Джеймс Кейн - The Enchanted Isle

So Mr. Haynes no sooner saw Steve than he commenced bawling him out “for giving me the slip,” but Mr. Clawson cut him off. He said, “Jack, slipping over here first to help you out on this case is not giving you the slip! I suggest you quit hacking at him for what at worst was a breach of protocol, amounting to nothing. So he should have asked your permission to leave. So OK. Let’s get on.”

“Then, I stand corrected.”

He wasn’t too nice about it, but it gave me quite a buzz that even a state’s attorney would back down to Mr. Clawson. However, he kept on talking to Steve, “All right, Baker, where’s the guy?”

“What guy, Mr. State’s Attorney?”

“The one involved in this case?”

“I didn’t say guy. I said person. Right here.”

He held up my hand after kissing it, and Mr. Haynes stared, hardly able to speak. Then he said, “The... person? Is a girl? Is that girl?”

“That’s right, Mr. Haynes. Just gives you a nice rough idea how wrong a tree it is that you’ve been barking up.”

Mr. Haynes asked me, “What’s your name?”

“Amanda Vernick. Mandy, they call me.”

“Well, well, well!”

“I drove the getaway car.”

He kept staring at me, but during that the phone rang, and Mr. Wilmer, after answering, told him, “It’s for you.”

He said hello and right away took a looseleaf notebook from his pocket and wrote in it with a ballpoint. He asked questions like “When was this?” and “What hotel?” and at last hung up. Turning back to us he said, “We could even say chasing my tail. They found Vanny Rossi in the Rogers Hotel on West Fayette Street dead from an overdose of heroin. But the checkout showed he’d been in that room for a week, without leaving it once. So it’s clear: he didn’t drive that car.”

“I told you, sir. I did.”

“Then you’re a friend of Vito Rossi’s?”

“No, sir, I don’t know him.”

“But he helped out in the bank. He held the basket the money was thrown in. The girl, the teller who handled it, picked him out from one of our mug shots.”

“She made a mistake. The guy looked like Rick.”

“Who’s Rick?”

“The boy who did hold the basket.”

“How do you know Vito Rossi looked like him?”

“From his picture, the one that was in the paper.”

“Oh. Oh, that’s right, so it was.”

It was hard prying him loose from the idea the Rossis were in it, even with one of them dead, but at last Mr. Clawson said, “Jack, why don’t you let her get on? Tell you what actually happened? I assure you, from even the little I know, she was there, she knows, and can clear the thing up in ten minutes. So far as the tree goes, your tail, and the false scent the police have been on, it’s happened before and reflects no discredit on anyone, especially after that girl, from overeagerness to help, made her mistake on that picture. Mandy, if you’ll let her, can clear everything up.”

“OK, Mandy, start clearing.”

They set it up then for me. I moved to one end of the sofa, with Mr. Haynes at the other, both with mikes on our chests, and the tape recorder between. On the cocktail table in front of us the girl set her stenotype machine and sat on the floor beside it, so they had me two ways, on tape and on stenotype. Why, don’t ask me, I don’t know. The detectives, the bank man, and the insurance man all gathered around, some sitting, some standing, while Mother sat near me, holding my hand, on a chair by the sofa, while Steve and Mr. Wilmer stood by. Mr. Haynes said, “Mandy, will you give your name, age, and home address into the mike, and then go on in your own words and tell what happened Tuesday. What led to it and what it led to.”

