"He got what he asked for. It's pure luck the man in the other car wasn't killed."
"I suppose so." Hardness grew along her jawline. "And if he murdered my brother—how does the saying go? God may forgive him, but I never can."
"Good. However,secundus: He was not involved in Bruce's death."
"What makes you so certain?" she demanded, almost belligerently.
"Let me tell you what happened last night."Was it only last night?
He related it in a few words. She looked at him so strangely that he was puzzled, until it came to him that not many college professors enter waterfront tenements and throw people around.
"I hope you don't think I asked for the brawl," he finished. "I'm ashamed of it. But it gave me the proof I needed."
Her hand stole out, toward the plaster on his forehead. "Is that how you got hurt?" she asked softly.
"No." He continued hastily: "A strong possibility is that Bruce was killed by professionals. Imported murderers are likeliest, since the police will be seining all local toughs."
"Gene lived in Chicago," she murmured through tightened lips.
"Gene and his father are stonkering poor. Even if Gene has a murderer friend, such a job would not be done just as a favor."
"Then they could have done it themselves, father and son."
"Look, we had a minor scrap, the three of us. Those walls are like paper. Half the building heard it and came pounding on the door. Bruce could not have been—hurt, as he was—in that place. It would have to be somewhere else. Consider all the practical difficulties, finding an abandoned warehouse or whatever. Getting an automobile, for heaven's sake! Where would paupers like those two find the money to rent a car, even for a day?
"Oh, well, if we stretch our reasoning all out of shape, we can say theymighthave done all that. But one thing they could never have managed, and that was to capture Bruce in the first place. He would have tied them in bowknots."
"Bruce?" She was openly bewildered.
"Yes. Stop thinking of him as a mere bookworm. Bruce and I were going to pack into Kings Canyon, which is still pretty wild. And he was taking up judo, and doing quite well. A gun could have taken him prisoner, of course, but the Michaelises don't have a gun; they'd have gone for it last night if one were on the premises. So Bruce would have had to be slugged from behind. But there was no mark of a club on his body, no anesthetic—I have that from the police. Weaponless, neither Gene nor his father could have held Bruce for ten seconds. They're both strong, but they fall over themselves. I threw them with baby techniques."
"That's right," she said, "you do go in for judo, don't you? But Bruce said you were an expert."
"I only wear a brown belt so far. Bruce, of course, was a white. He could not have coped with one or two men who knew how to handle themselves—not necessarily judo men, just experienced fighters."Consider Terry Larkin."However, he could certainly have thrown two unarmed Michaelises. Take my word for it. I know."
"Oh."
She studied her hands for a while.
"They'll be released in a few days at the outside," said Kintyre. "The most elementary procedures will show they're innocent. I can think of a dozen lines of proof myself. To be sure, you may be subjected to some publicity before that happens, but it will never get as far as a grand jury. Believe me."
"Thank you." When she smiled, he could see no other thing in all that dingy building. "I always seem to be thanking you."
"Which I find pleasant enough," he bowed.
"Why don't we go down to the station and explain it right now?" she asked hesitantly. "You're not afraid of being arrested for the fight, are you? That wasn't your fault."
"Oh, no. But my testimony and my reasoning aren't legally conclusive," he evaded.
"It would help a lot. It might get them out, tip the scales. I feel so sorry for them now. That poor old man!"
Kintyre looked straight into the green eyes. "Will you trust me a little bit?" he said. "Will you take my word that we can't do it immediately?"
Because the police would inquire further. Did I indeed hurt my arm and my head in that fracas? No, say the Michaelises. Where, then? I do not think their search would end short of Guido, your brother.
She bit her lip. "I hate to think of them locked up for something they haven't done."
"At the present time," he said, "my story would compromise someone else whom I also know to be innocent."
Like hell I do.
She sighed. "All right. That's good enough for me." And then, with the morning of her smile upon him again: "You've done enough for one day's knight errantry. Let's go eat."
The restaurant was small and quiet. Corinna and Kintyre had a corner table, where the light fell gently.
"By rights we should have a Genever apéritif," he said, "but I'm convinced Dutch gin is distilled from frogs. On the other hand, Dutch beer compares to Hof, Rothausbräu, or Kronenbourg."
"You've traveled a lot, haven't you?" she said. "I envy you that. Never got farther than the Sierras myself."
A little embarrassed—he had not been trying to play the cosmopolite—he fell silent while she glanced at her menu. "Will you order for me?" she asked finally. "You know your way around these dishes."
He made his selections, pleased by the compliment. When the beer came, in conical half-liter glasses, he raised his: "Prosit."
"Salute." She drank slowly. "Wonderful. But this may not be wise on top of two whiskies."
"It's all right if you go easy. Take the word of a hardened bowser." He searched out an inward weariness on the strong broad face. "You could use a little anesthesia."
"Well—" She set her glass down. "Bear with me. I promise not to blubber, but I may get sentimental. Or maybe even hilarious, I don't know. I've never lost anyone close to me before now."
"I understand," said Kintyre.
"And please help me steer clear of myself," she added. "I would like to talk about Bruce, and otherwise about wholly neutral things." She managed a smile. "I've been meaning to ask you something. You're the Machiavelli specialist. Our theater didMandragolalast year. Tell me, how could the same man write that andIl Principe?"
"Actually," said Kintyre, "I would be surprised if the author ofThe Prince—or, rather, theDiscourses on Livy, sinceThe Princeis really just a pamphlet—I'd be surprised if he had not done sheer amusement equally well. One of the more damnable heresies of this era is its notion that a man can only be good at one thing. That versatility is not the inborn human norm."
"I've often thought the same," she said. "I suppose you know Bruce changed his major to history because of you. He took one of your classes as a freshman. Now I see why."
"Well," he stalled, and hoisted his beer.
She shifted the conversation with a tact he appreciated: "But how did you happen to get interested in it, in the Italian Renaissance yet, with a name like yours?"
"I served time in one of those private schools back East," he said. "The Romance languages master got me enthusiastic."
He paused, then continued slowly: "I entered Harvard, but Pearl Harbor happened in my sophomore year. I was in the Navy the whole war, the Pacific; fell in love with the Bay Area on my shore leaves, which is why I came here to live afterward. But during the war I had a lot of time to read and try to think where this world was going. To the wolves, I decided—like Machiavelli's world—I suppose that's why I feel so close to him. He was also studying the problem of how the decent man can survive. He spoke the truth as he saw it, because he didn't think that civilization should be encumbered with nice-nellyisms that the barbarians had already discarded. Wherefore he became the original Old Nick, and the very people—us, the free people, whom he could warn—won't listen, because we think he speaks for the enemy!"
He braked. "Sorry. I didn't mean to orate at you."
"I wish more men had convictions," she said. "Even when I don't agree. Everybody respects everybody else's sensibilities so much these days, there's nothing left to talk about but football scores."
