They sobered up pretty fast when I came in. Their faces got a flat, sour look and Miles suddenly looked pale. Only Vance regained his composure. "We hardly expected to see you here."
"I guess you didn't." I walked over to Anita and sat on the arm of her chair. Her hand reached for mine, squeezed it and she bit her lip to keep from crying.
Then I played the time game on them, just sitting there silently. At eleven on the dot Petey Salvo came through the door holding Gage and Matteau by their necks. Matteau had taken a beating somewhere along the line and Popeye Gage was in the first stages of narcotics withdrawal. All he wanted was a fix and would do anything to get it while he had the chance. Later, when the cramps hit him, he wouldn't be able to.
"Pretty," I said. "Nice company the Bannermans keep."
Rudy had to sit down. I wouldn't let him. "On your feet, slob," I told him. "I want you to hear this standing up. I'm going to make you happy and sad all at once and I want to see what happens when I do."
"See here . . ." Vance started to say.
I waved a finger at him. "Not you, boy. You stay very, very quiet while I tell a story."
I said, "It started because this was a wide open state with legalized gambling and plenty of money to be made without too much work if the right deal could be swung. One man saw how he could do it. Cousin Rudy here made a sucker play for a ripe nympho named Irish Maloney and even if he didn't make out he established a motive for what was to come. The guy who spotted the move came into the family through a back door, knew what he was going to set up and made a contact with the Chicago Syndicate to borrow enough money to get his project rolling."
"The next step was easy. At the right time, when Rudy was drunk and sick, he got him to a toilet where he passed out, went outside and killed Chuck Maloney with a steak knife from the club, put the knife back, then had the Syndicate men put the word through that they had seen Rudy make the hit and that they had the evidence. But all this while there was no evidence."
"Then came the hitch . . . the money demand was going to fall through and how that must have shook up our killer. The Bannermans didn't have any loot left! Ah . . . but in a way, there was. Very shortly they were going to inherit my share of the wealth if I didn't claim it and there was little chance I would, so the killer was safe. A few more days and he'd have it made."
"Imagine how he felt when I showed up? Brother, he liked to've browned out. The point was . . . he had spent the Syndicate money on initial expenses and unless he got his hands on the Bannerman money he couldn't carry it through and he knew damn well the Syndicate wouldn't stand for the loss without getting something in return. Like his life."
"So our boy tried to have me roughed up and scared out by Gage and Matteau. They didn't want me dead . . . just out of town long enough for the thirty-year time period to expire. It didn't work. Now he got panicky. He even went as far as taking a shot at me himself. When that didn't work there was one other gimmick he had ready. He knew the details of the will and sent in a complaint that I carried a gun, a formidable charge if he could make it stick and one that would put my dough back in the hands of the other Bannermans. And three of them went for it. You know, I'm beginning to wonder just who the real bastard Bannermans are around here."
"Now our killer is really in a sweat because he doesn't know where I stand or what the next play is. He knows I have it locked but doesn't know how and has to hear me out to figure his next move."
"Funny how I found out about it. Real careless of him. He got the original idea because he liked the same dame Rudy liked and when he saw her under the phoney name of Arthur Sears she bragged about her men and up came the name of Rudy Bannerman . . . and an ex con called Sanders. When they interrogate Sanders he'll tell them an anonymous call told him about Chuck's murder and that he's to be the first grabbed and the guy panicked. I bet that night he had even gotten drunk with some unknown guy and was carried home where he couldn't prove an alibi. But . . . that will come out later."
"Anyway, our Arthur Sears made a bad move. He backed into a car and drove off. An indignant dame saw it and grabbed his number. Only the number didn't belong to any Arthur Sears. The name that went with it was Vance Colby."
The glass dropped from his hands and he took an uncertain step back against the desk and stood there clutching it. Anita had me so tightly I couldn't move my arm, but it was my left one and didn't matter I could still draw and fire with my right.
"The dirty part was that you didn't give a damn about Anita, Vance. She wasn't your type. When your history gets checked out we'll find that out. All you wanted was the Bannerman money and when you had it you would have dumped her fast. Nice, dirty thinking."
From the doorway Carl Matteau was watching Colby with a face that was a hard mask. I said, "You have several choices, Vance. You probably have that gun on you that you shot at me with today. Move toward it and I'll kill you right where you stand. I'll put a .45 between your horns that will rip off the back of your head and spatter the old man there with more brains and blood than he already has."
"The second choice, Colby. You go out the back way and run for it. You'll have the cops on your back all the way, but it won't be them you'll be worrying about. It'll be the Syndicate boys because when Matteau here passes the word along a contract goes out on you and it will be worse than anything the cops can do to you."
"Third choice, killer. Outside the front door is a police car. You can get in, go downtown with Lieutenant Travers and hope the courts will give you life rather than the chair."
"Fourth choice is to brazen it out and if you look at Petey Salvo's face you'll see what can happen. Chuck Maloney was his friend and Petey will go all the way for his buddies, dead or alive."
Vance Colby was dead white. There was no arrogance left in him now at all. He was a terrified animal with death facing him on all sides and all he could do was take the least of the evils. Very slowly he turned, looked at the open doors of the library to the hall beyond and started walking. He had company. Travers was back there and had heard it all. They went outside together and I heard the car start up and saw the red light on the top start to wink before they cleared the driveway.
I stood up and took Anita's hand. At the moment it was past her ability to comprehend, but soon she would see it. All she knew was that somehow she suddenly belonged to me and me to her and the world was ours at last. The two little Bannermans who never meant anything because the others loomed too large and too powerful.
They weren't that way now. I said, "You're broke, cousins. You'll have to sweat for it now. You can have the house and the property but it'll make you even broker so you'll have to think fast. Personally, I don't think you'll survive long and you can blame it on yourselves. I want nothing you ever had and I'm taking what was mine and you tried to steal. You have to live with yourselves and it won't be easy, and while you do you can be thinking that the Bastard Bannerman wasn't the real bastard . . . it was you, the others. You're all bastards. I'm taking Anita out of here and I'll provide for Annie. I don't think she wants any part of you anymore."
I pulled Anita toward the door and turned around. Rudy and Teddy had to sit down. It was too much for them. "Adios, Cousins and Uncle." I said. "Work hard and earn lots of money."
The night was clean, the sky peppered with stars and the road a moonlit ribbon heading east. She sat next to me as close as she could get and the radio played softly while I tooled along at an even sixty. Since we got married back there she had hardly spoken and I kept waiting for her to ask me.