Brass Rainbow (21 page)

“If she was tipping someone, baby, it wasn't …” He stopped. The hard shine went out of his eyes. I saw something like a quick fear in his eyes. He said, “Jesus!”

I said, “Strega. Where is he?”

He shook his head. “Around. He's supposed to be around.”

“Where was he Wednesday night?”

“His night off,” Costa said. He said it as if it hurt his mouth. “I ain't seen him around so much tonight. Listen, Fortune, you've got it all wrong. Strega wouldn't …”

“Where would he be with her, Costa?”

He watched me. Then he said, “Let's go.”

He went first out of the Bentley. I followed. He went around the house. He made no attempt to get his gun, call out, or try any other tricks. As we reached the open grounds behind the house, he began to walk faster. I saw another house some hundred yards away across the wooded backyard.

“Where we live,” Costa said. “Both of us. I got the top.”

It was a small, two-story house. The path that led to it through the woods was almost untouched. A snow-packed dirt road curved to it from the highway. Costa began to run as we came near the house. He was pulling at his pistol now.

“Something's wrong!” Costa said.

The front door of the house was open. There was faint light somewhere to the rear. Costa ran through the open door, and I was right behind him. Inside, stairs led up from a narrow hallway. Costa ran past the stairs to the rear where another door was open, and light showed in the room behind the door.

The room was a bedroom. The bed was a tangle of sheets and blankets. A bottle and two partly filled glasses stood on a bureau. Two chairs were knocked over. The window near the bed was broken, and glass lay all over the floor under it. A woman's black dress hung on a chair. A pair of woman's knee boots lay on the floor. The stink of gunpowder hung in the air.

Strega sat on the floor with his back against the bed. He wore only a black silk Japanese kimono. It was torn, bloody. Blood was pooled on the floor. There was a pistol in Strega's right hand. His eyes were open, his face was chalk-white, and his blond hair was dark and matted with sweat. Costa dropped to his knees in front of Strega. The handsome gambler kneeled in the pool of blood. He didn't notice.

“Strega! Kid! Baby!”

“He's dead, Costa,” I said.

Costa didn't seem to hear me. He was massaging Strega's limp hand. I looked around. The story was easy to see. The low and muted light, the bottle and glasses, the rumpled bed, and Strega's kimono told it all. The window told the end of it. Someone had shot through the closed window. It was no more than ten feet from where Strega sat. One shot had smashed a mirror. Three had hit Strega.

Costa stood and went to the telephone. The knees of his trousers were sticky with blood. Costa picked up the receiver and stopped.

“He's dead, Costa,” I said.

Costa didn't answer. He stood with the receiver in his hand. I went to the window. There was blood in the snow, and a trail of trampled snow led to the dirt road at the side of the house.

Costa said, “He never could handle women. Funny, a big guy like Strega. The women, they always ruined him.”

I went and picked the pistol out of Strega's dead hand. It was a long-barreled .38. It had just been fired. It showed the marks where a silencer had been fitted.

“A sucker for women,” Costa said. And he began to cry.

I began to search the room. I wrapped the .38 in one of Strega's T-shirts and put it into my coat pocket. I searched some more, and finally found the knife, the kris, hidden under some shirts. It was wrapped carefully in tissue. There was a .45 caliber automatic with it. The .45 had been fired recently. I wrapped the .45 in a T-shirt, too, and put it in my pocket. The pocket sagged. I put the kris in my inside jacket pocket.

Costa was kneeling in front of the dead man again. Big tears poured down his dark, handsome face. I left him, and the house, and walked through the woods to my car. I saw that the red Fiat was still parked in the lot.

As I drove from the lot, a police cruiser passed me on its way in. It had North Chester markings. They were not going to worry about technicalities like town lines when they had a favor to do for Mrs. Radford. They were after me, but they would find Strega and Costa sooner or later.

I drove as fast as a one-armed man can drive with control.

27

T
HERE WAS LIGHT
downstairs in the Radford house, and the Jaguar was parked in front. I walked up the front steps with my pistol in my hand. The front door stood open. MacLeod was not in sight. The living room was deserted. I went along to the library.