"You're very kind," he said. "Ah, here come the appetizers. Pay special attention to the characteristically Dutch delicacy, Russian eggs, but don't ask me how they came by that name."
Later, after much talk, some of it with enough laughter to tell him she was a merry soul in better days:
A ruby spark lay in their glasses of Cherry Heering. "This isn't Dutch either," said Kintyre. "However."
"Do you know," she said, "I begin to understand the old idea of a wake. Getting the clan together and having one fine brawling celebration. It's more an act of love, really, than drawing the parlor curtains and talking in hushed voices."
"That's the Latin who speaks," he said. "We Protestant races are cursed with the tradition that misery is a virtue."
"But you, you Bostonian Scot or whatever you are—I hear a trace of accent—youapprove."
"I left Boston for the Pacific at the arthritic age of nine."
"What was the reason for that?"
"My father was a marine architect. He was laid off in, uh, 1930. Being an imaginative man, he spent his savings on a schooner, hired a Mexican crew, and we all lit out for the South Seas. For seven years we lived on that schooner."
"Bruce told me you were a sailor." Her eyes were very bright upon him. "But how did you make it pay?"
"Miscellaneously. Sometimes we carried cargo and passengers between islands. The passengers were usually Kanakas, and those who didn't have money would pay us in food and hospitality when we got where we were going. Father wasn't after riches anyway. His main enterprise was to gather and prepare marine specimens, for museums and colleges and so on. Toward the end, he was making a name for himself. Well, we never saw much cash money, but we never needed a lot either."
Kintyre held his glass to the light, tossed it off and followed it with a scalding sip of coffee. Why was he speaking of this? He had barely mentioned his youth to anyone else, except Trig, who was the friend of a dozen years. Trig had led him into the dojo, hoping that its discipline of mind as well as body would strangle the horror. But Corinna had the story out of him in a matter of hours, not even knowing what she did.
He had taken her for Morna last night.
"What happened?" she asked. Her tone said that he needn't answer unless he wanted to.
"A typhoon and a lee shore," he said. "I was the only survivor."
He took out a cigarette. She folded her hands and waited, in case he should want to say more.
"That was in the Gilbert Islands," he continued after the smoke was curling down his tongue. "The British authorities shipped me home. The guardianship was wished onto a cousin of my mother's. So I went to the boarding school I spoke of, and summers I worked at a seaside resort. Don't feel sorry for me, it was quite a good life."
"But a lonely one," she said.
He grinned with a single corner of his mouth. "'He travels the fastest who travels alone.'"
"I understand a great deal now." She held her cup so lightly that he grew aware he was in danger of breaking his. Tendon by tendon, he eased his fingers. "Yes," she said after a moment. "Bruce was always puzzled by you. As I imagine most people are. You don't seem to belong anywhere, to anything or anyone. And yet you do. You belong to a world that foundered in the ocean."
It jarred him. Not given to self-analysis, he had imagined he lived a logical, well adapted round of days.
"Sometime you'll build it again," she said. "Oh, not the physical ship, you've more important things on hand, but a personal world."
And again it was a blow, to be shown himself as alien as a castaway from Mars.
"Please," he said, more roughly than he had intended. "I don't find my personality the most interesting object on earth."
She nodded, as if to herself. The long hair swept her flat high-boned cheeks. "Of course. You wouldn't."
"Perhaps I'd better take you home now," he said, without noticeable enthusiasm. "Are you working tomorrow?"
"Only if I feel like it, my boss told me. I'd planned to, but—Are you in any hurry?"
"Contrariwise."I don't think I would sleep much.
"Then could we go somewhere and talk? I'd like to ask you some things."
"I'd love to be asked. I know a place."
It was small, dark, and masculine, undegraded by jukebox or television. Kintyre led Corinna into a booth at the rear.
"They serve steam beer," he said. "The only really good beer made in this country."
"Oof! I couldn't. Another Irish, if I may. I promise to go slow." Her tone was not as light as the words.
Nonetheless, he needed a little while to sense the trouble in her.
After much time she met his eyes, obviously forcing his own. "Dr. Kintyre," she began.
He was about to ask her to use his given name; and then he thought how little intimacy could be achieved in this American cult of first-name familiarity with all the universe. "Yes?" he said.
"I would—I would have thanked you for a wonderful time, which helped me more than you know. And then I would have gone home. But—"
He waited.
"I don't know how to say it," she stumbled. "I knew you were Bruce's—Bruce's brother, the one he should have had. But only tonight could Ifeelit." She searched for a phrase. Finally: "I don't believe I could hurt myself by being serious with you."
"I hope not," he said, as grave as she. "I can't promise it."
"Why did you go to the Michaelises last night?"
"I'm not quite sure."
"You want to discover who killed Bruce? Isn't that it?"
"I am not a self-appointed detective. The police can do that job infinitely better than I. But I have been thinking."
"What do you think?" she persisted.
"I certainly wouldn't go accusing someone who—"
"Can you realize what Bruce meant to me?" She asked it quietly, as a meaningful request for truth. "We were more than siblings. We were friends, all our lives, in a way they haven't made words for."
"I do know," he said, and he would have told it to few other creatures that lived. "I had a younger sister myself."
"Even after he left home—can you imagine the way he continued to watch over me? How often he stepped in and used a word or two to straighten out a lonesome, confused, unhappy girl whom nobody else liked; how he steered me toward the kind of people I can feel at home with; how he healed the breach with my parents, when Ihadto get away and they didn't understand; how he got me out of a wretched business office and into the museum, where I can like what I'm doing and believe it has some value. You knew Bruce, did you know that side of him?"
"No," said Kintyre. "He wouldn't have talked about it. Still, yes, I can imagine."
"And he was lured somewhere, and tortured, and murdered," she said. The lacquered fingernails stood white where she caught the table edge.
Kintyre didn't touch her himself, but he held out his hand. She gripped it for a while. Her face was lowered. When she let go and looked up again, he saw tears.
"I'm sorry," she gulped. "I promised not to bawl, and then—"
Kintyre let her have it out. It didn't take long, nor was it noisy.
She said at last, in a wire-thin voice: "Why was it done? Who would do it, to him of all people in the world?"
"I don't know," said Kintyre. "I just don't know."
"But you can guess, can't you? You know everyone concerned. That writer he was having the fight with. That businessman who owns the thesis manuscript. Gene Michaelis. You could be wrong! Even his girl, God help me for saying it. Who?"
"Why must you know?" he asked.
"Why?" It took her aback. "To know! To understand—"
"Do you want to be reassured the murderer won't strike at you next? I hardly think you need fear that."
"Of course not!" she flared. "I want to know so the world can make some sense again."
"That's too metaphysical to be true," he said.
Briefly, she shivered with tension. Then, leaning back, she picked up her whisky glass and sipped of it and asked coldly:
"Where did you go last night after you left the Michaelis place?"
