The Death at Yew Corner (10 page)

“Maginacolda.”

“Exactly. I think the man who drove the van needed help. He stopped somewhere for a third man.”

“Who will be the next victim?”

“Yes, whoever he is.” Sarge swayed toward them with another round of drinks. “By the way, what will happen to Kim on the assault charge?”

“I've arranged with the prosecutor for a thirty-day suspended.”

“I guess that's the best that can be expected.”

They were quiet. Each man understood the need not to talk as they temporarily dwelt in private places with private thoughts. As Lyon looked at his friend hunched over his vodka, he saw the Wobblies perched on each of Rocco's shoulders. The outline of his monsters was faint. Their forms were barely distinguishable, but they looked at their creator with sad eyes.

Lyon did not think that he would be able to write another book. A part of him knew that this was fallacious, that he had felt like this before; but it was still depressing. The last book was finished and was now in the quick hands of Mandy Summers. He should be thinking about the next, outlining possible ideas, writing portions of important scenes, and talking to his editor about a new contract. But literary matters seemed unimportant in light of his increasing involvement in the recent bizarre events. The situation had sapped his creative energy and consumed his emotions. He knew that he would have to stay with the investigation until it was complete. Only its final solution would release him from the obsession. Then the Wobblies might return.

Rocco Herbert was fatigued. He wanted to quit the force. He was tired of scraping motorcyclists off the pavement with a spoon, tired of the daily trips to the local discount store to pick up teen-age shoplifters, tired of night stakeouts to ambush old men who revealed their shriveled instruments to young women on dark streets. In times past he had considered running for town clerk, but the incumbent seemed intent on dying in office. Perhaps one day, when the present town clerk passed on to the great record vault in the sky. He hoped it wouldn't be too long.

“How much have they had to drink?” It was a faraway feminine voice.

“Not much, Senator Wentworth. You know that Lyon only has a pony or two of sherry. And the captain only drinks ice water.”

“Renfroe?”

“Well, maybe a little vodka laced in once in a while. But they've only had one.”

“Sarge?”

“Maybe four or five, Senator. That's all. Honest.”

The two men turned to look up at Bea standing by the booth. “Hi, hon.”

“Let me have a dry martini, Sarge.”

“Yes, ma'am.”

Bea slipped into the booth next to Lyon. She thought she heard Sarge Renfroe mumbling under his breath about women in bars, but she was too tired to take up the feminist cudgels, and Sarge was past redemption in that area anyway. “Are you two conscious?”

“We are not sloshed. Merely contemplative.”

“I'll take your word for it. By the way, Marty Rustman's wife has a thing going with Gustav Tanner.”

“Tanner?”

“I followed her to a motel where she met him.”

“Could it have been for other reasons?”

“They pulled the blinds and were in there an hour and a half.”

It happened ten minutes later. Lyon had finished telling Bea about their discovery of the grave when Rocco's attention was drawn to the bar. He never knew whether it was some subtle intonation in Sarge's voice or a blurred movement he caught from the corner of his eye. He was instantly alert as he shifted imperceptibly toward the edge of the booth.

Rocco looked over the edge of the booth toward the bar. Sarge's eyes were wide with fear as he stood stiffly before a man on the other side of the bar. Renfroe nodded and then turned to open the cash register. He began to scoop bills from each of the drawer's compartments.

“Hurry,” Rocco heard the customer say.

He slipped from the seat and hunched forward. His right hand drew the .44 Magnum holstered at the left side of his waist.

Bea looked frightened and Lyon put his hand over hers.

Rocco took three strides across the room with his pistol held in both hands. “Easy, son, easy, and we'll all be okay.”

Lyon turned to shield Bea. The robber's gun became visible as he brought it up from his side and pointed it directly at Renfroe's head.

“He goes first,” the man said.

“Drop it,” Rocco replied softly.

The man spun on his heels as the gun wavered toward Rocco. The barrel of Rocco's gun caught him across the cheekbone and split the flesh in a long gash as the momentum of the blow knocked him sideways and across the floor.

