“Vengeance is a .357 Magnum slug through the heart,” said Hoffe, coming up beside them.
“Stop this! All of you!” cried Merrilee suddenly. They turned to look at her in surprise. There were tears in her eyes. “Sarcasm and platitudes when — when my father is dead. Murdered!” She turned suddenly on Hoffe. “And you just said, a few minutes ago, that you were going to kill him.”
For just an instant, Hoffe looked guilty, then his normal brash, cocky manner reasserted itself. He started striding up and down the carpet beside the desk, gesturing as he did.
“Sure, I’ll admit I was steamed. That’s why I went out to smoke a cigarette, to get control of myself. But then I heard this shot. I ran back, tried the French doors — they were locked, as I said. I looked through the curtains and saw him here — dead. So I—”
“You could have opened those doors earlier!” cried Merrilee.
“I didn’t like him any better than the rest of you,” said Hoffe patiently, “but why would I kill him?”
At that moment, a strange voice said, “Raoul, I want you to put your hand on her shoulder.”
See everyone look in different directions? Now look at the twenty-nine inch screen of the floor-model TV console in the corner. Yes, a pornographic film now flickers there! A bedroom with a handsome naked man in bed with a naked blonde girl who doesn’t look out of her teens. Might not this be a clue?
The man put his hand on the girl’s shoulder. The unknown voice said, “Turn her toward you—”
There was a loud click and the screen went blank. Hoffe had pushed past Bowman to the video-machine controls.
“I think we should see the rest of it,” said Bowman. “A porn flick — and Mr. Hoffe here is a vice cop.”
Hoffe, meeting nothing but stony dislike in any eye, stepped back with a shrug. “All right,” he said, “show the damned thing. See what it gets you.”
The porn movie flickered back on. But this time, as the man reached again for the naked girl, the director’s voice burst in, “Who the hell is this clown? Somebody get him out of here!”
The camera slewed wildly around the empty warehouse with the bedroom set and lights clustered in the middle of it, then focused on Hoffe and the young vulpine-looking director.
“She’s underage, baby,” Hoffe said, flashing his tin. “In this state, seventeen’ll get you twenty.”
“Take Jive, everybody!” yelled the director. In a stricken undertone to Hoffe, he added, “Hey, man, gimme a break!”
The camera maintained follow focus as they moved away from the set. The director took a roll of bills from his pocket.
“I can beat this thing in court — the girl’s older than she looks. But our production deadlines would suffer. I wouldn’t want you to lose by not making an arrest—”
Hoffe clicked the machine off again. “That’s when I busted him. So you see, Stalker didn’t have any knives sticking in me.”
“He told me he was going to force you to change your testimony in court tomorrow on this case,” said Bowman. After a beat, in an almost admiring voice, he added, “Our Eric was good at things like that.”
Hoffe sneered. “Not this time. I have this guy cold.”
But the porn scene flashed back on — Bowman’s work. “Oh, I won’t lose.” Hoffe pocketed the roll of money, then clapped cuffs on the startled director. “Because you’re under arrest, pal, for making pornographic films with an underage girl.”
The screen went to snow, then blank. Hoffe sneered at the distaste in their faces.
“Okay, so Stalker had me over a barrel with this film and made me promise in writing to change my testimony tomorrow. He said he’d give me the tape after supper, but—”
“But he didn’t and you killed him,” said Merrilee.
“Except the tape is still here, girlie!” sneered Hoffe. “Would I kill him and then not take it? Hell, no! This was a grudge job.” He turned suddenly. “And you had a hell of a grudge against him.”
Norliss, caught off-guard, wet suddenly dry lips. He stammered, “That’s nonsense. I don’t know what you might have heard, but that disagreement in his office was just business.”
Bowman, still crouched in front of the VCR machine to check the tape cabinet beneath it, had taken out Hoffe’s tape and inserted another. He pushed the PLAY button and stood up. “Maybe this will tell us what kind of business.”
On the TV monitor flashed Stalker’s office, taken from a hidden camera. Stalker was behind his desk, dictating a memo. The sound quality was excellent.
“He wired his own office!” gasped Norliss.
The door burst open and Norliss stormed in. He stopped in front of his partner’s desk.
“I arrived this morning and found my name removed from my door! I’m going to tell the Bar Association and—”
“Tell them about the Gorsuch case?” asked Stalker silkily.
“I... I don’t know what you mean.”
Stalker was on his feet, towering over the older, frailer man. “I don’t mind your suborning witnesses, Jon, but when you do it so clumsily that I have to spend a great deal of money to get back the evidence and save the firm’s name, well—”
“But, Eric, you’re the one who demanded I offer—”
“Just sign this letter of resignation, Jon, and I’ll turn over the evidence to you. Otherwise—”
The screen went to snow.
I believe it was Cervantes who said that the only comfort of the miserable is to have partners in their woes. But Jon Norliss found small comfort with his partner here tonight. I’m sure he expected to get back the evidence at dinner, and when he learned that he wasn’t going to, well, perhaps he—
But there, I’m displaying a touch of detectivitis myself!
Bowman chuckled and shook his head as he took the tape back out of the VCR. “So Eric stiffed you, too, Jon. Just like he did Hoffe. Had you sign the resignation, then kept the evidence against you. So typical. But—”
“What about you?” Norliss burst in angrily. “Your motive for wanting him dead was better than mine. He could have taken my past — but he planned to take your future.”
Bowman swept an angry hand across the tape titles in the cabinet. “Where’s the tape with my name on it, then?”
Before Norliss could answer, Hoffe shot a hand into Bowman’s inside coat pocket and yanked out a video tape.
“Right here,” he said, shoving Bowman roughly aside.
In a moment, Stalker’s office again came up on the screen. Now it was Bowman and the attorney facing each other across the familiar desk, seen from the familiar angle.
“I’ve decided not to invest in your clinic, after all, Andy,” said Stalker in an almost indifferent voice.
Bowman’s face crumpled.
“But... but, I... If you don’t give me the money — I pledged everything, my home, my—”
“I’ve just found out there was nothing wrong with my gall bladder that a change of diet wouldn’t have cured. But you—”
Bowman was pleading now. “Eric, please! Maybe the operation was marginal, but... but in checking the X-rays afterward I found a... a shadow on your lung. I’m not a specialist in that field, but it could be—”
“Malignant?” Stalker laughed coarsely. “You’d say anything to save the clinic, wouldn’t you? Well, crawl for me, Andy. Convince me. If you do, next week, maybe — just maybe...”
I think it was an ancient Roman who said it was better to use medicine at the outset than at the last moment. Poor Dr. Bowman! All those financial ills, and he went to Stalker for his medicine. And what did he get for his troubles? Being prime suspect in a murder case. Unless you believe him, of course.