here to meet Weiss?”
“The impostor wore a bathrobe because Jonathan’s right clothes were bloody. Baron had the impostor pick a brawl with Weiss. Weiss ran, Baron replaced the body and went out the back way with his faker. He got rid of the faker one way or another.”
“One way or another? Yes, I see.”
“Baron had removed the bloody rug and cleaned the floor.”
Ames stared at me. “It strikes me as an involved scheme.” “No,”
I said. “Under the circumstances it was simple, almost foolproof. Baron knew a hundred drifters he could get in minutes, and who’d do almost anything for a thousand dollars. He knew Jonathan. All he needed was a man the right age and size. A beard can be supplied in ten minutes in midtown Manhattan. Once you were gone, he had no one to worry about who really knew Jonathan.”
“But on the spur of the moment?”
“That’s what makes me so sure. No one could have planned it in advance that well. He’d wait a year for just the right circumstances. It had to be spur of the moment; it grew out of the circumstances. He had a murder to cover fast. He had a body with a beard but otherwise ordinary enough, an empty apartment, and $25,000 on hand. It was just about all he could have done to fit the needs, and he found an impostor as easily as he found Weiss to play the patsy.”
“How did he know he could get Weiss so quickly?”
“He didn’t. Any messenger would have done. Pure chance.”
“Why would Paul Baron do all that? Take such a risk?” “Money, the big chance. He had a petty blackmail going, but once he had a murderer who let him cover and frame Weiss, he had a lifetime deal in his pocket. And he had the knife to back his play. That missing knife never sounded right. Now I know why it was missing. It had the killer’s prints on it, and Baron took it.”
“You mentioned a telephone call that, presumably, told Baron of the murder. As far as I can see, everyone here was his enemy, his victim. Why call him for help, and then help him?”
“Someone here was in with him. His partner all the way.”
“Partner? Then you rule out Walter?”
“No. He could have let himself be squeezed to bleed Jonathan.”
He moved and set his glass down carefully on the table. I watched him. I had no way of knowing how he was taking it all.
“You’re toying with me, Fortune. You’ve talked in generalities, no names. You’ve mentioned Walter and Deirdre, but we all know they were here, they admit it. If what you think is true, then they must be involved in it, but not necessarily as murderers, correct?” He waited, but I said nothing. He stood up abruptly and went to the liquor bar. He poured a straight shot and drank it. His back to me, he leaned with both hands on the bar. “The way you describe it, someone else could have been here with Walter and Deirdre. Anyone. Unseen and unknown.”
“A third person would have to have gotten past the doorman earlier, but it could have happened, yes.”
He faced me. “Then there’s me. I was here. It would all shield me, too.”
“You were here,” I said.
He continued to stare at me. Then he turned again, poured another shot, and downed it. He was holding himself rigid now. “What do you want me to do, Fortune?”
“Take a drive with me,” I said. “It isn’t just Jonathan anymore, Ames. Not even Jonathan and Baron. Two more bodies are on the list. One of them doesn’t matter much, but the other was a stupid, scared little girl who never really started living. Now she’s dead because she was just a possible threat to someone, and that someone is still running loose.”
His back was a ramrod. “North Chester?”
“Yes. I have a car.”
He turned. “All right.”
He got his coat and hat and we went down to my car. I told him to drive. Even a man with two arms is pretty helpless when driving. I didn’t think he had killed anyone, but that was theory and guesswork. I could be all wrong.
25
We went across to the West Side Highway, passed the George Washington Bridge that was an endless moving stream of lights, and drove on through Riverdale to the north. Outside the city the snow was an unbroken expanse of white that reflected the lights of the rows of suburban houses and the colored neon of the shops and taverns.
Ames drove fast, skillfully, and in silence. The rigidity had not left him. He was a man with a lot on his mind, the effete aristocrat just about gone. He was offstage now, as much as any actor can ever be. I couldn’t tell what he had on his mind, and he wasn’t going to tell me. He was waiting, maybe only to find out what I really knew or had guessed, before he did anything. I didn’t know what he knew, or had guessed, or how he felt about it. I didn’t know how he would act when the time came to stop me or help me. Maybe Ames didn’t know either.
We entered Westchester, and the houses were fewer. Only the traffic never lessened. The lights came on at me in a mass. I felt as if I were plunging through a dark tunnel with a million eyes watching me, alone with nothing but enemies. I was sure, now, that I knew what had happened on Monday morning, but I could never prove it unless I made someone panic. Panic can be dangerous, two-edged, but I had no other weapon.
By now Gazzo would be looking for me. Witnesses would have described the one-armed man who had been with Leo Zar when he died. Leo, and the death of Carla Devine, would give Gazzo some doubts about Weiss. He would want to talk to me. I didn’t have a lot of time. Weiss had less time if I didn’t produce a killer, with evidence, soon.
The D.A. would not have doubts. To the D.A., or some tenth assistant D.A. for Weiss, Carla Devine would have died by accident or suicide from depression over Baron’s death, and Leo Zar would be the victim of a gang rumble. Sure, both deaths might be a result of Baron’s death, but that didn’t change Weiss’s obvious guilt. Not a bit. The tenth assistant D.A. would get a good night’s sleep. Chief McGuire would think about it longer, he would even instruct his men to keep their eyes open, but he had a whole giant city to police. McGuire’s detectives wouldn’t try too hard. Weiss probably belonged in jail anyway, and even Gazzo had too much work to do.
We passed through North Chester just after midnight. Five minutes later Ames turned the car into the long drive up to the fine old house with its two cottages behind. There were lights in the downstairs windows. Ames parked at the front door.
The butler, MacLeod, let us in. Mrs. Radford was in the library. Ames walked behind me as if his legs were heavy and his feet were mired in mud, his flamboyance noticeably missing. Gertrude Radford was alone. She closed her book, put it carefully aside, and acknowledged us:
“You came, George. I’m pleased. Mr. Fortune. Sit down.”
I sat. Ames went to stand in a corner near an obvious liquor cabinet. Mrs. Radford’s pale eyes watched Ames. She wore a gray lounging robe, and her white hair was immaculate. Her rings were on her fingers. A coffee cup stood on a crystal coaster on the table beside her. The library was neat, solid, orderly, with everything in its proper place. The ashtrays looked as if they had not been moved, or used, for a century.
“Could Walter and Miss Fallon join us?” I asked.
Her frail hands made a gesture, but her youthful face was smooth, and her fragile body was relaxed. I could have been a cousin she saw every week. There was a crease between her eyes that might have been worry, but didn’t have to be.
“Forgive me, Mr. Fortune,” she said, smiled. “I’m sure you want to get to your mission, whatever it is, but we always talk over a cup of coffee in the family. I find it a civilized custom, and feel lost without it. You prefer percolator, don’t you?”
“That’s fine,” I said.
She nodded. “Three percolator, please, MacLeod.”
“Two, Gertrude,” Ames said. He opened the liquor cabinet and found the whisky.