Rocco's left foot slammed on the fallen man's gun hand while his right kicked into the stomach. He knelt and tore handcuffs from his belt and cuffed the man's hands behind him. He grabbed the bandit's shirt collar and dragged him across the floor and out the door.

There was stunned silence in the bar. Sarge Renfroe poured himself a stiff drink with trembling hands. “The captain's one tough bastard, isn't he, Mr. Wentworth?”

“Yes, he is,” Lyon replied and remembered the pain-saddened look on Rocco's face as he shoved the man out the door.

The front door of Jason Smelts's union headquarters was locked, and Lyon nearly turned away in disappointment until he heard voices inside. He banged on the door and someone unlocked it. When he stepped inside, the man turned and called toward the rear of the building, “Here's another one.”

“Smelts is recruiting a goddamn army.”

Lyon followed the man who had opened the door into Smelts's office where five men sat with open cans of beer. It was difficult to tell if they were celebrating, commiserating, or merely avoiding a return home. They eyed Lyon speculatively. There was a similarity among the men in the room. Each of them seemed to have a thick neck with broad shoulders and large arms. Although they were boisterous, there was a stony cast to their faces and their eyes were cool.

“What they call you?”

“Wentworth, Lyon.”

“Which local you taking over?”

“How would he know? He ain't been elected yet.”

Laughter.

“I want to see Jason Smelts.”

A large man sitting astride Smelts's desk signaled to a man across the room and a beer can flipped toward him. He opened it and drank in long draughts and continued a story he had begun before Lyon arrived. “So, anyway, the kid gets up at the organizational meeting and says some shit like, ‘I move the previous question.' Smelts was fit to be tied and gave me the sign. I walked over to the kid and cold-cocked him. He slid down under his seat and kept on going till he was flat on the floor.”

Laughter. More beer cans were flipped around the room.

“You know, Wendworse, you don't seem mean enough for this kinda work?”

“Wentworth.”

“You ever go to some bastard's house and offer to break his knees with a baseball bat if he didn't cooperate?”

Lyon realized that not only had he not used such persuasion, but the prospect had never occurred to him. As he looked from one face to another in the room, he decided that an ingenuous manner was not in his present best interests. “I have my methods,” he replied quietly.

A head in the far corner nodded. “I had a guy like him with me out in Youngstown once. Those quiet types can fool you.”

Other heads nodded and looked toward Lyon with a respect that one professional holds for another.

“Where's Smelts?” Lyon asked.

“Has a date over at the Clock and Chime on Third Street. Said he'd be back after he jumped her.”

“I want to see him.”

“I wouldn't bother Jason when he's with a broad.”

Lyon walked toward the door. “He'll talk to me.”

“See what I mean about those quiet kind,” a voice from behind him said as he left the union headquarters.

The Clock and Chime was a lounge only a few blocks away and was one of those remote bars found in every city that are inhabited by a classless sort of clientele. The customers are well dressed, always in possession of money, and wander in and out at odd hours that do not correspond to the usual off-hours of the gainfully employed.

Lyon entered the dim interior and took a seat on a stool halfway down the bar. Three men on his left were playing liar's poker with dollar bills. It was a game whose rules he only vaguely understood. A bartender in a red-striped apron with white shirt sleeves puffed to the elbows and held by elastic garters served Lyon a house sherry. He tasted it and tried not to grimace.

The bar mirror was an ancient affair of clouded glass with train stickers of long-forgotten railways pasted along its edge. Lyon saw the reflected image of Jason Smelts in a booth in the far corner of the lounge. The union leader was huddled close to a very young woman. The girl had a pouty prettiness, but she seemed too young for the lounge. Then he remembered that the drinking age in Connecticut had been lowered to eighteen, the probable age of the girl.

Jason Smelts leered and seemed to envelop the girl. His arm was around her shoulder and he looked at her with a lust that was so apparent it filled that corner of the lounge.

