“Your friend Elaine Langen.”
“Oh, my God!” he said. “She told me that years ago!” I hope I’m not overdoing this, he thought, and then, trying to tiptoe his way through the right reactions, he frowned at her and said, “You don’t think she did it.”
“Not necessarily,” she said. “We do know it was the right caliber. Unfortunately, Mrs. Langen has lost her gun.”
“Lost? How do you lose a gun?”
Detective Reversa’s smile turned ironic. “That’s a very good question, Mr. Beckham,” she said. “But really there’s another question first.”
“There is?”
“Well, two people had access to that gun,” she reminded him. “Both Elaine Langen and her husband.”
“Oh, because it’s in the house.”
“Exactly.” Leaning forward, being concerned, being on his side, she said, “If it turned out that Mrs. Langen’s gun was the one that shot you, which of the Langens would you guess might have used it?”
This was the nub, the hinge. This was the point where, if he was ever going to get out from under what Elaine had done to both of them, he would do it now. He would find the words. He would deflect the investigation, take it off somewhere far from the robbery.
She watched him, smiling faintly, in no hurry, and he thought, I can’t put it on Jack Langen. I would love to, but no way. “No way Jack Langen would shoot me,” he said.
She looked surprised. “You seem very positive of that.”
“In the first place,” Jake told her, “he’s got no reason to be sore at me, not any more, not for years. And in the second place, that isn’t what he’d do, it isn’t the way he operates. If Jack Langen wanted me shot, he’d get somebody else to do it. And he wouldn’t loan the guy his wife’s gun.”
“No, I don’t suppose he would. So you think Elaine did it.”
He turned away from those sharp eyes, that fake smile. Elaine did it; yes, of course, Elaine did it. They were going to know that, if they didn’t already. They might not ever be able to prove it, but they’d know it. “I’d hate to think so,” he said.
“Because you were very good friends.”
Well, he didn’t have to put up with that much irony. Facing the detective again, he said, “I had an affair with Elaine Langen. It was never going anywhere, we were never gonna run away together, and we both knew it. Then her husband must’ve found out the same time he found out I was stealing. He got his revenge, he pressed charges, he paid me back, it’s all over as far as he’s concerned.”
“Is it all over? Between you and Mrs. Langen, I mean.”
“Absolutely,” he said, and all at once he saw it. The road out of the woods. “She wanted to start up again,” he explained, “when I got out, but I’m done with all of that, every bit of it. I’m Mr. Staight-and-narrow. I told her, it can’t pick up like before, it just can’t.” Then he allowed himself to get a bit wide-eyed. “Holy shit.”
Alert, she said, “Yes?”
“You’re right. She did it.” Hushed, he said, “Elaine took a shot at me.”
“That’s what you think happened.”
“But, listen,” he said. “Think about it. Look where she shot me,” and he pointed up at his inclined leg.
“Yes?”
“She’s a good shot, Elaine,” he said. “She told me, she used to go to the firing range and practice all the time. So if she did shoot at me, and okay, maybe she did, but if she did, she wasn’t trying to kill me.”
Detective Reversa looked skeptical. “Why would she do that, Mr. Beckham?”
“She was trying to attract my attention,” Jake said. “She really can’t stand her husband, I can tell you that, but she’s stuck with him, and for a while there I helped her sort of put up with the life she had to lead. I went into prison, I came out, I said no, she got desperate— I don’t mean I’m some kind of fantastic lover or anything, I’m just the guy that made it easier for her to live her life, that’s all. I was like, I don’t know, like her Valium. And I said no. And she brooded about it, and she decided, let’s attract his attention.”
Looking and sounding honestly amused at the idea, the detective said, “And to let you know, next time it could be worse.”
“That’s it,” he said. “Jesus, Detective Reversa, I bet you that’s just what happened.”
“You could very well be right.”
“And she threw the gun away. At least she threw the gun away. Though she could buy another. Or maybe she just hid it. But I don’t care, I don’t want to press charges.”
“She shot you, Mr. Beckham.”
“I understand that,” Jake said. “But I understand why she did it, and I understand it was a felony for her to do it, and if you can catch her on your own, that’s fine. But I don’t want to help. I’m sorry I said as much as I did.”
Detective Reversa considered the situation, then nodded. “For your sake, Mr. Beckham,” she said, “I hope Mrs. Langen appreciates your gesture.”
9
Nelson McWhitney was a bartender to begin with, but the bar he bought from his former boss never did make much of a living. A few of the regulars in the place, though, were connected to another line of work that was certainly more profitable but also chancier. Still, when these guys began to invite Nels along, he was happy to go. At first, he was just brought in for the heavy lifting, or the muscle if muscle were needed, but after a while he got to know some things, like how to open certain safes, how to bypass certain alarm systems, and his value to his partners only increased.
Unfortunately, mistakes by a couple of those partners had led to two brief stints inside, where he’d picked up a wider acquaintance, so he could pick his future partners with better care.
One of the first things he’d learned, way back, was never to trust those partners for a second. A thief is a thief. If he’s stealing anyway, he might as well steal from his partners, if he gets the chance.
It had been a long while since Nels had given anybody that kind of chance. With his mistrust of his partners had come a certain pragmatic wariness and a habit of protecting himself in certain ways. For instance, if he was going to be working with this fellow or that fellow, he liked to know where the fellow could be found later on, just in case.
Whatever the dental gold job with Al Stratton might have turned out to be, it had aborted before Nels could do that kind of homework on the rest of the group, including Nick Dalesia, but Al Stratton he could find, and Stratton would know how to put Nels together with Dalesia.
He hadn’t expected such stupidity from Dalesia. A man had died at that meeting. You don’t make jokes about it. You don’t hint to strangers—and a bounty hunter, no less!—that Nels McWhitney could tell you where to find Mike Harbin. That’s just stupid.
What was it for? Revenge maybe, because Nels had brought Harbin to the meeting? Whatever Dalesia’s reason, it was stupid, and Nels was looking forward to asking the question in person.
Which meant going to visit Al Stratton, who in his straight life was a furniture refinisher in a small town outside Binghamton, New York. Stratton had taken what had originally been a dairy farm, sold off the grazing land, lived in the farmhouse, and converted one of the barns to a workplace where he had room enough for any piece of furniture a customer might want dealt with.
Like most people who live some distance from town, Stratton kept a couple of dogs on the place that would let you live once their master said you were okay. McWhitney drove in from the county road, and as he circled the old wood-shingled house, both dogs came tearing out of the barn, yelping and throwing themselves around, snapping at the moving tires as McWhitney crunched along the gravel to stop at the barn’s open door.