"Home," he said.
"Guido was badly shaken today. He hadn't slept at all, I could see that in the morning. He stayed around the apartment like a hurt animal. I know him, he's terrified." Corinna spat as if at an enemy: "What did you do to him?"
"Nothing!" said Kintyre.
Her lip caught her teeth.
"I didn't think of it till just now," she breathed. "But it all fits. You do know something. In God's name, tell me!"
He said, with an overpowering compassion: "I see. You're afraid Guido is involved."
"Yes," she said dully.
"Why should he be?"
"Oh—I don't know—jealousy? Who can tell? Guido always seemed like the wild, reckless one and Bruce a mama's boy. Yet it was Bruce who left home and Guido never has."
"Let's have no half-digested psychological theory," he said, purposely astringent. "Stick to facts. What leads you to suspect your brother is involved?"
"I might as well tell you," she sighed. "Last week he was dropping all kinds of dark hints about a big job which would take him out of town over the weekend. He's like that, has to sound important, mostly there's no harm in it. But he came back Monday evening with a good deal of money. I knew he was broke before. He had even been forced to sell his car. He came in loaded with expensive presents for all of us, and had a fat roll in his wallet. Of course, when we told him about Bruce, that more or less made us forget it. But then today, how frightened he was—
"What happened last night?"
Kintyre took out a cigarette. "Excuse me while I think," he said. He made a ceremony of lighting it.
"Guido is in trouble," he admitted. "I don't know how closely related to the murder it is."
"Don't misunderstand me." Her face could have been modeled in chalk. "I never thought Guido would—would dream of—no! But he could have been drawn into something. And what would the police think?"
"Uh-huh. The same notion occurred to me."
"What happened, then?"
He told her.
"Oh, no." Her eyes closed.
"You see my dilemma," he said wearily. "I'll protect Guido if my conscience will let me, even though it's already led me into lawbreaking. But I don't know, I can't tell—"
She opened her eyes again. They blazed.
"Thank You," she said, not to Kintyre.
His scalp crawled. "What are you thinking of?"
"I know Guido," she answered. "I can get the truth out of him."
"You can try."
She stood up. "I'll take a cab," she said.
"What?" He rose himself. "You're not going there now?"
"When else? I'm sorry, it's a shabby way to treat you, but do you think something like this can wait?"
"A murderer is hanging around that place," he said. "You can see Guido tomorrow at your parents', but tonight I won't have it."
She grinned. There was even a little humor in the expression. "What do you plan to do?"
"Call the police!" he rapped.
She said like a sword: "By the time you've explained all the ins and outs to them, I'll have taken him elsewhere. And you needn't bother speaking to either of us again."
He took her by the wrist. "Let me go," she said, almost casually.
"Wait a second." Again he knew the night feeling, that he must go, and that that would happen which another force than he had willed. But somehow, crazily, this time he was glad of it.
"Just wait for me," he finished.
The doorkeeper-bouncer was the first obstacle. Kintyre wished he had worn a hat. Nothing disguised him except a gray suit; the square of bandage at his hairline felt like a searchlight.
"Follow my lead," whispered Corinna as they went down the stairs.
It was dark in the doorway, and narrow. She contrived to get herself squeezed between Kintyre and the other man; and as she slithered by she threw him such a look that he would have let a rhinoceros enter unnoticed beside her.
The Alley Cat was full tonight. Mostly the cool crowd, Kintyre judged, drawn by the rumors of last night's affair. He could not help himself, but whispered to Corinna: "Where in the hell did you learn to put five thousand volts of raw sex into three motions and one sidelong glance?"
"Theater." Even at this moment, when she saw through a harsh blue haze her brother who might be a murderer singing a dirty ballad, she could have been a female Puck. "Also, it helps to live with a cat."
They threaded their way along the wall until they found a table in shadow. "We can see him at the intermission," he proposed. She nodded. The waitress who lit their candle—Kintyre snuffed it again when she had left—and brought them a demi of burgundy, paid them no special attention. Well, it was long established that an excited eyewitness has no value. Those who saw the fight had not really seen the fighters.
Corinna fell silent, resting her cheek on one fist. She didn't drink at all. Kintyre tried to read the way she was looking at Guido, but understood only a troubled tenderness.
"Mind if I join you?"
Kintyre looked up, startled, into Trygve Yamamura's flat face. "Oh," he said stupidly. "Sit down. Miss Lombardi, this is—" He explained in detail.
"I'm glad to know you," she said. Her eyes added:Maybe. It will depend on what comes next.Guido's guitar twanged and capered. His voice overrode the room, as full of satyr laughter as if it had never known anything else. "With his whack-fol-de-diddle-di-day—"
"Were we that conspicuous coming in?" whispered Kintyre.
"Lay off the stage hiss," Yamamura told him. "A low speaking voice draws less attention. No, you pulled it off okay. It was only that I was making it my business to see everyone who comes in. Still am." His eyes remained in motion as he sat holding his beer; the rest of him was nearly limp, taking its ease until a muscle should be needed.
"Been here long?" asked Kintyre.
"Couple hours, since the act went on," said Yamamura. "I tailed Guido from his place. Before then, though, I assumed he wouldn't leave his four safe walls, so I found plenty to do elsewhere."
Corinna exclaimed: "You learned something?"
"Uh-huh. I came right over this morning after Bob saw me. No grass grows where I have been, I mean no grass grows under my feet." Yamamura took a pipe from his maroon sports jacket. "The best way to get a line on your friend Larkin seemed to be to check Guido's recent movements. I started at the other end—his call on Clayton, a week ago last Monday. You know, when he and Bruce went around to see about a job. Clayton himself isn't in the City today, but I went to that swank apartment hotel he inhabits and jollied the staff."
Having filled his pipe, he took his time lighting it. "I gather Clayton gave Guido and Bruce a rather long interview," he went on. "Or, rather, Bruce. Guido left about an hour before his brother did."
"He never mentioned that!" said Corinna.
"Why should he?" countered Yamamura. "Not good for his pride, is it? But what did Bruce and Clayton find to talk about?"
"And how much of it did Guido hear?" murmured Kintyre.
Corinna flushed. "Please don't," she said in a hard voice.
"I'm sorry," he answered, torn. "But if Bruce had to tell Clayton something important, even worth killing about—they'd shoo Guido out first. But Guido might have gotten enough hints to make some deductions and—No, wait, let me finish! Maybe Guido blabbed to someone else, not realizing himself what it signified."
She gave him a shaky little smile. "Thanks for trying," she said.
"Ah, this is probably of no significance at all," said Yamamura. "Bruce could just as well have been giving Clayton the latest information about the mildew on page 77 of that book." He attempted a smoke ring and failed. "Or could he? Depends on how you interpret this tidbit: Clayton telephoned Genoa, Italy, that same night."
