I said, “Who killed her, Marno?”
“Killed? A mistake. Too much H for one small bird.”
“Killed,” I said, “and no mistake. Who?”
His fingers began the erratic lament again. “Who, who! The big owl. Yeh. We all die, dads; we all get killed. It’s a big burlesque, dads. Swatting flies.”
“You said it,” I said. “She was swatted like a fly.”
“We’re all flies, dads; we all get swatted sooner or later. So fly high, fly high!”
His voice and the beat of the drum rose, and I saw his eyes clearly for the first time. The pupils were small and tight, and the hysteria in him was not all grief. He was high on drugs, and there was something even more than drugs.
“You’re high, Marno. Is that the way you get out of it?”
He did another quick run on the drum. “Just a little high, dads; not flying. Not enough. I didn’t have enough, no. Ben Marno didn’t have enough. Down to the last drop. So now I used it, the last drop, and no little bird to get more.”
He was telling me something. I heard it. “She was out trying to get more for you? She took a big chance for you?”
“For me, for Ben Marno who had to have some more happy dust. So out she went to find a contact. She made it, dads.” He threw the drum away. He looked at me from those constricted eyes. “Who, dads? You tell me. You’re the detective.”
“If you know that, you know more,” I said.
“I know, dads, and I know nothing, right? She knew, and she knew nothing. Just enough to kill her. Very careful these men of action. My nice little friendly bird, but Paul Baron’s chick because Paul Baron had what it took. So she was there, see? She didn’t know anything, not really, but she knew that Baron was alive and kicking after this Weiss character walked out.”
“She told you Paul Baron was okay after Weiss left Wednesday night?”
His eyes were dead. “She was scared, mister. Oh, God, was she one scared little bird. But for me she went out for a score, and I let her go! She’d been warned: clam up, keep out of sight. But she had a feeling the warning wasn’t the end of it.” He looked straight at me. “Not with you around. It was you, dads. She was sure the fuzz believed her, but she was scared that with you nosing around they wouldn’t trust her. You and me, dads!”
What could I say? It was almost certainly the truth. So I said, “Tell me what she told you, Marno. All of it!”
On the studio couch he blinked at me. He drew his knees up to his chin, clasped his ankles. “What’s to tell? She didn’t know anything, but they killed her anyway! All she knew was that Baron had a squeeze on a kid named Walter Radford. She was part of the squeeze, a witness. Baron lowered the boom on the kid on Sunday. Only on Monday it all changed. Baron was all excited, and told her to cover for him for an hour. The deal was bigger, he didn’t need her in it anymore. Wednesday they had dinner. Baron was happy as a kid, it was going like silk. Later she met him at his Fifth Street pad. Weiss showed up and got paid for some stupid bet and left. Baron was laughing, she says, after Weiss walked out. He sent her home right after. She figured he was expecting someone. She saw a guy watching downstairs, but she didn’t think anything of it then. Next day this woman told her to clam up-tight. Not a word to the cops. She didn’t know why. She didn’t know that until the fuzz rousted her Thursday night when you were there.”
“Woman?” I said. “What woman warned her?”
“She never told me.”
“Think!”
He shook his head. “No luck, dads; she didn’t want me to know. Too dangerous for little Ben to know. I figure it had to be someone tight with Paul Baron. Maybe it was that Misty Dawn. She was Baron’s steady before Carla. It was the Dawn chick who started the whole play, Carla said. Seems Misty was close to some guy who knew Walter Radford, and she told Baron about the setup.”
The room was so quiet I could hear voices far off on Seventh Avenue. Someone laughed somewhere out in the snow.
“Baron made his move on Sunday?” I said. “You’re sure?”
“That’s what Carla said.”
I started for the door. “When you call the police, don’t mention me.”
“Police? Hell, dad, I’m fading away. Erase the name on the mailbox and fly. We’re all islands.”
He’d bleed a long time. Maybe even longer than Gerald Devine and his silent wife up there in their paid-off house.
I went down to the snow-covered courtyard and through the archway to Grove Street. I turned left for Seventh Avenue to find a telephone booth. I saw the car across the street and behind me as I turned toward the avenue.
A green car, its engine muffled by the snow, that eased away from the curb and started after me.
22
I walked a little faster.
The green car moved a little faster.
In the center of the block a tall apartment building stood dark with a shadowed alley beside it. The street was deserted. Beyond the tall building there was light at the corner of Bedford, and a block farther the traffic and people of Seventh Avenue.
The car squealed tires in snow and came up on me. As I began to run, I was sure I saw a figure in a doorway across the street. I had no time to take a second look. The green car was almost up to me, timing its move to the exact moment when I would be in the shadow of the single tall building.
I dropped flat in the snow.
Something seemed to spit in the silent air. A sharp, brief, almost contemptuous spitting sound. Brick chips cracked out of the wall of the tall building. Something whined echoing down the alley.
The car was past me. It braked, skidded in the snow, stopped and was already turning.
I was up.
The street was too narrow for a U-turn. The car climbed the sidewalk. It spat at me again. A window broke somewhere-as if distant, tinkling in the cold night air. The car engine raced, its wheels spinning in snow as it reversed.
I ran.
Back the way I had come, with no time to look again, or think, to see if there had been someone in that doorway across the street.
I ran and felt unreal, my feet silent in the new snow like the feet of a ghost. Only my breathing was real-loud breathing like a panting rabbit with the dogs closing in.
I passed the archway into the Mews and reached the next corner. The car roared up behind, no longer careful. I made the corner, went around, skidded, and sprawled flat on my back. My legs kicked for a hold to get up.
The car failed to make the turn any better, slewed sideways, and slammed up over the far curb and into an iron railing. I slid and scrambled up. The car raced its engine. Its bumper was locked into the railing. Its wheels screamed in the night, digging deep into the snow, turning uselessly.
I banged my face into a wall, bounced off, ran, and ahead saw the lights of a restaurant and bar. The Golden Donkey. I knew the Golden Donkey. I reached the door. Two men came out of the stalled car across the street. One fell into the snow, staggered up, fell again. I got the door of the restaurant open.
I ran through the dining room. Faces turned, gaped. A waiter raised his hands. I was by him. Behind me dishes fell, smashed. I was in the kitchen, and out into the night of the back alley. There were doors. I tried them. One after the other; running from one to the other. They were all locked. I turned the corner of the L-shaped alley. Ahead the next street parallel to Grove Street was quiet in the lighted rectangle where the alley ended.
