“Then?” I said. “After I started? You could have told the police, even Pappas. They would have stopped Roth. He’s only a cousin and a killer.”
Magda Olsen sat as stiff as steel. He voice was old and clear and steady.
“Lars is an old man. We live good. We got five kids. We got a lot to do for five kids. All our life Lars works like a pig on the docks. I work, sweat. We live like animals, now we live good. Lars asks Mr. Roth be a good cousin, get him good work with Mr. Pappas. Roth gets Lars good work.
“Mr. Pappas he is good to us because Roth tells him to be good. In one day for Mr. Pappas Lars he makes more money than two months on the docks! He is too old to go back to the docks! We got five kids, and we only got one Jake Roth!”
What do you say? You feel sick, yes, but what do you say? Do you tell them that no human being risks a child to help Jake Roth? Sure, that’s true. Do you say that Lars Olsen and his worn-out old woman should work to death if they must to save their boy? I’m not so sure how true that is. How far is a father responsible for saving his son? How much must a father and mother endure for the mistakes of a child?
It is easy to feel sick when you are not asked to give up all that you want, no matter how rotten it may be. And what about the other four kids? Eh? Do you sacrifice one boy to give four better lives? Lars Olsen, back on the docks at his age, could do nothing for his children. Are you so sure? I’m not. But I made it easy on myself. My duty was to my client.
“You can go to the police now,” I said.
“With what, a story? Jo-Jo has the ticket,” Magda Olsen said. The old woman had made her decision.
I nodded. It was too late anyway. Roth would have his hired hands searching all over by now. Roth had had a man killed, the police would not take him quickly. But the old women did not rely on me.
“No,” Magda Olsen said. “No!”
“Jo-Jo, he’ll be okay,” Swede Olsen said, but he did not believe it now.
“You don’t know where he is?” I said.
“No,” the old woman said.
“I do,” the young girl said.
She was sitting up straight now, and all eyes turned toward her. A small, pretty young girl. I guessed that she was very close to her brother Jo-Jo.
“He wrote me a card,” the girl said.
She handed me the postcard. It was from Daytona Beach, and that fitted. They have a big raceway, speedway for racing cars, at Daytona Beach. The card was unsigned. It said nothing that would show it was from Jo-Jo. Just a few cheery words about the fine weather, the fine racing cars, and a fine job he had selling programs. It could have been from anyone, but the girl knew who it was from.
“I got it yesterday,” the girl said. “They didn’t tell me about Mr. Roth. I knew Jo-Jo had some trouble, but they didn’t tell me.”
“We don’t want to worry the kids,” Swede Olsen explained.
But I was watching the girl. She was telling me something. I felt hollow all the way to my toes because I guessed what it was. I felt like a man on a roller coaster heading far down.
“Roth was here?” I said. “He saw the card?”
“Uncle Jake, we call him Uncle Jake, was here this morning,” the girl said. “I didn’t tell him, I know Jo-Jo is hiding. But he...”
“But he saw the card? He read it?” I said.
“I think so. He was in my room. It was on the table,” the girl said.
The boys, who had never spoken at all, sat and looked at the floor. The Olsen family had discipline. It did not come from Swede. The big old man blustered.
“Jo-Jo’ll be okay. Jake he won’t hurt my Jo-Jo,” Olsen said. “Jake is okay. Jake is a good man.”
He was trying to convince himself still. He was trying to convince his other sons. He was saying he was, after all, a good father and a big man.
The old women did not bother. She knew. She knew the truth, and she faced it.
I left them sitting there. The old woman got up and went to prepare dinner. She had decided about her life and where her duty lay. I left and begun to move in high. I had to if I was to help decide about Jo-Jo’s life. I took a taxi to Idlewild.
Daytona Beach was hot, and loud, and crowded in the night. There was action at the raceway, and I went straight there from my jet. The only lead I had was that he was selling programs, and I figured that Roth and his men had about two hours on me.
I gave myself that much break because of Schmidt and the jet schedules. Even though Roth had seen the postcard this morning, he apparently hadn’t tumbled right away. Otherwise he would not have worked over Schmidt. I guessed that Roth had not known about Jo-Jo’s interest in racing, or had forgotten it, and had not thought of it until his boys questioned Schmidt.
Jake Roth was not noted for his brains, that was pretty clear from his play with Myra Jones. I hoped I was right. If I was, the best flight out of New York after the death of Schmidt was only two hours before my jet. Even if I was right, two hours was a long time. It only takes seconds to kill a man.
At the raceway I found that it was closed for the night. That was strike one. I searched around until I found the office. There was light in the office. My first base hit. I went into the office, the door was not locked. The man behind the desk looked up annoyed.
“Yes?” he snapped.
I showed him my credentials. He was only mildly impressed. He looked at my missing arm.
“Lost it on Iwo-Jima,” I told him. “The state don’t hold it against me. I’m a real detective.”
“Private,” he said. “I don’t have to tell you anything.”
“Unless you want to save the life of one of your program boys,” I said.
“Them? Between you and me, mister, they ain’t worth saving. Punks, all of them. They takes the job so they can watch the races. Race nuts, all of them. Half the time I finds them up looking at the races instead of selling.”
The man was small and red. He had a pet peeve. It was racing and the younger generation. I could see that he hated racing, and hated children. That didn’t leave him much to like in his world.
“Talk to me, and I’ll take one off your hands,” I said. “The name is Olsen. Jo-Jo Olsen. Tall, blond, not bad looking I hear. No telling what he was wearing, and no marks on him. He likes motors. Been here maybe three weeks to a month.”
“You just described half of them,” the man said. “What the hell’s so important about this Olsen anyway?”
It’s strange how they always tell you but don’t actually get around to saying it. The man had just told me I was still running second.
“Someone else was here?” I said.
“All night I get nuts,” the man said.
“How many of them? I mean, how many who asked about Olsen?”
“Two,” he said.
“Tell me about them?” I said.
He described the two who had beaten Petey Vitanza. I was running a bad second.
“What did you tell them?” I said.
“What I’m telling you. Listen, so I don’t have to say it again. I got no Olsen, the description fits about ten of the punks. I can give you a list, the rest is up to you.”
“How long have they got on me?” I asked.
The man looked at the clock on the wall. “Maybe an hour and forty minutes.”
They had taken a slower taxi from the airport. I was gaining. I almost laughed at myself. But instead I took the list the man wrote down. He picked the names from a paysheet, and stared up at the hot ceiling as he recalled what his various boys looked like. In the end the list contained eight names.