how big his personal involvement is, but it's possible that he's seen this as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and invested his own capital in the company. He must have been shattered when the Chairmanship of Manflex was bequeathed to David Flexner. As I see it, he uses his inside knowledge to get a big payday as compensation.'
'Are you saying this could be a scam, this whole thing about the drug?' asked Stein.
'No, I think it would be difficult to fool so many people. There are all kinds of safeguards in the drugs industry. They must have had some very promising results from the preclinical trials. They couldn't fake them. But the timing is amazing, isn't it? They're ready to go public on the miraculous properties of this drug now, just when Manflex is nose-diving. The stuff has been around for twenty years.'
'He explained that,' Eastland pointed out. 'They didn't know it was useful until the professor started work on it.'
'But he's been working on it for some years.'
'You think they sat on it until now?'
'I'm just trying to account for Leapman's behavior-if he really is the villain. Of course it may be that Manny Flexner knew about PDM3 and wasn't so convinced as his Vice Chairman. Manny may have put the brake on it.'
'If there is anything suspect about the drug, it won't stay secret for long,' said Eastland. 'Like you said, every drug company in the world will want to know the formula and scrutinize the results, not to mention the analysts who advise the stock market.'
Diamond wouldn't be shaken from his conviction that the decision within Manflex to press ahead with PDM3 had triggered the crimes they were investigating. 'Yes, the results so far must be watertight, or they wouldn't risk publishing them. Let's accept that everything we've heard about the drug is true, and that it's the most exciting discovery since penicillin. Then isn't it certain-as sure as God made little green apples-that the criminal fraternity will have got to hear of the payday in prospect?'
'The mob?'
'The barons who run crime in this city of yours, from whatever community. They could be calling the shots.'
'Maybe,' said Eastland. 'Maybe.' After a moment he admitted, 'It's plausible.'
Sergeant Stein said wistfully, 'It's a terrific payoff.'
Eastland then followed up his double 'maybe' by commenting insensitively, 'This is all very neat except that we're investigating a missing kid, not a killing on the stock exchange. The only link we have is that the kid's mother happens to be sponsored by Manflex.'
Of all people, Diamond didn't need reminding about Naomi, but he wasn't going to be shaken from the point he'd made. 'Come on, there's ample evidence that professional crooks are involved. Mrs. Tanaka's was a contract killing. And the people who attacked me weren't amateurs.'
'So why was Mrs. Tanaka killed?' asked Sergeant Stein.
'My guess is that she was given a job to do and she failed. They considered her untrustworthy.'
'She was expendable.'
'Just a pawn, like me.'
'How about the kid?' said Stein. 'Is she expendable, too?'
'No,' said Diamond, quick to dismiss the unthinkable. 'If they'd wanted to harm Naomi, they'd have done it long ago.'
'I may be dumb,' said Eastland, 'but nobody has explained to me yet how one small, mentally handicapped girl is so important in this case.'
Diamond had no answer. He'd long since reached the conclusion that Lieutenant Eastland was anything but dumb.
Leapman's house was one of six in a cul-de-sac north of Hoboken, spacious two-story wooden buildings with attached garages owned (Diamond guessed) by the kind of people who couldn't yet afford a prime position overlooking Manhattan, but had their hopes. They had plaster geese on their porches and flagpoles in their lawns.
No lights showed at the windows of the end house, but that wasn't remarkable considering that it was already 1:15 A.M. Two households were watching TV and the others were dark.
The police car glided to a stop in the street outside the Leapman address. Diamond reached for his door handle and gasped with pain. His right arm still hurt.
'I don't think so,' Eastland told him. 'You've seen enough action for one night. We have our procedures. Ready to go, Stein?'
Submissive for a change, Diamond remained in the car and watched them approach the house, guns drawn, moving with stealth. At the front door, Stein stood well to one side when he pressed the bell, probably mindful of cops who had been shot through doors.
The chimes were audible from the street.
No lights went on.
Eastland moved around the side of the house, leaving Stein, who sounded the chimes several times more without response.
When a light did appear, it was only Eastland's flashlight bobbing around the other side, past the garage entrance. He pointed it through a front room window and beckoned to Stein to join him. They stood together staring inside for what became to Peter Diamond an unbearable interval.
Diamond told the driver, 'Blow this for a lark. They've spotted something. I'm going over.'
The action of removing himself from the car gave him another uncomfortable reminder of the strains he'd put on his physique that night. No catlike movement across the drive for him. He hobbled.
Lieutenant Eastland turned and came towards him.
'What have you found?' Diamond asked, but Eastland walked right past him and used the radio in the car.
'What is it?' He was addressing Stein now, but the question was superfluous.
Michael Leapman's front room looked as if it had stood in the path of stampeding buffaloes. The moving flashlight picked out a unit lying tilted across a sofa, with books and ornaments strewn across the floor. The television set was faceup, smashed. A chair lay across a table.
'Is he in there?'
'We can't see,' said Stein, still with his gun drawn. 'We don't know.'
'Shouldn't we go in?'
'The lieutenant wants a backup.'
'I can provide that Have you checked all the doors? The windows?'
'Don't get me wrong, but he wouldn't want backup from you.'
'Why not?'
'Do you have a piece?'
'No.'
Stein gave a shrug that said he wouldn't want backup, either, from a man without a piece.
'Any signs of a break-in?' Diamond asked.
'No.'
Eastland came back and reported that the Emergency Service Unit was on its way. 'The perps could still be inside. I'm taking no chances.'
Diamond awaited his opportunity to sidle closer to Sergeant Stein, from whom he learned that a perp was a perpetrator. The common language had its pitfalls.
A van was with them in six minutes, followed soon after by two cars. Armed men were sent around the side of the house. Lights were set up. There were dog-handlers and men in white overalls who spoke briefly with Eastland and then forced open the front door and went in.
Diamond stayed close to Eastland and followed the search of the interior as it came over the personal radios. The house was unoccupied, they learned, but there were more signs of violence, including blood spots on the wall in one comer of the living room. There were bloody fingerprints on the phone, which was pulled from its socket and lying upside down on the floor. A bloodstained baseball bat was found beside it.
'Looks like someone used the phone after the victim was struck,' the voice reported.
'Or tried to,' said Eastland. 'Have you checked all the rooms now?'
