“Extremely,” I said.
“You sort of just breezed over it before, St. Ives. Why don’t you let us have it again with a little more detail?”
“All right,” I said, and I told them what Freddie had said as Mbwato stood there, looking for some place to put the curling iron. I didn’t mention either Mbwato or Mr. Ulado. For some reason I always thought of the slim, dark young man as Mister Ulado.
When I was through Demeter grunted, looked for some place to dump his ash, and found a tray on a table next to him. “And Freddie here told you all that, huh? You must have been a hell of a good reporter at one time, St. Ives.”
“Just fair,” I said. “People confide in me.”
“He’s a lying bastard,” Freddie said in a dull tone. “There were two niggers. They had a curling iron. He was gonna help them shove it up — ask her. Ask Wanda.”
“What about it, Wanda?”
The girl looked at him blankly. “What?”
“Was there a curling iron and two spades?”
“Uh-huh,” she said. “Sure. And the shield of Komporeen.” She giggled again.
Demeter sighed. “Like I said, that suitcase would buy a lot of cigars. How much is a third of two hundred and fifty thousand, Fastnaught?”
“I’ve already figured it out,” Fastnaught said. “It’s $83,333.33.”
“Sounds like a lot of money,” Demeter said. “Sound like enough to you, St. Ives?”
“What happens to your two friends over there?”
“I guess they could try to escape. But like I said, is $83,333.33 enough?”
“Not for me,” I said.
“I didn’t think it would be,” he said. “Not for a New York go-between. When you come right down to it, it’s not even enough for a Washington cop.” He turned to Freddie. “What kind of car did you put the shield in, Freddie?”
“I don’t know what kind of car it—” He stopped quickly. “I don’t have to talk to you,” he said. “I gotta right to get a lawyer.”
Demeter rose. “You’ll need one,” he said. “A good one. On your feet; we’re going to take a little ride. Bring the suitcase, Fastnaught.”
“Don’t you think that should go back to the museum?” I said.
“What’s the matter, St. Ives, you worried that maybe a hundred and twenty-five thousand each might be enough for a couple of cops?”
“I don’t worry about anything,” I said.
“I bet. Let me make something clear. The money is the only evidence we got. Without the money all we got is your song and dance about what these two told you. And that’s hearsay. Now I’m going to call the Wingo woman when we get down to headquarters and tell her that we’ve got the money and two suspects. Are you happy now?”
“I’m happy,” I said.
“Let’s go,” Demeter said.
Fastnaught moved over to the handcuffed couple and jerked his head at the door. I was on my feet and when Freddie drew abreast of me, he stopped. “Whyn’t you tell ’em about the two niggers, man? Why d’you have to be such a lying son of a bitch?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Freddie.”
His face started to crumple and I thought he would cry again. But he didn’t. “You lie, man!” he shouted. “You lie.”
“Oh, shut up, Freddie,” the girl said.
“Let’s go,” Fastnaught said to the pair, and herded them out through the door into the hall.
Demeter paused at the door. “You want a ride, St. Ives?”
“No thanks,” I said.
“You got a date downtown at ten tomorrow, you know.”
“I know.”
He nodded. “You can see homicide first and then drop by my office. I’ll need a statement, too.”
“All right.”
“Tell me something,” he said.
“What?”
“Were you and the two spades really going to shove a hot curling iron up the kid’s kiester?”
“I don’t know anything about a curling iron, Lieutenant. Or two spades.”
He nodded and puffed on his cigar twice. “Tell me something else. Just how big would it have to be for a three-way split? I mean for a big-time New York go-between.”
“I don’t know,” I said. “How big would it have to be for a robbery-squad lieutenant?”
“I don’t know either,” he said. “I don’t really know. I hope to God I never find out.”
Chapter twenty-one
The humidity must have been nudging the hundred mark the next morning when I came out of the Metropolitan Police headquarters at 300 Indiana Avenue. Gray, fat clouds moved slowly to the east, taking their time like plump brokers on the way back to the office after a big lunch and a thoughtful speech. It was 11:15 and I was late and there was a tickle in my throat because I had been answering questions for a solid hour and some of my answers had even bordered on the truth.
I hailed a taxi and it deposited me at the entrance of the Coulter Museum at 11:27. At 11:30 Frances Wingo’s young Negro secretary was holding open the door to her employer’s office. There was no smile this time. I decided that she handed out that smile only to the prompt.
At four o’clock that morning, as I lay in a rough nest of twisted sheets, it had all seemed unambiguous, clear-cut, even simple. But as I went through the door into Frances Wingo’s office everything crumbled and what had seemed simple in that awful hour between four and five in the morning, now seemed impossibly far-fetched and complicated.
Frances Wingo and Winfield Spencer were seated at the far end of her office occupying two of the chairs in the cluster of comfortable furniture that was grouped around the fireplace. I noticed that the Klee was gone. In its place was a chilly blaze of electric blue squares by someone I failed to recognize. Frances Wingo wore an off-white dress that was trimmed in black. Spencer wore what seemed to be the same gray suit with vest that I’d seen him in before. His shirt collar was un-frayed this time, but his hair still seemed to have been trimmed with the garden shears. He also had on a different tie, a blue polka dot butterfly bow that clipped neatly on to his collar. It must have cost all of seventy-five cents. They both wore those politely pained, frosty expressions that are adopted by busy persons who have been kept waiting for half an hour by someone who isn’t busy.
“Sorry I’m late,” I said. “I had to give the police two statements and it took longer than I thought it would.”
“While we were waiting,” Frances Wingo said, “I informed Mr. Spencer about the call that I received from Lieutenant Demeter at one o’clock this morning. He told me about apprehending the two suspected thieves and recovering the money. It would seem that you might have let me know that the money was missing when we spoke on the phone last night, Mr. St. Ives.”
“I would have,” I said, “but you hung up in my ear.”
Spencer once again fixed his green gaze on my forehead. “If I understand correctly, the money is safe, the thieves are caught, but the shield is still missing. That is a brief but I hope succinct summary of the current situation, is it not, Mr. St. Ives?”
“It is,” I said.
“Then it would seem that you did what you said you would not do.”
“What?”
“Help catch the thieves.”
“Yes, it does seem that way, doesn’t it?”
Spencer nodded and shifted his gaze to the coffee table that lay between the two of them in their chairs and me on the couch. “We are, of course, deeply disappointed.”
“I’m sure you must be.”
“The shield — not the money, not the thieves — but the shield was the most important thing.”
“Yes,” I said. “It would appear so.”
My head started to throb again, not as bad as the night before, only a dull, deep throb — something like a distant artillery barrage.