Lyon ordered another sherry and slid off the stool. As he approached the booth, Jason Smelts squinted in annoyance. Lyon pulled a chair from another table and sat down.

“Wentworth,” Smelts said with obvious distaste.

“I thought we should talk about Marty.”

“See me tomorrow in the office.”

“Who is this creep?” were the first jarring words from the girl.

“A cop from Murphysville.”

“Oh.” Her pout increased. “I'm eighteen.”

“Rustman's alive,” Lyon said.

Dissembling is a learned response. With age and experience the facial mask can harden and become nearly impregnable. It was obvious that Smelts had built up such a façade over the years, but Lyon's remark shocked and penetrated his attempt to appear nonchalant. He rocked back in his seat as if he'd been hit. The response lasted only a moment before his hand snaked out to lift the glass. He took a casual sip. “So? I told you Marty was the bad guy.”

“There's more to it than that.”

“How?”

“I'd like you to consider a hypothetical situation.”

“A what?”

“A possible version of what might have happened.”

“You trying to lay something on me?”

“Do you want to hear?”

“I got nothing better to do.” He looked over at the young woman. “Make it snappy.”

“Let us suppose that Marty Rustman was taken from the convalescent home by Maginacolda and Curt Falconer. The two men who were subsequently killed.”

“What are you driving at?”

“Let us say that the van that took Marty away stopped and picked up a third man.”

“I don't like games, Wentworth.” He looked down at a large jeweled watch just below his French cuffs. “You got ten seconds to finish and then amscray.”

“Two of the men involved in the kidnapping are dead.”

Smelts raised a finger and a waiter immediately refilled his glass. “I never been to college, but I see where you're going. Rustman, or somebody else, is going to take care of that third guy. If that was the way it happened, which it isn't.”

The girl plucked at Smelts's sleeve. “We got to get goin', Jasie. I get home after midnight and my dad beats the living daylight out of me.”

Smelts ignored her.

“I think you have it, Mr. Smelts. The third man is in danger. Do you know who he is?”

“You got to be kidding? If I knew something like that, I'd be involved in conspiracy to whatever happened to Rustman.”

“The man's life depends on it.”

“Anybody that could snatch Rustman, if he was snatched, can take care of himself.”

“Falconer carried a gun and fifteen tons of dirt killed him.”

“Careless.”

“I don't know how to impress upon you the importance of finding that third man.”

The girl plucked at Smelts's sleeve again. “Come on, Jason. I'll show you a good time.”

Jason looked annoyed and pulled a money clip from his pocket and flipped a bill at her. “Beat it.”

The girl glared. “You want me to go?”

“Jesus! They don't even understand English nowadays. Beat it, and on the way out tell Morrie I want a phone—fast.”

The girl slouched from the booth and talked briefly to the bartender as she left the lounge. A phone was delivered and jacked into the floor near the booth. Smelts began to dial. “The cops think Marty's alive?”

“That he could be.”

Smelts held the phone over his ear and Lyon could hear the ring. He held a hand over the receiver. “Out, Wentworth! Now!”

Lyon left the booth and returned to the bar. He could see the mirror image of Smelts on the phone. “Morrie.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Smelts wants me on an extension.”

“There's one plugged in over there.”

“Thanks.” Lyon went to the booth with the phone and turned sideways on the seat to hide his actions from the bartender's view and quickly unscrewed the receiver plate before lifting the phone.

“I wouldn't have called if it weren't important, Mrs. Truman.”

Lyon was surprised at the obsequious tone in Smelts's voice.

“The phone could be tapped. You know your instructions.”

“Yes, ma'am. But something has come up.”

“For your sake, Jason, it had better be important.”

“The cops think Rustman is alive.”

“That's impossible.”

“It can happen. People get careless.”

“You know I don't want to hear details like that.”

“I'm sorry. I wouldn't bother you except that maybe he's coming after me.”

“Nonsense.” The feminine voice was devoid of feeling. She spoke with a flat and emotionless tone tinged with annoyance.