"Who did he call?" asked Kintyre.
"The switchboard girl doesn't remember. All she heard was a lot of Italian: they started gabbling right away, before she could take herself out of the circuit. Clayton stayed home for several hours next day. The Italian called again. Now none of this would be worth retailing, I guess, except for one more oddity about Mr. Clayton. He had the bellhop bring him several dollars in change. Then he went out and was gone for some hours."
Corinna raised her thick dark brows in puzzlement. Kintyre nodded. "Yes. Long-distance, though not transatlantic, calls from a public booth," he said. "No chance of being eavesdropped on."
"It may not mean a damn relevant thing," said Yamamura. "The most legitimate businesses have their secrets. But I'll admit to being curious. Did Bruce steer him onto something big? And did a business rival then strike at Bruce? That doesn't sound likely. Maybe Clayton himself—no, hardly that. In my line of work I'd have heard it if he weren't straight, or if he associated with thugs."
Kintyre jammed his fists into knots. An intake of air hissed between his teeth.
"What is it?" Corinna's alarm seemed to come from far away.
"Nothing. Or possibly something. Never mind. Go on, Trig."
Only part of him heard the detective continue. The rest said through thunder:One more suspect. I had been sure Clayton, of all people, must be innocent. For the Federal government would have assured itself he knows no assassins—Trig, perhaps more reliably, tells me the same—and he could not have found any on short notice, and it is impossible he could have done the crime personally.
But Guido might have such connections!
Did Clayton see Guido again?
"Then I went around and chivvied the cops," said Yamamura. "They were just hauling in the Michaelis family, and hadn't much time for any other ideas. However, they are going to check house rentals over the weekend. You see, what was done—I'm sorry, Miss Lombardi—the deed would require an isolated spot. An entire house, at least. For the noise."
"Has anything come of that?" asked Corinna with a great steadiness.
"Not yet. These things take time. Well, then I had some supper and came here. Wasn't open yet, but they were making ready. Someone will have to meet my expense account, twenty-five good dollars to grease my way in and learn something."
"I can," said Corinna.
"Not you, Miss Lombardi. Most especially not you." Yamamura fumbled with his pipe; he was all at once an unhappy man. "Must I say it?"
Her eyes closed again, a flicker of aloneness. Then: "Please. It's better now, isn't it, than later from someone else?"
"A couple of strangers were in here last Thursday night. They introduced themselves to Guido, stood him drinks, talked at length. All this was noticed by the bartender, without any special interest, simply because it was a slack midweek night. He didn't hear what was said. After closing time, Guido went out with them.
"The description of one of those birds answers moderately well to Bob's description of Larkin."
Corinna shook herself, as if something rode her neck. "Is that all?" she asked.
"Yes."
"It could be worse," she said. "We already know he knows Larkin."
"What did the other man look like?" asked Kintyre.
"Smallish fellow, sandy-haired, long nose. And I'm surprised the barkeep could tell me that much. Look how you've come right back in here tonight, a stranger, after tearing the joint up."
Guido finished. Applause crackled, abnormally loud for a place like this: did they clap the knife which had been drawn? wondered Kintyre.
Corinna got up and made her way toward the platform. Guido gaped at her. "I like that girl," said Yamamura. "Do we have to go on with this business?"
"If we don't, she will alone," Kintyre told him.
Corinna and Guido held a muted argument. The fear was bulging his eyes. Finally he collapsed, somehow, and went out through the rear door. Corinna followed.
"Here we go," said Yamamura. "No, you ape, don't blow your nose! Oldest trick in the book, and you can bet there's at least one plainclothesman here tonight."
He sauntered affably between the tables. Kintyre came behind, his shoulders aching with tension. The bartender, the man who could actually notice things, regarded him speculatively as he passed by. A small surf of conversation lapped at his feet, he had to choke down the idiotic belief that it was all about him.
Then they were in the back room. Kintyre recognized the alley door he had used previously. Almost hidden by stacked beer cases, a stair led upward. At its top they found a dusty room with an iron cot, a couple of chairs, and an old vanity table. A naked electric bulb glared from the ceiling. Dressing room, Kintyre supposed.
Guido sat on the bedstead. He held a cigarette to his lips and drew on it as if it kept him alive. Corinna stood before him. The overhead light made her hair into a helmet and her face into a mask. Shadows lay huge in the corners.
Guido didn't look up. "I'll see you later," he mumbled. "I swear it. But not here. For Chrissake, we can all be killed here."
"Then why did you come tonight?" asked Yamamura.
"God! I was afraid not to."
"Did you see anyone dangerous in the audience?"
"I can't tell." His forehead glistened under the tangled hair. "There's a baby spot on me when I sing. I can't see past the first couple tables."
Corinna said: "Mr. Yamamura is a private detective. I understand he's even better at judo than Dr. Kintyre, which you should know is saying quite a lot."
"And when they go home?" He lifted a skull face. "What happens to me then?"
Yamamura replied: "Your only real safety will come when those people you are afraid of have been settled with. Do you want to go the rest of your life being afraid?"
"You can't settle with them," whispered Guido. "I mean, it's not just Larkin with his switchblades. O'Hearn carries a gun, and he's a three-time loser already, do you understand what that means? I've seen his gun!"
"Is there anyone else?" asked Kintyre.
"I don't know. You expect me to tell you if I do? I'll get myself killed!"
Corinna waved Kintyre and Yamamura back. She sat down beside Guido and took his free hand. "Bruce got himself killed too," she said in her gentlest tone.
"Oh, yes, yes, yes! Leave me alone!"
"He was tied down somewhere and tortured," she said, not raising her voice. "They burned him. The marks were all over his body, even after they finished hacking it up. I know that much, no more. Nobody would tell me more, and I didn't want to ask. But he must have been glad when they finally cut his throat."
Guido tried to rise. She pulled him back, without using much strength. "Jesus!" he screamed.
"Why did you help them?" she asked.
"I didn't! It's got nothing to do with—Ididn't!"
She stood up again and looked down upon him. "Why did you do it?" she said as calmly. "How had he hurt you, that you had to let him be burned and twisted and killed?"
"No! Not me! I don't know!" His mouth was stretched into a gash; a tongue like dry wood bobbed within it.
She slapped him. It could not have been hard, but he fell back onto the bed and clawed at the mattress.
"Good-by," she said, and walked from him.
Kintyre looked at her and knew why the Furies had been women. His heart was a cold lump.
Corinna waited in a corner, her hands writhing together. Guido tried, horribly, to weep, and could not.
Then at last he rolled over on his back, blinked at the light, and said in a high childish voice: "I'll tell you what happened. I'll tell you so you can see it wasn't me, wasn't anything to do with Bruce, it just happened to happen the same weekend, and then maybe if you get out and leave me alone they won't kill me.
