“This place could do with a good clean,” Sophie griped, glancing about the theater.
“So, what’s going on, big guy?” Wilson asked. “I haven’t seen you for a while.”
“Who’s the broad?” Bruno asked, pointing his nose at Sophie.
“She works at the bar where you shot Paul Johnson.”
“That man’s name wasn’t Paul Johnson,” Bruno reported.
“I figured that,” Wilson replied. “I have his passport in my pocket. It’s counterfeit.”
Bruno stared at Wilson with suspicion.
“A year ago I worked a story that broke a counterfeit-passport ring,” Wilson explained. “I know what to look for.”
“Did the broad shoot Nancy?” Bruno asked, pointing his nose at Sophie again.
“The broad has a name,” Sophie sniffed. “Point your nose at someone else, lump-head.”
“She didn’t shoot anybody,” Wilson argued.
“Give me a gun and we’ll see about that,” Sophie snapped.
“What’s the broad doing here?” Bruno asked.
“I’m waiting for Mr. Right and some chocolates, lump-head.”
“You brought her here,” Wilson pointed out. “Think about it, Bruno. Whoever shot Nancy probably also shot you.”
Bruno frowned. He remembered he was bleeding. “Who killed us?”
Wilson smirked. “How about Nancy’s old boss, Merkon?”
“Merkon’s dead,” Bruno helpfully pointed out.
“Merkon was blackmailing you, wasn’t he?”
“Yeah.”
“So you shot him.”
Bruno shook his head.
“After you shot the man with the glass eye in his bar, Merkon went through his pockets. He found the man’s passport. He knew who pulled the trigger, so he blackmailed you, and then you shot him.”
“Yeah, Merkon was blackmailing us, but I didn’t shoot him,” Bruno said. “Nancy did.”
“Score one for Nancy,” Wilson replied. “Was the glass-eyed man one of your jealous-husband targets?”
“Yeah.”
“Why did you shoot him?”
“He was blackmailing us.”
“Him too? How?”
“Nancy found out something about him,” Bruno explained. “Something big from his past. Nancy took him for thousands of dollars. Much more than the jealous-husband routine.”
“What was his secret?”
Bruno wasn’t answering that. He was as white as a bed sheet.
“So, what gave?”
Bruno frowned. “He had pictures, lots of them — photographs of Nancy and me. He said he’d post them to the newspaper. Nancy didn’t want that.”
“Why not?”
“There’s a lot of guys around town who think Nancy’s dead on account of me being a jealous husband.”
“I see the problem.”
Bruno shook his head. “Nancy set it up. The guy was to wait for her in the bar. There was never anyone in there at that time of morning. Nancy telephoned to say she wasn’t working. Merkon was in the office speaking to her on the telephone. I walked in and shot the guy. But then I forgot to do something.”
Wilson shook his head. “What do you mean, forgot?”
Bruno frowned regretfully. It was a sad expression. “I was supposed to leave the gun behind. I was supposed to hide it under a table.”
“Why?” Wilson asked.
“It was Merkon’s gun. Nancy lifted it the night before.”
“You were wearing gloves.”
Bruno nodded dolefully.
“You were going to frame Merkon.”
Bruno nodded.
“Well, ain’t you the smart one,” Sophie chirped, lighting up a cigarette.
“So,” Wilson asked. “Who was the dead man with the glass eye and the fake passport, and what was his big secret?”
Bruno looked as if he was about to say something meaningful, but he finally ran out of blood. He hit the floor of the stage like a sack of potatoes that had gone rotten.
Wilson frowned. “I don’t think he’ll be getting back up again for the third act.”
The sun was coming up.
“Do you have any idea what’s going on?” Sophie asked, winding down the window of Bruno’s black sedan. “Everybody’s blackmailing everybody.”
Wilson changed gears. He smiled. “I know exactly what’s going on. I just need to make a phone call to confirm it.”
The telephone on Lieutenant Harden’s desk rang. Harden put down a mug of black breakfast coffee and grabbed it up with his fat hand. “What?”
A few minutes later Wilson put the receiver down. He was back in the bar.
“Now I need you to make a call,” Wilson said.
Sophie nodded.
The three bears were looking at each other. They looked rather like three elderly gentlemen who had repaired to the garden after breakfast. If they could have talked, they’d have probably discussed the weather — a glorious morning — or the latest zoo gossip, or the stock exchange.
Sophie leaned over the guardrail and stared at them.
“Do you know what the collective noun for a group of bears is?” Wilson asked. He leaned over the guardrail alongside her.
“No,” Sophie replied.
“A sleuth of bears.”
Sophie smiled. “Why did you become a reporter, Wilson?”
Wilson smiled back. “They wouldn’t let me join the police force.”
“Why not?”
“I’m too short.”
Sophie nodded. She could see that; she herself had four inches on Wilson.
At ten o’clock exactly, Sophie was standing alone at the guardrail of the bear pit — as planned. She nervously glanced about. She could hear the chiming of the zoo clock back at the front gate.
Before the tenth chime had sounded, a man walked into view and headed towards her. The man was holding an umbrella under his arm.
The man stepped up alongside Sophie, leaned against the guardrail, and then dropped the cheroot he was smoking to the ground. He stepped on it with his shoe and ground it out.
“Where’s the box?” James Filbert asked.
“Why did you want to meet me here?” Sophie asked.
Filbert looked about. “Because there’s no one here, and because I like the zoo at this time of the day.”
Filbert pulled out his wallet and peeled out a bill. “Here’s the twenty I promised.”
Sophie took the twenty. She pulled the tartan-patterned candy box out of the grocery store bag she’d been holding.
“I appreciate your help,” Filbert said, taking the box. “I have a fairly good idea of what’s inside this.”
Filbert opened the box. He stared at the contents with bemusement. “Although I wasn’t expecting that,” he said, gaping at a picture of Lucille Ball.
“It’s from the cover of this week’s Time magazine,” Sophie pointed out.
Filbert screwed up his face in anger. “What’s this all about?”
“It’s all about this,” Wilson barked, walking toward them holding up the Paul Johnson passport.
Filbert was even more confused. “What are you doing here, Hills?”
“I like the zoo at this time of the day,” Wilson replied. “And I was over there hiding in the bushes waiting for you to arrive.”
Filbert pulled a pistol out of his pocket. He pointed it at Wilson. “Give me the passport.”
Wilson pulled his own gun out. “No.”
Sophie backed away. Filbert aimed his gun at her head. “Give me the passport or I’ll shoot her.”
Sophie froze.
“The police didn’t want those files from the morgue, like you told me,” Wilson said.
“How do you know that?” Filbert asked, trying to look at Wilson while aiming at Sophie.
“I asked them,” Wilson replied, the barrel of his own gun aimed squarely at a point between Filbert’s eyes. “You were blackmailing Nancy.”