George Ames sat in a leather wing-back chair. He held a glass, and an almost empty bottle stood on the table beside the chair. His quick eyes were numb with whisky, or numb with something else. He was not drunk.

“Have a drink,” he said.

“Where are they?”

He drank, licked his lips. “I think I'll sell the apartment, go and live at the club. I never was much good at this kind of reality. I've been sitting trying to think of what I can do, but there isn't anything. I don't want to do anything.” He drank again. “Our fault, I suppose. Jonathan and Gertrude mostly, but the whole family. Something missing in Walter. No control, no judgment, just his desires.”

“I don't know,” I said. “How much did you know?”

“Nothing, but I had wondered. Vaguely. About the marriage. The idea of marriage had never come up, as far as I knew. I'd not heard it mentioned. Walter wanted Deirdre, yes, but I hadn't thought that she wanted him. She seemed so uninvolved, toying with him. I would have said that marriage had never crossed her mind. She seemed too, well, mature for Walter. Too cool.”

“Until Monday.”

“Yes, Monday. You know, Jonathan did like her, but marriage is another matter. Deirdre is modern, free. She made no secret of her, shall we say, independence. I don't think Jonathan would have liked the marriage. I'm not sure Gertrude would have before it … happened.”

“But it looked like a neat way out of trouble, and maybe Deirdre would have been a good wife for Walter,” I said. “Where are they, Ames?”

“In her cottage. Have one drink. I'm waiting for a taxi. I really can't do anything here. I need my routine.”

“No, thanks,” I said.

I went out and along the hall to the front door. Outside, I looked into the Jaguar. The front seat next to the driver's seat was a mess of blood. I walked around the house. Morgana's cottage was dark. The other cottage showed low, muted light. I walked toward it through the snow. The wind had dropped, and a deep silence filled the cold vacuum of the night.

Music came to meet me from the cottage, the massive tones of a symphony. I knew it: Sibelius's Second Symphony. The last movement, the theme that always carries for me the vision of a solitary horseman riding from far off across a frozen wasteland. A man alone in the universe.

Inside, the cottage was identical to Morgana's cottage. The music came from a stereo in the far corner. One light burned in the elegant living room. Deirdre Fallon lay on a couch, her eyes closed, and her delicate face intent on the music. She wore the long sable coat, and no shoes or stockings.

She opened her eyes. “I had a feeling you would cause trouble. Paul should have killed you.”

“I didn't do much.”

“Just enough to unbalance it,” she said. Her finishing-school voice was speculative. “It's odd, but I'd still like you to tell me about your arm. We never change, do we?”

“Where's Walter?”

She closed her eyes and lay back. “In the bedroom.”

I walked into the bedroom. A lush bedroom not at all like Morgana's monkish cell. She was there, Morgana, slumped on the floor with her head on the bed. She was crying. Mrs. Radford was not crying. She sat erect in a chair, her smooth face calm under the perfect white hair.

Walter lay on the bed. He was dead. He looked like a boy, but he did not look golden. There was terror in his eyes, and pain. He had been shot in the stomach, and he lay curled up like a punished infant. There was a lot of blood, even with all he had left in the Jaguar.

“A job well done, Mr. Fortune?” Gertrude Radford said.

“No,” I said. “I wanted him alive. He's no help dead.”

Her pale eyes moved to look at Walter. “I couldn't protect him from his own stupidity. No mother can.”

“Your deal killed him,” I said.

She shook her head. “I'm not responsible for my son being a fool over a woman. I made a logical arrangement, and he ruined it. I'll make you an offer. I'll pay for your silence, and for any evidence you may have. I'd rather Walter's mistakes remained as unknown as possible.”

“Don't waste money on me,” I said. “With a little pressure, the police will keep it quiet for free. Everyone's dead.”

I thought I saw a tear trickle down her face, but I wasn't sure. She'd have a lot to bury in routine and coffee. She'd bury it. She'd bind her wounds, and blame everyone but herself. I wasn't so sure about Morgana. The girl had not moved. She knew more about pain, and she had lost more. In her crusade to save Walter, she had been right. She had opened the eyes of her golden boy, and had killed him by it. Coffee would not help her.

