Выбрать главу

“You woulda lost me if it hadn’t been for the snow. In snow you can stick real close to somebody with your lights off and they can’t even tell.”

“I’ll remember that next time,” I said.

“You think there’s gonna be a next time?”

“Why not?”

“Well, you sorta fucked this thing up, didn’t you? You lost the money. You didn’t get the book back. I don’t know, but if I was looking for a go-between in the Yellow Pages, I think maybe you’d be about the last one I’d call.”

“I guess I’ll have to learn to live with it.”

Fastnaught tipped the bottle up and took another drink. “Now me on the other hand, I’m sittin’ sorta pretty. I got Jack Marsh out there in the snow. That’s half of it. I figure I can pull in the other half without too much sweat. It might take a little trip but I figure they’ll go for it now.”

“A little trip where?” I said.

“Out to Los Angeles.” He turned in the seat and I could feel him looking at me. “Knowing you, maybe I’ll see you out there.”

“No,” I said. “I don’t think you will.”

9

The police arrived in a swarm of blue and white cars. There must have been six or seven units not counting an ambulance. After they were through figuring out what had happened they sent me over to George Washington University Hospital in the company of two very young uniformed policemen.

A pair of equally young doctors who were working the emergency room that night turned my head this way and that, took some X rays, cracked a couple of jokes, and gave me a small brown packet of pills.

“You’re going to have a hell of a stiff neck for a few days,” one of them said. “These might help a little.”

“What are they?”

“Muscle relaxants.”

“Nothing’s broken though?” I said.

“Not even cracked.”

The two young policemen took me down to headquarters on Indiana Avenue, where they handed me over to a pair of homicide detectives who took turns asking questions tor nearly an hour. After they were through I signed a statement that one of them typed up. By then it was a little after two o’clock.

“Wait here,” one of the homicide detectives said. “I’ll go see if I can find somebody to run you back to your hotel.”

He was gone quite a long time, at least a quarter of an hour. I sat there in the hard grey metal chair and waited. People wandered in, most of them men with pistols on their belts. Some of them looked at me, but there was little curiosity in their glances. I was just somebody else who had brushed up against violent death, and that was nothing to get excited about. Violent death was their business.

When the homicide detective came back Fastnaught was with him. “Okay, Mr. St. Ives,” the detective said. “You can go now. Lieutenant Fastnaught here will drop you by your hotel.”

“Anything else?” I said.

“Not now.”

“If there is, I’ll be in New York.”

He stared at me suspiciously. It was probably the only way he knew how to stare. “I know where you’ll be,” he said.

Fastnaught touched my arm. “Let’s go.”

I followed him out to the elevator. By the time it came, Fastnaught was humming to himself. I couldn’t make out the tune because he didn’t hum very well. He was still humming when we got into his car and he took the fifth from the glove compartment. He stopped humming long enough to put the bottle to his lips and take a deep swallow.

“You want a drink?” he said.

I shook my head. “They liked it, huh?”

“What?”

“Your story.”

“Oh, yeah. That. They liked it just fine. They liked it even better after they sent a couple of guys over to your hotel to talk to Max Spivey. I’m not gonna get any commendation, but with what you told ’em and with what Max Spivey told ’em, I came up smelling like that rose they keep talking about. You’ve gotta talk to Spivey now, don’t you?”

“That’s right.”

“From what I hear, he’s not too happy.”

“No. I suppose he’s not.”

“You gonna talk to him tonight?”

“Yes.”

“What’re you gonna tell him?”

“I’m going to tell him my version of what happened.”

“You wanta know what I would do if I was you, after I got through telling him that?”

“What?”

“Duck.”

After he got through chuckling over that, Fastnaught took one more drink, put the bottle back in the glove compartment, and started the engine. He was humming to himself again as he drove me back to the Hay Adams. It had stopped snowing by then and here and there a few street-cleaning crews were out. They looked cold and discouraged.

“They’re gonna put me on administrative leave, you know,” Fastnaught said as he turned down Sixteenth Street.

“They are?”

“It’ll look better that way. I told ’em I could use a couple of weeks of it while they got everything cleared up.”

“That’ll give you more time to spend with your wife, won’t it?”

Fastnaught looked at me. “You’re funny, St. Ives. You know that, you’re funny as hell.”

“Sure.”

He pulled up into the driveway that runs in front of the entrance to the Hay Adams. I looked at my watch. It was nearly a quarter to three. I wanted to get out of the car and go into the hotel and up to my room where it was warm and quiet and where nobody wanted to ask me any more questions about how stupid or careless I had been. I very much wanted to be alone, but Fastnaught needed to talk some more. Or maybe the liquor did.

“Two weeks,” he said. “That oughta be enough.”

“Plenty of time,” I said.

“Yeah, two weeks from now, maybe right about this time, I might be giving you a call. You be in New York?”

“That’s right. New York.”

“You in the book?”

“Yes.”

“Well, don’t be surprised if I give you a ring about then.”

“What’re we going to talk about?”

“We don’t have to talk about anything. I’ll just tell you who he is.”

“Who?”

“The other guy. The one who drove off in the car tonight with all the money.”

“Oh,” I said. “Him.”

“What’s the matter, don’t you wanta know who he is?”

“Look, I’ve had a long night. My neck hurts and so does my pride. I don’t know which hurts more. But it’s not doing either of them any good to sit here and listen to you or the booze, or maybe both, tell me how clever you’re going to be two weeks from now. For me, it’s over. I’m out of it.”

I was halfway out of the car when Fastnaught spoke. I turned to look at him. The booze had gone from both his voice and his eyes. His voice had a snap to it and his eyes were bright and hard and somehow cunning.

“Let me tell you something, St. Ives.”

“All right.”

“I’m going to find him.”

“Fine. I wish you luck.”

“No you don’t. What you’re hoping is that I’ll stumble around and make a mess of it. That’s what you’re really hoping, isn’t it?”

I shrugged. “I’m not sure. Maybe.”

He nodded as if my answer satisfied him. “Let me ask you something else,” he said. “Have you ever thought of maybe going into some other line of work?”

“That very thought occurred to me only tonight,” I said, got out of the car, and closed the car door without quite slamming it. Fastnaught nodded and waved at me as he drove off. He was probably humming again.

Max Spivey was half dressed. I couldn’t tell whether he had been on his way to bed when he stopped taking off his clothes or whether he had been rudely awakened and just pulled on whatever was available. He had on a tee shirt and a pair of pants and socks. The tee shirt had a small hole in it down near the waist. His beard was heavy and his hair was damp and rumpled as though he had had time to shower, but not to shave. He didn’t smile when he opened the door to my knock.