was. He was one of the Midwest grotesques Sherwood Anderson and Sinclair Lewis had identified as sui generis long, long ago.

“I haven’t been bothering him, but the police probably have.”

“Uh-huh. And who put it in their minds that he had anything to do with that damned colored boy?”

“I didn’t have to put anything in their minds, Anderson. Your son was engaged to Lucy. But she broke it off because she was sick of the way he treated her. Rob’s a bully to everybody, including Lucy.”

“Oh? Rob’s a bully? Well, for your information — and even though I’m strictly against this — even now he’s willing to forgive Lucy for running around with that colored boy. Forgive her and take her back. Now does that sound like a bully?”

“He’s a regular saint, ain’t he?”

He glared at me. “You’ll never get the Knolls out of you, will you, McCain? No matter how successful you become, you’ll still be that shabby little Knolls boy.”

I leaned against the trunk of my immature ragtop, tapped a Lucky free, and said, “What the hell are you doing here? You didn’t come here to tell me to lay off dear sweet Rob. You want something.”

He pushed his rimless glasses back up his long nose and said, “I have some information for you.”

“Why don’t you take it to the police? I’m not interested.”

“Clifford’s a buffoon. At least you’re somewhat intelligent. And Esme and I are bridge partners at the club sometimes.”

“I still don’t want it.”

“Why not?”

I pushed away from the Ford. The summer sunlight fell broken in soft shadows through the trees above. The birds sang with impossible sweetness. And the old garages that lined the other side of the alley behind my building looked like the sort that I’d explored as a kid.

I didn’t want to be standing here talking to this prissy prick.

“Anything you say’ll be self-serving. You know it’s logical that your son is a primary suspect. You also know that it’s logical that the police will keep on contacting him until the case is resolved. So you’re here to tell me something that’s going to put the blame on somebody else. Am I right?”

He looked embarrassed. “You’ve discredited me even before I had the chance to say anything.”

“Then we’re done here.”

I started to walk toward my office. He caught up with me. He grabbed my shirtsleeve. I pulled my arm away.

“Here’s something Rob told me at breakfast this morning. While Neville and Leeds were being killed, my son was visiting his old girlfriend. Her name is Sally Amis and I invite you to call her.”

“Were they alone?”

“What difference does that make?”

“It’ll make a difference in court. Her word alone won’t be good enough, especially if she still has feelings for him. She’d need a witness of her own to corroborate what she says.”

“She comes from a good family. She wouldn’t lie.”

“People lie all the time, good families or not.”

“You’re missing the point here, McCain. Hannity and Rob weren’t together at the time the coroner set for the death. They only got together later. Hannity would have had plenty of opportunity to—”

“I need to get to work, Anderson.”

“Your vast law office, huh? I’m sure you’ll be sitting on the state supreme court any day now. And be sure to take that stupid secretary you have along with you.” Then he chastened himself: “I came here to offer you some help with this case.”

“And to get your son off the hook?”

“Well, what if I did, McCain? You’ll do the same thing if you ever quit sleeping around and get serious with a decent woman. You’ll protect your children just as fiercely as I do.”

“Not if they’re like your son, I won’t.”

I went inside.

I never told my dad I didn’t care much for hunting mushrooms. I like the outdoors if you have something entertaining to do while you’re out there. Mushroom-hunting never fell into that “something entertaining” category for me.