If I’d had time I might have stopped to puzzle over Madonna’s reasons for telling all that to Robert Brown, but first there were more important things to cover. I said, “What’s your connection with Madonna?”
“I wish to God there weren’t any,” Robert Brown said, sounding as if he meant it. “You must understand that we all make mistakes. There are some of us who are in positions where we can’t afford to have our mistakes exposed. Unfortunately, evidence of one or two mistakes from my past found its way into Salvatore Aiello’s possession. I have reason to believe that evidence was in his safe. I want to get it back. I won’t breathe easy until I do.”
I said, “You’ve got a wallet in your hip pocket. Take it out and toss it on the bed.”
“What?”
I jiggled the gun at him. He wanted to put up an argument but he thought fast, gave it up, and did as he’d been told. He didn’t look happy about it. I picked up the wallet and went through it, keeping one eye on him. The credit and membership cards identified him as Fred V. Brawley, M.D., member of various societies of surgeons, the A.N.A., Lions, Kiwanis, Chamber of Commerce, American Express, Diners Club, Yale University Alumni Association. The emergency ID card said he was forty-nine, allergic to penicillin, Blood Type B+, next-of-kin Mrs. Sylvia Brawley (wife) at 2744 Camino del Rodeo. There was a thick wad of cash, large-denomination bills, and two blank checks with his name and an office address at Cliff View Terrace. There were no photos of wife or children, but there was a handsome color snapshot of a cabin cruiser; it looked like about a forty-footer, with a flying bridge and marlin rigs on the open transom deck.
I put everything back in the wallet and tossed it back to the sportsman-surgeon. I said, to Joanne, “Doctor Fred Brawley. Mean anything to you?”
“I’ve heard of him,” she said. “Very exclusive—high-priced and high society.”
I said, “That right, Doc?”
He was mum, glaring not at me but at Joanne. I attracted his attention with a two-inch jiggle of the revolver and said, “Doc, I might suggest you’re in trouble up to your lumbar region. I suggest you start over. Vincent Madonna didn’t tell you where to find us. Who did?”
“Didn’t he?” He was being coy again.
I only shook my head. It wasn’t worth explaining to him. I said, “You told the truth about one part of it. Aiello had blackmail evidence against you in his safe, didn’t he?”
“That’s what I said.”
“What kind of evidence?”
He managed a tight little smile. “I’d be a bit of a fool to tell you that, wouldn’t I?”
I shrugged. “It doesn’t matter much. Malpractice, maybe, or illegal abortions.”
From the way he stiffened I knew I had scored a hit. I didn’t press it; it didn’t seem to matter. I said, “The point is, somebody pointed you at us. I have to know who it was, I’ll get rough with you if I have to. How about it?”
He brooded at my .38 and finally said, “It’s not only the evidence, you see. Aiello was the only one who had the background information that would have made the evidence useful against me. If anyone else turns it up, it won’t be much use to them, because without knowing where to look for corroboration they won’t be able to prove anything. I’ll be honest with you, Crane. I had money in that safe. Two hundred and fifteen thousand dollars in cash, wrapped up in a bundle with my name on it, in Aiello’s vault where no tax snoopers would find it. That money belongs to me and I mean to get it back. I don’t care what happens to the rest of the money from the safe but I want my own property returned to me. I admit I made a mistake with you, letting you get close enough to disarm me, but I warn you that if I find out you’ve found that money and you don’t return my share to me, I’ll make it my business to kill you if necessary to get it.”
It was pure bravado, coming from an unarmed man at gunpoint, and I had to admire it. But it also nicely masked his shift away from my question. I said, “That’s fine, Doctor. If I find the money I’ll think about it. In the meantime you haven’t told me who sent you here.”
“But I have. I can’t help it if you didn’t believe me.”
“It won’t do, Doc. If there’s two hundred and fifteen thousand of yours in that loot, maybe Madonna would be willing to see you get it back, but he’d never have admitted to you that the blackmail evidence was missing. He wants that himself.”
“I told you, it wouldn’t be any good to him. He doesn’t know the facts that Aiello knew, the facts he’d need to connect it up.”
“If that’s true, it gives you a motive to kill Aiello, doesn’t it?”
His mouth drew back in disgust. “I won’t dignify that with an answer.”
“You just threatened to kill me,” I pointed out.
“Mr. Crane, if I’d killed Aiello, I’d already have the contents of his safe in my possession, and I certainly wouldn’t have any reason to come after you.”
“Not unless you wanted me thrown off the track,” I said.
He threw up his hands. “Suit yourself. We can stand here all day and argue like this, to no point. I’ve said what I came to say. I blundered clumsily, using a gun, I admit that, but there wouldn’t be much profit in continuing this, would there? May I go?”
“As soon as you tell us who sent you here.”
He considered me; by now he was disregarding the gun, assuming I wasn’t going to use it on him unless he got violent. Finally he said, “I’ll tell you what I’ll do. I’ll answer that question if you’ll give me a straight answer to a question of mine.”
I remembered something Madonna had said to me a few hours ago and I used it on him, only sorry that he couldn’t appreciate the irony of it. I said, “Why should I bargain with you when I’ve got a corner on the market?”
For some reason that made him smile. Then he caught himself, straightened his face and said, “All right, I don’t suppose it matters that much. The man who spotted Mrs. Farrell in the lobby this morning was indebted to me for various favors—I had treated his wife, brought her through a serious illness, and not charged the man because I knew there would be a time when I would want him to do me a favor. Those who are ignorant of medical procedures tend to be excessively grateful to a physician who, from his own point of view, was only doing a competent job of what he’d been trained to do. This man—”
“What’s his name?”
“It doesn’t matter, does it? If you want him, his name is Behrenman.”
I looked at Joanne; she nodded slightly, confirming it.
Brawley continued: “Behrenman knew I had money in Aiello’s safe, knew I had a vital interest in finding the contents of it, and felt duty-bound to me as the man who had saved his wife’s life. He telephoned me at my office and told me that Madonna felt you were the most likely person to know what had happened to the contents of the safe. Behrenman didn’t know why Madonna felt that way, but he did know that Madonna was sufficiently convinced of it to order elaborate surveillance on Mrs. Farrell to make sure the two of you didn’t seize the money and make a run for it. I assume Madonna is hanging back in the hope that you’ll lead him to the money, whereupon he’ll pounce on you. That’s none of my concern. All I want is my money. It’s a rather small proportion of the total cash contents of the safe. Frankly I hoped I could force you at gunpoint to reveal the location of the money, or at least force you to go get my share and bring it back here to me while I held Mrs. Farrell hostage. As you see, it didn’t work. I’m not very adept at that sort of thing, obviously. Another mistake to chalk up. But now I’ve told you what you wanted to know. You could return my frankness by at least telling me whether you do in fact have the money.”
I shook my head at him. Either he was a fool or he just liked to hear himself talk. I said. “Go on, Doc, get out of here.”