The chauffeur was a pallid fleshy-faced man of about forty-five with a bottle-bloodshot nose; terrific choice for a driver.
He said, “Mr. Wyman would like to speak to you.”
“Who? Oh. Yeah. Sure.”
He opened the back door and I climbed in. A man of medium but powerful build, in his mid-fifties, in a gray suit and a dark tie, his overcoat folded neatly on the seat beside him, sat morosely, staring forward, wet trails on his ruggedly handsome face.
This was Earl Wyman, self-made man, a construction worker who bettered himself, the president of an ornamental iron company with a fancy Michigan Avenue office, now, a man who two years ago had been messily, publicly divorced by his wife, who had named one Estelle Carey as a correspondent in the proceedings.
I got in and sat there and Wyman said, without looking at me, “Could I drop you at the El station?”
“Certainly. It’s nasty weather even for a short walk.”
He tapped on the window separating us from the front seat and the chauffeur, who responded to the tap by pulling out into the street. We were not headed toward the El station, and I said as much.
Wyman, still not looking at me, said, “We’ll just drive for a few minutes, if that’s all right. I’d like a word with you, Mr. Heller.”
I unbuttoned my overcoat; it was hot in here. The car’s heater was a furnace.
“How is it you know me?”
He smiled faintly, just for a second. “I might say from the newspapers. You’ve had occasion to be in them. Most recently just the other day. And, in passing, last night and this morning. But your experiences on Guadalcanal are quite…stirring. You must be a brave young man.”
“I’m not particularly brave, and youth, I find, is fleeting.”
He looked at me. His eyes were gray. And red.
“A wise observation, Mr. Heller.”
“Not really. More like trite. Estelle told you about me. That’s where you know me from.”
He nodded, slowly. “She trusted you. I’d even say…she came close to loving you. Or at any rate I could tell she had been in love with you once. As much as she could love any man, that is. Of course she loved mammon best of all.”
Well, that was a little arch, but I couldn’t argue with him.
I said, “She loved Estelle, not wisely, but too well. And so did you.”
He looked away from me. “I loved her very, very much, for the little good it did me. She could be very cruel. No-that’s not fair. She didn’t have a mean bone in her body. She was just so very…acquisitive.”
“Yeah. She was that. What can I do for you, Mr. Wyman?”
He didn’t answer. Not directly. “I’m so…ashamed of myself. I came here today, full well intending to go in and sit among the mourners, but… I came here for the inquest, you know, early this morning, and they continued it till a few weeks from now, so I came out to my limousine to wait, and then the reporters began showing up, and I… I was a coward.” His head lurched forward and he covered his face and began weeping. “I was a coward. A craven coward. I loved her so. And I didn’t, couldn’t so much as go in and…”
I shifted in my seat. This was the most uncomfortable limo I’d ever sat in, and it wasn’t just the heat, and it didn’t have anything to do with the seat cushions.
“Look, Mr. Wyman,” I said. “She’s dead. It doesn’t matter whether you went in there and paid your last respects or not. Say good-bye to her in your own way…in your, you know, your own heart.”
He wiped his face off, with almost frantic swipes of one palm, as if noticing for the first time that tears were there, suddenly embarrassed by them, saying, “I… I like to think she knows I came today. That I… I did, in my own private way, pay my proper respects. That I did, that I do, still love her. That she’s watching, from above.”
If Estelle was watching, it probably wasn’t from that particular vantage point; if she was watching, it was probably hotter there than this car. Or her apartment had been, at the end. If she’d gone anywhere.
But I said, “Sure, Mr. Wyman. That’s the ticket. I’m sure she knows how you feel. Now, uh, the next train leaves in ten minutes. What can I do for you?”
He looked at me, tentatively. “The papers mentioned you were one of the first at the…scene.”
“That’s right.”
“Did you happen to have a look around the apartment? Did you aid the detectives in examining Estelle’s things?”
I nodded. “Up to a point, yes.”
“The, uh, stories said that certain personal effects were found…letters from a serviceman, photos, an address book…my name was in the latter, though the papers don’t have that. Yet.”
“I saw all that stuff, yes.”
Now he looked at me sharply, intensely. The gray eyes alert. “Did you see anything else?”
“I saw a lot of things, including Estelle herself and various instruments of torture.”
He shuddered. “That’s not what I’m inquiring about.”
It was so hot in this goddamn car, I was sweating; snow storm outside, and I’m sweating. “Mr. Wyman, I appreciate your grief, I share it, but will you get to the fucking point?”
He sighed. “I understand your frustration. I hope you can forgive my, well…I’m out of sorts today, Mr. Heller. This has shaken me. This…”
“Get to the point. I have a train to catch.”
He turned to the fogged-up window next to him, as if looking out. “Did you see a red book?”
“A red book?”
He stared at the fogged window. “With a clasp. Perhaps two inches thick. The book, I mean.”
“A diary?”
Now he looked at me. “A diary.”
“Estelle kept a diary?”
“Yes. Did you see it?”
“No. There was no diary. And I was one of the first on the scene, as you said.”
His eyes narrowed. “Not the very first.”
“The firemen were the very first. Some patrolmen and detectives after that.”
He was quite forceful, now, as he spoke; for the first time, I could see the successful man of business in him.
He said, “I believe that someone stole that diary. Perhaps one of those…public servants who preceded you.”
I shrugged. “That’s certainly possible.”
“I would like you to get it back.”
“That would be withholding evidence, Mr. Wyman.”
He gestured in an open-handed way meant to suggest how reasonable he was. “Mr. Heller, you can read the damn thing if you find it. If what is in the diary should seem to you potentially helpful, in an investigation of her murder, why by all means turn it over to the police.”
“After tearing out any pages referring to you, you mean.”
Tiny smile. “Of course. You see, I’m about to be remarried. And, I’ve reason to believe, Estelle…recorded personal things about me. About us.”
“Sexual things, you mean.”
He pursed his lips. Then said, “That is correct. I’ll give you two thousand dollars, and expenses.”
“I want a grand retainer. No refunds if I can’t come through for you.”
“Done.” P. T. Barnum was right.
“I’ll see what I can do,” I said.
“Mr. Heller, I’m engaged to a lovely woman. From a good family. You must help me keep this scandal contained.”
“I thought you loved Estelle.”
“I did. I do. I was still seeing her, from time to time. I won’t deny that. I’ve admitted as much to my fiancee, and we’re working that out. But another public display of my indiscretions could ruin me. Personally. Financially.”
He reminded me of Eliot talking about how Nitti was slipping.
I said, “When did you last see Estelle?”
“Sunday.”
This was Wednesday.
“That recently?”
“That recently. It was a…farewell dinner of sorts. I told her this would be our last evening together, because I was going to be married again. I…think I even believed what I was saying. At any rate, I called for her at 9:00 P.M.” He smiled, privately. “We wore evening clothes. She was lovely. We spent the evening at the Buttery, where we dined and danced. As usual, Estelle didn’t drink and she didn’t smoke. She seemed in exceptionally high spirits. She was doing well; she had a lot of money in the bank, she said. I shouldn’t worry about her future.” Tears were rolling again; God, I felt uncomfortable. It wasn’t the heat, it was the humanity. “I don’t know where she got her money. She hadn’t worked for several years.”