So I did, almost the way I’d already told it three times, to Steve, Mr. Wilmer, and that same day to Mr. Clawson, except that I left stuff out, though not to speak untruth. Like, on why I left home I said, “I was kind of fed up, like with school and A-square plus B-square, and decided to visit my father a while.” That was all and everyone nodded, like A-square plus B-square would kind of feed anyone up. So, except for the algebra, I didn’t put it on either one, Steve or Mother, I mean. And about my father I said, “I called him that night, but me shacking with Rick kind of loused it, my moving in with him.” And about the mink coat I said, “I wanted it, wanted it bad, as I wanted my father to know I wasn’t mooching off him.” And about Pal and Bud I said, “Mr. Haynes, I don’t know if you ever faced guns, but I tell you one thing: the butt of one sticking out, a blue butt in an armpit holster, is going to talk louder to you than anything you ever heard.” And about Rick I said, “I bear him no ill will, but I’m sick and tired of this thing, and I want to help all I can to get it all the way cleared up and get that money back, as I think can be done if you handle it right with him, with Rick I’m talking about, so he cooperates. I’m doing him a favor, I feel, by telling it all like it was, so the word can go out to him, so he’ll read in the papers about it and then go and give himself up, so he’ll be shut of it too. So OK, Mr. Haynes, that’s all. I’ve told it like it was, partly to wind the thing up, and partly for Rick’s own sake.”

“OK, Mandy, thanks.”

In between it had come out about Mother’s remarriage, which was mainly due, I said, “to this wonderful man, Mr. Wilmer, trying to make it up to her for her upset at losing me.” They all kind of bowed very friendly, first to her, and then to Mr. Wilmer; a little extra for him, I thought, as he was a very big wheel. When I finished, the question of money came up, and I had to hand over the balance of what I had left in my handbag from what I had grabbed from the floor of the car, less what I’d spent on the coat, meals, and bus fare. Then the coat was brought up, and they decided an officer should “impound it,” as Mr. Haynes said, as evidence, after going to Hyattsville. But then Mother got in it, protesting, “Evidence of what? It was not part of the crime, but it is a beautiful thing, and to have it kicking around in some kind of locker under the tender care of policemen.”

“Something wrong with them?” asked a detective.

“Everything, from a mink coat’s point of view.” Then, very snappish: “It’s the woman’s angle, of course, but I remind you, it’s her coat.”

“It was bought with stolen money.”

“Just the same, it was bought!”

They had it some more, but then Mr. Clawson got in it. He said. “Jack, technically speaking, Mrs. Wilmer is right. It’s not evidence of anything the indictment will cover, assuming we get that far. So far as the money goes, the money she found in the car that she used to pay for this coat, Ben Wilmer has already agreed to make good whatever it amounts to, which covers the coat and any turpitude it involves. If you want, we’ll stipulate.”

“For the time being, then, OK.”

“It’ll be there, don’t worry, in case.”

It was decided that I’d be released in Mother’s custody, and then they all got up. Mr. Haynes told me, “OK, Mandy. The lady will type this up today, and then tomorrow you can come in to my office in City Hall and sign. Mr. Clawson will bring you over.”

“Will do. And thanks, Jack, for being so decent.”

They left to call the FBI and get them started looking for Rick, and to go on their teletype to police all over the country.

Then at last we were alone, Mother, Mr. Wilmer, Steve, and I, but Mother had barely started. She ran with real quick steps, her bottom all aquiver, to the phone and gave the girl a number. I felt my heart go bump, as I recognized it at once as Vernick’s. A man’s voice came on and she started to talk. She brought him up to date, telling how things stood, real quick, and went on, “Ed, Mandy handled it beautifully and really gave you a break. She said not one word about the rotten way you treated her or the things you alleged about me. They’ll be calling you, especially the papers will, but I’m telling you, Ed, one crack from you out of line, and I’m letting you have it. You may have forgotten, but I don’t, that you owe me nine thousand six hundred and fifty dollars, and that under Maryland law you can be jailed until it’s paid.” Then he must have said something mean, because she listened and then went on. “I don’t care what proof you have, what proof you think you have. I’ll move in just the same. And I suggest that you think this over: I’ll be the plaintiff, you the defendant, when my suit comes to trial, and proof or no proof, though the plaintiff’s lawyer takes a contingent fee, the defendant’s has to be paid, in cash, before he goes to court. He wants a retainer, as it’s called. So unless you want to shell out that retainer, you talk right when they call you today. But why must you talk at all? Ed, Mandy has treated you decently, not saying a word, not one, about the rotten reception you gave her, and I appeal to your decency now, before hitting you with a brick. But if you don’t have any decency, Ed, I just happen to have a brick. That’s all I wanted to say. Ed, did you hear me?”