Logan lay there staring at the floor with glassy eyes, his dinner trying hard to get past his clenched teeth. I gave him a good ten seconds to get up and he couldn’t make it. He was nuts if he thought I was going to be a sportsman about it. I walked over to him and he was just about to get his goddam teeth kicked down his throat when he turned his head and grinned at me.
That’s right, grinned. Like something was funny. His mouth was all bloody and he managed a good, solid grin. “You’re okay, Wilson,” he said.
I gave him a hand up, holding him until he could do it by himself. “That was a crazy stunt. What’d it get you?”
“You,” he grinned again. “The real McBride wouldn’t’ve done that. Johnny was as yellow as they come. He was scared to death of getting hurt. You’re okay, Wilson.”
“McBride. Johnny McBride, remember?”
“Okay, Johnny.”
“And never get the idea I’m yellow, Logan.”
“No, I won’t. I know some others who might think so.”
“They’re going to be awfully surprised.”
Logan said, “Yeah,” looked puzzled a second then grinned again.
Chapter Five
I had to help Logan out to the Chewy and feed him cigarettes until he was ready to go back to town. He kept shaking his head to clear it and there were raw patches on his elbows from where he skidded along the floor, but he wasn’t holding it against me.
When he kicked the engine over he said, “Where’d you pick up that rough stuff?”
“That went with the job, I guess.”
“Ever think that you might have been a pug before?”
I frowned at him, then shook my head. “If I was I don’t remember it.”
“You’re no amateur at that business, kiddo. Suppose I do a little poking around and see what I can find. Maybe you have a history I can run down.”
“Go to it, pal. I tried and didn’t get very far.”
“You might not like what I dig up.”
I tossed the cigarette out the window and watched it sizzle out in the water. “Maybe not, but it’s better than not knowing,” I told him finally. “Sometimes I get to thinking things that give me the willies. I can do things I didn’t know I could do... or at least my hands do them without thinking. I can handle a rod like a knife and fork and I know how to kill a guy the easy way. One day I found out I could open a lock with a piece of wire as easy as with a key. Nobody ever taught me how to use nitro or a burning torch either. The boys used to kid me... said I’d make a good safe cracker.
“It was real funny at first, then it wasn’t so funny. I picked up an old safe on a dump heap and tried to open it. You know how long it took? Four minutes working the dial. The boys caught me at it and I showed them how to blow the thing apart with a little soup. That door came off like it was sliced off.”
I looked at Logan and grinned. “See what you can do with that angle. Maybe I’m wanted for burglary someplace.”
“And if you are?”
I held out my hands where the fingerprints used to be.
He shrugged. “Lindsey says they can still bring out impressions.”
“Okay, let ’em try. I’m willing.”
“You seem to be pretty cocky about it.”
“Why not? You think I didn’t try to find out who I was? Hell, man, I went to the Army, Navy, Marines and Veteran’s Bureau trying to see what they could do. I’ve had a half-dozen doctors and experts try to bring out even the faintest sign of a print. They didn’t get anywhere.”
Logan nodded, the warning plain in his face. “I’ll look around then. If I dig anything up I’ll let you know.”
“Before or after you give it to Lindsey?”
“That depends on how good it is,” he told me.
He swung the car around and headed back up the highway. Traffic was light in both directions and we just loped along taking it easy. I knew he was feeling around for words, then he came right out with it. “What are you going to do about it?”
“Find this Vera you spoke of.”
His face got tight again. “Why her?”
“Because she’s the key, that’s why. I told you what was in that letter Johnny wrote. They took everything he had and she laughed while they did it because she was part of it.”
“Goddamn it!” His hand smacked the wheel violently. “Don’t push everything on her. You’re not sure, you know!”
“You still in love with her?”
“No.” He glanced at me and his face wrinkled up. “No, I’m not. But I was and maybe that makes the difference.”
“How well did you know her?”
“Well enough and long enough to know she wasn’t a tramp.”
“Logan,” I said, “in the few years that I remember anything, I’ve found out that no man knows a damn thing about any woman and that goes double when he’s in love with her.”
I handed him a cigarette and held up a light. “This newspaper of yours. Does it have any police photos?”
He looked at me over the light. “Some. Why?”
“Maybe it has one of the murder room where Minnow was shot?”
“Maybe.”
“Let’s go see, huh?”
He looked at me again without saying anything, took a drag on the cigarette and shoved the car in gear.
He drove through town to the News building and I waited downstairs while he was gone. Ten minutes later he walked over to the car with a brown folder between his fingers, got in and handed me four blown-up photos.
The first one showed Minnow dead, slumped forward on his desk, the blotter soaking up the blood that ran down his face. All around him were papers that he had been working on. In one hand was a pencil that had snapped in two when it dug into the desk with a convulsive movement. A stack of letters had been knocked to the floor by the same final twitch and showed spread out on the floor in the corner of the photo.
The other two pictures were angle shots of the body taking in part of the office background, showing one of the filing cabinets open. Minnow’s coat and hat on a clothes tree, a bookcase that apparently contained his law books and an umbrella stand. The last picture showed the gun on the floor.
I turned them to odd angles, checking them again. They were pretty clear in detail and a lot of the papers on the desk were readable. Most of them were parts of briefs, one a copy of an indictment and the rest of a general legal nature. Some of the letters scattered around had canceled stamps on them while a few were outgoing. One or two had something written across the face to identify the contents and nothing else.
When I finished I tucked them back in the folder. Logan said, “Well. What do you make out of them?”
“Nice gun,” I said.
“Police positive. Fully loaded and one shot fired.” His mouth tightened. “Your prints were all over it.”
“Not mine.”
“That’s right. His. It didn’t take long to check them, either. The bonding company the bank used had them on file right here in town. They checked with Army files in Washington.”
I could feel the frown start creasing my forehead. Something was wrong as hell. I pulled the photos out, looked them over carefully again and shoved them back in disgust. I said, “How easy would it be for somebody to get in the building?”
“It wouldn’t be hard to force a window. Not that it would have been necessary. A couple were open. One was in the hall off the back court that led directly up to Minnow’s office.”
“I see.” I handed him the stuff back and sucked on my cigarette. I couldn’t get it out of my mind that something stunk and my nose wasn’t big enough to catch the smell. Without thinking I finally asked, “What was Minnow working on that night?”