“What name?”
What name. Ah, yes, there’s something to think about. What name indeed.
Well, if I was going to rush in where I feared to tread, I might just as well go the whole way. With practically no hesitation at all, I announced, “Charlie Poole.”
“Charlie Poole.” He nodded, implying that the name had spoken volumes to him. “Wait here,” he said, and went abruptly away, pushing through the inner doors and leaving me alone in the airlock — that’s all my old science-fiction reading coming out again, excuse it please — with my thoughts and the notices.
It promptly occurred to me to run away. I could do it, no trouble at all; just out this door and down to my right and into the department store. It’s in department stores that people running away always manage to elude their pursuers in the movies on the late show, and I’d seen enough late shows in the last few years to have the method just about letter-perfect.
Still, I didn’t go anywhere. I reminded myself I’d felt this way just before going in to see Mr. Agricola, and also prior to invading Mr. Gross’s house, and in both cases I’d overcome my feelings and somehow survived, so why not this time.
“Three times and out,” I muttered to myself, voicing an old superstition that should never have been invented. Three on a match. Three strikes and you’re out. Bad things happen in threes.
The inner doors swung open again, happily breaking my trihedral reverie, and the policeman returned, saying, “Someone will be. right down.”
“Thank you.”
For the next few minutes he proceeded to ignore me, glowering fixedly out at the street instead. It’s a very odd feeling to be ignored by someone standing with you in a space four feet wide and three feet long, and I wasn’t at all sorry when another uniformed policeman stuck his head into our airlock and said, “Mr. Poole? Would you come with me, please?”
Very pleasant man, this one, very reassuring. Thinning hair, shiny forehead, pale spectacles, mild manner. I went with him unhesitatingly, through rooms and upstairs to the third floor.
What could happen to me in a police station?
Chapter 22
“Boo, chum,” said Trask or Slade.
“Nephew, you sure give us a merry chase,” said Slade or Trask.
The uniformed policeman had shut the door behind me. Trask and Slade were in front of me, standing on the gray carpet, smiling at me. Behind them was a desk, and behind the desk a man who had to be Mahoney. The office, medium-sized and somewhat dark, was what you’d expect to contain a deputy chief inspector of something or other.
I said, “I want to talk to Mahoney.”
“You never give up, nephew, do you,” said Trask or Slade.
“That’s one of the qualities about him I like best,” said Slade or Trask.
The man at the desk said, “You keep him quiet, you two. This is dangerous.” He sounded nervous; as though he had anything to be nervous about!
Trask or Slade said, “Don’t worry, there. We know our business.”
“Take him out the back way,” said the man at the desk. “I’ll let you know when it’s clear.”
I said, “Inspector Mahoney, I want to talk to you.”
Slade or Trask said, “Last time we heard from you, nephew, you were heeled. You heeled now?”
“No,” I said, while the pistol began to gain weight in my raincoat pocket.
“Let’s just see. Put your hands up on top of your head.”
Neither of them had a gun in sight. All I had to do was reach into my pocket, pull the pistol out, and start blasting away. So what I did was put my hands up on top of my head.
Slade or Trask came over and patted me here and there and took the pistol away. He looked at me and grinned and shook his head, hefting the little pistol on his palm. “You could hurt yourself with this, nephew,” he said.
The man at the desk said, “Why don’t he call?”
Trask or Slade told him, “Relax. Everything’ll be hunky-dory.”
I took a deep breath. “No, it won’t,” I said.
They all looked at me. Trask or Slade said, “You ain’t thinking of doing nothing stupid, are you, nephew?”
“Inspector Mahoney,” I said, “you better listen to me. You’re in worse trouble than you know.”
Well, he wasn’t. I was the one in trouble, and I was well aware how much. But Mahoney was acting nervous, and I leaped on it, ready to try anything that might help me get what I wanted.
Trask or Slade said to me, “Shut your face, nephew.”
But it was too late. Mahoney had reacted big to what I’d said; he was sitting at the desk looking like a man thirty seconds this side of a heart attack. He was a man of about fifty, with sandy graying hair and soft pale Irish flesh well distributed with freckles. Freckles on his cheeks, freckles on the backs of his hands. It was a foregone conclusion he’d have freckles on his meaty shoulders. His face was somewhat jowly from overweight and bore the expression of anxious friendly mendacity of a wardheeler at a clambake, the expression Ed Begley does so well.
He stood up now, behind his desk, and said, “What do you mean by that? What sort of trouble?”
Trask or Slade told him, “It’s bushwah. He’s got a whole song and dance if you’ll let him.”
Slade or Trask tossed my little pistol into the air and caught it again. “This is the whole story,” he said. “This toy cannon here. He come to kill you, like he killed the Farmer and tried to kill Mr. Gross.”
Mahoney was weakening. He didn’t know what to think. I said, “What if they’re wrong, Inspector? I know where you live, One sixty-nine dash eighty-eight Eighty-third Avenue. If I wanted to kill you I wouldn’t come here to the police station to do it, I’d go wait near your house.”
Trask or Slade came over close to me and poked a stiff finger into my chest. “I thought I told you shut your face.”
Mahoney said, “Wait. Hold it, Trask. Let him talk.”
Trask. The relief of finally knowing which one was Trask and which one Slade was almost too much for me. I practically forgot what I was here for and what I was trying to do.
But Trask reminded me. He rapped me on the shoulder, a good one, and said, “Okay, nephew, you got your wish. The floor’s yours.”
Slade — definitely Slade — added, “Give us your song and dance, nephew. You want we should hum along?”
Mahoney said, “Be quiet. Let him talk.”
“Thank you,” I said.
Mahoney pointed a freckled finger at me. “It better be good.”
I said, “Somebody’s been passing information to the authorities, and these people think it’s me. Somebody killed Mr. Agricola, and they think that was me, too. But what if it wasn’t? If it wasn’t me, getting rid of me won’t do any good. Whoever’s squealing will go right on squealing, and sooner or later he’ll squeal on you, Inspector Mahoney.”
Mahoney scrunched his face up. He was watching me like a hawk, and thinking hard.
I said, “If I didn’t kill Mr. Agricola, then whoever did kill him is still wandering around loose, nobody looking for him or even thinking about him, and maybe he does want to kill you, too.”
Slade tossed the pistol in the air. “How about this, nephew? What’s the rod for, ballast?”
“Self-defense. All you people keep trying to kill me.”
Mahoney said, “Only one thing so far makes sense. Why come here to bump me off if you know where I live?”
So I’d made an opening. I nodded enthusiastically, saying, “Sure. You can see the whole idea falls apart right there.”
“Does it? In that case, what I—”
He was interrupted by the ringing of the telephone. He glanced at Trask and Slade, and then picked up the phone and spoke into it. “Hello?... Hold on.” He cupped his hand over the mouthpiece and said to Trask and Slade, “It’s all clear now.”