I went back to the living room. Deirdre Fallon had not moved. The music was building to its conclusion. The solitary horseman rode toward his destiny.

“Answer some questions?” I said.

“Quiet, please,” she said, her eyes closed.

I waited. I like Sibelius. It's hard music, austere, like a man alone on a giant rock asking questions of the sky. There are no answers, but the questions make us men.

The music faded away in a long, hovering note. She opened her eyes. “What questions?”

“You and Baron planned to blackmail Jonathan all along. Walter never knew. He thought you were his girl, not Baron's partner. Baron made his pitch on Sunday, and on Monday you and Walter went to Jonathan to get the money. He had it there. What happened? He changed his mind? He refused the money?”

It was hard to think of blackmail and murder when I listened to her soft voice, watched her beautiful face.

“He said Walter could rot in jail. He called Walter a corrupt infant. He pushed Walter, he slapped him. Walter picked up the knife. It was over in seconds. Poor Walter.”

I waited, but she didn't go on. She wasn't going to give me much. Why should she? I said, “It was about eleven-thirty. You got Walter and Ames out. At first you probably just planned to cover Walter, give him an alibi. You called Baron. He came in the back. He had the idea of Weiss and an impostor to make it look like Jonathan was still alive long after Walter was on the train. Then one of you saw the bigger deal, probably you. You've got the brains.”

She said nothing. I wasn't sure she heard me. “The two of you made a list of the serial numbers of the $25,000, and wrote Weiss's name on the pad. You took the knife, and you had Walter cold. That night you called Mrs. Radford to tell her. It was you she came in to meet at Baron's penthouse. She made her offer: drop the blackmail and marry Walter. He wanted you. Everybody wins if you can handle Baron.”

On the couch she reached for a cigarette. She seemed to be seeing a vision.

“The brass ring,” I said. “She handed it to you. You never thought you had a chance with the Radfords, and Walter didn't move you much, but there it was. I guess she knew you. Maybe you'd shown her something in the months with Walter: hunger for all the Radfords had. For all they are. You could be a Radford. Walter would have money, position, even power. She had to play it fair all the way, you had the knife, and Walter wanted you.”

Maybe it's an inevitable story in a country that makes the many want what only the few can have. For most the big dream can never happen, but the trying for it is supposed to make the world move. Maybe it does, I don't know. If I knew I'd be writing important books no one would read. What I do know is that every now and then there are some who, like a cheap gambler, want it now and easy and without work, and that ends in violence.

“So Baron had to go,” I said. “He was no match for you, and he trusted you. He sent Leo away because he was only meeting you, his partner, that night. He met Strega and his .45 instead. Carla Devine almost queered it, but Strega spotted her. You should have killed her then, not warned her. Maybe you liked her.”

She had closed her eyes again. I suppose I was right, Carla had reminded her of herself, and she wanted to forget that part.

“When did you marry Paul Baron?” I said.

She opened her eyes and turned, but she said nothing.

“You had a husband,” I said. “You couldn't buy him off, or divorce him, because you couldn't even tell him about the deal. He would have owned you for life. He could tell Walter you'd been his partner. He knew Walter had killed Jonathan. And he'd have bigamy on you. He'd never have let you alone. No one seemed to know you were married to him, or that he was married at all. Who would look for an old marriage? So, kill him. Strega was there to do it for you, and Weiss would take that fall, too.”

She spoke up to the ceiling, “I was fifteen when I met Paul. What I told you earlier was mostly true. The well-bred girl with no present and no future. Paul showed me how to live high and easy. I liked it. We were a good team. I never had an arrest. Then I married him. It was wrong; we were too different once the bloom was off. So we went our private ways, but we still worked together sometimes. A divorce didn't seem important. Not until Monday, and then it was too late. Mrs. Radford handed me the big chance. I had to have it. No one knew about Paul.”

“Leo Zar knew. Maybe Paul told him, or maybe he had found out.”

“We all make mistakes.”

“You didn't make many. Did you plan to kill Strega, too?”