“A third person would have to have gotten past the doorman earlier, but it could have happened, yes.”
He faced me. “Then there’s me. I was here. It would all shield me, too.”
“You were here,” I said.
He continued to stare at me. Then he turned again, poured another shot, and downed it. He was holding himself rigid now. “What do you want me to do, Fortune?”
“Take a drive with me,” I said. “It isn’t just Jonathan anymore, Ames. Not even Jonathan and Baron. Two more bodies are on the list. One of them doesn’t matter much, but the other was a stupid, scared little girl who never really started living. Now she’s dead because she was just a possible threat to someone, and that someone is still running loose.”
His back was a ramrod. “North Chester?”
“Yes. I have a car.”
He turned. “All right.”
He got his coat and hat and we went down to my car. I told him to drive. Even a man with two arms is pretty helpless when driving. I didn’t think he had killed anyone, but that was theory and guesswork. I could be all wrong.
25
We went across to the West Side Highway, passed the George Washington Bridge that was an endless moving stream of lights, and drove on through Riverdale to the north. Outside the city the snow was an unbroken expanse of white that reflected the lights of the rows of suburban houses and the colored neon of the shops and taverns.
Ames drove fast, skillfully, and in silence. The rigidity had not left him. He was a man with a lot on his mind, the effete aristocrat just about gone. He was offstage now, as much as any actor can ever be. I couldn’t tell what he had on his mind, and he wasn’t going to tell me. He was waiting, maybe only to find out what I really knew or had guessed, before he did anything. I didn’t know what he knew, or had guessed, or how he felt about it. I didn’t know how he would act when the time came to stop me or help me. Maybe Ames didn’t know either.
We entered Westchester, and the houses were fewer. Only the traffic never lessened. The lights came on at me in a mass. I felt as if I were plunging through a dark tunnel with a million eyes watching me, alone with nothing but enemies. I was sure, now, that I knew what had happened on Monday morning, but I could never prove it unless I made someone panic. Panic can be dangerous, two-edged, but I had no other weapon.
By now Gazzo would be looking for me. Witnesses would have described the one-armed man who had been with Leo Zar when he died. Leo, and the death of Carla Devine, would give Gazzo some doubts about Weiss. He would want to talk to me. I didn’t have a lot of time. Weiss had less time if I didn’t produce a killer, with evidence, soon.
The D.A. would not have doubts. To the D.A., or some tenth assistant D.A. for Weiss, Carla Devine would have died by accident or suicide from depression over Baron’s death, and Leo Zar would be the victim of a gang rumble. Sure, both deaths might be a result of Baron’s death, but that didn’t change Weiss’s obvious guilt. Not a bit. The tenth assistant D.A. would get a good night’s sleep. Chief McGuire would think about it longer, he would even instruct his men to keep their eyes open, but he had a whole giant city to police. McGuire’s detectives wouldn’t try too hard. Weiss probably belonged in jail anyway, and even Gazzo had too much work to do.
We passed through North Chester just after midnight. Five minutes later Ames turned the car into the long drive up to the fine old house with its two cottages behind. There were lights in the downstairs windows. Ames parked at the front door.
The butler, MacLeod, let us in. Mrs. Radford was in the library. Ames walked behind me as if his legs were heavy and his feet were mired in mud, his flamboyance noticeably missing. Gertrude Radford was alone. She closed her book, put it carefully aside, and acknowledged us:
“You came, George. I’m pleased. Mr. Fortune. Sit down.”
I sat. Ames went to stand in a corner near an obvious liquor cabinet. Mrs. Radford’s pale eyes watched Ames. She wore a gray lounging robe, and her white hair was immaculate. Her rings were on her fingers. A coffee cup stood on a crystal coaster on the table beside her. The library was neat, solid, orderly, with everything in its proper place. The ashtrays looked as if they had not been moved, or used, for a century.
“Could Walter and Miss Fallon join us?” I asked.
Her frail hands made a gesture, but her youthful face was smooth, and her fragile body was relaxed. I could have been a cousin she saw every week. There was a crease between her eyes that might have been worry, but didn’t have to be.
“Forgive me, Mr. Fortune,” she said, smiled. “I’m sure you want to get to your mission, whatever it is, but we always talk over a cup of coffee in the family. I find it a civilized custom, and feel lost without it. You prefer percolator, don’t you?”
“That’s fine,” I said.
She nodded. “Three percolator, please, MacLeod.”
“Two, Gertrude,” Ames said. He opened the liquor cabinet and found the whisky.
Mrs. Radford said, “I think coffee would be better, George.”
Ames poured a drink without answering her. She sighed, as if she would never understand men who needed the crutch of liquor.
“Two cups then, MacLeod,” she said.
She folded her thin hands in her lap and sat smiling at me politely. She ignored Ames now. He stood in the corner, drinking. It was clear we were not going to discuss anything until the coffee came. We would not have discussed an imminent invasion before the coffee came. She held to her routines, to all the external realities of her life, no matter what. Her rock in an unpredictable sea.
MacLeod returned, and I accepted my cup. The coffee was still good. She sipped twice, and then set her cup down.
“Now, you wanted to see Walter and Deirdre?” she said.
“All of you,” I said.
Her voice was neither warm nor cold, ordinary. “Deirdre has been out for some hours. She went alone, I don’t know where. Walter should be in the house. MacLeod, find Mr. Walter and bring him here, would you, please?”
MacLeod left. Mrs. Radford sipped some more of the coffee, and her pale eyes studied me over the cup.
“You want to talk about Jonathan’s murder again, of course,” she said. “Have you learned something important?”
The tone of her quiet voice was normal, conversational, politely interested. So normal it was abnormal. We were not about to discuss some charity bazaar.
“Two more people have been murdered, Mrs. Radford. One was just a girl, a child who’d done nothing to anyone.”
“That’s awful, Mr. Fortune. Did I know her?”
“She was one of the girls your son worked with.”
“It’s a violent world,” she said. “I am sorry.”
“Sammy Weiss was in jail, Mrs. Radford.”
“As he should be.”
“Weiss couldn’t have killed the girl and the other man.”
“Obviously, of course,” she said, and smiled. It was a gentle, pleasant smile. “What has all this to do with any of us here?”
“They were killed because of Paul Baron. And Baron was killed, at least in part, because he knew who really murdered Jonathan.”
“Are you here to accuse someone?”
Her frail face still smiled politely, and her voice was matter-of-fact. She really wanted to know if I was there to make an accusation.
“I think you know damn well why I’m here,” I said. “Your trip to New York on Monday says you know.”
“Oh, get to the point. You’ve come to say you’ve found out that my son killed his uncle? You’ve come to accuse Walter?”
“I figured you knew,” I said. “Yes, Walter killed Jonathan.”
Ames put his glass down with a bang that echoed in the small library. “Damn it, Fortune, how can you be sure of such a thing? Walter had no motive. You agreed anyone could have been there!”