"All I did was this. These cats from Chicago came around last week and said they were after some of the pod and could I get it, it was worth five hundred bucks to them plus expenses. Not horse, now, I don't have anything to do with horse. Just marijuana, it never hurt anybody, you don't get hooked, you don't go nuts, hell, I mean you even have to will yourself to keep the jag up and it's only in your head, man, you don't do nothing to nobody else, dig?"
"Guido," said Corinna warningly.
He snapped after air. Presently he continued: "So I told them I didn't handle it myself but I knew some who did. But they didn't dig that, said they didn't want nothing to do with any local pushers, they didn't even want it from any near town. Well, it seemed way out to me, but five hundred plus expenses for finding a small packet wasn't to be turned down, so I asked around and got the name of a dealer in Tijuana, and when I saw them the next day they said that would do. So I rented a car and drove down Saturday. I was supposed to meet Larkin here again Monday night and give him the packet and get the rest of my money—they paid two-fifty in advance. I came back to town late Monday. When I hit my pad I heard about Bruce and the old lady was crying all over me, so I called the place here and talked with Larkin, could he meet me Tuesday night instead. So he said all right, only the professor was here when he arrived. I haven't seen Larkin or O'Hearn since, and what're they thinking I said?"
Kintyre didn't look at Corinna, he didn't believe it would be decent for a minute or two. He asked Guido: "What other jobs did you do for these men? Rent a house for them?"
"No—nothing. I turned the car back to the rental agency on Monday, that's all. They'd advanced some of my expenses. They still owe me—"
"You're not likely to collect," said Yamamura. He nodded to Kintyre. "I see what you're driving at. They missed a bet, not having him rent the scene of the crime too. And of course it was a mistake to dump the body across the Bay: that expedited the investigation, rather than slowing it up as intended. But then, they were strangers to this locality. And there's not much long-range difference, is there?"
"What do you mean?" asked Guido lifelessly.
"I mean you've been played for an all-time sucker," said Kintyre. "It's pure luck—the Michaelises just happened to become Patsy Number One—that you haven't been arrested on suspicion of murder. So far."
He heard Corinna gasp. Guido seemed too drained to understand.
"Another thing," said Kintyre. "What's between you and Gerald Clayton?"
"Clayton?" The empty eyes blinked from the bed. "Clayton. Oh, him. Nothing."
"Are you certain?"
"We talked for a while, up at his pad. Bruce took me there. So finally he gave me the polite brush-off and I came on over here to do my show. Bruce stayed."
"That's all? You're sure?"
"For a long time, anyway. I met him once before—months and months ago—just social like—" Guido's tones dribbled to silence.
Kintyre rubbed his chin. "That seems to let Clayton off," he said. "If, to be sure, our friend here is telling the truth."
"He is," said Corinna. Turning, Kintyre saw her inhumanly composed. "I know him. He can't be lying now."
"I wish I could be that certain," said Kintyre. "The whole thing makes so little sense that—Though Judas, I feel I could almost grasp the answer, but no."
Yamamura asked Guido: "Where is this dope you brought?"
"It's not dope," said the figure on the cot: a tired, automatic protest. "It's only pod."
"Never mind that. If you don't like the law, write your Congressman. Where's the dope?"
"They'll kill me if—"
"What use is your life to you right now?" asked Yamamura scornfully.
It had not seemed possible Guido could shrink further into himself. "That dressing table over there," he whimpered.
Yamamura opened the drawer, flipped out a small parcel, and tore a corner. "Uh-huh," he said.
"Well?" said Kintyre.
"Well, by rights we should turn this and the kid in. It could mean a stretch in a Federal prison, since he crossed a border. It could even mean a loss of citizenship, he being naturalized. Dope is a hysterical issue."
Corinna did not speak.
Yamamura continued, in an almost idle tone: "However, it's true enough that this isn't a really vicious drug. I could heave it into the nearest garbage can and there'd be an end of the matter. If you think he's had a little sense beaten into him."
Kintyre said: "That's my guess, Trig." Yamamura slipped the package into a coat pocket. Corinna shuddered, her fingers closed about Kintyre's.
Yamamura knocked the dottle from his pipe, which had gone cold between his teeth, and said, "Let's assume for now that he is telling the truth. Then what have we got?"
"A couple of murderers still hanging around," said Kintyre. "Why? Surely not to collect their hashish. That was just a gimmick to make Guido, their decoy, leave town, and make it damn near impossible for him to explain why. Whether or not a murder charge could have been made to stick, it would certainly confuse the issue long enough for this job to be finished, for the killers to go safely home again, and for the one who hired them to cover his tracks completely."
"You imply their job is not yet finished," said Yamamura.
"I sure do. There's no other sane reason for them to stay around, risking detection and arrest. Only—who's next?"
"Guido?" It was Corinna who asked it, firmly.
"I doubt that, at least as far as the original plan went. Who wants a dead red herring? Of course, now they may indeed go for him, afraid of what he has spilled. I think we'd better take him across the bay."
Yamamura nodded. "Let's get moving," he said. "Up there, lad." He stepped to the cot, took Guido under the arms and hauled him erect. "We can go out the back door."
Guido shambled, leaning heavily on the detective. Kintyre and Corinna followed. "He must be telling the truth," she said. "I know him! And that package—"
"Does tend to bear out his yarn," said Kintyre. "I want to believe in his essential innocence myself. The trouble is, if his story is true, then who hired the killers?"
"That Mr. Clayton?"
"Not if Guido has given us a full and fair account. I've explained to you that the Michaelises are out. Who's left?"
"I've heard of a writer. Owens, is that his name?"
"I don't know. I plain don't. And yet I'm nagged by a feeling that I already have the answer—and I can't name it! Things have been happening too fast." Kintyre scowled. "And until we can identify the one who hired the killers—the real murderer; the others are only a deodand—he's free to murder someone else."
They had come down the stairs now, slowly, and stepped into the alley behind the building. Windowless brick walls closed three sides: it was a cul-de-sac thick with shadows, opening on a wanly lit trafficless street of hooded shops.
The man by the alley entrance stepped a little closer. There was just light enough to show that he was not tall, that he had sloping shoulders, and that he carried an automatic pistol. He stopped three yards from the door, too far off for a leap.
"Hold it," he said.
Yamamura and Guido had come out first. Guido's legs seemed to go fluid; only the arm around his waist held him up.
"Jimmy," he bleated.
Kintyre's hand swung backward in an arc, shoving Corinna behind him. He said aloud—very loudly, "What the devil do you want?"
"Quiet, there," said the man called Jimmy. "This thing has a silencer on it." He waved the gun. "I want to see Lombardi."
"It isn't nothing, Jimmy," chattered Guido. "Before God, Jimmy, they're just friends of mine!"
"Yeh. You can tell us all about it. The rest of you stand back against the door. Come on, Guido. I got a car waiting."
Yamamura eased his burden to the ground. Guido huddled on hands and knees, retching. "He'll never make it," said the detective. "He's scared spitless."
