‘Maybe not,’ Vega agreed, his dark eyes steady. ‘You do your work well. All right, I’ve told you I didn’t kill anyone, and know nothing about Anne Terry. That’s all I can do.’
Gazzo nodded. ‘I guess so. Well, we’ll go work on it some more. Thanks for the time.’
I said, ‘You know a man named Emory Foster, Vega?’
‘No,’ he snapped, then his eyes flickered to me. ‘Emory Foster?’
‘Yeh,’ I said. ‘Heavy man, red-faced, maybe fifty or maybe younger. A free-lance writer of sorts. A friend of Anne Terry’s sister Sarah Wiggen.’
‘No,’ he said. He was looking at me, but I had a feeling he didn’t see me. ‘I don’t know him.’
He turned, and then seemed to look at his walls of paintings in the fading sunlight. Maybe Gazzo talking about his troubles had gotten to him. I heard Anne Terry’s bony voice. ‘He’ll never be sure enough to relax, Gunner.’ He looked at his paintings as if he saw them all melting away, the colours dripping.
‘Next time, Captain,’ the lawyer said, ‘bring a paper.’
Vega came from his trance. ‘Come when you want, Captain. I’ve got nothing to hide. Now, damn it, I’ve got work to do. Where the hell’s my coat?’
He strode out of the room calling for George Lehman. The lawyer chewed on his lip. Gazzo led me out, and rumbled low in his throat all the way down in the elevator. He was talking to himself, and I knew better than to interrupt. If he wanted to talk to me, he would. We were being driven downtown when he did.
‘Vega’s got the ego to think he can get away with anything he has to. Terrell needs a reason to lie. Maybe revenge, only I figure Terrell more for direct action. There’s something missing, Dan. I better go talk to Denniken.’
I wasn’t invited to talk to Lieutenant Denniken, which was just as well. I was starved. I hadn’t gotten to lunch after all. Gazzo let me out in Sheridan Square, and I called Marty again. She still wasn’t home-or wasn’t answering. If I hadn’t just left Ricardo Vega, I might have wondered. Instead, I was a little worried. I called the theatre. She wasn’t there either. They said she hadn’t been on call, she might have been there at some time, and she was on call for tonight.
I wasn’t really worried, Marty was a big girl, but I decided to have an early dinner at The Sevilla Restaurant. I like the paella at The Sevilla, and an oily-looking but bone-dry Spanish white wine they have, and the place is half a block from Marty’s pad. From the bar you can see her front door.
I kicked off my badly needed dinner with an Irish and soda at the bar. I didn’t see Marty, but before I was through that first drink I saw another familiar face. I told Mano behind the bar that I’d be right back.
Twilight was a clear, cool, dying pink over the spring city, and he was standing on the corner not looking at anyone. Just standing. He wore the same chino levis and black boots, but his shirt was black and Cossack now, and his jacket was faded denim. He was talking to himself-literally. His lips moved in his lean, boyish face.
‘Waiting for someone, McBride?’ I said.
He looked at me. ‘Yeh.’
Just ‘Yeh,’ and looked away. I didn’t seem to worry him. He stood lithe and easy, relaxed on the street corner as if his body was resting, his brain in repose. I wondered if he’d forgotten our rainy alley, but it wasn’t that. I just didn’t scare him. He wasn’t a man who worried about the possible. He looked vaguely bored.
‘It’s a cute name, Sean. Vega going to adopt you?’ I said.
‘You got to have the right name.’
‘You here for Vega?’
He didn’t answer.
‘You wouldn’t be looking for a contract and some money? What Vega gave to Anne Terry?’
He snickered. ‘That ain’t what he gave her.’
‘Watching someone? Me, maybe?’
He moved his head in circles as if his neck hurt. After the first moment he hadn’t looked at me again. He looked right, left, up, down; talked to me, but looked everywhere else. Marlon Brando. Yet not an act. McBride was himself, and Brando, at the same time. I was seeing life reborn through art. Brando, to communicate the essence of a type of uneducated, inarticulate American male, created his brilliant projection of their explosive, caged anguish through a series of external mannerisms. Those same males, instinctively recognizing themselves in Brando’s masterpiece, adopted the mannerisms. Brando had portrayed the McBrides of America, and now McBride played Brando.’
‘You like being an errand boy?’ I said. ‘A pimp?’
‘Go away, man.’
‘You’re rough in a dark alley from behind.’
He looked at me from under his brows-Brando again. His eyes were violet yet uncertain; that caged pacing inside again. Sure of his needs, but not sure of himself in having those needs. I realized that McBride could never really think straight enough to act in his own best interest for very long. A man who would see only the moment and the need, like a lion who sees meat.
‘Man, I got two arms, forty pounds, and maybe fifteen years on you. Go on away.’
‘Tell me what a famous movie star you’ll be,’ I said.
‘Man, you talk for a cripple.’
He was right. I was no match for him, yet I had to be the brave bull, the loud rooster. Someday the mindless roosters, all hormones and square jaws, will destroy the world. There’s no merit to challenging a stronger man on his terms, with his weapons. Losing with pride isn’t something to build your life on. Dying bravely in battle may be noble, but it’s not what you build a world on. No, I don’t feel good when I talk big. I know it’s only my missing arm that makes me do it.
‘There’s more than one kind of cripple,’ I said.
He went through his look-everywhere-except-at-me act. As if he didn’t know what he would do with me. I had the sudden realization that he didn’t know. Behind his uncertain eyes his brain was too busy-filled with dreams, hopes, and notions that remained random, uncontrolled. He literally didn’t know what he wanted to do with me: fight, ignore, sneer or talk. Then he decided.
He walked away. Without another word or glance. Neither afraid of me, nor hating me anymore. He had decided to walk away, and I no longer concerned him. The instant his back was turned to me, I ceased to exist for him.
I watched him until he turned the next corner. I wasn’t sure I envied Ricardo Vega his services.
Chapter Fourteen
I ate my paella at the window table in The Sevilla. Marty hadn’t shown by the time the coffee came. I hate Spanish desserts, so I settled for Irish in the coffee. Cognac is better, but I can afford only so much indulgent spending. I didn’t see where I was going to make money in this affair.
It wasn’t money I was after. Face it, I was after only one reward-Ricardo Vega skewered. I faced it. Sure, I had gotten to like Anne Terry, her hard days had deserved better than a cheap funeral. If her work hadn’t been what a solemn D.D., or even an upright card shark, would have approved, we don’t often choose what we work at. The options open can be pretty narrow. Sure, I burned for the kids who didn’t even have a weekend mother now, but collaring someone for her death wasn’t going to help them.
There are moments when a man has to look at himself. Alone is best. I was a hound on a scent. I wanted Ricardo Vega to be guilty. If I had wanted him innocent, what would I be thinking? That Vega had no motive big enough I could see.
Without Ricardo Vega, what was there?
A common abortion. A girl who had enough complications in her life, who wasn’t too bright, and who was tough enough to take a hard risk. Accidental death.
A common abortion, but arranged by Ted Marshall. He seemed to be number one stud in her life at the moment. If Marshall confessed he was the arranger, the police would believe him instantly-standard and logical, no matter what anyone said about Ricardo Vega. Murder? I didn’t think Marshall was the type, but there are dark places in ambitious young men.
Boone Terrell? His own story said he was a man who would do just about anything for Anne, who accepted anything she did if she let him stay around. His story was also the kind of dog-like love that could turn fast to hate. A small straw; the straw of another man’s baby? Love turned to hate, a rage in heaven that could become murder in a breath. His story an attempt to protect himself, get revenge on Vega, or both? Terrell was too quiet, too alert, too calm.