“You’ve got nothing that’s worth anything to me.”
“Okay. I musta screwed up somewhere. I got no interest in your pocket change. You’re free to go. I’ll make my deals with the media and the cops. Go on. Get out of here.”
Eddie turned and walked down to the sidewalk and halfway to his car. Then he stopped. After standing still for about a full minute, he turns and walks back to me.
“I’d like to work out something. I don’t want this to upset my grandfather. I just don’t have fifty thousand. The general gives me an allowance. If you can wait until I get my inheritance, I can pay you then. The general won’t live another week, according to the doctors.”
“That don’t help me now. What do you have on ya?”
Eddie pulls out his wallet. “Maybe two hundred.” He takes out his bills and counts them. “For now, here take what I’ve got. Then you’ll wait?”
“This here gives me some drinking and whoring money. But if I’m gonna wait, I want a hundred thou when your inheritance comes in.”
“A hundred! No way. This is at best a nuisance item for me.”
“Okay. Thanks for the walking around money. I’ll make my deal elsewhere.”
I turn and walk away from him. Behind me I hear a car door close from about where Eddie had parked. I walk past Mackie’s van and keep on going. In the second block, Eddie pulls to the curb and leans toward his passenger window. I go over and squat down, keeping most of my face above where he could see. The world’s best salespeople say there is a point where the next person who speaks loses. We look at each other. I stay quiet. After a minute, I stand up and start to walk away.
“Wait a minute,” he says.
I go back to the car and lean on the sill again. “We got a deal or not, Eddie Whittaker?”
“Deal.”
“One hundred thousand dollars you will pay me when your inheritance comes in. Right?”
“Right. Who else knows about me other than yourself?”
“Only one other person and he don’t know who you are or what I have. Right now he has a rifle pointed at you. He’ll be there again when you pay up. I also left an envelope with my girl. If anything goes wrong she’ll take it to the cops and the newspapers.”
“I don’t even know who you are.”
“I’m the guy with your balls in his fist.”
Chapter 32
After getting home from having braced Eddie Whittaker, I was met at the door by Axel. In the span of this case he had been promoted from houseman to houseman-case nanny.
After I ran tonight’s events past him, Axel said, “Congratulations boss. It looks like Eddie’s the guy the general hired you to find. The no-good bastard rubbed out the Corrigan dame and his own baby.”
“It sure looks that way, Axel, but it’s not conclusive. Eddie could have been offering to pay the bribe to keep the general from learning he was behind my being abducted and beaten. He wouldn’t want the general to know that. It doesn’t establish that he killed his fiancee or bribed Cory Jackson, Tommie Montoya, and threatened the Yarbroughs, but the general might be suspicious enough to change his will.”
“Now wait a minute, boss. You got Eddie connected to Podkin who said the way he was paid was the same way the stiff Cory Jackson got paid and that gas station jockey. How ‘bout them apples?”
“Eddie heard all those detail from his grandfather who heard it from me. They all know, even Cliff. No, it only means Eddie knew how Jackson and Montoya were bribed, not that he had bribed them. By doing it that same way, he made his using of Podkin look like the same guy who had arranged the shakedown alibi. And yeah, that could’ve been Eddie, but not necessarily.”
Axel just shook his head.
“Hey, we got any of that rocky road ice cream left?”
“Nearly the whole carton, boss.” We headed for the kitchen. While he got out bowls, he said, “Who else you got in mind if not Eddie?”
“A few days ago you and I brainstormed that it could have been Eddie, but also that it could have been Karen, or Charles, or even Cliff at Karen’s direction, maybe even the general himself. All of that’s still true. All we have is proof that Eddie hired Podkin to work me over. The rest of it is supposition, but not probative.”
“You got Cory Jackson’s story.”
“No. I got that explanation from Cory’s half brother, Quirt Brown, who heard it from Cory, and Cory’s dead. That’s all hearsay now, and it’d likely be ruled inadmissible. The only thing we have Eddie on is his having paid to have me beaten and even for that we’d be better off to have Podkin testify and he’s God knows where. May I remind you that the two-hundred grand fee you keep talking about will not be earned unless someone is arrested for the murder of Ileana Corrigan. No one could be arrested off what we have. Not even close.”
“So what do we do now, boss?”
“Rinse out our ice cream bowls.”
“Boss. You know what I mean.”
“I need to sleep on that. I’m not certain yet.”
An hour after going to bed I woke up abruptly. The brain is a strange thing. How it makes decisions. The way unresolved things marinate on your mind until the simple core of complex things suddenly slap you across the face. The Corrigan killing was way short on facts, always had been. We all knew that. Over time memories had faded, one supposed witness had been killed, and even when the murder occurred eleven years ago there had been a dearth of clues. I would never find the answer the general wanted through a dogged pursuit of evidence that didn’t exist. It would take sneaky doings. And right then, sitting up in bed, the sneaky doings came into focus. A plan rose from my mind mud. Not a guaranteed, slam dunk kind of plan, but one with a reasonable chance. I had to get these people to tell me what they hadn’t yet told me. I needed to crawl into the crevices where the things that frightened them hid from the light.
Chapter 33
I got up at first light, slowly, but up. With a cup of coffee in hand, I called Cliff Branch, the chauffeur.
“Cliff, I need you to do something critical to help me solve this case and it must stay between you and me. I promise you I can square your doing it with the general.”
“I’ve been told to cooperate with you fully, Matt. What do you want?”
*
Two hours later, I called Charles. “How’s the general doing? I’d like to see him as soon as it works for him.”
“Good morning, Mr. Kile. Let’s see, it’s eleven now, so he’s been awake about an hour reading the morning paper in his study. He should be ready to see you by noon. No. Make it half past. Is that okay for you?”
“I’ll make it okay. And, Charles, don’t bring me an Irish if it’s going to encourage the general to have one as well.”
“That’s no problem, sir. The general hasn’t had another drink since the last one he shared with you. He told me what you said and he agreed. I thank you for convincing him.”
“See you at twelve-thirty.”
*
I got there on time and Charles led me upstairs to the general’s small study off his bedroom. The noon sun filled the room, having invited itself in through the hexagon-shaped window high on the opposite wall. A wheelchair sat to the side of the room facing the wall, equipped with a portable oxygen tank and a line that would feed the hyped air to his nose. He wasn’t using it, choosing instead to struggle a bit when taking breaths.
“Good morning, General. Did you sleep well?”
“Hello, Matt. As good as could be expected. Look, I know you don’t need pressure from me, but the truth is I want you to earn the fee I agreed to. That means you don’t have much time.”
“I understand, sir. That’s why I’m here.”
“Do you know who killed Ileana and my great grandson?”