“You think Walter knew?”
“No, but maybe he’s guessed by now.”
Costa rubbed his jaw. “Did she have to kill Baron? That’s taking a hell of a risk even for all Walter would have.”
“She had to,” I said, “but she didn’t kill him. Not alone. She set him up and got a sucker to do the dirty work for her.”
“A sucker?” His black eyes were down to points.
“Someone who wanted her, Costa. Maybe a share in the loot, but mostly for her, I figure.” My hand sweated on the pistol.
“You think I’m dumb enough to kill for a woman, baby?”
“I gave up trying to figure what men will do for a woman a long time ago. There was an arranged frame-up on hand, maybe it looked foolproof,” I said. “Where is she, Costa? Where’s Walter?”
“I ain’t seen them, baby. They’re not around here.”
“Her car’s here.”
“Here?” he said. “That Fiat?”
“In your lot over there.”
“Damn, baby, you’re ahead of me. I didn’t see her tonight.”
“She’ll cross you,” I said. “She’ll get someone to kill you, or do it herself. She’s in too deep. Baron and Leo Zar were both armed. They’ll never prove Carla on anyone. You can take a plea. Manslaughter, or even self- defense.”
His voice was all the way down to bare bone. “You take big chances for a cripple, baby.”
I leaned. “Earlier tonight you said you didn’t know Carla Devine. But when we were all up on Sixty-third Street Deirdre made sure you knew that Leo Zar and I were looking for Carla. I wondered why she said that out loud at the time. A few hours later, Carla Devine was dead. Then I knew. Deirdre was tipping you that Carla had to be silenced before Leo or I got to her.”
“If she was tipping someone, baby, it wasn’t…” He stopped. The hard shine went out of his eyes. I saw something like a quick fear in his eyes. He said, “Jesus!”
I said, “Strega. Where is he?”
He shook his head. “Around. He’s supposed to be around.”
“Where was he Wednesday night?”
“His night off,” Costa said. He said it as if it hurt his mouth. “I ain’t seen him around so much tonight. Listen, Fortune, you’ve got it all wrong. Strega wouldn’t…”
“Where would he be with her, Costa?”
He watched me. Then he said, “Let’s go.”
He went first out of the Bentley. I followed. He went around the house. He made no attempt to get his gun, call out, or try any other tricks. As we reached the open grounds behind the house, he began to walk faster. I saw another house some hundred yards away across the wooded backyard.
“Where we live,” Costa said. “Both of us. I got the top.”
It was a small, two-story house. The path that led to it through the woods was almost untouched. A snow- packed dirt road curved to it from the highway. Costa began to run as we came near the house. He was pulling at his pistol now.
“Something’s wrong!” Costa said.
The front door of the house was open. There was faint light somewhere to the rear. Costa ran through the open door, and I was right behind him. Inside, stairs led up from a narrow hallway. Costa ran past the stairs to the rear where another door was open, and light showed in the room behind the door.
The room was a bedroom. The bed was a tangle of sheets and blankets. A bottle and two partly filled glasses stood on a bureau. Two chairs were knocked over. The window near the bed was broken, and glass lay all over the floor under it. A woman’s black dress hung on a chair. A pair of woman’s knee boots lay on the floor. The stink of gunpowder hung in the air.
Strega sat on the floor with his back against the bed. He wore only a black silk Japanese kimono. It was torn, bloody. Blood was pooled on the floor. There was a pistol in Strega’s right hand. His eyes were open, his face was chalk-white, and his blond hair was dark and matted with sweat. Costa dropped to his knees in front of Strega. The handsome gambler kneeled in the pool of blood. He didn’t notice.
“Strega! Kid! Baby!”
“He’s dead, Costa,” I said.
Costa didn’t seem to hear me. He was massaging Strega’s limp hand. I looked around. The story was easy to see. The low and muted light, the bottle and glasses, the rumpled bed, and Strega’s kimono told it all. The window told the end of it. Someone had shot through the closed window. It was no more than ten feet from where Strega sat. One shot had smashed a mirror. Three had hit Strega.
Costa stood and went to the telephone. The knees of his trousers were sticky with blood. Costa picked up the receiver and stopped.
“He’s dead, Costa,” I said.
Costa didn’t answer. He stood with the receiver in his hand. I went to the window. There was blood in the snow, and a trail of trampled snow led to the dirt road at the side of the house.
Costa said, “He never could handle women. Funny, a big guy like Strega. The women, they always ruined him.”
I went and picked the pistol out of Strega’s dead hand. It was a long-barreled. 38. It had just been fired. It showed the marks where a silencer had been fitted.
“A sucker for women,” Costa said. And he began to cry.
I began to search the room. I wrapped the. 38 in one of Strega’s T-shirts and put it into my coat pocket. I searched some more, and finally found the knife, the kris, hidden under some shirts. It was wrapped carefully in tissue. There was a. 45 caliber automatic with it. The. 45 had been fired recently. I wrapped the. 45 in a T-shirt, too, and put it in my pocket. The pocket sagged. I put the kris in my inside jacket pocket.
Costa was kneeling in front of the dead man again. Big tears poured down his dark, handsome face. I left him, and the house, and walked through the woods to my car. I saw that the red Fiat was still parked in the lot.
As I drove from the lot, a police cruiser passed me on its way in. It had North Chester markings. They were not going to worry about technicalities like town lines when they had a favor to do for Mrs. Radford. They were after me, but they would find Strega and Costa sooner or later.
I drove as fast as a one-armed man can drive with control.
27
There was light downstairs in the Radford house, and the Jaguar was parked in front. I walked up the front steps with my pistol in my hand. The front door stood open. MacLeod was not in sight. The living room was deserted. I went along to the library.
George Ames sat in a leather wing-back chair. He held a glass, and an almost empty bottle stood on the table beside the chair. His quick eyes were numb with whisky, or numb with something else. He was not drunk.
“Have a drink,” he said.
“Where are they?”
He drank, licked his lips. “I think I’ll sell the apartment, go and live at the club. I never was much good at this kind of reality. I’ve been sitting trying to think of what I can do, but there isn’t anything. I don’t want to do anything.” He drank again. “Our fault, I suppose. Jonathan and Gertrude mostly, but the whole family. Something missing in Walter. No control, no judgment, just his desires.”
“I don’t know,” I said. “How much did you know?”
“Nothing, but I had wondered. Vaguely. About the marriage. The idea of marriage had never come up, as far