"I just want to talk with him," said Jimmy. "I was supposed to see him here tonight, only they said he'd gone upstairs. I figured if it was just for a nap or something, he'd be down again to finish his act and I'd catch him later. Only if he wanted to skip out this way instead, it would be soon and he might not come back. I didn't want to miss him, so I figured I'd wait here a while."
It was not meant as an explanation. It was an indictment, nailed word by word on the man who tried to stand up.
"Well," said Yamamura, "let me help him."
Jimmy laughed under his hat. "I'm not that simple-minded. Stay put." With shrillness: "Come on, Guido. Or do you want to get drilled right here and now?"
Guido began to drag himself forward, as if a bullet had already smashed his spine. The sound of it, and of his breath going in and out an open mouth, and the nearby clamor of automobiles filled with meek taxpayers, was all that Kintyre could hear.
He wondered if he could let Guido be taken from him, by the same instrument which had taken Bruce, and call himself male. Two or three jumps should reach Jimmy. But Jimmy was no amateur, he wouldn't miss if he shot. But there were many cases on record of men being hit once, twice, being filled with lead, and still coming on. But Guido wasn't worth anybody's time. But Guido was brother to Bruce and Corinna, therefore worth a great deal of time. But a possible forty years?
But a deeper shadow filled the open end of the brick gut. It ran forward in total silence, light touched its glassy uplifted club and its flowing hair.
As the bottle came down on Jimmy's head, Kintyre started to move. Yamamura beat him to it, arriving a second after Jimmy lurched forward from the impact on his skull. The sound had been a shattering; Kintyre heard the tinkles that followed the blow. Yamamura knocked the gun from Jimmy's hand with an edge-on palm, seized his lapel, and applied a scissor strangle.
Jimmy fell, as if the bones had been sucked from him. Corinna swayed over his form, still holding the broken beer bottle. Almost, she fell too. Kintyre caught her.
She held him closely, shuddering. It was not necessary, he thought beneath his own pulse. She fought herself, and grew worn down thereby. Her physical output had been negligible. Clearly she had slipped back through the door, unobserved (that was the chance she took, but chance had a way of favoring those who acted boldly). Picking up an empty bottle on the way, tucking it inconspicuously under an arm, she had gone out past the bar, out the main door (doubtless noticed, maybe wondered about, but not stopped and soon forgotten) and around the building. Then she took off her shoes and ran up behind Jimmy and hit him.
That was all. There was no reason to grow exhausted. But God damn all smug judokas, hadn't she earned the right?
"You clopped him a good one," said Yamamura, squatting to look. "It's as well he had a hat on. A cut scalp could get very messy. Congratulations."
"Did you say there was a cop in the bar?" asked Kintyre.
"Beyond doubt," said Yamamura. "Or we can phone, of course. Only I'm carrying a parcel of smoke, and the neighborhood will be searched quite thoroughly if our friend here mentions it." He sat on his heels, chin in hand, for what seemed like a long time. Jimmy moaned, but did not stir.
"Bob," asked Yamamura finally, "do you know anyone living on this side who's mixed up in the affair?"
"Just Guido, if we rule out the Michaelises."
"So the big chief—and his next victim—are probably in the Eastbay. If another murder is to be forestalled, I wonder if we ought to spend time here chatting with a lot of well intentioned policemen who will first have to be convinced the Michaelises are innocent and this wasn't a simple stick-up. Especially when the papers will tell the big chief exactly what's happened. Or, even if they can be made to keep quiet, Jimmy will fail to report in; the gang will try to check for him in the San Francisco pokey, first of all; so we could do some trail-covering of our own."
"You mean to take this character to Berkeley, then? Isn't that pretty irregular? You don't want to jeopardize your license."
"It's as irregular as a German verb, and the police are going to be annoyed. But I do think we can flange up enough excuses to get by with it. Of course, the Berkeley force will call up the San Francisco force immediately, but that'll go on a higher level, chief to chief I imagine; we can explain the need for secrecy, as much secrecy as the law allows, and—Hell, Bob, let's stop mincing words. What we need is time to construct a story that'll cover Guido. And you."
Kintyre felt how the stone-rigid body he held began to come alive again. "Blessings," he murmured.
"We'll go to your place first, and then decide what's next."
"Can you finagle Jimmy across the bridge?"
"Him and Guido both," grinned Yamamura. "Which will leave you a clear field when you take the lady home."
"I'm coming," said Corinna. She pulled herself away from Kintyre, gently.
"You are not," he answered. Seeing in the dirty gray half-light how her face grew mutinous, he went on: "There are enough complications already. What could you do over there, except be one more element we have to explain away—or one more target for the gang? At present, only Jimmy knows you have any concern with this business, and he'll get no chance to talk of it."
She thought on his words for a little. Then: "Yes. You're right. But don't drive me all the way. A taxi will—"
"Shut up!" he laughed, shakily, and took her arm.
They had to wait, guarding a half-conscious prisoner, while Yamamura went after his car. Guido sat on the pavement, knees drawn up under his chin. After a while he took out a cigarette and lit it.
Corinna leaned over him. "Go with them," she said. "They're the only real friends you've got."
"Besides you, sis," he muttered. Then, barking a sort of laugh: "Next week, East Lynne."
She sighed, like an old woman, and stood back again.
Yamamura returned and bound Jimmy's wrists with Jimmy's tie. He and Kintyre frogmarched their captive to the Volkswagen and put him in back on the floor. Yamamura secured his ankles with his belt. "Toss me your house key, Bob, I'll see you there. Hop in, Guido. Cheerio."
Kintyre and Corinna walked hand in hand back toward his own car. They stopped to pick up her shoes. "I'm afraid you ruined your stockings," he said inanely.
"You don't have to talk," she said. "I don't need it."
He was grateful for that. The silence in which they drove home (she did not lean against him, but she sat close by) was somehow like—memory groped—like Bruce's music which Margery had played for him a few centuries ago. He wondered if she had heard it yet.
"I hope you'll be able to sleep," he said at her door.
"Oh, yes, I think so." She considered him and asked gravely: "Why are you doing this for us?"
"I can't stop now," he said. "I'm in up to the eyebrows."
"But why did you begin? Not for Bruce's sake, surely. He wouldn't have cared about being avenged."
"Which is what the police are for, anyway. I don't like this evading them that we've been forced into."
"Well?" she continued.
"Why do you want to know?" he dodged.
Her head drooped. "I suppose it isn't any of my business. I'm sorry."
It hammered within him to tell her: that he had been escaping a demon, that she had worn its shape for a single moment, and that now he wanted to give peace to her. But there had been too many locks in him, for too many years.
He took her hand. "Later," he said, wondering if he meant it. "This is no time for a long, involved story."
"I'll stay home tomorrow," she said. "Will you call me as soon as—anything happens? The first minute you're able to?"
"Of course."
She smiled then, reached up and ran her palm along his cheek. "Arrivederci," she said. The door closed behind her.
It was so much more than he had awaited, that he never remembered going down the stairs. He was driving over the bridge before the complete bleakness of his purpose returned.
The hour was not yet midnight, but Berkeley was quiet. Kintyre parked behind Yamamura's Volks and walked around the empty house to his cottage. The detective let him in.
"Where are our friends?" asked Kintyre.
"Guido is in your bed, snoring," said Yamamura. "As clear a case of nervous exhaustion as I ever saw. By the way, Jimmy's name is O'Hearn; I went through his billfold. I borrowed some of that rope you've been making grommets with and stashed him in the john."
He had stripped off his jacket, to show a noisy aloha shirt; his pipe strove to be Vesuvius. "Are you very tired?" he asked.
"No. Keyed up, in fact."
"Have a drink. Apropos vices, the evidence against Guido is in the Bay. I assumed we're not going to hand him over to the law."
"Not for one bit of foolishness," said Kintyre. "I doubt if he'll ever touch dope running again. He's gotten a hefty scare."
"Jimmy will tattle, though."
"Our word against his. We're somewhat more respectable."
"You and Machiavelli! But, yeh. A check with the Chicago police—he's from there, all right—would doubtless show he's got a record as long as King Kong's arm. A pro killer doesn't come out of nowhere; he starts with petty stuff and works his way up." Yamamura shook his head. "And on the other hand, a lot of good men are doing time for one slip regretted the moment it was over. Makes me wonder about our whole concept of penology. That's why I'll help you cover for Guido."
Kintyre took down his bottle of Scotch and raised brows at Yamamura. The detective shook his head. Kintyre poured for himself and sat down. The other man prowled.
"We haven't much time," said Yamamura. "What do we tell the cops?"
"Perhaps nothing—yet," said Kintyre slowly.
"Huh? How do you mean?"
"They don't use the third degree around here. O'Hearn isn't going to tell them a thing, and you know it. They'll have to check with Chicago, the FBI, follow a dozen separate leads for days at least. And what do his pals do meanwhile?"
Yamamura stopped in midstride. "If you have any half-cooked scheme of beating the truth out of him, forget it," he said in a chill voice.
"Oh, no," said Kintyre. "But do you think we could get away with holding him, unharmed, for maybe twenty-four hours?"
"It would be kidnaping."
"What was he trying to do to Guido?"
Yamamura stared at the sabers on the wall. "What do you want to do?"
"Get his information out of him in less time than the police will need."
"I think an excuse could be manufactured," said Yamamura dreamily. "If not for a whole twenty-four hours, for twelve or so. This reminds me of my days in OSS. Okay, I'll risk it."
"Good," said Kintyre. "Then follow my lead."
"Better explain—"
Kintyre was already in the bathroom, looking down at the man on the floor. O'Hearn had a long nose and not much chin. "Who hired you, Jimmy?" said Kintyre.
Hatred glared back at him. "Tough, aren't you?" said O'Hearn. "Big deal."
"I asked who hired you," said Kintyre.
He saw the growth of fear. "Look, I don't know," said O'Hearn. "And if I spilled anything, anything at all, they'd find out."
"And kill you. I've heard that line before." Kintyre shrugged. "You are going to tell me. Think about it while I make ready."
He took Yamamura out into the yard, toward the house. "My landlord left some extra keys with me, just in case," he said. "We'll borrow a soundproof room."
"Hey!" Yamamura stopped. "I told you, bodily harm is out."
"I've no such intention." Kintyre led him into the house and down to its basement. "We'll use the rumpus room. It has a pool table we can tie him to. The process seems to work best when the victim lies supine. I admit he might get a little stiff from the hard surface."
Yamamura grabbed his shoulder. "What the blue hell are you talking about?" he growled.
"They're just now beginning to study the mental effects of eliminating sensory stimuli," said Kintyre. "The mind goes out of whack amazingly fast. My friend Levinson, in the physiology department, was telling me about some recent experiments. Volunteers, intelligent self-controlled people who knew what it's all about and knew they could quit any time they wanted—none of which applies to O'Hearn—didn't last long. Hallucinations set in. Of course, we may have to mop up certain messes afterward."
"Do I understand you rightly?"
"I suppose so. The only thing we're going to do to O'Hearn is tie him down, flat on his back, blindfolded."
They would have to stand watch and watch outside the door. Kintyre took the first one, though he didn't expect a reaction soon. (On the other hand, an hour can stretch most hideously when you are alone in soundless dark, not even able to move.) He pulled up a chair and opened a book, but didn't read it. Nor did he listen to the defiant obscenities which came very faintly through the panels. Mostly he sat in a wordless half sleep.
Corinna, he thought. And then, later:I'm being infantile. It doesn't mean a thing, except that I've been celibate too long and by sheer chance she pushes a few buttons in me. It could not last—consider the difference in faith alone—and she would be hurt.
How do I know it wouldn't, even to the altar? (For surely it would last always, having taken us that far.)
I don't know. I suppose I'm being cowardly in not finding out.
Then again, long afterward:This couldn't be hurried in any event. We'd both go slowly, her loss is still so new. There'd be ample time for me to escape, before the pleasure of her presence became a necessity.
And once more:But why should I want to escape at all?
The first thin gray was stealing over the hills when Yamamura yawned his way in. O'Hearn hadn't cried out for some time; he lay breathing hard. "Solved the case yet?" asked Yamamura. "No? Well, run along and let a professional handle it."
Kintyre went across the yard. A bird twittered somewhere, drowsily. He entered the cottage and looked at Guido. Still out. The face was gone innocent with sleep, years had been lost, a della Robbia angel lay in his bed. He sighed, kicked off his shoes, and stretched on the living room couch. Darkness was quickly upon him.
Once the phone rang. He rolled over, refusing its summons, and went to sleep again. It was a little after six when a hand shook him awake. He struggled up through many gray layers. From far off he heard: "Jimmy's broken. Busted into pieces all over the place. Hoo, what a devil you are, my friend!"
Kintyre sat up, feeling sticky. Yamamura gave him a lighted cigarette and he took a few puffs. "Okay," he said.
The early sunlight and the rushing sound of early traffic whetted him as he left the cottage, until he went clear-brained to the shivering, screaming thing on the pool table and said: "I'll take the blindfold off when you've talked. Not before."
"Let me go, let me go, let me see!" wept O'Hearn.
"Shut up or I'll leave you for another day or two," said Kintyre.
O'Hearn gasped himself toward a kind of silence.
"Did you help kill Bruce Lombardi?" asked Kintyre.
"No." A cracked whine. "I mean, I was there. But the others, Silenio, Larkin, they done it. I didn't touch him myself. Let me out of here!"
"Shut up, I told you." Kintyre drew deeply on his cigarette. "I suspect you're lying about your own role," he continued, "but never mind that now, if you don't lie on the next question. Who hired you?"
"I don't know!"
"So long," said Kintyre.
"I don't know! I don't! They never told me! Silenio knows! I don't! I just worked for Joe Silenio! Ask him!"
Yamamura, looking a little sick, said: "That's probably true, Bob. Our kingpin called this Silenio in Chicago, and Silenio rounded up a couple of assistants. The less they know, the better. Silenio gets the kingpin's money and pays off the other two himself."
Kintyre groaned. "And we had to catch one of the deadheads! Well, let's see what else can be learned."
It came out in harsh automatic sentences. O'Hearn's will, never strong, had altogether failed him. He answered questions without evasions, but like a robot.
Silenio had contacted him and Larkin the Tuesday of last week. It was to be a well paid job, ten thousand dollars on completion of the first assignment and a hundred dollars a day while they waited for the next. ("No, I didn't know nothing, I don't know who else we'd go after!") The trio caught a plane to San Francisco that night. At intervals on Wednesday and Thursday Silenio had conferred with whoever engaged them, while Larkin and O'Hearn looked for a suitable house. Their find was rented on Friday, an old house in a run-down district at the southern end of town; and each of them bought a good used car elsewhere. Meanwhile, on Thursday night, Larkin and O'Hearn had lined up Guido. That had been at Silenio's orders, presumably derived from the boss's. The boss himself had arranged for Bruce to come to the house on Saturday, calling him on the phone with some plausible story. They captured Bruce very simply, with a gun, and tied him up. Silenio questioned him. Bruce had gotten stubborn with outrage—Kintyre knew how stubborn that could be—and the interrogation took a few hours; even after he broke they continued the pain a while, to make sure. Finally they cut his throat over the bathtub, dressed him in old clothes, and got rid of the body across the Bay on Sunday night.
"The questions, you bastard," snarled Kintyre. "Didn't the questions Silenio was asking tell you something?"
"It was all in wop," groaned O'Hearn. "I don't know wop."
Italy again. Though I suppose that our X would have made a special effort to get an Italian-speaking lieutenant, as another safeguard for himself.
"One thing so far," murmured Yamamura. "Guido is in the clear."
"Is he?" said Kintyre bitterly. "Wouldn't it be a beautiful turnabout, to make himself look like the fall guy for his own scheme?"
He turned back to the crooked blind face on the table. "What did you do afterward?"
"Waited in the house. Played cards. Silenio got the money for this job in the afternoon. Cash. He went out for it. Larkin went to pay off the Lombardi sucker Tuesday evening. That was because he didn't show Monday, account of his brother. Larkin got into a fight. We didn't know what it meant. Silenio called the boss and they talked on the phone in wop. Silenio told me to go pick up Guido Lombardi tonight. I figured we was going to find out how much he knew and then maybe dump him too, but I don't know for sure."
"Did anything else go on, this night?"
"Silenio and Larkin had another job."
"Where?"
"I don't know." The voice had become a worn rattling.
"Were you supposed to meet them at the house?"
"I was supposed to wait there with Lombardi till they got back. Silenio wasn't telling either of us more'n he had to."
"Will they be back there now?"
"I dunno."
"Suppose they came back and didn't find you? What would they do?"
"Try and find out what happened, I guess. Wouldn't stay in the house if it looked like something had gone wrong."
"Where would they go?"
"I don't know. Some hotel, I guess."
"And what would you do, if you couldn't find them?"
"Go back to Chi, I guess."
"No spare rendezvous," said Yamamura. "Lousy doctrine."
"Not if you're using expendables," said Kintyre. "And this bum is expendable. I imagine Larkin is too, though enough more valuable to go with Silenio—where?"
"Over here," said Yamamura.
"Very likely to kill someone else." Kintyre looked dully at the stub of his cigarette on the floor. He didn't remember dropping it. "We'll read in the papers who it was."
"If we aren't the target ourselves," said Yamamura. "Right now anything seems possible." He sighed. "Well, I'd better call the police."
"Wait a bit," said Kintyre.
"But that house—God knows what's going on there, right now!"
"Nothing, I'm sure. If only because Silenio and Larkin will be worried by O'Hearn's absence. Let's have breakfast, at least, before calling. You devise a story that won't make us quite such lawbreakers. I'm going to try and sort out my thoughts. I have an idea. It's driving me crackers, Trig. I feel I know what this is all about and still there's some kind of wall between me and the knowledge. A wall I've built myself!"
"Hm," said Yamamura. He gave the other man a meditative stare. "Yes, it might be worth while waiting till after we eat."
Kintyre went out, beating a fist softly into his palm. Yamamura paused to release O'Hearn's eyes. O'Hearn lay and wept.
While the detective made breakfast in the cottage, Kintyre took a shower. Then a shave, clean clothes, tee shirt, khaki pants, tennis shoes, brought him physically closer to humanness.
Inside, he was afraid, and he did not know why.
Guido appeared in the kitchen as Kintyre re-entered. He looked at the others with deer shyness. "Good morning," he ventured.
"Hello," said Yamamura. "Pull up an egg and sit down."
Guido perched on a chair's edge. No one spoke until coffee and food were within them. Somehow, the blue and green planet beyond the windows had become alien; they sat in a private darkness.
"I—" began Guido. He stopped.
"Go ahead," said Yamamura. Kintyre listened with a fractional ear. Mostly he was inside his own skull, shouting for something which did not answer.
"I'd like to say thanks, is all," offered Guido.
"It's okay," said Yamamura.
"Look, are you sitting and worrying about me?"
"In a way. The trouble is, you see, if we take your story at face value, we have no plausible suspects left. But two more killers and their chief are loose, probably arranging another murder. If it hasn't already been done."
"Whose?" whispered Guido.
"If we knew that," said Yamamura gloomily, "we could get a police guard for him. But until we've identified the chief, there's no way of figuring who the next victim might be."
"No," said Kintyre.
He sat up straight, feeling how cold his hands were. It came to him, through a great hollowness—each instant he seemed more remote from himself—that he could have found his enemy before now. He had enough facts to reason on. He was still feeling his way a step at a time, but he felt there would be an end to his journey.
And he felt, without yet knowing why, that the horror waited for him there.
He said, sensing a resonance within his head, as if his voice formed echoes:
"It has to be someone who knew Bruce at least fairly well. He went to that house because of a telephone call. He didn't own a car and wouldn't borrow Margery's. That's a long awkward trip, by street train and bus. He wouldn't make it casually. He'd want to know why he was being asked to come to this address he'd never heard of before,without telling anyone. The person who called (and could have been right in Berkeley, of course) had to be somebody who could give Bruce a strong, convincing reason. What it was, I don't know. It doesn't matter now, it was surely a lie. But a lie he would accept! From a person he trusted."